Protector is sick, so 'tis said. His son Richard hath no backbone, and
the present tyranny is worse than the last. I cannot collect my rents; I
have been given neither reward nor compensation for the help I gave in
'46. So much for their boasted gratitude and their many promises! My
Lord Protector feasts the Dutch ambassadors with music and with wine, my
Lords Ireton and Fairfax and Hutchinson and the accursed lot of canting
Puritans flaunt it in silks and satins, whilst I go about in a ragged
doublet and with holes in my shoes."

"There's Lady Sue," murmured Mistress de Chavasse soothingly.

"Pshaw! the guardianship of a girl who comes of age in three months!"

"You can get another by that time."

"Not I. I am not a sycophant hanging round White Hall! 'Twas sheer good
luck and no merit of mine that got me the guardianship of Sue. Lord
Middlesborough, her kinsman, wanted it; the Courts would have given her
to him, but old Noll thought him too much of a 'gentleman,' whilst I--an
out-at-elbows country squire, was more to my Lord Protector's liking.
'Tis the only thing he ever did for me."

There was intense bitterness and a harsh vein of sarcasm running through
Sir Marmaduke's talk. It was the speech of a disappointed man, who had
hoped, and striven, and fought once; had raised longing hands towards
brilliant things and sighed after glory, or riches, or fame, but whose
restless spirit had since been tamed, crushed under the heavy weight of
unsatisfied ambition.

Poverty--grinding, unceasing, uninteresting poverty, had been Sir