A STRANGE VISITOR.--ALL AGES OF THE WORLD BREED WORLD-BETTERS.
Sibyll, whose soft heart bled for her father, and who now reproached
herself for having concealed from him her little hoard, began hastily
to dress that she might seek him out, and soothe the painful feelings
which the honest rudeness of Madge had aroused. But before her task
was concluded, there pealed a loud knock at the outer door. She heard
the old housekeeper's quivering voice responding to a loud clear tone;
and presently Madge herself ascended the stairs to Warner's room,
followed by a man whom Sibyll instantly recognized--for he was not one
easily to be forgotten--as their protector from the assault of the
mob. She drew back hastily as he passed her door, and in some wonder
and alarm awaited the descent of Madge. That venerable personage
having with some difficulty induced her master to open his door and
admit the stranger, came straight into her young lady's chamber.
"Cheer up, cheer up, sweetheart," said the old woman; "I think better
days will shine soon; for the honest man I have admitted says he is
but come to tell Master Warner something that will redound much to his
profit. Oh, he is a wonderful fellow, this same Robin! You saw how
he turned the cullions from burning the old house!"
"What! you know this man, Madge! What is he, and who?"
Madge looked puzzled. "That is more than I can say, sweet mistress.
But though he has been but some weeks in the neighbourhood, they all
hold him in high count and esteem. For why--it is said he is a rich
man and a kind one. He does a world of good to the poor."
While Sibyll listened to such explanations as Madge could give her,
the stranger, who had carefully closed the door of the student's
chamber, after regarding Adam for a moment with silent but keen
scrutiny, thus began,--
"When last we met, Adam Warner, it was with satchells on our backs.
Look well at me!"
"Troth," answered Adam, languidly, for he was still under the deep
dejection that had followed the scene with Sibyll, "I cannot call you
to mind, nor seems it veritable that our schooldays passed together,
seeing that my hair is gray and men call me old; but thou art in all
the lustihood of this human life."
"Nathless," returned the stranger, "there are but two years or so
between thine age and mine. When thou wert poring over the crabbed
text, and pattering Latin by the ell, dost thou not remember a lack-
grace good-for-naught, Robert Hilyard, who was always setting the
school in an uproar, and was finally outlawed from that boy-world, as
he hath been since from the man's world, for inciting the weak to
resist the strong?"
"Ah," exclaimed Adam, with a gleam of something like joy on his face,
"art thou indeed that riotous, brawling, fighting, frank-hearted, bold
fellow, Robert Hilyard? Ha! ha!--those were merry days! I have known
none like them--" The old schoolfellows shook hands heartily.
"The world has not fared well with thee in person or pouch, I fear me,
poor Adam," said Hilyard; "thou canst scarcely have passed thy
fiftieth year, and yet thy learned studies have given thee the weight
of sixty; while I, though ever in toil and bustle, often wanting a
meal, and even fearing the halter, am strong and hearty as when I shot
my first fallow buck in the king's forest, and kissed the forester's
pretty daughter. Yet, methinks, Adam, if what I hear of thy tasks be
true, thou and I have each been working for one end; thou to make the
world other than it is, and I to--"
"What! hast thou, too, taken nourishment from the bitter milk of
Philosophy,--thou, fighting Rob?"
"I know not whether it be called philosophy, but marry, Edward of York
would call it rebellion; they are much the same, for both war against
rules established!" returned Hilyard, with more depth of thought than
his careless manner seemed to promise. He paused, and laying his
broad brown hand on Warner's shoulder, resumed, "Thou art poor, Adam!"
"Very poor,--very, very!"
"Does thy philosophy disdain gold?"
"What can philosophy achieve without it? She is a hungry dragon, and
her very food is gold!"
"Wilt thou brave some danger--thou went ever a fearless boy when thy
blood was up, though so meek and gentle--wilt thou brave some danger
for large reward?"
"My life braves the scorn of men, the pinchings of famine, and, it may
be, the stake and the fagot. Soldiers brave not the dangers that are
braved by a wise man in an unwise age!"
"Gramercy! thou hast a hero's calm aspect while thou speakest, and thy
words move me! Listen! Thou wert wont, when Henry of Windsor was
King of England, to visit and confer with him on learned matters. He
is now a captive in the Tower; but his jailers permit him still to
receive the visits of pious monks and harmless scholars. I ask thee
to pay him such a visit, and for this office I am empowered, by richer
men than myself, to award thee the guerdon of twenty broad pieces of
gold."
"Twenty!--A mine! a Tmolus!" exclaimed Adam, in uncontrollable glee.
"Twenty! O true friend, then my work will be born at last!"
"But hear me further, Adam, for I will not deceive thee; the visit
hath its peril! Thou must first see if the mind of King Henry, for
king he is, though the usurper wear his holy crown, be clear and
healthful. Thou knowest he is subject to dark moods,--suspension of
man's reason; and if he be, as his friends hope, sane and right-
judging, thou wilt give him certain papers, which, after his hand has
signed them, thou wilt bring back to me. If in this thou succeedest,
know that thou mayst restore the royalty of Lancaster to the purple
and the throne; that thou wilt have princes and earls for favourers
and protectors to thy learned life; that thy fortunes and fame are
made! Fail, be discovered,--and Edward of York never spares!--thy
guerdon will be the nearest tree and the strongest rope!"
"Robert," said Adam, who had listened to this address with unusual
attention, "thou dealest with me plainly, and as man should deal with
man. I know little of stratagem and polity, wars and kings; and save
that King Henry, though passing ignorant in the mathematics, and more
given to alchemists than to solid seekers after truth, was once or
twice gracious to me, I could have no choice, in these four walls,
between an Edward and a Henry on the throne. But I have a king whose
throne is in mine own breast, and, alack, it taxeth me heavily, and
with sore burdens."
"I comprehend," said the visitor, glancing round the room,--"I
comprehend: thou wantest money for thy books and instruments, and thy
melancholic passion is thy sovereign. Thou wilt incur the risk?"
"I will," said Adam. "I would rather seek in the lion's den for what
I lack than do what I well-nigh did this day."
"What crime was that, poor scholar?" said Robin, smiling.
"My child worked for her bread and my luxuries--I would have robbed
her, old schoolfellow. Ha, ha! what is cord and gibbet to one so
tempted?"
A tear stood in the bright gray eyes of the bluff visitor. "Ah,
Adam," he said sadly, "only by the candle held in the skeleton hand of
Poverty can man read his own dark heart. But thou, Workman of
Knowledge, hast the same interest as the poor who dig and delve.
Though strange circumstance hath made me the servant and emissary of
Margaret, think not that I am but the varlet of the great." Hilyard
paused a moment, and resumed,--
"Thou knowest, peradventure, that my race dates from an elder date
than these Norman nobles, who boast their robber-fathers. From the
renowned Saxon Thane, who, free of hand and of cheer, won the name of
Hildegardis, [Hildegardis, namely, old German, a person of noble or
generous disposition. Wotton's "Baronetage," art. Hilyard, or
Hildyard, of Pattrington.] our family took its rise. But under these
Norman barons we sank with the nation to which we belonged. Still
were we called gentlemen, and still were dubbed knights. But as I
grew up to man's estate, I felt myself more Saxon than gentleman, and,
as one of a subject and vassal race, I was a son of the Saxon people.
My father, like thee, was a man of thought and bookcraft. I dare own
to thee that he was a Lollard; and with the religion of those bold
foes to priest-vice, goes a spirit that asks why the people should be
evermore the spoil and prey of lords and kings. Early in my youth, my
father, fearing rack and fagot in England, sought refuge in the Hans
town of Lubeck. There I learned grave truths,--how liberty can be won
and guarded. Later in life I saw the republics of Italy, and I asked
why they were so glorious in all the arts and craft of civil life,
while the braver men of France and England seemed as savages by the
side of the Florentine burgess, nay, of the Lombard vine-dresser. I
saw that, even when those republics fell a victim to some tyrant or
podesta, their men still preserved rights and uttered thoughts which
left them more free and more great than the Commons of England after
all their boasted wars. I came back to my native land and settled in
the North, as my franklin ancestry before me. The broad lands of my
forefathers had devolved on the elder line, and gave a knight's fee to
Sir Robert Hilyard, who fell afterwards at Towton for the
Lancastrians. But I had won gold in the far countree, and I took farm
and homestead near Lord Warwick's tower of Middleham. The feud
between Lancaster and York broke forth; Earl Warwick summoned his
retainers, myself amongst them, since I lived upon his land; I sought
the great earl, and I told him boldly--him whom the Commons deemed a
friend, and a foe to all malfaisance and abuse--I told him that the
war he asked me to join seemed to me but a war of ambitious lords, and
that I saw not how the Commons were to be bettered, let who would be
king. The earl listened and deigned to reason; and when he saw I was
not convinced, he left me to my will; for he is a noble chief, and I
admired even his angry pride, when he said, 'Let no man fight for
Warwick whose heart beats not in his cause.' I lived afterwards to
discharge my debt to the proud earl, and show him how even the lion
may be meshed, and how even the mouse may gnaw the net. But to my own
tragedy. So I quitted those parts, for I feared my own resolution
near so great a man; I made a new home not far from the city of York.
So, Adam, when all the land around bristled with pike and gisarme, and
while my own cousin and namesake, the head of my House, was winning
laurels and wasting blood--I, thy quarrelsome, fighting friend--lived
at home in peace with my wife and child (for I was now married, and
wife and child were dear to me), and tilled my lands. But in peace I
was active and astir, for my words inflamed the bosoms of labourers
and peasants, and many of them, benighted as they were, thought with
me. One day--I was absent from home, selling my grain in the marts of
York--one day there entered the village a young captain, a boy-chief,
Edward Earl of March, beating for recruits. Dost thou heed me, Adam?
Well, man--well, the peasants stood aloof from tromp and banner, and
they answered, to all the talk of hire and fame, 'Robin Hilyard tells
us we have nothing to gain but blows,--leave us to hew and to delve.'
Oh, Adam, this boy, this chief, the Earl of March, now crowned King
Edward, made but one reply, 'This Robin Hilyard must be a wise man,--
show me his house.' They pointed out the ricks, the barns, the
homestead, and in five minutes all--all were in flames. 'Tell the
hilding, when he returns, that thus Edward of March, fair to friends
and terrible to foes, rewards the coward who disaffects the men of
Yorkshire to their chief.' And by the blazing rafters, and the pale
faces of the silent crowd, he rode on his way to battle and the
throne!"
Hilyard paused, and the anguish of his countenance was terrible to
behold.
"I returned to find a heap of ashes; I returned to find my wife a
maniac; I returned to find my child--my boy--great God!--he had run to
hide himself, in terror at the torches and the grim men; they had
failed to discover him, till, too late, his shrieks, amidst the
crashing walls, burst on his mother's ear,--and the scorched, mangled,
lifeless corpse lay on that mother's bosom!"
Adam rose; his figure was transformed. Not the stooping student, but
the knight-descended man, seemed to tower in the murky chamber; his
hand felt at his side, as for a sword; he stifled a curse, and
Hilyard, in that suppressed low voice which evinces a strong mind in
deep emotion, continued his tale.
"Blessed be the Divine Intercessor, the mother of the dead died too!
Behold me, a lonely, ruined, wifeless, childless wretch! I made all
the world my foe! The old love of liberty (alone left me) became a
crime; I plunged into the gloom of the forest, a robber-chief,
sparing--no, never-never--never one York captain, one spurred knight,
one belted lord! But the poor, my Saxon countrymen, they had
suffered, and were safe!
"One dark twilight--thou hast heard the tale, every village minstrel
sets it to his viol--a majestic woman, a hunted fugitive, crossed my
path; she led a boy in her hand, a year or so younger than my murdered
child. 'Friend!' said the woman, fearlessly, 'save the son of your
king; I am Margaret, Queen of England!' I saved them both. From that
hour the robber-chief, the Lollard's son, became a queen's friend.
Here opened, at least, vengeance against the fell destroyer. Now see
you why I seek you, why tempt you into danger? Pause, if you will,
for my passion heats my blood,--and all the kings since Saul, it may
be, are not worth one scholar's life! And yet," continued Hilyard,
regaining his ordinary calm tone, "and yet, it seemeth to me, as I
said at first, that all who labour have in this a common cause and
interest with the poor. This woman-king, though bloody man, with his
wine-cups and his harlots, this usurping York--his very existence
flaunts the life of the sons of toil. In civil war and in broil, in
strife that needs the arms of the people, the people shall get their
own."
"I will go," said Adam, and he advanced to the door. Hilyard caught
his arm. "Why, friend, thou hast not even the documents, and how
wouldst thou get access to the prison? Listen to me; or," added the
conspirator, observing poor Adam's abstracted air, "or let me rather
speak a word to thy fair daughter; women have ready wit, and are the
pioneers to the advance of men! Adam, Adam! thou art dreaming!"--He
shook the philosopher's arm roughly.
"I heed you," said Warner, meekly.
"The first thing required," renewed Hilyard, "is a permit to see King
Henry. This is obtained either from the Lord Worcester, governor of
the Tower, a cruel man, who may deny it, or the Lord Hastings,
Edward's chamberlain, a humane and gentle one, who will readily grant
it. Let not thy daughter know why thou wouldst visit Henry; let her
suppose it is solely to make report of his health to Margaret; let her
not know there is scheming or danger,--so, at least, her ignorance
will secure her safety. But let her go to the lord chamberlain, and
obtain the order for a learned clerk to visit the learned prisoner--
to--ha! well thought of--this strange machine is, doubtless, the
invention of which thy neighbours speak; this shall make thy excuse;
thou wouldst divert the prisoner with thy mechanical--comprehendest
thou, Adam?"
"Ah, King Henry will see the model, and when he is on the throne--"
"He will protect the scholar!" interrupted Hilyard. "Good! good!
Wait here; I will confer with thy daughter." He gently pushed aside
Adam, opened the door, and on descending the stairs, found Sibyll by
the large casement where she had stood with Marmaduke, and heard the
rude stave of the tymbesteres.
The anxiety the visit of Hilyard had occasioned her was at once
allayed, when he informed her that he had been her father's
schoolmate, and desired to become his friend. And when he drew a
moving picture of the exiled condition of Margaret and the young
prince, and their natural desire to learn tidings of the health of the
deposed king, her gentle heart, forgetting the haughty insolence with
which her royal mistress had often wounded and chilled her childhood,
felt all the generous and compassionate sympathy the conspirator
desired to awaken. "The occasion," added Hilyard, "for learning the
poor captive's state now offers! He hath heard of your father's
labours; he desires to learn their nature from his own lips. He is
allowed to receive, by an order from King Edward's chamberlain, the
visits of those scholars in whose converse he was ever wont to
delight. Wilt thou so far aid the charitable work as to seek the Lord
Hastings, and crave the necessary license? Thou seest that thy father
has wayward and abstract moods; he might forget that Henry of Windsor
is no longer king, and might give him that title in speaking to Lord
Hastings,--a slip of the tongue which the law styles treason."
"Certes," said Sibyll, quickly, "if my father would seek the poor
captive, I will be his messenger to my Lord Hastings. But oh, sir, as
thou hast known my father's boyhood, and as thou hopest for mercy in
the last day, tempt to no danger one so guileless!"
Hilyard winced as he interrupted her hastily,
"There is no danger if thou wilt obtain the license. I will say
more,--a reward awaits him, that will not only banish his poverty but
save his life."
"His life!"
"Ay! seest thou not, fair mistress, that Adam Warner is dying, not of
the body's hunger, but of the soul's? He craveth gold, that his toils
may reap their guerdon. If that gold be denied, his toils will fret
him to the grave!"
"Alas! alas! it is true."
"That gold he shall honourably win! Nor is this all. Thou wilt see
the Lord Hastings: he is less learned, perhaps, than Worcester, less
dainty in accomplishments and gifts than Anthony Woodville, but his
mind is profound and vast; all men praise him save the queen's kin.
He loves scholars; he is mild to distress; he laughs at the
superstitions of the vulgar. Thou wilt see the Lord Hastings, and
thou mayst interest him in thy father's genius and his fate!"
"There is frankness in thy voice, and I will trust thee," answered
Sibyll. "When shall I seek this lord?"
"This day, if thou wilt. He lodges at the Tower, and gives access, it
is said, to all who need his offices, or seek succour from his power."
"This day, then, be it!" answered Sibyll, calmly.
Hilyard gazed at her countenance, rendered so noble in its youthful
resignation, in its soft firmness of expression, and muttering,
"Heaven prosper thee, maiden; we shall meet tomorrow," descended the
stairs, and quitted the house.
His heart smote him when he was in the street. "If evil should come
to this meek scholar, to that poor child's father, it would be a sore
sin to my soul. But no; I will not think it. The saints will not
suffer this bloody Edward to triumph long; and in this vast chessboard
of vengeance and great ends, we must move men to and fro, and harden
our natures to the hazard of the game."
Sibyll sought her father; his mind had flown back to the model. He
was already living in the life that the promised gold would give to
the dumb thought. True that all the ingenious additions to the
engine--additions that were to convince the reason and startle the
fancy--were not yet complete (for want, of course, of the diamond
bathed in moonbeams); but still there was enough in the inventions
already achieved to excite curiosity and obtain encouragement. So,
with care and diligence and sanguine hope the philosopher prepared the
grim model for exhibition to a man who had worn a crown, and might
wear again. But with that innocent and sad cunning which is so common
with enthusiasts of one idea, the sublime dwellers of the narrow
border between madness and inspiration, Adam, amidst his excitement,
contrived to conceal from his daughter all glimpse of the danger he
ran, of the correspondence of which he was to be the medium,--or
rather, may we think that he had forgotten both! Not the stout
Warwick himself, in the roar of battle, thought so little of peril to
life and limb as that gentle student, in the reveries of his lonely
closet; and therefore, all unsuspicious, and seeing but diversion to
Adam's recent gloom of despair, an opening to all his bright
prospects, Sibyll attired herself in her holiday garments, drew her
wimple closely round her face, and summoning Madge to attend her, bent
her way to the Tower. Near York House, within view of the Sanctuary
and the Palace of Westminster, they took a boat, and arrived at the
stairs of the Tower.