"Keep back, my men!" exclaimed Chartley, as the two first soldiers rode down towards him; "keep back, or the peril be upon your own heads."
The foremost of the pursuing party put his horn to his lips, and blew a loud long blast, drawing up his horse at the same time.
"Yield you, yield you!" he exclaimed, turning then to the young nobleman; "'tis vain to resist. We have men enough to take you all, were you told ten times over."
"Call your officer then!" cried Chartley, "I yield not to a churl."
"Ay, and in the mean time the others escape," cried the man; "that shall not be, by ----! Round, round! Over the banks," he continued, straining his voice to the utmost, to reach the ears of his companions, who were galloping down, "cut them off from the abbey!"
But the others did not hear or understand the cry, and rode on towards Chartley and the rest, whom they reached, just as Iola was borne to the postern gate.
"Hold back, sir!" shouted the young nobleman; "mark me, every one. I resist not lawful authority! But marauders I will resist to the death. Show me a warrant--bring me an officer, and I yield at once, but not to men I know not. As to those who are gone to the abbey, you can yourselves see that they are but a lady and two of the foresters to guard her--"
"The lady is safe within the gates, noble sir," said one of the woodmen, speaking over his shoulder.
"Thank God for that!" cried Chartley.
"We are not seeking for women," answered the soldier, "but there are two men there; and we will know who they are."
"They are coming back. They are coming back," cried one of the men from behind.
The soldiers perceived the fact at the same moment; but their number was now becoming so great, one horseman riding down after another, that they seemed to meditate an attack upon the little pass which Chartley defended; and some of them rode up the bank, to take the party in the flank.
"Mark you well, good men," said the young nobleman, raising his voice to its highest tones; "if one stroke be struck, the consequences be upon your own heads. I refuse not to surrender to a proper warrant, or any officer of the king; but, as a peer of England, I will not give up my sword to any simple soldier who asks it; and if I am attacked, I will defend myself to the uttermost."
"Halt, halt!" cried one of the men, who seemed to have some command over the rest. "Ride away for Sir William Catesby. He is on the road just round the corner."
"There he comes, I think," cried another of the soldiers, pointing to a large party, riding at a rapid rate down the course of the little stream.
"No no," exclaimed the other. "I know not who those are. Quick, spurs to your horse, and away for Sir William. These may be companions we shall not like. He is round the corner of the wood, I tell you."
The man rode off at full speed; and the soldiers who were left drew somewhat closer round the little party in the mouth of the lane, while one or two were detached to the right and left, to cut off the woodman and the man who had accompanied him, in case they endeavoured to escape on either side.
Boyd, however, confirmed to walk slowly and quietly down from the abbey, towards the group he had left below, casting his eyes from one side to the other, and marking all that was taking place, till at length, descending between the banks again, the scene upon the open ground was shut out from his eyes, and he could only see his own foresters, Lord Chartley, and the party in front.
A few steps brought him to the side of the young nobleman; and he gazed at the ring of soldiers round the mouth of the lane, with a smile, saying,
"What do these gentlemen want?" and then added: "Here are your friends and servants, coming down from Hinckley, my lord, so if you have a mind to make a Thermopylæ of the lane, you may do it."
"Not I," answered Chartley. "Would to God, most learned woodman, that the time when Englishmen spill Englishmen's blood were at an end. Besides, I could not make it a Thermopylæ, for the only Orientals on the field are on my side;" and he glanced his eye to the good Arab, who stood gazing upon the scene, with his arms folded on his chest, apparently perfectly indifferent to all that was taking place, but ready to strike whenever his master told him.
While this brief conversation was going on, the troop which had been seen coming down on the right approached nearer and nearer; and at the same time a gentleman, followed by eight or ten horse, came up from the road which entered the wood opposite to the abbey green, riding at a light canter over the green sward that covered the hill side. The two parties reached the end of the lane very nearly at the same moment, Catesby indeed the first; and his shrewd, keen, plausible countenance, notwithstanding the habitual command which he possessed over its expressions, displayed some sort of trouble at seeing so large a body of men, over whom he had no controul.
"What is this, my good lord?" shouted Sir William Arden to Chartley, before Catesby could speak. "We got news of your jeopardy, strangely enough, and have come down at once to help you."
"I have ordered my knave to bring you a furred dressing-gown, and a bottle of essence of maydew," cried Sir Edward Hungerford, with a light laugh; "supposing you must be cold, with your forest lodging, and your complexion sadly touched with the frosty air. But what does the magnanimous Sir William Catesby do, cantering abroad at this hour of the morning? Beware of rheums, Sir William, beware of rheum! Don't you know that the early morning air is evil for the eyes, and makes a man short-breathed?"
"This is no time for bantering, sirs," exclaimed Catesby. "Are you prepared to resist the royal authority? If so, I have but to order one blast upon a trumpet, and you will be surrounded by seven hundred men."
"We come to resist no lawful authority, but merely to help a friend," replied Sir Wilhelm Arden; "and, in doing so, I care not whose head I split, if it comes in my way."
"Peace, peace, Arden," cried Chartley, "Let me answer him. What do you want with me, Sir William? and why am I assailed by your men, if they are yours, while peaceably pursuing my way?"
"Pooh, pooh, my lord," answered Catesby. "Do not assume unconsciousness. Where is the bishop? Will you give him up?--or, if you like it better, the friar who rode with you from Tamworth yesterday?"
"As for a bishop," answered Chartley, laughing, "I know of no bishops; and as for the friar, if he be a bishop, it is not my fault; I did not make him one. Friar I found him, and friar I left him. He remained behind, somewhat sick, at the abbey."
"Then what do you here, my lord?" demanded Catesby, "tarrying behind in the forest, while all your company have gone forward?"
"In truth, good Sir William," answered the young nobleman; "whenever I am brought to give an account of all my actions, you shall not be my father confessor. I will have a more reverend man. But you have not yet answered my question; why I am menaced here by these good gentlemen in steel jackets?"
"You shall have an answer presently," replied Catesby; and, stooping down over his saddle bow, he conversed for a moment or two with one of the men who had been first upon the ground, and who now stood dismounted by his side. Then raising his head again, he said: "There were three people left your company, my lord, a moment or two since. Two have returned, I am told, and one was received into the abbey. Who was that person?"
"You must ask those who went with her," replied Chartley. "They have known her longer than I have, and can answer better. My acquaintance with her"--he added, as he saw a meaning smile come upon Sir Edward Hungerford's lip--"my acquaintance with her has been very short, and is very slight. I have acted as was my devoir towards a lady, and have nought farther to say upon the subject."
"Then your would have me believe it was a woman," rejoined Catesby.
"Ay, was it, master," answered the woodman, standing forward and speaking in a rough tone; "or rather, as the lord says, a lady. She was sent out by the lady abbess, as the custom sometimes is, to the cell of St. Magdalene, there upon the hill; and when she would have gone back, she found the houses on the green in a flame, and all the wood surrounded by your soldiers. I wish I had known it in time, and I would have contrived to get her back again, in spite of all your plundering thieves. But the king shall know of all you have done, if I walk on foot to Leicester to tell him."
"If it was a lady, pray, goodman, who was the lady?" demanded Sir Edward Hungerford, laughing lightly.
"What is that to you?" exclaimed the woodman, turning sharply upon him. "If she was a lady, forsooth!--I might well say when I look at you, 'If you are a man,' for of that there may be some doubt; but nobody could look at her face, and ask if she were a lady."
A low laugh ran round, which heightened the colour in Sir Edward Hungerford's smooth cheek; but Catesby, after speaking again to the man beside him in a low tone, fixed his eyes upon the woodman, and demanded--
"Who are you, my good friend, who put yourself so forward?"
"I am head woodman of the abbey," answered Boyd, "and master forester; and by the charter of King Edward III. I am empowered to stop and turn back, or apprehend and imprison, any one whom I may find roaming the forest, except upon the public highway. I should have done so before this hour, if I had had force enough; for we have more vagabonds in the forest than I like. But I shall soon have bills and bows enough at my back; for I have sent, to raise the country round. Such things as have been done this night shall not happen within our meres, and go unpunished;" and he crossed his arms upon his broad chest and gazed sternly in Catesby's face.
"Upon my life you are bold!" exclaimed Richard's favourite. "Do you know to whom you are speaking?"
"I neither know nor care," answered the woodman; "but I think I shall be able to describe you pretty well to the king; for he will not suffer you, nor any other leader of hired troops, to burn innocent men's houses and spoil the property of the church."
Catesby looked somewhat aghast; for the charge, he knew, put in such terms, would not be very palatable to Richard.
"I burned no houses, knave," he said, with a scoff.
"'Tis the same thing if your men did," answered the woodman. "You are all of one herd, that is clear."
"Shall I strike the knave down, sir?" demanded one of the fierce soldiery.
"I should like to see thee try," said the woodman, drawing his tremendous axe from his girdle; but Catesby exclaimed--
"Hold, hold!" and Chartley exclaimed--
"Well, sir, an answer to my question. We are but wasting time, and risking feud, by longer debating these matters here. For your conduct to others this night, for the destruction of the property of the church, and the wrongs inflicted on innocent men, either by your orders or with your connivance, you will of course be made responsible elsewhere; but I demand to know why I, a peer of England, going in peaceable guise, without weapons of war; am pursued and surrounded, I may say, by your soldiery?"
"That question is soon answered," replied Catesby. "I might indeed say, that no one could tell that you were a peer of England when you were found a-foot walking with foresters, and such like people, below your own degree. But in one word, my lord, I am ordered to apprehend your lordship, for aiding and comforting a proclaimed traitor. Do you surrender to the king's authority? Or must I summon a sufficient force to compel obedience?"
"I surrender at once, of course, to the king's authority," answered Chartley; "and knowing, Sir William, your place and favour with the king, will not even demand to see the warrant. But I trust my servants will be allowed to ride with me to Leicester, where I appeal the immediate consideration of my case to the king himself."
"So be it, my lord," answered Catesby; "but if I might advise for your own good, you would not bring so many men with badges of livery under the king's eyes; for you know the law upon that subject, and that such displays are strictly prohibited."
Chartley laughed.
"Good faith!" he said; "I am not the thoughtless boy you take me for, Sir William. I have a license under king Edward's hand for these same badges and liveries, which has never been revoked. Methinks it will pass good even now."
"Be it as you will, my lord," replied Catesby. "I advised you but as a friend. Nay, more; if you can find any other gentleman to be bound with you for your appearance at Leicester, within three days, I will take your lordship's parole to deliver yourself in that city to the king's will. I do not wish to pass any indignity upon a gentleman of worth, though lacking somewhat of discretion mayhap."
"I'll be his bail," cried Sir William Arden at once. "I am a fool perhaps for my pains, as he indeed is a fool who is bail for any man; but the lad won't break his word, although leg bail is the best bail that he could have, or any one indeed, in this good kingdom of England, where accusations are received as proofs, and have been for the last thirty years, whichever house was on the throne. There was nought to choose between them in that respect."
"You should be more careful, Sir William," answered Catesby with a grim smile. "The house which is on the throne is always the best. However, I take your pledge, and that of Lord Chartley; and now I will back to my post, taking it for granted, my lord, that this was really a woman who was with you, and that, even in such a case as this, a lie would not sully your lips."
"I am not a politician, Sir William," replied Chartley, somewhat bitterly; "so I have no excuse for lying. The person who just now entered the abbey was a lady, seemingly not twenty years of age; and I pledge you my word of honour, that her chin never bore a beard, nor her head received the tonsure, so that she is assuredly neither man, friar, nor bishop."
"Give you good day, then," said Catesby; and turning his horse he rode away, followed by the soldiers, who resumed their post around the wood.
"There goes a knave," said the woodman aloud, as Richard's favourite trotted down the slope. "Had it not needed two or three men to guard you, my good lord, your parole would have been little worth in the Cat's eyes."
"On my life, Boyd, you had better beware of him," rejoined Lord Chartley. "He does not easily forgive; and you have spoken somewhat plainly."
"Humph! I have not been the only one to speak my mind this day," said the woodman. "I did not think there was anything in the shape of a lord, at the court of England, who would venture to show such scorn for a minion--unless he was on the eve of falling."
"No hope of such a thing in this case," answered Chartley; "he is too serviceable to be dispensed with. But now I must have my horse. By good fortune, 'tis on the other side of the wood; so they will let us get it without taking it for a bishop."
"And who is this bishop they are seeking?" asked Sir William Arden, as he walked down on foot at Chartley's side, by a somewhat circuitous path, to the cottage of the woodman.
"The only bishop whose name is proclaimed," replied Chartley, avoiding a direct answer to the question; "is Doctor Morton, bishop of Ely; but I trust and believe that he is far out of their reach. However, I would have you take care, Boyd," he continued, turning towards the woodman, who was following; "and, if you should meet with the bishop in the wood, give him no help; for these men will visit it savagely on the head of any one against whom they can prove the having succoured him--I would fain hear how this hunting ends," he continued; "for I have seldom seen such a curious chase. Can you not give me intimation at Leicester?"
"And pray add," continued Sir Edward Hungerford, in a low tone, "some information concerning the sweet Lady Iola. Her beautiful eyes," he added, as Chartley turned somewhat sharply towards him, "have haunted me all night, like a melodious song which dwells in our ears for days after we have heard it."
"Or a bottle of essence," said the woodman, "that makes a man smell like a civet cat for months after it is expended."
"Drown me all puppies," exclaimed Arden. "A young cat that goes straying about with her eyes but half open, and her weak legs far apart, is more tolerable than one of these orange flowers of the court, with their smart sayings, which they mistake for wit;" and imitating, not amiss, the peculiar mode of talking of Hungerford and his class, he went on, "Gad ye good den, my noble lord! Fore Heaven, a pretty suit, and well devised, but that the exceeding quaintness of the trimming is worthy of a more marvellous furniture.--Pshaw! I am sick of their mewing; and if we have not a war soon, to mow down some of these weeds, the land will be full of nettles."
"Take care they don't sting, Arden," said Sir Edward Hungerford.
The other knight looked at him from head to foot, and walked on after Lord Chartley, with a slight smile curling his lip.
The party met no impediment on the way to the woodman's cottage. Chartley's horses were soon brought forth; and after lingering for a moment, to add a private word or two to Boyd, the young nobleman prepared to mount. Before he did so, however, he took the woodman's hand and shook it warmly, much to the surprise of Sir Edward Hungerford; and then the whole company resumed the road to Hinckley, passing a number of the patroles round the wood as they went, and hearing shouts and cries and notes upon the horn, which only called a smile upon Chartley's lips.
When they had passed the wood, however, and were riding on through the open country, Sir Edward Hungerford fell somewhat behind, to talk with a household tailor, whom he entertained, upon the device of a new sort of hose, which he intended to introduce; while Sir William Arden, naturally a taciturn man, rode on by Chartley's side, almost in silence. The young nobleman himself was now very grave. The excitement was over. All that had passed that night belonged to the past. It was a picture hung up in the gallery of memory; and he looked upon the various images it contained as one does upon the portraits of dead friends. He saw Iola, as she had sat beside him at the abbey in gay security. He felt the trembling of her hand upon his arm, in the hour of danger. Her cheek seemed to rest upon his shoulder again, as it had done, when, weary and exhausted, she had slept overpowered by slumber. Her balmy breath seemed once more to fan his cheek. The time since he had first known her was but very short; but yet he felt that it had been too long for him. That, in that brief space, things had been born that die not--new sensations--immortal offspring of the heart--children of fate that live along with us on earth, and go with us to immortality.
"She cannot be mine," he thought. "She is plighted to another whom she knows not--loves not." He would fain have recalled those hours. He would fain have wiped out the sensations they had produced. He resolved to try--to think of other things--to forget--to be what he had been before. Vain, vain hopes and expectations! Alas, he sought an impossibility. No one can ever be what he was before. Each act of life changes the man--takes something, gives something--leaves him different from what he was. He may alter; but he cannot go back. What he was is a memory, and never can be a reality again; and more especially is this the case with the light careless heart of youth. Pluck a ripe plum from the tree--touch it as tenderly as you will; the bloom is wiped away; and, try all the arts you can, you can never restore that bloom again, nor give the fruit the hue it had before. Happy those buoyant and successful spirits who can look onward at every step, from life's commencement to its close, and are never called upon to sit down by the weary way side of being, and long for the fair fields and meadows they have passed, never to behold again.
Clouds roll over the sky; the large rain drops descend; the lightning flashes; the thunder rolls along the verge of heaven; darkness and tempests rage above; and ruin and desolation seem to reign below. They have their hour, and pass away. Often the clouds roll on to some distant bourn, leaving the sky clear, the sun smiling brighter than ever, the blades of grass gemmed with the diamond drops, the earth all fresh, and the birds all singing. But there are other times, when, although the fierceness of the tempest is over, the streaming deluge suspended, the torch of the lightning quenched, and the angry voice of the thunder hushed, a heavy boding cloud remains behind, hiding the brightness of the face of heaven, and threatening fresh storms to come.
Thus it is too with the human heart. In the spring-tide of our life--in those gay early years, when the merry rays of the sunshiny heart dance gleam-like with the storms and clouds of life, the tempest of passion or of sorrow is soon swept away, and the universe of the heart resumes its brightness. But there comes a time when the storm falling upon life's decline--I speak not of mere years, but at the epoch of each man's destined change--the spirit cannot cast off the shadow of the cloud, even when the eyes are dried, and the lightning pang of anguish or the terror speaking thunder of retribution are staid for the hour.
Thus was it with Richard. His son, his only son, his beloved, was gone. The fountain of hope and expectation was dried up. For him, and for his future, destiny, he had laboured, and thought, and striven, and calculated, and sinned, and offended God and man, and won a dark and fearful renown, tainted a mother's fame, violated trust and friendship, usurped the patrimony of the orphan, spurned every tie of nature and affection, trampled upon gratitude, and imbrued his hands in blood. Strange that the brightest and the purest of human affections, when mingled in our nature with the darker and the more violent passions, instead of mitigating their influence, should prompt to deeper crimes, and plunge us into more overwhelming guiltiness--as the most precious medicines, mingled chemically with some foreign matter, will, is a moment, become the most dangerous poisons. He was gone; the object of all his fond imaginings, his daily labours and his nightly thoughts. The hopes that had been built up upon his life were all thrown down. The line between the present and the future was snapped asunder. The pang had been suffered--the terrible pang of the rending of a strong manly heart from its closest ties and its dearest expectations. The effect had been awful, terrible. It had for a time unseated reason from a throne where she had ruled with sway almost despotic. But that pang had been conquered. Reason had regained her rule. The tempest of the heart had passed away, and had left the sky calm--but not bright. No! Dull, dull, heavy, leaden, threatening, was the aspect of all around. The pure light of day was extinguished, never to dawn for him again; and all the light that was left came from the dull torch of ambition.
Richard sat in the room of the royal lodging at Leicester, where we have before seen him. There was a gentleman by his side, with head slightly bent, reading, from a long slip of paper, some notes of all the different pieces of intelligence which had been received during the day.
"What next?" demanded the king, in a dull and almost inattentive, tone.
"The letter which your grace proposed to write to your royal sister-in-law," replied the gentleman.
Richard started, "Ay," he said, thoughtfully; "ay, it must be done;" and, rubbing his temple gently with the fingers of his right hand, he seemed to give himself up to meditation. After a short space of time, it would appear, he partly forgot, if I may use such a term, the presence of another; and he murmured words to himself, which he might not have done had he been acutely conscious that they were overheard, "Shall the son of Clarence succeed?" he asked himself, in a long gloomy tone; "for him have I done all these things?--To make him King of England? That fair inheritance, for which I have toiled and laboured, and thought, and desired, and watched by night, and acted by day, shall it be his?--No, no! And yet there is a fate that overrules man's policy, and thwarts his best-devised schemes.--No child for me, if Ann lives; and it all goes to another race.--What then?" And he paused, and thought once more very deeply.
The busy movements of his mind during that reverie who shall scrutinize? But at length he said: "No, no! She was the love of my youth, the partner of my early cares and joys.--No! Grief will soon do its work on her. She is of that soft and fragile-hearted nature, which crumbles at the first rude touch, like the brittle sandstone. I am of granite, which the chisel may mark, but which no saw will touch--hard and perdurable. We must bide the event. The canker is on the frail flower, and it will fall soon enough! In the mean time, 'tis well to be prepared;" and, turning to the man beside him, he added, "I will write that letter with my own hand. Have a post ready by six this evening. What next?"
"The young Lord Chartley waits your grace's will, in ward," replied the secretary; and, seeing that Richard seemed plunged in thought again, he added, "suspected of aiding the escape of Morton, bishop of Ely."
"Ha!" cried Richard, with an angry start; "he shall--" But he paused suddenly, laid his hand upon his brow for a moment or two, and then added in a calmer tone, "No. He is a foolish boy. This man was his tutor. We love those who were the guides and conductors of our youth. But I will make sure of him. Give me those letters--No, not those, the packet on the left;" and, having received what he demanded, he examined the despatches carefully, and then said, "What next?"
The secretary looked at the paper in his hand, and then replied:
"Arnold Lord Calverly craves your highness's gracious sanction, to complete the marriage already contracted between his niece, the Lady Lola St. Leger, and the Lord Fulmer. He craves audience on this score, and is, I believe, even now in the great hall below."
Richard meditated for a moment or two.
"He is a stanch and steady friend," he said at length; "yet, this Lord Fulmer--I love him not. I doubt him. He is a man of high-toned fantasies, and grave imaginations--moveable with the wind of passion, and notions of what he believes fine thoughts. I love not your men of emotions. Give me the man of firm calm deeds, who sets a mighty object before him, and cleaves a way to it through all impediments. The inheritance is large; his own power great; united, they may be dangerous. But we must temporise and see. 'Tis wise to keep expectation on the wing. When we have given all, we have no more to give; and, by St. Paul, gratitude is a poor bond, compared with desire.--But I must see the Lord Calverly. Go, give him admission. We will hear the rest afterwards."
The secretary departed; and Richard remained with his brow resting on his hand, till a door again opened, and a stout elderly gentleman was admitted, with an expression of countenance indicating no slight opinion of his own importance, but no very great profundity of intellect. The king instantly rose, and took him by the hand.
"Welcome, welcome, my noble lord," he said. "You have come to me at a moment of deep grief and pain; but your presence is none the less acceptable, as, indeed, what can afford greater consolation than the society of a true friend?"
The cordiality with which he was received might have surprised any other person than Arnold Lord Calverly; for Richard was not a man of a cordial nature, and displayed little warmth of manner to any but his mere familiar tools, or to those whom he intended to deceive or to destroy. The worthy lord, how, ever, was quite satisfied that he deserved the utmost kindness and consideration; and taking it for granted that the monarch really received him joyfully, he proceeded to comfort him with such common places as men of inferior intellect mistake for the dicta of wisdom.
"Alack, my lord the king," he said, "you have indeed suffered a great deprivation. But, you know, this is merely to share the common fate of all men, from which the king is no more exempt than the peasant. Death respects not the young or the old, the high or the low. We are all subject to his power; and, perhaps, those he takes soonest are the happiest. I would have your highness consider what a troublous life it is that man leads here below; and how many sorrows the young prince, God rest his soul, may have escaped; and, in your own knowledge of life, you will find consolation for his having lost it."
"True, very true," replied Richard, with a grave and thoughtful look. "That is sound philosophy, my dear lord, as indeed is all that you say on all occasions. Yet one cannot help regretting, if not the poor boy's release from earthly suffering, at least the extinction of one's own succession, and especially where a crown is a part of the heritage."
"Nay, now, sire, in this you judge not altogether wisely," replied the old nobleman. "Pardon my boldness in so speaking. But why should a man desire to transmit his possessions to a child of his own, rather than to the child of any other man. I speak in the abstract, mark me--I speak in the abstract--for, if a man have children of his own, of course he would rather that they succeeded. That's very natural. But if he have none, why should he desire posterity? His eyes must be closed before his child can take the succession. He cannot therefore see the enjoyment of it by his child."
"Very true," said Richard. "Very true."
"Besides," continued Lord Calverly, "we cannot tell that our children will use what we leave them better than the children of other men. It is but a prejudice, my lord the king, to wish for posterity; and, indeed, I are inclined to think that those men are happiest who have never had any children."
"If they have minds so full of philosophy as yours, my lord," answered Richard; "and you can judge well, for you are yourself childless, and yet happy in yourself."
"Perfectly, your highness," replied Lord Calverly. "I would not change with a patriarch. Indeed, the presence of children and our love for them often betrays us into dangerous weaknesses, against which we should guard with care, if Heaven should inflict them on us. I have been always watchful--very watchful, your highness, against such foibles. Even in the case of my niece, my poor brother's child, who was left to my charge and guidance a mere infant; as soon as I found I was becoming too fond of her, and that, when she was well I was too careful of her, when she was ill I thought too much about her, I sent her away at once to my sister, the abbess of St. Clare. Women's minds being, weak, cannot be injured by such softnesses; but they suit ill with a philosopher, a soldier, or a statesman. But it is upon this subject that I came to speak with your highness."
"What, regarding the abbess of St. Clare?" said Richard, with a start.
"Of her presently," replied Lord Calverly; "but first of my niece. I wish to crave your highness's permission to complete the marriage of this little Iola with my friend, and the son of my friend, Arthur Lord Fulmer."
"You shall have it right willingly," replied Richard, in the frankest tone possible. "It shall be drawn out in due form, and receive our own sign manual. Can I refuse anything to so tried a friend?--Nevertheless, my most dear lord, I will beseech you not to proceed hastily," he continued with a significant nod of the head. "Delay the marriage a little, at my request. We would be present at it ourselves, I and the queen; and, moreover, I have intentions--I have intentions----"
He paused, looking in Lord Calverly's face, with a bland smile, and then added: "Who knows what name you may be called upon to write, my lord? It may not be Calverly then. Coronets will change their forms sometimes; and we do not bind our brows always with the same cap. Delay a little, delay a little! At the present moment sad thoughts possess me, and I have not your philosophy to combat them. There are many important matters to do. The succession to the crown must be settled; and we shall need all your wise counsels, in graver things than marriages and merrymakings. Delay a little, delay a little, my right good friend."
"Your highness is too gracious," replied Lord Calverly, with a shining and radiant look. "Your commands are law but there is one other subject I must bring before you, a matter touching your royal throne and dignity."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Richard. "What may that be?"
"All men know, my royal lord," said the old nobleman, in an oratorical tone, "that your highness's devout reverence for the church is not to be questioned, that religion, as one may say, is not in you, as in other men, a matter acquired by mere learning and meditation, but a part and principle of your own royal nature. Now my sister, the abbess of St. Clare of Atherston, whose conduct in her high charge has deserved and received the praises of all men, and especially of our holy father, has commissioned me to state to your highness, the fact, that the abbey--an abbey of nuns be it remembered, filled with young and delicate women, vowed to seclusion and prayer--was surrounded on the night of Wednesday last by a body of rude soldiery, under the command of one Sir John Godscroft, who, upon pretence of seeking for a deserter, insisted upon admission, notwithstanding her warning that the place was sanctuary. The whole building was searched; and not only that, but the priest's house and many of the cottages on the green, belonging to the servitors of the abbey, were burned to the ground."
Richard's brow grew as black as night; and, setting his teeth hard together, he rose and walked up and down the room, muttering to himself--
"This must be repressed. This must be repressed."
"Let your highness conceive," persisted Lord Calverly, following him a step or two behind, "only conceive what a condition these poor nuns were in, roused out of bed by these rude men, in the middle of the night."
A grim smile came upon the king's handsome face; and he replied--
"Grey gowns are soon put on, my lord. Nevertheless this shall be looked into severely--Ha! Let me see--The abbey of St. Clare;" and, taking some papers from the table, he ran his eye hastily over them, and then exclaimed, with a frowning brow, "It is so! 'Twas not a deserter whom they sought, my lord, but a traitor; no pitiful trooper fled from his colours, but Morton, bishop of Ely, the instigator of Buckingham, the counsellor of Dorset, the friend and confidant of Richmond."
"But, my lord the king, the abbey is sanctuary," replied Lord Calverly; "and--"
"Were it God's altar, with his hand upon the horn, I would tear that man from it," thundered Richard, his whole countenance working with passion.
The moment after he cast himself into his chair, and covered his eyes with his hands, while the pompous old nobleman stood as one thunderstruck before him. After a dead silence of nearly a minute, the king looked up again, and the cloud had passed away from his brow.
"I have been moved, my lord," he said. "I have been moved. This man, this Morton, is my deadliest enemy, a reviler, a calumniator, the stirrer of every trouble in the realm; and he has escaped me. Doubtless it was not your good sister's fault; and even if it were, these men have exceeded their commission. I will have no such acts of violence within this kingdom. Rich and poor, strong and weak, shall know that the sword of justice is not trusted to my hands in vain. Nor will I suffer my name and my service to be used as pretexts for acts so criminal. It shall be inquired into and justice done."
He paused, casting down his eyes; and Lord Calverly, frightened out of his wits at the storm he had raised, was retreating towards the door, when Richard called him again, saying--
"Stay, stay. I may have a charge to give you, my good lord. A very noble gentleman brought up in the court--I may say under my own eye--has somewhat failed in his duty. To what extent I know not yet. I would fain not deal with him harshly; for he is young and rash, and lately come from foreign lands, so that he may not know the full extent of his fault. I will examine him however in your presence. If I find he has acted with malignant purpose, he shall go to York for trial. If it be but a rash prank of youth he has committed, although it galled me somewhat closely, I will place him in your lordship's ward, assigning you one third of his revenues while he remains there."
As he spoke he rose, and called in one of the attendants saying, briefly--
"Summon Lord Chartley hither."
"I trust he may clear himself in your highness's opinion," said Lord Calverly, while the attendant proceeded to obey the king's commands. "I have heard him highly spoken of as one more than ordinarily learned, and a complete master of exercises. Good Lord, I have often patted his head as a boy; and such a curly head as it was too, all wavy and silky, like a Spanish dog's. I little thought it would be filled with philosophy."
"Perhaps some slipped in from the tips of your fingers," said Richard, with a slightly sarcastic smile; and in a moment or two after the door of the cabinet opened.
With a free light step, though a somewhat grave countenance for him, Chartley entered the king's presence, and advanced to the side of the table, opposite to that at which Richard was placed. The king gazed at him, not sternly, but with that fixed, attentive, unwinking eye, which is very difficult for conscious guilt to bear.
Nevertheless Chartley sustained it firmly; and, after maintaining silence for a full minute, with his lips compressed, Richard said--
"I have sent for you, my lord, because there are heavy charges against you."
"Will your highness state them?" said the young nobleman. "I will answer them at once boldly and truly."
"I will," answered Richard. "The first is--and all the rest are secondary to that--that you have aided and comforted, contrary to our proclamation, a known and avowed traitor, Morton, bishop of Ely; that you took him in your train disguised as a friar, and carried him with you from Tamworth to the abbey of St. Clare of Atherston, for the purpose of facilitating his escape, well knowing him to be a traitor. How say you? Is this charge true?"
"In part, my lord the king," replied Chartley; "but in part also it is false."
"In what part," demanded Richard.
"In that part which alleges I knew him to be a traitor," replied Chartley, "and in that which implies that I had seen said did know your royal proclamation. I never saw it, nor knew the terms thereof, till yesterday; nor did I know or believe that the bishop was a traitor. Yet let me not say one word that can deceive. I was well aware that he had incurred your highness' displeasure; but on what grounds I was not informed."
"And, knowing it, you aided his escape?" said Richard sternly.
"I did, my lord," replied Chartley; "but, if you will hear me speak a few words, I may say something in my own excuse. I never gave you cause before, wittingly or willingly, to doubt my loyalty. I have trafficked with none of your personal enemies, nor with those of your royal estate. I have taken no part in plots or conspiracies; but this was a very different case. I found the friend, the guide, the instructor of my youth, flying from danger; and my first thought was to succour him. I know, my lord the king, that I have put my head in peril by so doing; but what man would consider such peril to save a father? and this man I looked upon as a second father. I will ask you, sire, if you would not have done a hundred times as much, to rescue the noble duke of York?--I loved Morton as much."
He touched upon a tender point--perhaps the only really tender point in Richard's heart. There are spots in the waste of memory ever green--according to the beautiful figure of the poet--oases in the desert of life. The burning sun of ambition cannot parch them, the nipping frost of eager avarice cannot wither them. The palm tree of early affection shades them for ever; the refreshing fountains of first love keep them ever verdant. They are few with most men; for all bright and beautiful things are few; but rarely as there a heart so rugged in its nature, so scorched by earthly passion, or so faded from dull indulgence, as not to have one (if not more) of those spots of brightness, which, when the eye of remembrance lights upon it, refreshes the spirit with a vision of the sweet calm joys of youth. The memory of his great father, and of the love which he had borne him, was the purest, perhaps, the only pure thing for Richard, in all the treasury of the past; and he felt the allusion with sensations, such as he had not experienced for many a long year. They were tender, deep, almost too deep; and, turning away his head, he stretched out his hand with a gesture, which seemed to command the speaker to stop.
"Pardon me, your highness," said Chartley, seeing the emotions he had aroused, and then was silent.
Richard remained musing for several minutes. His mind was busy with the past; but he had the peculiar faculty of all great and resolute spirits, that of casting from him rapidly all impressions but those of the present. He looked up again; and it was evident that the emotion was at an end. Still it would seem that it had produced some effect in its passage, for his next words were in a milder tone.
"I am willing, my lord," he said, "to believe that you have acted indiscreetly, but without evil intentions. I will make allowance for youth, and for affection; but still, this must not go altogether unpunished. Are you willing to abide by my decision?"
"Needs must, my lord the king," replied Chartley, almost gaily. "I am in your hand, and it is a strong one."
"Nay!" answered the king. "You have a choice, if you like it better. I can send you for trial by your peers."
"Good faith, no!" cried Chartley. "That were worse a thousand-fold. In a word, sire, I know my danger. Ignorance, youth, friendship, were no defence before the stubborn rigour of the law. You have the power to mitigate it, and, I believe, the heart. I leave my cause with you."
"Well then," said Richard, "by St. Paul, you shall not have cause to repent. As you have put yourself in the king's will, we will put you in ward with this noble lord, till our further pleasure; assigning him one third of your revenues, for the guard and maintenance of your person, and making him responsible to us for your conduct. He will not deal harshly with you, methinks. Does this satisfy you?"
"Since better may not be, my lord," replied Chartley. "I would as gladly be in the hand of this noble lord, who, if my memory fail me not, is the Lord Calverly, as any one. Give a bird the choice, whether yon shall put it in a gilded cage or wring its neck, and doubtless it will prefer the wires; and yet it can scarcely be said to be satisfied, when it would fain use its wings in freedom, though for no evil purpose."
"I seek not that his imprisonment be very strict, my lord," said Richard, turning to Lord Calverly. "You will take such securities as you judge needful, but do nought with rigour; for, even by the light way in which he fronts his danger, one may judge that he did what he has done in careless ignorance rather than in malice. Now take him with you, and bestow him as you think fit."
"Ay, young heads are too hot for cool judgment," said Lord Calverly, as they walked towards the door. "It is a marvel to me how boys ever grow men, and how men ever reach maturity; for, not contented with the perils of life, they are always making new dangers for themselves."
"Stay," cried Richard. "Stay! There is yet one question I would ask before you go, Lord Chartley. Was the abbess of St. Glare privy to your bringing this turbulent bishop within her walls? I hear you sent forward a messenger."
The question was a perilous one; but Chartley fixed upon the latter words of the king for his reply, and thus avoided the danger. "My messenger bore a letter, your highness," he answered, "which letter the abbess doubtless still has and can show you. You will there see, that I only told her I was coming to crave her hospitality with some friends. The bishop I presented to her as a friar travelling with my train. Nor was there one amongst the friends who were with me, nor amongst my servants, who was made aware of our companion's quality. There is a proverb, very old, that fine feathers make fine birds; and I do not believe that any one saw the bishop's robe through the friar's gown."
Richard smiled, thinking of Sir Charles Weinants, but bowed his head in signal of the conference being ended; and the two noblemen withdrew together.