They two stood in the cloisters of the Abbey at Gloucester, in that part of the cloisters that was not yet finished. The workmen carving the fan-tracery—that Abbey's proud boast and new invention—looked aside from their blocks of stone to the young King, then bent their heads and went on chinking. From somewhere about came a kind of clamorous noise that was the Commons still sitting in the Chapter House,—though 't was past dinner time. John of Gaunt strode laughing down the cloisters by the side of a gray-beard Oxford priest who carried a parchment in his hand, and they went together into the church. Lord Richard Scrope, the new-appointed chancellor, stood out in the middle of the cloister garth, under the noon sun, and Master Walworth and Philpot and other merchants of London with him, their heads together, their speech now buzzing low, now lifted in protest, now settling to a chuckle.
Richard whacked his leg smartly and stiffened it.
“My foot 's asleep,” said he. “'T is a most deep-seated chair. An I must listen many more days to mine uncle's long-winded friend from Oxenford, thou wert best get me a fatter cushion. My legs do dangle out of all dignity.”
“'T shall be found to-morrow, sire!” Etienne answered.
“Nay, not to-morrow, mon ami; to-morrow I go a-hunting, and the next day, and the next, if I will.”
“A-hunting!” exclaimed Etienne; “but Parliament sits.”
“Saint Mary!” cried Richard; “and who should know this better than I? Sits!—One while methought I 'd sent forth rootlets and must go through life a-sitting. Almost I 'll welcome old days, and Sir Simon Burley's stinging birch, to start me out of my numbness.”
A stone-cutter laughed, and checked him short in his laughter; whereat Richard smiled in the frank fashion that made the common folk his friends, and went and looked over the man's shoulder.
“What a pretty tracery is this, pardé,” he said presently. “Why do we not make a roof like to it at Westminster?”
Etienne lifted his eyebrows; “Westminster?” he asked.