d I spoke of is thin and dark and small, and married
to Edward Howard of Biggleswade. She is like to die of a quinsy.'

For well he knew that his advancement depended on his keeping Thomas
Culpepper on the hither side of the water; and if it muddled his brain
to have been so usefully mishandled for carrying letters betwixt the
King's Grace and the Lady Katharine Howard, he knew enough of a
jealous man to know that that was no news to keep Thomas Culpepper in
Calais.

Culpepper's animation dropped like the light of a torch that is
dowsed.

'Put up thy pot skewer,' he said; 'my Kat is tall and fairish and
unwed. Ha' ye not seen her with the Lady Mary of England's women?'

The young Poins, zealous to be rid of the matter, answered fervently:

'Never. She is not talked of in the Court.'

'That is the best hearing,' Thomas Culpepper said. 'I do absolve thee
of five kicks for being the messenger of that.'

III

They were a-walking in the little garden below the windows of the late
Cardinal's house at Hampton; the April sun shone, for May came on
apace, and in that sheltered spot the light lay warm and no breezes
came. They took great pleasure there beneath the windows. One girl
kept three golden balls flying in the air, whilst three others and two
lords sought to distract her by inducing her little hound to bark
shrilly below her hands up at the flying balls that caught in them the
light of the sun, the blue of the sky, and the red and grey of the
warm palace walls. Down the nut walk, where the trees that the dead
Cardinal had set were already fifteen years old and dark with young
green leaves as bright as little flowers, they had set up archery
targets. Cicely Elliott, in black and white, flashing like a magpie in
the alleys, ran races with the Earl of Surrey beneath the blinking
eyes of her old knight; the Lady Mary, herself habited all in black,
moved like a dark shadow upon a dial between the little beds upon
paths of red brick between box hedges as high as your ankles. She
spoke to none save once when she asked the name of a flower. But
laughter went up, and it seemed as if, in this first day out of doors,
all the Court opened its lungs to drink the new air; and they were
making plans for May Day already.

They asked, too, a riddle: 'An a nutshell from Candlemas loved a merry
bud in March, how should it come to pleasure and content?' and men who
had the answer looked wise and shook their sides at guessing