"You only want arms to become a veritable Amazon."
"I will wear them if your majesty commands."
"No, you have brought me so many recruits that it is unnecessary. How many troops have you helped to fill up?"
"I have done my best, sire, but I have not brought you half so many as I could desire. The Worcestershire gentry are loyal, but irresolute and cautious—I will not use stronger epithets. They try to excuse their lukewarmness on the ground that they suffered so much from fines and sequestrations during the Civil Wars. But, as I tell them, that is no excuse. They ought to risk all—sacrifice all, if need be—for their sovereign. Many have come here to-day. But," she added, with a look of mingled grief and indignation, "some, on whom I fully counted, are absent."
"I scarcely miss them. When I have won a battle, they will hasten to rally round my standard, but I shall know how to distinguish between late comers, and those who have been true to me in the hour of peril."
"All here are true men, my liege. I would not say as much, for yon Scottish soldiers." Then lowering her voice so as only to be heard by the king, she added: "Do not trust Lesley, sire. He may play you false."
"Why do you entertain these suspicions?"
"From what I hear of the conduct of his men, and of his own discourse. Heaven grant my fears may prove groundless!"
"If Lesley proves a traitor I am undone, for he commands the third of my army, and his men will obey no other leader. But I will not believe him false."
"What news has your majesty of the Earl of Derby?" asked Jane, still in the same whispered accents. "Pardon the question. 'Tis prompted by the deep interest I feel——"