"
But the deity, nothing abashed, thus continued--
"How came he thus, I dare not tell;
My brother may the mystery dispel."
He stooped down--rising again to the astonished eyes of the fair dames
and nobles at the upper bench, in the forester's habit of Kendal green,
with cloak and doublet of the same colour.
"What's now?" said James. "Witchery and fause negromancie, o' my troth.
'Tis treason, Sir Richard, to use glamour in the king's presence."
But the sylvan god continued in the doggerel of his predecessor--
"Sir John to be forgiven would hope;
He had been drowned, but for the rope!"
"Ay," said the king, chuckling at this opportunity, purposely given, for
a display of his wit--"he'll be hanged--na doot, na doot."
"Prythee, Sylvanus, or whatever thou be, bring Sir John hither, that he
may dry his web in the hot sunshine of a lady's glance," said Villiers,
with an ill-suppressed sneer.
Again this Proteus was transformed. Doffing his habit, Sir John Finett
stood confessed before them. He knelt penitently before the king, humbly
assuring his Majesty that he had been preparing this device, and many
others, to please and surprise him; but that, through the bungling of
some, and the bashfulness of others, he was obliged to enact the parts
himself.
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