“I will explain the passage to Mistress Alice,” said the Doctor, “when she reminds me of it—or rather,” (he added, recollecting that his ordinary dilatory answer on such occasions ought not to be returned when the order for exposition emanated from his Sovereign,) “I will repeat a poor couplet from my own translation of the poem—
‘Heroes and kings, in exile forced to roam.
Leave swelling phrase and seven-leagued words at home.’”
“A most admirable version, Doctor,” said Charles; “I feel all its force, and particularly the beautiful rendering of sesquipedalia verba into seven-leagued boots—words I mean—it reminds me, like half the things I meet with in this world, of the Contes de Commère L’Oye.”[[3]]
[3] Tales of Mother Goose.
Thus conversing they reached the Lodge; and as the King went to his chamber to prepare for the breakfast summons, now impending, the idea crossed his mind, “Wilmot, and Villiers, and Killigrew, would laugh at me, did they hear of a campaign in which neither man nor woman had been conquered—But, oddsfish! let them laugh as they will, there is something at my heart which tells me, that for once in my life I have acted well.”
That day and the next were spent in tranquillity, the King waiting impatiently for the intelligence, which was to announce to him that a vessel was prepared somewhere on the coast. None such was yet in readiness; but he learned that the indefatigable Albert Lee was, at great personal risk, traversing the sea-coast from town to village, and endeavouring to find means of embarkation among the friends of the royal cause, and the correspondents of Dr. Rochecliffe.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.
Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch!
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.