Grace commandeth you to come into her
service--or not, as the report of your character shall be. But at any
rate you shall come to the castle.'

Mary Hall could find no words for men of condition, so long she had been
out of the places where such are found. She swallowed in her throat and
held her breast over her heart.

'Where is the village here?' the cornet said, 'or what justice is there
that can write you a character under his seal?'

She made out to say that there was no village, all the neighbourhood
having been hanged. A half-mile from there there was the house of Sir
Nicholas Throckmorton, a justice. From the house-end he might see it, or
he might have a hind to guide him. But he would have no guide; he would
have no man nor maid nor child to go from there to the justice's house.
He set one soldier to guard the back door and one the front, that none
came out nor went beyond the dyke-end.

'Neither shall you go, Sir Lascelles,' he said.

'Well, give me leave with my sister to walk this knoll,' Lascelles said
good-humouredly. 'We shall not corrupt the grass blades to bear false
witness of my sister's chastity.'

'Ay, you may walk upon this mound,' the cornet answered. Having got out
the packet of the Queen's letter, he girded up his belt again.

'You will get you ready to ride with me,' he said to Mary Hall. 'For I
will not be in these marshes after nightfall, but will sleep at
Shrimpton Inn.'

He looked around him and added--

'I will have three of your geese to take with us,' he said. 'Kill me
them presently.'

Lascelles looked after him as he strode away round the house with the
long paces of a stiff horseman.

'Before God,' he laughed, 'that is one way to have information about a
quean. Now are we prisoners whilst he inquires after your character.'

'Oh, alack!' Mary Hall said, and she cast up her hands.

'Well, we are prisoners till he come again,' her brother said
good-humouredly. 'But this is a foul hole. Come out into the sunlight.'

She said--

'If you are with them, they cannot come to take me prisoner.'

He looked her full in the eyes with his own that twinkled inscrutably.
He said very slowly--

'Were your mar-locks and prinking-prankings so very evil at the old
Duchess's?'

She grew white: she shrank away as if he had threatened her with his
fist.

'The Queen's Highness was such a child,' she said. 'She cannot remember.
I have lived very godly since.'

'I will do what I can