"May I ask her appearance, sir?" said Tressilian.
"Oh, sir," replied Master Goldthred, "I promise you, she was in
gentlewoman's attire--a very quaint and pleasing dress, that might have
served the Queen herself; for she had a forepart with body and sleeves,
of ginger-coloured satin, which, in my judgment, must have cost by the
yard some thirty shillings, lined with murrey taffeta, and laid down and
guarded with two broad laces of gold and silver. And her hat, sir, was
truly the best fashioned thing that I have seen in these parts, being of
tawny taffeta, embroidered with scorpions of Venice gold, and having a
border garnished with gold fringe--I promise you, sir, an absolute
and all-surpassing device. Touching her skirts, they were in the old
pass-devant fashion."
"I did not ask you of her attire, sir," said Tressilian, who had shown
some impatience during this conversation, "but of her complexion--the
colour of her hair, her features."
"Touching her complexion," answered the mercer, "I am not so special
certain, but I marked that her fan had an ivory handle, curiously
inlaid. And then again, as to the colour of her hair, why, I can
warrant, be its hue what it might, that she wore above it a net of green
silk, parcel twisted with gold."
"A most mercer-like memory!" said Lambourne. "The gentleman asks him of
the lady's beauty, and he talks of her fine clothes!"
"I tell thee," said the mercer, somewhat disconcerted, "I had little
time to look at her; for just as I was about to give her the good time
of day, and for that purpose had puckered my features with a smile--"
"Like those of a jackanape simpering at a chestnut," said Michael
Lambourne.
"Up started of a sudden," continued Goldthred, without heeding the
interruption, "Tony Foster himself, with a cudgel in his hand--"
"And broke thy head across, I hope, for thine impertinence," said his
entertainer.
"That were more easily said than done," answered Goldthred indignantly;
"no, no--there was no breaking of heads. It's true, he advanced his
cudgel, and spoke of laying on, and asked why I did not keep the
public road, and such like; and I would have knocked him over the pate
handsomely for his pains, only for the lady's presence, who might have
swooned, for what I know."
"Now, out upon thee for a faint-spirited slave!" said Lambourne; "what
adventurous knight ever thought of the lady's terror, when he went
to thwack giant, dragon, or magician, in her presence, and for her
deliverance? But why talk to thee of dragons, who would be driven back
by a dragon-fly. There thou hast missed the rarest opportunity!"