CHAPTER V.
WEAL TO THE IDLER, WOE TO THE WORKMAN.
As Providence tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, so it possibly might
conform the heads of that day to a thickness suitable for the blows
and knocks to which they were variously subjected; yet it was not
without considerable effort and much struggling that Marmaduke's
senses recovered the shock received, less by his flesh-wound and the
loss of blood, than a blow on the seat of reason that might have
despatched a passable ox of these degenerate days. Nature, to say
nothing of Madge's leechcraft, ultimately triumphed, and Marmaduke
woke one morning in full possession of such understanding as Nature
had endowed him with. He was then alone, and it was with much simple
surprise that he turned his large hazel eyes from corner to corner of
the unfamiliar room. He began to retrace and weave together sundry
disordered and vague reminiscences: he commenced with the
commencement, and clearly satisfied himself that he had been
grievously wounded and sorely bruised; he then recalled the solitary
light at the high lattice, and his memory found itself at the porch of
the large, lonely, ruinous old house; then all became a bewildered and
feverish dream. He caught at the vision of an old man with a long
beard, whom he associated, displeasingly, with recollections of pain;
he glanced off to a fair face, with eyes that looked tender pity
whenever he writhed or groaned under the tortures that, no doubt, that
old accursed carle had inflicted upon him. But even this face did not
dwell with pleasure in his memory,--it woke up confused and labouring
associations of something weird and witchlike, of sorceresses and
tymbesteres, of wild warnings screeched in his ear, of incantations
and devilries and doom. Impatient of these musings, he sought to leap
from his bed, and was amazed that the leap subsided into a tottering
crawl. He found an ewer and basin, and his ablutions refreshed and
invigorated him. He searched for his raiment, and discovered it all
except the mantle, dagger, hat, and girdle; and while looking for
these, his eye fell on an old tarnished steel mirror. He started as
if he had seen his ghost; was it possible that his hardy face could
have waned into that pale and almost femininely delicate visage? With
the pride (call it not coxcombry) that then made the care of person
the distinction of gentle birth, he strove to reduce into order the
tangled locks of the long hair, of which a considerable portion above
a part that seemed peculiarly sensitive to the touch had been
mercilessly clipped; and as he had just completed this task, with
little satisfaction and much inward chafing at the lack of all
befitting essences and perfumes, the door gently opened, and the fair
face he had dreamed of appeared at the aperture.
The girl uttered a cry of astonishment and alarm at seeing the patient
thus arrayed and convalescent, and would suddenly have retreated; but
the Nevile advanced, and courteously taking her hand--
"Fair maiden," said he, "if, as I trow, I owe to thy cares my tending
and cure--nay, it may be a life hitherto of little worth, save to
myself--do not fly from my thanks. May Our Lady of Walsingham bless
and reward thee!"
"Sir," answered Sibyll, gently withdrawing her hands from his clasp,
"our poor cares have been a slight return for thy generous protection
to myself."
"To thee! ah, forgive me--how could I be so dull? I remember thy face
now; and, perchance, I deserve the disaster I met with in leaving thee
so discourteously. My heart smote me for it as my light footfall
passed from thy side."
A slight blush, succeeded by a thoughtful smile--the smile of one who
recalls and caresses some not displeasing remembrance--passed over
Sibyll's charming countenance, as the sufferer said this with
something of the grace of a well-born man, whose boyhood had been
taught to serve God and the Ladies.
There was a short pause before she answered, looking down, "Nay, sir,
I was sufficiently beholden to you; and for the rest, all molestation
was over. But I will now call your nurse--for it is to our servant,
not us, that your thanks are due--to see to your state, and administer
the proper medicaments."
"Truly, fair damsel, it is not precisely medicaments that I hunger and
thirst for; and if your hospitality could spare me from the larder a
manchet, or a corner of a pasty, and from the cellar a stoup of wine
or a cup of ale, methinks it would tend more to restore me than those
potions which are so strange to my taste that they rather offend than
tempt it; and, pardie, it seemeth to my poor senses as if I had not
broken bread for a week!"
"I am glad to hear you of such good cheer," answered Sibyll; "wait but
a moment or so, till I consult your physician."
And, so saying, she closed the door, slowly descended the steps, and
pursued her way into what seemed more like a vault than a habitable
room, where she found the single servant of the household. Time,
which makes changes so fantastic in the dress of the better classes,
has a greater respect for the costume of the humbler; and though the
garments were of a very coarse sort of serge, there was not so great a
difference, in point of comfort and sufficiency, as might be supposed,
between the dress of old Madge and that of some primitive servant in
the North during the last century. The old woman's face was thin and
pinched; but its sharp expression brightened into a smile as she
caught sight, through the damps and darkness, of the gracious form of
her young mistress. "Ah, Madge," said Sibyll, with a sigh, "it is a
sad thing to be poor!"
"For such as thou, Mistress Sibyll, it is indeed. It does not matter
for the like of us. But it goes to my old heart when I see you shut
up here, or worse, going out in that old courtpie and wimple,--you, a
knight's grandchild; you, who have played round a queen's knees, and
who might have been so well-to-do, an' my master had thought a little
more of the gear of this world. But patience is a good palfrey, and
will carry us a long day. And when the master has done what he looks
for, why, the king--sith we must so call the new man on the throne--
will be sure to reward him; but, sweetheart, tarry not here; it's an
ill air for your young lips to drink in. What brings you to old
Madge?"
"The stranger is recovered, and--"
"Ay, I warrant me, I have cured worse than he. He must have a
spoonful of broth,--I have not forgot it. You see I wanted no dinner
myself--what is dinner to old folks!--so I e'en put it all in the pot
for him. The broth will be brave and strong."
"My poor Madge, God requite you for what you suffer for us! But he
has asked"--here was another sigh, and a downcast look that did not
dare to face the consternation of Madge, as she repeated, with a half-
smile--"he has asked--for meat, and a stoup of wine, Madge!"
"Eh, sirs! And where is he to get them? Not that it will be bad for
the lad, either. Wine! There's Master Sancroft of the Oak will not
trust us a penny, the seely hilding, and--"
"Oh, Madge, I forgot!--we can still sell the gittern for something.
Get on your wimple, Madge--quick,--while I go for it."
"Why, Mistress Sibyll, that's your only pleasure when you sit all
alone, the long summer days."
"It will be more pleasure to remember that it supplied the wants of my
father's guest," said Sibyll; and retracing the way up the stairs, she
returned with the broken instrument, and despatched Madge with it,
laden with instructions that the wine should be of the best. She then
once more mounted the rugged steps, and halting a moment at
Marmaduke's door, as she heard his feeble step walking impatiently to
and fro, she ascended higher, where the flight, winding up a square,
dilapidated turret, became rougher, narrower, and darker, and opened
the door of her father's retreat.
It was a room so bare of ornament and furniture that it seemed merely
wrought out of the mingled rubble and rough stones which composed the
walls of the mansion, and was lighted towards the street by a narrow
slit, glazed, it is true,--which all the windows of the house were
not,--but the sun scarcely pierced the dull panes and the deep walls
in which they were sunk. The room contained a strong furnace and a
rude laboratory. There were several strange-looking mechanical
contrivances scattered about, several manuscripts upon some oaken
shelves, and a large pannier of wood and charcoal in the corner. In
that poverty-stricken house, the money spent on fuel alone, in the
height of summer, would have comfortably maintained the inmates; but
neither Sibyll nor Madge ever thought to murmur at this waste,
dedicated to what had become the vital want of a man who drew air in a
world of his own. This was the first thing to be provided for; and
Science was of more imperative necessity than even Hunger.
Adam Warner was indeed a creature of remarkable genius,--and genius,
in an age where it is not appreciated, is the greatest curse the iron
Fates can inflict on man. If not wholly without the fond fancies
which led the wisdom of the darker ages to the philosopher's stone and
the elixir, he had been deterred from the chase of a chimera by want
of means to pursue it! for it required the resources or the patronage
of a prince or noble to obtain the costly ingredients consumed in the
alchemist's crucible. In early life, therefore, and while yet in
possession of a competence derived from a line of distinguished and
knightly ancestors, Adam Warner had devoted himself to the surer and
less costly study of the mathematics, which then had begun to attract
the attention of the learned, but which was still looked upon by the
vulgar as a branch of the black art. This pursuit had opened to him
the insight into discoveries equally useful and sublime. They
necessitated a still more various knowledge; and in an age when there
was no division of labour and rare and precarious communication among
students, it became necessary for each discoverer to acquire
sufficient science for his own collateral experiments.
In applying mathematics to the practical purposes of life, in
recognizing its mighty utilities to commerce and civilization, Adam
Warner was driven to conjoin with it, not only an extensive knowledge
of languages, but many of the rudest tasks of the mechanist's art; and
chemistry was, in some of his researches, summoned to his aid. By
degrees, the tyranny that a man's genius exercises over his life,
abstracted him from all external objects. He had loved his wife
tenderly, but his rapid waste of his fortune in the purchase of
instruments and books, then enormously dear, and the neglect of all
things not centred in the hope to be the benefactor of the world, had
ruined her health and broken her heart. Happily Warner perceived not
her decay till just before her death; happily he never conceived its
cause, for her soul was wrapped in his. She revered, and loved, and
never upbraided him. Her heart was the martyr to his mind. Had she
foreseen the future destinies of her daughter, it might have been
otherwise. She could have remonstrated with the father, though not
with the husband. But, fortunately, as it seemed to her, she (a
Frenchwoman by birth) had passed her youth in the service of Margaret
of Anjou, and that haughty queen, who was equally warm to friends and
inexorable to enemies, had, on her attendant's marriage, promised to
ensure the fortunes of her offspring. Sibyll at the age of nine--
between seven and eight years before the date the story enters on, and
two years prior to the fatal field of Towton, which gave to Edward the
throne of England--had been admitted among the young girls whom the
custom of the day ranked amidst the attendants of the queen; and in
the interval that elapsed before Margaret was obliged to dismiss her
to her home, her mother died. She died without foreseeing the
reverses that were to ensue, in the hope that her child, at least, was
nobly provided for, and not without the belief (for there is so much
faith in love!) that her husband's researches, which in his youth had
won favour of the Protector Duke of Gloucester, the most enlightened
prince of his time, would be crowned at last with the rewards and
favours of his king. That precise period was, indeed, the fairest
that had yet dawned upon the philosopher. Henry VI., slowly
recovering from one of those attacks which passed for imbecility, had
condescended to amuse himself with various conversations with Warner,
urged to it first by representations of the unholy nature of the
student's pursuits; and, having satisfied his mind of his learned
subject's orthodoxy, the poor monarch had taken a sort of interest,
not so much, perhaps, in the objects of Warner's occupations, as in
that complete absorption from actual life which characterized the
subject, and gave him in this a melancholy resemblance to the king.
While the House of Lancaster was on the throne, the wife felt that her
husband's pursuits would be respected, and his harmless life safe from
the fierce prejudices of the people; and the good queen would not
suffer him to starve, when the last mark was expended in devices how
to benefit his country:--and in these hopes the woman died!
A year afterwards, all at court was in disorder,--armed men supplied
the service of young girls, and Sibyll, with a purse of broad pieces,
soon converted into manuscripts, was sent back to her father's
desolate home. There had she grown a flower amidst ruins, with no
companion of her own age, and left to bear, as her sweet and
affectionate nature well did, the contrast between the luxuries of a
court and the penury of a hearth which, year after year, hunger and
want came more and more sensibly to invade.
Sibyll had been taught, even as a child, some accomplishments little
vouchsafed then to either sex,--she could read and write; and Margaret
had not so wholly lost, in the sterner North, all reminiscence of the
accomplishments that graced her father's court as to neglect the
education of those brought up in her household. Much attention was
given to music, for it soothed the dark hours of King Henry; the
blazoning of missals or the lives of saints, with the labours of the
loom, were also among the resources of Sibyll's girlhood, and by these
last she had, from time to time, served to assist the maintenance of
the little family of which, child though she was, she became the
actual head. But latterly--that is, for the last few weeks--even
these sources failed her; for as more peaceful times allowed her
neighbours to interest themselves in the affairs of others, the dark
reports against Warner had revived. His name became a by-word of
horror; the lonely light at the lattice burning till midnight, against
all the early usages and habits of the day; the dark smoke of the
furnace, constant in summer as in winter, scandalized the religion of
the place far and near. And finding, to their great dissatisfaction,
that the king's government and the Church interfered not for their
protection, and unable themselves to volunteer any charges against the
recluse (for the cows in the neighbourhood remained provokingly
healthy), they came suddenly, and, as it were by one of those common
sympathies which in all times the huge persecutor we call the PUBLIC
manifests when a victim is to be crushed, to the pious resolution of
starving where they could not burn. Why buy the quaint devilries of
the wizard's daughter?--no luck could come of it. A missal blazoned
by such hands, an embroidery worked at such a loom, was like the
Lord's Prayer read backwards. And one morning, when poor Sibyll stole
out as usual to vend a month's labour, she was driven from door to
door with oaths and curses.
Though Sibyll's heart was gentle, she was not without a certain
strength of mind. She had much of the patient devotion of her mother,
much of the quiet fortitude of her father's nature. If not
comprehending to the full the loftiness of Warner's pursuits, she
still anticipated from them an ultimate success which reconciled her
to all temporary sacrifices. The violent prejudices, the ignorant
cruelty, thus brought to bear against existence itself, filled her
with sadness, it is true, but not unmixed with that contempt for her
persecutors, which, even in the meekest tempers, takes the sting from
despair. But hunger pressed. Her father was nearing the goal of his
discoveries, and in a moment of that pride which in its very contempt
for appearances braves them all, Sibyll had stolen out to the pastime-
ground,--with what result has been seen already. Having thus
accounted for the penury of the mansion, we return to its owner.
Warner was contemplating with evident complacency and delight the
model of a machine which had occupied him for many years, and which he
imagined he was now rapidly bringing to perfection. His hands and
face were grimed with the smoke of his forge, and his hair and beard,
neglected as usual, looked parched and dried up, as if with the
constant fever that burned within.
"Yes, yes!" he muttered, "how they will bless me for this! What Roger
Bacon only suggested I shall accomplish! How it will change the face
of the globe! What wealth it will bestow on ages yet unborn!"
"My father," said the gentle voice of Sibyll, "my poor father, thou
hast not tasted bread to-day."
Warner turned, and his face relaxed into a tender expression as he saw
his daughter.
"My child," he said, pointing to his model, "the time comes when it
will live! Patience! patience!"
"And who would not have patience with thee, and for thee, Father?"
said Sibyll, with enthusiasm speaking on every feature. "What is the
valour of knight and soldier--dull statues of steel--to thine? Thou,
with thy naked breast, confronting all dangers,--sharper than the
lance and glaive, and all--"
"All to make England great!"
"Alas! what hath England merited from men like thee? The people, more
savage than their rulers, clamour for the stake, the gibbet, and the
dungeon, for all who strive to make them wiser. Remember the death of
Bolingbroke, [A mathematician accused as an accomplice, in sorcery, of
Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and hanged upon
that charge. His contemporary (William Wyrcestre) highly extols his
learning.]--a wizard, because, O Father!--because his pursuits were
thine!"
Adam, startled by this burst, looked at his daughter with more
attention than he usually evinced to any living thing. "Child," he
said at length, shaking his head in grave reproof, "let me not say to
thee, 'O thou of little faith!' There were no heroes were there no
martyrs!"
"Do not frown on me, Father," said Sibyll, sadly; "let the world
frown,--not thou! Yes, thou art right. Thou must triumph at last."
And suddenly, her whole countenance changing into a soft and caressing
endearment, she added, "But now come, Father. Thou hast laboured well
for this morning. We shall have a little feast for thee in a few
minutes. And the stranger is recovered, thanks to our leechcraft. He
is impatient to see and thank thee."
"Well, well, I come, Sibyll," said the student, with a regretful,
lingering look at his model, and a sigh to be disturbed from its
contemplation; and he slowly quitted the room with Sibyll.
"But not, dear sir and father, not thus--not quite thus--vill you go
to the stranger, well-born like yourself? Oh, no! your Sibyll is
proud, you know,--proud of her father." So saying, she clung to him
fondly, and drew him mechanically, for he had sunk into a revery, and
heeded her not, into an adjoining chamber, in which he slept. The
comforts even of the gentry, of men with the acres that Adam had sold,
were then few and scanty. The nobles and the wealthy merchants,
indeed, boasted many luxuries that excelled in gaud and pomp those of
their equals now. But the class of the gentry who had very little
money at command were contented with hardships from which a menial of
this day would revolt. What they could spend in luxury was usually
consumed in dress and the table they were obliged to keep. These were
the essentials of dignity. Of furniture there was a woful stint. In
many houses, even of knights, an edifice large enough to occupy a
quadrangle was composed more of offices than chambers inhabited by the
owners; rarely boasting more than three beds, which were bequeathed in
wills as articles of great value. The reader must, therefore, not be
surprised that Warner's abode contained but one bed, properly so
called, and that was now devoted to Nevile. The couch which served
the philosopher for bed was a wretched pallet, stretched on the floor,
stuffed with straw,--with rough say, or serge, and an old cloak for
the coverings. His daughter's, in a room below, was little better.
The walls were bare; the whole house boasted but one chair, which was
in Marmaduke's chamber; stools or settles of rude oak elsewhere
supplied their place. There was no chimney except in Nevile's room,
and in that appropriated to the forge.
To this chamber, then, resembling a dungeon in appearance, Sibyll drew
the student, and here, from an old worm-eaten chest, she carefully
extracted a gown of brown velvet, which his father, Sir Armine, had
bequeathed to him by will,--faded, it is true, but still such as the
low-born wore not, [By the sumptuary laws only a knight was entitled
to wear velvet.] trimmed with fur, and clasped with a brooch of gold.
And then she held the ewer and basin to him, while, with the docility
of a child, he washed the smoke-soil from his hands and face. It was
touching to see in this, as in all else, the reverse of their natural
position,--the child tending and heeding and protecting, as it were,
the father; and that not from his deficiency, but his greatness; not
because he was below the vulgar intelligences of life, but above them.
And certainly, when, his patriarchal hair and beard smoothed into
order, and his velvet gown flowing in majestic folds around a figure
tall and commanding, Sibyll followed her father into Marmaduke's
chamber, she might well have been proud of his appearance; and she
felt the innocent vanity of her sex and age in noticing the half-start
of surprise with which Marmaduke regarded his host, and the tone of
respect in which he proffered him his salutations and thanks. Even
his manner altered to Sibyll; it grew less frank and affable, more
courtly and reserved: and when Madge came to announce that the
refection was served, it was with a blush of shame, perhaps, at his
treatment of the poor gittern-player on the pastime-ground, that the
Nevile extended his left hand, for his right was still not at his
command, to lead the damsel to the hall.
This room, which was divided from the entrance by a screen, and,
except a small closet that adjoined it, was the only sitting-room in a
day when, as now on the Continent, no shame was attached to receiving
visitors in sleeping apartments, was long and low; an old and very
narrow table, that might have feasted thirty persons, stretched across
a dais raised upon a stone floor; there was no rere-dosse, or
fireplace, which does not seem at that day to have been an absolute
necessity in the houses of the metropolis and its suburbs, its place
being supplied by a movable brazier. Three oak stools were placed in
state at the board, and to one of these Marmaduke, in a silence
unusual to him, conducted the fair Sibyll.
"You will forgive our lack of provisions," said Warner, relapsing into
the courteous fashions of his elder days, which the unwonted spectacle
of a cold capon, a pasty, and a flask of wine brought to his mind by a
train of ideas that actively glided by the intervening circumstances,
which ought to have filled him with astonishment at the sight, "for my
Sibyll is but a young housewife, and I am a simple scholar, of few
wants."
"Verily," answered Marmaduke, finding his tongue as he attacked the
pasty, "I see nothing that the most dainty need complain of; fair
Mistress Sibyll, your dainty lips will not, I trow, refuse me the
waisall. [I.e. waissail or wassal; the spelling of the time is
adopted in the text.] To you also, worshipful sir! Gramercy! it
seems that there is nothing which better stirs a man's appetite than a
sick bed. And, speaking thereof, deign to inform me, kind sir, how
long I have been indebted to your hospitality. Of a surety, this
pasty hath an excellent flavour, and if not venison, is something
better. But to return, it mazes me much to think what time hath
passed since my encounter with the robbers."
"They were robbers, then, who so cruelly assailed thee?" observed
Sibyll.
"Have I not said so--surely, who else? And, as I was remarking to
your worshipful father, whether this mischance happened hours, days,
months, or years ago, beshrew me if I can venture the smallest guess."
Master Warner smiled, and observing that some reply was expected from
him, said, "Why, indeed, young sir, I fear I am almost as oblivious as
yourself. It was not yesterday that you arrived, nor the day before,
nor--Sibyll, my child, how long is it since this gentleman hath been
our guest?"
"This is the fifth day," answered Sibyll.
"So long! and I like a senseless log by the wayside, when others are
pushing on, bit and spur, to the great road. I pray you, sir, tell me
the news of the morning. The Lord Warwick is still in London, the
court still at the Tower?"
Poor Adam, whose heart was with his model, and who had now satisfied
his temperate wants, looked somewhat bewildered and perplexed by this
question. "The king, save his honoured head," said he, inclining his
own, "is, I fear me, always at the Tower, since his unhappy detention,
but he minds it not, sir,--he heeds it not; his soul is not on this
side Paradise."
Sibyll uttered a faint exclamation of fear at this dangerous
indiscretion of her father's absence of mind; and drawing closer to
Nevile, she put her hand with touching confidence on his arm, and
whispered, "You will not repeat this, Sir! my father lives only in his
studies, and he has never known but one king!"
Marmaduke turned his bold face to the maid, and pointed to the salt-
cellar, as he answered in the same tone, "Does the brave man betray
his host?"
There was a moment's silence. Marmaduke rose. "I fear," said he,
"that I must now leave you; and while it is yet broad noon, I must
indeed be blind if I again miss my way."
This speech suddenly recalled Adam from his meditations; for whenever
his kindly and simple benevolence was touched, even his mathematics
and his model were forgotten. "No, young sir," said he, "you must not
quit us yet; your danger is not over. Exercise may bring fever.
Celsus recommends quiet. You must consent to tarry with us a day or
two more."
"Can you tell me," said the Nevile, hesitatingly, "what distance it is
to the Temple-gate, or the nearest wharf on the river?"
"Two miles, at the least," answered Sibyll.
"Two miles!--and now I mind me, I have not the accoutrements that
beseem me. Those hildings have stolen my mantle (which, I perceive,
by the way, is but a rustic garment, now laid aside for the super-
tunic), and my hat and dague, nor have they left even a half groat to
supply their place. Verily, therefore, since ye permit me to burden
your hospitality longer, I will not say ye nay, provided you,
worshipful sir, will suffer one of your people to step to the house of
one Master Heyford, goldsmith, in the Chepe, and crave one Nicholas
Alwyn, his freedman, to visit me. I can commission him touching my
goods left at mine hostelrie, and learn some other things which it
behooves me to know."
"Assuredly. Sibyll, tell Simon or Jonas to put himself under our
guest's order."
Simon or Jonas! The poor Adam absolutely forgot that Simon and Jonas
had quitted the house these six years! How could he look on the
capon, the wine, and the velvet gown trimmed with fur, and not fancy
himself back in the heyday of his wealth?
Sibyll half smiled and half sighed, as she withdrew to consult with
her sole counsellor, Madge, how the guest's orders were to be obeyed,
and how, alas! the board was to be replenished for the evening meal.
But in both these troubles she was more fortunate than she
anticipated. Madge had sold the broken gittern, for musical
instruments were then, comparatively speaking, dear (and this had been
a queen's gift), for sufficient to provide decently for some days;
and, elated herself with the prospect of so much good cheer, she
readily consented to be the messenger to Nicholas Alwyn. When with a
light step and a lighter heart Sibyll tripped back to the hall, she
was scarcely surprised to find the guest alone. Her father, after her
departure, had begun to evince much restless perturbation. He
answered Marmaduke's queries but by abstracted and desultory
monosyllables; and seeing his guest at length engaged in contemplating
some old pieces of armour hung upon the walls, he stole stealthily and
furtively away, and halted not till once more before his beloved
model.
Unaware of his departure, Marmaduke, whose back was turned to him,
was, as he fondly imagined, enlightening his host with much soldier-
like learning as to the old helmets and weapons that graced the hall.
"Certes, my host," said he, musingly, "that sort of casque, which has
not, I opine, been worn this century, had its merits; the vizor is
less open to the arrows. But as for these chain suits, they suited
only--I venture, with due deference, to declare--the Wars of the
Crusades, where the enemy fought chiefly with dart and scymetar. They
would be but a sorry defence against the mace and battle-axe;
nevertheless, they were light for man and horse, and in some service,
especially against foot, might be revived with advantage. Think you
not so?"
He turned, and saw the arch face of Sibyll.
"I crave pardon for my blindness, gentle damsel," said he, in some
confusion, "but your father was here anon."
"His mornings are so devoted to labour," answered Sibyll, "that he
entreats you to pardon his discourtesy. Meanwhile if you would wish
to breathe the air, we have a small garden in the rear;" and so
saying, she led the way into the small withdrawing-room, or rather
closet, which was her own favourite chamber, and which communicated,
by another door, with a broad, neglected grassplot, surrounded by high
walls, having a raised terrace in front, divided by a low stone Gothic
palisade from the green sward.
On the palisade sat droopingly, and half asleep, a solitary peacock;
but when Sibyll and the stranger appeared at the door, he woke up
suddenly, descended from his height, and with a vanity not wholly
unlike his young mistress's wish to make the best possible display in
the eyes of a guest, spread his plumes broadly in the sun. Sibyll
threw him some bread, which she had taken from the table for that
purpose; but the proud bird, however hungry, disdained to eat, till he
had thoroughly satisfied himself that his glories had been
sufficiently observed.
"Poor proud one," said Sibyll, half to herself, "thy plumage lasts
with thee through all changes."
"Like the name of a brave knight," said Marmaduke, who overheard her.
"Thou thinkest of the career of arms."
"Surely,--I am a Nevile!"
"Is there no fame to be won but that of a warrior?"
"Not that I weet of, or heed for, Mistress Sibyll."
"Thinkest thou it were nothing to be a minstrel, who gave delight; a
scholar, who dispelled darkness?"
"For the scholar? Certes, I respect holy Mother Church, which they
tell me alone produces that kind of wonder with full safety to the
soul, and that only in the higher prelates and dignitaries. For the
minstrel, I love him, I would fight for him, I would give him at need
the last penny in my gipsire; but it is better to do deeds than to
sing them."
Sibyll smiled, and the smile perplexed and half displeased the young
adventurer. But the fire of the young man had its charm.
By degrees, as they walked to and fro the neglected terrace, their
talk flowed free and familiar; for Marmaduke, like most young men full
of himself, was joyous with the happy egotism of a frank and careless
nature. He told his young confidante of a day his birth, his history,
his hopes, and fears; and in return he learned, in answer to the
questions he addressed to her, so much, at least, of her past and
present life, as the reverses of her father, occasioned by costly
studies, her own brief sojourn at the court of Margaret, and the
solitude, if not the struggles, in which her youth was consumed. It
would have been a sweet and grateful sight to some kindly bystander to
hear these pleasant communications between two young persons so
unfriended, and to imagine that hearts thus opened to each other might
unite in one. But Sibyll, though she listened to him with interest,
and found a certain sympathy in his aspirations, was ever and anon
secretly comparing him to one, the charm of whose voice still lingered
in her ears; and her intellect, cultivated and acute, detected in
Marmaduke deficient education, and that limited experience which is
the folly and the happiness of the young.
On the other hand, whatever admiration Nevile might conceive was
strangely mixed with surprise, and, it might almost be said, with
fear. This girl, with her wise converse and her child's face, was a
character so thoroughly new to him. Her language was superior to what
he had ever heard, the words more choice, the current more flowing:
was that to be attributed to her court-training or her learned
parentage?
"Your father, fair mistress," said he, rousing himself in one of the
pauses of their conversation--"your father, then, is a mighty scholar,
and I suppose knows Latin like English?"
"Why, a hedge-priest pretends to know Latin," said Sibyll, smiling;
"my father is one of the six men living who have learned the Greek and
the Hebrew."
"Gramercy!" cried Marmaduke, crossing himself. "That is awsome
indeed! He has taught you his lere in the tongues?"
"Nay, I know but my own and the French; my mother was a native of
France."
"The Holy Mother be praised!" said Marmaduke, breathing more freely;
"for French I have heard my father and uncle say is a language fit for
gentles and knights, specially those who come, like the Neviles, from
Norman stock. This Margaret of Anjou--didst thou love her well,
Mistress Sibyll?"
"Nay," answered Sibyll, "Margaret commanded awe, but she scarcely
permitted love from an inferior: and though gracious and well-governed
when she so pleased, it was but to those whom she wished to win. She
cared not for the heart, if the hand or the brain could not assist
her. But, poor queen, who could blame her for this?--her nature was
turned from its milk; and, when, more lately, I have heard how many
she trusted most have turned against her, I rebuked myself that--"
"Thou wert not by her side?" added the Nevile, observing her pause,
and with the generous thought of a gentleman and a soldier.
"Nay, I meant not that so expressly, Master Nevile, but rather that I
had ever murmured at her haste and shrewdness of mood. By her side,
said you?--alas! I have a nearer duty at home; my father is all in
this world to me! Thou knowest not, Master Nevile, how it flatters
the weak to think there is some one they can protect. But eno' of
myself. Thou wilt go to the stout earl, thou wilt pass to the court,
thou wilt win the gold spurs, and thou wilt fight with the strong
hand, and leave others to cozen with the keen head."
"She is telling my fortune!" muttered Marmaduke, crossing himself
again. "The gold spurs--I thank thee, Mistress Sibyll!--will it be on
the battle-field that I shall be knighted, and by whose hand?"
Sibyll glanced her bright eye at the questioner, and seeing his
wistful face, laughed outright.
"What, thinkest thou, Master Nevile, I can read thee all riddles
without my sieve and my shears?"
"They are essentials, then, Mistress Sibyll?" said the Nevile, with
blunt simplicity. "I thought ye more learned damozels might tell by
the palm, or the--why dost thou laugh at me?"
"Nay," answered Sibyll, composing herself. "It is my right to be
angered. Sith thou wouldst take me to be a witch, all that I can tell
thee of thy future" (she added touchingly) "is from that which I have
seen of thy past. Thou hast a brave heart, and a gentle; thou hast a
frank tongue, and a courteous; and these qualities make men honoured
and loved,--except they have the gifts which turn all into gall, and
bring oppression for honour, and hate for love."
"And those gifts, gentle Sibyll?"
"Are my father's," answered the girl, with another and a sadder change
in her expressive countenance. And the conversation flagged till
Marmaduke, feeling more weakened by his loss of blood than he had
conceived it possible, retired to his chamber to repose himself.
