"Dear sir, we must try to coax your appetite when you have rested a little.
Let me unbuckle your spurs and pull off your boots, while Reuben fetches
your easiest shoes."
"Nay, child, that is man's work, not for such fingers as yours. The boots
are nowise irksome--'tis another kind of shoe that pinches, Angela."
She knelt down to unbuckle the spur-straps, and while on her knees she
said--
"You look sad, sir. I fear you found ill news at London."
"I found such shame as never came before upon England, such confusion as
only traitors and profligates can know; men who have cheated and lied and
wasted the public money, left our fortresses undefended, our ships unarmed,
our sailors unpaid, half-fed, and mutinous; clamorous wives crying aloud in
the streets that their husbands should not fight and bleed for a King who
starved them. They have clapped the scoundrel who had charge of the Yard at
Chatham in the Tower--but will that mend matters? A scapegoat, belike, to
suffer for higher scoundrels. The mob is loudest against the Chancellor,
who I doubt is not to blame for our unreadiness, having little power of
late over the King. Oh, there has been iniquity upon iniquity, and men know
not whom most to blame--the venal idle servants, or the master of all.
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