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Somehow all his thoughts were trooping round about a rich and brilliant figure which was a sort of image standing to him for the personality of his Most Sacred Majesty King Charles the Second the King who was not quite a King, though all England looked to him, and he could lead it to good or evil. Sir Jeoffry Wildairs
"Could Sir Jeoffry himself but once see and hear her when she storms at us and him, because he dares to ride his own beast," one of the older men said once, in the midst of their laughter, "I swear he would burst forth laughing and be taken with her impudent spirit, her temper is so like his own. She is his own flesh and blood, and as full of hell-fire as he."
He should be killed for it he should be killed." His father and mother glanced at each other. "Surely," her Grace said, "he must have heard of the wicked Gloucestershire baronet my Lord Dunstanwolde told us stories of Sir Jeoffry." "Ay, his name was Sir Jeoffry," cried Roxholm, eagerly. "Sir Jeoffry it was they said."
They were plainly in gay humour, though wearied, and talked and laughed noisily as they came. "We have tramped enough," cried Sir Jeoffry, "and bagged birds enough for one morning. 'Tis time we rested our bones and put meat and drink in our bellies." He flung himself down upon the heather and the other men followed his example.
"Ifackens!" said the butler one night, "but she is as like Sir Jeoffry in her temper as one pea is like another. Ay, but she grows blood red just as he does, and curses in her little way as he does in man's words among his hounds in their kennel." "And she will be of his build, too," said the housekeeper. "What mishap changed her to a maid instead of a boy, I know not.
The old woman Sir Jeoffry had dubbed Mother Posset had been her sole attendant at such times as these for the past five years, because she would come to her for a less fee than a better woman, and Sir Jeoffry had sworn he would not pay for wenches being brought into the world.
"Damn thee! damn thee!" she roared and screamed, flogging him. "I'll tear thy eyes out! I'll cut thy liver from thee! Damn thy soul to hell!" And this choice volley was with such spirit and fury poured forth, that Sir Jeoffry let his hand drop from the bell, fell into a great burst of laughter, and stood thus roaring while she beat him and shrieked and stormed.
She lived in fear of Sir Jeoffry, and in fear of the servants, who knew full well that she was an humble dependant, and treated her as one. She hid away with her pupils' in the bare school-room in the west wing, and taught them to spell and write and work samplers. She herself knew no more. The child who had cost her mother her life had no happier prospect than her sisters.
She dragged herself nearer to gaze. "She looks not like the others," she said. "They had no beauty and are safe. She she will be like Jeoffry and like me." The dying fire fell lower with a shuddering sound. "If she is beautiful, and has but her father, and no mother!" she whispered, the words dragged forth slowly, "only evil can come to her.
"If 'twere my pleasure to go away and allow you to speak, free from the awkwardness of a young lady's presence," she said. "But 'tis not, as it happens, and if I stay here, I shall be a protection." In truth, he required one. Sir Jeoffry broke into a torrent of blasphemy.
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