“It is a gentleman dressed all in black, who has a beautiful chain hanging round his neck.”
As she finished speaking Cromwell appeared.
“Ah! it is you, Master Cromwell,” said More, rising graciously. “Let me welcome you among us. How fares it with you?”
For the more Sir Thomas thought he had to complain of any one, the more he exerted himself by his kind and polite manner to assure him that he felt no bitterness in his heart; this was the cause of the cordial reception he gave Cromwell, whom he would otherwise have avoided.
“Well, I thank you,” replied Cromwell, casting, as was his custom, a furtive glance on all around him.
He at once encountered the eyes
of Margaret, which were fixed upon him with an expression of anger and scorn; for she could not endure him, having learned from the Bishop of Rochester how he had conducted himself in the hall of convocation, with what impudence he had sat himself in the midst of the assembly, and the manœuvres he had used to extort from the bishops an oath which must be followed by such fatal consequences.
He laughed to himself at the young girl’s displeasure, and made her a profound salutation. But she did not return it; and passing from the other side, she went and seated herself near her stepmother, who was knitting the leg of a stocking—the only employment in which she was passably skilled.
Cromwell remarked this movement; and if he was indifferent to it, he at least drew from it an inference as to the feeling of the family with regard to present affairs.
“Sir Thomas,” he said in a tone tinged with raillery, “I come, on the part of the king, to announce great news to you; it depends on yourself whether you find it good or bad. The king, our most gracious sovereign, is married, and he has espoused my lady Anne Boleyn.”