eable and honest men. As to the breaking of heads, I say naught."

"But whose head hath he broken?" asked Jasper.

"Mine, sir," whined Peter Pipe. "God ha' mercy!--it sings like Benjamin
Good's bees when they are hiving."

"And why did he break thy head?"

"Let him say," said the sailor. "Aye, let him say."

Peter Pipe shuffled his feet and looked out of his eye-corners. He was
a creature of no spirit, and always in deadly fear of something or
somebody.

"Maybe he will clout me again," said Peter.

"Fear not," said the sailor. "I would not hurt thee, thou
two-penny-halfpenny drawer of small beer. Say on."

"This man, then, Master Humphrey, a' cometh into our kitchen and demands
a pot of ale. So I fetched it to him and he paid me--"

"Was his money good?"

"Oh, aye, good money enough, I warrant him," said Geoffrey Scales.

"I said naught to the contrary," continued Peter. "But no sooner had he
drunk than he fell to cursing me for a thief, and swore that I had
served him with small beer, and with that he caught up the tankard and
heaved it at me with such force that my jaw is well-nigh broken."

"And didst serve him with small beer?"

"I serve him with small beer! Nay, Master Humphrey, bethink you. As if I
did not know the difference betwixt small beer and good ale!"

"That thou dost not," said the sailor. "Young sir, listen to me. I know
thee not, and I fear thee not, and I know not why I should trouble to
talk to thee. But thou seemest to be in authority."

"'Tis Sir Thurstan's nephew," whispered the constable.

"What know I of Sir Thurstan? Young sir, I am a man of Cornwall, and my
name it is Pharaoh Nanjulian. They know me in Marazion. I have been on a
venture to the North Seas--plague take it, there is naught but ice and
snow there, with white bears twenty feet long--"

"List to him!" said someone in the crowd.

"I will show thee the white bear's trick, an' thou doubtest me. But to
proceed. Young sir, we were wrecked--sixteen good men and true we
were--off the Norroway coasts, which methinks are fashioned of iron, and
we underwent trials, yea, and hunger. After a time we came to
Drontheim--"

"Where is that?"

"A sea-coast town of Norroway, young sir. And thence we took ship to
Scarborough. But there was no ship at Scarborough going south, wherefore
I set out for mine own country on foot. And to-day, which is my first on
this journey, I came to this inn for a pint of good ale, and paid my
mon