an one interview with Sir Thomas More in the Tower,
and once was able to take him news of his own household at Chelsea. For
a month none of his own people, except his servant, was allowed to visit
him, and Ralph, calling on him about three weeks after the beginning of
his imprisonment, found him eager for news.

He was in a sufficiently pleasant cell in the Beauchamp Tower, furnished
with straw mats underfoot, and straw hangings in place of a wainscot;
his bed stood in one corner, with his crucifix and beads on a little
table beside it, and his narrow window looked out through eleven feet of
wall towards the Court and the White Tower. His books, too, which his
servant, John Wood, had brought from Chelsea, and which had not yet been
taken from him, stood about the room, and several lay on the table among
his papers, at which he was writing when Ralph was admitted by the
warder.

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Torridon," he said, "I knew you would
not forget an old friend, even though he could not take your counsel. I
daresay you have come to give it me again, however."

"If I thought you would take it," began Ralph.

"But I will not," said More smiling, "no more than before. Sit down, Mr.
Torridon."

Ralph had come at Cromwell's suggestion, and with a very great
willingness of his own, too. He knew he could not please Beatrice more
than by visiting her friend, and he himself was pleased and amused to
think that he could serve his master's interests from one side and his
own from another by one action.

He talked a little about the oath again, and mentioned how many had
taken it during the last week or two.

"I am pleased that they can do it with a good conscience," observed
More. "And now let us talk of other matters. If I would not do it for my
daughter's sake, who begged me, I would not do it for the sake of both
the Houses of Parliament, nor even, dear Mr. Torridon, for yours and
Master Cromwell's."

Ralph saw that it was of no use, and began to speak of other things. He
gave him news of Chelsea.

"They are not very merry there," he said, "and I hardly suppose you
would wish them to be."

"Why not?" cried More, with a beaming face, "I am merry enough. I would
not be a monk; so God hath compelled me to be one, and treats me as one
of His own spoilt children. He setteth me on His lap and dandleth me. I
have never been so happy."

He told Ralph presently that his chief sorrow was that he could not go
to m