Accordingly she settled down to her needlework, while the Regent of
England leaned his head against her knee, and his mother told him that
ageless tale of Lord Huon, who in a wood near Babylon encountered the
King of Faery, and subsequently bereaved an atrocious Emir of his
beard and daughter. All this the industrious woman narrated in a low
and pleasant voice, while the wide-eyed Regent attended and at the
proper intervals gulped his cough-mixture.
You must know that about noon Master John Copeland came into the tent.
"We have conquered," he said. "Now, by the Face!"--thus, scoffingly,
he used her husband's favorite oath,--"now, by the Face! there was
never a victory more complete! The Scottish army is fled, it is as
utterly dispersed from man's seeing as are the sands which dried the
letters King Ahasuerus gave the admirable Esther!"
"I rejoice," the Queen said, looking up from her sewing, "that we have
conquered, though in nature I expected nothing else--Oh, horrible!"
She sprang to her feet with a cry of anguish. Here in little you have
the entire woman; the victory of her armament was to her a thing of
course, since her cause was just, whereas the loss of two front teeth
by John Copeland was a calamity.
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