"Then shalt thou be mine own man, by thy covenant," said he, smiling,

and attaching the badge to Roger's gold chain: "and thereto is my

token."

"Why, well said!" interpolated the Princess, who seemed unable to keep

silence long. "Come hither, little Cousin--here, set a stool for my

Lord of March,--and tell me how it liketh thee to dwell with my Lord of

Arundel."

"Not in no wise, Dame," answered Roger, boldly.

"Not in no wise, quotha! Why what ails thee at him?"

"I love him not, Dame, nor he me."

"Dear heart, here is a pity! But thou lovest my Lady Alice,

trow?--though she be but a woman." The Princess's fat shoulders shook

with laughter.

"Our young cousin's chivalry is scarce fledged, methinks," said the

King.

"If you will learn me, Sire, I will do your bidding," said Roger, who

did not know what bashfulness was. "My Lady Alice, said your Grace?

Good lack, but I cannot abear her!"

"Cannot bear her, quotha! Nay, now, she is to be thy wife!"

"My Lord the King's command except, that shall she never!" said Roger

sturdily.

"See you, fair Son?" was the Princess's comment, with a glance at the

King. "And wouldst thou be much aggrieved, little Cousin, if thou wert

to depart thence, and to dwell in another household, where thou shouldst

have jolly lads and lasses to pleasure and couldst see the King thy

cousin well-nigh thee, every day?"

Roger's eyes shone with delight.

"Please it you, Dame, that should like me right well. Howbeit, I hope

there should be more lads than lasses."

The Princess indulged in another hilarious convulsion.

"Thy time will come, lad!" said she, when she was able to speak. "Till

it do, thou canst lake thee with Tom, which is scarce the younger of

thee.--It shall do right well, fair Son: and I pray you heartily to set

the matter in train."

"Aye, methinks it were well done," answered the King.

But neither of them explained what was to be done, though Roger's

curiosity was intense. Manifestly, he was to be taken from the Earl of

Arundel, and given in wardship to some other nobleman. That was a

delightful prospect. If he could only be rid of Alice as well, Roger

thought he would be in Paradise. And the King had offered him a favour.

Roger turned boldly to His Majesty.

"Sire, your Grace said you would pleasure me. Pray you, have me rid of

yon Alice. I love no maids, and her least of all."

Once more the Princess burst out laughing. The King looked quietly

amused.

"Is that the dearest wish of your heart, fair Cousin?"

"It is so, at this present, my Liege."

"He shall have a dearer anon, or I am no prophetess," exclaimed the

convulsed Princess.

"Maybe," said the King. "Well, fair Cousin, we will pleasure you in

this matter,--the rather seeing"--and he turned to his mother with a

smile--"that it shall pleasure your Grace as well."

At this moment a slight noise outside preceded a scratching at the door,

a lifting of the arras, and the announcement of--"My Lady's Grace of

Lancaster."

The royal hosts took leave of their little guest rather hastily, yet

very kindly, and thus dismissed, Roger was reconducted to Bermondsey

House by Sir Lewis Clifford.

There was a good deal to talk over when Roger and Lawrence were safely

tucked up in their respective beds.

"I say, Loll!" came from the big blue bed, "this is jolly!"

"I am glad your Lordship is well content therewith," was the response in

the quieter voice from the pallet.

"I am so fain to get rid of yon Alice!" said unchivalrous Roger. "And I

am right fain, too, to be out of this dull house. Who is Tom, I marvel,

that she said I could lake me withal? Metrusteth he is a lad of some

mettle, and not a dull lump of stuff like yon Jack Arundel. I would,

though, he had been something elder than me in the stead of younger. I

love not laking with children."

Master Roger was beginning to consider himself above the degradation of

childhood. Lawrence contented himself with replying that he trusted his

Lordship might find matters as should be to his satisfaction.

"Where shall it be, Loll, thinkest? I would it might be in the Palace!

Aye, and said she not that I should see the King my cousin well-nigh

every morrow? I would like that best of all. I could die for him,

Lolly!--and shall some day, I cast no doubt."

Lawrence's reply was merely a respectful intimation that he was

listening. He was quite as ready as Roger to die for one whom he might

love, but not by any means so ready to talk about it.

"O Lolly, I could jump up to the moon, 'tis so jolly!" and Roger

executed a _pas seul_ outside his bedclothes. "But I say!--I hope they

shall 'noy me with no more maids! Why can folk not leave a man be, I

would fain wit?" demanded his Lordship, loftily, lying down again, and

drawing the satin coverlet over him, by no means tidily. "I would in

very sooth I were but a bit bigger! Howbeit, I reckon we shall grow.

And then, Loll, thou shalt be mine own especial knight, and shalt bear

mine arms, and fight right behind me."

"I thank your good Lordship," said Lawrence dutifully, though the

prospect of fighting, whether before or behind his master, was not

particularly enlivening to his mind. Could Lawrence have chosen his

lot, there would have been no fighting in it.

"I reckon we shall see," went on Roger, not quite in so lively a tone.

"But it shall be right jolly--any how. And I do not--I should not----"

Roger was asleep.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*FAIR AND FICKLE.*

"Wel were hym that wyste

To whom he mytte tryste;

Beter were hym that knewe

The false fro the trewe."

--OLD POEM OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

The hidden intentions of the Princess were very soon revealed. Roger

and his suite were transferred from Bermondsey House to Woking Manor,

the seat of Thomas, Earl of Kent, the eldest son of the Princess, and

half-brother of the King. The Countess of Kent was a sister of the Earl

of Arundel, but of a quieter and less decided character than most of her

family. Her children, in whom Roger felt more interest than in herself,

were six in number, exclusive of two boys who had died in the cradle.

They were Alianora, aged fourteen; Thomas, aged twelve; Anne, aged six;

Edmund, aged three; Joan, aged two; and Margaret, an infant. The eldest

boy was of course the Tom to whom the Princess had alluded. He was

present when Roger was introduced to the Countess, and Roger was

gratified to discover that Tom, though by a few months the younger, was

taller than himself. All the Holands of Kent were tall, fully

developed, of very fair complexion, and exceedingly handsome. But

Roger's eyes had not reached beyond Tom, when they lighted on some one

else who was entering the room, and from that moment he had eyes for no

other.

If it be true, as it has been said, that the metaphorical gentleman

termed Cupid usually takes the severest vengeance on those who despise

his power, he must have been in that mind with regard to Roger Mortimer.

One instantaneous glance proved sufficient to awaken in the bosom of

Roger, who hated and despised all girls, a fervent boyish passion which

reached down to his heart's core, and never left him until his life's

end.

The girl of whom the sight proved thus potent was the Lady Alianora de

Holand, eldest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Kent. Though only

fourteen, she was so tall and stately that she had a grown-up aspect.

She stood, when Roger saw her, just in the doorway, her arms full of

flowers which she had been gathering in the garden, and her abundant

fair hair falling about her like a golden glory. Her little brother

Edmund had pulled it down in play; and had she known of the existence of

visitors in the hall, the Lady Alianora, who was quite old enough to be

particular about her personal appearance, would never have presented

herself before them in this dishevelled guise. She stopped, blushed,

and hastily dropping her flowers on the nearest form, fled to her

chamber to make herself presentable,--leaving on Roger's mind an

impression of angelic loveliness.

No such impression was conveyed to Lawrence Madison. Roger, who was in

an exalted mood which disposed him, knight-errant-like, to insist upon

all beholders' instantaneous acknowledgment of the pre-eminence of the

lady of his heart, was quite put out by the cool, indifferent tone in

which Lawrence assented to his rapturous comments on the beauty of the

Lady Alianora. Accustomed as he was to sudden changes in his impulsive

master, yet this one took Lawrence by surprise. He had not expected

Roger to alter in that direction. Love, to him, was not a blow to be

struck all at once, but a plant to ripen by degrees. The sudden and

absorbing passion which had taken possession of Roger's heart by

assault, was not merely unexpected to Lawrence; it was incomprehensible.

The transfer of Roger from the care of the Earl of Arundel to that of

the Earl of Kent was marked by one peculiarity very unusual at the time.

It was purely a personal transfer, and did not include any change with

regard to the administration of the estates, which were still left in

the hands of Arundel, except that the Earls of Warwick and

Northumberland were joined with him in the guardianship. The care of

the heir and of the estate so generally went together as to rouse the

suspicion in this case that the severance was a fresh clever move on the

part of the Princess. To leave the estate in the enemy's hands might be

intended as a hidden purchase of his acquiesence in the transfer of the

boy. It was a sacrifice of the casket to secure the safety of the gem.

Perhaps the Princess was also sagacious enough to divine that--as it

turned out--there would be no sacrifice in the matter. Arundel proved

in this case an honourable man, and administered the estates well,

resigning them without difficulty into Roger's hands when he was called

upon to do so.

Between Roger and Thomas, eternal friendship was sworn without delay.

Their characters were somewhat alike, save that Roger was slightly the

more impulsive, and considerably the more self-willed. The younger

children were in Roger's eyes quite beneath his contempt.

There was one point of the matter in respect to which Lawrence was by no

means indifferent. The style in which the Lady Alianora behaved to her

youthful admirer enraged him beyond words. The beautiful girl was a

born coquette. And she treated Roger to every variety of behaviour

suggested by that despicable type of character. One day she would lift

him up to the heights of ecstacy with her notice and favour, and on the

next would plunge him into the lowest depths of despair. It appeared to

delight her to play with his feelings like a cat with a mouse. That she

had any of her own Lawrence could not discover. But as time went on,

and they grew older, and the sentimental adoration of the boy, instead

of fading away, blossomed into the solid and enduring love of the man,

the sensation of aversion on Lawrence's part became stronger than ever.

He would never have used Roger as she did, had he been in her place.

Roger appeared not to perceive this blemish in his chosen idol. All

that she chose to do was perfection in his eyes.

It may perhaps strike the reader as hardly possible that a boy of

Roger's age could have entertained such feelings. But we have abundant

evidence that our fathers, five hundred years ago, grew up much earlier

than we do--probably in part from the shorter average duration of human

life, and in part from the forcing nature of the life they led. A boy

of twelve, in 1385, had attained a period of life equivalent to that of

a youth of at least sixteen in the present day.

If it could have been whispered to Roger Mortimer that he was flinging

away his true and faithful heart upon a worthless weed, while there were

modest violets to be found under the leaves--that he was bartering his

priceless diamonds for glass beads which were not worth the picking

up--well, he would not have believed it. But in truth he had met with

the evil angel of his life, and he was yielding unto her fair false

hands the perfect trust and the passionate devotion which were only due

to God. Would he ever awake from the dream? and if he did, would it be

while there was yet time left to repair his blunder, or only when it was

too late, and there remained but a long weary stretch of the wilderness

before the end should come?

Ah, the Good Shepherd goes after His lost sheep, until He find them.

But they are apt to lead Him up arid steeps and into sunless gulfs,

through thorns which tear their feet as well as His, and into dry places

where no water is beside the stream which flows from the smitten Rock.

Reserve and reticence were not in the nature of Roger Mortimer. The

Princess very soon perceived, with equal amusement and delight, the

fulfilment of her prophecy; and urged upon her royal son the

desirability of at once betrothing Roger and Alianora. The King,

however, preferred a little delay. There was time enough, he said: both

were yet very young; matters might alter before they were old enough to

be married. So the formal ceremony, though fully intended, was

deferred, leaving an element of uncertainty which added to Roger's

intermittent misery.

The autumn which followed the spring of Roger's transference to Woking

witnessed some most painful events. The second son of the Princess, Sir

John de Holand, entering into a squabble between his attendants out of

which he had far better have kept himself, killed Sir Ralph Stafford,

the favourite squire of the young Queen. He was condemned to die, and

the Princess in an agony of grief, sent Sir Lewis Clifford to the King

at York, earnestly beseeching for mercy to his brother. She was

refused, and it was the first refusal which her royal son had ever given

to an intercession of hers. As the event proved, he was ready enough to

grant it as man, but he could not feel it his duty as King. The

Princess laid it so to heart that her heart broke. A fortnight after

the return of Sir Lewis from his fruitless errand, she lay dead at

Wallingford Castle.

In the first impulse of his anguish and remorse, King Richard granted a

full pardon to his brother, on condition of his making a pilgrimage to

Syria. He was a man of the deepest affections, and next to his wife, his

mother had been nearest to his heart. Perhaps it was the remembrance of

this one rejected appeal and the agony of its result, which made Richard

in after years so perpetual a pardoner of the transgressions of those

whom he loved.

Another result of these sorrowful circumstances was to cause the King to

carry into immediate action various intentions which he knew had been

his mother's wish. And in pursuance of one of these, on a morning in

October, he sent for the Earl of March.

The royal officers conducted Roger, somewhat to his surprise, to the

King's private closet, and motioned to his suite to remain in the

ante-chamber. He was to pass in alone.

Roger found, however, that the interview was not to be _tete-a-tete_.

Seated in a curule chair by the side of His Majesty was the uncle of

both, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, the most astute man in England, and

the evil angel of the King. Roger made his reverences to his royal

kinsman, and was directed to seat himself on a velvet settle which faced

them. A slight motion from the young King appeared to be a preconcerted

signal at which Gloucester took up the word.

[Illustration: 'Roger made his reverences to his royal kinsman, and was

directed to seat himself on a velvet settle which faced them.']

"Methinks, fair Cousin," said he, addressing Roger, "that you be not now

to learn that your mother, the Lady Philippa of March, was daughter and

heir unto my fair brother of Clarence, whom God assoil?"

Roger intimated that this was no news to him.

"And you may lightly guess, moreover, that, my said brother standing

next in age to my most honoured Lord the Prince, whom likewise may God

pardon, had the said Prince deceased unhappily without issue him

outliving, my said brother your grand-sire should have stood next to be

king."

Roger bowed his head. He began to wonder what was coming. Was evil

about to befall him for the crime of being a great-grandson of King

Edward?

"Bear with me, then, my fair Cousin, while I recount unto you the causes

of that which I am about to lay before you under command of my Liege

here present."

One of the secrets of Gloucester's popularity was his exquisite veneer.

Very few persons realised how thin the coating was, or what was the

material which lay beneath. Least likely to discover it of all was the

young King, in whose single-eyed nature suspicion had no place, and

whose warm heart was ready to take in every creature who professed a

shred of devotion to himself.

"Maybe, being as you are but right youthful, fair Cousin," pursued

Gloucester, "you shall have need to be told in words that after the old

custom of England it was not used that, the King's son dying afore his

father, his childre should be held to fill his place. This ancient

custom, howbeit, was changed by my redoubted Lord and father King

Edward, of set purpose that the King our Liege who here sitteth should

succeed him on the throne. In case, therefore, that our said Liege

should leave no issue--which God defend!--he must needs appoint him a

successor after his pleasure. Now my said Liege, accounting it ill (as

in very sooth it should be) that men's minds should be unsettled

touching so weighty a matter, and knowing moreover that life standeth

alway at the pleasure of God, and that men may not dwell on middle earth

no longer than it listeth Him--" there was a vast reservoir of piety in

Gloucester, but it went no lower than his tongue--"it hath pleased my

Liege to make choice of him that shall succeed him, if in evil case he

should chance to decease without child. To make an end, fair Cousin,

without further words, you are he whom my Lord hath chosen to sit on the

throne when the pleasure of God shall be fulfilled in him."

Roger sat dumfoundered. The last conclusion he had expected was the one

that had come upon him. Among all the suppositions as to the chosen

heir which had been coursing through his thoughts while his uncle spoke,

the faintest idea that it might be himself had never occurred to his

mind.

He did not know that it had been in existence, nearly as long as he had,

in the three governing minds of England, of which one had just passed

away. It was the only point of all their opinions in which the Princess

and the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester were agreed. The private

reasons of each were utterly diverse from those of the other two. The

Princess wished to secure two points--the happiness of her son, and the

welfare of the Lollard Church of which she was the nursing mother. To

this end the heir must entertain a personal affection for His Majesty

which would prevent him from coveting his position, and must be brought

up in an atmosphere which would dispose him toward the Lollard

doctrines. The Duke of Lancaster's object was the welfare of England;

added to which he did not want to reign himself, and Roger or his

brother were the only persons who could reasonably be placed before him.

The Duke of Gloucester's object was almost the opposite of the last. He

did wish to reign, but he cared more for the reality of power than for

the semblance, and knowing that equity would be outraged by his being

preferred to his elder brothers, he desired such a monarch as he would

easily be able to influence. This he fancied he saw in

Roger,--warm-hearted, impulsive, readily swayed, and not too suspicious

of ulterior motives.

The only person, at that day, who had ever been able to read the true

character of Gloucester was the dead Princess. She must have been a

very clever woman. Her feminine instinct penetrated all the joints of

his closely-riveted armour, and without his being in the least aware of

it, "to her he had shown his naked heart." Somebody who could be

trusted must be put in his way; and she read Roger also more accurately

than he had done. Through all the outward impulsiveness she discerned

the heart's fidelity--through all the thorny surroundings of temptation

the ever straightforward aim at the one goal of right. Perhaps her

cleverest move of all was just that which looked on the surface the

least likely to forward her intentions. She had removed him from the

noxious atmosphere of Bermondsey House, and had placed him in a family

which was not marked by Lollard proclivities--a family of which, in that

respect, even the anti-Lollard Gloucester could feel no suspicion. But

she saw that Roger was more easily led than driven: that his intensely

Lollard uncle, John de Montacute, "the most pestilent of all that sect,"

was likely to have far more influence with him as an occasional and

interesting visitor, than as the man who decided his fate and sat in

judgment on all his little peccadilloes; beside which, had he been

consigned to the care of a distinctly Lollard family, Gloucester would

have been certain to scheme for his removal. He would probably be

content to leave him at Woking, where Lollardism was something quite

outside the family notions--a matter which they left to the priesthood,

whose business they considered it to be. His suspicions of any sinister

design on the part of the Princess would scarcely be aroused by her very

natural wish that her youngest son's chosen heir should be in the care

of her eldest son.

Roger, of course, had not the slightest conception of all these wheels

within wheels which he now saw to his amazement were bearing him forward

to the throne. The result was to him the only thing apparent, and that

left him in a state of speechless astonishment. The only two clear

ideas in his confused head, beyond surprise, were deep devotion to the

royal cousin who had marked him by such signal favour, and a rapturous

throb of his heart at the thought that now, at least, Alianora was

safely assured to him. He knew that a prospective crown would weigh

heavily with her, no less than with her parents: and as for him who wore

it, and who certainly would weigh less, Roger's loyal heart was content

to accept the very crumbs of affection from the hand which he loved,

rather than a plentiful board spread by any other.

The King's voice broke Roger's astounded silence.

"Methinks we have somewhat taken you by surprise, fair Cousin," said he,

with that exquisitely sweet smile which Richard knew how to give.

"In very deed, my gracious Lord, but you so have!" was the answer.

"Mefeareth, my Liege, that your bestowal upon me is far over my

dementing."

"Strive then to deserve the same, fair Cousin," said Gloucester

didactically. "In all things submit you obeissantly to my Lord his

pleasure."

A speech which meant much more than it said, since Gloucester aimed at

governing Roger through the King. Like other astute persons, the former

scarcely comprehended a mind which had but one aim, and assuredly never

intended to strengthen Roger's personal love for his royal cousin. His

real intention was to attract it to himself. But Roger's powers of

discrimination were greater than those of King Richard, and he had an

uneasy sense of some ulterior meaning on the part of his uncle, which

cooled his demeanour and lessened his words. He had no intention of

confiding his heart's secrets to that over-clever relative.

"I am at ease thereanent," said the King, answering Roger with another

smile. "And now, Cousin, God give you good day, for methinks you have

food enough for thought."

Roger could not have told whether he returned to Woking through smiling

valleys or barren mountains. The family of the Earl of Kent, the elder

branches of which had been admitted into the secret, were amused to see

how silent and meditative their young ward became after the proclamation

of his future brilliant destiny. Roger was growing up fast--faster in

mind than in body. Very grave and thoughtful grew the young heir. The

radiant crown which hung before him, though in a probably distant

future, seemed to have descended upon his head not as an ornament, but

as a weight. The Earl of Kent was much surprised at it. The side of

Roger's character which was outwardly exhibited--the lighter and more

childish side of it--was the only one which he had yet seen. But the

depths were there, and they had been stirred at last.

They were stirred in more ways than one. The prospective crown which

had struck Roger into gravity, struck the Lady Alianora into a flutter.

To her it was merely the most becoming decoration which could rest upon

her head. The thought of any duty or responsibility in connection with

it was entirely foreign to her mind. But it became desirable to

cultivate Roger, and to let him see unmistakably that he was established

in her good graces. To lose him now was not to be thought of for a

moment. But had the King changed his mind, and transferred his favours

to any other person, what the Lady Alianora called her heart would have

followed in their wake. The dog-like fidelity which characterised

Lawrence Madison, and to which it would have been of no moment whether

his master sat upon a throne or a dunghill, was simply inconceivable to

her.

It was Sunday evening, and the churches were slowly emptying of the

worshippers at vespers. Lawrence was making his way out at the western

door, when looking up he encountered a pair of bright eyes attentively

regarding him. They belonged to a girl of about his own age, who wore a

dress of blue camlet, and was evidently in the middle class of life. She

was very pretty, but apparently very shy. Her eyes dropped the instant

they encountered his, but kept returning to his face as if she found

something attractive in it. Behind her came an older woman whom

Lawrence felt certain, as soon as he glanced at her, that he had met

somewhere before. As soon as they were clear of the sacred edifice,

Lawrence saw the girl turn round to the woman behind her, and address

her in an earnest whisper. The woman replied aloud.

"Nay, child: it were not like, methinks."

"But it might be! Will you not ask, Mistress Wenteline?"

The name solved Lawrence's difficulty in a moment. In another instant

he had pressed through the crowd, and was by the side of his old friend.

"Mistress Wenteline! Come you from Ludlow--from Usk? Know you not

Lawrence Madison?"

"Well, of a surety, but it is!" cried Guenllian, heartily enough. "Lad,

how camest thou hither? The maid said it were like thee, but I never

thought--Is my Lord hereaway? My Lord of Arundel hath no place in this

vicinage, trow?"

"My Lord is not now in ward to him, good Mistress; but unto my Lord of

Kent, that dwelleth at the Manor here."

"Now God be thanked therefor!" said Guenllian warmly.

Lawrence turned to the girl. "Methinks I should know you likewise: and

in truth, you be like some one that I have known, but I cannot give you

a name."

The bright eyes laughed, but their owner seemed too shy to speak.

Guenllian looked at both with an amused expression.

"Nay, twain friends so dear as you were of old should not have forgot

each other," said she. "Lolly, dost not know thine old playfellow?

'Tis Blumond's Beattie."

"Beattie!" broke from Lawrence with more warmth than usual. But as soon

as the greeting was over, both relapsed into extreme shyness.

"And pray you, Mistress Wenteline, how came you hither?"

"Marry, lad, we be tarrying a two-three days, under the King's gracious

leave, at his manor of Byfleet, and as Tuesday we journey onward to

London town. Beattie and I, we thought we would come to Church

something a longer walk, and two of my Lord's squires be with

us"--Guenllian paused and looked about for them--"I marvel whither they

be gone in this crowd. Beattie, canst see any whither Master Orewell or

Master Chauntemarle?"

Beattie thought she saw Master Chauntemarle's cap over yonder: but

Lawrence interposed with a question which he was burning to ask.

"But, Mistress Wenteline, how came you hither?"

"Why, look you, we be now of the following of the Lady de Percy, and the

Lord of these squires and of us is my Lord of Northumberland."

"And the Lady de Percy is at Byfleet? Me reckoneth my Lord were right

fain to see his sister."

"Aye, and the Lady Elizabeth was ever his favourite. But, Lolly, I

would fain see my dear child. He is at the Manor here, trow?"

"If it like you to bide for compline, Mistress, you shall then see him

with no further travail; or if you will come up to the Manor, I rest

well assured that Mistress Dayrell, which keepeth house, shall make you

right welcome."

"Beattie, run thou to Master Orewell, which I see searching us o'er by

yon yew-tree, and do him to wit of this. Say we will return with

Lawrence to the Manor, and ask at him if he or Master Chauntemarle list

to come with us. If not, then will we leave our returning as it shall

please God."

Beatrice obeyed, and in a minute returned with Master Orewell, who

intimated that his pleasure would be to accompany the ladies, but Master

Chauntemarle preferred to return to Byfleet. Guenllian accordingly sent

through the latter her excuses to Lady Northumberland, and the party set

out for the Manor.

Lawrence left his friends in charge of Mistress Dayrell, who was well

pleased with the prospect of a gossip, and dashed up the stairs, three

at a time, in search of his young master. Roger was playing hand-tennis

with the other young people--an occupation the suitability of which to

Sunday evening it never occurred to him or any one else to doubt. The

moment that he heard who was below, he flung down his battledore, and

rushed down the stairs as quickly as Lawrence had come up them.

Guenllian had not realised the change that years could make until Roger

stood before her. She had been unconsciously expecting to see the child

of nine, and when the handsome boy of thirteen, who looked older than he

was, came into the room and welcomed her, she could scarcely believe his

identity. But the warmth and brightness were those of the old Roger, and

they comforted Guenllian after all her fears and heart-sinkings lest he

should be changed and spoiled at Bermondsey House.

"Mine own dear child!" she said lovingly. "Verily, I ask your

Lordship's pardon; but you shall seem always my child to me, even when

you be a man grown."

Roger had arrived at the age when a boy is rather ashamed of being

kissed, and feels it a humiliation. But like a true gentleman as he was

in nature as well as name, he put his own feelings aside, and permitted

his old nurse to pet him to her heart's content.

"And now, mine heart, give me leave to ask you," inquired Guenllian, in

whose diction the new deference was somewhat at variance with the old

familiar love, "if you be welsome and happy hereaway?"

"Very, very happy," said Roger's eyes no less than his voice. The Lady

Alianora had been unusually complaisant for the past week.

"And how did your Lordship like at Arundel Castle?"

"Very ill, Wenteline. I am rejoiced to be away thence."

Guenllian was privately rejoiced to hear it.

"Metrusteth Lawrence continueth a good lad?"

"Much better than Roger," said the owner of the latter name, with a

bright laugh. "He alway were so."

"And your Lordship, as I do hear, is in right high favour with the

King?"

Roger smiled and blushed slightly. His honours were still fresh upon

him.

"Aye, Wenteline, I have been denounced[#] heir of England."

[#] Announced, proclaimed.

"But to think of it!" exclaimed she. "Well, my dear child, God give

thee His grace! Thou shalt make but an ill King without it."

Guenllian thought that Roger's eyes responded, but his voice was silent.

*CHAPTER VII.*

*ROGER HAS HIS WISH.*

"Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings."

--SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

The paths that had joined for a moment parted again, and Guenllian and

Beatrice passed out of the sight of Roger and Lawrence. The life which

they led at Woking was very quiet--so quiet that Roger at least began to

feel restless, and to complain to Lawrence, that every thing stagnated

around him. But before six months were over, the second political

convulsion of the century had begun. Gloucester only awaited the

removal of his brother Lancaster, who was the barricade against his

ambitious designs, to draw the bow which he was holding ready.

The Duke of Lancaster sailed from Plymouth on the ninth of July. By

Michaelmas, Gloucester was in London, gathering his conspirators around

him. The one with whom he first took counsel was his nephew, Edward,

afterwards Earl of Rutland, eldest son of the Duke of York. This man

seems to have delighted in dissimulation and treachery, not as means to

an end, but for their own sakes. He cared not whom he joined, so long

as he could afterwards betray them; and he was ready to agree to

anything, if it only involved a plot. Love, kinship, gratitude, even

interest, were no barriers in his way. This man had been one of the

dearest friends of the young King--the friendship being on the King's

side, and only the outward profession of it on Rutland's: but no sooner

did Gloucester lay his plans before Rutland, than the latter sacrificed

his friend to the pleasure of a conspiracy.

There were four of the Privy Councillors of whom Gloucester had resolved

to get rid. These were the Archbishop of York, the Duke of Ireland, the

Earl of Suffolk, and Sir Simon Burley. The first and last were

professed Lollards: the second, and perhaps the third, almost certainly

held those doctrines, though less openly than the other two. There is

an old proverb that "If you want to hang a dog, it is easy enough to

find a rope:" and the conspirators found no difficulty in fixing on

charges calculated to render the four councillors impopular. The

Archbishop, who was a Neville of Raby, and the Duke, who was ninth Earl

of Oxford, could not be accused of humble origin; but the Earl of

Suffolk was open to this impeachment, and they made the most of it, by

contemptuously addressing him as "Michael," even in full Parliament.

Sir Simon Burley had been the King's tutor, and an old friend of the

Black Prince, who had great confidence in him; it might have been

supposed difficult to find the rope in his case. But who ever knew a

Romish priest short of an excuse to disparage the character of a

heretic, by whatever name he might be called? Behind the conspirators

himself unseen, but quietly pulling the strings which moved all these

puppets at his pleasure, stood Sir Thomas de Arundel, Bishop of Ely, and

brother of the Earl, who was at once the instigator, the assistant, and

the absolver of them all.

The Earl of Arundel had been induced by his brother to unite with the

conspirators, who were also joined by Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,

a weak man who was as much a dupe as a criminal. It was not till a

later period that they were joined by the cautious Henry of Bolingbroke,

Earl of Derby, and by another who ought for very shame to have held

aloof,--the King's favoured friend and trusted councillor, Thomas

Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk. William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury,

was also ready to help them, on account of his personal dislike to his

brother Archbishop, who had recently received a lucrative appointment

whereon Courtenay had set covetous eyes.

Of course the real causes of hatred were not paraded before that

innocent, deceivable creature, the public. The true reasons for hating

the four obnoxious councillors were that they had the ear of the King,

while he declined to be governed by the five conspirators and their

priestly guides, who were accordingly much scandalised at his allowing

himself to be governed by any one--themselves of course excepted. This

is the usual secret of complaints that a man is governed. Put the

complainer in the place of the governor, and the complaint will not be

heard again.

The ostensible reasons were plausible. The Archbishop of York, said the

conspirators, was covetous and arrogant, and took liberties with the

King: which of course meant that equal liberties were not allowed to

themselves, the Archbishop being in reality one of the gentlest and most

unworldly of men. The Duke of Ireland was "a puppy;" he made the King

do whatever he liked, and bestow on him lands, titles, and offices

(instead of on the conspirators). The Earl of Suffolk was a mere

nobody, the scum of the earth, yet he took upon himself to dictate to

the King and to oppose the nobles. Sir Simon Burley had proposed, under

colour of an expected invasion of the French, to remove the shrine of

St. Thomas from Canterbury Cathedral to Dover Castle, on the pretence

that Canterbury was not so strong as Dover: of course he could only mean

to pocket the rich offerings, and make his own profit out of the

guardianship of the shrine. All of them were accused of defalcations of

the Crown revenues.

There was a further charge against Ireland, which has been ever since

received as historical fact, though it was not substantiated by a single

document, nor by any thing but the bare word of the conspirators, and

some inferences from circumstantial evidence, which might or might not

be true. The Duke had always lived unhappily with his Duchess, who was

a cousin of the King. The differences between them were partly

ecclesiastical, he siding with the Antipope Urban, she with Pope

Clement. There is also reason to suspect that her temper was somewhat

less than angelic. The chroniclers tell us that Ireland fell violently

in love with a German lady in the Queen's suite, whose name was

Lancerona or Lancecrona (a suspiciously manufactured epithet): that the

Queen wrote a letter to Pope Urban entreating that he might receive a

divorce; that Urban thereupon divorced Ireland and Philippa, and that

the Duke married his German love: that his mother was extremely

indignant, and took Philippa to live with her; that the Sire de Coucy,

father of the Duchess, and the King of France, almost took up arms

against England in consequence of these wicked proceedings. The real

truth of the matter is that no evidence whatever exists to support these

alleged facts. We have evidence that Gloucester and others took pains

to spread them as a rumour, but none to show that they were true. Not

only is the Queen's letter not forthcoming, but there is no document to

show that a divorce ever took place![#] There is no evidence--except

the _ipse dixit_ of Gloucester and his partisans--that Ireland ever

contracted a second marriage; while the facts that after his banishment

he was invited to visit the French Court, that his wife bore the title

of Duchess of Ireland to the day of her death, which followed his, and

that his mother ran great personal risk in warmly espousing his cause

and that of King Richard when both were at the lowest ebb, do not took

favourable to the representations of Gloucester. It may be added that

this Lancecrona, who is stated to have been a lady in waiting and a

laundress--two utterly incompatible positions, even more so at that time

than now--does not appear at all as one of the royal suite in any

mention of them contained in the state papers, and there is cause for

suspicion which almost reaches certainty, that she never existed beyond

the inner consciousness of my Lord Duke of Gloucester.

[#] Carter, one of the most accurate of our historians, records his

opinion that "there is no reason to think that a divorce was ever

granted, _nor even solicited_, between Ireland and Philippa." (ii. 581.)

These tales, true or false, were assiduously spread among the populace,

and Gloucester very secretly, but very diligently, advised them to

refuse any further payment of taxes. The King, said he, would have

plenty of money at his command, if the wicked councillors were only

forced to disgorge their ill-gotten booty. Yet with all their

cleverness, Gloucester and his allies could not succeed in accusing

Suffolk of any greater covetousness than "taking from the King a

thousand marks a year since he was made an Earl"--which was the ordinary

grant from the Crown to every earl in England.

That the animosity of these plotters was really and originally religious

is shown in the fact that when the whole power in the kingdom fell into

their hands, they weeded the state offices and the royal household of

all the Lollards, and let others alone. They descended even to squires

and ladies--so long as they were Lollards. The Lady de Poynings, a

princess's daughter, was not too high for them to aim at; nor was John

Calverley, the Queen's squire, too low to feel their vengeance. Sir

Bernard Brocas, the Queen's Chamberlain, and the Lady Molyneux, wife of

Sir Thomas, were also swept out of her household. Neither prayers nor

tears availed to soften them. For four hours the Queen herself,

"Caesar's daughter," knelt to the Earl of Arundel, imploring him to

spare Calverley, whom they had condemned to death. It was all in vain.

Arundel savagely told her to pray for herself. She had cause enough.

Sir Bernard Brocas was also put to death: the ladies were dropped into

obscurity, where they were wise enough to remain.

The long and sad story of this persecution--it deserves no other

name--belongs to general history: but the end is soon told. Ireland,

Suffolk, and Archbishop Neville fled abroad, and died there. Burley

meant to have preceded them in this step, but was unfortunately

dissuaded by Ireland, at that time unable to conceive the possibility of

the conspirators presuming to put any man to death. He generously

offered him forty thousand marks to refund in respect of the

defalcations of which Burley, "that gentle, gallant, and prudent

knight," had been falsely accused. But the Lords Appellants, as it

pleased the conspirators to term themselves, wanted blood, not bribes:

nor did it suit them to accept as a gift what they meant to take with a

high hand. They got the King out of the way, and instantly seized on

his old tutor, whom he was unable to deliver from their malicious hands.

Burley died on Tower Hill. The other less obnoxious councillors were got

rid of, mostly by death without the pretence of a trial: and then my

Lords Appellants, having reduced their Sovereign to the status of their

slave, courteously, and in subservient language requested him to come

home, to obey their orders, and as the first, to deliver into their

hands all the state records and twenty thousand pounds.

Ten years later, when the slave had resumed the status of the Sovereign,

after a trial on which Lancaster sat as judge, the Earl of Arundel was

beheaded in Cheapside. And modern writers regard Richard as a tyrant,

and Arundel as a murdered patriot! There is one Book written by truer

pens than theirs, wherein other appellations are probably attached to

the names.

Perhaps few households in high positions throughout England were less

disturbed by the political earthquake than that at Woking Manor. The

Earl of Kent, with whomsoever he might side in his heart, practically

held aloof from the entire struggle; and the Countess Alesia, though she

was sister alike of the Earl of Arundel and the Bishop of Ely, who with

Gloucester formed the soul of the conspiracy, appears herself to have

entertained no political bias, and to have followed her husband along

the quiet bye-path into which he thought it prudent to turn until the

storm blew over. Rumours, however, were not slow in reaching them: and

no one was more eager to hear all the news than Roger. It need hardly

be said that he was a vehement partisan of his royal cousin, and hotly

indignant against the Lords Appellants. The suspicions which he had

entertained already concerning the fidelity of his uncle of Gloucester

were now confirmed to the full, and beyond it.

Those who, being conscious of Lollardism, or knowing themselves

suspected of it, felt danger threatening them, got out of the way, or in

some other manner prepared for the inevitable as best they could. The

prominent Lollard, Sir John Montacute, Roger's great-uncle, made his

will, and then waited the event. The young Lord Le Despenser, a boy of

Roger's age, was sent off by his friends to sea, being sagaciously

placed under the nominal care of the Earl of Arundel.

Having finished their work, the Lords Appellants now thought it time to

distribute their rewards. The heaviest prize fell to Gloucester's

share, for he granted himself--of course in the King's name--all the

lands of the Duke of Ireland, about the second man in England as to

wealth, and the smaller property of the Earl of Suffolk. He also

appropriated to himself the office of Justice of Chester, which the

conspirators had showed such indignation that Ireland should possess.

To Arundel was granted the marriage of the young Lord Poynings. To

Edward of York was given the earldom of Rutland, with lands in the

county, and a hundred marks in money. The Bishop of Ely received the

archbishopric of York. Derby was more easily satisfied: he coveted only

the breastplate of Sir John Beauchamp, one of the murdered Lollards. He

was, in truth, not anxious to show too distinctly his status as one of

the conspirators. The Archbishop of Canterbury was made happy by a

proclamation that "whosoever should be found to possess any books,

pamphlets, or handbills, of Master John Wycliffe and others, deceased,

in English or in Latin, should be arrested and put under penalty by the

Council." Norfolk and Warwick it was not thought necessary to notice in

the general distribution: but, perhaps to blind the eyes of the public,

perhaps to keep the King content in the menial position which they had

assigned to him, that suppressed gentleman was allowed to make a few

insignificant grants to his own friends. He was graciously permitted to

restore a single manor to Lady Poynings, their own inheritances to Emma

Tresilian, and Idonia Brembre, and her wardrobe to Joan Salesbury,

widows of his murdered councillors.[#] He was also allowed to grant to

his younger brother the castles of Berkhamsted and Tintagel, and to the

elder the constableship of the Tower, and the marriage of Roger, Earl of

March.

[#] The widows of Tresilian and Brembre, the two members of the

attainted group who alone were not Lollards, received by far the best

treatment of any.

"'Tis an ill wind blows nobody good," said Mistress Grenestede when this

last piece of news was published.

"Ah, my dear master! is it good it has blown you?" was the silent

response of Lawrence Madison in his inmost heart.

Whatever were Lawrence's doubts, none oppressed Roger. He arrayed

himself for his bridal without a shadow of apprehension of any sort.

The King, the Queen, the royal Dukes and Duchesses, and half the

nobility, were bidden to the marriage of the heir of England, which took

place early in March, in the Royal chapel of the Tower.[#] The

bridegroom was dressed in blue golden baldekyn, one of the richest silk

stuffs then manufactured, the cost of which when plain was about seven

guineas: but this was richly wrought with fleurs-de-lis in gold

embroidery, which had cost three pounds more. White frills of costly

lace encircled his neck and wrists, and closer sleeves of crimson velvet

protruded from the wider sleeves of the blue gown. His boots were of

crimson velvet, buttoned with pearls. In his hand was a hat of black

velvet, over which swept a full plume of white ostrich feathers. From a

chain of massy gold about his neck depended the White Hart, in enamel

and gold, which was at once the badge of the King and that of the bride.

[#] The place is not on record; February or March, 1389, is the probable

date.

The Lady Alianora, who was given away by her royal uncle,--an uncle only

about five years older than his niece--was arrayed with the utmost care

and costliness that her wardrobe could afford. She appeared in a long

robe of crimson velvet, embroidered with golden flowers in an elaborate

rambling pattern, and over it a cote-hardie, or close jacket without

sleeves, of the choicest miniver, cut low in the neck, as a bridal dress

then usually was: cuffs of gold filagree finished the sleeve at the

wrist, and a girdle formed of ten golden clasps fitted round the hips.

Down the front of the cote-hardie ran a row of gleaming

jewels--sapphires, rubies, diamonds, and emeralds--which flashed and

sparkled with every motion of the wearer. A golden fillet adorned her

head, set with similar gems; and from under it flowed the golden glory

of her magnificent hair, which streamed almost to the ground. This last

item was an essential part of the bride's costume at this date. Beneath

the crimson velvet robe, when she lifted it out of her way, could be

seen glimpses of a rich skirt of gold-coloured satin, and black velvet

shoes studded with gold. The bride wore no gloves: they were not usual

except on some ceremonial occasions, and then only for royal persons, or

for the bird to perch upon in hawking. The wedding-ring was set with a

ruby.

Around the principal actors stood a crowd of the English nobility, and

on its outskirts a motley assemblage of officials then deemed

necessary--seneschals, heralds, minstrels, trumpeters, and many others.

When the priest reached the words "With all my worldly goods I thee

endow," it was incumbent upon the bridegroom to put a sum of money on

the book, in gold and silver, which became the private possession of the

bride. Roger laid down the princely sum of three marks, which Alianora

swept composedly into her pocket. Pockets were comparative novelties,

having only existed for about forty years; and ladies, like gentlemen,

had one on each side. Enormous bags they were, within which, had it so

pleased her, the bride could easily have disposed of her fillet or her

cote-hardie.

Immediately after the ceremony followed the mass,--a low mass, at which

the wedded pair alone communicated with the priest. The bride was then

led between two married nobles to the banquet-hall, where the

wedding-feast was spread, and the bridegroom followed, led in like

manner. Precedence even before royalty was given to them for that day.

They sat together in the place of honour, the middle of the table on the

dais, the King being on the right hand of the bride, and the Queen on

the left of the bridegroom. Such plate as was included in the bridal

gifts--and plate was more frequently given than anything else--was used

at the feast. Stately gold and silver hanaps, or cups about the size of

a chalice, in all manner of diverse forms dictated by fashion or

fancy--swans, eagles, dragons, roses,--gold and silver ewers, often

matching the hanaps; dishes, plates, porringers, cups, saucers,

salt-cellars, spoons--all these had been poured before the feet of

Alianora, and all figured at her bridal festival.

This was above all others the era of elaborate cookery, and of

marvellous and unintelligible names bestowed upon it. The guests were

offered Bouce Jane and Bardolf--both being of the nature of a fricasee;

Daryalys and Mon Amy, which may be classed under the head of custards;

Aqua Patys, which was garlic broth, and Raynecles, which somewhat

resembled croquets. It is, however, very difficult to compare these

dishes with our own, since the former were far more elaborate, and

generally involved most extraordinary mixtures of incongruous

ingredients. There were also oxen, pigs, and sheep, roasted whole; pies

of all descriptions, made of flesh, fowl, and fruit; smaller beasts and

birds of every kind, many of which are now deemed inedible, such as

hedgehogs, squirrels, swans, and herons; and lastly, two regal dishes at

the top and bottom of the high table, the boar's head and the peacock in

his pride--namely, with the tail fully spread. In the midst of the

table, at every course, stood a different "subtlety"--now a castle of

silvered cardboard, attacked by painted wooden knights; now a bronze

mill turning its wheel through a stream of Gascon wine; now a lady

standing on a mossy bank, with her cavalier kneeling at her feet, while

his squire held his horse, ready for departure, behind them; finally, a

King seated on his throne, with his Court standing around. This table

ornament might or might not be of edible materials; it was more

frequently the latter.

After this splendid feast, and when the basin of rose-water had been

carried round, the hall was cleared for dancing, commenced by a minuet

in which the wedded pair were partners. How gentlemen contrived to

dance with those long gowns, like dressing-gowns, flapping about their

feet, may be left to themselves to explain. They must have been more

awkward to manage than a woman's dress, being open in front, and

therefore much more likely to entangle the legs. Swords were another

difficulty; and to fall over the sword in dancing was not an unknown

calamity. The simple expedient of laying it aside for the occasion

appears not to have occurred to the wearers, and would, perhaps, have

been thought unknightly behaviour.

The bride, who of course was the observed of all observers, conducted

herself through the whole ceremony in a composed and self-possessed

manner, which the elder ladies thought extremely edifying, and pointed

out to their giddy or excitable daughters as a model of proper

behaviour.

To women of Alianora's type, the matrimonial ceremony is the great event

of life--the ceremony, rather than the fact. And she was perfectly

satisfied, for she had obtained all she wanted. She had longed for a

gown of blue cloth of gold, and she possessed it, and many equally

expensive and handsome. She was now a matron, which meant that she was

emancipated from parental control, could go where she liked, and do what

she pleased. Before her hung the glittering prospect of a queenly crown,

with the adornment of a rich coronet while she waited for it. There was

only one element in her jewelled world with which she would have been

quite ready to dispense, if she could have had the other items without

it, which was unhappily impossible. And that was--Roger.

"Happy is the bride the sun shines on!" said Mistress Grenestede, who

dealt largely in proverbs, "Look you, we could not have had a better

day, might we have ordered the same our own selves: nay, nor a jollier

wedding. What think you, Master Madison? Forsooth, methinks you be

somewhat unjocund. You grudge not your Lord a fair and princely bride,

trow?"

"I grudge my Lord nothing that shall be for his good, nor for his

pleasure," was Lawrence's grave answer. "He above wist that."

"Then, prithee, why be you not better accommodated?"[#]

[#] More at ease.

"By reason, Mistress, that I much question the good: and I do yet more

doubt the pleasure."

"Nay, now, heard you ever the like?" demanded Mistress Grenestede of any

body who chose to answer, as Lawrence walked quietly away. "Yon lad is

either to presume more than him ought,[#] or elsewise can he see further

into a millstone than other folk."

[#] More suspicious than he should be.

Lawrence was not so far off that he failed to hear her, and he stopped

for a moment to reply.

"Any man may see through a millstone, Mistress mine, if he will but set

his eye on line with the hole."

About the close of 1393, the King resolved to make Roger Viceroy of

Ireland. He was now twenty years of age--equivalent to twenty-five in

the present day--and His Majesty thought it desirable that he should try

his hand at that government of which so much might eventually be thrust

upon him. He had been married for four years, and most people would

have thought him fully competent to take care, not only of himself, but

of Ireland. But his wise friend and father-in-law, Kent, who seems to

have been much attached to him, was not easy to let him go alone. He

resolved to accompany him in person: not only this, but he prepared a

petition to the King in Council, in Roger's name, containing the

following large stipulations, before Roger should take the lieutenancy

upon him.

First, he requested that notwithstanding his nonage, full livery should

be granted to the Earl of March of all his estates, in England, Wales,

or Ireland; and of all "lordships, castles, manors, towns, lands,

tenements, rents, services, franchises, fees, and advowsons, with all

other appurtenances and commodities, whether existing in fee, or

hereafter to return to the said heritage by reversion or remainder, or

by any other way whatever. Item, all the revenues and profits of all

the lordships and lands, with all their appurtenances and commodities

whatever, belonging to our Lord the King in all the land of Ireland

during the nonage of the said Roger. Item, two thousand marks in money

to be paid in hand. Item, that he have ... full power to charge his said

heritage" for one year, in order to provide money for the voyage. Item,

that Roger should not be obliged to take the said lieutenancy upon him,

before attaining his majority. Item, that the Earl of Kent should

accompany him, with sufficient attendance, specially indicating the Lord

Lovel, Sir John Stanley, Sir John Sandes, and Sir Ralph Cheyne. Lastly,

that this should be done within a year from the nativity of St. John

next ensuing, whereupon Roger would assume the duties of Viceroy. These

demands were very large; but that they were perfectly reasonable is

shown by the fact that not only did the King assent to them, but that

Arundel and his co-trustees gave a ready and formal consent. The entire

estates of March, therefore, were at once resigned into Roger's keeping,

though he was yet some months short of his full age. Arundel and his

colleagues had done their duty well by Roger in this matter. The

possessions handed over to him were in the best possible condition. He

"found all his castles and houses in good repair, amply stored with rich

furniture, his lands stocked with cattle, and forty thousand marks in

the treasury."

The King intended to have set out for Ireland about the end of April.

But before he was able to leave Shene, where he was then residing, the

saddest loss of all his sad life fell upon him. The "black death," that

dreadful plague which had scourged England in 1340 and in 1369, returned

to ravage it in 1394. One of its first victims, about the 20th or 25th

of April, was the beloved Lollard Queen.

This is not the date usually given for her death but it is nearer the

truth than the accepted one. Froissart, who states that she died at

Whitsuntide (which that year was June 7), and who has been followed by

all other writers, contradicts himself by saying that the King's journey

was deferred for two months in consequence of the Queen's death, and

that he set out about the 24th of June. In this case, she died about

the 24th of April: a date shown to be near the truth by an entry on the

Issue Roll, recording payment for the carriage of the waxen image to be

borne on the coffin at her burial, on the third of June. There must

therefore have been time, before this, to manufacture the wax statue,

which assuredly never was commenced while the Queen was alive; nor only

this, but to convey it by water from London to Richmond, which the entry

informs us had been done.

It was not until after the tenth of August that Roger set forth on his

journey to Ireland. His retinue consisted of (his own) March Herald,

two knights banneret, eight other knights, a hundred men-at-arms, 200

horsed archers, and 400 foot archers. With him, inseparable as his

shadow, went Lawrence Madison.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*MISCALCULATION.*

"Keep them thy gifts for them that value gold

Above their souls' redemption and hearts' love!

What! shall I stain mine honour, lose my God,

Do violence to mine heart, at such a price?

This very bait the Devil fished withal

For Christ our Master, urging Him to buy

What was His own an hour too soon, and pay

For the hour's tinsel glory, hope and peace.

Go, buy the traitors that will sell their souls!

From thy perfidious hand I draw mine own,

Clean of its lucre and its perfidy."

An account of the state of affairs in Ireland, when Roger sailed from

Holyhead to Dublin--the fact which is supposed to underlie the

enigmatical assertion of the worthy Canon of Chimay, Sir John Froissart,

that the Lords sent to govern Ireland embarked from Lolighet, and landed

at Dimelin--would if in detail require a volume to itself, and would be

a mere list of names and battles, diversified by occasional murders. A

short epitome of the facts is however requisite, in order to make clear

much that follows. There were three parties at this time in Ireland,

whom the English styled the Wild Irish, or Irishry; the Rebellious

Irish; and the English. The first were the unsubdued natives, who had

retired to the mountains, bogs, and forests; the second, who dwelt in

the territory known as the English pale, between the Irishry and the

sea, were the descendants of mixed marriages between the English and

Irish; they partially adopted the customs of both countries, and were

subject to the English or not as they found it convenient: more

frequently they did not find it so. Among these we find reckoned "the

Butyllers, Powers, Gerardyns [Fitzgeralds], Bermynghams, Daltons,

Barettes, and Dillons." The last class, the English proper, consisted

of "a confused medley of soldiers, merchants, men of needy or desperate

fortunes, and those whom the English government had invested with

authority: they occupied the principal towns and cities and small tracts

around them, chiefly in Leinster, and on the eastern and southern

coasts." The "rebellious English" were also termed English _by birth_,

while to the "obedient English" was restricted the title of English _by

blood_.

Since the death of Roger's father, Earl Edmund of March, matters had

gradually been going from bad to worse, until now the state of things

was little removed from anarchy. "Sometimes the septs were destroying

each other; at other times they were making inroads upon the English

pale, or joining with the great settlers in their mutual ravages." The

most unmanageable of all the Irish chieftains at this period was Arthur

MacMorogh, of Leinster, who with the Earl of Desmond wasted the whole

south of the country at intervals. Lesser troublers to the English, but

still sufficiently vexatious, were the O'Brien in the east, and the

O'Neile in Ulster. The chief helper of the government was the Earl of

Ormonde, head of the great family of Boteler. Connaught was almost

entirely given up to the "wild Irish."

The appearance and tactics of King Richard restored order, and four

Kings of the "wild Irish" submitted themselves to him, rather "through

love and good-humour than by battle or force," and mainly through the

persuasions of the Earl of Ormonde. The four were, O'Neile, King of

Meath; Brian, King of Thomond; "Contruo, King of Chenour," which may

mean the O'Conor; and Arthur MacMorogh himself, King of Leinster, who

claimed to be the Ardriagh, or Lord Paramount over the whole island. At

Dublin, on the 25th of March, 1395, these four chieftains were knighted

by the King in St. Patrick's Cathedral, after mass, having "watched" the

previous night in the church. It may be well to note in passing that

Froissart gravely informs us that St. John the Baptist was the founder

of the Cathedral. To instruct these four potentates in English customs

in general, and in the ceremonies of the forthcoming solemnity in

particular, the King appointed a tutor in the person of an English

squire of uncertain name, called in different MSS. of Froissart and by

other writers, Henry Castide, Cristeed, Cristall, and Cristelle. This

man had long been a captive among the "wild Irish," and had married an

Irish damsel. His first care was to improve the chieftains' table

manners, which in his eyes were those of savages: the next, to induce

them to lay aside their Irish cloaks, and attire themselves in silken

robes trimmed with fur; the third, to make them use saddles and

stirrups, both which they were very unwilling to do. They appear,

however, on this occasion, to have been in a most amiable and

accommodating temper. What they least liked they submitted to

cheerfully, on being assured that it was the King's wish that while they

were his guests they should conform to English customs. On one point,

however, they showed that they intended to listen to no instruction.

When the squire tried to investigate their religious faith, "they seemed

so displeased that he was forced to silence."

"We believe in God, Three in One," said the Irish Kings: "thus far there

is no difference between our creed and yours."

Their teacher would not quit the subject until he had ascertained one

point which was in his eyes of primary importance. To what Pope did

they profess obedience? Was their pontiff the successor of St. Peter

who reigned at Rome, or the wicked schismatic who had set himself up at

Avignon? In fear and trembling he put the question. He might have been

easy; for the fierce struggle between Pope and Anti-pope had not

penetrated the bogs of the Emerald Isle. The Irish Kings at once

answered that their Pope was at Rome.

He then asked if they would like to be made knights. They replied that

they were knights already, for every Irish prince was made a knight by

his royal father when he was seven years of age. The squire responded

rather contemptuously that the King of England would not be satisfied

with that kind of childish knighthood, but would create them knights in

church with solemn ceremonies.

Shortly before this solemnity, the Earl of Ormonde paid a visit to his

royal _proteges_. He inquired if they were satisfied with Castide--a

question which they answered like gentlemen.

"Perfectly. He has prudently and wisely taught us the manners and

usages of his country, for which we ought to be obliged, and do thank

him."

The Earl then gave them a full explanation of the honour about to be

done them, and the ceremonies which would attend it, laying stress on

the great value which they ought to set upon it. The four Kings seem to

have behaved admirably. They allowed themselves to be richly dressed,

of course in the English manner: and let us hope that it did not include

cracowes, those ridiculous boots which tapered to a point, and preceded

their wearer by several inches,--for these must have been woful

inflictions upon an Irish chieftain, accustomed either to wear no boots

at all, or to tie on simply "the dun deer's hide." They dined at King

Richard's table, where, said Master Castide, "they were much stared at

by the Lords and those present--not indeed without reason; for they were

strange figures, and differently countenanced to the English or other

nations. We are naturally inclined to gaze at anything strange,"

naively added the squire, "and it was certainly, Sir John, at that time,

a great novelty to see four Irish Kings."

Castide's opinion is worth record as to the reasons why the Irish

submitted themselves so readily. He thought the "rebellious English"

were alarmed at the blockade of their coasts, which was so strict that

"neither provision nor merchandise could be landed": but he admitted

that the "wild Irish" cared nothing for this, since they lived by

hunting, and were strangers to commerce. Their reason, he considered,

was the personal respect which they bore to King Richard, whom they

accounted to be a prudent and conscientious man, and whose reverence for

the memory of Edward the Confessor was shared by themselves,--a fact

undisturbed by any inconvenient knowledge that Richard, if not the Irish

Kings also, had at least as much sanctity about him as Edward the

Confessor. How that most unamiable of men, whose cruelty as a husband

was only equalled by his irreverence as a son, ever came to be canonised

and honoured as Saint Edward, must be left as one of the many insoluble

enigmas which Rome propounds to the crushed hearts, smothered

intelligences, and stifled consciences of her votaries. For any other

reason, Castide remitted it to the grace of God. The Canon of Chimay,

whose exquisite naive simplicity at times cuts sharply as a knife, made

answer, with more wit than he was aware, that "the grace of God is good,

and of infinite value to those who can obtain it: but we see few lords

now-o'-days augment their territories otherwise than by force."

The campaign thus ended, Roger returned to England in company with his

royal cousin, and rejoined his family in London on May, 1395, much to

the satisfaction of both himself and Lawrence Madison, who greatly

preferred to follow his master out of battle rather than into it, though

he wisely kept to himself that sentiment, which would only have earned

him a character for cowardice. On very few men had the idea then dawned

that any person could love peace for other reasons than laziness and

fear of being hurt. The two characteristics of King Richard which his

uncle Gloucester specially detested and despised were his religious

opinions, and his dislike to war and tumult. It might truly be said,

paradox though it be, that Gloucester was never at peace except when he

was at war.

During the twelve months following his return to London, Roger kept

himself exceedingly quiet. It was the only safe thing he could do. It

is said that an eminent man was asked how, being a resident in Paris, he

contrived to live through the Reign of Terror. "I made myself of no

reputation, and kept silence," was the significant answer. The Earl of

March followed the same plan.

The beginning of 1395 was characterised by a strong agitation against

the Lollard party, provoked by a very bold step on their part. Sir John

Oldcastle, afterwards Lord Cobham, issued his "Book of Conclusions"--an

epitome of Lollard doctrines, as well as a damaging attack on the

opposite party--which was presented to Parliament by Lord Latimer and

Sir Richard Stury, and posted up on the doors of St. Paul's Cathedral

and the gates of Westminster Abbey. The two Archbishops took alarm in

good earnest. They were strongly opposed to the "new" doctrines--which

were not new, but as old as Christianity itself--and they rightly judged

that unless these views had been spreading considerably in secret, they

would scarcely have made this flourishing appearance in public. King

Richard must be appealed to, and entreated to put down this unwelcome

manifestation with the strong arm of the law: and the astute prelates

well knew that only at one point, like Achilles, was Richard vulnerable

on the Lollard question. The religious views were his own, and he would

listen to no diatribe against them. But the political aspirations of the

advanced Lollards he dreaded and disliked as much as the hierarchy.

Archbishop Courtenay trusted to no tongue less skilful than his own the

task of winning the King over. He started for Ireland without delay,

taking with him Bishop Braybroke, a prelate whom the King liked and

respected. Richard, the most open and unsuspicious of men, was no match

for one of the wiliest priests who ever wore a mitre. Under his

dexterous hands he was induced to believe that the political aims of the

advanced section included his own deposition--the exact contrary was the

truth--and the beloved Queen, who had hitherto always guided his sceptre

on this point, was now beyond the fitful fever of earthly tumults.

"Never was there King of England who so easily believed what was told

him," says the chronicler Froissart, who knew Richard personally.

The King, thus influenced, departed from the course approved by his own

better judgment, and for one moment swerved from that kindly support

which he had always given hitherto to the Lollard party. He called

before him the four most prominent Lollards then in his suite--Lord

Latimer, Sir John Montacute, Sir Lewis Clifford, and Sir Richard

Stury--and sharply rebuked them for their favour shown to traitors, with

a threat of expulsion from the household if they did not change their

political aspect. Latimer, Clifford, and Stury, were terrified,

especially the last, who fell upon his knees and vowed that he would

never do it again.

All these were old men. But the youngest of the group,--John Montacute,

who was but four-and-twenty--held his peace, and promised nothing.

Could King Richard have looked forward five short years, he would have

seen that one young man, who now refused to follow his King to evil,

alone of all the four giving his life for that King's sake. The man who

would not deny his God for fear of his sovereign, was the one who was

ready to die for God and him.

It was during this short period of glamour thrown over King Richard by

the astute Archbishop that certain Lollards were imprisoned in Beaumaris

Castle, that some recanted, and that various edicts were issued, in the

strong language wherein Gloucester and Courtenay delighted, against

those who "sowed tares among the people." The complete change of tone

in the royal mandates is very striking, between those periods when

Gloucester's influence paralysed the King, and the two short intervals

when Richard was left to himself. Yet to this day Richard, not

Gloucester or Courtenay, is assailed with all the obloquy which is due

only to the two latter. On this occasion Richard followed the

Archbishop's leading up to a certain point. But when Courtenay pressed

the advantage which he had gained, and urged capital punishment for the

heretics, the King drew back. The cards had been shown a little too

plainly. A short term of imprisonment for obnoxious politics was

consonant with Richard's ideas of right and justice: but death as the

penalty of religious opinions he would not give. Was it likely, when the

religious opinions were to some extent his own?

Courtenay appeared to waive the matter. Ostensibly, he deferred to the

King's judgment. And Richard never suspected that the sentence of death

had merely been, by Courtenay and Gloucester, transferred to another

person, and that their resolve was that if he would not permit the

heretics to die, Richard must die himself.

It was during this period that Earl Roger kept quiet and silent,--so

quiet that we never hear a word about him for a whole twelvemonth,

though circumstantial evidence tends to show that he was in London all

the time. His high position, and his known opinions, alike placed him

in danger. The only safe thing to do was, so far as possible, to reduce

himself to a nonentity, and hope that Gloucester and his myrmidons would

forget him.

During the last two years death had been very busy in high places. The

plague of 1394 had made three royal widowers--the Duke of Lancaster, the

King, and the Earl of Derby. In the summer of 1396, Archbishop

Courtenay was also summoned to the judgment bar. Removed from

Courtenay's influence, the King awoke from his dream, and determined to

initiate a new order of things. He knew at last--all but too late--that

Gloucester and Arundel were among his worst enemies. Had he seen it

with regard to one man more--his cousin Derby--the course of English

history would probably have been different.

There was another person awake also, with the important difference that

he had never been asleep. Gloucester was ready to act just as soon as

his royal nephew: sooner, in fact, for his plans were already matured,

while Richard's were only in process of formation. The time was come

when that blow was to be struck which he had foreseen so long, for which

he had waited so patiently and paved the way so elaborately, and which

for so many years past, he had mentally destined Roger Mortimer to

strike. The edge of the tool must be felt, to see whether the metal were

sufficiently strong for the work to be done, and the point sufficiently

sharp.

The July sun streamed full into a large low chamber of a handsome house

on St. Paul's Wharf. The chamber was hung with dark blue silk relieved

by silver embroidery. Velvet settles of the same colour stood at

intervals around the walls, and half-a-dozen curule chairs of ebony

inlaid with ivory, and furnished with blue silk cushions, were scattered

about the room. On one of the velvet settles, with his head supported

by a cushion, lay the only occupant of this handsome chamber--a young

man of twenty-two years of age, fair-complexioned and very good-looking.

His eyes were closed, but he certainly was not asleep, for he drew long

sighs at intervals which were not long. On a small table beside him a

large book lay open, bound in violet velvet, and clasped with gold.

A soft scratch at the door without announced a visitor, who was desired

to come in, without any change of position on the part of the occupant

of the settle. A middle-aged man, clad in blue and gold livery, entered

accordingly.

"Please it your Lordship, Master Westcombe is here come from Fleshy,

from my Lord Duke of Gloucester, desiring speech of your Lordship."

The slight contraction of his Lordship's brow might indicate that he

could have borne to be deprived of the pleasure of an interview with Mr.

Westcombe.

"Good. Bring him hither."

He rose from the settle, gave his long blue silk gown a slight shake,

and resting his hand on the book, awaited his visitor.

The visitor proved to be a squire in royal livery, with the badge of the

Duke of Gloucester--a golden swan--fastened to his left sleeve. He made

a courtesy--for in those days the courtesy was the gentleman's

reverence--and then with many words and some flowery expletives informed

his very dear Lord that his gracious Lord the Duke lovingly prayed him

to speed with all haste to Fleshy, for he desired to speak with him

immediately.

Earl Roger's expression of face on this communication was much like that

of a man who is just on the point of swallowing a necessary but very

unpalatable dose of medicine. He gave a rather short reply, to the

effect that he would start for Fleshy early the next morning: and having

dismissed Mr. Westcombe courteously but quickly, he made his way to

another room on the same floor of the house. Sounds of lively

conversation and laughter issued from this room as soon as the door was

opened. The Earl, in whose face the expression with which he had

received his uncle's behest had rather increased than disappeared from

it, made his way up the long narrow room, filled with brilliant company,

pausing now to greet one, and now another, till he reached a lady

attired in white and ruby satin, who sat at the further end in a curule

chair, surrounded by gentle men who appeared to be paying court to her.

"Pray, suffer me not to let your diversion," remarked the Earl, with the

faintest possible tone of satire under his polished accents: "I suppose

I may have leave to speak with her Ladyship among her other

servitors.--I came but to say, my Lady, that my fair uncle of Gloucester

hath sent unto me this evening, praying me to render visit unto him at

Fleshy, as early as may stand at mine ease. I think, therefore, to set

forth with the morning light, and I shall maybe not have the pleasure to

see your Ladyship again ere my departing."

The voice of the Countess replied, "Then, my Lord, you will not be here

for the dance to-morrow? Truly, this is displeasant tidings!" But what

her eyes said was,--"Really, what a convenient coincidence! I am

delighted to hear it."

"I dare not flatter myself that your Ladyship will miss me," was Earl

Roger's answer, in the same slightly ironical tone. Then he turned

round, kissed his hand to her, and made his way out of the room.

Just outside he met his children and their nurses, returning from the

garden. They were four very pretty, attractive little children, the

eldest not quite seven years of age, and the youngest only two. The

Earl stopped, and took up the eldest in his arms.

"God bless my Nannette!" he said. "Has Nannette been in the garden?"

Little Anne nodded, and looked earnestly into her father's eyes. The

expression of them distressed her. Children can read the expression of a

face long before they can read anything else. She thought, in her child

language, that "somebody had hurt him;" she realised that he wanted

comforting and diversion of thought: and her idea of administering both

was to pat his cheek, and to hold up her doll for him to look at.

Somebody had indeed hurt him--somebody who was always hurting

him--somebody who cared not a straw whether he was hurt or not. But who

that was must never be told, except to the two privileged persons who

had discovered it without telling, and whose sympathy was ready and

sure.

The Earl kissed his little girl and set her down; laid his hand on his

boy's head and blessed him. As he turned away, he said to a gentleman

usher who was in waiting,--"Has Dan Robesart returned home?"

"Not yet, my Lord."

"No matter. Send Madison to me." And the Earl went on to the room he

had first occupied. There he sat down by the window, and for a moment

yielded to his own sorrowful thoughts.

He was not usually a man to brood over his sorrows, nor to nurse

grievances. His feelings were more of the sharp and short order, and

his disposition was not only cheerful, but playful. But when he had

just received a fresh sting, the wound would smart and rankle for a

moment. Otherwise, youth and natural good spirits commonly helped him

to bear his daily cross. Just now it pressed hard. Those lovely blue

eyes--as lovely as they were unloving--had so plainly told him that

their owner would be glad to get rid of him, even for a few days. That

bright illusion of past days, when he had fancied differently, was over

long ago. He had woke early from his sweet dream. He knew that his

idol was not merely dethroned--it was broken. The Alianora whom he had

so passionately loved was a creature of his own imagination: and the

real being, to whom he was tied for life, was neither loveable nor

loving.

There was no jealousy mixed with these feelings of disappointed

loneliness. It was not that he had any apprehension of her loving some

one else better than himself. He said to himself bitterly that she had

not heart enough for that. What she enjoyed in those ceaseless

flirtations in which she spent her life was just their very emptiness

and frivolity. For anything like genuine attachment--anything which

involved strength and colour and warmth and reality--her nature was too

light.

Oh, when will women learn that a flirt is a woman who has deliberately

flung aside the very flower and glory of her womanhood?--who is

preparing for herself a middle age of misery, and an old age of contempt

and loneliness: to add to them, unless God's mercy interpose to save

her, an eternity of remorse. No type of woman is so utterly despicable

as this. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man

soweth, that shall he also reap."

Earl Roger was not a man to shut his eyes to anything which he did not

wish to see, nor to go on hoping against hope in the face of what he

knew to be facts. His position was very much the same as that of

another near connection of royalty, just a hundred years before him.[#]

But Earl Edmund of Cornwall and Earl Roger of March were men of two very

different types. The one had sunk under his burden; the other rose

superior to it. Roger was not so utterly swallowed up in his

disappointment as his predecessor had been. For him, his territorial

affairs, his children, politics, and other interests, came in to relieve

the weight. Only now and then, as it was to-night, his heart sank low,

and felt a yearning want of that human sympathy which he never received

but from two persons--his family physician, Mr. Robesart, and his

body-squire, Lawrence Madison.

[#] The reader who desires to know more of this will find it in "Not For

Him."

He lifted his head now to bid the latter enter.

"Your Lordship is not at ease, I fear?" said the squire with an

intonation of genuine interest in his master.

He had grown into a taller and stronger-built man than Roger:

dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a pale grave face, a smile of considerable

sweetness, and a clear pleasant voice.

"Only the old story, lad," was the quiet answer. "Aye, and a little

further travail thereto. My Lord of Gloucester, mine uncle, hath sent

for me. We must needs be away toward Fleshy as early as the sun

to-morrow."

"At your Lordship's pleasure. Shall it be to tarry?"

"I trow not. Best, maybe, to be prepared for a two-three days. But I

shall be here again in the even, an' I may."

Lawrence bowed, and withdrew from the chamber.

Half an hour later, Mr. Robesart entered it, and found the Earl bending

over the large Bible.

"I was told," said he, "that your Lordship had asked for me a short

space agone. Metrusteth you be not indisposed?"

"Not here, good Father, I thank you," answered the Earl, touching his

head. "Only here"--and he laid a hand upon his heart. "Methought I

would fain hear somewhat of your counsel ere my departing, which shall

be right early on the morrow." And he repeated the explanation given to

Lawrence.

"Your Lordship," responded the physician, "hath not, as methinks,

overmuch trust in my Lord Duke?"

"Fair fall he that hath that in any man!" returned Roger with a gesture

of contempt. "In truth, Father, my belief in the Duke's discretion, not

to say loyalty, would go by the eye of a needle. If he would but keep

his plots to himself and my fair cousin of Rutland, which 'joyeth so

much therein that I could not for compassion wish him thereout! Verily,

I am alway something afeard lest some day he essay to drag me in."

"Counts your Lordship that his Grace hath sent for you with that

intent?"

"I know not wherefore he hath so done, and that is the very truth." And

the Earl passed his hand wearily over his forehead.

"It will be well that we both ask God for wisdom for your Lordship. But

there is more than that troubling you, or I mistake."

"More than that? Aye so. Not more than custom is. Father, see you yon

fly a-walking over the page of this book? If I shall say, That fly is

in my way, and brush him thereout, roughly, so that he die--what is it?

To me, but a little matter of disease[#] whereof I have rid me. But to

him it is the end of health, and life, and all things. Ah! there be

many fly-crushers among us human creatures. God help the crushed

flies!"

[#] Inconvenience.

"Does He not help them?"

"How wot I? You must needs tell me what is help ere I can answer you.

You mind that part of the story of my Lord Saint John Baptist, when he

sent them twain to our Lord to ask at Him if He were He that should

come, or no? There be will tell us that he sent them for their

teaching; it could not be for his own. Methinks such have been in but

few deep places, where the floods overflowed them. Was it not that the

man's heart was wrung to behold the Christ, his own kinsman, pass him by

on the other side--heal and comfort and help all that came, and never

turn to him? Ah, it is evil waiting with patience and faith, when

Christ passeth a man by."

"And you scarce twenty-three, my Lord!" said Mr. Robesart sadly, and not

so inconsequently as it seemed.

"After men's reckoning. Be there any years in God's eternity? A man,

methinks, may live a thousand years in one day, whether they be years of

happiness or of misery." The Earl's head was lifted suddenly. "Father,

tell me, what means He for me? It might have been so different!" And

with the saddest of intonations, the young head sank again.

Mr. Robesart laid his hand on that of the Earl.

"He means,--'My son, give Me thine heart.'"

"I thought I had done so."

"Then he means,--My child, come nearer to Me. 'Each branch that beareth

fruit, He shall purge it, that it bear the more fruit.'"

The Earl made no reply, except to say after an interval,--"Father, I

would fain find you here when I return. I hope that will be to-morrow

at even."

"I will await your Lordship," answered Mr. Robesart: and the interview

ended.

The journey to Fleshy was hot and dusty, though they arrived there

before the sun had reached the meridian. My Lord Duke kept his young

kinsman waiting for him some time, and when he came, took him into the

most secret recess of his own private room.

"Very dear Cousin," said he--and Roger felt sure from that moment that

he meant mischief--"I do earnestly desire to unbosom myself to thee of

all the secrets of mine heart. I am well assured that I need not unfold

to thee the very numerous reasons which render our fair Lord King

Richard wholly unfit to govern this realm, as being neither worthy nor

capable to do so."

Roger contrived to hold his tongue, and kept his amazement as much out

of his eyes as he could.

"You are well aware," continued the Duke--people are apt to assume your

perfect agreement when they utter opinions with which you particularly

disagree--"you are well aware, very dear Cousin, that the King cares for

nothing but the pleasures of the table and the amusements of ladies."

What Gloucester meant by this sweeping statement[#] was that the King

disliked war, which his uncle regarded as the only occupation fit for a

prince: and preferred literature, music, conversation, and field sports,

which in the eyes of his uncle were sufficiently mean to be level to the

feminine intellect.

[#] These words from Gloucester are matter of history, and were used

more than once in substance at least.

"Now, very dear Cousin, it is much communed[#] that these things are so:

and hard is to know what shall be done in the matter, the rather since

the people are right heartily discontent, and action must needs be

taken."

[#] Talked about.

My Lord of Gloucester's language was usually as full of "the people" as

that of any modern Radical: and, also like some modern speakers, he was

greatly given to crediting the people with whatever desires he himself

might entertain. Roger felt strongly inclined to inquire (with Lord

Melbourne), "Can't you let it alone?" but he held his peace, accounting

it the wisest plan to let Gloucester unwind his peroration. Every time

that he found himself addressed as "very dear cousin," Roger's sensation

of distrust deepened.

"I do you to wit, very dear Cousin, that I am already joined by my Lord

of Arundel, your old friend and guardian,--his son Sir John, my Lord of

Warwick, and many other prelates and barons, all which be at one and

busy about this matter. The King shall be deposed, and prisoned so long

as he shall live, in due state of a prince, and full provision allowed

for his maintenance. We do desire to see you our King, being fully

satisfied that you shall be of very diverse liking and conditions from

him that is now such, and shall well content your nobles and people.

What say you?"

Not what he thought. Had Roger spoken that out, the solitary word

"Scoundrel!" would have been sufficient to convey it. But he held his

peace. During a few seconds of silence his thoughts rapidly revolved

probabilities, possibilities, desirabilities. Gloucester watched him

narrowly until at last Roger looked up and spoke.

"Fair Uncle, and my gracious Lord, these matters be of weighty import,

and ask grave meditation. It would not be possible that with so little

time I should give you an answer touching a business so great."

Roger's manner was so cautious, if not cold, that Gloucester took the

alarm.

"Have a care, nevertheless, most sweet Cousin, and this I pray you right

heartily, that the matter get not abroad. If it be published, and come

to the King's ears, ere the business be ripe----"

"Trust me, fair Uncle. I will take due thought, and observe all

secrecy. And now, if your Grace have said so much as it list you, I

pray you let me be on my way home, for I have urgent business in hand,

and it shall be late ere I win thither."

An hour afterwards, Roger and his suite set out from Fleshy. As he

climbed the last slope whence the Castle could be seen, he drew bridle

for an instant, and looked back.

"Thank God that I have escaped from that hole with mine head on!" he

murmured, in so low a tone that he was unheard except by the safe ears

of Lawrence Madison. "If my gracious Lord of Gloucester ever again set

eyes on me within those his walls, I grant him free leave to dub Roger

Mortimer a fool! 'Very dear Cousin,' forsooth! 'Most sweet Cousin!'

Methinks, the further I drew away from him, the dearer and sweeter I

became. We will see, most sweet and very dear Uncle, if the young cannot

outrun the old!--Lawrence!"

"My Lord?"

"We must be ready, thou and I, to set out for Ireland as to-morrow."

"For Ireland, my Lord!"

"Aye. I shall never feel at ease till I have set the sea betwixt me and

those prating traitors. Once at Carrickfergus or Trim Castle, and I may

snap my fingers at my very dear uncle and my most sweet cousins. They

shall not be so foot-hot to fetch me from Ireland as from Paul's Wharf.

The rascal crew!--the vile traitors! Pardoned over and over again as

some of them have been!--raised to honours and riches by the King they

are ready to betray! Would I be their King?--the ungrateful, disloyal

adders! Nay, fair Uncle of Gloucester! Roger Mortimer can lay down his

life if need be, but he can never sell his King and betray his

friend--never break his trust, nor be unfaithful to his troth! '_Un

Dieu, un Roy_'--'_Fais ce que doy!_' Come, let us hie on."

"Methinks," said Lawrence, a little hesitatingly, "her Ladyship shall

scantly be ready to obey so unlooked-for a summons."

"Her Ladyship--will do her pleasure." There was a pause between the

words. "It may be it shall not list her to follow me thus far. If she

so think, she can 'bide at which of my castles she will."

Nothing more was said on the subject until they reached Thames Street,

when Lawrence was sent to give instant notice to the servants of their

master's sudden departure, and warn them to be ready for him to set out

at four o'clock the next morning, and the Earl himself went to convey

the intelligence to the Countess.

"Bid Dan Robesart await me in my chamber," he said to the gentleman

usher as he passed.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*ROGER FINDS HIS MISSION.*

"And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers

And the temples of his gods?"

--LORD MACAULAY.

Earl Roger found his Countess in the same room in which he had left her

when he went to Fleshy. Hypocras and spices, which constituted the

"void," a light meal corresponding to afternoon tea, were being served

round as he entered. Roger made his way to the side of Alianora,

declined the hypocras--a light, sweet wine--and sat down by her while

she sipped it.

"You are early, my Lord," said the Countess, whose eyes were occupied in

watching an interchange of frothy banter between a knight and a lady at

a little distance.

"I had need, my Lady. Will it meet with your wishes to follow me to

Ireland, whether urgent cause removeth me, and without delay?"

"Ireland! What part of Ireland?"

"Kilkenny, at the first; afterward, maybe, to Trim."

"And what moveth your Lordship to go among those savages, who should

scantly wit if you ware red velvet or blue damask?"

"Those savages are my kinsfolk, under your Ladyship's leave. Moreover,

savages commonly have better sight than civil[#] men."

[#] Civilised.

"Verily, your Lordship hath some sweet kinsfolk to wake your pride!"

said the Countess with a light laugh.

"Therein is your Ladyship not deceived," was the dry answer. "I leave

behind me some most sweet ones. Well, what saith your Ladyship to my

point?"

"What, _I_ go to Ireland? Gramercy, your Lordship is pleasant! Aye,

when I have cause to wear up mine old gowns and ugsome[#] head-gear,

then will I think of following you in that direction. But till it so

happen, under your leave, I would as lief 'bide on Paul's Wharf or at

Ludlow."

[#] Ugly.

"As your Ladyship will."

"When go you? Soon, is it?--this next week?"

"I set forth as four o'clock to-morrow morning."

"And you looked for me to go withal? Verily, what unwitty[#] fantasies

have these men! Why, one might scarce fold a borel[#] cloth in the

time. What moveth you to be thus foot-hot,[#] forsooth?"

[#] Silly.

[#] A very common, coarse material.

[#] In hot haste.

"There is cause, Dame," said the Earl gravely.

"Then I bid your Lordship good even," said the Countess, laughing, "for

elsewise shall you ne'er have space to put on your hood. I wish you a

joyous meeting with those your dear kinsfolk, and that they may not eat

you ere I behold you again!"

She held out her hand, and he touched his lips to it.

"May God bless my Lady!" he said very gravely.

Then he left her, and went upstairs, to say good-bye to his children.

As he slowly mounted, the thought occurred to him,--What does blessing

mean? If God blessed Alianora, what would He do to her? According to

the usual ideas of men, He would give her beauty, talent, wealth,

luxury, and happiness. But was this what God meant by the word? Had He

no better blessings than such as these? Were not His sweetest fruits

wrapped often in unsightly husks--His rarest gems in crusts which

concealed their brilliance? Might He not be blessing Roger himself by

means of his disappointments, and not blessing Alianora through all the

gifts He showered on her? Was there not something in that Book which

Roger was beginning to know so well, and to apply instinctively to every

thing which happened to him, about one to whom God gave corn, and wine,

and oil, and silver, and gold, which she prepared for Baal? If men

turned His blessings into means of sinning, was there no fear lest He

should turn them into curses?

Little Anne ran to meet her father as soon as she heard his step. He

stooped and took her in his arms.

"Little Nan," he said rather sadly, "what wilt thou grow to be?"

"A lady," said she readily, with brightening eyes.

"There be two sorts of women, my little maid. There be heart-comforters,

and there be heart-breakers. Which wilt thou be?"

The question was beyond her in details. She replied to its scope, which

was all that she understood.

"I will be what God makes me."

"Amen," answered the Earl. "Be what God makes thee,--not Satan, nor

thine own foolish fantasies. Farewell, my little one. I am going a long

journey, my Nannette."

"Will you be back soon?"

"Nay, I think not. Farewell, my darling--God go with thee and bless

thee!"

He kissed them all and gave them his blessing. Then he went back to his

own room, where he found Mr. Robesart awaiting him.

"Father, it behoveth me to set forth for Ireland with the dawn, and I

would vain have taken you withal. Can you be ready?"

"A priest is always ready," was the reply. "At what hour shall I wait

upon your Lordship?"

"At four of the clock I think to set out."

"You shall find me in attendance. Can I serve your Lordship in any

other way?"

"Methinks not, save by taking that into your safe keeping," said the

Earl, touching the large Bible. "I would have it go withal, as well as

you. Nought else, I thank you."

But before Mr. Robesart had quite reached the door, his young master's

voice arrested his steps.

"Father, tell me ere you go, what doth God when He blesseth us?"

"What do you, my Lord, when you bless your childre?"

"I do desire all good to hap unto them: but I may not ensure it."

"And He alway ensureth it. I see none other difference. God's blessing

is God's love. Every gift of God is a loving thought of God's heart

toward His childre."

"But how, toward them that are not such?"

"'He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good,'" replied Mr.

Robesart. "His common, earthly blessings He gives to all alike."

"And what call you such gifts as beauty, learning, and riches? Be they

blessings, or no?"

"All things that God has made are good. They are blessings when they

leave His hand. If we would have them abide blessings, we must give

them back to Him. If we keep them to adorn ourselves withal, they

become curses to us. God's first and greatest blessing is Himself. Let

us keep Him in His right place--on the throne of the heart--and all else

will fall into his right place, as by the wave of a magician's wand."

"Things be sorely apt to get out of their places!" said the Earl with a

sigh. "I thank you, Father."

"My Lord, when you find things out of their places, look and see if you

have not given leave to somewhat else to occupy His place. God give you

a good even!"

A very small suite accompanied Earl Roger to Ireland; but it included

his two best friends, Mr. Robesart and Lawrence Madison. His outside

friends were considerably puzzled to know why he should leave England at

such a particularly awkward moment as this, when the negotiations for

the King's marriage were in progress. The Earl of Kent, his late

guardian--since Roger's majority he had ceased to be a practical one so

far as any personal control was concerned--was specially perplexed and

astonished at this step. But he knew nothing of the interview at

Fleshy.

To all of them Roger gave a general and vague explanation, which had

reference to the necessary care of his Irish estates. His own sole

fervent desire was to put himself where Gloucester could not find

him--to lose himself, as far as the conspirators were concerned. It was

the only way that he could see just then to serve that God, and that

King, to both of whom in his early youth he had pledged his heart's

devotion.

Rarely has any journey been taken in more feverish haste than that of

Roger Earl of March to Ireland in the summer of 1396. He felt as though

he were not safe for a day until he had put the breadth of St. George's

Channel between himself and his uncle Gloucester. His journey from

London to Haverford was almost a flight. His unsuspecting suite

complained bitterly of the long forced marches over the mountains of

South Wales which their unreasonable master obliged them to take. Two

days delay at Haverford, before the wind would serve, brought Roger's

patience to the verge of distraction.

"I _must_ go!" he said passionately to Mr. Robesart.

"My Lord," was the grave answer, "it ill suits the archer to wear the

uniform of the general. There is no must but one, and it is meet but

for the lips of the Lord of all."

"Yet surely He knoweth my necessity?"

"Soothly: but I pray your Lordship to remember that what is _must_ with

you may be _must not_ with Him."

"I cannot rest till I be hence!"

"We shall rest in the life to come," quietly replied Mr. Robesart. "In

the life that now is, we have but to be and do God's will."

"You take it calmly, Father! But then, for you there is no such need.

'Tis easy gear to counsel a man to lie still whose veins burn with

fever, when your own pulse is as quiet as a mill-tarn." And Roger

laughed, with a laugh which was not all mirth.

Mr. Robesart's answering smile was rather pathetic.

"Having lived through the fever, I may know your Lordship's feelings."

On the third day the wind changed, and they set sail from Haverford.

Three weeks--a very favourable passage--landed them at Wexford; and as

Roger set foot upon the shore of Ireland, he turned and looked across to

the invisible mountains of Wales.

"Fair fall thou, my native land!" he said half sarcastically. "From

henceforth is this land of my fathers mine own land, and thou must serve

thee without me."

The autumn and winter of that year found him at Kilkenny, spending his

time in an unusual manner for a noble of the fourteenth century. He

summoned Irish minstrels and chroniclers around him, and went deep into

Irish history. Perhaps it was a natural result that Irish history went

deep into him. He became an enthusiastic admirer of the character and

annals of the nation the blood of whose kings ran in his veins. His own

natural impetuosity drove him along the groove which he had chosen, and

ere long one passionate aspiration took possession of his soul, next

after that "_Un Dieu, un Roy_" which had possessed and would possess it

for ever. England and Ireland should be at peace, and he would be the

means of it. They should live and love as sisters, happy and tranquil,

under one sceptre, having but one aim, and the glory of the one should

be the glory of the other. To this he would give himself as long as he

should live. He would secure it--or die in the attempt.

All the Mortimers had entertained an affection for Ireland, and could

never forget their Irish blood. King Richard also had a liking for that

country, of which his uncle of Gloucester was pleased to speak very

scornfully.

"He is a fool who thinks of conquering Ireland," said Gloucester, in his

usual unwatered diction. "The Irish are a poor and wicked people, with

an impoverished country; and he who should conquer it one year would

lose it the next."

This affection of the young Earl for the Green Isle by no means

increased his popularity with his English retainers. Saxon and Celt

have always mutually looked down upon each other. The Irish saw in the

English intruding strangers, none the more welcome for being conquerors;

the English reckoned the Irish uncivilised barbarians with whom no

person of refinement could be satisfied to associate. They were not

themselves so over-refined that they need have been particular: but the

half-educated man (still more woman) is usually more fastidious on the

score of vulgarity than the blue-blooded noble. There were murmurs

among Roger's suit that he was too accessible to the masses, and that

his heart was rather Irish than English.

When the King discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that his chosen heir

had so unexpectedly disappeared from the scene on the plea of looking

after his Irish property, he sent him a commission of lieutenancy for

Ulster, Connaught, and Meath--a most convenient arrangement for Roger,

since it afforded him a full excuse for not returning to England until

the state of affairs should have changed. His Majesty was not the only

person who was puzzled by Roger's proceedings. But there was another

person who was not puzzled at all. Of one point Roger might safely have

felt assured--that, however his sudden disappearance might surprise and

perplex others, his uncle Gloucester at least would not fail to

understand it. But the fact that a particular material had proved

unsuitable for his purpose was not likely to ruin the designs of so

far-seeing and scheming a conspirator as Gloucester. Having convinced

himself that his nephew of March was not the soft and malleable article

that he had supposed him, Gloucester merely cast the useless thing on

one side, and set his busy brain to work to evolve a fresh project. It

proved a very different one from the last. His new scheme involved a

partition of the kingdom into four parts, of which his brother of

Lancaster was to be bought off with one (a matter somewhat easier said

than done); York, who was plastic as putty in the hands of Gloucester,

was to have another; Arundel was to be rewarded with the third; and the

fourth fell to Gloucester himself. March was left out altogether.

How long this sagacious disposition of political affairs would have

lasted, may be very reasonably questioned: certainly not, at the

furthest, beyond the second generation. A quarter of England would

never have contented Derby, for whose ambitious soul the world was

scarcely wide enough, nor could Rutland have reigned an hour in his

division without plotting against the other three.

The end was near--the end of one phase of the political tumult. On the

28th of July, Gloucester and his fellow conspirators met at Arundel, to

perfect their plot. Just eight days later, in full Parliament, at

Westminster, that extremely "honourable man," my Lord of Rutland, humbly

presented a petition of impeachment against Gloucester, Arundel, and

Warwick. Five days afterwards Gloucester was arrested and sent to

Calais; and on the 8th of September he died in the Castle of that town.

The King had borne with him, to use his own words, "as long as he had

been able"--and no other Sovereign, perhaps excepting Henry VI., would

have borne with him half so long.

It was asserted by the King's enemies, long afterwards, and is now

generally believed, that Gloucester was "murdered" by being smothered

between two feather beds. Unfortunately for the assertion, this very

report was spread, with the view of aspersing the King, while Gloucester

was still alive. The subsequent elaborate account, therefore, was

simply a more carefully revised version of the old slander. The truth is

that Gloucester was either privately executed, or that he died of

apoplexy before the execution took place. Why a man under sentence of

death, approved as inevitable by his own brother, the just and humane

Lancaster, should not have suffered execution, must be left to those

modern writers of the "follow-my-leader" school, who persist in terming

the execution a murder. How many times the penalty had been deserved it

would not be easy to reckon.

Things were not now, as previously, done by halves--except in one item,

and that spoiled the whole. The Earl of Arundel was beheaded on the 21st

of September. The Archbishop, Norfolk, and Warwick, were banished for

life. If one other execution had taken place, the rebellion would have

been crushed, and King Richard's life would have been safe. It was

entirely his own fault that it did not. Derby had been engaged in a

multitude of plots--more than any one knew except himself--he had

plotted the death of the King, and had drawn his sword upon him in the

Queen's presence: he had been twice, if not three times, condemned to

death by his own father. The Duke of Bretagne had said to the King on

their last interview, "You will never be safe while Henry of Lancaster

lives." Richard knew all this, but his heart failed him. For all the

provocation received both as monarch and as man, that true and tender

heart refused to condemn the old playmate, and instead of it lifted him

to honour. He fancied this step would ensure the love and fidelity of a

man who knew not what love and faithfulness were. He laid this adder to

warm in his bosom, and like the adder that it was, it stung him to

death.

While these stirring events were passing in England, Earl Roger of March

maintained that distance and silence which he had evidently perceived to

be the only safe course for himself. How far was he neglecting his

duties in so doing? is a question which may reasonably be asked. The

date at which he returned to England seems to show that he was actuated,

not by a cowardly fear for his personal safety--a supposition

contradicted by every other action of his life--but by a fear of his

name being dragged into the contest on the wrong side, and without his

own consent. As soon as he could feel sure that Gloucester had laid

aside the idea of making a tool of him, and before any appearance of

retribution had overtaken Gloucester, Roger returned to Usk. The little

cloud which had overhung the Lollard party had been long dispersed, and

during the period of that shadow Roger had sought safety not in flight,

but in silence.

The Countess was still in London, and she made no attempt to join her

lord in Monmouthshire. He felt so hopeless of her doing so, that he did

not even ask her. But one other thing he did--he sent for his children.

Beyond his natural wish for their occasional company, was his strong

desire to rescue them from the contamination of the society into which,

so soon as they were old enough, their mother was likely to plunge them.

He was anxious to accomplish a project which had occurred to him, and

which he did not expect her to oppose--to obtain his old foster-mother,

Guenllian, to take the same position with respect to his children.

Their mother cared too little about them to care who was with them, so

long as it was some one who would take all responsibility off her

shoulders. Guenllian, on her part, was ready enough to return to her

sometime nursling, whom she had always loved the best of all her

charges. Roger was more easy when he had secured her. With her came

Beatrice, who had always been her satellite since she entered service,

and was considered as an indispensable appendage.

The following Michaelmas brought a magnificent ceremony, in the creation

of some dozen new peers at Westminster. The list was headed by the

traitor Derby and the treacherous Rutland, who were respectively created

Dukes of Hereford and Aumerle. But the heir presumptive of the Crown

kept away from both politics and pageants in his seclusion at Usk, and

never showed himself until the ensuing January, when he was summoned to

the Parliament at Shrewsbury, to take an oath which had been

administered to all the peers, and which March was the last of the peers

to take. It was a particularly useless one, for a member of any party

could have taken it with a clear conscience. It was sworn by the body

of the peers on the shrine of St. Edward, and by March alone upon the

cross of Canterbury (probably as being portable, which the shrine was

not): and it bound him who took it "to hold, sustain, and maintain well

and loyally, without fraud or evil intent, all statutes, etc., made in

this present Parliament, without ever going contrary thereto or to any

part of them, and never to revoke nor annul them, nor never to suffer

their repeal, living nor dying--saving to the King his royalty and

liberty, and the rights of the Crown." The last item annulled all the

rest so far as the royalists were concerned; the whole was useless as

directed against the traitors.

Roger did not remain at Shrewsbury. He followed the King and Parliament

to Bristol, and as soon as he was released from his parliamentary

duties, he came on to London. He was there for a few weeks, until signs

appeared in the political world of another tumult. It is popularly said

that when thieves fall out, honest men come by their own: and in this

instance the thieves, who were Hereford and Norfolk, fell out most

decidedly. They appeared together before the King, each of them

bringing against the other a charge of that disloyalty of which both

were as guilty as any man could well be. A rumour of disturbances in

Ireland afforded Roger a chance of getting out of the way, before either

of these most honourable men should drag him into their toils, or bring

charges against him which, however untrue, he might find it difficult to

refute.

Once more he offered to Alianora the choice of accompanying him. They

had been separated for nearly two years, and had only met a few weeks

before. But the Countess could not think of it. In fact, she declared

herself quite astonished that her lord could be so unreasonable as to

ask for her company. Her new dresses for Whitsuntide were in course of

preparation, and had cost her a month's reflection. Did he suppose that

they could be finished in a day? or if they had been finished, how could

he imagine that she would be satisfied to waste their resplendency on a

handful of common knights and squires, or a horde of Irish barbarians?

Leave Town in the beginning of April! It was perfectly preposterous,

impossible. And she was quite sure he did not want her--which last was

said in a tone decidedly indicative of the companion fact that she did

not want him.

He did not want her as he had once done. His wish for the company of

the real woman whom he had long seen her to be, was far less than it had

been erewhile for the society of the loved and loveable ideal which he

was now convinced that she was not. Still the old love, though stifled,

repressed, and repulsed, was yet alive, and might have been blown into a

flame had Alianora cared to take the trouble. Roger sighed as he turned

away.

"Be it so, Dame," he answered, speaking more lightly than he felt. "But

your Ladyship will scarce look for me to rest content in being utterly

bereft of the company of ladies. I shall take Nannette withal from

Usk."

"Gramercy! to what end?" demanded Alianora, opening her handsome eyes in

astonishment.

A smile of rather bitter amusement played round the lips of the Earl.

"Choose your Ladyship the reason," said he, still lightly. "You have no

grudge thereunto?"

"I? Good lack, nay! An' it like your Lordship to burden you with a

maid of nine years, you be welcome of very inwitte.[#] I shall have the

lesser charge."

[#] Most heartily.

Her husband might reasonably have inquired what charge she had ever

taken of the children, or how it was to be lessened when they were

already out of her care: but he passed it by.

"Wenteline will ease you thereof," said he. "Your Ladyship grudgeth

not, methinks, that she should bide hence with the childre?"

"Not I, forsooth! Have with them whom you will," was the careless

answer. "I love none of them so dear that I may not live without them."

Roger knew as well as Alianora that the pronoun included himself. He

sent Anne into raptures, and Guenllian into much surprise, by an order

that they should be ready to accompany him. His male friends were

inclined to be exceedingly merry over this odd notion of the Earl. That

he should have taken even his heir, at that early age, would have seemed

to them amusing; but to choose a girl of nine for his companion struck

them as a preposterous absurdity. Earl Roger paid no attention to them.

Extremely sensitive to the lightest censure from lips that he loved, he

was now perfectly callous alike to ridicule and to anger from others.

Of the four children, Anne was his special darling. She and her brother

Roger took after himself in character, while Edmund and Alianora were

their mother's children. Least attractive of them was Edmund, in whose

disposition indolence and selfishness were already manifesting

themselves strongly. When the children were summoned in the morning,

Anne and Roger were always up in a moment, while Edmund had to be dug

out of bed amid a storm of grumbles. All that Anne owed to her mother

was that graceful and gracious manner, which with the mother was merely

artificial polish, but in the daughter was ingrained as a part of her

character. The child's affection for her father was intense: she always

shrank from her mother. The instinct of her true heart discerned the

utter hollowness of Alianora, and the two natures could never

amalgamate.

April had almost bloomed into May when the party reached Trim Castle,

where Roger meant to remain for a few weeks.

*CHAPTER X.*

*MARCUS CURTIUS.*

"Yet thy true heart and loving faith,

And agony of martyr death,

God saw,--and He remembereth."

--F. J. PALGRAVE.

"What think you on thus sadly, my son?" said Mr. Robesart to Lawrence

Madison, whom he found standing with folded arms, gazing out of an

embrasure as though he were not contemplating the landscape.

"I was thinking, Father," was the answer, in a low, dreamy tone,

"wherein success lieth."

"What fashion of success?"

Lawrence smiled, "I am beginning to learn that there be more fashions

thereof than one."

"It is good to learn it early," said the priest. "For man is apt to

think that alone success which hath a gloss and a glitter about it. We

be too oft like childre, which would rather a brass counter that did

shine bravely, than a gold noble that was dull and covered with dirt.

But what be thy thoughts thereon, my son?"

"I thought, Father, that many men did destroy their own success by being

too eager to grasp thereat, afore God had it ready."