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
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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