them out briskly, and was soon explaining, marking and erasing. Cromwell
leaned back in his corner and listened, putting in a word of comment now
and again, or dotting down a note on the back of a letter, and watching
Ralph with a pleasant, oblique look, for he liked to see his people
alert and busy. But he knew very well what his demeanour was like at
other times, and had at first indeed been drawn to the young man by his
surprising insolence of manner and impressive observant silences.

"That is very well, Mr. Torridon," he said. "I will see to the license.
Put them all away."

Ralph obeyed, and then sat back too, silent indeed, but with a kind of
side-long readiness for the next subject; but Cromwell spoke no more of
business for the present, only uttering short sentences about current
affairs, and telling his friend the news.

"Frith has been burned," he said. "Perhaps you knew it. He was obstinate
to the end, my Lord Bishop reported. He threw Saint Chrysostom and Saint
Augustine back into their teeth. He gave great occasion to the funny
fellows. There was one who said that since Frith would have no
purgatory, he was sent there by my Lord to find out for himself whether
there be such a place or not. There was a word more about his manner of
going there, 'Frith frieth,' but 'twas not good. Those funny fellows
over-reach themselves. Hewet went with him to Smithfield and hell."

Ralph smiled, and asked how they took it.

"Oh, very well. A priest bade the folk pray no more for Frith than for a
dog, but Frith smiled on him and begged the Lord to forgive him his
unkind words."

He was going on to tell him a little more about the talk of the Court,
when the carriage drove up to the house in Throgmorton Street, near
Austin Friars, which Cromwell had lately built for himself.

"My wife and children are at Hackney," he said as he stepped out. "We
shall sup alone."

It was a great house, built out of an older one, superbly furnished with
Italian things, and had a large garden at the back on to which looked
the windows of the hall. Supper was brought up almost immediately--a
couple of woodcocks and a salad--and the two sat down, with a pair of
servants in blue and silver to wait on them. Cromwell spoke no more word
of business until the bottle of wine had been set on the table, and the
servants were gone. And then he began again, immediately.

"And what of the country?" he said. "What do they say there?" He took a
p