Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/77

and one pleasant evening they crossed the ancient bridge built on stately Gothic arches into the populous town of Bideford.

At the river front there lay a street the better part of a mile long, in which were the custom house and a great quay, and there they saw ships of good burden loading and unloading in the very bosom of the town, as the scribe hath it. Thither Phil would have gone straightly but Martin shook his head. So turning up from the river, they passed another long street, where the houses of wealthy merchants stood, and this, too, Martin hastened quickly by. He shot glances to one side and the other as if fearing lest he see faces that he knew, and led his companion by an obscure way, as night was falling, to a cottage whence a dim light shone through a casement window.

Standing on the rough doorstone under the outcropping thatch, which projected beyond the line of the eaves to shield the door from rain, he softly knocked. There was no answer, no sound, but the door presently moved ajar as if by its own will.

“Who knocks?” an old woman whispered. ‘‘’T is that dark I cannot see thy face.”

"'T is thine eyes are ailing. Come, open the door and bid us enter.”

“Thy voice hath a familiar ring but I know thee not. Who art thou?”’

“We be two honest men.”

"Ah, two honest men? And what, prithee, are two honest men doing here?”

“Yea, ’t is a fair thrust and bites both ways! Thou old shrew, dost bar the door to Martin Barwick?”

"So ’t is thou. I believe it even is. Enter then, ere