Here stands the victim--there the proud betrayer,
E'en as the hind pull'd down by strangling dogs
Lies at the hunter's feet--who courteous proffers
To some high dame, the Dian of the chase,
To whom he looks for guerdon, his sharp blade,
To gash the sobbing throat. --THE WOODSMAN.
We are now to return to Mervyn's Bower, the apartment, or rather the
prison, of the unfortunate Countess of Leicester, who for some time kept
within bounds her uncertainty and her impatience. She was aware that, in
the tumult of the day, there might be some delay ere her letter could be
safely conveyed to the hands of Leicester, and that some time more might
elapse ere he could extricate himself from the necessary attendance on
Elizabeth, to come and visit her in her secret bower. “I will not expect
him,” she said, “till night; he cannot be absent from his royal guest,
even to see me. He will, I know, come earlier if it be possible, but I
will not expect him before night.” And yet all the while she did expect
him; and while she tried to argue herself into a contrary belief, each
hasty noise of the hundred which she heard sounded like the hurried step
of Leicester on the staircase, hasting to fold her in his arms.
The fatigue of body which Amy had lately undergone, with the agitation
of mind natural to so cruel a state of uncertainty, began by degrees
strongly to affect her nerves, and she almost feared her total inability
to maintain the necessary self-command through the scenes which might
lie before her. But although spoiled by an over-indulgent system of
education, Amy had naturally a mind of great power, united with a
frame which her share in her father's woodland exercises had rendered
uncommonly healthy. She summoned to her aid such mental and bodily
resources; and not unconscious how much the issue of her fate might
depend on her own self-possession, she prayed internally for strength of
body and for mental fortitude, and resolved at the same time to yield to
no nervous impulse which might weaken either.
Yet when the great bell of the Castle, which was placed in Caesar's
Tower, at no great distance from that called Mervyn's, began to send
its pealing clamour abroad, in signal of the arrival of the royal
procession, the din was so painfully acute to ears rendered nervously
sensitive by anxiety, that she could hardly forbear shrieking with
anguish, in answer to every stunning clash of the relentless peal.
Shortly afterwards, when the small apartment was at once enlightened by
the shower of artificial fires with which the air was suddenly filled,
and which crossed each other like fiery spirits, each bent on his own
separate mission, or like salamanders executing a frolic dance in the
region of the Sylphs, the Countess felt at first as if each rocket shot
close by her eyes, and discharged its sparks and flashes so nigh that
she could feel a sense of the heat. But she struggled against these
fantastic terrors, and compelled herself to arise, stand by the window,
look out, and gaze upon a sight which at another time would have
appeared to her at once captivating and fearful. The magnificent towers
of the Castle were enveloped in garlands of artificial fire, or shrouded
with tiaras of pale smoke. The surface of the lake glowed like molten
iron, while many fireworks (then thought extremely wonderful, though now
common), whose flame continued to exist in the opposing element, dived
and rose, hissed and roared, and spouted fire, like so many dragons of
enchantment sporting upon a burning lake.
Even Amy was for a moment interested by what was to her so new a scene.
“I had thought it magical art,” she said, “but poor Tressilian taught me
to judge of such things as they are. Great God! and may not these idle
splendours resemble my own hoped-for happiness--a single spark, which is
instantly swallowed up by surrounding darkness--a precarious glow,
which rises but for a brief space into the air, that its fall may be the
lower? O Leicester! after all--all that thou hast said--hast sworn--that
Amy was thy love, thy life, can it be that thou art the magician
at whose nod these enchantments arise, and that she sees them as an
outcast, if not a captive?”
The sustained, prolonged, and repeated bursts of music, from so many
different quarters, and at so many varying points of distance, which
sounded as if not the Castle of Kenilworth only, but the whole country
around, had been at once the scene of solemnizing some high national
festival, carried the same oppressive thought still closer to her heart,
while some notes would melt in distant and falling tones, as if in
compassion for her sorrows, and some burst close and near upon her, as
if mocking her misery, with all the insolence of unlimited mirth. “These
sounds,” she said, “are mine--mine, because they are HIS; but I cannot
say, Be still, these loud strains suit me not; and the voice of the
meanest peasant that mingles in the dance would have more power to
modulate the music than the command of her who is mistress of all.”
By degrees the sounds of revelry died away, and the Countess withdrew
from the window at which she had sat listening to them. It was night,
but the moon afforded considerable light in the room, so that Amy was
able to make the arrangement which she judged necessary. There was hope
that Leicester might come to her apartment as soon as the revel in the
Castle had subsided; but there was also risk she might be disturbed by
some unauthorized intruder. She had lost confidence in the key since
Tressilian had entered so easily, though the door was locked on the
inside; yet all the additional security she could think of was to place
the table across the door, that she might be warned by the noise should
any one attempt to enter. Having taken these necessary precautions, the
unfortunate lady withdrew to her couch, stretched herself down on it,
mused in anxious expectation, and counted more than one hour after
midnight, till exhausted nature proved too strong for love, for grief,
for fear, nay, even for uncertainty, and she slept.
Yes, she slept. The Indian sleeps at the stake in the intervals between
his tortures; and mental torments, in like manner, exhaust by long
continuance the sensibility of the sufferer, so that an interval of
lethargic repose must necessarily ensue, ere the pangs which they
inflict can again be renewed.
The Countess slept, then, for several hours, and dreamed that she was
in the ancient house at Cumnor Place, listening for the low whistle with
which Leicester often used to announce his presence in the courtyard
when arriving suddenly on one of his stolen visits. But on this
occasion, instead of a whistle, she heard the peculiar blast of a
bugle-horn, such as her father used to wind on the fall of the stag, and
which huntsmen then called a MORT. She ran, as she thought, to a
window that looked into the courtyard, which she saw filled with men
in mourning garments. The old Curate seemed about to read the funeral
service. Mumblazen, tricked out in an antique dress, like an ancient
herald, held aloft a scutcheon, with its usual decorations of skulls,
cross-bones, and hour-glasses, surrounding a coat-of-arms, of which she
could only distinguish that it was surmounted with an Earl's coronet.
The old man looked at her with a ghastly smile, and said, “Amy, are they
not rightly quartered?” Just as he spoke, the horns again poured on her
ear the melancholy yet wild strain of the MORT, or death-note, and she
awoke.
The Countess awoke to hear a real bugle-note, or rather the combined
breath of many bugles, sounding not the MORT. but the jolly REVEILLE, to
remind the inmates of the Castle of Kenilworth that the pleasures of the
day were to commence with a magnificent stag-hunting in the neighbouring
Chase. Amy started up from her couch, listened to the sound, saw the
first beams of the summer morning already twinkle through the lattice
of her window, and recollected, with feelings of giddy agony, where she
was, and how circumstanced.
“He thinks not of me,” she said; “he will not come nigh me! A Queen is
his guest, and what cares he in what corner of his huge Castle a wretch
like me pines in doubt, which is fast fading into despair?” At once a
sound at the door, as of some one attempting to open it softly, filled
her with an ineffable mixture of joy and fear; and hastening to remove
the obstacle she had placed against the door, and to unlock it, she had
the precaution to ask! “Is it thou, my love?”
“Yes, my Countess,” murmured a whisper in reply.
She threw open the door, and exclaiming, “Leicester!” flung her arms
around the neck of the man who stood without, muffled in his cloak.
“No--not quite Leicester,” answered Michael Lambourne, for he it was,
returning the caress with vehemence--“not quite Leicester, my lovely and
most loving duchess, but as good a man.”
With an exertion of force, of which she would at another time have
thought herself incapable, the Countess freed herself from the profane
and profaning grasp of the drunken debauchee, and retreated into the
midst of her apartment where despair gave her courage to make a stand.
As Lambourne, on entering, dropped the lap of his cloak from his face,
she knew Varney's profligate servant, the very last person, excepting
his detested master, by whom she would have wished to be discovered. But
she was still closely muffled in her travelling dress, and as Lambourne
had scarce ever been admitted to her presence at Cumnor Place, her
person, she hoped, might not be so well known to him as his was to her,
owing to Janet's pointing him frequently out as he crossed the court,
and telling stories of his wickedness. She might have had still greater
confidence in her disguise had her experience enabled her to discover
that he was much intoxicated; but this could scarce have consoled her
for the risk which she might incur from such a character in such a time,
place, and circumstances.
Lambourne flung the door behind him as he entered, and folding his
arms, as if in mockery of the attitude of distraction into which Amy
had thrown herself, he proceeded thus: “Hark ye, most fair Calipolis--or
most lovely Countess of clouts, and divine Duchess of dark corners--if
thou takest all that trouble of skewering thyself together, like a
trussed fowl, that there may be more pleasure in the carving, even save
thyself the labour. I love thy first frank manner the best--like thy
present as little”--(he made a step towards her, and staggered)--“as
little as--such a damned uneven floor as this, where a gentleman may
break his neck if he does not walk as upright as a posture-master on the
tight-rope.”
“Stand back!” said the Countess; “do not approach nearer to me on thy
peril!”
“My peril!--and stand back! Why, how now, madam? Must you have a better
mate than honest Mike Lambourne? I have been in America, girl, where the
gold grows, and have brought off such a load on't--”
“Good friend,” said the Countess, in great terror at the ruffian's
determined and audacious manner, “I prithee begone, and leave me.”
“And so I will, pretty one, when we are tired of each other's
company--not a jot sooner.” He seized her by the arm, while, incapable
of further defence, she uttered shriek upon shriek. “Nay, scream away if
you like it,” said he, still holding her fast; “I have heard the sea
at the loudest, and I mind a squalling woman no more than a miauling
kitten. Damn me! I have heard fifty or a hundred screaming at once, when
there was a town stormed.”
The cries of the Countess, however, brought unexpected aid in the person
of Lawrence Staples, who had heard her exclamations from his apartment
below, and entered in good time to save her from being discovered,
if not from more atrocious violence. Lawrence was drunk also from the
debauch of the preceding night, but fortunately his intoxication had
taken a different turn from that of Lambourne.
“What the devil's noise is this in the ward?” he said. “What! man and
woman together in the same cell?--that is against rule. I will have
decency under my rule, by Saint Peter of the Fetters!”
“Get thee downstairs, thou drunken beast,” said Lambourne; “seest thou
not the lady and I would be private?”
“Good sir, worthy sir!” said the Countess, addressing the jailer, “do
but save me from him, for the sake of mercy!”
“She speaks fairly,” said the jailer, “and I will take her part. I love
my prisoners; and I have had as good prisoners under my key as they have
had in Newgate or the Compter. And so, being one of my lambkins, as I
say, no one shall disturb her in her pen-fold. So let go the woman: or
I'll knock your brains out with my keys.”
“I'll make a blood-pudding of thy midriff first,” answered Lambourne,
laying his left hand on his dagger, but still detaining the Countess by
the arm with his right. “So have at thee, thou old ostrich, whose only
living is upon a bunch of iron keys.”
Lawrence raised the arm of Michael, and prevented him from drawing his
dagger; and as Lambourne struggled and strove to shake him off; the
Countess made a sudden exertion on her side, and slipping her hand
out of the glove on which the ruffian still kept hold, she gained her
liberty, and escaping from the apartment, ran downstairs; while at the
same moment she heard the two combatants fall on the floor with a noise
which increased her terror. The outer wicket offered no impediment to
her flight, having been opened for Lambourne's admittance; so that she
succeeded in escaping down the stair, and fled into the Pleasance, which
seemed to her hasty glance the direction in which she was most likely to
avoid pursuit.
Meanwhile, Lawrence and Lambourne rolled on the floor of the apartment,
closely grappled together. Neither had, happily, opportunity to draw
their daggers; but Lawrence found space enough to clash his heavy keys
across Michael's face, and Michael in return grasped the turnkey so
felly by the throat that the blood gushed from nose and mouth, so that
they were both gory and filthy spectacles when one of the other officers
of the household, attracted by the noise of the fray, entered the room,
and with some difficulty effected the separation of the combatants.
“A murrain on you both,” said the charitable mediator, “and especially
on you, Master Lambourne! What the fiend lie you here for, fighting on
the floor like two butchers' curs in the kennel of the shambles?”
Lambourne arose, and somewhat sobered by the interposition of a third
party, looked with something less than his usual brazen impudence of
visage. “We fought for a wench, an thou must know,” was his reply.
“A wench! Where is she?” said the officer.
“Why, vanished, I think,” said Lambourne, looking around him, “unless
Lawrence hath swallowed her, That filthy paunch of his devours as
many distressed damsels and oppressed orphans as e'er a giant in King
Arthur's history. They are his prime food; he worries them body, soul,
and substance.”
“Ay, ay! It's no matter,” said Lawrence, gathering up his huge, ungainly
form from the floor; “but I have had your betters, Master Michael
Lambourne, under the little turn of my forefinger and thumb, and I shall
have thee, before all's done, under my hatches. The impudence of thy
brow will not always save thy shin-bones from iron, and thy foul,
thirsty gullet from a hempen cord.” The words were no sooner out of his
mouth, when Lambourne again made at him.
“Nay, go not to it again,” said the sewer, “or I will call for him shall
tame you both, and that is Master Varney--Sir Richard, I mean. He is
stirring, I promise you; I saw him cross the court just now.”
“Didst thou, by G--!” said Lambourne, seizing on the basin and ewer
which stood in the apartment. “Nay, then, element, do thy work. I
thought I had enough of thee last night, when I floated about for Orion,
like a cork on a fermenting cask of ale.”
So saying, he fell to work to cleanse from his face and hands the signs
of the fray, and get his apparel into some order.
“What hast thou done to him?” said the sewer, speaking aside to the
jailer; “his face is fearfully swelled.”
“It is but the imprint of the key of my cabinet--too good a mark for
his gallows-face. No man shall abuse or insult my prisoners; they are my
jewels, and I lock them in safe casket accordingly.--And so, mistress,
leave off your wailing.--Why! why, surely, there was a woman here!”
“I think you are all mad this morning,” said the sewer. “I saw no woman
here, nor no man neither in a proper sense, but only two beasts rolling
on the floor.”
“Nay, then I am undone,” said the jailer; “the prison's broken, that is
all. Kenilworth prison is broken,” he continued, in a tone of maudlin
lamentation, “which was the strongest jail betwixt this and the Welsh
Marches--ay, and a house that has had knights, and earls, and kings
sleeping in it, as secure as if they had been in the Tower of London.
It is broken, the prisoners fled, and the jailer in much danger of being
hanged!”
So saying, he retreated down to his own den to conclude his
lamentations, or to sleep himself sober. Lambourne and the sewer
followed him close; and it was well for them, since the jailer, out of
mere habit, was about to lock the wicket after him, and had they not
been within the reach of interfering, they would have had the pleasure
of being shut up in the turret-chamber, from which the Countess had been
just delivered.
That unhappy lady, as soon as she found herself at liberty, fled, as
we have already mentioned, into the Pleasance. She had seen this
richly-ornamented space of ground from the window of Mervyn's Tower; and
it occurred to her, at the moment of her escape, that among its numerous
arbours, bowers, fountains, statues, and grottoes, she might find some
recess in which she could lie concealed until she had an opportunity of
addressing herself to a protector, to whom she might communicate as much
as she dared of her forlorn situation, and through whose means she might
supplicate an interview with her husband.
“If I could see my guide,” she thought, “I would learn if he had
delivered my letter. Even did I but see Tressilian, it were better to
risk Dudley's anger, by confiding my whole situation to one who is the
very soul of honour, than to run the hazard of further insult among the
insolent menials of this ill-ruled place. I will not again venture into
an enclosed apartment. I will wait, I will watch; amidst so many human
beings there must be some kind heart which can judge and compassionate
what mine endures.”
In truth, more than one party entered and traversed the Pleasance. But
they were in joyous groups of four or five persons together, laughing
and jesting in their own fullness of mirth and lightness of heart.
The retreat which she had chosen gave her the easy alternative of
avoiding observation. It was but stepping back to the farthest recess of
a grotto, ornamented with rustic work and moss-seats, and terminated by
a fountain, and she might easily remain concealed, or at her pleasure
discover herself to any solitary wanderer whose curiosity might lead
him to that romantic retirement. Anticipating such an opportunity, she
looked into the clear basin which the silent fountain held up to her
like a mirror, and felt shocked at her own appearance, and doubtful at
the same time, muffled and disfigured as her disguise made her seem to
herself, whether any female (and it was from the compassion of her own
sex that she chiefly expected sympathy) would engage in conference with
so suspicious an object. Reasoning thus like a woman, to whom external
appearance is scarcely in any circumstances a matter of unimportance,
and like a beauty, who had some confidence in the power of her own
charms, she laid aside her travelling cloak and capotaine hat, and
placed them beside her, so that she could assume them in an instant, ere
one could penetrate from the entrance of the grotto to its extremity, in
case the intrusion of Varney or of Lambourne should render such disguise
necessary. The dress which she wore under these vestments was somewhat
of a theatrical cast, so as to suit the assumed personage of one of the
females who was to act in the pageant, Wayland had found the means
of arranging it thus upon the second day of their journey, having
experienced the service arising from the assumption of such a character
on the preceding day. The fountain, acting both as a mirror and ewer,
afforded Amy the means of a brief toilette, of which she availed herself
as hastily as possible; then took in her hand her small casket of
jewels, in case she might find them useful intercessors, and retiring to
the darkest and most sequestered nook, sat down on a seat of moss,
and awaited till fate should give her some chance of rescue, or of
propitiating an intercessor.