Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/73

Rh he is right. My ways are uncouth beside those of royal blood. I will give my babes a better teacher. Only I may see them often, and love them still as dear, can I not, Furio?”

“That is not my lord’s wish, madam,” said Furio, not daring to look full at the Duchess, and keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. “The Duke fears that even now the people murmur that an heir of base origin shall grow up to rule over them. And he is forced to study the will of his people. So he has sent me to take away the babes, and dispose of them according to his royal orders.”

When he had said this, Griselda looked at him as one who did not understand the language which he spake. All the blood forsook her cheek, her strength gave way, and falling at the feet of the old servant, still holding her baby clasped to her breast, she looked up in his face imploringly, like the deer who lies under the knife of the hunter.

But when Furio began to take up the babes, the boy from his nest among his cradle pillows, the girl from her soft refuge in the mother's bosom,then the sorrow of Griselda would have melted the tough flint to tears. She prayed with moving words, she shed such floods of tears, she gave such piteous cries of agony, that Furio, tearing the children away with one strong effort,