If I Were King, by Justin Huntly
McCarthy
The Project Gutenberg EBook of If I Were King, by Justin Huntly
McCarthy
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: If I Were King
Author: Justin Huntly McCarthy
Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5351] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 6, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IF I WERE
KING ***
This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (
[email protected]).
IF I WERE KING
BY
JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY
DEDICATION
To Her
Through Whom and For Whom
This Book was Written
"The Loveliest Lady this side of Heaven."
XXI. XII. MCMI.
If I were king--ah love, if I were king! What tributary nations would I
bring
To stoop before your sceptre and to swear
Allegiance to your lips and eyes and hair.
Beneath your feet what treasures I would fling:--
The stars should be your pearls upon a string,
The world a ruby for your finger ring,
And you should have the sun and moon to wear
If I were king.
Let these wild dreams and wilder words take wing,
Deep in the woods I hear a shepherd sing
A simple ballad to a sylvan air,
Of love that ever finds your face more fair.
I could not give you any godlier thing
If I were king.
CHAPTER I
IN THE FIRCONE TAVERN
In the dark main room of the Fircone Tavern the warm June air seemed
to have lost all its delicacy, like a degraded angel. It was sodden
through and through, as with the lees of wine; it was stained and
shamed with the smells of hams and cheeses; it was thick and heavy as
if with the breaths of all the rogues and all the vagabonds that had
haunted the hostelry from its evil dawn. Such guttering lights and
glimmering flames as lit the place--for there was a small fire on the
wide hearth in spite of the fine weather--peopled the gloom with
fantastic quivering shadows as of lean fingers that unfolded themselves
to filch, or clenched themselves to stab in the back. But its patrons
seemed to like the place well enough in spite of its miasma, and Master
Robin Turgis, the fat landlord, drowsy with his own wine and dripping
from the heat, surveyed them complacently, and wallowed as it were in
the rattle and clink of mug and can, the full-throated laughter and the
shrill chatter, crisply emphasized by oaths, which assured him of the
Fircone's popularity with its intimates. Master Robin's intelligence was
limited; his wit was simple; the processes of his mind moved easily
along the lines of least resistance. The Burgundians might be
hammering with mailed fists at the walls of Paris; the fire-new crown
of Louis the Eleventh might be falling from the royal forehead: it
mattered not a jot to dishonest Robin so long as the Fircone brimmed
with company.
There was enough company in the room on this evening to content
even his wish. It was not the kind of company that a wise man would
desire to keep, but it delighted the innkeeper, for it drank deeply and
spent freely, and in Robin's view it was of no more concern to him how
the money that changed hands was come by than it was how the
profound potations might affect the brains and stomachs of his clients.
If any officer of the law had questioned him as to his association with a
certain mysterious Brotherhood of the Cockleshells whose plunderings
and pilferings were the pride of the Court of Miracles and the fear of
citizens with strong boxes, he would have shrugged his fat shoulders
and shaken his round head and disowned all knowledge of any such
unlawful corporation. Yet his face wrinkled with smiles as his glance
rested amiably upon the bodily presences of certain illustrious members
of