The Captain had his sword drawn, and was walking round the room, looking into the cupboard, and under the bed, and behind the dresses which hung in a screened-off corner. In all reality serious, disastrous in its promise, it yet appeared ludicrous and undignified. The man-at-arms was standing apart, and the look on his face when he glanced towards Herman intimated that he thought this a fool's errand, on which they had been sent by some mischief-loving fellow who wanted to hoax the City Guard. And on such a night! Of late they had been brought away from the comfortable guard-room for many a fruitless hunt for this fellow, Tyndale, and this was all of a piece with the past experience. The search was fruitless, but the Captain was suspicious of a hiding-place. Going to the walls, and bidding the soldier do the same, he began to beat the handle of his sword against the walls. First resting his halberd in one corner of the room, the man drew a dagger from his belt and did as his Captain did. He banged on the wall until the dust began to fly, and the plaster began to drop in flakes upon the floor. William Tyndale was too big a prize to lose for the sake of a few bits of mortar. They were sounding for some hollow place where a man might hide. "You need not spoil my home like that!" a woman's voice came unexpectedly, and Herman's mother pushed past Margaret into the room, and laid her hand on the soldier's wrist, speaking with some asperity. "I shall appeal to the Burgomaster, and require him to pay for the repair of this wanton damage." She wrenched the dagger from the man's hand, and held it out for the Captain to see. Her eyes were on a picture through which the fellow had driven his weapon, a picture which had been her dead husband's handiwork in his hours of leisure. "Is that how you come to an honest woman's house?" she cried, swinging round to face the astonished soldier, her eyes flashing, and her bosom heaving while she thought of this wilful damage done, when a hand put out to remove the picture would have prevented its ruin. "I will go to the Burgomaster even now!" she exclaimed, taking down a heavy cloak from a nail in the corner, and throwing it about her shoulders, with the dagger still in her hand while she began to tie the cord at her throat. The Captain had turned to look at her, the point of his sword held downwards. He saw the damage that was done, and realised the reasonableness of the woman's resentment. "You were over-rough," he exclaimed, looking at the picture. "But, on the other hand, since we were, told that Master Tyndale would be found here we must needs miss nothing in our attempt to discover his whereabouts."