So far (barring the quotation from Milton, a purely literary adornment on the author's part), so far he had got with drifting and despondent thought, when again that small regal presence, of low statute but ample form, became clearly defined, and he heard the soft staccato voice saying sharply: "I won't have it! I won't have it!"
The blood of his ancestors thrilled in his veins. There and then he formed a resolution--neither would he! He moved to his desk and sat down to write; and even as he did so material for the breaking of that resolve presented itself,--the Comptroller-General, calm and self-possessed, glided into the room.
He had a communication to make: the story did not take long to tell. He had been extending his inquiries--further and more particular inquiries into the life and domestic relations of the unfortunate steeplejack; and he had discovered, oh, horror! but just in time, that the woman who had lived with him was not his wife.
"But you told me they had seven children," said the King.
"That is so, Sir," replied the Comptroller-General; "it has been a relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only makes the matter worse."
The King did not know why morally the permanence of that arrangement should make it worse. It was a statement which he accepted without question; it came to him with authority from one whose guidance in such matters he had ever been accustomed to follow and find correct. Before the weight of the moral law, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost of the dead steeplejack. The widow and the seven orphans passed out of existence; they ceased any longer to be mouths and hearts of flesh, and became instead abstractions to be set in a class apart--one not eligible for rewards. To such as these no public declaration of the royal bounty could be made.
"Very well," said the King despondently, "strike off the memorandum! The twenty pounds need not go."
An hour later the Queen came in and found him sitting alone and miserable in his chair. She spoke to him, but he did not answer. Then as she drew nearer, to find out if anything were really the matter, his misery found voice.
"I can't move! I am unable to move!" he moaned.
"What is it, dear?" she inquired, "sciatica?"