“Dorothy, my little cousin,” says I, going after her and taking her by the hand, “I beg your pardon. Trust me, I did not mean to hurt you.”
“Why—why,” cries Dorothy, turning round upon me in anger, and then on a sudden falling into a passion of weeping and tears, and hiding her face in my sleeve—“why will you make me cry, Cousin Ned, when I have been essaying to send you forth with all composure of mind, as a lady should her knight? ’Tis all spoilt now.”
“Not so,” says I, admiring the child’s insistence in her romancical dreams. “I am going forth as your knight, my Lady Doll, to forge my weapons, and with ’em to fight the great and cruel giant Poverty, and to release my noble father, whom he holds in his toils. You also the giant keeps in durance, but not so strong but you are allowed to help and solace the other captive, and to send words of cheer to your knight. Here is a noble tale, indeed!”
“True knight for true lady?” asks she.
“There is our motto,” says I. “Now are we indeed well provided with all that a romance could lack, little cousin.”
“I would I were going too,” says she, looking up at me with her eyes yet shining with tears; “I would fain be your page, Cousin Ned, like the ladies in the romances, for you will see all the marvels, the tigers and the wild men of the woods, and the elephants, and the Great Mogul himself, and I must stay here. But be sure, if you fall, that I shall don armour and avenge you, as did Parthenia for Argalus in the ‘Arcadia.’ ”
“But that, we may hope, shall not be needful,” said I. “Come into the garden with me now, Doll, and we will slay Anthropophage once more before I depart,” and we left speaking, and went down into the garden, holding each other by the hand.
Now this relation of all those things that preceded my setting out in search of fortune I have set down at length, to the end that all may see how falsely ’tis said that I went to East India in pursuance of my own way and against my father’s will, and also that I was already tired of the match my said father had prepared for me, and desired to rid myself of my cousin Dorothy. Such is the malice of my enemies, that they don’t scruple to say even this, whereas I have showed to you that my father did wellnigh force me to set out, and that I departed in the full intention to return and fulfil my contract with my cousin. And this relation I do hereby declare to be true of all things therein contained.
CHAPTER II.
OF MY TARRYING IN LONDON AND OF MY SAILING IN THE GOOD SHIP BOSCOBEL, AND ALSO OF MY MAKING AN ENEMY IN MR VANE SPENDER.
’Twas in the month of January 1663-64,[8] that I rid away from Ellswether, mounted on my father’s war-horse Gustavus, with our servant Miles behind me, on a beast taken from the plough, and bade farewell to my home for more than twenty long years. And looking back for to view the Hall once more, I did see my cousin Dorothy waving her handkercher, and heard her cry to me, “True knight for true lady, Cousin Ned!” which words of hers did much move me, so that I rid in silence for some time. But passing Mr Sternhold his house, there come out that good attorney himself, and would ride with me some miles of my way, parting from me at the last with much sorrow, and asking my acceptance of a book of wise counsels (said he) for young gentlemen that were going to foreign parts, called ‘The Merchant’s Avizo,’ which I received with much thanks, and have often found cause to be grateful for the same. And Mr Sternhold leaving us, we journeyed on without remark nor disaster, and in process of time came to London town. Here the first night I lay at an inn (whose name I have now forgot), and in the morning I did send Miles for to acquaint my lord duke of my being arrived, and to inquire when it should be convenient for me to wait upon his grace, and testify my gratefulness for his kindness. But in less than an hour Miles came back, not alone, but with him my lord duke’s chaplain, Dr Ruthven, in his grace’s coach, for to carry me to Belfort Place (which leadeth off from the Strand), there to abide while as I should be in town. So I with the chaplain in the coach, Miles following with the beasts, to his grace’s mansion, where I lay so long as I remained in London, eating with the family,[9] and once or twice at my lord duke’s own table, where his grace showed himself mighty condescending towards me, and asked of my father’s health, and likewise of that of Mrs Dorothy Brandon, his grace’s kinswoman.