nging twice as loudly as before, and mocking at them with wry faces
through the bars; and then trooped off up the old precentor's private
stair and sang at his door until the old man could not hear his own
ears, and came out storming and grim as grief.

But when he saw the boys all there, and heard them cheering him three
times three, he could not storm to save his life, but only stood there,
black and thin, against the yellow square of light, smiling a quaint
smile that half was wrinkles and half was pride, shaking his lean
forefinger at them as if he were beating time, and nodding until his
head seemed almost nodding off.

"Hurrah for Master Nathaniel Gyles!" they shouted.

"_Primus Magister Scholarum, Custos Morum, Quartus Custos Rotulorum_,"
said the old man softly to himself, the firelight from behind him
falling in a glory on his thin white hair. "Be off, ye rogues! Ye are
not fit to waste good language on; or, faith, I'd Latin ye all as dumb
as fishes in the depths of the briny sea!"

"Hurrah for the fishes in the sea!"

"Soft, ye knaves! Save thy throats for good Queen Bess!"

"Hurrah for good Queen Bess!"

"Be still, I say, ye good-for-nothing varlets; or ye sha'n't have pie
and ale to-night. But marry, now, ye _shall_ have pie--ay, pie and ale
without a stint; for ye are good lads, and ye have pleased the Queen at
last; and I am as proud of ye as a peacock is of his own tail!"

"Hurrah for the Queen--and the pie--and the ale! Hurrah for the peacock
and his tail!" shouted the boys; and straightway, seeing that they had
made a rhyme, they gave a cheer shriller and longer than all the others
put together, and went clattering down the stairway, singing at the top
of their lungs:

Hurrah for the Queen, and the pie and the ale!
Hurrah for the peacock, hurrah for his tail!
Hurrah for hurrah, and hurrah again--
We're going to court on Christmas day
To sing before the Queen!"

"Good lads, good lads!" said the old precentor to himself, as he turned
back into his little room. His eyes were shining proudly in the
candle-light, yet the tears were running down his cheeks. A queer old
man, Nat Gyles, and dead this many a long, long year; yet that night no
man was happier than he.

But Master Gaston Carew, who had come for Nick, stood in the gathering
dusk by the gate below, and stared up at the yellow square of light with
a troubled look upon his reckless face.

CHAPTER XXV