Under One Sceptre, or Mortimer's Mission: The Story of the Lord of the MarchesHolt, Emily Sarah
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Under One Sceptre, or Mortimer's Mission: The Story of the Lord of the Marches
Holt, Emily Sarah
Historical fiction; Mortimer, Roger de, Earl of March, 1328-1360 -- Fiction
Before entering the town a fresh arrangement of the procession was made.
First came the body of archers, carrying their bows unstrung in sign of
mourning; then two knights of the household of the deceased Earl, the
one bearing his pennon, the other his helmet with its crest. Then came
his war-horse, led by a squire bare-headed, and caparisoned with all its
ceremonial trappings—the saddle-cloth of blue velvet, broidered with
silver ostrich-feathers (gold ones were peculiar to the monarch), a
saddle-cloth which covered the horse from ears to hoofs, leaving only an
outlet for the nose and the eyes—the bridle being of gilded leather, and
the stirrup of gilt copper. After the horse walked Mr. Robesart, in full
canonicals, bearing aloft a silver cross. Then came the bier, borne by
ten spearmen specially selected from the corps—men whose qualifications
for the office were good character and much physical strength.
Immediately following, clad in white, then the colour of deepest
mourning, came the little Lady Anne, on a white horse—truly the chief
mourner for that father who had been her best friend in all the world.
Her horse was led by a bare-headed squire. A little behind her, on the
right, rode Lord Bardolf, and on the left the Lady Agnes. The remainder
of the household, which included Guenllian, Beatrice, and Lawrence, rode
after, and the company of spearmen closed the funeral procession.
Thus they bore him dead into the Castle of Usk, which he had entered
living, an infant gift from God, on that very morning, twenty-five years
before.
A trumpeter had been sent forward to announce the coming of the
procession; and when they crossed the drawbridge, and filed slowly in
beneath the portcullis into the court-yard, they were met by a group of
black monks from the neighbouring Benedictine Abbey, the foremost
swinging a censer, and two others sprinkling holy water. The bier was
set down immediately under the portcullis, and there it rested while the
_De Profundis_ was chanted, in presence of the garrison and of many
members of the household. The entire procession was meantime arrested.
With an irrepressible sob, Guenllian whispered to Lawrence, "’They that
bare him stood still.’ Here is the city, and there is the bier: but
where is He that can say, ’Arise’?"
Lawrence answered by a quotation from the same book. "’I am again
rising and life; ... he that believeth in Me shall not die withouten
end. Believest thou this?’"
"It is hard to believe where man seeth not."
"Therefore the more ’Blessed is she which hath believed.’ ’Nyl ye fere:
only believe.’"
"Believe _what_?" said Beatrice, with a dreary sigh, suppressed when
half drawn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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