“You low, London gutter-hound!” he exclaimed; “I’ll learn you to insult the Lady Harflete with your ribald japes,” and stretching out his big fist he seized his enemy’s purple nose in a grip of iron and began to twist it till the sot roared with pain.  Thereon guards ran up and would have arrested Bolle for breaking the peace in the King’s palace.  Indeed, arrested he must have been, notwithstanding all Jacob Smith could do to save him, had not at that moment a man appeared at whose coming the crowd that had gathered, separated, bowing; a man of middle age with a quick, clever face, who wore rich clothes and a fur-trimmed velvet cap and gown.

Cicely knew him at once for Cromwell, the greatest man in England after the King, and marked him well, knowing that he held her fate and that of her child in the hollow of his hand.  She noted the thin-lipped mouth, small as a woman’s, the sharp nose, the little brownish eyes set close together and surrounded by wrinkled skin that gave them a cunning look, and noting was afraid.  Before her stood a man who, though at present he seemed to be her friend, if he chanced to become her enemy, as once he had been bribed to be her father’s, would show her no more pity than the spider shows a fly.

Indeed she was right, for many were the flies that had been snared and sucked in the web of Cromwell, who, in his full tide of power and pomp, forgot the fate of his master, Wolsey, in his day a greater spider still.

“What passes here?” Cromwell said in a sharp voice.  “Men, is this the place to brawl beneath his Grace’s very windows?  Ah!  Master Smith, is it you?  Explain.”

“My Lord,” answered Jacob, bowing, “this is Lady Harflete’s servant and he is not to blame.  That fat knave insulted her and, being quick-tempered, her man, Bolle, wrang his nose.”

“I see that he wrang it.  Look, he is wringing it still.  Friend Bolle, leave go, or presently you will have in your hand that which is of no value to you.  Guard, take this beer-tub and hold his head beneath the pump for five minutes by the clock to wash him, and if he comes back again set him in the stocks.  Nay, no words, fellow, you are well served.  Master Smith, follow me with your party.”

Again the crowd parted as they walked after Cromwell to a side door that was near at hand, to find themselves alone with him in a small chamber.  Here he stopped and, turning, surveyed them all narrowly, especially Cicely.

“I suppose, Master Smith,” he said, pointing to Bolle, who was wiping his hands clean with the rushes from the floor, “this is the man that you told me played the devil yonder at Blossholme.  Well, he can play the fool also.  In another minute there would have been a tumult and you would have lost your chance of seeing his Grace, for months perhaps, since he has determined to ride from London to-morrow morning northwards, though it is true he may change his mind ere then.  This rebellion troubles him