This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net).
JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY
To Her
Through Whom and For Whom
This Book was Written
"The Loveliest Lady this side of Heaven."
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.
In the dark main room of the Fircone Tavern the warm June air seemedto have lost all its delicacy, like a degraded angel. It was soddenthrough and through, as with the lees of wine; it was stained andshamed with the smells of hams and cheeses; it was thick and heavyas if with the breaths of all the rogues and all the vagabonds thathad haunted the hostelry from its evil dawn. Such guttering lightsand glimmering flames as lit the place—for there was a small fireon the wide hearth in spite of the fine weather—peopled the gloomwith fantastic quivering shadows as of lean fingers that unfoldedthemselves to filch, or clenched themselves to stab in the back. Butits patrons seemed to like the place well enough in spite of itsmiasma, and Master Robin Turgis, the fat landlord, drowsy with hisown wine and dripping from the heat, surveyed them complacently, andwallowed as it were in the rattle and clink of mug and can, thefull-throated laughter and the shrill chatter, crisply emphasized byoaths, which assured him of the Fircone's popularity with itsintimates. Master Robin's intelligence was limited; his wit wassimple; the processes of his mind moved easily along the lines ofleast resistance. The Burgundians might be hammering with mailedfists at the walls of Paris; the fire-new crown of Louis theEleventh might be falling from the royal forehead: it mattered not ajot to dishonest Robin so long as the Fircone brimmed with company.
There was enough company in the room on this evening to content evenhis wish. It was not the kind of company that a wise man woulddesire to keep, but it delighted the innkeeper, for it drank deeplyand spent freely, and in Robin's view it was of no more concern tohim how the money that changed hands was come by than it was how theprofound potations might affect the brains and stomachs of hisclients. If any officer of the law had questioned him as to hisassociation with a certain mysterious Brotherhood of theCockleshells whose plunderings and pilferings were the pride of theCourt of Miracles and the fear of citizens with strong boxes, hewould have shrugged his fat shoulders and shaken his round head anddisowned all knowledge of any such unlawful corporation. Yet hisface wrinkled with smiles as his glance rested amiably upon thebodily presences of certain illustrious members of the brotherhood,wild men in withered frippery, wine-stained to the very bones.
They were five in number, and