was content to wear
the cap of the jestress, piquantly perched upon her dark curls, thereby
suggesting an indefinable affinity with vagrancy and the itinerant
fraternity.

Not only had she donned the symbol of her office, but she endeavored to
act up to it, accepting the sweet with the sour, with ever a jest at
discomfort and concealing weariness with a smile. Often the fool
wondered at her endurance and her calm courage in the face of peril,
for although they met with no misadventures, each day seemed fraught
with jeopardy. Perhaps it was fortunate their attire, somewhat
travel-stained, appeared better suited to the character of poor,
migratory wearers of the cap and bells than to the more magnificent
roles of _fou du roi_ or _folle de la reine_. But although they had
gone far, the jester knew they had not yet traveled beyond the reach of
Francis' arm, and that, while the king might reconcile himself to the
escape of the _plaisant_, he would not so easily tire in seeking the
maid.

Once they slept in the fields; again, beside an old ruined shrine, in
the shadow of an ancient cross; the third night, on the bank of a
stream, when it rained, and she shivered until dawn with no word of
complaint. Fortunately the sun arose, bright and warm, drying the
garments that clung to her slender figure, At the peasants' houses they
paused no longer than necessary to procure food and drink, and, not to
awaken suspicion, she preferred paying them with a song of the people
rather than from the well-filled purse she had brought with her.

And as the fool listened to a sprightly, contagious carol and noted its
effect on clod and hind, he wondered if this could be the same voice he
had heard, uplifted in one of Master Calvin's psalms in the solitude of
the forest. She had the gift of music, and, sometimes on the journey,
would break out with a catch or madrigal by Marot, Caillette, or
herself. It appeared a brave effort to bear up under continued
hardship--insufficient rest and sharp riding--and the jester reproached
himself for thus taxing her strength; but often, when he suggested a
pause, she would shake her head wilfully, assert she was not tired, and
ride but the faster.

"No, no!" she would say; "if we would escape, we must keep on. We can
rest afterward."

"Where do you wish to go?" he asked her once.

"There is time enough yet to speak of that," she returned, evasively.

"You have some plan, mistress?"

"Perhaps."