d I desired that I might know this thing: labour in my sight.-_Ps.
lxxii. 16._

XIV

Master Blytchett told me that Master Richard was still asleep. He had
blooded him last night, and reduced the fever, but God only could save
his life. For himself, he thought that the young man would die before
night, and he did not know whether he would speak again.

I was drawn towards Master Blytchett; he seemed a sour fellow with
sweetness beneath; and I love such souls as that. I loved him more than
I did the King either at that time or afterward. The King appeared to me
at that time a foolish fellow--God forgive me!--for I had not then heard
what Master Richard had to say of him; nor that such opinion was to be
all part of his passion.

I thanked Master Blytchett for what he had done for my lad; but he burst
out upon me.

"I was all against him," he said, "at the beginning. I thought him a
crack-brained fool, and a meddler. But now--" And he would say no more.

It seemed that many were like that at the Court. They were near all
against him at first; but when they knew that he was wounded to death;
and had heard what the King had said of him; and seen my lord cardinal's
rosy face running with tears of pity and anger as he tore the lad out of
their hands; and gossipped a little with the porter of the monastery;
and listened to the holy ankret roaring out in his cell against
Hierusalem that slew the prophets;--and, most of all, remembered, or
told one another of Master Richard's face as he came out from the privy
staircase before he was struck down--like the Melitenses--_convertentes
se dicebant eum esse deum_. ["Changing their minds, they said he was
a god" (Acts xxviii. 6.)]

* * * * *

I talked with many that morning (for I could do nothing for my lad), who
came in to see one who knew him so well, and had been his friend in the
country.

And after dinner my lord cardinal came in to see me, and I was brought
back to the parlour.

His ruddy face was all blotched and lined with sorrow or age, and for a
while he could say nothing. He went up and down with his sanguine robes
flying behind him, and stayed to look out of the window at the boats
that went by until I thought that he had forgotten me. And at the last
he spoke.

"I do not know what to say to you, Sir John, or what to say to God
Almighty on this matter. It appears to me that we have all been blind
and deaf adders, and with the