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Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland

by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #4596 · 950,593 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: October 1, 2003 [eBook #4596]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4596

Credits: Produced by Sandra Laythorpe.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNKNOWN TO HISTORY: A STORY OF THE CAPTIVITY OF MARY OF SCOTLAND ***




Produced by Sandra Laythorpe.  HTML version by Al Haines.









Unknown to History

A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland


By

Charlotte M. Yonge





PREFACE.


In p. 58 of vol. ii. of the second edition of Miss Strickland's Life of
Mary Queen of Scots, or p. 100, vol. v. of Burton's History of
Scotland, will be found the report on which this tale is founded.

If circumstances regarding the Queen's captivity and Babington's plot
have been found to be omitted, as well as many interesting personages
in the suite of the captive Queen, it must be remembered that the art
of the story-teller makes it needful to curtail some of the incidents
which would render the narrative too complicated to be interesting to
those who wish more for a view of noted characters in remarkable
situations, than for a minute and accurate sifting of facts and
evidence.

                                               C. M. YONGE.

February 27, 1882.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE WAIF

CHAPTER II. EVIL TIDINGS

CHAPTER III. THE CAPTIVE

CHAPTER IV. THE OAK AND THE OAKEN HALL

CHAPTER V. THE HUCKSTERING WOMAN

CHAPTER VI. THE BEWITCHED WHISTLE

CHAPTER VII. THE BLAST OF THE WHISTLE

CHAPTER VIII. THE KEY OF THE CIPHER

CHAPTER IX. UNQUIET

CHAPTER X. THE LADY ARBELL

CHAPTER XI. QUEEN MARY'S PRESENCE CHAMBER

CHAPTER XII. A FURIOUS LETTER

CHAPTER XIII. BEADS AND BRACELETS

CHAPTER XIV. THE MONOGRAMS

CHAPTER XV. MOTHER AND CHILD

CHAPTER XVI. THE PEAK CAVERN

CHAPTER XVII. THE EBBING WELL

CHAPTER XVIII. CIS OR SISTER

CHAPTER XIX. THE CLASH OF SWORDS

CHAPTER XX. WINGFIELD MANOR

CHAPTER XXI. A TANGLE

CHAPTER XXII. TUTBURY

CHAPTER XXIII. THE LOVE TOKEN

CHAPTER XXIV. A LIONESS AT BAY

CHAPTER XXV. PAUL'S WALK

CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE WEB

CHAPTER XXVII. THE CASTLE WELL

CHAPTER XXVIII. HUNTING DOWN THE DEER

CHAPTER XXIX. THE SEARCH

CHAPTER XXX. TETE-A-TETE

CHAPTER XXXI. EVIDENCE

CHAPTER XXXII. WESTMINSTER HALL

CHAPTER XXXIII. IN THE TOWER

CHAPTER XXXIV. FOTHERINGHAY

CHAPTER XXXV. BEFORE THE COMMISSIONERS

CHAPTER XXXVI. A VENTURE

CHAPTER XXXVII. MY LADY'S REMORSE

CHAPTER XXXVIII. MASTER TALBOT AND HIS CHARGE

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE FETTERLOCK COURT

CHAPTER XL. THE SENTENCE

CHAPTER XLI. HER ROYAL HIGHNESS

CHAPTER XLII. THE SUPPLICATION

CHAPTER XLIII. THE WARRANT

CHAPTER XLIV. ON THE HUMBER

CHAPTER XLV. TEN YEARS AFTER





UNKNOWN TO HISTORY.




  Poor scape-goat of crimes, where,--her part what it may,
  So tortured, so hunted to die,
  Foul age of deceit and of hate,--on her head
  Least stains of gore-guiltiness lie;
  To the hearts of the just her blood from the dust
  Not in vain for mercy will cry.

  Poor scape-goat of nations and faiths in their strife
  So cruel,--and thou so fair!
  Poor girl!--so, best, in her misery named,--
  Discrown'd of two kingdoms, and bare;
  Not first nor last on this one was cast
  The burden that others should share.
                 Visions of England, by F. T. Palgrave




CHAPTER I.

THE LITTLE WAIF.


On a spring day, in the year 1568, Mistress Talbot sat in her lodging
at Hull, an upper chamber, with a large latticed window, glazed with
the circle and diamond leading perpetuated in Dutch pictures, and
opening on a carved balcony, whence, had she been so minded, she could
have shaken hands with her opposite neighbour.  There was a richly
carved mantel-piece, with a sea-coal fire burning in it, for though it
was May, the sea winds blew cold, and there was a fishy odour about the
town, such as it was well to counteract.  The floor was of slippery
polished oak, the walls hung with leather, gilded in some places and
depending from cornices, whose ornaments proved to an initiated eye,
that this had once been the refectory of a small priory, or cell,
broken up at the Reformation.

Of furniture there was not much, only an open cupboard, displaying two
silver cups and tankards, a sauce-pan of the same metal, a few tall,
slender, Venetian glasses, a little pewter, and some rare shells.  A
few high-backed chairs were ranged against the wall; there was a tall
"armory," i.e. a linen-press of dark oak, guarded on each side by the
twisted weapons of the sea unicorn, and in the middle of the room stood
a large, solid-looking table, adorned with a brown earthenware
beau-pot, containing a stiff posy of roses, southernwood, gillyflowers,
pinks and pansies, of small dimensions.  On hooks, against the wall,
hung a pair of spurs, a shield, a breastplate, and other pieces of
armour, with an open helmet bearing the dog, the well-known crest of
the Talbots of the Shrewsbury line.

On the polished floor, near the window, were a child's cart, a little
boat, some whelks and limpets.  Their owner, a stout boy of three years
old, in a tight, borderless, round cap, and home-spun, madder-dyed
frock, lay fast asleep in a big wooden cradle, scarcely large enough,
however, to contain him, as he lay curled up, sucking his thumb, and
hugging to his breast the soft fragment of a sea-bird's downy breast.
If he stirred, his mother's foot was on the rocker, as she sat
spinning, but her spindle danced languidly on the floor, as if "feeble
was her hand, and silly her thread;" while she listened anxiously, for
every sound in the street below.  She wore a dark blue dress, with a
small lace ruff opening in front, deep cuffs to match, and a white
apron likewise edged with lace, and a coif, bent down in the centre,
over a sweet countenance, matronly, though youthful, and now full of
wistful expectancy; not untinged with anxiety and sorrow.

Susan Hardwicke was a distant kinswoman of the famous Bess of
Hardwicke, and had formed one of the little court of gentlewomen with
whom great ladies were wont to surround themselves.  There she met
Richard Talbot, the second son of a relative of the Earl of Shrewsbury,
a young man who, with the indifference of those days to service by land
or sea, had been at one time a gentleman pensioner of Queen Mary; at
another had sailed under some of the great mariners of the western
main.  There he had acquired substance enough to make the offer of his
hand to the dowerless Susan no great imprudence; and as neither could
be a subject for ambitious plans, no obstacle was raised to their
wedding.

He took his wife home to his old father's house in the precincts of
Sheffield Park, where she was kindly welcomed; but wealth did not so
abound in the family but that, when opportunity offered, he was
thankful to accept the command of the Mastiff, a vessel commissioned by
Queen Elizabeth, but built, manned, and maintained at the expense of
the Earl of Shrewsbury.  It formed part of a small squadron which was
cruising on the eastern coast to watch over the intercourse between
France and Scotland, whether in the interest of the imprisoned Mary, or
of the Lords of the Congregation.  He had obtained lodgings for
Mistress Susan at Hull, so that he might be with her when he put into
harbour, and she was expecting him for the first time since the loss of
their second child, a daughter whom he had scarcely seen during her
little life of a few months.

Moreover, there had been a sharp storm a few days previously, and
experience had not hardened her to the anxieties of a sailor's wife.
She had been down once already to the quay, and learnt all that the old
sailors could tell her of chances and conjectures; and when her boy
began to fret from hunger and weariness, she had left her serving-man,
Gervas, to watch for further tidings.  Yet, so does one trouble drive
out another, that whereas she had a few days ago dreaded the sorrow of
his return, she would now have given worlds to hear his step.

Hark, what is that in the street?  Oh, folly!  If the Mastiff were in,
would not Gervas have long ago brought her the tidings?  Should she
look over the balcony only to be disappointed again?  Ah! she had been
prudent, for the sounds were dying away.  Nay, there was a foot at the
door!  Gervas with ill news!  No, no, it bounded as never did Gervas's
step!  It was coming up.  She started from the chair, quivering with
eagerness, as the door opened and in hurried her suntanned sailor!  She
was in his arms in a trance of joy.  That was all she knew for a
moment, and then, it was as if something else were given back to her.
No, it was not a dream!  It was substance.  In her arms was a little
swaddled baby, in her ears its feeble wail, mingled with the glad shout
of little Humfrey, as he scrambled from the cradle to be uplifted in
his father's arms.

"What is this?" she asked, gazing at the infant between terror and
tenderness, as its weak cry and exhausted state forcibly recalled the
last hours of her own child.

"It is the only thing we could save from a wreck off the Spurn," said
her husband.  "Scottish as I take it.  The rogues seem to have taken to
their boats, leaving behind them a poor woman and her child.  I trust
they met their deserts and were swamped.  We saw the fluttering of her
coats as we made for the Humber, and I sent Goatley and Jaques in the
boat to see if anything lived.  The poor wench was gone before they
could lift her up, but the little one cried lustily, though it has
waxen weaker since.  We had no milk on board, and could only give it
bits of soft bread soaked in beer, and I misdoubt me whether it did not
all run out at the corners of its mouth."

This was interspersed with little Humfrey's eager outcries that little
sister was come again, and Mrs. Talbot, the tears running down her
cheeks, hastened to summon her one woman-servant, Colet, to bring the
porringer of milk.

Captain Talbot had only hurried ashore to bring the infant, and show
himself to his wife.  He was forced instantly to return to the wharf,
but he promised to come back as soon as he should have taken order for
his men, and for the Mastiff, which had suffered considerably in the
storm, and would need to be refitted.

Colet hastily put a manchet of fresh bread, a pasty, and a stoup of
wine into a basket, and sent it by her husband, Gervas, after their
master; and then eagerly assisted her mistress in coaxing the infant to
swallow food, and in removing the soaked swaddling clothes which the
captain and his crew had not dared to meddle with.

When Captain Talbot returned, as the rays of the setting sun glanced
high on the roofs and chimneys, little Humfrey stood peeping through
the tracery of the balcony, watching for him, and shrieking with joy at
the first glimpse of the sea-bird's feather in his cap.  The spotless
home-spun cloth and the trenchers were laid for supper, a festive capon
was prepared by the choicest skill of Mistress Susan, and the little
shipwrecked stranger lay fast asleep in the cradle.

All was well with it now, Mrs. Talbot said.  Nothing had ailed it but
cold and hunger, and when it had been fed, warmed, and dressed, it had
fallen sweetly asleep in her arms, appeasing her heartache for her own
little Sue, while Humfrey fully believed that father had brought his
little sister back again.

The child was in truth a girl, apparently three or four months old. She
had been rolled up in Mrs. Talbot's baby's clothes, and her own long
swaddling bands hung over the back of a chair, where they had been
dried before the fire.  They were of the finest woollen below, and
cambric above, and the outermost were edged with lace, whose quality
Mrs. Talbot estimated very highly.

"See," she added, "what we found within.  A Popish relic, is it not?
Colet and Mistress Gale were for making away with it at once, but it
seemed to me that it was a token whereby the poor babe's friends may
know her again, if she have any kindred not lost at sea."

The token was a small gold cross, of peculiar workmanship, with a
crystal in the middle, through which might be seen some mysterious
object neither husband nor wife could make out, but which they agreed
must be carefully preserved for the identification of their little
waif.  Mrs. Talbot also produced a strip of writing which she had found
sewn to the inmost band wrapped round the little body, but it had no
superscription, and she believed it to be either French, Latin, or High
Dutch, for she could make nothing of it.  Indeed, the good lady's
education had only included reading, writing, needlework and cookery,
and she knew no language but her own.  Her husband had been taught
Latin, but his acquaintance with modern tongues was of the nautical
order, and entirely oral and vernacular.  However, it enabled him to
aver that the letter--if such it were--was neither Scottish, French,
Spanish, nor High or Low Dutch.  He looked at it in all directions, and
shook his head over it.

"Who can read it, for us?" asked Mrs. Talbot.  "Shall we ask Master
Heatherthwayte? he is a scholar, and he said he would look in to see
how you fared."

"At supper-time, I trow," said Richard, rather grimly, "the smell of
thy stew will bring him down in good time."

"Nay, dear sir, I thought you would be fain to see the good man, and he
lives but poorly in his garret."

"Scarce while he hath good wives like thee to boil his pot for him,"
said Richard, smiling.  "Tell me, hath he heard aught of this gear?
thou hast not laid this scroll before him?"

"No, Colet brought it to me only now, having found it when washing the
swaddling-bands, stitched into one of them."

"Then hark thee, good wife, not one word to him of the writing."

"Might he not interpret it?"

"Not he!  I must know more about it ere I let it pass forth from mine
hands, or any strange eye fall upon it-- Ha, in good time!  I hear his
step on the stair."

The captain hastily rolled up the scroll and put it into his pouch,
while Mistress Susan felt as if she had made a mistake in her
hospitality, yet almost as if her husband were unjust towards the good
man who had been such a comfort to her in her sorrow; but there was no
lack of cordiality or courtesy in Richard's manner when, after a short,
quick knock, there entered a figure in hat, cassock, gown, and bands,
with a pleasant, though grave countenance, the complexion showing that
it had been tanned and sunburnt in early youth, although it wore later
traces of a sedentary student life, and, it might be, of less genial
living than had nourished the up-growth of that sturdily-built frame.

Master Joseph Heatherthwayte was the greatly underpaid curate of a
small parish on the outskirts of Hull.  He contrived to live on some
(pounds)10 per annum in the attic of the house where the Talbots
lodged,--and not only to live, but to be full of charitable deeds,
mostly at the expense of his own appetite.  The square cut of his
bands, and the uncompromising roundness of the hat which he doffed on
his entrance, marked him as inclined to the Puritan party, which, being
that of apparent progress, attracted most of the ardent spirits of the
time.

Captain Talbot's inclinations did not lie that way, but he respected
and liked his fellow-lodger, and his vexation had been merely the
momentary disinclination of a man to be interrupted, especially on his
first evening at home.  He responded heartily to Master
Heatherthwayte's warm pressure of the hand and piously expressed
congratulation on his safety, mixed with condolence on the grief that
had befallen him.

"And you have been a good friend to my poor wife in her sorrow," said
Richard, "for the which I thank you heartily, sir."

"Truly, sir, I could have been her scholar, with such edifying
resignation did she submit to the dispensation," returned the
clergyman, uttering these long words in a broad northern accent which
had nothing incongruous in it to Richard's ears, and taking advantage
of the lady's absence on "hospitable tasks intent" to speak in her
praise.

Little Humfrey, on his father's knee, comprehending that they were
speaking of the recent sorrow, put in his piece of information that
"father had brought little sister back from the sea."

"Ah, child!" said Master Heatherthwayte, in the ponderous tone of one
unused to children, "thou hast yet to learn the words of the holy
David, 'I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.'"

"Bring not that thought forward, Master Heatherthwayte," said Richard,
"I am well pleased that my poor wife and this little lad can take the
poor little one as a solace sent them by God, as she assuredly is."

"Mean you, then, to adopt her into your family?" asked the minister.

"We know not if she hath any kin," said Richard, and at that moment
Susan entered, followed by the man and maid, each bearing a portion of
the meal, which was consumed by the captain and the clergyman as
thoroughly hungry men eat; and there was silence till the capon's bones
were bare and two large tankards had been filled with Xeres sack,
captured in a Spanish ship, "the only good thing that ever came from
Spain," quoth the sailor.

Then he began to tell how he had weathered the storm on the
Berwickshire coast; but he was interrupted by another knock, followed
by the entrance of a small, pale, spare man, with the lightest possible
hair, very short, and almost invisible eyebrows; he had a round ruff
round his neck, and a black, scholarly gown, belted round his waist
with a girdle, in which he carried writing tools.

"Ha, Cuthbert Langston, art thou there?" said the captain, rising.
"Thou art kindly welcome.  Sit down and crush a cup of sack with Master
Heatherthwayte and me."

"Thanks, cousin," returned the visitor, "I heard that the Mastiff was
come in, and I came to see whether all was well."

"It was kindly done, lad," said Richard, while the others did their
part of the welcome, though scarcely so willingly.  Cuthbert Langston
was a distant relation on the mother's side of Richard, a young
scholar, who, after his education at Oxford, had gone abroad with a
nobleman's son as his pupil, and on his return, instead of taking Holy
Orders, as was expected, had obtained employment in a merchant's
counting-house at Hull, for which his knowledge of languages eminently
fitted him.  Though he possessed none of the noble blood of the
Talbots, the employment was thought by Mistress Susan somewhat
derogatory to the family dignity, and there was a strong suspicion both
in her mind and that of Master Heatherthwayte that his change of
purpose was due to the change of religion in England, although he was a
perfectly regular church-goer.  Captain Talbot, however, laughed at all
this, and, though he had not much in common with his kinsman, always
treated him in a cousinly fashion.  He too had heard a rumour of the
foundling, and made inquiry for it, upon which Richard told his story
in greater detail, and his wife asked what the poor mother was like.

"I saw her not," he answered, "but Goatley thought the poor woman to
whom she was bound more like to be nurse than mother, judging by her
years and her garments."

"The mother may have been washed off before," said Susan, lifting the
little one from the cradle, and hushing it. "Weep not, poor babe, thou
hast found a mother here."

"Saw you no sign of the crew?" asked Master Heatherthwayte.

"None at all.  The vessel I knew of old as the brig Bride of Dunbar,
one of the craft that ply between Dunbar and the French ports."

"And how think you?  Were none like to be saved?"

"I mean to ride along the coast to-morrow, to see whether aught can be
heard of them, but even if their boats could live in such a sea, they
would have evil hap among the wreckers if they came ashore.  I would
not desire to be a shipwrecked man in these parts, and if I had a
Scottish or a French tongue in my head so much the worse for me."

"Ah, Master Heatherthwayte," said Susan, "should not a man give up the
sea when he is a husband and father?"

"Tush, dame!  With God's blessing the good ship Mastiff will ride out
many another such gale.  Tell thy mother, little Numpy, that an English
sailor is worth a dozen French or Scottish lubbers."

"Sir," said Master Heatherthwayte, "the pious trust of the former part
of your discourse is contradicted by the boast of the latter end."

"Nay, Sir Minister, what doth a sailor put his trust in but his God
foremost, and then his good ship and his brave men?"

It should be observed that all the three men wore their hats, and each
made a reverent gesture of touching them.  The clergyman seemed
satisfied by the answer, and presently added that it would be well, if
Master and Mistress Talbot meant to adopt the child, that she should be
baptized.

"How now?" said Richard, "we are not so near any coast of Turks or
Infidels that we should deem her sprung of heathen folk."

"Assuredly not," said Cuthbert Langston, whose quick, light-coloured
eyes had spied the reliquary in Mistress Susan's work-basket, "if this
belongs to her.  By your leave, kinswoman," and he lifted it in his
hand with evident veneration, and began examining it.

"It is Babylonish gold, an accursed thing!" exclaimed Master
Heatherthwayte.  "Beware, Master Talbot, and cast it from thee."

"Nay," said Richard, "that shall I not do.  It may lead to the
discovery of the child's kindred.  Why, my master, what harm think you
it will do to us in my dame's casket?  Or what right have we to make
away with the little one's property?"

His common sense was equally far removed from the horror of the one
visitor as from the reverence of the other, and so it pleased neither.
Master Langston was the first to speak, observing that the relic made
it evident that the child must have been baptized.

"A Popish baptism," said Master Heatherthwayte, "with chrism and taper
and words and gestures to destroy the pure simplicity of the sacrament."

Controversy here seemed to be setting in, and the infant cause of it
here setting up a cry, Susan escaped under pretext of putting Humfrey
to bed in the next room, and carried off both the little ones.  The
conversation then fell upon the voyage, and the captain described the
impregnable aspect of the castle of Dumbarton, which was held for Queen
Mary by her faithful partisan, Lord Flemyng.  On this, Cuthbert
Langston asked whether he had heard any tidings of the imprisoned
Queen, and he answered that it was reported at Leith that she had
well-nigh escaped from Lochleven, in the disguise of a lavender or
washerwoman.  She was actually in the boat, and about to cross the
lake, when a rude oarsman attempted to pull aside her muffler, and the
whiteness of the hand she raised in self-protection betrayed her, so
that she was carried back.  "If she had reached Dumbarton," he said,
"she might have mocked at the Lords of the Congregation.  Nay, she
might have been in that very brig, whose wreck I beheld."

"And well would it have been for Scotland and England had it been the
will of Heaven that so it should fall out," observed the Puritan.

"Or it may be," said the merchant, "that the poor lady's escape was
frustrated by Providence, that she might be saved from the rocks of the
Spurn."

"The poor lady, truly!  Say rather the murtheress," quoth
Heatherthwayte.

"Say rather the victim and scapegoat of other men's plots," protested
Langston.

"Come, come, sirs," says Talbot, "we'll have no high words here on what
Heaven only knoweth.  Poor lady she is, in all sooth, if sackless;
poorer still if guilty; so I know not what matter there is for falling
out about.  In any sort, I will not have it at my table." He spoke with
the authority of the captain of a ship, and the two visitors, scarce
knowing it, submitted to his decision of manner, but the harmony of the
evening seemed ended.  Cuthbert Langston soon rose to bid good-night,
first asking his cousin at what hour he proposed to set forth for the
Spurn, to which Richard briefly replied that it depended on what had to
be done as to the repairs of the ship.

The clergyman tarried behind him to say, "Master Talbot, I marvel that
so godly a man as you have ever been should be willing to harbour one
so popishly affected, and whom many suspect of being a seminary priest."

"Master Heatherthwayte," returned the captain, "my kinsman is my
kinsman, and my house is my house.  No offence, sir, but I brook not
meddling."

The clergyman protested that no offence was intended, only caution, and
betook himself to his own bare chamber, high above.  No sooner was he
gone than Captain Talbot again became absorbed in the endeavour to
spell out the mystery of the scroll, with his elbows on the table and
his hands over his ears, nor did he look up till he was touched by his
wife, when he uttered an impatient demand what she wanted now.

She had the little waif in her arms undressed, and with only a woollen
coverlet loosely wrapped round her, and without speaking she pointed to
the little shoulder-blades, where two marks had been indelibly made--on
one side the crowned monogram of the Blessed Virgin, on the other a
device like the Labarum, only that the upright was surmounted by a
fleur-de-lis.

Richard Talbot gave a sort of perplexed grunt of annoyance to
acknowledge that he saw them.

"Poor little maid! how could they be so cruel?  They have been branded
with a hot iron," said the lady.

"They that parted from her meant to know her again," returned Talbot.

"Surely they are Popish marks," added Mistress Susan.

"Look you here, Dame Sue, I know you for a discreet woman.  Keep this
gear to yourself, both the letter and the marks.  Who hath seen them?"

"I doubt me whether even Colet has seen this mark."

"That is well.  Keep all out of sight.  Many a man has been brought
into trouble for a less matter swelled by prating tongues."

"Have you made it out?"

"Not I.  It may be only the child's horoscope, or some old wife's charm
that is here sewn up, and these marks may be naught but some sailor's
freak; but, on the other hand, they may be concerned with perilous
matter, so the less said the better."

"Should they not be shown to my lord, or to her Grace's Council?"

"I'm not going to run my head into trouble for making a coil about what
may be naught.  That's what befell honest Mark Walton.  He thought he
had seized matter of State, and went up to Master Walsingham, swelling
like an Indian turkey-cock, with his secret letters, and behold they
turned out to be a Dutch fishwife's charm to bring the herrings.  I can
tell you he has rued the work he made about it ever since.  On the
other hand, let it get abroad through yonder prating fellow,
Heatherthwayte, or any other, that Master Richard Talbot had in his
house a child with, I know not what Popish tokens, and a scroll in an
unknown tongue, and I should be had up in gyves for suspicion of
treason, or may be harbouring the Prince of Scotland himself, when it
is only some poor Scottish archer's babe."

"You would not have me part with the poor little one?"

"Am I a Turk or a Pagan?  No.  Only hold thy peace, as I shall hold
mine, until such time as I can meet some one whom I can trust to read
this riddle.  Tell me--what like is the child?  Wouldst guess it to be
of gentle, or of clownish blood, if women can tell such things?"

"Of gentle blood, assuredly," cried the lady, so that he smiled and
said, "I might have known that so thou wouldst answer."

"Nay, but see her little hands and fingers, and the mould of her dainty
limbs.  No Scottish fisher clown was her father, I dare be sworn.  Her
skin is as fair and fine as my Humfrey's, and moreover she has always
been in hands that knew how a babe should be tended. Any woman can tell
you that!"

"And what like is she in your woman's eyes?  What complexion doth she
promise?"

"Her hair, what she has of it, is dark; her eyes--bless them--are of a
deep blue, or purple, such as most babes have till they take their true
tint.  There is no guessing.  Humfrey's eyes were once like to be
brown, now are they as blue as thine own."

"I understand all that," said Captain Talbot, smiling.  "If she have
kindred, they will know her better by the sign manual on her tender
flesh than by her face."

"And who are they?"

"Who are they?" echoed the captain, rolling up the scroll in despair.
"Here, take it, Susan, and keep it safe from all eyes.  Whatever it may
be, it may serve thereafter to prove her true name.  And above all, not
a word or breath to Heatherthwayte, or any of thy gossips, wear they
coif or bands."

"Ah, sir! that you will mistrust the good man."

"I said not I mistrust any one; only that I will have no word of all
this go forth!  Not one!  Thou heedest me, wife?"

"Verily I do, sir; I will be mute."




CHAPTER II.

EVIL TIDINGS.


After giving orders for the repairs of the Mastiff, and the disposal of
her crew, Master Richard Talbot purveyed himself of a horse at the
hostel, and set forth for Spurn Head to make inquiries along the coast
respecting the wreck of the Bride of Dunbar, and he was joined by
Cuthbert Langston, who said his house had had dealings with her owners,
and that he must ascertain the fate of her wares.  His good lady
remained in charge of the mysterious little waif, over whom her tender
heart yearned more and more, while her little boy hovered about in
serene contemplation of the treasure he thought he had recovered.  To
him the babe seemed really his little sister; to his mother, if she
sometimes awakened pangs of keen regret, yet she filled up much of the
dreary void of the last few weeks.

Mrs. Talbot was a quiet, reserved woman, not prone to gadding abroad,
and she had made few acquaintances during her sojourn at Hull; but
every creature she knew, or might have known, seemed to her to drop in
that day, and bring at least two friends to inspect the orphan of the
wreck, and demand all particulars.

The little girl was clad in the swaddling garments of Mrs. Talbot's own
children, and the mysterious marks were suspected by no one, far less
the letter which Susan, for security's sake, had locked up in her
nearly empty, steel-bound, money casket.  The opinions of the gossips
varied, some thinking the babe might belong to some of the Queen of
Scotland's party fleeing to France, others fathering her on the
refugees from the persecutions in Flanders, a third party believing her
a mere fisherman's child, and one lean, lantern-jawed old crone,
Mistress Rotherford, observing, "Take my word, Mrs. Talbot, and keep
her not with you.  They that are cast up by the sea never bring good
with them."

The court of female inquiry was still sitting when a heavy tread was
heard, and Colet announced "a serving-man from Bridgefield had ridden
post haste to speak with madam," and the messenger, booted and spurred,
with the mastiff badge on his sleeve, and the hat he held in his hand,
followed closely.

"What news, Nathanael?" she asked, as she responded to his greeting.

"Ill enough news, mistress," was the answer.  "Master Richard's ship be
in, they tell me."

"Yes, but he is rid out to make inquiry for a wreck," said the lady.
"Is all well with my good father-in-law?"

"He ails less in body than in mind, so please you.  Being that Master
Humfrey was thrown by Blackfoot, the beast being scared by a flash of
lightning, and never spoke again."

"Master Humfrey!"

"Ay, mistress.  Pitched on his head against the south gate-post.  I saw
how it was with him when we took him up, and he never so much as lifted
an eyelid, but died at the turn of the night.  Heaven rest his soul!'

"Heaven rest his soul!" echoed Susan, and the ladies around chimed in.
They had come for one excitement, and here was another.

"There!  See but what I said!" quoth Mrs. Rotherford, uplifting a
skinny finger to emphasise that the poor little flotsome had already
brought evil.

"Nay," said the portly wife of a merchant, "begging your pardon, this
may be a fat instead of a lean sorrow.  Leaves the poor gentleman
heirs, Mrs. Talbot?"

"Oh no!" said Susan, with tears in her eyes.  "His wife died two years
back, and her chrisom babe with her.  He loved her too well to turn his
mind to wed again, and now he is with her for aye."  And she covered
her face and sobbed, regardless of the congratulations of the
merchant's wife, and exclaiming, "Oh! the poor old lady!"

"In sooth, mistress," said Nathanael, who had stood all this time as if
he had by no means emptied his budget of ill news, "poor old madam fell
down all of a heap on the floor, and when the wenches lifted her, they
found she was stricken with the dead palsy, and she has not spoken, and
there's no one knows what to do, for the poor old squire is like one
distraught, sitting by her bed like an image on a monument, with the
tears flowing down his old cheeks.  'But,' says he to me, 'get you to
Hull, Nat, and take madam's palfrey and a couple of sumpter beasts, and
bring my good daughter Talbot back with you as fast as she and the
babes may brook.'  I made bold to say, 'And Master Richard, your
worship?' then he groaned somewhat, and said, 'If my son's ship be come
in, he must do as her Grace's service permits, but meantime he must
spare us his wife, for she is sorely needed here.'  And he looked at
the bed so as it would break your heart to see, for since old Nurse
Took hath been doited, there's not been a wench about the house that
can do a hand's turn for a sick body."

Susan knew this was true, for her mother-in-law had been one of those
bustling, managing housewives, who prefer doing everything themselves
to training others, and she was appalled at the idea of the probable
desolation and helplessness of the bereaved household.

It was far too late to start that day, even had her husband been at
home, for the horses sent for her had to rest.  The visitors would fain
have extracted some more particulars about the old squire's age, his
kindred to the great Earl, and the amount of estate to which her
husband had become heir.  There were those among them who could not
understand Susan's genuine grief, and there were others whose
consolations were no less distressing to one of her reserved character.
She made brief answer that the squire was threescore and fifteen years
old, his wife nigh about his age; that her husband was now their only
child; that he was descended from a son of the great Earl John, killed
at the Bridge of Chatillon, that he held the estate of Bridgefield in
fief on tenure of military service to the head of his family.  She did
not know how much it was worth by the year, but she must pray the good
ladies to excuse her, as she had many preparations to make.  Volunteers
to assist her in packing her mails were made, but she declined them
all, and rejoiced when left alone with Colet to arrange for what would
be probably her final departure from Hull.

It was a blow to find that she must part from her servant-woman, who,
as well as her husband Gervas, was a native of Hull.  Not only were
they both unwilling to leave, but the inland country was to their
imagination a wild unexplored desert.  Indeed, Colet had only entered
Mrs. Talbot's service to supply the place of a maid who bad sickened
with fever and ague, and had to be sent back to her native Hallamshire.

Ere long Mr. Heatherthwayte came down to offer his consolation, and
still more his advice, that the little foundling should be at once
baptized--conditionally, if the lady preferred it.

The Reformed of imperfect theological training, and as such Joseph
Heatherthwayte must be classed, were apt to view the ceremonial of the
old baptismal form, symbolical and beautiful as it was, as almost
destroying the efficacy of the rite.  Moreover, there was a further
impression that the Church by which the child was baptized, had a right
to bring it up, and thus the clergyman was urgent with the lady that
she should seize this opportunity for the little one's baptism.

"Not without my husband's consent and knowledge," she said resolutely.

"Master Talbot is a good man, but somewhat careless of sound doctrine,
as be the most of seafaring men."

Susan had been a little nettled by her husband's implied belief that
she was influenced by the minister, so there was double resolution, as
well as some offence in her reply, that she knew her duty as a wife too
well to consent to such a thing without him.  As to his being careless,
he was a true and God-fearing man, and Mr. Heatherthwayte should know
better than to speak thus of him to his wife.

Mr. Heatherthwayte's real piety and goodness had made him a great
comfort to Susan in her lonely grief, but he had not the delicate tact
of gentle blood, and had not known where to stop, and as he stood half
apologising and half exhorting, she felt that her Richard was quite
right, and that he could be both meddling and presuming. He was
exceedingly in the way of her packing too, and she was at her wit's end
to get rid of him, when suddenly Humfrey managed to pinch his fingers
in a box, and set up such a yell, as, seconded by the frightened baby,
was more than any masculine ears could endure, and drove Master
Heatherthwayte to beat a retreat.

Mistress Susan was well on in her work when her husband returned, and
as she expected, was greatly overcome by the tidings of his brother's
death.  He closely questioned Nathanael on every detail, and could
think of nothing but the happy days he had shared with his brother, and
of the grief of his parents.  He approved of all that his wife had
done; and as the damage sustained by the Mastiff could not be repaired
under a month, he had no doubt about leaving his crew in the charge of
his lieutenant while he took his family home.

So busy were both, and so full of needful cares, the one in giving up
her lodging, the other in leaving his men, that it was impossible to
inquire into the result of his researches, for the captain was in that
mood of suppressed grief and vehement haste in which irrelevant inquiry
is perfectly unbearable.

It was not till late in the evening that Richard told his wife of his
want of success in his investigations.  He had found witnesses of the
destruction of the ship, but he did not give them full credit.  "The
fellows say the ship drove on the rock, and that they saw her boats go
down with every soul on board, and that they would not lie to an
officer of her Grace.  Heaven pardon me if I do them injustice in
believing they would lie to him sooner than to any one else.  They are
rogues enough to take good care that no poor wretch should survive even
if he did chance to come to land."

"Then if there be no one to claim her, we may bring up as our own the
sweet babe whom Heaven hath sent us."

"Not so fast, dame.  Thou wert wont to be more discreet.  I said not
so, but for the nonce, till I can come by the rights of that scroll,
there's no need to make a coil.  Let no one know of it, or of the
trinket--Thou hast them safe?"

"Laid up with the Indian gold chain, thy wedding gift, dear sir."

"'Tis well.  My mother!--ah me," he added, catching himself up; "little
like is she to ask questions, poor soul."

Then Susan diffidently told of Master Heatherthwayte's earnest wish to
christen the child, and, what certainly biased her a good deal, the
suggestion that this would secure her to their own religion.

"There is something in that," said Richard, "specially after what
Cuthbert said as to the golden toy yonder.  If times changed
again--which Heaven forfend--that fellow might give us trouble about
the matter."

"You doubt him then, sir!" she asked.

"I relished not his ways on our ride to-day," said Richard.  "Sure I am
that he had some secret cause for being so curious about the wreck.  I
suspect him of some secret commerce with the Queen of Scots' folk."

"Yet you were on his side against Mr. Heatherthwayte," said Susan.

"I would not have my kinsman browbeaten at mine own table by the
self-conceited son of a dalesman, even if he have got a round hat and
Geneva band!  Ah, well! one good thing is we shall leave both of them
well behind us, though I would it were for another cause."

Something in the remonstrance had, however, so worked on Richard
Talbot, that before morning be declared that, hap what hap, if he and
his wife were to bring up the child, she should be made a good
Protestant Christian before they left the house, and there should be no
more ado about it.

It was altogether illogical and untheological; but Master
Heatherthwayte was delighted when in the very early morning his
devotions were interrupted, and he was summoned by the captain himself
to christen the child.

Richard and his wife were sponsors, but the question of name had never
occurred to any one.  However, in the pause of perplexity, when the
response lagged to "Name this child," little Humfrey, a delighted
spectator, broke out again with "Little Sis."

And forthwith, "Cicely, if thou art not already baptized," was uttered
over the child, and Cicely became her name.  It cost Susan a pang, as
it had been that of her own little daughter, but it was too late to
object, and she uttered no regret, but took the child to her heart, as
sent instead of her who had been taken from her.

Master Heatherthwayte bade them good speed, and Master Langston stood
at the door of his office and waved them a farewell, both alike
unconscious of the rejoicing with which they were left behind. Mistress
Talbot rode on the palfrey sent for her use, with the little stranger
slung to her neck for security's sake.  Her boy rode "a cock-horse"
before his father, but a resting-place was provided for him on a sort
of pannier on one of the sumpter beasts.  What these animals could not
carry of the household stuff was left in Colet's charge to be
despatched by carriers; and the travellers jogged slowly on through
deep Yorkshire lanes, often halting to refresh the horses and supply
the wants of the little children at homely wayside inns, their entrance
usually garnished with an archway formed of the jawbones of whales,
which often served for gate-posts in that eastern part of Yorkshire.
And thus they journeyed, with frequent halts, until they came to the
Derbyshire borders.

Bridgefield House stood on the top of a steep slope leading to the
river Dun, with a high arched bridge and a mill below it.  From the
bridge proceeded one of the magnificent avenues of oak-trees which led
up to the lordly lodge, full four miles off, right across Sheffield
Park.

The Bridgefield estate had been a younger son's portion, and its owners
had always been regarded as gentlemen retainers of the head of their
name, the Earl of Shrewsbury.  Tudor jealousy had forbidden the
marshalling of such a meine as the old feudal lords had loved to
assemble, and each generation of the Bridgefield Talbots had become
more independent than the former one.  The father had spent his younger
days as esquire to the late Earl, but had since become a justice of the
peace, and took rank with the substantial landowners of the country.
Humfrey, his eldest son, had been a gentleman pensioner of the Queen
till his marriage, and Richard, though beginning his career as page to
the present Earl's first wife, had likewise entered the service of her
Majesty, though still it was understood that the head of their name had
a claim to their immediate service, and had he been called to take up
arms, they would have been the first to follow his banner.  Indeed, a
pair of spurs was all the annual rent they paid for their estate, which
they held on this tenure, as well as on paying the heriard horse on the
death of the head of the family, and other contributions to their
lord's splendour when he knighted his son or married his daughter.  In
fact, they stood on the borderland of that feudal retainership which
was being rapidly extinguished.  The estate, carved out of the great
Sheffield property, was sufficient to maintain the owner in the
dignities of an English gentleman, and to portion off the daughters,
provided that the superfluous sons shifted for themselves, as Richard
had hitherto done.  The house had been ruined in the time of the Wars
of the Roses, and rebuilt in the later fashion, with a friendly-looking
front, containing two large windows, and a porch projecting between
them.  The hall reached to the top of the house, and had a waggon
ceiling, with mastiffs alternating with roses on portcullises at the
intersections of the timbers.  This was the family sitting and dining
room, and had a huge chimney never devoid of a wood fire.  One end had
a buttery-hatch communicating with the kitchen and offices; at the
other was a small room, sacred to the master of the house, niched under
the broad staircase that led to the upper rooms, which opened on a
gallery running round three sides of the hall.

Outside, on the southern side of the house, was a garden of potherbs,
with the green walks edged by a few bright flowers for beau-pots and
posies.  This had stone walls separating it from the paddock, which
sloped down to the river, and was a good deal broken by ivy-covered
rocks.  Adjoining the stables were farm buildings and barns, for there
were several fields for tillage along the river-side, and the mill and
two more farms were the property of the Bridgefield squire, so that the
inheritance was a very fair one, wedged in, as it were, between the
river and the great Chase of Sheffield, up whose stately avenue the
riding party looked as they crossed the bridge, Richard having become
more silent than ever as he came among the familiar rocks and trees of
his boyhood, and knew he should not meet that hearty welcome from his
brother which had never hitherto failed to greet his return.  The house
had that strange air of forlornness which seems to proclaim sorrow
within.  The great court doors stood open, and a big, rough deer-hound,
at the sound of the approaching hoofs, rose slowly up, and began a
series of long, deep-mouthed barks, with pauses between, sounding like
a knell.  One or two men and maids ran out at the sound, and as the
travellers rode up to the horse-block, an old gray-bearded serving-man
came stumbling forth with "Oh!  Master Diccon, woe worth the day!"

"How does my mother?" asked Richard, as he sprang off and set his boy
on his feet.

"No worse, sir, but she hath not yet spoken a word--back, Thunder--ah!
sir, the poor dog knows you."

For the great hound had sprung up to Richard in eager greeting, but
then, as soon as he heard his voice, the creature drooped his ears and
tail, and instead of continuing his demonstrations of joy, stood
quietly by, only now and then poking his long, rough nose into
Richard's hand, knowing as well as possible that though not his dear
lost master, he was the next thing!

Mistress Susan and the infant were lifted down--a hurried question and
answer assured them that the funeral was over yesterday.  My Lady
Countess had come down and would have it so; my lord was at Court, and
Sir Gilbert and his brothers had been present, but the old servants
thought it hard that none nearer in blood should be there to lay their
young squire in his grave, nor to support his father, who, poor old
man, had tottered, and been so like to swoon as he passed the hall
door, that Sir Gilbert and old Diggory could but, help him back again,
fearing lest he, too, might have a stroke.

It was a great grief to Richard, who had longed to look on his
brother's face again, but he could say nothing, only he gave one hand
to his wife and the other to his son, and led them into the hall, which
was in an indescribable state of confusion.  The trestles which had
supported the coffin were still at one end of the room, the long tables
were still covered with cloths, trenchers, knives, cups, and the
remains of the funeral baked meats, and there were overthrown tankards
and stains of wine on the cloth, as though, whatever else were lacking,
the Talbot retainers had not missed their revel.

One of the dishevelled rough-looking maidens began some hurried
muttering about being so distraught, and not looking for madam so
early, but Susan could not listen to her, and merely putting the babe
into her arms, came with her husband up the stairs, leaving little
Humfrey with Nathanael.

Richard knocked at the bedroom door, and, receiving no answer, opened
it.  There in the tapestry-hung chamber was the huge old bedstead with
its solid posts.  In it lay something motionless, but the first thing
the husband and wife saw was the bent head which was lifted up by the
burly but broken figure in the chair beside it.

The two knotted old hands clasped the arms of the chair, and the squire
prepared to rise, his lip trembling under his white beard, and emotion
working in his dejected features.  They were beforehand with him.  Ere
he could rise both were on their knees before him, while Richard in a
broken voice cried, "Father, O father!"

"Thank God that thou art come, my son," said the old man, laying his
hands on his shoulders, with a gleam of joy, for as they afterwards
knew, he had sorely feared for Richard's ship in the storm that had
caused Humfrey's death.  "I looked for thee, my daughter," he added,
stretching out one hand to Susan, who kissed it.  "Now it may go better
with her!  Speak to thy mother, Richard, she may know thy voice."

Alas! no; the recently active, ready old lady was utterly stricken, and
as yet held in the deadly grasp of paralysis, unconscious of all that
passed around her.

Susan found herself obliged at once to take up the reins, and become
head nurse and housekeeper.  The old squire trusted implicitly to her,
and helplessly put the keys into her hands, and the serving-men and
maids, in some shame at the condition in which the hall had been found,
bestirred themselves to set it in order, so that there was a chance of
the ordinary appearance of things being restored by supper-time, when
Richard hoped to persuade his father to come down to his usual place.

Long before this, however, a trampling had been heard in the court, and
a shrill voice, well known to Richard and Susan, was heard demanding,
"Come home, is she--Master Diccon too?  More shame for you, you
sluttish queans and lazy lubbers, never to have let me know; but none
of you have any respect--"

A visit from my Lady Countess was a greater favour to such a household
as that of Bridgefield than it would be to a cottage of the present
day; Richard was hurrying downstairs, and Susan only tarried to throw
off the housewifely apron in which she had been compounding a cooling
drink for the poor old lady, and to wash her hands, while Humfrey,
rushing up to her, exclaimed "Mother, mother, is it the Queen?"

Queen Elizabeth herself was not inaptly represented by her namesake of
Hardwicke, the Queen of Hallamshire, sitting on her great white mule at
the door, sideways, with her feet on a board, as little children now
ride, and attended by a whole troop of gentlemen ushers, maidens,
prickers, and running footmen.  She was a woman of the same type as the
Queen, which was of course enough to stamp her as a celebrated beauty,
and though she had reached middle age, her pale, clear complexion and
delicate features were well preserved.  Her chin was too sharp, and
there was something too thin and keen about her nose and lips to
promise good temper.  She was small of stature, but she made up for it
in dignity of presence, and as she sat there, with her rich embroidered
green satin farthingale spreading out over the mule, her tall ruff
standing up fanlike on her shoulders, her riding-rod in her hand, and
her master of the horse standing at her rein, while a gentleman usher
wielded an enormous, long-handled, green fan, to keep the sun from
incommoding her, she was, perhaps, even more magnificent than the
maiden queen herself might have been in her more private expeditions.
Indeed, she was new to her dignity as Countess, having been only a few
weeks married to the Earl, her fourth husband. Captain Talbot did not
feel it derogatory to his dignity as a gentleman to advance with his
hat in his hand to kiss her hand, and put a knee to the ground as he
invited her to alight, an invitation his wife heard with dismay as she
reached the door, for things were by no means yet as they should be in
the hall.  She curtsied low, and advanced with her son holding her
hand, but shrinking behind her.

"Ha, kinswoman, is it thou!" was her greeting, as she, too, kissed the
small, shapely, white, but exceedingly strong hand that was extended to
her; "So thou art come, and high time too.  Thou shouldst never have
gone a-gadding to Hull, living in lodgings; awaiting thine husband,
forsooth.  Thou art over young a matron for such gear, and so I told
Diccon Talbot long ago."

"Yea, madam," said Richard, somewhat hotly, "and I made answer that my
Susan was to be trusted, and truly no harm has come thereof."

"Ho! and you reckon it no harm that thy father and mother were left to
a set of feckless, brainless, idle serving-men and maids in their
trouble?  Why, none would so much as have seen to thy brother's poor
body being laid in a decent grave had not I been at hand to take order
for it as became a distant kinsman of my lord.  I tell thee, Richard,
there must be no more of these vagabond seafaring ways. Thou must serve
my lord, as a true retainer and kinsman is bound--Nay," in reply to a
gesture, "I will not come in, I know too well in what ill order the
house is like to be.  I did but take my ride this way to ask how it
fared with the mistress, and try if I could shake the squire from his
lethargy, if Mrs. Susan had not had the grace yet to be here.  How do
they?"  Then in answer, "Thou must waken him, Diccon--rouse him, and
tell him that I and my lord expect it of him that he should bear his
loss as a true and honest Christian man, and not pule and moan, since
he has a son left--ay, and a grandson.  You should breed your boy up to
know his manners, Susan Talbot," as Humfrey resisted an attempt to make
him do his reverence to my lady; "that stout knave of yours wants the
rod.  Methought I heard you'd borne another, Susan!  Ay! as I said it
would be," as her eye fell on the swaddled babe in a maid's arms.  "No
lack of fools to eat up the poor old squire's substance.  A maid, is
it?  Beshrew me, if your voyages will find portions for all your
wenches!  Has the leech let blood to thy good-mother, Susan?  There!
not one amongst you all bears any brains.  Knew you not how to send up
to the castle for Master Drewitt?  Farewell!  Thou wilt be at the lodge
to-morrow to let me know how it fares with thy mother, when her brain
is cleared by further blood-letting.  And for the squire, let him know
that I expect it of him that he shall eat, and show himself a man!"

So saying, the great lady departed, escorted as far as the avenue gate
by Richard Talbot, and leaving the family gratified by her
condescension, and not allowing to themselves how much their feelings
were chafed.




CHAPTER III.

THE CAPTIVE.


Death and sorrow seemed to have marked the house of Bridgefield, for
the old lady never rallied after the blood-letting enjoined by the
Countess's medical science, and her husband, though for some months
able to creep about the house, and even sometimes to visit the fields,
had lost his memory, and became more childish week by week.

Richard Talbot was obliged to return to his ship at the end of the
month, but as soon as she was laid up for the winter he resigned his
command, and returned home, where he was needed to assume the part of
master.  In truth he became actually master before the next spring, for
his father took to his bed with the first winter frosts, and in spite
of the duteous cares lavished upon him by his son and daughter-in-law,
passed from his bed to his grave at the Christmas feast. Richard Talbot
inherited house and lands, with the undefined sense of feudal
obligation to the head of his name, and ere long he was called upon to
fulfil those obligations by service to his lord.

There had been another act in the great Scottish tragedy.  Queen Mary
had effected her escape from Lochleven, but only to be at once
defeated, and then to cross the Solway and throw herself into the hands
of the English Queen.

Bolton Castle had been proved to be too perilously near the Border to
serve as her residence, and the inquiry at York, and afterwards at
Westminster, having proved unsatisfactory, Elizabeth had decided on
detaining her in the kingdom, and committed her to the charge of the
Earl of Shrewsbury.

To go into the history of that ill-managed investigation is not the
purpose of this tale.  It is probable that Elizabeth believed her
cousin guilty, and wished to shield that guilt from being proclaimed,
while her councillors, in their dread of the captive, wished to enhance
the crime in Elizabeth's eyes, and were by no means scrupulous as to
the kind of evidence they adduced.  However, this lies outside our
story; all that concerns it is that Lord Shrewsbury sent a summons to
his trusty and well-beloved cousin, Richard Talbot of Bridgefield, to
come and form part of the guard of honour which was to escort the Queen
of Scots to Tutbury Castle, and there attend upon her.

All this time no hint had been given that the little Cicely was of
alien blood.  The old squire and his lady had been in no state to hear
of the death of their own grandchild, or of the adoption of the orphan
and Susan was too reserved a woman to speak needlessly of her griefs to
one so unsympathising as the Countess or so flighty as the daughters at
the great house.  The men who had brought the summons to Hull had not
been lodged in the house, but at an inn, where they either had heard
nothing of Master Richard's adventure or had drowned their memory in
ale, for they said nothing; and thus, without any formed intention of
secrecy, the child's parentage had never come into question.

Indeed, though without doubt Mrs. Talbot was very loyal in heart to her
noble kinsfolk, it is not to be denied that she was a good deal more at
peace when they were not at the lodge.  She tried devoutly to follow
out the directions of my Lady Countess, and thought herself in fault
when things went amiss, but she prospered far more when free from such
dictation.

She had nothing to wish except that her husband could be more often at
home, but it was better to have him only a few hours' ride from her, at
Chatsworth or Tutbury, than to know him exposed to the perils of the
sea.  He rode over as often as he could be spared, to see his family
and look after his property; but his attendance was close, and my Lord
and my Lady were exacting with one whom they could thoroughly trust,
and it was well that in her quiet way Mistress Susan proved capable of
ruling men and maids, farm and stable as well as house, servants and
children, to whom another boy was added in the course of the year after
her return to Bridgefield.

In the autumn, notice was sent that the Queen of Scots was to be lodged
at Sheffield, and long trains of waggons and sumpter horses and mules
began to arrive, bringing her plenishing and household stuff in
advance.  Servants without number were sent on, both by her and by the
Earl, to make preparations, and on a November day, tidings came that
the arrival might be expected in the afternoon.  Commands were sent
that the inhabitants of the little town at the park gate should keep
within doors, and not come forth to give any show of welcome to their
lord and lady, lest it should be taken as homage to the captive queen;
but at the Manor-house there was a little family gathering to hail the
Earl and Countess. It chiefly consisted of ladies with their children,
the husbands of most being in the suite of the Earl acting as escort or
guard to the Queen.  Susan Talbot, being akin to the family on both
sides, was there with the two elder children; Humfrey, both that he
might greet his father the sooner, and that he might be able to
remember the memorable arrival of the captive queen, and Cicely,
because he had clamoured loudly for her company.  Lady Talbot, of the
Herbert blood, wife to the heir, was present with two young
sisters-in-law, Lady Grace, daughter to the Earl, and Mary, daughter to
the Countess, who had been respectively married to Sir Henry Cavendish
and Sir Gilbert Talbot, a few weeks before their respective parents
were wedded, when the brides were only twelve and fourteen years old.
There, too, was Mrs. Babington of Dethick, the recent widow of a
kinsman of Lord Shrewsbury, to whom had been granted the wardship of
her son, and the little party waiting in the hall also numbered
Elizabeth and William Cavendish, the Countess's youngest children, and
many dependants mustered in the background, ready for the reception.
Indeed, the castle and manor-house, with their offices, lodges, and
outbuildings, were an absolute little city in themselves.  The castle
was still kept in perfect repair, for the battle of Bosworth was not
quite beyond the memory of living men's fathers; and besides, who could
tell whether any day England might not have to be contested inch by
inch with the Spaniard?  So the gray walls stood on the tongue of land
in the valley, formed by the junction of the rivers Sheaf and Dun, with
towers at all the gateways, enclosing a space of no less than eight
acres, and with the actual fortress, crisp, strong, hard, and
unmouldered in the midst, its tallest square tower serving as a
look-out place for those who watched to give the first intimation of
the arrival.

The castle had its population, but chiefly of grooms, warders, and
their families.  The state-rooms high up in that square tower were so
exceedingly confined, so stern and grim, that the grandfather of the
present earl had built a manor-house for his family residence on the
sloping ground on the farther side of the Dun.

This house, built of stone, timber, and brick, with two large courts,
two gardens, and three yards, covered nearly as much space as the
castle itself.  A pleasant, smooth, grass lawn lay in front, and on it
converged the avenues of oaks and walnuts, stretching towards the gates
of the park, narrowing to the eye into single lines, then going
absolutely out of sight, and the sea of foliage presenting the utmost
variety of beautiful tints of orange, yellow, brown, and red.  There
was a great gateway between two new octagon towers of red brick, with
battlements and dressings of stone, and from this porch a staircase led
upwards to the great stone-paved hall, with a huge fire burning on the
open hearth.  Around it had gathered the ladies of the Talbot family
waiting for the reception.  The warder on the tower had blown his horn
as a signal that the master and his royal guest were within the park,
and the banner of the Talbots had been raised to announce their coming,
but nearly half an hour must pass while the party came along the avenue
from the drawbridge over the Sheaf ere they could arrive at the lodge.

So the ladies, in full state dresses, hovered over the fire, while the
children played in the window seat near at hand.

Gilbert Talbot's wife, a thin, yellow-haired, young creature, promising
to be like her mother, the Countess, had a tongue which loved to run,
and with the precocity and importance of wifehood at sixteen, she
dilated to her companions on her mother's constant attendance on the
Queen, and the perpetual plots for that lady's escape.  "She is as
shifty and active as any cat-a-mount; and at Chatsworth she had a
scheme for being off out of her bedchamber window to meet a traitor
fellow named Boll; but my husband smelt it out in good time, and had
the guard beneath my lady's window, and the fellows are in gyves, and
to see the lady the day it was found out! Not a wry face did she make.
Oh no!  'Twas all my good lord, and my sweet sir with her.  I promise
you butter would not melt in her mouth, for my Lord Treasurer Cecil
hath been to see her, and he has promised to bring her to speech of her
Majesty.  May I be there to see.  I promise you 'twill be diamond cut
diamond between them."

"How did she and my Lord Treasurer fare together?" asked Mrs. Babington.

"Well, you know there's not a man of them all that is proof against her
blandishments.  Her Majesty should have women warders for her. 'Twas
good sport to see the furrows in his old brow smoothing out against his
will as it were, while she plied him with her tongue. I never saw the
Queen herself win such a smile as came on his lips, but then he is
always a sort of master, or tutor, as it were, to the Queen.  Ay," on
some exclamation from Lady Talbot, "she heeds him like no one else.
She may fling out, and run counter to him for the very pleasure of
feeling that she has the power, but she will come round at last, and
'tis his will that is done in the long run.  If this lady could beguile
him indeed, she might be a free woman in the end."

"And think you that she did?"

"Not she!  The Lord Treasurer is too long-headed, and has too strong a
hate to all Papistry, to be beguiled more than for the very moment he
was before her.  He cannot help the being a man, you see, and they are
all alike when once in her presence--your lord and father, like the
rest of them, sister Grace.  Mark me if there be not tempests brewing,
an we be not the sooner rid of this guest of ours.  My mother is not
the woman to bear it long."

Dame Mary's tongue was apt to run on too fast, and Lady Talbot
interrupted its career with an amused gesture towards the children.

For the little Cis, babe as she was, had all the three boys at her
service.  Humfrey, with a paternal air, was holding her on the
window-seat; Antony Babington was standing to receive the ball that was
being tossed to and fro between them, but as she never caught it, Will
Cavendish was content to pick it up every time and return it to her,
appearing amply rewarded by her laugh of delight.

The two mothers could not but laugh, and Mrs. Babington said the brave
lads were learning their knightly courtesy early, while Mary Talbot
began observing on the want of likeness between Cis and either the
Talbot or Hardwicke race.  The little girl was much darker in colouring
than any of the boys, and had a pair of black, dark, heavy brows, that
prevented her from being a pretty child.  Her adopted mother shrank
from such observations, and was rejoiced that a winding of horns, and a
shout from the boys, announced that the expected arrival was about to
take place.  The ladies darted to the window, and beholding the avenue
full of horsemen and horsewomen, their accoutrements and those of their
escort gleaming in the sun, each mother gathered her own chicks to
herself, smoothed the plumage somewhat ruffled by sport, and advanced
to the head of the stone steps, William Cavendish, the eldest of the
boys, being sent down to take his stepfather's rein and hold his
stirrup, page fashion.

Clattering and jingling the troop arrived.  The Earl, a stout, square
man, with a long narrow face, lengthened out farther by a
light-coloured, silky beard, which fell below his ruff, descended from
his steed, gave his hat to Richard Talbot, and handed from her horse a
hooded and veiled lady of slender proportions, who leant on his arm as
she ascended the steps.

The ladies knelt, whether in respect to the heads of the family, or to
the royal guest, may be doubtful.

The Queen came up the stairs with rheumatic steps, declaring, however,
as she did so, that she felt the better for her ride, and was less
fatigued than when she set forth.  She had the soft, low, sweet
Scottish voice, and a thorough Scottish accent and language, tempered,
however, by French tones, and as, coming into the warmer air of the
hall, she withdrew her veil, her countenance was seen. Mary Stuart was
only thirty-one at this time, and her face was still youthful, though
worn and wearied, and bearing tokens of illness. The features were far
from being regularly beautiful; there was a decided cast in one of the
eyes, and in spite of all that Mary Talbot's detracting tongue had
said, Susan's first impression was disappointment.  But, as the Queen
greeted the lady whom she already knew, and the Earl presented his
daughter, Lady Grace, his stepdaughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, and his
kinswoman, Mistress Susan Talbot, the extraordinary magic of her eye
and lip beamed on them, the queenly grace and dignity joined with a
wonderful sweetness impressed them all, and each in measure felt the
fascination.

The Earl led the Queen to the fire to obtain a little warmth before
mounting the stairs to her own apartments, and likewise while Lady
Shrewsbury was dismounting, and being handed up the stairs by her
second stepson, Gilbert.  The ladies likewise knelt on one knee to
greet this mighty dame, and the children should have done so too, but
little Cis, catching sight of Captain Richard, who had come up bearing
the Earl's hat, in immediate attendance on him, broke out with an
exulting cry of "Father! father! father!" trotted with outspread arms
right in front of the royal lady, embraced the booted leg in ecstasy,
and then stretching out, exclaimed "Up! up!"

"How now, malapert poppet!" exclaimed the Countess, and though at some
distance, uplifted her riding-rod.  Susan was ready to sink into the
earth with confusion at the great lady's displeasure, but Richard had
stooped and lifted the little maid in his arms, while Queen Mary
turned, her face lit up as by a sunbeam, and said, "Ah, bonnibell, art
thou fain to see thy father?  Wilt thou give me one of thy kisses,
sweet bairnie?" and as Richard held her up to the kind face, "A goodly
child, brave sir.  Thou must let me have her at times for a playfellow.
Wilt come and comfort a poor prisoner, little sweeting?"

The child responded with "Poor poor," stroking the soft delicate cheek,
but the Countess interfered, still wrathful.  "Master Richard, I marvel
that you should let her Grace be beset by a child, who, if she cannot
demean herself decorously, should have been left at home. Susan
Hardwicke, I thought I had schooled you better."

"Nay, madam, may not a babe's gentle deed of pity be pardoned?" said
Mary.

"Oh! if it pleasures you, madam, so be it," said Lady Shrewsbury,
deferentially; "but there be children here more worthy of your notice
than yonder little black-browed wench, who hath been allowed to thrust
herself forward, while others have been kept back from importuning your
Grace."

"No child can importune a mother who is cut off from her own," said
Mary, eager to make up for the jealousy she had excited.  "Is this
bonnie laddie yours, madam?  Ah! I should have known it by the
resemblance."

She held her white hand to receive the kisses of the boys: William
Cavendish, under his mother's eye, knelt obediently; Antony Babington,
a fair, pretty lad, of eight or nine, of a beautiful pink and white
complexion, pressed forward with an eager devotion which made the Queen
smile and press her delicate hand on his curled locks; as for Humfrey,
he retreated behind the shelter of his mother's farthingale, where his
presence was forgotten by every one else, and, after the rebuff just
administered to Cicely, there was no inclination to bring him to light,
or combat with his bashfulness.

The introductions over, Mary gave her hand to the Earl to be conducted
from the hall up the broad staircase, and along the great western
gallery to the south front, where for many days her properties had been
in course of being arranged.

Lady Shrewsbury followed as mistress of the house, and behind, in order
of precedence, came the Scottish Queen's household, in which the dark,
keen features of the French, and the rufous hues of the Scots, were
nearly equally divided.  Lady Livingstone and Mistress Seaton, two of
the Queen's Maries of the same age with herself, came next, the one led
by Lord Talbot, the other by Lord Livingstone. There was also the
faithful French Marie de Courcelles, paired with Master Beatoun,
comptroller of the household, and Jean Kennedy, a stiff Scotswoman,
whose hard outlines did not do justice to her tenderness and fidelity,
and with her was a tall, active, keen-faced stripling, looked on with
special suspicion by the English, as Willie Douglas, the contriver of
the Queen's flight from Lochleven.  Two secretaries, French and
Scottish, were shrewdly suspected of being priests, and there were
besides, a physician, surgeon, apothecary, with perfumers, cooks,
pantlers, scullions, lacqueys, to the number of thirty, besides their
wives and attendants, these last being "permitted of my lord's
benevolence."

They were all eyed askance by the sturdy, north country English, who
naturally hated all strangers, above all French and Scotch, and viewed
the band of captives much like a caged herd of wild beasts.

When on the way home Mistress Susan asked her little boy why he would
not make his obeisance to the pretty lady, he sturdily answered, "She
is no pretty lady of mine.  She is an evil woman who slew her husband."

"Poor lady! tongues have been busy with her," said his father.

"How, sir?" asked Susan, amazed, "do you think her guiltless in the
matter?"

"I cannot tell," returned Richard.  "All I know is that many who have
no mercy on her would change their minds if they beheld her patient and
kindly demeanour to all."

This was a sort of shock to Susan, as it seemed to her to prove the
truth of little Lady Talbot's words, that no one was proof against
Queen Mary's wiles; but she was happy in having her husband at home
once more, though, as he told her, he would be occupied most of each
alternate day at Sheffield, he and another relation having been
appointed "gentlemen porters," which meant that they were to wait in a
chamber at the foot of the stairs, and keep watch over whatever went in
or out of the apartments of the captive and her suite.

"And," said Richard, "who think you came to see me at Wingfield? None
other than Cuthbert Langston."

"Hath he left his merchandise at Hull?"

"Ay, so he saith.  He would fain have had my good word to my lord for a
post in the household, as comptroller of accounts, clerk, or the like.
It seemed as though there were no office he would not take so that he
might hang about the neighbourhood of this queen."

"Then you would not grant him your recommendation?"

"Nay, truly.  I could not answer for him, and his very anxiety made me
the more bent on not bringing him hither.  I'd fain serve in no ship
where I know not the honesty of all the crew, and Cuthbert hath ever
had a hankering after the old profession."

"Verily then it were not well to bring him hither."

"Moreover, he is a lover of mysteries and schemes," said Richard. "He
would never be content to let alone the question of our little wench's
birth, and would be fretting us for ever about the matter."

"Did he speak of it?"

"Yes.  He would have me to wit that a nurse and babe had been put on
board at Dumbarton.  Well, said I, and so they must have been, since on
board they were.  Is that all thou hast to tell me?  And mighty as was
the work he would have made of it, this was all he seemed to know.  I
asked, in my turn, how he came to know thus much about a vessel sailing
from a port in arms against the Lords of the Congregation, the allies
of her Majesty?"

"What said he?"

"That his house had dealings with the owners of the Bride of Dunbar. I
like not such dealings, and so long as this lady and her train are near
us, I would by no means have him whispering here and there that she is
a Scottish orphan."

"It would chafe my Lady Countess!" said Susan, to whom this was a
serious matter.  "Yet doth it not behove us to endeavour to find out
her parentage?"

"I tell you I proved to myself that he knew nothing, and all that we
have to do is to hinder him from making mischief out of that little,"
returned Richard impatiently.

The honest captain could scarcely have told the cause of his distrust
or of his secrecy, but he had a general feeling that to let an
intriguer like Cuthbert Langston rake up any tale that could be
connected with the party of the captive queen, could only lead to
danger and trouble.




CHAPTER IV.

THE OAK AND THE OAKEN HALL.


The oaks of Sheffield Park were one of the greatest glories of the
place.  Giants of the forest stretched their huge arms over the turf,
kept smooth and velvety by the creatures, wild and tame, that browsed
on it, and made their covert in the deep glades of fern and copse wood
that formed the background.

There were not a few whose huge trunks, of such girth that two men
together could not encompass them with outstretched arms, rose to a
height of more than sixty feet before throwing out a horizontal branch,
and these branches, almost trees in themselves, spread forty-eight feet
on each side of the bole, lifting a mountain of rich verdure above
them, and casting a delicious shade upon the ground beneath them.
Beneath one of these noble trees, some years after the arrival of the
hapless Mary Stuart, a party of children were playing, much to the
amusement of an audience of which they were utterly unaware, namely, of
sundry members of a deer-hunting party; a lady and gentleman who,
having become separated from the rest, were standing in the deep
bracken, which rose nearly as high as their heads, and were further
sheltered by a rock, looking and listening.

"Now then, Cis, bravely done!  Show how she treats her ladies--"

"Who will be her lady?  Thou must, Humfrey!"

"No, no, I'll never be a lady," said Humfrey gruffly.

"Thou then, Diccon."

"No, no," and the little fellow shrank back, "thou wilt hurt me, Cis."

"Come then, do thou, Tony!  I'll not strike too hard!"

"As if a wench could strike too hard."

"He might have turned that more chivalrously," whispered the lady to
her companion.  "What are they about to represent?  Mort de ma vie, the
profane little imps!  I, believe it is my sacred cousin, the Majesty of
England herself!  Truly the little maid hath a bearing that might serve
a queen, though she be all too black and beetle-browed for Queen
Elizabeth.  Who is she, Master Gilbert?"

"She is Cicely Talbot, daughter to the gentleman porter of your
Majesty's lodge."

"See to her--mark her little dignity with her heather and bluebell
crown as she sits on the rock, as stately as jewels could make her! See
her gesture with her hands, to mark where the standing ruff ought to
be.  She hath the true spirit of the Comedy--ah! and here cometh young
Antony with mincing pace, with a dock-leaf for a fan, and a mantle for
a farthingale!  She speaks! now hark!"

"Good morrow to you, my young mistress," began a voice pitched two
notes higher than its actual childlike key.  "Thou hast a new
farthingale, I see!  O Antony, that's not the way to curtsey--do it
like this.  No no! thou clumsy fellow--back and knees together."

"Never mind, Cis," interposed one of the boys--"we shall lose all our
play time if you try to make him do it with a grace.  Curtsies are
women's work--go on."

"Where was I?  O--" (resuming her dignity after these asides) "Thou
hast a new farthingale, I see."

"To do my poor honour to your Grace's birthday."

"Oh ho!  Is it so?  Methought it had been to do honour to my fair
mistress's own taper waist.  And pray how much an ell was yonder
broidered stuff?"

"Two crowns, an't please your Grace," returned the supposed lady,
making a wild conjecture.

"Two crowns! thou foolish Antony!"  Then recollecting herself, "two
crowns! what, when mine costs but half!  Thou presumptuous, lavish
varlet--no, no, wench! what right hast thou to wear gowns finer than
thy liege?--I'll teach you."  Wherewith, erecting all her talons, and
clawing frightfully with them in the air, the supposed Queen Bess leapt
at the unfortunate maid of honour, appeared to tear the imaginary robe,
and drove her victim on the stage with a great air of violence, amid
peals of laughter from the other children, loud enough to drown those
of the elders, who could hardly restrain their merriment.

Gilbert Talbot, however, had been looking about him anxiously all the
time, and would fain have moved away; but a sign from Queen Mary
withheld him, as one of the children cried,

"Now! show us how she serves her lords."

The play seemed well understood between them, for the mimic queen again
settled herself on her throne, while Will Cavendish, calling out, "Now
I'm Master Hatton," began to tread a stately measure on the grass,
while the queen exclaimed, "Who is this new star of my court? What
stalwart limbs, what graceful tread!  Who art thou, sir?"

"Madam, I am--I am.  What is it?  An ef--ef--"

"A daddy-long-legs," mischievously suggested another of the group.

"No, it's Latin.  Is it Ephraim?  No; it's a fly, something like a
gnat" (then at an impatient gesture from her Majesty) "disporting
itself in the beams of the noontide sun."

"Blood-sucking," whispered the real Queen behind the fern.  "He is not
so far out there.  See! see! with what a grace the child holds out her
little hand for him to kiss.  I doubt me if Elizabeth herself could be
more stately.  But who comes here?"

"I'm Sir Philip Sydney."

"No, no," shouted Humfrey, "Sir Philip shall not come into this
fooling.  My father says he's the best knight in England."

"He is as bad as the rest in flattery to the Queen," returned young
Cavendish.

"I'll not have it, I say.  You may be Lord Leicester an you will! He's
but Robin Dudley."

"Ah!" began the lad, now advancing and shading his eyes.  "What
burnished splendour dazzles my weak sight?  Is it a second Juno that I
behold, or lovely Venus herself?  Nay, there is a wisdom in her that
can only belong to the great Minerva herself!  So youthful too. Is it
Hebe descended to this earth?"

Cis smirked, and held out a hand, saying in an affected tone, "Lord
Earl, are thy wits astray?"

"Whose wits would not be perturbed at the mere sight of such exquisite
beauty?"

"Come and sit at our feet, and we will try to restore them," said the
stage queen; but here little Diccon, the youngest of the party, eager
for more action, called out, "Show us how she treats her lords and
ladies together."

On which young Babington, as the lady, and Humfrey, made demonstrations
of love-making and betrothal, upon which their sovereign lady descended
on them with furious tokens of indignation, abusing them right and
left, until in the midst the great castle bell pealed forth, and caused
a flight general, being, in fact, the summons to the school kept in one
of the castle chambers by one Master Snigg, or Sniggius, for the
children of the numerous colony who peopled the castle.  Girls, as well
as boys, were taught there, and thus Cis accompanied Humfrey and
Diccon, and consorted with their companions.

Queen Mary was allowed to hunt and take out-of-door exercise in the
park whenever she pleased, but Lord Shrewsbury, or one of his sons,
Gilbert and Francis, never was absent from her for a moment when she
went beyond the door of the lesser lodge, which the Earl had erected
for her, with a flat, leaded, and parapeted roof, where she could take
the air, and with only one entrance, where was stationed a "gentleman
porter," with two subordinates, whose business it was to keep a close
watch over every person or thing that went in or out. If she had any
purpose of losing herself in the thickets of fern, or copsewood, in the
park, or holding unperceived conference under shelter of the chase,
these plans were rendered impossible by the pertinacious presence of
one or other of the Talbots, who acted completely up to their name.

Thus it was that the Queen, with Gilbert in close attendance, had found
herself an unseen spectator of the children's performance, which she
watched with the keen enjoyment that sometimes made her forget her
troubles for the moment.

"How got the imps such knowledge?" mused Gilbert Talbot, as he led the
Queen out on the sward which had been the theatre of their mimicry.

"Do _you_ ask that, Sir Gilbert?" said the Queen with emphasis, for
indeed it was his wife who had been the chief retailer of scandal about
Queen Elizabeth, to the not unwilling ears of herself and his mother;
and Antony Babington, as my lady's page, had but used his opportunities.

"They are insolent varlets and deserve the rod," continued Gilbert.

"You are too ready with the rod, you English," returned Mary.  "You
flog all that is clever and spirited out of your poor children!"

"That is the question, madam.  Have the English been found so deficient
in spirit compared with other nations?"

"Ah! we all know what you English can say for yourselves," returned the
Queen.  "See what Master John Coke hath made of the herald's argument
before Dame Renown, in his translation.  He hath twisted all the other
way."

"Yea, madam, but the French herald had it all his own way before.  So
it was but just we should have our turn."

Here a cry from the other hunters greeted them, and they found Lord
Shrewsbury, some of the ladies, and a number of prickers, looking
anxiously for them.

"Here we are, good my lord," said the Queen, who, when free from
rheumatism, was a most active walker.  "We have only been stalking my
sister Queen's court in small, the prettiest and drollest pastime I
have seen for many a long day."

Much had happened in the course of the past years.  The intrigues with
Northumberland and Norfolk, and the secret efforts of the unfortunate
Queen to obtain friends, and stir up enemies against Elizabeth, had
resulted in her bonds being drawn closer and closer. The Rising of the
North had taken place, and Cuthbert Langston had been heard of as
taking a prominent part beneath the sacred banner, but he had been
wounded and not since heard of, and his kindred knew not whether he
were among the unnamed dead who loaded the trees in the rear of the
army of Sussex, or whether he had escaped beyond seas.  Richard Talbot
still remained as one of the trusted kinsmen of Lord Shrewsbury, on
whom that nobleman depended for the execution of the charge which
yearly became more wearisome and onerous, as hope decayed and plots
thickened.

Though resident in the new lodge with her train, it was greatly
diminished by the dismissal from time to time of persons who were
regarded as suspicious; Mary still continued on intimate terms with
Lady Shrewsbury and her daughters, specially distinguishing with her
favour Bessie Pierrepoint, the eldest grandchild of the Countess, who
slept with her, and was her plaything and her pupil in French and
needlework.  The fiction of her being guest and not prisoner had not
entirely passed away; visitors were admitted, and she went in and out
of the lodge, walked or rode at will, only under pretext of courtesy.
She never was unaccompanied by the Earl or one of his sons, and they
endeavoured to make all private conversation with strangers, or persons
unauthorised from Court, impossible to her.

The invitation given to little Cicely on the arrival had not been
followed up.  The Countess wished to reserve to her own family all the
favours of one who might at any moment become the Queen of England, and
she kept Susan Talbot and her children in what she called their meet
place, in which that good lady thoroughly acquiesced, having her hands
much too full of household affairs to run after queens.

There was a good deal of talk about this child's play, a thing which
had much better have been left where it was; but in a seclusion like
that of Sheffield subjects of conversation were not over numerous, and
every topic which occurred was apt to be worried to shreds.  So Lady
Shrewsbury and her daughters heard the Queen's arch description of the
children's mimicry, and instantly conceived a desire to see the scene
repeated.  The gentlemen did not like it at all: their loyalty was
offended at the insult to her gracious Majesty, and besides, what might
not happen if such sports ever came to her ears? However, the Countess
ruled Sheffield; and Mary Talbot and Bessie Cavendish ruled the
Countess, and they were bent on their own way. So the representation
was to take place in the great hall of the manor-house, and the actors
were to be dressed in character from my lady's stores.

"They will ruin it, these clumsy English, after their own fashion,"
said Queen Mary, among her ladies.  "It was the unpremeditated grace
and innocent audacity of the little ones that gave the charm.  Now it
will be a mere broad farce, worthy of Bess of Hardwicke.  Mais que
voulez vous?"

The performance was, however, laid under a great disadvantage by the
absolute refusal of Richard and Susan Talbot to allow their Cicely to
assume the part of Queen Elizabeth.  They had been dismayed at her
doing so in child's play, and since she could read fluently, write
pretty well, and cipher a little, the good mother had decided to put a
stop to this free association with the boys at the castle, and to keep
her at home to study needlework and housewifery.  As to her acting with
boys before the assembled households, the proposal seemed to them
absolutely insulting to any daughter of the Talbot line, and they had
by this time forgotten that she was no such thing.  Bess Cavendish, the
special spoilt child of the house, even rode down, armed with her
mother's commands, but her feudal feeling did not here sway Mistress
Susan.

Public acting was esteemed an indignity for women, and, though Cis was
a mere child, all Susan's womanhood awoke, and she made answer firmly
that she could not obey my lady Countess in this.

Bess flounced out of the house, indignantly telling her she should rue
the day, and Cis herself cried passionately, longing after the fine
robes and jewels, and the presentation of herself as a queen before the
whole company of the castle.  The harsh system of the time made the
good mother think it her duty to requite this rebellion with the rod,
and to set the child down to her seam in the corner, and there sat Cis,
pouting and brooding over what Antony Babington had told her of what he
had picked up when in his page's capacity, attending his lady, of Queen
Mary's admiration of the pretty ways and airs of the little mimic Queen
Bess, till she felt as if she were defrauded of her due.  The captive
Queen was her dream, and to hear her commendations, perhaps be kissed
by her, would be supreme bliss. Nay, she still hoped that there would
be an interference of the higher powers on her behalf, which would give
her a triumph.

No!  Captain Talbot came home, saying, "So, Mistress Sue, thou art a
steadfast woman, to have resisted my lady's will!"

"I knew, my good husband, that thou wouldst never see our Cis even in
sport a player!"

"Assuredly not, and thou hadst the best of it, for when Mistress Bess
came in as full of wrath as a petard of powder, and made your refusal
known, my lord himself cried out, 'And she's in the right o't!  What a
child may do in sport is not fit for a gentlewoman in earnest.'"

"Then, hath not my lord put a stop to the whole?"

"Fain would he do so, but the Countess and her daughters are set on
carrying out the sport.  They have set Master Sniggius to indite the
speeches, and the boys of the school are to take the parts for their
autumn interlude."

"Surely that is perilous, should it come to the knowledge of those at
Court."

"Oh, I promise you, Sniggius hath a device for disguising all that
could give offence.  The Queen will become Semiramis or Zenobia, I know
not which, and my Lord of Leicester, Master Hatton, and the others,
will be called Ninus or Longinus, or some such heathenish long-tailed
terms, and speak speeches of mighty length.  Are they to be in Latin,
Humfrey?"

"Oh no, sir," said Humfrey, with a shudder.  "Master Sniggius would
have had them so, but the young ladies said they would have nothing to
do with the affair if there were one word of Latin uttered.  It is bad
enough as it is.  I am to be Philidaspes, an Assyrian knight, and have
some speeches to learn, at least one is twenty-five lines, and not one
is less than five!"

"A right requital for thy presumptuous and treasonable game, my son,"
said his father, teasing him.

"And who is to be the Queen?" asked the mother.

"Antony Babington," said Humfrey, "because he can amble and mince more
like a wench than any of us.  The worse luck for him.  He will have
more speeches than any one of us to learn."

The report of the number of speeches to be learnt took off the sting of
Cis's disappointment, though she would not allow that it did so,
declaring with truth that she could learn by hearing faster than any of
the boys.  Indeed, she did learn all Humfrey's speeches, and Antony's
to boot, and assisted both of them with all her might in committing
them to memory.

As Captain Talbot had foretold, the boys' sport was quite sufficiently
punished by being made into earnest.  Master Sniggius was far from
merciful as to length, and his satire was so extremely remote that
Queen Elizabeth herself could hardly have found out that Zenobia's fine
moral lecture on the vanities of too aspiring ruffs was founded on the
box on the ear which rewarded poor Lady Mary Howard's display of her
rich petticoat, nor would her cheeks have tingled when the Queen of the
East--by a bold adaptation--played the part of Lion in interrupting the
interview of our old friends Pyramus and Thisbe, who, by an awful
anachronism, were carried to Palmyra. It was no plagiarism from
"Midsummer Night's Dream," only drawn from the common stock of
playwrights.

So, shorn of all that was perilous, and only understood by the
initiated, the play took place in the Castle Hall, the largest
available place, with Queen Mary seated upon the dais, with a canopy of
State over her head, Lady Shrewsbury on a chair nearly as high, the
Earl, the gentlemen and ladies of their suites drawn up in a circle,
the servants where they could, the Earl's musicians thundering with
drums, tooting with fifes, twanging on fiddles, overhead in a gallery.
Cis and Diccon, on either side of Susan Talbot, gazing on the stage,
where, much encumbered by hoop and farthingale, and arrayed in a yellow
curled wig, strutted forth Antony Babington, declaiming--

          "Great Queen Zenobia am I,
           The Roman Power I defy.
           At my Palmyra, in the East,
           I rule o'er every man and beast"


Here was an allusion couched in the Roman power, which Master Antony
had missed, or he would hardly have uttered it, since he was of a Roman
Catholic family, though, while in the Earl's household, he had to
conform outwardly.

A slender, scholarly lad, with a pretty, innocent face, and a voice
that could "speak small, like a woman," came in and announced himself
thus--

          "I'm Thisbe, an Assyrian maid,
           My robe's with jewels overlaid."


The stiff colloquy between the two boys, encumbered with their dresses,
shy and awkward, and rehearsing their lines like a task, was no small
contrast to the merry impromptu under the oak, and the gay, free grace
of the children.

Poor Philidaspes acquitted himself worst of all, for when done up in a
glittering suit of sham armour, with a sword and dagger of lath, his
entire speech, though well conned, deserted him, and he stood
red-faced, hesitating, and ready to cry, when suddenly from the midst
of the spectators there issued a childish voice, "Go on, Humfrey!


          "Philidaspes am I, most valorous knight,
           Ever ready for Church and Queen to fight.


"Go on, I say!" and she gave a little stamp of impatience, to the
extreme confusion of the mother and the great amusement of the
assembled company.  Humfrey, once started, delivered himself of the
rest of his oration in a glum and droning voice, occasioning fits of
laughter, such as by no means added to his self-possession.

The excellent Sniggius and his company of boys had certainly, whether
intentionally or not, deprived the performance of all its personal
sting, and most likewise of its interest.  Such diversion as the
spectators derived was such as Hippolyta seems to have found in
listening to Wall, Lion, Moonshine and Co.; but, like Theseus, Lord
Shrewsbury was very courteous, and complimented both playwright and
actors, relieved and thankful, no doubt, that Queen Zenobia was so
unlike his royal mistress.

There was nothing so much enforced by Queen Elizabeth as that strangers
should not have resort to Sheffield Castle.  No spectators, except
those attached to the household, and actually forming part of the
colony within the park, were therefore supposed to be admitted, and all
of them were carefully kept at a distant part of the hall, where they
could have no access to the now much reduced train of the Scottish
Queen, with whom all intercourse was forbidden.

Humfrey was therefore surprised when, just as he had come out of the
tiring-room, glad to divest himself of his encumbering and gaudy
equipments, a man touched him on the arm and humbly said, "Sir, I have
a humble entreaty to make of you.  If you would convey my petition to
the Queen of Scots!"

"I have nothing to do with the Queen of Scots," said the
ex-Philidaspes, glancing suspiciously at the man's sleeve, where,
however, he saw the silver dog, the family badge.

"She is a charitable lady," continued the man, who looked like a groom,
"and if she only knew that my poor old aunt is lying famishing, she
would aid her.  Pray you, good my lord, help me to let this scroll
reach to her."

"I'm no lord, and I have naught to do with the Queen," repeated
Humfrey, while at the same moment Antony, who had been rather longer in
getting out of his female attire, presented himself; and Humfrey,
pitying the man's distress, said, "This young gentleman is the
Countess's page.  He sometimes sees the Queen."

The man eagerly told his story, how his aunt, the widow of a huckster,
had gone on with the trade till she had been cruelly robbed and beaten,
and now was utterly destitute, needing aid to set herself up again.
The Queen of Scots was noted for her beneficent almsgiving, and a few
silver pieces from her would be quite sufficient to replenish her
basket.

Neither boy doubted a moment.  Antony had the entree to the presence
chamber, where on this festival night the Earl and Countess were sure
to be with the Queen.  He went straightway thither, and trained as he
was in the usages of the place, told his business to the Earl, who was
seated near the Queen.  Lord Shrewsbury took the petition from him,
glanced it over, and asked, "Who knew the Guy Norman who sent it?"
Frank Talbot answered for him, that he was a yeoman pricker, and the
Earl permitted the paper to be carried to Mary, watching her carefully
as she read it, when Antony had presented it on one knee.

"Poor woman!" she said, "it is a piteous case.  Master Beatoun, hast
thou my purse?  Here, Master Babington, wilt thou be the bearer of this
angel for me, since I know that the delight of being the bearer will be
a reward to thy kind heart."

Antony gracefully kissed the fair hand, and ran off joyously with the
Queen's bounty.  Little did any one guess what the career thus begun
would bring that fair boy.




CHAPTER V.

THE HUCKSTERING WOMAN.


The huckstering woman, Tibbott by name, was tended by Queen Mary's
apothecary, and in due time was sent off well provided, to the great
fair of York, whence she returned with a basket of needles, pins (such
as they were), bodkins, and the like articles, wherewith to circulate
about Hallamshire, but the gate-wards would not relax their rules so
far as to admit her into the park.  She was permitted, however, to
bring her wares to the town of Sheffield, and to Bridgefield, but she
might come no farther.

Thither Antony Babington came down to lay out the crown which had been
given to him on his birthday, and indeed half Master Sniggius's
scholars discovered needs, and came down either to spend, or to give
advice to the happy owners of groats and testers.  So far so good; but
the huckster-woman soon made Bridgefield part of her regular rounds,
and took little commissions which she executed for the household of
Sheffield, who were, as the Cavendish sisters often said in their
spleen, almost as much prisoners as the Queen of Scots. Antony
Babington was always her special patron, and being Humfrey's great
companion and playfellow, he was allowed to come in and out of the
gates unquestioned, to play with him and with Cis, who no longer went
to school, but was trained at home in needlework and housewifery.

Match-making began at so early an age, that when Mistress Susan had
twice found her and Antony Babington with their heads together over the
lamentable ballad of the cold fish that had been a lady, and which sang
its own history "forty thousand fathom above water," she began to
question whether the girl were the attraction.  He was now an orphan,
and his wardship and marriage had been granted to the Earl, who, having
disposed of all his daughters and stepdaughters, except Bessie
Cavendish, might very fairly bestow on the daughter of his kinsman so
good a match as the young squire of Dethick.

"Then should we have to consider of her parentage," said Richard, when
his wife had propounded her views.

"I never can bear in mind that the dear wench is none of ours," said
Susan.  "Thou didst say thou wouldst portion her as if she were our own
little maid, and I have nine webs ready for her household linen. Must
we speak of her as a stranger?"

"It would scarce be just towards another family to let them deem her of
true Talbot blood, if she were to enter among them," said Richard;
"though I look on the little merry maid as if she were mine own child.
But there is no need yet to begin upon any such coil; and, indeed, I
would wager that my lady hath other views for young Babington."

After all, parents often know very little of what passes in children's
minds, and Cis never hinted to her mother that the bond of union
between her and Antony was devotion to the captive Queen.  Cis had only
had a glimpse or two of her, riding by when hunting or hawking, or
when, on festive occasions, all who were privileged to enter the park
were mustered together, among whom the Talbots ranked high as kindred
to both Earl and Countess; but those glimpses had been enough to fill
the young heart with romance, such as the matter-of-fact elders never
guessed at.  Antony Babington, who was often actually in the gracious
presence, and received occasional smiles, and even greetings, was
immeasurably devoted to the Queen, and maintained Cicely's admiration
by his vivid descriptions of the kindness, the grace, the charms of the
royal captive, in contrast with the innate vulgarity of their own
Countess.

Willie Douglas (the real Roland Graeme of the escape from Lochleven)
had long ago been dismissed from Mary's train, with all the other
servants who were deemed superfluous; but Antony had heard the details
of the story from Jean Kennedy (Mrs. Kennett, as the English were
pleased to call her), and Willie was the hero of his emulative
imagination.

"What would I not do to be like him!" he fervently exclaimed when he
had narrated the story to Humfrey and Cis, as they lay on a nest in the
fern one fine autumn day, resting after an expedition to gather
blackberries for the mother's preserving.

"I would not be him for anything," said Humfrey.

"Fie, Humfrey," cried Cis; "would not you dare exile or anything else
in a good cause?"

"For a good cause, ay," said Humfrey in his stolid way.

"And what can be a better cause than that of the fairest of captive
queens?" exclaimed Antony, hotly.

"I would not be a traitor," returned Humfrey, as he lay on his back,
looking up through the chequerwork of the branches of the trees towards
the sky.

"Who dares link the word traitor with my name?" said Babington, feeling
for the imaginary handle of a sword.

"Not I; but you'll get it linked if you go on in this sort."

"For shame, Humfrey," again cried Cis, passionately.  "Why, delivering
imprisoned princesses always was the work of a true knight."

"Yea; but they first defied the giant openly," said Humfrey.

"What of that?" said Antony.

"They did not do it under trust," said Humfrey.

"I am not under trust," said Antony.  "Your father may be a sworn
servant of the Earl and, the Queen--Queen Elizabeth, I mean; but I have
taken no oaths--nobody asked me if I would come here."

"No," said Humfrey, knitting his brows, "but you see we are all trusted
to go in and out as we please, on the understanding that we do nought
that can be unfaithful to the Earl; and I suppose it was thus with this
same Willie Douglas."

"She was his own true and lawful Queen," cried Cis.  "His first duty
was to her."

Humfrey sat up and looked perplexed, but with a sudden thought
exclaimed, "No Scots are we, thanks be to Heaven! and what might be
loyalty in him would be rank treason in us."

"How know you that?" said Antony.  "I have heard those who say that our
lawful Queen is there," and he pointed towards the walls that rose in
the distance above the woods.

Humfrey rose wrathful.  "Then truly you are no better than a traitor,
and a Spaniard, and a Papist," and fists were clenched on both aides,
while Cis flew between, pulling down Humfrey's uplifted hand, and
crying, "No, no; he did not say he thought so, only he had heard it."

"Let him say it again!" growled Antony, his arm bared.

"No, don't, Humfrey!" as if she saw it between his clenched teeth. "You
know you only meant if Tony thought so, and he didn't.  Now how can you
two be so foolish and unkind to me, to bring me out for a holiday to
eat blackberries and make heather crowns, and then go and spoil it all
with folly about Papists, and Spaniards, and grown-up people's nonsense
that nobody cares about!"

Cis had a rare power over both her comrades, and her piteous appeal
actually disarmed them, since there was no one present to make them
ashamed of their own placability.  Grown-up people's follies were
avoided by mutual consent through the rest of the walk, and the three
children parted amicably when Antony had to return to fulfil his page's
duties at my lord's supper, and Humfrey and Cis carried home their big
basket of blackberries.

When they entered their own hall they found their mother engaged in
conversation with a tall, stout, and weather-beaten man, whom she
announced--"See here, my children, here is a good friend of your
father's, Master Goatley, who was his chief mate in all his voyages,
and hath now come over all the way from Hull to see him!  He will be
here anon, sir, so soon as the guard is changed at the Queen's lodge.
Meantime, here are the elder children."

Diccon, who had been kept at home by some temporary damage to his foot,
and little Edward were devouring the sailor with their eyes; and
Humfrey and Cis were equally delighted with the introduction,
especially as Master Goatley was just returned from the Western Main,
and from a curious grass-woven basket which he carried slung to his
side, produced sundry curiosities in the way of beads, shell-work,
feather-work, and a hatchet of stone, and even a curious armlet of
soft, dull gold, with pearls set in it.  This he had, with great
difficulty, obtained on purpose for Mistress Talbot, who had once cured
him of a bad festering hurt received on board ship.

The children clustered round in ecstasies of admiration and wonder as
they heard of the dark brown atives, the curious expedients by which
barter was carried on; also of cruel Spaniards, and of savage fishes,
with all the marvels of flying-fish, corals, palm-trees, humming
birds--all that is lesson work to our modern youth, but was the most
brilliant of living fairy tales at this Elizabethan period.  Humfrey
and Diccon were ready to rush off to voyage that instant, and even
little Ned cried imitatively in his imperfect language that he would be
"a tailor."

Then their father came home, and joyfully welcomed and clasped hands
with his faithful mate, declaring that the sight did him good; and they
sat down to supper and talked of voyages, till the boys' eyes glowed,
and they beat upon their own knees with the enthusiasm that their
strict manners bade them repress; while their mother kept back her
sighs as she saw them becoming infected with that sea fever so dreaded
by parents.  Nay, she saw it in her husband himself.  She knew him to
be grievously weary of a charge most monotonously dull, and only varied
by suspicions and petty detections; and that he was hungering and
thirsting for his good ship and to be facing winds and waves.  She
could hear his longing in the very sound of the "Ays?" and brief
inquiries by which he encouraged Goatley to proceed in the story of
voyages and adventures, and she could not wonder when Goatley said,
"Your heart is in it still, sir.  Not one of us all but says it is a
pity such a noble captain should be lost as a landsman, with nothing to
do but to lock the door on a lady."

"Speak not of it, my good Goatley," said Richard, hastily, "or you will
set me dreaming and make me mad."

"Then it is indeed so," returned Goatley.  "Wherefore then come you
not, sir, where a crew is waiting for you of as good fellows as ever
stepped on a deck, and who, one and all, are longing after such a
captain as you are, sir?  Wherefore hold back while still in your
prime?"

"Ask the mistress, there," said Richard, as he saw his Susan's white
face and trembling fingers, though she kept her eyes on her work to
prevent them from betraying their tears and their wistfulness.

"O sweet father," burst forth Humfrey, "do but go, and take me.  I am
quite old enough."

"Nay, Humfrey, 'tis no matter of liking," said his father, not wishing
to prolong his wife's suspense.  "Look you here, boy, my Lord Earl is
captain of all of his name by right of birth, and so long as he needs
my services, I have no right to take them from him.  Dost see, my boy?"

Humfrey reluctantly did see.  It was a great favour to be thus argued
with, and admitted of no reply.

Mrs. Talbot's heart rejoiced, but she was not sorry that it was time
for her to carry off Diccon and Ned to their beds, away from the
fascinating narrative, and she would give no respite, though Diccon
pleaded hard.  In fact, the danger might be the greatest to him, since
Humfrey, though born within the smell of the sea, might be retained by
the call of duty like his father.  To Cis, at least, she thought the
sailor's conversation could do no harm, little foreboding the words
that presently ensued.  "And, sir, what befell the babe we found in our
last voyage off the Spurn?  It would methinks be about the age of this
pretty mistress."

Richard Talbot endeavoured to telegraph a look both of assent and
warning, but though Master Goatley would have been sharp to detect the
least token of a Spanish galleon on the most distant horizon, the
signal fell utterly short.  "Ay, sir.  What, is it so?  Bless me! The
very maiden!  And you have bred her up for your own."

"Sir!  Father!" cried Cis, looking from one to the other, with eyes and
mouth wide open.

"Soh!" cried the sailor, "what have I done?  I beg your pardon, sir, if
I have overhauled what should have been let alone.  But," continued the
honest, but tactless man, "who could have thought of the like of that,
and that the pretty maid never knew it?  Ay, ay, dear heart.  Never
fear but that the captain will be good father to you all the same."

For Richard Talbot had held out his arm, and, as Cis ran up to him, he
had seated her on his knee, and held her close to him.  Humfrey
likewise started up with an impulse to contradict, which was suddenly
cut short by a strange flash of memory, so all he did was to come up to
his father, and grasp one of the girl's hands as fast as he could. She
trembled and shivered, but there was something in the presence of this
strange man which choked back all inquiry, and the silence, the
vehement grasp, and the shuddering, alarmed the captain, lest she might
suddenly go off into a fit upon his hands.

"This is gear for mother," said he, and taking her up like a baby,
carried her off, followed closely by Humfrey.  He met Susan coming
down, asking anxiously, "Is she sick?"

"I hope not, mother," he said, "but honest Goatley, thinking no harm,
hath blurted out that which we had never meant her to know, at least
not yet awhile, and it hath wrought strangely with her."

"Then it is true, father?" said Humfrey, in rather an awe-stricken
voice, while Cis still buried her face on the captain's breast.

"Yes," he said, "yea, my children, it is true that God sent us a
daughter from the sea and the wreck when He had taken our own little
maid to His rest.  But we have ever loved our Cis as well, and hope
ever to do so while she is our good child.  Take her, mother, and tell
the children how it befell; if I go not down, the fellow will spread it
all over the house, and happily none were present save Humfrey and the
little maiden."

Susan put the child down on her own bed, and there, with Humfrey
standing by, told the history of the father carrying in the little
shipwrecked babe.  They both listened with eyes devouring her, but they
were as yet too young to ask questions about evidences, and Susan did
not volunteer these, only when the girl asked, "Then, have I no name?"
she answered, "A godly minister, Master Heatherthwayte, gave thee the
name of Cicely when he christened thee."

"I marvel who I am?" said Cis, gazing round her, as if the world were
all new to her.

"It does not matter," said Humfrey, "you are just the same to us, is
she not, mother?"

"She is our dear Heaven-sent child," said the mother tenderly.

"But thou art not my true mother, nor Humfrey nor Diccon my brethren,"
she said, stretching out her hands like one in the dark.

"If I'm not your brother, Cis, I'll be your husband, and then you will
have a real right to be called Talbot.  That's better than if you were
my sister, for then you would go away, I don't know where, and now you
will always be mine--mine--mine very own."

And as he gave Cis a hug in assurance of his intentions, his father,
who was uneasy about the matter, looked in again, and as Susan, with
tears in her eyes, pointed to the children, the good man said, "By my
faith, the boy has found the way to cut the knot--or rather to tie it.
What say you, dame?  If we do not get a portion for him, we do not have
to give one with her, so it is as broad as it is long, and she remains
our dear child.  Only listen, children, you are both old enough to keep
a secret.  Not one word of all this matter is to be breathed to any
soul till I bid you."

"Not to Diccon," said Humfrey decidedly.

"Nor to Antony?" asked Cis wistfully.

"To Antony?  No, indeed!  What has he to do with it?  Now, to your
beds, children, and forget all about this tale."

"There, Humfrey," broke out Cis, as soon as they were alone together,
"Huckstress Tibbott _is_ a wise woman, whatever thou mayest say."

"How?" said Humfrey.

"Mindst thou not the day when I crossed her hand with the tester father
gave me?"

"When mother whipped thee for listening to fortune-tellers and wasting
thy substance.  Ay, I mind it well," said Humfrey, "and how thou didst
stand simpering at her pack of lies, ere mother made thee sing another
tune."

"Nay, Humfrey, they were no lies, though I thought them so then.  She
said I was not what I seemed, and that the Talbots' kennel would not
always hold one of the noble northern eagles.  So Humfrey, sweet
Humfrey, thou must not make too sure of wedding me."

"I'll wed thee though all the lying old gipsy-wives in England wore
their false throats out in screeching out that I shall not," cried
Humfrey.

"But she must have known," said Cis, in an awestruck voice; "the
spirits must have spoken with her, and said that I am none of the
Talbots."

"Hath mother heard this?" asked Humfrey, recoiling a little, but never
thinking of the more plausible explanation.

"Oh no, no! tell her not, Humfrey, tell her not.  She said she would
whip me again if ever I talked again of the follies that the
fortune-telling woman had gulled me with, for if they were not deceits,
they were worse.  And, thou seest, they are worse, Humfrey!"

With which awe-stricken conclusion the children went off to bed.




CHAPTER VI.

THE BEWITCHED WHISTLE.


A child's point of view is so different from that of a grown person,
that the discovery did not make half so much difference to Cis as her
adopted parents expected.  In fact it was like a dream to her.  She
found her daily life and her surroundings the same, and her chief
interest was--at least apparently--how soon she could escape from
psalter and seam, to play with little Ned, and look out for the elder
boys returning, or watch for the Scottish Queen taking her daily ride.
Once, prompted by Antony, Cis had made a beautiful nosegay of lilies
and held it up to the Queen when she rode in at the gate on her return
from Buxton.  She had been rewarded by the sweetest of smiles, but
Captain Talbot had said it must never happen again, or he should be
accused of letting billets pass in posies.  The whole place was
pervaded, in fact, by an atmosphere of suspicion, and the vigilance,
which might have been endurable for a few months, was wearing the
spirits and temper of all concerned, now that it had already lasted for
seven or eight years, and there seemed no end to it.  Moreover, in
spite of all care, it every now and then became apparent that Queen
Mary had some communication with the outer world which no one could
trace, though the effects endangered the life of Queen Elizabeth, the
peace of the kingdom, and the existence of the English Church.  The
blame always fell upon Lord Shrewsbury; and who could wonder that he
was becoming captiously suspicious, and soured in temper, so that even
such faithful kinsmen as Richard Talbot could sometimes hardly bear
with him, and became punctiliously anxious that there should not be the
smallest loophole for censure of the conduct of himself and his family?

The person on whom Master Goatley's visit had left the most impression
seemed to be Humfrey.  On the one hand, his father's words had made him
enter into his situation of trust and loyalty, and perceive something
of the constant sacrifice of self to duty that it required, and, on the
other hand, he had assumed a position towards Cis of which he in some
degree felt the force.  There was nothing in the opinions of the time
to render their semi-betrothal ridiculous. At the Manor house itself,
Gilbert Talbot and Mary Cavendish had been married when no older than
he was; half their contemporaries were already plighted, and the only
difference was that in the present harassing state of surveillance in
which every one lived, the parents thought that to avow the secret so
long kept might bring about inquiry and suspicion, and they therefore
wished it to be guarded till the marriage could be contracted.  As Cis
developed, she had looks and tones which so curiously harmonised, now
with the Scotch, now with the French element in the royal captive's
suite, and which made Captain Richard believe that she must belong to
some of the families who seemed amphibious between the two courts; and
her identification as a Seaton, a Flemyng, a Beatoun, or as a member of
any of the families attached to the losing cause, would only involve
her in exile and disgrace.  Besides, there was every reason to think
her an orphan, and a distant kinsman was scarcely likely to give her
such a home as she had at Bridgefield, where she had always been looked
on as a daughter, and was now regarded as doubly their own in right of
their son.  So Humfrey was permitted to consider her as peculiarly his
own, and he exerted this right of property by a certain jealousy of
Antony Babington which amused his parents, and teased the young lady.
Nor was he wholly actuated by the jealousy of proprietorship, for he
knew the devotion with which Antony regarded Queen Mary, and did not
wholly trust him.  His sense of honour and duty to his father's trust
was one thing, Antony's knight-errantry to the beautiful captive was
another; each boy thought himself strictly honourable, while they moved
in parallel lines and could not understand one another; yet, with the
reserve of childhood, all that passed between them was a secret, till
one afternoon when loud angry sounds and suppressed sobs attracted
Mistress Susan to the garden, where she found Cis crying bitterly, and
little Diccon staring eagerly, while a pitched battle was going on
between her eldest son and young Antony Babington, who were pommelling
each other too furiously to perceive her approach.

"Boys! boys! fie for shame," she cried, with a hand on the shoulder of
each, and they stood apart at her touch, though still fiercely looking
at one another.

"See what spectacles you have made of yourselves!" she continued. "Is
this your treatment of your guest, Humfrey?  How is my Lord's page to
show himself at Chatsworth to-morrow with such an eye?  What is it all
about?"

Both combatants eyed each other in sullen silence.

"Tell me, Cis.  Tell me, Diccon.  I will know, or you shall have the
rod as well as Humfrey."

Diccon, who was still in the era of timidity, instead of secretiveness,
spoke out.  "He," indicating his brother, "wanted the packet."

"What packet?" exclaimed the mother, alarmed.

"The packet that _he_ (another nod towards Antony) wanted Cis to give
that witch in case she came while he is at Chatsworth."

"It was the dog-whistle," said Cis.  "It hath no sound in it, and
Antony would have me change it for him, because Huckster Tibbott may
not come within the gates.  I did not want to do so; I fear Tibbott,
and when Humfrey found me crying he fell on Antony.  So blame him not,
mother."

"If Humfrey is a jealous churl, and Cis a little fool, there's no help
for it," said Antony, disdainfully turning his back on his late
adversary.

"Then let me take charge of this whistle," returned the lady, moved by
the universal habit of caution, but Antony sprang hastily to intercept
her as she was taking from the little girl a small paper packet tied
round with coloured yarn, but he was not in time, and could only
exclaim, "Nay, nay, madam, I will not trouble you.  It is nothing."

"Master Babington," said Susan firmly, "you know as well as I do that
no packet may pass out of the park unopened.  If you wished to have the
whistle changed you should have brought it uncovered.  I am sorry for
the discourtesy, and ask your pardon, but this parcel may not pass."

"Then," said Antony, with difficulty repressing something much more
passionate and disrespectful, "let me have it again."

"Nay, Master Babington, that would not suit with my duty."

The boy altogether lost his temper.  "Duty! duty!" he cried.  "I am
sick of the word.  All it means is a mere feigned excuse for prying and
spying, and besetting the most beautiful and unhappy princess in the
world for her true faith and true right!"

"Master Antony Babington," said Susan gravely, "you had better take
care what you are about.  If those words of yours had been spoken in my
Lord's hearing, they would bring you worse than the rod or bread and
water."

"What care I what I suffer for such a Queen?" exclaimed Antony.

"Suffering is a different matter from saying 'What care I,'" returned
the lady, "as I fear you will learn, Master Antony."

"O mother! sweet mother," said Cis, "you will not tell of him!"--but
mother shook her head.

"Prithee, dear mother," added Humfrey, seeing no relenting in her
countenance, "I did but mean to hinder Cis from being maltreated and a
go-between in this traffic with an old witch, not to bring Tony into
trouble."

"His face is a tell-tale, Humfrey," said Susan.  "I meant ere now to
have put a piece of beef on it.  Come in, Antony, and let me wash it."

"Thank you, madam, I need nothing here," said Antony, stalking proudly
off; while Humfrey, exclaiming "Don't be an ass, Tony!--Mother, no one
would care to ask what we had given one another black eyes for in a
friendly way," tried to hold him back, and he did linger when Cis added
her persuasions to him not to return the spectacle he was at present.

"If this lady will promise not to betray an unfortunate Queen," he
said, as if permission to deal with his bruises were a great reward.

"Oh! you foolish boy!" exclaimed Mistress Talbot, "you were never meant
for a plotter! you have yourself betrayed that you are her messenger."

"And I am not ashamed of it," said Antony, holding his head high.
"Madam, madam, if you have surprised this from me, you are the more
bound not to betray her.  Think, lady, if you were shut up from your
children and friends, would you not seek to send tidings to them?"

"Child, child!  Heaven knows I am not blaming the poor lady within
there.  I am only thinking what is right."

"Well," said Antony, somewhat hopefully, "if that be all, give me back
the packet, or tear it up, if you will, and there can be no harm done."

"Oh, do so, sweet mother," entreated Cis, earnestly; "he will never bid
me go to Tibbott again."

"Ay," said Humfrey, "then no tales will be told."

For even he, with all his trustworthiness, or indeed because of it,
could not bear to bring a comrade to disgrace; but the dilemma was put
an end to by the sudden appearance on the scene of Captain Richard
himself, demanding the cause of the disturbance, and whether his sons
had been misbehaving to their guest.

"Dear sir, sweet father, do not ask," entreated Cis, springing to him,
and taking his hand, as she was privileged to do; "mother has come, and
it is all made up and over now."

Richard Talbot, however, had seen the packet which his wife was
holding, and her anxious, perplexed countenance, and the perilous
atmosphere of suspicion around him made it incumbent on him to turn to
her and say, "What means this, mother?  Is it as Cis would have me
believe, a mere childish quarrel that I may pass over? or what is this
packet?"

"Master Babington saith it is a dog-whistle which he was leaving in
charge with Cis to exchange for another with Huckstress Tibbott," she
answered.

"Feel,--nay, open it, and see if it be not, sir," cried Antony.

"I doubt not that so it is," said the captain; "but you know, Master
Babington, that it is the duty of all here in charge to let no packet
pass the gate which has not been viewed by my lord's officers."

"Then, sir, I will take it back again," said Antony, with a vain
attempt at making his brow frank and clear.

Instead of answering.  Captain Talbot took the knife from his girdle,
and cut in twain the yarn that bound the packet.  There was no doubt
about the whistle being there, nor was there anything written on the
wrapper; but perhaps the anxiety in Antony's eye, or even the old
association with boatswains, incited Mr. Talbot to put the whistle to
his lips.  Not a sound would come forth.  He looked in, and saw what
led him to blow with all his force, when a white roll of paper
protruded, and on another blast fell out into his hand.

He held it up as he found it, and looked full at Antony, who exclaimed
in much agitation, "To keep out the dust.  Only to keep out the dust.
It is all gibberish--from my old writing-books."

"That will we see," said Richard very gravely.

"Mistress, be pleased to give this young gentleman some water to wash
his face, and attend to his bruises, keeping him in the guest-chamber
without speech from any one until I return.  Master Babington, I
counsel you to submit quietly.  I wish, and my Lord will wish, to spare
his ward as much scandal as possible, and if this be what you say it
is, mere gibberish from your exercise-books, you will be quit for
chastisement for a forbidden act, which has brought you into suspicion.
If not, it must be as my Lord thinks good."

Antony made no entreaties.  Perhaps he trusted that what was
unintelligible to himself might pass for gibberish with others; perhaps
the headache caused by Humfrey's fists was assisting to produce a state
of sullen indifference after his burst of eager chivalry; at any rate
he let Mistress Talbot lead him away without resistance.  The other
children would have followed, but their father detained them to hear
the particulars of the commission and the capture.  Richard desired to
know from his son whether he had any reason for suspecting underhand
measures; and when Humfrey looked down and hesitated, added, "On your
obedience, boy; this is no slight matter."

"You will not beat Cis, father?" said Humfrey.

"Wherefore should I beat her, save for doing errands that yonder lad
should have known better than to thrust on her?"

"Nay, sir, 'tis not for that; but my mother said she should be beaten
if ever she spake of the fortune yonder Tibbott told her, and we are
sure that she--Tibbott I mean--is a witch, and knows more than she
ought."

"What mean'st thou?  Tell me, children;" and Cis, nothing loath, since
she was secured from the beating, related the augury which had left so
deep an impression on her, Humfrey bearing witness that it was before
they knew themselves of Cicely's history.

"But that is not all," added Cicely, seeing Mr. Talbot less impressed
than she expected by these supernatural powers of divination.  "She can
change from a woman to a man!"

"In sooth!" exclaimed Richard, startled enough by this information.

"Yea, father," said Cicely, "Faithful Ekins, the carrier's boy, saw
her, in doublet and hose, and a tawny cloak, going along the road to
Chesterfield.  He knew her by the halt in her left leg."

"Ha!" said Richard, "and how long hast thou known this?"

"Only yestermorn," said Cis; "it was that which made me so much afraid
to have any dealings with her."

"She shall trouble thee no more, my little wench," said Richard in a
tone that made Humfrey cry out joyously,

"O father! sweet father! wilt thou duck her for a witch?  Sink or swim!
that will be rare!"

"Hush, hush! foolish lad," said Richard, "and thou, Cicely, take good
heed that not a word of all this gets abroad.  Go to thy mother,
child,--nay, I am not wroth with thee, little one.  Thou hast not done
amiss, but bear in mind that nought is ever taken out of the park
without knowledge of me or of thy mother."




CHAPTER VII.

THE BLAST OF THE WHISTLE.


Richard Talbot was of course convinced that witchcraft was not likely
to be the most serious part of the misdeeds of Tibbott the huckstress.
Committing Antony Babington to the custody of his wife, he sped on his
way back to the Manor-house, where Lord Shrewsbury was at present
residing, the Countess being gone to view her buildings at Chatsworth,
taking her daughter Bessie with her.  He sent in a message desiring to
speak to my lord in his privy chamber.

Francis Talbot came to him.  "Is it matter of great moment, Dick?" he
said, "for my father is so fretted and chafed, I would fain not vex him
further to-night.--What! know you not?  Here are tidings that my lady
hath married Bess--yes, Bess Cavendish, in secret to my young Lord
Lennox, the brother of this Queen's unlucky husband!  How he is to
clear himself before her Grace of being concerned in it, I know not,
for though Heaven wots that he is as innocent as the child unborn, she
will suspect him!"

"I knew she flew high for Mistress Bess," returned Richard.

"High! nothing would serve her save royal blood!  My poor father says
as sure as the lions and fleur-de-lis have come into a family, the
headsman's axe has come after them."

"However it is not our family."

"So I tell him, but it gives him small comfort," said Frank, "looking
as he doth on the Cavendish brood as his own, and knowing that there
will be a mighty coil at once with my lady and these two queens.  He is
sore vexed to-night, and saith that never was Earl, not to say man, so
baited by woman as he, and he bade me see whether yours be a matter of
such moment that it may not wait till morning or be despatched by me."

"That is for you to say, Master Francis.  What think you of this for a
toy?" as he produced the parcel with the whistle and its contents. "I
went home betimes to-day, as you know, and found my boy Humfrey had
just made young Master Babington taste of his fists for trying to make
our little wench pass this packet to yonder huckster-woman who was
succoured some months back by the Queen of Scots."

Francis Talbot silently took the whistle and unrolled the long narrow
strip of paper.  "This is the cipher," said he, "the cipher used in
corresponding with her French kin; Phillipps the decipherer showed me
the trick of it when he was at Tutbury in the time of the Duke of
Norfolk's business.  Soh! your son hath done good service, Richard.
That lad hath been tampered with then, I thought he was over thick with
the lady in the lodge.  Where is he, the young traitor?"

"At Bridgefield, under my wife's ward, having his bruises attended to.
I would not bring him up here till I knew what my Lord would have done
with him.  He is but a child, and no doubt was wrought with by sweet
looks, and I trust my Lord will not be hard with him."

"If my father had hearkened to me, he should never have been here,"
said Francis.  "His father was an honest man, but his mother was, I
find, a secret recusant, and when she died, young Antony was quite old
enough to have sucked in the poison.  You did well to keep him,
Richard; he ought not to return hither again, either in ward or at
liberty."

"If he were mine, I would send him to school," said Richard, "where the
masters and the lads would soon drive out of him all dreams about
captive princesses and seminary priests to boot.  For, Cousin Francis,
I would have you to know that my children say there is a rumour that
this woman Tibbott the huckstress hath been seen in a doublet and hose
near Chesterfield."

"The villain!  When is she looked for here again?"

"Anon, I should suppose, judging by the boy leaving this charge with
Cis in case she should come while he is gone to Chatsworth."

"We will take order as to that," said Francis, compressing his lips; "I
know you will take heed, cousin, that she, or he, gets no breath of
warning.  I should not wonder if it were Parsons himself!" and he
unfolded the scroll with the air of a man seeking to confirm his
triumph.

"Can you make anything of it?" asked Richard, struck by its resemblance
to another scroll laid up among his wife's treasures.

"I cannot tell, they are not matters to be read in an hour," said
Francis Talbot, "moreover, there is one in use for the English
traitors, her friends, and another for the French.  This looks like the
French sort.  Let me see, they are read by taking the third letter in
each second word."  Francis Talbot, somewhat proud of his proficiency,
and perfectly certain of the trustworthiness of his cousin Richard,
went on puzzling out the ciphered letters, making Richard set each
letter down as he picked it out, and trying whether they would make
sense in French or English.  Both understood French, having learned it
in their page days, and kept it up by intercourse with the French
suite.  Francis, however, had to try two or three methods, which, being
a young man, perhaps he was pleased to display, and at last he hit upon
the right, which interpreted the apparent gibberish of the
scroll--excepting that the names of persons were concealed under
soubriquets which Francis Talbot could not always understand--but the
following sentence by and by became clear:--"Quand le matelot vient des
marais, un feu peut eclater dans la meute et dans la melee"--"When the
sailor lands from the fens, a fire might easily break out in the
dog-kennel, and in the confusion" (name could not be read) "could carry
off the tercel gentle."

"La meute," said Francis, "that is their term for the home of us
Talbots, and the sailor in the fens is this Don John of Austria, who
means, after conquering the Dutchmen, to come and set free this tercel
gentle, as she calls herself, and play the inquisitor upon us. On my
honour, Dick, your boy has played the man in making this discovery.
Keep the young traitor fast, and take down a couple of yeomen to lay
hands on this same Tibbott as she calls herself."

"If I remember right," said Richard, "she was said to be the sister or
aunt to one of the grooms or prickers."

"So it was, Guy Norman, methinks.  Belike he was the very fellow to set
fire to our kennel.  Yea, we must secure him.  I'll see to that, and
you shall lay this scroll before my father meantime, Dick.  Why, to
fall on such a trail will restore his spirits, and win back her Grace
to believe in his honesty, if my lady's tricks should have made her
doubtful."

Off went Francis with great alacrity, and ere long the Earl was present
with Richard.  The long light beard was now tinged with gray, and there
were deep lines round the mouth and temples, betraying how the long
anxiety was telling on him, and rendering him suspicious and querulous.
"Soh!  Richard Talbot," was his salutation, "what's the coil now?  Can
a man never be left in peace in his own house, between queens and
ladies, plots and follies, but his own kinsfolk and retainers must come
to him on every petty broil among the lads!  I should have thought your
boy and young Babington might fight out their quarrels alone without
vexing a man that is near driven distracted as it is."

"I grieve to vex your lordship," said Richard, standing bareheaded,
"but Master Francis thought this scroll worthy of your attention. This
is the manner in which he deciphered it."

"Scrolls, I am sick of scrolls," said the Earl testily.  "What! is it
some order for saying mass,--or to get some new Popish image or a skein
of silk?  I wear my eyes out reading such as that, and racking my
brains for some hidden meaning!"

And falling on Francis's first attempt at copying, he was scornful of
the whole, and had nearly thrown the matter aside, but when he lit at
last on the sentence about burning the meute and carrying off the
tercel gentle, his brow grew dark indeed, and his inquiries came
thickly one upon the other, both as to Antony Babington and the
huckstering woman.

In the midst, Frank Talbot returned with the tidings that the pricker
Guy Norman was nowhere to be found.  He had last been seen by his
comrades about the time that Captain Richard had returned to the
Manor-house.  Probably he had taken alarm on seeing him come back at
that unusual hour, and had gone to carry the warning to his supposed
aunt.  This last intelligence made the Earl decide on going down at
once to Bridgefield to examine young Babington before there was time to
miss his presence at the lodge, or to hold any communication with him.
Frank caused horses to be brought round, and the Earl rode down with
Richard by a shaded alley in an ordinary cloak and hat.

My Lord's appearance at Bridgefield was a rarer and more awful event
than was my Lady's, and if Mistress Susan had been warned beforehand,
there is no saying how at the head of her men and maids she would have
scrubbed and polished the floors, and brushed the hangings and
cushions.  What then were her feelings when the rider, who dismounted
from his little hackney as unpretendingly as did her husband in the
twilight court, proved to have my Lord's long beard and narrow face!

Curtseying her lowest and with a feeling of consternation and pity, as
she thought of the orphan boy, she accepted his greeting with duteous
welcome as he said, "Kinswoman, I am come to cumber you, whilst I
inquire into this matter.  I give your son thanks for the honesty and
faithfulness he hath shown in the matter, as befitted his father's son.
I should wish myself to examine the springald."

Humfrey was accordingly called, and, privately admonished by his father
that he must not allow any scruples about bringing his playmate into
trouble to lead him to withhold his evidence, or shrink from telling
the whole truth as he knew it, Humfrey accordingly stood before the
Earl and made his replies a little sullenly but quite
straightforwardly.  He had prevented the whistle from being given to
his sister for the huckstress because the woman was a witch, who
frightened her, and moreover he knew it was against rules.  Did he
suspect that the whistle came from the Queen of Scots?

He looked startled, and asked if it were so indeed, and when again
commanded to say why he had thought it possible, he replied that he
knew Antony thought the Queen of Scots a fair and gracious lady.

Did he believe that Antony ever had communication with her or her
people unheard by others?

"Assuredly!  Wherefore not, when he carried my Lady Countess's
messages?"

Lord Shrewsbury bent his brow, but did not further pursue this branch
of the subject, but demanded of Humfrey a description of Tibbott,
huckster or witch, man or woman.

"She wears a big black hood and muffler," said Humfrey, "and hath a
long hooked stick."

"I asked thee not of her muffler, boy, but of her person."

"She hath pouncet boxes and hawks' bells, and dog-whistles in her
basket," proceeded Humfrey, but as the Earl waxed impatient, and
demanded whether no one could give him a clearer account, Richard bade
Humfrey call his mother.

She, however, could say nothing as to the woman's appearance.  She had
gone to Norman's cottage to offer her services after the supposed
accident, but had been told that the potticary of the Queen of Scots
had undertaken her cure, and had only seen her huddled up in a heap of
rags, asleep.  Since her recovery the woman had been several times at
Bridgefield, but it had struck the mistress of the house that there was
a certain avoidance of direct communication with her, and a preference
for the servants and children.  This Susan had ascribed to fear that
she should be warned off for her fortune-telling propensities, or the
children's little bargains interfered with.  All she could answer for
was that she had once seen a huge pair of grizzled eyebrows, with light
eyes under them, and that the woman, if woman she were, was tall, and
bent a good deal upon a hooked stick, which supported her limping
steps.  Cicely could say little more, except that the witch had a deep
awesome voice, like a man, and a long nose terrible to look at.
Indeed, there seemed to have been a sort of awful fascination about her
to all the children, who feared her yet ran after her.

Antony was then sent for.  It was not easy to judge of the expression
of his disfigured countenance, but when thus brought to bay he threw
off all tokens of compunction, and stood boldly before the Earl.

"So, Master Babington, I find you have been betraying the trust I
placed in you--"

"What, trust, my Lord?" said Antony, his bright blue eyes looking back
into those of the nobleman.

"The cockerel crows loud," said the Earl.  "What trust, quotha!  Is
there no trust implied in the coming and going of one of my household,
when such a charge is committed to me and mine?"

"No one ever gave me any charge," said Antony.

"Dost thou bandy words, thou froward imp?" said the Earl.  "Thou hast
not the conscience to deny that there was no honesty in smuggling forth
a letter thus hidden.  Deny it not.  The treasonable cipher hath been
read!"

"I knew nought of what was in it," said the boy.

"I believe thee there, but thou didst know that it was foully disloyal
to me and to her Majesty to bear forth secret letters to disguised
traitors.  I am willing to believe that the smooth tongue which hath
deluded many a better man than thou hath led thee astray, and I am
willing to deal as lightly with thee as may be, so thou wilt tell me
openly all thou knowest of this infamous plot."

"I know of no plot, sir."

"They would scarce commit the knowledge to the like of him," said
Richard Talbot.

"May be not," said Lord Shrewsbury, looking at him with a glance that
Antony thought contemptuous, and which prompted him to exclaim, "And if
I did know of one, you may be assured I would never betray it were I
torn with wild horses."

"Betray, sayest thou!" returned the Earl.  "Thou hast betrayed my
confidence, Antony, and hast gone as far as in thee lies to betray thy
Queen."

"My Queen is Mary, the lawful Queen of us all," replied Antony, boldly.

"Ho!  Sayest thou so?  It is then as thou didst trow, cousin, the
foolish lad hath been tampered with by the honeyed tongue.  I need not
ask thee from whom thou hadst this letter, boy.  We have read it and
know the foul treason therein.  Thou wilt never return to the castle
again, but for thy father's sake thou shalt be dealt with less sternly,
if thou wilt tell who this woman is, and how many of these toys thou
hast given to her, if thou knowest who she is."

But Antony closed his lips resolutely.  In fact, Richard suspected him
of being somewhat flattered by being the cause of such a commotion, and
actually accused of so grand and manly a crime as high treason.  The
Earl could extract no word, and finally sentenced him to remain at
Bridgefield, shut up in his own chamber till he could be dealt with.
The lad walked away in a dignified manner, and the Earl, holding up his
hands, half amused, half vexed, said, "So the spell is on that poor lad
likewise.  What shall I do with him?  An orphan boy too, and mine old
friend's son."

"With your favour, my Lord," said Richard, "I should say, send him to a
grammar school, where among lads of his own age, the dreams about
captive princesses might be driven from him by hard blows and merry
games."

"That may scarce serve," said the Earl rather severely, for public
schools were then held beneath the dignity of both the nobility and
higher gentry.  "I may, however, send him to study at Cambridge under
some trusty pedagogue.  Back at the castle I cannot have him, so must I
cumber you with him, my good kinswoman, until his face have recovered
your son's lusty chastisement.  Also it may be well to keep him here
till we can lay hands on this same huckster-woman, since there may be
need to confront him with her.  It were best if you did scour the
country toward Chesterfield for her, while Frank went to York."

Having thus issued his orders, the Earl took a gracious leave of the
lady, mounted his horse, and rode back to Sheffield, dispensing with
the attendance of his kinsman, who had indeed to prepare for an early
start the next morning, when he meant to take Humfrey with him, as not
unlikely to recognise the woman, though he could not describe her.

"The boy merits well to go forth with me," said he.  "He hath done
yeoman's service, and proved himself staunch and faithful."

"Was there matter in that scroll?" asked Susan.

"Only such slight matter as burning down the Talbots' kennel, while Don
John of Austria is landing on the coast."

"God forgive them, and defend us!" sighed Susan, turning pale.  "Was
that in the cipher?"

"Ay, in sooth, but fear not, good wife.  Much is purposed that ne'er
comes to pass.  I doubt me if the ship be built that is to carry the
Don hither."

"I trust that Antony knew not of the wickedness?"

"Not he.  His is only a dream out of the romances the lads love so
well, of beauteous princesses to be freed, and the like."

"But the woman!"

"Yea, that lies deeper.  What didst thou say of her?  Wherefore do the
children call her a witch?  Is it only that she is grim and ugly?"

"I trow there is more cause than that," said Susan.  "It may be that I
should have taken more heed to their babble at first; but I have
questioned Cis while you were at the lodge, and I find that even before
Mate Goatley spake here, this Tibbott had told the child of her being
of lofty race in the north, alien to the Talbots' kennel, holding out
to her presages of some princely destiny."

"That bodeth ill!" said Richard, thoughtfully.  "Wife, my soul misgives
me that the hand of Cuthbert Langston is in this."

Susan started.  The idea chimed in with Tibbott's avoidance of her
scrutiny, and also with a certain vague sense she had had of having
seen those eyes before.  So light-complexioned a man would be easily
disguised, and the halt was accounted for by a report that he had had a
bad fall when riding to join in the Rising in the North.  Nor could
there now be any doubt that he was an ardent partisan of the imprisoned
Mary, while Richard had always known his inclination to intrigue.  She
could only agree with her husband's opinion, and ask what he would do.

"My duty must be done, kin or no kin," said Richard, "that is if I find
him; but I look not to do that, since Norman is no doubt off to warn
him."

"I marvel whether he hath really learnt who our Cis can be?"

"Belike not!  The hint would only have been thrown out to gain power
over her."

"Said you that you read the cipher?"

"Master Frank did so."

"Would it serve you to read our scroll?"

"Ah, woman! woman!  Why can thy kind never let well alone?  I have
sufficient on my hands without reading of scrolls!"

Humfrey's delight was extreme when he found that he was to ride forth
with his father, and half-a-dozen of the earl's yeomen, in search of
the supposed witch.  They traced her as far as Chesterfield; but having
met the carrier's waggon on the way, they carefully examined Faithful
Ekins on his report, but all the youth was clear about was the halt and
the orange tawny cloak, and after entering Chesterfield, no one knew
anything of these tokens.  There was a large village belonging to a
family of recusants, not far off, where the pursuers generally did lose
sight of suspicious persons; and, perhaps, Richard was relieved, though
his son was greatly chagrined.

The good captain had a sufficient regard for his kinsman to be
unwilling to have to unmask him as a traitor, and to be glad that he
should have effected an escape, so that, at least, it should be others
who should detect him--if Langston indeed it were.

His next charge was to escort young Babington to Cambridge, and deliver
him up to a tutor of his lordship's selection, who might draw the
Popish fancies out of him.

Meantime, Antony had been kept close to the house and garden, and not
allowed any intercourse with any of the young people, save Humfrey,
except when the master or mistress of the house was present; but he did
not want for occupation, for Master Sniggius came down, and gave him a
long chapter of the Book of Proverbs--chiefly upon loyalty, in the
Septuagint, to learn by heart, and translate into Latin and English as
his Saturday's and Sunday's occupation, under pain of a flogging, which
was no light thing from the hands of that redoubted dominie.

Young Babington was half-flattered and half-frightened at the commotion
he had excited.  "Am I going to the Tower?" he asked, in a low voice,
awestricken, yet not without a certain ring of self-importance, when he
saw his mails brought down, and was bidden to put on his boots and his
travelling dress.

And Captain Talbot had a cruel satisfaction in replying, "No, Master
Babington; the Tower is not for refractory boys.  You are going to your
schoolmaster."

But where the school was to be Richard kept an absolute secret by
special desire, in order that no communication should be kept up
through any of the household.  He was to avoid Chatsworth, and to
return as soon as possible to endeavour to trace the supposed
huckster-woman at Chesterfield.

When once away from home, he ceased to treat young Babington as a
criminal, but rode in a friendly manner with him through lanes and over
moors, till the young fellow began to thaw towards him, and even went
so far as to volunteer one day that he would not have brought Mistress
Cicely into the matter if there had been any other sure way of getting
the letter delivered in his absence.

"Ah, boy!" returned Richard, "when once we swerve from the open and
direct paths, there is no saying into what tangles we may bring
ourselves and others."

Antony winced a little, and said, "Whoever says I lied, lies in his
throat."

"No one hath said thou wert false in word, but how as to thy deed?"

"Sir," said Antony, "surely when a high emprise and great right is to
be done, there is no need to halt over such petty quibbles."

"Master Babington, no great right was ever done through a little wrong.
Depend on it, if you cannot aid without a breach of trust, it is the
sure sign that it is not the will of God that you should be the one to
do it."

Captain Talbot mused whether he should convince or only weary the lad
by an argument he had once heard in a sermon, that the force of Satan's
temptation to our blessed Lord, when showing Him all the kingdoms of
the world, must have been the absolute and immediate vanishing of all
kinds of evil, by a voluntary abdication on the part of the Prince of
this world, instead not only of the coming anguish of the strife, but
of the long, long, often losing, battle which has been waging ever
since.  Yet for this great achievement He would not commit the moment's
sin.  He was just about to begin when Antony broke in, "Then, sir, you
do deem it a great wrong?"

"That I leave to wiser heads than mine," returned the sailor.  "My duty
is to obey my Lord, his duty is to obey her Grace.  That is all a plain
man needs to see."

"But an if the true Queen be thus mewed up, sir?" asked Antony. Richard
was too wise a man to threaten the suggestion down as rank treason,
well knowing that thus he should never root it out.

"Look you here, Antony," he said; "who ought to reign is a question of
birth, such as neither of us can understand nor judge.  But we know
thus much, that her Grace, Queen Elizabeth, hath been crowned and
anointed and received oaths of fealty as her due, and that is quite
enough for any honest man."

"Even when she keeps in durance the Queen, who came as her guest in
dire distress?"

"Nay, Master Antony, you are not old enough to remember that the
durance began not until the Queen of Scots tried to form a party for
herself among the English liegemen.  And didst thou know, thou simple
lad, what the letter bore, which thou didst carry, and what it would
bring on this peaceful land?"

Antony looked a little startled when he heard of the burning of the
kennel, but he averred that Don John was a gallant prince.

"I have seen more than one gallant Spaniard under whose power I should
grieve to see any friend of mine."

All the rest of the way Richard Talbot entertained the young gentleman
with stories of his own voyages and adventures, into which he managed
to bring traits of Spanish cruelty and barbarity as shown in the Low
Countries, such as, without actually drawing the moral every time,
might show what was to be expected if Mary of Scotland and Don John of
Austria were to reign over England, armed with the Inquisition.

Antony asked a good many questions, and when he found that the captain
had actually been an eye-witness of the state of a country harried by
the Spaniards, he seemed a good deal struck.

"I think if I had the training of him I could make a loyal Englishman
of him yet," said Richard Talbot to his wife on his return.  "But I
fear me there is that in his heart and his conscience which will only
grow, while yonder sour-faced doctor, with whom I had to leave him at
Cambridge, preaches to him of the perdition of Pope and Papists."

"If his mother were indeed a concealed Papist," said Susan, "such
sermons will only revolt the poor child."

"Yea, truly.  If my Lord wanted to make a plotter and a Papist of the
boy he could scarce find a better means.  I myself never could away
with yonder lady's blandishments.  But when he thinks of her in
contrast to yonder divine, it would take a stronger head than his not
to be led away.  The best chance for him is that the stir of the world
about him may put captive princesses out of his head."




CHAPTER VIII.

THE KEY OF THE CIPHER


Where is the man who does not persuade himself that when he gratifies
his own curiosity he does so for the sake of his womankind?  So Richard
Talbot, having made his protest, waited two days, but when next he had
any leisure moments before him, on a Sunday evening, he said to his
wife, "Sue, what hast thou done with that scroll of Cissy's?  I trow
thou wilt not rest till thou art convinced it is but some lying
horoscope or Popish charm."

Susan had in truth been resting in perfect quietness, being extremely
busy over her spinning, so as to be ready for the weaver who came round
periodically to direct the more artistic portions of domestic work.
However, she joyfully produced the scroll from the depths of the casket
where she kept her chief treasures, and her spindle often paused in its
dance as she watched her husband over it, with his elbows on the table
and his hands in his hair, from whence he only removed them now and
then to set down a letter or two by way of experiment.  She had to be
patient, for she heard nothing that night but that he believed it was
French, that the father of deceits himself might be puzzled with the
thing, and that she might as well ask him for his head at once as
propose his consulting Master Francis.

The next night he unfolded it with many a groan, and would say nothing
at all; but he sat up late and waked in early dawn to pore over it
again, and on the third day of study he uttered a loud exclamation of
dismay, but he ordered Susan off to bed in the midst, and did not utter
anything but a perplexed groan or two when he followed her much later.

It was not till the next night that she heard anything, and then, in
the darkness, he began, "Susan, thou art a good wife and a discreet
woman."

Perhaps her heart leapt as she thought to herself, "At last it is
coming, I knew it would!" but she only made some innocent note of
attention.

"Thou hast asked no questions, nor tried to pry into this unhappy
mystery," he went on.

"I knew you would tell me what was fit for me to hear," she replied.

"Fit!  It is fit for no one to hear!  Yet I needs must take counsel
with thee, and thou hast shown thou canst keep a close mouth so far."

"Concerns it our Cissy, husband?"

"Ay does it Our Cissy, indeed!  What wouldst say, Sue, to hear she was
daughter to the lady yonder."

"To the Queen of Scots?"

"Hush! hush!" fairly grasping her to hinder the words from being
uttered above her breath.

"And her father?"

"That villain, Bothwell, of course.  Poor lassie, she is ill fathered!"

"You may say so.  Is it in the scroll?"

"Ay! so far as I can unravel it; but besides the cipher no doubt much
was left for the poor woman to tell that was lost in the wreck."

And he went on to explain that the scroll was a letter to the Abbess of
Soissons, who was aunt to Queen Mary, as was well known, since an open
correspondence was kept up through the French ambassador.  This letter
said that "our trusty Alison Hepburn" would tell how in secrecy and
distress Queen Mary had given birth to this poor child in Lochleven,
and how she had been conveyed across the lake while only a few hours
old, after being hastily baptized by the name of Bride, one of the
patron saints of Scotland.  She had been nursed in a cottage for a few
weeks till the Queen had made her first vain attempt to escape, after
which Mary had decided on sending her with her nurse to Dumbarton
Castle, whence Lord Flemyng would despatch her to France. The Abbess
was implored to shelter her, in complete ignorance of her birth, until
such time as her mother should resume her liberty and her throne.  "Or
if," the poor Queen said, "I perish in the hands of my enemies, you
will deal with her as my uncles of Guise and Lorraine think fit, since,
should her unhappy little brother die in the rude hands of yonder
traitors, she may bring the true faith back to both realms."

"Ah!" cried Susan, with a sudden gasp of dismay, as she bethought her
that the child was indeed heiress to both realms after the young King
of Scots.  "But has there been no quest after her?  Do they deem her
lost?"

"No doubt they do.  Either all hands were lost in the Bride of Dunbar,
or if any of the crew escaped, they would report the loss of nurse and
child.  The few who know that the little one was born believe her to
have perished.  None will ever ask for her.  They deem that she has
been at the bottom of the sea these twelve years or more."

"And you would still keep the knowledge to ourselves?" asked his wife,
in a tone of relief.

"I would I knew it not myself!" sighed Richard.  "Would that I could
blot it out of my mind."

"It were far happier for the poor maid herself to remain no one's child
but ours," said Susan.

"In sooth it is!  A drop of royal blood is in these days a mere drop of
poison to them that have the ill luck to inherit it.  As my lord said
the other day, it brings the headsman's axe after it."

"And our boy Humfrey calls himself contracted to her!"

"So long as we let the secret die with us that can do her no ill.
Happily the wench favours not her mother, save sometimes in a certain
lordly carriage of the head and shoulders.  She is like enough to some
of the Scots retinue to make me think she must take her face from her
father, the villain, who, someone told me, was beetle-browed and
swarthy."

"Lives he still?"

"So 'tis thought, but somewhere in prison in the north.  There have
been no tidings of his death; but my Lady Queen, you'll remember,
treats the marriage as nought, and has made offer of herself for the
misfortune of the Duke of Norfolk, ay, and of this Don John, and I know
not whom besides."

"She would not have done that had she known that our Cis was alive."

"Mayhap she would, mayhap not.  I believe myself she would do anything
short of disowning her Popery to get out of prison; but as matters
stand I doubt me whether Cis--"

"The Lady Bride Hepburn," suggested Susan.

"Pshaw, poor child, I misdoubt me whether they would own her claim even
to that name."

"And they might put her in prison if they did," said Susan.

"They would be sure to do so, sooner or later.  Here has my lord been
recounting in his trouble about my lady's fine match for her Bess, all
that hath come of mating with royal blood, the very least disaster
being poor Lady Mary Grey's!  Kept in ward for life!  It is a cruel
matter.  I would that I had known the cipher at first.  Then she might
either have been disposed of at the Queen's will, or have been sent
safe to this nunnery at Soissons."

"To be bred a Papist!  Oh fie, husband!"

"And to breed dissension in the kingdoms!" added her husband.  "It is
best so far for the poor maiden herself to have thy tender hand over
her than that of any queen or abbess of them all."

"Shall we then keep all things as they are, and lock this knowledge in
our own hearts?" asked Susan hopefully.

"To that am I mightily inclined," said Richard.  "Were it blazed abroad
at once, thou and I might be made out guilty of I know not what for
concealing it; and as to the maiden, she would either be put in close
ward with her mother, or, what would be more likely, had up to court to
be watched, and flouted, and spied upon, as were the two poor
ladies--sisters to the Lady Jane--ere they made their lot hopeless by
marrying.  Nay, I have seen those who told me that poor Lady Katherine
was scarce worse bested in the Tower than she was while at court."

"My poor Cis!  No, no!  The only cause for which I could bear to yield
her up would be the thought that she would bring comfort to the heart
of the poor captive mother who hath the best right to her."

"Forsooth!  I suspect her poor captive mother would scarce be pleased
to find this witness to her ill-advised marriage in existence."

"Nor would she be permitted to be with her."

"Assuredly not.  Moreover, what could she do with the poor child?"

"Rear her in Popery," exclaimed Susan, to whom the word was terrible.

"Yea, and make her hand secure as the bait to some foreign prince or
some English traitor, who would fain overthrow Queen and Church."

Susan shuddered.  "Oh yes! let us keep the poor child to ourselves. I
_could_ not give her up to such a lot as that.  And it might imperil
you too, my husband.  I should like to get up instantly and burn the
scroll."

"I doubt me whether that were expedient," said Richard.  "Suppose it
were in the course of providence that the young King of Scots should
not live, then would this maid be the means of uniting the two kingdoms
in the true and Reformed faith!  Heaven forefend that he should be cut
off, but meseemeth that we have no right to destroy the evidence that
may one day be a precious thing to the kingdom at large."

"No chance eye could read it even were it discovered?" said Susan.

"No, indeed.  Thou knowest how I strove in vain to read it at first,
and even now, when Frank Talbot unwittingly gave me the key, it was
days before I could fully read it.  It will tell no tales, sweet wife,
that can prejudice any one, so we will let it be, even with the baby
clouts.  So now to sleep, with no more thoughts on the matter."

That was easy to say, but Susan lay awake long, pondering over the
wonder, and only slept to dream strange dreams of queens and
princesses, ay, and worse, for she finally awoke with a scream,
thinking her husband was on the scaffold, and that Humfrey and Cis were
walking up the ladder, hand in hand with their necks bared, to follow
him!

There was no need to bid her hold her tongue.  She regarded the secret
with dread and horror, and a sense of something amiss which she could
not quite define, though she told herself she was only acting in
obedience to her husband, and indeed her judgment went along with his.

Often she looked at the unconscious Cis, studying whether the child's
parentage could be detected in her features.  But she gave promise of
being of larger frame than her mother, who had the fine limbs and
contour of her Lorraine ancestry, whereas Cis did, as Richard said,
seem to have the sturdy outlines of the Borderer race from whom her
father came.  She was round-faced too, and sunburnt, with deep gray
eyes under black straight brows, capable of frowning heavily.  She did
not look likely ever to be the fascinating beauty which all declared
her mother to be--though those who saw the captive at Sheffield,
believed the charm to be more in indefinable grace than in actual
features,--in a certain wonderful smile and sparkle, a mixed pathos and
archness which seldom failed of its momentary effect, even upon those
who most rebelled against it.  Poor little Cis, a sturdy girl of twelve
or thirteen, playing at ball with little Ned on the terrace, and coming
with tardy steps to her daily task of spinning, had little of the
princess about her; and yet when she sat down, and the management of
distaff and thread threw her shoulders back, there was something in the
poise of her small head and the gesture of her hand that forcibly
recalled the Queen.  Moreover, all the boys around were at her beck and
call, not only Humfrey and poor Antony Babington, but Cavendishes,
Pierrepoints, all the young pages and grandsons who dwelt at castle or
lodge, and attended Master Sniggius's school.  Nay, the dominie
himself, though owning that Mistress Cicely promoted idleness and
inattention among his pupils, had actually volunteered to come down to
Bridgefield twice a week himself to prevent her from forgetting her
Lilly's grammar and her Caesar's Commentaries, an attention with which
this young lady would willingly have dispensed.

Stewart, Lorraine, Hepburn, the blood of all combined was a perilous
inheritance, and good Susan Talbot's instinct was that the young girl
whom she loved truly like her own daughter would need all the more
careful and tender watchfulness and training to overcome any tendencies
that might descend to her.  Pity increased her affection, and even
while in ordinary household life it was easy to forget who and what the
girl really was, yet Cis was conscious that she was admitted to the
intimacy and privileges of an elder daughter, and made a companion and
friend, while her contemporaries at the Manor-house were treated as
children, and rated roundly, their fingers tapped with fans, their
shoulders even whipped, whenever they transgressed.  Cis did indeed
live under equal restraint, but it was the wise and gentle restraint of
firm influence and constant watchfulness, which took from her the wish
to resist.




CHAPTER IX.

UNQUIET.


Bridgefield was a peaceable household, and the castle and manor beyond
might envy its calm.

From the time of the marriage of Elizabeth Cavendish with the young
Earl of Lennox all the shreds of comfort which had remained to the
unfortunate Earl had vanished.  First he had to clear himself before
Queen Elizabeth from having been a consenting party, and then he found
his wife furious with him at his displeasure at her daughter's
aggrandisement.  Moreover, whereas she had formerly been on terms of
friendly gossiphood with the Scottish Queen, she now went over to the
Lennox side because her favourite daughter had married among them; and
it was evident that from that moment all amity between her and the
prisoner was at an end.

She was enraged that her husband would not at once change his whole
treatment of the Queen, and treat her as such guilt deserved; and with
the illogical dulness of a passionate woman, she utterly scouted and
failed to comprehend the argument that the unhappy Mary was, to say the
least of it, no more guilty now than when she came into their keeping,
and that to alter their demeanour towards her would be unjust and
unreasonable.

"My Lady is altogether beyond reason," said Captain Talbot, returning
one evening to his wife; "neither my Lord nor her daughter can do ought
with her; so puffed up is she with this marriage!  Moreover, she is
hotly angered that young Babington should have been sent away from her
retinue without notice to her, and demands our Humfrey in his stead as
a page."

"He is surely too old for a page!" said his mother, thinking of her
tall well-grown son of fifteen.

"So said I," returned Richard.  "I had sooner it were Diccon, and so I
told his lordship."

Before Richard could speak for them, the two boys came in, eager and
breathless.  "Father!" cried Humfrey, "who think you is at Hull? Why,
none other than your old friend and shipmate, Captain Frobisher!"

"Ha!  Martin Frobisher!  Who told thee, Humfrey?"

"Faithful Ekins, sir, who had it from the Doncaster carrier, who saw
Captain Frobisher himself, and was asked by him if you, sir, were not
somewhere in Yorkshire, and if so, to let you know that he will be in
Hull till May-day, getting men together for a voyage to the northwards,
where there is gold to be had for the picking--and if you had a likely
son or two, now was the time to make their fortunes, and show them the
world.  He said, any way you might ride to see an old comrade."

"A long message for two carriers," said Richard Talbot, smiling, "but
Martin never was a scribe!"

"But, sir, you will let me go," cried Humfrey, eagerly.  "I mean, I
pray you to let me go.  Dear mother, say nought against it," entreated
the youth.  "Cis, think of my bringing thee home a gold bracelet like
mother's."

"What," said his father, "when my Lady has just craved thee for a page."

"A page!" said Humfrey, with infinite contempt--"to hear all their
tales and bickerings, hold skeins of silk, amble mincingly along
galleries, be begged to bear messages that may have more in them than
one knows, and be noted for a bear if one refuses."

The father and Cis laughed, the mother looked unhappy.

"So Martin is at Hull, is he?" said Richard, musingly.  "If my Lord can
give me leave for a week or fortnight, methinks I must ride to see the
stout old knave."

"And oh, sweet father! prithee take me with you," entreated Humfrey,
"if it be only to come back again.  I have not seen the sea since we
came here, and yet the sound is in my ears as I fall asleep.  I entreat
of you to let me come, good my father."

"And, good father, let me come," exclaimed Diccon; "I have never even
seen the sea!"

"And dear, sweet father, take me," entreated little Ned.

"Nay," cried Cis, "what should I do?  Here is Antony Babington borne
off to Cambridge, and you all wanting to leave me."

"I'll come home better worth than he!" muttered Humfrey, who thought he
saw consent on his father's brow, and drew her aside into the deep
window.

"You'll come back a rude sailor, smelling of pitch and tar, and Antony
will be a well-bred, point-device scholar, who will know how to give a
lady his hand," said the teasing girl.

"And so the playful war was carried on, while the father, having
silenced and dismissed the two younger lads, expressed his intention of
obtaining leave of absence, if possible, from the Earl."

"Yea," he added to his wife, "I shall even let Humfrey go with me. It
is time he looked beyond the walls of this place, which is little
better than a prison."

"And will you let him go on this strange voyage?" she asked wistfully,
"he, our first-born, and our heir."

"For that, dame, remember his namesake, my poor brother, was the one
who stayed at home, I the one to go forth, and here am I now!  The
lad's words may have set before thee weightier perils in yonder park
than he is like to meet among seals and bears under honest old Martin."

"Yet here he has your guidance," said Susan.

"Who knows how they might play on his honour as to talebearing?  Nay,
good wife, when thou hast thought it over, thou wilt see that far
fouler shoals and straits lie up yonder, than in the free open sea that
God Almighty made.  Martin is a devout and godly man, who hath matins
and evensong on board each day when the weather is not too foul, and
looks well that there be no ill-doings in his ship; and if he have a
berth for thy lad, it will be a better school for him than where
two-thirds of the household are raging against one another, and the
third ever striving to corrupt and outwit the rest.  I am weary of it
all!  Would that I could once get into blue water again, and leave it
all behind!"

"You will not!  Oh! you will not!" implored Susan.  "Remember, my dear,
good lord, how you said all your duties lay at home."

"I remember, my good housewife.  Thou needst not fear for me.  But
there is little time to spare.  If I am to see mine old friend, I must
get speech of my Lord to-night, so as to be on horseback to-morrow.
Saddle me Brown Dumpling, boys."

And as the boys went off, persuading Cis, who went coyly protesting
that the paddock was damp, yet still following after them, he added,
"Yea, Sue, considering all, it is better those two were apart for a
year or so, till we see better what is this strange nestling that we
have reared.  Ay, thou art like the mother sparrow that hath bred up a
cuckoo and doteth on it, yet it mateth not with her brood."

"It casteth them out," said Susan, "as thou art doing now, by your
leave, husband."

"Only for a flight, gentle mother," he answered, "only for a flight, to
prove meanwhile whether there be the making of a simple household bird,
or of a hawk that might tear her mate to pieces, in yonder nestling."

Susan was too dutiful a wife to say more, though her motherly heart was
wrung almost as much at the implied distrust of her adopted daughter as
by the sudden parting with her first-born to the dangers of the
northern seas.  She could better enter into her husband's fears of the
temptations of page life at Sheffield, and being altogether a wife,
"bonner and boughsome," as her marriage vow held it, she applied
herself and Cis to the choosing of the shirts and the crimping of the
ruffs that were to appear in Hull, if, for there was this hope at the
bottom of her heart, my Lord might refuse leave of absence to his
"gentleman porter."

The hope was fallacious; Richard reported that my Lord was so much
relieved to find that he had detected no fresh conspiracy, as to be
willing to grant him a fortnight's leave, and even had said with a sigh
that he was in the right on't about his son, for Sheffield was more of
a school for plotting than for chivalry.

It was a point of honour with every good housewife to have a store of
linen equal to any emergency, and, indeed, as there were no washing
days in the winter, the stock of personal body-linen was at all times
nearly a sufficient outfit; so the main of Humfrey's shirts were to be
despatched by a carrier, in the trust that they would reach him before
the expedition should sail.

There was then little to delay the father and son, after the mother,
with fast-gathering tears resolutely forced back, had packed and
strapped their mails, with Cis's help, Humfrey standing by, booted and
spurred, and talking fast of the wonders he should see, and the gold
and ivory he should bring home, to hide the qualms of home-sickness,
and mother-sickness, he was already beginning to feel; and maybe to get
Cis to pronounce that then she should think more of him than of Antony
Babington with his airs and graces.  Wistfully did the lad watch for
some such tender assurance, but Cis seemed all provoking brilliancy and
teasing.  "She knew he would be back over soon.  Oh no, _he_ would
never go to sea!  She feared not.  Mr. Frobisher would have none of
such awkward lubbers.  More's the pity. There would be some peace to
get to do her broidery, and leave to play on the virginals when he was
gone."

But when the horsemen had disappeared down the avenue, Cis hid herself
in a corner and cried as if her heart would break.

She cried again behind the back of the tall settle when the father came
back alone, full of praises of Captain Frobisher, his ship, and his
company, and his assurances that he would watch over Humfrey like his
own son.

Meantime the domestic storms at the park were such that Master Richard
and his wife were not sorry that the boy was not growing up in the
midst of them, though the Countess rated Susan severely for her
ingratitude.

Queen Elizabeth was of course much angered at the Lennox match, and the
Earl had to write letter after letter to clear himself from any
participation in bringing it about.  Queen Mary also wrote to clear
herself of it, and to show that she absolutely regretted it, as she had
small esteem for Bess Cavendish.  Moreover, though Lady Shrewsbury's
friendship might not be a very pleasant thing, it was at least better
than her hostility.  However, she was not much at Sheffield.  Not only
was she very angry with her husband, but Queen Elizabeth had strictly
forbidden the young Lord Lennox from coming under the same roof with
his royal sister-in-law.  He was a weakly youth, and his wife's health
failed immediately after her marriage, so that Lady Shrewsbury remained
almost constantly at Chatsworth with her darling.

Gilbert Talbot, who was the chief peacemaker of the family, went to and
fro, wrote letters and did his best, which would have been more
effective but for Mary, his wife, who, no doubt, detailed all the
gossip of Sheffield at Chatsworth, as she certainly amused Sheffield
with stories of her sister Bess as a royal countess full of airs and
humours, and her mother treating her, if not as a queen, at least on
the high road to become one, and how the haughty dame of Shrewsbury ran
willingly to pick up her daughter's kerchief, and stood over the fire
stirring the posset, rather than let it fail to tempt the appetite
which became more dainty by being cossetted.

The difference made between Lady Lennox and her elder sisters was not a
little nettling to Dame Mary Talbot, who held that some consideration
was her due, as the proud mother of the only grandson of the house of
Shrewsbury, little George, who was just able to be put on horseback in
the court, and say he was riding to see "Lady Danmode," and to drink
the health of "Lady Danmode" at his meals.

Alas! the little hope of the Talbots suddenly faded.  One evening after
supper a message came down in haste to beg for the aid of Mistress
Susan, who, though much left to the seclusion of Bridgefield in
prosperous days, was always a resource in trouble or difficulty. Little
George, then two and a half years old, had been taken suddenly ill
after a supper on marchpane and plum broth, washed down by Christmas
ale.  Convulsions had come on, and the skill of Queen Mary's apothecary
had only gone so far as to bleed him.  Susan arrived only just in time
to see the child breathe his last sigh, and to have his mother, wild
with tumultuous clamorous grief, put into her hands for such soothing
and comforting as might be possible, and the good and tender woman did
her best to turn the mother's thoughts to something higher and better
than the bewailing at one moment "her pretty boy," with a sort of
animal sense of bereavement, and the next with lamentations over the
honours to which he would have succeeded. It was of little use to speak
to her of the eternal glories of which he was now secure, for Mary
Talbot's sorrow was chiefly selfish, and was connected with the loss of
her pre-eminence as parent to the heir-male.

However, the grief of those times was apt to expend itself quickly, and
when little George's coffin, smothered under heraldic devices and
funeral escutcheons, had been bestowed in the family vault, Dame Mary
soon revived enough to take a warm interest in the lords who were next
afterwards sent down to hold conferences with the captive; and her
criticism of the fashion of their ruffs and doublets was as animated as
ever.  Another grief, however, soon fell upon the family. Lady Lennox's
ailments proved to be no such trifles as her sisters and sisters-in-law
had been pleased to suppose, and before the year was out, she had
passed away from all her ambitious hopes, leaving a little daughter.
The Earl took a brief leave of absence to visit his lady in her
affliction at Chatsworth, and to stand godfather to the motherless
infant.

"She will soon be fatherless, too," said Richard Talbot on his return
to Bridgefield, after attending his lord on this expedition.  "My young
Lord Lennox, poor youth, is far gone in the wasting sickness, as well
as distraught with grief, and he could scarcely stand to receive my
Lord."

"Our poor lady!" said Susan, "it pities me to think what hopes she had
fixed upon that young couple whom she had mated together."

"I doubt me whether her hopes be ended now," quoth Richard.  "What
think you she hath fixed on as the name of the poor puling babe yonder?
They have called her Arbel or Arabella."

"Arabella, say you?  I never heard such a name.  It is scarce
Christian.  Is it out of a romaunt?"

"Better that it were.  It is out of a pedigree.  They have got the
whole genealogy of the house of Lennox blazoned fair, with crowns and
coronets and coats of arms hung up in the hall at Chatsworth, going up
on the one hand through Sir AEneas of Troy, and on the other hand
through Woden to Adam and Eve!  Pass for all before the Stewart line
became Kings of Scots!  Well, it seems that these Lennox Stewarts
sprang from one Walter, who was son to King Robert II., and that the
mother of this same Walter was called Anhild, or as the Scots here call
it Annaple, but the scholars have made it into Arabella, and so my
young lady is to be called.  They say it was a special fancy of the
young Countess's."

"So I should guess.  My lady would fill her head with such thoughts,
and of this poor youth being next of kin to the young Scottish king,
and to our own Queen."

"He is not next heir to Scotland even, barring a little one we wot of,
Dame Sue.  The Hamiltons stand between, being descended from a daughter
of King James I."

"So methought I had heard.  Are they not Papists?"

"Yea!  Ah ha, sweetheart, there is another of the house of Hardwicke as
fain to dreams of greatness for her child as ever was the Countess,
though she may be more discreet in the telling of them."

"Ah me, dear sir, I dreamt not of greatness for splendour's
sake--'twere scarce for the dear child's happiness.  I only thought of
what you once said, that she may be the instrument of preserving the
true religion."

"And if so, it can only be at a mighty cost!" said her husband.

"Verily," said Susan, "glad am I that you sent our Humfrey from her.
Would that nought had ever passed between the children!"

"They were but children," said Richard; "and there was no contract
between them."

"I fear me there was what Humfrey will hold to, or know good reason
why," said his mother.

"And were the young King of Scots married and father to a goodly heir,
there is no reason he should not hold to it," rejoined Richard.

However Richard was still anxious to keep his son engaged at a distance
from Sheffield.  There was great rejoicing and thankfulness when one of
the many messengers constantly passing between London and Sheffield
brought a packet from Humfrey, whose ship had put into the Thames
instead of the Humber.

The packet contained one of the black stones which the science of the
time expected to transmute into gold, also some Esquimaux trinkets made
of bone, and a few shells.  These were for the mother and Cis, and
there were also the tusks of a sea-elephant which Humfrey would lay up
at my Lord's London lodgings till his father sent tidings what should
be done with them, and whether he should come home at once by sea to
Hull, or if, as he much desired to do, he might join an expedition
which was fitting out for the Spanish Main, where he was assured that
much more both of gold and honour was to be acquired than in the cold
northern seas, where nothing was to be seen for the fog at most times,
and when it cleared only pigmies, with their dogs, white bears, and
seals, also mountains of ice bigger than any church, blue as my lady's
best sapphires, green as her emeralds, sparkling as her diamonds, but
ready to be the destruction of the ships.

"One there was," wrote Humfrey, "that I could have thought was no other
than the City that the blessed St. John saw descending from Heaven, so
fair was it to look on, but they cried out that it was rather a City of
Destruction, and when we had got out of the current where it was
bearing down on us, our noble captain piped all hands up to prayers,
and gave thanks for our happy deliverance therefrom."

Susan breathed a thanksgiving as her husband read, and he forbore to
tell her of the sharks, the tornadoes, and the fevers which might make
the tropical seas more perilous than the Arctic.  No Elizabethan
mariner had any scruples respecting piracy, and so long as the captain
was a godly man who kept up strict discipline on board, Master Richard
held the quarterdeck to be a much more wholesome place than the
Manor-house, and much preferred the humours of the ship to those of any
other feminine creature; for, as to his Susan, he always declared that
she was the only woman who had none.

So she accepted his decision, and saw the wisdom of it, though her
tender heart deeply felt the disappointment.  Tenderly she packed up
the shirts which she and Cis had finished, and bestrewed them with
lavender, which, as she said, while a tear dropped with the gray
blossoms, would bring the scent of home to the boy.

Cis affected to be indifferent and offended.  Master Humfrey might do
as he chose.  She did not care if he did prefer pitch and tar, and
whale blubber and grease, to hawks and hounds, and lords and ladies.
She was sure she wanted no more great lubberly lads--with a sly cut at
Diccon--to tangle her silk, and torment her to bait their hooks. She
was well quit of any one of them.

When Diccon proposed that she should write a letter to Humfrey, she
declared that she should do no such thing, since he had never attempted
to write to her.  In truth Diccon may have made the proposal in order
to obtain a companion in misfortune, since Master Sniggius, emulous of
the success of other tutors, insisted on his writing to his brother in
Latin, and the unfortunate epistle of Ricardus to Onofredus was revised
and corrected to the last extremity, and as it was allowed to contain
no word unknown to Virgilius Maro, it could not have afforded much
delectation to the recipient.

But when Mrs. Susan had bestowed all the shirts as neatly as possible,
on returning to settle them for the last time before wrapping them up
for the messenger, she felt something hard among them.  It was a tiny
parcel wrapped in a piece of a fine kerchief, tied round with a tress
of dark hair, and within, Susan knew by the feeling, a certain chess
rook which had been won by Cis when shooting at the butts a week or two
before.




CHAPTER X.

THE LADY ARBELL.


After several weary months of languishing, Charles Stewart was saved
from the miseries which seemed the natural inheritance of his name by
sinking into his grave.  His funeral was conducted with the utmost
magnificence, though the Earl of Shrewsbury declined to be present at
it, and shortly after, the Countess intimated her purpose of returning
to Sheffield, bringing with her the little orphan, Lady Arabella
Stewart.  Orders came that the best presence chamber in the Manor-house
should be prepared, the same indeed where Queen Mary had been quartered
before the lodge had been built for her use.  The Earl was greatly
perturbed.  "Whom can she intend to bring?" he went about asking.  "If
it were the Lady Margaret, it were be much as my head were worth to
admit her within the same grounds as this Queen."

"There is no love lost between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law,"
observed his son Gilbert in a consolatory tone.

"Little good would that do to me, if once it came to the ears of her
Grace and the Lord Treasurer that both had been my guests!  And if I
had to close the gates--though in no other way could I save my life and
honour--your mother would never forget it.  It would be cast up to me
for ever.  What think you, daughter Talbot?"

"Mayhap," said Dame Mary, "my lady mother has had a hint to make ready
for her Majesty herself, who hath so often spoken of seeing the Queen
of Scots, and might think well to take her unawares."

This was a formidable suggestion.  "Say you so," cried the poor Earl,
with an alarm his eye would never have betrayed had Parma himself been
within a march of Sheffield, "then were we fairly spent.  I am an
impoverished man, eaten out of house and lands as it is, and were the
Queen herself to come, I might take at once to the beggar's bowl."

"But think of the honour, good my lord," cried Mary.  "Think of all
Hallamshire coming to do her homage.  Oh, how I should laugh to hear
the Mayor stumbling over his address."

"Laugh, ay," growled the Earl; "and how will you laugh when there is
not a deer left in the park, nor an ox in the stalls?"

"Nay, my Lord," interposed Gilbert, "there is no fear of her Majesty's
coming.  That post from M. de la Mauvissiere reported her at Greenwich
only five days back, and it would take her Majesty a far longer time to
make her progress than yonder fellow, who will tell you himself that
she had no thoughts of moving."

"That might only be a feint to be the more sudden with us," said his
wife, actuated in part by the diversion of alarming her father-in-law,
and in part really fired by the hope of such an effectual enlivenment
of the dulness of Sheffield.

They were all in full family conclave drawn up in the hall for the
reception, and Mistress Susan, who could not bear to see the Earl so
perplexed and anxious, ventured to say that she was quite sure that my
Lady Countess would have sent warning forward if indeed she were
bringing home such a guest, and at that moment the blare of trumpets
announced that the cavalcade was approaching.  The start which the Earl
gave showed how much his nerves had become affected by his years of
custody.  Up the long avenue they came, with all the state with which
the Earl had conducted Queen Mary to the lodge before she was
absolutely termed a prisoner.  Halberdiers led the procession, horse
and foot seemed to form it.  The home party stood on the top of the
steps watching with much anxiety.  There was a closed litter visible,
beside which Lady Shrewsbury, in a mourning dress and hood, could be
seen riding her favourite bay palfrey.  No doubt it contained the Lady
Margaret, Countess of Lennox; and the unfortunate Earl, forgetting all
his stately dignity, stood uneasily moving from leg to leg, and pulling
his long beard, torn between the instincts of hospitality and of loyal
obedience, between fear of his wife and fear of the Queen.

The litter halted at the foot of the steps, the Earl descended.  All he
saw was the round face of an infant in its nurse's arms, and he turned
to help his wife from the saddle, but she waved him aside. "My son
Gilbert will aid me, my Lord," said she, "your devoir is to the
princess."

Poor Lord Shrewsbury, his apologies on his tongue, looked into the
litter, where he saw the well-known and withered countenance of the
family nurse.  He also beheld a buxom young female, whose dress marked
her as a peasant, but before he had time to seek further for the
princess, the tightly rolled chrysalis of a child was thrust into his
astonished arms, while the round face puckered up instantly with terror
at sight of his bearded countenance, and he was greeted with a loud
yell.  He looked helplessly round, and his lady was ready at once to
relieve him.  "My precious!  My sweetheart!  My jewel!  Did he look
sour at her and frighten her with his ugsome beard?" and the like
endearments common to grandmothers in all ages.

"But where is the princess?"

"Where?  Where should she be but here?  Her grandame's own precious,
royal, queenly little darling!" and as a fresh cry broke out, "Yes,
yes; she shall to her presence chamber.  Usher her, Gilbert."

"Bess's brat!" muttered Dame Mary, in ineffable disappointment.

Curiosity and the habit of obedience to the Countess carried the entire
troop on to the grand apartments on the south side, where Queen Mary
had been lodged while the fiction of her guestship had been kept up.
Lady Shrewsbury was all the time trying to hush the child, who was
quite old enough to be terrified by new faces and new scenes, and who
was besides tired and restless in her swaddling bands, for which she
was so nearly too old that she had only been kept in them for greater
security upon the rough and dangerous roads. Great was my lady's
indignation on reaching the state rooms on finding that no nursery
preparations had been made, and her daughter Mary, with a giggle hardly
repressed by awe of her mother, stood forth and said, "Why, verily, my
lady, we expected some great dame, my Lady Margaret or my Lady Hunsdon
at the very least, when you spoke of a princess."

"And who should it be but one who has both the royal blood of England
and Scotland in her veins?  You have not saluted the child to whom you
have the honour to be akin, Mary!  On your knee, minion; I tell you she
hath as good or a better chance of wearing a crown as any woman in
England."

"She hath a far better chance of a prison," muttered the Earl, "if all
this foolery goes on."

"What!  What is that?  What are you calling these honours to my orphan
princess?" cried the lady, but the princess herself here broke in with
the lustiest of squalls, and Susan, who was sorry for the child,
contrived to insert an entreaty that my lady would permit her to be
taken at once to the nursery chamber that had been made ready for her,
and let her there be fed, warmed, and undressed at once.

There was something in the quality of Susan's voice to which people
listened, and the present necessity overcame the Countess's desire to
assert the dignity of her granddaughter, so she marched out of the room
attended by the women, while the Earl and his sons were only too glad
to slink away--there is no other word for it, their relief as to the
expected visitor having been exchanged for consternation of another
description.

There was a blazing fire ready, and all the baby comforts of the time
provided, and poor little Lady Arbell was relieved from her swathing
bands, and allowed to stretch her little limbs on her nurse's lap, the
one rest really precious to babes of all periods and conditions--but
the troubles were not yet over, for the grandmother, glancing round,
demanded, "Where is the cradle inlaid with pearl?  Why was it not
provided?  Bring it here."

Now this cradle, carved in cedar wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl,
had been a sponsor's gift to poor little George, the first male heir of
the Talbots, and it was regarded as a special treasure by his mother,
who was both wounded and resentful at the demand, and stood pouting and
saying, "It was my son's.  It is mine."

"It belongs to the family.  You," to two of the servants, "fetch it
here instantly!"

The ladies of Hardwicke race were not guarded in temper or language,
and Mary burst into passionate tears and exclamations that Bess's brat
should not have her lost George's cradle, and flounced away to get
before the servants and lock it up.  Lady Shrewsbury would have sprung
after her, and have made no scruple of using her fists and nails even
on her married daughter, but that she was impeded by a heavy table, and
this gave time for Susan to throw herself before her, and entreat her
to pause.

"You, you, Susan Talbot!  You should know better than to take the part
of an undutiful, foul-tongued vixen like that.  Out of my way, I say!"
and as Susan, still on her knees, held the riding-dress, she received a
stinging box on the ear.  But in her maiden days she had known the
weight of my lady's hand, and without relaxing her hold, she only
entreated: "Hear me, hear me for a little space, my lady. Did you but
know how sore her heart is, and how she loved little Master George!"

"That is no reason she should flout and miscall her dead sister, of
whom she was always jealous!"

"O madam, she wept with all her heart for poor Lady Lennox.  It is not
any evil, but she sets such store by that cradle in which her child
died--she keeps it by her bed even now, and her woman told me how, for
all she seems gay and blithe by day, she weeps over it at night, as if
her heart would break."

Lady Shrewsbury was a little softened.  "The child died in it?" she
asked.

"Yea, madam.  He had been on his father's knee, and had seemed a little
easier, and as if he might sleep, so Sir Gilbert laid him down, and he
did but stretch himself out, shiver all over, draw a long breath, and
the pretty lamb was gone to Paradise!"

"You saw him, Susan?"

"Yea, madam.  Dame Mary sent for me, but none could be of any aid where
it was the will of Heaven to take him."

"If I had been there," said the Countess, "I who have brought up eight
children and lost none, I should have saved him!  So he died in yonder
cedar cradle!  Well, e'en let Mary keep it.  It may be that there is
infection in the smell of the cedar wood, and that the child will sleep
better out of it.  It is too late to do aught this evening, but
to-morrow the child shall be lodged as befits her birth, in the
presence chamber."

"Ah, madam!" said Susan, "would it be well for the sweet babe if her
Majesty's messengers, who be so often at the castle, were to report her
so lodged?"

"I have a right to lodge my grandchild where and how I please in my own
house."

"Yea, madam, that is most true,

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