Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
He turned and left the room hastily. The marquis rejoined him on the
stair, and led him, two stories higher, to the armoury, now empty
compared to its former condition, but still capable of affording some
supply. The next space above was filled with stores, and the highest was
now kept clear for defence, for the reservoir so fully occupied the top
that there was no room for engines of any sort; and indeed it took up so
much of the storey below with its depth that it left only such room as
between the decks of a man of war, rendering it hardly fit for any other
use.
Reaching the summit at length, the king gazed with silent wonder at the
little tarn which lay there as on the crest of a mountain. But the
marquis conducted him to the western side, and, pointing with his
finger, said--
'Sir, you see that line of trees, stretching across a neck of arable
field, where to the right the brook catches the sun?'
'I see it, my lord,' answered the king.
'And behind it a house and garden, small but dainty?'
'Yes, my lord.'
'Then I trust your majesty will release me from suspicion of being of
those to whom the prophet Isaias saith, "Vae qui conjungitis domum ad
domum, et agrum agro copulatis usque ad terminum loci: numquid
habitabitis vos soli in medio terrae?" May it please your majesty, I
planted those trees to hoodwink mine eyes from such temptations, hiding
from them the vineyard of Naboth, lest they should act the Jezebel and
tempt me to play the Ahab thereto. If I did thus when those trees and I
were young, shall I do worse now that I stand with one foot in the
grave, and purgatory itself in the other?'
The king seemed to listen politely, but only listened half and did not
perceive his drift. He was looking at Dorothy where she stood at the
opposite side of the reservoir, unable, because of the temporary
obstruction occasioned by certain alterations and repairs about the
cocks now going on, to reach the stair without passing the king and the
marquis. The king asked who she was; and the marquis, telling him a
little about her, called her. She came, courtesied low to his majesty,
and stood with beating heart.
'I desire,' said the marquis, 'thou shouldst explain to his majesty that
trick of thy cousin Glamorgan, the water-shoot, and let him see it
work.'
'My lord,' answered Dorothy, trembling betwixt devotion and doubtful
duty, 'it was the great desire of my lord Glamorgan that none in the
castle should know the trick, as it pleases your lordship to call it.'
'What, cousin! cannot his majesty keep a secret? And doth not all that
Glamorgan hath belong to the king?'
'God forbid I should doubt either, my lord,' answered Dorothy, turning
very pale, and ready to sink, 'but it cannot well be done in the broad
day without some one seeing. At night, indeed--'
'Tut, tut! it is but a whim of Glamorgan's. Thou wilt not do a jot of
ill to show the game before his majesty in the sunlight.'
'My lord, I promised.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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