Thou seest me much distempered in my mind--Dryden.
Sir Payan Wileton had gone through life with fearless daring;
calculating, but never hesitating; keen-sighted of danger, but never
timid. From youth he had divested himself of the three great fears
which generally affect mankind: the fear of the world's opinion, the
fear of his own conscience, and the fear of death; and, thus endued
with much bad courage, he had attempted and succeeded in many things
which would have frightened a timid man, and failed with an irresolute
one. And yet, as we have seen, by one of those strange contradictions
of which human nature is full, Sir Payan, though an unbeliever in the
bright truths of religion, was credulous to many of the darkest
superstitions of the age in which he lived.
On such a mind, anything that smacked of supernatural presentiment was
likely to take the firmest hold; and, on the morning after Lady
Constance had, by his means and by his instigation, effected her
flight from Richmond, he rose early from a troubled sleep,
overshadowed by a deep despondency, which had never till then hung
upon him. Before he was yet dressed, the news was brought him that one
of his men had returned with the boat, and that the other had been
arrested in the king's name. He felt his good fortune had passed away;
an internal voice seemed to tell him that it was at an end; but yet he
omitted no measures of security, quitting the capital without loss of
time, and leaving such instructions with the porter as he deemed most
likely to blind the eyes of Wolsey; hoping that the servant, whose
life was in his power, would not betray him, yet prepared, if he did,
boldly to repel the charge, and by producing evidence to invalidate
the other's testimony, to cast the accusation back upon his head.
But still, from that moment Sir Payan was an altered being; and though
many days passed by without anything occurring to disturb his repose;
though the king's progress towards Dover, without any notice having
been taken of his participation in Lady Constance's escape, led him to
believe that fear had kept the servant faithful; yet still Sir Payan
remained in a state of gloom and lassitude, that raised many a marvel
amongst those around him.
Wandering through the woods that surrounded his mansion, he passed
hours and hours in deep, inactive, bitter meditation; finding no
consolation in his own heart, no hope in the future, and no repose in
the past; and, why he knew not, despairing where he had never
despaired, trembling where he had never known fear.
Often he questioned himself upon the strange depression of his mind;
and the more he did so, the more he became convinced that it was a
supernatural warning of approaching fate. Many were the resolutions
that he made to shake it off, to struggle still, to seek the court,
and urge his claim on the estates of Constance de Grey, as he would
have done in former days; but in vain: a leaden power lay heavy upon
his heart, and crushed all its usual energies; and the only effort he
could make was to send out servants in every direction to seek Sir
Cesar the astrologer, weakly hoping to brace up his relaxed confidence
by some predictions of success. But the old man was not easily to be
found. No one knew his abode, and, ever strange and erratic in his
motions, he seemed now agitated by some extraordinary impulse, so that
even when they had once found his track, the servants of Sir Payan had
often to trace him to ten or twelve houses in the course of a day.
Sometimes it was in the manor of the peer, sometimes in the cottage of
the peasant, that they heard of him; but in none did he seem to
sojourn for above an hour, hurrying on wildly to the dwelling of some
other amongst the many that he knew in all classes.
At length they overtook him on the road near Sandgate, and delivered
Sir Payan's message; whereupon, without any reply, he turned his horse
and rode towards Chilham, where he arrived in the evening. Springing
to the ground without any appearance of fatigue, the old man sought
Sir Payan in the park, to which the servants said he had retired; and,
winding through the various long alleys, found him at length walking
backwards and forwards, with his arms crossed on his bosom and his
eyes fixed upon the ground. The evening sunshine was streaming
brightly upon the spot, pouring a mellow misty light through the
western trees, on the tall dark figure of Sir Payan, who, bending down
his head, paced along with gloomy slowness, like some bad spirit
oppressed and tormented by the smile of heaven.
It was a strange sight to see his meeting with Sir Cesar; both were
pale and haggard; for some cause, only known to himself, had worn the
keen features of the astrologer till the bones and cartilages seemed
starting through the skin; and Sir Payan's ashy cheek had lately
acquired a still more deadly hue than it usually wore. Both, too,
looked wild and fearful; the keen black eyes of the old man showing
with a terrific brightness in his thin and livid face, and the stern
features of Sir Payan appearing full of a sort of ferocious light,
which his attendants had remarked, ever since he had been overthrown
in the tilt by the lance of Sir Osborne. Meeting thus, in the full
yellow sunshine, while Sir Cesar fixed his usual intense and
scrutinising glance upon the countenance of the other, and Sir Payan
strove to receive him with a smile that but mocked the lips it shone
upon, they looked like two beings of another world, met for the first
time in upper air, to commune of things long past.
"Well, unhappy man," said Sir Cesar at length, "what seekest thou with
me?"
"That I am unhappy," replied Sir Payan, knitting his brow, as he saw
that little consolation was to be expected from the astrologer, "I do
not deny; and it is to know why I am unhappy that I have asked you to
come hither."
"You are unhappy," answered Sir Cesar, "because you have plundered the
widow and the orphan, because you have wronged the friendless and the
weak, because you have betrayed the confident and the generous. You
are unhappy because there is not one in the wide world that loves you,
and because you even despise, and hate, and reprobate yourself."
"Old man! old man!" cried Sir Payan, half unsheathing his dagger,
"beware, beware! Those men only," he added, pushing back the weapon
into its sheath, "ought to be unhappy that are unsuccessful; the rest
is all a bugbear set up by the weak to frighten away the strong. But I
have been successful, am successful. Why then am I unhappy?"
"Because your success is at an end," replied the astrologer: "because
you tremble to your fall; because your days are numbered, and late
remorse is gnawing your heart in spite of your vain boasting. Nay, lay
not your hand on the hilt of your dagger! Over me, murderer, you have
no power! That dagger took the life of one that had never wronged you.
Remember the rout at Taunton; remember the youth murdered the night
after he surrendered!" Sir Payan trembled like an aspen leaf while the
old man spoke. "Yes, murderer!" continued Sir Cesar; "though you
thought the deed hid in the bowels of the earth, I know it all. That
hand slew all that was dearest to me on earth!--the child that unhappy
fortune forced me to leave upon this cursed shore; and long, long ago
should his fate have been avenged in your blood, had not I seen, had
not I known, that heaven willed it otherwise. I have waited patiently
for the hour that is now come; I have broken your bread, and I have
drunk of your wine; but while I did so, I have seen you gathering
curses on your head, and accumulating sins to sink you to perdition,
and that has taught me to endure. I would not have saved you one hour
of crime, I would not have robbed my revenge of one single sin--no,
not for an empire! But I have watched you go on, gloriously,
triumphantly, in evil and in wickedness, till heaven can bear no more;
till you have eaten up your future; and soon, with all your crimes
upon your head, hated, despised, condemned by all mankind, your black
soul shall be parted from your body, and my eyes shall see you die."
Sir Payan had listened with varied emotions as the old man spoke.
Surprise, remorse, and fear had been the first; but gradually the more
tempestuous feelings of his nature hurried away the rest, and, rage
gaining mastery of all, he drew his poniard and sprang upon Sir Cesar.
But in the very act, as his arm was raised to strike, he was caught by
two powerful men, who threw him back upon the ground and disarmed him;
one of them exclaiming, "Ho, ho! we have just come in time. Sir Payan
Wileton, you are attached in the king's name. Lo, here is the warrant
for your apprehension. You must come with us, sir, to Calais."
One would attempt in vain to describe the rage that convulsed the form
of Sir Payan Wileton, more especially when he beheld Sir Cesar smile
upon him with a look of triumphant satisfaction.
"Seize him!" exclaimed he, with furious violence, pointing to the
astrologer; "seize him, if you love your king and your country! He is
a marked and obnoxious traitor. I impeach him, and you do not your
duty if you let him escape; or are you his confederates, and come up
to prevent my punishing him for the treasons he has just
acknowledged?"
"Sir Payan Wileton," replied the sergeant-at-arms, "this passion is
all in vain. I am sent here with a warrant from the king's privy
council to attach you for high treason; but I have no authority to
arrest any one else."
"But I am a magistrate," cried the baffled knight; "let him not
escape, I enjoin you, till I have had time to commit him. He is a
traitor, I say, and if you seize him not, you art the king's enemies."
"Attached for high treason, sir, you are no longer a magistrate,"
replied the sergeant. "At all events, I do not hold myself justified
in apprehending anybody against whom I have no warrant, more
especially when I found you raising your hand illegally against the
very person's life whom you now accuse. I can take no heed of the
matter: you must come."
"He shall be satisfied," said Sir Cesar. "Venomless serpent! I will
follow thee now till thy last hour. But think not that thou canst hurt
me, for thy power has gone from thee; and though wicked as a demon,
thou art weak as a child. I know that we are doomed to pass the same
gate, but not to journey on the same road. Lead on, sergeant; I will
go on with you; and then, if this bad man have aught to urge against
me, let him do it."
"Go if you will, sir," replied the officer; "but remember, you act
according to your own pleasure; I make no arrest in your case: you are
free to come with us or to stay, as you think fit."
Sir Payan was now led back to the house, which was in possession of
the king's archers; and as he passed through his own hall, with a
burning heart, the hasty glance that he cast around amongst his
servants showed him at once, that though there were none to pity or
befriend, there were many full ready to betray. Then rushed upon his
mind the accusations that they might pile upon his head, now that they
saw him sinking below the stream. The certainty of death; the dread of
something after death; doubts of his own scepticism; the innate,
all-powerful conviction of a future state--a state growing dreadfully
perceptible to his eye as he approached the brink of that yawning gulf
which his own acts had peopled with strange fears; all that he had
scoffed at, all that he had despised, now assumed a new and fearful
character: even the world's opinion, the world's contemned opinion,
came across his thought: that there was not one heart on all the earth
would mourn his end, that hatred and abhorrence would go with him to
the grave, and that his memory would only live with infamy in the
records of crime and punishment. Burying his face in his hands, he sat
in deep, despairing, agonising silence while his horse was being
prepared, and while the officer put his seal upon the various doors
which he thought it necessary to secure.
A few hours brought the whole party to Dover, and the next day saw
their arrival at Calais; but by that time the court had removed to
Guisnes; and the sergeant, having no orders to bring his prisoner
farther, sent forward a messenger to announce his arrival and demand
instructions.