BOOK XII

THE BATTLE OF BARNET

CHAPTER

I A King in his City hopes to recover his Realm--A Woman in

her Chamber fears to forfeit her own

II Sharp is the Kiss of the Falcon's Bear

III A Pause

IV-VI The Battle

VII The last Pilgrims in the long Procession to the Common Bourne

BOOK I.

THE ADVENTURES OF MASTER MARMADUKE NEVILE.

CHAPTER I.

THE PASTIME-GROUND OF OLD COCKAIGNE.

Westward, beyond the still pleasant, but even then no longer solitary,

hamlet of Charing, a broad space, broken here and there by scattered

houses and venerable pollards, in the early spring of 1467, presented

the rural scene for the sports and pastimes of the inhabitants of

Westminster and London. Scarcely need we say that open spaces for the

popular games and diversions were then numerous in the suburbs of the

metropolis,--grateful to some the fresh pools of Islington; to others,

the grass-bare fields of Finsbury; to all, the hedgeless plains of

vast Mile-end. But the site to which we are now summoned was a new

and maiden holiday-ground, lately bestowed upon the townsfolk of

Westminster by the powerful Earl of Warwick.

Raised by a verdant slope above the low, marsh-grown soil of

Westminster, the ground communicated to the left with the Brook-

fields, through which stole the peaceful Ty-bourne, and commanded

prospects, on all sides fair, and on each side varied. Behind, rose

the twin green hills of Hampstead and Highgate, with the upland park

and chase of Marybone,--its stately manor-house half hid in woods. In

front might be seen the Convent of the Lepers, dedicated to Saint

James, now a palace; then to the left, York House, [The residence of

the Archbishops of York] now Whitehall; farther on, the spires of

Westminster Abbey and the gloomy tower of the Sanctuary; next, the

Palace, with its bulwark and vawmure, soaring from the river; while

eastward, and nearer to the scene, stretched the long, bush-grown

passage of the Strand, picturesquely varied with bridges, and flanked

to the right by the embattled halls of feudal nobles, or the inns of

the no less powerful prelates; while sombre and huge amidst hall and

inn, loomed the gigantic ruins of the Savoy, demolished in the

insurrection of Wat Tyler. Farther on, and farther yet, the eye

wandered over tower and gate, and arch and spire, with frequent

glimpses of the broad sunlit river, and the opposite shore crowned by

the palace of Lambeth, and the Church of St. Mary Overies, till the

indistinct cluster of battlements around the Fortress-Palatine bounded

the curious gaze. As whatever is new is for a while popular, so to

this pastime-ground, on the day we treat of, flocked, not only the

idlers of Westminster, but the lordly dwellers of Ludgate and the

Flete, and the wealthy citizens of tumultuous Chepe.

The ground was well suited to the purpose to which it was devoted.

About the outskirts, indeed, there were swamps and fish-pools; but a

considerable plot towards the centre presented a level sward, already

worn bare and brown by the feet of the multitude. From this, towards

the left, extended alleys, some recently planted, intended to afford,

in summer, cool and shady places for the favourite game of bowls;

while scattered clumps, chiefly of old pollards, to the right broke

the space agreeably enough into detached portions, each of which

afforded its separate pastime or diversion. Around were ranged many

carts, or wagons; horses of all sorts and value were led to and fro,

while their owners were at sport. Tents, awnings, hostelries,

temporary buildings, stages for showmen and jugglers, abounded, and

gave the scene the appearance of a fair; but what particularly now

demands our attention was a broad plot in the ground, dedicated to the

noble diversion of archery. The reigning House of York owed much of

its military success to the superiority of the bowmen under its

banners, and the Londoners themselves were jealous of their reputation

in this martial accomplishment. For the last fifty years,

notwithstanding the warlike nature of the times, the practice of the

bow, in the intervals of peace, had been more neglected than seemed

wise to the rulers. Both the king and his loyal city had of late

taken much pains to enforce the due exercise of "Goddes instrumente,"

[So called emphatically by Bishop Latimer, in his celebrated Sixth

Sermon.] upon which an edict had declared that "the liberties and

honour of England principally rested!"

And numerous now was the attendance, not only of the citizens, the

burghers, and the idle populace, but of the gallant nobles who

surrounded the court of Edward IV., then in the prime of his youth,--

the handsomest, the gayest, and the bravest prince in Christendom.

The royal tournaments (which were, however, waning from their ancient

lustre to kindle afresh, and to expire in the reigns of the succeeding

Tudors), restricted to the amusements of knight and noble, no doubt

presented more of pomp and splendour than the motley and mixed

assembly of all ranks that now grouped around the competitors for the

silver arrow, or listened to the itinerant jongleur, dissour, or

minstrel, or, seated under the stunted shade of the old trees,

indulged, with eager looks and hands often wandering to their dagger-

hilts, in the absorbing passion of the dice; but no later and earlier

scenes of revelry ever, perhaps, exhibited that heartiness of

enjoyment, that universal holiday, which attended this mixture of

every class, that established a rude equality for the hour between the

knight and the retainer, the burgess and the courtier.

The revolution that placed Edward IV. upon the throne had, in fact,

been a popular one. Not only had the valour and moderation of his

father, Richard, Duke of York, bequeathed a heritage of affection to

his brave and accomplished son; not only were the most beloved of the

great barons the leaders of his party; but the king himself, partly

from inclination, partly from policy, spared no pains to win the good

graces of that slowly rising, but even then important part of the

population,--the Middle Class. He was the first king who descended,

without loss of dignity and respect, from the society of his peers and

princes, to join familiarly in the feasts and diversions of the

merchant and the trader. The lord mayor and council of London were

admitted, on more than one solemn occasion, into the deliberations of

the court; and Edward had not long since, on the coronation of his

queen, much to the discontent of certain of his barons, conferred the

Knighthood of the hath upon four of the citizens. On the other hand,

though Edward's gallantries--the only vice which tended to diminish

his popularity with the sober burgesses--were little worthy of his

station, his frank, joyous familiarity with his inferiors was not

debased by the buffooneries that had led to the reverses and the awful

fate of two of his royal predecessors. There must have been a popular

principle, indeed, as well as a popular fancy, involved in the steady

and ardent adherence which the population of London in particular, and

most of the great cities, exhibited to the person and the cause of

Edward IV. There was a feeling that his reign was an advance in

civilization upon the monastic virtues of Henry VI., and the stern

ferocity which accompanied the great qualities of "The Foreign Woman,"

as the people styled and regarded Henry's consort, Margaret of Anjou.

While thus the gifts, the courtesy, and the policy of the young

sovereign made him popular with the middle classes, he owed the

allegiance of the more powerful barons and the favour of the rural

population to a man who stood colossal amidst the iron images of the

Age,--the greatest and the last of the old Norman chivalry, kinglier

in pride, in state, in possessions, and in renown than the king

himself, Richard Nevile, Earl of Salisbury and Warwick.

This princely personage, in the full vigour of his age, possessed all

the attributes that endear the noble to the commons. His valour in

the field was accompanied with a generosity rare in the captains of

the time. He valued himself on sharing the perils and the hardships

of his meanest soldier. His haughtiness to the great was not

incompatible with frank affability to the lowly. His wealth was

enormous, but it was equalled by his magnificence, and rendered

popular by his lavish hospitality. No less than thirty thousand

persons are said to have feasted daily at the open tables with which

he allured to his countless castles the strong hands and grateful

hearts of a martial and unsettled population. More haughty than

ambitious, he was feared because he avenged all affront; and yet not

envied, because he seemed above all favour.

The holiday on the archery-ground was more than usually gay, for the

rumour had spread from the court to the city that Edward was about to

increase his power abroad, and to repair what he had lost in the eyes

of Europe through his marriage with Elizabeth Gray, by allying his

sister Margaret with the brother of Louis XI., and that no less a

person than the Earl of Warwick had been the day before selected as

ambassador on the important occasion.

Various opinions were entertained upon the preference given to France

in this alliance over the rival candidate for the hand of the

princess,--namely, the Count de Charolois, afterwards Charles the

Bold, Duke of Burgundy.

"By 'r Lady," said a stout citizen about the age of fifty, "but I am

not over pleased with this French marriage-making! I would liefer the

stout earl were going to France with bows and bills than sarcenets and

satins. What will become of our trade with Flanders,--answer me that,

Master Stokton? The House of York is a good House, and the king is a

good king, but trade is trade. Every man must draw water to his own

mill."

"Hush, Master Heyford!" said a small lean man in a light-gray surcoat.

"The king loves not talk about what the king does. 'T is ill jesting

with lions. Remember William Walker, hanged for saying his son should

be heir to the crown."

"Troth," answered Master Heyford, nothing daunted, for he belonged to

one of the most powerful corporations of London,--it was but a scurvy

Pepperer [old name for Grocer] who made that joke; but a joke from a

worshipful goldsmith, who has moneys and influence, and a fair wife of

his own, whom the king himself has been pleased to commend, is another

guess sort of matter. But here is my grave-visaged headman, who

always contrives to pick up the last gossip astir, and has a deep eye

into millstones. Why, ho, there! Alwyn--I say, Nicholas Alwyn!--who

would have thought to see thee with that bow, a good half-ell taller

than thyself? Methought thou wert too sober and studious for such

man-at-arms sort of devilry."

"An' it please you, Master Heyford," answered the person thus

addressed,--a young man, pale and lean, though sinewy and large-boned,

with a countenance of great intelligence, but a slow and somewhat

formal manner of speech, and a strong provincial accent,--"an' it

please you, King Edward's edict ordains every Englishman to have a bow

of his own height; and he who neglects the shaft on a holiday

forfeiteth one halfpenny and some honour. For the rest, methinks that

the citizens of London will become of more worth and potency every

year; and it shall not be my fault if I do not, though but a humble

headman to your worshipful mastership, help to make them so."

"Why, that's well said, lad; but if the Londoners prosper, it is

because they have nobles in their gipsires, [a kind of pouch worn at

the girdle] not bows in their hands."

"Thinkest thou then, Master Heyford, that any king at a pinch would

leave them the gipsire, if they could not protect it with the bow?

That Age may have gold, let not Youth despise iron."

"Body o' me!" cried Master Heyford, "but thou hadst better curb in thy

tongue. Though I have my jest,--as a rich man and a corpulent,--a lad

who has his way to make good should be silent and--But he's gone."

"Where hooked you up that young jack fish?" said Master Stokton, the

thin mercer, who had reminded the goldsmith of the fate of the grocer.

"Why, he was meant for the cowl, but his mother, a widow, at his own

wish, let him make choice of the flat cap. He was the best 'prentice

ever I had. By the blood of Saint Thomas, he will push his way in

good time; he has a head, Master Stokton,--a head, and an ear; and a

great big pair of eyes always looking out for something to his proper

advantage."

In the mean while, the goldsmith's headman had walked leisurely up to

the archery-ground; and even in his gait and walk, as he thus repaired

to a pastime, there was something steady, staid, and business-like.

The youths of his class and calling were at that day very different

from their equals in this. Many of them the sons of provincial

retainers, some even of franklins and gentlemen, their childhood had

made them familiar with the splendour and the sports of knighthood;

they had learned to wrestle, to cudgel, to pitch the bar or the quoit,

to draw the bow, and to practise the sword and buckler, before

transplanted from the village green to the city stall. And even then,

the constant broils and wars of the time, the example of their

betters, the holiday spectacle of mimic strife, and, above all, the

powerful and corporate association they formed amongst themselves,

tended to make them as wild, as jovial, and as dissolute a set of

young fellows as their posterity are now sober, careful, and discreet.

And as Nicholas Alwyn, with a slight inclination of his head, passed

by, two or three loud, swaggering, bold-looking groups of apprentices

--their shaggy hair streaming over their shoulders, their caps on one

side, their short cloaks of blue torn or patched, though still

passably new, their bludgeons under their arms, and their whole

appearance and manner not very dissimilar from the German collegians

in the last century--notably contrasted Alwyn's prim dress, his

precise walk, and the feline care with which he stepped aside from any

patches of mire that might sully the soles of his square-toed shoes.

The idle apprentices winked and whispered, and lolled out their

tongues at him as he passed. "Oh, but that must be as good as a May-

Fair day,--sober Nick Alwyn's maiden flight of the shaft! Hollo,

puissant archer, take care of the goslings yonder! Look this way when

thou pull'st, and then woe to the other side!" Venting these and many

similar specimens of the humour of Cockaigne, the apprentices,

however, followed their quondam colleague, and elbowed their way into

the crowd gathered around the competitors at the butt; and it was at

this spot, commanding a view of the whole space, that the spectator

might well have formed some notion of the vast following of the House

of Nevile. For everywhere along the front lines, everywhere in the

scattered groups, might be seen, glistening in the sunlight, the

armourial badges of that mighty family. The Pied Bull, which was the

proper cognizance [Pied Bull the cognizance, the Dun Bull's head the

crest] of the Neviles, was principally borne by the numerous kinsmen

of Earl Warwick, who rejoiced in the Nevile name. The Lord Montagu,

Warwick's brother, to whom the king had granted the forfeit title and

estates of the earls of Northumberland, distinguished his own

retainers, however, by the special request of the ancient Montagus.--a

Gryphon issuant from a ducal crown. But far more numerous than Bull

or Gryphon (numerous as either seemed) were the badges worn by those

who ranked themselves among the peculiar followers of the great Earl

of Warwick. The cognizance of the Bear and Ragged Staff, which he

assumed in right of the Beauchamps, whom he represented through his

wife, the heiress of the lords of Warwick, was worn in the hats of the

more gentle and well-born clansmen and followers, while the Ragged

Staff alone was worked front and back on the scarlet jackets of his

more humble and personal retainers. It was a matter of popular notice

and admiration that in those who wore these badges, as in the wearers

of the hat and staff of the ancient Spartans, might be traced a grave

loftiness of bearing, as if they belonged to another caste, another

race, than the herd of men. Near the place where the rivals for the

silver arrow were collected, a lordly party had reined in their

palfreys, and conversed with each other, as the judges of the field

were marshalling the competitors.

"Who," said one of these gallants, "who is that comely young fellow

just below us, with the Nevile cognizance of the Bull on his hat? He

has the air of one I should know."

"I never saw him before, my Lord of Northumberland," answered one of

the gentlemen thus addressed; "but, pardieu, he who knows all the

Neviles by eye must know half England." The Lord Montagu--for though

at that moment invested with the titles of the Percy, by that name

Earl Warwick's brother is known to history, and by that, his rightful

name, he shall therefore be designated in these pages--the Lord

Montagu smiled graciously at this remark, and a murmur through the

crowd announced that the competition for the silver arrow was about to

commence. The butts, formed of turf, with a small white mark fastened

to the centre by a very minute peg, were placed apart, one at each

end, at the distance of eleven score yards. At the extremity where

the shooting commenced, the crowd assembled, taking care to keep clear

from the opposite butt, as the warning word of "Fast" was thundered

forth; but eager was the general murmur, and many were the wagers

given and accepted, as some well-known archer tried his chance. Near

the butt that now formed the target, stood the marker with his white

wand; and the rapidity with which archer after archer discharged his

shaft, and then, if it missed, hurried across the ground to pick it up

(for arrows were dear enough not to be lightly lost), amidst the jeers

and laughter of the bystanders, was highly animated and diverting. As

yet, however, no marksman had hit the white, though many had gone

close to it, when Nicholas Alwyn stepped forward; and there was

something so unwarlike in his whole air, so prim in his gait, so

careful in his deliberate survey of the shaft and his precise

adjustment of the leathern gauntlet that protected the arm from the

painful twang of the string, that a general burst of laughter from the

bystanders attested their anticipation of a signal failure.

"'Fore Heaven!" said Montagu, "he handles his bow an' it were a yard-

measure. One would think he were about to bargain for the bow-string,

he eyes it so closely."

"And now," said Nicholas, slowly adjusting the arrow, "a shot for the

honour of old Westmoreland!" And as he spoke, the arrow sprang

gallantly forth, and quivered in the very heart of the white. There

was a general movement of surprise among the spectators, as the marker

thrice shook his wand over his head. But Alwyn, as indifferent to

their respect as he had been to their ridicule, turned round and said,

with a significant glance at the silent nobles, "We springals of

London can take care of our own, if need be."

"These fellows wax insolent. Our good king spoils them," said

Montagu, with a curl of his lip. "I wish some young squire of gentle

blood would not disdain a shot for the Nevile against the craftsman.

How say you, fair sir?" And with a princely courtesy of mien and

smile, Lord Montagu turned to the young man he had noticed as wearing

the cognizance of the First House in England. The bow was not the

customary weapon of the well-born; but still, in youth, its exercise

formed one of the accomplishments of the future knight; and even

princes did not disdain, on a popular holiday, to match a shaft

against the yeoman's cloth-yard. [At a later period, Henry VIII. was

a match for the best bowman in his kingdom. His accomplishment was

hereditary, and distinguished alike his wise father and his pious

son.] The young man thus addressed, and whose honest, open, handsome,

hardy face augured a frank and fearless nature, bowed his head in

silence, and then slowly advancing to the umpires, craved permission

to essay his skill, and to borrow the loan of a shaft and bow. Leave

given and the weapons lent, as the young gentleman took his stand, his

comely person, his dress, of a better quality than that of the

competitors hitherto, and, above all, the Nevile badge worked in

silver on his hat, diverted the general attention from Nicholas Alwyn.

A mob is usually inclined to aristocratic predilections, and a murmur

of goodwill and expectation greeted him, when he put aside the

gauntlet offered to him, and said, "In my youth I was taught so to

brace the bow that the string should not touch the arm; and though

eleven score yards be but a boy's distance, a good archer will lay his

body into his bow ["My father taught me to lay my body in my bow,"

etc., said Latimer, in his well-known sermon before Edward VI.,--1549.

The bishop also herein observes that "it is best to give the bow so

much bending that the string need never touch the arm. This," he

adds, "is practised by many good archers with whom I am acquainted."]

as much as if he were to hit the blanc four hundred yards away."

"A tall fellow this!" said Montagu; "and one I wot from the North," as

the young gallant fitted the shaft to the bow. And graceful and

artistic was the attitude he assumed,--the head slightly inclined, the

feet firmly planted, the left a little in advance, and the stretched

sinews of the bow-hand alone evincing that into that grasp was pressed

the whole strength of the easy and careless frame. The public

expectation was not disappointed,--the youth performed the feat

considered of all the most dexterous; his arrow, disdaining the white

mark, struck the small peg which fastened it to the butts, and which

seemed literally invisible to the bystanders.

"Holy Saint Dunstan! there's but one man who can beat me in that sort

that I know of," muttered Nicholas, "and I little expected to see him

take a bite out of his own hip." With that he approached his

successful rival.

"Well, Master Marmaduke," said he, "it is many a year since you showed

me that trick at your father, Sir Guy's--God rest him! But I scarce

take it kind in you to beat your own countryman!"

"Beshrew me!" cried the youth, and his cheerful features brightened

into hearty and cordial pleasure, "but if I see in thee, as it seems

to me, my old friend and foster-brother, Nick Alwyn, this is the

happiest hour I have known for many a day. But stand back and let me

look at thee, man. Thou! thou a tame London trader! Ha! ha! is it

possible?"

"Hout, Master Marmaduke," answered Nicholas, "every crow thinks his

own baird bonniest, as they say in the North. We will talk of this

anon an' thou wilt honour me. I suspect the archery is over now. Few

will think to mend that shot."

And here, indeed, the umpires advanced, and their chief--an old

mercer, who had once borne arms, and indeed been a volunteer at the

battle of Towton--declared that the contest was over,--"unless," he

added, in the spirit of a lingering fellow-feeling with the Londoner,

"this young fellow, whom I hope to see an alderman one of these days,

will demand another shot, for as yet there hath been but one prick

each at the butts."

"Nay, master," returned Alwyn, "I have met with my betters,--and,

after all," he added indifferently, "the silver arrow, though a pretty

bauble enough, is over light in its weight."

"Worshipful sir," said the young Nevile, with equal generosity, "I

cannot accept the prize for a mere trick of the craft,--the blanc was

already disposed of by Master Alwyn's arrow. Moreover; the contest

was intended for the Londoners, and I am but an interloper, beholden

to their courtesy for a practice of skill, and even the loan of a bow;

wherefore the silver arrow be given to Nicholas Alwyn."

"That may not be, gentle sir," said the umpire, extending the prize.

"Sith Alwyn vails of himself, it is thine, by might and by right."

The Lord Montagu had not been inattentive to this dialogue, and he now

said, in a loud tone that silenced the crowd, "Young Badgeman, thy

gallantry pleases me no less than thy skill. Take the arrow, for thou

hast won it; but as thou seemest a new comer, it is right thou

shouldst pay thy tax upon entry,--this be my task. Come hither, I

pray thee, good sir," and the nobleman graciously beckoned to the

mercer; "be these five nobles the prize of whatever Londoner shall

acquit himself best in the bold English combat of quarter-staff, and

the prize be given in this young archer's name. Thy name, youth?"

"Marmaduke Nevile, good my lord."

Montagu smiled, and the umpire withdrew to make the announcement to

the bystanders. The proclamation was received with a shout that

traversed from group to group and line to line, more hearty from the

love and honour attached to the name of Nevile than even from a sense

of the gracious generosity of Earl Warwick's brother. One man alone,

a sturdy, well-knit fellow, in a franklin's Lincoln broadcloth, and

with a hood half-drawn over his features, did not join the popular

applause. "These Yorkists," he muttered, "know well how to fool the

people."

Meanwhile the young Nevile still stood by the gilded stirrup of the

great noble who had thus honoured him, and contemplated him with that

respect and interest which a youth's ambition ever feels for those who

have won a name.

The Lord Montagu bore a very different character from his puissant

brother. Though so skilful a captain that he had never been known to

lose a battle, his fame as a warrior was, strange to say, below that

of the great earl, whose prodigious strength had accomplished those

personal feats that dazzled the populace, and revived the legendary

renown of the earlier Norman knighthood. The caution and wariness,

indeed, which Montagu displayed in battle probably caused his success

as a general, and the injustice done to him (at least by the vulgar)

as a soldier. Rarely had Lord Montagu, though his courage was

indisputable, been known to mix personally in the affray. Like the

captains of modern times, he contented himself with directing the

manoeuvres of his men, and hence preserved that inestimable advantage

of coolness and calculation, which was not always characteristic of

the eager hardihood of his brother. The character of Montagu differed

yet more from that of the earl in peace than in war. He was supposed

to excel in all those supple arts of the courtier which Warwick

neglected or despised; and if the last was on great occasions the

adviser, the other in ordinary life was the companion of his

sovereign. Warwick owed his popularity to his own large, open,

daring, and lavish nature. The subtler Montagu sought to win, by care

and pains, what the other obtained without an effort. He attended the

various holiday meetings of the citizens, where Warwick was rarely

seen. He was smooth-spoken and courteous to his equals, and generally

affable, though with constraint, to his inferiors. He was a close

observer, and not without that genius for intrigue, which in rude ages

passes for the talent of a statesman. And yet in that thorough

knowledge of the habits and tastes of the great mass, which gives

wisdom to a ruler, he was far inferior to the earl. In common with

his brother, he was gifted with the majesty of mien which imposes on

the eye; and his port and countenance were such as became the prodigal

expense of velvet, minever, gold, and jewels, by which the gorgeous

magnates of the day communicated to their appearance the arrogant

splendour of their power.

"Young gentleman," said the earl, after eying with some attention the

comely archer, "I am pleased that you bear the name of Nevile.

Vouchsafe to inform me to what scion of our House we are this day

indebted for the credit with which you have upborne its cognizance?"

"I fear," answered the youth, with a slight but not ungraceful

hesitation, "that my lord of Montagu and Northumberland will hardly

forgive the presumption with which I have intruded upon this assembly

a name borne by nobles so illustrious, especially if it belong to

those less fortunate branches of his family which have taken a

different side from himself in the late unhappy commotions. My father

was Sir Guy Nevile, of Arsdale, in Westmoreland."

Lord Montagu's lip lost its gracious smile; he glanced quickly at the

courtiers round him, and said gravely, "I grieve to hear it. Had I

known this, certes my gipsire had still been five nobles the richer.

It becomes not one fresh from the favour of King Edward IV. to show

countenance to the son of a man, kinsman though he was, who bore arms

for the usurpers of Lancaster. I pray thee, sir, to doff, henceforth,

a badge dedicated only to the service of Royal York. No more, young

man; we may not listen to the son of Sir Guy Nevile.--Sirs, shall we

ride to see how the Londoners thrive at quarter-staff?"

With that, Montagu, deigning no further regard at Nevile, wheeled his,

palfrey towards a distant part of the ground, to which the multitude

was already pressing its turbulent and noisy way.

"Thou art hard on thy namesake, fair my lord," said a young noble, in

whose dark-auburn hair, aquiline, haughty features, spare but powerful

frame, and inexpressible air of authority and command, were found all

the attributes of the purest and eldest Norman race,--the Patricians

of the World.

"Dear Raoul de Fulke," returned Montagu, coldly, "when thou hast

reached my age of thirty and four, thou wilt learn that no man's

fortune casts so broad a shadow as to shelter from the storm the

victims of a fallen cause."

"Not so would say thy bold brother," answered Raoul de Fulke, with a

slight curl of his proud lip. "And I hold, with him, that no king is

so sacred that we should render to his resentments our own kith and

kin. God's wot, whosoever wears the badge and springs from the stem

of Raoul de Fulke shall never find me question over much whether his

father fought for York or Lancaster."

"Hush, rash babbler!" said Montagu, laughing gently; "what would King

Edward say if this speech reached his ears? Our friend," added the

courtier, turning to the rest, "in vain would bar the tide of change;

and in this our New England, begirt with new men and new fashions,

affect the feudal baronage of the worn-out Norman. But thou art a

gallant knight, De Fulke, though a poor courtier."

"The saints keep me so!" returned De Fulke. "From overgluttony, from

over wine-bibbing, from cringing to a king's leman, from quaking at a

king's frown, from unbonneting to a greasy mob, from marrying an old

crone for vile gold, may the saints ever keep Raoul de Fulke and his

sons! Amen!" This speech, in which every sentence struck its

stinging satire into one or other of the listeners, was succeeded by

an awkward silence, which Montagu was the first to break.

"Pardieu!" he said, "when did Lord Hastings leave us, and what fair

face can have lured the truant?"

"He left us suddenly on the archery-ground," answered the young

Lovell. "But as well might we track the breeze to the rose as Lord

William's sigh to maid or matron."

While thus conversed the cavaliers, and their plumes waved, and their

mantles glittered along the broken ground, Marmaduke Nevile's eye

pursued the horsemen with all that bitter feeling of wounded pride and

impotent resentment with which Youth regards the first insult it

receives from Power.

CHAPTER II.

THE BROKEN GITTERN.

Rousing himself from his indignant revery, Marmaduke Nevile followed

one of the smaller streams into which the crowd divided itself on

dispersing from the archery-ground, and soon found himself in a part

of the holiday scene appropriated to diversions less manly, but no

less characteristic of the period than those of the staff and arrow.

Beneath an awning, under which an itinerant landlord dispensed cakes

and ale, the humorous Bourdour (the most vulgar degree of minstrel, or

rather tale-teller) collected his clownish audience; while seated by

themselves--apart, but within hearing--two harpers, in the king's

livery, consoled each other for the popularity of their ribald rival,

by wise reflections on the base nature of common folk. Farther on,

Marmaduke started to behold what seemed to him the heads of giants at

least six yards high; but on a nearer approach these formidable

apparitions resolved themselves to a company of dancers upon stilts.

There, one joculator exhibited the antics of his well-tutored ape;

there, another eclipsed the attractions of the baboon by a marvellous

horse that beat a tabor with his forefeet; there, the more sombre

Tregetour, before a table raised upon a lofty stage, promised to cut

off and refix the head of a sad-faced little boy, who in the mean time

was preparing his mortal frame for the operation by apparently larding

himself with sharp knives and bodkins. Each of these wonder-dealers

found his separate group of admirers, and great was the delight and

loud the laughter in the pastime-ground of old Cockaigne.

While Marmaduke, bewildered by this various bustle, stared around him,

his eye was caught by a young maiden, in evident distress, struggling

in vain to extricate herself from a troop of timbrel-girls, or

tymbesteres (as they were popularly called), who surrounded her with

mocking gestures, striking their instruments to drown her

remonstrances, and dancing about her in a ring at every effort towards

escape. The girl was modestly attired as one of the humbler ranks,

and her wimple in much concealed her countenance; but there was,

despite her strange and undignified situation and evident alarm, a

sort of quiet, earnest self-possession,--an effort to hide her terror,

and to appeal to the better and more womanly feelings of her

persecutors. In the intervals of silence from the clamour, her voice,

though low, clear, well-tuned, and impressive, forcibly arrested the

attention of young Nevile; for at that day, even more than this

(sufficiently apparent as it now is), there was a marked distinction

in the intonation, the accent, the modulation of voice, between the

better bred and better educated and the inferior classes. But this

difference, so ill according with her dress and position, only served

to heighten more the bold insolence of the musical Bacchantes, who,

indeed, in the eyes of the sober, formed the most immoral nuisance

attendant on the sports of the time, and whose hardy license and

peculiar sisterhood might tempt the antiquary to search for their

origin amongst the relics of ancient Paganism. And now, to increase

the girl's distress, some half-score of dissolute apprentices and

journeymen suddenly broke into the ring of the Maenads, and were

accosting her with yet more alarming insults, when Marmaduke, pushing

them aside, strode to her assistance. "How now, ye lewd varlets! ye

make me blush for my countrymen in the face of day! Are these the

sports of merry England,--these your manly contests,--to strive which

can best affront a poor maid? Out on ye, cullions and bezonians!

Cling to me, gentle donzel, and fear not. Whither shall I lead thee?"

The apprentices were not, however, so easily daunted. Two of them

approached to the rescue, flourishing their bludgeons about their

heads with formidable gestures. "Ho, ho!" cried one, "what right hast

thou to step between the hunters and the doe? The young quean is too

much honoured by a kiss from a bold 'prentice of London."

Marmaduke stepped back, and drew the small dagger which then formed

the only habitual weapon of a gentleman. [Swords were not worn, in

peace, at that period.] This movement, discomposing his mantle,

brought the silver arrow he had won (which was placed in his girdle)

in full view of the assailants. At the same time they caught sight of

the badge on his hat. These intimidated their ardour more than the

drawn poniard.

"A Nevile!" said one, retreating. "And the jolly marksman who beat

Nick Alwyn," said the other, lowering his bludgeon, and doffing his

cap. "Gentle sir, forgive us, we knew not your quality. But as for

the girl--your gallantry misleads you."

"The Wizard's daughter! ha, ha! the Imp of Darkness!" screeched the

timbrel-girls, tossing up their instruments, and catching them again

on the points of their fingers. "She has enchanted him with her

glamour. Foul is fair! Foul fair thee, young springal, if thou go to

the nets. Shadow and goblin to goblin and shadow! Flesh and blood to

blood and flesh!"--and dancing round him, with wanton looks and bare

arms, and gossamer robes that brushed him as they circled, they

chanted,--

"Come, kiss me, my darling,

Warm kisses I trade for;

Wine, music, and kisses

What else was life made for?"

With some difficulty, and with a disgust which was not altogether

without a superstitious fear of the strange words and the outlandish

appearance of these loathsome Delilahs, Marmaduke broke from the ring

with his new charge; and in a few moments the Nevile and the maiden

found themselves, unmolested and unpursued, in a deserted quarter of

the ground; but still the scream of the timbrel-girls, as they

hurried, wheeling and dancing, into the distance, was borne ominously

to the young man's ear. "Ha, ha! the witch and her lover! Foul is

fair! foul is fair! Shadow to goblin, goblin to shadow,--and the

devil will have his own!"

"And what mischance, my poor girl," asked the Nevile, soothingly,

"brought thee into such evil company?"

"I know not, fair sir," said the girl, slowly recovering her self;

"but my father is poor, and I had heard that on these holiday

occasions one who had some slight skill on the gittern might win a few

groats from the courtesy of the bystanders. So I stole out with my

serving-woman, and had already got more than I dared hope, when those

wicked timbrel-players came round me, and accused me of taking the

money from them. And then they called an officer of the ground, who

asked me my name and holding; so when I answered, they called my

father a wizard, and the man broke my poor gittern,--see!"--and she

held it up, with innocent sorrow in her eyes, yet a half-smile on her

lips,--"and they soon drove poor old Madge from my side, and I knew no

more till you, worshipful sir, took pity on me."

"But why," asked the Nevile, "did they give to your father so unholy a

name?"

"Alas, sir! he is a great scholar, who has spent his means in studying

what he says will one day be of good to the people."

"Humph!" said Marmaduke, who had all the superstitions of his time,

who looked upon a scholar, unless in the Church, with mingled awe and

abhorrence, and who, therefore, was but ill-satisfied with the girl's

artless answer,

"Humph! your father--but--" checking what he was about, perhaps

harshly, to say, as he caught the bright eyes and arch, intelligent

face lifted to his own--"but it is hard to punish the child for the

father's errors."

"Errors, sir!" repeated the damsel, proudly, and with a slight disdain

in her face and voice. "But yes, wisdom is ever, perhaps, the saddest

error!"

This remark was of an order superior in intellect to those which had

preceded it: it contrasted with the sternness of experience the

simplicity of the child; and of such contrasts, indeed, was that

character made up. For with a sweet, an infantine change of tone and

countenance, she added, after a short pause, "They took the money!

The gittern--see, they left that, when they had made it useless."

"I cannot mend the gittern, but I can refill the gipsire," said

Marmaduke.

The girl coloured deeply. "Nay, sir, to earn is not to beg."

Marmaduke did not heed this answer; for as they were now passing by

the stunted trees, under which sat several revellers, who looked up at

him from their cups and tankards, some with sneering, some with grave

looks, he began, more seriously than in his kindly impulse he had

hitherto done, to consider the appearance it must have to be thus seen

walking in public with a girl of inferior degree, and perhaps doubtful

repute. Even in our own day such an exhibition would be, to say the

least, suspicious; and in that day, when ranks and classes were

divided with iron demarcations, a young gallant, whose dress bespoke

him of gentle quality, with one of opposite sex, and belonging to the

humbler orders, in broad day too, was far more open to censure. The

blood mounted to his brow, and halting abruptly, he said, in a dry and

altered voice: "My good damsel, you are now, I think, out of danger;

it would ill beseem you, so young and so comely, to go farther with

one not old enough to be your protector; so, in God's name, depart

quickly, and remember me when you buy your new gittern, poor child!"

So saying, he attempted to place a piece of money in her hand. She

put it back, and the coin fell on the ground. "Nay, this is foolish,"

said he.

"Alas, sir!" said the girl, gravely, "I see well that you are ashamed

of your goodness. But my father begs not. And once--but that matters

not."

"Once what?" persisted Marmaduke, interested in her manner, in spite

of himself.

"Once," said the girl, drawing herself up, and with an expression that

altered the whole character of her face--"the beggar ate at my

father's gate. He is a born gentleman and a knight's son."

"And what reduced him thus?"

"I have said," answered the girl, simply, yet with the same half-scorn

on her lip that it had before betrayed; "he is a scholar, and thought

more of others than himself."

"I never saw any good come to a gentleman from those accursed books,"

said the Nevile,--"fit only for monks and shavelings. But still, for

your father's sake, though I am ashamed of the poorness of the gift--"

"No; God be with you, sir, and reward you." She stopped short, drew

her wimple round her face, and was gone. Nevile felt an uncomfortable

sensation of remorse and disapproval at having suffered her to quit

him while there was yet any chance of molestation or annoyance, and

his eye followed her till a group of trees veiled her from his view.

The young maiden slackened her pace as she found herself alone under

the leafless boughs of the dreary pollards,--a desolate spot, made

melancholy by dull swamps, half overgrown with rank verdure, through

which forced its clogged way the shallow brook that now gives its name

(though its waves are seen no more) to one of the main streets in the

most polished quarters of the metropolis. Upon a mound formed by the

gnarled roots of the dwarfed and gnome-like oak, she sat down and

wept. In our earlier years, most of us may remember that there was

one day which made an epoch in life,--that day that separated

Childhood from Youth; for that day seems not to come gradually, but to

be a sudden crisis, an abrupt revelation. The buds of the heart open

to close no more. Such a day was this in that girl's fate. But the

day was not yet gone! That morning, when she dressed for her

enterprise of filial love, perhaps for the first time Sibyll Warner

felt that she was fair--who shall say whether some innocent, natural

vanity had not blended with the deep, devoted earnestness, which saw

no shame in the act by which the child could aid the father? Perhaps

she might have smiled to listen to old Madge's praises of her winsome

face, old Madge's predictions that the face and the gittern would not

lack admirers on the gay ground; perhaps some indistinct, vague

forethoughts of the Future to which the sex will deem itself to be

born might have caused the cheek--no, not to blush, but to take a

rosier hue, and the pulse to beat quicker, she knew not why. At all

events, to that ground went the young Sibyll, cheerful, and almost

happy, in her inexperience of actual life, and sure, at least, that

youth and innocence sufficed to protect from insult. And now she sat

down under the leafless tree to weep; and in those bitter tears,

childhood itself was laved from her soul forever.

"What ailest thou, maiden?" asked a deep voice; and she felt a hand

laid lightly on her shoulder. She looked up in terror and confusion,

but it was no form or face to inspire alarm that met her eye. It was

a cavalier, holding by the rein a horse richly caparisoned; and though

his dress was plainer and less exaggerated than that usually worn by

men of rank, its materials were those which the sumptuary laws

(constantly broken, indeed, as such laws ever must be) confined to

nobles. Though his surcoat was but of cloth, and the colour dark and

sober, it was woven in foreign looms,--an unpatriotic luxury, above

the degree of knight,--and edged deep with the costliest sables. The

hilt of the dagger, suspended round his breast, was but of ivory,

curiously wrought, but the scabbard was sown with large pearls. For

the rest, the stranger was of ordinary stature, well knit and active

rather than powerful, and of that age (about thirty-five) which may be

called the second prime of man. His face was far less handsome than

Marmaduke Nevile's, but infinitely more expressive, both of

intelligence and command,--the features straight and sharp, the

complexion clear and pale, and under the bright gray eyes a dark shade

spoke either of dissipation or of thought.

"What ailest thou, maiden,--weepest thou some faithless lover? Tush!

love renews itself in youth, as flower succeeds flower in spring."

Sibyll made no reply; she rose and moved a few paces, then arrested

her steps, and looked around her. She had lost all clew to her way

homeward, and she saw with horror, in the distance, the hateful

timbrel-girls, followed by the rabble, and weaving their strange

dances towards the spot.

"Dost thou fear me, child? There is no cause," said the stranger,

following her. "Again I say, What ailest thou?" This time his voice

was that of command, and the poor girl involuntarily obeyed it. She

related her misfortunes, her persecution by the tymbesteres, her

escape,--thanks to the Nevile's courtesy,--her separation from her

attendant, and her uncertainty as to the way she should pursue.

The nobleman listened with interest: he was a man sated and wearied by

pleasure and the world, and the evident innocence of Sibyll was a

novelty to his experience, while the contrast between her language and

her dress moved his curiosity. "And," said he, "thy protector left

thee, his work half done; fie on his chivalry! But I, donzel, wear

the spurs of knighthood, and to succour the distressed is a duty my

oath will not let me swerve from. I will guide thee home, for I know

well all the purlieus of this evil den of London. Thou hast but to

name the suburb in which thy father dwells."

Sibyll involuntarily raised her wimple, lifted her beautiful eyes to

the stranger, in bewildered gratitude and surprise. Her childhood had

passed in a court, her eye, accustomed to rank, at once perceived the

high degree of the speaker. The contrast between this unexpected and

delicate gallantry and the condescending tone and abrupt desertion of

Marmaduke affected her again to tears.

"Ah, worshipful sir!" she said falteringly, "what can reward thee for

this unlooked-for goodness?"

"One innocent smile, sweet virgin!--for such I'll be sworn thou art."

He did not offer her his hand, but hanging the gold-enamelled rein

over his arm, walked by her side; and a few words sufficing for his

guidance, led her across the ground, through the very midst of the

throng. He felt none of the young shame, the ingenious scruples of

Marmaduke, at the gaze he encountered, thus companioned. But Sibyll

noted that ever and anon bonnet and cap were raised as they passed

along, and the respectful murmur of the vulgar, who had so lately

jeered her anguish, taught her the immeasurable distance in men's

esteem between poverty shielded by virtue, and poverty protected by

power.

But suddenly a gaudy tinsel group broke through the crowd, and

wheeling round their path, the foremost of them daringly approached

the nobleman, and looking full into his disdainful face, exclaimed,

"Tradest thou, too, for kisses? Ha, ha! life is short,--the witch is

outwitched by thee! But witchcraft and death go together, as

peradventure thou mayest learn at the last, sleek wooer." Then

darting off, and heading her painted, tawdry throng, the timbrel-girl

sprang into the crowd and vanished.

This incident produced no effect upon the strong and cynical intellect

of the stranger. Without allusion to it, he continued to converse

with his young companion, and artfully to draw out her own singular

but energetic and gifted mind. He grew more than interested,--he was

both touched and surprised. His manner became yet more respectful,

his voice more subdued and soft.

On what hazards turns our fate! On that day, a little, and Sibyll's

pure but sensitive heart had, perhaps, been given to the young Nevile.

He had defended and saved her; he was fairer than the stranger, he was

more of her own years and nearer to her in station; but in showing

himself ashamed to be seen with her, he had galled her heart, and

moved the bitter tears of her pride. What had the stranger done?

Nothing but reconciled the wounded delicacy to itself; and suddenly he

became to her one ever to be remembered, wondered at,--perhaps more.

They reached an obscure suburb, and parted at the threshold of a

large, gloomy, ruinous house, which Sibyll indicated as her father's

home.

The girl lingered before the porch; and the stranger gazed, with the

passionless admiration which some fair object of art produces on one

who has refined his taste, but who has survived enthusiasm, upon the

downcast cheek that blushed beneath his gaze. "Farewell!" he said;

and the girl looked up wistfully. He might, without vanity, have

supposed that look to imply what the lip did not dare to say,--"And

shall we meet no more?"

But he turned away, with formal though courteous salutation; and as he

remounted his steed, and rode slowly towards the interior of the city,

he muttered to himself, with a melancholy smile upon his lips, "Now

might the grown infant make to himself a new toy; but an innocent

heart is a brittle thing, and one false vow can break it. Pretty

maiden! I like thee well eno' not to love thee. So, as my young

Scotch minstrel sings and plays,--

'Christ keep these birdis bright in bowers,

Sic peril lies in paramours!'"

[A Scotch poet, in Lord Hailes's Collection, has the following lines

in the very pretty poem called "Peril in Paramours:"--

"Wherefore I pray, in termys short,

Christ keep these birdis bright in bowers,

Fra false lovers and their disport,

Sic peril lies in paramours."]

We must now return to Marmaduke. On leaving Sibyll, and retracing his

steps towards the more crowded quarter of the space, he was agreeably

surprised by encountering Nicholas Alwyn, escorted in triumph by a

legion of roaring apprentices from the victory he had just obtained

over six competitors at the quarter-staff.

When the cortege came up to Marmaduke, Nicholas halted, and fronting

his attendants, said, with the same cold and formal stiffness that had

characterized him from the beginning, "I thank you, lads, for your

kindness. It is your own triumph. All I cared for was to show that

you London boys are able to keep up your credit in these days, when

there's little luck in a yard-measure, if the same hand cannot bend a

bow, or handle cold steel. But the less we think of the strife when

we are in the stall, the better for our pouches. And so I hope we

shall hear no more about it, until I get a ware of my own, when the

more of ye that like to talk of such matters the better ye will be

welcome,--always provided ye be civil customers, who pay on the nail,

for as the saw saith, 'Ell and tell makes the crypt swell.' For the

rest, thanks are due to this brave gentleman, Marmaduke Nevile, who,

though the son of a knight-banneret who never furnished less to the

battle-field than fifty men-at-arms, has condescended to take part and

parcel in the sports of us peaceful London traders; and if ever you

can do him a kind turn--for turn and turn is fair play--why, you will,

I answer for it. And so one cheer for old London, and another for

Marmaduke Nevile. Here goes! Hurrah, my lads!" And with this pithy

address Nicholas Alwyn took off his cap and gave the signal for the

shouts, which, being duly performed, he bowed stiffly to his

companions, who departed with a hearty laugh, and coming to the side

of Nevile, the two walked on to a neighbouring booth, where, under a

rude awning, and over a flagon of clary, they were soon immersed in

the confidential communications each had to give and receive.

CHAPTER III.

THE TRADER AND THE GENTLE; OR, THE CHANGING GENERATION.

"No, my dear foster-brother," said the Nevile, "I do not yet

comprehend the choice you have made. You were reared and brought up

with such careful book-lere, not only to read and to write--the which,

save the mark! I hold to be labour eno'--but chop Latin and logic and

theology with Saint Aristotle (is not that his hard name?) into the

bargain, and all because you had an uncle of high note in Holy Church.

I cannot say I would be a shaveling myself; but surely a monk with the

hope of preferment is a nobler calling to a lad of spirit and ambition

than to stand out at a door and cry, 'Buy, buy,' 'What d'ye lack?' to

spend youth as a Flat-cap, and drone out manhood in measuring cloth,

hammering metals, or weighing out spices?"

"Fair and softly, Master Marmaduke," said Alwyn, "you will understand

me better anon. My uncle, the sub-prior, died,--some say of

austerities, others of ale,--that matters not; he was a learned man

and a cunning. 'Nephew Nicholas,' said he on his death-bed, 'think

twice before you tie yourself up to the cloister; it's ill leaping

nowadays in a sackcloth bag. If a pious man be moved to the cowl by

holy devotion, there is nothing to be said on the subject; but if he

take to the Church as a calling, and wish to march ahead like his

fellows, these times show him a prettier path to distinction. The

nobles begin to get the best things for themselves; and a learned

monk, if he is the son of a yeoman, cannot hope, without a specialty

of grace, to become abbot or bishop. The king, whoever he be, must be

so drained by his wars, that he has little land or gold to bestow on

his favourites; but his gentry turn an eye to the temporalities of the

Church, and the Church and the king wish to strengthen themselves by

the gentry. This is not all; there are free opinions afloat. The

House of Lancaster has lost ground, by its persecutions and burnings.

Men dare not openly resist, but they treasure up recollections of a

fried grandfather, or a roasted cousin,--recollections which have done

much damage to the Henries, and will shake Holy Church itself one of

these days. The Lollards lie hid, but Lollardism will never die.

There is a new class rising amain, where a little learning goes a

great way, if mixed with spirit and sense. Thou likest broad pieces

and a creditable name,--go to London and be a trader. London begins

to decide who shall wear the crown, and the traders to decide what

king London shall befriend. Wherefore, cut thy trace from the

cloister, and take thy road to the shop.' The next day my uncle gave

up the ghost.--They had better clary than this at the convent, I must

own; but every stone has its flaw."

"Yet," said Marmaduke, "if you took distaste to the cowl, from reasons

that I pretend not to judge of, but which seem to my poor head very

bad ones, seeing that the Church is as mighty as ever, and King Edward

is no friend to the Lollards, and that your uncle himself was at least

a sub-prior--"

"Had he been son to a baron, he had been a cardinal," interrupted

Nicholas, "for his head was the longest that ever came out of the

north country. But go on; you would say my father was a sturdy

yeoman, and I might have followed his calling?"

"You hit the mark, Master Nicholas."

"Hout, man. I crave pardon of your rank, Master Nevile. But a yeoman

is born a yeoman, and he dies a yeoman--I think it better to die Lord

Mayor of London; and so I craved my mother's blessing and leave, and a

part of the old hyde has been sold to pay for the first step to the

red gown, which I need not say must be that of the Flat-cap. I have

already taken my degrees, and no longer wear blue. I am headman to my

master, and my master will be sheriff of London."

"It is a pity," said the Nevile, shaking his head; "you were ever a

tall, brave lad, and would have made a very pretty soldier."

"Thank you, Master Marmaduke, but I leave cut and thrust to the

gentles. I have seen eno' of the life of a retainer. He goes out on

foot with his shield and his sword, or his bow and his quiver, while

Sir Knight sits on horseback, armed from the crown to the toe, and the

arrow slants off from rider and horse, as a stone from a tree. If the

retainer is not sliced and carved into mincemeat, he comes home to a

heap of ashes, and a handful of acres, harried and rivelled into a

common; Sir Knight thanks him for his valour, but he does not build up

his house; Sir Knight gets a grant from the king, or an heiress for

his son, and Hob Yeoman turns gisarme and bill into ploughshares.

Tut, tut, there's no liberty, no safety, no getting on, for a man who

has no right to the gold spurs, but in the guild of his fellows; and

London is the place for a born Saxon like Nicholas Alwyn."

As the young aspirant thus uttered the sentiments, which though others

might not so plainly avow and shrewdly enforce them, tended towards

that slow revolution, which, under all the stormy events that the

superficial record we call HISTORY alone deigns to enumerate, was

working that great change in the thoughts and habits of the people,

--that impulsion of the provincial citywards, that gradual formation

of a class between knight and vassal,--which became first

constitutionally visible and distinct in the reign of Henry VII.,

Marmaduke Nevile, inly half-regretting and half-despising the

reasonings of his foster-brother, was playing with his dagger, and

glancing at his silver arrow.

"Yet you could still have eno' of the tall yeoman and the stout

retainer about you to try for this bauble, and to break half a dozen

thick heads with your quarter-staff!"

"True," said Nicholas; "you must recollect we are only, as yet,

between the skin and the selle,--half-trader, half-retainer. The old

leaven will out,--'Eith to learn the cat to the kirn,' as they say in

the North. But that's not all; a man, to get on, must win respect

from those who are to jostle him hereafter, and it's good policy to

show those roystering youngsters that Nick Alwyn, stiff and steady

though he be, has the old English metal in him, if it comes to a

pinch; it's a lesson to yon lords too, save your quality, if they ever

wish to ride roughshod over our guilds and companies. But eno' of

me.--Drawer, another stoup of the clary--Now, gentle sir, may I make

bold to ask news of yourself? I saw, though I spake not before of it,

that my Lord Montagu showed a cold face to his kinsman. I know

something of these great men, though I be but a small one,--a dog is

no bad guide in the city he trots through."

"My dear foster-brother," said the Nevile, "you had ever more brains

than myself, as is meet that you should have, since you lay by the

steel casque,--which, I take it, is meant as a substitute for us

gentlemen and soldiers who have not so many brains to spare; and I

will willingly profit by your counsels. You must know," he said,

drawing nearer to the table, and his frank, hardy face assuming a more

earnest expression, "that though my father, Sir Guy, at the

instigation of his chief, the Earl of Westmoreland, and of the Lord

Nevile, bore arms at the first for King Henry--"

"Hush! hush! for Henry of Windsor!"

"Henry of Windsor!--so be it! yet being connected, like the nobles I

have spoken of, with the blood of Warwick and Salisbury, it was ever

with doubt and misgiving, and rather in the hope of ultimate

compromise between both parties (which the Duke of York's moderation

rendered probable) than of the extermination of either. But when, at

the battle of York, Margaret of Anjou and her generals stained their

victory by cruelties which could not fail to close the door on all

conciliation; when the infant son of the duke himself was murdered,

though a prisoner, in cold blood; when my father's kinsman, the Earl

of Salisbury, was beheaded without trial; when the head of the brave

and good duke, who had fallen in the field, was, against all knightly

and king-like generosity, mockingly exposed, like a dishonoured

robber, on the gates of York, my father, shocked and revolted,

withdrew at once from the army, and slacked not bit or spur till he

found himself in his hall at Arsdale. His death, caused partly by his

travail and vexation of spirit, together with his timely withdrawal

from the enemy, preserved his name from the attainder passed on the

Lords Westmoreland and Nevile; and my eldest brother, Sir John,

accepted the king's proffer of pardon, took the oaths of allegiance to

Edward, and lives safe, if obscure, in his father's halls. Thou

knowest, my friend, that a younger brother has but small honour at

home. Peradventure, in calmer times, I might have bowed my pride to

my calling, hunted my brother's dogs, flown his hawks, rented his

keeper's lodge, and gone to my grave contented. But to a young man,

who from his childhood had heard the stirring talk of knights and

captains, who had seen valour and fortune make the way to distinction,

and whose ears of late had been filled by the tales of wandering

minstrels and dissours, with all the gay wonders of Edward's court,

such a life soon grew distasteful. My father, on his death-bed (like

thy uncle, the sub-prior), encouraged me little to follow his own

footsteps. 'I see,' said he, 'that King Henry is too soft to rule his

barons, and Margaret too fierce to conciliate the commons; the only

hope of peace is in the settlement of the House of York. Wherefore,

let not thy father's errors stand in the way of thy advancement;' and

therewith he made his confessor--for he was no penman himself, the

worthy old knight!--indite a letter to his great kinsman, the Earl of

Warwick, commending me to his protection. He signed his mark, and set

his seal to this missive, which I now have at mine hostelrie, and died

the same day. My brother judged me too young then to quit his roof;

and condemned me to bear his humours till, at the age of twenty-three,

I could bear no more! So having sold him my scant share in the

heritage, and turned, like thee, bad land into good nobles, I joined a

party of horse in their journey to London, and arrived yesterday at

Master Sackbut's hostelrie in Eastchepe. I went this morning to my

Lord of Warwick; but he was gone to the king's, and hearing of the

merry-makings here, I came hither for kill-time. A chance word of my

Lord of Montagu--whom Saint Dunstan confound!--made me conceit that a

feat of skill with the cloth-yard might not ill preface my letter to

the great earl. But, pardie! it seems I reckoned without my host, and

in seeking to make my fortunes too rashly, I have helped to mar them."

Wherewith he related the particulars of his interview with Montagu.

Nicholas Alwyn listened to him with friendly and thoughtful interest,

and, when he had done, spoke thus,--

"The Earl of Warwick is a generous man, and though hot, bears little

malice, except against those whom he deems misthink or insult him; he

is proud of being looked up to as a protector, especially by those of

his own kith and name. Your father's letter will touch the right

string, and you cannot do better than deliver it with a plain story.

A young partisan like thee is not to be despised. Thou must trust to

Lord Warwick to set matters right with his brother; and now, before I

say further, let me ask thee, plainly, and without offence, Dost thou

so love the House of York that no chance could ever make thee turn

sword against it? Answer as I ask,--under thy breath; those drawers

are parlous spies!"

And here, in justice to Marmaduke Nevile and to his betters, it is

necessary to preface his reply by some brief remarks, to which we must

crave the earnest attention of the reader. What we call PATRIOTISM,

in the high and catholic acceptation of the word, was little if at all

understood in days when passion, pride, and interest were motives

little softened by reflection and education, and softened still less

by the fusion of classes that characterized the small States of old,

and marks the civilization of a modern age. Though the right by

descent of the House of York, if genealogy alone were consulted, was

indisputably prior to that of Lancaster, yet the long exercise of

power in the latter House, the genius of the Fourth Henry, and the

victories of the Fifth, would no doubt have completely superseded the

obsolete claims of the Yorkists, had Henry VI. possessed any of the

qualities necessary for the time. As it was, men had got puzzled by

genealogies and cavils; the sanctity attached to the king's name was

weakened by his doubtful right to his throne, and the Wars of the

rival Roses were at last (with two exceptions, presently to be noted)

the mere contests of exasperated factions, in which public

considerations were scarcely even made the blind to individual

interest, prejudice, or passion.

Thus, instances of desertion, from the one to the other party, even by

the highest nobles, and on the very eve of battle, had grown so common

that little if any disgrace was attached to them; and any knight or

captain held an affront to himself an amply sufficient cause for the

transfer of his allegiance. It would be obviously absurd to expect in

any of the actors of that age the more elevated doctrines of party

faith and public honour, which clearer notions of national morality,

and the salutary exercise of a large general opinion, free from the

passions of single individuals, have brought into practice in our more

enlightened days. The individual feelings of the individual MAN,

strong in himself, became his guide, and he was free in much from the

regular and thoughtful virtues, as well as from the mean and plausible

vices, of those who act only in bodies and corporations. The two

exceptions to this idiosyncrasy of motive and conduct were, first, in

the general disposition of the rising middle class, especially in

London, to connect great political interests with the more popular

House of York. The commons in parliament had acted in opposition to

Henry the Sixth, as the laws they wrung from him tended to show, and

it was a popular and trading party that came, as it were, into power

under King Edward. It is true that Edward was sufficiently arbitrary

in himself; but a popular party will stretch as much as its

antagonists in favour of despotism,--exercised, on its enemies. And

Edward did his best to consult the interests of commerce, though the

prejudices of the merchants interpreted those interests in a way

opposite to that in which political economy now understands them. The

second exception to the mere hostilities of individual chiefs and

feudal factions has, not less than the former, been too much

overlooked by historians. But this was a still more powerful element

in the success of the House of York. The hostility against the Roman

Church and the tenets of the Lollards were shared by an immense part

of the population. In the previous century an ancient writer computes

that one half the population were Lollards; and though the sect were

diminished and silenced by fear, they still ceased not to exist, and

their doctrines not only shook the Church under Henry VIII., but

destroyed the throne by the strong arm of their children, the

Puritans, under Charles I. It was impossible that these men should

not have felt the deepest resentment at the fierce and steadfast

persecution they endured under the House of Lancaster; and without

pausing to consider how far they would benefit under the dynasty of

York, they had all those motives of revenge which are mistaken so

often for the counsels of policy, to rally round any standard raised

against their oppressors. These two great exceptions to merely

selfish policy, which it remains for the historian clearly and at

length to enforce, these: and these alone will always, to a sagacious

observer, elevate the Wars of the Roses above those bloody contests

for badges which we are at first sight tempted to regard them. But

these deeper motives animated very little the nobles and the knightly

gentry; [Amongst many instances of the self-seeking of the time, not

the least striking is the subservience of John Mowbray, the great Duke

of Norfolk, to his old political enemy, the Earl of Oxford, the moment

the last comes into power, during the brief restoration of Henry VI.

John Paston, whose family had been sufficiently harassed by this great

duke, says, with some glee, "The Duke and Duchess (of Norfolk) sue to

him (Lord Oxford) as humbly as ever I did to them."--Paston Letters,

cccii.] and with them the governing principles were, as we have just

said, interest, ambition, and the zeal for the honour and advancement

of Houses and chiefs.

"Truly," said Marmaduke, after a short and rather embarrassed pause,

"I am little beholden as yet to the House of York. There where I see

a noble benefactor, or a brave and wise leader, shall I think my sword

and heart may best proffer allegiance."

"Wisely said," returned Alwyn, with a slight but half sarcastic smile;

"I asked thee the question because--draw closer--there are wise men in

our city who think the ties between Warwick and the king less strong

than a ship's cable; and if thou attachest thyself to Warwick, he will

be better pleased, it may be, with talk of devotion to himself than

professions of exclusive loyalty to King Edward. He who has little

silver in his pouch must have the more silk on his tongue. A word to

a Westmoreland or a Yorkshire man is as good as a sermon to men not

born so far north. One word more, and I have done. Thou art kind and

affable and gentle, my dear foster-brother, but it will not do for

thee to be seen again with the goldsmith's headman. If thou wantest

me, send for me at nightfall; I shall be found at Master Heyford's, in

the Chepe. And if," added Nicholas, with a prudent reminiscence,

"thou succeedest at court, and canst recommend my master,--there is no

better goldsmith,--it may serve me when I set up for myself, which I

look to do shortly."

"But to send for thee, my own foster-brother, at nightfall, as if I

were ashamed!"

"Hout, Master Marmaduke, if thou wert not ashamed of me, I should be

ashamed to be seen with a gay springal like thee. Why, they would say

in the Chepe that Nick Alwyn was going to ruin. No, no. Birds of a

feather must keep shy of those that moult other colours; and so, my

dear young master, this is my last shake of the hand. But hold: dost

thou know thy way back?"

"Oh, yes,--never fear!" answered Marmaduke; "though I see not why so

far, at least, we may not be companions."

"No, better as it is; after this day's work they will gossip about

both of us, and we shall meet many who know my long visage on the way

back. God keep thee; avise me how thou prosperest."

So saying, Nicholas Alwyn walked off, too delicate to propose to pay

his share of the reckoning with a superior; but when he had gone a few

paces he turned back, and accosting the Nevile, as the latter was

rebuckling his mantle, said,--

"I have been thinking, Master Nevile, that these gold nobles, which it

has been my luck to bear off, would be more useful in thy gipsire than

mine. I have sure gains and small expenses; but a gentleman gains

nothing, and his hand must be ever in his pouch, so--"

"Foster-brother," said Marmaduke, haughtily, "a gentleman never

borrows,--except of the Jews, and with due interest. Moreover, I too

have my calling; and as thy stall to thee, so to me my good sword.

Saints keep thee! Be sure I will serve thee when I can."

"The devil's in these young strips of the herald's tree," muttered

Alwyn, as he strode off; "as if it were dishonest to borrow a broad

piece without cutting a throat for it! Howbeit, money is a prolific

mother: and here is eno' to buy me a gold chain against I am alderman

of London. Hout, thus goes the world,--the knight's baubles become

the alderman's badges--so much the better!"

CHAPTER IV.

ILL FARES THE COUNTRY MOUSE IN THE TRAPS OF TOWN.

We trust we shall not be deemed discourteous, either, on the one hand,

to those who value themselves on their powers of reflection, or, on

the other, to those who lay claim to what, in modern phrenological

jargon, is called the Organ of Locality, when we venture to surmise

that the two are rarely found in combination; nay, that it seems to us

a very evident truism, that in proportion to the general activity of

the intellect upon subjects of pith and weight, the mind will be

indifferent to those minute external objects by which a less

contemplative understanding will note, and map out, and impress upon

the memory, the chart of the road its owner has once taken. Master

Marmaduke Nevile, a hardy and acute forester from childhood, possessed

to perfection the useful faculty of looking well and closely before

him as he walked the earth; and ordinarily, therefore, the path he had

once taken, however intricate and obscure, he was tolerably sure to

retrace with accuracy, even at no inconsiderable distance of time,--

the outward senses of men are usually thus alert and attentive in the

savage or the semi-civilized state. He had not, therefore, over-

valued his general acuteness in the note and memory of localities,

when he boasted of his power to refind his way to his hostelrie

without the guidance of Alwyn. But it so happened that the events of

this day, so memorable to him, withdrew his attention from external

objects, to concentrate it within. And in marvelling and musing over

the new course upon which his destiny had entered, he forgot to take

heed of that which his feet should pursue; so that, after wandering

unconsciously onward for some time, he suddenly halted in perplexity

and amaze to find himself entangled in a labyrinth of scattered

suburbs, presenting features wholly different from the road that had

conducted him to the archery-ground in the forenoon. The darkness of

the night had set in; but it was relieved by a somewhat faint and

mist-clad moon, and some few and scattered stars, over which rolled,

fleetly, thick clouds, portending rain. No lamps at that time cheered

the steps of the belated wanderer; the houses were shut up, and their

inmates, for the most part, already retired to rest, and the suburbs

did not rejoice, as the city, in the round of the watchman with his

drowsy call to the inhabitants, "Hang out your lights!" The

passengers, who at first, in various small groups and parties, had

enlivened the stranger's way, seemed to him, unconscious as he was of

the lapse of time, to have suddenly vanished from the thoroughfares;

and he found himself alone in places thoroughly unknown to him, waking

to the displeasing recollection that the approaches to the city were

said to be beset by brawlers and ruffians of desperate characters,

whom the cessation of the civil wars had flung loose upon the skirts

of society, to maintain themselves by deeds of rapine and plunder. As

might naturally be expected, most of these had belonged to the

defeated party, who had no claim to the good offices or charity of

those in power. And although some of the Neviles had sided with the

Lancastrians, yet the badge worn by Marmaduke was considered a pledge

of devotion to the reigning House, and added a new danger to those

which beset his path. Conscious of this--for he now called to mind

the admonitions of his host in parting from the hostelrie--he deemed

it but discreet to draw the hood of his mantle over the silver

ornament; and while thus occupied, he heard not a step emerging from a

lane at his rear, when suddenly a heavy hand was placed on his

shoulder. He started, turned, and before him stood a man, whose

aspect and dress betokened little to lessen the alarm of the

uncourteous salutation. Marmaduke's dagger was bare on the instant.

"And what wouldst thou with me?" he asked.

"Thy purse and thy dagger!" answered the stranger.

"Come and take them," said the Nevile, unconscious that he uttered a

reply famous in classic history, as he sprang backward a step or so,

and threw himself into an attitude of defence. The stranger slowly

raised a rude kind of mace, or rather club, with a ball of iron at the

end, garnished with long spikes, as he replied, "Art thou mad eno' to

fight for such trifles?"

"Art thou in the habit of meeting one Englishman who yields his goods

without a blow to another?" retorted Marmaduke. "Go to! thy club does

not daunt me." The stranger warily drew back a step, and applied a

whistle to his mouth. The Nevile sprang at him, but the stranger

warded off the thrust of the poniard with a light flourish of his

heavy weapon; and had not the youth drawn back on the instant, it had

been good-night and a long day to Marmaduke Nevile. Even as it was,

his heart beat quick, as the whirl of the huge weapon sent the air

like a strong wind against his face. Ere he had time to renew his

attack, he was suddenly seized from behind, and found himself

struggling in the arms of two men. From these he broke, and his

dagger glanced harmless against the tough jerkin of his first

assailant. The next moment his right arm fell to his side, useless

and deeply gashed. A heavy blow on the head--the moon, the stars

reeled in his eyes--and then darkness,--he knew no more. His

assailants very deliberately proceeded to rifle the inanimate body,

when one of them, perceiving the silver badge, exclaimed, with an

oath, "One of the rampant Neviles! This cock at least shall crow no

more." And laying the young man's head across his lap, while he

stretched back the throat with one hand, with the other he drew forth

a long sharp knife, like those used by huntsmen in despatching the

hart. Suddenly, and in the very moment when the blade was about to

inflict the fatal gash, his hand was forcibly arrested, and a man, who

had silently and unnoticed joined the ruffians, said in a stern

whisper, "Rise and depart from thy brotherhood forever. We admit no

murderer."

The ruffian looked up in bewilderment. "Robin--captain--thou here!"

he said falteringly.

"I must needs be everywhere, I see, if I would keep such fellows as

thou and these from the gallows. What is this?--a silver arrow--the

young archer--Um."

"A Nevile!" growled the would-be murderer.

"And for that very reason his life should be safe. Knowest thou not

that Richard of Warwick, the great Nevile, ever spares the commons?

Begone! I say." The captain's low voice grew terrible as he uttered

the last words. The savage rose, and without a word stalked away.

"Look you, my masters," said Robin, turning to the rest, "soldiers

must plunder a hostile country. While York is on the throne, England

is a hostile country to us Lancastrians. Rob, then, rifle, if ye

will; but he who takes life shall lose it. Ye know me!" The robbers

looked down, silent and abashed. Robin bent a moment over the youth.

"He will live," he muttered. "So! he already begins to awaken. One

of these houses will give him shelter. Off, fellows, and take care of

your necks!"

When Marmaduke, a few minutes after this colloquy, began to revive, it

was with a sensation of dizziness, pain, and extreme cold. He strove

to lift himself from the ground, and at length succeeded. He was

alone; the place where he had lain was damp and red with stiffening

blood. He tottered on for several paces, and perceived from a

lattice, at a little distance, a light still burning. Now reeling,

now falling, he still dragged on his limbs as the instinct attracted

him to that sign of refuge. He gained the doorway of a detached and

gloomy house, and sank on the stone before it to cry aloud; but his

voice soon sank into deep groans, and once more, as his efforts

increased the rapid gush of the blood, became insensible. The man

styled Robin, who had so opportunely saved his life, now approached

from the shadow of a wall, beneath which he had watched Marmaduke's

movements. He neared the door of the house, and cried, in a sharp,

clear voice, "Open, for the love of Christ!"

A head was now thrust from the lattice, the light vanished; a minute

more, the door opened; and Robin, as if satisfied, drew hastily back,

and vanished, saying to himself, as he strode along, "A young man's

life must needs be dear to him; yet had the lad been a lord, methinks

I should have cared little to have saved for the people one tyrant

more."

After a long interval, Marmaduke again recovered, and his eyes turned

with pain from the glare of a light held to his face.

"He wakes, Father,--he will live!" cried a sweet voice. "Ay, he will

live, child!" answered a deeper tone; and the young man muttered to

himself, half audibly, as in a dream, "Holy Mother be blessed! it is

sweet to live." The room in which the sufferer lay rather exhibited

the remains of better fortunes than testified to the solid means of

the present possessor. The ceiling was high and groined, and some

tints of faded but once gaudy painting blazoned its compartments and

hanging pendants. The walls had been rudely painted (for arras [Mr.

Hallam ("History of the Middle Ages," chap. ix. part 2) implies a

doubt whether great houses were furnished with hangings so soon as the

reign of Edward IV.; but there is abundant evidence to satisfy our

learned historian upon that head. The Narrative of the "Lord of

Grauthuse," edited by Sir F. Madden, specifies the hangings of cloth

of gold in the apartments in which that lord was received by Edward

IV.; also the hangings of white silk and linen in the chamber

appropriated to himself at Windsor. But long before this period (to

say nothing of the Bayeux Tapestry),--namely, in the reign of Edward

III. (in 1344),--a writ was issued to inquire into the mystery of

working tapestry; and in 1398 Mr. Britton observes that the celebrated

arras hangings at Warwick Castle are mentioned. (See Britton's

"Dictionary of Architecture and Archaelogy," art. "Tapestry.")] then

was rare, even among the wealthiest); but the colours were half

obliterated by time and damp. The bedstead on which the wounded man

reclined was curiously carved, with a figure of the Virgin at the

head, and adorned with draperies, in which were wrought huge figures

from scriptural subjects, but in the dress of the date of Richard

II.,--Solomon in pointed upturned shoes, and Goliath, in the armour of

a crusader, frowning grimly upon the sufferer. By the bedside stood a

personage, who, in reality, was but little past the middle age, but

whose pale visage, intersected with deep furrows, whose long beard and

hair, partially gray, gave him the appearance of advanced age:

nevertheless there was something peculiarly striking in the aspect of

the man. His forehead was singularly high and massive; but the back

of the head was disproportionately small, as if the intellect too much

preponderated over all the animal qualities for strength in character

and success in life. The eyes were soft, dark, and brilliant, but

dreamlike and vague; the features in youth must have been regular and

beautiful, but their contour was now sharpened by the hollowness of

the cheeks and temples. The form, in the upper part, was nobly

shaped, sufficiently muscular, if not powerful, and with the long

throat and falling shoulders which always gives something of grace and

dignity to the carriage; but it was prematurely bent, and the lower

limbs were thin and weak, as is common with men who have sparely used

them; they seemed disproportioned to that broad chest, and still more

to that magnificent and spacious brow. The dress of this personage

corresponded with the aspect of his abode. The materials were those

worn by the gentry, but they were old, threadbare, and discoloured

with innumerable spots and stains. His hands were small and delicate,

with large blue veins, that spoke of relaxed fibres; but their natural

whiteness was smudged with smoke-stains, and his beard--a masculine

ornament utterly out of fashion among the younger race in King

Edward's reign, but when worn by the elder gentry carefully trimmed

and perfumed--was dishevelled into all the spiral and tangled curls

displayed in the sculptured head of some old Grecian sage or poet.

On the other side of the bed knelt a young girl of about sixteen, with

a face exquisitely lovely in its delicacy and expression. She seemed

about the middle stature, and her arms and neck, as displayed by the

close-fitting vest, had already the smooth and rounded contour of

dawning womanhood, while the face had still the softness, innocence,

and inexpressible bloom of a child. There was a strong likeness

between her and her father (for such the relationship, despite the

difference of sex and years),--the same beautiful form of lip and

brow, the same rare colour of the eyes, dark-blue, with black fringing

lashes; and perhaps the common expression, at that moment, of gentle

pity and benevolent anxiety contributed to render the resemblance

stronger.

"Father, he sinks again!" said the girl.

"Sibyll," answered the man, putting his finger upon a line in a

manuscript book that he held, "the authority saith, that a patient so

contused should lose blood, and then the arm must be tightly bandaged.

Verily we lack the wherewithal."

"Not so, Father!" said the girl, and blushing, she turned aside, and

took off the partelet of lawn, upon which holiday finery her young

eyes perhaps that morning had turned with pleasure, and white as snow

was the neck which was thus displayed; "this will suffice to bind his

arm."

"But the book," said the father, in great perplexity--"the book

telleth us not how the lancet should be applied. It is easy to say,

'Do this and do that;' but to do it once, it should have been done

before. This is not among my experiments."

Luckily, perhaps, for Marmaduke, at this moment there entered an old

woman, the solitary servant of the house, whose life, in those warlike

times, had made her pretty well acquainted with the simpler modes of

dealing with a wounded arm and a broken head. She treated with great

disdain the learned authority referred to by her master; she bound the

arm, plastered the head, and taking upon herself the responsibility to

promise a rapid cure, insisted upon the retirement of father and

child, and took her solitary watch beside the bed.

"If it had been any other mechanism than that of the vile human body!"

muttered the philosopher, as if apologizing to himself; and with that

he recovered his self-complacency and looked round him proudly.

CHAPTER V.

WEAL TO THE IDLER, WOE TO THE WORKMAN.

As Providence tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, so it possibly might

conform the heads of that day to a thickness suitable for the blows

and knocks to which they were variously subjected; yet it was not

without considerable effort and much struggling that Marmaduke's

senses recovered the shock received, less by his flesh-wound and the

loss of blood, than a blow on the seat of reason that might have

despatched a passable ox of these degenerate days. Nature, to say

nothing of Madge's leechcraft, ultimately triumphed, and Marmaduke

woke one morning in full possession of such understanding as Nature

had endowed him with. He was then alone, and it was with much simple

surprise that he turned his large hazel eyes from corner to corner of

the unfamiliar room. He began to retrace and weave together sundry

disordered and vague reminiscences: he commenced with the

commencement, and clearly satisfied himself that he had been

grievously wounded and sorely bruised; he then recalled the solitary

light at the high lattice, and his memory found itself at the porch of

the large, lonely, ruinous old house; then all became a bewildered and

feverish dream. He caught at the vision of an old man with a long

beard, whom he associated, displeasingly, with recollections of pain;

he glanced off to a fair face, with eyes that looked tender pity

whenever he writhed or groaned under the tortures that, no doubt, that

old accursed carle had inflicted upon him. But even this face did not

dwell with pleasure in his memory,--it woke up confused and labouring

associations of something weird and witchlike, of sorceresses and

tymbesteres, of wild warnings screeched in his ear, of incantations

and devilries and doom. Impatient of these musings, he sought to leap

from his bed, and was amazed that the leap subsided into a tottering

crawl. He found an ewer and basin, and his ablutions refreshed and

invigorated him. He searched for his raiment, and discovered it all

except the mantle, dagger, hat, and girdle; and while looking for

these, his eye fell on an old tarnished steel mirror. He started as

if he had seen his ghost; was it possible that his hardy face could

have waned into that pale and almost femininely delicate visage? With

the pride (call it not coxcombry) that then made the care of person

the distinction of gentle birth, he strove to reduce into order the

tangled locks of the long hair, of which a considerable portion above

a part that seemed peculiarly sensitive to the touch had been

mercilessly clipped; and as he had just completed this task, with

little satisfaction and much inward chafing at the lack of all

befitting essences and perfumes, the door gently opened, and the fair

face he had dreamed of appeared at the aperture.

The girl uttered a cry of astonishment and alarm at seeing the patient

thus arrayed and convalescent, and would suddenly have retreated; but

the Nevile advanced, and courteously taking her hand--

"Fair maiden," said he, "if, as I trow, I owe to thy cares my tending

and cure--nay, it may be a life hitherto of little worth, save to

myself--do not fly from my thanks. May Our Lady of Walsingham bless

and reward thee!"

"Sir," answered Sibyll, gently withdrawing her hands from his clasp,

"our poor cares have been a slight return for thy generous protection

to myself."

"To thee! ah, forgive me--how could I be so dull? I remember thy face

now; and, perchance, I deserve the disaster I met with in leaving thee

so discourteously. My heart smote me for it as my light footfall

passed from thy side."

A slight blush, succeeded by a thoughtful smile--the smile of one who

recalls and caresses some not displeasing remembrance--passed over

Sibyll's charming countenance, as the sufferer said this with

something of the grace of a well-born man, whose boyhood had been

taught to serve God and the Ladies.

There was a short pause before she answered, looking down, "Nay, sir,

I was sufficiently beholden to you; and for the rest, all molestation

was over. But I will now call your nurse--for it is to our servant,

not us, that your thanks are due--to see to your state, and administer

the proper medicaments."

"Truly, fair damsel, it is not precisely medicaments that I hunger and

thirst for; and if your hospitality could spare me from the larder a

manchet, or a corner of a pasty, and from the cellar a stoup of wine

or a cup of ale, methinks it would tend more to restore me than those

potions which are so strange to my taste that they rather offend than

tempt it; and, pardie, it seemeth to my poor senses as if I had not

broken bread for a week!"

"I am glad to hear you of such good cheer," answered Sibyll; "wait but

a moment or so, till I consult your physician."

And, so saying, she closed the door, slowly descended the steps, and

pursued her way into what seemed more like a vault than a habitable

room, where she found the single servant of the household. Time,

which makes changes so fantastic in the dress of the better classes,

has a greater respect for the costume of the humbler; and though the

garments were of a very coarse sort of serge, there was not so great a

difference, in point of comfort and sufficiency, as might be supposed,

between the dress of old Madge and that of some primitive servant in

the North during the last century. The old woman's face was thin and

pinched; but its sharp expression brightened into a smile as she

caught sight, through the damps and darkness, of the gracious form of

her young mistress. "Ah, Madge," said Sibyll, with a sigh, "it is a

sad thing to be poor!"

"For such as thou, Mistress Sibyll, it is indeed. It does not matter

for the like of us. But it goes to my old heart when I see you shut

up here, or worse, going out in that old courtpie and wimple,--you, a

knight's grandchild; you, who have played round a queen's knees, and

who might have been so well-to-do, an' my master had thought a little

more of the gear of this world. But patience is a good palfrey, and

will carry us a long day. And when the master has done what he looks

for, why, the king--sith we must so call the new man on the throne--

will be sure to reward him; but, sweetheart, tarry not here; it's an

ill air for your young lips to drink in. What brings you to old

Madge?"