Sir Mark

“ According to an untrustworthy family legend recorded on Sir Mark's tomb, an ancestor sailed with James I from his home near Dundee, was captured by the English off Flamborough Head in 1405, married an Englishwoman, and, having transferred his allegiance to Henry V, settled in Cambridgeshire. The poet's father received the honour of knighthood at Whitehall in July 1603. ”

“ Half the gentlemen of England have been there some time in their lives," added Mark, loftily, as if he were just then deeming the thing an honour. "Well, Caroline, that was over long ago, and Barker has now the most magnificent prospect before him that one can well imagine; he will be making his thousands and thousands a-year."
"How is he going to make it?" asked Caroline.
"And he has offered me a share in it," continued Mark, too eager to attend to irreverent questions. "He is one who knows how to stand by an old friend. Thousands a-year, it will be." ”

“ When they were departed Sir Mark made no secret of their message, which was that the hosting of the Barons' League would be in such place, east of the water and far to the south, a month before Marymass of next year; and they prayed him to be leal and true to the League, and gather to him what force he might, as well armed and formed in all ways as could be done. ”

“ It begged leave to distribute Sir Mark’s ‘great recruiting speech’ as a leaflet; and Sir Mark, privately overwhelmed, gave gracious consent, with the air of one who made brilliant speeches as easily as he ate his breakfast.
‘Really, old boy, you ought to stand for Parliament,’ Keith said as they drove home. ‘If that speech of yours is well distributed, the men will soon be tumbling in. One has to give them time up here. ”

“ Give the knave a cup of ale, and let him wash down his foul words in a health to the king, wishing him a speedy divorce and a new queen, and he shall then sit among us again.”
“I do not desire to sit with you, you self-dubbed duke,” rejoined Mark; “but if you will doff your fine jerkin, and stand up with me on the green, I will give you cause to remember laying hands on me.”
“Well challenged, bold butcher!” cried one of Surrey's attendants. “You shall be made a duke yourself.”
“Or a cardinal,” cried Mark. “I should not be the first of my brethren who has met with such preferment.” ”

“ Mark must acquire experience, remember, must work his way up to the public confidence, before people trust him as they have trusted me. He will not have his rooms filled daily with patients at a guinea a head. This has come upon me suddenly, or all things might have been managed differently. I think it would be a good plan for Mark to leave the Abbey for this house; I have told him so; but he will be the best judge of that." Miss Bettina quitted her stooping posture by the doctor and sat down, revolving all that had been said. ”

“ Mark began to like Sir Charles; he would have liked anybody who would abuse the Bishop of Silchester.
"So you're thinking of joining my Order," Sir Charles went on without giving Mark time to say a word. "I call it my Order because I set them up here with thirty acres of uncleared copse. It gives the Tommies something to do when they come over here on furlough from Aldershot. You've never met Burrowes, I hear."
Mark thought that Sir Charles for a busy man had managed to learn a great deal about an unimportant person like himself. ”

“ To him King Mark said: "Messire, why do you take no part against this knight? Is it that you fear him?"
To this Sir Tristram replied with great calmness: "Nay, I fear not him nor any man alive, and that you know, Lord, better than anyone in all of the world."
"I am glad to hear of your courage and fearlessness," quoth King Mark, "for meseems it is a great shame to all of us that this gentleman, who is a stranger amongst us, should win so much credit to the disadvantage of all the knights of Cornwall. ”

“ Then Father Murray's face seemed to rise up, pleading for his sympathy and help. It was strange what a corner the man had made for himself in Mark's heart; and Mark knew that the priest loved him even as he, Mark, loved the priest; but he felt that he must go away, must flee from the misery he dared not face. Mark was big and strong; but he cried at last, just as he had cried in boyhood when his stronger brother had hurt his feelings, or his father had inflicted some disappointment upon him; and a strong man's tears are not to be derided. ”

“ Save my life, said King Mark, and I will make amends; and consider that I am a king anointed. It were the more shame, said Sir Gaheris, to save thy life; thou art a king anointed with chrism, and therefore thou shouldest hold with all men of worship; and therefore thou art worthy to die. With that he lashed at King Mark without saying any more, and covered him with his shield and defended him as he might. And then Sir Kay lashed at Sir Andred, and therewithal King Mark yielded him unto Sir Gaheris. ”

“ Mark stopped, unable to express the thought that was in his mind. The colonel saw his agitation.
"What is your wish?" he inquired.
"Powers!" cried Mark. "He must not be dismissed."
The colonel started then and gazed at him in amazement.
"Not be dismissed!" he echoed. "What on earth is Powers to you?"
"To me? He is everything that one friend can be to another. I have known him but two months, sir, but in those two months I have come to care more for him than for any human being I have ever known—except my mother. He has stood by me in every danger; he has been as true as ever a friend on earth. ”

“ The lady stopped and spoke to Mark at once.
"You must be the new tutor to their Highnesses," she said; "I have heard of you."
Mark said that he was.
"You do not look well," said the lady, very kindly; "are you happy at the palace?"
"Are you the Princess Isoline?" said Mark, not answering the question; "I think you must be, you are so beautiful." [67]
"I am the Princess Isoline," said the lady; "walk a little way with me."
Mark turned with the lady and walked back towards the palace. After a moment or two he said: "I am not happy at Joyeuse, I am very miserable, I want to run away." ”

“ A volley of arrows from the crossbowmen upon the Waalpoort answers the defiant cry: one arrow pierces a loose corner of Mark's doublet.
"Van Rycke!" cries the provost who stands nearest to him, "spare thyself in the name of God! What shall we do if you fall?"
And Mark, unmoved, the fire of enthusiasm unquenched in his eyes, cries loudly in response:
"Do? What alone can burghers of Ghent do in face of what lies before them if they give in? Do? Why, die like heroes--to the last man."
His doublet hangs from him in rags, his hose is torn, his head bare, his face black with powder. ”

“ But louder far than all other sounds were the minute peals of cannon from the Bay, making the deep valleys ring with their clangour, and sending their solemn din into many a far-off glen.
“They are coming! they are coming!” cried Mark, as he bounded madly in his saddle. “What glorious music have they for their march!”
“Stop!—pull in!—hould hard, Master Mark!” screamed a voice from the side of the road, as a fellow jumped from a cliff, and made towards the rider.
“Don't delay me now, Terry; I cannot stay,” said Mark, as he recognised the youth, “the French are landing!”
“They are not!” ”

“ Mark had capacity for absorbing information about places and people. To him an ordinary cottage was a volume of romance; a man asleep by the roadside quickened speculation; a travelling van held inexhaustible material. One day they came upon an encampment of gipsies. Mark insisted upon stopping to speak to an onyx-eyed urchin, who asked for coppers, and while they were talking a handsome girl of sixteen lounged forward, addressing Mark as "my pretty gentleman." ”

“ He has a more original mind than most people, I assure you," argued Mark, not willing to admit the truth of the assertion concerning the absence of anything like a library from the Collector's shelves.
"Pity he doesn't hit it off with his wife, isn't it?" remarked Mrs. Fellowes, who, Mark could see, was one of those who had imbibed a prejudice against the man he had come to love. "Perhaps you didn't know he was married, Mr. Cheveril, but he is! ”

“ Since Master Mark was gone, I didn't like the place,' and the master wiped his eyes, and the young girl made a sign to me not to speak about that any more.”
“And who is at 'the Lodge' now?” asked Mark, endeavouring tore-strain any semblance of emotion, even before Terry.
“There's nobody but the agent. The family is over in England till the house is ready for them. ”

“ When the messengers came home, and told that Sir Tristram passed all other knights at Arthur's court unless it were Sir Launcelot, King Mark was right heavy of the tidings, and as glad was the Fair Isoud. Then in great despite King Mark took with him two good knights and two squires, disguised himself, and took his way into England, to the intent to slay Sir Tristram.
So King Mark came into England, where he soon became known as the most horrible coward that ever bestrode horse; and there was much laughing and jesting at the knight of Cornwall, and much he was despised. ”

“ Barker, who was another of Mark's stamp, had suddenly discovered, or thought he had discovered, that an English doctor was wanted in Honfleur. He wrote over to Mark, strongly recommending him to come and establish himself, and to lose no time, lest the opening should be snapped up. "There's a goodish many English here," said the letter, "and not the ghost of an English doctor. If an English fellow gets ill he must die, unless he chooses to call in a French surgeon, and the chances are he'll bleed him to death. ”

“ Field replied. "I looked carefully to see. We always do. How on earth a body could have been spirited away like this with people about till late, to say nothing of the night watchman going his rounds, and the night porter [Pg 83] down below—but we need not go into that yet. My seals appeared to be in perfect order."
"But that really could not have been the fact," Mark persisted. "I fancy we can dispense with the idea that Sir Charles was removed by spiritual agency. Now, would it not have been possible for anyone to have taken an impression of the seals?" ”

“ I put my body in peril of death and rid you of the beast and have so conquered Iseult the Fair, and having conquered her I will bear her away on my ship.
“But that these lands of Cornwall and Ireland may know no more hatred, but love only, learn that King Mark, my lord, will marry her. Here stand a hundred knights of high name, who all will swear with an oath upon the relics of the holy saints, that King Mark sends you by their embassy offer of peace and of brotherhood and goodwill ”

“ The most favourite one still continued to be the proposition that Mark should be induced, by fair means or foul, to take a part upon the stage. His own character—the rôle which he instinctively played—was so absolutely original and fresh that the universal opinion was confident of the success of such a performance.
"By some means or other," said old Carricchio, "he must be got to act."
"You may do what you will with him," said the Signorina sadly; "he will die. He is too good to live. Like my little brother and the poor canary, he will die." ”

“ And Mark would never be able to come home again! No, he was glad Mark was out and safe and free from dope. At least Mark would know what to do to save himself. Or would he? Billy suddenly had his doubts. Would Mark take care of himself, just himself, or not? Mark was always looking after other people, but he had somehow always let people say and do what they would with him. Aw gee! Now Mark wouldn't let them locate a thing like a murder on him, would he? And there was Miss Lynn! And Mark's mother! Mark oughtta think of them. ”

“ Mark before him; and he called to his people to ground his ship, or [123] they should die for it. So they ran the ship aground, and leaped out, and carried St. Mark’s gonfalon to the shore before the Duke. Then the Venetians, seeing their Duke’s galley ashore, followed him; and they planted the flag of St. Mark on the walls, and took twenty-five towers.”
The good issue of which piece of pantaloon’s play was that the city itself, a little while after, with due help from the French, was taken, and that the crusading army proceeded thereon to elect a new Emperor of the Eastern Empire. ”

“ His shoulders shook with the sudden surge of his desire to grip Mark’s lean throat.... Ashore, he would have done so. But as things were, the ship was his first charge; and a break with Mark would precipitate the thing that menaced the ship.... He could not fight Mark without risking the Nathan Ross; and he could not risk the Nathan Ross. Not even.... His head dropped for an instant in his arms, and then he got up quickly, and shook himself, and set his lips.... No man aboard must see the trouble in his heart....
He went through the main cabin, and climbed to the deck. ”

“ After all, human beings would soon be degraded to wax-works if they could be lectured upon individually in this tranquil and sunny room to the sound of rooks cawing in the elms beyond the Deanery garden.
Mark made no intimate friendships among his fellows. Perhaps the moderation of their views chilled him into an exceptional reserve, or perhaps they were an unusually dull company that year. Of the thirty-one students, eighteen were from Oxford, twelve from Cambridge, and the thirty-first from Durham. ”