“Mistress, wherefore is it that this poor lady of ours is kept so secret? It seemeth as though man would have none know where she were.”
“Ha, chétife! (Oh, miserable!) I can but avise thee to ask so much at them that do keep her.”
“Shall she never be suffered to come forth?”
“Ay,” said Perrote, slowly and solemnly. “She shall come forth one day. But I misdoubt if it shall be ere the King come Himself for her.”
“The King! Shall his Grace come hither?” inquired Amphillis, with much interest. She thought of no king but Edward the Third.
Perrote’s eyes were uplifted towards the stars. She spoke as if she were answering them rather than Amphillis.
“He shall deem (judge) the poor men of the people, and He shall make safe the sons of poor men; and He shall make low the false challenger. And He shall dwell with the sun, and before the moon, in generation and in to generation... And He shall be Lord from the sea till to the sea, and from the flood till to the ending of the world... For He shall deliver a poor man from the mighty, and a poor man to whom was none helper. He shall spare a poor man and needy, and He shall make safe the souls of poor men... Blessed be the name of His majesty withouten end! and all earth shall be filled with His majesty. Be it done, be it done!” (Note 1.)
Amphillis almost held her breath as she listened, for the first time in her life, to the grand roll of those sonorous verses.
“That were a King!” she said.
“That shall be a King,” answered Perrote, softly. “Not yet is His kingdom of this world. But He is King of Israel, and King of kings, and King of the everlasting ages; and the day cometh when He shall be King of nations, when there shall be one Lord over all the earth, and His Name one. Is He thy King, Amphillis Neville?”