With its slow,
regularly interrupted gait, dominated by the impassive yellow face of
Norfolk, the whole band had an air of performing a solemn dance, and
Udal shivered for a long time, till amidst the train of mules bearing
leathern sacks, cupboards, chests and commodes, he saw come riding a
familiar figure in a scholar's gown--the young pedagogue and companion
of the Earl of Surrey. He was a fair, bearded youth with blue eyes,
riding a restless colt that embroiled itself and plunged amongst the
mules' legs. The young man leaned forward in the saddle and craned to
avoid a clothes chest.

The magister called to him:

'Ho, Longstaffe!' and having caught his pleased eyes: _'Ecce quis sto
in arce plenitatis. Veni atque bibe! Magister sum. Udal sum.
Longstaffe ave.'_

Longstaffe slipped from his horse, which he left to be rescued by whom
it might from amongst the hard-angled cases.

'Assuredly,' he said, 'there is no love between that beast and me as
there was betwixt his lord and Bucephalus,' and he followed Udal into
the galleried courtyard, where their two gowned figures alone sought
shelter from the March showers.

'News from overseas there is none,' he said. 'Privy Seal ruleth still
about the King; the German astronomers have put forth a tract _De
Quadratura Circuli_; the lost continent of Atlantis is a lost
continent still--and my bones ache.'

'But your mission?' Udal asked.

The doctor, his hard blue eyes spinning with sardonic humour beneath
his black beretta, said that his mission, even as Udal's had been, was
to gain some crowns by setting into the learned language letters that
should pass between his ambassador and the King's men of France. Udal
grinned disconcertedly.

'Be certified in your mind,' he said, 'that I am not here a spy or
informer of Privy Seal's.'

'Forbid it, God,' Doctor Longstaffe answered good-humouredly. None the
less his jaw hardened beneath his fair beard and he answered, 'I have
as yet written no letters--_litteras nullas scripsi: argal nihil
scio_.'

'Why, ye shall drink a warmed draught and eat a drippinged soppet,'
Udal said, 'and you shall tell me what in England is said of this
mission.'

He led the fair doctor into the great kitchen, and felt a great stab
of dislike when the young man set his arm round the hostess's waist
and kissed her on the red cheeks. The young man laughed:

'Aye indeed; I am _mancipium paucae lectionis_ set beside so learned a
man as the magist