Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the
Web Archive (University of California Libraries)
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/storyoffranciscl00weymiala
(University of California Libraries)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
THE STORY OF FRANCIS CLUDDE
BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN
* * *
THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. A Romance. With Frontispiece and Vignette.
Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
THE STORY OF FRANCIS CLUDDE. A Romance. With four Illustrations. Crown
8vo, $1.25.
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. Being the Memoirs of Gaston de Bonne, Sieur de
Marsac. With Frontispiece and Vignette. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
UNDER THE RED ROBE. With twelve full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo,
cloth, $1.25.
MY LADY ROTHA. A Romance of the Thirty Years' War. With eight
Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF A MINISTER OF FRANCE. With thirty-six
Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
SHREWSBURY. A Romance. With twenty-four illustrations. Crown 8vo,
$1.50.
THE RED COCKADE. A Novel. With 48 illustrations by R. Caton Woodville.
Crown 8vo, $1.50.
* * *
New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.
THE STORY
OF
FRANCIS CLUDDE
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE RED ROBE,"
"MY LADY ROTHA," ETC., ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1898
Copyright, 1891, by
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
* * *
Copyright, 1897, by
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. "He, Sire Ane, He,"
II. In the Bishop's Room,
III. "Down with Purveyors!"
IV. Two Sisters of Mercy,
V. Mistress Bertram,
VI. Master Clarence,
VII. On Board the "Framlingham,"
VIII. A House of Peace,
IX. Playing with Fire,
X. The Face in the Porch,
XI. A Foul Blow,
XII. Anne's Petition,
XIII. A Willful Man's Way,
XIV. At Bay in the Gatehouse,
XV. Before the Court,
XVI. In the Duke's Name,
XVII. A Letter that had Many Escapes,
XVIII. The Witch's Warning
XIX. Ferdinand Cludde,
XX. The Coming Queen,
XXI. My Father,
XXII. Sir Anthony's Purpose,
XXIII. The Last Mass,
XXIV. Awaiting the Blow,
XXV. In Harbor at Last,
THE STORY OF FRANCIS CLUDDE.
CHAPTER I.
"HE, SIRE ANE, HE!"
On the boundary line between the two counties of Warwick and Worcester
there is a road very famous in those parts, and called the Ridgeway.
Father Carey used to say--and no better Latinist could be found for a
score of miles round in the times of which I write--that it was made
by the Romans. It runs north and south along the narrow spine of the
country, which is spread out on either side like a map, or a picture.
As you fare southward you see on your right hand the green orchards
and pastures of Worcestershire stretching as far as the Malvern Hills.
You have in front of you Bredon Hill, which is a wonderful hill, for
if a man goes down the Avon by boat it goes with him--now before, and
now behind--a whole day's journey--and then stands in the same place.
And on the left hand you have the great Forest of Arden, and not much
besides, except oak trees, which grow well in Warwickshire.
I describe this road, firstly, because it is a notable one, and forty
years ago was the only Queen's highway, to call a highway, in that
country. The rest were mere horse-tracks. Secondly, because the chase
wall of Coton End runs along the side of it for two good miles; and
the Cluddes--I am Francis Cludde--have lived at Coton End by the
Ridgeway time out of mind, probably--for the name smacks of the
soil--before the Romans made the road. And thirdly, because forty
years ago, on a drizzling February day in 1555--second year of Mary,
old religion just reestablished--a number of people were collected on
this road, forming a group of a score or more, who stood in an ordered
kind of disorder about my uncle's gates and looked all one way, as if
expecting an arrival, and an arrival of consequence.
First, there was my uncle Sir Anthony, tall and lean. He wore his best
black velvet doublet and cloak, and had put them on with an air of
huge importance. This increased each time he turned, staff in hand,
and surveyed his following, and as regularly gave place to a "Pshaw!"
of vexation and a petulant glance when his eye rested on me. Close
beside him, looking important too, but anxious and a little frightened
as well, stood good Father Carey. The priest wore his silk cassock,
and his lips moved from time to time without sound, as though he
were trying over a Latin oration--which, indeed, was the fact. At a
more respectful distance were ranged Baldwin Moor, the steward,
and a dozen servants; while still farther away lounged as many
ragamuffins--landless men, who swarmed about every gentleman's door
in those times, and took toll of such abbey lands as the king might
have given him. Against one of the stone gate-pillars I leaned
myself--nineteen years and six months old, and none too wise, though
well grown, and as strong as one here and there. And perched on the
top of the twin post, with his chin on his knees, and his hands
clasped about them, was Martin Luther, the fool.
Martin had chosen this elevated position partly out of curiosity, and
partly, perhaps, under a strong sense of duty. He knew that, whether
he would or no, he must needs look funny up there. His nose was red,
and his eyes were running, and his teeth chattering; and he did look
funny. But as he felt the cold most his patience failed first. The
steady, silent drizzle, the mist creeping about the stems of the oak
trees, the leaden sky proved too much for him in the end. "A watched
pot never boils!" he grumbled.
"Silence, sirrah!" commanded my uncle angrily. "This is no time for
your fooling. Have a care how you talk in the same breath of pots and
my Lord Bishop!"
"_Sanctae ecclesiae_," Father Carey broke out, turning up his eyes in a
kind of ecstasy, as though he were knee to knee with the prelate--"_te
defensorem inclytum atque ardentem----_"
"_Pottum!_" cried I, laughing loudly at my own wit.
It was an ill-mannered word, but I was cold and peevish. I had been
forced to this function against my will. I had never seen the guest
whom we were expecting, and who was no other than the Queen's
Chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, but I disliked him as if I had. In
truth, he was related to us in a peculiar fashion, which my uncle and
I naturally looked at from different standpoints. Sir Anthony viewed
with complacence, if not with pride, any connection with the powerful
Bishop of Winchester, for the knight knew the world, and could
appreciate the value it sets on success, and the blind eyes it has for
spots if they do but speckle the risen sun. I could make no such
allowance, but, with the pride of youth and family, at once despised
the great Bishop for his base blood, and blushed that the shame lay on
our side. I hated this parade of doing honor to him, and would fain
have hidden at home with Petronilla, my cousin, Sir Anthony's
daughter, and awaited our guest there. The knight, however, had not
permitted this, and I had been forced out, being in the worst of
humors.
So I said "_Pottum!_" and laughed.
"Silence, boy!" cried Sir Anthony fiercely. He loved an orderly
procession, and to arrange things decently. "Silence!" he repeated,
darting an angry glance first at me and then at his followers, "or I
will warm that jacket of yours, lad! And you, Martin Luther, see to
your tongue for the next twenty-four hours, and keep it off my Lord
Bishop! And, Father Carey, hold yourself ready----"
"For here Sir Hot-Pot cometh!" cried the undaunted Martin, skipping
nimbly down from his post of vantage; "and a dozen of London saucepans
with him, or may I never lick the inside of one again!"
A jest on the sauciness of London serving-men was sure to tell with
the crowd, and there was a great laugh at this, especially among the
landless men, who were on the skirts of the party, and well sheltered
from Sir Anthony's eye. He glared about him, provoked to find at this
critical moment smiles where there should have been looks of
deference, and a ring round a fool where he had marshaled a
procession. Unluckily, he chose to visit his displeasure upon me. "You
won't behave, won't you, you puppy!" he cried. "You won't, won't you!"
and stepping forward he aimed a blow at my shoulders, which would have
made me rub myself if it had reached me. But I was too quick. I
stepped back, the stick swung idly, and the crowd laughed.
And there the matter would have ended, for the Bishop's party were now
close upon us, had not my foot slipped on the wet grass and I fallen
backward. Seeing me thus at his mercy, the temptation proved too much
for the knight. He forgot his love of seemliness and even that his
visitors were at his elbow--and, stooping a moment to plant home a
couple of shrewd cuts, cried, "Take that! Take that, my lad!" in a
voice that rang as crisply as his thwacks.
I was up in an instant; not that the pain was anything, and before our
own people I should have thought as little of shame, for if the old
may not lay hand to the young, being related, where is to be any
obedience? Now, however, my first glance met the grinning faces of
strange lackeys, and while my shoulders still smarted, the laughter of
a couple of soberly-clad pages stung a hundred times more sharply. I
glared furiously round, and my eyes fell on one face--a face long
remembered. It was that of a man who neither smiled nor laughed; a man
whom I recognized immediately, not by his sleek hackney or his purple
cassock, which a riding-coat partially concealed, or even by his
jeweled hand, but by the keen glance of power which passed over me,
took me in, and did not acknowledge me; which saw my humiliation
without interest or amusement. The look hurt me beyond smarting of
shoulders, for it conveyed to me in the twentieth part of a second how
very small a person Francis Cludde was, and how very great a personage
was Stephen Gardiner, whom in my thoughts I had presumed to belittle.
I stood irresolute a moment, shifting my feet and glowering at him, my
face on fire. But when he raised his hand to give the Benediction, and
the more devout, or those with mended hose, fell on their knees in the
mud, I turned my back abruptly, and, climbing the wall, flung away
across the chase.
"What, Sir Anthony!" I heard him say as I stalked off, his voice
ringing clear and incisive amid the reverential silence which followed
the Latin words; "have we a heretic here, cousin? How is this? So near
home too!"
"It is my nephew, my Lord Bishop," I could hear Sir Anthony answer,
apology in his tone; "and a willful boy at times. You know of him; he
has queer notions of his own, put into his head long ago."
I caught no more, my angry strides carrying me out of earshot. Fuming,
I hurried across the long damp grass, avoiding here and there the
fallen limb of an elm or a huge round of holly. I wanted to get out of
the way, and be out of the way; and made such haste that before the
slowly moving cavalcade had traversed one-half of the interval between
the road and the house I had reached the bridge which crossed the
moat, and, pushing my way impatiently through the maids and scullions
who had flocked to it to see the show, had passed into the courtyard.
The light was failing, and the place looked dark and gloomy in spite
of the warm glow of burning logs which poured from the lower windows,
and some show of green boughs which had been placed over the doorways
in honor of the occasion. I glanced up at a lattice in one of the
gables--the window of Petronilla's little parlor. There was no face at
it, and I turned fretfully into the hall--and yes, there she was,
perched up in one of the high window-seats. She was looking out on the
chase, as the maids were doing.
Yes, as the maids were doing. She too was watching for his High
Mightiness, I muttered, and that angered me afresh. I crossed the
rushes in silence, and climbed up beside her.
"Well," I said ungraciously, as she started, hearing me at her
shoulder, "well, have you seen enough of him yet, cousin? You will, I
warrant you, before he leaves. A little of him goes far."
"A little of whom, Francis?" she asked simply.
Though her voice betrayed some wonder at my rough tone, she was so
much engaged with the show that she did not look at me immediately.
This of course kept my anger warm, and I began to feel that she was in
the conspiracy against me.
"Of my Lord of Winchester, of course," I answered, laughing rudely;
"of Sir Hot-Pot!"
"Why do you call him that?" she remonstrated in gentle wonder. And
then she did turn her soft dark eyes upon me. She was a slender,
willowy girl in those days, with a complexion clear yet pale--a maiden
all bending and gracefulness, yet with a great store of secret
firmness, as I was to learn. "He seems as handsome an old man," she
continued, "as I have ever met, and stately and benevolent, too, as I
see him at this distance. What is the matter with you, Francis? What
has put you out?"
"Put me out!" I retorted angrily. "Who said anything had put me out?"
But I reddened under her eyes; I was longing to tell her all, and be
comforted, while at the same time I shrank with a man's shame from
saying to her that I had been beaten.
"I can see that something is the matter," she said sagely, with her
head on one side, and that air of being the elder which she often
assumed with me, though she was really the younger by two years. "Why
did you not wait for the others? Why have you come home alone?
Francis," [with sudden conviction] "you have vexed my father! That is
it!"
"He has beaten me like a dog!" I blurted out passionately; "and before
them all! Before those strangers he flogged me!"
She had her back to the window, and some faint gleam of wintry
sunshine, passing through the gules of the shield blazoned behind her,
cast a red stain on her dark hair and shapely head. She was silent,
probably through pity or consternation; but I could not see her face,
and misread her. I thought her hard, and, resenting this, bragged on
with a lad's empty violence.
"He did; but I will not stand it! I give you warning, I won't stand
it, Petronilla!" and I stamped, young bully that I was, until the dust
sprang out of the boards, and the hounds by the distant hearth jumped
up and whined. "No! not for all the base bishops in England!" I
continued, taking a step this way and that. "He had better not do it
again! If he does, I tell you it will be the worse for some one!"
"Francis," she exclaimed abruptly, "you must not speak in that way!"
But I was too angry to be silenced, though instinctively I changed my
ground.
"Stephen Gardiner!" I cried furiously. "Who is Stephen Gardiner, I
should like to know? He has no right to call himself Gardiner at all!
Dr. Stephens he used to call himself, I have heard. A child with no
name but his godfather's; that is what he is, for all his airs and his
bishopric! Who is he to look on and see a Cludde beaten? If my uncle
does not take care----"
"Francis!" she cried again, cutting me short ruthlessly. "Be silent,
sir!" [and this time I was silent], "You unmanly boy," she continued,
her face glowing with indignation, "to threaten my father before my
face! How dare you, sir? How dare you? And who are you, you poor
child," she exclaimed, with a startling change from invective to
sarcasm--"who are you to talk of bishops, I should like to know?"
"One," I said sullenly, "who thinks less of cardinals and bishops than
some folk, Mistress Petronilla!"
"Ay, I know," she retorted scathingly--"I know that you are a kind of
half-hearted Protestant--neither fish, flesh, nor fowl!"
"I am what my father made me!" I muttered.
"At any rate," she replied, "you do not see how small you are, or you
would not talk of bishops. Heaven help us! That a boy who has done
nothing and seen nothing, should talk of the Queen's Chancellor! Go!
Go on, you foolish boy, and rule a country, or cut off heads, and then
you may talk of such men--men who could unmake you and yours with a
stroke of the pen! You, to talk so of Stephen Gardiner! Fie, fie, I
say! For shame!"
I looked at her, dazed and bewildered, and had long afterward in my
mind a picture of her as she stood above me, in the window bay, her
back to the light, her slender figure drawn to its full height, her
hand extended toward me. I could scarcely understand or believe that
this was my gentle cousin. I turned without a word and stole away, not
looking behind me. I was cowed.
It happened that the servants came hurrying in at the moment with a
clatter of dishes and knives, and the noise covered my retreat. I had
a fancy afterward that, as I moved away, Petronilla called to me. But
at the time, what with the confusion and my own disorder, I paid no
heed to her, but got myself blindly out of the hall, and away to my
own attic.
It was a sharp lesson. But my feelings when, being alone, I had time
to feel, need not be set down. After events made them of no moment,
for I was even then on the verge of a change so great that all the
threats and misgivings, the fevers and agues, of that afternoon, real
as they seemed at the time, became in a few hours as immaterial as the
dew which fell before yesterday's thunderstorm.
The way the change began to come about was this. I crept in late to
supper, facing the din and lights, the rows of guests and the hurrying
servants, with a mixture of shame and sullenness. I was sitting down
with a scowl next the Bishop's pages--my place was beside them,
half-way down the table, and I was not too careful to keep my feet
clear of their clothing--when my uncle's voice, raised in a harsher
tone than was usual with him, even when he was displeased, summoned
me.
"Come here, sirrah!" he cried roundly. "Come here, Master Francis! I
have a word to speak to you!"
I went slowly, dragging my feet, while all looked up, and there was a
partial silence. I was conscious of this, and it nerved me. For a
moment indeed, as I stepped on to the dais I had a vision of scores of
candles and rushlights floating in mist, and of innumerable bodiless
faces all turned up to me. But the vision and the mistiness passed
away, and left only my uncle's long, thin face inflamed with anger,
and beside it, in the same ring of light, the watchful eyes and stern,
impassive features of Stephen Gardiner. The Bishop's face and his eyes
were all I saw then; the same face, the same eyes, I remembered, which
had looked unyielding into those of the relentless Cromwell and had
scarce dropped before the frown of a Tudor. His purple cap and
cassock, the lace and rich fur, the chain of office, I remembered
afterward.
"Now, boy," thundered Sir Anthony, pointing out the place where I
should stand, "what have you to say for yourself? why have you so
misbehaved this afternoon? Let your tongue speak quickly, do you hear,
or you will smart for it. And let it be to the purpose, boy!"
I was about to answer something--whether it was likely to make things
worse or better, I cannot remember--when Gardiner stayed me. He laid
his hand gently on Sir Anthony's sleeve, and interposed. "One moment,"
he said mildly, "your nephew did not stay for the Church's blessing, I
remember. Perhaps he has scruples. There are people nowadays who have.
Let us hear if it be so."
This time it was Sir Anthony who did not let me answer.
"No, no," he cried hastily; "no, no; it is not so. He conforms, my
lord, he conforms. You conform, sir," he continued, turning fiercely
upon me, "do you not? Answer, sir."
"Ah!" the Bishop put in with a sneer, "you conform, do you?"
"I attend mass--to please my uncle," I replied boldly.
"He was ill brought up as a child," Sir Anthony said hastily, speaking
in a tone which those below could not hear. "But you know all that, my
lord--you know all that. It is an old story to you. So I make, and I
pray you to make for the sake of the house, some allowance. He
conforms; he undoubtedly conforms."
"Enough!" Gardiner assented. "The rest is for the good priest here,
whose ministrations will no doubt in time avail. But a word with this
young gentleman, Sir Anthony, on another subject. If it was not to the
holy office he objected, perhaps it was to the Queen's Chancellor, or
to the Queen?" He raised his voice with the last words and bent his
brows, so that I could scarcely believe it was the same man speaking.
"Eh, sir, was that so?" he continued severely, putting aside Sir
Anthony's remonstrance and glowering at me. "It may be that we have a
rebel here instead of a heretic."
"God forbid!" cried the knight, unable to contain himself. It was
clear that he repented already of his ill-timed discipline. "I will
answer for it that we have no Wyatts here, my lord."
"That is well!" the Chancellor replied. "That is well!" he repeated,
his eyes leaving me and roving the hall with so proud a menace in
their glance that all quailed, even the fool. "That is very well," he
said, drumming on the table with his fingers; "but let Master Francis
speak for himself."
"I never heard," said I boldly--I had had a moment for thought--"that
Sir Thomas Wyatt had any following in this country. None to my
knowledge. As for the Queen's marriage with the Prince of Spain, which
was the ground, as we gathered here, of Wyatt's rising with the
Kentish folk, it seems a matter rather for the Queen's grace than her
subjects. But if that be not so, I, for my part, would rather have
seen her married to a stout Englishman--ay, or to a Frenchman."
"And why, young gentleman?"
"Because I would we kept at peace with France. We have more to gain by
fighting Spain than fighting France," I answered bluntly.
My uncle held up his hands. "The boy is clean mad!" he groaned. "Who
ever heard of such a thing? With all France, the rightful estate of
her Majesty, waiting to be won back, he talks of fighting Spain! And
his own grandmother was a Spaniard!"
"I am none the less an Englishman for that!" I said; whereon there was
a slight murmur of applause in the hall below. "And for France," I
continued, carried away by this, "we have been fighting it, off and
on, as long as men remember; and what are we the better? We have only
lost what we had to begin. Besides, I am told that France is five
times stronger than it was in Henry the Fifth's time, and we should
only spend our strength in winning what we could not hold. While as to
Spain----"
"Ay, as to Spain?" grumbled Sir Anthony, forgetting his formidable
neighbor, and staring at me with eyes of wonder. "Why, my father
fought the French at Guinegate, and my grandfather at Cherbourg, and
his father at Agincourt! But there! As to Spain, you popinjay?"
"Why, she is conquering here," I answered warmly, "and colonizing
there among the newly-discovered countries of the world, and getting
all the trade and all the seaports and all the gold and silver; and
Spain after all is a nation with no greater strength of men than
England. Ay, and I hear," I cried, growing more excited and raising my
voice, "that now is our time or never! The Spaniards and the
Portuguese have discovered a new world over seas.
"A Castilla y a Leon
Nuevo mundo dio Coton!
say they; but depend upon it, every country that is to be rich and
strong in the time that is coming must have part in it. We cannot
conquer either Spain or France; we have not men enough. But we have
docks and sailors, and ships in London and Fowey, and Bristol and the
Cinque Ports, enough to fight Spain over the great seas, and I say,
'Have at her!'"
"What next?" groaned Sir Anthony piteously. "Did man ever hear such
crackbrained nonsense?"
But I think it was not nonsense, for his words were almost lost in the
cry which ran through the hall as I ceased speaking--a cry of English
voices. One moment my heart beat high and proudly with a new sense of
power; the next, as a shadow of a cloud falls on a sunny hillside, the
cold sneer on the statesman's face fell on me and chilled me. His set
look had neither thawed nor altered, his color had neither come nor
gone. "You speak your lesson well, lad," he said. "Who taught you
statecraft?"
I grew smaller, shrinking with each word he uttered; and faltered, and
was dumb.
"Come," he said, "you see but a little way; yet country lads do not
talk of Fowey and Bristol! Who primed you?"
"I met a Master Sebastian Cabot," I said reluctantly at last, when he
had pressed me more than once, "who stayed a while at a house not far
from here, and had been Inspector of the Navy to King Edward. He had
been a seaman seventy years, and he talked----"
"Too fast!" said Gardiner, with a curt nod. "But enough, I understand.
I know the man. He is dead."
He was silent then, and seemed to have fallen suddenly into thought,
as a man well might who had the governing of a kingdom on his
shoulders.
Seemingly he had done with me. I looked at Sir Anthony. "Ay, go!" he
said irritably, waving me off. "Go!"
And I went. The ordeal was over, and over so successfully that I felt
the humiliation of the afternoon cheap at the price of this triumph;
for, as I stepped down, there was a buzz around me, a murmur of
congratulation and pride and excitement. On every Coton face I marked
a flush, in every Coton eye I read a sparkle, and every flush and
every sparkle was for me. Even the Chancellor's secretaries, grave,
down-looking men, all secrecy and caution, cast curious glances at me,
as though I were something out of the common; and the Chancellor's
pages made way for me with new-born deference. "There is for country
wits!" I heard Baldwin Moor cry gleefully, while the man who put food
before me murmured of "the Cludde bull-pup!" If I read in Father
Carey's face, as indeed I did, solicitude as well as relief and
gladness, I marked the latter only, and hugged a natural pride to my
breast. When Martin Luther said boldly that it was not only Bishop
could fill a bowl, it was by an effort I refrained from joining in the
laugh which followed.
For an hour I enjoyed this triumph, and did all but brag of it.
Especially I wished Petronilla had witnessed it. At the end of that
time--_Finis_, as the book says. I was crossing the courtyard,
one-half of which was bathed in a cold splendor of moonlight, and was
feeling the first sobering touch of the night air on my brow, when I
heard some one call out my name. I turned, to find one of the
Chancellor's servants, a sleek, substantial fellow, with a smug mouth,
at my elbow.
"What is it?" I said.
"I am bidden to fetch you at once, Master Cludde," he answered, a
gleam of sly malice peeping through the gravity of his demeanor. "The
Chancellor would see you in his room, young sir."