eless air, as if 'twas nought,
he gives us a purse and bids us go out in the town to furnish ourselves
with what disguise was necessary to our purpose. Therewith Dawson gets
him some seaman's old clothes at a Jew's, and I a very neat, presentable
suit of cloth, etc., and the rest of the money we take back to Don
Sanchez without taking so much as a penny for our other uses; but he,
doing all things very magnificent, would have none of it, but bade us
keep it against our other necessities. And now having his money in our
pockets, we felt 'twould be more dishonest to go back from this business
than to go forward with it, lead us whither it might.

Next morning off we go betimes, Jack more like Robert Evans than his
mother's son, and I a most seeming substantial man (so that the very
stable lad took off his hat to me), and on very good horses a long ride
to Chislehurst And there coming to a monstrous fine park, Don Sanchez
stayed us before the gates, and bidding us look up a broad avenue of
great oaks to a most surprising brave house, he told us this was Hurst
Court, and we might have it for our own within a year if we were so
minded.

Hence, at no great distance we reach a square plain house, the windows
all barred with stout iron, and the most like a prison I did ever see.
Here Don Sanchez ringing a bell, a little grating in the door is opened,
and after some parley we are admitted by a sturdy fellow carrying a
cudgel in his hand. So we into a cold room, with not a spark of fire on
the hearth but a few ashes, no hangings to the windows, nor any ornament
or comfort at all, but only a table and half a dozen wooden stools, and
a number of shelves against the wall full of account books and papers
protected by a grating of stout wire secured with sundry padlocks. And
here, behind a tableful of papers, sat our steward, Simon
Stout-in-faith, a most withered, lean old man, clothed all in leather,
wearing no wig but his own rusty grey hair falling lank on his
shoulders, with a sour face of a very jaundiced complexion, and pale
eyes that seemed to swim in a yellowish rheum, which he was for ever
a-mopping with a rag.

"I am come, Mr. Steward," says Don Sanchez, "to conclude the business we
were upon last week."

"Aye," cries Dawson, for all the world in the manner of Evans, "but ere
we get to this dry matter let's have a bottle to ease the way, for this
riding of horseback has parched up my vitals confoundedly."

"If thou art