t of his
mind, so that he appeared a very busy man with, between whiles, the
leisure to saunter.

'In a half hour,' he said, 'I go north to meet the King o' Scots. I
would I had not the long journey to make but could stay with ye. It is
pleasant here; the air is livening.' He caught his little son by the
armpits and hoisted him on to his purple shoulders. 'Hey, princekin,' he
said, 'what news ha' you o' the day?'

The little Edward pulled his father's bonnet off that he might the
better see the huge brows and the little eyes.

'I told my sister that you did pummel a man in a long gown. What is even
"long gown" in the learned tongue?' He played daintily and languidly
with the hair of the King's temples, and when the King had said that he
might call it '_doctorum toga_,' he added, 'But my sister would not come
to look.'

'Well, thy sister is a monstrous learned wench,' the King said with a
heavy benignity. 'She could not leave her book.'

The Lady Mary stood rigid, with a mock humility. She had her hands
clasped before her, the folds of her black skirt fell stiffly just to
the ground. She pursed her lips and strove with herself to speak, for
she was minded to exhibit disdain, but her black mood was too strong for
her.

'I did not read in my book, because I could not,' she said numbly. 'Your
son disturbed my reading. But I did not come to look, because I would
not.'

With one arm round the boy's little waist as he sat on high, and one
hand on the little feet, the King looked at his daughter in a sudden hot
rage; for to speak contemptuously of his son was a thing that filled him
with anger and surprise. He opened his mouth to shout. Katharine Howard
was gently turning a brass sphere with the constellations upon it that
stood upon the table. She moved her fair face round towards the King and
set her finger upon her lips. He shrugged his shoulders, prince and all
moving up together, and his face took on the expression, half abashed
and half resigned, of a man who is reminded by his womankind that he is
near to a passionate folly.

Katharine by that time had schooled him how to act when Mary was in that
humour, and he let out no word.

'I do not like that this Prince should play in my room,' the Lady Mary
pursued him relentlessly, and he was so well lessoned that he answered
only--

'Ye must fight that cock with Kat. It is Kat that sends him, not I.'

Nevertheless he was too masterful a man to keep his silence a