Nick stood silent.  What was there to say?  If he came here he never would see Stratford town again; and this was no abiding-place for him.  They would not even let him go to the fountain himself to draw water with which to wash, but fetched it, three at a time, in a silver ewer and a copper basin with towels and a flask of perfume.

Elizabeth was tapping with her fan.  “Thou art be-dazzled like,” she said.  “Think twice—­preferment does not gooseberry on the hedge-row every day; and this is a rare chance which hangs ripening on thy tongue.  Consider well.  Come, thou wilt accept?”

Nick slowly shook his head.

“Go then, if thou wilt go!” said she; and as she spoke she shrugged her shoulders, illy pleased, and turning toward Colley, took him by the hand and drew him closer to her, smiling at his guise.  “Thy comrade hath more wit.”

“He hath no mother,” Nick said quietly, loosing his hold at last on Colley’s hand.  “I would rather have my mother than his wit.”

Elizabeth turned sharply back.  Her keen eyes were sparkling, yet soft.

“Thou art no fool,” said she.

A little murmur ran through the room.

She sat a moment, silent, studying his face.  “Or if thou art, upon my word I like the breed.  It is a stubborn, froward dog; but Hold-fast is his name.  Ay, sirs,” she said, and sat up very straight, looking into the faces of her court, “Brag is a good dog, but Hold-fast is better.  A lad who loves his mother thus makes a man who loveth his native land—­and it’s no bad streak in the blood.  Master Skylark, thou shalt have thy wish; to London thou shalt go this very night.”

“I do na live in London,” Nick began.

“What matters the place?” said she.  “Live wheresoever thine heart doth please.  It is enough—­so.  Thou mayst kiss our hand.”  She held her hand out, bright with jewels.  He knelt and kissed it as if it were all a doing in a dream, or in some unlikely story he had read.  But a long while after he could smell the perfume from her slender fingers on his lips.

Then a page standing by him touched his arm as he arose, and bowing backward from the throne, came with him to the curtain and the rest.  Old Master Gyles was standing there apart.  It was too dark to see his face, but he laid his hand upon Nick’s head.

“Thy cake is burned to a coal,” said he.

CHAPTER XXIX

BACK TO GASTON CAREW

So they marched back out of the palace gates, down to the landing-place, the last red sunlight gleaming on the basinets of the tall halberdiers who marched on either side.

Nick looked out toward London, where the river lay like a serpent, bristling with masts; and beyond the river and the town to the forests of Epping and Hainault; and beyond the forests to the hills, where the waning day still lingered in a mist of frosty blue.  At their back, midway of the Queen’s park, stood up the old square tower Mirefleur, and on its top one yellow light like the flame of a gigantic candle.  The day seemed builded of memories strange and untrue.