Read Under One Sceptre, or Mortimer's Mission: The Story of the Lord of the Marches Page 1
Produced by Al Haines.
_Under One Sceptre_
_Or_
_Mortimer's Mission_
_The Story of the Lord of the Marches_
BY
EMILY SARAH HOLT
AUTHOR OF "MISTRESS MARGERY," "THE WHITE ROSE OF LANGLEY," ETC.
"The gesture was heroic. If his hand Accomplished nothing--well, it is not proved-- That empty hand thrown impotently out Were sooner caught, I think, by One in Heaven, Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in, And keeps the scythe's glow on it." ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
_NEW EDITION_
LONDON JOHN F. SHAW AND CO. 48 PATERNOSTER ROW 1899
*PREFACE.*
A great authority once pronounced _Don Quixote_ to be the saddest bookever written. The very word quixotic has come to imply not only unusual,but absurd action. Yet what would the world be if all the Quixotes,secular or religious, were taken out of it? There are not a few of themamong the ranks of those of whom the highest authority has pronouncedthat the world is not worthy. They generally come to be understood atlast--but it is often not till the next century.
This is the story of a Don Quixote who lived, fought, and died, fivehundred years ago. Like his prototype, he too tilted with the windmillsand tried to liberate the captive lions. And the windmills stood firmagainst his spear, and the lions turned upon and tore him. It usuallyis so. The energy seems totally wasted--the heroism vain and lost. Yetnow and then the windmill falls, discovered to be really an enchanter'scastle, revealing rotten foundations and evil things: and then menremember the dead knight who gave the first stroke. Or, more often,they do not remember him.
He would be thought indeed quixotic who should set before him as hislife-work what Roger Mortimer did. Yet who can declare it impossible?Some day, the castle of the enchanter may fall, and the free air ofheaven may blow into the dark dungeons and dispel the fetid mists.Ireland may be free with that freedom which Christ only gives, and whichmany an English heart longs to secure to her. But will any one rememberthe hand which was the first to strike the frowning portals of thefortress, and which has been dust for five hundred years in the vaultsof the Abbey of Wigmore?
It is well for him that he has won the better reward of his Father whichis in Heaven. And we know, on the word of our Master Himself, that theunfading garland will be all the fairer because no human hands wreathedearthly bays for the head which it is to crown.