Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
January of 1646, according to the division of the year, arrived, and
with it the heaviest cloud that had yet overshadowed Raglan.
One day, about the middle of the month, Dorothy, entering lady
Glamorgan's parlour, found it deserted. A moan came to her ears from the
adjoining chamber, and there she found her mistress on her face on the
bed.
'Madam,' said Dorothy in terror, 'what is it? Let me be with you. May I
not know it?'
'My lord is in prison,' gasped lady Glamorgan, and bursting into fresh
tears, she sobbed and moaned.
'Has my lord been taken in the field, madam, or by cunning of his
enemies?'
'Would to God it were either,' sighed lady Glamorgan. 'Then were it a
small thing to bear.'
'What can it be, madam? You terrify me,' said Dorothy.
No words of reply, only a fresh outburst of agonised--could it also be
angry?--weeping followed.
'Since you will tell me nothing, madam, I must take comfort that of
myself I know one thing.'
'Prithee, what knowest thou?' asked the countess, but as if careless of
being answered, so listless was her tone, so nearly inarticulate her
words.
'That is but what bringeth him fresh honour, my lady,' answered Dorothy.
The countess started up, threw her arms about her, drew her down on the
bed, kissed her, and held her fast, sobbing worse than ever.
'Madam! madam!' murmured Dorothy from her bosom.
'I thank thee, Dorothy,' she sighed out at length: 'for thy words and
thy thoughts have ever been of a piece.'
'Sure, my lady, no one did ever yet dare think otherwise of my lord,'
returned Dorothy, amazed.
'But many will now, Dorothy. My God! they will have it that he is a
traitor. Wouldst thou believe it, child--he is a prisoner in the castle
of Dublin!'
'But is not Dublin in the hands of the king, my lady?'
'Ay! there lies the sting of it! What treacherous friends are these
heretics! But how should they be anything else? Having denied their
Saviour they may well malign their better brother! My lord marquis of
Ormond says frightful things of him.'
'One thing more I know, my lady,' said Dorothy, '--that as long as his
wife believes him the true man he is, he will laugh to scorn all that
false lips may utter against him.'
'Thou art a good girl, Dorothy, but thou knowest little of an evil
world. It is one thing to know thyself innocent, and another to carry
thy head high.'
'But, madam, even the guilty do that; wherefore not the innocent then?'
'Because, my child, they ARE innocent, and innocence so hateth the very
shadow of guilt that it cannot brook the wearing it. My lord is
grievously abused, Dorothy--I say not by whom.'
'By whom should it be but his enemies, madam?'
'Not certainly by those who are to him friends, but yet, alas! by those
to whom he is the truest of friends.'
'Is my lord of Ormond then false? Is he jealous of my lord Glamorgan?
Hath he falsely accused him? I would I understood all, madam.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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