The gentleman held a riding switch in his hand: he put heel to his horse, approached the messenger, and slashed the thong with a vicious oath across his face. His teeth showed, and the wings of his nose lifted like a cat’s. The fellow swayed, almost blinded, and near lost his seat. ‘That is to learn thee discretion,’ quoth his master; and turned to the lady. ‘Hearest? Drop that brat and give rein.’ She complied hurriedly, returning Brion to his guardian. The boy was pale, and his lip quivered. His young looks spoke hatred of the cruel act. ‘What!’ cried the gentleman, quite smoothly and pleasantly, noting that expression: ‘wouldst dare me, by-slip?’ ‘No, no,’ said the lady: ‘he meant it not. Take him away, good Sir. There, we be going.’ She put her horse between, and smiled, with difficulty, in the face of her comrade. He, for his part, laughed, shrugging contemptuous shoulders; then, before he went, turned with one look on the pedagogue. ‘_Cave ursum_,’ said he, and no more, but, with a threatening and comprehensive gesture of his hand, imposed silence on those trembling lips. And with that they departed all three, the lady not once looking round, and in a little were lost to view. ‘Who were they, Sir?’ says Brion, his baby breast still full to tears with the agitation of it all. But the other put the question away hurriedly. ‘I know not, child; we are not to consider; forget it all and dismiss the matter from thy mind and memory.’ But that Brion could not altogether do, though, being a reserved and somewhat silent boy, he never spoke of the incident, not even to his kind stupid foster-mother, but kept the thought of it to himself, locked in his little breast. And there it lay, like a flower in a secret cabinet, fading and withering till it was little more than a faint sweet memory, suggesting something infinitely tender but forgotten; and the face of the beautiful pale lady receded in his mind to a distant dream. He saw the Queen after this, and more than once, travelling with her Court to Richmond--latterly in a great chariot, like a catafalque on wheels, only then first coming into use--but at these times he stood among the other scholars, and, though at first he would look for the lady, never again did he mark her; and gradually, absorbed more and more into the interests of boyhood, he forgot all about the episode.