William Seymour, however, did not look so well satisfied as the old knight expected; and Arabella Stuart paused for a few moments without reply, as if not quite willing to take advantage at once of the proposal.
"I could scarcely venture to ask Mr. Seymour," she said, at length, raising her soft eyes to his face; "and perhaps he may not be inclined to go."
William Seymour could not find in his heart so far to belie his own feelings as to say he was willing, and yet he dared not explain what those feelings were. Perhaps Arabella was not willing to send him; but of that we know nothing, although, if she was very anxious that he should be her messenger, she did not quite display a woman's skill in carrying her point. On the contrary, indeed, she was the first to furnish him with a fair excuse for declining the commission.
"On second thoughts," she continued, after the young gentleman had made a somewhat hesitating tender of his services,--"on second thoughts, I must not even ask Mr. Seymour; for, if disobedience to the proclamation might bring the king's anger upon me, the same act would, of course, affect him in the like manner. There is the royal blood," she added, with a smile, "flowing in his veins as well as mine; and, of course, our sovereign's indignation would fall more heavily upon a man than upon a poor girl like me."
"True," said the old man, "true; I had forgotten that; you must send some inferior person, lady. If you will write a letter to his majesty to-night, I will despatch it by a messenger to-morrow, who shall put into the hands of Sir Robert Cecil, to be laid before the King."
"I will do it at once," replied Arabella, "and then hie me to my bed; for, to speak truth, I am somewhat weary with my journey, with the rain, and with my fall."
The letter was accordingly written in all due form, beseeching the king to suffer his poor cousin to pay her duty to him, by meeting him on the road to London; and on the following morning, before Arabella had left her bed, a trusty messenger was bearing it towards the north.
Whether the fair writer slept well that night matters not to our history; William Seymour scarcely closed an eye, and for two long hours after he had sought his chamber, he sat almost in the same attitude, with his head resting on his hand, in deep thought. As his meditation ended, he murmured a few words to himself. "Now or never," he said. "Oh! golden opportunity! I will not suffer doubt or dismay to snatch thee from me."
[CHAPTER IV.]
Although duty and propriety, and a number of other considerations, should lead us to follow the messenger of Sir Harry West to the busy and bustling scene which was taking place at Newark-upon-Trent, on the occasion of King James's entrance into that very respectable city, yet, yielding to temptation like other men, we feel ourselves so well pleased in the company of Arabella Stuart and William Seymour in the old knight's house, that we cannot resist our inclination to remain a little longer with them, and to shun the noise and hurry of the court.