"Well, now, Butter," she goes on, "thou most wise, most excellent, most
cunning, most delectable of Butters, I have concocted a plan. I' fecks,
Butter" (for my lady, like her Majesty the Queen, was somewhat given to
swearing, though more modest oaths, as should become a subject)--"I'
fecks, Butter," saith she, "'tis a most lustick plot. But I would not
thy mome heard us;" and with that she makes me send away Joe, the
under-gardener. He being gone, she whispers in my ear how she hath
plotted to fright his lordship and Marian into very convulsions of
further conviction, by appearing to them at the door o' the blue room in
her night-gown, with a taper in her hand and her face chalked. What she
desired o' me was, that I should come to the blue room with her, and
there remain while she played off this pretty fantasy on my lord and
Marian.
To be truthful in these my last days o' earth, I liked not my proffered
office o'er-well. Howbeit, that night did I do the bidding o' my young
mistress, and--loath am I to speak of it, even at this late day--'twas
the cause of my young master's leaving his home and going to bide in
foreign countries.
Ah, bitter tears did his sister weep, and with mine own eyes I saw her,
on the day he set forth, cling to his neck, and when he shook her
thence, hang about his loins, and when at last he pushed her to the
ground, she laid her hands about his feet and wept; and between every
sob it was, "Go not, brother, for my fault! Go not, brother, for my
fault!" or else, "Robin, Robin, dost not love me enough to forgive me so
little?" and then, "If thou didst but love me a little, thou couldst
forgive me much." But he stepped free of her hands and went his ways,
and my lady lay with her head where his feet had been, and was still.
Then Marian, who was very wroth with me for my part in the matter, did
up with her nursling in her own proper strong arms (for she was aye a
strong lass, that being one o' the chief reasons for which I had sought
her in marriage--having had, as should all men, an eye to my posterity.
It was a great cross to me, as may be thought, to find that all my
forethought had been in vain, and that while Turnip, the farrier, had
eight as fine lads as one would care to father, of a puny wench that my
Marian could have slipped in her pocket, Mistress Butter presented me
with no children, weakly or healthy). But, as I have said, Marian, in
her own arms, did carry my lady up-stairs to her chamber, and laid her
on the day-bed.
And by-and-by she opes her eyes (for Marian agreed that I sate on the
threshold), and says she, putting out her hand half-fearful-like, "Is't
thou, brother?"
"Nay, honey," saith Marian; "it is I, thy Marian, thy nurse."
Then said my lady, "Ay, nurse; but my brother, he is below--is't not
so?" But when Marian shook her head, my lady sate up on the day-bed and
caught hold of her short curls, and cried out, "I have banished him! I
have made him an outlaw! I have banished him!" And for days she lay like
one whose soul was sped.
Well, the young lord came not back, nor would he write; so we knew not
whether he were alive or dead. Yet were Marian and myself not
unhopeful, for full oft did the heady boy find some such cause of
disagreement with his sister to abide apart from her. But when we saw
that in truth he came not back, and that week sped after week, and month
did follow month, and still no tidings, we had perforce to acknowledge
that the young lord was indeed gone to return no more.
The Lady Margaret, in her loneliness, grew into many strange ways. She
did outride any man in the county, and she had a blue-roan by the name
of Robin Hood; which same, methinks, no man in or out o' th' county
would 'a' cared to bestride. She would walk over to Pebworth ('piping
Pebworth,' as Master Shakespeare hath dubbed it) and back again, a
distance o' some six miles; and afterwards set forth for a gallop on
Robin Hood, and be no more a-weary, come eventide, than myself from a
trip 'round the gardens. She swam like a sea-maid, she had fenced even
better than her brother, and methinks she was the bonniest shot with a
long-bow of any woman in all England. She was but fifteen when my lord
left Amhurste for aye, and in the years since she had grown mightily,
and was waxed as strong as Marian, and full a head taller. But she had
long, curved flanks that saved her from buxomness; and her head was set
high and light on her shoulders, like a bird that floats on a wave, and
o'er it ran her bright curls, the one o'er the other, like little
wavelets. Her eyes were as gray as a sword, and as keen, and she had
broad lids as white as satin-flowers, and there was a fine black ring
around them, made by her long lashes.
My lady was courted by many a fine lord, and more than three youngsters
have I seen weep because of her coldness towards them; speeding them
away out o' the sight o' mankind (as they thought), and casting
themselves along the lush grass in my lady's garden, there to bleat and
bleat, like moon-calves for the moon.
For one lad did my heart bleed, verily. 'Twas for the young Lord of
Mallow--but a lad with buttercup curls and speedwell eyes, and a smile
to win the love o' any maid in her reason (though, to be sure, my lady
was in her reason). He comes to me and gets between my knees, like any
little eanling that might 'a' been mine own, and quoth he:
"Butter, Butter, she loves thee! Wilt thou not speak to her, and tell
her that she shall be the richest lady in all England, and maid of honor
to the Queen, and have more jewels than the Queen herself? Oh, Butter!"
cried he.
Then said I, a-stroking of the yellow gossamer that bestrewed his
shoulders, as he knelt, head bowed, between my knees, "Nay, my lord,
'tis not so that thou shalt win the Lady Margaret. She careth no more
for jewels than she doth for the beads in a rainbow; nor doth she care
for riches. And methinks a maid who would marry just to be maid of honor
to a queen would not be an honorable maid either to herself or to her
sovereign;" for so indeed I thought.