Miss Corbet was plainly accustomed to act as
Court Circular, or even as lecturer and show-woman on the most popular
subject in England.
"But her Grace surpassed herself in acting the tyrant last January; you
would have sworn her really angry. This was how it fell out. I was in the
anteroom one day, waiting for her Grace, when I thought I heard her call.
So I tapped; I got no clear answer, but I heard her voice within, so I
entered. And there was her Majesty, sitting a little apart in a chair by
herself, with the Secretary--poor rat--white-faced at the table, writing
what she bade him, and looking at her, quick and side-ways, like a child
at a lifted rod; and there was her Grace: she had kicked her stool over,
and one shoe had fallen; and she was striking the arm of her chair as she
spoke, and her rings rapped as loud as a drunken watchman. And her face
was all white, and her eyes glaring"--and Mary began to glare and raise
her voice too--"and she was crying out, 'By God's Son, sir, I will have
them hanged. Tell the----' (but I dare not say what she called my Lord
Sussex, but few would have recognised him from what she said)--'tell him
that I will have my will done. These--' (and she called the rebels a name
I dare not tell you)--'these men have risen against me these two months;
and yet they are not hanged. Hang them in their own villages, that their
children may see what treason brings.' All this while I was standing at
the open door, thinking she had called me; but she was as if she saw
nought but the gallows and hell-fire beyond; and I spoke softly to her,
asking what she wished; and she sprang up and ran at me, and struck
me--yes; again and again across the face with her open hand, rings and
all--and I ran out in tears.
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