ill have it,' Jenkyns said, 'Master Burt from Tunbridge puts up
at the hostel every Monday in Penshurst.'

'Send Ned down into the village and fetch him, then,' Mistress Forrester
said, who was now really frightened at Mary's ghastly face, which was
convulsed with pain. 'Send quick! I can deal with the cut on her forehead,
but I can't set a broken limb.'

'Stop!' Mary cried, as Jenkyns was leaving the room to despatch Ned on his
errand. 'Stop!' Then with a great effort she raised herself to speak in an
audible voice. 'Hearken! My boy was stolen from me by a tall man in a long
black cloak. Search the country, search, and, oh! if you can, find him.'

This effort was too much for her, and as poor Jenkyns bent down to catch
the feeble halting words, Mary fell back in a deep swoon again, and was,
for another brief space, mercifully unconscious of both bodily and mental
agony. Hers was literally the stroke which, by the suddenness of the blow,
deadens the present sense of pain; that was to come later, and the loss of
her boy would bring with it the relief of tears when others had dried
theirs and accepted with calmness the inevitable.

CHAPTER VIII

DEFEAT

'In one thing only failing of the best--
That he was not as happy as the rest.'

EDMUND SPENSER.

The court of Queen Elizabeth was well used to witness splendid shows and
passages-of-arms, masques, and other entertainments organised by the
noblemen chiefly, to whose houses--like Kenilworth--the Queen was often
pleased to make long visits.

The Queen always expected to be amused, and those who wished to court her
favour took care that no pains should be wanting on their part to please
her. Indeed, the courtiers vied with each other in their efforts to win the
greatest praise from their sovereign lady, who dearly liked to be
entertained in some novel manner.

This visit of the French Ambassadors to London, headed by Francis de
Bourbon, was considered a very important event. It was supposed that
Elizabeth was really in earnest about the marriage with the Duke of Anjou,
whose cause these Frenchmen had been commissioned by their Sovereign to
plead. They were also to have a careful eye to his interests in the treaty
they were to make with so shrewd a maiden lady as the Queen of England, who
was known always to have the great question of money prominently before her
in all her negotiations, matrimonial and otherwise.

The Earl of Arundel, Lord Wi