'A groat!' cried Whittington, standing there aghast, With brown bare arms, still coloured by the sun, Among his pots and pans. 'Where should I find A groat? I staked my last groat in a cat!' --'What! Have you nothing? Nothing but a cat? Then stake the cat,' she said; and the quick fire That in a woman's mind out-runs the thought Of man, lit her grey eyes. Whittington laughed And opened the cellar-door. Out sailed his wealth, Waving its tail, purring, and rubbing its head Now on his boots, now on the dainty shoe Of Alice, who straightway, deaf to his laughing prayers, Caught up the cat, whispered it, hugged it close, Against its grey fur leaned her glowing cheek, And carried it off in triumph. _Red Rose Lane_ Echoed with laughter as, with amber eyes Blinking, the grey cat in a seaman's arms Went to the wharf. 'Ay, but we need a cat,' The captain said. So, when the painted ship Sailed through a golden sunrise down the Thames, A grey tail waved upon the misty poop, And Whittington had his venture on the seas. It was a nine days' jest, and soon forgot. But, all that year,--ah, sirs, ye know the world, For all the foolish boasting of the proud, Looks not beneath the coat of Taunton serge For Gules and Azure. A prince that comes in rags To clean your shoes and, out of his own pride, Waits for the world to paint his shield again Must wait for ever and a day. The world Is a great hypocrite, hypocrite most of all When thus it boasts its purple pride of race, Then with eyes blind to all but pride of place Tramples the scullion's heraldry underfoot, Nay, never sees it, never dreams of it, Content to know that, here and now, his coat Is greasy.... So did Whittington find at last Such nearness was most distant; that to see her, Talk with her, serve her thus, was but to lose True sight, true hearing. He must save his life By losing it; forsake, to win, his love; Go out into the world to bring her home. It was but labour lost to clean the shoes, And turn the jack, and scour the dripping-pan. For every scolding blown about her ears The cook's great ladle fell upon the head Of Whittington; who, beneath her rule, became The scullery's general scapegoat. It was he That burned the pie-crust, drank the hippocras, Dinted the silver beaker.... Many a month He chafed, till his resolve took sudden shape And, out of the dark house at the peep of day, Shouldering bundle and stick again, he stole To seek his freedom, and to shake the dust Of London from his shoes.... You know the stone On Highgate, where he sate awhile to rest,