The printer, who had tolerated that his men should hear his panegyric of the Bible and Privy Seal, scowled at them now so that again the arms swung to and fro with the levers, the leads clicked. He put his great head nearer Throckmorton's and muttered:
'Are ye certain my nephew serveth ye well? He was never wont to favour our cause, and, before ye sent him on this errand, he was wont to cry out in his cups that he was disgraced for having carried letters betwixt Kat Howard and the King. If this were true he was no friend of ours.'
'Why, it was true,' Throckmorton uttered negligently.
The printer caught at the spy's wrist, and the measure of his earnestness showed the extent of his passion for Privy Seal's cause.
'Use him no more,' he said. 'Both children of my sister were ever indifferents. They shall not serve thee well.'
'It was ever Privy Seal's motto and habit to use for his servitors those that had their necks in his noose. Such men serve him ever the best.'
The printer shook his head gloomily.
'I wager my nephew will yet play the traitor to Privy Seal.'
'I will do it myself ere that,' and Throckmorton yawned, throwing his head back.
'The scaldhead is there,' the printer said; and in the doorway there stood, supporting himself by the lintel, the young Poins. His face was greenish white; a plaster was upon his shaven head; he held up one foot as if it pained him to set it to the floor. Through the house-place where sat the aged grandfather with his cap pulled over his brows, pallid, ironical and seeming indescribably ancient, the printer led the spy. The boy hobbled after them, neglecting the old man's words: