Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/42

30 Arthur, too, has got to come to the test at last, and we are to see what a modern gentleman, a modern English Christian gentleman, has to say under these circumstances to his convicted and humiliated wife. Of course we all know what a modern English navvy would do. He would put on his biggest pair of boots (if, peradventure, he had a choice of this sort) and kick and jump upon the abandoned woman. But it will be very different with Arthur. Let us see what happens. The wretched creature has fled to cover at a 'holy house at Almesbury.' Thither her husband presently follows her, and in a long gallery in the nunnery finds her seated alone. At his approach she falls prone from her seat, 'and grovels with her face against the floor,' covering it from him with her arms and hair. Then Arthur, who has halted, and stands contemplating her, presently begins to 'denounce judgment.' He asks her if this is indeed she, 'the child of one he honour'd, and who was happy,' but is now 'dead before her shame.' The word 'child' catching his attention, he proceeds to remind her that she is barren, or, if not barren, then the parent of only sword and fire. (Kick number one.) Why, it is she who has been the means of losing him 'his right arm, the mightiest of his knights,' Lancelot, with whom he has just been fighting—a pretty state