Part 40 (2/2)
”Ah! I see the trouble, and I think none the less of thee for thy feeling,” said the King, with admiration in his voice and manner, as he walked to where Michael stood and put his hand upon the honest shoulder ”Thou dost still wish to abide with your oldht?”
”Sure, that's the houle truth o' the thing, yer Majesty”
”Then go with Sir Walter, ood friend Such loyalty doth raise thee in mine estimation I know full well that should I ever need thee, thou wilt flash thy good sword betwixt the two of these good friends”
”Oi thank yer Majesty”
”Farewell, my faithful friends In London soon I hope to see ye all”
As we left the rooreat luht of my faithful Michael's loyalty No word did I speak unto hireat hand in ht after dinner we set out for Westminster and proceeded rapidly, until we reached the Sanctuary late in the second day following
Joyous then was our reunion The girls, the Queen and her daughters ehed and wept, whilst we men, which have no part in such scenes, stood and looked uncomfortably on
The next day, without preparation, there took place in the chapel of the Sanctuary a double wedding, in which the fair-haired Mary and the gallant Frederick, and the dark-eyed Hazel and your randfather, played the iether with the great Michael, lent right noble assistance The priests prayed; the soft voices of the choir sang forth in tender harmony We were blessed, and then walked fro like a love kiss in our ears
'Twas as alked forth that Harleston and I both drew from our doublets--as we had foreplanned ould--the re days before in the park at Windsor These we returned to theave them unto us
Still have we both those tokens; and mine doth now lie before me as I pen these words I take it up and kiss it tenderly, and a tear drops down upon it
Place that srave and on ot not the service we had rendered hi portion did he send to both the girls, although they did not need it And when, later in his reign, he did acquire the habit of i heavy fines upon all of his subjects, both Harleston and ic,” as said some of our friends
And now the tale is told, and all that for rey head before the blazing fire, and talk away the winter's day And in the hot su hand upon mine arm, that for sixty years hath been there, beneath the old oaks of dear Bradley House And when your dear cousins, Harleston, and your Uncle Frederick and Aunt Mary--as ye do call the, we all do sit upon the great lawn and talk the setting sun into his rest
And now but a word of the great Michael, which ye all do love so dearly Mayhap ye never have heard the reason e do not call him ”Sir” It was at his own request that we did drop the distinction
”Sure, yer honour,” said he to me one day, ”if ye playze, wouldst thou moind if Oi axed thee to not call ood friend?”
”Uh! sure sor it doesn't sound roight to er to thee, sor Playze, sor, give unto me back moy ould name and Oi'll fale more loike reat hty shoulders, hath ever been known unto ye all as plain, old, faithful Michael
And so, like the har the last, sweet, tre softly out; but with a tender, holy peacefulness
THE END
NOTE--Sir Walter Bradley's chronicle differs, in some parts, from the histories of the majority of the writers of his time His most important contradictions of his conte of Berwick--which place, the other authorities state, was besieged for several weeks, by land and sea, before it fell