“Ay,” Carew answered, smiling; “I remember the days when I lingered so. It is nearly noon, however, and you were to have gone an hour since.”
“My excuse is so admirable that I deserve forgiveness,” Simon said, laughing; but he hastened his farewells, and in a few moments he and Sir William were walking to the water-stairs together, while Betty waved her handkerchief from the terrace.
“You have your rogue yet with you, I see,” Carew remarked, his eye lighting on Raby’s groom.
“Shaxter?” Simon replied, smiling; “ay, I had forgotten your prejudice. He is a useful fellow.”
“He looks it!” said Carew, with a shrug; “farewell, and forget not the packet.”
Looking back as the barge swept away, Raby saw the tall white figure on the terrace and the fluttering of her handkerchief. The picture of the great stone house, the green slope of the terrace, and the beautiful girl waving him farewell, framed itself in his mind and was a solace to him in the months which followed.
He was so light-hearted that he whistled to himself as the boat went on to London. The river was full of water-craft, and the scene was gay. The same river that had borne the unhappy Anne Boleyn to the Tower smiled in the sunshine and rippled gleefully from the strong strokes of the oars. Life was full of sweetness to Simon Raby, and he sat in the boat with a smiling face and a ready greeting for any chance acquaintance. In the afternoon he would go to my lord privy seal in person, now he had matters of his own to attend to. He must go to his haberdasher’s and his barber’s; he had a dozen errands, and presently found dust upon his clothes and went to his old lodgings to change them. Shaxter was with him as usual and helped him to make the change; he put on a rich suit of satin with a short cape of velvet, and bidding his attendant remain in his apartments until his return, made his way down the stairs alone and opened the street door. Looking out into the road, he saw no one, and came out humming a new song, popular at court. He had taken but two or three steps when three men stepped out from under an adjacent arched doorway. They barred his progress, and he looked in surprise to recognize the captain of the watch.
“What now, Ludlow?” he said; “I need a little leeway to pass your company.”
“My Lord Raby, you are arrested!” was the reply, as the officer laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder.
Raby drew his sword. “You villain!” he said, “this will be a sorry jest for you.”