four o'clock in the afternoon
He had , indeed , a certain excuse for going , for a despatch-rider had come down from London with papers for him from Sir Thomas Cromwell , and it was not hard to assume a serious face and announce that he was recalled by affairs ; and there was sufficient truth in it , too , for one of the memoranda bore on the case of Elizabeth Barton , the holy maid of Kent , and announced her apprehension . Cromwell however , did not actually recall him , but mentioned the fact of her arrest , and asked if he had heard much said of her in the country , and what the opinion of her was in that district . * * * * * The drive up to London seemed very short to him now ; he went slowly through the bundle of papers on which he had to report , annotating them in order here and there , and staring out of the window now and again with unseeing eyes . There were a dozen cases on which he was engaged , which had been forwarded to him during his absence in the country -- the priest at High Hatch was reported to have taken a wife , and Cromwell desired information about this ; Ralph had ridden out there one day and gossipped a little outside the parsonage ; an inn-keeper a few miles to the north of Cuckfield had talked against the divorce and the reigning Consort ; a mistake had been made in the matter of a preaching license , and Cranmer had desired Cromwell to look into it ; a house had been sold in Cheapside on which Ralph had been told to keep a suspicious eye , and he was asked his opinion on the matter ; and such things as these occupied his time fully , until towards four o'clock in the afternoon his carriage rolled up to the horse-ferry at Lambeth , and he thrust the papers back into his bag before stepping out . On arriving at his own little house in Westminster , the rent of which was paid by his master , he left his other servants to carry up the luggage , and set out himself again immediately with Morris in a hackney carriage for Chancery Lane . As he went , he found himself for the hundredth time thinking of the history of the man to whom he was going . Sir Thomas Cromwell was beginning to rise rapidly from a life of adventure and obscurity abroad .