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Kenilworth

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #1606 · 1,091,844 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Kenilworth

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: February 22, 2006 [eBook #1606]
                Most recently updated: September 7, 2023

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1606

Credits: an Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENILWORTH ***




KENILWORTH. by Sir Walter Scott, Bart.



Contents

INTRODUCTION

KENILWORTH

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CHAPTER XXX.

CHAPTER XXXI.

CHAPTER XXXII.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

CHAPTER XXXV.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CHAPTER XL.

CHAPTER XLI.

NOTES.




INTRODUCTION

A certain degree of success, real or supposed, in the delineation of
Queen Mary, naturally induced the author to attempt something similar
respecting “her sister and her foe,” the celebrated Elizabeth. He
will not, however, pretend to have approached the task with the same
feelings; for the candid Robertson himself confesses having felt the
prejudices with which a Scottishman is tempted to regard the subject;
and what so liberal a historian avows, a poor romance-writer dares not
disown. But he hopes the influence of a prejudice, almost as natural to
him as his native air, will not be found to have greatly affected the
sketch he has attempted of England's Elizabeth. I have endeavoured
to describe her as at once a high-minded sovereign, and a female of
passionate feelings, hesitating betwixt the sense of her rank and
the duty she owed her subjects on the one hand, and on the other her
attachment to a nobleman, who, in external qualifications at least,
amply merited her favour. The interest of the story is thrown upon that
period when the sudden death of the first Countess of Leicester seemed
to open to the ambition of her husband the opportunity of sharing the
crown of his sovereign.

It is possible that slander, which very seldom favours the memories
of persons in exalted stations, may have blackened the character of
Leicester with darker shades than really belonged to it. But the almost
general voice of the times attached the most foul suspicions to the
death of the unfortunate Countess, more especially as it took place so
very opportunely for the indulgence of her lover's ambition. If we can
trust Ashmole's Antiquities of Berkshire, there was but too much ground
for the traditions which charge Leicester with the murder of his wife.
In the following extract of the passage, the reader will find the
authority I had for the story of the romance:--

“At the west end of the church are the ruins of a manor, anciently
belonging (as a cell, or place of removal, as some report) to the
monks of Abington. At the Dissolution, the said manor, or lordship, was
conveyed to one--Owen (I believe), the possessor of Godstow then.

“In the hall, over the chimney, I find Abington arms cut in
stone--namely, a patonee between four martletts; and also another
escutcheon--namely, a lion rampant, and several mitres cut in stone
about the house. There is also in the said house a chamber called
Dudley's chamber, where the Earl of Leicester's wife was murdered, of
which this is the story following:--

“Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a very goodly personage, and
singularly well featured, being a great favourite to Queen Elizabeth,
it was thought, and commonly reported, that had he been a bachelor or
widower, the Queen would have made him her husband; to this end, to free
himself of all obstacles, he commands, or perhaps, with fair flattering
entreaties, desires his wife to repose herself here at his servant
Anthony Forster's house, who then lived in the aforesaid manor-house;
and also prescribes to Sir Richard Varney (a prompter to this design),
at his coming hither, that he should first attempt to poison her, and if
that did not take effect, then by any other way whatsoever to dispatch
her. This, it seems, was proved by the report of Dr. Walter Bayly,
sometime fellow of New College, then living in Oxford, and professor of
physic in that university; whom, because he would not consent to take
away her life by poison, the Earl endeavoured to displace him the court.
This man, it seems, reported for most certain that there was a practice
in Cumnor among the conspirators, to have poisoned this poor innocent
lady, a little before she was killed, which was attempted after this
manner:--They seeing the good lady sad and heavy (as one that well
knew, by her other handling, that her death was not far off), began to
persuade her that her present disease was abundance of melancholy and
other humours, etc., and therefore would needs counsel her to take some
potion, which she absolutely refusing to do, as still suspecting the
worst; whereupon they sent a messenger on a day (unawares to her) for
Dr. Bayly, and entreated him to persuade her to take some little potion
by his direction, and they would fetch the same at Oxford; meaning to
have added something of their own for her comfort, as the doctor
upon just cause and consideration did suspect, seeing their great
importunity, and the small need the lady had of physic, and therefore
he peremptorily denied their request; misdoubting (as he afterwards
reported) lest, if they had poisoned her under the name of his potion,
he might after have been hanged for a colour of their sin, and the
doctor remained still well assured that this way taking no effect, she
would not long escape their violence, which afterwards happened thus.
For Sir Richard Varney abovesaid (the chief projector in this design),
who, by the Earl's order, remained that day of her death alone with her,
with one man only and Forster, who had that day forcibly sent away all
her servants from her to Abington market, about three miles distant from
this place; they (I say, whether first stifling her, or else strangling
her) afterwards flung her down a pair of stairs and broke her neck,
using much violence upon her; but, however, though it was vulgarly
reported that she by chance fell downstairs (but still without hurting
her hood that was upon her head), yet the inhabitants will tell you
there that she was conveyed from her usual chamber where she lay, to
another where the bed's head of the chamber stood close to a privy
postern door, where they in the night came and stifled her in her bed,
bruised her head very much, broke her neck, and at length flung her down
stairs, thereby believing the world would have thought it a mischance,
and so have blinded their villainy. But behold the mercy and justice
of God in revenging and discovering this lady's murder; for one of the
persons that was a coadjutor in this murder was afterwards taken for a
felony in the marches of Wales, and offering to publish the manner
of the aforesaid murder, was privately made away in the prison by the
Earl's appointment; and Sir Richard Varney the other, dying about the
same time in London, cried miserably, and blasphemed God, and said to
a person of note (who hath related the same to others since), not long
before his death, that all the devils in hell did tear him in pieces.
Forster, likewise, after this fact, being a man formerly addicted to
hospitality, company, mirth, and music, was afterwards observed to
forsake all this, and with much melancholy and pensiveness (some say
with madness) pined and drooped away. The wife also of Bald Butter,
kinsman to the Earl, gave out the whole fact a little before her death.
Neither are these following passages to be forgotten, that as soon as
ever she was murdered, they made great haste to bury her before the
coroner had given in his inquest (which the Earl himself condemned as
not done advisedly), which her father, or Sir John Robertsett (as I
suppose), hearing of, came with all speed hither, caused her corpse to
be taken up, the coroner to sit upon her, and further inquiry to be made
concerning this business to the full; but it was generally thought that
the Earl stopped his mouth, and made up the business betwixt them; and
the good Earl, to make plain to the world the great love he bare to her
while alive, and what a grief the loss of so virtuous a lady was to his
tender heart, caused (though the thing, by these and other means, was
beaten into the heads of the principal men of the University of Oxford)
her body to be reburied in St, Mary's Church in Oxford, with great
pomp and solemnity. It is remarkable, when Dr. Babington, the Earl's
chaplain, did preach the funeral sermon, he tript once or twice in
his speech, by recommending to their memories that virtuous lady so
pitifully murdered, instead of saying pitifully slain. This Earl, after
all his murders and poisonings, was himself poisoned by that which
was prepared for others (some say by his wife at Cornbury Lodge before
mentioned), though Baker in his Chronicle would have it at Killingworth;
anno 1588.” [Ashmole's Antiquities of Berkshire, vol.i., p.149. The
tradition as to Leicester's death was thus communicated by Ben Jonson to
Drummond of Hawthornden:--“The Earl of Leicester gave a bottle of liquor
to his Lady, which he willed her to use in any faintness, which she,
after his returne from court, not knowing it was poison, gave him, and
so he died.”--BEN JONSON'S INFORMATION TO DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN, MS.,
SIR ROBERT SIBBALD'S COPY.]

The same accusation has been adopted and circulated by the author of
Leicester's Commonwealth, a satire written directly against the Earl of
Leicester, which loaded him with the most horrid crimes, and, among
the rest, with the murder of his first wife. It was alluded to in the
Yorkshire Tragedy, a play erroneously ascribed to Shakespeare, where
a baker, who determines to destroy all his family, throws his wife
downstairs, with this allusion to the supposed murder of Leicester's
lady,--


     “The only way to charm a woman's tongue
     Is, break her neck--a politician did it.”

The reader will find I have borrowed several incidents as well as names
from Ashmole, and the more early authorities; but my first acquaintance
with the history was through the more pleasing medium of verse. There
is a period in youth when the mere power of numbers has a more strong
effect on ear and imagination than in more advanced life. At this season
of immature taste, the author was greatly delighted with the poems of
Mickle and Langhorne, poets who, though by no means deficient in the
higher branches of their art, were eminent for their powers of verbal
melody above most who have practised this department of poetry. One of
those pieces of Mickle, which the author was particularly pleased with,
is a ballad, or rather a species of elegy, on the subject of Cumnor
Hall, which, with others by the same author, was to be found in Evans's
Ancient Ballads (vol. iv., page 130), to which work Mickle made liberal
contributions. The first stanza especially had a peculiar species of
enchantment for the youthful ear of the author, the force of which is
not even now entirely spent; some others are sufficiently prosaic.


     CUMNOR HALL.

     The dews of summer night did fall;
     The moon, sweet regent of the sky,
     Silver'd the walls of Cumnor Hall,
     And many an oak that grew thereby,

     Now nought was heard beneath the skies,
     The sounds of busy life were still,
     Save an unhappy lady's sighs,
     That issued from that lonely pile.

     “Leicester,” she cried, “is this thy love
     That thou so oft hast sworn to me,
     To leave me in this lonely grove,
     Immured in shameful privity?

     “No more thou com'st with lover's speed,
     Thy once beloved bride to see;
     But be she alive, or be she dead,
     I fear, stern Earl, 's the same to thee.

     “Not so the usage I received
     When happy in my father's hall;
     No faithless husband then me grieved,
     No chilling fears did me appal.

     “I rose up with the cheerful morn,
     No lark more blithe, no flower more gay;
     And like the bird that haunts the thorn,
     So merrily sung the livelong day.

     “If that my beauty is but small,
     Among court ladies all despised,
     Why didst thou rend it from that hall,
     Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized?

     “And when you first to me made suit,
     How fair I was you oft would say!
     And proud of conquest, pluck'd the fruit,
     Then left the blossom to decay.

     “Yes!  now neglected and despised,
     The rose is pale, the lily's dead;
     But he that once their charms so prized,
     Is sure the cause those charms are fled.

     “For know, when sick'ning grief doth prey,
     And tender love's repaid with scorn,
     The sweetest beauty will decay,--
     What floweret can endure the storm?

     “At court, I'm told, is beauty's throne,
     Where every lady's passing rare,
     That Eastern flowers, that shame the sun,
     Are not so glowing, not so fair.

     “Then, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds
     Where roses and where lilies vie,
     To seek a primrose, whose pale shades
     Must sicken when those gauds are by?

     “'Mong rural beauties I was one,
     Among the fields wild flowers are fair;
     Some country swain might me have won,
     And thought my beauty passing rare.

     “But, Leicester (or I much am wrong),
     Or 'tis not beauty lures thy vows;
     Rather ambition's gilded crown
     Makes thee forget thy humble spouse.

     “Then, Leicester, why, again I plead
     (The injured surely may repine)--
     Why didst thou wed a country maid,
     When some fair princess might be thine?

     “Why didst thou praise my hum'ble charms,
     And, oh!  then leave them to decay?
     Why didst thou win me to thy arms,
     Then leave to mourn the livelong day?

     “The village maidens of the plain
     Salute me lowly as they go;
     Envious they mark my silken train,
     Nor think a Countess can have woe.

     “The simple nymphs!  they little know
     How far more happy's their estate;
     To smile for joy, than sigh for woe--
     To be content, than to be great.

     “How far less blest am I than them?
     Daily to pine and waste with care!
     Like the poor plant that, from its stem
     Divided, feels the chilling air.

     “Nor, cruel Earl!  can I enjoy
     The humble charms of solitude;
     Your minions proud my peace destroy,
     By sullen frowns or pratings rude.

     “Last night, as sad I chanced to stray,
     The village death-bell smote my ear;
     They wink'd aside, and seemed to say,
     'Countess, prepare, thy end is near!'

     “And now, while happy peasants sleep,
     Here I sit lonely and forlorn;
     No one to soothe me as I weep,
     Save Philomel on yonder thorn.

     “My spirits flag--my hopes decay--
     Still that dread death-bell smites my ear;
     And many a boding seems to say,
     'Countess, prepare, thy end is near!'”

     Thus sore and sad that lady grieved,
     In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear;
     And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved,
     And let fall many a bitter tear.

     And ere the dawn of day appear'd,
     In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear,
     Full many a piercing scream was heard,
     And many a cry of mortal fear.

     The death-bell thrice was heard to ring,
     An aerial voice was heard to call,
     And thrice the raven flapp'd its wing
     Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.

     The mastiff howl'd at village door,
     The oaks were shatter'd on the green;
     Woe was the hour--for never more
     That hapless Countess e'er was seen!

     And in that Manor now no more
     Is cheerful feast and sprightly ball;
     For ever since that dreary hour
     Have spirits haunted Cumnor Hall.

     The village maids, with fearful glance,
     Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall;
     Nor ever lead the merry dance,
     Among the groves of Cumnor Hall.

     Full many a traveller oft hath sigh'd,
     And pensive wept the Countess' fall,
     As wand'ring onward they've espied
     The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall.

     ARBOTSFORD, 1st March 1831.





KENILWORTH



CHAPTER I.


     I am an innkeeper, and know my grounds,
     And study them; Brain o' man, I study them.
     I must have jovial guests to drive my ploughs,
     And whistling boys to bring my harvests home,
     Or I shall hear no flails thwack.             THE NEW INN.

It is the privilege of tale-tellers to open their story in an inn, the
free rendezvous of all travellers, and where the humour of each displays
itself without ceremony or restraint. This is specially suitable when
the scene is laid during the old days of merry England, when the
guests were in some sort not merely the inmates, but the messmates
and temporary companions of mine Host, who was usually a personage of
privileged freedom, comely presence, and good-humour. Patronized by him
the characters of the company were placed in ready contrast; and they
seldom failed, during the emptying of a six-hooped pot, to throw off
reserve, and present themselves to each other, and to their landlord,
with the freedom of old acquaintance.

The village of Cumnor, within three or four miles of Oxford, boasted,
during the eighteenth of Queen Elizabeth, an excellent inn of the old
stamp, conducted, or rather ruled, by Giles Gosling, a man of a goodly
person, and of somewhat round belly; fifty years of age and upwards,
moderate in his reckonings, prompt in his payments, having a cellar of
sound liquor, a ready wit, and a pretty daughter. Since the days of
old Harry Baillie of the Tabard in Southwark, no one had excelled Giles
Gosling in the power of pleasing his guests of every description; and so
great was his fame, that to have been in Cumnor without wetting a cup
at the bonny Black Bear, would have been to avouch one's-self utterly
indifferent to reputation as a traveller. A country fellow might as well
return from London without looking in the face of majesty. The men of
Cumnor were proud of their Host, and their Host was proud of his house,
his liquor, his daughter, and himself.

It was in the courtyard of the inn which called this honest fellow
landlord, that a traveller alighted in the close of the evening, gave
his horse, which seemed to have made a long journey, to the hostler,
and made some inquiry, which produced the following dialogue betwixt the
myrmidons of the bonny Black Bear.

“What, ho! John Tapster.”

“At hand, Will Hostler,” replied the man of the spigot, showing himself
in his costume of loose jacket, linen breeches, and green apron, half
within and half without a door, which appeared to descend to an outer
cellar.

“Here is a gentleman asks if you draw good ale,” continued the hostler.

“Beshrew my heart else,” answered the tapster, “since there are but four
miles betwixt us and Oxford. Marry, if my ale did not convince the
heads of the scholars, they would soon convince my pate with the pewter
flagon.”

“Call you that Oxford logic?” said the stranger, who had now quitted the
rein of his horse, and was advancing towards the inn-door, when he was
encountered by the goodly form of Giles Gosling himself.

“Is it logic you talk of, Sir Guest?” said the host; “why, then, have at
you with a downright consequence--


     'The horse to the rack,
     And to fire with the sack.'”

“Amen! with all my heart, my good host,” said the stranger; “let it be a
quart of your best Canaries, and give me your good help to drink it.”

“Nay, you are but in your accidence yet, Sir Traveller, if you call on
your host for help for such a sipping matter as a quart of sack; Were it
a gallon, you might lack some neighbouring aid at my hand, and yet call
yourself a toper.”

“Fear me not.” said the guest, “I will do my devoir as becomes a man who
finds himself within five miles of Oxford; for I am not come from the
field of Mars to discredit myself amongst the followers of Minerva.”

As he spoke thus, the landlord, with much semblance of hearty welcome,
ushered his guest into a large, low chamber, where several persons were
seated together in different parties--some drinking, some playing at
cards, some conversing, and some, whose business called them to be early
risers on the morrow, concluding their evening meal, and conferring with
the chamberlain about their night's quarters.

The entrance of a stranger procured him that general and careless sort
of attention which is usually paid on such occasions, from which the
following results were deduced:--The guest was one of those who, with
a well-made person, and features not in themselves unpleasing, are
nevertheless so far from handsome that, whether from the expression
of their features, or the tone of their voice, or from their gait and
manner, there arises, on the whole, a disinclination to their society.
The stranger's address was bold, without being frank, and seemed eagerly
and hastily to claim for him a degree of attention and deference which
he feared would be refused, if not instantly vindicated as his right.
His attire was a riding-cloak, which, when open, displayed a handsome
jerkin overlaid with lace, and belted with a buff girdle, which
sustained a broadsword and a pair of pistols.

“You ride well provided, sir,” said the host, looking at the weapons as
he placed on the table the mulled sack which the traveller had ordered.

“Yes, mine host; I have found the use on't in dangerous times, and I do
not, like your modern grandees, turn off my followers the instant they
are useless.”

“Ay, sir?” said Giles Gosling; “then you are from the Low Countries, the
land of pike and caliver?”

“I have been high and low, my friend, broad and wide, far and near. But
here is to thee in a cup of thy sack; fill thyself another to pledge me,
and, if it is less than superlative, e'en drink as you have brewed.”

“Less than superlative?” said Giles Gosling, drinking off the cup, and
smacking his lips with an air of ineffable relish,--“I know nothing
of superlative, nor is there such a wine at the Three Cranes, in the
Vintry, to my knowledge; but if you find better sack than that in the
Sheres, or in the Canaries either, I would I may never touch either pot
or penny more. Why, hold it up betwixt you and the light, you shall see
the little motes dance in the golden liquor like dust in the sunbeam.
But I would rather draw wine for ten clowns than one traveller.--I trust
your honour likes the wine?”

“It is neat and comfortable, mine host; but to know good liquor, you
should drink where the vine grows. Trust me, your Spaniard is too wise
a man to send you the very soul of the grape. Why, this now, which you
account so choice, were counted but as a cup of bastard at the Groyne,
or at Port St. Mary's. You should travel, mine host, if you would be
deep in the mysteries of the butt and pottle-pot.”

“In troth, Signior Guest,” said Giles Gosling, “if I were to travel only
that I might be discontented with that which I can get at home, methinks
I should go but on a fool's errand. Besides, I warrant you, there is
many a fool can turn his nose up at good drink without ever having
been out of the smoke of Old England; and so ever gramercy mine own
fireside.”

“This is but a mean mind of yours, mine host,” said the stranger;
“I warrant me, all your town's folk do not think so basely. You have
gallants among you, I dare undertake, that have made the Virginia
voyage, or taken a turn in the Low Countries at least. Come, cudgel your
memory. Have you no friends in foreign parts that you would gladly have
tidings of?”

“Troth, sir, not I,” answered the host, “since ranting Robin of
Drysandford was shot at the siege of the Brill. The devil take the
caliver that fired the ball, for a blither lad never filled a cup
at midnight! But he is dead and gone, and I know not a soldier, or a
traveller, who is a soldier's mate, that I would give a peeled codling
for.”

“By the Mass, that is strange. What! so many of our brave English hearts
are abroad, and you, who seem to be a man of mark, have no friend, no
kinsman among them?”

“Nay, if you speak of kinsmen,” answered Gosling, “I have one wild slip
of a kinsman, who left us in the last year of Queen Mary; but he is
better lost than found.”

“Do not say so, friend, unless you have heard ill of him lately. Many a
wild colt has turned out a noble steed.--His name, I pray you?”

“Michael Lambourne,” answered the landlord of the Black Bear; “a son of
my sister's--there is little pleasure in recollecting either the name or
the connection.”

“Michael Lambourne!” said the stranger, as if endeavouring to recollect
himself--“what, no relation to Michael Lambourne, the gallant cavalier
who behaved so bravely at the siege of Venlo that Grave Maurice thanked
him at the head of the army? Men said he was an English cavalier, and of
no high extraction.”

“It could scarcely be my nephew,” said Giles Gosling, “for he had not
the courage of a hen-partridge for aught but mischief.”

“Oh, many a man finds courage in the wars,” replied the stranger.

“It may be,” said the landlord; “but I would have thought our Mike more
likely to lose the little he had.”

“The Michael Lambourne whom I knew,” continued the traveller, “was a
likely fellow--went always gay and well attired, and had a hawk's eye
after a pretty wench.”

“Our Michael,” replied the host, “had the look of a dog with a bottle
at its tail, and wore a coat, every rag of which was bidding good-day to
the rest.”

“Oh, men pick up good apparel in the wars,” replied the guest.

“Our Mike,” answered the landlord, “was more like to pick it up in a
frippery warehouse, while the broker was looking another way; and, for
the hawk's eye you talk of, his was always after my stray spoons. He was
tapster's boy here in this blessed house for a quarter of a year; and
between misreckonings, miscarriages, mistakes, and misdemeanours, had
he dwelt with me for three months longer, I might have pulled down sign,
shut up house, and given the devil the key to keep.”

“You would be sorry, after all,” continued the traveller, “were I to
tell you poor Mike Lambourne was shot at the head of his regiment at the
taking of a sconce near Maestricht?”

“Sorry!--it would be the blithest news I ever heard of him, since it
would ensure me he was not hanged. But let him pass--I doubt his
end will never do such credit to his friends. Were it so, I should
say”--(taking another cup of sack)--“Here's God rest him, with all my
heart.”

“Tush, man,” replied the traveller, “never fear but you will have credit
by your nephew yet, especially if he be the Michael Lambourne whom I
knew, and loved very nearly, or altogether, as well as myself. Can you
tell me no mark by which I could judge whether they be the same?”

“Faith, none that I can think of,” answered Giles Gosling, “unless that
our Mike had the gallows branded on his left shoulder for stealing a
silver caudle-cup from Dame Snort of Hogsditch.”

“Nay, there you lie like a knave, uncle,” said the stranger, slipping
aside his ruff; and turning down the sleeve of his doublet from his neck
and shoulder; “by this good day, my shoulder is as unscarred as thine
own.

“What, Mike, boy--Mike!” exclaimed the host;--“and is it thou, in good
earnest? Nay, I have judged so for this half-hour; for I knew no other
person would have ta'en half the interest in thee. But, Mike, an thy
shoulder be unscathed as thou sayest, thou must own that Goodman Thong,
the hangman, was merciful in his office, and stamped thee with a cold
iron.”

“Tush, uncle--truce with your jests. Keep them to season your sour ale,
and let us see what hearty welcome thou wilt give a kinsman who has
rolled the world around for eighteen years; who has seen the sun set
where it rises, and has travelled till the west has become the east.”

“Thou hast brought back one traveller's gift with thee, Mike, as I well
see; and that was what thou least didst need to travel for. I remember
well, among thine other qualities, there was no crediting a word which
came from thy mouth.”

“Here's an unbelieving pagan for you, gentlemen!” said Michael
Lambourne, turning to those who witnessed this strange interview betwixt
uncle and nephew, some of whom, being natives of the village, were no
strangers to his juvenile wildness. “This may be called slaying a Cumnor
fatted calf for me with a vengeance.--But, uncle, I come not from
the husks and the swine-trough, and I care not for thy welcome or no
welcome; I carry that with me will make me welcome, wend where I will.”

So saying, he pulled out a purse of gold indifferently well filled, the
sight of which produced a visible effect upon the company. Some shook
their heads and whispered to each other, while one or two of the less
scrupulous speedily began to recollect him as a school-companion,
a townsman, or so forth. On the other hand, two or three grave,
sedate-looking persons shook their heads, and left the inn, hinting
that, if Giles Gosling wished to continue to thrive, he should turn his
thriftless, godless nephew adrift again, as soon as he could. Gosling
demeaned himself as if he were much of the same opinion, for even the
sight of the gold made less impression on the honest gentleman than it
usually doth upon one of his calling.

“Kinsman Michael,” he said, “put up thy purse. My sister's son shall be
called to no reckoning in my house for supper or lodging; and I reckon
thou wilt hardly wish to stay longer where thou art e'en but too well
known.”

“For that matter, uncle,” replied the traveller, “I shall consult my own
needs and conveniences. Meantime I wish to give the supper and sleeping
cup to those good townsmen who are not too proud to remember Mike
Lambourne, the tapster's boy. If you will let me have entertainment for
my money, so; if not, it is but a short two minutes' walk to the Hare
and Tabor, and I trust our neighbours will not grudge going thus far
with me.”

“Nay, Mike,” replied his uncle, “as eighteen years have gone over thy
head, and I trust thou art somewhat amended in thy conditions, thou
shalt not leave my house at this hour, and shalt e'en have whatever
in reason you list to call for. But I would I knew that that purse of
thine, which thou vapourest of, were as well come by as it seems well
filled.”

“Here is an infidel for you, my good neighbours!” said Lambourne, again
appealing to the audience. “Here's a fellow will rip up his kinsman's
follies of a good score of years' standing. And for the gold, why, sirs,
I have been where it grew, and was to be had for the gathering. In
the New World have I been, man--in the Eldorado, where urchins play
at cherry-pit with diamonds, and country wenches thread rubies for
necklaces, instead of rowan-tree berries; where the pantiles are made of
pure gold, and the paving-stones of virgin silver.”

“By my credit, friend Mike,” said young Laurence Goldthred, the cutting
mercer of Abingdon, “that were a likely coast to trade to. And what may
lawns, cypruses, and ribands fetch, where gold is so plenty?”

“Oh, the profit were unutterable,” replied Lambourne, “especially when
a handsome young merchant bears the pack himself; for the ladies of that
clime are bona-robas, and being themselves somewhat sunburnt, they catch
fire like tinder at a fresh complexion like thine, with a head of hair
inclining to be red.”

“I would I might trade thither,” said the mercer, chuckling.

“Why, and so thou mayest,” said Michael--“that is, if thou art the same
brisk boy who was partner with me at robbing the Abbot's orchard. 'Tis
but a little touch of alchemy to decoct thy house and land into ready
money, and that ready money into a tall ship, with sails, anchors,
cordage, and all things conforming; then clap thy warehouse of goods
under hatches, put fifty good fellows on deck, with myself to command
them, and so hoist topsails, and hey for the New World!”

“Thou hast taught him a secret, kinsman,” said Giles Gosling, “to
decoct, an that be the word, his pound into a penny and his webs into a
thread.--Take a fool's advice, neighbour Goldthred. Tempt not the sea,
for she is a devourer. Let cards and cockatrices do their worst, thy
father's bales may bide a banging for a year or two ere thou comest to
the Spital; but the sea hath a bottomless appetite,--she would swallow
the wealth of Lombard Street in a morning, as easily as I would a
poached egg and a cup of clary. And for my kinsman's Eldorado, never
trust me if I do not believe he has found it in the pouches of some such
gulls as thyself.--But take no snuff in the nose about it; fall to and
welcome, for here comes the supper, and I heartily bestow it on all
that will take share, in honour of my hopeful nephew's return, always
trusting that he has come home another man.--In faith, kinsman, thou art
as like my poor sister as ever was son to mother.”

“Not quite so like old Benedict Lambourne, her husband, though,” said
the mercer, nodding and winking. “Dost thou remember, Mike, what thou
saidst when the schoolmaster's ferule was over thee for striking up thy
father's crutches?--it is a wise child, saidst thou, that knows its own
father. Dr. Bircham laughed till he cried again, and his crying saved
yours.”

“Well, he made it up to me many a day after,” said Lambourne; “and how
is the worthy pedagogue?”

“Dead,” said Giles Gosling, “this many a day since.”

“That he is,” said the clerk of the parish; “I sat by his bed the
whilst. He passed away in a blessed frame. 'MORIOR--MORTUUS SUM VEL
FUI--MORI'--these were his latest words; and he just added, 'my last
verb is conjugated.”

“Well, peace be with him,” said Mike, “he owes me nothing.”

“No, truly,” replied Goldthred; “and every lash which he laid on thee,
he always was wont to say, he spared the hangman a labour.”

“One would have thought he left him little to do then,” said the clerk;
“and yet Goodman Thong had no sinecure of it with our friend, after
all.”

“VOTO A DIOS!” exclaimed Lambourne, his patience appearing to fail him,
as he snatched his broad, slouched hat from the table and placed it on
his head, so that the shadow gave the sinister expression of a Spanish
brave to eyes and features which naturally boded nothing pleasant.
“Hark'ee, my masters--all is fair among friends, and under the rose; and
I have already permitted my worthy uncle here, and all of you, to use
your pleasure with the frolics of my nonage. But I carry sword and
dagger, my good friends, and can use them lightly too upon occasion. I
have learned to be dangerous upon points of honour ever since I served
the Spaniard, and I would not have you provoke me to the degree of
falling foul.”

“Why, what would you do?” said the clerk.

“Ay, sir, what would you do?” said the mercer, bustling up on the other
side of the table.

“Slit your throat, and spoil your Sunday's quavering, Sir Clerk,”
 said Lambourne fiercely; “cudgel you, my worshipful dealer in flimsy
sarsenets, into one of your own bales.”

“Come, come,” said the host, interposing, “I will have no swaggering
here.--Nephew, it will become you best to show no haste to take offence;
and you, gentlemen, will do well to remember, that if you are in an inn,
still you are the inn-keeper's guests, and should spare the honour
of his family.--I protest your silly broils make me as oblivious as
yourself; for yonder sits my silent guest as I call him, who hath been
my two days' inmate, and hath never spoken a word, save to ask for his
food and his reckoning--gives no more trouble than a very peasant--pays
his shot like a prince royal--looks but at the sum total of the
reckoning, and does not know what day he shall go away. Oh, 'tis a jewel
of a guest! and yet, hang-dog that I am, I have suffered him to sit
by himself like a castaway in yonder obscure nook, without so much as
asking him to take bite or sup along with us. It were but the right
guerdon of my incivility were he to set off to the Hare and Tabor before
the night grows older.”

With his white napkin gracefully arranged over his left arm, his velvet
cap laid aside for the moment, and his best silver flagon in his right
hand, mine host walked up to the solitary guest whom he mentioned, and
thereby turned upon him the eyes of the assembled company.

He was a man aged betwixt twenty-five and thirty, rather above the
middle size, dressed with plainness and decency, yet bearing an air of
ease which almost amounted to dignity, and which seemed to infer that
his habit was rather beneath his rank. His countenance was reserved and
thoughtful, with dark hair and dark eyes; the last, upon any momentary
excitement, sparkled with uncommon lustre, but on other occasions
had the same meditative and tranquil cast which was exhibited by his
features. The busy curiosity of the little village had been employed to
discover his name and quality, as well as his business at Cumnor;
but nothing had transpired on either subject which could lead to its
gratification. Giles Gosling, head-borough of the place, and a steady
friend to Queen Elizabeth and the Protestant religion, was at one time
inclined to suspect his guest of being a Jesuit, or seminary priest, of
whom Rome and Spain sent at this time so many to grace the gallows
in England. But it was scarce possible to retain such a prepossession
against a guest who gave so little trouble, paid his reckoning so
regularly, and who proposed, as it seemed, to make a considerable stay
at the bonny Black Bear.

“Papists,” argued Giles Gosling, “are a pinching, close-fisted race,
and this man would have found a lodging with the wealthy squire at
Bessellsey, or with the old Knight at Wootton, or in some other of their
Roman dens, instead of living in a house of public entertainment, as
every honest man and good Christian should. Besides, on Friday he stuck
by the salt beef and carrot, though there were as good spitch-cocked
eels on the board as ever were ta'en out of the Isis.”

Honest Giles, therefore, satisfied himself that his guest was no Roman,
and with all comely courtesy besought the stranger to pledge him in
a draught of the cool tankard, and honour with his attention a small
collation which he was giving to his nephew, in honour of his return,
and, as he verily hoped, of his reformation. The stranger at first shook
his head, as if declining the courtesy; but mine host proceeded to
urge him with arguments founded on the credit of his house, and the
construction which the good people of Cumnor might put upon such an
unsocial humour.

“By my faith, sir,” he said, “it touches my reputation that men should
be merry in my house; and we have ill tongues amongst us at Cumnor (as
where be there not?), who put an evil mark on men who pull their hat
over their brows, as if they were looking back to the days that are
gone, instead of enjoying the blithe sunshiny weather which God has sent
us in the sweet looks of our sovereign mistress, Queen Elizabeth, whom
Heaven long bless and preserve!”

“Why, mine host,” answered the stranger, “there is no treason, sure, in
a man's enjoying his own thoughts, under the shadow of his own bonnet?
You have lived in the world twice as long as I have, and you must know
there are thoughts that will haunt us in spite of ourselves, and to
which it is in vain to say, Begone, and let me be merry.”

“By my sooth,” answered Giles Gosling, “if such troublesome thoughts
haunt your mind, and will not get them gone for plain English, we will
have one of Father Bacon's pupils from Oxford, to conjure them away with
logic and with Hebrew--or, what say you to laying them in a glorious red
sea of claret, my noble guest? Come, sir, excuse my freedom. I am an old
host, and must have my talk. This peevish humour of melancholy sits ill
upon you; it suits not with a sleek boot, a hat of trim block, a fresh
cloak, and a full purse. A pize on it! send it off to those who have
their legs swathed with a hay-wisp, their heads thatched with a felt
bonnet, their jerkin as thin as a cobweb, and their pouch without ever
a cross to keep the fiend Melancholy from dancing in it. Cheer up,
sir! or, by this good liquor, we shall banish thee from the joys
of blithesome company, into the mists of melancholy and the land of
little-ease. Here be a set of good fellows willing to be merry; do not
scowl on them like the devil looking over Lincoln.”

“You say well, my worthy host,” said the guest, with a melancholy smile,
which, melancholy as it was, gave a very pleasant: expression to his
countenance--“you say well, my jovial friend; and they that are moody
like myself should not disturb the mirth of those who are happy. I will
drink a round with your guests with all my heart, rather than be termed
a mar-feast.”

So saying, he arose and joined the company, who, encouraged by the
precept and example of Michael Lambourne, and consisting chiefly of
persons much disposed to profit by the opportunity of a merry meal at
the expense of their landlord, had already made some inroads upon the
limits of temperance, as was evident from the tone in which Michael
inquired after his old acquaintances in the town, and the bursts of
laughter with which each answer was received. Giles Gosling himself
was somewhat scandalized at the obstreperous nature of their mirth,
especially as he involuntarily felt some respect for his unknown guest.
He paused, therefore, at some distance from the table occupied by these
noisy revellers, and began to make a sort of apology for their license.

“You would think,” he said, “to hear these fellows talk, that there was
not one of them who had not been bred to live by Stand and Deliver; and
yet tomorrow you will find them a set of as painstaking mechanics, and
so forth, as ever cut an inch short of measure, or paid a letter of
change in light crowns over a counter. The mercer there wears his hat
awry, over a shaggy head of hair, that looks like a curly water-dog's
back, goes unbraced, wears his cloak on one side, and affects a
ruffianly vapouring humour: when in his shop at Abingdon, he is, from
his flat cap to his glistening shoes, as precise in his apparel as if he
was named for mayor. He talks of breaking parks, and taking the highway,
in such fashion that you would think he haunted every night betwixt
Hounslow and London; when in fact he may be found sound asleep on his
feather-bed, with a candle placed beside him on one side, and a Bible on
the other, to fright away the goblins.”

“And your nephew, mine host, this same Michael Lambourne, who is lord of
the feast--is he, too, such a would-be ruffler as the rest of them?”

“Why, there you push me hard,” said the host; “my nephew is my nephew,
and though he was a desperate Dick of yore, yet Mike may have mended
like other folks, you wot. And I would not have you think all I said
of him, even now, was strict gospel; I knew the wag all the while, and
wished to pluck his plumes from him. And now, sir, by what name shall I
present my worshipful guest to these gallants?”

“Marry, mine host,” replied the stranger, “you may call me Tressilian.”

“Tressilian?” answered mine host of the Bear. “A worthy name, and, as I
think, of Cornish lineage; for what says the south proverb--


     'By Pol, Tre, and Pen,
     You may know the Cornish men.'

Shall I say the worthy Master Tressilian of Cornwall?”

“Say no more than I have given you warrant for, mine host, and so shall
you be sure you speak no more than is true. A man may have one of those
honourable prefixes to his name, yet be born far from Saint Michael's
Mount.”

Mine host pushed his curiosity no further, but presented Master
Tressilian to his nephew's company, who, after exchange of salutations,
and drinking to the health of their new companion, pursued the
conversation in which he found them engaged, seasoning it with many an
intervening pledge.





CHAPTER II.


     Talk you of young Master Lancelot? --MERCHANT OF VENICE.

After some brief interval, Master Goldthred, at the earnest instigation
of mine host, and the joyous concurrence of his guest, indulged the
company with the following morsel of melody:--


     “Of all the birds on bush or tree,
     Commend me to the owl,
     Since he may best ensample be
     To those the cup that trowl.
     For when the sun hath left the west,
     He chooses the tree that he loves the best,
     And he whoops out his song, and he laughs at his jest;
     Then, though hours be late and weather foul,
     We'll drink to the health of the bonny, bonny owl.

     “The lark is but a bumpkin fowl,
     He sleeps in his nest till morn;
     But my blessing upon the jolly owl,
     That all night blows his horn.
     Then up with your cup till you stagger in speech,
     And match me this catch till you swagger and screech,
     And drink till you wink, my merry men each;
     For, though hours be late and weather be foul,
     We'll drink to the health of the bonny, bonny owl.”

“There is savour in this, my hearts,” said Michael, when the mercer had
finished his song, “and some goodness seems left among you yet; but what
a bead-roll you have read me of old comrades, and to every man's name
tacked some ill-omened motto! And so Swashing Will of Wallingford hath
bid us good-night?”

“He died the death of a fat buck,” said one of the party, “being shot
with a crossbow bolt, by old Thatcham, the Duke's stout park-keeper at
Donnington Castle.”

“Ay, ay, he always loved venison well,” replied Michael, “and a cup
of claret to boot--and so here's one to his memory. Do me right, my
masters.”

When the memory of this departed worthy had been duly honoured,
Lambourne proceeded to inquire after Prance of Padworth.

“Pranced off--made immortal ten years since,” said the mercer; “marry,
sir, Oxford Castle and Goodman Thong, and a tenpenny-worth of cord, best
know how.”

“What, so they hung poor Prance high and dry? so much for loving to walk
by moonlight. A cup to his memory, my masters-all merry fellows like
moonlight. What has become of Hal with the Plume--he who lived near
Yattenden, and wore the long feather?--I forget his name.”

“What, Hal Hempseed?” replied the mercer. “Why, you may remember he was
a sort of a gentleman, and would meddle in state matters, and so he
got into the mire about the Duke of Norfolk's affair these two or three
years since, fled the country with a pursuivant's warrant at his heels,
and has never since been heard of.”

“Nay, after these baulks,” said Michael Lambourne, “I need hardly
inquire after Tony Foster; for when ropes, and crossbow shafts, and
pursuivant's warrants, and such-like gear, were so rife, Tony could
hardly 'scape them.”

“Which Tony Foster mean you?” said the innkeeper.

“Why, him they called Tony Fire-the-Fagot, because he brought a light
to kindle the pile round Latimer and Ridley, when the wind blew out Jack
Thong's torch, and no man else would give him light for love or money.”

“Tony Foster lives and thrives,” said the host. “But, kinsman, I would
not have you call him Tony Fire-the-Fagot, if you would not brook the
stab.”

“How! is he grown ashamed on't?” said Lambourne, “Why, he was wont to
boast of it, and say he liked as well to see a roasted heretic as a
roasted ox.”

“Ay, but, kinsman, that was in Mary's time,” replied the landlord, “when
Tony's father was reeve here to the Abbot of Abingdon. But since that,
Tony married a pure precisian, and is as good a Protestant, I warrant
you, as the best.”

“And looks grave, and holds his head high, and scorns his old
companions,” said the mercer.

“Then he hath prospered, I warrant him,” said Lambourne; “for ever when
a man hath got nobles of his own, he keeps out of the way of those whose
exchequers lie in other men's purchase.”

“Prospered, quotha!” said the mercer; “why, you remember Cumnor Place,
the old mansion-house beside the churchyard?”

“By the same token, I robbed the orchard three times--what of that?
It was the old abbot's residence when there was plague or sickness at
Abingdon.”

“Ay,” said the host, “but that has been long over; and Anthony Foster
hath a right in it, and lives there by some grant from a great courtier,
who had the church-lands from the crown. And there he dwells, and has
as little to do with any poor wight in Cumnor, as if he were himself a
belted knight.”

“Nay,” said the mercer, “it is not altogether pride in Tony neither;
there is a fair lady in the case, and Tony will scarce let the light of
day look on her.”

“How!” said Tressilian, who now for the first time interfered in
their conversation; “did ye not say this Foster was married, and to a
precisian?”

“Married he was, and to as bitter a precisian as ever ate flesh in Lent;
and a cat-and-dog life she led with Tony, as men said. But she is dead,
rest be with her! and Tony hath but a slip of a daughter; so it is
thought he means to wed this stranger, that men keep such a coil about.”

“And why so?--I mean, why do they keep a coil about her?” said
Tressilian.

“Why, I wot not,” answered the host, “except that men say she is as
beautiful as an angel, and no one knows whence she comes, and every one
wishes to know why she is kept so closely mewed up. For my part, I never
saw her--you have, I think, Master Goldthred?”

“That I have, old boy,” said the mercer. “Look you, I was riding hither
from Abingdon. I passed under the east oriel window of the old mansion,
where all the old saints and histories and such-like are painted. It was
not the common path I took, but one through the Park; for the postern
door was upon the latch, and I thought I might take the privilege of an
old comrade to ride across through the trees, both for shading, as the
day was somewhat hot, and for avoiding of dust, because I had on my
peach-coloured doublet, pinked out with cloth of gold.”

“Which garment,” said Michael Lambourne, “thou wouldst willingly make
twinkle in the eyes of a fair dame. Ah! villain, thou wilt never leave
thy old tricks.”

“Not so-not so,” said the mercer, with a smirking laugh--“not altogether
so--but curiosity, thou knowest, and a strain of compassion withal; for
the poor young lady sees nothing from morn to even but Tony Foster, with
his scowling black brows, his bull's head, and his bandy legs.”

“And thou wouldst willingly show her a dapper body, in a silken
jerkin--a limb like a short-legged hen's, in a cordovan boot--and a
round, simpering, what-d'ye-lack sort of a countenance, set off with a
velvet bonnet, a Turkey feather, and a gilded brooch? Ah! jolly mercer,
they who have good wares are fond to show them!--Come, gentles, let
not the cup stand--here's to long spurs, short boots, full bonnets, and
empty skulls!”

“Nay, now, you are jealous of me, Mike,” said Goldthred; “and yet my
luck was but what might have happened to thee, or any man.”

“Marry confound thine impudence,” retorted Lambourne; “thou wouldst not
compare thy pudding face, and sarsenet manners, to a gentleman, and a
soldier?”

“Nay, my good sir,” said Tressilian, “let me beseech you will not
interrupt the gallant citizen; methinks he tells his tale so well, I
could hearken to him till midnight.”

“It's more of your favour than of my desert,” answered Master Goldthred;
“but since I give you pleasure, worthy Master Tressilian, I shall
proceed, maugre all the gibes and quips of this valiant soldier, who,
peradventure, hath had more cuffs than crowns in the Low Countries. And
so, sir, as I passed under the great painted window, leaving my rein
loose on my ambling palfrey's neck, partly for mine ease, and partly
that I might have the more leisure to peer about, I hears me the lattice
open; and never credit me, sir, if there did not stand there the person
of as fair a woman as ever crossed mine eyes; and I think I have looked
on as many pretty wenches, and with as much judgment, as other folks.”

“May I ask her appearance, sir?” said Tressilian.

“Oh, sir,” replied Master Goldthred, “I promise you, she was in
gentlewoman's attire--a very quaint and pleasing dress, that might have
served the Queen herself; for she had a forepart with body and sleeves,
of ginger-coloured satin, which, in my judgment, must have cost by the
yard some thirty shillings, lined with murrey taffeta, and laid down and
guarded with two broad laces of gold and silver. And her hat, sir, was
truly the best fashioned thing that I have seen in these parts, being of
tawny taffeta, embroidered with scorpions of Venice gold, and having a
border garnished with gold fringe--I promise you, sir, an absolute
and all-surpassing device. Touching her skirts, they were in the old
pass-devant fashion.”

“I did not ask you of her attire, sir,” said Tressilian, who had shown
some impatience during this conversation, “but of her complexion--the
colour of her hair, her features.”

“Touching her complexion,” answered the mercer, “I am not so special
certain, but I marked that her fan had an ivory handle, curiously
inlaid. And then again, as to the colour of her hair, why, I can
warrant, be its hue what it might, that she wore above it a net of green
silk, parcel twisted with gold.”

“A most mercer-like memory!” said Lambourne. “The gentleman asks him of
the lady's beauty, and he talks of her fine clothes!”

“I tell thee,” said the mercer, somewhat disconcerted, “I had little
time to look at her; for just as I was about to give her the good time
of day, and for that purpose had puckered my features with a smile--”

“Like those of a jackanape simpering at a chestnut,” said Michael
Lambourne.

“Up started of a sudden,” continued Goldthred, without heeding the
interruption, “Tony Foster himself, with a cudgel in his hand--”

“And broke thy head across, I hope, for thine impertinence,” said his
entertainer.

“That were more easily said than done,” answered Goldthred indignantly;
“no, no--there was no breaking of heads. It's true, he advanced his
cudgel, and spoke of laying on, and asked why I did not keep the
public road, and such like; and I would have knocked him over the pate
handsomely for his pains, only for the lady's presence, who might have
swooned, for what I know.”

“Now, out upon thee for a faint-spirited slave!” said Lambourne; “what
adventurous knight ever thought of the lady's terror, when he went
to thwack giant, dragon, or magician, in her presence, and for her
deliverance? But why talk to thee of dragons, who would be driven back
by a dragon-fly. There thou hast missed the rarest opportunity!”

“Take it thyself, then, bully Mike,” answered Goldthred. “Yonder is the
enchanted manor, and the dragon, and the lady, all at thy service, if
thou darest venture on them.”

“Why, so I would for a quartern of sack,” said the soldier--“or stay: I
am foully out of linen--wilt thou bet a piece of Hollands against these
five angels, that I go not up to the Hall to-morrow and force Tony
Foster to introduce me to his fair guest?”

“I accept your wager,” said the mercer; “and I think, though thou hadst
even the impudence of the devil, I shall gain on thee this bout. Our
landlord here shall hold stakes, and I will stake down gold till I send
the linen.”

“I will hold stakes on no such matter,” said Gosling. “Good now, my
kinsman, drink your wine in quiet, and let such ventures alone. I
promise you, Master Foster hath interest enough to lay you up in
lavender in the Castle at Oxford, or to get your legs made acquainted
with the town-stocks.”

“That would be but renewing an old intimacy, for Mike's shins and the
town's wooden pinfold have been well known to each other ere now,” said
the mercer; “but he shall not budge from his wager, unless he means to
pay forfeit.”

“Forfeit?” said Lambourne; “I scorn it. I value Tony Foster's wrath no
more than a shelled pea-cod; and I will visit his Lindabrides, by Saint
George, be he willing or no!”

“I would gladly pay your halves of the risk, sir,” said Tressilian, “to
be permitted to accompany you on the adventure.”

“In what would that advantage you, sir?” answered Lambourne.

“In nothing, sir,” said Tressilian, “unless to mark the skill and valour
with which you conduct yourself. I am a traveller who seeks for strange
rencounters and uncommon passages, as the knights of yore did after
adventures and feats of arms.”

“Nay, if it pleasures you to see a trout tickled,” answered Lambourne,
“I care not how many witness my skill. And so here I drink success to my
enterprise; and he that will not pledge me on his knees is a rascal, and
I will cut his legs off by the garters!”

The draught which Michael Lambourne took upon this occasion had been
preceded by so many others, that reason tottered on her throne. He
swore one or two incoherent oaths at the mercer, who refused, reasonably
enough, to pledge him to a sentiment which inferred the loss of his own
wager.

“Wilt thou chop logic with me,” said Lambourne, “thou knave, with no
more brains than are in a skein of ravelled silk? By Heaven, I will cut
thee into fifty yards of galloon lace!”

But as he attempted to draw his sword for this doughty purpose, Michael
Lambourne was seized upon by the tapster and the chamberlain, and
conveyed to his own apartment, there to sleep himself sober at his
leisure.

The party then broke up, and the guests took their leave; much more
to the contentment of mine host than of some of the company, who were
unwilling to quit good liquor, when it was to be had for free cost, so
long as they were able to sit by it. They were, however, compelled to
remove; and go at length they did, leaving Gosling and Tressilian in the
empty apartment.

“By my faith,” said the former, “I wonder where our great folks find
pleasure, when they spend their means in entertainments, and in playing
mine host without sending in a reckoning. It is what I but rarely
practise; and whenever I do, by Saint Julian, it grieves me beyond
measure. Each of these empty stoups now, which my nephew and his drunken
comrades have swilled off, should have been a matter of profit to one in
my line, and I must set them down a dead loss. I cannot, for my heart,
conceive the pleasure of noise, and nonsense, and drunken freaks, and
drunken quarrels, and smut, and blasphemy, and so forth, when a man
loses money instead of gaining by it. And yet many a fair estate is lost
in upholding such a useless course, and that greatly contributes to the
decay of publicans; for who the devil do you think would pay for drink
at the Black Bear, when he can have it for nothing at my Lord's or the
Squire's?”

Tressilian perceived that the wine had made some impression even on the
seasoned brain of mine host, which was chiefly to be inferred from his
declaiming against drunkenness. As he himself had carefully avoided the
bowl, he would have availed himself of the frankness of the moment
to extract from Gosling some further information upon the subject
of Anthony Foster, and the lady whom the mercer had seen in his
mansion-house; but his inquiries only set the host upon a new theme of
declamation against the wiles of the fair sex, in which he brought, at
full length, the whole wisdom of Solomon to reinforce his own. Finally,
he turned his admonitions, mixed with much objurgation, upon his
tapsters and drawers, who were employed in removing the relics of the
entertainment, and restoring order to the apartment; and at length,
joining example to precept, though with no good success, he demolished
a salver with half a score of glasses, in attempting to show how such
service was done at the Three Cranes in the Vintry, then the most
topping tavern in London. This last accident so far recalled him to his
better self, that he retired to his bed, slept sound, and awoke a new
man in the morning.





CHAPTER III.


     Nay, I'll hold touch--the game shall be play'd out;
     It ne'er shall stop for me, this merry wager:
     That which I say when gamesome, I'll avouch
     In my most sober mood, ne'er trust me else.   THE HAZARD TABLE.

“And how doth your kinsman, good mine host?” said Tressilian, when Giles
Gosling first appeared in the public room, on the morning following the
revel which we described in the last chapter. “Is he well, and will he
abide by his wager?”

“For well, sir, he started two hours since, and has visited I know not
what purlieus of his old companions; hath but now returned, and is at
this instant breakfasting on new-laid eggs and muscadine. And for his
wager, I caution you as a friend to have little to do with that, or
indeed with aught that Mike proposes. Wherefore, I counsel you to a warm
breakfast upon a culiss, which shall restore the tone of the stomach;
and let my nephew and Master Goldthred swagger about their wager as they
list.”

“It seems to me, mine host,” said Tressilian, “that you know not well
what to say about this kinsman of yours, and that you can neither blame
nor commend him without some twinge of conscience.”

“You have spoken truly, Master Tressilian,” replied Giles Gosling.
“There is Natural Affection whimpering into one ear, 'Giles, Giles, why
wilt thou take away the good name of thy own nephew? Wilt thou defame
thy sister's son, Giles Gosling? wilt thou defoul thine own nest,
dishonour thine own blood?' And then, again, comes Justice, and says,
'Here is a worthy guest as ever came to the bonny Black Bear; one who
never challenged a reckoning' (as I say to your face you never did,
Master Tressilian--not that you have had cause), 'one who knows not why
he came, so far as I can see, or when he is going away; and wilt thou,
being a publican, having paid scot and lot these thirty years in the
town of Cumnor, and being at this instant head-borough, wilt thou suffer
this guest of guests, this man of men, this six-hooped pot (as I may
say) of a traveller, to fall into the meshes of thy nephew, who is known
for a swasher and a desperate Dick, a carder and a dicer, a professor of
the seven damnable sciences, if ever man took degrees in them?' No,
by Heaven! I might wink, and let him catch such a small butterfly as
Goldthred; but thou, my guest, shall be forewarned, forearmed, so thou
wilt but listen to thy trusty host.”

“Why, mine host, thy counsel shall not be cast away,” replied
Tressilian; “however, I must uphold my share in this wager, having once
passed my word to that effect. But lend me, I pray, some of thy counsel.
This Foster, who or what is he, and why makes he such mystery of his
female inmate?”

“Troth,” replied Gosling, “I can add but little to what you heard last
night. He was one of Queen Mary's Papists, and now he is one of Queen
Elizabeth's Protestants; he was an onhanger of the Abbot of Abingdon;
and now he lives as master of the Manor-house. Above all, he was
poor, and is rich. Folk talk of private apartments in his old waste
mansion-house, bedizened fine enough to serve the Queen, God bless her!
Some men think he found a treasure in the orchard, some that he sold
himself to the devil for treasure, and some say that he cheated the
abbot out of the church plate, which was hidden in the old Manor-house
at the Reformation. Rich, however, he is, and God and his conscience,
with the devil perhaps besides, only know how he came by it. He has
sulky ways too--breaking off intercourse with all that are of the place,
as if he had either some strange secret to keep, or held himself to be
made of another clay than we are. I think it likely my kinsman and he
will quarrel, if Mike thrust his acquaintance on him; and I am sorry
that you, my worthy Master Tressilian, will still think of going in my
nephew's company.”

Tressilian again answered him, that he would proceed with great caution,
and that he should have no fears on his account; in short, he bestowed
on him all the customary assurances with which those who are determined
on a rash action are wont to parry the advice of their friends.

Meantime, the traveller accepted the landlord's invitation, and had just
finished the excellent breakfast, which was served to him and Gosling
by pretty Cicely, the beauty of the bar, when the hero of the preceding
night, Michael Lambourne, entered the apartment. His toilet had
apparently cost him some labour, for his clothes, which differed from
those he wore on his journey, were of the newest fashion, and put on
with great attention to the display of his person.

“By my faith, uncle,” said the gallant, “you made a wet night of it, and
I feel it followed by a dry morning. I will pledge you willingly in a
cup of bastard.--How, my pretty coz Cicely! why, I left you but a child
in the cradle, and there thou stand'st in thy velvet waistcoat, as tight
a girl as England's sun shines on. Know thy friends and kindred,
Cicely, and come hither, child, that I may kiss thee, and give thee my
blessing.”

“Concern not yourself about Cicely, kinsman,” said Giles Gosling, “but
e'en let her go her way, a' God's name; for although your mother were
her father's sister, yet that shall not make you and her cater-cousins.”

“Why, uncle,” replied Lambourne, “think'st thou I am an infidel, and
would harm those of mine own house?”

“It is for no harm that I speak, Mike,” answered his uncle, “but a
simple humour of precaution which I have. True, thou art as well gilded
as a snake when he casts his old slough in the spring time; but for all
that, thou creepest not into my Eden. I will look after mine Eve, Mike,
and so content thee.--But how brave thou be'st, lad! To look on thee
now, and compare thee with Master Tressilian here, in his sad-coloured
riding-suit, who would not say that thou wert the real gentleman and he
the tapster's boy?”

“Troth, uncle,” replied Lambourne, “no one would say so but one of your
country-breeding, that knows no better. I will say, and I care not who
hears me, there is something about the real gentry that few men come up
to that are not born and bred to the mystery. I wot not where the trick
lies; but although I can enter an ordinary with as much audacity, rebuke
the waiters and drawers as loudly, drink as deep a health, swear as
round an oath, and fling my gold as freely about as any of the jingling
spurs and white feathers that are around me, yet, hang me if I can ever
catch the true grace of it, though I have practised an hundred times.
The man of the house sets me lowest at the board, and carves to me the
last; and the drawer says, 'Coming, friend,' without any more reverence
or regardful addition. But, hang it, let it pass; care killed a cat. I
have gentry enough to pass the trick on Tony Fire-the-Faggot, and that
will do for the matter in hand.”

“You hold your purpose, then, of visiting your old acquaintance?” said
Tressilian to the adventurer.

“Ay, sir,” replied Lambourne; “when stakes are made, the game must be
played; that is gamester's law, all over the world. You, sir, unless
my memory fails me (for I did steep it somewhat too deeply in the
sack-butt), took some share in my hazard?”

“I propose to accompany you in your adventure,” said Tressilian, “if you
will do me so much grace as to permit me; and I have staked my share of
the forfeit in the hands of our worthy host.”

“That he hath,” answered Giles Gosling, “in as fair Harry-nobles as ever
were melted into sack by a good fellow. So, luck to your enterprise,
since you will needs venture on Tony Foster; but, by my credit, you had
better take another draught before you depart, for your welcome at
the Hall yonder will be somewhat of the driest. And if you do get into
peril, beware of taking to cold steel; but send for me, Giles Gosling,
the head-borough, and I may be able to make something out of Tony yet,
for as proud as he is.”

The nephew dutifully obeyed his uncle's hint, by taking a second
powerful pull at the tankard, observing that his wit never served him
so well as when he had washed his temples with a deep morning's draught;
and they set forth together for the habitation of Anthony Foster.

The village of Cumnor is pleasantly built on a hill, and in a wooded
park closely adjacent was situated the ancient mansion occupied at this
time by Anthony Foster, of which the ruins may be still extant. The park
was then full of large trees, and in particular of ancient and mighty
oaks, which stretched their giant arms over the high wall surrounding
the demesne, thus giving it a melancholy, secluded, and monastic
appearance. The entrance to the park lay through an old-fashioned
gateway in the outer wall, the door of which was formed of two huge
oaken leaves thickly studded with nails, like the gate of an old town.

“We shall be finely helped up here,” said Michael Lambourne, looking at
the gateway and gate, “if this fellow's suspicious humour should
refuse us admission altogether, as it is like he may, in case this
linsey-wolsey fellow of a mercer's visit to his premises has disquieted
him. But, no,” he added, pushing the huge gate, which gave way, “the
door stands invitingly open; and here we are within the forbidden
ground, without other impediment than the passive resistance of a heavy
oak door moving on rusty hinges.”

They stood now in an avenue overshadowed by such old trees as we have
described, and which had been bordered at one time by high hedges of yew
and holly. But these, having been untrimmed for many years, had run up
into great bushes, or rather dwarf-trees, and now encroached, with their
dark and melancholy boughs, upon the road which they once had screened.
The avenue itself was grown up with grass, and, in one or two places,
interrupted by piles of withered brushwood, which had been lopped from
the trees cut down in the neighbouring park, and was here stacked for
drying. Formal walks and avenues, which, at different points, crossed
this principal approach, were, in like manner, choked up and interrupted
by piles of brushwood and billets, and in other places by underwood and
brambles. Besides the general effect of desolation which is so strongly
impressed whenever we behold the contrivances of man wasted and
obliterated by neglect, and witness the marks of social life effaced
gradually by the influence of vegetation, the size of the trees and the
outspreading extent of their boughs diffused a gloom over the scene,
even when the sun was at the highest, and made a proportional impression
on the mind of those who visited it. This was felt even by Michael
Lambourne, however alien his habits were to receiving any impressions,
excepting from things which addressed themselves immediately to his
passions.

“This wood is as dark as a wolf's mouth,” said he to Tressilian, as they
walked together slowly along the solitary and broken approach, and had
just come in sight of the monastic front of the old mansion, with its
shafted windows, brick walls overgrown with ivy and creeping shrubs,
and twisted stalks of chimneys of heavy stone-work. “And yet,” continued
Lambourne, “it is fairly done on the part of Foster too for since he
chooses not visitors, it is right to keep his place in a fashion that
will invite few to trespass upon his privacy. But had he been the
Anthony I once knew him, these sturdy oaks had long since become the
property of some honest woodmonger, and the manor-close here had looked
lighter at midnight than it now does at noon, while Foster played fast
and loose with the price, in some cunning corner in the purlieus of
Whitefriars.”

“Was he then such an unthrift?” asked Tressilian.

“He was,” answered Lambourne, “like the rest of us, no saint, and no
saver. But what I liked worst of Tony was, that he loved to take his
pleasure by himself, and grudged, as men say, every drop of water that
went past his own mill. I have known him deal with such measures of wine
when he was alone, as I would not have ventured on with aid of the best
toper in Berkshire;--that, and some sway towards superstition, which he
had by temperament, rendered him unworthy the company of a good fellow.
And now he has earthed himself here, in a den just befitting such a sly
fox as himself.”

“May I ask you, Master Lambourne,” said Tressilian, “since your old
companion's humour jumps so little with your own, wherefore you are so
desirous to renew acquaintance with him?”

“And may I ask you, in return, Master Tressilian,” answered Lambourne,
“wherefore you have shown yourself so desirous to accompany me on this
party?”

“I told you my motive,” said Tressilian, “when I took share in your
wager--it was simple curiosity.”

“La you there now!” answered Lambourne. “See how you civil and discreet
gentlemen think to use us who live by the free exercise of our wits! Had
I answered your question by saying that it was simple curiosity which
led me to visit my old comrade Anthony Foster, I warrant you had set it
down for an evasion, and a turn of my trade. But any answer, I suppose,
must serve my turn.”

“And wherefore should not bare curiosity,” said Tressilian, “be a
sufficient reason for my taking this walk with you?”

“Oh, content yourself, sir,” replied Lambourne; “you cannot put
the change on me so easy as you think, for I have lived among the
quick-stirring spirits of the age too long to swallow chaff for grain.
You are a gentleman of birth and breeding--your bearing makes it good;
of civil habits and fair reputation--your manners declare it, and
my uncle avouches it; and yet you associate yourself with a sort of
scant-of-grace, as men call me, and, knowing me to be such, you make
yourself my companion in a visit to a man whom you are a stranger
to--and all out of mere curiosity, forsooth! The excuse, if curiously
balanced, would be found to want some scruples of just weight, or so.”

“If your suspicions were just,” said Tressilian, “you have shown no
confidence in me to invite or deserve mine.”

“Oh, if that be all,” said Lambourne, “my motives lie above water. While
this gold of mine lasts”--taking out his purse, chucking it into the
air, and catching it as it fell--“I will make it buy pleasure; and
when it is out I must have more. Now, if this mysterious Lady of the
Manor--this fair Lindabrides of Tony Fire-the-Fagot--be so admirable a
piece as men say, why, there is a chance that she may aid me to melt
my nobles into greats; and, again, if Anthony be so wealthy a chuff
as report speaks him, he may prove the philosopher's stone to me, and
convert my greats into fair rose-nobles again.”

“A comfortable proposal truly,” said Tressilian; “but I see not what
chance there is of accomplishing it.”

“Not to-day, or perchance to-morrow,” answered Lambourne; “I expect not
to catch the old jack till. I have disposed my ground-baits handsomely.
But I know something more of his affairs this morning than I did last
night, and I will so use my knowledge that he shall think it more
perfect than it is. Nay, without expecting either pleasure or profit, or
both, I had not stepped a stride within this manor, I can tell you; for
I promise you I hold our visit not altogether without risk.--But here we
are, and we must make the best on't.”

While he thus spoke, they had entered a large orchard which surrounded
the house on two sides, though the trees, abandoned by the care of man,
were overgrown and messy, and seemed to bear little fruit. Those which
had been formerly trained as espaliers had now resumed their natural
mode of growing, and exhibited grotesque forms, partaking of the
original training which they had received. The greater part of the
ground, which had once been parterres and flower-gardens, was suffered
in like manner to run to waste, excepting a few patches which had been
dug up and planted with ordinary pot herbs. Some statues, which had
ornamented the garden in its days of splendour, were now thrown down
from their pedestals and broken in pieces; and a large summer-house,
having a heavy stone front, decorated with carving representing the life
and actions of Samson, was in the same dilapidated condition.

They had just traversed this garden of the sluggard, and were within
a few steps of the door of the mansion, when Lambourne had ceased
speaking; a circumstance very agreeable to Tressilian, as it saved him
the embarrassment of either commenting upon or replying to the frank
avowal which his companion had just made of the sentiments and views
which induced him to come hither. Lambourne knocked roundly and boldly
at the huge door of the mansion, observing, at the same time, he had
seen a less strong one upon a county jail. It was not until they had
knocked more than once that an aged, sour-visaged domestic reconnoitred
them through a small square hole in the door, well secured with bars of
iron, and demanded what they wanted.

“To speak with Master Foster instantly, on pressing business of the
state,” was the ready reply of Michael Lambourne.

“Methinks you will find difficulty to make that good,” said Tressilian
in a whisper to his companion, while the servant went to carry the
message to his master.

“Tush,” replied the adventurer; “no soldier would go on were he
always to consider when and how he should come off. Let us once obtain
entrance, and all will go well enough.”

In a short time the servant returned, and drawing with a careful hand
both bolt and bar, opened the gate, which admitted them through an
archway into a square court, surrounded by buildings. Opposite to the
arch was another door, which the serving-man in like manner unlocked,
and thus introduced them into a stone-paved parlour, where there was but
little furniture, and that of the rudest and most ancient fashion. The
windows were tall and ample, reaching almost to the roof of the room,
which was composed of black oak; those opening to the quadrangle were
obscured by the height of the surrounding buildings, and, as they were
traversed with massive shafts of solid stone-work, and thickly painted
with religious devices, and scenes taken from Scripture history, by no
means admitted light in proportion to their size, and what did penetrate
through them partook of the dark and gloomy tinge of the stained glass.

Tressilian and his guide had time enough to observe all these
particulars, for they waited some space in the apartment ere the present
master of the mansion at length made his appearance. Prepared as he was
to see an inauspicious and ill-looking person, the ugliness of Anthony
Foster considerably exceeded what Tressilian had anticipated. He was
of middle stature, built strongly, but so clumsily as to border on
deformity, and to give all his motions the ungainly awkwardness of a
left-legged and left-handed man. His hair, in arranging which men at
that time, as at present, were very nice and curious, instead of being
carefully cleaned and disposed into short curls, or else set up on end,
as is represented in old paintings, in a manner resembling that used by
fine gentlemen of our own day, escaped in sable negligence from under
a furred bonnet, and hung in elf-locks, which seemed strangers to
the comb, over his rugged brows, and around his very singular and
unprepossessing countenance. His keen, dark eyes were deep set beneath
broad and shaggy eyebrows, and as they were usually bent on the ground,
seemed as if they were themselves ashamed of the expression natural to
them, and were desirous to conceal it from the observation of men.
At times, however, when, more intent on observing others, he suddenly
raised them, and fixed them keenly on those with whom he conversed, they
seemed to express both the fiercer passions, and the power of mind which
could at will suppress or disguise the intensity of inward feeling.
The features which corresponded with these eyes and this form were
irregular, and marked so as to be indelibly fixed on the mind of him
who had once seen them. Upon the whole, as Tressilian could not help
acknowledging to himself, the Anthony Foster who now stood before them
was the last person, judging from personal appearance, upon whom one
would have chosen to intrude an unexpected and undesired visit. His
attire was a doublet of russet leather, like those worn by the better
sort of country folk, girt with a buff belt, in which was stuck on the
right side a long knife, or dudgeon dagger, and on the other a
cutlass. He raised his eyes as he entered the room, and fixed a keenly
penetrating glance upon his two visitors; then cast them down as if
counting his steps, while he advanced slowly into the middle of the
room, and said, in a low and smothered tone of voice, “Let me pray you,
gentlemen, to tell me the cause of this visit.”

He looked as if he expected the answer from Tressilian, so true was
Lambourne's observation that the superior air of breeding and dignity
shone through the disguise of an inferior dress. But it was Michael who
replied to him, with the easy familiarity of an old friend, and a tone
which seemed unembarrassed by any doubt of the most cordial reception.

“Ha! my dear friend and ingle, Tony Foster!” he exclaimed, seizing
upon the unwilling hand, and shaking it with such emphasis as almost to
stagger the sturdy frame of the person whom he addressed, “how fares it
with you for many a long year? What! have you altogether forgotten your
friend, gossip, and playfellow, Michael Lambourne?”

“Michael Lambourne!” said Foster, looking at him a moment; then dropping
his eyes, and with little ceremony extricating his hand from the
friendly grasp of the person by whom he was addressed, “are you Michael
Lambourne?”

“Ay; sure as you are Anthony Foster,” replied Lambourne.

“'Tis well,” answered his sullen host. “And what may Michael Lambourne
expect from his visit hither?”

“VOTO A DIOS,” answered Lambourne, “I expected a better welcome than I
am like to meet, I think.”

“Why, thou gallows-bird--thou jail-rat--thou friend of the hangman
and his customers!” replied Foster, “hast thou the assurance to expect
countenance from any one whose neck is beyond the compass of a Tyburn
tippet?”

“It may be with me as you say,” replied Lambourne; “and suppose I grant
it to be so for argument's sake, I were still good enough society
for mine ancient friend Anthony Fire-the-Fagot, though he be, for the
present, by some indescribable title, the master of Cumnor Place.”

“Hark you, Michael Lambourne,” said Foster; “you are a gambler now, and
live by the counting of chances--compute me the odds that I do not, on
this instant, throw you out of that window into the ditch there.”

“Twenty to one that you do not,” answered the sturdy visitor.

“And wherefore, I pray you?” demanded Anthony Foster, setting his teeth
and compressing his lips, like one who endeavours to suppress some
violent internal emotion.

“Because,” said Lambourne coolly, “you dare not for your life lay a
finger on me. I am younger and stronger than you, and have in me a
double portion of the fighting devil, though not, it may be, quite so
much of the undermining fiend, that finds an underground way to his
purpose--who hides halters under folk's pillows, and who puts rats-bane
into their porridge, as the stage-play says.”

Foster looked at him earnestly, then turned away, and paced the room
twice with the same steady and considerate pace with which he had
entered it; then suddenly came back, and extended his hand to Michael
Lambourne, saying, “Be not wroth with me, good Mike; I did but try
whether thou hadst parted with aught of thine old and honourable
frankness, which your enviers and backbiters called saucy impudence.”

“Let them call it what they will,” said Michael Lambourne, “it is the
commodity we must carry through the world with us.--Uds daggers! I tell
thee, man, mine own stock of assurance was too small to trade upon. I
was fain to take in a ton or two more of brass at every port where I
touched in the voyage of life; and I started overboard what modesty and
scruples I had remaining, in order to make room for the stowage.”

“Nay, nay,” replied Foster, “touching scruples and modesty, you sailed
hence in ballast. But who is this gallant, honest Mike?--is he a
Corinthian--a cutter like thyself?”

“I prithee, know Master Tressilian, bully Foster,” replied Lambourne,
presenting his friend in answer to his friend's question, “know him
and honour him, for he is a gentleman of many admirable qualities; and
though he traffics not in my line of business, at least so far as I
know, he has, nevertheless, a just respect and admiration for artists
of our class. He will come to in time, as seldom fails; but as yet he is
only a neophyte, only a proselyte, and frequents the company of cocks of
the game, as a puny fencer does the schools of the masters, to see how a
foil is handled by the teachers of defence.”

“If such be his quality, I will pray your company in another chamber,
honest Mike, for what I have to say to thee is for thy private
ear.--Meanwhile, I pray you, sir, to abide us in this apartment, and
without leaving it; there be those in this house who would be alarmed by
the sight of a stranger.”

Tressilian acquiesced, and the two worthies left the apartment together,
in which he remained alone to await their return. [See Note 1. Foster,
Lambourne, and the Black Bear.]





CHAPTER IV.


     Not serve two masters?--Here's a youth will try it--
     Would fain serve God, yet give the devil his due;
     Says grace before he doth a deed of villainy,
     And returns his thanks devoutly when 'tis acted,--OLD PLAY.

The room into which the Master of Cumnor Place conducted his worthy
visitant was of greater extent than that in which they had at first
conversed, and had yet more the appearance of dilapidation. Large oaken
presses, filled with shelves of the same wood, surrounded the room, and
had, at one time, served for the arrangement of a numerous collection
of books, many of which yet remained, but torn and defaced, covered with
dust, deprived of their costly clasps and bindings, and tossed together
in heaps upon the shelves, as things altogether disregarded, and
abandoned to the pleasure of every spoiler. The very presses themselves
seemed to have incurred the hostility of those enemies of learning who
had destroyed the volumes with which they had been heretofore filled.
They were, in several places, dismantled of their shelves, and otherwise
broken and damaged, and were, moreover, mantled with cobwebs and covered
with dust.

“The men who wrote these books,” said Lambourne, looking round him,
“little thought whose keeping they were to fall into.”

“Nor what yeoman's service they were to do me,” quoth Anthony Foster;
“the cook hath used them for scouring his pewter, and the groom hath had
nought else to clean my boots with, this many a month past.”

“And yet,” said Lambourne, “I have been in cities where such learned
commodities would have been deemed too good for such offices.”

“Pshaw, pshaw,” answered Foster, “'they are Popish trash, every one
of them--private studies of the mumping old Abbot of Abingdon. The
nineteenthly of a pure gospel sermon were worth a cartload of such
rakings of the kennel of Rome.”

“Gad-a-mercy, Master Tony Fire-the-Fagot!” said Lambourne, by way of
reply.

Foster scowled darkly at him, as he replied, “Hark ye, friend Mike;
forget that name, and the passage which it relates to, if you would not
have our newly-revived comradeship die a sudden and a violent death.”

“Why,” said Michael Lambourne, “you were wont to glory in the share you
had in the death of the two old heretical bishops.”

“That,” said his comrade, “was while I was in the gall of bitterness and
bond of iniquity, and applies not to my walk or my ways now that I
am called forth into the lists. Mr. Melchisedek Maultext compared my
misfortune in that matter to that of the Apostle Paul, who kept the
clothes of the witnesses who stoned Saint Stephen. He held forth on the
matter three Sabbaths past, and illustrated the same by the conduct of
an honourable person present, meaning me.”

“I prithee peace, Foster,” said Lambourne, “for I know not how it is, I
have a sort of creeping comes over my skin when I hear the devil quote
Scripture; and besides, man, how couldst thou have the heart to quit
that convenient old religion, which you could slip off or on as easily
as your glove? Do I not remember how you were wont to carry your
conscience to confession, as duly as the month came round? and when thou
hadst it scoured, and burnished, and whitewashed by the priest, thou
wert ever ready for the worst villainy which could be devised, like a
child who is always readiest to rush into the mire when he has got his
Sunday's clean jerkin on.”

“Trouble not thyself about my conscience,” said Foster; “it is a thing
thou canst not understand, having never had one of thine own. But let
us rather to the point, and say to me, in one word, what is thy business
with me, and what hopes have drawn thee hither?”

“The hope of bettering myself, to be sure,” answered Lambourne, “as the
old woman said when she leapt over the bridge at Kingston. Look you,
this purse has all that is left of as round a sum as a man would wish to
carry in his slop-pouch. You are here well established, it would seem,
and, as I think, well befriended, for men talk of thy being under some
special protection--nay, stare not like a pig that is stuck, mon;
thou canst not dance in a net and they not see thee. Now I know such
protection is not purchased for nought; you must have services to render
for it, and in these I propose to help thee.”

“But how if I lack no assistance from thee, Mike? I think thy modesty
might suppose that were a case possible.”

“That is to say,” retorted Lambourne, “that you would engross the
whole work, rather than divide the reward. But be not over-greedy,
Anthony--covetousness bursts the sack and spills the grain. Look you,
when the huntsman goes to kill a stag, he takes with him more dogs than
one. He has the stanch lyme-hound to track the wounded buck over hill
and dale, but he hath also the fleet gaze-hound to kill him at view.
Thou art the lyme-hound, I am the gaze-hound; and thy patron will need
the aid of both, and can well afford to requite it. Thou hast deep
sagacity--an unrelenting purpose--a steady, long-breathed malignity of
nature, that surpasses mine. But then, I am the bolder, the quicker, the
more ready, both at action and expedient. Separate, our properties are
not so perfect; but unite them, and we drive the world before us. How
sayest thou--shall we hunt in couples?”

“It is a currish proposal--thus to thrust thyself upon my private
matters,” replied Foster; “but thou wert ever an ill-nurtured whelp.”

“You shall have no cause to say so, unless you spurn my courtesy,” said
Michael Lambourne; “but if so, keep thee well from me, Sir Knight, as
the romance has it. I will either share your counsels or traverse them;
for I have come here to be busy, either with thee or against thee.”

“Well,” said Anthony Foster, “since thou dost leave me so fair a choice,
I will rather be thy friend than thine enemy. Thou art right; I CAN
prefer thee to the service of a patron who has enough of means to make
us both, and an hundred more. And, to say truth, thou art well qualified
for his service. Boldness and dexterity he demands--the justice-books
bear witness in thy favour; no starting at scruples in his service why,
who ever suspected thee of a conscience? an assurance he must have who
would follow a courtier--and thy brow is as impenetrable as a Milan
visor. There is but one thing I would fain see amended in thee.”

“And what is that, my most precious friend Anthony?” replied Lambourne;
“for I swear by the pillow of the Seven Sleepers I will not be slothful
in amending it.”

“Why, you gave a sample of it even now,” said Foster. “Your speech
twangs too much of the old stamp, and you garnish it ever and anon with
singular oaths, that savour of Papistrie. Besides, your exterior man is
altogether too deboshed and irregular to become one of his lordship's
followers, since he has a reputation to keep up in the eye of the world.
You must somewhat reform your dress, upon a more grave and composed
fashion; wear your cloak on both shoulders, and your falling band
unrumpled and well starched. You must enlarge the brim of your beaver,
and diminish the superfluity of your trunk-hose; go to church, or, which
will be better, to meeting, at least once a month; protest only upon
your faith and conscience; lay aside your swashing look, and never touch
the hilt of your sword but when you would draw the carnal weapon in good
earnest.”

“By this light, Anthony, thou art mad,” answered Lambourne, “and hast
described rather the gentleman-usher to a puritan's wife, than the
follower of an ambitious courtier! Yes, such a thing as thou wouldst
make of me should wear a book at his girdle instead of a poniard, and
might just be suspected of manhood enough to squire a proud dame-citizen
to the lecture at Saint Antonlin's, and quarrel in her cause with any
flat-capped threadmaker that would take the wall of her. He must ruffle
it in another sort that would walk to court in a nobleman's train.”

“Oh, content you, sir,” replied Foster, “there is a change since you
knew the English world; and there are those who can hold their way
through the boldest courses, and the most secret, and yet never a
swaggering word, or an oath, or a profane word in their conversation.”

“That is to say,” replied Lambourne, “they are in a trading copartnery,
to do the devil's business without mentioning his name in the firm?
Well, I will do my best to counterfeit, rather than lose ground in this
new world, since thou sayest it is grown so precise. But, Anthony, what
is the name of this nobleman, in whose service I am to turn hypocrite?”

“Aha! Master Michael, are you there with your bears?” said Foster, with
a grim smile; “and is this the knowledge you pretend of my concernments?
How know you now there is such a person IN RERUM NATURA, and that I have
not been putting a jape upon you all this time?”

“Thou put a jape on me, thou sodden-brained gull?” answered Lambourne,
nothing daunted. “Why, dark and muddy as thou think'st thyself, I
would engage in a day's space to see as clear through thee and thy
concernments, as thou callest them, as through the filthy horn of an old
stable lantern.”

At this moment their conversation was interrupted by a scream from the
next apartment.

“By the holy Cross of Abingdon,” exclaimed Anthony Foster, forgetting
his Protestantism in his alarm, “I am a ruined man!”

So saying, he rushed into the apartment whence the scream issued,
followed by Michael Lambourne. But to account for the sounds which
interrupted their conversation, it is necessary to recede a little way
in our narrative.

It has been already observed, that when Lambourne accompanied Foster
into the library, they left Tressilian alone in the ancient parlour. His
dark eye followed them forth of the apartment with a glance of contempt,
a part of which his mind instantly transferred to himself, for having
stooped to be even for a moment their familiar companion. “These are the
associates, Amy”--it was thus he communed with himself--“to which
thy cruel levity--thine unthinking and most unmerited falsehood, has
condemned him of whom his friends once hoped far other things, and who
now scorns himself, as he will be scorned by others, for the baseness
he stoops to for the love of thee! But I will not leave the pursuit of
thee, once the object of my purest and most devoted affection, though
to me thou canst henceforth be nothing but a thing to weep over. I will
save thee from thy betrayer, and from thyself; I will restore thee to
thy parent--to thy God. I cannot bid the bright star again sparkle in
the sphere it has shot from, but--”

A slight noise in the apartment interrupted his reverie. He looked
round, and in the beautiful and richly-attired female who entered at
that instant by a side-door he recognized the object of his search. The
first impulse arising from this discovery urged him to conceal his face
with the collar of his cloak, until he should find a favourable moment
of making himself known. But his purpose was disconcerted by the young
lady (she was not above eighteen years old), who ran joyfully towards
him, and, pulling him by the cloak, said playfully, “Nay, my sweet
friend, after I have waited for you so long, you come not to my bower
to play the masquer. You are arraigned of treason to true love and fond
affection, and you must stand up at the bar and answer it with face
uncovered--how say you, guilty or not?”

“Alas, Amy!” said Tressilian, in a low and melancholy tone, as he
suffered her to draw the mantle from his face. The sound of his voice,
and still more the unexpected sight of his face, changed in an instant
the lady's playful mood. She staggered back, turned as pale as death,
and put her hands before her face. Tressilian was himself for a moment
much overcome, but seeming suddenly to remember the necessity of using
an opportunity which might not again occur, he said in a low tone, “Amy,
fear me not.”

“Why should I fear you?” said the lady, withdrawing her hands from her
beautiful face, which was now covered with crimson,--“Why should I fear
you, Master Tressilian?--or wherefore have you intruded yourself into my
dwelling, uninvited, sir, and unwished for?”

“Your dwelling, Amy!” said Tressilian. “Alas! is a prison your
dwelling?--a prison guarded by one of the most sordid of men, but not a
greater wretch than his employer!”

“This house is mine,” said Amy--“mine while I choose to inhabit it. If
it is my pleasure to live in seclusion, who shall gainsay me?”

“Your father, maiden,” answered Tressilian, “your broken-hearted father,
who dispatched me in quest of you with that authority which he cannot
exert in person. Here is his letter, written while he blessed his pain
of body which somewhat stunned the agony of his mind.”

“The pain! Is my father then ill?” said the lady.

“So ill,” answered Tressilian, “that even your utmost haste may not
restore him to health; but all shall be instantly prepared for your
departure, the instant you yourself will give consent.”

“Tressilian,” answered the lady, “I cannot, I must not, I dare not leave
this place. Go back to my father--tell him I will obtain leave to see
him within twelve hours from hence. Go back, Tressilian--tell him I am
well, I am happy--happy could I think he was so; tell him not to fear
that I will come, and in such a manner that all the grief Amy has given
him shall be forgotten--the poor Amy is now greater than she dare name.
Go, good Tressilian--I have injured thee too, but believe me I have
power to heal the wounds I have caused. I robbed you of a childish
heart, which was not worthy of you, and I can repay the loss with
honours and advancement.”

“Do you say this to me, Amy?--do you offer me pageants of idle ambition,
for the quiet peace you have robbed me of!--But be it so I came not
to upbraid, but to serve and to free you. You cannot disguise it from
me--you are a prisoner. Otherwise your kind heart--for it was once a
kind heart--would have been already at your father's bedside.--Come,
poor, deceived, unhappy maiden!--all shall be forgot--all shall be
forgiven. Fear not my importunity for what regarded our contract--it was
a dream, and I have awaked. But come--your father yet lives--come, and
one word of affection, one tear of penitence, will efface the memory of
all that has passed.”

“Have I not already said, Tressilian,” replied she, “that I will surely
come to my father, and that without further delay than is necessary to
discharge other and equally binding duties?--Go, carry him the news;
I come as sure as there is light in heaven--that is, when I obtain
permission.”

“Permission!--permission to visit your father on his sick-bed, perhaps
on his death-bed!” repeated Tressilian, impatiently; “and permission
from whom? From the villain, who, under disguise of friendship, abused
every duty of hospitality, and stole thee from thy father's roof!”

“Do him no slander, Tressilian! He whom thou speakest of wears a sword
as sharp as thine--sharper, vain man; for the best deeds thou hast
ever done in peace or war were as unworthy to be named with his, as thy
obscure rank to match itself with the sphere he moves in.--Leave me!
Go, do mine errand to my father; and when he next sends to me, let him
choose a more welcome messenger.”

“Amy,” replied Tressilian calmly, “thou canst not move me by thy
reproaches. Tell me one thing, that I may bear at least one ray of
comfort to my aged friend:--this rank of his which thou dost boast--dost
thou share it with him, Amy?--does he claim a husband's right to control
thy motions?”

“Stop thy base, unmannered tongue!” said the lady; “to no question that
derogates from my honour do I deign an answer.”

“You have said enough in refusing to reply,” answered Tressilian;
“and mark me, unhappy as thou art, I am armed with thy father's full
authority to command thy obedience, and I will save thee from the
slavery of sin and of sorrow, even despite of thyself, Amy.”

“Menace no violence here!” exclaimed the lady, drawing back from him,
and alarmed at the determination expressed in his look and manner;
“threaten me not, Tressilian, for I have means to repel force.”

“But not, I trust, the wish to use them in so evil a cause?” said
Tressilian. “With thy will--thine uninfluenced, free, and natural will,
Amy, thou canst not choose this state of slavery and dishonour. Thou
hast been bound by some spell--entrapped by some deceit--art now
detained by some compelled vow. But thus I break the charm--Amy, in the
name of thine excellent, thy broken-hearted father, I command thee to
follow me!”

As he spoke he advanced and extended his arm, as with the purpose of
laying hold upon her. But she shrunk back from his grasp, and uttered
the scream which, as we before noticed, brought into the apartment
Lambourne and Foster.

The latter exclaimed, as soon as he entered, “Fire and fagot! what
have we here?” Then addressing the lady, in a tone betwixt entreaty
and command, he added, “Uds precious! madam, what make you here out of
bounds? Retire--retire--there is life and death in this matter.--And
you, friend, whoever you may be, leave this house--out with you, before
my dagger's hilt and your costard become acquainted.--Draw, Mike, and
rid us of the knave!”

“Not I, on my soul,” replied Lambourne; “he came hither in my
company, and he is safe from me by cutter's law, at least till we meet
again.--But hark ye, my Cornish comrade, you have brought a Cornish flaw
of wind with you hither, a hurricanoe as they call it in the Indies.
Make yourself scarce--depart--vanish--or we'll have you summoned before
the Mayor of Halgaver, and that before Dudman and Ramhead meet.” [Two
headlands on the Cornish coast. The expressions are proverbial.]

“Away, base groom!” said Tressilian.--“And you, madam, fare you
well--what life lingers in your father's bosom will leave him at the
news I have to tell.”

He departed, the lady saying faintly as he left the room, “Tressilian,
be not rash--say no scandal of me.”

“Here is proper gear,” said Foster. “I pray you go to your chamber, my
lady, and let us consider how this is to be answered--nay, tarry not.”

“I move not at your command, sir,” answered the lady.

“Nay, but you must, fair lady,” replied Foster; “excuse my freedom, but,
by blood and nails, this is no time to strain courtesies--you MUST go to
your chamber.--Mike, follow that meddling coxcomb, and, as you desire
to thrive, see him safely clear of the premises, while I bring this
headstrong lady to reason. Draw thy tool, man, and after him.”

“I'll follow him,” said Michael Lambourne, “and see him fairly out
of Flanders; but for hurting a man I have drunk my morning's draught
withal, 'tis clean against my conscience.” So saying, he left the
apartment.

Tressilian, meanwhile, with hasty steps, pursued the first path which
promised to conduct him through the wild and overgrown park in which the
mansion of Foster was situated. Haste and distress of mind led his steps
astray, and instead of taking the avenue which led towards the village,
he chose another, which, after he had pursued it for some time with a
hasty and reckless step, conducted him to the other side of the demesne,
where a postern door opened through the wall, and led into the open
country.

Tressilian paused an instant. It was indifferent to him by what road he
left a spot now so odious to his recollections; but it was probable
that the postern door was locked, and his retreat by that pass rendered
impossible.

“I must make the attempt, however,” he said to himself; “the only means
of reclaiming this lost--this miserable--this still most lovely and most
unhappy girl, must rest in her father's appeal to the broken laws of his
country. I must haste to apprise him of this heartrending intelligence.”

As Tressilian, thus conversing with himself, approached to try some
means of opening the door, or climbing over it, he perceived there was
a key put into the lock from the outside. It turned round, the bolt
revolved, and a cavalier, who entered, muffled in his riding-cloak, and
wearing a slouched hat with a drooping feather, stood at once within
four yards of him who was desirous of going out. They exclaimed at
once, in tones of resentment and surprise, the one “Varney!” the other
“Tressilian!”

“What make you here?” was the stern question put by the stranger to
Tressilian, when the moment of surprise was past--“what make you here,
where your presence is neither expected nor desired?”

“Nay, Varney,” replied Tressilian, “what make you here? Are you come
to triumph over the innocence you have destroyed, as the vulture or
carrion-crow comes to batten on the lamb whose eyes it has first plucked
out? Or are you come to encounter the merited vengeance of an honest
man? Draw, dog, and defend thyself!”

Tressilian drew his sword as he spoke, but Varney only laid his hand
on the hilt of his own, as he replied, “Thou art mad, Tressilian. I own
appearances are against me; but by every oath a priest can make or a man
can swear, Mistress Amy Robsart hath had no injury from me. And in truth
I were somewhat loath to hurt you in this cause--thou knowest I can
fight.”

“I have heard thee say so, Varney,” replied Tressilian; “but now,
methinks, I would fain have some better evidence than thine own word.”

“That shall not be lacking, if blade and hilt be but true to me,”
 answered Varney; and drawing his sword with the right hand, he threw his
cloak around his left, and attacked Tressilian with a vigour which,
for a moment, seemed to give him the advantage of the combat. But this
advantage lasted not long. Tressilian added to a spirit determined on
revenge a hand and eye admirably well adapted to the use of the rapier;
so that Varney, finding himself hard pressed in his turn, endeavoured
to avail himself of his superior strength by closing with his adversary.
For this purpose, he hazarded the receiving one of Tressilian's passes
in his cloak, wrapped as it was around his arm, and ere his adversary
could, extricate his rapier thus entangled, he closed with him,
shortening his own sword at the same time, with the purpose of
dispatching him. But Tressilian was on his guard, and unsheathing his
poniard, parried with the blade of that weapon the home-thrust which
would otherwise have finished the combat, and, in the struggle which
followed, displayed so much address, as might have confirmed, the
opinion that he drew his origin from Cornwall whose natives are such
masters in the art of wrestling, as, were the games of antiquity
revived, might enable them to challenge all Europe to the ring. Varney,
in his ill-advised attempt, received a fall so sudden and violent that
his sword flew several paces from his hand and ere he could recover his
feet, that of his antagonist was; pointed to his throat.

“Give me the instant means of relieving the victim of thy treachery,”
 said Tressilian, “or take the last look of your Creator's blessed sun!”

And while Varney, too confused or too sullen to reply, made a sudden
effort to arise, his adversary drew back his arm, and would have
executed his threat, but that the blow was arrested by the grasp of
Michael Lambourne, who, directed by the clashing of swords had come up
just in time to save the life of Varney.

“Come, come, comrade;” said Lambourne, “here is enough done and more
than enough; put up your fox and let us be jogging. The Black Bear
growls for us.”

“Off, abject!” said Tressilian, striking himself free of Lambourne's
grasp; “darest thou come betwixt me and mine enemy?”

“Abject! abject!” repeated Lambourne; “that shall be answered with cold
steel whenever a bowl of sack has washed out memory of the morning's
draught that we had together. In the meanwhile, do you see,
shog--tramp--begone--we are two to one.”

He spoke truth, for Varney had taken the opportunity to regain his
weapon, and Tressilian perceived it was madness to press the quarrel
further against such odds. He took his purse from his side, and taking
out two gold nobles, flung them to Lambourne. “There, caitiff, is
thy morning wage; thou shalt not say thou hast been my guide
unhired.--Varney, farewell! we shall meet where there are none to come
betwixt us.” So saying, he turned round and departed through the postern
door.

Varney seemed to want the inclination, or perhaps the power (for his
fall had been a severe one), to follow his retreating enemy. But he
glared darkly as he disappeared, and then addressed Lambourne. “Art thou
a comrade of Foster's, good fellow?”

“Sworn friends, as the haft is to the knife,” replied Michael Lambourne.

“Here is a broad piece for thee. Follow yonder fellow, and see where he
takes earth, and bring me word up to the mansion-house here. Cautious
and silent, thou knave, as thou valuest thy throat.”

“Enough said,” replied Lambourne; “I can draw on a scent as well as a
sleuth-hound.”

“Begone, then,” said Varney, sheathing his rapier; and, turning his
back on Michael Lambourne, he walked slowly towards the house. Lambourne
stopped but an instant to gather the nobles which his late companion had
flung towards him so unceremoniously, and muttered to himself, while he
put them upon his purse along with the gratuity of Varney, “I spoke to
yonder gulls of Eldorado. By Saint Anthony, there is no Eldorado for
men of our stamp equal to bonny Old England! It rains nobles, by
Heaven--they lie on the grass as thick as dewdrops--you may have them
for gathering. And if I have not my share of such glittering dewdrops,
may my sword melt like an icicle!”





CHAPTER V.


     He was a man
     Versed in the world as pilot in his compass.
     The needle pointed ever to that interest
     Which was his loadstar, and he spread his sails
     With vantage to the gale of others' passion.
     --THE DECEIVER, A TRAGEDY.

Antony Foster was still engaged in debate with his fair guest, who
treated with scorn every entreaty and request that she would retire to
her own apartment, when a whistle was heard at the entrance-door of the
mansion.

“We are fairly sped now,” said Foster; “yonder is thy lord's signal, and
what to say about the disorder which has happened in this household,
by my conscience, I know not. Some evil fortune dogs the heels of that
unhanged rogue Lambourne, and he has 'scaped the gallows against every
chance, to come back and be the ruin of me!”

“Peace, sir,” said the lady, “and undo the gate to your master.--My
lord! my dear lord!” she then exclaimed, hastening to the entrance of
the apartment; then added, with a voice expressive of disappointment,
“Pooh! it is but Richard Varney.”

“Ay, madam,” said Varney, entering and saluting the lady with a
respectful obeisance, which she returned with a careless mixture of
negligence and of displeasure, “it is but Richard Varney; but even the
first grey cloud should be acceptable, when it lightens in the east,
because it announces the approach of the blessed sun.”

“How! comes my lord hither to-night?” said the lady, in joyful yet
startled agitation; and Anthony Foster caught up the word, and echoed
the question. Varney replied to the lady, that his lord purposed to
attend her; and would have proceeded with some compliment, when, running
to the door of the parlour, she called aloud, “Janet--Janet! come to my
tiring-room instantly.” Then returning to Varney, she asked if her lord
sent any further commendations to her.

“This letter, honoured madam,” said he, taking from his bosom a small
parcel wrapped in scarlet silk, “and with it a token to the Queen of
his Affections.” With eager speed the lady hastened to undo the silken
string which surrounded the little packet, and failing to unloose
readily the knot with which it was secured, she again called loudly on
Janet, “Bring me a knife--scissors--aught that may undo this envious
knot!”

“May not my poor poniard serve, honoured madam?” said Varney,
presenting a small dagger of exquisite workmanship, which hung in his
Turkey-leather sword-belt.

“No, sir,” replied the lady, rejecting the instrument which he
offered--“steel poniard shall cut no true-love knot of mine.”

“It has cut many, however,” said Anthony Foster, half aside, and looking
at Varney. By this time the knot was disentangled without any other
help than the neat and nimble fingers of Janet, a simply-attired pretty
maiden, the daughter of Anthony Foster, who came running at the repeated
call of her mistress. A necklace of orient pearl, the companion of a
perfumed billet, was now hastily produced from the packet. The lady gave
the one, after a slight glance, to the charge of her attendant, while
she read, or rather devoured, the contents of the other.

“Surely, lady,” said Janet, gazing with admiration at the neck-string
of pearls, “the daughters of Tyre wore no fairer neck-jewels than these.
And then the posy, 'For a neck that is fairer'--each pearl is worth a
freehold.”

“Each word in this dear paper is worth the whole string, my girl. But
come to my tiring-room, girl; we must be brave, my lord comes hither
to-night.--He bids me grace you, Master Varney, and to me his wish is a
law. I bid you to a collation in my bower this afternoon; and you,
too, Master Foster. Give orders that all is fitting, and that suitable
preparations be made for my lord's reception to-night.” With these words
she left the apartment.

“She takes state on her already,” said Varney, “and distributes the
favour of her presence, as if she were already the partner of his
dignity. Well, it is wise to practise beforehand the part which fortune
prepares us to play--the young eagle must gaze at the sun ere he soars
on strong wing to meet it.”

“If holding her head aloft,” said Foster, “will keep her eyes from
dazzling, I warrant you the dame will not stoop her crest. She will
presently soar beyond reach of my whistle, Master Varney. I promise you,
she holds me already in slight regard.”

“It is thine own fault, thou sullen, uninventive companion,” answered
Varney, “who knowest no mode of control save downright brute force.
Canst thou not make home pleasant to her, with music and toys? Canst
thou not make the out-of-doors frightful to her, with tales of goblins?
Thou livest here by the churchyard, and hast not even wit enough to
raise a ghost, to scare thy females into good discipline.”

“Speak not thus, Master Varney,” said Foster; “the living I fear not,
but I trifle not nor toy with my dead neighbours of the churchyard. I
promise you, it requires a good heart to live so near it. Worthy Master
Holdforth, the afternoon's lecturer of Saint Antonlin's, had a sore
fright there the last time he came to visit me.”

“Hold thy superstitious tongue,” answered Varney; “and while thou
talkest of visiting, answer me, thou paltering knave, how came
Tressilian to be at the postern door?”

“Tressilian!” answered Foster, “what know I of Tressilian? I never heard
his name.”

“Why, villain, it was the very Cornish chough to whom old Sir Hugh
Robsart destined his pretty Amy; and hither the hot-brained fool has
come to look after his fair runaway. There must be some order taken with
him, for he thinks he hath wrong, and is not the mean hind that will sit
down with it. Luckily he knows nought of my lord, but thinks he has only
me to deal with. But how, in the fiend's name, came he hither?”

“Why, with Mike Lambourne, an you must know,” answered Foster.

“And who is Mike Lambourne?” demanded Varney. “By Heaven! thou wert best
set up a bush over thy door, and invite every stroller who passes by to
see what thou shouldst keep secret even from the sun and air.”

“Ay! ay! this is a courtlike requital of my service to you, Master
Richard Varney,” replied Foster. “Didst thou not charge me to seek out
for thee a fellow who had a good sword and an unscrupulous conscience?
and was I not busying myself to find a fit man--for, thank Heaven, my
acquaintance lies not amongst such companions--when, as Heaven would
have it, this tall fellow, who is in all his qualities the very flashing
knave thou didst wish, came hither to fix acquaintance upon me in the
plenitude of his impudence; and I admitted his claim, thinking to do
you a pleasure. And now see what thanks I get for disgracing myself by
converse with him!”

“And did he,” said Varney, “being such a fellow as thyself, only
lacking, I suppose, thy present humour of hypocrisy, which lies as thin
over thy hard, ruffianly heart as gold lacquer upon rusty iron--did he,
I say, bring the saintly, sighing Tressilian in his train?”

“They came together, by Heaven!” said Foster; “and Tressilian--to speak
Heaven's truth--obtained a moment's interview with our pretty moppet,
while I was talking apart with Lambourne.”

“Improvident villain! we are both undone,” said Varney. “She has of late
been casting many a backward look to her father's halls, whenever her
lordly lover leaves her alone. Should this preaching fool whistle her
back to her old perch, we were but lost men.”

“No fear of that, my master,” replied Anthony Foster; “she is in no mood
to stoop to his lure, for she yelled out on seeing him as if an adder
had stung her.”

“That is good. Canst thou not get from thy daughter an inkling of what
passed between them, good Foster?”

“I tell you plain, Master Varney,” said Foster, “my daughter shall not
enter our purposes or walk in our paths. They may suit me well enough,
who know how to repent of my misdoings; but I will not have my child's
soul committed to peril either for your pleasure or my lord's. I may
walk among snares and pitfalls myself, because I have discretion, but I
will not trust the poor lamb among them.”

“Why, thou suspicious fool, I were as averse as thou art that thy
baby-faced girl should enter into my plans, or walk to hell at her
father's elbow. But indirectly thou mightst gain some intelligence of
her?”

“And so I did, Master Varney,” answered Foster; “and she said her lady
called out upon the sickness of her father.”

“Good!” replied Varney; “that is a hint worth catching, and I will work
upon it. But the country must be rid of this Tressilian. I would have
cumbered no man about the matter, for I hate him like strong poison--his
presence is hemlock to me--and this day I had been rid of him, but that
my foot slipped, when, to speak truth, had not thy comrade yonder come
to my aid, and held his hand, I should have known by this time whether
you and I have been treading the path to heaven or hell.”

“And you can speak thus of such a risk!” said Foster. “You keep a stout
heart, Master Varney. For me, if I did not hope to live many years, and
to have time for the great work of repentance, I would not go forward
with you.”

“Oh! thou shalt live as long as Methuselah,” said Varney, “and amass
as much wealth as Solomon; and thou shalt repent so devoutly, that thy
repentance shall be more famous than thy villainy--and that is a bold
word. But for all this, Tressilian must be looked after. Thy ruffian
yonder is gone to dog him. It concerns our fortunes, Anthony.”

“Ay, ay,” said Foster sullenly, “this it is to be leagued with one who
knows not even so much of Scripture, as that the labourer is worthy of
his hire. I must, as usual, take all the trouble and risk.”

“Risk! and what is the mighty risk, I pray you?” answered Varney. “This
fellow will come prowling again about your demesne or into your house,
and if you take him for a house-breaker or a park-breaker, is it not
most natural you should welcome him with cold steel or hot lead? Even
a mastiff will pull down those who come near his kennel; and who shall
blame him?”

“Ay, I have a mastiff's work and a mastiff's wage among you,” said
Foster. “Here have you, Master Varney, secured a good freehold estate
out of this old superstitious foundation; and I have but a poor lease of
this mansion under you, voidable at your honour's pleasure.”

“Ay, and thou wouldst fain convert thy leasehold into a copyhold--the
thing may chance to happen, Anthony Foster, if thou dost good service
for it. But softly, good Anthony--it is not the lending a room or two of
this old house for keeping my lord's pretty paroquet--nay, it is not
the shutting thy doors and windows to keep her from flying off that may
deserve it. Remember, the manor and tithes are rated at the clear annual
value of seventy-nine pounds five shillings and fivepence halfpenny,
besides the value of the wood. Come, come, thou must be conscionable;
great and secret service may deserve both this and a better thing. And
now let thy knave come and pluck off my boots. Get us some dinner, and
a cup of thy best wine. I must visit this mavis, brave in apparel,
unruffled in aspect, and gay in temper.”

They parted and at the hour of noon, which was then that of dinner, they
again met at their meal, Varney gaily dressed like a courtier of the
time, and even Anthony Foster improved in appearance, as far as dress
could amend an exterior so unfavourable.

This alteration did not escape Varney. Then the meal was finished, the
cloth removed, and they were left to their private discourse--“Thou
art gay as a goldfinch, Anthony,” said Varney, looking at his host;
“methinks, thou wilt whistle a jig anon. But I crave your pardon,
that would secure your ejection from the congregation of the zealous
botchers, the pure-hearted weavers, and the sanctified bakers of
Abingdon, who let their ovens cool while their brains get heated.”

“To answer you in the spirit, Master Varney,” said Foster, “were--excuse
the parable--to fling sacred and precious things before swine. So I will
speak to thee in the language of the world, which he who is king of the
world, hath taught thee, to understand, and to profit by in no common
measure.”

“Say what thou wilt, honest Tony,” replied Varney; “for be it according
to thine absurd faith, or according to thy most villainous practice,
it cannot choose but be rare matter to qualify this cup of Alicant.
Thy conversation is relishing and poignant, and beats caviare, dried
neat's-tongue, and all other provocatives that give savour to good
liquor.”

“Well, then, tell me,” said Anthony Foster, “is not our good lord and
master's turn better served, and his antechamber more suitably filled,
with decent, God-fearing men, who will work his will and their own
profit quietly, and without worldly scandal, than that he should be
manned, and attended, and followed by such open debauchers and ruffianly
swordsmen as Tidesly, Killigrew, this fellow Lambourne, whom you have
put me to seek out for you, and other such, who bear the gallows in
their face and murder in their right hand--who are a terror to peaceable
men, and a scandal to my lord's service?”

“Oh, content you, good Master Anthony Foster,” answered Varney; “he that
flies at all manner of game must keep all kinds of hawks, both short and
long-winged. The course my lord holds is no easy one, and he must
stand provided at all points with trusty retainers to meet each sort of
service. He must have his gay courtier, like myself, to ruffle it in
the presence-chamber, and to lay hand on hilt when any speaks in
disparagement of my lord's honour--”

“Ay,” said Foster, “and to whisper a word for him into a fair lady's
ear, when he may not approach her himself.”

“Then,” said Varney, going on without appearing to notice the
interruption, “he must have his lawyers--deep, subtle pioneers--to draw
his contracts, his pre-contracts, and his post-contracts, and to find
the way to make the most of grants of church-lands, and commons, and
licenses for monopoly. And he must have physicians who can spice a cup
or a caudle. And he must have his cabalists, like Dec and Allan, for
conjuring up the devil. And he must have ruffling swordsmen, who would
fight the devil when he is raised and at the wildest. And above
all, without prejudice to others, he must have such godly, innocent,
puritanic souls as thou, honest Anthony, who defy Satan, and do his work
at the same time.”

“You would not say, Master Varney,” said Foster, “that our good lord
and master, whom I hold to be fulfilled in all nobleness, would use such
base and sinful means to rise, as thy speech points at?”

“Tush, man,” said Varney, “never look at me with so sad a brow. You trap
me not--nor am I in your power, as your weak brain may imagine, because
I name to you freely the engines, the springs, the screws, the tackle,
and braces, by which great men rise in stirring times. Sayest thou our
good lord is fulfilled of all nobleness? Amen, and so be it--he has the
more need to have those about him who are unscrupulous in his service,
and who, because they know that his fall will overwhelm and crush them,
must wager both blood and brain, soul and body, in order to keep him
aloft; and this I tell thee, because I care not who knows it.”

“You speak truth, Master Varney,” said Anthony Foster. “He that is head
of a party is but a boat on a wave, that raises not itself, but is moved
upward by the billow which it floats upon.”

“Thou art metaphorical, honest Anthony,” replied Varney; “that velvet
doublet hath made an oracle of thee. We will have thee to Oxford to take
the degrees in the arts. And, in the meantime, hast thou arranged all
the matters which were sent from London, and put the western chambers
into such fashion as may answer my lord's humour?”

“They may serve a king on his bridal-day,” said Anthony; “and I promise
you that Dame Amy sits in them yonder as proud and gay as if she were
the Queen of Sheba.”

“'Tis the better, good Anthony,” answered Varney; “we must found our
future fortunes on her good liking.”

“We build on sand then,” said Anthony Foster; “for supposing that she
sails away to court in all her lord's dignity and authority, how is she
to look back upon me, who am her jailor as it were, to detain her here
against her will, keeping her a caterpillar on an old wall, when she
would fain be a painted butterfly in a court garden?”

“Fear not her displeasure, man,” said Varney. “I will show her all thou
hast done in this matter was good service, both to my lord and her;
and when she chips the egg-shell and walks alone, she shall own we have
hatched her greatness.”

“Look to yourself, Master Varney,” said Foster, “you may misreckon
foully in this matter. She gave you but a frosty reception this morning,
and, I think, looks on you, as well as me, with an evil eye.”

“You mistake her, Foster--you mistake her utterly. To me she is bound
by all the ties which can secure her to one who has been the means of
gratifying both her love and ambition. Who was it that took the obscure
Amy Robsart, the daughter of an impoverished and dotard knight--the
destined bride of a moonstruck, moping enthusiast, like Edmund
Tressilian, from her lowly fates, and held out to her in prospect the
brightest fortune in England, or perchance in Europe? Why, man, it was
I--as I have often told thee--that found opportunity for their secret
meetings. It was I who watched the wood while he beat for the deer. It
was I who, to this day, am blamed by her family as the companion of her
flight; and were I in their neighbourhood, would be fain to wear a shirt
of better stuff than Holland linen, lest my ribs should be acquainted
with Spanish steel. Who carried their letters?--I. Who amused the old
knight and Tressilian?--I. Who planned her escape?--it was I. It was
I, in short, Dick Varney, who pulled this pretty little daisy from its
lowly nook, and placed it in the proudest bonnet in Britain.”

“Ay, Master Varney,” said Foster; “but it may be she thinks that had the
matter remained with you, the flower had been stuck so slightly into the
cap, that the first breath of a changeable breeze of passion had blown
the poor daisy to the common.”

“She should consider,” said Varney, smiling, “the true faith I owed my
lord and master prevented me at first from counselling marriage; and
yet I did counsel marriage when I saw she would not be satisfied without
the--the sacrament, or the ceremony--which callest thou it, Anthony?”

“Still she has you at feud on another score,” said Foster; “and I tell
it you that you may look to yourself in time. She would not hide her
splendour in this dark lantern of an old monastic house, but would fain
shine a countess amongst countesses.”

“Very natural, very right,” answered Varney; “but what have I to do
with that?--she may shine through horn or through crystal at my lord's
pleasure, I have nought to say against it.”

“She deems that you have an oar upon that side of the boat, Master
Varney,” replied Foster, “and that you can pull it or no, at your good
pleasure. In a word, she ascribes the secrecy and obscurity in which she
is kept to your secret counsel to my lord, and to my strict agency; and
so she loves us both as a sentenced man loves his judge and his jailor.”

“She must love us better ere she leave this place, Anthony,” answered
Varney. “If I have counselled for weighty reasons that she remain here
for a season, I can also advise her being brought forth in the full blow
of her dignity. But I were mad to do so, holding so near a place to
my lord's person, were she mine enemy. Bear this truth in upon her as
occasion offers, Anthony, and let me alone for extolling you in her ear,
and exalting you in her opinion--KA ME, KA THEE--it is a proverb all
over the world. The lady must know her friends, and be made to judge of
the power they have of being her enemies; meanwhile, watch her strictly,
but with all the outward observance that thy rough nature will permit.
'Tis an excellent thing that sullen look and bull-dog humour of thine;
thou shouldst thank God for it, and so should my lord, for when there
is aught harsh or hard-natured to be done, thou dost it as if it flowed
from thine own natural doggedness, and not from orders, and so my lord
escapes the scandal.--But, hark--some one knocks at the gate. Look
out at the window--let no one enter--this were an ill night to be
interrupted.”

“It is he whom we spoke of before dinner,” said Foster, as he looked
through the casement; “it is Michael Lambourne.”

“Oh, admit him, by all means,” said the courtier; “he comes to give some
account of his guest; it imports us much to know the movements of Edmund
Tressilian.--Admit him, I say, but bring him not hither; I will come to
you presently in the Abbot's library.”

Foster left the room, and the courtier, who remained behind, paced the
parlour more than once in deep thought, his arms folded on his bosom,
until at length he gave vent to his meditations in broken words, which
we have somewhat enlarged and connected, that his soliloquy may be
intelligible to the reader.

“'Tis true,” he said, suddenly stopping, and resting his right hand on
the table at which they had been sitting, “this base churl hath fathomed
the very depth of my fear, and I have been unable to disguise it from
him. She loves me not--I would it were as true that I loved not her!
Idiot that I was, to move her in my own behalf, when wisdom bade me be
a true broker to my lord! And this fatal error has placed me more at her
discretion than a wise man would willingly be at that of the best piece
of painted Eve's flesh of them all. Since the hour that my policy made
so perilous a slip, I cannot look at her without fear, and hate, and
fondness, so strangely mingled, that I know not whether, were it at my
choice, I would rather possess or ruin her. But she must not leave this
retreat until I am assured on what terms we are to stand. My lord's
interest--and so far it is mine own, for if he sinks I fall in his
train--demands concealment of this obscure marriage; and besides, I will
not lend her my arm to climb to her chair of state, that she may set her
foot on my neck when she is fairly seated. I must work an interest in
her, either through love or through fear; and who knows but I may yet
reap the sweetest and best revenge for her former scorn?--that
were indeed a masterpiece of courtlike art! Let me but once be her
counsel-keeper--let her confide to me a secret, did it but concern the
robbery of a linnet's nest, and, fair Countess, thou art mine own!”
 He again paced the room in silence, stopped, filled and drank a cup of
wine, as if to compose the agitation of his mind, and muttering,
“Now for a close heart and an open and unruffled brow,” he left the
apartment.





CHAPTER VI.


     The dews of summer night did fall,
     The moon, sweet regent of the sky,
     Silver'd the walls of Cumnor Hall,
     And many an oak that grew thereby.--MICKLE.

     [This verse is the commencement of the ballad already quoted, as
     what suggested the novel.]

Four apartments; which, occupied the western side of the old quadrangle
at Cumnor Place, had been fitted up with extraordinary splendour. This
had been the work of several days prior to that on which our story
opened. Workmen sent from London, and not permitted to leave the
premises until the work was finished, had converted the apartments in
that side of the building from the dilapidated appearance of a dissolved
monastic house into the semblance of a royal palace. A mystery was
observed in all these arrangements: the workmen came thither and
returned by night, and all measures were taken to prevent the prying
curiosity of the villagers from observing or speculating upon the
changes which were taking place in the mansion of their once indigent
but now wealthy neighbour, Anthony Foster. Accordingly, the secrecy
desired was so far preserved, that nothing got abroad but vague and
uncertain reports, which were received and repeated, but without much
credit being attached to them.

On the evening of which we treat, the new and highly-decorated suite of
rooms were, for the first time, illuminated, and that with a brilliancy
which might have been visible half-a-dozen miles off, had not oaken
shutters, carefully secured with bolt and padlock, and mantled with long
curtains of silk and of velvet, deeply fringed with gold, prevented the
slightest gleam of radiance from being seen without.

The principal apartments, as we have seen, were four in number, each
opening into the other. Access was given to them by a large scale
staircase, as they were then called, of unusual length and height, which
had its landing-place at the door of an antechamber, shaped somewhat
like a gallery. This apartment the abbot had used as an occasional
council-room, but it was now beautifully wainscoted with dark, foreign
wood of a brown colour, and bearing a high polish, said to have been
brought from the Western Indies, and to have been wrought in London with
infinite difficulty and much damage to the tools of the workmen. The
dark colour of this finishing was relieved by the number of lights
in silver sconces which hung against the walls, and by six large and
richly-framed pictures, by the first masters of the age. A massy oaken
table, placed at the lower end of the apartment, served to accommodate
such as chose to play at the then fashionable game of shovel-board;
and there was at the other end an elevated gallery for the musicians
or minstrels, who might be summoned to increase the festivity of the
evening.

From this antechamber opened a banqueting-room of moderate size, but
brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes of the spectator with the richness
of its furniture. The walls, lately so bare and ghastly, were now
clothed with hangings of sky-blue velvet and silver; the chairs were of
ebony, richly carved, with cushions corresponding to the hangings; and
the place of the silver sconces which enlightened the ante-chamber was
supplied by a huge chandelier of the same precious metal. The floor
was covered with a Spanish foot-cloth, or carpet, on which flowers and
fruits were represented in such glowing and natural colours, that you
hesitated to place the foot on such exquisite workmanship. The table, of
old English oak, stood ready covered with the finest linen; and a large
portable court-cupboard was placed with the leaves of its embossed
folding-doors displayed, showing the shelves within, decorated with a
full display of plate and porcelain. In the midst of the table stood a
salt-cellar of Italian workmanship--a beautiful and splendid piece of
plate about two feet high, moulded into a representation of the giant
Briareus, whose hundred hands of silver presented to the guests various
sorts of spices, or condiments, to season their food withal.

The third apartment was called the withdrawing-room. It was hung with
the finest tapestry, representing the fall of Phaeton; for the looms
of Flanders were now much occupied on classical subjects. The principal
seat of this apartment was a chair of state, raised a step or two from
the floor, and large enough to contain two persons. It was surmounted
by a canopy, which, as well as the cushions, side-curtains, and the very
footcloth, was composed of crimson velvet, embroidered with seed-pearl.
On the top of the canopy were two coronets, resembling those of an earl
and countess. Stools covered with velvet, and some cushions disposed in
the Moorish fashion, and ornamented with Arabesque needle-work,
supplied the place of chairs in this apartment, which contained musical
instruments, embroidery frames, and other articles for ladies' pastime.
Besides lesser lights, the withdrawing-room was illuminated by four
tall torches of virgin wax, each of which was placed in the grasp of
a statue, representing an armed Moor, who held in his left arm a round
buckler of silver, highly polished, interposed betwixt his breast
and the light, which was thus brilliantly reflected as from a crystal
mirror.

The sleeping chamber belonging to this splendid suite of apartments
was decorated in a taste less showy, but not less rich, than had been
displayed in the others. Two silver lamps, fed with perfumed oil,
diffused at once a delicious odour and a trembling twilight-seeming
shimmer through the quiet apartment. It was carpeted so thick that the
heaviest step could not have been heard, and the bed, richly heaped with
down, was spread with an ample coverlet of silk and gold; from under
which peeped forth cambric sheets and blankets as white as the lambs
which yielded the fleece that made them. The curtains were of blue
velvet, lined with crimson silk, deeply festooned with gold, and
embroidered with the loves of Cupid and Psyche. On the toilet was a
beautiful Venetian mirror, in a frame of silver filigree, and beside it
stood a gold posset-dish to contain the night-draught. A pair of pistols
and a dagger, mounted with gold, were displayed near the head of the
bed, being the arms for the night, which were presented to honoured
guests, rather, it may be supposed, in the way of ceremony than from any
apprehension of danger. We must not omit to mention, what was more
to the credit of the manners of the time, that in a small recess,
illuminated by a taper, were disposed two hassocks of velvet and gold,
corresponding with the bed furniture, before a desk of carved ebony.
This recess had formerly been the private oratory of the abbot; but the
crucifix was removed, and instead there were placed on the desk, two
Books of Common Prayer, richly bound, and embossed with silver. With
this enviable sleeping apartment, which was so far removed from every
sound save that of the wind sighing among the oaks of the park, that
Morpheus might have coveted it for his own proper repose, corresponded
two wardrobes, or dressing-rooms as they are now termed, suitably
furnished, and in a style of the same magnificence which we have already
described. It ought to be added, that a part of the building in the
adjoining wing was occupied by the kitchen and its offices, and
served to accommodate the personal attendants of the great and wealthy
nobleman, for whose use these magnificent preparations had been made.

The divinity for whose sake this temple had been decorated was well
worthy the cost and pains which had been bestowed. She was seated in the
withdrawing-room which we have described, surveying with the pleased eye
of natural and innocent vanity the splendour which had been so suddenly
created, as it were, in her honour. For, as her own residence at Cumnor
Place formed the cause of the mystery observed in all the preparations
for opening these apartments, it was sedulously arranged that, until she
took possession of them, she should have no means of knowing what was
going forward in that part of the ancient building, or of exposing
herself to be seen by the workmen engaged in the decorations. She had
been, therefore, introduced on that evening to a part of the mansion
which she had never yet seen, so different from all the rest that it
appeared, in comparison, like an enchanted palace. And when she first
examined and occupied these splendid rooms, it was with the wild and
unrestrained joy of a rustic beauty who finds herself suddenly invested
with a splendour which her most extravagant wishes had never imagined,
and at the same time with the keen feeling of an affectionate heart,
which knows that all the enchantment that surrounds her is the work of
the great magician Love.

The Countess Amy, therefore--for to that rank she was exalted by her
private but solemn union with England's proudest Earl--had for a time
flitted hastily from room to room, admiring each new proof of her lover
and her bridegroom's taste, and feeling that admiration enhanced as
she recollected that all she gazed upon was one continued proof of his
ardent and devoted affection. “How beautiful are these hangings! How
natural these paintings, which seem to contend with life! How richly
wrought is that plate, which looks as if all the galleons of Spain had
been intercepted on the broad seas to furnish it forth! And oh, Janet!”
 she exclaimed repeatedly to the daughter of Anthony Foster, the close
attendant, who, with equal curiosity, but somewhat less ecstatic
joy, followed on her mistress's footsteps--“oh, Janet! how much more
delightful to think that all these fair things have been assembled by
his love, for the love of me! and that this evening--this very evening,
which grows darker every instant, I shall thank him more for the love
that has created such an unimaginable paradise, than for all the wonders
it contains.”

“The Lord is to be thanked first,” said the pretty Puritan, “who gave
thee, lady, the kind and courteous husband whose love has done so much
for thee. I, too, have done my poor share. But if you thus run wildly
from room to room, the toil of my crisping and my curling pins will
vanish like the frost-work on the window when the sun is high.”

“Thou sayest true, Janet,” said the young and beautiful Countess,
stopping suddenly from her tripping race of enraptured delight, and
looking at herself from head to foot in a large mirror, such as she had
never before seen, and which, indeed, had few to match it even in the
Queen's palace--“thou sayest true, Janet!” she answered, as she saw,
with pardonable self-applause, the noble mirror reflect such charms as
were seldom presented to its fair and polished surface; “I have more of
the milk-maid than the countess, with these cheeks flushed with haste,
and all these brown curls, which you laboured to bring to order,
straying as wild as the tendrils of an unpruned vine. My falling ruff is
chafed too, and shows the neck and bosom more than is modest and seemly.
Come, Janet; we will practise state--we will go to the withdrawing-room,
my good girl, and thou shalt put these rebel locks in order, and
imprison within lace and cambric the bosom that beats too high.”

They went to the withdrawing apartment accordingly, where the Countess
playfully stretched herself upon the pile of Moorish cushions, half
sitting, half reclining, half wrapt in her own thoughts, half listening
to the prattle of her attendant.

While she was in this attitude, and with a corresponding expression
betwixt listlessness and expectation on her fine and intelligent
features, you might have searched sea and land without finding anything
half so expressive or half so lovely. The wreath of brilliants which
mixed with her dark-brown hair did not match in lustre the hazel eye
which a light-brown eyebrow, pencilled with exquisite delicacy, and long
eyelashes of the same colour, relieved and shaded. The exercise she had
just taken, her excited expectation and gratified vanity, spread a glow
over her fine features, which had been sometimes censured (as beauty
as well as art has her minute critics) for being rather too pale. The
milk-white pearls of the necklace which she wore, the same which she had
just received as a true-love token from her husband, were excelled in
purity by her teeth, and by the colour of her skin, saving where the
blush of pleasure and self-satisfaction had somewhat stained the neck
with a shade of light crimson.--“Now, have done with these busy fingers,
Janet,” she said to her handmaiden, who was still officiously employed
in bringing her hair and her dress into order--“have done, I say. I must
see your father ere my lord arrives, and also Master Richard Varney,
whom my lord has highly in his esteem--but I could tell that of him
would lose him favour.”

“Oh, do not do so, good my lady!” replied Janet; “leave him to God, who
punishes the wicked in His own time; but do not you cross Varney's path,
for so thoroughly hath he my lord's ear, that few have thriven who have
thwarted his courses.”

“And from whom had you this, my most righteous Janet?” said the
Countess; “or why should I keep terms with so mean a gentleman as
Varney, being as I am, wife to his master and patron?”

“Nay, madam,” replied Janet Foster, “your ladyship knows better than I;
but I have heard my father say he would rather cross a hungry wolf than
thwart Richard Varney in his projects. And he has often charged me to
have a care of holding commerce with him.”

“Thy father said well, girl, for thee,” replied the lady, “and I dare
swear meant well. It is a pity, though, his face and manner do little
match his true purpose--for I think his purpose may be true.”

“Doubt it not, my lady,” answered Janet--“doubt not that my father
purposes well, though he is a plain man, and his blunt looks may belie
his heart.”

“I will not doubt it, girl, were it only for thy sake; and yet he has
one of those faces which men tremble when they look on. I think even thy
mother, Janet--nay, have done with that poking-iron--could hardly look
upon him without quaking.”

“If it were so, madam,” answered Janet Foster, “my mother had those who
could keep her in honourable countenance. Why, even you, my lady, both
trembled and blushed when Varney brought the letter from my lord.”

“You are bold, damsel,” said the Countess, rising from the cushions on
which she sat half reclined in the arms of her attendant. “Know that
there are causes of trembling which have nothing to do with fear.--But,
Janet,” she added, immediately relapsing into the good-natured and
familiar tone which was natural to her, “believe me, I will do what
credit I can to your father, and the rather that you, sweetheart, are
his child. Alas! alas!” she added, a sudden sadness passing over her
fine features, and her eyes filling with tears, “I ought the rather to
hold sympathy with thy kind heart, that my own poor father is uncertain
of my fate, and they say lies sick and sorrowful for my worthless sake!
But I will soon cheer him--the news of my happiness and advancement will
make him young again. And that I may cheer him the sooner”--she wiped
her eyes as she spoke--“I must be cheerful myself. My lord must not find
me insensible to his kindness, or sorrowful, when he snatches a visit to
his recluse, after so long an absence. Be merry, Janet; the night wears
on, and my lord must soon arrive. Call thy father hither, and call
Varney also. I cherish resentment against neither; and though I may have
some room to be displeased with both, it shall be their own fault if
ever a complaint against them reaches the Earl through my means. Call
them hither, Janet.”

Janet Foster obeyed her mistress; and in a few minutes after, Varney
entered the withdrawing-room with the graceful ease and unclouded
front of an accomplished courtier, skilled, under the veil of external
politeness, to disguise his own feelings and to penetrate those of
others. Anthony Foster plodded into the apartment after him, his natural
gloomy vulgarity of aspect seeming to become yet more remarkable, from
his clumsy attempt to conceal the mixture of anxiety and dislike with
which he looked on her, over whom he had hitherto exercised so severe a
control, now so splendidly attired, and decked with so many pledges
of the interest which she possessed in her husband's affections. The
blundering reverence which he made, rather AT than TO the Countess, had
confession in it. It was like the reverence which the criminal makes to
the judge, when he at once owns his guilt and implores mercy--which
is at the same time an impudent and embarrassed attempt at defence or
extenuation, a confession of a fault, and an entreaty for lenity.

Varney, who, in right of his gentle blood, had pressed into the room
before Anthony Foster, knew better what to say than he, and said it with
more assurance and a better grace.

The Countess greeted him indeed with an appearance of cordiality, which
seemed a complete amnesty for whatever she might have to complain of.
She rose from her seat, and advanced two steps towards him, holding
forth her hand as she said, “Master Richard Varney, you brought me
this morning such welcome tidings, that I fear surprise and joy made me
neglect my lord and husband's charge to receive you with distinction. We
offer you our hand, sir, in reconciliation.”

“I am unworthy to touch it,” said Varney, dropping on one knee, “save as
a subject honours that of a prince.”

He touched with his lips those fair and slender fingers, so richly
loaded with rings and jewels; then rising, with graceful gallantry, was
about to hand her to the chair of state, when she said, “No, good Master
Richard Varney, I take not my place there until my lord himself conducts
me. I am for the present but a disguised Countess, and will not take
dignity on me until authorized by him whom I derive it from.”

“I trust, my lady,” said Foster, “that in doing the commands of my lord
your husband, in your restraint and so forth, I have not incurred your
displeasure, seeing that I did but my duty towards your lord and mine;
for Heaven, as holy writ saith, hath given the husband supremacy and
dominion over the wife--I think it runs so, or something like it.”

“I receive at this moment so pleasant a surprise, Master Foster,”
 answered the Countess, “that I cannot but excuse the rigid fidelity
which secluded me from these apartments, until they had assumed an
appearance so new and so splendid.”

“Ay lady,” said Foster, “it hath cost many a fair crown; and that more
need not be wasted than is absolutely necessary, I leave you till my
lord's arrival with good Master Richard Varney, who, as I think, hath
somewhat to say to you from your most noble lord and husband.--Janet,
follow me, to see that all be in order.”

“No, Master Foster,” said the Countess, “we will your daughter remains
here in our apartment--out of ear-shot, however, in case Varney hath
ought to say to me from my lord.”

Foster made his clumsy reverence, and departed, with an aspect which
seemed to grudge the profuse expense which had been wasted upon changing
his house from a bare and ruinous grange to an Asiastic palace. When he
was gone, his daughter took her embroidery frame, and went to establish
herself at the bottom of the apartment; while Richard Varney, with a
profoundly humble courtesy, took the lowest stool he could find, and
placing it by the side of the pile of cushions on which the Countess
had now again seated herself, sat with his eyes for a time fixed on the
ground, and in pro-found silence.

“I thought, Master Varney,” said the Countess, when she saw he was not
likely to open the conversation, “that you had something to communicate
from my lord and husband; so at least I understood Master Foster, and
therefore I removed my waiting-maid. If I am mistaken, I will recall
her to my side; for her needle is not so absolutely perfect in tent and
cross-stitch, but that my superintendence is advisable.”

“Lady,” said Varney, “Foster was partly mistaken in my purpose. It
was not FROM but OF your noble husband, and my approved and most noble
patron, that I am led, and indeed bound, to speak.”

“The theme is most welcome, sir,” said the Countess, “whether it be
of or from my noble husband. But be brief, for I expect his hasty
approach.”

“Briefly then, madam,” replied Varney, “and boldly, for my argument
requires both haste and courage--you have this day seen Tressilian?”

“I have, sir and what of that?” answered the lady somewhat sharply.

“Nothing that concerns me, lady,” Varney replied with humility. “But,
think you, honoured madam, that your lord will hear it with equal
equanimity?”

“And wherefore should he not? To me alone was Tressilian's visit
embarrassing and painful, for he brought news of my good father's
illness.”

“Of your father's illness, madam!” answered Varney. “It must have been
sudden then--very sudden; for the messenger whom I dispatched, at my
lord's instance, found the good knight on the hunting field, cheering
his beagles with his wonted jovial field-cry. I trust Tressilian has
but forged this news. He hath his reasons, madam, as you well know, for
disquieting your present happiness.”

“You do him injustice, Master Varney,” replied the Countess, with
animation--“you do him much injustice. He is the freest, the most open,
the most gentle heart that breathes. My honourable lord ever excepted, I
know not one to whom falsehood is more odious than to Tressilian.”

“I crave your pardon, madam,” said Varney, “I meant the gentleman no
injustice--I knew not how nearly his cause affected you. A man may, in
some circumstances, disguise the truth for fair and honest purpose; for
were it to be always spoken, and upon all occasions, this were no world
to live in.”

“You have a courtly conscience, Master Varney,” said the Countess, “and
your veracity will not, I think, interrupt your preferment in the world,
such as it is. But touching Tressilian--I must do him justice, for
I have done him wrong, as none knows better than thou. Tressilian's
conscience is of other mould--the world thou speakest of has not that
which could bribe him from the way of truth and honour; and for living
in it with a soiled fame, the ermine would as soon seek to lodge in the
den of the foul polecat. For this my father loved him; for this I would
have loved him--if I could. And yet in this case he had what seemed
to him, unknowing alike of my marriage and to whom I was united, such
powerful reasons to withdraw me from this place, that I well trust he
exaggerated much of my father's indisposition, and that thy better news
may be the truer.”

“Believe me they are, madam,” answered Varney. “I pretend not to be a
champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very outrance.
I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were it but for
decency's sake. But you must think lower of my head and heart than is
due to one whom my noble lord deigns to call his friend, if you suppose
I could wilfully and unnecessarily palm upon your ladyship a falsehood,
so soon to be detected, in a matter which concerns your happiness.”

“Master Varney,” said the Countess, “I know that my lord esteems you,
and holds you a faithful and a good pilot in those seas in which he has
spread so high and so venturous a sail. Do not suppose, therefore, I
meant hardly by you, when I spoke the truth in Tressilian's vindication.
I am as you well know, country-bred, and like plain rustic truth better
than courtly compliment; but I must change my fashions with my sphere, I
presume.”

“True, madam,” said Varney, smiling; “and though you speak now in
jest, it will not be amiss that in earnest your present speech had some
connection with your real purpose. A court-dame--take the most noble,
the most virtuous, the most unimpeachable that stands around our Queen's
throne--would, for example, have shunned to speak the truth, or what she
thought such, in praise of a discarded suitor, before the dependant and
confidant of her noble husband.”

“And wherefore,” said the Countess, colouring impatiently, “should I not
do justice to Tressilian's worth, before my husband's friend--before my
husband himself--before the whole world?”

“And with the same openness,” said Varney, “your ladyship will this
night tell my noble lord your husband that Tressilian has discovered
your place of residence, so anxiously concealed from the world, and that
he has had an interview with you?”

“Unquestionably,” said the Countess. “It will be the first thing I tell
him, together with every word that Tressilian said and that I answered.
I shall speak my own shame in this, for Tressilian's reproaches, less
just than he esteemed them, were not altogether unmerited. I will speak,
therefore, with pain, but I will speak, and speak all.”

“Your ladyship will do your pleasure,” answered Varney; “but methinks
it were as well, since nothing calls for so frank a disclosure, to
spare yourself this pain, and my noble lord the disquiet, and Master
Tressilian, since belike he must be thought of in the matter, the danger
which is like to ensue.”

“I can see nought of all these terrible consequences,” said the lady
composedly, “unless by imputing to my noble lord unworthy thoughts,
which I am sure never harboured in his generous heart.”

“Far be it from me to do so,” said Varney. And then, after a moment's
silence, he added, with a real or affected plainness of manner, very
different from his usual smooth courtesy, “Come, madam, I will show you
that a courtier dare speak truth as well as another, when it concerns
the weal of those whom he honours and regards, ay, and although it may
infer his own danger.” He waited as if to receive commands, or at least
permission, to go on; but as the lady remained silent, he proceeded,
but obviously with caution. “Look around you,” he said, “noble lady, and
observe the barriers with which this place is surrounded, the studious
mystery with which the brightest jewel that England possesses is
secluded from the admiring gaze. See with what rigour your walks are
circumscribed, and your movement restrained at the beck of yonder
churlish Foster. Consider all this, and judge for yourself what can be
the cause.

“My lord's pleasure,” answered the Countess; “and I am bound to seek no
other motive.”

“His pleasure it is indeed,” said Varney; “and his pleasure arises out
of a love worthy of the object which inspires it. But he who possesses a
treasure, and who values it, is oft anxious, in proportion to the value
he puts upon it, to secure it from the depredations of others.”

“What needs all this talk, Master Varney?” said the lady, in reply. “You
would have me believe that my noble lord is jealous. Suppose it true, I
know a cure for jealousy.”

“Indeed, madam?” said Varney.

“It is,” replied the lady, “to speak the truth to my lord at all
times--to hold up my mind and my thoughts before him as pure as that
polished mirror--so that when he looks into my heart, he shall only see
his own features reflected there.”

“I am mute, madam,” answered Varney; “and as I have no reason to grieve
for Tressilian, who would have my heart's blood were he able, I shall
reconcile myself easily to what may befall the gentleman in consequence
of your frank disclosure of his having presumed to intrude upon your
solitude. You, who know my lord so much better than I, will judge if he
be likely to bear the insult unavenged.”

“Nay, if I could think myself the cause of Tressilian's ruin,” said the
Countess, “I who have already occasioned him so much distress, I might
be brought to be silent. And yet what will it avail, since he was seen
by Foster, and I think by some one else? No, no, Varney, urge it no
more. I will tell the whole matter to my lord; and with such pleading
for Tressilian's folly, as shall dispose my lord's generous heart rather
to serve than to punish him.”

“Your judgment, madam,” said Varney, “is far superior to mine,
especially as you may, if you will, prove the ice before you step on it,
by mentioning Tressilian's name to my lord, and observing how he endures
it. For Foster and his attendant, they know not Tressilian by sight, and
I can easily give them some reasonable excuse for the appearance of an
unknown stranger.”

The lady paused for an instant, and then replied, “If, Varney, it
be indeed true that Foster knows not as yet that the man he saw was
Tressilian, I own I were unwilling he should learn what nowise concerns
him. He bears himself already with austerity enough, and I wish him not
to be judge or privy-councillor in my affairs.”

“Tush,” said Varney, “what has the surly groom to do with your
ladyship's concerns?--no more, surely, than the ban-dog which watches
his courtyard. If he is in aught distasteful to your ladyship, I have
interest enough to have him exchanged for a seneschal that shall be more
agreeable to you.”

“Master Varney,” said the Countess, “let us drop this theme. When I
complain of the attendants whom my lord has placed around me, it must be
to my lord himself.--Hark! I hear the trampling of horse. He comes! he
comes!” she exclaimed, jumping up in ecstasy.

“I cannot think it is he,” said Varney; “or that you can hear the tread
of his horse through the closely-mantled casements.”

“Stop me not, Varney--my ears are keener than thine. It is he!”

“But, madam!--but, madam!” exclaimed Varney anxiously, and still placing
himself in her way, “I trust that what I have spoken in humble duty and
service will not be turned to my ruin? I hope that my faithful advice
will not be bewrayed to my prejudice? I implore that--”

“Content thee, man--content thee!” said the Countess, “and quit my
skirt--you are too bold to detain me. Content thyself, I think not of
thee.”

At this moment the folding-doors flew wide open, and a man of majestic
mien, muffled in the folds of a long dark riding-cloak, entered the
apartment.





CHAPTER VII.


     “This is he
     Who rides on the court-gale; controls its tides;
     Knows all their secret shoals and fatal eddies;
     Whose frown abases, and whose smile exalts.
     He shines like any rainbow--and, perchance,
     His colours are as transient.”--OLD PLAY.

There was some little displeasure and confusion on the Countess's brow,
owing to her struggle with Varney's pertinacity; but it was exchanged
for an expression of the purest joy and affection, as she threw herself
into the arms of the noble stranger who entered, and clasping him to her
bosom, exclaimed, “At length--at length thou art come!”

Varney discreetly withdrew as his lord entered, and Janet was about to
do the same, when her mistress signed to her to remain. She took her
place at the farther end of the apartment, and continued standing, as if
ready for attendance.

Meanwhile the Earl, for he was of no inferior rank, returned his lady's
caress with the most affectionate ardour, but affected to resist when
she strove to take his cloak from him.

“Nay,” she said, “but I will unmantle you. I must see if you have kept
your word to me, and come as the great Earl men call thee, and not as
heretofore like a private cavalier.”

“Thou art like the rest of the world, Amy,” said the Earl, suffering her
to prevail in the playful contest; “the jewels, and feathers, and silk
are more to them than the man whom they adorn--many a poor blade looks
gay in a velvet scabbard.”

“But so cannot men say of thee, thou noble Earl,” said his lady, as the
cloak dropped on the floor, and showed him dressed as princes when they
ride abroad; “thou art the good and well-tried steel, whose inly worth
deserves, yet disdains, its outward ornaments. Do not think Amy can love
thee better in this glorious garb than she did when she gave her heart
to him who wore the russet-brown cloak in the woods of Devon.”

“And thou too,” said the Earl, as gracefully and majestically he led
his beautiful Countess towards the chair of state which was prepared
for them both--“thou too, my love, hast donned a dress which becomes
thy rank, though it cannot improve thy beauty. What think'st thou of our
court taste?”

The lady cast a sidelong glance upon the great mirror as they passed
it by, and then said, “I know not how it is, but I think not of my own
person while I look at the reflection of thine. Sit thou there,” she
said, as they approached the chair of state, “like a thing for men to
worship and to wonder at.”

“Ay, love,” said the Earl, “if thou wilt share my state with me.”

“Not so,” said the Countess; “I will sit on this footstool at thy feet,
that I may spell over thy splendour, and learn, for the first time, how
princes are attired.”

And with a childish wonder, which her youth and rustic education
rendered not only excusable but becoming, mixed as it was with a
delicate show of the most tender conjugal affection, she examined and
admired from head to foot the noble form and princely attire of him who
formed the proudest ornament of the court of England's Maiden Queen,
renowned as it was for splendid courtiers, as well as for wise
counsellors. Regarding affectionately his lovely bride, and gratified by
her unrepressed admiration, the dark eye and noble features of the Earl
expressed passions more gentle than the commanding and aspiring
look which usually sat upon his broad forehead, and in the piercing
brilliancy of his dark eye; and he smiled at the simplicity which
dictated the questions she put to him concerning the various ornaments
with which he was decorated.

“The embroidered strap, as thou callest it, around my knee,” he said,
“is the English Garter, an ornament which kings are proud to wear. See,
here is the star which belongs to it, and here the Diamond George, the
jewel of the order. You have heard how King Edward and the Countess of
Salisbury--”

“Oh, I know all that tale,” said the Countess, slightly blushing, “and
how a lady's garter became the proudest badge of English chivalry.”

“Even so,” said the Earl; “and this most honourable Order I had the good
hap to receive at the same time with three most noble associates, the
Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Northampton, and the Earl of Rutland.
I was the lowest of the four in rank--but what then? he that climbs a
ladder must begin at the first round.”

“But this other fair collar, so richly wrought, with some jewel like a
sheep hung by the middle attached to it, what,” said the young Countess,
“does that emblem signify?”

“This collar,” said the Earl, “with its double fusilles interchanged
with these knobs, which are supposed to present flint-stones sparkling
with fire, and sustaining the jewel you inquire about, is the badge of
the noble Order of the Golden Fleece, once appertaining to the House
of Burgundy. It hath high privileges, my Amy, belonging to it, this most
noble Order; for even the King of Spain himself, who hath now succeeded
to the honours and demesnes of Burgundy, may not sit in judgment upon
a knight of the Golden Fleece, unless by assistance and consent of the
Great Chapter of the Order.”

“And is this an Order belonging to the cruel King of Spain?” said the
Countess. “Alas! my noble lord, that you will defile your noble English
breast by bearing such an emblem! Bethink you of the most unhappy Queen
Mary's days, when this same Philip held sway with her in England, and of
the piles which were built for our noblest, and our wisest, and our most
truly sanctified prelates and divines--and will you, whom men call the
standard-bearer of the true Protestant faith, be contented to wear the
emblem and mark of such a Romish tyrant as he of Spain?”

“Oh, content you, my love,” answered the Earl; “we who spread our sails
to gales of court favour cannot always display the ensigns we love the
best, or at all times refuse sailing under colours which we like not.
Believe me, I am not the less good Protestant, that for policy I must
accept the honour offered me by Spain, in admitting me to this his
highest order of knighthood. Besides, it belongs properly to Flanders;
and Egmont, Orange, and others have pride in seeing it displayed on an
English bosom.”

“Nay, my lord, you know your own path best,” replied the Countess. “And
this other collar, to what country does this fair jewel belong?”

“To a very poor one, my love,” replied the Earl; “this is the Order of
Saint Andrew, revived by the last James of Scotland. It was bestowed
on me when it was thought the young widow of France and Scotland would
gladly have wedded an English baron; but a free coronet of England is
worth a crown matrimonial held at the humour of a woman, and owning only
the poor rocks and bogs of the north.”

The Countess paused, as if what the Earl last said had excited some
painful but interesting train of thought; and, as she still remained
silent, her husband proceeded:--

“And now, loveliest, your wish is gratified, and you have seen your
vassal in such of his trim array as accords with riding vestments; for
robes of state and coronets are only for princely halls.”

“Well, then,” said the Countess, “my gratified wish has, as usual, given
rise to a new one.”

“And what is it thou canst ask that I can deny?” said the fond husband.

“I wished to see my Earl visit this obscure and secret bower,” said the
Countess, “in all his princely array; and now, methinks I long to sit in
one of his princely halls, and see him enter dressed in sober russet, as
when he won poor Amy Robsart's heart.”

“That is a wish easily granted,” said the Earl--“the sober russet shall
be donned to-morrow, if you will.”

“But shall I,” said the lady, “go with you to one of your castles, to
see how the richness of your dwelling will correspond with your peasant
habit?”

“Why, Amy,” said the Earl, looking around, “are not these apartments
decorated with sufficient splendour? I gave the most unbounded order,
and, methinks, it has been indifferently well obeyed; but if thou
canst tell me aught which remains to be done, I will instantly give
direction.”

“Nay, my lord, now you mock me,” replied the Countess; “the gaiety of
this rich lodging exceeds my imagination as much as it does my desert.
But shall not your wife, my love--at least one day soon--be surrounded
with the honour which arises neither from the toils of the mechanic
who decks her apartment, nor from the silks and jewels with which your
generosity adorns her, but which is attached to her place among the
matronage, as the avowed wife of England's noblest Earl?”

“One day?” said her husband. “Yes, Amy, my love, one day this shall
surely happen; and, believe me, thou canst not wish for that day more
fondly than I. With what rapture could I retire from labours of state,
and cares and toils of ambition, to spend my life in dignity and honour
on my own broad domains, with thee, my lovely Amy, for my friend and
companion! But, Amy, this cannot yet be; and these dear but stolen
interviews are all I can give to the loveliest and the best beloved of
her sex.”

“But WHY can it not be?” urged the Countess, in the softest tones of
persuasion--“why can it not immediately take place--this more perfect,
this uninterrupted union, for which you say you wish, and which the laws
of God and man alike command? Ah! did you but desire it half as much
as you say, mighty and favoured as you are, who or what should bar your
attaining your wish?”

The Earl's brow was overcast.

“Amy,” he said, “you speak of what you understand not. We that toil in
courts are like those who climb a mountain of loose sand--we dare make
no halt until some projecting rock affords us a secure footing and
resting-place. If we pause sooner, we slide down by our own weight,
an object of universal derision. I stand high, but I stand not secure
enough to follow my own inclination. To declare my marriage were to be
the artificer of my own ruin. But, believe me, I will reach a point, and
that speedily, when I can do justice to thee and to myself. Meantime,
poison not the bliss of the present moment, by desiring that which
cannot at present be, Let me rather know whether all here is managed
to thy liking. How does Foster bear himself to you?--in all things
respectful, I trust, else the fellow shall dearly rue it.”

“He reminds me sometimes of the necessity of this privacy,” answered
the lady, with a sigh; “but that is reminding me of your wishes, and
therefore I am rather bound to him than disposed to blame him for it.”

“I have told you the stern necessity which is upon us,” replied the
Earl. “Foster is, I note, somewhat sullen of mood; but Varney warrants
to me his fidelity and devotion to my service. If thou hast aught,
however, to complain of the mode in which he discharges his duty, he
shall abye it.”

“Oh, I have nought to complain of,” answered the lady, “so he discharges
his task with fidelity to you; and his daughter Janet is the kindest and
best companion of my solitude--her little air of precision sits so well
upon her!”

“Is she indeed?” said the Earl. “She who gives you pleasure must not
pass unrewarded.--Come hither, damsel.”

“Janet,” said the lady, “come hither to my lord.”

Janet, who, as we already noticed, had discreetly retired to some
distance, that her presence might be no check upon the private
conversation of her lord and lady, now came forward; and as she made
her reverential curtsy, the Earl could not help smiling at the contrast
which the extreme simplicity of her dress, and the prim demureness of
her looks, made with a very pretty countenance and a pair of black eyes,
that laughed in spite of their mistress's desire to look grave.

“I am bound to you, pretty damsel,” said the Earl, “for the contentment
which your service hath given to this lady.” As he said this, he took
from his finger a ring of some price, and offered it to Janet Foster,
adding, “Wear this, for her sake and for mine.”

“I am well pleased, my lord,” answered Janet demurely, “that my poor
service hath gratified my lady, whom no one can draw nigh to without
desiring to please; but we of the precious Master Holdforth's
congregation seek not, like the gay daughters of this world, to twine
gold around our fingers, or wear stones upon our necks, like the vain
women of Tyre and of Sidon.”

“Oh, what! you are a grave professor of the precise sisterhood, pretty
Mistress Janet,” said the Earl, “and I think your father is of the same
congregation in sincerity? I like you both the better for it; for I have
been prayed for, and wished well to, in your congregations. And you may
the better afford the lack of ornament, Mistress Janet, because your
fingers are slender, and your neck white. But here is what neither
Papist nor Puritan, latitudinarian nor precisian, ever boggles or makes
mouths at. E'en take it, my girl, and employ it as you list.”

So saying, he put into her hand five broad gold pieces of Philip and
Mary.

“I would not accept this gold either,” said Janet, “but that I hope to
find a use for it which will bring a blessing on us all.”

“Even please thyself, pretty Janet,” said the Earl, “and I shall be well
satisfied. And I prithee let them hasten the evening collation.”

“I have bidden Master Varney and Master Foster to sup with us, my lord,”
 said the Countess, as Janet retired to obey the Earl's commands; “has it
your approbation?”

“What you do ever must have so, my sweet Amy,” replied her husband; “and
I am the better pleased thou hast done them this grace, because Richard
Varney is my sworn man, and a close brother of my secret council; and
for the present, I must needs repose much trust in this Anthony Foster.”

“I had a boon to beg of thee, and a secret to tell thee, my dear lord,”
 said the Countess, with a faltering accent.

“Let both be for to-morrow, my love,” replied the Earl. “I see they open
the folding-doors into the banqueting-parlour, and as I have ridden far
and fast, a cup of wine will not be unacceptable.”

So saying he led his lovely wife into the next apartment, where Varney
and Foster received them with the deepest reverences, which the first
paid after the fashion of the court, and the second after that of the
congregation. The Earl returned their salutation with the negligent
courtesy of one long used to such homage; while the Countess repaid it
with a punctilious solicitude, which showed it was not quite so familiar
to her.

The banquet at which the company seated themselves corresponded in
magnificence with the splendour of the apartment in which it was served
up, but no domestic gave his attendance. Janet alone stood ready to wait
upon the company; and, indeed, the board was so well supplied with all
that could be desired, that little or no assistance was necessary. The
Earl and his lady occupied the upper end of the table, and Varney and
Foster sat beneath the salt, as was the custom with inferiors. The
latter, overawed perhaps by society to which he was altogether unused,
did not utter a single syllable during the repast; while Varney, with
great tact and discernment, sustained just so much of the conversation
as, without the appearance of intrusion on his part, prevented it from
languishing, and maintained the good-humour of the Earl at the highest
pitch. This man was indeed highly qualified by nature to discharge the
part in which he found himself placed, being discreet and cautious on
the one hand, and, on the other, quick, keen-witted, and imaginative;
so that even the Countess, prejudiced as she was against him on many
accounts, felt and enjoyed his powers of conversation, and was more
disposed than she had ever hitherto found herself to join in the praises
which the Earl lavished on his favourite. The hour of rest at length
arrived, the Earl and Countess retired to their apartment, and all was
silent in the castle for the rest of the night.

Early on the ensuing morning, Varney acted as the Earl's chamberlain as
well as his master of horse, though the latter was his proper office in
that magnificent household, where knights and gentlemen of good descent
were well contented to hold such menial situations, as nobles themselves
held in that of the sovereign. The duties of each of these charges were
familiar to Varney, who, sprung from an ancient but somewhat decayed
family, was the Earl's page during his earlier and more obscure
fortunes, and, faithful to him in adversity, had afterwards contrived to
render himself no less useful to him in his rapid and splendid advance
to fortune; thus establishing in him an interest resting both on present
and past services, which rendered him an almost indispensable sharer of
his confidence.

“Help me to do on a plainer riding-suit, Varney,” said the Earl, as he
laid aside his morning-gown, flowered with silk and lined with sables,
“and put these chains and fetters there” (pointing to the collars of the
various Orders which lay on the table) “into their place of security--my
neck last night was well-nigh broke with the weight of them. I am half
of the mind that they shall gall me no more. They are bonds which knaves
have invented to fetter fools. How thinkest thou, Varney?”

“Faith, my good lord,” said his attendant, “I think fetters of gold are
like no other fetters--they are ever the weightier the welcomer.”

“For all that, Varney,” replied his master, “I am well-nigh resolved
they shall bind me to the court no longer. What can further service and
higher favour give me, beyond the high rank and large estate which I
have already secured? What brought my father to the block, but that he
could not bound his wishes within right and reason? I have, you know,
had mine own ventures and mine own escapes. I am well-nigh resolved to
tempt the sea no further, but sit me down in quiet on the shore.”

“And gather cockle-shells, with Dan Cupid to aid you,” said Varney.

“How mean you by that, Varney?” said the Earl somewhat hastily.

“Nay, my lord,” said Varney, “be not angry with me. If your lordship
is happy in a lady so rarely lovely that, in order to enjoy her company
with somewhat more freedom, you are willing to part with all you have
hitherto lived for, some of your poor servants may be sufferers; but
your bounty hath placed me so high, that I shall ever have enough to
maintain a poor gentleman in the rank befitting the high office he has
held in your lordship's family.”

“Yet you seem discontented when I propose throwing up a dangerous game,
which may end in the ruin of both of us.”

“I, my lord?” said Varney; “surely I have no cause to regret your
lordship's retreat! It will not be Richard Varney who will incur
the displeasure of majesty, and the ridicule of the court, when the
stateliest fabric that ever was founded upon a prince's favour melts
away like a morning frost-work. I would only have you yourself to be
assured, my lord, ere you take a step which cannot be retracted, that
you consult your fame and happiness in the course you propose.”

“Speak on, then, Varney,” said the Earl; “I tell thee I have determined
nothing, and will weigh all considerations on either side.”

“Well, then, my lord,” replied Varney, “we will suppose the step taken,
the frown frowned, the laugh laughed, and the moan moaned. You have
retired, we will say, to some one of your most distant castles, so far
from court that you hear neither the sorrow of your friends nor the glee
of your enemies, We will suppose, too, that your successful rival will
be satisfied (a thing greatly to be doubted) with abridging and cutting
away the branches of the great tree which so long kept the sun from him,
and that he does not insist upon tearing you up by the roots. Well; the
late prime favourite of England, who wielded her general's staff and
controlled her parliaments, is now a rural baron, hunting, hawking,
drinking fat ale with country esquires, and mustering his men at the
command of the high sheriff--”

“Varney, forbear!” said the Earl.

“Nay, my lord, you must give me leave to conclude my picture.--Sussex
governs England--the Queen's health fails--the succession is to be
settled--a road is opened to ambition more splendid than ambition ever
dreamed of. You hear all this as you sit by the hob, under the shade of
your hall-chimney. You then begin to think what hopes you have fallen
from, and what insignificance you have embraced; and all that you
might look babies in the eyes of your fair wife oftener than once a
fortnight.”

“I say, Varney,” said the Earl, “no more of this. I said not that the
step, which my own ease and comfort would urge me to, was to be taken
hastily, or without due consideration to the public safety. Bear witness
to me, Varney; I subdue my wishes of retirement, not because I am moved
by the call of private ambition, but that I may preserve the position in
which I may best serve my country at the hour of need.--Order our horses
presently; I will wear, as formerly, one of the livery cloaks, and ride
before the portmantle. Thou shalt be master for the day, Varney--neglect
nothing that can blind suspicion. We will to horse ere men are stirring.
I will but take leave of my lady, and be ready. I impose a restraint on
my own poor heart, and wound one yet more dear to me; but the patriot
must subdue the husband.”

Having said this in a melancholy but firm accent, he left the dressing
apartment.

“I am glad thou art gone,” thought Varney, “or, practised as I am in the
follies of mankind, I had laughed in the very face of thee! Thou mayest
tire as thou wilt of thy new bauble, thy pretty piece of painted Eve's
flesh there, I will not be thy hindrance. But of thine old bauble,
ambition, thou shalt not tire; for as you climb the hill, my lord, you
must drag Richard Varney up with you, and if he can urge you to the
ascent he means to profit by, believe me he will spare neither whip nor
spur, and for you, my pretty lady, that would be Countess outright, you
were best not thwart my courses, lest you are called to an old reckoning
on a new score. 'Thou shalt be master,' did he say? By my faith, he may
find that he spoke truer than he is aware of; and thus he who, in
the estimation of so many wise-judging men, can match Burleigh and
Walsingham in policy, and Sussex in war, becomes pupil to his own
menial--and all for a hazel eye and a little cunning red and white, and
so falls ambition. And yet if the charms of mortal woman could excuse
a man's politic pate for becoming bewildered, my lord had the excuse
at his right hand on this blessed evening that has last passed over us.
Well--let things roll as they may, he shall make me great, or I will
make myself happy; and for that softer piece of creation, if she speak
not out her interview with Tressilian, as well I think she dare not, she
also must traffic with me for concealment and mutual support, in spite
of all this scorn. I must to the stables. Well, my lord, I order your
retinue now; the time may soon come that my master of the horse shall
order mine own. What was Thomas Cromwell but a smith's son? and he died
my lord--on a scaffold, doubtless, but that, too, was in character.
And what was Ralph Sadler but the clerk of Cromwell? and he has gazed
eighteen fair lordships--VIA! I know my steerage as well as they.”

So saying, he left the apartment.

In the meanwhile the Earl had re-entered the bedchamber, bent on taking
a hasty farewell of the lovely Countess, and scarce daring to trust
himself in private with her, to hear requests again urged which he found
it difficult to parry, yet which his recent conversation with his master
of horse had determined him not to grant.

He found her in a white cymar of silk lined with furs, her little
feet unstockinged and hastily thrust into slippers; her unbraided hair
escaping from under her midnight coif, with little array but her own
loveliness, rather augmented than diminished by the grief which she felt
at the approaching moment of separation.

“Now, God be with thee, my dearest and loveliest!” said the Earl, scarce
tearing himself from her embrace, yet again returning to fold her again
and again in his arms, and again bidding farewell, and again returning
to kiss and bid adieu once more. “The sun is on the verge of the blue
horizon--I dare not stay. Ere this I should have been ten miles from
hence.”

Such were the words with which at length he strove to cut short their
parting interview. “You will not grant my request, then?” said the
Countess. “Ah, false knight! did ever lady, with bare foot in slipper,
seek boon of a brave knight, yet return with denial?”

“Anything, Amy, anything thou canst ask I will grant,” answered the
Earl--“always excepting,” he said, “that which might ruin us both.”

“Nay,” said the Countess, “I urge not my wish to be acknowledged in the
character which would make me the envy of England--as the wife, that
is, of my brave and noble lord, the first as the most fondly beloved of
English nobles. Let me but share the secret with my dear father! Let me
but end his misery on my unworthy account--they say he is ill, the good
old kind-hearted man!”

“They say?” asked the Earl hastily; “who says? Did not Varney convey to
Sir Hugh all we dare at present tell him concerning your happiness and
welfare? and has he not told you that the good old knight was following,
with good heart and health, his favourite and wonted exercise. Who has
dared put other thoughts into your head?”

“Oh, no one, my lord, no one,” said the Countess, something alarmed at
the tone, in which the question was put; “but yet, my lord, I would fain
be assured by mine own eyesight that my father is well.”

“Be contented, Amy; thou canst not now have communication with thy
father or his house. Were it not a deep course of policy to commit no
secret unnecessarily to the custody of more than must needs be, it were
sufficient reason for secrecy that yonder Cornish man, yonder Trevanion,
or Tressilian, or whatever his name is, haunts the old knight's house,
and must necessarily know whatever is communicated there.”

“My lord,” answered the Countess, “I do not think it so. My father has
been long noted a worthy and honourable man; and for Tressilian, if
we can pardon ourselves the ill we have wrought him, I will wager the
coronet I am to share with you one day that he is incapable of returning
injury for injury.”

“I will not trust him, however, Amy,” said her husband--“by my honour,
I will not trust him, I would rather the foul fiend intermingle in our
secret than this Tressilian!”

“And why, my lord?” said the Countess, though she shuddered slightly at
the tone of determination in which he spoke; “let me but know why you
think thus hardly of Tressilian?”

“Madam,” replied the Earl, “my will ought to be a sufficient reason. If
you desire more, consider how this Tressilian is leagued, and with whom.
He stands high in the opinion of this Radcliffe, this Sussex, against
whom I am barely able to maintain my ground in the opinion of our
suspicious mistress; and if he had me at such advantage, Amy, as to
become acquainted with the tale of our marriage, before Elizabeth were
fitly prepared, I were an outcast from her grace for ever--a bankrupt at
once in favour and in fortune, perhaps, for she hath in her a touch of
her father Henry--a victim, and it may be a bloody one, to her offended
and jealous resentment.”

“But why, my lord,” again urged his lady, “should you deem thus
injuriously of a man of whom you know so little? What you do know
of Tressilian is through me, and it is I who assure you that in no
circumstances will he betray your secret. If I did him wrong in your
behalf, my lord, I am now the more concerned you should do him justice.
You are offended at my speaking of him, what would you say had I
actually myself seen him?”

“If you had,” replied the Earl, “you would do well to keep that
interview as secret as that which is spoken in a confessional. I seek no
one's ruin; but he who thrusts himself on my secret privacy were better
look well to his future walk. The bear [The Leicester cognizance was the
ancient device adopted by his father, when Earl of Warwick, the bear and
ragged staff.] brooks no one to cross his awful path.”

“Awful, indeed!” said the Countess, turning very pale.

“You are ill, my love,” said the Earl, supporting her in his arms.
“Stretch yourself on your couch again; it is but an early day for you to
leave it. Have you aught else, involving less than my fame, my fortune,
and my life, to ask of me?”

“Nothing, my lord and love,” answered the Countess faintly; “something
there was that I would have told you, but your anger has driven it from
my recollection.”

“Reserve it till our next meeting, my love,” said the Earl fondly, and
again embracing her; “and barring only those requests which I cannot
and dare not grant, thy wish must be more than England and all its
dependencies can fulfil, if it is not gratified to the letter.”

Thus saying, he at length took farewell. At the bottom of the staircase
he received from Varney an ample livery cloak and slouched hat, in which
he wrapped himself so as to disguise his person and completely conceal
his features. Horses were ready in the courtyard for himself and Varney;
for one or two of his train, intrusted with the secret so far as to know
or guess that the Earl intrigued with a beautiful lady at that mansion,
though her name and quality were unknown to them, had already been
dismissed over-night.

Anthony Foster himself had in hand the rein of the Earl's palfrey, a
stout and able nag for the road; while his old serving-man held the
bridle of the more showy and gallant steed which Richard Varney was to
occupy in the character of master.

As the Earl approached, however, Varney advanced to hold his master's
bridle, and to prevent Foster from paying that duty to the Earl which he
probably considered as belonging to his own office. Foster scowled at
an interference which seemed intended to prevent his paying his court
to his patron, but gave place to Varney; and the Earl, mounting without
further observation, and forgetting that his assumed character of a
domestic threw him into the rear of his supposed master, rode pensively
out of the quadrangle, not without waving his hand repeatedly in answer
to the signals which were made by the Countess with her kerchief from
the windows of her apartment.

While his stately form vanished under the dark archway which led out of
the quadrangle, Varney muttered, “There goes fine policy--the servant
before the master!” then as he disappeared, seized the moment to speak a
word with Foster. “Thou look'st dark on me, Anthony,” he said, “as if I
had deprived thee of a parting nod of my lord; but I have moved him to
leave thee a better remembrance for thy faithful service. See here!
a purse of as good gold as ever chinked under a miser's thumb and
fore-finger. Ay, count them, lad,” said he, as Foster received the gold
with a grim smile, “and add to them the goodly remembrance he gave last
night to Janet.”

“How's this? how's this?” said Anthony Foster hastily; “gave he gold to
Janet?”

“Ay, man, wherefore not?--does not her service to his fair lady require
guerdon?”

“She shall have none on't,” said Foster; “she shall return it. I know
his dotage on one face is as brief as it is deep. His affections are as
fickle as the moon.”

“Why, Foster, thou art mad--thou dost not hope for such good fortune
as that my lord should cast an eye on Janet? Who, in the fiend's name,
would listen to the thrush while the nightingale is singing?”

“Thrush or nightingale, all is one to the fowler; and, Master Varney,
you can sound the quail-pipe most daintily to wile wantons into his
nets. I desire no such devil's preferment for Janet as you have brought
many a poor maiden to. Dost thou laugh? I will keep one limb of my
family, at least, from Satan's clutches, that thou mayest rely on. She
shall restore the gold.”

“Ay, or give it to thy keeping, Tony, which will serve as well,”
 answered Varney; “but I have that to say which is more serious. Our lord
is returning to court in an evil humour for us.”

“How meanest thou?” said Foster. “Is he tired already of his pretty
toy--his plaything yonder? He has purchased her at a monarch's ransom,
and I warrant me he rues his bargain.”

“Not a whit, Tony,” answered the master of the horse; “he dotes on her,
and will forsake the court for her. Then down go hopes, possessions, and
safety--church-lands are resumed, Tony, and well if the holders be not
called to account in Exchequer.”

“That were ruin,” said Foster, his brow darkening with apprehensions;
“and all this for a woman! Had it been for his soul's sake, it were
something; and I sometimes wish I myself could fling away the world that
cleaves to me, and be as one of the poorest of our church.”

“Thou art like enough to be so, Tony,” answered Varney; “but I think
the devil will give thee little credit for thy compelled poverty, and so
thou losest on all hands. But follow my counsel, and Cumnor Place shall
be thy copyhold yet. Say nothing of this Tressilian's visit--not a word
until I give thee notice.”

“And wherefore, I pray you?” asked Foster, suspiciously.

“Dull beast!” replied Varney. “In my lord's present humour it were the
ready way to confirm him in his resolution of retirement, should he know
that his lady was haunted with such a spectre in his absence. He would
be for playing the dragon himself over his golden fruit, and then, Tony,
thy occupation is ended. A word to the wise. Farewell! I must follow
him.”

He turned his horse, struck him with the spurs, and rode off under the
archway in pursuit of his lord.

“Would thy occupation were ended, or thy neck broken, damned pander!”
 said Anthony Foster. “But I must follow his beck, for his interest and
mine are the same, and he can wind the proud Earl to his will. Janet
shall give me those pieces though; they shall be laid out in some way
for God's service, and I will keep them separate in my strong chest,
till I can fall upon a fitting employment for them. No contagious vapour
shall breathe on Janet--she shall remain pure as a blessed spirit, were
it but to pray God for her father. I need her prayers, for I am at a
hard pass. Strange reports are abroad concerning my way of life.
The congregation look cold on me, and when Master Holdforth spoke of
hypocrites being like a whited sepulchre, which within was full of
dead men's bones, methought he looked full at me. The Romish was a
comfortable faith; Lambourne spoke true in that. A man had but to
follow his thrift by such ways as offered--tell his beads, hear a mass,
confess, and be absolved. These Puritans tread a harder and a rougher
path; but I will try--I will read my Bible for an hour ere I again open
mine iron chest.”

Varney, meantime, spurred after his lord, whom he found waiting for him
at the postern gate of the park.

“You waste time, Varney,” said the Earl, “and it presses. I must be at
Woodstock before I can safely lay aside my disguise, and till then I
journey in some peril.”

“It is but two hours' brisk riding, my lord,” said Varney. “For me,
I only stopped to enforce your commands of care and secrecy on yonder
Foster, and to inquire about the abode of the gentleman whom I would
promote to your lordship's train, in the room of Trevors.”

“Is he fit for the meridian of the antechamber, think'st thou?” said the
Earl.

“He promises well, my lord,” replied Varney; “but if your lordship were
pleased to ride on, I could go back to Cumnor, and bring him to your
lordship at Woodstock before you are out of bed.”

“Why, I am asleep there, thou knowest, at this moment,” said the Earl;
“and I pray you not to spare horse-flesh, that you may be with me at my
levee.”

So saying, he gave his horse the spur, and proceeded on his journey,
while Varney rode back to Cumnor by the public road, avoiding the park.
The latter alighted at the door of the bonny Black Bear, and desired to
speak with Master Michael Lambourne, That respectable character was not
long of appearing before his new patron, but it was with downcast looks.

“Thou hast lost the scent,” said Varney, “of thy comrade Tressilian.
I know it by thy hang-dog visage. Is this thy alacrity, thou impudent
knave?”

“Cogsw

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