“Even if your king be a tyrant?”
“I am but a soldier. It is not mine to question the prerogatives of royalty—only to obey its edicts.”
“A noble creed! Noble sentiments for a soldier! Hear mine, sir!”
“With pleasure, Mistress Wade!” replied Scarthe, cowering under her scornful glance.
“Were I a man,” she continued, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, “rather would I shave my crown, and cover it with the cowl of a friar, than wear a sword to be drawn in no better cause than that of an unscrupulous king! Ha! There are men rising in this land, whose fame shall outlive the petty notoriety of its princes. When these have become obscured behind the oblivion of ages, the names of Vane and Pym, and Cromwell, and Hampden and Holt”—she but half pronounced the one she held highest—“shall be household words!”
“These are wild words, Mistress Wade!” rejoined Scarthe, his loyalty—along with a slight inclination towards anger—struggling against the admiration which he could not help feeling for the beautiful enthusiast; “I fear you are a rebel; and were I as true to the interests of my king as I should be, it would be my duty to make you a captive. Ah!” he continued, bending towards the proud maiden, and speaking in a tone of ambiguous appeal, “to make you a captive—my captive—that would indeed be a pleasant duty for a soldier—the recompense of a whole life.”
“Ho!” exclaimed Marion, pretending not to understand the innuendo, “since you talk of making me a captive, I must endeavour to escape from you. Good evening, sir.”
Flinging a triumphant smile towards the disappointed wooer, she glided rapidly beyond his reach; and, nimbly tripping over the footbridge, disappeared from his sight amid the shrubbery surrounding the mansion.