Years had passed, long years, since the little scene took place which
I have described in the preceding chapter. The heads were grey which
were then proud of the glossy locks of youth. Middle life was
approaching old age; and children had become men.
It was evening. The sun had gone down some two hours before; and the
lights were lighted in a large comfortable well-furnished room. The
ceilings were vaulted. The doorways and the two windows were richly
decorated with innumerable mouldings; and the discoloured stone work
around them, the clustered pillars at the sides, the mullions which
divided the windows, and the broad pointed arches above, spoke that
style of architecture known as the early English. The tables, the
chairs, the cupboard at the side, were all of old oak, deep in colour
and rich in ornament. The floor was covered with rushes, over which,
in the centre, was spread a piece of tapestry; and the stone work of
the walls between the pillars was hidden by tapestry likewise, on one
side representing the siege of Troy, on the other the history of David
and Goliath, and on a third the loves of Mars and Venus, which, though
somewhat too luscious for our irritable imaginations, did not in those
days at all shock the chaste inhabitants of a nunnery. The fourth side
of the room was untapestried, for there spread the immense, wide, open
chimney, with a pile of blazing logs on the hearth, and, in the open
space above the arch, a very early painting of the Madonna and child,
with gilt glories around the heads of both, and the meek eyes of the
virgin fixed upon the somewhat profuse charms of the goddess of love
on the other side.
This is description enough. The reader can easily conceive the parlour
of an abbess towards the end of the fifteenth century, the
heterogeneous contents of which would be somewhat tedious to detail.
Let no one, however, form a false idea of the poor abbess of
Atherston, from the admission into her own private chamber of such
very ungodly personages as Mars and Venus. She had found them there
when she became abbess of the convent, and looked upon them and their
loves as upon any other piece of needlework. Nay, more, had it ever
occurred to her that there was anything improper in having them there,
she would probably have removed them, though to get a more decent
piece of tapestry might have cost her four or five marks. Not that she
was at all stiff, rigid, and severe, for she was the merriest little
abbess in the world; but she combined with great gaiety of heart an
infinite deal of innocence and simplicity, which were perfectly
compatible with some shrewdness and good sense. Shut up in a convent
at a very early period, exposed to none of the vicissitudes of life,
and untaught the corrupting lessons of the world, her cheerfulness had
been economised, her simplicity unimpaired, and her natural keenness
of intellect unblunted, though there might be here and there a spot of
rust upon the blade. It was without her own consent she had gone into
a convent, but neither with nor against her wishes. She had been quite
indifferent; and, never having had any means of judging of other
states of life, she was not discontented with her lot, and rather
pitied than otherwise those who were forced to dwell in a world of
which she knew nothing.
As piety however had nothing to do with her profession, and
mortification had never entered into her catalogue of duties, she saw
no sin and could conceive no evil in making herself as comfortable and
happy as she could. Her predecessor indeed had done a little more, and
had not altogether escaped scandal; but our abbess was of a very
different character, performed her ceremonial duties accurately,
abstained from everything that she knew or thought to be wrong, and
while exacting a fulfilment of all prescribed duties from her nuns,
endeavoured to make their seclusion pleasant, by unvarying gentleness,
kindness, and cheerfulness. If she had a fault, perhaps it was a too
great love for the good things of this life. She was exceedingly fond
of trout, and did not altogether dislike a moderate portion of Gascon
wine, especially when it was of a very superior quality. Venison she
could eat; and a well-fed partridge was not unacceptable--though
methinks she might have spared it from its great resemblance to
herself. All these things, and a great number of other dainties,
however, were plentifully supplied by the lands of the convent, which
were ample, and by the stream which flowed near at hand, or by the
large fish-ponds, three in number, which lay upon the common above.
Indeed so abundant was the provision for a fast day, that the abbess
and the nuns looked forward to it, as it came on in the week, with
great satisfaction, from its affording them excuse for eating more
fish than usual. Not that they fared ill on the other days of the
week; for, as far as forest and lea would go, they were well provided.
To a contented spirit all things are bright; and the good abbess could
have been satisfied with much less than she possessed; so I suppose
whatever little superabundance existed went to make the heart merry
and the tongue glib; and there she sat with her feet on a footstool,
sufficiently near the fire to be somewhat over warm, but yet hardly
near enough for that delicious tingling sensation, which the blaze of
good dry wood produces till we hardly know whether it is pleasant or
painful. In her hand there was a book--a real printed book, rare in
those days, and which might well be looked upon as a treasure. As she
read, she commented to two young girls who sat near with tall frames
before them, running the industrious needle in and out.
I have called them young girls, not alone to distinguish them from old
ones--though that might be necessary--but to show that they had barely
reached womanhood. The eldest was hardly nineteen; the other some
fourteen or fifteen months younger. Both were beautiful; and there was
a certain degree of likeness between them, though the face of the
elder had features more clearly, perhaps more beautifully, cut, and an
expression of greater thoughtfulness, perhaps greater vigour of
character. Yet the other was very beautiful too, with that sparkling
variety, that constant play of everchanging expression, which is so
charming. Its very youthfulness was delightful, for a gleam of
childhood lingered still in the look, especially when surprised or
pleased, although the lines of the face and the contour of the form
were womanly--perhaps more so than those of the other.
That they were none of the sisterhood was evident by the mere matter
of their dress, which also indicated that they had not a fixed
intention of ever entering it; for it was altogether worldly in form
and material, and though plain yet rich. Seated there, with a near
relation, their heads were unencumbered with the monstrous
head-dresses of the time, the proportions of which, not very long
before, were so immense as to require doorways to be widened and
lintels raised, in order to let a lady pass in conveniently. Each wore
a light veil, it is true, hanging from the mass of glossy hair behind
the head, and which could be thrown over the face when required; but
it was very different from the veil of the nun or even of the novice.
"Well, my dear children, I do declare," said the elder lady, "this new
invention of printing may be very clever, and I wot it is; but it is
mighty difficult to read when it is done. I could make out plain court
hand a great deal better when written by a good scribe, such as they
used to have at Winchester and Salisbury."
The younger girl looked up, answering with a gay laugh. "The poor
people never pretend to make you read it easily, dear aunt and mother.
All they say is that they can make more copies of a book in a day than
a scribe could make in a year, and that they can let you have for
three or four shillings what would cost you three or four crowns from
a scribe."
"Ay, that's the worst of it all, child," replied the old lady, shaking
her head. "Books will get into the hands of all sorts of common
people, and do a world of mischief, good lack. But it can't be helped,
my children. The world and the devil will have their way; and, even if
there were a law made against any one learning to read or write under
the rank of a lord at least, it would only make others the more eager
to do it. But I do think that this invention ought to be stopped; for
it will do a world of mischief, I am sure."
"I hope not," replied the other young lady; "for by no contrivance can
they ever make books so cheap, that the lower class can read them; and
I know I have often wished I had a book to read when I have had
nothing else to do. It's a great comfort sometimes, my dear aunt,
especially when one is heavy."
"Ay, that it is, child," said the abbess; "I know that right well. I
don't know what I should have done after the battle of Barnet, if it
had not been for poor old Chaucer. My grandfather remembered him very
well, at the court of John of Ghent; and he gave me the merry book,
when I was not much older than you are. Well-a-day, I must read it
again, when you two leave me; for my evenings will be dull enough
without you, children. I would ask sister Bridget to come in of a
night, in the winter, and do her embroidery beside me, only if she
staid for my little private supper, her face would certainly turn the
wine sour."
"But, perhaps we shall not go after all, dear mother," said the
younger lady. "Have you heard anything about it?"
"There now," cried the abbess, laughing, "she's just as wild to get
into the wicked world as a caged bird to break out into the open air."
"To be sure I am," exclaimed the light-hearted girl; "and oh, how I
will use my wings."
The abbess gazed at her with a look of tender, almost melancholy,
interest, and replied:
"There are limed twigs about them, my child. You forget that you are
married."
"No, not married," cried the other, with her face all glowing.
"Contracted, not married--I wish I was, for the thought frightens me,
and then the worst would be over."
"You don't know what you wish," replied the abbess, shaking her head.
"A thousand to one, you would very soon wish to be unmarried again;
but then it would be too late. It is a collar you can't shake off when
you have once put it on; and nobody can tell how much it may pinch one
till it has been tried. I thank my lucky stars that made it convenient
for your good grandfather to put me in here; for whenever I go out
quietly on my little mule, to see after the affairs of the farms, and
perchance to take a sidelong look at our good foresters coursing a
hare, I never can help pitying the two dogs coupled together, and
pulling at the two ends of a band they cannot break, and thanking my
good fortune for not tying me up in a leash with any one."
The two girls laughed gaily; for, to say truth, they had neither of
them any vocation for cloisteral life; but the youngest replied,
following her aunt's figure of speech, "I dare say the dogs are very
like two married people, my aunt and lady mother; but I dare say too,
if you were to ask either of them, whether he would rather go out into
the green fields tied to a companion, or remain shut up in a kennel,
he would hold out his neck for the couples."
"Why, you saucy child, do you call this a kennel?" asked the abbess,
shaking her finger at her good-humouredly. "What will young maids come
to next? But it is as well as it is; since thou art destined for the
world and its vanities, 'tis lucky thou hast a taste for them; and I
trust thy husband--as thou must have one--will not beat thee above
once a-week, and that on the Saturday, to make thee more devout on the
Sunday following. Is he a ferocious-looking man?"
"Lord love thee, my dear aunt," answered the young lady; "I have never
seen him since I was in swaddling clothes."
"And he was in a sorry-coloured pinked doublet, with a gay cloak on
his shoulders, and a little bonnet on his head no bigger than the palm
of my hand," cried the other young lady. "He could not be ten years
old, and looked like some great man's little page. I remember it quite
well, for I had seen seven years; and I thought it a great shame that
my cousin Iola should have a husband given to her at five, and I none
at seven."
"Given to her!" said the abbess, laughing.
"Well," rejoined the young lady, "I looked upon it as a sort of
doll--a poppet."
"Not far wrong either, my dear," answered the abbess; "only you must
take care how you knock its nose against the floor, or you may find
out where the difference lies."
"Good lack, I have had dolls enough," answered the younger lady, "and
could well spare this other one. But what must be must be; so there is
no use to think of it.--Don't you believe, lady mother," she continued
after a pause, interrupted by a sigh, "that it would be better if they
let people choose husbands and wives for themselves?"
"Good gracious!" cried the abbess, "what is the child thinking of?
Pretty choosing there would be, I dare say. Why lords' daughters would
be taking rosy-cheeked franklins' sons; and barons' heirs would be
marrying milkmaids."
"I don't believe it," said the young lady. "Each would choose, I
think, as they had been brought up; and there would be more chance of
their loving when they did wed."
"Nonsense, nonsense, Iola," cried her aunt. "What do you know about
love--or I either for that matter? Love that comes after marriage is
most likely to last, for, I suppose, like all other sorts of plants,
it only lives a certain time and then dies away; so that if it begins
soon, it ends soon."
"I should like my love to be like one of the trees of the park," said
the young lady, looking down thoughtfully, "growing stronger and
stronger, as it gets older, and outliving myself."
"You must seek for it in fairyland then, my dear," said the abbess.
"You will not find it in this sinful world."
Just as she spoke, the great bell of the abbey, which hung not far
from the window of the abbess's parlour, rang deep and loud; and the
sound, unusual at that hour of the night, made the good old lady
start.
"Virgin mother!" she exclaimed--it was the only little interjection
she allowed herself. "Who can that be coming two hours after curfew?"
and running to the door, with more activity than her plumpness seemed
to promise, she exclaimed, "Sister Magdalen, sister Magdalen, do not
let them open the gate; let them speak through the barred wicket."
"It is only Boyd, the woodman, lady," replied a nun, who was at the
end of a short passage looking out into the court.
"What can he want at this hour?" said the abbess. "Could he not come
before sundown? Well, take him into the parlour by the little door. I
will come to him in a minute;" and returning into her own room again,
the good lady composed herself after her agitation, by a moment's rest
in her great chair; and, after expressing her surprise more than once,
that the woodman should visit the abbey so late, she bade her two
nieces follow her, and passed through a door, different to that by
which she had previously gone out, and walked with stately steps along
a short corridor leading to the public parlour of the abbey.
This was a large and handsome room, lined entirely with beautiful
carved oak, and divided into two, lengthwise, by a screen of open
iron-work painted blue and red, and richly gilt. Visitors on the one
side could see, converse, and even shake hands with those on the
other; but, like the gulf between Abraham and Dives, the iron bars
shut out all farther intercourse. A sconce was lighted on the side of
the nunnery; and when Iola and her cousin Constance followed their
aunt into the room, they beheld, on the other side of the grate, the
form of a tall powerful man, somewhat advanced in life, standing with
his arms crossed upon his broad chest, and looking, to say sooth,
somewhat gloomy. He might indeed, be a little surprised at being
forced to hold communication with the lady abbess through the grate of
the general parlour; for the good lady was by no means so strict in
her notions of conventual decorum, as to exclude him, or any other of
the servants and officers of the abbey, from her presence in the
courtyard or in her own private sitting-room; and perhaps the woodman
might think it did not much matter whether his visit was made by night
or by day.
"Well, John Boyd," said the abbess, "in fortune's name, what brings
you so late at night? Mary mother, I thought it was some of the roving
bands come to try and plunder the abbey again, as they did last
Martinmas twelvemonth; and we cannot expect such a blessed chance
every time, as that good Sir Martin Rideout should be at hand to help
our poor socmen. Had it not been for him, I wot, Peter our bailiff
would have made but a poor hand of defending us."
"And a poor hand he did make," replied the woodman, in a cynical tone;
"for he was nowhere to be found; and I had to pull him out of the
buttery, to head the tenants. But I hear no more of rovers, lady,
unless it be the men at Coleshill, and King Richard's posts, planted
all along the highways, with twenty miles between each two, to look
out for Harry of Richmond."
"Posts!" said the abbess; "posts planted on the highway! What mean you
by posts?"
"Why men on horseback, lady mother," answered the woodman; "with sharp
spurs and strong steeds to bear to Dickon, our king that is, news of
Harry, our king that may be, if he chance to land any where upon the
coast."
"Now Heaven assoil us!" cried the abbess; "what more war, more war?
Will men never be content without deforming God's image in their
fellow creatures, and burning and destroying even the fairest works of
their own hands?"
"I fear not," answered the woodman, twisting round the broad axe that
was hung in his leathern belt. "Great children and small are fond of
bonfires; and nature and the devil between them made man a beast of
prey. As to what brought me hither, madam, it, was to tell you that
the wooden bridge in the forest wants repairing sadly. It would hardly
bear up your mule, lady, with nothing but yourself and your hawk upon
its back; much less a war-horse with a rider armed at point. As for my
coming so late, I have been as far as Tamworth this morning, to sell
the bavins, and didn't get back till after dark. So marking the bridge
by the way, and thinking it would be better to begin on it early in
the morning, I made bold to come up at night for fear anyone, riding
along to church or market or otherwise, should find their way into the
river, and say the abbess ought to mend her ways;" and he laughed at
his own joke.
While he had been speaking, both the young ladies, though he was no
stranger to them, had been gazing at him with considerable attention.
He was, as I have said before, a tall and still very powerful man,
although he seemed to have passed the age of fifty years. His
shoulders were very broad, his arms long and muscular; but his body
was small in proportion to the limbs, and the head in proportion to
the height of the whole figure. His forehead was exceedingly broad and
high, however; the crown of his head quite bald, with large masses of
curling hair falling round his temples and on his neck. What his
complexion originally had been, could not be discovered; for the
whiteness of his hair and eye-brows and the sun-burnt weather-beaten
hue of his skin afforded no indication. His teeth, however, were still
good, his eyes large and bright, and the features fine, although the
wide forehead was seamed with deep furrows, giving, apart from the
rest of his appearance, a look of much greater age than that at which
he had really arrived.
His dress was the ordinary woodman's garb of the time, which is well
known to almost every one. There was the thick stiff leathern coat,
which no broken branch or rugged thorn could pierce, the breeches of
untanned hide, and the hoots of strong black leather, reaching above
the knee. Round his waist, over his coat, he wore a broad belt,
fastened by a brass buckle in front, and in it were stuck the
implements of his craft, namely, a broad axe, which required no
ordinary power of limb to wield, with the head uppermost, thrust under
his left arm like a sword; a large billhook, having a broad stout
piece of iron at the back, which might serve the purposes of a hammer;
and an ordinary woodman's knife, the blade of which was about eighteen
inches in length. His head was on ordinary occasions covered with a
round cloth cap; but this, in reverence of the presence of the lady
abbess, he held by the edge in his hand.
The expression of the good man's countenance, when not particularly
moved, was agreeable enough, though somewhat stern and sad; but when
he laughed, which was by no means unfrequent, although the sound was
loud and hearty, an extraordinary look of bitter mockery hung about
his lip and nostril, taking away all appearance of happiness from his
merriment.
"Well, well, you might mend the bridge without asking me," said the
abbess, in reply to his report. "It is a part of the head woodman's
duty, and the expenses would always be passed. So if you had nothing
more to say than that, you might have chosen another hour, goodman
Boyd."
"Crying your mercy, lady," said the woodman, "I would always rather
deal with you than with your bailiff. When I have orders from you, I
set him at nought. When I do anything of my own hand he is sure to
carp. However I had more to say. We have taken a score of mallards in
the great pond, and a pike of thirty pounds. There are two bitterns
too, three heronshaws, and a pheasant with a back like gold. I had
four dozen of pigeons killed too, out of the colombier in the north
wood; and--"
"Mother Mary, is the man mad?" exclaimed the abbess. "One would think
we were going to have the installation of an archbishop."
"And there are twenty young rabbits, as fat as badgers," continued the
woodman, taking no notice of her interruption. "If I might advise,
lady, you would order some capons to be killed to-night."
The good abbess stood as one quite bewildered, and then burst into a
fit of laughter, saying--
"The man is crazed, I think;" but her eldest niece pulled the sleeve
of her gown, whispering--
"He means something, depend upon it. Perhaps he does not like to speak
before me and Iola."
The abbess paused for an instant as if to consider this suggestion,
and then asked--
"Well, have you anything more to say, goodman?"
"Oh, yes, plenty more," answered the woodman; "when I find a meet
season."
"On my word you seem to have found a fish and fowl season," rejoined
the abbess, playing upon the word _meet_. We must recollect that she
had but little to amuse herself with in her solitude, and therefore
forgive her. She continued, however, in a graver tone: "Is it that you
wish to speak with me alone?"
"Yes, lady," answered the man. "Three pair of ears have generally got
three mouths belonging to them, and that is too many by two."
"Then I'll carry mine out of the way, goodman Boyd," said Iola, giving
him a gay nod, and moving towards the door; "I love not secrets of any
kind. Heaven shield me from having any of my own, for I should never
keep them."
The woodman looked after her with a smile, murmuring in a low voice as
if to himself--
"Yet I think she would keep other people's better than most." Then,
waiting till Constance had followed her cousin from the room, he
continued, speaking to the abbess: "you'll have visitors at the abbey,
lady, before this time to-morrow night."
"Marry, that is news, goodman," answered the abbess; "and for this
then you have made all this great preparation. It must be an earl, or
duke at least, if not king Richard himself--God save the mark that I
should give the name of king to one of his kindred. Methinks you might
have told me this without such secrecy. Who may these visitors be?"
"They are very simple gentlemen, my lady," answered the woodman,
"though well to do in the world. First and foremost, there is the
young Lord Chartley, a young nobleman with as many good points as a
horse-dealer's filly; a baron of the oldest race, a good man at arms.
He can read and write, and thanks God for it, makes verses when he is
in love--which is every day in the week with some one--and, to crown
all, is exceedingly rich as these hard times go."
"You seem to be of his privy chamber, goodman Boyd," said the abbess;
"you deliver him so punctually."
"I deliver him but as his own servants delivered him to me," answered
the woodman. "Tell me, was he not in the battle of Barnet, fighting
for the red rose?" inquired the abbess. "Ay, and sorely wounded there.
He shall be right welcome, if it were but for that."
"Nay, Lord Chartley fought at Barnet," said the woodman; "and if to
fight well and to suffer for the cause of Lancaster merit such high
honour, you might indeed receive him daintily, for he fought till he
was killed there, poor man; but this youth is his nephew, and has had
no occasion to fight in England either, for there have been no battles
since he was a boy. Lancaster he doubtless is in heart, though king
Edward put him into the guardianship of a Yorkist. However, with him
comes Sir Edward Hungerford, who, they tell me, is one of those gay
light-hearted gentlemen, who, born and bred in perilous and changing
times, get to think at last, by seeing all things fall to pieces round
them, that there is nothing real or solid in the world--no, not truth
itself. But let him pass; a little perjury and utter faithlessness, a
ready wit, a bold heart, a reckless love of mischief, a pair of
hanging sleeves that sweeps the ground as he walks along, a coat of
goldsmith's work, and a well-lined purse, have made many a fine
gentleman before him; and I'll warrant he is not worse than the
greater part of his neighbours. Then with these two, there is Sir
Charles Weinants, a right worshipful gentleman also."
"But tell me more of him," said the abbess. "What is he? I have heard
the name before with honourable mention, methinks--Who and what is
he?"
"A lickladle of the court, lady," answered the woodman, "one who rises
high by low ladders--who soars not up at once, either as the eagle or
the lark, but creeps into favour through holes and turnings. He is
marvellously discreet in all his doings, asserts nought boldly, but by
dull insinuation stings an enemy or serves a friend. Oh yes, he has
his friendships too--not much to be relied on, it is true, but still
often useful, so that even good men have need of his agency. All that
he does is done by under-currents, which bear things back to the shore
that seem floating out to sea. Quiet, and calm, and self-possessed, he
is ever ready for the occasion; and with a cheerful spirit, which one
would think the tenant of an upright heart, he wins his way silently,
and possesses great men's ears, who little know that their favour is
disposed of at another's will. He is an old man now; but I remember
him when I was a boy at St. Alban's. He was then in much grace with
the great Lord Clifford, who brought him to the notice of king Henry.
He has since lived, as much in favour, with Edwards and Richards and
Buckinghams, and is now a strong Yorkist. What he will die, Heaven and
time will show us."
"Goodlack, that there should be such things in the world!" exclaimed
the abbess; "but what brings all these people here? I know none of
them; and if they come but to visit the shrine, I have no need to
entertain them, nor you to make a mystery of their visit. I hate
mysteries, my good son, ever since I read about that word being
written on the forehead of the poor sinner of Babylon."
The woodman laughed irreverently, but answered, "I want to make no
mystery with you, lady. These men bring a great train with them; and
in their train there is a reverend friar, with frock, and cowl, and
sandaled feet; but methinks I have seen a mitre on his shaven crown,
though neither mitre nor cowl would save him from the axe, I wot, if
good king Richard got his hands upon him. What he comes for--why he
comes, I cannot tell you; for I only heard that their steps tended
hitherward, and the lackeys counted on drinking deep of the abbey ale.
But when that friar is beneath your roof, you will have a man beside
you, whose life is in much peril for stout adherence to the cause of
Lancaster."
"Then he shall have shelter and protection here," said the abbess
boldly. "This is sanctuary, and I will not believe that Richard
himself--bad and daring as he is--would venture to violate the
church's rights."
"Richard has two weapons, madam," answered the woodman, "and both
equally keen, his sword and his cunning; and take my word for it, what
he desires to do that he will do--ay, even to the violation of
sanctuary, though perhaps it may not be with his own hand or in his
own name. You have had one visit from a roving band who cared little
about holy church; and you may have another, made up of very different
men, with whom the king might deal tenderly if they did him good
service."
"Then we will call in the tenants," said the abbess, "and defend our
rights and privileges."
"The tenants might be outnumbered," said the woodman, shaking his
head. "There are many men straying about here, who would soon band
together at the thought of stripping the shrine of St. Clare;
especially if they had royal warranty for their necks' safety, and the
promise of farther reward, besides all their hands helped them to."
"Then what is to be done?" exclaimed the abbess, in some
consternation. "I cannot and I will not refuse refuge to a consecrated
bishop, and one who has suffered persecution for the sake of his
rightful race of kings."
"Nay, Heaven forbid," replied the woodman warmly; "but if you will
take a simple man's advice, lady, methinks I could show you a way to
save the bishop, and the abbey, and the ornaments of the shrine too."
"Speak, speak," exclaimed the abbess eagerly. "Your advice is always
shrewd, goodman Boyd. What way would you have me take?"
"Should you ever have in sanctuary," answered the woodman, "a man so
hated by the king that you may expect rash acts committed to seize
him, and you find yourself suddenly attacked by a band that you cannot
resist, send your sanctuary man to me by some one who knows all the
ways well, and I will provide for his safety where they will never
find him. Then, be you prepared for resistance, but resist not if you
can help it. Parley with the good folks, and say that you know well
they would not come for the mere plunder of a consecrated place, that
you are sure they have come seeking a man impeached of high treason
who lately visited the abbey. Assure them that you sent him away,
which you then may well do in all truth, and offer to give admission
to any three or four to search for him at their will. Methinks, if
they are privately set on by higher powers, they will not venture to
do anything violent, when they are certain that success will not
procure pardon for the act."
The abbess mused and seemed to hesitate; and, after a short pause, the
woodman added, "Take my advice, lady. I do not speak without
knowledge. Many a stray bit of news gets into the forest by one way or
another that is never uttered in the town. Now, a messenger stops to
talk with the woodman, and, overburdened with the secret, pours part
of it out, where he thinks it can never rise in judgment against him.
Then, a traveller asks his way, and gossips with his guide as he walks
along to put him in the right road. Every carter, who comes in for his
load of wood, brings some intelligence from the town. I am rightly
informed, lady, depend upon it."
"It is not that; it is not that," said the abbess, somewhat peevishly.
"I was thinking whom I could send and how. If they surround the abbey
altogether, how could I get him out?"
"There is the underground way to the cell of St. Magdalen," said the
woodman. "To surround the abbey, they would have to bring their men in
amongst the houses of the hamlet, and the cell is far beyond that."
"True, but no one knows that way," said the abbess, "but you, and I,
and sister Bridget. I could trust her well enough, cross and
ill-tempered as she is; but then she has never stirred beyond the
abbey walls for these ten years, so that she knows not the way from
the cell to your cottage. I trust she knows the way to heaven better;"
and the abbess laughed.
"'Twere easy to instruct some one else in the way to the cell," said
the woodman. "The passage is plain enough when the stone door is
open."
"Ay, doubtless, doubtless," continued the abbess; "but you forget, my
good friend, that it is against our law to tell the secret way out to
any of the sisterhood, except the superior and the oldest nun. Mary
mother, I know not why the rule was made; but it has been so, ever
since bishop Godshaw's visitation in 1361."
"I suppose he found the young sisters fond of tripping in the green
wood with the fairies of nights," answered the woodman, with one of
his short laughs; "but however, you are not forbidden to tell those
who are not of the sisterhood; otherwise, lady, you would not have
told me."
"Nay, that does not follow," rejoined the abbess. "The head woodman
always knows, as the cell is under his charge and care, ever since the
poor hermit died. However, I do not recollect having vowed not to tell
the secret to any secular persons. The promise was only as to the
sisters--but whom could I send?
"Iola? Nay, nay, that cannot be," said the abbess. "She is not of a
station to go wandering about at night, guiding strangers through a
wild wood. She is my niece, and an earl's daughter."
"Higher folks than she have done as much," answered the woodman; "but
I did not think that the abbess of Atherston St. Clare would have
refused even her niece's help, to Morton, bishop of Ely."
"The bishop of Ely!" cried the abbess. "Refuse him help? No, no, Boyd.
If it were my daughter or my sister, if it cost me life, or limb, or
fortune, he should have help in time of need. I have not seen him now
these twelve years; but he shall find I do not forget--Say no more,
goodman, say no more. I will send my niece, and proud may she be of
the task."
"I thought it would be so, lady," answered the woodman; "but still one
word more. It were as well that you told the good lord bishop of his
danger, as soon as you can have private speech with him, and then take
the first hour after sundown to get him quietly away out of the abbey,
for to speak truth I much doubt the good faith of that Sir Charles
Weinants--I know not what he does with men of Lancaster--unless he
thinks, indeed, the tide is turning in favour of that house from which
it has ebbed away so long."
Although they had said all they really had to say, yet the abbess and
the woodman carried on their conversation during some ten minutes or
quarter of an hour more, before they parted; and then the excellent
lady retired to her own little comfortable room again, murmuring to
herself: "He is a wise man, that John Boyd--rude as a bear sometimes;
but he has got a wit! I think those woodmen are always shrewd. They
harbour amongst the green leaves, and look at all that goes on in the
world as mere spectators, till they learn to judge better of all the
games that are playing than those who take part therein. They can look
out, and see, and meddle as little as we do, while we are shut out
from sight, as well as from activity."