But Eleanor, on her side, exclaimed—
‘’Tis but a flat! Mine eye wearies for the sea; ay, and for Arthur’s Seat and the Castle! Oh, I wadna gie Embro’ for forty of sic toons!’
Perhaps Jean had guessed enough to make her look on London with an eye of possession, for her answer was—
‘Hear till her; and she was the first to cry out upon Embro’ for a place of reivers and land-loupers, and to want to leave it.’
There was so much that was new and wonderful that the sisters pursued the question no further. They saw the masts of the shipping in the Thames, and what seemed to them a throng of church towers and spires; while, nearer, the road began to be full of market-folk, the women in hoods and mantles and short petticoats, the men in long frocks, such as their Saxon forefathers had worn, driving the rough ponies or donkeys that had brought in their produce. There were begging friars in cowl and frock, and beggars, not friars, with crutch and bowl; there were gleemen and tumbling women, solid tradesfolk going out to the country farms they loved, troops of ‘prentices on their way to practice with the bow or cudgel, and parties of gaily-coloured nobles, knights, squires, and burgesses, coming, like their own party, to the meeting of Parliament.
There were continual greetings, the Duke of York showing himself most markedly courteous to all, his dark head being almost continuously uncovered, and bending to his saddle-bow in response to the salutations that met him; and friendly inquiries and answers being often exchanged. The Earl of Salisbury and his son were almost equally courteous; but in the midst of all the interest of these greetings, soon after entering the city at Bishopsgate, the clerk caused the two Scottish sisters to draw up at an arched gateway in a solid-looking wall, saying that it was here that my Lord Cardinal wished his royal kinswomen to be received, at the Priory of St. Helen’s. A hooded lay-sister looked out at a wicket, and on his speaking to her, proceeded to unbar the great gates, while the Duke of York took leave in a more than kindly manner, declaring that they would meet again, and that he knew ‘My Lady of St. Helen’s would make them good cheer.’
Indeed, he himself and the King of Wight rode into the outer court, and lifted the two ladies down from horseback, at the inner gate, beyond which they might not go. Jean, crossed now for the first time since she had left home, was in tears of vexation, and could hardly control her voice to respond to his words, muttering—
‘As if I looked for this. Beshrew the old priest!’
None but female attendants could be admitted. Sir Patrick, with his sons and the rest of the train, was to be lodged at the great palace of the Bishop of Winchester at Southwark, and as he came up to take leave of Jean, she said, with a stamp of her foot and a clench of her hand—
‘Let my uncle know that I am no cloister-bird to be mewed up here. I demand to be with the friends I have made, and who have bidden me.’