The water welled to his eyes, yet at the
same time the grisly humor of the situation and circumstances so
undermined his gravity that it was all he could do to keep some sign
of his inward mirth from showing outside. To be suddenly hoisted,
naked and gory, from the common stocks to the Alpine altitude and
splendor of an earldom, seemed to him the last possibility in the line
of the grotesque. He said to himself, 'Now am I finely tinseled,
indeed! The specter-knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows is
become a specter-earl!- a dizzy flight for a callow wing! An this go
on, I shall presently be hung like a very May-pole with fantastic
gauds and make-believe honors. But I shall value them, all valueless
as they are, for the love that doth bestow them. Better these poor
mock dignities of mine, that come unasked from a clean hand and a
right spirit, than real ones bought by servility from grudging and
interested power.'
The dreaded Sir Hugh wheeled his horse about, and, as he spurred
away, the living wall divided silently to let him pass, and as
silently closed together again. And so remained; nobody went so far as
to venture a remark in favor of the prisoner, or in compliment to him;
but no matter, the absence of abuse was a sufficient homage in itself.
A late comer who was not posted as to the present circumstances, and
who delivered a sneer at the 'impostor' and was in the act of
following it with a dead cat, was promptly knocked down and kicked
out, without any words, and then the deep quiet resumed sway once
more.
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