His Grace of Osmonde | Page 7

forth to hunt, and at times fine chariots roll up the avenue with great
people in them come to make visits of state. His little life was full of
fair pictures and fair stories of them. When the house was filled with
brilliant company he liked nothing so much as to sit on Mistress
Halsell's knee or in his chair by her side and ask her questions about the
guests he caught glimpses of as they passed to and fro. He was a child
of strong imagination and with a great liking for the romantic and
poetic. He would have told to him again and again any rumour of
adventure connected with those he had beheld. He was greatly pleased
by the foreign ladies and gentlemen who were among the guests--he
liked to hear of the Court of King Louis the Fourteenth, and to have
pointed out to him those visitors who were personages connected with
it. He was attracted by the sound of foreign tongues, and would inquire
to which country a gentleman or lady belonged, and would thrust his
head out of the window when they sauntered on the terraces below that
he might hear them speak their language. As was natural, he heard
much interesting gossip from his attendants when they were not aware
that he was observing, they feeling secure in his extreme youth. He
could not himself exactly have explained how his conception of the
difference between the French and English Courts arose, but at seven
years old, he in some way knew that King Louis was a finer gentleman

than King Charles, that his Court was more elegant, and that the
beauties who ruled it were not merry orange wenches, or romping card
house-building maids of honour, or splendid viragoes who raved and
stamped and poured forth oaths as fishwives do. How did he know
it--and many other things also? He knew it as children always know
things their elders do not suspect them of remarking, but which, falling
upon their little ears sink deep into their tiny minds, and lying there like
seeds in rich earth, put forth shoots and press upwards until they pierce
through the darkness and flower and bear fruit in the light of day. He
knew that a certain great Duchess of Portsmouth had been sent over
from France by King Louis to gain something from King Charles, who
had fallen in love with her. The meaning of "falling in love" he was yet
vague in his understanding of, but he knew that the people hated her
because they thought she played tricks and would make trouble for
England if she led the King as she tried to do. The common people
called her "Madame Carwell," that being their pronunciation of the
French name she had borne before she had been made a Duchess. He
had once heard his nurses Alison and Grace gossiping together of a
great service of gold the King had given her, and which, when it had
been on exhibition, had made the people so angry that they had said
they would like to see it melted and poured down her throat. "If he
must give it," they had grumbled, "he had better have bestowed it upon
Madame Ellen."
Hearing this, my lord Marquess had left his playing and gone to the
women, where they stood enjoying their gossip and not thinking of him.
He stood and looked up at Alison in his grave little way.
"Who is Madame Ellen, Alison?" he inquired.
"Good Lord!" the woman exclaimed, aside to her companion.
"Why do the people like her better than the other?" he persisted.
At this moment Mistress Halsell entered the nursery, and her keen eye
saw at once that his young Lordship had put some question to his
attendants which they scarce knew how to answer.
"What does my lord Marquess ask, Grace?" she said; and my lord
Marquess turned and looked at herself.
"I heard them speak of Madame Ellen," he answered. "They said
something about some pretty things made of gold and that the people
were angry that they were for her Grace of Portsmouth instead of

Madame Ellen. Why do they like her better?"
Mistress Halsell took his hand and walked with him to their favourite
seat in the big window.
"It is because she is the better woman of the two, my lord," she said.
"Is the other one bad, then?" he inquired. "And why does his Majesty
give her things made of gold?"
"To pay her," answered Mistress Rebecca, looking thoughtfully out of
the window.
"For what?" the young Marquess asked.
"For--for that an honest woman should not take pay for."
"Then why does he love her? Is he a bad King?" his voice lowering as
he said it and his