Yes, as the maids were doing. She too was watching for his High Mightiness, I muttered, and that angered me afresh. I crossed the rushes in silence, and climbed up beside her. "Well," I said ungraciously, as she started, hearing me at her shoulder, "well, have you seen enough of him yet, cousin? You will, I warrant you, before he leaves. A little of him goes far." "A little of whom, Francis?" she asked simply. Though her voice betrayed some wonder at my rough tone, she was so much engaged with the show that she did not look at me immediately. This of course kept my anger warm, and I began to feel that she was in the conspiracy against me. "Of my Lord of Winchester, of course," I answered, laughing rudely; "of Sir Hot-Pot!" "Why do you call him that?" she remonstrated in gentle wonder. And then she did turn her soft dark eyes upon me. She was a slender, willowy girl in those days, with a complexion clear yet pale--a maiden all bending and gracefulness, yet with a great store of secret firmness, as I was to learn. "He seems as handsome an old man," she continued, "as I have ever met, and stately and benevolent, too, as I see him at this distance. What is the matter with you, Francis? What has put you out?" "Put me out!" I retorted angrily. "Who said anything had put me out?" But I reddened under her eyes; I was longing to tell her all, and be comforted, while at the same time I shrank with a man's shame from saying to her that I had been beaten. "I can see that something is the matter," she said sagely, with her head on one side, and that air of being the elder which she often assumed with me, though she was really the younger by two years. "Why did you not wait for the others? Why have you come home alone? Francis," [with sudden conviction] "you have vexed my father! That is it!" "He has beaten me like a dog!" I blurted out passionately; "and before them all! Before those strangers he flogged me!" She had her back to the window, and some faint gleam of wintry sunshine, passing through the gules of the shield blazoned behind her, cast a red stain on her dark hair and shapely head. She was silent, probably through pity or consternation; but I could not see her face, and misread her. I thought her hard, and, resenting this, bragged on with a lad's empty violence. "He did; but I will not stand it! I give you warning, I won't stand it, Petronilla!" and I stamped, young bully that I was, until the dust sprang out of the boards, and the hounds by the distant hearth jumped up and whined. "No! not for all the base bishops in England!" I continued, taking a step this way and that. "He had better not do it again! If he does, I tell you it will be the worse for some one!" "Francis," she exclaimed abruptly, "you must not speak in that way!" But I was too angry to be silenced, though instinctively I changed my ground.