is no other such a man in Christendom. His
Highness culleth from one's heart a make of pity--for, for sure, there
is not in Christendom a man more tried or more calling to be led
Godwards. The Greek writers had a myth, that the two wings of Love
were made of Awe and Pity. Flaws I may find in him; but hot anger
rises in my heart if I hear him miscalled. I will not perjure myself
at his bidding; but being with him, I will kneel to him unbidden. I
will not, to be his queen, have word in a divorce, for I have no
truck with divorces; but I will humble myself to his Queen that is to
pray her give me ease and him if the marriage be not consummated. For,
so I love him that I will humble mine own self in the dust; but so I
love love and its nobleness that, though I must live and die a
cookmaid, I will not stoop in evil ways.'

'There is no man worth that guise of love,' Margot answered, her voice
coming gruff and heavy, 'not the magister himself. I ha' smote one
kitchenmaid i' the face this noon for making eyes at him.'

V

'My mad nephew,' Master Printer Badge said to Throckmorton, 'shall
travel down from his chamber anon. When ye shall see the pickle he is
in ye shall understand wherefore it needeth ten minutes to his
downcoming.' To Throckmorton's query he shook his dark, bearded head
and muttered: 'Nay; ye used him for your own purposes. Ye should know
better than I what is like to have befallen him.'

Throckmorton swallowed his haste and leant back against the edge of a
press that was not at work. Of these presses there were four there in
the middle of the room: tall, black, compounded of iron and wood, the
square inwards of each rose and fell rhythmically above the flutter of
the printed leaves that the journeymen withdrew as they rose, and
replaced, white, unsullied and damp as they came together again. Along
the walls the apprentice setters stood before the black formes and
with abstruse, deliberate or hesitating expressions, made swift
snatches at the little leaden dice. The sifting sound of the leads
going home and the creak of the presses with the heavy wheeze of one
printer, huge and grizzled like a walrus, pulling the press-lever back
and bending forward to run his eyes across the type--wheeze, creak
and click--made a level and monotonous sound.

'Ye drill well your men,' Throckmorton said lazily, and smoothed his
white fingers, holding them up against the light, as if they of all
things most concerned him