"Silence, man!" said Lady Godiva, so sternly that Martin saw that he had
gone too far. "How know'st such as thou what is in this letter?"
"Those others will know," said Martin, sullenly, without answering the
last question.
"Who?"
"His housecarles outside there."
"He has promised that they shall not touch thee. But how knowest thou what
is in this letter?"
"I will take it," said Martin: he held out his hand, took it and looked at
it, but upside down, and without any attempt to read it.
"His own mother," said he, after a while.
"What is that to thee?" said Lady Godiva, blushing and kindling.
"Nothing: I had no mother. But God has one!"
"What meanest thou, knave? Wilt thou take the letter or no?"
"I will take it." And he again looked at it without rising off his knee.
"His own father, too."
"What is that to thee, I say again?"
"Nothing: I have no father. But God's Son has one!"
"What wilt thou, thou strange man?" asked she, puzzled and
half-frightened; "and how camest thou to know what is in this letter?"
"Who does not know? A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. On the
fourth day from this I will be back."
And Martin rose, and putting the letter solemnly into the purse at his
girdle, shot out of the door with clenched teeth, as a man upon a fixed
purpose which it would lighten his heart to carry out.
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