He was swearing in a way to make a
priest's flesh creep, and protesting by everything holy that Mary
should be the wife of Louis or die. He went back to Mary's room at
intervals, but there was enough persistence in that one girl to stop
the wheels of time, if she but set herself to do it, and the king came
away from each visit the victim of another rout.
Finally his anger cooled and he became amused. From the last visit he
came down laughing:
[Illustration]
"I shall have to give up the fight or else put my armor on with visor
down," said he; "it is not safe to go near her without it; she is a
very vixen, and but now tried to scratch my eyes out."
Wolsey, who had a wonderful knack for finding the easiest means to a
difficult end, took Henry off to a window where they held a whispered
conversation.
It was pathetic to see a mighty king and his great minister of state
consulting and planning against one poor girl; and, as angry as I felt
toward Mary, I could not help pitying her, and admired, beyond the
power of pen to write, the valiant and so far impregnable defense she
had put up against an array of strength that would have made a king
tremble on his throne.
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