n of books,' he said; 'for what be Bishop Hugh
Latimer's arguments from a pulpit to a burning priest to the pulling
down of this woman?' He had dogged Thomas Culpepper and his crony; he
had seen him burst open windows, cast meat about in the mud and feed
the populace of the Greenwich hamlet.

'And for sure,' he said, 'if the King's Highness should see this man's
filthiness and foul demeanour, he will not be fain to feed after such
a make of hound.'

Coming to Smithfield, where Culpepper stayed to cheer on the business,
Lascelles had very swiftly begged the Archbishop, where, behind Hugh
Larimer's pulpit, he sat to see Friar Forest corrected--had very
swiftly begged the Archbishop to give him leave to come to Hampton.

'Sir,' Lascelles said, 'with a great sigh he gave me leave; for much
he fears to have a hand in this matter.'

'Why, he shall have no hand,' Cromwell said. He clapped his hands, and
told the blonde page-boy that appeared to send him very quickly
Viridus, that had had this matter in his care.

Lascelles recounted shortly how he had set four men to watch Thomas
Culpepper till he came to Hampton, and very swiftly to send word of
when he came. Then the spy dropped his voice and pulled out a
parchment from his bosom.

'Sir,' he said, 'whilst Culpepper was in the palace of Greenwich I
made haste to go on board the ship that had brought him from Calais,
being minded if I could to discover what was discoverable concerning
his coming.'

He dropped his voice still further.

'Sir,' he began again, 'there be those in this realm, and maybe very
close to your own person, that would have stayed his coming. For upon
that ship lay a boy, sore sick of the sea and very beaten, by name
Harry Poins. Wherefore, or at whose commands, he had done this I had
no occasion to discover, since he lay like a sick dog and might not
see nor hear nor speak; but this it was told me he had done: in every
way he sought to let and hinder T. Culpepper's coming to England with
so marked an importunity that at last Culpepper did set his crony to
beat this boy.' He paused again. 'And this too I discovered, taking it
from the boy's person, for in my avocations and service to his Grace,
whom God preserve and honour! I have much practised these
abstractions.'

Lascelles held the parchment, from which fell a seal like a drop of
blood.

'Sir,' he said, 'this agreement is sealed with your own seal; it is
from one Throckmorton in your servi