HASTINGS LEARNS WHAT HAS BEFALLEN SIBYLL, REPAIRS TO THE KING, AND
ENCOUNTERS AN OLD RIVAL.
"It is destiny," said Hastings to himself, when early the next morning
he was on his road to the farm--"it is destiny,--and who can resist
his fate?"
"It is destiny!"--phrase of the weak human heart! "It is destiny!"
dark apology for every error! The strong and the virtuous admit no
destiny! On earth guides conscience, in heaven watches God. And
destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one, to dethrone
the other!
Hastings spared not his good steed. With great difficulty had he
snatched a brief respite from imperious business, to accomplish the
last poor duty now left to him to fulfil,--to confront the maid whose
heart he had seduced in vain, and say at length, honestly and firmly,
"I cannot wed thee. Forget me, and farewell."
Doubtless his learned and ingenious mind conjured up softer words than
these, and more purfled periods wherein to dress the iron truth. But
in these two sentences the truth lay. He arrived at the farm, he
entered the house; he felt it as a reprieve that he met not the
bounding step of the welcoming Sibyll. He sat down in the humble
chamber, and waited a while in patience,--no voice was heard. The
silence at length surprised and alarmed him. He proceeded farther.
He was met by the widowed owner of the house, who was weeping; and her
first greeting prepared him for what had chanced. "Oh, my lord, you
have come to tell me they are safe, they have not fallen into the
hands of their enemies,--the good gentleman, so meek, the poor lady,
so fair!"
Hastings stood aghast; a few sentences more explained all that he
already guessed. A strange man had arrived the evening before at the
house, praying Adam and his daughter to accompany him to the Lord
Hastings, who had been thrown from his horse, and was now in a cottage
in the neighbouring lane,--not hurt dangerously, but unable to be
removed, and who had urgent matters to communicate. Not questioning
the truth of this story, Adam and Sibyll had hurried forth, and
returned no more. Alarmed by their long absence, the widow, who at
first received the message from the stranger, went herself to the
cottage, and found that the story was a fable. Every search had since
been made for Adam and his daughter, but in vain. The widow,
confirmed in her previous belief that her lodgers had been attainted
Lancastrians, could but suppose that they had been thus betrayed to
their enemies. Hastings heard this with a dismay and remorse
impossible to express. His only conjecture was that the king had
discovered their retreat, and taken this measure to break off the
intercourse he had so sternly denounced. Full of these ideas, he
hastily remounted, and stopped not till once more at the gates of the
Tower. Hastening to Edward's closet, the moment he saw the king, he
exclaimed, in great emotion, "My liege, my liege, do not at this hour,
when I have need of my whole energy to serve thee, do not madden my
brain, and palsy my arm. This old man--the poor maid--Sibyll--
Warner,--speak, my liege--only tell me they are safe; promise me they
shall go free, and I swear to obey thee in all else! I will thank
thee in the battlefield!"
"Thou art mad, Hastings!" said the king, in great astonishment.
"Hush!" and he glanced significantly at a person who stood before
several heaps of gold, ranged upon a table in the recess of the room.
"See," he whispered, "yonder is the goldsmith, who hath brought me a
loan from himself and his fellows! Pretty tales for the city thy
folly will send abroad!"
But before Hastings could vent his impatient answer, this person, to
Edward's still greater surprise, had advanced from his place, and
forgetting all ceremony, had seized Hastings by the hem of his
surcoat, exclaiming,--
"My lord, my lord, what new horror is this? Sibyll!--methought she
was worthless, and had fled to thee!"
"Ten thousand devils!" shouted the king, "am I ever to be tormented by
that damnable wizard and his witch child? And is it, Sir Peer and Sir
Goldsmith, in your king's closet that ye come, the very eve before he
marches to battle, to speer and glower at each other like two madmen
as ye are?"
Neither peer nor goldsmith gave way, till the courtier, naturally
recovering himself the first, fell on his knee; and said, with firm
though profound respect: "Sire, if poor William Hastings has ever
merited from the king one kindly thought, one generous word, forgive
now whatever may displease thee in his passion or his suit, and tell
him what prison contains those whom it would forever dishonour his
knighthood to know punished and endangered but for his offence."
"My lord," answered the king, softened but still surprised, "think you
seriously that I, who but reluctantly in this lovely month leave my
green lawns of Shene to save a crown, could have been vexing my brain
by stratagems to seize a lass, whom I swear by Saint George I do not
envy thee in the least? If that does not suffice, incredulous
dullard, why then take my kingly word, never before passed for so
slight an occasion, that I know nothing whatsoever of thy damsel's
whereabout nor her pestilent father's,--where they abode of late,
where they now be; and, what is more, if any man has usurped his
king's right to imprison the king's subjects, find him out, and name
his punishment. Art thou convinced?"
"I am, my liege," said Hastings.
"But--" began the goldsmith.
"Holloa, you, too, sir! This is too much! We have condescended to
answer the man who arms three thousand retainers--"
"And I, please your Highness, bring you the gold to pay them," said
the trader, bluntly.
The king bit his lip, and then burst into his usual merry laugh.
"Thou art in the right, Master Alwyn. Finish counting the pieces, and
then go and consult with my chamberlain,--he must off with the cock-
crow; but, since ye seem to understand each other, he shall make thee
his lieutenant of search, and I will sign any order he pleases for the
recovery of the lost wisdom and the stolen beauty. Go and calm
thyself, Hastings."
"I will attend you presently, my lord," said Alwyn, aside, "in your
own apartment."
"Do so," said Hastings; and, grateful for the king's consideration, he
sought his rooms. There, indeed, Alwyn soon joined him, and learned
from the nobleman what filled him at once with joy and terror.
Knowing that Warner and Sibyll had left the Tower, he had surmised
that the girl's virtue had at last succumbed; and it delighted him to
hear from Lord Hastings, whose word to men was never questionable, the
solemn assurance of her unstained chastity. But he trembled at this
mysterious disappearance, and knew not to whom to impute the snare,
till the penetration of Hastings suddenly alighted near, at least, to
the clew. "The Duchess of Bedford," said he, "ever increasing in
superstition as danger increases, may have desired to refind so great
a scholar and reputed an astrologer and magician; if so, all is safe.
On the other hand, her favourite, the friar, ever bore a jealous
grudge to poor Adam, and may have sought to abstract him from her
grace's search; here there may be molestation to Adam, but surely no
danger to Sibyll. Hark ye, Alwyn, thou lovest the maid more worthily,
and--" Hastings stopped short; for such is infirm human nature, that,
though he had mentally resigned Sibyll forever, he could not yet
calmly face the thought of resigning her to a rival. "Thou lovest
her," he renewed, more coldly, "and to thee, therefore, I may safely
trust the search which time and circumstance and a soldier's duty
forbid to me. And believe--oh, believe that I say not this from a
passion which may move thy jealousy, but rather with a brother's holy
love. If thou canst but see her safe, and lodged where no danger nor
wrong can find her, thou hast no friend in the wide world whose
service through life thou mayst command like mine."
"My lord," said Alwyn, dryly, "I want no friends! Young as I am, I
have lived long enough to see that friends follow fortune, but never
make it! I will find this poor maid and her honoured father, if I
spend my last groat on the search. Get me but such an order from the
king as may place the law at my control, and awe even her grace of
Bedford,--and I promise the rest!"
Hastings, much relieved, deigned to press the goldsmith's reluctant
hand; and, leaving him alone for a few minutes, returned with a
warrant from the king, which seemed to Alwyn sufficiently precise and
authoritative. The goldsmith then departed, and first he sought the
friar, but found him not at home. Bungey had taken with him, as was
his wont, the keys of his mysterious apartment. Alwyn then hastened
elsewhere, to secure those experienced in such a search, and to head
it in person. At the Tower, the evening was passed in bustle and
excitement,--the last preparations for departure. The queen, who was
then far advanced towards her confinement, was, as we before said, to
remain at the Tower, which was now strongly manned. Roused from her
wonted apathy by the imminent dangers that awaited Edward, the night
was passed by her in tears and prayers, by him in the sound sleep of
confident valour. The next morning departed for the North the several
leaders,--Gloucester, Rivers, Hastings, and the king.