“It is well,” said the Queen haughtily when she had seen her apartments, “that they have given me no gold-woven arras for my prison. I think I would burn it for the gold—if any of these jailers of mine could be bought perchance.”
The captivity of the royal prisoner was not, however, very severe. She sometimes rode out under guard, she was allowed to walk upon the terrace and in the walled garden, and she talked sometimes with the troubadour and with old Tomaso. In one of the older towers of the castle the physician had his rooms, and here he read in ancient books, or brewed odd mixtures in his retorts and crucibles. He taught Mary more about the management of a still, the use of herbs and the making of essences than she had ever dreamed there was to learn. Physicians in those days might be quacks or alchemists. Here and there one was what we call an experimental chemist. Nearly a hundred years later some of Tomaso’s papers proved most valuable to the University of Padua.
PAVEMENT SONG
All along the cobblestones by Saint Paul’s,
Clippety-clack the music runs, quick footfalls,
Folk that go a-hurrying, all on business bent,
They’ll come to us in time, and we are content.
So we keep our cobble-shop, by Saint Paul’s
Hammer-stroke and wax-thread, chasing up the awls,
Cobbling is a merry trade,—we’ll not change with you,
We’ve leather good cheap, and all we can do!