'So, thou standing as thou makest shift to do, we do make thee the keeper of this our Queen's ante-room.'
He spoke with a pleasant and ironical glee, since it joyed him thus to gibe at one that had loved his wife. He—with his own prowess—had carried her off.
'Master Culpepper,' he said—'or Sir Thomas—for I remember to have knighted you—if you can walk, now walk.'
Culpepper muttered—
'The King! Why the King did wed my cousin Kat!'
And again—
'I must be circumspect. Oh aye, I must be circumspect or all is lost.' For that was one of the things which in Scotland he had again and again impressed upon himself. 'But in Lincoln, in bygone times, of a summer's night——'
'Poor Tom!' the Queen said; 'once this fellow did wooe me.'
Great tears gathered in Culpepper's eyes. They overflowed and rolled down his cheeks.
'In the apple-orchard,' he said, 'to the grunting of hogs ... for the hogs were below the orchard wall....'