tely made her a gift of twenty-four satin quilts. Most of her
maids sat in her painted gallery, carding and spinning wool, but usually
she did not sit with them, since she was of opinion that they spoke more
freely and took more pleasure when she was not there. She had brought
many maids with her into Yorkshire for this spinning, for she believed
that this northern wool was the best that could be had. Margot Poins sat
always with these maids to keep them to their tasks, and her brother had
been advanced to keep the Queen's door when she was in her private
rooms, being always without the chamber in which she sat.

When the Magister came to her, she had with her in the little room the
Lady Rochford and the Lady Cicely Rochford that had married the old
knight when she was Cicely Elliott. Udal had light chains on his wrists
and on his ankles, and the Queen sent her guards to await him at her
outer door. The Lady Cicely set back her head and laughed at the
ceiling.

'Why, here are the bonds of holy matrimony!' she said to his chains. 'I
ha' never seen them so plain before.'

The Magister had straws on his cloak, and he limped a little, being
stiff with the damp of his cell.

'_Ave, Regina!_' he said. '_Moriturus te saluto!_' He sought to kneel,
but he could not bend his joints; he smiled with a humorous and rueful
countenance at his own plight.

The Queen said she had brought him there to read the Latin of her
letter. He ducked his brown, lean head.

'_Ha_,' he said, '_sine cane pastor_--without his dog, as Lucretius
hath it, the shepherd watches in vain. Wolves--videlicet, errors--shall
creep into your marshalled words.'

Katharine kept to him a cold face and, a little abashed, he muttered
under his breath--

'I ha' played with many maids, but this is the worst pickle that ever I
was in.'

He took her parchment and read, but, because she was the Queen, he
would not say aloud that he found solecisms in her words.

'Give me,' he said, 'your best pen, and let me sit upon a stool!'

He sat down upon the stool, set the writing on his knee, and groaned
with his stiffness. He took up his task, but when those ladies began to
talk--the Lady Cicely principally about a hawk that her old knight had
training for the Queen, a white sea hawk from Norway--he winced and
hissed a little because they disturbed him.

'Misery!' he said; 'I remember the days when no mouse dared creak if I
sat to my task in the learned tongues.'