Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/187

 sorrows; but with his own hand returned for answer that he welcomed the will and ordinance of Heaven. 'For all this, however,' continued the letter, 'keep the child, be it foul or fair, and my wife also till my return home. The Saviour whom I serve will send me an heir, more agreeable than this, at his own good will.' This letter he sealed, secretly weeping, and sent it to the messenger, who set forth on his return home.

Having arrived at the Court of the Queen Mother, that fiend-like woman received him with much courtesy and favour, ordering him the same entertainments as before; and during his drunken sleep his letters were again stolen, and others, to the following purport, were substituted for them: viz.—that the King commanded his constable, upon pain of certain death, by hanging, not to suffer Constance to remain three days in his kingdom after receiving that order; but that she, with her infant son, and all the store she had brought with her, should be forthwith hurried into the same ship in which the constable had discovered her, and driven out from shore.