I tell you, Murdo of Barra has more brains under his Highland bonnet than all your gay Douglas dragoons, from your swearing colonel to the suckling drummer-boy—who no sooner leaves his mother's breast than he learns to mouth curses and lisp strange oaths. These lists you are to transmit with your own hand to an officer appointed to receive them by His Highness the Prince at the Inn of Brederode by the Northern Sanddunes, who will furnish you with a receipt for them.
This receipt you will preserve and return to me in token that you have fulfilled your mission. The officers of the regiments and the commanders of batteries have hereby orders to render you a correct and instant accompt. But Wat Gordon stood up and tightened his sword-belt, hitching his sword forward so that the hilt fell easily under his hand. Then he flipped the mandate carelessly upon the widened fingers of his left hand before sticking it through his belt.
It was the evening of the following day before Wat Gordon was ready to start. It had taken him so long to obtain all the invaluable information as to the strength of the armies of the States-General and of their allies, which were collected at Amersfort in order to roll back the threatened invasion of the King of France.
Twice during the day had he rushed into his cousin's lodging for a brief moment in order to snatch a morsel of food, but on neither occasion had he been able to catch so much as a glimpse of Kate. It was now the gloaming, and the night promised to fall clear and chill. A low mist was collecting here and there behind the clumps of bushes, and crawling low along the surface of the canals. But all above was clear, and the stars were beginning to come out in familiar patterns.
For the third and last time Wat made an errand up to his cousin's rooms, even after his escort had arrived, and once more Maisie took him gently by the hand, bidding him good-speed on his quest perilous. But even while his cousin's wife was speaking the young man's eye continued to wander restlessly.
He longed rather to listen to upbraiding from another voice, and, in place of Maisie's soft, willing kiss, to carry away the farewell touch of a more scornful hand. In what, think you, have I offended her? And so saying Maisie passed from the room as silently as a white swan swims athwart the mere. In a little while she returned with Kate, who, beside her budding matronhood, seemed but a young lissom slip of willow-wand.
He goes a far road and on a heavy adventure. He would say good-bye to the friends who are with him in this strange land before he departs, and of these you are one, are you not, my Kate? As soon as Mistress Maisie loosened her hand the girl went directly to the window-seat, where she stood leaning gracefully with her cheek laid softly against the shutter.
She turned a little and shivered at her friend's pointed appeal. Lochinvar was deeply stung by her words. He came somewhat nearer to her, clasping his hands nervously before him, his face set and pale as it had never been in the presence of an enemy.
It is true that once long ago I was foolish—to blame, blackly and bitterly in the wrong, if you will. But now all humbly I ask you to forgive me ere I go, it may be to my death. The girl looked at him with a strange light in her eyes—scorn, pity, and self-will struggling together for the mastery. At last, in a hard, dry voice, she said, "There is nothing to forgive. If there had been I should have forgiven you. As it is, I have only forgotten.
Maisie had left the room and there was deep silence in it and about, save for the distant crying of the staid Dutch children late at their plays on the canal-sides of Amersfort, and the clatter of the home-returning wooden shoon on the pavemented streets. The young man drew himself up till his height towered above the girl like a watch-tower over a city wall. His eyes rested steadfastly on her the while. She had a feeling that a desperate kind of love was in the air, and that for aught she knew he might be about to clasp her fiercely in his arms.
And it had, perhaps, been well for both if he had, for at that moment she raised her eyes and her heart wavered within her. He looked so tall and strong. She was sure that her head would come no higher upon his breast than the blue ribbon of his cavalry shoulder-knot. She wondered if his arms would prove as strong as they looked, if she suddenly were to find herself folded safe within them.
Now Wat Gordon ought not to have spoken. The single word in the silence of the room brought the girl back to herself.
Instinctively she put out her hand, as though to ward off something threatening or overpowering. The gulf yawned instantly between them, and the full flood-tide of Wat Gordon's opportunity ebbed away as rapidly as it had flowed. Yet when a moment later the girl lifted her long, dark 32 lashes and revealed her eyes shining shyly glorious beneath them, Wat Gordon gazed into their depths till his breath came quick and short through his nostrils, and a peal of bells seemed to jangle all out of tune in his heart.
He stood like some shy woodland beast new taken in a trap. Wat clinched his fist. In that single syllable the girl seemed to lay all the burden of blame, proof, explanation of the past upon him alone, and the hopeless magnitude of the task cut him to the quick.
And, ere I go, give me at least a love-token that I may carry it with me till I die. Kate's lips parted as though she had somewhat to answer if she would, but she kept a faintly smiling silence instead, and only looked casually about the room. A single worn glove lay on the top of a little cabinet of dark oak. She lifted it and handed it to Wat. The young man eagerly seized the glove, pressed it with quick passion to his lips, and then thrust it deep into the bosom of his military coat.
He would have taken the hand which gave him the gift, but a certain malicious innocence in the girl's next words suddenly dammed his gratitude at the fountain-head. But this glove of Maisie's will mayhap serve as well. Besides which, I heard her say yestreen that she had some time ago lost its marrow in the market-place of Amersfort. With a fierce hand Wat Gordon tore the glove from his bosom and threw it impulsively out of the window into 33 the canal.
Then he squared his shoulders and turned him about in order to stride haughtily and indignantly from the room. But even as he went he saw a quaintly subtle amusement shining in the girl's eyes—laughter made lovely by the possibility of indignant tears behind it, and on her perfectest lips that quick petulant pout which had seemed so adorable to him in the old days when he had laid so many ingenious snares to bring it out.
Wat was intensely piqued—more piqued perhaps than angry. He who had wooed great ladies, and on whom in the ante-chambers of kings kind damsels all too beautiful had smiled till princes waxed jealous, was now made a mock of by a slim she-slip compact of mischievous devices.
He looked again and yet more keenly at the girl by the window. Certainly it was so. Mischief lurked quaintly but unmistakably under the demure, upward curl of those eyelashes. A kind of still, calm fury took him, a set desperation like that of battle. Then, in an instant, as soon indeed as he had realized his deed, all his courage went from him. His triumph of a moment became at once flat despair, and he stood before her ashamed, abject as a dog that is caught in a fault and trembles for the lash.
Without a word the girl pointed to the door. And such was the force of her white anger and scorn upon him that Wat Gordon, who was about to ride carelessly to face death as he had often done before, slunk through it cowering and speechless. But Wat Gordon went past her as though he had not heard, trampling stupidly down the narrow stairs like a bullock in the market-place, the spring all gone out of his foot, the upstanding airy defiance fallen away from his carriage.
Then in a moment more there came up from the street front the sound of trampling horses and the ring of accoutrement, as three or four riders set spurs to their horses and rode clattering over the cobbles towards the city gates.
Kate was standing behind the shutter, looking down the street along which the four riders were rapidly vanishing. At the corner where they turned one of the horses shied and reared, bringing down its iron-shod hoofs sharply on the pavement with a little jet of sparks, and almost throwing its rider. Instinctively the girl uttered a little cry, and set her hand against her side. He passed me at the stair-head as if he knew me not. Finding Kate still absorbed and silent, Maisie sat down in her own chair and waited.
Presently, with a long sigh, the girl sank on her knees beside her, and, taking her friend's hand, set it on her head. With sympathetic and well-accustomed fingers Maisie, as was her custom, softly smoothed and caressed the dark tangle of curls. She did not utter a word till she heard a quick sob catch at the bottom of Kate's throat. Then she spoke very 35 low, leaning forward till she could lay her cheek against the girl's brow. It was a voice that not many could resist when it pleaded thus—most like a dove cooing to its mate in the early summer mornings.
There fell a silence for a while in the little upper room; but Maisie the wise one did not again speak. She only waited. Maisie smiled a little, indulgently, leaning back so that her friend's dark eyes should not notice it. She smiled as one who is in the things of love at least a thousand years older, and who in her day has seen and tasted bread sweet and bread bitter.
The girl lifted her head as quickly from its resting-place as though a needle had pricked her unawares. She eyed her friend with a grave, shocked surprise. And the censure in her tone might have been that of a General Assembly of the Kirk, so full of weighty rebuke was it. I heard no single word of your talk. But, Kate, my lassie, I am not so very ignorant concerning these things which you stand on the brink of.
Come, what had you been saying to him to provoke him to kiss you? Things had not gone as they ought, and now her own familiar friend was about to blame her for it. Maisie waited a moment discreetly, hoping that Kate would go on; but she appeared to consider that she had said enough. She only pillowed her head lower on her gossip's knee, and submitted contentedly to the loving hand which caressed her ringlets.
I thought," she added, plaintively, after a pause, "that it would do just as well. At which conclusion Maisie laughed helplessly, rocking to and fro; then she checked herself, and began again.
Kate raised her head and looked at her in new surprise. You smile not unkindly upon him. You quarrel and are separated. After years you meet in a distant land. He asks you for a gage to carry with him to the wars, a badge fragrant of his lady and his love, and you give him—an odd glove of his cousin's wife's.
Truly an idea most quaint and meritorious! He stamped his foot and threw the glove out of the window there into the canal! He ought not to have done that, ought he? I speak because I have come in peace to the goal of my own loving. Wat loves you. I am sure of that. Can you not tell me what it is that you have against him? No great matter, surely; for, though reckless and headstrong beyond most, the lad is yet honest, up-standing, true.
Kate McGhie was silent for a while, only leaning her head a little harder against the caressing hand. If so be that Wat Gordon will love me here in the Lowlands of Holland, he must do it like one that loves for death or life; not like a gay gallant that makes love to every maid in town, all for dalliance in a garden pleasaunce on a summer's day.
The girl drew herself up nearer to her friend's face. Maisie Lennox, on her part, quietly leaned over and laid her cheek against Kate's.
It was damp where a cherry-great tear had rolled down it. Maisie understood, but said nothing. She only pressed her gossip a little closer and waited. In a while Kate's arms went gently round about her neck, and her face drew yet a little nearer to the listening ear. I feared it much," she went on, with a little return of the low sob, which caused her friend's arms to clasp themselves more tightly about her, "I feared that I might learn to love him too soon.
So that is the reason—why— I hate him now! Wat Lochinvar rode out of the city of Amersfort with anger humming fierce in his heart, the Black Horseman riding pickaback behind him. He paid little attention to the three cutthroat-looking knaves who had been provided as his escort, till the outer port of the city gates had closed behind him and the chill airs of the outlands, unwarmed by friendly civic supper-fires, met him shrilly in the teeth.
He had been played with, tricked, betrayed, so he told himself. Never more would he think of her—the light trifler with men's hearts. She might gang her own wilful gait for him; but there was one thing he was well assured of—never more would Wat Gordon trust any woman born of woman, never speak a word of love to one of the fickle breed again.
On this he was resolved like steel. For him, henceforth, only the stern elation of combat, the clatter of harness, the joy of the headlong charge—point to point, eye to eye, he would meet his man, when neither would be afraid of aught, save of yielding or craving a favor.
From that day forth his sword should be his love, his regiment his married wife, his cause and king his family; while his faithful charger, nuzzling against his breast, would bestow on him the only passionate caresses he would ever know, until on some stricken field it was his fate to fill a soldier's grave.
Almost could Walter Gordon have wept in his saddle to think of his wrongs, and death seemed a sweet thing 39 to him beside the fickle favors of any woman. He bethought him of his cousin Will with something of a pitying smile.
He thinks himself happy. How much better had it been to live for glory! But even as he battered himself into a conviction of his own rooted indifference to the things of love, he began to wonder how long his present adventure would detain him. Could he be back in time on the morrow to hear the first trip of a light foot on the stairs in Zaandpoort Street, as she came from her sleeping-room, fresh as though God had made her all anew that morning? For this is a quality of the wisdom of man, that thinking upon a maid ofttimes makes it vain—especially if the man be very brave or very wise, and the maid exceeding fair.
Gradually, however, the changing clatter of the dozen hoofs behind Lochinvar forced itself upon his hearing, and he remembered that he was not alone. He turned to his followers, and, curbing his horse a little, waited for them to come up. They ranged themselves two on one side of him and one on the other. Lochinvar eyed them with surprising disfavor.
You could not all three have been made so unhallowedly ugly as that. After all, God is a good God, and kind to the evil and to the good.
The fellow on Lochinvar's left was a great red-faced man with an immense scar, where as it appeared one side of his face had been cut away wellnigh to the cheek-bone—a wound which had healed unevenly in ridges and weals, and now remained of a deep plum-color. The hulking fellow of the scar made a gesture with his shoulders, which said as plain as might be, "They are of age; ask themselves. But the nearer of the two did not wait to be asked. He was a hairless, flaccid-faced rogue of a pasty gray complexion, and even uglier than the plum-colored Bull, with a certain intact and virgin hideousness of his own.
And, thinking this an excellent jest, he showed a row of teeth like those of a hungry dog when he snatches a bone from a comrade not his equal in the fray. Lochinvar now transferred his attention to the third. He wore a small round cap on the top of his head, and 41 his narrow and meagre forehead ran back shining and polished to the nape of his neck. His lack-lustre eyes were set curiously at different angles in his head.
He had thin lips, which parted nervously over black, gaping teeth, and his nose was broken as if with a blow of a hammer. Wat Gordon urged his horse onward with great and undisguised disgust.
To be sent on a dangerous mission with three such arrant rascals told him the value that his employers set upon his life. And if he had chanced at that moment to turn him about in his saddle, the evil smile of triumph which passed simultaneously over the faces of his companions might have told him still more.
The small cavalcade of four went clattering on through the dusky coolness of night, across many small wooden bridges and over multitudinous canals. It passed through villages, in which the inhabitants were already snoring behind their green blinds the unanimous antiphonal bass of the rustic just—though, as yet, it was little past nine of the clock on the great kirk tower of Amersfort, and in the city streets and in the camp every one was at the height of merriment and enjoyment.
Wafts of balmy country scents blew across the by-ways along which they went; and through the limpid gray coolness where the young leaves of the sparse hedgerow 42 trees brushed his face, Wat could see that he was passing countless squares of parti-colored bloom.
Miles of hyacinth, crocus, and narcissus gardens stretched away on either hand beyond the low, carefully cut Dutch hedges.
Haxo the Bull rode first, showing them the way to the inn of Brederode, silently, save that every now and then he would cry a word over his shoulder, either to one of his ill-favored retinue or to an unseen watcher at some lonely cross-road.
Wat followed sullenly and fiercely, without caring much about the direction in which he was being taken. His mind, however, was preternaturally busy, going carefully over all the points of his interview with Kate, and very soon from the heights of justified indignation he fell to accusing himself of rude stupidity.
And the thought troubled him more than all the traitorous Barras and ill-conditioned Bull Haxos in the world. A breath of perfume blew fresh across the way from a field of dark purple bloom, and with an overpowering rush there came back to him the sweet scent of Kate's hair as for a moment he had bent over her by the window. He let the reins fall on his horse's neck, and almost cried aloud in agony at the thought of losing so great a treasure.
Wat's love-lorn melancholy might have driven him to further and yet wilder utterance had he not been conscious of a slight metallic click behind him, which certainly did not come from the hoofs of the horses. He 43 turned sharply at the sound and caught Haxo's Calf with a pistol in his right hand, and the Killer with his long butcher's knife bare and uplifted.
Haxo himself was riding unconcernedly on in front. Wat quickened the pace of his horse, and rode alongside the Bull.
It may seem a trifling matter to trouble you with, and of no great consequence, nevertheless I should somewhat like to ascertain their intentions. The men fell asunder at the words, and for a mile or two only the sound of the horses' feet pounding the hard paven road came to Wat's ears.
But he did not again return to that entrancing dream of Kate, her beauty, and her hard-heartedness which had so nearly led to his destruction. Yet, nevertheless, whatever he said or did, he remained through all that followed conscious of his love for her, and for the remainder of the night the desire of getting back to Amersfort in order to see her sharpened every faculty and kept every sense on the alert. More than once during the night Haxo endeavored to enter into conversation, but Wat, indignant at the cowardly attempt on his life for so he was bound to consider it , waved him peremptorily aside.
It was long past the gloaming, and already wearing nigh to the watershed of the night, before the perfectly flat country of marsh and polder through which they 44 had been riding gave place to a district in which the undulations of the surface were distinctly felt beneath the horses' feet. Here, also, the hard-baked, dusty roads gave place to softer and more loosely knit tracks of sand, on which the iron-shod hoofs made no sound.
They were, in fact, fast approaching that broad belt of dunes which shuts off the rich, flower-covered nurseries of Haarlem from the barren, heathy wastes along the borders of the Northern Sea. On their right they passed the dark walls of the castle of Brederode, and pursued their way to the very edge of the lofty dunes, which at this point are every year encroaching upon the cultivated fields. Presently they came to a long, low, white building surrounded by dark hedges, which in the coolness of the night sent out a pleasant odor of young beech leaves.
The court-yard was silent, the windows black. Not a ray of light was visible anywhere. Walter Gordon rode directly up to the door. He felt with his hand that it stood open to the wall, and that a dark passage yawned before him. Instinctively he drew back a little way to decide what he should do. With an unknown house before him and a cut-throat crew behind, he judged that he would be wiser to proceed with extreme caution.
The three horses backed simultaneously, and Haxo, his Calf and his Killer, waited in an irregular semicircle, while Wat took out of his pocket a tinder-box and from his holster a candle. There was not a breath of air, and when Lochinvar lighted the taper the flame mounted steadily upwards, so that he had no need even to shelter it with his hand while the flame went down and then as slowly came again, as all candles do when they are first lighted.
Wat glanced up at the sign of the Black Bull's Head, 45 which was set in rude caricature over the door of the inn. His mind wandered grimly to the significance of that emblem in his own country, and to the many good men and true who had dined with the Black Bull's head on the table—and thereafter dined no more in this world.
And to think that he, Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, had brought the Bull with him, together with the Bull-calf and the Killer, to keep him company to the Black Bull of Brederode! He took the conceit as an omen, and gritted his teeth to remember what an arrant gull he had been. And at all events I am glad that I kissed her. He looped his horse's rein to the iron hook at the cheek of the inn door.
Then he gripped his sword tighter, and said a prayer which ended somewhat unorthodoxly:. For, after all, she gave it to me. Also, her lips pout most adorably when she is angered. And this seemed strange enough information to give the Deity. But without doubt its sincerity carried it further heavenward than many an empty Credo.
For the God who made love does not, like Jove, laugh at lovers' vows. So, thinking with all his might upon the adorable pout of his lady's lips, that right loyal lover Walter Gordon strode, not without fear, but all the braver for mastering it, into the dark passage which stretched straight before him, gloomy as a sea cave at midnight.
Doors still blacker yawned on either side of him like the mouths of huge cannon. He held his candle aloft, and paused a moment at each, striving with all his might to penetrate the silence that reigned within. But the faint circle of illumination hardly passed beyond the threshold. Wat, as he held his breath and listened, only heard the rats scuttle and the mice cheep in the oaken wainscoting.
It was with a feeling of chill water running icily down his back that he passed each black cavern, glancing warily over his shoulder lest he should catch the downward stroke of an arm in the doorway, or see the candle-light flash on the deadly blade of the Killer's butchering knife. It was nerve-shaking work. The sweat, chill as the clammy mist of the night, began to pour down Wat's face, and his flesh grew prickly all over as though he had been stuck full of pins.
Unless something happened, he felt that in another moment he must shriek aloud. He stopped and listened. Somewhere near him he felt sure he could distinguish the sound of breathing. It was not the heavy, regular to-and-fro respiration of unconscious sleep, but rather 47 the quicker and shorter breathing of one who has recently undergone severe exertion, and whose heart still runs fast ahead. Wat stood and listened. The sound came from half-way up the stairs, out of a room with a door which opened wider than the others, and which now stood, gaping black and ominous, directly before him.
Wat could hear the sound of feet behind him, cautiously shuffling on the flags of the doorway, and by this sign he knew that his three ruffians were there waiting for him with the weapons of their trade naked and deadly in their hands.
He was trapped, taken between the brutal, dastard butchers behind him and the unknown but more terrible breathers in the dark above him. Yet his very desperation brought a compensating calmness. He pressed his arm against his side, where, in an inner pocket, he carried the papers he had come to deliver. He undid the button of his cloak, and let it fall to the ground to clear his sword-arm.
Then, bending forward like a runner straining to obtain good pace at the start of a short race, he went up the stairs steadily and warily till he had reached the door of the room. His candle was almost blown out with the quickness of his motion. It flickered low, and then caught again, as Wat stepped nimbly within, and made the point of his sword circle about him to clear himself a space against attack.
Then he looked around him. He found himself in a wide, low-ceilinged room, with many small windows along the side. A curtain of arras hung at one end, and a table stood in front of it—a hall of rustic assembly, as it seemed. At the far side of the table from him and between its edge and the curtain, calm as though it had been broad day, sat a tall, thin man. He had red hair and a short red beard, both liberally sprinkled with gray.
His eyes were of a curious China blue, pale and cold. He was 48 clad in a French uniform, and a pair of pistols and a drawn sword lay on the table before him. The man sat perfectly still, with his elbows on the table and his chin on the knuckles of the hands which were joined beneath his beard. His eyes were alive, however, and surveyed Wat Gordon from head to foot. The effect of this scrutiny upon the man in the chair was somewhat surprising.
He started half-way to his feet, and so disturbed the table behind which he sat that one of the pistols rolled off and fell underneath, so that the butt appeared on the side nearest to Wat. At the noise the arras behind was disturbed, and Lochinvar felt that unseen eyes were watching and unseen ears listening behind its shelter.
Wat, on his side, was not less astonished. For at the first glance he knew the man at the table. The man nodded without appearing to notice the outstretched hand, and continued to look the young man over with the pale, piercing eyes of blue.
Now do I see that Barra plots deeper and yet more simply than I had given his Highland brains credit for. I little knew that the cavalier whom I was to meet to-night was Wat Gordon, mine ancient scholar and good ally. You that 49 know me well, mine old master of the fence, I beseech to speak plainly and riddle to me no more.
Set your candle on a sconce and be seated. In a moment the arras stirred behind, and a man-at-arms appeared. He was clad in a pale-blue uniform, unlike any that Wat had seen in the army of the States-General. In a few minutes the room was fully illumined by the rays of half a dozen candles set in a pair of silver candlesticks, each of them holding three lights. Wat replied by picking up a cross-legged stool of black oak and setting it down at the angle of the room, at the point most distant from the arras, and also from the door by which he had entered.
Then he sat down upon it, still holding his sword bare in his right hand, and made the point of it play with the toe of his buff leathern riding-boot, while he waited impatiently for Scarlett to speak. The man at the table had never once removed his 50 eyes from Lochinvar's face. Then in a quiet, steady, unhurried voice he began to speak:.
It was given to his ancestors by the grandfather of his present majesty—". Since when did Walter Gordon of Lochinvar need to stand considering who has the right to be styled his lawful king? You are the servant of King James, and his messages and commands are yours to obey.
Wat Gordon bowed stiffly. But surely the commands of your king are before all; before the mandates of Parliament, before the commands of generals—aye, before even the love of wife and children. And the sonorous words brought a fire into the cold eyes of the speaker and an answering erectness into the pose of Wat Gordon, who had hitherto been listening listlessly but watchfully as he continued to tap the point of his riding-boot with his sword-blade.
Scarlett tossed a sealed paper across the table, and as Wat rose to take it he kept a wary eye on the two chief points of danger—the division in the arras and the door, behind which, as he well knew, were stationed those three worthy gentry of my Lord Barra's retinue, Haxo the Bull, the Calf, and the Killer.
Wat took the paper with his left hand, broke the seal, and unfolded it by shaking it open with a quick, clacking jerk. It read thus:. It is my command that John Scarlett, Lieutenant of the Luxemburg Regiment in the service of the King of France, obtain the papers relating to the numbers and dispositions of the troops of the States-General in the city and camp of Amersfort, which I have reason to believe to be in the possession of my trusty servant and loving Cousin, Walter Gordon, Lord of Lochinvar in Galloway.
Walter bent his knee, kissed the king's message, and, rising to his feet, as courteously folded it and handed it back to Lieutenant Scarlett. I am in this inn of Brederode as a plain soldier, charged with orders given to me by my superior officer, and I cannot depart from these orders while I live a free man and able to carry them out.
But he has no right to command a soldier to become a traitor, nor to turn an honest man into a spy. He may command my life and my fortunes. He may command my death. But, landless, friendless, and an exile though I be, mine honor at least is mine own. I refuse to deliver the papers with which I have been intrusted, or to be a traitor to the colors under which I serve.
While Walter spoke Scarlett stood impatiently tapping the table with the paper, which he had refolded. Your three attendant rascals are, equally with myself, in the pay of the King of France. View all posts by Biblioklept. Like Like. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account.
Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing is to be preferred before justice. Think not that I speak for your sakes. Were that a just return? Were that Roman magnanimity? What looked he? A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. It is a nipping and an eager air.
HW33 Heavy Weather , 7 Yet even had the air been nipping and eager, it is probable that he would still have loitered, for his mind was heavy with care. Then is the world one. We think not so, my lord. To me it is a prison. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace. But it was—as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning.
Quotations of specific passages are broken down in the following sections. Perchance to dream. In line 86 modern editions of the play generally prefer to read pitch. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus [ He makes gestures in the air with his hands ]; but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.
Why, look you there! Look, how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he lived! Let me see. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen? Now cracks a noble heart. Two I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.
Thou knowest my old ward: here I lay, and thus I bore my point. What, four? Four, Hal, I told thee four. Ay, ay, he said four. The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life. Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he, but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. How doth my son and brother?
King Henry. Sources and editions differ on line 7. Rowe Wodehouse naturally learned his Shakespeare from one of those. Modern editions generally accept the more recent suggestion by J. Just, just: and the men do sympathize with the mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives: and then give them great meals of beef, and iron and steel; they will eat like wolves, and fight like devils.
Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef. Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs to eat, and none to fight. So farewell to the little good you bear me. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but as you would say a cobbler.
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. Stand, ho! Speak the word along. For quotations of specific lines see below. Remember March, the ides of March remember! Hear me, for I will speak. Must I give way and room to your rash choler? Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?
See the annotations to A Damsel in Distress. Halio, The Tragedy of King Lear. Woe that too late repents! Is it your will? Speak, sir. Prepare my horses. Blasts and fogs upon thee! Fellow, I know thee. What dost thou know me for? A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch, one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Child Roland to the dark tower came. The wheel is come full circle; I am here. What bloody man is that? Lady Macbeth. If we should fail? We fail? I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise? I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. The correct reading and meaning of sleeve in line 40 is a moot point. Care is imagined as a mass of silk unworked into threads, each thread being a problem or worry.
Sleep straightens out these threads of worries into a clear pattern, and they are worries no longer. In his letter to S. Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. Whence is that knocking? What hands are here? Ha: they pluck out mine eyes.
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