Bertram. "Get thee to
thine herbs and pans, little Maude; and burden not thy head with Sir
John de Wycliffe nor John de Northampton neither. Fare thee well, my
maid. I must after my master for the hawking."

But before Bertram turned away, Maude seized the opportunity to ask a
question which had been troubling her for many a month.

"If you be not in heavy bire, Master Bertram--"

"Go to! What maketh a minute more nor less?"

"Would it like you of your goodness to tell me, an' you wit, who
dwelleth in the Castle of Pleshy?"

"`An' I wit'! Well wis I. 'Tis my gracious Lord of Buckingham, brother
unto our Lord of Cambridge."

"Were you ever at Pleshy, Master Bertram?"

"Truly, but a year gone, for the christening of the young Lord
Humphrey."

"And liked it you to tell me if you wot at all of one Hawise Gerard
among the Lady's maidens?"

Maude awaited the answer in no little suppressed eagerness. She had
loved Cousin Hawise; and if she yet lived, though apart, she would not
feel herself so utterly alone. Perhaps they might even meet again, some
day. But Bertram shook his head.

"I heard never the name," he said. "The Lady of Buckingham her maidens
be Mistress Polegna and Mistress Sarah [fictitious persons]: their
further names I wis not. But no Mistress Hawise saw I never."

"I thank you much, Master Bertram, and will not stay you longer."

But another shadow fell upon Maude's life. Poor, pretty, gentle, timid
Cousin Hawise! What had become of her? The next opportunity she had,
Maude inquired from Bertram, "What like dame were my Lady of
Buckingham's greathood?"

Bertram shrugged his shoulders, as if the question took him out of his
depth.

"Marry, she is a woman!" said he; "and all women be alike. There is not
one but will screech an' she see a spider."

"Mistress Drew and Mother be not alike," answered Maude, falling back on
her own small experience. "Neither were Hawise and I alike. She would
alway stay at holy Mary her image, to see if the lamp were alight; but
I--the saints forgive me!--I never cared thereabout. So good was Cousin
Hawise."

"Maude," suggested Bertram in a low voice, as if he felt half afraid of
his own idea, "Countest that blessed Mary looketh ever her own self to
wit if the lamp be alight?"

Maude was properly shocked.

"Save you All Hallows, Master Bertram! How come you by such fantasies?"

Bertram laughed and went away, chanting a stave of the "Ploughman