"The stranger is recovered, and--"

"Ay, I warrant me, I have cured worse than he. He must have a

spoonful of broth,--I have not forgot it. You see I wanted no dinner

myself--what is dinner to old folks!--so I e'en put it all in the pot

for him. The broth will be brave and strong."

"My poor Madge, God requite you for what you suffer for us! But he

has asked"--here was another sigh, and a downcast look that did not

dare to face the consternation of Madge, as she repeated, with a half-

smile--"he has asked--for meat, and a stoup of wine, Madge!"

"Eh, sirs! And where is he to get them? Not that it will be bad for

the lad, either. Wine! There's Master Sancroft of the Oak will not

trust us a penny, the seely hilding, and--"

"Oh, Madge, I forgot!--we can still sell the gittern for something.

Get on your wimple, Madge--quick,--while I go for it."

"Why, Mistress Sibyll, that's your only pleasure when you sit all

alone, the long summer days."

"It will be more pleasure to remember that it supplied the wants of my

father's guest," said Sibyll; and retracing the way up the stairs, she

returned with the broken instrument, and despatched Madge with it,

laden with instructions that the wine should be of the best. She then

once more mounted the rugged steps, and halting a moment at

Marmaduke's door, as she heard his feeble step walking impatiently to

and fro, she ascended higher, where the flight, winding up a square,

dilapidated turret, became rougher, narrower, and darker, and opened

the door of her father's retreat.

It was a room so bare of ornament and furniture that it seemed merely

wrought out of the mingled rubble and rough stones which composed the

walls of the mansion, and was lighted towards the street by a narrow

slit, glazed, it is true,--which all the windows of the house were

not,--but the sun scarcely pierced the dull panes and the deep walls

in which they were sunk. The room contained a strong furnace and a

rude laboratory. There were several strange-looking mechanical

contrivances scattered about, several manuscripts upon some oaken

shelves, and a large pannier of wood and charcoal in the corner. In

that poverty-stricken house, the money spent on fuel alone, in the

height of summer, would have comfortably maintained the inmates; but

neither Sibyll nor Madge ever thought to murmur at this waste,

dedicated to what had become the vital want of a man who drew air in a

world of his own. This was the first thing to be provided for; and

Science was of more imperative necessity than even Hunger.

Adam Warner was indeed a creature of remarkable genius,--and genius,

in an age where it is not appreciated, is the greatest curse the iron

Fates can inflict on man. If not wholly without the fond fancies

which led the wisdom of the darker ages to the philosopher's stone and

the elixir, he had been deterred from the chase of a chimera by want

of means to pursue it! for it required the resources or the patronage

of a prince or noble to obtain the costly ingredients consumed in the

alchemist's crucible. In early life, therefore, and while yet in

possession of a competence derived from a line of distinguished and

knightly ancestors, Adam Warner had devoted himself to the surer and

less costly study of the mathematics, which then had begun to attract

the attention of the learned, but which was still looked upon by the

vulgar as a branch of the black art. This pursuit had opened to him

the insight into discoveries equally useful and sublime. They

necessitated a still more various knowledge; and in an age when there

was no division of labour and rare and precarious communication among

students, it became necessary for each discoverer to acquire

sufficient science for his own collateral experiments.

In applying mathematics to the practical purposes of life, in

recognizing its mighty utilities to commerce and civilization, Adam

Warner was driven to conjoin with it, not only an extensive knowledge

of languages, but many of the rudest tasks of the mechanist's art; and

chemistry was, in some of his researches, summoned to his aid. By

degrees, the tyranny that a man's genius exercises over his life,

abstracted him from all external objects. He had loved his wife

tenderly, but his rapid waste of his fortune in the purchase of

instruments and books, then enormously dear, and the neglect of all

things not centred in the hope to be the benefactor of the world, had

ruined her health and broken her heart. Happily Warner perceived not

her decay till just before her death; happily he never conceived its

cause, for her soul was wrapped in his. She revered, and loved, and

never upbraided him. Her heart was the martyr to his mind. Had she

foreseen the future destinies of her daughter, it might have been

otherwise. She could have remonstrated with the father, though not

with the husband. But, fortunately, as it seemed to her, she (a

Frenchwoman by birth) had passed her youth in the service of Margaret

of Anjou, and that haughty queen, who was equally warm to friends and

inexorable to enemies, had, on her attendant's marriage, promised to

ensure the fortunes of her offspring. Sibyll at the age of nine--

between seven and eight years before the date the story enters on, and

two years prior to the fatal field of Towton, which gave to Edward the

throne of England--had been admitted among the young girls whom the

custom of the day ranked amidst the attendants of the queen; and in

the interval that elapsed before Margaret was obliged to dismiss her

to her home, her mother died. She died without foreseeing the

reverses that were to ensue, in the hope that her child, at least, was

nobly provided for, and not without the belief (for there is so much

faith in love!) that her husband's researches, which in his youth had

won favour of the Protector Duke of Gloucester, the most enlightened

prince of his time, would be crowned at last with the rewards and

favours of his king. That precise period was, indeed, the fairest

that had yet dawned upon the philosopher. Henry VI., slowly

recovering from one of those attacks which passed for imbecility, had

condescended to amuse himself with various conversations with Warner,

urged to it first by representations of the unholy nature of the

student's pursuits; and, having satisfied his mind of his learned

subject's orthodoxy, the poor monarch had taken a sort of interest,

not so much, perhaps, in the objects of Warner's occupations, as in

that complete absorption from actual life which characterized the

subject, and gave him in this a melancholy resemblance to the king.

While the House of Lancaster was on the throne, the wife felt that her

husband's pursuits would be respected, and his harmless life safe from

the fierce prejudices of the people; and the good queen would not

suffer him to starve, when the last mark was expended in devices how

to benefit his country:--and in these hopes the woman died!

A year afterwards, all at court was in disorder,--armed men supplied

the service of young girls, and Sibyll, with a purse of broad pieces,

soon converted into manuscripts, was sent back to her father's

desolate home. There had she grown a flower amidst ruins, with no

companion of her own age, and left to bear, as her sweet and

affectionate nature well did, the contrast between the luxuries of a

court and the penury of a hearth which, year after year, hunger and

want came more and more sensibly to invade.

Sibyll had been taught, even as a child, some accomplishments little

vouchsafed then to either sex,--she could read and write; and Margaret

had not so wholly lost, in the sterner North, all reminiscence of the

accomplishments that graced her father's court as to neglect the

education of those brought up in her household. Much attention was

given to music, for it soothed the dark hours of King Henry; the

blazoning of missals or the lives of saints, with the labours of the

loom, were also among the resources of Sibyll's girlhood, and by these

last she had, from time to time, served to assist the maintenance of

the little family of which, child though she was, she became the

actual head. But latterly--that is, for the last few weeks--even

these sources failed her; for as more peaceful times allowed her

neighbours to interest themselves in the affairs of others, the dark

reports against Warner had revived. His name became a by-word of

horror; the lonely light at the lattice burning till midnight, against

all the early usages and habits of the day; the dark smoke of the

furnace, constant in summer as in winter, scandalized the religion of

the place far and near. And finding, to their great dissatisfaction,

that the king's government and the Church interfered not for their

protection, and unable themselves to volunteer any charges against the

recluse (for the cows in the neighbourhood remained provokingly

healthy), they came suddenly, and, as it were by one of those common

sympathies which in all times the huge persecutor we call the PUBLIC

manifests when a victim is to be crushed, to the pious resolution of

starving where they could not burn. Why buy the quaint devilries of

the wizard's daughter?--no luck could come of it. A missal blazoned

by such hands, an embroidery worked at such a loom, was like the

Lord's Prayer read backwards. And one morning, when poor Sibyll stole

out as usual to vend a month's labour, she was driven from door to

door with oaths and curses.

Though Sibyll's heart was gentle, she was not without a certain

strength of mind. She had much of the patient devotion of her mother,

much of the quiet fortitude of her father's nature. If not

comprehending to the full the loftiness of Warner's pursuits, she

still anticipated from them an ultimate success which reconciled her

to all temporary sacrifices. The violent prejudices, the ignorant

cruelty, thus brought to bear against existence itself, filled her

with sadness, it is true, but not unmixed with that contempt for her

persecutors, which, even in the meekest tempers, takes the sting from

despair. But hunger pressed. Her father was nearing the goal of his

discoveries, and in a moment of that pride which in its very contempt

for appearances braves them all, Sibyll had stolen out to the pastime-

ground,--with what result has been seen already. Having thus

accounted for the penury of the mansion, we return to its owner.

Warner was contemplating with evident complacency and delight the

model of a machine which had occupied him for many years, and which he

imagined he was now rapidly bringing to perfection. His hands and

face were grimed with the smoke of his forge, and his hair and beard,

neglected as usual, looked parched and dried up, as if with the

constant fever that burned within.

"Yes, yes!" he muttered, "how they will bless me for this! What Roger

Bacon only suggested I shall accomplish! How it will change the face

of the globe! What wealth it will bestow on ages yet unborn!"

"My father," said the gentle voice of Sibyll, "my poor father, thou

hast not tasted bread to-day."

Warner turned, and his face relaxed into a tender expression as he saw

his daughter.

"My child," he said, pointing to his model, "the time comes when it

will live! Patience! patience!"

"And who would not have patience with thee, and for thee, Father?"

said Sibyll, with enthusiasm speaking on every feature. "What is the

valour of knight and soldier--dull statues of steel--to thine? Thou,

with thy naked breast, confronting all dangers,--sharper than the

lance and glaive, and all--"

"All to make England great!"

"Alas! what hath England merited from men like thee? The people, more

savage than their rulers, clamour for the stake, the gibbet, and the

dungeon, for all who strive to make them wiser. Remember the death of

Bolingbroke, [A mathematician accused as an accomplice, in sorcery, of

Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and hanged upon

that charge. His contemporary (William Wyrcestre) highly extols his

learning.]--a wizard, because, O Father!--because his pursuits were

thine!"

Adam, startled by this burst, looked at his daughter with more

attention than he usually evinced to any living thing. "Child," he

said at length, shaking his head in grave reproof, "let me not say to

thee, 'O thou of little faith!' There were no heroes were there no

martyrs!"

"Do not frown on me, Father," said Sibyll, sadly; "let the world

frown,--not thou! Yes, thou art right. Thou must triumph at last."

And suddenly, her whole countenance changing into a soft and caressing

endearment, she added, "But now come, Father. Thou hast laboured well

for this morning. We shall have a little feast for thee in a few

minutes. And the stranger is recovered, thanks to our leechcraft. He

is impatient to see and thank thee."

"Well, well, I come, Sibyll," said the student, with a regretful,

lingering look at his model, and a sigh to be disturbed from its

contemplation; and he slowly quitted the room with Sibyll.

"But not, dear sir and father, not thus--not quite thus--vill you go

to the stranger, well-born like yourself? Oh, no! your Sibyll is

proud, you know,--proud of her father." So saying, she clung to him

fondly, and drew him mechanically, for he had sunk into a revery, and

heeded her not, into an adjoining chamber, in which he slept. The

comforts even of the gentry, of men with the acres that Adam had sold,

were then few and scanty. The nobles and the wealthy merchants,

indeed, boasted many luxuries that excelled in gaud and pomp those of

their equals now. But the class of the gentry who had very little

money at command were contented with hardships from which a menial of

this day would revolt. What they could spend in luxury was usually

consumed in dress and the table they were obliged to keep. These were

the essentials of dignity. Of furniture there was a woful stint. In

many houses, even of knights, an edifice large enough to occupy a

quadrangle was composed more of offices than chambers inhabited by the

owners; rarely boasting more than three beds, which were bequeathed in

wills as articles of great value. The reader must, therefore, not be

surprised that Warner's abode contained but one bed, properly so

called, and that was now devoted to Nevile. The couch which served

the philosopher for bed was a wretched pallet, stretched on the floor,

stuffed with straw,--with rough say, or serge, and an old cloak for

the coverings. His daughter's, in a room below, was little better.

The walls were bare; the whole house boasted but one chair, which was

in Marmaduke's chamber; stools or settles of rude oak elsewhere

supplied their place. There was no chimney except in Nevile's room,

and in that appropriated to the forge.

To this chamber, then, resembling a dungeon in appearance, Sibyll drew

the student, and here, from an old worm-eaten chest, she carefully

extracted a gown of brown velvet, which his father, Sir Armine, had

bequeathed to him by will,--faded, it is true, but still such as the

low-born wore not, [By the sumptuary laws only a knight was entitled

to wear velvet.] trimmed with fur, and clasped with a brooch of gold.

And then she held the ewer and basin to him, while, with the docility

of a child, he washed the smoke-soil from his hands and face. It was

touching to see in this, as in all else, the reverse of their natural

position,--the child tending and heeding and protecting, as it were,

the father; and that not from his deficiency, but his greatness; not

because he was below the vulgar intelligences of life, but above them.

And certainly, when, his patriarchal hair and beard smoothed into

order, and his velvet gown flowing in majestic folds around a figure

tall and commanding, Sibyll followed her father into Marmaduke's

chamber, she might well have been proud of his appearance; and she

felt the innocent vanity of her sex and age in noticing the half-start

of surprise with which Marmaduke regarded his host, and the tone of

respect in which he proffered him his salutations and thanks. Even

his manner altered to Sibyll; it grew less frank and affable, more

courtly and reserved: and when Madge came to announce that the

refection was served, it was with a blush of shame, perhaps, at his

treatment of the poor gittern-player on the pastime-ground, that the

Nevile extended his left hand, for his right was still not at his

command, to lead the damsel to the hall.

This room, which was divided from the entrance by a screen, and,

except a small closet that adjoined it, was the only sitting-room in a

day when, as now on the Continent, no shame was attached to receiving

visitors in sleeping apartments, was long and low; an old and very

narrow table, that might have feasted thirty persons, stretched across

a dais raised upon a stone floor; there was no rere-dosse, or

fireplace, which does not seem at that day to have been an absolute

necessity in the houses of the metropolis and its suburbs, its place

being supplied by a movable brazier. Three oak stools were placed in

state at the board, and to one of these Marmaduke, in a silence

unusual to him, conducted the fair Sibyll.

"You will forgive our lack of provisions," said Warner, relapsing into

the courteous fashions of his elder days, which the unwonted spectacle

of a cold capon, a pasty, and a flask of wine brought to his mind by a

train of ideas that actively glided by the intervening circumstances,

which ought to have filled him with astonishment at the sight, "for my

Sibyll is but a young housewife, and I am a simple scholar, of few

wants."

"Verily," answered Marmaduke, finding his tongue as he attacked the

pasty, "I see nothing that the most dainty need complain of; fair

Mistress Sibyll, your dainty lips will not, I trow, refuse me the

waisall. [I.e. waissail or wassal; the spelling of the time is

adopted in the text.] To you also, worshipful sir! Gramercy! it

seems that there is nothing which better stirs a man's appetite than a

sick bed. And, speaking thereof, deign to inform me, kind sir, how

long I have been indebted to your hospitality. Of a surety, this

pasty hath an excellent flavour, and if not venison, is something

better. But to return, it mazes me much to think what time hath

passed since my encounter with the robbers."

"They were robbers, then, who so cruelly assailed thee?" observed

Sibyll.

"Have I not said so--surely, who else? And, as I was remarking to

your worshipful father, whether this mischance happened hours, days,

months, or years ago, beshrew me if I can venture the smallest guess."

Master Warner smiled, and observing that some reply was expected from

him, said, "Why, indeed, young sir, I fear I am almost as oblivious as

yourself. It was not yesterday that you arrived, nor the day before,

nor--Sibyll, my child, how long is it since this gentleman hath been

our guest?"

"This is the fifth day," answered Sibyll.

"So long! and I like a senseless log by the wayside, when others are

pushing on, bit and spur, to the great road. I pray you, sir, tell me

the news of the morning. The Lord Warwick is still in London, the

court still at the Tower?"

Poor Adam, whose heart was with his model, and who had now satisfied

his temperate wants, looked somewhat bewildered and perplexed by this

question. "The king, save his honoured head," said he, inclining his

own, "is, I fear me, always at the Tower, since his unhappy detention,

but he minds it not, sir,--he heeds it not; his soul is not on this

side Paradise."

Sibyll uttered a faint exclamation of fear at this dangerous

indiscretion of her father's absence of mind; and drawing closer to

Nevile, she put her hand with touching confidence on his arm, and

whispered, "You will not repeat this, Sir! my father lives only in his

studies, and he has never known but one king!"

Marmaduke turned his bold face to the maid, and pointed to the salt-

cellar, as he answered in the same tone, "Does the brave man betray

his host?"

There was a moment's silence. Marmaduke rose. "I fear," said he,

"that I must now leave you; and while it is yet broad noon, I must

indeed be blind if I again miss my way."

This speech suddenly recalled Adam from his meditations; for whenever

his kindly and simple benevolence was touched, even his mathematics

and his model were forgotten. "No, young sir," said he, "you must not

quit us yet; your danger is not over. Exercise may bring fever.

Celsus recommends quiet. You must consent to tarry with us a day or

two more."

"Can you tell me," said the Nevile, hesitatingly, "what distance it is

to the Temple-gate, or the nearest wharf on the river?"

"Two miles, at the least," answered Sibyll.

"Two miles!--and now I mind me, I have not the accoutrements that

beseem me. Those hildings have stolen my mantle (which, I perceive,

by the way, is but a rustic garment, now laid aside for the super-

tunic), and my hat and dague, nor have they left even a half groat to

supply their place. Verily, therefore, since ye permit me to burden

your hospitality longer, I will not say ye nay, provided you,

worshipful sir, will suffer one of your people to step to the house of

one Master Heyford, goldsmith, in the Chepe, and crave one Nicholas

Alwyn, his freedman, to visit me. I can commission him touching my

goods left at mine hostelrie, and learn some other things which it

behooves me to know."

"Assuredly. Sibyll, tell Simon or Jonas to put himself under our

guest's order."

Simon or Jonas! The poor Adam absolutely forgot that Simon and Jonas

had quitted the house these six years! How could he look on the

capon, the wine, and the velvet gown trimmed with fur, and not fancy

himself back in the heyday of his wealth?

Sibyll half smiled and half sighed, as she withdrew to consult with

her sole counsellor, Madge, how the guest's orders were to be obeyed,

and how, alas! the board was to be replenished for the evening meal.

But in both these troubles she was more fortunate than she

anticipated. Madge had sold the broken gittern, for musical

instruments were then, comparatively speaking, dear (and this had been

a queen's gift), for sufficient to provide decently for some days;

and, elated herself with the prospect of so much good cheer, she

readily consented to be the messenger to Nicholas Alwyn. When with a

light step and a lighter heart Sibyll tripped back to the hall, she

was scarcely surprised to find the guest alone. Her father, after her

departure, had begun to evince much restless perturbation. He

answered Marmaduke's queries but by abstracted and desultory

monosyllables; and seeing his guest at length engaged in contemplating

some old pieces of armour hung upon the walls, he stole stealthily and

furtively away, and halted not till once more before his beloved

model.

Unaware of his departure, Marmaduke, whose back was turned to him,

was, as he fondly imagined, enlightening his host with much soldier-

like learning as to the old helmets and weapons that graced the hall.

"Certes, my host," said he, musingly, "that sort of casque, which has

not, I opine, been worn this century, had its merits; the vizor is

less open to the arrows. But as for these chain suits, they suited

only--I venture, with due deference, to declare--the Wars of the

Crusades, where the enemy fought chiefly with dart and scymetar. They

would be but a sorry defence against the mace and battle-axe;

nevertheless, they were light for man and horse, and in some service,

especially against foot, might be revived with advantage. Think you

not so?"

He turned, and saw the arch face of Sibyll.

"I crave pardon for my blindness, gentle damsel," said he, in some

confusion, "but your father was here anon."

"His mornings are so devoted to labour," answered Sibyll, "that he

entreats you to pardon his discourtesy. Meanwhile if you would wish

to breathe the air, we have a small garden in the rear;" and so

saying, she led the way into the small withdrawing-room, or rather

closet, which was her own favourite chamber, and which communicated,

by another door, with a broad, neglected grassplot, surrounded by high

walls, having a raised terrace in front, divided by a low stone Gothic

palisade from the green sward.

On the palisade sat droopingly, and half asleep, a solitary peacock;

but when Sibyll and the stranger appeared at the door, he woke up

suddenly, descended from his height, and with a vanity not wholly

unlike his young mistress's wish to make the best possible display in

the eyes of a guest, spread his plumes broadly in the sun. Sibyll

threw him some bread, which she had taken from the table for that

purpose; but the proud bird, however hungry, disdained to eat, till he

had thoroughly satisfied himself that his glories had been

sufficiently observed.

"Poor proud one," said Sibyll, half to herself, "thy plumage lasts

with thee through all changes."

"Like the name of a brave knight," said Marmaduke, who overheard her.

"Thou thinkest of the career of arms."

"Surely,--I am a Nevile!"

"Is there no fame to be won but that of a warrior?"

"Not that I weet of, or heed for, Mistress Sibyll."

"Thinkest thou it were nothing to be a minstrel, who gave delight; a

scholar, who dispelled darkness?"

"For the scholar? Certes, I respect holy Mother Church, which they

tell me alone produces that kind of wonder with full safety to the

soul, and that only in the higher prelates and dignitaries. For the

minstrel, I love him, I would fight for him, I would give him at need

the last penny in my gipsire; but it is better to do deeds than to

sing them."

Sibyll smiled, and the smile perplexed and half displeased the young

adventurer. But the fire of the young man had its charm.

By degrees, as they walked to and fro the neglected terrace, their

talk flowed free and familiar; for Marmaduke, like most young men full

of himself, was joyous with the happy egotism of a frank and careless

nature. He told his young confidante of a day his birth, his history,

his hopes, and fears; and in return he learned, in answer to the

questions he addressed to her, so much, at least, of her past and

present life, as the reverses of her father, occasioned by costly

studies, her own brief sojourn at the court of Margaret, and the

solitude, if not the struggles, in which her youth was consumed. It

would have been a sweet and grateful sight to some kindly bystander to

hear these pleasant communications between two young persons so

unfriended, and to imagine that hearts thus opened to each other might

unite in one. But Sibyll, though she listened to him with interest,

and found a certain sympathy in his aspirations, was ever and anon

secretly comparing him to one, the charm of whose voice still lingered

in her ears; and her intellect, cultivated and acute, detected in

Marmaduke deficient education, and that limited experience which is

the folly and the happiness of the young.

On the other hand, whatever admiration Nevile might conceive was

strangely mixed with surprise, and, it might almost be said, with

fear. This girl, with her wise converse and her child's face, was a

character so thoroughly new to him. Her language was superior to what

he had ever heard, the words more choice, the current more flowing:

was that to be attributed to her court-training or her learned

parentage?

"Your father, fair mistress," said he, rousing himself in one of the

pauses of their conversation--"your father, then, is a mighty scholar,

and I suppose knows Latin like English?"

"Why, a hedge-priest pretends to know Latin," said Sibyll, smiling;

"my father is one of the six men living who have learned the Greek and

the Hebrew."

"Gramercy!" cried Marmaduke, crossing himself. "That is awsome

indeed! He has taught you his lere in the tongues?"

"Nay, I know but my own and the French; my mother was a native of

France."

"The Holy Mother be praised!" said Marmaduke, breathing more freely;

"for French I have heard my father and uncle say is a language fit for

gentles and knights, specially those who come, like the Neviles, from

Norman stock. This Margaret of Anjou--didst thou love her well,

Mistress Sibyll?"

"Nay," answered Sibyll, "Margaret commanded awe, but she scarcely

permitted love from an inferior: and though gracious and well-governed

when she so pleased, it was but to those whom she wished to win. She

cared not for the heart, if the hand or the brain could not assist

her. But, poor queen, who could blame her for this?--her nature was

turned from its milk; and, when, more lately, I have heard how many

she trusted most have turned against her, I rebuked myself that--"

"Thou wert not by her side?" added the Nevile, observing her pause,

and with the generous thought of a gentleman and a soldier.

"Nay, I meant not that so expressly, Master Nevile, but rather that I

had ever murmured at her haste and shrewdness of mood. By her side,

said you?--alas! I have a nearer duty at home; my father is all in

this world to me! Thou knowest not, Master Nevile, how it flatters

the weak to think there is some one they can protect. But eno' of

myself. Thou wilt go to the stout earl, thou wilt pass to the court,

thou wilt win the gold spurs, and thou wilt fight with the strong

hand, and leave others to cozen with the keen head."

"She is telling my fortune!" muttered Marmaduke, crossing himself

again. "The gold spurs--I thank thee, Mistress Sibyll!--will it be on

the battle-field that I shall be knighted, and by whose hand?"

Sibyll glanced her bright eye at the questioner, and seeing his

wistful face, laughed outright.

"What, thinkest thou, Master Nevile, I can read thee all riddles

without my sieve and my shears?"

"They are essentials, then, Mistress Sibyll?" said the Nevile, with

blunt simplicity. "I thought ye more learned damozels might tell by

the palm, or the--why dost thou laugh at me?"

"Nay," answered Sibyll, composing herself. "It is my right to be

angered. Sith thou wouldst take me to be a witch, all that I can tell

thee of thy future" (she added touchingly) "is from that which I have

seen of thy past. Thou hast a brave heart, and a gentle; thou hast a

frank tongue, and a courteous; and these qualities make men honoured

and loved,--except they have the gifts which turn all into gall, and

bring oppression for honour, and hate for love."

"And those gifts, gentle Sibyll?"

"Are my father's," answered the girl, with another and a sadder change

in her expressive countenance. And the conversation flagged till

Marmaduke, feeling more weakened by his loss of blood than he had

conceived it possible, retired to his chamber to repose himself.

CHAPTER VI.

MASTER MARMADUKE NEVILE FEARS FOR THE SPIRITUAL WEAL OF HIS HOST AND

HOSTESS.

Before the hour of supper, which was served at six o'clock, Nicholas

Alwyn arrived at the house indicated to him by Madge. Marmaduke,

after a sound sleep, which was little flattering to Sibyll's

attractions, had descended to the hall in search of the maiden and his

host, and finding no one, had sauntered in extreme weariness and

impatience into the little withdrawing-closet, where as it was now

dusk, burned a single candle in a melancholy and rustic sconce;

standing by the door that opened on the garden, he amused himself with

watching the peacock, when his friend, following Madge into the

chamber, tapped him on the shoulder.

"Well, Master Nevile. Ha! by Saint Thomas, what has chanced to thee?

Thine arm swathed up, thy locks shorn, thy face blanched! My honoured

foster-brother, thy Westmoreland blood seems over-hot for Cockaigne!"

"If so, there are plenty in this city of cut-throats to let out the

surplusage," returned Marmaduke; and he briefly related his adventure

to Nicholas.

When he had done, the kind trader reproached himself for having

suffered Marmaduke to find his way alone. "The suburbs abound with

these miscreants," said he; "and there is more danger in a night walk

near London than in the loneliest glens of green Sherwood--more shame

to the city! An' I be Lord Mayor one of these days, I will look to it

better. But our civil wars make men hold human life very cheap, and

there's parlous little care from the great of the blood and limbs of

the wayfarers. But war makes thieves--and peace hangs them! Only

wait till I manage affairs!"

"Many thanks to thee, Nicholas," returned the Nevile; "but foul befall

me if ever I seek protection from sheriff or mayor! A man who cannot

keep his own life with his own right hand merits well to hap-lose it;

and I, for one, shall think ill of the day when an Englishman looks

more to the laws than his good arm for his safety; but, letting this

pass, I beseech thee to avise me if my Lord Warwick be still in the

city?"

"Yes, marry, I know that by the hostelries, which swarm with his

badges, and the oxen, that go in scores to the shambles! It is a

shame to the Estate to see one subject so great, and it bodes no good

to our peace. The earl is preparing the most magnificent embassage

that ever crossed the salt seas--I would it were not to the French,

for our interests lie contrary; but thou hast some days yet to rest

here and grow stout, for I would not have thee present thyself with a

visage of chalk to a man who values his kind mainly by their thews and

their sinews. Moreover, thou shouldst send for the tailor, and get

thee trimmed to the mark. It would be a long step in thy path to

promotion, an' the earl would take thee in his train; and the gaudier

thy plumes, why, the better chance for thy flight. Wherefore, since

thou sayest they are thus friendly to thee under this roof, bide yet a

while peacefully; I will send thee the mercer, and the clothier, and

the tailor, to divert thy impatience. And as these fellows are

greedy, my gentle and dear Master Nevile, may I ask, without offence,

how thou art provided?"

"Nay, nay, I have moneys at the hostelrie, an' thou wilt send me my

mails. For the rest, I like thy advice, and will take it."

"Good!" answered Nicholas. "Hem! thou seemest to have got into a poor

house,--a decayed gentleman, I wot, by the slovenly ruin!"

"I would that were the worst," replied Marmaduke, solemnly, and under

his breath; and therewith he repeated to Nicholas the adventure on the

pastime-ground, the warnings of the timbrel-girls, and the "awsome"

learning and strange pursuits of his host. As for Sibyll, he was

evidently inclined to attribute to glamour the reluctant admiration

with which she had inspired him. "For," said he, "though I deny not

that the maid is passing fair, there be many with rosier cheeks, and

taller by this hand!"

Nicholas listened, at first, with the peculiar expression of shrewd

sarcasm which mainly characterized his intelligent face, but his

attention grew more earnest before Marmaduke had concluded.

"In regard to the maiden," said he, smiling and shaking his head, "it

is not always the handsomest that win us the most,--while fair Meg

went a maying, black Meg got to church; and I give thee more

reasonable warning than thy timbrel-girls, when, in spite of thy cold

language, I bid thee take care of thyself against her attractions;

for, verily, my dear foster-brother, thou must mend and not mar thy

fortune, by thy love matters; and keep thy heart whole for some fair

one with marks in her gipsire, whom the earl may find out for thee.

Love and raw pease are two ill things in the porridge-pot. But the

father!--I mind me now that I have heard of his name, through my

friend Master Caxton, the mercer, as one of prodigious skill in the

mathematics. I should like much to see him, and, with thy leave (an'

he ask me), will tarry to supper. But what are these?"--and Nicholas

took up one of the illuminated manuscripts which Sibyll had prepared

for sale. "By the blood! this is couthly and marvellously blazoned."

The book was still in his hands when Sibyll entered. Nicholas stared

at her, as he bowed with a stiff and ungraceful embarrassment, which

often at first did injustice to his bold, clear intellect, and his

perfect self-possession in matters of trade or importance.

"The first woman face," muttered Nicholas to himself, "I ever saw that

had the sense of a man's. And, by the rood, what a smile!"

"Is this thy friend, Master Nevile?" said Sibyll, with a glance at the

goldsmith. "He is welcome. But is it fair and courteous, Master

Nelwyn--"

"Alwyn, an' it please you, fair mistress. A humble name, but good

Saxon,--which, I take it, Nelwyn is not," interrupted Nicholas.

"Master Alwyn, forgive me; but can I forgive thee so readily for thy

espial of my handiwork, without license or leave?"

"Yours, comely mistress!" exclaimed Nicholas, opening his eyes, and

unheeding the gay rebuke--"why, this is a master-hand. My Lord

Scales--nay, the Earl of Worcester himself--hath scarce a finer in all

his amassment."

"Well, I forgive thy fault for thy flattery; and I pray thee, in my

father's name, to stay and sup with thy friend." Nicholas bowed low,

and still riveted his eyes on the book with such open admiration, that

Marmaduke thought it right to excuse his abstraction; but there was

something in that admiration which raised the spirits of Sibyll, which

gave her hope when hope was well-nigh gone; and she became so

vivacious, so debonair, so charming, in the flow of a gayety natural

to her, and very uncommon with English maidens, but which she took

partly, perhaps, from her French blood, and partly from the example of

girls and maidens of French extraction in Margaret's court, that

Nicholas Alwyn thought he had never seen any one so irresistible.

Madge had now served the evening meal, put in her head to announce it,

and Sibyll withdrew to summon her father.

"I trust he will not tarry too long, for I am sharp set!" muttered

Marmaduke. "What thinkest thou of the damozel?" "Marry," answered

Alwyn, thoughtfully, "I pity and marvel at her. There is eno' in her

to furnish forth twenty court beauties. But what good can so much wit

and cunning do to an honest maiden?"

"That is exactly my own thought," said Marmaduke; and both the young

men sunk into silence, till Sibyll re-entered with her father.

To the surprise of Marmaduke, Nicholas Alwyn, whose less gallant

manner he was inclined to ridicule, soon contrived to rouse their host

from his lethargy, and to absorb all the notice of Sibyll; and the

surprise was increased, when he saw that his friend appeared not

unfamiliar with those abstruse and mystical sciences in which Adam was

engaged.

"What!" said Adam, "you know, then, my deft and worthy friend Master

Caxton! He hath seen notable things abroad--"

"Which, he more than hints," said Nicholas, "will lower the value of

those manuscripts this fair damozel has so couthly enriched; and that

he hopes, ere long, to show the Englishers how to make fifty, a

hundred,--nay even five hundred exemplars of the choicest book, in a

much shorter time than a scribe would take in writing out two or three

score pages in a single copy."

"Verily," said Marmaduke, with a smile of compassion, "the poor man

must be somewhat demented; for I opine that the value of such

curiosities must be in their rarity; and who would care for a book, if

five hundred others had precisely the same?--allowing always, good

Nicholas, for thy friend's vaunting and over-crowing. Five hundred!

By'r Lady, there would be scarcely five hundred fools in merry England

to waste good nobles on spoilt rags, specially while bows and mail are

so dear."

"Young gentleman," said Adam, rebukingly, "meseemeth that thou

wrongest our age and country, to the which, if we have but peace and

freedom, I trust the birth of great discoveries is ordained. Certes,

Master Alwyn," he added, turning to the goldsmith, "this achievement

maybe readily performed, and hath existed, I heard an ingenious

Fleming say years ago, for many ages amongst a strange people [Query,

the Chinese?] known to the Venetians! But dost thou think there is

much appetite among those who govern the State to lend encouragement

to such matters?"

"My master serves my Lord Hastings, the king's chamberlain, and my

lord has often been pleased to converse with me, so that I venture to

say, from my knowledge of his affection to all excellent craft and

lere, that whatever will tend to make men wiser will have his

countenance and favour with the king."

"That is it, that is it!" exclaimed Adam, rubbing his hands. "My

invention shall not die!"

"And that invention--"

"Is one that will multiply exemplars of books without hands; works of

craft without 'prentice or journeyman; will move wagons and litters

without horses; will direct ships without sails; will--But, alack! it

is not yet complete, and, for want of means, it never may be."

Sibyll still kept her animated countenance fixed on Alwyn, whose

intelligence she had already detected, and was charmed with the

profound attention with which he listened. But her eye glancing from

his sharp features to the handsome, honest face of the Nevile, the

contrast was so forcible, that she could not restrain her laughter,

though, the moment after, a keen pang shot through her heart. The

worthy Marmaduke had been in the act of conveying his cup to his lips;

the cup stood arrested midway, his jaws dropped, his eyes opened to

their widest extent, an expression of the most evident consternation

and dismay spoke in every feature; and when he heard the merry laugh

of Sibyll, he pushed his stool from her as far as he well could, and

surveyed her with a look of mingled fear and pity.

"Alas! thou art sure my poor father is a wizard now?"

"Pardie!" answered the Nevile. "Hath he not said so? Hath he not

spoken of wagons without horses, ships without sails? And is not all

this what every dissour and jongleur tells us of in his stories of

Merlin? Gentle maiden," he added earnestly, drawing nearer to her,

and whispering in a voice of much simple pathos, "thou art young, and

I owe thee much. Take care of thyself. Such wonders and derring-do

are too solemn for laughter."

"Ah," answered Sibyll, rising, "I fear they are. How can I expect the

people to be wiser than thou, or their hard natures kinder in their

judgment than thy kind heart?" Her low and melancholy voice went to

the heart thus appealed to. Marmaduke also rose, and followed her

into the parlour, or withdrawing-closet, while Adam and the goldsmith

continued to converse (though Alwyn's eye followed the young hostess),

the former appearing perfectly unconscious of the secession of his

other listeners. But Alwyn's attention occasionally wandered, and he

soon contrived to draw his host into the parlour.

When Nicholas rose, at last, to depart, he beckoned Sibyll aside.

"Fair mistress," said he, with some awkward hesitation, "forgive a

plain, blunt tongue; but ye of the better birth are not always above

aid, even from such as I am. If you would sell these blazoned

manuscripts, I can not only obtain you a noble purchaser in my Lord

Scales, or in my Lord Hastings, an equally ripe scholar, but it may be

the means of my procuring a suitable patron for your father; and, in

these times, the scholar must creep under the knight's manteline."

"Master Alwyn," said Sibyll, suppressing her tears, "it was for my

father's sake that these labours were wrought. We are poor and

friendless. Take the manuscripts, and sell them as thou wilt, and God

and Saint Mary requite thee!"

"Your father is a great man," said Alwyn, after a pause.

"But were he to walk the streets, they would stone him," replied

Sibyll, with a quiet bitterness.

Here the Nevile, carefully shunning the magician, who, in the nervous

excitement produced by the conversation of a mind less uncongenial

than he had encountered for many years, seemed about to address him--

here, I say, the Nevile chimed in, "Hast thou no weapon but thy

bludgeon? Dear foster-brother, I fear for thy safety."

"Nay, robbers rarely attack us mechanical folk; and I know my way

better than thou. I shall find a boat near York House; so pleasant

night and quick cure to thee, honoured foster-brother. I will send

the tailor and other craftsmen to-morrow."

"And at the same time," whispered Marmaduke, accompanying his friend

to the door, "send me a breviary, just to patter an ave or so. This

gray-haired carle puts my heart in a tremble. Moreover, buy me a

gittern--a brave one--for the damozel. She is too proud to take

money, and, 'fore Heaven, I have small doubts the old wizard could

turn my hose into nobles an' he had a mind for such gear. Wagons

without horses, ships without sails, quotha!"

As soon as Alwyn had departed, Madge appeared with the final

refreshment, called "the Wines," consisting of spiced hippocras and

confections, of the former of which the Nevile partook in solemn

silence.

CHAPTER VII.

THERE IS A ROD FOR THE BACK OF EVERY FOOL WHO WOULD BE WISER THAN HIS

GENERATION.

The next morning, when Marmaduke descended to the hall, Madge,

accosting him on the threshold, informed him that Mistress Sibyll was

unwell, and kept her chamber, and that Master Warner was never visible

much before noon. He was, therefore, prayed to take his meal alone.

"Alone" was a word peculiarly unwelcome to Marmaduke Nevile, who was

an animal thoroughly social and gregarious. He managed, therefore, to

detain the old servant, who, besides the liking a skilful leech

naturally takes to a thriving patient, had enough of her sex about her

to be pleased with a comely face and a frank, good-humoured voice.

Moreover, Marmaduke, wishing to satisfy his curiosity, turned the

conversation upon Warner and Sibyll, a theme upon which the old woman

was well disposed to be garrulous. He soon learned the poverty of the

mansion and the sacrifice of the gittern; and his generosity and

compassion were busily engaged in devising some means to requite the

hospitality he had received, without wounding the pride of his host,

when the arrival of his mails, together with the visits of the tailor

and mercer, sent to him by Alwyn, diverted his thoughts into a new

channel.

Between the comparative merits of gowns and surcoats, broad-toed shoes

and pointed, some time was disposed of with much cheerfulness and

edification; but when his visitors had retired, the benevolent mind of

the young guest again recurred to the penury of his host. Placing his

marks before him on the table in the little withdrawing parlour, he

began counting them over, and putting aside the sum he meditated

devoting to Warner's relief. "But how," he muttered, "how to get him

to take the gold. I know, by myself, what a gentleman and a knight's

son must feel at the proffer of alms--pardie! I would as lief Alwyn

had struck me as offered me his gipsire,--the ill-mannered,

affectionate fellow! I must think--I must think--"

And while still thinking, the door softly opened, and Warner himself,

in a high state of abstraction and revery, stalked noiselessly into

the room, on his way to the garden, in which, when musing over some

new spring for his invention, he was wont to peripatize. The sight of

the gold on the table struck full on the philosopher's eyes, and waked

him at once from his revery. That gold--oh, what precious

instruments, what learned manuscripts it could purchase! That gold,

it was the breath of life to his model! He walked deliberately up to

the table, and laid his hand upon one of the little heaps. Marmaduke

drew back his stool, and stared at him with open mouth.

"Young man, what wantest thou with all this gold?" said Adam, in a

petulant, reproachful tone. "Put it up! put it up! Never let the

poor see gold; it tempts them, sir,--it tempts them." And so saying,

the student abruptly turned away his eyes, and moved towards the

garden. Marmaduke rose and put himself in Adam's way. "Honoured

sir," said the young man, "you say justly what want I with all this

gold? The only gold a young man should covet is eno' to suffice for

the knight's spurs to his heels. If, without offence, you would--that

is--ahem!--I mean,--Gramercy! I shall never say it, but I believe my

father owed your father four marks, and he bade me repay them. Here,

sir!" He held out the glittering coins; the philosopher's hand closed

on them as the fish's maw closes on the bait. Adam burst into a

laugh, that sounded strangely weird and unearthly upon Marmaduke's

startled ear.

"All this for me!" he exclaimed. "For me! No, no, no! for me, for

IT--I take it--I take it, sir! I will pay it back with large usury.

Come to me this day year, when this world will be a new world, and

Adam Warner will be--ha! ha! Kind Heaven, I thank thee!" Suddenly

turning away, the philosopher strode through the hall, opened the

front door, and escaped into the street.

"By'r Lady," said Marmaduke, slowly recovering his surprise, "I need

not have been so much at a loss; the old gentleman takes to my gold as

kindly as if it were mother's milk. 'Fore Heaven, mine host's laugh

is a ghastly thing!" So soliloquizing, he prudently put up the rest

of his money, and locked his mails.

As time went on, the young man became exceedingly weary of his own

company. Sibyll still withheld her appearance; the gloom of the old

hall, the uncultivated sadness of the lonely garden, preyed upon his

spirits. At length, impatient to get a view of the world without, he

mounted a high stool in the hall, and so contrived to enjoy the

prospect which the unglazed wicker lattice, deep set in the wall,

afforded. But the scene without was little more animated than that

within,--all was so deserted in the neighbourhood,--the shops mean and

scattered, the thoroughfare almost desolate. At last he heard a

shout, or rather hoot, at a distance; and, turning his attention

whence it proceeded, he beheld a figure emerge from an alley opposite

the casement, with a sack under one arm, and several books heaped

under the other. At his heels followed a train of ragged boys,

shouting and hallooing, "The wizard! the wizard!--Ah! Bah! The old

devil's kin!" At this cry the dull neighbourhood seemed suddenly to

burst forth into life. From the casements and thresholds of every

house curious faces emerged, and many voices of men and women joined,

in deeper bass, with the shrill tenor of the choral urchins, "The

wizard! the wizard! out at daylight!" The person thus stigmatized, as

he approached the house, turned his face with an expression of wistful

perplexity from side to side. His lips moved convulsively, and his

face was very pale, but he spoke not. And now, the children, seeing

him near his refuge, became more outrageous. They placed themselves

menacingly before him, they pulled his robe, they even struck at him;

and one, bolder than the rest, jumped up, and plucked his beard. At

this last insult, Adam Warner, for it was he, broke silence; but such

was the sweetness of his disposition, that it was rather with pity

than reproof in his voice, that he said,--

"Fie, little one! I fear me thine own age will have small honour if

thou thus mockest mature years in me."

This gentleness only served to increase the audacity of his

persecutors, who now, momently augmenting, presented a formidable

obstacle to further progress. Perceiving that he could not advance

without offensive measures on his own part, the poor scholar halted;

and looking at the crowd with mild dignity, he asked, "What means

this, my children? How have I injured you?"

"The wizard! the wizard!" was the only answer he received. Adam

shrugged his shoulders, and strode on with so sudden a step, that one

of the smaller children, a curly-headed laughing rogue, of about eight

years old, was thrown down at his feet, and the rest gave way. But

the poor man, seeing one of his foes thus fallen, instead of pursuing

his victory, again paused, and forgetful of the precious burdens he

carried, let drop the sack and books, and took up the child in his

arms. On seeing their companion in the embrace of the wizard, a

simultaneous cry of horror broke from the assemblage, "He is going to

curse poor Tim!"

"My child! my boy!" shrieked a woman, from one of the casements; "let

go my child!"

On his part, the boy kicked and shrieked lustily, as Adam, bending his

noble face tenderly over him, said, "Thou art not hurt, child. Poor

boy! thinkest thou I would harm thee?" While he spoke a storm of

missiles--mud, dirt, sticks, bricks, stones--from the enemy, that

had now fallen back in the rear, burst upon him. A stone struck him

on the shoulder. Then his face changed; an angry gleam shot from his

deep, calm eyes; he put down the child, and, turning steadily to the

grown people at the windows, said, "Ye train your children ill;"

picked up his sack and books, sighed, as he saw the latter stained by

the mire, which he wiped with his long sleeve, and too proud to show

fear, slowly made for his door. Fortunately Sibyll had heard the

clamour, and was ready to admit her father, and close the door upon

the rush which instantaneously followed his escape. The baffled rout

set up a yell of wrath, and the boys were now joined by several foes

more formidable from the adjacent houses; assured in their own minds

that some terrible execration had been pronounced upon the limbs and

body of Master Tim, who still continued bellowing and howling,

probably from the excitement of finding himself raised to the dignity

of a martyr, the pious neighbours poured forth, with oaths and curses,

and such weapons as they could seize in haste, to storm the wizard's

fortress.

From his casement Marmaduke Nevile had espied all that had hitherto

passed, and though indignant at the brutality of the persecutors, he

had thought it by no means unnatural. "If men, gentlemen born, will

read uncanny books, and resolve to be wizards, why, they must reap

what they sow," was the logical reflection that passed through the

mind of that ingenuous youth; but when he now perceived the arrival of

more important allies, when stones began to fly through the wicker

lattice, when threats of setting fire to the house and burning the

sorcerer who muttered spells over innocent little boys were heard,

seriously increasing in depth and loudness, Marmaduke felt his

chivalry called forth, and with some difficulty opening the rusty

wicket in the casement, he exclaimed: "Shame on you, my countrymen,

for thus disturbing in broad day a peaceful habitation! Ye call mine

host a wizard. Thus much say I on his behalf: I was robbed and

wounded a few nights since in your neighbourhood, and in this house

alone I found shelter and healing."

The unexpected sight of the fair young face of Marmaduke Nevile, and

the healthful sound of his clear ringing voice, produced a momentary

effect on the besiegers, when one of them, a sturdy baker, cried out,

"Heed him not,--he is a goblin. Those devil-mongers can bake ye a

dozen such every moment, as deftly as I can draw loaves from the

oven!"

This speech turned the tide, and at that instant a savage-looking man,

the father of the aggrieved boy, followed by his wife, gesticulating

and weeping, ran from his house, waving a torch in his right hand, his

arm bare to the shoulder; and the cry of "Fire the door!" was

universal.

In fact, the danger now grew imminent: several of the party were

already piling straw and fagots against the threshold, and Marmaduke

began to think the only chance of life to his host and Sibyll was in

flight by some back way, when he beheld a man, clad somewhat in the

fashion of a country yeoman, a formidable knotted club in his hand,

pushing his way, with Herculean shoulders, through the crowd; and

stationing himself before the threshold and brandishing aloft his

formidable weapon, he exclaimed, "What! In the devil's name, do you

mean to get yourselves all hanged for riot? Do you think that King

Edward is as soft a man as King Henry was, and that he will suffer any

one but himself to set fire to people's houses in this way? I dare

say you are all right enough in the main, but by the blood of Saint

Thomas, I will brain the first man who advances a step,--by way of

preserving the necks of the rest!"

"A Robin! a Robin!" cried several of the mob. "It is our good friend

Robin. Harken to Robin. He is always right."

"Ay, that I am!" quoth the defender; "you know that well enough. If I

had my way, the world should be turned upside down, but what the poor

folk should get nearer to the sun! But what I say is this, never go

against law, while the law is too strong. And it were a sad thing to

see fifty fine fellows trussed up for burning an old wizard. So, be

off with you, and let us, at least all that can afford it, make for

Master Sancroft's hostelrie and talk soberly over our ale. For

little, I trow, will ye work now your blood's up."

This address was received with a shout of approbation. The father of

the injured child set his broad foot on his torch, the baker chucked

up his white cap, the ragged boys yelled out, "A Robin! a Robin!" and

in less than two minutes the place was as empty as it had been before

the appearance of the scholar. Marmaduke, who, though so ignorant of

books, was acute and penetrating in all matters of action, could not

help admiring the address and dexterity of the club-bearer; and the

danger being now over, withdrew from the casement, in search of the

inmates of the house. Ascending the stairs, he found on the landing-

place, near his room, and by the embrasure of a huge casement which

jutted from the wall, Adam and his daughter. Adam was leaning against

the wall, with his arms folded, and Sibyll, hanging upon him, was

uttering the softest and most soothing words of comfort her tenderness

could suggest.

"My child," said the old man, shaking his head sadly, "I shall never

again have heart for these studies,--never! A king's anger I could

brave, a priest's malice I could pity; but to find the very children,

the young race for whose sake I have made thee and myself paupers, to

find them thus--thus--" He stopped, for his voice failed him, and the

tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Come and speak comfort to my father, Master Nevile," exclaimed

Sibyll; "come and tell him that whoever is above the herd, whether

knight or scholar, must learn to despise the hootings that follow

Merit. Father, Father, they threw mud and stones at thy king as he

passed through the streets of London. Thou art not the only one whom

this base world misjudges."

"Worthy mine host!" said Marmaduke, thus appealed to, "Algates, it

were not speaking truth to tell thee that I think a gentleman of birth

and quality should walk the thoroughfares with a bundle of books under

his arm; yet as for the raptril vulgar, the hildings and cullions who

hiss one day what they applaud the next, I hold it the duty of every

Christian and well-born man to regard them as the dirt on the

crossings. Brave soldiers term it no disgrace to receive a blow from

a base hind. An' it had been knights and gentles who had insulted

thee, thou mightest have cause for shame. But a mob of lewd

rascallions and squalling infants--bah! verily, it is mere matter for

scorn and laughter."

These philosophical propositions and distinctions did not seem to have

their due effect upon Adam. He smiled, however, gently upon his

guest, and with a blush over his pale face, said, "I am rightly

chastised, good young man; mean was I, methinks, and sordid to take

from thee thy good gold. But thou knowest not what fever burns in the

brain of a man who feels that, had he wealth, his knowledge could do

great things,--such things!--I thought to repay thee well. Now the

frenzy is gone, and I, who an hour ago esteemed myself a puissant

sage, sink in mine own conceit to a miserable blinded fool. Child, I

am very weak; I will lay me down and rest."

So saying, the poor philosopher went his way to his chamber, leaning

on his daughter's arm.

In a few minutes Sibyll rejoined Marmaduke, who had returned to the

hall, and informed him that her father had lain down a while to

compose himself.

"It is a hard fate, sir," said the girl, with a faint smile,--"a hard

fate, to be banned and accursed by the world, only because one has

sought to be wiser than the world is."

"Douce maiden," returned the Nevile, "it is happy for thee that thy

sex forbids thee to follow thy father's footsteps, or I should say his

hard fate were thy fair warning."

Sibyll smiled faintly, and after a pause, said, with a deep blush,--

"You have been generous to my father; do not misjudge him. He would

give his last groat to a starving beggar. But when his passion of

scholar and inventor masters him, thou mightest think him worse than

miser. It is an overnoble yearning that ofttimes makes him mean."

"Nay," answered Marmaduke, touched by the heavy sigh and swimming eyes

with which the last words were spoken; "I have heard Nick Alwyn's

uncle, who was a learned monk, declare that he could not constrain

himself to pray to be delivered from temptation, seeing that he might

thereby lose an occasion for filching some notable book! For the

rest," he added, "you forget how much I owe to Master Warner's

hospitality."

He took her hand with a frank and brotherly gallantry as he spoke; but

the touch of that small, soft hand, freely and innocently resigned to

him, sent a thrill to his heart--and again the face of Sibyll seemed

to him wondrous fair.

There was a long silence, which Sibyll was the first to break. She

turned the conversation once more upon Marmaduke's views in life. It

had been easy for a deeper observer than he was to see that, under all

that young girl's simplicity and sweetness, there lurked something of

dangerous ambition. She loved to recall the court-life her childhood

had known, though her youth had resigned it with apparent

cheerfulness. Like many who are poor and fallen, Sibyll built herself

a sad consolation out of her pride; she never forgot that she was

well-born. But Marmaduke, in what was ambition, saw but interest in

himself, and his heart beat more quickly as he bent his eyes upon that

downcast, thoughtful, earnest countenance.

After an hour thus passed, Sibyll left the guest, and remounted to her

father's chamber. She found Adam pacing the narrow floor, and

muttering to himself. He turned abruptly as she entered, and said,

"Come hither, child; I took four marks from that young man, for I

wanted books and instruments, and there are two left; see, take them

back to him."

"My father, he will not receive them. Fear not, thou shalt repay him

some day."

"Take them, I say, and if the young man says thee nay, why, buy

thyself gauds and gear, or let us eat, and drink, and laugh. What

else is life made for? Ha, ha! Laugh, child, laugh!"

There was something strangely pathetic in this outburst, this terrible

mirth, born of profound dejection. Alas for this guileless, simple

creature, who had clutched at gold with a huckster's eagerness! who,

forgetting the wants of his own child, had employed it upon the

service of an Abstract Thought, and whom the scorn of his kind now

pierced through all the folds of his close-webbed philosophy and self

forgetful genius. Awful is the duel between MAN and THE AGE in which

he lives! For the gain of posterity, Adam Warner had martyrized

existence,--and the children pelted him as he passed the streets!

Sibyll burst into tears.

"No, my father, no," she sobbed, pushing back the money into his

hands. "Let us both starve rather than you should despond. God and

man will bring you justice yet."

"Ah," said the baffled enthusiast, "my whole mind is one sore now! I

feel as if I could love man no more. Go, and leave me. Go, I say!"

and the poor student, usually so mild and gall-less, stamped his foot

in impotent rage. Sibyll, weeping as if her heart would break, left

him.

Then Adam Warner again paced to and fro restlessly, and again muttered

to himself for several minutes. At last he approached his Model,--the

model of a mighty and stupendous invention, the fruit of no chimerical

and visionary science; a great Promethean THING, that, once matured,

would divide the Old World from the New, enter into all operations of

Labour, animate all the future affairs, colour all the practical

doctrines of active men. He paused before it, and addressed it as if

it heard and understood him: "My hair was dark, and my tread was firm,

when, one night, a THOUGHT passed into my soul,--a thought to make

Matter the gigantic slave of Mind. Out of this thought, thou, not yet

born after five-and-twenty years of travail, wert conceived. My

coffers were then full, and my name was honoured; and the rich

respected and the poor loved me. Art thou a devil, that has tempted

me to ruin, or a god, that has lifted me above the earth? I am old

before my time, my hair is blanched, my frame is bowed, my wealth is

gone, my name is sullied. And all, dumb idol of Iron and the Element,

all for thee! I had a wife whom I adored; she died,--I forgot her

loss in the hope of thy life. I have a child still--God and our Lady

forgive me! she is less dear to me than thou hast been. And now"--the

old man ceased abruptly, and folding his arms, looked at the deaf iron

sternly, as on a human foe. By his side was a huge hammer, employed

in the toils of his forge; suddenly he seized and swung it aloft. One

blow, and the labour of years was shattered into pieces! One blow!--

But the heart failed him, and the hammer fell heavily to the ground.

"Ay!" he muttered, "true, true! if thou, who hast destroyed all else,

wert destroyed too, what were left me? Is it a crime to murder Alan?

--a greater crime to murder Thought, which is the life of all men!

Come, I forgive thee!"

And all that day and all that night the Enthusiast laboured in his

chamber, and the next day the remembrance of the hooting, the pelting,

the mob, was gone,--clean gone from his breast. The Model began to

move, life hovered over its wheels; and the Martyr of Science had

forgotten the very world for which he, groaning and rejoicing, toiled!

CHAPTER VIII.

MASTER MARMADUKE NEVILE MAKES LOVE, AND IS FRIGHTENED.

For two or three days Marmaduke and Sibyll were necessarily brought

much together. Such familiarity of intercourse was peculiarly rare in

that time, when, except perhaps in the dissolute court of Edward IV.,

the virgins of gentle birth mixed sparingly, and with great reserve,

amongst those of opposite sex. Marmaduke, rapidly recovering from the

effect of his wounds, and without other resource than Sibyll's society

in the solitude of his confinement, was not proof against the

temptation which one so young and so sweetly winning brought to his

fancy or his senses. The poor Sibyll--she was no faultless paragon,--

she was a rare and singular mixture of many opposite qualities in

heart and in intellect! She was one moment infantine in simplicity

and gay playfulness; the next a shade passed over her bright face, and

she uttered some sentence of that bitter and chilling wisdom, which

the sense of persecution, the cruelty of the world, had already taught

her. She was, indeed, at that age when the Child and the Woman are

struggling against each other. Her character was not yet formed,--a

little happiness would have ripened it at once into the richest bloom

of goodness. But sorrow, that ever sharpens the intellect, might only

serve to sour the heart. Her mind was so innately chaste and pure,

that she knew not the nature of the admiration she excited; but the

admiration pleased her as it pleases some young child; she was vain

then, but it was an infant's vanity, not a woman's. And thus, from

innocence itself, there was a fearlessness, a freedom, a something

endearing and familiar in her manner, which might have turned a wiser

head than Marmaduke Nevile's. And this the more, because, while

liking her young guest, confiding in him, raised in her own esteem by

his gallantry, enjoying that intercourse of youth with youth so

unfamiliar to her, and surrendering herself the more to its charm from

the joy that animated her spirits, in seeing that her father had

forgotten his humiliation, and returned to his wonted labours,--she

yet knew not for the handsome Nevile one sentiment that approached to

love. Her mind was so superior to his own, that she felt almost as if

older in years, and in their talk her rosy lips preached to him in

grave advice.

On the landing, by Marmaduke's chamber, there was a large oriel

casement jutting from the wall. It was only glazed at the upper part,

and that most imperfectly, the lower part being closed at night or in

inclement weather with rude shutters. The recess formed by this

comfortless casement answered, therefore, the purpose of a balcony; it

commanded a full view of the vicinity without, and gave to those who

might be passing by the power also of indulging their own curiosity by

a view of the interior.

Whenever he lost sight of Sibyll, and had grown weary of the peacock,

this spot was Marmaduke's favourite haunt. It diverted him, poor

youth, to look out of the window upon the livelier world beyond. The

place, it is true, was ordinarily deserted, but still the spires and

turrets of London were always discernible,--and they were something.

Accordingly, in this embrasure stood Marmaduke, when one morning,

Sibyll, coming from her father's room, joined him.

"And what, Master Nevile," said Sibyll, with a malicious yet charming

smile, "what claimed thy meditations? Some misgiving as to the

trimming of thy tunic, or the length of thy shoon?"

"Nay," returned Marmaduke, gravely, "such thoughts, though not without

their importance in the mind of a gentleman, who would not that his

ignorance of court delicacies should commit him to the japes of his

equals, were not at that moment uppermost. I was thinking--"

"Of those mastiffs, quarrelling for a bone. Avow it."

"By our Lady, I saw them not, but now I look, they are brave dogs.

Ha! seest thou how gallantly each fronts the other, the hair

bristling, the eyes fixed, the tail on end, the fangs glistening? Now

the lesser one moves slowly round and round the bigger, who, mind you,

Mistress Sibyll, is no dullard, but moves, too, quick as thought, not

to be taken unawares. Ha! that is a brave spring! Heigh, dogs,

Neigh! a good sight!--it makes the blood warm! The little one hath

him by the throat!"

"Alack," said Sibyll, turning away her eyes, "can you find pleasure in

seeing two poor brutes mangle each other for a bone?"

"By Saint Dunstan! doth it matter what may be the cause of quarrel, so

long as dog or man bears himself bravely, with a due sense of honour

and derring-do? See! the big one is up again. Ah, foul fall the

butcher, who drives them away! Those seely mechanics know not the

joyaunce of fair fighting to gentle and to hound. For a hound, mark

you, hath nothing mechanical in his nature. He is a gentleman all

over,--brave against equal and stranger, forbearing to the small and

defenceless, true in poverty and need where he loveth, stern and

ruthless where he hateth, and despising thieves, hildings, and the

vulgar as much as e'er a gold spur in King Edward's court! Oh,

certes, your best gentleman is the best hound!"

"You moralize to-day; and I know not how to gainsay you," returned

Sibyll, as the dogs, reluctantly beaten off, retired each from each,

snarling and reluctant, while a small black cur, that had hitherto sat

unobserved at the door of a small hostelrie, now coolly approached and

dragged off the bone of contention. "But what sayst thou now? See!

see! the patient mongrel carries off the bone from the gentleman-

hounds. Is that the way of the world?"

"Pardie! it is a naught world, if so, and much changed from the time

of our fathers, the Normans. But these Saxons are getting uppermost

again, and the yard measure, I fear me, is more potent in these

holiday times than the mace or the battle-axe." The Nevile paused,

sighed, and changed the subject: "This house of thine must have been a

stately pile in its day. I see but one side of the quadrangle is

left, though it be easy to trace where the other three have stood."

"And you may see their stones and their fittings in the butcher's and

baker's stalls over the way," replied Sibyll.

"Ay!" said the Nevile, "the parings of the gentry begin to be the

wealth of the varlets."

"Little ought we to pine at that," returned Sibyll, "if the varlets

were but gentle with our poverty; but they loathe the humbled fortunes

on which they rise, and while slaves to the rich, are tyrants to the

poor."

This was said so sadly, that the Nevile felt his eyes overflow; and

the humble dress of the girl, the melancholy ridges which evinced the

site of a noble house, now shrunk into a dismal ruin, the remembrance

of the pastime-ground, the insults of the crowd, and the broken

gittern, all conspired to move his compassion, and to give force to

yet more tender emotions.

"Ah," he said suddenly, and with a quick faint blush over his handsome

and manly countenance,--"ah, fair maid--fair Sibyll--God grant that I

may win something of gold and fortune amidst yonder towers, on which

the sun shines so cheerly. God grant it, not for my sake,--not for

mine; but that I may have something besides a true heart and a

stainless name to lay at thy feet. Oh, Sibyll! By this hand, by my

father's soul, I love thee, Sibyll! Have I not said it before? Well,

hear me now,--I love thee!"

As he spoke, he clasped her hand in his own, and she suffered it for

one instant to rest in his. Then withdrawing it, and meeting his

enamoured eyes with a strange sadness in her own darker, deeper, and

more intelligent orbs, she said,--

"I thank thee,--thank thee for the honour of such kind thoughts; and

frankly I answer, as thou hast frankly spoken. It was sweet to me,

who have known little in life not hard and bitter,--sweet to wish I

had a brother like thee, and, as a brother, I can love and pray for

thee. But ask not more, Marmaduke. I have aims in life which forbid

all other love."

"Art thou too aspiring for one who has his spurs to win?"

"Not so; but listen. My mother's lessons and my own heart have made

my poor father the first end and object of all things on earth to me.

I live to protect him, work for him, honour him; and for the rest, I

have thoughts thou canst not know, an ambition thou canst not feel.

Nay," she added, with that delightful smile which chased away the

graver thought which had before saddened her aspect, "what would thy

sober friend Master Alwyn say to thee, if he heard thou hadst courted

the wizard's daughter?"

"By my faith," exclaimed Marmaduke, "thou art a very April,--smiles

and clouds in a breath! If what thou despisest in me be my want of

bookcraft, and such like, by my halidame I will turn scholar for thy

sake; and--"

Here, as he had again taken Sibyll's hand, with the passionate ardour

of his bold nature, not to be lightly daunted by a maiden's first

"No," a sudden shrill, wild burst of laughter, accompanied with a

gusty fit of unmelodious music from the street below, made both maiden

and youth start, and turn their eyes; there, weaving their immodest

dance, tawdry in their tinsel attire, their naked arms glancing above

their heads, as they waved on high their instruments, went the

timbrel-girls.

"Ha, ha!" cried their leader, "see the gallant and the witch-leman!

The glamour has done its work! Foul is fair! foul is fair! and the

devil will have his own!"

But these creatures, whose bold license the ancient chronicler

records, were rarely seen alone. They haunted parties of pomp and

pleasure; they linked together the extremes of life,--the grotesque

Chorus that introduced the terrible truth of foul vice and abandoned

wretchedness in the midst of the world's holiday and pageant. So now,

as they wheeled into the silent, squalid street, they heralded a

goodly company of dames and cavaliers on horseback, who were passing

through the neighbouring plains into the park of Marybone to enjoy the

sport of falconry. The splendid dresses of this procession, and the

grave and measured dignity with which it swept along, contrasted

forcibly with the wild movements and disorderly mirth of the timbrel-

players. These last darted round and round the riders, holding out

their instruments for largess, and retorting, with laugh and gibe, the

disdainful look or sharp rebuke with which their salutations were

mostly received.

Suddenly, as the company, two by two, paced up the street, Sibyll

uttered a faint exclamation, and strove to snatch her hand from the

Nevile's grasp. Her eye rested upon one of the horsemen, who rode

last, and who seemed in earnest conversation with a dame, who, though

scarcely in her first youth, excelled all her fair companions in

beauty of face and grace of horsemanship, as well as in the costly

equipments of the white barb that caracoled beneath her easy hand. At

the same moment the horseman looked up and gazed steadily at Sibyll,

whose countenance grew pale, and flushed, in a breath. His eye then

glanced rapidly at Marmaduke; a half-smile passed his pale, firm lips;

he slightly raised the plumed cap from his brow, inclined gravely to

Sibyll, and, turning once more to his companion, appeared to answer

some question she addressed to him as to the object of his salutation,

for her look, which was proud, keen, and lofty, was raised to Sibyll,

and then dropped somewhat disdainfully, as she listened to the words

addressed her by the cavalier.

The lynx eyes of the tymbesteres had seen the recognition; and their

leader, laying her bold hand on the embossed bridle of the horseman,

exclaimed, in a voice shrill and loud enough to be heard in the

balcony above, "Largess! noble lord, largess! for the sake of the lady

thou lovest best!"

The fair equestrian turned away her head at these words; the nobleman

watched her a moment, and dropped some coins into the timbrel.

"Ha, ha!" cried the tymbestere, pointing her long arm to Sibyll, and

springing towards the balcony,--

"The cushat would mate

Above her state,

And she flutters her wings round the falcon's beak;

But death to the dove

Is the falcon's love!

Oh, sharp is the kiss of the falcon's beak!"

Before this rude song was ended, Sibyll had vanished from the place;

the cavalcade had disappeared. The timbrel-players, without deigning

to notice Marmaduke, darted elsewhere to ply their discordant trade,

and the Nevile, crossing himself devoutly, muttered, "Jesu defend us!

Those she Will-o'-the-wisps are eno' to scare all the blood out of

one's body. What--a murrain on them!--do they portend, flitting round

and round, and skirting off, as if the devil's broomstick was behind

them! By the Mass! they have frighted away the damozel, and I am not

sorry for it. They have left me small heart for the part of Sir

Launval."

His meditations were broken off by the sudden sight of Nicholas Alwyn,

mounted on a small palfrey, and followed by a sturdy groom on

horseback, leading a steed handsomely caparisoned. In another moment,

Marmaduke had descended, opened the door, and drawn Alwyn into the

hall.

CHAPTER IX.

MASTER MARMADUKE NEVILE LEAVES THE WIZARD'S HOUSE FOR THE GREAT WORLD.

"Right glad am I," said Nicholas, "to see you so stout and hearty, for

I am the bearer of good news. Though I have been away, I have not

forgotten you; and it so chanced that I went yesterday to attend my

Lord of Warwick with some nowches [buckles and other ornaments] and

knackeries, that he takes out as gifts and exemplars of English work.

They were indifferently well wrought, specially a chevesail, of which

the--"

"Spare me the fashion of thy mechanicals, and come to the point,"

interrupted Marmaduke, impatiently.

"Pardon me, Master Nevile. I interrupt thee not when thou talkest of

bassinets and hauberks,--every cobbler to his last. But, as thou

sayest, to the point: the stout earl, while scanning my workmanship,

for in much the chevesail was mine, was pleased to speak graciously of

my skill with the bow, of which he had heard; and he then turned to

thyself, of whom my Lord Montagu had already made disparaging mention.

When I told the earl somewhat more about thy qualities and disposings,

and when I spoke of thy desire to serve him, and the letter of which

thou art the bearer, his black brows smoothed mighty graciously, and

he bade me tell thee to come to him this afternoon, and he would judge

of thee with his own eyes and ears. Wherefore I have ordered the

craftsman to have all thy gauds and gear ready at thine hostelrie, and

I have engaged thee henchmen and horses for thy fitting appearance.

Be quick: time and the great wait for no man. So take whatever thou

needest for present want from thy mails, and I will send a porter for

the rest ere sunset."

"But the gittern for the damozel?"

"I have provided that for thee, as is meet." And Nicholas, stepping

back, eased the groom of a case which contained a gittern, whose

workmanship and ornaments delighted the Nevile.

"It is of my lord the young Duke of Gloucester's own musical-vendor;

and the duke, though a lad yet, is a notable judge of all appertaining

to the gentle craft. [For Richard III.'s love of music, and patronage

of musicians and minstrels, see the discriminating character of that

prince in Sharon Turner's "History of England," vol. IV. p. 66.] So

despatch, and away!"

Marmaduke retired to his chamber, and Nicholas, after a moment spent

in silent thought, searched the room for the hand-bell, which then

made the mode of communication between the master and domestics. Not

finding this necessary luxury, he contrived at last to make Madge hear

his voice from her subterranean retreat; and on her arrival, sent her

in quest of Sibyll.

The answer he received was, that Mistress Sibyll was ill, and unable

to see him. Alwyn looked disconcerted at this intelligence, but,

drawing from his girdle a small gipsire, richly broidered, he prayed

Madge to deliver it to her young mistress, and inform her that it was

the fruit of the commission with which she had honoured him.

"It is passing strange," said he, pacing the hall alone,--"passing

strange, that the poor child should have taken such hold on me. After

all, she would be a bad wife for a plain man like me. Tush! that is

the trader's thought all over. Have I brought no fresher feeling out

of my fair village-green? Would it not be sweet to work for her, and

rise in life, with her by my side? And these girls of the city, so

prim and so brainless!--as well marry a painted puppet. Sibyll! Am I

dement? Stark wode? What have I to do with girls and marriage?

Humph! I marvel what Marmaduke still thinks of her,--and she of him."

While Alwyn thus soliloquized, the Nevile having hastily arranged his

dress, and laden himself with the moneys his mails contained, summoned

old Madge to receive his largess, and to conduct him to Warner's

chamber, in order to proffer his farewell.

With somewhat of a timid step he followed the old woman (who kept

muttering thanks and benedicites as she eyed the coin in her palm) up

the ragged stairs, and for the first time knocked at the door of the

student's sanctuary. No answer came. "Eh, sir! you must enter," said

Madge; "an' you fired a bombard under his ear he would not heed you."

So, suiting the action to the word, she threw open the door, and

closed it behind him, as Marmaduke entered.

The room was filled with smoke, through which mirky atmosphere the

clear red light of the burning charcoal peered out steadily like a

Cyclop's eye. A small, but heaving, regular, labouring, continuous

sound, as of a fairy hammer, smote the young man's ear. But as his

gaze, accustoming itself to the atmosphere, searched around, he could

not perceive what was its cause. Adam Warner was standing in the

middle of the room, his arms folded, and contemplating something at a

little distance, which Marmaduke could not accurately distinguish.

The youth took courage, and approached. "Honoured mine host," said

he, "I thank thee for hospitality and kindness, I crave pardon for

disturbing thee in thy incanta--ehem!--thy--thy studies, and I come to

bid thee farewell."

Adam turned round with a puzzled, absent air, as if scarcely

recognizing his guest; at length, as his recollection slowly came back

to him, he smiled graciously, and said: "Good youth, thou art richly

welcome to what little it was in my power to do for thee.

Peradventure a time may come when they who seek the roof of Adam

Warner may find less homely cheer, a less rugged habitation,--for look

you!" he exclaimed suddenly, with a burst of irrepressible enthusiasm

--and laying his hand on Nevile's arm, as, through all the smoke and

grime that obscured his face, flashed the ardent soul of the

triumphant Inventor,--"look you! since you have been in this house,

one of my great objects is well-nigh matured,--achieved. Come

hither," and he dragged the wondering Marmaduke to his model, or

Eureka, as Adam had fondly named his contrivance. The Nevile then

perceived that it was from the interior of this machine that the sound

which had startled him arose; to his eye the THING was uncouth and

hideous; from the jaws of an iron serpent, that, wreathing round it,

rose on high with erect crest, gushed a rapid volume of black smoke,

and a damp spray fell around. A column of iron in the centre kept in

perpetual and regular motion, rising and sinking successively, as the

whole mechanism within seemed alive with noise and action.

"The Syracusan asked an inch of earth, beyond the earth, to move the

earth," said Adam; "I stand in the world, and lo! with this engine the

world shall one day be moved."

"Holy Mother!" faltered Marmaduke; "I pray thee, dread sir, to ponder

well ere thou attemptest any such sports with the habitation in which

every woman's son is so concerned. Bethink thee, that if in moving

the world thou shouldst make any mistake, it would--"

"Now stand there and attend," interrupted Adam, who had not heard one

word of this judicious exhortation.

"Pardon me, terrible sir!" exclaimed Marmaduke, in great trepidation,

and retreating rapidly to the door; "but I have heard that the fiends

are mighty malignant to all lookers-on not initiated."

While he spoke, fast gushed the smoke, heavily heaved the fairy

hammers, up and down, down and up, sank or rose the column, with its

sullen sound. The young man's heart sank to the soles of his feet.

"Indeed and in truth," he stammered out, "I am but a dolt in these

matters; I wish thee all success compatible with the weal of a

Christian, and bid thee, in sad humility, good day:" and he added, in

a whisper--"the Lord's forgiveness! Amen!"

Marmaduke then fairly rushed through the open door, and hurried out of

the chamber as fast as possible.

He breathed more freely as he descended the stairs. "Before I would

call that gray carle my father, or his child my wife, may I feel all

the hammers of the elves and sprites he keeps tortured within that

ugly little prison-house playing a death's march on my body! Holy

Saint Dunstan, the timbrel-girls came in time! They say these wizards

always have fair daughters, and their love can be no blessing!"

As he thus muttered, the door of Sibyll's chamber opened, and she

stood before him at the threshold. Her countenance was very pale, and

bore evidence of weeping. There was a silence on both sides, which

the girl was the first to break.

"So, Madge tells me thou art about to leave us?"

"Yes, gentle maiden! I--I--that is, my Lord of Warwick has summoned

me. I wish and pray for all blessings on thee! and--and--if ever it

be mine to serve or aid thee, it will be--that is--verily, my tongue

falters, but my heart--that is--fare thee well, maiden! Would thou

hadst a less wise father; and so may the saints (Saint Anthony

especially, whom the Evil One was parlous afraid of) guard and keep

thee!"

With this strange and incoherent address, Marmaduke left the maiden

standing by the threshold of her miserable chamber. Hurrying into the

hall, he summoned Alwyn from his meditations, and, giving the gittern

to Madge, with an injunction to render it to her mistress, with his

greeting and service, he vaulted lightly on his steed; the steady and

more sober Alwyn mounted his palfrey with slow care and due caution.

As the air of spring waved the fair locks of the young cavalier, as

the good horse caracoled under his lithesome weight, his natural

temper of mind, hardy, healthful, joyous, and world-awake, returned to

him. The image of Sibyll and her strange father fled from his

thoughts like sickly dreams.