CHAPTER II.
THE BROKEN GITTERN.
Rousing himself from his indignant revery, Marmaduke Nevile followed
one of the smaller streams into which the crowd divided itself on
dispersing from the archery-ground, and soon found himself in a part
of the holiday scene appropriated to diversions less manly, but no
less characteristic of the period than those of the staff and arrow.
Beneath an awning, under which an itinerant landlord dispensed cakes
and ale, the humorous Bourdour (the most vulgar degree of minstrel, or
rather tale-teller) collected his clownish audience; while seated by
themselves--apart, but within hearing--two harpers, in the king's
livery, consoled each other for the popularity of their ribald rival,
by wise reflections on the base nature of common folk. Farther on,
Marmaduke started to behold what seemed to him the heads of giants at
least six yards high; but on a nearer approach these formidable
apparitions resolved themselves to a company of dancers upon stilts.
There, one joculator exhibited the antics of his well-tutored ape;
there, another eclipsed the attractions of the baboon by a marvellous
horse that beat a tabor with his forefeet; there, the more sombre
Tregetour, before a table raised upon a lofty stage, promised to cut
off and refix the head of a sad-faced little boy, who in the mean time
was preparing his mortal frame for the operation by apparently larding
himself with sharp knives and bodkins. Each of these wonder-dealers
found his separate group of admirers, and great was the delight and
loud the laughter in the pastime-ground of old Cockaigne.
While Marmaduke, bewildered by this various bustle, stared around him,
his eye was caught by a young maiden, in evident distress, struggling
in vain to extricate herself from a troop of timbrel-girls, or
tymbesteres (as they were popularly called), who surrounded her with
mocking gestures, striking their instruments to drown her
remonstrances, and dancing about her in a ring at every effort towards
escape. The girl was modestly attired as one of the humbler ranks,
and her wimple in much concealed her countenance; but there was,
despite her strange and undignified situation and evident alarm, a
sort of quiet, earnest self-possession,--an effort to hide her terror,
and to appeal to the better and more womanly feelings of her
persecutors. In the intervals of silence from the clamour, her voice,
though low, clear, well-tuned, and impressive, forcibly arrested the
attention of young Nevile; for at that day, even more than this
(sufficiently apparent as it now is), there was a marked distinction
in the intonation, the accent, the modulation of voice, between the
better bred and better educated and the inferior classes. But this
difference, so ill according with her dress and position, only served
to heighten more the bold insolence of the musical Bacchantes, who,
indeed, in the eyes of the sober, formed the most immoral nuisance
attendant on the sports of the time, and whose hardy license and
peculiar sisterhood might tempt the antiquary to search for their
origin amongst the relics of ancient Paganism. And now, to increase
the girl's distress, some half-score of dissolute apprentices and
journeymen suddenly broke into the ring of the Maenads, and were
accosting her with yet more alarming insults, when Marmaduke, pushing
them aside, strode to her assistance. "How now, ye lewd varlets! ye
make me blush for my countrymen in the face of day! Are these the
sports of merry England,--these your manly contests,--to strive which
can best affront a poor maid? Out on ye, cullions and bezonians!
Cling to me, gentle donzel, and fear not. Whither shall I lead thee?"
The apprentices were not, however, so easily daunted. Two of them
approached to the rescue, flourishing their bludgeons about their
heads with formidable gestures. "Ho, ho!" cried one, "what right hast
thou to step between the hunters and the doe? The young quean is too
much honoured by a kiss from a bold 'prentice of London."
Marmaduke stepped back, and drew the small dagger which then formed
the only habitual weapon of a gentleman. [Swords were not worn, in
peace, at that period.] This movement, discomposing his mantle,
brought the silver arrow he had won (which was placed in his girdle)
in full view of the assailants. At the same time they caught sight of
the badge on his hat. These intimidated their ardour more than the
drawn poniard.
"A Nevile!" said one, retreating. "And the jolly marksman who beat
Nick Alwyn," said the other, lowering his bludgeon, and doffing his
cap. "Gentle sir, forgive us, we knew not your quality. But as for
the girl--your gallantry misleads you."
"The Wizard's daughter! ha, ha! the Imp of Darkness!" screeched the
timbrel-girls, tossing up their instruments, and catching them again
on the points of their fingers. "She has enchanted him with her
glamour. Foul is fair! Foul fair thee, young springal, if thou go to
the nets. Shadow and goblin to goblin and shadow! Flesh and blood to
blood and flesh!"--and dancing round him, with wanton looks and bare
arms, and gossamer robes that brushed him as they circled, they
chanted,--
"Come, kiss me, my darling,
Warm kisses I trade for;
Wine, music, and kisses
What else was life made for?"
With some difficulty, and with a disgust which was not altogether
without a superstitious fear of the strange words and the outlandish
appearance of these loathsome Delilahs, Marmaduke broke from the ring
with his new charge; and in a few moments the Nevile and the maiden
found themselves, unmolested and unpursued, in a deserted quarter of
the ground; but still the scream of the timbrel-girls, as they
hurried, wheeling and dancing, into the distance, was borne ominously
to the young man's ear. "Ha, ha! the witch and her lover! Foul is
fair! foul is fair! Shadow to goblin, goblin to shadow,--and the
devil will have his own!"
"And what mischance, my poor girl," asked the Nevile, soothingly,
"brought thee into such evil company?"
"I know not, fair sir," said the girl, slowly recovering her self;
"but my father is poor, and I had heard that on these holiday
occasions one who had some slight skill on the gittern might win a few
groats from the courtesy of the bystanders. So I stole out with my
serving-woman, and had already got more than I dared hope, when those
wicked timbrel-players came round me, and accused me of taking the
money from them. And then they called an officer of the ground, who
asked me my name and holding; so when I answered, they called my
father a wizard, and the man broke my poor gittern,--see!"--and she
held it up, with innocent sorrow in her eyes, yet a half-smile on her
lips,--"and they soon drove poor old Madge from my side, and I knew no
more till you, worshipful sir, took pity on me."
"But why," asked the Nevile, "did they give to your father so unholy a
name?"
"Alas, sir! he is a great scholar, who has spent his means in studying
what he says will one day be of good to the people."
"Humph!" said Marmaduke, who had all the superstitions of his time,
who looked upon a scholar, unless in the Church, with mingled awe and
abhorrence, and who, therefore, was but ill-satisfied with the girl's
artless answer,
"Humph! your father--but--" checking what he was about, perhaps
harshly, to say, as he caught the bright eyes and arch, intelligent
face lifted to his own--"but it is hard to punish the child for the
father's errors."
"Errors, sir!" repeated the damsel, proudly, and with a slight disdain
in her face and voice. "But yes, wisdom is ever, perhaps, the saddest
error!"
This remark was of an order superior in intellect to those which had
preceded it: it contrasted with the sternness of experience the
simplicity of the child; and of such contrasts, indeed, was that
character made up. For with a sweet, an infantine change of tone and
countenance, she added, after a short pause, "They took the money!
The gittern--see, they left that, when they had made it useless."
"I cannot mend the gittern, but I can refill the gipsire," said
Marmaduke.
The girl coloured deeply. "Nay, sir, to earn is not to beg."
Marmaduke did not heed this answer; for as they were now passing by
the stunted trees, under which sat several revellers, who looked up at
him from their cups and tankards, some with sneering, some with grave
looks, he began, more seriously than in his kindly impulse he had
hitherto done, to consider the appearance it must have to be thus seen
walking in public with a girl of inferior degree, and perhaps doubtful
repute. Even in our own day such an exhibition would be, to say the
least, suspicious; and in that day, when ranks and classes were
divided with iron demarcations, a young gallant, whose dress bespoke
him of gentle quality, with one of opposite sex, and belonging to the
humbler orders, in broad day too, was far more open to censure. The
blood mounted to his brow, and halting abruptly, he said, in a dry and
altered voice: "My good damsel, you are now, I think, out of danger;
it would ill beseem you, so young and so comely, to go farther with
one not old enough to be your protector; so, in God's name, depart
quickly, and remember me when you buy your new gittern, poor child!"
So saying, he attempted to place a piece of money in her hand. She
put it back, and the coin fell on the ground. "Nay, this is foolish,"
said he.
"Alas, sir!" said the girl, gravely, "I see well that you are ashamed
of your goodness. But my father begs not. And once--but that matters
not."
"Once what?" persisted Marmaduke, interested in her manner, in spite
of himself.
"Once," said the girl, drawing herself up, and with an expression that
altered the whole character of her face--"the beggar ate at my
father's gate. He is a born gentleman and a knight's son."
"And what reduced him thus?"
"I have said," answered the girl, simply, yet with the same half-scorn
on her lip that it had before betrayed; "he is a scholar, and thought
more of others than himself."
"I never saw any good come to a gentleman from those accursed books,"
said the Nevile,--"fit only for monks and shavelings. But still, for
your father's sake, though I am ashamed of the poorness of the gift--"
"No; God be with you, sir, and reward you." She stopped short, drew
her wimple round her face, and was gone. Nevile felt an uncomfortable
sensation of remorse and disapproval at having suffered her to quit
him while there was yet any chance of molestation or annoyance, and
his eye followed her till a group of trees veiled her from his view.
The young maiden slackened her pace as she found herself alone under
the leafless boughs of the dreary pollards,--a desolate spot, made
melancholy by dull swamps, half overgrown with rank verdure, through
which forced its clogged way the shallow brook that now gives its name
(though its waves are seen no more) to one of the main streets in the
most polished quarters of the metropolis. Upon a mound formed by the
gnarled roots of the dwarfed and gnome-like oak, she sat down and
wept. In our earlier years, most of us may remember that there was
one day which made an epoch in life,--that day that separated
Childhood from Youth; for that day seems not to come gradually, but to
be a sudden crisis, an abrupt revelation. The buds of the heart open
to close no more. Such a day was this in that girl's fate. But the
day was not yet gone! That morning, when she dressed for her
enterprise of filial love, perhaps for the first time Sibyll Warner
felt that she was fair--who shall say whether some innocent, natural
vanity had not blended with the deep, devoted earnestness, which saw
no shame in the act by which the child could aid the father? Perhaps
she might have smiled to listen to old Madge's praises of her winsome
face, old Madge's predictions that the face and the gittern would not
lack admirers on the gay ground; perhaps some indistinct, vague
forethoughts of the Future to which the sex will deem itself to be
born might have caused the cheek--no, not to blush, but to take a
rosier hue, and the pulse to beat quicker, she knew not why. At all
events, to that ground went the young Sibyll, cheerful, and almost
happy, in her inexperience of actual life, and sure, at least, that
youth and innocence sufficed to protect from insult. And now she sat
down under the leafless tree to weep; and in those bitter tears,
childhood itself was laved from her soul forever.
"What ailest thou, maiden?" asked a deep voice; and she felt a hand
laid lightly on her shoulder. She looked up in terror and confusion,
but it was no form or face to inspire alarm that met her eye. It was
a cavalier, holding by the rein a horse richly caparisoned; and though
his dress was plainer and less exaggerated than that usually worn by
men of rank, its materials were those which the sumptuary laws
(constantly broken, indeed, as such laws ever must be) confined to
nobles. Though his surcoat was but of cloth, and the colour dark and
sober, it was woven in foreign looms,--an unpatriotic luxury, above
the degree of knight,--and edged deep with the costliest sables. The
hilt of the dagger, suspended round his breast, was but of ivory,
curiously wrought, but the scabbard was sown with large pearls. For
the rest, the stranger was of ordinary stature, well knit and active
rather than powerful, and of that age (about thirty-five) which may be
called the second prime of man. His face was far less handsome than
Marmaduke Nevile's, but infinitely more expressive, both of
intelligence and command,--the features straight and sharp, the
complexion clear and pale, and under the bright gray eyes a dark shade
spoke either of dissipation or of thought.
"What ailest thou, maiden,--weepest thou some faithless lover? Tush!
love renews itself in youth, as flower succeeds flower in spring."
Sibyll made no reply; she rose and moved a few paces, then arrested
her steps, and looked around her. She had lost all clew to her way
homeward, and she saw with horror, in the distance, the hateful
timbrel-girls, followed by the rabble, and weaving their strange
dances towards the spot.
"Dost thou fear me, child? There is no cause," said the stranger,
following her. "Again I say, What ailest thou?" This time his voice
was that of command, and the poor girl involuntarily obeyed it. She
related her misfortunes, her persecution by the tymbesteres, her
escape,--thanks to the Nevile's courtesy,--her separation from her
attendant, and her uncertainty as to the way she should pursue.
The nobleman listened with interest: he was a man sated and wearied by
pleasure and the world, and the evident innocence of Sibyll was a
novelty to his experience, while the contrast between her language and
her dress moved his curiosity. "And," said he, "thy protector left
thee, his work half done; fie on his chivalry! But I, donzel, wear
the spurs of knighthood, and to succour the distressed is a duty my
oath will not let me swerve from. I will guide thee home, for I know
well all the purlieus of this evil den of London. Thou hast but to
name the suburb in which thy father dwells."
Sibyll involuntarily raised her wimple, lifted her beautiful eyes to
the stranger, in bewildered gratitude and surprise. Her childhood had
passed in a court, her eye, accustomed to rank, at once perceived the
high degree of the speaker. The contrast between this unexpected and
delicate gallantry and the condescending tone and abrupt desertion of
Marmaduke affected her again to tears.
"Ah, worshipful sir!" she said falteringly, "what can reward thee for
this unlooked-for goodness?"
"One innocent smile, sweet virgin!--for such I'll be sworn thou art."
He did not offer her his hand, but hanging the gold-enamelled rein
over his arm, walked by her side; and a few words sufficing for his
guidance, led her across the ground, through the very midst of the
throng. He felt none of the young shame, the ingenious scruples of
Marmaduke, at the gaze he encountered, thus companioned. But Sibyll
noted that ever and anon bonnet and cap were raised as they passed
along, and the respectful murmur of the vulgar, who had so lately
jeered her anguish, taught her the immeasurable distance in men's
esteem between poverty shielded by virtue, and poverty protected by
power.
But suddenly a gaudy tinsel group broke through the crowd, and
wheeling round their path, the foremost of them daringly approached
the nobleman, and looking full into his disdainful face, exclaimed,
"Tradest thou, too, for kisses? Ha, ha! life is short,--the witch is
outwitched by thee! But witchcraft and death go together, as
peradventure thou mayest learn at the last, sleek wooer." Then
darting off, and heading her painted, tawdry throng, the timbrel-girl
sprang into the crowd and vanished.
This incident produced no effect upon the strong and cynical intellect
of the stranger. Without allusion to it, he continued to converse
with his young companion, and artfully to draw out her own singular
but energetic and gifted mind. He grew more than interested,--he was
both touched and surprised. His manner became yet more respectful,
his voice more subdued and soft.
On what hazards turns our fate! On that day, a little, and Sibyll's
pure but sensitive heart had, perhaps, been given to the young Nevile.
He had defended and saved her; he was fairer than the stranger, he was
more of her own years and nearer to her in station; but in showing
himself ashamed to be seen with her, he had galled her heart, and
moved the bitter tears of her pride. What had the stranger done?
Nothing but reconciled the wounded delicacy to itself; and suddenly he
became to her one ever to be remembered, wondered at,--perhaps more.
They reached an obscure suburb, and parted at the threshold of a
large, gloomy, ruinous house, which Sibyll indicated as her father's
home.
The girl lingered before the porch; and the stranger gazed, with the
passionless admiration which some fair object of art produces on one
who has refined his taste, but who has survived enthusiasm, upon the
downcast cheek that blushed beneath his gaze. "Farewell!" he said;
and the girl looked up wistfully. He might, without vanity, have
supposed that look to imply what the lip did not dare to say,--"And
shall we meet no more?"
But he turned away, with formal though courteous salutation; and as he
remounted his steed, and rode slowly towards the interior of the city,
he muttered to himself, with a melancholy smile upon his lips, "Now
might the grown infant make to himself a new toy; but an innocent
heart is a brittle thing, and one false vow can break it. Pretty
maiden! I like thee well eno' not to love thee. So, as my young
Scotch minstrel sings and plays,--
'Christ keep these birdis bright in bowers,
Sic peril lies in paramours!'"
[A Scotch poet, in Lord Hailes's Collection, has the following lines
in the very pretty poem called "Peril in Paramours:"--
"Wherefore I pray, in termys short,
Christ keep these birdis bright in bowers,
Fra false lovers and their disport,
Sic peril lies in paramours."]
We must now return to Marmaduke. On leaving Sibyll, and retracing his
steps towards the more crowded quarter of the space, he was agreeably
surprised by encountering Nicholas Alwyn, escorted in triumph by a
legion of roaring apprentices from the victory he had just obtained
over six competitors at the quarter-staff.
When the cortege came up to Marmaduke, Nicholas halted, and fronting
his attendants, said, with the same cold and formal stiffness that had
characterized him from the beginning, "I thank you, lads, for your
kindness. It is your own triumph. All I cared for was to show that
you London boys are able to keep up your credit in these days, when
there's little luck in a yard-measure, if the same hand cannot bend a
bow, or handle cold steel. But the less we think of the strife when
we are in the stall, the better for our pouches. And so I hope we
shall hear no more about it, until I get a ware of my own, when the
more of ye that like to talk of such matters the better ye will be
welcome,--always provided ye be civil customers, who pay on the nail,
for as the saw saith, 'Ell and tell makes the crypt swell.' For the
rest, thanks are due to this brave gentleman, Marmaduke Nevile, who,
though the son of a knight-banneret who never furnished less to the
battle-field than fifty men-at-arms, has condescended to take part and
parcel in the sports of us peaceful London traders; and if ever you
can do him a kind turn--for turn and turn is fair play--why, you will,
I answer for it. And so one cheer for old London, and another for
Marmaduke Nevile. Here goes! Hurrah, my lads!" And with this pithy
address Nicholas Alwyn took off his cap and gave the signal for the
shouts, which, being duly performed, he bowed stiffly to his
companions, who departed with a hearty laugh, and coming to the side
of Nevile, the two walked on to a neighbouring booth, where, under a
rude awning, and over a flagon of clary, they were soon immersed in
the confidential communications each had to give and receive.
