THE HOROSCOPE.
Ere the next day was over, it was understood throughout the castle
that lord Herbert was constructing a horoscope--not that there were
many in the place who understood what a horoscope really was, or had
any knowledge of the modes of that astrology in whose results they
firmly believed; yet Kaltoff having been seen carrying several
mysterious-looking instruments to the top of the library tower, the
word was presently in everybody's mouth. Nor were the lovers of
marvel likely to be disappointed, for no sooner was the sun down
than there was lord Herbert, his head in an outlandish Persian hat,
visible over the parapet from the stone-court, while from some of
the higher windows in the grass-court might be seen through a
battlement his long flowing gown of a golden tint, wrought with
hieroglyphics in blue. Now he would stand for a while gazing up into
the heavens, now would be shifting and adjusting this or that
instrument, then peering along or through it, and then re-arranging
it, or kneeling and drawing lines, now circular, now straight, upon
a sheet of paper spread flat on the roof of the tower. There he
still was when the household retired to rest, and there, in the grey
dawn, his wife, waking up and peeping from her window, saw him
still, against the cold sky, pacing the roof with bent head and
thoughtful demeanour. In the morning he was gone, and no one but
lady Margaret saw him during the whole of the following day. Nor
indeed could any but herself or Caspar have found him, for the tale
Tom Fool told the rustics of a magically concealed armoury had been
suggested by a rumour current in the house, believed by all without
any proof, and yet not the less a fact, that lord Herbert had a
chamber of which none of the domestics knew door or window, or even
the locality. That recourse should have been had to spells and
incantations for its concealment, however, as was also commonly
accepted, would have seemed trouble unnecessary to any one who knew
the mechanical means his lordship had employed for the purpose. The
touch of a pin on a certain spot in one of the bookcases in the
library, admitted him to a wooden stair which, with the aid of
Caspar, he had constructed in an ancient disused chimney, and which
led down to a small chamber in the roof of a sort of porch built
over the stair from the stone-court to the stables. There was no
other access to it, and the place had never been used, nor had any
window but one which they had constructed in the roof so cunningly
as to attract no notice. All the household supposed the hidden
chamber, whose existence was unquestioned, to be in the great tower,
somewhere near the workshop.
In this place he kept his books of alchemy and magic, and some of
his stranger instruments. It would have been hard for himself even
to say what he did or did not believe of such things. In certain
moods, especially when under the influence of some fact he had just
discovered without being able to account for it, he was ready to
believe everything; in others, especially when he had just
succeeded, right or wrong, in explaining anything to his own
satisfaction, he doubted them all considerably. His imagination
leaned lovingly towards them; his intellect required proofs which he
had not yet found.
Hither then he had retired--to work out the sequences of the
horoscopes he had that night constructed. He was far less doubtful
of astrology than of magic. It would have been difficult, I suspect,
to find at that time a man who did not more or less believe in the
former, and the influence of his mechanical pursuits upon lord
Herbert's mind had not in any way interfered with his capacity for
such belief. In the present case, however, he trusted for success
rather to his knowledge of human nature than to his questioning of
the stars.
Before this, the second day, was over, it was everywhere whispered
that he was occupied in discovering the hidden way by which entrance
and exit had been found through the defences of the castle; and the
next day it was known by everybody that he had been successful--as
who could doubt he must, with such powers at his command?
For a time curiosity got the better of fear, and there was not a
soul in the place, except one bedridden old woman, who did not that
day accept lord Herbert's general invitation, and pass over the
Gothic bridge to see the opening from the opposite side of the moat.
To seal the conviction that the discovery had indeed been made,
permission was given to any one who chose to apply to it the test of
his own person, but of this only Shafto the groom availed himself.
It was enough, however: he disappeared, and while the group which
saw him enter the opening was yet anxiously waiting his return by
the way he had gone, having re-entered by the western gate he came
upon them from behind, to the no small consternation of those of
weaker nerves, and so settled the matter for ever.
As soon as curiosity was satisfied, lord Herbert gave orders which,
in the course of a few days, rendered the drain as impassable to
manor dog as the walls of the keep itself.
In the middle of the previous night, Marquis had returned, and
announced himself by scratching and whining for admittance at the
door of Dorothy's room. She let him in, but not until the morning
discovered that he had a handkerchief tied round his neck, and in it
a letter addressed to herself. Curious, perhaps something more than
curious, to open it, she yet carried it straight to lord Herbert.
'Canst not break the seal, Dorothy, that thou bringest it to me? I
will not read it first, lest thou repent,' said his lordship.
'Will you open it then, madam?' she said, turning to lady Margaret.
'What my lord will not, why should I?' rejoined her mistress.
Dorothy opened the letter without more ado, crimsoned, read it to
the end, and handed it again to lord Herbert.
'Pray read, my lord,' she said.
He took it, and read. It ran thus--
'Mistress Dorothy, I think, and yet I know not, but I think thou
wilt be pleased to learn that my Wound hath not proved mortal,
though it hath brought me low, yea, very nigh to Death's Door. Think
not I feared to enter. But it grieveth me to the Heart to ride
another than my own Mare to the Wars, and it will pleasure thee to
know that without my Lady I shall be but Half the Man I was. But do
thou the Like again when thou mayest, for thou but didst thy Duty
according to thy Lights; and according to what else should any one
do? Mistaken as thou art, I love thee as mine own Soul. As to the
Ring I left for thee, with a safe Messenger, concerning whom I say
Nothing, for thou wilt con her no Thanks for the doing of aught to
pleasure me, I restored it not because it was thine, for thy mother
gave it me, but because, if for Lack of my Mare I should fall in
some Battle of those that are to follow, then would the Ring pass to
a Hand whose Heart knew nought of her who gave it me. I am what thou
knowest not, yet thine old Play-fellow Richard.--When thou hearest
of me in the Wars, as perchance thou mayest, then curse me not, but
sigh an thou wilt, and say, he also would in his Blindness do the
Thing that lay at his Door. God be with thee, mistress Dorothy. Beat
not thy Dog for bringing thee this.
'RICHARD HEYWOOD.'
Lord Herbert gave the letter to his wife, and paced up and down the
room while she read. Dorothy stood silent, with glowing face and
downcast eyes. When lady Margaret had finished it she handed it to
her, and turned to her husband with the words,--
'What sayest thou, Ned? Is it not a brave epistle?'
'There is matter for thought therein,' he answered. 'Wilt show me
the ring whereof he writes, cousin?'
'I never had it, my lord.'
'Whom thinkest thou then he calleth his safe messenger? Not thy
dog--plainly, for the ring had been sent thee before.'
'My lord, I cannot even conjecture,' answered Dorothy.
'There is matter herein that asketh attention. My lady, and cousin
Dorothy, not a word of all this until I shall have considered what
it may import!--Beat not thy dog, Dorothy: that were other than he
deserveth at thy hand. But he is a dangerous go-between, so prithee
let him be at once chained up.'
'I will not beat him, my lord, and I will chain him up,' answered
Dorothy, laughing.
Having then announced the discovery of the hidden passage, and given
orders concerning it, lord Herbert retired yet again to his secret
chamber, and that night was once more seen of many consulting the
stars from the top of the library tower.
The following morning another rumour was abroad--to the effect that
his lordship was now occupied in questioning the stars as to who in
the castle had aided the young roundhead in making his escape.
In the evening, soon after supper, there came a gentle tap to the
door of lady Margaret's parlour. At that time she was understood to
be disengaged, and willing to see any of the household. Harry
happened to be with her, and she sent him to the door to see who it
was.
'It is Tom Fool,' he said, returning. 'He begs speech of you,
madam--with a face as long as the baker's shovel, and a mouth as
wide as an oven-door.'
With their Irish stepmother the children took far greater freedoms
than would have been permitted them by the jealous care of their own
mother over their manners.
Lady Margaret smiled: this was probably the first fruit of her
husband's astrological investigations.
'Tell him he may enter, and do thou leave him alone with me, Harry,'
she said.
Allowing for exaggeration, Harry had truly reported Tom's
appearance. He was trembling from head to foot, and very white.
'What aileth thee, Tom, that thou lookest as thou had seen a
hobgoblin?' said lady Margaret.
'Please you, my lady,' answered Tom, 'I am in mortal terror of my
lord Herbert.'
'Then hast thou been doing amiss, Tom? for no well-doer ever yet was
afeard of my lord. Comest thou because thou wouldst confess the
truth?'
'Ah, my lady,' faltered Tom.
'Come, then; I will lead thee to my lord.'
'No, no, an't please you, my lady!' cried Tom, trembling yet more.
'I will confess to you, my lady, and then do you confess to my lord,
so that he may forgive me.'
'Well, I will venture so far for thee, Tom,' returned her ladyship;
'that is, if thou be honest, and tell me all.'
Thus encouraged, Tom cleansed his stuffed bosom, telling all the
part he had borne in Richard's escape, even to the disclosure of the
watchword to his mother.
Is there not this peculiarity about the fear of the supernatural,
even let it be of the lowest and most slavish kind, that under it
men speak the truth, believing that alone can shelter them?
Lady Margaret dismissed him with hopes of forgiveness, and going
straight to her husband in his secret chamber, amused him largely
with her vivid representation, amounting indeed to no sparing
mimicry of Tom's looks and words as he made his confession.
Here was much gained, but Tom had cast no ray of light upon the
matter of Dorothy's imprisonment. The next day lord Herbert sent for
him to his workshop, where he was then alone. He appeared in a state
of abject terror.
'Now, Tom,' said his lordship, 'hast thou made a clean breast of
it?'
'Yes, my lord,' answered Tom; 'there is but one thing more.'
'What is that? Out with it.'
'As I went back to my chamber, at the top of the stair leading down
from my lord's dining parlour to the hall, commonly called my lord's
stair,' said Tom, who delighted in the pseudo-circumstantial, 'I
stopped to recover my breath, of the which I was sorely bereft, and
kneeling on the seat of the little window that commands the archway
to the keep, I saw the prisoner--'
'How knewest thou the prisoner ere it was yet daybreak, and that in
the darkest corner of all the court?'
'I knew him by the way my bones shook at the white sleeves of his
shirt, my lord,' said Tom, who was too far gone in fear to make the
joke of pretending courage.
'Hardly evidence, Tom. But go on.'
'And with him I saw mistress Dorothy--'
'Hold there, Tom!' cried lord Herbert. 'Wherefore didst not impart
this last night to my lady?'
'Because my lady loveth mistress Dorothy, and I dreaded she would
therefore refuse to believe me.'
'What a heap of cunning goes to the making of a downright fool!'
said lord Herbert to himself, but so as Tom could not fail to hear
him. 'And what saw'st thou pass between them?' he asked.
'Only a whispering with their heads together,' answered Tom.
'And what heard'st thou?'
'Nothing, my lord.'
'And what followed?'
'The roundhead left her, and went through the archway. She stood a
moment and then followed him. But I, fearful of her coming up the
stair and finding me, gat me quickly to my own place.'
'Oh, Tom, Tom! I am ashamed of thee. What! Afraid of a woman?
Verily, thy heart is of wax.'
'That can hardly be, my lord, for I find it still on the wane.'
'An' thy wit were no better than thy courage, thou hadst never had
enough to play the fool with.'
'No, my lord; I should have had to turn philosopher.'
'A fair hit, Tom! But tell me, why wast thou afeard of mistress
Dorothy?'
'It might have come to a quarrel in some sort, my lord; and there is
one thing I have remarked in my wanderings through this valley of
Baca' said Tom, speaking through his nose, and lengthening his face
beyond even its own nature, 'namely, that he who quarrels with a
woman goes ever to the wall.'
'One thing perplexes me, Tom: if thou sawest mistress Dorothy in the
court with the roundhead, how came she thereafter, thinkest thou,
locked up in his chamber?'
'It behoves that she went into it again, my lord.'
'How knowest thou she had been there before?'
'Nay, I know not, my lord. I know nothing of the matter.'
'Why say'st it then? Take heed to thy words, Tom. Who then, thinkest
thou, did lock the door upon her?'
'I know not, my lord, and dare hardly say what I think. But let your
lordship's wisdom determine whether it might not be one of those
demons whereof the house hath been full ever since that night when I
saw them rise from the water of the moat--that even now surrounds
us, my lord!--and rush into the fountain court.'
'Meddle thou not, even in thy thoughts, with things that are beyond
thee,' said lord Herbert. 'By what signs knewest thou mistress
Dorothy in the dark as she stood talking to the roundhead?'
'There was light enough to know woman from man, my lord.'
'And were there then that night no women in the castle but mistress
Dorothy?'
'Why, who else could it have been, my lord?'
'Why not thine own mother, Tom--rode thither on her broomstick to
deliver her darling?'
Tom gaped with fresh terror at the awful suggestion.
'Now, hear me, Thomas Rees,' his lordship went on.
'Yes, my lord,' answered Tom.
'An' ever it come to my knowledge that thou say thou then saw
mistress Dorothy, when all thou sawest was, as thou knowest, a woman
who might have been thine own mother talking to the roundhead, as
thou callest a man who might indeed have been Caspar Kaltoff in his
shirt sleeves, I will set every devil at my command upon thy back
and thy belly, thy sides and thy soles. Be warned, and not only
speak the truth, as thou hast for a whole half-hour been trying hard
to do, but learn to distinguish between thy fancies and God's facts;
for verily thou art a greater fool than I took thee for, and that
was no small one. Get thee gone, and send me hither mistress
Watson.'
Tom crawled away, and presently mistress Watson appeared, looking
offended, possibly at being called to the workshop, and a little
frightened.
'I cannot but think thee somewhat remiss in thy ministrations to a
sick man, mistress Watson,' he said, 'to leave him so long to
himself. Had he been a king's officer now, wouldst thou not have
shown him more favour?'
'That indeed may be, my lord,' returned mistress Watson with
dignity. 'But an' the young fellow had been very sick, he had not
made his escape.'
'And left the blame thereof with thee. Besides, that he did for his
escape he may have done in the strength of the fever that followeth
on such a wound.'
'My lord, I gave him a potion, wherefrom he should have slept until
I sought him again.'
'Was he or thou to blame that he did not feel the obligation? When a
man instead of sleeping runneth away, the potion was ill mingled, I
doubt, mistress Watson--drove him crazy perchance.'
'She who waked him when he ought to have slept hath to bear the
blame, not I, my lord.'
'Thou shouldst, I say, have kept better watch. But tell me whom
meanest thou by that same SHE?'
'She who was found in his chamber, my lord,' said mistress Watson,
compressing her lips, as if, come what might, she would stand on the
foundation of the truth.
'Ah?--By the way, I would gladly understand how it came to be known
throughout the castle that thou didst find her there? I have the
assurance of my lady, my lord marquis, and my lord Charles, that
never did one of them utter word so to slander an orphan as thou
hast now done in my hearing. Who then can it be but her who is at
the head of the meinie of this house, who hath misdemeaned herself
thus to the spreading amongst those under her of evil reports and
surmises affecting her lord's cousin, mistress Dorothy Vaughan?'
'You wrong me grievously, my lord,' cried mistress Watson, red with
the wrath of injury and undeserved reproof.
'Thou hast thyself to thank for it then, for thou hast this night
said in mine own ears that mistress Dorothy waked thy prisoner,
importing that she thereafter set him free, when thou knowest that
she denies the same, and is therein believed by my lord marquis and
all his house.'
'Therein I believe her not, my lord; but I swear by all the saints
and angels, that to none but your lordship have I ever said the
word; neither have I ever opened my lips against her, lest I should
take from her the chance of betterment.'
'I will be more just to thee than thou hast been to my cousin,
mistress Watson, for I will believe thee that thou didst only
harbour evil in thy heart, not send it from the doors of thy lips to
enter into other bosoms. Was it thou then that did lock the door
upon her?'
'God forbid, my lord!'
'Thinkest thou. it was the roundhead?'
'No, surely, my lord, for where would be the need?'
'Lest she should issue and give the alarm.'
Mistress Watson smiled an acid smile.
'Then the doer of that evil deed,' pursued lord Herbert, 'must be
now in the castle, and from this moment every power I possess in
earth, air, or sea, shall be taxed to the uttermost for the
discovery of that evil person. Let this vow of mine be known,
mistress Watson, as a thing thou hast heard me say, not commission
thee to report. Prithee take heed to what I desire of thee, for I am
not altogether powerless to enforce that I would.'
Mistress Watson left the workshop in humbled mood. To her spiritual
benefit lord Herbert had succeeded in punishing her for her cruelty
to Dorothy; and she was not the less willing to mind his injunction
as to the mode of mentioning his intent, that it would serve to the
quenching of any suspicion that she had come under his disapproval.
And now lord Herbert, depending more upon his wits than his
learning, found himself a good deal in the dark. Confident that
neither Richard, Tom Fool, nor mistress Watson had locked the door
of the turret chamber after Dorothy's entrance, he gave one moment
to the examination of the lock, and was satisfied that an enemy had
done it. He then started his thoughts on another track, tending
towards the same point: how was it that the roundhead, who had been
carried insensible to the turret-chamber, had been able, ere yet
more than a film of grey thinned the darkness, without alarming a
single sleeper, to find his way from a part of the house where there
were no stairs near, and many rooms, all occupied? Clearly by the
help of her, whoever she was, whom Tom Fool had seen with him by the
hall door. She had guided him down my lord's stair, and thus avoided
the risk of crossing the paved court to the hall door within sight
of the warders of the main entrance. To her indubitably the young
roundhead had committed the ring for Dorothy. Here then was one
secret agent in the affair: was it likely there had been two? If
not, this woman was one and the same with the person who turned the
key upon Dorothy. She probably had been approaching the snare while
the traitress talked with the prisoner. What did her presence so
soon again in the vicinity of the turret-chamber indicate? Possibly
that her own chamber was near it. The next step then was to learn
from the housekeeper who slept in the neighbourhood of the
turret-chamber, and then to narrow the ground of search by inquiring
which, if any of them, slept alone.
He found there were two who occupied each a chamber by herself; one
of them was Amanda, the other mistress Watson.
Now therefore he knew distinctly in what direction first he must
point his tentatives. Before he went farther, however, he drew from
Dorothy an accurate description of the ring to which Richard's
letter alluded, and immediately set about making one after it, from
stage to stage of its progress bringing it to her for examination
and criticism, until, before the day was over, he had completed a
model sufficiently like to pass for the same.
The greater portion of the next day he spent in getting into perfect
condition a certain mechanical toy which he had constructed many
years before, and familiarising himself with its working. This done,
he found himself ready for his final venture, to give greater
solemnity to which he ordered the alarum-bell to be rung, and the
herald of the castle to call aloud, first from the bell-tower in the
grass-court, next from the roof of the hall-porch in the stone-
court, communicating with the minstrels' gallery, that on the
following day, after dinner, so soon as they should hear the sound
of the alarum-bell, every soul in the castle, to the infant in
arms, all of whatever condition, save old mother Prescot, who was
bed-ridden, should appear in the great hall, that lord Herbert might
perceive which amongst them had insulted the lord and the rule of
the house by the locking of one of its doors to the imprisonment and
wrong of his lordship's cousin, mistress Dorothy Vaughan. Three
strokes of the great bell opened and closed the announcement, and a
great hush of expectancy, not unmingled with fear, fell upon the
place.
There was one in the household, however, who at first objected to
the whole proceeding. That was sir Toby Mathews, the catholic
chaplain. He went to the marquis and represented that, if there was
to be any exercise whatever of unlawful power, the obligations of
the sacred office with which he was invested would not permit him to
be present or connive thereat. The marquis merrily insisted that it
was a case of exorcism; that the devil was in the castle, and out he
must go; that if Satan assisted in the detection of the guilty and
the purging of the innocent, then was he divided against himself,
and what could be better for the church or the world? But for his
own part he had no hand in it, and if sir Toby had anything to say
against it, he must go to his son. This he did at once; but lord
Herbert speedily satisfied him, pledging himself that there should
be nothing done by aid from beneath, and making solemn assertion
that if ever he had employed any of the evil powers to work out his
designs, it had been as their master and not their accomplice.