MISTRESS BETTY USES HER WHIP
TIDINGS of an arrest for high treason travelled but slowly. The
movements of the government were swift and secret. A man might be
pounced upon, examined, committed to prison, and his own family be
unconscious of his situation. It was a golden opportunity for the false
witness; for the public gratification of private malice. The marvellous
stories told at the trials showed the luxuriance of the popular
imagination.
No intimation of Lord Raby’s fate reached the household at Deptford. He
had been expected to return almost immediately, but he came not, and
his absence was attributed to some unlooked-for business. At first,
Sir William threatened to set out for Devon without him, but seeing
his niece’s disappointment and remembering that Raby had accepted a
commission from him, he decided to wait, although he chafed under the
delay.
The third day after Raby’s departure, Mistress Betty was riding through
the fields behind Lady Crabtree’s house. She had been out with her
uncle and was returning alone by a short cut, leaving Sir William some
distance behind, engaged in conversation with an acquaintance. The
meadow through which Betty rode lay behind the orchards and was skirted
on the right by a copse of beech-trees. She was walking her horse and
had come nearly to the middle of the field, when a man stepped out from
the shadow of the trees. At first, taking him for one of old Madam’s
household, she did not notice him, and it was not until he had fairly
placed himself before her horse that she recognized Sir Barton Henge.
Her animal stopping of its own accord, Henge caught the bridle and for
the moment held her prisoner. She was not naturally fearful and her
only feeling was one of indignation.
“Let go the bridle, sir!” she said angrily; “what right have you to
stop me?”
“I have tidings for you, fair mistress,” Sir Barton replied, with an
evil smile upon his handsome face; “tidings of my Lord Raby, which are
for your ear alone.”
“Sir, loose my horse!” she cried, vainly endeavoring to drive the
animal forward or to one side, but Henge was too strong for her and
held the creature’s head.
“You seem not over-anxious to hear tidings of your lover,” he said
mockingly; “yet it may be that you will presently find it difficult to
get any more.”
Something in his manner, more than his words, drove the blood to her
heart. What had this wretch done? Where was Simon Raby? Yet so little
was she like other women that she forbore to cry out or ask a question.
She sat her horse like a statue, her face white and her great dark
eyes fixed on her tormentor. She scorned him, scorned even his power
to injure her, and he saw it and hated her the more; for between this
wild passion, that such men call love, and hatred there is but a single
step. Her beauty set his blood on fire, her scorn of him awoke every
evil impulse in his breast and made him long to humble her.
“So,” he said, with keen anticipation of the pain he had in store for
her, “you have no questions to ask, and Simon Raby’s fate is a matter
of indifference to you? ’Tis well; it would be a shame to spoil those
bright eyes with tears--even for a lover.”
She set her teeth and struck her horse upon the flank; the animal
plunged, but Henge held him yet. She looked back wildly for aid, but
she could not see her uncle. What folly had made her ride on alone?
“Well, well, I must tell you,” Henge said, smiling in evil triumph,
“since you are too shy to ask. Lord Raby is in the Tower.”
She knew the man to be a villain, yet something in his manner convinced
her that he spoke the truth. Raby’s long absence was explained, and a
chill of horror crept over her, but her pride sustained her resolution.
“He was taken the day he left you here,” continued Henge, a little
baffled by her manner and her silence; “he is charged with high treason
and is like to suffer for his sins. All these years he has but fawned
upon the king’s grace to betray him. A traitor and a pretty rogue, this
lover of yours, Mistress Carew!”
Wrath overcame Mistress Betty’s womanly fears; in her right hand she
held a stout whip, and she sat upright in her saddle, looking like a
beautiful young fury.
“You knave!” she cried; “you lying knave!” and she struck him full
across the face, below the eyes, with such sudden violence that he
relaxed his hold, and her horse plunging, set her free, and dashed away
across the field, while Sir Barton Henge stood staring after her, a
curse upon his lips and on his face the great red welt that followed
her lash. And she, riding to the house, dismounted, and running into
the hall, fell on her knees before old Madam, and hiding her face in
her lap, cried out that Simon Raby was in the Tower.
“Yea, I know,” said my lady, calmly, “and they have taken the wizard,
Zachary Sanders; ’tis a pretty mess. Come, my wench, tears will not
mend the matter nor unlock the jail.”
As she spoke, Sir William came in, fresh from a gallop across the
fields, and smiling; but at the sight of Betty’s white face and the
frown between old Madam’s brows, he stopped.
“What means this?” he asked; “you look as if you had seen a
corpse-light.”
“There be tidings from London,” Lady Crabtree answered; “Lord Raby hath
gone to the Tower accused of high treason.”
Amazement tied Sir William’s tongue; he seated himself opposite his
cousin and waited for an explanation, his honest face much clouded.
Lady Crabtree spread out a letter on her knee and prepared to read the
news.
“This comes from Mistress Gaynsford, Queen Anne’s maid,” she said, her
open hand resting on the long roll of parchment; “she is a gossip, but
I doubt not the truth of the matter.”
“Let us hear it, Zenobia,” Carew returned impatiently.
“She says of the arrest,” began my lady, reading, “‘Lord Raby was
taken on a charge, secretly preferred to my lord privy seal, and on
examination, a packet was found on his person, filled with treasonable
papers, and exposing the network of a huge conspiracy. Many names were
on a list therein; whose we know not, but Cromwell and the king’s
grace have the papers, and doubtless many tremble in the fear of
apprehension. No one knows where the lightning hath struck or who is
spared, but ’tis said the gentlemen in the northern counties are many
of them singed. The strangest part of the matter is that there runs a
story that Raby gave this budget to my lord privy seal himself with
every show of innocence, and when it was thought that he did it through
an error, having two upon his person, he was searched, but none other
was found; and what madness made him give this to Cromwell, no man can
devise.’”
“’Tis passing strange,” remarked Sir William; “where was my packet?”
“‘These papers,’” continued old Madam, reading, “‘contained such full
betrayal of the wizard Sanders, who so frightened the late queen, that
the order for his arrest was given. The fashion in which he was taken
will furnish you with entertainment withal. The man who played the
informer, in the first instance, before Raby’s arrest, had mastered
almost every secret of the strange house upon the river. He told the
officers of the guard who went to take the astrologer that there was
a tunnel from the cellar of the house, and that they must guard first
the outlet of that before they strove to force the upper part. The
entrance in the house he had never found, but the outlet by the river
he knew. They said ’twas scarce larger than a mole-hill and cleverly
concealed. Well, here sat down three of the king’s men, while others
went and searched the house. There they were transfixed by terror, for
when each one looked in that magic mirror, he saw the devil, horns and
hoofs and tail, but when they all looked, it was blank. A young page
with them had a fit from fright. ’Tis said by some that it is only too
faithful a glass. They found not the wizard, nor was there a bit of
writing there. But the trio by the hole in the ground had better luck.
Out of it the magician appeared so suddenly, and was so near the color
of the earth in his russet cloak, that he frightened them so much that
two fell sprawling in the river mud, and had not the third been a big
man and valiant, my lord wizard would have escaped. They have him now
safe in the Tower, though ’tis said he rides out of it each night upon
a moonbeam and returns when the cocks are crowing.
“‘How came my Lord Raby to conspire with this man? I remember that he
and Francis Bryan were ready to slit his throat the night the queen
took her fright. Yet ’tis said that the case is clear enough, and there
is some wonder when the trial will come off.
“‘The court is dull; Queen Jane is not yet crowned, though there is
constant talk of it. She will have no maids save those who wear a
girdle of over a hundred and twenty-five pearls. Anne Basset had one
from her mother, Lady Lisle, of a hundred and twenty, and she could not
appear in it. The king’s leg is said to be worse than reported; he is
fond of the queen, whom some think fairer than Anne; she can, at least,
wear more fine clothes at once and look better, while Queen Anne was
more beautiful in simple robes. This queen is very gracious to the Lady
Mary Tudor and ’tis thought will win upon the papists. She is--’”
“Oh, hush!” ejaculated Carew; “the woman’s pen is worse than her
tongue. I must to London to see what can be done for Raby; ’tis a bad
business, and I understand it not.”
All the while, Mistress Betty had listened with a pale face, resolution
growing in it as the matter unfolded itself. She did not speak of
Barton Henge; his part in it sank into insignificance now.
“Uncle,” she said firmly, “I will go with you.”
“What, wench?” he said in surprise; “of what use would you be?”
“Nevertheless, deny me not,” Betty said; “I would go and, at least, I
will not hinder you.”
“Let her have her way, William,” Lady Crabtree said; “the girl’s face
will help you, and she is in a mood to fret out her heart here.”