“Yet mayhap he might do something for thee, friend Ambrose,” added the armourer. “Commend thee to some post in his chapel royal, or put thee into some college, since such is thy turn. How sayst thou, Master Randall, shall he send in this same token, and make his petition?”
“If a foo—if a plain man may be heard where the wise hath spoken,” said Randall, “he had best abstain. Kings love not to be minded of mishaps, and our Hal’s humour is not to be reckoned on! Lay up the toy in case of need, but an thou claim overmuch he may mind thee in a fashion not to thy taste.”
“Sure our King is of a more generous mould!” exclaimed Mrs. Headley.
“He is like other men, good mistress, just as you know how to have him, and he is scarce like to be willing to be minded of the taste of mire, or of floundering like a hog in a salt marsh. Ha! ha!” and Quipsome Hal went off into such a laugh as might have betrayed his identity to any one more accustomed to the grimaces of his professional character, but which only infected the others with the same contagious merriment. “Come thou home now,” he said to Ambrose; “my good woman hath been in a mortal fright about thee, and would have me come out to seek after thee. Such are the women folk, Master Headley. Let them have but a lad to look after, and they’ll bleat after him like an old ewe that has lost her lamb.”
Ambrose only stayed for Dennet to divide the spoil, and though the blackberries had all been lost or crushed, the little maiden kept her promise generously, and filled the bag not only with nuts but with three red-checked apples, and a handful of comfits, for the poor little maid who never tasted fruit or sweets.
CHAPTER XIII.
A LONDON HOLIDAY
“Up then spoke the apprentices tall
Living in London, one and all.”
Old Ballad.
Another of the many holidays of the Londoners was enjoyed on the occasion of the installation of Thomas Wolsey as Cardinal of St. Cecilia, and Papal Legate.
A whole assembly of prelates and “lusty gallant gentlemen” rode out to Blackheath to meet the Roman envoy, who, robed in full splendour, with St. Peter’s keys embroidered on back and breast and on the housings of his mule, appeared at the head of a gallant train in the papal liveries, two of whom carried the gilded pillars, the insignia of office, and two more, a scarlet and gold-covered box or casket containing the Cardinal’s hat. Probably no such reception of the dignity was ever prepared elsewhere, and all was calculated to give magnificent ideas of the office of Cardinal and of the power of the Pope to those who had not been let into the secret that the messenger had been met at Dover; and thus magnificently fitted out to satisfy the requirements of the butcher’s son of Ipswich, and of one of the most ostentatious of courts.