Colin

Neither superstition nor spiritual aspiration signified anything particular to the Staniers, and for many generations now they had been accustomed to regard their rather sinister family legend with cynical complacency. Age had stolen the strength from it, as from some long-cellared wine, and in the Victorian era they would, to take their collective voice, have denied that, either drunk or sober, they believed it. But it was vaguely pleasant to have so antique a guarantee that they would be so sumptuously looked after in this world, while as for the next....

The legend dated from the time of Elizabeth, and was closely connected with the rise of the family into the pre-eminent splendour which it had enjoyed ever since. The Queen, in one of her regal journeys through her realm (during which she slept in so incredible a number of beds), visited the affiliated Cinque Port of Rye, and, after taking dinner with the mayor, was riding down one of the steep, cobbled ways when her horse stumbled and came down on its knees.

She would certainly have had a cruel fall if a young man had not sprung forward from the crowd and caught her before her Grace’s head was dashed against the stones. He set her on her feet, swiftly releasing the virgin’s bosom from his rough embrace, and, kneeling, kissed the hem of her skirt.{8}

The Queen bade him rise, and, as she looked at him, made some Elizabethan ejaculation of appreciative amazement—a “zounds,” or a “gadzooks,” or something.