St. George and St. Michael, Volume 3MacDonald, George
History
St. George and St. Michael, Volume 3
MacDonald, George
Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
The next room was the antechamber to the marquis's bedroom:
timorously on tiptoe he stepped through it, fearful of waking the
two young gentlemen--for Scudamore's place had been easily
supplied--who waited upon his lordship. Opening the inner door as
softly as he could, he crept in, and found the marquis fast asleep.
So slowly, so gently did he wake him, that his lordship insisted he
had not slept at all; but when he told him that the time was come--
'What time?' he asked.
'For meeting the king,' replied the doctor.
'What king?' rejoined the marquis, in a kind of bewildered horror.
The more he came to himself, the more distressed he seemed, and the
more unwilling to keep the appointment he had been so eager to make,
so that at length even Dr. Bayly was tempted to doubt something evil
in the 'design that carried with it such a conflict within the bosom
of the actor.' It soon became evident, however, that it was but the
dread of such possible consequences as I have already indicated that
thus moved him.
'Fie, fie!' he said; 'I would to God I had let it alone.'
'My lord,' said the doctor, 'you know your own heart best. If there
be nothing in your intentions but what is good and justifiable, you
need not fear; if otherwise, it is never too late to repent.'
'Ah, doctor!' returned the marquis with troubled look, 'I thought I
had been sure of one friend, and that you would never have harboured
the least suspicion of me. God knows my heart: I have no other
intention towards his majesty than to make him a glorious man here,
and a glorified saint hereafter.'
'Then, my lord,' said Dr. Bayly, 'shake off these fears together
with the drowsiness that begat them. Honi soit qui mal y pense.'
'Oh, but I am not of that order!' said the marquis; 'but I thank God
I wear that motto about my heart, to as much purpose as they who
wear it about their arms.'
'He then,' reports the doctor, 'began to be a little pleasant, and
took a pipe of tobacco, and a little glass full of aqua mirabilis,
and said, "Come now, let us go in the name of God," crossing
himself.'
My love for the marquis has led me to recount this curious story
with greater minuteness than is necessary to the understanding of
Dorothy's part in what follows, but the worthy doctor's account is
so graphic that even for its own sake, had it been fitting, I would
gladly have copied it word for word from the Certamen Religiosum.
It is indeed a strange story--king and marquis, attended by a doctor
of divinity, of the faith of the one, but the trusted friend of the
other, meeting--at midnight, although in the house of the
marquis--to discuss points of theology--both king and marquis in
mortal terror of discovery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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