 
Transcriber's Notes:
THE WOODMAN;A ROMANCEOFTHE TIMES OF RICHARD III.
BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.,AUTHOR OF "DARNLEY," "THE SMUGGLER," "THE CONVICT," "MARGARET GRAHAM," "THE FORGERY," ETC.
PARIS:
1849.
THE WOODMAN;A ROMANCEOFTHE TIMES OF RICHARD III.
BY G. P. R. JAMES.
CHAPTER I.Of all the hard-working people on the earth, there are none so serviceable to her neighbours as the moon. She lights lovers and thieves. She keeps watch-dogs waking. She is a constant resource to poets and romance-writers. She helps the compounders of almanacks amazingly. She has something to do with the weather, and the tides, and the harvest; and in short she has a finger in every man's pie, and probably more or less effect upon every man's brain. She is a charming creature in all her variations. Her versatility is not the offspring of caprice; and she is constant in the midst of every change. I will have a moon, say what you will, my dear Prebend; and she shall more or less rule every page of this book. There was a sloping piece of ground looking to the south east, with a very small narrow rivulet running at the bottom. On the opposite side of the stream was another slope, as like the former as possible, only looking in the opposite direction. Titian, and Vandyke, and some other painters, have pleased themselves with depicting, in one picture, the same face in two or three positions; and these two slopes looked exactly like the two profiles of one countenance. Each had its little clumps of trees scattered about. Each had here and there a hedgerow, somewhat broken and dilapidated; and each too had towards its northern extremity a low chalky bank, through which the stream seemed to have forced itself, in those good old times when rivers first began to go on pilgrimages towards the sea, and, like many other pilgrims that we wot of made their way through all obstacles in a very unceremonious manner. Over these two slopes about the hour of half past eleven, post meridian, the moon was shining with a bright but fitful sort of splendour; for ever and anon a light fleecy cloud, like a piece of swansdown borne by the wind, would dim the brightness of her rays, and cast a passing shadow on the scene below. Half an hour before, indeed, the radiant face of night's sweet queen had been veiled by a blacker curtain, which had gathered thick over the sky at the sun's decline; but, as the moon rose high, those dark vapours became mottled with wavy lines of white, and gradually her beams seemed to drink them up. It may be asked if those two sloping meadows, with their clumps of trees, and broken hedgerows, and the little stream flowing on between them, was all that the moonlight showed? That would depend upon where the eye of the observer was placed. Near the lower part of the valley, formed by the inclination of the land, nothing else could be perceived; but walk half way up towards the top, on either side, and the scene was very much altered. Gradually rising, as the eye rose, appeared, stretching out beyond the chalky banks to the north, through which the rivulet came on, a large-grey indistinct mass stretching all along from east to west, the rounded lines of which, together with some misty gaps, taking a blueish white tint in the moonlight, showed it to be some ancient forest, lying at the distance probably of two or three miles from the spot first mentioned. But there were other objects displayed by the moonlight; for as those soft clouds, sweeping rapidly past, varied her light, and cast bright gleams or grey shadows on the ground, every here and there, especially on the south western slope, a brilliant spot would sparkle forth, flashing back the rays; and a nearer look showed naked swords, and breast-plates, and casques, while every now and then, under the increasing light, that which seemed a hillock took the form of a horse or of a human being, lying quietly on the green turf, or cast motionless down beneath a hedge or an old hawthorn tree. Were they sleeping there in that dewy night? Ay, sleeping that sleep which fears not the blast, nor the tempest nor the dew, which the thunder cannot break, and from which no trumpet but one shall ever rouse the sleeper. From sunset till that hour, no living thing, unless it were fox or wolf, had moved upon the scene. The battle was over, the pursuers recalled, the wounded removed; the burial of the dead, if it was to be cared for at all, postponed till another day; and all the fierce and base passions which are called forth by civil contest had lain down to sleep before the hour of which I speak. Even the human vulture, which follows on the track of warring armies to feed upon the spoils of the dead, had gorged itself upon that field, and left the rich arms and housings to be carried away on the morning following. The fiercer and the baser passions, I have said, now slept; but there were tenderer affections which woke, and through that solemn and sad scene, with no light but that of the moon, with no sound but that of the sighing wind, some four or five persons were seen wandering about, half an hour before midnight. Often, as they went, they bent down at this spot or at that, and gazed at some object on the ground. Sometimes one of them would kneel, and twice they turned over a dead body which had fallen with the face downwards. For more than an hour they went on, pausing at times to speak to each other, and then resuming their examination--I know not whether to call it search; for certainly they seemed to find nothing if they did search, although they left hardly a square yard of the whole field unexplored. It was nearly one o'clock on the following morning, when with slow steps they took their way over the rise; and the next moment the sound of horses' feet going at a quick pace broke the silence. That sound, in the absence of every other noise, might be heard for nearly ten minutes; and then all was stillness and solitude once more.
CHAPTER II.Years had passed, long years, since the little scene took place which I have described in the preceding chapter. The heads were grey which were then proud of the glossy locks of youth. Middle life was approaching old age; and children had become men. It was evening. The sun had gone down some two hours before; and the lights were lighted in a large comfortable well-furnished room. The ceilings were vaulted. The doorways and the two windows were richly decorated with innumerable mouldings; and the discoloured stone work around them, the clustered pillars at the sides, the mullions which divided the windows, and the broad pointed arches above, spoke that style of architecture known as the early English. The tables, the chairs, the cupboard at the side, were all of old oak, deep in colour and rich in ornament. The floor was covered with rushes, over which, in the centre, was spread a piece of tapestry; and the stone work of the walls between the pillars was hidden by tapestry likewise, on one side representing the siege of Troy, on the other the history of David and Goliath, and on a third the loves of Mars and Venus, which, though somewhat too luscious for our irritable imaginations, did not in those days at all shock the chaste inhabitants of a nunnery. The fourth side of the room was untapestried, for there spread the immense, wide, open chimney, with a pile of blazing logs on the hearth, and, in the open space above the arch, a very early painting of the Madonna and child, with gilt glories around the heads of both, and the meek eyes of the virgin fixed upon the somewhat profuse charms of the goddess of love on the other side. This is description enough. The reader can easily conceive the parlour of an abbess towards the end of the fifteenth century, the heterogeneous contents of which would be somewhat tedious to detail. Let no one, however, form a false idea of the poor abbess of Atherston, from the admission into her own private chamber of such very ungodly personages as Mars and Venus. She had found them there when she became abbess of the convent, and looked upon them and their loves as upon any other piece of needlework. Nay, more, had it ever occurred to her that there was anything improper in having them there, she would probably have removed them, though to get a more decent piece of tapestry might have cost her four or five marks. Not that she was at all stiff, rigid, and severe, for she was the merriest little abbess in the world; but she combined with great gaiety of heart an infinite deal of innocence and simplicity, which were perfectly compatible with some shrewdness and good sense. Shut up in a convent at a very early period, exposed to none of the vicissitudes of life, and untaught the corrupting lessons of the world, her cheerfulness had been economised, her simplicity unimpaired, and her natural keenness of intellect unblunted, though there might be here and there a spot of rust upon the blade. It was without her own consent she had gone into a convent, but neither with nor against her wishes. She had been quite indifferent; and, never having had any means of judging of other states of life, she was not discontented with her lot, and rather pitied than otherwise those who were forced to dwell in a world of which she knew nothing. As piety however had nothing to do with her profession, and mortification had never entered into her catalogue of duties, she saw no sin and could conceive no evil in making herself as comfortable and happy as she could. Her predecessor indeed had done a little more, and had not altogether escaped scandal; but our abbess was of a very different character, performed her ceremonial duties accurately, abstained from everything that she knew or thought to be wrong, and while exacting a fulfilment of all prescribed duties from her nuns, endeavoured to make their seclusion pleasant, by unvarying gentleness, kindness, and cheerfulness. If she had a fault, perhaps it was a too great love for the good things of this life. She was exceedingly fond of trout, and did not altogether dislike a moderate portion of Gascon wine, especially when it was of a very superior quality. Venison she could eat; and a well-fed partridge was not unacceptable--though methinks she might have spared it from its great resemblance to herself. All these things, and a great number of other dainties, however, were plentifully supplied by the lands of the convent, which were ample, and by the stream which flowed near at hand, or by the large fish-ponds, three in number, which lay upon the common above. Indeed so abundant was the provision for a fast day, that the abbess and the nuns looked forward to it, as it came on in the week, with great satisfaction, from its affording them excuse for eating more fish than usual. Not that they fared ill on the other days of the week; for, as far as forest and lea would go, they were well provided. To a contented spirit all things are bright; and the good abbess could have been satisfied with much less than she possessed; so I suppose whatever little superabundance existed went to make the heart merry and the tongue glib; and there she sat with her feet on a footstool, sufficiently near the fire to be somewhat over warm, but yet hardly near enough for that delicious tingling sensation, which the blaze of good dry wood produces till we hardly know whether it is pleasant or painful. In her hand there was a book--a real printed book, rare in those days, and which might well be looked upon as a treasure. As she read, she commented to two young girls who sat near with tall frames before them, running the industrious needle in and out. I have called them young girls, not alone to distinguish them from old ones--though that might be necessary--but to show that they had barely reached womanhood. The eldest was hardly nineteen; the other some fourteen or fifteen months younger. Both were beautiful; and there was a certain degree of likeness between them, though the face of the elder had features more clearly, perhaps more beautifully, cut, and an expression of greater thoughtfulness, perhaps greater vigour of character. Yet the other was very beautiful too, with that sparkling variety, that constant play of everchanging expression, which is so charming. Its very youthfulness was delightful, for a gleam of childhood lingered still in the look, especially when surprised or pleased, although the lines of the face and the contour of the form were womanly--perhaps more so than those of the other. That they were none of the sisterhood was evident by the mere matter of their dress, which also indicated that they had not a fixed intention of ever entering it; for it was altogether worldly in form and material, and though plain yet rich. Seated there, with a near relation, their heads were unencumbered with the monstrous head-dresses of the time, the proportions of which, not very long before, were so immense as to require doorways to be widened and lintels raised, in order to let a lady pass in conveniently. Each wore a light veil, it is true, hanging from the mass of glossy hair behind the head, and which could be thrown over the face when required; but it was very different from the veil of the nun or even of the novice. "Well, my dear children, I do declare," said the elder lady, "this new invention of printing may be very clever, and I wot it is; but it is mighty difficult to read when it is done. I could make out plain court hand a great deal better when written by a good scribe, such as they used to have at Winchester and Salisbury." The younger girl looked up, answering with a gay laugh. "The poor people never pretend to make you read it easily, dear aunt and mother. All they say is that they can make more copies of a book in a day than a scribe could make in a year, and that they can let you have for three or four shillings what would cost you three or four crowns from a scribe." "Ay, that's the worst of it all, child," replied the old lady, shaking her head. "Books will get into the hands of all sorts of common people, and do a world of mischief, good lack. But it can't be helped, my children. The world and the devil will have their way; and, even if there were a law made against any one learning to read or write under the rank of a lord at least, it would only make others the more eager to do it. But I do think that this invention ought to be stopped; for it will do a world of mischief, I am sure." "I hope not," replied the other young lady; "for by no contrivance can they ever make books so cheap, that the lower class can read them; and I know I have often wished I had a book to read when I have had nothing else to do. It's a great comfort sometimes, my dear aunt, especially when one is heavy." "Ay, that it is, child," said the abbess; "I know that right well. I don't know what I should have done after the battle of Barnet, if it had not been for poor old Chaucer. My grandfather remembered him very well, at the court of John of Ghent; and he gave me the merry book, when I was not much older than you are. Well-a-day, I must read it again, when you two leave me; for my evenings will be dull enough without you, children. I would ask sister Bridget to come in of a night, in the winter, and do her embroidery beside me, only if she staid for my little private supper, her face would certainly turn the wine sour." "But, perhaps we shall not go after all, dear mother," said the younger lady. "Have you heard anything about it?" "There now," cried the abbess, laughing, "she's just as wild to get into the wicked world as a caged bird to break out into the open air." "To be sure I am," exclaimed the light-hearted girl; "and oh, how I will use my wings." The abbess gazed at her with a look of tender, almost melancholy, interest, and replied: "There are limed twigs about them, my child. You forget that you are married." "No, not married," cried the other, with her face all glowing. "Contracted, not married--I wish I was, for the thought frightens me, and then the worst would be over." "You don't know what you wish," replied the abbess, shaking her head. "A thousand to one, you would very soon wish to be unmarried again; but then it would be too late. It is a collar you can't shake off when you have once put it on; and nobody can tell how much it may pinch one till it has been tried. I thank my lucky stars that made it convenient for your good grandfather to put me in here; for whenever I go out quietly on my little mule, to see after the affairs of the farms, and perchance to take a sidelong look at our good foresters coursing a hare, I never can help pitying the two dogs coupled together, and pulling at the two ends of a band they cannot break, and thanking my good fortune for not tying me up in a leash with any one." The two girls laughed gaily; for, to say truth, they had neither of them any vocation for cloisteral life; but the youngest replied, following her aunt's figure of speech, "I dare say the dogs are very like two married people, my aunt and lady mother; but I dare say too, if you were to ask either of them, whether he would rather go out into the green fields tied to a companion, or remain shut up in a kennel, he would hold out his neck for the couples." "Why, you saucy child, do you call this a kennel?" asked the abbess, shaking her finger at her good-humouredly. "What will young maids come to next? But it is as well as it is; since thou art destined for the world and its vanities, 'tis lucky thou hast a taste for them; and I trust thy husband--as thou must have one--will not beat thee above once a-week, and that on the Saturday, to make thee more devout on the Sunday following. Is he a ferocious-looking man?" "Lord love thee, my dear aunt," answered the young lady; "I have never seen him since I was in swaddling clothes." "And he was in a sorry-coloured pinked doublet, with a gay cloak on his shoulders, and a little bonnet on his head no bigger than the palm of my hand," cried the other young lady. "He could not be ten years old, and looked like some great man's little page. I remember it quite well, for I had seen seven years; and I thought it a great shame that my cousin Iola should have a husband given to her at five, and I none at seven." "Given to her!" said the abbess, laughing. "Well," rejoined the young lady, "I looked upon it as a sort of doll--a poppet." "Not far wrong either, my dear," answered the abbess; "only you must take care how you knock its nose against the floor, or you may find out where the difference lies." "Good lack, I have had dolls enough," answered the younger lady, "and could well spare this other one. But what must be must be; so there is no use to think of it.--Don't you believe, lady mother," she continued after a pause, interrupted by a sigh, "that it would be better if they let people choose husbands and wives for themselves?" "Good gracious!" cried the abbess, "what is the child thinking of? Pretty choosing there would be, I dare say. Why lords' daughters would be taking rosy-cheeked franklins' sons; and barons' heirs would be marrying milkmaids." "I don't believe it," said the young lady. "Each would choose, I think, as they had been brought up; and there would be more chance of their loving when they did wed." "Nonsense, nonsense, Iola," cried her aunt. "What do you know about love--or I either for that matter? Love that comes after marriage is most likely to last, for, I suppose, like all other sorts of plants, it only lives a certain time and then dies away; so that if it begins soon, it ends soon." "I should like my love to be like one of the trees of the park," said the young lady, looking down thoughtfully, "growing stronger and stronger, as it gets older, and outliving myself." "You must seek for it in fairyland then, my dear," said the abbess. "You will not find it in this sinful world." Just as she spoke, the great bell of the abbey, which hung not far from the window of the abbess's parlour, rang deep and loud; and the sound, unusual at that hour of the night, made the good old lady start. "Virgin mother!" she exclaimed--it was the only little interjection she allowed herself. "Who can that be coming two hours after curfew?" and running to the door, with more activity than her plumpness seemed to promise, she exclaimed, "Sister Magdalen, sister Magdalen, do not let them open the gate; let them speak through the barred wicket." "It is only Boyd, the woodman, lady," replied a nun, who was at the end of a short passage looking out into the court. "What can he want at this hour?" said the abbess. "Could he not come before sundown? Well, take him into the parlour by the little door. I will come to him in a minute;" and returning into her own room again, the good lady composed herself after her agitation, by a moment's rest in her great chair; and, after expressing her surprise more than once, that the woodman should visit the abbey so late, she bade her two nieces follow her, and passed through a door, different to that by which she had previously gone out, and walked with stately steps along a short corridor leading to the public parlour of the abbey. This was a large and handsome room, lined entirely with beautiful carved oak, and divided into two, lengthwise, by a screen of open iron-work painted blue and red, and richly gilt. Visitors on the one side could see, converse, and even shake hands with those on the other; but, like the gulf between Abraham and Dives, the iron bars shut out all farther intercourse. A sconce was lighted on the side of the nunnery; and when Iola and her cousin Constance followed their aunt into the room, they beheld, on the other side of the grate, the form of a tall powerful man, somewhat advanced in life, standing with his arms crossed upon his broad chest, and looking, to say sooth, somewhat gloomy. He might indeed, be a little surprised at being forced to hold communication with the lady abbess through the grate of the general parlour; for the good lady was by no means so strict in her notions of conventual decorum, as to exclude him, or any other of the servants and officers of the abbey, from her presence in the court-yard or in her own private sitting-room; and perhaps the woodman might think it did not much matter whether his visit was made by night or by day. "Well, John Boyd," said the abbess, "in fortune's name, what brings you so late at night? Mary mother, I thought it was some of the roving bands come to try and plunder the abbey again, as they did last Martinmas twelvemonth; and we cannot expect such a blessed chance every time, as that good Sir Martin Rideout should be at hand to help our poor socmen. Had it not been for him, I wot, Peter our bailiff would have made but a poor hand of defending us." "And a poor hand he did make," replied the woodman, in a cynical tone; "for he was nowhere to be found; and I had to pull him out of the buttery, to head the tenants. But I hear no more of rovers, lady, unless it be the men at Coleshill, and King Richard's posts, planted all along the highways, with twenty miles between each two, to look out for Harry of Richmond." "Posts!" said the abbess; "posts planted on the highway! What mean you by posts?" "Why men on horseback, lady mother," answered the woodman; "with sharp spurs and strong steeds to bear to Dickon, our king that is, news of Harry, our king that may be, if he chance to land any where upon the coast." "Now Heaven assoil us!" cried the abbess; "what more war, more war? Will men never be content without deforming God's image in their fellow creatures, and burning and destroying even the fairest works of their own hands?" "I fear not," answered the woodman, twisting round the broad axe that was hung in his leathern belt. "Great children and small are fond of bonfires; and nature and the devil between them made man a beast of prey. As to what brought me hither, madam, it, was to tell you that the wooden bridge in the forest wants repairing sadly. It would hardly bear up your mule, lady, with nothing but yourself and your hawk upon its back; much less a war-horse with a rider armed at point. As for my coming so late, I have been as far as Tamworth this morning, to sell the bavins, and didn't get back till after dark. So marking the bridge by the way, and thinking it would be better to begin on it early in the morning, I made bold to come up at night for fear anyone, riding along to church or market or otherwise, should find their way into the river, and say the abbess ought to mend her ways;" and he laughed at his own joke. While he had been speaking, both the young ladies, though he was no stranger to them, had been gazing at him with considerable attention. He was, as I have said before, a tall and still very powerful man, although he seemed to have passed the age of fifty years. His shoulders were very broad, his arms long and muscular; but his body was small in proportion to the limbs, and the head in proportion to the height of the whole figure. His forehead was exceedingly broad and high, however; the crown of his head quite bald, with large masses of curling hair falling round his temples and on his neck. What his complexion originally had been, could not be discovered; for the whiteness of his hair and eye-brows and the sun-burnt weather-beaten hue of his skin afforded no indication. His teeth, however, were still good, his eyes large and bright, and the features fine, although the wide forehead was seamed with deep furrows, giving, apart from the rest of his appearance, a look of much greater age than that at which he had really arrived. His dress was the ordinary woodman's garb of the time, which is well known to almost every one. There was the thick stiff leathern coat, which no broken branch or rugged thorn could pierce, the breeches of untanned hide, and the hoots of strong black leather, reaching above the knee. Round his waist, over his coat, he wore a broad belt, fastened by a brass buckle in front, and in it were stuck the implements of his craft, namely, a broad axe, which required no ordinary power of limb to wield, with the head uppermost, thrust under his left arm like a sword; a large billhook, having a broad stout piece of iron at the back, which might serve the purposes of a hammer; and an ordinary woodman's knife, the blade of which was about eighteen inches in length. His head was on ordinary occasions covered with a round cloth cap; but this, in reverence of the presence of the lady abbess, he held by the edge in his hand. The expression of the good man's countenance, when not particularly moved, was agreeable enough, though somewhat stern and sad; but when he laughed, which was by no means unfrequent, although the sound was loud and hearty, an extraordinary look of bitter mockery hung about his lip and nostril, taking away all appearance of happiness from his merriment. "Well, well, you might mend the bridge without asking me," said the abbess, in reply to his report. "It is a part of the head woodman's duty, and the expenses would always be passed. So if you had nothing more to say than that, you might have chosen another hour, goodman Boyd." "Crying your mercy, lady," said the woodman, "I would always rather deal with you than with your bailiff. When I have orders from you, I set him at nought. When I do anything of my own hand he is sure to carp. However I had more to say. We have taken a score of mallards in the great pond, and a pike of thirty pounds. There are two bitterns too, three heronshaws, and a pheasant with a back like gold. I had four dozen of pigeons killed too, out of the colombier in the north wood; and--" "Mother Mary, is the man mad?" exclaimed the abbess. "One would think we were going to have the installation of an archbishop." "And there are twenty young rabbits, as fat as badgers," continued the woodman, taking no notice of her interruption. "If I might advise, lady, you would order some capons to be killed to-night." The good abbess stood as one quite bewildered, and then burst into a fit of laughter, saying-- "The man is crazed, I think;" but her eldest niece pulled the sleeve of her gown, whispering-- "He means something, depend upon it. Perhaps he does not like to speak before me and Iola." The abbess paused for an instant as if to consider this suggestion, and then asked-- "Well, have you anything more to say, goodman?" "Oh, yes, plenty more," answered the woodman; "when I find a meet season." "On my word you seem to have found a fish and fowl season," rejoined the abbess, playing upon the word meet. We must recollect that she had but little to amuse herself with in her solitude, and therefore forgive her. She continued, however, in a graver tone: "Is it that you wish to speak with me alone?" "Yes, lady," answered the man. "Three pair of ears have generally got three mouths belonging to them, and that is too many by two." "Then I'll carry mine out of the way, goodman Boyd," said Iola, giving him a gay nod, and moving towards the door; "I love not secrets of any kind. Heaven shield me from having any of my own, for I should never keep them." The woodman looked after her with a smile, murmuring in a low voice as if to himself-- "Yet I think she would keep other people's better than most." Then, waiting till Constance had followed her cousin from the room, he continued, speaking to the abbess: "you'll have visitors at the abbey, lady, before this time to-morrow night." "Marry, that is news, goodman," answered the abbess; "and for this then you have made all this great preparation. It must be an earl, or duke at least, if not king Richard himself--God save the mark that I should give the name of king to one of his kindred. Methinks you might have told me this without such secrecy. Who may these visitors be?" "They are very simple gentlemen, my lady," answered the woodman, "though well to do in the world. First and foremost, there is the young Lord Chartley, a young nobleman with as many good points as a horse-dealer's filly; a baron of the oldest race, a good man at arms. He can read and write, and thanks God for it, makes verses when he is in love--which is every day in the week with some one--and, to crown all, is exceedingly rich as these hard times go." "You seem to be of his privy chamber, goodman Boyd," said the abbess; "you deliver him so punctually." "I deliver him but as his own servants delivered him to me," answered the woodman. "Tell me, was he not in the battle of Barnet, fighting for the red rose?" inquired the abbess. "Ay, and sorely wounded there. He shall be right welcome, if it were but for that." "Nay, Lord Chartley fought at Barnet," said the woodman; "and if to fight well and to suffer for the cause of Lancaster merit such high honour, you might indeed receive him daintily, for he fought till he was killed there, poor man; but this youth is his nephew, and has had no occasion to fight in England either, for there have been no battles since he was a boy. Lancaster he doubtless is in heart, though king Edward put him into the guardianship of a Yorkist. However, with him comes Sir Edward Hungerford, who, they tell me, is one of those gay light-hearted gentlemen, who, born and bred in perilous and changing times, get to think at last, by seeing all things fall to pieces round them, that there is nothing real or solid in the world--no, not truth itself. But let him pass; a little perjury and utter faithlessness, a ready wit, a bold heart, a reckless love of mischief, a pair of hanging sleeves that sweeps the ground as he walks along, a coat of goldsmith's work, and a well-lined purse, have made many a fine gentleman before him; and I'll warrant he is not worse than the greater part of his neighbours. Then with these two, there is Sir Charles Weinants, a right worshipful gentleman also." "But tell me more of him," said the abbess. "What is he? I have heard the name before with honourable mention, methinks--Who and what is he?" "A lickladle of the court, lady," answered the woodman, "one who rises high by low ladders--who soars not up at once, either as the eagle or the lark, but creeps into favour through holes and turnings. He is marvellously discreet in all his doings, asserts nought boldly, but by dull insinuation stings an enemy or serves a friend. Oh yes, he has his friendships too--not much to be relied on, it is true, but still often useful, so that even good men have need of his agency. All that he does is done by under-currents, which bear things back to the shore that seem floating out to sea. Quiet, and calm, and self-possessed, he is ever ready for the occasion; and with a cheerful spirit, which one would think the tenant of an upright heart, he wins his way silently, and possesses great men's ears, who little know that their favour is disposed of at another's will. He is an old man now; but I remember him when I was a boy at St. Alban's. He was then in much grace with the great Lord Clifford, who brought him to the notice of king Henry. He has since lived, as much in favour, with Edwards and Richards and Buckinghams, and is now a strong Yorkist. What he will die, Heaven and time will show us." "Goodlack, that there should be such things in the world!" exclaimed the abbess; "but what brings all these people here? I know none of them; and if they come but to visit the shrine, I have no need to entertain them, nor you to make a mystery of their visit. I hate mysteries, my good son, ever since I read about that word being written on the forehead of the poor sinner of Babylon." The woodman laughed irreverently, but answered, "I want to make no mystery with you, lady. These men bring a great train with them; and in their train there is a reverend friar, with frock, and cowl, and sandaled feet; but methinks I have seen a mitre on his shaven crown, though neither mitre nor cowl would save him from the axe, I wot, if good king Richard got his hands upon him. What he comes for--why he comes, I cannot tell you; for I only heard that their steps tended hitherward, and the lackeys counted on drinking deep of the abbey ale. But when that friar is beneath your roof, you will have a man beside you, whose life is in much peril for stout adherence to the cause of Lancaster." "Then he shall have shelter and protection here," said the abbess boldly. "This is sanctuary, and I will not believe that Richard himself--bad and daring as he is--would venture to violate the church's rights." "Richard has two weapons, madam," answered the woodman, "and both equally keen, his sword and his cunning; and take my word for it, what he desires to do that he will do--ay, even to the violation of sanctuary, though perhaps it may not be with his own hand or in his own name. You have had one visit from a roving band who cared little about holy church; and you may have another, made up of very different men, with whom the king might deal tenderly if they did him good service." "Then we will call in the tenants," said the abbess, "and defend our rights and privileges." "The tenants might be outnumbered," said the woodman, shaking his head. "There are many men straying about here, who would soon band together at the thought of stripping the shrine of St. Clare; especially if they had royal warranty for their necks' safety, and the promise of farther reward, besides all their hands helped them to." "Then what is to be done?" exclaimed the abbess, in some consternation. "I cannot and I will not refuse refuge to a consecrated bishop, and one who has suffered persecution for the sake of his rightful race of kings." "Nay, Heaven forbid," replied the woodman warmly; "but if you will take a simple man's advice, lady, methinks I could show you a way to save the bishop, and the abbey, and the ornaments of the shrine too." "Speak, speak," exclaimed the abbess eagerly. "Your advice is always shrewd, goodman Boyd. What way would you have me take?" "Should you ever have in sanctuary," answered the woodman, "a man so hated by the king that you may expect rash acts committed to seize him, and you find yourself suddenly attacked by a band that you cannot resist, send your sanctuary man to me by some one who knows all the ways well, and I will provide for his safety where they will never find him. Then, be you prepared for resistance, but resist not if you can help it. Parley with the good folks, and say that you know well they would not come for the mere plunder of a consecrated place, that you are sure they have come seeking a man impeached of high treason who lately visited the abbey. Assure them that you sent him away, which you then may well do in all truth, and offer to give admission to any three or four to search for him at their will. Methinks, if they are privately set on by higher powers, they will not venture to do anything violent, when they are certain that success will not procure pardon for the act." The abbess mused and seemed to hesitate; and, after a short pause, the woodman added, "Take my advice, lady. I do not speak without knowledge. Many a stray bit of news gets into the forest by one way or another that is never uttered in the town. Now, a messenger stops to talk with the woodman, and, overburdened with the secret, pours part of it out, where he thinks it can never rise in judgment against him. Then, a traveller asks his way, and gossips with his guide as he walks along to put him in the right road. Every carter, who comes in for his load of wood, brings some intelligence from the town. I am rightly informed, lady, depend upon it." "It is not that; it is not that," said the abbess, somewhat peevishly. "I was thinking whom I could send and how. If they surround the abbey altogether, how could I get him out?" "There is the underground way to the cell of St. Magdalen," said the woodman. "To surround the abbey, they would have to bring their men in amongst the houses of the hamlet, and the cell is far beyond that." "True, but no one knows that way," said the abbess, "but you, and I, and sister Bridget. I could trust her well enough, cross and ill-tempered as she is; but then she has never stirred beyond the abbey walls for these ten years, so that she knows not the way from the cell to your cottage. I trust she knows the way to heaven better;" and the abbess laughed. "'Twere easy to instruct some one else in the way to the cell," said the woodman. "The passage is plain enough when the stone door is open." "Ay, doubtless, doubtless," continued the abbess; "but you forget, my good friend, that it is against our law to tell the secret way out to any of the sisterhood, except the superior and the oldest nun. Mary mother, I know not why the rule was made; but it has been so, ever since bishop Godshaw's visitation in 1361." "I suppose he found the young sisters fond of tripping in the green wood with the fairies of nights," answered the woodman, with one of his short laughs; "but however, you are not forbidden to tell those who are not of the sisterhood; otherwise, lady, you would not have told me." "Nay, that does not follow," rejoined the abbess. "The head woodman always knows, as the cell is under his charge and care, ever since the poor hermit died. However, I do not recollect having vowed not to tell the secret to any secular persons. The promise was only as to the sisters--but whom could I send? "Iola? Nay, nay, that cannot be," said the abbess. "She is not of a station to go wandering about at night, guiding strangers through a wild wood. She is my niece, and an earl's daughter." "Higher folks than she have done as much," answered the woodman; "but I did not think that the abbess of Atherston St. Clare would have refused even her niece's help, to Morton, bishop of Ely." "The bishop of Ely!" cried the abbess. "Refuse him help? No, no, Boyd. If it were my daughter or my sister, if it cost me life, or limb, or fortune, he should have help in time of need. I have not seen him now these twelve years; but he shall find I do not forget--Say no more, goodman, say no more. I will send my niece, and proud may she be of the task." "I thought it would be so, lady," answered the woodman; "but still one word more. It were as well that you told the good lord bishop of his danger, as soon as you can have private speech with him, and then take the first hour after sundown to get him quietly away out of the abbey, for to speak truth I much doubt the good faith of that Sir Charles Weinants--I know not what he does with men of Lancaster--unless he thinks, indeed, the tide is turning in favour of that house from which it has ebbed away so long." Although they had said all they really had to say, yet the abbess and the woodman carried on their conversation during some ten minutes or quarter of an hour more, before they parted; and then the excellent lady retired to her own little comfortable room again, murmuring to herself: "He is a wise man, that John Boyd--rude as a bear sometimes; but he has got a wit! I think those woodmen are always shrewd. They harbour amongst the green leaves, and look at all that goes on in the world as mere spectators, till they learn to judge better of all the games that are playing than those who take part therein. They can look out, and see, and meddle as little as we do, while we are shut out from sight, as well as from activity."
CHAPTER III.Under some circumstances, and upon some conditions, there are few things fairer on this earth than a walk through a wild forest by moonlight. It must not be, however, one of those deep unbroken primeval forests, which are found in many parts of the new world, where the wilderness of trees rises up, like a black curtain, on every side, shutting out the view, and almost excluding the light of day from the face of the earth. But a forest in old England, at the period of which I speak, was a very different thing. Tall trees there were, and many, and in some places they were crowded close together; but in others the busy woodman's axe, and the more silent but more incessant strokes of time, had opened out wide tracts, where nothing was to be seen but short brushwood, stunted oak, beech tree and ash, rising up in place of the forest monarchs long passed away, like the pigmy efforts of modern races appearing amidst the ruins of those gigantic empires, which have left memorials that still defy the power of time. Indeed, I never behold a wide extent of old forest land, covered with shrubby wood, with here and there a half-decayed trunk rising grandly above the rest, without imagination flying far away to those lands of marvel, where the wonders of the world arose and perished--the land of the Pharaohs, of the Assyrians, and of the Medes; ay, and of the Romans too--those lands in which the power and genius of the only mighty European empire displayed themselves more wonderfully than even in the imperial city, the land of Bolbec and Palmyra. The Arab's hut, built amongst the ruins of the temple of the sun, is a fit type of modern man, contrasted with the races that have passed. True, the Roman empire was destroyed by the very tribes from which we spring; but it was merely the dead carcase of the Behemoth eaten up by ants. Be all that as it may, an English forest scene is very beautiful by moonlight, and especially when the air has been cleared by a light frost, as was the case when the woodman took his way back towards his cottage, after his visit to the abbey. The road was broad and open--one of the highroads of the country, indeed--sandy enough, in all conscience, and not so smooth as it might have been; but still it served its purpose; and people in those days called it a good road. Here, an old oak eighteen or twenty feet in girth, which might have seen the noble ill-fated Harold, stretched its long limbs across the turfy waste ground at its feet, and over the yellow track of the road beaten by horses' feet. In other places the eye might wander far over a wide scantily-covered track of ground, with here and there a tall tree starting up and casting its broad shadow upon the white and glistening expanse of bushes below. A vague sort of mysterious uncertainty hung about the dells and dingles of the wood, notwithstanding the brightness of the moonlight; and a faint blueish mist prevented the eye from penetrating into the deeper valleys, and searching their profundity. To the left, the ground sloped away with a gentle descent. To the right, it rose somewhat more abruptly; and, peeping over the leafless trees in the latter direction, appeared here and there a square wall and tower, cutting sharp and defined upon the rounded forms of the forest. Above all stretched out the wide deep sky, with the moon nearly at the full, flooding the zenith with light, while to, the north and west shone out many bright and twinkling stars, not yet hidden by the beams of earth's bright satellite. With a slow and a firm step, the woodman trudged upon his way, pausing every now and then to gaze around him, more, apparently, as a matter of habit than with any purpose; for he seemed full of busy thoughts; and even when he stopped and let his eye roam around, it is probable that his mind was on other things, once or twice, murmuring a few words to himself, which had certainly no reference to the scene. "Ah, Mary, Mary," he said, and then added: "Alas! Alas!" There was something deeply melancholy in his tone. The words were spoken low and softly; and a sigh followed them, the echo of memory to the voice of joys passed. Onward he walked again, the road somewhat narrowing as he proceeded, till at length the tall trees, pressing forward on either side, shut out the light of the moon, except where, here and there, the rays stole through the leafless branches and chequered the frosty turf. As he was passing through one of the darkest parts of the wood, keeping a good deal to the left of the road, the sound of a horse's feet was heard coming fast down from the top of the hill. Without change of pace or look, however, the stout woodman walked on, seeming to pay little attention to the measured beating of the ground by the strong hoofs, as they came on at a quick trot. Nearer and nearer, however, they approached, till at length they suddenly stopped, just as the horse and rider were passing the man on foot, and a voice exclaimed, "Who goes there?" "A friend," replied the woodman. "You must have sharp eyes, whoever you be." "Sharp eyes and sharp ears too," replied the horseman. "Stand out, and tell us who you are, creeping along there under the boughs." "Creeping along!" answered the woodman, advancing into the more open road and placing himself in front of the rider. "I will soon tell you who I am, and show you who I am too, master, when I know who it is that asks the question. Since it comes to that, I bid you stand and tell me who you are who ride the wood so late. You are none of King Richard's posts, or you would know me;" and, at the same time, he laid his hand upon the man's bridle. "You are a liar," replied the horseman, "for I am one of King Richard's posts, coming from Scotland, with news of moment, and letters from the princess countess of Arran. Let go my bridle then, and say who and what you are, or, by the Lord, I'll drub you in such a way as you have seldom been drubbed before." "Ha! Say you so?" cried the woodman, still retaining his hold of the bridle. "I must have more satisfactory knowledge of you, ere I let you pass; and, as for drubbing me, methinks with a green willow and a yard or two of rope, I'd give thee that which thou hast not tasted since thou wert a boy." "So, so," said the man, "thou art a robber, doubtless. These woods are full of them, they say; but thou shalt find me a tougher morsel than often falls within thy teeth. Take that for thy pains." As he spoke, he suddenly drew his sword from the sheath, and aimed a rapid and furious stroke at the woodman's head. His adversary, however, was wary; and, springing on one side, he escaped the descent of the blade. The other instantly spurred his horse forward; but, before he could pass, the woodman had pulled his axe from his belt, and, with a full sweep of his arm, struck a blow at the back of the horseman's head, which cast him at once out of the saddle. It was the back of the axe which he used, and not the sharp side; but the effect seemed equally fatal, for the man neither moved nor spoke, and his horse, freed from the pressure of the rein, dashed down the lane for some way, then stopped, paused for a moment, and trotted quietly back again. In the meantime, the woodman approached the prostrate body of the messenger, murmuring to himself, "Ah, caitiff, I know thee, though thou hast forgotten me. Thou pitiful servant of treachery and ingratitude, thou hireling serviceable knave, I would not have hurt thee, even for thy master's sake, hadst thou not assailed me first--Methinks he is dead," he continued, stirring the body with his foot. "I hit thee harder than I thought; but it is well as it is. Thy death could not come from a fitter hand than mine, were it not the hangman's--I will see what thou hast about thee, however; for there may be news of value indeed, if for once in thy life thou hast found a tongue to speak truth with. But I will not believe it. The news was too sure, the tale too sad to be false." He stood a moment or two by the corpse, gazing upon it in silence, but without the slightest sign of sorrow or remorse. Those were bloody and barbarous times, it is true, when men slew each other in cold blood after battles were over, when brother spared not brother, and the companions of infancy and boyhood dyed their daggers in each other's gore. Human life, as in all barbarous states of society, was held as nought; and men hesitated as little to spill the blood of a fellow creature as to spill their own. But yet it must surely always be a terrible thing to take a life, to extinguish that light which we can never reillume, to fix the fatal barrier which renders every foolish and every dark act, every sin and every crime, irretrievable, to leave no chance of penitence, no hope of repentance, and to send the erring and burdened spirit into the presence of its God without one dark record against it uncancelled. Heavy must be the offence indeed, and deep the injury, which leaves no sorrow in the heart of the slayer. None seemed to be felt by the woodman. He stood and gazed, as I have said, for a moment; but it was--as he had gazed over the prospect below--without a change of countenance; and then he stooped down and with calm and patient investigation searched every part of the dead man's apparel. He found, amongst other things, a purse well supplied with gold, at least so its weight seemed to indicate; but that he put back again at once. He found some papers too, and those he kept; but, not satisfied with that, after some trouble he caught the horse, examined the saddle, unloosed the girths, and between the saddle cloth and the leather found a secret pocket from which he took more papers. These too he kept, and put them in his wallet. Everything else, such as trinkets, of which there were one or two, a pouncet-box, some large curiously-shaped keys and other trifles, he carefully replaced where he had found them. Then, taking up the dead man's hand, he raised it and let it fall, as if to make sure that life was extinct; and then once more he addressed the corpse, saying-- "Ay, thou art dead enough! I could find in my heart to spurn thee even now--but no, no. It is but the clay. The demon is departed," and picking up his axe, which he had laid down for a moment, he carefully replaced the saddle on the horse's back, fastened up the girths, and cast loose the rein. When this was done he resumed his walk, proceeding with the same quiet steady pace with which he had been wending his way towards his cottage, the moment before this adventure befell him. All remained calm and still on the spot which he had left, for somewhat more than an hour. The moon reached her highest point, travelled a little to the westward, and poured her rays under the branches of the trees where before it had been dark. The dead body still lay upon the road. The horse remained cropping the forest grass at the side, occasionally entangling its foot in the bridle, and once plunging to get free so as to bring itself upon its knees. At the end of the time I have mentioned, the woodman reappeared, coming down the hill at the same quiet rate at which he had gone away. When he approached the place he stopped and looked around; and then, stooping down by the side of the dead man, he placed some of the papers in the pocket, saying with a sort of bitter smile, which looked wild and strange in the moonlight-- "Thy comings and goings are over; but others may carry these at least to their destination. Oh, thou double-dealing fiend, thou hast died in the midst of one of thy blackest deeds before it was consummated. The messenger of the dove, thou wert but the agent of the hawk which was watching for her as a prey, and would have betrayed her into all the horrors of faithlessness and guilt. May God pardon thee, bad man and--" Again there was the sound of horses' feet coming; but this time it was mingled with that of voices, talking with loud and somewhat boisterous merriment. "Some of the king's runners," said the woodman; and, with a slow step, he retreated under the trees, and was soon lost to sight amidst the thick brushwood. The next moment two men might be seen riding down the hill and laughing as they came. "'Twill be pleasant tidings to bear," said one to the other; "and my counsel is, Jago, instead of giving them to the next post, as thy fool's head would have it, that we turn away through the by-road to the abbey, and carry our good news ourselves. Why, that Richmond has put back again to France, is worth fifty broad pieces to each of us." "But our orders were strict," answered the other; "and we have no excuse.--But mercy have us! What is here? Some one either drunk or dead upon the road. There stands his horse too, under that tree." "Look to your weapon, Jago," replied his companion. "On my life, this is that fellow Malcolm Bower, who passed us three hours ago, as proud as a popinjay; and I'll wager a stoup of Canary, that he has met with robbers in the wood and been murdered." "Likely, likely," answered the other man, loosening his sword in the sheath; "but if he have, king Richard will burn the forest down but he'll find them; for this fellow is a great man with those he serves now-a-days." "Here, hold my horse," cried the other. "I'll get down and see;" and, dismounting, he stooped over the body, and then proceeded to examine it, commenting in broken sentences, thus--"Ay, it is he, sure enough. Stay, he can't be murdered, I think, either, for here is his purse in his pocket, and that well filled--and papers too, and a silver box of comfits, on my life. Look ye here now, his horse must have thrown him and broken his neck. No, upon my life, it's his head is broken. Here's a place at the back of his skull as soft as a Norfolk dumpling. What shall we do with him?" A short consultation then ensued, as to how they should dispose of the dead body, till at length it was agreed that the horse should be caught, the corpse flung over it, and thus carried to the neighbouring hamlet. This was effected without much trouble; and the whole scene became wild, and silent, and solitary once more.
CHAPTER IV.I must now introduce the reader to a scene then very common in England, but which would now be sought for in vain--although, to some of the habits of those times a large class of people have a strong tendency to return. Round a little village green, having, as usual, its pond--the merry-making place of ducks and geese--its two or three clumps of large trees, and its two roads crossing each other in the middle, were erected several buildings of very different look and magnitude. Nearly three sides of the green were occupied by mere hovels or huts, the walls of mud, the roofs rudely thatched, and the windows of so small a size as to admit very little light into a dwelling, which, during the working hours of each weary day, saw very little of its laborious tenants. Amongst these were two larger houses, built of stone, richly ornamented, though small in size, having glazed windows, and displaying all the signs and tokens of the ecclesiastical architecture of the day, though neither of them was a church or chapel, but simply the dwelling-places of some secular priests, with a small following of male choristers, who were not permitted to inhabit any portion of the neighbouring abbey. Along the fourth side of the green, where the ground rose considerably, extended an enormously high wall, pierced in the centre with a fine old portal with two battlemented turrets, one on either side. From the middle of the green, so high was this wall and portal that nothing could be seen beyond it. But, from the opposite side, the towers and pinnacles of the abbey itself peeped up above the inclosure. If one followed the course of the wall, to the left as one looked towards the abbey, passing between it and the swine-herd's cottage, one came to a smaller door--a sort of sally-port, we should have called it, had the place been a fortress--from which a path wound away, down into a valley, with a stream flowing through it; and then, turning sharp to the right at the bottom, the little footway ascended again towards a deep old wood, on the verge of which appeared a small Gothic building with a stone cross in front. The distance from the abbey to St. Magdalen's cell, as it was called, was not in reality very great in a direct line; but the path wound so much, in order to avoid a steep rise in the ground and a deep ravine through which in rainy weather flowed a torrent of water, that its length could not be less than three quarters of a mile. The little door in the abbey wall, which I have mentioned, was strong and well secured, with a loop-hole at each side for archers to shoot through, in case of need. Over the door, too, was a semicircular aperture, in which hung an enormously large bell, baptized in former years, according to the ordinary custom, but which, whatever was the name it received at its baptism, was known amongst the peasantry as the "Baby of St. Clare." Now, whether St. Clare, whoever she was, had, during the time of her mortal life, a baby or none, I cannot pretend to say; but certain it is, that the good nuns were as angry at the name which had been bestowed upon the bell, as if the attributing an infant to their patroness had been a direct insult to each of them individually. This bell was used only upon special occasions, the ordinary access to the abbey being through the great gates; but, if any danger menaced in the night, if any of the peasantry were taken suddenly ill after sunset, if any of the huts in the hamlet caught fire--which was by no means unusual--or any other business of importance occurred during the hours of darkness, the good people of the neighbourhood applied to the Baby of St. Clare, whose loud voice soon brought out one of the inferior sisters to inquire what was the matter. Passing on from this doorway, and leaving the path towards St. Magdalene's cell on the left, one could circle round the whole extent of the walls, which contained not less than five or six acres of ground. But no other doorway was to be seen, till the great portal was again reached. The walls themselves were of exceeding thickness, and had a walk all round them on a sort of platform at the top. It would have required cannon indeed to have effected a breach at any point; but, at the same time, their great extent rendered them indefensible against the means of escalade, by any force which the good sisters could call to their aid. Within the great portal was a large open court, flanked on three sides by habitable buildings. To the right, was what was called the visitors' lodging, where a very considerable number of persons could be accommodated, in small rooms very tolerably furnished according to the mode of the day. There, too, a large dining-hall afforded space for the entertainment to the many guests who from time to time partook of the abbey's hospitality. The opposite side was devoted to offices for the lay sisters and servants of the abbey; and the space in front of the great gates was occupied by the chapel, into one part of which the general public was admitted, while the other, separated by a richly-wrought stone screen, was assigned to the nuns themselves. A small stone passage closed by an iron gate ran between the offices and the chapel, and extended, round the back of the former and along the north-western wall to the little doorway which I have mentioned; while, on the other hand, an open door and staircase led to the parlour, which I have mentioned in a preceding chapter, as that in which friends or relatives might converse with any of the recluses, through the grate which divided the room into two. Behind the chapel was another court, cloistered all round, and beyond that the main body of the building. All these arrangements would seem to show, and, indeed, such was the intention, that the sisterhood were cut off from all immediate communication with the male part of the race; but yet, in truth, neither the order nor the abbey was a very strict one--so little so that, twenty or thirty years before, the sisterhood had not altogether escaped scandal. All occasion for gossiping tongues, however, had been taken away by the conduct of the existing abbess, whose rule was firm though mild; but, at the same time, she neither scrupled to indulge her nuns in all innocent liberty, such as going out once or twice in the year in parties of six or seven together, nor to use her own powers of free action in receiving, even in the interior of the building, during the day time, any of the officers of the abbey, whether lay or clerical, with whom she might wish to speak, and in going out mounted on her mule, and accompanied by several attendants, to inspect the several estates of the foundation, or visit any of the neighbouring towns. This just medium between extreme severity and improper license secured her against all evil tongues; and the abbey was in high repute at the time of which I speak. About one o'clock, on the day after the woodman's visit, which I have described, some twenty or thirty people were gathered together on the green just before the great portal. But this was no well-dressed and splendid assemblage, no meeting of the high, the rich, and the lordly. It was a very motley band, in which rags and tatters greatly predominated. The most aristocratic of the crowd was probably an itinerant piper, who, with an odd-shaped cap on his head, somewhat like the foot of an old stocking, but spreading out at the edges in the fashion of a basin, had a good coarse brown cloth coat on his back, and hosen on his legs, which, though not new, were not in holes. He kept his bag tight under his arm, not venturing to regale the devout ears of the nuns with the sounds of his merry minstrelsy; but he promised himself and his fellows to cheer their hearts with a tune after their daily dole had been distributed, to receive which was the object of their coming. They were not kept long waiting, indeed; for one of the elder sisters soon appeared, followed by two stout serving women, dressed in grey gowns, with white hoods and wimples, each carrying an enormous basket filled with large hunches of bread and fragments of broken meat. The contents of these panniers were distributed with great equity, and savoured with a few words, sometimes of ghostly advice, sometimes of reproach, and sometimes of consolation. Thus it was, "There Hodge, take that, and do not grumble another time as thou didst yesterday. A contented heart makes food wholesome; and you, Margery Dobson, I do wonder that you do not think it shame to live upon the abbey dole, with those good stout hands of yours." "Ah, dear mother," replied the person she addressed, in a whining tone; "that is always the way. Everything goes by seeming. I vow I am dropsical all over; and then folks say it is all fat. I could no more do a day's work like another, than I could take up the abbey tower and carry it off." The good sister shook her head, and went on to another, saying-- "Ah! Jackson, if you would but quit your vile drunken ways, you need never come here for the dole. Two hours' work each day would furnish you with as much food as you get here in a week. Ah, Janet Martin, my poor thing," she continued, addressing a woman, who had contrived to add some little scraps of black to the old gown which she wore, "there were no need to give you any of the dole, for the lady abbess will send down to you by and by; but here, as there is plenty for all to-day, take this for yourself and the babes. I dare say they'll eat it." The woman made a melancholy gesture with her head, replying merely-- "They have not tasted a morsel since last night, sister Alice." "Well, take heart, take heart," answered the nun in a kindly tone. "You can't tell what may be coming. We are all very sorry for you and for your poor children; and your good husband who is no more, rest his soul, has our prayers night and morning." "Blessings upon you, sister Alice, and upon the house," replied the poor widow; and the nun turned to the itinerant musician. "What, Sam the piper come back from Tamworth. I trust, brother, you remembered all your promises, and did not get drunk at the fair." "Never was drunk once," replied the piper boldly; but the next moment, he turned his head partly over his shoulder, and winked shrewdly with his eye, adding, "The ale was so thin that a butt of it would not have tipsied a sucking lamb. So I have little credit; for my well-seasoned staves would have drunk the whole beer in the town without rolling. But nevertheless, I was moderate, very moderate, and drank with due discretion--seeing that the liquor was only fit to season sow's meat. Well, I wot, they got very little grains out of each barrel; and I hope he that brewed it has had as bad a cholic as I have had ever since." "Well, get you each to the buttery, one by one as you are served; and there you will get a horn of ale which won't give you the cholic, though it won't make you drunk," said the good sister; and then, beckoning to the piper, she enquired in an easy tone: "What news was stirring at Tamworth, Sam Piper? There's always something stirring there, I think." "Bless your holy face," answered the piper; "there was little enough this time. Only, just as the fair was over, some gay nobles came in--looking for King Richard, I wot; and a gorgeous train they made of it; but if it was the King they sought, they did not find him, for he has gone on to Nottingham with his good Queen." "But who were they? Who were they?" asked the nun, who was not without her share of that curiosity so common among recluses. "And were they so very splendid? How many had they in their following?" "Why, first and foremost, lady," replied the piper, with a tone and air of secrecy and importance, "there was the young earl of Chartley. Marry, a gay and handsome gentleman as ever you set eyes on. I saw him come up to the inn door, and speak to mine host; and every other word was a jest, I'll warrant. What a wit he has, and how he did run on. It was nothing but push and thrust, from beginning to end. Then, as for his dress, it might have suited a prince, full of quaint conceits and beautiful extravagance. Why his bonnet was cut all round in the Burgundy fashion, for all the world like the battlements of a castle made in cloth, and a great white feather lolling down till it touched his left shoulder." "Oh, vanity, vanity!" cried the nun. "How these young men do mock Heaven with their vanities! But what more, good brother?" "Why then there were the sleeves of his gown," continued the piper; "what they were intended for I can't tell, unless to blow his nose with; but they were so long and fell so heavy with the sables that trimmed them, that I thought every minute the horse would set his feet on them. But no such thing; and though somewhat dusty he seemed fresh enough." "Well, well," said the nun. "Come to the point, and tell us no more about dress, for I care not for such vanities." |
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