And now am I an Earlis son,
And not a banished man.
--NUT-BROWN MAID.
That journey northward in the long summer days was a honeymoon to the
young couple. The Prioress left them as much to themselves as possible,
trying to rejoice fully in their gladness, and not to think what might
have been hers but for that vow of her parents, keeping her hours
diligently in preparation for the stricter rule awaiting her.
When they parted she sent Florimond with them, to be restored if she
were allowed to return to Greystone, and Anne parted with her with many
tears as the truest mother and friend she had ever known.
By this time Harry was able to ride, and the two, with a couple of
men-at-arms hired as escort, made their way over the moors, Harry’s
head throbbing with gladness, as, with a shout of joy, he hailed his own
mountain-heads, Helvellyn and Saddleback, in all their purple cloud-like
majesty.
They agreed first to go to Dolly’s homestead, drawn as much by affection
as by prudence. Delight it was to Hal to point out the rocks and bushes
of his home; but when he came in sight of Piers and the sheep, the dumb
boy broke out into a cry of terror, and rushed away headlong, nor did
he turn till he felt Watch’s very substantial paws bounding on him in
ecstasy.
Watch was indeed a forerunner, for Dolly and her husband could scarcely
be induced by his solid presence and caresses to come out and see for
themselves that the tall knight and lady were no ghostly shades, nor
bewildered travellers, but that this was their own nursling Hal, whom
Simon Bunce had reported to be lying dead under a gorse-bush at Barnet,
and further that the lovely brunette lady was the little lost child whom
Dolly had mothered for a night.
While the happy goodwife was regaling them with the best she had to
offer, Hob set forth to announce their arrival at Threlkeld, being not
certain what the cautious Sir Lancelot would deem advisable, since the
Lancaster race had perished, and York was in the ascendant.
There was a long time to wait, but finally Sir Lancelot himself came
riding through the wood, no longer afraid to welcome his stepson at the
castle, and the more willing since the bride newly arrived was no maiden
of low degree, but a damsel of equal birth and with unquestioned rights.
So all was well, and the lady no longer had to embrace her son in fear
and trembling, but to see him a handsome and thoughtful young man, well
able to take his place in her halls.
Since he had been actually in arms against King Edward it was not
thought safe to assert his claims to his father’s domains, but the lady
gave up to him a portion of her own inheritance from the Vescis, where
he and Anne were able to live in Barden Tower in Yorkshire, not far from
Bolton Abbey. So Hal’s shepherd days were over, though he still loved
country habits and ways. Hob came to be once more his attendant, Dolly
was Anne’s bower-woman, and Simon Bunce Sir Harry’s squire, though he
never ceased blaming himself for having left his master, dead as he
thought, when even a poor hound was more trusty.
Florimond was restored to the Prioress, who was reinstated at Greystone,
a graver woman than before she had set forth, the better for having
watched deeper devotion at the Minoresses’, and still more for the
terrible realities of the battle of Barnet. At Bolton Abbey Harry found
monks who encouraged his craving for information on natural science,
and could carry him on much farther in these researches than his hermit,
though he always maintained that the royal anchorite and prisoner saw
farther into heavenly things than any other whom he had known, and
that his soul and insight rose the higher with his outward troubles and
bodily decay.
So peacefully went the world with them till Henry was one-and-thirty,
and then the tidings of Bosworth Field came north. The great tragedy of
Plantagenet was complete, and the ambitious and blood-stained house
of York, who had avenged the usurpation of Henry of Lancaster, had
perished, chiefly by the hands of each other, and the distantly related
descendant of John of Gaunt, Henry Tudor, triumphed.
The Threlkelds were not slow to recollect that it was time for the
Cliffords to show their heads; moreover, that the St. Johns of Bletso
were related to the Tudors. Though now an aged woman, she descended
from her hills, called upon her son and his wife with their little
nine-year-old son to come with her, and pay homage to the new sovereign
in their own names, and rode with them to Westminster.
There a very different monarch from the saint of Harry’s memory received
and favoured him. The lands of Westmoreland were granted to him as his
right, and on their return, Master Lorimer coming by special invitation,
the family were welcomed at Brougham Castle, the cradle of their
race, where Harry Clifford, no longer an outlaw, began the career thus
described:
Love had he found in huts where poor men lie,
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
In him the savage virtue of the race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead,
Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place
The wisdom that adversity had bred.
Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth,
The Shepherd Lord was honoured more and more,
And ages after he was laid in earth
The Good Lord Clifford was the name he bore.
FINIS
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Herd Boy and His Hermit, by Charlotte M. Yonge