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THE LIBRARY OF ROMANCE.
Edited
by LEITCH RITCHIE.
VOL. V.
THE BONDMAN.
London:
Smith, Elder and Co., 65, Cornhill.
1833.
Printed by Stewart and Co., Old Bailey.
THE BONDMAN.
A Story of the Times of Wat Tyler.
London:
Smith, Elder and Co., 65, Cornhill;
1833.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The idea of the following tale was suggested on reading the first
volume of Robertson's Charles the Fifth, on the Feudal Policy of
Germany; and the picture of moral and political debasement presented in
those pages, whether as regards the oppressor or the oppressed. Those
revolting distinctions have, however, passed away--villein is but a
thing that was. But if the old chronicles are to be credited, the monk,
whom the author has endeavoured to pourtray in the course of this tale,
was the first who whispered in the ear of an English serf, that slavery
was not his birthright.
It may, perhaps, be superfluous to add, that all the legal information
scattered through the volume, is strictly correct; and every historical
event, as nearly so as the machinery of the tale permitted. The
critical reader, whose indulgence the writer solicits, will immediately
perceive from whence the information has been derived.
THE BONDMAN.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
About a quarter of a mile south of Winchcombe, on the summit of a
gentle elevation, are still the remains of a castle, which, as Fuller
says, "was of subjects' castles the most handsome habitation, and of
subjects' habitations the strongest castle."
In the month of August, in the year thirteen hundred and seventy-four,
this distinguished place, called Sudley Castle, presented an
interesting scene--the then owner, in consequence of his father's
death, holding his first court for receiving the homage and fealty of
his vassals.
The court-yards were thronged with the retainers of the Baron,
beguiling the hour until the ceremony called them into the hall. This
apartment, which corresponded in magnificence and beauty with the
outward appearance of the noble pile, was of an oblong shape. Carved
representations of battles adorned the lofty oaken ceiling, and
suspended were banners and quarterings of the Sudley and De Boteler
families. Ancestral statues of oak, clad in complete armour, stood
in niches formed in the thick walls. The heavy linked mail of the
Normans, with the close helmet, or skull cap, fastened under the chin,
and leaving the face exposed, encased those who represented the early
barons of Sudley; while those of a later period were clad in the more
convenient, and more beautiful armour of the fourteenth century. The
walls were covered with arms, adapted to the different descriptions of
soldiers of the period, and arranged so, as each might provide himself
with his proper weapons, without delay or confusion.
The hall had a tesselated pavement, on which the arms of the united
families of Sudley and De Boteler (the latter having inherited by
marriage, in consequence of a failure of male issue in the former)
were depicted with singular accuracy and beauty. About midway from
the entrance, two broad steps of white marble led to the part of the
hall exclusively appropriated to the owner of the castle. The mosaic
work of this privileged space was concealed on the present occasion
by a covering of fine crimson cloth. A large arm chair, covered with
crimson velvet, with the De Boteler arms richly emblazoned on the high
back, over which hung a velvet canopy fringed with gold, was placed
in the centre of the elevation; and several other chairs with similar
coverings and emblazonings, but wanting canopies, were disposed around
for the accommodation of the guests.
The steward at length appeared, and descended the steps to classify
the people for the intended homage, and to satisfy himself that none
had disobeyed the summons.
The tenantry were arranged in the following order:--
First--the steward and esquire stood on either side next the steps.
Then followed the vassals who held lands for watching and warding the
castle. These were considered superior to the other vassals from the
peculiar nature of their tenure, as the life-guards, as it were, of
their lord.
Then those who held lands in chivalry, namely, by performing stated
military services, the perfection of whose tenures was homage.
The next were those who held lands by agricultural or rent service, and
who performed fealty as a memorial of their attachment and dependence.
The bondmen, or legally speaking, the villeins, concluded the array.
These were either attached to the soil or to the person. The former
were designated _villeins appendant_, because following the transfer
of the ground, like fixtures of a freehold, their persons, lands, and
goods, being the property of the lord; they might be chastised, but not
maimed. They paid a fine on the marriage of females; who obtained their
freedom on marriage with a free man, but returned again to bondage
on surviving their husband. The latter class were called _villeins
in gross_, and differed nothing from the others except in name; the
term signifying that they were severed from the soil, and followed the
person of the lord. Neither of the classes were permitted to leave the
lands of their owner; and on flight or settlement in towns or cities,
might be pursued and reclaimed. An action for damages lay against those
who harboured them, or who refused to deliver them up,--the law also
provided a certain form of writ by which the sheriff was commanded
to seize, or obtain them by force. There was one mode, however, of
nullifying the right of capture. If the runaway resided on lands of the
king, for a year and a day, without claim, he could not be molested
for the future; although he was still liable, if caught beyond the
precincts of the royal boundary, to be retaken.
The classification had just finished, when a door at the upper end of
the hall was thrown open, and the Baron of Sudley entered, attended by
his guests, and followed by a page.
Roland de Boteler was a man about six-and-twenty, of a tall,
well-proportioned figure, with an open, handsome countenance; but
there was a certain boldness or freedom in the laughing glance of
his large black eyes, and in the full parted lips, blended with an
expression, which though not perhaps exactly haughty or cruel, yet told
distinctly enough that he was perfectly regardless of the feelings
of his dependants, and considered them merely as conducive to his
amusement, or to the display of military power. A doublet of crimson
cloth, embroidered with gold, was well chosen to give advantage to his
dark complexion. His tunic composed of baudykin, or cloth of gold,
was confined round the waist by a girdle, below which it hung in full
plaits, nearly to the knee,--thus allowing little of his trunk hose,
of rich velvet, corresponding in colour with the doublet, to be seen.
Over his dress he wore a surcoat or mantle of fine violet-coloured
cloth, fastened across the breast, with a gold clasp, and lined with
minever. His hair, according to the fashion introduced by the Black
Prince, when he brought over his royal captive, John of France, fell
in thick short curls below a cap in colour and material resembling
his mantle, and edged with minever; and the lip and chin wore neither
mustachio nor beard.
His eye fell proudly for a moment on the assembled yeomen, as he
took his seat for the first time as Lord of Sudley; but speedily the
ceremony commenced.
The individual first summoned from among the group, was a tall athletic
young man of about twenty-five, with a complexion fair but reddened
through exposure to the seasons. His hair was light-brown, thick and
curly, and there was a good-humoured expression in the clear grey eyes,
and in the full, broad, well marked countenance, that would give one
the idea of a gay, thoughtless spirit--had it not been for the bold
and firm step, and the sudden change of feature from gay to grave as
he advanced to the platform, and met unabashed the Baron's scrutiny,
at once indicating that the man possessed courage and decision when
occasion required these qualities to be called into action.
Stephen Holgrave ascended the marble steps, and proceeded on till he
stood at the baron's feet. He then unclasped the belt of his waist, and
having his head uncovered, knelt down, and holding up both his hands.
De Boteler took them within his own, and the yeoman said in a loud,
distinct voice--
"Lord Roland de Boteler, I become your man from this day forward, of
life and limb and earthly worship, and unto you shall be true and
faithful, and bear to you faith, for the lands that I claim to hold of
you, saving the faith that I owe unto our sovereign lord the king."
The baron then bent his head forward and kissed the young man's
forehead; and unloosing his hands, Holgrave arose, and bending his
head, stood to hear what De Boteler might say.
"You have spoken well, Holgrave," said De Boteler, looking
good-humouredly upon the yeoman, "and, truly, if the life of Roland de
Boteler is worth any thing, you have earned your reward; and, here, in
the presence of this good company, I covenant for myself and my heirs,
that you and your heirs, shall hold the land for ever, in chivalry,
presenting every feast of the Holy Baptist, a pair of gloves."
"Calverley," said the baron, as Holgrave retired, and while addressing
his esquire, his features assumed a peculiar expression: "What a pity
it is that a yeoman should reap the reward of a service that _should_
have been performed by you had your health permitted!"
The sarcastic smile that accompanied these words, called up a glow even
deeper than envy had done; yet, in a calm voice, Calverley replied,
"The land, my lord, though the gift be fair, is of little account in
comparison with the honour of the deed; but I may humbly say, that if
Thomas Calverley had witnessed his master's peril, he would have been
found as valiant in his defence as the yeoman, whose better fortune it
was to be present."
"Aye, aye, my good 'squire," said the baron, still in a laughing
tone, "your illness, I am told, gave you a most outrageous
appetite--doubtless your feeble constitution needed strengthening!
Come, come, man, it is but a joke--never look so blank; yet, if _we_
laugh, there is no reason why those knaves should stand grinning there
from ear to ear. Bid the senior vassal advance."
The vassals who were to perform homage then prepared to go through the
customary form; and an old grey-headed man advanced first from the
group to do fealty, and, standing before the baron, pronounced after
him the following oath, holding his right hand on the gospels:--
"I, John Hartwell, will be to you, my Lord Roland de Boteler, true and
faithful, and bear to you fealty and faith for the lands and tenements
which I hold of you; and I will truly do and perform the customs and
services that I ought to do to you, so help me God!" The old man then
kissed the book, and retired to give place to the next; and so on till
all who owed fealty had gone through the ceremony.
Lastly advanced from among the bondmen, or villeins, the oldest
servitor, and, holding his right hand over the book, pronounced after
De Boteler--
"Hear you, my Lord de Boteler, that I, William Marson, from this day
forth unto you shall be true and faithful, and shall owe you fealty for
the land which I may hold of you in villeinage, and shall be justified
by you both in body and goods, so help me God and all the saints."
After kissing the book he withdrew; and the bondmen successively
renewed their servile compact.
While the vassals were retiring from the hall, the Lord de Boteler
turned to the gentleman near him--
"Sir Robert," said he, "you saw that vassal who first did homage?--to
that base-born churl I owe my life. I had engaged hand to hand with a
French knight, when my opponent's esquire treacherously attacked me
from behind. This was observed by my faithful follower, who struck down
the coward with his axe, and, in a moment more, rid me of the knight by
a blow that cleft his helmet and entered his brain. He also, by rare
chance, I know not how, slew the bearer of that banner yonder, and,
when the battle was over, laid it at my feet."
"You have made him a freeman since then?" inquired Sir Robert.
"No; he received his freedom from my father when a boy for some
juvenile service--I hardly remember what. Yet I shall never forget the
look of the varlet--as if it mattered to such as he whether they were
free or not! He stared for an instant at my father--the tears trembling
in his eyes, and all the blood in his body, I verily believe, reddening
his face, and he looked as if he would have said something; but my
father and I did not care to listen, and we turned away. As for the
land he has now received, I promised it him on the field of battle, and
I could not retract my word."
"No, baron," said Sir Robert; "the man earned it by his bravery: and
surely the life of the Lord de Boteler is worth more than a piece of
dirty land."
De Boteler, not caring to continue so uninteresting a subject,
discoursed upon other matters; and the business of the morning having
concluded, he retired with his guests from the hall.
It was about a fortnight after this court day that the fortunate yeoman
one morning led his mother, Edith Holgrave, to the cottage he had built
on the land that was now his own.
Edith entered the cottage, her hand resting for support upon the
shoulder of her son--for she was feeble, though not so much from age
as from a weak constitution. As she stepped over the threshold she
devoutly crossed herself; and when they stood upon the earthen floor,
she withdrew her left hand from the arm that supported her, and,
sinking upon her knees, and raising up her eyes, exclaimed--
"May He, in whose hands are the ends of the earth, preserve thee, my
son, from evil. And oh! may He bless this house!"
While she spoke, her eyes brightened, and her pale face for a short
time glowed with the fervor of her soul.
"Stephen, my son," she continued (as with his aid she arose and seated
herself upon a wooden stool), "many days of sorrow have I seen, but
this proud day is an atonement for all. _My_ father was a freeman,
but _thy_ father was a serf;--but all are alike in _His_ eyes, who
oftentimes gives the soul of a churl to him who dwelleth in castles,
and quickens the body of the base of birth with a spirit that might
honour the wearer of crimson and gold. My husband was a villein, but
his soul spurned the bondage; and oftentimes, my son, when you have
been an infant in my arms, thy father wished that the free-born breast
which nourished you, could infuse freedom into your veins. _He_ did not
live to see it; but oh! what a proud day was that for me, when my son
no longer bore the name of slave! I had prayed--I had yearned for that
day; and it at length repaid me for all the taunts of our neighbours,
who reviled me because my spirit was not such as theirs!"
"Come, come, mother," interrupted Holgrave, "don't agitate yourself;
there is time to talk of all this by-and-bye."
"And so there is, child--but I am old; and the aged, as well as the
young, love to be talking. Stephen, you must bear with your mother."
"Aye, that I will, mother," replied Holgrave, kissing her cheek which
had assumed its accustomed paleness; "and ill befall the son that will
not!"
Leaving his mother to attend to the visitors who crowded in to drink
success to the new proprietor in a cup of ale, Stephen Holgrave stole
unobserved out of the cottage towards nightfall.
Passing through Winchcombe, he arrived at a small neat dwelling, in a
little sequestered valley, about a quarter of a mile from the town--the
tenant of which lowly abode is of no small consequence to our story.
Like Holgrave, Margaret was the offspring of the bond and the free. Her
father had been a bondman attached to the manor of Sudley; and her
mother a poor friendless orphan, with no patrimony save her freedom.
Such marriages were certainly of rare occurrence, because women
naturally felt a repugnance to become the mother of serfs; but still,
that they did occur, is evidenced by the law of villeinage, ordaining
that the children of a bondman and free woman should in no wise partake
of their mother's freedom.
It might be, perhaps, that this similarity in their condition had
attracted them towards each other; or it might be that, as Margaret
had been motherless since her birth, and Edith had nursed and reared
her till she grew to womanhood, from the feelings natural to long
association, love had grown and strengthened in Stephen's heart.
Indeed, there were not many of her class who could have compared with
this young woman. Her figure was about the middle height of her sex,
and so beautifully proportioned, that even the close kerchief and
russet gown could not entirely conceal the symmetrical formation of
the broad white shoulders, the swelling bust, and the slender waist.
Plain braids of hair of the darkest shade, and arched brows of the same
hue, gave an added whiteness to a forehead smooth and high; and her
full intelligent eyes, with a fringe as dark as her hair, were of a
clear deep blue. The feminine occupation of a sempstress had preserved
the delicacy of her complexion, and had left a soft flickering
blush playing on her cheek. Such was Margaret the beloved--the
betrothed--whom Holgrave was now hastening to invite, with all the
simple eloquence of honest love, to become the bride of his bosom--the
mistress of his home.
The duskiness of the twilight hour was lightened by the broad beams of
an autumn moon; and as the moonlight, streaming full upon the thatch,
revealed distinctly the little cot that held his treasure, all the high
thoughts of freedom and independence, all the wandering speculative
dreamings that come and go in the heart of man, gave place, for a
season, to one engrossing feeling. Margaret was not this evening, as
she was wont to be, sitting outside the cottage door awaiting his
approach. The door was partly opened--he entered--and beheld a man
kneeling before her, and holding one of her hands within his own!
"Stephen Holgrave!" cried the devotee, jumping up, "what brings you
here at such an hour?"
"What brings me, Calverley!" replied Holgrave, furiously, "who are you,
to ask such a question? What brings _you_ here?"
"My own will, Stephen Holgrave," answered Calverley in a calm tone;
"and mark you--this maiden has no right to plight her troth except with
her lord's consent. She is Lord de Boteler's bondwoman, and dares not
marry without his leave--which will never be given to wed with you."
"You talk boldly, sir, of my lord's intents," answered the yeoman
sulkily.
"I speak but the truth," replied Calverley. "You have been rewarded
well for the deed you did; and think not that your braggart speech
will win my lord. This maid is no meet wife for such as you. My lord
has offered me fair lands and her freedom if I choose to wed her: and
though many a free dowered maid would smile upon the suit of Thomas
Calverley, yet have I come to offer wedlock to Margaret."
"Margaret!" said Holgrave fiercely, "can this be true? answer me! Has
Calverley spoken of marriage to you?--why do you not answer? Have I
loved a false one?"
"No, Stephen," replied Margaret, in a low trembling voice.
Holgrave's mind was relieved as Margaret spoke, for he had confidence
in her truth. He knew, however, that Calverley stood high in the favour
of De Boteler, and he determined not to trust himself with further
words.
"Margaret," said Calverley suddenly, "I leave Sudley Castle on the
morrow to attend my lord to London. At my return I shall expect that
this silence be changed into language befitting the chosen bride of the
Baron de Boteler's esquire. Remember you are not yet free!--and now,
Stephen Holgrave, I leave not this cottage till you depart. The maiden
is my lord's nief, the cottage is his, and here I am privileged--not
you."
Fierce retorts and bitter revilings were on Holgrave's tongue; but the
sanctuary of a maiden's home was no place for contention. He knew that
Calverley did possess the power he vaunted; and, without uttering a
word, he crossed the threshold, and stood on the sod just beyond the
door.
Calverley paused a moment gazing on the blanched beauty of the agitated
girl, her cheek looking more pale from the moonlight that fell upon
it; and then, in the soft insinuating tone he knew so well how to
assume--
"Forgive me, Margaret," said he, "for what I have said. But oh," he
continued, taking her hand, and pressing it passionately to his bosom,
"You know not how much I love you!--Come, sir, will you walk?" Then
kissing the damsel's hand he relinquished it; and Margaret, with
streaming eyes and a throbbing heart, watched till the two receding
figures were lost in the distance.
Holgrave and Calverley pursued their path in sullen silence. There
were about a dozen paces between them, but neither were one foot in
advance of the other. On they went through Winchcombe and along the
road, till they came to where a footpath from the left intersected
the highway. Here they both, as if by mutual agreement, made a sudden
pause, and stood doggedly eyeing each other. At considerably less than
a quarter of a mile to the right was Sudley Castle; and at nearly the
same distance to the left was Holgrave's new abode. After the lapse of
several minutes, Calverley leaped across a running ditch to the right;
and Holgrave, having thus far conquered, turned to the left on his
homeward path.
The reader will, perhaps, feel some surprise that an esquire of the
rich and powerful Lord de Boteler should be thus competing with the
yeoman for the hand of a portionless humble nief; but it is necessary
to observe, in the first place, that in the fifteenth century esquires
were by no means of the consideration they had enjoyed a century
before. Some nobles, indeed, who were upholders of the ancient system,
still regarded an esquire as but a degree removed from a knight, but
these were merely exceptions;--the general rule, at the period we
are speaking of, was to consider an esquire simply as a principal
attendant, without the least claim to any distinction beyond. Such a
state of things accorded well with the temper of De Boteler;--he could
scarcely have endured the equality, which, in some measure, formerly
subsisted between the esquire and his lord. With him the equal might
be familiar, but the inferior must be submissive; and it was, perhaps,
the humility of Calverley's deportment that alone had raised him to the
situation he now held. Calverley, besides, had none of the requisites
of respectability which would have entitled him to take a stand among a
class such as esquires had formerly been.
About ten years before the commencement of our tale, a pale emaciated
youth presented himself one morning at Sudley Castle, desiring the
hospitality that was never denied to the stranger. Over his dress,
which was of the coarse monks' cloth then generally worn by the
religious, he wore a tattered cloak of the dark russet peculiar to the
peasant. That day he was fed, and that night lodged at the castle; and
the next morning, as he stood in a corner of the court-yard, apparently
lost in reflection as to the course he should next adopt, the young
Roland de Boteler, then a fine boy of fifteen, emerged from the stone
arch-way of the stable mounted on a spirited charger. The glow on his
cheek, the brightness of his eyes, and the youthful animation playing
on his face, and ringing in the joyous tones of his voice, seemed
to make the solitary dejected being, who looked as if he could claim
neither kindred nor home, appear even more care-worn and friendless.
The youth gazed at the young De Boteler, and ran after him as he rode
through the gateway followed by two attendants.
He then wandered about with a look of still deeper despondence, till
the trampling of the returning horses sent a transient tinge across
his cheek. He followed Roland's attendants, and again entered the
court-yard. By some chance, as the young rider was alighting, his eye
fell on the dejected stranger, who was standing at a little distance
fixing an anxious gaze upon the heir.
"Who is that sickly-looking carle, Ralph?" enquired De Boteler.
The attendant did not know. The youth interpreted the meaning of
Roland's glance, and approached, and, with a humble yet not ungraceful
obeisance--
"Noble young lord," said he, "may a wanderer crave leave to abide for a
time in this castle?"
"You have my leave," replied the boy in the consequential tone that
youth generally assumes when conferring a favour. "Indeed, you don't
look very fit to wander farther;--Ralph, see that this knave is
attended to."
The stranger was now privileged to remain, and a week's rest and
good cheer considerably improved his appearance. He did not presume,
however, to approach the part of the castle inhabited by the owners;
but never did the young Roland enter the court-yard, or walk abroad,
but the silent homage of the grateful stranger greeted him.
This strange youth was Thomas Calverley, and, by the end of a month,
Roland's eyes as instinctively sought for him when he needed an
attendant, as if he had been a regular domestic.
It was good policy in Calverley to propitiate the young De Boteler; for
had he presented himself to his father, although for a space he might
have been fed, he could never have presumed to obtrude himself upon his
notice.
There was a humility in the stranger which pleased Roland's imperious
temper; _he_ had granted the permission by which he abided in the
castle, and he seemed to feel a kind of interest in his protegé; and
the envy of his attendants was often excited by their young lord
beckoning to Calverley to assist him to mount, or alight, or do him
any other little service. Calverley began now to be considered as a
kind of inmate in the castle, and various were the whispered tales
that went about respecting him. At length it was discovered that he
was a scholar--that is, he could read and write; and the circumstance,
though it abated nothing of the whisperings of idle curiosity, entirely
silenced the taunts he had been compelled to endure. If still disliked,
yet was he treated with some respect; for none of the unlettered
domestics would have presumed to speak rudely to one so far above them
in intellectual attainments.
Such a discovery could not long remain a secret;--the tale reached the
ears of young De Boteler, and, already prepossessed in his favour, it
was but a natural consequence that Calverley should rise from being
first an assistant, to be the steward, the page, and, at length,
the esquire to the heir to the barony of Sudley. But the progress
of his fortunes did but add to the malevolence of the detractor and
the tale-bearer; theft, sacrilege, and even murder were hinted at
as probable causes for a youth, who evidently did not belong to the
vulgar, being thus a friendless outcast. But the most charitable
surmise was, that he was the offspring of the unhallowed love of some
dame or damsel who had reared him in privacy, and had destined him
for the church; and that either upon the death of his protectress, or
through some fault, he had been expelled from his home. Calverley had a
distant authoritative manner towards his equals and inferiors, which,
despite every effort, checked inquisitiveness; and all the information
he ever gave was, that he was the son of a respectable artizan of
the city of London, whom his father's death had left friendless.
Whether this statement was correct or not, could never be discovered.
Calverley was never known to allude to aught that happened in the years
previous to his becoming an inmate of the castle: what little he had
said was merely in reply to direct questions. It would seem, then,
that he stood alone in the world, and such a situation is by no means
enviable; and although duplicity, selfishness and tyranny, formed the
principal traits in his character; and though independently of tyranny
and selfishness, his mind instinctively shrunk from any contact, save
that of necessity, with those beneath him, yet had he gazed upon the
growing beauty of Margaret till a love pure and deep--a love in which
was concentrated all the slumbering affections, had risen and expanded
in his breast, until it had, as it were, become a part of his being.
Margaret had a brother--a monk in the abbey at Winchcombe, to whose
care she was indebted for the instructions which had made her a skilful
embroidress, and still more for the precautions which had preserved
her opening beauty from the gaze of the self-willed Roland de Boteler.
Though the daughter of a bondman, her services had never been demanded;
and father John had ultimately removed her from Edith's roof to the
little cottage already mentioned.
Calverley had intended to see Margaret again before leaving the castle;
but De Boteler, having changed the hour he had appointed, there was
not a moment to spare from the necessary arrangements. Never before
had Calverley's assumed equanimity of temper been so severely tried;
the patient attention with which he listened, and the prompt assiduity
with which he executed a thousand trifling commands--although, from
the force with which he bit his underlip, he was frequently compelled
to wipe away the blood from his mouth--shewed the absolute control he
had acquired over his feelings--at least so far as the exterior was
concerned.
The chapel bell rang for mass, at which Father John, the brother of
Margaret, officiated, in consequence of the sudden illness of the
resident chaplain. Calverley waited till the service was concluded;
and then, first pausing a few minutes to allow the monk to recite
the office, he unclosed the door of the sacristy and entered. Father
John was sitting with a book in his hand, and he still wore the white
surplice.
The ecclesiastic, on whose privacy Calverley had thus intruded, was
a man about thirty-five, of a tall muscular figure, with thick dark
hair encircling his tonsure, a thin visage, and an aquiline nose.
There was piety and meekness in the high pale forehead; and in the
whole countenance, when the eyes were cast down, or when their light
was partly shaded by the lids and the projecting brows: but when the
lids were raised, and the large, deeply-set eyes flashed full upon
the object of his scrutiny, there was a proud--a searching expression
in the glance which had often made the obdurate sinner tremble, and
which never failed to awe presumption and extort respect. Such was
the man whom Calverley was about to address; and from whose quiet,
unassuming demeanour at this moment, a stranger would have augured
little opposition to any reasonable proposal that might be suggested:
but Calverley well knew the character of the monk, and there was a kind
of hesitation in his voice as he said--
"Good morrow, holy father."
The monk silently bent his head.
"My Lord de Boteler," resumed Calverley, "will, in a few minutes,
depart hence. I attend him; but before I go, I would fain desire your
counsel."
"Speak on, my son," said the monk in a full deep voice, as Calverley
paused.
"Father John, you have a sister----"
"What of her?" asked the monk, looking inquiringly on the esquire.
"I love her!" replied Calverley, his hesitation giving place to an
impassioned earnestness.--"Why look you so much astonished? Has she
not beauty, and have I not watched the growth of that beauty from the
interesting loveliness of a child, to the full and fascinating charms
of a woman. Father John, you have never loved--you cannot tell the
conflict that is within my heart."
"But," asked the monk, "have you spoken to Margaret?"
"Last evening I went to give her freedom and to ask her love, when
Stephen Holgrave----"
"Did the baron empower you to free her?" eagerly asked the monk.
"Yes,--but Holgrave entered and----"
"She is still a nief?"
"Yes;--when that knave Holgrave entered, I could not speak of what was
burning in my breast."
"Stephen Holgrave is not a knave," returned the monk. "He is an honest
man, and Margaret is betrothed to him."
There was a momentary conflict in Calverley's breast as the monk
spoke;--there was a shade across his brow, and a slight tremor on his
lip, but he conquered the emotion--love triumphed, and, in a soft
imploring tone, he said--
"Think you, father, Holgrave loves her as I do; or think you his rude
untutored speech will accord well with so gentle a creature. Oh! father
John, be you my friend. Bid her forget the man who is unworthy of her!
She will listen to you--she will be guided by you--you are the only
kinsman she can claim;--and surely even you must wish rather to see
your sister attended almost as a mistress in this castle, than the
harassed wife of a laborious yeoman. Oh! if you win her to my arms,
I here swear to you, that not even your own heart could ask for more
gentle care than she will receive from me. My happiness centres in
_her_--to love her, to cherish her--to see the smile of joy for ever on
her lips."
At this moment a knock was heard at the door. Calverley opened it, and
De Boteler's page appeared to say, that if Thomas Calverley had wanted
the aid of the priest, he should have applied sooner, for his lord was
now waiting for him.
"Tell my lord," said Calverley, "I will attend him instantly."
The page withdrew, and Calverley, turning to the monk, asked hastily if
he might reckon on his friendship.
"Thomas Calverley," replied John, "I believe you do love my sister,
but I cannot force her inclinations;--I will not even strive to bias
her mind; there is a sympathy in hearts predestined to unite, which
attracts them towards each other;--if that secret sympathy exist not
between you, ye are not destined to become as one."
"Then you will not seek to win her to my love," asked Calverley,
impatiently.
"I will tell her," returned the monk, "that a love so devoted, so
disinterested, deserves in return an affection as pure: but if, after
all this, her heart still prefers the yeoman Holgrave, I will say no
more."
"And, think you, I shall endure rejection without an effort?"
"It is now too late! Why, if your happiness rested upon her, did you
defer declaring your love till the moment when she had promised to
become the wife of another? Know you not, Thomas Calverley, that even
as the rays of the bright sun dissolve the glittering whiteness of
the winter snow, just so do kind words and patient love enkindle warm
feelings in the bosom of the coldest virgin, and awaken sympathies in
her heart that else might for ever unconsciously have slumbered."
"You talk strange language," replied Calverley in a voice that had lost
all its assumed gentleness. "But--_remember_--I have not sought your
sister's love to be thus baffled--remember!----" Calverley was here
interrupted by a quick knocking at the door.
"Remember, father John," he continued, pausing ere he unclosed
the door, and speaking rapidly, "that mine is not the love of a
boy--that Thomas Calverley is not one whom it is _safe_ to trifle
with--that Margaret is a bondwoman--and that her freedom is in my
hands--_remember_!"
He repeated the last word in a tone of menace, and with a look that
seemed to dare the monk to sanction the union of his sister with
Holgrave. He opened the door, but, ere he passed through, his eye
caught an expression of proud contempt flashing in the dark hazel eyes,
and curving in the half-smiling lip of the man he had thus defied;--and
prudence whispered, that he had not properly estimated the character of
the priest.
CHAPTER II.
It was on a lovely October morning that the travellers returned to
Sudley. The whole region of the sky was of so clear and deep a blue,
that it seemed as if the pure cold breath of the morning had driven
every cloud and vapour far from the skies of merry England. The sun
shone brightly upon the yet green meadows, upon the hedges, and upon
the trees with their broad branches, and their scanty brown leaves:
the birds, rejoicing in the sun-light, were singing hymns of grateful
melody, as they darted among the branches, or sailed and curved in
the blue ether. Our fair Margaret, sympathizing in the gladness of
nature, could almost have sung in concert with the feathered choir,
as she tripped along with the light step that indicates a cheerful
heart. She had just reached that point of the Winchcombe road where
the green lane, turning to the left, led directly to her home, when,
catching a glimpse of an approaching figure, she raised her eyes and
beheld--Calverley.
Whether Calverley's quick glance had caught the marriage ring upon her
uncovered finger, or, whether the basket on her arm, together with the
circumstance of her being abroad at an hour that used to be devoted to
her needle, told him she was no longer a thing to be thought of with
hope, or looked on with love, it is difficult to say; but he stood
suddenly still, and his cheeks and lips became pale--almost livid.
Margaret turned and walked hastily down the path, her pallid cheek, and
trembling limbs, alone telling that she had recognized Calverley. He
stood silently gazing after her, till a winding in the path, shut her
out from his view. He then walked rapidly on to Winchcombe, entered the
first vintner's he came to, and, to the surprise of the host, who knew
Master Calverley to be a sober man, called for a measure of wine, drank
it off at a draught, and throwing down the money, departed as abruptly
as he came. In a few minutes after, he entered the room of old Luke,
the steward Sudley Castle.
"Master Luke," said he, with an assumed carelessness of manner, "you
are rather chary of my lord's wine--you have not yet offered me the cup
of welcome."
"I ask your pardon, Calverley," replied the steward, "but you so seldom
care for wine, that one hardly thinks of offering it to you: here,
however, is a cup that will do your heart good."
Calverley took the cup, and drinking it off with as much zest as if he
had not already tasted wine that morning--"Any news?" said he, "master
Luke--any news?"
"Not much, 'squire.--Stephen Holgrave, indeed, has got married, and,
I'll warrant me, there will be a fine to do about it; for he has
married a _nief_, and you know my lord is very particular about these
matters:--he told me, no longer ago than just before he went away this
last time, that he would not abate a jot of his due, in the marriages
or services of his bond-folk. To be sure the lass is sister of the monk
who now shrieves the castle, and, as my lord thinks much of Holgrave,
it may all blow over."
"Who married them?" asked Calverley, in a stifled voice.
"Oh! Father John, to be sure--nobody else--"
"Did he!" said Calverley, in a voice that made the old man start; but,
before the astonished steward could reply, he burst from the room. None
of the inmates of the castle saw him again during the remainder of that
day.
When he appeared before De Boteler the next morning, such a change had
twenty hours of mental suffering produced in his countenance, that his
lord, struck by the alteration, inquired if he were ill. Calverley
said something about a fall that had partly stunned him, but assured
De Boteler he was now perfectly well. While he yet spoke, the steward
entered, to say that Stephen Holgrave had come to crave his lordship's
pardon for marrying a nief without leave, and also to pay the merchet.
"Married a _nief_! has he?" returned De Boteler. "By my faith I thought
the kern had too proud a stomach to wed a nief. I thought he had no
such love for villeinage. I do not like those intermarriages. Were free
maidens so scarce that this Holgrave could not find a wife among them?"
Calverley slightly coloured as De Boteler spoke; he knew his lord
was no admirer of people stepping in the least out of their way, and
it seemed probable it was to him he alluded, when he expressed his
dislike of unequal marriages.
"Why, my lord," said Luke, in reply to De Boteler's interrogatory,
"there is hardly a free maiden in the parish that would not have been
glad of Stephen; but, though I have never seen her, I am told this
wife of his is the comeliest damsel between this and Winchcombe: and,
besides, she is not like a common nief--and then, my lord, she is the
sister of the good monk John."
"Father John's sister, is she?" asked the baron. "Why then my good
esquire here, has more to do with the matter than I--but however,
Luke, go tell Holgrave I cannot attend to him now"--"Why, Calverley,"
continued De Boteler, when the steward had withdrawn. "Is not this the
maiden you spoke to me about? Do not turn so pale man, but answer me."
"Yes, my lord," replied Calverley.
"And did this Holgrave dare to wed a nief of mine!--when I had already
disposed of her freedom and her hand?"
"Yes, my lord."
"By my faith, the knave is bold to thwart me thus."
"My lord," said Calverley; "the evening before you left the castle
for London, I went to the maiden's cottage to ask her hand; Holgrave
immediately came in, and I then distinctly told him that your lordship
had given me the maiden's freedom, and also had consented that I should
wed her, and yet, you see what regard he has paid to your will!"
"Yes, this is the gratitude of these base-born vassals; but,
Calverley, what priest presumed to wed them?"
"The monk John."
"What! the wife's brother! He who has attended the chapel since the
death of the late good father?"
"Yes, my lord."
"By Heavens! they seem all conspiring to set my will at nought!--he, at
least should have better known what was due to the lord of this castle."
"The monk," replied Calverley, "was not ignorant of my lord's will: and
it vexes me, not on my own account, for it was merely a passing fancy;
but it vexes me, that this proud, stubborn, priest, while he is eating
of your bread, and drinking of your cup, should, in the teeth of your
commands, do that which I could swear no other priest would have dared
to do; it ill becomes him to preach obedience who----"
"True, true, I will see to him--he shall answer for what he has
done--but now Calverley, tell me honestly, for you are not wont to be
familiar even with your fellows--tell me what you saw in this maiden
that could make you wish to rival Stephen Holgrave?"
"Her beauty, my lord."
"What! is she so fair?"
"My lord, I have seldom looked upon one so fair. In my judgment she was
the loveliest I ever saw in these parts."
"Say you so!" returned De Boteler. "I should like to see this boasted
beauty, even if it were to convince me of your taste in these matters.
Calverley, order one of the varlets to go to Holgrave, and desire him
to come to the castle directly--and, mind you, he brings his wife with
him."
Calverley could scarcely repress a smile of exultation as the baron
delivered this command, but composing his countenance to its general
calm expression, he bowed to De Boteler, and immediately withdrew.
Holgrave, when the henchman delivered the baron's command, hesitated,
and looked angrily to Margaret.
"What ails thee, my son," asked Edith. "Is she not thy wife?--and can
the baron break asunder the bonds that bind ye?--or dost thou fear that
Margaret's face may please him--and that he would strive to take from
the man who saved his life in the battle, the wife of his bosom! Shame!
shame!"
"No, no, mother," returned Holgrave, musing; "yet I would rather she
should not go to the castle--I have seen more of the baron than you:
and, besides, this Calverley----"
Holgrave, however, considering it better not to irritate the baron by
a refusal, at length consented that Margaret should accompany him, and
they quitted the cottage together.
"Come hither, Holgrave," said De Boteler, as Holgrave entered. "Is this
your wife?"
"Yes, my lord," replied the yeoman, with a humble reverence.
"Look up, pretty one," said De Boteler to Margaret!--"Now, by my faith
Holgrave, I commend your choice. I wonder not that such a prize was
contended for. Margaret,--I believe that is your name? Look up! and
tell me in what secret place you grew into such beauty?"
Margaret raised her bright blue eyes, that had been as yet hidden by
the long dark lashes, and the downcast lids; but, meeting the bold
fixed gaze of the baron, they were instantly withdrawn, and the deep
blush of one unaccustomed to the eyes of strangers, suffused her cheek
and brow, and even her neck.
"Were you reared on this barony, Margaret?" resumed the baron.
"Yes, my lord," answered Margaret, modestly, raising her eyes: "my
mother was a freeman's daughter; my father was a bondman on this land:
they died when I was but a child; and Edith Holgrave reared me till I
grew up a girl and could work for myself--and then----"
"You thought you could not do better than wed her son through
gratitude. That was well--and so this good squire of ours could not
expect to find much favour in your eyes. But, do you not know, you
should not have wedded without my consent?"
"My lord," answered Holgrave; "I beg your pardon; but I thought your
lordship wouldn't think much of the marriage, as your lordship was not
at the castle, and I did not know when you would return. Here is the
merchet, my lord, and I hope you will forgive me for not awaiting your
return."
"I suppose I must, for there is no helping it now; and by my faith,
it is well you did not let me see that pretty face before you were
wedded,--but take back the merchet," he continued, waving back with
his hand, the money which Holgrave was presenting. "Keep it. An orphan
bride seldom comes rich; and here is a trifle to add to it, as a token
that De Boteler prizes beauty--even though it be that of a bondwoman!"
As he spoke, he held a broad piece of gold towards Holgrave.
"Not so, my lord," said Holgrave, suffering the coin to remain between
De Boteler's fingers.--"Not so my lord. I take back the merchet with
many thanks, but I crave your pardon for not taking your gold. I have
no need of gold--I did not wed Margaret for dower--and with your
lordship's leave I pray you excuse my taking it."
"As you please, unthankful kern," replied the baron, haughtily. "De
Boteler forces his gifts upon no one--here," he continued, throwing
the piece to an attendant, who stood behind his chair--"_you_ will
not refuse it." He then turned round to the table and commenced a
game at cards, without further noticing Holgrave. The yeoman stood a
few minutes awaiting the baron's pleasure, but perceiving he did not
heed him, presently took Margaret's hand, and making a low obeisance,
retired.
When the game was finished, De Boteler threw down the cards.
"Calverley," said he, "think you that this Margaret loves her husband?"
A slight shade passed over Calverley's cheek as he answered,
"I should hardly think so, my lord. She is--her temper is very
gentle--Holgrave is passionate, and rude, and--"
"It is a pity she should be the wife of such a carle"--mused his lord.
That afternoon De Boteler, throwing a plain dark cloak over his rich
dress, left the castle, took the path that led to Holgrave's abode, and
raising the latch, entered the cottage.
Margaret was sitting near the window at needle-work, and Edith in her
high-backed arm-chair, was knitting in the chimney-corner. Margaret
blushing deeply, started from her seat as her eyes so unexpectedly
encountered those of the baron.
"Keep your seat, pretty dame," said De Boteler. "That is a stout silk.
For whom are you working these bright colours?"
"It is a stole for my brother, the monk, my lord," replied Margaret in
a tremulous voice.
"Your work is so beautiful" returned De Boteler, looking at the silk,
"that I wish you could find time to embroider a tabard for me."
"My lord," replied Edith, rising from her seat and stepping forward a
few paces, "Margaret Holgrave has little leisure from attending to the
household of her husband. There are abundance of skilful sempstresses;
and surely the Baron de Boteler would not require this young woman to
neglect the duty she has taken upon herself."
De Boteler looked at Edith an instant with a frown, as if about to
answer fiercely; but after a moment he inquired calmly,
"Does your son find his farm answer, dame?"
"Yes, my lord, with many thanks to the donor. Stephen has all he can
wish for in this farm."
"That is well," returned De Boteler; and then, after a momentary but
earnest gaze at Margaret, he turned away and left the cottage.
Holgrave entered soon after the baron's departure. Margaret strove
to meet him with a smile; but it was not the sunny glow, that usually
greeted his return. He detected the effort; nay, as he bent down to
kiss her cheek, he saw that she trembled.
"What ails you, Margaret?" inquired he tenderly. "You are not well?"
"O yes," replied Margaret. "I am perfectly well, but--I have been a
little frightened."
"By whom? Calverley?"
"No; his master."
"The baron! Surely Margaret--"
"Oh! Stephen," said Margaret, alarmed at the sudden fierceness his
countenance assumed. "Indeed he said no harm. Did he, mother?"
"No," replied Edith, "and if he had, Stephen, your wife knew how to
answer him as befitting a virtuous woman."
"It was well," replied Holgrave; "I am a freeman, and may go where I
list, and not King Edward himself shall insult a freeman's wife!--but
do not weep, Margaret, I am not angered with you."
That evening De Boteler spoke little during supper, and while drinking
the second cup after the repast, he desired the page who stood behind
his chair, to order the monk John to attend him directly. Father John
presently appeared, and approaching the foot of the table, made a low
obeisance, and then with his hands crossed on his bosom, and with eyes
cast down, awaited till De Boteler should address him. De Boteler
looked for a moment earnestly at the monk, ere in a stern voice he
said:
"Father John, know you not why I have sent for you?"
"My lord, I await your pleasure," replied the monk submissively.
"Await _my pleasure_!" replied the baron scornfully. "Did you consider
my pleasure, monk, when you presumed to set at nought my prerogatives?"
"My lord," answered the monk, still mildly, though in a firmer tone
than he had before spoken,
"My Lord de Boteler, servants must obey their masters."
"Hypocrite!" interrupted the baron, in a voice that resounded through
the hall. "Did you consider the obedience due to a master when you
presumed to dispose of a bondwoman of mine, without my sanction--nay,
even in direct opposition to my will? Answer me. Did you consider the
order of dependence then?"
"Baron of Sudley," replied the monk, in a voice which though
scarcely elevated above the ordinary pitch of colloquial discourse,
was nevertheless in that clear distinct tone which is heard at a
considerable distance--"Baron of Sudley, I am no hypocrite, neither
have I forgotten to render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. If
I pronounced the nuptial benediction over a bondwoman and a freeman
without your lordship having consented, it was because you had first
violated the trust reposed in you. You are a master to command
obedience, but only in things that are not sinful; yet would you
sinfully have compelled a maiden to swear at the holy altar of God to
love and honour a man whom her soul abhorred. It was because you would
have done this, that I, as the only being besides your lordship who
could--"
"Insolent priest!" interrupted De Boteler, "do you dare to justify
what you have done? Now, by my faith, if you had with proper humility
acknowledged your fault and sued for pardon--pardon you should have
had. But now, you leave this castle instantly. I will teach you that De
Boteler will yet be master of his own house, and his own vassals. And
here I swear (and the baron of Sudley uttered an imprecation) that, for
your meddling knavery, no priest or monk shall ever again abide here.
If the varlets want to shrieve, they can go to the Abbey; and if they
want to hear mass, a priest can come from Winchcombe. But never shall
another of your meddling fraternity abide at Sudley while Roland de
Boteler is its lord."
"Calverley," he continued, turning to the squire, who stood at a
distance, enjoying the mortification of the monk--"Calverley, see that
the priest quits the castle--remember--instantly!"
The monk, for the first time, fully raised his eyes, and casting upon
the baron a momentary glance of reproach, turned, without speaking,
from the table. He walked on a few steps towards the door, and then
stopping suddenly, as if recollecting that Calverley had orders to
see him depart, he turned round, and looking upon the squire, who was
almost at his side, he said in a stern voice, and with a frowning brow,
"I go in obedience to your master; but even obedience to your master
is not to be enforced upon a servant of the Lord by such as _you_. Of
my own will I go forth; but not one step further do I proceed till you
retire!"
There was that in the voice and look of the monk, which made Calverley
involuntarily shrink; and receiving at the same instant a glance from
De Boteler, he withdrew to the upper end of the room; and father John,
with a dignified step, passed on through the hall, and across the
court-yard, and giving a blessing to the guard at the principal gate,
who bent his knee to receive it, he went forth, having first shaken the
dust from his sandals.
The next morning, when his lord had released him from attendance,
Calverley, little satisfied with the progress of his vengeance, left
the castle, and walked on to meditate alone more uninterruptedly on the
canker-worm within.
He had not proceeded far along his path, when the heavy tread of a
man on the rustling leaves, caused him to raise his eyes, and he saw
a short, thickset figure, in grey woollen hose, and a vest of coarse
medley cloth reaching no higher than the collar-bone, hastening onward.
A gleam of hope lighted Calverley's face as he observed this man.
"What is the matter this morning, Byles?" said he, "you look troubled."
Byles looked at Calverley for an instant, perfectly astonished at his
condescension.
"Troubled!" replied he--"no wonder. My farm is bad; and--"
"It _is_ a poor farm," said Calverley hastily; "but there are many fine
farms that have lately reverted to my lord in default of heirs, or as
forfeitures, that must soon be given away or sold."
"But, Master Calverley, what is that to me?" said Byles, looking with
some surprise at the squire--"you know I am a friendless man, and have
not wherewithal to pay the fine the steward would demand for the land.
No, no, John Byles is going fast down the hill."
"Don't despair, Byles--there is Holgrave--he was once poorer than
you--take heart, some lucky chance may lift you up the hill again. I
dare say this base-born I have named thinks himself better now than the
free-born honest man."
"Aye, that he does, squire: to be sure he doesn't say any thing;
but then he thinks the more; and, besides, he never comes into the
ale-house when his work is done, to take a cheering draught like other
men. No, no, he is too proud for that; but home he goes, and whatever
he drinks he drinks at his own fireside."
For a moment Calverley's brow contracted; but striving to look
interested for the man he wished to conciliate, he replied, "Yes,
Byles, it is a pity that a good-hearted yeoman like you should not
prosper as well as a mere mushroom. Now, Byles, I know you are a
discreet man, and I will tell you a piece of news that nobody about
the barony has yet heard. My lord is going to be married--yes, Byles,
he leaves Sudley in a few days, and goes again to London, and he will
shortly return with a fair and noble mistress for the castle."
"We shall have fine doings then," said Byles, in an animated tone, and
with a cheerful countenance; not that the news was of particular moment
to him, but people love to be told news; and, besides, the esquire's
increasing familiarity was not a little flattering.
"Oh yes," replied Calverley; "there will be fine feasting, and I will
see, Byles, that you do not lack the best. Who knows but your dame may
yet nurse the heir of this noble house."
"I am afraid not,--many thanks to you; John Byles is not thought enough
of in this barony--no, it is more likely Holgrave's wife, if she has
any children, will have the nursing."
"What! Margaret Holgrave?--never"--said Calverley, with such a look and
tone, that the yeoman started, and felt convinced, that what he had
heard whispered about the esquire's liking for Margaret was true: "but,
however," added Calverley, in a moment recovering his self-possession,
"do not despair, Byles. My lord tells me I shall replace old Luke as
steward in a few months, and if I do, there is not a vassal I should
be more inclined to favour than you; for I see, Byles, there is little
chance of your doing good unless you have a friend; for you are known
to the baron as an idle fellow, and not over-scrupulous of telling a
falsehood. Nay, my man, don't start, I tell you the truth."
"Well, but squire, how could the baron hear of this?"
"Perhaps Stephen Holgrave could answer----"
"The base-born kern," replied Byles, fiercely; "_he_ shall answer----"
"I don't say he told the Baron," said Calverley; "but I believe
Holgrave loves to make every body look worse than himself; and to be
plain with you, John Byles, I love him not."
"No, sir, I believe you have little reason to love him any more than
other people--"
"Byles," interrupted Calverley, speaking rapidly, "you are poor--you
are in arrear with your rent; a distress will be levied, and then what
will become of you--of your wife and the little one? Listen to me!
I will give you money to keep a house over your head; and when I am
steward, you shall have the first farm at my lord's disposal, if you
will only aid me in my revenge! Revenge!" he repeated, vehemently--"but
you hesitate--you refuse."
"Nay, nay, squire, I don't refuse: your offer is too tempting for a man
in my situation to refuse; but you know--"
"Well," interrupted Calverley, with a contemptuous smile--"well, well,
Byles, I see you prefer a jail for yourself, and beggary and starvation
for your wife and child. Aye--perhaps to ask bread from Stephen
Holgrave."
"Ask bread from him!--of the man who crows over us all, and who has
told my lord that I am a liar! No, no, I would sooner die first. I
thank you for your kindness, Master Calverley, and I will do any thing
short of----"
"Oh, you need not pause," interrupted Calverley, "I do not want you to
do him any bodily harm."
"Don't you?--oh! well, then, John Byles is yours," said he, with a
brightening countenance: "for you see I don't mind saying any thing
against such a fellow as he."
"Yes, Byles, and especially since you will not be asked to say it
for nothing," returned Calverley with a slight sarcastic smile; but
immediately assuming a more earnest and friendly tone, he continued,
"I have promised you gold, and gold you shall have. I will befriend you
to the utmost of my power, and you know my influence is not small at
the castle; but you must swear to be faithful. Here," said he, stooping
down and taking up a rotten branch that lay at his feet, and, breaking
it in two, he placed it in the form of a cross. "Here, Byles, swear by
this cross to be faithful." Byles hesitated for an instant, and then,
in rather a tremulous voice, swore to earn faithfully his wages of sin.
It was nearly four months subsequent to the departure of De Boteler
from the castle, ere Byles proceeded to earn the gold which had, in
some measure, set him to rights with the world. It was about the middle
of March;--the morning had risen gloomily, and, from a dense mass of
clouds, a slow heavy rain continued to pour during the whole of the
day. "Sam," said Byles to a servitor, a faithful stupid creature, with
just sufficient intellect to comprehend and obey the commands of his
master.--"Sam, if this rain continues we must go to work to-night?"
The rain did continue, and, after Byles had supped, he sat at the
fire for two or three hours, and scarcely spoke. His countenance was
troubled;--the deed he had promised to do--which he had contemplated
with almost indifference, was now about to be accomplished; and he
felt how different it is to dwell upon the commission of a thing, and
actually to do it. Frequent draughts of ale, however, in some measure
restored the tone of his nerves; and, as the evening wore away, he rose
from the fire, and, opening the door, looked out at the weather. A
thick drizzling rain still fell; the moon was at the full; and though
the heavy clouds precluded the possibility of her gladdening the earth,
yet even the heavy clouds could not entirely obscure her light;--there
was a radiance spread over the heavens which, though wanting the
brightness of moonlight, was nevertheless equal and shadowless.
"'Tis a capital night," said Byles, as he looked up at the sky in a
tone of soliloquy; "I could not have wished for a better--just light
enough to see what we are about, and not enough to tell tales. Sam,"
continued he, closing the door and sitting again at the fire, "bring me
the shafts and let me look if the bow is in order."
The serving man took from a concealed place a couple of arrows, and a
stout yew-tree bow, and handed them to his master.
"You did well, Sam, in getting these shafts from Holgrave. You put the
quiver up safe?--there is no fear of his missing them?"
"I should think not, master. It would be hard if he missed two out of
four-and-twenty."
"Mary," said Byles, addressing his wife, "put something over the
casement, lest if, by chance, any body should be abroad, they may
see that we are up:--and now, bring me the masks. Never fear, Mary,
nobody is out such a night as this. Now Sam," he continued, "fetch the
hand-barrow and let us away."
Mary began to tremble;--she caught her husband by the arm, and said
something in a low and tremulous voice. As the fire revealed her face,
Byles started at the strange paleness it exhibited.
"What ails you, Mary?" said he. "Have you not all along urged me to
this? and now, after taking Calverley's gold, and spending it, and
signing the bond, you want me to stand still! No, no, I must go to the
Chase this night, were I sure to be hung to-morrow morning!" He then
pushed her away with some violence, and the servitor preceding him, he
passed over the threshold and closed the door.
They entered the Chase--and the wind, as it came in sudden gusts
through the branches of the tall trees, gave an air of deeper gloom to
the night. Frequently they paused and listened, as if fearful of being
discovered; and then, when convinced that no human being was near,
hastened on to the spot where the deer usually herded at night. A deep
ravine, ten or twelve feet in breadth, intersected the Chase at a few
paces from the inclosure; and, about a stone's throw to the right of
this inclosure, stood the dwelling of the keeper.
"Sam," said Byles, "is not that a light in the cottage?"
"Yes, master, but I think they are in bed, and may be have forgotten to
rake the ashes over the fire."
"It may be so," answered Byles, doubtfully; "keep in the shade of the
trees, and let us stop awhile--I do not much like this light." They
watched the cottage anxiously, and, in about twenty minutes, the light
disappeared.
"Sam," said Byles, "I believe you were right--that last faint
flicker, I doubt not, came from the dying embers. Creep softly to the
inclosure, and gently rustle the brushwood. Don't let them see you.
Softly--there--go on."
Byles drew his shaft from beneath his garment, and fixed it in the
bow as Sam crept into the inclosure and did what he was ordered. The
animals started on their legs, and stretched their heads forward in
various directions, as if to ascertain whence the danger seemed to
threaten.
"Down, Sam, a little to the left," whispered Byles, as a noble buck
bounded forward towards the servitor, who had sheltered himself so as
to avoid being seen by the animal. Sam dropt on the drenched grass to
avoid the shaft that now sped from the bow of the marksman. The arrow
entered the neck of the affrighted creature, as, for an instant, it
stood with upraised head, its lofty antlers touching the branches. It
then bounded forward, but, in its giddy effort to clear the obstruction
of the opposing chasm, fell gasping among the brushwood that lined the
sides of the ravine.
"Confound him, he has escaped us!" exclaimed Byles. "See the whole herd
scudding off, as if the hounds were in full cry at their heels. But
forward, Sam, and creep to the edge, for he may not have fallen into
the stream."
Sam obeyed; but whether owing to his trepidation or the slippery
surface of the earth, he lost his footing and disappeared, uttering
a cry of terror. Byles stood for an instant, irresolute whether to
advance to the succour of his servitor, or leave him behind, for he
apprehended that the cry would arouse the guardians of the Chase.
Recollecting, however, that it would be as dangerous to abandon him as
to attempt his extrication, he rushed forward to the spot where Sam had
disappeared. The man had, in his fall, grasped the root of a tree from
which the late heavy rains had washed the earth, and he lay suspended
midway down. Byles hastily threw him a rope, with which he had intended
to bind the animal on the barrow, and, with some difficulty, succeeded
in dragging him up.
The dying throes of the buck recalled Byles to the object of his
journey; and they were about making an effort to extricate the animal
from the brushwood, when the servitor's eye caught the gleam of a light
in the cottage.
"It's all over," said Byles, in a disappointed tone; "but the arrow may
answer our purpose where it is. Take up the barrow and fly, but keep in
the shade of the trees."
A quick knock aroused Mary from her seat at the fire. She approached
the door on tiptoe, and hesitated a moment ere she unclosed it; but
the rapid breathings of Byles relieved her alarm, and she opened it
hastily. A pale, haggard look met her eyes as her husband rushed in.
"Fasten the door, Mary," said he--"haste, quench the fire. Here, put
these wet clothes in the hiding place"--stripping himself of his
garments--"and when you have done, hasten to bed. I am afraid they have
overtaken poor Sam."
"Oh!" said Mary, dropping the clothes, and staggering to a seat--"oh!
Byles, Byles, we are lost! What will become of us! Sam will tell all!"
"Hold your tongue, woman," said Byles, jumping out of the bed into
which he had thrown himself, and taking up the clothes, concealed them
in the pit. "Do you want to have me hanged? To bed, I tell you."
She tremblingly obeyed, and Byles listened with breathless anxiety for
the signal that would assure him of his servant's safety. At length a
footstep and a low tap at the door summoned Byles from his bed. "Who is
there?" said he.
"Hasten, master, open the door," answered the servitor.
"All is well; Sam is returned!" He opened the door, and the servitor
panting with fear and fatigue, threw the barrow on the floor.
"That's right, Sam; there is nothing left to tell we have been in the
Chase to-night. Now hasten to bed as quickly as you can. You shall have
a new suit at Easter for this night's business. But Master Calverley
will not be well pleased that the buck was not lodged in Holgrave's
barn. However, it cannot be helped now."
CHAPTER III.
It was a fair morning in the June succeeding Holgrave's marriage, that
Sudley castle presented a greater degree of splendour than it had
exhibited for some years before. Roland de Boteler had wedded a noble
maiden, and it was expected that the castle would that day be graced by
the presence of its future mistress.
There was a restless anxiety that morning, in every inhabitant of the
castle, from old Luke, the steward, who was fretting and fidgetting
lest the lady should consider him too old for the stewardship, to
the poor varlet who fed the dogs, and the dirty nief who scoured
the platters. This anxiety increased when a messenger arrived to
announce that the noble party were on the road from Oxford, and might
be expected in a few hours: and when at length a cloud of dust was
observed in the distance, old Luke, bare headed, and followed by the
retainers and domestics, went forth to greet with the accustomed
homage, De Boteler and his bride.
The graceful Isabella de Vere was seated on a white palfrey, and
attired in a riding-dress of green velvet, while a richly embroidered
mantle or surcoat of the same material, trimmed with minever, fell from
her shoulders, and in some measure concealed the emblazoned housing
that ornamented the beautiful animal on which she rode. A pyramidal cap
of green satin, with a long veil of transparent tissue flowing from the
point, and falling so as partly to shadow, and partly reveal the glow
of her high-born beauty, was the only head-gear worn that day by the
daughter of the Earl of Oxford, and the new baroness of Sudley.
On her right hand rode her husband, clad in a tunic of fine cloth, in
colour resembling the habit of his lady, and mounted on a dark, fiery
charger, which with difficulty he could rein in to the slow pace of
the palfrey. On the left of the lady Isabella was her brother, young
Robert de Vere, and though but a boy, one might have read much in the
lines of that countenance, of his future destiny. His smooth, dimpled
chin, was small and round, and his mouth possessed that habitual smile,
that softly beaming expression, which won for him in after years the
regard of the superficial Richard; while there shone a fire in the full
dark eyes, which betokened the ambitious spirit that was to animate the
future lord of Dublin, and sovereign of Ireland.
Sparkling with jewels, and attired in a white satin robe, the Lady De
Boteler took her seat for the first time, at the table of her lord,
and well was she calculated to grace the board. Her person, tall and
well formed, possessed that fullness of proportion which is conveyed by
the term majestic; and her movements were exceedingly graceful. She
had fine auburn hair, and the thick curls that fell beneath the gemmed
fillet encircling her head, seemed alternately a bright gold or a dark
brown according to the waving of the tress. Her hair and high white
forehead which the parted curls revealed, possessed sufficient beauty
to have redeemed even irregular features from the charge of homeliness;
but Isabella De Vere's face was altogether as generally faultless as
falls to the lot of woman.
The guests were numerous, and the evening passed away in feasting
and revelry. The blaze of the lights--the full strains of the
minstrels--the glad faces and graceful motions of the dancers, the
lustre of the ladies' jewels, and the glitter of the gold embroidery on
the dresses of male and female, combined to give to the spacious hall
that night, more the appearance of a fairy scene, which might dissolve
in a moment into air, than a palpable human festivity. The tenantry
had also their feasting and their dancing; but these had to pay for
their amusement: each tenant, according to the custom of the manor,
on the marriage of their lord, being obliged to bring an offering in
proportion to the land which he held.
On the morrow, accordingly, the vassals brought their presents. The
lady Isabella, surrounded by visitors and attended by her handmaidens,
was seated in the spacious apartment intended for the ceremony, as
Edith, supported by Margaret, entered the room. The baroness raised
her head and gazed upon the latter, with that complacent feeling which
beauty seldom fails to inspire. The delicate hue of Margaret's cheek
was, at this moment, deepened by embarrassment; and, as kneeling down,
she raised her bright blue eyes, the lady thought she had never seen so
lovely a creature.
"What is your pleasure with me, maiden?" asked the baroness, in a
condescending tone.
"Lady," replied Margaret modestly; "I am the wife of one of my lord's
vassals; and my mother, and myself, humbly beg you will accept this
present."
"And is this your present?--What is your name?"
"Margaret Holgrave, lady."
"Look, Lady Anne," said Isabella, displaying a pair of white silk
gloves, beautifully wrought with gold. "Do you not think this a fair
present for a vassal to bestow?"
"The gloves are very beautiful," replied the lady.
"Your gift betokens a good feeling, young dame," said Isabella, turning
to Margaret. "But why did you choose so costly a present?"
"Indeed, noble lady," replied Margaret, "the gloves cost but
little--Edith, here, my husband's mother, knitted them, and I have
striven to ornament them."
"What! Is this your embroidery?"
"Yes, my lady."
"This is not the work of a novice, Lady Anne--You are accustomed to
needle-work!"
"Yes, my lady--before I was married I obtained my support by making the
vestments for some of the monks at Hailes Abbey."
"Indeed! very well--and _you_ are this young person's mother-in-law?"
said the baroness, for the first time addressing Edith.
"Yes, Baroness De Boteler," replied the old woman.
"Very well," said the lady, and looking alternately at Edith and
Margaret, she added, "I accept your gift--you may now retire."
They accordingly withdrew from the chamber, and, in the court-yard,
were joined by Holgrave. "Did the baroness take the gloves?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Margaret, in delight, "and she seemed pleased with the
embroidery. O, Stephen, she is so beautiful! She looks like an angel!
Does she not, mother?"
"She has beauty, Margaret," answered Edith, "but it is not the beauty
of an angel--it has too much of pride."
"But all ladies are proud, mother! I warrant she is not prouder than
another."
"May be not, Margaret; but yet that lady who sat at her side, looked
not so high as the baroness. There was more sweetness in her smile, and
gentleness in her voice."
"O yes, she spoke very sweetly, but she is not so handsome as the
baron's lady."
"Margaret," replied Edith; "when you are as old as I, you will not look
upon beauty as you do now;--a gentle heart and a pallid cheek will seem
lovelier then, than brightness and bloom, if there be pride on the
brow. But, Stephen, what said the steward when you gave him the gold?"
"Oh, he said mine was the best gift that had been brought yet. But
come, mother, it is time we were at home."
The Lady de Boteler, Lady Anne Hammond, and the other ladies, were
admiring the embroidered gloves, when De Boteler and Sir Robert Knowles
entered the apartment.
"See, Roland," said the baroness, holding the gloves towards her
husband; "see, what a pretty gift I have received since you left us!"
"They are indeed pretty," answered De Boteler; "and the fair hands that
wrought them deserve praise. What think you, Sir Robert?"
"O, you must not ask Sir Robert for any fine compliment," interrupted
the baroness. "They are not a _lady's_ gift--they were presented to me
by the wife of one of your vassals."
"The wife of a vassal would not have taste enough to buy such as these;
and there is but one about Winchcombe who could work so well. And, by
my faith, I now remember that it was part of the tenure by which I some
time since granted land, to present a pair of gloves.--Was it not a
fair-looking damsel, one Stephen Holgrave's wife, that brought them?"
"I think she said her name was Holgrave," replied the lady in a cold
tone. "But indeed, my lord baron, you seem to be wondrously well
acquainted with the faces and the handywork of your vassals' wives!"
"Nay, Isabella," said the pale interesting lady of Sir Robert Knowles,
"it is not strange that my Lord de Boteler should know the faces of
those who were born on his land; and this young woman's skill could not
fail to have procured her notice. But the handiness of her fingers has
not made her vain. You know I am fond of reading faces, and I would
answer that she is as modest and good as she is fair."
"O, I dare say she is," replied the baroness, and immediately changed
the conversation.
The next morning Holgrave received a peremptory order to attend at
the castle in the afternoon; and the henchman of the baron, who was
the bearer of the message, refused to give any information why he had
been so summoned. Edith, with her natural penetration, saw, by the
hesitation of the servitor, and by the tone in which the mandate was
conveyed, that something of more than ordinary moment was about to be
transacted, and, with an undefined feeling of alarm, she resolved to
accompany her son.
As they entered the court-yard, the henchman, who had delivered the
message, accosted Holgrave, telling him he must go into the hall to
answer to some matter before the baron.
"What is the matter which my son is to answer, friend?" asked Edith;
but the man evaded the question, and Holgrave, leaving his mother in
the outer court-yard, passed through one of the arched doors into the
other, and, with a firm step, though with some apprehension of evil,
entered the hall.
He had scarcely time to give a nod of recognition to several neighbours
who stood near the entrance, when the steward approached, and,
desiring him to walk further up the hall, placed him at the first
step that elevated the upper end, thus cutting off every possibility
of communicating with his neighbours. Holgrave felt any thing but
composure in his present conspicuous situation: though strong in
the rectitude of his conscience, yet he felt apprehensions and
misgivings; and the strange silence that was observed respecting the
intended charge alarmed him the more. As the hall was always open on
such occasions, he speedily saw a crowd of vassals pouring in--some
anxious to know the event, either through a feeling of friendship or
hatred, and others merely from curiosity. The eyes of each man as he
entered, fell, as if instinctively, upon the yeoman; and he could
perceive, as they formed into groups, that he was the subject of their
conversation. Presently his mother, supported by an old friend named
Hartwell, entered, and he thought she regarded him with an earnest and
sorrowful look. But his attention was immediately diverted;--the upper
door opened, and De Boteler and the baroness, with Sir Robert and Lady
Knowles, entered the hall.
There was near the steps a small table with writing materials, at which
the steward ought to have been seated, to write down the proceedings;
but old Luke was not so quick of hearing, or perhaps of comprehension,
as Calverley, and the esquire, therefore, took his place.
"Stephen Holgrave," said the baron, in a stern voice, "are these your
shafts?" as he beckoned to old Luke to hand the yeoman two arrows which
he had hitherto concealed.
Holgrave looked at them an instant--
"Yes, my lord," said he, without hesitation, but yet with a
consciousness that the answer was to injure him.
"What, they _are_ yours then?" said De Boteler in a still harsher tone.
Holgrave bowed his head.
"Come forward, keeper," continued the baron, "and state how these
arrows came into your hands!"
The keeper made the deposition which the reader will have anticipated;
and his men were then examined, who corroborated the statement of their
master.
"Now, Stephen Holgrave," asked the baron, "what have you to say to
this?"
"My lord," replied Holgrave, still undaunted, "the shafts are mine;
but I am as innocent of the deed as the babe at its mother's breast.
Whoever shot the buck must have stolen my arrows, in order to bring me
into this scrape."
"By my faith, Holgrave, you seem to think lightly of this matter. Do
you call it a scrape to commit a felony in your lord's chase? Have you
any thing further to urge in your defence?"
There was a momentary pause after the baron had ceased. Holgrave
hesitated to reply;--he had denied the charge, and he knew not what
else to say. But when every eye except Calverley's, from Roland de
Boteler's to that of the lowest freeman present, was fixed on the
accused, expecting his answer, a slight movement was observed among the
people, and Edith Holgrave, supported by Hartwell, pressed forward,
and stood on the step by the side of her son. The gaze was now in an
instant turned from the son to the mother, and Edith, after pausing a
moment to collect her faculties, said, in a loud voice--
"My Lord de Boteler, and you noble sir, and fair dames--it may seem
strange that an old woman like me should speak for a man of my son's
years; but, in truth, he is better able to defend himself with his arm
than his tongue."
"Woman!" interrupted De Boteler impatiently, "your son has answered for
himself--retire."
"Nay, my lord," replied Edith, with a bright eye and a flushing cheek,
and drawing herself up to a height that she had not exhibited for many
years--"nay, my lord, my son is able to defend himself against the
weapon of an open foe, but not against the doings of a covert enemy!"
"What mean you, woman?" quickly returned De Boteler; "do you accuse the
keeper of my chase as having plotted against your son, or whom do you
suspect?"
"Baron de Boteler," replied Edith, with a look and a tone that
seemed to gain fresh energy from the kind of menace with which the
interrogatories were put, "I do not accuse your keeper. He had an
honest father, and he has himself ever been a man of good repute. But
I do say," she added in a wild and high tone, and elevating her right
hand and rivetting her flashing eyes on Calverley--"I _do_ say, the
charge as regards my son is a base and traitorous plot."
"Hold your tongue, woman," interrupted De Boteler, who had listened
to her with evident reluctance. "Why do you look so fiercely on my
'squire. Have you aught against him?"
"My lord baron," replied Edith, "I have nothing to say that can bring
home guilt to the guilty, or do right to the wronged: but I will say,
my lord, that what a man is to-day he will be to-morrow, unless he has
some end to answer by changing. The esquire will scarcely give the
word of courtesy to the most reputable vassal, and yet did he talk
secretly and familiarly with John Byles--and here is one who will swear
that he heard him repeat the name of my son, and then something about
an arrow."
Old Hartwell now stept forward, and averred that he had seen Calverley
and Byles talking together in the chase, and that he had overheard
the name of Stephen Holgrave repeated in conjunction with an allusion
to arrows. The circumstance, however, had been quite forgotten until
the charge this morning brought it to his memory. This eaves-dropping
testimony amounted to nothing, even before Calverley denied every
particular of the fact, which he did with the utmost composure--
"What motive have I to plot against Holgrave?" asked Calverley.
"You _have_ a motive," said Edith, "both in envy and in love. You well
know that if this charge could be proved, Stephen Holgrave must die."
Calverley was about to speak, when he was interrupted by De Boteler,
who expressed himself dissatisfied with the explanations on both sides:
"The proof is doubtful," said he, suddenly. "Give the fellow back his
arrows, and dissolve the court.--Away!"
When the arrows were handed to their owner, he instantly snapt them
asunder.
"What means this, Stephen Holgrave?" asked the baron impatiently.
"My lord, those arrows were used in a foul purpose; and Stephen
Holgrave will never disgrace his hand by using them again. The time may
come, my lord, when the malicious coward who stole them shall rue this
day!"
"Bravely said and done, my stout yeoman!" said Sir Robert Knowles, who
broke silence for the first time during the investigation: "and my
Lord de Boteler," he continued, addressing the baron, "the arm that
acquitted itself so well in your defence, you may be assured, could
never have disgraced itself by midnight plunder."
"The blessing of the most high God be with you for that, noble sir,"
said Edith, as she knelt down and fervently thanked Sir Robert; and
then, leaning on the arm of her son, she left the hall.
"By my faith, Sir Robert," said De Boteler, "Stephen Holgrave wants no
counsel while that old dame so ably takes his part. But a truce with
this mummery. Come along--our time is more precious than wasting it in
hearing such varlets."
The baron and his guests then withdrew.
* * * * *
At the distance of nearly a mile from Sudley Castle, and at about a
quarter of a mile from the high road that led to Oxford, was a singular
kind of quarry or cliff. Its elevation was considerable, and the
portion of the hill visible from the road was covered with the heathy
verdure which usually springs from such scanty soil; but on passing
round to the other side, all the barren unsightly appearance of a half
worked quarry presented itself. Huge masses of stone stood firmly as
nature had formed them, while others, of a magnitude sufficient to
awaken in the hardiest, a sense of danger, hung apparently by so slight
a tenure, that a passing gust of wind, seemed only required to release
their fragile hold. But the hill had stood thus unaltered during the
remembrance of the oldest inhabitant of Winchcombe. Strange stories
were whispered respecting this cliff, but as the honour of the house of
Sudley, and that of another family equally noble, were concerned in the
tale, little more than obscure hints were suffered to escape.
One evening, as the rumour went, a female figure, enveloped in a mantle
of some dark colour, and holding an infant in her arms, was observed,
seated on one of the stones of the quarry, with her feet resting on
a fragment beneath. Her face was turned towards Sudley, and as the
atmosphere was clear, and her position elevated, the castle could well
be distinguished. Wild shrieks were heard by some during that night,
and the morning sun revealed blood on fragments of the stone, and on
the earth beneath; and at a little distance it was perceived that the
grass had been recently dug up, and trodden down with a heavy foot.
The peasants crossed themselves at the sight, but no enquiries were
made, and from that day the cliff was sacred to superstition, for no
inhabitant of the district would have touched a stone of the quarry, or
have dared to pass it after nightfall for the world.
It was beneath the shadow of those impending stones, and over the
spot, where it was whispered that the murdered had been buried, that
Calverley, on the night of the day that Holgrave left scatheless the
hall of Sudley castle, was pacing to and fro, awaiting the appearance
of Byles. "He lingers," said Calverley, as the rising moon told him it
was getting late, "I suppose the fool fears to come near this place."
But after some minutes of feverish impatience, Byles at length came.
"What detained you, sirrah?" asked the other sharply.
The yeoman muttered an excuse; but his speech betrayed him.
"You have been drinking," said Calverley, with anger. "Could you not
have kept sober till you had seen me?"
"Why, Master Calverley, to tell you the truth, that old mother Holgrave
frightened me so that--"
"Your childish cowardice had like to have betrayed us. Byles, you have
not dealt honestly by me in this affair--but you are not in a state to
be spoken to now."
"There you are mistaken, squire. I am just as sober as I ought to be to
come to this place: but I can't see why we couldn't have talked as well
any where else as here!"
"Yes, and have some old gossiping fool break in. No, no--here we are
safe. But come nearer, and stand, as I do, in the shadow of the cliff."
"Not a foot nearer, Master Calverley, for all the gold in England. Why,
you are standing just where the poor lady and her babe were buried!"
"Suppose I am--think you they will sleep the worse because I stand on
their grave? Oh! it is a fine thing," he continued, as if following up
some reflection in his mind, "to bury those we hate--deep, deep--so
that they may never blast our sight again!--Byles, you perjured
yourself in that affair of the buck. You swore to aid me. You had gold
for the service, and yet it would have been better that the beast were
still alive, than to have left it behind in the chase: it has only
brought suspicion on me, and given Holgrave a fresh triumph!"
"No fault of mine, squire," answered Byles, in a sullen tone; "there
was no such thing as getting the creature out; and if Sam or I had
been caught, it would have been worse still. But bad as Stephen is, he
wouldn't have thought of accusing us, if it hadn't have been for that
old she-fox, his mother."
"Aye," said Calverley, with a smile--if the curve of a bloodless lip
could be so designated--"aye, you name her rightly, Byles: she is a
fox, and like a fox shall she die,--hunted--driven--tortured. Byles,
have you never heard it said that this woman was a witch?"
"Why--yes--I have, Master Calverley; but in truth I don't like to have
any thing to do with her. If she set a spell upon me, I could never
do good again. Did not she tell Roger Follett, that if he didn't take
care, sooner or later, the gable end of his house would fall? and so,
sure enough it did."
"And yet, knowing this woman a witch, you would not assist in ridding
the parish of such a pest?"
Byles made no reply.
"Well," resumed Calverley, taking some nobles from a small bag he had
in his hand, "these must be for him who will aid me. You have been well
paid, John Byles, for the work you did not do, and now,--see if your
_industry_ and your _profitable_ farm will befriend you as much as _I_
should have done."
This speech acted as Calverley had anticipated. The yeoman's scruples
fled; and alarmed at the prospect of losing those comforts he had
enjoyed since entering into the nefarious league, he said more
earnestly than he had yet spoken--
"Master Calverly, you will find no man to act more faithfully by you
than John Byles. You have been a good friend to me, and I would do any
thing to serve you, but----you see a man can't stifle conscience all at
once."
"Conscience!" repeated Calverley, with a smile of irony. "Do you know,
Byles, I think that conscience of yours will neither serve you in this
world, nor in the next! You have too little to make you an honest man,
and too much to make you a reckless knave. But a truce with conscience.
I have here," said he, holding up the bag of coin, "that which would
buy the conscience of twenty such as you; and now, Byles, if you choose
to earn this gold, which will be given to another, if you hesitate,
swear on these gospels," presenting to the yeoman a Testament, "that
you will be a faithful and a willing confederate in my future plans
respecting the Holgraves. Will you swear?"
"Yes," replied Byles; but as he spoke, he looked wistfully round, in
evident trepidation.
"Are you afraid of good or bad spirits? Nonsense!--do as you have
promised, and take the gold."
Byles made the required asseveration, and took the price.
"What are you gazing at, Byles," asked Calverley.
"See, see!" said Byles, pointing to the north-west.
Calverley stept from the shadow of the cliff, and beheld a meteor in
the sky, brightening and expanding, as the clouds opened, until it
assumed the appearance of a brilliant star, of astonishing magnitude,
encircled by dazzling rays, which, in a singular manner, were all
inclined in one direction, and pointing to that part of the horizon
where lay the rival of England--France.
Even in Calverley's breast, the bad passions were for a moment hushed,
as he gazed upon the radiant phenomenon; but upon the more gross,
and more timorous mind of Byles, the effect produced was much more
striking. He seemed to imagine, that from that brilliant star, some
celestial being was about to descend, and blast him with the wrath of
heaven: and when a lambent flame, darting across the firmament, played
for an instant around the quarry, he concluded that heaven's vengeance
had, indeed, overtaken him. Rushing from the haunted spot, he stopped
not in his headlong course, until he stood in the midst of a group of
half-dressed neighbours near his own door, who had been aroused from
their slumbers to gaze upon the comet.
Calverley, although possessed of more moral courage than Byles, and
viewing the meteor with altogether different feelings, was yet not so
entirely imbued with the philosophy of later times, as to behold it
without apprehension. When Byles had fled, he turned, and walked on
towards the castle with a more rapid pace than usual.
Nothing of moment occurred at Sudley Castle for many months, if we
except the birth of an heir; the appointment of Mary Byles, through
Calverley's influence, to be the nurse; and the accession of Calverley
himself to the coveted stewardship. The baroness's infant grew a fine,
healthy child; but, as is sometimes the case with stout children,
it had occasionally convulsive fits in teething. This, however, was
carefully concealed from the mother, and Mary continued to receive
great praise for her nursing. But it unfortunately happened, that one
morning, when the boy had been laughing and playing in the highest
spirits, Mary saw its countenance suddenly change. This was the more
unfortunate, as De Boteler and his lady were momentarily expected to
return, after a fortnight's absence, and Mary had dressed the infant
in its gayest apparel to meet its parents, and had been congratulating
herself upon the sprightliness and health of the boy. No excuses of
sleep would satisfy the mother now: if the child was not taken to her,
the nurse was assured she would come to look at him, and kiss him as he
slept.
At this moment of perplexity, some medicine, that she had obtained from
Edith, occurred to her, and, with a feeling of confidence, and almost
of extacy, she took a phial from a shelf in a cupboard where she had
placed it, and, pouring out the contents in a large spoon, hesitated
an instant ere she administered it. "Let me see," said she; "surely it
was a large spoonful Edith told me to give--yet all that was in the
phial doesn't fill the spoon. Surely I can't be wrong: no--I remember
she said a large spoonful, and we didn't talk of any thing else--so I
must be right." But Mary still hesitated, till, hearing a sudden noise
in the court-yard, which, she conjectured, was her mistress returned,
and as the child was getting worse every moment, she leaned back its
head, and, forcing open its mouth, compelled the patient, though with
difficulty, to swallow its death. The draught was taken; the rigid
muscles relaxed, and for a minute the child lay motionless in her lap;
but in an instant after, Mary could scarcely suppress a shriek at
the horrid sight that met her gaze. The eyes opened, and glared, and
seemed as if starting from the head--the fair face and the red lips,
were blue, deepening and deepening, till settling in blackness--the
limbs contracted--the mouth opened, and displayed a tongue discoloured
and swollen--then came a writhing and heaving of the body, and a low,
agonized moan: and, as Mary looked almost frantic at this dreadful
sight, Edith's words, when she had given her the phial, "that there was
enough there to kill," suddenly occurred to her--and then, too, came,
with a dreadful distinctness, the remembrance of the true directions
which Edith had given.
"Oh, I have murdered the child!" exclaimed Mary, in the dreadful
excitement of the moment. "What will become of me? what shall I do?
I shall surely be hung. Oh! oh!" she continued, covering her face
with her hands, to shut out the sight of the gasping infant. At this
instant, the door opened; Mary looked up fearfully--it was her
husband. "Oh, Byles! Byles! look at this child! What will become of me?"
"The saints preserve us!" ejaculated Byles, as he looked at the babe:
"Mary, how is this?"
"Oh! don't ask me; but go for Master Calverley. For God's sake, do not
stand as if you were bewitched: see! see! he is dying. The poor child!
What will become of me? Run, Byles, run, for mercy's sake, and tell
Master Calverley."
Byles stood looking, with a countenance expressive of stupified horror,
and yet, as if doubting that the livid, distorted, suffering creature
could be the fine blooming boy he had so lately seen. At length,
aroused by the increasing energy of Mary, he turned silently round and
left the room; as he closed the door, the agonized spirit of the little
Roland passed away.
In an instant Byles returned with Calverley, and even he started and
uttered an exclamation, as his eyes fell on the ghastly face of the
dead child.
"Mary Byles, how did this happen?" asked Calverley, eagerly.
"Master Calverley, I will tell you truly," answered Mary, in a voice
scarcely audible from its tremor. "You have been our best friend, and
you would not see me hung? It was all a mistake--I am sure I wouldn't
hurt a hair of the dear creature's head." And here the feelings of
woman so far prevailed, that she shed some disinterested tears.
"You could have no motive to destroy the child--but tell me quickly
what you have to say." Calverley spoke with a harshness that instantly
recalled all Mary's fears and selfishness.
"Edith Holgrave," said she, "gave me some medicine to--"
"Edith Holgrave!" interrupted Calverley, with a quickness of voice and
eagerness of look that told how greatly the name interested him.
"Yes, Edith Holgrave told me to give ten drops out of that little
bottle," (pointing to the empty phial,) "and I--gave--but, oh! Master
Calverley, I forgot--"
"You gave it all?" said Calverley, impatiently.
"Yes."
"And you will swear it was a draught that Edith Holgrave gave you that
has killed the child?" said Calverley, with a brightening countenance.
"Oh, yes," replied Mary; "but, indeed--"
"Nonsense!" interrupted Calverley. "Hear me, or you will be hanged! If
you hope to save your life, Mary Byles, you must swear that you gave it
according to Edith's directions--breathe not a syllable of the drops!"
Mary looked with a fearful wildness at Calverley, as she comprehended
his meaning; but Byles said quickly,
"What! do you mean her to hang old Edith?"
"Certainly," returned Calverley, coolly, "unless you prefer a gallows
for your wife. But I dare say you would rather see Mary hanged
than that old witch! I will leave you to manage the matter between
yourselves."
"Oh, don't leave us!--don't leave us!" said Byles, in an agony. "Oh,
save me! save me!" sobbed Mary.
"Was any one present when you gave it?" inquired Calverley, as he
turned round and addressed Mary.
"Yes; Winifred handed me the bottle, but the child began to cry, so I
sent her out."
"It was well she was here," returned he: "and now, remember--not a
word of the drops! swear, simply, that the draught destroyed the
infant." And, without awaiting her reply, he seized the pale and
trembling Byles by the arm, and dragged him from the room into the
passage. He then unlocked a door that had never been observed by either
Byles or his wife, and, closing it after them, led the yeoman down a
flight of dark steps, and, pausing a moment at the bottom to listen,
he unlocked another door, and Byles found himself in a dark passage
that branched from one of the entrances to the court-yard to some of
the culinary offices. "Go you that way, and I will go this," said
Calverley, "and, remember, you know nothing of the child's death."
As he spoke, he darted from Byles, and gained the court-yard without
further observation. He walked carelessly about, till a female domestic
passing, he called to her, desiring her to go and ask Mary Byles if
the young Lord Roland was ready to meet his parents, as they were
momentarily expected. The woman departed, and he walked over to the
gate between the front towers as if looking for the return of his lord.
CHAPTER IV.
"What ails you, Stephen," asked Margaret, alarmed at the strange
paleness of the yeoman's countenance, and the agitation of his manner
as he entered the cottage on the afternoon the child died. But
Holgrave, without replying to her interrogatory, hastily closed and
bolted the door. He then drew the large oak table from the side of the
wall, and placed it as a barricade before it. "Stephen, what means this
bolting and barring?" inquired Edith, as she saw with surprise his
defensive preparations. "What fear you, my son?"
"Fear! mother," replied Holgrave, taking a lance and battle-axe from
their place over the chimney, and firmly grasping the former as he
stood against the table; "I do not fear now, mother, nor need you--for,
by the blessed St. Paul, they shall pass over my mangled body before
they reach you!"
"Stephen Holgrave, are you mad?" returned Edith alarmed: "tell me the
meaning of this!--Speak, I command thee!"
"Oh, mother, I cannot tell you," answered Holgrave, turning away his
face from her searching glance; "Oh, no, I cannot tell you!"
"Stephen, you were not used to answer me thus. I charge you, by the
authority and love of thy mother, and in the name of the blessed
saints, to tell me what has happened."
"Alas! my mother, you will know it soon enough. It is said you
have--have--bewitched--or poisoned--the baron's son!"
"Oh, mother!" shrieked Margaret. "Fly!--to the abbey, and take
sanctuary!"
"Margaret!" replied Edith, "I stir not hence. The guilty may take
refuge from the anger of the laws; but it is not for the innocent to
fear and fly like the felon!"
Margaret then threw herself at the feet of Edith, and besought her, in
the most earnest and pathetic manner, to take refuge at Hailes Abbey,
in which she was seconded by Holgrave. The old woman remained silent;
but there was a brightness--a glistening in her eyes as if a tear
had started;--but if a tear did start, it did not fall. At length,
recovering her composure, she rose firmly from her seat--
"My son," said she, "lay down your arms, I command. Should my life be
offered up to the vengeful spirit of Thomas Calverley, who alone can be
the foul author of this charge, it will be only taking from me a few
short years--perhaps days--of suffering. But thou hast years of health
and life before thee, and thou hast this gentle weeping creature to
sustain."
"What!" interrupted Margaret warmly; "Oh, no--the mother of Stephen
Holgrave to be torn from us without a blow! Did he not fight for his
lord? and shall he not risk his life for his mother?"
"And is this thy counsel, foolish woman?" replied Edith, in a tone of
rebuke.
"She speaks my purpose," said Holgrave, as he grasped still firmer the
poised weapon.
Edith stepped quickly up to her son and knelt before him--
"Oh Stephen, my son, my first-born--thy mother kneels to thee. Lay
aside that lance and hearken to the words of her who bore thee, and
nourished thee. Oh, bring not sorrow and ruin on thyself and her! What
would be the bitterness of my dying moments if my son lived not to
lay me beside his father?--if thy Margaret was left to mourn in lowly
widowhood--and, perhaps, to fall beneath the base arts of Calverley!
Oh, my son, my son, by the soul of thy dead father, and by the blessing
of thy mother, resist not!--Hark! they come--they come! Haste,
Stephen--Give me the weapon."
Holgrave, shocked and agitated, could only think of raising his mother
from her knees. He suffered her, without resistance, to take the lance
from his hand, and then attempt, with her weak fingers, to remove the
barricade, while advancing footsteps were heard without.
The hostile party reached the cottage, and the latch was quickly
raised; but, finding it resist their attempts, the voice of Calverley,
in an authoritative tone, pronounced--
"In the name of the Lord Roland de Boteler, I demand the body of
Edith Holgrave, who is accused of the foul crimes of witchcraft and
murder.--Open the door, Stephen Holgrave, if you are within!"
"Fiend of hell! it is he!" muttered Holgrave, gnashing his teeth, but
without moving.
The party without seemed to have expected resistance; for the next
moment a blow was struck upon the door which made the whole house
shake; and the besieged perceived that they were forcing an entrance
with the trunk of a young tree, or some such machine, in imitation
of the ram, not yet disused in warfare. Speedily the timber yielded
and cracked; and Holgrave, starting from the stupor in which he was
plunged, caught up the axe, and posted himself in an attitude of
striking near the door.
"Pollute not thy hand with the blood of the base," said Edith, grasping
her son's arm--"Judgment is mine, saith the Lord!"
"Thomas Calverley," continued she, in a loud calm voice, "produce your
warrant!"
"The word of the Lord de Boteler," replied Calverley, "is warrant
enough for the capture of the murderess of his child. Surrender,
Stephen Holgrave, I command!"
At this moment a noise was heard, as if an entrance had been effected
through the roof; and ere Holgrave could release his arm from his
mother's hold, a shriek from Margaret struck upon his ear. He turned
his head and beheld her covering him with outstretched arms from the
drawn bows of two retainers, who appeared at the door of the room, or
loft, above.
"Archers, do your duty!" shouted Calverley; but at the moment some
voices without exclaimed suddenly, "My lord comes! My lord comes!" and
the bowmen drew back, and Holgrave instinctively dropped his axe.
De Boteler, either through anxiety for Edith's arrest, or from an
apprehension that Holgrave might oppose it, did indeed approach, and as
he advanced, with hasty and agitated steps, and beheld the evidence of
resistance in the rent roof and shattered door, his rage was extreme.
"Tear down the cottage!" cried he, his voice choked with passion, "and
take this foul sorceress dead or alive!" The command was about to be
fulfilled when the door was unbarred and opened by Holgrave.
"Stop;" said the baron, "the knave surrenders. Base-born churl, how
dare you oppose my commands?"
"My lord," said the intrepid yeoman, "I had a right to defend my
dwelling against unlawful assault."
"Unlawful! Do you call the orders of your lord unlawful?"
"My Lord De Boteler," said Edith, stepping forward, and looking full at
the baron. "It is unlawful to send armed men, in the open day, without
warrant, save your own will, to attack the house of a faithful vassal
and set his life in jeopardy. Had you sent a messenger in peace, Edith
Holgrave would have obeyed the mandate. There was little need of all
this tumult to take an aged woman, whom _He_ knoweth is innocent, and
whom you, Lord of Sudley, in your own breast----"
"Foul mouthed witch!" interrupted De Boteler, "keep thy tongue
silent--no more--lest I anticipate justice by hanging you at your own
threshold!"
"That you dare not do!" said Edith, calmly.
"Bear her away, Calverley--bear her away, or I cannot answer for the
result. Place her in the dungeon at the top of the tower, and let no
one see her till to-morrow, when she shall be conveyed to Gloucester
Castle."
That same day, Calverley summoned, or rather packed, a jury at which he
himself presided; and a verdict of wilful murder was returned against
Edith. Apprehensive, however, that the charge of poisoning might not
be sustained upon the unsupported testimony of Mary Byles, he easily
influenced the credulous jurors to believe that witchcraft had as much
to do with the child's death as poison. His usual tact, however, had
forsaken him on this occasion, and it was not until the verdict was
announced and recorded, that the unwelcome conviction flashed across
his mind, that the temporal courts could exercise no jurisdiction over
the crime of witchcraft. It was now too late to alter the language
of the inquisition. It had gone forth to hundreds who awaited its
promulgation with intense anxiety; and the language of the verdict that
"Edith Holgrave delivered to Mary Byles, a certain charmed or poisonous
drug, for the purpose of destroying Roland De Boteler, and which said
drug was administered to, and caused the death of, the said Roland,"
was, in a few hours, familiar to the whole town and neighbourhood.
Calverley was too well aware of the jealous vigilance the church
exercised in cases appertaining to its jurisdiction, not to feel
apprehensive that its influence might be exerted to defeat the
operation of the temporal court; for, although the ecclesiastical
courts could not award the last penalty to persons convicted of
witchcraft or heresy, yet they were as tenacious of their exclusive
right to investigate such cases, as if they possessed the power to
punish. When a person accused of those crimes was adjudged to die,
a writ was issued from the court of King's Bench called a writ _de
heretico comburendo_, by virtue of which the victim was handed over
to the temporal authority, and underwent the punishment awarded. But
it was seldom, at this period, that the obstinacy of a delinquent
brought about such a consummation, for a confession of the crime (if
the first) only subjected him to ecclesiastical penance or censure. It
was not till the reign of James the First that we find any legislative
enactment against witchcraft. The well known passage in Exodus which
conveys the divine command to the great lawgiver, "Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live," was the supposed authority from which the
church derived its jurisdiction; and though the priests of the old law
were armed with, and probably exercised, the ordinance in its fullest
meaning, yet the disciples of a purer and milder doctrine delegated
that authority to a power more suited to carry its decrees into effect.
The news of these transactions had no sooner reached the ears of father
John, than he hastened to the abbot of Winchcombe, for the purpose of
beseeching him to demand the prisoner in the name of the church.
Simon Sudbury, the mitred abbot, was a man of a fair and florid
complexion, with large, expressive eyes, that even at the age of fifty
were of a deep and clear blue. He was tall, and just sufficiently
corpulent to give an air of dignity to his figure; but even had his
person been insignificant, there sat on his brow, and glanced in his
eye, that pride and conscious superiority which, even from an equal,
would have extorted respect.
The monk made a lowly obeisance as he approached the abbot, and
when desired to make known his business, he detailed in a brief but
perspicuous manner the charge against Edith. The superior listened with
calm attention; but it was evident that the Baron de Boteler was not
one with whom he would feel disposed to interfere.
"My son," said he, when father John had ceased, "it seems an oppressive
case according to your statement; but you are well aware how much our
holy church has been shorn of her power, and how eager the monarch, and
nobles, and even the people, are to abridge our privileges." The abbot
paused, and again resumed: "I fear, my son, our remonstrance would be
disregarded by this young lord, and only cause a further indignity to
be cast on our holy church."
"My lord," answered the monk, "I would not urge you; but I so well know
the woman's piety and innocence, that it would be to participate in the
guilt of her accusers not to implore your lordship's interposition."
The abbot took up a pen that lay before him, and was about to write;
but he laid it down again, saying--
"Would it not be better to await her trial, and should she be found
guilty, petition the king for a pardon?"
"My lord, she may not survive the imprisonment."
"Well, my son, her earthly troubles would then cease without our
interference--the innocent are better away from this sinful world,
where oppression rules with a strong hand."
"True," answered the monk, with increased tenacity; "but will the Lord
of life hold us guiltless, if we heed not the cry of the innocent?"
The abbot looked frowningly on father John, as he again took up the
pen. "My son, you are not serving the church by such pertinacity. This
application will only expose one of its dignitaries to humiliation;
however, I shall write to the Baron, since you desire it, and demand
that the accused be transferred to the tribunal over which we preside."
The abbot waved his hand impatiently, and the monk withdrew.
The hall of Sudley had been hastily hung with black cloth, and the
walls of the adjoining apartment exhibited a similar covering; and
here, surrounded by a number of lighted tapers, lay the corpse of the
little Roland. At the foot of the bier knelt a monk in silent prayer,
and at the side sat the Lady Isabella, absorbed in a grief which none
but a mother can feel, and regardless of her husband's intreaties to
withdraw.
"Oh, no, not yet," she said, "I cannot yet leave my babe. It was but
yesterday my heart bounded at the thought of caressing my lovely boy;
and to-day--but this witch--this murderess!" she continued, turning
round, and elevating her voice; "what of her? Does she confess her
guilt?"
"No," replied Boteler; "and she persists that the potion, if rightly
administered, would rather have benefited than harmed our Roland."
"Heed her not--she is as artful as vile--they are an evil brood
altogether. Know you, De Boteler," she added quickly, "whether the
young woman participated in the deed of darkness?"
"Nothing has appeared against her," replied the baron.
At this instant an attendant entered, and delivered a letter to her
lord, from the abbot of Winchcombe, adding that two messengers were
waiting in the hall.
The baron untied the silken cord that confined the parchment, and
having hastily perused it, handed it to the Lady Isabella.
"De Boteler," said the lady, rising from her seat when her eyes had
run over the writing, "this woman shall _not_ escape justice. Go, my
lord--remember your murdered child, and compromise not with those who
would screen the guilty from punishment."
De Boteler moved from the illuminated bier, and entered the hall with a
haughty step; and as his eye fell on Father John, the frown on his brow
increased. He did not, however, appear to heed him, but, turning to the
abbot's messenger, said,
"Monk!--I have read my lord abbot's letter, and it would seem that
he ought to have known better than interfere in such a matter. My
child has been poisoned--the evidence is clear and convincing--why,
therefore, does he make such a demand?"
"My lord baron," replied the messenger, "the verdict states that a
charmed potion had been administered to the young lord. This accusation
precedes the charge of poisoning: therefore, the spiritual court must
first decide on the fact of witchcraft, before the temporal tribunal
can take cognizance of the other offence."
"And does your abbot think, when the hope of my house has perished,
whether by false incantations or deadly poison, that----Depart, monk!"
continued he, in a choked voice, "and tell your abbot that this woman's
guilt or innocence shall be tried by the laws of the realm."
"Then, my lord, you will not comply with the mandate of my superior?"
"Mandate!" repeated the enraged baron--"ha! ha! Mandate, forsooth!
From whom--from an impotent priest of a waning church--and which
church, with the blessing of God and our good king, will soon cease to
arrogate to itself the encroachment which it has made upon the royal
prerogative."
"Note down this speech, Father John," said the messenger. "And now,
Baron of Sudley, I formally demand, in the name of Simon Sudbury,
the mitred abbot of Winchcombe, the body of Edith Holgrave, whom you
impiously and rebelliously detain against the privileges of holy
church: and--"
"Hold, minion! Cease! or you will tempt me to hang the culprit from the
battlements of yonder keep, if it were only to afford news to your
master. Presumptuous shaveling! know you not that the royal franchise
granted to this manor empowers me to sit in judgment on my vassals, and
that it is only as an act of grace that she is handed over to a jury of
the county."
"The 'act of grace,' my lord," said Father John, looking sternly at
De Boteler, "only shows that your mind is not so fully convinced of
this woman's guilt as to embolden you to take the charge of her death
entirely upon your own conscience--"
"Base-born knave! do you think you wear a coat of mail in that
hypocritical garb. Ho! Calverley, let the woman be instantly
transmitted to Gloucester castle, that my lord abbot may thunder his
anathemas against its walls, if it so please him; and then bear this
meddling monk to the tumbrel, that he may learn better than to beard
his natural lord under his own roof."
"Not so, my lord," said Isabella, at the moment entering the hall,
attracted by the loud tones of De Boteler's voice; "not so, my lord;
the tumbrel is not for such as he, however rude his bearing. My
Lord de Boteler," turning to the monk, "has doubtless given you an
answer--retire, and do not farther provoke his wrath."
"Lady," returned Father John, with dignity, "I retire at your bidding,
but not through fear of the Baron de Boteler. Let him, if he will,
insult and expose an anointed priest--but, woe to him if he does! The
blight has already fallen on the blossom--beware of the tree!"
The baroness looked rebuked; and before De Boteler could reply, the two
monks left the hall.
"Did I not anticipate this result?" said the abbot, looking sternly at
the mortified monk, as the messenger detailed the interview with the
baron.
Father John bowed.
"_Your_ importunity," continued the abbot, "has cast this indignity
on holy church, and on me its minister; but nevertheless, this lord,
powerful though he be, must be taught obedience to that power he has
contemned."
"My lord," replied the monk, encouraged by the abbot's energy, "our
holy church, thank heaven, is not without _one_ able and zealous
advocate. A timorous attitude at this moment would only give fresh
vigour to those who seek to abridge its power."
"Aye, my son, there has been timidity enough in those prelates, who
tamely acquiesced in the late enactment against the clergy; and, alas!
how often since have the servants of God been dragged from the altar
and imprisoned like felons, merely to gratify the haughty barons in
their desire to humble our holy religion! The king, too, is a masked
enemy, and countenances the impious attempts to abridge our rights."
"And yet, my lord," returned John, "the church is the natural bulwark
of royalty: by humbling it, he paralyzes a power the most zealous, and
the best calculated to maintain the divine right of kings."
"It is, indeed, the stay and hope of monarchy," replied Sudbury; "but
kings are men, and fallible. This woman's case will, nevertheless,
demonstrate whether further encroachments will be submitted to by the
prelates without a struggle. I shall write letters to the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Abbot of Westminster, and you, my son, shall bear
them to London. Retire for the present, and prepare for your journey."
The abbot was as good as his word, and presently the fate of the
obscure Edith Holgrave became a question which kindled the fires of
party zeal in half the noble breasts in the kingdom. It is not to the
purpose of our story to describe the intrigue which, at this period,
tore asunder the court of Edward. Suffice it to say, that after
many stormy discussions in the cabinet, at which the abbot's first
messenger, father John, and De Boteler himself, were interrogated--the
church triumphed; the Baron of Sudley was condemned to offer an
expiatory gift, and a writ was issued to prohibit the court of assize
from trying the prisoner.
On the day the prohibitory writ left London, a small iron box, with a
superscription, addressed to Thomas Calverley, was left by a stranger
at Sudley Castle, and immediately after, by another messenger,
a packet, in which, within many envelopes, a key was concealed.
Calverley, naturally concluding that this key belonged to the box he
had just received, with a variety of perplexing conjectures, unlocked
it, and beheld the crimson damask dress of a pursuivant, on which the
royal arms were embroidered in gold, and beneath the dress a purse
of gold coin and a scroll of parchment, on which the following was
written, evidently in a disguised hand:--
"A chancery messenger will leave London on the morning you receive
this: he is the bearer of a writ to prohibit the court of assize at
Gloucester from trying Edith Holgrave.--Surely justice should not be
thus defeated--the messenger will rest for some time to-morrow evening
at Northleach.--Could not the dress that accompanies this enable you
to demand the writ from the messenger in the king's name. Remember,
however, the writ must not reach Gloucester."
Calverley started at the boldness of the proposition, and resolved,
much as he desired that Edith should suffer, not to engage in so daring
an act. But in a few minutes, as his mind became more familiarized
with the idea, much of the supposed danger of the undertaking
disappeared. He might disguise his countenance so, that, aided by the
dress, detection would be almost impossible; and even if detected, the
letter, which, despite of every effort at concealment, bore evidence
of the Lady Isabella's handwriting, would compel her to exert all her
influence in his favour. Nevertheless, Calverley, possessing less
physical than moral courage, could not bring himself to look with total
indifference upon even the possibility of personal danger, and he
determined, therefore, to associate with him in the adventure the bold
and reckless Byles.
Calverley would have willingly risked every thing _but_ his personal
safety to be revenged of her who strove to attach to him the suspicion
of crime; and even when mounted on his steed, with a large dark
cloak thrown over him to conceal the material of his dress, lest its
singularity should attract observation, he could not help feeling a
slight inward trepidation.
As they proceeded, the heath gradually assumed the appearance of a
scanty wood, the trees became more numerous, the thickets of greater
extent, and the animal on which Calverley rode was frequently impeded
by the withering stumps of trees that had been carelessly felled.
He alighted just at the point where an abrupt opening between the
clustering thickets led by a circuitous path of not more than a hundred
yards to the high road to Gloucester.
Here Calverley's quick ear caught the sound of the tramping of a
horse--his heart beat quick--it might be a traveller journeying to
Gloucester, but it was more probable that it was the messenger. He
threw the bridle of his horse over the branch of a tree, sprang to
the end of the path, and, concealing himself behind the under-wood,
discovered in a moment, by the dark medley hue of the rider's dress,
that it was the man he expected. He hurried back, and, mounting his
steed, waited till the echo of the horse's hoofs could no longer be
distinguished; and then, giving the impulse to his own spirited animal,
he was the next moment bounding at full speed after the messenger,
followed at a distance by his accomplice.
Calverley was a good horseman, and it was but a short space ere he was
within a few yards of the messenger, and shouting to him to halt. The
man stopped, and, turning in his saddle, surveyed with some surprise
(which could be seen even in the duskiness of twilight) the bright
colours that distinguished the garb of a pursuivant.
"What! for Gloucester, friend? You must have been hard upon my heels
the whole way for----"
"No," interrupted Calverley, in an assumed gruffness of tone, and with
something more than his usual authoritativeness, "my journey is ended
now. The king has recalled that writ of prohibition you were to deliver
to the judge. You are to return the writ to me, and proceed with your
other dispatches."
The messenger had heard--for state secrets will sometimes
transpire--that the chancellor had a struggle to obtain the writ; and
this knowledge, though it made him the more readily credit Calverley's
assertion, yet vexed him that his master should be foiled. Looking,
therefore, with a surly scrutiny at the steward--
"The writ," said he, "was given to me by my lord archbishop; and how do
I know that I should be right in surrendering it to a stranger? Have
you any order from his grace?"
"Order from his grace," repeated Calverley, sarcastically: "Do you not
know, my good friend, that _your_ master is in disgrace with _mine_,
and that the eloquent William of Wykeham will, ere many days pass, be
high chancellor of England. Come, come, give me the writ, and don't
lose time. I must not stir from my saddle this night, unless to change
horses, till I reach Westminster."
The news of Islip's dismissal confounded the messenger. This new
pursuivant might be in the interest of William of Wykeham, and it would
be ill policy to make an enemy where every good office might be wanting
to preserve him his situation. At all events, there was little use
in contending: he accordingly unlocked his bag, and Calverley, with a
thrill of pleasure, felt the writ within his grasp.
A hasty salutation passed, and the horsemen rode off in opposite
directions. Calverley then, sending his associate home, spurred on to
Gloucester.
The steward's first care was to put up his horse at an inn a little
within the north-gate of Gloucester; and then, proceeding on to where
the four streets, leading from the four gates of the city form a cross,
he went down Westgate-street, and, passing the beautiful cathedral,
presently reached the Severn. The evening was dark, and, looking
cautiously round, he dropt the damask dress,--and, as he thought, the
prohibitory writ,--in the oblivious waters.
CHAPTER V.
The steward, after thus relieving his mind from all anxiety respecting
the dress, proceeded to the sign of the Mitre in Silver Girdle-street,
a well known resort for certain useful adjuncts to the courts of law.
Calverley entered the Mitre, and, after calling for some wine, was
shown into a little private room by the host. A few minutes after, the
door opened, and a man entered and took his seat at the end of the
table at which Calverley was sitting. The individual who thus invaded
the privacy of the steward was a man not much above the middle height.
His face had once been comely, but a close intimacy with the bottle had
given to his countenance a bloated and somewhat revolting expression.
The latter peculiarity, however, was only to be detected by the few
who read the heart in the "human face divine;" and even these might be
deceived into a prepossession favourable to the man; for his large,
full, blue eyes, beamed with much apparent benevolence, and his nose,
though clothed in a fiery mantle and tipped with two large carbuncles,
was not a nose that Lavater himself could with conscience have objected
to. Large, black, whiskers, and thick, bushy, hair, with a beard of the
same hue, had given him the characteristic _soubriquet_ of Black Jack.
On the whole his appearance and deportment were those of a respectable
burgher of the period. This man was not a stranger to Calverley, and
Black Jack was, by some chance, still better acquainted with the person
and character of the steward. He had heard every particular relative to
the child's death, and consequently divined the motive of the steward's
visit to the Mitre, and, as he now and then cast a keen glance at
Calverley, he might be likened to the author of evil contemplating a
man about to engage in some heinous offence, the commission of which
would connect them in still closer affinity.
A flaggon of ale soon followed Black Jack, in which he drank
Calverley's health with the familiarity of an old acquaintance,
though this was the first time he had interchanged courtesies with
the steward, who returned the compliment coldly, though not in that
repulsive tone which forbids further intimacy.
A pause of a few minutes ensued, and though each was anxious to
introduce some allusion to the intended trial, yet both hesitated to
begin;--Calverley, from a prudential fear of committing himself, and
Black Jack from an apprehension of hazarding a chance of employment by
too ready a proffer of his services.
The latter became tired first of his reserve, and perceiving that
Calverley, like a spirit, would only speak when spoken to, resolved,
with characteristic modesty, to plunge _in medias res_.
"Master," said he, "you are here, no doubt, on the business of the
witch? For my part, I hold such creatures in religious abhorrence.
That's neither here nor there, however--can I do anything to serve
you?--That is the short of the matter."
"Master Oakley," replied the steward, with a grim smile which told he
knew his man, "you have correctly surmised the business that brings
Lord de Boteler's steward to the Mitre--you know the particulars of the
affair?"
"I do."
"Well," resumed Calverley, "the evidence is not so good as I could
wish. A country jury might acquit her."
"Aye, aye, I see--it shall be done--she returns no more to
Winchcombe----"
"But, you know," interrupted Calverley, quickly, "that she deserves
death for the death she has inflicted."
"That's neither here nor there: I never trouble myself about such
matters--I am no schoolman--the judge will see to that; and, if she
_is_ to be disposed of, it matters little whether by substantial
free-holders or myself and my eleven."
The price was now agreed upon, and the purse that accompanied the
pursuivant's dress was more than sufficient to satisfy the exorbitant
demand of the foreman.
"I may depend upon you, Master Oakley?" said the suspicious steward,
pausing at the door.
"By the green wax! may you--Black Jack is a man of honour. As sure as
Judge Skipwith sits on the bench, so sure shall I and my men sit in the
jury-box. He is a carle to doubt me," said Black Jack, as Calverley
shut the door--"Has he emptied his flask? No--by the green wax! he
seems to think as little of his wine as his money;" and, after emptying
the cup, left the Mitre.
The next night, being the eve of the trial, Black Jack entered the
Mitre, and, ordering a fresh gallon of stout ale, proceeded on to the
little room where he had seen Calverley, and in which, around an oak
table which nearly filled the area of the apartment, ten men were
seated. A measure stood before them which they had just emptied, and
were murmuring at their leader's close hand that restricted them to a
single gallon.
This room was sacred to the confraternity: here they held their
meetings--here they were instructed by their chief in the parts
allotted to them in the shifting drama of crime. And here, under
lock and key, pledged to the host, were the garments in which they
appeared in the jury-box as respectable yeomen. Black Jack cast a rapid
glance round the table as he entered, and perceiving one seat still
unoccupied, he frowned with impatience.
"What!" exclaimed he, "has Beauchamp broke cover on such a night as
this? Speak!"
"He has not been seen to-day," said a sleek-faced old man who sat
opposite.
"Not seen to-day--hah!--Has the fellow shrieved himself? or is he laid
up after last night's tipple?"
"Aye, Master," said another, "he is laid up but I fear he has forgot
the shrieving. However, he will never again say guilty or not guilty in
a jury-box, or kiss the book in justification of bail!"
"Saints protect us! not dead!" exclaimed the foreman. The man nodded
assent:--"Then, by the green wax! we shall lose two of the best jobs we
have had these three years. Come, come, Harvey, you only banter--the
knave is lazy."
"By Saint Luke, poor Beauchamp is as dead as he need be, master,"
answered Harvey. "I saw him this morning, and his face was as black
as--your own this moment!"
Black Jack seized the empty flaggon and was about to hurl it at the
head of the facetious under-strapper, when his arm was arrested by the
old man who had first spoken.
"Hold, master," said he, "you will find it difficult to fill
Beauchamp's seat, without making another vacancy."
The irritated foreman replaced the flaggon on the table but swore
he would have no more jesting. "Poor Beauchamp," continued he, "is
gone--the cleverest man among ye--no whining--no qualms about him, when
a shilling was to be earned by swallowing a pill or sending a traveller
before his time to the other world! How unlucky, he had not postponed
his flight for another week; this witch would then be disposed of and
the sheriff satisfied. Poor Jack, poor Jack! where shall we find a
substitute--but a substitute must be had if it were he of the cloven
foot himself! This news has made me thirsty," continued he, raising the
pitcher to his lips, "but remember, no jesting."
Black Jack then buried his face in his hands for some minutes,
meditating how he should supply the place of the defunct Beauchamp. In
vain he racked his brain; he knew many who would accept the offer, but
they were untried.
"This assize will be a hungry feast," he at length exclaimed; "we
may bid adieu to the Mitre--I must refund the money I received on
account of the witch, and the old Ferrett, too, must have his earnest
money--what is to be done? Do ye know any one who could be trusted to
stand in the shoes of Beauchamp?"
"We leave the filling up vacancies to our foreman," returned they.
"Aye, aye! ye shrink from responsibility, and throw all on my
shoulders," returned Black Jack, snatching up a renewed flagon, and
drinking freely, as if to forget his perplexity in the intoxicating
influence of the beverage. "Aye, aye! but, knaves, the money ye have
received must be refunded, and ye may go starve, or rob, for aught I
care."
"But, master, where, think you, shall it be found?" answered Harvey:
"you might as well dissolve this society, as think of making us refund
what is already scattered in every corner of Gloucester."
"Dissolve this society! impudent knave!" retorted the foreman: "I
should like to know what new profession ye are fit for: how could ye
live but for me? Think ye the sheriff would expose himself by communing
with such untaught knaves? No more sulkiness, or I take you at your
word. Give me another swoop of the goblet." It was handed to him, and,
after ingulphing a long draught, he slowly drew breath--his eyes were
observed to brighten with some new idea, and, in a moment after, he
started from his seat, exclaiming, in a burst of joy:
"By the green wax! I've got him!--I've got him at last--I shall be
back in half an hour!" He then darted out of the room, leaving his
confederates conjecturing who the welcome auxiliary was to be that
should fill the void at the oak table.
It was a full hour, however, before the indefatigable purveyor
re-appeared, accompanied by a dark, sun-burnt looking young man,
attired in the garb of a dusty-foot or foreign pedlar. He appeared to
be one of an inferior description of Galley-men, or Genoese merchants,
(as described by Stowe,) who traded to England, and trafficked with a
coin called galley-half-pence. They chiefly resided at a wharf named
Galley Key, in Thames-street, and travelled as itinerant hawkers
through the kingdom. His countenance, however, was not that of a
Genoese--it had more the appearance of the English cast of features,
though, judging from its dark and seaman-like hue, it was many years
since he left his native country.
"Come, my friends, be not cast down! Black Jack and his eleven are
themselves again!" cried the foreman, exultingly. "Here, Harvey, fill
up a goblet for our new friend. Poor Jack's chair is occupied during
the assize; see ye make much of his successor."
"Is he not engaged as a fixture?" asked Harvey, with some
disappointment.
"No, no, Harvey; his feet are not for the narrow limits of Gloucester.
He is a bird of passage, that makes its periodical migrations, and
cannot be called peculiar to one country more than another: in short,
he is a kind of privileged outlaw."
"Aye, aye, master; he breathes the various atmospheres of Christendom,
and yet I'll swear he is a dog of a heathen, notwithstanding, ha!
ha! ha! No offence," he added, addressing the galleyman; "jests are
privileged in this free society."
"Christian men," returned the dusty-foot, good-humouredly, "would be
suffocated in this poisonous air you breathe, and would die, like the
heathen, without benefit of clergy."
"That's right, galleyman--you have hit him there. That knave's skull
is a perfect book of entries, and can furnish precedents for every
crime, from high treason to a simple assault. He'll crack jokes to the
last. But, by the green wax! we must think of a proper description
for him, to insert in the pannel. Let me see--aye, I have it. A man
from Worcester has lately settled at Deerhurst; his name is James
Mills, a substantial man. Here, Harvey," as he took from his pocket
a slip of parchment, and wrote the necessary particulars, and sealed
it carefully, "take this to Lawyer Manlove. We must now see whether
Beauchamp's clothes will suit our friend here."
The host was called in, and unlocked a drawer in which they were
deposited. The galleyman, with visible reluctance, arrayed himself in
the garments, and he was observed to shudder more than once during the
investiture of the dead man's apparel.
"He's better have some warm ale," said the old man we have before
mentioned, with a sneer--"these garments seem to weigh down the spirit
of our new guest."
"Aye, and well they may," returned the foreman: "it is not every
man who could feel at ease in the clothes of a----Hang it! my brain
wanders--fill up a fresh bumper." Another and another followed, and
dispelled all symptoms of compunction in the heart of the foreman and
his companions; till even their new guest, so powerful is example,
was almost persuaded that conscience was a bug-bear. It was late ere
they separated, to re-assemble the next morning for more important
transactions.
The next morning, Sir Robert Skipwith, Chief Justice of England,
entered the court, and took his seat on the bench. After the names of
the jury were called over, Black Jack, and the eleven, respectively
answered, and entered the box, clad in respectable yeomen's or
burgher's apparel, and their countenances wearing a gravity suitable
to the occasion. They looked like a jury to whom either a guilty or
innocent prisoner would, unhesitatingly, have committed his cause. When
the prisoner was asked whether she had any objection to the jury, and
told, that if so, she might challenge the number prescribed by law, the
attention of the spectators was naturally fixed on Edith, who replied
in the negative; and her face and figure were certainly ill-calculated
to make a favourable impression.
Her face was shrivelled and yellow, and the dark full eyes that
now, as it were, stood forth from the sunken cheeks, looked with a
strange brightness on the scene, and seemed well adapted to stamp the
character of witch on so withered a form. And perhaps there were few of
those entirely uninterested in the matter who now gazed upon her, who
would not have sworn that she merited the stake.
Calverley had beheld the group as they entered the court, and instantly
averting his eyes from the mother and son, he fixed them upon Margaret.
The stranger's eyes that now gazed upon her, beheld her as a lovely,
interesting creature; but Calverley, who had not seen her since the day
that Edith was arrested, saw that the rich glow which used to mantle on
her cheek, had given place to a sickly paleness. It is true, that as
she entered the court, there was a faint tinge upon that cheek, but it
fled with the momentary embarrassment which had caused it. That full
dimpled cheek itself was now sunken, the lips were colourless, and the
eyes dim.
A momentary thought of "Oh, had she been mine, would she have looked
thus?" and an execration against Holgrave told that the demon had not
wholly possessed her quondam lover; but the next moment, as Holgrave,
after looking round the assembly, caught the eye of his enemy, the
solitary feeling of humanity died away, and Calverley turned from the
fierce glance of the yeoman with all the malignity of his heart newly
arrayed against him.
After the usual preliminaries, the indictment was read, and Edith
called upon to plead:
"Not guilty, my lord," she replied, in a voice so loud and distinct,
that the surprised hearers wondered so feeble a creature could possess
such a voice.
The evidence was then entered into, and Mary Byles was called into the
witness box. A rod was handed to her to identify the prisoner, and she
then, without venturing to encounter the look of her whose life she was
about to swear away, deposed to having received the liquid which had
occasioned the child's death, from Edith; and to certain mysterious
words and strange gestures used by the prisoner on delivering the phial.
When she had concluded, Edith questioned her, if she had not, at the
time of giving her the medicine, warned her of its dangerous strength,
and strictly enjoined her not to administer more than ten drops;
but Mary, prepared for such questions, positively denied the fact,
alleging, that Edith had merely desired her, when she saw the child
looking pale, to give it the contents of the phial.
"My lord," said Edith, in her defence, "this woman has sworn falsely.
The medicine I gave was a sovereign remedy, if given as I ordered.
Ten drops would have saved the child's life; but the contents of the
phial destroyed it. The words I uttered were prayers for the life of
the child. My children, and all who know me, can bear witness that
I have a custom of asking _His_ blessing upon all I take in hand. I
raised my eyes towards heaven, and muttered words; but, my lord, they
were words of prayer--and I looked up as I prayed, to the footstool of
the Lord. But it is in vain to contend: the malice of the wicked will
triumph, and Edith Holgrave, who even in thought never harmed one of
God's creatures, must be sacrificed to cover the guilt, or hide the
thoughtlessness of another."
"Prisoner," said the judge, "have you any witnesses to call on your
behalf?"
"My lord, my daughter was present when I gave the medicine; but I seek
no defence."
Margaret faintly answered to her name, and entered the box. She
delivered her evidence with so much simplicity and meekness, that it
seemed to carry conviction to the majority of the audience. In vain did
the wily lawyer for the prosecution endeavour to weaken her testimony
on her cross-examination. Truth, from the lips of innocence, triumphed
over the practised advocate, and Edith would probably have had a
favourable verdict from an impartial jury and an upright judge; but
from the present, she was to receive no mercy. The jury were bribed to
convict, and the judge influenced to condemn. Skipwith now proceeded to
sum up the evidence, artfully endeavouring to impress the jury with the
strongest belief in the statement of the nurse, "who," he said, "could
have no motive but that of bringing to justice the destroyer of her
lord's heir;" and, on the other hand, insinuating, as he commented on
Margaret's evidence, that her near relationship to the prisoner must be
cautiously weighed: but ere he had concluded, a sound at the entrance
of the court attracted his attention. Horton, the tall and dignified
abbot of Gloucester, with his mitre on his head, his staff in his hand,
and clad in the robes of his order (that of Saint Benedict), entered
the hall. His crosierer preceded him, bearing a massive golden cross;
on his right and left hand walked two monks, and several others,
(among whom was father John,) closed the procession.
A passage was instinctively made for the dignitary, who walked
majestically on till he stood before the bench, and then pausing, he
said in a clear, firm voice--
"My lord judge, I demand, in the name of holy church, and in the
name of the gracious king Edward, that you deliver up this woman,
Edith Holgrave, to me. A writ from the chancery, signed by the royal
hand, commanding her delivery to the ecclesiastical power, has been
sent down, and how is it that thus, in opposition to the church's
prerogative, and the royal will, I see the woman standing a criminal at
this bar?"
"My lord abbot," replied Skipwith, bowing to the priest, "the writ you
speak of has been recalled; a chancery messenger was here not three
days since."
"Did he not deliver to you the writ?" interrupted the impetuous Horton.
"Pardon me, my lord abbot, but I believe I have already said, that the
writ has been recalled. The messenger, indeed, came with a prohibitory
writ respecting the prisoner; but when, within a few miles of
Gloucester, a royal pursuivant, expressly from the king, overtook him,
and to _him_ the writ was delivered."
The calm dignity of Skipwith's reply produced some effect upon the
abbot; for in a tone less abrupt than before, he replied--
"My lord judge, that writ of prohibition has not been recalled. This
monk," pointing with his staff towards father John, "left London two
days subsequent to the messenger, and there was not then the least
intimation of the royal mind being changed."
"My lord," returned Skipwith, with a slight smile, "know you so little
of Edward as to imagine that no change could pass in his royal mind
without the monk being privy to it?"
"But," returned Horton, losing his temper at such scepticism, "this
monk was lodged in the palace of his Grace of Canterbury; and, at the
very hour of his departure, his Grace spoke as if the surrender of the
woman were already accomplished. Would he have spoken thus had the writ
been recalled?"
"Probably his Grace was ignorant that the prohibition was recalled?"
"Simon Islip ignorant! However, you admit that a writ was sent?"
Skipwith bowed.
"Then as readily may you believe that it had been kept back through
fraud and malice, and that you have brought this woman before a
tribunal incompetent to judge of matters relating to witchcraft. But
now, my lord judge, repair the wrong done, by delivering her up to a
dignitary of holy church."
"Abbot Horton," returned the chief justice, gravely, "the poisoning
has been satisfactorily proved, and a strong presumption of witchcraft
created in my mind, from the mysterious behaviour of the prisoner when
the drug was delivered to the nurse. But even were the witchcraft a
more prominent feature of the case, I do consider the king's courts are
empowered by the late act, which provides that all felonies may be
heard and determined by the king's justices, to take cognizance of this
crime. Witchcraft is a _felony_ at common law."
"That act," replied Horton, hastily, "relates to local magistrates."
"And are the judges of the land to be less privileged than petty
magistrates?"
"I came not to argue points of law, my lord judge," returned Horton,
vehemently, "but to demand a right. Will you surrender this woman?"
"My lord abbot," replied Skipwith, "the indictment has been read--the
evidence has been gone through with the customary attention to
justice--I have only to finish my charge to the jury, and it will
remain with them to pronounce her guilt or innocence."
The cool and determined tone of the chief justice exasperated the
abbot; and, fixing a stern glance upon the judge,
"It is not justice, Sir Robert Skipwith," said he, "to wrest the
unfortunate from the merciful interposition of the church--it is not
justice, but a high contempt of supreme law, to set at nought the
merciful commands of the sovereign--it is not justice to usurp a power
that belongs not to you, in order to crush a friendless woman--it is
not justice to set the opinions of an individual against the sacred
authority of God's church. The church alone, I repeat, has power
to judge in cases where the soul is concerned, as in heresy and
witchcraft."
His voice had risen with each pause in the period, till the last
sentence was uttered in a tone that reverberated through the court. An
instant of hushed silence followed, and then, to the surprise of all,
Edith raised herself up as erect as her feebleness would allow, and
resting one hand upon the bar, she raised the other towards the abbot,
and said,
"My lord abbot, my soul is guiltless of any crime which the church in
its mercy absolves, or the law in its justice punishes--I am neither
murderess nor witch. As much would my soul abhor communing with the
spirits of darkness, as my heart would shrink from destroying the
innocent----"
"Peace, woman!" interrupted the abbot: "peace--presume not to
interfere." And then, turning to the judge, he added, "Sir Robert
Skipwith, I again demand of you the custody of this woman."
"Abbot Horton, you have had my answer," returned Skipwith, in a tone of
perhaps still more vehemence than the abbot's.
The face of the provoked dignitary glowed, his eyes flashed, and he
looked, in his glittering mitre and splendid vestments, like a being
more than human, as, turning from the judge, and raising the staff he
held in his right hand, he pointed it towards the assembled crowd, and
said,
"I call upon this assembly to witness, that I have, in the name of holy
church, demanded the accused--that I have demanded her in the name
of the king, by virtue of his royal writ of prohibition, which has
been basely purloined--and that, unmindful of that divine power, and
despite the king's express command, Judge Skipwith, the servant of the
one, and an unworthy son of the other, has contemptuously refused this
demand. But," he added fiercely, as he again turned towards Skipwith,
and shook his staff at the no less irritated judge, "the royal ermine
is disgraced on the shoulders of such as thee--beware that it is not
speedily transferred to one more worthy to bear it. I say again,
beware!"
The abbot then lowered his staff, the crosierer once more preceded him,
and, followed by the monks, he proudly walked forth from the court, the
people, as he passed, forming a passage, and humbly bending forward to
receive his blessing.
The eyes of the spectators, which, during this strange scene--this
trial of strength between the lay and ecclesiastical dignitaries--had
alternately wandered to each, were now anxiously directed to Skipwith
alone, who hastily concluded his charge, and turned to the jury, as
the arbiters of Edith's fate. Calverley, among the rest, cast a look
at the jury-box: and Black Jack, turning to his companions, proceeded,
in the usual manner, to ask their opinions. Ten, after a minute's
consultation, decided that the prisoner was guilty; but the eleventh,
the stranger who had endeavoured to screen himself from observation,
and whose changing aspect and agitation had betrayed the deep interest
he took in the trial, positively refused to return a verdict of guilty.
Black Jack cast an intimidating glance on the non-content, but he
heeded him not; and as the jury-box, exposed to the eyes of the whole
court, was not a place for further debate, the foreman declared,
that as one of his brethren would not agree with the rest, they must
withdraw.
When the jurors were closeted in their private room, Black Jack asked
the galleyman the reasons of his refusal.
"There was no evidence to prove her guilt--I could not, on my
conscience, say she was a murderess," returned the stranger, firmly.
"Conscience!" replied the foreman: "who ever heard a galleyman talk of
conscience before? By the green wax! you forgot you had a conscience
the day I first saw you. You recollect the court of _pié-poudré_, my
conscientious dusty-foot, don't you?"
"Master Oakley, the thing is quite different," replied the galleyman.
"To cheat a fool of a piece of coin, is what neither you nor I would
think much about; but to rob a poor, helpless old woman of her life--to
hang her up at a gallows, and then to bury her like a heathen, where
four roads meet--no, no; that must not be."
The foreman's face assumed a deeper hue than usual: he looked fiercely
at the galleyman, but there was a determination in the weather-beaten
face that made him pause ere he spoke. "Galleyman," he at length said,
"you knew the business before you came: if you be so fond of saving old
witches' lives, why didn't you say so, that I might not now be in this
dilemma?"
"You told me," returned the other, "she was a witch, and that she had
killed the child. Now I know she is not a witch; and neither you nor
any one here believes a word of the poisoning."
"You heard what the judge said," returned Oakley: "but, however, you
are a sworn jury-man, and here you must remain till you've brought your
mind to bear upon the point."
"Aye, aye," said Harvey; "four-and-twenty hours in this cold room,
without meat or drink, will bring him to reason, I'll warrant you."
"Four-and-twenty days," said the stranger, in a voice so loud that
the eleven started, "if I could live so long, shall never make me a
murderer! No, no; you may go tell of the lushburgs, and hang me for
a coiner," he said, starting suddenly up, and looking proudly at
Black Jack; "but, by the holy well! you shall not make me hang the
woman who nursed my mother, and prayed by her when every body else
was afraid to go near her. She a witch!" he continued, with a bitter
laugh--"by the holy well! if she had been so, she wouldn't have given
the poor orphan a groat and a piece of bread, to come back, after ten
years, to hang her at last! But this comes of carding and dicing, and
sabbath-breaking. The fiend drives one on and on, till at last a man
thinks nothing of murder itself."
"By the green wax! all this ranting is unprofitable. No one could call
Black Jack an informer when his word was pledged," interrupted the
foreman. "The affair of the lushburgs has passed away--it shall rest
so, though I might pocket some good pieces by a breach of faith, which,
after this obstinacy, would not detract much from my honour. This woman
is nothing to us, and surely the judge, who is paid to hang criminals,
knows more about the guilt or innocence than I or my eleven. He told
us, as plainly as man could speak, that she deserved to be hanged. But,
remember, galleyman, neither you nor I break our fast till our opinions
are unanimous?" Black Jack winked at his companions but the action was
unnoticed by the stranger.
During this mock deliberation, Edith remained at the bar; but when
the hour had passed away, and no probability appeared of an immediate
verdict, she was directed by the judge to be taken back to prison until
the jury had agreed.
It was nearly noon the next day, when the under-sheriff entered the
room to ask if their opinions were yet unanimous. The galleyman still
refused.
"My friend," said Manlove; "it matters little now whether you agree
with your brethren or not, the woman is at this moment dying! The
verdict is, therefore, of little moment to her--she can never be
brought into court to receive judgment--guilty or innocent, the law
can have nothing to do with her; but I would advise you to look to
yourself, you will not be released till she is dead. Your brethren are
accustomed to fasting, but you look ready to drop from your seat: and,
if the woman linger many hours, you will certainly be guilty of _felo
de se_."
With a little more persuasion and the most solemn assurances that
the verdict could not possibly affect Edith, the galleyman at length
reluctantly consented to agree with the eleven, and the foreman gave in
the verdict of guilty.
"Let the prisoner be brought up for judgment?" said Skipwith to the
officer in waiting.
"It is impossible, my lord--the woman is dying!"
"Dying!" repeated the judge, "yesterday she spoke with the voice of one
who had years to live. Perhaps she wishes to defer the sentence, which
she well merits, by feigning illness. If she will not rise from her
bed, bring her into court upon it!"
The officer departed, and shortly afterwards re-appeared, and informed
the judge that the Abbot of Gloucester was standing beside the prisoner
and threatened to excommunicate the first who presumed to remove her.
"Does he? Does he dare think to evade justice thus--this subterfuge
shall not avail!" exclaimed Skipwith with vehemence, and then musing
an instant, he continued: "No, this subterfuge shall not avail--I
will constitute the cell of the criminal a court of justice for this
occasion. Officers of the Court proceed. I go to pronounce a just
sentence:" and then, rising from the bench, and preceded by his
officers, he departed to adopt the unprecedented course of passing
sentence in a prison.
When the door of the dungeon was thrown open, Skipwith started at the
unexpected sight he beheld; but, instantly recollecting himself, he
walked on, determined to persevere. Edith was lying on her back upon
the mattress, her eyes half opened, and the ghastly seal of death
impressed on every feature. Margaret and her husband were kneeling on
one side, and the Abbot Horton and Father John standing on the other.
A lighted taper and a box of chrism, which the monk held in his hand,
told that the last sacrament of the church had been administered--a
sacrament that cannot be administered to a condemned criminal.
Holgrave suddenly rose from his knees and withdrew to the farthest
corner of the cell. Margaret continued to kneel, and raised her burning
eyes towards the judge with terrified astonishment.
The abbot turned pale with rage as he beheld the somewhat abashed
Skipwith enter.
"What! impious man! Do you thirst so for innocent blood that you harass
the last moments of the dying! Retire, or I curse thee--depart, ere I
invoke heaven's wrath on thine head!"
"Insolent priest!" returned Skipwith, in a suppressed tone, as his look
wandered from the abbot to the distorted features of the departing. "I
come, not as an individual to harass, but as a judge to fulfil the law."
He then put on the black cap and slowly commenced the sentence. The
life that had seemed to have departed from the still and contracted
form, rallied for a moment--the eyes unclosed and fixed on the appalled
countenance of Skipwith; and, when the concluding invocation of mercy
for the soul of the criminal fell tremulously from the lips of the
judge, she, in a voice low but distinct, answered "Amen!" and then a
slight tremor and a faint gasp released the soul of Edith.
"The Lord will have mercy on her, vindictive judge," said the abbot,
"though you had none; but she is now beyond your malice, and the
glorified spirit will accuse you of this when----"
A wild shriek from Margaret, and a smothered groan from Holgrave,
interrupted the abbot. The judge turned silently away, and left the
dungeon: and, as there was now no prisoner to confine, the door was
left open after him.
CHAPTER VI.
On the evening succeeding the day of Edith's decease, Black Jack's
associates were, as usual, squandering away their ill-got money at
the Mitre. A ribald song was just concluded, when a loud knock caught
the attention of the foreman: the door was opened, and the galleyman
entered. His countenance looked pale and haggard, and without speaking,
he threw himself in a chair.
"What ails you, man?" inquired Black Jack--"you look the worse for your
long fast--here, drink," handing him a full pitcher.
"I want no drink," said the galleyman, impatiently, pushing away the
vessel--"but stay, 't will do me no harm."
He then snatched the pitcher and drank a full quart ere he removed it
from his lips.
"Master Oakley," said he, "you played me false in this game. Do ye
think if I hadn't been fool enough to believe what you and that master
sheriff told me, I would have given in till poor Edith Holgrave had
slipt her cable. Did you not swear to me," added he fiercely, "that the
law could not touch her?"
"True, O king; and though the judge did a queer thing in her case, yet
the woman died like a Christian in her bed after all."
"Is she _buried_ like a Christian?" passionately interrogated the
stranger. "No," he continued, in a quieter tone, "she was buried last
night in the high road without kyste or shroud, or prayer, just as one
would throw a dead dog overboard: but there is no use talking now--this
is not what I came for. I came to ask if ye will give me a hand to get
her out again."
"To dig up the old witch out of the grave!" inquired the foreman with a
stare of astonishment. "To unearth a dead body! By the green wax! man,
your long fast has touched your brain!"
"No," said the galleyman, gravely. "I am as sound and as sober as
ever I was; and, mind you, (casting a quick glance round the table) I
don't want any one to work for nothing--here, (he said, taking a small
leathern purse from his pocket) is what will pay, and I shall be no
niggard. You shall have money and drink too--speak! will you assist?
There is no time to lose."
"What say you, brethren?" resumed the foreman, looking at the rest:
"our friend served us--and besides, it is a pity to let good things go
a-begging."
The brethren felt no great appetite for a job so much out of their
way--and sundry hems! and awkward gesticulations expressed their
reluctance.
"Suppose we do assist," drawled out Harvey and three or four others;
"who is to remove the body?" the galleyman hastily answered,
"Leave it to me--I fear not the dead--though if the old woman started
from the grave, she could owe me no good will. Would you lend a hand if
this Calverley should bear down upon us?"
"Aye, aye," said Harvey, with some shew of courage; "we don't mind,
unless the odds are against us, and in that case, you know, we must
retreat."
"What!" said Black Jack, laughing, "think you squire Calverley would
busy himself about the dead! Come, come, tell out the silver, and
replenish the flagon: we are yours for this adventure--and, by the
green wax! a strange one it is."
The sum agreed upon was paid; the liquor furnished and freely
circulated; and the galleyman, now relieved from a weight that had
oppressed him, gradually became cheerful.
It was about midnight when the party set out, well armed and muffled
in large cloaks, and in less than two hours arrived within view of
Winchcombe. Here, without entering the town, they turned into a lane
branching off to the left, that led to Hailes Abbey, and down this
avenue the galleyman piloted his companions. The way was narrow--at
least two only could ride abreast--with a hedge on each side, and here
and there the picturesque branches of a well-grown elm, displaying at
this season (in the daylight) the soft green of the budding leaves.
They had proceeded in silence about half a mile, when the galleyman
suddenly paused.
"Yonder," he said, pointing to the end of the lane, "where you see the
moonlight full on the ground--must be the place--at least it cannot
be far off, for there the roads meet. There is this lane and the
road straight ahead to Hailes--then away to the right takes you to
Sudley Castle and the other end of Winchcombe; and the road this way,
elevating his left hand, leads on to Bishop's Cleave."
"But you have brought nothing to put the body in?"
"I brought a winding-sheet," replied the stranger; "and when the grave
is dug, and the coast clear, I'll wrap it round poor Edith, and lay her
in my cloak--and ye will hold the corners."
"O yes," returned Black Jack; "we won't go from our promise. But where
do you mean to take her?"
"To Hailes.--But when all is ready, I must go up the lane yonder,"
pointing to the right--"'tis but a step, and fetch Stephen
Holgrave--and the poor fellow shall go with us to see his mother buried
as she ought to be."
The party then dismounting, secured their horses to the hedge; and,
concealing their faces by masks of parchment, smeared over with paint,
proceeded to the end of the lane: but a sudden exclamation from the
galleyman, who was a little in advance, arrested the steps of all.
The moon was standing round and bright in a sky gemmed with stars, and,
as the rover had just said, her beams fell unshadowed upon the open
space where the roads met;--and here, directly in the centre, two dark
figures were revealed. One was kneeling, while the other stood erect,
holding at arm's length a cross. The galleyman gasped for breath as
he drew closer to his companions, who, concealed in the shade of the
hedge, looked eagerly at the objects of their alarm.
"Are they spirits?" asked the stranger in a subdued and terrified tone.
"O yes, my brave heart!" said the foreman, with something of ridicule;
"they are spirits, but spirits in the flesh--like good wine in stout
bottles."
"Aye, aye," said Harvey, encouraged by the unembarrassed manner of his
leader; "they are spirits I'll warrant, that can be laid by swords and
staves instead of prayers!"
The galleyman breathed freer at this united testimony that he had
nought to fear--for he feared none of this world;--and as he still
gazed, almost entirely relieved from his superstitious dread, he
observed the extended arm of the upright figure gradually fall to his
side, as if his prayer or invocation had ended, and he stooped as if
addressing his companion; but the latter still maintained his kneeling
posture.
"It must be Stephen," said he, mentally; "he is mourning over his
mother. Comrades," he said, turning to the others, "it is but the
woman's son: at any rate there are but two. I'll go and hail them; and
if ye see me stop, ye can come forward with the shovels." The galleyman
went forward; but the moment he left the shade, his figure caught the
eyes of him who stood erect. He spoke to the other, who, instantly
starting on his feet, prepared himself to meet the intruder. The
stranger, nothing daunted, hurried on, and, in an instant, stood before
those who, by the menacing attitude they assumed, evidently regarded
him with no friendly feeling.
"It is no enemy bearing down upon you, friends," said the galleyman, in
that tone of confidence which seems neither to suspect or purpose ill.
"Tell me, is either of you the son of her who--who lies here?"
"Why ask you?" replied the taller figure, in a deep commanding voice.
"I will not answer till I am answered: but this I may say, be ye who
ye will, that there is not a man I would befriend sooner than Stephen
Holgrave."
"If you are a friend, I will trust you; and if not, I do not fear you,"
said Holgrave, raising the brim of a slouched hat that had shadowed his
face--"I am Stephen Holgrave."
"Then may luck attend you," answered the galleyman, grasping his hand;
"I thought it was you, and I came, not alone, for I have helpmates
yonder to--to--do, what I thought would be a good turn for you--to bury
your mother."
"It is an act of charity, stranger, to bury the dead," said father John
courteously; "and you are calling down mercy upon your soul like that
pious man of old----"
"Aye, and I have need of mercy," returned the galleyman, "more need
than he, whoever he was. But see, my mates are coming;--we must fall to
work, for the night is wearing."
"But who may you be, stranger, who thus interest yourself for the
injured?" asked the monk, "or why this disguise?"
"It is of no consequence who I am: and as to this mask, why! a man can
work as well with it as without it."
The approach of Black Jack and three of the others (the fourth had been
left with the horses) prevented any farther conversation; and, throwing
aside their cloaks, the galleyman and the three jurors instantly
commenced clearing the grave.
Holgrave drew the brim of his hat again over his face, and folding his
arms, looked silently on as the work proceeded.
"By the green wax!" said Black Jack, approaching at this instant, "as
I stood yonder, reconnoitring the ground, a man shewed his head behind
that ruined wall!"
"'Tis the fiend Calverley, or one of his imps," exclaimed Holgrave,
springing forward to the broken wall; but if any object had really
presented itself, it had, in a singular manner, disappeared--for
Holgrave, after a few minutes of anxious search, returned without
having discovered the trace of a human being.
The body of Edith had been raised during his absence, and, with the
winding-sheet wrapped around the clothes in which it had been laid in
the earth, was just placed in the galleyman's cloak when Holgrave came
up. An involuntary cry burst from the yeoman as he threw himself upon
the ground beside the corpse, and, removing the cloth, passionately
kissed the hands and the forehead.
"Stephen Holgrave," cried the monk, sternly, "where is thy
fortitude?--you have broken your word. Has thy manhood left thee?"
"She was my mother!" said the mourner, rising.
When he had retired, the chasm was hastily filled up; and then Black
Jack, the galleyman, and two other jurors, took each a corner of the
cloak, and, preceded by the monk, reciting in a low voice the prayers
for the dead, and followed by Holgrave and the remaining jurors,
leading the horses, proceeded at a quick pace to the church-yard of
Hailes Abbey.
In little more than half an hour, they arrived at the meadow in which
stood the parish church and the abbey of Hailes. The church, a small,
plain Gothic building, with a red tiled roof, stood in the centre of
a burial-ground, of dimensions adapted to the paucity of inhabitants
in the parish. A low stone wall enclosed it, and some old beech-trees
threw their shadows upon the mounds and the grave-stones that marked
where "the rude fore-fathers of the hamlet" slept.
Father John went forward, and, pushing open a wooden gate, led the way
to the osier-girt mound and head-stone over the grave of Holgrave's
father. The body was deposited on the grass, and a space cleared of
sufficient depth to receive it.
In the mean time, Holgrave had conducted those in charge of the
horses to an old barn at a short distance, and then returned to the
church-yard; and when the deceased was lowered into the grave, the
yeoman knelt at the head, the galleyman and Harvey at each side, and
Father John, standing at the foot, pronounced, in a low but audible
voice, the prayers usual on interment. The moonbeams fell on the
church, so as to cast a far shadow upon the ground that lay towards
the abbey; the foot of the grave was within the shadow, so that Father
John's figure was little revealed; and the branches of a tree (against
whose broad trunk Black Jack leant) concealed Harvey, and cast a
trembling shadow upon that side; but the light streamed full upon
Holgrave and upon the galleyman, who was kneeling at his right hand.
At this instant, an arrow whizzed past Holgrave, and struck fire from
the opposite wall. The yeoman sprang upon his feet; another shaft was
sped, but instead of the object for which it was intended, pierced the
hat of the foreman.
"By the green wax!" cried Oakley, as he lifted the perforated hat from
the grass, "we shall need more graves, if we stand here for marks. Come
round, and stoop close to the wall, and the trees and grave-stones may
ward off the shafts. If they will, let them come to close quarters."
"You counsel wisely, stranger," said the monk, passing round, and
standing in the shadow of the tree on the left of Holgrave, whom he
forced to retire and crouch like the rest.
As this was accomplished, a third shaft tore the bark from the tree;
and in an instant after, Calverley, followed by some of his myrmidons,
sprung down from an aperture of the wall.
"Sacrilege!" shouted he--"sacrilege! Take them, dead or alive!"
Holgrave rushed on the steward, and the clash of steel rang through the
church-yard.
The assailants, however, were somewhat damped by a loud blast from the
foreman's horn, which was instantly echoed by one of his men; and the
tramping of horses in the direction of the gate increased the panic.
The retainers of Sudley at length retreated more speedily than they had
approached, pursued by the galleyman and Harvey, who had burst from
their concealment on perceiving them enter.
Byles, who was of the party, but had hitherto looked on as a spectator,
(being determined to allow the steward and the yeoman to fight it
out,) now glared fiercely around in search of an adversary. A cry from
Calverley, however, drew him unwillingly to his assistance, and he
sprang to the spot; but his uplifted arm was seized by a giant grasp,
the axe wrenched from his hands, and himself hurled violently to the
earth.
A strange sensation thrilled through the heart of the excited monk--an
impulse to shed blood! The weapon of the prostrate Byles was snatched
from the earth--it waved fiercely round his head; nature and religion
warred, for an instant, in his bosom, but the latter triumphed: the
weapon was flung to a distance; and Father John, crossing himself,
disappeared among the tombs.
The combatants were as yet little hurt, for each was well skilled in
the use of his weapon; but the steward, in endeavouring to ward off a
blow that might have cleft his head, only succeeded at the sacrifice
of his right ear, which was severed by the descending blade; and, ere
he could recover this shock, Holgrave sprang within his guard, and
wrenched the sword from his hand. A brief but fierce struggle ensued,
in which Holgrave, at length, prevailed--the steward was thrown
backward to the ground, and the next moment his enemy's hand was on his
throat.
"Mer-c-c-y! mer-c-c-y! oh! mercy, Stephen Holgrave!" gasped he, as,
with a despairing effort, he attempted to unloose the death-hold.
"Yes! mercy, Stephen--mercy to the coward!" exclaimed the galleyman;
"he is not worth your vengeance."
"Mercy! he had little mercy for her," muttered Holgrave, bitterly, as
he tightened his grasp.
At this moment, the voice of the monk was heard, as he rang the abbey
bell, shouting "Murder! sacrilege! Ho! porter! murder!"
Holgrave, struck with awe, relinquished his hold, and Black Jack and
his jurors instantly fled.
"Fly, knaves!" cried the galleyman, addressing Byles and Calverley,
as he released the latter. "And now, meddling steward, if you attempt
to interfere with her who is in that holy berth yonder, or injure the
honest yeoman, her son, for this night's doings, the Lord have mercy
upon you! Here, Stephen," (walking towards Holgrave, who had thrown
himself beside the grave,) "up, and jump behind on my horse, for the
cry of sacrilege will edge their brands, and friend or foe will have
little chance. There--the abbey-gate is thrown open, and out they come
with brand and torch."
"God speed you!" cried Holgrave, as the galleyman turned away, and
grasped his hand: "God speed you! and reward you for this night: and if
ever you or yours are in want of a friend, remember Stephen Holgrave."
The galleyman hastily pressed the extended hand, and, springing to the
gate, was in an instant on his horse, and galloping in the track of his
companions, pursued, but in vain, by the arrows of the abbey retainers.
When Calverley saw his lord after this transaction, the scene, much to
the amazement of the former, partook more of comedy than tragedy, for
De Boteler, when he saw the head of his esquire minus the ear, could
not refrain from laughter.
"Meddling knave!" said he, "why did you interfere? The woman was
dead--what more would you have? Did you understand it to be the custom
of the lord of Sudley to war with dead enemies?"
This mortification only added fuel to the steward's wrath, and he
determined to carry on, with all the vigour of soul and purse, an
action which he had already commenced against his enemy.
Towards the end of June the sessions commenced at Gloucester, and
Holgrave once more stood in the hall of justice--not as a looker on,
but as an actor. Although, at the present period, the charge would have
assumed a truly formidable shape, yet the deed was not then accounted
even as _maihem_--for the simple reason, that the loss of an ear did
not prevent a man from performing military duties.
But in this instance the offence was aggravated, at least in the
eye of the law, by the manner and occasion. The law had not as yet
contemplated the evasion of its decisions, by the disinterment of the
bodies of criminals, and, consequently, there was no provision for
punishing the deed. It was, however, taken into account in the verdict,
and the damages were proportionably heavy. Holgrave, as may readily
be imagined, had not a coin to meet the demand, and his crops, which
had grown and flourished, as if by miracle--for they had been little
indebted to his attention--were now condemned to be cut down, and put
up for sale to pay the damages. The yeoman had often looked upon his
plentiful fields with a feeling of pleasure: not that his mind had
latterly been in a mood to find pleasure in the prospect of gain; but
his house and his land were mortgaged, (for his mother,) and even in
the darkest and most troubled scene, there is a beauty, a redeeming
brightness, encircling the domestic hearth,--nay, perhaps, the heart
clings more closely to home, and treasures, more fondly, the little
nameless pleasures, and even the cares and anxieties of domestic life,
in proportion to the bleakness of the prospect without.
His farm itself was at length forfeited, and Holgrave took shelter
for the moment at old Hartwell's. The hut his father had reared when
he married his mother, was still standing; the roof had fallen in,
the ivy had grown over its walls; but even yet it sometimes sheltered
the wandering mendicant, and often would the blaze of a large wood
fire look cheerily through the shattered casement and the broken
door, and shed an air almost of comfort over the bare walls. Holgrave
remembered the ruin, as he was considering where he could abide until
Margaret, who was far advanced in the family way, should be enabled
to travel farther. His resolution was instantly formed; and refusing
the assistance offered by Hartwell, and some other neighbours, and
as decidedly rejecting the idea they proposed, of striving to regain
possession of his house, he requested Lucy Hartwell to look to Margaret
for a day or two, while he sought out a place to shelter them; and
then, without mentioning his purpose, quitted the house.
It was late in the afternoon ere Holgrave resolved to put the hut that
had sheltered him when a boy, in a state to receive him now; but
there were several hours of daylight before him, and even when the day
should close, the broad harvest moon would afford him light to prolong
his labour. The rushes that grew by the Isborne, the clay from the
little spot of ground attached to the hut, and the withered and broken
branches that lay thickly strewn over the adjoining forest, gave him
ample materials for his purpose.
Holgrave set about his task with that doggedness of purpose which
persons of his disposition display when compelled to submit. His
misfortunes had in some measure subdued a pride that could never be
entirely extinguished;--it might be likened to a smothered fire, still
burning, although diffusing neither heat nor light, but ready upon the
slightest breath to burst forth in flame. Even here he was interrupted
by a visitor.
"Good even, Stephen," said Wat Turner, the parish smith, in as kind
a tone as his abrupt manner could assume; "you are hard at work,
master--are you going to set the old cot to rights?"
Holgrave answered carelessly, and without looking at the smith,
continued his work.
"I think you are doing well, Stephen, not to allow the idle vagabonds
to house here any longer. By St. Nicholas! when these holes are stopped
up, and the thatch is put to rights, and the casement whole, and a
couple of hinges put to the door, it will be a place fit for any man.
When I go home I will send my son Dick, and the knave Tom, to help you."
"You need not trouble yourself," replied Holgrave: "what I want to do I
can do myself."
Turner looked at Holgrave, as if he meant to resent the unsociable
manner in which the reply was uttered; but speedily recollecting
himself--
"I can't blame you, Stephen," said he, "you have had enough to sour any
man's temper; nevertheless, I shall send Dick if I can find him; and
Tom is a famous hand at thatching, and I will step over myself in the
morning with the hinges and a latch for the door. But harkee, Stephen,
if you wish to keep your _own_ house, only say the word, and myself,
and one or two more, will beat the old miser and his men to powder, if
they don't give it up again."
There was so much of good feeling in this rude speech, that Holgrave
turned to the smith and grasped his hard hand.
"Hush! man," interrupted the smith, as his friend attempted to thank
him; "say nothing for the present; only remember, if Wat Turner, or any
belonging to him, can lend you a hand, just say the word, or come over
to my forge and give me a nod, and we'll be with you in a twinkling."
One morning, about a month after this, Margaret had as usual prepared
her husband's dinner. The frugal meal was spread by eleven o'clock,
but Holgrave came not: twelve arrived, and then one, and two, and the
dinner was still upon the table untasted. Margaret was first surprised
and then alarmed, but when another hour had passed away, she started
up with the intention of going to seek her husband. At this moment,
Holgrave pushed open the door, and entering, threw himself upon a
seat. There was a wildness in his eyes, and his face looked pale and
haggard. It occurred to Margaret, that he had probably partaken of some
ale with a neighbour, and having neglected his customary meal, that the
beverage had overcome him. However, he looked so strangely, that she
forbore to question him. He bent forward, and resting his elbows on his
knees, buried his face in his upraised hands, and sat thus, ruminating
on something that Margaret's imagination arrayed in every guise that
could torture or distress. At length he raised his head, and looking on
his wife with more of sorrow than anger--
"I was right, Margaret," said he, "it _was_ Calverley that set the
usurer upon taking the land. He gave the miser something handsome, and
John Byles is to have it upon an easy rent!"
"John Byles, Stephen?"
"Yes, Margaret," replied Holgrave, "John Byles is to have it; he told
the smith so himself. But," he continued, sitting upright in his chair,
and then starting upon his feet,--"does he think he shall _keep_ it?"
Margaret shuddered, as she looked in his eyes.
That night, the freemen and serfs that dwelt on the estate of De
Boteler, and even the inmates of the castle itself, were alarmed
by the sudden glare of red flames rising in a bright column above
the tallest trees, and so fiercely burned the flame, that in a few
minutes the horizon was tinged with a ruddy glow. There was an eager
rush to discover from whence the phenomenon arose, and many were the
exclamations, and many the whispered surmises, when it was ascertained
that the cottage was on fire from which Holgrave had been so recently
ejected.
Stephen stood at the door of his hut, looking with an air of derision
on the vain efforts of the people to extinguish the flames; and
Margaret wept as she saw the flames rising, and brightening, and
consuming the house, which she still loved to look upon even now that
it was for ever lost to _her_. The roof at length fell in, and myriads
of burning particles sparkling like diamonds, showered for a moment in
glittering beauty.
Holgrave was still looking on the conflagration that had in a great
measure spent its fury, when Wat Turner came up to him, and applying a
hearty smack on the shoulder--
"A famous house-warming for John Byles," said he. "By Saint Nicholas!
I wish his furniture had been in to have made the fire burn brisker.
'Tis almost over now; there it goes down, and then it comes up again,
by fits and starts: 'tis a pity, too, to see the house which stood so
snugly to-day, a black and smoky ruin to-morrow; but better a ruin,
than a false heart to enjoy it. By Saint Nicholas! 'twill give the
old gossips talk for the whole week. Aye, 'tis all over now; there
will still be a spark and a puff now and then; but there's nothing to
see worth keeping the karles any longer from their beds, and I think
it is time that we be in ours--so good night. But a word with you,
Stephen;--you did the business yourself this time without help; but
mind you, if ever Wat Turner can lend you a hand, you have only to say
so--Good night."
"Good night," replied Holgrave, though without moving his eyes from the
now darkly-smoking ruin; and there he stood with unchanging gaze till
the sky had entirely lost its ruddy hue, and the smouldering embers of
the cottage could no longer be distinguished; and then he entered his
dwelling, and, closing the door, threw himself upon his bed--but not to
sleep.
CHAPTER VII.
An hour had not elapsed since Holgrave retired to bed, before the
cottage door was burst open, and Calverley with a strong body of
retainers entered, and arrested him for the felony.
The fourth day from his committal, happened to be a Court day of the
manor, and it was selected for the trial, for the purpose of showing
the tenantry what they might expect from the commission of an offence
of such rare occurrence. The hall was thronged to suffocation; for
many more were attracted by the expected trial, than by the familiar
business of a manorial court, and the people beguiled the time till the
entrance of De Boteler in commenting on the transaction.
"Silence!" was at length vociferated by a dozen court keepers, and
Calverley was asked if he was ready to begin. The steward answered
in the affirmative, and slowly read the indictment, during which, a
profound silence was maintained throughout the hall.
"Are you guilty or not guilty?" asked Calverley in a tone, the emotion
of which even his almost perfect control of voice could not disguise.
"Thomas Calverley," replied Holgrave, firmly, "if you mean me to say
whether I burned my cottage or not, I will tell these honest men
(looking at the jury) that I did so. All here present, know the rest."
A buzz of disapprobation at this confession was heard, and the epithet
"fool, fool," was faintly whispered, and then another loud cry of
silence was shouted from the court keepers, as De Boteler appeared
about to speak.
"You have heard his confession," said the baron. "See, steward, that
he is sent to Gloucester, to receive sentence from the King's Judge
when he goes the next assize. Record the verdict, and let the record be
transmitted to the superior court."
Wat Turner, whose attention was anxiously fixed on the proceedings, now
stept forward, and forcing his way till he stood opposite the Baron,
demanded in a voice of mingled anger and supplication, "May I be heard,
Baron De Boteler?"
"Be brief, Sir Blacksmith," replied the Baron, surprised at the abrupt
question, "be brief with whatever you have to say."
"I was going to say, my Lord, that poor Stephen here has called
nobody to speak to his good character, but may be it isn't wanting,
for every man here, except one would go a hundred miles to say a good
word for him--But my Lord, I was thinking how much money that house
of Holgrave's cost in building--Let me see--about twenty florences,
and then at a shilling a head from all of us here," looking round upon
the yeomen, "would just build it up again--I for one would not care
about doing the smith's work at half price, and there's Denby the
mason, and Cosgrave the carpenter, say they would do their work at the
same rate--By St. Nicholas! (using his favorite oath) twelve florences
would be more than enough--Well then my Lord, the business might be
settled,"--and he paused as if debating whether he should go farther.
"And what then, impudent knave," asked the Baron,--"what is the drift
of this long-winded discourse?"
"Why then, my Lord," replied Turner, "this matter settled, I and these
vassals of yours here, would ask you to give this foolish man free
warren again. We (mind your Lordship) going bail for his good bearing
from this day forth, and--"
The Baron reflecting that his dignity would be in some measure
compromised by thus countenancing the Smith's rough eloquence,
commanded him in a harsh tone to be silent, although it was evident
from his altered looks, that his heart had felt the rude appeal. He
beckoned Calverly to approach, and they remained for some moments in
earnest discourse.
"Neighbours," said Turner in a whisper, "my Lord is softened. Let us
cry out for pardon." And the hint was not long lost upon the people; in
an instant a deafening cry of "Pardon, pardon for Stephen Holgrave!"
resounded through the hall. The unexpected supplication startled the
astonished De Boteler, and a loud threat marked his displeasure at the
interruption. Silence was again shouted by the hall keepers.
"Prisoner," resumed De Boteler, assuming a tone of severity, "you are
forgiven; but upon this condition, that you renounce your freedom, and
become my bondman."
"Become a bondman!" cried the smith, disappointed and mortified at the
alternative: "Stephen, I would sooner die."
"Silence, knave!" said the baron; "let the man answer for himself."
"It was on this spot too," persisted the smith, "where, but two years
ago, he did homage for the land you gave him: and by St. Nicholas,
baron, boastful and proud was he of the gift; and if you heard him as I
did, that same day, praying for blessings upon you, you could not now
rive his bold heart so cruelly for all the cottages in England."
Pale as death, and with downcast eyes, Holgrave, in the meantime, stood
trembling at the bar. His resolution to brave the worst, had, with a
heart-wringing struggle, yielded to the yearnings of the father and
the love of the husband. The bondmen pressed forward, and marked the
change; but that scrutinizing gaze which he would so recently have
repelled with a haughty rebuke, was now unheeded, and his eyes remained
fixed on the ground to avoid contact with that degraded class with whom
he was soon to be linked in brotherhood.
Just as the baron was about to put the dreaded interrogatory, to the
surprise of all, father John entered the hall, and walked with a firm
step towards the justice-seat. The monk had not visited the castle
since his expulsion, and he had now no desire to stand again where his
profession as a priest, and his pride as a man, had been subjected
to contumely; but the desire of aiding Holgrave in his defence, had
overcome his resolution.
"What dost thou here, monk?" asked De Boteler, sternly, "after my
orders that you should never more enter this hall."
"Baron de Boteler, I have not willingly obtruded myself. The duty of
affording counsel to this unfortunate man impelled me to enter thus
once again. Stephen Holgrave must choose the bondage, because he would
live for his wife and his yet unborn child; but, ere he resigns his
freedom, he would stipulate for his offspring being exempt from the
bond of slavery."
He ceased, and fixed his eyes anxiously on De Boteler, who seemed
collecting a storm of anger to overwhelm the unwelcome suitor.
"Audacious monk!" said he at length, "this is thy own counsel--away,
quit the hall, or--"
"Hold, Lord de Boteler," interrupted Father John, calmly; "the threat
need not pass thy lips: I go; but before I depart I shall say, in
spite of mortal tongue or mortal hand, that honor and true knighthood
no longer preside in this hall, where four generations upheld them
unsullied."
"Strike down the knave!" cried De Boteler, rising fiercely from his
seat. "Drive him forth like a dog," continued he, as the monk, without
quickening his pace, walked proudly away; but no hand responded to the
baron's mandate. A cry arose of "Touch not the Lord's anointed," and
the monk was permitted to depart as he came, unharmed.
"Now, sirrah," said the baron, whose anger was aroused to the highest
pitch; "say the word--is it death or bondage?"
Holgrave trembled; he cast a longing eager glance towards the door.
Margaret was in the pains of labour, brought on by the shock she
received on his arrest; and this it was that caused him to hesitate.
His face brightened as he beheld the animated ruddy face of a serving
boy, who breathlessly approached. He bent forward his head to catch the
whispered intelligence that told him he was a father, and then, with a
joy which he strove not to conceal, announced his selection in a single
word--"bondage!"
"Then the child is born?" asked De Boteler.
"Yes, my lord, HE is free!"
Calverley's countenance displayed the mortification with which he
received the intelligence, but presented the gospels to Holgrave in
silence.
Notwithstanding the recent flush of pleasure which warmed the heart
of the yeoman, his resolution appeared again to forsake him--he
endeavoured to speak, but in vain--he appeared to be overwhelmed by
a variety of contending emotions; but the stern voice of De Boteler
aroused him, and in a choked voice, he pronounced after Calverley the
fealty of a bondman, holding his right hand over the book:--
"Hear you, my Lord de Boteler, that I, Stephen Holgrave, from this day
forth, unto you shall be true and faithful, and shall owe you fealty
for the land which I may hold of you in villeinage, and shall be
justified by you both in body and goods, so----"
A loud blast of a horn accompanied with the voices of men and the
tramp of horses, interrupted the ceremony; and De Boteler, recollecting
that his cousin Ralph de Beaumont, with other guests, were expected,
turned to Calverley and ordered him to receive and conduct them to the
hall.
"Stephen Holgrave, my lord, has not yet finished his fealty."
"What! do you dream of such things when my noble cousin and guests are
waiting for our courtesy? Away! I shall attend to the matter myself."
Calverley reluctantly departed on his mission, cursing the interruption
that prevented his enjoying the degradation of his rival, and the baron
now inquired whether Holgrave had confessed himself his villein.
One of the retainers, who stood by, boldly answered, "He has, my
lord; Master Calverley gave him the words;" and the baron perceiving
Holgrave's hand still resting on the book, took it for granted; and
then ordering the yeoman to be set at liberty, arose and advanced to
meet his guests.
Holgrave too, retired; and though secretly rejoicing that, legally
speaking, he was as free as when he entered the court, he yet felt
bitterly that in the eye of the baron and the barony, he was as
much a villein as if he had pronounced every letter, and sealed the
declaration with the customary oath.
He returned home gloomy and discontented; and, as he stood by the bed
of the pallid Margaret, and inquired of her health, there was nothing
of the tender solicitude with which he used to address her, in his
manner or in his voice.
"Thank God!" said Margaret faintly, as she took his hand and pressed
it to her lips; "thank God, that you have returned to me without hurt
or harm."
"Without hurt or harm!" repeated Holgrave: "_she_ would not have
said so--oh! no, no, _she_ would not have rejoiced to see me return
thus;--but your soul is not like hers--if life is spared, it matters
little to you that the spirit be crushed and broken: but Margaret, do
not weep," he said, bending down to kiss the pale cheek, over which
the tears his harsh language had called forth, were streaming fast.
"Do not weep, I cannot bear your anguish now: I did not mean to speak
unkindly--I love the gentleness of your spirit--you are dearer to my
heart, Margaret, than even the freedom that was of higher price to me
than the breath I drew!"
"Will you not look at the little babe?" said Margaret, anxious to turn
the current of her husband's thoughts.
"Another time, Margaret--not now; but--the child was born before its
father declared himself a wretch! and I will look upon it--poor little
creature!" he continued, gazing at the babe as Margaret raised it up,
"what a strange colour it is!"
"Yes," said Margaret, "and it is so cold! they think it will not live!"
"So much the better."
"Oh! don't say so, Stephen," replied Margaret, pressing the infant to
her bosom; "I have prayed it might live, and I suppose it was only the
fright that makes it so cold and discoloured."
"May be so," answered Holgrave; "but if your prayers be not heard, and
the child dies----"
It seemed scarcely a human voice which had uttered the last words, so
deep and hoarse was the sound, and there seemed more of threat, in the
sudden pause, than if he had thundered out the wildest words. Margaret
gave an involuntary shudder; and Holgrave, who was not so wrapped up
in his own feelings, as to be wholly regardless of those of his wife,
moved away from the bed, and sat apart, brooding over the dark thoughts
that filled his breast.
On the second day after Holgrave had become a bondman, he was summoned
by an order from Calverley to go to labour for his lord. His heart
swelled as he sullenly obeyed the mandate, and Margaret trembled as she
saw him depart. She looked anxiously for the close of the day; and,
when she saw her husband enter with some vegetables and grain that had
been apportioned to him for his day's toil, her heart was glad. It was
true that the gloom on his brow seemed increased, and that he threw
down his load, and sat for several minutes without speaking,--but she
cared not for his silence as she saw him return in safety.
The next day he went to his task, and pursued his labour with sullen
industry, but no approaches to familiarity would he permit in the
companions of his toils. He still regarded himself as a free man; he
knew not how distant the day of his release might be; but he resolved,
if an opportunity ever did occur, that he should not let it pass.
He disdained the villeins, and he felt that the free men would disdain
him. He would not associate with those now, whom, in his day of
prosperity, he had sought to befriend, and whose degraded state he
had wished to ameliorate; nor would he associate with those who had
so lately been his compeers, lest they should seek to befriend him or
ameliorate his lot.
One evening, about the eighth day after the birth of his infant,
fatigued in body, and troubled in spirit (for Calverley had that day
exercised to the full the commanding power with which he was invested),
he entered the cottage, and found Margaret weeping over the little babe.
"Oh, Stephen," she said, "how I wished you would return--for our child
is dying!"
"Great God!" cried Holgrave, rushing forward to look at the
infant,--the feelings of the father overcoming every selfish
consideration.
"Oh, see!" said Margaret, her voice almost choked with her sobs. "See
how pale he looks! Look at his white lips! His breathing becomes faint!
Oh, my child, my child!"
Margaret ceased to speak, and her tears dropped fast on the little
innocent she was so anxiously watching; presently it gave a faint sigh,
and the mother's agonizing shriek, told her husband that the breath was
its last. Holgrave had beheld in silence the death-pang of his child;
and now, when the cry of the mother announced that it had ceased to be,
he turned from the bed and rushed to the door without uttering a word.
"Oh, Stephen, do not leave me!" exclaimed Margaret. "Oh! for mercy's
sake, leave me not alone with my dead child!"
But Stephen heard her not;--indeed, he was a few paces from the door
ere she had finished the exclamation.
All without the cottage, as well as within, was darkness and gloom.
Perhaps, if the beauty of moonlight had met his view, he might have
turned sickening away to the sadness of his own abode; but as it was,
the dreariness of the scene accorded with the feelings, which seemed
bursting his heart, and he rushed on in the darkness heedless of the
path he took. As if led by some instinct, he found himself upon the
black ruins of his once happy home. No hand had touched the scattered,
half-consumed materials, which had composed the dwelling; the black
but substantial beams still lay as they had fallen. Perhaps, his
was the first foot that pressed the spot since the night it blazed
forth, a brilliant beacon, to warn the base-hearted what an injured
man might dare. The fire had scathed the tree that had sheltered the
cottage, but the seat he had raised beneath it yet remained entire.
He sat down on the bench, and raised his eyes to the heavens; the
wind came in sudden gusts, drifting the thick clouds across the sky;
for a moment a solitary star would beam in the dark concave, and then
another cloud would pass on, and the twinkling radiance would be lost.
He gazed a few minutes on the clouded sky, and thought on all he had
suffered and all he had lost: his last fond hope was now snatched away;
and he cursed De Boteler, as at once the degrader of the father and
destroyer of the child. But a strange feeling arose in his mind as a
long hollow-sounding gust swept past him; it came from the ruin beside
him--from the spot _he_ had made desolate; and, as he looked wistfully
round, he felt a sudden throbbing of his heart, and a quickened
respiration. In a few minutes his indefinite terror became sufficiently
powerful to neutralize every other sensation. He arose--he could not
remain another instant; he could scarcely have passed the night there
under the influence of his present feelings, had it even been the price
of his freedom. He hurried down the path that led from the place where
he had stood, and at every step his heart felt relieved; and, as the
distance increased, his superstitious fears died away, and gradually
gloom and sorrow possessed him as before.
As he walked on, choosing the most unfrequented paths, a sudden gleam
of light startled him, till he recollected that Sudley castle stood
before him; and, without bestowing a thought on the unusual number of
tapers that were seen burning in various parts of the building, he
pursued his way. But the sound of steps approached, and he stooped to
conceal himself in the shade of a thicket, for he was not in a mood
to talk, and, besides, he might now be subject to interrogatories as
to his wandering about in the dark: he had before been accused as a
deer-stealer, and why should he not be suspected now? The steps came
from opposite directions; they met just before the bush where Holgrave
had crouched; and a voice, that he recognised as a neighbour's, said,
"Holla! who is that? man or maid?--for, by the saints, there is no
telling by this light."
"It is I, Phil Wingfield," replied one of the castle servitors: "my
lady was took suddenly ill, and is delivered; and I am going to
Winchcombe for a priest to baptize the child."
"My lady was in the right not to make much stir about it: I suppose
there's not one in the parish knows any thing of the matter. But what
is it, Dick?"
"A bouncing boy, the wenches say. But I wish, Phil, you would come with
me--I don't much like to be trudging this dark road by myself."
The man he addressed consented, and their steps were soon lost in the
distance.
Holgrave raised himself erect as the men departed. Wild thoughts, such
as he had never known before, rushed through his heart. It is dangerous
to snatch from any man, even the lowest of the species, that which
he values above every other thing. Be the thing what it may--be it
grand or mean, base or beautiful, still the soul has clung to it, has
treasured it up, has worshipped before it; and none but the bereaved
can comprehend the desolation which the bereavement causes. Holgrave's
idol was his freedom; it was the thing he had prized above all things
else; it was the thing he had been taught to revere, even as the
religion he professed. It must, therefore, have had a strong hold upon
his feelings; it must have grown with his growth, and strengthened with
his strength: and this it is necessary to understand before a perfect
idea can be formed of the hatred which he now felt towards the man who
had wrested from him his treasure. It is true he might have rejected
his terms, at the sacrifice of a thing of less value--his life; but
there was then love and hope to contend against him--the hope of a
man and a father. But he had now no longer hope; it had fled with the
spirit of his little babe; its last faint breath had dissipated all the
illusions of far-off happiness; and he now looked forward to a life of
degradation, and a death of dishonour.
"Can it be?" said Holgrave, as he looked before him at the castle,
which the tapers revealed--"Can it be, that the lord of this castle
and I are the sons of the same heavenly Father? Can the same God have
created us?--and is his child to live and grow to manhood, that he may
trample on his fellow men, as his father has trampled on me? Is this to
go on from generation to generation, and the sons to become even worse
than the fathers?--No!" said he, pausing; "I have no child--Margaret
must forgive me--I have only a worthless life to forfeit." He paused
again. "I _will_ attempt it!" he said, vehemently--"he can but hang me;
and if I succeed, the noble blood they think so much of may yet----"
Holgrave suffered the sentence to remain unfinished, and he rushed
towards the castle.
There was a wicket in the northern gate, the common outlet for the
domestics, which, as Holgrave had anticipated, the servitor had not
closed after him. He entered, and stood within the court-yard; he heard
the sound of voices, and the tread of feet, but no human being was
near: he paused an instant to consider, and then, with the swiftness of
a deer, he sprung towards the stables, and entered the one appropriated
to the select stud of the baron. A lamp was burning, but the men who
attended on the horses were now away, quaffing ale to the long life of
the heir. The baroness's favourite palfrey was lying in a stall; he
stept across the animal, and, after pressing his hands on various parts
of the wall, a concealed door flew open, and a dark aperture was before
him. He stooped and passed through, and ascended a long, winding flight
of steps, till a door impeded his progress; he opened it, and stood in
a closet hung round with dresses and mantles, and displaying all the
graceful trifles of a lady's wardrobe. There was a door opposite the
one at which he had entered, which led into the baroness's chamber,
where there were lighted candles, and a blazing fire on the hearth.
The floor was thickly strewn with rushes, and he could just perceive
the high back of a chair, with the arms of the family wrought in the
centre; he paused and listened; he heard the faint cry of a babe, and
discovered, by the language of the nurse, that she was feeding it; then
there was the hush-a-by, and the rocking motion of the attendant. In a
few minutes, the sound of a foot on the rushes, and "the lovely babe
would sleep," now announced to Holgrave that the child was deposited
with its mother: then he heard the curtains of the bed drawn, and the
nurse whisper some one to retire, as her ladyship was inclined to
sleep; there was another step across the rushes, and a door was softly
closed, and then for a few minutes an unbroken silence, which the nurse
at length interrupted by muttering something about "whether the good
father had come yet." Again there was a tread across the rushes, and
the door again was gently closed; and Holgrave, after a moment of
intense listening, stepped from the closet, and entered the chamber.
In an elevated alcove stood the bed of the baroness; the rich crimson
hangings festooned with gold cord, the drapery tastefully fringed with
gold, even to the summit, which was surmounted by a splendid coronet.
Holgrave, unaccustomed to magnificence, was for a moment awed by the
splendid furniture of the apartment--but it was only for a moment--and
then the native strength of his soul spurned the gaudy trappings; he
stepped lightly across the spacious chamber; he unloosed the rich
curtains--the heir of De Boteler was reposing in a deep slumber on a
downy pillow; beyond him lay the exhausted mother, her eyes closed,
and the noble contour of her face presenting the repose of death. For
an instant, Holgrave paused: remorse for the deed that he was about
to do sent a sudden glow across his care-worn face--but had not the
baron destroyed his offspring? whispered the tempting spirit. He raised
the babe from the pillows without disturbing its slumber--he drew the
curtains, and--he reached the stable in safety, closed the secret door,
and arrived at the postern, which was still unfastened, passed through,
and gained his own door without impediment.
"Margaret," said Holgrave, as he entered, "put away that babe, whom
your tears cannot restore to life. Here is one that will be wept for
as much as yours.--Do you hear me, Margaret? lay your babe under the
cover-lid, and take this one and strip it quickly, and clothe it in the
dress of your own infant."
"Stephen, what child is this?" her astonishment for a moment
overcoming her grief. "The saints preserve us! look at its dress--that
mantle is as rich as the high priest's vestment on a festival. Oh!
Stephen."
"Silence!" interrupted Holgrave, sternly; "take the babe and strip it
and attend to it as a mother should attend to her own infant; and, mark
me, it _is_ your own! _your_ child did not die! As you value _my_ life,
remember this."
There was a sternness in his tone that entirely awed Margaret. She
continued to weep, but she took the strange infant and did as her
husband desired her. The changing of its apparel made the little infant
cry, but the change was soon effected, and then Margaret put it to her
breast and hushed its cries. While this was doing, Holgrave had taken
a spade and commenced digging up the earthen floor. The sight agonized
the wretched Margaret, and when the task was finished and he approached
the bed to consign the little corpse to its kindred earth, it was
long ere even his stern remonstrance could prevail on the mother to
relinquish her child. She kissed its white cheek and strained it to her
convulsed bosom, and Holgrave had to struggle violently with his own
feelings, that he too might not betray a similar emotion. But fortitude
overcame the yearnings of a father; he forcibly took the babe from its
mother's arms and laid it in the cavity he had prepared; and then, as
the glittering mantle of the stolen child caught his eyes, he took a
small iron box, in which Margaret kept the silks and the needles she
had formerly used in her embroidery, and scattering the contents upon
the ground, he forced in, in their stead, the different articles the
little stranger had worn, and fastening down the lid, laid it beside
his child; and then, as swiftly as apprehension could urge, filled up
the grave, and trod down the earth to give it the appearance it had
worn previous to the interment. A chest was then placed over it, and it
seemed to defy the scrutiny of man to detect the deed.
Holgrave's heart might have been wrung at thus interring his own child,
but his face betrayed no such feeling; it wore only the same stern
expression it had worn since the day of his bondage, and it was only
in Margaret's swollen eyes and heaving breast that a stranger could
have surmised that aught of such agonizing interest had occurred. The
bondman then threw another faggot upon the hearth, and, in the same
stern voice of a master, bidding his wife tend upon the babe as if it
were her own, without a kind look or word, he ascended the ladder, and
threw himself upon a few dried rushes in the loft above; where he lay
brooding in sullen wretchedness over the wild and daring deed he had
committed.
His meditations were soon disturbed by a confused distant noise--then
men's voices and the tread of feet, and instantly the latch of the door
was raised, the slight fastening gave way, and the intruders rushed
into the room beneath.
"Are ye drawlatches or murderers?" asked Holgrave in a fierce voice, as
he started up and sprung to the ladder, "that you break open a man's
house at this hour?"
"If you attempt to come down that ladder, this fellow's glaive will
answer you," said Calverley, in a voice and with a look which the
torchlight revealed, that told that his threat had meaning. He then
cast a hasty glance around the apartment--for an instant, his eyes
rested on the bed where lay the terror-stricken Margaret, who, at the
first sound of his voice had concealed her face in the pillow. His
eyes scarcely rested upon the bed ere he turned quickly to the men who
attended him, and, in something of a hurried voice, desired them to
examine the chest. What dark suspicion crossed his mind can scarcely
be conceived, but Holgrave looked with a bitter smile upon the search
as the men tore open the chest and scattered the contents in every
direction. There was nothing else that required more than a cursory
glance except the bed; Calverley did not look again towards it, and the
men who were with him did only as they were ordered. At his command
three men ascended the ladder, but ere they had advanced midway,
Holgrave had grasped the end that rested on the entrance, and, in a
voice that caused tremor in the craven heart of the steward, threatened
to hurl them to the ground if they advanced another step.
"Do you think, meddling steward, that I have been in the chase again?
Do you expect to find another buck?"
"Proceed--heed not this bondman's raving!"
Holgrave, conceiving that further resistance might awaken suspicion,
folding his arms across his breast, suffered the men to ascend, and
looked on in silence while they carefully examined the loft. But here,
after a minute search, was found nothing to repay their trouble. They
descended, and Calverley said, "There is nothing here to _confirm_
suspicion; but the son of Edith Holgrave is likely to be suspected when
evil is done. We depart," he said to his followers, "but there shall be
a watch kept on this fellow."
Holgrave looked contempt, and spoke defiance; but Calverley retired
without seeming to heed either his looks or his words.
In the morning he went to his task at the usual hour, not however
without again cautioning Margaret respecting the child. Soon after his
departure Lucy Hartwell entered, to talk over the strange news she had
just heard, and to offer her services to Margaret.
"How are you, Margaret? How is the babe?"
"The child is better," replied Margaret, "but I am very ill."
"I am sorry to hear that--I hardly thought that the child would live.
Here, Margaret, take a little of this broth, it will do you good.--Oh,
there are such strange doings at the castle! Yesterday evening my
lady was suddenly put to bed of a boy, and the child has been stolen
away, nobody can tell how. Roberts, one of the castle guard men, told
my father just now, that my lady had accused Sir Robert Beaumont,
my lord's cousin, of stealing the child, and that Sir Robert is
making ready to depart, vowing never to enter the castle again. But
Martha, my lady's maid, said, in his hearing, that nothing but an
evil spirit could have stolen it away. She declared that she saw old
Sukey, the nurse, put the child safely beside my lady, and then, as
her ladyship seemed inclined to sleep, she went from the bed-chamber
into the ante-room, and there she sat till the priest, who had come
from Winchcombe, was ready for the baptism, and then she entered the
chamber to tell the nurse; and when old Sukey went to the bed to take
up the child, behold it was gone! Whereupon old Sukey gave such a
dreadful scream, that the baroness started up, and discovering the
loss of the child, could scarcely be kept in bed, and called the old
nurse and every one who approached her, murderers; and then the whole
castle was in an uproar, and my lady presently hearing the sound of
Sir Robert's voice in the ante-room, shrieked that it was he who had
stolen her child; and then she fell into such a fit of crying, that her
heart sickened and she swooned away. But what ails you, Margaret, are
you worse?" Margaret answered, faintly, that she wished to sleep; and
Lucy's humanity, overcoming her strong desire to speak of the strange
event that had happened, she left her, after doing the little services
the invalid required, to her repose.
Towards the close of the day, father John came to see his sister. "You
are ill, my child," said the monk, as he drew a chair to the side of
the bed, and gazed anxiously at her pallid cheek and swollen eyes.
Margaret answered incoherently.
"Your child," continued he, "is it--is it still alive?"
"My child is well now!" said Margaret in a stifled voice.
"Well! Margaret, can it be possible!--Let me look at the babe, for I
fear you must be deceiving yourself."
"It is sleeping," said Margaret; but the next moment the babe, who had
slept with short intermission during the day, awoke, and no soothing,
no attentions of its nurse, could hush its cries. Margaret saw that
the eyes of her brother were rivetted on the child, and she strove
anxiously to conceal its face.
"It is strange!" said the monk, "yesterday, the low moaning sound it
made, seemed to threaten immediate dissolution; and to-day, its lusty
cries seem those of a healthy child--it is quiet now--give me the babe
in my arms and let me look at it?"
Margaret did not immediately accede to his wish, and the monk looked
at her with a strange inquisitiveness--something crossed his mind,
but what could he suspect? He again asked Margaret, but she still
hesitated. He started from his seat, and paced up and down the floor.
He then stopped suddenly before the bed. Margaret had laid down the
infant, and had covered it with the bed-clothes.
"Margaret," said the monk, fixing his eagle glance upon his sister,
"that is not your child!"
"Hush! Hush! Oh! for the life of my husband, say not so!" The sternness
of the monk's countenance gradually softened as he gazed upon his
agonized sister, and, after the space of a minute he said, in a calm
voice:--
"Fear not me, Margaret--fear not that I would add to the grief which
has weighed on your heart, and paled your cheek, and dimmed your eye.
Fear not that I would add one sorrow to the only being who attaches me
to my kind, and who tells me I am not entirely alone! But, I ask you,
Margaret, not as a servant of the High God, but as an only brother--as
one who has loved you as a father, and has watched over you from
infancy even until now; I ask you to tell me what you know of that
child?"
Margaret bent her head forward and covered her face with her hands,
but made no reply. In vain the monk reiterated his request. In vain
he exhorted her--in vain he assured her that no evil should befal her
husband from whatever disclosure she might make. Margaret still hid
her face and remained silent. Her silence discomposed the monk. He
continued to gaze upon her with a troubled countenance. Anger for the
cruelty that could premeditatedly deprive a mother of her offspring,
and alarm for the consequences that might result to Holgrave, could
have been read in his contracted brow and anxious glance. His sister's
unwillingness to speak confirmed his suspicions, and he felt as fully
convinced that the child that lay before him was the baron's son as if
he himself had witnessed the theft.
"Margaret," said John, "your silence does but confirm my suspicions.
It is a cruel revenge--but it is done--and Stephen's life shall never
be put in jeopardy by a breath of mine. He has suffered, but till now
he had not sinned! But his sin be between his conscience and his God:"
he paused for a minute, and then looking tenderly upon his sister, he
said as gently as he could, "Farewell!" and being anxious to avoid an
interview with Holgrave, abruptly departed.
THE BONDMAN
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
About a fortnight after the birth of the baron's son was the feast
of All-hallows, and from All-hallows eve to the Purification of the
Virgin, was little less than a continued festival. Mummers and maskers
attired in fantastic habits, wearing garlands of holly and ivy on
their heads, and bearing branches of the same in their hands, were to
be met, dancing and singing along the roads that led to the castles
of the barons, or to the broad beetling houses of those of a lesser
degree. The castles, the manor-houses, and even the dwellings of those
whom, one would think, could have no earthly object in view in their
building but convenience, accorded little with, or rather was in direct
opposition to, our present ideas of domestic comfort. The spaciousness
of the apartments, lighted, perhaps, by a solitary window, whose small
chequered panes, encased in a heavy frame, and divided into three
compartments by two solid beams, curved, and meeting at the top in a
point, were rendered still more gloomy by the projecting buttresses of
the windows above; but still the very construction of the buildings
was favourable to hospitality. A dozen, or twenty, or thirty, or fifty
persons, according to the rank of the host, might be accommodated,
and not the slightest inconvenience felt. The more the merrier, was
undoubtedly the adage then: guests were greeted, especially on winter
nights, with a genuine hospitable welcome, because, although the
capacious hearth looked snug and cheerful, there was a dreariness
in the void beyond--in the undefined and distant shadows of the
apartment--that could alone be dispelled by additional lights and
smiling faces. It will consequently be a natural conclusion, that in
the castles of the nobles, and in the houses of those immediately or
progressively beneath them, the arrival of the merry mummers was hailed
with almost childish delight.
In addition to this annual exhibition of mirthful mummery, the town of
Winchcombe was enlivened by a fair, periodically held, on the festival
of All-hallows. The fair-green lay just beyond the town, enclosed on
one side by the town walls, and on the opposite by an abrupt, wooded
hill. All Winchcombe was in a bustle; the ale-houses were crowded
with visitors, and the streets filled with strangers; young artizans
or yeomen were escorting their favourite damsels to the fair, to
shew their gallantry by purchasing some of the various articles so
temptingly displayed, as presents for the maidens. Bodkins and fillets
for the hair, and ribbons of every colour, except scarlet or crimson;
and furs, principally cat-skin; and spices, and fine and coarse cloths
of medley, and russets, and hoods, and mittens, and hose, were amongst
the miscellaneous wares exhibited for sale.
But there was one stall that particularly attracted the eyes of
the fair-folks, by the spices, silks, damasks, fine cloth, gold
and silver cords and ornaments, furs, &c. it displayed. The owner
of this stall was evidently a peddling Genoese merchant, or, as
they were then called, galleymen. These foreigners generally bore a
bad character--they were looked upon with suspicion; but, although
suspected and disliked, they sold their merchandize, passed their base
coin, and returned to Genoa to purchase, with English gold, fresh
cargoes for Britain. They somehow or other sold their goods cheaper
than the native dealers, and their coin, if even bad, would generally
circulate through a few hands before it could be detected, and,
consequently, those who purchased were seldom the losers.
The beauty and richness of the chief portions of their cargoes
ensured them a demand from the superior classes; and if a noble, or
courtly dame, or maiden, or knight, or even esquire, would not be
seen bargaining personally with the foreigners, there were always
officious agents who could transact the business, and have some trifle
as an acknowledgment from the itinerant merchant. The galleyman, who
was displaying his merchandize on the fair-green of Winchcombe, had,
towards the close of the short gloomy day, disposed of a considerable
portion of his stock. The damsels of the ladies, residing in the
vicinity, bought even more than they were ordered, so well were they
pleased with the animated glance of the foreign merchant's black eyes,
and with the pretty, almost intelligible, compliments he paid them;
and, above all, with the smiling liberality with which he rewarded
every purchase.
In the villages, the distinctions of dress created by law were pretty
generally observed, but in the towns that law was as generally evaded:
furs, and colours, and embroidery were worn by those who had no
right to them, except the single one of purchase. In some instances,
the law would take cognizance of the violation of its prohibitions;
a fine would be imposed, but even this could not check the vain
assumption;--there was no law to prevent people buying, and those
who could purchase forbidden finery, would, in despite of penalties,
contrive some means of wearing it. But to return to our foreign
merchant.
There was now scarcely light to distinguish external objects, when
a sudden rush was heard from the town, and, in an instant, a dozen
persons surrounded the peddling merchant, and seizing him violently,
while uttering threats and imprecations, dragged the dusty-foot to
the court of Pie-powder.[1] As they were hauling him along, the crowd
increased, the fair was forsaken, all pressing eagerly forward to
learn the fate of the unlucky pedlar. The galleyman seemed perfectly
to comprehend the nature of his danger--not by the changing colour of
his cheek, for that exhibited still the same glowing brown--but by the
restless flash of his full black eyes, glancing before and around, as
if looking for some chance of escape.
The court of Pie-powder was situated at the extremity of the
fair-green, about twenty paces beyond the last stall: the court was a
kind of tent, with a large, high-backed chair in the centre for the
judge, a long table being placed before him, on which were balances and
weights of various descriptions, to ascertain the truth of any charges
that might be preferred against the sellers at the fair: there was also
a smaller balance, a stone, and a small phial of liquid, to prove the
weight and purity of any coin that might be doubted. At each extremity
of the table was a bench, on which sat six men, to act as jurors.
Although in a fair, the court was conducted with some attention to
propriety; the clerk, who sat as judge, assumed as much importance as a
dignitary of a higher tribunal; and, as the crowd approached, hallooing
and vociferating, with the culprit, two men, who stood at the door
with maces in their hands, prevented the rush of the people: and, by
order of the judge, the accuser, the offender, and two witnesses were
the only persons permitted to enter. The charge was laid;--the foreign
dusty-foot was accused of defrauding the accuser's wife, one Martha
Fuller, of the value of half a noble.
The _lushburgs_ (as this base coin was called) were then produced.
The judge took the money, and was raising the phial to apply the test,
when the accused, whose hands had been left at liberty, drew something
from his breast, and threw it on the lamp which was burning before him.
The lamp was extinguished;--a sudden explosion took place; burning
fragments were scattered in every direction; a strange suffocating
smell filled the tent, and nearly stifled the astonished spectators.
Before they could recover from their surprise, the galleyman had
knocked down the two witnesses, crept under the canvas of the tent,
and, with the bound of a deer, reached the wooded hill that lay at a
short distance behind.
The pause of astonishment was scarcely of a moment's duration; and
then, like the hounds pursuing a hare that had broke cover, the whole
multitude, uttering a wild shout, sprung after the flying stranger.
The lightness of the galleyman's foot had often befriended him, upon
occasions similar to the present, but now his bounding step seemed but
of little advantage--for the foremost of the pursuers was as fleet
as himself. There were few spirits more bold, more constitutionally
brave, than this stranger's;--he had struggled with the world till
he had learned to despise it; he had buffeted with the waves till he
had deemed them harmless; and, up to the last five minutes, he would
have sworn that there was neither a man nor a sea that he feared to
meet. But the stranger had, at that time, no law in England;--the
gallows-tree by torchlight, the execrations, the tumult, the
sudden hurrying of the soul away without even a moment to call for
mercy;--all this was distinctly before the eyes of the fugitive. He
had seen others act a part in such a scene, and his turn seemed now
at hand;--and the galleyman almost groaned at the thought of dying
unshrieved.
A large thicket, at this moment, gave the dusty foot an opportunity
of doubling, and, for an instant, diverging from the straightforward
course, though it availed him little, he seemed to feel the breath of
his pursuer on the back of his neck; his foot sounded as if at his
heels; he drew his garment closely around him, turned suddenly to the
right, and, bounding from the ground, the next instant a splash was
heard in the little river, and the fugitive was safe from his pursuer.
We before observed that Stephen Holgrave's dwelling was situated at
a short distance from the little Eastbourne; and, on the night of
All-hallows fair, a quick knocking was heard at the door just after
Holgrave had retired to rest. Holgrave, concluding it was some mandate
from the castle, arose, and, in a surly voice, demanded who was there?
"A stranger who wants a shelter--open the door."
It was instantly opened; and the galleyman, with his saturated
garments, and his long black hair hanging dripping over his shoulders,
entered the cottage.
"Why, what mishap has befallen you?" inquired Holgrave, in surprise.
"Ask no questions," answered the dusty-foot, "but give me a cup of
malmsey."
"Malmsey! and in a villein's cottage," replied Holgrave, bitterly.
"No, no; but here is a small flask of sack which a neighbour brought to
my wife: she will little grudge it to a man in your plight."
While Holgrave was speaking, he emptied the flask into a horn, and,
handing it to the galleyman, the latter eagerly clutched it, and, with
astonishing rapidity, swallowed the contents.
"Is that all you have?" inquired the dusty-foot.
"Yes," replied Holgrave; "and enough too, I think, for any reasonable
man at one time."
"Nonsense!" returned the stranger, "I would drink ten times as much and
be nothing the worse. But hark you, Stephen Holgrave--I have come to
you for shelter, and I expect you will give it."
"While I have a roof the way-faring man shall never sleep----"
"I do not talk of sleep," interrupted the stranger; "I would not
trouble any man for the sake of a night's rest: but to be plain with
you, my life is sought for--the hue and cry is even now after me;--so,
if you mean to keep your word, give me some dry clothing, and hide
me--anywhere."
Holgrave turned from the galleyman in silence, and, opening the large
chest, took out his only spare clothing--a suit of medley; and, as he
offered it to the stranger, he looked at him with an earnestness which
attracted the attention of the galleyman.
"You do not know me?" asked the latter.
"No," replied Holgrave, "I cannot call your face to mind; but surely I
must have heard your voice before."
"May be you have; but that matters little; I know you are an honest
man, and were I even your enemy, you would not betray me."
"No," said Holgrave, "I would betray no man; but I should not like to
harbour--a man that had----"
"Had what!" interrupted the galleyman, impatiently. "I wish I had never
done worse than I have done this day, Holgrave; I have neither hurt nor
harmed; I only gave a pretty little fair-going dame a Genoese piece
instead of an English one."
"Ah! well," said Holgrave; "if she was fool enough to trust a
dusty-foot, she must look to it. I care not what you did so long as you
kept your hand from blood: so come up this way." He then took one of
the branches that were still blazing on the hearth, and conducted the
fugitive to the loft.
The stranger instantly divested himself of his wet apparel, and attired
himself in Holgrave's yeoman's garb; and then, with the natural regret
of one accustomed to traffic, he drew from a secret pocket of his wet
doublet, a bag of coin, the wreck of his merchandize, and with a sigh
for all he had lost, placed it in his bosom. His dagger was also stuck
in his doublet, so that if necessity came, he might use it; and then
attentively listening to Holgrave's directions, he threw himself upon
a heap of rushes in a corner, and soon after his host had withdrawn to
throw the tell-tale garments into the Isborne, he fell into the short,
light slumbers of a seaman.
The first sound of a far-off shout instantly dispelled his sleep; he
started on his feet, and as he became convinced it was really the hue
and cry, he raised a small flap in the roof, as Holgrave had directed,
and forcing himself through, slid down into a sort of rude garden at
the back of the dwelling; then springing forward till he came to a dry
well, he leapt, with a dauntless heart and sound limbs, ten feet below
the surface of the earth.
The hue and cry passed on its noisy course without heeding the cottage;
and about an hour after, Holgrave threw down a rope to the galleyman,
who, with the agility of one accustomed to climb, sprung up the side of
the well, and entered the cottage with his host.
"You can now go to the loft, and lie down again," said Holgrave; "but
do not sleep too soundly; for if any one comes in to look for you, you
must go to your old hiding-place. You see, stranger, that mine is not
the best place you could have chosen; there is ill blood between me and
the castle folks, and they will not let any chance slip to let me know
that even this hut, poor as it is, is not my own, but must be entered
and searched as they would the kennel of a dog. You know me, stranger,
though I know nothing of you, except your voice. You called me by my
name, and you addressed me as a yeoman--think you that I _am_ a yeoman?"
"Yes," said the galleyman; "I knew you were a freeman, and I heard you
were a yeoman."
"Yes, I was a freeman, and I was a yeoman; but I am now a--villein!
Ay, stare--stare! I live through it all. It was but the space of a
moment--the drawing of a breath, that changed me from a man who dared
look the heavens in the face, and close his door, if he listed, on even
the baron himself, to a poor worm, that must crawl upon the earth, and
has not even this (taking up a log of wood) that he can call his own.
True, it was not my birthright, but I earned it, in sweat, in hunger,
and cold, and I fought for it amidst swords and lances--and I sold
it, like a traitor, for--her!" And he pointed, with a look of bitter
reproach, to his wife.
The galleyman, for the first time, fixed his eyes upon Margaret,
who was sitting, nursing her little charge within the recess of the
chimney. She had latterly been accustomed to unkind language from her
husband; but the bitterness with which he had now alluded to her before
a stranger, brightened the delicacy of her complexion with a passing
glow, and caused a sudden tear to tremble in her eye.
"And, by the good cargo I lost even now at Winchcombe," said the
galleyman, after looking at her for a moment, "you could not have sold
it to better advantage. Such a wife would make any man think little of
her price. If you _have_ made yourself a villein, is the world so small
that there is no place but the manor of Sudley to live in? Come, come,
let us talk like friends--we are not such strangers as you suppose."
"No," said Holgrave; "but I cannot think where we have met."
"Never mind that. As for me, I am not quite foundered, although I have
left a cargo behind at Winchcombe that would have bought a dozen
bondmen's freedom. Come with me to London: I have part of a galley of
my own there, and you may either stow away in some hole of the city, or
slip your cable, and be off for Genoa, where I'll promise you as snug
a birth as a man could wish for. Besides, there is your child--is it a
boy?"
Margaret nodded assent.
"Yes, there is your boy--would you let him grow up a bondman?"
"No," said Holgrave. "Now you speak of the boy, I will not leave this
place. Let him live and toil, and suffer, and----"
"And if he was a headstrong boy, and felt one stroke of the lash,"
interrupted the galleyman, "would he not fly from the bondage, even to
become a thing like me? Hark you, Holgrave," he continued, starting
upon his feet, extending his right arm, and fixing his full black eyes
on his face--"hark you, Holgrave! my father was as honest a man as ever
drew the breath of heaven; and yet I trade and traffic in cheatery. My
father's greatest oath was 'the saints defend us!' and he would not
drink a second cup at one sitting; and yet there is not a holy name
that I have not blasphemed every day for these nine years, and scarcely
a day that I have not drunk more--more than my head could well carry.
My father could not have slept if he had missed the shrovetide, and
yet I have passed years, aye, and am likely to pass my life, without a
single shrift. Yes, yes, he continued, dropping his arm, and sinking
down upon his seat, I have done every thing but--murder"--(Margaret
crossed herself)--"and scarcely can I clear myself even of that; and
all because I was a bondman's son! Yes, Holgrave, I know what bondage
is; I know what it is to be buffetted and railed at, and threatened
with the tumbrel. I never was lazy; but I hated to be driven. All men
are not made alike; some are only fit to be slaves, while others are
endowed by nature with a high, proud spirit--of such was your mother."
"My mother! what know you of her?"
"Never mind that," replied the galleyman; "but as for your mother, she
was a good, and a holy woman; but I say she was proud! You are proud,
or you would not think so much of being a villein. And is it not likely
that your boy will be as proud as either?"
"If that child takes after his father," said Holgrave, "he will have
pride enough."
"And if he has," returned the dusty-foot, "he cannot have a greater
cause. It is all very well for the great,--it looks well upon them;
and even the decent chapman and yeomen get little harm by it: but for
the poor man to be proud; to have the swelling heart and the burning
cheek--oh! it is a curse!" He raised his voice as he spoke, and then
sinking it to a whisper, added--"and if it is a sin, surely it has its
punishment."
As Holgrave looked at, and listened to the stranger, his heart warmed,
and he forgot for a time his own selfish feelings; but the picture the
galleyman had drawn, and which his own soul acknowledged to be too
true, determined him not to accept his offer. The baron had earned for
his son the curse of "the swelling heart and the burning cheek," and
the lad should know the toils and sufferings of a bondman.
"We shall talk further," said Holgrave: "in the mean time, we must
consult for your own safety. If your father was a villein of this
barony, it is not likely that the old steward, or the new one--the
fiend Calverley--should forget you; and----"
"Tush, tush!" interrupted the galleyman; "if Stephen Holgrave has
forgotten Robin Wells, how should Thomas Calverley remember him?"
"Robin Wells!" repeated Holgrave, with a long inquiring look. "No--you
are safe! I hardly think the foul fiend himself would detect you. Now I
call you to mind--your eyes and mouth are little Robin's--but the brown
skin and the black hair----"
"Aye," said the galleyman, "you marvel what has become of the red
and white, and the short, thick, yellow curls. Oh, you landsmen know
nothing of the wonders that sea-suns and sea-storms can work. To be
sure, it never would entirely change yellow into black,--so, when I
wanted to turn Genoese, I used a certain drug that made my eyes and
hair look as if they belonged to the same master."
"Well," said Holgrave, looking at his guest with that kindly feeling
that is ever called forth by unexpectedly beholding an acquaintance of
earlier days--"well, how often my poor mother used to talk of you, and
wonder how it fared with you. I remember well when you came to bid us
good-bye."
"Aye, aye, so do I," said the young man, evidently agitated; "but--let
us talk no more of it."
Holgrave, thinking that Wells was averse to being reminded of an
unpleasant circumstance, spoke no more of the day when the orphan boy
had gone forth into a strange world; but, counting upon the sympathy of
the galleyman, he began to recount his mother's fate.
"Hold, hold," said Wells, starting up, and covering his eyes with his
hands; "as you hope for mercy, say no more--I cannot bear it."
He then sprung up the ladder, and threw himself upon the heap of rushes.
The extreme agitation of Wells, although it surprised Holgrave, by
no means displeased him;--be sympathy ever so extravagant, still,
generally speaking, it is gratifying; and Holgrave, at that moment,
would have laid down his life in defence of the man who could feel so
keenly.
Nature had given the galleyman a good and a kind heart, but evil
associates had done much, and dissipation still more, to demoralize his
soul; yet his natural good qualities were not entirely uprooted: the
good fruit would sometimes spring up, but it sprung up only to shew
what the soil might have produced--it bloomed for an hour in beauty,
and then was trodden underfoot, and defiled in the dust.
When Wells had sprung into the loft, accusing himself of the part he
had taken in Edith's trial, and of the nefarious traffic which had
placed him in the power of Black Jack, he vowed that, in future, his
dealings should be strictly honest; that he would give a portion of
his worldly goods to the poor; offer a certain sum to the Abbot of
Gloucester for masses to be said for the soul of Edith, and endeavour
to make what atonement he could by befriending Holgrave. But in a few
hours his feelings became less acute; and we believe all of his vow
that he fulfilled was that of striving to aid Holgrave, and becoming,
to a certain degree, honest in his dealings. The next day he began
to feel that depression of spirits usually experienced by persons
accustomed to stimulants. Several times was he tempted to go out
and brave detection,--but a fear lest some of the fair-folks should
recognize him, made him pause.
In the afternoon Lucy Hartwell came in to see Margaret, bringing
some little gift, and asking how she fared. Wells could distinctly
hear all that passed in the room below; and soon collected, from the
conversation, that the visitor was the daughter of old Hartwell the
ale-seller. He remembered her a pretty little girl when he had left the
village--with hazel eyes twinkling and brightening like a star; with
a step as light, and a form as delicate and graceful as the greenwood
fairy to whom she used to be likened. Her voice had deepened a little,
but it had still much of the sprightly animation of her childhood.
She kissed and admired the infant, inquired of Margaret's health, bade
her hope for better days, and then proceeded to talk of affairs at the
castle;--how the baroness still continued to weep and lament; and how
De Boteler, ever since he had returned from London, had been almost
distracted--one minute crying and raving that there was some traitor
at the castle who had connived at the abduction of his child, and that
he would discover him and hang him up without form of trial,--and the
next offering large rewards and free pardon to any one who could give
the slightest information, even though they should have aided in the
theft;--and once he even went so far as to promise pardon to the actual
offender. As, of course, this strange occurrence had been a prolific
source of speculation to the gossips, Lucy proceeded to detail a number
of stories she had heard on the subject.
Although Wells took little interest in these details, yet he loved to
listen to the sweet tones of a remembered voice; and, as the evening
had begun to close in, and Lucy talked of returning home, he resolved
to put faith in the good feelings and discretion of the maiden. In an
instant he had leaped down the ladder and stood at her side.
Lucy gave a faint scream, and cast a look of astonishment at Margaret.
"It is only a stranger," said Margaret, answering to Lucy's glance,
"whom Stephen has promised to shelter.--You need not fear."
"Fear!" repeated the galleyman, as he gazed on the beautiful features
of the abashed Lucy; "what can such an angel have to fear?--and yet, by
the saints! such a prize would tempt the honestest captain that ever
commanded a vessel. Years have passed away since I last saw you;--you
were then but a child. You have forgotten me--but in storm or in
sunshine, never have I forgotten you: the first sound of your voice,
when I was aloft there, made my heart beat--and I thought I would run
all hazards and face you. But--you don't know who is talking to you--Do
you?"
"No," replied Lucy, "I don't think I ever saw you before."
"Oh yes, but you did;--don't you remember one Robin Wells, a stout
rosy boy with curly hair, that made you a wreath of holly and ivy--one
All-hallows day--and put it on your head, and called you a little
queen? You were ten years old that day, and it is just ten years and
three days since then. Don't you remember it?"
"Yes," said Lucy, blushing deeply, and half raising her bright eyes to
see if she could identify the stranger with the boy who used to pluck
fruits and flowers for her, and make garlands for her hair; but the
fixed gaze of the galleyman compelled her to withdraw her inquisitive
glance, and then there was a moment of silence, during which Lucy's
burning cheeks told she was conscious the stranger's eyes were still
regarding her. But her embarrassment was far from very painful;--there
was something so gratifying, especially to a warm-hearted girl, to be
remembered for so many years by one whom she had herself forgotten--for
poor Lucy never once suspected the truth of what Wells had asserted!
"You are changed, Lucy;" said the galleyman, in a meditative tone,
"and so am I; but a quiet home has reared you into loveliness; while
cold, heat, and storms, have made me what I am. It was that ivy wreath
of yours that made me a wanderer--I spent a couple of hours gathering
and making it, and they promised me a flogging for idling, and so,
after putting the crown on your head I set off, and here I am again
after ten years, looking old enough to be your father--but, hark
you, maiden--sailors are thirsty souls, and here have I been laid up
these two days, without tasting a drop of any thing stronger than--ha!
ha!--milk! Your father has plenty of stout ale, and I'm sure such a
little angel as you will have the charity to bring a flagon to a poor
seaman adrift."
Lucy, glad to escape from the gaze of the galleyman, and also pleased
at an opportunity of showing kindness to an old acquaintance, instantly
arose, promising to return in a few minutes with some ale.
"But, take care," said Margaret, "that you say not whom it is for."
Lucy promised to be circumspect, and in less than ten minutes placed a
flagon of her father's best ale before the galleyman, and then bounding
away with a light laugh, as Wells sprang forward to pay for it with a
kiss, her little form was instantly lost in the darkness of the evening.
About an hour after nightfall the next evening, the galleyman prepared
to depart from Holgrave's cottage: repeatedly did he urge his host to
accept his offer, and with his wife and the little babe remove for
ever from a spot where his proud spirit had suffered such wrong; but
Holgrave steadily refused; and the galleyman, having forced Margaret to
accept two pieces of gold, went forth from the roof that had sheltered
him. Holgrave's dwelling, as the reader already knows, stood upon an
eminence apart from the congregated dwellings that were styled the
village. The only object Wells could discover as he looked around, was
the glimmering of the lights in the adjoining habitations. He remained
stationary for an instant, while he looked across in the direction
of Hartwell's house, and then, smiling an imaginary farewell to the
pretty Lucy, with a quick step and a light heart, he walked away in the
opposite direction.
All was silence as the galleyman proceeded; labour had ceased, the
evening repast was made, and many of the inhabitants of the village
had already retired to rest. The evening was clear and cold, and the
firmament was radiant with stars, the moon being only a few days old.
By some strange impulse, the man who had so often gazed upon the
far-spread beauty of an ocean sky, stood still for a moment here;
and, by as strange a conceit, the silvery semicircle above, as it
seemed, even in the crowd of lesser lights, brought to his mind the
ever-smiling beauty of Lucy Hartwell. The wanderer lingered for a
space--then hesitated--then turned suddenly--and, in less than five
minutes, he had pushed open the hatch of old Hartwell's door and had
entered boldly.
There were no guests; a bright fire was blazing on the hearth, and
the galleyman, throwing himself upon a bench in the chimney-corner,
requested Hartwell, who was sitting on the opposite bench, to give him
a jug of his best ale.
"Here, Lucy," shouted the old man, "bring a jug of the best."
Lucy obeyed the summons with alacrity, but, as she presented the
beverage, a slight start and a sudden blush, told how much the
appearance of Wells surprised her. The galleyman drank off the ale,
and then, walking to the farther end of the kitchen, where Lucy stood.
"Here, pretty maiden," said he, in his usual loud and joyous tone,
"fill it again;" and, as she turned to the cask to replenish the jug,
he added, in a voice that met her ear alone:--
"Lucy, I must speak to you before I go." He took the replenished jug
from the little maiden, and then resuming his seat, paid Hartwell
for the ale, and began chatting upon the weather and the times; and,
when the old man's attention was thoroughly engaged, Lucy took the
opportunity of throwing a large hood over her head and slipping out
unperceived by her father. The galleyman took the hint, and draining
the jug and starting on his feet, declared he should enter Winchcombe
in better spirits after such excellent ale; and then bidding good
evening to the unsuspecting old man, hastened after Lucy.
About thirty paces in the rear of her father's house, was an old
far-spreading oak, beneath whose branches stood Lucy awaiting him, who
was even now, in her mind, to all intents and purposes a lover. As the
dusty-foot looked around in the darkness, a whispered hist! decided his
course, he sprung to the tree, and stooped to clasp the little form in
his arms, and to imprint on the glowing cheek his first kiss; but Lucy
drew back, and, with the dignity of a maiden, repelled the freedom.
"Nay," said Wells, "you know I am slipping my cable, and you shouldn't
grudge a parting salute; but, however, don't stand aloof--I give
you the word of a sailor--I cannot say of an honest one, but that's
nothing--one man's word is as good as another's if he means to keep it,
and so I give you my word that I will not offend again, and now give
me your hand, and I will trust my secret to a sinless maiden."
"Alas!" said Lucy, "I am not sinless."
"May be not so, entirely, yet I am sure you are as sinless as woman can
be--but listen to me, Lucy--you know that I am a bondman's son--that I
fled from bondage--and that ten years of roving freedom, had not made
me free. All this you know, but you do not know that I am the Genoese
galleyman who cheated the chapman's dame at the fair of Winchcombe."
Lucy started, and made an involuntary effort to withdraw the hand that
Wells had taken; but he held it firmly, while he added,
"I need not have told you this, but I would not deceive you--I have led
a wild sort of a life, and I used to laugh at it; but somehow, since I
have beheld the place of my boyhood, I would give back all the lawless
freedom of the seas, and all the money-making traffic of the land, to
be what I was when I left this spot--but this is all foolish talking;
what is past is gone and cannot be helped."
"Aye," interrupted Lucy, "but you can help what is to come."
"Yes, and so I will; but you know I have neither home nor kin. Now one
doesn't like to stand alone in the world like a deserted wreck in the
midst of the ocean--nobody caring a straw whether it sinks or swims. I
think I should not have done as I have done if I had thought any heart
would have grieved to hear I was not steering right."
Wells paused a moment, and then added--
"I have seen blue eyes and black eyes--fair skins--and dark skins, but
I never saw a she of them I cared to look upon the second time; but I
couldn't have sheered off this night without a parting look at you,
if the whole hue and cry of Winchcombe had stood to meet me. You've
never been to sea, Lucy, and so you cannot tell how it cheers a man to
think of the port his vessel is steering to--to look across the heaving
billows and to see, even in his fancy, the snug harbour where he is,
at length, to cast his anchor. Now, maiden," continued Wells, pressing
within his own hard palms the little hand he held, "now tell me, shall
not the wandering seaman look across the ocean to a sure anchorage.
May he not think of a haven where he may at last moor his tossed-about
galley?"
Lucy was little used to the figurative language of a sailor, yet she
easily interpreted his meaning; and, after much hesitation, a little
blushing, many promises of amendment--and many more protestations of
unchanging love, she plighted her troth, and the galleyman departed on
his journey.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The court of Pie-powder (_pié-poudré_) was a court held
at fairs for the redress of all grievances happening there--so called,
because justice must be done before the dust goes off the plaintiff's
or defendant's feet. See statute 17 Edward IV. chap. 2., confirming
the common law usage of, and detailing some new regulations for, these
courts.]