'It is very late,' she said, 'you must get you gone. It was compacted between us that ever you would get you gone early.'
'Aye, I would not have thee shamed,' he said. He spoke upwards, slowly and luxuriously, his head so softly pillowed, his eyes gazing at the ceiling. He had never been so easy in two years past. 'I remember that was the occasion of our pact. I did wooe thee in an apple orchard to the grunting of hogs.'
'Get you gone,' she said; 'buy me a favour against the morning.'
'Why,' he said, 'I am a very rich lord. I have lands in Kent now. I will buy thee such a gown ... such a gown.... The hogs grunted.... There is a song about it.... Let me go to buy thy gown. Aye, now, presently. I remember a great many things. As thus ... there is a song of a lady loved a swine. Honey, said she, and hunc, said he.'
Whilst she listened a great many thoughts came into her mind—of their youth at home, where indeed, to the grunting of hogs, he had wooed her when she came out from conning her Plautus with the Magister. And at the same time it troubled her to consider where the young Poins had bestowed himself. Maybe he was dead; maybe he lay in a faint.
'It was in our pact,' she said to Culpepper, 'that you should get you gone ever when I would have it.'
'Aye, sure, it was in our pact,' he said.
He closed his eyes as if he would fall asleep, being very weary and come to his desired haven. Above his closed eyes Katharine threw the key of her antechamber on to the bed. She pointed with her hand to that door that the Lady Rochford should undo. If she could get her cousin through that door—and now he was in the mood—if she could but get him through there and out at the door beyond the Big Room into the corridor, before her guard came back....
But the Lady Rochford was leaning far out beyond the window-sill and did not see her gesture.
Culpepper muttered—