“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.

BOOK II. THE KING’S COURT.

CHAPTER I. EARL WARWICK THE KING-MAKER.

The young men entered the Strand, which, thanks to the profits of a

toll-bar, was a passable road for equestrians, studded towards the

river, as we have before observed, with stately and half-fortified

mansions; while on the opposite side, here and there, were straggling

houses of a humbler kind,--the mediaeval villas of merchant and trader

(for, from the earliest period since the Conquest, the Londoners had

delight in such retreats), surrounded with blossoming orchards, [On

all sides, without the suburbs, are the citizens’ gardens and orchards,

etc.--FITZSTEPHEN.] and adorned in front with the fleur-de-lis, emblem

of the vain victories of renowned Agincourt. But by far the greater

portion of the road northward stretched, unbuilt upon, towards a

fair chain of fields and meadows, refreshed by many brooks, “turning

water-mills with a pleasant noise.” High rose, on the thoroughfare,

the famous Cross, at which “the Judges Itinerant whilome sate, without

London.” [Stowe.] There, hallowed and solitary, stood the inn for the

penitent pilgrims, who sought “the murmuring runnels” of St. Clement’s

healing well; for in this neighbourhood, even from the age of the Roman,

springs of crystal wave and salubrious virtue received the homage of

credulous disease. Through the gloomy arches of the Temple Gate and

Lud, our horsemen wound their way, and finally arrived in safety at

Marmaduke’s hostelrie in the East Chepe. Here Marmaduke found the

decorators of his comely person already assembled. The simpler yet more

manly fashions he had taken from the provinces were now exchanged for an

attire worthy the kinsman of the great minister of a court unparalleled,

since the reign of William the Red King, for extravagant gorgeousness of

dress. His corset was of the finest cloth, sown with seed pearls; above

it the lawn shirt, worn without collar, partially appeared, fringed

with gold; over this was loosely hung a super-tunic of crimson sarcenet,

slashed and pounced with a profusion of fringes. His velvet cap,

turned up at the sides, extended in a point far over the forehead. His

hose--under which appellation is to be understood what serves us of the

modern day both for stockings and pantaloons--were of white cloth; and

his shoes, very narrow, were curiously carved into chequer work at the

instep, and tied with bobbins of gold thread, turning up like skates

at the extremity, three inches in length. His dagger was suspended by a

slight silver-gilt chain, and his girdle contained a large gipsire, or

pouch, of embossed leather, richly gilt.

And this dress, marvellous as it seemed to the Nevile, the tailor

gravely assured him was far under the mark of the highest fashion,

and that an’ the noble youth had been a knight, the shoes would have

stretched at least three inches farther over the natural length of the

feet, the placard have shone with jewels, and the tunic luxuriated in

flowers of damacene. Even as it was, however, Marmaduke felt a natural

diffidence of his habiliments, which cost him a round third of his

whole capital; and no bride ever unveiled herself with more shamefaced

bashfulness than did Marmaduke Nevile experience when he remounted his

horse, and, taking leave of his foster-brother, bent his way to Warwick

Lane, where the earl lodged.

The narrow streets were, however, crowded with equestrians whose dress

eclipsed his own, some bending their way to the Tower, some to the

palaces of the Flete. Carriages there were none, and only twice he

encountered the huge litters, in which some aged prelate or some

high-born dame veiled greatness from the day. But the frequent vistas

to the river gave glimpses of the gay boats and barges that crowded the

Thames, which was then the principal thoroughfare for every class, but

more especially the noble. The ways were fortunately dry and clean for

London, though occasionally deep holes and furrows in the road menaced

perils to the unwary horseman. The streets themselves might well

disappoint in splendour the stranger’s eye; for although, viewed at a

distance, ancient London was incalculably more picturesque and stately

than the modern, yet when fairly in its tortuous labyrinths, it seemed

to those who had improved the taste by travel the meanest and the

mirkiest capital of Christendom. The streets were marvellously narrow,

the upper stories, chiefly of wood, projecting far over the lower, which

were formed of mud and plaster. The shops were pitiful booths, and the

‘prentices standing at the entrance bare-headed and cap in hand, and

lining the passages, as the old French writer avers, comme idoles,

[Perlin] kept up an eternal din with their clamorous invitations,

often varied by pert witticisms on some churlish passenger, or loud

vituperations of each other. The whole ancient family of the London

criers were in full bay. Scarcely had Marmaduke’s ears recovered

the shock of “Hot peascods,--all hot!” than they were saluted with

“Mackerel!” “Sheep’s feet! hot sheep’s feet!” At the smaller taverns

stood the inviting vociferaters of “Cock-pie,” “Ribs of beef,--hot

beef!” while, blended with these multi-toned discords, whined the

vielle, or primitive hurdy-gurdy, screamed the pipe, twanged the harp,

from every quarter where the thirsty paused to drink, or the idler stood

to gape. [See Lydgate: London Lyckpenny.]

Through this Babel Marmaduke at last slowly wound his way, and arrived

before the mighty mansion in which the chief baron of England held his

state.

As he dismounted and resigned his steed to the servitor hired for him by

Alwyn, Marmaduke paused a moment, struck by the disparity, common as

it was to eyes more accustomed to the metropolis, between the stately

edifice and the sordid neighbourhood. He had not noticed this so much

when he had repaired to the earl’s house on his first arrival in London,

for his thoughts then had been too much bewildered by the general

bustle and novelty of the scene; but now it seemed to him that he better

comprehended the homage accorded to a great noble in surveying, at a

glance, the immeasurable eminence to which he was elevated above his

fellow-men by wealth and rank.

Far on either side of the wings of the earl’s abode stretched, in

numerous deformity, sheds rather than houses, of broken plaster and

crazy timbers. But here and there were open places of public reception,

crowded with the lower followers of the puissant chief; and the eye

rested on many idle groups of sturdy swash-bucklers, some half-clad

in armour, some in rude jerkins of leather, before the doors of these

resorts,--as others, like bees about a hive, swarmed in and out with a

perpetual hum.

The exterior of Warwick House was of a gray but dingy stone, and

presented a half-fortified and formidable appearance. The windows, or

rather loop-holes, towards the street were few, and strongly barred.

The black and massive arch of the gateway yawned between two huge square

towers; and from a yet higher but slender tower on the inner side, the

flag gave the “White Bear and Ragged Staff” to the smoky air. Still,

under the portal as he entered, hung the grate of the portcullis, and

the square court which he saw before him swarmed with the more

immediate retainers of the earl, in scarlet jackets, wrought with

their chieftain’s cognizance. A man of gigantic girth and stature,

who officiated as porter, leaning against the wall under the arch, now

emerged from the shadow, and with sufficient civility demanded the young

visitor’s name and business. On hearing the former, he bowed low as he

doffed his hat, and conducted Marmaduke through the first quadrangle.

The two sides to the right and left were devoted to the offices and

rooms of retainers, of whom no less than six hundred, not to speak of

the domestic and more orderly retinue, attested the state of the Last of

the English Barons on his visits to the capital. Far from being then, as

now, the object of the great to thrust all that belongs to the service

of the house out of sight, it was their pride to strike awe into the

visitor by the extent of accommodation afforded to their followers: some

seated on benches of stone ranged along the walls; some grouped in the

centre of the court; some lying at length upon the two oblong patches of

what had been turf, till worn away by frequent feet,--this domestic

army filled the young Nevile with an admiration far greater than the

gay satins of the knights and nobles who had gathered round the lord of

Montagu and Northumberland at the pastime-ground.

This assemblage, however, were evidently under a rude discipline of

their own. They were neither noisy nor drunk. They made way with surly

obeisance as the cavalier passed, and closing on his track like some

horde of wild cattle, gazed after him with earnest silence, and then

turned once more to their indolent whispers with each other.

And now Nevile entered the last side of the quadrangle. The huge hall,

divided from the passage by a screen of stone fretwork, so fine as to

attest the hand of some architect in the reign of Henry III., stretched

to his right; and so vast, in truth, it was, that though more than fifty

persons were variously engaged therein, their number was lost in the

immense space. Of these, at one end of the longer and lower table

beneath the dais, some squires of good dress and mien were engaged at

chess or dice; others were conferring in the gloomy embrasures of

the casements; some walking to and fro, others gathered round the

shovel-board. At the entrance of this hall the porter left Marmaduke,

after exchanging a whisper with a gentleman whose dress eclipsed the

Nevile’s in splendour; and this latter personage, who, though of high

birth, did not disdain to perform the office of chamberlain, or usher,

to the king-like earl, advanced to Marmaduke with a smile, and said,--

“My lord expects you, sir, and has appointed this time to receive you,

that you may not be held back from his presence by the crowds that crave

audience in the forenoon. Please to follow me!” This said, the gentleman

slowly preceded the visitor, now and then stopping to exchange a

friendly word with the various parties he passed in his progress; for

the urbanity which Warwick possessed himself, his policy inculcated as

a duty on all who served him. A small door at the other extremity of the

hall admitted into an anteroom, in which some half score pages, the sons

of knights and barons, were gathered round an old warrior, placed

at their head as a sort of tutor, to instruct them in all knightly

accomplishments; and beckoning forth one of these youths from the ring,

the earl’s chamberlain said, with a profound reverence, “Will you be

pleased, my young lord, to conduct your cousin, Master Marmaduke Nevile,

to the earl’s presence?” The young gentleman eyed Marmaduke with a

supercilious glance.

“Marry!” said he, pertly, “if a man born in the North were to feed all

his cousins, he would soon have a tail as long as my uncle, the stout

earl’s. Come, sir cousin, this way.” And without tarrying even to

give Nevile information of the name and quality of his new-found

relation,--who was no less than Lord Montagu’s son, the sole male

heir to the honours of that mighty family, though now learning the

apprenticeship of chivalry amongst his uncle’s pages,--the boy

passed before Marmaduke with a saunter, that, had they been in plain

Westmoreland, might have cost him a cuff from the stout hand of the

indignant elder cousin. He raised the tapestry at one end of the room,

and ascending a short flight of broad stairs, knocked gently on the

panels of an arched door sunk deep in the walls.

“Enter!” said a clear, loud voice, and the next moment Marmaduke was in

the presence of the King-maker.

He heard his guide pronounce his name, and saw him smile maliciously at

the momentary embarrassment the young man displayed, as the boy passed

by Marmaduke, and vanished. The Earl of Warwick was seated near a

door that opened upon an inner court, or rather garden, which gave

communication to the river. The chamber was painted in the style of

Henry III., with huge figures representing the battle of Hastings,

or rather, for there were many separate pieces, the conquest of Saxon

England. Over each head, to enlighten the ignorant, the artist had taken

the precaution to insert a label, which told the name and the subject.

The ceiling was groined, vaulted, and emblazoned with the richest

gilding and colours. The chimneypiece (a modern ornament) rose to the

roof, and represented in bold reliefs, gilt and decorated, the signing

of Magna Charta. The floor was strewed thick with dried rushes and

odorous herbs; the furniture was scanty, but rich. The low-backed

chairs, of which there were but four, carved in ebony, had cushions

of velvet with fringes of massive gold; a small cupboard, or beaufet,

covered with carpetz de cuir (carpets of gilt and painted leather),

of great price, held various quaint and curious ornaments of plate

inwrought with precious stones; and beside this--a singular contrast--on

a plain Gothic table lay the helmet, the gauntlets, and the battle-axe

of the master. Warwick himself, seated before a large, cumbrous desk,

was writing,--but slowly and with pain,--and he lifted his finger as

the Nevile approached, in token of his wish to conclude a task probably

little congenial to his tastes. But Marmaduke was grateful for the

moments afforded him to recover his self-possession, and to examine his

kinsman.

The earl was in the lusty vigour of his age. His hair, of the deepest

black, was worn short, as if in disdain of the effeminate fashions of

the day; and fretted bare from the temples by the constant and early

friction of his helmet, gave to a forehead naturally lofty yet more

majestic appearance of expanse and height. His complexion, though dark

and sunburned, glowed with rich health. The beard was closely shaven,

and left in all its remarkable beauty the contour of the oval face and

strong jaw,--strong as if clasped in iron. The features were marked and

aquiline, as was common to those of Norman blood. The form spare, but of

prodigious width and depth of chest, the more apparent from the fashion

of the short surcoat, which was thrown back, and left in broad expanse

a placard, not of holiday velvet and satins, but of steel polished as a

mirror, and inlaid with gold. And now as, concluding his task, the earl

rose and motioned Marmaduke to a stool by his side, his great stature,

which, from the length of his limbs, was not so observable when he sat,

actually startled his guest. Tall as Marmaduke was himself, the earl

towered [The faded portrait of Richard Nevile, Earl of Warwick, in the

Rous Roll, preserved at the Herald’s College, does justice, at least, to

the height and majesty of his stature. The portrait of Edward IV. is the

only one in that long series which at all rivals the stately proportions

of the King-maker.] above him,--with his high, majestic, smooth,

unwrinkled forehead,--like some Paladin of the rhyme of poet or

romancer; and, perhaps, not only in this masculine advantage, but in

the rare and harmonious combination of colossal strength with graceful

lightness, a more splendid union of all the outward qualities we are

inclined to give to the heroes of old never dazzled the eye or impressed

the fancy. But even this effect of mere person was subordinate to that

which this eminent nobleman created--upon his inferiors, at least--by

a manner so void of all arrogance, yet of all condescension, so simple,

open, cordial, and hero-like, that Marmaduke Nevile, peculiarly alive

to external impressions, and subdued and fascinated by the earl’s first

word, and that word was “Welcome!” dropped on his knee, and kissing the

hand extended to him, said, “Noble kinsman, in thy service and for

thy sake let me live and die!” Had the young man been prepared by the

subtlest master of courtcraft for this interview, so important to his

fortunes, he could not have advanced a hundredth part so far with the

great earl as he did by that sudden, frank burst of genuine emotion; for

Warwick was extremely sensitive to the admiration he excited,--vain or

proud of it, it matters not which; grateful as a child for love, and

inexorable as a woman for slight or insult: in rude ages, one sex has

often the qualities of the other.

“Thou hast thy father’s warm heart and hasty thought, Marmaduke,” said

Warwick, raising him; “and now he is gone where, we trust, brave men,

shrived of their sins, look down upon us, who should be thy friend but

Richard Nevile? So--so--yes, let me look at thee. Ha! stout Guy’s honest

face, every line of it: but to the girls, perhaps, comelier, for wanting

a scar or two. Never blush,--thou shalt win the scars yet. So thou hast

a letter from thy father?”

“It is here, noble lord.”

“And why,” said the earl, cutting the silk with his dagger--“why hast

thou so long hung back from presenting it? But I need not ask thee.

These uncivil times have made kith and kin doubt worse of each other

than thy delay did of me. Sir Guy’s mark, sure eno’! Brave old man! I

loved him the better for that, like me, the sword was more meet than the

pen for his bold hand.” Here Warwick scanned, with some slowness, the

lines dictated by the dead to the priest; and when he had done, he

laid the letter respectfully on his desk, and bowing his head over it,

muttered to himself,--it might be an Ave for the deceased. “Well,” he

said, reseating himself, and again motioning Marmaduke to follow his

example, “thy father was, in sooth, to blame for the side he took in the

Wars. What son of the Norman could bow knee or vail plume to that shadow

of a king, Henry of Windsor? And for his bloody wife--she knew no more

of an Englishman’s pith and pride than I know of the rhymes and roundels

of old Rene, her father. Guy Nevile--good Guy--many a day in my boyhood

did he teach me how to bear my lance at the crest, and direct my sword

at the mail joints. He was cunning at fence--thy worshipful father--but

I was ever a bad scholar; and my dull arm, to this day, hopes more from

its strength than its craft.”

“I have heard it said, noble earl, that the stoutest hand can scarcely

lift your battle-axe.”

“Fables! romaunt!” answered the earl, smiling; “there it lies,--go and

lift it.”

Marmaduke went to the table, and, though with some difficulty, raised

and swung this formidable weapon.

“By my halidame, well swung, cousin mine! Its use depends not on the

strength, but the practice. Why, look you now, there is the boy Richard

of Gloucester, who comes not up to thy shoulder, and by dint of custom

each day can wield mace or axe with as much ease as a jester doth his

lathesword. Ah, trust me, Marmaduke, the York House is a princely one;

and if we must have a king, we barons, by stout Saint George, let no

meaner race ever furnish our lieges. But to thyself, Marmaduke--what are

thy views and thy wishes?”

“To be one of thy following, noble Warwick.”

“I thank and accept thee, young Nevile; but thou hast heard that I am

about to leave England, and in the mean time thy youth would run danger

without a guide.” The earl paused a moment, and resumed: “My brother of

Montagu showed thee cold countenance; but a word from me will win

thee his grace and favour. What sayest thou, wilt thou be one of his

gentlemen? If so, I will tell thee the qualities a man must have,--a

discreet tongue, a quick eye, the last fashion in hood and shoe-bobbins,

a perfect seat on thy horse, a light touch for the gittern, a voice for

a love-song, and--”

“I have none of these save the horsemanship, gracious my lord; and if

thou wilt not receive me thyself, I will not burden my Lord of Montagu

and Northumberland.”

“Hot and quick! No! John of Montagu would not suit thee, nor thou him.

But how to provide for thee till my return I know not.”

“Dare I not hope, then, to make one of your embassage, noble earl?”

Warwick bent his brows, and looked at him in surprise. “Of our

embassage! Why, thou art haughty, indeed! Nay, and so a soldier’s son

and a Nevile should be! I blame thee not; but I could not make thee

one of my train, without creating a hundred enemies--to me (but that’s

nothing) and to thee, which were much. Knowest thou not that there is

scarce a gentleman of my train below the state of a peer’s son, and that

I have made, by refusals, malcontents eno’, as it is?--Yet, bold! there

is my learned brother, the Archbishop of York. Knowest thou Latin and

the schools?”

“‘Fore Heaven, my lord,” said the Nevile, bluntly, “I see already I had

best go back to green Westmoreland, for I am as unfit for his grace the

archbishop as I am for my Lord Montagu.”

“Well, then,” said the earl, dryly, “since thou hast not yet station

enough for my train, nor glosing for Northumberland, nor wit and lere

for the archbishop, I suppose, my poor youth, I must e’en make you only

a gentleman about the king! It is not a post so sure of quick rising and

full gipsires as one about myself or my brethren, but it will be less

envied, and is good for thy first essay. How goes the clock? Oh, here is

Nick Alwyn’s new horologe. He tells me that the English will soon rival

the Dutch in these baubles. [Clockwork appears to have been introduced

into England in the reign of Edward III., when three Dutch horologers

were invited over from Delft. They must soon have passed into common

use, for Chaucer thus familiarly speaks of them:--

“Full sickerer was his crowing in his loge

Than is a clock or any abbey orloge.”]

The more the pity!--our red-faced yeomen, alas, are fast sinking into

lank-jawed mechanics! We shall find the king in his garden within the

next half-hour. Thou shalt attend me.”

Marmaduke expressed, with more feeling than eloquence, the thanks he

owed for an offer that, he was about to say, exceeded his hopes; but he

had already, since his departure from Westmoreland, acquired sufficient

wit to think twice of his words. And so eagerly, at that time, did the

youth of the nobility contend for the honour of posts about the person

of Warwick, and even of his brothers, and so strong was the belief that

the earl’s power to make or to mar fortune was all-paramount in England,

that even a place in the king’s household was considered an inferior

appointment to that which made Warwick the immediate patron and

protector. This was more especially the case amongst the more haughty

and ancient gentry since the favour shown by Edward to the relations

of his wife, and his own indifference to the rank and birth of his

associates. Warwick had therefore spoken with truth when he expressed

a comparative pity for the youth, whom he could not better provide for

than by a place about the court of his sovereign!

The earl then drew from Marmaduke some account of his early training,

his dependence on his brother, his adventures at the archery-ground, his

misadventure with the robbers, and even his sojourn with Warner,--though

Marmaduke was discreetly silent as to the very existence of Sibyll. The

earl, in the mean while, walked to and fro the chamber with a light,

careless stride, every moment pausing to laugh at the frank simplicity

of his kinsman, or to throw in some shrewd remark, which he cast

purposely in the rough Westmoreland dialect; for no man ever attains to

the popularity that rejoiced or accursed the Earl of Warwick, without a

tendency to broad and familiar humour, without a certain commonplace

of character in its shallower and more every-day properties. This

charm--always great in the great--Warwick possessed to perfection; and

in him--such was his native and unaffected majesty of bearing, and

such the splendour that surrounded his name--it never seemed coarse or

unfamiliar, but “everything he did became him best.” Marmaduke had just

brought his narrative to a conclusion, when, after a slight tap at the

door, which Warwick did not hear, two fair young forms bounded joyously

in, and not seeing the stranger, threw themselves upon Warwick’s breast

with the caressing familiarity of infancy.

“Ah, Father,” said the elder of these two girls, as Warwick’s hand

smoothed her hair fondly, “you promised you would take us in your barge

to see the sports on the river, and now it will be too late.”

“Make your peace with your young cousins here,” said the earl, turning

to Marmaduke; “you will cost them an hour’s joyaunce. This is my eldest

daughter, Isabel; and this soft-eyed, pale-cheeked damozel--too loyal

for a leaf of the red rose--is the Lady Anne.”

The two girls had started from their father’s arms at the first address

to Marmaduke, and their countenances had relapsed from their caressing

and childlike expression into all the stately demureness with which

they had been brought up to regard a stranger. Howbeit, this reserve, to

which he was accustomed, awed Marmaduke less than the alternate gayety

and sadness of the wilder Sibyll, and he addressed them with all the

gallantry to the exercise of which he had been reared, concluding his

compliments with a declaration that he would rather forego the advantage

proffered him by the earl’s favour with the king, than foster one

obnoxious and ungracious memory in damozels so fair and honoured.

A haughty smile flitted for a moment over the proud young face of Isabel

Nevile; but the softer Anne blushed, and drew bashfully behind her

sister.

As yet these girls, born for the highest and fated to the most wretched

fortunes, were in all the bloom of earliest youth; but the difference

between their characters might be already observable in their mien

and countenance. Isabel; of tall and commanding stature, had some

resemblance to her father, in her aquiline features, rich, dark hair,

and the lustrous brilliancy of her eyes; while Anne, less striking, yet

not less lovely, of smaller size and slighter proportions, bore in her

pale, clear face, her dove-like eyes, and her gentle brow an expression

of yielding meekness not unmixed with melancholy, which, conjoined with

an exquisite symmetry of features, could not fail of exciting interest

where her sister commanded admiration. Not a word, however, from either

did Marmaduke abstract in return for his courtesies, nor did either

he or the earl seem to expect it; for the latter, seating himself and

drawing Anne on his knee, while Isabella walked with stately grace

towards the table that bore her father’s warlike accoutrements, and

played, as it were, unconsciously with the black plume on his black

burgonet, said to Nevile,

“Well, thou hast seen enough of the Lancastrian raptrils to make thee

true to the Yorkists. I would I could say as much for the king himself,

who is already crowding the court with that venomous faction, in honour

of Dame Elizabeth Gray, born Mistress Woodville, and now Queen of

England. Ha, my proud Isabel, thou wouldst have better filled the throne

that thy father built!”

And at these words a proud flash broke from the earl’s dark eyes,

betraying even to Marmaduke the secret of perhaps his earliest

alienation from Edward IV. Isabella pouted her rich lip, but said

nothing. “As for thee, Anne,” continued the earl, “it is a pity that

monks cannot marry,--thou wouldst have suited some sober priest better

than a mailed knight. ‘Fore George, I would not ask thee to buckle my

baldrick when the war-steeds were snorting, but I would trust Isabel

with the links of my hauberk.”

“Nay, Father,” said the low, timid voice of Anne, “if thou wert going to

danger, I could be brave in all that could guard thee!”

“Why, that’s my girl! kiss me! Thou hast a look of thy mother now,--so

thou hast! and I will not chide thee the next time I hear thee muttering

soft treason in pity of Henry of Windsor.”

“Is he not to be pitied?--Crown, wife, son, and Earl Warwick’s stout arm

lost--lost!”

“No!” said Isabel, suddenly; “no, sweet sister Anne, and fie on thee for

the words! He lost all, because he had neither the hand of a knight nor

the heart of a man! For the rest--Margaret of Anjou, or her butchers,

beheaded our father’s father.”

“And may God and Saint George forget me, when I forget those gray and

gory hairs!” exclaimed the earl; and putting away the Lady Anne somewhat

roughly, he made a stride across the room, and stood by his hearth. “And

yet Edward, the son of Richard of York, who fell by my father’s side--he

forgets, he forgives! And the minions of Rivers the Lancastrian tread

the heels of Richard of Warwick.”

At this unexpected turn in the conversation, peculiarly unwelcome, as

it may be supposed, to the son of one who had fought on the Lancastrian

side in the very battle referred to, Marmaduke felt somewhat uneasy; and

turning to the Lady Anne, he said, with the gravity of wounded pride, “I

owe more to my lord, your father, than I even wist of,--how much he must

have overlooked to--”

“Not so!” interrupted Warwick, who overheard him,--“not so; thou

wrongest me! Thy father was shocked at those butcheries; thy father

recoiled from that accursed standard; thy father was of a stock

ancient and noble as my own! But, these Woodvilles!--tush! my passion

overmasters me. We will go to the king,--it is time.”

Warwick here rang the hand-bell on his table, and on the entrance of his

attendant gentleman, bade him see that the barge was in readiness; then

beckoning to his kinsman, and with a nod to his daughters, he caught up

his plumed cap, and passed at once into the garden.

“Anne,” said Isabel, when the two girls were alone, “thou hast vexed my

father, and what marvel? If the Lancastrians can be pitied, the Earl of

Warwick must be condemned!”

“Unkind!” said Anne, shedding tears; “I can pity woe and mischance,

without blaming those whose hard duty it might be to achieve them.”

“In good sooth cannot I! Thou wouldst pity and pardon till thou leftst

no distinction between foeman and friend, leife and loathing. Be it

mine, like my great father, to love and to hate!”

“Yet why art thou so attached to the White Rose?” said Anne, stung, if

not to malice, at least to archness. “Thou knowest my father’s nearest

wish was that his eldest daughter might be betrothed to King Edward.

Dost thou not pay good for evil when thou seest no excellence out of the

House of York?”

“Saucy Anne,” answered Isabel, with a half smile, “I am not raught by

thy shafts, for I was a child for the nurses when King Edward sought a

wife for his love. But were I chafed--as I may be vain enough to know

myself--whom should I blame?--Not the king, but the Lancastrian who

witched him!”

She paused a moment, and, looking away, added in a low tone, “Didst

thou hear, sister Anne, if the Duke of Clarence visited my father the

forenoon?”

“Ah, Isabel, Isabel!”

“Ah, sister Anne, sister Anne! Wilt thou know all my secrets ere I know

them myself?”--and Isabel, with something of her father’s playfulness,

put her hands to Anne’s laughing lips.

Meanwhile Warwick, after walking musingly a few moments along the

garden, which was formed by plots of sward, bordered with fruit-trees,

and white rose-trees not yet in blossom, turned to his silent kinsman,

and said, “Forgive me, cousin mine, my mannerless burst against thy

brave father’s faction; but when thou hast been a short while at court,

thou wilt see where the sore is. Certes, I love this king!” Here his

dark face lighted up. “Love him as a king,--ay, and as a son! And

who would not love him; brave as his sword, gallant, and winning, and

gracious as the noonday in summer? Besides, I placed him on his throne;

I honour myself in him!”

The earl’s stature dilated as he spoke the last sentence, and his

hand rested on his dagger hilt. He resumed, with the same daring and

incautious candour that stamped his dauntless, soldier-like nature, “God

hath given me no son. Isabel of Warwick had been a mate for William the

Norman; and my grandson, if heir to his grandsire’s soul, should have

ruled from the throne of England over the realms of Charlemagne! But it

hath pleased Him whom the Christian knight alone bows to without shame,

to order otherwise. So be it. I forgot my just pretensions,--forgot

my blood, and counselled the king to strengthen his throne with the

alliance of Louis XI. He rejected the Princess Bona of Savoy, to marry

widow Elizabeth Gray; I sorrowed for his sake, and forgave the slight to

my counsels. At his prayer I followed the train of his queen, and hushed

the proud hearts of our barons to obeisance. But since then, this Dame

Woodville, whom I queened, if her husband mated, must dispute this

roiaulme with mine and me,--a Nevile, nowadays, must vail his plume to a

Woodville! And not the great barons whom it will suit Edward’s policy

to win from the Lancastrians--not the Exeters and the Somersets--but the

craven varlets and lackeys and dross of the camp--false alike to Henry

and to Edward--are to be fondled into lordships and dandled into power.

Young man, I am speaking hotly--Richard Nevile never lies nor conceals;

but I am speaking to a kinsman, am I not? Thou hearest,--thou wilt not

repeat?”

“Sooner would I pluck forth my tongue by the roots.”

“Enough!” returned the earl, with a pleased smile. “When I come from

France, I will speak more to thee. Meanwhile be courteous to all men,

servile to none. Now to the king.”

So speaking, he shook back his surcoat, drew his cap over his brow,

and passed to the broad stairs, at the foot of which fifty rowers, with

their badges on their shoulders, waited in the huge barge, gilt richly

at prow and stern, and with an awning of silk, wrought with the earl’s

arms and cognizance. As they pushed off, six musicians, placed towards

the helm, began a slow and half Eastern march, which, doubtless, some

crusader of the Temple had brought from the cymbals and trumps of

Palestine.

CHAPTER II. KING EDWARD THE FOURTH.

The Tower of London, more consecrated to associations of gloom and blood

than those of gayety and splendour, was, nevertheless, during the reign

of Edward IV., the seat of a gallant and gorgeous court. That king,

from the first to the last so dear to the people of London, made it his

principal residence when in his metropolis; and its ancient halls and

towers were then the scene of many a brawl and galliard. As Warwick’s

barge now approached its huge walls, rising from the river, there was

much that might either animate or awe, according to the mood of the

spectator. The king’s barge, with many lesser craft reserved for the

use of the courtiers, gay with awnings and streamers and painting and

gilding, lay below the wharfs, not far from the gate of St. Thomas, now

called the Traitor’s Gate. On the walk raised above the battlemented

wall of the inner ward, not only paced the sentries, but there dames and

knights were inhaling the noonday breezes, and the gleam of their rich

dresses of cloth-of-gold glanced upon the eye at frequent intervals from

tower to tower. Over the vast round turret, behind the Traitor’s Gate,

now called “The Bloody Tower,” floated cheerily in the light wind the

royal banner. Near the Lion’s Tower, two or three of the keepers of the

menagerie, in the king’s livery, were leading forth, by a strong chain,

the huge white bear that made one of the boasts of the collection, and

was an especial favourite with the king and his brother Richard. The

sheriffs of London were bound to find this grisly minion his chain and

his cord, when he deigned to amuse himself with bathing or “fishing” in

the river; and several boats, filled with gape-mouthed passengers, lay

near the wharf, to witness the diversions of Bruin. These folks set up

a loud shout of--“A Warwick! a Warwick!” “The stout earl, and God

bless him!” as the gorgeous barge shot towards the fortress. The earl

acknowledged their greeting by vailing his plumed cap; and passing the

keepers with a merry allusion to their care of his own badge, and a

friendly compliment to the grunting bear, he stepped ashore, followed

by his kinsman. Now, however, he paused a moment; and a more thoughtful

shade passed over his countenance, as, glancing his eye carelessly aloft

towards the standard of King Edward, he caught sight of the casement in

the neighbouring tower, of the very room in which the sovereign of his

youth, Henry the Sixth, was a prisoner, almost within hearing of the

revels of his successor; then, with a quick stride, he hurried on

through the vast court, and, passing the White Tower, gained the royal

lodge. Here, in the great hall, he left his companion, amidst a group of

squires and gentlemen, to whom he formally presented the Nevile as his

friend and kinsman, and was ushered by the deputy-chamberlain (with an

apology for the absence of his chief, the Lord Hastings, who had gone

abroad to fly his falcon) into the small garden, where Edward was idling

away the interval between the noon and evening meals,--repasts to which

already the young king inclined with that intemperate zest and ardour

which he carried into all his pleasures, and which finally destroyed the

handsomest person and embruted one of the most vigorous intellects of

the age.

The garden, if bare of flowers, supplied their place by the various

and brilliant-coloured garbs of the living beauties assembled on its

straight walks and smooth sward. Under one of those graceful cloisters,

which were the taste of the day, and had been recently built and gayly

decorated, the earl was stopped in his path by a group of ladies playing

at closheys (ninepins) of ivory; [Narrative of Louis of Bruges, Lord

Grauthuse. Edited by Sir F. Madden, “Archaelogia,” 1836.] and one of

these fair dames, who excelled the rest in her skill, had just bowled

down the central or crowned pin,--the king of the closheys. This lady,

no less a person than Elizabeth, the Queen of England, was then in her

thirty-sixth year,--ten years older than her lord; but the peculiar

fairness and delicacy of her complexion still preserved to her beauty

the aspect and bloom of youth. From a lofty headgear, embroidered with

fleur-de-lis, round which wreathed a light diadem of pearls, her hair,

of the pale yellow considered then the perfection of beauty, flowed so

straight and so shining down her shoulders, almost to the knees, that

it seemed like a mantle of gold. The baudekin stripes (blue and gold) of

her tunic attested her royalty. The blue courtpie of satin was bordered

with ermine, and the sleeves, sitting close to an arm of exquisite

contour, shone with seed pearls. Her features were straight and regular,

yet would have been insipid, but for an expression rather of cunning

than intellect; and the high arch of her eyebrows, with a slight curve

downward of a mouth otherwise beautiful, did not improve the expression,

by an addition of something supercilious and contemptuous, rather than

haughty or majestic.

“My lord of Warwick,” said Elizabeth, pointing to the fallen closhey,

“what would my enemies say if they heard I had toppled down the king?”

“They would content themselves with asking which of your Grace’s

brothers you would place in his stead,” answered the hardy earl, unable

to restrain the sarcasm.

The queen blushed, and glanced round her ladies with an eye which never

looked direct or straight upon its object, but wandered sidelong with

a furtive and stealthy expression, that did much to obtain for her the

popular character of falseness and self-seeking. Her displeasure was yet

more increased by observing the ill-concealed smile which the taunt had

called forth.

“Nay, my lord,” she said, after a short pause, “we value the peace of

our roiaulme too much for so high an ambition. Were we to make a brother

even the prince of the closheys, we should disappoint the hopes of a

Nevile.”

The earl disdained pursuing the war of words, and answering coldly, “The

Neviles are more famous for making ingrates than asking favours. I leave

your Highness to the closheys”--turned away, and strode towards the

king, who, at the opposite end of the garden, was reclining on a bench

beside a lady, in whose ear, to judge by her downcast and blushing

cheek, he was breathing no unwelcome whispers.

“Mort-Dieu!” muttered the earl, who was singularly exempt, himself, from

the amorous follies of the day, and eyed them with so much contempt that

it often obscured his natural downright penetration into character, and

never more than when it led him afterwards to underrate the talents of

Edward IV.,--“Mort-Dieu! if, an hour before the battle of Towton, some

wizard had shown me in his glass this glimpse of the gardens of the

Tower, that giglet for a queen, and that squire of dames for a king, I

had not slain my black destrier (poor Malech!), that I might conquer or

die for Edward Earl of March.”

“But see!” said the lady, looking up from the enamoured and conquering

eyes of the king, “art thou not ashamed, my lord?--the grim earl comes

to chide thee for thy faithlessness to thy queen, whom he loves so

well.”

“Pasque-Dieu! as my cousin Louis of France says or swears,” answered

the king, with an evident petulance in his altered voice, “I would that

Warwick could be only worn with one’s armour! I would as lief try to

kiss through my vizor as hear him talk of glory and Towton, and King

John and poor Edward II., because I am not always in mail. Go! leave

us, sweet bonnibel! we must brave the bear alone!” The lady inclined her

head, drew her hood round her face, and striking into the contrary path

from that in which Warwick was slowly striding, gained the group round

the queen, whose apparent freedom from jealousy, the consequence of

cold affections and prudent calculation, made one principal cause of the

empire she held over the powerful mind, but the indolent temper, of the

gay and facile Edward.

The king rose as Warwick now approached him; and the appearance of these

two eminent persons was in singular contrast. Warwick, though richly and

even gorgeously attired,--nay, with all the care which in that age

was considered the imperative duty a man of station and birth owed to

himself,--held in lofty disdain whatever vagary of custom tended to

cripple the movements or womanize the man. No loose flowing robes, no

shoon half a yard long, no flaunting tawdriness of fringe and aiglet,

characterized the appearance of the baron, who, even in peace, gave his

address a half-martial fashion.

But Edward, who, in common with all the princes of the House of York,

carried dress to a passion, had not only reintroduced many of the most

effeminate modes in vogue under William the Red King, but added to them

whatever could tend to impart an almost oriental character to the old

Norman garb. His gown (a womanly garment which had greatly superseded,

with men of the highest rank, not only the mantle but the surcoat)

flowed to his heels, trimmed with ermine, and broidered with large

flowers of crimson wrought upon cloth-of-gold. Over this he wore a

tippet of ermine, and a collar or necklace of uncut jewels set in

filigree gold; the nether limbs were, it is true, clad in the more manly

fashion of tight-fitting hosen, but the folds of the gown, as the day

was somewhat fresh, were drawn around so as to conceal the only part of

the dress which really betokened the male sex. To add to this unwarlike

attire, Edward’s locks of a rich golden colour, and perfuming the whole

air with odours, flowed not in curls, but straight to his shoulders, and

the cheek of the fairest lady in his court might have seemed less fair

beside the dazzling clearness of a complexion at once radiant with

health and delicate with youth. Yet, in spite of all this effeminacy,

the appearance of Edward IV. was not effeminate. From this it was

preserved, not only by a stature little less commanding than that of

Warwick himself, and of great strength and breadth of shoulder, but also

by features, beautiful indeed, but pre-eminently masculine,--large

and bold in their outline, and evincing by their expression all the

gallantry and daring characteristic of the hottest soldier, next to

Warwick, and without any exception the ablest captain, of the age.

“And welcome,--a merry welcome, dear Warwick, and cousin mine,” said

Edward, as Warwick slightly bent his proud knee to his king; “your

brother, Lord Montagu, has but left us. Would that our court had the

same, joyaunce for you as for him.”

“Dear and honoured my liege,” answered Warwick, his brow smoothing at

once,--for his affectionate though hasty and irritable nature was

rarely proof against the kind voice and winning smile of his young

sovereign,--“could I ever serve you at the court as I can with the

people, you would not complain that John of Montagu was a better

courtier than Richard of Warwick. But each to his calling. I depart

to-morrow for Calais, and thence to King Louis. And, surely, never envoy

or delegate had better chance to be welcome than one empowered to treat

of an alliance that will bestow on a prince deserving, I trust, his

fortunes, the sister of the bravest sovereign in Christian Europe.”

“Now, out on thy flattery, my cousin; though I must needs own I provoked

it by my complaint of thy courtiership. But thou hast learned only half

thy business, good Warwick; and it is well Margaret did not hear thee.

Is not the prince of France more to be envied for winning a fair lady

than having a fortunate soldier for his brother-in-law?”

“My liege,” replied Warwick, smiling, “thou knowest I am a poor judge of

a lady’s fair cheek, though indifferently well skilled as to the valour

of a warrior’s stout arm. Algates, the Lady Margaret is indeed worthy in

her excellent beauties to become the mother of brave men.”

“And that is all we can wring from thy stern lip, man of iron? Well,

that must content us. But to more serious matters.” And the king,

leaning his hand on the earl’s arm, and walking with him slowly to and

fro the terrace, continued: “Knowest thou not, Warwick, that this French

alliance, to which thou hast induced us, displeases sorely our good

traders of London?”

“Mort-Dieu!” returned Warwick, bluntly, “and what business have the

flat-caps with the marriage of a king’s sister? Is it for them to

breathe garlic on the alliances of Bourbons and Plantagenets? Faugh!

You have spoiled them, good my lord king,--you have spoiled them by your

condescensions. Henry IV. staled not his majesty to consultations with

the mayor of his city. Henry V. gave the knighthood of the hath to the

heroes of Agincourt, not to the vendors of cloth and spices.”

“Ah, my poor knights of the Bath!” said Edward, good-humouredly, “wilt

thou never let that sore scar quietly over? Ownest thou not that the men

had their merits?”

“What the merits were, I weet not,” answered the earl,--“unless,

peradventure, their wives were comely and young.”

“Thou wrongest me, Warwick,” said the king, carelessly; “Dame Cook was

awry, Dame Philips a grandmother, Dame Jocelyn had lost her front teeth,

and Dame Waer saw seven ways at once! But thou forgettest, man, the

occasion of those honours,--the eve before Elizabeth was crowned,--and

it was policy to make the city of London have a share in her honours.

As to the rest,” pursued the king, earnestly and with dignity, “I and my

House have owed much to London. When the peers of England, save thee and

thy friends, stood aloof from my cause, London was ever loyal and true.

Thou seest not, my poor Warwick, that these burgesses are growing up

into power by the decline of the orders above them. And if the sword

is the monarch’s appeal for his right, he must look to contented and

honoured industry for his buckler in peace. This is policy,--policy,

Warwick; and Louis XI. will tell thee the same truths, harsh though they

grate in a warrior’s ear.”

The earl bowed his haughty head, and answered shortly, but with a

touching grace, “Be it ever thine, noble king, to rule as it likes thee,

and mine to defend with my blood even what I approve not with my brain!

But if thou doubtest the wisdom of this alliance, it is not too late

yet. Let me dismiss my following, and cross not the seas. Unless thy

heart is with the marriage, the ties I would form are threads and

cobwebs.”

“Nay,” returned Edward, irresolutely: “in these great state matters

thy wit is elder than mine; but men do say the Count of Charolois is a

mighty lord; and the alliance with Burgundy will be more profitable to

staple and mart.”

“Then, in God’s name, so conclude it!” said the earl, hastily, but with

so dark a fire in his eyes that Edward, who was observing him, changed

countenance; “only ask me not, my liege, to advance such a marriage. The

Count of Charolois knows me as his foe--shame were mine did I shun to

say where I love, where I hate. That proud dullard once slighted me when

we met at his father’s court, and the wish next to my heart is to pay

back my affront with my battle-axe. Give thy sister to the heir of

Burgundy, and forgive me if I depart to my castle of Middleham.”

Edward, stung by the sharpness of this reply, was about to answer as

became his majesty of king, when Warwick more deliberately resumed: “Yet

think well; Henry of Windsor is thy prisoner, but his cause lives in

Margaret and his son. There is but one power in Europe that can threaten

thee with aid to the Lancastrians; that power is France. Make Louis thy

friend and ally, and thou givest peace to thy life and thy lineage; make

Louis thy foe, and count on plots and stratagems and treason, uneasy

days and sleepless nights. Already thou hast lost one occasion to secure

that wiliest and most restless of princes, in rejecting the hand of the

Princess Bona. Happily, this loss now can be retrieved. But alliance

with Burgundy is war with France,--war more deadly because Louis is

a man who declares it not; a war carried on by intrigue and bribe, by

spies and minions, till some disaffection ripens the hour when young

Edward of Lancaster shall land on thy coasts, with the Oriflamme and

the Red Rose, with French soldiers and English malcontents. Wouldst thou

look to Burgundy for help?--Burgundy will have enough to guard its own

frontiers from the gripe of Louis the Sleepless. Edward, my king, my

pupil in arms, Edward, my loved, my honoured liege, forgive Richard

Nevile his bluntness, and let not his faults stand in bar of his

counsels.”

“You are right, as you are ever, safeguard of England, and pillar of my

state,” said the king, frankly, and pressing the arm he still held. “Go

to France and settle all as thou wilt.”

Warwick bent low and kissed the hand of his sovereign. “And,” said

he, with a slight, but a sad smile, “when I am gone, my liege will not

repent, will not misthink me, will not listen to my foes, nor suffer

merchant and mayor to sigh him back to the mechanics of Flanders?”

“Warwick, thou deemest ill of thy king’s kingliness.”

“Not of thy kingliness; but that same gracious quality of yielding to

counsel which bows this proud nature to submission often makes me fear

for thy firmness, when thy will is, won through thy heart. And now, good

my liege, forgive me one sentence more. Heaven forefend that I should

stand in the way of thy princely favours. A king’s countenance is a sun

that should shine on all. But bethink thee well, the barons of England

are a stubborn and haughty race; chafe not thy most puissant peers by

too cold a neglect of their past services, and too lavish a largess to

new men.”

“Thou aimest at Elizabeth’s kin,” interrupted Edward, withdrawing his

hand from his minister’s arm, “and I tell thee once for all times, that

I would rather sink again to mine earldom of March, with a subject’s

right to honour where he loves, than wear crown and wield sceptre

without a king’s unquestioned prerogative to ennoble the line and blood

of one he has deemed worthy of his throne. As for the barons, with whose

wrath thou threatenest me, I banish them not. If they go in gloom from

my court, why, let them chafe themselves sleek again.”

“King Edward,” said Warwick, moodily, “tried services merit not this

contempt. It is not as the kith of the queen that I regret to see lands

and honours lavished upon men rooted so newly to the soil that the first

blast of the war-trump will scatter their greenness to the winds; but

what sorrows me is to mark those who have fought against thee preferred

to the stout loyalty that braved block and field for thy cause. Look

round thy court; where are the men of bloody York and victorious

Towton?--unrequited, sullen in their strongholds, begirt with their

yeomen and retainers. Thou standest--thou, the heir of York--almost

alone (save where the Neviles--whom one day thy court will seek also

to disgrace and discard--vex their old comrades in arms by their

defection)--thou standest almost alone among the favourites and minions

of Lancaster. Is there no danger in proving to men that to have served

thee is discredit, to have warred against thee is guerdon and grace?”

“Enough of this, cousin,” replied the king, with an effort which

preserved his firmness. “On this head we cannot agree. Take what else

thou wilt of royalty,--make treaties and contract marriages, establish

peace or proclaim war; but trench not on my sweetest prerogative to give

and to forgive. And now, wilt thou tarry and sup with us? The ladies

grow impatient of a commune that detains from their eyes the stateliest

knight since the Round Table was chopped into fire-wood.”

“No, my liege,” said Warwick, whom flattery of this sort rather angered

than soothed, “I have much yet to prepare. I leave your Highness to

fairer homage and more witching counsels than mine.” So saying, he

kissed the king’s hand, and was retiring, when he remembered his

kinsman, whose humble interests in the midst of more exciting topics

he had hitherto forgotten, and added, “May I crave, since you are so

merciful to the Lancastrians, one grace for my namesake,--a Nevile whose

father repented the side he espoused, a son of Sir Guy of Arsdale?”

“Ah,” said the king, smiling maliciously, “it pleaseth us much to find

that it is easier to the warm heart of our cousin Warwick to preach

sententiaries of sternness to his king than to enforce the same by his

own practice!”

“You misthink me, sire. I ask not that Marmaduke Nevile should supplant

his superiors and elders; I ask not that he should be made baron and

peer; I ask only that, as a young gentleman who hath taken no part

himself in the wars, and whose father repented his error, your Grace

should strengthen your following by an ancient name and a faithful

servant. But I should have remembered me that his name of Nevile would

have procured him a taunt in the place of advancement.”

“Saw man ever so froward a temper?” cried Edward, not without reason.

“Why, Warwick, thou art as shrewish to a jest as a woman to advice. Thy

kinsman’s fortunes shall be my care. Thou sayest thou hast enemies,--I

weet not who they be. But to show what I think of them, I make thy

namesake and client a gentleman of my chamber. When Warwick is false to

Edward, let him think that Warwick’s kinsman wears a dagger within reach

of the king’s heart day and night.”

This speech was made with so noble and touching a kindness of voice and

manner, that the earl, thoroughly subdued, looked at his sovereign with

moistened eyes, and only trusting himself to say,--“Edward, thou art

king, knight, gentleman, and soldier; and I verily trow that I love thee

best when my petulant zeal makes me anger thee most,”--turned away with

evident emotion, and passing the queen and her ladies with a lowlier

homage than that with which he had before greeted them, left the garden.

Edward’s eye followed him musingly. The frank expression of his face

vanished, and with the deep breath of a man who is throwing a weight

from his heart, he muttered,--

“He loves me,--yes; but will suffer no one else to love me! This must

end some day. I am weary of the bondage.” And sauntering towards the

ladies, he listened in silence, but not apparently in displeasure, to

his queen’s sharp sayings on the imperious mood and irritable temper of

the iron-handed builder of his throne.

CHAPTER III. THE ANTECHAMBER.

As Warwick passed the door that led from the garden, he brushed by a

young man, the baudekin stripes of whose vest announced his relationship

to the king, and who, though far less majestic than Edward, possessed

sufficient of family likeness to pass for a very handsome and comely

person; but his countenance wanted the open and fearless expression

which gave that of the king so masculine and heroic a character. The

features were smaller, and less clearly cut, and to a physiognomical

observer there was much that was weak and irresolute in the light blue

eyes and the smiling lips which never closed firmly over the teeth. He

did not wear the long gown then so much in vogue, but his light figure

was displayed to advantage by a vest, fitting it exactly, descending

half-way down the thigh, and trimmed at the border and the collar with

ermine. The sleeves of the doublet were slit, so as to show the white

lawn beneath, and adorned with aiglets and knots of gold.

Over the left arm hung a rich jacket of furs and velvet, something

like that adopted by the modern hussar. His hat, or cap, was high and

tiara-like, with a single white plume, and the ribbon of the Garter

bound his knee. Though the dress of this personage was thus far less

effeminate than Edward’s, the effect of his appearance was infinitely

more so,--partly, perhaps, from a less muscular frame, and partly

from his extreme youth; for George Duke of Clarence was then, though

initiated not only in the gayeties, but all the intrigues of the court,

only in his eighteenth year. Laying his hand, every finger of which

sparkled with jewels, on the earl’s shoulder--“Hold!” said the young

prince, in a whisper, “a word in thy ear, noble Warwick!”

The earl, who, next to Edward, loved Clarence the most of his princely

House, and who always found the latter as docile as the other (when

humour or affection seized him) was intractable, relaxed into a familiar

smile at the duke’s greeting, and suffered the young prince to draw him

aside from the groups of courtiers with whom the chamber was filled, to

the leaning-places (as they were called) of a large mullion window.

In the mean while, as they thus conferred, the courtiers interchanged

looks, and many an eye of fear and hate was directed towards the stately

form of the earl. For these courtiers were composed principally of the

kindred or friends of the queen, and though they dared not openly

evince the malice with which they retorted Warwick’s lofty scorn and

undisguised resentment at their new fortunes, they ceased not to hope

for his speedy humiliation and disgrace, reeking little what storm might

rend the empire, so that it uprooted the giant oak, which still in some

measure shaded their sunlight and checked their growth. True, however,

that amongst these were mingled, though rarely, men of a hardier stamp

and nobler birth,--some few of the veteran friends of the king’s great

father; and these, keeping sternly and loftily aloof from the herd,

regarded Warwick with the same almost reverential and yet affectionate

admiration which he inspired amongst the yeomen, peasants, and

mechanics,--for in that growing but quiet struggle of the burgesses, as

it will often happen in more civilized times, the great Aristocracy and

the Populace were much united in affection, though with very different

objects; and the Middle and Trading Class, with whom the earl’s desire

for French alliances and disdain of commerce had much weakened his

popularity, alone shared not the enthusiasm of their countrymen for the

lion-hearted minister.

Nevertheless, it must here be owned that the rise of Elizabeth’s kindred

introduced a far more intellectual, accomplished, and literary race into

court favour than had for many generations flourished in so uncongenial

a soil: and in this ante-chamber feud, the pride of education and mind

retaliated with juster sarcasm the pride of birth and sinews.

Amongst those opposed to the earl, and fit in all qualities to be the

head of the new movement,--if the expressive modern word be allowed

us,--stood at that moment in the very centre of the chamber Anthony

Woodville, in right of the rich heiress he had married the Lord Scales.

As, when some hostile and formidable foe enters the meads where the

flock grazes, the gazing herd gather slowly round their leader,

so grouped the queen’s faction slowly, and by degrees, round this

accomplished nobleman, at the prolonged sojourn of Warwick.

“Gramercy!” said the Lord Scales, in a somewhat affected intonation

of voice, “the conjunction of the bear and the young lion is a parlous

omen, for the which I could much desire we had a wise astrologer’s

reading.”

“It is said,” observed one of the courtiers, “that the Duke of Clarence

much affects either the lands or the person of the Lady Isabel.”

“A passably fair damozel,” returned Anthony, “though a thought or so

too marked and high in her lineaments, and wholly unlettered, no doubt;

which were a pity, for George of Clarence has some pretty taste in the

arts and poesies. But as Occleve hath it--

‘Gold, silver, jewel, cloth, beddyng, array,’

would make gentle George amorous of a worse-featured face than

high-nosed Isabel; ‘strange to spell or rede,’ as I would wager my best

destrier to a tailor’s hobby, the damozel surely is.”

“Notest thou yon gaudy popinjay?” whispered the Lord of St. John to one

of his Towton comrades, as, leaning against the wall, they overheard the

sarcasms of Anthony, and the laugh of the courtiers, who glassed their

faces and moods to his. “Is the time so out of joint that Master Anthony

Woodville can vent his scurrile japes on the heiress of Salisbury and

Warwick in the king’s chamber?”

“And prate of spelling and reading as if they were the cardinal

virtues?” returned his sullen companion. “By my halidame, I have two

fair daughters at home who will lack husbands, I trow, for they can

only spin and be chaste,--two maidenly gifts out of bloom with the White

Rose.”

In the mean while, unwitting, or contemptuous, of the attention they

excited, Warwick and Clarence continued yet more earnestly to confer.

“No, George, no,” said the earl, who, as the descendant of John of

Gaunt, and of kin to the king’s blood, maintained, in private,

a father’s familiarity with the princes of York, though on state

occasions, and when in the hearing of others, he sedulously marked his

deference for their rank--“no, George, calm and steady thy hot mettle,

for thy brother’s and England’s sake. I grieve as much as thou to hear

that the queen does not spare even thee in her froward and unwomanly

peevishness. But there is a glamour in this, believe me, that must melt

away soon or late, and our kingly Edward recover his senses.”

“Glamour!” said Clarence; “thinkest thou, indeed, that her mother,

Jacquetta, has bewitched the king? One word of thy belief in such

spells, spread abroad amongst the people, would soon raise the same

storm that blew Eleanor Cobham from Duke Humphrey’s bed, along London

streets in her penance-shift.”

“Troth,” said the earl, indifferently, “I leave such grave questions as

these to prelate and priest; the glamour I spoke of is that of a fair

face over a wanton heart; and Edward is not so steady a lover that this

should never wear out.”

“It amates me much, noble cousin, that thou leavest the court in this

juncture. The queen’s heart is with Burgundy, the city’s hate is with

France; and when once thou art gone, I fear that the king will be teased

into mating my sister with the Count of Charolois.”

“Ho!” exclaimed Warwick, with an oath so loud that it rung through the

chamber, and startled every ear that heard it. Then, perceiving his

indiscretion, he lowered his tone into a deep and hollow whisper, and

griped the prince’s arm almost fiercely as he spoke.

“Could Edward so dishonour my embassy, so palter and juggle with my

faith, so flout me in the eyes of Christendom, I would--I would--” he

paused, and relaxed his hold of the duke, and added, with an altered

voice--“I would leave his wife and his lemans, and yon things of silk,

whom he makes peers (that is easy) but cannot make men, to guard his

throne from the grandson of Henry V. But thy fears, thy zeal, thy love

for me, dearest prince and cousin, make thee misthink Edward’s kingly

honour and knightly faith. I go with the sure knowledge that by

alliance with France I shut the House of Lancaster from all hope of this

roiaulme.”

“Hadst thou not better, at least, see my sister Margaret? She has a high

spirit, and she thinks thou mightest, at least, woo her assent, and tell

her of the good gifts of her lord to be!”

“Are the daughters of York spoiled to this by the manners and guise of

a court, in which beshrew me if I well know which the woman and whom

the man? Is it not enough to give peace to broad England, root to

her brother’s stem? Is it not enough to wed the son of a king, the

descendant of Charlemagne and Saint Louis? Must I go bonnet in hand and

simper forth the sleek personals of the choice of her kith and House;

swear the bridegroom’s side-locks are as long as King Edward’s, and

that he bows with the grace of Master Anthony Woodville? Tell her this

thyself, gentle Clarence, if thou wilt: all Warwick could say would but

anger her ear, if she be the maid thou bespeakest her.”

The Duke of Clarence hesitated a moment, and then, colouring slightly,

said, “If, then, the daughter’s hand be the gift of her kith alone,

shall I have thy favour when the Lady Isabel--”

“George,” interrupted Warwick, with a fond and paternal smile, “when we

have made England safe, there is nothing the son of Richard of York can

ask of Warwick in vain. Alas!” he added mournfully, “thy father and mine

were united in the same murtherous death, and I think they will smile

down on us from their seats in heaven when a happier generation cements

that bloody union with a marriage bond!”

Without waiting for further parlance, the earl turned suddenly away,

threw his cap on his towering head, and strode right through the centre

of the whispering courtiers, who shrunk, louting low, from his haughty

path, to break into a hubbub of angry exclamations or sarcastic jests

at his unmannerly bearing, as his black plume disappeared in the arch of

the vaulted door.

While such the scene in the interior chambers of the palace, Marmaduke,

with the frank simpleness which belonged to his youth and training, had

already won much favour and popularity, and he was laughing loud with a

knot of young men by the shovel-board when Warwick re-entered. The earl,

though so disliked by the courtiers more immediately about the person

of the king, was still the favourite of the less elevated knights and

gentry who formed the subordinate household and retainers; and with

these, indeed, his manner, so proud and arrogant to his foes and rivals,

relapsed at once into the ease of the manly and idolized chief. He was

pleased to see the way made by his young namesake, and lifting his cap,

as he nodded to the group and leaned his arm upon Marmaduke’s shoulder,

he said, “Thanks, and hearty thanks, to you, knights and gentles, for

your courteous reception of an old friend’s young son. I have our king’s

most gracious permission to see him enrolled one of the court you grace.

Ah, Master Falconer, and how does thy worthy uncle?--braver knight never

trod. What young gentleman is yonder?--a new face and a manly one; by

your favour, present him. The son of a Savile! Sir, on my return, be

not the only Savile who shuns our table of Warwick Court. Master Dacres,

commend me to the lady, your mother; she and I have danced many a

measure together in the old time,--we all live again in our children.

Good den to you, sirs. Marmaduke, follow me to the office,--you lodge

in the palace. You are gentleman to the most gracious and, if Warwick

lives, to the most puissant of Europe’s sovereigns. I shall see Montagu

at home; he shall instruct thee in thy duties, and requite thee for all

discourtesies on the archery-ground.”

BOOK III. IN WHICH THE HISTORY PASSES FROM THE KING’S COURT TO THE

STUDENT’S CELL, AND RELATES THE PERILS THAT BEFELL A PHILOSOPHER FOR

MEDDLING WITH THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD.

CHAPTER I. THE SOLITARY SAGE AND THE SOLITARY MAID.