Gilbert Parker

“ You do your office gallantly."
As the Seigneur left the Queen's apartments he met the Earl of Essex hurrying thither, preceded by the Queen's messenger. The Earl stopped and said, with a slow malicious smile, "Farming is good, then—you have fine crops this year on your holding?"
Lemprière did not see the point at once, for the favorite's look was all innocence, and he replied: "You are mistook, my Lord Essex. You will remember I was in the presence-chamber an hour ago, my Lord. I am Lemprière, Seigneur of Rozel, butler to her Majesty." ”

“ Now it was the salt cellar, the plate, and the bread; then it was a Duke's Daughter—a noble soul as ever lived—with a tasting-knife, as beautiful as a rose; then another lady enters who glares at me, and gets to her knees as does the other. ”

“ The perquage, which my fathers patent approved, has served us well, I doubt not, and is a comfort to our realm, and a dignity befitting the wearer of that frieze jerkin. Speak to their better understanding. Monsieur of Rozel."
Lemprière had recovered his heart, and now was set full sail in the course he had charted for himself in Jersey, and in large words and larger manner explained in the most friendly way the sacred privilege of perquage.
"And how often have you used it, Monsieur of Rozel?" asked Elizabeth. ”

“ The Lord Chamberlain nodded. "Then ask his Excellency when next you see him where is Rozel. But take good counsel and keep your ignorance from the Queen," he added. "She has no love for stupids."
"You say you are the Queen's butler?" said the Lord Chamberlain, smiling now, for Lemprière's words and ways were of some simple world where odd folk lived, and his boyish vanity disarmed anger.
"By royal warrant and heritage. And of all the Jersey Isle, I only may have dove-cotes, which is the everlasting thorn in the side of de Carteret of St. Ouen's. ”

“ But there are weighty matters between France and England, and de la Forêt may turn the scale one way or another. What next, beggar of Rozel?"
"That Mademoiselle Aubert and her father may live without let or hinderance in Jersey."
"That you may eat sour grapes ad eternam? Next?"
"That Buonespoir be pardoned all offences and let live in Jersey on condition that he sin no more, not even to raid St. Ouen's cellars of the Muscadella reserved for your Generous Majesty." ”