Sir Philip de Morgan took it, cut the silk with his dagger, and drew forth the two sheets which it contained. The first which he looked at was brief; and the second, which was folded and sealed, with two words written in the corner, he did not open, but laid aside.
"So, Master Woodville," he said, after this examination, "I find you have come to win your golden spurs in Burgundy. What lies in me to help you, I will do. To-morrow I will make you known to the Count de Charolois. I was well acquainted with your good father, and your lady mother, too. She was the sister, if I recollect, of the good knight of Dunbury, a very noble gentleman;" and then, turning from the subject, he proceeded, with quiet and seemingly unimportant questions, to gain all the knowledge that he could from Richard of Woodville regarding the court of England, and the character, conduct, and popularity of the young King. But his visitor, as the reader may have seen in earlier parts of this true history, though frank and free in his own case, and where no deep interests were concerned, was cautious and on his guard in matters of greater moment. He was not sent thither to babble of the King's affairs; and though he truly represented his Sovereign as highly popular with all classes, and deservedly so, Sir Philip de Morgan gained little farther information from him on any of the many points, in regard to which the diplomatist would fain have penetrated the monarch's designs before he thought fit to communicate them.
The high terms in which Henry had been pleased to speak of the gentleman who bore his letter, naturally induced the envoy to set down his silence to discretion, rather than to want of knowledge; and he observed, after his inquiries had been parried more than once, "You are, I see, prudent and reserved in your intelligence, Master Woodville."
"It is easy to be so, fair sir," answered his visitor, "when one has nothing to communicate. Doubtless the King has told you all, without leaving any part of his will for me to expound. At least, if he did, he informed me not of it; and I have nothing more to relate."
"What! not one word of France?" asked the knight, with a smile.
"Not one!" replied Woodville, calmly.
The envoy smiled again. "Well," he said, "then tomorrow, at noon, I will go with you to the Count, if you will be here. Doubtless we shall hear more of your errand, from the letters you bear to that noble prince."
"I do not know," replied Woodville, rising; "but at the same time, I would ask you to send some one with me to find out the dwelling of one Sir John Grey, if he be now in Ghent."
"Sir John Grey!" said de Morgan, musing, as if he had never heard the name before. "I really cannot tell you where to find such a person: there is none of that name here. Is he a friend of your own?"
"No!" answered Richard of Woodville; "I never saw him."