This eBook was produced by David Widger
[A Ladder of Swords]
By Gilbert Parker
It seemed an unspeakable smallness in a man of such high place in theState, whose hand had tied and untied myriad knots of political and courtintrigue, that he should stoop to a game which any pettifogging hanger-onmight play-and reap scorn in the playing. By insidious arts, Leicesterhad in his day turned the Queen's mind to his own will; had foiled thediplomacy of the Spaniard, the German and the Gaul; had by subterraneanmeans checkmated the designs of the Medici; had traced his way throughplot and counter-plot, hated by most, loved by none save, maybe, hisRoyal mistress to whom he was now more a custom than a cherished friend.Year upon year he had built up his influence. None had championed himsave himself, and even from the consequences of rashness and folly he hadrisen to a still higher place in the kingdom. But such as Leicester areever at last a sacrifice to the laborious means by which they achievetheir greatest ends-means contemptible and small.
To the great intriguers every little detail, every commonplaceinsignificance is used—and must be used by them alone—to further theirdark causes. They cannot trust their projects to brave lieutenants, tofaithful subordinates. They cannot say, "Here is the end; this is thework to be done; upon your shoulders be the burden!" They must "stoop toconquer." Every miserable detail becomes of moment, until by-and-by theart of intrigue and conspiracy begins to lose proportion in their minds.The detail has ever been so important, conspiracy so much second nature,that they must needs be intriguing and conspiring when the occasion istrifling and the end negligible.
To all intriguers life has lost romance; there is no poem left in nature;no ideal, personal, public or national, detains them in its wholesomeinfluence; no great purpose allures them; they have no causes for whichto die—save themselves. They are so honeycombed with insincerity andthe vice of thought, that by-and-by all colours are as one, all pathwaysthe same; because, whichever hue of light breaks upon their world theysee it through the grey-cloaked mist of falsehood; and whether the pathbe good or bad they would still walk in it crookedly. How many men andwomen Leicester had tracked or lured to their doom; over how many men andwomen he had stepped to his place of power, history speaks not carefully;but the traces of his deeds run through a thousand archives, and theysuggest plentiful sacrifices to a subverted character.
Favourite of a Queen, he must now stoop to set a trap for the ruin ofas simple a soul as ever stepped upon the soil of England; and his darkpurposes had not even the excuse of necessity on the one hand, of love orpassion on the other. An insane jealousy of the place the girl had wonin the consideration of the Queen, of her lover who, he thought, had wona still higher place in the same influence, was his only motive foraction at first. His cruelty was not redeemed even by the sensuousinterest the girl might arouse in a reckless nature by her beauty and hercharm.
So the great Leicester—the Gipsy, as the dead Sussex had called him—layin wait in Greenwich Park for Angele to pass, like some orchard thief inthe blossoming trees. Knowing the path by which she would come to herfather's cottage from the palace, he had placed himself accordingly.He had thought he might have to wait long or come often for the perfectopportunity; but it seemed as if Fate played his game for him, and thatonce again the fruit he