“Alas, alack!” he sighed, and then: “'T is so many months. And may I never speak with thee? How shall I do thy bidding, and learn the King his lesson, if I learn it not first from thee?”
She stayed by the window looking down, but always she was silent, and she held her finger fixed at her lip.
“I am at Westminster to hear Mass,—I cannot tell when 't shall be,—but I 'll come as often as I may. Dost never come to Westminster? Dost never come? Oh, say—wilt thou? Do but move thy lovely head, that I may know.”
So she moved her head, slow, in a way to mean yes; and he rose up off his knees, and unwound the rose garland very carefully, and hung it looped thrice across the door, 'twixt the latch and the rough upper hinge. Then he took up his torch and went his way; and when the watch came past after a short space,—five hundred men and more, all wreathed with posies and singing lustily, making the street light as day,—the squire was one of these. Will Langland awoke with this hubbub, and his wife also, and they two came to the window, nor thought it strange that Calote already stood there looking out.
CHAPTER XII
Sanctuary
HRICE in June Calote went to the Abbey church, and thrice in July, but 't was not till August that she saw the squire.
There was High Mass in the choir that day, and she knelt a little way down the nave, beside a pillar. Immediately without the choir there was a knight kneeling. He was a most devout person; and near by were two servants of his. These were all that were in the church at that time, save and except the monks in their choir stalls, the celebrant and his acolytes at the altar, and Calote,—until the squire came in.
He looked up and down, and Calote lifted her head, for she knew that some one was come in by the north door. The knight also lifted his head, and his two servants half arose from off their knees, as they were watchful and expectant. But then they all three crossed themselves and addressed them again to their devotions. The squire went lightly down the nave to Calote's pillar, and kneeled by Calote's side; and so, shutting his eyes, he made a short prayer. But presently he opened his eyes again and turned his head;—the monks were chanting.