'A damned hot-livered roundhead coxcomb!' said lord Worcester to
himself, pacing his room. 'These pelting cockerel squires and yeomen
nowadays go strutting and crowing as if all the yard were theirs! We
shall see how far this heat will carry the rogue! I doubt not the
boy would tell everything than see his mare whipped. He's a fine
fellow, and it were a thousand pities he turned coward and gave in.
But the affair is not mine; it is the king's majesty's. Would to God
the rascal were of our side! He's the right old English breed. A few
such were very welcome, if only to show some of our dainty young
lordlings of yesterday what breed can do. But an ass-foal it is! To
run his neck into a halter, and set honest people in mortal doubt
whether to pull the end or no!
How on earth did he ever dream of carrying off a horse out of the
very courts of Raglan castle! And yet, by saint George! he would
have done it too, but for that brave wench of a Vaughan! What a
couple the two would make! They'd give us a race of Arthurs and
Orlandos between them.
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