CHAPTER II.
THE WOULD-BE IMPROVERS OF JOVE'S FOOTBALL, EARTH.--THE SAD FATHER AND
THE SAD CHILD.--THE FAIR RIVALS.
Adam Warner was at work on his crucible when the servitor commissioned
to attend him opened the chamber door, and a man dressed in the black
gown of a student entered.
He approached the alchemist, and after surveying him for a moment in a
silence that seemed not without contempt, said, "What, Master Warner,
are you so wedded to your new studies that you have not a word to
bestow on an old friend?"
Adam turned, and after peevishly gazing at the intruder a few moments,
his face brightened up into recognition.
"En iterum!" he said. "Again, bold Robin Hilyard, and in a scholar's
garb! Ha! doubtless thou hast learned ere this that peaceful studies
do best insure man's weal below, and art come to labour with me in the
high craft of mind-work!"
"Adam," quoth Hilyard, "ere I answer, tell me this: Thou with thy
science wouldst change the world: art thou a jot nearer to thy end?"
"Well-a-day," said poor Adam, "you know little what I have undergone.
For danger to myself by rack and gibbet I say nought. Man's body is
fair prey to cruelty, and what a king spares to-day the worm shall
gnaw to-morrow. But mine invention--my Eureka--look!" and stepping
aside, he lifted a cloth, and exhibited the mangled remains of the
unhappy model.
"I am forbid to restore it," continued Adam, dolefully. "I must work
day and night to make gold, and the gold comes not; and my only change
of toil is when the queen bids me construct little puppet-boxes for
her children! How, then, can I change the world? And thou," he
added, doubtingly and eagerly--"thou, with thy plots and stratagem,
and active demagogy, thinkest thou that thou hast changed the world,
or extracted one drop of evil out of the mixture of gall and hyssop
which man is born to drink?"
Hilyard was silent, and the two world-betterers--the philosopher and
the demagogue--gazed on each other, half in sympathy, half in
contempt. At last Robin said,--
"Mine old friend, hope sustains us both; and in the wilderness we yet
behold the Pisgah! But to my business. Doubtless thou art permitted
to visit Henry in his prison."
"Not so," replied Adam; "and for the rest, since I now eat King
Edward's bread, and enjoy what they call his protection, ill would it
beseem me to lend myself to plots against his throne."
"Ah, man, man, man," exclaimed Hilyard, bitterly, "thou art like all
the rest,--scholar or serf, the same slave; a king's smile bribes thee
from a people's service!"
Before Adam could reply, a panel in the wainscot slid back and the
bald head of a friar peered into the room. "Son Adam," said the holy
man, "I crave your company an instant, oro vestrem aurem;" and with
this abominable piece of Latinity the friar vanished.
With a resigned and mournful shrug of the shoulders, Adam walked
across the room, when Hilyard, arresting his progress, said, crossing
himself, and in a subdued and fearful whisper, "Is not that Friar
Bungey, the notable magician?"
"Magician or not," answered Warner, with a lip of inexpressible
contempt and a heavy sigh, "God pardon his mother for giving birth to
such a numskull!" and with this pious and charitable ejaculation Adam
disappeared in the adjoining chamber, appropriated to the friar.
"Hum," soliloquized Hilyard, "they say that Friar Bungey is employed
by the witch duchess in everlasting diabolisms against her foes. A
peep into his den might suffice me for a stirring tale to the people."
No sooner did this daring desire arise than the hardy Robin resolved
to gratify it; and stealing on tiptoe along the wall, he peered
cautiously through the aperture made by the sliding panel. An
enormous stuffed lizard hung from the ceiling, and various strange
reptiles, dried into mummy, were ranged around, and glared at the spy
with green glass eyes. A huge book lay open on a tripod stand, and a
caldron seethed over a slow and dull fire. A sight yet more terrible
presently awaited the rash beholder.
"Adam," said the friar, laying his broad palm on the student's
reluctant shoulders, "inter sapentes."
"Sapientes, brother," groaned Adam.
"That's the old form, Adam," quoth the friar, superciliously,--
"sapentes is the last improvement. I say, between wise men there is
no envy. Our noble and puissant patroness, the Duchess of Bedford,
hath committed to me a task that promiseth much profit. I have worked
at it night and day stotis filibus."
"O man, what lingo speakest thou?--stotis filibus!"
"Tush, if it is not good Latin, it does as well, son Adam. I say I
have worked at it night and day, and it is now advanced eno' for
experiment. But thou art going to sleep."
"Despatch! speak out! speak on!" said Adam, desperately,--"what is thy
achievement?"
"See!" answered the friar, majestically; and drawing aside a black
pall, he exhibited to the eyes of Adam, and to the more startled gaze
of Robin Hilyard, a pale, cadaverous, corpse-like image, of pigmy
proportions, but with features moulded into a coarse caricature of the
lordly countenance of the Earl of Warwick.
"There," said the friar, complacently, and rubbing his hands, "that is
no piece of bungling, eh? As like the stout earl as one pea to
another."
"And for what hast thou kneaded up all this waste of wax?" asked Adam.
"Forsooth, I knew not you had so much of ingenious art; algates, the
toy is somewhat ghastly."
"Ho, ho!" quoth the friar, laughing so as to show a set of jagged,
discoloured fangs from ear to ear, "surely thou, who art so notable a
wizard and scholar, knowest for what purpose we image forth our
enemies. Whatever the duchess inflicts upon this figure, the Earl of
Warwick, whom it representeth, will feel through his bones and
marrow,--waste wax, waste man!"
"Thou art a devil to do this thing, and a blockhead to think it, O
miserable friar!" exclaimed Adam, roused from all his gentleness.
"Ha!" cried the friar, no less vehemently, and his burly face purple
with passion, "dost thou think to bandy words with me? Wretch! I
will set goblins to pinch thee black and blue! I will drag thee at
night over all the jags of Mount Pepanon, at the tail of a mad
nightmare! I will put aches in all thy bones, and the blood in thy
veins shall run into sores and blotches. Am I not Friar Bungey? And
what art thou?"
At these terrible denunciations, the sturdy Robin, though far less
superstitious than most of his contemporaries, was seized with a
trembling from head to foot; and expecting to see goblins and imps
start forth from the walls, he retired hastily from his hiding-place,
and, without waiting for further commune with Warner, softly opened
the chamber door and stole down the stairs. Adam, however, bore the
storm unquailingly, and when the holy man paused to take breath, he
said calmly,--
"Verily, if thou canst do these things, there must be secrets in
Nature which I have not yet discovered. Howbeit, though thou art free
to try all thou canst against me, thy threats make it necessary that
this communication between us should be nailed up, and I shall so
order."
The friar, who was ever in want of Adam's aid, either to construe a
bit of Latin, or to help him in some chemical illusion, by no means
relished this quiet retort; and holding out his huge hand to Adam,
said, with affected cordiality,--
"Pooh! we are brothers, and must not quarrel. I was over hot, and
thou too provoking; but I honour and love thee, man,--let it pass. As
for this figure, doubtless we might pink it all over, and the earl be
never the worse. But if our employers order these things and pay for
them, we cunning men make profit by fools!"
"It is men like thee that bring shame on science," answered Adam,
sternly; "and I will not listen to thee longer."
"Nay, but you must," said the friar, clutching Adam's robe, and
concealing his resentment by an affected grin. "Thou thinkest me a
mere ignoramus--ha! ha!--I think the same of thee. Why, man, thou
hast never studied the parts of the human body, 1'11 swear."
"I'm no leech," said Adam. "Let me go."
"No, not yet. I will convict thee of ignorance. Thou dost not even
know where the liver is placed."
"I do," answered Adam, shortly; "but what then?"
"Thou dost?--I deny it. Here is a pin; stick it into this wax, man,
where thou sayest the liver lies in the human frame."
Adam unsuspiciously obeyed.
"Well! the liver is there, eh? Ah, but where are the lungs?"
"Why, here."
"And the midriff?"
"Here, certes."
"Right!--thou mayest go now," said the friar, dryly. Adam disappeared
through the aperture, and closed the panel.
"Now I know where the lungs, midriff, and liver are," said the friar
to himself, "I shall get on famously. 'T is a useful fellow, that, or
I should have had him hanged long ago!"
Adam did not remark on his re-entrance that his visitor, Hilyard, had
disappeared, and the philosopher was soon reimmersed in the fiery
interest of his thankless labours.
It might be an hour afterwards, when, wearied and exhausted by
perpetual hope and perpetual disappointment, he flung himself on his
seat; and that deep sadness, which they who devote themselves in this
noisy world to wisdom and to truth alone can know, suffused his
thoughts, and murmured from his feverish lips.
"Oh, hard condition of my life!" groaned the sage,--"ever to strive,
and never to accomplish. The sun sets and the sun rises upon my
eternal toils, and my age stands as distant from the goal as stood my
youth! Fast, fast the mind is wearing out the frame, and my schemes
have but woven the ropes of sand, and my name shall be writ in water.
Golden dreams of my young hope, where are ye? Methought once, that
could I obtain the grace of royalty, the ear of power, the command of
wealth, my path to glory was made smooth and sure; I should become the
grand inventor of my time and land; I should leave my lore a heritage
and blessing wherever labour works to civilize the round globe. And
now my lodging is a palace, royalty my patron; they give me gold at my
desire; my wants no longer mar my leisure. Well, and for what? On
condition that I forego the sole task for which patronage, wealth, and
leisure were desired! There stands the broken iron, and there simmers
the ore I am to turn to gold,--the iron worth more than all the gold,
and the gold never to be won! Poor, I was an inventor, a creator, the
true magician; protected, patronized, enriched, I am but the
alchemist, the bubble, the dupe or duper, the fool's fool. God, brace
up my limbs! Let me escape! give me back my old dream, and die at
least, if accomplishing nothing, hoping all!"
He rose as he spoke; he strode across the chamber with majestic step,
with resolve upon his brow. He stopped short, for a sharp pain shot
across his heart. Premature age and the disease that labour brings
were at their work of decay within: the mind's excitement gave way to
the body's weakness, and he sank again upon his seat, breathing hard,
gasping, pale, the icy damps upon his brow. Bubblingly seethed the
molten metals, redly glowed the poisonous charcoal, the air of death
was hot within the chamber where the victim of royal will pandered to
the desire of gold. Terrible and eternal moral for Wisdom and for
Avarice, for sages and for kings,--ever shall he who would be the
maker of gold breathe the air of death!
"Father," said the low and touching voice of one who had entered
unperceived, and who now threw her arms round Adam's neck, "Father,
thou art ill, and sorely suffering--"
"At heart--yes, Sibyll. Give me thine arm; let us forth and taste the
fresher air."
It was so seldom that Warner could be induced to quit his chamber,
that these words almost startled Sibyll, and she looked anxiously in
his face, as she wiped the dews from his forehead.
"Yes--air--air!" repeated Adam, rising.
Sibyll placed his bonnet over his silvered locks, drew his gown more
closely round him, and slowly and in silence they left the chamber,
and took their way across the court to the ramparts of the fortress-
palace.
The day was calm and genial, with a low but fresh breeze stirring
gently through the warmth of noon. The father and child seated
themselves on the parapet, and saw, below, the gay and numerous
vessels that glided over the sparkling river, while the dark walls of
Baynard's Castle, the adjoining bulwark and battlements of Montfichet,
and the tall watch-tower of Warwick's mighty mansion frowned in the
distance against the soft blue sky. "There," said Adam, quietly, and
pointing to the feudal roofs, "there seems to rise power, and yonder
(glancing to the river), yonder seems to flow Genius! A century or so
hence the walls shall vanish, but the river shall roll on. Man makes
the castle, and founds the power,--God forms the river and creates the
Genius. And yet, Sibyll, there may be streams as broad and stately as
yonder Thames, that flow afar in the waste, never seen, never heard by
man. What profits the river unmarked; what the genius never to be
known?"
It was not a common thing with Adam Warner to be thus eloquent.
Usually silent and absorbed, it was not his gift to moralize or
declaim. His soul must be deeply moved before the profound and buried
sentiment within it could escape into words.
Sibyll pressed her father's hand, and, though her own heart was very
heavy, she forced her lips to smile and her voice to soothe. Adam
interrupted her.
"Child, child, ye women know not what presses darkest and most
bitterly on the minds of men. You know not what it is to form out of
immaterial things some abstract but glorious object,--to worship, to
serve it, to sacrifice to it, as on an altar, youth, health, hope,
life,--and suddenly in old age to see that the idol was a phantom, a
mockery, a shadow laughing us to scorn, because we have sought to
clasp it."
"Oh, yes, Father, women have known that illusion."
"What! Do they study?"
"No, Father, but they feel!"
"Feel! I comprehend thee not."
"As man's genius to him is woman's heart to her," answered Sibyll, her
dark and deep eyes suffused with tears. "Doth not the heart create,
invent? Doth it not dream? Doth it not form its idol out of air?
Goeth it not forth into the future, to prophesy to itself? And sooner
or later, in age or youth, doth it not wake at last, and see how it
hath wasted its all on follies? Yes, Father, my heart can answer,
when thy genius would complain."
"Sibyll," said Warner, roused and surprised, and gazing on her
wistfully, "time flies apace. Till this hour I have thought of thee
but as a child, an infant. Thy words disturb me now."
"Think not of them, then. Let me never add one grief to thine."
"Thou art brave and gay in thy silken sheen," said Adam, curiously
stroking down the rich, smooth stuff of Sibyll's tunic; "her grace the
duchess is generous to us. Thou art surely happy here!"
"Happy!"
"Not happy!" exclaimed Adam, almost joyfully, "wouldst thou that we
were back once more in our desolate, ruined home?"
"Yes, ob, yes!--but rather away, far away, in some quiet village, some
green nook; for the desolate, ruined home was not safe for thine old
age."
"I would we could escape, Sibyll," said Adam, earnestly, in a whisper,
and with a kind of innocent cunning in his eye, "we and the poor
Eureka! This palace is a prison-house to me. I will speak to the
Lord Hastings, a man of great excellence, and gentle too. He is ever
kind to us."
"No, no, Father, not to him," cried Sibyll, turning pale,--"let him
not know a word of what we would propose, nor whither we would fly."
"Child, he loves me, or why does he seek me so often, and sit and talk
not?"
Sibyll pressed her clasped hands tightly to her bosom, but made no
answer; and while she was summoning courage to say something that
seemed to oppress her thoughts with intolerable weight, a footstep
sounded gently near, and the Lady of Bonville (then on a visit to the
queen), unseen and unheard by the two, approached the spot. She
paused, and gazed at Sibyll, at first haughtily; and then, as the deep
sadness of that young face struck her softer feelings, and the
pathetic picture of father and child, thus alone in their commune,
made its pious and sweet effect, the gaze changed from pride to
compassion, and the lady said courteously,--
"Fair mistress, canst thou prefer this solitary scene to the gay
company about to take the air in her grace's gilded barge?"
Sibyll looked up in surprise, not unmixed with fear. Never before had
the great lady spoken to her thus gently. Adam, who seemed for a
while restored to the actual life, saluted Katherine with simple
dignity, and took up the word,--
"Noble lady, whoever thou art, in thine old age, and thine hour of
care, may thy child, like this poor girl, forsake all gayer comrades
for a parent's side!"
The answer touched the Lady of Bonville, and involuntarily she
extended her hand to Sibyll. With a swelling heart, Sibyll, as proud
as herself, bent silently over that rival's hand. Katherine's marble
cheek coloured, as she interpreted the girl's silence.
"Gentle sir," she said, after a short pause, "wilt thou permit me a
few words with thy fair daughter? And if in aught, since thou
speakest of care, Lord Warwick's sister can serve thee, prithee bid
thy young maiden impart it, as to a friend."
"Tell her, then, my Sibyll,--tell Lord Warwick's sister to ask the
king to give back to Adam Warner his poverty, his labour, and his
hope," said the scholar, and his noble head sank gloomily on his
bosom.
The Lady of Bonville, still holding Sibyll's hand, drew her a few
paces up the walk, and then she said suddenly, and with some of that
blunt frankness which belonged to her great brother, "Maiden, can
there be confidence between thee and me?"
"Of what nature, lady?"
Again Katherine blushed, but she felt the small hand she held tremble
in her clasp, and was emboldened,--
"Maiden, thou mayst resent and marvel at my words; but when I had
fewer years than thou, my father said, 'There are many carks in life
which a little truth could end.' So would I heed his lesson. William
de Hastings has followed thee with an homage that has broken,
perchance, many as pure a heart,--nay, nay, fair child, hear me on.
Thou hast heard that in youth he wooed Katherine Nevile,--that we
loved, and were severed. They who see us now marvel whether we hate
or love,--no, not love--that question were an insult to Lord
Bonville's wife!--Ofttimes we seem pitiless to each other,--why? Lord
Hastings would have wooed me, an English matron, to forget mine honour
and my House's. He chafes that he moves me not. I behold him
debasing a great nature to unworthy triflings with man's conscience
and a knight's bright faith. But mark me!--the heart of Hastings is
everlastingly mine, and mine alone! What seek I in this confidence?
To warn thee. Wherefore? Because for months, amidst all the vices of
this foul court-air, amidst the flatteries of the softest voice that
ever fell upon woman's ear, amidst, peradventure, the pleadings of
thine own young and guileless love, thine innocence is unscathed. And
therefore Katherine of Bonville may be the friend of Sibyll Warner."
However generous might be the true spirit of these words, it was
impossible that they should not gall and humiliate the young and
flattered beauty to whom they were addressed. They so wholly
discarded all belief in the affection of Hastings for Sibyll; they so
haughtily arrogated the mastery over his heart; they so plainly
implied that his suit to the poor maiden was but a mockery or
dishonour, that they made even the praise for virtue an affront to the
delicate and chaste ear on which they fell. And, therefore, the
reader will not be astonished, though the Lady of Bonville certainly
was, when Sibyll, drawing her hand from Katherine's clasp, stopping
short, and calmly folding her arms upon her bosom, said,--
"To what this tends, lady, I know not. The Lord Hastings is free to
carry his homage where he will. He has sought me,--not I Lord
Hastings. And if to-morrow he offered me his hand, I would reject it,
if I were not convinced that the heart--"
"Damsel," interrupted the Lady Bonville, in amazed contempt, "the hand
of Lord Hastings! Look ye indeed so high, or has he so far paltered
with your credulous youth as to speak to you, the daughter of the
alchemist, of marriage? If so, poor child, beware!
"I knew not," replied Sibyll, bitterly, "that Sibyll Warner was more
below the state of Lord Hastings than Master Hastings was once below
the state of Lady Katherine Nevile."
"Thou art distraught with thy self-conceit," answered the dame,
scornfully; and, losing all the compassion and friendly interest she
had before felt, "my rede is spoken,--reject it if thou wilt in pride.
Rue thy folly thou wilt in shame!"
She drew her wimple round her face as she said these words, and,
gathering up her long robe, swept slowly on.
