"My Lord’s a big lion, and they sometimes bite and claw you. And my Lady’s a hen, and all she cares for is to snuggle her in the sand and cluck. Beside, she’s a woman, and women be no good. I would there had been some lads." "So there be, saving your Lordship’s pleasure." "They aren’t lads, they are men. My Lord Richard were not so ill, if he were younger, but he is a grown man: and as to my Lord John, he doth nought but make mowes[#] at me. I tell thee, Lolly, there is nobody here, out-taken[#] thyself, that I would buy for a farthing." [#] Grimaces. [#] Except. "Truly, I am sorry your Lordship is of such ill cheer." "Lolly, what was it—didst hear?—that my Lord spake to Sir Gerard, mighty low, when thou and I were going forth of the chamber this morrow?" "I heard not all of it," said Lawrence. "Only it was somewhat touching Mistress Wenteline, that had desired your Lordship to be well learned in the French Bible." "Doth he look to cause me learn long tasks thereout by heart?" asked Roger, with a wry face. "I reckoned thou shouldst hear, for thou wert nearer than I." "In no wise, my Lord, so far as I might hear, for he bade Sir Gerard have a care you touched it not." "Then I’ll read it right through!" cried Roger with childish perversity. "That cannot be an ill deed, for my Lady my grandmother was set to have me do the same." Lawrence made no reply. Though nothing on earth would have drawn the confession from him, yet for all his expressed contempt for women, little Roger sorely missed Guenllian. She had been his virtual mother for so long that, suddenly deprived of her, he felt like a chicken roughly taken from under the brooding wings of the hen. He was far more inclined to respect her wishes than he would have been had she remained with him: and there was also a certain zest added by the instinctive knowledge that what was good in the eyes of Guenllian was not unlikely to be bad in those of my Lord Arundel. Little Roger felt as if he had the pleasure of doing wrong, without the conscientious reaction which usually followed.