ether.'

The Duke answered malignantly:

'It was fitting the citizens should wait to enter. I would not cumber
his Highness' courtyards. We know not yet that this Lady cometh to be
welcomed Queen.'

'Body of God,' the King said with a new violence: 'do ye prate of
these matters?' His heavy jaws threatened like a dog's. 'Hast thou set
lousy knaves debating of these?'

Norfolk answered darkly that it had been treated of in the Council
last night.

'My Council! My Council!' The King seemed to bay out the words. 'There
shall some mothers' sons rue this!'

Norfolk muttered that he had spoken of it with no man not a
Councillor. The King's Highness' self had moved first in this.

Henry suddenly waved both hands at the sky.

'Take you good order,' he said heavily into the lean and yellow face
of the Duke. 'Marshal these ceremonies fitly from henceforth. Let
nothing lack. Get you gone.' An end must be made of talk and gossip.
The rumour of last night's Council must appear an idle tale, a
falsehood of despairing Papists. 'The Queen cometh,' he said.

With the droop of the Duke's long arms his hat seemed to brush the
stones, his head fell on his chest. It was finished.

He had seen so many things go that he loved. And now this old woman
with her Germans, her heresies--her children doubtless--meant the
final downfall of the Old Order in his day. It would return, but he
would never see it. And under Cromwell's sardonic gaze his head hung
limply, and his eyes filled with hot and blinding drops. His face
trembled like that of a very old man.

The King had thrust his hand through Cromwell's arm, and, with a heavy
familiarity as if he would make him forget the Council of last night,
he was drawing him away towards the water-gate. He turned his head
over his shoulder and repeated balefully:

'The Queen cometh.'

As he did so his eye fell upon a man tugging at the bridle of a mule
that had a woman on its back. He passed on with his minister.

V

In turning, Norfolk came against them at the very end of the path. The
man's green coat was spotted with filth, one of his sleeves was torn
off and dangled about his heel. The mule's knees were cut, and the
woman trembled with her hidden face and shrinking figure.

They made him choke with rage and fear. Some other procession might
have come against these vagabonds, and the blame would have been his.
It disgusted him that they were within a yard of himself.

'Are there no