There was a large fire blazing in the wide, open chimney of a little village inn, although it was, as we have said, the month of May, and the temperature during the day had been warm. Towards evening, however, it had grown colder, and small drops of rain had begun to descend, ending in a heavy shower as night fell. The fire, however, had not been piled up with the logs of which it was principally composed, altogether for the purpose of keeping out the chilly air of evening--though several of the neighbouring peasantry had taken advantage of the cheerful blaze to warm themselves while they drank their jug of ale; and mine host, with his fair white apron, took care to give them every encouragement to remain, and showed not the slightest disinclination to make as many journeys to the hogshead as his guests desired. His wife, however, and his daughter, both of whom were busily engaged in basting some provision, which turned upon two large spits before the cracking wood, seemed much less disposed to the society of the villagers, giving them many a hint that they interrupted them in the care of the capons, distracted their attention from the sirloin, and had well-nigh made them spoil "the dumplings and all" by letting the pot boil over. In the end, the elder dame, warm by nature, and heated still farther by the fire, gave one of the boors a push with her broad hand, which brought him from his stool to the floor, exclaiming,

"Get thee gone, Cobbler Hodge; 'tis time for thee to be home with thy wife. The gentry will be here anon, and we must have the place cumbered with the like of thee, must we!"

"Nay, nay, Maude," said her husband, "the great people ever say half-an-hour before they intend to come. Let the man remain, I tell thee; they wont be here for this hour."

"And we will stay till they come," cried Hodge, rising up, and resuming his seat a little farther from the fair virago of the inn. "We want to see who are these gentry that arrive so late at night. These are perilous times, Master Millpond, when the Queen is just dead, and the King's Majesty not arrived from the North."

"It may be the King himself, God bless his Grace!" said another of the boors; but even as he spoke, to prove the conjecture false, as well as the prognostications of the landlord, the sound of horses' feet, and persons speaking, was heard approaching the door; and, the moment after, a voice was added, calling loudly, and in a tone of great authority, for host, ostlers, and horseboys.

The landlord rushed out with all speed; his wife abused her humble neighbours in no very gentle and tender terms; the peasants themselves drew back in awe, the greater because the object of it was undefined; and, after a few moments of confusion, clatter, and talking without, mine host reappeared, bowing to the ground, as he ushered in his guests.

The first who entered--nearly a minute before any of the rest--was certainly not the sort of being the persons assembled within expected to see, for the door only gave admission to a beautiful girl of some nineteen or twenty years of age, with her rich, clustering hair, wet with the rain, falling from its bands about her face and shoulders, and with a look of laughing, yet half-rueful, satisfaction on her face as she turned to one of those behind, saying in a sweet, though jesting tone,

"Good faith, my friend, if thou art as wet as I am, the lowliness of the roof will not mar your joy in taking shelter under it."

"Lord love you, sweet lady!" cried the hostess, advancing. "Well, you are wet indeed! What a night for such a beautiful lady as you to be out in. Why, all the rich velvet and the gold lace is spoiled. Heart of grace! and your yellow riding-coat is all draggled with mud above your knees!"

"Ay! good truth," replied the lady, advancing toward the fire, "it is so, indeed, dame. Forty sterling marks cast away upon a miserable shower of rain, and a weary ride from Walden. But here seems the comfort of plentiful food, and a good fire to dry one."

"Oh, yes, lady; oh, yes," replied the hostess, "everything is quite ready; let me take out that buckle, lady.--Get you home to your beds, fellows! what do you stand staring at there, as if you never saw a young gentlewoman before?--It's all because you're so beautiful, ma'am, that puts them out of their manners. 'Tisn't every day they see a skin like that, I trow."

The lady tossed her head with a gay laugh. "I thought such words were the coin of courts," she said, "not current in the country; but I am overburdened with such small change, good dame, so tell me no more of my beauty, and do not drive these good people from the fire, where they have as much right as I have. Now, Maltby and Adams, bring in all the bags here, or they will soon be as wet as we are; and do not let the girl Marian stay out there all night to look after goods and chattels which will not melt as easily as herself, I warrant. We must stay here this night, that's clear. Why, what's the matter, Marian: you seemed scared?"

The girl whom she addressed, and who was evidently the maid of a person of quality, ran up to her mistress with somewhat frightened and mysterious looks, whispering something in her ear; while the hostess, on the other side, assailed her with assurances that everything was quite right and prepared "for her bedchamber, and guest-chamber, and all," muttering between whiles to herself, "Stay here?--To be sure! Marry, when all is made ready, why should she not?"

The lady might be somewhat embarrassed by the discourses of the two who addressed her at once; but, nevertheless, she seemed to catch the words of each, and replied to both.

"Four men?" she said, speaking to the maid. "Well, what of that, girl? They will do thee no harm, though they be on horseback. You say, my good dame, that all is made ready for me; but, in good truth, I fear there is some mistake, which, I trust, may not deprive me of my supper and a lodging. I intended to have gone farther to-night,--perhaps to Royston; and it was the rain that drove me hither. Mayhap thy good things are made ready for some other person."

"For me, madam," said a gentleman, advancing from the door, the threshold of which he had crossed the moment before. "But, right happy am I," he added, "that what was prepared for me may be used by you, whom all men are bound to honour and obey."

The lady had turned, with some surprise, at first sound of the speaker's voice, and, certainly, his words did not diminish her astonishment. He was a tall, thin, bony man, dark in complexion, somewhat sharp in features, with a cold, calm, steady eye, but a bland and a pleasant smile about the mouth. He was dressed in the style of a military man of some rank, and affected the bushy beard and long mustachios of the swaggering adventurers of the day. Nothing else, however, in his appearance or manner indicated that he belonged to that somewhat disagreeable and dangerous race of animals. But no line or feature in his face called up any recollection of him in the lady's mind; and, after a momentary pause to consider his countenance, she replied, "You seem to know me, sir, and yet may be mistaken. I am a very humble person, whom no one is bound to obey that I know of, but my good girl, Marian, here, and one or two trusty servants, who find the bond more in their affection than their duty."

"The Lady Arabella Stuart," answered the stranger, "is not to be mistaken; and surely one so near the crown of England may well command our duty."

"I am the king's most humble subject, though his kinswoman, sir," replied the Lady Arabella, coldly; for, young as she was, she had already been the object of ambitious designs on the part of some, and needless jealousy on the part of others. "I claim no duty from any one but my own people, and would fain make that as light as may be."

"Your ladyship is wise and right," said the stranger; "and love makes duty light to all men. What I would say is, madam, I rejoice that I yesterday commanded preparations in this poor inn, as all is ready for you, which it might not otherwise have done. Come, dame hostess, show the lady to a chamber where she may change her dress; and, in the meantime, good master, serve the supper, to be ready when she returns. Have you the vacant room prepared which I ordered? With her permission, I will be the Lady Arabella's humble carver."

The lady bowed her head, gave a quick glance round three or four other faces, which were now gathered together at the farther side of the room, and, accompanied by her maid, retired, with the landlady's daughter lighting her, and one of the two men-servants carrying a pair of ponderous leathern bags, such as were then commonly used for conveying the various articles of dress which a traveller might need upon his journey.

As soon as she was gone, the gentleman who had been speaking to her, turned to three other personages, who seemed to have arrived in his company, and held a low and earnest conversation with them for some minutes. The landlord's ears were sharp, and he had his own share of shrewdness; but although he manoeuvred skilfully to come nearer to the strangers, and used his facility of hearing to the utmost, he could only catch two or three words.

One said, somewhat louder than the rest, "'Tis most fortunate;" another, "We should have passed them in the night, and missed our mark. Good luck to the rain!"

The landlord could gather no more; and seeing the eye of the principal visitor upon him, he thought it best to apply himself seriously to carry in the supper into an adjoining chamber, which had been prepared according to directions received beforehand. When he returned from his first expedition with trenchers and drinking-cups, he found the stranger, who seemed the leader of the rest, standing before the fire, while the villagers, who had lingered till they received a very sharp and definite hint from the landlady, were no longer apparent.

As soon as the landlord came in, his guest made a slight and scarcely perceptible motion across his breast. The host instantly crossed himself, bowing his head low, and from that moment a sort of confidential intercourse was established between him and the stranger, which made them both understand each other perfectly, without a word of explanation being spoken.

In the meanwhile the lady had been shown into a room, low in the roof, with the large dark rafters protruding from the ceiling. It contained two beds, a small mirror, not much larger than one's hand, a table, some chairs, and a large brazen sconce against the wall, with lamps not lighted. While the serving-man laid the large leathern bags across a stool, and the landlady's daughter bustled about in setting things to rights, Arabella Stuart, seated before the table, had fallen into a deep reverie.

We must look into her thoughts: for she spoke not, though she was carrying on an argument with herself.

"I know not his face," she said; "I know not his face, and yet I must doubt the man--and that other face over his shoulder? Methinks I have seen it before--can it have been with the Jesuit, Parsons?--else why did it bring up that wicked, cunning man to my mind, who would fain have entangled me in things for my destruction? Well, well, I will treat it lightly--ay, lightly. The shaft that may hit the heavy-flying crow misses the light-winged swallow. Yet I will be upon my guard; and if I find new plotters, I will not house with them through the night--I will no plots, not I. If they will but let me live my little life in peace, and die with an innocent spirit, I ask no more. Marian, girl!" she added, aloud, and then whispered to the maid for a moment, who instantly quitted the room.

"Come hither, pretty maiden," continued the lady, addressing the landlord's daughter, "and help me to put off this dress. It seems a fair country this round your village, as well as I could judge through the rain. Now, there is many a gentleman's house in the neighbourhood, I'll warrant."

"Good heart, no," replied the girl; "we are but poorly off in such commodities."

"Why, faith, I thought I saw several large houses as I came along," rejoined the lady. "Who's was that large mansion on the top of the hill, about a mile hence?"

The girl laughed. "That's the great black barn," she said. "It does look like a castle by night, with the trees round it. No, madam: the only large house we have near is Sir Harry West's."

"I must have passed it as I came," answered the lady. "Undo this knot, good girl. I know Sir Harry West well. He showed himself a gallant gentleman in the Irish wars, though as mild as he is brave. Which was his house?"

"If you are journeying from London," said the girl, "you passed it two miles hence, on the left up the valley, by the side of the stream. But I doubt if you could see it by night."

The lady made no reply, and the moment after her maid re-entered the room, and took the place of the landlady's daughter in assisting the Lady Arabella at her toilet. The dress was soon changed--at least as far as she would suffer it to be; for the long riding-skirt, in which she had come thither, she retained over her other garments, though it was soiled, and somewhat wet. In this plight, however, she returned to the kitchen of the inn, where she found the strange cavalier ready to receive her, and was by him led, with courtier-like formality, into an adjoining chamber, where a table was placed, groaning under the abundant supper which had been prepared. But only one cover was laid upon the board, apparently intended for herself. To this place the stranger conducted her, and seemed literally about to take upon himself the office of carver, as he had proposed; but Arabella paused, without sitting down, saying,

"Nay, my good sir, I should surely be wanting in courtesy to let you stand and carve, while I, like the wild beast, which loves to feast without company, devour your supper. You have more gentlemen, too, I think, with you--though I know neither their name nor yours, to ask you to be seated."

"Oh, my followers, madam, will find supper without," replied the stranger; "and as to my name, lady, I am called the Baron de Mardyke,--a foreign name, as you will see, but having been born in England, in King Edward's time, I am more than half an Englishman."

"Pray, then, be seated," said the Lady Arabella; and the stranger, drawing a stool to the table, did as she bade him.

Before he took his place, however, he crossed himself reverently, in rather an ostentatious manner, very different from that which he had used in making the same sign before the landlord. The lady could not help noticing the gesture; but she took no notice, and, after a brief grace murmured to herself, sat down at table.

The gentleman, as in duty bound, carved for her; and, as she made no observation, the meal was silent for several minutes, while the landlord and one of the stranger's servants came in and out, and caused a bustle amongst the plates and trenchers.

"In Spain," said the stranger, breaking silence, with a smile, "the host of an inn so near the capital as this, would have been ashamed to send up capons of last year to a lady's table."

"You have been in Spain, then," said the Lady Arabella. "It is a fair country, is it not?--rich in song and romance?"

"Rich in everything," replied the baron; "beautiful to the eye, delicious in climate, full of splendid cities and courteous gentlemen--a land of princes, lady."

"Good truth, then, it must be but a dull place," exclaimed Arabella, with a gay laugh. "I have seen some princes since my birth, and I must say that they are the dullest specimens of mortal man I ever met with."

"You have known few Spanish princes, madam," said her companion, "or you would judge differently."

"No," answered the lady; "the only one I ever met with, who bore his dignity with modesty and elevated it by grace, was a German."

"True," rejoined the Baron, "some of the Royal and Electoral Houses have produced men not easily to be banished from a lady's memory--or her heart."

"Nay," said Arabella, with a careless smile, "my little heart is all too narrow to take in so great a thing as a prince."

Her companion cast a quick glance around the room to see that no one was near, and then replied in a low but emphatic tone, "I hope not--I hope not."

The blood came up into the lady's cheek, and after gazing in his face for an instant, she cast down her eyes again, and remained silent. Several of the dishes were removed, now others put upon the table; and then, as if accidentally, both the landlord and the serving-man quitted the room.

"How strange are the events of life," said the Baron de Mardyke.

"They are indeed," answered the Lady Arabella, "almost as strange as man's own heart."

"Here was I," continued her companion, not appearing to heed her words, "riding on an errand of much importance to visit a fair and noble lady, whom I should have missed seeing till it was too late, had it not been for a shower of rain."

"If you mean me, sir," said the fair girl beside him, "you must have made some mistake in your errand; for I am a being of so little consequence myself that nothing of importance can have reference to me."

"You may in a few weeks be of much more," replied the Baron.

"Nay, heaven forbid!" cried Arabella, resuming the gay and jesting tone which she had laid aside for a moment. "I can conceive no fate more perverse than that which would make me of any consequence at all. I never knew a bird that cared, so that his wings were tied, whether the threads that tied them were golden or hempen. Greatness is a snare from which one never escapes, once having fallen into it.--But, good truth, I am curious who you can be, sir," she continued, stopping him as he was about to speak; "I am shrewd at divining; but yet men take such disguises now-a-days, a poor woman can hardly discover them. Nay, tell me not, tell me not! I love to puzzle out a mystery, and I would fain guess for myself who and what you may be."

"Who think you, madam?" asked the stranger.

"Baron de Mardyke!" said Arabella, thoughtfully; "that may be some assumed title of a great man who would fain appear less than he is,--you may be one of those Spanish princes you talk of."

"Or his envoy," answered the other.

"Hush, hush!" cried the lady in the same tone of raillery, "let me see,--Baron de Mardyke! That, on the contrary, may be a name taken by some lesser man who wishes to seem greater than he is,--you may be a Jesuit in disguise, a disciple of Loyola, or Lainez," and she looked keenly at him as she spoke.

There was a slight contraction of the lips, and a passing shade upon the brow of the gentleman whom she addressed; but he replied in an unaltered tone, "You will guess right ere long, madam; for when you have exhausted conjecture, you will come back to simple truth, and leave the Baron de Mardyke just what he was before.--But ere we are interrupted, let me say that I have matter of much importance for your private ear after this meal be over,--secrets of great moment!"

"Trust them not to me then!" cried the young lady, "for I have a strange habit of dropping jewels by the way. I never could keep anything that was precious in my life--'tis but yesterday I lost a diamond; and as for secrets, I am so conscious of my carelessness, that I always give them to the next person I meet with, being quite sure that any one will preserve them better than myself."

The stranger bit his lip; but the host entering the moment after, stopped him in his reply. When the supper was over, however, he kept his eyes fixed upon the lady, while the host and the servant were clearing away all that encumbered the table: and it was evident that he was waiting impatiently for them to be gone. But just as the landlord was about to retire, Arabella addressed him in a quiet tone, saying, "Send my girl Marian hither, mine host; I wish to speak with her."

The Baron made him a quick and scarcely perceptible sign; and by some accident the landlord quite forgot to obey the lady's behest, taking the opportunity of scolding his daughter for something that had gone amiss, and then aiding the rest of the party who were assembled in the kitchen to consume the remains of the supper which he had brought out of the neighbouring room.

In that chamber the Lady Arabella and the Baron de Mardyke, as we must call him for the time, remained for nearly twenty minutes, while the host and the Baron's followers talked loud, and passed many a joke and many a cup of good strong ale round the table. The girl Marian and one of the Lady Arabella's servants were seated with the rest: but the other serving-man had remained at the stable tending the horses. At the end of the time we have mentioned, however, he made his appearance again; and the voices of the horse-boys of the inn were heard without the door. Marian started up as soon as she saw him; and the man, who was a bluff English servant of some forty-five, or fifty years of age, walked straight up to the chamber where his mistress was, and opening the door, said aloud, "The horses are waiting, lady!"

The cheek of Lady Arabella Stuart was somewhat flushed and her face grave; but she instantly resumed her sweet and playful smile, while her companion exclaimed, "You surely are not going on, in such a night as this, madam?"

"As surely as I live," replied the lady; "you know, good sir, I could not plunder you of your lodging as well as your supper; and so I will even wish you a fair good night, and take my leave, beseeching you to bear in mind what I have said, as on that score I change not, and it may be well to be careful. I thank you for your courtesy," she continued, "though, if I had known one part of my entertainment here, I should have found shelter elsewhere."

Thus saying, she adjusted her head-gear, while moving across the kitchen towards the door of the inn; and, taking a piece of gold from a silken purse which she carried in her bosom, she gave it to the host, saying, "That's for your fee, my friend; but remember, another time when I tell you to send my woman to me, do as you are directed."

The host made a thousand apologies, laying the blame upon a bad memory; and the Lady Arabella, without heeding him, issued forth into the night with her servants following, the landlady and her daughter curtseying, and the host holding a lantern snatched up in haste.

In the meantime, the personage who had borne her company at supper, was surrounded by his three companions, asking him questions in a low, but rapid voice.

"She is a fool," he replied, "and yet not a fool either,--keen enough as to what concerns her not, but blind to her own interest. She casts away a crown," he added, in a lower tone, "as a child does a long-used plaything."

"Will she betray us?" asked one of his companions.

"I think not," replied the other.

"Think not?" said a third, "we had better make sure of that!" But, at the same moment, the sound of horses' feet trotting away was heard; and the landlord and his family came back from the door.