“Nay, Jack! I never meant thee. I have somewhat more reverence for mine husband than so.”
“Then art thou a very pearl amongst women. Most dames’ husbands find not much reverence stray their way—at least from that quarter. I misdoubt if Vivien’s husband ever picks up more than should lightly slip into his pocket.”
“Sir James Le Bretun is not so wise as thou,” said I. “But what I meant, Jack, was such as my Lord of Lancaster and my Lord of Kent, and my Lord of Hereford—why did never such as these tell the King sooth touching the Mortimer?”
“As for my Lord of Hereford,” saith Jack, “I reckon he was too busied feeling of his pulse and counting his emplastures, and telling his apothecary which side of his head ached worser since the last draught of camomile and mallows. Sir Edmund de Mauley was wont to say he had a grove of aspens at Pleshy for to make his own populion (Note 1), and that he brake his fast o’ dragons’ blood and dyachylon emplasture. Touching that will I not say; but I reckon he thought oftener on his tamarind drink than on the public welfare. He might, perchance, have bestirred him to speak to the King had he heard that he had a freckle of his nose, for to avise him to put white ointment thereon; but scarce, I reckon, for so small a matter as the good government of the realm.”
“Now, Jack!” said I, a-laughing.
“My Lord of Kent,” went he forth, “was he that, if he thought he had hurt the feelings of a caterpillar, should have risen from his warm bed the sharpest night in winter to go and pray his pardon of his bare knees. God assoil him, loving and gentle soul! He was all unfit for this rough world. And the dust that Sir Roger cast up at his horse-heels was in my Lord of Kent’s eyes as thick as any man’s. He could not have warned the King, for himself lacked the warning.”
“Then my Lord of Lancaster—why not he?”
“He did.”
“Ay, at long last, when two years had run: wherefore not long ere that? The dust, trow, was not in his eyes.”
“Good wife, no man’s eyes are blinder than his which casts the dust into his own. My Lord of Lancaster had run too long with the hounds to be able all suddenly to turn him around and flee with the hare.”