"Mistress, I could not help it!" sobbed the worried child.

"By'r Lady, but thou canst help it if thou wilt!" returned Ursula.

"Reach me down the rod; thy laziness shall be well a-paid for once."

Maude sobbed helplessly, but made no effort to obey.

"Where be thine ears? Reach the rod!" reiterated Ursula.

"Whom chastise you, Mistress Drew?" inquired Bertram's voice through the door; "she that demeriteth the same, or she that no doth?"

"This lazy maid demeriteth fifty rods!" was the pleasing answer.

"I cry you mercy, but I think not so," said Bertram judicially. "An'

you whipped the demeritous party, it should be Parnel. I saw all that chanced, by the lattice, but the maids saw not me."

Parnel was not whipped, for her quickness made her a favourite; but neither was Maude, for Bertram's intercession rescued her.

"The saints bless you, Master Bertram!" said Maude, at the next opportunity. "And the saints help me, for verily I have an hard life.

I am all of a bire [hurry, confusion], and sore strangled [tired], from morn to night."

"Poor little Maude!" answered Bertram pityingly. "Would I might shape thy matters better-good. Do the saints help, thinkest? Hugh Calverley saith no."

"Talk you with such like evil fawtors, [factor, doer], Master Bertram?"

asked Maude in a shocked voice.

"Evil fawtors, forsooth! Hugh is no evil fawtor. How can I help but rede [attend to] his sayings? He is one of my fellows. And 'tis but what he hath from his father. Master Calverley is a squire of the Queen's Grace, and one of Sir John de Wycliffe's following."

"Who is Sir John de Wycliffe?" said Maude.

"One of the Lord Pope his Cardinals," laughed 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 [fict.i.tious 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's Complaint"--[See Note 4.]

"Christ hath twelve apostles here; Now, say they, there may be but one, That may not erre in no manere-- Who 'leveth [believeth] not this ben lost echone. [each one]

Peter erred--so did not Jhon; Why is he cleped the princ.i.p.al? [See note 5.]

Christ cleped him Peter, but Himself the Stone-- All false faitours [doers] foule hem fall!" [Evil befall them.]

Late that evening a mounted messenger crossed the drawbridge, and stayed his weary horse in the snows-prinkled base court. He was quickly recognised by the household as a royal letter-bearer from London.

"And what news abroad, Master Matthew?"

"Why, the King's Highness keepeth his Christmas at Eltham; and certain of the Council would fain have the Queen's Bohemians sent forth, but I mis...o...b.. if it shall be done. And Sir Nicholas Brembre is the new mayor. There is no news else. Oh, ay! The parson of Lutterworth, Sir John de Wycliffe--"

"The lither heretic!" muttered Warine, for he was the questioner. "What misturnment [perversion] would he now?"

"He will never turn ne misturn more," said the messenger. "The morrow after Holy Innocents a second fit of the palsy took him as he stood at the altar at ma.s.s, and they bare him home to die. And the eve of the Circ.u.mcision [December 31st, 1384], two days thereafter, the good man was commanded to G.o.d."

"Good man, forsooth!" growled Warine.

"Master Warine," said Hugh Calverley's voice behind him, "the day may come when thou and I would be full fain to creep into Heaven at the heels of the Lutterworth parson."

Note 1. The anointing at baptism, when a white cloth was always placed on the head.

Note 2. Bertram, Ursula, Parnel, Warine, and Maude and her family, are all fict.i.tious persons.

Note 3. The herbs were to be boiled and the liquid drunk, for a sprain, bruise, or broken bone.

Note 4. Wright's _Political Poems_, one 304, _et seq_. The date of the poem given by Wright is antic.i.p.ated by about nine years.

Note 5. Why is Peter called the "Prince of the Apostles?"