r mistress.

'I will catechize,' he muttered. 'Answer me as I charge thee.'

The old man, standing on the chest, tapped one of the Germans on the
shoulder.

'See you that wall, friend?' he laughed. 'Is it not a noble dam to
stay the flood back into our house? Now the Lord Cromwell....'

The Lanzknecht rolled his eyes round, because he understood no
English. The old man went on talking, but no one there, not even
Margot Poins, heeded him. She looked at her uncle reasonably, and
said:

'Why, an thou wilt set down thy stick I will even consider thee,
uncle.' He threw the stick into the corner and immediately she went to
fetch a mop from the cooking closet, where there lived a mumbling old
housekeeper. The printer followed her with gloomy eyes.

'Is not thy mistress a naughty woman?' he asked, as a judge talks to a
prisoner condemned.

She answered, 'Nay,' as if she had hardly attended to him.

'Is she not a Papist?'

She answered, 'Aye,' in the same tone and mopped the floor beneath a
man's chair.

Her grandfather, standing high on the oak chest, so that his bonnet
brushed the beams of the dark ceiling, quavered at her:

'Would she not bring down this Crummock, whose wall hath formed a dam
so that my land-space is now a stream and my house-floor a frog pond?'

She answered, 'Aye, grandfer,' and went on with her mopping.

'Did she not go with a man to a cellar of the Rogues' Sanctuary after
Winchester's feast?' Neighbour Ned barked at her. 'Such are they that
would bring down our Lord!'

'Did she not even so with her cousin before he went to Calais?' her
uncle asked.

Margot answered seriously:

'Nay, uncle, no night but what she hath slept in these arms of mine
that you see.'

'Aye, you are her creature,' Neighbour Ned groaned.

'Foul thing,' the printer shouted. 'Eyes are upon thee and upon her.
It was the worst day's work that ever she did when she took thee to
her arms. For I swear to God that her name shall be accursed in the
land. I swear to God....'

He choked in his throat. His companions muttered Harlot; Strumpet;
Spouse of the Fiend. And suddenly the printer shouted:

'See you; Udal is her go-between with the King, and he shall receive
thee as his price. He conveyeth her to his Highness, she hath paid him
with thy virtue. Foul wench, be these words not true?'

She leaned upon her mop handle and said:

'Why, uncle, it is a foul bird that 'files his own nest.'

He shook his immense fis