The Lady Henrietta—no, I will not divulge her surname—the Lady Henrietta was ennuyed and bored—though she lived in the sixteenth century. Furthermore, the honest fact is, that being bored, Henrietta was far from agreeable, as two persons knew, to wit, Nancy, her ladyship’s sharp waiting maid, and Lord Tristram, who was old and a fool.

A fool decidedly—for courting a young and handsome woman. Hence, by inference, you see that the Lady Henrietta was young and handsome. Yes, young, handsome, rich, noble, healthy, and miserable!

She could not tell anybody why she was miserable, but on one particular day, when her ladyship was rather more miserable than usual, within her castle at Richmond; at Richmond statute fair some hundred yards off, not a single lassie offering herself out for hire, on the dismal conditions of that day, but was happier than my Lady Henrietta.

On that particular morning she was sitting snappishly at her toilette—though, indeed, she was naturally good-tempered; but aristocracy has its miseries, or where would the balance of things be?—when Lord Tristam arrived. One might have solemnly declared, without seeing my lord’s face, that my lord had been tripped up by youth and had never overtaken that early visitor. The way in which the fair Henrietta treated him was a satire upon man’s supremacy—indeed, this lord of Cosmos was a supreme fool.

The old youngster coming in, she told him to kneel. He did. She told him to get up. He did. She bade him shut the window. Click went the latch. Immediately he heard the command to open it again. Then and there he did it, and was rewarded by the sight of a pair of scornful shoulders.

And it was just when her ladyship was stamping her foot pettishly, and the lord looking on in a doleful state, that, i’faith, such happy sounds of singing stole through the window! Why, the voices must have belonged to creatures as happy as lords. No, no, no; a mistake, kind reader, a mistake. As happy as—as poor servants not knowing where their morrow’s bread lay. Blessed—blessed—blessed hope, which paints that same to-morrow so gaudily that we have not much grief for our rags and crusts of to-day. And the morrow is to-day, and the morrow yet again, and still we hope on, hope ever. Faith, I would sooner be Tom Tumbler at the next show, with the “hope” of getting on Drury Lane boards, than the richest and handsomest peer in England, if he has no aspirations whatever.

These poor servants were going to the statute fair, to get hired, if they could; to hope for hiring if they could not; and, as they went on, they sang merry songs.

Oh! the sudden thought struck her. There was not a poor servant wench but wished to be a lady; why should not a lady wish to be a servant wench? ’Tis but the law of reciprocity.

The very thought made her more joyful, or rather, less dismal than she had been for some time. A moment more, as her natural good-temper came back, and she had decided. Yes, she would dress in that peasant masquerade dress of hers; and she would be—Martha; and Nancy should be—Nancy. And—and would not his lordship join them? Of course his lordship would. His lordship should be—John!

His lordship used plainer language than he had ever before used; his lordship, in a word, declined flatly; but ah! love will lead self-satisfied old-young men the queerest of dances; so, it is but just old parties should go through their little hops and jigs, and puff and blow all the way through the pretty little pas.

So let us just imagine Martha, Nancy, and John, making for the fair; Martha laughing as she has not laughed for years, Nancy playing a polite, impertinent second, and John doing his very best to be gay and happy. Poor fellow!

CHAPTER II.

Even in this enlightened hour, at statute fairs English girls stand in rows and exhibit their points—mental, menial, and physical, to as many farmer’s wives as have tongues and eyes. ’Tis not a happy mode of hiring servants, choosing them as you would sheep; but let us hope that a better time is coming.

And, of course, in the dark middle age, statute fairs were held in England; hence, we naturally get to that fair for which those blythe singers were bound, and whom Lady Henrietta and her court of two followed.

’Twas the usual scene: stout farmers’ wives marching about in the superior manner, the girls looking about in rows of rosy cheeks and giggles, and scandal everywhere; for at statute fairs the way in which the maids run down their old mistresses, and the way in which the mistresses run down their old maids, can easily be imagined.

In one quiet part of the market stood Lionel and Plunket, brothers and farmers.

These two personages had come to hire two servants; but whether the servants were of a very bad kind, or the farmers very difficult to please, certain it is that these latter were servantless, though the fair was half over.

They had not long lost their mother, a good mother, so they were not to be satisfied with any kind of servants.

I love to make all plain, and therefore I may as well say at once that these brothers were not brothers. If affection and sacrifice, and all that kind of thing, made men real brothers, they would have been brothers; but the same woman did not bear them. Plunket was the real son of the mother whose death we have just mentioned, and Lionel was the foundling, though as the mother had been a good woman, she had always had enough love for both her own son and the foundling, and some, indeed, left for the world in general. This old mother, in a year long gone to sleep, had opened her door late one night, for being good she had a stout heart, and there found a man and child upon the threshold. The man died, the child lived to be her foundling, and her second son. Who the man was they never learned. He died, and made no sign. Ah, yes—that little diamond ring given to the good woman in keeping for his son. If ever he was in trouble, this son of his, the ring was to be carried to the queen. But Lionel had never been in any trouble up to the time of the good woman’s death; soon after which the two farmers wanted two servants, and came to the fair to seek them.

And thus naturally are we brought back to the fair.

Neither Lionel nor Plunket could find a single servant to their mind, much less two, and so they went wandering about, and submitted to the hard sarcasm of the would-be hired.

Meanwhile, in another part of the fair the sheriff was doing his duty like a sheriff. Said duty being to announce, as usual, that all agreements between servants and masters were binding for twelve months—said binding to be a legal fact from the very moment the said servants took earnest money from the said masters. Also the sheriff was a blessed go-between, announcing to the servants the wants of the masters, and to the masters the wants of the servants. ’Twas surprising how clever all the servants were according to their own showing, and how doubtful the masters were in believing those same statements; and indeed, ’tis true these statements might have led an observer to surmise that all the good servants in the county had been discharged at one and the same moment.

And it was just at the precise moment when the sheriff was going to retreat, overwhelmed by numbers, that the Lady Henrietta—or Martha, rather—Nancy, and the troubled John—Lord Tristam—came upon the noisy scene.

Now, neither Martha nor Nancy were within a hundred yards of the sheriff, when Lionel and Plunket marked them both, and bore down upon them.

As the lord saw this, he was very urgent indeed that all this disreputable masquerading should come to an end.

Whereupon Martha called out to my lord, “Sir, I’ll not have thee for my master.” And Nancy added her objection too.

“So please thee, good man, thou canst not force the girls to serve,” said Plunket, at whom the old lord stared. However, he could not stare long, for all the servant girls about, hearing Martha refuse the old gentleman’s service, pressed about him, each playing her own little trumpet at the top of her voice. And, to be short, the old young lord thought himself perfectly justified in running away. Lady Henrietta was Lady Henrietta, but that was no reason why his lordship should be worried dead, so he thought he had better go; and did.

“Nancy, Nancy, they are looking at us.” True, indeed, spoke Martha; Lionel and Plunket were looking at “us,” and in the act of questioning each other touching “us.”

And it was at this precise moment that Nancy told Lady Henrietta she was trembling, and Lady Henrietta told Nancy that she suffered also from the same cause.

The chronicles do not state which of the quartette spoke first, while on the other hand the author was not present at the interview. But let it be admitted that Plunket spoke first, and said—“Hem—do ye seek a service, maidens—will ye bargain with us?”

“A capital bargain,” said the other farmer.

“Well,” said Lady Henrietta.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,” said Nancy, who, being a lady’s-maid, was infinitely scornful at the idea of being a farmer’s servant.

“Oh,” said stout Plunket to the latter, “I love laughter—work is better done by far when servants all gay-hearted are.”

The “maidens” were still doubtful, so the farmer Plunket set to work to show the “place” was not an every-day place—and—and the upshot of it all was that Lady Henrietta, and, oh, more terrible by far, Lady Henrietta’s maid, engaged themselves as farm servants to the two stout young farmers—and then took their earnest money (Lady Henrietta didn’t know what to do with her Queen Elizabeth’s shilling, and so she dropped it)—their earnest money, which bound these two to their masters for twelve whole weary months.

As her ladyship gave up the first money she had ever earned in her life, Lord Tristam came to view again—still harassed by not a few stout handmaidens, who, it seemed, had determined he should choose one of them. However, he flung a good amount of silver about; then, feeling at liberty once more, he came with an air towards the two girls; whereupon he was warned off by their new masters, who seemed rather proud of their proprietorship.

Then it was that the Lady Henrietta proposed to return home. Alas, that despised shilling! Within five minutes more she learned she was actually a servant—bound as surely as any apprentice; and, indeed, the sheriff arrived precisely at that moment, to settle the matter beyond all dispute. Meanwhile, my lord stood in the background, a picture of bewildered despair, and Lady Henrietta stood in the foreground almost in tears. Why, if the court heard of all this she should never be able to show herself in that court’s presence! At all events, the truth could not be spoken then and there. Let her be silent before the horrid mob. Hence it was that Lady Henrietta went off quite meekly as a farm servant, while Nancy took the same road, jerking her head and flouncing her garments as only lady’s maids of all climes and times could and can manage it.

As for Lord Tristam, he looked as nearly ridiculous as an English lord ever could look!

CHAPTER III.

Imagine that the two farmers and their new servants have arrived at the farm-house—a large, roomy, old building, with deep bay windows of wavy green glass, in the very heart of the forest.

“Home at last,” said Plunket, who had pioneered the flouncing Nancy, as he thrust the key into the lock. As they all entered, Lady Henrietta could not help comparing the place to a prison. However, she did not make the odious comparison in a loud voice.

“There,” said Plunket, who was spokesman for the two, and addressing the girls, “there, that’s your room.”

“Oh—tha-a-a-ank you,” said the Lady Henrietta.

“In-deed,” said the sharp Nancy.

“Good night,” said her ladyship, and turned sleepily towards the door; for, truth to tell, her ladyship had never even dreamed of such journeying as she had performed that luckless day. “Good night,” and she had her hand upon the latch.

The stout Plunket stared. “Good night—why there’s work to do!”

“Wo-o-o-ork,” said Henrietta. And Nancy too, shrieked out the little word.

“Of course—take my hat,” said Plunket.

Nancy took the hat immediately, but she privately shot it into a corner. Lionel also held out his hat to Henrietta, but he seemed to do so rather because it brought him near her, than as the act of her legal master for twelve months, less one day. Henrietta took it, and knowing no more what to do with it than she had known what to do with the fast binding shilling, dropped it. But Lionel did not mark that fall—his eyes were on the new servant’s handsome face. Indeed, he was in love with her, I think.

“Work—work—work,” said Plunket.

“But I’m shivering with cold!”

“And so am I,” said Nancy.

“Brother,” said Lionel, “brother, she’s shivering with cold, you know.”

Then Nancy committed herself to this sharp remark,

“I’m sure this house is damp!”

If anybody had told the Lady Henrietta on the previous day that she could fall asleep before two strange men of the farmer kind, she would have been justified in denying the proposition, but ’tis a fact that now she sat down, laid her head upon her hands, and was off into a nap. Whereon, it need not be said, Nancy fell asleep too, for Nancy knew her duty. Indeed, it may be said that Nancy was very considerably enjoying this comedy—in her way. However, she did not enjoy the horrid shake with which rough farmer Plunket woke her. Plunket, somehow, did not use quite so much violence in waking up Henrietta. Perhaps this was because Lionel quietly touched him on the arm. And—and perhaps the Lady Henrietta was more handsome than ever, with her eyes closed.

“Hullo—what are your names?” said rough farmer Plunket.

“Name—name,” said Henrietta, as though puzzled at that plain question. “Name, sir. Oh, I’m—I’m Martha, so please you.” And she made a bob curtsey.

“And I’m Betsy,” said Nancy, and she made a broken-backed curtsey.

“And not a bad name for a good girl is Betsy,” said farmer Plunket. “Betsy, put my cloak away.”

Which the indignant handmaiden did in the manner of the hat.

And then it was that Plunket proposed spinning. Why, neither of the girls knew a distaff from any other staff in the world. And then, surely, it would have been delightful to hear the great men direct the little women how to spin, still more delightful to see their great hands pressing the thin thread. But ah! nor one nor the other could have given the delight which the young farmer of the name of Lionel felt, when he found himself bending over the beautiful, delicate-handed servant, and actually touching those same delicate hands.

Br-r-r-r-r, br-r-r-r-r, br-r-r-r-r, went the wheels, the industrious wheels, and soon Martha was producing a highly creditable thread. Meanwhile, Nancy was making Plunket half wild, for her wheel kept flying first one way and then the other, and the flax got all manner of ways, the whole machinery looking as though in a fatal fit. Meanwhile, Martha was industriously spinning, and her young master as industriously praising her. At last Plunket got into a rage as Miss Betsy finally upset the wheel with a crash, and he was preparing to pounce upon her in the real old English middle age manner, when the spinster showed herself deft at running at least, and fled from the room, followed by Plunket, with threats of divers kinds.

As she was scudding round the door post, and looking over her shoulder, Martha looked up from her demure employment (neither she nor Lionel had heard the crash) and no longer seeing Nancy, or Betsy, behold the birr-birring of her wheel ceased, and she started up from the work-a-day, wooden seat.

“Nay, thou art not afraid.”

“Afraid—I? Of you—oh no.”

And she thought, for a farmer, he seemed very gentle; he also thought she was very superior, for a servant; and, as he was his own master, he had a right to think as he liked. Truth to tell, I think she was beginning to feel kindly towards the gentle farmer.

“So thou art not afraid of me, Martha?”

“Oh no,” she said again; still, nevertheless wishing Nancy to return.

“I promise thee, Martha, I will be a kind master—a better master thou shalt not wish for.”

“And I promise thee, master, I shall be a bad servant—a worse servant thou wilt never wish to be rid of. The honest truth and the plain truth is, I’m only fit for laughing.”

“Well, if thou canst only laugh—i’faith, laugh. Thou doest that bravely. I’ll not part with thee, Martha. I’d rather die than part with thee, Martha!”

“Sir,” said the new servant, in faint surprise. ’Twas a love-at-first-sight declaration, she knew.

“And can you sing, Martha, as well as laugh? Sing now, sing about this rose,” here he took the little blossom from her bosom.

“Give me the rose.”

“Nay, thou wilt let me keep it.”

“Give me the rose, I say.”

“But—but.”

“Nay, master, if you will keep it, keep it.”

And—she sang. The Lady Henrietta was beginning to enjoy the comedy. There was a deal of unlooked-for happiness about it, somehow.

It was at the end of this song, the honest chronicler states, that Lionel went down on his knees before the new servant, and in plain straightforward terms told her he loved her. This may appear a highly rapid mode of courtship, but reference to middle age authorities—and the authorities of Elizabeth may surely be called middle aged—will thoroughly set at rest this question in the mind of any sceptical reader, if I have to deplore such a one. I do not know the authorities by name, but that has nothing whatever to do with it.

The lady smiling a little as the impromptu lover tore away all question of inferiority of rank on her part; this latter, as see the authorities again, was for suicide and sudden death, but the perky Nancy coming into the room, followed by Plunket, the young farmer Lionel only got up off his knees.

The new servant, Nancy, it seemed, had drawn a mug of beer, but forgotten to turn the tap off, hence flight on her part and pursuit on the part of farmer Plunket, who, chasing his prey up into a sharp corner, caught a crashing box on her saucy ears.

Then it was that the village clock struck such a late hour as farmers should never hear, except on the nights of fairs.

So the candles were lit, and the new servants respectfully lighted their young masters to the door.

Then left alone, the two girls looked at each other in the blankest manner possible. Beyond a doubt the whole castle was in an uproar; everybody hunting for her, (Nancy said, “hunting for us,”) and how should she explain her absence to the scandal-mongers?

“Well,” said Nancy, “they seem brave lads and honest.”

“And respectful.”

“Hum—good rough kind of souls, my lady.”

“Yes, I wish heartily we were at home.”

“We might as well wish for the queen’s diamonds.”

And here it was both the girls started, for a very distinct tapping came at the window. They were still trembling when the tapping was renewed, and a weak old voice cried, “Cousin—cousin.”

Perhaps Lady Henrietta never heard the old lord’s voice with less dislike than now. She opened the casement herself, and Tristam jumped in as lightly as possible.

Joy! their imprisonment was at an end. But—but the lady Henrietta seemed a little sorry to go. Indeed, when she had stepped lightly through the window-case, she half hesitated, as though she would turn back; but the impetuous Nancy in a measure drove her forward, and the next moment she was galloping away from the farm on her horse’s back, kindly brought by his lordship; but—but her thoughts were at the farm.

My Lord Tristam in making his hurried exit from the people’s place, overturned a table; and barely had he reached the ground through the window, when Lionel was up and preparing to enter the room where the spinning machines stood.

He tapped at her door—no answer. Again he tapped—no answer. Then he called Plunket, who came stormily into the room, but when he heard that the servants made no answer, he was alarmed, for he felt friendly towards the troublesome Betsy, and he flung the room door open. Empty! Then—the window was open! He went to it; listened! and sure enough in the distance he, and Lionel too, heard the sound of horses’ feet, and at one and the same moment each felt a blank at his heart. Lionel fell upon a chair overwhelmed, like a youth deeply in love as he was, but stout farmer Plunket, boiling with rage, called out in a voice of thunder to his farm servants; and when these people came hurrying in, he promised a golden guinea to the two men who should catch the runaways, and he then set to work, to earn his own guinea by a search after Nancy; but he and the men did not dream of that fugitive being within the walls of “the castle,” and they passed the mighty building, and went on hunting, long after Martha, Betsy, and John were safely housed.

CHAPTER IV.

Plunket had a heart, and had perhaps been inclined to bestow it upon Nancy, for this kind of thing is catching; but the jade had flown, Plunket was not the man to go about filling the air with big sighs—he set to work, drinking beer, and plenty of it, and singing jolly songs. After all, farmer Plunket was wise. Now, on the other hand, Lionel actually went melancholy mad.

Not three days after the catastrophe, Plunket was out in the woods humming away, when he came up against—Betsy; and in quite a grand hunting costume. She was as full of presence of mind as of sauciness. She stared at the man with lazy curiosity.

In a dozen strong words he told her she was his servant, and the sheriff should decide it.

“’Tis a wild beast!” And giving the view halloo of that day, a number of huntresses were soon about him, and kept him at bay. And indeed, they quite protected Nancy, and Plunket had the worst of it.

Meanwhile, poor Lionel was wandering in this very wood, at this very time, and disconsolate as Ariadne, but not one millionth part as faithless.

It was a grand court hunting day in fact; Elizabeth Tudor had got up that morning at six to chase the deer, and one of many huntresses present was Lady Henrietta. Coming again to Lady Henrietta, I may mention that the company she had most loved since her forced visit to the farm house was her own; indeed, she too had grown melancholy, but hers was very far from such a dismal strait as Lionel’s.

Well—in one part of the forest sat on the turf Lord Tristam and Martha (let us call her Martha now and then). The thing which my lord could not comprehend was why her ladyship had left the queen’s party—the queen’s party. He could see no significance in the answer—because she wished to be alone. At last she plainly asked him to leave her, and, hardly believing the testimony of his ears, he ambled away.

And then it was that her tears went tumbling down upon the dewy grass. Oh! if no bitterer tears had ever been shed than Lady Henrietta’s what a blissful world it would have been down to that precious May morning!

And thus Lionel, ever wandering in the wood, found her.

The next scene is really so painful that I would rather shut my eyes to it; but alas, did I do so there would be such an hiatus in this true history that you might fancy the printing gentlemen engaged upon it were of the eccentric kind. So in a few short and unwilling words let me tell the cruel truth. He recognized her and she screamed. Thereupon, Lord Tristam, who, of course, was not far off, made his appearance, and with him a perfect posse. Then and there Lionel declared the lady his servant—the Lady Henrietta! So they declared he was mad, and were going to fall upon him, when she interceded for him and prayed that they would let him go. Then it was that Plunket came on the scene and recognized Martha; but little said he, smart farmer.

Suddenly, the sound of loud trumpets declared Elizabeth, Queen of England, was near at hand, and, as they finally drove Lionel back, he, poor fellow and foundling, thought of the small diamond ring which was to be so talismanic. He took it from his finger, pressed it within Plunket’s right hand, and bade him give it to the queen.

“Aye-aye, lad,” said Plunket; and meant it.

CHAPTER V.

That pleasant old farm house, once so happy, was as dull as the forest at midnight. Lionel grew more and more melancholy; and, indeed, farmer Plunket was not very cheerful, though he would not give in.

Plunket was sitting by himself one day, and waiting for somebody—whom? The Lady Henrietta herself. Her conscience was at work. So she determined to save him.

A little and farmer Plunket gave a start of relief—’twas the arrival of the lady and her maid Nancy, now no longer the saucy, for she had a kind heart, as she felt somewhat the gloomy end of the masquerade at the fair.

Well, the farmer and Nancy left the lady by herself. And then, then she sang the little song she sang when he asked her to sing on that night when Lionel brought her home as his servant.

She looked tremblingly about her as she sang on and on to the end of the verse, and then Lionel came slowly into the room.

Ah—I have forgotten to say this farmer Lionel was an earl. The dead owner of the diamond ring had been unjustly banished; years and years before his sentence was declared unjust; years and years had people wondered where the earl tarried, and now, the diamond ring placed in the queen’s hands, was the clue to the whole mystery.

I know that the coming of Lady Henrietta to the farmhouse must look interested. ’Tis a pity almost that Lionel does not remain a poor farmer; but there, the queen has the ring—his birth is recognized; and so, Martha must remain under the imputation of telling him she loved him, not for himself, but for his title. For truth to tell, she went up to him, and whispered that she loved him. But alas! he was too sunk in melancholy to feel his heart beat high at hearing those words. He turned away from her with angry pride.

But as the Lady Henrietta did not feel outraged, as she still strove to find a way of leading Lionel back to his old self, perhaps these little circumstances will be set down in favor of disinterested love on her part; and if the gentlemanly reader will remember, I have said she was very dreamy in the woods.

Well, this was the lady’s next plan: It was as old as romance. It seems if one bereft of sense is brought into a scene similar to one which gave him great happiness, the effect may be so great as to restore him to consciousness. And as the Lady Henrietta knew ’twas a happy hour for Lionel when he engaged her as a servant, she determined to have a mock statute fair, sheriff and all, in her park.

I am always so eager to tell good news that I cannot stand dallying with the trumpet in my hand; and having told it, I frequently find I am at a loss what to say, in continuation, which is a disconcerting drawback. Yet nevertheless, though I could make a fine scene here by borrowing from the chronicle, I prefer at once to say that there never was such a success as this imitation statute fair—for Lionel came to his loving senses and took Martha to his very heart.

And—now, I do not know what to say next! I have told all my news—I am at a standstill!

What can come next?

Oh! of course. They were married, and lived happy ever afterwards. ’Tis just like the end of a comic opera.

And stout farmer Plunket was married to Nancy. She made the best of wives, says the old chronicle with a concluding flourish.

THE END.