them not of my coming, and carrying the
jackanapes well wrapped up in furs of the best. The weather was frosty,
and folk were sliding on the ice of the flooded fields near Tours when I
came within sight of the great Minster. The roads rang hard; on the
smooth ice the low sun was making paths of gold, and I sang as I rode.
Putting up my horse at the sign of the "Hanging Sword," I took the ape
under my great furred surcoat, and stole like a thief through the alleys,
towards my master's house. The night was falling, and all the casement
of the great chamber was glowing with the colour and light of a leaping
fire within. There came a sound of music too, as one touched the
virginals to a tune of my own country. My heart was beating for joy, as
it had beaten in the bushment outside Paris town.

I opened the outer door secretly, for I knew the trick of it, and I saw
from the thin thread of light on the wall of the passage that the chamber
door was a little ajar. The jackanapes was now fretting and struggling
within my surcoat, so, opening the coat, I put him down by the chamber
door. He gave a little scratch, as was his custom, for he was a very
mannerly little beast, and the sound of the virginals ceased. Then,
pushing the door with his little hands, he ran in, with a kind of cry of
joy.

"In Our Lady's name, what is this?" came the voice of Elliot. "My dear,
dear little friend, what make you here?"

Then I could withhold myself no longer, but entered, and my lady ran to
me, the jackanapes clinging about her neck with his arms. But mine were
round her too, and what words we said, and what cheer we made each the
other, I may not write, commending me to all true lovers, whose hearts
shall tell them that whereof I am silent. Much was I rebuked for that I
did not write to warn them of my coming, which was yet the more joyful
that they were not warned. And then the good woman, Elliot's kinswoman,
must be called (though in sooth not at the very first), and then a great
fire must be lit in my old chamber; and next my master came in, from a
tavern where he had been devising with some Scots of his friends; and all
the while the jackanapes kept such a merry coil, and played so many of
his tricks, and got so many kisses from his mistress, that it was marvel.
But of all that had befallen me in the wars, and of how the Maiden did
(concerning which Elliot had questioned me first of all), I would tell
them little till supper w