KENILWORTH

by

Sir Walter Scott

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 Sir Walter Scott

Kenilworth
by

Sir Walter Scott

INTRODUCTION
A CERTAIN DEGREE OF SUCCESS, real or supposed, in the delineation
of Queen Mary, naturally induced the author to attempt something
similar respecting “her sister and her foe,” the celebrated Elizabeth.
He will not, however, pretend to have approached the task with the
same feelings; for the candid Robertson himself confesses having
felt the prejudices with which a Scottishman is tempted to regard
the subject; and what so liberal a historian avows, a poor romance-
writer dares not disown. But he hopes the influence of a prejudice,
almost as natural to him as his native air, will not be found to have
greatly affected the sketch he has attempted of England’s Elizabeth.
I have endeavoured to describe her as at once a high-minded sover-
eign, and a female of passionate feelings, hesitating betwixt the sense

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of her rank and the duty she owed her subjects on the one hand,
and on the other her attachment to a nobleman, who, in external
qualifications at least, amply merited her favour. The interest of the
story is thrown upon that period when the sudden death of the first
Countess of Leicester seemed to open to the ambition of her hus-
band the opportunity of sharing the crown of his sovereign.
It is possible that slander, which very seldom favours the memo-
ries of persons in exalted stations, may have blackened the character
of Leicester with darker shades than really belonged to it. But the
almost general voice of the times attached the most foul suspicions
to the death of the unfortunate Countess, more especially as it took
place so very opportunely for the indulgence of her lover’s ambi-
tion. If we can trust Ashmole’s Antiquities of Berkshire, there was
but too much ground for the traditions which charge Leicester with
the murder of his wife. In the following extract of the passage, the
reader will find the authority I had for the story of the romance:—
“At the west end of the church are the ruins of a manor, anciently
belonging (as a cell, or place of removal, as some report) to the
monks of Abington. At the Dissolution, the said manor, or lord-
ship, was conveyed to one—Owen (I believe), the possessor of
Godstow then.
“In the hall, over the chimney, I find Abington arms cut in stone—
namely, a patonee between four martletts; and also another escutch-
eon—namely, a lion rampant, and several mitres cut in stone about
the house. There is also in the said house a chamber called Dudley’s
chamber, where the Earl of Leicester’s wife was murdered, of which
this is the story following:—
“Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a very goodly personage, and
singularly well featured, being a great favourite to Queen Elizabeth,
it was thought, and commonly reported, that had he been a bach-
elor or widower, the Queen would have made him her husband; to
this end, to free himself of all obstacles, he commands, or perhaps,
with fair flattering entreaties, desires his wife to repose herself here
at his servant Anthony Forster’s house, who then lived in the afore-
said manor-house; and also prescribes to Sir Richard Varney (a
prompter to this design), at his coming hither, that he should first
attempt to poison her, and if that did not take effect, then by any

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 Sir Walter Scott

other way whatsoever to dispatch her. This, it seems, was proved by

the report of Dr. Walter Bayly, sometime fellow of New College,
then living in Oxford, and professor of physic in that university;
whom, because he would not consent to take away her life by poi-
son, the Earl endeavoured to displace him the court. This man, it
seems, reported for most certain that there was a practice in Cumnor
among the conspirators, to have poisoned this poor innocent lady, a
little before she was killed, which was attempted after this man-
ner:—They seeing the good lady sad and heavy (as one that well
knew, by her other handling, that her death was not far off ), began
to persuade her that her present disease was abundance of melan-
choly and other humours, etc., and therefore would needs counsel
her to take some potion, which she absolutely refusing to do, as still
suspecting the worst; whereupon they sent a messenger on a day
(unawares to her) for Dr. Bayly, and entreated him to persuade her
to take some little potion by his direction, and they would fetch the
same at Oxford; meaning to have added something of their own for
her comfort, as the doctor upon just cause and consideration did
suspect, seeing their great importunity, and the small need the lady
had of physic, and therefore he peremptorily denied their request;
misdoubting (as he afterwards reported) lest, if they had poisoned
her under the name of his potion, he might after have been hanged
for a colour of their sin, and the doctor remained still well assured
that this way taking no effect, she would not long escape their vio-
lence, which afterwards happened thus. For Sir Richard Varney
abovesaid (the chief projector in this design), who, by the Earl’s
order, remained that day of her death alone with her, with one man
only and Forster, who had that day forcibly sent away all her ser-
vants from her to Abington market, about three miles distant from
this place; they (I say, whether first stifling her, or else strangling
her) afterwards flung her down a pair of stairs and broke her neck,
using much violence upon her; but, however, though it was vulgarly
reported that she by chance fell downstairs (but still without hurt-
ing her hood that was upon her head), yet the inhabitants will tell
you there that she was conveyed from her usual chamber where she
lay, to another where the bed’s head of the chamber stood close to a
privy postern door, where they in the night came and stifled her in

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her bed, bruised her head very much broke her neck, and at length
flung her down stairs, thereby believing the world would have
thought it a mischance, and so have blinded their villainy. But be-
hold the mercy and justice of God in revenging and discovering this
lady’s murder; for one of the persons that was a coadjutor in this
murder was afterwards taken for a felony in the marches of Wales,
and offering to publish the manner of the aforesaid murder, was
privately made away in the prison by the Earl’s appointment; and
Sir Richard Varney the other, dying about the same time in Lon-
don, cried miserably, and blasphemed God, and said to a person of
note (who hath related the same to others since), not long before his
death, that all the devils in hell did tear him in pieces. Forster, like-
wise, after this fact, being a man formerly addicted to hospitality,
company, mirth, and music, was afterwards observed to forsake all
this, and with much melancholy and pensiveness (some say with
madness) pined and drooped away. The wife also of Bald Butter,
kinsman to the Earl, gave out the whole fact a little before her death.
Neither are these following passages to be forgotten, that as soon as
ever she was murdered, they made great haste to bury her before the
coroner had given in his inquest (which the Earl himself condemned
as not done advisedly), which her father, or Sir John Robertsett (as
I suppose), hearing of, came with all speed hither, caused her corpse
to be taken up, the coroner to sit upon her, and further inquiry to
be made concerning this business to the full; but it was generally
thought that the Earl stopped his mouth, and made up the business
betwixt them; and the good Earl, to make plain to the world the
great love he bare to her while alive, and what a grief the loss of so
virtuous a lady was to his tender heart, caused (though the thing, by
these and other means, was beaten into the heads of the principal
men of the University of Oxford) her body to be reburied in St,
Mary’s Church in Oxford, with great pomp and solemnity. It is
remarkable, when Dr. Babington, the Earl’s chaplain, did preach
the funeral sermon, he tript once or twice in his speech, by recom-
mending to their memories that virtuous lady so pitifully murdered,
instead of saying pitifully slain. This Earl, after all his murders and
poisonings, was himself poisoned by that which was prepared for
others (some say by his wife at Cornbury Lodge before mentioned),

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 Sir Walter Scott

though Baker in his Chronicle would have it at Killingworth; anno

1588.” [Ashmole’s Antiquities of Berkshire, vol.i., p.149. The tradi-
tion as to Leicester’s death was thus communicated by Ben Jonson
to Drummond of Hawthornden:—”The Earl of Leicester gave a
bottle of liquor to his Lady, which he willed her to use in any faint-
ness, which she, after his returne from court, not knowing it was
poison, gave him, and so he died.”—Ben Jonson’s Information to
Drummond of Hawthornden, Ms., Sir Robert Sibbald’s copy.]
The same accusation has been adopted and circulated by the au-
thor of Leicester’s Commonwealth, a satire written directly against
the Earl of Leicester, which loaded him with the most horrid crimes,
and, among the rest, with the murder of his first wife. It was alluded
to in the Yorkshire Tragedy, a play erroneously ascribed to
Shakespeare, where a baker, who determines to destroy all his fam-
ily, throws his wife downstairs, with this allusion to the supposed
murder of Leicester’s lady,—

“The only way to charm a woman’s tongue

Is, break her neck—a politician did it.”

The reader will find I have borrowed several incidents as well as

names from Ashmole, and the more early authorities; but my first
acquaintance with the history was through the more pleasing me-
dium of verse. There is a period in youth when the mere power of
numbers has a more strong effect on ear and imagination than in
more advanced life. At this season of immature taste, the author was
greatly delighted with the poems of Mickle and Langhorne, poets
who, though by no means deficient in the higher branches of their
art, were eminent for their powers of verbal melody above most who
have practised this department of poetry. One of those pieces of Mickle,
which the author was particularly pleased with, is a ballad, or rather a
species of elegy, on the subject of Cumnor Hall, which, with others
by the same author, was to be found in Evans’s Ancient Ballads (vol.
iv., page 130), to which work Mickle made liberal contributions. The
first stanza especially had a peculiar species of enchantment for the
youthful ear of the author, the force of which is not even now entirely
spent; some others are sufficiently prosaic.

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Kenilworth

CUMNOR HALL

The dews of summer night did fall;

The moon, sweet regent of the sky,
Silver’d the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew thereby,

Now nought was heard beneath the skies,

The sounds of busy life were still,
Save an unhappy lady’s sighs,
That issued from that lonely pile.

“Leicester,” she cried, “is this thy love

That thou so oft hast sworn to me,
To leave me in this lonely grove,
Immured in shameful privity?

“No more thou com’st with lover’s speed,

Thy once beloved bride to see;
But be she alive, or be she dead,
I fear, stern Earl, ‘s the same to thee.

“Not so the usage I received

When happy in my father’s hall;
No faithless husband then me grieved,
No chilling fears did me appal.

“I rose up with the cheerful morn,

No lark more blithe, no flower more gay;
And like the bird that haunts the thorn,
So merrily sung the livelong day.

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 Sir Walter Scott

“If that my beauty is but small,

Among court ladies all despised,
Why didst thou rend it from that hall,
Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized?

“And when you first to me made suit,

How fair I was you oft would say!
And proud of conquest, pluck’d the fruit,
Then left the blossom to decay.

“Yes! now neglected and despised,

The rose is pale, the lily’s dead;
But he that once their charms so prized,
Is sure the cause those charms are fled.

“For know, when sick’ning grief doth prey,

And tender love’s repaid with scorn,
The sweetest beauty will decay,—
What floweret can endure the storm?

“At court, I’m told, is beauty’s throne,

Where every lady’s passing rare,
That Eastern flowers, that shame the sun,
Are not so glowing, not so fair.

“Then, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds

Where roses and where lilies vie,
To seek a primrose, whose pale shades
Must sicken when those gauds are by?

“‘Mong rural beauties I was one,

Among the fields wild flowers are fair;
Some country swain might me have won,
And thought my beauty passing rare.

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Kenilworth

“But, Leicester (or I much am wrong),

Or ’tis not beauty lures thy vows;
Rather ambition’s gilded crown
Makes thee forget thy humble spouse.

“Then, Leicester, why, again I plead

(The injured surely may repine)—
Why didst thou wed a country maid,
When some fair princess might be thine?

“Why didst thou praise my hum’ble charms,

And, oh! then leave them to decay?
Why didst thou win me to thy arms,
Then leave to mourn the livelong day?

“The village maidens of the plain

Salute me lowly as they go;
Envious they mark my silken train,
Nor think a Countess can have woe.

“The simple nymphs! they little know

How far more happy’s their estate;
To smile for joy, than sigh for woe—
To be content, than to be great.

“How far less blest am I than them?

Daily to pine and waste with care!
Like the poor plant that, from its stem
Divided, feels the chilling air.

“Nor, cruel Earl! can I enjoy

The humble charms of solitude;
Your minions proud my peace destroy,
By sullen frowns or pratings rude.

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 Sir Walter Scott

“Last night, as sad I chanced to stray,

The village death-bell smote my ear;
They wink’d aside, and seemed to say,
‘Countess, prepare, thy end is near!’

“And now, while happy peasants sleep,

Here I sit lonely and forlorn;
No one to soothe me as I weep,
Save Philomel on yonder thorn.

“My spirits flag—my hopes decay—

Still that dread death-bell smites my ear;
And many a boding seems to say,
‘Countess, prepare, thy end is near!’”

Thus sore and sad that lady grieved,

In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear;
And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved,
And let fall many a bitter tear.

And ere the dawn of day appear’d,

In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear,
Full many a piercing scream was heard,
And many a cry of mortal fear.

The death-bell thrice was heard to ring,

An aerial voice was heard to call,
And thrice the raven flapp’d its wing
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.

The mastiff howl’d at village door,

The oaks were shatter’d on the green;
Woe was the hour—for never more
That hapless Countess e’er was seen!

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Kenilworth

And in that Manor now no more

Is cheerful feast and sprightly ball;
For ever since that dreary hour
Have spirits haunted Cumnor Hall.

The village maids, with fearful glance,

Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall;
Nor ever lead the merry dance,
Among the groves of Cumnor Hall.

Full many a traveller oft hath sigh’d,

And pensive wept the Countess’ fall,
As wand’ring onward they’ve espied
The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall.

Arbotsford, 1st March 1831.

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 Sir Walter Scott

KENILWORTH

CHAPTER I

I am an innkeeper, and know my grounds,

And study them; Brain o’ man, I study them.
I must have jovial guests to drive my ploughs,
And whistling boys to bring my harvests home,
Or I shall hear no flails thwack.
—The New Inn.

IT IS THE PRIVILEGE of tale-tellers to open their story in an inn, the

free rendezvous of all travellers, and where the humour of each dis-
plays itself without ceremony or restraint. This is specially suitable
when the scene is laid during the old days of merry England, when
the guests were in some sort not merely the inmates, but the
messmates and temporary companions of mine Host, who was usu-
ally a personage of privileged freedom, comely presence, and good-
humour. Patronized by him the characters of the company were
placed in ready contrast; and they seldom failed, during the empty-
ing of a six-hooped pot, to throw off reserve, and present them-
selves to each other, and to their landlord, with the freedom of old
acquaintance.
The village of Cumnor, within three or four miles of Oxford,

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boasted, during the eighteenth of Queen Elizabeth, an excellent inn

of the old stamp, conducted, or rather ruled, by Giles Gosling, a
man of a goodly person, and of somewhat round belly; fifty years of
age and upwards, moderate in his reckonings, prompt in his pay-
ments, having a cellar of sound liquor, a ready wit, and a pretty
daughter. Since the days of old Harry Baillie of the Tabard in
Southwark, no one had excelled Giles Gosling in the power of pleas-
ing his guests of every description; and so great was his fame, that to
have been in Cumnor without wetting a cup at the bonny Black
Bear, would have been to avouch one’s-self utterly indifferent to
reputation as a traveller. A country fellow might as well return from
London without looking in the face of majesty. The men of Cumnor
were proud of their Host, and their Host was proud of his house,
his liquor, his daughter, and himself.
It was in the courtyard of the inn which called this honest fellow
landlord, that a traveller alighted in the close of the evening, gave
his horse, which seemed to have made a long journey, to the hostler,
and made some inquiry, which produced the following dialogue
betwixt the myrmidons of the bonny Black Bear.
“What, ho! John Tapster.”
“At hand, Will Hostler,” replied the man of the spigot, showing
himself in his costume of loose jacket, linen breeches, and green
apron, half within and half without a door, which appeared to de-
scend to an outer cellar.
“Here is a gentleman asks if you draw good ale,” continued the
hostler.
“Beshrew my heart else,” answered the tapster, “since there are
but four miles betwixt us and Oxford. Marry, if my ale did not
convince the heads of the scholars, they would soon convince my
pate with the pewter flagon.”
“Call you that Oxford logic?” said the stranger, who had now
quitted the rein of his horse, and was advancing towards the inn-
door, when he was encountered by the goodly form of Giles Gos-
ling himself.
“Is it logic you talk of, Sir Guest?” said the host; “why, then, have
at you with a downright consequence—

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 Sir Walter Scott

‘The horse to the rack,

And to fire with the sack.’”

“Amen! with all my heart, my good host,” said the stranger; “let it
be a quart of your best Canaries, and give me your good help to
drink it.”
“Nay, you are but in your accidence yet, Sir Traveller, if you call
on your host for help for such a sipping matter as a quart of sack;
Were it a gallon, you might lack some neighbouring aid at my hand,
and yet call yourself a toper.”
“Fear me not.” said the guest, “I will do my devoir as becomes a
man who finds himself within five miles of Oxford; for I am not
come from the field of Mars to discredit myself amongst the follow-
ers of Minerva.”
As he spoke thus, the landlord, with much semblance of hearty
welcome, ushered his guest into a large, low chamber, where several
persons were seated together in different parties—some drinking, some
playing at cards, some conversing, and some, whose business called
them to be early risers on the morrow, concluding their evening meal,
and conferring with the chamberlain about their night’s quarters.
The entrance of a stranger procured him that general and careless
sort of attention which is usually paid on such occasions, from which
the following results were deduced:—The guest was one of those
who, with a well-made person, and features not in themselves un-
pleasing, are nevertheless so far from handsome that, whether from
the expression of their features, or the tone of their voice, or from
their gait and manner, there arises, on the whole, a disinclination to
their society. The stranger’s address was bold, without being frank,
and seemed eagerly and hastily to claim for him a degree of atten-
tion and deference which he feared would be refused, if not in-
stantly vindicated as his right. His attire was a riding-cloak, which,
when open, displayed a handsome jerkin overlaid with lace, and
belted with a buff girdle, which sustained a broadsword and a pair
of pistols.
“You ride well provided, sir,” said the host, looking at the weap-
ons as he placed on the table the mulled sack which the traveller
had ordered.

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Kenilworth

“Yes, mine host; I have found the use on’t in dangerous times, and
I do not, like your modern grandees, turn off my followers the in-
stant they are useless.”
“Ay, sir?” said Giles Gosling; “then you are from the Low Coun-
tries, the land of pike and caliver?”
“I have been high and low, my friend, broad and wide, far and
near. But here is to thee in a cup of thy sack; fill thyself another to
pledge me, and, if it is less than superlative, e’en drink as you have
brewed.”
“Less than superlative?” said Giles Gosling, drinking off the cup,
and smacking his lips with an air of ineffable relish,—”I know noth-
ing of superlative, nor is there such a wine at the Three Cranes, in
the Vintry, to my knowledge; but if you find better sack than that in
the Sheres, or in the Canaries either, I would I may never touch
either pot or penny more. Why, hold it up betwixt you and the
light, you shall see the little motes dance in the golden liquor like
dust in the sunbeam. But I would rather draw wine for ten clowns
than one traveller.—I trust your honour likes the wine?”
“It is neat and comfortable, mine host; but to know good liquor,
you should drink where the vine grows. Trust me, your Spaniard is
too wise a man to send you the very soul of the grape. Why, this
now, which you account so choice, were counted but as a cup of
bastard at the Groyne, or at Port St. Mary’s. You should travel, mine
host, if you would be deep in the mysteries of the butt and pottle-
pot.”
“In troth, Signior Guest,” said Giles Gosling, “if I were to travel
only that I might be discontented with that which I can get at home,
methinks I should go but on a fool’s errand. Besides, I warrant you,
there is many a fool can turn his nose up at good drink without ever
having been out of the smoke of Old England; and so ever gramercy
mine own fireside.”
“This is but a mean mind of yours, mine host,” said the stranger;
“I warrant me, all your town’s folk do not think so basely. You have
gallants among you, I dare undertake, that have made the Virginia
voyage, or taken a turn in the Low Countries at least. Come, cudgel
your memory. Have you no friends in foreign parts that you would
gladly have tidings of?”

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 Sir Walter Scott

“Troth, sir, not I,” answered the host, “since ranting Robin of
Drysandford was shot at the siege of the Brill. The devil take the
caliver that fired the ball, for a blither lad never filled a cup at mid-
night! But he is dead and gone, and I know not a soldier, or a trav-
eller, who is a soldier’s mate, that I would give a peeled codling for.”
“By the Mass, that is strange. What! so many of our brave English
hearts are abroad, and you, who seem to be a man of mark, have no
friend, no kinsman among them?”
“Nay, if you speak of kinsmen,” answered Gosling, “I have one
wild slip of a kinsman, who left us in the last year of Queen Mary;
but he is better lost than found.”
“Do not say so, friend, unless you have heard ill of him lately.
Many a wild colt has turned out a noble steed.—His name, I pray
you?”
“Michael Lambourne,” answered the landlord of the Black Bear;
“a son of my sister’s—there is little pleasure in recollecting either
the name or the connection.”
“Michael Lambourne!” said the stranger, as if endeavouring to
recollect himself—”what, no relation to Michael Lambourne, the
gallant cavalier who behaved so bravely at the siege of Venlo that
Grave Maurice thanked him at the head of the army? Men said he
was an English cavalier, and of no high extraction.”
“It could scarcely be my nephew,” said Giles Gosling, “for he had
not the courage of a hen-partridge for aught but mischief.”
“Oh, many a man finds courage in the wars,” replied the stranger.
“It may be,” said the landlord; “but I would have thought our
Mike more likely to lose the little he had.”
“The Michael Lambourne whom I knew,” continued the travel-
ler, “was a likely fellow—went always gay and well attired, and had
a hawk’s eye after a pretty wench.”
“Our Michael,” replied the host, “had the look of a dog with a
bottle at its tail, and wore a coat, every rag of which was bidding
good-day to the rest.”
“Oh, men pick up good apparel in the wars,” replied the guest.
“Our Mike,” answered the landlord, “was more like to pick it up
in a frippery warehouse, while the broker was looking another way;
and, for the hawk’s eye you talk of, his was always after my stray

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spoons. He was tapster’s boy here in this blessed house for a quarter
of a year; and between misreckonings, miscarriages, mistakes, and
misdemeanours, had he dwelt with me for three months longer, I
might have pulled down sign, shut up house, and given the devil
the key to keep.”
“You would be sorry, after all,” continued the traveller, “were I to
tell you poor Mike Lambourne was shot at the head of his regiment
at the taking of a sconce near Maestricht?”
“Sorry!—it would be the blithest news I ever heard of him, since
it would ensure me he was not hanged. But let him pass—I doubt
his end will never do such credit to his friends. Were it so, I should
say”—(taking another cup of sack)—”Here’s God rest him, with all
my heart.”
“Tush, man,” replied the traveller, “never fear but you will have
credit by your nephew yet, especially if he be the Michael Lambourne
whom I knew, and loved very nearly, or altogether, as well as myself.
Can you tell me no mark by which I could judge whether they be
the same?”
“Faith, none that I can think of,” answered Giles Gosling, “unless
that our Mike had the gallows branded on his left shoulder for steal-
ing a silver caudle-cup from Dame Snort of Hogsditch.”
“Nay, there you lie like a knave, uncle,” said the stranger, slipping
aside his ruff; and turning down the sleeve of his doublet from his
neck and shoulder; “by this good day, my shoulder is as unscarred
as thine own.
“What, Mike, boy—Mike!” exclaimed the host;—”and is it thou,
in good earnest? Nay, I have judged so for this half-hour; for I knew
no other person would have ta’en half the interest in thee. But, Mike,
an thy shoulder be unscathed as thou sayest, thou must own that
Goodman Thong, the hangman, was merciful in his office, and
stamped thee with a cold iron.”
“Tush, uncle—truce with your jests. Keep them to season your
sour ale, and let us see what hearty welcome thou wilt give a kins-
man who has rolled the world around for eighteen years; who has
seen the sun set where it rises, and has travelled till the west has
become the east.”
“Thou hast brought back one traveller’s gift with thee, Mike, as I

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 Sir Walter Scott

well see; and that was what thou least didst: need to travel for. I
remember well, among thine other qualities, there was no crediting
a word which came from thy mouth.”
“Here’s an unbelieving pagan for you, gentlemen!” said Michael
Lambourne, turning to those who witnessed this strange interview
betwixt uncle and nephew, some of whom, being natives of the vil-
lage, were no strangers to his juvenile wildness. “This may be called
slaying a Cumnor fatted calf for me with a vengeance.—But, uncle,
I come not from the husks and the swine-trough, and I care not for
thy welcome or no welcome; I carry that with me will make me
welcome, wend where I will.”
So saying, he pulled out a purse of gold indifferently well filled,
the sight of which produced a visible effect upon the company. Some
shook their heads and whispered to each other, while one or two of
the less scrupulous speedily began to recollect him as a school-com-
panion, a townsman, or so forth. On the other hand, two or three
grave, sedate-looking persons shook their heads, and left the inn,
hinting that, if Giles Gosling wished to continue to thrive, he should
turn his thriftless, godless nephew adrift again, as soon as he could.
Gosling demeaned himself as if he were much of the same opinion,
for even the sight of the gold made less impression on the honest
gentleman than it usually doth upon one of his calling.
“Kinsman Michael,” he said, “put up thy purse. My sister’s son
shall be called to no reckoning in my house for supper or lodging;
and I reckon thou wilt hardly wish to stay longer where thou art
e’en but too well known.”
“For that matter, uncle,” replied the traveller, “I shall consult my
own needs and conveniences. Meantime I wish to give the supper
and sleeping cup to those good townsmen who are not too proud to
remember Mike Lambourne, the tapster’s boy. If you will let me
have entertainment for my money, so; if not, it is but a short two
minutes’ walk to the Hare and Tabor, and I trust our neighbours
will not grudge going thus far with me.”
“Nay, Mike,” replied his uncle, “as eighteen years have gone over
thy head, and I trust thou art somewhat amended in thy condi-
tions, thou shalt not leave my house at this hour, and shalt e’en have
whatever in reason you list to call for. But I would I knew that that

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purse of thine, which thou vapourest of, were as well come by as it

seems well filled.”
“Here is an infidel for you, my good neighbours!” said Lambourne,
again appealing to the audience. “Here’s a fellow will rip up his
kinsman’s follies of a good score of years’ standing. And for the gold,
why, sirs, I have been where it grew, and was to be had for the
gathering. In the New World have I been, man—in the Eldorado,
where urchins play at cherry-pit with diamonds, and country
wenches thread rubies for necklaces, instead of rowan-tree berries;
where the pantiles are made of pure gold, and the paving-stones of
virgin silver.”
“By my credit, friend Mike,” said young Laurence Goldthred, the
cutting mercer of Abingdon, “that were a likely coast to trade to.
And what may lawns, cypruses, and ribands fetch, where gold is so
plenty?”
“Oh, the profit were unutterable,” replied Lambourne, “especially
when a handsome young merchant bears the pack himself; for the
ladies of that clime are bona-robas, and being themselves somewhat
sunburnt, they catch fire like tinder at a fresh complexion like thine,
with a head of hair inclining to be red.”
“I would I might trade thither,” said the mercer, chuckling.
“Why, and so thou mayest,” said Michael—”that is, if thou art
the same brisk boy who was partner with me at robbing the Abbot’s
orchard. ’Tis but a little touch of alchemy to decoct thy house and
land into ready money, and that ready money into a tall ship, with
sails, anchors, cordage, and all things conforming; then clap thy
warehouse of goods under hatches, put fifty good fellows on deck,
with myself to command them, and so hoist topsails, and hey for
the New World!”
“Thou hast taught him a secret, kinsman,” said Giles Gosling, “to
decoct, an that be the word, his pound into a penny and his webs
into a thread.—Take a fool’s advice, neighbour Goldthred. Tempt
not the sea, for she is a devourer. Let cards and cockatrices do their
worst, thy father’s bales may bide a banging for a year or two ere
thou comest to the Spital; but the sea hath a bottomless appetite,—
she would swallow the wealth of Lombard Street in a morning, as
easily as I would a poached egg and a cup of clary. And for my

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 Sir Walter Scott

kinsman’s Eldorado, never trust me if I do not believe he has found

it in the pouches of some such gulls as thyself.—But take no snuff
in the nose about it; fall to and welcome, for here comes the supper,
and I heartily bestow it on all that will take share, in honour of my
hopeful nephew’s return, always trusting that he has come home
another man.—In faith, kinsman, thou art as like my poor sister as
ever was son to mother.”
“Not quite so like old Benedict Lambourne, her husband, though,”
said the mercer, nodding and winking. “Dost thou remember, Mike,
what thou saidst when the schoolmaster’s ferule was over thee for
striking up thy father’s crutches?—it is a wise child, saidst thou,
that knows its own father. Dr. Bircham laughed till he cried again,
and his crying saved yours.”
“Well, he made it up to me many a day after,” said Lambourne;
“and how is the worthy pedagogue?”
“Dead,” said Giles Gosling, “this many a day since.”
“That he is,” said the clerk of the parish; “I sat by his bed the
whilst. He passed away in a blessed frame. ‘Morior—mortuus sum
vel fui—mori’—these were his latest words; and he just added, ‘my
last verb is conjugated.”
“Well, peace be with him,” said Mike, “he owes me nothing.”
“No, truly,” replied Goldthred; “and every lash which he laid on
thee, he always was wont to say, he spared the hangman a labour.”
“One would have thought he left him little to do then,” said the
clerk; “and yet Goodman Thong had no sinecure of it with our
friend, after all.”
“Voto a Dios!” exclaimed Lambourne, his patience appearing to
fail him, as he snatched his broad, slouched hat from the table and
placed it on his head, so that the shadow gave the sinister expression
of a Spanish brave to eyes and features which naturally boded noth-
ing pleasant. “Hark’ee, my masters—all is fair among friends, and
under the rose; and I have already permitted my worthy uncle here,
and all of you, to use your pleasure with the frolics of my nonage.
But I carry sword and dagger, my good friends, and can use them
lightly too upon occasion. I have learned to be dangerous upon
points of honour ever since I served the Spaniard, and I would not
have you provoke me to the degree of falling foul.”

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“Why, what would you do?” said the clerk.

“Ay, sir, what would you do?” said the mercer, bustling up on the
other side of the table.
“Slit your throat, and spoil your Sunday’s quavering, Sir Clerk,”
said Lambourne fiercely; “cudgel you, my worshipful dealer in flimsy
sarsenets, into one of your own bales.”
“Come, come,” said the host, interposing, “I will have no swag-
gering here.—Nephew, it will become you best to show no haste to
take offence; and you, gentlemen, will do well to remember, that if
you are in an inn, still you are the inn-keeper’s guests, and should
spare the honour of his family.—I protest your silly broils make me
as oblivious as yourself; for yonder sits my silent guest as I call him,
who hath been my two days’ inmate, and hath never spoken a word,
save to ask for his food and his reckoning—gives no more trouble
than a very peasant—pays his shot like a prince royal—looks but at
the sum total of the reckoning, and does not know what day he
shall go away. Oh, ’tis a jewel of a guest! and yet, hang-dog that I
am, I have suffered him to sit by himself like a castaway in yonder
obscure nook, without so much as asking him to take bite or sup
along with us. It were but the right guerdon of my incivility were he
to set off to the Hare and Tabor before the night grows older.”
With his white napkin gracefully arranged over his left arm, his
velvet cap laid aside for the moment, and his best silver flagon in his
right hand, mine host walked up to the solitary guest whom he
mentioned, and thereby turned upon him the eyes of the assembled
company.
He was a man aged betwixt twenty-five and thirty, rather above
the middle size, dressed with plainness and decency, yet bearing an
air of ease which almost amounted to dignity, and which seemed to
infer that his habit was rather beneath his rank. His countenance
was reserved and thoughtful, with dark hair and dark eyes; the last,
upon any momentary excitement, sparkled with uncommon lustre,
but on other occasions had the same meditative and tranquil cast
which was exhibited by his features. The busy curiosity of the little
village had been employed to discover his name and quality, as well
as his business at Cumnor; but nothing had transpired on either
subject which could lead to its gratification. Giles Gosling, head-

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 Sir Walter Scott

borough of the place, and a steady friend to Queen Elizabeth and

the Protestant religion, was at one time inclined to suspect his guest
of being a Jesuit, or seminary priest, of whom Rome and Spain sent
at this time so many to grace the gallows in England. But it was
scarce possible to retain such a prepossession against a guest who
gave so little trouble, paid his reckoning so regularly, and who pro-
posed, as it seemed, to make a considerable stay at the bonny Black
Bear.
“Papists,” argued Giles Gosling, “are a pinching, close-fisted race,
and this man would have found a lodging with the wealthy squire at
Bessellsey, or with the old Knight at Wootton, or in some other of
their Roman dens, instead of living in a house of public entertain-
ment, as every honest man and good Christian should. Besides, on
Friday he stuck by the salt beef and carrot, though there were as good
spitch-cocked eels on the board as ever were ta’en out of the Isis.”
Honest Giles, therefore, satisfied himself that his guest was no
Roman, and with all comely courtesy besought the stranger to pledge
him in a draught of the cool tankard, and honour with his attention
a small collation which he was giving to his nephew, in honour of
his return, and, as he verily hoped, of his reformation. The stranger
at first shook his head, as if declining the courtesy; but mine host
proceeded to urge him with arguments founded on the credit of his
house, and the construction which the good people of Cumnor might
put upon such an unsocial humour.
“By my faith, sir,” he said, “it touches my reputation that men
should be merry in my house; and we have ill tongues amongst us at
Cumnor (as where be there not?), who put an evil mark on men
who pull their hat over their brows, as if they were looking back to
the days that are gone, instead of enjoying the blithe sunshiny weather
which God has sent us in the sweet looks of our sovereign mistress,
Queen Elizabeth, whom Heaven long bless and preserve!”
“Why, mine host,” answered the stranger, “there is no treason,
sure, in a man’s enjoying his own thoughts, under the shadow of his
own bonnet? You have lived in the world twice as long as I have,
and you must know there are thoughts that will haunt us in spite of
ourselves, and to which it is in vain to say, Begone, and let me be
merry.”

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Kenilworth

“By my sooth,” answered Giles Gosling, “if such troublesome

thoughts haunt your mind, and will not get them gone for plain
English, we will have one of Father Bacon’s pupils from Oxford, to
conjure them away with logic and with Hebrew—or, what say you
to laying them in a glorious red sea of claret, my noble guest? Come,
sir, excuse my freedom. I am an old host, and must have my talk.
This peevish humour of melancholy sits ill upon you; it suits not
with a sleek boot, a hat of trim block, a fresh cloak, and a full purse.
A pize on it! send it off to those who have their legs swathed with a
hay-wisp, their heads thatched with a felt bonnet, their jerkin as
thin as a cobweb, and their pouch without ever a cross to keep the
fiend Melancholy from dancing in it. Cheer up, sir! or, by this good
liquor, we shall banish thee from the joys of blithesome company,
into the mists of melancholy and the land of little-ease. Here be a
set of good fellows willing to be merry; do not scowl on them like
the devil looking over Lincoln.”
“You say well, my worthy host,” said the guest, with a melancholy
smile, which, melancholy as it was, gave a very pleasant: expression
to his countenance—”you say well, my jovial friend; and they that
are moody like myself should not disturb the mirth of those who
are happy. I will drink a round with your guests with all my heart,
rather than be termed a mar-feast.”
So saying, he arose and joined the company, who, encouraged by
the precept and example of Michael Lambourne, and consisting
chiefly of persons much disposed to profit by the opportunity of a
merry meal at the expense of their landlord, had already made some
inroads upon the limits of temperance, as was evident from the tone
in which Michael inquired after his old acquaintances in the town,
and the bursts of laughter with which each answer was received.
Giles Gosling himself was somewhat scandalized at the obstreper-
ous nature of their mirth, especially as he involuntarily felt some
respect for his unknown guest. He paused, therefore, at some dis-
tance from the table occupied by these noisy revellers, and began to
make a sort of apology for their license.
“You would think,” he said, “to hear these fellows talk, that there
was not one of them who had not been bred to live by Stand and
Deliver; and yet tomorrow you will find them a set of as painstak-

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 Sir Walter Scott

ing mechanics, and so forth, as ever cut an inch short of measure, or

paid a letter of change in light crowns over a counter. The mercer
there wears his hat awry, over a shaggy head of hair, that looks like a
curly water-dog’s back, goes unbraced, wears his cloak on one side,
and affects a ruffianly vapouring humour: when in his shop at
Abingdon, he is, from his flat cap to his glistening shoes, as precise
in his apparel as if he was named for mayor. He talks of breaking
parks, and taking the highway, in such fashion that you would think
he haunted every night betwixt Hounslow and London; when in
fact he may be found sound asleep on his feather-bed, with a candle
placed beside him on one side, and a Bible on the other, to fright
away the goblins.”
“And your nephew, mine host, this same Michael Lambourne,
who is lord of the feast—is he, too, such a would-be ruffler as the
rest of them?”
“Why, there you push me hard,” said the host; “my nephew is my
nephew, and though he was a desperate Dick of yore, yet Mike may
have mended like other folks, you wot. And I would not have you
think all I said of him, even now, was strict gospel; I knew the wag
all the while, and wished to pluck his plumes from him. And now,
sir, by what name shall I present my worshipful guest to these gal-
lants?”
“Marry, mine host,” replied the stranger, “you may call me
Tressilian.”
“Tressilian?” answered mine host of the Bear. “A worthy name,
and, as I think, of Cornish lineage; for what says the south prov-
erb—

‘By Pol, Tre, and Pen,

You may know the Cornish men.’

Shall I say the worthy Master Tressilian of Cornwall?”

“Say no more than I have given you warrant for, mine host, and
so shall you be sure you speak no more than is true. A man may
have one of those honourable prefixes to his name, yet be born far
from Saint Michael’s Mount.”
Mine host pushed his curiosity no further, but presented Master

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Tressilian to his nephew’s company, who, after exchange of saluta-

tions, and drinking to the health of their new companion, pursued
the conversation in which he found them engaged, seasoning it with
many an intervening pledge.

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER II

Talk you of young Master Lancelot?

—Merchant of Venice.

AFTER SOME BRIEF INTERVAL, Master Goldthred, at the earnest insti-

gation of mine host, and the joyous concurrence of his guest, in-
dulged the company with, the following morsel of melody:-

“Of all the birds on bush or tree,

Commend me to the owl,
Since he may best ensample be
To those the cup that trowl.
For when the sun hath left the west,
He chooses the tree that he loves the best,
And he whoops out his song, and he laughs at his jest;
Then, though hours be late and weather foul,
We’ll drink to the health of the bonny, bonny owl.

“The lark is but a bumpkin fowl,

He sleeps in his nest till morn;
But my blessing upon the jolly owl,
That all night blows his horn.
Then up with your cup till you stagger in speech,
And match me this catch till you swagger and screech,
And drink till you wink, my merry men each;
For, though hours be late and weather be foul,
We’ll drink to the health of the bonny, bonny owl.”

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Kenilworth

“There is savour in this, my hearts,” said Michael, when the mer-

cer had finished his song, “and some goodness seems left among
you yet; but what a bead-roll you have read me of old comrades,
and to every man’s name tacked some ill-omened motto! And so
Swashing Will of Wallingford hath bid us good-night?”
“He died the death of a fat buck,” said one of the party, “being
shot with a crossbow bolt, by old Thatcham, the Duke’s stout park-
keeper at Donnington Castle.”
“Ay, ay, he always loved venison well,” replied Michael, “and a
cup of claret to boot—and so here’s one to his memory. Do me
right, my masters.”
When the memory of this departed worthy had been duly
honoured, Lambourne proceeded to inquire after Prance of
Padworth.
“Pranced off—made immortal ten years since,” said the mercer;
“marry, sir, Oxford Castle and Goodman Thong, and a tenpenny-
worth of cord, best know how.”
“What, so they hung poor Prance high and dry? so much for lov-
ing to walk by moonlight. A cup to his memory, my masters-all
merry fellows like moonlight. What has become of Hal with the
Plume—he who lived near Yattenden, and wore the long feather?—
I forget his name.”
“What, Hal Hempseed?” replied the mercer. “Why, you may re-
member he was a sort of a gentleman, and would meddle in state
matters, and so he got into the mire about the Duke of Norfolk’s
affair these two or three years since, fled the country with a pursuivant’s
warrant at his heels, and has never since been heard of.”
“Nay, after these baulks,” said Michael Lambourne, “I need hardly
inquire after Tony Foster; for when ropes, and crossbow shafts, and
pursuivant’s warrants, and such-like gear, were so rife, Tony could
hardly ‘scape them.”
“Which Tony Foster mean you?” said the innkeeper.
“Why, him they called Tony Fire-the-Fagot, because he brought a
light to kindle the pile round Latimer and Ridley, when the wind
blew out Jack Thong’s torch, and no man else would give him light
for love or money.”

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 Sir Walter Scott

“Tony Foster lives and thrives,” said the host. “But, kinsman, I
would not have you call him Tony Fire-the-Fagot, if you would not
brook the stab.”
“How! is he grown ashamed on’t?” said Lambourne, “Why, he
was wont to boast of it, and say he liked as well to see a roasted
heretic as a roasted ox.”
“Ay, but, kinsman, that was in Mary’s time,” replied the landlord,
“when Tony’s father was reeve here to the Abbot of Abingdon. But
since that, Tony married a pure precisian, and is as good a Protes-
tant, I warrant you, as the best.”
“And looks grave, and holds his head high, and scorns his old
companions,” said the mercer.
“Then he hath prospered, I warrant him,” said Lambourne; “for
ever when a man hath got nobles of his own, he keeps out of the
way of those whose exchequers lie in other men’s purchase.”
“Prospered, quotha!” said the mercer; “why, you remember
Cumnor Place, the old mansion-house beside the churchyard?”
“By the same token, I robbed the orchard three times— what of
that? It was the old abbot’s residence when there was plague or sick-
ness at Abingdon.”
“Ay,” said the host, “but that has been long over; and Anthony
Foster hath a right in it, and lives there by some grant from a great
courtier, who had the church-lands from the crown. And there he
dwells, and has as little to do with any poor wight in Cumnor, as if
he were himself a belted knight.”
“Nay,” said the mercer, “it is not altogether pride in Tony neither;
there is a fair lady in the case, and Tony will scarce let the light of
day look on her.”
“How!” said Tressilian, who now for the first time interfered in
their conversation; “did ye not say this Foster was married, and to a
precisian?”
“Married he was, and to as bitter a precisian as ever ate flesh in Lent;
and a cat-and-dog life she led with Tony, as men said. But she is dead,
rest be with her! and Tony hath but a slip of a daughter; so it is thought
he means to wed this stranger, that men keep such a coil about.”
“And why so?—I mean, why do they keep a coil about her?” said
Tressilian.

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Kenilworth

“Why, I wot not,” answered the host, “except that men say she is
as beautiful as an angel, and no one knows whence she comes, and
every one wishes to know why she is kept so closely mewed up. For
my part, I never saw her—you have, I think, Master Goldthred?”
“That I have, old boy,” said the mercer. “Look you, I was riding
hither from Abingdon. I passed under the east oriel window of the
old mansion, where all the old saints and histories and such-like are
painted. It was not the common path I took, but one through the
Park; for the postern door was upon the latch, and I thought I might
take the privilege of an old comrade to ride across through the trees,
both for shading, as the day was somewhat hot, and for avoiding of
dust, because I had on my peach-coloured doublet, pinked out with
cloth of gold.”
“Which garment,” said Michael Lambourne, “thou wouldst will-
ingly make twinkle in the eyes of a fair dame. Ah! villain, thou wilt
never leave thy old tricks.”
“Not so-not so,” said the mercer, with a smirking laugh—”not
altogether so—but curiosity, thou knowest, and a strain of compas-
sion withal; for the poor young lady sees nothing from morn to
even but Tony Foster, with his scowling black brows, his bull’s head,
and his bandy legs.”
“And thou wouldst willingly show her a dapper body, in a silken
jerkin—a limb like a short-legged hen’s, in a cordovan boot—and a
round, simpering, what-d’ye-lack sort of a countenance, set off with
a velvet bonnet, a Turkey feather, and a gilded brooch? Ah! jolly
mercer, they who have good wares are fond to show them!—Come,
gentles, let not the cup stand—here’s to long spurs, short boots, full
bonnets, and empty skulls!”
“Nay, now, you are jealous of me, Mike,” said Goldthred; “and yet
my luck was but what might have happened to thee, or any man.”
“Marry confound thine impudence,” retorted Lambourne; “thou
wouldst not compare thy pudding face, and sarsenet manners, to a
gentleman, and a soldier?”
“Nay, my good sir,” said Tressilian, “let me beseech you will not
interrupt the gallant citizen; methinks he tells his tale so well, I
could hearken to him till midnight.”
“It’s more of your favour than of my desert,” answered Master

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 Sir Walter Scott

Goldthred; “but since I give you pleasure, worthy Master Tressilian,

I shall proceed, maugre all the gibes and quips of this valiant soldier,
who, peradventure, hath had more cuffs than crowns in the Low
Countries. And so, sir, as I passed under the great painted window,
leaving my rein loose on my ambling palfrey’s neck, partly for mine
ease, and partly that I might have the more leisure to peer about, I
hears me the lattice open; and never credit me, sir, if there did not
stand there the person of as fair a woman as ever crossed mine eyes;
and I think I have looked on as many pretty wenches, and with as
much judgment, as other folks.”
“May I ask her appearance, sir?” said Tressilian.
“Oh, sir,” replied Master Goldthred, “I promise you, she was in
gentlewoman’s attire—a very quaint and pleasing dress, that might
have served the Queen herself; for she had a forepart with body and
sleeves, of ginger-coloured satin, which, in my judgment, must have
cost by the yard some thirty shillings, lined with murrey taffeta, and
laid down and guarded with two broad laces of gold and silver. And
her hat, sir, was truly the best fashioned thing that I have seen in
these parts, being of tawny taffeta, embroidered with scorpions of
Venice gold, and having a border garnished with gold fringe—I
promise you, sir, an absolute and all-surpassing device. Touching
her skirts, they were in the old pass-devant fashion.”
“I did not ask you of her attire, sir,” said Tressilian, who had shown
some impatience during this conversation, “but of her complex-
ion—the colour of her hair, her features.”
“Touching her complexion,” answered the mercer, “I am not so
special certain, but I marked that her fan had an ivory handle, curi-
ously inlaid. And then again, as to the colour of her hair, why, I can
warrant, be its hue what it might, that she wore above it a net of
green silk, parcel twisted with gold.”
“A most mercer-like memory!” said Lambourne. “The gentleman
asks him of the lady’s beauty, and he talks of her fine clothes!”
“I tell thee,” said the mercer, somewhat disconcerted, “I had little
time to look at her; for just as I was about to give her the good time of
day, and for that purpose had puckered my features with a smile—”
“Like those of a jackanape simpering at a chestnut,” said Michael
Lambourne.

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Kenilworth

“Up started of a sudden,” continued Goldthred, without heeding

the interruption, “Tony Foster himself, with a cudgel in his hand—”
“And broke thy head across, I hope, for thine impertinence,” said
his entertainer.
“That were more easily said than done,” answered Goldthred in-
dignantly; “no, no—there was no breaking of heads. It’s true, he
advanced his cudgel, and spoke of laying on, and asked why I did
not keep the public road, and such like; and I would have knocked
him over the pate handsomely for his pains, only for the lady’s pres-
ence, who might have swooned, for what I know.”
“Now, out upon thee for a faint-spirited slave!” said Lambourne;
“what adventurous knight ever thought of the lady’s terror, when he
went to thwack giant, dragon, or magician, in her presence, and for
her deliverance? But why talk to thee of dragons, who would be
driven back by a dragon-fly. There thou hast missed the rarest op-
portunity!”
“Take it thyself, then, bully Mike,” answered Goldthred. “Yonder
is the enchanted manor, and the dragon, and the lady, all at thy
service, if thou darest venture on them.”
“Why, so I would for a quartern of sack,” said the soldier —”or
stay: I am foully out of linen—wilt thou bet a piece of Hollands
against these five angels, that I go not up to the Hall to-morrow and
force Tony Foster to introduce me to his fair guest?”
“I accept your wager,” said the mercer; “and I think, though thou
hadst even the impudence of the devil, I shall gain on thee this
bout. Our landlord here shall hold stakes, and I will stake down
gold till I send the linen.”
“I will hold stakes on no such matter,” said Gosling. “Good now,
my kinsman, drink your wine in quiet, and let such ventures alone.
I promise you, Master Foster hath interest enough to lay you up in
lavender in the Castle at Oxford, or to get your legs made acquainted
with the town-stocks.”
“That would be but renewing an old intimacy, for Mike’s shins
and the town’s wooden pinfold have been well known to each other
ere now,” said the mercer; “but he shall not budge from his wager,
unless he means to pay forfeit.”
“Forfeit?” said Lambourne; “I scorn it. I value Tony Foster’s wrath

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 Sir Walter Scott

no more than a shelled pea-cod; and I will visit his Lindabrides, by

Saint George, be he willing or no!”
“I would gladly pay your halves of the risk, sir,” said Tressilian, “to
be permitted to accompany you on the adventure.”
“In what would that advantage you, sir?” answered Lambourne.
“In nothing, sir,” said Tressilian, “unless to mark the skill and valour
with which you conduct yourself. I am a traveller who seeks for
strange rencounters and uncommon passages, as the knights of yore
did after adventures and feats of arms.”
“Nay, if it pleasures you to see a trout tickled,” answered
Lambourne, “I care not how many witness my skill. And so here I
drink success to my enterprise; and he that will not pledge me on
his knees is a rascal, and I will cut his legs off by the garters!”
The draught which Michael Lambourne took upon this occasion
had been preceded by so many others, that reason tottered on her
throne. He swore one or two incoherent oaths at the mercer, who
refused, reasonably enough, to pledge him to a sentiment which
inferred the loss of his own wager.
“Wilt thou chop logic with me,” said Lambourne, “thou knave,
with no more brains than are in a skein of ravelled silk? By Heaven,
I will cut thee into fifty yards of galloon lace!”
But as he attempted to draw his sword for this doughty purpose,
Michael Lambourne was seized upon by the tapster and the cham-
berlain, and conveyed to his own apartment, there to sleep himself
sober at his leisure.
The party then broke up, and the guests took their leave; much
more to the contentment of mine host than of some of the com-
pany, who were unwilling to quit good liquor, when it was to be had
for free cost, so long as they were able to sit by it. They were, how-
ever, compelled to remove; and go at length they did, leaving Gos-
ling and Tressilian in the empty apartment.
“By my faith,” said the former, “I wonder where our great folks
find pleasure, when they spend their means in entertainments, and
in playing mine host without sending in a reckoning. It is what I
but rarely practise; and whenever I do, by Saint Julian, it grieves me
beyond measure. Each of these empty stoups now, which my nephew
and his drunken comrades have swilled off, should have been a matter

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of profit to one in my line, and I must set them down a dead loss. I
cannot, for my heart, conceive the pleasure of noise, and nonsense,
and drunken freaks, and drunken quarrels, and smut, and blasphemy,
and so forth, when a man loses money instead of gaining by it. And
yet many a fair estate is lost in upholding such a useless course, and
that greatly contributes to the decay of publicans; for who the devil
do you think would pay for drink at the Black Bear, when he can
have it for nothing at my Lord’s or the Squire’s?”
Tressilian perceived that the wine had made some impression even
on the seasoned brain of mine host, which was chiefly to be inferred
from his declaiming against drunkenness. As he himself had care-
fully avoided the bowl, he would have availed himself of the frank-
ness of the moment to extract from Gosling some further informa-
tion upon the subject of Anthony Foster, and the lady whom the
mercer had seen in his mansion-house; but his inquiries only set the
host upon a new theme of declamation against the wiles of the fair
sex, in which he brought, at full length, the whole wisdom of
Solomon to reinforce his own. Finally, he turned his admonitions,
mixed with much objurgation, upon his tapsters and drawers, who
were employed in removing the relics of the entertainment, and
restoring order to the apartment; and at length, joining example to
precept, though with no good success, he demolished a salver with
half a score of glasses, in attempting to show how such service was
done at the Three Cranes in the Vintry, then the most topping tav-
ern in London. This last accident so far recalled him to his better
self, that he retired to his bed, slept sound, and awoke a new man in
the morning.

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER III

Nay, I’ll hold touch—the game shall be play’d out;

It ne’er shall stop for me, this merry wager:
That which I say when gamesome, I’ll avouch
In my most sober mood, ne’er trust me else.

—The Hazard Table.

“AND HOW DOTH your kinsman, good mine host?” said Tressilian,
when Giles Gosling first appeared in the public room, on the morn-
ing following the revel which we described in the last chapter. “Is he
well, and will he abide by his wager?”
“For well, sir, he started two hours since, and has visited I know
not what purlieus of his old companions; hath but now returned,
and is at this instant breakfasting on new-laid eggs and muscadine.
And for his wager, I caution you as a friend to have little to do with
that, or indeed with aught that Mike proposes. Wherefore, I coun-
sel you to a warm breakfast upon a culiss, which shall restore the
tone of the stomach; and let my nephew and Master Goldthred
swagger about their wager as they list.”
“It seems to me, mine host,” said Tressilian, “that you know not
well what to say about this kinsman of yours, and that you can
neither blame nor commend him without some twinge of con-
science.”
“You have spoken truly, Master Tressilian,” replied Giles Gosling.
“There is Natural Affection whimpering into one ear, ‘Giles, Giles,
why wilt thou take away the good name of thy own nephew? Wilt
thou defame thy sister’s son, Giles Gosling? wilt thou defoul thine

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own nest, dishonour thine own blood?’ And then, again, comes
Justice, and says, ‘Here is a worthy guest as ever came to the bonny
Black Bear; one who never challenged a reckoning’ (as I say to your
face you never did, Master Tressilian—not that you have had cause),
‘one who knows not why he came, so far as I can see, or when he is
going away; and wilt thou, being a publican, having paid scot and
lot these thirty years in the town of Cumnor, and being at this in-
stant head-borough, wilt thou suffer this guest of guests, this man
of men, this six-hooped pot (as I may say) of a traveller, to fall into
the meshes of thy nephew, who is known for a swasher and a des-
perate Dick, a carder and a dicer, a professor of the seven damnable
sciences, if ever man took degrees in them?’ No, by Heaven! I might
wink, and let him catch such a small butterfly as Goldthred; but
thou, my guest, shall be forewarned, forearmed, so thou wilt but
listen to thy trusty host.”
“Why, mine host, thy counsel shall not be cast away,” replied
Tressilian; “however, I must uphold my share in this wager, having
once passed my word to that effect. But lend me, I pray, some of thy
counsel. This Foster, who or what is he, and why makes he such
mystery of his female inmate?”
“Troth,” replied Gosling, “I can add but little to what you heard
last night. He was one of Queen Mary’s Papists, and now he is one of
Queen Elizabeth’s Protestants; he was an onhanger of the Abbot of
Abingdon; and now he lives as master of the Manor-house. Above all,
he was poor, and is rich. Folk talk of private apartments in his old
waste mansion-house, bedizened fine enough to serve the Queen,
God bless her! Some men think he found a treasure in the orchard,
some that he sold himself to the devil for treasure, and some say that
he cheated the abbot out of the church plate, which was hidden in the
old Manor-house at the Reformation. Rich, however, he is, and God
and his conscience, with the devil perhaps besides, only know how he
came by it. He has sulky ways too—breaking off intercourse with all
that are of the place, as if he had either some strange secret to keep, or
held himself to be made of another clay than we are. I think it likely
my kinsman and he will quarrel, if Mike thrust his acquaintance on
him; and I am sorry that you, my worthy Master Tressilian, will still
think of going in my nephew’s company.”

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 Sir Walter Scott

Tressilian again answered him, that he would proceed with great

caution, and that he should have no fears on his account; in short,
he bestowed on him all the customary assurances with which those
who are determined on a rash action are wont to parry the advice of
their friends.
Meantime, the traveller accepted the landlord’s invitation, and
had just finished the excellent breakfast, which was served to him
and Gosling by pretty Cicely, the beauty of the bar, when the hero
of the preceding night, Michael Lambourne, entered the apartment.
His toilet had apparently cost him some labour, for his clothes, which
differed from those he wore on his journey, were of the newest fash-
ion, and put on with great attention to the display of his person.
“By my faith, uncle,” said the gallant, “you made a wet night of it,
and I feel it followed by a dry morning. I will pledge you willingly
in a cup of bastard.—How, my pretty coz Cicely! why, I left you but
a child in the cradle, and there thou stand’st in thy velvet waistcoat,
as tight a girl as England’s sun shines on. Know thy friends and
kindred, Cicely, and come hither, child, that I may kiss thee, and
give thee my blessing.”
“Concern not yourself about Cicely, kinsman,” said Giles Gos-
ling, “but e’en let her go her way, a’ God’s name; for although your
mother were her father’s sister, yet that shall not make you and her
cater-cousins.”
“Why, uncle,” replied Lambourne, “think’st thou I am an infidel,
and would harm those of mine own house?”
“It is for no harm that I speak, Mike,” answered his uncle, “but a
simple humour of precaution which I have. True, thou art as well
gilded as a snake when he casts his old slough in the spring time;
but for all that, thou creepest not into my Eden. I will look after
mine Eve, Mike, and so content thee.—But how brave thou be’st,
lad! To look on thee now, and compare thee with Master Tressilian
here, in his sad-coloured riding-suit, who would not say that thou
wert the real gentleman and he the tapster’s boy?”
“Troth, uncle,” replied Lambourne, “no one would say so but one
of your country-breeding, that knows no better. I will say, and I
care not who hears me, there is something about the real gentry that
few men come up to that are not born and bred to the mystery. I

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wot not where the trick lies; but although I can enter an ordinary
with as much audacity, rebuke the waiters and drawers as loudly,
drink as deep a health, swear as round an oath, and fling my gold as
freely about as any of the jingling spurs and white feathers that are
around me, yet, hang me if I can ever catch the true grace of it,
though I have practised an hundred times. The man of the house
sets me lowest at the board, and carves to me the last; and the drawer
says, ‘Coming, friend,’ without any more reverence or regardful
addition. But, hang it, let it pass; care killed a cat. I have gentry
enough to pass the trick on Tony Fire-the-Faggot, and that will do
for the matter in hand.”
“You hold your purpose, then, of visiting your old acquaintance?”
said Tressilian to the adventurer.
“Ay, sir,” replied Lambourne; “when stakes are made, the game
must be played; that is gamester’s law, all over the world. You, sir,
unless my memory fails me (for I did steep it somewhat too deeply
in the sack-butt), took some share in my hazard?”
“I propose to accompany you in your adventure,” said Tressilian,
“if you will do me so much grace as to permit me; and I have staked
my share of the forfeit in the hands of our worthy host.”
“That he hath,” answered Giles Gosling, “in as fair Harry-nobles
as ever were melted into sack by a good fellow. So, luck to your
enterprise, since you will needs venture on Tony Foster; but, by my
credit, you had better take another draught before you depart, for
your welcome at the Hall yonder will be somewhat of the driest.
And if you do get into peril, beware of taking to cold steel; but send
for me, Giles Gosling, the head-borough, and I may be able to make
something out of Tony yet, for as proud as he is.”
The nephew dutifully obeyed his uncle’s hint, by taking a second
powerful pull at the tankard, observing that his wit never served
him so well as when he had washed his temples with a deep morning’s
draught; and they set forth together for the habitation of Anthony
Foster.
The village of Cumnor is pleasantly built on a hill, and in a wooded
park closely adjacent was situated the ancient mansion occupied at
this time by Anthony Foster, of which the ruins may be still extant.
The park was then full of large trees, and in particular of ancient

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 Sir Walter Scott

and mighty oaks, which stretched their giant arms over the high
wall surrounding the demesne, thus giving it a melancholy, secluded,
and monastic appearance. The entrance to the park lay through an
old-fashioned gateway in the outer wall, the door of which was
formed of two huge oaken leaves thickly studded with nails, like the
gate of an old town.
“We shall be finely helped up here,” said Michael Lambourne,
looking at the gateway and gate, “if this fellow’s suspicious humour
should refuse us admission altogether, as it is like he may, in case
this linsey-wolsey fellow of a mercer’s visit to his premises has dis-
quieted him. But, no,” he added, pushing the huge gate, which
gave way, “the door stands invitingly open; and here we are within
the forbidden ground, without other impediment than the passive
resistance of a heavy oak door moving on rusty hinges.”
They stood now in an avenue overshadowed by such old trees as
we have described, and which had been bordered at one time by
high hedges of yew and holly. But these, having been untrimmed
for many years, had run up into great bushes, or rather dwarf-trees,
and now encroached, with their dark and melancholy boughs, upon
the road which they once had screened. The avenue itself was grown
up with grass, and, in one or two places, interrupted by piles of
withered brushwood, which had been lopped from the trees cut
down in the neighbouring park, and was here stacked for drying.
Formal walks and avenues, which, at different points, crossed this
principal approach, were, in like manner, choked up and interrupted
by piles of brushwood and billets, and in other places by underwood
and brambles. Besides the general effect of desolation which is so
strongly impressed whenever we behold the contrivances of man
wasted and obliterated by neglect, and witness the marks of social
life effaced gradually by the influence of vegetation, the size of the
trees and the outspreading extent of their boughs diffused a gloom
over the scene, even when the sun was at the highest, and made a
proportional impression on the mind of those who visited it. This
was felt even by Michael Lambourne, however alien his habits were
to receiving any impressions, excepting from things which addressed
themselves immediately to his passions.
“This wood is as dark as a wolf ’s mouth,” said he to Tressilian, as

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they walked together slowly along the solitary and broken approach,
and had just come in sight of the monastic front of the old man-
sion, with its shafted windows, brick walls overgrown with ivy and
creeping shrubs, and twisted stalks of chimneys of heavy stone-work.
“And yet,” continued Lambourne, “it is fairly done on the part of
Foster too for since he chooses not visitors, it is right to keep his
place in a fashion that will invite few to trespass upon his privacy.
But had he been the Anthony I once knew him, these sturdy oaks
had long since become the property of some honest woodmonger,
and the manor-close here had looked lighter at midnight than it
now does at noon, while Foster played fast and loose with the price,
in some cunning corner in the purlieus of Whitefriars.”
“Was he then such an unthrift?” asked Tressilian.
“He was,” answered Lambourne, “like the rest of us, no saint, and
no saver. But what I liked worst of Tony was, that he loved to take
his pleasure by himself, and grudged, as men say, every drop of
water that went past his own mill. I have known him deal with such
measures of wine when he was alone, as I would not have ventured
on with aid of the best toper in Berkshire;—that, and some sway
towards superstition, which he had by temperament, rendered him
unworthy the company of a good fellow. And now he has earthed
himself here, in a den just befitting such a sly fox as himself.”
“May I ask you, Master Lambourne,” said Tressilian, “since your
old companion’s humour jumps so little with your own, wherefore
you are so desirous to renew acquaintance with him?”
“And may I ask you, in return, Master Tressilian,” answered
Lambourne, “wherefore you have shown yourself so desirous to ac-
company me on this party?”
“I told you my motive,” said Tressilian, “when I took share in
your wager—it was simple curiosity.”
“La you there now!” answered Lambourne. “See how you civil
and discreet gentlemen think to use us who live by the free exercise
of our wits! Had I answered your question by saying that it was
simple curiosity which led me to visit my old comrade Anthony
Foster, I warrant you had set it down for an evasion, and a turn of
my trade. But any answer, I suppose, must serve my turn.”
“And wherefore should not bare curiosity,” said Tressilian, “be a

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 Sir Walter Scott

sufficient reason for my taking this walk with you?”

“Oh, content yourself, sir,” replied Lambourne; “you cannot put
the change on me so easy as you think, for I have lived among the
quick-stirring spirits of the age too long to swallow chaff for grain.
You are a gentleman of birth and breeding—your bearing makes it
good; of civil habits and fair reputation—your manners declare it,
and my uncle avouches it; and yet you associate yourself with a sort
of scant-of-grace, as men call me, and, knowing me to be such, you
make yourself my companion in a visit to a man whom you are a
stranger to—and all out of mere curiosity, forsooth! The excuse, if
curiously balanced, would be found to want some scruples of just
weight, or so.”
“If your suspicions were just,” said Tressilian, “you have shown no
confidence in me to invite or deserve mine.”
“Oh, if that be all,” said Lambourne, “my motives lie above water.
While this gold of mine lasts”—taking out his purse, chucking it
into the air, and catching it as it fell—”I will make it buy pleasure;
and when it is out I must have more. Now, if this mysterious Lady
of the Manor—this fair Lindabrides of Tony Fire-the-Fagot—be so
admirable a piece as men say, why, there is a chance that she may aid
me to melt my nobles into greats; and, again, if Anthony be so
wealthy a chuff as report speaks him, he may prove the philosopher’s
stone to me, and convert my greats into fair rose-nobles again.”
“A comfortable proposal truly,” said Tressilian; “but I see not what
chance there is of accomplishing it.”
“Not to-day, or perchance to-morrow,” answered Lambourne; “I
expect not to catch the old jack till. I have disposed my ground-
baits handsomely. But I know something more of his affairs this
morning than I did last night, and I will so use my knowledge that
he shall think it more perfect than it is. Nay, without expecting
either pleasure or profit, or both, I had not stepped a stride within
this manor, I can tell you; for I promise you I hold our visit not
altogether without risk.—But here we are, and we must make the
best on’t.”
While he thus spoke, they had entered a large orchard which sur-
rounded the house on two sides, though the trees, abandoned by
the care of man, were overgrown and messy, and seemed to bear

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little fruit. Those which had been formerly trained as espaliers had
now resumed their natural mode of growing, and exhibited gro-
tesque forms, partaking of the original training which they had re-
ceived. The greater part of the ground, which had once been par-
terres and flower-gardens, was suffered in like manner to run to
waste, excepting a few patches which had been dug up and planted
with ordinary pot herbs. Some statues, which had ornamented the
garden in its days of splendour, were now thrown down from their
pedestals and broken in pieces; and a large summer-house, having a
heavy stone front, decorated with carving representing the life and
actions of Samson, was in the same dilapidated condition.
They had just traversed this garden of the sluggard, and were within
a few steps of the door of the mansion, when Lambourne had ceased
speaking; a circumstance very agreeable to Tressilian, as it saved him
the embarrassment of either commenting upon or replying to the
frank avowal which his companion had just made of the sentiments
and views which induced him to come hither. Lambourne knocked
roundly and boldly at the huge door of the mansion, observing, at
the same time, he had seen a less strong one upon a county jail. It
was not until they had knocked more than once that an aged, sour-
visaged domestic reconnoitred them through a small square hole in
the door, well secured with bars of iron, and demanded what they
wanted.
“To speak with Master Foster instantly, on pressing business of
the state,” was the ready reply of Michael Lambourne.
“Methinks you will find difficulty to make that good,” said
Tressilian in a whisper to his companion, while the servant went to
carry the message to his master.
“Tush,” replied the adventurer; “no soldier would go on were he
always to consider when and how he should come off. Let us once
obtain entrance, and all will go well enough.”
In a short time the servant returned, and drawing with a careful
hand both bolt and bar, opened the gate, which admitted them
through an archway into a square court, surrounded by buildings.
Opposite to the arch was another door, which the serving-man in
like manner unlocked, and thus introduced them into a stone-paved
parlour, where there was but little furniture, and that of the rudest

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 Sir Walter Scott

and most ancient fashion. The windows were tall and ample, reach-
ing almost to the roof of the room, which was composed of black
oak; those opening to the quadrangle were obscured by the height
of the surrounding buildings, and, as they were traversed with mas-
sive shafts of solid stone-work, and thickly painted with religious
devices, and scenes taken from Scripture history, by no means ad-
mitted light in proportion to their size, and what did penetrate
through them partook of the dark and gloomy tinge of the stained
glass.
Tressilian and his guide had time enough to observe all these par-
ticulars, for they waited some space in the apartment ere the present
master of the mansion at length made his appearance. Prepared as
he was to see an inauspicious and ill-looking person, the ugliness of
Anthony Foster considerably exceeded what Tressilian had antici-
pated. He was of middle stature, built strongly, but so clumsily as to
border on deformity, and to give all his motions the ungainly awk-
wardness of a left-legged and left-handed man. His hair, in arrang-
ing which men at that time, as at present, were very nice and curi-
ous, instead of being carefully cleaned and disposed into short curls,
or else set up on end, as is represented in old paintings, in a manner
resembling that used by fine gentlemen of our own day, escaped in
sable negligence from under a furred bonnet, and hung in elf-locks,
which seemed strangers to the comb, over his rugged brows, and
around his very singular and unprepossessing countenance. His keen,
dark eyes were deep set beneath broad and shaggy eyebrows, and as
they were usually bent on the ground, seemed as if they were them-
selves ashamed of the expression natural to them, and were desirous
to conceal it from the observation of men. At times, however, when,
more intent on observing others, he suddenly raised them, and fixed
them keenly on those with whom he conversed, they seemed to
express both the fiercer passions, and the power of mind which could
at will suppress or disguise the intensity of inward feeling. The fea-
tures which corresponded with these eyes and this form were ir-
regular, and marked so as to be indelibly fixed on the mind of him
who had once seen them. Upon the whole, as Tressilian could not
help acknowledging to himself, the Anthony Foster who now stood
before them was the last person, judging from personal appearance,

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upon whom one would have chosen to intrude an unexpected and

undesired visit. His attire was a doublet of russet leather, like those
worn by the better sort of country folk, girt with a buff belt, in
which was stuck on the right side a long knife, or dudgeon dagger,
and on the other a cutlass. He raised his eyes as he entered the room,
and fixed a keenly penetrating glance upon his two visitors; then
cast them down as if counting his steps, while he advanced slowly
into the middle of the room, and said, in a low and smothered tone
of voice, “Let me pray you, gentlemen, to tell me the cause of this
visit.”
He looked as if he expected the answer from Tressilian, so true
was Lambourne’s observation that the superior air of breeding and
dignity shone through the disguise of an inferior dress. But it was
Michael who replied to him, with the easy familiarity of an old
friend, and a tone which seemed unembarrassed by any doubt of
the most cordial reception.
“Ha! my dear friend and ingle, Tony Foster!” he exclaimed, seiz-
ing upon the unwilling hand, and shaking it with such emphasis as
almost to stagger the sturdy frame of the person whom he addressed,
“how fares it with you for many a long year? What! have you alto-
gether forgotten your friend, gossip, and playfellow, Michael
Lambourne?”
“Michael Lambourne!” said Foster, looking at him a moment;
then dropping his eyes, and with little ceremony extricating his hand
from the friendly grasp of the person by whom he was addressed,
“are you Michael Lambourne?”
“Ay; sure as you are Anthony Foster,” replied Lambourne.
“’Tis well,” answered his sullen host. “And what may Michael
Lambourne expect from his visit hither?”
“Voto a Dios,” answered Lambourne, “I expected a better wel-
come than I am like to meet, I think.”
“Why, thou gallows-bird—thou jail-rat—thou friend of the hang-
man and his customers!” replied Foster, “hast thou the assurance to
expect countenance from any one whose neck is beyond the com-
pass of a Tyburn tippet?”
“It may be with me as you say,” replied Lambourne; “and suppose
I grant it to be so for argument’s sake, I were still good enough

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society for mine ancient friend Anthony Fire-the-Fagot, though he

be, for the present, by some indescribable title, the master of Cumnor
Place.”
“Hark you, Michael Lambourne,” said Foster; “you are a gambler
now, and live by the counting of chances—compute me the odds
that I do not, on this instant, throw you out of that window into
the ditch there.”
“Twenty to one that you do not,” answered the sturdy visitor.
“And wherefore, I pray you?” demanded Anthony Foster, setting
his teeth and compressing his lips, like one who endeavours to sup-
press some violent internal emotion.
“Because,” said Lambourne coolly, “you dare not for your life lay
a finger on me. I am younger and stronger than you, and have in me
a double portion of the fighting devil, though not, it may be, quite
so much of the undermining fiend, that finds an underground way
to his purpose—who hides halters under folk’s pillows, and who
puts rats-bane into their porridge, as the stage-play says.”
Foster looked at him earnestly, then turned away, and paced the
room twice with the same steady and considerate pace with which
he had entered it; then suddenly came back, and extended his hand
to Michael Lambourne, saying, “Be not wroth with me, good Mike;
I did but try whether thou hadst parted with aught of thine old and
honourable frankness, which your enviers and backbiters called saucy
impudence.”
“Let them call it what they will,” said Michael Lambourne, “it is
the commodity we must carry through the world with us.—Uds
daggers! I tell thee, man, mine own stock of assurance was too small
to trade upon. I was fain to take in a ton or two more of brass at
every port where I touched in the voyage of life; and I started over-
board what modesty and scruples I had remaining, in order to make
room for the stowage.”
“Nay, nay,” replied Foster, “touching scruples and modesty, you
sailed hence in ballast. But who is this gallant, honest Mike? —is he
a Corinthian—a cutter like thyself?”
“I prithee, know Master Tressilian, bully Foster,” replied
Lambourne, presenting his friend in answer to his friend’s question,
“know him and honour him, for he is a gentleman of many admi-

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rable qualities; and though he traffics not in my line of business, at

least so far as I know, he has, nevertheless, a just respect and admi-
ration for artists of our class. He will come to in time, as seldom
fails; but as yet he is only a neophyte, only a proselyte, and fre-
quents the company of cocks of the game, as a puny fencer does the
schools of the masters, to see how a foil is handled by the teachers of
defence.”
“If such be his quality, I will pray your company in another cham-
ber, honest Mike, for what I have to say to thee is for thy private
ear.—Meanwhile, I pray you, sir, to abide us in this apartment, and
without leaving it; there be those in this house who would be alarmed
by the sight of a stranger.”
Tressilian acquiesced, and the two worthies left the apartment to-
gether, in which he remained alone to await their return.” [See Note
1. Foster, Lambourne, and the Black Bear.]

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER IV

Not serve two masters?—Here’s a youth will try it—

Would fain serve God, yet give the devil his due;
Says grace before he doth a deed of villainy,
And returns his thanks devoutly when ’tis acted.

—Old Play.

THE ROOM into which the Master of Cumnor Place conducted his
worthy visitant was of greater extent than that in which they had at
first conversed, and had yet more the appearance of dilapidation. Large
oaken presses, filled with shelves of the same wood, surrounded the
room, and had, at one time, served for the arrangement of a numer-
ous collection of books, many of which yet remained, but torn and
defaced, covered with dust, deprived of their costly clasps and bind-
ings, and tossed together in heaps upon the shelves, as things alto-
gether disregarded, and abandoned to the pleasure of every spoiler.
The very presses themselves seemed to have incurred the hostility of
those enemies of learning who had destroyed the volumes with which
they had been heretofore filled. They were, in several places, dismantled
of their shelves, and otherwise broken and damaged, and were, more-
over, mantled with cobwebs and covered with dust.
“The men who wrote these books,” said Lambourne, looking
round him, “little thought whose keeping they were to fall into.”
“Nor what yeoman’s service they were to do me,” quoth Anthony
Foster; “the cook hath used them for scouring his pewter, and the
groom hath had nought else to clean my boots with, this many a
month past.”

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“And yet,” said Lambourne, “I have been in cities where such

learned commodities would have been deemed too good for such
offices.”
“Pshaw, pshaw,” answered Foster, “‘they are Popish trash, every
one of them—private studies of the mumping old Abbot of
Abingdon. The nineteenthly of a pure gospel sermon were worth a
cartload of such rakings of the kennel of Rome.”
“Gad-a-mercy, Master Tony Fire-the-Fagot!” said Lambourne, by
way of reply.
Foster scowled darkly at him, as he replied, “Hark ye, friend Mike;
forget that name, and the passage which it relates to, if you would
not have our newly-revived comradeship die a sudden and a violent
death.”
“Why,” said Michael Lambourne, “you were wont to glory in the
share you had in the death of the two old heretical bishops.”
“That,” said his comrade, “was while I was in the gall of bitterness
and bond of iniquity, and applies not to my walk or my ways now
that I am called forth into the lists. Mr. Melchisedek Maultext com-
pared my misfortune in that matter to that of the Apostle Paul, who
kept the clothes of the witnesses who stoned Saint Stephen. He held
forth on the matter three Sabbaths past, and illustrated the same by
the conduct of an honourable person present, meaning me.”
“I prithee peace, Foster,” said Lambourne, “for I know not how it
is, I have a sort of creeping comes over my skin when I hear the
devil quote Scripture; and besides, man, how couldst thou have the
heart to quit that convenient old religion, which you could slip off
or on as easily as your glove? Do I not remember how you were
wont to carry your conscience to confession, as duly as the month
came round? and when thou hadst it scoured, and burnished, and
whitewashed by the priest, thou wert ever ready for the worst vil-
lainy which could be devised, like a child who is always readiest to
rush into the mire when he has got his Sunday’s clean jerkin on.”
“Trouble not thyself about my conscience,” said Foster; “it is a
thing thou canst not understand, having never had one of thine
own. But let us rather to the point, and say to me, in one word,
what is thy business with me, and what hopes have drawn thee
hither?”

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“The hope of bettering myself, to be sure,” answered Lambourne,

“as the old woman said when she leapt over the bridge at Kingston.
Look you, this purse has all that is left of as round a sum as a man
would wish to carry in his slop-pouch. You are here well established,
it would seem, and, as I think, well befriended, for men talk of thy
being under some special protection—nay, stare not like a pig that
is stuck, mon; thou canst not dance in a net and they not see thee.
Now I know such protection is not purchased for nought; you must
have services to render for it, and in these I propose to help thee.”
“But how if I lack no assistance from thee, Mike? I think thy
modesty might suppose that were a case possible.”
“That is to say,” retorted Lambourne, “that you would engross
the whole work, rather than divide the reward. But be not over-
greedy, Anthony—covetousness bursts the sack and spills the grain.
Look you, when the huntsman goes to kill a stag, he takes with him
more dogs than one. He has the stanch lyme-hound to track the
wounded buck over hill and dale, but he hath also the fleet gaze-
hound to kill him at view. Thou art the lyme-hound, I am the gaze-
hound; and thy patron will need the aid of both, and can well af-
ford to requite it. Thou hast deep sagacity—an unrelenting pur-
pose—a steady, long-breathed malignity of nature, that surpasses
mine. But then, I am the bolder, the quicker, the more ready, both
at action and expedient. Separate, our properties are not so perfect;
but unite them, and we drive the world before us. How sayest thou—
shall we hunt in couples?”
“It is a currish proposal—thus to thrust thyself upon my private
matters,” replied Foster; “but thou wert ever an ill-nurtured whelp.”
“You shall have no cause to say so, unless you spurn my courtesy,”
said Michael Lambourne; “but if so, keep thee well from me, Sir
Knight, as the romance has it. I will either share your counsels or
traverse them; for I have come here to be busy, either with thee or
against thee.”
“Well,” said Anthony Foster, “since thou dost leave me so fair a
choice, I will rather be thy friend than thine enemy. Thou art right;
I can prefer thee to the service of a patron who has enough of means
to make us both, and an hundred more. And, to say truth, thou art
well qualified for his service. Boldness and dexterity he demands—

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the justice-books bear witness in thy favour; no starting at scruples

in his service why, who ever suspected thee of a conscience? an as-
surance he must have who would follow a courtier—and thy brow
is as impenetrable as a Milan visor. There is but one thing I would
fain see amended in thee.”
“And what is that, my most precious friend Anthony?” replied
Lambourne; “for I swear by the pillow of the Seven Sleepers I will
not be slothful in amending it.”
“Why, you gave a sample of it even now,” said Foster. “Your speech
twangs too much of the old stamp, and you garnish it ever and
anon with singular oaths, that savour of Papistrie. Besides, your ex-
terior man is altogether too deboshed and irregular to become one
of his lordship’s followers, since he has a reputation to keep up in
the eye of the world. You must somewhat reform your dress, upon a
more grave and composed fashion; wear your cloak on both shoul-
ders, and your falling band unrumpled and well starched. You must
enlarge the brim of your beaver, and diminish the superfluity of
your trunk-hose; go to church, or, which will be better, to meeting,
at least once a month; protest only upon your faith and conscience;
lay aside your swashing look, and never touch the hilt of your sword
but when you would draw the carnal weapon in good earnest.”
“By this light, Anthony, thou art mad,” answered Lambourne,
“and hast described rather the gentleman-usher to a puritan’s wife,
than the follower of an ambitious courtier! Yes, such a thing as thou
wouldst make of me should wear a book at his girdle instead of a
poniard, and might just be suspected of manhood enough to squire
a proud dame-citizen to the lecture at Saint Antonlin’s, and quarrel
in her cause with any flat-capped threadmaker that would take the
wall of her. He must ruffle it in another sort that would walk to
court in a nobleman’s train.”
“Oh, content you, sir,” replied Foster, “there is a change since you
knew the English world; and there are those who can hold their way
through the boldest courses, and the most secret, and yet never a swag-
gering word, or an oath, or a profane word in their conversation.”
“That is to say,” replied Lambourne, “they are in a trading
copartnery, to do the devil’s business without mentioning his name
in the firm? Well, I will do my best to counterfeit, rather than lose

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ground in this new world, since thou sayest it is grown so precise.

But, Anthony, what is the name of this nobleman, in whose service
I am to turn hypocrite?”
“Aha! Master Michael, are you there with your bears?” said Foster,
with a grim smile; “and is this the knowledge you pretend of my
concernments? How know you now there is such a person in rerum
natura, and that I have not been putting a jape upon you all this
time?”
“Thou put a jape on me, thou sodden-brained gull?” answered
Lambourne, nothing daunted. “Why, dark and muddy as thou
think’st thyself, I would engage in a day’s space to sec as clear through
thee and thy concernments, as thou callest them, as through the
filthy horn of an old stable lantern.”
At this moment their conversation was interrupted by a scream
from the next apartment.
“By the holy Cross of Abingdon,” exclaimed Anthony Foster, for-
getting his Protestantism in his alarm, “I am a ruined man!”
So saying, he rushed into the apartment whence the scream is-
sued, followed by Michael Lambourne. But to account for the sounds
which interrupted their conversation, it is necessary to recede a little
way in our narrative.
It has been already observed, that when Lambourne accompanied
Foster into the library, they left Tressilian alone in the ancient parlour.
His dark eye followed them forth of the apartment with a glance of
contempt, a part of which his mind instantly transferred to himself,
for having stooped to be even for a moment their familiar compan-
ion. “These are the associates, Amy”—it was thus he communed
with himself—”to which thy cruel levity—thine unthinking and
most unmerited falsehood, has condemned him of whom his friends
once hoped far other things, and who now scorns himself, as he will
be scorned by others, for the baseness he stoops to for the love of
thee! But I will not leave the pursuit of thee, once the object of my
purest and most devoted affection, though to me thou canst hence-
forth be nothing but a thing to weep over. I will save thee from thy
betrayer, and from thyself; I will restore thee to thy parent—to thy
God. I cannot bid the bright star again sparkle in the sphere it has
shot from, but—”

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A slight noise in the apartment interrupted his reverie. He looked

round, and in the beautiful and richly-attired female who entered at
that instant by a side-door he recognized the object of his search.
The first impulse arising from this discovery urged him to conceal
his face with the collar of his cloak, until he should find a favourable
moment of making himself known. But his purpose was discon-
certed by the young lady (she was not above eighteen years old),
who ran joyfully towards him, and, pulling him by the cloak, said
playfully, “Nay, my sweet friend, after I have waited for you so long,
you come not to my bower to play the masquer. You are arraigned
of treason to true love and fond affection, and you must stand up at
the bar and answer it with face uncovered—how say you, guilty or
not?”
“Alas, Amy!” said Tressilian, in a low and melancholy tone, as he
suffered her to draw the mantle from his face. The sound of his
voice, and still more the unexpected sight of his face, changed in an
instant the lady’s playful mood. She staggered back, turned as pale
as death, and put her hands before her face. Tressilian was himself
for a moment much overcome, but seeming suddenly to remember
the necessity of using an opportunity which might not again occur,
he said in a low tone, “Amy, fear me not.”
“Why should I fear you?” said the lady, withdrawing her hands
from her beautiful face, which was now covered with crimson,—
”Why should I fear you, Master Tressilian?—or wherefore have you
intruded yourself into my dwelling, uninvited, sir, and unwished
for?”
“Your dwelling, Amy!” said Tressilian. “Alas! is a prison your dwell-
ing?—a prison guarded by one of the most sordid of men, but not a
greater wretch than his employer!”
“This house is mine,” said Amy—”mine while I choose to inhabit
it. If it is my pleasure to live in seclusion, who shall gainsay me?”
“Your father, maiden,” answered Tressilian, “your broken-hearted
father, who dispatched me in quest of you with that authority which
he cannot exert in person. Here is his letter, written while he blessed
his pain of body which somewhat stunned the agony of his mind.”
“The pain! Is my father then ill?” said the lady.
“So ill,” answered Tressilian, “that even your utmost haste may

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not restore him to health; but all shall be instantly prepared for your
departure, the instant you yourself will give consent.”
“Tressilian,” answered the lady, “I cannot, I must not, I dare not
leave this place. Go back to my father—tell him I will obtain leave
to see him within twelve hours from hence. Go back, Tressilian—
tell him I am well, I am happy—happy could I think he was so; tell
him not to fear that I will come, and in such a manner that all the
grief Amy has given him shall be forgotten —the poor Amy is now
greater than she dare name. Go, good Tressilian—I have injured
thee too, but believe me I have power to heal the wounds I have
caused. I robbed you of a childish heart, which was not worthy of
you, and I can repay the loss with honours and advancement.”
“Do you say this to me, Amy?—do you offer me pageants of idle
ambition, for the quiet peace you have robbed me of!—But be it so
I came not to upbraid, but to serve and to free you. You cannot
disguise it from me—you are a prisoner. Otherwise your kind heart—
for it was once a kind heart—would have been already at your father’s
bedside.—Come, poor, deceived, unhappy maiden! —all shall be
forgot—all shall be forgiven. Fear not my importunity for what
regarded our contract—it was a dream, and I have awaked. But
come—your father yet lives—come, and one word of affection, one
tear of penitence, will efface the memory of all that has passed.”
“Have I not already said, Tressilian,” replied she, “that I will surely
come to my father, and that without further delay than is necessary
to discharge other and equally binding duties?—Go, carry him the
news; I come as sure as there is light in heaven —that is, when I
obtain permission.”
“Permission!—permission to visit your father on his sick-bed,
perhaps on his death-bed!” repeated Tressilian, impatiently; “and
permission from whom? From the villain, who, under disguise of
friendship, abused every duty of hospitality, and stole thee from thy
father’s roof!”
“Do him no slander, Tressilian! He whom thou speakest of wears
a sword as sharp as thine—sharper, vain man; for the best deeds
thou hast ever done in peace or war were as unworthy to be named
with his, as thy obscure rank to match itself with the sphere he
moves in.—Leave me! Go, do mine errand to my father; and when

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he next sends to me, let him choose a more welcome messenger.”

“Amy,” replied Tressilian calmly, “thou canst not move me by thy
reproaches. Tell me one thing, that I may bear at least one ray of
comfort to my aged friend:—this rank of his which thou dost boast—
dost thou share it with him, Amy?—does he claim a husband’s right
to control thy motions?”
“Stop thy base, unmannered tongue!” said the lady; “to no ques-
tion that derogates from my honour do I deign an answer.”
“You have said enough in refusing to reply,” answered Tressilian;
“and mark me, unhappy as thou art, I am armed with thy father’s
full authority to command thy obedience, and I will save thee from
the slavery of sin and of sorrow, even despite of thyself, Amy.”
“Menace no violence here!” exclaimed the lady, drawing back from
him, and alarmed at the determination expressed in his look and
manner; “threaten me not, Tressilian, for I have means to repel force.”
“But not, I trust, the wish to use them in so evil a cause?” said
Tressilian. “With thy will—thine uninfluenced, free, and natural
will, Amy, thou canst not choose this state of slavery and dishonour.
Thou hast been bound by some spell—entrapped by some deceit—
art now detained by some compelled vow. But thus I break the
charm—Amy, in the name of thine excellent, thy broken-hearted
father, I command thee to follow me!”
As he spoke he advanced and extended his arm, as with the pur-
pose of laying hold upon her. But she shrunk back from his grasp,
and uttered the scream which, as we before noticed, brought into
the apartment Lambourne and Foster.
The latter exclaimed, as soon as he entered, “Fire and fagot! what
have we here?” Then addressing the lady, in a tone betwixt entreaty
and command, he added, “Uds precious! madam, what make you
here out of bounds? Retire—retire—there is life and death in this
matter.—And you, friend, whoever you may be, leave this house—
out with you, before my dagger’s hilt and your costard become ac-
quainted.—Draw, Mike, and rid us of the knave!”
“Not I, on my soul,” replied Lambourne; “he came hither in my
company, and he is safe from me by cutter’s law, at least till we meet
again.—But hark ye, my Cornish comrade, you have brought a
Cornish flaw of wind with you hither, a hurricanoe as they call it in

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 Sir Walter Scott

the Indies. Make yourself scarce—depart—vanish—or we’ll have

you summoned before the Mayor of Halgaver, and that before
Dudman and Ramhead meet.” [Two headlands on the Cornish coast.
The expressions are proverbial.]
“Away, base groom!” said Tressilian.—”And you, madam, fare you
well—what life lingers in your father’s bosom will leave him at the
news I have to tell.”
He departed, the lady saying faintly as he left the room, “Tressilian,
be not rash—say no scandal of me.”
“Here is proper gear,” said Foster. “I pray you go to your chamber,
my lady, and let us consider how this is to be answered —nay, tarry
not.”
“I move not at your command, sir,” answered the lady.
“Nay, but you must, fair lady,” replied Foster; “excuse my free-
dom, but, by blood and nails, this is no time to strain courtesies—
you must go to your chamber.—Mike, follow that meddling cox-
comb, and, as you desire to thrive, see him safely clear of the pre-
mises, while I bring this headstrong lady to reason. Draw thy tool,
man, and after him.”
“I’ll follow him,” said Michael Lambourne, “and see him fairly
out of Flanders; but for hurting a man I have drunk my morning’s
draught withal, ’tis clean against my conscience.” So saying, he left
the apartment.
Tressilian, meanwhile, with hasty steps, pursued the first path
which promised to conduct him through the wild and overgrown
park in which the mansion of Foster was situated. Haste and dis-
tress of mind led his steps astray, and instead of taking the avenue
which led towards the village, he chose another, which, after he had
pursued it for some time with a hasty and reckless step, conducted
him to the other side of the demesne, where a postern door opened
through the wall, and led into the open country.
Tressilian paused an instant. It was indifferent to him by what
road he left a spot now so odious to his recollections; but it was
probable that the postern door was locked, and his retreat by that
pass rendered impossible.
“I must make the attempt, however,” he said to himself; “the only
means of reclaiming this lost—this miserable—this still most lovely

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and most unhappy girl, must rest in her father’s appeal to the bro-
ken laws of his country. I must haste to apprise him of this
heartrending intelligence.”
As Tressilian, thus conversing with himself, approached to try some
means of opening the door, or climbing over it, he perceived there
was a key put into the lock from the outside. It turned round, the
bolt revolved, and a cavalier, who entered, muffled in his riding-
cloak, and wearing a slouched hat with a drooping feather, stood at
once within four yards of him who was desirous of going out. They
exclaimed at once, in tones of resentment and surprise, the one
“Varney!” the other “Tressilian!”
“What make you here?” was the stern question put by the stranger
to Tressilian, when the moment of surprise was past—”what make
you here, where your presence is neither expected nor desired?”
“Nay, Varney,” replied Tressilian, “what make you here? Are you
come to triumph over the innocence you have destroyed, as the
vulture or carrion-crow comes to batten on the lamb whose eyes it
has first plucked out? Or are you come to encounter the merited
vengeance of an honest man? Draw, dog, and defend thyself!”
Tressilian drew his sword as he spoke, but Varney only laid his
hand on the hilt of his own, as he replied, “Thou art mad, Tressilian.
I own appearances are against me; but by every oath a priest can
make or a man can swear, Mistress Amy Robsart hath had no injury
from me. And in truth I were somewhat loath to hurt you in this
cause—thou knowest I can fight.”
“I have heard thee say so, Varney,” replied Tressilian; “but now,
methinks, I would fain have some better evidence than thine own
word.”
“That shall not be lacking, if blade and hilt be but true to me,”
answered Varney; and drawing his sword with the right hand, he
threw his cloak around his left, and attacked Tressilian with a vigour
which, for a moment, seemed to give him the advantage of the com-
bat. But this advantage lasted not long. Tressilian added to a spirit
determined on revenge a hand and eye admirably well adapted to
the use of the rapier; so that Varney, finding himself hard pressed in
his turn, endeavoured to avail himself of his superior strength by
closing with his adversary. For this purpose, he hazarded the receiv-

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 Sir Walter Scott

ing one of Tressilian’s passes in his cloak, wrapped as it was around

his arm, and ere his adversary could, extricate his rapier thus en-
tangled, he closed with him, shortening his own sword at the same
time, with the purpose of dispatching him. But Tressilian was on his
guard, and unsheathing his poniard, parried with the blade of that
weapon the home-thrust which would otherwise have finished the
combat, and, in the struggle which followed, displayed so much
address, as might have confirmed, the opinion that he drew his ori-
gin from Cornwall whose natives are such masters in the art of wres-
tling, as, were the games of antiquity revived, might enable them to
challenge all Europe to the ring. Varney, in his ill-advised attempt,
received a fall so sudden and violent that his sword flew several
paces from his hand and ere he could recover his feet, that of his
antagonist was; pointed to his throat.
“Give me the instant means of relieving the victim of thy treach-
ery,” said Tressilian, “or take the last look of your Creator’s blessed
sun!”
And while Varney, too confused or too sullen to reply, made a
sudden effort to arise, his adversary drew back his arm, and would
have executed his threat, but that the blow was arrested by the grasp
of Michael Lambourne, who, directed by the clashing of swords
had come up just in time to save the life of Varney,
“Come, come, comrade;” said Lambourne, “here is enough done
and more than enough; put up your fox and let us be jogging. The
Black Bear growls for us.”
“Off, abject!” said Tressilian, striking himself free of Lambourne’s
grasp; “darest thou come betwixt me and mine enemy?”
“Abject! abject!” repeated Lambourne; “that shall be answered with
cold steel whenever a bowl of sack has washed out memory of the
morning’s draught that we had together. In the meanwhile, do you
see, shog—tramp—begone—we are two to one.”
He spoke truth, for Varney had taken the opportunity to regain
his weapon, and Tressilian perceived it was madness to press the
quarrel further against such odds. He took his purse from his side,
and taking out two gold nobles, flung them to Lambourne. “There,
caitiff, is thy morning wage; thou shalt not say thou hast been my
guide unhired.—Varney, farewell! we shall meet where there are none

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to come betwixt us.” So saying, he turned round and departed

through the postern door.
Varney seemed to want the inclination, or perhaps the power (for
his fall had been a severe one), to follow his retreating enemy. But
he glared darkly as he disappeared, and then addressed Lambourne.
“Art thou a comrade of Foster’s, good fellow?”
“Sworn friends, as the haft is to the knife,” replied Michael
Lambourne.
“Here is a broad piece for thee. Follow yonder fellow, and see
where he takes earth, and bring me word up to the mansion-house
here. Cautious and silent, thou knave, as thou valuest thy throat.”
“Enough said,” replied Lambourne; “I can draw on a scent as well
as a sleuth-hound.”
“Begone, then,” said Varney, sheathing his rapier; and, turning
his back on Michael Lambourne, he walked slowly towards the house.
Lambourne stopped but an instant to gather the nobles which his
late companion had flung towards him so unceremoniously, and
muttered to himself, while he put them upon his purse along with
the gratuity of Varney, “I spoke to yonder gulls of Eldorado. By
Saint Anthony, there is no Eldorado for men of our stamp equal to
bonny Old England! It rains nobles, by Heaven—they lie on the
grass as thick as dewdrops—you may have them for gathering. And
if I have not my share of such glittering dewdrops, may my sword
melt like an icicle!”

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CHAPTER V

He was a man
Versed in the world as pilot in his compass.
The needle pointed ever to that interest
Which was his loadstar, and he spread his sails
With vantage to the gale of others’ passion.

—The Deceiver, A Tragedy.

ANTONY FOSTER was still engaged in debate with his fair guest, who
treated with scorn every entreaty and request that she would retire
to her own apartment, when a whistle was heard at the entrance-
door of the mansion.
“We are fairly sped now,” said Foster; “yonder is thy lord’s signal,
and what to say about the disorder which has happened in this house-
hold, by my conscience, I know not. Some evil fortune dogs the
heels of that unhanged rogue Lambourne, and he has ‘scaped the
gallows against every chance, to come back and be the ruin of me!”
“Peace, sir,” said the lady, “and undo the gate to your master. —
My lord! my dear lord!” she then exclaimed, hastening to the en-
trance of the apartment; then added, with a voice expressive of dis-
appointment, “Pooh! it is but Richard Varney.”
“Ay, madam,” said Varney, entering and saluting the lady with a
respectful obeisance, which she returned with a careless mixture of
negligence and of displeasure, “it is but Richard Varney; but even
the first grey cloud should be acceptable, when it lightens in the
east, because it announces the approach of the blessed sun.”
“How! comes my lord hither to-night?” said the lady, in joyful yet

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startled agitation; and Anthony Foster caught up the word, and ech-
oed the question. Varney replied to the lady, that his lord purposed
to attend her; and would have proceeded with some compliment,
when, running to the door of the parlour, she called aloud, “Janet—
Janet! come to my tiring-room instantly.” Then returning to Varney,
she asked if her lord sent any further commendations to her.
“This letter, honoured madam,” said he, taking from his bosom a small
parcel wrapped in scarlet silk, “and with it a token to the Queen of his
Affections.” With eager speed the lady hastened to undo the silken string
which surrounded the little packet, and failing to unloose readily the knot
with which it was secured, she again called loudly on Janet, “Bring me a
knife—scissors—aught that may undo this envious knot!”
“May not my poor poniard serve, honoured madam?” said Varney,
presenting a small dagger of exquisite workmanship, which hung in
his Turkey-leather sword-belt.
“No, sir,” replied the lady, rejecting the instrument which he of-
fered—”steel poniard shall cut no true-love knot of mine.”
“It has cut many, however,” said Anthony Foster, half aside, and
looking at Varney. By this time the knot was disentangled without
any other help than the neat and nimble fingers of Janet, a simply-
attired pretty maiden, the daughter of Anthony Foster, who came
running at the repeated call of her mistress. A necklace of orient
pearl, the companion of a perfumed billet, was now hastily pro-
duced from the packet. The lady gave the one, after a slight glance,
to the charge of her attendant, while she read, or rather devoured,
the contents of the other.
“Surely, lady,” said Janet, gazing with admiration at the neck-string
of pearls, “the daughters of Tyre wore no fairer neck-jewels than
these. And then the posy, ‘For a neck that is fairer’—each pearl is
worth a freehold.”
“Each word in this dear paper is worth the whole string, my girl.
But come to my tiring-room, girl; we must be brave, my lord comes
hither to-night.—He bids me grace you, Master Varney, and to me
his wish is a law. I bid you to a collation in my bower this afternoon;
and you, too, Master Foster. Give orders that all is fitting, and that
suitable preparations be made for my lord’s reception to-night.” With
these words she left the apartment.

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“She takes state on her already,” said Varney, “and distributes the
favour of her presence, as if she were already the partner of his dig-
nity. Well, it is wise to practise beforehand the part which fortune
prepares us to play—the young eagle must gaze at the sun ere he
soars on strong wing to meet it.”
“If holding her head aloft,” said Foster, “will keep her eyes from
dazzling, I warrant you the dame will not stoop her crest. She will
presently soar beyond reach of my whistle, Master Varney. I prom-
ise you, she holds me already in slight regard.”
“It is thine own fault, thou sullen, uninventive companion,” an-
swered Varney, “who knowest no mode of control save downright
brute force. Canst thou not make home pleasant to her, with music
and toys? Canst thou not make the out-of-doors frightful to her,
with tales of goblins? Thou livest here by the churchyard, and hast
not even wit enough to raise a ghost, to scare thy females into good
discipline.”
“Speak not thus, Master Varney,” said Foster; “the living I fear
not, but I trifle not nor toy with my dead neighbours of the church-
yard. I promise you, it requires a good heart to live so near it. Wor-
thy Master Holdforth, the afternoon’s lecturer of Saint Antonlin’s,
had a sore fright there the last time he came to visit me.”
“Hold thy superstitious tongue,” answered Varney; “and while
thou talkest of visiting, answer me, thou paltering knave, how came
Tressilian to be at the postern door?”
“Tressilian!” answered Foster, “what know I of Tressilian? I never
heard his name.”
“Why, villain, it was the very Cornish chough to whom old Sir
Hugh Robsart destined his pretty Amy; and hither the hot-brained
fool has come to look after his fair runaway. There must be some
order taken with him, for he thinks he hath wrong, and is not the
mean hind that will sit down with it. Luckily he knows nought of
my lord, but thinks he has only me to deal with. But how, in the
fiend’s name, came he hither?”
“Why, with Mike Lambourne, an you must know,” answered
Foster.
“And who is Mike Lambourne?” demanded Varney. “By Heaven!
thou wert best set up a bush over thy door, and invite every stroller

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who passes by to see what thou shouldst keep secret even from the
sun and air.”
“Ay! ay! this is a courtlike requital of my service to you, Master
Richard Varney,” replied Foster. “Didst thou not charge me to seek
out for thee a fellow who had a good sword and an unscrupulous
conscience? and was I not busying myself to find a fit man—for,
thank Heaven, my acquaintance lies not amongst such compan-
ions—when, as Heaven would have it, this tall fellow, who is in all
his dualities the very flashing knave thou didst wish, came hither to
fix acquaintance upon me in the plenitude of his impudence; and I
admitted his claim, thinking to do you a pleasure. And now see
what thanks I get for disgracing myself by converse with him!”
“And did he,” said Varney, “being such a fellow as thyself, only
lacking, I suppose, thy present humour of hypocrisy, which lies as
thin over thy hard, ruffianly heart as gold lacquer upon rusty iron—
did he, I say, bring the saintly, sighing Tressilian in his train?”
“They came together, by Heaven!” said Foster; “and Tressilian—
to speak Heaven’s truth—obtained a moment’s interview with our
pretty moppet, while I was talking apart with Lambourne.”
“Improvident villain! we are both undone,” said Varney. “She has
of late been casting many a backward look to her father’s halls, when-
ever her lordly lover leaves her alone. Should this preaching fool
whistle her back to her old perch, we were but lost men.”
“No fear of that, my master,” replied Anthony Foster; “she is in
no mood to stoop to his lure, for she yelled out on seeing him as if
an adder had stung her.”
“That is good. Canst thou not get from thy daughter an inkling
of what passed between them, good Foster?”
“I tell you plain, Master Varney,” said Foster, “my daughter shall
not enter our purposes or walk in our paths. They may suit me well
enough, who know how to repent of my misdoings; but I will not
have my child’s soul committed to peril either for your pleasure or
my lord’s. I may walk among snares and pitfalls myself, because I
have discretion, but I will not trust the poor lamb among them.”
“Why, thou suspicious fool, I were as averse as thou art that thy baby-
faced girl should enter into my plans, or walk to hell at her father’s
elbow. But indirectly thou mightst gain some intelligence of her?”

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“And so I did, Master Varney,” answered Foster; “and she said her
lady called out upon the sickness of her father.”
“Good!” replied Varney; “that is a hint worth catching, and I will
work upon it. But the country must be rid of this Tressilian. I would
have cumbered no man about the matter, for I hate him like strong
poison—his presence is hemlock to me—and this day I had been
rid of him, but that my foot slipped, when, to speak truth, had not
thy comrade yonder come to my aid, and held his hand, I should
have known by this time whether you and I have been treading the
path to heaven or hell.”
“And you can speak thus of such a risk!” said Foster. “You keep a
stout heart, Master Varney. For me, if I did not hope to live many
years, and to have time for the great work of repentance, I would
not go forward with you.”
“Oh! thou shalt live as long as Methuselah,” said Varney, “and
amass as much wealth as Solomon; and thou shalt repent so de-
voutly, that thy repentance shall be more famous than thy villainy—
and that is a bold word. But for all this, Tressilian must be looked
after. Thy ruffian yonder is gone to dog him. It concerns our for-
tunes, Anthony.”
“Ay, ay,” said Foster sullenly, “this it is to be leagued with one who
knows not even so much of Scripture, as that the labourer is worthy
of his hire. I must, as usual, take all the trouble and risk.”
“Risk! and what is the mighty risk, I pray you?” answered Varney.
“This fellow will come prowling again about your demesne or into
your house, and if you take him for a house-breaker or a park-breaker,
is it not most natural you should welcome him with cold steel or
hot lead? Even a mastiff will pull down those who come near his
kennel; and who shall blame him?”
“Ay, I have a mastiff’s work and a mastiff ’s wage among you,” said
Foster. “Here have you, Master Varney, secured a good freehold es-
tate out of this old superstitious foundation; and I have but a poor
lease of this mansion under you, voidable at your honour’s plea-
sure.”
“Ay, and thou wouldst fain convert thy leasehold into a copyhold
—the thing may chance to happen, Anthony Foster, if thou dost
good service for it. But softly, good Anthony—it is not the lending

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a room or two of this old house for keeping my lord’s pretty

paroquet—nay, it is not the shutting thy doors and windows to
keep her from flying off that may deserve it. Remember, the manor
and tithes are rated at the clear annual value of seventy-nine pounds
five shillings and fivepence halfpenny, besides the value of the wood.
Come, come, thou must be conscionable; great and secret service
may deserve both this and a better thing. And now let thy knave
come and pluck off my boots. Get us some dinner, and a cup of thy
best wine. I must visit this mavis, brave in apparel, unruffled in
aspect, and gay in temper.”
They parted and at the hour of noon, which was then that of
dinner, they again met at their meal, Varney gaily dressed like a
courtier of the time, and even Anthony Foster improved in appear-
ance, as far as dress could amend an exterior so unfavourable.
This alteration did not escape Varney. Then the meal was fin-
ished, the cloth removed, and they were left to their private dis-
course—”Thou art gay as a goldfinch, Anthony,” said Varney, look-
ing at his host; “methinks, thou wilt whistle a jig anon. But I crave
your pardon, that would secure your ejection from the congrega-
tion of the zealous botchers, the pure-hearted weavers, and the sanc-
tified bakers of Abingdon, who let their ovens cool while their brains
get heated.”
“To answer you in the spirit, Master Varney,” said Foster, “were
—excuse the parable—to fling sacred and precious things before
swine. So I will speak to thee in the language of the world, which he
who is king of the world, hath taught thee, to understand, and to
profit by in no common measure.”
“Say what thou wilt, honest Tony,” replied Varney; “for be it ac-
cording to thine absurd faith, or according to thy most villainous
practice, it cannot choose but be rare matter to qualify this cup of
Alicant. Thy conversation is relishing and poignant, and beats cavi-
are, dried neat’s-tongue, and all other provocatives that give savour
to good liquor.”
“Well, then, tell me,” said Anthony Foster, “is not our good lord
and master’s turn better served, and his antechamber more suitably
filled, with decent, God-fearing men, who will work his will and
their own profit quietly, and without worldly scandal, than that he

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should be manned, and attended, and followed by such open de-

bauchers and ruffianly swordsmen as Tidesly, Killigrew, this fellow
Lambourne, whom you have put me to seek out for you, and other
such, who bear the gallows in their face and murder in their right
hand—who are a terror to peaceable men, and a scandal to my lord’s
service?”
“Oh, content you, good Master Anthony Foster,” answered Varney;
“he that flies at all manner of game must keep all kinds of hawks,
both short and long-winged. The course my lord holds is no easy
one, and he must stand provided at all points with trusty retainers
to meet each sort of service. He must have his gay courtier, like
myself, to ruffle it in the presence-chamber, and to lay hand on hilt
when any speaks in disparagement of my lord’s honour—”
“Ay,” said Foster, “and to whisper a word for him into a fair lady’s
ear, when he may not approach her himself.”
“Then,” said Varney, going on without appearing to notice the
interruption, “he must have his lawyers—deep, subtle pioneers —
to draw his contracts, his pre-contracts, and his post-contracts, and
to find the way to make the most of grants of church-lands, and
commons, and licenses for monopoly. And he must have physicians
who can spice a cup or a caudle. And he must have his cabalists, like
Dec and Allan, for conjuring up the devil. And he must have ruf-
fling swordsmen, who would fight the devil when he is raised and at
the wildest. And above all, without prejudice to others, he must
have such godly, innocent, puritanic souls as thou, honest Anthony,
who defy Satan, and do his work at the same time.”
“You would not say, Master Varney,” said Foster, “that our good
lord and master, whom I hold to be fulfilled in all nobleness, would
use such base and sinful means to rise, as thy speech points at?”
“Tush, man,” said Varney, “never look at me with so sad a brow.
You trap me not—nor am I in your power, as your weak brain may
imagine, because I name to you freely the engines, the springs, the
screws, the tackle, and braces, by which great men rise in stirring
times. Sayest thou our good lord is fulfilled of all nobleness? Amen,
and so be it—he has the more need to have those about him who
are unscrupulous in his service, and who, because they know that
his fall will overwhelm and crush them, must wager both blood and

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brain, soul and body, in order to keep him aloft; and this I tell thee,
because I care not who knows it.”
“You speak truth, Master Varney,” said Anthony Foster. “He that
is head of a party is but a boat on a wave, that raises not itself, but is
moved upward by the billow which it floats upon.”
“Thou art metaphorical, honest Anthony,” replied Varney; “that
velvet doublet hath made an oracle of thee. We will have thee to
Oxford to take the degrees in the arts. And, in the meantime, hast
thou arranged all the matters which were sent from London, and
put the western chambers into such fashion as may answer my lord’s
humour?”
“They may serve a king on his bridal-day,” said Anthony; “and I
promise you that Dame Amy sits in them yonder as proud and gay
as if she were the Queen of Sheba.”
“’Tis the better, good Anthony,” answered Varney; “we must found
our future fortunes on her good liking.”
“We build on sand then,” said Anthony Foster; “for supposing
that she sails away to court in all her lord’s dignity and authority,
how is she to look back upon me, who am her jailor as it were, to
detain her here against her will, keeping her a caterpillar on an old
wall, when she would fain be a painted butterfly in a court garden?”
“Fear not her displeasure, man,” said Varney. “I will show her all
thou hast done in this matter was good service, both to my lord and
her; and when she chips the egg-shell and walks alone, she shall
own we have hatched her greatness.”
“Look to yourself, Master Varney,” said Foster, “you may misreckon
foully in this matter. She gave you but a frosty reception this morn-
ing, and, I think, looks on you, as well as me, with an evil eye.”
“You mistake her, Foster—you mistake her utterly. To me she is
bound by all the ties which can secure her to one who has been the
means of gratifying both her love and ambition. Who was it that
took the obscure Amy Robsart, the daughter of an impoverished
and dotard knight—the destined bride of a moonstruck, moping
enthusiast, like Edmund Tressilian, from her lowly fates, and held
out to her in prospect the brightest fortune in England, or per-
chance in Europe? Why, man, it was I —as I have often told thee—
that found opportunity for their secret meetings. It was I who

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watched the wood while he beat for the deer. It was I who, to this
day, am blamed by her family as the companion of her flight; and
were I in their neighbourhood, would be fain to wear a shirt of
better stuff than Holland linen, lest my ribs should be acquainted
with Spanish steel. Who carried their letters?—I. Who amused the
old knight and Tressilian?—I. Who planned her escape?—it was I.
It was I, in short, Dick Varney, who pulled this pretty little daisy
from its lowly nook, and placed it in the proudest bonnet in Brit-
ain.”
“Ay, Master Varney,” said Foster; “but it may be she thinks that
had the matter remained with you, the flower had been stuck so
slightly into the cap, that the first breath of a changeable breeze of
passion had blown the poor daisy to the common.”
“She should consider,” said Varney, smiling, “the true faith I owed
my lord and master prevented me at first from counselling mar-
riage; and yet I did counsel marriage when I saw she would not be
satisfied without the—the sacrament, or the ceremony—which
callest thou it, Anthony?”
“Still she has you at feud on another score,” said Foster; “and I tell
it you that you may look to yourself in time. She would not hide her
splendour in this dark lantern of an old monastic house, but would
fain shine a countess amongst countesses.”
“Very natural, very right,” answered Varney; “but what have I to
do with that?—she may shine through horn or through crystal at
my lord’s pleasure, I have nought to say against it.”
“She deems that you have an oar upon that side of the boat, Mas-
ter Varney,” replied Foster, “and that you can pull it or no, at your
good pleasure. In a word, she ascribes the secrecy and obscurity in
which she is kept to your secret counsel to my lord, and to my strict
agency; and so she loves us both as a sentenced man loves his judge
and his jailor.”
“She must love us better ere she leave this place, Anthony,” an-
swered Varney. “If I have counselled for weighty reasons that she
remain here for a season, I can also advise her being brought forth
in the full blow of her dignity. But I were mad to do so, holding so
near a place to my lord’s person, were she mine enemy. Bear this
truth in upon her as occasion offers, Anthony, and let me alone for

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extolling you in her ear, and exalting you in her opinion—ka me, ka
thee—it is a proverb all over the world. The lady must know her
friends, and be made to judge of the power they have of being her
enemies; meanwhile, watch her strictly, but with all the outward
observance that thy rough nature will permit. ’Tis an excellent thing
that sullen look and bull-dog humour of thine; thou shouldst thank
God for it, and so should my lord, for when there is aught harsh or
hard-natured to be done, thou dost it as if it flowed from thine own
natural doggedness, and not from orders, and so my lord escapes
the scandal.—But, hark—some one knocks at the gate. Look out at
the window—let no one enter—this were an ill night to be inter-
rupted.”
“It is he whom we spoke of before dinner,” said Foster, as he looked
through the casement; “it is Michael Lambourne.”
“Oh, admit him, by all means,” said the courtier; “he comes to
give some account of his guest; it imports us much to know the
movements of Edmund Tressilian.—Admit him, I say, but bring
him not hither; I will come to you presently in the Abbot’s library.”
Foster left the room, and the courtier, who remained behind, paced
the parlour more than once in deep thought, his arms folded on his
bosom, until at length he gave vent to his meditations in broken
words, which we have somewhat enlarged and connected, that his
soliloquy may be intelligible to the reader.
“’Tis true,” he said, suddenly stopping, and resting his right hand
on the table at which they had been sitting, “this base churl hath
fathomed the very depth of my fear, and I have been unable to
disguise it from him. She loves me not—I would it were as true that
I loved not her! Idiot that I was, to move her in my own behalf,
when wisdom bade me be a true broker to my lord! And this fatal
error has placed me more at her discretion than a wise man would
willingly be at that of the best piece of painted Eve’s flesh of them
all. Since the hour that my policy made so perilous a slip, I cannot
look at her without fear, and hate, and fondness, so strangely mingled,
that I know not whether, were it at my choice, I would rather pos-
sess or ruin her. But she must not leave this retreat until I am as-
sured on what terms we are to stand. My lord’s interest—and so far
it is mine own, for if he sinks I fall in his train—demands conceal-

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ment of this obscure marriage; and besides, I will not lend her my
arm to climb to her chair of state, that she may set her foot on my
neck when she is fairly seated. I must work an interest in her, either
through love or through fear; and who knows but I may yet reap the
sweetest and best revenge for her former scorn?—that were indeed a
masterpiece of courtlike art! Let me but once be her counsel-keeper—
let her confide to me a secret, did it but concern the robbery of a
linnet’s nest, and, fair Countess, thou art mine own!” He again paced
the room in silence, stopped, filled and drank a cup of wine, as if to
compose the agitation of his mind, and muttering, “Now for a close
heart and an open and unruffled brow,” he left the apartment.

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CHAPTER VI

The dews of summer night did fall,

The moon, sweet regent of the sky,
Silver’d the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew thereby.

—Mickle.

[This verse is the commencement of the ballad already quoted, as

what suggested the novel.]

FOUR APARTMENTS; which, occupied the western side of the old quad-
rangle at Cumnor Place, had been fitted up with extraordinary
splendour. This had been the work of several days prior to that on
which our story opened. Workmen sent from London, and not per-
mitted to leave the premises until the work was finished, had con-
verted the apartments in that side of the building from the dilapi-
dated appearance of a dissolved monastic house into the semblance
of a royal palace. A mystery was observed in all these arrangements:
the workmen came thither and returned by night, and all measures
were taken to prevent the prying curiosity of the villagers from ob-
serving or speculating upon the changes which were taking place in
the mansion of their once indigent but now wealthy neighbour,
Anthony Foster. Accordingly, the secrecy desired was so far preserved,
that nothing got abroad but vague and uncertain reports, which
were received and repeated, but without much credit being attached
to them.
On the evening of which we treat, the new and highly-decorated

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suite of rooms were, for the first time, illuminated, and that with a
brilliancy which might have been visible half-a-dozen miles off, had
not oaken shutters, carefully secured with bolt and padlock, and
mantled with long curtains of silk and of velvet, deeply fringed with
gold, prevented the slightest gleam of radiance front being seen with-
out.
The principal apartments, as we have seen, were four in number,
each opening into the other. Access was given to them by a large
scale staircase, as they were then called, of unusual length and height,
which had its landing-place at the door of an antechamber, shaped
somewhat like a gallery. This apartment the abbot had used as an
occasional council-room, but it was now beautifully wainscoted with
dark, foreign wood of a brown colour, and bearing a high polish,
said to have been brought from the Western Indies, and to have
been wrought in London with infinite difficulty and much damage
to the tools of the workmen. The dark colour of this finishing was
relieved by the number of lights in silver sconces which hung against
the walls, and by six large and richly-framed pictures, by the first
masters of the age. A massy oaken table, placed at the lower end of
the apartment, served to accommodate such as chose to play at the
then fashionable game of shovel-board; and there was at the other
end an elevated gallery for the musicians or minstrels, who might
be summoned to increase the festivity of the evening.
From this antechamber opened a banqueting-room of moderate
size, but brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes of the spectator with the
richness of its furniture. The walls, lately so bare and ghastly, were
now clothed with hangings of sky-blue velvet and silver; the chairs
were of ebony, richly carved, with cushions corresponding to the
hangings; and the place of the silver sconces which enlightened the
ante-chamber was supplied by a huge chandelier of the same pre-
cious metal. The floor was covered with a Spanish foot-cloth, or
carpet, on which flowers and fruits were represented in such glow-
ing and natural colours, that you hesitated to place the foot on such
exquisite workmanship. The table, of old English oak, stood ready
covered with the finest linen; and a large portable court-cupboard
was placed with the leaves of its embossed folding-doors displayed,
showing the shelves within, decorated with a full display of plate

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and porcelain. In the midst of the table stood a salt-cellar of Italian

workmanship—a beautiful and splendid piece of plate about two
feet high, moulded into a representation of the giant Briareus, whose
hundred hands of silver presented to the guests various sorts of spices,
or condiments, to season their food withal.
The third apartment was called the withdrawing-room. It was
hung with the finest tapestry, representing the fall of Phaeton; for
the looms of Flanders were now much occupied on classical sub-
jects. The principal seat of this apartment was a chair of state, raised
a step or two from the floor, and large enough to contain two per-
sons. It was surmounted by a canopy, which, as well as the cush-
ions, side-curtains, and the very footcloth, was composed of crim-
son velvet, embroidered with seed-pearl. On the top of the canopy
were two coronets, resembling those of an earl and countess. Stools
covered with velvet, and some cushions disposed in the Moorish
fashion, and ornamented with Arabesque needle-work, supplied the
place of chairs in this apartment, which contained musical instru-
ments, embroidery frames, and other articles for ladies’ pastime.
Besides lesser lights, the withdrawing-room was illuminated by four
tall torches of virgin wax, each of which was placed in the grasp of a
statue, representing an armed Moor, who held in his left arm a round
buckler of silver, highly polished, interposed betwixt his breast and
the light, which was thus brilliantly reflected as from a crystal mir-
ror.
The sleeping chamber belonging to this splendid suite of apart-
ments was decorated in a taste less showy, but not less rich, than
had been displayed in the others. Two silver lamps, fed with per-
fumed oil, diffused at once a delicious odour and a trembling twi-
light-seeming shimmer through the quiet apartment. It was car-
peted so thick that the heaviest step could not have been heard, and
the bed, richly heaped with down, was spread with an ample cover-
let of silk and gold; from under which peeped forth cambric sheets
and blankets as white as the lambs which yielded the fleece that
made them. The curtains were of blue velvet, lined with crimson
silk, deeply festooned with gold, and embroidered with the loves of
Cupid and Psyche. On the toilet was a beautiful Venetian mirror, in
a frame of silver filigree, and beside it stood a gold posset-dish to

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contain the night-draught. A pair of pistols and a dagger, mounted

with gold, were displayed near the head of the bed, being the arms
for the night, which were presented to honoured guests, rather, it
may be supposed, in the way of ceremony than from any apprehen-
sion of danger. We must not omit to mention, what was more to the
credit of the manners of the time, that in a small recess, illuminated
by a taper, were disposed two hassocks of velvet and gold, corre-
sponding with the bed furniture, before a desk of carved ebony.
This recess had formerly been the private oratory of the abbot; but
the crucifix was removed, and instead there were placed on the desk,
two Books of Common Prayer, richly bound, and embossed with
silver. With this enviable sleeping apartment, which was so far re-
moved from every sound save that of the wind sighing among the
oaks of the park, that Morpheus might have coveted it for his own
proper repose, corresponded two wardrobes, or dressing-rooms as
they are now termed, suitably furnished, and in a style of the same
magnificence which we have already described. It ought to be added,
that a part of the building in the adjoining wing was occupied by
the kitchen and its offices, and served to accommodate the personal
attendants of the great and wealthy nobleman, for whose use these
magnificent preparations had been made.
The divinity for whose sake this temple had been decorated was
well worthy the cost and pains which had been bestowed. She was
seated in the withdrawing-room which we have described, survey-
ing with the pleased eye of natural and innocent vanity the splendour
which had been so suddenly created, as it were, in her honour. For,
as her own residence at Cumnor Place formed the cause of the mys-
tery observed in all the preparations for opening these apartments,
it was sedulously arranged that, until she took possession of them,
she should have no means of knowing what was going forward in
that part of the ancient building, or of exposing herself to be seen
by the workmen engaged in the decorations. She had been, there-
fore, introduced on that evening to a part of the mansion which she
had never yet seen, so different from all the rest that it appeared, in
comparison, like an enchanted palace. And when she first exam-
ined and occupied these splendid rooms, it was with the wild and
unrestrained joy of a rustic beauty who finds herself suddenly in-

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vested with a splendour which her most extravagant wishes had never
imagined, and at the same time with the keen feeling of an affec-
tionate heart, which knows that all the enchantment that surrounds
her is the work of the great magician Love.
The Countess Amy, therefore—for to that rank she was exalted
by her private but solemn union with England’s proudest Earl—
had for a time flitted hastily from room to room, admiring each
new proof of her lover and her bridegroom’s taste, and feeling that
admiration enhanced as she recollected that all she gazed upon was
one continued proof of his ardent and devoted affection. “How beau-
tiful are these hangings! How natural these paintings, which seem
to contend with life! How richly wrought is that plate, which looks
as if all the galleons of Spain had been intercepted on the broad seas
to furnish it forth! And oh, Janet!” she exclaimed repeatedly to the
daughter of Anthony Foster, the close attendant, who, with equal
curiosity, but somewhat less ecstatic joy, followed on her mistress’s
footsteps —”oh, Janet! how much more delightful to think that all
these fair things have been assembled by his love, for the love of me!
and that this evening—this very evening, which grows darker every
instant, I shall thank him more for the love that has created such an
unimaginable paradise, than for all the wonders it contains.”
“The Lord is to be thanked first,” said the pretty Puritan, “who
gave thee, lady, the kind and courteous husband whose love has
done so much for thee. I, too, have done my poor share. But if you
thus run wildly from room to room, the toil of my crisping and my
curling pins will vanish like the frost-work on the window when the
sun is high.”
“Thou sayest true, Janet,” said the young and beautiful Countess,
stopping suddenly from her tripping race of enraptured delight, and
looking at herself from head to foot in a large mirror, such as she
had never before seen, and which, indeed, had few to match it even
in the Queen’s palace—”thou sayest true, Janet!” she answered, as
she saw, with pardonable self-applause, the noble mirror reflect such
charms as were seldom presented to its fair and polished surface; “I
have more of the milk-maid than the countess, with these cheeks
flushed with haste, and all these brown curls, which you laboured
to bring to order, straying as wild as the tendrils of an unpruned

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vine. My falling ruff is chafed too, and shows the neck and bosom
more than is modest and seemly. Come, Janet; we will practise state—
we will go to the withdrawing-room, my good girl, and thou shalt
put these rebel locks in order, and imprison within lace and cambric
the bosom that beats too high.”
They went to the withdrawing apartment accordingly, where the
Countess playfully stretched herself upon the pile of Moorish cush-
ions, half sitting, half reclining, half wrapt in her own thoughts,
half listening to the prattle of her attendant.
While she was in this attitude, and with a corresponding expres-
sion betwixt listlessness and expectation on her fine and intelligent
features, you might have searched sea and land without finding any-
thing half so expressive or half so lovely. The wreath of brilliants
which mixed with her dark-brown hair did not match in lustre the
hazel eye which a light-brown eyebrow, pencilled with exquisite
delicacy, and long eyelashes of the same colour, relieved and shaded.
The exercise she had just taken, her excited expectation and grati-
fied vanity, spread a glow over her fine features, which had been
sometimes censured (as beauty as well as art has her minute critics)
for being rather too pale. The milk-white pearls of the necklace
which she wore, the same which she had just received as a true-love
token from her husband, were excelled in purity by her teeth, and
by the colour of her skin, saving where the blush of pleasure and
self-satisfaction had somewhat stained the neck with a shade of light
crimson.—“Now, have done with these busy fingers, Janet,” she
said to her handmaiden, who was still officiously employed in bring-
ing her hair and her dress into order—“have done, I say. I must see
your father ere my lord arrives, and also Master Richard Varney,
whom my lord has highly in his esteem—but I could tell that of
him would lose him favour.”
“Oh, do not do so, good my lady!” replied Janet; “leave him to
God, who punishes the wicked in His own time; but do not you
cross Varney’s path, for so thoroughly hath he my lord’s ear, that few
have thriven who have thwarted his courses.”
“And from whom had you this, my most righteous Janet?” said
the Countess; “or why should I keep terms with so mean a gentle-
man as Varney, being as I am, wife to his master and patron?”

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“Nay, madam,” replied Janet Foster, “your ladyship knows better

than I; but I have heard my father say he would rather cross a hun-
gry wolf than thwart Richard Varney in his projects. And he has
often charged me to have a care of holding commerce with him.”
“Thy father said well, girl, for thee,” replied the lady, “and I dare
swear meant well. It is a pity, though, his face and manner do little
match his true purpose—for I think his purpose may be true.”
“Doubt it not, my lady,” answered Janet—“doubt not that my
father purposes well, though he is a plain man, and his blunt looks
may belie his heart.”
“I will not doubt it, girl, were it only for thy sake; and yet he has
one of those faces which men tremble when they look on. I think
even thy mother, Janet—nay, have done with that poking-iron—
could hardly look upon him without quaking.”
“If it were so, madam,” answered Janet Foster, “my mother had
those who could keep her in honourable countenance. Why, even
you, my lady, both trembled and blushed when Varney brought the
letter from my lord.”
“You are bold, damsel,” said the Countess, rising from the cush-
ions on which she sat half reclined in the arms of her attendant.
“Know that there are causes of trembling which have nothing to do
with fear.—But, Janet,” she added, immediately relapsing into the
good-natured and familiar tone which was natural to her, “believe
me, I will do what credit I can to your father, and the rather that
you, sweetheart, are his child. Alas! alas!” she added, a sudden sad-
ness passing over her fine features, and her eyes filling with tears, “I
ought the rather to hold sympathy with thy kind heart, that my
own poor father is uncertain of my fate, and they say lies sick and
sorrowful for my worthless sake! But I will soon cheer him—the
news of my happiness and advancement will make him young again.
And that I may cheer him the sooner”—she wiped her eyes as she
spoke—“I must be cheerful myself. My lord must not find me in-
sensible to his kindness, or sorrowful, when he snatches a visit to his
recluse, after so long an absence. Be merry, Janet; the night wears
on, and my lord must soon arrive. Call thy father hither, and call
Varney also. I cherish resentment against neither; and though I may
have some room to be displeased with both, it shall be their own

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fault if ever a complaint against them reaches the Earl through my

means. Call them hither, Janet.”
Janet Foster obeyed her mistress; and in a few minutes after, Varney
entered the withdrawing-room with the graceful ease and unclouded
front of an accomplished courtier, skilled, under the veil of external
politeness, to disguise his own feelings and to penetrate those of
others. Anthony Foster plodded into the apartment after him, his
natural gloomy vulgarity of aspect seeming to become yet more re-
markable, from his clumsy attempt to conceal the mixture of anxi-
ety and dislike with which he looked on her, over whom he had
hitherto exercised so severe a control, now so splendidly attired, and
decked with so many pledges of the interest which she possessed in
her husband’s affections. The blundering reverence which he made,
rather at than to the Countess, had confession in it. It was like the
reverence which the criminal makes to the judge, when he at once
owns his guilt and implores mercy—which is at the same time an
impudent and embarrassed attempt at defence or extenuation, a
confession of a fault, and an entreaty for lenity.
Varney, who, in right of his gentle blood, had pressed into the
room before Anthony Foster, knew better what to say than he, and
said it with more assurance and a better grace.
The Countess greeted him indeed with an appearance of cordiality,
which seemed a complete amnesty for whatever she might have to
complain of. She rose from her seat, and advanced two steps towards
him, holding forth her hand as she said, “Master Richard Varney, you
brought me this morning such welcome tidings, that I fear surprise
and joy made me neglect my lord and husband’s charge to receive you
with distinction. We offer you our hand, sir, in reconciliation.”
“I am unworthy to touch it,” said Varney, dropping on one knee,
“save as a subject honours that of a prince.”
He touched with his lips those fair and slender fingers, so richly
loaded with rings and jewels; then rising, with graceful gallantry,
was about to hand her to the chair of state, when she said, “No,
good Master Richard Varney, I take not my place there until my
lord himself conducts me. I am for the present but a disguised Count-
ess, and will not take dignity on me until authorized by him whom
I derive it from.”

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“I trust, my lady,” said Foster, “that in doing the commands of my

lord your husband, in your restraint and so forth, I have not in-
curred your displeasure, seeing that I did but my duty towards your
lord and mine; for Heaven, as holy writ saith, hath given the hus-
band supremacy and dominion over the wife—I think it runs so, or
something like it.”
“I receive at this moment so pleasant a surprise, Master Foster,”
answered the Countess, “that I cannot but excuse the rigid fidelity
which secluded me from these apartments, until they had assumed
an appearance so new and so splendid.”
“Ay lady,” said Foster, “it hath cost many a fair crown; and that
more need not be wasted than is absolutely necessary, I leave you till
my lord’s arrival with good Master Richard Varney, who, as I think,
hath somewhat to say to you from your most noble lord and hus-
band.—Janet, follow me, to see that all be in order.”
“No, Master Foster,” said the Countess, “we will your daughter
remains here in our apartment—out of ear-shot, however, in case
Varney bath ought to say to me from my lord.”
Foster made his clumsy reverence, and departed, with an aspect
which seemed to grudge the profuse expense which had been wasted
upon changing his house from a bare and ruinous grange to an
Asiastic palace. When he was gone, his daughter took her embroi-
dery frame, and went to establish herself at the bottom of the apart-
ment; while Richard Varney, with a profoundly humble courtesy,
took the lowest stool he could find, and placing it by the side of the
pile of cushions on which the Countess had now again seated her-
self, sat with his eyes for a time fixed on the ground, and in pro-
found silence.
“I thought, Master Varney,” said the Countess, when she saw he
was not likely to open the conversation, “that you had something to
communicate from my lord and husband; so at least I understood
Master Foster, and therefore I removed my waiting-maid. If I am
mistaken, I will recall her to my side; for her needle is not so abso-
lutely perfect in tent and cross-stitch, but that my superintendence
is advisable.”
“Lady,” said Varney, “Foster was partly mistaken in my purpose.
It was not from but of your noble husband, and my approved and

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most noble patron, that I am led, and indeed bound, to speak.”

“The theme is most welcome, sir,” said the Countess, “whether it
be of or from my noble husband. But be brief, for I expect his hasty
approach.”
“Briefly then, madam,” replied Varney, “and boldly, for my argu-
ment requires both haste and courage—you have this day seen
Tressilian?”
“I have, sir and what of that?” answered the lady somewhat sharply.
“Nothing that concerns me, lady,” Varney replied with humility.
“But, think you, honoured madam, that your lord will hear it with
equal equanimity?”
“And wherefore should he not? To me alone was Tressilian’s visit
embarrassing and painful, for he brought news of my good father’s
illness.”
“Of your father’s illness, madam!” answered Varney. “It must have
been sudden then—very sudden; for the messenger whom I dis-
patched, at my lord’s instance, found the good knight on the hunt-
ing field, cheering his beagles with his wonted jovial field-cry. I trust
Tressilian has but forged this news. He hath his reasons, madam, as
you well know, for disquieting your present happiness.”
“You do him injustice, Master Varney,” replied the Countess, with
animation—”you do him much injustice. He is the freest, the most
open, the most gentle heart that breathes. My honourable lord ever
excepted, I know not one to whom falsehood is more odious than
to Tressilian.”
“I crave your pardon, madam,” said Varney, “I meant the gentle-
man no injustice—I knew not how nearly his cause affected you. A
man may, in some circumstances, disguise the truth for fair and
honest purpose; for were it to be always spoken, and upon all occa-
sions, this were no world to live in.”
“You have a courtly conscience, Master Varney,” said the Count-
ess, “and your veracity will not, I think, interrupt your preferment
in the world, such as it is. But touching Tressilian —I must do him
justice, for I have done him wrong, as none knows better than thou.
Tressilian’s conscience is of other mould—the world thou speakest
of has not that which could bribe him from the way of truth and
honour; and for living in it with a soiled fame, the ermine would as

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soon seek to lodge in the den of the foul polecat. For this my father
loved him; for this I would have loved him—if I could. And yet in
this case he had what seemed to him, unknowing alike of my mar-
riage and to whom I was united, such powerful reasons to withdraw
me from this place, that I well trust he exaggerated much of my
father’s indisposition, and that thy better news may be the truer.”
“Believe me they are, madam,” answered Varney. “I pretend not
to be a champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very
outrance. I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were
it but for decency’s sake. But you must think lower of my head and
heart than is due to one whom my noble lord deigns to call his
friend, if you suppose I could wilfully and unnecessarily palm upon
your ladyship a falsehood, so soon to be detected, in a matter which
concerns your happiness.”
“Master Varney,” said the Countess, “I know that my lord es-
teems you, and holds you a faithful and a good pilot in those seas in
which he has spread so high and so venturous a sail. Do not sup-
pose, therefore, I meant hardly by you, when I spoke the truth in
Tressilian’s vindication. I am as you well know, country-bred, and
like plain rustic truth better than courtly compliment; but I must
change my fashions with my sphere, I presume.”
“True, madam,” said Varney, smiling; “and though you speak now
in jest, it will not be amiss that in earnest your present speech had
some connection with your real purpose. A court-dame—take the
most noble, the most virtuous, the most unimpeachable that stands
around our Queen’s throne—would, for example, have shunned to
speak the truth, or what she thought such, in praise of a discarded
suitor, before the dependant and confidant of her noble husband.”
“And wherefore,” said the Countess, colouring impatiently, “should
I not do justice to Tressilian’s worth, before my husband’s friend—
before my husband himself—before the whole world?”
“And with the same openness,” said Varney, “your ladyship will
this night tell my noble lord your husband that Tressilian has dis-
covered your place of residence, so anxiously concealed from the
world, and that he has had an interview with you?”
“Unquestionably,” said the Countess. “It will be the first thing I
tell him, together with every word that Tressilian said and that I

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answered. I shall speak my own shame in this, for Tressilian’s re-

proaches, less just than he esteemed them, were not altogether un-
merited. I will speak, therefore, with pain, but I will speak, and
speak all.”
“Your ladyship will do your pleasure,” answered Varney; “but
methinks it were as well, since nothing calls for so frank a disclo-
sure, to spare yourself this pain, and my noble lord the disquiet, and
Master Tressilian, since belike he must be thought of in the matter,
the danger which is like to ensue.”
“I can see nought of all these terrible consequences,” said the lady
composedly, “unless by imputing to my noble lord unworthy
thoughts, which I am sure never harboured in his generous heart.”
“Far be it from me to do so,” said Varney. And then, after a
moment’s silence, he added, with a real or affected plainness of
manner, very different from his usual smooth courtesy, “Come,
madam, I will show you that a courtier dare speak truth as well as
another, when it concerns the weal of those whom he honours and
regards, ay, and although it may infer his own danger.” He waited as
if to receive commands, or at least permission, to go on; but as the
lady remained silent, he proceeded, but obviously with caution.
“Look around you,” he said, “noble lady, and observe the barriers
with which this place is surrounded, the studious mystery with which
the brightest jewel that England possesses is secluded from the ad-
miring gaze. See with what rigour your walks are circumscribed.
and your movement restrained at the beck of yonder churlish Fos-
ter. Consider all this, and judge for yourself what can be the cause.
“My lord’s pleasure,” answered the Countess; “and I am bound to
seek no other motive.”
“His pleasure it is indeed,” said Varney; “and his pleasure arises
out of a love worthy of the object which inspires it. But he who
possesses a treasure, and who values it, is oft anxious, in proportion
to the value he puts upon it, to secure it from the depredations of
others.”
“What needs all this talk, Master Varney?” said the lady, in reply.
“You would have me believe that my noble lord is jealous. Suppose
it true, I know a cure for jealousy.”
“Indeed, madam?” said Varney.

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“It is,” replied the lady, “to speak the truth to my lord at all times—
to hold up my mind and my thoughts before him as pure as that
polished mirror—so that when he looks into my heart, he shall
only see his own features reflected there.”
“I am mute, madam answered Varney; “and as I have no reason to
grieve for Tressilian, who would have my heart’s blood were he able,
I shall reconcile myself easily to what may befall the gentleman in
consequence of your frank disclosure of his having presumed to
intrude upon your solitude. You, who know my lord so much better
than I, will judge if he be likely to bear the insult unavenged.”
“Nay, if I could think myself the cause of Tressilian’s ruin,” said
the Countess, “I who have already occasioned him so much dis-
tress, I might be brought to be silent. And yet what will it avail,
since he was seen by Foster, and I think by some one else? No, no,
Varney, urge it no more. I will tell the whole matter to my lord; and
with such pleading for Tressilian’s folly, as shall dispose my lord’s
generous heart rather to serve than to punish him.”
“Your judgment, madam,” said Varney, “is far superior to mine,
especially as you may, if you will, prove the ice before you step on it,
by mentioning Tressilian’s name to my lord, and observing how he
endures it. For Foster and his attendant, they know not Tressilian
by sight, and I can easily give them some reasonable excuse for the
appearance of an unknown stranger.”
The lady paused for an instant, and then replied, “If, Varney, it be
indeed true that Foster knows not as yet that the man he saw was
Tressilian, I own I were unwilling he should learn what nowise con-
cerns him. He bears himself already with austerity enough, and I
wish him not to be judge or privy-councillor in my affairs.”
“Tush,” said Varney, “what has the surly groom to do with your
ladyship’s concerns?—no more, surely, than the ban-dog which
watches his courtyard. If he is in aught distasteful to your ladyship,
I have interest enough to have him exchanged for a seneschal that
shall be more agreeable to you.”
“Master Varney,” said the Countess, “let us drop this theme. When
I complain of the attendants whom my lord has placed around me,
it must be to my lord himself.—Hark! I hear the trampling of horse.
He comes! he comes!” she exclaimed, jumping up in ecstasy.

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“I cannot think it is he,” said Varney; “or that you can hear the
tread of his horse through the closely-mantled casements.”
“Stop me not, Varney—my ears are keener than thine. It is he!”
“But, madam!—but, madam!” exclaimed Varney anxiously, and
still placing himself in her way, “I trust that what I have spoken in
humble duty and service will not be turned to my ruin? I hope that
my faithful advice will not be bewrayed to my prejudice? I implore
that—”
“Content thee, man—content thee!” said the Countess, “and quit
my skirt—you are too bold to detain me. Content thyself, I think
not of thee.”
At this moment the folding-doors flew wide open, and a man of
majestic mien, muffled in the folds of a long dark riding-cloak, en-
tered the apartment.

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CHAPTER VII

This is he
Who rides on the court-gale; controls its tides;
Knows all their secret shoals and fatal eddies;
Whose frown abases, and whose smile exalts.
He shines like any rainbow—and, perchance,
His colours are as transient.

—Old Play.

THERE WAS SOME little displeasure and confusion on the Countess’s

brow, owing to her struggle with Varney’s pertinacity; but it was
exchanged for an expression of the purest joy and affection, as she
threw herself into the arms of the noble stranger who entered, and
clasping him to her bosom, exclaimed, “At length—at length thou
art come!”
Varney discreetly withdrew as his lord entered, and Janet was about
to do the same, when her mistress signed to her to remain. She took
her place at the farther end of the apartment, and continued stand-
ing, as if ready for attendance.
Meanwhile the Earl, for he was of no inferior rank, returned his
lady’s caress with the most affectionate ardour, but affected to resist
when she strove to take his cloak from him.
“Nay,” she said, “but I will unmantle you. I must see if you have
kept your word to me, and come as the great Earl men call thee, and
not as heretofore like a private cavalier.”
“Thou art like the rest of the world, Amy,” said the Earl, suffering
her to prevail in the playful contest; “the jewels, and feathers, and

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silk are more to them than the man whom they adorn—many a
poor blade looks gay in a velvet scabbard.”
“But so cannot men say of thee, thou noble Earl,” said his lady, as
the cloak dropped on the floor, and showed him dressed as princes
when they ride abroad; “thou art the good and well-tried steel, whose
inly worth deserves, yet disdains, its outward ornaments. Do not
think Amy can love thee better in this glorious garb than she did
when she gave her heart to him who wore the russet-brown cloak in
the woods of Devon.”
“And thou too,” said the Earl, as gracefully and majestically he led
his beautiful Countess towards the chair of state which was pre-
pared for them both—“thou too, my love, hast donned a dress which
becomes thy rank, though it cannot improve thy beauty. What
think’st thou of our court taste?”
The lady cast a sidelong glance upon the great mirror as they passed
it by, and then said, “I know not how it is, but I think not of my
own person while I look at the reflection of thine. Sit thou there,”
she said, as they approached the chair of state, “like a thing for men
to worship and to wonder at.”
“Ay, love,” said the Earl, “if thou wilt share my state with me.”
“Not so,” said the Countess; “I will sit on this footstool at thy
feet, that I may spell over thy splendour, and learn, for the first
time, how princes are attired.”
And with a childish wonder, which her youth and rustic educa-
tion rendered not only excusable but becoming, mixed as it was
with a delicate show of the most tender conjugal affection, she ex-
amined and admired from head to foot the noble form and princely
attire of him who formed the proudest ornament of the court of
England’s Maiden Queen, renowned as it was for splendid court-
iers, as well as for wise counsellors. Regarding affectionately his lovely
bride, and gratified by her unrepressed admiration, the dark eye
and noble features of the Earl expressed passions more gentle than
the commanding and aspiring look which usually sat upon his broad
forehead, and in the piercing brilliancy of his dark eye; and he smiled
at the simplicity which dictated the questions she put to him con-
cerning the various ornaments with which he was decorated.
“The embroidered strap, as thou callest it, around my knee,” he

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said, “is the English Garter, an ornament which kings are proud to
wear. See, here is the star which belongs to it, and here the Dia-
mond George, the jewel of the order. You have heard how King
Edward and the Countess of Salisbury—”
“Oh, I know all that tale,” said the Countess, slightly blushing,
“and how a lady’s garter became the proudest badge of English chiv-
alry.”
“Even so,” said the Earl; “and this most honourable Order I had
the good hap to receive at the same time with three most noble
associates, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Northampton, and
the Earl of Rutland. I was the lowest of the four in rank—but what
then? he that climbs a ladder must begin at the first round.”
“But this other fair collar, so richly wrought, with some jewel like
a sheep hung by the middle attached to it, what,” said the young
Countess, “does that emblem signify?”
“This collar,” said the Earl, “with its double fusilles interchanged
with these knobs, which are supposed to present flint-stones spar-
kling with fire, and sustaining the jewel you inquire about, is the
badge of the noble Order of the Golden Fleece, once appertaining
to the House of Burgundy it hath high privileges, my Amy, belong-
ing to it, this most noble Order; for even the King of Spain himself,
who hath now succeeded to the honours and demesnes of Burgundy,
may not sit in judgment upon a knight of the Golden Fleece, unless
by assistance and consent of the Great Chapter of the Order.”
“And is this an Order belonging to the cruel King of Spain?” said
the Countess. “Alas! my noble lord, that you will defile your noble
English breast by bearing such an emblem! Bethink you of the most
unhappy Queen Mary’s days, when this same Philip held sway with
her in England, and of the piles which were built for our noblest,
and our wisest, and our most truly sanctified prelates and divines—
and will you, whom men call the standard-bearer of the true Protes-
tant faith, be contented to wear the emblem and mark of such a
Romish tyrant as he of Spain?”
“Oh, content you, my love,” answered the Earl; “we who spread
our sails to gales of court favour cannot always display the ensigns
we love the best, or at all times refuse sailing under colours which
we like not. Believe me, I am not the less good Protestant, that for

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policy I must accept the honour offered me by Spain, in admitting

me to this his highest order of knighthood. Besides, it belongs prop-
erly to Flanders; and Egmont, Orange, and others have pride in
seeing it displayed on an English bosom.”
“Nay, my lord, you know your own path best,” replied the Count-
ess. “And this other collar, to what country does this fair jewel be-
long?”
“To a very poor one, my love,” replied the Earl; “this is the Order
of Saint Andrew, revived by the last James of Scotland. It was be-
stowed on me when it was thought the young widow of France and
Scotland would gladly have wedded an English baron; but a free
coronet of England is worth a crown matrimonial held at the humour
of a woman, and owning only the poor rocks and bogs of the north.”
The Countess paused, as if what the Earl last said had excited
some painful but interesting train of thought; and, as she still re-
mained silent, her husband proceeded:—
“And now, loveliest, your wish is gratified, and you have seen your
vassal in such of his trim array as accords with riding vestments; for
robes of state and coronets are only for princely halls.”
“Well, then,” said the Countess, “my gratified wish has, as usual,
given rise to a new one.”
“And what is it thou canst ask that I can deny?” said the fond
husband.
“I wished to see my Earl visit this obscure and secret bower,” said
the Countess, “in all his princely array; and now, methinks I long to
sit in one of his princely halls, and see him enter dressed in sober
russet, as when he won poor Amy Robsart’s heart.”
“That is a wish easily granted,” said the Earl—“the sober russet
shall be donned to-morrow, if you will.”
“But shall I,” said the lady, “go with you to one of your castles, to
see how the richness of your dwelling will correspond with your
peasant habit?”
“Why, Amy,” said the Earl, looking around, “are not these apart-
ments decorated with sufficient splendour? I gave the most un-
bounded order, and, methinks, it has been indifferently well obeyed;
but if thou canst tell me aught which remains to be done, I will
instantly give direction.”

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“Nay, my lord, now you mock me,” replied the Countess; “the
gaiety of this rich lodging exceeds my imagination as much as it
does my desert. But shall not your wife, my love—at least one day
soon—be surrounded with the honour which arises neither from
the toils of the mechanic who decks her apartment, nor from the
silks and jewels with which your generosity adorns her, but which is
attached to her place among the matronage, as the avowed wife of
England’s noblest Earl?”
“One day?” said her husband. “Yes, Amy, my love, one day this
shall surely happen; and, believe me, thou canst not wish for that
day more fondly than I. With what rapture could I retire from labours
of state, and cares and toils of ambition, to spend my life in dignity
and honour on my own broad domains, with thee, my lovely Amy,
for my friend and companion! But, Amy, this cannot yet be; and
these dear but stolen interviews are all I can give to the loveliest and
the best beloved of her sex.”
“But WHY can it not be?” urged the Countess, in the softest tones
of persuasion—”why can it not immediately take place—this more
perfect, this uninterrupted union, for which you say you wish, and
which the laws of God and man alike command? Ah! did you but
desire it half as much as you say, mighty and favoured as you are,
who or what should bar your attaining your wish?”
The Earl’s brow was overcast.
“Amy,” he said, “you speak of what you understand not. We that
toil in courts are like those who climb a mountain of loose sand —
we dare make no halt until some projecting rock affords us a secure
footing and resting-place. If we pause sooner, we slide down by our
own weight, an object of universal derision. I stand high, but I stand
not secure enough to follow my own inclination. To declare my
marriage were to be the artificer of my own ruin. But, believe me, I
will reach a point, and that speedily, when I can do justice to thee
and to myself. Meantime, poison not the bliss of the present mo-
ment, by desiring that which cannot at present be, Let me rather
know whether all here is managed to thy liking. How does Foster
bear himself to you?—in all things respectful, I trust, else the fellow
shall dearly rue it.”
“He reminds me sometimes of the necessity of this privacy,” an-

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swered the lady, with a sigh; “but that is reminding me of your

wishes, and therefore I am rather bound to him than disposed to
blame him for it.”
“I have told you the stern necessity which is upon us,” replied the
Earl. “Foster is, I note, somewhat sullen of mood; but Varney war-
rants to me his fidelity and devotion to my service. If thou hast
aught, however, to complain of the mode in which he discharges his
duty, he shall abye it.”
“Oh, I have nought to complain of,” answered the lady, “so he
discharges his task with fidelity to you; and his daughter Janet is the
kindest and best companion of my solitude—her little air of preci-
sion sits so well upon her!”
“Is she indeed?” said the Earl. “She who gives you pleasure must
not pass unrewarded.—Come hither, damsel.”
“Janet,” said the lady, “come hither to my lord.”
Janet, who, as we already noticed, had discreetly retired to some
distance, that her presence might be no check upon the private con-
versation of her lord and lady, now came forward; and as she made
her reverential curtsy, the Earl could not help smiling at the con-
trast which the extreme simplicity of her dress, and the prim de-
mureness of her looks, made with a very pretty countenance and a
pair of black eyes, that laughed in spite of their mistress’s desire to
look grave.
“I am bound to you, pretty damsel,” said the Earl, “for the con-
tentment which your service hath given to this lady.” As he said
this, he took from his finger a ring of some price, and offered it to
Janet Foster, adding, “Wear this, for her sake and for mine.”
“I am well pleased, my lord,” answered Janet demurely, “that my
poor service hath gratified my lady, whom no one can draw nigh to
without desiring to please; but we of the precious Master Holdforth’s
congregation seek not, like the gay daughters of this world, to twine
gold around our fingers, or wear stones upon our necks, like the
vain women of Tyre and of Sidon.”
“Oh, what! you are a grave professor of the precise sisterhood,
pretty Mistress Janet,” said the Earl, “and I think your father is of
the same congregation in sincerity? I like you both the better for it;
for I have been prayed for, and wished well to, in your congrega-

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tions. And you may the better afford the lack of ornament, Mistress
Janet, because your fingers are slender, and your neck white. But
here is what neither Papist nor Puritan, latitudinarian nor precisian,
ever boggles or makes mouths at. E’en take it, my girl, and employ
it as you list.”
So saying, he put into her hand five broad gold pieces of Philip
and Mary,
“I would not accept this gold either,” said Janet, “but that I hope
to find a use for it which will bring a blessing on us all.”
“Even please thyself, pretty Janet,” said the Earl, “and I shall be
well satisfied. And I prithee let them hasten the evening collation.”
“I have bidden Master Varney and Master Foster to sup with us,
my lord,” said the Countess, as Janet retired to obey the Earl’s com-
mands; “has it your approbation?”
“What you do ever must have so, my sweet Amy,” replied her
husband; “and I am the better pleased thou hast done them this
grace, because Richard Varney is my sworn man, and a close brother
of my secret council; and for the present, I must needs repose much
trust in this Anthony Foster.”
“I had a boon to beg of thee, and a secret to tell thee, my dear
lord,” said the Countess, with a faltering accent.
“Let both be for to-morrow, my love,” replied the Earl. “I see they
open the folding-doors into the banqueting-parlour, and as I have
ridden far and fast, a cup of wine will not be unacceptable.”
So saying he led his lovely wife into the next apartment, where
Varney and Foster received them with the deepest reverences, which
the first paid after the fashion of the court, and the second after that
of the congregation. The Earl returned their salutation with the
negligent courtesy of one long used to such homage; while the
Countess repaid it with a punctilious solicitude, which showed it
was not quite so familiar to her.
The banquet at which the company seated themselves corre-
sponded in magnificence with the splendour of the apartment in
which it was served up, but no domestic gave his attendance. Janet
alone stood ready to wait upon the company; and, indeed, the board
was so well supplied with all that could be desired, that little or no
assistance was necessary. The Earl and his lady occupied the upper

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end of the table, and Varney and Foster sat beneath the salt, as was
the custom with inferiors. The latter, overawed perhaps by society
to which he was altogether unused, did not utter a single syllable
during the repast; while Varney, with great tact and discernment,
sustained just so much of the conversation as, without the appear-
ance of intrusion on his part, prevented it from languishing, and
maintained the good-humour of the Earl at the highest pitch. This
man was indeed highly qualified by nature to discharge the part in
which he found himself placed, being discreet and cautious on the
one hand, and, on the other, quick, keen-witted, and imaginative;
so that even the Countess, prejudiced as she was against him on
many accounts, felt and enjoyed his powers of conversation, and
was more disposed than she had ever hitherto found herself to join
in the praises which the Earl lavished on his favourite. The hour of
rest at length arrived, the Earl and Countess retired to their apart-
ment, and all was silent in the castle for the rest of the night.
Early on the ensuing morning, Varney acted as the Earl’s cham-
berlain as well as his master of horse, though the latter was his proper
office in that magnificent household, where knights and gentlemen
of good descent were well contented to hold such menial situations,
as nobles themselves held in that of the sovereign. The duties of
each of these charges were familiar to Varney, who, sprung from an
ancient but somewhat decayed family, was the Earl’s page during
his earlier and more obscure fortunes, and, faithful to him in adver-
sity, had afterwards contrived to render himself no less useful to
him in his rapid and splendid advance to fortune; thus establishing
in him an interest resting both on present and past services, which
rendered him an almost indispensable sharer of his confidence.
“Help me to do on a plainer riding-suit, Varney,” said the Earl, as
he laid aside his morning-gown, flowered with silk and lined with
sables, “and put these chains and fetters there” (pointing to the col-
lars of the various Orders which lay on the table) “into their place of
security—my neck last night was well-nigh broke with the weight
of them. I am half of the mind that they shall gall me no more.
They are bonds which knaves have invented to fetter fools. How
thinkest thou, Varney?”
“Faith, my good lord,” said his attendant, “I think fetters of gold

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are like no other fetters—they are ever the weightier the welcomer.”
“For all that, Varney,” replied his master, “I am well-nigh resolved
they shall bind me to the court no longer. What can further service
and higher favour give me, beyond the high rank and large estate
which I have already secured? What brought my father to the block,
but that he could not bound his wishes within right and reason? I
have, you know, had mine own ventures and mine own escapes. I
am well-nigh resolved to tempt the sea no further, but sit me down
in quiet on the shore.”
“And gather cockle-shells, with Dan Cupid to aid you,” said Varney.
“How mean you by that, Varney?” said the Earl somewhat hastily.
“Nay, my lord,” said Varney, “be not angry with me. If your lord-
ship is happy in a lady so rarely lovely that, in order to enjoy her
company with somewhat more freedom, you are willing to part with
all you have hitherto lived for, some of your poor servants may be
sufferers; but your bounty hath placed me so high, that I shall ever
have enough to maintain a poor gentleman in the rank befitting the
high office he has held in your lordship’s family.”
“Yet you seem discontented when I propose throwing up a dan-
gerous game, which may end in the ruin of both of us.”
“I, my lord?” said Varney; “surely I have no cause to regret your
lordship’s retreat! It will not be Richard Varney who will incur the
displeasure of majesty, and the ridicule of the court, when the state-
liest fabric that ever was founded upon a prince’s favour melts away
like a morning frost-work. I would only have you yourself to be
assured, my lord, ere you take a step which cannot be retracted, that
you consult your fame and happiness in the course you propose.”
“Speak on, then, Varney,” said the Earl; “I tell thee I have deter-
mined nothing, and will weigh all considerations on either side.”
“Well, then, my lord,” replied Varney, “we will suppose the step
taken, the frown frowned, the laugh laughed, and the moan moaned.
You have retired, we will say, to some one of your most distant castles,
so far from court that you hear neither the sorrow of your friends nor
the glee of your enemies, We will suppose, too, that your successful
rival will be satisfied (a thing greatly to be doubted) with abridging
and cutting away the branches of the great tree which so long kept the
sun from him, and that he does not insist upon tearing you up by the

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roots. Well; the late prime favourite of England, who wielded her
general’s staff and controlled her parliaments, is now a rural baron,
hunting, hawking, drinking fat ale with country esquires, and mus-
tering his men at the command of the high sheriff—”
“Varney, forbear!” said the Earl.
“Nay, my lord, you must give me leave to conclude my picture.
—Sussex governs England—the Queen’s health fails—the succes-
sion is to be settled—a road is opened to ambition more splendid
than ambition ever dreamed of. You hear all this as you sit by the
hob, under the shade of your hall-chimney. You then begin to think
what hopes you have fallen from, and what insignificance you have
embraced; and all that you might look babies in the eyes of your fair
wife oftener than once a fortnight,”
“I say, Varney,” said the Earl, “no more of this. I said not that the
step, which my own ease and comfort would urge me to, was to be
taken hastily, or without due consideration to the public safety. Bear
witness to me, Varney; I subdue my wishes of retirement, not be-
cause I am moved by the call of private ambition, but that I may
preserve the position in which I may best serve my country at the
hour of need.—Order our horses presently; I will wear, as formerly,
one of the livery cloaks, and ride before the portmantle. Thou shalt
be master for the day, Varney—neglect nothing that can blind sus-
picion. We will to horse ere men are stirring. I will but take leave of
my lady, and be ready. I impose a restraint on my own poor heart,
and wound one yet more dear to me; but the patriot must subdue
the husband.
Having said this in a melancholy but firm accent, he left the dress-
ing apartment.
“I am glad thou art gone,” thought Varney, “or, practised as I am
in the follies of mankind, I had laughed in the very face of thee!
Thou mayest tire as thou wilt of thy new bauble, thy pretty piece of
painted Eve’s flesh there, I will not be thy hindrance. But of thine
old bauble, ambition, thou shalt not tire; for as you climb the hill,
my lord, you must drag Richard Varney up with you, and if he can
urge you to the ascent he means to profit by, believe me he will
spare neither whip nor spur, and for you, my pretty lady, that would
be Countess outright, you were best not thwart my courses, lest you

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are called to an old reckoning on a new score. ‘Thou shalt be mas-

ter,’ did he say? By my faith, he may find that he spoke truer than
he is aware of; and thus he who, in the estimation of so many wise-
judging men, can match Burleigh and Walsingham in policy, and
Sussex in war, becomes pupil to his own menial—and all for a hazel
eye and a little cunning red and white, and so falls ambition. And
yet if the charms of mortal woman could excuse a man’s politic pate
for becoming bewildered, my lord had the excuse at his right hand
on this blessed evening that has last passed over us. Well—let things
roll as they may, he shall make me great, or I will make myself happy;
and for that softer piece of creation, if she speak not out her inter-
view with Tressilian, as well I think she dare not, she also must traf-
fic with me for concealment and mutual support, in spite of all this
scorn. I must to the stables. Well, my lord, I order your retinue
now; the time may soon come that my master of the horse shall
order mine own. What was Thomas Cromwell but a smith’s son?
and he died my lord—on a scaffold, doubtless, but that, too, was in
character. And what was Ralph Sadler but the clerk of Cromwell?
and he has gazed eighteen fair lordships—via! I know my steerage
as well as they.”
So saying, he left the apartment.
In the meanwhile the Earl had re-entered the bedchamber, bent
on taking a hasty farewell of the lovely Countess, and scarce daring
to trust himself in private with her, to hear requests again urged
which he found it difficult to parry, yet which his recent conversa-
tion with his master of horse had determined him not to grant.
He found her in a white cymar of silk lined with furs, her little
feet unstockinged and hastily thrust into slippers; her unbraided
hair escaping from under her midnight coif, with little array but her
own loveliness, rather augmented than diminished by the grief which
she felt at the approaching moment of separation.
“Now, God be with thee, my dearest and loveliest!” said the Earl,
scarce tearing himself from her embrace, yet again returning to fold
her again and again in his arms, and again bidding farewell, and
again returning to kiss and bid adieu once more. “The sun is on the
verge of the blue horizon—I dare not stay. Ere this I should have
been ten miles from hence.”

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Such were the words with which at length he strove to cut short
their parting interview. “You will not grant my request, then?” said
the Countess. “Ah, false knight! did ever lady, with bare foot in
slipper, seek boon of a brave knight, yet return with denial?”
“Anything, Amy, anything thou canst ask I will grant,” answered
the Earl—”always excepting,” he said, “that which might ruin us
both.”
“Nay,” said the Countess, “I urge not my wish to be acknowl-
edged in the character which would make me the envy of England—
as the wife, that is, of my brave and noble lord, the first as the most
fondly beloved of English nobles. Let me but share the secret with
my dear father! Let me but end his misery on my unworthy ac-
count—they say he is ill, the good old kind-hearted man!”
“They say?” asked the Earl hastily; “who says? Did not Varney
convey to Sir Hugh all we dare at present tell him concerning your
happiness and welfare? and has he not told you that the good old
knight was following, with good heart and health, his favourite and
wonted exercise. Who has dared put other thoughts into your head?”
“Oh, no one, my lord, no one,” said the Countess, something
alarmed at the tone, in which the question was put; “but yet, my
lord, I would fain be assured by mine own eyesight that my father is
well.”
“Be contented, Amy; thou canst not now have communication
with thy father or his house. Were it not a deep course of policy to
commit no secret unnecessarily to the custody of more than must
needs be, it were sufficient reason for secrecy that yonder Cornish
man, yonder Trevanion, or Tressilian, or whatever his name is, haunts
the old knight’s house, and must necessarily know whatever is com-
municated there.”
“My lord,” answered the Countess, “I do not think it so. My fa-
ther has been long noted a worthy and honourable man; and for
Tressilian, if we can pardon ourselves the ill we have wrought him, I
will wager the coronet I am to share with you one day that he is
incapable of returning injury for injury.”
“I will not trust him, however, Amy,” said her husband—”by my
honour, I will not trust him, I would rather the foul fiend inter-
mingle in our secret than this Tressilian!”

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“And why, my lord?” said the Countess, though she shuddered

slightly at the tone of determination in which he spoke; “let me but
know why you think thus hardly of Tressilian?”
“Madam,” replied the Earl, “my will ought to be a sufficient rea-
son. If you desire more, consider how this Tressilian is leagued, and
with whom. He stands high in the opinion of this Radcliffe, this
Sussex, against whom I am barely able to maintain my ground in
the opinion of our suspicious mistress; and if he had me at such
advantage, Amy, as to become acquainted with the tale of our mar-
riage, before Elizabeth were fitly prepared, I were an outcast from
her grace for ever—a bankrupt at once in favour and in fortune,
perhaps, for she hath in her a touch of her father Henry—a victim,
and it may be a bloody one, to her offended and jealous resent-
ment.”
“But why, my lord,” again urged his lady, “should you deem thus
injuriously of a man of whom you know so little? What you do
know of Tressilian is through me, and it is I who assure you that in
no circumstances will be betray your secret. If I did him wrong in
your behalf, my lord, I am now the more concerned you should do
him justice. You are offended at my speaking of him, what would
you say had I actually myself seen him?”
“If you had,” replied the Earl, “you would do well to keep that
interview as secret as that which is spoken in a confessional. I seek
no one’s ruin; but he who thrusts himself on my secret privacy were
better look well to his future walk. The bear [The Leicester cogni-
zance was the ancient device adopted by his father, when Earl of
Warwick, the bear and ragged staff.] brooks no one to cross his
awful path.”
“Awful, indeed!” said the Countess, turning very pale.
“You are ill, my love,” said the Earl, supporting her in his arms.
“Stretch yourself on your couch again; it is but an early day for you
to leave it. Have you aught else, involving less than my fame, my
fortune, and my life, to ask of me?”
“Nothing, my lord and love,” answered the Countess faintly;
“something there was that I would have told you, but your anger
has driven it from my recollection.”
“Reserve it till our next meeting, my love,” said the Earl fondly,

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and again embracing her; “and barring only those requests which I
cannot and dare not grant, thy wish must be more than England
and all its dependencies can fulfil, if it is not gratified to the letter.”
Thus saying, he at length took farewell. At the bottom of the
staircase he received from Varney an ample livery cloak and slouched
hat, in which he wrapped himself so as to disguise his person and
completely conceal his features. Horses were ready in the courtyard
for himself and Varney; for one or two of his train, intrusted with
the secret so far as to know or guess that the Earl intrigued with a
beautiful lady at that mansion, though her name and duality were
unknown to them, had already been dismissed over-night.
Anthony Foster himself had in hand the rein of the Earl’s palfrey,
a stout and able nag for the road; while his old serving-man held the
bridle of the more showy and gallant steed which Richard Varney
was to occupy in the character of master.
As the Earl approached, however, Varney advanced to hold his
master’s bridle, and to prevent Foster from paying that duty to the
Earl which he probably considered as belonging to his own office.
Foster scowled at an interference which seemed intended to prevent
his paying his court to his patron, but gave place to Varney; and the
Earl, mounting without further observation, and forgetting that his
assumed character of a domestic threw him into the rear of his sup-
posed master, rode pensively out of the quadrangle, not without wav-
ing his hand repeatedly in answer to the signals which were made by
the Countess with her kerchief from the windows of her apartment.
While his stately form vanished under the dark archway which
led out of the quadrangle, Varney muttered, “There goes fine policy
—the servant before the master!” then as he disappeared, seized the
moment to speak a word with Foster. “Thou look’st dark on me,
Anthony,” he said, “as if I had deprived thee of a parting nod of my
lord; but I have moved him to leave thee a better remembrance for
thy faithful service. See here! a purse of as good gold as ever chinked
under a miser’s thumb and fore-finger. Ay, count them, lad,” said
he, as Foster received the gold with a grim smile, “and add to them
the goodly remembrance he gave last night to Janet.”
“How’s this? how’s this?” said Anthony Foster hastily; “gave he
gold to Janet?”

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“Ay, man, wherefore not?—does not her service to his fair lady
require guerdon?”
“She shall have none on’t,” said Foster; “she shall return it. I know
his dotage on one face is as brief as it is deep. His affections are as
fickle as the moon.”
“Why, Foster, thou art mad—thou dost not hope for such good
fortune as that my lord should cast an eye on Janet? Who, in the
fiend’s name, would listen to the thrush while the nightingale is
singing?”
“Thrush or nightingale, all is one to the fowler; and, Master Varney,
you can sound the quail-pipe most daintily to wile wantons into his
nets. I desire no such devil’s preferment for Janet as you have brought
many a poor maiden to. Dost thou laugh? I will keep one limb of
my family, at least, from Satan’s clutches, that thou mayest rely on.
She shall restore the gold.”
“Ay, or give it to thy keeping, Tony, which will serve as well,”
answered Varney; “but I have that to say which is more serious. Our
lord is returning to court in an evil humour for us.”
“How meanest thou?” said Foster. “Is he tired already of his pretty
toy—his plaything yonder? He has purchased her at a monarch’s
ransom, and I warrant me he rues his bargain.”
“Not a whit, Tony,” answered the master of the horse; “he dotes
on her, and will forsake the court for her. Then down go hopes,
possessions, and safety—church-lands are resumed, Tony, and well
if the holders be not called to account in Exchequer.”
“That were ruin,” said Foster, his brow darkening with apprehen-
sions; “and all this for a woman! Had it been for his soul’s sake, it
were something; and I sometimes wish I myself could fling away
the world that cleaves to me, and be as one of the poorest of our
church.”
“Thou art like enough to be so, Tony,” answered Varney; “but I
think the devil will give thee little credit for thy compelled poverty,
and so thou losest on all hands. But follow my counsel, and Cumnor
Place shall be thy copyhold yet. Say nothing of this Tressilian’s visit—
not a word until I give thee notice.”
“And wherefore, I pray you?” asked Foster, suspiciously.
“Dull beast!” replied Varney. “In my lord’s present humour it were

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the ready way to confirm him in his resolution of retirement, should

he know that his lady was haunted with such a spectre in his ab-
sence. He would be for playing the dragon himself over his golden
fruit, and then, Tony, thy occupation is ended. A word to the wise.
Farewell! I must follow him.”
He turned his horse, struck him with the spurs, and rode off un-
der the archway in pursuit of his lord.
“Would thy occupation were ended, or thy neck broken, damned
pander!” said Anthony Foster. “But I must follow his beck, for his
interest and mine are the same, and he can wind the proud Earl to
his will. Janet shall give me those pieces though; they shall be laid
out in some way for God’s service, and I will keep them separate in
my strong chest, till I can fall upon a fitting employment for them.
No contagious vapour shall breathe on Janet—she shall remain pure
as a blessed spirit, were it but to pray God for her father. I need her
prayers, for I am at a hard pass. Strange reports are abroad concern-
ing my way of life. The congregation look cold on me, and when
Master Holdforth spoke of hypocrites being like a whited sepul-
chre, which within was full of dead men’s bones, methought he
looked full at me. The Romish was a comfortable faith; Lambourne
spoke true in that. A man had but to follow his thrift by such ways
as offered—tell his beads, hear a mass, confess, and be absolved.
These Puritans tread a harder and a rougher path; but I will try—I
will read my Bible for an hour ere I again open mine iron chest.”
Varney, meantime, spurred after his lord, whom he found waiting
for him at the postern gate of the park.
“You waste time, Varney,” said the Earl, “and it presses. I must be
at Woodstock before I can safely lay aside my disguise, and till then
I journey in some peril.”
“It is but two hours’ brisk riding, my lord,” said Varney. “For me,
I only stopped to enforce your commands of care and secrecy on
yonder Foster, and to inquire about the abode of the gentleman
whom I would promote to your lordship’s train, in the room of
Trevors.”
“Is he fit for the meridian of the antechamber, think’st thou?” said
the Earl.
“He promises well, my lord,” replied Varney ; “but if your lord-

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ship were pleased to ride on, I could go back to Cumnor, and bring
him to your lordship at Woodstock before you are out of bed.”
“Why, I am asleep there, thou knowest, at this moment,” said the
Earl; “and I pray you not to spare horse-flesh, that you may be with
me at my levee.”
So saying, he gave his horse the spur, and proceeded on his jour-
ney, while Varney rode back to Cumnor by the public road, avoid-
ing the park. The latter alighted at the door of the bonny Black
Bear, and desired to speak with Master Michael Lambourne, That
respectable character was not long of appearing before his new pa-
tron, but it was with downcast looks.
“Thou hast lost the scent,” said Varney, “of thy comrade Tressilian.
I know it by thy bang-dog visage. Is this thy alacrity, thou impudent
knave?”
“Cogswounds!” said Lambourne, “there was never a trail so finely
hunted. I saw him to earth at mine uncle’s here—stuck to him like
bees’-wax—saw him at supper—watched him to his chamber, and,
presto! he is gone next morning, the very hostler knows not where.”
“This sounds like practice upon me, sir,” replied Varney; “and if it
proves so, by my soul you shall repent it!”
“Sir, the best hound will be sometimes at fault,” answered
Lambourne; “how should it serve me that this fellow should have
thus evanished? You may ask mine host, Giles Gosling—ask the
tapster and hostler—ask Cicely, and the whole household, how I
kept eyes on Tressilian while he was on foot. On my soul, I could
not be expected to watch him like a sick nurse, when I had seen him
fairly a-bed in his chamber. That will be allowed me, surely.”
Varney did, in fact, make some inquiry among the household,
which confirmed the truth of Lambourne’s statement. Tressilian, it
was unanimously agreed, had departed suddenly and unexpectedly,
betwixt night and morning.
“But I will wrong no one,” said mine host; “he left on the table in
his lodging the full value of his reckoning, with some allowance to
the servants of the house, which was the less necessary that he saddled
his own gelding, as it seems, without the hostler’s assistance.”
Thus satisfied of the rectitude of Lambourne’s conduct, Varney be-
gan to talk to him upon his future prospects, and the mode in which

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he meant to bestow himself, intimating that he understood from Fos-

ter he was not disinclined to enter into the household of a nobleman.
“Have you,” said he, “ever been at court?”
“No,” replied Lambourne; “but ever since I was ten years old, I
have dreamt once a week that I was there, and made my fortune.”
“It may be your own fault if your dream comes not true,” said
Varney. “Are you needy?”
“Um!” replied Lambourne; “I love pleasure.”
“That is a sufficient answer, and an honest one,” said Varney.
“Know you aught of the requisites expected from the retainer of a
rising courtier?”
“I have imagined them to myself, sir,” answered Lambourne; “as,
for example, a quick eye, a close mouth, a ready and bold hand, a
sharp wit, and a blunt conscience.”
“And thine, I suppose,” said Varney, “has had its edge blunted
long since?”
“I cannot remember, sir, that its edge was ever over-keen,” replied
Lambourne. “When I was a youth, I had some few whimsies; but I
rubbed them partly out of my recollection on the rough grindstone
of the wars, and what remained I washed out in the broad waves of
the Atlantic.”
“Thou hast served, then, in the Indies?”
“In both East and West,” answered the candidate for court ser-
vice, “by both sea and land. I have served both the Portugal and the
Spaniard, both the Dutchman and the Frenchman, and have made
war on our own account with a crew of jolly fellows, who held there
was no peace beyond the Line.” [Sir Francis Drake, Morgan, and
many a bold buccaneer of those days, were, in fact, little better than
pirates.]
“Thou mayest do me, and my lord, and thyself, good service,”
said Varney, after a pause. “But observe, I know the world—and
answer me truly, canst thou be faithful?”
“Did you not know the world,” answered Lambourne, “it were
my duty to say ay, without further circumstance, and to swear to it
with life and honour, and so forth. But as it seems to me that your
worship is one who desires rather honest truth than politic false-
hood, I reply to you, that I can be faithful to the gallows’ foot, ay, to

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the loop that dangles from it, if I am well used and well recom-
pensed—not otherwise.”
“To thy other virtues thou canst add, no doubt,” said Varney, in a
jeering tone, “the knack of seeming serious and religious, when the
moment demands it?”
“It would cost me nothing,” said Lambourne, “to say yes; but, to
speak on the square, I must needs say no. If you want a hypocrite,
you may take Anthony Foster, who, from his childhood, had some
sort of phantom haunting him, which he called religion, though it
was that sort of godliness which always ended in being great gain.
But I have no such knack of it.”
“Well,” replied Varney, “if thou hast no hypocrisy, hast thou not a
nag here in the stable?”
“Ay, sir,” said Lambourne, “that shall take hedge and ditch with
my Lord Duke’s best hunters. Then I made a little mistake on
Shooter’s Hill, and stopped an ancient grazier whose pouches were
better lined than his brain-pan, the bonny bay nag carried me sheer
off in spite of the whole hue and cry.”
“Saddle him then instantly, and attend me,” said Varney. “Leave
thy clothes and baggage under charge of mine host; and I will con-
duct thee to a service, in which, if thou do not better thyself, the
fault shall not be fortune’s, but thine own.”
“Brave and hearty!” said Lambourne, “and I am mounted in an
instant.—Knave, hostler, saddle my nag without the loss of one
second, as thou dost value the safety of thy noddle.—Pretty Cicely,
take half this purse to comfort thee for my sudden departure.”
“Gogsnouns!” replied the father, “Cicely wants no such token from
thee. Go away, Mike, and gather grace if thou canst, though I think
thou goest not to the land where it grows.”
“Let me look at this Cicely of thine, mine host,” said Varney; “I
have heard much talk of her beauty.”
“It is a sunburnt beauty,” said mine host, “well qualified to stand
out rain and wind, but little calculated to please such critical gal-
lants as yourself. She keeps her chamber, and cannot encounter the
glance of such sunny-day courtiers as my noble guest.”
“Well, peace be with her, my good host,” answered Varney; “our
horses are impatient—we bid you good day.”

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“Does my nephew go with you, so please you?” said Gosling.

“Ay, such is his purpose,” answered Richard Varney.
“You are right—fully right,” replied mine host—“you are, I say,
fully right, my kinsman. Thou hast got a gay horse; see thou light not
unaware upon a halter—or, if thou wilt needs be made immortal by
means of a rope, which thy purpose of following this gentleman ren-
ders not unlikely, I charge thee to find a gallows as far from Cumnor
as thou conveniently mayest. And so I commend you to your saddle.”
The master of the horse and his new retainer mounted accord-
ingly, leaving the landlord to conclude his ill-omened farewell, to
himself and at leisure; and set off together at a rapid pace, which
prevented conversation until the ascent of a steep sandy hill permit-
ted them to resume it.
“You are contented, then,” said Varney to his companion, “to take
court service?”
“Ay, worshipful sir, if you like my terms as well as I like yours.”
“And what are your terms?” demanded Varney.
“If I am to have a quick eye for my patron’s interest, he must have
a dull one towards my faults,” said Lambourne.
“Ay,” said Varney, “so they lie not so grossly open that he must
needs break his shins over them.”
“Agreed,” said Lambourne. “Next, if I run down game, I must
have the picking of the bones.”
“That is but reason,” replied Varney, “so that your betters are served
before you.”
“Good,” said Lambourne; “and it only remains to be said, that if
the law and I quarrel, my patron must bear me out, for that is a
chief point.”
“Reason again,” said Varney, “if the quarrel hath happened in your
master’s service.”
“For the wage and so forth, I say nothing,” proceeded Lambourne;
“it is the secret guerdon that I must live by.”
“Never fear,” said Varney; “thou shalt have clothes and spending
money to ruffle it with the best of thy degree, for thou goest to a
household where you have gold, as they say, by the eye.”
“That jumps all with my humour,” replied Michael Lambourne;
“and it only remains that you tell me my master’s name.”

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“My name is Master Richard Varney,” answered his companion.

“But I mean,” said Lambourne, “the name of the noble lord to
whose service you are to prefer me.”
“How, knave, art thou too good to call me master?” said Varney
hastily; “I would have thee bold to others, but not saucy to me.”
“I crave your worship’s pardon,” said Lambourne, “but you seemed
familiar with Anthony Foster; now I am familiar with Anthony
myself.”
“Thou art a shrewd knave, I see,” replied Varney. “Mark me—I
do indeed propose to introduce thee into a nobleman’s household;
but it is upon my person thou wilt chiefly wait, and upon my coun-
tenance that thou wilt depend. I am his master of horse. Thou wilt
soon know his name—it is one that shakes the council and wields
the state.”
“By this light, a brave spell to conjure with,” said Lambourne, “if
a man would discover hidden treasures!”
“Used with discretion, it may prove so,” replied Varney; “but
mark—if thou conjure with it at thine own hand, it may raise a
devil who will tear thee in fragments.”
“Enough said,” replied Lambourne; “I will not exceed my limits.”
The travellers then resumed the rapid rate of travelling which their
discourse had interrupted, and soon arrived at the Royal Park of
Woodstock. This ancient possession of the crown of England was
then very different from what it had been when it was the residence
of the fair Rosamond, and the scene of Henry the Second’s secret
and illicit amours; and yet more unlike to the scene which it exhib-
its in the present day, when Blenheim House commemorates the
victory of Marlborough, and no less the genius of Vanbrugh, though
decried in his own time by persons of taste far inferior to his own. It
was, in Elizabeth’s time, an ancient mansion in bad repair, which
had long ceased to be honoured with the royal residence, to the
great impoverishment of the adjacent village. The inhabitants, how-
ever, had made several petitions to the Queen to have the favour of
the sovereign’s countenance occasionally bestowed upon them; and
upon this very business, ostensibly at least, was the noble lord, whom
we have already introduced to our readers, a visitor at Woodstock.
Varney and Lambourne galloped without ceremony into the court-

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yard of the ancient and dilapidated mansion, which presented on

that morning a scene of bustle which it had not exhibited for two
reigns. Officers of the Earl’s household, liverymen and retainers,
went and came with all the insolent fracas which attaches to their
profession. The neigh of horses and the baying of hounds were heard;
for my lord, in his occupation of inspecting and surveying the manor
and demesne, was of course provided with the means of following
his pleasure in the chase or park, said to have been the earliest that
was enclosed in England, and which was well stocked with deer that
had long roamed there unmolested. Several of the inhabitants of
the village, in anxious hope of a favourable result from this un-
wonted visit, loitered about the courtyard, and awaited the great
man’s coming forth. Their attention was excited by the hasty arrival
of Varney, and a murmur ran amongst them, “The Earl’s master of
the horse!” while they hurried to bespeak favour by hastily
unbonneting, and proffering to hold the bridle and stirrup of the
favoured retainer and his attendant.
“Stand somewhat aloof, my masters!” said Varney haughtily, “and
let the domestics do their office.”
The mortified citizens and peasants fell back at the signal; while
Lambourne, who had his eye upon his superior’s deportment, re-
pelled the services of those who offered to assist him, with yet more
discourtesy—“Stand back, Jack peasant, with a murrain to you, and
let these knave footmen do their duty!”
While they gave their nags to the attendants of the household, and
walked into the mansion with an air of superiority which long prac-
tice and consciousness of birth rendered natural to Varney, and which
Lambourne endeavoured to imitate as well as he could, the poor in-
habitants of Woodstock whispered to each other, “Well-a-day! God
save us from all such misproud princoxes! An the master be like the
men, why, the fiend may take all, and yet have no more than his due.”
“Silence, good neighbours!” said the bailiff, “keep tongue betwixt
teeth; we shall know more by-and-by. But never will a lord come to
Woodstock so welcome as bluff old King Harry! He would horse-
whip a fellow one day with his own royal hand, and then fling him
an handful of silver groats, with his own broad face on them, to
‘noint the sore withal.”

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“Ay, rest be with him!” echoed the auditors; “it will be long ere
this Lady Elizabeth horsewhip any of us.”
“There is no saying,” answered the bailiff. “Meanwhile, patience,
good neighbours, and let us comfort ourselves by thinking that we
deserve such notice at her Grace’s hands.”
Meanwhile, Varney, closely followed by his new dependant, made
his way to the hall, where men of more note and consequence than
those left in the courtyard awaited the appearance of the Earl, who
as yet kept his chamber. All paid court to Varney, with more or less
deference, as suited their own rank, or the urgency of the business
which brought them to his lord’s levee. To the general question of,
“When comes my lord forth, Master Varney?” he gave brief an-
swers, as, “See you not my boots? I am but just returned from Ox-
ford, and know nothing of it,” and the like, until the same query
was put in a higher tone by a personage of more importance. “I will
inquire of the chamberlain, Sir Thomas Copely,” was the reply. The
chamberlain, distinguished by his silver key, answered that the Earl
only awaited Master Varney’s return to come down, but that he
would first speak with him in his private chamber. Varney, there-
fore, bowed to the company, and took leave, to enter his lord’s apart-
ment.
There was a murmur of expectation which lasted a few minutes,
and was at length hushed by the opening of the folding-doors at the
upper end or the apartment, through which the Earl made his en-
trance, marshalled by his chamberlain and the steward of his family,
and followed by Richard Varney. In his noble mien and princely
features, men read nothing of that insolence which was practised by
his dependants. His courtesies were, indeed, measured by the rank
of those to whom they were addressed, but even the meanest person
present had a share of his gracious notice. The inquiries which he
made respecting the condition of the manor, of the Queen’s rights
there, and of the advantages and disadvantages which might attend
her occasional residence at the royal seat of Woodstock, seemed to
show that he had most earnestly investigated the matter of the peti-
tion of the inhabitants, and with a desire to forward the interest of
the place.
“Now the Lord love his noble countenance!” said the bailiff, who

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had thrust himself into the presence-chamber; “he looks somewhat

pale. I warrant him he hath spent the whole night in perusing our
memorial. Master Toughyarn, who took six months to draw it up,
said it would take a week to understand it; and see if the Earl hath
not knocked the marrow out of it in twenty-four hours!”
The Earl then acquainted them that he should move their sover-
eign to honour Woodstock occasionally with her residence during
her royal progresses, that the town and its vicinity might derive,
from her countenance and favour, the same advantages as from those
of her predecessors. Meanwhile, he rejoiced to be the expounder of
her gracious pleasure, in assuring them that, for the increase of trade
and encouragement of the worthy burgesses of Woodstock, her
Majesty was minded to erect the town into a Staple for wool.
This joyful intelligence was received with the acclamations not
only of the better sort who were admitted to the audience-chamber,
but of the commons who awaited without.
The freedom of the corporation was presented to the Earl upon
knee by the magistrates of the place, together with a purse of gold
pieces, which the Earl handed to Varney, who, on his part, gave a
share to Lambourne, as the most acceptable earnest of his new ser-
vice.
The Earl and his retinue took horse soon after to return to court,
accompanied by the shouts of the inhabitants of Woodstock, who
made the old oaks ring with re-echoing, “Long live Queen Eliza-
beth, and the noble Earl of Leicester!” The urbanity and courtesy of
the Earl even threw a gleam of popularity over his attendants, as
their haughty deportment had formerly obscured that of their mas-
ter; and men shouted, “Long life to the Earl, and to his gallant
followers!” as Varney and Lambourne, each in his rank, rode proudly
through the streets of Woodstock.

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CHAPTER VIII

Host. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the least,
keep your counsel.

—Merry Wives of Windswor.

IT BECOMES NECESSARY to return to the detail of those circumstances

which accompanied, and indeed occasioned, the sudden disappear-
ance of Tressilian from the sign of the Black Bear at Cumnor. It will
be recollected that this gentleman, after his rencounter with Varney,
had returned to Giles Gosling’s caravansary, where he shut himself
up in his own chamber, demanded pen, ink, and paper, and an-
nounced his purpose to remain private for the day. In the evening
he appeared again in the public room, where Michael Lambourne,
who had been on the watch for him, agreeably to his engagement to
Varney, endeavoured to renew his acquaintance with him, and hoped
he retained no unfriendly recollection of the part he had taken in
the morning’s scuffle.
But Tressilian repelled his advances firmly, though with civility.
“Master Lambourne,” said he, “I trust I have recompensed to your
pleasure the time you have wasted on me. Under the show of wild
bluntness which you exhibit, I know you have sense enough to un-
derstand me, when I say frankly that the object of our temporary
acquaintance having been accomplished, we must be strangers to
each other in future.”
“Voto!” said Lambourne, twirling his whiskers with one hand, and
grasping the hilt of his weapon with the other; “if I thought that
this usage was meant to insult me—”

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“You would bear it with discretion, doubtless,” interrupted

Tressilian, “as you must do at any rate. You know too well the dis-
tance that is betwixt us, to require me to explain myself further.
Good evening.”
So saying, he turned his back upon his former companion, and
entered into discourse with the landlord. Michael Lambourne felt
strongly disposed to bully; but his wrath died away in a few inco-
herent oaths and ejaculations, and he sank unresistingly under the
ascendency which superior spirits possess over persons of his habits
and description. He remained moody and silent in a corner of the
apartment, paying the most marked attention to every motion of
his late companion, against whom he began now to nourish a quar-
rel on his own account, which he trusted to avenge by the execution
of his new master Varney’s directions. The hour of supper arrived,
and was followed by that of repose, when Tressilian, like others,
retired to his sleeping apartment.
He had not been in bed long, when the train of sad reveries, which
supplied the place of rest in his disturbed mind, was suddenly inter-
rupted by the jar of a door on its hinges, and a light was seen to
glimmer in the apartment. Tressilian, who was as brave as steel, sprang
from his bed at this alarm, and had laid hand upon his sword, when
he was prevented from drawing it by a voice which said, “Be not too
rash with your rapier, Master Tressilian. It is I, your host, Giles
Gosling.”
At the same time, unshrouding the dark lantern, which had hith-
erto only emitted an indistinct glimmer, the goodly aspect and fig-
ure of the landlord of the Black Bear was visibly presented to his
astonished guest.
“What mummery is this, mine host?” said Tressilian. “Have you
supped as jollily as last night, and so mistaken your chamber? or is
midnight a time for masquerading it in your guest’s lodging?”
“Master Tressilian,” replied mine host, “I know my place and my
time as well as e’er a merry landlord in England. But here has been
my hang-dog kinsman watching you as close as ever cat watched a
mouse; and here have you, on the other hand, quarrelled and fought,
either with him or with some other person, and I fear that danger
will come of it.”

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“Go to, thou art but a fool, man,” said Tressilian. “Thy kinsman
is beneath my resentment; and besides, why shouldst thou think I
had quarrelled with any one whomsoever?”
“Oh, sir,” replied the innkeeper, “there was a red spot on thy very
cheek-bone, which boded of a late brawl, as sure as the conjunction
of Mars and Saturn threatens misfortune; and when you returned,
the buckles of your girdle were brought forward, and your step was
quick and hasty, and all things showed your hand and your hilt had
been lately acquainted.”
“Well, good mine host, if I have been obliged to draw my sword,”
said Tressilian, “why should such a circumstance fetch thee out of
thy warm bed at this time of night? Thou seest the mischief is all
over.”
“Under favour, that is what I doubt. Anthony Foster is a danger-
ous man, defended by strong court patronage, which hath borne
him out in matters of very deep concernment. And, then, my kins-
man—why, I have told you what he is; and if these two old cronies
have made up their old acquaintance, I would not, my worshipful
guest, that it should be at thy cost. I promise you, Mike Lambourne
has been making very particular inquiries at my hostler when and
which way you ride. Now, I would have you think whether you may
not have done or said something for which you may be waylaid,
and taken at disadvantage.”
“Thou art an honest man, mine host,” said Tressilian, after a
moment’s consideration, “and I will deal frankly with thee. If these
men’s malice is directed against me—as I deny not but it may—it is
because they are the agents of a more powerful villain than them-
selves.”
“You mean Master Richard Varney, do you not?” said the land-
lord; “he was at Cumnor Place yesterday, and came not thither so
private but what he was espied by one who told me.”
“I mean the same, mine host.”
“Then, for God’s sake, worshipful Master Tressilian,” said honest
Gosling, “look well to yourself. This Varney is the protector and
patron of Anthony Foster, who holds under him, and by his favour,
some lease of yonder mansion and the park. Varney got a large grant
of the lands of the Abbacy of Abingdon, and Cumnor Place amongst

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others, from his master, the Earl of Leicester. Men say he can do
everything with him, though I hold the Earl too good a nobleman
to employ him as some men talk of. And then the Earl can do any-
thing (that is, anything right or fitting) with the Queen, God bless
her! So you see what an enemy you have made to yourself.”
“Well—it is done, and I cannot help it,” answered Tressilian.
“Uds precious, but it must be helped in some manner,” said the
host. “Richard Varney—why, what between his influence with my
lord, and his pretending to so many old and vexatious claims in
right of the abbot here, men fear almost to mention his name, much
more to set themselves against his practices. You may judge by our
discourses the last night. Men said their pleasure of Tony Foster, but
not a word of Richard Varney, though all men judge him to be at
the bottom of yonder mystery about the pretty wench. But perhaps
you know more of that matter than I do; for women, though they
wear not swords, are occasion for many a blade’s exchanging a sheath
of neat’s leather for one of flesh and blood.”
“I do indeed know more of that poor unfortunate lady than thou
dost, my friendly host; and so bankrupt am I, at this moment, of
friends and advice, that I will willingly make a counsellor of thee,
and tell thee the whole history, the rather that I have a favour to ask
when my tale is ended.”
“Good Master Tressilian,” said the landlord, “I am but a poor
innkeeper, little able to adjust or counsel such a guest as yourself.
But as sure as I have risen decently above the world, by giving good
measure and reasonable charges, I am an honest man; and as such,
if I may not be able to assist you, I am, at least, not capable to abuse
your confidence. Say away therefore, as confidently as if you spoke
to your father; and thus far at least be certain, that my curiosity—
for I will not deny that which belongs to my calling—is joined to a
reasonable degree of discretion.”
“I doubt it not, mine host,” answered Tressilian; and while his
auditor remained in anxious expectation, he meditated for an in-
stant how he should commence his narrative. “My tale,” he at length
said, “to be quite intelligible, must begin at some distance back. You
have heard of the battle of Stoke, my good host, and perhaps of old
Sir Roger Robsart, who, in that battle, valiantly took part with Henry

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VII., the Queen’s grandfather, and routed the Earl of Lincoln, Lord
Geraldin and his wild Irish, and the Flemings whom the Duchess of
Burgundy had sent over, in the quarrel of Lambert Simnel?”
“I remember both one and the other,” said Giles Gosling; “it is
sung of a dozen times a week on my ale-bench below. Sir Roger
Robsart of Devon—oh, ay, ’tis him of whom minstrels sing to this
hour,—

‘He was the flower of Stoke’s red field,

When Martin Swart on ground lay slain;
In raging rout he never reel’d,
But like a rock did firm remain.’

[This verse, or something similar, occurs in a long ballad, or poem,

on Flodden Field, reprinted by the late Henry Weber.]

Ay, and then there was Martin Swart I have heard my grandfather
talk of, and of the jolly Almains whom he commanded, with their
slashed doublets and quaint hose, all frounced with ribands above
the nether-stocks. Here’s a song goes of Martin Swart, too, an I had
but memory for it:—

‘Martin Swart and his men,

Saddle them, saddle them,
Martin Swart and his men;
Saddle them well.’”

[This verse of an old song actually occurs in an old play where the
singer boasts,

“Courteously I can both counter and knack

Of Martin Swart and all his merry men.”]

“True, good mine host—the day was long talked of; but if you
sing so loud, you will awake more listeners than I care to commit
my confidence unto.”
“I crave pardon, my worshipful guest,” said mine host, “I was

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oblivious. When an old song comes across us merry old knights of

the spigot, it runs away with our discretion.”
“Well, mine host, my grandfather, like some other Cornishmen,
kept a warm affection to the House of York, and espoused the quar-
rel of this Simnel, assuming the title of Earl of Warwick, as the
county afterwards, in great numbers, countenanced the cause of
Perkin Warbeck, calling himself the Duke of York. My grandsire
joined Simnel’s standard, and was taken fighting desperately at Stoke,
where most of the leaders of that unhappy army were slain in their
harness. The good knight to whom he rendered himself, Sir Roger
Robsart, protected him from the immediate vengeance of the king,
and dismissed him without ransom. But he was unable to guard
him from other penalties of his rashness, being the heavy fines by
which he was impoverished, according to Henry’s mode of weaken-
ing his enemies. The good knight did what he might to mitigate the
distresses of my ancestor; and their friendship became so strict, that
my father was bred up as the sworn brother and intimate of the
present Sir Hugh Robsart, the only son of Sir Roger, and the heir of
his honest, and generous, and hospitable temper, though not equal
to him in martial achievements.”
“I have heard of good Sir Hugh Robsart,” interrupted the host,
“many a time and oft; his huntsman and sworn servant, Will Bad-
ger, hath spoken of him an hundred times in this very house. A
jovial knight he is, and hath loved hospitality and open housekeep-
ing more than the present fashion, which lays as much gold lace on
the seams of a doublet as would feed a dozen of tall fellows with
beef and ale for a twelvemonth, and let them have their evening at
the alehouse once a week, to do good to the publican.”
“If you have seen Will Badger, mine host,” said Tressilian, “you
have heard enough of Sir Hugh Robsart; and therefore I will but
say, that the hospitality you boast of hath proved somewhat detri-
mental to the estate of his family, which is perhaps of the less conse-
quence, as he has but one daughter to whom to bequeath it. And
here begins my share in the tale. Upon my father’s death, now sev-
eral years since, the good Sir Hugh would willingly have made me
his constant companion. There was a time, however, at which I felt
the kind knight’s excessive love for field-sports detained me from

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studies, by which I might have profited more; but I ceased to regret

the leisure which gratitude and hereditary friendship compelled me
to bestow on these rural avocations. The exquisite beauty of Mis-
tress Amy Robsart, as she grew up from childhood to woman, could
not escape one whom circumstances obliged to be so constantly in
her company—I loved her, in short, mine host, and her father saw
it.”
“And crossed your true loves, no doubt?” said mine host. “It is the
way in all such cases; and I judge it must have been so in your
instance, from the heavy sigh you uttered even now.”
“The case was different, mine host. My suit was highly approved
by the generous Sir Hugh Robsart; it was his daughter who was cold
to my passion.”
“She was the more dangerous enemy of the two,” said the inn-
keeper. “I fear me your suit proved a cold one.”
“She yielded me her esteem,” said Tressilian, “and seemed not
unwilling that I should hope it might ripen into a warmer passion.
There was a contract of future marriage executed betwixt us, upon
her father’s intercession; but to comply with her anxious request,
the execution was deferred for a twelvemonth. During this period,
Richard Varney appeared in the country, and, availing himself of
some distant family connection with Sir Hugh Robsart, spent much
of his time in his company, until, at length, he almost lived in the
family.”
“That could bode no good to the place he honoured with his
residence,” said Gosling.
“No, by the rood!” replied Tressilian. “Misunderstanding and
misery followed his presence, yet so strangely that I am at this mo-
ment at a loss to trace the gradations of their encroachment upon a
family which had, till then, been so happy. For a time Amy Robsart
received the attentions of this man Varney with the indifference
attached to common courtesies; then followed a period in which
she seemed to regard him with dislike, and even with disgust; and
then an extraordinary species of connection appeared to grow up
betwixt them. Varney dropped those airs of pretension and gallantry
which had marked his former approaches; and Amy, on the other
hand, seemed to renounce the ill-disguised disgust with which she

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had regarded them. They seemed to have more of privacy and con-
fidence together than I fully liked, and I suspected that they met in
private, where there was less restraint than in our presence. Many
circumstances, which I noticed but little at the time—for I deemed
her heart as open as her angelic countenance—have since arisen on
my memory, to convince me of their private understanding. But I
need not detail them—the fact speaks for itself. She vanished from
her father’s house; Varney disappeared at the same time; and this
very day I have seen her in the character of his paramour, living in
the house of his sordid dependant Foster, and visited by him, muffled,
and by a secret entrance.”
“And this, then, is the cause of your quarrel? Methinks, you should
have been sure that the fair lady either desired or deserved your
interference.”
“Mine host,” answered Tressilian, “my father—such I must ever
consider Sir Hugh Robsart—sits at home struggling with his grief,
or, if so far recovered, vainly attempting to drown, in the practice of
his field-sports, the recollection that he had once a daughter—a
recollection which ever and anon breaks from him under circum-
stances the most pathetic. I could not brook the idea that he should
live in misery, and Amy in guilt; and I endeavoured to-seek her out,
with the hope of inducing her to return to her family. I have found
her, and when I have either succeeded in my attempt, or have found
it altogether unavailing, it is my purpose to embark for the Virginia
voyage.”
“Be not so rash, good sir,” replied Giles Gosling, “and cast not
yourself away because a woman—to be brief—is a woman, and
changes her lovers like her suit of ribands, with no better reason
than mere fantasy. And ere we probe this matter further, let me ask
you what circumstances of suspicion directed you so truly to this
lady’s residence, or rather to her place of concealment?”
“The last is the better chosen word, mine host,” answered Tressilian;
“and touching your question, the knowledge that Varney held large
grants of the demesnes formerly belonging to the monks of Abingdon
directed me to this neighbourhood; and your nephew’s visit to his
old comrade Foster gave me the means of conviction on the sub-
ject.”

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“And what is now your purpose, worthy sir?—excuse my freedom

in asking the question so broadly.”
“I purpose, mine host,” said Tressilian, “to renew my visit to the
place of her residence to-morrow, and to seek a more detailed com-
munication with her than I have had to-day. She must indeed be
widely changed from what she once was, if my words make no im-
pression upon her.”
“Under your favour, Master Tressilian,” said the landlord, “you
can follow no such course. The lady, if I understand you, has al-
ready rejected your interference in the matter.”
“It is but too true,” said Tressilian; “I cannot deny it.”
“Then, marry, by what right or interest do you process a compul-
sory interference with her inclination, disgraceful as it may be to
herself and to her parents? Unless my judgment gulls me, those
under whose protection she has thrown herself would have small
hesitation to reject your interference, even if it were that of a father
or brother; but as a discarded lover, you expose yourself to be re-
pelled with the strong hand, as well as with scorn. You can apply to
no magistrate for aid or countenance; and you are hunting, there-
fore, a shadow in water, and will only (excuse my plainness) come
by ducking and danger in attempting to catch it.”
“I will appeal to the Earl of Leicester,” said Tressilian, “against the
infamy of his favourite. He courts the severe and strict sect of Puri-
tans. He dare not, for the sake of his own character, refuse my ap-
peal, even although he were destitute of the principles of honour
and nobleness with which fame invests him. Or I will appeal to the
Queen herself.”
“Should Leicester,” said the landlord, “be disposed to protect his
dependant (as indeed he is said to be very confidential with Varney),
the appeal to the Queen may bring them both to reason. Her Maj-
esty is strict in such matters, and (if it be not treason to speak it) will
rather, it is said, pardon a dozen courtiers for falling in love with
herself, than one for giving preference to another woman. Coragio
then, my brave guest! for if thou layest a petition from Sir Hugh at
the foot of the throne, bucklered by the story of thine own wrongs,
the favourite Earl dared as soon leap into the Thames at the fullest
and deepest, as offer to protect Varney in a cause of this nature. But

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to do this with any chance of success, you must go formally to work;

and, without staying here to tilt with the master of horse to a privy
councillor, and expose yourself to the dagger of his cameradoes, you
should hie you to Devonshire, get a petition drawn up for Sir Hugh
Robsart, and make as many friends as you can to forward your in-
terest at court.”
“You have spoken well, mine host,” said Tressilian, “and I will
profit by your advice, and leave you to-morrow early.”
“Nay, leave me to-night, sir, before to-morrow comes,” said he
landlord. “I never prayed for a guest’s arrival more eagerly than I do
to have you safely gone, My kinsman’s destiny is most like to be
hanged for something, but I would not that the cause were the
murder of an honoured guest of mine. ‘Better ride safe in the dark,’
says the proverb, ‘than in daylight with a cut-throat at your elbow.’
Come, sir, I move you for your own safety. Your horse and all is
ready, and here is your score.”
“It is somewhat under a noble,” said Tressilian, giving one to the
host; “give the balance to pretty Cicely, your daughter, and the ser-
vants of the house.”
“They shall taste of your bounty, sir,” said Gosling, “and you should
taste of my daughter’s lips in grateful acknowledgment, but at this
hour she cannot grace the porch to greet your departure.”
“Do not trust your daughter too far with your guests, my good
landlord,” said Tressilian.
“Oh, sir, we will keep measure; but I wonder not that you are
jealous of them all.—May I crave to know with what aspect the fair
lady at the Place yesterday received you?”
“I own,” said Tressilian, “it was angry as well as confused, and
affords me little hope that she is yet awakened from her unhappy
delusion.”
“In that case, sir, I see not why you should play the champion of
a wench that will none of you, and incur the resentment of a
favourite’s favourite, as dangerous a monster as ever a knight adven-
turer encountered in the old story books.”
“You do me wrong in the supposition, mine host—gross wrong,”
said Tressilian; “I do not desire that Amy should ever turn thought
upon me more. Let me but see her restored to her father, and all I

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have to do in Europe—perhaps in the world—is over and ended.”

“A wiser resolution were to drink a cup of sack, and forget her,”
said the landlord. “But five-and-twenty and fifty look on those
matters with different eyes, especially when one cast of peepers is
set in the skull of a young gallant, and the other in that of an old
publican. I pity you, Master Tressilian, but I see not how I can aid
you in the matter.”
“Only thus far, mine host,” replied Tressilian—”keep a watch on
the motions of those at the Place, which thou canst easily learn
without suspicion, as all men’s news fly to the ale-bench; and be
pleased to communicate the tidings in writing to such person, and
to no other, who shall bring you this ring as a special token. Look at
it; it is of value, and I will freely bestow it on you.”
“Nay, sir,” said the landlord, “I desire no recompense—but it seems
an unadvised course in me, being in a public line, to connect myself
in a matter of this dark and perilous nature. I have no interest in it.”
“You, and every father in the land, who would have his daughter
released from the snares of shame, and sin, and misery, have an
interest deeper than aught concerning earth only could create.”
“Well, sir,” said the host, “these are brave words; and I do pity
from my soul the frank-hearted old gentleman, who has minished
his estate in good housekeeping for the honour of his country, and
now has his daughter, who should be the stay of his age, and so
forth, whisked up by such a kite as this Varney. And though your
part in the matter is somewhat of the wildest, yet I will e’en be a
madcap for company, and help you in your honest attempt to get
back the good man’s child, so far as being your faithful intelligencer
can serve. And as I shall be true to you, I pray you to be trusty to
me, and keep my secret; for it were bad for the custom of the Black
Bear should it be said the bear-warder interfered in such matters.
Varney has interest enough with the justices to dismount my noble
emblem from the post on which he swings so gallantly, to call in my
license, and ruin me from garret to cellar.”
“Do not doubt my secrecy, mine host,” said Tressilian; “I will re-
tain, besides, the deepest sense of thy service, and of the risk thou dost
run—remember the ring is my sure token. And now, farewell! for it
was thy wise advice that I should tarry here as short a time as may be.”

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“Follow me, then, Sir Guest,” said the landlord, “and tread as
gently as if eggs were under your foot, instead of deal boards. No
man must know when or how you departed.”
By the aid of his dark lantern he conducted Tressilian, as soon as
he had made himself ready for his journey, through a long intricacy
of passages, which opened to an outer court, and from thence to a
remote stable, where he had already placed his guest’s horse. He
then aided him to fasten on the saddle the small portmantle which
contained his necessaries, opened a postern door, and with a hearty
shake of the hand, and a reiteration of his promise to attend to what
went on at Cumnor Place, he dismissed his guest to his solitary
journey.

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CHAPTER IX

Far in the lane a lonely hut he found,

No tenant ventured on the unwholesome ground:
Here smokes his forge, he bares his sinewy arm,
And early strokes the sounding anvil warm;
Around his shop the steely sparkles flew,
As for the steed he shaped the bending shoe.

—Gay’s Trivia.

AS IT WAS DEEMED PROPER by the traveller himself, as well as by Giles

Gosling, that Tressilian should avoid being seen in the
neighbourhood of Cumnor by those whom accident might make
early risers, the landlord had given him a route, consisting of vari-
ous byways and lanes, which he was to follow in succession, and
which, all the turns and short-cuts duly observed, was to conduct
him to the public road to Marlborough.
But, like counsel of every other kind, this species of direction is
much more easily given than followed; and what betwixt the intri-
cacy of the way, the darkness of the night, Tressilian’s ignorance of
the country, and the sad and perplexing thoughts with which he
had to contend, his journey proceeded so slowly, that morning found
him only in the vale of Whitehorse, memorable for the defeat of the
Danes in former days, with his horse deprived of a fore-foot shoe,
an accident which threatened to put a stop to his journey by laming
the animal. The residence of a smith was his first object of inquiry,
in which he received little satisfaction from the dullness or sullen-
ness of one or two peasants, early bound for their labour, who gave

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brief and indifferent answers to his questions on the subject. Anx-

ious, at length, that the partner of his journey should suffer as little
as possible from the unfortunate accident, Tressilian dismounted,
and led his horse in the direction of a little hamlet, where he hoped
either to find or hear tidings of such an artificer as he now wanted.
Through a deep and muddy lane, he at length waded on to the
place, which proved only an assemblage of five or six miserable huts,
about the doors of which one or two persons, whose appearance
seemed as rude as that of their dwellings, were beginning the toils of
the day. One cottage, however, seemed of rather superior aspect,
and the old dame, who was sweeping her threshold, appeared some-
thing less rude than her neighbours. To her Tressilian addressed the
oft-repeated question, whether there was a smith in this
neighbourhood, or any place where he could refresh his horse? The
dame looked him in the face with a peculiar expression as she re-
plied, “Smith! ay, truly is there a smith—what wouldst ha’ wi’ un,
mon?”
“To shoe my horse, good dame,” answered Tressiliany: you may
see that he has thrown a fore-foot shoe.”
“Master Holiday!” exclaimed the dame, without returning any
direct answer—“Master Herasmus Holiday, come and speak to mon,
and please you.”
“Favete linguis,” answered a voice from within;” I cannot now
come forth, Gammer Sludge, being in the very sweetest bit of my
morning studies.”
“Nay, but, good now, Master Holiday, come ye out, do ye. Here’s
a mon would to Wayland Smith, and I care not to show him way to
devil; his horse hath cast shoe.”
“Quid mihi cum caballo?” replied the man of learning from within;
“I think there is but one wise man in the hundred, and they cannot
shoe a horse without him!”
And forth came the honest pedagogue, for such his dress bespoke
him. A long, lean, shambling, stooping figure was surmounted by a
head thatched with lank, black hair somewhat inclining to grey. His
features had the cast of habitual authority, which I suppose Dionysius
carried with him from the throne to the schoolmaster’s pulpit, and
bequeathed as a legacy to all of the same profession. A black buck-

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ram cassock was gathered at his middle with a belt, at which hung,
instead of knife or weapon, a goodly leathern pen-and-ink case. His
ferula was stuck on the other side, like Harlequin’s wooden sword;
and he carried in his hand the tattered volume which he had been
busily perusing.
On seeing a person of Tressilian’s appearance, which he was better
able to estimate than the country folks had been, the schoolmaster
unbonneted, and accosted him with, “Salve, domine. Intelligisne
linguam latinam?”
Tressilian mustered his learning to reply, “Linguae latinae haud
penitus ignarus, venia tua, domine eruditissime, vernaculam libentius
loquor.”
The Latin reply had upon the schoolmaster the effect which the
mason’s sign is said to produce on the brethren of the trowel. He
was at once interested in the learned traveller, listened with gravity
to his story of a tired horse and a lost shoe, and then replied with
solemnity, “It may appear a simple thing, most worshipful, to reply
to you that there dwells, within a brief mile of these toguria, the best
faber ferarius, the most accomplished blacksmith, that ever nailed
iron upon horse. Now, were I to say so, I warrant me you would
think yourself compos voti, or, as the vulgar have it, a made man.”
“I should at least,” said Tressilian, “have a direct answer to a plain
question, which seems difficult to be obtained in this country.”
“It is a mere sending of a sinful soul to the evil un,” said the old
woman, “the sending a living creature to Wayland Smith.”
“Peace, Gammer Sludge!” said the pedagogue; “Pauca verba,
Gammer Sludge; look to the furmity, Gammer Sludge; curetur
jentaculum, Gammer Sludge; this gentleman is none of thy gos-
sips.” Then turning to Tressilian, he resumed his lofty tone, “And
so, most worshipful, you would really think yourself felix bisterque
should I point out to you the dwelling of this same smith?”
“Sir,” replied Tressilian, “I should in that case have all that I want
at present—a horse fit to carry me forward;—out of hearing of your
learning.” The last words he muttered to himself.
“O caeca mens mortalium!” said the learned man “well was it sung
by Junius Juvenalis, ‘Numinibus vota exaudita malignis!””
“Learned Magister,” said Tressilian, “your erudition so greatly ex-

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ceeds my poor intellectual capacity that you must excuse my seek-

ing elsewhere for information which I can better understand.”
“There again now,” replied the pedagogue, “how fondly you fly
from him that would instruct you! Truly said Quintilian—”
“I pray, sir, let Quintilian be for the present, and answer, in a
word and in English, if your learning can condescend so far, whether
there is any place here where I can have opportunity to refresh my
horse until I can have him shod?”
“Thus much courtesy, sir,” said the schoolmaster, “I can readily
render you, that although there is in this poor hamlet (nostra paupera
regna) no regular hospitium, as my namesake Erasmus calleth it, yet,
forasmuch as you are somewhat embued, or at least tinged, as it
were, with good letters, I will use my interest with the good woman
of the house to accommodate you with a platter of furmity—an
wholesome food for which I have found no Latin phrase—your
horse shall have a share of the cow-house, with a bottle of sweet hay,
in which the good woman Sludge so much abounds, that it may be
said of her cow, faenum habet in cornu; and if it please you to bestow
on me the pleasure of your company, the banquet shall cost you ne
semissem quidem, so much is Gammer Sludge bound to me for the
pains I have bestowed on the top and bottom of her hopeful heir
Dickie, whom I have painfully made to travel through the accidence.”
“Now, God yield ye for it, Master Herasmus,” said the good
Gammer, “and grant that little Dickie may be the better for his
accident! And for the rest, if the gentleman list to stay, breakfast
shall be on the board in the wringing of a dishclout; and for horse-
meat, and man’s meat, I bear no such base mind as to ask a penny.”
Considering the state of his horse, Tressilian, upon the whole, saw
no better course than to accept the invitation thus learnedly made
and hospitably confirmed, and take chance that when the good peda-
gogue had exhausted every topic of conversation, he might possibly
condescend to tell him where he could find the smith they spoke of.
He entered the hut accordingly, and sat down with the learned
Magister Erasmus Holiday, partook of his furmity, and listened to
his learned account of himself for a good half hour, ere he could get
him to talk upon any other topic, The reader will readily excuse our
accompanying this man of learning into all the details with which

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he favoured Tressilian, of which the following sketch may suffice.

He was born at Hogsnorton, where, according to popular saying,
the pigs play upon the organ; a proverb which he interpreted alle-
gorically, as having reference to the herd of Epicurus, of which litter
Horace confessed himself a porker. His name of Erasmus he derived
partly from his father having been the son of a renowned
washerwoman, who had held that great scholar in clean linen all the
while he was at Oxford; a task of some difficulty, as he was only
possessed of two shirts, “the one,” as she expressed herself, “to wash
the other,” The vestiges of one of these camiciae, as Master Holiday
boasted, were still in his possession, having fortunately been de-
tained by his grandmother to cover the balance of her bill. But he
thought there was a still higher and overruling cause for his having
had the name of Erasmus conferred on him—namely, the secret
presentiment of his mother’s mind that, in the babe to be chris-
tened, was a hidden genius, which should one day lead him to rival
the fame of the great scholar of Amsterdam. The schoolmaster’s sur-
name led him as far into dissertation as his Christian appellative.
He was inclined to think that he bore the name of Holiday quasi
lucus a non lucendo, because he gave such few holidays to his school.
“Hence,” said he, “the schoolmaster is termed, classically, Ludi
Magister, because he deprives boys of their play.” And yet, on the
other hand, he thought it might bear a very different interpretation,
and refer to his own exquisite art in arranging pageants, morris-
dances, May-day festivities, and such-like holiday delights, for which
he assured Tressilian he had positively the purest and the most in-
ventive brain in England; insomuch, that his cunning in framing
such pleasures had made him known to many honourable persons,
both in country and court, and especially to the noble Earl of Le-
icester. “And although he may now seem to forget me,” he said, “in
the multitude of state affairs, yet I am well assured that, had he
some pretty pastime to array for entertainment of the Queen’s Grace,
horse and man would be seeking the humble cottage of Erasmus
Holiday. Parvo contentus, in the meanwhile, I hear my pupils parse
and construe, worshipful sir, and drive away my time with the aid
of the Muses. And I have at all times, when in correspondence with
foreign scholars, subscribed myself Erasmus ab Die Fausto, and have

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enjoyed the distinction due to the learned under that title: witness
the erudite Diedrichus Buckerschockius, who dedicated to me un-
der that title his treatise on the letter tau. In fine, sir, I have been a
happy and distinguished man.”
“Long may it be so, sir!” said the traveller; “but permit me to ask,
in your own learned phrase, quid hoc ad iphycli boves? what has all
this to do with the shoeing of my poor nag?”
“Festina lente,” said the man of learning, “we will presently came
to that point. You must know that some two or three years past
there came to these parts one who called himself Doctor Doboobie,
although it may be he never wrote even Magister Artium, save in
right of his hungry belly. Or it may be, that if he had any degrees,
they were of the devil’s giving; for he was what the vulgar call a
white witch, a cunning man, and such like.—Now, good sir, I per-
ceive you are impatient; but if a man tell not his tale his own way,
how have you warrant to think that he can tell it in yours?”
“Well, then, learned sir, take your way,” answered Tressilian; “only
let us travel at a sharper pace, for my time is somewhat of the short-
est.”
“Well, sir,” resumed Erasmus Holiday, with the most provoking
perseverance, “I will not say that this same Demetrius for so he
wrote himself when in foreign parts, was an actual conjurer, but
certain it is that he professed to be a brother of the mystical Order
of the Rosy Cross, a disciple of Geber (ex nomine cujus venit verbum
vernaculum, gibberish). He cured wounds by salving the weapon
instead of the sore; told fortunes by palmistry; discovered stolen
goods by the sieve and shears; gathered the right maddow and the
male fern seed, through use of which men walk invisible; pretended
some advances towards the panacea, or universal elixir; and affected
to convert good lead into sorry silver.”
“In other words,” said Tressilian, “he was a quacksalver and com-
mon cheat; but what has all this to do with my nag, and the shoe
which he has lost?”
“With your worshipful patience,” replied the diffusive man of let-
ters, “you shall understand that presently—patentia then, right wor-
shipful, which word, according to our Marcus Tullius, is ‘difficilium
rerum diurna perpessio.’ This same Demetrius Doboobie, after deal-

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ing with the country, as I have told you, began to acquire fame inter
magnates, among the prime men of the land, and there is likelihood
he might have aspired to great matters, had not, according to vulgar
fame (for I aver not the thing as according with my certain knowl-
edge), the devil claimed his right, one dark night, and flown off
with Demetrius, who was never seen or heard of afterwards. Now
here comes the medulla, the very marrow, of my tale. This Doctor
Doboobie had a servant, a poor snake, whom he employed in trim-
ming his furnace, regulating it by just measure—compounding his
drugs—tracing his circles—cajoling his patients, et sic et cæteris. Well,
right worshipful, the Doctor being removed thus strangely, and in a
way which struck the whole country with terror, this poor Zany
thinks to himself, in the words of Maro, ‘uno avulso, non deficit
alter;’ and, even as a tradesman’s apprentice sets himself up in his
master’s shop when he is dead or hath retired from business, so doth
this Wayland assume the dangerous trade of his defunct master. But
although, most worshipful sir, the world is ever prone to listen to
the pretensions of such unworthy men, who are, indeed, mere saltim
banqui and charlatani, though usurping the style and skill of doc-
tors of medicine, yet the pretensions of this poor Zany, this Wayland,
were too gross to pass on them, nor was there a mere rustic, a vil-
lager, who was not ready to accost him in the sense of Persius, though
in their own rugged words,—

Dilius helleborum certo compescere puncto

Nescius examen? Vetat hoc natura vedendiI;’

which I have thus rendered in a poor paraphrase of mine own,—

Wilt thou mix hellebore, who dost not know

How many grains should to the mixture go?
The art of medicine this forbids, I trow.

Moreover, the evil reputation of the master, and his strange and
doubtful end, or at least sudden disappearance, prevented any, ex-
cepting the most desperate of men, to seek any advice or opinion
from the servant; wherefore, the poor vermin was likely at first to

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swarf for very hunger. But the devil that serves him, since the death
of Demetrius or Doboobie, put him on a fresh device. This knave,
whether from the inspiration of the devil, or from early education,
shoes horses better than e’er a man betwixt us and Iceland; and so
he gives up his practice on the bipeds, the two-legged and unfledged
species called mankind, and betakes him entirely to shoeing of
horses.”
“Indeed! and where does he lodge all this time?” said Tressilian.
“And does he shoe horses well? Show me his dwelling presently.”
The interruption pleased not the Magister, who exclaimed, “O
cæca mens mortalium!—though, by the way, I used that quotation
before. But I would the classics could afford me any sentiment of
power to stop those who are so willing to rush upon their own de-
struction. Hear but, I pray you, the conditions of this man,” said
he, in continuation, “ere you are so willing to place yourself within
his danger—”
“A’ takes no money for a’s work,” said the dame, who stood by,
enraptured as it were with the line words and learned apophthegms
which glided so fluently from her erudite inmate, Master Holiday.
But this interruption pleased not the Magister more than that of
the traveller.
“Peace,” said he, “Gammer Sludge; know your place, if it be your
will. Sufflamina, Gammer Sludge, and allow me to expound this
matter to our worshipful guest.—Sir,” said he, again addressing
Tressilian, “this old woman speaks true, though in her own rude
style; for certainly this faber ferrarius, or blacksmith, takes money of
no one.”
“And that is a sure sign he deals with Satan,” said Dame Sludge;
“since no good Christian would ever refuse the wages of his labour.”
“The old woman hath touched it again,” said the pedagogue; “Rem
acutetigit—she hath pricked it with her needle’s point. This Wayland
takes no money, indeed; nor doth he show himself to any one.”
“And can this madman, for such I hold him,” said the traveller,
“know aught like good skill of his trade?”
“Oh, sir, in that let us give the devil his due—Mulciber himself,
with all his Cyclops, could hardly amend him. But assuredly there is
little wisdom in taking counsel or receiving aid from one who is but

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too plainly in league with the author of evil.”

“I must take my chance of that, good Master Holiday,” said
Tressilian, rising; “and as my horse must now have eaten his proven-
der, I must needs thank you for your good cheer, and pray you to
show me this man’s residence, that I may have the means of pro-
ceeding on my journey.”
“Ay, ay, do ye show him, Master Herasmus,” said the old dame,
who was, perhaps, desirous to get her house freed of her guest; “a’
must needs go when the devil drives.”
“Do manus,” said the Magister, “I submit—taking the world to
witness, that I have possessed this honourable gentleman with the
full injustice which he has done and shall do to his own soul, if he
becomes thus a trinketer with Satan. Neither will I go forth with
our guest myself, but rather send my pupil.—Ricarde! Adsis, nebulo.”
“Under your favour, not so,” answered the old woman; “you may
peril your own soul, if you list, but my son shall budge on no such
errand. And I wonder at you, Dominie Doctor, to propose such a
piece of service for little Dickie.”
“Nay, my good Gammer Sludge,” answered the preceptor,
“Ricardus shall go but to the top of the hill, and indicate with his
digit to the stranger the dwelling of Wayland Smith. Believe not
that any evil can come to him, he having read this morning, fasting,
a chapter of the Septuagint, and, moreover, having had his lesson in
the Greek Testament.”
“Ay,” said his mother, “and I have sewn a sprig of witch’s elm in
the neck of un’s doublet, ever since that foul thief has begun his
practices on man and beast in these parts.”
“And as he goes oft (as I hugely suspect) towards this conjurer for
his own pastime, he may for once go thither, or near it, to pleasure
us, and to assist this stranger.—Ergo, heus ricarde! Adsis, quaeso, mi
didascule.”
The pupil, thus affectionately invoked, at length came stumbling
into the room; a queer, shambling, ill-made urchin, who, by his
stunted growth, seemed about twelve or thirteen years old, though
he was probably, in reality, a year or two older, with a carroty pate in
huge disorder, a freckled, sunburnt visage, with a snub nose, a long
chin, and two peery grey eyes, which had a droll obliquity of vision,

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approaching to a squint, though perhaps not a decided one. It was

impossible to look at the little man without some disposition to
laugh, especially when Gammer Sludge, seizing upon and kissing
him, in spite of his struggling and kicking in reply to her caresses,
termed him her own precious pearl of beauty.
“Ricarde,” said the preceptor, “you must forthwith (which is
profecto) set forth so far as the top of the hill, and show this man of
worship Wayland Smith’s workshop.”
“A proper errand of a morning,” said the boy, in better language
than Tressilian expected; “and who knows but the devil may fly away
with me before I come back?”
“Ay, marry may un,” said Dame Sludge; “and you might have
thought twice, Master Domine, ere you sent my dainty darling on
arrow such errand. It is not for such doings I feed your belly and
clothe your back, I warrant you!”
“Pshaw—nugae, good Gammer Sludge,” answered the preceptor;
“I ensure you that Satan, if there be Satan in the case, shall not
touch a thread of his garment; for Dickie can say his pater with the
best, and may defy the foul fiend—eumenides, stybiumque nefas.”
“Ay, and I, as I said before, have sewed a sprig of the mountain-
ash into his collar,” said the good woman, “which will avail more
than your clerkship, I wus; but for all that, it is ill to seek the devil or
his mates either.”
“My good boy,” said Tressilian, who saw, from a grotesque sneer
on Dickie’s face, that he was more likely to act upon his own bot-
tom than by the instructions of his elders, “I will give thee a silver
groat, my pretty fellow, if you will but guide me to this man’s forge.”
The boy gave him a knowing side-look, which seemed to promise
acquiescence, while at the same time he exclaimed, “I be your guide
to Wayland Smith’s! Why, man, did I not say that the devil might
fly off with me, just as the kite there” (looking to the window) “is
flying off with one of grandam’s chicks?”
“The kite! the kite!” exclaimed the old woman in return, and for-
getting all other matters in her alarm, hastened to the rescue of her
chickens as fast as her old legs could carry her.
“Now for it,” said the urchin to Tressilian; “snatch your beaver,
get out your horse, and have at the silver groat you spoke of.”

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“Nay, but tarry, tarry,” said the preceptor— “Sufflamina, ricarde!”

“Tarry yourself,” said Dickie, “and think what answer you are to
make to granny for sending me post to the devil.”
The teacher, aware of the responsibility he was incurring, bustled
up in great haste to lay hold of the urchin and to prevent his depar-
ture; but Dickie slipped through his fingers, bolted from the cot-
tage, and sped him to the top of a neighbouring rising ground, while
the preceptor, despairing, by well-taught experience, of recovering
his pupil by speed of foot, had recourse to the most honied epithets
the Latin vocabulary affords to persuade his return. But to mi anime,
corculum meum, and all such classical endearments, the truant turned
a deaf ear, and kept frisking on the top of the rising ground like a
goblin by moonlight, making signs to his new acquaintance,
Tressilian, to follow him.
The traveller lost no time in getting out his horse and departing
to join his elvish guide, after half-forcing on the poor, deserted teacher
a recompense for the entertainment he had received, which partly
allayed that terror he had for facing the return of the old lady of the
mansion. Apparently this took place soon afterwards; for ere Tressilian
and his guide had proceeded far on their journey, they heard the
screams of a cracked female voice, intermingled with the classical
objurgations of Master Erasmus Holiday. But Dickie Sludge, equally
deaf to the voice of maternal tenderness and of magisterial author-
ity, skipped on unconsciously before Tressilian, only observing that
“if they cried themselves hoarse, they might go lick the honey-pot,
for he had eaten up all the honey-comb himself on yesterday even.”

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CHAPTER X

There entering in, they found the goodman selfe

Full busylie unto his work ybent,
Who was to weet a wretched wearish elf,
With hollow eyes and rawbone cheeks forspent,
As if he had been long in prison pent.

The Faery Queene.

“ARE WE FAR from the dwelling of this smith, my pretty lad?” said
Tressilian to his young guide.
“How is it you call me?” said the boy, looking askew at him with
his sharp, grey eyes.
“I call you my pretty lad—is there any offence in that, my boy?”
“No; but were you with my grandam and Dominie Holiday, you
might sing chorus to the old song of

‘We three
Tom-fools be.’”

“And why so, my little man?” said Tressilian.

“Because,” answered the ugly urchin, “you are the only three ever
called me pretty lad. Now my grandam does it because she is parcel
blind by age, and whole blind by kindred; and my master, the poor
Dominie, does it to curry favour, and have the fullest platter of
furmity and the warmest seat by the fire. But what you call me
pretty lad for, you know best yourself.”
“Thou art a sharp wag at least, if not a pretty one. But what do
thy playfellows call thee?”

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“Hobgoblin,” answered the boy readily; “but for all that, I would
rather have my own ugly viznomy than any of their jolter-heads,
that have no more brains in them than a brick-bat.”
“Then you fear not this smith whom you are going to see?”
“Me fear him!” answered the boy. “If he were the devil folk think
him, I would not fear him; but though there is something queer
about him, he’s no more a devil than you are, and that’s what I
would not tell to every one.”
“And why do you tell it to me, then, my boy?” said Tressilian.
“Because you are another guess gentleman than those we see here
every day,” replied Dickie; “and though I am as ugly as sin, I would
not have you think me an ass, especially as I may have a boon to ask
of you one day.”
“And what is that, my lad, whom I must not call pretty?” replied
Tressilian.
“Oh, if I were to ask it just now,” said the boy, “you would deny it
me; but I will wait till we meet at court.”
“At court, Richard! are you bound for court?” said Tressilian.
“Ay, ay, that’s just like the rest of them,” replied the boy. “I war-
rant me, you think, what should such an ill-favoured, scrambling
urchin do at court? But let Richard Sludge alone; I have not been
cock of the roost here for nothing. I will make sharp wit mend foul
feature.”
“But what will your grandam say, and your tutor, Dominie Holi-
day?”
“E’en what they like,” replied Dickie; “the one has her chickens to
reckon, and the other has his boys to whip. I would have given
them the candle to hold long since, and shown this trumpery ham-
let a fair pair of heels, but that Dominie promises I should go with
him to bear share in the next pageant he is to set forth, and they say
there are to be great revels shortly.”
“And whereabouts are they to be held, my little friend?” said
Tressilian.
“Oh, at some castle far in the north,” answered his guide—”a
world’s breadth from Berkshire. But our old Dominie holds that
they cannot go forward without him; and it may be he is right, for
he has put in order many a fair pageant. He is not half the fool you

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would take him for, when he gets to work he understands; and so he

can spout verses like a play-actor, when, God wot, if you set him to
steal a goose’s egg, he would be drubbed by the gander.”
“And you are to play a part in his next show?” said Tressilian,
somewhat interested by the boy’s boldness of conversation and
shrewd estimate of character.
“In faith,” said Richard Sludge, in answer, “he hath so promised
me; and if he break his word, it will be the worse for him, for let me
take the bit between my teeth, and turn my head downhill, and I
will shake him off with a fall that may harm his bones. And I should
not like much to hurt him neither,” said he, “for the tiresome old
fool has painfully laboured to teach me all he could. But enough of
that—here are we at Wayland Smith’s forge-door.”
“You jest, my little friend,” said Tressilian; “here is nothing but a
bare moor, and that ring of stones, with a great one in the midst,
like a Cornish barrow.”
“Ay, and that great flat stone in the midst, which lies across the
top of these uprights,” said the boy, “is Wayland Smith’s counter,
that you must tell down your money upon.”
“What do you mean by such folly?” said the traveller, beginning
to be angry with the boy, and vexed with himself for having trusted
such a hare-brained guide.
“Why,” said Dickie, with a grin, “you must tie your horse to that
upright stone that has the ring in’t, and then you must whistle three
times, and lay me down your silver groat on that other flat stone,
walk out of the circle, sit down on the west side of that little thicket
of bushes, and take heed you look neither to right nor to left for ten
minutes, or so long as you shall hear the hammer clink, and when-
ever it ceases, say your prayers for the space you could tell a hun-
dred—or count over a hundred, which will do as well—and then
come into the circle; you will find your money gone and your horse
shod.”
“My money gone to a certainty!” said Tressilian; “but as for the
rest—Hark ye, my lad, I am not your school-master, but if you play
off your waggery on me, I will take a part of his task off his hands,
and punish you to purpose.”
“Ay, when you catch me!” said the boy; and presently took to his

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heels across the heath, with a velocity which baffled every attempt
of Tressilian to overtake him, loaded as he was with his heavy boots.
Nor was it the least provoking part of the urchin’s conduct, that he
did not exert his utmost speed, like one who finds himself in dan-
ger, or who is frightened, but preserved just such a rate as to encour-
age Tressilian to continue the chase, and then darted away from
him with the swiftness of the wind, when his pursuer supposed he
had nearly run him down, doubling at the same time, and winding,
so as always to keep near the place from which he started.
This lasted until Tressilian, from very weariness, stood still, and
was about to abandon the pursuit with a hearty curse on the ill-
favoured urchin, who had engaged him in an exercise so ridiculous.
But the boy, who had, as formerly, planted himself on the top of a
hillock close in front, began to clap his long, thin hands, point with
his skinny fingers, and twist his wild and ugly features into such an
extravagant expression of laughter and derision, that Tressilian be-
gan half to doubt whether he had not in view an actual hobgoblin.
Provoked extremely, yet at the same time feeling an irresistible
desire to laugh, so very odd were the boy’s grimaces and gesticula-
tions, the Cornishman returned to his horse, and mounted him
with the purpose of pursuing Dickie at more advantage.
The boy no sooner saw him mount his horse, than he holloed out
to him that, rather than he should spoil his white-footed nag, he would
come to him, on condition he would keep his fingers to himself.
“I will make no conditions with thee, thou ugly varlet!” said
Tressilian; “I will have thee at my mercy in a moment.”
“Aha, Master Traveller,” said the boy, “there is a marsh hard by
would swallow all the horses of the Queen’s guard. I will into it, and
see where you will go then. You shall hear the bittern bump, and the
wild-drake quack, ere you get hold of me without my consent, I
promise you.”
Tressilian looked out, and, from the appearance of the ground
behind the hillock, believed it might be as the boy said, and accord-
ingly determined to strike up a peace with so light-footed and ready-
witted an enemy. “Come down,” he said, “thou mischievous brat!
Leave thy mopping and mowing, and, come hither.
I will do thee no harm, as I am a gentleman.”

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The boy answered his invitation with the utmost confidence, and
danced down from his stance with a galliard sort of step, keeping
his eye at the same time fixed on Tressilian’s, who, once more dis-
mounted, stood with his horse’s bridle in his hand, breathless, and
half exhausted with his fruitless exercise, though not one drop of
moisture appeared on the freckled forehead of the urchin, which
looked like a piece of dry and discoloured parchment, drawn tight
across the brow of a fleshless skull.
“And tell me,” said Tressilian, “why you use me thus, thou mis-
chievous imp? or what your meaning is by telling me so absurd a
legend as you wished but now to put on me? Or rather show me, in
good earnest, this smith’s forge, and I will give thee what will buy
thee apples through the whole winter.”
“Were you to give me an orchard of apples,” said Dickie Sludge,
“I can guide thee no better than I have done. Lay down the silver
token on the flat stone—whistle three times—then come sit down
on the western side of the thicket of gorse. I will sit by you, and give
you free leave to wring my head off, unless you hear the smith at
work within two minutes after we are seated.”
“I may be tempted to take thee at thy word,” said Tressilian, “if
you make me do aught half so ridiculous for your own mischievous
sport; however, I will prove your spell. Here, then, I tie my horse to
this upright stone. I must lay my silver groat here, and whistle three
times, sayest thou?”
“Ay, but thou must whistle louder than an unfledged ousel,” said
the boy, as Tressilian, having laid down his money, and half ashamed
of the folly he practised, made a careless whistle—”you must whistle
louder than that, for who knows where the smith is that you call
for? He may be in the King of France’s stables for what I know.”
“Why, you said but now he was no devil,” replied Tressilian.
“Man or devil,” said Dickie, “I see that I must summon him for
you;” and therewithal he whistled sharp and shrill, with an acute-
ness of sound that almost thrilled through Tressilian’s brain. “That
is what I call whistling,” said he, after he had repeated the signal
thrice; “and now to cover, to cover, or Whitefoot will not be shod
this day.”
Tressilian, musing what the upshot of this mummery was to be,

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yet satisfied there was to be some serious result, by the confidence

with which the boy had put himself in his power, suffered himself
to be conducted to that side of the little thicket of gorse and brush-
wood which was farthest from the circle of stones, and there sat
down; and as it occurred to him that, after all, this might be a trick
for stealing his horse, he kept his hand on the boy’s collar, deter-
mined to make him hostage for its safety.
“Now, hush and listen,” said Dickie, in a low whisper; “you will
soon hear the tack of a hammer that was never forged of earthly
iron, for the stone it was made of was shot from the moon.” And in
effect Tressilian did immediately hear the light stroke of a hammer,
as when a farrier is at work. The singularity of such a sound, in so
very lonely a place, made him involuntarily start; but looking at the
boy, and discovering, by the arch malicious expression of his coun-
tenance, that the urchin saw and enjoyed his slight tremor, he be-
came convinced that the whole was a concerted stratagem, and de-
termined to know by whom, or for what purpose, the trick was
played off.
Accordingly, he remained perfectly quiet all the time that the ham-
mer continued to sound, being about the space usually employed in
fixing a horse-shoe. But the instant the sound ceased, Tressilian,
instead of interposing the space of time which his guide had re-
quired, started up with his sword in his hand, ran round the thicket,
and confronted a man in a farrier’s leathern apron, but otherwise
fantastically attired in a bear-skin dressed with the fur on, and a cap
of the same, which almost hid the sooty and begrimed features of
the wearer. “Come back, come back!” cried the boy to Tressilian, “or
you will be torn to pieces; no man lives that looks on him.” In fact,
the invisible smith (now fully visible) heaved up his hammer, and
showed symptoms of doing battle.
But when the boy observed that neither his own entreaties nor the
menaces of the farrier appeared to change Tressilian’s purpose, but
that, on the contrary, he confronted the hammer with his drawn
sword, he exclaimed to the smith in turn, “Wayland, touch him
not, or you will come by the worse!—the gentleman is a true gentle-
man, and a bold.”
“So thou hast betrayed me, Flibbertigibbet?” said the smith; “it

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shall be the worse for thee!”

“Be who thou wilt,” said Tressilian, “thou art in no danger from
me, so thou tell me the meaning of this practice, and why thou
drivest thy trade in this mysterious fashion.”
The smith, however, turning to Tressilian, exclaimed, in a threat-
ening tone, “Who questions the Keeper of the Crystal Castle of
Light, the Lord of the Green Lion, the Rider of the Red Dragon?
Hence!—avoid thee, ere I summon Talpack with his fiery lance, to
quell, crush, and consume!” These words he uttered with violent
gesticulation, mouthing, and flourishing his hammer.
“Peace, thou vile cozener, with thy gipsy cant!” replied Tressilian
scornfully, “and follow me to the next magistrate, or I will cut thee
over the pate.”
“Peace, I pray thee, good Wayland!” said the boy. “Credit me, the
swaggering vein will not pass here; you must cut boon whids.” [“Give
good words.”—slang dialect.]
“I think, worshipful sir,” said the smith, sinking his hammer, and
assuming a more gentle and submissive tone of voice, “that when so
poor a man does his day’s job, he might be permitted to work it out
after his own fashion. Your horse is shod, and your farrier paid—
what need you cumber yourself further than to mount and pursue
your journey?”
“Nay, friend, you are mistaken,” replied Tressilian; “every man
has a right to take the mask from the face of a cheat and a juggler;
and your mode of living raises suspicion that you are both.”
“If you are so determined; sir,” said the smith, “I cannot help
myself save by force, which I were unwilling to use towards you,
Master Tressilian; not that I fear your weapon, but because I know
you to be a worthy, kind, and well-accomplished gentleman, who
would rather help than harm a poor man that is in a strait.”
“Well said, Wayland,” said the boy, who had anxiously awaited
the issue of their conference. “But let us to thy den, man, for it is ill
for thy health to stand here talking in the open air.”
“Thou art right, Hobgoblin,” replied the smith; and going to the
little thicket of gorse on the side nearest to the circle, and opposite
to that at which his customer had so lately crouched, he discovered
a trap-door curiously covered with bushes, raised it, and, descend-

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ing into the earth, vanished from their eyes. Notwithstanding

Tressilian’s curiosity, he had some hesitation at following the fellow
into what might be a den of robbers, especially when he heard the
smith’s voice, issuing from the bowels of the earth, call out,
“Flibertigibbet, do you come last, and be sure to fasten the trap!”
“Have you seen enough of Wayland Smith now?” whispered the
urchin to Tressilian, with an arch sneer, as if marking his companion’s
uncertainty.
“Not yet,” said Tressilian firmly; and shaking off his momentary
irresolution, he descended into the narrow staircase, to which the
entrance led, and was followed by Dickie Sludge, who made fast the
trap-door behind him, and thus excluded every glimmer of day-
light. The descent, however, was only a few steps, and led to a level
passage of a few yards’ length, at the end of which appeared the
reflection of a lurid and red light. Arrived at this point, with his
drawn sword in his hand, Tressilian found that a turn to the left
admitted him and Hobgoblin, who followed closely, into a small,
square vault, containing a smith’s forge, glowing with charcoal, the
vapour of which filled the apartment with an oppressive smell, which
would have been altogether suffocating, but that by some concealed
vent the smithy communicated with the upper air. The light af-
forded by the red fuel, and by a lamp suspended in an iron chain,
served to show that, besides an anvil, bellows, tongs, hammers, a
quantity of ready-made horse-shoes, and other articles proper to
the profession of a farrier, there were also stoves, alembics, crucibles,
retorts, and other instruments of alchemy. The grotesque figure of
the smith, and the ugly but whimsical features of the boy, seen by
the gloomy and imperfect light of the charcoal fire and the dying
lamp, accorded very well with all this mystical apparatus, and in
that age of superstition would have made some impression on the
courage of most men.
But nature had endowed Tressilian with firm nerves, and his educa-
tion, originally good, had been too sedulously improved by subse-
quent study to give way to any imaginary terrors; and after giving a
glance around him, he again demanded of the artist who he was, and
by what accident he came to know and address him by his name.
“Your worship cannot but remember,” said the smith, “that about

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three years since, upon Saint Lucy’s Eve, there came a travelling
juggler to a certain hall in Devonshire, and exhibited his skill before
a worshipful knight and a fair company.—I see from your worship’s
countenance, dark as this place is, that my memory has not done
me wrong.”
“Thou hast said enough,” said Tressilian, turning away, as wish-
ing to hide from the speaker the painful train of recollections which
his discourse had unconsciously awakened.
“The juggler,” said the smith, “played his part so bravely that the
clowns and clown-like squires in the company held his art to be
little less than magical; but there was one maiden of fifteen, or
thereby, with the fairest face I ever looked upon, whose rosy cheek
grew pale, and her bright eyes dim, at the sight of the wonders ex-
hibited.”
“Peace, I command thee, peace!” said Tressilian.
“I mean your worship no offence,” said the fellow; “but I have
cause to remember how, to relieve the young maiden’s fears, you
condescended to point out the mode in which these deceptions were
practised, and to baffle the poor juggler by laying bare the mysteries
of his art, as ably as if you had been a brother of his order.—She was
indeed so fair a maiden that, to win a smile of her, a man might
well—”
“Not a word more of her, I charge thee!” said Tressilian. “I do well
remember the night you speak of—one of the few happy evenings
my life has known.”
“She is gone, then,” said the smith, interpreting after his own
fashion the sigh with which Tressilian uttered these words—“she is
gone, young, beautiful, and beloved as she was!—I crave your
worship’s pardon—I should have hammered on another theme. I
see I have unwarily driven the nail to the quick.”
This speech was made with a mixture of rude feeling which in-
clined Tressilian favourably to the poor artisan, of whom before he
was inclined to judge very harshly. But nothing can so soon attract
the unfortunate as real or seeming sympathy with their sorrows.
“I think,” proceeded Tressilian, after a minute’s silence, “thou wert
in those days a jovial fellow, who could keep a company merry by
song, and tale, and rebeck, as well as by thy juggling tricks—why

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do I find thee a laborious handicraftsman, plying thy trade in so

melancholy a dwelling and under such extraordinary circumstances?”
“My story is not long,” said the artist, “but your honour had bet-
ter sit while you listen to it.” So saying, he approached to the fire a
three-footed stool, and took another himself; while Dickie Sludge,
or Flibbertigibbet, as he called the boy, drew a cricket to the smith’s
feet, and looked up in his face with features which, as illuminated
by the glow of the forge, seemed convulsed with intense curiosity.
“Thou too,” said the smith to him, “shalt learn, as thou well deservest
at my hand, the brief history of my life; and, in troth, it were as well
tell it thee as leave thee to ferret it out, since Nature never packed a
shrewder wit into a more ungainly casket.—Well, sir, if my poor
story may pleasure you, it is at your command, But will you not
taste a stoup of liquor? I promise you that even in this poor cell I
have some in store.”
“Speak not of it,” said Tressilian, “but go on with thy story, for my
leisure is brief.”
“You shall have no cause to rue the delay,” said the smith, “for
your horse shall be better fed in the meantime than he hath been
this morning, and made fitter for travel.”
With that the artist left the vault, and returned after a few min-
utes’ interval. Here, also, we pause, that the narrative may com-
mence in another chapter.

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CHAPTER XI

I say, my lord, can such a subtilty

(But all his craft ye must not wot of me,
And somewhat help I yet to his working),
That all the ground on which we ben riding,
Till that we come to Canterbury town,
He can all clean turnen so up so down,
And pave it all of silver and of gold.

The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue, Canterbury Tales.

THE ARTIST COMMENCED his narrative in the following terms:—

“I was bred a blacksmith, and knew my art as well as e’er a black-
thumbed, leathern-aproned, swart-faced knave of that noble mys-
tery. But I tired of ringing hammer-tunes on iron stithies, and went
out into the world, where I became acquainted with a celebrated
juggler, whose fingers had become rather too stiff for legerdemain,
and who wished to have the aid of an apprentice in his noble mys-
tery. I served him for six years, until I was master of my trade—I
refer myself to your worship, whose judgment cannot be disputed,
whether I did not learn to ply the craft indifferently well?”
“Excellently,” said Tressilian; “but be brief.”
“It was not long after I had performed at Sir Hugh Robsart’s, in
your worship’s presence,” said the artist, “that I took myself to the
stage, and have swaggered with the bravest of them all, both at the
Black Bull, the Globe, the Fortune, and elsewhere; but I know not
how—apples were so plenty that year that the lads in the twopenny
gallery never took more than one bite out of them, and threw the
rest of the pippin at whatever actor chanced to be on the stage. So I

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tired of it—renounced my half share in the company, gave my foil

to my comrade, my buskins to the wardrobe, and showed the the-
atre a clean pair of heels.”
“Well, friend, and what,” said Tressilian, “was your next shift?”
“I became,” said the smith, “half partner, half domestic to a man
of much skill and little substance, who practised the trade of a
physicianer.”
“In other words,” said Tressilian, “you were Jack Pudding to a
quacksalver.”
“Something beyond that, let me hope, my good Master Tressilian,”
replied the artist; “and yet to say truth, our practice was of an ad-
venturous description, and the pharmacy which I had acquired in
my first studies for the benefit of horses was frequently applied to
our human patients. But the seeds of all maladies are the same; and
if turpentine, tar, pitch, and beef-suet, mingled with turmerick, gum-
mastick, and one bead of garlick, can cure the horse that hath been
grieved with a nail, I see not but what it may benefit the man that
hath been pricked with a sword. But my master’s practice, as well as
his skill, went far beyond mine, and dealt in more dangerous con-
cerns. He was not only a bold, adventurous practitioner in physic,
but also, if your pleasure so chanced to be, an adept who read the
stars, and expounded the fortunes of mankind, genethliacally, as he
called it, or otherwise. He was a learned distiller of simples, and a
profound chemist—made several efforts to fix mercury, and judged
himself to have made a fair hit at the philosopher’s stone. I have yet
a programme of his on that subject, which, if your honour
understandeth, I believe you have the better, not only of all who
read, but also of him who wrote it.”
He gave Tressilian a scroll of parchment, bearing at top and bot-
tom, and down the margin, the signs of the seven planets, curiously
intermingled with talismanical characters and scraps of Greek and
Hebrew. In the midst were some Latin verses from a cabalistical
author, written out so fairly, that even the gloom of the place did
not prevent Tressilian from reading them. The tenor of the original
ran as follows:—

“Si fixum solvas, faciasque volare solutum,

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Et volucrem figas, facient te vivere tutum;

Si pariat ventum, valet auri pondere centum;
Ventus ubi vult spirat—Capiat qui capere potest.”

“I protest to you,” said Tressilian, “all I understand of this jargon

is that the last words seem to mean ‘Catch who catch can.’”
“That,” said the smith, “is the very principle that my worthy friend
and master, Doctor Doboobie, always acted upon; until, being be-
sotted with his own imaginations, and conceited of his high chemi-
cal skill, he began to spend, in cheating himself, the money which
he had acquired in cheating others, and either discovered or built
for himself, I could never know which, this secret elaboratory, in
which he used to seclude himself both from patients and disciples,
who doubtless thought his long and mysterious absences from his
ordinary residence in the town of Farringdon were occasioned by
his progress in the mystic sciences, and his intercourse with the in-
visible world. Me also he tried to deceive; but though I contradicted
him not, he saw that I knew too much of his secrets to be any longer
a safe companion. Meanwhile, his name waxed famous—or rather
infamous, and many of those who resorted to him did so under
persuasion that he was a sorcerer. And yet his supposed advance in
the occult sciences drew to him the secret resort of men too power-
ful to be named, for purposes too dangerous to be mentioned. Men
cursed and threatened him, and bestowed on me, the innocent as-
sistant of his studies, the nickname of the Devil’s foot-post, which
procured me a volley of stones as soon as ever I ventured to show
my face in the street of the village. At length my master suddenly
disappeared, pretending to me that he was about to visit his
elaboratory in this place, and forbidding me to disturb him till two
days were past. When this period had elapsed, I became anxious,
and resorted to this vault, where I found the fires extinguished and
the utensils in confusion, with a note from the learned Doboobius,
as he was wont to style himself, acquainting me that we should
never meet again, bequeathing me his chemical apparatus, and the
parchment which I have just put into your hands, advising me
strongly to prosecute the secret which it contained, which would
infallibly lead me to the discovery of the grand magisterium.”

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“And didst thou follow this sage advice?” said Tressilian.

“Worshipful sir, no,” replied the smith; “for, being by nature cau-
tious, and suspicious from knowing with whom I had to do, I made
so many perquisitions before I ventured even to light a fire, that I at
length discovered a small barrel of gunpowder, carefully hid beneath
the furnace, with the purpose, no doubt, that as soon as I should
commence the grand work of the transmutation of metals, the ex-
plosion should transmute the vault and all in it into a heap of ruins,
which might serve at once for my slaughter-house and my grave.
This cured me of alchemy, and fain would I have returned to the
honest hammer and anvil; but who would bring a horse to be shod
by the Devil’s post? Meantime, I had won the regard of my honest
Flibbertigibbet here, he being then at Farringdon with his master,
the sage Erasmus Holiday, by teaching him a few secrets, such as
please youth at his age; and after much counsel together, we agreed
that, since I could get no practice in the ordinary way, I should try
how I could work out business among these ignorant boors, by prac-
tising upon their silly fears; and, thanks to Flibbertigibbet, who hath
spread my renown, I have not wanted custom. But it is won at too
great risk, and I fear I shall be at length taken up for a wizard; so
that I seek but an opportunity to leave this vault, when I can have
the protection of some worshipful person against the fury of the
populace, in case they chance to recognize me.”
“And art thou,” said Tressilian, “perfectly acquainted with the roads
in this country?”
“I could ride them every inch by midnight,” answered Wayland
Smith, which was the name this adept had assumed.
“Thou hast no horse to ride upon,” said Tressilian.
“Pardon me,” replied Wayland; “I have as good a tit as ever yeo-
man bestrode; and I forgot to say it was the best part of the
mediciner’s legacy to me, excepting one or two of the choicest of his
medical secrets, which I picked up without his knowledge and against
his will.”
“Get thyself washed and shaved, then,” said Tressilian; “reform
thy dress as well as thou canst, and fling away these grotesque trap-
pings; and, so thou wilt be secret and faithful, thou shalt follow me
for a short time, till thy pranks here are forgotten. Thou hast, I

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think, both address and courage, and I have matter to do that may
require both.”
Wayland Smith eagerly embraced the proposal, and protested his
devotion to his new master. In a very few minutes he had made so
great an alteration in his original appearance, by change of dress,
trimming his beard and hair, and so forth, that Tressilian could not
help remarking that he thought he would stand in little need of a
protector, since none of his old acquaintance were likely to recog-
nize him.
“My debtors would not pay me money,” said Wayland, shaking
his head; “but my creditors of every kind would be less easily blinded.
And, in truth, I hold myself not safe, unless under the protection of
a gentleman of birth and character, as is your worship.”
So saying, he led the way out of the cavern. He then called loudly
for Hobgoblin, who, after lingering for an instant, appeared with
the horse furniture, when Wayland closed and sedulously covered
up the trap-door, observing it might again serve him at his need,
besides that the tools were worth somewhat. A whistle from the
owner brought to his side a nag that fed quietly on the common,
and was accustomed to the signal.
While he accoutred him for the journey, Tressilian drew his own
girths tighter, and in a few minutes both were ready to mount.
At this moment Sludge approached to bid them farewell.
“You are going to leave me, then, my old playfellow,” said the
boy; “and there is an end of all our game at bo-peep with the cow-
ardly lubbards whom I brought hither to have their broad-footed
nags shed by the devil and his imps?”
“It is even so,” said Wayland Smith, “the best friends must part,
Flibbertigibbet; but thou, my boy, art the only thing in the Vale of
Whitehorse which I shall regret to leave behind me.”
“Well, I bid thee not farewell,” said Dickie Sludge, “for you will
be at these revels, I judge, and so shall I; for if Dominie Holiday
take me not thither, by the light of day, which we see not in yonder
dark hole, I will take myself there!”
“In good time,” said Wayland; “but I pray you to do nought rashly.”
“Nay, now you would make a child, a common child of me, and
tell me of the risk of walking without leading-strings. But before

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you are a mile from these stones, you shall know by a sure token
that I have more of the hobgoblin about me than you credit; and I
will so manage that, if you take advantage, you may profit by my
prank.”
“What dost thou mean, boy?” said Tressilian; but Flibbertigibbet
only answered with a grin and a caper, and bidding both of them
farewell, and, at the same time, exhorting them to make the best of
their way from the place, he set them the example by running home-
ward with the same uncommon velocity with which he had baffled
Tressilian’s former attempts to get hold of him.
“It is in vain to chase him,” said Wayland Smith; “for unless your
worship is expert in lark-hunting, we should never catch hold of
him—and besides, what would it avail? Better make the best of our
way hence, as he advises.”
They mounted their horses accordingly, and began to proceed at
a round pace, as soon as Tressilian had explained to his guide the
direction in which he desired to travel.
After they had trotted nearly a mile, Tressilian could not help ob-
serving to his companion that his horse felt more lively under him
than even when he mounted in the morning.
“Are you avised of that?” said Wayland Smith, smiling. “That is
owing to a little secret of mine. I mixed that with an handful of oats
which shall save your worship’s heels the trouble of spurring these
six hours at least. Nay, I have not studied medicine and pharmacy
for nought.”
“I trust,” said Tressilian, “your drugs will do my horse no harm?”
“No more than the mare’s milk; which foaled him,” answered the
artist, and was proceeding to dilate on the excellence of his recipe
when he was interrupted by an explosion as loud and tremendous
as the mine which blows up the rampart of a beleaguered city. The
horses started, and the riders were equally surprised. They turned to
gaze in the direction from which the thunder-clap was heard, and
beheld, just over the spot they had left so recently, a huge pillar of
dark smoke rising high into the clear, blue atmosphere. “My habita-
tion is gone to wreck,” said Wayland, immediately conjecturing the
cause of the explosion. “I was a fool to mention the doctor’s kind
intentions towards my mansion before that limb of mischief, Flib-

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bertigibbet; I might have guessed he would long to put so rare a

frolic into execution. But let us hasten on, for the sound will collect
the country to the spot.”
So saying, he spurred his horse, and Tressilian also quickening his
speed, they rode briskly forward.
“This, then, was the meaning of the little imp’s token which he
promised us?” said Tressilian. “Had we lingered near the spot, we
had found it a love-token with a vengeance.”
“He would have given us warning,” said the smith. “I saw him
look back more than once to see if we were off—’tis a very devil for
mischief, yet not an ill-natured devil either. It were long to tell your
honour how I became first acquainted with him, and how many
tricks he played me. Many a good turn he did me too, especially in
bringing me customers; for his great delight was to see them sit
shivering behind the bushes when they heard the click of my ham-
mer. I think Dame Nature, when she lodged a double quantity of
brains in that misshapen head of his, gave him the power of enjoy-
ing other people’s distresses, as she gave them the pleasure of laugh-
ing at his ugliness.”
“It may be so,” said Tressilian; “those who find themselves severed
from society by peculiarities of form, if they do not hate the com-
mon bulk of mankind, are at least not altogether indisposed to en-
joy their mishaps and calamities.”
“But Flibbertigibbet,” answered Wayland, “hath that about him
which may redeem his turn for mischievous frolic; for he is as faith-
ful when attached as he is tricky and malignant to strangers, and, as
I said before, I have cause to say so.”
Tressilian pursued the conversation no further, and they contin-
ued their journey towards Devonshire without further adventure,
until they alighted at an inn in the town of Marlborough, since
celebrated for having given title to the greatest general (excepting
one) whom Britain ever produced. Here the travellers received, in
the same breath, an example of the truth of two old proverbs—
namely, that ill news fly fast, and that listeners seldom hear a good tale
of themselves.
The inn-yard was in a sort of combustion when they alighted;
insomuch, that they could scarce get man or boy to take care of

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their horses, so full were the whole household of some news which
flew from tongue to tongue, the import of which they were for
some time unable to discover. At length, indeed, they found it re-
spected matters which touched them nearly.
“What is the matter, say you, master?” answered, at length, the
head hostler, in reply to Tressilian’s repeated questions.—”Why, truly,
I scarce know myself. But here was a rider but now, who says that
the devil hath flown away with him they called Wayland Smith,
that won’d about three miles from the Whitehorse of Berkshire, this
very blessed morning, in a flash of fire and a pillar of smoke, and
rooted up the place he dwelt in, near that old cockpit of upright
stones, as cleanly as if it had all been delved up for a cropping.”
“Why, then,” said an old farmer, “the more is the pity; for that
Wayland Smith (whether he was the devil’s crony or no I skill not)
had a good notion of horses’ diseases, and it’s to be thought the bots
will spread in the country far and near, an Satan has not gien un
time to leave his secret behind un.”
“You may say that, Gaffer Grimesby,” said the hostler in return;
“I have carried a horse to Wayland Smith myself, for he passed all
farriers in this country.”
“Did you see him?” said Dame Alison Crane, mistress of the inn
bearing that sign, and deigning to term husband the owner thereof,
a mean-looking hop-o’-my-thumb sort or person, whose halting gait,
and long neck, and meddling, henpecked insignificance are sup-
posed to have given origin to the celebrated old English tune of
“My name hath a lame tame Crane.”
On this occasion he chirped out a repetition of his wife’s ques-
tion, “Didst see the devil, Jack Hostler, I say?”
“And what if I did see un, Master Crane?” replied Jack Hostler,
for, like all the rest of the household, he paid as little respect to his
master as his mistress herself did.
“Nay, nought, Jack Hostler,” replied the pacific Master Crane;
“only if you saw the devil, methinks I would like to know what un’s
like?”
“You will know that one day, Master Crane,” said his helpmate,
“an ye mend not your manners, and mind your business, leaving off
such idle palabras.—But truly, Jack Hostler, I should be glad to

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know myself what like the fellow was.”

“Why, dame,” said the hostler, more respectfully, “as for what he
was like I cannot tell, nor no man else, for why I never saw un.”
“And how didst thou get thine errand done,” said Gaffer Grimesby,
“if thou seedst him not?”
“Why, I had schoolmaster to write down ailment o’ nag,” said
Jack Hostler; “and I went wi’ the ugliest slip of a boy for my guide as
ever man cut out o’ lime-tree root to please a child withal.”
“And what was it?—and did it cure your nag, Jack Hostler?” was
uttered and echoed by all who stood around.
“Why, how can I tell you what it was?” said the hostler; “simply it
smelled and tasted—for I did make bold to put a pea’s substance
into my mouth—like hartshorn and savin mixed with vinegar; but
then no hartshorn and savin ever wrought so speedy a cure. And I
am dreading that if Wayland Smith be gone, the bots will have more
power over horse and cattle.”
The pride of art, which is certainly not inferior in its influence to
any other pride whatever, here so far operated on Wayland Smith,
that, notwithstanding the obvious danger of his being recognized,
he could not help winking to Tressilian, and smiling mysteriously,
as if triumphing in the undoubted evidence of his veterinary skill.
In the meanwhile, the discourse continued.
“E’en let it be so,” said a grave man in black, the companion of
Gaffer Grimesby; “e’en let us perish under the evil God sends us,
rather than the devil be our doctor.”
“Very true,” said Dame Crane; “and I marvel at Jack Hostler that
he would peril his own soul to cure the bowels of a nag.”
“Very true, mistress,” said Jack Hostler, “but the nag was my
master’s; and had it been yours, I think ye would ha’ held me cheap
enow an I had feared the devil when the poor beast was in such a
taking. For the rest, let the clergy look to it. Every man to his craft,
says the proverb—the parson to the prayer-book, and the groom to
his curry-comb.
“I vow,” said Dame Crane, “I think Jack Hostler speaks like a
good Christian and a faithful servant, who will spare neither body
nor soul in his master’s service. However, the devil has lifted him in
time, for a Constable of the Hundred came hither this morning to

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get old Gaffer Pinniewinks, the trier of witches, to go with him to

the Vale of Whitehorse to comprehend Wayland Smith, and put
him to his probation. I helped Pinniewinks to sharpen his pincers
and his poking-awl, and I saw the warrant from Justice Blindas.”
“Pooh—pooh—the devil would laugh both at Blindas and his
warrant, constable and witch-finder to boot,” said old Dame Crank,
the Papist laundress; “Wayland Smith’s flesh would mind
Pinniewinks’ awl no more than a cambric ruff minds a hot
piccadilloe-needle. But tell me, gentlefolks, if the devil ever had such
a hand among ye, as to snatch away your smiths and your artists
from under your nose, when the good Abbots of Abingdon had
their own? By Our Lady, no!—they had their hallowed tapers; and
their holy water, and their relics, and what not, could send the foulest
fiends a-packing. Go ask a heretic parson to do the like. But ours
were a comfortable people.”
“Very true, Dame Crank,” said the hostler; “so said Simpkins of
Simonburn when the curate kissed his wife,—’They are a comfort-
able people,’ said he.”
“Silence, thou foul-mouthed vermin,” said Dame Crank; “is it fit
for a heretic horse-boy like thee to handle such a text as the Catho-
lic clergy?”
“In troth no, dame,” replied the man of oats; “and as you yourself
are now no text for their handling, dame, whatever may have been
the case in your day, I think we had e’en better leave un alone.”
At this last exchange of sarcasm, Dame Crank set up her throat,
and began a horrible exclamation against Jack Hostler, under cover
of which Tressilian and his attendant escaped into the house.
They had no sooner entered a private chamber, to which Goodman
Crane himself had condescended to usher them, and dispatched
their worthy and obsequious host on the errand of procuring wine
and refreshment, than Wayland Smith began to give vent to his self-
importance.
“You see, sir,” said he, addressing Tressilian, “that I nothing fabled
in asserting that I possessed fully the mighty mystery of a farrier, or
mareschal, as the French more honourably term us. These dog-hos-
tlers, who, after all, are the better judges in such a case, know what
credit they should attach to my medicaments. I call you to witness,

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worshipful Master Tressilian, that nought, save the voice of calumny

and the hand of malicious violence, hath driven me forth from a
station in which I held a place alike useful and honoured.”
“I bear witness, my friend, but will reserve my listening,” answered
Tressilian, “for a safer time; unless, indeed, you deem it essential to
your reputation to be translated, like your late dwelling, by the as-
sistance of a flash of fire. For you see your best friends reckon you
no better than a mere sorcerer.”
“Now, Heaven forgive them,” said the artist, “who confounded
learned skill with unlawful magic! I trust a man may be as skilful, or
more so, than the best chirurgeon ever meddled with horse-flesh,
and yet may be upon the matter little more than other ordinary
men, or at the worst no conjurer.”
“God forbid else!” said Tressilian. “But be silent just for the present,
since here comes mine host with an assistant, who seems something
of the least.”
Everybody about the inn, Dame Crane herself included, had been
indeed so interested and agitated by the story they had heard of
Wayland Smith, and by the new, varying, and more marvellous edi-
tions of the incident which arrived from various quarters, that mine
host, in his righteous determination to accommodate his guests,
had been able to obtain the assistance of none of his household,
saving that of a little boy, a junior tapster, of about twelve years old,
who was called Sampson.
“I wish,” he said, apologizing to his guests, as he set down a flagon
of sack, and promised some food immediately—”I wish the devil
had flown away with my wife and my whole family instead of this
Wayland Smith, who, I daresay, after all said and done, was much
less worthy of the distinction which Satan has done him.”
“I hold opinion with you, good fellow,” replied Wayland Smith;
“and I will drink to you upon that argument.”
“Not that I would justify any man who deals with the devil,” said
mine host, after having pledged Wayland in a rousing draught of
sack, “but that—saw ye ever better sack, my masters?—but that, I
say, a man had better deal with a dozen cheats and scoundrel fel-
lows, such as this Wayland Smith, than with a devil incarnate, that
takes possession of house and home, bed and board.”

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The poor fellow’s detail of grievances was here interrupted by the

shrill voice of his helpmate, screaming from the kitchen, to which
he instantly hobbled, craving pardon of his guests. He was no sooner
gone than Wayland Smith expressed, by every contemptuous epi-
thet in the language, his utter scorn for a nincompoop who stuck
his head under his wife’s apron-string; and intimated that, saving
for the sake of the horses, which required both rest and food, he
would advise his worshipful Master Tressilian to push on a stage
farther, rather than pay a reckoning to such a mean-spirited, crow-
trodden, henpecked coxcomb, as Gaffer Crane.
The arrival of a large dish of good cow-heel and bacon something
soothed the asperity of the artist, which wholly vanished before a
choice capon, so delicately roasted that the lard frothed on it, said
Wayland, like May-dew on a lily; and both Gaffer Crane and his
good dame became, in his eyes, very painstaking, accommodating,
obliging persons.
According to the manners of the times, the master and his atten-
dant sat at the same table, and the latter observed, with regret, how
little attention Tressilian paid to his meal. He recollected, indeed,
the pain he had given by mentioning the maiden in whose com-
pany he had first seen him; but, fearful of touching upon a topic too
tender to be tampered with, he chose to ascribe his abstinence to
another cause.
“This fare is perhaps too coarse for your worship,” said Wayland,
as the limbs of the capon disappeared before his own exertions; “but
had you dwelt as long as I have done in yonder dungeon, which
Flibbertigibbet has translated to the upper element, a place where I
dared hardly broil my food, lest the smoke should be seen without,
you would think a fair capon a more welcome dainty.”
“If you are pleased, friend,” said Tressilian, “it is well. Neverthe-
less, hasten thy meal if thou canst, For this place is unfriendly to thy
safety, and my concerns crave travelling.”
Allowing, therefore, their horses no more rest than was absolutely
necessary for them, they pursued their journey by a forced march as
far as Bradford, where they reposed themselves for the night.
The next morning found them early travellers. And, not to fa-
tigue the reader with unnecessary particulars, they traversed with-

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out adventure the counties of Wiltshire and Somerset, and about

noon of the third day after Tressilian’s leaving Cumnor, arrived at
Sir Hugh Robsart’s seat, called Lidcote Hall, on the frontiers of
Devonshire.

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CHAPTER XII

Ah me! the flower and blossom of your house,

The wind hath blown away to other towers.

Joanna Baillie’s Family Legend.

THE ANCIENT SEAT of Lidcote Hall was situated near the village of the
same name, and adjoined the wild and extensive forest of Exmoor,
plentifully stocked with game, in which some ancient rights belong-
ing to the Robsart family entitled Sir Hugh to pursue his favourite
amusement of the chase. The old mansion was a low, venerable build-
ing, occupying a considerable space of ground, which was surrounded
by a deep moat. The approach and drawbridge were defended by an
octagonal tower, of ancient brickwork, but so clothed with ivy and
other creepers that it was difficult to discover of what materials it was
constructed. The angles of this tower were each decorated with a tur-
ret, whimsically various in form and in size, and, therefore, very un-
like the monotonous stone pepperboxes which, in modern Gothic
architecture, are employed for the same purpose. One of these turrets
was square, and occupied as a clock-house. But the clock was now
standing still; a circumstance peculiarly striking to Tressilian, because
the good old knight, among other harmless peculiarities, had a fidg-
ety anxiety about the exact measurement of time, very common to
those who have a great deal of that commodity to dispose of, and find
it lie heavy upon their hands—just as we see shopkeepers amuse them-
selves with taking an exact account of their stock at the time there is
least demand for it.
The entrance to the courtyard of the old mansion lay through an
archway, surmounted by the foresaid tower; but the drawbridge was

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down, and one leaf of the iron-studded folding-doors stood care-

lessly open. Tressilian hastily rode over the drawbridge, entered the
court, and began to call loudly on the domestics by their names. For
some time he was only answered by the echoes and the howling of
the hounds, whose kennel lay at no great distance from the man-
sion, and was surrounded by the same moat. At length Will Badger,
the old and favourite attendant of the knight, who acted alike as
squire of his body and superintendent of his sports, made his ap-
pearance. The stout, weather-beaten forester showed great signs of
joy when he recognized Tressilian.
“Lord love you,” he said, “Master Edmund, be it thou in flesh
and fell? Then thou mayest do some good on Sir Hugh, for it passes
the wit of man—that is, of mine own, and the curate’s, and Master
Mumblazen’s—to do aught wi’un.”
“Is Sir Hugh then worse since I went away, Will?” demanded
Tressilian.
“For worse in body—no; he is much better,” replied the domes-
tic; “but he is clean mazed as it were—eats and drinks as he was
wont—but sleeps not, or rather wakes not, for he is ever in a sort of
twilight, that is neither sleeping nor waking. Dame Swineford
thought it was like the dead palsy. But no, no, dame, said I, it is the
heart, it is the heart.”
“Can ye not stir his mind to any pastimes?” said Tressilian.
“He is clean and quite off his sports,” said Will Badger; “hath
neither touched backgammon or shovel-board, nor looked on the
big book of harrowtry wi’ Master Mumblazen. I let the clock run
down, thinking the missing the bell might somewhat move him—
for you know, Master Edmund, he was particular in counting time—
but he never said a word on’t, so I may e’en set the old chime a-
towling again. I made bold to tread on Bungay’s tail too, and you
know what a round rating that would ha’ cost me once a-day; but
he minded the poor tyke’s whine no more than a madge howlet
whooping down the chimney—so the case is beyond me.”
“Thou shalt tell me the rest within doors, Will. Meanwhile, let
this person be ta’en to the buttery, and used with respect. He is a
man of art.”
“White art or black art, I would,” said Will Badger, “that he had

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any art which could help us.—Here, Tom Butler, look to the man
of art;—and see that he steals none of thy spoons, lad,” he added in
a whisper to the butler, who showed himself at a low window, “I
have known as honest a faced fellow have art enough to do that.”
He then ushered Tressilian into a low parlour, and went, at his
desire, to see in what state his master was, lest the sudden return of
his darling pupil and proposed son-in-law should affect him too
strongly. He returned immediately, and said that Sir Hugh was doz-
ing in his elbow-chair, but that Master Mumblazen would acquaint
Master Tressilian the instant he awaked.
“But it is chance if he knows you,” said the huntsman, “for he has
forgotten the name of every hound in the pack. I thought, about a
week since, he had gotten a favourable turn. ‘Saddle me old Sorrel,’
said he suddenly, after he had taken his usual night-draught out of
the great silver grace-cup, ‘and take the hounds to Mount Hazelhurst
to-morrow.’ Glad men were we all, and out we had him in the morn-
ing, and he rode to cover as usual, with never a word spoken but
that the wind was south, and the scent would lie. But ere we had
uncoupled’the hounds, he began to stare round him, like a man
that wakes suddenly out of a dream—turns bridle, and walks back
to Hall again, and leaves us to hunt at leisure by ourselves, if we
listed.”
“You tell a heavy tale, Will,” replied Tressilian; “but God must
help us—there is no aid in man.”
“Then you bring us no news of young Mistress Amy? But what
need I ask—your brow tells the story. Ever I hoped that if any man
could or would track her, it must be you. All’s over and lost now.
But if ever I have that Varney within reach of a flight-shot, I will
bestow a forked shaft on him; and that I swear by salt and bread.”
As he spoke, the door opened, and Master Mumblazen appeared—
a withered, thin, elderly gentleman, with a cheek like a winter apple,
and his grey hair partly concealed by a small, high hat, shaped like a
cone, or rather like such a strawberry-basket as London fruiterers
exhibit at their windows. He was too sententious a person to waste
words on mere salutation; so, having welcomed Tressilian with a
nod and a shake of the hand, he beckoned him to follow to Sir
Hugh’s great chamber, which the good knight usually inhabited.

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Will Badger followed, unasked, anxious to see whether his master

would be relieved from his state of apathy by the arrival of Tressilian.
In a long, low parlour, amply furnished with implements of the
chase, and with silvan trophies, by a massive stone chimney, over which
hung a sword and suit of armour somewhat obscured by neglect, sat
Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote, a man of large size, which had been
only kept within moderate compass by the constant use of violent
exercise, It seemed to Tressilian that the lethargy, under which his old
friend appeared to labour, had, even during his few weeks’ absence,
added bulk to his person—at least it had obviously diminished the
vivacity of his eye, which, as they entered, first followed Master
Mumblazen slowly to a large oaken desk, on which a ponderous vol-
ume lay open, and then rested, as if in uncertainty, on the stranger
who had entered along with him. The curate, a grey-headed clergy-
man, who had been a confessor in the days of Queen Mary, sat with
a book in his hand in another recess in the apartment. He, too, signed
a mournful greeting to Tressilian, and laid his book aside, to watch
the effect his appearance should produce on the afflicted old man.
As Tressilian, his own eyes filling fast with tears, approached more
and more nearly to the father of his betrothed bride, Sir Hugh’s
intelligence seemed to revive. He sighed heavily, as one who awak-
ens from a state of stupor; a slight convulsion passed over his fea-
tures; he opened his arms without speaking a word, and, as Tressilian
threw himself into them, he folded him to his bosom.
“There is something left to live for yet,” were the first words he
uttered; and while he spoke, he gave vent to his feelings in a parox-
ysm of weeping, the tears chasing each other down his sunburnt
cheeks and long white beard.
“I ne’er thought to have thanked God to see my master weep,”
said Will Badger; “but now I do, though I am like to weep for com-
pany.”
“I will ask thee no questions,” said the old knight; “no questions—
none, Edmund. Thou hast not found her—or so found her, that
she were better lost.”
Tressilian was unable to reply otherwise than by putting his hands
before his face.
“It is enough—it is enough. But do not thou weep for her,

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Edmund. I have cause to weep, for she was my daughter; thou hast
cause to rejoice, that she did not become thy wife.—Great God!
thou knowest best what is good for us. It was my nightly prayer that
I should see Amy and Edmund wedded,—had it been granted, it
had now been gall added to bitterness.”
“Be comforted, my friend,” said the curate, addressing Sir Hugh,
“it cannot be that the daughter of all our hopes and affections is the
vile creature you would bespeak her.”
“Oh, no,” replied Sir Hugh impatiently, “I were wrong to name broadly
the base thing she is become—there is some new court name for it, I
warrant me. It is honour enough for the daughter of an old Devonshire
clown to be the leman of a gay courtier—of Varney too—of Varney,
whose grandsire was relieved by my father, when his fortune was bro-
ken, at the battle of—the battle of—where Richard was slain—out on
my memory!—and I warrant none of you will help me—”
“The battle of Bosworth,” said Master Mumblazen—”stricken
between Richard Crookback and Henry Tudor, grandsire of the
Queen that now is, Primo Henrici Septimi; and in the year one thou-
sand four hundred and eighty-five, post Christum natum.”
“Ay, even so,” said the old knight; “every child knows it. But my
poor head forgets all it should remember, and remembers only what
it would most willingly forget. My brain has been at fault, Tressilian,
almost ever since thou hast been away, and even yet it hunts counter.”
“Your worship,” said the good clergyman, “had better retire to
your apartment, and try to sleep for a little space. The physician left
a composing draught; and our Great Physician has commanded us
to use earthly means, that we may be strengthened to sustain the
trials He sends us.”
“True, true, old friend,” said Sir Hugh; “and we will bear our
trials manfully—we have lost but a woman.—See, Tressilian,”—he
drew from his bosom a long ringlet of glossy hair,—”see this lock! I
tell thee, Edmund, the very night she disappeared, when she bid me
good even, as she was wont, she hung about my neck, and fondled
me more than usual; and I, like an old fool, held her by this lock,
until she took her scissors, severed it, and left it in my hand—as all
I was ever to see more of her!”
Tressilian was unable to reply, well judging what a complication

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of feelings must have crossed the bosom of the unhappy fugitive at

that cruel moment. The clergyman was about to speak, but Sir Hugh
interrupted him.
“I know what you would say, Master Curate,—After all, it is but a
lock of woman’s tresses; and by woman, shame, and sin, and death
came into an innocent world.—And learned Master Mumblazen,
too, can say scholarly things of their inferiority.”
“C’est l’homme,” said Master Mumblazen, “Qui se bast, et qui
conseille.”
“True,” said Sir Hugh, “and we will bear us, therefore, like men
who have both mettle and wisdom in us.—Tressilian, thou art as
welcome as if thou hadst brought better news. But we have spoken
too long dry-lipped.—Amy, fill a cup of wine to Edmund, and an-
other to me.” Then instantly recollecting that he called upon her
who could not hear, he shook his head, and said to the clergyman,
“This grief is to my bewildered mind what the church of Lidcote is
to our park: we may lose ourselves among the briers and thickets for
a little space, but from the end of each avenue we see the old grey
steeple and the grave of my forefathers. I would I were to travel that
road tomorrow!”
Tressilian and the curate joined in urging the exhausted old man
to lay himself to rest, and at length prevailed. Tressilian remained by
his pillow till he saw that slumber at length sunk down on him, and
then returned to consult with the curate what steps should be adopted
in these unhappy circumstances.
They could not exclude from these deliberations Master Michael
Mumblazen; and they admitted him the more readily, that besides
what hopes they entertained from his sagacity, they knew him to be
so great a friend to taciturnity, that there was no doubt of his keep-
ing counsel. He was an old bachelor, of good family, but small for-
tune, and distantly related to the House of Robsart; in virtue of
which connection, Lidcote Hall had been honoured with his resi-
dence for the last twenty years. His company was agreeable to Sir
Hugh, chiefly on account of his profound learning, which, though
it only related to heraldry and genealogy, with such scraps of history
as connected themselves with these subjects, was precisely of a kind
to captivate the good old knight; besides the convenience which he

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found in having a friend to appeal to when his own memory, as

frequently happened, proved infirm and played him false concern-
ing names and dates, which, and all similar deficiencies, Master
Michael Mumblazen supplied with due brevity and discretion. And,
indeed, in matters concerning the modern world, he often gave, in
his enigmatical and heraldic phrase, advice which was well worth
attending to, or, in Will Badger’s language, started the game while
others beat the bush.
“We have had an unhappy time of it with the good knight, Mas-
ter Edmund,” said the curate. “I have not suffered so much since I
was torn away from my beloved flock, and compelled to abandon
them to the Romish wolves.”
“That was in tertio mariæ,” said Master Mumblazen.
“In the name of Heaven,” continued the curate, “tell us, has your
time been better spent than ours, or have you any news of that
unhappy maiden, who, being for so many years the principal joy of
this broken-down house, is now proved our greatest unhappiness?
Have you not at least discovered her place of residence?”
“I have,” replied Tressilian. “Know you Cumnor Place, near Ox-
ford?”
“Surely,” said the clergyman; “it was a house of removal for the
monks of Abingdon.”
“Whose arms,” said Master Michael, “I have seen over a stone
chimney in the hall,—a cross patonce betwixt four martlets.”
“There,” said Tressilian, “this unhappy maiden resides, in com-
pany with the villain Varney. But for a strange mishap, my sword
had revenged all our injuries, as well as hers, on his worthless head.”
“Thank God, that kept thine hand from blood-guiltiness, rash
young man!” answered the curate. “Vengeance is mine, saith the
Lord, and I will repay it. It were better study to free her from the
villain’s nets of infamy.”
“They are called, in heraldry, Laquei Amoris, or Lacs D’Amour,”
said Mumblazen.
“It is in that I require your aid, my friends,” said Tressilian. “I am
resolved to accuse this villain, at the very foot of the throne, of false-
hood, seduction, and breach of hospitable laws. The Queen shall
hear me, though the Earl of Leicester, the villain’s patron, stood at

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her right hand.”

“Her Grace,” said the curate, “hath set a comely example of con-
tinence to her subjects, and will doubtless do justice on this inhos-
pitable robber. But wert thou not better apply to the Earl of Leices-
ter, in the first place, for justice on his servant? If he grants it, thou
dost save the risk of making thyself a powerful adversary, which will
certainly chance if, in the first instance, you accuse his master of the
horse and prime favourite before the Queen.”
“My mind revolts from your counsel,” said Tressilian. “I cannot
brook to plead my noble patron’s cause the unhappy Amy’s cause—
before any one save my lawful Sovereign. Leicester, thou wilt say, is
noble. Be it so; he is but a subject like ourselves, and I will not carry
my plaint to him, if I can do better. Still, I will think on what thou
hast said; but I must have your assistance to persuade the good Sir
Hugh to make me his commissioner and fiduciary in this matter,
for it is in his name I must speak, and not in my own. Since she is so
far changed as to dote upon this empty profligate courtier, he shall
at least do her the justice which is yet in his power.”
“Better she died caelebs and sine prole,” said Mumblazen, with
more animation than he usually expressed, “than part, per pale, the
noble coat of Robsart with that of such a miscreant!”
“If it be your object, as I cannot question,” said the clergyman,
“to save, as much as is yet possible, the credit of this unhappy young
woman, I repeat, you should apply, in the first instance, to the Earl
of Leicester. He is as absolute in his household as the Queen in her
kingdom, and if he expresses to Varney that such is his pleasure, her
honour will not stand so publicly committed.”
“You are right, you are right!” said Tressilian eagerly, “and I thank
you for pointing out what I overlooked in my haste. I little thought
ever to have besought grace of Leicester; but I could kneel to the
proud Dudley, if doing so could remove one shade of shame from
this unhappy damsel. You will assist me then to procure the neces-
sary powers from Sir Hugh Robsart?”
The curate assured him of his assistance, and the herald nodded
assent.
“You must hold yourselves also in readiness to testify, in case you
are called upon, the openhearted hospitality which our good patron

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exercised towards this deceitful traitor, and the solicitude with which
he laboured to seduce his unhappy daughter.”
“At first,” said the clergyman, “she did not, as it seemed to me,
much affect his company; but latterly I saw them often together.”
“Seiant in the parlour,” said Michael Mumblazen, “and passant in
the garden.”
“I once came on them by chance,” said the priest, “in the South
wood, in a spring evening. Varney was muffled in a russet cloak, so
that I saw not his face. They separated hastily, as they heard me
rustle amongst the leaves; and I observed she turned her head and
looked long after him.”
“With neck reguardant,” said the herald. “And on the day of her
flight, and that was on Saint Austen’s Eve, I saw Varney’s groom,
attired in his liveries, hold his master’s horse and Mistress Amy’s
palfrey, bridled and saddled proper, behind the wall of the church-
yard,”
“And now is she found mewed up in his secret place of retire-
ment,” said Tressilian. “The villain is taken in the manner, and I
well wish he may deny his crime, that I may thrust conviction down
his false throat! But I must prepare for my journey. Do you, gentle-
men, dispose my patron to grant me such powers as are needful to
act in his name.”
So saying, Tressilian left the room.
“He is too hot,” said the curate; “and I pray to God that He may
grant him the patience to deal with Varney as is fitting.”
“Patience and Varney,” said Mumblazen, “is worse heraldry than
metal upon metal. He is more false than a siren, more rapacious
than a griffin, more poisonous than a wyvern, and more cruel than
a lion rampant.”
“Yet I doubt much,” said the curate, “whether we can with pro-
priety ask from Sir Hugh Robsart, being in his present condition,
any deed deputing his paternal right in Mistress Amy to whomso-
ever—”
“Your reverence need not doubt that,” said Will Badger, who en-
tered as he spoke, “for I will lay my life he is another man when he
wakes than he has been these thirty days past.”
“Ay, Will,” said the curate, “hast thou then so much confidence in

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Doctor Diddleum’s draught?”

“Not a whit,” said Will, “because master ne’er tasted a drop on’t,
seeing it was emptied out by the housemaid. But here’s a gentle-
man, who came attending on Master Tressilian, has given Sir Hugh
a draught that is worth twenty of yon un. I have spoken cunningly
with him, and a better farrier or one who hath a more just notion of
horse and dog ailment I have never seen; and such a one would
never be unjust to a Christian man.”
“A farrier! you saucy groom—and by whose authority, pray?” said
the curate, rising in surprise and indignation; “or who will be war-
rant for this new physician?”
“For authority, an it like your reverence, he had mine; and for
warrant, I trust I have not been five-and-twenty years in this house
without having right to warrant the giving of a draught to beast or
body—I who can gie a drench, and a ball, and bleed, or blister, if
need, to my very self.”
The counsellors of the house of Robsart thought it meet to carry
this information instantly to Tressilian, who as speedily summoned
before him Wayland Smith, and demanded of him (in private, how-
ever) by what authority he had ventured to administer any medi-
cine to Sir Hugh Robsart?
“Why,” replied the artist, “your worship cannot but remember
that I told you I had made more progress into my master’s—I mean
the learned Doctor Doboobie’s—mystery than he was willing to
own; and indeed half of his quarrel and malice against me was that,
besides that I got something too deep into his secrets, several dis-
cerning persons, and particularly a buxom young widow of
Abingdon, preferred my prescriptions to his.”
“None of thy buffoonery, sir,” said Tressilian sternly. “If thou hast
trifled with us—much more, if thou hast done aught that may preju-
dice Sir Hugh Robsart’s health, thou shalt find thy grave at the bot-
tom of a tin-mine.”
“I know too little of the great arcanum to convert the ore to gold,”
said Wayland firmly. “But truce to your apprehensions, Master
Tressilian. I understood the good knight’s case from what Master
William Badger told me; and I hope I am able enough to adminis-
ter a poor dose of mandragora, which, with the sleep that must

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needs follow, is all that Sir Hugh Robsart requires to settle his dis-
traught brains.”
“I trust thou dealest fairly with me, Wayland?” said Tressilian.
“Most fairly and honestly, as the event shall show,” replied the
artist. “What would it avail me to harm the poor old man for whom
you are interested?—you, to whom I owe it that Gaffer Pinniewinks
is not even now rending my flesh and sinews with his accursed pin-
cers, and probing every mole in my body with his sharpened awl (a
murrain on the hands which forged it!) in order to find out the
witch’s mark?—I trust to yoke myself as a humble follower to your
worship’s train, and I only wish to have my faith judged of by the
result of the good knight’s slumbers.”
Wayland Smith was right in his prognostication. The sedative
draught which his skill had prepared, and Will Badger’s confidence
had administered, was attended with the most beneficial effects. The
patient’s sleep was long and healthful, and the poor old knight awoke,
humbled indeed in thought and weak in frame, yet a much better
judge of whatever was subjected to his intellect than he had been for
some time past. He resisted for a while the proposal made by his
friends that Tressilian should undertake a journey to court, to attempt
the recovery of his daughter, and the redress of her wrongs, in so far as
they might yet be repaired. “Let her go,” he said; “she is but a hawk
that goes down the wind; I would not bestow even a whistle to re-
claim her.” But though he for some time maintained this argument,
he was at length convinced it was his duty to take the part to which
natural affection inclined him, and consent that such efforts as could
yet be made should be used by Tressilian in behalf of his daughter. He
subscribed, therefore, a warrant of attorney, such as the curate’s skill
enabled him to draw up; for in those simple days the clergy were
often the advisers of their flock in law as well as in gospel.
All matters were prepared for Tressilian’s second departure, within
twenty-four hours after he had returned to Lidcote Hall; but one
material circumstance had been forgotten, which was first called to
the remembrance of Tressilian by Master Mumblazen. “You are go-
ing to court, Master Tressilian,” said he; “you will please remember
that your blazonry must be argent and or—no other tinctures will
pass current.” The remark was equally just and embarrassing. To

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prosecute a suit at court, ready money was as indispensable even in

the golden days of Elizabeth as at any succeeding period; and it was
a commodity little at the command of the inhabitants of Lidcote
Hall. Tressilian was himself poor; the revenues of good Sir Hugh
Robsart were consumed, and even anticipated, in his hospitable mode
of living; and it was finally necessary that the herald who started the
doubt should himself solve it. Master Michael Mumblazen did so
by producing a bag of money, containing nearly three hundred
pounds in gold and silver of various coinage, the savings of twenty
years, which he now, without speaking a syllable upon the subject,
dedicated to the service of the patron whose shelter and protection
had given him the means of making this little hoard. Tressilian ac-
cepted it without affecting a moment’s hesitation, and a mutual
grasp of the hand was all that passed betwixt them, to express the
pleasure which the one felt in dedicating his all to such a purpose,
and that which the other received from finding so material an ob-
stacle to the success of his journey so suddenly removed, and in a
manner so unexpected.
While Tressilian was making preparations for his departure early
the ensuing morning, Wayland Smith desired to speak with him,
and, expressing his hope that he had been pleased with the opera-
tion of his medicine in behalf of Sir Hugh Robsart, added his desire
to accompany him to court. This was indeed what Tressilian him-
self had several times thought of; for the shrewdness, alertness of
understanding, and variety of resource which this fellow had exhib-
ited during the time they had travelled together, had made him
sensible that his assistance might be of importance. But then Wayland
was in danger from the grasp of law; and of this Tressilian reminded
him, mentioning something, at the same time, of the pincers of
Pinniewinks and the warrant of Master Justice Blindas. Wayland
Smith laughed both to scorn.
“See you, sir!” said he, “I have changed my garb from that of a
farrier to a serving-man; but were it still as it was, look at my mous-
taches. They now hang down; I will but turn them up, and dye
them with a tincture that I know of, and the devil would scarce
know me again.”
He accompanied these words with the appropriate action, and in

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less than a minute, by setting up, his moustaches and his hair, he
seemed a different person from him that had but now entered the
room. Still, however, Tressilian hesitated to accept his services, and
the artist became proportionably urgent.
“I owe you life and limb,” he said, “and I would fain pay a part of
the debt, especially as I know from Will Badger on what dangerous
service your worship is bound. I do not, indeed, pretend to be what
is called a man of mettle, one of those ruffling tear-cats who main-
tain their master’s quarrel with sword and buckler. Nay, I am even
one of those who hold the end of a feast better than the beginning
of a fray. But I know that I can serve your worship better, in such
quest as yours, than any of these sword-and-dagger men, and that
my head will be worth an hundred of their hands.”
Tressilian still hesitated. He knew not much of this strange fellow,
and was doubtful how far he could repose in him the confidence
necessary to render him a useful attendant upon the present emer-
gency. Ere he had come to a determination, the trampling of a horse
was heard in the courtyard, and Master Mumblazen and Will Bad-
ger both entered hastily into Tressilian’s chamber, speaking almost
at the same moment.
“Here is a serving-man on the bonniest grey tit I ever see’d in my
life,” said Will Badger, who got the start—”having on his arm a
silver cognizance, being a fire-drake holding in his mouth a brick-
bat, under a coronet of an Earl’s degree,” said Master Mumblazen,
“and bearing a letter sealed of the same.”
Tressilian took the letter, which was addressed “To the worshipful
Master Edmund Tressilian, our loving kinsman—These—ride, ride,
ride—for thy life, for thy life, for thy life. “He then opened it, and
found the following contents:—
“Master Tressilian, our good Friend and Cousin,
“We are at present so ill at ease, and otherwise so unhappily cir-
cumstanced, that we are desirous to have around us those of our
friends on whose loving-kindness we can most especially repose con-
fidence; amongst whom we hold our good Master Tressilian one of
the foremost and nearest, both in good will and good ability. We
therefore pray you, with your most convenient speed, to repair to
our poor lodging, at Sayes Court, near Deptford, where we will

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treat further with you of matters which we deem it not fit to com-
mit unto writing. And so we bid you heartily farewell, being your
loving kinsman to command,

“Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex.”

“Send up the messenger instantly, Will Badger,” said Tressilian;

and as the man entered the room, he exclaimed, “Ah, Stevens, is it
you? how does my good lord?”
“Ill, Master Tressilian,” was the messenger’s reply, “and having
therefore the more need of good friends around him.”
“But what is my lord’s malady?” said Tressilian anxiously; I heard
nothing of his being ill.”
“I know not, sir,” replied the man; “he is very ill at ease. The
leeches are at a stand, and many of his household suspect foul prac-
tice-witchcraft, or worse.”
“What are the symptoms?” said Wayland Smith, stepping for-
ward hastily.
“Anan?” said the messenger, not comprehending his meaning.
“What does he ail?” said Wayland; “where lies his disease?”
The man looked at Tressilian, as if to know whether he should
answer these inquiries from a stranger, and receiving a sign in the
affirmative, he hastily enumerated gradual loss of strength, noctur-
nal perspiration, and loss of appetite, faintness, etc.
“Joined,” said Wayland, “to a gnawing pain in the stomach, and a
low fever?”
“Even so,” said the messenger, somewhat surprised.
“I know how the disease is caused,” said the artist, “and I know
the cause. Your master has eaten of the manna of Saint Nicholas. I
know the cure too—my master shall not say I studied in his labora-
tory for nothing.”
“How mean you?” said Tressilian, frowning; “we speak of one of
the first nobles of England. Bethink you, this is no subject for buf-
foonery.”
“God forbid!” said Wayland Smith. “I say that I know this dis-
ease, and can cure him. Remember what I did for Sir Hugh Robsart,”
“We will set forth instantly,” said Tressilian. “God calls us.”

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Accordingly, hastily mentioning this new motive for his instant

departure, though without alluding to either the suspicions of
Stevens, or the assurances of Wayland Smith, he took the kindest
leave of Sir Hugh and the family at Lidcote Hall, who accompanied
him with prayers and blessings, and, attended by Wayland and the
Earl of Sussex’s domestic, travelled with the utmost speed towards
London.

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CHAPTER XIII

Ay, I know you have arsenic,

Vitriol, sal-tartre, argaile, alkaly,
Cinoper: I know all.—This fellow, Captain,
Will come in time to be a great distiller,
And give a say (I will not say directly,
But very near) at the philosopher’s stone.

The Alchemist.

TRESSILIAN and his attendants pressed their route with all dispatch.
He had asked the smith, indeed, when their departure was resolved
on, whether he would not rather choose to avoid Berkshire, in which
he had played a part so conspicuous? But Wayland returned a con-
fident answer. He had employed the short interval they passed at
Lidcote Hall in transforming himself in a wonderful manner. His
wild and overgrown thicket of beard was now restrained to two small
moustaches on the upper lip, turned up in a military fashion. A
tailor from the village of Lidcote (well paid) had exerted his skill,
under his customer’s directions, so as completely to alter Wayland’s
outward man, and take off from his appearance almost twenty years
of age. Formerly, besmeared with soot and charcoal, overgrown with
hair, and bent double with the nature of his labour, disfigured too
by his odd and fantastic dress, he seemed a man of fifty years old.
But now, in a handsome suit of Tressilian’s livery, with a sword by
his side and a buckler on his shoulder, he looked like a gay ruffling
serving-man, whose age might be betwixt thirty and thirty-five, the
very prime of human life. His loutish, savage-looking demeanour
seemed equally changed, into a forward, sharp, and impudent alert-

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ness of look and action.

When challenged by Tressilian, who desired to know the cause of
a metamorphosis so singular and so absolute, Wayland only an-
swered by singing a stave from a comedy, which was then new, and
was supposed, among the more favourable judges, to augur some
genius on the part of the author. We are happy to preserve the cou-
plet, which ran exactly thus,—

“Ban, ban, ca Caliban—

Get a new master—Be a new man.”

Although Tressilian did not recollect the verses, yet they reminded
him that Wayland had once been a stage player, a circumstance
which, of itself, accounted indifferently well for the readiness with
which he could assume so total a change of personal appearance.
The artist himself was so confident of his disguise being completely
changed, or of his having completely changed his disguise, which
may be the more correct mode of speaking, that he regretted they
were not to pass near his old place of retreat.
“I could venture,” he said, “in my present dress, and with your
worship’s backing, to face Master Justice Blindas, even on a day of
Quarter Sessions; and I would like to know what is become of Hob-
goblin, who is like to play the devil in the world, if he can once slip
the string, and leave his granny and his dominie.—Ay, and the
scathed vault!” he said; “I would willingly have seen what havoc the
explosion of so much gunpowder has made among Doctor
Demetrius Doboobie’s retorts and phials. I warrant me, my fame
haunts the Vale of the Whitehorse long after my body is rotten; and
that many a lout ties up his horse, lays down his silver groat, and
pipes like a sailor whistling in a calm for Wayland Smith to come
and shoe his tit for him. But the horse will catch the founders ere
the smith answers the call.”
In this particular, indeed, Wayland proved a true prophet; and so
easily do fables rise, that an obscure tradition of his extraordinary
practice in farriery prevails in the Vale of Whitehorse even unto this
day; and neither the tradition of Alfred’s Victory, nor of the cel-
ebrated Pusey Horn, are better preserved in Berkshire than the wild

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legend of Wayland Smith. [See Note 2, Legend of Wayland Smith.]

The haste of the travellers admitted their making no stay upon
their journey, save what the refreshment of the horses required; and
as many of the places through which they passed were under the
influence of the Earl of Leicester, or persons immediately depen-
dent on him, they thought it prudent to disguise their names and
the purpose of their journey. On such occasions the agency of
Wayland Smith (by which name we shall continue to distinguish
the artist, though his real name was Lancelot Wayland) was extremely
serviceable. He seemed, indeed, to have a pleasure in displaying the
alertness with which he could baffle investigation, and amuse him-
self by putting the curiosity of tapsters and inn-keepers on a false
scent. During the course of their brief journey, three different and
inconsistent reports were circulated by him on their account—
namely, first, that Tressilian was the Lord Deputy of Ireland, come
over in disguise to take the Queen’s pleasure concerning the great
rebel Rory Oge MacCarthy MacMahon; secondly, that the said
Tressilian was an agent of Monsieur, coming to urge his suit to the
hand of Elizabeth; thirdly, that he was the Duke of Medina, come
over, incognito, to adjust the quarrel betwixt Philip and that prin-
cess.
Tressilian was angry, and expostulated with the artist on the vari-
ous inconveniences, and, in particular, the unnecessary degree of
attention to which they were subjected by the figments he thus cir-
culated; but he was pacified (for who could be proof against such an
argument?) by Wayland’s assuring him that a general importance
was attached to his own (Tressilian’s) striking presence, which ren-
dered it necessary to give an extraordinary reason for the rapidity
and secrecy of his journey.
At length they approached the metropolis, where, owing to the
more general recourse of strangers, their appearance excited neither
observation nor inquiry, and finally they entered London itself.
It was Tressilian’s purpose to go down directly to Deptford, where
Lord Sussex resided, in order to be near the court, then held at
Greenwich, the favourite residence of Elizabeth, and honoured as
her birthplace. Still a brief halt in London was necessary; and it was
somewhat prolonged by the earnest entreaties of Wayland Smith,

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who desired permission to take a walk through the city.

“Take thy sword and buckler, and follow me, then,” said Tressilian;
“I am about to walk myself, and we will go in company.”
This he said, because he was not altogether so secure of the fidel-
ity of his new retainer as to lose sight of him at this interesting
moment, when rival factions at the court of Elizabeth were running
so high. Wayland Smith willingly acquiesced in the precaution, of
which he probably conjectured the motive, but only stipulated that
his master should enter the shops of such chemists or apothecaries
as he should point out, in walking through Fleet Street, and permit
him to make some necessary purchases. Tressilian agreed, and obey-
ing the signal of his attendant, walked successively into more than
four or five shops, where he observed that Wayland purchased in
each only one single drug, in various quantities. The medicines which
he first asked for were readily furnished, each in succession, but
those which he afterwards required were less easily supplied; and
Tressilian observed that Wayland more than once, to the surprise of
the shopkeeper, returned the gum or herb that was offered to him,
and compelled him to exchange it for the right sort, or else went on
to seek it elsewhere. But one ingredient, in particular, seemed al-
most impossible to be found. Some chemists plainly admitted they
had never seen it; others denied that such a drug existed, excepting
in the imagination of crazy alchemists; and most of them attempted
to satisfy their customer, by producing some substitute, which, when
rejected by Wayland, as not being what he had asked for, they main-
tained possessed, in a superior degree, the self-same qualities. In
general they all displayed some curiosity concerning the purpose
for which he wanted it. One old, meagre chemist, to whom the
artist put the usual question, in terms which Tressilian neither un-
derstood nor could recollect, answered frankly, there was none of
that drug in London, unless Yoglan the Jew chanced to have some
of it upon hand.
“I thought as much,” said Wayland. And as soon as they left the
shop, he said to Tressilian, “I crave your pardon, sir, but no artist
can work without his tools. I must needs go to this Yoglan’s; and I
promise you, that if this detains you longer than your leisure seems
to permit, you shall, nevertheless, be well repaid by the use I will

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make of this rare drug. Permit me,” he added, “to walk before you,
for we are now to quit the broad street and we will make double
speed if I lead the way.”
Tressilian acquiesced, and, following the smith down a lane which
turned to the left hand towards the river, he found that his guide
walked on with great speed, and apparently perfect knowledge of
the town, through a labyrinth of by-streets, courts, and blind alleys,
until at length Wayland paused in the midst of a very narrow lane,
the termination of which showed a peep of the Thames looking
misty and muddy, which background was crossed saltierwise, as Mr.
Mumblazen might have said, by the masts of two lighters that lay
waiting for the tide. The shop under which he halted had not, as in
modern days, a glazed window, but a paltry canvas screen surrounded
such a stall as a cobbler now occupies, having the front open, much
in the manner of a fishmonger’s booth of the present day. A little
old smock-faced man, the very reverse of a Jew in complexion, for
he was very soft-haired as well as beardless, appeared, and with many
courtesies asked Wayland what he pleased to want. He had no sooner
named the drug, than the Jew started and looked surprised. “And
vat might your vorship vant vith that drug, which is not named,
mein God, in forty years as I have been chemist here?”
“These questions it is no part of my commission to answer,” said
Wayland; “I only wish to know if you have what I want, and having
it, are willing to sell it?”
“Ay, mein God, for having it, that I have, and for selling it, I am a
chemist, and sell every drug.” So saying, he exhibited a powder, and
then continued, “But it will cost much moneys. Vat I ave cost its
weight in gold—ay, gold well-refined—I vilI say six times. It comes
from Mount Sinai, where we had our blessed Law given forth, and
the plant blossoms but once in one hundred year.”
“I do not know how often it is gathered on Mount Sinai,” said
Wayland, after looking at the drug offered him with great disdain,
“but I will wager my sword and buckler against your gaberdine,
that this trash you offer me, instead of what I asked for, may be had
for gathering any day of the week in the castle ditch of Aleppo.”
“You are a rude man,” said the Jew; “and, besides, I ave no better
than that—or if I ave, I will not sell it without order of a physician,

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or without you tell me vat you make of it.”

The artist made brief answer in a language of which Tressilian
could not understand a word, and which seemed to strike the Jew
with the utmost astonishment. He stared upon Wayland like one
who has suddenly recognized some mighty hero or dreaded poten-
tate, in the person of an unknown and unmarked stranger. “Holy
Elias!” he exclaimed, when he had recovered the first stunning ef-
fects of his surprise; and then passing from his former suspicious
and surly manner to the very extremity of obsequiousness, he cringed
low to the artist, and besought him to enter his poor house, to bless
his miserable threshold by crossing it.
“Vill you not taste a cup vith the poor Jew, Zacharias Yoglan? —
Vill you Tokay ave?—vill you Lachrymae taste?—vill you—”
“You offend in your proffers,” said Wayland; “minister to me in
what I require of you, and forbear further discourse.”
The rebuked Israelite took his bunch of keys, and opening with
circumspection a cabinet which seemed more strongly secured than
the other cases of drugs and medicines amongst which it stood, he
drew out a little secret drawer, having a glass lid, and containing a
small portion of a black powder. This he offered to Wayland, his
manner conveying the deepest devotion towards him, though an
avaricious and jealous expression, which seemed to grudge every
grain of what his customer was about to possess himself, disputed
ground in his countenance with the obsequious deference which he
desired it should exhibit.
“Have you scales?” said Wayland.
The Jew pointed to those which lay ready for common use in the
shop, but he did so with a puzzled expression of doubt and fear,
which did not escape the artist.
“They must be other than these,” said Wayland sternly. “Know
you not that holy things lose their virtue if weighed in an unjust
balance?”
The Jew hung his head, took from a steel-plated casket a pair of
scales beautifully mounted, and said, as he adjusted them for the
artist’s use, “With these I do mine own experiment—one hair of the
high-priest’s beard would turn them.”
“It suffices,” said the artist, and weighed out two drachms for

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himself of the black powder, which he very carefully folded up, and
put into his pouch with the other drugs. He then demanded the
price of the Jew, who answered, shaking his head and bowing, —
“No price—no, nothing at all from such as you. But you will see
the poor Jew again? you will look into his laboratory, where, God
help him, he hath dried himself to the substance of the withered
gourd of Jonah, the holy prophet. You will ave pity on him, and
show him one little step on the great road?”
“Hush!” said Wayland, laying his finger mysteriously on his mouth;
“it may be we shall meet again. Thou hast already the schahmajm, as
thine own Rabbis call it—the general creation; watch, therefore,
and pray, for thou must attain the knowledge of Alchahest Elixir
Samech ere I may commune further with thee.” Then returning
with a slight nod the reverential congees of the Jew, he walked gravely
up the lane, followed by his master, whose first observation on the
scene he had just witnessed was, that Wayland ought to have paid
the man for his drug, whatever it was.
“I pay him?” said the artist. “May the foul fiend pay me if I do!
Had it not been that I thought it might displease your worship, I
would have had an ounce or two of gold out of him, in exchange of
the same just weight of brick dust.”
“I advise you to practise no such knavery while waiting upon me,”
said Tressilian.
“Did I not say,” answered the artist, “that for that reason alone I
forbore him for the present?—Knavery, call you it? Why, yonder
wretched skeleton hath wealth sufficient to pave the whole lane he
lives in with dollars, and scarce miss them out of his own iron chest;
yet he goes mad after the philosopher’s stone. And besides, he would
have cheated a poor serving-man, as he thought me at first, with
trash that was not worth a penny. Match for match, quoth the devil
to the collier; if his false medicine was worth my good crowns, my
true brick dust is as well worth his good gold.”
“It may be so, for aught I know,” said Tressilian, “in dealing amongst
Jews and apothecaries; but understand that to have such tricks of leger-
demain practised by one attending on me diminishes my honour, and
that I will not permit them. I trust thou hast made up thy purchases?”
“I have, sir,” replied Wayland; “and with these drugs will I, this

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very day, compound the true orvietan, that noble medicine which is
so seldom found genuine and effective within these realms of Eu-
rope, for want of that most rare and precious drug which I got but
now from Yoglan.” [Orvietan, or Venice treacle, as it was sometimes
called, was understood to be a sovereign remedy against poison; and
the reader must be contented, for the time he peruses these pages,
to hold the same opinion, which was once universally received by
the learned as well as the vulgar.]
“But why not have made all your purchases at one shop?” said his
master; “we have lost nearly an hour in running from one pounder
of simples to another.”
“Content you, sir,” said Wayland. “No man shall learn my secret;
and it would not be mine long, were I to buy all my materials from
one chemist.”
They now returned to their inn (the famous Bell-Savage); and
while the Lord Sussex’s servant prepared the horses for their jour-
ney, Wayland, obtaining from the cook the service of a mortar, shut
himself up in a private chamber, where he mixed, pounded, and
amalgamated the drugs which he had bought, each in its due pro-
portion, with a readiness and address that plainly showed him well
practised in all the manual operations of pharmacy.
By the time Wayland’s electuary was prepared the horses were
ready, and a short hour’s riding brought them to the present habita-
tion of Lord Sussex, an ancient house, called Sayes Court, near
Deptford, which had long pertained to a family of that name, but
had for upwards of a century been possessed by the ancient and
honourable family of Evelyn. The present representative of that an-
cient house took a deep interest in the Earl of Sussex, and had will-
ingly accommodated both him and his numerous retinue in his
hospitable mansion. Sayes Court was afterwards the residence of
the celebrated Mr. Evelyn, whose “Silva” is still the manual of Brit-
ish planters; and whose life, manners, and principles, as illustrated
in his Memoirs, ought equally to be the manual of English gentle-
men.

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CHAPTER XIV

This is rare news thou tell’st me, my good fellow;

There are two bulls fierce battling on the green
For one fair heifer—if the one goes down,
The dale will be more peaceful, and the herd,
Which have small interest in their brulziement,
May pasture there in peace.

Old Play.

SAYES COURT was watched like a beleaguered fort; and so high rose
the suspicions of the time, that Tressilian and his attendants were
stopped and questioned repeatedly by sentinels, both on foot and
horseback, as they approached the abode of the sick Earl. In truth,
the high rank which Sussex held in Queen Elizabeth’s favour, and
his known and avowed rivalry of the Earl of Leicester, caused the
utmost importance to be attached to his welfare; for, at the period
we treat of, all men doubted whether he or the Earl of Leicester
might ultimately have the higher rank in her regard.
Elizabeth, like many of her sex, was fond of governing by fac-
tions, so as to balance two opposing interests, and reserve in her
own hand the power of making either predominate, as the interest
of the state, or perhaps as her own female caprice (for to that foible
even she was not superior), might finally determine. To finesse—to
hold the cards—to oppose one interest to another—to bridle him
who thought himself highest in her esteem, by the fears he must
entertain of another equally trusted, if not equally beloved, were
arts which she used throughout her reign, and which enabled her,
though frequently giving way to the weakness of favouritism, to

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prevent most of its evil effects on her kingdom and government.

The two nobles who at present stood as rivals in her favour pos-
sessed very different pretensions to share it; yet it might be in gen-
eral said that the Earl of Sussex had been most serviceable to the
Queen, while Leicester was most dear to the woman. Sussex was,
according to the phrase of the times, a martialist—had done good
service in Ireland and in Scotland, and especially in the great north-
ern rebellion, in 1569, which was quelled, in a great measure, by his
military talents. He was, therefore, naturally surrounded and looked
up to by those who wished to make arms their road to distinction.
The Earl of Sussex, moreover, was of more ancient and honourable
descent than his rival, uniting in his person the representation of
the Fitz-Walters, as well as of the Ratcliffes; while the scutcheon of
Leicester was stained by the degradation of his grandfather, the op-
pressive minister of Henry VII., and scarce improved by that of his
father, the unhappy Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, executed
on Tower Hill, August 22, 1553. But in person, features, and ad-
dress, weapons so formidable in the court of a female sovereign,
Leicester had advantages more than sufficient to counterbalance the
military services, high blood, and frank bearing of the Earl of Sus-
sex; and he bore, in the eye of the court and kingdom, the higher
share in Elizabeth’s favour, though (for such was her uniform policy)
by no means so decidedly expressed as to warrant him against the
final preponderance of his rival’s pretensions. The illness of Sussex
therefore happened so opportunely for Leicester, as to give rise to
strange surmises among the public; while the followers of the one
Earl were filled with the deepest apprehensions, and those of the
other with the highest hopes of its probable issue. Meanwhile—for
in that old time men never forgot the probability that the matter
might be determined by length of sword—the retainers of each noble
flocked around their patron, appeared well armed in the vicinity of
the court itself, and disturbed the ear of the sovereign by their fre-
quent and alarming debates, held even within the precincts of her
palace. This preliminary statement is necessary, to render what fol-
lows intelligible to the reader. [See Note 3. Leicester and Sussex.]
On Tressilian’s arrival at Sayes Court, he found the place filled
with the retainers of the Earl of Sussex, and of the gentlemen who

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came to attend their patron in his illness. Arms were in every hand,
and a deep gloom on every countenance, as if they had apprehended
an immediate and violent assault from the opposite faction. In the
hall, however, to which Tressilian was ushered by one of the Earl’s
attendants, while another went to inform Sussex of his arrival, he
found only two gentlemen in waiting. There was a remarkable con-
trast in their dress, appearance, and manners. The attire of the elder
gentleman, a person as it seemed of quality and in the prime of life,
was very plain and soldierlike, his stature low, his limbs stout, his
bearing ungraceful, and his features of that kind which express sound
common sense, without a grain of vivacity or imagination. The
younger, who seemed about twenty, or upwards, was clad in the
gayest habit used by persons of quality at the period, wearing a crim-
son velvet cloak richly ornamented with lace and embroidery, with
a bonnet of the same, encircled with a gold chain turned three times
round it, and secured by a medal. His hair was adjusted very nearly
like that of some fine gentlemen of our own time—that is, it was
combed upwards, and made to stand as it were on end; and in his
ears he wore a pair of silver earrings, having each a pearl of consid-
erable size. The countenance of this youth, besides being regularly
handsome and accompanied by a fine person, was animated and
striking in a degree that seemed to speak at once the firmness of a
decided and the fire of an enterprising character, the power of re-
flection, and the promptitude of determination.
Both these gentlemen reclined nearly in the same posture on
benches near each other; but each seeming engaged in his own medi-
tations, looked straight upon the wall which was opposite to them,
without speaking to his companion. The looks of the elder were of
that sort which convinced the beholder that, in looking on the wall,
he saw no more than the side of an old hall hung around with cloaks,
antlers, bucklers, old pieces of armour, partisans, and the similar
articles which were usually the furniture of such a place. The look of
the younger gallant had in it something imaginative; he was sunk in
reverie, and it seemed as if the empty space of air betwixt him and
the wall were the stage of a theatre on which his fancy was muster-
ing his own dramatis personæ, and treating him with sights far dif-
ferent from those which his awakened and earthly vision could have

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offered.
At the entrance of Tressilian both started from their musing, and
made him welcome—the younger, in particular, with great appear-
ance of animation and cordiality.
“Thou art welcome, Tressilian,” said the youth. “Thy philosophy
stole thee from us when this household had objects of ambition to
offer; it is an honest philosophy, since it returns thee to us when
there are only dangers to be shared.”
“Is my lord, then, so greatly indisposed?” said Tressilian.
“We fear the very worst,” answered the elder gentleman, “and by
the worst practice.”
“Fie,” replied Tressilian, “my Lord of Leicester is honourable.”
“What doth he with such attendants, then, as he hath about him?”
said the younger gallant. “The man who raises the devil may be
honest, but he is answerable for the mischief which the fiend does,
for all that.”
“And is this all of you, my mates,” inquired Tressilian, “that are
about my lord in his utmost straits?”
“No, no,” replied the elder gentleman, “there are Tracy, Markham,
and several more; but we keep watch here by two at once, and some
are weary and are sleeping in the gallery above.”
“And some,” said the young man,” are gone down to the Dock
yonder at Deptford, to look out such a hull; as they may purchase
by clubbing their broken fortunes; and as soon as all is over, we will
lay our noble lord in a noble green grave, have a blow at those who
have hurried him thither, if opportunity suits, and then sail for the
Indies with heavy hearts and light purses.”
“It may be,” said Tressilian, “that I will embrace the same pur-
pose, so soon as I have settled some business at court.”
“Thou business at court!” they both exclaimed at once, “and thou
make the Indian voyage!”
“Why, Tressilian,” said the younger man, “art thou not wedded,
and beyond these flaws of fortune, that drive folks out to sea when
their bark bears fairest for the haven?— What has become of the
lovely Indamira that was to match my Amoret for truth and beauty?”
“Speak not of her!” said Tressilian, averting his face.
“Ay, stands it so with you?” said the youth, taking his hand very

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affectionately; “then, fear not I will again touch the green wound.
But it is strange as well as sad news. Are none of our fair and merry
fellowship to escape shipwreck of fortune and happiness in this sud-
den tempest? I had hoped thou wert in harbour, at least, my dear
Edmund. But truly says another dear friend of thy name,

‘What man that sees the ever whirling wheel

Of Chance, the which all mortal things doth sway,
But that thereby doth find and plainly feel,
How Mutability in them doth play
Her cruel sports to many men’s decay.’”

The elder gentleman had risen from his bench, and was pacing
the hall with some impatience, while the youth, with much earnest-
ness and feeling, recited these lines. When he had done, the other
wrapped himself in his cloak, and again stretched himself down,
saying, “I marvel, Tressilian, you will feed the lad in this silly humour.
If there were ought to draw a judgment upon a virtuous and
honourable household like my lord’s, renounce me if I think not it
were this piping, whining, childish trick of poetry, that came among
us with Master Walter Wittypate here and his comrades, twisting
into all manner of uncouth and incomprehensible forms of speech,
the honest plain English phrase which God gave us to express our
meaning withal.”
“Blount believes,” said his comrade, laughing, “the devil woo’d
Eve in rhyme, and that the mystic meaning of the Tree of Knowl-
edge refers solely to the art of clashing rhymes and meting out hex-
ameters.” [See Note 4. Sir Walter Raleigh.]
At this moment the Earl’s chamberlain entered, and informed
Tressilian that his lord required to speak with him.
He found Lord Sussex dressed, but unbraced, and lying on his
couch, and was shocked at the alteration disease had made in his
person. The Earl received him with the most friendly cordiality, and
inquired into the state of his courtship. Tressilian evaded his inquir-
ies for a moment, and turning his discourse on the Earl’s own health,
he discovered, to his surprise, that the symptoms of his disorder
corresponded minutely with those which Wayland had predicated

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concerning it. He hesitated not, therefore, to communicate to Sus-

sex the whole history of his attendant, and the pretensions he set up
to cure the disorder under which he laboured. The Earl listened
with incredulous attention until the name of Demetrius was men-
tioned, and then suddenly called to his secretary to bring him a
certain casket which contained papers of importance. “Take out
from thence,” he said, “the declaration of the rascal cook whom we
had under examination, and look heedfully if the name of Demetrius
be not there mentioned.”
The secretary turned to the passage at once, and read, “And said
declarant, being examined, saith, That he remembers having made
the sauce to the said sturgeon-fish, after eating of which the said
noble Lord was taken ill; “and he put the usual ingredients and
condiments therein, namely—”
“Pass over his trash,” said the Earl, “and see whether he had not
been supplied with his materials by a herbalist called Demetrius.”
“It is even so,” answered the secretary. “And he adds, he has not
since seen the said Demetrius.”
“This accords with thy fellow’s story, Tressilian,” said the Earl;
“call him hither.”
On being summoned to the Earl’s presence, Wayland Smith told
his former tale with firmness and consistency.
“It may be,” said the Earl, “thou art sent by those who have begun
this work, to end it for them; but bethink, if I miscarry under thy
medicine, it may go hard with thee.”
“That were severe measure,” said Wayland, “since the issue of
medicine, and the end of life, are in God’s disposal. But I will stand
the risk. I have not lived so long under ground to be afraid of a
grave.”
“Nay, if thou be’st so confident,” said the Earl of Sussex, “I will
take the risk too, for the learned can do nothing for me. Tell me
how this medicine is to be taken.”
“That will I do presently,” said Wayland; “but allow me to condi-
tion that, since I incur all the risk of this treatment, no other physi-
cian shall be permitted to interfere with it.”
“That is but fair,” replied the Earl; “and now prepare your drug.”
While Wayland obeyed the Earl’s commands, his servants, by the

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artist’s direction, undressed their master, and placed him in bed.

“I warn you,” he said, “that the first operation of this medicine
will be to produce a heavy sleep, during which time the chamber
must be kept undisturbed, as the consequences may otherwise he
fatal. I myself will watch by the Earl with any of the gentlemen of
his chamber.”
“Let all leave the room, save Stanley and this good fellow,” said
the Earl.
“And saving me also,” said Tressilian. “I too am deeply interested
in the effects of this potion.”
“Be it so, good friend,” said the Earl. “And now for our experi-
ment; but first call my secretary and chamberlain.”
“Bear witness,” he continued, when these officers arrived—”bear
witness for me, gentlemen, that our honourable friend Tressilian is
in no way responsible for the effects which this medicine may pro-
duce upon me, the taking it being my own free action and choice,
in regard I believe it to be a remedy which God has furnished me by
unexpected means to recover me of my present malady. Commend
me to my noble and princely Mistress; and say that I live and die
her true servant, and wish to all about her throne the same single-
ness of heart and will to serve her, with more ability to do so than
hath been assigned to poor Thomas Ratcliffe.”
He then folded his hands, and seemed for a second or two ab-
sorbed in mental devotion, then took the potion in his hand, and,
pausing, regarded Wayland with a look that seemed designed to
penetrate his very soul, but which caused no anxiety or hesitation in
the countenance or manner of the artist.
“Here is nothing to be feared,” said Sussex to Tressilian, and swal-
lowed the medicine without further hesitation
“I am now to pray your lordship,” said Wayland, “to dispose your-
self to rest as commodiously as you can; and of you, gentlemen, to
remain as still and mute as if you waited at your mother’s death-
bed.”
The chamberlain and secretary then withdrew, giving orders that
all doors should be bolted, and all noise in the house strictly prohib-
ited. Several gentlemen were voluntary watchers in the hall, but
none remained in the chamber of the sick Earl, save his groom of

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the chamber, the artist, and Tressilian.—Wayland Smith’s predic-

tions were speedily accomplished, and a sleep fell upon the Earl, so
deep and sound that they who watched his bedside began to fear
that, in his weakened state, he might pass away without awakening
from his lethargy. Wayland Smith himself appeared anxious, and
felt the temples of the Earl slightly, from time to time, attending
particularly to the state of his respiration, which was full and deep,
but at the same time easy and uninterrupted.

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CHAPTER XV

You loggerheaded and unpolish’d grooms,

What, no attendance, no regard, no duty?
Where is the foolish knave I sent before?

Taming of the Shrew.

THERE IS NO PERIOD at which men look worse in the eyes of each

other, or feel more uncomfortable, than when the first dawn of day-
light finds them watchers. Even a beauty of the first order, after the
vigils of a ball are interrupted by the dawn, would do wisely to
withdraw herself from the gaze of her fondest and most partial ad-
mirers. Such was the pale, inauspicious, and ungrateful light which
began to beam upon those who kept watch all night in the hall at
Sayes Court, and which mingled its cold, pale, blue diffusion with
the red, yellow, and smoky beams of expiring lamps and torches.
The young gallant, whom we noticed in our last chapter, had left
the room for a few minutes, to learn the cause of a knocking at the
outward gate, and on his return was so struck with the forlorn and
ghastly aspects of his companions of the watch that he exclaimed,
“Pity of my heart, my masters, how like owls you look! Methinks,
when the sun rises, I shall see you flutter off with your eyes dazzled,
to stick yourselves into the next ivy-tod or ruined steeple.”
“Hold thy peace, thou gibing fool,” said Blount; “hold thy peace.
Is this a time for jeering, when the manhood of England is per-
chance dying within a wall’s breadth of thee?”
“There thou liest,” replied the gallant.
“How, lie!” exclaimed Blount, starting up, “lie! and to me?”
“Why, so thou didst, thou peevish fool,” answered the youth; “thou

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didst lie on that bench even now, didst thou not? But art thou not a
hasty coxcomb to pick up a wry word so wrathfully? Nevertheless,
loving and, honouring my lord as truly as thou, or any one, I do say
that, should Heaven take him from us, all England’s manhood dies
not with him.”
“Ay,” replied Blount, “a good portion will survive with thee, doubt-
less.”
“And a good portion with thyself, Blount, and with stout Markham
here, and Tracy, and all of us. But I am he will best employ the
talent Heaven has given to us all.”
“As how, I prithee?” said Blount; “tell us your mystery of multi-
plying.”
“Why, sirs,” answered the youth, “ye are like goodly land, which
bears no crop because it is not quickened by manure; but I have
that rising spirit in me which will make my poor faculties labour to
keep pace with it. My ambition will keep my brain at work, I war-
rant thee.”
“I pray to God it does not drive thee mad,” said Blount; “for my
part, if we lose our noble lord, I bid adieu to the court and to the
camp both. I have five hundred foul acres in Norfolk, and thither
will I, and change the court pantoufle for the country hobnail.”
“O base transmutation!” exclaimed his antagonist; “thou hast al-
ready got the true rustic slouch—thy shoulders stoop, as if thine
hands were at the stilts of the plough; and thou hast a kind of earthy
smell about thee, instead of being perfumed with essence, as a gal-
lant and courtier should. On my soul, thou hast stolen out to roll
thyself on a hay mow! Thy only excuse will be to swear by thy hilts
that the farmer had a fair daughter.”
“I pray thee, Walter,” said another of the company, “cease thy
raillery, which suits neither time nor place, and tell us who was at
the gate just now.”
“Doctor Masters, physician to her Grace in ordinary, sent by her
especial orders to inquire after the Earl’s health,” answered Walter.
“Ha! what?” exclaimed Tracy; “that was no slight mark of favour.
If the Earl can but come through, he will match with Leicester yet.
Is Masters with my lord at present?”
“Nay,” replied Walter, “he is half way back to Greenwich by this

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time, and in high dudgeon.”

“Thou didst not refuse him admittance?” exclaimed Tracy.
“Thou wert not, surely, so mad?” ejaculated Blount.
“I refused him admittance as flatly, Blount, as you would refuse a
penny to a blind beggar—as obstinately, Tracy, as thou didst ever
deny access to a dun.”
“Why, in the fiend’s name, didst thou trust him to go to the gate?”
said Blount to Tracy.
“It suited his years better than mine,” answered Tracy; “but he has
undone us all now thoroughly. My lord may live or die, he will
never have a look of favour from her Majesty again.”
“Nor the means of making fortunes for his followers,” said the
young gallant, smiling contemptuously;—”there lies the sore point
that will brook no handling. My good sirs, I sounded my lamenta-
tions over my lord somewhat less loudly than some of you; but
when the point comes of doing him service, I will yield to none of
you. Had this learned leech entered, think’st thou not there had
been such a coil betwixt him and Tressilian’s mediciner, that not the
sleeper only, but the very dead might have awakened? I know what
larurm belongs to the discord of doctors.”
“And who is to take the blame of opposing the Queen’s orders?”
said Tracy; “for, undeniably, Doctor Masters came with her Grace’s
positive commands to cure the Earl.”
“I, who have done the wrong, will bear the blame,” said Walter.
“Thus, then, off fly the dreams of court favour thou hast nour-
ished,” said Blount, “and despite all thy boasted art and ambition,
Devonshire will see thee shine a true younger brother, fit to sit low
at the board, carve turn about with the chaplain, look that the hounds
be fed, and see the squire’s girths drawn when he goes a-hunting.”
“Not so,” said the young man, colouring, “not while Ireland and
the Netherlands have wars, and not while the sea hath pathless waves.
The rich West hath lands undreamed of, and Britain contains bold
hearts to venture on the quest of them. Adieu for a space, my mas-
ters. I go to walk in the court and look to the sentinels.”
“The lad hath quicksilver in his veins, that is certain,” said Blount,
looking at Markham.
“He hath that both in brain and blood,” said Markham, “which

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may either make or mar him. But in closing the door against Mas-
ters, he hath done a daring and loving piece of service; for Tressilian’s
fellow hath ever averred that to wake the Earl were death, and Mas-
ters would wake the Seven Sleepers themselves, if he thought they
slept not by the regular ordinance of medicine.”
Morning was well advanced when Tressilian, fatigued and over-
watched, came down to the hall with the joyful intelligence that the
Earl had awakened of himself, that he found his internal complaints
much mitigated, and spoke with a cheerfulness, and looked round
with a vivacity, which of themselves showed a material and favourable
change had taken place. Tressilian at the same time commanded the
attendance of one or two of his followers, to report what had passed
during the night, and to relieve the watchers in the Earl’s chamber.
When the message of the Queen was communicated to the Earl
of Sussex, he at first smiled at the repulse which the physician had
received from his zealous young follower; but instantly recollecting
himself, he commanded Blount, his master of the horse, instantly
to take boat, and go down the river to the Palace of Greenwich,
taking young Walter and Tracy with him, and make a suitable com-
pliment, expressing his grateful thanks to his Sovereign, and men-
tioning the cause why he had not been enabled to profit by the
assistance of the wise and learned Doctor Masters.
“A plague on it!” said Blount, as he descended the stairs; “had he
sent me with a cartel to Leicester I think I should have done his
errand indifferently well. But to go to our gracious Sovereign, be-
fore whom all words must be lacquered over either with gilding or
with sugar, is such a confectionary matter as clean baffles my poor
old English brain.—Come with me, Tracy, and come you too, Mas-
ter Walter Wittypate, that art the cause of our having all this ado.
Let us see if thy neat brain, that frames so many flashy fireworks,
can help out a plain fellow at need with some of thy shrewd de-
vices.”
“Never fear, never fear,” exclaimed the youth, “it is I will help you
through; let me but fetch my cloak.”
“Why, thou hast it on thy shoulders,” said Blount,—”the lad is
mazed,”
“No, No, this is Tracy’s old mantle,” answered Walter. “I go not

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with thee to court unless as a gentleman should.”

“Why,” Said Blount, “thy braveries are like to dazzle the eyes of
none but some poor groom or porter.”
“I know that,” said the youth; “but I am resolved I will have my
own cloak, ay, and brush my doublet to boot, ere I stir forth with
you.”
“Well, well,” said Blount, “here is a coil about a doublet and a
cloak. Get thyself ready, a God’s name!”
They were soon launched on the princely bosom of the broad
Thames, upon which the sun now shone forth in all its splendour.
“There are two things scarce matched in the universe,” said Walter
to Blount—”the sun in heaven, and the Thames on the earth.”
“The one will light us to Greenwich well enough,” said Blount,
“and the other would take us there a little faster if it were ebb-tide.”
“And this is all thou thinkest—all thou carest—all thou deemest
the use of the King of Elements and the King of Rivers—to guide
three such poor caitiffs as thyself, and me, and Tracy, upon an idle
journey of courtly ceremony!”
“It is no errand of my seeking, faith,” replied Blount, “and I could
excuse both the sun and the Thames the trouble of carrying me
where I have no great mind to go, and where I expect but dog’s
wages for my trouble—and by my honour,” he added, looking out
from the head of the boat, “it seems to me as if our message were a
sort of labour in vain, for, see, the Queen’s barge lies at the stairs as
if her Majesty were about to take water.”
It was even so. The royal barge, manned with the Queen’s watermen
richly attired in the regal liveries, and having the Banner of England
displayed, did indeed lie at the great stairs which ascended from the
river, and along with it two or three other boats for transporting
such part of her retinue as were not in immediate attendance on the
royal person. The yeomen of the guard, the tallest and most hand-
some men whom England could produce, guarded with their
halberds the passage from the palace-gate to the river side, and all
seemed in readiness for the Queen’s coming forth, although the day
was yet so early.
“By my faith, this bodes us no good,” said Blount; “it must be
some perilous cause puts her Grace in motion thus untimeously, By

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my counsel, we were best put back again, and tell the Earl what we
have seen.”
“Tell the Earl what we have seen!” said Walter; “why what have we
seen but a boat, and men with scarlet jerkins, and halberds in their
hands? Let us do his errand, and tell him what the Queen says in
reply.”
So saying, he caused the boat to be pulled towards a landing-place
at some distance from the principal one, which it would not, at that
moment, have been thought respectful to approach, and jumped
on shore, followed, though with reluctance, by his cautious and
timid companions. As they approached the gate of the palace, one
of the sergeant porters told them they could not at present enter, as
her Majesty was in the act of coming forth. The gentlemen used the
name of the Earl of Sussex; but it proved no charm to subdue the
officer, who alleged, in reply, that it was as much as his post was
worth to disobey in the least tittle the commands which he had
received.
“Nay, I told you as much before,” said Blount; “do, I pray you,
my dear Walter, let us take boat and return.”
“Not till I see the Queen come forth,” returned the youth com-
posedly.
“Thou art mad, stark mad, by the Mass!” answered Blount.
“And thou,” said Walter, “art turned coward of the sudden. I have
seen thee face half a score of shag-headed Irish kerns to thy own
share of them; and now thou wouldst blink and go back to shun the
frown of a fair lady!”
At this moment the gates opened, and ushers began to issue forth
in array, preceded and flanked by the band of Gentlemen Pension-
ers. After this, amid a crowd of lords and ladies, yet so disposed
around her that she could see and be seen on all sides, came Eliza-
beth herself, then in the prime of womanhood, and in the full glow
of what in a Sovereign was called beauty, and who would in the
lowest rank of life have been truly judged a noble figure, joined to a
striking and commanding physiognomy. She leant on the arm of
Lord Hunsdon, whose relation to her by her mother’s side often
procured him such distinguished marks of Elizabeth’s intimacy.
The young cavalier we have so often mentioned had probably

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never yet approached so near the person of his Sovereign, and he

pressed forward as far as the line of warders permitted, in order to
avail himself of the present opportunity. His companion, on the
contrary, cursing his imprudence, kept pulling him backwards, till
Walter shook him off impatiently, and letting his rich cloak drop
carelessly from one shoulder; a natural action, which served, how-
ever, to display to the best advantage his well-proportioned person.
Unbonneting at the same time, he fixed his eager gaze on the Queen’s
approach, with a mixture of respectful curiosity and modest yet ar-
dent admiration, which suited so well with his fine features that the
warders, struck with his rich attire and noble countenance, suffered
him to approach the ground over which the Queen was to pass,
somewhat closer than was permitted to ordinary spectators. Thus
the adventurous youth stood full in Elizabeth’s eye—an eye never
indifferent to the admiration which she deservedly excited among
her subjects, or to the fair proportions of external form which chanced
to distinguish any of her courtiers.
Accordingly, she fixed her keen glance on the youth, as she ap-
proached the place where he stood, with a look in which surprise at
his boldness seemed to be unmingled with resentment, while a tri-
fling accident happened which attracted her attention towards him
yet more strongly. The night had been rainy, and just where the
young gentleman stood a small quantity of mud interrupted the
Queen’s passage. As she hesitated to pass on, the gallant, throwing
his cloak from his shoulders, laid it on the miry spot, so as to ensure
her stepping over it dry-shod. Elizabeth looked at the young man,
who accompanied this act of devoted courtesy with a profound rev-
erence, and a blush that overspread his whole countenance. The
Queen was confused, and blushed in her turn, nodded her head,
hastily passed on, and embarked in her barge without saying a word.
“Come along, Sir Coxcomb,” said Blount; “your gay cloak will
need the brush to-day, I wot. Nay, if you had meant to make a
footcloth of your mantle, better have kept Tracy’s old drab-de-bure,
which despises all colours.”
“This cloak,” said the youth, taking it up and folding it, “shall
never be brushed while in my possession.”
“And that will not be long, if you learn not a little more economy;

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we shall have you in cuerpo soon, as the Spaniard says.”

Their discourse was here interrupted by one of the band of Pen-
sioners.
“I was sent,” said he, after looking at them attentively, “to a gentle-
man who hath no cloak, or a muddy one.—You, sir, I think,” ad-
dressing the younger cavalier, “are the man; you will please to follow
me.”
“He is in attendance on me,” said Blount—”on me, the noble
Earl of Sussex’s master of horse.”
“I have nothing to say to that,” answered the messenger; “my or-
ders are directly from her Majesty, and concern this gentleman only.”
So saying, he walked away, followed by Walter, leaving the others
behind, Blount’s eyes almost starting from his head with the excess
of his astonishment. At length he gave vent to it in an exclamation,
“Who the good jere would have thought this!” And shaking his
head with a mysterious air, he walked to his own boat, embarked,
and returned to Deptford.
The young cavalier was in the meanwhile guided to the water-
side by the Pensioner, who showed him considerable respect; a cir-
cumstance which, to persons in his situation, may be considered as
an augury of no small consequence. He ushered him into one of the
wherries which lay ready to attend the Queen’s barge, which was
already proceeding; up the river, with the advantage of that flood-
tide of which, in the course of their descent, Blount had complained
to his associates.
The two rowers used their oars with such expedition at the signal
of the Gentleman Pensioner, that they very soon brought their little
skiff under the stern of the Queen’s boat, where she sat beneath an
awning, attended by two or three ladies, and the nobles of her house-
hold. She looked more than once at the wherry in which the young
adventurer was seated, spoke to those around her, and seemed to
laugh. At length one of the attendants, by the Queen’s order appar-
ently, made a sign for the wherry to come alongside, and the young
man was desired to step from his own skiff into the Queen’s barge,
which he performed with graceful agility at the fore part of the boat,
and was brought aft to the Queen’s presence, the wherry at the same
time dropping into the rear. The youth underwent the gaze of Maj-

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esty, not the less gracefully that his self-possession was mingled with
embarrassment. The muddled cloak still hung upon his arm, and
formed the natural topic with which the Queen introduced the con-
versation.
“You have this day spoiled a gay mantle in our behalf, young man.
We thank you for your service, though the manner of offering it
was unusual, and something bold.”
“In a sovereign’s need,” answered the youth, “it is each liege-man’s
duty to be bold.”
“God’s pity! that was well said, my lord,” said the Queen, turning
to a grave person who sat by her, and answered with a grave inclina-
tion of the head, and something of a mumbled assent.—”Well, young
man, your gallantry shall not go unrewarded. Go to the wardrobe
keeper, and he shall have orders to supply the suit which you have
cast away in our service. Thou shalt have a suit, and that of the
newest cut, I promise thee, on the word of a princess.”
“May it please your Grace,” said Walter, hesitating, “it is not for
so humble a servant of your Majesty to measure out your bounties;
but if it became me to choose—”
“Thou wouldst have gold, I warrant me,” said the Queen, inter-
rupting him. “Fie, young man! I take shame to say that in our capi-
tal such and so various are the means of thriftless folly, that to give
gold to youth is giving fuel to fire, and furnishing them with the
means of self-destruction. If I live and reign, these means of un-
christian excess shall be abridged. Yet thou mayest be poor,” she
added, “or thy parents may be. It shall be gold, if thou wilt, but
thou shalt answer to me for the use on’t.”
Walter waited patiently until the Queen had done, and then mod-
estly assured her that gold was still less in his wish than the raiment
her Majesty had before offered.
“How, boy!” said the Queen, “neither gold nor garment? What is
it thou wouldst have of me, then?”
“Only permission, madam—if it is not asking too high an honour
—permission to wear the cloak which did you this trifling service.”
“Permission to wear thine own cloak, thou silly boy!” said the
Queen.
“It is no longer mine,” said Walter; “when your Majesty’s foot

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touched it, it became a fit mantle for a prince, but far too rich a one
for its former owner.”
The Queen again blushed, and endeavoured to cover, by laugh-
ing, a slight degree of not unpleasing surprise and confusion.
“Heard you ever the like, my lords? The youth’s head is turned
with reading romances. I must know something of him, that I may
send him safe to his friends.—What art thou?”
“A gentleman of the household of the Earl of Sussex, so please
your Grace, sent hither with his master of horse upon message to
your Majesty.”
In a moment the gracious expression which Elizabeth’s face had
hitherto maintained, gave way to an expression of haughtiness and
severity.
“My Lord of Sussex,” she said, “has taught us how to regard his
messages by the value he places upon ours. We sent but this morn-
ing the physician in ordinary of our chamber, and that at no usual
time, understanding his lordship’s illness to be more dangerous than
we had before apprehended. There is at no court in Europe a man
more skilled in this holy and most useful science than Doctor Mas-
ters, and he came from Us to our subject. Nevertheless, he found
the gate of Sayes Court defended by men with culverins, as if it had
been on the borders of Scotland, not in the vicinity of our court;
and when he demanded admittance in our name, it was stubbornly
refused. For this slight of a kindness, which had but too much of
condescension in it, we will receive, at present at least, no excuse;
and some such we suppose to have been the purport of my Lord of
Sussex’s message.”
This was uttered in a tone and with a gesture which made Lord
Sussex’s friends who were within hearing tremble. He to whom the
speech was addressed, however, trembled not; but with great defer-
ence and humility, as soon as the Queen’s passion gave him an op-
portunity, he replied, “So please your most gracious Majesty, I was
charged with no apology from the Earl of Sussex.”
“With what were you then charged, sir?” said the Queen, with the
impetuosity which, amid nobler qualities, strongly marked her char-
acter. “Was it with a justification?—or, God’s death! with a defiance?”
“Madam,” said the young man, “my Lord of Sussex knew the

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offence approached towards treason, and could think of nothing

save of securing the offender, and placing him in your Majesty’s
hands, and at your mercy. The noble Earl was fast asleep when your
most gracious message reached him, a potion having been adminis-
tered to that purpose by his physician; and his Lordship knew not
of the ungracious repulse your Majesty’s royal and most comfort-
able message had received, until after he awoke this morning.”
“And which of his domestics, then, in the name of Heaven, pre-
sumed to reject my message, without even admitting my own phy-
sician to the presence of him whom I sent him to attend?” said the
Queen, much surprised.
“The offender, madam, is before you,” replied Walter, bowing
very low; “the full and sole blame is mine; and my lord has most
justly sent me to abye the consequences of a fault, of which he is as
innocent as a sleeping man’s dreams can be of a waking man’s ac-
tions.”
“What! was it thou?—thou thyself, that repelled my messenger
and my physician from Sayes Court?” said the Queen. “What could
occasion such boldness in one who seems devoted—that is, whose
exterior bearing shows devotion—to his Sovereign?”
“Madam,” said the youth—who, notwithstanding an assumed
appearance of severity, thought that he saw something in the Queen’s
face that resembled not implacability—”we say in our country, that
the physician is for the time the liege sovereign of his patient. Now,
my noble master was then under dominion of a leech, by whose
advice he hath greatly profited, who had issued his commands that
his patient should not that night be disturbed, on the very peril of
his life.”
“Thy master hath trusted some false varlet of an empiric,” said
the Queen.
“I know not, madam, but by the fact that he is now—this very
morning—awakened much refreshed and strengthened from the
only sleep he hath had for many hours.”
The nobles looked at each other, but more with the purpose to see
what each thought of this news, than to exchange any remarks on
what had happened. The Queen answered hastily, and without af-
fecting to disguise her satisfaction, “By my word, I am glad he is

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better. But thou wert over-bold to deny the access of my Doctor

Masters. Knowest thou not the Holy Writ saith, ‘In the multitude
of counsel there is safety’?”
“Ay, madam,” said Walter; “but I have heard learned men say that
the safety spoken of is for the physicians, not for the patient.”
“By my faith, child, thou hast pushed me home,” said the Queen,
laughing; “for my Hebrew learning does not come quite at a call. —
How say you, my Lord of Lincoln? Hath the lad given a just inter-
pretation of the text?”
“The word safety, most gracious madam,” said the Bishop of Lin-
coln, “for so hath been translated, it may be somewhat hastily, the
Hebrew word, being—”
“My lord,” said the Queen, interrupting him, “we said we had
forgotten our Hebrew.—But for thee, young man, what is thy name
and birth?”
“Raleigh is my name, most gracious Queen, the youngest son of a
large but honourable family of Devonshire.”
“Raleigh?” said Elizabeth, after a moment’s recollection. “Have
we not heard of your service in Ireland?”
“I have been so fortunate as to do some service there, madam,”
replied Raleigh; “scarce, however, of consequence sufficient to reach
your Grace’s ears.”
“They hear farther than you think of,” said the Queen graciously,
“and have heard of a youth who defended a ford in Shannon against
a whole band of wild Irish rebels, until the stream ran purple with
their blood and his own.”
“Some blood I may have lost,” said the youth, looking down,
“but it was where my best is due, and that is in your Majesty’s ser-
vice.”
The Queen paused, and then said hastily, “You are very young to
have fought so well, and to speak so well. But you must not escape
your penance for turning back Masters. The poor man hath caught
cold on the river for our order reached him when he was just re-
turned from certain visits in London, and he held it matter of loy-
alty and conscience instantly to set forth again. So hark ye, Master
Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak, in token of
penitence, till our pleasure be further known. And here,” she added,

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 Sir Walter Scott

giving him a jewel of gold, in the form of a chess-man, “I give thee

this to wear at the collar.”
Raleigh, to whom nature had taught intuitively, as it were, those
courtly arts which many scarce acquire from long experience, knelt,
and, as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers which
gave it. He knew, perhaps, better than almost any of the courtiers
who surrounded her, how to mingle the devotion claimed by the
Queen with the gallantry due to her personal beauty; and in this,
his first attempt to unite them, he succeeded so well as at once to
gratify Elizabeth’s personal vanity and her love of power. [See Note
5. Court favour of Sir Walter Raleigh.]
His master, the Earl of Sussex, had the full advantage of the satis-
faction which Raleigh had afforded Elizabeth, on their first inter-
view.
“My lords and ladies,” said the Queen, looking around to the
retinue by whom she was attended, “methinks, since we are upon
the river, it were well to renounce our present purpose of going to
the city, and surprise this poor Earl of Sussex with a visit. He is ill,
and suffering doubtless under the fear of our displeasure, from which
he hath been honestly cleared by the frank avowal of this malapert
boy. What think ye? were it not an act of charity to give him such
consolation as the thanks of a Queen, much bound to him for his
loyal service, may perchance best minister?”
It may be readily supposed that none to whom this speech was
addressed ventured to oppose its purport.
“Your Grace,” said the Bishop of Lincoln, “is the breath of our
nostrils.” The men of war averred that the face of the Sovereign was
a whetstone to the soldier’s sword; while the men of state were not
less of opinion that the light of the Queen’s countenance was a lamp
to the paths of her councillors; and the ladies agreed, with one voice,
that no noble in England so well deserved the regard of England’s
Royal Mistress as the Earl of Sussex—the Earl of Leicester’s right
being reserved entire, so some of the more politic worded their as-
sent, an exception to which Elizabeth paid no apparent attention.
The barge had, therefore, orders to deposit its royal freight at
Deptford, at the nearest and most convenient point of communica-
tion with Sayes Court, in order that the Queen might satisfy her

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royal and maternal solicitude, by making personal inquiries after

the health of the Earl of Sussex.
Raleigh, whose acute spirit foresaw and anticipated important
consequences from the most trifling events, hastened to ask the
Queen’s permission to go in the skiff; and announce the royal visit
to his master; ingeniously suggesting that the joyful surprise might
prove prejudicial to his health, since the richest and most generous
cordials may sometimes be fatal to those who have been long in a
languishing state.
But whether the Queen deemed it too presumptuous in so young
a courtier to interpose his opinion unasked, or whether she was
moved by a recurrence of the feeling of jealousy which had been
instilled into her by reports that the Earl kept armed men about his
person, she desired Raleigh, sharply, to reserve his counsel till it was
required of him, and repeated her former orders to be landed at
Deptford, adding, “We will ourselves see what sort of household
my Lord of Sussex keeps about him.”
“Now the Lord have pity on us!” said the young courtier to him-
self. “Good hearts, the Earl hath many a one round him; but good
heads are scarce with us—and he himself is too ill to give direction.
And Blount will be at his morning meal of Yarmouth herrings and
ale, and Tracy will have his beastly black puddings and Rhenish;
those thorough-paced Welshmen, Thomas ap Rice and Evan Evans,
will be at work on their leek porridge and toasted cheese;—and she
detests, they say, all coarse meats, evil smells, and strong wines. Could
they but think of burning some rosemary in the great hall! but vogue
la galere, all must now be trusted to chance. Luck hath done indif-
ferent well for me this morning; for I trust I have spoiled a cloak,
and made a court fortune. May she do as much for my gallant pa-
tron!”
The royal barge soon stopped at Deptford, and, amid the loud
shouts of the populace, which her presence never failed to excite,
the Queen, with a canopy borne over her head, walked, accompa-
nied by her retinue, towards Sayes Court, where the distant accla-
mations of the people gave the first notice of her arrival. Sussex,
who was in the act of advising with Tressilian how he should make
up the supposed breach in the Queen’s favour, was infinitely sur-

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prised at learning her immediate approach. Not that the Queen’s

custom of visiting her more distinguished nobility, whether in health
or sickness, could be unknown to him; but the suddenness of the
communication left no time for those preparations with which he
well knew Elizabeth loved to be greeted, and the rudeness and con-
fusion of his military household, much increased by his late illness,
rendered him altogether unprepared for her reception.
Cursing internally the chance which thus brought her gracious
visitation on him unaware, he hastened down with Tressilian, to
whose eventful and interesting story he had just given an attentive
ear.
“My worthy friend,” he said, “such support as I can give your
accusation of Varney, you have a right to expect, alike from justice
and gratitude. Chance will presently show whether I can do aught
with our Sovereign, or whether, in very deed, my meddling in your
affair may not rather prejudice than serve you.”
Thus spoke Sussex while hastily casting around him a loose robe
of sables, and adjusting his person in the best manner he could to
meet the eye of his Sovereign. But no hurried attention bestowed
on his apparel could remove the ghastly effects of long illness on a
countenance which nature had marked with features rather strong
than pleasing. Besides, he was low of stature, and, though broad-
shouldered, athletic, and fit for martial achievements, his presence
in a peaceful hall was not such as ladies love to look upon; a per-
sonal disadvantage, which was supposed to give Sussex, though es-
teemed and honoured by his Sovereign, considerable disadvantage
when compared with Leicester, who was alike remarkable for el-
egance of manners and for beauty of person.
The Earl’s utmost dispatch only enabled him to meet the Queen
as she entered the great hall, and he at once perceived there was a
cloud on her brow. Her jealous eye had noticed the martial array of
armed gentlemen and retainers with which the mansion-house was
filled, and her first words expressed her disapprobation. “Is this a
royal garrison, my Lord of Sussex, that it holds so many pikes and
calivers? or have we by accident overshot Sayes Court, and landed at
Our Tower of London?”
Lord Sussex hastened to offer some apology.

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“It needs not,” she said. “My lord, we intend speedily to take up a
certain quarrel between your lordship and another great lord of our
household, and at the same time to reprehend this uncivilized and
dangerous practice of surrounding yourselves with armed, and even
with ruffianly followers, as if, in the neighbourhood of our capital,
nay in the very verge of our royal residence, you were preparing to
wage civil war with each other. —We are glad to see you so well
recovered, my lord, though without the assistance of the learned
physician whom we sent to you. Urge no excuse; we know how that
matter fell out, and we have corrected for it the wild slip, young
Raleigh. By the way, my lord, we will speedily relieve your house-
hold of him, and take him into our own. Something there is about
him which merits to be better nurtured than he is like to be amongst
your very military followers.”
To this proposal Sussex, though scarce understanding how the
Queen came to make it could only bow and express his acquies-
cence. He then entreated her to remain till refreshment could be
offered, but in this he could not prevail. And after a few compli-
ments of a much colder and more commonplace character than
might have been expected from a step so decidedly favourable as a
personal visit, the Queen took her leave of Sayes Court, having
brought confusion thither along with her, and leaving doubt and
apprehension behind.

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CHAPTER XVI

Then call them to our presence. Face to face,

And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
The accuser and accused freely speak;—
High-stomach’d are they both, and full of ire,
In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Richard II.

“I AM ORDERED to attend court to-morrow,” said Leicester, speaking

to Varney, “to meet, as they surmise, my Lord of Sussex. The Queen
intends to take up matters betwixt us. This comes of her visit to
Sayes Court, of which you must needs speak so lightly.”
“I maintain it was nothing,” said Varney; “nay, I know from a sure
intelligencer, who was within earshot of much that was said, that
Sussex has lost rather than gained by that visit. The Queen said,
when she stepped into the boat, that Sayes Court looked like a guard-
house, and smelt like an hospital. ‘Like a cook’s shop in Ram’s Alley,
rather,’ said the Countess of Rutland, who is ever your lordship’s
good friend. And then my Lord of Lincoln must needs put in his
holy oar, and say that my Lord of Sussex must be excused for his
rude and old-world housekeeping, since he had as yet no wife.”
“And what said the Queen?” asked Leicester hastily.
“She took him up roundly,” said Varney, “and asked what my Lord Sus-
sex had to do with a wife, or my Lord Bishop to speak on such a subject. ‘If
marriage is permitted,’ she said, ‘I nowhere read that it is enjoined.’”
“She likes not marriages, or speech of marriage, among church-
men,” said Leicester.
“Nor among courtiers neither,” said Varney; but, observing that

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Leicester changed countenance, he instantly added, “that all the la-

dies who were present had joined in ridiculing Lord Sussex’s house-
keeping, and in contrasting it with the reception her Grace would
have assuredly received at my Lord of Leicester’s.”
“You have gathered much tidings,” said Leicester, “but you have
forgotten or omitted the most important of all. She hath added
another to those dangling satellites whom it is her pleasure to keep
revolving around her.”
“Your lordship meaneth that Raleigh, the Devonshire youth,” said
Varney—”the Knight of the Cloak, as they call him at court?”
“He may be Knight of the Garter one day, for aught I know,” said
Leicester, “for he advances rapidly—she hath capped verses with
him, and such fooleries. I would gladly abandon, of my own free
will, the part—I have in her fickle favour; but I will not be elbowed
out of it by the clown Sussex, or this new upstart. I hear Tressilian is
with Sussex also, and high in his favour. I would spare him for con-
siderations, but he will thrust himself on his fate. Sussex, too, is
almost as well as ever in his health.”
“My lord,” replied Varney, “there will be rubs in the smoothest
road, specially when it leads uphill. Sussex’s illness was to us a god-
send, from which I hoped much. He has recovered, indeed, but he
is not now more formidable than ere he fell ill, when he received
more than one foil in wrestling with your lordship. Let not your
heart fail you, my lord, and all shall be well.”
“My heart never failed me, sir,” replied Leicester.
“No, my lord,” said Varney; “but it has betrayed you right often.
He that would climb a tree, my lord, must grasp by the branches,
not by the blossom.”
“Well, well, well!” said Leicester impatiently; “I understand thy
meaning—my heart shall neither fail me nor seduce me. Have my
retinue in order—see that their array be so splendid as to put down,
not only the rude companions of Ratcliffe, but the retainers of ev-
ery other nobleman and courtier. Let them be well armed withal,
but without any outward display of their weapons, wearing them as
if more for fashion’s sake than for use. Do thou thyself keep close to
me, I may have business for you.”
The preparations of Sussex and his party were not less anxious

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than those of Leicester.

“Thy Supplication, impeaching Varney of seduction,” said the
Earl to Tressilian, “is by this time in the Queen’s hand—I have sent
it through a sure channel. Methinks your suit should succeed, be-
ing, as it is, founded in justice and honour, and Elizabeth being the
very muster of both. But—I wot not how—the gipsy” (so Sussex
was wont to call his rival on account of his dark complexion) “hath
much to say with her in these holyday times of peace. Were war at
the gates, I should be one of her white boys; but soldiers, like their
bucklers and Bilboa blades, get out of fashion in peace time, and
satin sleeves and walking rapiers bear the bell. Well, we must be gay,
since such is the fashion.—Blount, hast thou seen our household
put into their new braveries? “But thou knowest as little of these
toys as I do; thou wouldst be ready enow at disposing a stand of
pikes.”
“My good lord,” answered Blount, “Raleigh hath been here, and
taken that charge upon him—your train will glitter like a May morn-
ing. Marry, the cost is another question. One might keep an hospi-
tal of old soldiers at the charge of ten modern lackeys.”
“He must not count cost to-day, Nicholas,” said the Earl in reply.
“I am beholden to Raleigh for his care. I trust, though, he has re-
membered that I am an old soldier, and would have no more of
these follies than needs must.”
“Nay, I understand nought about it,” said Blount; “but here are
your honourable lordship’s brave kinsmen and friends coming in by
scores to wait upon you to court, where, methinks, we shall bear as
brave a front as Leicester, let him ruffle it as he will.”
“Give them the strictest charges,” said Sussex, “that they suffer no
provocation short of actual violence to provoke them into quarrel.
They have hot bloods, and I would not give Leicester the advantage
over me by any imprudence of theirs.”
The Earl of Sussex ran so hastily through these directions, that it
was with difficulty Tressilian at length found opportunity to express
his surprise that he should have proceeded so far in the affair of Sir
Hugh Robsart as to lay his petition at once before the Queen. “It
was the opinion of the young lady’s friends,” he said, “that Leicester’s
sense of justice should be first appealed to, as the offence had been

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committed by his officer, and so he had expressly told to Sussex.”

“This could have been done without applying to me,” said Sus-
sex, somewhat haughtily. “I at least, ought not to have been a coun-
sellor when the object was a humiliating reference to Leicester; and
I am suprised that you, Tressilian, a man of honour, and my friend,
would assume such a mean course. If you said so, I certainly under-
stood you not in a matter which sounded so unlike yourself.”
“My lord,” said Tressilian, “the course I would prefer, for my own
sake, is that you have adopted; but the friends of this most unhappy
lady—”
“Oh, the friends—the friends,” said Sussex, interrupting him; “they
must let us manage this cause in the way which seems best. This is
the time and the hour to accumulate every charge against Leicester
and his household, and yours the Queen will hold a heavy one. But
at all events she hath the complaint before her.”
Tressilian could not help suspecting that, in his eagerness to
strengthen himself against his rival, Sussex had purposely adopted
the course most likely to throw odium on Leicester, without consid-
ering minutely whether it were the mode of proceeding most likely
to be attended with success. But the step was irrevocable, and Sus-
sex escaped from further discussing it by dismissing his company,
with the command, “Let all be in order at eleven o’clock; I must be
at court and in the presence by high noon precisely.”
While the rival statesmen were thus anxiously preparing for their
approaching meeting in the Queen’s presence, even Elizabeth her-
self was not without apprehension of what might chance from the
collision of two such fiery spirits, each backed by a strong and nu-
merous body of followers, and dividing betwixt them, either openly
or in secret, the hopes and wishes of most of her court. The band of
Gentlemen Pensioners were all under arms, and a reinforcement of
the yeomen of the guard was brought down the Thames from Lon-
don. A royal proclamation was sent forth, strictly prohibiting nobles
of whatever degree to approach the Palace with retainers or follow-
ers armed with shot or with long weapons; and it was even whis-
pered that the High Sheriff of Kent had secret instructions to have a
part of the array of the county ready on the shortest notice.
The eventful hour, thus anxiously prepared for on all sides, at

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length approached, and, each followed by his long and glittering

train of friends and followers, the rival Earls entered the Palace Yard
of Greenwich at noon precisely.
As if by previous arrangement, or perhaps by intimation that such
was the Queen’s pleasure, Sussex and his retinue came to the Palace
from Deptford by water while Leicester arrived by land; and thus
they entered the courtyard from opposite sides. This trifling cir-
cumstance gave Leicester a ascendency in the opinion of the vulgar,
the appearance of his cavalcade of mounted followers showing more
numerous and more imposing than those of Sussex’s party, who were
necessarily upon foot. No show or sign of greeting passed between
the Earls, though each looked full at the other, both expecting per-
haps an exchange of courtesies, which neither was willing to com-
mence. Almost in the minute of their arrival the castle-bell tolled,
the gates of the Palace were opened, and the Earls entered, each
numerously attended by such gentlemen of their train whose rank
gave them that privilege. The yeomen and inferior attendants re-
mained in the courtyard, where the opposite parties eyed each other
with looks of eager hatred and scorn, as if waiting with impatience
for some cause of tumult, or some apology for mutual aggression.
But they were restrained by the strict commands of their leaders,
and overawed, perhaps, by the presence of an armed guard of un-
usual strength.
In the meanwhile, the more distinguished persons of each train
followed their patrons into the lofty halls and ante-chambers of the
royal Palace, flowing on in the same current, like two streams which
are compelled into the same channel, yet shun to mix their waters.
The parties arranged themselves, as it were instinctively, on the dif-
ferent sides of the lofty apartments, and seemed eager to escape
from the transient union which the narrowness of the crowded en-
trance had for an instant compelled them to submit to. The folding
doors at the upper end of the long gallery were immediately after-
wards opened, and it was announced in a whisper that the Queen
was in her presence-chamber, to which these gave access. Both Earls
moved slowly and stately towards the entrance—Sussex followed by
Tressilian, Blount, and Raleigh, and Leicester by Varney. The pride
of Leicester was obliged to give way to court-forms, and with a grave

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and formal inclination of the head, he paused until his rival, a peer
of older creation than his own, passed before him. Sussex returned
the reverence with the same formal civility, and entered the pres-
ence-room. Tressilian and Blount offered to follow him, but were
not permitted, the Usher of the Black Rod alleging in excuse that he
had precise orders to look to all admissions that day. To Raleigh,
who stood back on the repulse of his companions, he said, “You, sir,
may enter,” and he entered accordingly.
“Follow me close, Varney,” said the Earl of Leicester, who had
stood aloof for a moment to mark the reception of Sussex; and ad-
vancing to the entrance, he was about to pass on, when Varney, who
was close behind him, dressed out in the utmost bravery of the day,
was stopped by the usher, as Tressilian and Blount had been before
him, “How is this, Master Bowyer?” said the Earl of Leicester. “Know
you who I am, and that this is my friend and follower?”
“Your lordship will pardon me,” replied Bowyer stoutly; “my or-
ders are precise, and limit me to a strict discharge of my duty.”
“Thou art a partial knave,” said Leicester, the blood mounting to
his face, “to do me this dishonour, when you but now admitted a
follower of my Lord of Sussex.”
“My lord,” said Bowyer, “Master Raleigh is newly admitted a sworn
servant of her Grace, and to him my orders did not apply.”
“Thou art a knave—an ungrateful knave,” said Leicester; “but he
that hath done can undo—thou shalt not prank thee in thy author-
ity long!”
This threat he uttered aloud, with less than his usual policy and
discretion; and having done so, he entered the presence-chamber,
and made his reverence to the Queen, who, attired with even more
than her usual splendour, and surrounded by those nobles and states-
men whose courage and wisdom have rendered her reign immortal,
stood ready to receive the hommage of her subjects. She graciously
returned the obeisance of the favourite Earl, and looked alternately
at him and at Sussex, as if about to speak, when Bowyer, a man
whose spirit could not brook the insult he had so openly received
from Leicester, in the discharge of his office, advanced with his black
rad in his hand, and knelt down before her.
“Why, how now, Bowyer?” said Elizabeth, “thy courtesy seems

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strangely timed!”
“My Liege Sovereign,” he said, while every courtier around
trembled at his audacity, “I come but to ask whether, in the dis-
charge of mine office, I am to obey your Highness’s commands, or
those of the Earl of Leicester, who has publicly menaced me with
his displeasure, and treated me with disparaging terms, because I
denied entry to one of his followers, in obedience to your Grace’s
precise orders?”
The spirit of Henry VIII. was instantly aroused in the bosom of
his daughter, and she turned on Leicester with a severity which ap-
palled him, as well as all his followers.
“God’s death! my lord.” such was her emphatic phrase, “what
means this? We have thought well of you, and brought you near to
our person; but it was not that you might hide the sun from our
other faithful subjects. Who gave you license to contradict our or-
ders, or control our officers? I will have in this court, ay, and in this
realm, but one mistress, and no master. Look to it that Master Bowyer
sustains no harm for his duty to me faithfully discharged; for, as I
am Christian woman and crowned Queen, I will hold you dearly
answerable.—Go, Bowyer, you have done the part of an honest man
and a true subject. We will brook no mayor of the palace here.
Bowyer kissed the hand which she extended towards him, and
withdrew to his post! astonished at the success of his own audacity.
A smile of triumph pervaded the faction of Sussex; that of Leicester
seemed proportionally dismayed, and the favourite himself, assum-
ing an aspect of the deepest humility, did not even attempt a word
in his own esculpation.
He acted wisely; for it was the policy of Elizabeth to humble, not
to disgrace him, and it was prudent to suffer her, without opposi-
tion or reply, to glory in the exertion of her authority. The dignity
of the Queen was gratified, and the woman began soon to feel for
the mortification which she had imposed on her favourite. Her keen
eye also observed the secret looks of congratulation exchanged
amongst those who favoured Sussex, and it was no part of her policy
to give either party a decisive triumph.
“What I say to my Lord of Leicester,” she said, after a moment’s
pause, “I say also to you, my Lord of Sussex. You also must needs

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ruffle in the court of England, at the head of a faction of your own?”

“My followers, gracious Princess,” said Sussex, “have indeed ruffled
in your cause in Ireland, in Scotland, and against yonder rebellious
Earls in the north. I am ignorant that—”
“Do you bandy looks and words with me, my lord?” said the
Queen, interrupting him; “methinks you might learn of my Lord of
Leicester the modesty to be silent, at least, under our censure. I say,
my lord, that my grandfather and my father, in their wisdom, de-
barred the nobles of this civilized land from travelling with such
disorderly retinues; and think you, that because I wear a coif, their
sceptre has in my hand been changed into a distaff? I tell you, no
king in Christendom will less brook his court to be cumbered, his
people oppressed, and his kingdom’s peace disturbed, by the arro-
gance of overgrown power, than she who now speaks with you.—
My Lord of Leicester, and you, my Lord of Sussex, I command you
both to be friends with each other; or by the crown I wear, you shall
find an enemy who will be too strong for both of you!”
“Madam,” said the Earl of Leicester, “you who are yourself the
fountain of honour know best what is due to mine. I place it at your
disposal, and only say that the terms on which I have stood with my
Lord of Sussex have not been of my seeking; nor had he cause to
think me his enemy, until he had done me gross wrong.”
“For me, madam,” said the Earl of Sussex, “I cannot appeal from
your sovereign pleasure; but I were well content my Lord of Leices-
ter should say in what I have, as he terms it, wronged him, since my
tongue never spoke the word that I would not willingly justify ei-
ther on foot or horseback.
“And for me,” said Leicester, “always under my gracious Sovereign’s
pleasure, my hand shall be as ready to make good my words as that
of any man who ever wrote himself Ratcliffe.”
“My lords,” said the Queen, “these are no terms for this presence;
and if you cannot keep your temper, we will find means to keep
both that and you close enough. Let me see you join hands, my
lords, and forget your idle animosities.”
The two rivals looked at each other with reluctant eyes, each un-
willing to make the first advance to execute the Queen’s will.
“Sussex,” said Elizabeth,”I entreat—Leicester, I command you.”

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Yet, so were her words accented, that the entreaty sounded like
command, and the command like entreaty. They remained still and
stubborn, until she raised her voice to a height which argued at
once impatience and absolute command.
“Sir Henry Lee,” she said, to an officer in attendance, “have a
guard in present readiness, and man a barge instantly.—My Lords
of Sussex and Leicester, I bid you once more to join hands; and,
God’s death! he that refuses shall taste of our Tower fare ere he sees
our face again. I will lower your proud hearts ere we part, and that I
promise, on the word of a Queen!”
“The prison?” said Leicester, “might be borne, but to lose your
Grace’s presence were to lose light and life at once.—Here, Sussex,
is my hand.”
“And here,” said Sussex, “is mine in truth and honesty; but—”
“Nay, under favour, you shall add no more,” said the Queen. “Why,
this is as it should be,” she added, looking on them more favourably;
“and when you the shepherds of the people, unite to protect them,
it shall be well with the flock we rule over. For, my lords, I tell you
plainly, your follies and your brawls lead to strange disorders among
your servants.—My Lord of Leicester, you have a gentleman in your
household called Varney?”
“Yes, gracious madam,” replied Leicester; “I presented him to kiss
your royal hand when you were last at Nonsuch.”
“His outside was well enough,” said the Queen, “but scarce so
fair, I should have thought, as to have caused a maiden of honourable
birth and hopes to barter her fame for his good looks, and become
his paramour. Yet so it is; this fellow of yours hath seduced the daugh-
ter of a good old Devonshire knight, Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote
Hall, and she hath fled with him from her father’s house like a cast-
away.—My Lord of Leicester, are you ill, that you look so deadly
pale?”
“No, gracious madam,” said Leicester; and it required every effort
he could make to bring forth these few words.
“You are surely ill, my lord?” said Elizabeth, going towards him
with hasty speech and hurried step, which indicated the deepest
concern. “Call Masters—call our surgeon in ordinary.—Where be
these loitering fools?—we lose the pride of our court through their

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negligence.—Or is it possible, Leicester,” she continued, looking

on him with a very gentle aspect, “can fear of my displeasure have
wrought so deeply on thee? Doubt not for a moment, noble Dudley,
that we could blame thee for the folly of thy retainer—thee, whose
thoughts we know to be far otherwise employed. He that would
climb the eagle’s nest, my lord, cares not who are catching linnets at
the foot of the precipice.”
“Mark you that?” said Sussex aside to Raleigh. “The devil aids
him surely; for all that would sink another ten fathom deep seems
but to make him float the more easily. Had a follower of mine acted
thus—”
“Peace, my good lord,” said Raleigh, “for God’s sake, peace! Wait
the change of the tide; it is even now on the turn.”
The acute observation of Raleigh, perhaps, did not deceive him;
for Leicester’s confusion was so great, and, indeed, for the moment,
so irresistibly overwhelming, that Elizabeth, after looking at him
with a wondering eye, and receiving no intelligible answer to the
unusual expressions of grace and affection which had escaped from
her, shot her quick glance around the circle of courtiers, and read-
ing, perhaps, in their faces something that accorded with her own
awakened suspicions, she said suddenly, “Or is there more in this
than we see—or than you, my lord, wish that we should see? Where
is this Varney? Who saw him?”
“An it please your Grace,” said Bowyer, “it is the same against
whom I this instant closed the door of the presence-room.”
“An it please me?” repeated Elizabeth sharply, not at that moment
in the humour of being pleased with anything.—”It does not please
me that he should pass saucily into my presence, or that you should
exclude from it one who came to justify himself from an accusa-
tion.”
“May it please you,” answered the perplexed usher, “if I knew, in
such case, how to bear myself, I would take heed—”
“You should have reported the fellow’s desire to us, Master Usher,
and taken our directions. You think yourself a great man, because
but now we chid a nobleman on your account; yet, after all, we
hold you but as the lead-weight that keeps the door fast. Call this
Varney hither instantly. There is one Tressilian also mentioned in

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this petition. Let them both come before us.”

She was obeyed, and Tressilian and Varney appeared accordingly.
Varney’s first glance was at Leicester, his second at the Queen. In
the looks of the latter there appeared an approaching storm, and in
the downcast countenance of his patron he could read no directions
in what way he was to trim his vessel for the encounter. He then saw
Tressilian, and at once perceived the peril of the situation in which
he was placed. But Varney was as bold-faced and ready-witted as he
was cunning and unscrupulous—a skilful pilot in extremity, and
fully conscious of the advantages which he would obtain could he
extricate Leicester from his present peril, and of the ruin that yawned
for himself should he fail in doing so.
“Is it true, sirrah,” said the Queen, with one of those searching
looks which few had the audacity to resist, “that you have seduced
to infamy a young lady of birth and breeding, the daughter of Sir
Hugh Robsart of Lidcote Hall?”
Varney kneeled down, and replied, with a look of the most pro-
found contrition, “There had been some love passages betwixt him
and Mistress Amy Robsart.”
Leicester’s flesh quivered with indignation as he heard his depen-
dant make this avowal, and for one moment he manned himself to
step forward, and, bidding farewell to the court and the royal favour,
confess the whole mystery of the secret marriage. But he looked at
Sussex, and the idea of the triumphant smile which would clothe
his cheek upon hearing the avowal sealed his lips. “Not now, at
least,” he thought, “or in this presence, will I afford him so rich a
triumph.” And pressing his lips close together, he stood firm and
collected, attentive to each word which Varney uttered, and deter-
mined to hide to the last the secret on which his court-favour seemed
to depend. Meanwhile, the Queen proceeded in her examination of
Varney.
“Love passages!” said she, echoing his last words; “what passages,
thou knave? and why not ask the wench’s hand from her father, if
thou hadst any honesty in thy love for her?”
“An it please your Grace,” said Varney, still on his knees, “I dared
not do so, for her father had promised her hand to a gentleman of
birth and honour—I will do him justice, though I know he bears

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me ill-will—one Master Edmund Tressilian, whom I now see in the

presence.”
“Soh!” replied the Queen. “And what was your right to make the
simple fool break her worthy father’s contract, through your love
passages, as your conceit and assurance terms them?”
“Madam,” replied Varney, “it is in vain to plead the cause of hu-
man frailty before a judge to whom it is unknown, or that of love to
one who never yields to the passion”—he paused an instant, and
then added, in a very low and timid tone—“which she inflicts upon
all others.”
Elizabeth tried to frown, but smiled in her own despite, as she
answered, “Thou art a marvellously impudent knave. Art thou mar-
ried to the girl?”
Leicester’s feelings became so complicated and so painfully in-
tense, that it seemed to him as if his life was to depend on the an-
swer made by Varney, who, after a moment’s real hesitation, an-
swered, “Yes.”
“Thou false villain!” said Leicester, bursting forth into rage, yet
unable to add another word to the sentence which he had begun
with such emphatic passion.
“Nay, my lord,” said the Queen, “we will, by your leave, stand
between this fellow and your anger. We have not yet done with
him.—Knew your master, my Lord of Leicester, of this fair work of
yours? Speak truth, I command thee, and I will be thy warrant from
danger on every quarter.”
“Gracious madam,” said Varney, “to speak Heaven’s truth, my lord
was the cause of the whole matter.”
“Thou villain, wouldst thou betray me?” said Leicester.
“Speak on,” said the Queen hastily, her cheek colouring, and her
eyes sparkling, as she addressed Varney—“speak on. Here no com-
mands are heard but mine.”
“They are omnipotent, gracious madam,” replied Varney; “and to
you there can be no secrets.—Yet I would not,” he added, looking
around him, “speak of my master’s concerns to other ears.”
“Fall back, my lords,” said the Queen to those who surrounded
her, “and do you speak on. What hath the Earl to do with this guilty
intrigue of thine? See, fellow, that thou beliest him not!”

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“Far be it from me to traduce my noble patron,” replied Varney;

“yet I am compelled to own that some deep, overwhelming, yet
secret feeling hath of late dwelt in my lord’s mind, hath abstracted
him from the cares of the household which he was wont to govern
with such religious strictness, and hath left us opportunities to do
follies, of which the shame, as in this case, partly falls upon our
patron. Without this, I had not had means or leisure to commit the
folly which has drawn on me his displeasure—the heaviest to en-
dure by me which I could by any means incur, saving always the yet
more dreaded resentment of your Grace.”
“And in this sense, and no other, hath he been accessory to thy
fault?” said Elizabeth.
“Surely, madam, in no other,” replied Varney; “but since some-
what hath chanced to him, he can scarce be called his own man.
Look at him, madam, how pale and trembling he stands! how un-
like his usual majesty of manner!—yet what has he to fear from
aught I can say to your Highness? Ah! madam, since he received
that fatal packet!”
“What packet, and from whence?” said the Queen eagerly.
“From whence, madam, I cannot guess; but I am so near to his
person that I know he has ever since worn, suspended around his
neck and next to his heart, that lock of hair which sustains a small
golden jewel shaped like a heart. He speaks to it when alone—he
parts not from it when he sleeps—no heathen ever worshipped an
idol with such devotion.”
“Thou art a prying knave to watch thy master so closely,” said
Elizabeth, blushing, but not with anger; “and a tattling knave to tell
over again his fooleries.—What colour might the braid of hair be
that thou pratest of?”
Varney replied, “A poet, madam, might call it a thread from the
golden web wrought by Minerva; but to my thinking it was paler
than even the purest gold—more like the last parting sunbeam of
the softest day of spring.”
“Why, you are a poet yourself, Master Varney,” said the Queen,
smiling. “But I have not genius quick enough to follow your rare
metaphors. Look round these ladies—is there”—(she hesitated, and
endeavoured to assume an air of great indifference)—“is there here,

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in this presence, any lady, the colour of whose hair reminds thee of
that braid? Methinks, without prying into my Lord of Leicester’s
amorous secrets, I would fain know what kind of locks are like the
thread of Minerva’s web, or the—what was it?—the last rays of the
May-day sun.”
Varney looked round the presence-chamber, his eye travelling from
one lady to another, until at length it rested upon the Queen her-
self, but with an aspect of the deepest veneration. “I see no tresses,”
he said, “in this presence, worthy of such similies, unless where I
dare not look on them.”
“How, sir knave?” said the Queen; “dare you intimate—”
“Nay, madam,” replied Varney, shading his eyes with his hand, “it
was the beams of the May-day sun that dazzled my weak eyes.”
“Go to—go to,” said the Queen; “thou art a foolish fellow”—and
turning quickly from him she walked up to Leicester.
Intense curiosity, mingled with all the various hopes, fears, and
passions which influence court faction, had occupied the presence-
chamber during the Queen’s conference with Varney, as if with the
strength of an Eastern talisman. Men suspended every, even the
slightest external motion, and would have ceased to breathe, had
Nature permitted such an intermission of her functions. The atmo-
sphere was contagious, and Leicester, who saw all around wishing
or fearing his advancement or his fall forgot all that love had previ-
ously dictated, and saw nothing for the instant but the favour or
disgrace which depended on the nod of Elizabeth and the fidelity of
Varney. He summoned himself hastily, and prepared to play his part
in the scene which was like to ensue, when, as he judged from the
glances which the Queen threw towards him, Varney’s communica-
tions, be they what they might, were operating in his favour. Eliza-
beth did not long leave him in doubt; for the more than favour with
which she accosted him decided his triumph in the eyes of his rival,
and of the assembled court of England. “Thou hast a prating ser-
vant of this same Varney, my lord,” she said; “it is lucky you trust
him with nothing that can hurt you in our opinion, for believe me,
he would keep no counsel.”
“From your Highness,” said Leicester, dropping gracefully on one
knee, “it were treason he should. I would that my heart itself lay

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before you, barer than the tongue of any servant could strip it.”
“What, my lord,” said Elizabeth, looking kindly upon him, “is
there no one little corner over which you would wish to spread a
veil? Ah! I see you are confused at the question, and your Queen
knows she should not look too deeply into her servants’ motives for
their faithful duty, lest she see what might, or at least ought to,
displease her.”
Relieved by these last words, Leicester broke out into a torrent of
expressions of deep and passionate attachment, which perhaps, at
that moment, were not altogether fictitious. The mingled emotions
which had at first overcome him had now given way to the ener-
getic vigour with which he had determined to support his place in
the Queen’s favour; and never did he seem to Elizabeth more elo-
quent, more handsome, more interesting, than while, kneeling at
her feet, he conjured her to strip him of all his dower, but to leave
him the name of her servant.—”Take from the poor Dudley,” he
exclaimed, “all that your bounty has made him, and bid him be the
poor gentleman he was when your Grace first shone on him; leave
him no more than his cloak and his sword, but let him still boast he
has—what in word or deed he never forfeited—the regard of his
adored Queen and mistress!”
“No, Dudley!” said Elizabeth, raising him with one hand, while
she extended the other that he might kiss it. “Elizabeth hath not
forgotten that, whilst you were a poor gentleman, despoiled of your
hereditary rank, she was as poor a princess, and that in her cause
you then ventured all that oppression had left you—your life and
honour. Rise, my lord, and let my hand go—rise, and be what you
have ever been, the grace of our court and the support of our throne!
Your mistress may be forced to chide your misdemeanours, but never
without owning your merits.—And so help me God,” she added,
turning to the audience, who, with various feelings, witnessed this
interesting scene—”so help me God, gentlemen, as I think never
sovereign had a truer servant than I have in this noble Earl!”
A murmur of assent rose from the Leicestrian faction, which the
friends of Sussex dared not oppose. They remained with their eyes
fixed on the ground, dismayed as well as mortified by the public
and absolute triumph of their opponents. Leicester’s first use of the

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familiarity to which the Queen had so publicly restored him was to

ask her commands concerning Varney’s offence. “although,” he said,
“the fellow deserves nothing from me but displeasure, yet, might I
presume to intercede—”
“In truth, we had forgotten his matter,” said the Queen; “and it
was ill done of us, who owe justice to our meanest as well as to our
highest subject. We are pleased, my lord, that you were the first to
recall the matter to our memory.—Where is Tressilian, the accuser?—
let him come before us.”
Tressilian appeared, and made a low and beseeming reference. His
person, as we have elsewhere observed, had an air of grace and even
of nobleness, which did not escape Queen Elizabeth’s critical obser-
vation. She looked at him with, attention as he stood before her
unabashed, but with an air of the deepest dejection.
“I cannot but grieve for this gentleman,” she said to Leicester. “I
have inquired concerning him, and his presence confirms what I heard,
that he is a scholar and a soldier, well accomplished both in arts and
arms. We women, my lord, are fanciful in our choice —I had said
now, to judge by the eye, there was no comparison to be held betwixt
your follower and this gentleman. But Varney is a well-spoken fellow,
and, to say truth, that goes far with us of the weaker sex.—look you,
Master Tressilian, a bolt lost is not a bow broken. Your true affection,
as I will hold it to be, hath been, it seems, but ill requited; but you
have scholarship, and you know there have been false Cressidas to be
found, from the Trojan war downwards. Forget, good sir, this Lady
Light o’ Love—teach your affection to see with a wiser eye. This we
say to you, more from the writings of learned men than our own
knowledge, being, as we are, far removed by station and will from the
enlargement of experience in such idle toys of humorous passion. For
this dame’s father, we can make his grief the less by advancing his son-
in-law to such station as may enable him to give an honourable sup-
port to his bride. Thou shalt not be forgotten thyself, Tressilian—
follow our court, and thou shalt see that a true Troilus hath some
claim on our grace. Think of what that arch-knave Shakespeare says—
a plague on him, his toys come into my head when I should think of
other matters. Stay, how goes it?

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‘Cressid was yours, tied with the bonds of heaven ;

These bonds of heaven are slipt, dissolved, and loosed,
And with another knot five fingers tied,
The fragments of her faith are bound to Diomed.’

You smile, my Lord of Southampton—perchance I make your

player’s verse halt through my bad memory. But let it suffice let
there be no more of this mad matter.”
And as Tressilian kept the posture of one who would willingly be
heard, though, at the same time, expressive of the deepest reverence,
the Queen added with some impatience, “What would the man have?
The wench cannot wed both of you? She has made her election—not
a wise one perchance—but she is Varney’s wedded wife.”
“My suit should sleep there, most gracious Sovereign,” said
Tressilian, “and with my suit my revenge. But I hold this Varney’s
word no good warrant for the truth.”
“Had that doubt been elsewhere urged,” answered Varney, “my
sword—”
“Thy sword!” interrupted Tressilian scornfully; “with her Grace’s
leave, my sword shall show—”
“Peace, you knaves, both!” said the Queen; “know you where you
are?—This comes of your feuds, my lords,” she added, looking to-
wards Leicester and Sussex; “your followers catch your own humour,
and must bandy and brawl in my court and in my very presence,
like so many Matamoros.—Look you, sirs, he that speaks of draw-
ing swords in any other quarrel than mine or England’s, by mine
honour, I’ll bracelet him with iron both on wrist and ankle!” She
then paused a minute, and resumed in a milder tone, “I must do
justice betwixt the bold and mutinous knaves notwithstanding.—
My Lord of Leicester, will you warrant with your honour—that is,
to the best of your belief—that your servant speaks truth in saying
he hath married this Amy Robsart?”
This was a home-thrust, and had nearly staggered Leicester. But
he had now gone too far to recede, and answered, after a moment’s
hesitation, “To the best of my belief—indeed on my certain knowl-
edge—she is a wedded wife.”
“Gracious madam,” said Tressilian, “may I yet request to know,

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when and under what circumstances this alleged marriage—”

“Out, sirrah,” answered the Queen; “Alleged marriage! Have you
not the word of this illustrious Earl to warrant the truth of what his
servant says? But thou art a loser—thinkest thyself such at least—
and thou shalt have indulgence; we will look into the matter ourself
more at leisure.—My Lord of Leicester, I trust you remember we
mean to taste the good cheer of your Castle of Kenilworth on this
week ensuing. We will pray you to bid our good and valued friend,
the Earl of Sussex, to hold company with us there.”
“If the noble Earl of Sussex,” said Leicester, bowing to his rival
with the easiest and with the most graceful courtesy, “will so far
honour my poor house, I will hold it an additional proof of the
amicable regard it is your Grace’s desire we should entertain to-
wards each other.”
Sussex was more embarrassed. “I should,” said he, “madam, be
but a clog on your gayer hours, since my late severe illness.”
“And have you been indeed so very ill?” said Elizabeth, looking on
him with more attention than before; “you are, in faith, strangely
altered, and deeply am I grieved to see it. But be of good cheer—we
will ourselves look after the health of so valued a servant, and to
whom we owe so much. Masters shall order your diet; and that we
ourselves may see that he is obeyed, you must attend us in this
progress to Kenilworth.”
This was said so peremptorily, and at the same time with so much
kindness, that Sussex, however unwilling to become the guest of his
rival, had no resource but to bow low to the Queen in obedience to
her commands, and to express to Leicester, with blunt courtesy,
though mingled with embarrassment, his acceptance of his invita-
tion. As the Earls exchanged compliments on the occasion, the
Queen said to her High Treasurer, “Methinks, my lord, the counte-
nances of these our two noble peers resemble those of the two famed
classic streams, the one so dark and sad, the other so fair and noble.
My old Master Ascham would have chid me for forgetting the au-
thor. It is Caesar, as I think. See what majestic calmness sits on the
brow of the noble Leicester, while Sussex seems to greet him as if he
did our will indeed, but not willingly.”
“The doubt of your Majesty’s favour,” answered the Lord Trea-

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surer, “may perchance occasion the difference, which does not—as

what does?—escape your Grace’s eye.”
“Such doubt were injurious to us, my lord,” replied the Queen.
“We hold both to be near and dear to us, and will with impartiality
employ both in honourable service for the weal of our kingdom.
But we will break their further conference at present.—My Lords of
Sussex and Leicester, we have a word more with you. ‘Tressilian and
Varney are near your persons—you will see that they attend you at
Kenilworth. And as we shall then have both Paris and Menelaus
within our call, so we will have the same fair Helen also, whose
fickleness has caused this broil.—Varney, thy wife must be at
Kenilworth, and forthcoming at my order.—My Lord of Leicester,
we expect you will look to this.”
The Earl and his follower bowed low and raised their heads, with-
out daring to look at the Queen, or at each other, for both felt at the
instant as if the nets and toils which their own falsehood had woven
were in the act of closing around them. The Queen, however, ob-
served not their confusion, but proceeded to say, “My Lords of Sus-
sex and Leicester, we require your presence at the privy-council to
be presently held, where matters of importance are to be debated.
We will then take the water for our divertisement, and you, my
lords, will attend us.—And that reminds us of a circumstance.—
Do you, Sir Squire of the Soiled Cassock” (distinguishing Raleigh
by a smile), “fail not to observe that you are to attend us on our
progress. You shall be supplied with suitable means to reform your
wardrobe.”
And so terminated this celebrated audience, in which, as through-
out her life, Elizabeth united the occasional caprice of her sex with
that sense and sound policy in which neither man nor woman ever
excelled her.

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CHAPTER XVII

Well, then—our course is chosen—spread the sail—

Heave oft the lead, and mark the soundings well—
Look to the helm, good master—many a shoal
Marks this stern coast, and rocks, where sits the Siren,
Who, like ambition, lures men to their ruin.

The Shipwreck.

DURING THE BRIEF INTERVAL that took place betwixt the dismissal of
the audience and the sitting of the privy-council, Leicester had time
to reflect that he had that morning sealed his own fate. “It was im-
possible for him now,” he thought, “after having, in the face of all
that was honourable in England, pledged his truth (though in an
ambiguous phrase) for the statement of Varney, to contradict or
disavow it, without exposing himself, not merely to the loss of court-
favour, but to the highest displeasure of the Queen, his deceived
mistress, and to the scorn and contempt at once of his rival and of
all his compeers.” This certainty rushed at once on his mind, to-
gether with all the difficulties which he would necessarily be ex-
posed to in preserving a secret which seemed now equally essential
to his safety, to his power, and to his honour. He was situated like
one who walks upon ice ready to give way around him, and whose
only safety consists in moving onwards, by firm and unvacillating
steps. The Queen’s favour, to preserve which he had made such sac-
rifices, must now be secured by all means and at all hazards; it was
the only plank which he could cling to in the tempest. He must
settle himself, therefore, to the task of not only preserving, but aug-
menting the Queen’s partiality—he must be the favourite of Eliza-

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beth, or a man utterly shipwrecked in fortune and in honour. All

other considerations must be laid aside for the moment, and he
repelled the intrusive thoughts which forced on his mind the image
of, Amy, by saying to himself there would be time to think hereafter
how he was to escape from the labyrinth ultimately, since the pilot
who sees a Scylla under his bows must not for the time think of the
more distant dangers of Charybdis.
In this mood the Earl of Leicester that day assumed his chair at
the council table of Elizabeth; and when the hours of business were
over, in this same mood did he occupy an honoured place near her
during her pleasure excursion on the Thames. And never did he
display to more advantage his powers as a politician of the first rank,
or his parts as an accomplished courtier.
It chanced that in that day’s council matters were agitated touch-
ing the affairs of the unfortunate Mary, the seventh year of whose
captivity in England was now in doleful currency. There had been
opinions in favour of this unhappy princess laid before Elizabeth’s
council, and supported with much strength of argument by Sussex
and others, who dwelt more upon the law of nations and the breach
of hospitality than, however softened or qualified, was agreeable to
the Queen’s ear. Leicester adopted the contrary opinion with great
animation and eloquence, and described the necessity of continu-
ing the severe restraint of the Queen of Scots, as a measure essential
to the safety of the kingdom, and particularly of Elizabeth’s sacred
person, the lightest hair of whose head, he maintained, ought, in
their lordships’ estimation, to be matter of more deep and anxious
concern than the life and fortunes of a rival, who, after setting up a
vain and unjust pretence to the throne of England, was now, even
while in the bosom of her country, the constant hope and theme of
encouragement to all enemies to Elizabeth, whether at home or
abroad. He ended by craving pardon of their lordships, if in the zeal
of speech he had given any offence, but the Queen’s safety was a
theme which hurried him beyond his usual moderation of debate.
Elizabeth chid him, but not severely, for the weight which he at-
tached unduly to her personal interests; yet she owned that, since it
had been the pleasure of Heaven to combine those interests with
the weal of her subjects, she did only her duty when she adopted

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such measures of self-preservation as circumstances forced upon her;

and if the council in their wisdom should be of opinion that it was
needful to continue some restraint on the person of her unhappy
sister of Scotland, she trusted they would not blame her if she re-
quested of the Countess of Shrewsbury to use her with as much
kindness as might be consistent with her safe keeping. And with
this intimation of her pleasure the council was dismissed.
Never was more anxious and ready way made for “my Lord of
Leicester,” than as he passed through the crowded anterooms to go
towards the river-side, in order to attend her Majesty to her barge—
never was the voice of the ushers louder, to “make room, make room
for the noble Earl”—never were these signals more promptly and
reverently obeyed—never were more anxious eyes turned on him to
obtain a glance of favour, or even of mere recognition, while the
heart of many a humble follower throbbed betwixt the desire to
offer his congratulations, and the fear of intruding himself on the
notice of one so infinitely above him. The whole court considered
the issue of this day’s audience, expected with so much doubt and
anxiety, as a decisive triumph on the part of Leicester, and felt as-
sured that the orb of his rival satellite, if not altogether obscured by
his lustre, must revolve hereafter in a dimmer and more distant
sphere. So thought the court and courtiers, from high to low; and
they acted accordingly.
On the other hand, never did Leicester return the general greet-
ing with such ready and condescending courtesy, or endeavour more
successfully to gather (in the words of one who at that moment
stood at no great distance from him) “golden opinions from all sorts
of men.”
For all the favourite Earl had a bow a smile at least, and often a
kind word. Most of these were addressed to courtiers, whose names
have long gone down the tide of oblivion; but some, to such as
sound strangely in our ears, when connected with the ordinary
matters of human life, above which the gratitude of posterity has
long elevated them. A few of Leicester’s interlocutory sentences ran
as follows:—
“Poynings, good morrow; and how does your wife and fair daugh-
ter? Why come they not to court?—Adams, your suit is naught; the

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Queen will grant no more monopolies. But I may serve you in an-
other matter.—My good Alderman Aylford, the suit of the City,
affecting Queenhithe, shall be forwarded as far as my poor interest
can serve.—Master Edmund Spenser, touching your Irish petition,
I would willingly aid you, from my love to the Muses; but thou hast
nettled the Lord Treasurer.”
“My lord, “ said the poet, “were I permitted to explain—”
“Come to my lodging, Edmund,” answered the Earl “not to-mor-
row, or next day, but soon.—Ha, Will Shakespeare—wild Will!—
thou hast given my nephew Philip Sidney, love-powder; he cannot
sleep without thy Venus and Adonis under his pillow! We will have
thee hanged for the veriest wizard in Europe. Hark thee, mad wag,
I have not forgotten thy matter of the patent, and of the bears.”
The player bowed, and the Earl nodded and passed on—so that
age would have told the tale; in ours, perhaps, we might say the
immortal had done homage to the mortal. The next whom the
favourite accosted was one of his own zealous dependants.
“How now, Sir Francis Denning,” he whispered, in answer to his
exulting salutation, “that smile hath made thy face shorter by one-
third than when I first saw it this morning.—What, Master Bowyer,
stand you back, and think you I bear malice? You did but your duty
this morning; and if I remember aught of the passage betwixt us, it
shall be in thy favour.”
Then the Earl was approached, with several fantastic congees, by a
person quaintly dressed in a doublet of black velvet, curiously slashed
and pinked with crimson satin. A long cock’s feather in the velvet
bonnet, which he held in his hand, and an enormous ruff; stiffened
to the extremity of the absurd taste of the times, joined with a sharp,
lively, conceited expression of countenance, seemed to body forth a
vain, harebrained coxcomb, and small wit; while the rod he held, and
an assumption of formal authority, appeared to express some sense of
official consequence, which qualified the natural pertness of his man-
ner. A perpetual blush, which occupied rather the sharp nose than the
thin cheek of this personage, seemed to speak more of “good life,” as
it was called, than of modesty; and the manner in which he approached
to the Earl confirmed that suspicion.
“Good even to you, Master Robert Laneham,” said Leicester, and

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seemed desirous to pass forward, without further speech.

“I have a suit to your noble lordship,” said the figure, boldly fol-
lowing him.
“And what is it, good master keeper of the council-chamber door?”
“Clerk of the council-chamber door,” said Master Robert Laneham,
with emphasis, by way of reply, and of correction.
“Well, qualify thine office as thou wilt, man,” replied the Earl;
“what wouldst thou have with me?”
“Simply,” answered Laneham, “that your lordship would be, as
heretofore, my good lord, and procure me license to attend the Sum-
mer Progress unto your lordship’s most beautiful and all-to-be-un-
matched Castle of Kenilworth.”
“To what purpose, good Master Laneham?” replied the Earl; “be-
think you, my guests must needs be many.”
“Not so many,” replied the petitioner, “but that your nobleness
will willingly spare your old servitor his crib and his mess. Bethink
you, my lord, how necessary is this rod of mine to fright away all
those listeners, who else would play at bo-peep with the honourable
council, and be searching for keyholes and crannies in the door of
the chamber, so as to render my staff as needful as a fly-flap in a
butcher’s shop.”
“Methinks you have found out a fly-blown comparison for the
honourable council, Master Laneham,” said the Earl; “but seek not
about to justify it. Come to Kenilworth, if you list; there will be
store of fools there besides, and so you will be fitted.”
“Nay, an there be fools, my lord,” replied Laneham, with much
glee, “I warrant I will make sport among them, for no greyhound
loves to cote a hare as I to turn and course a fool. But I have another
singular favour to beseech of your honour.”
“Speak it, and let me go,” said the Earl; “I think the Queen comes
forth instantly.”
“My very good lord, I would fain bring a bed-fellow with me.”
“How, you irreverent rascal!” said Leicester.
“Nay, my lord, my meaning is within the canons,” answered his
unblushing, or rather his ever-blushing petitioner. “I have a wife as
curious as her grandmother who ate the apple. Now, take her with
me I may not, her Highness’s orders being so strict against the offic-

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ers bringing with them their wives in a progress, and so lumbering

the court with womankind. But what I would crave of your lord-
ship is to find room for her in some mummery, or pretty pageant, in
disguise, as it were; so that, not being known for my wife, there may
be no offence.”
“The foul fiend seize ye both!” said Leicester, stung into uncon-
trollable passion by the recollections which this speech excited—
”why stop you me with such follies?”
The terrified clerk of the chamber-door, astonished at the burst of
resentment he had so unconsciously produced, dropped his staff of
office from his hand, and gazed on the incensed Earl with a foolish
face of wonder and terror, which instantly recalled Leicester to him-
self.
“I meant but to try if thou hadst the audacity which befits thine
office,” said he hastily. “Come to Kenilworth, and bring the devil
with thee, if thou wilt.”
“My wife, sir, hath played the devil ere now, in a Mystery, in Queen
Mary’s time; but me shall want a trifle for properties.”
“Here is a crown for thee,” said the Earl,—”make me rid of thee
—the great bell rings.”
Master Robert Laneham stared a moment at the agitation which
he had excited, and then said to himself, as he stooped to pick up
his staff of office, “The noble Earl runs wild humours to-day. But
they who give crowns expect us witty fellows to wink at their un-
settled starts; and, by my faith, if they paid not for mercy, we would
finger them tightly!” [See Note 6. Robert Laneham.]
Leicester moved hastily on, neglecting the courtesies he had hith-
erto dispensed so liberally, and hurrying through the courtly crowd,
until he paused in a small withdrawing-room, into which he plunged
to draw a moment’s breath unobserved, and in seclusion.
“What am I now,” he said to himself, “that am thus jaded by the
words of a mean, weather-beaten, goose-brained gull! Conscience,
thou art a bloodhound, whose growl wakes us readily at the paltry stir
of a rat or mouse as at the step of a lion. Can I not quit myself, by one
bold stroke, of a state so irksome, so unhonoured? What if I kneel to
Elizabeth, and, owning the whole, throw myself on her mercy?”
As he pursued this train of thought, the door of the apartment

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opened, and Varney rushed in.

“Thank God, my lord, that I have found you!” was his exclama-
tion.
“Thank the devil, whose agent thou art,” was the Earl’s reply.
“Thank whom you will, my lord,” replied Varney; “but hasten to
the water-side. The Queen is on board, and asks for you.”
“Go, say I am taken suddenly ill,” replied Leicester; “for, by Heaven,
my brain can sustain this no longer!”
“I may well say so,” said Varney, with bitterness of expression,
“for your place, ay, and mine, who, as your master of the horse, was
to have attended your lordship, is already filled up in the Queen’s
barge. The new minion, Walter Raleigh, and our old acquaintance
Tressilian were called for to fill our places just as I hastened away to
seek you.”
“Thou art a devil, Varney,” said Leicester hastily; “but thou hast
the mastery for the present—I follow thee.”
Varney replied not, but led the way out of the palace, and towards
the river, while his master followed him, as if mechanically; until,
looking back, he said in a tone which savoured of familiarity at
least, if not of authority, “How is this, my lord? Your cloak hangs on
one side—your hose are unbraced—permit me—”
“Thou art a fool, Varney, as well as a knave,” said Leicester, shak-
ing him off, and rejecting his officious assistance. “We are best thus,
sir; when we require you to order our person, it is well, but now we
want you not.”
So saying, the Earl resumed at once his air of command, and with
it his self-possession—shook his dress into yet wilder disorder —
passed before Varney with the air of a superior and master, and in
his turn led the way to the river-side.
The Queen’s barge was on the very point of putting off, the seat
allotted to Leicester in the stern, and that to his master of the horse
on the bow of the boat, being already filled up. But on Leicester’s
approach there was a pause, as if the bargemen anticipated some
alteration in their company. The angry spot was, however, on the
Queen’s cheek, as, in that cold tone with which superiors endeavour
to veil their internal agitation, while speaking to those before whom
it would be derogation to express it, she pronounced the chilling

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words, “We have waited, my Lord of Leicester.”

“Madam, and most gracious Princess,” said Leicester, “you, who
can pardon so many weaknesses which your own heart never knows,
can best bestow your commiseration on the agitations of the bo-
som, which, for a moment, affect both head and limbs. I came to
your presence a doubting and an accused subject; your goodness
penetrated the clouds of defamation, and restored me to my honour,
and, what is yet dearer, to your favour—is it wonderful, though for
me it is most unhappy, that my master of the horse should have
found me in a state which scarce permitted me to make the exertion
necessary to follow him to this place, when one glance of your High-
ness, although, alas! an angry one, has had power to do that for me
in which Esculapius might have failed?”
“How is this?” said Elizabeth hastily, looking at Varney; “hath
your lord been ill?”
“Something of a fainting fit,” answered the ready-witted Varney,
“as your Grace may observe from his present condition. My lord’s
haste would not permit me leisure even to bring his dress into or-
der.”
“It matters not,” said Elizabeth, as she gazed on the noble face
and form of Leicester, to which even the strange mixture of passions
by which he had been so lately agitated gave additional interest;
“make room for my noble lord. Your place, Master Varney, has been
filled up; you must find a seat in another barge.”
Varney bowed, and withdrew.
“And you, too, our young Squire of the Cloak,” added she, look-
ing at Raleigh, “must, for the time, go to the barge of our ladies of
honour. As for Tressilian, he hath already suffered too much by the
caprice of women that I should aggrieve him by my change of plan,
so far as he is concerned.”
Leicester seated himself in his place in the barge, and close to the
Sovereign. Raleigh rose to retire, and Tressilian would have been so
ill-timed in his courtesy as to offer to relinquish his own place to his
friend, had not the acute glance of Raleigh himself, who seemed no
in his native element, made him sensible that so ready a disclama-
tion of the royal favour might be misinterpreted. He sat silent, there-
fore, whilst Raleigh, with a profound bow, and a look of the deepest

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humiliation, was about to quit his place.

A noble courtier, the gallant Lord Willoughby, read, as he thought,
something in the Queen’s face which seemed to pity Raleigh’s real
or assumed semblance of mortification.
“It is not for us old courtiers,” he said, “to hide the sunshine from
the young ones. I will, with her Majesty’s leave, relinquish for an
hour that which her subjects hold dearest, the delight of her
Highness’s presence, and mortify myself by walking in starlight, while
I forsake for a brief season the glory of Diana’s own beams. I will
take place in the boat which the ladies occupy, and permit this young
cavalier his hour of promised felicity.”
The Queen replied, with an expression betwixt mirth and ear-
nest, “If you are so willing to leave us, my lord, we cannot help the
mortification. But, under favour, we do not trust you—old and ex-
perienced as you may deem yourself—with the care of our young
ladies of honour. Your venerable age, my lord,” she continued, smil-
ing, “may be better assorted with that of my Lord Treasurer, who
follows in the third boat, and by whose experience even my Lord
Willoughby’s may be improved.”
Lord Willoughby hid his disappointment under a smile—laughed,
was confused, bowed, and left the Queen’s barge to go on board my
Lord Burleigh’s. Leicester, who endeavoured to divert his thoughts
from all internal reflection, by fixing them on what was passing
around, watched this circumstance among others. But when the
boat put off from the shore—when the music sounded from a barge
which accompanied them—when the shouts of the populace were
heard from the shore, and all reminded him of the situation in which
he was placed, he abstracted his thoughts and feelings by a strong
effort from everything but the necessity of maintaining himself in
the favour of his patroness, and exerted his talents of pleasing capti-
vation with such success, that the Queen, alternately delighted with
his conversation, and alarmed for his health, at length imposed a
temporary silence on him, with playful yet anxious care, lest his
flow of spirits should exhaust him.
“My lords,” she said, “having passed for a time our edict of silence
upon our good Leicester, we will call you to counsel on a gamesome
matter, more fitted to be now treated of, amidst mirth and music,

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than in the gravity of our ordinary deliberations. Which of you, my

lords,” said she, smiling, “know aught of a petition from Orson
Pinnit, the keeper, as he qualifies himself, of our royal bears? Who
stands godfather to his request?”
“Marry, with Your Grace’s good permission, that do I,” said the
Earl of Sussex. “Orson Pinnit was a stout soldier before he was so
mangled by the skenes of the Irish clan MacDonough; and I trust
your Grace will be, as you always have been, good mistress to your
good and trusty servants.”
“Surely,” said the Queen, “it is our purpose to be so, and in espe-
cial to our poor soldiers and sailors, who hazard their lives for little
pay. We would give,” she said, with her eyes sparkling, “yonder royal
palace of ours to be an hospital for their use, rather than they should
call their mistress ungrateful. But this is not the question,” she said,
her voice, which had been awakened by her patriotic feelings, once
more subsiding into the tone of gay and easy conversation; “for this
Orson Pinnit’s request goes something further. He complains that,
amidst the extreme delight with which men haunt the play-houses,
and in especial their eager desire for seeing the exhibitions of one
Will Shakespeare (whom I think, my lords, we have all heard some-
thing of ), the manly amusement of bear-baiting is falling into com-
parative neglect, since men will rather throng to see these roguish
players kill each other in jest, than to see our royal dogs and bears
worry each other in bloody earnest.—What say you to this, my
Lord of Sussex?”
“Why, truly, gracious madam,” said Sussex, “you must expect little
from an old soldier like me in favour of battles in sport, when they
are compared with battles in earnest; and yet, by my faith, I wish
Will Shakespeare no harm. He is a stout man at quarter-staff, and
single falchion, though, as I am told, a halting fellow; and he stood,
they say, a tough fight with the rangers of old Sir Thomas Lucy of
Charlecot, when he broke his deer-park and kissed his keeper’s daugh-
ter.”
“I cry you mercy, my Lord of Sussex,” said Queen Elizabeth, in-
terrupting him; “that matter was heard in council, and we will not
have this fellow’s offence exaggerated—there was no kissing in the
matter, and the defendant hath put the denial on record. But what

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say you to his present practice, my lord, on the stage? for there lies
the point, and not in any ways touching his former errors, in break-
ing parks, or the other follies you speak of.”
“Why, truly, madam,” replied Sussex, “as I said before, I wish the
gamesome mad fellow no injury. Some of his whoreson poetry (I
crave your Grace’s pardon for such a phrase) has rung in mine ears
as if the lines sounded to boot and saddle. But then it is all froth and
folly—no substance or seriousness in it, as your Grace has already
well touched. What are half a dozen knaves, with rusty foils and
tattered targets, making but a mere mockery of a stout fight, to
compare to the royal game of bear-baiting, which hath been graced
by your Highness’s countenance, and that of your royal predeces-
sors, in this your princely kingdom, famous for matchless mastiffs
and bold bearwards over all Christendom? Greatly is it to be doubted
that the race of both will decay, if men should throng to hear the
lungs of an idle player belch forth nonsensical bombast, instead of
bestowing their pence in encouraging the bravest image of war that
can be shown in peace, and that is the sports of the Bear-garden.
There you may see the bear lying at guard, with his red, pinky eyes
watching the onset of the mastiff, like a wily captain who maintains
his defence that an assailant may be tempted to venture within his
danger. And then comes Sir Mastiff, like a worthy champion, in full
career at the throat of his adversary; and then shall Sir Bruin teach
him the reward for those who, in their over-courage, neglect the
policies of war, and, catching him in his arms, strain him to his
breast like a lusty wrestler, until rib after rib crack like the shot of a
pistolet. And then another mastiff; as bold, but with better aim and
sounder judgment, catches Sir Bruin by the nether lip, and hangs
fast, while he tosses about his blood and slaver, and tries in vain to
shake Sir Talbot from his hold. And then—”
“Nay, by my honour, my lord,” said the Queen, laughing, “you
have described the whole so admirably that, had we never seen a
bear-baiting, as we have beheld many, and hope, with Heaven’s al-
lowance, to see many more, your words were sufficient to put the
whole Bear-garden before our eyes.—But come, who speaks next in
this case?—My Lord of Leicester, what say you?”
“Am I then to consider myself as unmuzzled, please your Grace?”

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replied Leicester.
“Surely, my lord—that is, if you feel hearty enough to take part in
our game,” answered Elizabeth; “and yet, when I think of your cog-
nizance of the bear and ragged staff, methinks we had better hear
some less partial orator.”
“Nay, on my word, gracious Princess,” said the Earl, “though my
brother Ambrose of Warwick and I do carry the ancient cognizance
your Highness deigns to remember, I nevertheless desire nothing
but fair play on all sides; or, as they say, ‘fight dog, fight bear.’ And
in behalf of the players, I must needs say that they are witty knaves,
whose rants and jests keep the minds of the commons from busying
themselves with state affairs, and listening to traitorous speeches,
idle rumours, and disloyal insinuations. When men are agape to see
how Marlow, Shakespeare, and other play artificers work out their
fanciful plots, as they call them, the mind of the spectators is with-
drawn from the conduct of their rulers.”
“We would not have the mind of our subjects withdrawn from
the consideration of our own conduct, my lord,” answered Eliza-
beth; “because the more closely it is examined, the true motives by
which we are guided will appear the more manifest.”
“I have heard, however, madam,” said the Dean of St. Asaph’s, an
eminent Puritan, “that these players are wont, in their plays, not
only to introduce profane and lewd expressions, tending to foster
sin and harlotry; but even to bellow out such reflections on govern-
ment, its origin and its object, as tend to render the subject discon-
tented, and shake the solid foundations of civil society. And it seems
to be, under your Grace’s favour, far less than safe to permit these
naughty foul-mouthed knaves to ridicule the godly for their decent
gravity, and, in blaspheming heaven and slandering its earthly rul-
ers, to set at defiance the laws both of God and man.”
“If we could think this were true, my lord,” said Elizabeth, “we
should give sharp correction for such offences. But it is ill arguing
against the use of anything from its abuse. And touching this
Shakespeare, we think there is that in his plays that is worth twenty
Bear-gardens; and that this new undertaking of his Chronicles, as
he calls them, may entertain, with honest mirth, mingled with use-
ful instruction, not only our subjects, but even the generation which

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may succeed to us.”

“Your Majesty’s reign will need no such feeble aid to make it re-
membered to the latest posterity,” said Leicester. “And yet, in his
way, Shakespeare hath so touched some incidents of your Majesty’s
happy government as may countervail what has been spoken by his
reverence the Dean of St. Asaph’s. There are some lines, for ex-
ample—I would my nephew, Philip Sidney, were here; they are scarce
ever out of his mouth—they are spoken in a mad tale of fairies,
love-charms, and I wot not what besides; but beautiful they are,
however short they may and must fall of the subject to which they
bear a bold relation—and Philip murmurs them, I think, even in
his dreams.”
“You tantalize us, my lord,” said the Queen—”Master Philip
Sidney is, we know, a minion of the Muses, and we are pleased it
should be so. Valour never shines to more advantage than when
united with the true taste and love of letters. But surely there are
some others among our young courtiers who can recollect what your
lordship has forgotten amid weightier affairs.—Master Tressilian,
you are described to me as a worshipper of Minerva—remember
you aught of these lines?”
Tressilian’s heart was too heavy, his prospects in life too fatally
blighted, to profit by the opportunity which the Queen thus of-
fered to him of attracting her attention; but he determined to trans-
fer the advantage to his more ambitious young friend, and excusing
himself on the score of want of recollection, he added that he be-
lieved the beautiful verses of which my Lord of Leicester had spo-
ken were in the remembrance of Master Walter Raleigh.
At the command of the Queen, that cavalier repeated, with ac-
cent and manner which even added to their exquisite delicacy of
tact and beauty of description, the celebrated vision of Oberon:—

“That very time I saw (but thou couldst not),

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid, allarm’d: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
And loos’d his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:

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But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the imperial vot’ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy free.”

The voice of Raleigh, as he repeated the last lines, became a little

tremulous, as if diffident how the Sovereign to whom the homage
was addressed might receive it, exquisite as it was. If this diffidence
was affected, it was good policy; but if real, there was little occasion
for it. The verses were not probably new to the Queen, for when
was ever such elegant flattery long in reaching the royal ear to which
it was addressed? But they were not the less welcome when repeated
by such a speaker as Raleigh. Alike delighted with the matter, the
manner, and the graceful form and animated countenance of the
gallant young reciter, Elizabeth kept time to every cadence with look
and with finger. When the speaker had ceased, she murmured over
the last lines as if scarce conscious that she was overheard, and as she
uttered the words,
“In maiden meditation, fancy free,” she dropped into the Thames
the supplication of Orson Pinnit, keeper of the royal bears, to find
more favourable acceptance at Sheerness, or wherever the tide might
waft it.
Leicester was spurred to emulation by the success of the young
courtier’s exhibition, as the veteran racer is roused when a high-
mettled colt passes him on the way. He turned the discourse on
shows, banquets, pageants, and on the character of those by whom
these gay scenes were then frequented. He mixed acute observation
with light satire, in that just proportion which was free alike from
malignant slander and insipid praise. He mimicked with ready ac-
cent the manners of the affected or the clownish, and made his own
graceful tone and manner seem doubly such when he resumed it.
Foreign countries—their customs, their manners, the rules of their
courts—the fashions, and even the dress of their ladies-were equally
his theme; and seldom did he conclude without conveying some
compliment, always couched in delicacy, and expressed with pro-
priety, to the Virgin Queen, her court, and her government. Thus
passed the conversation during this pleasure voyage, seconded by

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the rest of the attendants upon the royal person, in gay discourse,
varied by remarks upon ancient classics and modern authors, and
enriched by maxims of deep policy and sound morality, by the states-
men and sages who sat around and mixed wisdom with the lighter
talk of a female court.
When they returned to the Palace, Elizabeth accepted, or rather
selected, the arm of Leicester to support her from the stairs where
they landed to the great gate. It even seemed to him (though that
might arise from the flattery of his own imagination) that during
this short passage she leaned on him somewhat more than the
slippiness of the way necessarily demanded. Certainly her actions
and words combined to express a degree of favour which, even in
his proudest day he had not till then attained. His rival, indeed, was
repeatedly graced by the Queen’s notice; but it was in manner that
seemed to flow less from spontaneous inclination than as extorted
by a sense of his merit. And in the opinion of many experienced
courtiers, all the favour she showed him was overbalanced by her
whispering in the ear of the Lady Derby that “now she saw sickness
was a better alchemist than she before wotted of, seeing it had
changed my Lord of Sussex’s copper nose into a golden one.”
The jest transpired, and the Earl of Leicester enjoyed his triumph,
as one to whom court-favour had been both the primary and the
ultimate motive of life, while he forgot, in the intoxication of the
moment, the perplexities and dangers of his own situation. Indeed,
strange as it may appear, he thought less at that moment of the
perils arising from his secret union, than of the marks of grace which
Elizabeth from time to time showed to young Raleigh. They were
indeed transient, but they were conferred on one accomplished in
mind and body, with grace, gallantry, literature, and valour. An ac-
cident occurred in the course of the evening which riveted Leicester’s
attention to this object.
The nobles and courtiers who had attended the Queen on her
pleasure expedition were invited, with royal hospitality, to a splen-
did banquet in the hall of the Palace. The table was not, indeed,
graced by the presence of the Sovereign; for, agreeable to her idea of
what was at once modest and dignified, the Maiden Queen on such
occasions was wont to take in private, or with one or two favourite

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ladies, her light and temperate meal. After a moderate interval, the
court again met in the splendid gardens of the Palace; and it was
while thus engaged that the Queen suddenly asked a lady, who was
near to her both in place and favour, what had become of the young
Squire Lack-Cloak.
The Lady Paget answered, “She had seen Master Raleigh but two
or three minutes since standing at the window of a small pavilion or
pleasure-house, which looked out on the Thames, and writing on
the glass with a diamond ring.”
“That ring,” said the Queen, “was a small token I gave him to
make amends for his spoiled mantle. Come, Paget, let us see what
use he has made of it, for I can see through him already. He is a
marvellously sharp-witted spirit.” They went to the spot, within
sight of which, but at some distance, the young cavalier still lin-
gered, as the fowler watches the net which he has set. The Queen
approached the window, on which Raleigh had used her gift, to
inscribe the following line:—
“Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.”
The Queen smiled, read it twice over, once with deliberation to
Lady Paget, and once again to herself. “It is a pretty beginning,” she
said, after the consideration of a moment or two; “but methinks the
muse hath deserted the young wit at the very outset of his task. It
were good-natured—were it not, Lady Paget?—to complete it for
him. Try your rhyming faculties.”
Lady Paget, prosaic from her cradle upwards as ever any lady of
the bedchamber before or after her, disclaimed all possibility of as-
sisting the young poet.
“Nay, then, we must sacrifice to the Muses ourselves,” said Eliza-
beth.
“The incense of no one can be more acceptable,” said Lady Paget;
“and your Highness will impose such obligation on the ladies of
Parnassus—”
“Hush, Paget,” said the Queen, “you speak sacrilege against the
immortal Nine—yet, virgins themselves, they should be exorable to
a Virgin Queen—and therefore—let me see how runs his verse—

‘Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.’

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Might not the answer (for fault of a better) run thus?—

‘If thy mind fail thee, do not climb at all.’”

The dame of honour uttered an exclamation of joy and surprise at

so happy a termination; and certainly a worse has been applauded,
even when coming from a less distinguished author.
The Queen, thus encouraged, took off a diamond ring, and say-
ing, “We will give this gallant some cause of marvel when he finds
his couplet perfected without his own interference,” she wrote her
own line beneath that of Raleigh.
The Queen left the pavilion; but retiring slowly, and often look-
ing back, she could see the young cavalier steal, with the flight of a
lapwing, towards the place where he had seen her make a pause.
“She stayed but to observe,” as she said, “that her train had taken;”
and then, laughing at the circumstance with the Lady Paget, she
took the way slowly towards the Palace. Elizabeth, as they returned,
cautioned her companion not to mention to any one the aid which
she had given to the young poet, and Lady Paget promised scrupu-
lous secrecy. It is to be supposed that she made a mental reservation
in favour of Leicester, to whom her ladyship transmitted without
delay an anecdote so little calculated to give him pleasure.
Raleigh, in the meanwhile, stole back to the window, and read,
with a feeling of intoxication, the encouragement thus given him
by the Queen in person to follow out his ambitious career, and
returned to Sussex and his retinue, then on the point of embarking
to go up the river, his heart beating high with gratified pride, and
with hope of future distinction.
The reverence due to the person of the Earl prevented any notice
being taken of the reception he had met with at court, until they
had landed, and the household were assembled in the great hall at
Sayes Court; while that lord, exhausted by his late illness and the
fatigues of the day, had retired to his chamber, demanding the at-
tendance of Wayland, his successful physician. Wayland, however,
was nowhere to be found; and while some of the party were, with
military impatience, seeking him and cursing his absence, the rest

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flocked around Raleigh to congratulate him on his prospects of court-

favour.
He had the good taste and judgment to conceal the decisive cir-
cumstance of the couplet to which Elizabeth had deigned to find a
rhyme; but other indications had transpired, which plainly intimated
that he had made some progress in the Queen’s favour. All hastened
to wish him joy on the mended appearance of his fortune—some
from real regard, some, perhaps, from hopes that his preferment
might hasten their own, and most from a mixture of these motives,
and a sense that the countenance shown to any one of Sussex’s house-
hold was, in fact, a triumph to the whole. Raleigh returned the
kindest thanks to them all, disowning, with becoming modesty, that
one day’s fair reception made a favourite, any more than one swal-
low a summer. But he observed that Blount did not join in the
general congratulation, and, somewhat hurt at his apparent unkind-
ness, he plainly asked him the reason.
Blount replied with equal sincerity—”My good Walter, I wish
thee as well as do any of these chattering gulls, who are whistling
and whooping gratulations in thine ear because it seems fair weather
with thee. But I fear for thee, “Walter” (and he wiped his honest
eye), “I fear for thee with all my heart. These court-tricks, and gam-
bols, and flashes of fine women’s favour are the tricks and trinkets
that bring fair fortunes to farthings, and fine faces and witty cox-
combs to the acquaintance of dull block and sharp axes.”
So saying, Blount arose and left the hall, while Raleigh looked
after him with an expression that blanked for a moment his bold
and animated countenance.
Stanley just then entered the hall, and said to Tressilian, “My lord
is calling for your fellow Wayland, and your fellow Wayland is just
come hither in a sculler, and is calling for you, nor will he go to my
lord till he sees you. The fellow looks as he were mazed, methinks; I
would you would see him immediately.”
Tressilian instantly left the hall, and causing Wayland Smith to be
shown into a withdrawing apartment, and lights placed, he con-
ducted the artist thither, and was surprised when he observed the
emotion of his countenance.
“What is the matter with you, Smith?” said Tressilian; “have you

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seen the devil?”

“Worse, sir, worse,” replied Wayland; “I have seen a basilisk. Thank
God, I saw him first; for being so seen, and seeing not me, he will
do the less harm.”
“In God’s name, speak sense,” said Tressilian, “and say what you
mean.”
“I have seen my old master,” said the artist. “Last night a friend
whom I had acquired took me to see the Palace clock, judging me
to be curious in such works of art. At the window of a turret next to
the clock-house I saw my old master.”
“Thou must needs have been mistaken,” said Tressilian.
“I was not mistaken,” said Wayland; “he that once hath his fea-
tures by heart would know him amongst a million. He was anticly
habited; but he cannot disguise himself from me, God be praised!
as I can from him. I will not, however, tempt Providence by remain-
ing within his ken. Tarleton the player himself could not so disguise
himself but that, sooner or later, Doboobie would find him out. I
must away to-morrow; for, as we stand together, it were death to me
to remain within reach of him.”
“But the Earl of Sussex?” said Tressilian.
“He is in little danger from what he has hitherto taken, provided
he swallow the matter of a bean’s size of the orvietan every morning
fasting; but let him beware of a relapse.”
“And how is that to be guarded against?” said Tressilian.
“Only by such caution as you would use against the devil,” an-
swered Wayland. “Let my lord’s clerk of the kitchen kill his lord’s
meat himself, and dress it himself, using no spice but what he pro-
cures from the surest hands. Let the sewer serve it up himself, and
let the master of my lord’s household see that both clerk and sewer
taste the dishes which the one dresses and the other serves. Let my
lord use no perfumes which come not from well accredited persons;
no unguents—no pomades. Let him, on no account, drink with
strangers, or eat fruit with them, either in the way of nooning or
otherwise. Especially, let him observe such caution if he goes to
Kenilworth—the excuse of his illness, and his being under diet, will,
and must, cover the strangeness of such practice.”
“And thou,” said Tressilian, “what dost thou think to make of

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thyself?”
“France, Spain, either India, East or West, shall be my refuge,”
said Wayland, “ere I venture my life by residing within ken of
Doboobie, Demetrius, or whatever else he calls himself for the time.”
“Well,” said Tressilian, “this happens not inopportunely. I had
business for you in Berkshire, but in the opposite extremity to the
place where thou art known; and ere thou hadst found out this new
reason for living private, I had settled to send thee thither upon a
secret embassage.”
The artist expressed himself willing to receive his commands, and
Tressilian, knowing he was well acquainted with the outline of his
business at court, frankly explained to him the whole, mentioned
the agreement which subsisted betwixt Giles Gosling and him, and
told what had that day been averred in the presence-chamber by
Varney, and supported by Leicester.
“Thou seest,” he added, “that, in the circumstances in which I am
placed, it behoves me to keep a narrow watch on the motions of
these unprincipled men, Varney and his complices, Foster and
Lambourne, as well as on those of my Lord Leicester himself, who,
I suspect, is partly a deceiver, and not altogether the deceived in
that matter. Here is my ring, as a pledge to Giles Gosling. Here is
besides gold, which shall be trebled if thou serve me faithfully. Away
down to Cumnor, and see what happens there.”
“I go with double good-will,” said the artist, “first, because I serve
your honour, who has been so kind to me; and then, that I may
escape my old master, who, if not an absolute incarnation of the
devil, has, at least, as much of the demon about him, in will, word,
and action; as ever polluted humanity. And yet let him take care of
me. I fly him now, as heretofore; but if, like the Scottish wild cattle,
I am vexed by frequent pursuit, I may turn on him in hate and
desperation. [A remnant of the wild cattle of Scotland are preserved
at Chillingham Castle, near Wooler, in Northumberland, the seat
of Lord Tankerville. They fly before strangers; but if disturbed and
followed, they turn with fury on those who persist in annoying them.]
Will your honour command my nag to be saddled? I will but give
the medicine to my lord, divided in its proper proportions, with a
few instructions. His safety will then depend on the care of his friends

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and domestics; for the past he is guarded, but let him beware of the
future.”
Wayland Smith accordingly made his farewell visit to the Earl of
Sussex, dictated instructions as to his regimen, and precautions con-
cerning his diet, and left Sayes Court without waiting for morning.

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CHAPTER XVIII

The moment comes—

It is already come—when thou must write
The absolute total of thy life’s vast sum.
The constellations stand victorious o’er thee,
The planets shoot good fortune in fair junctions,
And tell thee, “Now’s the time.”

Schiller’s Wallenstein, by Coleridge.

WHEN LEICESTER returned to his lodging, alter a day so important

and so harassing, in which, after riding out more than one gale, and
touching on more than one shoal, his bark had finally gained the
harbour with banner displayed, he seemed to experience as much
fatigue as a mariner after a perilous storm. He spoke not a word
while his chamberlain exchanged his rich court-mantle for a furred
night-robe, and when this officer signified that Master Varney de-
sired to speak with his lordship, he replied only by a sullen nod.
Varney, however, entered, accepting this signal as a permission, and
the chamberlain withdrew.
The Earl remained silent and almost motionless in his chair, his
head reclined on his hand, and his elbow resting upon the table
which stood beside him, without seeming to be conscious of the
entrance or of the presence of his confidant. Varney waited for some
minutes until he should speak, desirous to know what was the fi-
nally predominant mood of a mind through which so many power-
ful emotions had that day taken their course. But he waited in vain,
for Leicester continued still silent, and the confidant saw himself
under the necessity of being the first to speak. “May I congratulate

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your lordship,” he said, “on the deserved superiority you have this
day attained over your most formidable rival?”
Leicester raised his head, and answered sadly, but without anger,
“Thou, Varney, whose ready invention has involved me in a web of
most mean and perilous falsehood, knowest best what small reason
there is for gratulation on the subject.”
“Do you blame me, my lord,” said Varney, “for not betraying, on
the first push, the secret on which your fortunes depended, and
which you have so oft and so earnestly recommended to my safe
keeping? Your lordship was present in person, and might have con-
tradicted me and ruined yourself by an avowal of the truth; but
surely it was no part of a faithful servant to have done so without
your commands.”
“I cannot deny it, Varney,” said the Earl, rising and walking across
the room; “my own ambition has been traitor to my love.”
“Say rather, my lord, that your love has been traitor to your great-
ness, and barred you from such a prospect of honour and power as
the world cannot offer to any other. To make my honoured lady a
countess, you have missed the chance of being yourself—”
He paused, and seemed unwilling to complete the sentence.
“Of being myself what?” demanded Leicester; “speak out thy
meaning, Varney.”
“Of being yourself a king, my lord,” replied Varney; “and King of
England to boot! It is no treason to our Queen to say so. It would
have chanced by her obtaining that which all true subjects wish
her—a lusty, noble, and gallant husband.”
“Thou ravest, Varney,” answered Leicester. “Besides, our times
have seen enough to make men loathe the Crown Matrimonial which
men take from their wives’ lap. There was Darnley of Scotland.”
“He!” said Varney; “a, gull, a fool, a thrice-sodden ass, who suf-
fered himself to be fired off into the air like a rocket on a rejoicing
day. Had Mary had the hap to have wedded the noble Earl once
destined to share her throne, she had experienced a husband of dif-
ferent metal; and her husband had found in her a wife as complying
and loving as the mate of the meanest squire who follows the hounds
a-horseback, and holds her husband’s bridle as he mounts.”
“It might have been as thou sayest, Varney,” said Leicester, a brief

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smile of self-satisfaction passing over his anxious countenance.

“Henry Darnley knew little of women—with Mary, a man who
knew her sex might have had some chance of holding his own. But
not with Elizabeth, Varney for I thank God, when he gave her the
heart of a woman, gave her the head of a man to control its follies.
No, I know her. She will accept love-tokens, ay, and requite them
with the like—put sugared sonnets in her bosom, ay, and answer
them too—push gallantry to the very verge where it becomes ex-
change of affection; but she writes nil ultra to all which is to follow,
and would not barter one iota of her own supreme power for all the
alphabet of both Cupid and Hymen.”
“The better for you, my lord,” said Varney—”that is, in the case
supposed, if such be her disposition; since you think you cannot
aspire to become her husband. Her favourite you are, and may re-
main, if the lady at Cumnor place continues in her present obscu-
rity.”
“Poor Amy!” said Leicester, with a deep sigh; “she desires so ear-
nestly to be acknowledged in presence of God and man!”
“Ay, but, my lord,” said Varney, “is her desire reasonable? That is
the question. Her religious scruples are solved; she is an honoured
and beloved wife, enjoying the society of her husband at such times
as his weightier duties permit him to afford her his company. What
would she more? I am right sure that a lady so gentle and so loving
would consent to live her life through in a certain obscurity—which
is, after all, not dimmer than when she was at Lidcote Hall—rather
than diminish the least jot of her lord’s honours and greatness by a
premature attempt to share them.”
“There is something in what thou sayest,” said Leicester, “and her
appearance here were fatal. Yet she must be seen at Kenilworth;
Elizabeth will not forget that she has so appointed.”
“Let me sleep on that hard point,” said Varney; “I cannot else
perfect the device I have on the stithy, which I trust will satisfy the
Queen and please my honoured lady, yet leave this fatal secret where
it is now buried. Has your lordship further commands for the night?”
“I would be alone,” said Leicester. “Leave me, and place my steel
casket on the table. Be within summons.”
Varney retired, and the Earl, opening the window of his apart-

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ment, looked out long and anxiously upon the brilliant host of stars
which glimmered in the splendour of a summer firmament. The
words burst from him as at unawares, “I had never more need that
the heavenly bodies should befriend me, for my earthly path is dark-
ened and confused.”
It is well known that the age reposed a deep confidence in the
vain predictions of judicial astrology, and Leicester, though exempt
from the general control of superstition, was not in this respect su-
perior to his time, but, on the contrary, was remarkable for the en-
couragement which he gave to the professors of this pretended sci-
ence. Indeed, the wish to pry into futurity, so general among the
human race, is peculiarly to be found amongst those who trade in
state mysteries and the dangerous intrigues and cabals of courts.
With heedful precaution to see that it had not been opened, or its
locks tampered with, Leicester applied a key to the steel casket, and
drew from it, first, a parcel of gold pieces, which he put into a silk
purse; then a parchment inscribed with planetary signs, and the
lines and calculations used in framing horoscopes, on which he gazed
intently for a few moments; and, lastly, took forth a large key, which,
lifting aside the tapestry, he applied to a little, concealed door in the
corner of the apartment, and opening it, disclosed a stair constructed
in the thickness of the wall.
“Alasco,” said the Earl, with a voice raised, yet no higher raised
than to be heard by the inhabitant of the small turret to which the
stair conducted—”Alasco, I say, descend.”
“I come, my lord,” answered a voice from above. The foot of an
aged man was heard slowly descending the narrow stair, and Alasco
entered the Earl’s apartment. The astrologer was a little man, and
seemed much advanced in age, for his heard was long and white,
and reached over his black doublet down to his silken girdle. His
hair was of the same venerable hue. But his eyebrows were as dark as
the keen and piercing black eyes which they shaded, and this pecu-
liarity gave a wild and singular cast to the physiognomy of the old
man. His cheek was still fresh and ruddy, and the eyes we have
mentioned resembled those of a rat in acuteness and even fierceness
of expression. His manner was not without a sort of dignity; and
the interpreter of the stars, though respectful, seemed altogether at

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his ease, and even assumed a tone of instruction and command in

conversing with the prime favourite of Elizabeth.
“Your prognostications have failed, Alasco,” said the Earl, when
they had exchanged salutations—“he is recovering.”
“My son,” replied the astrologer, “let me remind you I warranted
not his death; nor is there any prognostication that can be derived
from the heavenly bodies, their aspects and their conjunctions, which
is not liable to be controlled by the will of Heaven. Astra regunt
homines, sed regit astra deus.”
“Of what avail, then, is your mystery?” inquired the Earl.
“Of much, my son,” replied the old man, “since it can show the
natural and probable course of events, although that course moves
in subordination to an Higher Power. Thus, in reviewing the horo-
scope which your Lordship subjected to my skill, you will observe
that Saturn, being in the sixth House in opposition to Mars, retro-
grade in the House of Life, cannot but denote long and dangerous
sickness, the issue whereof is in the will of Heaven, though death
may probably be inferred. Yet if I knew the name of the party I
would erect another scheme.”
“His name is a secret,” said the Earl; “yet, I must own, thy prog-
nostication hath not been unfaithful. He has been sick, and danger-
ously so, not, however, to death. But hast thou again cast my horo-
scope as Varney directed thee, and art thou prepared to say what the
stars tell of my present fortune?”
“My art stands at your command,” said the old man; “and here,
my son, is the map of thy fortunes, brilliant in aspect as ever beamed
from those blessed signs whereby our life is influenced, yet not
unchequered with fears, difficulties, and dangers.”
“My lot were more than mortal were it otherwise,” said the Earl.
“Proceed, father, and believe you speak with one ready to undergo
his destiny in action and in passion as may beseem a noble of En-
gland.”
“Thy courage to do and to suffer must be wound up yet a strain
higher,” said the old man. “The stars intimate yet a prouder title,
yet an higher rank. It is for thee to guess their meaning, not for me
to name it.”
“Name it, I conjure you—name it, I command you!” said the

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Earl, his eyes brightening as he spoke.

“I may not, and I will not,” replied the old man. “The ire of princes
Is as the wrath of the lion. But mark, and judge for thyself. Here
Venus, ascendant in the House of Life, and conjoined with Sol,
showers down that flood of silver light, blent with gold, which prom-
ises power, wealth, dignity, all that the proud heart of man desires,
and in such abundance that never the future Augustus of that old
and mighty Rome heard from his haruspices such a tale of glory, as
from this rich text my lore might read to my favourite son.”
“Thou dost but jest with me, father,” said the Earl, astonished at
the strain of enthusiasm in which the astrologer delivered his pre-
diction.
“Is it for him to jest who hath his eye on heaven, who hath his
foot in the grave?” returned the old man solemnly.
The Earl made two or three strides through the apartment, with
his hand outstretched, as one who follows the beckoning signal of
some phantom, waving him on to deeds of high import. As he turned,
however, he caught the eye of the astrologer fixed on him, while an
observing glance of the most shrewd penetration shot from under
the penthouse of his shaggy, dark eyebrows. Leicester’s haughty and
suspicious soul at once caught fire. He darted towards the old man
from the farther end of the lofty apartment, only standing still when
his extended hand was within a foot of the astrologer’s body.
“Wretch!” he said, “if you dare to palter with me, I will have your
skin stripped from your living flesh! Confess thou hast been hired
to deceive and to betray me—that thou art a cheat, and I thy silly
prey and booty!”
The old man exhibited some symptoms of emotion, but not more
than the furious deportment of his patron might have extorted from
innocence itself.
“What means this violence, my lord?” he answered, “or in what
can I have deserved it at your hand?”
“Give me proof,” said the Earl vehemently, “that you have not
tampered with mine enemies.”
“My lord,” replied the old man, with dignity, “you can have no
better proof than that which you yourself elected. In that turret I
have spent the last twenty-four hours under the key which has been

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in your own custody. The hours of darkness I have spent in gazing

on the heavenly bodies with these dim eyes, and during those of
light I have toiled this aged brain to complete the calculation arising
from their combinations. Earthly food I have not tasted—earthly
voice I have not heard. You are yourself aware I had no means of
doing so; and yet I tell you—I who have been thus shut up in soli-
tude and study—that within these twenty-four hours your star has
become predominant in the horizon, and either the bright book of
heaven speaks false, or there must have been a proportionate revo-
lution in your fortunes upon earth. If nothing has happened within
that space to secure your power, or advance your favour, then am I
indeed a cheat, and the divine art, which was first devised in the
plains of Chaldea, is a foul imposture.”
“It is true,” said Leicester, after a moment’s reflection, “thou wert
closely immured; and it is also true that the change has taken place
in my situation which thou sayest the horoscope indicates.”
“Wherefore this distrust then, my son?” said the astrologer, as-
suming a tone of admonition; “the celestial intelligences brook not
diffidence, even in their favourites.”
“Peace, father,” answered Leicester, “I have erred in doubting thee.
Not to mortal man, nor to celestial intelligence—under that which
is supreme—will Dudley’s lips say more in condescension or apol-
ogy. Speak rather to the present purpose. Amid these bright prom-
ises thou hast said there was a threatening aspect. Can thy skill tell
whence, or by whose means, such danger seems to impend?”
“Thus far only,” answered the astrologer, “does my art enable me
to answer your query. The infortune is threatened by the malignant
and adverse aspect, through means of a youth, and, as I think, a
rival; but whether in love or in prince’s favour, I know not nor can I
give further indication respecting him, save that he comes from the
western quarter.”
“The western—ha!” replied Leicester, “it is enough—the tempest
does indeed brew in that quarter! Cornwall and Devon—Raleigh
and Tressilian—one of them is indicated-I must beware of both.
Father, if I have done thy skill injustice, I will make thee a lordly
recompense.”
He took a purse of gold from the strong casket which stood be-

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fore him. “Have thou double the recompense which Varney prom-
ised. Be faithful—be secret—obey the directions thou shalt receive
from my master of the horse, and grudge not a little seclusion or
restraint in my cause—it shall be richly considered.—Here, Varney—
conduct this venerable man to thine own lodging; tend him heed-
fully in all things, but see that he holds communication with no
one.
Varney bowed, and the astrologer kissed the Earl’s hand in token
of adieu, and followed the master of the horse to another apart-
ment, in which were placed wine and refreshments for his use.
The astrologer sat down to his repast, while Varney shut two doors
with great precaution, examined the tapestry, lest any listener lurked
behind it, and then sitting down opposite to the sage, began to
question him.
“Saw you my signal from the court beneath?”
“I did,” said Alasco, for by such name he was at present called,
“and shaped the horoscope accordingly.”
“And it passed upon the patron without challenge?” continued
Varney.
“Not without challenge,” replied the old man, “but it did pass;
and I added, as before agreed, danger from a discovered secret, and
a western youth.”
“My lord’s fear will stand sponsor to the one, and his conscience
to the other, of these prognostications,” replied Varney. “Sure never
man chose to run such a race as his, yet continued to retain those
silly scruples! I am fain to cheat him to his own profit. But touching
your matters, sage interpreter of the stars, I can tell you more of
your own fortune than plan or figure can show. You must be gone
from hence forthwith.”
“I will not,” said Alasco peevishly. “I have been too much hurried
up and down of late—immured for day and night in a desolate
turret-chamber. I must enjoy my liberty, and pursue my studies,
which are of more import than the fate of fifty statesmen and
favourites that rise and burst like bubbles in the atmosphere of a
court.”
“At your pleasure,” said Varney, with a sneer that habit had ren-
dered familiar to his features, and which forms the principal charac-

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teristic which painters have assigned to that of Satan—”at your plea-

sure,” he said; “you may enjoy your liberty and your studies until
the daggers of Sussex’s followers are clashing within your doublet
and against your ribs.” The old man turned pale, and Varney pro-
ceeded. “Wot you not he hath offered a reward for the arch-quack
and poison-vender, Demetrius, who sold certain precious spices to
his lordship’s cook? What! turn you pale, old friend? Does Hali al-
ready see an infortune in the House of Life? Why, hark thee, we will
have thee down to an old house of mine in the country, where thou
shalt live with a hobnailed slave, whom thy alchemy may convert
into ducats, for to such conversion alone is thy art serviceable.”
“It is false, thou foul-mouthed railer,” said Alasco, shaking with
impotent anger; “it is well known that I have approached more nearly
to projection than any hermetic artist who now lives. There are not
six chemists in the world who possess so near an approximation to
the grand arcanum—”
“Come, come,” said Varney, interrupting him, “what means this,
in the name of Heaven? Do we not know one another? I believe
thee to be so perfect—so very perfect—in the mystery of cheating,
that, having imposed upon all mankind, thou hast at length in some
measure imposed upon thyself, and without ceasing to dupe others,
hast become a species of dupe to thine own imagination. Blush not
for it, man—thou art learned, and shalt have classical comfort:
‘Ne quisquam Ajacem possit superare nisi Ajax.’
No one but thyself could have gulled thee; and thou hast gulled
the whole brotherhood of the Rosy Cross besides—none so deep in
the mystery as thou. But hark thee in thine ear: had the seasoning
which spiced Sussex’s broth wrought more surely, I would have
thought better of the chemical science thou dost boast so highly.”
“Thou art an hardened villain, Varney,” replied Alasco; “many
will do those things who dare not speak of them.”
“And many speak of them who dare not do them,” answered
Varney. “But be not wroth—I will not quarrel with thee. If I did, I
were fain to live on eggs for a month, that I might feed without fear.
Tell me at once, how came thine art to fail thee at this great emer-
gency?”
“The Earl of Sussex’s horoscope intimates,” replied the astrologer,

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“that the sign of the ascendant being in combustion —”

“Away with your gibberish,” replied Varney; “thinkest thou it is
the patron thou speakest with?”
“I crave your pardon,” replied the old man, “and swear to you I
know but one medicine that could have saved the Earl’s life; and as
no man living in England knows that antidote save myself—more-
over, as the ingredients, one of them in particular, are scarce pos-
sible to be come by, I must needs suppose his escape was owing to
such a constitution of lungs and vital parts as was never before bound
up in a body of clay.”
“There was some talk of a quack who waited on him,” said Varney,
after a moment’s reflection. “Are you sure there is no one in En-
gland who has this secret of thine?”
“One man there was,” said the doctor, “once my servant, who
might have stolen this of me, with one or two other secrets of art.
But content you, Master Varney, it is no part of my policy to suffer
such interlopers to interfere in my trade. He pries into no mysteries
more, I warrant you, for, as I well believe, he hath been wafted to
heaven on the wing of a fiery dragon—peace be with him! But in
this retreat of mine shall I have the use of mine elaboratory?”
“Of a whole workshop, man,” said Varney; “for a reverend father
abbot, who was fain to give place to bluff King Hal and some of his
courtiers, a score of years since, had a chemist’s complete apparatus,
which he was obliged to leave behind him to his successors. Thou
shalt there occupy, and melt, and puff, and blaze, and multiply,
until the Green Dragon become a golden goose, or whatever the
newer phrase of the brotherhood may testify.”
“Thou art right, Master Varney,” said the alchemist setting his
teeth close and grinding them together—”thou art right even in thy
very contempt of right and reason. For what thou sayest in mockery
may in sober verity chance to happen ere we meet again. If the most
venerable sages of ancient days have spoken the truth—if the most
learned of our own have rightly received it; if I have been accepted
wherever I travelled in Germany, in Poland, in Italy, and in the
farther Tartary, as one to whom nature has unveiled her darkest
secrets; if I have acquired the most secret signs and passwords of the
Jewish Cabala, so that the greyest beard in the synagogue would

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brush the steps to make them clean for me;—if all this is so, and if
there remains but one step—one little step—betwixt my long, deep,
and dark, and subterranean progress, and that blaze of light which
shall show Nature watching her richest and her most glorious pro-
ductions in the very cradle—one step betwixt dependence and the
power of sovereignty—one step betwixt poverty and such a sum of
wealth as earth, without that noble secret, cannot minister from all
her mines in the old or the new-found world; if this be all so, is it
not reasonable that to this I dedicate my future life, secure, for a
brief period of studious patience, to rise above the mean depen-
dence upon favourites, and their favourites, by which I am now
enthralled!”
“Now, bravo! bravo! my good father,” said Varney, with the usual
sardonic expression of ridicule on his countenance; “yet all this ap-
proximation to the philosopher’s stone wringeth not one single crown
out of my Lord Leicester’s pouch, and far less out of Richard Varney’s.
We must have earthly and substantial services, man, and care not
whom else thou canst delude with thy philosophical charlatanry.”
“My son Varney,” said the alchemist, “the unbelief, gathered around
thee like a frost-fog, hath dimmed thine acute perception to that
which is a stumbling-block to the wise, and which yet, to him who
seeketh knowledge with humility, extends a lesson so clear that he
who runs may read. Hath not Art, thinkest thou, the means of com-
pleting Nature’s imperfect concoctions in her attempts to form the
precious metals, even as by art we can perfect those other operations
of incubation, distillation, fermentation, and similar processes of
an ordinary description, by which we extract life itself out of a sense-
less egg, summon purity and vitality out of muddy dregs, or call
into vivacity the inert substance of a sluggish liquid?”
“I have heard all this before,” said Varney, “and my heart is proof
against such cant ever since I sent twenty good gold pieces (marry, it
was in the nonage of my wit) to advance the grand magisterium, all
which, God help the while, vanished in fumo. Since that moment,
when I paid for my freedom, I defy chemistry, astrology, palmistry,
and every other occult art, were it as secret as hell itself, to unloose
the stricture of my purse-strings. Marry, I neither defy the manna of
Saint Nicholas, nor can I dispense with it. The first task must be to

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prepare some when thou gett’st down to my little sequestered re-

treat yonder, and then make as much gold as thou wilt.”
“I will make no more of that dose,” said the alchemist, resolutely.
“Then,” said the master of the horse, “thou shalt be hanged for
what thou hast made already, and so were the great secret for ever
lost to mankind. Do not humanity this injustice, good father, but
e’en bend to thy destiny, and make us an ounce or two of this same
stuff; which cannot prejudice above one or two individuals, in or-
der to gain lifetime to discover the universal medicine, which shall
clear away all mortal diseases at once. But cheer up, thou grave,
learned, and most melancholy jackanape! Hast thou not told me
that a moderate portion of thy drug hath mild effects, no ways ulti-
mately dangerous to the human frame, but which produces depres-
sion of spirits, nausea, headache, an unwillingness to change of
place—even such a state of temper as would keep a bird from flying
out of a cage were the door left open?”
“I have said so, and it is true,” said the alchemist. “This effect will
it produce, and the bird who partakes of it in such proportion shall
sit for a season drooping on her perch, without thinking either of
the free blue sky, or of the fair greenwood, though the one be lighted
by the rays of the rising sun, and the other ringing with the newly-
awakened song of all the feathered inhabitants of the forest.”
“And this without danger to life?” said Varney, somewhat anx-
iously.
“Ay, so that proportion and measure be not exceeded; and so that
one who knows the nature of the manna be ever near to watch the
symptoms, and succour in case of need.”
“Thou shalt regulate the whole,” said Varney. “Thy reward shall
be princely, if thou keepest time and touch, and exceedest not the
due proportion, to the prejudice of her health; otherwise thy pun-
ishment shall be as signal.”
“The prejudice of her health!” repeated Alasco; “it is, then, a woman
I am to use my skill upon?”
“No, thou fool,” replied Varney, “said I not it was a bird—a re-
claimed linnet, whose pipe might soothe a hawk when in mid stoop?
I see thine eye sparkle, and I know thy beard is not altogether so
white as art has made it—that, at least, thou hast been able to trans-

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mute to silver. But mark me, this is no mate for thee. This caged
bird is dear to one who brooks no rivalry, and far less such rivalry as
thine, and her health must over all things be cared for. But she is in
the case of being commanded down to yonder Kenilworth revels,
and it is most expedient—most needful—most necessary that she
fly not thither. Of these necessities and their causes, it is not needful
that she should know aught; and it is to be thought that her own
wish may lead her to combat all ordinary reasons which can be urged
for her remaining a housekeeper.”
“That is but natural,” said the alchemist with a strange smile,
which yet bore a greater reference to the human character than the
uninterested and abstracted gaze which his physiognomy had hith-
erto expressed, where all seemed to refer to some world distant from
that which was existing around him.
“It is so,” answered Varney; “you understand women well, though
it may have been long since you were conversant amongst them.
Well, then, she is not to be contradicted; yet she is not to be
humoured. Understand me—a slight illness, sufficient to take away
the desire of removing from thence, and to make such of your wise
fraternity as may be called in to aid, recommend a quiet residence at
home, will, in one word, be esteemed good service, and remuner-
ated as such.”
“I am not to be asked to affect the House of Life?” said the chem-
ist.
“On the contrary, we will have thee hanged if thou dost,” replied
Varney.
“And I must,” added Alasco, “have opportunity to do my turn,
and all facilities for concealment or escape, should there be detec-
tion?”
“All, all, and everything, thou infidel in all but the impossibilities
of alchemy. Why, man, for what dost thou take me?”
The old man rose, and taking a light walked towards the end of
the apartment, where was a door that led to the small sleeping-
room destined for his reception during the night. At the door he
turned round, and slowly repeated Varney’s question ere he answered
it. “For what do I take thee, Richard Varney? Why, for a worse devil
than I have been myself. But I am in your toils, and I must serve

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you till my term be out.”

“Well, well,” answered Varney hastily, “be stirring with grey light.
It may be we shall not need thy medicine—do nought till I myself
come down. Michael Lambourne shall guide you to the place of
your destination.” [See Note 7. Dr. Julio.]
When Varney heard the adept’s door shut and carefully bolted
within, he stepped towards it, and with similar precaution carefully
locked it on the outside, and took the key from the lock, muttering
to himself, “Worse than thee, thou poisoning quacksalver and witch-
monger, who, if thou art not a bounden slave to the devil, it is only
because he disdains such an apprentice! I am a mortal man, and
seek by mortal means the gratification of my passions and advance-
ment of my prospects; thou art a vassal of hell itself—So ho,
Lambourne!” he called at another door, and Michael made his ap-
pearance with a flushed cheek and an unsteady step.
“Thou art drunk, thou villain!” said Varney to him.
“Doubtless, noble sir,” replied the unabashed Michael; “We have
been drinking all even to the glories of the day, and to my noble
Lord of Leicester and his valiant master of the horse. Drunk! odds
blades and poniards, he that would refuse to swallow a dozen healths
on such an evening is a base besognio, and a puckfoist, and shall
swallow six inches of my dagger!”
“Hark ye, scoundrel,” said Varney, “be sober on the instant—I
command thee. I know thou canst throw off thy drunken folly, like
a fool’s coat, at pleasure; and if not, it were the worse for thee.”
Lambourne drooped his head, left the apartment, and returned in
two or three minutes with his face composed, his hair adjusted, his
dress in order, and exhibiting as great a difference from his former
self as if the whole man had been changed.
“Art thou sober now, and dost thou comprehend me?” said Varney
sternly.
Lambourne bowed in acquiescence.
“Thou must presently down to Cumnor Place with the reverend
man of art who sleeps yonder in the little vaulted chamber. Here is
the key, that thou mayest call him by times. Take another trusty
fellow with you. Use him well on the journey, but let him not es-
cape you—pistol him if he attempt it, and I will be your warrant. I

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will give thee letters to Foster. The doctor is to occupy the lower
apartments of the eastern quadrangle, with freedom to use the old
elaboratory and its implements. He is to have no access to the lady,
but such as I shall point out—only she may be amused to see his
philosophical jugglery. Thou wilt await at Cumnor Place my fur-
ther orders; and, as thou livest, beware of the ale-bench and the
aqua vitae flask. Each breath drawn in Cumnor Place must be kept
severed from common air.”
“Enough, my lord—I mean my worshipful master, soon, I trust,
to be my worshipful knightly master. You have given me my lesson
and my license; I will execute the one, and not abuse the other. I
will be in the saddle by daybreak.”
“Do so, and deserve favour. Stay—ere thou goest fill me a cup of
wine—not out of that flask, sirrah,” as Lambourne was pouring out
from that which Alasco had left half finished, “fetch me a fresh
one.”
Lambourne obeyed, and Varney, after rinsing his mouth with the
liquor, drank a full cup, and said, as he took up a lamp to retreat to
his sleeping apartment, “It is strange—I am as little the slave of
fancy as any one, yet I never speak for a few minutes with this fellow
Alasco, but my mouth and lungs feel as if soiled with the fumes of
calcined arsenic—pah!”
So saying, he left the apartment. Lambourne lingered, to drink a
cup of the freshly-opened flask. “It is from Saint John’s-Berg,” he
said, as he paused on the draught to enjoy its flavour, “and has the
true relish of the violet. But I must forbear it now, that I may one
day drink it at my own pleasure.” And he quaffed a goblet of water
to quench the fumes of the Rhenish wine, retired slowly towards
the door, made a pause, and then, finding the temptation irresist-
ible, walked hastily back, and took another long pull at the wine
flask, without the formality of a cup.
“Were it not for this accursed custom,” he said, “I might climb as
high as Varney himself. But who can climb when the room turns
round with him like a parish-top? I would the distance were greater,
or the road rougher, betwixt my hand and mouth! But I will drink
nothing to-morrow save water—nothing save fair water.”

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CHAPTER XIX

Pistol. And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,

And happy news of price.
Falstaff. I prithee now deliver them like to men of this world.
Pistol. A foutra for the world, and worldlings base!
I speak of Africa, and golden joys.

Henry IV, Part II.

THE PUBLIC ROOM of the Black Bear at Cumnor, to which the scene
of our story now returns, boasted, on the evening which we treat of,
no ordinary assemblage of guests. There had been a fair in the
neighbourhood, and the cutting mercer of Abingdon, with some of
the other personages whom the reader has already been made ac-
quainted with, as friends and customers of Giles Gosling, had al-
ready formed their wonted circle around the evening fire, and were
talking over the news of the day.
A lively, bustling, arch fellow, whose pack, and oaken ellwand
studded duly with brass points, denoted him to be of Autolycus’s
profession, occupied a good deal of the attention, and furnished
much of the amusement, of the evening. The pedlars of those days,
it must be remembered, were men of far greater importance than
the degenerate and degraded hawkers of our modern times. It was
by means of these peripatetic venders that the country trade, in the
finer manufactures used in female dress particularly, was almost
entirely carried on; and if a merchant of this description arrived at
the dignity of travelling with a pack-horse, he was a person of no
small consequence, and company for the most substantial yeoman
or franklin whom he might meet in his wanderings.

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The pedlar of whom we speak bore, accordingly, an active and

unrebuked share in the merriment to which the rafters of the bonny
Black Bear of Cumnor resounded. He had his smile with pretty
Mistress Cicely, his broad laugh with mine host, and his jest upon
dashing Master Goldthred, who, though indeed without any such
benevolent intention on his own part, was the general butt of the
evening. The pedlar and he were closely engaged in a dispute upon
the preference due to the Spanish nether-stock over the black
Gascoigne hose, and mine host had just winked to the guests around
him, as who should say, “You will have mirth presently, my mas-
ters,” when the trampling of horses was heard in the courtyard, and
the hostler was loudly summoned, with a few of the newest oaths
then in vogue to add force to the invocation. Out tumbled Will
Hostler, John Tapster, and all the militia of the inn, who had slunk
from their posts in order to collect some scattered crumbs of the
mirth which was flying about among the customers. Out into the
yard sallied mine host himself also, to do fitting salutation to his
new guests; and presently returned, ushering into the apartment his
own worthy nephew, Michael Lambourne, pretty tolerably drunk,
and having under his escort the astrologer. Alasco, though still a
little old man, had, by altering his gown to a riding-dress, trimming
his beard and eyebrows, and so forth, struck at least a score of years
from his apparent age, and might now seem an active man of sixty,
or little upwards. He appeared at present exceedingly anxious, and
had insisted much with Lambourne that they should not enter the
inn, but go straight forward to the place of their destination. But
Lambourne would not be controlled. “By Cancer and Capricorn,”
he vociferated, “and the whole heavenly host, besides all the stars
that these blessed eyes of mine have seen sparkle in the southern
heavens, to which these northern blinkers are but farthing candles,
I will be unkindly for no one’s humour—I will stay and salute my
worthy uncle here. Chesu! that good blood should ever be forgotten
betwixt friends!—A gallon of your best, uncle, and let it go round
to the health of the noble Earl of Leicester! What! shall we not
collogue together, and warm the cockles of our ancient kindness?—
shall we not collogue, I say?”
“With all my heart, kinsman,” said mine host, who obviously

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wished to be rid of him; “but are you to stand shot to all this good
liquor?”
This is a question has quelled many a jovial toper, but it moved
not the purpose of Lambourne’s soul, “Question my means, nuncle?”
he said, producing a handful of mixed gold and silver pieces; “ques-
tion Mexico and Peru—question the Queen’s exchequer—God save
her Majesty!—she is my good Lord’s good mistress.”
“Well, kinsman,” said mine host, “it is my business to sell wine to
those who can buy it—so, Jack Tapster, do me thine office. But I
would I knew how to come by money as lightly as thou dost, Mike.”
“Why, uncle,” said Lambourne, “I will tell thee a secret. Dost see
this little old fellow here? as old and withered a chip as ever the devil
put into his porridge—and yet, uncle, between you and me—he
hath Potosi in that brain of his—’sblood! he can coin ducats faster
than I can vent oaths.”
“I will have none of his coinage in my purse, though, Michael,”
said mine host; “I know what belongs to falsifying the Queen’s coin.”
“Thou art an ass, uncle, for as old as thou art.—Pull me not by
the skirts, doctor, thou art an ass thyself to boot—so, being both
asses, I tell ye I spoke but metaphorically.”
“Are you mad?’ said the old man; “is the devil in you? Can you
not let us begone without drawing all men’s eyes on us?”
“Sayest thou?” said Lambourne. “Thou art deceived now—no man
shall see you, an I give the word.—By heavens, masters, an any one
dare to look on this old gentleman, I will slash the eyes out of his
head with my poniard!—So sit down, old friend, and be merry;
these are mine ingles—mine ancient inmates, and will betray no
man.”
“Had you not better withdraw to a private apartment, nephew?”
said Giles Gosling. “You speak strange matter,” he added, “and there
be intelligencers everywhere.”
“I care not for them,” said the magnanimous Michael—
”intelligencers? pshaw! I serve the noble Earl of Leicester. —Here
comes the wine.—Fill round, Master Skinker, a carouse to the health
of the flower of England, the noble Earl of Leicester! I say, the noble
Earl of Leicester! He that does me not reason is a swine of Sussex,
and I’ll make him kneel to the pledge, if I should cut his hams and

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smoke them for bacon.”

None disputed a pledge given under such formidable penalties;
and Michael Lambourne, whose drunken humour was not of course
diminished by this new potation, went on in the same wild way,
renewing his acquaintance with such of the guests as he had for-
merly known, and experiencing a reception in which there was now
something of deference mingled with a good deal of fear; for the
least servitor of the favourite Earl, especially such a man as
Lambourne, was, for very sufficient reasons, an object both of the
one and of the other.
In the meanwhile, the old man, seeing his guide in this uncon-
trollable humour, ceased to remonstrate with him, and sitting down
in the most obscure corner of the room, called for a small measure
of sack, over which he seemed, as it were, to slumber, withdrawing
himself as much as possible from general observation, and doing
nothing which could recall his existence to the recollection of his
fellow-traveller, who by this time had got into close intimacy with
his ancient comrade, Goldthred of Abingdon.
“Never believe me, bully Mike,” said the mercer, “if I am not as
glad to see thee as ever I was to see a customer’s money! Why, thou
canst give a friend a sly place at a mask or a revel now, Mike; ay, or,
I warrant thee, thou canst say in my lord’s ear, when my honourable
lord is down in these parts, and wants a Spanish ruff or the like—
thou canst say in his ear, There is mine old friend, young Lawrence
Goldthred of Abingdon, has as good wares, lawn, tiffany, cambric,
and so forth—ay, and is as pretty a piece of man’s flesh, too, as is in
Berkshire, and will ruffle it for your lordship with any man of his
inches; and thou mayest say—”
“I can say a hundred d—d lies besides, mercer,” answered
Lambourne; “what, one must not stand upon a good word for a friend!”
“Here is to thee, Mike, with all my heart,” said the mercer; “and
thou canst tell one the reality of the new fashions too. Here was a
rogue pedlar but now was crying up the old-fashioned Spanish
nether-stock over the Gascoigne hose, although thou seest how well
the French hose set off the leg and knee, being adorned with parti-
coloured garters and garniture in conformity.”
“Excellent, excellent,” replied Lambourne; “why, thy limber bit of

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a thigh, thrust through that bunch of slashed buckram and tiffany,

shows like a housewife’s distaff when the flax is half spun off!”
“Said I not so?” said the mercer, whose shallow brain was now
overflowed in his turn; “where, then, where be this rascal pedlar?—
there was a pedlar here but now, methinks.—Mine host, where the
foul fiend is this pedlar?”
“Where wise men should be, Master Goldthred,” replied Giles
Gosling; “even shut up in his private chamber, telling over the sales
of to-day, and preparing for the custom of to-morrow.”
“Hang him, a mechanical chuff!” said the mercer; “but for shame,
it were a good deed to ease him of his wares—a set of peddling
knaves, who stroll through the land, and hurt the established trader.
There are good fellows in Berkshire yet, mine host—your pedlar
may be met withal on Maiden Castle.”
“Ay,” replied mine host, laughing, “and he who meets him may
meet his match—the pedlar is a tall man.”
“Is he?” said Goldthred.
“Is he?” replied the host; “ay, by cock and pie is he—the very
pedlar he who raddled Robin Hood so tightly, as the song says,—

‘Now Robin Hood drew his sword so good,

The pedlar drew his brand,
And he hath raddled him, Robin Hood,
Till he neither could see nor stand.’”

“Hang him, foul scroyle, let him pass,” said the mercer; “if he be
such a one, there were small worship to be won upon him.—And
now tell me, Mike—my honest Mike, how wears the Hollands you
won of me?”
“Why, well, as you may see, Master Goldthred,” answered Mike;
“I will bestow a pot on thee for the handsel.—Fill the flagon, Mas-
ter Tapster.”
“Thou wilt win no more Hollands, think, on such wager, friend Mike,”
said the mercer; “for the sulky swain, Tony Foster, rails at thee all to
nought, and swears you shall ne’er darken his doors again, for that your
oaths are enough to blow the roof off a Christian man’s dwelling.”
“Doth he say so, the mincing, hypocritical miser?” vociferated

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Lambourne. “Why, then, he shall come down and receive my com-

mands here, this blessed night, under my uncle’s roof! And I will
ring him such a black sanctus, that he shall think the devil hath him
by the skirts for a month to come, for barely hearing me.”
“Nay, now the pottle-pot is uppermost, with a witness!” said the
mercer. “Tony Foster obey thy whistle! Alas! good Mike, go sleep—
go sleep.”
“I tell thee what, thou thin-faced gull,” said Michael Lambourne,
in high chafe, “I will wager thee fifty angels against the first five
shelves of thy shop, numbering upward from the false light, with all
that is on them, that I make Tony Foster come down to this public-
house before we have finished three rounds.”
“I will lay no bet to that amount,” said the mercer, something
sobered by an offer which intimated rather too private a knowledge
on Lambourne’s part of the secret recesses of his shop. “I will lay no
such wager,” he said; “but I will stake five angels against thy five, if
thou wilt, that Tony Foster will not leave his own roof, or come to
ale-house after prayer time, for thee, or any man.”
“Content,” said Lambourne.—”Here, uncle, hold stakes, and let
one of your young bleed-barrels there—one of your infant tapsters—
trip presently up to The Place, and give this letter to Master Foster,
and say that I, his ingle, Michael Lambourne, pray to speak with
him at mine uncle’s castle here, upon business of grave import.—
Away with thee, child, for it is now sundown, and the wretch goeth
to bed with the birds to save mutton-suet—faugh!”
Shortly after this messenger was dispatched—an interval which
was spent in drinking and buffoonery—he returned with the an-
swer that Master Foster was coming presently.
“Won, won!” said Lambourne, darting on the stakes.
“Not till he comes, if you please,” said the mercer, interfering.
“Why, ‘sblood, he is at the threshold,” replied Michael.—“What
said he, boy?”
“If it please your worship,” answered the messenger, “he looked out
of window, with a musquetoon in his hand, and when I delivered your
errand, which I did with fear and trembling, he said, with a vinegar
aspect, that your worship might be gone to the infernal regions.”
“Or to hell, I suppose,” said Lambourne—“it is there he disposes

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of all that are not of the congregation.”

“Even so,” said the boy; “I used the other phrase as being the
more poetical.”
“An ingenious youth,” said Michael; “shalt have a drop to whet
thy poetical whistle. And what said Foster next?”
“He called me back,” answered the boy, “and bid me say you might
come to him if you had aught to say to him.”
“And what next?” said Lambourne.
“He read the letter, and seemed in a fluster, and asked if your
worship was in drink; and I said you were speaking a little Spanish,
as one who had been in the Canaries.”
“Out, you diminutive pint-pot, whelped of an overgrown reckon-
ing!” replied Lambourne—”out! But what said he then?”
“Why,” said the boy, “he muttered that if he came not your wor-
ship would bolt out what were better kept in; and so he took his old
flat cap, and threadbare blue cloak, and, as I said before, he will be
here incontinent.”
“There is truth in what he said,” replied Lambourne, as if speak-
ing to himself—“my brain has played me its old dog’s trick. But
corragio—let him approach!—I have not rolled about in the world
for many a day to fear Tony Foster, be I drunk or sober.—Bring me
a flagon of cold water to christen my sack withal.”
While Lambourne, whom the approach of Foster seemed to have
recalled to a sense of his own condition, was busied in preparing to
receive him, Giles Gosling stole up to the apartment of the pedlar,
whom he found traversing the room in much agitation.
“You withdrew yourself suddenly from the company,” said the
landlord to the guest.
“It was time, when the devil became one among you,” replied the
pedlar.
“It is not courteous in you to term my nephew by such a name,”
said Gosling, “nor is it kindly in me to reply to it; and yet, in some
sort, Mike may be considered as a limb of Satan.”
“Pooh—I talk not of the swaggering ruffian,” replied the pedlar;
“it is of the other, who, for aught I know—But when go they? or
wherefore come they?”
“Marry, these are questions I cannot answer,” replied the host.

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“But look you, sir, you have brought me a token from worthy Mas-
ter Tressilian—a pretty stone it is.” He took out the ring, and looked
at it, adding, as he put it into his purse again, that it was too rich a
guerdon for anything he could do for the worthy donor. He was, he
said, in the public line, and it ill became him to be too inquisitive
into other folk’s concerns. He had already said that he could hear
nothing but that the lady lived still at Cumnor Place in the closest
seclusion, and, to such as by chance had a view of her, seemed pen-
sive and discontented with her solitude. “But here,” he said, “if you
are desirous to gratify your master, is the rarest chance that hath
occurred for this many a day. Tony Foster is coming down hither,
and it is but letting Mike Lambourne smell another wine-flask, and
the Queen’s command would not move him from the ale-bench. So
they are fast for an hour or so. Now, if you will don your pack,
which will be your best excuse, you may, perchance, win the ear of
the old servant, being assured of the master’s absence, to let you try
to get some custom of the lady; and then you may learn more of her
condition than I or any other can tell you.”
“True—very true,” answered Wayland, for he it was; “an excellent
device, but methinks something dangerous—for, say Foster should
return?”
“Very possible indeed,” replied the host.
“Or say,” continued Way]and, “the lady should render me cold
thanks for my exertions?”
“As is not unlikely,” replied Giles Gosling. “I marvel Master
Tressilian will take such heed of her that cares not for him.”
“In either case I were foully sped,” said Wayland, “and therefore I
do not, on the whole, much relish your device.”
“Nay, but take me with you, good master serving-man,” replied
mine host. “This is your master’s business, and not mine:, you best
know the risk to be encountered, or how far you are willing to brave
it. But that which you will not yourself hazard, you cannot expect
others to risk.”
“Hold, hold,” said Wayland; “tell me but one thing—goes yonder
old man up to Cumnor?”
“Surely, I think so?” said the landlord; “their servant said he was
to take their baggage thither. But the ale-tap has been as potent for

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him as the sack-spigot has been for Michael.”

“It is enough,” said Wayland, assuming an air of resolution. “I
will thwart that old villain’s projects; my affright at his baleful as-
pect begins to abate, and my hatred to arise. Help me on with my
pack, good mine host.—And look to thyself, old Albumazar; there
is a malignant influence in thy horoscope, and it gleams from the
constellation Ursa Major.”
So saying, he assumed his burden, and, guided by the landlord
through the postern gate of the Black Bear, took the most private
way from thence up to Cumnor Place.

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER XX

Clown. You have of these pedlars, that have more in’em

than you’d think, sister.

Winter’s Tale, Act IV, Scene 3.

IN HIS ANXIETY to obey the Earl’s repeated charges of secrecy, as well

as from his own unsocial and miserly habits, Anthony Foster was
more desirous, by his mode of housekeeping, to escape observation
than to resist intrusive curiosity. Thus, instead of a numerous house-
hold, to secure his charge, and defend his house, he studied as much
as possible to elude notice by diminishing his attendants; so that,
unless when there were followers of the Earl, or of Varney, in the
mansion, one old male domestic, and two aged crones, who assisted
in keeping the Countess’s apartments in order, were the only ser-
vants of the family.
It was one of these old women who opened the door when Wayland
knocked, and answered his petition, to be admitted to exhibit his
wares to the ladies of the family, with a volley of vituperation, couched
in what is there called the Jowring dialect. The pedlar found the
means of checking this vociferation by slipping a silver groat into
her hand, and intimating the present of some stuff for a coif, if the
lady would buy of his wares.
“God ield thee, for mine is aw in littocks. Slocket with thy pack
into gharn, mon—her walks in gharn.” Into the garden she ushered
the pedlar accordingly, and pointing to an old, ruinous garden house,
said, “Yonder be’s her, mon—yonder be’s her. Zhe will buy changes
an zhe loikes stuffs.”
“She has left me to come off as I may,” thought Wayland, as he

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heard the hag shut the garden-door behind him. “But they shall not
beat me, and they dare not murder me, for so little trespass, and by
this fair twilight. Hang it, I will on—a brave general never thought
of his retreat till he was defeated. I see two females in the old gar-
den-house yonder—but how to address them? Stay—Will
Shakespeare, be my friend in need. I will give them a taste of
Autolycus.” He then sung, with a good voice, and becoming audac-
ity, the popular playhouse ditty,—

“Lawn as white as driven snow,

Cyprus black as e’er was crow,
Gloves as sweet as damask roses,
Masks for faces and for noses.”

“What hath fortune sent us here for an unwonted sight, Janet?”

said the lady.
“One of those merchants of vanity, called pedlars,” answered Janet,
demurely, “who utters his light wares in lighter measures. I marvel
old Dorcas let him pass.”
“It is a lucky chance, girl,” said the Countess; “we lead a heavy life
here, and this may while off a weary hour.”
“Ay, my gracious lady,” said Janet; “but my father?”
“He is not my father, Janet, nor I hope my master,” answered the
lady. “I say, call the man hither—I want some things.”
“Nay,” replied Janet, “your ladyship has but to say so in the next
packet, and if England can furnish them they will be sent. There
will come mischief on’t—pray, dearest lady, let me bid the man be-
gone!”
“I will have thee bid him come hither,” said the Countess;—”or
stay, thou terrified fool, I will bid him myself, and spare thee a chid-
ing.”
“Ah! well-a-day, dearest lady, if that were the worst,” said Janet
sadly; while the lady called to the pedlar, “Good fellow, step for-
ward—undo thy pack; if thou hast good wares, chance has sent
thee hither for my convenience and thy profit.”
“What may your ladyship please to lack?” said Wayland, unstrap-
ping his pack, and displaying its contents with as much dexterity as

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if he had been bred to the trade. Indeed he had occasionally pur-

sued it in the course of his roving life, and now commended his
wares with all the volubility of a trader, and showed some skill in
the main art of placing prices upon them.
“What do I please to lack?” said the lady, “why, considering I have
not for six long months bought one yard of lawn or cambric, or one
trinket, the most inconsiderable, for my own use, and at my own
choice, the better question is, What hast thou got to sell? Lay aside
for me that cambric partlet and pair of sleeves—and those roundells
of gold fringe, drawn out with cyprus—and that short cloak of
cherry-coloured fine cloth, garnished with gold buttons and loops;—
is it not of an absolute fancy, Janet?”
“Nay, my lady,” replied Janet, “if you consult my poor judgment,
it is, methinks, over-gaudy for a graceful habit.”
“Now, out upon thy judgment, if it be no brighter, wench,” said
the Countess. “Thou shalt wear it thyself for penance’ sake; and I
promise thee the gold buttons, being somewhat massive, will com-
fort thy father, and reconcile him to the cherry-coloured body. See
that he snap them not away, Janet, and send them to bear company
with the imprisoned angels which he keeps captive in his strong-
box.”
“May I pray your ladyship to spare my poor father?” said Janet.
“Nay, but why should any one spare him that is so sparing of his
own nature?” replied the lady.—“Well, but to our gear. That head
garniture for myself, and that silver bodkin mounted with pearl;
and take off two gowns of that russet cloth for Dorcas and Alison,
Janet, to keep the old wretches warm against winter comes.—And
stay—hast thou no perfumes and sweet bags, or any handsome cast-
ing bottles of the newest mode?”
“Were I a pedlar in earnest, I were a made merchant,” thought
Wayland, as he busied himself to answer the demands which she
thronged one on another, with the eagerness of a young lady who
has been long secluded from such a pleasing occupation. “But how
to bring her to a moment’s serious reflection?” Then as he exhibited
his choicest collection of essences and perfumes, he at once arrested
her attention by observing that these articles had almost risen to
double value since the magnificent preparations made by the Earl

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of Leicester to entertain the Queen and court at his princely Castle

of Kenilworth.
“Ha!” said the Countess hastily; “that rumour, then, is true, Janet.”
“Surely, madam,” answered Wayland; “and I marvel it hath not
reached your noble ladyship’s ears. The Queen of England feasts
with the noble Earl for a week during the Summer’s Progress; and
there are many who will tell you England will have a king, and
England’s Elizabeth—God save her!—a husband, ere the Progress
be over.”
“They lie like villains!” said the Countess, bursting forth impa-
tiently.
“For God’s sake, madam, consider,” said Janet, trembling with
apprehension; “who would cumber themselves about pedlar’s tid-
ings?”
“Yes, Janet!” exclaimed the Countess; “right, thou hast corrected
me justly. Such reports, blighting the reputation of England’s bright-
est and noblest peer, can only find currency amongst the mean, the
abject, and the infamous!”
“May I perish, lady,” said Wayland Smith, observing that her vio-
lence directed itself towards him, “if I have done anything to merit
this strange passion! I have said but what many men say.”
By this time the Countess had recovered her composure, and en-
deavoured, alarmed by the anxious hints of Janet, to suppress all
appearance of displeasure. “I were loath,” she said, “good fellow,
that our Queen should change the virgin style so dear to us her
people—think not of it.” And then, as if desirous to change the
subject, she added, “And what is this paste, so carefully put up in
the silver box?” as she examined the contents of a casket in which
drugs and perfumes were contained in separate drawers.
“It is a remedy, Madam, for a disorder of which I trust your lady-
ship will never have reason to complain. The amount of a small
turkey-bean, swallowed daily for a week, fortifies the heart against
those black vapours which arise from solitude, melancholy, unre-
quited affection, disappointed hope—”
“Are you a fool, friend?” said the Countess sharply; “or do you
think, because I have good-naturedly purchased your trumpery goods
at your roguish prices, that you may put any gullery you will on me?

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Who ever heard that affections of the heart were cured by medi-
cines given to the body?”
“Under your honourable favour,” said Wayland, “I am an honest
man, and I have sold my goods at an honest price. As to this most
precious medicine, when I told its qualities, I asked you not to pur-
chase it, so why should I lie to you? I say not it will cure a rooted
affection of the mind, which only God and time can do; but I say
that this restorative relieves the black vapours which are engendered
in the body of that melancholy which broodeth on the mind. I have
relieved many with it, both in court and city, and of late one Master
Edmund Tressilian, a worshipful gentleman in Cornwall, who, on
some slight received, it was told me, where he had set his affections,
was brought into that state of melancholy which made his friends
alarmed for his life.”
He paused, and the lady remained silent for some time, and then
asked, with a voice which she strove in vain to render firm and
indifferent in its tone, “Is the gentleman you have mentioned per-
fectly recovered?”
“Passably, madam,” answered Wayland; “he hath at least no bodily
complaint.”
“I will take some of the medicine, Janet,” said the Countess. “I
too have sometimes that dark melancholy which overclouds the
brain.”
“You shall not do so, madam,” said Janet; “who shall answer that
this fellow vends what is wholesome?”
“I will myself warrant my good faith,” said Wayland; and taking a
part of the medicine, he swallowed it before them. The Countess
now bought what remained, a step to which Janet, by further objec-
tions, only determined her the more obstinately. She even took the
first dose upon the instant, and professed to feel her heart lightened
and her spirits augmented—a consequence which, in all probabil-
ity, existed only in her own imagination. The lady then piled the
purchases she had made together, flung her purse to Janet, and de-
sired her to compute the amount, and to pay the pedlar; while she
herself, as if tired of the amusement she at first found in conversing
with him, wished him good evening, and walked carelessly into the
house, thus depriving Wayland of every opportunity to speak with

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her in private. He hastened, however, to attempt an explanation

with Janet.
“Maiden,” he said, “thou hast the face of one who should love her
mistress. She hath much need of faithful service.”
“And well deserves it at my hands,” replied Janet; “but what of
that?”
“Maiden, I am not altogether what I seem,” said the pedlar, low-
ering his voice.
“The less like to be an honest man,” said Janet.
“The more so,” answered Wayland, “since I am no pedlar.”
“Get thee gone then instantly, or I will call for assistance,” said
Janet; “my father must ere this be returned.”
“Do not be so rash,” said Wayland; “you will do what you may
repent of. I am one of your mistress’s friends; and she had need of
more, not that thou shouldst ruin those she hath.”
“How shall I know that?” said Janet.
“Look me in the face,” said Wayland Smith, “and see if thou dost
not read honesty in my looks.”
And in truth, though by no means handsome, there was in his
physiognomy the sharp, keen expression of inventive genius and
prompt intellect, which, joined to quick and brilliant eyes, a well-
formed mouth, and an intelligent smile, often gives grace and inter-
est to features which are both homely and irregular. Janet looked at
him with the sly simplicity of her sect, and replied, “Notwithstand-
ing thy boasted honesty, friend, and although I am not accustomed
to read and pass judgment on such volumes as thou hast submitted
to my perusal, I think I see in thy countenance something of the
pedlar-something of the picaroon.”
“On a small scale, perhaps,” said Wayland Smith, laughing. “But
this evening, or to-morrow, will an old man come hither with thy
father, who has the stealthy step of the cat, the shrewd and vindic-
tive eye of the rat, the fawning wile of the spaniel, the determined
snatch of the mastiff—of him beware, for your own sake and that of
your distress. See you, fair Janet, he brings the venom of the aspic
under the assumed innocence of the dove. What precise mischief he
meditates towards you I cannot guess, but death and disease have
ever dogged his footsteps. Say nought of this to thy mistress; my art

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suggests to me that in her state the fear of evil may be as dangerous

as its operation. But see that she take my specific, for” (he lowered
his voice, and spoke low but impressively in her ear) “it is an anti-
dote against poison.—Hark, they enter the garden!”
In effect, a sound of noisy mirth and loud talking approached the
garden door, alarmed by which Wayland Smith sprung into the midst
of a thicket of overgrown shrubs, while Janet withdrew to the gar-
den-house that she might not incur observation, and that she might
at the same time conceal, at least for the present, the purchases made
from the supposed pedlar, which lay scattered on the floor of the
summer-house.
Janet, however, had no occasion for anxiety. Her father, his old
attendant, Lord Leicester’s domestic, and the astrologer, entered the
garden in tumult and in extreme perplexity, endeavouring to quiet
Lambourne, whose brain had now become completely fired with
liquor, and who was one of those unfortunate persons who, being
once stirred with the vinous stimulus, do not fall asleep like other
drunkards, but remain partially influenced by it for many hours,
until at length, by successive draughts, they are elevated into a state
of uncontrollable frenzy. Like many men in this state also,
Lambourne neither lost the power of motion, speech, or expression;
but, on the contrary, spoke with unwonted emphasis and readiness,
and told all that at another time he would have been most desirous
to keep secret.
“What!” ejaculated Michael, at the full extent of his voice, “am I
to have no welcome, no carouse, when I have brought fortune to
your old, ruinous dog-house in the shape of a devil’s ally, that can
change slate-shivers into Spanish dollars?—Here, you, Tony Fire-
the-Fagot, Papist, Puritan, hypocrite, miser, profligate, devil, com-
pounded of all men’s sins, bow down and reverence him who has
brought into thy house the very mammon thou worshippest.”
“For God’s sake,” said Foster, “speak low—come into the house—
thou shalt have wine, or whatever thou wilt.”
“No, old puckfoist, I will have it here,” thundered the inebriated
ruffian— “here, al fresco, as the Italian hath it. No, no, I will not
drink with that poisoning devil within doors, to be choked with the
fumes of arsenic and quick-silver; I learned from villain Varney to

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beware of that.”
“Fetch him wine, in the name of all the fiends!” said the alche-
mist.
“Aha! and thou wouldst spice it for me, old Truepenny, wouldst
thou not? Ay, I should have copperas, and hellebore, and vitriol,
and aqua fortis, and twenty devilish materials bubbling in my brain-
pan like a charm to raise the devil in a witch’s cauldron. Hand me
the flask thyself, old Tony Fire-the-Fagot—and let it be cool—I will
have no wine mulled at the pile of the old burnt bishops. Or stay, let
Leicester be king if he will—good—and Varney, villain Varney, grand
vizier—why, excellent!—and what shall I be, then?—why, emperor—
Emperor Lambourne! I will see this choice piece of beauty that they
have walled up here for their private pleasures; I will have her this
very night to serve my wine-cup and put on my nightcap. What
should a fellow do with two wives, were he twenty times an Earl?
Answer me that, Tony boy, you old reprobate, hypocritical dog,
whom God struck out of the book of life, but tormented with the
constant wish to be restored to it—you old bishop-burning, blas-
phemous fanatic, answer me that.”
“I will stick my knife to the haft in him,” said Foster, in a low
tone, which trembled with passion.
“For the love of Heaven, no violence!” said the astrologer. “It can-
not but be looked closely into.—Here, honest Lambourne, wilt thou
pledge me to the health of the noble Earl of Leicester and Master
Richard Varney?”
“I will, mine old Albumazar—I will, my trusty vender of rats-
bane. I would kiss thee, mine honest infractor of the Lex Julia (as
they said at Leyden), didst thou not flavour so damnably of sul-
phur, and such fiendish apothecary’s stuff.—Here goes it, up seyes—
to Varney and Leicester two more noble mounting spirits—and more
dark-seeking, deep-diving, high-flying, malicious, ambitious mis-
creants—well, I say no more, but I will whet my dagger on his
heart-spone that refuses to pledge me! And so, my masters—”
Thus speaking, Lambourne exhausted the cup which the astrolo-
ger had handed to him, and which contained not wine, but distilled
spirits. He swore half an oath, dropped the empty cup from his
grasp, laid his hand on his sword without being able to draw it,

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reeled, and fell without sense or motion into the arms of the domes-
tic, who dragged him off to his chamber, and put him to bed.
In the general confusion, Janet regained her lady’s chamber unob-
served, trembling like an aspen leaf, but determined to keep secret
from the Countess the dreadful surmises which she could not help
entertaining from the drunken ravings of Lambourne. Her fears,
however, though they assumed no certain shape, kept pace with the
advice of the pedlar; and she confirmed her mistress in her purpose
of taking the medicine which he had recommended, from which it
is probable she would otherwise have dissuaded her. Neither had
these intimations escaped the ears of Wayland, who knew much
better how to interpret them. He felt much compassion at behold-
ing so lovely a creature as the Countess, and whom he had first seen
in the bosom of domestic happiness, exposed to the machinations
of such a gang of villains. His indignation, too, had been highly
excited by hearing the voice of his old master, against whom he felt,
in equal degree, the passions of hatred and fear. He nourished also a
pride in his own art and resources; and, dangerous as the task was,
he that night formed a determination to attain the bottom of the
mystery, and to aid the distressed lady, if it were yet possible. From
some words which Lambourne had dropped among his ravings,
Wayland now, for the first time, felt inclined to doubt that Varney
had acted entirely on his own account in wooing and winning the
affections of this beautiful creature. Fame asserted of this zealous
retainer that he had accommodated his lord in former love intrigues;
and it occurred to Wayland Smith that Leicester himself might be
the party chiefly interested. Her marriage with the Earl he could
not suspect; but even the discovery of such a passing intrigue with a
lady of Mistress Amy Robsart’s rank was a secret of the deepest im-
portance to the stability of the favourite’s power over Elizabeth. “If
Leicester himself should hesitate to stifle such a rumour by very
strange means,” said he to himself, “he has those about him who
would do him that favour without waiting for his consent. If I would
meddle in this business, it must be in such guise as my old master
uses when he compounds his manna of Satan, and that is with a
close mask on my face. So I will quit Giles Gosling to-morrow, and
change my course and place of residence as often as a hunted fox. I

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should like to see this little Puritan, too, once more. She looks both
pretty and intelligent to have come of such a caitiff as Anthony
Fire-the-Fagot.”
Giles Gosling received the adieus of Wayland rather joyfully than
otherwise. The honest publican saw so much peril in crossing the
course of the Earl of Leicester’s favourite that his virtue was scarce
able to support him in the task, and he was well pleased when it was
likely to be removed from his shoulders still, however, professing
his good-will, and readiness, in case of need, to do Mr. Tressilian or
his emissary any service, in so far as consisted with his character of a
publican.

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CHAPTER XXI

Vaulting ambition, that o’erleaps itself,

And falls on t’other side.

Macbeth.

THE SPLENDOUR of the approaching revels at Kenilworth was now

the conversation through all England; and everything was collected
at home, or from abroad, which could add to the gaiety or glory of
the prepared reception of Elizabeth at the house of her most distin-
guished favourite, Meantime Leicester appeared daily to advance in
the Queen’s favour. He was perpetually by her side in council—
willingly listened to in the moments of courtly recreation—favoured
with approaches even to familiar intimacy—looked up to by all who
had aught to hope at court—courted by foreign ministers with the
most flattering testimonies of respect from their sovereigns,—the
alter ego, as it seemed, of the stately Elizabeth, who was now very
generally supposed to be studying the time and opportunity for
associating him, by marriage, into her sovereign power.
Amid such a tide of prosperity, this minion of fortune and of the
Queen’s favour was probably the most unhappy man in the realm
which seemed at his devotion. He had the Fairy King’s superiority
over his friends and dependants, and saw much which they could
not. The character of his mistress was intimately known to him. It
was his minute and studied acquaintance with her humours, as well
as her noble faculties, which, joined to his powerful mental quali-
ties, and his eminent external accomplishments, had raised him so
high in her favour; and it was that very knowledge of her disposi-
tion which led him to apprehend at every turn some sudden and

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overwhelming disgrace. Leicester was like a pilot possessed of a chart

which points out to him all the peculiarities of his navigation, but
which exhibits so many shoals, breakers, and reefs of rocks, that his
anxious eye reaps little more from observing them than to be con-
vinced that his final escape can be little else than miraculous.
In fact, Queen Elizabeth had a character strangely compounded
of the strongest masculine sense, with those foibles which are chiefly
supposed proper to the female sex. Her subjects had the full benefit
of her virtues, which far predominated over her weaknesses; but her
courtiers, and those about her person, had often to sustain sudden
and embarrassing turns of caprice, and the sallies of a temper which
was both jealous and despotic. She was the nursing-mother of her
people, but she was also the true daughter of Henry VIII.; and though
early sufferings and an excellent education had repressed and modi-
fied, they had not altogether destroyed, the hereditary temper of
that “hard-ruled king.” “Her mind,” says her witty godson, Sir John
Harrington, who had experienced both the smiles and the frowns
which he describes, “was ofttime like the gentle air that cometh
from the western point in a summer’s morn—’twas sweet and re-
freshing to all around her. Her speech did win all affections. And
again, she could put forth such alterations, when obedience was
lacking, as left no doubting whose daughter she was. When she
smiled, it was a pure sunshine, that every one did choose to bask in,
if they could; but anon came a storm from a sudden gathering of
clouds, and the thunder fell in a wondrous manner on all alike.”
[Nugae Antiquae, vol.i., pp.355, 356-362.]
This variability of disposition, as Leicester well knew, was chiefly
formidable to those who had a share in the Queen’s affections, and
who depended rather on her personal regard than on the indispens-
able services which they could render to her councils and her crown.
The favour of Burleigh or of Walsingham, of a description far less
striking than that by which he was himself upheld, was founded, as
Leicester was well aware, on Elizabeth’s solid judgment, not on her
partiality, and was, therefore, free from all those principles of change
and decay necessarily incident to that which chiefly arose from per-
sonal accomplishments and female predilection. These great and
sage statesmen were judged of by the Queen only with reference to

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the measures they suggested, and the reasons by which they sup-
ported their opinions in council; whereas the success of Leicester’s
course depended on all those light and changeable gales of caprice
and humour which thwart or favour the progress of a lover in the
favour of his mistress, and she, too, a mistress who was ever and
anon becoming fearful lest she should forget the dignity, or com-
promise the authority, of the Queen, while she indulged the affec-
tions of the woman. Of the difficulties which surrounded his power,
“too great to keep or to resign,” Leicester was fully sensible; and as
he looked anxiously round for the means of maintaining himself in
his precarious situation, and sometimes contemplated those of de-
scending from it in safety, he saw but little hope of either. At such
moments his thoughts turned to dwell upon his secret marriage and
its consequences; and it was in bitterness against himself, if not against
his unfortunate Countess, that he ascribed to that hasty measure,
adopted in the ardour of what he now called inconsiderate passion,
at once the impossibility of placing his power on a solid basis, and
the immediate prospect of its precipitate downfall.
“Men say,” thus ran his thoughts, in these anxious and repentant
moments, “that I might marry Elizabeth, and become King of En-
gland. All things suggest this. The match is carolled in ballads, while
the rabble throw their caps up. It has been touched upon in the
schools—whispered in the presence-chamber—recommended from
the pulpit—prayed for in the Calvinistic churches abroad—touched
on by statists in the very council at home. These bold insinuations
have been rebutted by no rebuke, no resentment, no chiding, scarce
even by the usual female protestation that she would live and die a
virgin princess. Her words have been more courteous than ever,
though she knows such rumours are abroad—her actions more gra-
cious, her looks more kind—nought seems wanting to make me
King of England, and place me beyond the storms of court-favour,
excepting the putting forth of mine own hand to take that crown
imperial which is the glory of the universe! And when I might stretch
that hand out most boldly, it is fettered down by a secret and inex-
tricable bond! And here I have letters from Amy,” he would say,
catching them up with a movement of peevishness, “persecuting me
to acknowledge her openly—to do justice to her and to myself—

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and I wot not what. Methinks I have done less than justice to my-
self already. And she speaks as if Elizabeth were to receive the knowl-
edge of this matter with the glee of a mother hearing of the happy
marriage of a hopeful son! She, the daughter of Henry, who spared
neither man in his anger nor woman in his desire—she to find her-
self tricked, drawn on with toys of passion to the verge of acknowl-
edging her love to a subject, and he discovered to be a married man!—
Elizabeth to learn that she had been dallied with in such fashion, as
a gay courtier might trifle with a country wench—we should then
see, to our ruin, furens quidfæmina!”
He would then pause, and call for Varney, whose advice was now
more frequently resorted to than ever, because the Earl remembered
the remonstrances which he had made against his secret contract.
And their consultation usually terminated in anxious deliberation
how, or in what manner, the Countess was to be produced at
Kenilworth. These communings had for some time ended always in
a resolution to delay the Progress from day to day. But at length a
peremptory decision became necessary.
“Elizabeth will not be satisfied without her presence,” said the
Earl. “Whether any suspicion hath entered her mind, as my own
apprehensions suggest, or whether the petition of Tressilian is kept
in her memory by Sussex or some other secret enemy, I know not;
but amongst all the favourable expressions which she uses to me,
she often recurs to the story of Amy Robsart. I think that Amy is
the slave in the chariot, who is placed there by my evil fortune to
dash and to confound my triumph, even when at the highest. Show
me thy device, Varney, for solving the inextricable difficulty. I have
thrown every such impediment in the way of these accursed revels
as I could propound even with a shade of decency, but to-day’s in-
terview has put all to a hazard. She said to me kindly, but perempto-
rily, ‘We will give you no further time for preparations, my lord, lest
you should altogether ruin yourself. On Saturday, the 9th of July,
we will be with you at Kenilworth. We pray you to forget none of
our appointed guests and suitors, and in especial this light-o’-love,
Amy Robsart. We would wish to see the woman who could post-
pone yonder poetical gentleman, Master Tressilian, to your man,
Richard Varney.’—Now, Varney, ply thine invention, whose forge

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hath availed us so often for sure as my name is Dudley, the danger

menaced by my horoscope is now darkening around me.”
“Can my lady be by no means persuaded to bear for a brief space
the obscure character which circumstances impose on her?” Said
Varney after some hesitation.
“How, sirrah? my Countess term herself thy wife!—that may nei-
ther stand with my honour nor with hers.”
“Alas! my lord,” answered Varney, “and yet such is the quality in
which Elizabeth now holds her; and to contradict this opinion is to
discover all.”
“Think of something else, Varney,” said the Earl, in great agita-
tion; “this invention is nought. If I could give way to it, she would
not; for I tell thee, Varney, if thou knowest it not, that not Elizabeth
on the throne has more pride than the daughter of this obscure
gentleman of Devon. She is flexible in many things, but where she
holds her honour brought in question she hath a spirit and temper
as apprehensive as lightning, and as swift in execution.”
“We have experienced that, my lord, else had we not been thus
circumstanced,” said Varney. “But what else to suggest I know not.
Methinks she whose good fortune in becoming your lordship’s bride,
and who gives rise to the danger, should do somewhat towards par-
rying it.”
“It is impossible,” said the Earl, waving his hand; “I know neither
authority nor entreaties would make her endure thy name for an
hour.
“It is somewhat hard, though,” said Varney, in a dry tone; and,
without pausing on that topic, he added, “Suppose some one were
found to represent her? Such feats have been performed in the courts
of as sharp-eyed monarchs as Queen Elizabeth.”
“Utter madness, Varney,” answered the Earl; “the counterfeit would
be confronted with Tressilian, and discovery become inevitable,”
“Tressilian might be removed from court,” said the unhesitating
Varney.
“And by what means?”
“There are many,” said Varney, “by which a statesman in your
situation, my lord, may remove from the scene one who pries into
your affairs, and places himself in perilous opposition to you.”

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“Speak not to me of such policy, Varney,” said the Earl hastily,

“which, besides, would avail nothing in the present case. Many oth-
ers there be at court to whom Amy may be known; and besides, on
the absence of Tressilian, her father or some of her friends would be
instantly summoned hither. Urge thine invention once more.”
“My lord, I know not what to say,” answered Varney; “but were I
myself in such perplexity, I would ride post down to Cumnor Place,
and compel my wife to give her consent to such measures as her
safety and mine required.”
“Varney,” said Leicester, “I cannot urge her to aught so repugnant
to her noble nature as a share in this stratagem; it would be a base
requital to the love she bears me.”
“Well, my lord,” said Varney, “your lordship is a wise and an
honourable man, and skilled in those high points of romantic scruple
which are current in Arcadia perhaps, as your nephew, Philip Sidney,
writes. I am your humble servitor—a man of this world, and only
happy that my knowledge of it, and its ways, is such as your lord-
ship has not scorned to avail yourself of. Now I would fain know
whether the obligation lies on my lady or on you in this fortunate
union, and which has most reason to show complaisance to the
other, and to consider that other’s wishes, conveniences, and safety?”
“I tell thee, Varney,” said the Earl, “that all it was in my power to
bestow upon her was not merely deserved, but a thousand times
overpaid, by her own virtue and beauty; for never did greatness de-
scend upon a creature so formed by nature to grace and adorn it.”
“It is well, my lord, you are so satisfied,” answered Varney, with
his usual sardonic smile, which even respect to his patron could not
at all times subdue; “you will have time enough to enjoy undis-
turbed the society of one so gracious and beautiful—that is, so soon
as such confinement in the Tower be over as may correspond to the
crime of deceiving the affections of Elizabeth Tudor. A cheaper pen-
alty, I presume, you do not expect.”
“Malicious fiend!” answered Leicester, “do you mock me in my
misfortune?—Manage it as thou wilt.”
“If you are serious, my lord,” said Varney, “you must set forth
instantly and post for Cumnor Place.”
“Do thou go thyself, Varney; the devil has given thee that sort of

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eloquence which is most powerful in the worst cause. I should stand

self-convicted of villainy, were I to urge such a deceit. Begone, I tell
thee; must I entreat thee to mine own dishonour?”
“No, my lord,” said Varney; “but if you are serious in entrusting
me with the task of urging this most necessary measure, you must
give me a letter to my lady, as my credentials, and trust to me for
backing the advice it contains with all the force in my power. And
such is my opinion of my lady’s love for your lordship, and of her
willingness to do that which is at once to contribute to your plea-
sure and your safety, that I am sure she will condescend to bear for
a few brief days the name of so humble a man as myself, especially
since it is not inferior in antiquity to that of her own paternal house.”
Leicester seized on writing materials, and twice or thrice com-
menced a letter to the Countess, which he afterwards tore into frag-
ments. At length he finished a few distracted lines, in which he
conjured her, for reasons nearly concerning his life and honour, to
consent to bear the name of Varney for a few days, during the revels
at Kenilworth. He added that Varney would communicate all the
reasons which rendered this deception indispensable; and having
signed and sealed these credentials, he flung them over the table to
Varney with a motion that he should depart, which his adviser was
not slow to comprehend and to obey.
Leicester remained like one stupefied, till he heard the trampling
of the horses, as Varney, who took no time even to change his dress,
threw himself into the saddle, and, followed by a single servant, set
off for Berkshire. At the sound the Earl started from his seat, and
ran to the window, with the momentary purpose of recalling the
unworthy commission with which he had entrusted one of whom
he used to say he knew no virtuous property save affection to his
patron. But Varney was already beyond call; and the bright, starry
firmament, which the age considered as the Book of Fate, lying
spread before Leicester when he opened the casement, diverted him
from his better and more manly purpose.
“There they roll, on their silent but potential course,” said the
Earl, looking around him, “without a voice which speaks to our ear,
but not without influences which affect, at every change, the
indwellers of this vile, earthly planet. This, if astrologers fable not,

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is the very crisis of my fate! The hour approaches of which I was

taught to beware—the hour, too, which I was encouraged to hope
for. A King was the word—but how?—the crown matrimonial. All
hopes of that are gone—let them go. The rich Netherlands have
demanded me for their leader, and, would Elizabeth consent, would
yield to me their crown. And have I not such a claim even in this
kingdom? That of York, descending from George of Clarence to the
House of Huntingdon, which, this lady failing, may have a fair
chance—Huntingdon is of my house.—But I will plunge no deeper
in these high mysteries. Let me hold my course in silence for a while,
and in obscurity, like a subterranean river; the time shall come that
I will burst forth in my strength, and bear all opposition before
me.”
While Leicester was thus stupefying the remonstrances of his own
conscience, by appealing to political necessity for his apology, or
losing himself amidst the wild dreams of ambition, his agent left
town and tower behind him on his hasty journey to Berkshire. HE
also nourished high hope. He had brought Lord Leicester to the
point which he had desired, of committing to him the most inti-
mate recesses of his breast, and of using him as the channel of his
most confidential intercourse with his lady. Henceforward it would,
he foresaw, be difficult for his patron either to dispense with his
services, or refuse his requests, however unreasonable. And if this
disdainful dame, as he termed the Countess, should comply with
the request of her husband, Varney, her pretended husband, must
needs become so situated with respect to her, that there was no
knowing where his audacity might be bounded perhaps not till cir-
cumstances enabled him to obtain a triumph, which he thought of
with a mixture of fiendish feelings, in which revenge for her previ-
ous scorn was foremost and predominant. Again he contemplated
the possibility of her being totally intractable, and refusing obsti-
nately to play the part assigned to her in the drama at Kenilworth.
“Alasco must then do his part,” he said. “Sickness must serve her
Majesty as an excuse for not receiving the homage of Mrs. Varney—
ay, and a sore and wasting sickness it may prove, should Elizabeth
continue to cast so favourable an eye on my Lord of Leicester. I will
not forego the chance of being favourite of a monarch for want of

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determined measures, should these be necessary. Forward, good

horse, forward—ambition and haughty hope of power, pleasure,
and revenge strike their stings as deep through my bosom as I plunge
the rowels in thy flanks. On, good horse, on—the devil urges us
both forward!”

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CHAPTER XXII

Say that my beauty was but small,

Among court ladies all despised,
Why didst thou rend it from that hall
Where, scornful Earl, ’twas dearly prized?

No more thou com’st with wonted speed,

Thy once beloved bride to see;
But be she alive, or be she dead,
I fear, stern Earl, ‘s the same to thee.

Cumnor Hall, by William Julius Mickle.

THE LADIES of fashion of the present, or of any other period, must

have allowed that the young and lovely Countess of Leicester had,
besides her youth and beauty, two qualities which entitled her to a
place amongst women of rank and distinction. She displayed, as we
have seen in her interview with the pedlar, a liberal promptitude to
make unnecessary purchases, solely for the pleasure of acquiring
useless and showy trifles which ceased to please as soon as they were
possessed; and she was, besides, apt to spend a considerable space of
time every day in adorning her person, although the varied splendour
of her attire could only attract the half satirical praise of the precise
Janet, or an approving glance from the bright eyes which witnessed
their own beams of triumph reflected from the mirror.
The Countess Amy had, indeed, to plead for indulgence in those
frivolous tastes, that the education of the times had done little or
nothing for a mind naturally gay and averse to study. If she had not

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loved to collect finery and to wear it, she might have woven tapestry
or sewed embroidery, till her labours spread in gay profusion all
over the walls and seats at Lidcote Hall; or she might have varied
Minerva’s labours with the task of preparing a mighty pudding against
the time that Sir Hugh Robsart returned from the greenwood. But
Amy had no natural genius either for the loom, the needle, or the
receipt-book. Her mother had died in infancy; her father contra-
dicted her in nothing; and Tressilian, the only one that approached
her who was able or desirous to attend to the cultivation of her
mind, had much hurt his interest with her by assuming too eagerly
the task of a preceptor, so that he was regarded by the lively, in-
dulged, and idle girl with some fear and much respect, but with
little or nothing of that softer emotion which it had been his hope
and his ambition to inspire. And thus her heart lay readily open,
and her fancy became easily captivated by the noble exterior and
graceful deportment and complacent flattery of Leicester, even be-
fore he was known to her as the dazzling minion of wealth and
power.
The frequent visits of Leicester at Cumnor, during the earlier part
of their union, had reconciled the Countess to the solitude and pri-
vacy to which she was condemned; but when these visits became
rarer and more rare, and when the void was filled up with letters of
excuse, not always very warmly expressed, and generally extremely
brief, discontent and suspicion began to haunt those splendid apart-
ments which love had fitted up for beauty. Her answers to Leicester
conveyed these feelings too bluntly, and pressed more naturally than
prudently that she might be relieved from this obscure and secluded
residence, by the Earl’s acknowledgment of their marriage; and in
arranging her arguments with all the skill she was mistress of, she
trusted chiefly to the warmth of the entreaties with which she urged
them. Sometimes she even ventured to mingle reproaches, of which
Leicester conceived he had good reason to complain.
“I have made her Countess,” he said to Varney; “surely she might
wait till it consisted with my pleasure that she should put on the
coronet?”
The Countess Amy viewed the subject in directly an opposite light.
“What signifies,” she said, “that I have rank and honour in reality,

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if I am to live an obscure prisoner, without either society or obser-

vance, and suffering in my character, as one of dubious or disgraced
reputation? I care not for all those strings of pearl, which you fret
me by warping into my tresses, Janet. I tell you that at Lidcote Hall,
if I put but a fresh rosebud among my hair, my good father would
call me to him, that he might see it more closely; and the kind old
curate would smile, and Master Mumblazen would say something
about roses gules. And now I sit here, decked out like an image with
gold and gems, and no one to see my finery but you, Janet. There
was the poor Tressilian, too—but it avails not speaking of him.”
“It doth not indeed, madam,” said her prudent attendant; “and
verily you make me sometimes wish you would not speak of him so
often, or so rashly.”
“It signifies nothing to warn me, Janet,” said the impatient and
incorrigible Countess; “I was born free, though I am now mewed
up like some fine foreign slave, rather than the wife of an English
noble. I bore it all with pleasure while I was sure he loved me; but
now my tongue and heart shall be free, let them fetter these limbs as
they will. I tell thee, Janet, I love my husband—I will love him till
my latest breath—I cannot cease to love him, even if I would, or if
he—which, God knows, may chance—should cease to love me. But
I will say, and loudly, I would have been happier than I now am to
have remained in Lidcote Hall, even although I must have married
poor Tressilian, with his melancholy look and his head full of learn-
ing, which I cared not for. He said, if I would read his favourite
volumes, there would come a time that I should be glad of having
done so. I think it is come now.”
“I bought you some books, madam,” said Janet, “from a lame
fellow who sold them in the Market-place—and who stared some-
thing boldly, at me, I promise you.”
“Let me see them, Janet,” said the Countess; “but let them not be
of your own precise cast,—How is this, most righteous damsel?—
‘Pair of snuffers for the golden candlestick’— ‘Handfull of myrrh and
hyssop to put a sick soul to purgation’— ‘A draught of water from the
valley of Baca’— ‘Foxes and firebrands’—what gear call you this,
maiden?”
“Nay, madam,” said Janet, “it was but fitting and seemly to put

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grace in your ladyship’s way; but an you will none of it, there are
play-books, and poet-books, I trow.”
The Countess proceeded carelessly in her examination, turning
over such rare volumes as would now make the fortune of twenty
retail booksellers. Here was a “boke of cookery, imprinted by Richard
Lant,” and “ Skelton’s Books”— “The Passtime of the People”— “The
Castle of Knowledge,” etc. But neither to this lore did the Countess’s
heart incline, and joyfully did she start up from the listless task of
turning over the leaves of the pamphlets, and hastily did she scatter
them through the floor, when the hasty clatter of horses’ feet, heard
in the courtyard, called her to the window, exclaiming, “It is Leices-
ter!—it is my noble Earl!—it is my Dudley!—every stroke of his
horse’s hoof sounds like a note of lordly music!”
There was a brief bustle in the mansion, and Foster, with his down-
ward look and sullen manner, entered the apartment to say, “That
Master Richard Varney was arrived from my lord, having ridden all
night, and craved to speak with her ladyship instantly.”
“Varney?” said the disappointed Countess; “and to speak with me?
—pshaw! But he comes with news from Leicester, so admit him
instantly.”
Varney entered her dressing apartment, where she sat arrayed in
her native loveliness, adorned with all that Janet’s art and a rich and
tasteful undress could bestow. But the most beautiful part of her
attire was her profuse and luxuriant light-brown locks, which floated
in such rich abundance around a neck that resembled a swan’s, and
over a bosom heaving with anxious expectation, which communi-
cated a hurried tinge of red to her whole countenance.
Varney entered the room in the dress in which he had waited on
his master that morning to court, the splendour of which made a
strange contrast with the disorder arising from hasty riding during a
dark night and foul ways. His brow bore an anxious and hurried
expression, as one who has that to say of which he doubts the recep-
tion, and who hath yet posted on from the necessity of communi-
cating his tidings. The Countess’s anxious eye at once caught the
alarm, as she exclaimed, “You bring news from my lord, Master
Varney—Gracious Heaven! is he ill?”
“No, madam, thank Heaven!” said Varney. “Compose yourself,

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and permit me to take breath ere I communicate my tidings.”

“No breath, sir,” replied the lady impatiently; “I know your theat-
rical arts. Since your breath hath sufficed to bring you hither, it may
suffice to tell your tale—at least briefly, and in the gross.”
“Madam,” answered Varney, “we are not alone, and my lord’s
message was for your ear only.”
“Leave us, Janet, and Master Foster,” said the lady; “but remain in
the next apartment, and within call.”
Foster and his daughter retired, agreeably to the Lady Leicester’s
commands, into the next apartment, which was the withdrawing-
room. The door which led from the sleeping-chamber was then care-
fully shut and bolted, and the father and daughter remained both in
a posture of anxious attention, the first with a stern, suspicious,
anxious cast of countenance, and Janet with folded hands, and looks
which seemed divided betwixt her desire to know the fortunes of
her mistress, and her prayers to Heaven for her safety. Anthony Fos-
ter seemed himself to have some idea of what was passing through
his daughter’s mind, for he crossed the apartment and took her anx-
iously by the hand, saying, “That is right—pray, Janet, pray; we
have all need of prayers, and some of us more than others. Pray,
Janet—I would pray myself, but I must listen to what goes on
within—evil has been brewing, love—evil has been brewing. God
forgive our sins, but Varney’s sudden and strange arrival bodes us no
good.”
Janet had never before heard her father excite or even permit her
attention to anything which passed in their mysterious family; and
now that he did so, his voice sounded in her ear—she knew not
why—like that of a screech-owl denouncing some deed of terror
and of woe. She turned her eyes fearfully towards the door, almost
as if she expected some sounds of horror to be heard, or some sight
of fear to display itself.
All, however, was as still as death, and the voices of those who
spoke in the inner chamber were, if they spoke at all, carefully sub-
dued to a tone which could not be heard in the next. At once, how-
ever, they were heard to speak fast, thick, and hastily; and presently
after the voice of the Countess was heard exclaiming, at the highest
pitch to which indignation could raise it, “Undo the door, sir, I

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command you!—undo the door!—I will have no other reply!” she

continued, drowning with her vehement accents the low and mut-
tered sounds which Varney was heard to utter betwixt whiles. “What
ho! without there!” she persisted, accompanying her words with
shrieks, “Janet, alarm the house!—Foster, break open the door—I
am detained here by a traitor! Use axe and lever, Master Foster—I
will be your warrant!”
“It shall not need, madam,” Varney was at length distinctly heard
to say. “If you please to expose my lord’s important concerns and
your own to the general ear, I will not be your hindrance.”
The door was unlocked and thrown open, and Janet and her fa-
ther rushed in, anxious to learn the cause of these reiterated excla-
mations.
When they entered the apartment Varney stood by the door grind-
ing his teeth, with an expression in which rage, and shame, and fear
had each their share. The Countess stood in the midst of her apart-
ment like a juvenile Pythoness under the influence of the prophetic
fury. The veins in her beautiful forehead started into swoln blue
lines through the hurried impulse of her articulation —her cheek
and neck glowed like scarlet—her eyes were like those of an impris-
oned eagle, flashing red lightning on the foes which it cannot reach
with its talons. Were it possible for one of the Graces to have been
animated by a Fury, the countenance could not have united such
beauty with so much hatred, scorn, defiance, and resentment. The
gesture and attitude corresponded with the voice and looks, and
altogether presented a spectacle which was at once beautiful and
fearful; so much of the sublime had the energy of passion united
with the Countess Amy’s natural loveliness. Janet, as soon as the
door was open, ran to her mistress; and more slowly, yet with more
haste than he was wont, Anthony Foster went to Richard Varney.
“In the Truth’s name, what ails your ladyship?” said the former.
“What, in the name of Satan, have you done to her?” said Foster
to his friend.
“Who, I?—nothing,” answered Varney, but with sunken head and
sullen voice; “nothing but communicated to her her lord’s com-
mands, which, if the lady list not to obey, she knows better how to
answer it than I may pretend to do.”

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“Now, by Heaven, Janet!” said the Countess, “the false traitor lies
in his throat! He must needs lie, for he speaks to the dishonour of
my noble lord; he must needs lie doubly, for he speaks to gain ends
of his own, equally execrable and unattainable.”
“You have misapprehended me, lady,” said Varney, with a sulky
species of submission and apology; “let this matter rest till your
passion be abated, and I will explain all.”
“Thou shalt never have an opportunity to do so,” said the Count-
ess.—“Look at him, Janet. He is fairly dressed, hath the outside of a
gentleman, and hither he came to persuade me it was my lord’s
pleasure—nay, more, my wedded lord’s commands—that I should
go with him to Kenilworth, and before the Queen and nobles, and
in presence of my own wedded lord, that I should acknowledge
him—him there—that very cloak-brushing, shoe-cleaning fellow—
him there, my lord’s lackey, for my liege lord and husband; furnish-
ing against myself, Great God! whenever I was to vindicate my right
and my rank, such weapons as would hew my just claim from the
root, and destroy my character to be regarded as an honourable
matron of the English nobility!”
“You hear her, Foster, and you, young maiden, hear this lady,”
answered Varney, taking advantage of the pause which the Count-
ess had made in her charge, more for lack of breath than for lack of
matter—“you hear that her heat only objects to me the course which
our good lord, for the purpose to keep certain matters secret, sug-
gests in the very letter which she holds in her hands.”
Foster here attempted to interfere with a face of authority, which
he thought became the charge entrusted to him, “Nay, lady, I must
needs say you are over-hasty in this. Such deceit is not utterly to be
condemned when practised for a righteous end I and thus even the
patriarch Abraham feigned Sarah to be his sister when they went
down to Egypt.”
“Ay, sir,” answered the Countess; “but God rebuked that deceit
even in the father of His chosen people, by the mouth of the hea-
then Pharaoh. Out upon you, that will read Scripture only to copy
those things which are held out to us as warnings, not as examples!”
“But Sarah disputed not the will of her husband, an it be your
pleasure,” said Foster, in reply, “but did as Abraham commanded,

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calling herself his sister, that it might be well with her husband for
her sake, and that his soul might live because of her beauty.”
“Now, so Heaven pardon me my useless anger,” answered the
Countess, “thou art as daring a hypocrite as yonder fellow is an
impudent deceiver! Never will I believe that the noble Dudley gave
countenance to so dastardly, so dishonourable a plan. Thus I tread
on his infamy, if indeed it be, and thus destroy its remembrance for
ever!”
So saying, she tore in pieces Leicester’s letter, and stamped, in the
extremity of impatience, as if she would have annihilated the minute
fragments into which she had rent it.
“Bear witness,” said Varney, collecting himself, “she hath torn my
lord’s letter, in order to burden me with the scheme of his devising;
and although it promises nought but danger and trouble to me, she
would lay it to my charge, as if I had any purpose of mine own in
it.”
“Thou liest, thou treacherous slave!” said the Countess in spite of
Janet’s attempts to keep her silent, in the sad foresight that her vehe-
mence might only furnish arms against herself—”thou liest,” she
continued.—“Let me go, Janet—were it the last word I have to
speak, he lies. He had his own foul ends to seek; and broader he
would have displayed them had my passion permitted me to pre-
serve the silence which at first encouraged him to unfold his vile
projects.”
“Madam,” said Varney, overwhelmed in spite of his effrontery, “I
entreat you to believe yourself mistaken.”
“As soon will I believe light darkness,” said the enraged Countess.
“Have I drunk of oblivion? Do I not remember former passages,
which, known to Leicester, had given thee the preferment of a gal-
lows, instead of the honour of his intimacy. I would I were a man
but for five minutes! It were space enough to make a craven like
thee confess his villainy. But go—begone! Tell thy master that when
I take the foul course to which such scandalous deceits as thou hast
recommended on his behalf must necessarily lead me, I will give
him a rival something worthy of the name. He shall not be sup-
planted by an ignominious lackey, whose best fortune is to catch a
gift of his master’s last suit of clothes ere it is threadbare, and who is

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only fit to seduce a suburb-wench by the bravery of new roses in his

master’s old pantoufles. Go, begone, sir! I scorn thee so much that I
am ashamed to have been angry with thee.”
Varney left the room with a mute expression of rage, and was
followed by Foster, whose apprehension, naturally slow, was over-
powered by the eager and abundant discharge of indignation which,
for the first time, he had heard burst from the lips of a being who
had seemed, till that moment, too languid and too gentle to nurse
an angry thought or utter an intemperate expression. Foster, there-
fore, pursued Varney from place to place, persecuting him with in-
terrogatories, to which the other replied not, until they were in the
opposite side of the quadrangle, and in the old library, with which
the reader has already been made acquainted. Here he turned round
on his persevering follower, and thus addressed him, in a tone toler-
ably equal, that brief walk having been sufficient to give one so
habituated to command his temper time to rally and recover his
presence of mind.
“Tony,” he said, with his usual sneering laugh, “it avails not to deny
it. The Woman and the Devil, who, as thine oracle Holdforth will
confirm to thee, cheated man at the beginning, have this day proved
more powerful than my discretion. Yon termagant looked so tempt-
ing, and had the art to preserve her countenance so naturally, while I
communicated my lord’s message, that, by my faith, I thought I might
say some little thing for myself. She thinks she hath my head under
her girdle now, but she is deceived. Where is Doctor Alasco?”
“In his laboratory,” answered Foster. “It is the hour he is spoken
not withal. We must wait till noon is past, or spoil his important—
what said I? important!—I would say interrupt his divine studies.”
“Ay, he studies the devil’s divinity,” said Varney; “but when I want
him, one hour must suffice as well as another. Lead the way to his
pandemonium.”
So spoke Varney, and with hasty and perturbed steps followed
Foster, who conducted him through private passages, many of which
were well-nigh ruinous, to the opposite side of the quadrangle, where,
in a subterranean apartment, now occupied by the chemist Alasco,
one of the Abbots of Abingdon, who had a turn for the occult sci-
ences, had, much to the scandal of his convent, established a labo-

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ratory, in which, like other fools of the period, he spent much pre-
cious time, and money besides, in the pursuit of the grand arcanum.
Anthony Foster paused before the door, which was scrupulously
secured within, and again showed a marked hesitation to disturb
the sage in his operations. But Varney, less scrupulous, roused him
by knocking and voice, until at length, slowly and reluctantly, the
inmate of the apartment undid the door. The chemist appeared,
with his eyes bleared with the heat and vapours of the stove or alem-
bic over which he brooded and the interior of his cell displayed the
confused assemblage of heterogeneous substances and extraordinary
implements belonging to his profession. The old man was mutter-
ing, with spiteful impatience, “Am I for ever to be recalled to the
affairs of earth from those of heaven?”
“To the affairs of hell,” answered Varney, “for that is thy proper
element.—Foster, we need thee at our conference.”
“Foster slowly entered the room. Varney, following, barred the
door, and they betook themselves to secret council.
In the meanwhile, the Countess traversed the apartment, with
shame and anger contending on her lovely cheek.
“The villain,” she said—“the cold-blooded, calculating slave!—
But I unmasked him, Janet—I made the snake uncoil all his folds
before me, and crawl abroad in his naked deformity; I suspended
my resentment, at the danger of suffocating under the effort, until
he had let me see the very bottom of a heart more foul than hell’s
darkest corner.—And thou, Leicester, is it possible thou couldst bid
me for a moment deny my wedded right in thee, or thyself yield it
to another?—But it is impossible—the villain has lied in all.—Janet,
I will not remain here longer—I fear him—I fear thy father. I grieve
to say it, Janet—but I fear thy father, and, worst of all, this odious
Varney, I will escape from Cumnor.”
“Alas! madam, whither would you fly, or by what means will you
escape from these walls?”
“I know not, Janet,” said the unfortunate young lady, looking
upwards! and clasping her hands together, “I know not where I shall
fly, or by what means; but I am certain the God I have served will
not abandon me in this dreadful crisis, for I am in the hands of
wicked men.”

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“Do not think so, dear lady,” said Janet; “my father is stern and
strict in his temper, and severely true to his trust—but yet—”
At this moment Anthony Foster entered the apartment, bearing
in his hand a glass cup and a small flask. His manner was singular;
for, while approaching the Countess with the respect due to her
rank, he had till this time suffered to become visible, or had been
unable to suppress, the obdurate sulkiness of his natural disposi-
tion, which, as is usual with those of his unhappy temper, was chiefly
exerted towards those over whom circumstances gave him control.
But at present he showed nothing of that sullen consciousness of
authority which he was wont to conceal under a clumsy affectation
of civility and deference, as a ruffian hides his pistols and bludgeon
under his ill-fashioned gaberdine. And yet it seemed as if his smile
was more in fear than courtesy, and as if, while he pressed the Count-
ess to taste of the choice cordial, which should refresh her spirits
after her late alarm, he was conscious of meditating some further
injury. His hand trembled also, his voice faltered, and his whole
outward behaviour exhibited so much that was suspicious, that his
daughter Janet, after she had stood looking at him in astonishment
for some seconds, seemed at once to collect herself to execute some
hardy resolution, raised her head, assumed an attitude and gait of
determination and authority, and walking slowly betwixt her father
and her mistress, took the salver from the hand of the former, and
said in a low but marked and decided tone, “Father, I will fill for my
noble mistress, when such is her pleasure.”
“Thou, my child?” said Foster, eagerly and apprehensively; “no,
my child—it is not thou shalt render the lady this service.”
“And why, I pray you,” said Janet, “if it be fitting that the noble
lady should partake of the cup at all?”
“Why—why?” said the seneschal, hesitating, and then bursting
into passion as the readiest mode of supplying the lack of all other
reason—”why, because it is my pleasure, minion, that you should
not! Get you gone to the evening lecture.”
“Now, as I hope to hear lecture again,” replied Janet, “I will not
go thither this night, unless I am better assured of my mistress’s
safety. Give me that flask, father”—and she took it from his reluc-
tant hand, while he resigned it as if conscience-struck. “And now,”

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she said, “father, that which shall benefit my mistress, cannot do me

prejudice. Father, I drink to you.”
Foster, without speaking a word, rushed on his daughter and
wrested the flask from her hand; then, as if embarrassed by what he
had done, and totally unable to resolve what he should do next, he
stood with it in his hand, one foot advanced and the other drawn
back, glaring on his daughter with a countenance in which rage,
fear, and convicted villainy formed a hideous combination.
“This is strange, my father,” said Janet, keeping her eye fixed on
his, in the manner in which those who have the charge of lunatics
are said to overawe their unhappy patients; “will you neither let me
serve my lady, nor drink to her myself?”
The courage of the Countess sustained her through this dreadful
scene, of which the import was not the less obvious that it was not
even hinted at. She preserved even the rash carelessness of her tem-
per, and though her cheek had grown pale at the first alarm, her eye
was calm and almost scornful. “Will you taste this rare cordial, Mas-
ter Foster? Perhaps you will not yourself refuse to pledge us, though
you permit not Janet to do so. Drink, sir, I pray you.”
“I will not,” answered Foster.
“And for whom, then, is the precious beverage reserved, sir?” said
the Countess.
“For the devil, who brewed it!” answered Foster; and, turning on
his heel, he left the chamber.
Janet looked at her mistress with a countenance expressive in the
highest degree of shame, dismay, and sorrow.
“Do not weep for me, Janet,” said the Countess kindly.
“No, madam,” replied her attendant, in a voice broken by sobs,
“it is not for you I weep; it is for myself—it is for that unhappy
man. Those who are dishonoured before man—those who are con-
demned by God—have cause to mourn; not those who are inno-
cent! Farewell, madam!” she said hastily assuming the mantle in
which she was wont to go abroad.
“Do you leave me, Janet?” said her mistress—”desert me in such
an evil strait?”
“Desert you, madam!” exclaimed Janet; and running back to her
mistress, she imprinted a thousand kisses on her hand—”desert you

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I—may the Hope of my trust desert me when I do so! No, madam;

well you said the God you serve will open you a path for deliver-
ance. There is a way of escape. I have prayed night and day for light,
that I might see how to act betwixt my duty to yonder unhappy
man and that which I owe to you. Sternly and fearfully that light
has now dawned, and I must not shut the door which God opens.
Ask me no more. I will return in brief space.”
So speaking, she wrapped herself in her mantle, and saying to the
old woman whom she passed in the outer room that she was going
to evening prayer, she left the house.
Meanwhile her father had reached once more the laboratory, where
he found the accomplices of his intended guilt. “Has the sweet bird
sipped?” said Varney, with half a smile; while the astrologer put the
same question with his eyes, but spoke not a word.
“She has not, nor she shall not from my hands,” replied Foster;
“would you have me do murder in my daughter’s presence?”
“Wert thou not told, thou sullen and yet faint-hearted slave,” an-
swered Varney, with bitterness, “that no murder as thou callest it,
with that staring look and stammering tone, is designed in the mat-
ter? Wert thou not told that a brief illness, such as woman puts on
in very wantonness, that she may wear her night-gear at noon, and
lie on a settle when she should mind her domestic business, is all
here aimed at? Here is a learned man will swear it to thee by the key
of the Castle of Wisdom.”
“I swear it,” said Alasco, “that the elixir thou hast there in the
flask will not prejudice life! I swear it by that immortal and inde-
structible quintessence of gold, which pervades every substance in
nature, though its secret existence can be traced by him only to
whom Trismegistus renders the key of the Cabala.”
“An oath of force,” said Varney. “Foster, thou wert worse than a
pagan to disbelieve it. Believe me, moreover, who swear by nothing
but by my own word, that if you be not conformable, there is no
hope, no, not a glimpse of hope, that this thy leasehold may be
transmuted into a copyhold. Thus, Alasco will leave your pewter
artillery untransmigrated, and I, honest Anthony, will still have thee
for my tenant.”
“I know not, gentlemen,” said Foster, “where your designs tend

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to; but in one thing I am bound up,—that, fall back fall edge, I will
have one in this place that may pray for me, and that one shall be
my daughter. I have lived ill, and the world has been too weighty
with me; but she is as innocent as ever she was when on her mother’s
lap, and she, at least, shall have her portion in that happy City,
whose walls are of pure gold, and the foundations garnished with all
manner of precious stones.”
“Ay, Tony,” said Varney, “that were a paradise to thy heart’s con-
tent.—Debate the matter with him, Doctor Alasco; I will be with
you anon.”
So speaking, Varney arose, and taking the flask from the table, he
left the room.
“I tell thee, my son,” said Alasco to Foster, as soon as Varney had
left them, “that whatever this bold and profligate railer may say of
the mighty science, in which, by Heaven’s blessing, I have advanced
so far that I would not call the wisest of living artists my better or
my teacher—I say, howsoever yonder reprobate may scoff at things
too holy to be apprehended by men merely of carnal and evil
thoughts, yet believe that the city beheld by St. John, in that bright
vision of the Christian Apocalypse, that new Jerusalem, of which all
Christian men hope to partake, sets forth typically the discovery of
the Grand Secret, whereby the most precious and perfect of nature’s
works are elicited out of her basest and most crude productions;
just as the light and gaudy butterfly, the most beautiful child of the
summer’s breeze, breaks forth from the dungeon of a sordid chrysa-
lis.”
“Master Holdforth said nought of this exposition,” said Foster
doubtfully; “and moreover, Doctor Alasco, the Holy Writ says that
the gold and precious stones of the Holy City are in no sort for
those who work abomination, or who frame lies.”
“Well, my son,” said the Doctor, “and what is your inference from
thence?”
“That those,” said Foster, “who distil poisons, and administer them
in secrecy, can have no portion in those unspeakable riches.”
“You are to distinguish, my son,” replied the alchemist, “betwixt
that which is necessarily evil in its progress and in its end also, and
that which, being evil, is, nevertheless, capable of working forth

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good. If, by the death of one person, the happy period shall be
brought nearer to us, in which all that is good shall be attained, by
wishing its presence—all that is evil escaped, by desiring its absence—
in which sickness, and pain, and sorrow shall be the obedient ser-
vants of human wisdom, and made to fly at the slightest signal of a
sage—in which that which is now richest and rarest shall be within
the compass of every one who shall be obedient to the voice of
wisdom—when the art of healing shall be lost and absorbed in the
one universal medicine when sages shall become monarchs of the
earth, and death itself retreat before their frown,—if this blessed
consummation of all things can be hastened by the slight circum-
stance that a frail, earthly body, which must needs partake corrup-
tion, shall be consigned to the grave a short space earlier than in the
course of nature, what is such a sacrifice to the advancement of the
holy Millennium?”
“Millennium is the reign of the Saints,” said Foster, somewhat
doubtfully.
“Say it is the reign of the Sages, my son,” answered Alasco; “or
rather the reign of Wisdom itself.”
“I touched on the question with Master Holdforth last exercising
night,” said Foster; “but he says your doctrine is heterodox, and a
damnable and false exposition.”
“He is in the bonds of ignorance, my son,” answered Alasco, “and
as yet burning bricks in Egypt; or, at best, wandering in the dry
desert of Sinai. Thou didst ill to speak to such a man of such mat-
ters. I will, however, give thee proof, and that shortly, which I will
defy that peevish divine to confute, though he should strive with
me as the magicians strove with Moses before King Pharaoh. I will
do projection in thy presence, my son,—in thy very presence—and
thine eyes shall witness the truth.”
“Stick to that, learned sage,” said Varney, who at this moment
entered the apartment; “if he refuse the testimony of thy tongue,
yet how shall he deny that of his own eyes?”
“Varney!” said the adept—”Varney already returned! Hast thou
—” he stopped short.
“Have I done mine errand, thou wouldst say?” replied Varney. “I
have! And thou,” he added, showing more symptoms of interest

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than he had hitherto exhibited, “art thou sure thou hast poured
forth neither more nor less than the just measure?”
“Ay,” replied the alchemist, “as sure as men can be in these nice
proportions, for there is diversity of constitutions.”
“Nay, then,” said Varney, “I fear nothing. I know thou wilt not go
a step farther to the devil than thou art justly considered for—thou
wert paid to create illness, and wouldst esteem it thriftless prodigal-
ity to do murder at the same price. Come, let us each to our cham-
ber we shall see the event to-morrow.”
“What didst thou do to make her swallow it?” said Foster, shud-
dering.
“Nothing,” answered Varney, “but looked on her with that aspect
which governs madmen, women, and children. They told me in St.
Luke’s Hospital that I have the right look for overpowering a refrac-
tory patient. The keepers made me their compliments on’t; so I know
how to win my bread when my court-favour fails me.”
“And art thou not afraid,” said Foster, “lest the dose be
disproportioned?”
“If so,” replied Varney, “she will but sleep the sounder, and the
fear of that shall not break my rest. Good night, my masters.”
Anthony Foster groaned heavily, and lifted up his hands and eyes.
The alchemist intimated his purpose to continue some experiment
of high import during the greater part of the night, and the others
separated to their places of repose.

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CHAPTER XXIII

Now God be good to me in this wild pilgrimage!

All hope in human aid I cast behind me.
Oh, who would be a woman?—who that fool,
A weeping, pining, faithful, loving woman?
She hath hard measure still where she hopes kindest,
And all her bounties only make ingrates.

Love’s Pilgrimage.

THE SUMMER EVENING was closed, and Janet, just when her longer
stay might have occasioned suspicion and inquiry in that zealous
household, returned to Cumnor Place, and hastened to the apart-
ment in which she had left her lady. She found her with her head
resting on her arms, and these crossed upon a table which stood
before her. As Janet came in, she neither looked up nor stirred.
Her faithful attendant ran to her mistress with the speed of light-
ning, and rousing her at the same time with her hand, conjured the
Countess, in the most earnest manner, to look up and say what thus
affected her. The unhappy lady raised her head accordingly, and
looking on her attendant with a ghastly eye, and cheek as pale as
clay—”Janet,” she said, “I have drunk it.”
“God be praised!” said Janet hastily—“I mean, God be praised
that it is no worse; the potion will not harm you. Rise, shake this
lethargy from your limbs, and this despair from your mind.”
“Janet,” repeated the Countess again, “disturb me not—leave me
at peace—let life pass quietly. I am poisoned.”
“You are not, my dearest lady,” answered the maiden eagerly. “What

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you have swallowed cannot injure you, for the antidote has been
taken before it, and I hastened hither to tell you that the means of
escape are open to you.”
“Escape!” exclaimed the lady, as she raised herself hastily in her
chair, while light returned to her eye and life to her cheek; “but ah!
Janet, it comes too late.”
“Not so, dearest lady. Rise, take mine arm, walk through the apart-
ment; let not fancy do the work of poison! So; feel you not now that
you are possessed of the full use of your limbs?”
“The torpor seems to diminish,” said the Countess, as, supported
by Janet, she walked to and fro in the apartment; “but is it then so,
and have I not swallowed a deadly draught? Varney was here since
thou wert gone, and commanded me, with eyes in which I read my
fate, to swallow yon horrible drug. O Janet! it must be fatal; never
was harmless draught served by such a cup-bearer!”
“He did not deem it harmless, I fear,” replied the maiden; “but
God confounds the devices of the wicked. Believe me, as I swear by
the dear Gospel in which we trust, your life is safe from his practice.
Did you not debate with him?”
“The house was silent,” answered the lady—”thou gone—no other
but he in the chamber—and he capable of every crime. I did but
stipulate he would remove his hateful presence, and I drank what-
ever he offered.—But you spoke of escape, Janet; can I be so happy?”
“Are you strong enough to bear the tidings, and make the effort?”
said the maiden.
“Strong!” answered the Countess. “Ask the hind, when the fangs
of the deerhound are stretched to gripe her, if she is strong enough
to spring over a chasm. I am equal to every effort that may relieve
me from this place.”
“Hear me, then,” said Janet. “One whom I deem an assured friend
of yours has shown himself to me in various disguises, and sought
speech of me, which—for my mind was not clear on the matter
until this evening—I have ever declined. He was the pedlar who
brought you goods—the itinerant hawker who sold me books; when-
ever I stirred abroad I was sure to see him. The event of this night
determined me to speak with him. He awaits even now at the postern
gate of the park with means for your flight.—But have you strength

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of body?—have you courage of mind?—can you undertake the en-

terprise?”
“She that flies from death,” said the lady, “finds strength of body—
she that would escape from shame lacks no strength of mind. The
thoughts of leaving behind me the villain who menaces both my life
and honour would give me strength to rise from my deathbed.”
“In God’s name, then, lady,” said Janet, “I must bid you adieu,
and to God’s charge I must commit you!”
“Will you not fly with me, then, Janet?” said the Countess, anx-
iously. “Am I to lose thee? Is this thy faithful service?”
“Lady, I would fly with you as willingly as bird ever fled from
cage, but my doing so would occasion instant discovery and pur-
suit. I must remain, and use means to disguise the truth for some
time. May Heaven pardon the falsehood, because of the necessity!”
“And am I then to travel alone with this stranger?” said the lady.
“Bethink thee, Janet, may not this prove some deeper and darker
scheme to separate me perhaps from you, who are my only friend?”
“No, madam, do not suppose it,” answered Janet readily; “the
youth is an honest youth in his purpose to you, and a friend to
Master Tressilian, under whose direction he is come hither.”
“If he be a friend of Tressilian,” said the Countess, “I will commit
myself to his charge as to that of an angel sent from heaven; for than
Tressilian never breathed mortal man more free of whatever was
base, false, or selfish. He forgot himself whenever he could be of use
to others. Alas! and how was he requited?”
With eager haste they collected the few necessaries which it was
thought proper the Countess should take with her, and which Janet,
with speed and dexterity, formed into a small bundle, not forgetting
to add such ornaments of intrinsic value as came most readily in her
way, and particularly a casket of jewels, which she wisely judged
might prove of service in some future emergency. The Countess of
Leicester next changed her dress for one which Janet usually wore
upon any brief journey, for they judged it necessary to avoid every
external distinction which might attract attention. Ere these prepa-
rations were fully made, the moon had arisen in the summer heaven,
and all in the mansion had betaken themselves to rest, or at least to
the silence and retirement of their chambers.

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There was no difficulty anticipated in escaping, whether from the

house or garden, provided only they could elude observation. An-
thony Foster had accustomed himself to consider his daughter as a
conscious sinner might regard a visible guardian angel, which, not-
withstanding his guilt, continued to hover around him; and there-
fore his trust in her knew no bounds. Janet commanded her own
motions during the daytime, and had a master-key which opened
the postern door of the park, so that she could go to the village at
pleasure, either upon the household affairs, which were entirely con-
fided to her management, or to attend her devotions at the meet-
ing-house of her sect. It is true the daughter of Foster was thus
liberally entrusted under the solemn condition that she should not
avail herself of these privileges to do anything inconsistent with the
safe-keeping of the Countess; for so her residence at Cumnor Place
had been termed, since she began of late to exhibit impatience of
the restrictions to which she was subjected. Nor is there reason to
suppose that anything short of the dreadful suspicions which the
scene of that evening had excited could have induced Janet to vio-
late her word or deceive her father’s confidence. But from what she
had witnessed, she now conceived herself not only justified, but
imperatively called upon, to make her lady’s safety the principal
object of her care, setting all other considerations aside.
The fugitive Countess with her guide traversed with hasty steps
the broken and interrupted path, which had once been an avenue,
now totally darkened by the boughs of spreading trees which met
above their head, and now receiving a doubtful and deceiving light
from the beams of the moon, which penetrated where the axe had
made openings in the wood. Their path was repeatedly interrupted
by felled trees, or the large boughs which had been left on the ground
till time served to make them into fagots and billets. The inconve-
nience and difficulty attending these interruptions, the breathless
haste of the first part of their route, the exhausting sensations of
hope and fear, so much affected the Countess’s strength, that Janet
was forced to propose that they should pause for a few minutes to
recover breath and spirits. Both therefore stood still beneath the
shadow of a huge old gnarled oak-tree, and both naturally looked
back to the mansion which they had left behind them, whose long,

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dark front was seen in the gloomy distance, with its huge stacks of
chimneys, turrets, and clock-house, rising above the line of the roof,
and definedly visible against the pure azure blue of the summer sky.
One light only twinkled from the extended and shadowy mass, and
it was placed so low that it rather seemed to glimmer from the ground
in front of the mansion than from one of the windows. The
Countess’s terror was awakened. “They follow us!” she said, point-
ing out to Janet the light which thus alarmed her.
Less agitated than her mistress, Janet perceived that the gleam was
stationary, and informed the Countess, in a whisper, that the light
proceeded from the solitary cell in which the alchemist pursued his
occult experiments. “He is of those,” she added, “who sit up and
watch by night that they may commit iniquity. Evil was the chance
which sent hither a man whose mixed speech of earthly wealth and
unearthly or superhuman knowledge hath in it what does so espe-
cially captivate my poor father. Well spoke the good Master
Holdforth—and, methought, not without meaning that those of
our household should find therein a practical use. ‘There be those,’
he said, ‘and their number is legion, who will rather, like the wicked
Ahab, listen to the dreams of the false prophet Zedekiah, than to
the words of him by whom the Lord has spoken.’ And he further
insisted—’Ah, my brethren, there be many Zedekiahs among you—
men that promise you the light of their carnal knowledge, so you
will surrender to them that of your heavenly understanding. What
are they better than the tyrant Naas, who demanded the right eye of
those who were subjected to him?’ And further he insisted—”
It is uncertain how long the fair Puritan’s memory might have
supported her in the recapitulation of Master Holdforth’s discourse;
but the Countess now interrupted her, and assured her she was so
much recovered that she could now reach the postern without the
necessity of a second delay.
They set out accordingly, and performed the second part of their
journey with more deliberation, and of course more easily, than the
first hasty commencement. This gave them leisure for reflection;
and Janet now, for the first time, ventured to ask her lady which
way she proposed to direct her flight. Receiving no immediate an-
swer—for, perhaps, in the confusion of her mind this very obvious

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subject of deliberation had not occurred to the Countess—Janet

ventured to add, “Probably to your father’s house, where you are
sure of safety and protection?”
“No, Janet,” said the lady mournfully; “I left Lidcote Hall while
my heart was light and my name was honourable, and I will not
return thither till my lord’s permission and public acknowledgment
of our marriage restore me to my native home with all the rank and
honour which he has bestowed on me.”
“And whither will you, then, madam?” said Janet.
“To Kenilworth, girl,” said the Countess, boldly and freely. “I will
see these revels—these princely revels—the preparation for which
makes the land ring from side to side. Methinks, when the Queen
of England feasts within my husband’s halls, the Countess of Le-
icester should be no unbeseeming guest.”
“I pray God you may be a welcome one!” said Janet hastily.
“You abuse my situation, Janet,” said the Countess, angrily, “and
you forget your own.”
“I do neither, dearest madam,” said the sorrowful maiden; “but
have you forgotten that the noble Earl has given such strict charges
to keep your marriage secret, that he may preserve his court-favour?
and can you think that your sudden appearance at his castle, at such
a juncture, and in such a presence, will be acceptable to him?”
“Thou thinkest I would disgrace him,” said the Countess; “nay,
let go my arm, I can walk without aid and work without counsel.”
“Be not angry with me, lady,” said Janet meekly, “and let me still
support you; the road is rough, and you are little accustomed to
walk in darkness.”
“If you deem me not so mean as may disgrace my husband,” said
the Countess, in the same resentful tone, “you suppose my Lord of
Leicester capable of abetting, perhaps of giving aim and authority
to, the base proceedings of your father and Varney, whose errand I
will do to the good Earl.”
“For God’s sake, madam, spare my father in your report,” said
Janet; “let my services, however poor, be some atonement for his
errors!”
“I were most unjust, dearest Janet, were it otherwise,” said the
Countess, resuming at once the fondness and confidence of her

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manner towards her faithful attendant, “No, Janet, not a word of

mine shall do your father prejudice. But thou seest, my love, I have
no desire but to throw my self on my husband’s protection. I have
left the abode he assigned for me, because of the villainy of the
persons by whom I was surrounded; but I will disobey his com-
mands in no other particular. I will appeal to him alone—I will be
protected by him alone; to no other, than at his pleasure, have I or
will I communicate the secret union which combines our hearts
and our destinies. I will see him, and receive from his own lips the
directions for my future conduct. Do not argue against my resolu-
tion, Janet; you will only confirm me in it. And to own the truth, I
am resolved to know my fate at once, and from my husband’s own
mouth; and to seek him at Kenilworth is the surest way to attain my
purpose.”
While Janet hastily revolved in her mind the difficulties and un-
certainties attendant on the unfortunate lady’s situation, she was
inclined to alter her first opinion, and to think, upon the whole,
that since the Countess had withdrawn herself from the retreat in
which she had been placed by her husband, it was her first duty to
repair to his presence, and possess him with the reasons for such
conduct. She knew what importance the Earl attached to the con-
cealment of their marriage, and could not but own, that by taking
any step to make it public without his permission, the Countess
would incur, in a high degree, the indignation of her husband. If
she retired to her father’s house without an explicit avowal of her
rank, her situation was likely greatly to prejudice her character; and
if she made such an avowal, it might occasion an irreconcilable breach
with her husband. At Kenilworth, again, she might plead her cause
with her husband himself, whom Janet, though distrusting him more
than the Countess did, believed incapable of being accessory to the
base and desperate means which his dependants, from whose power
the lady was now escaping, might resort to, in order to stifle her
complaints of the treatment she had received at their hands. But at
the worst, and were the Earl himself to deny her justice and protec-
tion, still at Kenilworth, if she chose to make her wrongs public, the
Countess might have Tressilian for her advocate, and the Queen for
her judge; for so much Janet had learned in her short conference

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with Wayland. She was, therefore, on the whole, reconciled to her

lady’s proposal of going towards Kenilworth, and so expressed her-
self; recommending, however, to the Countess the utmost caution
in making her arrival known to her husband,
“Hast thou thyself been cautious, Janet?” said the Countess; “this
guide, in whom I must put my confidence, hast thou not entrusted
to him the secret of my condition?”
“From me he has learned nothing,” said Janet; “nor do I think
that he knows more than what the public in general believe of your
situation.”
“And what is that?” said the lady.
“That you left your father’s house—but I shall offend you again if
I go on,” said Janet, interrupting herself.
“Nay, go on,” said the Countess; “I must learn to endure the evil
report which my folly has brought upon me. They think, I suppose,
that I have left my father’s house to follow lawless pleasure. It is an
error which will soon be removed—indeed it shall, for I will live
with spotless fame, or I shall cease to live.—I am accounted, then,
the paramour of my Leicester?”
“Most men say of Varney,” said Janet; “yet some call him only the
convenient cloak of his master’s pleasures; for reports of the profuse
expense in garnishing yonder apartments have secretly gone abroad,
and such doings far surpass the means of Varney. But this latter
opinion is little prevalent; for men dare hardly even hint suspicion
when so high a name is concerned, lest the Star Chamber should
punish them for scandal of the nobility.”
“They do well to speak low,” said the Countess, “who would men-
tion the illustrious Dudley as the accomplice of such a wretch as
Varney.—We have reached the postern. Ah! Janet, I must bid thee
farewell! Weep not, my good girl,” said she, endeavouring to cover
her own reluctance to part with her faithful attendant under an
attempt at playfulness; “and against we meet again, reform me, Janet,
that precise ruff of thine for an open rabatine of lace and cut work,
that will let men see thou hast a fair neck; and that kirtle of Philip-
pine chency, with that bugle lace which befits only a chambermaid,
into three-piled velvet and cloth of gold—thou wilt find plenty of
stuffs in my chamber, and I freely bestow them on you. Thou must

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be brave, Janet; for though thou art now but the attendant of a
distressed and errant lady, who is both nameless and fameless, yet,
when we meet again, thou must be dressed as becomes the gentle-
woman nearest in love and in service to the first Countess in En-
gland.”
“Now, may God grant it, dear lady!” said Janet—”not that I may
go with gayer apparel, but that we may both wear our kirtles over
lighter hearts.”
By this time the lock of the postern door had, after some hard
wrenching, yielded to the master-key; and the Countess, not with-
out internal shuddering, saw herself beyond the walls which her
husband’s strict commands had assigned to her as the boundary of
her walks. Waiting with much anxiety for their appearance, Wayland
Smith stood at some distance, shrouding himself behind a hedge
which bordered the high-road.
“Is all safe?” said Janet to him anxiously, as he approached them
with caution.
“All,” he replied; “but I have been unable to procure a horse for
the lady. Giles Gosling, the cowardly hilding, refused me one on
any terms whatever, lest, forsooth, he should suffer. But no matter;
she must ride on my palfrey, and I must walk by her side until I
come by another horse. There will be no pursuit, if you, pretty Mis-
tress Janet, forget not thy lesson.”
“No more than the wise widow of Tekoa forgot the words which
Joab put into her mouth,” answered Janet. “Tomorrow, I say that
my lady is unable to rise.”
“Ay; and that she hath aching and heaviness of the head a throb-
bing at the heart, and lists not to be disturbed. Fear not; they will
take the hint, and trouble thee with few questions—they under-
stand the disease,”
“But,” said the lady, “My absence must be soon discovered, and
they will murder her in revenge. I will rather return than expose her
to such danger.”
“Be at ease on my account, madam,” said Janet; “I would you
were as sure of receiving the favour you desire from those to whom
you must make appeal, as I am that my father, however angry, will
suffer no harm to befall me.”

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The Countess was now placed by Wayland upon his horse, around
the saddle of which he had placed his cloak, so folded as to make
her a commodious seat.
“Adieu, and may the blessing of God wend with you!” said Janet,
again kissing her mistress’s hand, who returned her benediction with
a mute caress. They then tore themselves asunder, and Janet, ad-
dressing Wayland, exclaimed, “May Heaven deal with you at your
need, as you are true or false to this most injured and most helpless
lady!”
“Amen! dearest Janet,” replied Way]and; “and believe me, I will so
acquit myself of my trust as may tempt even your pretty eyes, saintlike
as they are, to look less scornfully on me when we next meet.”
The latter part of this adieu was whispered into Janet’s ear and
although she made no reply to it directly, yet her manner, influ-
enced, no doubt, by her desire to leave every motive in force which
could operate towards her mistress’s safety, did not discourage the
hope which Wayland’s words expressed. She re-entered the postern
door, and locked it behind her; while, Wayland taking the horse’s
bridle in his hand, and walking close by its head, they began in
silence their dubious and moonlight journey.
Although Wayland Smith used the utmost dispatch which he could
make, yet this mode of travelling was so slow, that when morning
began to dawn through the eastern mist, he found himself no far-
ther than about ten miles distant from Cumnor. “Now, a plague
upon all smooth-spoken hosts!” said Wayland, unable longer to sup-
press his mortification and uneasiness. “Had the false loon, Giles
Gosling, but told me plainly two days since that I was to reckon
nought upon him, I had shifted better for myself. But your hosts
have such a custom of promising whatever is called for that it is not
till the steed is to be shod you find they are out of iron. Had I but
known, I could have made twenty shifts; nay, for that matter, and in
so good a cause, I would have thought little to have prigged a prancer
from the next common—it had but been sending back the brute to
the headborough. The farcy and the founders confound every horse
in the stables of the Black Bear!”
The lady endeavoured to comfort her guide, observing that the
dawn would enable him to make more speed.

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“True, madam,” he replied; “but then it will enable other folk to

take note of us, and that may prove an ill beginning of our journey.
I had not cared a spark from anvil about the matter had we been
further advanced on our way. But this Berkshire has been notori-
ously haunted, ever since I knew the country, with that sort of ma-
licious elves who sit up late and rise early for no other purpose than
to pry into other folk’s affairs. I have been endangered by them ere
now. But do not fear,” he added, “good madam; for wit, meeting
with opportunity, will not miss to find a salve for every sore.”
The alarms of her guide made more impression on the Countess’s
mind than the comfort which he judged fit to administer along
with it. She looked anxiously around her. and as the shadows with-
drew from the landscape, and the heightening glow of the eastern
sky promised the speedy rise of the sun, expected at every turn that
the increasing light would expose them to the view of the vengeful
pursuers, or present some dangerous and insurmountable obstacle
to the prosecution of their journey. Wayland Smith perceived her
uneasiness, and, displeased with himself for having given her cause
of alarm, strode on with affected alacrity, now talking to the horse
as one expert in the language of the stable, now whistling to himself
low and interrupted snatches of tunes, and now assuring the lady
there was no danger, while at the same time he looked sharply around
to see that there was nothing in sight which might give the lie to his
words while they were issuing from his mouth. Thus did they jour-
ney on, until an unexpected incident gave them the means of con-
tinuing their pilgrimage with more speed and convenience.

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CHAPTER XXIV

Richard. A horse!—A horse!—my kingdom for a horse!

Catesby. …My lord, I’ll help you to a horse.

Richard III.

OUR TRAVELLERS were in the act of passing a small thicket of trees

close by the roadside, when the first living being presented himself
whom they had seen since their departure from Cumnor Place. This
was a stupid lout, seemingly a farmer’s boy, in a grey jerkin, with his
head bare, his hose about his heels, and huge startups upon his feet.
He held by the bridle what of all things they most wanted—a pal-
frey, namely, with a side-saddle, and all other garniture for a woman’s
mounting; and he hailed Wayland Smith with, “Zur, be ye zure the
party?”
“Ay, that I be, my lad,” answered Wayland, without an instant’s
hesitation; and it must be owned that consciences trained in a stricter
school of morality might have given way to an occasion so tempt-
ing. While he spoke, he caught the rein out of the boy’s hand, and
almost at the same time helped down the Countess from his own
horse, and aided her to mount on that which chance had thus pre-
sented for her acceptance. Indeed, so naturally did the whole take
place, that the Countess, as it afterwards appeared, never suspected
but that the horse had been placed there to meet them by the pre-
caution of the guide or some of his friends.
The lad, however, who was thus hastily dispossessed of his charge,
began to stare hard, and scratch his head, as if seized with some
qualms of conscience for delivering up the animal on such brief

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explanation. “I be right zure thou be’st the party,” said he, mutter-
ing to himself, “but thou shouldst ha zaid beans, thou knawest.”
“Ay, ay,” said Wayland, speaking at a venture; “and thou bacon,
thou knowest.”
“Noa, noa,” said the lad; “bide ye—bide ye—it was peas a should
ha said.”
“Well, well,” answered Wayland, “Peas be it, a God’s name! though
Bacon were the better password.”
And being by this time mounted on his own horse, he caught the
rein of the palfrey from the uncertain hold of the hesitating young
boor, flung him a small piece of money, and made amends for lost
time by riding briskly off without further parley. The lad was still
visible from the hill up which they were riding, and Wayland, as he
looked back, beheld him standing with his fingers in his hair as
immovable as a guide-post, and his head turned in the direction in
which they were escaping from him. At length, just as they topped
the hill, he saw the clown stoop to lift up the silver groat which his
benevolence had imparted. “Now this is what I call a Godsend,”
said Wayland; “this is a bonny, well-ridden bit of a going thing, and
it will carry us so far till we get you as well mounted, and then we
will send it back time enough to satisfy the Hue and Cry.”
But he was deceived in his expectations; and fate, which seemed
at first to promise so fairly, soon threatened to turn the incident
which he thus gloried in into the cause of their utter ruin.
They had not ridden a short mile from the place where they left
the lad before they heard a man’s voice shouting on the wind be-
hind them, “Robbery! robbery!—Stop thief!” and similar exclama-
tions, which Wayland’s conscience readily assured him must arise
out of the transaction to which he had been just accessory.
“I had better have gone barefoot all my life,” he said; “it is the
Hue and Cry, and I am a lost man. Ah! Wayland, Wayland, many a
time thy father said horse-flesh would be the death of thee. Were I
once safe among the horse-coursers in Smithfield, or Turnbull Street,
they should have leave to hang me as high as St. Paul’s if I e’er
meddled more with nobles, knights, or gentlewomen.”
Amidst these dismal reflections, he turned his head repeatedly to
see by whom he was chased, and was much comforted when he

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could only discover a single rider, who was, however, well mounted,
and came after them at a speed which left them no chance of escap-
ing, even had the lady’s strength permitted her to ride as fast as her
palfrey might have been able to gallop.
“There may be fair play betwixt us, sure,” thought Wayland, “where
there is but one man on each side, and yonder fellow sits on his
horse more like a monkey than a cavalier. Pshaw! if it come to the
worse, it will be easy unhorsing him. Nay, ‘snails! I think his horse
will take the matter in his own hand, for he has the bridle betwixt
his teeth. Oons, what care I for him?” said he, as the pursuer drew
yet nearer; “it is but the little animal of a mercer from Abingdon,
when all is over.”
Even so it was, as the experienced eye of Wayland had descried at
a distance. For the valiant mercer’s horse, which was a beast of mettle,
feeling himself put to his speed, and discerning a couple of horses
riding fast at some hundred yards’ distance before him, betook him-
self to the road with such alacrity as totally deranged the seat of his
rider, who not only came up with, but passed at full gallop, those
whom he had been pursuing, pulling the reins with all his might,
and ejaculating, “Stop! stop!” an interjection which seemed rather
to regard his own palfrey than what seamen call “the chase.” With
the same involuntary speed, he shot ahead (to use another nautical
phrase) about a furlong ere he was able to stop and turn his horse,
and then rode back towards our travellers, adjusting, as well as he
could, his disordered dress, resettling himself in the saddle, and en-
deavouring to substitute a bold and martial frown for the confusion
and dismay which sat upon his visage during his involuntary career.
Wayland had just time to caution the lady not to be alarmed,
adding, “This fellow is a gull, and I will use him as such.”
When the mercer had recovered breath and audacity enough to
confront them, he ordered Wayland, in a menacing tone, to deliver
up his palfrey.
“How?” said the smith, in King Cambyses’ vein, “are we com-
manded to stand and deliver on the king’s highway? Then out,
Excalibur, and tell this knight of prowess that dire blows must de-
cide between us!”
“Haro and help, and hue and cry, every true man!” said the mer-

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cer. “I am withstood in seeking to recover mine own.”

“Thou swearest thy gods in vain, foul paynim,” said Wayland,
“for I will through with mine purpose were death at the end on’t.
Nevertheless, know, thou false man of frail cambric and ferrateen,
that I am he, even the pedlar, whom thou didst boast to meet on
Maiden Castle moor, and despoil of his pack; wherefore betake thee
to thy weapons presently.”
“I spoke but in jest, man,” said Goldthred; “I am an honest shop-
keeper and citizen, who scorns to leap forth on any man from be-
hind a hedge.”
“Then, by my faith, most puissant mercer,” answered Wayland,
“I am sorry for my vow, which was, that wherever I met thee I
would despoil thee of thy palfrey, and bestow it upon my leman,
unless thou couldst defend it by blows of force. But the vow is passed
and registered, and all I can do for thee is to leave the horse at
Donnington, in the nearest hostelry.”
“But I tell thee, friend,” said the mercer, “it is the very horse on
which I was this day to carry Jane Thackham, of Shottesbrok, as far
as the parish church yonder, to become Dame Goldthred. She hath
jumped out of the shot-window of old Gaffer Thackham’s grange;
and lo ye, yonder she stands at the place where she should have met
the palfrey, with her camlet riding-cloak and ivory-handled whip,
like a picture of Lot’s wife. I pray you, in good terms, let me have
back the palfrey.”
“Grieved am I,” said Wayland, “as much for the fair damsel as for
thee, most noble imp of muslin. But vows must have their course;
thou wilt find the palfrey at the Angel yonder at Donnington. It is
all I may do for thee with a safe conscience.”
“To the devil with thy conscience!” said the dismayed mercer.
“Wouldst thou have a bride walk to church on foot?”
“Thou mayest take her on thy crupper, Sir Goldthred,” answered
Wayland; “it will take down thy steed’s mettle.”
“And how if you—if you forget to leave my horse, as you pro-
pose?” said Goldthred, not without hesitation, for his soul was afraid
within him.
“My pack shall be pledged for it—yonder it lies with Giles Gos-
ling, in his chamber with the damasked leathern hangings, stuffed

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full with velvet, single, double, treble-piled—rash-taffeta, and

parapa—shag, damask, and mocado, plush, and grogram—”
“Hold! hold!” exclaimed the mercer; “nay, if there be, in truth and
sincerity, but the half of these wares—but if ever I trust bumpkin
with bonny Bayard again!”
“As you list for that, good Master Goldthred, and so good mor-
row to you—and well parted,” he added, riding on cheerfully with
the lady, while the discountenanced mercer rode back much slower
than he came, pondering what excuse he should make to the disap-
pointed bride, who stood waiting for her gallant groom in the midst
of the king’s highway.
“Methought,” said the lady, as they rode on, “yonder fool stared
at me as if he had some remembrance of me; yet I kept my muffler
as high as I might.”
“If I thought so,” said Wayland, “I would ride back and cut him
over the pate; there would be no fear of harming his brains, for he
never had so much as would make pap to a sucking gosling. We
must now push on, however, and at Donnington we will leave the
oaf ’s horse, that he may have no further temptation to pursue us,
and endeavour to assume such a change of shape as may baffle his
pursuit if he should persevere in it.”
The travellers reached Donnington without further alarm, where
it became matter of necessity that the Countess should enjoy two or
three hours’ repose, during which Wayland disposed himself, with
equal address and alacrity, to carry through those measures on which
the safety of their future journey seemed to depend.
Exchanging his pedlar’s gaberdine for a smock-frock, he carried the
palfrey of Goldthred to the Angel Inn, which was at the other end of
the village from that where our travellers had taken up their quarters. In
the progress of the morning, as he travelled about his other business, he
saw the steed brought forth and delivered to the cutting mercer himself,
who, at the head of a valorous posse of the Hue and Cry, came to
rescue, by force of arms, what was delivered to him without any other
ransom than the price of a huge quantity of ale, drunk out by his assis-
tants, thirsty, it would seem, with their walk, and concerning the price
of which Master Goldthred had a fierce dispute with the headborough,
whom he had summoned to aid him in raising the country.

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Having made this act of prudent as well as just restitution, Wayland

procured such change of apparel for the lady, as well as himself, as
gave them both the appearance of country people of the better class;
it being further resolved, that in order to attract the less observa-
tion, she should pass upon the road for the sister of her guide. A
good but not a gay horse, fit to keep pace with his own, and gentle
enough for a lady’s use, completed the preparations for the journey;
for making which, and for other expenses, he had been furnished
with sufficient funds by Tressilian. And thus, about noon, after the
Countess had been refreshed by the sound repose of several hours,
they resumed their journey, with the purpose of making the best of
their way to Kenilworth, by Coventry and Warwick. They were not,
however, destined to travel far without meeting some cause of ap-
prehension.
It is necessary to premise that the landlord of the inn had in-
formed them that a jovial party, intended, as he understood, to
present some of the masques or mummeries which made a part of
the entertainment with which the Queen was usually welcomed on
the royal Progresses, had left the village of Donnington an hour or
two before them in order to proceed to Kenilworth. Now it had
occurred to Wayland that, by attaching themselves in some sort to
this group as soon as they should overtake them on the road, they
would be less likely to attract notice than if they continued to travel
entirely by themselves. He communicated his idea to the Countess,
who, only anxious to arrive at Kenilworth without interruption, left
him free to choose the manner in which this was to be accomplished.
They pressed forward their horses, therefore, with the purpose of
overtaking the party of intended revellers, and making the journey
in their company; and had just seen the little party, consisting partly
of riders, partly of people on foot, crossing the summit of a gentle
hill, at about half a mile’s distance, and disappearing on the other
side, when Wayland, who maintained the most circumspect obser-
vation of all that met his eye in every direction, was aware that a
rider was coming up behind them on a horse of uncommon action,
accompanied by a serving-man, whose utmost efforts were unable
to keep up with his master’s trotting hackney, and who, therefore,
was fain to follow him at a hand gallop. Wayland looked anxiously

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back at these horsemen, became considerably disturbed in his man-

ner, looked back again, and became pale, as he said to the lady,
“That is Richard Varney’s trotting gelding; I would know him among
a thousand nags. This is a worse business than meeting the mercer.”
“Draw your sword,” answered the lady, “and pierce my bosom
with it, rather than I should fall into his hands!”
“I would rather by a thousand times,” answered Wayland, “pass it
through his body, or even mine own. But to say truth, fighting is
not my best point, though I can look on cold iron like another
when needs must be. And indeed, as for my sword—(put on, I pray
you)—it is a poor Provant rapier, and I warrant you he has a special
Toledo. He has a serving-man, too, and I think it is the drunken
ruffian Lambourne! upon the horse on which men say—(I pray you
heartily to put on)—he did the great robbery of the west country
grazier. It is not that I fear either Varney or Lambourne in a good
cause—(your palfrey will go yet faster if you urge him)—but yet—
(nay, I pray you let him not break off into a gallop, lest they should
see we fear them, and give chase —keep him only at the full trot)—
but yet, though I fear them not, I would we were well rid of them,
and that rather by policy than by violence. Could we once reach the
party before us, we may herd among them, and pass unobserved,
unless Varney be really come in express pursuit of us, and then,
happy man be his dole!”
While he thus spoke, he alternately urged and restrained his horse,
desirous to maintain the fleetest pace that was consistent with the
idea of an ordinary journey on the road, but to avoid such rapidity
of movement as might give rise to suspicion that they were flying.
At such a pace they ascended the gentle hill we have mentioned,
and looking from the top, had the pleasure to see that the party
which had left Donnington before them were in the little valley or
bottom on the other side, where the road was traversed by a rivulet,
beside which was a cottage or two. In this place they seemed to have
made a pause, which gave Wayland the hope of joining them, and
becoming a part of their company, ere Varney should overtake them.
He was the more anxious, as his companion, though she made no
complaints, and expressed no fear, began to look so deadly pale that
he was afraid she might drop from her horse. Notwithstanding this

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symptom of decaying strength, she pushed on her palfrey so briskly

that they joined the party in the bottom of the valley ere Varney
appeared on the top of the gentle eminence which they had de-
scended.
They found the company to which they meant to associate them-
selves in great disorder. The women with dishevelled locks, and looks
of great importance, ran in and out of one of the cottages, and the
men stood around holding the horses, and looking silly enough, as
is usual in cases where their assistance is not wanted.
Wayland and his charge paused, as if out of curiosity, and then gradu-
ally, without making any inquiries, or being asked any questions, they
mingled with the group, as if they had always made part of it.
They had not stood there above five minutes, anxiously keeping
as much to the side of the road as possible, so as to place the other
travellers betwixt them and Varney, when Lord Leicester’s master of
the horse, followed by Lambourne, came riding fiercely down the
hill, their horses’ flanks and the rowels of their spurs showing bloody
tokens of the rate at which they travelled. The appearance of the
stationary group around the cottages, wearing their buckram suits
in order to protect their masking dresses, having their light cart for
transporting their scenery, and carrying various fantastic properties
in their hands for the more easy conveyance, let the riders at once
into the character and purpose of the company.
“You are revelIers,” said Varney, “designing for Kenilworth?”
“Recte quidem, domine spectatissime,” answered one of the party.
“And why the devil stand you here?” said Varney, “when your
utmost dispatch will but bring you to Kenilworth in time? The
Queen dines at Warwick to-morrow, and you loiter here, ye knaves.”
“I very truth, sir,” said a little, diminutive urchin, wearing a vizard
with a couple of sprouting horns of an elegant scarlet hue, having,
moreover, a black serge jerkin drawn close to his body by lacing,
garnished with red stockings, and shoes so shaped as to resemble
cloven feet—”in very truth, sir, and you are in the right on’t. It is my
father the Devil, who, being taken in labour, has delayed our present
purpose, by increasing our company with an imp too many,”
“The devil he has!” answered Varney, whose laugh, however, never
exceeded a sarcastic smile.

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“It is even as the juvenal hath said,” added the masker who spoke
first; “Our major devil—for this is but our minor one—is even now
at Lucina, fer opem, within that very tugurium.”
“By Saint George, or rather by the Dragon, who may be a kins-
man of the fiend in the straw, a most comical chance!” said Varney.
“How sayest thou, Lambourne, wilt thou stand godfather for the
nonce? If the devil were to choose a gossip, I know no one more fit
for the office.”
“Saving always when my betters are in presence,” said Lambourne,
with the civil impudence of a servant who knows his services to be
so indispensable that his jest will be permitted to pass muster.
“And what is the name of this devil, or devil’s dam, who has timed
her turns so strangely?” said Varney. “We can ill afford to spare any
of our actors.”
“Gaudet nomine Sibyllæ,” said the first speaker; “she is called Sibyl
Laneham, wife of Master Robert Laneham—”
“Clerk to the Council-chamber door,” said Varney; “why, she is inex-
cusable, having had experience how to have ordered her matters better.
But who were those, a man and a woman, I think, who rode so hastily
up the hill before me even now? Do they belong to your company?”
Wayland was about to hazard a reply to this alarming inquiry,
when the little diablotin again thrust in his oar.
“So please you,” he said, coming close up to Varney, and speaking
so as not to be overheard by his companions, “the man was our
devil major, who has tricks enough to supply the lack of a hundred
such as Dame Laneham; and the woman, if you please, is the sage
person whose assistance is most particularly necessary to our dis-
tressed comrade.”
“Oh, what! you have got the wise woman, then?” said Varney.
“Why, truly, she rode like one bound to a place where she was needed.
And you have a spare limb of Satan, besides, to supply the place of
Mistress Laneham?”
“Ay, sir,” said the boy; “they are not so scarce in this world as your
honour’s virtuous eminence would suppose. This master-fiend shall
spit a few flashes of fire, and eruct a volume or two of smoke on the
spot, if it will do you pleasure—you would think he had AEtna in
his abdomen.”

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“I lack time just now, most hopeful imp of darkness, to witness

his performance,” said Varney; “but here is something for you all to
drink the lucky hour—and so, as the play says, ‘God be with Your
labour!’”
Thus speaking, he struck his horse with the spurs, and rode on his
way.
Lambourne tarried a moment or two behind his master, and rum-
maged his pouch for a piece of silver, which he bestowed on the
communicative imp, as he said, for his encouragement on his path
to the infernal regions, some sparks of whose fire, he said, he could
discover flashing from him already. Then having received the boy’s
thanks for his generosity he also spurred his horse, and rode after
his master as fast as the fire flashes from flint.
“And now,” said the wily imp, sidling close up to Wayland’s horse,
and cutting a gambol in the air which seemed to vindicate his title
to relationship with the prince of that element, “I have told them
who you are, do you in return tell me who I am?”
“Either Flibbertigibbet,” answered Wayland Smith, “or else an imp
of the devil in good earnest.”
“Thou hast hit it,” answered Dickie Sludge. “I am thine own Flib-
bertigibbet, man; and I have broken forth of bounds, along with
my learned preceptor, as I told thee I would do, whether he would
or not. But what lady hast thou got with thee? I saw thou wert at
fault the first question was asked, and so I drew up for thy assis-
tance. But I must know all who she is, dear Wayland.”
“Thou shalt know fifty finer things, my dear ingle,” said Wayland;
“but a truce to thine inquiries just now. And since you are bound
for Kenilworth, thither will I too, even for the love of thy sweet face
and waggish company.”
“Thou shouldst have said my waggish face and sweet company,”
said Dickie;” but how wilt thou travel with us—I mean in what
character?”
“E’en in that thou hast assigned me, to be sure—as a juggler; thou
knowest I am used to the craft,” answered Wayland.
“Ay, but the lady?” answered Flibbertigibbet. “Credit me, I think
she IS one and thou art in a sea of troubles about her at this mo-
ment, as I can perceive by thy fidgeting.”

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“Oh, she, man!—she is a poor sister of mine,” said Wayland; “she

can sing and play o’ the lute would win the fish out o’ the stream.”
“Let me hear her instantly,” said the boy, “I love the lute rarely; I
love it of all things, though I never heard it.”
“Then how canst thou love it, Flibbertigibbet?” said Wayland.
“As knights love ladies in old tales,” answered Dickie—“on hearsay.”
“Then love it on hearsay a little longer, till my sister is recovered
from the fatigue of her journey,” said Wayland; muttering after-
wards betwixt his teeth, “The devil take the imp’s curiosity! I must
keep fair weather with him, or we shall fare the worse.”
He then proceeded to state to Master Holiday his own talents as a
juggler, with those of his sister as a musician. Some proof of his
dexterity was demanded, which he gave in such a style of excel-
lence, that, delighted at obtaining such an accession to their party,
they readily acquiesced in the apology which he offered when a
display of his sister’s talents was required. The new-comers were
invited to partake of the refreshments with which the party were
provided; and it was with some difficulty that Wayland Smith ob-
tained an opportunity of being apart with his supposed sister dur-
ing the meal, of which interval he availed himself to entreat her to
forget for the present both her rank and her sorrows, and conde-
scend, as the most probable chance of remaining concealed, to mix
in the society of those with whom she was to travel.
The Countess allowed the necessity of the case, and when they
resumed their journey, endeavoured to comply with her guide’s ad-
vice, by addressing herself to a female near her, and expressing her
concern for the woman whom they were thus obliged to leave be-
hind them.
“Oh, she is well attended, madam,” replied the dame whom she
addressed, who, from her jolly and laughter-loving demeanour, might
have been the very emblem of the Wife of Bath; “and my gossip
Laneham thinks as little of these matters as any one. By the ninth
day, an the revels last so long, we shall have her with us at Kenilworth,
even if she should travel with her bantling on her back.”
There was something in this speech which took away all desire on
the Countess of Leicester’s part to continue the conversation. But
having broken the charm by speaking to her fellow-traveller first,

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the good dame, who was to play Rare Gillian of Croydon in one of
the interludes, took care that silence did not again settle on the
journey, but entertained her mute companion with a thousand an-
ecdotes of revels, from the days of King Harry downwards, with the
reception given them by the great folk, and all the names of those
who played the principal characters; but ever concluding with “they
would be nothing to the princely pleasures of Kenilworth.”
“And when shall we reach Kenilworth? said the Countess, with an
agitation which she in vain attempted to conceal.
“We that have horses may, with late riding, get to Warwick to-
night, and Kenilworth may be distant some four or five miles. But
then we must wait till the foot-people come up; although it is like
my good Lord of Leicester will have horses or light carriages to meet
them, and bring them up without being travel-toiled, which last is
no good preparation, as you may suppose, for dancing before your
betters. And yet, Lord help me, I have seen the day I would have
tramped five leagues of lea-land, and turned an my toe the whole
evening after, as a juggler spins a pewter platter on the point of a
needle. But age has clawed me somewhat in his clutch, as the song
says; though, if I like the tune and like my partner, I’ll dance the
hays yet with any merry lass in Warwickshire that writes that un-
happy figure four with a round O after it.”
If the Countess was overwhelmed with the garrulity of this good
dame, Wayland Smith, on his part, had enough to do to sustain and
parry,the constant attacks made upon him by the indefatigable cu-
riosity of his old acquaintance Richard Sludge. Nature had given
that arch youngster a prying cast of disposition, which matched
admirably with his sharp wit; the former inducing him to plant
himself as a spy on other people’s affairs, and the latter quality lead-
ing him perpetually to interfere, after he had made himself master
of that which concerned him not. He spent the livelong day in at-
tempting to peer under the Countess’s muffler, and apparently what
he could there discern greatly sharpened his curiosity.
“That sister of thine, Wayland,” he said, “has a fair neck to have
been born in a smithy, and a pretty taper hand to have been used for
twirling a spindle—faith, I’ll believe in your relationship when the
crow’s egg is hatched into a cygnet.”

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“Go to,” said Wayland, “thou art a prating boy, and should be
breeched for thine assurance.”
“Well,” said the imp, drawing off, “all I say is—remember you
have kept a secret from me, and if I give thee not a Roland for thine
Oliver, my name is not Dickon Sludge!”
This threat, and the distance at which Hobgoblin kept from him
for the rest of the way, alarmed Wayland very much, and he sug-
gested to his pretended sister that, on pretext of weariness, she should
express a desire to stop two or three miles short of the fair town of
Warwick, promising to rejoin the troop in the morning. A small
village inn afforded them a resting-place, and it was with secret plea-
sure that Wayland saw the whole party, including Dickon, pass on,
after a courteous farewell, and leave them behind.
“To-morrow, madam,” he said to his charge, “we will, with your
leave, again start early, and reach Kenilworth before the rout which
are to assemble there.”
The Countess gave assent to the proposal of her faithful guide;
but, somewhat to his surprise, said nothing further on the subject,
which left Wayland under the disagreeable uncertainty whether or
no she had formed any plan for her own future proceedings, as he
knew her situation demanded circumspection, although he was but
imperfectly acquainted with all its peculiarities. Concluding, how-
ever, that she must have friends within the castle, whose advice and
assistance she could safely trust, he supposed his task would be best
accomplished by conducting her thither in safety, agreeably to her
repeated commands.

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Kenilworth

CHAPTER XXV

Hark, the bells summon, and the bugle calls,

But she the fairest answers not—the tide
Of nobles and of ladies throngs the halls,
But she the loveliest must in secret hide.
What eyes were thine, proud Prince, which in the gleam
Of yon gay meteors lost that better sense,
That o’er the glow-worm doth the star esteem,
And merit’s modest blush o’er courtly insolence?

The Glass Slipper.

THE UNFORTUNATE Countess of Leicester had, from her infancy up-

wards, been treated by those around her with indulgence as un-
bounded as injudicious. The natural sweetness of her disposition
had saved her from becoming insolent and ill-humoured; but the
caprice which preferred the handsome and insinuating Leicester
before Tressilian, of whose high honour and unalterable affection
she herself entertained so firm an opinion—that fatal error, which
ruined the happiness of her life, had its origin in the mistaken kind-
ness; that had spared her childhood the painful but most necessary
lesson of submission and self-command. From the same indulgence
it followed that she had only been accustomed to form and to ex-
press her wishes, leaving to others the task of fulfilling them; and
thus, at the most momentous period of her life, she was alike desti-
tute of presence of mind, and of ability to form for herself any rea-
sonable or prudent plan of conduct.

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These difficulties pressed on the unfortunate lady with overwhelm-

ing force on the morning which seemed to be the crisis of her fate.
Overlooking every intermediate consideration, she had only desired
to be at Kenilworth, and to approach her husband’s presence; and
now, when she was in the vicinity of both, a thousand considerations
arose at once upon her mind, startling her with accumulated doubts
and dangers, some real, some imaginary, and all exalted and exagger-
ated by a situation alike helpless and destitute of aid and counsel.
A sleepless night rendered her so weak in the morning that she
was altogether unable to attend Wayland’s early summons. The trusty
guide became extremely distressed on the lady’s account, and some-
what alarmed on his own, and was on the point of going alone to
Kenilworth, in the hope of discovering Tressilian, and intimating to
him the lady’s approach, when about nine in the morning he was
summoned to attend her. He found her dressed, and ready for re-
suming her journey, but with a paleness of countenance which
alarmed him for her health. She intimated her desire that the horses
might be got instantly ready, and resisted with impatience her guide’s
request that she would take some refreshment before setting for-
ward. “I have had,” she said, “a cup of water—the wretch who is
dragged to execution needs no stronger cordial, and that may serve
me which suffices for him. Do as I command you.” Wayland Smith
still hesitated. “What would you have?” said she. “Have I not spo-
ken plainly?”
“Yes, madam,” answered Wayland; “but may I ask what is your
further purpose? I only wish to know, that I may guide myself by
your wishes. The whole country is afloat, and streaming towards
the Castle of Kenilworth. It will be difficult travelling thither, even
if we had the necessary passports for safe-conduct and free admit-
tance; unknown and unfriended, we may come by mishap. Your
ladyship will forgive my speaking my poor mind—were we not bet-
ter try to find out the maskers, and again join ourselves with them?”
The Countess shook her head, and her guide proceeded, “Then I
see but one other remedy.”
“Speak out, then,” said the lady, not displeased, perhaps, that he
should thus offer the advice which she was ashamed to ask; “I be-
lieve thee faithful—what wouldst thou counsel?”

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“That I should warn Master Tressilian,” said Wayland, “that you

are in this place. I am right certain he would get to horse with a few
of Lord Sussex’s followers, and ensure your personal safety.”
“And is it to me you advise,” said the Countess, “to put myself
under the protection of Sussex, the unworthy rival of the noble Le-
icester?” Then, seeing the surprise with which Wayland stared upon
her, and afraid of having too strongly intimated her interest in Le-
icester, she added, “And for Tressilian, it must not be—mention not
to him, I charge you, my unhappy name; it would but double my
misfortunes, and involve him in dangers beyond the power of res-
cue.” She paused; but when she observed that Wayland continued
to look on her with that anxious and uncertain gaze which indi-
cated a doubt whether her brain was settled, she assumed an air of
composure, and added, “Do thou but guide me to Kenilworth Castle,
good fellow, and thy task is ended, since I will then judge what
further is to be done. Thou hast yet been true to me—here is some-
thing that will make thee rich amends.”
She offered the artist a ring containing a valuable stone. Wayland
looked at it, hesitated a moment, and then returned it. “Not,” he
said, “that I am above your kindness, madam, being but a poor
fellow, who have been forced, God help me! to live by worse shifts
than the bounty of such a person as you. But, as my old master the
farrier used to say to his customers, ‘No cure, no pay.’ We are not
yet in Kenilworth Castle, and it is time enough to discharge your
guide, as they say, when you take your boots off. I trust in God your
ladyship is as well assured of fitting reception when you arrive, as
you may hold yourself certain of my best endeavours to conduct
you thither safely. I go to get the horses; meantime, let me pray you
once more, as your poor physician as well as guide, to take some
sustenance.”
“I will—I will,” said the lady hastily. “Begone, begone instantly!—
It is in vain I assume audacity,” said she, when he left the room;
“even this poor groom sees through my affectation of courage, and
fathoms the very ground of my fears.”
She then attempted to follow her guide’s advice by taking some
food, but was compelled to desist, as the effort to swallow even a
single morsel gave her so much uneasiness as amounted well-nigh

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to suffocation. A moment afterwards the horses appeared at the lat-

ticed window. The lady mounted, and found that relief from the
free air and change of place which is frequently experienced in simi-
lar circumstances.
It chanced well for the Countess’s purpose that Wayland Smith,
whose previous wandering and unsettled life had made him ac-
quainted with almost all England, was intimate with all the by-
roads, as well as direct communications, through the beautiful county
of Warwick. For such and so great was the throng which flocked in
all directions towards Kenilworth, to see the entry of Elizabeth into
that splendid mansion of her prime favourite, that the principal
roads were actually blocked up and interrupted, and it was only by
circuitous by-paths that the travellers could proceed on their jour-
ney.
The Queen’s purveyors had been abroad, sweeping the farms and
villages of those articles usually exacted during a royal Progress, and
for which the owners were afterwards to obtain a tardy payment
from the Board of Green Cloth. The Earl of Leicester’s household
officers had been scouring the country for the same purpose; and
many of his friends and allies, both near and remote, took this op-
portunity of ingratiating themselves by sending large quantities of
provisions and delicacies of all kinds, with game in huge numbers,
and whole tuns of the best liquors, foreign and domestic. Thus the
highroads were filled with droves of bullocks, sheep, calves, and
hogs, and choked with loaded wains, whose axle-trees cracked un-
der their burdens of wine-casks and hogsheads of ale, and huge ham-
pers of grocery goods, and slaughtered game, and salted provisions,
and sacks of flour. Perpetual stoppages took place as these wains
became entangled; and their rude drivers, swearing and brawling
till their wild passions were fully raised, began to debate precedence
with their wagon-whips and quarterstaves, which occasional riots
were usually quieted by a purveyor, deputy-marshal’s man, or some
other person in authority, breaking the heads of both parties.
Here were, besides, players and mummers, jugglers and show-
men, of every description, traversing in joyous bands the paths which
led to the Palace of Princely Pleasure; for so the travelling minstrels
had termed Kenilworth in the songs which already had come forth

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in anticipation of the revels which were there expected. In the midst

of this motley show, mendicants were exhibiting their real or pre-
tended miseries, forming a strange though common contrast be-
twixt the vanities and the sorrows of human existence. All these
floated along with the immense tide of population whom mere cu-
riosity had drawn together; and where the mechanic, in his leathern
apron, elbowed the dink and dainty dame, his city mistress; where
clowns, with hobnailed shoes, were treading on the kibes of sub-
stantial burghers and gentlemen of worship; and where Joan of the
dairy, with robust pace, and red, sturdy arms, rowed her way unward,
amongst those prim and pretty moppets whose sires were knights
and squires.
The throng and confusion was, however, of a gay and cheerful
character. All came forth to see and to enjoy, and all laughed at the
trifling inconveniences which at another time might have chafed
their temper. Excepting the occasional brawls which we have men-
tioned among that irritable race the carmen, the mingled sounds
which arose from the multitude were those of light-hearted mirth
and tiptoe jollity. The musicians preluded on their instruments—
the minstrels hummed their songs—the licensed jester whooped
betwixt mirth and madness, as he brandished his bauble—the
morrice-dancers jangled their bells—the rustics hallooed and
whistled-men laughed loud, and maidens giggled shrill; while many
a broad jest flew like a shuttlecock from one party, to be caught in
the air and returned from the opposite side of the road by another,
at which it was aimed.
No infliction can be so distressing to a mind absorbed in melan-
choly, as being plunged into a scene of mirth and revelry, forming
an accompaniment so dissonant from its own feelings. Yet, in the
case of the Countess of Leicester, the noise and tumult of this giddy
scene distracted her thoughts, and rendered her this sad service,
that it became impossible for her to brood on her own misery, or to
form terrible anticipations of her approaching fate. She travelled on
like one in a dream, following implicitly the guidance of Wayland,
who, with great address, now threaded his way through the general
throng of passengers, now stood still until a favourable opportunity
occurred of again moving forward, and frequently turning altogether

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out of the direct road, followed some circuitous by-path, which

brought them into the highway again, after having given them the
opportunity of traversing a considerable way with greater ease and
rapidity.
It was thus he avoided Warwick, within whose Castle (that fairest
monument of ancient and chivalrous splendour which yet remains
uninjured by time) Elizabeth had passed the previous night, and
where she was to tarry until past noon, at that time the general hour
of dinner throughout England, after which repast she was to pro-
ceed to Kenilworth, In the meanwhile, each passing group had some-
thing to say in the Sovereign’s praise, though not absolutely without
the usual mixture of satire which qualifies more or less our estimate
of our neighbours, especially if they chance to be also our betters.
“Heard you,” said. one, “how graciously she spoke to Master Bai-
liff and the Recorder, and to good Master Griffin the preacher, as
they kneeled down at her coach-window?”
“Ay, and how she said to little Aglionby, ‘Master Recorder, men
would have persuaded me that you were afraid of me, but truly I
think, so well did you reckon up to me the virtues of a sovereign,
that I have more reason to be afraid of you.’ and then with what
grace she took the fair-wrought purse with the twenty gold sover-
eigns, seeming as though she would not willingly handle it, and yet
taking it withal.”
“Ay, ay,” said another, “her fingers closed on it pretty willingly
methought, when all was done; and methought, too, she weighed
them for a second in her hand, as she would say, I hope they be
avoirdupois.”
“She needed not, neighbour,” said a third; “it is only when the
corporation pay the accounts of a poor handicraft like me, that they
put him off with clipped coin. Well, there is a God above all—little
Master Recorder, since that is the word, will be greater now than
ever.”
“Come, good neighbour,” said the first speaker “be not envious.
She is a good Queen, and a generous; she gave the purse to the Earl
of Leicester.”
“I envious?—beshrew thy heart for the word!” replied the handi-
craft. “But she will give all to the Earl of Leicester anon, methinks.”

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“You are turning ill, lady,” said Wayland Smith to the Countess of
Leicester, and proposed that she should draw off from the road, and
halt till she recovered. But, subduing her feelings at this and differ-
ent speeches to the same purpose, which caught her ear as they
passed on, she insisted that her guide should proceed to Kenilworth
with all the haste which the numerous impediments of their jour-
ney permitted. Meanwhile, Wayland’s anxiety at her repeated fits of
indisposition, and her obvious distraction of mind, was hourly in-
creasing, and he became extremely desirous that, according to her
reiterated requests, she should be safely introduced into the Castle,
where, he doubted not, she was secure of a kind reception, though
she seemed unwilling to reveal on whom she reposed her hopes.
“An I were once rid of this peril,” thought he, “and if any man
shall find me playing squire of the body to a damosel-errant, he
shall have leave to beat my brains out with my own sledge-ham-
mer!”
At length the princely Castle appeared, upon improving which,
and the domains around, the Earl of Leicester had, it is said, ex-
pended sixty thousand pounds sterling, a sum equal to half a mil-
lion of our present money.
The outer wall of this splendid and gigantic structure enclosed
seven acres, a part of which was occupied by extensive stables, and
by a pleasure garden, with its trim arbours and parterres, and the
rest formed the large base-court or outer yard of the noble Castle.
The lordly structure itself, which rose near the centre of this spa-
cious enclosure, was composed of a huge pile of magnificent castel-
lated buildings, apparently of different ages, surrounding an inner
court, and bearing in the names attached to each portion of the
magnificent mass, and in the armorial bearings which were there
blazoned, the emblems of mighty chiefs who had long passed away,
and whose history, could Ambition have lent ear to it, might have
read a lesson to the haughty favourite who had now acquired and
was augmenting the fair domain. A large and massive Keep, which
formed the citadel of the Castle, was of uncertain though great an-
tiquity. It bore the name of Caesar, perhaps from its resemblance to
that in the Tower of London so called. Some antiquaries ascribe its
foundation to the time of Kenelph, from whom the Castle had its

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name, a Saxon King of Mercia, and others to an early era after the
Norman Conquest. On the exterior walls frowned the scutcheon of
the Clintons, by whom they were founded in the reign of Henry I.;
and of the yet more redoubted Simon de Montfort, by whom, dur-
ing the Barons’ wars, Kenilworth was long held out against Henry
III. Here Mortimer, Earl of March, famous alike for his rise and his
fall, had once gaily revelled in Kenilworth, while his dethroned sov-
ereign, Edward II., languished in its dungeons. Old John of Gaunt,
“time-honoured Lancaster,” had widely extended the Castle, erect-
ing that noble and massive pile which yet bears the name of
Lancaster’s Buildings; and Leicester himself had outdone the former
possessors, princely and powerful as they were, by erecting another
immense structure, which now lies crushed under its own ruins, the
monument of its owner’s ambition. The external wall of this royal
Castle was, on the south and west sides, adorned and defended by a
lake partly artificial, across which Leicester had constructed a stately
bridge, that Elizabeth might enter the Castle by a path hitherto
untrodden, instead of the usual entrance to the northward, over
which he had erected a gatehouse or barbican, which still exists, and
is equal in extent, and superior in architecture, to the baronial castle
of many a northern chief.
Beyond the lake lay an extensive chase, full of red deer, fallow
deer, roes, and every species of game, and abounding with lofty
trees, from amongst which the extended front and massive towers
of the Castle were seen to rise in majesty and beauty. We cannot but
add, that of this lordly palace, where princes feasted and heroes
fought, now in the bloody earnest of storm and siege, and now in
the games of chivalry, where beauty dealt the prize which valour
won, all is now desolate. The bed of the lake is but a rushy swamp;
and the massive ruins of the Castle only serve to show what their
splendour once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the tran-
sitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who
enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment.
It was with far different feelings that the unfortunate Countess of
Leicester viewed those grey and massive towers, when she first be-
held them rise above the embowering and richly-shaded woods, over
which they seemed to preside. She, the undoubted wife of the great

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Earl, of Elizabeth’s minion, and England’s mighty favourite, was

approaching the presence of her husband, and that husband’s sover-
eign, under the protection, rather than the guidance, of a poor jug-
gler; and though unquestioned Mistress of that proud Castle, whose
lightest word ought to have had force sufficient to make its gates
leap from their massive hinges to receive her, yet she could not con-
ceal from herself the difficulty and peril which she must experience
in gaining admission into her own halls.
The risk and difficulty, indeed, seemed to increase every moment,
and at length threatened altogether to put a stop to her further
progress at the great gate leading to a broad and fair road, which,
traversing the breadth of the chase for the space of two miles, and
commanding several most beautiful views of the Castle and lake,
terminated at the newly constructed bridge, to which it was an ap-
pendage, and which was destined to form the Queen’s approach to
the Castle on that memorable occasion.
Here the Countess and Wayland found the gate at the end of this
avenue, which opened on the Warwick road, guarded by a body of
the Queen’s mounted yeomen of the guard, armed in corselets richly
carved and gilded, and wearing morions instead of bonnets, having
their carabines resting with the butt-end on their thighs. These
guards, distinguished for strength and stature, who did duty wher-
ever the Queen went in person, were here stationed under the direc-
tion of a pursuivant, graced with the Bear and Ragged Staff on his
arm, as belonging to the Earl of Leicester, and peremptorily refused
all admittance, excepting to such as were guests invited to the festi-
val, or persons who were to perform some part in the mirthful exhi-
bitions which were proposed.
The press was of consequence great around the entrance, and per-
sons of all kinds presented every sort of plea for admittance; to which
the guards turned an inexorable ear, pleading, in return to fair words,
and even to fair offers, the strictness of their orders, founded on the
Queen’s well-known dislike to the rude pressing of a multitude. With
those whom such reasons did not serve,they dealt more rudely, re-
pelling them without ceremony by the pressure of their powerful,
barbed horses, and good round blows from the stock of their
carabines. These last manoeuvres produced undulations amongst

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the crowd, which rendered Wayland much afraid that he might per-
force be separated from his charge in the throng. Neither did he
know what excuse to make in order to obtain admittance, and he
was debating the matter in his head with great uncertainty, when
the Earl’s pursuivant, having cast an eye upon him, exclaimed, to
his no small surprise, “Yeomen, make room for the fellow in the
orange-tawny cloak.—Come forward, Sir Coxcomb, and make haste.
What, in the fiend’s name, has kept you waiting? Come forward
with your bale of woman’s gear.”
While the pursuivant gave Wayland this pressing yet uncourteous
invitation, which, for a minute or two, he could not imagine was
applied to him, the yeomen speedily made a free passage for him,
while, only cautioning his companion to keep the muffler close
around her face, he entered the gate leading her palfrey, but with
such a drooping crest, and such a look of conscious fear and anxiety,
that the crowd, not greatly pleased at any rate with the preference
bestowed upon them, accompanied their admission with hooting
and a loud laugh of derision.
Admitted thus within the chase, though with no very flattering
notice or distinction, Wayland and his charge rode forward, musing
what difficulties it would be next their lot to encounter, through the
broad avenue, which was sentinelled on either side by a long line of
retainers, armed with swords, and partisans richly dressed in the
Earl of Leicester’s liveries, and bearing his cognizance of the Bear
and Ragged Staff, each placed within three paces of each other, so as
to line the whole road from the entrance into the park to the bridge.
And, indeed, when the lady obtained the first commanding view of
the Castle, with its stately towers rising from within a long, sweep-
ing line of outward walls, ornamented with battlements and turrets
and platforms at every point of defence, with many a banner stream-
ing from its walls, and such a bustle of gay crests and waving plumes
disposed on the terraces and battlements, and all the gay and gor-
geous scene, her heart, unaccustomed to such splendour, sank as if
it died within her, and for a moment she asked herself what she had
offered up to Leicester to deserve to become the partner of this
princely splendour. But her pride and generous spirit resisted the
whisper which bade her despair.

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“I have given him,” she said, “all that woman has to give. Name
and fame, heart and hand, have I given the lord of all this magnifi-
cence at the altar, and England’s Queen could give him no more.
He is my husband—I am his wife—whom God hath joined, man
cannot sunder. I will be bold in claiming my right; even the bolder,
that I come thus unexpected, and thus forlorn. I know my noble
Dudley well! He will be something impatient at my disobeying him,
but Amy will weep, and Dudley will forgive her.”
These meditations were interrupted by a cry of surprise from her
guide Wayland, who suddenly felt himself grasped firmly round the
body by a pair of long, thin black arms, belonging to some one who
had dropped himself out of an oak tree upon the croup of his horse,
amidst the shouts of laughter which burst from the sentinels.
“This must be the devil, or Flibbertigibbet again!” said Wayland,
after a vain struggle to disengage himself, and unhorse the urchin
who clung to him; “do Kenilworth oaks bear such acorns?”
“In sooth do they, Master Wayland,” said his unexpected adjunct,
“and many others, too hard for you to crack, for as old as you are,
without my teaching you. How would you have passed the pursuivant
at the upper gate yonder, had not I warned him our principal jug-
gler was to follow us? And here have I waited for you, having clam-
bered up into the tree from the top of the wain; and I suppose they
are all mad for want of me by this time,”
“Nay, then, thou art a limb of the devil in good earnest,” said
Wayland. “I give thee way, good imp, and will walk by thy counsel;
only, as thou art powerful be merciful.”
As he spoke, they approached a strong tower, at the south extrem-
ity of the long bridge we have mentioned, which served to protect
the outer gateway of the Castle of Kenilworth.
Under such disastrous circumstances, and in such singular com-
pany, did the unfortunate Countess of Leicester approach, for the
first time, the magnificent abode of her almost princely husband.

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CHAPTER XXVI

Snug. Have you the lion’s part written? pray, if it be, give it me, for
I am slow of study.
Quince. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Midsummer Night’s Dream.

WHEN THE COUNTESS OF LEICESTER arrived at the outer gate of the

Castle of Kenilworth, she found the tower, beneath which its ample
portal arch opened, guarded in a singular manner. Upon the battle-
ments were placed gigantic warders, with clubs, battle-axes, and other
implements of ancient warfare, designed to represent the soldiers of
King Arthur; those primitive Britons, by whom, according to ro-
mantic tradition, the Castle had been first tenanted, though history
carried back its antiquity only to the times of the Heptarchy.
Some of these tremendous figures were real men, dressed up with
vizards and buskins; others were mere pageants composed of paste-
board and buckram, which, viewed from beneath, and mingled with
those that were real, formed a sufficiently striking representation of
what was intended. But the gigantic porter who waited at the gate
beneath, and actually discharged the duties of warder, owed none of
his terrors to fictitious means. We was a man whose huge stature,
thews, sinews, and bulk in proportion, would have enabled him to
enact Colbrand, Ascapart, or any other giant of romance, without
raising himself nearer to heaven even by the altitude of a chopin.
The legs and knees of this son of Anak were bare, as were his arms
from a span below the shoulder; but his feet were defended with
sandals, fastened with cross straps of scarlet leather studded with

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brazen knobs. A close jerkin of scarlet velvet looped with gold, with
short breeches of the same, covered his body and a part of his limbs;
and he wore on his shoulders, instead of a cloak, the skin of a black
bear. The head of this formidable person was uncovered, except by
his shaggy, black hair, which descended on either side around fea-
tures of that huge, lumpish, and heavy cast which are often annexed
to men of very uncommon size, and which, notwithstanding some
distinguished exceptions, have created a general prejudice against
giants, as being a dull and sullen kind of persons. This tremendous
warder was appropriately armed with a heavy club spiked with steel.
In fine, he represented excellently one of those giants of popular
romance, who figure in every fairy tale or legend of knight-errantry.
The demeanour of this modern Titan, when Wayland Smith bent
his attention to him, had in it something arguing much mental
embarrassment and vexation; for sometimes he sat down for an in-
stant on a massive stone bench, which seemed placed for his accom-
modation beside the gateway, and then ever and anon he started up,
scratching his huge head, and striding to and fro on his post, like
one under a fit of impatience and anxiety. It was while the porter
was pacing before the gate in this agitated manner, that Wayland,
modestly, yet as a matter of course (not, however, without some
mental misgiving), was about to pass him, and enter the portal arch.
The porter, however, stopped his progress, bidding him, in a thun-
dering voice, “Stand back!” and enforcing his injunction by heaving
up his steel-shod mace, and dashing it on the ground before
Wayland’s horse’s nose with such vehemence that the pavement
flashed fire, and the archway rang to the clamour. Wayland, avail-
ing himself of Dickie’s hints, began to state that he belonged to a
band of performers to which his presence was indispensable, that he
had been accidentally detained behind, and much to the same pur-
pose. But the warder was inexorable, and kept muttering and mur-
muring something betwixt his teeth, which Wayland could make
little of; and addressing betwixt whiles a refusal of admittance,
couched in language which was but too intelligible. A specimen of
his speech might run thus:—“What, how now, my masters?” (to
himself )—“Here’s a stir—here’s a coil.”—(Then to Wayland)—”You
are a loitering knave, and shall have no entrance.”—(Again to him-

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self )—“Here’s a throng—here’s a thrusting.—I shall ne’er get

through with it—Here’s a—humph—ha.”—(To Wayland)—“Back
from the gate, or I’ll break the pate of thee.”—(Once more to him-
self )—“Here’s a—no—I shall never get through it.”
“Stand still,” whispered Flibbertigibbet into Wayland’s ear, “I know
where the shoe pinches, and will tame him in an instant.”
He dropped down from the horse, and skipping up to the porter,
plucked him by the tail of the bearskin, so as to induce him to
decline his huge head, and whispered something in his ear. Not at
the command of the lord of some Eastern talisman did ever Afrite
change his horrid frown into a look of smooth submission more
suddenly than the gigantic porter of Kenilworth relaxed the terrors
of his looks at the instant Flibbertigibbet’s whisper reached his ears.
He flung his club upon the ground, and caught up Dickie Sludge,
raising him to such a distance from the earth as might have proved
perilous had he chanced to let him slip.
“It is even so,” he said, with a thundering sound of exultation —
“it is even so, my little dandieprat. But who the devil could teach it
thee?”
“Do not thou care about that,” said Flibbertigibbet—“but—” he
looked at Wayland and the lady, and then sunk what he had to say
in a whisper, which needed not be a loud one, as the giant held him
for his convenience close to his ear. The porter then gave Dickie a
warm caress, and set him on the ground with the same care which a
careful housewife uses in replacing a cracked china cup upon her
mantelpiece, calling out at the same time to Wayland and the lady,
“In with you—in with you! and take heed how you come too late
another day when I chance to be porter.”
“Ay, ay, in with you,” added Flibbertigibbet; “I must stay a short
space with mine honest Philistine, my Goliath of Gath here; but I
will be with you anon, and at the bottom of all your secrets, were
they as deep and dark as the Castle dungeon.”
“I do believe thou wouldst,” said Wayland; “but I trust the secret
will be soon out of my keeping, and then I shall care the less whether
thou or any one knows it.”
They now crossed the entrance tower, which obtained the name
of the Gallery-tower, from the following circumstance: The whole

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bridge, extending from the entrance to another tower on the oppo-

site side of the lake, called Mortimer’s Tower, was so disposed as to
make a spacious tilt-yard, about one hundred and thirty yards in
length, and ten in breadth, strewed with the finest sand, and de-
fended on either side by strong and high palisades. The broad and
fair gallery, destined for the ladies who were to witness the feats of
chivalry presented on this area, was erected on the northern side of
the outer tower, to which it gave name. Our travellers passed slowly
along the bridge or tilt-yard, and arrived at Mortimer’s Tower, at its
farthest extremity, through which the approach led into the outer
or base-court of the Castle. Mortimer’s Tower bore on its front the
scutcheon of the Earl of March, whose daring ambition overthrew
the throne of Edward II., and aspired to share his power with the
“She-wolf of France,” to whom the unhappy monarch was wedded.
The gate, which opened under this ominous memorial, was guarded
by many warders in rich liveries; but they offered no opposition to
the entrance of the Countess and her guide, who, having passed by
license of the principal porter at the Gallery-tower, were not, it may
be supposed, liable to interruption from his deputies. They entered
accordingly, in silence, the great outward court of the Castle, hav-
ing then full before them that vast and lordly pile, with all its stately
towers, each gate open, as if in sign of unlimited hospitality, and the
apartments filled with noble guests of every degree, besides
dependants, retainers, domestics of every description, and all the
appendages and promoters of mirth and revelry.
Amid this stately and busy scene Wayland halted his horse, and
looked upon the lady, as if waiting her commands what was next to
be done, since they had safely reached the place of destination. As
she remained silent, Wayland, after waiting a minute or two, ven-
tured to ask her, in direct terms, what were her next commands. She
raised her hand to her forehead, as if in the act of collecting her
thoughts and resolution, while she answered him in a low and sup-
pressed voice, like the murmurs of one who speaks in a dream—
”Commands? I may indeed claim right to command, but who is
there will obey me!”
Then suddenly raising her head, like one who has formed a deci-
sive resolution, she addressed a gaily-dressed domestic, who was cross-

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ing the court with importance and bustle in his countenance, “Stop,
sir,” she said; “I desire to speak with, the Earl of Leicester.”
“With whom, an it please you?” said the man, surprised at the
demand; and then looking upon the mean equipage of her who
used towards him such a tone of authority, he added, with inso-
lence, “Why, what Bess of Bedlam is this would ask to see my lord
on such a day as the present?”
“Friend,” said the Countess, “be not insolent—my business with
the Earl is most urgent.”
“You must get some one else to do it, were it thrice as urgent,”
said the fellow. “I should summon my lord from the Queen’s royal
presence to do your business, should I?—I were like to be thanked
with a horse-whip. I marvel our old porter took not measure of such
ware with his club, instead of giving them passage; but his brain is
addled with getting his speech by heart.”
Two or three persons stopped, attracted by the fleering way in
which the serving-man expressed himself; and Wayland, alarmed
both for himself and the lady, hastily addressed himself to one who
appeared the most civil, and thrusting a piece of money into his
hand, held a moment’s counsel with him on the subject of finding a
place of temporary retreat for the lady. The person to whom he
spoke, being one in some authority, rebuked the others for their
incivility, and commanding one fellow to take care of the strangers’
horses, he desired them to follow him. The Countess retained pres-
ence of mind sufficient to see that it was absolutely necessary she
should comply with his request; and leaving the rude lackeys and
grooms to crack their brutal jests about light heads, light heels, and
so forth, Wayland and she followed in silence the deputy-usher,
who undertook to be their conductor.
They entered the inner court of the Castle by the great gateway,
which extended betwixt the principal Keep, or Donjon, called
Caesar’s Tower, and a stately building which passed by the name of
King Henry’s Lodging, and were thus placed in the centre of the
noble pile, which presented on its different fronts magnificent speci-
mens of every species of castellated architecture, from the Conquest
to the reign of Elizabeth, with the appropriate style and ornaments
of each.

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Across this inner court also they were conducted by their guide to
a small but strong tower, occupying the north-east angle of the build-
ing, adjacent to the great hall, and filling up a space betwixt the
immense range of kitchens and the end of the great hall itself. The
lower part of this tower was occupied by some of the household
officers of Leicester, owing to its convenient vicinity to the places
where their duty lay; but in the upper story, which was reached by a
narrow, winding stair, was a small octangular chamber, which, in
the great demand for lodgings, had been on the present occasion
fitted up for the reception of guests, though generally said to have
been used as a place of confinement for some unhappy person who
had been there murdered. Tradition called this prisoner Mervyn,
and transferred his name to the tower. That it had been used as a
prison was not improbable; for the floor of each story was arched,
the walls of tremendous thickness, while the space of the chamber
did not exceed fifteen feet in diameter. The window, however, was
pleasant, though narrow, and commanded a delightful view of what
was called the Pleasance; a space of ground enclosed and decorated
with arches, trophies, statues, fountains, and other architectural
monuments, which formed one access from the Castle itself into
the garden. There was a bed in the apartment, and other prepara-
tions for the reception of a guest, to which the Countess paid but
slight attention, her notice being instantly arrested by the sight of
writing materials placed on the table (not very commonly to be
found in the bedrooms of those days), which instantly suggested
the idea of writing to Leicester, and remaining private until she had
received his answer.
The deputy-usher having introduced them into this commodious
apartment, courteously asked Wayland, whose generosity he had
experienced, whether he could do anything further for his service.
Upon receiving a gentle hint that some refreshment would not be
unacceptable, he presently conveyed the smith to the buttery-hatch,
where dressed provisions of all sorts were distributed, with hospi-
table profusion, to all who asked for them. Wayland was readily
supplied with some light provisions, such as he thought would best
suit the faded appetite of the lady, and did not omit the opportu-
nity of himself making a hasty but hearty meal on more substantial

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fare. He then returned to the apartment in the turret, where he

found the Countess, who had finished her letter to Leicester, and in
lieu of a seal and silken thread, had secured it with a braid of her
own beautiful tresses, fastened by what is called a true-love knot.
“Good friend,” said she to Wayland, “whom God hath sent to aid
me at my utmost need, I do beseech thee, as the last trouble you
shall take for an unfortunate lady, to deliver this letter to the noble
Earl of Leicester. Be it received as it may,” she said, with features
agitated betwixt hope and fear, “thou, good fellow, shalt have no
more cumber with me. But I hope the best; and if ever lady made a
poor man rich, thou hast surely deserved it at my hand, should my
happy days ever come round again. Give it, I pray you, into Lord
Leicester’s own hand, and mark how he looks on receiving it.”
Wayland, on his part, readily undertook the commission, but anx-
iously prayed the lady, in his turn, to partake of some refreshment;
in which he at length prevailed, more through importunity and her
desire to see him begone on his errand than from any inclination
the Countess felt to comply with his request. He then left her, ad-
vising her to lock her door on the inside, and not to stir from her
little apartment; and went to seek an opportunity of discharging
her errand, as well as of carrying into effect a purpose of his own,
which circumstances had induced him to form.
In fact, from the conduct of the lady during the journey—her
long fits of profound silence, the irresolution and uncertainty which
seemed to pervade all her movements, and the obvious incapacity
of thinking and acting for herself under which she seemed to
labour—Wayland had formed the not improbable opinion that the
difficulties of her situation had in some degree affected her under-
standing.
When she had escaped from the seclusion of Cumnor Place, and
the dangers to which she was there exposed, it would have seemed
her most rational course to retire to her father’s, or elsewhere at a
distance from the power of those by whom these dangers had been
created. When, instead of doing so, she demanded to be conveyed
to Kenilworth, Wayland had been only able to account for her con-
duct by supposing that she meant to put herself under the tutelage
of Tressilian, and to appeal to the protection of the Queen. But

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now, instead of following this natural course, she entrusted him

with a letter to Leicester, the patron of Varney, and within whose
jurisdiction at least, if not under his express authority, all the evils
she had already suffered were inflicted upon her. This seemed an
unsafe and even a desperate measure, and Wayland felt anxiety for
his own safety, as well as that of the lady, should he execute her
commission before he had secured the advice and countenance of a
protector.
He therefore resolved, before delivering the letter to Leicester, that
he would seek out Tressilian, and communicate to him the arrival of
the lady at Kenilworth, and thus at once rid himself of all further
responsibility, and devolve the task of guiding and protecting this
unfortunate lady upon the patron who had at first employed him in
her service.
“He will be a better judge than I am,” said Wayland, “whether she
is to be gratified in this humour of appeal to my Lord of Leicester,
which seems like an act of insanity; and, therefore, I will turn the
matter over on his hands, deliver him the letter, receive what they
list to give me by way of guerdon, and then show the Castle of
Kenilworth a pair of light heels; for, after the work I have been
engaged in, it will be, I fear, neither a safe nor wholesome place of
residence, and I would rather shoe colts an the coldest common in
England than share in their gayest revels.”

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER XXVII

In my time I have seen a boy do wonders.

Robin, the red tinker, had a boy
Would ha run through a cat-hole.

The Coxcomb.

AMID THE UNIVERSAL bustle which filled the Castle and its environs,
it was no easy matter to find out any individual; and Wayland was
still less likely to light upon Tressilian, whom he sought so anx-
iously, because, sensible of the danger of attracting attention in the
circumstances in which he was placed, he dared not make general
inquiries among the retainers or domestics of Leicester. He learned,
however, by indirect questions, that in all probability Tressilian must
have been one of a large party of gentlemen in attendance on the
Earl of Sussex, who had accompanied their patron that morning to
Kenilworth, when Leicester had received them with marks of the
most formal respect and distinction. He further learned that both
Earls, with their followers, and many other nobles, knights, and
gentlemen, had taken horse, and gone towards Warwick several hours
since, for the purpose of escorting the Queen to Kenilworth.
Her Majesty’s arrival, like other great events, was delayed from
hour to hour; and it was now announced by a breathless post that
her Majesty, being detained by her gracious desire to receive the
homage of her lieges who had thronged to wait upon her at Warwick,
it would be the hour of twilight ere she entered the Castle. The
intelligence released for a time those who were upon duty, in the
immediate expectation of the Queen’s appearance, and ready to play

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their part in the solemnities with which it was to be accompanied;

and Wayland, seeing several horsemen enter the Castle, was not
without hopes that Tressilian might be of the number. That he might
not lose an opportunity of meeting his patron in the event of this
being the case, Wayland placed himself in the base-court of the
Castle, near Mortimer’s Tower, and watched every one who went or
came by the bridge, the extremity of which was protected by that
building. Thus stationed, nobody could enter or leave the Castle
without his observation, and most anxiously did he study the garb
and countenance of every horseman, as, passing from under the
opposite Gallery-tower, they paced slowly, or curveted, along the
tilt-yard, and approached the entrance of the base-court.
But while Wayland gazed thus eagerly to discover him whom he
saw not, he was pulled by the sleeve by one by whom he himself
would not willingly have been seen.
This was Dickie Sludge, or Flibbertigibbet, who, like the imp
whose name he bore, and whom he had been accoutred in order to
resemble, seemed to be ever at the ear of those who thought least of
him. Whatever were Wayland’s internal feelings, he judged it neces-
sary to express pleasure at their unexpected meeting.
“Ha! is it thou, my minikin—my miller’s thumb—my prince of
cacodemons—my little mouse?”
“Ay,” said Dickie, “the mouse which gnawed asunder the toils,
just when the lion who was caught in them began to look wonder-
fully like an ass.”
“Thy, thou little hop-the-gutter, thou art as sharp as vinegar this
afternoon! But tell me, how didst thou come off with yonder
jolterheaded giant whom I left thee with? I was afraid he would
have stripped thy clothes, and so swallowed thee, as men peel and
eat a roasted chestnut.”
“Had he done so,” replied the boy, “he would have had more
brains in his guts than ever he had in his noddle. But the giant is a
courteous monster, and more grateful than many other folk whom
I have helped at a pinch, Master Wayland Smith.”
“Beshrew me, Flibbertigibbet,” replied Wayland, “but thou art
sharper than a Sheffield whittle! I would I knew by what charm you
muzzled yonder old bear.”

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“Ay, that is in your own manner,” answered Dickie; “you think

fine speeches will pass muster instead of good-will. However, as to
this honest porter, you must know that when we presented our-
selves at the gate yonder, his brain was over-burdened with a speech
that had been penned for him, and which proved rather an over-
match for his gigantic faculties. Now this same pithy oration had
been indited, like sundry others, by my learned magister, Erasmus
Holiday, so I had heard it often enough to remember every line. As
soon as I heard him blundering and floundering like a fish upon
dry land, through the first verse, and perceived him at a stand, I
knew where the shoe pinched, and helped him to the next word,
when he caught me up in an ecstasy, even as you saw but now. I
promised, as the price of your admission, to hide me under his bearish
gaberdine, and prompt him in the hour of need. I have just now
been getting some food in the Castle, and am about to return to
him.”
“That’s right—that’s right, my dear Dickie,” replied Wayland;
“haste thee, for Heaven’s sake! else the poor giant will be utterly
disconsolate for want of his dwarfish auxiliary. Away with thee,
Dickie!”
“Ay, ay!” answered the boy—“away with Dickie, when we have
got what good of him we can. You will not let me know the story of
this lady, then, who is as much sister of thine as I am?”
“Why, what good would it do thee, thou silly elf?” said Wayland.
“Oh, stand ye on these terms?” said the boy. “Well, I care not
greatly about the matter—only, I never smell out a secret but I try
to be either at the right or the wrong end of it, and so good evening
to ye.”
“Nay, but, Dickie,” said Wayland, who knew the boy’s restless
and intriguing disposition too well not to fear his enmity—”stay,
my dear Dickie—part not with old friends so shortly! Thou shalt
know all I know of the lady one day.”
“Ay!” said Dickie; “and that day may prove a nigh one. Fare thee
well, Wayland—I will to my large-limbed friend, who, if he have
not so sharp a wit as some folk, is at least more grateful for the
service which other folk render him. And so again, good evening to
ye.”

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So saying, he cast a somerset through the gateway, and lighting on

the bridge, ran with the extraordinary agility which was one of his
distinguishing attributes towards the Gallery-tower, and was out of
sight in an instant.
“I would to God I were safe out of this Castle again!” prayed
Wayland internally; “for now that this mischievous imp has put his
finger in the pie, it cannot but prove a mess fit for the devil’s eating.
I would to Heaven Master Tressilian would appear!”
Tressilian, whom he was thus anxiously expecting in one direc-
tion, had returned to Kenilworth by another access. It was indeed
true, as Wayland had conjectured, that in the earlier part of the day
he had accompanied the Earls on their cavalcade towards Warwick,
not without hope that he might in that town hear some tidings of
his emissary. Being disappointed in this expectation, and observing
Varney amongst Leicester’s attendants, seeming as if he had some
purpose of advancing to and addressing him, he conceived, in the
present circumstances, it was wisest to avoid the interview. He, there-
fore, left the presence-chamber when the High-Sheriff of the county
was in the very midst of his dutiful address to her Majesty; and
mounting his horse, rode back to Kenilworth by a remote and cir-
cuitous road, and entered the Castle by a small sallyport in the west-
ern wall, at which he was readily admitted as one of the followers of
the Earl of Sussex, towards whom Leicester had commanded the
utmost courtesy to be exercised. It was thus that he met not Wayland,
who was impatiently watching his arrival, and whom he himself
would have been at least equally desirous to see.
Having delivered his horse to the charge of his attendant, he walked
for a space in the Pleasance and in the garden, rather to indulge in
comparative solitude his own reflections, than to admire those sin-
gular beauties of nature and art which the magnificence of Leicester
had there assembled. The greater part of the persons of condition
had left the Castle for the present, to form part of the Earl’s caval-
cade; others, who remained behind, were on the battlements, outer
walls, and towers, eager to view the splendid spectacle of the royal
entry. The garden, therefore, while every other part of the Castle
resounded with the human voice, was silent but for the whispering
of the leaves, the emulous warbling of the tenants of a large aviary

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 Sir Walter Scott

with their happier companions who remained denizens of the free

air, and the plashing of the fountains, which, forced into the air
from sculptures of fatastic and grotesque forms, fell down with cease-
less sound into the great basins of Italian marble.
The melancholy thoughts of Tressilian cast a gloomy shade on all
the objects with which he was surrounded. He compared the mag-
nificent scenes which he here traversed with the deep woodland
and wild moorland which surrounded Lidcote Hall, and the image
of Amy Robsart glided like a phantom through every landscape which
his imagination summoned up. Nothing is perhaps more danger-
ous to the future happiness of men of deep thought and retired
habits than the entertaining an early, long, and unfortunate attach-
ment. It frequently sinks so deep into the mind that it becomes
their dream by night and their vision by day—mixes itself with ev-
ery source of interest and enjoyment; and when blighted and with-
ered by final disappointment, it seems as if the springs of the heart
were dried up along with it. This aching of the heart, this languish-
ing after a shadow which has lost all the gaiety of its colouring, this
dwelling on the remembrance of a dream from which we have been
long roughly awakened, is the weakness of a gentle and generous
heart, and it was that of Tressilian.
He himself at length became sensible of the necessity of forcing
other objects upon his mind; and for this purpose he left the Pleas-
ance, in order to mingle with the noisy crowd upon the walls, and
view the preparation for the pageants. But as he left the garden, and
heard the busy hum, mixed with music and laughter, which floated
around him, he felt an uncontrollable reluctance to mix with soci-
ety whose feelings were in a tone so different from his own, and
resolved, instead of doing so, to retire to the chamber assigned him,
and employ himself in study until the tolling of the great Castle bell
should announce the arrival of Elizabeth.
Tressilian crossed accordingly by the passage betwixt the immense
range of kitchens and the great hall, and ascended to the third story
of Mervyn’s Tower, and applying himself to the door of the small
apartment which had been allotted to him, was surprised to find it
was locked. He then recollected that the deputy-chamberlain had
given him a master-key, advising him, in the present confused state

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of the Castle, to keep his door as much shut as possible. He applied

this key to the lock, the bolt revolved, he entered, and in the same
instant saw a female form seated in the apartment, and recognized
that form to be, Amy Robsart. His first idea was that a heated imagi-
nation had raised the image on which it doted into visible existence;
his second, that he beheld an apparition; the third and abiding con-
viction, that it was Amy herself, paler, indeed, and thinner, than in
the days of heedless happiness, when she possessed the form and
hue of a wood-nymph, with the beauty of a sylph—but still Amy,
unequalled in loveliness by aught which had ever visited his eyes.
The astonishment of the Countess was scarce less than that of
Tressilian, although it was of shorter duration, because she had heard
from Wayland that he was in the Castle. She had started up at his
first entrance, and now stood facing him, the paleness of her cheeks
having given way to a deep blush.
“Tressilian,” she said, at length, “why come you here?”
“Nay, why come you here, Amy,” returned Tressilian, “unless it be
at length to claim that aid, which, as far as one man’s heart and arm
can extend, shall instantly be rendered to you?”
She was silent a moment, and then answered in a sorrowful rather
than an angry tone, “I require no aid, Tressilian, and would rather be
injured than benefited by any which your kindness can offer me.
Believe me, I am near one whom law and love oblige to protect me.”
“The villain, then, hath done you the poor justice which remained
in his power,” said Tressilian, “and I behold before me the wife of
Varney!”
“The wife of Varney!” she replied, with all the emphasis of scorn.
“With what base name, sir, does your boldness stigmatize the—
the—the—” She hesitated, dropped her tone of scorn, looked down,
and was confused and silent; for she recollected what fatal conse-
quences might attend her completing the sentence with “the Count-
ess of Leicester,” which were the words that had naturally suggested
themselves. It would have been a betrayal of the secret, on which
her husband had assured her that his fortunes depended, to Tressilian,
to Sussex, to the Queen, and to the whole assembled court. “Never,”
she thought, “will I break my promised silence. I will submit to
every suspicion rather than that.”

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The tears rose to her eyes, as she stood silent before Tressilian;
while, looking on her with mingled grief and pity, he said, “Alas!
Amy, your eyes contradict your tongue. That speaks of a protector,
willing and able to watch over you; but these tell me you are ruined,
and deserted by the wretch to whom you have attached yourself.”
She looked on him with eyes in which anger sparkled through her
tears, but only repeated the word “wretch!” with a scornful empha-
sis.
“Yes, wretch!” said Tressilian; “for were he aught better, why are
you here, and alone, in my apartment? why was not fitting provi-
sion made for your honourable reception?”
“In your apartment?” repeated Amy—“in your apartment? It shall
instantly be relieved of my presence.” She hastened towards the door;
but the sad recollection of her deserted state at once pressed on her
mind, and pausing on the threshold, she added, in a tone unutter-
ably pathetic, “Alas! I had forgot—I know not where to go—”
“I see—I see it all,” said Tressilian, springing to her side, and lead-
ing her back to the seat, on which she sunk down. “You do need
aid—you do need protection, though you will not own it; and you
shall not need it long. Leaning on my arm, as the representative of
your excellent and broken-hearted father, on the very threshold of
the Castle gate, you shall meet Elizabeth; and the first deed she shall
do in the halls of Kenilworth shall be an act of justice to her sex and
her subjects. Strong in my good cause, and in the Queen’s justice,
the power of her minion shall not shake my resolution. I will in-
stantly seek Sussex.”
“Not for all that is under heaven!” said the Countess, much
alarmed, and feeling the absolute necessity of obtaining time, at
least, for consideration. “Tressilian, you were wont to be generous.
Grant me one request, and believe, if it be your wish to save me
from misery and from madness, you will do more by making me
the promise I ask of you, than Elizabeth can do for me with all her
power.”
“Ask me anything for which you can allege reason,” said Tressilian;
“but demand not of me—”
“Oh, limit not your boon, dear Edmund!” exclaimed the Count-
ess—“you once loved that I should call you so—limit not your boon

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to reason; for my case is all madness, and frenzy must guide the
counsels which alone can aid me.”
“If you speak thus wildly,” said Tressilian, astonishment again over-
powering both his grief and his resolution, “I must believe you in-
deed incapable of thinking or acting for yourself.”
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, sinking on one knee before him, “I am
not mad—I am but a creature unutterably miserable, and, from
circumstances the most singular, dragged on to a precipice by the
arm of him who thinks he is keeping me from it—even by yours,
Tressilian—by yours, whom I have honoured, respected—all but
loved—and yet loved, too—loved, too, Tressilian—though not as
you wished to be.”
There was an energy, a self-possession, an abandonment in her
voice and manner, a total resignation of herself to his generosity,
which, together with the kindness of her expressions to himself,
moved him deeply. He raised her, and, in broken accents, entreated
her to be comforted.
“I cannot,” she said, “I will not be comforted, till you grant me my
request! I will speak as plainly as I dare. I am now awaiting the com-
mands of one who has a right to issue them. The interference of a third
person—of you in especial, Tressilian—will be ruin—utter ruin to me.
Wait but four-and-twenty hours, and it may be that the poor Amy may
have the means to show that she values, and can reward, your disinter-
ested friendship—that she is happy herself, and has the means to make
you so. It is surely worth your patience, for so short a space?”
Tressilian paused, and weighing in his mind the various prob-
abilities which might render a violent interference on his part more
prejudicial than advantageous, both to the happiness and reputa-
tion of Amy; considering also that she was within the walls of
Kenilworth, and could suffer no injury in a castle honoured with
the Queen’s residence, and filled with her guards and attendants—
he conceived, upon the whole, that he might render her more evil
than good service by intruding upon her his appeal to Elizabeth in
her behalf. He expressed his resolution cautiously, however, doubt-
ing naturally whether Amy’s hopes of extricating herself from her
difficulties rested on anything stronger than a blinded attachment
to Varney, whom he supposed to be her seducer.

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“Amy,” he said, while he fixed his sad and expressive eyes on hers,
which, in her ecstasy of doubt, terror, and perplexity, she cast up
towards him, “I have ever remarked that when others called thee
girlish and wilful, there lay under that external semblance of youth-
ful and self-willed folly deep feeling and strong sense. In this I will
confide, trusting your own fate in your own hands for the space of
twenty-four hours, without my interference by word or act.”
“Do you promise me this, Tressilian?” said the Countess. “Is it
possible you can yet repose so much confidence in me? Do you
promise, as you are a gentleman and a man of honour, to intrude in
my matters neither by speech nor action, whatever you may see or
hear that seems to you to demand your interference? Will you so far
trust me?”
“I will upon my honour,” said Tressilian; “but when that space is
expired—”
“Then that space is expired,” she said, interrupting him, “you are
free to act as your judgment shall determine.”
“Is there nought besides which I can do for you, Amy?” said
Tressilian.
“Nothing,” said she, “save to leave me,—that is, if—I blush to
acknowledge my helplessness by asking it—if you can spare me the
use of this apartment for the next twenty-four hours.”
“This is most wonderful!” said Tressilian; “what hope or interest
can you have in a Castle where you cannot command even an apart-
ment?”
“Argue not, but leave me,” she said; and added, as he slowly and
unwillingly retired, “Generous Edmund! the time may come when
Amy may show she deserved thy noble attachment.”

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CHAPTER XXVIII

What, man, ne’er lack a draught, when the full can

Stands at thine elbow, and craves emptying!—
Nay, fear not me, for I have no delight
To watch men’s vices, since I have myself
Of virtue nought to boast of—I’m a striker,
Would have the world strike with me, pell-mell, all.

Pandemonium.

TRESSILIAN, in strange agitation of mind, had hardly stepped down

the first two or three steps of the winding staircase, when, greatly to
his surprise and displeasure, he met Michael Lambourne, wearing
an impudent familiarity of visage, for which Tressilian felt much
disposed to throw him down-stairs; until he remembered the preju-
dice which Amy, the only object of his solicitude, was likely to re-
ceive from his engaging in any act of violence at that time and in
that place.
He therefore contented himself with looking sternly upon
Lambourne, as upon one whom he deemed unworthy of notice,
and attempted to pass him in his way downstairs, without any symp-
tom of recognition. But Lambourne, who, amidst the profusion of
that day’s hospitality, had not failed to take a deep though not an
overpowering cup of sack, was not in the humour of humbling him-
self before any man’s looks. He stopped Tressilian upon the staircase
without the least bashfulness or embarrassment, and addressed him
as if he had been on kind and intimate terms:—“What, no grudge
between us, I hope, upon old scores, Master Tressilian?—nay, I am

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one who remembers former kindness rather than latter feud. I’ll
convince you that I meant honestly and kindly, ay, and comfortably
by you.”
“I desire none of your intimacy,” said Tressilian—“keep company
with your mates.”
“Now, see how hasty he is!” said Lambourne; “and how these
gentles, that are made questionless out of the porcelain clay of the
earth, look down upon poor Michael Lambourne! You would take
Master Tressilian now for the most maid-like, modest, simpering
squire of dames that ever made love when candles were long i’ the
stuff—snuff; call you it? Why, you would play the saint on us, Mas-
ter Tressilian, and forget that even now thou hast a commodity in
thy very bedchamber, to the shame of my lord’s castle, ha! ha! ha!
Have I touched you, Master Tressilian?”
“I know not what you mean,” said Tressilian, inferring, however,
too surely, that this licentious ruffian must have been sensible of
Amy’s presence in his apartment; ‘i but if,” he continued, “thou art
varlet of the chambers, and lackest a fee, there is one to leave mine
unmolested.”
Lambourne looked at the piece of gold, and put it in his pocket
saying, “Now, I know not but you might have done more with me
by a kind word than by this chiming rogue. But after all he pays
well that pays with gold; and Mike Lambourne was never a makebate,
or a spoil-sport, or the like. E’en live, and let others live, that is my
motto-only, I would not let some folks cock their beaver at me nei-
ther, as if they were made of silver ore, and I of Dutch pewter. So if
I keep your secret, Master Tressilian, you may look sweet on me at
least; and were I to want a little backing or countenance, being
caught, as you see the best of us may be, in a sort of peccadillo—
why, you owe it me—and so e’en make your chamber serve you and
that same bird in bower beside—it’s all one to Mike Lambourne.”
“Make way, sir,” said Tressilian, unable to bridle his indignation,
“you have had your fee.”
“Um!” said Lambourne, giving place, however, while he sulkily
muttered between his teeth, repeating Tressilian’s words, “Make
way—and you have had your fee; but it matters not, I will spoil no
sport, as I said before. I am no dog in the manger—mind that.”

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He spoke louder and louder, as Tressilian, by whom he felt him-

self overawed, got farther and farther out of hearing.
“I am no dog in the manger; but I will not carry coals neither—
mind that, Master Tressilian; and I will have a peep at this wench
whom you have quartered so commodiously in your old haunted
room—afraid of ghosts, belike, and not too willing to sleep alone.
If I had done this now in a strange lord’s castle, the word had been,
The porter’s lodge for the knave! and, have him flogged—trundle
him downstairs like a turnip! Ay, but your virtuous gentlemen take
strange privileges over us, who are downright servants of our senses.
Well—I have my Master Tressilian’s head under my belt by this
lucky discovery, that is one thing certain; and I will try to get a sight
of this Lindabrides of his, that is another.”

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER XXIX

Now fare thee well, my master—if true service

Be guerdon’d with hard looks, e’en cut the tow-line,
And let our barks across the pathless flood
Hold different courses—

The Shipwreck.

TRESSILIAN walked into the outer yard of the Castle scarce knowing
what to think of his late strange and most unexpected interview
with Amy Robsart, and dubious if he had done well, being entrusted
with the delegated authority of her father, to pass his word so sol-
emnly to leave her to her own guidance for so many hours. Yet how
could he have denied her request—dependent as she had too prob-
ably rendered herself upon Varney? Such was his natural reasoning.
The happiness of her future life might depend upon his not driving
her to extremities; and since no authority of Tressilian’s could extri-
cate her from the power of Varney, supposing he was to acknowl-
edge Amy to be his wife, what title had he to destroy the hope of
domestic peace, which might yet remain to her, by setting enmity
betwixt them? Tressilian resolved, therefore, scrupulously to observe
his word pledged to Amy, both because it had been given, and be-
cause, as he still thought, while he considered and reconsidered that
extraordinary interview, it could not with justice or propriety have
been refused.
In one respect, he had gained much towards securing effectual
protection for this unhappy and still beloved object of his early af-
fection. Amy was no longer mewed up in a distant and solitary

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retreat under the charge of persons of doubtful reputation. She was

in the Castle of Kenilworth, within the verge of the Royal Court for
the time, free from all risk of violence, and liable to be produced
before Elizabeth on the first summons. These were circumstances
which could not but assist greatly the efforts which he might have
occasion to use in her behalf.
While he was thus balancing the advantages and perils which at-
tended her unexpected presence in Kenilworth, Tressilian was hast-
ily and anxiously accosted by Wayland, who, after ejaculating,
“Thank God, your worship is found at last!” proceeded with breath-
less caution to pour into his ear the intelligence that the lady had
escaped from Cumnor Place.
“And is at present in this Castle,” said Tressilian. “I know it, and I
have seen her. Was it by her own choice she found refuge in my
apartment?”
“No,” answered Wayland; “but I could think of no other way of
safely bestowing her, and was but too happy to find a deputy-usher
who knew where you were quartered—in jolly society truly, the hall
on the one hand, and the kitchen on the other!”
“Peace, this is no time for jesting,” answered Tressilian sternly.
“I wot that but too well,” said the artist, “for I have felt these three
days as if I had a halter round my neck. This lady knows not her
own mind—she will have none of your aid—commands you not to
be named to her—and is about to put herself into the hands of my
Lord Leicester. I had never got her safe into your chamber, had she
known the owner of it.”
“Is it possible”” said Tressilian. “But she may have hopes the Earl
will exert his influence in her favour over his villainous dependant.”
“I know nothing of that,” said Wayland; “but I believe, if she is to
reconcile herself with either Leicester or Varney, the side of the Castle
of Kenilworth which will be safest for us will be the outside, from
which we can fastest fly away. It is not my purpose to abide an
instant after delivery of the letter to Leicester, which waits but your
commands to find its way to him. See, here it is—but no—a plague
on it—I must have left it in my dog-hole, in the hay-loft yonder,
where I am to sleep.”
“Death and fury!” said Tressilian, transported beyond his usual

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patience; “thou hast not lost that on which may depend a stake
more important than a thousand such lives as thine?”
“Lost it!” answered Wayland readily; “that were a jest indeed! No,
sir, I have it carefully put up with my night-sack, and some matters
I have occasion to use; I will fetch it in an instant.”
“Do so,” said Tressilian; “be faithful, and thou shalt be well re-
warded. But if I have reason to suspect thee, a dead dog were in
better case than thou!”
Wayland bowed, and took his leave with seeming confidence and
alacrity, but, in fact, filled with the utmost dread and confusion.
The letter was lost, that was certain, notwithstanding the apology
which he had made to appease the impatient displeasure of Tressilian.
It was lost—it might fall into wrong hands—it would then cer-
tainly occasion a discovery of the whole intrigue in which he had
been engaged; nor, indeed, did Wayland see much prospect of its
remaining concealed, in any event. He felt much hurt, besides, at
Tressilian’s burst of impatience.
“Nay, if I am to be paid in this coin for services where my neck is
concerned, it is time I should look to myself. Here have I offended,
for aught I know, to the death, the lord of this stately castle, whose
word were as powerful to take away my life as the breath which
speaks it to blow out a farthing candle. And all this for a mad lady,
and a melancholy gallant, who, on the loss of a four-nooked bit of
paper, has his hand on his poignado, and swears death and fury!—
Then there is the Doctor and Varney. —I will save myself from the
whole mess of them. Life is dearer than gold. I will fly this instant,
though I leave my reward behind me.”
These reflections naturally enough occurred to a mind like
Wayland’s, who found himself engaged far deeper than he had ex-
pected in a train of mysterious and unintelligible intrigues, in which
the actors seemed hardly to know their own course. And yet, to do
him justice, his personal fears were, in some degree, counterbal-
anced by his compassion for the deserted state of the lady.
“I care not a groat for Master Tressilian,” he said; “I have done
more than bargain by him, and I have brought his errant-damosel
within his reach, so that he may look after her himself. But I fear the
poor thing is in much danger amongst these stormy spirits. I will to

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her chamber, and tell her the fate which has befallen her letter, that
she may write another if she list. She cannot lack a messenger, I
trow, where there are so many lackeys that can carry a letter to their
lord. And I will tell her also that I leave the Castle, trusting her to
God, her own guidance, and Master Tressilian’s care and looking
after. Perhaps she may remember the ring she offered me—it was
well earned, I trow; but she is a lovely creature, and—marry hang
the ring! I will not bear a base spirit for the matter. If I fare ill in this
world for my good-nature, I shall have better chance in the next. So
now for the lady, and then for the road.”
With the stealthy step and jealous eye of the cat that steals on her
prey, Wayland resumed the way to the Countess’s chamber, sliding
along by the side of the courts and passages, alike observant of all
around him, and studious himself to escape observation. In this
manner he crossed the outward and inward Castle yard, and the
great arched passage, which, running betwixt the range of kitchen
offices and the hall, led to the bottom of the little winding-stair that
gave access to the chambers of Mervyn’s Tower.
The artist congratulated himself on having escaped the various per-
ils of his journey, and was in the act of ascending by two steps at once,
when he observed that the shadow of a man, thrown from a door
which stood ajar, darkened the opposite wall of the staircase. Wayland
drew back cautiously, went down to the inner courtyard, spent about
a quarter of an hour, which seemed at least quadruple its usual dura-
tion, in walking from place to place, and then returned to the tower,
in hopes to find that the lurker had disappeared. He ascended as high
as the suspicious spot—there was no shadow on the wall; he ascended
a few yards farther—the door was still ajar, and he was doubtful
whether to advance or retreat, when it was suddenly thrown wide
open, and Michael Lambourne bolted out upon the astonished
Wayland. “Who the devil art thou? and what seekest thou in this part
of the Castle? march into that chamber, and be hanged to thee!”
“I am no dog, to go at every man’s whistle,” said the artist, affect-
ing a confidence which was belied by a timid shake in his voice.
“Sayest thou me so?—Come hither, Lawrence Staples.”
A huge, ill-made and ill-looked fellow, upwards of six feet high,
appeared at the door, and Lambourne proceeded: “If thou be’st so

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fond of this tower, my friend, thou shalt see its foundations, good
twelve feet below the bed of the lake, and tenanted by certain jolly
toads, snakes, and so forth, which thou wilt find mighty good com-
pany. Therefore, once more I ask you in fair play, who thou art, and
what thou seekest here?”
“If the dungeon-grate once clashes behind me,” thought Wayland,
“I am a gone man.” He therefore answered submissively, “He was
the poor juggler whom his honour had met yesterday in Weatherly
Bottom.”
“And what juggling trick art thou playing in this tower? Thy gang,”
said Lambourne, “lie over against Clinton’s buildings.”
“I came here to see my sister,” said the juggler, “who is in Master
Tressilian’s chamber, just above.”
“Aha!” said Lambourne, smiling, “here be truths! Upon my honour,
for a stranger, this same Master Tressilian makes himself at home
among us, and furnishes out his cell handsomely, with all sorts of
commodities. This will be a precious tale of the sainted Master
Tressilian, and will be welcome to some folks, as a purse of broad
pieces to me.—Hark ye, fellow,” he continued, addressing Wayland,
“thou shalt not give Puss a hint to steal away we must catch her in
her form. So, back with that pitiful sheep-biting visage of thine, or
I will fling thee from the window of the tower, and try if your jug-
gling skill can save your bones.”
“Your worship will not be so hardhearted, I trust,” said Wayland;
“poor folk must live. I trust your honour will allow me to speak
with my sister?”
“Sister on Adam’s side, I warrant,” said Lambourne; “or, if other-
wise, the more knave thou. But sister or no sister. thou diest on
point of fox, if thou comest a-prying to this tower once more. And
now I think of it—uds daggers and death!—I will see thee out of
the Castle, for this is a more main concern than thy jugglery.”
“But, please your worship,” said Wayland, “I am to enact Arion in
the pageant upon the lake this very evening.”
“I will act it myself by Saint Christopher!” said Lambourne.
“Orion, callest thou him?—I will act Orion, his belt and his seven
stars to boot. Come along, for a rascal knave as thou art—follow
me! Or stay—Lawrence, do thou bring him along.”

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Lawrence seized by the collar of the cloak the unresisting juggler;

while Lambourne, with hasty steps, led the way to that same sallyport,
or secret postern, by which Tressilian had returned to the Castle,
and which opened in the western wall at no great distance from
Mervyn’s Tower.
While traversing with a rapid foot the space betwixt the tower
and the sallyport, Wayland in vain racked his brain for some device
which might avail the poor lady, for whom, notwithstanding his
own imminent danger, he felt deep interest. But when he was thrust
out of the Castle, and informed by Lambourne, with a tremendous
oath, that instant death would be the consequence of his again ap-
proaching it, he cast up his hands and eyes to heaven, as if to call
God to witness he had stood to the uttermost in defence of the
oppressed; then turned his back on the proud towers of Kenilworth,
and went his way to seek a humbler and safer place of refuge.
Lawrence and Lambourne gazed a little while after Wayland, and
then turned to go back to their tower, when the former thus ad-
dressed his companion: “Never credit me, Master Lambourne, if I
can guess why thou hast driven this poor caitiff from the Castle,
just when he was to bear a part in the show that was beginning, and
all this about a wench,”
“Ah, Lawrence,” replied Lambourne, “thou art thinking of Black
Joan Jugges of Slingdon, and hast sympathy with human frailty.
But, corragio, most noble Duke of the Dungeon and Lord of Limbo,
for thou art as dark in this matter as thine own dominions of Little-
ease. My most reverend Signior of the Low Countries of Kenilworth,
know that our most notable master, Richard Varney, would give as
much to have a hole in this same Tressilian’s coat, as would make us
some fifty midnight carousals, with the full leave of bidding the
steward go snick up, if he came to startle us too soon from our
goblets.”
“Nay, an that be the case, thou hast right,” said Lawrence Staples,
the upper-warder, or, in common phrase, the first jailer, of Kenilworth
Castle, and of the Liberty and Honour belonging thereto. “But how
will you manage when you are absent at the Queen’s entrance, Mas-
ter Lambourne; for methinks thou must attend thy master there?”
“Why thou, mine honest prince of prisons, must keep ward in my

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absence. Let Tressilian enter if he will, but see thou let no one come
out. If the damsel herself would make a break, as ’tis not unlike she
may, scare her back with rough words; she is but a paltry player’s
wench after all.”
“Nay for that matter,” said Lawrence, “I might shut the iron wicket
upon her that stands without the double door, and so force per
force she will be bound to her answer without more trouble.”
“Then Tressilian will not get access to her,” said Lambourne, re-
flecting a moment. “But ’tis no matter; she will be detected in his
chamber, and that is all one. But confess, thou old bat’s-eyed dun-
geon-keeper, that you fear to keep awake by yourself in that Mervyn’s
Tower of thine?”
“Why, as to fear, Master Lambourne,” said the fellow, “I mind it
not the turning of a key; but strange things have been heard and
seen in that tower. You must have heard, for as short time as you
have been in Kenilworth, that it is haunted by the spirit of Arthur
ap Mervyn, a wild chief taken by fierce Lord Mortimer when he was
one of the Lords Marchers of Wales, and murdered, as they say, in
that same tower which bears his name.”
“Oh, I have heard the tale five hundred times,” said Lambourne,
“and how the ghost is always most vociferous when they boil leeks
and stirabout, or fry toasted cheese, in the culinary regions. Santo
Diavolo, man, hold thy tongue, I know all about it!”
“Ay, but thou dost not, though,” said the turnkey, “for as wise as
thou wouldst make thyself. Ah, it is an awful thing to murder a
prisoner in his ward!—you that may have given a man a stab in a
dark street know nothing of it. To give a mutinous fellow a knock
on the head with the keys, and bid him be quiet, that’s what I call
keeping order in the ward; but to draw weapon and slay him, as was
done to this Welsh lord, that raises you a ghost that will render your
prison-house untenantable by any decent captive for some hundred
years. And I have that regard for my prisoners, poor things, that I
have put good squires and men of worship, that have taken a ride
on the highway, or slandered my Lord of Leicester, or the like, fifty
feet under ground, rather than I would put them into that upper
chamber yonder that they call Mervyn’s Bower. Indeed, by good
Saint Peter of the Fetters, I marvel my noble lord, or Master Varney,

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could think of lodging guests there; and if this Master Tressilian

could get any one to keep him company, and in especial a pretty
wench, why, truly, I think he was in the right on’t.”
“I tell thee,” said Lambourne, leading the way into the turnkey’s
apartment, “thou art an ass. Go bolt the wicket on the stair, and
trouble not thy noddle about ghosts. Give me the wine stoup, man;
I am somewhat heated with chafing with yonder rascal.”
While Lambourne drew a long draught from a pitcher of claret,
which he made use of without any cup, the warder went on, vindi-
cating his own belief in the supernatural.
“Thou hast been few hours in this Castle, and hast been for the
whole space so drunk, Lambourne, that thou art deaf, dumb, and
blind. But we should hear less of your bragging were you to pass a
night with us at full moon; for then the ghost is busiest, and more
especially when a rattling wind sets in from the north-west, with
some sprinkling of rain, and now and then a growl of thunder. Body
o’ me, what crackings and clashings, what groanings and what
howlings, will there be at such times in Mervyn’s Bower, right as it
were over our heads, till the matter of two quarts of distilled waters
has not been enough to keep my lads and me in some heart!”
“Pshaw, man!” replied Lambourne, on whom his last draught,
joined to repeated visitations of the pitcher upon former occasions,
began to make some innovation, “thou speakest thou knowest not
what about spirits. No one knows justly what to say about them;
and, in short, least said may in that matter be soonest amended.
Some men believe in one thing, some in another —it is all matter of
fancy. I have known them of all sorts, my dear Lawrence Lock-the-
door, and sensible men too. There’s a great lord—we’ll pass his name,
Lawrence—he believes in the stars and the moon, the planets and
their courses, and so forth, and that they twinkle exclusively for his
benefit, when in sober, or rather in drunken truth, Lawrence, they
are only shining to keep honest fellows like me out of the kennel.
Well, sir, let his humour pass; he is great enough to indulge it. Then,
look ye, there is another—a very learned man, I promise you, and
can vent Greek and Hebrew as fast as I can Thieves’ Latin he has an
humour of sympathies and antipathies—of changing lead into gold,
and the like; why, via, let that pass too, and let him pay those in

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transmigrated coin who are fools enough to let it be current with

them. Then here comest thou thyself, another great man, though
neither learned nor noble, yet full six feet high, and thou, like a
purblind mole, must needs believe in ghosts and goblins, and such
like. Now, there is, besides, a great man—that is, a great little man,
or a little great man, my dear Lawrence—and his name begins with
V, and what believes he? Why, nothing, honest Lawrence—nothing
in earth, heaven, or hell; and for my part, if I believe there is a devil,
it is only because I think there must be some one to catch our afore-
said friend by the back ‘when soul and body sever,’ as the ballad
says; for your antecedent will have a consequent—raro antecedentem,
as Doctor Bircham was wont to say. But this is Greek to you now,
honest Lawrence, and in sooth learning is dry work. Hand me the
pitcher once more.”
“In faith, if you drink more, Michael,” said the warder, “you will
be in sorry case either to play Arion or to wait on your master on
such a solemn night; and I expect each moment to hear the great
bell toll for the muster at Mortimer’s Tower, to receive the Queen.”
While Staples remonstrated, Lambourne drank; and then setting
down the pitcher, which was nearly emptied, with a deep sigh, he
said, in an undertone, which soon rose to a high one as his speech
proceeded, “Never mind, Lawrence; if I be drunk, I know that shall
make Varney uphold me sober. But, as I said, never mind; I can
carry my drink discreetly. Moreover, I am to go on the water as
Orion, and shall take cold unless I take something comfortable be-
forehand. Not play Orion? Let us see the best roarer that ever strained
his lungs for twelve pence out-mouth me! What if they see me a
little disguised? Wherefore should any man be sober to-night? an-
swer me that. It is matter of loyalty to be merry; and I tell thee there
are those in the Castle who, if they are not merry when drunk, have
little chance to be merry when sober—I name no names, Lawrence.
But your pottle of sack is a fine shoeing-horn to pull on a loyal
humour, and a merry one. Huzza for Queen Elizabeth!—for the
noble Leicester!—for the worshipful Master Varney!—and for
Michael Lambourne, that can turn them all round his finger!”
So saying, he walked downstairs, and across the inner court.
The warder looked after him, shook his head, and while he drew

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close and locked a wicket, which, crossing the staircase, rendered it

impossible for any one to ascend higher than the story immediately
beneath Mervyn’s Bower, as Tressilian’s chamber was named, he thus
soliloquized with himself—“It’s a good thing to be a favourite. I
well-nigh lost mine office, because one frosty morning Master Varney
thought I smelled of aqua vitae; and this fellow can appear before
him drunk as a wineskin, and yet meet no rebuke. But then he is a
pestilent clever fellow withal, and no one can understand above one
half of what he says.”

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER XXX

Now bid the steeple rock—she comes, she comes!—

Speak for us, bells—speak for us, shrill-tongued tuckets.
Stand to thy linstock, gunner; let thy cannon
Play such a peal, as if a paynim foe
Came stretch’d in turban’d ranks to storm the ramparts.
We will have pageants too—but that craves wit,
And I’m a rough-hewn soldier.

The Virgin Queen—A Tragi-Comedy.

TRESSILIAN, when Wayland had left him, as mentioned in the last

chapter, remained uncertain what he ought next to do, when Ra-
leigh and Blount came up to him arm in arm, yet, according to
their wont, very eagerly disputing together. Tressilian had no great
desire for their society in the present state of his feelings, but there
was no possibility of avoiding them; and indeed he felt that, bound
by his promise not to approach Amy, or take any step in her behalf,
it would be his best course at once to mix with general society, and
to exhibit on his brow as little as he could of the anguish and uncer-
tainty which sat heavy at his heart. He therefore made a virtue of
necessity, and hailed his comrades with, “All mirth to you, gentle-
men! Whence come ye?”
“From Warwick, to be sure,” said Blount; “we must needs home
to change our habits, like poor players, who are fain to multiply
their persons to outward appearance by change of suits; and you
had better do the like, Tressilian.”
“Blount is right,” said Raleigh; “the Queen loves such marks of

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deference, and notices, as wanting in respect, those who, not arriv-

ing in her immediate attendance, may appear in their soiled and
ruffled riding-dress. But look at Blount himself, Tressilian, for the
love of laughter, and see how his villainous tailor hath apparelled
him—in blue, green, and crimson, with carnation ribbons, and yel-
low roses in his shoes!”
“Why, what wouldst thou have?” said Blount. “I told the cross-
legged thief to do his best, and spare no cost; and methinks these
things are gay enough—gayer than thine own. I’ll be judged by
Tressilian.”
“I agree—I agree,” said Walter Raleigh. “Judge betwixt us,
Tressilian, for the love of heaven!”
Tressilian, thus appealed to, looked at them both, and was imme-
diately sensible at a single glance that honest Blount had taken upon
the tailor’s warrant the pied garments which he had chosen to make,
and was as much embarrassed by the quantity of points and ribbons
which garnished his dress, as a clown is in his holiday clothes; while
the dress of Raleigh was a well-fancied and rich suit, which the wearer
bore as a garb too well adapted to his elegant person to attract par-
ticular attention. Tressilian said, therefore, “That Blount’s dress was
finest, but Raleigh’s the best fancied.”
Blount was satisfied with his decision. “I knew mine was finest,”
he said; “if that knave Doublestitch had brought me home such a
simple doublet as that of Raleigh’s, I would have beat his brains out
with his own pressing-iron. Nay, if we must be fools, ever let us be
fools of the first head, say I.”
“But why gettest thou not on thy braveries, Tressilian?” said Ra-
leigh.
“I am excluded from my apartment by a silly mistake,” said
Tressilian, “and separated for the time from my baggage. I was about
to seek thee, to beseech a share of thy lodging.”
“And welcome,” said Raleigh; “it is a noble one. My Lord of Le-
icester has done us that kindness, and lodged us in princely fashion.
If his courtesy be extorted reluctantly, it is at least extended far. I
would advise you to tell your strait to the Earl’s chamberlain—you
will have instant redress.”
“Nay, it is not worth while, since you can spare me room,” replied

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Tressilian—”I would not be troublesome. Has any one come hither

with you?”
“Oh, ay,” said Blount; “Varney and a whole tribe of Leicestrians,
besides about a score of us honest Sussex folk. We are all, it seems,
to receive the Queen at what they call the Gallery-tower, and wit-
ness some fooleries there; and then we’re to remain in attendance
upon the Queen in the Great Hall—God bless the mark! —while
those who are now waiting upon her Grace get rid of their slough,
and doff their riding-suits. Heaven help me, if her Grace should
speak to me, I shall never know what to answer!”
“And what has detained them so long at Warwick?” said Tressilian,
unwilling that their conversation should return to his own affairs.
“Such a succession of fooleries,” said Blount, “as were never seen
at Bartholomew-fair. We have had speeches and players, and dogs
and bears, and men making monkeys and women moppets of them-
selves—I marvel the Queen could endure it. But ever and anon
came in something of ‘the lovely light of her gracious countenance,’
or some such trash. Ah! vanity makes a fool of the wisest. But come,
let us on to this same Gallery-tower—though I see not what thou
Tressilian, canst do with thy riding-dress and boots.”
“I will take my station behind thee, Blount,” said Tressilian, who
saw that his friend’s unusual finery had taken a strong hold of his
imagination; “thy goodly size and gay dress will cover my defects.”
“And so thou shalt, Edmund,” said Blount. “In faith I am glad
thou thinkest my garb well-fancied, for all Mr. Wittypate here; for
when one does a foolish thing, it is right to do it handsomely.”
So saying, Blount cocked his beaver, threw out his leg, and marched
manfully forward, as if at the head of his brigade of pikemen, ever
and anon looking with complaisance on his crimson stockings, and
the huge yellow roses which blossomed on his shoes. Tressilian fol-
lowed, wrapt in his own sad thoughts, and scarce minding Raleigh,
whose quick fancy, amused by the awkward vanity of his respect-
able friend, vented itself in jests, which he whispered into Tressilian’s
ear.
In this manner they crossed the long bridge, or tilt-yard, and took
their station, with other gentlemen of quality, before the outer gate
of the Gallery, or Entrance-tower. The whole amounted to about

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forty persons, all selected as of the first rank under that of knight-
hood, and were disposed in double rows on either side of the gate,
like a guard of honour, within the close hedge of pikes and partisans
which was formed by Leicester’s retainers, wearing his liveries. The
gentlemen carried no arms save their swords and daggers. These
gallants were as gaily dressed as imagination could devise; and as the
garb of the time permitted a great display of expensive magnifi-
cence, nought was to be seen but velvet and cloth of gold and silver,
ribbons, leathers, gems, and golden chains. In spite of his more se-
rious subjects of distress, Tressilian could not help feeling that he,
with his riding-suit, however handsome it might be, made rather an
unworthy figure among these “fierce vanities,” and the rather be-
cause he saw that his deshabille was the subject of wonder among
his own friends, and of scorn among the partisans of Leicester.
We could not suppress this fact, though it may seem something at
variance with the gravity of Tressilian’s character; but the truth is,
that a regard for personal appearance is a species of self-love, from
which the wisest are not exempt, and to which the mind clings so
instinctively that not only the soldier advancing to almost inevi-
table death, but even the doomed criminal who goes to certain ex-
ecution, shows an anxiety to array his person to the best advantage.
But this is a digression.
It was the twilight of a summer night (9th July, 1575), the sun
having for some time set, and all were in anxious expectation of the
Queen’s immediate approach. The multitude had remained as-
sembled for many hours, and their numbers were still rather on the
increase. A profuse distribution of refreshments, together with roasted
oxen, and barrels of ale set a-broach in different places of the road,
had kept the populace in perfect love and loyalty towards the Queen
and her favourite, which might have somewhat abated had fasting
been added to watching. They passed away the time, therefore, with
the usual popular amusements of whooping, hallooing, shrieking,
and playing rude tricks upon each other, forming the chorus of dis-
cordant sounds usual on such occasions. These prevailed all through
the crowded roads and fields, and especially beyond the gate of the
Chase, where the greater number of the common sort were sta-
tioned; when, all of a sudden, a single rocket was seen to shoot into

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the atmosphere, and, at the instant, far heard over flood and field,
the great bell of the Castle tolled.
Immediately there was a pause of dead silence, succeeded by a
deep hum of expectation, the united voice of many thousands, none
of whom spoke above their breath—or, to use a singular expression,
the whisper of an immense multitude.
“They come now, for certain,” said Raleigh. “Tressilian, that sound
is grand. We hear it from this distance as mariners, after a long
voyage, hear, upon their night-watch, the tide rush upon some dis-
tant and unknown shore.”
“Mass!” answered Blount, “I hear it rather as I used to hear mine
own kine lowing from the close of Wittenswestlowe.”
“He will assuredly graze presently,” said Raleigh to Tressilian; “his
thought is all of fat oxen and fertile meadows. He grows little better
than one of his own beeves, and only becomes grand when he is
provoked to pushing and goring.”
“We shall have him at that presently,” said Tressilian, “if you spare
not your wit.”
“Tush, I care not,” answered Raleigh; “but thou too, Tressilian,
hast turned a kind of owl, that flies only by night—hast exchanged
thy songs for screechings, and good company for an ivy-tod.”
“But what manner of animal art thou thyself, Raleigh,” said
Tressilian, “that thou holdest us all so lightly?”
“Who—I?” replied Raleigh. “An eagle am I, that never will think
of dull earth while there is a heaven to soar in, and a sun to gaze
upon.”
“Well bragged, by Saint Barnaby!” said Blount; “but, good Master
Eagle, beware the cage, and beware the fowler. Many birds have flown
as high that I have seen stuffed with straw and hung up to scare kites.—
But hark, what a dead silence hath fallen on them at once!”
“The procession pauses,” said Raleigh, “at the gate of the Chase,
where a sibyl, one of the Fatidicæ, meets the Queen, to tell her for-
tune. I saw the verses; there is little savour in them, and her Grace
has been already crammed full with such poetical compliments. She
whispered to me, during the Recorder’s speech yonder, at Ford-mill,
as she entered the liberties of Warwick, how she was ‘pertaesa barbaræ
loquelæ.’”

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“The Queen whispered to him!” said Blount, in a kind of solilo-

quy; “Good God, to what will this world come!”
His further meditations were interrupted by a shout of applause
from the multitude, so tremendously vociferous that the country
echoed for miles round. The guards, thickly stationed upon the road
by which the Queen was to advance, caught up the acclamation,
which ran like wildfire to the Castle, and announced to all within
that Queen Elizabeth had entered the Royal Chase of Kenilworth.
The whole music of the Castle sounded at once, and a round of
artillery, with a salvo of small arms, was discharged from the battle-
ments; but the noise of drums and trumpets, and even of the can-
non themselves, was but faintly heard amidst the roaring and reiter-
ated welcomes of the multitude.
As the noise began to abate, a broad glare of light was seen to
appear from the gate of the Park, and broadening and brightening
as it came nearer, advanced along the open and fair avenue that led
towards the Gallery-tower; and which, as we have already noticed,
was lined on either hand by the retainers of the Earl of Leicester.
The word was passed along the line, “The Queen! The Queen! Si-
lence, and stand fast!” Onward came the cavalcade, illuminated by
two hundred thick waxen torches, in the hands of as many horse-
men, which cast a light like that of broad day all around the proces-
sion, but especially on the principal group, of which the Queen
herself, arrayed in the most splendid manner, and blazing with jew-
els, formed the central figure. She was mounted on a milk-white
horse, which she reined with peculiar grace and dignity; and in the
whole of her stately and noble carriage you saw the daughter of an
hundred kings.
The ladies of the court, who rode beside her Majesty, had taken
especial care that their own external appearance should not be more
glorious than their rank and the occasion altogether demanded, so
that no inferior luminary might appear to approach the orbit of roy-
alty. But their personal charms, and the magnificence by which, un-
der every prudential restraint, they were necessarily distinguished, ex-
hibited them as the very flower of a realm so far famed for splendour
and beauty. The magnificence of the courtiers, free from such re-
straints as prudence imposed on the ladies, was yet more unbounded.

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 Sir Walter Scott

Leicester, who glittered like a golden image with jewels and cloth
of gold, rode on her Majesty’s right hand, as well in quality of her
host as of her master of the horse. The black steed which he mounted
had not a single white hair on his body, and was one of the most
renowned chargers in Europe, having been purchased by the Earl at
large expense for this royal occasion. As the noble animal chafed at
the slow pace of the procession, and, arching his stately neck,
champed on the silver bits which restrained him, the foam flew
from his mouth, and speckled his well-formed limbs as if with spots
of snow. The rider well became the high place which he held, and
the proud steed which he bestrode; for no man in England, or per-
haps in Europe, was more perfect than Dudley in horsemanship,
and all other exercises belonging to his quality. He was bareheaded
as were all the courtiers in the train; and the red torchlight shone
upon his long, curled tresses of dark hair, and on his noble features,
to the beauty of which even the severest criticism could only object
the lordly fault, as it may be termed, of a forehead somewhat too
high. On that proud evening those features wore all the grateful
solicitude of a subject, to show himself sensible of the high honour
which the Queen was conferring on him, and all the pride and sat-
isfaction which became so glorious a moment. Yet, though neither
eye nor feature betrayed aught but feelings which suited the occa-
sion, some of the Earl’s personal attendants remarked that he was
unusually pale, and they expressed to each other their fear that he
was taking more fatigue than consisted with his health.
Varney followed close behind his master, as the principal esquire
in waiting, and had charge of his lordship’s black velvet bonnet,
garnished with a clasp of diamonds and surmounted by a white
plume. He kept his eye constantly on his master, and, for reasons
with which the reader is not unacquainted, was, among Leicester’s
numerous dependants, the one who was most anxious that his lord’s
strength and resolution should carry him successfully through a day
so agitating. For although Varney was one of the few, the very few
moral monsters who contrive to lull to sleep the remorse of their
own bosoms, and are drugged into moral insensibility by atheism,
as men in extreme agony are lulled by opium, yet he knew that in
the breast of his patron there was already awakened the fire that is

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never quenched, and that his lord felt, amid all the pomp and mag-
nificence we have described, the gnawing of the worm that dieth
not. Still, however, assured as Lord Leicester stood, by Varney’s own
intelligence, that his Countess laboured under an indisposition which
formed an unanswerable apology to the Queen for her not appear-
ing at Kenilworth, there was little danger, his wily retainer thought,
that a man so ambitious would betray himself by giving way to any
external weakness.
The train, male and female, who attended immediately upon the
Queen’s person, were, of course, of the bravest and the fairest —the
highest born nobles, and the wisest counsellors, of that distinguished
reign, to repeat whose names were but to weary the reader. Behind
came a long crowd of knights and gentlemen, whose rank and birth,
however distinguished, were thrown into shade, as their persons
into the rear of a procession whose front was of such august majesty.
Thus marshalled, the cavalcade approached the Gallery-tower,
which formed, as we have often observed, the extreme barrier of the
Castle.
It was now the part of the huge porter to step forward; but the
lubbard was so overwhelmed with confusion of spirit—the con-
tents of one immense black jack of double ale, which he had just
drunk to quicken his memory, having treacherously confused the
brain it was intended to clear—that he only groaned piteously, and
remained sitting on his stone seat; and the Queen would have passed
on without greeting, had not the gigantic warder’s secret ally, Flib-
bertigibbet, who lay perdue behind him, thrust a pin into the rear
of the short femoral garment which we elsewhere described.
The porter uttered a sort of yell, which came not amiss into his
part, started up with his club, and dealt a sound douse or two on
each side of him; and then, like a coach-horse pricked by the spur,
started off at once into the full career of his address, and by dint of
active prompting on the part of Dickie Sludge, delivered, in sounds
of gigantic intonation, a speech which may be thus abridged—the
reader being to suppose that the first lines were addressed to the
throng who approached the gateway; the conclusion, at the approach
of the Queen, upon sight of whom, as struck by some heavenly
vision, the gigantic warder dropped his club, resigned his keys, and

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gave open way to the Goddess of the night, and all her magnificent
train.

“What stir, what turmoil, have we for the nones?

Stand back, my masters, or beware your bones!
Sirs, I’m a warder, and no man of straw,
My voice keeps order, and my club gives law.

Yet soft—nay, stay—what vision have we here?

What dainty darling’s this—what peerless peer?
What loveliest face, that loving ranks unfold,
Like brightest diamond chased in purest gold?
Dazzled and blind, mine office I forsake,
My club, my key, my knee, my homage take.
Bright paragon, pass on in joy and bliss;—
Beshrew the gate that opes not wide at such a sight as this!”

[This is an imitation of Gascoigne’s verses spoken by the Herculean

porter, as mentioned in the text. The original may be found in the
republication of the Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth, by the same
author, in the History of Kenilworth already quoted. Chiswick,
1821.]

Elizabeth received most graciously the homage of the Herculean

porter, and, bending her head to him in requital, passed through his
guarded tower, from the top of which was poured a clamorous blast
of warlike music, which was replied to by other bands of minstrelsy
placed at different points on the Castle walls, and by others again
stationed in the Chase; while the tones of the one, as they yet vi-
brated on the echoes, were caught up and answered by new har-
mony from different quarters.
Amidst these bursts of music, which, as if the work of enchant-
ment, seemed now close at hand, now softened by distant space,
now wailing so low and sweet as if that distance were gradually pro-
longed until only the last lingering strains could reach the ear, Queen
Elizabeth crossed the Gallery-tower, and came upon the long bridge,
which extended from thence to Mortimer’s Tower, and which was

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already as light as day, so many torches had been fastened to the

palisades on either side. Most of the nobles here alighted, and sent
their horses to the neighbouring village of Kenilworth, following
the Queen on foot, as did the gentlemen who had stood in array to
receive her at the Gallery-tower.
On this occasion, as at different times during the evening, Ra-
leigh addressed himself to Tressilian, and was not a little surprised at
his vague and unsatisfactory answers; which, joined to his leaving
his apartment without any assigned reason, appearing in an undress
when it was likely to be offensive to the Queen, and some other
symptoms of irregularity which he thought he discovered, led him
to doubt whether his friend did not labour under some temporary
derangement.
Meanwhile, the Queen had no sooner stepped on the bridge than
a new spectacle was provided; for as soon as the music gave signal
that she was so far advanced, a raft, so disposed as to resemble a
small floating island, illuminated by a great variety of torches, and
surrounded by floating pageants formed to represent sea-horses, on
which sat Tritons, Nereids, and other fabulous deities of the seas
and rivers, made its appearance upon the lake, and issuing from
behind a small heronry where it had been concealed, floated gently
towards the farther end of the bridge.
On the islet appeared a beautiful woman, clad in a watchet-
coloured silken mantle, bound with a broad girdle inscribed with
characters like the phylacteries of the Hebrews. Her feet and arms
were bare, but her wrists and ankles were adorned with gold brace-
lets of uncommon size. Amidst her long, silky black hair she wore a
crown or chaplet of artificial mistletoe, and bore in her hand a rod
of ebony tipped with silver. Two Nymphs attended on her, dressed
in the same antique and mystical guise.
The pageant was so well managed that this Lady of the Floating
Island, having performed her voyage with much picturesque effect,
landed at Mortimer’s Tower with her two attendants just as Eliza-
beth presented herself before that outwork. The stranger then, in a
well-penned speech, announced herself as that famous Lady of the
Lake renowned in the stories of King Arthur, who had nursed the
youth of the redoubted Sir Lancelot, and whose beauty ‘had proved

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too powerful both for the wisdom and the spells of the mighty
Merlin. Since that early period she had remained possessed of her
crystal dominions, she said, despite the various men of fame and
might by whom Kenilworth had been successively tenanted. ‘The
Saxons, the Danes, the Normans, the Saintlowes, the Clintons, the
Montforts, the Mortimers, the Plantagenets, great though they were
in arms and magnificence, had never, she said, caused her to raise
her head from the waters which hid her crystal palace. But a greater
than all these great names had now appeared, and she came in hom-
age and duty to welcome the peerless Elizabeth to all sport which
the Castle and its environs, which lake or land, could afford.
The Queen received this address also with great courtesy, and made
answer in raillery, “We thought this lake had belonged to our own
dominions, fair dame; but since so famed a lady claims it for hers,
we will be glad at some other time to have further communing with
you touching our joint interests.”
With this gracious answer the Lady of the Lake vanished, and
Arion, who was amongst the maritime deities, appeared upon his
dolphin. But Lambourne, who had taken upon him the part in the
absence of Wayland, being chilled with remaining immersed in an
element to which he was not friendly, having never got his speech
by heart, and not having, like the porter, the advantage of a prompter,
paid it off with impudence, tearing off his vizard, and swearing,
“Cogs bones! he was none of Arion or Orion either, but honest
Mike Lambourne, that had been drinking her Majesty’s health from
morning till midnight, and was come to bid her heartily welcome
to Kenilworth Castle.”
This unpremeditated buffoonery answered the purpose probably
better than the set speech would have done. The Queen laughed
heartily, and swore (in her turn) that he had made the best speech
she had heard that day. Lambourne, who instantly saw his jest had
saved his bones, jumped on shore, gave his dolphin a kick, and
declared he would never meddle with fish again, except at dinner.
At the same time that the Queen was about to enter the Castle,
that memorable discharge of fireworks by water and land took place,
which Master Laneham, formerly introduced to the reader, has
strained all his eloquence to describe.

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“Such,” says the Clerk of the Council-chamber door “was the blaze
of burning darts, the gleams of stars coruscant, the streams and hail
of fiery sparks, lightnings of wildfire, and flight-shot of thunder-
bolts, with continuance, terror, and vehemency, that the heavens
thundered, the waters surged, and the earth shook; and for my part,
hardy as I am, it made me very vengeably afraid.”
[See Laneham’s Account of the Queen’s Entertainment at
Killingworth Castle, in 1575, a very diverting tract, written by as
great a coxcomb as ever blotted paper. [See Note 6] The original is
extremely rare, but it has been twice reprinted; once in Mr. Nichols’s
very curious and interesting collection of the Progresses and Public
Processions of Queen Elizabeth, vol.i. and more lately in a beautiful
antiquarian publication, termed Kenilworth Illustrated, printed at
Chiswick, for Meridew of Coventry and Radcliffe of Birmingham.
It contains reprints of Laneham’s Letter, Gascoigne’s PrinceIy
Progress, and other scarce pieces, annotated with accuracy and abil-
ity. The author takes the liberty to refer to this work as his authority
for the account of the festivities.
I am indebted for a curious ground-plan of the Castle of
Kenilworth, as it existed in Queen Elizabeth’s time, to the voluntary
kindness of Richard Badnall Esq. of Olivebank, near Liverpool. From
his obliging communication, I learn that the original sketch was
found among the manuscripts of the celebrated J. J. Rousseau, when
he left England. These were entrusted by the philosopher to the
care of his friend Mr. Davenport, and passed from his legatee into
the possession of Mr. Badnall.]

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER XXXI

Nay, this is matter for the month of March,

When hares are maddest. Either speak in reason,
Giving cold argument the wall of passion,
Or I break up the court.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

IT IS BY NO MEANS our purpose to detail minutely all the princely

festivities of Kenilworth, after the fashion of Master Robert Laneham,
whom we quoted in the conclusion of the last chapter. It is suffi-
cient to say that under discharge of the splendid fireworks, which
we have borrowed Laneham’s eloquence to describe, the Queen en-
tered the base-court of Kenilworth, through Mortimer’s Tower, and
moving on through pageants of heathen gods and heroes of antiq-
uity, who offered gifts and compliments on the bended knee, at
length found her way to the Great Hall of the Castle, gorgeously
hung for her reception with the richest silken tapestry, misty with
perfumes, and sounding to strains of soft and delicious music. From
the highly-carved oaken roof hung a superb chandelier of gilt bronze,
formed like a spread eagle, whose outstretched wings supported three
male and three female figures, grasping a pair of branches in each
hand. The Hall was thus illuminated by twenty-four torches of wax.
At the upper end of the splendid apartment was a state canopy,
overshadowing a royal throne, and beside it was a door, which opened
to a long suite of apartments, decorated with the utmost magnifi-
cence for the Queen and her ladies, whenever it should be her plea-
sure to be private.

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The Earl of Leicester having handed the Queen up to her throne,

and seated her there, knelt down before her, and kissing the hand
which she held out, with an air in which romantic and respectful
gallantry was happily mingled with the air of loyal devotion, he
thanked her, in terms of the deepest gratitude, for the highest honour
which a sovereign could render to a subject. So handsome did he
look when kneeling before her, that Elizabeth was tempted to pro-
long the scene a little longer than there was, strictly speaking, neces-
sity for; and ere she raised him, she passed her hand over his head,
so near as almost to touch his long, curled, and perfumed hair, and
with a movement of fondness that seemed to intimate she would, if
she dared, have made the motion a slight caress.
[To justify what may be considered as a high-coloured picture, the
author quotes the original of the courtly and shrewd Sir James
Melville, being then Queen Mary’s envoy at the court of London.
“I was required,” says Sir James, “to stay till I had seen him made
Earle of Leicester, and Baron of Denbigh, with great solemnity;
herself (Elizabeth) helping to put on his ceremonial, he sitting on
his knees before her, keeping a great gravity and a discreet behaviour;
but she could not refrain from putting her hand to his neck to kittle
(i.e., tickle) him, smilingly, the French Ambassador and I standing
beside her.”—Melville’s Memoirs, Bannatyne Edition, p. 120.]
She at length raised him, and standing beside the throne, he ex-
plained to her the various preparations which had been made for
her amusement and accommodation, all of which received her
prompt and gracious approbation. The Earl then prayed her Maj-
esty for permission that he himself, and the nobles who had been in
attendance upon her during the journey, might retire for a few min-
utes, and put themselves into a guise more fitting for dutiful atten-
dance, during which space those gentlemen of worship (pointing to
Varney, Blount, Tressilian, and others), who had already put them-
selves into fresh attire, would have the honour of keeping her pres-
ence-chamber.
“Be it so, my lord,” answered the Queen; “you could manage a
theatre well, who can thus command a double set of actors. For
ourselves, we will receive your courtesies this evening but clown-
ishly, since it is not our purpose to change our riding attire, being in

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effect something fatigued with a journey which the concourse of

our good people hath rendered slow, though the love they have shown
our person hath, at the same time, made it delightful.”
Leicester, having received this permission, retired accordingly, and
was followed by those nobles who had attended the Queen to
Kenilworth in person. The gentlemen who had preceded them, and
were, of course, dressed for the solemnity, remained in attendance.
But being most of them of rather inferior rank, they remained at an
awful distance from the throne which Elizabeth occupied. The
Queen’s sharp eye soon distinguished Raleigh amongst them, with
one or two others who were personally known to her, and she in-
stantly made them a sign to approach, and accosted them very gra-
ciously. Raleigh, in particular, the adventure of whose cloak, as well
as the incident of the verses, remained on her mind, was very gra-
ciously received; and to him she most frequently applied for infor-
mation concerning the names and rank of those who were in pres-
ence. These he communicated concisely, and not without some traits
of humorous satire, by which Elizabeth seemed much amused. “And
who is yonder clownish fellow?” she said, looking at Tressilian, whose
soiled dress on this occasion greatly obscured his good mien.
“A poet, if it please your Grace,” replied Raleigh.
“I might have guessed that from his careless garb,” said Elizabeth.
“I have known some poets so thoughtless as to throw their cloaks
into gutters.”
“It must have been when the sun dazzled both their eyes and their
judgment,” answered Raleigh.
Elizabeth smiled, and proceeded, “I asked that slovenly fellow’s
name, and you only told me his profession.”
“Tressilian is his name,” said Raleigh, with internal reluctance, for
he foresaw nothing favourable to his friend from the manner in
which she took notice of him.
“Tressilian!” answered Elizabeth. “Oh, the Menelaus of our ro-
mance. Why, he has dressed himself in a guise that will go far to
exculpate his fair and false Helen. And where is Farnham, or what-
ever his name is—my Lord of Leicester’s man, I mean—the Paris of
this Devonshire tale?”
With still greater reluctance Raleigh named and pointed out to

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her Varney, for whom the tailor had done all that art could perform
in making his exterior agreeable; and who, if he had not grace, had
a sort of tact and habitual knowledge of breeding, which came in
place of it.
The Queen turned her eyes from the one to the other. “I doubt,”
she said, “this same poetical Master Tressilian, who is too learned, I
warrant me, to remember whose presence he was to appear in, may
be one of those of whom Geoffrey Chaucer says wittily, the wisest
clerks are not the wisest men. I remember that Varney is a smooth-
tongued varlet. I doubt this fair runaway hath had reasons for break-
ing her faith.”
To this Raleigh durst make no answer, aware how little he should
benefit Tressilian by contradicting the Queen’s sentiments, and not at
all certain, on the whole, whether the best thing that could befall him
would not be that she should put an end at once by her authority to
this affair, upon which it seemed to him Tressilian’s thoughts were
fixed with unavailing and distressing pertinacity. As these reflections
passed through his active brain, the lower door of the hall opened,
and Leicester, accompanied by several of his kinsmen, and of the nobles
who had embraced his faction, re-entered the Castle Hall.
The favourite Earl was now apparelled all in white, his shoes be-
ing of white velvet; his under-stocks (or stockings) of knit silk; his
upper stocks of white velvet, lined with cloth of silver, which was
shown at the slashed part of the middle thigh; his doublet of cloth
of silver, the close jerkin of white velvet, embroidered with silver
and seed-pearl, his girdle and the scabbard of his sword of white
velvet with golden buckles; his poniard and sword hilted and
mounted with gold; and over all a rich, loose robe of white satin,
with a border of golden embroidery a foot in breadth. The collar of
the Garter, and the azure garter itself around his knee, completed
the appointments of the Earl of Leicester; which were so well matched
by his fair stature, graceful gesture, fine proportion of body, and
handsome countenance, that at that moment he was admitted by
all who saw him as the goodliest person whom they had ever looked
upon. Sussex and the other nobles were also richly attired, but in
point of splendour and gracefulness of mien Leicester far exceeded
them all.

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 Sir Walter Scott

Elizabeth received him with great complacency. “We have one

piece of royal justice,” she said, “to attend to. It is a piece of justice,
too, which interests us as a woman, as well as in the character of
mother and guardian of the English people.”
An involuntary shudder came over Leicester as he bowed low, ex-
pressive of his readiness to receive her royal commands; and a similar
cold fit came over Varney, whose eyes (seldom during that evening
removed from his patron) instantly perceived from the change in his
looks, slight as that was, of what the Queen was speaking. But Leices-
ter had wrought his resolution up to the point which, in his crooked
policy, he judged necessary; and when Elizabeth added, “it is of the
matter of Varney and Tressilian we speak—is the lady here, my lord?”
his answer was ready—“Gracious madam, she is not.”
Elizabeth bent her brews and compressed her lips. “Our orders
were strict and positive, my lord,” was her answer—
“And should have been obeyed, good my liege,” replied Leicester,
“had they been expressed in the form of the lightest wish. But —
Varney, step forward—this gentleman will inform your Grace of
the cause why the lady” (he could not force his rebellious tongue to
utter the words—his wife) “cannot attend on your royal presence.”
Varney advanced, and pleaded with readiness, what indeed he
firmly believed, the absolute incapacity of the party (for neither did
he dare, in Leicester’s presence, term her his wife) to wait on her
Grace.
“Here,” said he, “are attestations from a most learned physician,
whose skill and honour are well known to my good Lord of Leices-
ter, and from an honest and devout Protestant, a man of credit and
substance, one Anthony Foster, the gentleman in whose house she
is at present bestowed, that she now labours under an illness which
altogether unfits her for such a journey as betwixt this Castle and
the neighbourhood of Oxford.”
“This alters the matter,” said the Queen, taking the certificates in
her hand, and glancing at their contents.—“Let Tressilian come for-
ward.—Master Tressilian, we have much sympathy for your situa-
tion, the rather that you seem to have set your heart deeply on this
Amy Robsart, or Varney. Our power, thanks to God, and the will-
ing obedience of a loving people, is worth much, but there are some

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things which it cannot compass. We cannot, for example, command

the affections of a giddy young girl, or make her love sense and
learning better than a courtier’s fine doublet; and we cannot control
sickness, with which it seems this lady is afflicted, who may not, by
reason of such infirmity, attend our court here, as we had required
her to do. Here are the testimonials of the physician who hath her
under his charge, and the gentleman in whose house she resides, so
setting forth.”
“Under your Majesty’s favour,” said Tressilian hastily, and in his
alarm for the consequence of the imposition practised on the Queen
forgetting in part at least his own promise to Amy, “these certifi-
cates speak not the truth.”
“How, sir!” said the Queen—“impeach my Lord of Leicester’s ve-
racity! But you shall have a fair hearing. In our presence the mean-
est of our subjects shall be heard against the proudest, and the least
known against the most favoured; therefore you shall be heard fairly,
but beware you speak not without a warrant! Take these certificates
in your own hand, look at them carefully, and say manfully if you
impugn the truth of them, and upon what evidence.”
As the Queen spoke, his promise and all its consequences rushed
on the mind of the unfortunate Tressilian, and while it controlled
his natural inclination to pronounce that a falsehood which he knew
from the evidence of his senses to be untrue, gave an indecision and
irresolution to his appearance and utterance which made strongly
against him in the mind of Elizabeth, as well as of all who beheld
him. He turned the papers over and over, as if he had been an idiot,
incapable of comprehending their contents. The Queen’s impatience
began to become visible. “You are a scholar, sir,” she said, “and of
some note, as I have heard; yet you seem wondrous slow in reading
text hand. How say you, are these certificates true or no?”
“Madam,” said Tressilian, with obvious embarrassment and hesi-
tation, anxious to avoid admitting evidence which he might after-
wards have reason to confute, yet equally desirous to keep his word
to Amy, and to give her, as he had promised, space to plead her own
cause in her own way—“Madam—Madam, your Grace calls on me
to admit evidence which ought to be proved valid by those who
found their defence upon them.”

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“Why, Tressilian, thou art critical as well as poetical,” said the

Queen, bending on him a brow of displeasure; “methinks these
writings, being produced in the presence of the noble Earl to whom
this Castle pertains, and his honour being appealed to as the guar-
antee of their authenticity, might be evidence enough for thee. But
since thou listest to be so formal—Varney, or rather my Lord of
Leicester, for the affair becomes yours” (these words, though spo-
ken at random, thrilled through the Earl’s marrow and bones), “what
evidence have you as touching these certificates?”
Varney hastened to reply, preventing Leicester—“So please your
Majesty, my young Lord of Oxford, who is here in presence, knows
Master Anthony Foster’s hand and his character.”
The Earl of Oxford, a young unthrift, whom Foster had more
than once accommodated with loans on usurious interest, acknowl-
edged, on this appeal, that he knew him as a wealthy and indepen-
dent franklin, supposed to be worth much money, and verified the
certificate produced to be his handwriting.
“And who speaks to the Doctor’s certificate?” said the Queen.
“Alasco, methinks, is his name.”
Masters, her Majesty’s physician (not the less willingly that he
remembered his repulse from Sayes Court, and thought that his
present testimony might gratify Leicester, and mortify the Earl of
Sussex and his faction), acknowledged he had more than once con-
sulted with Doctor Alasco, and spoke of him as a man of extraordi-
nary learning and hidden acquirements, though not altogether in
the regular course of practice. The Earl of Huntingdon, Lord
Leicester’s brother-in-law, and the old Countess of Rutland, next
sang his praises, and both remembered the thin, beautiful Italian
hand in which he was wont to write his receipts, and which corre-
sponded to the certificate produced as his.
“And now, I trust, Master Tressilian, this matter is ended,” said
the Queen. “We will do something ere the night is older to recon-
cile old Sir Hugh Robsart to the match. You have done your duty
something more than boldly; but we were no woman had we not
compassion for the wounds which true love deals, so we forgive
your audacity, and your uncleansed boots withal, which have well-
nigh overpowered my Lord of Leicester’s perfumes.”

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So spoke Elizabeth, whose nicety of scent was one of the charac-

teristics of her organization, as appeared long afterwards when she
expelled Essex from her presence, on a charge against his boots similar
to that which she now expressed against those of Tressilian
But Tressilian had by this time collected himself, astonished as he
had at first been by the audacity of the falsehood so feasibly sup-
ported, and placed in array against the evidence of his own eyes. He
rushed forward, kneeled down, and caught the Queen by the skirt
of her robe. “As you are Christian woman,” he said, “madam, as you
are crowned Queen, to do equal justice among your subjects—as
you hope yourself to have fair hearing (which God grant you) at
that last bar at which we must all plead, grant me one small request!
Decide not this matter so hastily. Give me but twenty-four hours’
interval, and I will, at the end of that brief space, produce evidence
which will show to demonstration that these certificates, which state
this unhappy lady to be now ill at ease in Oxfordshire, are false as
hell!”
“Let go my train, sir!” said Elizabeth, who was startled at his vehe-
mence, though she had too much of the lion in her to fear; “the
fellow must be distraught. That witty knave, my godson Harrington,
must have him into his rhymes of Orlando Furioso! And yet, by this
light, there is something strange in the vehemence of his demand.—
Speak, Tressilian, what wilt thou do if, at the end of these four-and-
twenty hours, thou canst not confute a fact so solemnly proved as
this lady’s illness?”
“I will lay down my head on the block,” answered Tressilian.
“Pshaw!” replied the Queen, “God’s light! thou speakest like a
fool. What head falls in England but by just sentence of English
law? I ask thee, man—if thou hast sense to understand me—wilt
thou, if thou shalt fail in this improbable attempt of thine, render
me a good and sufficient reason why thou dost undertake it?”
Tressilian paused, and again hesitated; because he felt convinced
that if, within the interval demanded, Amy should become recon-
ciled to her husband, he would in that case do her the worst of offices
by again ripping up the whole circumstances before Elizabeth, and
showing how that wise and jealous princess had been imposed upon
by false testimonials. The consciousness of this dilemma renewed his

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extreme embarrassment of look, voice, and manner; he hesitated,

looked down, and on the Queen repeating her question with a stern
voice and flashing eye, he admitted with faltering words, “That it
might be—he could not positively—that is, in certain events—ex-
plain the reasons and grounds on which he acted.”
“Now, by the soul of King Henry,” said the Queen, “this is either
moonstruck madness or very knavery!—Seest thou, Raleigh, thy
friend is far too Pindaric for this presence. Have him away, and
make us quit of him, or it shall be the worse for him; for his flights
are too unbridled for any place but Parnassus, or Saint Luke’s Hos-
pital. But come back instantly thyself, when he is placed under fit-
ting restraint.—We wish we had seen the beauty which could make
such havoc in a wise man’s brain.”
Tressilian was again endeavouring to address the Queen, when
Raleigh, in obedience to the orders he had received, interfered, and
with Blount’s assistance, half led, half forced him out of the pres-
ence-chamber, where he himself indeed began to think his appear-
ance did his cause more harm than good.
When they had attained the antechamber, Raleigh entreated
Blount to see Tressilian safely conducted into the apartments allot-
ted to the Earl of Sussex’s followers, and, if necessary, recommended
that a guard should be mounted on him.
“This extravagant passion,” he said, “and, as it would seem, the
news of the lady’s illness, has utterly wrecked his excellent judg-
ment. But it will pass away if he be kept quiet. Only let him break
forth again at no rate; for he is already far in her Highness’s displea-
sure, and should she be again provoked, she will find for him a
worse place of confinement, and sterner keepers.”
“I judged as much as that he was mad,” said Nicholas Blount,
looking down upon his own crimson stockings and yellow roses,
“whenever I saw him wearing yonder damned boots, which stunk
so in her nostrils. I will but see him stowed, and be back with you
presently. But, Walter, did the Queen ask who I was?—methought
she glanced an eye at me.”
“Twenty—twenty eye-glances she sent! and I told her all—how
thou wert a brave soldier, and a— But for God’s sake, get off
Tressilian!”

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“I will—I will,” said Blount; “but methinks this court-haunting

is no such bad pastime, after all. We shall rise by it, Walter, my
brave lad. Thou saidst I was a good soldier, and a—what besides,
dearest Walter?”
“An all unutterable-codshead. For God’s sake, begone!”
Tressilian, without further resistance or expostulation followed,
or rather suffered himself to be conducted by Blount to Raleigh’s
lodging, where he was formally installed into a small truckle-bed
placed in a wardrobe, and designed for a domestic. He saw but too
plainly that no remonstrances would avail to procure the help or
sympathy of his friends, until the lapse of the time for which he had
pledged himself to remain inactive should enable him either to ex-
plain the whole circumstances to them, or remove from him every
pretext or desire of further interference with the fortunes of Amy,
by her having found means to place herself in a state of reconcilia-
tion with her husband.
With great difficulty, and only by the most patient and mild re-
monstrances with Blount, he escaped the disgrace and mortifica-
tion of having two of Sussex’s stoutest yeomen quartered in his apart-
ment. At last, however, when Nicholas had seen him fairly depos-
ited in his truckle-bed, and had bestowed one or two hearty kicks,
and as hearty curses, on the boots, which, in his lately acquired
spirit of foppery, he considered as a strong symptom, if not the
cause, of his friend’s malady, he contented himself with the modi-
fied measure of locking the door on the unfortunate Tressilian, whose
gallant and disinterested efforts to save a female who had treated
him with ingratitude thus terminated for the present in the displea-
sure of his Sovereign and the conviction of his friends that he was
little better than a madman.

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER XXXII

The wisest Sovereigns err like private men,

And royal hand has sometimes laid the sword
Of chivalry upon a worthless shoulder,
Which better had been branded by the hangman.
What then?—Kings do their best; and they and we
Must answer for the intent, and not the event.

Old Play

“IT IS A MELANCHOLY MATTER,” said the Queen, when Tressilian was

withdrawn, “to see a wise and learned man’s wit thus pitifully un-
settled. Yet this public display of his imperfection of brain plainly
shows us that his supposed injury and accusation were fruitless; and
therefore, my Lord of Leicester, we remember your suit formerly
made to us in behalf of your faithful servant Varney, whose good
gifts and fidelity, as they are useful to you, ought to have due reward
from us, knowing well that your lordship, and all you have, are so
earnestly devoted to our service. And we render Varney the honour
more especially that we are a guest, and, we fear, a chargeable and
troublesome one, under your lordship’s roof; and also for the satis-
faction of the good old Knight of Devon, Sir Hugh Robsart, whose
daughter he hath married, and we trust the especial mark of grace
which we are about to confer may reconcile him to his son-in-law.—
Your sword, my Lord of Leicester.”
The Earl unbuckled his sword, and taking it by the point, pre-
sented on bended knee the hilt to Elizabeth.
She took it slowly drew it from the scabbard, and while the ladies

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who stood around turned away their eyes with real or affected shud-
dering, she noted with a curious eye the high polish and rich,
damasked ornaments upon the glittering blade.
“Had I been a man,” she said, “methinks none of my ancestors
would have loved a good sword better. As it is with me, I like to look
on one, and could, like the Fairy of whom I have read in some
Italian rhymes—were my godson Harrington here, he could tell me
the passage—even trim my hair, and arrange my head-gear, in such
a steel mirror as this is.—Richard Varney, come forth, and kneel
down. In the name of God and Saint George, we dub thee knight!
Be Faithful, Brave, and Fortunate. Arise, Sir Richard Varney.”
[The incident alluded to occurs in the poem of Orlando Innamorato
of Boiardo, libro ii. canto 4, stanza 25.

“Non era per ventura,” etc.

It may be rendered thus:—

As then, perchance, unguarded was the tower,

So enter’d free Anglante’s dauntless knight.
No monster and no giant guard the bower
In whose recess reclined the fairy light,
Robed in a loose cymar of lily white,
And on her lap a sword of breadth and might,
In whose broad blade, as in a mirror bright,
Like maid that trims her for a festal night,
The fairy deck’d her hair, and placed her coronet aright.

Elizabeth’s attachment to the Italian school of poetry was singu-

larly manifested on a well-known occasion. Her godson, Sir John
Harrington, having offended her delicacy by translating some of
the licentious passages of the Orlando Furioso, she imposed on him,
as a penance, the task of rendering the whole poem into English.]
Varney arose and retired, making a deep obeisance to the Sover-
eign who had done him so much honour.
“The buckling of the spur, and what other rites remain,” said the
Queen, “may be finished to-morrow in the chapel; for we intend Sir

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Richard Varney a companion in his honours. And as we must not

be partial in conferring such distinction, we mean on this matter to
confer with our cousin of Sussex.”
That noble Earl, who since his arrival at Kenilworth, and indeed
since the commencement of this Progress, had found himself in a
subordinate situation to Leicester, was now wearing a heavy cloud
on his brow; a circumstance which had not escaped the Queen,
who hoped to appease his discontent, and to follow out her system
of balancing policy by a mark of peculiar favour, the more gratify-
ing as it was tendered at a moment when his rival’s triumph ap-
peared to be complete.
At the summons of Queen Elizabeth, Sussex hastily approached
her person; and being asked on which of his followers, being a gentle-
man and of merit, he would wish the honour of knighthood to be
conferred, he answered, with more sincerity than policy, that he
would have ventured to speak for Tressilian, to whom he conceived
he owed his own life, and who was a distinguished soldier and scholar,
besides a man of unstained lineage, “only,” he said, “he feared the
events of that night—” And then he stopped.
“I am glad your lordship is thus considerate,” said Elizabeth. “The
events of this night would make us, in the eyes of our subjects, as
mad as this poor brain-sick gentleman himself—for we ascribe his
conduct to no malice—should we choose this moment to do him
grace.”
“In that case,” said the Earl of Sussex, somewhat discountenanced,
your Majesty will allow me to name my master of the horse, Master
Nicholas Blount, a gentleman of fair estate and ancient name, who
has served your Majesty both in Scotland and Ireland, and brought
away bloody marks on his person, all honourably taken and re-
quited.”
The Queen could not help shrugging her shoulders slightly even
at this second suggestion; and the Duchess of Rutland, who read in
the Queen’s manner that she had expected that Sussex would have
named Raleigh, and thus would have enabled her to gratify her own
wish while she honoured his recommendation, only waited the
Queen’s assent to what he had proposed, and then said that she
hoped, since these two high nobles had been each permitted to sug-

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gest a candidate for the honours of chivalry, she, in behalf of the

ladies in presence, might have a similar indulgence.
“I were no woman to refuse you such a boon,” said the Queen,
smiling.
“Then,” pursued the Duchess, “in the name of these fair ladies
present, I request your Majesty to confer the rank of knighthood on
Walter Raleigh, whose birth, deeds of arms, and promptitude to
serve our sex with sword or pen, deserve such distinction from us
all.”
“Gramercy, fair ladies,” said Elizabeth, smiling, “your boon is
granted, and the gentle squire Lack-Cloak shall become the good
knight Lack-Cloak, at your desire. Let the two aspirants for the
honour of chivalry step forward.”
Blount was not as yet returned from seeing Tressilian, as he con-
ceived, safely disposed of; but Raleigh came forth, and kneeling
down, received at the hand of the Virgin Queen that title of honour,
which was never conferred on a more distinguished or more illustri-
ous object.
Shortly afterwards Nicholas Blount entered, and hastily apprised
by Sussex, who met him at the door of the hall, of the Queen’s
gracious purpose regarding him, he was desired to advance towards
the throne. It is a sight sometimes seen, and it is both ludicrous and
pitiable; when an honest man of plain common sense is surprised,
by the coquetry of a pretty woman, or any other cause, into those
frivolous fopperies which only sit well upon the youthful, the gay,
and those to whom long practice has rendered them a second na-
ture. Poor Blount was in this situation. His head was already giddy
from a consciousness of unusual finery, and the supposed necessity
of suiting his manners to the gaiety of his dress; and now this sud-
den view of promotion altogether completed the conquest of the
newly inhaled spirit of foppery over his natural disposition, and
converted a plain, honest, awkward man into a coxcomb of a new
and most ridiculous kind.
The knight-expectant advanced up the hall, the whole length of
which he had unfortunately to traverse, turning out his toes with so
much zeal that he presented his leg at every step with its broadside
foremost, so that it greatly resembled an old-fashioned table-knife

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with a curved point, when seen sideways. The rest of his gait was in
proportion to this unhappy amble; and the implied mixture of bash-
ful rear and self-satisfaction was so unutterably ridiculous that
Leicester’s friends did not suppress a titter, in which many of Sussex’s
partisans were unable to resist joining, though ready to eat their
nails with mortification. Sussex himself lost all patience, and could
not forbear whispering into the ear of his friend, “Curse thee! canst
thou not walk like a man and a soldier?” an interjection which only
made honest Blount start and stop, until a glance at his yellow roses
and crimson stockings restored his self-confidence, when on he went
at the same pace as before.
The Queen conferred on poor Blount the honour of knighthood
with a marked sense of reluctance. That wise Princess was fully aware
of the propriety of using great circumspection and economy in be-
stowing those titles of honour, which the Stewarts, who succeeded
to her throne, distributed with an imprudent liberality which greatly
diminished their value. Blount had no sooner arisen and retired
than she turned to the Duchess of Rutland. “Our woman wit,” she
said, “dear Rutland, is sharper than that of those proud things in
doublet and hose. Seest thou, out of these three knights, thine is the
only true metal to stamp chivalry’s imprint upon?”
“Sir Richard Varney, surely—the friend of my Lord of Leicester
—surely he has merit,” replied the Duchess.
“Varney has a sly countenance and a smooth tongue,” replied the
Queen; “I fear me he will prove a knave. But the promise was of
ancient standing. My Lord of Sussex must have lost his own wits, I
think, to recommend to us first a madman like Tressilian, and then
a clownish fool like this other fellow. I protest, Rutland, that while
he sat on his knees before me, mopping and mowing as if he had
scalding porridge in his mouth, I had much ado to forbear cutting
him over the pate, instead of striking his shoulder.”
“Your Majesty gave him a smart accolade,” said the Duchess; “we
who stood behind heard the blade clatter on his collar-bone, and
the poor man fidgeted too as if he felt it.”
“I could not help it, wench,” said the Queen, laughing. “But we
will have this same Sir Nicholas sent to Ireland or Scotland, or some-
where, to rid our court of so antic a chevalier; he may be a good

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soldier in the field, though a preposterous ass in a banqueting-hall.”

The discourse became then more general, and soon after there
was a summons to the banquet.
In order to obey this signal, the company were under the neces-
sity of crossing the inner court of the Castle, that they might reach
the new buildings containing the large banqueting-room, in which
preparations for supper were made upon a scale of profuse magnifi-
cence, corresponding to the occasion.
The livery cupboards were loaded with plate of the richest de-
scription, and the most varied—some articles tasteful, some per-
haps grotesque, in the invention and decoration, but all gorgeously
magnificent, both from the richness of the work and value of the
materials. Thus the chief table was adorned by a salt, ship-fashion,
made of mother-of-pearl, garnished with silver and divers warlike
ensigns and other ornaments, anchors, sails, and sixteen pieces of
ordnance. It bore a figure of Fortune, placed on a globe, with a flag
in her hand. Another salt was fashioned of silver, in form of a swan
in full sail. That chivalry might not be omitted amid this splendour,
a silver Saint George was presented, mounted and equipped in the
usual fashion in which he bestrides the dragon. The figures were
moulded to be in some sort useful. The horse’s tail was managed to
hold a case of knives, while the breast of the dragon presented a
similar accommodation for oyster knives.
In the course of the passage from the hall of reception to the ban-
queting-room, and especially in the courtyard, the new-made knights
were assailed by the heralds, pursuivants, minstrels, etc., with the
usual cry of largesse, largesse, chevaliers tres hardis! an ancient invoca-
tion, intended to awaken the bounty of the acolytes of chivalry to-
wards those whose business it was to register their armorial bear-
ings, and celebrate the deeds by which they were illustrated. The
call was, of course, liberally and courteously answered by those to
whom it was addressed. Varney gave his largesse with an affectation
of complaisance and humility. Raleigh bestowed his with the grace-
ful ease peculiar to one who has attained his own place, and is fa-
miliar with its dignity. Honest Blount gave what his tailor had left
him of his half-year’s rent, dropping some pieces in his hurry, then
stooping down to look for them, and then distributing them amongst

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the various claimants, with the anxious face and mien of the parish
beadle dividing a dole among paupers.
The donations were accepted with the usual clamour and vivats of ap-
plause common on such occasions; but as the parties gratified were chiefly
dependants of Lord Leicester, it was Varney whose name was repeated
with the loudest acclamations. Lambourne, especially, distinguished him-
self by his vociferations of “Long life to Sir Richard Varney!—Health and
honour to Sir Richard!—Never was a more worthy knight dubbed!”—
then, suddenly sinking his voice, he added—“since the valiant Sir Pandarus
of Troy,”—a winding-up of his clamorous applause which set all men a-
laughing who were within hearing of it.
It is unnecessary to say anything further of the festivities of the
evening, which were so brilliant in themselves, and received with
such obvious and willing satisfaction by the Queen, that Leicester
retired to his own apartment with all the giddy raptures of success-
ful ambition. Varney, who had changed his splendid attire, and now
waited on his patron in a very modest and plain undress, attended
to do the honours of the Earl’s coucher.
“How! Sir Richard,” said Leicester, smiling, “your new rank scarce
suits the humility of this attendance.”
“I would disown that rank, my Lord,” said Varney, “could I think
it was to remove me to a distance from your lordship’s person.”
“Thou art a grateful fellow,” said Leicester; “but I must not allow
you to do what would abate you in the opinion of others.”
While thus speaking, he still accepted without hesitation the of-
fices about his person, which the new-made knight seemed to ren-
der as eagerly as if he had really felt, in discharging the task, that
pleasure which his words expressed.
“I am not afraid of men’s misconstruction,” he said, in answer to
Leicester’s remark, “since there is not—(permit me to undo the col-
lar)—a man within the Castle who does not expect very soon to see
persons of a rank far superior to that which, by your goodness, I
now hold, rendering the duties of the bedchamber to you, and ac-
counting it an honour.”
“It might, indeed, so have been”—said the Earl, with an involun-
tary sigh; and then presently added, “My gown, Varney; I will look
out on the night. Is not the moon near to the full?”

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“I think so, my lord, according to the calendar,” answered Varney.

There was an abutting window, which opened on a small project-
ing balcony of stone, battlemented as is usual in Gothic castles. The
Earl undid the lattice, and stepped out into the open air. The sta-
tion he had chosen commanded an extensive view of the lake and
woodlands beyond, where the bright moonlight rested on the clear
blue waters and the distant masses of oak and elm trees. The moon
rode high in the heavens, attended by thousands and thousands of
inferior luminaries. All seemed already to be hushed in the nether
world, excepting occasionally the voice of the watch (for the yeo-
men of the guard performed that duty wherever the Queen was
present in person) and the distant baying of the hounds, disturbed
by the preparations amongst the grooms and prickers for a magnifi-
cent hunt, which was to be the amusement of the next day.
Leicester looked out on the blue arch of heaven, with gestures and
a countenance expressive of anxious exultation, while Varney, who
remained within the darkened apartment, could (himself unnoticed),
with a secret satisfaction, see his patron stretch his hands with ear-
nest gesticulation towards the heavenly bodies.
“Ye distant orbs of living fire,” so ran the muttered invocation of
the ambitious Earl, “ye are silent while you wheel your mystic rounds;
but Wisdom has given to you a voice. Tell me, then, to what end is
my high course destined? Shall the greatness to which I have aspired
be bright, pre-eminent, and stable as your own; or am I but doomed
to draw a brief and glittering train along the nightly darkness, and
then to sink down to earth, like the base refuse of those artificial
fires with which men emulate your rays?”
He looked on the heavens in profound silence for a minute or two
longer, and then again stepped into the apartment, where Varney
seemed to have been engaged in putting the Earl’s jewels into a
casket.
“What said Alasco of my horoscope?” demanded Leicester. “You al-
ready told me; but it has escaped me, for I think but lightly of that art.”
“Many learned and great men have thought otherwise,” said
Varney; “and, not to flatter your lordship, my own opinion leans
that way.”
“Ay, Saul among the prophets?” said Leicester. “I thought thou

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wert sceptical in all such matters as thou couldst neither see, hear,
smell, taste, or touch, and that thy belief was limited by thy senses.”
“Perhaps, my lord,” said Varney, “I may be misled on the present
occasion by my wish to find the predictions of astrology true. Alasco
says that your favourite planet is culminating, and that the adverse
influence—he would not use a plainer term—though not overcome,
was evidently combust, I think he said, or retrograde.”
“It is even so,” said Leicester, looking at an abstract of astrological
calculations which he had in his hand; “the stronger influence will
prevail, and, as I think, the evil hour pass away. Lend me your hand,
Sir Richard, to doff my gown; and remain an instant, if it is not too
burdensome to your knighthood, while I compose myself to sleep. I
believe the bustle of this day has fevered my blood, for it streams
through my veins like a current of molten lead. Remain an instant,
I pray you—I would fain feel my eyes heavy ere I closed them.”
Varney officiously assisted his lord to bed, and placed a massive
silver night-lamp, with a short sword, on a marble table which stood
close by the head of the couch. Either in order to avoid the light of
the lamp, or to hide his countenance from Varney, Leicester drew
the curtain, heavy with entwined silk and gold, so as completely to
shade his face. Varney took a seat near the bed, but with his back
towards his master, as if to intimate that he was not watching him,
and quietly waited till Leicester himself led the way to the topic by
which his mind was engrossed.
“And so, Varney,” said the Earl, after waiting in vain till his de-
pendant should commence the conversation, “men talk of the
Queen’s favour towards me?”
“Ay, my good lord,” said Varney; “of what can they else, since it is
so strongly manifested?”
“She is indeed my good and gracious mistress,” said Leicester,
after another pause; “but it is written, ‘Put not thy trust in princes.’”
“A good sentence and a true,” said Varney, “unless you can unite
their interest with yours so absolutely that they must needs sit on
your wrist like hooded hawks.”
“I know what thou meanest,” said Leicester impatiently, “though
thou art to-night so prudentially careful of what thou sayest to me.
Thou wouldst intimate I might marry the Queen if I would?”

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“It is your speech, my lord, not mine,” answered Varney; “but

whosesoever be the speech, it is the thought of ninety-nine out of
an hundred men throughout broad England.”
“Ay, but,” said Leicester, turning himself in his bed, “the hun-
dredth man knows better. Thou, for example, knowest the obstacle
that cannot be overleaped.”
“It must, my lord, if the stars speak true,” said Varney compos-
edly.
“What, talkest thou of them,” said Leicester, “that believest not in
them or in aught else?”
“You mistake, my lord, under your gracious pardon,” said Varney;
“I believe in many things that predict the future. I believe, if show-
ers fall in April, that we shall have flowers in May; that if the sun
shines, grain will ripen; and I believe in much natural philosophy to
the same effect, which, if the stars swear to me, I will say the stars
speak the truth. And in like manner, I will not disbelieve that which
I see wished for and expected on earth, solely because the astrolo-
gers have read it in the heavens.”
“Thou art right,” said Leicester, again tossing himself on his couch
“Earth does wish for it. I have had advices from the reformed
churches of Germany—from the Low Countries—from Switzer-
land—urging this as a point on which Europe’s safety depends.
France will not oppose it. The ruling party in Scotland look to it as
their best security. Spain fears it, but cannot prevent it. And yet
thou knowest it is impossible.”
“I know not that, my lord,” said Varney; “the Countess is indis-
posed.”
“Villain!” said Leicester, starting up on his couch, and seizing the
sword which lay on the table beside him, “go thy thoughts that
way?—thou wouldst not do murder?”
“For whom, or what, do you hold me, my lord?” said Varney,
assuming the superiority of an innocent man subjected to unjust
suspicion. “I said nothing to deserve such a horrid imputation as
your violence infers. I said but that the Countess was ill. And Count-
ess though she be—lovely and beloved as she is—surely your lord-
ship must hold her to be mortal? She may die, and your lordship’s
hand become once more your own.”

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“Away! away!” said Leicester; “let me have no more of this.”

“Good night, my lord,” said Varney, seeming to understand this
as a command to depart; but Leicester’s voice interrupted his pur-
pose.
“Thou ‘scapest me not thus, Sir Fool,” said he; “I think thy knight-
hood has addled thy brains. Confess thou hast talked of impossi-
bilities as of things which may come to pass.”
“My lord, long live your fair Countess,” said Varney; “but neither
your love nor my good wishes can make her immortal. But God
grant she live long to be happy herself, and to render you so! I see
not but you may be King of England notwithstanding.”
“Nay, now, Varney, thou art stark mad,” said Leicester.
“I would I were myself within the same nearness to a good estate
of freehold,” said Varney. “Have we not known in other countries
how a left-handed marriage might subsist betwixt persons of differ-
ing degree?—ay, and be no hindrance to prevent the husband from
conjoining himself afterwards with a more suitable partner?”
“I have heard of such things in Germany,” said Leicester.
“Ay, and the most learned doctors in foreign universities justify
the practice from the Old Testament,” said Varney. “And after all,
where is the harm? The beautiful partner whom you have chosen
for true love has your secret hours of relaxation and affection. Her
fame is safe her conscience may slumber securely. You have wealth
to provide royally for your issue, should Heaven bless you with off-
spring. Meanwhile you may give to Elizabeth ten times the leisure,
and ten thousand times the affection, that ever Don Philip of Spain
spared to her sister Mary; yet you know how she doted on him
though so cold and neglectful. It requires but a close mouth and an
open brow, and you keep your Eleanor and your fair Rosamond far
enough separate. Leave me to build you a bower to which no jeal-
ous Queen shall find a clew.”
Leicester was silent for a moment, then sighed, and said, “It is
impossible. Good night, Sir Richard Varney—yet stay. Can you guess
what meant Tressilian by showing himself in such careless guise be-
fore the Queen to-day?—to strike her tender heart, I should guess,
with all the sympathies due to a lover abandoned by his mistress
and abandoning himself.”

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Varney, smothering a sneering laugh, answered, “He believed

Master Tressilian had no such matter in his head.”
“How!” said Leicester; “what meanest thou? There is ever knavery
in that laugh of thine, Varney.”
“I only meant, my lord,” said Varney, “that Tressilian has taken
the sure way to avoid heart-breaking. He hath had a companion—
a female companion—a mistress—a sort of player’s wife or sister, as
I believe—with him in Mervyn’s Bower, where I quartered him for
certain reasons of my own.”
“A mistress!—meanest thou a paramour?”
“Ay, my lord; what female else waits for hours in a gentleman’s
chamber?”
“By my faith, time and space fitting, this were a good tale to tell,”
said Leicester. “I ever distrusted those bookish, hypocritical, seem-
ing-virtuous scholars. Well—Master Tressilian makes somewhat fa-
miliar with my house; if I look it over, he is indebted to it for certain
recollections. I would not harm him more than I can help. Keep eye
on him, however, Varney.”
“I lodged him for that reason,” said Varney, “in Mervyn’s Tower,
where he is under the eye of my very vigilant, if he were not also my
very drunken, servant, Michael Lambourne, whom I have told your
Grace of.”
“Grace!” said Leicester; “what meanest thou by that epithet?”
“It came unawares, my lord; and yet it sounds so very natural that
I cannot recall it.”
“It is thine own preferment that hath turned thy brain,” said Le-
icester, laughing; “new honours are as heady as new wine.”
“May your lordship soon have cause to say so from experience,”
said Varney; and wishing his patron good night, he withdrew.” [See
Note 8. Furniture of Kenilworth.]

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CHAPTER XXXIII

Here stands the victim—there the proud betrayer,

E’en as the hind pull’d down by strangling dogs
Lies at the hunter’s feet—who courteous proffers
To some high dame, the Dian of the chase,
To whom he looks for guerdon, his sharp blade,
To gash the sobbing throat.

The Woodsman.

WE ARE NOW to return to Mervyn’s Bower, the apartment, or rather

the prison, of the unfortunate Countess of Leicester, who for some
time kept within bounds her uncertainty and her impatience. She
was aware that, in the tumult of the day, there might be some delay
ere her letter could be safely conveyed to the hands of Leicester, and
that some time more might elapse ere he could extricate himself
from the necessary attendance on Elizabeth, to come and visit her
in her secret bower. “I will not expect him,” she said, “till night; he
cannot be absent from his royal guest, even to see me. He will, I
know, come earlier if it be possible, but I will not expect him before
night.” And yet all the while she did expect him; and while she tried
to argue herself into a contrary belief, each hasty noise of the hun-
dred which she heard sounded like the hurried step of Leicester on
the staircase, hasting to fold her in his arms.
The fatigue of body which Amy had lately undergone, with the
agitation of mind natural to so cruel a state of uncertainty, began by
degrees strongly to affect her nerves, and she almost feared her total
inability to maintain the necessary self-command through the scenes

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which might lie before her. But although spoiled by an over-indul-

gent system of education, Amy had naturally a mind of great power,
united with a frame which her share in her father’s woodland exer-
cises had rendered uncommonly healthy. She summoned to her aid
such mental and bodily resources; and not unconscious how much
the issue of her fate might depend on her own self-possession, she
prayed internally for strength of body and for mental fortitude, and
resolved at the same time to yield to no nervous impulse which
might weaken either.
Yet when the great bell of the Castle, which was placed in Caesar’s
Tower, at no great distance from that called Mervyn’s, began to send
its pealing clamour abroad, in signal of the arrival of the royal pro-
cession, the din was so painfully acute to ears rendered nervously
sensitive by anxiety, that she could hardly forbear shrieking with
anguish, in answer to every stunning clash of the relentless peal.
Shortly afterwards, when the small apartment was at once en-
lightened by the shower of artificial fires with which the air was
suddenly filled, and which crossed each other like fiery spirits, each
bent on his own separate mission, or like salamanders executing a
frolic dance in the region of the Sylphs, the Countess felt at first as
if each rocket shot close by her eyes, and discharged its sparks and
flashes so nigh that she could feel a sense of the heat. But she struggled
against these fantastic terrors, and compelled herself to arise, stand
by the window, look out, and gaze upon a sight which at another
time would have appeared to her at once captivating and fearful.
The magnificent towers of the Castle were enveloped in garlands of
artificial fire, or shrouded with tiaras of pale smoke. The surface of
the lake glowed like molten iron, while many fireworks (then thought
extremely wonderful, though now common), whose flame contin-
ued to exist in the opposing element, dived and rose, hissed and
roared, and spouted fire, like so many dragons of enchantment sport-
ing upon a burning lake.
Even Amy was for a moment interested by what was to her so new
a scene. “I had thought it magical art,” she said, “but poor Tressilian
taught me to judge of such things as they are. Great God! and may
not these idle splendours resemble my own hoped-for happiness—
a single spark, which is instantly swallowed up by surrounding dark-

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ness—a precarious glow, which rises but for a brief space into the
air, that its fall may be the lower? O Leicester! after all—all that
thou hast said—hast sworn—that Amy was thy love, thy life, can it
be that thou art the magician at whose nod these enchantments
arise, and that she sees them as an outcast, if not a captive?”
The sustained, prolonged, and repeated bursts of music, from so
many different quarters, and at so many varying points of distance,
which sounded as if not the Castle of Kenilworth only, but the whole
country around, had been at once the scene of solemnizing some
high national festival, carried the same oppressive thought still closer
to her heart, while some notes would melt in distant and falling
tones, as if in compassion for her sorrows, and some burst close and
near upon her, as if mocking her misery, with all the insolence of
unlimited mirth. “These sounds,” she said, “are mine—mine, be-
cause they are his; but I cannot say, Be still, these loud strains suit
me not; and the voice of the meanest peasant that mingles in the
dance would have more power to modulate the music than the com-
mand of her who is mistress of all.”
By degrees the sounds of revelry died away, and the Countess
withdrew from the window at which she had sat listening to them.
It was night, but the moon afforded considerable light in the room,
so that Amy was able to make the arrangement which she judged
necessary. There was hope that Leicester might come to her apart-
ment as soon as the revel in the Castle had subsided; but there was
also risk she might be disturbed by some unauthorized intruder.
She had lost confidence in the key since Tressilian had entered so
easily, though the door was locked on the inside; yet all the addi-
tional security she could think of was to place the table across the
door, that she might be warned by the noise should any one at-
tempt to enter. Having taken these necessary precautions, the un-
fortunate lady withdrew to her couch, stretched herself down on it,
mused in anxious expectation, and counted more than one hour
after midnight, till exhausted nature proved too strong for love, for
grief, for fear, nay, even for uncertainty, and she slept.
Yes, she slept. The Indian sleeps at the stake in the intervals be-
tween his tortures; and mental torments, in like manner, exhaust by
long continuance the sensibility of the sufferer, so that an interval

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of lethargic repose must necessarily ensue, ere the pangs which they
inflict can again be renewed.
The Countess slept, then, for several hours, and dreamed that she
was in the ancient house at Cumnor Place, listening for the low
whistle with which Leicester often used to announce his presence in
the courtyard when arriving suddenly on one of his stolen visits.
But on this occasion, instead of a whistle, she heard the peculiar
blast of a bugle-horn, such as her father used to wind on the fall of
the stag, and which huntsmen then called a mort. She ran, as she
thought, to a window that looked into the courtyard, which she saw
filled with men in mourning garments. The old Curate seemed about
to read the funeral service. Mumblazen, tricked out in an antique
dress, like an ancient herald, held aloft a scutcheon, with its usual
decorations of skulls, cross-bones, and hour-glasses, surrounding a
coat-of-arms, of which she could only distinguish that it was sur-
mounted with an Earl’s coronet. The old man looked at her with a
ghastly smile, and said, “Amy, are they not rightly quartered?” Just
as he spoke, the horns again poured on her ear the melancholy yet
wild strain of the mort, or death-note, and she awoke.
The Countess awoke to hear a real bugle-note, or rather the com-
bined breath of many bugles, sounding not the mort. but the jolly
reveille, to remind the inmates of the Castle of Kenilworth that the
pleasures of the day were to commence with a magnificent stag-
hunting in the neighbouring Chase. Amy started up from her couch,
listened to the sound, saw the first beams of the summer morning
already twinkle through the lattice of her window, and recollected,
with feelings of giddy agony, where she was, and how circumstanced.
“He thinks not of me,” she said; “he will not come nigh me! A
Queen is his guest, and what cares he in what corner of his huge
Castle a wretch like me pines in doubt, which is fast fading into
despair?” At once a sound at the door, as of some one attempting to
open it softly, filled her with an ineffable mixture of joy and fear;
and hastening to remove the obstacle she had placed against the
door, and to unlock it, she had the precaution to ask! “Is it thou, my
love?”
“Yes, my Countess,” murmured a whisper in reply.
She threw open the door, and exclaiming, “Leicester!” flung her

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arms around the neck of the man who stood without, muffled in
his cloak.
“No—not quite Leicester,” answered Michael Lambourne, for he
it was, returning the caress with vehemence—”not quite Leicester,
my lovely and most loving duchess, but as good a man.”
With an exertion of force, of which she would at another time
have thought herself incapable, the Countess freed herself from the
profane and profaning grasp of the drunken debauchee, and re-
treated into the midst of her apartment. where despair gave her cour-
age to make a stand.
As Lambourne, on entering, dropped the lap of his cloak from his
face, she knew Varney’s profligate servant, the very last person, ex-
cepting his detested master, by whom she would have wished to be
discovered. But she was still closely muffled in her travelling dress,
and as Lambourne had scarce ever been admitted to her presence at
Cumnor Place, her person, she hoped, might not be so well known
to him as his was to her, owing to Janet’s pointing him frequently
out as he crossed the court, and telling stories of his wickedness. She
might have had still greater confidence in her disguise had her expe-
rience enabled her to discover that he was much intoxicated; but
this could scarce have consoled her for the risk which she might
incur from such a character in such a time, place, and circumstances.
Lambourne flung the door behind him as he entered, and folding
his arms, as if in mockery of the attitude of distraction into which
Amy had thrown herself, he proceeded thus: “Hark ye, most fair
Calipolis—or most lovely Countess of clouts, and divine Duchess
of dark corners—if thou takest all that trouble of skewering thyself
together, like a trussed fowl, that there may be more pleasure in the
carving, even save thyself the labour. I love thy first frank manner
the best—like thy present as little”—(he made a step towards her,
and staggered)— “as little as—such a damned uneven floor as this,
where a gentleman may break his neck if he does not walk as up-
right as a posture-master on the tight-rope.”
“Stand back!” said the Countess; “do not approach nearer to me
on thy peril!”
“My peril!—and stand back! Why, how now, madam? Must you
have a better mate than honest Mike Lambourne? I have been in

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America, girl, where the gold grows, and have brought off such a
load on’t—”
“Good friend,” said the Countess, in great terror at the ruffian’s
determined and audacious manner, “I prithee begone, and leave
me.”
“And so I will, pretty one, when we are tired of each other’s com-
pany—not a jot sooner.” He seized her by the arm, while, incapable
of further defence, she uttered shriek upon shriek. “Nay, scream
away if you like it,” said he, still holding her fast; “I have heard the
sea at the loudest, and I mind a squalling woman no more than a
miauling kitten. Damn me! I have heard fifty or a hundred scream-
ing at once, when there was a town stormed.”
The cries of the Countess, however, brought unexpected aid in
the person of Lawrence Staples, who had heard her exclamations
from his apartment below, and entered in good time to save her
from being discovered, if not from more atrocious violence. Lawrence
was drunk also from the debauch of the preceding night, but fortu-
nately his intoxication had taken a different turn from that of
Lambourne.
“What the devil’s noise is this in the ward?” he said. “What! man
and woman together in the same cell?—that is against rule. I will
have decency under my rule, by Saint Peter of the Fetters!”
“Get thee downstairs, thou drunken beast,” said Lambourne; “seest
thou not the lady and I would be private?”
“Good sir, worthy sir!” said the Countess, addressing the jailer,
“do but save me from him, for the sake of mercy!”
“She speaks fairly,” said the jailer, “and I will take her part. I love
my prisoners; and I have had as good prisoners under my key as
they have had in Newgate or the Compter. And so, being one of my
lambkins, as I say, no one shall disturb her in her pen-fold. So let go
the woman: or I’ll knock your brains out with my keys.”
“I’ll make a blood-pudding of thy midriff first,” answered
Lambourne, laying his left hand on his dagger, but still detaining
the Countess by the arm with his right. “So have at thee, thou old
ostrich, whose only living is upon a bunch of iron keys.”
Lawrence raised the arm of Michael, and prevented him from
drawing his dagger; and as Lambourne struggled and strove to shake

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him off; the Countess made a sudden exertion on her side, and
slipping her hand out of the glove on which the ruffian still kept
hold, she gained her liberty, and escaping from the apartment, ran
downstairs; while at the same moment she heard the two combat-
ants fall on the floor with a noise which increased her terror. The
outer wicket offered no impediment to her flight, having been opened
for Lambourne’s admittance; so that she succeeded in escaping down
the stair, and fled into the Pleasance, which seemed to her hasty
glance the direction in which she was most likely to avoid pursuit.
Meanwhile, Lawrence and Lambourne rolled on the floor of the
apartment, closely grappled together. Neither had, happily, oppor-
tunity to draw their daggers; but Lawrence found space enough to
clash his heavy keys across Michael’s face, and Michael in return
grasped the turnkey so felly by the throat that the blood gushed
from nose and mouth, so that they were both gory and filthy spec-
tacles when one of the other officers of the household, attracted by
the noise of the fray, entered the room, and with some difficulty
effected the separation of the combatants.
“A murrain on you both,” said the charitable mediator, “and espe-
cially on you, Master Lambourne! What the fiend lie you here for,
fighting on the floor like two butchers’ curs in the kennel of the
shambles?”
Lambourne arose, and somewhat sobered by the interposition of
a third party, looked with something less than his usual brazen im-
pudence of visage. “We fought for a wench, an thou must know,”
was his reply.
“A wench! Where is she?” said the officer.
“Why, vanished, I think,” said Lambourne, looking around him,
“unless Lawrence hath swallowed her, That filthy paunch of his de-
vours as many distressed damsels and oppressed orphans as e’er a
giant in King Arthur’s history. They are his prime food; he worries
them body, soul, and substance.”
“Ay, ay! It’s no matter,” said Lawrence, gathering up his huge,
ungainly form from the floor; “but I have had your betters, Master
Michael Lambourne, under the little turn of my forefinger and
thumb, and I shall have thee, before all’s done, under my hatches.
The impudence of thy brow will not always save thy shin-bones

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from iron, and thy foul, thirsty gullet from a hempen cord.” The
words were no sooner out of his mouth, when Lambourne again
made at him.
“Nay, go not to it again,” said the sewer, “or I will call for him
shall tame you both, and that is Master Varney—Sir Richard, I mean.
He is stirring, I promise you; I saw him cross the court just now.”
“Didst thou, by G—!” said Lambourne, seizing on the basin and
ewer which stood in the apartment. “Nay, then, element, do thy
work. I thought I had enough of thee last night, when I floated
about for Orion, like a cork on a fermenting cask of ale.”
So saying, he fell to work to cleanse from his face and hands the
signs of the fray, and get his apparel into some order.
“What hast thou done to him?” said the sewer, speaking aside to
the jailer; “his face is fearfully swelled.”
“It is but the imprint of the key of my cabinet—too good a mark
for his gallows-face. No man shall abuse or insult my prisoners;
they are my jewels, and I lock them in safe casket accordingly. —
And so, mistress, leave off your wailing.—Why! why, surely, there
was a woman here!”
“I think you are all mad this morning,” said the sewer. “I saw no
woman here, nor no man neither in a proper sense, but only two
beasts rolling on the floor.”
“Nay, then I am undone,” said the jailer; “the prison’s broken,
that is all. Kenilworth prison is broken,” he continued, in a tone of
maudlin lamentation, “which was the strongest jail betwixt this and
the Welsh Marches—ay, and a house that has had knights, and earls,
and kings sleeping in it, as secure as if they had been in the Tower of
London. It is broken, the prisoners fled, and the jailer in much
danger of being hanged!”
So saying, he retreated down to his own den to conclude his lam-
entations, or to sleep himself sober. Lambourne and the sewer fol-
lowed him close; and it was well for them, since the jailer, out of
mere habit, was about to lock the wicket after him, and had they
not been within the reach of interfering, they would have had the
pleasure of being shut up in the turret-chamber, from which the
Countess had been just delivered.
That unhappy lady, as soon as she found herself at liberty, fled, as

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we have already mentioned, into the Pleasance. She had seen this
richly-ornamented space of ground from the window of Mervyn’s
Tower; and it occurred to her, at the moment of her escape, that
among its numerous arbours, bowers, fountains, statues, and grot-
toes, she might find some recess in which she could lie concealed
until she had an opportunity of addressing herself to a protector, to
whom she might communicate as much as she dared of her forlorn
situation, and through whose means she might supplicate an inter-
view with her husband.
“If I could see my guide,” she thought, “I would learn if he had
delivered my letter. Even did I but see Tressilian, it were better to
risk Dudley’s anger, by confiding my whole situation to one who is
the very soul of honour, than to run the hazard of further insult
among the insolent menials of this ill-ruled place. I will not again
venture into an enclosed apartment. I will wait, I will watch; amidst
so many human beings there must be some kind heart which can
judge and compassionate what mine endures.”
In truth, more than one party entered and traversed the Pleas-
ance. But they were in joyous groups of four or five persons to-
gether, laughing and jesting in their own fullness of mirth and light-
ness of heart.
The retreat which she had chosen gave her the easy alternative of
avoiding observation. It was but stepping back to the farthest recess
of a grotto, ornamented with rustic work and moss-seats, and ter-
minated by a fountain, and she might easily remain concealed, or at
her pleasure discover herself to any solitary wanderer whose curios-
ity might lead him to that romantic retirement. Anticipating such
an opportunity, she looked into the clear basin which the silent
fountain held up to her like a mirror, and felt shocked at her own
appearance, and doubtful at; the same time, muffled and disfigured
as her disguise made her seem to herself, whether any female (and it
was from the compassion of her own sex that she chiefly expected
sympathy) would engage in conference with so suspicious an ob-
ject. Reasoning thus like a woman, to whom external appearance is
scarcely in any circumstances a matter of unimportance, and like a
beauty, who had some confidence in the power of her own charms,
she laid aside her travelling cloak and capotaine hat, and placed

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them beside her, so that she could assume them in an instant, ere
one could penetrate from the entrance of the grotto to its extremity,
in case the intrusion of Varney or of Lambourne should render such
disguise necessary. The dress which she wore under these vestments
was somewhat of a theatrical cast, so as to suit the assumed person-
age of one of the females who was to act in the pageant, Wayland
had found the means of arranging it thus upon the second day of
their journey, having experienced the service arising from the as-
sumption of such a character on the preceding day. The fountain,
acting both as a mirror and ewer, afforded Amy the means of a brief
toilette, of which she availed herself as hastily as possible; then took
in her hand her small casket of jewels, in case she might find them
useful intercessors, and retiring to the darkest and most sequestered
nook, sat down on a seat of moss, and awaited till fate should give
her some chance of rescue, or of propitiating an intercessor.

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CHAPTER XXXIV

Have you not seen the partridge quake,

Viewing the hawk approaching nigh?
She cuddles close beneath the brake,
Afraid to sit, afraid to fly,

Prior.

IT CHANCED, upon that memorable morning, that one of the earliest

of the huntress train, who appeared from her chamber in full array
for the chase, was the Princess for whom all these pleasures were
instituted, England’s Maiden Queen. I know not if it were by chance,
or out of the befitting courtesy due to a mistress by whom he was so
much honoured, that she had scarcely made one step beyond the
threshold of her chamber ere Leicester was by her side, and pro-
posed to her, until the preparations for the chase had been com-
pleted, to view the Pleasance, and the gardens which it connected
with the Castle yard.
To this new scene of pleasures they walked, the Earl’s arm afford-
ing his Sovereign the occasional support which she required, where
flights of steps, then a favourite ornament in a garden, conducted
them from terrace to terrace, and from parterre to parterre. The
ladies in attendance, gifted with prudence, or endowed perhaps with
the amiable desire of acting as they would be done by, did not con-
ceive their duty to the Queen’s person required them, though they
lost not sight of her, to approach so near as to share, or perhaps
disturb, the conversation betwixt the Queen and the Earl, who was
not only her host, but also her most trusted, esteemed, and favoured

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servant. They contented themselves with admiring the grace of this

illustrious couple, whose robes of state were now exchanged for
hunting suits, almost equally magnificent.
Elizabeth’s silvan dress, which was of a pale blue silk, with silver
lace and aiguillettes, approached in form to that of the ancient Ama-
zons, and was therefore well suited at once to her height and to the
dignity of her mien, which her conscious rank and long habits of
authority had rendered in some degree too masculine to be seen to
the best advantage in ordinary female weeds. Leicester’s hunting
suit of Lincoln green, richly embroidered with gold, and crossed by
the gay baldric which sustained a bugle-horn, and a wood-knife
instead of a sword, became its master, as did his other vestments of
court or of war. For such were the perfections of his form and mien,
that Leicester was always supposed to be seen to the greatest advan-
tage in the character and dress which for the time he represented or
wore.
The conversation of Elizabeth and the favourite Earl has not
reached us in detail. But those who watched at some distance (and
the eyes of courtiers and court ladies are right sharp) were of opin-
ion that on no occasion did the dignity of Elizabeth, in gesture and
motion, seem so decidedly to soften away into a mien expressive of
indecision and tenderness. Her step was not only slow, but even
unequal, a thing most unwonted in her carriage; her looks seemed
bent on the ground; and there was a timid disposition to withdraw
from her companion, which external gesture in females often indi-
cates exactly the opposite tendency in the secret mind. The Duch-
ess of Rutland, who ventured nearest, was even heard to aver that
she discerned a tear in Elizabeth’s eye and a blush on her cheek; and
still further, “She bent her looks on the ground to avoid mine,” said
the Duchess, “she who, in her ordinary mood, could look down a
lion.” To what conclusion these symptoms led is sufficiently evi-
dent; nor were they probably entirely groundless. The progress of a
private conversation betwixt two persons of different sexes is often
decisive of their fate, and gives it a turn very different perhaps from
what they themselves anticipated. Gallantry becomes mingled with
conversation, and affection and passion come gradually to mix with
gallantry. Nobles, as well as shepherd swains, will, in such a trying

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moment, say more than they intended; and Queens, like village
maidens, will listen longer than they should.
Horses in the meanwhile neighed and champed the bits with im-
patience in the base-court; hounds yelled in their couples; and yeo-
men, rangers, and prickers lamented the exhaling of the dew, which
would prevent the scent from lying. But Leicester had another chase
in view—or, to speak more justly towards him, had become en-
gaged in it without premeditation, as the high-spirited hunter which
follows the cry of the hounds that have crossed his path by accident.
The Queen, an accomplished and handsome woman, the pride of
England, the hope of France and Holland, and the dread of Spain,
had probably listened with more than usual favour to that mixture
of romantic gallantry with which she always loved to be addressed;
and the Earl had, in vanity, in ambition, or in both, thrown in more
and more of that delicious ingredient, until his importunity became
the language of love itself.
“No, Dudley,” said Elizabeth, yet it was with broken accents—
”no, I must be the mother of my people. Other ties, that make the
lowly maiden happy, are denied to her Sovereign. No, Leicester,
urge it no more. Were I as others, free to seek my own happiness,
then, indeed—but it cannot—cannot be. Delay the chase—delay it
for half an hour—and leave me, my lord.”
“How! leave you, madam?” said Leicester,—”has my madness of-
fended you?”
“No, Leicester, not so!” answered the Queen hastily; “but it is
madness, and must not be repeated. Go—but go not far from hence;
and meantime let no one intrude on my privacy.”
While she spoke thus, Dudley bowed deeply, and retired with a
slow and melancholy air. The Queen stood gazing after him, and
murmured to herself, “Were it possible—were it but possible!—but
no—no; Elizabeth must be the wife and mother of England alone.”
As she spoke thus, and in order to avoid some one whose step she
heard approaching, the Queen turned into the grotto in which her
hapless, and yet but too successful, rival lay concealed.
The mind of England’s Elizabeth, if somewhat shaken by the agi-
tating interview to which she had just put a period, was of that firm
and decided character which soon recovers its natural tone. It was

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like one of those ancient Druidical monuments called Rocking-

stones. The finger of Cupid, boy as he is painted, could put her
feelings in motion; but the power of Hercules could not have de-
stroyed their equilibrium. As she advanced with a slow pace to-
wards the inmost extremity of the grotto, her countenance, ere she
had proceeded half the length, had recovered its dignity of look,
and her mien its air of command.
It was then the Queen became aware that a female figure was
placed beside, or rather partly behind, an alabaster column, at the
foot of which arose the pellucid fountain which occupied the in-
most recess of the twilight grotto. The classical mind of Elizabeth
suggested the story of Numa and Egeria, and she doubted not that
some Italian sculptor had here represented the Naiad whose inspi-
rations gave laws to Rome. As she advanced, she became doubtful
whether she beheld a statue, or a form of flesh and blood. The un-
fortunate Amy, indeed, remained motionless, betwixt the desire
which she had to make her condition known to one of her own sex,
and her awe for the stately form which approached her, and which,
though her eyes had never before beheld, her fears instantly sus-
pected to be the personage she really was. Amy had arisen from her
seat with the purpose of addressing the lady who entered the grotto
alone, and, as she at first thought, so opportunely. But when she
recollected the alarm which Leicester had expressed at the Queen’s
knowing aught of their union, and became more and more satisfied
that the person whom she now beheld was Elizabeth herself, she
stood with one foot advanced and one withdrawn, her arms, head,
and hands perfectly motionless, and her cheek as pallid as the ala-
baster pedestal against which she leaned. Her dress was of pale sea-
green silk, little distinguished in that imperfect light, and some-
what resembled the drapery of a Grecian Nymph, such an antique
disguise having been thought the most secure, where so many
maskers and revellers were assembled; so that the Queen’s doubt of
her being a living form was well justified by all contingent circum-
stances, as well as by the bloodless cheek and the fixed eye.
Elizabeth remained in doubt, even after she had approached within
a few paces, whether she did not gaze on a statue so cunningly fash-
ioned that by the doubtful light it could not be distinguished from

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reality. She stopped, therefore, and fixed upon this interesting ob-
ject her princely look with so much keenness that the astonishment
which had kept Amy immovable gave way to awe, and she gradu-
ally cast down her eyes, and drooped her head under the command-
ing gaze of the Sovereign. Still, however, she remained in all re-
spects, saving this slow and profound inclination of the head, mo-
tionless and silent.
From her dress, and the casket which she instinctively held in her
hand, Elizabeth naturally conjectured that the beautiful but mute
figure which she beheld was a performer in one of the various theat-
rical pageants which had been placed in different situations to sur-
prise her with their homage; and that the poor player, overcome
with awe at her presence, had either forgot the part assigned her, or
lacked courage to go through it. It was natural and courteous to give
her some encouragement; and Elizabeth accordingly said, in a, tone
of condescending kindness, “How now, fair Nymph of this lovely
grotto, art thou spell-bound and struck with dumbness by the charms
of the wicked enchanter whom men term Fear? We are his sworn
enemy, maiden, and can reverse his charm. Speak, we command
thee.”
Instead of answering her by speech, the unfortunate Countess
dropped on her knee before the Queen, let her casket fall from her
hand, and clasping her palms together, looked up in the Queen’s
face with such a mixed agony of fear and supplication, that Eliza-
beth was considerably affected.
“What may this mean?” she said; “this is a stronger passion than
befits the occasion. Stand up, damsel—what wouldst thou have with
us?”
“Your protection, madam,” faltered forth the unhappy petitioner.
“Each daughter of England has it while she is worthy of it,” re-
plied the Queen; “but your distress seems to have a deeper root
than a forgotten task. Why, and in what, do you crave our protec-
tion?”
Amy hastily endeavoured to recall what she were best to say, which
might secure herself from the imminent dangers that surrounded
her, without endangering her husband; and plunging from one
thought to another, amidst the chaos which filled her mind, she

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could at length, in answer to the Queen’s repeated inquiries in what

she sought protection, only falter out, “Alas! I know not.”
“This is folly, maiden,” said Elizabeth impatiently; for there was
something in the extreme confusion of the suppliant which irri-
tated her curiosity, as well as interested her feelings. “The sick man
must tell his malady to the physician; nor are we accustomed to ask
questions so oft without receiving an answer.”
“I request—I implore,” stammered forth the unfortunate Count-
ess —“I beseech your gracious protection—against—against one
Varney.” She choked well-nigh as she uttered the fatal word, which
was instantly caught up by the Queen.
“What, Varney—Sir Richard Varney—the servant of Lord Le-
icester! what, damsel, are you to him, or he to you?”
“I—I—was his prisoner—and he practised on my life—and I
broke forth to—to—”
“To throw thyself on my protection, doubtless,” said Elizabeth.
“Thou shalt have it—that is, if thou art worthy; for we will sift this
matter to the uttermost. Thou art,” she said, bending on the Countess
an eye which seemed designed to pierce her very inmost soul—
”thou art Amy, daughter of Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote Hall?”
“Forgive me—forgive me, most gracious Princess!” said Amy, drop-
ping once more on her knee, from which she had arisen.
“For what should I forgive thee, silly wench?” said Elizabeth; “for
being the daughter of thine own father? Thou art brain-sick, surely.
Well I see I must wring the story from thee by inches. Thou didst
deceive thine old and honoured father—thy look confesses it—
cheated Master Tressilian—thy blush avouches it—and married this
same Varney.”
Amy sprung on her feet, and interrupted the Queen eagerly with,
“No, madam, no! as there is a God above us, I am not the sordid
wretch you would make me! I am not the wife of that contemptible
slave—of that most deliberate villain! I am not the wife of Varney! I
would rather be the bride of Destruction!”
The Queen, overwhelmed in her turn by Amy’s vehemence, stood
silent for an instant, and then replied, “Why, God ha’ mercy, woman!
I see thou canst talk fast enough when the theme likes thee. Nay,
tell me, woman,” she continued, for to the impulse of curiosity was

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now added that of an undefined jealousy that some deception had

been practised on her—“tell me, woman—for, by God’s day, I will
know—whose wife, or whose paramour, art thou! Speak out, and
be speedy. Thou wert better daily with a lioness than with Eliza-
beth.”
Urged to this extremity, dragged as it were by irresistible force to
the verge of the precipice which she saw, but could not avoid —
permitted not a moment’s respite by the eager words and menacing
gestures of the offended Queen, Amy at length uttered in despair,
“The Earl of Leicester knows it all.”
“The Earl of Leicester!” said Elizabeth, in utter astonishment. “The
Earl of Leicester!” she repeated with kindling anger. “Woman, thou
art set on to this—thou dost belie him—he takes no keep of such
things as thou art. Thou art suborned to slander the noblest lord
and the truest-hearted gentleman in England! But were he the right
hand of our trust, or something yet dearer to us, thou shalt have thy
hearing, and that in his presence. Come with me—come with me
instantly!”
As Amy shrunk back with terror, which the incensed Queen in-
terpreted as that of conscious guilt, Elizabeth rapidly advanced, seized
on her arm, and hastened with swift and long steps out of the grotto,
and along the principal alley of the Pleasance, dragging with her the
terrified Countess, whom she still held by the arm, and whose ut-
most exertions could but just keep pace with those of the indignant
Queen.
Leicester was at this moment the centre of a splendid group of
lords and ladies, assembled together under an arcade, or portico,
which closed the alley. The company had drawn together in that
place, to attend the commands of her Majesty when the hunting-
party should go forward, and their astonishment may be imagined
when, instead of seeing Elizabeth advance towards them with her
usual measured dignity of motion, they beheld her walking so rap-
idly that she was in the midst of them ere they were aware; and then
observed, with fear and surprise, that her features were flushed be-
twixt anger and agitation, that her hair was loosened by her haste of
motion, and that her eyes sparkled as they were wont when the
spirit of Henry VIII. mounted highest in his daughter. Nor were

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they less astonished at the appearance of the pale, attenuated, half-

dead, yet still lovely female, whom the Queen upheld by main
strength with one hand, while with the other she waved aside the
ladies and nobles who pressed towards her, under the idea that she
was taken suddenly ill. “Where is my Lord of Leicester?” she said, in
a tone that thrilled with astonishment all the courtiers who stood
around. “Stand forth, my Lord of Leicester!”
If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light
and laughing around, a thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue
vault of heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless
traveller, he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so
unexpectedly yawned before him, with half the astonishment and
fear which Leicester felt at the sight that so suddenly presented it-
self. He had that instant been receiving, with a political affectation
of disavowing and misunderstanding their meaning, the half-ut-
tered, half-intimated congratulations of the courtiers upon the favour
of the Queen, carried apparently to its highest pitch during the in-
terview of that morning, from which most of them seemed to augur
that he might soon arise from their equal in rank to become their
master. And now, while the subdued yet proud smile with which he
disclaimed those inferences was yet curling his cheek, the Queen
shot into the circle, her passions excited to the uttermost; and sup-
porting with one hand, and apparently without an effort, the pale
and sinking form of his almost expiring wife, and pointing with the
finger of the other to her half-dead features, demanded in a voice
that sounded to the ears of the astounded statesman like the last
dread trumpet-call that is to summon body and spirit to the judg-
ment-seat, “Knowest thou this woman?”
As, at the blast of that last trumpet, the guilty shall call upon the
mountains to cover them, Leicester’s inward thoughts invoked the
stately arch which he had built in his pride to burst its strong con-
junction, and overwhelm them in its ruins. But the cemented stones,
architrave and battlement, stood fast; and it was the proud master
himself who, as if some actual pressure had bent him to the earth,
kneeled down before Elizabeth, and prostrated his brow to the marble
flag-stones on which she stood.
“Leicester,” said Elizabeth, in a voice which trembled with pas-

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sion, “could I think thou hast practised on me—on me thy Sover-

eign—on me thy confiding, thy too partial mistress, the base and
ungrateful deception which thy present confusion surmises—by all
that is holy, false lord, that head of thine were in as great peril as
ever was thy father’s!”
Leicester had not conscious innocence, but he had pride to sup-
port him. He raised slowly his brow and features, which were black
and swoln with contending emotions, and only replied, “My head
cannot fall but by the sentence of my peers. To them I will plead,
and not to a princess who thus requites my faithful service.”
“What! my lords,” said Elizabeth, looking around, “we are defied,
I think—defied in the Castle we have ourselves bestowed on this
proud man!—My Lord Shrewsbury, you are Marshal of England,
attach him of high treason.”
“Whom does your Grace mean?” said Shrewsbury, much surprised,
for he had that instant joined the astonished circle.
“Whom should I mean, but that traitor Dudley, Earl of Leicester!
—Cousin of Hunsdon, order out your band of gentlemen pension-
ers, and take him into instant custody. I say, villain, make haste!”
Hunsdon, a rough old noble, who, from his relationship to the
Boleyns, was accustomed to use more freedom with the Queen than
almost any other dared to do, replied bluntly, “And it is like your
Grace might order me to the Tower to-morrow for making too much
haste. I do beseech you to be patient.”
“Patient—God’s life!” exclaimed the Queen—“name not the word
to me; thou knowest not of what he is guilty!”
Amy, who had by this time in some degree recovered herself, and
who saw her husband, as she conceived, in the utmost danger from
the rage of an offended Sovereign, instantly (and alas! how many
women have done the same) forgot her own wrongs and her own
danger in her apprehensions for him, and throwing herself before
the Queen, embraced her knees, while she exclaimed, “He is guilt-
less, madam—he is guiltless; no one can lay aught to the charge of
the noble Leicester!”
“Why, minion,” answered the Queen, “didst not thou thyself say
that the Earl of Leicester was privy to thy whole history?”
“Did I say so?” repeated the unhappy Amy, laying aside every

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consideration of consistency and of self-interest. “Oh, if I did, I

foully belied him. May God so judge me, as I believe he was never
privy to a thought that would harm me!”
“Woman!” said Elizabeth, “I will know who has moved thee to
this; or my wrath—and the wrath of kings is a flaming fire—shall
wither and consume thee like a weed in the furnace!”
As the Queen uttered this threat, Leicester’s better angel called his
pride to his aid, and reproached him with the utter extremity of mean-
ness which would overwhelm him for ever if he stooped to take shel-
ter under the generous interposition of his wife, and abandoned her,
in return for her kindness, to the resentment of the Queen. He had
already raised his head with the dignity of a man of honour to avow
his marriage, and proclaim himself the protector of his Countess,
when Varney, born, as it appeared, to be his master’s evil genius, rushed
into the presence with every mark of disorder on his face and apparel.
“What means this saucy intrusion?” said Elizabeth.
Varney, with the air of a man altogether overwhelmed with grief
and confusion, prostrated himself before her feet, exclaiming, “Par-
don, my Liege, pardon!—or at least let your justice avenge itself on
me, where it is due; but spare my noble, my generous, my innocent
patron and master!”
Amy, who was yet kneeling, started up as she saw the man whom
she deemed most odious place himself so near her, and was about to
fly towards Leicester, when, checked at once by the uncertainty and
even timidity which his looks had reassumed as soon as the appear-
ance of his confidant seemed to open a new scene, she hung back,
and uttering a faint scream, besought of her Majesty to cause her to
be imprisoned in the lowest dungeon of the Castle—to deal with
her as the worst of criminals—“but spare,” she exclaimed, “my sight
and hearing what will destroy the little judgment I have left—the
sight of that unutterable and most shameless villain!”
“And why, sweetheart?” said the Queen, moved by a new impulse;
“what hath he, this false knight, since such thou accountest him,
done to thee?”
“Oh, worse than sorrow, madam, and worse than injury—he has
sown dissension where most there should be peace. I shall go mad if
I look longer on him!”

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“Beshrew me, but I think thou art distraught already,” answered

the Queen.—“My Lord Hunsdon, look to this poor distressed young
woman, and let her be safely bestowed, and in honest keeping, till
we require her to be forthcoming.”
Two or three of the ladies in attendance, either moved by compas-
sion for a creature so interesting, or by some other motive, offered
their services to look after her; but the Queen briefly answered,
“Ladies, under favour, no. You have all (give God thanks) sharp ears
and nimble tongues; our kinsman Hunsdon has ears of the dullest,
and a tongue somewhat rough, but yet of the slowest.—Hunsdon,
look to it that none have speech of her.”
“By Our Lady,” said Hunsdon, taking in his strong, sinewy arms
the fading and almost swooning form of Amy, “she is a lovely child!
and though a rough nurse, your Grace hath given her a kind one.
She is safe with me as one of my own ladybirds of daughters.”
So saying, he carried her off; unresistingly and almost uncon-
sciously, his war-worn locks and long, grey beard mingling with her
light-brown tresses, as her head reclined on his strong, square shoul-
der. The Queen followed him with her eye. She had already, with
that self-command which forms so necessary a part of a Sovereign’s
accomplishments, suppressed every appearance of agitation, and
seemed as if she desired to banish all traces of her burst of passion
from the recollection of those who had witnessed it. “My Lord of
Hunsdon says well,” she observed, “he is indeed but a rough nurse
for so tender a babe.”
“My Lord of Hunsdon,” said the Dean of St. Asaph—”I speak it
not in defamation of his more noble qualities—hath a broad license
in speech, and garnishes his discourse somewhat too freely with the
cruel and superstitious oaths which savour both of profaneness and
of old Papistrie.”
“It is the fault of his blood, Mr. Dean,” said the Queen, turning
sharply round upon the reverend dignitary as she spoke; “and you
may blame mine for the same distemperature. The Boleyns were
ever a hot and plain-spoken race, more hasty to speak their mind
than careful to choose their expressions. And by my word—I hope
there is no sin in that affirmation—I question if it were much cooled
by mixing with that of Tudor.”

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As she made this last observation she smiled graciously, and stole
her eyes almost insensibly round to seek those of the Earl of Leices-
ter, to whom she now began to think she had spoken with hasty
harshness upon the unfounded suspicion of a moment.
The Queen’s eye found the Earl in no mood to accept the implied
offer of conciliation. His own looks had followed, with late and
rueful repentance, the faded form which Hunsdon had just borne
from the presence. They now reposed gloomily on the ground, but
more—so at least it seemed to Elizabeth—with the expression of
one who has received an unjust affront, than of him who is con-
scious of guilt. She turned her face angrily from him, and said to
Varney, “Speak, Sir Richard, and explain these riddles—thou hast
sense and the use of speech, at least, which elsewhere we look for in
vain.”
As she said this, she darted another resentful glance towards Le-
icester, while the wily Varney hastened to tell his own story.
“Your Majesty’s piercing eye,” he said, “has already detected the
cruel malady of my beloved lady, which, unhappy that I am, I would
not suffer to be expressed in the certificate of her physician, seeking
to conceal what has now broken out with so much the more scan-
dal.”
“She is then distraught?” said the Queen. “Indeed we doubted
not of it; her whole demeanour bears it out. I found her moping in
a corner of yonder grotto; and every word she spoke—which in-
deed I dragged from her as by the rack—she instantly recalled and
forswore. But how came she hither? Why had you her not in safe-
keeping?”
“My gracious Liege,” said Varney, “the worthy gentleman under
whose charge I left her, Master Anthony Foster, has come hither but
now, as fast as man and horse can travel, to show me of her escape,
which she managed with the art peculiar to many who are afflicted
with this malady. He is at hand for examination.”
“Let it be for another time,” said the Queen. “But, Sir Richard,
we envy you not your domestic felicity; your lady railed on you
bitterly, and seemed ready to swoon at beholding you.”
“It is the nature of persons in her disorder, so please your Grace,”
answered Varney, “to be ever most inveterate in their spleen against

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those whom, in their better moments, they hold nearest and dearest.”
“We have heard so, indeed,” said Elizabeth, “and give faith to the
saying.”
“May your Grace then be pleased,” said Varney, “ to command
my unfortunate wife to be delivered into the custody of her friends?”
Leicester partly started; but making a strong effort, he subdued
his emotion, while Elizabeth answered sharply, “You are something
too hasty, Master Varney. We will have first a report of the lady’s
health and state of mind from Masters, our own physician, and
then determine what shall be thought just. You shall have license,
however, to see her, that if there be any matrimonial quarrel betwixt
you—such things we have heard do occur, even betwixt a loving
couple—you may make it up, without further scandal to our court
or trouble to ourselves.”
Varney bowed low, and made no other answer.
Elizabeth again looked towards Leicester, and said, with a degree
of condescension which could only arise out of the most heartfelt
interest, “Discord, as the Italian poet says, will find her way into
peaceful convents, as well as into the privacy of families; and we fear
our own guards and ushers will hardly exclude her from courts. My
Lord of Leicester, you are offended with us, and we have right to be
offended with you. We will take the lion’s part upon us, and be the
first to forgive.”
Leicester smoothed his brow, as by an effort; but the trouble was
too deep-seated that its placidity should at once return. He said,
however, that which fitted the occasion, “That he could not have
the happiness of forgiving, because she who commanded him to do
so could commit no injury towards him.”
Elizabeth seemed content with this reply, and intimated her plea-
sure that the sports of the morning should proceed. The bugles
sounded, the hounds bayed, the horses pranced—but the courtiers
and ladies sought the amusement to which they were summoned
with hearts very different from those which had leaped to the
morning’s revielle. There was doubt, and fear, and expectation on
every brow, and surmise and intrigue in every whisper.
Blount took an opportunity to whisper into Raleigh’s ear, “This
storm came like a levanter in the Mediterranean.”

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“Varium et mutabile,” answered Raleigh, in a similar tone.

“Nay, I know nought of your Latin,” said Blount; “but I thank
God Tressilian took not the sea during that hurricane. He could
scarce have missed shipwreck, knowing as he does so little how to
trim his sails to a court gale.”
“Thou wouldst have instructed him!” said Raleigh.
“Why, I have profited by my time as well as thou, Sir Walter,”
replied honest Blount. “I am knight as well as thou, and of the
earlier creation.”
“Now, God further thy wit,” said Raleigh. “But for Tressilian, I
would I knew what were the matter with him. He told me this
morning he would not leave his chamber for the space of twelve
hours or thereby, being bound by a promise. This lady’s madness,
when he shall learn it, will not, I fear, cure his infirmity. The moon
is at the fullest, and men’s brains are working like yeast. But hark!
they sound to mount. Let us to horse, Blount; we young knights
must deserve our spurs.”

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CHAPTER XXXV

Sincerity,
Thou first of virtues! let no mortal leave
Thy onward path, although the earth should gape,
And from the gulf of hell destruction cry,
To take dissimulation’s winding way.

Douglas.

IT WAS NOT till after a long and successful morning’s sport, and a
prolonged repast which followed the return of the Queen to the
Castle, that Leicester at length found himself alone with Varney,
from whom he now learned the whole particulars of the Countess’s
escape, as they had been brought to Kenilworth by Foster, who, in
his terror for the consequences, had himself posted thither with the
tidings. As Varney, in his narrative, took especial care to be silent
concerning those practices on the Countess’s health which had driven
her to so desperate a resolution, Leicester, who could only suppose
that she had adopted it out of jealous impatience to attain the avowed
state and appearance belonging to her rank, was not a little offended
at the levity with which his wife had broken his strict commands,
and exposed him to the resentment of Elizabeth.
“I have given,” he said, “to this daughter of an obscure Devonshire
gentleman the proudest name in England. I have made her sharer
of my bed and of my fortunes. I ask but of her a little patience, ere
she launches forth upon the full current of her grandeur; and the
infatuated woman will rather hazard her own shipwreck and mine—
will rather involve me in a thousand whirlpools, shoals, and quick-

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sands, and compel me to a thousand devices which shame me in

mine own eyes—than tarry for a little space longer in the obscurity
to which she was born. So lovely, so delicate, so fond, so faithful, yet
to lack in so grave a matter the prudence which one might hope
from the veriest fool—it puts me beyond my patience.”
“We may post it over yet well enough,” said Varney, “if my lady
will be but ruled, and take on her the character which the time
commands.”
“It is but too true, Sir Richard,” said Leicester; “there is indeed no
other remedy. I have heard her termed thy wife in my presence,
without contradiction. She must bear the title until she is far from
Kenilworth.”
“And long afterwards, I trust,” said Varney; then instantly added,
“For I cannot but hope it will be long after ere she bear the title of
Lady Leicester—I fear me it may scarce be with safety during the
life of this Queen. But your lordship is best judge, you alone know-
ing what passages have taken place betwixt Elizabeth and you.”
“You are right, Varney,” said Leicester. “I have this morning been
both fool and villain; and when Elizabeth hears of my unhappy
marriage, she cannot but think herself treated with that premedi-
tated slight which women never forgive. We have once this day stood
upon terms little short of defiance; and to those, I fear, we must
again return.”
“Is her resentment, then, so implacable?” said Varney.
“Far from it,” replied the Earl; “for, being what she is in spirit and
in station, she has even this day been but too condescending, in
giving me opportunities to repair what she thinks my faulty heat of
temper.”
“Ay,” answered Varney; “the Italians say right—in lovers’ quarrels,
the party that loves most is always most willing to acknowledge the
greater fault. So then, my lord, if this union with the lady could be
concealed, you stand with Elizabeth as you did?”
Leicester sighed, and was silent for a moment, ere he replied.
“Varney, I think thou art true to me, and I will tell thee all. I do
not stand where I did. I have spoken to Elizabeth—under what mad
impulse I know not—on a theme which cannot be abandoned with-
out touching every female feeling to the quick, and which yet I dare

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not and cannot prosecute. She can never, never forgive me for hav-
ing caused and witnessed those yieldings to human passion.”
“We must do something, my lord,” said Varney, “and that speed-
ily.”
“There is nought to be done,” answered Leicester, despondingly.
“I am like one that has long toiled up a dangerous precipice, and
when he is within one perilous stride of the top, finds his progress
arrested when retreat has become impossible. I see above me the
pinnacle which I cannot reach—beneath me the abyss into which I
must fall, as soon as my relaxing grasp and dizzy brain join to hurl
me from my present precarious stance.”
“Think better of your situation, my lord,” said Varney; “let us try
the experiment in which you have but now acquiesced. Keep we
your marriage from Elizabeth’s knowledge, and all may yet be well.
I will instantly go to the lady myself. She hates me, because I have
been earnest with your lordship, as she truly suspects, in opposition
to what she terms her rights. I care not for her prejudices—she shall
listen to me; and I will show her such reasons for yielding to the
pressure of the times that I doubt not to bring back her consent to
whatever measures these exigencies may require.”
“No, Varney,” said Leicester; “I have thought upon what is to be
done, and I will myself speak with Amy.”
It was now Varney’s turn to feel upon his own account the terrors
which he affected to participate solely on account of his patron.
“Your lordship will not yourself speak with the lady?”
“It is my fixed purpose,” said Leicester. “Fetch me one of the liv-
ery-cloaks; I will pass the sentinel as thy servant. Thou art to have
free access to her.”
“But, my lord—”
“I will have no buts,” replied Leicester; “it shall be even thus, and
not otherwise. Hunsdon sleeps, I think, in Saintlowe’s Tower. We
can go thither from these apartments by the private passage, with-
out risk of meeting any one. Or what if I do meet Hunsdon? he is
more my friend than enemy, and thick-witted enough to adopt any
belief that is thrust on him. Fetch me the cloak instantly.”
Varney had no alternative save obedience. In a few minutes Le-
icester was muffled in the mantle, pulled his bonnet over his brows,

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and followed Varney along the secret passage of the Castle which
communicated with Hunsdon’s apartments, in which there was scarce
a chance of meeting any inquisitive person, and hardly light enough
for any such to have satisfied their curiosity. They emerged at a door
where Lord Hunsdon had, with military precaution, placed a senti-
nel, one of his own northern retainers as it fortuned, who readily
admitted Sir Richard Varney and his attendant, saying only, in his
northern dialect, “I would, man, thou couldst make the mad lady
be still yonder; for her moans do sae dirl through my head that I
would rather keep watch on a snowdrift, in the wastes of Catlowdie.”
They hastily entered, and shut the door behind them.
“Now, good devil, if there be one,” said Varney, within himself,
“for once help a votary at a dead pinch, for my boat is amongst the
breakers!”
The Countess Amy, with her hair and her garments dishevelled,
was seated upon a sort of couch, in an attitude of the deepest afflic-
tion, out of which she was startled by the opening of the door. Size
turned hastily round, and fixing her eye on Varney, exclaimed,
“Wretch! art thou come to frame some new plan of villainy?”
Leicester cut short her reproaches by stepping forward and drop-
ping his cloak, while he said, in a voice rather of authority than of
affection, “It is with me, madam, you have to commune, not with
Sir Richard Varney.”
The change effected on the Countess’s look and manner was like
magic. “Dudley!” she exclaimed, “Dudley! and art thou come at
last?” And with the speed of lightning she flew to her husband,
clung round his neck, and unheeding the presence of Varney, over-
whelmed him with caresses, while she bathed his face in a flood of
tears, muttering, at the same time, but in broken and disjointed
monosyllables, the fondest expressions which Love teaches his vota-
ries.
Leicester, as it seemed to him, had reason to be angry with his
lady for transgressing his commands, and thus placing him in the
perilous situation in which he had that morning stood. But what
displeasure could keep its ground before these testimonies of affec-
tion from a being so lovely, that even the negligence of dress, and
the withering effects of fear, grief, and fatigue, which would have

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impaired the beauty of others, rendered hers but the more interest-
ing. He received and repaid her caresses with fondness mingled with
melancholy, the last of which she seemed scarcely to observe, until
the first transport of her own joy was over, when, looking anxiously
in his face, she asked if he was ill.
“Not in my body, Amy,” was his answer.
“Then I will be well too. O Dudley! I have been ill!—very ill,
since we last met!—for I call not this morning’s horrible vision a
meeting. I have been in sickness, in grief, and in danger. But thou
art come, and all is joy, and health, and safety!”
“Alas, Amy,” said Leicester, “thou hast undone me!”
“I, my lord?” said Amy, her cheek at once losing its transient flush
of joy—“how could I injure that which I love better than myself?”
“I would not upbraid you, Amy,” replied the Earl; “but are you
not here contrary to my express commands—and does not your
presence here endanger both yourself and me?”
“Does it, does it indeed?” she exclaimed eagerly; “then why am I
here a moment longer? Oh, if you knew by what fears I was urged
to quit Cumnor Place! But I will say nothing of myself—only that
if it might be otherwise, I would not willingly return thither; yet if it
concern your safety—”
“We will think, Amy, of some other retreat,” said Leicester; “and
you shall go to one of my northern castles, under the personage—it
will be but needful, I trust, for a very few days—of Varney’s wife.”
“How, my Lord of Leicester!” said the lady, disengaging herself
from his embraces; “is it to your wife you give the dishonourable
counsel to acknowledge herself the bride of another—and of all
men, the bride of that Varney?”
“Madam, I speak it in earnest—Varney is my true and faithful
servant, trusted in my deepest secrets. I had better lose my right
hand than his service at this moment. You have no cause to scorn
him as you do.”
“I could assign one, my lord,” replied the Countess; “and I see he
shakes even under that assured look of his. But he that is necessary
as your right hand to your safety is free from any accusation of
mine. May he be true to you; and that he may be true, trust him not
too much or too far. But it is enough to say that I will not go with

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him unless by violence, nor would I acknowledge him as my hus-

band were all—”
“It is a temporary deception, madam,” said Leicester, irritated by
her opposition, “necessary for both our safeties, endangered by you
through female caprice, or the premature desire to seize on a rank to
which I gave you title only under condition that our marriage, for a
time, should continue secret. If my proposal disgust you, it is your-
self has brought it on both of us. There is no other remedy—you
must do what your own impatient folly hath rendered necessary—
I command you.”
“I cannot put your commands, my lord,” said Amy, “in balance
with those of honour and conscience. I will not, in this instance,
obey you. You may achieve your own dishonour, to which these
crooked policies naturally tend, but I will do nought that can blem-
ish mine. How could you again, my lord, acknowledge me as a pure
and chaste matron, worthy to share your fortunes, when, holding
that high character, I had strolled the country the acknowledged
wife of such a profligate fellow as your servant Varney?”
“My lord,” said Varney interposing, “my lady is too much prejudiced
against me, unhappily, to listen to what I can offer, yet it may please her
better than what she proposes. She has good interest with Master
Edmund Tressilian, and could doubtless prevail on him to consent to
be her companion to Lidcote Hall, and there she might remain in safety
until time permitted the development of this mystery.”
Leicester was silent, but stood looking eagerly on Amy, with eyes
which seemed suddenly to glow as much with suspicion as displea-
sure.
The Countess only said, “Would to God I were in my father’s
house! When I left it, I little thought I was leaving peace of mind
and honour behind me.”
Varney proceeded with a tone of deliberation. “Doubtless this will
make it necessary to take strangers into my lord’s counsels; but surely
the Countess will be warrant for the honour of Master Tressilian,
and such of her father’s family—”
“Peace, Varney,” said Leicester; “by Heaven I will strike my dag-
ger into thee if again thou namest Tressilian as a partner of my coun-
sels!”

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“And wherefore not!” said the Countess; “unless they be counsels

fitter for such as Varney, than for a man of stainless honour and
integrity. My lord, my lord, bend no angry brows on me; it is the
truth, and it is I who speak it. I once did Tressilian wrong for your
sake; I will not do him the further injustice of being silent when his
honour is brought in question. I can forbear,” she said, looking at
Varney, “to pull the mask off hypocrisy, but I will not permit virtue
to be slandered in my hearing.”
There was a dead pause. Leicester stood displeased, yet undeter-
mined, and too conscious of the weakness of his cause; while Varney,
with a deep and hypocritical affectation of sorrow, mingled with
humility, bent his eyes on the ground.
It was then that the Countess Amy displayed, in the midst of
distress and difficulty, the natural energy of character which would
have rendered her, had fate allowed, a distinguished ornament of
the rank which she held. She walked up to Leicester with a com-
posed step, a dignified air, and looks in which strong affection es-
sayed in vain to shake the firmness of conscious, truth and rectitude
of principle. “You have spoken your mind, my lord,” she said, “in
these difficulties, with which, unhappily, I have found myself un-
able to comply. This gentleman—this person I would say—has
hinted at another scheme, to which I object not but as it displeases
you. Will your lordship be pleased to hear what a young and timid
woman, but your most affectionate wife, can suggest in the present
extremity?”
Leicester was silent, but bent his head towards the Countess, as an
intimation that she was at liberty to proceed.
“There hath been but one cause for all these evils, my lord,” she
proceeded, “and it resolves itself into the mysterious duplicity with
which you, have been induced to surround yourself. Extricate your-
self at once, my lord, from the tyranny of these disgraceful tram-
mels. Be like a true English gentleman, knight, and earl, who holds
that truth is the foundation of honour, and that honour is dear to
him as the breath of his nostrils. Take your ill-fated wife by the
hand, lead her to the footstool of Elizabeth’s throne—say that in a
moment of infatuation, moved by supposed beauty, of which none
perhaps can now trace even the remains, I gave my hand to this

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Amy Robsart. You will then have done justice to me, my lord, and
to your own honour and should law or power require you to part
from me, I will oppose no objection, since I may then with honour
hide a grieved and broken heart in those shades from which your
love withdrew me. Then—have but a little patience, and Amy’s life
will not long darken your brighter prospects.”
There was so much of dignity, so much of tenderness, in the
Countess’s remonstrance, that it moved all that was noble and gen-
erous in the soul of her husband. The scales seemed to fall from his
eyes, and the duplicity and tergiversation of which he had been
guilty stung him at once with remorse and shame.
“I am not worthy of you, Amy,” he said, “that could weigh aught
which ambition has to give against such a heart as thine. I have a
bitter penance to perform, in disentangling, before sneering foes
and astounded friends, all the meshes of my own deceitful policy.
And the Queen—but let her take my head, as she has threatened.”
“Take your head, my lord!” said the Countess, “because you used
the freedom and liberty of an English subject in choosing a wife?
For shame! it is this distrust of the Queen’s justice, this apprehen-
sion of danger, which cannot but be imaginary, that, like scarecrows,
have induced you to forsake the straightforward path, which, as it is
the best, is also the safest.”
“Ah, Amy, thou little knowest!” said Dudley but instantly check-
ing himself, he added, “Yet she shall not find in me a safe or easy
victim of arbitrary vengeance. I have friends—I have allies—I will
not, like Norfolk, be dragged to the block as a victim to sacrifice.
Fear not, Amy; thou shalt see Dudley bear himself worthy of his
name. I must instantly communicate with some of those friends on
whom I can best rely; for, as things stand, I may be made prisoner
in my own Castle.”
“Oh, my good lord,” said Amy, “make no faction in a peaceful
state! There is no friend can help us so well as our own candid truth
and honour. Bring but these to our assistance, and you are safe amidst
a whole army of the envious and malignant. Leave these behind
you, and all other defence will be fruitless. Truth, my noble lord, is
well painted unarmed.”
“But Wisdom, Amy,” answered Leicester, is arrayed in panoply of

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proof. Argue not with me on the means I shall use to render my

confession—since it must be called so—as safe as may be; it will be
fraught with enough of danger, do what we will.—Varney, we must
hence.—Farewell, Amy, whom I am to vindicate as mine own, at an
expense and risk of which thou alone couldst be worthy. You shall
soon hear further from me.”
He embraced her fervently, muffled himself as before, and ac-
companied Varney from the apartment. The latter, as he left the
room, bowed low, and as he raised his body, regarded Amy with a
peculiar expression, as if he desired to know how far his own pardon
was included in the reconciliation which had taken place betwixt
her and her lord. The Countess looked upon him with a fixed eye,
but seemed no more conscious of his presence than if there had
been nothing but vacant air on the spot where he stood.
“She has brought me to the crisis,” he muttered—“she or I am
lost. There was something—I wot not if it was fear or pity—that
prompted me to avoid this fatal crisis. It is now decided —she or I
must perish.”
While he thus spoke, he observed, with surprise, that a boy, re-
pulsed by the sentinel, made up to Leicester, and spoke with him.
Varney was one of those politicians whom not the slightest appear-
ances escape without inquiry. He asked the sentinel what the lad
wanted with him, and received for answer that the boy had wished
him to transmit a parcel to the mad lady; but that he cared not to
take charge of it, such communication being beyond his commis-
sion, His curiosity satisfied in that particular, he approached his
patron, and heard him say, “Well, boy, the packet shall be deliv-
ered.”
“Thanks, good Master Serving-man,” said the boy, and was out
of sight in an instant.
Leicester and Varney returned with hasty steps to the Earl’s pri-
vate apartment, by the same passage which had conducted them to
Saintlowe’s Tower.

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CHAPTER XXXVI

I have said
This is an adulteress—I have said with whom:
More, she’s a traitor, and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows
What she should shame to know herself.

Winter’s Tale.

THEY WERE no sooner in the Earl’s cabinet than, taking his tablets
from his pocket, he began to write, speaking partly to Varney, and
partly to himself—”There are many of them close bounden to me,
and especially those in good estate and high office—many who, if
they look back towards my benefits, or forward towards the perils
which may befall themselves, will not, I think, be disposed to see
me stagger unsupported. Let me see —Knollis is sure, and through
his means Guernsey and Jersey. Horsey commands in the Isle of
Wight. My brother-in-law, Huntingdon, and Pembroke, have au-
thority in Wales. Through Bedford I lead the Puritans, with their
interest, so powerful in all the boroughs. My brother of Warwick is
equal, well-nigh, to myself, in wealth, followers, and dependencies.
Sir Owen Hopton is at my devotion; he commands the Tower of
London, and the national treasure deposited there. My father and
grand-father needed never to have stooped their heads to the block
had they thus forecast their enterprises.—Why look you so sad,
Varney? I tell thee, a tree so deep-rooted is not so easily to be torn
up by the tempest.”
“Alas! my lord,” said Varney, with well-acted passion, and then

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resumed the same look of despondency which Leicester had before

noted.
“Alas!” repeated Leicester; “and wherefore alas, Sir Richard? Doth
your new spirit of chivalry supply no more vigorous ejaculation when
a noble struggle is impending? Or, if alas means thou wilt flinch
from the conflict, thou mayest leave the Castle, or go join mine
enemies, whichever thou thinkest best.”
“Not so, my lord,” answered his confidant; “Varney will be found
fighting or dying by your side. Forgive me, if, in love to you, I see
more fully than your noble heart permits you to do, the inextricable
difficulties with which you are surrounded. You are strong, my lord,
and powerful; yet, let me say it without offence, you are so only by
the reflected light of the Queen’s favour. While you are Elizabeth’s
favourite, you are all, save in name, like an actual sovereign. But let
her call back the honours she has bestowed, and the prophet’s gourd
did not wither more suddenly. Declare against the Queen, and I do
not say that in the wide nation, or in this province alone, you would
find yourself instantly deserted and outnumbered; but I will say,
that even in this very Castle, and in the midst of your vassals, kins-
men, and dependants, you would be a captive, nay, a sentenced
captive, should she please to say the word. Think upon Norfolk, my
lord—upon the powerful Northumberland—the splendid
Westmoreland;—think on all who have made head against this sage
Princess. They are dead, captive, or fugitive. This is not like other
thrones, which can be overturned by a combination of powerful
nobles; the broad foundations which support it are in the extended
love and affections of the people. You might share it with Elizabeth
if you would; but neither yours, nor any other power, foreign or
domestic, will avail to overthrow, or even to shake it.”
He paused, and Leicester threw his tablets from him with an air
of reckless despite. “It may be as thou sayest,” he said? “and, in
sooth, I care not whether truth or cowardice dictate thy forebod-
ings. But it shall not be said I fell without a struggle.
Give orders that those of my retainers who served under me in
Ireland be gradually drawn into the main Keep, and let our gentle-
men and friends stand on their guard, and go armed, as if they
expected arm onset from the followers of Sussex. Possess the towns-

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people with some apprehension; let them take arms, and be ready,
at a given signal, to overpower the Pensioners and Yeomen of the
Guard.”
“Let me remind you, my lord,” said Varney, with the same ap-
pearance of deep and melancholy interest, “that you have given me
orders to prepare for disarming the Queen’s guard. It is an act of
high treason, but you shall nevertheless be obeyed.”
“I care not,” said Leicester desperately—“I care not. Shame is be-
hind me, ruin before me; I must on.”
Here there was another pause, which Varney at length broke with
the following words: “It is come to the point I have long dreaded. I
must either witness, like an ungrateful beast, the downfall of the
best and kindest of masters, or I must speak what I would have
buried in the deepest oblivion, or told by any other mouth than
mine.”
“What is that thou sayest, or wouldst say?” replied the Earl; “we
have no time to waste on words when the times call us to action.”
“My speech is soon made, my lord-would to God it were as soon
answered! Your marriage is the sole cause of the threatened breach
with your Sovereign, my lord, is it not?”
“Thou knowest it is!” replied Leicester. “What needs so fruitless a
question?”
“Pardon me, my lord,” said Varney; “the use lies here. Men will
wager their lands and lives in defence of a rich diamond, my lord;
but were it not first prudent to look if there is no flaw in it?”
“What means this?” said Leicester, with eyes sternly fixed on his
dependant; “of whom dost thou dare to speak?”
“It is—of the Countess Amy, my lord, of whom I am unhappily
bound to speak; and of whom I will speak, were your lordship to
kill me for my zeal.”
“Thou mayest happen to deserve it at my hand,” said the Earl;
“but speak on, I will hear thee.”
“Nay, then, my lord, I will be bold. I speak for my own life as well
as for your lordship’s. I like not this lady’s tampering and trickstering
with this same Edmund Tressilian. You know him, my lord. You
know he had formerly an interest in her, which it cost your lordship
some pains to supersede. You know the eagerness with which he has

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pressed on the suit against me in behalf of this lady, the open object
of which is to drive your lordship to an avowal of what I must ever
call your most unhappy marriage, the point to which my lady also is
willing, at any risk, to urge you.”
Leicester smiled constrainedly. “Thou meanest well, good Sir Ri-
chard, and wouldst, I think, sacrifice thine own honour, as well as
that of any other person, to save me from what thou thinkest a step
so terrible. But remember”—he spoke these words with the most
stern decision—“you speak of the Countess of Leicester.”
“I do, my lord,” said Varney; “but it is for the welfare of the Earl
of Leicester. My tale is but begun. I do most strongly believe that
this Tressilian has, from the beginning of his moving in her cause,
been in connivance with her ladyship the Countess.”
“Thou speakest wild madness, Varney, with the sober face of a
preacher. Where, or how, could they communicate together?”
“My lord,” said Varney, “unfortunately I can show that but too
well. It was just before the supplication was presented to the Queen,
in Tressilian’s name, that I met him, to my utter astonishment, at
the postern gate which leads from the demesne at Cumnor Place.”
“Thou met’st him, villain! and why didst thou not strike him dead?”
exclaimed Leicester.
“I drew on him, my lord, and he on me; and had not my foot
slipped, he would not, perhaps, have been again a stumbling-block
in your lordship’s path.”
Leicester seemed struck dumb with surprise. At length he answered,
“What other evidence hast thou of this, Varney, save thine own
assertion?—for, as I will punish deeply, I will examine coolly and
warily. Sacred Heaven!—but no—I will examine coldly and warily-
coldly and warily.” He repeated these words more than once to him-
self, as if in the very sound there was a sedative quality; and again
compressing his lips, as if he feared some violent expression might
escape from them, he asked again, “What further proof?”
“Enough, my lord,” said Varney, “and to spare. I would it rested
with me alone, for with me it might have been silenced for ever. But
my servant, Michael Lambourne, witnessed the whole, and was,
indeed, the means of first introducing Tressilian into Cumnor Place;
and therefore I took him into my service, and retained him in it,

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though something of a debauched fellow, that I might have his tongue

always under my own command.” He then acquainted Lord Leices-
ter how easy it was to prove the circumstance of their interview
true, by evidence of Anthony Foster, with the corroborative testi-
monies of the various persons at Cumnor, who had heard the wager
laid, and had seen Lambourne and Tressilian set off together. In the
whole narrative, Varney hazarded nothing fabulous, excepting that,
not indeed by direct assertion, but by inference, he led his patron to
suppose that the interview betwixt Amy and Tressilian at Cumnor
Place had been longer than the few minutes to which it was in real-
ity limited.
“And wherefore was I not told of all this?” said Leicester sternly.
“Why did all of ye—and in particular thou, Varney—keep back
from me such material information?”
“Because, my lord,” replied Varney, “the Countess pretended to
Foster and to me that Tressilian had intruded himself upon her; and
I concluded their interview had been in all honour, and that she
would at her own time tell it to your lordship. Your lordship knows
with what unwilling ears we listen to evil surmises against those
whom we love; and I thank Heaven I am no makebate or informer,
to be the first to sow them.”
“You are but too ready to receive them, however, Sir Richard,”
replied his patron. “How knowest thou that this interview was not
in all honour, as thou hast said? Methinks the wife of the Earl of
Leicester might speak for a short time with such a person as Tressilian
without injury to me or suspicion to herself.”
“Questionless, my lord,” answered Varney, “Had I thought other-
wise, I had been no keeper of the secret. But here lies the rub—
Tressilian leaves not the place without establishing a correspondence
with a poor man, the landlord of an inn in Cumnor, for the purpose
of carrying off the lady. He sent down an emissary of his, whom I
trust soon to have in right sure keeping under Mervyn’s Tower—
Killigrew and Lambsbey are scouring the country in quest of him.
The host is rewarded with a ring for keeping counsel—your lord-
ship may have noted it on Tressilian’s hand—here it is. This fellow,
this agent, makes his way to the place as a pedlar; holds conferences
with the lady, and they make their escape together by night; rob a

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poor fellow of a horse by the way, such was their guilty haste, and at
length reach this Castle, where the Countess of Leicester finds ref-
uge—I dare not say in what place.”
“Speak, I command thee,” said Leicester—“speak, while I retain
sense enough to hear thee.”
“Since it must be so,” answered Varney, “the lady resorted imme-
diately to the apartment of Tressilian, where she remained many
hours, partly in company with him, and partly alone. I told you
Tressilian had a paramour in his chamber; I little dreamed that par-
amour was—”
“Amy, thou wouldst say,” answered Leicester; “but it is false, false
as the smoke of hell! Ambitious she may be—fickle and impatient—
’tis a woman’s fault; but false to me!—never, never. The proof—the
proof of this!” he exclaimed hastily.
“Carrol, the Deputy Marshal, ushered her thither by her own de-
sire, on yesterday afternoon; Lambourne and the Warder both found
her there at an early hour this morning,”
“Was Tressilian there with her?” said Leicester, in the same hur-
ried tone.
“No, my lord. You may remember,” answered Varney, “that he
was that night placed with Sir Nicholas Blount, under a species of
arrest.”
“Did Carrol, or the other fellows, know who she was?” demanded
Leicester.
“No, my lord,” replied Varney; “Carrol and the Warder had never
seen the Countess, and Lambourne knew her not in her disguise.
But in seeking to prevent her leaving the cell, he obtained posses-
sion of one of her gloves, which, I think, your lordship may know.”
He gave the glove, which had the Bear and Ragged Staff, the Earl’s
impress, embroidered upon it in seed-pearls.
“I do—I do recognize it,” said Leicester. “They were my own gift.
The fellow of it was on the arm which she threw this very day around
my neck!” He spoke this with violent agitation.
“Your lordship,” said Varney, “might yet further inquire of the
lady herself respecting the truth of these passages.”
“It needs not—it needs not,” said the tortured Earl; “it is written
in characters of burning light, as if they were branded on my very

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eyeballs! I see her infamy-I can see nought else; and—gracious

Heaven!—for this vile woman was I about to commit to danger the
lives of so many noble friends, shake the foundation of a lawful
throne, carry the sword and torch through the bosom of a peaceful
land, wrong the kind mistress who made me what I am, and would,
but for that hell-framed marriage, have made me all that man can
be! All this I was ready to do for a woman who trinkets and traffics
with my worst foes!—And thou, villain, why didst thou not speak
sooner?”
“My lord,” said Varney, “a tear from my lady would have blotted
out all I could have said. Besides, I had not these proofs until this
very morning, when Anthony Foster’s sudden arrival with the ex-
aminations and declarations, which he had extorted from the inn-
keeper Gosling and others, explained the manner of her flight from
Cumnor Place, and my own researches discovered the steps which
she had taken here.”
“Now, may God be praised for the light He has given! so full, so
satisfactory, that there breathes not a man in England who shall call
my proceeding rash, or my revenge unjust.—And yet, Varney, so
young, so fair, so fawning, and so false! Hence, then, her hatred to
thee, my trusty, my well-beloved servant, because you withstood
her plots, and endangered her paramour’s life!”
“I never gave her any other cause of dislike, my lord,” replied
Varney. “But she knew that my counsels went directly to diminish
her influence with your lordship; and that I was, and have been,
ever ready to peril my life against your enemies.”
“It is too, too apparent,” replied Leicester “yet with what an air of
magnanimity she exhorted me to commit my head to the Queen’s
mercy, rather than wear the veil of falsehood a moment longer!
Methinks the angel of truth himself can have no such tones of high-
souled impulse. Can it be so, Varney?—can falsehood use thus boldly
the language of truth?—can infamy thus assume the guise of pu-
rity? Varney, thou hast been my servant from a child. I have raised
thee high—can raise thee higher. Think, think for me!—thy brain
was ever shrewd and piercing—may she not be innocent? Prove her
so, and all I have yet done for thee shall be as nothing—nothing, in
comparison of thy recompense!”

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The agony with which his master spoke had some effect even on
the hardened Varney, who, in the midst of his own wicked and
ambitious designs, really loved his patron as well as such a wretch
was capable of loving anything. But he comforted himself, and sub-
dued his self-reproaches, with the reflection that if he inflicted upon
the Earl some immediate and transitory pain, it was in order to pave
his way to the throne, which, were this marriage dissolved by death
or otherwise, he deemed Elizabeth would willingly share with his
benefactor. He therefore persevered in his diabolical policy; and af-
ter a moment’s consideration, answered the anxious queries of the
Earl with a melancholy look, as if he had in vain sought some excul-
pation for the Countess; then suddenly raising his head, he said,
with an expression of hope, which instantly communicated itself to
the countenance of his patron—“Yet wherefore, if guilty, should
she have perilled herself by coming hither? Why not rather have
fled to her father’s, or elsewhere?—though that, indeed, might have
interfered with her desire to be acknowledged as Countess of Le-
icester.”
“True, true, true!” exclaimed Leicester, his transient gleam of hope
giving way to the utmost bitterness of feeling and expression; “thou
art not fit to fathom a woman’s depth of wit, Varney. I see it all. She
would not quit the estate and title of the wittol who had wedded
her. Ay, and if in my madness I had started into rebellion, or if the
angry Queen had taken my head, as she this morning threatened,
the wealthy dower which law would have assigned to the Countess
Dowager of Leicester had been no bad windfall to the beggarly
Tressilian. Well might she goad me on to danger, which could not
end otherwise than profitably to her,—Speak not for her, Varney! I
will have her blood!”
“My lord,” replied Varney, “the wildness of your distress breaks
forth in the wildness of your language,”
“I say, speak not for her!” replied Leicester; “she has dishonoured
me—she would have murdered me—all ties are burst between us.
She shall die the death of a traitress and adulteress, well merited
both by the laws of God and man! And—what is this casket,” he
said, “which was even now thrust into my hand by a boy, with the
desire I would convey it to Tressilian, as he could not give it to the

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Countess? By Heaven! the words surprised me as he spoke them,

though other matters chased them from my brain; but now they
return with double force. It is her casket of jewels!—Force it open,
Varney—force the hinges open with thy poniard!”
“She refused the aid of my dagger once,” thought Varney, as he
unsheathed the weapon, “to cut the string which bound a letter, but
now it shall work a mightier ministry in her fortunes.”
With this reflection, by using the three-cornered stiletto-blade as
a wedge, he forced open the slender silver hinges of the casket. The
Earl no sooner saw them give way than he snatched the casket from
Sir Richard’s hand, wrenched off the cover, and tearing out the splen-
did contents, flung them on the floor in a transport of rage, while
he eagerly searched for some letter or billet which should make the
fancied guilt of his innocent Countess yet more apparent. Then
stamping furiously on the gems, he exclaimed, “Thus I annihilate
the miserable toys for which thou hast sold thyself, body and soul—
consigned thyself to an early and timeless death, and me to misery
and remorse for ever! —Tell me not of forgiveness, Varney—she is
doomed!”
So saying, he left the room, and rushed into an adjacent closet,
the door of which he locked and bolted.
Varney looked after him, while something of a more human feel-
ing seemed to contend with his habitual sneer. “I am sorry for his
weakness,” he said, “but love has made him a child. He throws down
and treads on these costly toys-with the same vehemence would he
dash to pieces this frailest toy of all, of which he used to rave so
fondly. But that taste also will be forgotten when its object is no
more. Well, he has no eye to value things as they deserve, and that
nature has given to Varney. When Leicester shall be a sovereign, he
will think as little of the gales of passion through which he gained
that royal port, as ever did sailor in harbour of the perils of a voyage.
But these tell-tale articles must not remain here—they are rather
too rich vails for the drudges who dress the chamber.”
While Varney was employed in gathering together and putting
them into a secret drawer of a cabinet that chanced to be open, he
saw the door of Leicester’s closet open, the tapestry pushed aside,
and the Earl’s face thrust out, but with eyes so dead, and lips and

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cheeks so bloodless and pale, that he started at the sudden change.

No sooner did his eyes encounter the Earl’s, than the latter with-
drew his head and shut the door of the closet. This manoeuvre Le-
icester repeated twice, without speaking a word, so that Varney be-
gan to doubt whether his brain was not actually affected by his mental
agony. The third time, however, he beckoned, and Varney obeyed
the signal. When he entered, he soon found his patron’s perturba-
tion was not caused by insanity, but by the fullness of purpose which
he entertained contending with various contrary passions. They
passed a full hour in close consultation; after which the Earl of Le-
icester, with an incredible exertion, dressed himself, and went to
attend his royal guest.

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CHAPTER XXXVII

You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting

With most admired disorder.

Macbeth.

IT WAS AFTERWARDS remembered that during the banquets and revels

which occupied the remainder of this eventful day the bearing of
Leicester and of Varney were totally different from their usual
demeanour. Sir Richard Varney had been held rather a man of counsel
and of action than a votary of pleasure. Business, whether civil or
military, seemed always to be his proper sphere; and while in festi-
vals and revels, although he well understood how to trick them up
and present them, his own part was that of a mere spectator; or if he
exercised his wit, it was in a rough, caustic, and severe manner, rather
as if he scoffed at the exhibition and the guests than shared the
common pleasure.
But upon the present day his character seemed changed. He mixed
among the younger courtiers and ladies, and appeared for the mo-
ment to be actuated by a spirit of light-hearted gaiety, which ren-
dered him a match for the liveliest. Those who had looked upon
him as a man given up to graver and more ambitious pursuits, a
bitter sneerer and passer of sarcasms at the expense of those who,
taking life as they find it, were disposed to snatch at each pastime it
presents, now perceived with astonishment that his wit could carry
as smooth an edge as their own, his laugh be as lively, and his brow
as unclouded. By what art of damnable hypocrisy he could draw
this veil of gaiety over the black thoughts of one of the worst of

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human bosoms must remain unintelligible to all but his compeers,

if any such ever existed; but he was a man of extraordinary powers,
and those powers were unhappily dedicated in all their energy to
the very worst of purposes.
It was entirely different with Leicester. However habituated his
mind usually was to play the part of a good courtier, and appear gay,
assiduous, and free from all care but that of enhancing the pleasure
of the moment, while his bosom internally throbbed with the pangs
of unsatisfied ambition, jealousy, or resentment, his heart had now
a yet more dreadful guest, whose workings could not be overshad-
owed or suppressed; and you might read in his vacant eye and
troubled brow that his thoughts were far absent from the scenes in
which he was compelling himself to play a part. He looked, moved,
and spoke as if by a succession of continued efforts; and it seemed
as if his will had in some degree lost the promptitude of command
over the acute mind and goodly form of which it was the regent.
His actions and gestures, instead of appearing the consequence of
simple volition, seemed, like those of an automaton, to wait the
revolution of some internal machinery ere they could be performed;
and his words fell from him piecemeal, interrupted, as if he had first
to think what he was to say, then how it was to be said, and as if,
after all, it was only by an effort of continued attention that he
completed a sentence without forgetting both the one and the other.
The singular effects which these distractions of mind produced
upon the behaviour and conversation of the most accomplished
courtier of England, as they were visible to the lowest and dullest
menial who approached his person, could not escape the notice of
the most intelligent Princess of the age. Nor is there the least doubt
that the alternate negligence and irregularity of his manner would
have called down Elizabeth’s severe displeasure on the Earl of Le-
icester, had it not occurred to her to account for it by supposing
that the apprehension of that displeasure which she had expressed
towards him with such vivacity that very morning was dwelling upon
the spirits of her favourite, and, spite of his efforts to the contrary,
distracted the usual graceful tenor of his mien and the charms of his
conversation. When this idea, so flattering to female vanity, had
once obtained possession of her mind, it proved a full and satisfac-

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tory apology for the numerous errors and mistakes of the Earl of
Leicester; and the watchful circle around observed with astonish-
ment, that, instead of resenting his repeated negligence, and want
of even ordinary attention (although these were points on which
she was usually extremely punctilious), the Queen sought, on the
contrary, to afford him time and means to recollect himself, and
deigned to assist him in doing so, with an indulgence which seemed
altogether inconsistent with her usual character. It was clear, how-
ever, that this could not last much longer, and that Elizabeth must
finally put another and more severe construction on Leicester’s
uncourteous conduct, when the Earl was summoned by Varney to
speak with him in a different apartment.
After having had the message twice delivered to him, he rose, and
was about to withdraw, as it were, by instinct; then stopped, and
turning round, entreated permission of the Queen to absent him-
self for a brief space upon matters of pressing importance.
“Go, my lord,” said the Queen. “We are aware our presence must
occasion sudden and unexpected occurrences, which require to be
provided for on the instant. Yet, my lord, as you would have us
believe ourself your welcome and honoured guest, we entreat you
to think less of our good cheer, and favour us with more of your
good countenance than we have this day enjoyed; for whether prince
or peasant be the guest, the welcome of the host will always be the
better part of the entertainment. Go, my lord; and we trust to see
you return with an unwrinkled brow, and those free thoughts which
you are wont to have at the disposal of your friends.”
Leicester only bowed low in answer to this rebuke, and retired. At
the door of the apartment he was met by Varney, who eagerly drew
him apart, and whispered in his ear, “All is well!”
“Has Masters seen her?” said the Earl.
“He has, my lord; and as she would neither answer his queries,
nor allege any reason for her refusal, he will give full testimony that
she labours under a mental disorder, and may be best committed to
the charge of her friends. The opportunity is therefore free to re-
move her as we proposed.”
“But Tressilian?” said Leicester.
“He will not know of her departure for some time,” replied Varney;

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“it shall take place this very evening, and to-morrow he shall be
cared for.”
“No, by my soul,” answered Leicester; “I will take vengeance on
him with mine own hand!”
“You, my lord, and on so inconsiderable a man as Tressilian! No,
my lord, he hath long wished to visit foreign parts. Trust him to
me—I will take care he returns not hither to tell tales.”
“Not so, by Heaven, Varney!” exclaimed Leicester. “Inconsider-
able do you call an enemy that hath had power to wound me so
deeply that my whole after-life must be one scene of remorse and
misery?—No; rather than forego the right of doing myself justice
with my own hand on that accursed villain, I will unfold the whole
truth at Elizabeth’s footstool, and let her vengeance descend at once
on them and on myself.”
Varney saw with great alarm that his lord was wrought up to such
a pitch of agitation, that if he gave not way to him he was perfectly
capable of adopting the desperate resolution which he had an-
nounced, and which was instant ruin to all the schemes of ambition
which Varney had formed for his patron and for himself. But the
Earl’s rage seemed at once uncontrollable and deeply concentrated,
and while he spoke his eyes shot fire, his voice trembled with excess
of passion, and the light foam stood on his lip.
His confidant made a bold and successful effort to obtain the
mastery of him even in this hour of emotion. “My lord,” he said,
leading him to a mirror, “behold your reflection in that glass, and
think if these agitated features belong to one who, in a condition so
extreme, is capable of forming a resolution for himself ”
“What, then, wouldst thou make me?” said Leicester, struck at
the change in his own physiognomy, though offended at the free-
dom with which Varney made the appeal. “Am I to be thy ward, thy
vassal,—the property and subject of my servant?”
“No, my lord,” said Varney firmly, “but be master of yourself, and
of your own passion. My lord, I, your born servant, am ashamed to
see how poorly you bear yourself in the storm of fury. Go to
Elizabeth’s feet, confess your marriage—impeach your wife and her
paramour of adultery—and avow yourself, amongst all your peers,
the wittol who married a country girl, and was cozened by her and

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her book-learned gallant. Go, my lord—but first take farewell of

Richard Varney, with all the benefits you ever conferred on him. He
served the noble, the lofty, the high-minded Leicester, and was more
proud of depending on him than he would be of commanding thou-
sands. But the abject lord who stoops to every adverse circumstance,
whose judicious resolves are scattered like chaff before every wind
of passion, him Richard Varney serves not. He is as much above
him in constancy of mind as beneath him in rank and fortune.”
Varney spoke thus without hypocrisy, for though the firmness of
mind which he boasted was hardness and impenetrability, yet he
really felt the ascendency which he vaunted; while the interest which
he actually felt in the fortunes of Leicester gave unusual emotion to
his voice and manner.
Leicester was overpowered by his assumed superiority it seemed
to the unfortunate Earl as if his last friend was about to abandon
him. He stretched his hand towards Varney as he uttered the words,
“Do not leave me. What wouldst thou have me do?”
“Be thyself, my noble master,” said Varney, touching the Earl’s
hand with his lips, after having respectfully grasped it in his own;
“be yourself, superior to those storms of passion which wreck infe-
rior minds. Are you the first who has been cozened in love—the
first whom a vain and licentious woman has cheated into an affec-
tion, which she has afterwards scorned and misused? And will you
suffer yourself to be driven frantic because you have not been wiser
than the wisest men whom the world has seen? Let her be as if she
had not been—let her pass from your memory, as unworthy of ever
having held a place there. Let your strong resolve of this morning,
which I have both courage, zeal, and means enough to execute, be
like the fiat of a superior being, a passionless act of justice. She hath
deserved death—let her die!”
While he was speaking, the Earl held his hand fast, compressed
his lips hard, and frowned, as if he laboured to catch from Varney a
portion of the cold, ruthless, and dispassionate firmness which he
recommended. When he was silent, the Earl still continued to rasp
his hand, until, with an effort at calm decision, he was able to ar-
ticulate, “Be it so—she dies! But one tear might be permitted.”
“Not one, my lord,” interrupted Varney, who saw by the quiver-

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ing eye and convulsed cheek of his patron that he was about to give
way to a burst of emotion—“not a tear—the time permits it not.
Tressilian must be thought of—”
“That indeed is a name,” said the Earl, “to convert tears into blood.
Varney, I have thought on this, and I have determined—neither
entreaty nor argument shall move me—Tressilian shall be my own
victim.”
“It is madness, my lord; but you are too mighty for me to bar your
way to your revenge. Yet resolve at least to choose fitting time and
opportunity, and to forbear him until these shall be found.”
“Thou shalt order me in what thou wilt,” said Leicester, “only
thwart me not in this.”
“Then, my lord,” said Varney, “I first request of you to lay aside
the wild, suspected, and half-frenzied demeanour which hath this
day drawn the eyes of all the court upon you, and which, but for the
Queen’s partial indulgence, which she hath extended towards you
in a degree far beyond her nature, she had never given you the op-
portunity to atone for.”
“Have I indeed been so negligent?” said Leicester, as one who
awakes from a dream. “I thought I had coloured it well. But fear
nothing, my mind is now eased—I am calm. My horoscope shall be
fulfilled; and that it may be fulfilled, I will tax to the highest every
faculty of my mind. Fear me not, I say. I will to the Queen in-
stantly—not thine own looks and language shall be more impen-
etrable than mine. Hast thou aught else to say?”
“I must crave your signet-ring,” said Varney gravely, “in token to
those of your servants whom I must employ, that I possess your full
authority in commanding their aid.”
Leicester drew off the signet-ring which he commonly used, and
gave it to Varney, with a haggard and stern expression of counte-
nance, adding only, in a low, half-whispered tone, but with terrific
emphasis, the words, “What thou dost, do quickly.”
Some anxiety and wonder took place, meanwhile, in the pres-
ence-hall, at the prolonged absence of the noble Lord of the Castle,
and great was the delight of his friends when they saw him enter as
a man from whose bosom, to all human seeming, a weight of care
had been just removed. Amply did Leicester that day redeem the

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pledge he had given to Varney, who soon saw himself no longer

under the necessity of maintaining a character so different from his
own as that which he had assumed in the earlier part of the day, and
gradually relapsed into the same grave, shrewd, caustic observer of
conversation and incident which constituted his usual part in soci-
ety.
With Elizabeth, Leicester played his game as one to whom her
natural strength of talent and her weakness in one or two particular
points were well known. He was too wary to exchange on a sudden
the sullen personage which he had played before he retired with
Varney; but on approaching her it seemed softened into a melan-
choly, which had a touch of tenderness in it, and which, in the
course of conversing with Elizabeth, and as she dropped in compas-
sion one mark of favour after another to console him, passed into a
flow of affectionate gallantry, the most assiduous, the most delicate,
the most insinuating, yet at the same time the most respectful, with
which a Queen was ever addressed by a subject. Elizabeth listened
as in a sort of enchantment. Her jealousy of power was lulled asleep;
her resolution to forsake all social or domestic ties, and dedicate
herself exclusively to the care of her people, began to be shaken; and
once more the star of Dudley culminated in the court horizon.
But Leicester did not enjoy this triumph over nature, and over
conscience, without its being embittered to him, not only by the
internal rebellion of his feelings against the violence which he exer-
cised over them, but by many accidental circumstances, which, in
the course of the banquet, and during the subsequent amusements
of the evening, jarred upon that nerve, the least vibration of which
was agony.
The courtiers were, for example, in the Great Hall, after having
left the banqueting-room, awaiting the appearance of a splendid
masque, which was the expected entertainment of this evening, when
the Queen interrupted a wild career of wit which the Earl of Leices-
ter was running against Lord Willoughby, Raleigh, and some other
courtiers, by saying, “We will impeach you of high treason, my lord,
if you proceed in this attempt to slay us with laughter. And here
comes a thing may make us all grave at his pleasure, our learned
physician Masters, with news belike of our poor suppliant, Lady

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Varney;—nay, my lord, we will not have you leave us, for this being
a dispute betwixt married persons, we do not hold our own experi-
ence deep enough to decide thereon without good counsel.—How
now, Masters, what thinkest thou of the runaway bride?”
The smile with which Leicester had been speaking, when the
Queen interrupted him, remained arrested on his lips, as if it had
been carved there by the chisel of Michael Angelo or of Chantrey;
and he listened to the speech of the physician with the same im-
movable cast of countenance.
“The Lady Varney, gracious Sovereign,” said the court physician
Masters, “is sullen, and would hold little conference with me touch-
ing the state of her health, talking wildly of being soon to plead her
own cause before your own presence, and of answering no meaner
person’s inquiries.”
“Now the heavens forfend!” said the Queen; “we have already
suffered from the misconstructions and broils which seem to follow
this poor brain-sick lady wherever she comes.—Think you not so,
my lord?” she added, appealing to Leicester with something in her
look that indicated regret, even tenderly expressed, for their dis-
agreement of that morning. Leicester compelled himself to bow low.
The utmost force he could exert was inadequate to the further ef-
fort of expressing in words his acquiescence in the Queen’s senti-
ment.
“You are vindictive,” she said, “my lord; but we will find time and
place to punish you. But once more to this same trouble-mirth, this
Lady Varney. What of her health, Masters?”
“She is sullen, madam, as I already said,” replied Masters, “and
refuses to answer interrogatories, or be amenable to the authority of
the mediciner. I conceive her to be possessed with a delirium, which
I incline to term rather hypochondria than phrenesis; and I think she
were best cared for by her husband in his own house, and removed
from all this bustle of pageants, which disturbs her weak brain with
the most fantastic phantoms. She drops hints as if she were some
great person in disguise—some Countess or Princess perchance. God
help them, such are often the hallucinations of these infirm per-
sons!”
“Nay, then,” said the Queen, “away with her with all speed. Let

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Varney care for her with fitting humanity; but let them rid the Castle
of her forthwith she will think herself lady of all, I warrant you. It is
pity so fair a form, however, should have an infirm understand-
ing.—What think you, my lord?”
“It is pity indeed,” said the Earl, repeating the words like a task
which was set him.
“But, perhaps,” said Elizabeth, “you do not join with us in our
opinion of her beauty; and indeed we have known men prefer a
statelier and more Juno-like form to that drooping fragile one that
hung its head like a broken lily. Ay, men are tyrants, my lord, who
esteem the animation of the strife above the triumph of an unresist-
ing conquest, and, like sturdy champions, love best those women
who can wage contest with them.—I could think with you, Rutland,
that give my Lord of Leicester such a piece of painted wax for a
bride, he would have wished her dead ere the end of the honey-
moon.”
As she said this, she looked on Leicester so expressively that, while
his heart revolted against the egregious falsehood, he did himself so
much violence as to reply in a whisper that Leicester’s love was more
lowly than her Majesty deemed, since it was settled where he could
never command, but must ever obey.
The Queen blushed, and bid him be silent; yet looked as of she
expected that he would not obey her commands. But at that mo-
ment the flourish of trumpets and kettle-drums from a high bal-
cony which overlooked the hall announced the entrance of the
maskers, and relieved Leicester from the horrible state of constraint
and dissimulation in which the result of his own duplicity had placed
him.
The masque which entered consisted of four separate bands, which
followed each other at brief intervals, each consisting of six princi-
pal persons and as many torch-bearers, and each representing one
of the various nations by which England had at different times been
occupied.
The aboriginal Britons, who first entered, were ushered in by two
ancient Druids, whose hoary hair was crowned with a chaplet of
oak, and who bore in their hands branches of mistletoe. The maskers
who followed these venerable figures were succeeded by two Bards,

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arrayed in white, and bearing harps, which they occasionally touched,

singing at the same time certain stanzas of an ancient hymn to Belus,
or the Sun. The aboriginal Britons had been selected from amongst
the tallest and most robust young gentlemen in attendance on the
court. Their masks were accommodated with long, shaggy beards
and hair; their vestments were of the hides of wolves and bears;
while their legs, arms, and the upper parts of their bodies, being
sheathed in flesh-coloured silk, on which were traced in grotesque
lines representations of the heavenly bodies, and of animals and
other terrestrial objects, gave them the lively appearance of our
painted ancestors, whose freedom was first trenched upon by the
Romans.
The sons of Rome, who came to civilize as well as to conquer,
were next produced before the princely assembly; and the manager
of the revels had correctly imitated the high crest and military hab-
its of that celebrated people, accommodating them with the light
yet strong buckler and the short two-edged sword, the use of which
had made them victors of the world. The Roman eagles were borne
before them by two standard-bearers, who recited a hymn to Mars,
and the classical warriors followed with the grave and haughty step
of men who aspired at universal conquest.
The third quadrille represented the Saxons, clad in the bearskins
which they had brought with them from the German forests, and
bearing in their hands the redoubtable battle-axes which made such
havoc among the natives of Britain. They were preceded by two
Scalds, who chanted the praises of Odin.
Last came the knightly Normans, in their mail-shirts and hoods
of steel, with all the panoply of chivalry, and marshalled by two
Minstrels, who sang of war and ladies’ love.
These four bands entered the spacious hall with the utmost order,
a short pause being made, that the spectators might satisfy their
curiosity as to each quadrille before the appearance of the next. They
then marched completely round the hall, in order the more fully to
display themselves, regulating their steps to organs, shalms, haut-
boys, and virginals, the music of the Lord Leicester’s household. At
length the four quadrilles of maskers, ranging their torch-bearers
behind them, drew up in their several ranks on the two opposite

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sides of the hall, so that the Romans confronting the Britons, and
the Saxons the Normans, seemed to look on each other with eyes of
wonder, which presently appeared to kindle into anger, expressed
by menacing gestures. At the burst of a strain of martial music from
the gallery the maskers drew their swords on all sides, and advanced
against each other in the measured steps of a sort of Pyrrhic or mili-
tary dance, clashing their swords against their adversaries’ shields,
and clattering them against their blades as they passed each other in
the progress of the dance. It was a very pleasant spectacle to see how
the various bands, preserving regularity amid motions which seemed
to be totally irregular, mixed together, and then disengaging them-
selves, resumed each their own original rank as the music varied.
In this symbolical dance were represented the conflicts which had
taken place among the various nations which had anciently inhab-
ited Britain.
At length, after many mazy evolutions, which afforded great plea-
sure to the spectators, the sound of a loud-voiced trumpet was heard,
as if it blew for instant battle, or for victory won. The maskers in-
stantly ceased their mimic strife, and collecting themselves under
their original leaders, or presenters, for such was the appropriate
phrase, seemed to share the anxious expectation which the specta-
tors experienced concerning what was next to appear.
The doors of the hall were thrown wide, and no less a person
entered than the fiend-born Merlin, dressed in a strange and mysti-
cal attire, suited to his ambiguous birth and magical power.
About him and behind him fluttered or gambolled many extraor-
dinary forms, intended to represent the spirits who waited to do his
powerful bidding; and so much did this part of the pageant interest
the menials and others of the lower class then in the Castle, that
many of them forgot even the reverence due to the Queen’s pres-
ence, so far as to thrust themselves into the lower part of the hall.
The Earl of Leicester, seeing his officers had some difficulty to
repel these intruders, without more disturbance than was fitting
where the Queen was in presence, arose and went himself to the
bottom of the hall; Elizabeth, at the same time, with her usual feel-
ing for the common people, requesting that they might be permit-
ted to remain undisturbed to witness the pageant. Leicester went

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under this pretext; but his real motive was to gain a moment to
himself, and to relieve his mind, were it but for one instant, from
the dreadful task of hiding, under the guise of gaiety and gallantry,
the lacerating pangs of shame, anger, remorse, and thirst for ven-
geance. He imposed silence by his look and sign upon the vulgar
crowd at the lower end of the apartment; but instead of instantly
returning to wait on her Majesty, he wrapped his cloak around him,
and mixing with the crowd, stood in some degree an undistinguished
spectator of the progress of the masque.
Merlin having entered, and advanced into the midst of the hall,
summoned the presenters of the contending bands around him by a
wave of his magical rod, and announced to them, in a poetical speech,
that the isle of Britain was now commanded by a Royal Maiden, to
whom it was the will of fate that they should all do homage, and
request of her to pronounce on the various pretensions which each
set forth to be esteemed the pre-eminent stock, from which the
present natives, the happy subjects of that angelical Princess, de-
rived their lineage.
In obedience to this mandate, the bands, each moving to solemn
music, passed in succession before Elizabeth, doing her, as they
passed, each after the fashion of the people whom they represented,
the lowest and most devotional homage, which she returned with
the same gracious courtesy that had marked her whole conduct since
she came to Kenilworth.
The presenters of the several masques or quadrilles then alleged,
each in behalf of his own troop, the reasons which they had for
claiming pre-eminence over the rest; and when they had been all
heard in turn, she returned them this gracious answer: “That she
was sorry she was not better qualified to decide upon the doubtful
question which had been propounded to her by the direction of the
famous Merlin, but that it seemed to her that no single one of these
celebrated nations could claim pre-eminence over the others, as hav-
ing most contributed to form the Englishman of her own time,
who unquestionably derived from each of them some worthy at-
tribute of his character. Thus,” she said, “the Englishman had from
the ancient Briton his bold and tameless spirit of freedom; from the
Roman his disciplined courage in war, with his love of letters and

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civilization in time of peace; from the Saxon his wise and equitable
laws; and from the chivalrous Norman his love of honour and cour-
tesy, with his generous desire for glory.”
Merlin answered with readiness that it did indeed require that so
many choice qualities should meet in the English, as might render
them in some measure the muster of the perfections of other na-
tions, since that alone could render them in some degree deserving
of the blessings they enjoyed under the reign of England’s Eliza-
beth.
The music then sounded, and the quadrilles, together with Mer-
lin and his assistants, had begun to remove from the crowded hall,
when Leicester, who was, as we have mentioned, stationed for the
moment near the bottom of the hall, and consequently engaged in
some degree in the crowd, felt himself pulled by the cloak, while a
voice whispered in his ear, “My Lord, I do desire some instant con-
ference with you.”

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CHAPTER XXXVIII

How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?

Macbeth.

“I DESIRE some conference with you.” The words were simple in

themselves, but Lord Leicester was in that alarmed and feverish state
of mind when the most ordinary occurrences seem fraught with
alarming import; and he turned hastily round to survey the person
by whom they had been spoken. There was nothing remarkable in
the speaker’s appearance, which consisted of a black silk doublet
and short mantle, with a black vizard on his face; for it appeared he
had been among the crowd of masks who had thronged into the
hall in the retinue of Merlin, though he did not wear any of the
extravagant disguises by which most of them were distinguished.
“Who are you, or what do you want with me?” said Leicester, not
without betraying, by his accents, the hurried state of his spirits.
“No evil, my lord,” answered the mask, “but much good and
honour, if you will rightly understand my purpose. But I must speak
with you more privately.”
“I can speak with no nameless stranger,” answered Leicester, dread-
ing he knew not precisely what from the request of the stranger;
“and those who are known to me must seek another and a fitter
time to ask an interview.”
He would have hurried away, but the mask still detained him.
“Those who talk to your lordship of what your own honour de-
mands have a right over your time, whatever occupations you may
lay aside in order to indulge them.”

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“How! my honour? Who dare impeach it?” said Leicester.

“Your own conduct alone can furnish grounds for accusing it, my
lord, and it is that topic on which I would speak with you.”
“You are insolent,” said Leicester, “and abuse the hospitable li-
cense of the time, which prevents me from having you punished. I
demand your name!”
“Edmund Tressilian of Cornwall,” answered the mask. “My tongue
has been bound by a promise for four-and-twenty hours. The space
is passed,—I now speak, and do your lordship the justice to address
myself first to you.”
The thrill of astonishment which had penetrated to Leicester’s
very heart at hearing that name pronounced by the voice of the
man he most detested, and by whom he conceived himself so deeply
injured, at first rendered him immovable, but instantly gave way to
such a thirst for revenge as the pilgrim in the desert feels for the
water-brooks. He had but sense and self-government enough left to
prevent his stabbing to the heart the audacious villain, who, after
the ruin he had brought upon him, dared, with such unmoved as-
surance, thus to practise upon him further. Determined to suppress
for the moment every symptom of agitation, in order to perceive
the full scope of Tressilian’s purpose, as well as to secure his own
vengeance, he answered in a tone so altered by restrained passion as
scarce to be intelligible, “And what does Master Edmund Tressilian
require at my hand?”
“Justice, my lord,” answered Tressilian, calmly but firmly.
“Justice,” said Leicester, “all men are entitled to. You, Master
Tressilian, are peculiarly so, and be assured you shall have it.”
“I expect nothing less from your nobleness,” answered Tressilian;
“but time presses, and I must speak with you to-night. May I wait
on you in your chamber?”
“No,” answered Leicester sternly, “not under a roof, and that roof
mine own. We will meet under the free cope of heaven.”
“You are discomposed or displeased, my lord,” replied Tressilian;
“yet there is no occasion for distemperature. The place is equal to
me, so you allow me one half-hour of your time uninterrupted.”
“A shorter time will, I trust, suffice,” answered Leicester. “Meet
me in the Pleasance when the Queen has retired to her chamber.”

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“Enough,” said Tressilian, and withdrew; while a sort of rapture

seemed for the moment to occupy the mind of Leicester.
“Heaven,” he said, “is at last favourable to me, and has put within
my reach the wretch who has branded me with this deep ignominy—
who has inflicted on me this cruel agony. I will blame fate no more,
since I am afforded the means of tracing the wiles by which he
means still further to practise on me, and then of at once convicting
and punishing his villainy. To my task—to my task! I will not sink
under it now, since midnight, at farthest, will bring me vengeance.”
While these reflections thronged through Leicester’s mind, he again
made his way amid the obsequious crowd, which divided to give
him passage, and resumed his place, envied and admired, beside the
person of his Sovereign. But could the bosom of him thus admired
and envied have been laid open before the inhabitants of that
crowded hall, with all its dark thoughts of guilty ambition, blighted
affection, deep vengeance, and conscious sense of meditated cru-
elty, crossing each other like spectres in the circle of some foul en-
chantress, which of them, from the most ambitious noble in the
courtly circle down to the most wretched menial who lived by shift-
ing of trenchers, would have desired to change characters with the
favourite of Elizabeth, and the Lord of Kenilworth?
New tortures awaited him as soon as he had rejoined Elizabeth.
“You come in time, my lord,” she said, “to decide a dispute be-
tween us ladies. Here has Sir Richard Varney asked our permission
to depart from the Castle with his infirm lady, having, as he tells us,
your lordship’s consent to his absence, so he can obtain ours. Certes,
we have no will to withhold him from the affectionate charge of
this poor young person; but you are to know that Sir Richard Varney
hath this day shown himself so much captivated with these ladies of
ours, that here is our Duchess of Rutland says he will carry his poor
insane wife no farther than the lake, plunge her in to tenant the
crystal palaces that the enchanted nymph told us of, and return a
jolly widower, to dry his tears and to make up the loss among our
train. How say you, my lord? We have seen Varney under two or
three different guises—you know what are his proper attributes —
think you he is capable of playing his lady such a knave’s trick?”
Leicester was confounded, but the danger was urgent, and a reply

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absolutely necessary. “The ladies,” he said, “think too lightly of one

of their own sex, in supposing she could deserve such a fate; or too
ill of ours, to think it could be inflicted upon an innocent female.”
“Hear him, my ladies,” said Elizabeth; “like all his sex, he would
excuse their cruelty by imputing fickleness to us.”
“Say not us, madam,” replied the Earl. “We say that meaner
women, like the lesser lights of heaven, have revolutions and phases;
but who shall impute mutability to the sun, or to Elizabeth?”
The discourse presently afterwards assumed a less perilous ten-
dency, and Leicester continued to support his part in it with spirit,
at whatever expense of mental agony. So pleasing did it seem to
Elizabeth, that the Castle bell had sounded midnight ere she retired
from the company, a circumstance unusual in her quiet and regular
habits of disposing of time. Her departure was, of course, the signal
for breaking up the company, who dispersed to their several places
of repose, to dream over the pastimes of the day, or to anticipate
those of the morrow.
The unfortunate Lord of the Castle, and founder of the proud
festival, retired to far different thoughts. His direction to the valet
who attended him was to send Varney instantly to his apartment.
The messenger returned after some delay, and informed him that
an hour had elapsed since Sir Richard Varney had left the Castle by
the postern gate with three other persons, one of whom was trans-
ported in a horse-litter.
“How came he to leave the Castle after the watch was set?” said
Leicester. “I thought he went not till daybreak.”
“He gave satisfactory reasons, as I understand,” said the domestic,
“to the guard, and, as I hear, showed your lordship’s signet—”
“True—true,” said the Earl; “yet he has been hasty. Do any of his
attendants remain behind?”
“Michael Lambourne, my lord,” said the valet, “was not to be
found when Sir Richard Varney departed, and his master was much
incensed at his absence. I saw him but now saddling his horse to
gallop after his master.”
“Bid him come hither instantly,” said Leicester; “I have a message
to his master.”
The servant left the apartment, and Leicester traversed it for some

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time in deep meditation. “Varney is over-zealous,” he said, “over-

pressing. He loves me, I think; but he hath his own ends to serve,
and he is inexorable in pursuit of them. If I rise, he rises; and he
hath shown himself already but too, eager to rid me of this obstacle
which seems to stand betwixt me and sovereignty. Yet I will not
stoop to bear this disgrace. She shall be punished, but it shall be
more advisedly. I already feel, even in anticipation, that over-haste
would light the flames of hell in my bosom. No—one victim is
enough at once, and that victim already waits me.”
He seized upon writing materials, and hastily traced these words:—
”Sir Richard Varney, we have resolved to defer the matter entrusted
to your care, and strictly command you to proceed no further in
relation to our Countess until our further order. We also command
your instant return to Kenilworth as soon as you have safely be-
stowed that with which you are entrusted. But if the safe-placing of
your present charge shall detain you longer than we think for, we
command you in that case to send back our signet-ring by a trusty
and speedy messenger, we having present need of the same. And
requiring your strict obedience in these things, and commending
you to God’s keeping, we rest your assured good friend and master,

R. Leicester.

“Given at our Castle of Kenilworth, the tenth of July, in the year

of Salvation one thousand five hundred and seventy-five.”
As Leicester had finished and sealed this mandate, Michael
Lambourne, booted up to mid-thigh, having his riding-cloak girthed
around him with a broad belt, and a felt cap on his head, like that of
a courier, entered his apartment, ushered in by the valet.
“What is thy capacity of service?” said the Earl.
“Equerry to your lordship’s master of the horse,” answered
Lambourne, with his customary assurance.
“Tie up thy saucy tongue, sir,” said Leicester; “the jests that may
suit Sir Richard Varney’s presence suit not mine. How soon wilt
thou overtake thy master?”
“In one hour’s riding, my lord, if man and horse hold good,” said
Lambourne, with an instant alteration of demeanour, from an ap-

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proach to familiarity to the deepest respect. The Earl measured him

with his eye from top to toe.
“I have heard of thee,” he said “men say thou art a prompt fellow
in thy service, but too much given to brawling and to wassail to be
trusted with things of moment.”
“My lord,” said Lambourne, “I have been soldier, sailor, traveller,
and adventurer; and these are all trades in which men enjoy to-day,
because they have no surety of to-morrow. But though I may mis-
use mine own leisure, I have never neglected the duty I owe my
master.”
“See that it be so in this instance,” said Leicester, “and it shall do
thee good. Deliver this letter speedily and carefully into Sir Richard
Varney’s hands.”
“Does my commission reach no further?” said Lambourne.
“No,” answered Leicester; “but it deeply concerns me that it be
carefully as well as hastily executed.”
“I will spare neither care nor horse-flesh,” answered Lambourne,
and immediately took his leave.
“So, this is the end of my private audience, from which I hoped so
much!” he muttered to himself, as he went through the long gallery,
and down the back staircase. Cogs bones! I thought the Earl had
wanted a cast of mine office in some secret intrigue, and it all ends
in carrying a letter! Well, his pleasure shall be done, however; and as
his lordship well says, it may do me good another time. The child
must creep ere he walk, and so must your infant courtier. I will have
a look into this letter, however, which he hath sealed so sloven-like.”
Having accomplished this, he clapped his hands together in ecstasy,
exclaiming, “The Countess the Countess! I have the secret that shall
make or mar me.—But come forth, Bayard,” he added, leading his
horse into the courtyard, “for your flanks and my spurs must be
presently acquainted.”
Lambourne mounted, accordingly, and left the Castle by the
postern gate, where his free passage was permitted, in consequence
of a message to that effect left by Sir Richard Varney.
As soon as Lambourne and the valet had left the apartment, Le-
icester proceeded to change his dress for a very plain one, threw his
mantle around him, and taking a lamp in his hand, went by the

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private passage of communication to a small secret postern door

which opened into the courtyard, near to the entrance of the Pleas-
ance. His reflections were of a more calm and determined character
than they had been at any late period, and he endeavoured to claim,
even in his own eyes, the character of a man more sinned against
than sinning.
“I have suffered the deepest injury,” such was the tenor of his
meditations, “yet I have restricted the instant revenge which was in
my power, and have limited it to that which is manly and noble.
But shall the union which this false woman has this day disgraced
remain an abiding fetter on me, to check me in the noble career to
which my destinies invite me? No; there are other means of disen-
gaging such ties, without unloosing the cords of life. In the sight of
God, I am no longer bound by the union she has broken. King-
doms shall divide us, oceans roll betwixt us, and their waves, whose
abysses have swallowed whole navies, shall be the sole depositories
of the deadly mystery.”
By such a train of argument did Leicester labour to reconcile his
conscience to the prosecution of plans of vengeance, so hastily
adopted, and of schemes of ambition, which had become so woven
in with every purpose and action of his life that he was incapable of
the effort of relinquishing them, until his revenge appeared to him
to wear a face of justice, and even of generous moderation.
In this mood the vindictive and ambitious Earl entered the su-
perb precincts of the Pleasance, then illumined by the full moon.
The broad, yellow light was reflected on all sides from the white
freestone, of which the pavement, balustrades, and architectural
ornaments of the place were constructed; and not a single fleecy
cloud was visible in the azure sky, so that the scene was nearly as
light as if the sun had but just left the horizon. The numerous stat-
ues of white marble glimmered in the pale light like so many sheeted
ghosts just arisen from their sepulchres, and the fountains threw
their jets into the air as if they sought that their waters should be
brightened by the moonbeams ere they fell down again upon their
basins in showers of sparkling silver. The day had been sultry, and
the gentle night-breeze which sighed along the terrace of the Pleas-
ance raised not a deeper breath than the fan in the hand of youthful

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beauty. The bird of summer night had built many a nest in the
bowers of the adjacent garden, and the tenants now indemnified
themselves for silence during the day by a full chorus of their own
unrivalled warblings, now joyous, now pathetic, now united, now
responsive to each other, as if to express their delight in the placid
and delicious scene to which they poured their melody.
Musing on matters far different from the fall of waters, the gleam
of moonlight, or the song of the nightingale, the stately Leicester
walked slowly from the one end of the terrace to the other, his cloak
wrapped around him, and his sword under his arm, without seeing
anything resembling the human form.
“I have been fooled by my own generosity,” he said, “if I have
suffered the villain to escape me—ay, and perhaps to go to the res-
cue of the adulteress, who is so poorly guarded.”
These were his thoughts, which were instantly dispelled when,
turning to look back towards the entrance, he saw a human form
advancing slowly from the portico, and darkening the various ob-
jects with its shadow, as passing them successively, in its approach
towards him.
“Shall I strike ere I again hear his detested voice?” was Leicester’s
thought, as he grasped the hilt of the sword. “But no! I will see
which way his vile practice tends. I will watch, disgusting as it is,
the coils and mazes of the loathsome snake, ere I put forth my
strength and crush him.”
His hand quitted the sword-hilt, and he advanced slowly towards
Tressilian, collecting, for their meeting, all the self-possession he
could command, until they came front to front with each other.
Tressilian made a profound reverence, to which the Earl replied
with a haughty inclination of the head, and the words, “You sought
secret conference with me, sir; I am here, and attentive.”
“My lord,” said Tressilian, “I am so earnest in that which I have to
say, and so desirous to find a patient, nay, a favourable hearing, that
I will stoop to exculpate myself from whatever might prejudice your
lordship against me. You think me your enemy?”
“Have I not some apparent cause?” answered Leicester, perceiving
that Tressilian paused for a reply.
“You do me wrong, my lord. I am a friend, but neither a depen-

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dant nor partisan, of the Earl of Sussex, whom courtiers call your
rival; and it is some considerable time since I ceased to consider
either courts or court intrigues as suited to my temper or genius.”
“No doubt, sir,” answered Leicester “there are other occupations
more worthy a scholar, and for such the world holds Master Tressilian.
Love has his intrigues as well as ambition.”
“I perceive, my lord,” replied Tressilian, “you give much weight to
my early attachment for the unfortunate young person of whom I
am about to speak, and perhaps think I am prosecuting her cause
out of rivalry, more than a sense of justice.”
“No matter for my thoughts, sir,” said the Earl; “proceed. You
have as yet spoken of yourself only—an important and worthy sub-
ject doubtless, but which, perhaps, does not altogether so deeply
concern me that I should postpone my repose to hear it. Spare me
further prelude, sir, and speak to the purpose if indeed you have
aught to say that concerns me. When you have done, I, in my turn,
have something to communicate.”
“I will speak, then, without further prelude, my lord,” answered
Tressilian, “having to say that which, as it concerns your lordship’s
honour, I am confident you will not think your time wasted in lis-
tening to. I have to request an account from your lordship of the
unhappy Amy Robsart, whose history is too well known to you. I
regret deeply that I did not at once take this course, and make your-
self judge between me and the villain by whom she is injured. My
lord, she extricated herself from an unlawful and most perilous state
of confinement, trusting to the effects of her own remonstrance
upon her unworthy husband, and extorted from me a promise that
I would not interfere in her behalf until she had used her own ef-
forts to have her rights acknowledged by him.”
“Ha,” said Leicester, “remember you to whom you speak?”
“I speak of her unworthy husband, my lord,” repeated Tressilian,
“and my respect can find no softer language. The unhappy young
woman is withdrawn from my knowledge, and sequestered in some
secret place of this Castle—if she be not transferred to some place
of seclusion better fitted for bad designs. This must be reformed,
my lord—I speak it as authorized by her father—and this ill-fated
marriage must be avouched and proved in the Queen’s presence,

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and the lady placed without restraint and at her own free disposal.
And permit me to say it concerns no one’s honour that these most
just demands of mine should be complied with so much as it does
that of your lordship.”
The Earl stood as if he had been petrified at the extreme coolness
with which the man, whom he considered as having injured him so
deeply, pleaded the cause of his criminal paramour, as if she had
been an innocent woman and he a disinterested advocate; nor was
his wonder lessened by the warmth with which Tressilian seemed to
demand for her the rank and situation which she had disgraced,
and the advantages of which she was doubtless to share with the
lover who advocated her cause with such effrontery. Tressilian had
been silent for more than a minute ere the Earl recovered from the
excess of his astonishment; and considering the prepossessions with
which his mind was occupied, there is little wonder that his passion
gained the mastery of every other consideration. “I have heard you,
Master Tressilian,” said he, “without interruption, and I bless God
that my ears were never before made to tingle by the words of so
frontless a villain. The task of chastising you is fitter for the hangman’s
scourge than the sword of a nobleman, but yet—Villain, draw and
defend thyself!”
As he spoke the last words, he dropped his mantle on the ground,
struck Tressilian smartly with his sheathed sword, and instantly draw-
ing his rapier, put himself into a posture of assault. The vehement
fury of his language at first filled Tressilian, in his turn, with sur-
prise equal to what Leicester had felt when he addressed him. But
astonishment gave place to resentment when the unmerited insults
of his language were followed by a blow which immediately put to
flight every thought save that of instant combat. Tressilian’s sword
was instantly drawn; and though perhaps somewhat inferior to Le-
icester in the use of the weapon, he understood it well enough to
maintain the contest with great spirit, the rather that of the two he
was for the time the more cool, since he could not help imputing
Leicester’s conduct either to actual frenzy or to the influence of some
strong delusion.
The rencontre had continued for several minutes, without either
party receiving a wound, when of a sudden voices were heard be-

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neath the portico which formed the entrance of the terrace, mingled
with the steps of men advancing hastily. “We are interrupted,” said
Leicester to his antagonist; “follow me.”
At the same time a voice from the portico said, “The jackanape is
right—they are tilting here.”
Leicester, meanwhile, drew off Tressilian into a sort of recess be-
hind one of the fountains, which served to conceal them, while six
of the yeomen of the Queen’s guard passed along the middle walk
of the Pleasance, and they could hear one say to the rest, “We shall
never find them to-night among all these squirting funnels, squirrel
cages, and rabbit-holes; but if we light not on them before we reach
the farther end, we will return, and mount a guard at the entrance,
and so secure them till morning.”
“A proper matter,” said another, “the drawing of swords so near
the Queen’s presence, ay, and in her very palace as ‘twere! Hang it,
they must be some poor drunken game-cocks fallen to sparring —
’twere pity almost we should find them—the penalty is chopping
off a hand, is it not?—’twere hard to lose hand for handling a bit of
steel, that comes so natural to one’s gripe.”
“Thou art a brawler thyself, George,” said another; “but take heed,
for the law stands as thou sayest.”
“Ay,” said the first, “an the act be not mildly construed; for thou
knowest ’tis not the Queen’s palace, but my Lord of Leicester’s.”
“Why, for that matter, the penalty may be as severe,” said another
“for an our gracious Mistress be Queen, as she is, God save her, my
Lord of Leicester is as good as King.”
“Hush, thou knave!” said a third; “how knowest thou who may
be within hearing?”
They passed on, making a kind of careless search, but seemingly
more intent on their own conversation than bent on discovering
the persons who had created the nocturnal disturbance.
They had no sooner passed forward along the terrace, than Le-
icester, making a sign to Tressilian to follow him, glided away in an
opposite direction, and escaped through the portico undiscovered.
He conducted Tressilian to Mervyn’s Tower, in which he was now
again lodged; and then, ere parting with him, said these words, “If
thou hast courage to continue and bring to an end what is thus

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broken off, be near me when the court goes forth to-morrow; we

shall find a time, and I will give you a signal when it is fitting.”
“My lord,” said Tressilian, “at another time I might have inquired
the meaning of this strange and furious inveteracy against me. But
you have laid that on my shoulder which only blood can wash away;
and were you as high as your proudest wishes ever carried you, I
would have from you satisfaction for my wounded honour.”
On these terms they parted, but the adventures of the night were
not yet ended with Leicester. He was compelled to pass by Saintlowe’s
Tower, in order to gain the private passage which led to his own
chamber; and in the entrance thereof he met Lord Hunsdon half
clothed, and with a naked sword under his arm.
“Are you awakened, too, with this ‘larum, my Lord of Leicester?”
said the old soldier. “’Tis well. By gog’s nails, the nights are as noisy
as the day in this Castle of yours. Some two hours since I was waked
by the screams of that poor brain-sick Lady Varney, whom her hus-
band was forcing away. I promise you it required both your warrant
and the Queen’s to keep me from entering into the game, and cut-
ting that Varney of yours over the head. And now there is a brawl
down in the Pleasance, or what call you the stone terrace-walk where
all yonder gimcracks stand?”
The first part of the old man’s speech went through the Earl’s
heart like a knife; to the last he answered that he himself had heard
the clash of swords, and had come down to take order with those
who had been so insolent so near the Queen’s presence.
“Nay, then,” said Hunsdon, “I will be glad of your lordship’s com-
pany.”
Leicester was thus compelled to turn back with the rough old
Lord to the Pleasance, where Hunsdon heard from the yeomen of
the guard, who were under his immediate command, the unsuc-
cessful search they had made for the authors of the disturbance; and
bestowed for their pains some round dozen of curses on them, as
lazy knaves and blind whoresons. Leicester also thought it necessary
to seem angry that no discovery had been effected; but at length
suggested to Lord Hunsdon, that after all it could only be some
foolish young men who had been drinking healths pottle-deep, and
who should be sufficiently scared by the search which had taken

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place after them. Hunsdon, who was himself attached to his cup,
allowed that a pint-flagon might cover many of the follies which it
had caused, “But,” added he, “unless your lordship will be less lib-
eral in your housekeeping, and restrain the overflow of ale, and wine,
and wassail, I foresee it will end in my having some of these good
fellows into the guard-house, and treating them to a dose of the
strappado. And with this warning, good night to you.”
Joyful at being rid of his company, Leicester took leave of him at
the entrance of his lodging, where they had first met, and entering
the private passage, took up the lamp which he had left there, and
by its expiring light found the way to his own apartment.

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CHAPTER XXXIX

Room! room! for my horse will wince

If he comes within so many yards of a prince;
For to tell you true, and in rhyme,
He was foal’d in Queen Elizabeth’s time;
When the great Earl of Lester
In his castle did feast her.

Ben Jonson, Masque of owls.

THE AMUSEMENT with which Elizabeth and her court were next day
to be regaled was an exhibition by the true-hearted men of Coven-
try, who were to represent the strife between the English and the
Danes, agreeably to a custom long preserved in their ancient bor-
ough, and warranted for truth by old histories and chronicles. In
this pageant one party of the townsfolk presented the Saxons and
the other the Danes, and set forth, both in rude rhymes and with
hard blows, the contentions of these two fierce nations, and the
Amazonian courage of the English women, who, according to the
story, were the principal agents in the general massacre of the Danes,
which took place at Hocktide, in the year of God 1012. This sport,
which had been long a favourite pastime with the men of Coventry,
had, it seems, been put down by the influence of some zealous cler-
gymen of the more precise cast, who chanced to have considerable
influence with the magistrates. But the generality of the inhabitants
had petitioned the Queen that they might have their play again,
and be honoured with permission to represent it before her High-
ness. And when the matter was canvassed in the little council which

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usually attended the Queen for dispatch of business, the proposal,

although opposed by some of the stricter sort, found favour in the
eyes of Elizabeth, who said that such toys occupied, without of-
fence, the minds of many who, lacking them, might find worse
subjects of pastime; and that their pastors, however commendable
for learning and godliness, were somewhat too sour in preaching
against the pastimes of their flocks and so the pageant was permit-
ted to proceed.
Accordingly, after a morning repast, which Master Laneham calls
an ambrosial breakfast, the principal persons of the court in atten-
dance upon her Majesty pressed to the Gallery-tower, to witness the
approach of the two contending parties of English and Danes; and
after a signal had been given, the gate which opened in the circuit of
the Chase was thrown wide to admit them. On they came, foot and
horse; for some of the more ambitious burghers and yeomen had
put themselves into fantastic dresses, imitating knights, in order to
resemble the chivalry of the two different nations. However, to pre-
vent fatal accidents, they were not permitted to appear on real horses,
but had only license to accoutre themselves with those hobby-horses,
as they are called, which anciently formed the chief delight of a
morrice-dance, and which still are exhibited on the stage, in the
grand battle fought at the conclusion of Mr. Bayes’s tragedy. The
infantry followed in similar disguises. The whole exhibition was to
be considered as a sort of anti-masque, or burlesque of the more
stately pageants in which the nobility and gentry bore part in the
show, and, to the best of their knowledge, imitated with accuracy
the personages whom they represented. The Hocktide play was of a
different character, the actors being persons of inferior degree, and
their habits the better fitted for the occasion, the more incongruous
and ridiculous that they were in themselves. Accordingly their ar-
ray, which the progress of our tale allows us no time to describe, was
ludicrous enough; and their weapons, though sufficiently formi-
dable to deal sound blows, were long alder-poles instead of lances,
and sound cudgels for swords; and for fence, both cavalry and in-
fantry were well equipped with stout headpieces and targets, both
made of thick leather.
Captain Coxe, that celebrated humorist of Coventry, whose li-

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brary of ballads, almanacs, and penny histories, fairly wrapped up

in parchment, and tied round for security with a piece of whipcord,
remains still the envy of antiquaries, being himself the ingenious
person under whose direction the pageant had been set forth, rode
valiantly on his hobby-horse before the bands of English, high-
trussed, saith Laneham, and brandishing his long sword, as became
an experienced man of war, who had fought under the Queen’s fa-
ther, bluff King Henry, at the siege of Boulogne. This chieftain was,
as right and reason craved, the first to enter the lists, and passing the
Gallery at the head of his myrmidons, kissed the hilt of his sword to
the Queen, and executed at the same time a gambade, the like
whereof had never been practised by two-legged hobby-horse. Then
passing on with all his followers of cavaliers and infantry, he drew
them up with martial skill at the opposite extremity of the bridge,
or tilt-yard, until his antagonist should be fairly prepared for the
onset.
This was no long interval; for the Danish cavalry and infantry, no
way inferior to the English in number, valour, and equipment, in-
stantly arrived, with the northern bagpipe blowing before them in
token of their country, and headed by a cunning master of defence,
only inferior to the renowned Captain Coxe, if to him, in the disci-
pline of war. The Danes, as invaders, took their station under the
Gallery-tower, and opposite to that of Mortimer; and when their
arrangements were completely made, a signal was given for the en-
counter.
Their first charge upon each other was rather moderate, for either
party had some dread of being forced into the lake. But as reinforce-
ments came up on either side, the encounter grew from a skirmish
into a blazing battle. They rushed upon one another, as Master
Laneham testifies, like rams inflamed by jealousy, with such furious
encounter that both parties were often overthrown, and the clubs
and targets made a most horrible clatter. In many instances that
happened which had been dreaded by the more experienced war-
riors who began the day of strife. The rails which defended the ledges
of the bridge had been, perhaps on purpose, left but slightly fas-
tened, and gave way under the pressure of those who thronged to
the combat, so that the hot courage of many of the combatants

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received a sufficient cooling. These incidents might have occasioned

more serious damage than became such an affray, for many of the
champions who met with this mischance could not swim, and those
who could were encumbered with their suits of leathern and of pa-
per armour; but the case had been provided for, and there were
several boats in readiness to pick up the unfortunate warriors and
convey them to the dry land, where, dripping and dejected, they
comforted themselves with the hot ale and strong waters which were
liberally allowed to them, without showing any desire to re-enter so
desperate a conflict.
Captain Coxe alone, that paragon of Black-Letter antiquaries, af-
ter twice experiencing, horse and man, the perilous leap from the
bridge into the lake, equal to any extremity to which the favourite
heroes of chivalry, whose exploits he studied in an abridged form,
whether Amadis, Belianis, Bevis, or his own Guy of Warwick, had
ever been subjected to—Captain Coxe, we repeat, did alone, after
two such mischances, rush again into the heat of conflict, his bases
and the footcloth of his hobby-horse dropping water, and twice
reanimated by voice and example the drooping spirits of the En-
glish; so that at last their victory over the Danish invaders became,
as was just and reasonable, complete and decisive. Worthy he was to
be rendered immortal by the pen of Ben Jonson, who, fifty years
afterwards, deemed that a masque, exhibited at Kenilworth, could
be ushered in by none with so much propriety as by the ghost of
Captain Coxe, mounted upon his redoubted hobby-horse.
These rough, rural gambols may not altogether agree with the
reader’s preconceived idea of an entertainment presented before Eliza-
beth, in whose reign letters revived with such brilliancy, and whose
court, governed by a female whose sense of propriety was equal to
her strength of mind, was no less distinguished for delicacy and
refinement than her councils for wisdom and fortitude. But whether
from the political wish to seem interested in popular sports, or
whether from a spark of old Henry’s rough, masculine spirit, which
Elizabeth sometimes displayed, it is certain the Queen laughed heart-
ily at the imitation, or rather burlesque, of chivalry which was pre-
sented in the Coventry play. She called near her person the Earl of
Sussex and Lord Hunsdon, partly perhaps to make amends to the

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former for the long and private audiences with which she had in-
dulged the Earl of Leicester, by engaging him in conversation upon
a pastime which better suited his taste than those pageants that were
furnished forth from the stores of antiquity. The disposition which
the Queen showed to laugh and jest with her military leaders gave
the Earl of Leicester the opportunity he had been watching for with-
drawing from the royal presence, which to the court around, so well
had he chosen his time, had the graceful appearance of leaving his
rival free access to the Queen’s person, instead of availing himself of
his right as her landlord to stand perpetually betwixt others and the
light of her countenance.
Leicester’s thoughts, however, had a far different object from mere
courtesy; for no sooner did he see the Queen fairly engaged in con-
versation with Sussex and Hunsdon, behind whose back stood Sir
Nicholas Blount, grinning from ear to ear at each word which was
spoken, than, making a sign to Tressilian, who, according to ap-
pointment, watched his motions at a little distance, he extricated
himself from the press, and walking towards the Chase, made his
way through the crowds of ordinary spectators, who, with open
mouth, stood gazing on the battle of the English and the Danes.
When he had accomplished this, which was a work of some diffi-
culty, he shot another glance behind him to see that Tressilian had
been equally successful; and as soon as he saw him also free from the
crowd, he led the way to a small thicket, behind which stood a
lackey, with two horses ready saddled. He flung himself on the one,
and made signs to Tressilian to mount the other, who obeyed with-
out speaking a single word.
Leicester then spurred his horse, and galloped without stopping
until he reached a sequestered spot, environed by lofty oaks, about
a mile’s distance from the Castle, and in an opposite direction from
the scene to which curiosity was drawing every spectator. He there
dismounted, bound his horse to a tree, and only pronouncing the
words, “Here there is no risk of interruption,” laid his cloak across
his saddle, and drew his sword.
Tressilian imitated his example punctually, yet could not forbear
saying, as he drew his weapon, “My lord, as I have been known to
many as one who does not fear death when placed in balance with

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honour, methinks I may, without derogation, ask wherefore, in the

name of all that is honourable, your lordship has dared to offer me
such a mark of disgrace as places us on these terms with respect to
each other?”
“If you like not such marks of my scorn,” replied the Earl, “betake
yourself instantly to your weapon, lest I repeat the usage you com-
plain of.”
“It shall not need, my lord,” said Tressilian. “God judge betwixt
us! and your blood, if you fall, be on your own head.”
He had scarce completed the sentence when they instantly closed
in combat.
But Leicester, who was a perfect master of defence among all other
exterior accomplishments of the time, had seen on the preceding
night enough of Tressilian’s strength and skill to make him fight
with more caution than heretofore, and prefer a secure revenge to a
hasty one. For some minutes they fought with equal skill and for-
tune, till, in a desperate lunge which Leicester successfully put aside,
Tressilian exposed himself at disadvantage; and in a subsequent at-
tempt to close, the Earl forced his sword from his hand, and stretched
him on the ground. With a grim smile he held the point of his
rapier within two inches of the throat of his fallen adversary, and
placing his foot at the same time upon his breast, bid him confess
his villainous wrongs towards him, and prepare for death.
“I have no villainy nor wrong towards thee to confess,” answered
Tressilian, “and am better prepared for death than thou. Use thine
advantage as thou wilt, and may God forgive you! I have given you
no cause for this.”
“No cause!” exclaimed the Earl, “no cause!—but why parley with
such a slave? Die a liar, as thou hast lived!”
He had withdrawn his arm for the purpose of striking the fatal
blow, when it was suddenly seized from behind.
The Earl turned in wrath to shake off the unexpected obstacle,
but was surprised to find that a strange-looking boy had hold of his
sword-arm, and clung to it with such tenacity of grasp that he could
not shake him of without a considerable struggle, in the course of
which Tressilian had opportunity to rise and possess himself once
more of his weapon. Leicester again turned towards him with looks

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of unabated ferocity, and the combat would have recommenced with

still more desperation on both sides, had not the boy clung to Lord
Leicester’s knees, and in a shrill tone implored him to listen one
moment ere he prosecuted this quarrel.
“Stand up, and let me go,” said Leicester, “or, by Heaven, I will
pierce thee with my rapier! What hast thou to do to bar my way to
revenge?”
“Much—much!” exclaimed the undaunted boy, “since my folly
has been the cause of these bloody quarrels between you, and per-
chance of worse evils. Oh, if you would ever again enjoy the peace
of an innocent mind, if you hope again to sleep in peace and
unhaunted by remorse, take so much leisure as to peruse this letter,
and then do as you list.”
While he spoke in this eager and earnest manner, to which his
singular features and voice gave a goblin-like effect, he held up to
Leicester a packet, secured with a long tress of woman’s hair of a
beautiful light-brown colour. Enraged as he was, nay, almost blinded
with fury to see his destined revenge so strangely frustrated, the Earl
of Leicester could not resist this extraordinary supplicant. He
snatched the letter from his hand—changed colour as he looked on
the superscription—undid with faltering hand the knot which se-
cured it—glanced over the contents, and staggering back, would
have fallen, had he not rested against the trunk of a tree, where he
stood for an instant, his eyes bent on the letter, and his sword-point
turned to the ground, without seeming to be conscious of the pres-
ence of an antagonist towards whom he had shown little mercy, and
who might in turn have taken him at advantage. But for such re-
venge Tressilian was too noble-minded. He also stood still in sur-
prise, waiting the issue of this strange fit of passion, but holding his
weapon ready to defend himself in case of need against some new
and sudden attack on the part of Leicester, whom he again sus-
pected to be under the influence of actual frenzy. The boy, indeed,
he easily recognized as his old acquaintance Dickon, whose face,
once seen, was scarcely to be forgotten; but how he came hither at
so critical a moment, why his interference was so energetic, and,
above all, how it came to produce so powerful an effect upon Le-
icester, were questions which he could not solve.

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But the letter was of itself powerful enough to work effects yet
more wonderful. It was that which the unfortunate Amy had writ-
ten to her husband, in which she alleged the reasons and manner of
her flight from Cumnor Place, informed him of her having made
her way to Kenilworth to enjoy his protection, and mentioned the
circumstances which had compelled her to take refuge in Tressilian’s
apartment, earnestly requesting he would, without delay, assign her
a more suitable asylum. The letter concluded with the most earnest
expressions of devoted attachment and submission to his will in all
things, and particularly respecting her situation and place of resi-
dence, conjuring him only that she might not be placed under the
guardianship or restraint of Varney. The letter dropped from
Leicester’s hand when he had perused it. “Take my sword,” he said,
“Tressilian, and pierce my heart, as I would but now have pierced
yours!”
“My lord,” said Tressilian, “you have done me great wrong, but
something within my breast ever whispered that it was by egregious
error.”
“Error, indeed!” said Leicester, and handed him the letter; “I have
been made to believe a man of honour a villain, and the best and
purest of creatures a false profligate.—Wretched boy, why comes
this letter now, and where has the bearer lingered?”
“I dare not tell you, my lord,” said the boy, withdrawing, as if to
keep beyond his reach; “but here comes one who was the messen-
ger.”
Wayland at the same moment came up; and interrogated by Le-
icester, hastily detailed all the circumstances of his escape with Amy,
the fatal practices which had driven her to flight, and her anxious
desire to throw herself under the instant protection of her husband—
pointing out the evidence of the domestics of Kenilworth, “who
could not,” he observed, “but remember her eager inquiries after
the Earl of Leicester on her first arrival.”
“The villains!” exclaimed Leicester; “but oh, that worst of villains,
Varney!—and she is even now in his power!”
“But not, I trust in God,” said Tressilian, “with any commands of
fatal import?”
“No, no, no!” exclaimed the Earl hastily. “I said something in

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madness; but it was recalled, fully recalled, by a hasty messenger,

and she is now—she must now be safe.”
“Yes,” said Tressilian,” she must be safe, and I must be assured of
her safety. My own quarrel with you is ended, my lord; but there is
another to begin with the seducer of Amy Robsart, who has screened
his guilt under the cloak of the infamous Varney.”
“The seducer of Amy!” replied Leicester, with a voice like thunder;
“say her husband!—her misguided, blinded, most unworthy hus-
band! She is as surely Countess of Leicester as I am belted Earl. Nor
can you, sir, point out that manner of justice which I will not render
her at my own free will. I need scarce say I fear not your compul-
sion.”
The generous nature of Tressilian was instantly turned from con-
sideration of anything personal to himself, and centred at once upon
Amy’s welfare. He had by no means undoubting confidence in the
fluctuating resolutions of Leicester, whose mind seemed to him agi-
tated beyond the government of calm reason; neither did he, not-
withstanding the assurances he had received, think Amy safe in the
hands of his dependants. “My lord,” he said calmly, “I mean you no
offence, and am far from seeking a quarrel. But my duty to Sir Hugh
Robsart compels me to carry this matter instantly to the Queen,
that the Countess’s rank may be acknowledged in her person.”
“You shall not need, sir,” replied the Earl haughtily; “do not dare
to interfere. No voice but Dudley’s shall proclaim Dudley’s infamy.
To Elizabeth herself will I tell it; and then for Cumnor Place with
the speed of life and death!”
So saying, he unbound his horse from the tree, threw himself into
the saddle, and rode at full gallop towards the Castle.
“Take me before you, Master Tressilian,” said the boy, seeing
Tressilian mount in the same haste; “my tale is not all told out, and
I need your protection.”
Tressilian complied, and followed the Earl, though at a less furi-
ous rate. By the way the boy confessed, with much contrition, that
in resentment at Wayland’s evading all his inquiries concerning the
lady, after Dickon conceived he had in various ways merited his
confidence, he had purloined from him in revenge the letter with
which Amy had entrusted him for the Earl of Leicester. His purpose

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was to have restored it to him that evening, as he reckoned himself

sure of meeting with him, in consequence of Wayland’s having to
perform the part of Arion in the pageant. He was indeed something
alarmed when he saw to whom the letter was addressed; but he
argued that, as Leicester did not return to Kenilworth until that
evening, it would be again in the possession of the proper messen-
ger as soon as, in the nature of things, it could possibly be delivered.
But Wayland came not to the pageant, having been in the interim
expelled by Lambourne from the Castle; and the boy, not being
able to find him, or to get speech of Tressilian, and finding himself
in possession of a letter addressed to no less a person than the Earl
of Leicester, became much afraid of the consequences of his frolic.
The caution, and indeed the alarm, which Wayland had expressed
respecting Varney and Lambourne, led him to judge that the letter
must be designed for the Earl’s own hand, and that he might preju-
dice the lady by giving it to any of the domestics. He made an at-
tempt or two to obtain an audience of Leicester; but the singularity
of his features and the meanness of his appearance occasioned his
being always repulsed by the insolent menials whom he applied to
for that purpose. Once, indeed, he had nearly succeeded, when, in
prowling about, he found in the grotto the casket, which he knew
to belong to the unlucky Countess, having seen it on her journey;
for nothing escaped his prying eye. Having striven in vain to restore
it either to Tressilian or the Countess, he put it into the hands, as we
have seen, of Leicester himself, but unfortunately he did not recog-
nize him in his disguise.
At length the boy thought he was on the point of succeeding when
the Earl came down to the lower part of the hall; but just as he was
about to accost him, he was prevented by Tressilian. As sharp in ear
as in wit, the boy heard the appointment settled betwixt them, to
take place in the Pleasance, and resolved to add a third to the party,
in hope that, either in coming or returning, he might find an op-
portunity of delivering the letter to Leicester; for strange stories be-
gan to flit among the domestics, which alarmed him for the lady’s
safety. Accident, however, detained Dickon a little behind the Earl,
and as he reached the arcade he saw them engaged in combat; in
consequence of which he hastened to alarm the guard, having little

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doubt that what bloodshed took place betwixt them might arise out
of his own frolic. Continuing to lurk in the portico, he heard the
second appointment which Leicester at parting assigned to Tressilian;
and was keeping them in view during the encounter of the Coven-
try men, when, to his surprise, he recognized Wayland in the crowd,
much disguised, indeed, but not sufficiently so to escape the prying
glance of his old comrade. They drew aside out of the crowd to
explain their situation to each other. The boy confessed to Wayland
what we have above told; and the artist, in return, informed him
that his deep anxiety for the fate of the unfortunate lady had brought
him back to the neighbourhood of the Castle, upon his learning
that morning, at a village about ten miles distant, that Varney and
Lambourne, whose violence he dreaded, had both left Kenilworth
over-night.
While they spoke, they saw Leicester and Tressilian separate them-
selves from the crowd, dogged them until they mounted their horses,
when the boy, whose speed of foot has been before mentioned,
though he could not possibly keep up with them, yet arrived, as we
have seen, soon enough to save Tressilian’s life. The boy had just
finished his tale when they arrived at the Gallery-tower.

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER XL

High o’er the eastern steep the sun is beaming,

And darkness flies with her deceitful shadows;—
So truth prevails o’er falsehood.

Old Lay.

AS TRESSILIAN rode along the bridge, lately the scene of so much

riotous sport, he could not but observe that men’s countenances
had singularly changed during the space of his brief absence. The
mock fight was over, but the men, still habited in their masking
suits, stood together in groups, like the inhabitants of a city who
have been just startled by some strange and alarming news.
When he reached the base-court, appearances were the same—
domestics, retainers, and under-officers stood together and whis-
pered, bending their eyes towards the windows of the Great Hall,
with looks which seemed at once alarmed and mysterious.
Sir Nicholas Blount was the first person of his own particular ac-
quaintance Tressilian saw, who left him no time to make inquiries,
but greeted him with, “God help thy heart, Tressilian! thou art fitter
for a clown than a courtier thou canst not attend, as becomes one
who follows her Majesty. Here you are called for, wished for, waited
for—no man but you will serve the turn; and hither you come with
a misbegotten brat on thy horse’s neck, as if thou wert dry nurse to
some sucking devil, and wert just returned from airing.”
“Why, what is the matter?” said Tressilian, letting go the boy, who
sprung to ground like a feather, and himself dismounting at the
same time.

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“Why, no one knows the matter,” replied Blount; “I cannot smell

it out myself, though I have a nose like other courtiers. Only, my
Lord of Leicester has galloped along the bridge as if he would have
rode over all in his passage, demanded an audience of the Queen,
and is closeted even now with her, and Burleigh and Walsingham—
and you are called for; but whether the matter be treason or worse,
no one knows.”
“He speaks true, by Heaven!” said Raleigh, who that instant ap-
peared; “you must immediately to the Queen’s presence.”
“Be not rash, Raleigh,” said Blount, “remember his boots.—For
Heaven’s sake, go to my chamber, dear Tressilian, and don my new
bloom-coloured silken hose; I have worn them but twice.”
“Pshaw!” answered Tressilian; “do thou take care of this boy, Blount;
be kind to him, and look he escapes you not—much depends on
him.”
So saying, he followed Raleigh hastily, leaving honest Blount with
the bridle of his horse in one hand, and the boy in the other. Blount
gave a long look after him.
“Nobody,” he said, “calls me to these mysteries—and he leaves me
here to play horse-keeper and child-keeper at once. I could excuse the
one, for I love a good horse naturally; but to be plagued with a bratchet
whelp.—Whence come ye, my fair-favoured little gossip?”
“From the Fens,” answered the boy.
“And what didst thou learn there, forward imp?”
“To catch gulls, with their webbed feet and yellow stockings,”
said the boy.
“Umph!” said Blount, looking down on his own immense roses.
“Nay, then, the devil take him asks thee more questions.”
Meantime Tressilian traversed the full length of the Great Hall, in
which the astonished courtiers formed various groups, and were
whispering mysteriously together, while all kept their eyes fixed on
the door which led from the upper end of the hall into the Queen’s
withdrawing apartment. Raleigh pointed to the door. Tressilian
knocked, and was instantly admitted. Many a neck was stretched to
gain a view into the interior of the apartment; but the tapestry which
covered the door on the inside was dropped too suddenly to admit
the slightest gratification of curiosity.

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 Sir Walter Scott

Upon entrance, Tressilian found himself, not without a strong

palpitation of heart, in the presence of Elizabeth, who was walking
to and fro in a violent agitation, which she seemed to scorn to con-
ceal, while two or three of her most sage and confidential counsel-
lors exchanged anxious looks with each other, but delayed speaking
till her wrath abated. Before the empty chair of state in which she
had been seated, and which was half pushed aside by the violence
with which she had started from it, knelt Leicester, his arms crossed,
and his brows bent on the ground, still and motionless as the effi-
gies upon a sepulchre. Beside him stood the Lord Shrewsbury, then
Earl Marshal of England, holding his baton of office. The Earl’s
sword was unbuckled, and lay before him on the floor.
“Ho, sir!” said the Queen, coming close up to Tressilian, and stamp-
ing on the floor with the action and manner of Henry himself; “you
knew of this fair work—you are an accomplice in this deception
which has been practised on us—you have been a main cause of our
doing injustice?” Tressilian dropped on his knee before the Queen,
his good sense showing him the risk of attempting any defence at
that moment of irritation. “Art dumb, sirrah?” she continued; “thou
knowest of this affair dost thou not?”
“Not, gracious madam, that this poor lady was Countess of Le-
icester.”
“Nor shall any one know her for such,” said Elizabeth. “Death of
my life! Countess of Leicester!—I say Dame Amy Dudley; and well
if she have not cause to write herself widow of the traitor Robert
Dudley.”
“Madam,” said Leicester, “do with me what it may be your will to
do, but work no injury on this gentleman; he hath in no way de-
served it.”
“And will he be the better for thy intercession,” said the Queen,
leaving Tressilian, who slowly arose, and rushing to Leicester, who
continued kneeling—“the better for thy intercession, thou doubly
false—thou doubly forsworn;—of thy intercession, whose villainy
hath made me ridiculous to my subjects and odious to myself? I
could tear out mine eyes for their blindness!”
Burleigh here ventured to interpose.
“Madam,” he said, “remember that you are a Queen—Queen of

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England—mother of your people. Give not way to this wild storm

of passion.”
Elizabeth turned round to him, while a tear actually twinkled in
her proud and angry eye. “Burleigh,” she said, “thou art a states-
man—thou dost not, thou canst not, comprehend half the scorn,
half the misery, that man has poured on me!”
With the utmost caution—with the deepest reverence—Burleigh
took her hand at the moment he saw her heart was at the fullest,
and led her aside to an oriel window, apart from the others.
“Madam,” he said, “I am a statesman, but I am also a man—a
man already grown old in your councils—who have not and cannot
have a wish on earth but your glory and happiness; I pray you to be
composed.”
“Ah! Burleigh,” said Elizabeth, “thou little knowest—” here her
tears fell over her cheeks in despite of her.
“I do—I do know, my honoured sovereign. Oh, beware that you
lead not others to guess that which they know not!”
“Ha!” said Elizabeth, pausing as if a new train of thought had
suddenly shot across her brain. “Burleigh, thou art right—thou art
right—anything but disgrace—anything but a confession of weak-
ness—anything rather than seem the cheated, slighted—’sdeath! to
think on it is distraction!”
“Be but yourself, my Queen,” said Burleigh; “and soar far above a
weakness which no Englishman will ever believe his Elizabeth could
have entertained, unless the violence of her disappointment carries
a sad conviction to his bosom.”
“What weakness, my lord?” said Elizabeth haughtily; “would you
too insinuate that the favour in which I held yonder proud traitor
derived its source from aught—” But here she could no longer sus-
tain the proud tone which she had assumed, and again softened as
she said, “But why should I strive to deceive even thee, my good
and wise servant?”
Burleigh stooped to kiss her hand with affection, and—rare in the
annals of courts—a tear of true sympathy dropped from the eye of
the minister on the hand of his Sovereign.
It is probable that the consciousness of possessing this sympathy
aided Elizabeth in supporting her mortification, and suppressing

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 Sir Walter Scott

her extreme resentment; but she was still more moved by fear that
her passion should betray to the public the affront and the disap-
pointment, which, alike as a woman and a Queen, she was so anx-
ious to conceal. She turned from Burleigh, and sternly paced the
hall till her features had recovered their usual dignity, and her mien
its wonted stateliness of regular motion.
“Our Sovereign is her noble self once more,” whispered Burleigh
to Walsingham; “mark what she does, and take heed you thwart her
not.”
She then approached Leicester, and said with calmness, “My Lord
Shrewsbury, we discharge you of your prisoner.—My Lord of Le-
icester, rise and take up your sword; a quarter of an hour’s restraint
under the custody of our Marshal, my lord, is, we think, no high
penance for months of falsehood practised upon us. We will now
hear the progress of this affair.” She then seated herself in her chair,
and said, “You, Tressilian, step forward, and say what you know.”
Tressilian told his story generously, suppressing as much as he
could what affected Leicester, and saying nothing of their having
twice actually fought together. It is very probable that, in doing so,
he did the Earl good service; for had the Queen at that instant found
anything on account of which she could vent her wrath upon him,
without laying open sentiments of which she was ashamed, it might
have fared hard with him. She paused when Tressilian had finished
his tale.
“We will take that Wayland,” she said, “into our own service, and
place the boy in our Secretary office for instruction, that he may in
future use discretion towards letters. For you, Tressilian, you did
wrong in not communicating the whole truth to us, and your promise
not to do so was both imprudent and undutiful. Yet, having given
your word to this unhappy lady, it was the part of a man and a
gentleman to keep it; and on the whole, we esteem you for the
character you have sustained in this matter.—My Lord of Leicester,
it is now your turn to tell us the truth, an exercise to which you
seem of late to have been too much a stranger.”
Accordingly, she extorted, by successive questions, the whole his-
tory of his first acquaintance with Amy Robsart—their marriage—
his jealousy—the causes on which it was founded, and many par-

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ticulars besides. Leicester’s confession, for such it might be called,

was wrenched from him piecemeal, yet was upon the whole accu-
rate, excepting that he totally omitted to mention that he had, by
implication or otherwise, assented to Varney’s designs upon the life
of his Countess. Yet the consciousness of this was what at that mo-
ment lay nearest to his heart; and although he trusted in great mea-
sure to the very positive counter-orders which he had sent by
Lambourne, it was his purpose to set out for Cumnor Place in per-
son as soon as he should be dismissed from the presence of the
Queen, who, he concluded, would presently leave Kenilworth.
But the Earl reckoned without his host. It is true his presence and
his communications were gall and wormwood to his once partial
mistress. But barred from every other and more direct mode of re-
venge, the Queen perceived that she gave her false suitor torture by
these inquiries, and dwelt on them for that reason, no more regard-
ing the pain which she herself experienced, than the savage cares for
the searing of his own hands by grasping the hot pincers with which
he tears the flesh of his captive enemy.
At length, however, the haughty lord, like a deer that turns to bay,
gave intimation that his patience was failing. “Madam,” he said, “I
have been much to blame—more than even your just resentment
has expressed. Yet, madam, let me say that my guilt, if it be unpar-
donable, was not unprovoked, and that if beauty and condescend-
ing dignity could seduce the frail heart of a human being, I might
plead both as the causes of my concealing this secret from your
Majesty.”
The Queen was so much struck with this reply, which Leicester
took care should be heard by no one but herself, that she was for the
moment silenced, and the Earl had the temerity to pursue his ad-
vantage. “Your Grace, who has pardoned so much, will excuse my
throwing myself on your royal mercy for those expressions which
were yester-morning accounted but a light offence.”
The Queen fixed her eyes on him while she replied, “Now, by
Heaven, my lord, thy effrontery passes the bounds of belief, as well
as patience! But it shall avail thee nothing.—What ho! my lords,
come all and hear the news-my Lord of Leicester’s stolen marriage
has cost me a husband, and England a king. His lordship is patriar-

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chal in his tastes—one wife at a time was insufficient, and he de-

signed US the honour of his left hand. Now, is not this too inso-
lent—that I could not grace him with a few marks of court-favour,
but he must presume to think my hand and crown at his disposal?
You, however, think better of me; and I can pity this ambitious
man, as I could a child, whose bubble of soap has burst between his
hands. We go to the presence-chamber.—My Lord of Leicester, we
command your close attendance on us.”
All was eager expectation in the hall, and what was the universal
astonishment when the Queen said to those next her, “The revels of
Kenilworth are not yet exhausted, my lords and ladies—we are to
solemnize the noble owner’s marriage.”
There was an universal expression of surprise.
“It is true, on our royal word,” said the Queen; “he hath kept this
a secret even from us, that he might surprise us with it at this very
place and time. I see you are dying of curiosity to know the happy
bride. It is Amy Robsart, the same who, to make up the May-game
yesterday, figured in the pageant as the wife of his servant Varney.”
“For God’s sake, madam,” said the Earl, approaching her with a
mixture of humility, vexation, and shame in his countenance, and
speaking so low as to be heard by no one else, “take my head, as you
threatened in your anger, and spare me these taunts! Urge not a
falling man—tread not on a crushed worm.”
“A worm, my lord?” said the Queen, in the same tone; “nay, a
snake is the nobler reptile, and the more exact similitude—the fro-
zen snake you wot of, which was warmed in a certain bosom—”
“For your own sake—for mine, madam,” said the Earl—”while
there is yet some reason left in me—”
“Speak aloud, my lord,” said Elizabeth, “and at farther distance,
so please you—your breath thaws our ruff. What have you to ask of
us?”
“Permission,” said the unfortunate Earl humbly, “to travel to
Cumnor Place.”
“To fetch home your bride belike?—Why, ay—that is but right,
for, as we have heard, she is indifferently cared for there. But, my
lord, you go not in person; we have counted upon passing certain
days in this Castle of Kenilworth, and it were slight courtesy to

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leave us without a landlord during our residence here. Under your

favour, we cannot think to incur such disgrace in the eyes of our
subjects. Tressilian shall go to Cumnor Place instead of you, and
with him some gentleman who hath been sworn of our chamber,
lest my Lord of Leicester should be again jealous of his old rival.—
Whom wouldst thou have to be in commission with thee, Tressilian?”
Tressilian, with humble deference, suggested the name of Raleigh.
“Why, ay,” said the Queen; “so God ha’ me, thou hast made a
good choice. He is a young knight besides, and to deliver a lady
from prison is an appropriate first adventure.—Cumnor Place is
little better than a prison, you are to know, my lords and ladies.
Besides, there are certain faitours there whom we would willingly
have in safe keeping. You will furnish them, Master Secretary, with
the warrant necessary to secure the bodies of Richard Varney and
the foreign Alasco, dead or alive. Take a sufficient force with you,
gentlemen—bring the lady here in all honour—lose no time, and
God be with you!”
They bowed, and left the presence,
Who shall describe how the rest of that day was spent at
Kenilworth? The Queen, who seemed to have remained there for
the sole purpose of mortifying and taunting the Earl of Leicester,
showed herself as skilful in that female art of vengeance, as she was
in the science of wisely governing her people. The train of state
soon caught the signal, and as he walked among his own splendid
preparations, the Lord of Kenilworth, in his own Castle, already
experienced the lot of a disgraced courtier, in the slight regard and
cold manners of alienated friends, and the ill-concealed triumph of
avowed and open enemies. Sussex, from his natural military frank-
ness of disposition, Burleigh and Walsingham, from their penetrat-
ing and prospective sagacity, and some of the ladies, from the com-
passion of their sex, were the only persons in the crowded court
who retained towards him the countenance they had borne in the
morning.
So much had Leicester been accustomed to consider court favour as
the principal object of his life, that all other sensations were, for the
time, lost in the agony which his haughty spirit felt at the succession
of petty insults and studied neglects to which he had been subjected;

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 Sir Walter Scott

but when he retired to his own chamber for the night, that long, fair
tress of hair which had once secured Amy’s letter fell under his obser-
vation, and, with the influence of a counter-charm, awakened his
heart to nobler and more natural feelings. He kissed it a thousand
times; and while he recollected that he had it always in his power to
shun the mortifications which he had that day undergone, by retiring
into a dignified and even prince-like seclusion with the beautiful and
beloved partner of his future life, he felt that he could rise above the
revenge which Elizabeth had condescended to take.
Accordingly, on the following day the whole conduct of the Earl
displayed so much dignified equanimity—he seemed so solicitous
about the accommodations and amusements of his guests, yet so
indifferent to their personal demeanour towards him—so respect-
fully distant to the Queen, yet so patient of her harassing displea-
sure—that Elizabeth changed her manner to him, and, though cold
and distant, ceased to offer him any direct affront. She intimated
also with some sharpness to others around her, who thought they
were consulting her pleasure in showing a neglectful conduct to the
Earl, that while they remained at Kenilworth they ought to show
the civility due from guests to the Lord of the Castle. In short, mat-
ters were so far changed in twenty-four hours that some of the more
experienced and sagacious courtiers foresaw a strong possibility of
Leicester’s restoration to favour, and regulated their demeanour to-
wards him, as those who might one day claim merit for not having
deserted him in adversity. It is time, however, to leave these intrigues,
and follow Tressilian and Raleigh on their journey.
The troop consisted of six persons; for, besides Wayland, they had
in company a royal pursuivant and two stout serving-men. All were
well-armed, and travelled as fast as it was possible with justice to
their horses, which had a long journey before them. They endeav-
oured to procure some tidings as they rode along of Varney and his
party, but could hear none, as they had travelled in the dark. At a
small village about twelve miles from Kenilworth, where they gave
some refreshment to their horses, a poor clergyman, the curate of
the place, came out of a small cottage, and entreated any of the
company who might know aught of surgery to look in for an in-
stant on a dying man.

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Kenilworth

The empiric Wayland undertook to do his best, and as the curate

conducted him to the spot, he learned that the man had been found
on the highroad, about a mile from the village, by labourers, as they
were going to their work on the preceding morning, and the curate
had given him shelter in his house. He had received a gun-shot
wound, which seemed to be obviously mortal; but whether in a
brawl or from robbers they could not learn, as he was in a fever, and
spoke nothing connectedly. Wayland entered the dark and lowly
apartment, and no sooner had the curate drawn aside the curtain
than he knew, in the distorted features of the patient, the counte-
nance of Michael Lambourne. Under pretence of seeking something
which he wanted, Wayland hastily apprised his fellow-travellers of
this extraordinary circumstance; and both Tressilian and Raleigh,
full of boding apprehensions, hastened to the curate’s house to see
the dying man.
The wretch was by this time in the agonies of death, from which
a much better surgeon than Wayland could not have rescued him,
for the bullet had passed clear through his body. He was sensible,
however, at least in part, for he knew Tressilian, and made signs that
he wished him to stoop over his bed. Tressilian did so, and after
some inarticulate murmurs, in which the names of Varney and Lady
Leicester were alone distinguishable, Lambourne bade him “make
haste, or he would come too late.” It was in vain Tressilian urged the
patient for further information; he seemed to become in some de-
gree delirious, and when he again made a signal to attract Tressilian’s
attention, it was only for the purpose of desiring him to inform his
uncle, Giles Gosling of the Black Bear, that “he had died without
his shoes after all.” A convulsion verified his words a few minutes
after, and the travellers derived nothing from having met with him,
saving the obscure fears concerning the fate of the Countess, which
his dying words were calculated to convey, and which induced them
to urge their journey with the utmost speed, pressing horses in the
Queen’s name when those which they rode became unfit for ser-
vice.

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 Sir Walter Scott

CHAPTER XLI

The death-bell thrice was heard to ring,

An aerial voice was heard to call,
And thrice the raven flapp’d its wing
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.

Mickle.

WE ARE NOW to return to that part of our story where we intimated

that Varney, possessed of the authority of the Earl of Leicester, and
of the Queen’s permission to the same effect, hastened to secure
himself against discovery of his perfidy by removing the Countess
from Kenilworth Castle. He had proposed to set forth early in the
morning; but reflecting that the Earl might relent in the interim,
and seek another interview with the Countess, he resolved to pre-
vent, by immediate departure, all chance of what would probably
have ended in his detection and ruin. For this purpose he called for
Lambourne, and was exceedingly incensed to find that his trusty
attendant was abroad on some ramble in the neighbouring village,
or elsewhere. As his return was expected, Sir Richard commanded
that he should prepare himself for attending him on an immediate
journey, and follow him in case he returned after his departure.
In the meanwhile, Varney used the ministry of a servant called
Robin Tider, one to whom the mysteries of Cumnor Place were
already in some degree known, as he had been there more than once
in attendance on the Earl. To this man, whose character resembled
that of Lambourne, though he was neither quite so prompt nor
altogether so profligate, Varney gave command to have three horses

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saddled, and to prepare a horse-litter, and have them in readiness at

the postern gate. The natural enough excuse of his lady’s insanity,
which was now universally believed, accounted for the secrecy with
which she was to be removed from the Castle, and he reckoned on
the same apology in case the unfortunate Amy’s resistance or screams
should render such necessary. The agency of Anthony Foster was
indispensable, and that Varney now went to secure.
This person, naturally of a sour, unsocial disposition, and some-
what tired, besides, with his journey from Cumnor to Warwickshire,
in order to bring the news of the Countess’s escape, had early extri-
cated himself from the crowd of wassailers, and betaken himself to his
chamber, where he lay asleep, when Varney, completely equipped for
travelling, and with a dark lantern in his hand, entered his apartment.
He paused an instant to listen to what his associate was murmuring
in his sleep, and could plainly distinguish the words, “Ave Maria—
ora pro nobis. No, it runs not so—deliver us from evil—ay, so it goes.”
“Praying in his sleep,” said Varney, “and confounding his old and
new devotions. He must have more need of prayer ere I am done
with him.—What ho! holy man, most blessed penitent!—awake—
awake! The devil has not discharged you from service yet.”
As Varney at the same time shook the sleeper by the arm, it changed
the current of his ideas, and he roared out, “Thieves!—thieves! I
will die in defence of my gold—my hard-won gold—that has cost
me so dear. Where is Janet?—Is Janet safe?”
“Safe enough, thou bellowing fool!” said Varney; “art thou not
ashamed of thy clamour?”
Foster by this time was broad awake, and sitting up in his bed,
asked Varney the meaning of so untimely a visit. “It augurs nothing
good,” he added.
“A false prophecy, most sainted Anthony,” returned Varney; “it
augurs that the hour is come for converting thy leasehold into copy-
hold. What sayest thou to that?”
“Hadst thou told me this in broad day,” said Foster, “I had re-
joiced; but at this dead hour, and by this dim light, and looking on
thy pale face, which is a ghastly contradiction to thy light words, I
cannot but rather think of the work that is to be done, than the
guerdon to be gained by it.”

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 Sir Walter Scott

“Why, thou fool, it is but to escort thy charge back to Cumnor

Place.”
“Is that indeed all?” said Foster; “thou lookest deadly pale, and
thou art not moved by trifles—is that indeed all?”
“Ay, that—and maybe a trifle more,” said Varney.
“Ah, that trifle more!” said Foster; “still thou lookest paler and paler.”
“Heed not my countenance,” said Varney; “you see it by this
wretched light. Up and be doing, man. Think of Cumnor Place—
thine own proper copyhold. Why, thou mayest found a weekly lec-
tureship, besides endowing Janet like a baron’s daughter. Seventy
pounds and odd.”
“Seventy-nine pounds, five shillings and fivepence half-penny,
besides the value of the wood,” said Foster; “and I am to have it all
as copyhold?”
“All, man—squirrels and all. No gipsy shall cut the value of a
broom—no boy so much as take a bird’s nest—without paying thee
a quittance.—Ay, that is right—don thy matters as fast as possible;
horses and everything are ready, all save that accursed villain
Lambourne, who is out on some infernal gambol.”
“Ay, Sir Richard,” said Foster, “you would take no advice. I ever
told you that drunken profligate would fail you at need. Now I
could have helped you to a sober young man.”
“What, some slow-spoken, long-breathed brother of the congre-
gation? Why, we shall have use for such also, man. Heaven be praised,
we shall lack labourers of every kind.—Ay, that is right—forget not
your pistols. Come now, and let us away.”
“Whither?” said Anthony.
“To my lady’s chamber; and, mind, she must along with us. Thou
art not a fellow to be startled by a shriek?”
“Not if Scripture reason can be rendered for it; and it is written,
‘Wives obey your husbands.’ But will my lord’s commands bear us
out if we use violence?”
“Tush, man! here is his signet,” answered Varney; and having thus
silenced the objections of his associate, they went together to Lord
Hunsdon’s apartments, and acquainting the sentinel with their pur-
pose, as a matter sanctioned by the Queen and the Earl of Leicester,
they entered the chamber of the unfortunate Countess.

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The horror of Amy may be conceived when, starting from a bro-

ken slumber, she saw at her bedside Varney, the man on earth she
most feared and hated. It was even a consolation to see that he was
not alone, though she had so much reason to dread his sullen com-
panion.
“Madam,” said Varney, “there is no time for ceremony. My Lord
of Leicester, having fully considered the exigencies of the time, sends
you his orders immediately to accompany us on our return to
Cumnor Place. See, here is his signet, in token of his instant and
pressing commands.”
“It is false!” said the Countess; “thou hast stolen the warrant —
thou, who art capable of every villainy, from the blackest to the
basest!”
“It is true, madam,” replied Varney; “so true, that if you do not
instantly arise, and prepare to attend us, we must compel you to
obey our orders.”
“Compel! Thou darest not put it to that issue, base as thou art!”
exclaimed the unhappy Countess.
“That remains to be proved, madam,” said Varney, who had de-
termined on intimidation as the only means of subduing her high
spirit; “if you put me to it, you will find me a rough groom of the
chambers.”
It was at this threat that Amy screamed so fearfully that, had it
not been for the received opinion of her insanity, she would quickly
have had Lord Hunsdon and others to her aid. Perceiving, however,
that her cries were vain, she appealed to Foster in the most affecting
terms, conjuring him, as his daughter Janet’s honour and purity
were dear to him, not to permit her to be treated with unwomanly
violence.
“Why, madam, wives must obey their husbands—there’s Scrip-
ture warrant for it,” said Foster; “and if you will dress yourself, and
come with us patiently, there’s no one shall lay finger on you while
I can draw a pistol-trigger.”
Seeing no help arrive, and comforted even by the dogged lan-
guage of Foster, the Countess promised to arise and dress herself, if
they would agree to retire from the room. Varney at the same time
assured her of all safety and honour while in their hands, and prom-

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ised that he himself would not approach her, since his presence was
so displeasing. Her husband, he added, would be at Cumnor Place
within twenty-four hours after they had reached it.
Somewhat comforted by this assurance, upon which, however,
she saw little reason to rely, the unhappy Amy made her toilette by
the assistance of the lantern, which they left with her when they
quitted the apartment.
Weeping, trembling, and praying, the unfortunate lady dressed
herself with sensations how different from the days in which she
was wont to decorate herself in all the pride of conscious beauty!
She endeavoured to delay the completing her dress as long as she
could, until, terrified by the impatience of Varney, she was obliged
to declare herself ready to attend them.
When they were about to move, the Countess clung to Foster
with such an appearance of terror at Varney’s approach that the lat-
ter protested to her, with a deep oath, that he had no intention
whatever of even coming near her. “If you do but consent to ex-
ecute your husband’s will in quietness, you shall,” he said, “see but
little of me. I will leave you undisturbed to the care of the usher
whom your good taste prefers.”
“My husband’s will!” she exclaimed. “But it is the will of God,
and let that be sufficient to me. I will go with Master Foster as
unresistingly as ever did a literal sacrifice. He is a father at least; and
will have decency, if not humanity. For thee, Varney, were it my
latest word, thou art an equal stranger to both.”
Varney replied only she was at liberty to choose, and walked some
paces before them to show the way; while, half leaning on Foster,
and half carried by him, the Countess was transported from
Saintlowe’s Tower to the postern gate, where Tider waited with the
litter and horses.
The Countess was placed in the former without resistance. She
saw with some satisfaction that, while Foster and Tider rode close
by the litter, which the latter conducted, the dreaded Varney lin-
gered behind, and was soon lost in darkness. A little while she strove,
as the road winded round the verge of the lake, to keep sight of
those stately towers which called her husband lord, and which still,
in some places, sparkled with lights, where wassailers were yet revel-

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ling. But when the direction of the road rendered this no longer
possible, she drew back her head, and sinking down in the litter,
recommended herself to the care of Providence.
Besides the desire of inducing the Countess to proceed quietly on
her journey, Varney had it also in view to have an interview with
Lambourne, by whom he every moment expected to be joined, with-
out the presence of any witnesses. He knew the character of this
man, prompt, bloody, resolute, and greedy, and judged him the most
fit agent he could employ in his further designs. But ten miles of
their journey had been measured ere he heard the hasty clatter of
horse’s hoofs behind him, and was overtaken by Michael Lambourne.
Fretted as he was with his absence, Varney received his profligate
servant with a rebuke of unusual bitterness. “Drunken villain,” he
said, “thy idleness and debauched folly will stretch a halter ere it be
long, and, for me, I care not how soon!”
This style of objurgation Lambourne, who was elated to an un-
usual degree, not only by an extraordinary cup of wine, but by the
sort of confidential interview he had just had with the Earl, and the
secret of which he had made himself master, did not receive with his
wonted humility. “He would take no insolence of language,” he
said, “from the best knight that ever wore spurs. Lord Leicester had
detained him on some business of import, and that was enough for
Varney, who was but a servant like himself.”
Varney was not a little surprised at his unusual tone of insolence;
but ascribing it to liquor, suffered it to pass as if unnoticed, and
then began to tamper with Lambourne touching his willingness to
aid in removing out of the Earl of Leicester’s way an obstacle to a
rise, which would put it in his power to reward his trusty followers
to their utmost wish. And upon Michael Lambourne’s seeming ig-
norant what was meant, he plainly indicated “the litter-load, yon-
der,” as the impediment which he desired should be removed.
“Look you, Sir Richard, and so forth,” said Michael, “some are
wiser than some, that is one thing, and some are worse than some,
that’s another. I know my lord’s mind on this matter better than
thou, for he hath trusted me fully in the matter. Here are his man-
dates, and his last words were, Michael Lambourne—for his lord-
ship speaks to me as a gentleman of the sword, and useth not the

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words drunken villain, or such like phrase, of those who know not
how to bear new dignities—Varney, says he, must pay the utmost
respect to my Countess. I trust to you for looking to it, Lambourne,
says his lordship, and you must bring back my signet from him
peremptorily.”
“Ay,” replied Varney, “said he so, indeed? You know all, then?”
“All—all; and you were as wise to make a friend of me while the
weather is fair betwixt us.”
“And was there no one present,” said Varney, “when my lord so
spoke?”
“Not a breathing creature,” replied Lambourne. “Think you my
lord would trust any one with such matters, save an approved man
of action like myself?”
“Most true,” said Varney; and making a pause, he looked forward
on the moonlight road. They were traversing a wide and open heath.
The litter being at least a mile before them, was both out of sight
and hearing. He looked behind, and there was an expanse, lighted
by the moonbeams, without one human being in sight. He resumed
his speech to Lambourne: “And will you turn upon your master,
who has introduced you to this career of court-like favour—whose
apprentice you have been, Michael—who has taught you the depths
and shallows of court intrigue?”
“Michael not me!” said Lambourne; “I have a name will brook a
master before it as well as another; and as to the rest, if I have been
an apprentice, my indenture is out, and I am resolute to set up for
myself.”
“Take thy quittance first, thou fool!” said Varney; and with a pis-
tol, which he had for some time held in his hand, shot Lambourne
through the body.
The wretch fell from his horse without a single groan; and Varney,
dismounting, rifled his pockets, turning out the lining, that it might
appear he had fallen by robbers. He secured the Earl’s packet, which
was his chief object; but he also took Lambourne”s purse, contain-
ing some gold pieces, the relics of what his debauchery had left him,
and from a singular combination of feelings, carried it in his hand
only the length of a small river, which crossed the road, into which
he threw it as far as he could fling. Such are the strange remnants of

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conscience which remain after she seems totally subdued, that this
cruel and remorseless man would have felt himself degraded had he
pocketed the few pieces belonging to the wretch whom he had thus
ruthlessly slain.
The murderer reloaded his pistol after cleansing the lock and bar-
rel from the appearances of late explosion, and rode calmly after the
litter, satisfying himself that he had so adroitly removed a trouble-
some witness to many of his intrigues, and the bearer of mandates
which he had no intentions to obey, and which, therefore, he was
desirous it should be thought had never reached his hand.
The remainder of the journey was made with a degree of speed
which showed the little care they had for the health of the unhappy
Countess. They paused only at places where all was under their com-
mand, and where the tale they were prepared to tell of the insane
Lady Varney would have obtained ready credit had she made an at-
tempt to appeal to the compassion of the few persons admitted to see
her. But Amy saw no chance of obtaining a hearing from any to whom
she had an opportunity of addressing herself; and besides, was too
terrified for the presence of Varney to violate the implied condition
under which she was to travel free from his company. The authority
of Varney, often so used during the Earl’s private journeys to Cumnor,
readily procured relays of horses where wanted, so that they approached
Cumnor Place upon the night after they left Kenilworth.
At this period of the journey Varney came up to the rear of the
litter, as he had done before repeatedly during their progress, and
asked, “How does she?”
“She sleeps,” said Foster. “I would we were home—her strength is
exhausted.”
“Rest will restore her,” answered Varney. “She shall soon sleep
sound and long. We must consider how to lodge her in safety.”
“In her own apartments, to be sure,” said Foster. “I have sent
Janet to her aunt’s with a proper rebuke, and the old women are
truth itself—for they hate this lady cordially.”
“We will not trust them, however, friend Anthony,” said Varney;
“We must secure her in that stronghold where you keep your gold.”
“My gold!” said Anthony, much alarmed; “why, what gold have I?
God help me, I have no gold—I would I had!”

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“Now, marry hang thee, thou stupid brute, who thinks of or cares
for thy gold? If I did, could I not find an hundred better ways to
come at it? In one word, thy bedchamber, which thou hast fenced
so curiously, must be her place of seclusion; and thou, thou hind,
shalt press her pillows of down. I dare to say the Earl will never ask
after the rich furniture of these four rooms.”
This last consideration rendered Foster tractable; he only asked
permission to ride before, to make matters ready, and spurring his
horse, he posted before the litter, while Varney falling about three-
score paces behind it, it remained only attended by Tider.
When they had arrived at Cumnor Place, the Countess asked ea-
gerly for Janet, and showed much alarm when informed that she
was no longer to have the attendance of that amiable girl.
“My daughter is dear to me, madam,” said Foster gruffly; “and I
desire not that she should get the court-tricks of lying and ‘scaping—
somewhat too much of that has she learned already, an it please
your ladyship.”
The Countess, much fatigued and greatly terrified by the circum-
stances of her journey, made no answer to this insolence, but mildly
expressed a wish to retire to her chamber,
“Ay, ay,” muttered Foster, “’tis but reasonable; but, under favour,
you go not to your gew-gaw toy-house yonder—you will sleep to-
night in better security.”
“I would it were in my grave,” said the Countess; “but that mortal
feelings shiver at the idea of soul and body parting.”
“You, I guess, have no chance to shiver at that,” replied Foster.
“My lord comes hither to-morrow, and doubtless you will make
your own ways good with him.”
“But does he come hither?—does he indeed, good Foster?”
“Oh, ay, good Foster!” replied the other. “But what Foster shall I
be to-morrow when you speak of me to my lord—though all I have
done was to obey his own orders?”
“You shall be my protector—a rough one indeed—but still a pro-
tector,” answered the Countess. “Oh that Janet were but here!”
“She is better where she is,” answered Foster—“one of you is
enough to perplex a plain head. But will you taste any refreshment?”
“Oh no, no—my chamber—my chamber! I trust,” she said ap-

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prehensively, “I may secure it on the inside?”

“With all my heart,” answered Foster, “so I may secure it on the
outside;” and taking a light, he led the way to a part of the building
where Amy had never been, and conducted her up a stair of great
height, preceded by one of the old women with a lamp. At the head
of the stair, which seemed of almost immeasurable height, they
crossed a short wooden gallery, formed of black oak, and very nar-
row, at the farther end of which was a strong oaken door, which
opened and admitted them into the miser’s apartment, homely in
its accommodations in the very last degree, and, except in name,
little different from a prison-room.
Foster stopped at the door, and gave the lamp to the Countess,
without either offering or permitting the attendance of the old
woman who had carried it. The lady stood not on ceremony, but
taking it hastily, barred the door, and secured it with the ample
means provided on the inside for that purpose.
Varney, meanwhile, had lurked behind on the stairs; but hearing
the door barred, he now came up on tiptoe, and Foster, winking to
him, pointed with self-complacence to a piece of concealed ma-
chinery in the wall, which, playing with much ease and little noise,
dropped a part of the wooden gallery, after the manner of a draw-
bridge, so as to cut off all communication between the door of the
bedroom, which he usually inhabited, and the landing-place of the
high, winding stair which ascended to it. The rope by which this
machinery was wrought was generally carried within the bedchamber,
it being Foster’s object to provide against invasion from without;
but now that it was intended to secure the prisoner within, the cord
had been brought over to the landing-place, and was there made
fast, when Foster with much complacency had dropped the unsus-
pected trap-door.
Varney looked with great attention at the machinery, and peeped
more than once down the abyss which was opened by the fall of the
trap-door. It was dark as pitch, and seemed profoundly deep, going,
as Foster informed his confederate in a whisper, nigh to the lowest
vault of the Castle. Varney cast once more a fixed and long look
down into this sable gulf, and then followed Foster to the part of
the manor-house most usually inhabited.

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 Sir Walter Scott

When they arrived in the parlour which we have mentioned,

Varney requested Foster to get them supper, and some of the choic-
est wine. “I will seek Alasco,” he added; “we have work for him to
do, and we must put him in good heart.”
Foster groaned at this intimation, but made no remonstrance. The
old woman assured Varney that Alasco had scarce eaten or drunken
since her master’s departure, living perpetually shut up in the labo-
ratory, and talking as if the world’s continuance depended on what
he was doing there.
“I will teach him that the world hath other claims on him,” said
Varney, seizing a light, and going in quest of the alchemist. He re-
turned, after a considerable absence, very pale, but yet with his ha-
bitual sneer on his cheek and nostril. “Our friend,” he said, “has
exhaled.”
“How!—what mean you?” said Foster—”run away—fled with my
forty pounds, that should have been multiplied a thousand-fold? I
will have Hue and Cry!”
“I will tell thee a surer way,” said Varney.
“How!—which way?” exclaimed Foster; “I will have back my forty
pounds—I deemed them as surely a thousand times multiplied—I
will have back my in-put, at the least.”
“Go hang thyself, then, and sue Alasco in the Devil’s Court of
Chancery, for thither he has carried the cause.”
“How!—what dost thou mean is he dead?”
“Ay, truly is he,” said Varney; “and properly swollen already in the
face and body. He had been mixing some of his devil’s medicines,
and the glass mask which he used constantly had fallen from his
face, so that the subtle poison entered the brain, and did its work.”
“Sancta Maria!” said Foster—”I mean, God in His mercy pre-
serve us from covetousness and deadly sin!—Had he not had pro-
jection, think you? Saw you no ingots in the crucibles?”
“Nay, I looked not but at the dead carrion,” answered Varney; “an
ugly spectacle—he was swollen like a corpse three days exposed on
the wheel. Pah! give me a cup of wine.”
“I will go,” said Foster, “I will examine myself—” He took the
lamp, and hastened to the door, but there hesitated and paused.
“Will you not go with me?” said he to Varney.

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“To what purpose?” said Varney; “I have seen and smelled enough
to spoil my appetite. I broke the window, however, and let in the
air; it reeked of sulphur, and such like suffocating steams, as if the
very devil had been there.”
“And might it not be the act of the demon himself?” said Foster,
still hesitating; “I have heard he is powerful at such times, and with
such people.”
“Still, if it were that Satan of thine,” answered Varney, “who thus
jades thy imagination, thou art in perfect safety, unless he is a most
unconscionable devil indeed. He hath had two good sops of late.”
“How two sops—what mean you?” said Foster—”what mean you?”
“You will know in time,” said Varney;—”and then this other ban-
quet—but thou wilt esteem Her too choice a morsel for the fiend’s
tooth—she must have her psalms, and harps, and seraphs.”
Anthony Foster heard, and came slowly back to the table. “God!
Sir Richard, and must that then be done?”
“Ay, in very truth, Anthony, or there comes no copyhold in thy
way,” replied his inflexible associate.
“I always foresaw it would land there!” said Foster. “But how, Sir
Richard, how?—for not to win the world would I put hands on
her.”
“I cannot blame thee,” said Varney; “I should be reluctant to do
that myself. We miss Alasco and his manna sorely—ay, and the dog
Lambourne.”
“Why, where tarries Lambourne?” said Anthony.
“Ask no questions,” said Varney, “thou wilt see him one day if thy
creed is true. But to our graver matter. I will teach thee a spring,
Tony, to catch a pewit. Yonder trap-door—yonder gimcrack of thine,
will remain secure in appearance, will it not, though the supports
are withdrawn beneath?”
“Ay, marry, will it,” said Foster; “so long as it is not trodden on.”
“But were the lady to attempt an escape over it,” replied Varney,
“her weight would carry it down?”
“A mouse’s weight would do it,” said Foster.
“Why, then, she dies in attempting her escape, and what could
you or I help it, honest Tony? Let us to bed, we will adjust our
project to-morrow.”

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 Sir Walter Scott

On the next day, when evening approached, Varney summoned

Foster to the execution of their plan. Tider and Foster’s old man-
servant were sent on a feigned errand down to the village, and An-
thony himself, as if anxious to see that the Countess suffered no
want of accommodation, visited her place of confinement. He was
so much staggered at the mildness and patience with which she
seemed to endure her confinement, that he could not help earnestly
recommending to her not to cross the threshold of her room on any
account whatever, until Lord Leicester should come, “which,” he
added, “I trust in God, will be very soon.” Amy patiently promised
that she would resign herself to her fate. and Foster returned to his
hardened companion with his conscience half-eased of the perilous
load that weighed on it. “I have warned her,” he said; “surely in vain
is the snare set in the sight of any bird!”
He left, therefore, the Countess’s door unsecured on the outside,
and, under the eye of Varney, withdrew the supports which sus-
tained the falling trap, which, therefore, kept its level position merely
by a slight adhesion. They withdrew to wait the issue on the ground-
floor adjoining; but they waited long in vain. At length Varney,
after walking long to and fro, with his face muffled in his cloak,
threw it suddenly back and exclaimed, “Surely never was a woman
fool enough to neglect so fair an opportunity of escape!”
“Perhaps she is resolved,” said Foster, “to await her husband’s return.”
“True!—most true!” said Varney, rushing out; “I had not thought
of that before.”
In less than two minutes, Foster, who remained behind, heard the
tread of a horse in the courtyard, and then a whistle similar to that
which was the Earl’s usual signal. The instant after the door of the
Countess’s chamber opened, and in the same moment the trap-door
gave way. There was a rushing sound—a heavy fall—a faint groan—
and all was over.
At the same instant, Varney called in at the window, in an accent
and tone which was an indescribable mixture betwixt horror and
raillery, “Is the bird caught?—is the deed done?”
“O God, forgive us!” replied Anthony Foster.
“Why, thou fool,” said Varney, “thy toil is ended, and thy reward
secure. Look down into the vault—what seest thou?”

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“I see only a heap of white clothes, like a snowdrift,” said Foster.

“O God, she moves her arm!”
“Hurl something down on her—thy gold chest, Tony—it is an
heavy one.”
“Varney, thou art an incarnate fiend!” replied Foster.
“There needs nothing more—she is gone!”
“So pass our troubles,” said Varney, entering the room; “I dreamed
not I could have mimicked the Earl’s call so well.”
“Oh, if there be judgment in heaven, thou hast deserved it,” said
Foster, “and wilt meet it! Thou hast destroyed her by means of her
best affections—it is a seething of the kid in the mother’s milk!”
“Thou art a fanatical ass,” replied Varney; “let us now think how
the alarm should be given—the body is to remain where it is.”
But their wickedness was to be permitted no longer; for even while
they were at this consultation, Tressilian and Raleigh broke in upon
them, having obtained admittance by means of Tider and Foster’s
servant, whom they had secured at the village.
Anthony Foster fled on their entrance, and knowing each corner
and pass of the intricate old house, escaped all search. But Varney
was taken on the spot; and instead of expressing compunction for
what he had done, seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in pointing
out to them the remains of the murdered Countess, while at the
same time he defied them to show that he had any share in her
death. The despairing grief of Tressilian, on viewing the mangled
and yet warm remains of what had lately been so lovely and so be-
loved, was such that Raleigh was compelled to have him removed
from the place by force, while he himself assumed the direction of
what was to be done.
Varney, upon a second examination, made very little mystery ei-
ther of the crime or of its motives—alleging, as a reason for his
frankness, that though much of what he confessed could only have
attached to him by suspicion, yet such suspicion would have been
sufficient to deprive him of Leicester’s confidence, and to destroy all
his towering plans of ambition. “I was not born,” he said, “to drag
on the remainder of life a degraded outcast; nor will I so die that my
fate shall make a holiday to the vulgar herd.”
From these words it was apprehended he had some design upon

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himself, and he was carefully deprived of all means by which such

could be carried into execution. But like some of the heroes of an-
tiquity, he carried about his person a small quantity of strong poi-
son, prepared probably by the celebrated Demetrius Alasco. Hav-
ing swallowed this potion over-night, he was found next morning
dead in his cell; nor did he appear to have suffered much agony, his
countenance presenting, even in death, the habitual expression of
sneering sarcasm which was predominant while he lived. “The
wicked man,” saith Scripture, “hath no bands in his death.”
The fate of his colleague in wickedness was long unknown.
Cumnor Place was deserted immediately after the murder; for in
the vicinity of what was called the Lady Dudley’s Chamber, the
domestics pretended to hear groans, and screams, and other super-
natural noises. After a certain length of time, Janet, hearing no tid-
ings of her father, became the uncontrolled mistress of his property,
and conferred it with her hand upon Wayland, now a man of settled
character, and holding a place in Elizabeth’s household. But it was
after they had been both dead for some years that their eldest son
and heir, in making some researches about Cumnor Hall, discov-
ered a secret passage, closed by an iron door, which, opening from
behind the bed in the Lady Dudley’s Chamber, descended to a sort
of cell, in which they found an iron chest containing a quantity of
gold, and a human skeleton stretched above it. The fate of Anthony
Foster was now manifest. He had fled to this place of concealment,
forgetting the key of the spring-lock; and being barred from escape
by the means he had used for preservation of that gold, for which he
had sold his salvation, he had there perished miserably. Unques-
tionably the groans and screams heard by the domestics were not
entirely imaginary, but were those of this wretch, who, in his agony,
was crying for relief and succour.
The news of the Countess’s dreadful fate put a sudden period to
the pleasures of Kenilworth. Leicester retired from court, and for a
considerable time abandoned himself to his remorse. But as Varney
in his last declaration had been studious to spare the character of his
patron, the Earl was the object rather of compassion than resent-
ment. The Queen at length recalled him to court; he was once more
distinguished as a statesman and favourite; and the rest of his career

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is well known to history. But there was something retributive in his

death, if, according to an account very generally received, it took
place from his swallowing a draught of poison which was designed
by him for another person. [See Note 9. Death of the Earl of Leices-
ter.]
Sir Hugh Robsart died very soon after his daughter, having settled
his estate on Tressilian. But neither the prospect of rural indepen-
dence, nor the promises of favour which Elizabeth held out to in-
duce him to follow the court, could remove his profound melan-
choly. Wherever he went he seemed to see before him the disfigured
corpse of the early and only object of his affection. At length, hav-
ing made provision for the maintenance of the old friends and old
servants who formed Sir Hugh’s family at Lidcote Hall, he himself
embarked with his friend Raleigh for the Virginia expedition, and,
young in years but old in grief, died before his day in that foreign
land.
Of inferior persons it is only necessary to say that Blount’s wit
grew brighter as his yellow roses faded; that, doing his part as a
brave commander in the wars, he was much more in his element
than during the short period of his following the court; and that
Flibbertigibbet’s acute genius raised him to favour and distinction
in the employment both of Burleigh and Walsingham.

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 Sir Walter Scott

NOTES

Note 1. Ch. III.—Foster, Lambourne, and the Black Bear.

If faith is to be put in epitaphs, Anthony Foster was something the

very reverse of the character represented in the novel. Ashmole gives
this description of his tomb. I copy from the Antiquities of Berk-
shire, vol.i., p.143.
“In the north wall of the chancel at Cumnor church is a monu-
ment of grey marble, whereon, in brass plates, are engraved a man
in armour, and his wife in the habit of her times, both kneeling
before a fald-stoole, together with the figures of three sons kneeling
behind their mother. Under the figure of the man is this inscrip-
tion:—

“Antonius Forster, generis generosa propago,

Cumnerae Dominus, Bercheriensis erat.
Armiger, Armigero prognatus patre Ricardo,
Qui quondam Iphlethae Salopiensis erat.
Quatuor ex isto fluxerunt stemmate nati,
Ex isto Antonius stemmate quartus erat.
Mente sagax, animo precellens, corpore promptus,
Eloquii dulcis, ore disertus erat.
In factis probitas; fuit in sermone venustas,
In vultu gravitas, relligione fides,
In patriam pietas, in egenos grata voluntas,
Accedunt reliquis annumeranda bonis.
Si quod cuncta rapit, rapuit non omnia Lethum,
Si quod Mors rapuit, vivida fama dedit.

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“These verses following are writ at length, two by two, in praise of

him:—

“Argute resonas Cithare pretendere chordas

Novit, et Aonia concrepuisse Lyra.
Gaudebat terre teneras defigere plantas;
Et mira pulchras construere arte domos
Composita varias lingua formare loquelas
Doctus, et edocta scribere multa manu.

“The arms over it thus:—

Quart. I. 3 Hunter’s Horns stringed.

II. 3 Pinions with their points upwards.

“The crest is a stag couchant, vulnerated through the neck by a

broad arrow; on his side is a martlett for a difference.”
From this monumental inscription it appears that Anthony Fos-
ter, instead of being a vulgar, low-bred, puritanical churl, was, in
fact, a gentleman of birth and consideration, distinguished for his
skill in the arts of music and horticulture, as also in languages. In so
far, therefore, the Anthony Foster of the romance has nothing but
the name in common with the real individual. But notwithstanding
the charity, benevolence, and religious faith imputed by the monu-
ment of grey marble to its tenant, tradition, as well as secret history,
names him as the active agent in the death of the Countess; and it is
added that, from being a jovial and convivial gallant, as we may
infer from some expressions in the epitaph, he sunk, after the fatal
deed, into a man of gloomy and retired habits, whose looks and
manners indicated that he suffered under the pressure of some atro-
cious secret.
The name of Lambourne is still known in the vicinity, and it is
said some of the clan partake the habits, as well as name, of the
Michael Lambourne of the romance. A man of this name lately
murdered his wife, outdoing Michael in this respect, who only was
concerned in the murder of the wife of another man.
I have only to add that the jolly Black Bear has been restored to

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his predominance over bowl and bottle in the village of Cumnor.

Note 2. Ch. XIII.—Legend of Wayland Smith.

The great defeat given by Alfred to the Danish invaders is said by

Mr. Gough to have taken place near Ashdown, in Berkshire. “The
burial place of Baereg, the Danish chief, who was slain in this fight,
is distinguished by a parcel of stones, less than a mile from the hill,
set on edge, enclosing a piece of ground somewhat raised. On the
east side of the southern extremity stand three squarish flat stones,
of about four or five feet over either way, supporting a fourth, and
now called by the vulgar Wayland Smith, from an idle tradition about
an invisible smith replacing lost horse-shoes there.”—Gough’s edi-
tion of Camden’s Britannia, vol.i., p. 221.
The popular belief still retains memory of this wild legend, which,
connected as it is with the site of a Danish sepulchre, may have
arisen from some legend concerning the northern Duergar, who
resided in the rocks, and were cunning workers in steel and iron. It
was believed that Wayland Smith’s fee was sixpence, and that, un-
like other workmen, he was offended if more was offered. Of late
his offices have been again called to memory; but fiction has in this,
as in other cases, taken the liberty to pillage the stores of oral tradi-
tion. This monument must be very ancient, for it has been kindly
pointed out to me that it is referred to in an ancient Saxon charter
as a landmark. The monument has been of late cleared out, and
made considerably more conspicuous.

Note 3. Ch. XIV.—Leicester and Sussex.

Naunton gives us numerous and curious particulars of the jealous

struggle which took place between Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, and the
rising favourite Leicester. The former, when on his deathbed, pre-
dicted to his followers that after his death the gipsy (so he called

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Leicester, from his dark complexion) would prove too many for them.

Note 4. Ch. XIV.—Sir Walter Raleigh.

Among the attendants and adherents of Sussex, we have ventured

to introduce the celebrated Raleigh, in the dawn of his court favour.
In Aubrey’s Correspondence there are some curious particulars of
Sir Walter Raleigh. “He was a tall, handsome, bold man; but his
naeve was that he was damnably proud. Old Sir Robert Harley of
Brampton Brian Castle, who knew him, would say it was a great
question who was the proudest, Sir Walter or Sir Thomas Overbury;
but the difference that was, was judged in Sir Thomas’s side. In the
great parlour at Downton, at Mr. Raleigh’s, is a good piece, an origi-
nal of Sir Walter, in a white satin doublet, all embroidered with rich
pearls, and a mighty rich chain of great pearls about his neck. The
old servants have told me that the real pearls were near as big as the
painted ones. He had a most remarkable aspect, an exceeding high
forehead, long-faced, and sour-eyelidded. “A rebus is added to this
purpose:—

The enemy to the stomach, and the word of disgrace,

Is the name of the gentleman with the bold face.

Sir Walter Raleigh’s beard turned up naturally, which gave him an

advantage over the gallants of the time, whose moustaches received
a touch of the barber’s art to give them the air then most admired.—
See Aubrey’s Correspondence, vol.ii., part ii., p.500.

Note 5. Ch. XV.—Court Favour of Sir Walter Raleigh.

The gallant incident of the cloak is the traditional account of this

celebrated statesman’s rise at court. None of Elizabeth’s courtiers
knew better than he how to make his court to her personal vanity,

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or could more justly estimate the quantity of flattery which she could
condescend to swallow. Being confined in the Tower for some of-
fence, and understanding the Queen was about to pass to Green-
wich in her barge, he insisted on approaching the window, that he
might see, at whatever distance, the Queen of his Affections, the
most beautiful object which the earth bore on its surface. The Lieu-
tenant of the Tower (his own particular friend) threw himself be-
tween his prisoner and the window; while Sir Waiter, apparently
influenced by a fit of unrestrainable passion, swore he would not be
debarred from seeing his light, his life, his goddess! A scuffle en-
sued, got up for effect’s sake, in which the Lieutenant and his cap-
tive grappled and struggled with fury, tore each other’s hair, and at
length drew daggers, and were only separated by force. The Queen
being informed of this scene exhibited by her frantic adorer, it
wrought, as was to be expected, much in favour of the captive Pala-
din. There is little doubt that his quarrel with the Lieutenant was
entirely contrived for the purpose which it produced.

Note 6. Ch. XVII.—Robert Laneham.

Little is known of Robert Laneham, save in his curious letter to a

friend in London, giving an account of Queen Elizabeth’s enter-
tainments at Kenilworth, written in a style of the most intolerable
affectation, both in point of composition and orthography. He de-
scribes himself as a bon vivant, who was wont to be jolly and dry in
the morning, and by his good-will would be chiefly in the company
of the ladies. He was, by the interest of Lord Leicester, Clerk of the
Council Chamber door, and also keeper of the same. “When Council
sits,” says he, “I am at hand. If any makes a babbling, peace, say I. If
I see a listener or a pryer in at the chinks or lockhole, I am presently
on the bones of him. If a friend comes, I make him sit down by me
on a form or chest. The rest may walk, a God’s name!” There has
been seldom a better portrait of the pragmatic conceit and self-im-
portance of a small man in office.

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Note 7. Ch. XVIII.—Dr. Julio.

The Earl of Leicester’s Italian physician, Julio, was affirmed by his

contemporaries to be a skilful compounder of poisons, which he
applied with such frequency, that the Jesuit Parsons extols ironically
the marvellous good luck of this great favourite in the opportune
deaths of those who stood in the way of his wishes. There is a curi-
ous passage on the subject:—
“Long after this, he fell in love with the Lady Sheffield, whom I
signified before, and then also had he the same fortune to have her
husband dye quickly, with an extreame rheume in his head (as it
was given out), but as others say, of an artificiall catarre that stopped
his breath.
“The like good chance had he in the death of my Lord of Essex
(as I have said before), and that at a time most fortunate for his
purpose; for when he was coming home from Ireland, with intent
to revenge himselfe upon my Lord of Leicester for begetting his
wife with childe in his absence (the childe was a daughter, and
brought up by the Lady Shandoes, W. Knooles, his wife), my Lord
of Leicester hearing thereof, wanted not a friend or two to accom-
pany the deputy, as among other a couple of the Earles own ser-
vants, Crompton (if I misse not his name), yeoman of his bottles,
and Lloid his secretary, entertained afterward by my Lord of Leices-
ter, and so he dyed in the way of an extreame flux, caused by an
Italian receipe, as all his friends are well assured, the maker whereof
was a chyrurgeon (as it is beleeved) that then was newly come to my
Lord from Italy—a cunning man and sure in operation, with whom,
if the good Lady had been sooner acquainted, and used his help, she
should not have needed to sitten so pensive at home, and fearefull
of her husband’s former returne out of the same country......Neither
must you marvaile though all these died in divers manners of out-
ward diseases, for this is the excellency of the Italian art, for which
this chyrurgeon and Dr. Julio were entertained so carefully, who
can make a man dye in what manner or show of sickness you will—
by whose instructions, no doubt; but his lordship is now cunning,

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especially adding also to these the counsell of his Doctor Bayly, a

man also not a little studied (as he seemeth) in his art; for I heard
him once myselfe, in a publique act in Oxford, and that in presence
of my Lord of Leicester (if I be not deceived), maintain that poyson
might be so tempered and given as it should not appear presently,
and yet should kill the party afterward, at what time should be ap-
pointed; which argument belike pleased well his lordship, and there-
fore was chosen to be discussed in his audience, if I be not deceived
of his being that day present. So, though one dye of a flux, and
another of a catarre, yet this importeth little to the matter, but
showeth rather the great cunning and skill of the artificer.”—Par-
sons’ Leicester’s Commonwealth, p.23.
It is unnecessary to state the numerous reasons why the Earl is
stated in the tale to be rather the dupe of villains than the unprin-
cipled author of their atrocities. In the latter capacity, which a part
at least of his contemporaries imputed to him, he would have made
a character too disgustingly wicked to be useful for the purposes of
fiction.
I have only to add that the union of the poisoner, the quacksalver,
the alchemist, and the astrologer in the same person was familiar to
the pretenders to the mystic sciences.

Note 8. Ch. XXXII.—Furniture of Kenilworth.

In revising this work, I have had the means of making some accu-
rate additions to my attempt to describe the princely pleasures of
Kenilworth, by the kindness of my friend William Hamper, Esq.,
who had the goodness to communicate to me an inventory of the
furniture of Kenilworth in the days of the magnificent Earl of Le-
icester. I have adorned the text with some of the splendid articles
mentioned in the inventory, but antiquaries especially will be desir-
ous to see a more full specimen than the story leaves room for.

Extracts from Kenilworth Inventory, A.D. 1584.

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A Salte, ship-fashion, of the mother of perle, garnished with silver

and divers workes, warlike ensignes, and ornaments, with xvj peeces
of ordinance whereof ij on wheles, two anckers on the foreparte,
and on the stearne the image of Dame Fortune standing on a globe
with a flag in her hand. Pois xxxij oz.
A gilte salte like a swann, mother of perle. Pois xxx oz. iij quarters.
A George on horseback, of wood, painted and gilt, with a case for
knives in the tayle of the horse, and a case for oyster knives in the
brest of the Dragon.
A green barge-cloth, embrother’d with white lions and beares.
A perfuming pann, of silver. Pois xix oz.
In the halle. Tabells, long and short, vj. Formes, long and short,
xiiij.

Hangings. (These are minutely specified, and consisted of the fol-

lowing subjects, in tapestry, and gilt, and red leather.)
Flowers, beasts, and pillars arched. Forest worke. Historie. Storie
of Susanna, the Prodigall Childe, Saule, Tobie, Hercules, Lady Fame,
Hawking and Hunting, Jezabell, Judith and Holofernes, David,
Abraham, Sampson, Hippolitus, Alexander the Great, Naaman the
Assyrian, Jacob, etc.

Bedsteads, with Their Furniture. (These are magnificent and numer-

ous. I shall copy verbatim the description of what appears to have
been one of the best.)
A bedsted of wallnut-tree, toppe fashion, the pillers redd and var-
nished, the ceelor, tester, and single vallance of crimson sattin, paned
with a broad border of bone lace of golde and silver. The tester richlie
embrothered with my Lo. armes in a garland of hoppes, roses, and
pomegranetts, and lyned with buckerom. Fyve curteins of crimson
sattin to the same bedsted, striped downe with a bone lace of gold
and silver, garnished with buttons and loops of crimson silk and golde,
containing xiiij bredths of sattin, and one yarde iij quarters deepe.
The ceelor, vallance, and curteins lyned with crymson taffata sarsenet.
A crymson sattin counterpointe, quilted and embr. with a golde
twiste, and lyned with redd sarsenet, being in length iij yards good,
and in breadth iij scant.

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A chaise of crymson sattin, suteable.

A fayre quilte of crymson sattin, vj breadths, iij yardes 3 quarters naile
deepe, all lozenged over with silver twiste, in the midst a cinquefoile
within a garland of ragged staves, fringed rounde aboute with a small
fringe of crymson silke, lyned throughe with white fustian.
Fyve plumes of coolered feathers, garnished with bone lace and
spangells of goulde and silver, standing in cups knitt all over with
goulde, silver, and crymson silk. [Probably on the centre and four
corners of the bedstead. Four bears and ragged staves occupied a
similar position on another of these sumptuous pieces of furniture.]
A carpett for a cupboarde of crymson sattin, embrothered with a
border of goulde twiste, about iij parts of it fringed with silk and
goulde, lyned with bridges [That is, Bruges.] sattin, in length ij
yards, and ij bredths of sattin.
(There were eleven down beds and ninety feather beds, besides
thirty-seven mattresses.)

Chyres, Stooles, and Cushens. (These were equally splendid with the
beds, etc. I shall here copy that which stands at the head of the list.)
A chaier of crimson velvet, the seate and backe partlie embrothered,
with R. L. in cloth of goulde, the beare and ragged staffe in clothe
of silver, garnished with lace and fringe of goulde, silver, and crim-
son silck. The frame covered with velvet, bounde aboute the edge
with goulde lace, and studded with gilte nailes.
A square stoole and a foote stoole, of crimson velvet, fringed and
garnished suteable.
A long cushen of crimson velvet, embr. with the ragged staffe in a
wreathe of goulde, with my Lo. posie “Droyte et Loyall” written in
the same, and the letters R. L. in clothe of goulde, being garnished
with lace, fringe, buttons, and tassels of gold, silver, and crimson
silck, lyned with crimson taff., being in length 1 yard quarter.
A square cushen, of the like velvet, embr. suteable to the long
cushen.

Carpets. (There were 10 velvet carpets for tables and windows, 49

Turkey carpets for floors, and 32 cloth carpets. One of each I will
now specify.)

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A carpett of crimson velvet, richlie embr. with my Lo. posie, beares

and ragged staves, etc., of clothe of goulde and silver, garnished
upon the seames and aboute with golde lace, fringed accordinglie,
lyned with crimson taffata sarsenett, being 3 breadths of velvet, one
yard 3 quarters long.
A great Turquoy carpett, the grounde blew, with a list of yelloe at
each end, being in length x yards, in bredthe iiij yards and quarter
A long carpett of blew clothe, lyned with bridges sattin, fringed
with blew silck and goulde, in length vj yards lack a quarter, the
whole bredth of the clothe.

Pictures. (Chiefly described as having curtains.)

The Queene’s Majestie (2 great tables). 3 of my Lord. St. Jerome.
Lo. of Arundell. Lord Mathevers. Lord of Pembroke. Counte
Egmondt. The Queene of Scotts. King Philip. The Baker’s Daugh-
ters. The Duke of Feria. Alexander Magnus. Two Yonge Ladies.
Pompaea Sabina. Fred. D. of Saxony. Emp. Charles. K. Philip’s
Wife. Prince of Orange and his Wife. Marq. of Berges and his
Wife. Counte de Home. Count Holstrate. Monsr. Brederode.
Duke Alva. Cardinal Grandville. Duches of Parma. Henrie E. of
Pembrooke and his young Countess. Countis of Essex. Occacion
and Repentance. Lord Mowntacute. Sir Jas. Crofts. Sir Wr.
Mildmay. Sr. Wm. Pickering. Edwin Abp. of York.
A tabell of an historie of men, women, and children, moulden in
wax.
A little foulding table of ebanie, garnished with white bone,
wherein are written verses with lres. of goulde.
A table of my Lord’s armes.
Fyve of the plannetts, painted in frames.
Twentie-three cardes, [That is charts.] or maps of countries.

Instruments. (I shall give two specimens.)

An instrument of organs, regall, and virginalls, covered with crim-
son velvet, and garnished with goulde lace.
A fair pair of double virginalls.

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Cabonetts.
A cabonett of crimson sattin, richlie embr. with a device of hunt-
ing the stagg, in goulde, silver, and silck, with iiij glasses in the topp
thereof, xvj cupps of flowers made of goulde, silver, and silck, in a
case of leather, lyned with greene sattin of bridges.
(Another of purple velvet. A desk of red leather.)
A Chess Boarde of ebanie, with checkars of christall and other stones,
layed with silver, garnished with beares and ragged staves, and
cinquefoiles of silver. The xxxij men likewyse of christall and other
stones sett, the one sort in silver white, the other gilte, in a case
gilded and lyned with green cotton.
(Another of bone and ebanie. A pair of tabells of bone.)

A great brason candlestick to hang in the roofe of the howse, verie

fayer and curiouslye wrought, with xxiiij branches, xij greate and xij
of lesser size, 6 rowlers and ij wings for the spreade eagle, xxiiij socketts
for candells, xij greater and xij of a lesser sorte, xxiiij sawcers, or
candlecups, of like proporcion to put under the socketts, iij images
of men and iij of weomen, of brass, verie finely and artificiallie done.
These specimens of Leicester’s magnificence may serve to assure
the reader that it scarce lay in the power of a modern author to
exaggerate the lavish style of expense displayed in the princely plea-
sures of Kenilworth.

Note to Ch. XLI.—Death of the Earl of Leicester.

In a curious manuscript copy of the information given by Ben Jonson

to Drummond of Hawthornden, as transcribed by Sir Robert
Sibbald, Leicester’s death is ascribed to poison administered as a
cordial by his countess, to whom he had given it, representing it to
be a restorative in any faintness, in the hope that she herself might
be cut off by using it. We have already quoted Jonson’s account of
this merited stroke of retribution in a note of the Introduction to
this volume. It may be here added that the following satirical epi-
taph on Leicester occurs in Drummond’s Collection, but is evidently

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not of his composition:—

EPITAPH ON THE ERLE OF LEISTER.

Here lies a valiant warriour,

Who never drew a sword;
Here lies a noble courtier,
Who never kept his word;
Here lies the Erle of Leister,
Who governed the Estates,
Whom the earth could never living love,
And the just Heaven now hates.

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