Ford Madox Ford

The Fifth Queen Ford Madox Ford

Magister Nicholas Udal, the Lady Mary's pedagogue, was very hungry and very cold. He stood undecided in the mud of a lane in the Austin Friars. The quickset hedgeson either side were only waist high and did not shelter him. The little houses allround him of white daub with grey corner beams had been part of the old friars'stables and offices. All that neighbourhood was a maze of dwellings and gardens, with the hedges dry, the orchard trees bare with frost, the arbours wintry anddeserted. This congregation of small cottages was like a patch of common thatsquatters had taken; the great house of the Lord Privy Seal, who had pulled downthe monastery to make room for it, was a central mass. Its gilded vanes were in theshape of men at arms, and tore the ragged clouds with the banners on their lances. Nicholas Udal looked at the roof and cursed the porter of it