When he was gone and Thomas Bolle, conducted by Smith’s apprentice, had led off the three horses and the packbeast, the old man changed his manner, and conducting them into a parlour at the back of his shop, sent his housekeeper, a middle-aged woman with a pleasant face, to make ready food for them while he produced cordials from squat Dutch bottles which he made them drink.  Indeed he was all kindness to them, being, as he explained, rejoiced to see one of his own blood, for he had no relations living, his wife and their two children having died in one of the London sicknesses.  Also he was Blossholme born, though he had left that place fifty years before, and had known Cicely’s grandfather and played with her father when he was a boy.  So he plied them with question after question, some of which they thought it was not to answer, for he was a merry and talkative old man.

“Aha!” he said, “you would prove me before you trust me, and who can blame you in this naughty world?  But perhaps I know more about you all than you think, since in this trade my business is to learn many things.  For instance, I have heard that there was a great trying of witches down at Blossholme lately, whereat a certain Abbot came off worst, also that the famous Carfax jewels had been lost, which vexed the said holy Abbot.  They were jewels indeed, or so I have heard, for among them were two pink pearls worth a king’s ransom—­or so I have heard.  Great pity that they should be lost, since my Lady there would own them otherwise, and much should I have liked, who am a little man in that trade, to set my old eyes upon them.  Well, well, perhaps I shall, perhaps I shall yet, for that which is lost is sometimes found again.  Now here comes your dinner; eat, eat, we’ll talk afterwards.”

This was the first of many pleasant meals which they shared with their host, Jacob Smith.  Soon Emlyn found from inquiries that she made among his neighbours without seeming to do so, that this cousin of hers bore an excellent name and was trusted by all.

“Then why should we not trust him also?” asked Cicely, “who must find friends and put faith in some one.”

“Even with the jewels, Mistress?”

“Even with the jewels, for such things are his business, and they would be safer in his strong chest than tacked into our garments, where the thought of them haunts me night and day.”

“Let us wait a while,” said Emlyn, “for once they were in that box how do we know if we should get them out again?”

On the morrow of this talk the Visitor Legh came to see them, and had no cheerful tale to tell.  According to him the Lord Cromwell declared that as the Abbot of Blossholme claimed these Shefton estates, the King stood, or would soon stand, in the shoes of the said Abbot of Blossholme, and therefore the King claimed them and could not surrender them.  Moreover, money was so wanted at Court just then, and here Legh looked hard at them, “that there could be no talk of parting with anything of value except in return for a consideration,” and he looked at them harder still.