her
servants to remove the canopy over her chair. They all flatly refused
to touch it, and the women began to cry "Out upon him," for being
cowardly enough to insult their mistress, and she calmly said, "Sir,
you may do as you please. My royal state comes from God, and is not
yours to give or take away. I shall die a Queen, whatever you may do
by such law as robbers in a forest might use with a righteous judge."

Intensely angered, Sir Amias came, hobbling and stumbling out to the
door, pale with rage, and called on Talbot to come and bring his men to
tear down the rag of vanity in which this contumacious woman put her
trust.

"The men are your servants, sir," said Humfrey, with a flush on his
cheek and his teeth set; "I am here to guard the Queen of Scots, not to
insult her."

"How, sirrah? Do you know to whom you speak? Have you not sworn
obedience to me?"

"In all things within my commission, sir; but this is as much beyond
it, as I believe it to be beyond yours."

"Insolent, disloyal varlet! You are under ward till I can account with
and discharge you. To your chamber!"

Humfrey could but walk away, grieved that his power of bearing
intelligence or alleviation to the prisoner had been forfeited, and
that he should probably not even take leave of her. Was she to be left
to all the insults that the malice of her persecutor could devise? Yet
it was not exactly malice. Paulett would have guarded her life from
assassination with his own, though chiefly for his own sake, and, as he
said, for that of "saving his poor posterity from so foul a blot;" but
he could not bear, as he told Sir Drew Drury, to see the Popish,
bloodthirsty woman sit queening it so calmly; and when he tore down her
cloth of state, and sat down in her presence with his hat on, he did
not so much intend to pain the woman, Mary, as to express the triumph
of Elizabeth and of her religion. Humfrey believed his service over,
and began to occupy himself with putting his clothes together, while
considering whether to seek his father in London or to go home. After
about an hour, he was summoned to the hall, where he expected to have
found Sir Amias Paulett ready to give him his discharge. He found,
however, only Sir Drew Drury, who thus accosted him--"Young man, you
had better return to your duty. Sir Amias is willing to overlook what
passed this morning."

"I thank you, sir, but I am not aware of having done aught to need
forgiveness,