On the morrow Stephen greeted him with a face so radiant tender that the man said:—
“Eh, well, where art thou now,—in Paradise?”
“At the Miracle in Paul's Churchyard,” answered him Stephen.
“I 'll be sworn there 's a maid in that memory?”
“Yea, a maid,” Stephen assented.
“Yellow-haired?”
But Stephen said no word.
“Yesterday, in Cheapside, one named Calote questioned me, if I were turnkey in the Tower”—
Stephen leaped to his feet, but the man was on the other side of the door and let fall the heavy bar. By the threshold there lay a bit of parchment whereon was writ:—
"Though it be very sour to suffer, there cometh sweet after;
As on a walnut without is bitter bark,
And after"—