The large tear gushed reluctantly from his eye, as he kissed the
withered hands, which the king, weeping with less dignity and
restraint, abandoned to him, first alternately and then both together,
until the feelings of the man getting entirely the better of the
Sovereign's sense of dignity, he grasped and shook Lord Huntinglen's
hands with the sympathy of an equal and a familiar friend."
"_Compone lachrymas_," said the Monarch; "be patient, man, be patient;
the council, and Baby Charles, and Steenie, may a' gang to the deevil-
-he shall not marry her since it moves you so deeply."
"He _shall_ marry her, by God!" answered the earl, drawing himself up,
dashing the tear from his eyes, and endeavouring to recover his
composure. "I pray your Majesty's pardon, but he shall marry her, with
her dishonour for her dowry, were she the veriest courtezan in all
Spain--If he gave his word, he shall make his word good, were it to
the meanest creature that haunts the streets--he shall do it, or my
own dagger shall take the life that I gave him. If he could stoop to
use so base a fraud, though to deceive infamy, let him wed infamy."
"No, no!" the Monarch continued to insinuate, "things are not so bad
as that--Steenie himself never thought of her being a streetwalker,
even when he thought the worst of her."
"If it can at all console my Lord of Huntinglen," said the citizen, "I
can assure him of this lady's good birth, and most fair and unspotted
fame.
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