When the meal was over, and grace had been said, the boards were removed from their trestles, and the elders drew round the small table in the window with a flagon of sack and a plate of wastel bread in their midst to continue their discussion of weighty Town Council matters. Every one was free to make holiday, and Edmund Burgess good-naturedly invited the strangers to come to Mile End, where there was to be shooting at the butts, and a match at single-stick was to come off between Kit Smallbones and another giant, who was regarded as the champion of the brewer's craft. Stephen was nothing loth, especially if he might take his own crossbow; but Ambrose never had much turn for these pastimes and was in no mood for them. The familiar associations of the mass had brought the grief of orphanhood, homelessness, and uncertainty upon him with the more force. His spirit yearned after his father, and his heart was sick for his forest home. Moreover, there was the duty incumbent on a good son of saying his prayers for the repose of his hither's soul. He hinted as much to Stephen, who, boy-like, answered, "Oh, we'll see to that when we get into my Lord of York's house. Masses must be plenty there. And I must see Smallbones floor the brewer." Ambrose could trust his brother under the care of Edmund Burgess, and resolved on a double amount of repetitions of the appointed intercessions for the departed. He was watching the party of youths set off, all except Giles Headley, who sulkily refused the invitations, betook himself to a window and sat drumming on the glass, while Ambrose stood leaning on the dragon balustrade, with his eyes dreamily following the merry lads out at the gateway. "You are not for such gear, sir," said a voice at his ear, and he saw the scathed face of Tibble Steelman beside him. "Never greatly so, Tibble," answered Ambrose. "And _my_ heart is too heavy for it now." "Ay, ay, sir. So I thought when I saw you in Saint Faith's. I have known what it was to lose a good father in my time." Ambrose held out his hand. It was the first really sympathetic word he had heard since he had left Nurse Joan. "'Tis the week's mind of his burial," he said, half choked with tears. "Where shall I find a quiet church where I may say his _de profundis_ in peace?" "Mayhap," returned Tibble, "the chapel in the Pardon churchyard would serve your turn. 'Tis not greatly resorted to when mass time is over, when there's no funeral in hand, and I oft go there to read my book in quiet on a Sunday afternoon. And then, if 'tis your will, I will take you to what to my mind is the best healing for a sore heart." "Nurse Joan was wont to say the best for that was a sight of the true Cross, as she once beheld it at Holy Rood church at Southampton," said Ambrose. "And so it is, lad, so it is," said Tibble, with a strange light on his distorted features.