ed fair head.

'_Benedicite_, grandson Hal Poins,' he muttered, and relapsed into his
gaze at the fire.

The young man bent his knee to his uncle and bowed low to the
magister. Being about the court, he had for Udal's learning and office
a reverence that neither the printer nor his grandfather could share.
He unfastened his grey cloak at the neck and cast it into a corner
after his hat. His figure flashed out, lithe, young, a blaze of
scarlet with a crowned rose embroidered upon a chest rendered enormous
by much wadding. He was serving his apprenticeship as ensign in the
gentlemen of the King's guard, and because his dead father had been
beloved by the Duke of Norfolk it was said that his full ensigncy was
near. He begged his grandfather's leave to come near the fire, and
stood with his legs apart.

'The new Queen's come to Rochester,' he said; 'I am here with the
guard to take the heralds to Greenwich Palace.'

The printer looked at him unfavourably from the corner of his dark and
gloomy eyes.

'You come to suck up more money,' he said moodily. 'There is none in
this house.'

'As Mary is my protectress!' the boy laughed, 'there is!' He stuck his
hands into his breeches pocket and pulled out a big fistful of crowns
that he had won over-night at dice, and a long and thin Flemish chain
of gold. 'I have enow to last me till the thaw,' he said. 'I came to
beg my grandfather's blessing on the first day of the year.'

'Dicing ... Wenching ...' the printer muttered.

'If I ask thee for no blessing,' the young man said, 'it's because,
uncle, thou'rt a Lutheran that can convey none. Where's Margot? This
chain's for her.'

'The fair Margot's locked in her chamber,' Udal snickered.

'Why-som-ever then? Hath she stolen a tart?'

'Nay, but I would have her in wedlock.'

'Thou--you--your magistership?' the boy laughed incredulously. The
printer caught in his tone his courtier's contempt for the artificer's
home, and his courtier's reverence for the magister's learning.

'Keep thy sister from beneath this fox's tooth,' he said. 'The likes
of him mate not with the like of us.'

'The like of thee, uncle?' the boy retorted, with a good-humoured
insolence. 'My father was a gentleman.'

'Who married my sister for her small money, and died leaving thee and
thy sister to starve.'

'Nay, I starve not,' the boy said. 'And Margot's a plump faggot.'

'A very Cynthia among willow-trees,' the magister said.

'Why, your magi