In Which Two Drink of One Cup

Waiting for us in the doorway we found Master Jeremy Sparrow, relieved of his battered armor, his face wreathed with hospitable smiles, and a posy in his hand.

"When the Spaniard turned out to be only the King's minion, I slipped away to see that all was in order," he said genially. "Here are roses, madam, that you are not to treat as you did those others."

She took them from him with a smile, and we went into the house to find three fair large rooms, something bare of furnishing, but clean and sweet, with here and there a bow pot of newly gathered flowers, a dish of wardens on the table, and a cool air laden with the fragrance of the pine blowing through the open window.

"This is your demesne," quoth the minister. "I have worthy Master Bucke's own chamber upstairs. Ah, good man, I wish he may quickly recover his strength and come back to his own, and so relieve me of the burden of all this luxury. I, whom nature meant for an eremite, have no business in kings' chambers such as these."

His devout faith in his own distaste for soft living and his longings after a hermit's cell was an edifying spectacle. So was the evident pride which he took in his domain, the complacence with which he pointed out the shady, well-stocked garden, and the delight with which he produced and set upon the table a huge pasty and a flagon of wine.