Chapter Six.

Chapter Six.The Captured City.“Where bells make Catholic the trembling air.”Royal prince though he was, Fernando had never slept under such embroidered coverlets, nor seen such hangings of gold and silver, such carving and fretwork, as met his waking eyes in the dawn of the new day. The horseshoe arch of the window framed a piece of deep blue sky, against which a gilded dome, surmounted by a crescent, glittered in the morning sun.Fernando sat upright and devoutly crossed himself, with a thrill of joy, as he thought how soon that symbol of evil would give place to the golden cross brought with them so carefully from Lisbon for the purpose. Presently he became aware that Enrique, still fully dressed but with the heavier parts of his armour removed, was lying asleep near the window, his long limbs extended on a coverlet of pink and silver, as if he had thrown himself down, wearied with his day of fighting. As Fernando looked round the room he heard an extraordinary chattering and screaming, a noise quite unknown to him, and, not having any confidence in the character of his surroundings, he began to feel frightened. What powers of evil might not lurk amid those unnatural splendours! Joao was in the next room, and Enrique slept through the increasing clatter, which actually sounded like spoken words in an unknown tongue; and yes, a peal of horrible mocking laughter apparently just over his head.Fernando could bear it no longer. He jumped up and seized his brother’s arm.“Enrique—Enrique, wake up! I think the foul fiend is in this room?”“Fernando, hark! there is some Moorish devilry here!” and Joao, looking quite pale with alarm, peeped out of the inside chamber, then fled to Enrique as a refuge. The latter awoke, considerably surprised to feel his little brothers pulling at each arm, and as they had considered it their duty, as soldiers in war-time, to go to bed in their clothes, with their long hair rumpled and their dress disordered, they presented rather a startling aspect.“What ails you both?” cried Enrique.“Enrique, listen! it is certainly the devil.”Enrique sat up and looked round, and presently began to laugh heartily himself. “There are your foul fiends,” he said, painting to some carving over the window, where were perched two huge green and scarlet birds with hooked bills, the like of which the boys had never seen before.“Are they birds?” said Joao, slowly.“Yes, they are parrots,” said Enrique. “Once, when I went to the Court of Castile, I saw such a one that the King of Granada had sent as a present to my aunt Catalina. Moreover I have read of them in the writings of the ancients. They were sent formerly from Africa to Rome, and these are doubtless favourites of the ladies of this house. For I suspect we are in the ladies’ chamber.”“But it is wonderful—they laugh,” said Joao.“Ay, and speak, though not in our tongue. There are wonderful things in the world that we know not of.”“Well,” said Joao, “since no one can tellwhatthere may be in these Infidel places,Icame to take care of Fernando.”“Indeed,” said Enrique; “I thought you woke me to take care of you. However ’tis small blame to you to have been puzzled.”Joao, not finding an answer ready, applied himself to trying to catch the parrots, and pursued them on to the balcony, while Enrique looked thoughtfully and curiously round the strange scene which he had entered in the dark two or three hours before. Presently he looked at Fernando, and smiled.“So,” he said, “Ceuta, praise be to God, is ours, fortress and all, for Zala-ben-Zala fled in the night, and before I came here Duarte and Pedro were there in command. It was your words, Fernando, that set us on this track.”Fernando blushed deeply. “Enrique,” he said, “I am not a good Christian, and I shall never be like the holy martyrs.”“Why not!” said Enrique. “I do not wonder that the chattering parrot frightened you.”“No; but I thought I would do anything in the world to win Ceuta to be a Christian city, and the day our mother was buried, while we knelt in the abbey at Batalha, I made a vow that I would give up my life to convert the Infidel, to win the world back to holy Church.”“I think,” said Enrique, “that you are too young to make vows save with your confessor’s permission, or what holy Church ordains for you.”“That is what Father José said, when I told him what I had done. He bade me prepare myself by prayer and obedience for whatever life God might send me. But I did make the vow, Enrique, and I shall keep it. I thought—and this is what I want to tell you—that it would be quite easy, for I thought I cared more about it than about anything in the world.”“Well,” said Enrique, as Fernando paused, faltering, but with his great ardent eyes fixed on his brother, “surely it is not now in the hour of triumph that you change your mind?”“No; but dear Enrique, when I thought you dead, I did not care at all about Ceuta: I would have given it back to save you! Was that wrong?”How little Enrique thought, as he listened with tender indulgence to his little brother’s troubled conscience, with what awful force that question would one day ring in his own ears. Now he put it aside.“If we were fighting side by side, Fernando, we should not hold each other back; but if it were easy to imitate the holy martyrs, they would the less have deserved their crowns. If we would seek any object earnestly, we most count the cost. But it was ill-managed that you should have had such an alarm. Never heed it. I am safe, and Ceutaisours, andwillbe a Christian city soon. And now I must go to make all due arrangements; for we must confess our sins and prepare ourselves for the knighthood that is to come at last.”Fernando looked after him with admiring envy, as he pictured to himself a future day, when he and Joao should head such another expedition, and be themselves the heroes of it. But all vain-glorious thoughts received a rebuke when he heard Duarte and Pedro petition their father, that since Enrique had certainly distinguished himself the most in the attack, he might receive the honour of knighthoodfirst, before his elder brothers.The King replied that he owed so much to his son Enrique, that he was willing to grant this request; but Enrique refused, saying that the rights of seniority should be respected; he would rather be knighted in his turn after his brothers.So the next morning beheld a wonderful and glorious sight. Over the fortress of Ceuta hung the Portuguese colours; instead of the Crescent on the great mosque was to be seen a golden Cross. Within all traces of the Mohammedan ritual had been swept away, an altar which, with all its furniture, had been brought from Lisbon, was erected, and instead of the turbans and the bare feet of the Mussulman worshippers were the clanking spurs and uncovered heads of the Christians; while, most wonderful of all, the sweet peal of Catholic bells for the first time woke the echoes of the Moorish city. (A fact.) For the conquerors had actually discovered, stowed away in the mosque, a peal of imprisoned bells, doubtless carried off from some sea-side church by the pirates of Ceuta.Then after high Mass had been duly performed, with all the ceremony possible under the circumstances, one by one, Duarte, Pedro, and Enrique stepped forward, and were knighted by their father before the altar of the new Christian church. Nobly had their desire been fulfilled; they had proved their courage, and in a noble cause.All this time bands of Moorish people were pouring unmolested out of the gates of the city, great numbers choosing rather to go than to stay; and in the darkness, when the gates were closed, they came back and beat wildly against them with outcries of anguish and despair.“Oh, why will not they stay and become Christians?” cried Fernando, bursting into tears, as he listened to their lamentations.“That is not to be expected,” said Enrique; “but now we have drawn their fangs for them. More than half their detestable privateers sailed from this port. It is in our hands, and we can penetrate into the unknown world beyond, and from hence send out missionaries among the people. That is what I mean to do.”“All is not gained by the taking of Ceuta,” said Fernando, dreamily.“No,” returned Enrique, “we cannot gain in a day objects which need the devotion of our lives.”

“Where bells make Catholic the trembling air.”

“Where bells make Catholic the trembling air.”

Royal prince though he was, Fernando had never slept under such embroidered coverlets, nor seen such hangings of gold and silver, such carving and fretwork, as met his waking eyes in the dawn of the new day. The horseshoe arch of the window framed a piece of deep blue sky, against which a gilded dome, surmounted by a crescent, glittered in the morning sun.

Fernando sat upright and devoutly crossed himself, with a thrill of joy, as he thought how soon that symbol of evil would give place to the golden cross brought with them so carefully from Lisbon for the purpose. Presently he became aware that Enrique, still fully dressed but with the heavier parts of his armour removed, was lying asleep near the window, his long limbs extended on a coverlet of pink and silver, as if he had thrown himself down, wearied with his day of fighting. As Fernando looked round the room he heard an extraordinary chattering and screaming, a noise quite unknown to him, and, not having any confidence in the character of his surroundings, he began to feel frightened. What powers of evil might not lurk amid those unnatural splendours! Joao was in the next room, and Enrique slept through the increasing clatter, which actually sounded like spoken words in an unknown tongue; and yes, a peal of horrible mocking laughter apparently just over his head.

Fernando could bear it no longer. He jumped up and seized his brother’s arm.

“Enrique—Enrique, wake up! I think the foul fiend is in this room?”

“Fernando, hark! there is some Moorish devilry here!” and Joao, looking quite pale with alarm, peeped out of the inside chamber, then fled to Enrique as a refuge. The latter awoke, considerably surprised to feel his little brothers pulling at each arm, and as they had considered it their duty, as soldiers in war-time, to go to bed in their clothes, with their long hair rumpled and their dress disordered, they presented rather a startling aspect.

“What ails you both?” cried Enrique.

“Enrique, listen! it is certainly the devil.”

Enrique sat up and looked round, and presently began to laugh heartily himself. “There are your foul fiends,” he said, painting to some carving over the window, where were perched two huge green and scarlet birds with hooked bills, the like of which the boys had never seen before.

“Are they birds?” said Joao, slowly.

“Yes, they are parrots,” said Enrique. “Once, when I went to the Court of Castile, I saw such a one that the King of Granada had sent as a present to my aunt Catalina. Moreover I have read of them in the writings of the ancients. They were sent formerly from Africa to Rome, and these are doubtless favourites of the ladies of this house. For I suspect we are in the ladies’ chamber.”

“But it is wonderful—they laugh,” said Joao.

“Ay, and speak, though not in our tongue. There are wonderful things in the world that we know not of.”

“Well,” said Joao, “since no one can tellwhatthere may be in these Infidel places,Icame to take care of Fernando.”

“Indeed,” said Enrique; “I thought you woke me to take care of you. However ’tis small blame to you to have been puzzled.”

Joao, not finding an answer ready, applied himself to trying to catch the parrots, and pursued them on to the balcony, while Enrique looked thoughtfully and curiously round the strange scene which he had entered in the dark two or three hours before. Presently he looked at Fernando, and smiled.

“So,” he said, “Ceuta, praise be to God, is ours, fortress and all, for Zala-ben-Zala fled in the night, and before I came here Duarte and Pedro were there in command. It was your words, Fernando, that set us on this track.”

Fernando blushed deeply. “Enrique,” he said, “I am not a good Christian, and I shall never be like the holy martyrs.”

“Why not!” said Enrique. “I do not wonder that the chattering parrot frightened you.”

“No; but I thought I would do anything in the world to win Ceuta to be a Christian city, and the day our mother was buried, while we knelt in the abbey at Batalha, I made a vow that I would give up my life to convert the Infidel, to win the world back to holy Church.”

“I think,” said Enrique, “that you are too young to make vows save with your confessor’s permission, or what holy Church ordains for you.”

“That is what Father José said, when I told him what I had done. He bade me prepare myself by prayer and obedience for whatever life God might send me. But I did make the vow, Enrique, and I shall keep it. I thought—and this is what I want to tell you—that it would be quite easy, for I thought I cared more about it than about anything in the world.”

“Well,” said Enrique, as Fernando paused, faltering, but with his great ardent eyes fixed on his brother, “surely it is not now in the hour of triumph that you change your mind?”

“No; but dear Enrique, when I thought you dead, I did not care at all about Ceuta: I would have given it back to save you! Was that wrong?”

How little Enrique thought, as he listened with tender indulgence to his little brother’s troubled conscience, with what awful force that question would one day ring in his own ears. Now he put it aside.

“If we were fighting side by side, Fernando, we should not hold each other back; but if it were easy to imitate the holy martyrs, they would the less have deserved their crowns. If we would seek any object earnestly, we most count the cost. But it was ill-managed that you should have had such an alarm. Never heed it. I am safe, and Ceutaisours, andwillbe a Christian city soon. And now I must go to make all due arrangements; for we must confess our sins and prepare ourselves for the knighthood that is to come at last.”

Fernando looked after him with admiring envy, as he pictured to himself a future day, when he and Joao should head such another expedition, and be themselves the heroes of it. But all vain-glorious thoughts received a rebuke when he heard Duarte and Pedro petition their father, that since Enrique had certainly distinguished himself the most in the attack, he might receive the honour of knighthoodfirst, before his elder brothers.

The King replied that he owed so much to his son Enrique, that he was willing to grant this request; but Enrique refused, saying that the rights of seniority should be respected; he would rather be knighted in his turn after his brothers.

So the next morning beheld a wonderful and glorious sight. Over the fortress of Ceuta hung the Portuguese colours; instead of the Crescent on the great mosque was to be seen a golden Cross. Within all traces of the Mohammedan ritual had been swept away, an altar which, with all its furniture, had been brought from Lisbon, was erected, and instead of the turbans and the bare feet of the Mussulman worshippers were the clanking spurs and uncovered heads of the Christians; while, most wonderful of all, the sweet peal of Catholic bells for the first time woke the echoes of the Moorish city. (A fact.) For the conquerors had actually discovered, stowed away in the mosque, a peal of imprisoned bells, doubtless carried off from some sea-side church by the pirates of Ceuta.

Then after high Mass had been duly performed, with all the ceremony possible under the circumstances, one by one, Duarte, Pedro, and Enrique stepped forward, and were knighted by their father before the altar of the new Christian church. Nobly had their desire been fulfilled; they had proved their courage, and in a noble cause.

All this time bands of Moorish people were pouring unmolested out of the gates of the city, great numbers choosing rather to go than to stay; and in the darkness, when the gates were closed, they came back and beat wildly against them with outcries of anguish and despair.

“Oh, why will not they stay and become Christians?” cried Fernando, bursting into tears, as he listened to their lamentations.

“That is not to be expected,” said Enrique; “but now we have drawn their fangs for them. More than half their detestable privateers sailed from this port. It is in our hands, and we can penetrate into the unknown world beyond, and from hence send out missionaries among the people. That is what I mean to do.”

“All is not gained by the taking of Ceuta,” said Fernando, dreamily.

“No,” returned Enrique, “we cannot gain in a day objects which need the devotion of our lives.”

Chapter Seven.The Twin Sisters.“Against injustice, fraud, or wrong,His blood beat high, his hand waxed strong.”Twelve or thirteen years after the taking of Ceuta a little group was assembled in the central court of a handsome house in Lisbon. This open space was indeed the summer sitting-room of the family; the sleeping apartments and the great entrance hall opened into it. Large orange, citron, and pomegranate-trees, were ranged round the marble pavement, and filled the air with their fragrance, while in the centre was a little fountain falling into a carved basin. An awning was palled across the top to exclude the sun, and a few seats and coaches were arranged round the fountain. On one of these sat a tall man in the prime of life dressed in deep mourning. Several women, one prepared for a journey, were standing near, and also a couple of men-servants. In front of the gentleman, hand-in-hand stood two little girls of seven or eight years old. They were dressed in black, with little black hoods tied over their light-brown hair, which hang down in long curls beneath; they had fair, rosy faces and large grey eyes, out of which they were staring with an expression of alarmed solemnity. Poor little things! They were as merry-hearted a pair as ever made home cheerful, by chatter and laughter and pattering feet; but life looked very serious to them then, for they were about to be sent away from home, their mother’s recent death having left them with no efficient female protector.The gay young Walter Northberry, who had been attached to Dom Enrique’s suite at the time of the taking of Ceuta, had some time after married Mistress Eleanor Norbury, a lady whose father, like his own, had followed Queen Philippa from England; and on her death he had resolved on sending her little twin daughters to be educated by his English relations. His own habits were not such as made it easy for him to bring up his little girls at home, and he was jealous enough of their nationality not to wish to send them to any of the Lisbon convents, where all their training must have been Portuguese. So having received affectionate offers from his brother, who represented the old family in England, the little maidens were to be sent under fitting escort to Northberry Manor House, in Devonshire. Communications were frequent between the two countries, and there was no difficulty in arranging for their journey.“Well, Kate and Nell,” the father said, “it’s a hard matter to part with you after all, my pretty blossoms. Be good maids, and obey your aunt, and soon, maybe, I’ll come and see you, and my father’s country too.”“We want to stay at home,” said Nell, with a pout, and with a tone of decision.“Father, keep us?” said Kate more softly, with her big eyes full.“No, no, my pretty ones,” said Walter Northberry, wiping his own eyes; “’tis a fine place you are going to see; come along.”He held out his arms, and the two little black-frocked things sprang into them, clinging round his neck and crying.“Come—come. Is the litter ready, else I shall be too late to get you aboard Dom Manuel’s ship? But hark! who comes? ’Tis my lord the Infante himself.”Sir Walter set down his daughters, who retreated, hand-in-hand, under a great orange-tree; while their father rose and went to the door, as he heard horses stopping without. In a few moments he returned, accompanied by a tall, slender young man, dressed in black velvet, with a red cross on his breast. Fernando of Avis, as he was called, since, like his father, he was Grand-Master of the Order of Avis, had led, during the twelve years since the taking of Ceuta, neither an idle nor a useless life, but his boyish ambition was still unsatisfied; he had struck no blow against the Infidel power, led no armies to battle, and won no triumphs. His health had always been so delicate, and he was subject to such long attacks of illness, that it was only at intervals that he could indulge in his taste for military towards which, however, his natural impulse was so strong that he had no inconsiderable skill in riding, fencing, and tilting. The delicate Fernando was more essentially a soldier than any of his powerful brothers; he longed with a more ardent desire for knightly glory—a longing hitherto perforce suppressed; but it was for glory to be won by that chivalrous self sacrifice which formed the ideal of the Middle Ages, however seldom it was put in practice. And Fernando’s dreams were of personal distinction only in one cause—the cause of the Church; he had therefore gladly accepted the control of one of these military orders which, somewhat similar in character to the Knights Templar, were so common in Spain and Portugal. The vows of these orders pledged their members to the most perfect devotion and purity of life. They did not always preclude marriage; and where celibacy was their rule, dispensations were obtainable, as in the case of King Joao himself; and their great revenues formed an ample provision for princes of the blood, and were applied by Dom Enrique—who was head of the Order of Christ; Dom Joao, who was Master of that of Saint James; and by Dom Fernando himself—to many useful and charitable ends.Fernando was thus pledged to the life of a soldier-saint. He could not be a soldier, and with the discontent of his ambitious and ardent nature he daily felt himself still less of a saint. But those who watched his deep religious fervour, his constant self-denials, and his untiring patience, thought differently; still more those who felt his kindly charity and his unfailing sweetness of temper and warmth of heart. He still possessed the fair colouring regular features of his English cousins, but his blue Plantagenet eyes had a softened, wistfulness as of unsatisfied desires.He had always shown marked friendship to Sir Walter Northberry, and was fond of the little twin maidens, to whom he would bring toys and comfits.“You are better, I trust, my lord, as I see you abroad,” said Northberry.“Thanks, Sir Walter—yes, I am better, and I came to bring a parting gift to the children. Here, Mistress Eleanor and Mistress Kate—are not those the English titles?—come here and choose.”He held out two little jewelled copies of the cross of his order as he spoke, and the little girls approached him, well pleased; but Eleanor said—“We are Leonor and Catalina. I will not kiss any one who calls me Eleanor.”“Fie, little one!” said her father; “it would become you better to ask my lord for his blessing on your journey.”“If I could help it I would not go,” said Leonor; while the gentler Catalina was silent, and softly stroked the fur trimming of Fernando’s mantle.“See, now,” he said, coaxingly, “my brother Dom Pedro has been in this terrible England, and he liked it well. Why, the little King Harry is my cousin, and he has made my brother Knight of the Order of the Garter. We have all cousins in England.” Leonor appeared somewhat consoled.“And besides, do you not know,” said the Prince more gravely, “that wherever God may send us, He will be with us—ay, in a desert or a dungeon? Then surely in a strange country, where He will send you kind friends.”Catalina looked at him with eyes of deep earnestness. Nell said frankly, “My lord Dom Pedro has come safe home again.”“Yes, little one, and soon we shall see his marriage with Doña Blanca of Urgel. My brother Dom Pedro has been a great traveller. He tells us wonderful things. You, my little maidens, will see some of them.”By this cheerful view of the subject, Eleanor—or, as her mother had loved to call her by an English name soft enough for Portuguese lips, Nella—and Catalina were lifted into their litter in much better spirits than might have been expected, and, accompanied by their nurse and by two stout soldiers belonging to Northberry’s household, were put on board the ship bound for England; while their father, thus set free from fears for their welfare, turned his attention to the military matters in which he excelled.It was the eve of the Duke of Coimbra’s wedding to Doña Blanca of Urgel, and once again the five princes were gathered in the little marble court under the orange-trees, as when, long ago, they had discussed the question of how their knighthood might best be won. Well and fully had they all answered that question; and long as had been the separations which the work of life had made between them, the bond that united the eager lads was no way loosened between the grown men who had held so staunchly to the high aims of their boyhood.Fernando was resting on some cushions placed on the broad shallow steps, and close by him sat Enrique. Long ago Fernando had learnt that his life could not be passed side by side with this most dear brother, but the intervals that they passed together were his happiest hours, much as he owed to the more constant and as tender companionship of Duarte, whose duties kept him more continually in Lisbon. But Duarte only tried to make life easy to Fernando, regarding him as one to be shielded from every vexation. Enrique alone of all the brothers sympathised with his longing for the struggle of active work. Joao had grown into a stern, resolute person, of great courage and decision of character; but Pedro, as he looked at his brothers almost with a stranger’s eye, thought that none of them equalled the majestic dignity of Enrique’s grave, ardent countenance, and great strength and size. Pedro was himself a very splendid figure, the gay attire proper to a bridegroom elect contrasting with the grave semi-religious habits of the three grand-masters. Enrique and Joao had come to Lisbon for the wedding, and this was the first meeting of the five.“And among all these adventures and these foreign scenes, brother,” said Duarte, “what has struck you most with admiration? What is there to be learnt for the good of our country?”“Much,” said Dom Pedro, “that I hope to tell my father at leisure. And, Enrique, in the great naval cities of Venice and Genoa, I saw much that I hope may be applied for the good of your sailors. But I saw no one who, to my mind, equalled our cousin King Harry, now alas! taken from his kingdom: God rest his soul! I felt that he was of our kin, for he had our blessed mother’s face, whom I think Fernando favours most of us all. And a king more beloved was never lost to his people; nor a more winning friend and kinsman.”“It is indeed grievous,” said Duarte, “to think of two great kingdoms—France and England—left thus to a helpless child.”“If our cousin had lived to fulfil his purpose of proclaiming a general crusade, we might have seen great results,” said Enrique.“The conquest of France stood in his path,” said Joao.“Ah,” said Fernando, “that was a glorious purpose—for all the princes of Europe to lay aside their selfish quarrels, and purified by one great aim, to unite in winning back the Holy Sepulchre! Where would then be room for ambition and intrigue?”“In former crusades there was a good share of both. You are a dreamer, Fernando,” said Joao.“Nay,” said Enrique, “Fernando is right. There is no purification like a high purpose; but we must pursue it in the teeth of intrigue and ambition; it will not sweep them away.”“True, for they spring from the selfish desires of the heart,” said Pedro, rather sententiously.“We are not all free,” said Duarte thoughtfully, “to devote our lives tooneaim, be it ever so high: for our duties are many. And so it was, I suppose, with our cousin King Harry.”“Nay, the golden lilies had a tempting flash,” said Joao, laughing.“Well, and I will not say, having seen much of good and ill government, that to pacify the unhappy kingdom of France was not as good an aim as any. But how is it with your purposes, Enrique? I half feared to find you bound for some savage island in the midst of the sea of darkness.”“No,” said Enrique; “but there is light in the darkness now. Come with me to Sagres so soon as our fair bride can spare you, and see the observatory I have built—the calculations that I have made. This is a much wider world than our fathers thought, Pedro, and one day there shall be known Christian lands which the Mussulman has never polluted; and where the simple natives will know no faith but that of Christ.”“There are other dreamers here besides Fernando,” said Pedro, with a smile.“No,” cried Enrique, eagerly; “it is no dream. I will show you grapes grown in our new found island, such as Spain cannot beat, and the inhabitants listen willingly to Christian teaching. If I can but perfect our compasses and other instruments, we can penetrate the sea still further—already have we reached the African coast—and then a Christian kingdom behind Barbary and Morocco, and Christian lands to the far west. Look you, Pedro,” and Enrique sprang up and came over to him, laying both hands on Pedro’s shoulders, and looking in his face, “your mathematics were used to be more perfect than mine. You must come to Sagres and help me.”“Willingly,” said Pedro; “you shall explain your problems to me.”“I owe much to Duarte,” said Enrique, “in such matters; and he has studied so thoroughly the courses of the heavens, and can so well judge of fair or foul weather, he should have been a sailor born. Then I purpose to bring some of my natives hither, that they may return to their own country good Christians and civilised men. They trust my sailors as if they were messengers from Heaven. See what a power it is for good. Whole islands—nay, Pedro, I sometimes think whole continents, may owe to us their salvation.”So spoke the great Enrique of Avis, in the young days of the modern world, he who was at once a great soldier and a devoted son of the Church, the priestly knight of the Middle Ages, who helped the new learning many miles on her way, to whom astronomy and physical science began to open their treasures; while in his breast burnt the same fire of adventure, the same longing for discovery, that in our day has penetrated Arctic seas and African deserts, fulfilling the command to replenish the earth and subdue it. But, prince though he was, Enrique met with scant sympathy beyond the limits of his family, in designs which the world had not yet learnt to understand. And little did he dream of how much misery Christian men would bring to those unknown lands, after which his heart hungered; or that his earnest desire to bring his islanders to a sight of the blessings of Christianity should be quoted as a precedent and justification for all the horrors of the slave trade.Pedro had enough of the same power to understand his efforts, and he was beginning a sympathetic reply, when one of Fernando’s attendants came towards them telling him that Sir Walter Northberry desired to speak with him.“Ask him to come hither,” said Fernando; and even as he spoke, Northberry, with a pale and disturbed countenance, came hurriedly towards the brothers.“Alas! my lord!” he said, with a hasty reverence, “I have the worst of ill news. I am a miserable man. The ship in which my little daughters sailed him been attacked by Moorish pirates. There was a vessel bound from France to Lisbon came to the rescue, and beat them off; but oh, the saints pity us! the cursed villains carried with them my little Kate. Woe’s me that ever I let them go.”Northberry covered his face with his hands, unable to repress his despairing grief; while the princes pressed round him, full of sympathy and indignation.Fernando took his hand, and drew him to a seat, saying eagerly—“Everything is at your command. What can be done? Have you any due?”“Surely,” said Duarte, “a sufficient ransom will open the prison gates.”“Horrible degradation!” cried Enrique and Fernando in a breath.“As to that, my good lords,” said Northberry, “I care not for degradation, if I can but get my poor little maid back. Better tempest and shipwreck. But this French vessel that brought me the news said that the attack was made at night by a superior force, and that they were gone in the morning beyond pursuit. So Dom Manuel sent the wretched news back, and sailed as fast as might be for England, lest Nella should share her sister’s fate. Alas! alas!”“Andthis!” cried Fernando, with flashing eyes, “thisis what we suffer on our shores—we! princes, knights, Christians—shame—shame upon us! Better spend the last coin in our treasury—shed the last drop of our blood—better die among nations, lose all—everything—than have it so! What! we hold our kingdom undisturbed by a false peace with friends such as these! Let it go, but let us drive them from Portuguese waters—from Christian soil. I will endure it no longer; I will do it single-handed.”Fernando stood with lifted hand and face on fire, long suppressed passion giving startling effect to his words; but suddenly his face paled and he dropped back on his seat.“I—I can do nothing,” he said, in a voice of inexpressible melancholy.Enrique leaned over him, and put his arm round him, as if he had been still the little brother, whose excitement he had soothed so often in early years.“Everything in our power shall be done, good Sir Walter,” said Duarte, earnestly.“Indeed, my lord, I doubt it not,” said Northberry. “I am sorry so to grieve Dom Fernando.”Fernando looked up.“Duarte, I meant to reproach no one,” he said, humbly. “My friend, I can do little for you, or any one, but pray; I will go and do that.”“My lord,” said Sir Walter, kissing his hand, “such prayers as yours must be answered.”Fernando shook his head sadly. He blamed himself for the outburst of feeling which had seemed to reproach his brothers for failing in a duty which he could not even attempt, and for long hours that night he knelt in his private chapel, and prayed that at whatever cost to himself the power of the Moor might be lessened and the little captive restored unharmed to her friends.Fernando often pursued his devotions at risk to his own health, the care of which did not present itself to him as a duty in the way it would now to an equally conscientious person; and perhaps, had his austerities been fewer, he would have been better able to follow the wish of his heart. But he followed the light given him, and his prayers in due time bore fruit. But not immediately; no tidings of Katharine Northberry came to Lisbon; the sorrow narrowed itself to one sore spot in her father’s heart, while a long and dangerous attack of illness for Fernando followed close on Dom Pedro’s wedding.Enrique put aside his pressing schemes to stay with him and to nurse him, and as he grew better to understand the deep desire of Fernando’s heart, he resolved that before every other object he would devote himself to carry it out.

“Against injustice, fraud, or wrong,His blood beat high, his hand waxed strong.”

“Against injustice, fraud, or wrong,His blood beat high, his hand waxed strong.”

Twelve or thirteen years after the taking of Ceuta a little group was assembled in the central court of a handsome house in Lisbon. This open space was indeed the summer sitting-room of the family; the sleeping apartments and the great entrance hall opened into it. Large orange, citron, and pomegranate-trees, were ranged round the marble pavement, and filled the air with their fragrance, while in the centre was a little fountain falling into a carved basin. An awning was palled across the top to exclude the sun, and a few seats and coaches were arranged round the fountain. On one of these sat a tall man in the prime of life dressed in deep mourning. Several women, one prepared for a journey, were standing near, and also a couple of men-servants. In front of the gentleman, hand-in-hand stood two little girls of seven or eight years old. They were dressed in black, with little black hoods tied over their light-brown hair, which hang down in long curls beneath; they had fair, rosy faces and large grey eyes, out of which they were staring with an expression of alarmed solemnity. Poor little things! They were as merry-hearted a pair as ever made home cheerful, by chatter and laughter and pattering feet; but life looked very serious to them then, for they were about to be sent away from home, their mother’s recent death having left them with no efficient female protector.

The gay young Walter Northberry, who had been attached to Dom Enrique’s suite at the time of the taking of Ceuta, had some time after married Mistress Eleanor Norbury, a lady whose father, like his own, had followed Queen Philippa from England; and on her death he had resolved on sending her little twin daughters to be educated by his English relations. His own habits were not such as made it easy for him to bring up his little girls at home, and he was jealous enough of their nationality not to wish to send them to any of the Lisbon convents, where all their training must have been Portuguese. So having received affectionate offers from his brother, who represented the old family in England, the little maidens were to be sent under fitting escort to Northberry Manor House, in Devonshire. Communications were frequent between the two countries, and there was no difficulty in arranging for their journey.

“Well, Kate and Nell,” the father said, “it’s a hard matter to part with you after all, my pretty blossoms. Be good maids, and obey your aunt, and soon, maybe, I’ll come and see you, and my father’s country too.”

“We want to stay at home,” said Nell, with a pout, and with a tone of decision.

“Father, keep us?” said Kate more softly, with her big eyes full.

“No, no, my pretty ones,” said Walter Northberry, wiping his own eyes; “’tis a fine place you are going to see; come along.”

He held out his arms, and the two little black-frocked things sprang into them, clinging round his neck and crying.

“Come—come. Is the litter ready, else I shall be too late to get you aboard Dom Manuel’s ship? But hark! who comes? ’Tis my lord the Infante himself.”

Sir Walter set down his daughters, who retreated, hand-in-hand, under a great orange-tree; while their father rose and went to the door, as he heard horses stopping without. In a few moments he returned, accompanied by a tall, slender young man, dressed in black velvet, with a red cross on his breast. Fernando of Avis, as he was called, since, like his father, he was Grand-Master of the Order of Avis, had led, during the twelve years since the taking of Ceuta, neither an idle nor a useless life, but his boyish ambition was still unsatisfied; he had struck no blow against the Infidel power, led no armies to battle, and won no triumphs. His health had always been so delicate, and he was subject to such long attacks of illness, that it was only at intervals that he could indulge in his taste for military towards which, however, his natural impulse was so strong that he had no inconsiderable skill in riding, fencing, and tilting. The delicate Fernando was more essentially a soldier than any of his powerful brothers; he longed with a more ardent desire for knightly glory—a longing hitherto perforce suppressed; but it was for glory to be won by that chivalrous self sacrifice which formed the ideal of the Middle Ages, however seldom it was put in practice. And Fernando’s dreams were of personal distinction only in one cause—the cause of the Church; he had therefore gladly accepted the control of one of these military orders which, somewhat similar in character to the Knights Templar, were so common in Spain and Portugal. The vows of these orders pledged their members to the most perfect devotion and purity of life. They did not always preclude marriage; and where celibacy was their rule, dispensations were obtainable, as in the case of King Joao himself; and their great revenues formed an ample provision for princes of the blood, and were applied by Dom Enrique—who was head of the Order of Christ; Dom Joao, who was Master of that of Saint James; and by Dom Fernando himself—to many useful and charitable ends.

Fernando was thus pledged to the life of a soldier-saint. He could not be a soldier, and with the discontent of his ambitious and ardent nature he daily felt himself still less of a saint. But those who watched his deep religious fervour, his constant self-denials, and his untiring patience, thought differently; still more those who felt his kindly charity and his unfailing sweetness of temper and warmth of heart. He still possessed the fair colouring regular features of his English cousins, but his blue Plantagenet eyes had a softened, wistfulness as of unsatisfied desires.

He had always shown marked friendship to Sir Walter Northberry, and was fond of the little twin maidens, to whom he would bring toys and comfits.

“You are better, I trust, my lord, as I see you abroad,” said Northberry.

“Thanks, Sir Walter—yes, I am better, and I came to bring a parting gift to the children. Here, Mistress Eleanor and Mistress Kate—are not those the English titles?—come here and choose.”

He held out two little jewelled copies of the cross of his order as he spoke, and the little girls approached him, well pleased; but Eleanor said—

“We are Leonor and Catalina. I will not kiss any one who calls me Eleanor.”

“Fie, little one!” said her father; “it would become you better to ask my lord for his blessing on your journey.”

“If I could help it I would not go,” said Leonor; while the gentler Catalina was silent, and softly stroked the fur trimming of Fernando’s mantle.

“See, now,” he said, coaxingly, “my brother Dom Pedro has been in this terrible England, and he liked it well. Why, the little King Harry is my cousin, and he has made my brother Knight of the Order of the Garter. We have all cousins in England.” Leonor appeared somewhat consoled.

“And besides, do you not know,” said the Prince more gravely, “that wherever God may send us, He will be with us—ay, in a desert or a dungeon? Then surely in a strange country, where He will send you kind friends.”

Catalina looked at him with eyes of deep earnestness. Nell said frankly, “My lord Dom Pedro has come safe home again.”

“Yes, little one, and soon we shall see his marriage with Doña Blanca of Urgel. My brother Dom Pedro has been a great traveller. He tells us wonderful things. You, my little maidens, will see some of them.”

By this cheerful view of the subject, Eleanor—or, as her mother had loved to call her by an English name soft enough for Portuguese lips, Nella—and Catalina were lifted into their litter in much better spirits than might have been expected, and, accompanied by their nurse and by two stout soldiers belonging to Northberry’s household, were put on board the ship bound for England; while their father, thus set free from fears for their welfare, turned his attention to the military matters in which he excelled.

It was the eve of the Duke of Coimbra’s wedding to Doña Blanca of Urgel, and once again the five princes were gathered in the little marble court under the orange-trees, as when, long ago, they had discussed the question of how their knighthood might best be won. Well and fully had they all answered that question; and long as had been the separations which the work of life had made between them, the bond that united the eager lads was no way loosened between the grown men who had held so staunchly to the high aims of their boyhood.

Fernando was resting on some cushions placed on the broad shallow steps, and close by him sat Enrique. Long ago Fernando had learnt that his life could not be passed side by side with this most dear brother, but the intervals that they passed together were his happiest hours, much as he owed to the more constant and as tender companionship of Duarte, whose duties kept him more continually in Lisbon. But Duarte only tried to make life easy to Fernando, regarding him as one to be shielded from every vexation. Enrique alone of all the brothers sympathised with his longing for the struggle of active work. Joao had grown into a stern, resolute person, of great courage and decision of character; but Pedro, as he looked at his brothers almost with a stranger’s eye, thought that none of them equalled the majestic dignity of Enrique’s grave, ardent countenance, and great strength and size. Pedro was himself a very splendid figure, the gay attire proper to a bridegroom elect contrasting with the grave semi-religious habits of the three grand-masters. Enrique and Joao had come to Lisbon for the wedding, and this was the first meeting of the five.

“And among all these adventures and these foreign scenes, brother,” said Duarte, “what has struck you most with admiration? What is there to be learnt for the good of our country?”

“Much,” said Dom Pedro, “that I hope to tell my father at leisure. And, Enrique, in the great naval cities of Venice and Genoa, I saw much that I hope may be applied for the good of your sailors. But I saw no one who, to my mind, equalled our cousin King Harry, now alas! taken from his kingdom: God rest his soul! I felt that he was of our kin, for he had our blessed mother’s face, whom I think Fernando favours most of us all. And a king more beloved was never lost to his people; nor a more winning friend and kinsman.”

“It is indeed grievous,” said Duarte, “to think of two great kingdoms—France and England—left thus to a helpless child.”

“If our cousin had lived to fulfil his purpose of proclaiming a general crusade, we might have seen great results,” said Enrique.

“The conquest of France stood in his path,” said Joao.

“Ah,” said Fernando, “that was a glorious purpose—for all the princes of Europe to lay aside their selfish quarrels, and purified by one great aim, to unite in winning back the Holy Sepulchre! Where would then be room for ambition and intrigue?”

“In former crusades there was a good share of both. You are a dreamer, Fernando,” said Joao.

“Nay,” said Enrique, “Fernando is right. There is no purification like a high purpose; but we must pursue it in the teeth of intrigue and ambition; it will not sweep them away.”

“True, for they spring from the selfish desires of the heart,” said Pedro, rather sententiously.

“We are not all free,” said Duarte thoughtfully, “to devote our lives tooneaim, be it ever so high: for our duties are many. And so it was, I suppose, with our cousin King Harry.”

“Nay, the golden lilies had a tempting flash,” said Joao, laughing.

“Well, and I will not say, having seen much of good and ill government, that to pacify the unhappy kingdom of France was not as good an aim as any. But how is it with your purposes, Enrique? I half feared to find you bound for some savage island in the midst of the sea of darkness.”

“No,” said Enrique; “but there is light in the darkness now. Come with me to Sagres so soon as our fair bride can spare you, and see the observatory I have built—the calculations that I have made. This is a much wider world than our fathers thought, Pedro, and one day there shall be known Christian lands which the Mussulman has never polluted; and where the simple natives will know no faith but that of Christ.”

“There are other dreamers here besides Fernando,” said Pedro, with a smile.

“No,” cried Enrique, eagerly; “it is no dream. I will show you grapes grown in our new found island, such as Spain cannot beat, and the inhabitants listen willingly to Christian teaching. If I can but perfect our compasses and other instruments, we can penetrate the sea still further—already have we reached the African coast—and then a Christian kingdom behind Barbary and Morocco, and Christian lands to the far west. Look you, Pedro,” and Enrique sprang up and came over to him, laying both hands on Pedro’s shoulders, and looking in his face, “your mathematics were used to be more perfect than mine. You must come to Sagres and help me.”

“Willingly,” said Pedro; “you shall explain your problems to me.”

“I owe much to Duarte,” said Enrique, “in such matters; and he has studied so thoroughly the courses of the heavens, and can so well judge of fair or foul weather, he should have been a sailor born. Then I purpose to bring some of my natives hither, that they may return to their own country good Christians and civilised men. They trust my sailors as if they were messengers from Heaven. See what a power it is for good. Whole islands—nay, Pedro, I sometimes think whole continents, may owe to us their salvation.”

So spoke the great Enrique of Avis, in the young days of the modern world, he who was at once a great soldier and a devoted son of the Church, the priestly knight of the Middle Ages, who helped the new learning many miles on her way, to whom astronomy and physical science began to open their treasures; while in his breast burnt the same fire of adventure, the same longing for discovery, that in our day has penetrated Arctic seas and African deserts, fulfilling the command to replenish the earth and subdue it. But, prince though he was, Enrique met with scant sympathy beyond the limits of his family, in designs which the world had not yet learnt to understand. And little did he dream of how much misery Christian men would bring to those unknown lands, after which his heart hungered; or that his earnest desire to bring his islanders to a sight of the blessings of Christianity should be quoted as a precedent and justification for all the horrors of the slave trade.

Pedro had enough of the same power to understand his efforts, and he was beginning a sympathetic reply, when one of Fernando’s attendants came towards them telling him that Sir Walter Northberry desired to speak with him.

“Ask him to come hither,” said Fernando; and even as he spoke, Northberry, with a pale and disturbed countenance, came hurriedly towards the brothers.

“Alas! my lord!” he said, with a hasty reverence, “I have the worst of ill news. I am a miserable man. The ship in which my little daughters sailed him been attacked by Moorish pirates. There was a vessel bound from France to Lisbon came to the rescue, and beat them off; but oh, the saints pity us! the cursed villains carried with them my little Kate. Woe’s me that ever I let them go.”

Northberry covered his face with his hands, unable to repress his despairing grief; while the princes pressed round him, full of sympathy and indignation.

Fernando took his hand, and drew him to a seat, saying eagerly—

“Everything is at your command. What can be done? Have you any due?”

“Surely,” said Duarte, “a sufficient ransom will open the prison gates.”

“Horrible degradation!” cried Enrique and Fernando in a breath.

“As to that, my good lords,” said Northberry, “I care not for degradation, if I can but get my poor little maid back. Better tempest and shipwreck. But this French vessel that brought me the news said that the attack was made at night by a superior force, and that they were gone in the morning beyond pursuit. So Dom Manuel sent the wretched news back, and sailed as fast as might be for England, lest Nella should share her sister’s fate. Alas! alas!”

“Andthis!” cried Fernando, with flashing eyes, “thisis what we suffer on our shores—we! princes, knights, Christians—shame—shame upon us! Better spend the last coin in our treasury—shed the last drop of our blood—better die among nations, lose all—everything—than have it so! What! we hold our kingdom undisturbed by a false peace with friends such as these! Let it go, but let us drive them from Portuguese waters—from Christian soil. I will endure it no longer; I will do it single-handed.”

Fernando stood with lifted hand and face on fire, long suppressed passion giving startling effect to his words; but suddenly his face paled and he dropped back on his seat.

“I—I can do nothing,” he said, in a voice of inexpressible melancholy.

Enrique leaned over him, and put his arm round him, as if he had been still the little brother, whose excitement he had soothed so often in early years.

“Everything in our power shall be done, good Sir Walter,” said Duarte, earnestly.

“Indeed, my lord, I doubt it not,” said Northberry. “I am sorry so to grieve Dom Fernando.”

Fernando looked up.

“Duarte, I meant to reproach no one,” he said, humbly. “My friend, I can do little for you, or any one, but pray; I will go and do that.”

“My lord,” said Sir Walter, kissing his hand, “such prayers as yours must be answered.”

Fernando shook his head sadly. He blamed himself for the outburst of feeling which had seemed to reproach his brothers for failing in a duty which he could not even attempt, and for long hours that night he knelt in his private chapel, and prayed that at whatever cost to himself the power of the Moor might be lessened and the little captive restored unharmed to her friends.

Fernando often pursued his devotions at risk to his own health, the care of which did not present itself to him as a duty in the way it would now to an equally conscientious person; and perhaps, had his austerities been fewer, he would have been better able to follow the wish of his heart. But he followed the light given him, and his prayers in due time bore fruit. But not immediately; no tidings of Katharine Northberry came to Lisbon; the sorrow narrowed itself to one sore spot in her father’s heart, while a long and dangerous attack of illness for Fernando followed close on Dom Pedro’s wedding.

Enrique put aside his pressing schemes to stay with him and to nurse him, and as he grew better to understand the deep desire of Fernando’s heart, he resolved that before every other object he would devote himself to carry it out.

Chapter Eight.Two Lives.“And like a double cherry—seeming parted.”The clear light of an English spring evening was shining down on the grey walls of the convent of Saint Mary, streaming through the golden green of the neighbouring wood, showing the towers of Northberry Manor House through the trees, and sparkling on the blue strip of sea behind them. Far on either side stretched wood and forest, hitherto untouched by the hand of man, while from the pleasant fields cultivated round the convent and Manor House green glades and glens wound away into the forest, where the hunter might sound his horn, the outlaw take refuge, where wild game of all kinds still dwelt without chance of extinction, and where fairy rings were found on the grass, strange sights seen, and strange sounds heard beyond the chime of the church bells of Northberry. The lords of the manor rode through the rough roads now and again on visits to their neighbours, or for assize meetings at the nearest town; the convent priests, who also served the little village church, went through the wood now and then at the summons of the Bishop; but the villagers who clustered round the convent and manor walls were afraid of the forest, and Eleanor Northberry had never passed through it since she had been brought there, six years before, a solitary and frightened child, pining for the little twin sister who had been torn from her side. She had been tenderly received and cherished by her cousins, and with their daughter Adela was placed at the convent, where she learnt to read and to sing, to sew and to embroider, going home occasionally to Northberry Manor, and growing so much into a part of the family, that Sir Edward Northberry contemplated finding a husband for her in due time among the gallant squires of Devon, and never sending her back again to the “foreign parts,” which, spite of his connection with Lisbon, he regarded as peopled by a mixture of Frenchmen and Moors.Within the convent precincts was a garden surrounded by high old walls, through one of which a gate led into the little burial-ground where the convent chapel stood. There was a sun-dial in the midst of the garden, on the step of which Eleanor—or as she loved better to be called, Nella—Northberry sat making wreaths from a great heap of white hawthorn on the grass beside her. The garden was neatly kept, with a plentiful supply of herbs useful for cooking or for medicine, and a few spring flowers, such as bluebells or lilies of the valley, and in the centre of the turf an apple-tree in full blossom; there were cherries and plums in plenty, with the fruit just setting among their green leaves. A large oblong pond full of fish lay across the bottom of the garden. The birds sang sweetly; a family of robin-redbreasts were making their first attempts at flying from the low branches of the apple-trees. There was a low sound of chanting from the chapel, where the nuns were practising the services for the approaching festival of Whitsuntide. All was full of peace and calm, brightened by the fresh and hopeful spring-time.Nella finished her long white garland, and laid it at her feet. She clasped her hands on her knees, and watched the little snowy clouds as they came floating from behind the cherry-trees across the sky. She was very simply dressed in a grey frock cut square at her neck, and finished with a white frill; but she was a tall and beautiful girl, almost a woman in height, with her long brown hair drawn back from a broad fair brow, a frank and simple countenance, and eyes at once innocent and fearless. She was almost too much for the nuns sometimes, with her wild spirits and dauntless gaiety, delighting in woodland scrambles and hairbreadth escapes. But she was loving and loyal-hearted, and no rebel, though a little difficult of control.Just now, however, the evening calm had stolen over her spirit, and she sat lost in thought, her memory, seldom active, going back to the days of her early childhood, as she glanced at the gold cross which she wore constantly round her neck.Nella could not be said to have forgotten Catalina. She prayed for her morning and evening, and she knew that masses were constantly sung in the convent chapel for her deliverance; but the sorrow of her loss was regarded as too terrible for common speech. A cloud of horror hung over her memory, and Nella, whose simple, healthy nature easily adapted itself to new surroundings, rather shrank from the thought of her. Her father had never fulfilled his promise of coming to England; her nurse had been taken captive with Kate. She could vividly remember the night attack, when she had run out to see what was the matter, and found the others gone on her return, and carrying her thoughts back she could remember different trees and flowers, a house that seemed to her of wonderful splendour, a mother’s kiss, her bluff father’s voice, and, more clearly than anything else, the tall, pale young prince who had given her the jewel round her neck and bid her trust in God.It must be remembered that though Nella’s memory enabled her to recall orange-trees and pomegranates, strange dresses and customs, and the “Moors” as familiar objects of dread, she never met with any one who had ever seen an orange-tree, or done more than hear of a Moor as a sort of emissary of evil. She had nothing therefore but her own childish impressions to fall back upon, which were confused and blurred, and she invariably pictured Catalina as her own double, grown to the same height, wearing the same clothes, and thinking the same thoughts. But the image seemed as far removed from her as if she had been taught to regard Catalina as among the saints in Paradise. Nella was not imaginative; she did not realise strange conditions; a sort of reserve had always veiled even from her own thoughts the present condition of her twin sister. But her convent life was almost over, and the change in her own existence made her thoughtful.“I am thirteen,” she thought; “I have made my first communion, perhaps before many years I shall be married; but Catalina—”Suddenly, for the first time, it came clearly before her mind that Catalina, if alive, could not be in the least like herself, could not be a Christian at all. Nella sprang to her feet and almost cried out as the thought stung her, and for the first time in her life she was seized with the intensest desire to know her sister’s fate; she felt as if she must discover what had become of her, as if the uncertainty so long acquiesced in had become suddenly intolerable to her.The chapel bell began to ring for vespers; one of the nuns came into the garden and called Nella. She took up her wreath and followed into the chapel, and as she knelt and prayed, the twin sister whom she could no longer picture to herself seemed to call to her out of terrible and unknown darkness.In the convent chapel, among the oak-wood and the cherry-blossoms of an English spring, Eleanor Northberry laid her garlands on a holy shrine and listened to the chanting of the vesper service; while the light faded away over the peaceful garden, and the last reflection of the sunset died out from the long fish-pond, and the nuns were left to the peace and the stillness of night.The sun also dropped down to rest over another small inclosure, far away in the warm south. Round the royal palace of Muley Hassan, King of Fez, were magnificent gardens, and on the side devoted to the women was one, the very gem of them all. A kind of cloister surrounded it, built with the utmost elaboration of Moorish art, horseshoe arches, fretwork of the most exquisite forms, blazing with gold and silver, and glowing with the gorgeousness of Oriental colour. Flowers of almost tropical variety and beauty were growing in profusion, and in the centre was a fountain in which gold and silver fish were swimming. On the brink stood a young girl with a splendid wreath of crimson passion-flowers in her hand. She was dressed in a tunic of blue silk, wonderfully embroidered with coloured flowers, full white silk trousers were fastened round her ankles above her golden slippers; on her head was a rose-coloured turban, coquettishly set on the top of the long straight plait of hair that fell down her back. She seated herself on the rim of the fountain, and laying her flowers at her feet, listened to the distant sound of girlish voices laughing and chattering beyond the cloister, or to the noise of a number of parrots and other birds inclosed in a golden network at one corner of the garden.The girl’s face was fair, with fine outlines, large blue eyes of a peculiar wistful softness, and with an expression gentle, dreamy, and somewhat passive. This was Leila, a Christian slave, the pet and plaything of the ladies of Muley Hassan’s harem; this was Katharine, Eleanor Northberry’s lost sister.Strangely enough there had been a sort of outward similarity between the lives that were essentially so different. Each sister had been brought up in seclusion in a household of women. Catalina, like Nella, learnt to embroider and to sing; she too lived among birds and flowers and pleasant places. She too was taught to be obedient, to submit to rules; and the gentle nature obeyed more perfectly, and carried cushions and sang little songs or gathered flowers for the princesses, more aptly than Nella learnt her tasks or steadied her dancing steps in Northberry convent. But the little slave had been treated as a favourite toy, and nothing had occurred to drive her thoughts beyond herself. She had at once been separated from her nurse and taken to the palace, and though she could have told, if asked, her real name and have understood probably her own language, years of soft living separated her from any reminder of her old life.“Leila, Leila!” cried a clear voice.Leila sprang up and ran to the garden-gate to meet a lady, of exquisite dark beauty, who came and sat down on a pile of silken cushions near the fountain. Leila took, at her signal, a golden casket from another little girl, and kneeling before her mistress, began to take out its contents and display them.Mistress and maiden smiled with delight as rubies, diamonds, and emeralds came to view.“My jewels are the best in the harem,” said the Princess Zarah, proudly.“Yes, lady,” said Leila, “neither Zuleika nor Zoraya have half so many.”“There is a string of pearls for you,” said Zarah. “Or, no—choose among these for yourself.”“What is that?” said the little slave suddenly, pointing to a small eight-pointed ornament with a ruby in the centre.“That!” said the princess. “Why, child, that is yours already. It was tied round your neck when you were brought to me.”Leila took the cross in her hand, and gazed at it with a fixed, dreamy look.“Nella had one too,” she said suddenly. “Dom Fernando gave them to us.”“Who is that?” said Zarah, indolently.Leila looked perplexed, tears filled her eyes, and, with a half-unconscious movement, she made the sign of the cross.Zarah struck her hand sharply.“Hold, child! that is wicked. Do that again and you shall be beaten.”“Are all Christians wicked?” said Leila, timidly.“Of course, child—they are unbelievers.”“And Nella must be a Christian—I was once.”“There, do not fret. Here is a spray of emeralds, for you to put in your turban. You are happy enough, and spoiled, my little one. Religions do not matter so much for a woman, certainly not for a slave. Some day, when I can spare you, you shall marry a true Mussulman, who shall give you sweetmeats and jewels. You are very pretty—none of the other princesses have such a pretty slave.”Leila laid the jewels down, and, slipping away from her mistress’ side, she leaned over the carved parapet of the ladies’ garden, peeping through the trellis-work that divided it from the more public grounds of the palace. Down below, she saw four or five men, haggard, weary, and scantily clothed, dragging heavy loads of earth to form a bank on one side of the garden. Presently a Moor came up and struck one of them a sharp blow. He cowered under it for a moment, and then, as the striker turned away, his victim looked up to Heaven and made the sign of the Cross.These poor sufferers were Leila’s fellow-Christians. Tears filled her eyes; she longed to help them. But she was a slave, petted, soft, and self-indulgent, like a pet animal. She shrank away from the painful thought, and, going back to her mistress, tried to forget it in wreathing the passion-flowers round her hair.

“And like a double cherry—seeming parted.”

“And like a double cherry—seeming parted.”

The clear light of an English spring evening was shining down on the grey walls of the convent of Saint Mary, streaming through the golden green of the neighbouring wood, showing the towers of Northberry Manor House through the trees, and sparkling on the blue strip of sea behind them. Far on either side stretched wood and forest, hitherto untouched by the hand of man, while from the pleasant fields cultivated round the convent and Manor House green glades and glens wound away into the forest, where the hunter might sound his horn, the outlaw take refuge, where wild game of all kinds still dwelt without chance of extinction, and where fairy rings were found on the grass, strange sights seen, and strange sounds heard beyond the chime of the church bells of Northberry. The lords of the manor rode through the rough roads now and again on visits to their neighbours, or for assize meetings at the nearest town; the convent priests, who also served the little village church, went through the wood now and then at the summons of the Bishop; but the villagers who clustered round the convent and manor walls were afraid of the forest, and Eleanor Northberry had never passed through it since she had been brought there, six years before, a solitary and frightened child, pining for the little twin sister who had been torn from her side. She had been tenderly received and cherished by her cousins, and with their daughter Adela was placed at the convent, where she learnt to read and to sing, to sew and to embroider, going home occasionally to Northberry Manor, and growing so much into a part of the family, that Sir Edward Northberry contemplated finding a husband for her in due time among the gallant squires of Devon, and never sending her back again to the “foreign parts,” which, spite of his connection with Lisbon, he regarded as peopled by a mixture of Frenchmen and Moors.

Within the convent precincts was a garden surrounded by high old walls, through one of which a gate led into the little burial-ground where the convent chapel stood. There was a sun-dial in the midst of the garden, on the step of which Eleanor—or as she loved better to be called, Nella—Northberry sat making wreaths from a great heap of white hawthorn on the grass beside her. The garden was neatly kept, with a plentiful supply of herbs useful for cooking or for medicine, and a few spring flowers, such as bluebells or lilies of the valley, and in the centre of the turf an apple-tree in full blossom; there were cherries and plums in plenty, with the fruit just setting among their green leaves. A large oblong pond full of fish lay across the bottom of the garden. The birds sang sweetly; a family of robin-redbreasts were making their first attempts at flying from the low branches of the apple-trees. There was a low sound of chanting from the chapel, where the nuns were practising the services for the approaching festival of Whitsuntide. All was full of peace and calm, brightened by the fresh and hopeful spring-time.

Nella finished her long white garland, and laid it at her feet. She clasped her hands on her knees, and watched the little snowy clouds as they came floating from behind the cherry-trees across the sky. She was very simply dressed in a grey frock cut square at her neck, and finished with a white frill; but she was a tall and beautiful girl, almost a woman in height, with her long brown hair drawn back from a broad fair brow, a frank and simple countenance, and eyes at once innocent and fearless. She was almost too much for the nuns sometimes, with her wild spirits and dauntless gaiety, delighting in woodland scrambles and hairbreadth escapes. But she was loving and loyal-hearted, and no rebel, though a little difficult of control.

Just now, however, the evening calm had stolen over her spirit, and she sat lost in thought, her memory, seldom active, going back to the days of her early childhood, as she glanced at the gold cross which she wore constantly round her neck.

Nella could not be said to have forgotten Catalina. She prayed for her morning and evening, and she knew that masses were constantly sung in the convent chapel for her deliverance; but the sorrow of her loss was regarded as too terrible for common speech. A cloud of horror hung over her memory, and Nella, whose simple, healthy nature easily adapted itself to new surroundings, rather shrank from the thought of her. Her father had never fulfilled his promise of coming to England; her nurse had been taken captive with Kate. She could vividly remember the night attack, when she had run out to see what was the matter, and found the others gone on her return, and carrying her thoughts back she could remember different trees and flowers, a house that seemed to her of wonderful splendour, a mother’s kiss, her bluff father’s voice, and, more clearly than anything else, the tall, pale young prince who had given her the jewel round her neck and bid her trust in God.

It must be remembered that though Nella’s memory enabled her to recall orange-trees and pomegranates, strange dresses and customs, and the “Moors” as familiar objects of dread, she never met with any one who had ever seen an orange-tree, or done more than hear of a Moor as a sort of emissary of evil. She had nothing therefore but her own childish impressions to fall back upon, which were confused and blurred, and she invariably pictured Catalina as her own double, grown to the same height, wearing the same clothes, and thinking the same thoughts. But the image seemed as far removed from her as if she had been taught to regard Catalina as among the saints in Paradise. Nella was not imaginative; she did not realise strange conditions; a sort of reserve had always veiled even from her own thoughts the present condition of her twin sister. But her convent life was almost over, and the change in her own existence made her thoughtful.

“I am thirteen,” she thought; “I have made my first communion, perhaps before many years I shall be married; but Catalina—”

Suddenly, for the first time, it came clearly before her mind that Catalina, if alive, could not be in the least like herself, could not be a Christian at all. Nella sprang to her feet and almost cried out as the thought stung her, and for the first time in her life she was seized with the intensest desire to know her sister’s fate; she felt as if she must discover what had become of her, as if the uncertainty so long acquiesced in had become suddenly intolerable to her.

The chapel bell began to ring for vespers; one of the nuns came into the garden and called Nella. She took up her wreath and followed into the chapel, and as she knelt and prayed, the twin sister whom she could no longer picture to herself seemed to call to her out of terrible and unknown darkness.

In the convent chapel, among the oak-wood and the cherry-blossoms of an English spring, Eleanor Northberry laid her garlands on a holy shrine and listened to the chanting of the vesper service; while the light faded away over the peaceful garden, and the last reflection of the sunset died out from the long fish-pond, and the nuns were left to the peace and the stillness of night.

The sun also dropped down to rest over another small inclosure, far away in the warm south. Round the royal palace of Muley Hassan, King of Fez, were magnificent gardens, and on the side devoted to the women was one, the very gem of them all. A kind of cloister surrounded it, built with the utmost elaboration of Moorish art, horseshoe arches, fretwork of the most exquisite forms, blazing with gold and silver, and glowing with the gorgeousness of Oriental colour. Flowers of almost tropical variety and beauty were growing in profusion, and in the centre was a fountain in which gold and silver fish were swimming. On the brink stood a young girl with a splendid wreath of crimson passion-flowers in her hand. She was dressed in a tunic of blue silk, wonderfully embroidered with coloured flowers, full white silk trousers were fastened round her ankles above her golden slippers; on her head was a rose-coloured turban, coquettishly set on the top of the long straight plait of hair that fell down her back. She seated herself on the rim of the fountain, and laying her flowers at her feet, listened to the distant sound of girlish voices laughing and chattering beyond the cloister, or to the noise of a number of parrots and other birds inclosed in a golden network at one corner of the garden.

The girl’s face was fair, with fine outlines, large blue eyes of a peculiar wistful softness, and with an expression gentle, dreamy, and somewhat passive. This was Leila, a Christian slave, the pet and plaything of the ladies of Muley Hassan’s harem; this was Katharine, Eleanor Northberry’s lost sister.

Strangely enough there had been a sort of outward similarity between the lives that were essentially so different. Each sister had been brought up in seclusion in a household of women. Catalina, like Nella, learnt to embroider and to sing; she too lived among birds and flowers and pleasant places. She too was taught to be obedient, to submit to rules; and the gentle nature obeyed more perfectly, and carried cushions and sang little songs or gathered flowers for the princesses, more aptly than Nella learnt her tasks or steadied her dancing steps in Northberry convent. But the little slave had been treated as a favourite toy, and nothing had occurred to drive her thoughts beyond herself. She had at once been separated from her nurse and taken to the palace, and though she could have told, if asked, her real name and have understood probably her own language, years of soft living separated her from any reminder of her old life.

“Leila, Leila!” cried a clear voice.

Leila sprang up and ran to the garden-gate to meet a lady, of exquisite dark beauty, who came and sat down on a pile of silken cushions near the fountain. Leila took, at her signal, a golden casket from another little girl, and kneeling before her mistress, began to take out its contents and display them.

Mistress and maiden smiled with delight as rubies, diamonds, and emeralds came to view.

“My jewels are the best in the harem,” said the Princess Zarah, proudly.

“Yes, lady,” said Leila, “neither Zuleika nor Zoraya have half so many.”

“There is a string of pearls for you,” said Zarah. “Or, no—choose among these for yourself.”

“What is that?” said the little slave suddenly, pointing to a small eight-pointed ornament with a ruby in the centre.

“That!” said the princess. “Why, child, that is yours already. It was tied round your neck when you were brought to me.”

Leila took the cross in her hand, and gazed at it with a fixed, dreamy look.

“Nella had one too,” she said suddenly. “Dom Fernando gave them to us.”

“Who is that?” said Zarah, indolently.

Leila looked perplexed, tears filled her eyes, and, with a half-unconscious movement, she made the sign of the cross.

Zarah struck her hand sharply.

“Hold, child! that is wicked. Do that again and you shall be beaten.”

“Are all Christians wicked?” said Leila, timidly.

“Of course, child—they are unbelievers.”

“And Nella must be a Christian—I was once.”

“There, do not fret. Here is a spray of emeralds, for you to put in your turban. You are happy enough, and spoiled, my little one. Religions do not matter so much for a woman, certainly not for a slave. Some day, when I can spare you, you shall marry a true Mussulman, who shall give you sweetmeats and jewels. You are very pretty—none of the other princesses have such a pretty slave.”

Leila laid the jewels down, and, slipping away from her mistress’ side, she leaned over the carved parapet of the ladies’ garden, peeping through the trellis-work that divided it from the more public grounds of the palace. Down below, she saw four or five men, haggard, weary, and scantily clothed, dragging heavy loads of earth to form a bank on one side of the garden. Presently a Moor came up and struck one of them a sharp blow. He cowered under it for a moment, and then, as the striker turned away, his victim looked up to Heaven and made the sign of the Cross.

These poor sufferers were Leila’s fellow-Christians. Tears filled her eyes; she longed to help them. But she was a slave, petted, soft, and self-indulgent, like a pet animal. She shrank away from the painful thought, and, going back to her mistress, tried to forget it in wreathing the passion-flowers round her hair.

Chapter Nine.In Northberry Forest.“The huge, broad-breasted old oak-tree.”Northberry Manor house was a heavy, grey stone building, with a small court in the centre, and four little round towers at the corners. A moat surrounded it, crossed by a drawbridge, which, however, was rarely raised. England still felt the benefit of the strong government of Henry the Fifth, and all was at peace. The gates stood open, save at night; the servants and retainers stood idling about the court, and the great hunting-dogs sat in the sun and enjoyed life, one lovely morning in Whitsun week, as Nella Northberry, in all the delight of a holiday, came running out of the hall-door among them, calling them to her, and stroking and petting them with fearless affection.“Oh, how much nicer this is than embroidery!” she cried, clapping her hands.“And oh, how shocked Dame Agnes would be to hear you say so?” said a tall, slim lad, with a ruddy brown skin, bright hazel eyes, and an air of alert and cheerful activity.“Ah, but, Harry, I have improved so much. See, this is my new green holiday kirtle, and I worked the border to it, I did indeed. Sister Katharine showed me the stitch.”“It is a very fine kirtle, truly,” said the boy. “See, you have let Lion lay his paws all over the front of it.”“It will brush, it is made of serge,” said Nella, blushing. “But now, Harry, I have something very serious to speak of. Where will you come and talk to me about it?”“Let us come on to the tower battlements then,” said Harry, struck with the air of serious purpose that suddenly changed the girl’s laughing face.Harry Hartsed also had relations in Portugal, and his father, a poor squire, lived not many miles from the manor. Sir Walter Northberry, after the fashion of the time, had taken him into his household that he might acquire the education of a gentleman, and he was now about seventeen, a fine, high-spirited boy, earnest and ambitious. He and Nella took their way on to the top of one of the little towers, from which they could see over miles of forest, in every variety of spring colouring.Nella leaned against the battlement, the wind freshening her rosy cheeks and blowing her long hair about her shoulders. She fixed her eyes on Harry, and said—“Now I am going to tell you a secret. I want you to help me, but I will never forgive you if you speak to any one else about it.”“I always keep your secrets, Nella; you need not scold me beforehand,” said Harry.“Well,” said Nella, too much in earnest to reply to his challenge, “it is about my—my sister.”Her eyes fell, and she coloured deeply, with the awe of one approaching a mystery.“Your sister! But you know nothing about her, Nella,” said Harry, tenderly and rather shyly.“No; but I mean to find out. I began to think of her on Whitsun Eve, when I was making a garland for Our Lady. I want to know what has become of Catalina. I am sure she is alive.”“But it is quite impossible that you can find out about her, Nell,” said Harry. “Either she is dead—God rest her soul!—or lost to you for ever.”“I am going to ask the witch in the forest,” said Nella, coolly.Harry started, and said in a tone of strong disapproval—“I shall not help you to do that.”“Then I shall go by myself.”Harry was a straightforward youth, who disliked what he could not understand. There was something disgraceful as well as dreadful in a Moorish captivity. If the lost girl was a Mahometan slave, the less they knew of her the better; and as for the witch in the forest, in plain English he was very much afraid of her.“I will not hear of such a thing, Nella,” he said. “It is very wicked to consult a witch who has sold her soul to the Evil One. Besides, how do you know what she might do to you! Now, do you think Father Anselm, or the Lady Abbess, or your aunt, or Sir Walter would consent to it?”“No,” said Nella, “of course not. But I am sure that it is right to go. And I shall tell my beads all the way and wear my cross round my neck. She cannot harm my soul or my body while I have that. I will let her cut my hair off and give her my string of pearls if she wants them. And if you are afraid, I will go by myself.”“Afraid! I am not afraid of the forest! But you ought not to deceive Dame Agnes and go in secret.”“Very well,” said Nella. “And ought you to have got out at the little postern, and gone to Dunford Fair, when Sir Walter forbade you? Or away down on the rocks to get the sea-gull’s eggs, when he sent you to the Master Armourer at Newton? If you may play truant for pleasure, surely I may for a good purpose.”Master Harry Hartsed, like many another, found his principles impeded by his practice, and, dropping the question of obedience, observed—“You are a girl, which alters the question.”“Ask Father Anselm if a boy has any more right to be disobedient than a girl,” retorted Nella.“I shall not let you run into danger,” said Harry, firmly.“Then,” said the girl, bursting into tears, “I shall be very unhappy, and I thought you loved me better. I’ll never forgive you—never. And, oh dear, dear Harry,dohelp me—do! I don’t want Walter Coplestone and Adela to know about it; but if you are so cruel, I—I think I must ask Walter. He would—”Perhaps the fact that Nella was a girldidalter the question. Harry yielded, as he usually did, to her strong will and ready tongue, and said—“Well, what do you want me to do?”“To wait outside the postern to-morrow at the full of the moon. I can get out, but I can’t get across the moat; so I want you to have your little boat ready, dear Harry. Then, I am not afraid of the forest; but I don’t know the way to the blasted oak, and you do. So you must come, and wait there while I go and see the witch. You will, dear Harry!”Harry was perfectly aware that Nella was going to do a thing that was both wrong and dangerous; but, alas for his good nature! he hated saying no, and more than one scrape that lay heavy on a tender conscience and truthful spirit had been caused by this weakness. Young as Nella was, she was so much of a woman for her years that he, whose thoughts had hardly yet strayed beyond his boyish round of duties and amusements, could not withstand either her coaxing or her contempt. He admired her more, though he hardly knew if he liked her so well as kind little Adela; but Nella was queen of Northberry Manor, and turned all the young people there round her finger.Besides, he could not make her give up her plan save by betraying her secret, and he could not let her carry it out alone. In the depths of that untrodden forest, strange things were sometimes seen, and much stranger were imagined. Many a frightened woodman or swineherd had seen a werewolf dash aside into the impenetrable undergrowth, or in a sudden clearance had beheld a gnome or a demon grinning at him from between the trees, had heard the rush of the wild huntsman over his head in the autumn storms, and fled in terror from the haunted spot. No doubt it needed little to suggest these and the like phantoms; but it takes a long time for any race of animals to become extinct, and chance specimens of the wolf and the wild boar may have lingered in forest glades long after they were supposed to be exterminated. And wild men of the woods may have had a real existence in a state of society when maniacs were regarded with superstitious horror, and when these vast forests afforded a refuge for criminals and outlaws of every description.To the boy and girl who by the light of the May moon penetrated the forest glades, they seemed to be peopled with fearful forms and more fearful possibilities. Moonlight and towering tree-trunks, thick undergrowths of hazel and elder, made strange combinations; and as at the sound of their footsteps great owls and woodpeckers started from their roosting-places and screeched and whirred round their heads, hares and foxes rushed through the grass and brambles, and the wind stirred and echoed through the tree-tops, they shuddered, and Nella felt that she had hardly counted the cost of the undertaking. The path was tolerably plain to them; it was a horse track, and led through the forest down to the shore, and they pursued it for about a mile, in almost entire silence, and then turned aside to the right into a narrower one, which shortly led them, to what was always called the blasted oak. This was a great withered tree, which stood alone in the centre of a clearing, without a leaf or a twig to break the forlorn aspect of its wide-stretching arms now glimmering white in the moonlight.“Now,” said Nella, “we must sound a hunting horn, and some one will show us the way to the witch.”Harry took hold of the horn that was slung round his neck; to sound it required a considerable effort; but he was ashamed to hesitate in Nella’s presence, and putting it to his lips, blew a blast much fainter than that with which he was accustomed to summon the dogs on a hunting morning. It seemed to them as if the whole forest rang with the sound, as if it echoed away through glade and thicket till it must rouse Northberry Manor itself, nay, as if it might call the whole country to arms.Nella shrank up to Harry and they both stood trembling and terrified. No one answered their summons.“The witch will not come, Nella,” said Harry in, it must be confessed, a tone of relief.“Then we must blow again,” said Nella; but, as she spoke, they saw running in the grass in front of them a little white rabbit. Instead of starting from them it ran up to Nella’s feet, and then away from her for a short distance, then back again. “Is that the witch?” she whispered. “Must I follow that? I will cross myself first.” As the rabbit retained its form and showed no alarm at the holy sign, Nella, summoning all her courage, quitted Harry’s hand—as no two people could, it was supposed, approach the witch together—and followed the little creature, which now turned and ran back into the wood. Nella, child as she was, was of the stuff that makes heroes. She conquered her terrors, and clasping her cross tight, she followed the mysterious summons. It did not occur to her that the animal was pulled by a string attached to its neck. It did not lead her very far, for she soon found herself in front of a low hut, under the door of which the rabbit disappeared. Nella tapped timidly, the door was flung back, and she stepped into a tiny room, very full of smoke, since the chimney consisted only of a hole in the roof. Neither in that respect nor in any other did it differ from the huts of the peasantry round, except that a torch was stuck into a wooden stand of peculiar shape in the centre. The roof was so low that the tall Nella could have touched it with her hand, and on the floor under the torch sat a very little woman, with black eyes, sharp features, and a red cloak over her head. She rose as Nella entered, and stood upright, even then hardly reaching to the girl’s shoulder, and said a few words in a language which Nella recognised, though she did not quite understand. “I cannot speak Cornish,” she said.Perhaps the witch was not accustomed to visitors with their wits so much about them, though the old Cornish language still crossed the border into Devon, and was not unknown there among the peasantry. Still, it added to the mystery of the witch’s proceedings in the eyes of some of her visitors, and increased the confidence of those to whom it was familiar.“And what do you want of me then, maiden?” she said in English.“I am Eleanor Northberry; I want to know where my sister is who was stolen away by the Moors, and I will give you these pearls if you will tell me,” said Nella, who had rehearsed her little speech. She looked at the witch as she spoke, in full confidence of receiving an answer, and with less fear than she had expected. Somehow, there was something very commonplace about the witch now that she had found her.“You have asked a hard question, my lady,” said the witch in a much more respectful tone. She knew her position too well to frighten the young lady of the Manor to death, aware that, though feared and tolerated, a little too much licence would bring the laws against witchcraft in full operation upon her. She turned her back on Nella, and mumbled and muttered a little to herself, and then facing round, said in a wheedling tone, “Sure, it’s the face of the lovely young lady herself, I read in the stars. Wouldn’t you like to hear what suitors you will have, my pretty lady—about the great lord across the sea?”“No,” said Nella, though a little reluctantly. “I want to hear about Catalina. For,” she thought, “I shall not be able to pay her to tell metoomuch, and besides,”—Nella’s thoughts here became hazy even to herself; but they were to the effect that she would not use this sinful means of information more than she could help.“I see,” said the witch, after a moment, “a maiden like this one before me!”“Yes,” said Nella, “we were both of an age, and alike exactly.”“Her eyes are blue, and her face is fair,” looking at her visitor’s. “Those around are—dark—dark.”“Yes—for the Moors are black,” eagerly said Nella. “Oh, is she alive and happy?”“The prisoners of the Moors live far away,” said the witch. “One day shall there be a great ransom—and a great deliverance. Friends shall meet across the sea—a talisman will save the lost.”“Why, I come from across the sea,” said Nella. “A talisman! would it be the cross that Prince Fernando gave us?”“Ay, the fate of a prince is in the balance,” said the witch, mysteriously.“But shall I ever see my sister again?” urged Nella.“Across the sea—across the sea,” repeated the witch. “I can tell no more, my lady—no more.”“Then I think I had better go home,” said Nella, hardly knowing whether she were impressed or disappointed, but a good deal less frightened than when she came in.“Give me the pearls, and keep the secret of your visit, else will the talisman work for ill. But now go home, Mistress Nella, go home with Master Harry, and don’t you be coming into the forest at night; ’tisn’t fitting for young ladies like you, and will anger his honour, Sir Walter, sure enough.”The different tone in which these last words were spoken startled Nella, for the witch dropped all her mysterious solemnity, and spoke, with half-coaxing command, in a voice that sounded strangely familiar.Perhaps she was afraid of losing the doles of bread that Dame Agnes Northberry dispensed in the courtyard of the Manor, and which old Bess, as she was called, came to claim without any one guessing at her identity with the witch of the forest, who was visited in darkness and mystery. The young lady of Northberry was a client with whom she was afraid to deal.On the whole, Harry, standing without in the darkness, listening to the strange cries of bird and beast, and watching the awful shadows change and sway in the rising wind, had the hardest time of it. He had followed Nella almost to the door of the hut, and was unspeakably thankful when she ran out alive and unhurt and ready to hurry home as fast as possible.She hardly spoke, till they were safe out of the forest shades and in the familiar home fields, and then Harry said, in a subdued tone, “Was it very terrible, Nell?”“No—no,” said Nella, with hesitation. “She said Catalina was across the sea, and had a talisman—the cross, you know—and that if I saw her it would be across the sea. But I was not much frightened,—and I don’t think there was anything—wicked. There were no—demons.” Nella sunk her voice a little, and spoke in a tone of slight disappointment mingled with relief.“Well,” said Harry, breaking the spell with a laugh, “for all she told you, you might as well have stayed at home, Nell.”“No, not when I had said I would go.”But they both thought it rather remarkable that the next morning Harry Hartsed received a letter from his relations at Lisbon, duly favoured by a ship bearing despatches to the court, inviting him to come to Portugal and try his fortunes “across the sea.”

“The huge, broad-breasted old oak-tree.”

“The huge, broad-breasted old oak-tree.”

Northberry Manor house was a heavy, grey stone building, with a small court in the centre, and four little round towers at the corners. A moat surrounded it, crossed by a drawbridge, which, however, was rarely raised. England still felt the benefit of the strong government of Henry the Fifth, and all was at peace. The gates stood open, save at night; the servants and retainers stood idling about the court, and the great hunting-dogs sat in the sun and enjoyed life, one lovely morning in Whitsun week, as Nella Northberry, in all the delight of a holiday, came running out of the hall-door among them, calling them to her, and stroking and petting them with fearless affection.

“Oh, how much nicer this is than embroidery!” she cried, clapping her hands.

“And oh, how shocked Dame Agnes would be to hear you say so?” said a tall, slim lad, with a ruddy brown skin, bright hazel eyes, and an air of alert and cheerful activity.

“Ah, but, Harry, I have improved so much. See, this is my new green holiday kirtle, and I worked the border to it, I did indeed. Sister Katharine showed me the stitch.”

“It is a very fine kirtle, truly,” said the boy. “See, you have let Lion lay his paws all over the front of it.”

“It will brush, it is made of serge,” said Nella, blushing. “But now, Harry, I have something very serious to speak of. Where will you come and talk to me about it?”

“Let us come on to the tower battlements then,” said Harry, struck with the air of serious purpose that suddenly changed the girl’s laughing face.

Harry Hartsed also had relations in Portugal, and his father, a poor squire, lived not many miles from the manor. Sir Walter Northberry, after the fashion of the time, had taken him into his household that he might acquire the education of a gentleman, and he was now about seventeen, a fine, high-spirited boy, earnest and ambitious. He and Nella took their way on to the top of one of the little towers, from which they could see over miles of forest, in every variety of spring colouring.

Nella leaned against the battlement, the wind freshening her rosy cheeks and blowing her long hair about her shoulders. She fixed her eyes on Harry, and said—

“Now I am going to tell you a secret. I want you to help me, but I will never forgive you if you speak to any one else about it.”

“I always keep your secrets, Nella; you need not scold me beforehand,” said Harry.

“Well,” said Nella, too much in earnest to reply to his challenge, “it is about my—my sister.”

Her eyes fell, and she coloured deeply, with the awe of one approaching a mystery.

“Your sister! But you know nothing about her, Nella,” said Harry, tenderly and rather shyly.

“No; but I mean to find out. I began to think of her on Whitsun Eve, when I was making a garland for Our Lady. I want to know what has become of Catalina. I am sure she is alive.”

“But it is quite impossible that you can find out about her, Nell,” said Harry. “Either she is dead—God rest her soul!—or lost to you for ever.”

“I am going to ask the witch in the forest,” said Nella, coolly.

Harry started, and said in a tone of strong disapproval—

“I shall not help you to do that.”

“Then I shall go by myself.”

Harry was a straightforward youth, who disliked what he could not understand. There was something disgraceful as well as dreadful in a Moorish captivity. If the lost girl was a Mahometan slave, the less they knew of her the better; and as for the witch in the forest, in plain English he was very much afraid of her.

“I will not hear of such a thing, Nella,” he said. “It is very wicked to consult a witch who has sold her soul to the Evil One. Besides, how do you know what she might do to you! Now, do you think Father Anselm, or the Lady Abbess, or your aunt, or Sir Walter would consent to it?”

“No,” said Nella, “of course not. But I am sure that it is right to go. And I shall tell my beads all the way and wear my cross round my neck. She cannot harm my soul or my body while I have that. I will let her cut my hair off and give her my string of pearls if she wants them. And if you are afraid, I will go by myself.”

“Afraid! I am not afraid of the forest! But you ought not to deceive Dame Agnes and go in secret.”

“Very well,” said Nella. “And ought you to have got out at the little postern, and gone to Dunford Fair, when Sir Walter forbade you? Or away down on the rocks to get the sea-gull’s eggs, when he sent you to the Master Armourer at Newton? If you may play truant for pleasure, surely I may for a good purpose.”

Master Harry Hartsed, like many another, found his principles impeded by his practice, and, dropping the question of obedience, observed—

“You are a girl, which alters the question.”

“Ask Father Anselm if a boy has any more right to be disobedient than a girl,” retorted Nella.

“I shall not let you run into danger,” said Harry, firmly.

“Then,” said the girl, bursting into tears, “I shall be very unhappy, and I thought you loved me better. I’ll never forgive you—never. And, oh dear, dear Harry,dohelp me—do! I don’t want Walter Coplestone and Adela to know about it; but if you are so cruel, I—I think I must ask Walter. He would—”

Perhaps the fact that Nella was a girldidalter the question. Harry yielded, as he usually did, to her strong will and ready tongue, and said—

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“To wait outside the postern to-morrow at the full of the moon. I can get out, but I can’t get across the moat; so I want you to have your little boat ready, dear Harry. Then, I am not afraid of the forest; but I don’t know the way to the blasted oak, and you do. So you must come, and wait there while I go and see the witch. You will, dear Harry!”

Harry was perfectly aware that Nella was going to do a thing that was both wrong and dangerous; but, alas for his good nature! he hated saying no, and more than one scrape that lay heavy on a tender conscience and truthful spirit had been caused by this weakness. Young as Nella was, she was so much of a woman for her years that he, whose thoughts had hardly yet strayed beyond his boyish round of duties and amusements, could not withstand either her coaxing or her contempt. He admired her more, though he hardly knew if he liked her so well as kind little Adela; but Nella was queen of Northberry Manor, and turned all the young people there round her finger.

Besides, he could not make her give up her plan save by betraying her secret, and he could not let her carry it out alone. In the depths of that untrodden forest, strange things were sometimes seen, and much stranger were imagined. Many a frightened woodman or swineherd had seen a werewolf dash aside into the impenetrable undergrowth, or in a sudden clearance had beheld a gnome or a demon grinning at him from between the trees, had heard the rush of the wild huntsman over his head in the autumn storms, and fled in terror from the haunted spot. No doubt it needed little to suggest these and the like phantoms; but it takes a long time for any race of animals to become extinct, and chance specimens of the wolf and the wild boar may have lingered in forest glades long after they were supposed to be exterminated. And wild men of the woods may have had a real existence in a state of society when maniacs were regarded with superstitious horror, and when these vast forests afforded a refuge for criminals and outlaws of every description.

To the boy and girl who by the light of the May moon penetrated the forest glades, they seemed to be peopled with fearful forms and more fearful possibilities. Moonlight and towering tree-trunks, thick undergrowths of hazel and elder, made strange combinations; and as at the sound of their footsteps great owls and woodpeckers started from their roosting-places and screeched and whirred round their heads, hares and foxes rushed through the grass and brambles, and the wind stirred and echoed through the tree-tops, they shuddered, and Nella felt that she had hardly counted the cost of the undertaking. The path was tolerably plain to them; it was a horse track, and led through the forest down to the shore, and they pursued it for about a mile, in almost entire silence, and then turned aside to the right into a narrower one, which shortly led them, to what was always called the blasted oak. This was a great withered tree, which stood alone in the centre of a clearing, without a leaf or a twig to break the forlorn aspect of its wide-stretching arms now glimmering white in the moonlight.

“Now,” said Nella, “we must sound a hunting horn, and some one will show us the way to the witch.”

Harry took hold of the horn that was slung round his neck; to sound it required a considerable effort; but he was ashamed to hesitate in Nella’s presence, and putting it to his lips, blew a blast much fainter than that with which he was accustomed to summon the dogs on a hunting morning. It seemed to them as if the whole forest rang with the sound, as if it echoed away through glade and thicket till it must rouse Northberry Manor itself, nay, as if it might call the whole country to arms.

Nella shrank up to Harry and they both stood trembling and terrified. No one answered their summons.

“The witch will not come, Nella,” said Harry in, it must be confessed, a tone of relief.

“Then we must blow again,” said Nella; but, as she spoke, they saw running in the grass in front of them a little white rabbit. Instead of starting from them it ran up to Nella’s feet, and then away from her for a short distance, then back again. “Is that the witch?” she whispered. “Must I follow that? I will cross myself first.” As the rabbit retained its form and showed no alarm at the holy sign, Nella, summoning all her courage, quitted Harry’s hand—as no two people could, it was supposed, approach the witch together—and followed the little creature, which now turned and ran back into the wood. Nella, child as she was, was of the stuff that makes heroes. She conquered her terrors, and clasping her cross tight, she followed the mysterious summons. It did not occur to her that the animal was pulled by a string attached to its neck. It did not lead her very far, for she soon found herself in front of a low hut, under the door of which the rabbit disappeared. Nella tapped timidly, the door was flung back, and she stepped into a tiny room, very full of smoke, since the chimney consisted only of a hole in the roof. Neither in that respect nor in any other did it differ from the huts of the peasantry round, except that a torch was stuck into a wooden stand of peculiar shape in the centre. The roof was so low that the tall Nella could have touched it with her hand, and on the floor under the torch sat a very little woman, with black eyes, sharp features, and a red cloak over her head. She rose as Nella entered, and stood upright, even then hardly reaching to the girl’s shoulder, and said a few words in a language which Nella recognised, though she did not quite understand. “I cannot speak Cornish,” she said.

Perhaps the witch was not accustomed to visitors with their wits so much about them, though the old Cornish language still crossed the border into Devon, and was not unknown there among the peasantry. Still, it added to the mystery of the witch’s proceedings in the eyes of some of her visitors, and increased the confidence of those to whom it was familiar.

“And what do you want of me then, maiden?” she said in English.

“I am Eleanor Northberry; I want to know where my sister is who was stolen away by the Moors, and I will give you these pearls if you will tell me,” said Nella, who had rehearsed her little speech. She looked at the witch as she spoke, in full confidence of receiving an answer, and with less fear than she had expected. Somehow, there was something very commonplace about the witch now that she had found her.

“You have asked a hard question, my lady,” said the witch in a much more respectful tone. She knew her position too well to frighten the young lady of the Manor to death, aware that, though feared and tolerated, a little too much licence would bring the laws against witchcraft in full operation upon her. She turned her back on Nella, and mumbled and muttered a little to herself, and then facing round, said in a wheedling tone, “Sure, it’s the face of the lovely young lady herself, I read in the stars. Wouldn’t you like to hear what suitors you will have, my pretty lady—about the great lord across the sea?”

“No,” said Nella, though a little reluctantly. “I want to hear about Catalina. For,” she thought, “I shall not be able to pay her to tell metoomuch, and besides,”—Nella’s thoughts here became hazy even to herself; but they were to the effect that she would not use this sinful means of information more than she could help.

“I see,” said the witch, after a moment, “a maiden like this one before me!”

“Yes,” said Nella, “we were both of an age, and alike exactly.”

“Her eyes are blue, and her face is fair,” looking at her visitor’s. “Those around are—dark—dark.”

“Yes—for the Moors are black,” eagerly said Nella. “Oh, is she alive and happy?”

“The prisoners of the Moors live far away,” said the witch. “One day shall there be a great ransom—and a great deliverance. Friends shall meet across the sea—a talisman will save the lost.”

“Why, I come from across the sea,” said Nella. “A talisman! would it be the cross that Prince Fernando gave us?”

“Ay, the fate of a prince is in the balance,” said the witch, mysteriously.

“But shall I ever see my sister again?” urged Nella.

“Across the sea—across the sea,” repeated the witch. “I can tell no more, my lady—no more.”

“Then I think I had better go home,” said Nella, hardly knowing whether she were impressed or disappointed, but a good deal less frightened than when she came in.

“Give me the pearls, and keep the secret of your visit, else will the talisman work for ill. But now go home, Mistress Nella, go home with Master Harry, and don’t you be coming into the forest at night; ’tisn’t fitting for young ladies like you, and will anger his honour, Sir Walter, sure enough.”

The different tone in which these last words were spoken startled Nella, for the witch dropped all her mysterious solemnity, and spoke, with half-coaxing command, in a voice that sounded strangely familiar.

Perhaps she was afraid of losing the doles of bread that Dame Agnes Northberry dispensed in the courtyard of the Manor, and which old Bess, as she was called, came to claim without any one guessing at her identity with the witch of the forest, who was visited in darkness and mystery. The young lady of Northberry was a client with whom she was afraid to deal.

On the whole, Harry, standing without in the darkness, listening to the strange cries of bird and beast, and watching the awful shadows change and sway in the rising wind, had the hardest time of it. He had followed Nella almost to the door of the hut, and was unspeakably thankful when she ran out alive and unhurt and ready to hurry home as fast as possible.

She hardly spoke, till they were safe out of the forest shades and in the familiar home fields, and then Harry said, in a subdued tone, “Was it very terrible, Nell?”

“No—no,” said Nella, with hesitation. “She said Catalina was across the sea, and had a talisman—the cross, you know—and that if I saw her it would be across the sea. But I was not much frightened,—and I don’t think there was anything—wicked. There were no—demons.” Nella sunk her voice a little, and spoke in a tone of slight disappointment mingled with relief.

“Well,” said Harry, breaking the spell with a laugh, “for all she told you, you might as well have stayed at home, Nell.”

“No, not when I had said I would go.”

But they both thought it rather remarkable that the next morning Harry Hartsed received a letter from his relations at Lisbon, duly favoured by a ship bearing despatches to the court, inviting him to come to Portugal and try his fortunes “across the sea.”

Back to IndexNext