will for her. He desired to
make bargains, and issue mandates, and reign at his pleasure, and she
told him the bargains were unprofitable, and the mandates unjust, and it
was not agreeable. 'Twas full awkward and ill-convenient, look you, to
have an old mother interfering with man's pleasure. He would, have set
her in a fair palace, and given her due dower, I reckon, would she but
there have tarried, like a slug on a cabbage-leaf, and let him alone;
and she would not. How could she? She was not a slug, but an eagle.
And 'tis not the nature of an eagle to hang hour after hour upon a
cabbage-leaf. So, as King Edward had at the first kept her in durance
for his own ends, my gracious Lord Duke did entreat him to continue the
same on his account. As for my Lady Duchess, I say not; I know her not.
This only I know, that my Lady Foljambe is her kinswoman. And, most
times, there is a woman at the bottom of all evil mischief. Ay, there
is so!"

"Mistress Perrote, it seemeth me this is worser world than I wist ere I
came hither."

"Art avised o' that? Ay, Phyllis, thou shalt find it so; and the
further thou journeyest therein, the worser shalt thou find it."

"Mistress, wherefore is it that this poor lady of ours is kept so
secret? It seemeth as though man would have none know where she were."

"_Ha, chetife_! [Oh, miserable!] I can but avise thee to ask so much
at them that do keep her."

"Shall she never be suffered to come forth?"

"Ay," said Perrote, slowly and solemnly. "She shall come forth one day.
But I misdoubt if it shall be ere the King come Himself for her."

"The King! Shall his Grace come hither?" inquired Amphillis, with much
interest. She thought of no king but Edward the Third.

Perrote's eyes were uplifted towards the stars. She spoke as if she
were answering them rather than Amphillis.

"He shall deem [judge] the poor men of the people, and He shall make
safe the sons of poor men; and He shall make low the false challenger.
And He shall dwell with the sun, and before the moon, in generation and
in to generation... And He shall be Lord from the sea till to the sea,
and from the flood till to the ending of the world... For He shall
deliver a poor man from the mighty, and a poor man to whom was none
helper. He shall spare a poor man and needy, and He shall make safe the
souls of poor men... Blessed be the name of His majesty withouten end!
and all earth shall be filled with His majes