THE SWORD OF
THE KING
BY
RONALD MACDONALD
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY
THE CENTURY CO.
THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS, NEW YORK
INTRODUCTION
It is matter of no small difficulty and hesitationfor a woman to tell a story—in especial, her ownstory—from the beginning of it even to the end,and to hold, as it were, a straight course throughout.The perplexities, I say, are many, and amongthem not the least is found in these same words,beginning and end. For where truly his story hasits inception, and what will be its ultimate word,might well puzzle the wisest man of this age, orany other. It has been well said, indeed, that thehistory of a man is the history of his troubles—butthat fashion of considering will bring us, by nodevious road, to the latter days of the Garden ofEden and the Fall of Man. Now either I havesomewhere read, or my own heart has privily toldme, that the story of a woman is the story of herlove. And this I take to be truth, and do thereforeresolve that the first chapter of my story shallbe the first of my heart.
But, lest my book itself should lack apology, Iwill first tell how it comes that I, the mere wife anddaughter of country gentlemen, and of learning, aswill be seen, wholly insufficient to the undertaking,should write a book at all.
I write, it is true, but for my own people—for thefamily that I pray may be long in the land. But inthese days, fortunate indeed, yet full of swift anddubious change—these days when every secondman, it would seem, must print a book—these dayswhen all the presses in London are not enough toset before us the tithe of what is committed by inkto paper—in these days, I say, none can be assuredthat what he now pens shall not by some chance hitof fortune attain the resurrection of print. And ifthis thing befall my work of love, and if the bookthen prove, not the cere-cloth of the embalmer, buta second and perpetual life to the thoughts of a mosthappy daughter, wife, and mother long departedand forgotten, I would stand well with my reader.
If any stranger, then, do read, let him believe thatI have no taint in me of that scabies scribendi,mentioned by Horace, and mightily inveighed againstlast Sunday in the pulpit of Royston Church by ourgood vicar. This itch must be spreading fast, Ithought, if there be danger of it here, where scarcea full score of the good man's hearers can spell in ahornbook. And now, lo! I am in dread lest I bethought infected—I, a woman, with all good thingsthat come to women, and one to whom the holdingof the pen is soon a weariness.
There hangs yet (and long may it so hang!) in ourgreat hall at Drayton a sword—not in its sheath,but naked, and broken some two parts of its lengthfrom the hilt, but shining bright as on the day itwas first drawn by the great prince that once usedit. Beneath it, also against the wall above thehearth, is the scabbard.
It was on a fine morning of the fall of last year,as I was tending Ned's new Dutch garden, that Iheard loud and childish altercation proceedingthrough the open windows of the great hall aboveme. And there in a window arose the fair gildedhead of my seven-year Mary, my first and best giftto Ned, and his best to me.
"Pray, madam, come up to the hall,"