liege the king.

"Go forth, my lord; go forth and fight," she cried to Viscount Auberley,
when the doubtful combat of Edgehill was firing new pugnacity; "if I
were a man, think you that I would let them do so?"

"Alas, fair mistress! it will take a many men to help it. But since you
bid me thus away--hi, Dixon! get my trunks packed!" And then, of course,
her blushing roses faded to a lily white; and then, of course, it was
his duty to support her slender form; neither were those dulcet murmurs
absent which forever must be present when the female kind begin to have
the best of it.

So they went on once or twice, and would have gone on fifty times if
fortune had allowed them thus to hang on one another. All the world
was fair around them; and themselves, as fair as any, vouched the whole
world to attest their everlasting constancy.

But one soft November evening, when the trees were full of drops, and
gentle mists were creeping up the channels of the moorlands, and snipes
(come home from foreign parts) were cheeping at their borings, and every
weary man was gladdened by the glance of a bright wood fire, and smell
of what was over it, there happened to come, on a jaded horse, a man,
all hat, and cape, and boots, and mud, and sweat, and grumbling. All the
people saw at once that it was quite impossible to make at all too much
of him, because he must be full of news, which (after victuals) is the
greatest need of human nature. So he had his own way as to everything he
ordered; and, having ridden into much experience of women, kept himself
as warm as could be, without any jealousy.

This stern man bore urgent order for the Viscount Auberley to join the
king at once at Oxford, and bring with him all his gathering. Having
gathered no men yet, but spent the time in plucking roses and the wild
myrtles of Devonshire love, the young lord was for once a little taken
aback at this order. Moreover, though he had been grumbling, half a
dozen times a day--to make himself more precious--about the place, and
the people, and the way they cooked his meals, he really meant it less
and less as he came to know the neighbourhood. These are things which
nobody can understand without seeing them.

"I grieve, my lord," said the worthy baron, "that you must leave us in
this high haste." On the whole, however, this excellent man was partly
glad to be quit of him.

"And I am deeply indebted to your lordship for the grievance; but it
must be s