Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven.On the Terrace.“Where we disavowBeing keeper to our brother, we’re his Cain.”Elizabeth Barrett Browning.“Hylton, thou art weary gear!”“What ails me?”“What ails thee, forsooth? Marry, but that’s as good a jest as I heard this year! I lack thee to tell me that. For what ails me at thee, that were other matter, and I can give thee to wit, an’ thou wilt. Thou art as heavy as lead, and as dull as ditch-water, and as flat as dowled (flat) ale. I would I were but mine own master, and I’d mount my horse, and ride away from the whole sort of you!”“From your father and mother, Matthew?”“Certes. Where’s the good of fathers and mothers, save to crimp and cramp young folks that would fain stretch their wings and be off into the sunlight? Mine never do nought else.”“Think you not the fathers and mothers might reasonably ask, Where’s the good of sons and daughters? How much have you cost yours, Matthew, since you were born?”Matthew Foljambe turned round with a light laugh, and gazed half contemptuously at the speaker.“Gentlemen never reckon,” said he. “’Tis a mean business, only fit for tradesfolk.”“You might reckon that sum, Matthew, without damage to your gentle blood. The King himself reckoneth up the troops he shall lack, and the convention-subsidy due from each man to furnish them. You shall scantly go above him, I count.”“I would I were but a king! Wouldn’t I lead a brave life!”“That would not I be for all the riches in Christendom.”“The which speech showeth thine unwisdom. Why, a king can have his purveyor to pick of the finest in the market ere any other be serven; he can lay tax on his people whenas it shall please him (this was true at that time); he can have a whole pig or goose to his table every morrow; and as for the gifts that be brought him, they be without number. Marry, but if I were a king, wouldn’t I have a long gown of blue velvet, all o’er broidered of seed-pearl, and a cap of cramoisie (crimson velvet), with golden broidery! And a summer jack (the garment of which jacket is the diminutive) of samitelle would I have—let me see—green, I reckon, bound with gold ribbon; and fair winter hoods of miniver and ermine, and buttons of gold by the score. Who so bravely apparelled as I, trow?”“Be your garments not warm enough, Matthew?”“Warm enough? certes! But they be only camoca and lamb’s far, with never a silver button, let be gold.”“What advantage should gold buttons be to you? Those pearl do attach your gown full evenly as well.”“Hylton, thou hast no ambitiousness in thee! Seest not that folks should pay me a deal more respect, thus donned (dressed) in my bravery?”“That is, they should pay much respect to the blue velvet and the gold buttons? You should be no different that I can see.”“I should be a vast sight comelier, man alive!”“You!” returned Hylton.“Where’s the good of talking to thee? As well essay to learn a sparrow to sing, ‘J’ay tout perdu mon temps.’”“I think you should have lost your time in very deed, and your labour belike, if you spent them on broidering gowns and stitching on buttons, when you had enow aforetime.”“Thou sely loon! (Simple creature!) Dost reckon I mean to work mine own broidery, trow? I’d have a fair score of maidens alway a-broidering for me, so that I might ever have a fresh device when I lacked a new gown.”“The which should come in a year to—how much?”“Dost look for me to know?”“I do, when I have told you. Above an hundred and twenty pound, Master Matthew. That should your bravery cost you, in broidering-maids alone.”“Well! what matter, so I had it?”“It might serve you. I should desire to buy more happiness with such a sum than could be stitched into golden broidery and seed-pearl.”“Now come, Norman, let us hear thy notion of happiness. If thou hadst in thine hand an hundred pound, what should’st do withal?”“I would see if I could not dry up as many widows’ tears as I had golden pieces, and bring as many smiles to the lips of orphans as they should divide into silver.”“Prithee, what good should that do thee?”“It should keep mine heart warm in the chillest winter thereafter. But I thought rather of the good it should do them than me.”“But what be such like folks to thee?”“Our Lord died for them, and He is something to me.”“Fate meant thee for a monk, Hylton. Thou rannest thine head against the wall to become a squire.”“Be monks the sole men that love God?”“They be the sole men that hold such talk.”“I have known monks that held full different talk, I do ensure you. And I have known laymen that loved God as well as any monk that ever paced cloister.”“Gramercy! do leave preaching of sermons. I have enow of them from my Lady my mother. Let’s be jolly, if we can.”“You should have the better right to be jolly, to know whither you were going, and that you should surely come out safe at the far end.”“Happy man be my dole! I’m no wise feared. I’ll give an hundred pound to the Church the week afore I die, and that shall buy me a soft-cushioned seat in Heaven, I’ll warrant.”“Who told you so much? Any that had been there?”“Man alive! wilt hold thy peace, and let man be? Thou art turned now into a predicant friar. I’ll leave thee here to preach to the gilly-flowers.”And Matthew walked off, with a sprig of mint in his mouth. He was not a bad man, as men go. He was simply a man who wanted to please himself, and to be comfortable and easy. In his eyes the whole fabric of the universe revolved round Matthew Foljambe. He did not show it as the royal savage did, who beat a primitive gong in token that, as he had sat down to dinner, the rest of the world might lawfully satisfy their hunger; but the sentiment in Matthew’s mind was a civilised and refined form of the same idea. If he were comfortable, what did it signify if everybody else were uncomfortable?Like all men in his day—and a good many in our own—Matthew had a low opinion of woman. It had been instilled into him, as it was at that time into every man who wrote himself “esquire,” that the utmost chivalrous reverence was due to the ladies as an abstract idea; but this abstract idea was quite compatible with the rudest behaviour and the supremest contempt for any given woman in the concrete. Woman was an article of which there were two qualities: the first-class thing was a toy, the second was a machine. Both were for the use of man—which was true enough, had they only realised that it meant for man’s real help and improvement, bodily, mental, and spiritual; but they understood it to mean for the bodily comfort and mental amusement of the nobler half of the human race. The natural result of this was that every woman must be appropriated to some master. The bare notion of allowing a woman to choose whether she would go through life unattached to a master, or, if otherwise, to reject one she feared or disliked, would have seemed to Matthew the most preposterous audacity on the part of the inferior creature, as it would also have appeared if the inferior creature had shown discontent with the lot marked out for it. The inferior creature, on the whole, walked very meekly in the path thus swept for it. This was partly, no doubt, because it was so taught as a religious duty; but partly, also, because the style of education then given to women left no room for the mental wings to expand. The bird was supplied with good seed and fresh water, and the idea of its wanting anything else was regarded as absurd. Let it sit on the perch and sing in a properly subdued tone. That it was graciously allowed to sing was enough for any reasonable bird, and ought to call forth on its part overflowing gratitude.Even then, a few of the caged birds were not content to sit meekly on the perch, but they were eyed askance by the properly behaved ones, and held up to the unfledged nestlings as sorrowful examples of the pernicious habit of thinking for one’s self. Never was bird less satisfied to be shut up in a cage than the hapless prisoner in that manor house, whom the peasants of the neighbourhood knew as the White Lady. Now and then they caught a glimpse of her at the window of her chamber, which she insisted on having open, and at which she would stand sometimes by the hour together, looking sorrowfully out on the blue sky and the green fields, wherein she might wander no more. A wild bird was Marguerite of Flanders, in whose veins ran the blood of those untamed sea-eagles, the Vikings of Denmark; and though bars and wires might keep her in the cage, to make her content with it was beyond their power.So thought Norman Hylton, looking up at the white figure visible behind the bars which crossed the casement of the captive’s chamber. He knew little of her beyond her name.“Saying thy prayers to the moon, Hylton? or to the White Lady?” asked a voice behind him.“Neither, Godfrey. I was marvelling wherefore she is mewed up there. Dost know?”“I know she was a full wearisome woman to my Lord Duke her son, and that he is a jollier man by the acre since she here dwelt.”“Was she his own mother?” asked Norman.“His own?—ay, for sure; and did him a good turn at the beginning, by preserving his kingdom for him when he was but a lad.”“And could he find no better reward for her than this?”“Tut! she sharped (teased, irritated) him, man. He could not have his will for her.”“Could he ne’er have put up with a little less of it? Or was his will so much dearer to him than his mother?”“Dost reckon he longed sore to be ridden of an old woman, and made to trot to market at her pleasure, when his own was to take every gate and hurdle in his way? Thou art old woman thyself, an’ thou so dost. My Lord Duke is no jog-trot market-ass, I can tell thee, but as fiery a war-charger as man may see in a summer’s day. And dost think a war-charger should be well a-paid to have an old woman of his back?”“My Lady his mother, then, hath no fire in her?” said Norman, glancing up at her where she stood behind the bars in her white weeds, looking down on the two young men in the garden.“Marry, enough to burn a city down. She did burn the King of France’s camp afore Hennebon. And whenas she was prisoner in Tickhill Castle, a certain knight, whose name I know not, (the name of this knight is apparently not on record), covenanted secretly with her by means of some bribe, or such like, given to her keepers, that he would deliver her from durance; and one night scaled he the walls, and she herself gat down from her window, and clambered like a cat by means of the water-spout and slight footholds in the stonework, till she came to the bottom, and then over the walls and away. They were taken, as thou mayest lightly guess, yet they gat them nigh clear of the liberties ere they could again be captivated. Fire! ay, that hath she, and ever will. Forsooth, that is the cause wherefore she harried her son. If she would have sat still at her spinning, he’d have left her be. But, look thou, she could not leave him be.”“Wherein did she seek to let him, wot you?”“Good lack! not I. If thou art so troubled thereanent, thou wert best ask my father. Maybe he wist not. I cannot say.”“It must have been sore disheartenment,” said Norman, pityingly, “to win nearly away, and then be brought back.”“Ay, marry; and then was she had up to London afore the King’s Grace, and had into straiter prison than aforetime. Ere that matter was she treated rather as guest of the King and Queen, though in good sooth she was prisoner; but after was she left no doubt touching that question. Some thought she might have been released eight years agone, when the convention was with the Lady Joan of Brittany, which after her lord was killed at Auray, gave up all, receiving the county of Penthièvre, the city of Limoges, and a great sum of money; and so far as England reckoned, so she might, and maybe would, had it been to my Lord Duke’s convenience. But he had found her aforetime very troublesome to him. Why, when he was but a youth, he fell o’ love with some fair damsel of his mother’s following, and should have wedded her, had not my Lady Duchess, so soon as ever she knew it, packed her off to a nunnery.”“Wherefore?”“That wis I not, without it were that she was not for him.” (Unsuitable.)“Was the tale true, think you?”“That wis I not likewise. Man said so much—behold all I know. Any way, she harried him, and he loved it not, and here she is. That’s enough for me.”“Poor lady!”“Poor? what for poor? She has all she can want. She is fed and clad as well as ever she was—better, I dare guess, than when she was besieged in Hennebon. If she would have broidery silks, or flowers, or any sort of women’s toys, she hath but to say, and my Lady my mother shall ride to Derby for them. The King gave order she should be well used, and well used she is. He desireth not that she be punished, but only kept sure.”“I would guess that mere keeping in durance, with nought more to vex her, were sorest suffering to one of her fashioning.”“But what more can she lack? Beside, she is only a woman.”“Women mostly live in and for their children, and your story sounds as though hers cared little enough for her.”“Well! they know she is well treated; why should they harry them over her? They be young, and would lead a jolly life, not to be tied for ever to her apron-string.”“I would not use my mother thus.”“What wouldst? Lead her horse with thy bonnet doffed, and make a leg afore her whenever she spake unto thee?”“If it made her happy so to do, I would. Meseemeth I should be as well employed in leading her horse as another, and could show my chivalry as well towards mine old mother as any other lady. I were somewhat more beholden to her of the twain, and God bade me not honour any other, but He did her.”“Ha, chétife! ’Tis easier work honouring a fair damsel, with golden hair and rose-leaf cheek, than a toothless old harridan that is for ever plaguing thee.”“Belike the Lord knew that, and writ therefore His fifth command.”Godfrey did not answer, for his attention was diverted. Two well-laden mules stood at the gate, and two men were coming up to the Manor House, carrying a large pack—a somewhat exciting vision to country people in the Middle Ages. There were then no such things as village shops, and only in the largest and most important towns was any great stock kept by tradesmen. The chief trading in country places was done by these itinerant pedlars, whose visits were therefore a source of great interest to the family, and especially to the ladies. They served frequently as messengers and carriers in a small way, and were particularly valuable between the four seasons, when alone anything worth notice could be expected in the shops—Easter, Whitsuntide, All Saints, and Christmas. There were also the spring and autumn fairs, but these were small matters except in the great towns. As it was now the beginning of September, Godfrey knew that a travelling pedlar would be a most acceptable visitor to his mother and wife.The porter, instructed by his young master, let in the pedlars.“What have ye?” demanded Godfrey.“I have mercery, sweet Sir, and he hath jewelling,” answered the taller of the pedlars, a middle-aged man with a bronzed face, which told of much outdoor exposure.“Why, well said! Come ye both into hall, and when ye have eaten and drunk, then shall ye open your packs.”Godfrey led the pedlars into the hall, and shouted for the sewer, whom he bade to set a table, and serve the wearied men with food.An hour later, Amphillis, who was sewing in her mistress’s chamber, rose at the entrance of Lady Foljambe.“Here, Dame, be pedlars bearing mercery and jewelling,” said she. “Would your Grace anything that I can pick forth to your content?”“Ay, I lack a few matters, Avena,” said the Countess, in her usual bitter-sweet style. “A two-three yards of freedom, an’ it like thee; and a boxful of air, so he have it fresh; and if thou see a silver chain of daughter’s duty, or a bit of son’s love set in gold, I could serve me of those if I had them. They’ll not come over sea, methinketh.”“Would it like your Grace,” asked Lady Foljambe, rather stiffly, “to speak in plain language, and say what you would have?”“‘Plain language!’” repeated the Countess. “In very deed, but I reckoned I had given thee some of that afore now! I would have my liberty, Avena Foljambe; and I would have my rights; and I would have of mine own childre such honour as ’longeth to a mother by reason and God’s law. Is that plain enough? or wouldst have it rougher hewn?”“Dame, your Grace wist well that such matter as this cometh not of pedlars’ packs.”“Ay!” said the Countess, with a long, weary sigh. “I do, so! Nor out of men’s hearts, belike. Well, Avena, to come down to such petty matter as I count I shall be suffered to have, prithee, bring me some violet silk of this shade for broidery, and another yard or twain of red samitelle for the backing. It were not in thy writ of matters allowable, I reckon, that the pedlars should come up and open their packs in my sight?”Lady Foljambe looked scandalised.“Dear heart! Dame, what means your Grace?”“I know,” said the Countess. “They have eyes, no less than I; and they shall see an old woman in white doole, and fall to marvelling, and maybe talking, wherefore their Lord King Edward keepeth her mewed up with bars across her casement. His Grace’s honour must be respected, trow. Be it done. ’Tis only one penny the more to the account that the Lord of the helpless shall demand of him one day. I trust he hath in his coffers wherewith to pay that debt. Verily, there shall be some strange meetings in that further world. I marvel something what manner of tale mine old friend De Mauny carried thither this last January, when he went on the long journey that hath no return. Howbeit, seeing he wedded his master’s cousin, maybe it were not to his conveniency to remind the Lord of the old woman behind the bars at Hazelwood. It should scantly redound to his lord’s credit. And at times it seemeth me that the Lord lacketh reminding, for He appears to have forgot me.”“I cannot listen, Dame, to such speech of my Sovereign.”“Do thy duty, Avena. After all, thy Sovereign’s not bad man, as men go. Marvellous ill they go, some of them! He hath held his sceptre well even betwixt justice and mercy on the whole, saving in two matters, whereof this old woman is one, and old women be of small account with most men. He should have fared well had he wist his own mind a bit better—but that’s in the blood. Old King Harry, his father’s grandfather, I have heard say, was a weary set-out for that. Go thy ways, Avena, and stand not staring at me. I’m neither a lovesome young damsel nor a hobgoblin, that thou shouldst set eyes on me thus. Three ells of red samitelle, and two ounces of violet silk this hue—and a bit of gold twist shall harm no man. Amphillis, my maid, thou art not glued to the chamber floor like thy mistress; go thou and take thy pleasure to see the pedlars’ packs. Thou hast not much here, poor child!”Amphillis thankfully accepted her mistress’s considerate permission, and ran down to the hall. She found the mercer’s pack open, and the rich stuffs hung all about on the forms, which had been pulled forward for that purpose. The jeweller meanwhile sat in a corner, resting until he was wanted. Time was not of much value in the Middle Ages.

“Where we disavowBeing keeper to our brother, we’re his Cain.”Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

“Where we disavowBeing keeper to our brother, we’re his Cain.”Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

“Hylton, thou art weary gear!”

“What ails me?”

“What ails thee, forsooth? Marry, but that’s as good a jest as I heard this year! I lack thee to tell me that. For what ails me at thee, that were other matter, and I can give thee to wit, an’ thou wilt. Thou art as heavy as lead, and as dull as ditch-water, and as flat as dowled (flat) ale. I would I were but mine own master, and I’d mount my horse, and ride away from the whole sort of you!”

“From your father and mother, Matthew?”

“Certes. Where’s the good of fathers and mothers, save to crimp and cramp young folks that would fain stretch their wings and be off into the sunlight? Mine never do nought else.”

“Think you not the fathers and mothers might reasonably ask, Where’s the good of sons and daughters? How much have you cost yours, Matthew, since you were born?”

Matthew Foljambe turned round with a light laugh, and gazed half contemptuously at the speaker.

“Gentlemen never reckon,” said he. “’Tis a mean business, only fit for tradesfolk.”

“You might reckon that sum, Matthew, without damage to your gentle blood. The King himself reckoneth up the troops he shall lack, and the convention-subsidy due from each man to furnish them. You shall scantly go above him, I count.”

“I would I were but a king! Wouldn’t I lead a brave life!”

“That would not I be for all the riches in Christendom.”

“The which speech showeth thine unwisdom. Why, a king can have his purveyor to pick of the finest in the market ere any other be serven; he can lay tax on his people whenas it shall please him (this was true at that time); he can have a whole pig or goose to his table every morrow; and as for the gifts that be brought him, they be without number. Marry, but if I were a king, wouldn’t I have a long gown of blue velvet, all o’er broidered of seed-pearl, and a cap of cramoisie (crimson velvet), with golden broidery! And a summer jack (the garment of which jacket is the diminutive) of samitelle would I have—let me see—green, I reckon, bound with gold ribbon; and fair winter hoods of miniver and ermine, and buttons of gold by the score. Who so bravely apparelled as I, trow?”

“Be your garments not warm enough, Matthew?”

“Warm enough? certes! But they be only camoca and lamb’s far, with never a silver button, let be gold.”

“What advantage should gold buttons be to you? Those pearl do attach your gown full evenly as well.”

“Hylton, thou hast no ambitiousness in thee! Seest not that folks should pay me a deal more respect, thus donned (dressed) in my bravery?”

“That is, they should pay much respect to the blue velvet and the gold buttons? You should be no different that I can see.”

“I should be a vast sight comelier, man alive!”

“You!” returned Hylton.

“Where’s the good of talking to thee? As well essay to learn a sparrow to sing, ‘J’ay tout perdu mon temps.’”

“I think you should have lost your time in very deed, and your labour belike, if you spent them on broidering gowns and stitching on buttons, when you had enow aforetime.”

“Thou sely loon! (Simple creature!) Dost reckon I mean to work mine own broidery, trow? I’d have a fair score of maidens alway a-broidering for me, so that I might ever have a fresh device when I lacked a new gown.”

“The which should come in a year to—how much?”

“Dost look for me to know?”

“I do, when I have told you. Above an hundred and twenty pound, Master Matthew. That should your bravery cost you, in broidering-maids alone.”

“Well! what matter, so I had it?”

“It might serve you. I should desire to buy more happiness with such a sum than could be stitched into golden broidery and seed-pearl.”

“Now come, Norman, let us hear thy notion of happiness. If thou hadst in thine hand an hundred pound, what should’st do withal?”

“I would see if I could not dry up as many widows’ tears as I had golden pieces, and bring as many smiles to the lips of orphans as they should divide into silver.”

“Prithee, what good should that do thee?”

“It should keep mine heart warm in the chillest winter thereafter. But I thought rather of the good it should do them than me.”

“But what be such like folks to thee?”

“Our Lord died for them, and He is something to me.”

“Fate meant thee for a monk, Hylton. Thou rannest thine head against the wall to become a squire.”

“Be monks the sole men that love God?”

“They be the sole men that hold such talk.”

“I have known monks that held full different talk, I do ensure you. And I have known laymen that loved God as well as any monk that ever paced cloister.”

“Gramercy! do leave preaching of sermons. I have enow of them from my Lady my mother. Let’s be jolly, if we can.”

“You should have the better right to be jolly, to know whither you were going, and that you should surely come out safe at the far end.”

“Happy man be my dole! I’m no wise feared. I’ll give an hundred pound to the Church the week afore I die, and that shall buy me a soft-cushioned seat in Heaven, I’ll warrant.”

“Who told you so much? Any that had been there?”

“Man alive! wilt hold thy peace, and let man be? Thou art turned now into a predicant friar. I’ll leave thee here to preach to the gilly-flowers.”

And Matthew walked off, with a sprig of mint in his mouth. He was not a bad man, as men go. He was simply a man who wanted to please himself, and to be comfortable and easy. In his eyes the whole fabric of the universe revolved round Matthew Foljambe. He did not show it as the royal savage did, who beat a primitive gong in token that, as he had sat down to dinner, the rest of the world might lawfully satisfy their hunger; but the sentiment in Matthew’s mind was a civilised and refined form of the same idea. If he were comfortable, what did it signify if everybody else were uncomfortable?

Like all men in his day—and a good many in our own—Matthew had a low opinion of woman. It had been instilled into him, as it was at that time into every man who wrote himself “esquire,” that the utmost chivalrous reverence was due to the ladies as an abstract idea; but this abstract idea was quite compatible with the rudest behaviour and the supremest contempt for any given woman in the concrete. Woman was an article of which there were two qualities: the first-class thing was a toy, the second was a machine. Both were for the use of man—which was true enough, had they only realised that it meant for man’s real help and improvement, bodily, mental, and spiritual; but they understood it to mean for the bodily comfort and mental amusement of the nobler half of the human race. The natural result of this was that every woman must be appropriated to some master. The bare notion of allowing a woman to choose whether she would go through life unattached to a master, or, if otherwise, to reject one she feared or disliked, would have seemed to Matthew the most preposterous audacity on the part of the inferior creature, as it would also have appeared if the inferior creature had shown discontent with the lot marked out for it. The inferior creature, on the whole, walked very meekly in the path thus swept for it. This was partly, no doubt, because it was so taught as a religious duty; but partly, also, because the style of education then given to women left no room for the mental wings to expand. The bird was supplied with good seed and fresh water, and the idea of its wanting anything else was regarded as absurd. Let it sit on the perch and sing in a properly subdued tone. That it was graciously allowed to sing was enough for any reasonable bird, and ought to call forth on its part overflowing gratitude.

Even then, a few of the caged birds were not content to sit meekly on the perch, but they were eyed askance by the properly behaved ones, and held up to the unfledged nestlings as sorrowful examples of the pernicious habit of thinking for one’s self. Never was bird less satisfied to be shut up in a cage than the hapless prisoner in that manor house, whom the peasants of the neighbourhood knew as the White Lady. Now and then they caught a glimpse of her at the window of her chamber, which she insisted on having open, and at which she would stand sometimes by the hour together, looking sorrowfully out on the blue sky and the green fields, wherein she might wander no more. A wild bird was Marguerite of Flanders, in whose veins ran the blood of those untamed sea-eagles, the Vikings of Denmark; and though bars and wires might keep her in the cage, to make her content with it was beyond their power.

So thought Norman Hylton, looking up at the white figure visible behind the bars which crossed the casement of the captive’s chamber. He knew little of her beyond her name.

“Saying thy prayers to the moon, Hylton? or to the White Lady?” asked a voice behind him.

“Neither, Godfrey. I was marvelling wherefore she is mewed up there. Dost know?”

“I know she was a full wearisome woman to my Lord Duke her son, and that he is a jollier man by the acre since she here dwelt.”

“Was she his own mother?” asked Norman.

“His own?—ay, for sure; and did him a good turn at the beginning, by preserving his kingdom for him when he was but a lad.”

“And could he find no better reward for her than this?”

“Tut! she sharped (teased, irritated) him, man. He could not have his will for her.”

“Could he ne’er have put up with a little less of it? Or was his will so much dearer to him than his mother?”

“Dost reckon he longed sore to be ridden of an old woman, and made to trot to market at her pleasure, when his own was to take every gate and hurdle in his way? Thou art old woman thyself, an’ thou so dost. My Lord Duke is no jog-trot market-ass, I can tell thee, but as fiery a war-charger as man may see in a summer’s day. And dost think a war-charger should be well a-paid to have an old woman of his back?”

“My Lady his mother, then, hath no fire in her?” said Norman, glancing up at her where she stood behind the bars in her white weeds, looking down on the two young men in the garden.

“Marry, enough to burn a city down. She did burn the King of France’s camp afore Hennebon. And whenas she was prisoner in Tickhill Castle, a certain knight, whose name I know not, (the name of this knight is apparently not on record), covenanted secretly with her by means of some bribe, or such like, given to her keepers, that he would deliver her from durance; and one night scaled he the walls, and she herself gat down from her window, and clambered like a cat by means of the water-spout and slight footholds in the stonework, till she came to the bottom, and then over the walls and away. They were taken, as thou mayest lightly guess, yet they gat them nigh clear of the liberties ere they could again be captivated. Fire! ay, that hath she, and ever will. Forsooth, that is the cause wherefore she harried her son. If she would have sat still at her spinning, he’d have left her be. But, look thou, she could not leave him be.”

“Wherein did she seek to let him, wot you?”

“Good lack! not I. If thou art so troubled thereanent, thou wert best ask my father. Maybe he wist not. I cannot say.”

“It must have been sore disheartenment,” said Norman, pityingly, “to win nearly away, and then be brought back.”

“Ay, marry; and then was she had up to London afore the King’s Grace, and had into straiter prison than aforetime. Ere that matter was she treated rather as guest of the King and Queen, though in good sooth she was prisoner; but after was she left no doubt touching that question. Some thought she might have been released eight years agone, when the convention was with the Lady Joan of Brittany, which after her lord was killed at Auray, gave up all, receiving the county of Penthièvre, the city of Limoges, and a great sum of money; and so far as England reckoned, so she might, and maybe would, had it been to my Lord Duke’s convenience. But he had found her aforetime very troublesome to him. Why, when he was but a youth, he fell o’ love with some fair damsel of his mother’s following, and should have wedded her, had not my Lady Duchess, so soon as ever she knew it, packed her off to a nunnery.”

“Wherefore?”

“That wis I not, without it were that she was not for him.” (Unsuitable.)

“Was the tale true, think you?”

“That wis I not likewise. Man said so much—behold all I know. Any way, she harried him, and he loved it not, and here she is. That’s enough for me.”

“Poor lady!”

“Poor? what for poor? She has all she can want. She is fed and clad as well as ever she was—better, I dare guess, than when she was besieged in Hennebon. If she would have broidery silks, or flowers, or any sort of women’s toys, she hath but to say, and my Lady my mother shall ride to Derby for them. The King gave order she should be well used, and well used she is. He desireth not that she be punished, but only kept sure.”

“I would guess that mere keeping in durance, with nought more to vex her, were sorest suffering to one of her fashioning.”

“But what more can she lack? Beside, she is only a woman.”

“Women mostly live in and for their children, and your story sounds as though hers cared little enough for her.”

“Well! they know she is well treated; why should they harry them over her? They be young, and would lead a jolly life, not to be tied for ever to her apron-string.”

“I would not use my mother thus.”

“What wouldst? Lead her horse with thy bonnet doffed, and make a leg afore her whenever she spake unto thee?”

“If it made her happy so to do, I would. Meseemeth I should be as well employed in leading her horse as another, and could show my chivalry as well towards mine old mother as any other lady. I were somewhat more beholden to her of the twain, and God bade me not honour any other, but He did her.”

“Ha, chétife! ’Tis easier work honouring a fair damsel, with golden hair and rose-leaf cheek, than a toothless old harridan that is for ever plaguing thee.”

“Belike the Lord knew that, and writ therefore His fifth command.”

Godfrey did not answer, for his attention was diverted. Two well-laden mules stood at the gate, and two men were coming up to the Manor House, carrying a large pack—a somewhat exciting vision to country people in the Middle Ages. There were then no such things as village shops, and only in the largest and most important towns was any great stock kept by tradesmen. The chief trading in country places was done by these itinerant pedlars, whose visits were therefore a source of great interest to the family, and especially to the ladies. They served frequently as messengers and carriers in a small way, and were particularly valuable between the four seasons, when alone anything worth notice could be expected in the shops—Easter, Whitsuntide, All Saints, and Christmas. There were also the spring and autumn fairs, but these were small matters except in the great towns. As it was now the beginning of September, Godfrey knew that a travelling pedlar would be a most acceptable visitor to his mother and wife.

The porter, instructed by his young master, let in the pedlars.

“What have ye?” demanded Godfrey.

“I have mercery, sweet Sir, and he hath jewelling,” answered the taller of the pedlars, a middle-aged man with a bronzed face, which told of much outdoor exposure.

“Why, well said! Come ye both into hall, and when ye have eaten and drunk, then shall ye open your packs.”

Godfrey led the pedlars into the hall, and shouted for the sewer, whom he bade to set a table, and serve the wearied men with food.

An hour later, Amphillis, who was sewing in her mistress’s chamber, rose at the entrance of Lady Foljambe.

“Here, Dame, be pedlars bearing mercery and jewelling,” said she. “Would your Grace anything that I can pick forth to your content?”

“Ay, I lack a few matters, Avena,” said the Countess, in her usual bitter-sweet style. “A two-three yards of freedom, an’ it like thee; and a boxful of air, so he have it fresh; and if thou see a silver chain of daughter’s duty, or a bit of son’s love set in gold, I could serve me of those if I had them. They’ll not come over sea, methinketh.”

“Would it like your Grace,” asked Lady Foljambe, rather stiffly, “to speak in plain language, and say what you would have?”

“‘Plain language!’” repeated the Countess. “In very deed, but I reckoned I had given thee some of that afore now! I would have my liberty, Avena Foljambe; and I would have my rights; and I would have of mine own childre such honour as ’longeth to a mother by reason and God’s law. Is that plain enough? or wouldst have it rougher hewn?”

“Dame, your Grace wist well that such matter as this cometh not of pedlars’ packs.”

“Ay!” said the Countess, with a long, weary sigh. “I do, so! Nor out of men’s hearts, belike. Well, Avena, to come down to such petty matter as I count I shall be suffered to have, prithee, bring me some violet silk of this shade for broidery, and another yard or twain of red samitelle for the backing. It were not in thy writ of matters allowable, I reckon, that the pedlars should come up and open their packs in my sight?”

Lady Foljambe looked scandalised.

“Dear heart! Dame, what means your Grace?”

“I know,” said the Countess. “They have eyes, no less than I; and they shall see an old woman in white doole, and fall to marvelling, and maybe talking, wherefore their Lord King Edward keepeth her mewed up with bars across her casement. His Grace’s honour must be respected, trow. Be it done. ’Tis only one penny the more to the account that the Lord of the helpless shall demand of him one day. I trust he hath in his coffers wherewith to pay that debt. Verily, there shall be some strange meetings in that further world. I marvel something what manner of tale mine old friend De Mauny carried thither this last January, when he went on the long journey that hath no return. Howbeit, seeing he wedded his master’s cousin, maybe it were not to his conveniency to remind the Lord of the old woman behind the bars at Hazelwood. It should scantly redound to his lord’s credit. And at times it seemeth me that the Lord lacketh reminding, for He appears to have forgot me.”

“I cannot listen, Dame, to such speech of my Sovereign.”

“Do thy duty, Avena. After all, thy Sovereign’s not bad man, as men go. Marvellous ill they go, some of them! He hath held his sceptre well even betwixt justice and mercy on the whole, saving in two matters, whereof this old woman is one, and old women be of small account with most men. He should have fared well had he wist his own mind a bit better—but that’s in the blood. Old King Harry, his father’s grandfather, I have heard say, was a weary set-out for that. Go thy ways, Avena, and stand not staring at me. I’m neither a lovesome young damsel nor a hobgoblin, that thou shouldst set eyes on me thus. Three ells of red samitelle, and two ounces of violet silk this hue—and a bit of gold twist shall harm no man. Amphillis, my maid, thou art not glued to the chamber floor like thy mistress; go thou and take thy pleasure to see the pedlars’ packs. Thou hast not much here, poor child!”

Amphillis thankfully accepted her mistress’s considerate permission, and ran down to the hall. She found the mercer’s pack open, and the rich stuffs hung all about on the forms, which had been pulled forward for that purpose. The jeweller meanwhile sat in a corner, resting until he was wanted. Time was not of much value in the Middle Ages.

Chapter Eight.Alners and Samitelle.“And there’s many a deed I could wish undone, though the law might notbe broke;And there’s many a word, now I come to think, that I wish I had notspoke.”The mercer’s stock, spread out upon the benches of the hall, was a sight at once gay and magnificent. Cloth of gold, diaper, baldekin, velvet, tissue, samite, satin, tartaryn, samitelle, sarcenet, taffata, sindon, cendall, say—all of them varieties of silken stuffs—ribbons of silk, satin, velvet, silver, and gold, were heaped together in brilliant and bewildering confusion of beautiful colours. Lady Foljambe, Mrs Margaret, Marabel, and Agatha, were all looking on.“What price is that by the yard?” inquired Lady Foljambe, touching a piece of superb Cyprus baldekin, striped white, and crimson. Baldekin was an exceedingly rich silk, originally made at Constantinople: it was now manufactured in England also, but the “oversea” article was the more valuable, the baldekin of Cyprus holding first rank. Baldachino is derived from this word.“Dame,” answered the mercer, “that is a Cyprus baldekin; it is eight pound the piece of three ells.”Lady Foljambe resigned the costly beauty with a sigh.“And this?” she asked, indicating a piece of soft blue.“That is an oversea cloth, Dame, yet not principal (of first-class quality)—it is priced five pound the piece.”Lady Foljambe’s gesture intimated that this was too much for her purse. “Hast any gold cloths of tissue, not over three pound the piece?”“That have I, Dame,” answered the mercer, displaying a pretty pale green, a dark red, and one of the favourite yellowish-brown shade known as tawny.Lady Foljambe looked discontented; the beautiful baldekins first seen had eclipsed the modest attractions of their less showy associates.“Nay, I pass not (do not care) for those,” said she. “Show me velvet.”The mercer answered by dexterously draping an unoccupied form, first with a piece of rich purple, then one of tawny, then one of deep crimson, and lastly a bright blue.“And what price be they?”He touched each as he recounted the prices, beginning with the purple.“Fifteen shillings the ell, Dame; a mark (13 shillings 4 pence); fourteen shillings; half a mark. I have also a fair green at half a mark, a peach blossom at fourteen shillings, a grey at seven-and-sixpence, and a murrey (mulberry colour) at a mark.”Lady Foljambe slightly shrugged her shoulders.“Say a noble (6 shillings 8 pence) for the grey, and set it aside,” she said.“Dame, I could not,” replied the mercer, firmly though respectfully. “My goods be honest matter; they be such as they are set forth, and they have paid the King’s dues.”Like many other people, Lady Foljambe would have preferred smuggled goods, if they were cheaper than the honest article. Her conscience was very elastic about taxes. It was no great wonder that this spirit prevailed in days when the Crown could ruthlessly squeeze its subjects whenever it wanted extra money, as Henry the Third had done a hundred years before; and though his successors had not imitated his example, the memory of it remained as a horror and a suspicion. Dishonest people, whether they are kings or coal-heavers, always make a place more difficult to fill for those who come after them.“Well! then set aside the blue,” said Lady Foljambe, with a slight pout. “Margaret, what lackest thou?”Mrs Margaret looked wistfully at the fourteen-shilling crimson, and then manfully chose the six-and-eightpenny green.“Now let us see thy samitelles,” said her Ladyship.Samitelle, as its name implies, was doubtless a commoner quality of the rich and precious samite, which ranked in costliness and beauty with baldekin and cloth of gold, and above satin and velvet. Samite was a silk material, of which no more is known than that it was very expensive, and had a glossy sheen, like satin. Some antiquaries have supposed it to be an old name for satin; but as several Wardrobe Rolls contain entries relating to both in immediate sequence, this supposition is untenable.The mercer exhibited three pieces of samitelle.“Perse, Dame, four marks the piece,” said he, holding up a very pale blue; “ash-colour, thirty shillings; apple-bloom, forty shillings.”“No,” said Lady Foljambe; “I would have white.”“Forty-five shillings the piece, Dame.”“Hast no cheaper?”“Not in white, Dame.”“Well! lay it aside; likewise three ells of the red. I would have moreover a cendall of bean-flower colour, and a piece or twain of say—murrey or sop-in-wine.”Cendall was a very fine, thin silk fit for summer wear, resembling what is now called foulard; say was the coarsest and cheapest sort of silk, and was used for upholstery as well as clothing.“I have a full fair bean-flower cendall, Dame, one shilling the ell; and a good sop-in-wine say at twopence.”The mercer, as he spoke, held up the piece of say, of a nondescript colour, not unlike what is now termed crushed strawberry.“That shall serve for the chamberers,” said Lady Foljambe; “but the cendall is for myself; I would have it good.”“Dame, it is principal; you shall not see better.”“Good. Measure me off six ells of the cendall, and nine of the say. Then lay by each piece skeins of thread of silk, an ounce to the piece, each to his colour; two ounces of violet, and two of gold twist. Enough for this morrow.”The mercer bowed, with deft quickness executed the order, and proceeded to pack up the remainder of his goods. When the forms were denuded of their rich coverings, he retired into the corner, and the jeweller came forward.The little jeweller was less dignified, but more lively and loquacious, than his companion the mercer. He unstrapped his pack, laid it open at the feet of Lady Foljambe, and executed a prolonged flourish of two plump brown hands.“What may I lay before your Ladyship? Buttons and buttoners of de best, paternosters of de finest, gold and silver collars, chains, crucifixes garnished of stones and pearls; crespines, girdles of every fashion, ouches, rings, tablets (tablets were of two sorts, reliquaries and memorandum-books), charms, gipsers, and forcers (satchels to hang from the waist, and small boxes), combs, spoons, caskets, collars for de leetle dogs, bells, points (tagged laces, then much used), alners (alms-bags, larger than purses), purses, knives, scissors, cups—what asks your Ladyship? Behold dem all.”“Dost call thyself a jeweller?” asked Lady Foljambe, with a laugh. “Why, thou art jeweller, silversmith, girdler, forcer-maker, and cutler.”“Dame, I am all men to please my customers,” answered the little jeweller, obsequiously. “Will your Ladyship look? Ah, de beautiful tings!”“Art thou Englishman?”“Ah! no, Madame, I am a Breton. I come from Hennebon.”A sudden flash of suspicious uneasiness lighted up the eyes of the Countess of Montfort’s gaoler. Yet had the man meant mischief, he would scarcely have been so communicative. However that might be, Lady Foljambe determined to get him out of the house as quickly as possible.“I lack but little of thy sort,” she said. “Howbeit, thou mayest show us thine alners and thy buttons.”“I would fain have a gipser,” said Mrs Margaret.While Mrs Margaret was selecting from the stock of gipsers a pretty red velvet one with a silver clasp, price half-a-crown, Perrote came quietly into the hall, and stood beside Amphillis, a little behind Lady Foljambe, who had not heard her entrance.“Here are de alners, Madame,” said the lively little Breton. “Blue, green, black, white, red, tawny, violet. Will your Ladyship choose? T’ree shillings to free marks—beautiful, beautiful! Den here are—Bon saints, que vois-je? Surely, surely it is Mademoiselle de Carhaix!”“It is,” said Perrote; “and thou art Ivo filz Jehan?”“I am Ivo filz Jehan, dat man calls Ivo le Breton. I go from Cornwall, where dwell my countrymen, right up to de Scottish border. And how comes it, den, if a poor man may ask, dat I find here, in de heart of England, a Breton damsel of family?”Lady Foljambe was in an agony. She would have given her best gold chain for the little Breton jeweller to have kept away from Hazelwood. If he had any sort of penetration, another minute might reveal the secret hitherto so jealously guarded, that his Sovereign’s missing mother was a prisoner there. Her misery was the greater because she could not feel at all sure of Perrote, whom she strongly suspected of more loyalty to her mistress than to King Edward in her heart, though she had not shown it by any outward action. Perrote knew the direction of Lady Foljambe’s thoughts as well as if she had spoken them. She answered very calmly, and with a smile.“May Breton damsels not tarry in strange lands, as well as Breton pedlars? I have divers friends in England.”“Surely, surely!” said the pedlar, hastily, perceiving that he had transgressed against Lady Foljambe’s pleasure. “Only, if so poor man may say it, it is full pleasant to see face dat man know in strange land. Madame, would it please your Ladyship to regard de alners?”Lady Foljambe was only too glad to turn Ivo’s attention back to the alners. She bought six for presents—they were a favourite form of gift; and picked out twenty buttons of silver-gilt, stamped with an eagle. Mrs Margaret also selected a rosary, of coral set in silver, to help her in saying her prayers, for which article, in her eyes of the first necessity, she gave 33 shillings 4 pence, and for a minute enamelled image of the Virgin and Child, in a little tabernacle or case of silver filagree, of Italian work, she paid five pounds. This was to be set before her on the table and prayed to. Mrs Margaret would not have put it quite in that plain form of words, for no idolater will ever admit that he addresses the piece of wood or stone; but it was what she really did without admitting it. Alas for the worshipper whose god has to be carried about, and requires dusting like any other ornament! “They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.”Perrote bought an ivory comb of Ivo, which cost her three shillings, for old acquaintance sake; Marabel purchased six silver buttons in the form of a lamb, for which she paid 8 shillings 9 pence; Agatha invested four shillings in a chaplet of pearls; while Amphillis, whose purse was very low, and had never been otherwise, contented herself with a sixpenny casket. Ivo, however, was well satisfied, and packed up his goods with a radiant face.When the two itinerant tradesmen had shouldered their packs, and had gone forth, Lady Foljambe hastily summoned her husband’s squire. She was not sufficiently high in dignity to have a squire of her own.“Prithee, keep watch of yon little jeweller packman,” said she, uneasily. “Mark whither he goeth, and see that he hold no discourse with any of the household, without it be to trade withal. I desire to know him clear of the vicinage ere the dark falleth.”Norman Hylton bowed in answer, and went out.He found the two packmen in the courtyard, the centre of an admiring throng of servants and retainers, all of whom were anxious to inspect their goods, some from a desire to make such purchases as they could afford, and all from that longing to relieve the monotony of life which besets man in general, and must have been especially tempting in the Middle Ages. A travelling pedlar was the substitute for an illustrated newspaper, his pack supplying the engravings, and his tongue the text. These men and pilgrims were the chief newsmongers of the day.Ivo dangled a pair of blue glass ear-rings before the enchanted eyes of Kate the chambermaid.“You shall have dem dirt sheap! Treepence de pair—dat is all. Vat lack you, my young maids? Here is mirrors and combs, scissors and knives, necklaces, beads and girdles, purses of Rouen, forcers and gipsers—all manner you can wish. Relics I have, if you desire dem—a little finger-bone of Saint George, and a tooth of de dragon dat he slew; a t’read of de veil of Saint Agat’a, and de paring of Saint Matthew’s nails. Here is brooches, crespines, charms, spectacles, alners, balls, puppets, coffers, bells, baskets for de maids’ needlework, pins, needles, ear-rings, shoe-buckles, buttons—everyting! And here—here is my beautifullest ting—my chiefest relic, in de leetle silver box—see!”“Nay, what is it, trow?” inquired Kate, who looked with deep interest through the interstices of the filagree, and saw nothing but a few inches of coarse linen thread.“Oh, it is de blessed relic! Look you, our Lady made shirt for Saint Joseph, and she cut off de t’read, and it fall on de floor, and dere it lie till Saint Petronilla come by, and she pick it up and put it in her bosom. It is all writ down inside. De holy Fader give it my moder’s grandmoder’s aunt, when she go to Rome. It is wort’ tousands of pounds—de t’read dat our blessed Lady draw t’rough her fingers. You should have no maladies never, if you wear dat.”“Ay, but such things as that be alonely for folk as can pay for ’em, I reckon,” said Kate, looking wistfully, first at the blue ear-rings, and then at the blessed relic.Ivo made a screen of his hand, and spoke into Kate’s ear.“See you, now! You buy dem, and I trow him you into de bargain! Said I well, fair maid?”“What, all for threepence?” gasped the bewitched Kate.“All for t’ree-pence. De blessed relic and de beautiful ear-rings! It is dirt sheap. I would not say it to nobody else, only my friends. See you?”Kate looked in his face to see if he meant it, and then slowly drew out her purse. The warmth of Ivo’s friendship, ten minutes old at the most, rather staggered her. But the ear-rings had taken her fancy, and she was also, though less, desirous to possess the holy relic. She poured out into the palm of her hand various pence, halfpence, and farthings, and began endeavouring to reckon up the threepence; a difficult task for a girl utterly ignorant of figures.“You leave me count it,” suggested the little packman. “I will not cheat you—no, no! How could I, wid de blessed relic in mine hand? One, two, free. Dere! I put in de rings in your ears? ah, dey make you look beautiful, beautiful! De widow lady, I see her not when I have my pack in hall. She is well?”“What widow lady, trow?” said Kate, feeling the first ear-ring glide softly into her ear.“Ah, I have afore been here. I see a widow lady at de window. Why come she not to hall?—Oh, how fair you shall be! you shall every eye charm!—She is here no more—yes?”“Well, ay—there is a widow lady dwelleth here,” said Kate, offering the other ear to her beguiler, just as Norman Hylton came up to them; “but she is a prisoner, and—hush! haste you, now, or I must run without them.”“Dat shall you not,” said Ivo, quickly slipping the second ear-ring into its place. “Ah, how lovesome should you be, under dat bush by the gate, that hath de yellow flowers, when de sun was setting, and all golden behind you! Keep well de holy relic; it shall bring you good.”And with a significant look, and a glance upwards at the house, Ivo shouldered his pack, and turned away.The mercer had not seemed anxious to do business with the household. Perhaps he felt that his wares were scarcely within their means. He sat quietly in the gateway until the jeweller had finished his chaffering, when he rose and walked out beside him. The two packs were carefully strapped on the waiting mules, which were held by the lad, and the party marched down the slope from the gateway.“What bought you with your holy relic and your ear-rings, Ivo?” asked the mercer, with a rather satirical glance at his companion, when they were well out of hearing. “Aught that was worth them?”“I bought the news that our Lady abideth hither,” was the grave reply; “and it was cheap, at the cost of a scrap of tin and another of glass, and an inch or twain of thread out of your pack. If yon maid have but wit to be under the shrub by the gate at sunset, I shall win more of her. But she’s but a poor brain, or I err. Howbeit, I’ve had my ear-rings’ worth. They cost but a halfpenny. Can you see aught from here? Your eyes be sharper than mine.”“I see somewhat white at yonder window. But, Ivo, were you wise to tell the lady you came from Hennebon?”“I was, Sir Roland. She will suspect me now, instead of you; and if, as I guess, she send a spy after us, when we part company he will follow me, and you shall be quit of him.”The mercer glanced back, as though to see if any one were following.“Well, perchance you say well,” he answered. “There is none behind, methinks. So now to rejoin Father Eloy.”Norman Hylton had not followed the packmen beyond the gate. He did not like the business, and was glad to be rid of it. He only kept watch of them till they disappeared up the hill, and then returned to tell Lady Foljambe the direction which they had taken.Kate’s mind was considerably exercised. As Ivo had remarked, her wits were by no means of the first quality, but her conceit and love of admiration far outstripped them. The little jeweller had seen this, and had guessed that she would best answer his purpose of the younger members of the household. Quiet, sensible Joan, the upper chambermaid, would not have suited him at all; neither would sturdy, straightforward Meg, the cook-maid; but Kate’s vanity and indiscretion were both so patent that he fixed on her at once as his chosen accomplice. His only doubt was whether she had sense enough to understand his hint about being under the bush at sunset. Ivo provided himself with a showy brooch of red glass set in gilt copper, which Kate was intended to accept as gold and rubies; and leaving his pack under the care of his fellow conspirator—for Ivo was really the pedlar which Roland was not—he slipped back to Hazelwood, and shortly before the sun set was prowling about in the neighbourhood of the bush which stood just outside the gate of Hazelwood Manor. Before he had been there many minutes, a light, tripping footstep was heard; and poor, foolish Kate, with the blue drops in her ears, came like a giddy fly into the web of Ivo the spider.

“And there’s many a deed I could wish undone, though the law might notbe broke;And there’s many a word, now I come to think, that I wish I had notspoke.”

“And there’s many a deed I could wish undone, though the law might notbe broke;And there’s many a word, now I come to think, that I wish I had notspoke.”

The mercer’s stock, spread out upon the benches of the hall, was a sight at once gay and magnificent. Cloth of gold, diaper, baldekin, velvet, tissue, samite, satin, tartaryn, samitelle, sarcenet, taffata, sindon, cendall, say—all of them varieties of silken stuffs—ribbons of silk, satin, velvet, silver, and gold, were heaped together in brilliant and bewildering confusion of beautiful colours. Lady Foljambe, Mrs Margaret, Marabel, and Agatha, were all looking on.

“What price is that by the yard?” inquired Lady Foljambe, touching a piece of superb Cyprus baldekin, striped white, and crimson. Baldekin was an exceedingly rich silk, originally made at Constantinople: it was now manufactured in England also, but the “oversea” article was the more valuable, the baldekin of Cyprus holding first rank. Baldachino is derived from this word.

“Dame,” answered the mercer, “that is a Cyprus baldekin; it is eight pound the piece of three ells.”

Lady Foljambe resigned the costly beauty with a sigh.

“And this?” she asked, indicating a piece of soft blue.

“That is an oversea cloth, Dame, yet not principal (of first-class quality)—it is priced five pound the piece.”

Lady Foljambe’s gesture intimated that this was too much for her purse. “Hast any gold cloths of tissue, not over three pound the piece?”

“That have I, Dame,” answered the mercer, displaying a pretty pale green, a dark red, and one of the favourite yellowish-brown shade known as tawny.

Lady Foljambe looked discontented; the beautiful baldekins first seen had eclipsed the modest attractions of their less showy associates.

“Nay, I pass not (do not care) for those,” said she. “Show me velvet.”

The mercer answered by dexterously draping an unoccupied form, first with a piece of rich purple, then one of tawny, then one of deep crimson, and lastly a bright blue.

“And what price be they?”

He touched each as he recounted the prices, beginning with the purple.

“Fifteen shillings the ell, Dame; a mark (13 shillings 4 pence); fourteen shillings; half a mark. I have also a fair green at half a mark, a peach blossom at fourteen shillings, a grey at seven-and-sixpence, and a murrey (mulberry colour) at a mark.”

Lady Foljambe slightly shrugged her shoulders.

“Say a noble (6 shillings 8 pence) for the grey, and set it aside,” she said.

“Dame, I could not,” replied the mercer, firmly though respectfully. “My goods be honest matter; they be such as they are set forth, and they have paid the King’s dues.”

Like many other people, Lady Foljambe would have preferred smuggled goods, if they were cheaper than the honest article. Her conscience was very elastic about taxes. It was no great wonder that this spirit prevailed in days when the Crown could ruthlessly squeeze its subjects whenever it wanted extra money, as Henry the Third had done a hundred years before; and though his successors had not imitated his example, the memory of it remained as a horror and a suspicion. Dishonest people, whether they are kings or coal-heavers, always make a place more difficult to fill for those who come after them.

“Well! then set aside the blue,” said Lady Foljambe, with a slight pout. “Margaret, what lackest thou?”

Mrs Margaret looked wistfully at the fourteen-shilling crimson, and then manfully chose the six-and-eightpenny green.

“Now let us see thy samitelles,” said her Ladyship.

Samitelle, as its name implies, was doubtless a commoner quality of the rich and precious samite, which ranked in costliness and beauty with baldekin and cloth of gold, and above satin and velvet. Samite was a silk material, of which no more is known than that it was very expensive, and had a glossy sheen, like satin. Some antiquaries have supposed it to be an old name for satin; but as several Wardrobe Rolls contain entries relating to both in immediate sequence, this supposition is untenable.

The mercer exhibited three pieces of samitelle.

“Perse, Dame, four marks the piece,” said he, holding up a very pale blue; “ash-colour, thirty shillings; apple-bloom, forty shillings.”

“No,” said Lady Foljambe; “I would have white.”

“Forty-five shillings the piece, Dame.”

“Hast no cheaper?”

“Not in white, Dame.”

“Well! lay it aside; likewise three ells of the red. I would have moreover a cendall of bean-flower colour, and a piece or twain of say—murrey or sop-in-wine.”

Cendall was a very fine, thin silk fit for summer wear, resembling what is now called foulard; say was the coarsest and cheapest sort of silk, and was used for upholstery as well as clothing.

“I have a full fair bean-flower cendall, Dame, one shilling the ell; and a good sop-in-wine say at twopence.”

The mercer, as he spoke, held up the piece of say, of a nondescript colour, not unlike what is now termed crushed strawberry.

“That shall serve for the chamberers,” said Lady Foljambe; “but the cendall is for myself; I would have it good.”

“Dame, it is principal; you shall not see better.”

“Good. Measure me off six ells of the cendall, and nine of the say. Then lay by each piece skeins of thread of silk, an ounce to the piece, each to his colour; two ounces of violet, and two of gold twist. Enough for this morrow.”

The mercer bowed, with deft quickness executed the order, and proceeded to pack up the remainder of his goods. When the forms were denuded of their rich coverings, he retired into the corner, and the jeweller came forward.

The little jeweller was less dignified, but more lively and loquacious, than his companion the mercer. He unstrapped his pack, laid it open at the feet of Lady Foljambe, and executed a prolonged flourish of two plump brown hands.

“What may I lay before your Ladyship? Buttons and buttoners of de best, paternosters of de finest, gold and silver collars, chains, crucifixes garnished of stones and pearls; crespines, girdles of every fashion, ouches, rings, tablets (tablets were of two sorts, reliquaries and memorandum-books), charms, gipsers, and forcers (satchels to hang from the waist, and small boxes), combs, spoons, caskets, collars for de leetle dogs, bells, points (tagged laces, then much used), alners (alms-bags, larger than purses), purses, knives, scissors, cups—what asks your Ladyship? Behold dem all.”

“Dost call thyself a jeweller?” asked Lady Foljambe, with a laugh. “Why, thou art jeweller, silversmith, girdler, forcer-maker, and cutler.”

“Dame, I am all men to please my customers,” answered the little jeweller, obsequiously. “Will your Ladyship look? Ah, de beautiful tings!”

“Art thou Englishman?”

“Ah! no, Madame, I am a Breton. I come from Hennebon.”

A sudden flash of suspicious uneasiness lighted up the eyes of the Countess of Montfort’s gaoler. Yet had the man meant mischief, he would scarcely have been so communicative. However that might be, Lady Foljambe determined to get him out of the house as quickly as possible.

“I lack but little of thy sort,” she said. “Howbeit, thou mayest show us thine alners and thy buttons.”

“I would fain have a gipser,” said Mrs Margaret.

While Mrs Margaret was selecting from the stock of gipsers a pretty red velvet one with a silver clasp, price half-a-crown, Perrote came quietly into the hall, and stood beside Amphillis, a little behind Lady Foljambe, who had not heard her entrance.

“Here are de alners, Madame,” said the lively little Breton. “Blue, green, black, white, red, tawny, violet. Will your Ladyship choose? T’ree shillings to free marks—beautiful, beautiful! Den here are—Bon saints, que vois-je? Surely, surely it is Mademoiselle de Carhaix!”

“It is,” said Perrote; “and thou art Ivo filz Jehan?”

“I am Ivo filz Jehan, dat man calls Ivo le Breton. I go from Cornwall, where dwell my countrymen, right up to de Scottish border. And how comes it, den, if a poor man may ask, dat I find here, in de heart of England, a Breton damsel of family?”

Lady Foljambe was in an agony. She would have given her best gold chain for the little Breton jeweller to have kept away from Hazelwood. If he had any sort of penetration, another minute might reveal the secret hitherto so jealously guarded, that his Sovereign’s missing mother was a prisoner there. Her misery was the greater because she could not feel at all sure of Perrote, whom she strongly suspected of more loyalty to her mistress than to King Edward in her heart, though she had not shown it by any outward action. Perrote knew the direction of Lady Foljambe’s thoughts as well as if she had spoken them. She answered very calmly, and with a smile.

“May Breton damsels not tarry in strange lands, as well as Breton pedlars? I have divers friends in England.”

“Surely, surely!” said the pedlar, hastily, perceiving that he had transgressed against Lady Foljambe’s pleasure. “Only, if so poor man may say it, it is full pleasant to see face dat man know in strange land. Madame, would it please your Ladyship to regard de alners?”

Lady Foljambe was only too glad to turn Ivo’s attention back to the alners. She bought six for presents—they were a favourite form of gift; and picked out twenty buttons of silver-gilt, stamped with an eagle. Mrs Margaret also selected a rosary, of coral set in silver, to help her in saying her prayers, for which article, in her eyes of the first necessity, she gave 33 shillings 4 pence, and for a minute enamelled image of the Virgin and Child, in a little tabernacle or case of silver filagree, of Italian work, she paid five pounds. This was to be set before her on the table and prayed to. Mrs Margaret would not have put it quite in that plain form of words, for no idolater will ever admit that he addresses the piece of wood or stone; but it was what she really did without admitting it. Alas for the worshipper whose god has to be carried about, and requires dusting like any other ornament! “They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.”

Perrote bought an ivory comb of Ivo, which cost her three shillings, for old acquaintance sake; Marabel purchased six silver buttons in the form of a lamb, for which she paid 8 shillings 9 pence; Agatha invested four shillings in a chaplet of pearls; while Amphillis, whose purse was very low, and had never been otherwise, contented herself with a sixpenny casket. Ivo, however, was well satisfied, and packed up his goods with a radiant face.

When the two itinerant tradesmen had shouldered their packs, and had gone forth, Lady Foljambe hastily summoned her husband’s squire. She was not sufficiently high in dignity to have a squire of her own.

“Prithee, keep watch of yon little jeweller packman,” said she, uneasily. “Mark whither he goeth, and see that he hold no discourse with any of the household, without it be to trade withal. I desire to know him clear of the vicinage ere the dark falleth.”

Norman Hylton bowed in answer, and went out.

He found the two packmen in the courtyard, the centre of an admiring throng of servants and retainers, all of whom were anxious to inspect their goods, some from a desire to make such purchases as they could afford, and all from that longing to relieve the monotony of life which besets man in general, and must have been especially tempting in the Middle Ages. A travelling pedlar was the substitute for an illustrated newspaper, his pack supplying the engravings, and his tongue the text. These men and pilgrims were the chief newsmongers of the day.

Ivo dangled a pair of blue glass ear-rings before the enchanted eyes of Kate the chambermaid.

“You shall have dem dirt sheap! Treepence de pair—dat is all. Vat lack you, my young maids? Here is mirrors and combs, scissors and knives, necklaces, beads and girdles, purses of Rouen, forcers and gipsers—all manner you can wish. Relics I have, if you desire dem—a little finger-bone of Saint George, and a tooth of de dragon dat he slew; a t’read of de veil of Saint Agat’a, and de paring of Saint Matthew’s nails. Here is brooches, crespines, charms, spectacles, alners, balls, puppets, coffers, bells, baskets for de maids’ needlework, pins, needles, ear-rings, shoe-buckles, buttons—everyting! And here—here is my beautifullest ting—my chiefest relic, in de leetle silver box—see!”

“Nay, what is it, trow?” inquired Kate, who looked with deep interest through the interstices of the filagree, and saw nothing but a few inches of coarse linen thread.

“Oh, it is de blessed relic! Look you, our Lady made shirt for Saint Joseph, and she cut off de t’read, and it fall on de floor, and dere it lie till Saint Petronilla come by, and she pick it up and put it in her bosom. It is all writ down inside. De holy Fader give it my moder’s grandmoder’s aunt, when she go to Rome. It is wort’ tousands of pounds—de t’read dat our blessed Lady draw t’rough her fingers. You should have no maladies never, if you wear dat.”

“Ay, but such things as that be alonely for folk as can pay for ’em, I reckon,” said Kate, looking wistfully, first at the blue ear-rings, and then at the blessed relic.

Ivo made a screen of his hand, and spoke into Kate’s ear.

“See you, now! You buy dem, and I trow him you into de bargain! Said I well, fair maid?”

“What, all for threepence?” gasped the bewitched Kate.

“All for t’ree-pence. De blessed relic and de beautiful ear-rings! It is dirt sheap. I would not say it to nobody else, only my friends. See you?”

Kate looked in his face to see if he meant it, and then slowly drew out her purse. The warmth of Ivo’s friendship, ten minutes old at the most, rather staggered her. But the ear-rings had taken her fancy, and she was also, though less, desirous to possess the holy relic. She poured out into the palm of her hand various pence, halfpence, and farthings, and began endeavouring to reckon up the threepence; a difficult task for a girl utterly ignorant of figures.

“You leave me count it,” suggested the little packman. “I will not cheat you—no, no! How could I, wid de blessed relic in mine hand? One, two, free. Dere! I put in de rings in your ears? ah, dey make you look beautiful, beautiful! De widow lady, I see her not when I have my pack in hall. She is well?”

“What widow lady, trow?” said Kate, feeling the first ear-ring glide softly into her ear.

“Ah, I have afore been here. I see a widow lady at de window. Why come she not to hall?—Oh, how fair you shall be! you shall every eye charm!—She is here no more—yes?”

“Well, ay—there is a widow lady dwelleth here,” said Kate, offering the other ear to her beguiler, just as Norman Hylton came up to them; “but she is a prisoner, and—hush! haste you, now, or I must run without them.”

“Dat shall you not,” said Ivo, quickly slipping the second ear-ring into its place. “Ah, how lovesome should you be, under dat bush by the gate, that hath de yellow flowers, when de sun was setting, and all golden behind you! Keep well de holy relic; it shall bring you good.”

And with a significant look, and a glance upwards at the house, Ivo shouldered his pack, and turned away.

The mercer had not seemed anxious to do business with the household. Perhaps he felt that his wares were scarcely within their means. He sat quietly in the gateway until the jeweller had finished his chaffering, when he rose and walked out beside him. The two packs were carefully strapped on the waiting mules, which were held by the lad, and the party marched down the slope from the gateway.

“What bought you with your holy relic and your ear-rings, Ivo?” asked the mercer, with a rather satirical glance at his companion, when they were well out of hearing. “Aught that was worth them?”

“I bought the news that our Lady abideth hither,” was the grave reply; “and it was cheap, at the cost of a scrap of tin and another of glass, and an inch or twain of thread out of your pack. If yon maid have but wit to be under the shrub by the gate at sunset, I shall win more of her. But she’s but a poor brain, or I err. Howbeit, I’ve had my ear-rings’ worth. They cost but a halfpenny. Can you see aught from here? Your eyes be sharper than mine.”

“I see somewhat white at yonder window. But, Ivo, were you wise to tell the lady you came from Hennebon?”

“I was, Sir Roland. She will suspect me now, instead of you; and if, as I guess, she send a spy after us, when we part company he will follow me, and you shall be quit of him.”

The mercer glanced back, as though to see if any one were following.

“Well, perchance you say well,” he answered. “There is none behind, methinks. So now to rejoin Father Eloy.”

Norman Hylton had not followed the packmen beyond the gate. He did not like the business, and was glad to be rid of it. He only kept watch of them till they disappeared up the hill, and then returned to tell Lady Foljambe the direction which they had taken.

Kate’s mind was considerably exercised. As Ivo had remarked, her wits were by no means of the first quality, but her conceit and love of admiration far outstripped them. The little jeweller had seen this, and had guessed that she would best answer his purpose of the younger members of the household. Quiet, sensible Joan, the upper chambermaid, would not have suited him at all; neither would sturdy, straightforward Meg, the cook-maid; but Kate’s vanity and indiscretion were both so patent that he fixed on her at once as his chosen accomplice. His only doubt was whether she had sense enough to understand his hint about being under the bush at sunset. Ivo provided himself with a showy brooch of red glass set in gilt copper, which Kate was intended to accept as gold and rubies; and leaving his pack under the care of his fellow conspirator—for Ivo was really the pedlar which Roland was not—he slipped back to Hazelwood, and shortly before the sun set was prowling about in the neighbourhood of the bush which stood just outside the gate of Hazelwood Manor. Before he had been there many minutes, a light, tripping footstep was heard; and poor, foolish Kate, with the blue drops in her ears, came like a giddy fly into the web of Ivo the spider.

Chapter Nine.Mischief.“I’ve nothing to do with better and worse—I haven’t to judge for therest:If other men are not better than I am, they are bad enough at thebest.”When Ivo thought proper to see Kate approaching, he turned with an exclamation of hyperbolical admiration. He knew perfectly the type of woman with whom he had to deal. “Ah, it is den you, fair maid? You be fair widout dem, but much fairer wid de ear-rings, I you assure. Ah, if you had but a comely ouche at your t’roat, just dere,”—and Ivo laid a fat brown finger at the base of his own—“your beauty would be perfect—perfect!”“Lack-a-day, I would I had!” responded silly Kate; “but ouches and such be not for the likes of me.”“How? Say no such a ting! I know of one jewel, a ruby of de best, and de setting of pure gold, fit for a queen, dat might be had by de maid who would give herself one leetle pain to tell me only one leetle ting, dat should harm none; but you care not, I dare say, to trouble you-self so much.”And Ivo thrust his hands in his pockets, and began to whistle softly.“Nay, now; do you?” said the bewitched fly, getting a little deeper into the web. “Good Master Packman, do of your grace tell me how a maid should earn that jewel?”Ivo drew the brooch half out of his breast, so as just to allow Kate the least glance at it possible.“Is that the jewel?” she asked, eagerly. “Eh, but it shineth well-nigh to match the sun himself! Come, now; what should I tell you? I’ll do aught to win it.”Ivo came close to her, and spoke into her ear.“Show me which is the prisoner’s window.”“Well, it’s yon oriel, on the inner side of— Eh, but I marvel if I do ill to tell you!”“Tell me noting at all dat you count ill,” was the pious answer of Ivo, who had got to know all he needed except one item. “You can tarry a little longer? or you are very busy? Sir Godfrey is away, is it not?”“Nay, he’s at home, but he’ll be hence next week. He’s to tilt at the tournament at Leicester.”“Ah! dat will be grand sight, all de knights and de ladies. But I am sure—sure—dere shall not be one so fair as you, sweet maid. Look you, I pin de jewel at your neck. It is wort von hundred pound, I do ensure you.”“Eh, to think of it!” cried enchanted Kate.“And I would not part wid it but to my friend, and a maid so fair and delightsome. See you, how it shine! It shine better as de sun when it do catch him. You sleep in de prisoner’s chamber?—yes?”“Nay, I’m but a sub-chambermaid, look you—not even an upper. Mistress Perrote, she sleeps in the pallet whenas any doth; but methinks her Ladyship lieth alone at this present. Howbeit, none never seeth her save Mistress Perrote and Mistress Amphillis, and my Lady and Sir Godfrey, of course, when they have need. I’ve ne’er beheld her myself, only standing behind the casement, as she oft loveth to do. My Lady hath a key to her chamber door, and Mistress Perrote the like; and none save these never entereth.”Ivo drank in all the information which Kate imparted, while he only seemed to be carelessly trimming a switch which he had pulled from a willow close at hand.“They be careful of her, it should seem,” he said.“You may say that. They’re mortal feared of any man so much as seeing her. Well, I reckon I should go now. I’m sure I’m right full indebted to you, Master Packman, for this jewel: only I don’t feel as if I have paid you for it.”“You have me paid twice its value, to suffer me look on your beautiful face!” was the gallant answer, with a low bow. “But one more word, and I go, fair maid, and de sun go from me wid you. De porter, he is what of a man?—and has he any dog?”“Oh ay, that he hath; but I can peace the big dog well enough, an’ I did but know when it should be. Well, as for the manner of man, he’s pleasant enough where he takes, look you; but if he reckons you’re after aught ill, you’ll not come round him in no wise.”“Ah, he is wise man. I see. Well, my fairest of maidens, you shall, if it please you, keep de big dog looking de oder way at nine o’clock of de even, de night Sir Godfrey goes; and de Lady Princess have not so fair a crespine for her hair as you shall win, so to do. Dat is Monday night, trow?”“Nay, ’tis Tuesday. Well, I’ll see; I’ll do what I can.”“Fair maid, if I t’ought it possible, I would say, de saints make you beautifuller! But no; it is not possible. So I say, de saints make you happier, and send you all dat you most desire! Good-night.”“Good even, Master Packman, and good befall you. You’ll not forget that crespine?”“Forget? Impossible! Absolute impossible! I bear your remembrance on mine heart all de days of my life. I adore you! Farewell.”When Meg, the next minute, joined Kate under the tree, there was no more sign of Ivo than if he had been the airy creature of a dream.The little pedlar had escaped dexterously, and only just in time. He hid for a moment beneath the shade of a friendly shrub, and, as soon as he saw Meg’s back turned, ran downwards into the Derby road as lithely as a cat, and took the way to that city, where he recounted to his companions, when other people were supposed to be asleep, the arrangement he had made to free the Countess.“Thou art sore lacking in discretion, my son,” said Father Eloy, whose normal condition was that of a private confessor in Bretagne, and whose temporary disguise was that of a horse-dealer. “Such a maid as thou describest is as certain to want and have a confidant as she is to wear that trumpery. Thou wilt find—or, rather, we shall find—the whole house up and alert, and fully aware of our intention.”Ivo’s shoulders were shrugged very decidedly.“Ha, chétife!” cried he; “she will want the crespine.”“Not so much as she will want to impart her secret,” answered the priest. “Who whispered to the earth, ‘Midas has long ears’?”“It will not matter much to Ivo, so he be not taken,” said the knight. “Nor, in a sense, to you, Father, as your frock protects you. I shall come off the worst.”“You’ll come off well enough,” responded Ivo. “You made an excellent mercer this morrow. You only need go on chaffering till you have sold all your satins, and by that time you will have your pockets well lined; and if you choose your route wisely, you will be near the sea.”“Well and good! if we are not all by that time eating dry bread at the expense of our worthy friend Sir Godfrey.”“Mindyouare not, Sir Roland,” said Ivo. “Every man for himself. I always fall on my feet like a cat, and have nine lives.”“Nine lives come to an end some day,” replied Sir Roland, grimly.“On what art thou a-thinking thus busily, Phyllis?”“Your pardon, Mistress Perrote; I was thinking of you.”“Not hard to guess, when I saw thine eyes look divers times my ways. What anentis me, my maid?”“I cry you mercy, Mistress Perrote; for you should very like say that whereon I thought was none of my business. Yet man’s thoughts will not alway be ruled. I did somewhat marvel, under your pleasure, at your answer to yon pedlar that asked how you came to be hither.”“Wherefore? that I told him no more?”“Ay; and likewise—”“Make an end, my maid.”“Mistress, again I cry you mercy; but it seemed me as though, while you sore pitied our Lady, you had no list to help her forth of her trouble, an’ it might be compassed. And I conceived (Note 1) it not.”“It could not be compassed, Phyllis; and granting it so should, to what good purpose? Set in case that she came forth this morrow, a free woman—whither is she to wend, and what to do? To her son? He will have none of her. To her daughter? Man saith she hath scantly more freedom than her mother in truth, being ruled of an ill husband that giveth her no leave to work. To King Edward? It should but set him in the briars with divers other princes, the King of France and the Duke of Bretagne more in especial. To my Lady Princess? Verily, she is good woman, yet is she mother of my Lady Duchess; and though I cast no doubt she should essay to judge the matter righteously, yet ’tis but like that she should lean to her own child, which doubtless seeth through her lord’s eyes; and it should set her in the briars no less than King Edward. Whither, then, is she to go for whom there is no room on middle earth (Note 2), and whose company all men avoid? Nay, my maid, for the Lady Marguerite there is no home save Heaven; and there is none to be glad of her company save Him that was yet more lonely than she, and whose foes, like hers, were they of His own house.”“’Tis sore pitiful!” said Amphillis, looking up with the tears in her eyes.“‘Pitiful’! ay, never was sadder case sithence that saddest of all in the Garden of Gethsemane. Would God she would seek Him, and accept of His pity!”“Surely, our Lady is Christian woman!” responded Amphillis, in a rather astonished tone.“What signifiest thereby?”“Why she that doth right heartily believe Christ our Lord to have been born and died, and risen again, and so forth.”“What good should that do her?”Amphillis stared, without answering.“If that belief were very heartfelt, it should be life and comfort; but meseemeth thy manner of belief is not heartfelt, but headful. To believe that a man lived and died, Phyllis, is not to accept his help, and to affy thee in his trustworthiness. Did it ever any good and pleasure to thee to believe that one Julius Caesar lived over a thousand years ago?”“No, verily; but—” Amphillis did not like to say what she was thinking, that no appropriation of good, nor sensation of pleasure, had ever yet mingled with that belief in the facts concerning Jesus Christ on which she vaguely relied for salvation. She thought a moment, and then spoke out. “Mistress, did you mean there was some other fashion of believing than to think certainly that our Lord did live and die?”“Set in case, Phyllis, that thou shouldst hear man to say, ‘I believe in Master Godfrey, but not in Master Matthew,’ what shouldst reckon him to signify? Think on it.”“I suppose,” said Amphillis, after a moment’s pause for consideration, “I should account him to mean that he held Master Godfrey for a true man, in whom man might safely affy him; but that he felt not thus sure of Master Matthew.”“Thou wouldst not reckon, then, that he counted Master Matthew as a fabled man that was not alive?”“Nay, surely!” said Amphillis, laughing.“Then seest not for thyself that there is a manner of belief far beside and beyond the mere reckoning that man liveth? Phyllis, dost thou trust Christ our Lord?”“For what, Mistress? That He shall make me safe at last, if I do my duty, and pay my dues to the Church, and shrive me (confess sins to a priest) metely oft, and so forth? Ay, I reckon I do,” said Amphillis, in a tone which sounded rather as if she meant “I don’t.”“Hast alway done thy duty, Amphillis?”“Alack, no, Mistress. Yet meseemeth there be worser folks than I. I am alway regular at shrift.”“The which shrift thou shouldst little need, if thou hadst never failed in duty. But how shall our Lord make thee safe?”“Why, forgive me my sins,” replied Amphillis, looking puzzled.“That saith what He shall do, not how He shall do it. Thy sins are a debt to God’s law and righteousness. Canst thou pay a debt without cost?”“But forgiveness costs nought.”“Doth it so? I think scarce anything costs more. Hast ever meditated, Amphillis, what it cost God to forgive sin?”“I thought it cost Him nothing at all.”“Child, it could only be done in one of two ways, at the cost of His very self. Either He should forgive sin without propitiation—which were to cost His righteousness and truth and honour. Could that be? In no wise. Then it must be at the cost of His own bearing the penalty due unto the sinner. Thy sins, Amphillis, thine every failure in duty, thine every foolish thought or wrongful word, cost the Father His own Son out of His bosom, cost the Son a human life of agony and a death of uttermost terribleness. Didst thou believe that?”A long look of mingled amazement and horror preceded the reply. “Mistress Perrote, I never thought of no such thing! I thought—I thought,” said Amphillis, struggling for the right words to make her meaning clear, “I thought our Lord was to judge us for our sins, and our blessed Lady did plead with Him to have mercy on us, and we must do the best we could, and pray her to pray for us. But the fashion you so put it seemeth—it seemeth certain, as though the matter were settled and done with, and should not be fordone (revoked). Is it thus?”If Perrote de Carhaix had not been gifted with the unction from the Holy One, she would have made a terrible mistake at that juncture. All that she had been taught by man inclined her to say “no” to the question. But “there are a few of us whom God whispers in the ear,” and those who hear those whispers often go utterly contrary to man’s teaching, being bound only by God’s word. So bound they must be. If they speak not according to that word, it is because there is no light in them—only anignis fatuuswhich leads the traveller into quagmires. But they are often free from all other bonds. Perrote could not have told what made her answer that question in the way she did. It was as if a soft hand were laid upon her lips, preventing her from entering into any doctrinal disputations, and insisting on her keeping the question down to the personal level. She said—or that inward monitor said through her—“Is it settled for thee, Amphillis?”“Mistress, I don’t know! Can I have it settled?”“‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.’ ‘I give unto them eternal life.’” (John three verse 36; ten, verse 28.) Perrote said no more.“Then, if I go and ask at Him—?”“‘My Lord God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou madest me whole.’ ‘All ye that hope in the Lord, do manly, and your heart shall be comforted.’” (Psalm thirty, verse 3; thirty-one, verse 25; Hereford and Purvey’s version.)Once more it was as by a heavenly instinct that Perrote answered in God’s words rather than in her own. Amphillis drew a long breath. The light was rising on her. She could not have put her convictions into words; and it was quite as well, for had she done so, men might have persuaded her out of them. But the one conviction “borne in upon her” was—God, and not man; God’s word, not men’s words; God the Saviour of men, not man the saviour of himself; God the Giver of His Son for the salvation of men, not men the offerers of something to God for their own salvation. And when man or woman reaches that point, that he sees in all the universe only himself and God, the two points are not likely to remain long apart. When the one is need longing for love, and the Other is love seeking for need, what can they do but come close together?Sir Godfrey set forth for his tournament in magnificent style, and Lady Foljambe and Mistress Margaret with him. Young Godfrey was already gone. The old knight rode a fine charger, and was preceded by his standard-bearer, carrying a pennon of bright blue, whereon were embroidered his master’s arms—sable, a bend or, between six scallops of the second. The ladies journeyed together in a quirle, and were provided with rich robes and all their jewellery. The house and the prisoner were left in the hands of Matthew, Father Jordan, and Perrote. Norman Hylton accompanied his master.Lady Foljambe’s mind had grown tolerably easy on the subject of Ivo, and she only gave Perrote a long lecture, warning her, among other things, never to leave the door unlocked nor the prisoner alone. Either Perrote or Amphillis must sleep in the pallet bed in her chamber during the whole time of Lady Foljambe’s absence, so that she should never be left unguarded for a single moment. Matthew received another harangue, to which he paid little attention in reality, though in outward seeming he received it with due deference. Father Jordan languidly washed his hands with invisible soap, and assured his patrons that no harm could possibly come to the prisoner through their absence.The Tuesday evening was near its close. The sun had just sunk behind the western hills; the day had been bright and beautiful in the extreme. Amphillis was going slowly upstairs to her turret, carrying her little work-basket, which was covered with brown velvet and adorned with silver cord, when she saw Kate standing in the window of the landing, as if she were waiting for something or some person. It struck Amphillis that Kate looked unhappy.“Kate, what aileth thee?” she asked, pausing ere ere she mounted the last steps. “Dost await here for man to pass?”“Nay, Mistress—leastwise— O Mistress Amphillis, I wis not what to do!”“Anentis what, my maid?”“Nay, I’d fain tell you, but— Lack-a-day, I’m all in a tumblement!”“What manner of tumblement?” asked Amphillis, sitting down in the window-seat. “Hast brake some pottery, Kate, or torn somewhat, that thou fearest thy dame’s anger?”“Nay, I’ve brake nought saving my word; and I’ve not done thatyet.”“It were evil to break thy word, Kate.”“Were it so?” Kate looked up eagerly.“Surely, without thou hadst passed word to do somewhat thou shouldst not.”Kate’s face fell. She had thought she saw a way out of her difficulty; and it was closing round her again.“It’s none so easy to tell what man shouldn’t,” she said, in a troubled tone.“What hast thou done, Kate?”“Nay, I’ve done nought yet. I’ve only passed word to do.”“To do what?”Before Kate could answer, Agatha whisked into the corner.“Thank goodness they’re all gone, the whole lot of them! Won’t we have some fun now! Kate, run down stairs, and bring me up a cork; and I want a long white sheet and a mop. Now haste thee, do! for I would fain cause Father Jordan to skrike out at me, and I have scarce time to get my work done ere the old drone shall come buzzing up this gait. Be sharp, maid! and I’ll do thee a good turn next time.”And Agatha fairly pushed Kate down the stairs, allowing her neither excuse nor delay—a piece of undignified conduct which would bitterly have scandalised Lady Foljambe, could she have seen it. By the time that Kate returned with the articles prescribed, Agatha had possessed herself of a lighted candle, wherein she burnt the end of the cork, and with it proceeded to delineate, in the middle of the sheet, a very clever sketch of a ferocious Turk, with moustaches of stupendous length. Then elevating the long mop till it reached about a yard above her head, she instructed Kate to arrange the sheet thereon in such a manner that the Turk’s face showed close to the top of the mop, and gave the idea of a giant about eight feet in height.“Now then—quick! I hear the old bumble-bee down alow yonder. Keep as still as mice, and stir not, nor laugh for your lives!”Kate appeared to have quite forgotten her trouble, and entered into Agatha’s mischievous fun with all the thoughtless glee of a child.“Agatha,” said Amphillis, “my Lady Foljambe should be heavy angered if she wist thy dealing. Prithee, work not thus. If Father Jordan verily believed thou wert a ghost, it were well-nigh enough to kill him, poor sely old man. And he hath ill deserved such treatment at thine hands.”In the present day we should never expect an adult clergyman to fall into so patent a trap; but in the Middle Ages even learned men were credulous to an extent which we can scarcely imagine. Priests were in the habit of receiving friendly visits from pretended saints, and meeting apparitions of so-called demons, apparently without the faintest suspicion that the spirits in question might have bodies attached to them, or that their imaginations might be at all responsible for the vision.“Thank all the Calendar she’s away!” was Agatha’s response. “Thee hold thy peace, and be not a spoil-sport. I mean to tell him I’m a soul in Purgatory, and none save a priest named Jordan can deliver me, and he only by licking of three crosses in the dust afore our Lady’s altar every morrow for a month. That shall hurt none of him! and it shall cause me die o’ laughter to see him do it. Back! quick! here cometh he. I would fain hear the old snail skrike out at me, ‘Avaunt, Sathanas!’ as he surely will.”Amphillis stepped back. Her quicker ear had recognised that the step beginning to ascend the stairs was not that of the old priest, and she felt pretty sure whose it was—that healthy, sturdy, plain-spoken Meg, the cook-maid, was the destined victim, and was likely to be little injured, while there was a good chance of Agatha’s receiving her deserts.Just as Meg reached the landing, a low groan issued from the uncanny thing. Agatha of course could not see; she only heard the steps, which she still mistook for those of Father Jordan. Meg stood calmly gazing on the apparition.“Will none deliver an unhappy soul in Purgatory?” demanded a hollow moaning voice, followed by awful groans, such as Amphillis had not supposed it possible for Agatha to produce.“I rather reckon, my Saracen, thou’rt a soul out o’ Purgatory with a body tacked to thee,” said Meg, in the coolest manner. “Help thee? Oh ay, that I will, and bring thee back to middle earth out o’ thy pains. Come then!”And Meg laid hands on the white sheet, and calmly began to pull it down.“Oh, stay, Meg! Thou shalt stifle me,” said the Turk, in Agatha’s voice.“Ay, I thought you’d somewhat to do wi’ ’t, my damsel; it were like you. Have you driven anybody else out o’ her seven senses beside me wi’ yon foolery?”“You’ve kept in seventy senses,” pouted Agatha, releasing herself from the last corner of her ghostly drapery. “Meg, you’re a spoil-sport.”“My dame shall con you but poor thanks, Mistress Agatha, if you travail folks o’ this fashion while she tarrieth hence. Mistress Amphillis, too! Marry, I thought—”“I tarried here to lessen the mischief,” said Amphillis.“It wasn’t thee I meant to fright,” said Agatha, with a pout. “I thought Father Jordan was a-coming; it was he I wanted. Never blame Amphillis; she’s nigh as bad as thou.”“Mistress Amphillis, I ask your pardon. Mistress Agatha, you’re a bad un. ’Tis a burning shame to harry a good old man like Father Jordan. Thee hie to thy bed, and do no more mischief, thou false hussy! I’ll tell my dame of thy fine doings when she cometh home; I will, so!”“Now, Meg, dear, sweet Meg, don’t, and I’ll—”“You’ll get you abed and ’bide quiet. I’m neither dear nor sweet; I’m a cook-maid, and you’re a young damsel with a fortin, and you’d neither ‘sweet’ nor ‘dear’ me without you were wanting somewhat of me. Forsooth, they’ll win a fortin that weds wi’ the like of you! Get abed, thou magpie!”And Meg was heard muttering to herself as she mounted the upper stairs to the attic chamber, which she shared with Joan and Kate.Note 1. Understood. The wordunderstandwas then restricted to an original idea;conceivewas used in the sense of understanding another person.Note 2. The term “middle earth” arose from the belief then held, that the earth was in the midst of the universe, equidistant from Heaven above it and from Hell beneath.

“I’ve nothing to do with better and worse—I haven’t to judge for therest:If other men are not better than I am, they are bad enough at thebest.”

“I’ve nothing to do with better and worse—I haven’t to judge for therest:If other men are not better than I am, they are bad enough at thebest.”

When Ivo thought proper to see Kate approaching, he turned with an exclamation of hyperbolical admiration. He knew perfectly the type of woman with whom he had to deal. “Ah, it is den you, fair maid? You be fair widout dem, but much fairer wid de ear-rings, I you assure. Ah, if you had but a comely ouche at your t’roat, just dere,”—and Ivo laid a fat brown finger at the base of his own—“your beauty would be perfect—perfect!”

“Lack-a-day, I would I had!” responded silly Kate; “but ouches and such be not for the likes of me.”

“How? Say no such a ting! I know of one jewel, a ruby of de best, and de setting of pure gold, fit for a queen, dat might be had by de maid who would give herself one leetle pain to tell me only one leetle ting, dat should harm none; but you care not, I dare say, to trouble you-self so much.”

And Ivo thrust his hands in his pockets, and began to whistle softly.

“Nay, now; do you?” said the bewitched fly, getting a little deeper into the web. “Good Master Packman, do of your grace tell me how a maid should earn that jewel?”

Ivo drew the brooch half out of his breast, so as just to allow Kate the least glance at it possible.

“Is that the jewel?” she asked, eagerly. “Eh, but it shineth well-nigh to match the sun himself! Come, now; what should I tell you? I’ll do aught to win it.”

Ivo came close to her, and spoke into her ear.

“Show me which is the prisoner’s window.”

“Well, it’s yon oriel, on the inner side of— Eh, but I marvel if I do ill to tell you!”

“Tell me noting at all dat you count ill,” was the pious answer of Ivo, who had got to know all he needed except one item. “You can tarry a little longer? or you are very busy? Sir Godfrey is away, is it not?”

“Nay, he’s at home, but he’ll be hence next week. He’s to tilt at the tournament at Leicester.”

“Ah! dat will be grand sight, all de knights and de ladies. But I am sure—sure—dere shall not be one so fair as you, sweet maid. Look you, I pin de jewel at your neck. It is wort von hundred pound, I do ensure you.”

“Eh, to think of it!” cried enchanted Kate.

“And I would not part wid it but to my friend, and a maid so fair and delightsome. See you, how it shine! It shine better as de sun when it do catch him. You sleep in de prisoner’s chamber?—yes?”

“Nay, I’m but a sub-chambermaid, look you—not even an upper. Mistress Perrote, she sleeps in the pallet whenas any doth; but methinks her Ladyship lieth alone at this present. Howbeit, none never seeth her save Mistress Perrote and Mistress Amphillis, and my Lady and Sir Godfrey, of course, when they have need. I’ve ne’er beheld her myself, only standing behind the casement, as she oft loveth to do. My Lady hath a key to her chamber door, and Mistress Perrote the like; and none save these never entereth.”

Ivo drank in all the information which Kate imparted, while he only seemed to be carelessly trimming a switch which he had pulled from a willow close at hand.

“They be careful of her, it should seem,” he said.

“You may say that. They’re mortal feared of any man so much as seeing her. Well, I reckon I should go now. I’m sure I’m right full indebted to you, Master Packman, for this jewel: only I don’t feel as if I have paid you for it.”

“You have me paid twice its value, to suffer me look on your beautiful face!” was the gallant answer, with a low bow. “But one more word, and I go, fair maid, and de sun go from me wid you. De porter, he is what of a man?—and has he any dog?”

“Oh ay, that he hath; but I can peace the big dog well enough, an’ I did but know when it should be. Well, as for the manner of man, he’s pleasant enough where he takes, look you; but if he reckons you’re after aught ill, you’ll not come round him in no wise.”

“Ah, he is wise man. I see. Well, my fairest of maidens, you shall, if it please you, keep de big dog looking de oder way at nine o’clock of de even, de night Sir Godfrey goes; and de Lady Princess have not so fair a crespine for her hair as you shall win, so to do. Dat is Monday night, trow?”

“Nay, ’tis Tuesday. Well, I’ll see; I’ll do what I can.”

“Fair maid, if I t’ought it possible, I would say, de saints make you beautifuller! But no; it is not possible. So I say, de saints make you happier, and send you all dat you most desire! Good-night.”

“Good even, Master Packman, and good befall you. You’ll not forget that crespine?”

“Forget? Impossible! Absolute impossible! I bear your remembrance on mine heart all de days of my life. I adore you! Farewell.”

When Meg, the next minute, joined Kate under the tree, there was no more sign of Ivo than if he had been the airy creature of a dream.

The little pedlar had escaped dexterously, and only just in time. He hid for a moment beneath the shade of a friendly shrub, and, as soon as he saw Meg’s back turned, ran downwards into the Derby road as lithely as a cat, and took the way to that city, where he recounted to his companions, when other people were supposed to be asleep, the arrangement he had made to free the Countess.

“Thou art sore lacking in discretion, my son,” said Father Eloy, whose normal condition was that of a private confessor in Bretagne, and whose temporary disguise was that of a horse-dealer. “Such a maid as thou describest is as certain to want and have a confidant as she is to wear that trumpery. Thou wilt find—or, rather, we shall find—the whole house up and alert, and fully aware of our intention.”

Ivo’s shoulders were shrugged very decidedly.

“Ha, chétife!” cried he; “she will want the crespine.”

“Not so much as she will want to impart her secret,” answered the priest. “Who whispered to the earth, ‘Midas has long ears’?”

“It will not matter much to Ivo, so he be not taken,” said the knight. “Nor, in a sense, to you, Father, as your frock protects you. I shall come off the worst.”

“You’ll come off well enough,” responded Ivo. “You made an excellent mercer this morrow. You only need go on chaffering till you have sold all your satins, and by that time you will have your pockets well lined; and if you choose your route wisely, you will be near the sea.”

“Well and good! if we are not all by that time eating dry bread at the expense of our worthy friend Sir Godfrey.”

“Mindyouare not, Sir Roland,” said Ivo. “Every man for himself. I always fall on my feet like a cat, and have nine lives.”

“Nine lives come to an end some day,” replied Sir Roland, grimly.

“On what art thou a-thinking thus busily, Phyllis?”

“Your pardon, Mistress Perrote; I was thinking of you.”

“Not hard to guess, when I saw thine eyes look divers times my ways. What anentis me, my maid?”

“I cry you mercy, Mistress Perrote; for you should very like say that whereon I thought was none of my business. Yet man’s thoughts will not alway be ruled. I did somewhat marvel, under your pleasure, at your answer to yon pedlar that asked how you came to be hither.”

“Wherefore? that I told him no more?”

“Ay; and likewise—”

“Make an end, my maid.”

“Mistress, again I cry you mercy; but it seemed me as though, while you sore pitied our Lady, you had no list to help her forth of her trouble, an’ it might be compassed. And I conceived (Note 1) it not.”

“It could not be compassed, Phyllis; and granting it so should, to what good purpose? Set in case that she came forth this morrow, a free woman—whither is she to wend, and what to do? To her son? He will have none of her. To her daughter? Man saith she hath scantly more freedom than her mother in truth, being ruled of an ill husband that giveth her no leave to work. To King Edward? It should but set him in the briars with divers other princes, the King of France and the Duke of Bretagne more in especial. To my Lady Princess? Verily, she is good woman, yet is she mother of my Lady Duchess; and though I cast no doubt she should essay to judge the matter righteously, yet ’tis but like that she should lean to her own child, which doubtless seeth through her lord’s eyes; and it should set her in the briars no less than King Edward. Whither, then, is she to go for whom there is no room on middle earth (Note 2), and whose company all men avoid? Nay, my maid, for the Lady Marguerite there is no home save Heaven; and there is none to be glad of her company save Him that was yet more lonely than she, and whose foes, like hers, were they of His own house.”

“’Tis sore pitiful!” said Amphillis, looking up with the tears in her eyes.

“‘Pitiful’! ay, never was sadder case sithence that saddest of all in the Garden of Gethsemane. Would God she would seek Him, and accept of His pity!”

“Surely, our Lady is Christian woman!” responded Amphillis, in a rather astonished tone.

“What signifiest thereby?”

“Why she that doth right heartily believe Christ our Lord to have been born and died, and risen again, and so forth.”

“What good should that do her?”

Amphillis stared, without answering.

“If that belief were very heartfelt, it should be life and comfort; but meseemeth thy manner of belief is not heartfelt, but headful. To believe that a man lived and died, Phyllis, is not to accept his help, and to affy thee in his trustworthiness. Did it ever any good and pleasure to thee to believe that one Julius Caesar lived over a thousand years ago?”

“No, verily; but—” Amphillis did not like to say what she was thinking, that no appropriation of good, nor sensation of pleasure, had ever yet mingled with that belief in the facts concerning Jesus Christ on which she vaguely relied for salvation. She thought a moment, and then spoke out. “Mistress, did you mean there was some other fashion of believing than to think certainly that our Lord did live and die?”

“Set in case, Phyllis, that thou shouldst hear man to say, ‘I believe in Master Godfrey, but not in Master Matthew,’ what shouldst reckon him to signify? Think on it.”

“I suppose,” said Amphillis, after a moment’s pause for consideration, “I should account him to mean that he held Master Godfrey for a true man, in whom man might safely affy him; but that he felt not thus sure of Master Matthew.”

“Thou wouldst not reckon, then, that he counted Master Matthew as a fabled man that was not alive?”

“Nay, surely!” said Amphillis, laughing.

“Then seest not for thyself that there is a manner of belief far beside and beyond the mere reckoning that man liveth? Phyllis, dost thou trust Christ our Lord?”

“For what, Mistress? That He shall make me safe at last, if I do my duty, and pay my dues to the Church, and shrive me (confess sins to a priest) metely oft, and so forth? Ay, I reckon I do,” said Amphillis, in a tone which sounded rather as if she meant “I don’t.”

“Hast alway done thy duty, Amphillis?”

“Alack, no, Mistress. Yet meseemeth there be worser folks than I. I am alway regular at shrift.”

“The which shrift thou shouldst little need, if thou hadst never failed in duty. But how shall our Lord make thee safe?”

“Why, forgive me my sins,” replied Amphillis, looking puzzled.

“That saith what He shall do, not how He shall do it. Thy sins are a debt to God’s law and righteousness. Canst thou pay a debt without cost?”

“But forgiveness costs nought.”

“Doth it so? I think scarce anything costs more. Hast ever meditated, Amphillis, what it cost God to forgive sin?”

“I thought it cost Him nothing at all.”

“Child, it could only be done in one of two ways, at the cost of His very self. Either He should forgive sin without propitiation—which were to cost His righteousness and truth and honour. Could that be? In no wise. Then it must be at the cost of His own bearing the penalty due unto the sinner. Thy sins, Amphillis, thine every failure in duty, thine every foolish thought or wrongful word, cost the Father His own Son out of His bosom, cost the Son a human life of agony and a death of uttermost terribleness. Didst thou believe that?”

A long look of mingled amazement and horror preceded the reply. “Mistress Perrote, I never thought of no such thing! I thought—I thought,” said Amphillis, struggling for the right words to make her meaning clear, “I thought our Lord was to judge us for our sins, and our blessed Lady did plead with Him to have mercy on us, and we must do the best we could, and pray her to pray for us. But the fashion you so put it seemeth—it seemeth certain, as though the matter were settled and done with, and should not be fordone (revoked). Is it thus?”

If Perrote de Carhaix had not been gifted with the unction from the Holy One, she would have made a terrible mistake at that juncture. All that she had been taught by man inclined her to say “no” to the question. But “there are a few of us whom God whispers in the ear,” and those who hear those whispers often go utterly contrary to man’s teaching, being bound only by God’s word. So bound they must be. If they speak not according to that word, it is because there is no light in them—only anignis fatuuswhich leads the traveller into quagmires. But they are often free from all other bonds. Perrote could not have told what made her answer that question in the way she did. It was as if a soft hand were laid upon her lips, preventing her from entering into any doctrinal disputations, and insisting on her keeping the question down to the personal level. She said—or that inward monitor said through her—

“Is it settled for thee, Amphillis?”

“Mistress, I don’t know! Can I have it settled?”

“‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.’ ‘I give unto them eternal life.’” (John three verse 36; ten, verse 28.) Perrote said no more.

“Then, if I go and ask at Him—?”

“‘My Lord God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou madest me whole.’ ‘All ye that hope in the Lord, do manly, and your heart shall be comforted.’” (Psalm thirty, verse 3; thirty-one, verse 25; Hereford and Purvey’s version.)

Once more it was as by a heavenly instinct that Perrote answered in God’s words rather than in her own. Amphillis drew a long breath. The light was rising on her. She could not have put her convictions into words; and it was quite as well, for had she done so, men might have persuaded her out of them. But the one conviction “borne in upon her” was—God, and not man; God’s word, not men’s words; God the Saviour of men, not man the saviour of himself; God the Giver of His Son for the salvation of men, not men the offerers of something to God for their own salvation. And when man or woman reaches that point, that he sees in all the universe only himself and God, the two points are not likely to remain long apart. When the one is need longing for love, and the Other is love seeking for need, what can they do but come close together?

Sir Godfrey set forth for his tournament in magnificent style, and Lady Foljambe and Mistress Margaret with him. Young Godfrey was already gone. The old knight rode a fine charger, and was preceded by his standard-bearer, carrying a pennon of bright blue, whereon were embroidered his master’s arms—sable, a bend or, between six scallops of the second. The ladies journeyed together in a quirle, and were provided with rich robes and all their jewellery. The house and the prisoner were left in the hands of Matthew, Father Jordan, and Perrote. Norman Hylton accompanied his master.

Lady Foljambe’s mind had grown tolerably easy on the subject of Ivo, and she only gave Perrote a long lecture, warning her, among other things, never to leave the door unlocked nor the prisoner alone. Either Perrote or Amphillis must sleep in the pallet bed in her chamber during the whole time of Lady Foljambe’s absence, so that she should never be left unguarded for a single moment. Matthew received another harangue, to which he paid little attention in reality, though in outward seeming he received it with due deference. Father Jordan languidly washed his hands with invisible soap, and assured his patrons that no harm could possibly come to the prisoner through their absence.

The Tuesday evening was near its close. The sun had just sunk behind the western hills; the day had been bright and beautiful in the extreme. Amphillis was going slowly upstairs to her turret, carrying her little work-basket, which was covered with brown velvet and adorned with silver cord, when she saw Kate standing in the window of the landing, as if she were waiting for something or some person. It struck Amphillis that Kate looked unhappy.

“Kate, what aileth thee?” she asked, pausing ere ere she mounted the last steps. “Dost await here for man to pass?”

“Nay, Mistress—leastwise— O Mistress Amphillis, I wis not what to do!”

“Anentis what, my maid?”

“Nay, I’d fain tell you, but— Lack-a-day, I’m all in a tumblement!”

“What manner of tumblement?” asked Amphillis, sitting down in the window-seat. “Hast brake some pottery, Kate, or torn somewhat, that thou fearest thy dame’s anger?”

“Nay, I’ve brake nought saving my word; and I’ve not done thatyet.”

“It were evil to break thy word, Kate.”

“Were it so?” Kate looked up eagerly.

“Surely, without thou hadst passed word to do somewhat thou shouldst not.”

Kate’s face fell. She had thought she saw a way out of her difficulty; and it was closing round her again.

“It’s none so easy to tell what man shouldn’t,” she said, in a troubled tone.

“What hast thou done, Kate?”

“Nay, I’ve done nought yet. I’ve only passed word to do.”

“To do what?”

Before Kate could answer, Agatha whisked into the corner.

“Thank goodness they’re all gone, the whole lot of them! Won’t we have some fun now! Kate, run down stairs, and bring me up a cork; and I want a long white sheet and a mop. Now haste thee, do! for I would fain cause Father Jordan to skrike out at me, and I have scarce time to get my work done ere the old drone shall come buzzing up this gait. Be sharp, maid! and I’ll do thee a good turn next time.”

And Agatha fairly pushed Kate down the stairs, allowing her neither excuse nor delay—a piece of undignified conduct which would bitterly have scandalised Lady Foljambe, could she have seen it. By the time that Kate returned with the articles prescribed, Agatha had possessed herself of a lighted candle, wherein she burnt the end of the cork, and with it proceeded to delineate, in the middle of the sheet, a very clever sketch of a ferocious Turk, with moustaches of stupendous length. Then elevating the long mop till it reached about a yard above her head, she instructed Kate to arrange the sheet thereon in such a manner that the Turk’s face showed close to the top of the mop, and gave the idea of a giant about eight feet in height.

“Now then—quick! I hear the old bumble-bee down alow yonder. Keep as still as mice, and stir not, nor laugh for your lives!”

Kate appeared to have quite forgotten her trouble, and entered into Agatha’s mischievous fun with all the thoughtless glee of a child.

“Agatha,” said Amphillis, “my Lady Foljambe should be heavy angered if she wist thy dealing. Prithee, work not thus. If Father Jordan verily believed thou wert a ghost, it were well-nigh enough to kill him, poor sely old man. And he hath ill deserved such treatment at thine hands.”

In the present day we should never expect an adult clergyman to fall into so patent a trap; but in the Middle Ages even learned men were credulous to an extent which we can scarcely imagine. Priests were in the habit of receiving friendly visits from pretended saints, and meeting apparitions of so-called demons, apparently without the faintest suspicion that the spirits in question might have bodies attached to them, or that their imaginations might be at all responsible for the vision.

“Thank all the Calendar she’s away!” was Agatha’s response. “Thee hold thy peace, and be not a spoil-sport. I mean to tell him I’m a soul in Purgatory, and none save a priest named Jordan can deliver me, and he only by licking of three crosses in the dust afore our Lady’s altar every morrow for a month. That shall hurt none of him! and it shall cause me die o’ laughter to see him do it. Back! quick! here cometh he. I would fain hear the old snail skrike out at me, ‘Avaunt, Sathanas!’ as he surely will.”

Amphillis stepped back. Her quicker ear had recognised that the step beginning to ascend the stairs was not that of the old priest, and she felt pretty sure whose it was—that healthy, sturdy, plain-spoken Meg, the cook-maid, was the destined victim, and was likely to be little injured, while there was a good chance of Agatha’s receiving her deserts.

Just as Meg reached the landing, a low groan issued from the uncanny thing. Agatha of course could not see; she only heard the steps, which she still mistook for those of Father Jordan. Meg stood calmly gazing on the apparition.

“Will none deliver an unhappy soul in Purgatory?” demanded a hollow moaning voice, followed by awful groans, such as Amphillis had not supposed it possible for Agatha to produce.

“I rather reckon, my Saracen, thou’rt a soul out o’ Purgatory with a body tacked to thee,” said Meg, in the coolest manner. “Help thee? Oh ay, that I will, and bring thee back to middle earth out o’ thy pains. Come then!”

And Meg laid hands on the white sheet, and calmly began to pull it down.

“Oh, stay, Meg! Thou shalt stifle me,” said the Turk, in Agatha’s voice.

“Ay, I thought you’d somewhat to do wi’ ’t, my damsel; it were like you. Have you driven anybody else out o’ her seven senses beside me wi’ yon foolery?”

“You’ve kept in seventy senses,” pouted Agatha, releasing herself from the last corner of her ghostly drapery. “Meg, you’re a spoil-sport.”

“My dame shall con you but poor thanks, Mistress Agatha, if you travail folks o’ this fashion while she tarrieth hence. Mistress Amphillis, too! Marry, I thought—”

“I tarried here to lessen the mischief,” said Amphillis.

“It wasn’t thee I meant to fright,” said Agatha, with a pout. “I thought Father Jordan was a-coming; it was he I wanted. Never blame Amphillis; she’s nigh as bad as thou.”

“Mistress Amphillis, I ask your pardon. Mistress Agatha, you’re a bad un. ’Tis a burning shame to harry a good old man like Father Jordan. Thee hie to thy bed, and do no more mischief, thou false hussy! I’ll tell my dame of thy fine doings when she cometh home; I will, so!”

“Now, Meg, dear, sweet Meg, don’t, and I’ll—”

“You’ll get you abed and ’bide quiet. I’m neither dear nor sweet; I’m a cook-maid, and you’re a young damsel with a fortin, and you’d neither ‘sweet’ nor ‘dear’ me without you were wanting somewhat of me. Forsooth, they’ll win a fortin that weds wi’ the like of you! Get abed, thou magpie!”

And Meg was heard muttering to herself as she mounted the upper stairs to the attic chamber, which she shared with Joan and Kate.

Note 1. Understood. The wordunderstandwas then restricted to an original idea;conceivewas used in the sense of understanding another person.

Note 2. The term “middle earth” arose from the belief then held, that the earth was in the midst of the universe, equidistant from Heaven above it and from Hell beneath.

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