smiling.

Great was the interchange of news over the homely hearty meal. It was
plain that no one could be happier, or more prosperous in a humble way,
than the ex-jester and his wife; and if anything could restore Ambrose
it would surely be the homely plenty and motherly care he found there.

Stephen heard another tale of his half-brother. His wife had soon been
disgusted by the loneliness of the verdurer's lodge, and was always
finding excuses for going to Southampton, where she and her daughter had
both caught the plague, imported in some Eastern merchandise, and had
died. The only son had turned out wild and wicked, and had been killed
in a broil which he had provoked: and John, a broken-down man, with no
one to enjoy the wealth he had accumulated, had given up his office as
verdurer, and retired to an estate which he had purchased on the skirts
of the Forest.

Stephen rode thither to see him, and found him a dying man, tyrannised
over and neglected by his servants, and having often bitterly regretted
his hardness towards his young brothers. All that Stephen did for him
he received as tokens of pardon, and it was not possible to leave him
until, after a fortnight's watching, he died in his brother's arms. He
had made no will, and Ambrose thus inherited a property which made his
future maintenance no longer an anxiety to his brother.

He himself seemed to care very little for the matter. To be allowed to
rest under Perronel's care, to read his Erasmus' Testament, and attend
mass on Sundays at the little Norman church, seemed all that he wished.
Stephen tried to persuade him that he was young enough at thirty-five to
marry and begin life again on the fair woodland river-bordered estate
that was his portion, but he shook his head. "No, Stephen, my work is
over. I could only help my dear master, and that is at an end. Dean
Colet is gone, Sir Thomas is gone, what more have I to do here? Old
ties are broken, old bonds severed. Crime and corruption were protested
against in vain; and, now that judgment is beginning at the house of
God, I am thankful that I am not like to live to see it."

Perronel scolded and exhorted him, and told him he would be stronger
when the hot weather was over, but Ambrose only smiled, and Stephen saw
a change in him, even in this fortnight, which justified his
forebodings.

Stephen and his uncle found a trustworthy bailiff to manage the estate,
and Ambrose remained in the house