the magister dreaded, to
refuse the favours of Privy Seal. He consoled himself with the thought
that the writing of letters in Latin might wash from his mouth the
savour of the play he had written in the vulgar tongue.

But his work in Paris was ended--for with the flight of Cardinal Pole,
who had left Paris precipitately upon news that the King of England
had sent a drunken roisterer to assassinate him, it was imagined that
soon now more concord between Francis and England might ensue, and the
magister sat in his room planning his voyage back to Dover. The room
was great in size, panelled mostly in wood, lit with lampwicks that
floated in oil dishes and heated with a sea-coal fire, for though it
was April the magister was of a cold disposition of the hands and
shins. The inn--of the Golden Astrolabe--was kept by an Englishwoman,
a masterful widow with a broad face and a great mouth that smiled. She
stood beside him there. Forty-seven she might have been, and she
called herself the Widow Annot.

The magister sat over his fire with his gown parted from his legs to
warm his shins, but his hands waved angrily and his face was
crestfallen.

'Oh, keeper of a tavern,' he said. 'It is set down in holy writ that
it is not good for a man to be alone.'

'That a hostess shall keep her tavern clean is writ in the books of
the provost of Paris town,' the Widow Annot answered, and the shadow
of her great white hood, which she wore in the older English fashion,
danced over the brown wooden beams of the ceiling.

'Nay, nay,' he answered, 'it is written there that it is the enjoined
devoir of every hotelier to provide things fitting for the sojourners'
ease, pleasure and recreation.'

'The maid is locked in another house,' the hostess answered, 'and
should have been this three week.' She swung her keys on a black
riband and gazed at him masterfully. 'Will your magistership eat capon
or young goat?'

'Capon will have a savour like sawdust, and young goat like the dust
of the road,' the magister moaned. 'Give me the girl to wait upon me
again.'

'No maid will wait upon thee,' she answered.

'Even thou thyself?' he asked. He glanced across his shoulder and his
eyes measured her, hers him. She had large shoulders, a high, full
stomacher, and her cheeks were an apple-red. 'The maiden was a fair
piece,' he tittered.

'Therefore you must spoil the ring of the coin,' she answered.

He sighed: 'Then eat you with me. "_Soli cantare