THE DISCOMFITED SCRIVENER.
Grasp's return home was somewhat more sudden than he had
intended. He returned indeed in an exceedingly discomfited and
excited state.
His friend Dismal was the only person who had gained access to him, and
that but for a few moments. During the interview, however, Dismal had
gathered from Doubletongue, who also arrived in all haste, that great
events had transpired in London, of one sort or other. But so
extraordinary and so perturbed did both the lawyer and his friend seem,
that except certain incoherent expressions about an attempt upon the
Queen's life, a spectre he himself had beheld, and various allusions to
poison, assassination, death, destruction, and utter ruin. Dismal
completely failed in discovering the exact news the travellers had to
tall, and hence the variety of reports circulated through the town.
Something certainly seemed to have gone all wrong with the lawyer. His
friend Doubletongue had never seen him so put out, and altogether he
feared that his wits were going.
To explain the meaning of this agitated and nervous state of the worthy
Stratford lawyer, we must go back a few paces in our history.
Grasp, then, it will be remembered, whilst in London, had considerably
extended his practice. He had apparently involved Walter Arderne in
ruin; he had even carried on his intrigues so as to make the dark Earl,
he of Leicester, a party concerned in his plot. For Grasp had given the
Earl a hint about certain abbey lands and a manor near Kenilworth, which
would fall to the said Earl in the event of Arderne's decease. He had
ferreted out the existence of a plot, by means of which he hoped to rise
to great preferment; and he had succeeded in beguiling a simple-minded
gentleman, resident in Warwickshire, that he was indeed the real and
undisputed heir to the estates of the before-named Clara de Mowbray, and
actually by bribery, and using all sorts of villainy, got a verdict in
such person's favour, and placed him in possession of some portion of
the property.
Somehow or other, however, like the labours of the alchemist, which at
the moment of projection are frequently overthrown by the bursting of
some vessel containing the divine elixir, so all Grasp's schemes seemed
unaccountably blown to the winds, and himself discomfited.
Acting upon wrong information, he had followed a female, who travelled
in male disguise, as far as Oxford, where he lost all trace of her; and
whilst he tarried at the City of Palaces, an express overtook him, with
directions to hasten with all speed to Cornbury Park, where the Earl of
Leicester was then lying sick, having arrived there by easy stages on
the way to Kenilworth, a few days before.
Now, Grasp, since his first introduction to the Earl of Leicester, had
made such considerable advances in that bad man's good graces, that the
Earl had sent an express for him, in order to make some alterations in
his will.
Grasp accordingly set forth, leaving directions that Sir Humphrey
Graball, the gentleman who was disputing the succession of the Mowbray
estates, and Master Quillett, the Temple lawyer, and with whom he had
arranged a meeting at Oxford, should follow him to Cornbury. For Grasp
argued very wisely, that both the matters of business apertaining to the
Earl's claim, and the concoction of a new will, might be arranged at one
and the same time.
The will of the sick and fallen favourite, had we space to dilate upon
it, would perhaps be well worthy of contemplation. That part of it
especially in which he bequeathed a costly legacy to his royal
mistress--the bequest being wrapped up in a preamble of honeyed words,
being not the least curious part of the document.
It was night when the Earl finished his business with Grasp, and the
bleak winds of September sounded through the park of Cornbury, as the
lawyer, after the interview, sat with the before-named client and the
Templar, in a small apartment of the mansion. It was a dark hour, and a
certain feeling of awe seemed to pervade that household.
The overgrown and fallen courtier lying helpless and hopeless, alike
body and soul. His "ill-weaved ambition" shrank to the smallest
span--his parks, his walks, his manors forsaking him. His swollen body,
a thing abhorrent even to himself. That beautiful Countess too,
attending upon him without love; and whilst duty called her to the side
of him who had so vilely used her, the selfish courtier even envying her
the life and health she enjoyed.
Nothing however, could exceed the elation of Grasp. He beheld in
prospect a glorious array of difficulties and litigation consequent upon
the matters he was engaged in; and most of all the success of his
machinations in favour of Sir Humphrey Graball, and his succession to
the manors of Mowbray, promised him endless profits.
"Sir Humphrey is altogether an easy simpleton," he said, "a most weak
and debile man, and can as easily be led by the nose as an ass. Ergo, I
shall thrive."
Accordingly, as Grasp sat with his client discussing matters of moment,
whilst they relieved their labours by occasional indulgence in the good
wine of the house, amongst other papers called for, was the will of the
Lady Clara de Mowbray--an instrument we have, on a former occasion seen
in his possession. There is always a secret horror suitable to the time,
when in some antique apartment, and, by night, men meet together to
peruse the musty documents which speak the last wishes of those within
the tomb, more especially when sickness and those signs which foretell
the ending of mortality pervade the habitation. On this rough night
"The owl shrieked, the fatal bellman
Which gives the sternest good night."
Suddenly, as Grasp glanced upon that will, he became, as it were,
transfixed. At the same moment a sort of hubbub seemed to pervade the
house. In place of the silence which the sick Earl had commanded there
was suddenly heard an opening and shutting of doors--a summons of
persons in all haste, and something apparently of dreadful import in
agitation.
Grasp, however, heeded it not. He seemed still engrossed with the
parchment before him. He held it back at arm's length; he drew it close
to his nose; he uttered an exclamation of astonishment, and the word
"codicil" escaped, as one of the domestics rushed into tho room to
announce that the Earl was dying in fearful agony.
Without heeding the news, Grasp fled from the room, rushed to the
stable, mounted his horse, and rode off for Oxford. With the will still
in his hand, the excited lawyer dismounted from his steed, and strode
into the tavern, where, heeding not the assembled guests, he threw
himself into a vacant seat, with the air of one possessed by a demon.
And, again, with fearful eye, regarded the instrument he hold in his
hand.
"Can such things be?" he said. "Can the dead return to life, or is it
the evil one himself who thus palters with my sight and senses?"
The tavern was on this night tolerably well filled with guests. One of
them, who was seated opposite to the lawyer, was a person of a most
expressive and pleasant style of countenance. His conversation and wit
had indeed been setting the whole assemblage, gentle and simple, in
roars, during the entire evening--the host and hostess of the tavern
being not the least amused.
The advent of Grasp in his perturbed state, his extraordinary grimaces,
his abstracted demeanour, and his travel-stained appearance altogether,
called forth from this person so many curious remarks, that the laughter
which had for the moment been interrupted by his entrance was renewed
tenfold at Grasp's expense, till, as on unfixing his gaze from the
basilisk he seemed to hold in his hand, he looked round upon the
assemblage, and then steadily regarded his tormentor, he beheld himself
face to face with the old subject of his former enmity--Master William
Shakespeare.
"There is no rest for the wicked," saith the old proverb; and the
renewed roar which followed the expression of Grasp's countenance at
this sudden recognition, was actually driving him from the room, when
Doubletongue, who had followed his friend, suddenly entered, and
whispered something in his ear.
"Poisoned say ye?" exclaimed Grasp, starting in surprise; "my Lord of
Leicester deceased--dead--defunct, and thus suddenly? Poisoned, say ye?
Art sure 'tis the Countess you mean?"
"No, 'tis the Earl himself," said Doubletongue; "and your having been
with him just before, together with your sudden departure, hath raised a
suspicion among the household that----"
"'Fore heaven, what mean ye?" said Grasp. "They surely suspect not that
I had ought to do with the poisoning of my Lord of Leicester? There must
have been some dire mistake in the matter. 'Fore heaven, I shall be
hanged through this mistake!" and Grasp immediately left the room,
bribed the ostler to procure him a fresh horse, and set off with all
speed towards Stratford-upon-Avon.
Scarce had he gained a dozen miles when he came up with a couple of
riders progressing the same road as himself. Company was ever welcome in
those days, and the horsemen gladly acceded to his request to be allowed
to ride in their escort.
The habitual caution of the lawyer, however, caused him to cast certain
searching glances at his companions as often as the moon's light gave
him opportunity of doing so, and ere long he became almost confirmed in
the belief that in one of the armed riders he was accompanying he had
fallen in with the identical female in male apparel whom he had before
been in search of. There was comfort, at all events, in this
supposition, and as they emerged from the dark covert of a wood they had
been progressing through, he managed to push his horse between them and
gain a good look at their features. And here again Grasp apparently
beheld that which renewed his former perturbation. The face of the rider
he first encountered wore the actual expression of one he had reason to
believe had long been dead, and as he turned his startled glance upon
the other, he beheld the exact lineaments of Clara de Mowbray. Pale she
looked, as if her features were of sculptured alabaster; but as she
turned her countenance full upon him, he could not be mistaken in their
identity.
Conscience had already made a coward of Grasp--his clear spirit was
puddled. The deep sea had apparently cast up the dead to discomfort him,
and clapping spars to his steed, he fled onwards on his route towards
Stratford-upon-Avon.