The Woodman: A Romance of the Times of Richard III

Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=PfdLAAAAcAAJ
(the Bavarian State Library)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].

THE WOODMAN;

A ROMANCE

OF

THE TIMES OF RICHARD III.

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.,

AUTHOR OF "DARNLEY," "THE SMUGGLER," "THE CONVICT," "MARGARET GRAHAM," "THE FORGERY," ETC.

PARIS:

1849.

THE WOODMAN;

A ROMANCE

OF

THE TIMES OF RICHARD III.

BY G. P. R. JAMES.

CHAPTER I.

Of all the hard-working people on the earth, there are none so serviceable to her neighbours as the moon. She lights lovers and thieves. She keeps watch-dogs waking. She is a constant resource to poets and romance-writers. She helps the compounders of almanacks amazingly. She has something to do with the weather, and the tides, and the harvest; and in short she has a finger in every man's pie, and probably more or less effect upon every man's brain. She is a charming creature in all her variations. Her versatility is not the offspring of caprice; and she is constant in the midst of every change.

I will have a moon, say what you will, my dear Prebend; and she shall more or less rule every page of this book.

There was a sloping piece of ground looking to the south east, with a very small narrow rivulet running at the bottom. On the opposite side of the stream was another slope, as like the former as possible, only looking in the opposite direction. Titian, and Vandyke, and some other painters, have pleased themselves with depicting, in one picture, the same face in two or three positions; and these two slopes looked exactly like the two profiles of one countenance. Each had its little clumps of trees scattered about. Each had here and there a hedgerow, somewhat broken and dilapidated; and each too had towards its northern extremity a low chalky bank, through which the stream seemed to have forced itself, in those good old times when rivers first began to go on pilgrimages towards the sea, and, like many other pilgrims that we wot of made their way through all obstacles in a very unceremonious manner.

Over these two slopes about the hour of half past eleven, post meridian, the moon was shining with a bright but fitful sort of splendour; for ever and anon a light fleecy cloud, like a piece of swansdown borne by the wind, would dim the brightness of her rays, and cast a passing shadow on the scene below. Half an hour before, indeed, the radiant face of night's sweet queen had been veiled by a blacker curtain, which had gathered thick over the sky at the sun's decline; but, as the moon rose high, those dark vapours became mottled with wavy lines of white, and gradually her beams seemed to drink them up.

It may be asked if those two sloping meadows, with their clumps of trees, and broken hedgerows, and the little stream flowing on between them, was all that the moonlight showed? That would depend upon where the eye of the observer was placed. Near the lower part of the valley, formed by the inclination of the land, nothing else could be perceived; but walk half way up towards the top, on either side, and the scene was very much altered. Gradually rising, as the eye rose, appeared, stretching out beyond the chalky banks to the north, through which the rivulet came on, a large-grey indistinct mass stretching all along from east to west, the rounded lines of which, together with some misty gaps, taking a blueish white tint in the moonlight, showed it to be some ancient forest, lying at the distance probably of two or three miles from the spot first mentioned.

But there were other objects displayed by the moonlight; for as those soft clouds, sweeping rapidly past, varied her light, and cast bright gleams or grey shadows on the ground, every here and there, especially on the south western slope, a brilliant spot would sparkle forth, flashing back the rays; and a nearer look showed naked swords, and breast-plates, and casques, while every now and then, under the increasing light, that which seemed a hillock took the form of a horse or of a human being, lying quietly on the green turf, or cast motionless down beneath a hedge or an old hawthorn tree.

Were they sleeping there in that dewy night? Ay, sleeping that sleep which fears not the blast, nor the tempest nor the dew, which the thunder cannot break, and from which no trumpet but one shall ever rouse the sleeper.

From sunset till that hour, no living thing, unless it were fox or wolf, had moved upon the scene. The battle was over, the pursuers recalled, the wounded removed; the burial of the dead, if it was to be cared for at all, postponed till another day; and all the fierce and base passions which are called forth by civil contest had lain down to sleep before the hour of which I speak. Even the human vulture, which follows on the track of warring armies to feed upon the spoils of the dead, had gorged itself upon that field, and left the rich arms and housings to be carried away on the morning following.

The fiercer and the baser passions, I have said, now slept; but there were tenderer affections which woke, and through that solemn and sad scene, with no light but that of the moon, with no sound but that of the sighing wind, some four or five persons were seen wandering about, half an hour before midnight. Often, as they went, they bent down at this spot or at that, and gazed at some object on the ground. Sometimes one of them would kneel, and twice they turned over a dead body which had fallen with the face downwards. For more than an hour they went on, pausing at times to speak to each other, and then resuming their examination--I know not whether to call it search; for certainly they seemed to find nothing if they did search, although they left hardly a square yard of the whole field unexplored.

It was nearly one o'clock on the following morning, when with slow steps they took their way over the rise; and the next moment the sound of horses' feet going at a quick pace broke the silence. That sound, in the absence of every other noise, might be heard for nearly ten minutes; and then all was stillness and solitude once more.

CHAPTER II.

Years had passed, long years, since the little scene took place which I have described in the preceding chapter. The heads were grey which were then proud of the glossy locks of youth. Middle life was approaching old age; and children had become men.

It was evening. The sun had gone down some two hours before; and the lights were lighted in a large comfortable well-furnished room. The ceilings were vaulted. The doorways and the two windows were richly decorated with innumerable mouldings; and the discoloured stone work around them, the clustered pillars at the sides, the mullions which divided the windows, and the broad pointed arches above, spoke that style of architecture known as the early English. The tables, the chairs, the cupboard at the side, were all of old oak, deep in colour and rich in ornament. The floor was covered with rushes, over which, in the centre, was spread a piece of tapestry; and the stone work of the walls between the pillars was hidden by tapestry likewise, on one side representing the siege of Troy, on the other the history of David and Goliath, and on a third the loves of Mars and Venus, which, though somewhat too luscious for our irritable imaginations, did not in those days at all shock the chaste inhabitants of a nunnery. The fourth side of the room was untapestried, for there spread the immense, wide, open chimney, with a pile of blazing logs on the hearth, and, in the open space above the arch, a very early painting of the Madonna and child, with gilt glories around the heads of both, and the meek eyes of the virgin fixed upon the somewhat profuse charms of the goddess of love on the other side.

This is description enough. The reader can easily conceive the parlour of an abbess towards the end of the fifteenth century, the heterogeneous contents of which would be somewhat tedious to detail.

Let no one, however, form a false idea of the poor abbess of Atherston, from the admission into her own private chamber of such very ungodly personages as Mars and Venus. She had found them there when she became abbess of the convent, and looked upon them and their loves as upon any other piece of needlework. Nay, more, had it ever occurred to her that there was anything improper in having them there, she would probably have removed them, though to get a more decent piece of tapestry might have cost her four or five marks. Not that she was at all stiff, rigid, and severe, for she was the merriest little abbess in the world; but she combined with great gaiety of heart an infinite deal of innocence and simplicity, which were perfectly compatible with some shrewdness and good sense. Shut up in a convent at a very early period, exposed to none of the vicissitudes of life, and untaught the corrupting lessons of the world, her cheerfulness had been economised, her simplicity unimpaired, and her natural keenness of intellect unblunted, though there might be here and there a spot of rust upon the blade. It was without her own consent she had gone into a convent, but neither with nor against her wishes. She had been quite indifferent; and, never having had any means of judging of other states of life, she was not discontented with her lot, and rather pitied than otherwise those who were forced to dwell in a world of which she knew nothing.

As piety however had nothing to do with her profession, and mortification had never entered into her catalogue of duties, she saw no sin and could conceive no evil in making herself as comfortable and happy as she could. Her predecessor indeed had done a little more, and had not altogether escaped scandal; but our abbess was of a very different character, performed her ceremonial duties accurately, abstained from everything that she knew or thought to be wrong, and while exacting a fulfilment of all prescribed duties from her nuns, endeavoured to make their seclusion pleasant, by unvarying gentleness, kindness, and cheerfulness. If she had a fault, perhaps it was a too great love for the good things of this life. She was exceedingly fond of trout, and did not altogether dislike a moderate portion of Gascon wine, especially when it was of a very superior quality. Venison she could eat; and a well-fed partridge was not unacceptable--though methinks she might have spared it from its great resemblance to herself. All these things, and a great number of other dainties, however, were plentifully supplied by the lands of the convent, which were ample, and by the stream which flowed near at hand, or by the large fish-ponds, three in number, which lay upon the common above. Indeed so abundant was the provision for a fast day, that the abbess and the nuns looked forward to it, as it came on in the week, with great satisfaction, from its affording them excuse for eating more fish than usual. Not that they fared ill on the other days of the week; for, as far as forest and lea would go, they were well provided.

To a contented spirit all things are bright; and the good abbess could have been satisfied with much less than she possessed; so I suppose whatever little superabundance existed went to make the heart merry and the tongue glib; and there she sat with her feet on a footstool, sufficiently near the fire to be somewhat over warm, but yet hardly near enough for that delicious tingling sensation, which the blaze of good dry wood produces till we hardly know whether it is pleasant or painful. In her hand there was a book--a real printed book, rare in those days, and which might well be looked upon as a treasure. As she read, she commented to two young girls who sat near with tall frames before them, running the industrious needle in and out.

I have called them young girls, not alone to distinguish them from old ones--though that might be necessary--but to show that they had barely reached womanhood. The eldest was hardly nineteen; the other some fourteen or fifteen months younger. Both were beautiful; and there was a certain degree of likeness between them, though the face of the elder had features more clearly, perhaps more beautifully, cut, and an expression of greater thoughtfulness, perhaps greater vigour of character. Yet the other was very beautiful too, with that sparkling variety, that constant play of everchanging expression, which is so charming. Its very youthfulness was delightful, for a gleam of childhood lingered still in the look, especially when surprised or pleased, although the lines of the face and the contour of the form were womanly--perhaps more so than those of the other.

That they were none of the sisterhood was evident by the mere matter of their dress, which also indicated that they had not a fixed intention of ever entering it; for it was altogether worldly in form and material, and though plain yet rich. Seated there, with a near relation, their heads were unencumbered with the monstrous head-dresses of the time, the proportions of which, not very long before, were so immense as to require doorways to be widened and lintels raised, in order to let a lady pass in conveniently. Each wore a light veil, it is true, hanging from the mass of glossy hair behind the head, and which could be thrown over the face when required; but it was very different from the veil of the nun or even of the novice.

"Well, my dear children, I do declare," said the elder lady, "this new invention of printing may be very clever, and I wot it is; but it is mighty difficult to read when it is done. I could make out plain court hand a great deal better when written by a good scribe, such as they used to have at Winchester and Salisbury."

The younger girl looked up, answering with a gay laugh. "The poor people never pretend to make you read it easily, dear aunt and mother. All they say is that they can make more copies of a book in a day than a scribe could make in a year, and that they can let you have for three or four shillings what would cost you three or four crowns from a scribe."

"Ay, that's the worst of it all, child," replied the old lady, shaking her head. "Books will get into the hands of all sorts of common people, and do a world of mischief, good lack. But it can't be helped, my children. The world and the devil will have their way; and, even if there were a law made against any one learning to read or write under the rank of a lord at least, it would only make others the more eager to do it. But I do think that this invention ought to be stopped; for it will do a world of mischief, I am sure."

"I hope not," replied the other young lady; "for by no contrivance can they ever make books so cheap, that the lower class can read them; and I know I have often wished I had a book to read when I have had nothing else to do. It's a great comfort sometimes, my dear aunt, especially when one is heavy."

"Ay, that it is, child," said the abbess; "I know that right well. I don't know what I should have done after the battle of Barnet, if it had not been for poor old Chaucer. My grandfather remembered him very well, at the court of John of Ghent; and he gave me the merry book, when I was not much older than you are. Well-a-day, I must read it again, when you two leave me; for my evenings will be dull enough without you, children. I would ask sister Bridget to come in of a night, in the winter, and do her embroidery beside me, only if she staid for my little private supper, her face would certainly turn the wine sour."

"But, perhaps we shall not go after all, dear mother," said the younger lady. "Have you heard anything about it?"

"There now," cried the abbess, laughing, "she's just as wild to get into the wicked world as a caged bird to break out into the open air."

"To be sure I am," exclaimed the light-hearted girl; "and oh, how I will use my wings."

The abbess gazed at her with a look of tender, almost melancholy, interest, and replied:

"There are limed twigs about them, my child. You forget that you are married."

"No, not married," cried the other, with her face all glowing. "Contracted, not married--I wish I was, for the thought frightens me, and then the worst would be over."

"You don't know what you wish," replied the abbess, shaking her head. "A thousand to one, you would very soon wish to be unmarried again; but then it would be too late. It is a collar you can't shake off when you have once put it on; and nobody can tell how much it may pinch one till it has been tried. I thank my lucky stars that made it convenient for your good grandfather to put me in here; for whenever I go out quietly on my little mule, to see after the affairs of the farms, and perchance to take a sidelong look at our good foresters coursing a hare, I never can help pitying the two dogs coupled together, and pulling at the two ends of a band they cannot break, and thanking my good fortune for not tying me up in a leash with any one."

The two girls laughed gaily; for, to say truth, they had neither of them any vocation for cloisteral life; but the youngest replied, following her aunt's figure of speech, "I dare say the dogs are very like two married people, my aunt and lady mother; but I dare say too, if you were to ask either of them, whether he would rather go out into the green fields tied to a companion, or remain shut up in a kennel, he would hold out his neck for the couples."

"Why, you saucy child, do you call this a kennel?" asked the abbess, shaking her finger at her good-humouredly. "What will young maids come to next? But it is as well as it is; since thou art destined for the world and its vanities, 'tis lucky thou hast a taste for them; and I trust thy husband--as thou must have one--will not beat thee above once a-week, and that on the Saturday, to make thee more devout on the Sunday following. Is he a ferocious-looking man?"

"Lord love thee, my dear aunt," answered the young lady; "I have never seen him since I was in swaddling clothes."

"And he was in a sorry-coloured pinked doublet, with a gay cloak on his shoulders, and a little bonnet on his head no bigger than the palm of my hand," cried the other young lady. "He could not be ten years old, and looked like some great man's little page. I remember it quite well, for I had seen seven years; and I thought it a great shame that my cousin Iola should have a husband given to her at five, and I none at seven."

"Given to her!" said the abbess, laughing.

"Well," rejoined the young lady, "I looked upon it as a sort of doll--a poppet."

"Not far wrong either, my dear," answered the abbess; "only you must take care how you knock its nose against the floor, or you may find out where the difference lies."

"Good lack, I have had dolls enough," answered the younger lady, "and could well spare this other one. But what must be must be; so there is no use to think of it.--Don't you believe, lady mother," she continued after a pause, interrupted by a sigh, "that it would be better if they let people choose husbands and wives for themselves?"

"Good gracious!" cried the abbess, "what is the child thinking of? Pretty choosing there would be, I dare say. Why lords' daughters would be taking rosy-cheeked franklins' sons; and barons' heirs would be marrying milkmaids."

"I don't believe it," said the young lady. "Each would choose, I think, as they had been brought up; and there would be more chance of their loving when they did wed."

"Nonsense, nonsense, Iola," cried her aunt. "What do you know about love--or I either for that matter? Love that comes after marriage is most likely to last, for, I suppose, like all other sorts of plants, it only lives a certain time and then dies away; so that if it begins soon, it ends soon."

"I should like my love to be like one of the trees of the park," said the young lady, looking down thoughtfully, "growing stronger and stronger, as it gets older, and outliving myself."

"You must seek for it in fairyland then, my dear," said the abbess. "You will not find it in this sinful world."

Just as she spoke, the great bell of the abbey, which hung not far from the window of the abbess's parlour, rang deep and loud; and the sound, unusual at that hour of the night, made the good old lady start.

"Virgin mother!" she exclaimed--it was the only little interjection she allowed herself. "Who can that be coming two hours after curfew?" and running to the door, with more activity than her plumpness seemed to promise, she exclaimed, "Sister Magdalen, sister Magdalen, do not let them open the gate; let them speak through the barred wicket."

"It is only Boyd, the woodman, lady," replied a nun, who was at the end of a short passage looking out into the court.

"What can he want at this hour?" said the abbess. "Could he not come before sundown? Well, take him into the parlour by the little door. I will come to him in a minute;" and returning into her own room again, the good lady composed herself after her agitation, by a moment's rest in her great chair; and, after expressing her surprise more than once, that the woodman should visit the abbey so late, she bade her two nieces follow her, and passed through a door, different to that by which she had previously gone out, and walked with stately steps along a short corridor leading to the public parlour of the abbey.

This was a large and handsome room, lined entirely with beautiful carved oak, and divided into two, lengthwise, by a screen of open iron-work painted blue and red, and richly gilt. Visitors on the one side could see, converse, and even shake hands with those on the other; but, like the gulf between Abraham and Dives, the iron bars shut out all farther intercourse. A sconce was lighted on the side of the nunnery; and when Iola and her cousin Constance followed their aunt into the room, they beheld, on the other side of the grate, the form of a tall powerful man, somewhat advanced in life, standing with his arms crossed upon his broad chest, and looking, to say sooth, somewhat gloomy. He might indeed, be a little surprised at being forced to hold communication with the lady abbess through the grate of the general parlour; for the good lady was by no means so strict in her notions of conventual decorum, as to exclude him, or any other of the servants and officers of the abbey, from her presence in the court-yard or in her own private sitting-room; and perhaps the woodman might think it did not much matter whether his visit was made by night or by day.

"Well, John Boyd," said the abbess, "in fortune's name, what brings you so late at night? Mary mother, I thought it was some of the roving bands come to try and plunder the abbey again, as they did last Martinmas twelvemonth; and we cannot expect such a blessed chance every time, as that good Sir Martin Rideout should be at hand to help our poor socmen. Had it not been for him, I wot, Peter our bailiff would have made but a poor hand of defending us."

"And a poor hand he did make," replied the woodman, in a cynical tone; "for he was nowhere to be found; and I had to pull him out of the buttery, to head the tenants. But I hear no more of rovers, lady, unless it be the men at Coleshill, and King Richard's posts, planted all along the highways, with twenty miles between each two, to look out for Harry of Richmond."

"Posts!" said the abbess; "posts planted on the highway! What mean you by posts?"

"Why men on horseback, lady mother," answered the woodman; "with sharp spurs and strong steeds to bear to Dickon, our king that is, news of Harry, our king that may be, if he chance to land any where upon the coast."

"Now Heaven assoil us!" cried the abbess; "what more war, more war? Will men never be content without deforming God's image in their fellow creatures, and burning and destroying even the fairest works of their own hands?"

"I fear not," answered the woodman, twisting round the broad axe that was hung in his leathern belt. "Great children and small are fond of bonfires; and nature and the devil between them made man a beast of prey. As to what brought me hither, madam, it, was to tell you that the wooden bridge in the forest wants repairing sadly. It would hardly bear up your mule, lady, with nothing but yourself and your hawk upon its back; much less a war-horse with a rider armed at point. As for my coming so late, I have been as far as Tamworth this morning, to sell the bavins, and didn't get back till after dark. So marking the bridge by the way, and thinking it would be better to begin on it early in the morning, I made bold to come up at night for fear anyone, riding along to church or market or otherwise, should find their way into the river, and say the abbess ought to mend her ways;" and he laughed at his own joke.

While he had been speaking, both the young ladies, though he was no stranger to them, had been gazing at him with considerable attention. He was, as I have said before, a tall and still very powerful man, although he seemed to have passed the age of fifty years. His shoulders were very broad, his arms long and muscular; but his body was small in proportion to the limbs, and the head in proportion to the height of the whole figure. His forehead was exceedingly broad and high, however; the crown of his head quite bald, with large masses of curling hair falling round his temples and on his neck. What his complexion originally had been, could not be discovered; for the whiteness of his hair and eye-brows and the sun-burnt weather-beaten hue of his skin afforded no indication. His teeth, however, were still good, his eyes large and bright, and the features fine, although the wide forehead was seamed with deep furrows, giving, apart from the rest of his appearance, a look of much greater age than that at which he had really arrived.

His dress was the ordinary woodman's garb of the time, which is well known to almost every one. There was the thick stiff leathern coat, which no broken branch or rugged thorn could pierce, the breeches of untanned hide, and the hoots of strong black leather, reaching above the knee. Round his waist, over his coat, he wore a broad belt, fastened by a brass buckle in front, and in it were stuck the implements of his craft, namely, a broad axe, which required no ordinary power of limb to wield, with the head uppermost, thrust under his left arm like a sword; a large billhook, having a broad stout piece of iron at the back, which might serve the purposes of a hammer; and an ordinary woodman's knife, the blade of which was about eighteen inches in length. His head was on ordinary occasions covered with a round cloth cap; but this, in reverence of the presence of the lady abbess, he held by the edge in his hand.

The expression of the good man's countenance, when not particularly moved, was agreeable enough, though somewhat stern and sad; but when he laughed, which was by no means unfrequent, although the sound was loud and hearty, an extraordinary look of bitter mockery hung about his lip and nostril, taking away all appearance of happiness from his merriment.

"Well, well, you might mend the bridge without asking me," said the abbess, in reply to his report. "It is a part of the head woodman's duty, and the expenses would always be passed. So if you had nothing more to say than that, you might have chosen another hour, goodman Boyd."

"Crying your mercy, lady," said the woodman, "I would always rather deal with you than with your bailiff. When I have orders from you, I set him at nought. When I do anything of my own hand he is sure to carp. However I had more to say. We have taken a score of mallards in the great pond, and a pike of thirty pounds. There are two bitterns too, three heronshaws, and a pheasant with a back like gold. I had four dozen of pigeons killed too, out of the colombier in the north wood; and--"

"Mother Mary, is the man mad?" exclaimed the abbess. "One would think we were going to have the installation of an archbishop."

"And there are twenty young rabbits, as fat as badgers," continued the woodman, taking no notice of her interruption. "If I might advise, lady, you would order some capons to be killed to-night."

The good abbess stood as one quite bewildered, and then burst into a fit of laughter, saying--

"The man is crazed, I think;" but her eldest niece pulled the sleeve of her gown, whispering--

"He means something, depend upon it. Perhaps he does not like to speak before me and Iola."

The abbess paused for an instant as if to consider this suggestion, and then asked--

"Well, have you anything more to say, goodman?"

"Oh, yes, plenty more," answered the woodman; "when I find a meet season."

"On my word you seem to have found a fish and fowl season," rejoined the abbess, playing upon the word meet. We must recollect that she had but little to amuse herself with in her solitude, and therefore forgive her. She continued, however, in a graver tone: "Is it that you wish to speak with me alone?"

"Yes, lady," answered the man. "Three pair of ears have generally got three mouths belonging to them, and that is too many by two."

"Then I'll carry mine out of the way, goodman Boyd," said Iola, giving him a gay nod, and moving towards the door; "I love not secrets of any kind. Heaven shield me from having any of my own, for I should never keep them."

The woodman looked after her with a smile, murmuring in a low voice as if to himself--

"Yet I think she would keep other people's better than most." Then, waiting till Constance had followed her cousin from the room, he continued, speaking to the abbess: "you'll have visitors at the abbey, lady, before this time to-morrow night."

"Marry, that is news, goodman," answered the abbess; "and for this then you have made all this great preparation. It must be an earl, or duke at least, if not king Richard himself--God save the mark that I should give the name of king to one of his kindred. Methinks you might have told me this without such secrecy. Who may these visitors be?"

"They are very simple gentlemen, my lady," answered the woodman, "though well to do in the world. First and foremost, there is the young Lord Chartley, a young nobleman with as many good points as a horse-dealer's filly; a baron of the oldest race, a good man at arms. He can read and write, and thanks God for it, makes verses when he is in love--which is every day in the week with some one--and, to crown all, is exceedingly rich as these hard times go."

"You seem to be of his privy chamber, goodman Boyd," said the abbess; "you deliver him so punctually."

"I deliver him but as his own servants delivered him to me," answered the woodman. "Tell me, was he not in the battle of Barnet, fighting for the red rose?" inquired the abbess. "Ay, and sorely wounded there. He shall be right welcome, if it were but for that."

"Nay, Lord Chartley fought at Barnet," said the woodman; "and if to fight well and to suffer for the cause of Lancaster merit such high honour, you might indeed receive him daintily, for he fought till he was killed there, poor man; but this youth is his nephew, and has had no occasion to fight in England either, for there have been no battles since he was a boy. Lancaster he doubtless is in heart, though king Edward put him into the guardianship of a Yorkist. However, with him comes Sir Edward Hungerford, who, they tell me, is one of those gay light-hearted gentlemen, who, born and bred in perilous and changing times, get to think at last, by seeing all things fall to pieces round them, that there is nothing real or solid in the world--no, not truth itself. But let him pass; a little perjury and utter faithlessness, a ready wit, a bold heart, a reckless love of mischief, a pair of hanging sleeves that sweeps the ground as he walks along, a coat of goldsmith's work, and a well-lined purse, have made many a fine gentleman before him; and I'll warrant he is not worse than the greater part of his neighbours. Then with these two, there is Sir Charles Weinants, a right worshipful gentleman also."

"But tell me more of him," said the abbess. "What is he? I have heard the name before with honourable mention, methinks--Who and what is he?"

"A lickladle of the court, lady," answered the woodman, "one who rises high by low ladders--who soars not up at once, either as the eagle or the lark, but creeps into favour through holes and turnings. He is marvellously discreet in all his doings, asserts nought boldly, but by dull insinuation stings an enemy or serves a friend. Oh yes, he has his friendships too--not much to be relied on, it is true, but still often useful, so that even good men have need of his agency. All that he does is done by under-currents, which bear things back to the shore that seem floating out to sea. Quiet, and calm, and self-possessed, he is ever ready for the occasion; and with a cheerful spirit, which one would think the tenant of an upright heart, he wins his way silently, and possesses great men's ears, who little know that their favour is disposed of at another's will. He is an old man now; but I remember him when I was a boy at St. Alban's. He was then in much grace with the great Lord Clifford, who brought him to the notice of king Henry. He has since lived, as much in favour, with Edwards and Richards and Buckinghams, and is now a strong Yorkist. What he will die, Heaven and time will show us."

"Goodlack, that there should be such things in the world!" exclaimed the abbess; "but what brings all these people here? I know none of them; and if they come but to visit the shrine, I have no need to entertain them, nor you to make a mystery of their visit. I hate mysteries, my good son, ever since I read about that word being written on the forehead of the poor sinner of Babylon."

The woodman laughed irreverently, but answered, "I want to make no mystery with you, lady. These men bring a great train with them; and in their train there is a reverend friar, with frock, and cowl, and sandaled feet; but methinks I have seen a mitre on his shaven crown, though neither mitre nor cowl would save him from the axe, I wot, if good king Richard got his hands upon him. What he comes for--why he comes, I cannot tell you; for I only heard that their steps tended hitherward, and the lackeys counted on drinking deep of the abbey ale. But when that friar is beneath your roof, you will have a man beside you, whose life is in much peril for stout adherence to the cause of Lancaster."

"Then he shall have shelter and protection here," said the abbess boldly. "This is sanctuary, and I will not believe that Richard himself--bad and daring as he is--would venture to violate the church's rights."

"Richard has two weapons, madam," answered the woodman, "and both equally keen, his sword and his cunning; and take my word for it, what he desires to do that he will do--ay, even to the violation of sanctuary, though perhaps it may not be with his own hand or in his own name. You have had one visit from a roving band who cared little about holy church; and you may have another, made up of very different men, with whom the king might deal tenderly if they did him good service."

"Then we will call in the tenants," said the abbess, "and defend our rights and privileges."

"The tenants might be outnumbered," said the woodman, shaking his head. "There are many men straying about here, who would soon band together at the thought of stripping the shrine of St. Clare; especially if they had royal warranty for their necks' safety, and the promise of farther reward, besides all their hands helped them to."

"Then what is to be done?" exclaimed the abbess, in some consternation. "I cannot and I will not refuse refuge to a consecrated bishop, and one who has suffered persecution for the sake of his rightful race of kings."

"Nay, Heaven forbid," replied the woodman warmly; "but if you will take a simple man's advice, lady, methinks I could show you a way to save the bishop, and the abbey, and the ornaments of the shrine too."

"Speak, speak," exclaimed the abbess eagerly. "Your advice is always shrewd, goodman Boyd. What way would you have me take?"

"Should you ever have in sanctuary," answered the woodman, "a man so hated by the king that you may expect rash acts committed to seize him, and you find yourself suddenly attacked by a band that you cannot resist, send your sanctuary man to me by some one who knows all the ways well, and I will provide for his safety where they will never find him. Then, be you prepared for resistance, but resist not if you can help it. Parley with the good folks, and say that you know well they would not come for the mere plunder of a consecrated place, that you are sure they have come seeking a man impeached of high treason who lately visited the abbey. Assure them that you sent him away, which you then may well do in all truth, and offer to give admission to any three or four to search for him at their will. Methinks, if they are privately set on by higher powers, they will not venture to do anything violent, when they are certain that success will not procure pardon for the act."

The abbess mused and seemed to hesitate; and, after a short pause, the woodman added, "Take my advice, lady. I do not speak without knowledge. Many a stray bit of news gets into the forest by one way or another that is never uttered in the town. Now, a messenger stops to talk with the woodman, and, overburdened with the secret, pours part of it out, where he thinks it can never rise in judgment against him. Then, a traveller asks his way, and gossips with his guide as he walks along to put him in the right road. Every carter, who comes in for his load of wood, brings some intelligence from the town. I am rightly informed, lady, depend upon it."

"It is not that; it is not that," said the abbess, somewhat peevishly. "I was thinking whom I could send and how. If they surround the abbey altogether, how could I get him out?"

"There is the underground way to the cell of St. Magdalen," said the woodman. "To surround the abbey, they would have to bring their men in amongst the houses of the hamlet, and the cell is far beyond that."

"True, but no one knows that way," said the abbess, "but you, and I, and sister Bridget. I could trust her well enough, cross and ill-tempered as she is; but then she has never stirred beyond the abbey walls for these ten years, so that she knows not the way from the cell to your cottage. I trust she knows the way to heaven better;" and the abbess laughed.

"'Twere easy to instruct some one else in the way to the cell," said the woodman. "The passage is plain enough when the stone door is open."

"Ay, doubtless, doubtless," continued the abbess; "but you forget, my good friend, that it is against our law to tell the secret way out to any of the sisterhood, except the superior and the oldest nun. Mary mother, I know not why the rule was made; but it has been so, ever since bishop Godshaw's visitation in 1361."

"I suppose he found the young sisters fond of tripping in the green wood with the fairies of nights," answered the woodman, with one of his short laughs; "but however, you are not forbidden to tell those who are not of the sisterhood; otherwise, lady, you would not have told me."

"Nay, that does not follow," rejoined the abbess. "The head woodman always knows, as the cell is under his charge and care, ever since the poor hermit died. However, I do not recollect having vowed not to tell the secret to any secular persons. The promise was only as to the sisters--but whom could I send?

"Iola? Nay, nay, that cannot be," said the abbess. "She is not of a station to go wandering about at night, guiding strangers through a wild wood. She is my niece, and an earl's daughter."

"Higher folks than she have done as much," answered the woodman; "but I did not think that the abbess of Atherston St. Clare would have refused even her niece's help, to Morton, bishop of Ely."

"The bishop of Ely!" cried the abbess. "Refuse him help? No, no, Boyd. If it were my daughter or my sister, if it cost me life, or limb, or fortune, he should have help in time of need. I have not seen him now these twelve years; but he shall find I do not forget--Say no more, goodman, say no more. I will send my niece, and proud may she be of the task."

"I thought it would be so, lady," answered the woodman; "but still one word more. It were as well that you told the good lord bishop of his danger, as soon as you can have private speech with him, and then take the first hour after sundown to get him quietly away out of the abbey, for to speak truth I much doubt the good faith of that Sir Charles Weinants--I know not what he does with men of Lancaster--unless he thinks, indeed, the tide is turning in favour of that house from which it has ebbed away so long."

Although they had said all they really had to say, yet the abbess and the woodman carried on their conversation during some ten minutes or quarter of an hour more, before they parted; and then the excellent lady retired to her own little comfortable room again, murmuring to herself: "He is a wise man, that John Boyd--rude as a bear sometimes; but he has got a wit! I think those woodmen are always shrewd. They harbour amongst the green leaves, and look at all that goes on in the world as mere spectators, till they learn to judge better of all the games that are playing than those who take part therein. They can look out, and see, and meddle as little as we do, while we are shut out from sight, as well as from activity."

CHAPTER III.

Under some circumstances, and upon some conditions, there are few things fairer on this earth than a walk through a wild forest by moonlight. It must not be, however, one of those deep unbroken primeval forests, which are found in many parts of the new world, where the wilderness of trees rises up, like a black curtain, on every side, shutting out the view, and almost excluding the light of day from the face of the earth. But a forest in old England, at the period of which I speak, was a very different thing. Tall trees there were, and many, and in some places they were crowded close together; but in others the busy woodman's axe, and the more silent but more incessant strokes of time, had opened out wide tracts, where nothing was to be seen but short brushwood, stunted oak, beech tree and ash, rising up in place of the forest monarchs long passed away, like the pigmy efforts of modern races appearing amidst the ruins of those gigantic empires, which have left memorials that still defy the power of time. Indeed, I never behold a wide extent of old forest land, covered with shrubby wood, with here and there a half-decayed trunk rising grandly above the rest, without imagination flying far away to those lands of marvel, where the wonders of the world arose and perished--the land of the Pharaohs, of the Assyrians, and of the Medes; ay, and of the Romans too--those lands in which the power and genius of the only mighty European empire displayed themselves more wonderfully than even in the imperial city, the land of Bolbec and Palmyra. The Arab's hut, built amongst the ruins of the temple of the sun, is a fit type of modern man, contrasted with the races that have passed. True, the Roman empire was destroyed by the very tribes from which we spring; but it was merely the dead carcase of the Behemoth eaten up by ants.

Be all that as it may, an English forest scene is very beautiful by moonlight, and especially when the air has been cleared by a light frost, as was the case when the woodman took his way back towards his cottage, after his visit to the abbey. The road was broad and open--one of the highroads of the country, indeed--sandy enough, in all conscience, and not so smooth as it might have been; but still it served its purpose; and people in those days called it a good road. Here, an old oak eighteen or twenty feet in girth, which might have seen the noble ill-fated Harold, stretched its long limbs across the turfy waste ground at its feet, and over the yellow track of the road beaten by horses' feet. In other places the eye might wander far over a wide scantily-covered track of ground, with here and there a tall tree starting up and casting its broad shadow upon the white and glistening expanse of bushes below. A vague sort of mysterious uncertainty hung about the dells and dingles of the wood, notwithstanding the brightness of the moonlight; and a faint blueish mist prevented the eye from penetrating into the deeper valleys, and searching their profundity. To the left, the ground sloped away with a gentle descent. To the right, it rose somewhat more abruptly; and, peeping over the leafless trees in the latter direction, appeared here and there a square wall and tower, cutting sharp and defined upon the rounded forms of the forest. Above all stretched out the wide deep sky, with the moon nearly at the full, flooding the zenith with light, while to, the north and west shone out many bright and twinkling stars, not yet hidden by the beams of earth's bright satellite.

With a slow and a firm step, the woodman trudged upon his way, pausing every now and then to gaze around him, more, apparently, as a matter of habit than with any purpose; for he seemed full of busy thoughts; and even when he stopped and let his eye roam around, it is probable that his mind was on other things, once or twice, murmuring a few words to himself, which had certainly no reference to the scene. "Ah, Mary, Mary," he said, and then added: "Alas! Alas!"

There was something deeply melancholy in his tone. The words were spoken low and softly; and a sigh followed them, the echo of memory to the voice of joys passed.

Onward he walked again, the road somewhat narrowing as he proceeded, till at length the tall trees, pressing forward on either side, shut out the light of the moon, except where, here and there, the rays stole through the leafless branches and chequered the frosty turf.

As he was passing through one of the darkest parts of the wood, keeping a good deal to the left of the road, the sound of a horse's feet was heard coming fast down from the top of the hill. Without change of pace or look, however, the stout woodman walked on, seeming to pay little attention to the measured beating of the ground by the strong hoofs, as they came on at a quick trot. Nearer and nearer, however, they approached, till at length they suddenly stopped, just as the horse and rider were passing the man on foot, and a voice exclaimed, "Who goes there?"

"A friend," replied the woodman. "You must have sharp eyes, whoever you be."

"Sharp eyes and sharp ears too," replied the horseman. "Stand out, and tell us who you are, creeping along there under the boughs."

"Creeping along!" answered the woodman, advancing into the more open road and placing himself in front of the rider. "I will soon tell you who I am, and show you who I am too, master, when I know who it is that asks the question. Since it comes to that, I bid you stand and tell me who you are who ride the wood so late. You are none of King Richard's posts, or you would know me;" and, at the same time, he laid his hand upon the man's bridle.

"You are a liar," replied the horseman, "for I am one of King Richard's posts, coming from Scotland, with news of moment, and letters from the princess countess of Arran. Let go my bridle then, and say who and what you are, or, by the Lord, I'll drub you in such a way as you have seldom been drubbed before."

"Ha! Say you so?" cried the woodman, still retaining his hold of the bridle. "I must have more satisfactory knowledge of you, ere I let you pass; and, as for drubbing me, methinks with a green willow and a yard or two of rope, I'd give thee that which thou hast not tasted since thou wert a boy."

"So, so," said the man, "thou art a robber, doubtless. These woods are full of them, they say; but thou shalt find me a tougher morsel than often falls within thy teeth. Take that for thy pains."

As he spoke, he suddenly drew his sword from the sheath, and aimed a rapid and furious stroke at the woodman's head. His adversary, however, was wary; and, springing on one side, he escaped the descent of the blade. The other instantly spurred his horse forward; but, before he could pass, the woodman had pulled his axe from his belt, and, with a full sweep of his arm, struck a blow at the back of the horseman's head, which cast him at once out of the saddle. It was the back of the axe which he used, and not the sharp side; but the effect seemed equally fatal, for the man neither moved nor spoke, and his horse, freed from the pressure of the rein, dashed down the lane for some way, then stopped, paused for a moment, and trotted quietly back again.

In the meantime, the woodman approached the prostrate body of the messenger, murmuring to himself, "Ah, caitiff, I know thee, though thou hast forgotten me. Thou pitiful servant of treachery and ingratitude, thou hireling serviceable knave, I would not have hurt thee, even for thy master's sake, hadst thou not assailed me first--Methinks he is dead," he continued, stirring the body with his foot. "I hit thee harder than I thought; but it is well as it is. Thy death could not come from a fitter hand than mine, were it not the hangman's--I will see what thou hast about thee, however; for there may be news of value indeed, if for once in thy life thou hast found a tongue to speak truth with. But I will not believe it. The news was too sure, the tale too sad to be false."

He stood a moment or two by the corpse, gazing upon it in silence, but without the slightest sign of sorrow or remorse. Those were bloody and barbarous times, it is true, when men slew each other in cold blood after battles were over, when brother spared not brother, and the companions of infancy and boyhood dyed their daggers in each other's gore. Human life, as in all barbarous states of society, was held as nought; and men hesitated as little to spill the blood of a fellow creature as to spill their own. But yet it must surely always be a terrible thing to take a life, to extinguish that light which we can never reillume, to fix the fatal barrier which renders every foolish and every dark act, every sin and every crime, irretrievable, to leave no chance of penitence, no hope of repentance, and to send the erring and burdened spirit into the presence of its God without one dark record against it uncancelled. Heavy must be the offence indeed, and deep the injury, which leaves no sorrow in the heart of the slayer.

None seemed to be felt by the woodman. He stood and gazed, as I have said, for a moment; but it was--as he had gazed over the prospect below--without a change of countenance; and then he stooped down and with calm and patient investigation searched every part of the dead man's apparel. He found, amongst other things, a purse well supplied with gold, at least so its weight seemed to indicate; but that he put back again at once. He found some papers too, and those he kept; but, not satisfied with that, after some trouble he caught the horse, examined the saddle, unloosed the girths, and between the saddle cloth and the leather found a secret pocket from which he took more papers. These too he kept, and put them in his wallet. Everything else, such as trinkets, of which there were one or two, a pouncet-box, some large curiously-shaped keys and other trifles, he carefully replaced where he had found them. Then, taking up the dead man's hand, he raised it and let it fall, as if to make sure that life was extinct; and then once more he addressed the corpse, saying--

"Ay, thou art dead enough! I could find in my heart to spurn thee even now--but no, no. It is but the clay. The demon is departed," and picking up his axe, which he had laid down for a moment, he carefully replaced the saddle on the horse's back, fastened up the girths, and cast loose the rein. When this was done he resumed his walk, proceeding with the same quiet steady pace with which he had been wending his way towards his cottage, the moment before this adventure befell him. All remained calm and still on the spot which he had left, for somewhat more than an hour. The moon reached her highest point, travelled a little to the westward, and poured her rays under the branches of the trees where before it had been dark. The dead body still lay upon the road. The horse remained cropping the forest grass at the side, occasionally entangling its foot in the bridle, and once plunging to get free so as to bring itself upon its knees. At the end of the time I have mentioned, the woodman reappeared, coming down the hill at the same quiet rate at which he had gone away. When he approached the place he stopped and looked around; and then, stooping down by the side of the dead man, he placed some of the papers in the pocket, saying with a sort of bitter smile, which looked wild and strange in the moonlight--

"Thy comings and goings are over; but others may carry these at least to their destination. Oh, thou double-dealing fiend, thou hast died in the midst of one of thy blackest deeds before it was consummated. The messenger of the dove, thou wert but the agent of the hawk which was watching for her as a prey, and would have betrayed her into all the horrors of faithlessness and guilt. May God pardon thee, bad man and--"

Again there was the sound of horses' feet coming; but this time it was mingled with that of voices, talking with loud and somewhat boisterous merriment.

"Some of the king's runners," said the woodman; and, with a slow step, he retreated under the trees, and was soon lost to sight amidst the thick brushwood. The next moment two men might be seen riding down the hill and laughing as they came.

"'Twill be pleasant tidings to bear," said one to the other; "and my counsel is, Jago, instead of giving them to the next post, as thy fool's head would have it, that we turn away through the by-road to the abbey, and carry our good news ourselves. Why, that Richmond has put back again to France, is worth fifty broad pieces to each of us."

"But our orders were strict," answered the other; "and we have no excuse.--But mercy have us! What is here? Some one either drunk or dead upon the road. There stands his horse too, under that tree."

"Look to your weapon, Jago," replied his companion. "On my life, this is that fellow Malcolm Bower, who passed us three hours ago, as proud as a popinjay; and I'll wager a stoup of Canary, that he has met with robbers in the wood and been murdered."

"Likely, likely," answered the other man, loosening his sword in the sheath; "but if he have, king Richard will burn the forest down but he'll find them; for this fellow is a great man with those he serves now-a-days."

"Here, hold my horse," cried the other. "I'll get down and see;" and, dismounting, he stooped over the body, and then proceeded to examine it, commenting in broken sentences, thus--"Ay, it is he, sure enough. Stay, he can't be murdered, I think, either, for here is his purse in his pocket, and that well filled--and papers too, and a silver box of comfits, on my life. Look ye here now, his horse must have thrown him and broken his neck. No, upon my life, it's his head is broken. Here's a place at the back of his skull as soft as a Norfolk dumpling. What shall we do with him?"

A short consultation then ensued, as to how they should dispose of the dead body, till at length it was agreed that the horse should be caught, the corpse flung over it, and thus carried to the neighbouring hamlet. This was effected without much trouble; and the whole scene became wild, and silent, and solitary once more.

CHAPTER IV.

I must now introduce the reader to a scene then very common in England, but which would now be sought for in vain--although, to some of the habits of those times a large class of people have a strong tendency to return. Round a little village green, having, as usual, its pond--the merry-making place of ducks and geese--its two or three clumps of large trees, and its two roads crossing each other in the middle, were erected several buildings of very different look and magnitude. Nearly three sides of the green were occupied by mere hovels or huts, the walls of mud, the roofs rudely thatched, and the windows of so small a size as to admit very little light into a dwelling, which, during the working hours of each weary day, saw very little of its laborious tenants. Amongst these were two larger houses, built of stone, richly ornamented, though small in size, having glazed windows, and displaying all the signs and tokens of the ecclesiastical architecture of the day, though neither of them was a church or chapel, but simply the dwelling-places of some secular priests, with a small following of male choristers, who were not permitted to inhabit any portion of the neighbouring abbey. Along the fourth side of the green, where the ground rose considerably, extended an enormously high wall, pierced in the centre with a fine old portal with two battlemented turrets, one on either side. From the middle of the green, so high was this wall and portal that nothing could be seen beyond it. But, from the opposite side, the towers and pinnacles of the abbey itself peeped up above the inclosure.

If one followed the course of the wall, to the left as one looked towards the abbey, passing between it and the swine-herd's cottage, one came to a smaller door--a sort of sally-port, we should have called it, had the place been a fortress--from which a path wound away, down into a valley, with a stream flowing through it; and then, turning sharp to the right at the bottom, the little footway ascended again towards a deep old wood, on the verge of which appeared a small Gothic building with a stone cross in front. The distance from the abbey to St. Magdalen's cell, as it was called, was not in reality very great in a direct line; but the path wound so much, in order to avoid a steep rise in the ground and a deep ravine through which in rainy weather flowed a torrent of water, that its length could not be less than three quarters of a mile.

The little door in the abbey wall, which I have mentioned, was strong and well secured, with a loop-hole at each side for archers to shoot through, in case of need. Over the door, too, was a semicircular aperture, in which hung an enormously large bell, baptized in former years, according to the ordinary custom, but which, whatever was the name it received at its baptism, was known amongst the peasantry as the "Baby of St. Clare." Now, whether St. Clare, whoever she was, had, during the time of her mortal life, a baby or none, I cannot pretend to say; but certain it is, that the good nuns were as angry at the name which had been bestowed upon the bell, as if the attributing an infant to their patroness had been a direct insult to each of them individually.

This bell was used only upon special occasions, the ordinary access to the abbey being through the great gates; but, if any danger menaced in the night, if any of the peasantry were taken suddenly ill after sunset, if any of the huts in the hamlet caught fire--which was by no means unusual--or any other business of importance occurred during the hours of darkness, the good people of the neighbourhood applied to the Baby of St. Clare, whose loud voice soon brought out one of the inferior sisters to inquire what was the matter. Passing on from this doorway, and leaving the path towards St. Magdalene's cell on the left, one could circle round the whole extent of the walls, which contained not less than five or six acres of ground. But no other doorway was to be seen, till the great portal was again reached. The walls themselves were of exceeding thickness, and had a walk all round them on a sort of platform at the top. It would have required cannon indeed to have effected a breach at any point; but, at the same time, their great extent rendered them indefensible against the means of escalade, by any force which the good sisters could call to their aid.

Within the great portal was a large open court, flanked on three sides by habitable buildings. To the right, was what was called the visitors' lodging, where a very considerable number of persons could be accommodated, in small rooms very tolerably furnished according to the mode of the day. There, too, a large dining-hall afforded space for the entertainment to the many guests who from time to time partook of the abbey's hospitality. The opposite side was devoted to offices for the lay sisters and servants of the abbey; and the space in front of the great gates was occupied by the chapel, into one part of which the general public was admitted, while the other, separated by a richly-wrought stone screen, was assigned to the nuns themselves. A small stone passage closed by an iron gate ran between the offices and the chapel, and extended, round the back of the former and along the north-western wall to the little doorway which I have mentioned; while, on the other hand, an open door and staircase led to the parlour, which I have mentioned in a preceding chapter, as that in which friends or relatives might converse with any of the recluses, through the grate which divided the room into two. Behind the chapel was another court, cloistered all round, and beyond that the main body of the building.

All these arrangements would seem to show, and, indeed, such was the intention, that the sisterhood were cut off from all immediate communication with the male part of the race; but yet, in truth, neither the order nor the abbey was a very strict one--so little so that, twenty or thirty years before, the sisterhood had not altogether escaped scandal. All occasion for gossiping tongues, however, had been taken away by the conduct of the existing abbess, whose rule was firm though mild; but, at the same time, she neither scrupled to indulge her nuns in all innocent liberty, such as going out once or twice in the year in parties of six or seven together, nor to use her own powers of free action in receiving, even in the interior of the building, during the day time, any of the officers of the abbey, whether lay or clerical, with whom she might wish to speak, and in going out mounted on her mule, and accompanied by several attendants, to inspect the several estates of the foundation, or visit any of the neighbouring towns. This just medium between extreme severity and improper license secured her against all evil tongues; and the abbey was in high repute at the time of which I speak.

About one o'clock, on the day after the woodman's visit, which I have described, some twenty or thirty people were gathered together on the green just before the great portal. But this was no well-dressed and splendid assemblage, no meeting of the high, the rich, and the lordly. It was a very motley band, in which rags and tatters greatly predominated. The most aristocratic of the crowd was probably an itinerant piper, who, with an odd-shaped cap on his head, somewhat like the foot of an old stocking, but spreading out at the edges in the fashion of a basin, had a good coarse brown cloth coat on his back, and hosen on his legs, which, though not new, were not in holes. He kept his bag tight under his arm, not venturing to regale the devout ears of the nuns with the sounds of his merry minstrelsy; but he promised himself and his fellows to cheer their hearts with a tune after their daily dole had been distributed, to receive which was the object of their coming.

They were not kept long waiting, indeed; for one of the elder sisters soon appeared, followed by two stout serving women, dressed in grey gowns, with white hoods and wimples, each carrying an enormous basket filled with large hunches of bread and fragments of broken meat. The contents of these panniers were distributed with great equity, and savoured with a few words, sometimes of ghostly advice, sometimes of reproach, and sometimes of consolation.

Thus it was, "There Hodge, take that, and do not grumble another time as thou didst yesterday. A contented heart makes food wholesome; and you, Margery Dobson, I do wonder that you do not think it shame to live upon the abbey dole, with those good stout hands of yours."

"Ah, dear mother," replied the person she addressed, in a whining tone; "that is always the way. Everything goes by seeming. I vow I am dropsical all over; and then folks say it is all fat. I could no more do a day's work like another, than I could take up the abbey tower and carry it off."

The good sister shook her head, and went on to another, saying--

"Ah! Jackson, if you would but quit your vile drunken ways, you need never come here for the dole. Two hours' work each day would furnish you with as much food as you get here in a week. Ah, Janet Martin, my poor thing," she continued, addressing a woman, who had contrived to add some little scraps of black to the old gown which she wore, "there were no need to give you any of the dole, for the lady abbess will send down to you by and by; but here, as there is plenty for all to-day, take this for yourself and the babes. I dare say they'll eat it."

The woman made a melancholy gesture with her head, replying merely--

"They have not tasted a morsel since last night, sister Alice."

"Well, take heart, take heart," answered the nun in a kindly tone. "You can't tell what may be coming. We are all very sorry for you and for your poor children; and your good husband who is no more, rest his soul, has our prayers night and morning."

"Blessings upon you, sister Alice, and upon the house," replied the poor widow; and the nun turned to the itinerant musician.

"What, Sam the piper come back from Tamworth. I trust, brother, you remembered all your promises, and did not get drunk at the fair."

"Never was drunk once," replied the piper boldly; but the next moment, he turned his head partly over his shoulder, and winked shrewdly with his eye, adding, "The ale was so thin that a butt of it would not have tipsied a sucking lamb. So I have little credit; for my well-seasoned staves would have drunk the whole beer in the town without rolling. But nevertheless, I was moderate, very moderate, and drank with due discretion--seeing that the liquor was only fit to season sow's meat. Well, I wot, they got very little grains out of each barrel; and I hope he that brewed it has had as bad a cholic as I have had ever since."

"Well, get you each to the buttery, one by one as you are served; and there you will get a horn of ale which won't give you the cholic, though it won't make you drunk," said the good sister; and then, beckoning to the piper, she enquired in an easy tone: "What news was stirring at Tamworth, Sam Piper? There's always something stirring there, I think."

"Bless your holy face," answered the piper; "there was little enough this time. Only, just as the fair was over, some gay nobles came in--looking for King Richard, I wot; and a gorgeous train they made of it; but if it was the King they sought, they did not find him, for he has gone on to Nottingham with his good Queen."

"But who were they? Who were they?" asked the nun, who was not without her share of that curiosity so common among recluses. "And were they so very splendid? How many had they in their following?"

"Why, first and foremost, lady," replied the piper, with a tone and air of secrecy and importance, "there was the young earl of Chartley. Marry, a gay and handsome gentleman as ever you set eyes on. I saw him come up to the inn door, and speak to mine host; and every other word was a jest, I'll warrant. What a wit he has, and how he did run on. It was nothing but push and thrust, from beginning to end. Then, as for his dress, it might have suited a prince, full of quaint conceits and beautiful extravagance. Why his bonnet was cut all round in the Burgundy fashion, for all the world like the battlements of a castle made in cloth, and a great white feather lolling down till it touched his left shoulder."

"Oh, vanity, vanity!" cried the nun. "How these young men do mock Heaven with their vanities! But what more, good brother?"

"Why then there were the sleeves of his gown," continued the piper; "what they were intended for I can't tell, unless to blow his nose with; but they were so long and fell so heavy with the sables that trimmed them, that I thought every minute the horse would set his feet on them. But no such thing; and though somewhat dusty he seemed fresh enough."

"Well, well," said the nun. "Come to the point, and tell us no more about dress, for I care not for such vanities."

"Good faith, but there were some pieces of it would have made you care," replied the piper. "However, I do not know what you mean by the point."

"Who were the other people; for you said there were many?" demanded the nun sharply.

"So there were, so there were," replied the wandering musician. "There was Sir Edward Hungerford, a gay gallant of the court, not so handsome as the other, but as grandly dressed; and then there was Sir Charles Weinants, a very reverend and courtly gentleman, with comely grey hair. There--talking of reverencies--there was a godly friar with a grey gown and shaven crown."

"That speaks well for the young lords," observed the nun. "They cannot be such idle little-thrifts as you make them out, if they travel accompanied by a holy man."

"Nay, Heaven forbid that I should make them out idle little-thrifts," replied the piper. "I think them serious sober-minded gentlemen; for, besides the friar, they had with them, I wot, a black slave, that is to say not quite black, for I have seen blacker, but a tawny Moor, with silver bracelets on his arms, and a turban on his head."

"How does that show them serious sober-minded gentlemen?" asked the nun.

"Because I fancy they must have been to the Holy Land to fetch him," answered the piper; "but what is more to their credit than all else, they love minstrels, for the young lord at their head gave me a York groat, which is more than I had taken in all the fair."

"Minstrels!" cried the nun, with a toss of her head. "Marry! call'st thou thyself a minstrel, piper?"

But before her companion could reply, three men rode into the little circle, formed by the houses upon the green, and approached the great portal of the abbey. One of these, by his dress and appearance, seemed to be a principal servant in the house of some great man. Another was an ordinary groom; but the third was altogether of a different appearance, being a man of almost gigantic stature, dressed in oriental costume, with which, his brown skin, strongly-marked features, and large deep black eyes, were in perfect harmony. He wore a crooked scimitar by his side, a short cane spear was in his hand, and his seat in the saddle of the beautiful black horse he rode would have distinguished him at once as the native of another land. He was magnificently dressed, as was usually the case with the eastern slaves, of which not a few were to be found in Europe, even at that time; for although the epidemic madness of the crusades was over, yet the malady from time to time attacked a number of individuals, and we find that towards the end of the fifteenth century, between two and three hundred thousand persons were assembled from different countries in Rome, with the professed object of making war upon the infidels. They were without leaders, undertook little, and executed less; but if one of the noblemen or gentlemen, who set out upon those wild enterprises, could bring home with him two or three Mahommedan slaves, he thought he had performed a great feat, and judged himself worthy of the name of a crusader.

The very approach of a follower of Mahound, however, was an abomination to the good nun, who had never seen such a thing before; and, taking a step back at the aspect of the Moor, she crossed herself devoutly. "Sancta Clara, ora pro nobis," she uttered devoutly, and seemed to derive both consolation and courage from the ejaculation; for she maintained her ground, although the Moor rode close up to her with his companions--nay, she even examined his garb with a critical eye, and internally pronounced the yellow silk, of which his gabardine was composed, the most beautiful she had ever seen in her life.

She was not subjected to the shock of any conversation with the infidel however; for the person who addressed her was the good-looking elderly man, dressed as one of the principal servants of a high family. Dismounting from his horse with due decorum, he presented a letter for the lady abbess, and requested that it might be conveyed to her immediately, saying, that he would wait there for an answer.

The nun pressed him to enter the court and take some refreshment in the visitors' lodging, looking askance at the Moor all the time, and seeming to doubt whether she ought to include him in the invitation. The steward, or whatever he might be, declined, however, stating that he must return immediately when he had received an answer, as to whether the lady abbess would extend her hospitality to his lord; and the nun, usurping the function of the porteress, carried in the letter herself. An answer was soon brought, by word of mouth, that the Lord Chartley and his friends were right welcome; and the servants departed on the road by which they came. Cooks and scullions were immediately put in requisition, and all the good things which the woodman had sent up were speedily being converted into delicate dishes for the table of the guests.

Such a scene had not been displayed in the kitchen of the abbey since the visitation of the bishop; but hour after hour passed by without the arrival of the expected company, till the cooks began to fear that the supper would be spoilt; and the beggars, who had lingered about the gate, in the hope of alms, grew weary of waiting, and dropped off one by one. It was not till the sun had set, and the whole sky was grey, that a distant trumpet was heard, and the sacristan of the chapel, from one of the highest towers, perceived a dark and indistinct mass which might be men and horses coming up the slope of the hill.

CHAPTER V.

Much did the good nuns wonder, why and wherefore such splendid preparations had been made by the abbess, for the reception of a young nobleman and his companions, none of whom, as far as they knew, bore any prominent part in the state. Had it been a bishop, a mitred abbot, or even a dean, they could have understood such a magnificent reception. A duke or a prince would have been worthy of it; but, "Who was Lord Chartley? What claim had he upon the abbey?"

If they were surprised, however, at that which went on in the kitchen--and they all found out sooner or later what was taking place there--previous to the arrival of the guests; if they commented upon the arrangements made for feasting the number of forty in the strangers' hall, while the abbess herself with the old prioress, who was as deaf as a post, proposed to entertain the principal visitors in a room apart, how much more were they surprised when, on its being announced that the train was approaching, the lady herself went out into the court, with her two nieces, and her usual attendants upon state occasions, and waited nearly opposite the principal door of the chapel to receive her visitors in form. Much did they remark upon these facts; and much did they whisper among themselves; but still the abbess pursued her course, though, it must be confessed, it was with some degree of perturbation, which was very evident, in a slight degree of nervousness of manner, and in a variation of colour which was not common with her.

She was not kept in the court long before the first horseman rode through the portal; and, without waiting for grooms or horse-boys to come up, the young Lord Chartley himself sprang to the ground, and advancing with an easy and graceful air, bonnet in hand, paid his respects to the superior of the convent. Nay, more, with a gay light sort of gallantry, fitted perhaps rather for the court than the cloister, he pressed his lips upon the hand of the abbess, and looked very much as if he would willingly have made them acquainted with the cheeks of the two beautiful girls by whom she was accompanied.

"A thousand thanks, dear lady," he said, "for your kindly welcome. Let me crave pardon for having detained you so long; but some business stopped us by the way. Let me present to you my friends, Sir Charles Weinants, a wise and sage negotiator, deep in the secret mysteries of courts, and most discreet in all his doings--trust him with no secrets, lady," he added, laughing; "for though he may not betray them, he will use them as his high policy may dictate. Then here is Sir Edward Hungerford, the pink of all perfection and the winner of all hearts, the web of whose courtesy is the most superfine, and who is very dangerous to all ladies not under vows. Then here again is my friend, Sir William Arden, whose character you must not take from himself, whose looks are rougher than his intentions, and his words harder than his heart."

"And his heart harder than your head, my good lord," said the gentleman of whom he last spoke, who had just dismounted from his horse. "Marry! my lady abbess, I only wonder how you let such a rattle-pated young lordling within your gates. I would not, if I were you; and were he to ride twenty miles further before he got his supper it would do him good."

"Not so, I think," said Sir Edward Hungerford. "I never knew any good come to a man by riding without his supper, especially when he left bright eyes and beautiful faces behind him;" and, after fixing his look for a moment upon the abbess herself, he glanced meaningly to the faces of her two companions.

"Peace, peace, my children," said the elder lady. "I must not let you forget where you are, and what ears hear you. This is no court, or hall, or place of light amusement. Cease your fine speeches then, and remember this is the abbey of Atherston St. Clare."

"Ay, he would soon make it a ribald's den," said Sir William Arden, bluffly; "but you have forgot the priest, my lord. You should make all reverend people acquainted with each other."

"True, true!" cried Lord Chartley. "This my dear lady, is a very reverend friend of mine, called Father William, who has lived long in foreign lands. Let me recommend him to your especial care and kindness; for he has but feeble health, and will partake of your hospitality for the night, while we, I grieve to say, are forced to ride forward by the moonlight."

He laid strong emphasis on some of his words; and the abbess raised her eyes to the face of the friar, who was gazing at her with a calm and steady look. A glance however seemed enough, for she instantly turned her eyes away again, welcoming the priest in vague and general terms. She then proceeded to explain to Lord Chartley and his companions, that, as they had come so late, they must put off their meal till after compline, which would be in half an hour. The service in the chapel, she said, at which she invited them all to attend, would occupy about ten minutes, and in the mean time she gave them over to the lay officers of the abbey, who would attend to their comfort and convenience. After compline, she added, she would receive the gentlemen who had been introduced to her, to sup in the small parlour, while the rest of the party would be entertained in the hall.

Having given this explanation, she was about to retire; but Lord Chartley, following her a few steps, said something in a low voice, to which she replied:--

"Certainly, my son. You will find me at the grate in five minutes. That passage to the left will lead you."

"There now," exclaimed Sir Edward Hungerford, who had remarked his companion's proceedings. "Chartley is asking her if she can spare him one of those two fair girls to solace his moonlight ride to Leicester. 'Tis thus he always forestalls the market. Upon my life he should give us poor knights a fair chance."

"You would spoil the fairest chance on earth, with your foppery," said Sir William Arden, a strong-built dark-complexioned man of about forty. "The bargain is soon struck at all events, for here he comes;" and the young nobleman, having rejoined the rest, followed some of the servants of the abbey to the rooms allotted to them, where ewers and towels were prepared to wash before the evening meal.

A very few minutes afterwards, the young Lord Chartley crossed the court, and ascended to the grate across the parlour. There was nobody there; and he looked to the great bell, hesitating whether he should ring it or not. Before he decided, however, a light appeared on the other side; and the abbess presented herself, preceded by a nun bearing a taper, who departed as soon as she had set down the light. Lord Chartley was not a man to hesitate or stumble at any step he was inclined to take; but, for an instant, he did hesitate on the present occasion; and, as the abbess hesitated too, the conversation seemed not likely to begin very soon.

The silence indeed continued so long, that at length the young lord began to feel there was something ridiculous in it; and, bursting into a gay laugh, he said, "Pardon my merriment, lady, for I cannot help feeling that it is very absurd to stand thinking of what I shall say, like a school-boy, though the subject I wish to speak upon is a serious one. I almost hoped that you would have helped me, for I could not but think that there was a glance of recognition in your eyes, when I introduced to you one of my companions below."

"Nay, my son," replied the abbess; "it was for you to speak. I could not tell that you yourself had cognizance of what you were doing."

"Then you did remember him?" exclaimed Lord Chartley. "That is all well! One part of the difficulty is over, and the greatest. You know that his liberty, if not his life, is in peril, if he is discovered. Yet it is needful that he should remain in this neighbourhood for some days, if possible; and he has directed me to ask if you will give him protection, and, should need be, concealment, on account of friendships long ago."

"Tell him, my lord, I would do so at peril of my life," replied the abbess; "but, at the same time, it is right he should know to what security he trusts. The walls of the abbey are strong and solid; but, alas, we have not men enough within call, to defend them in case of need; and I have been warned that King Richard's people are hunting for him shrewdly. Should they track him here, they may use force which I cannot resist."

"Then, dear lady, you will be free from all blame, if you are compelled to give him up," replied Lord Chartley. "Force cannot be resisted without force; and no one can be censured for yielding to necessity, just as a very brave dog may well turn tail at a lion."

"Nay, my good lord, not quite so," replied the abbess. "We poor women know that wit will often baffle strength; and I think I can provide for his safety, even should the gates be forced and the abbey searched. There is a way out, which no one knows nor can discover but myself and two others. By it I can convey him into the heart of the wood, where it would take an army, or a pack of hounds, to find him. I can provide guidance and assistance for him, and I trust that we can set his persecutors at nought, though there may be some peril and some anxiety. Pray tell him all this, that he may consider and choose what he will do."

"Good faith, he has no choice," answered Lord Chartley, "but this, or to go forward to Leicester, into the very lion's mouth. He is brave enough in a good cause, as you would see, if you knew amidst what perils he travels even now."

"Ay, my lord, of that I would fain inquire," replied the nun. "'Tis needful to be cautious--very cautious--in times and circumstances like these; and not even to you would I have said aught of my remembrance, had you not spoken first. Now, tell me, do your companions know aught of who it is that journeys with them?"

"Not one of them," replied the young lord, "unless it be the subtle Sir Charles Weinants; and he affects to see nothing. I have some doubts of him indeed; and if it be as I think, he and the bishop have been playing a game against each other during our whole journey for somewhat mighty stakes. If you can but give our friend security for three days he has won the game."

"God grant it," cried the abbess; "and, with the help of the Blessed Virgin, I hope we shall succeed; but I much fear, my noble son, that what we are this day doing may call down upon us the wrath of Richard of Gloucester."

"I trust not, I trust not, dear lady," replied the young lord. "Were I and my companions and all our train to stay, it might indeed create suspicion; but no one will or can know that we leave the good priest here to-night, so that, if any doubts have arisen, pursuit will follow us in the first place, rather than turn towards the abbey. This is in truth the reason why I ride on to-night. I would rather lure enmity away from you, believe me, than bring it upon you. But, I trust there is no danger. Everything seemed calm and peaceful, when we left Tamworth--no men at arms about, no appearance of doubt or suspicion."

"I do not know, my son. I do not know," replied the abbess. "I had warning of your coming last night. I had warning, too, that danger might follow."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Lord Chartley, with a look of much surprise. "This is strange news. May I ask who was your informant?"

"One whom I can trust well," answered the abbess, "though he be a man of humble station; none other than our chief woodman, John Boyd. By one means or another, he learns all that takes place in the country round; and he gave me notice, not only that you were on the way hither, but that you had one with you to whom I should be called upon to give refuge, and for whose safety I must provide. It is to this very man's care and guidance, in case of need, that I must trust the bishop."

"Hush!" cried Lord Chartley, looking round. "Let us mention no names. I am called rash and careless, light and over-gay, but, where a friend's safety is at stake, I must be more thoughtful than I would be for myself. Pardon me for my asking if you are very sure of this good man."

The abbess gave him every assurance in her power, bringing forward all those strong motives for trusting the woodman, which were quite conclusive in her eyes, as they would indeed have been in the eyes of most other ladies, but which did not seem to satisfy her young but more experienced companion. He asked where the woodman lived, and mused; then enquired how long he had been in the service of the abbey; and was still putting questions when the bell for compline rang, and the abbess was forced to retire.

On descending to the court, Lord Chartley found Sir Charles Weinants and the priest, walking up and down before the chapel, not conversing together indeed, for the latter seemed somewhat silent and gloomy. With him the young nobleman much desired to speak; but he thought that it might be dangerous to connect his conference with the abbess in any degree with the priest, even by addressing him immediately afterwards; and therefore, turning at once to Sir Charles Weinants, he exclaimed: "Now, Weinants, let us into the chapel. It is quite dark; and I am somewhat eager for our supper, to fortify us against our evening's ride."

The priest said not a word, but followed the other two as they advanced towards the place of worship, from which the light of tapers and the sweet tones of the chant were beginning to pour forth.

"I am hungry too," replied Weinants, "and agree with you, my good lord, that a good supper is a very necessary preparation for a long ride. I hope they will sing quick, for by my faith, even from Tamworth here, I find, has been a good medicine for a slow digestion. You need not look round for the others. They are all in waiting eagerly for this grace before meat--except indeed your infidel, who was lolling in the stable with his arms round his horse's neck. I should not wonder if the beast were a princess in disguise, changed into that shape by some friendly magician, in order that she might share his captivity."

"The most probable thing in the world," replied Chartley, "but undoubtedly, were I in his place, I should prefer my lady mistress with less hair upon her face; but come, let us cease our jokes; for here we are; and you will perhaps scandalize our reverend friend here."

Thus saying, they entered the chapel and placed themselves by one of the pillars while the service proceeded.

If the ceremonial observances of the Romish church are many, the services have at all events the advantage of being brief; and, on this occasion, the visitors of the abbey were detained for even a shorter space of time than the abbess had mentioned. As soon as the last notes of the chant were over, the abbess and her nuns retired from their latticed gallery; and then, for the first time, she notified to her nieces that she expected them to assist her in entertaining her guests.

"Oh, my dear aunt, pray excuse me," exclaimed Iola, while Constance submitted quite quietly. "I would rather a thousandfold sup alone in the penitential cell, than with all these men. They have frightened me out of my wits once to-night already, especially that gay gossamer-looking youth, whom the young lord called Hungerford."

"I must have it so, Iola," replied her aunt. "I have my reasons for it, so no nonsense, child. As for men," she continued, resuming a gayer tone, "you will soon find, when more accustomed to them, they are not such furious wild beasts as they seem. With them, as with bulls and dogs, they are only dangerous to those who are frightened at them. Treat them boldly and repel them sharply, and they soon come fawning and crouching at your feet. Man is a very contemptible animal, my dear child, if you did but know all. However, you shall sit beside the priest--between him and the young lord, so you will escape the other, who is but one of the empty courtiers of the day, such as I recollect them in my youth--a sort of thing that a woman of spirit could squeeze to death as she would a wasp in a hawking-glove. I dare say Constance does not fear him."

"I would rather not sit near him," replied the other quietly. "His perfumes make me sick. I would rather not live next door neighbour to a civet cat. Let me entertain the bluff old gentleman, aunt. His rough speeches are much more pleasant to my ear than all the other's soft sayings."

"Don't call him old to his face, Constance," replied her aunt, "or his sayings will be rough enough, depend upon it. Why I do not think he is forty, child; and no man ever thinks himself old till he has told up to seventy, and then he begins to fancy he is growing aged, and had better begin to lead a new life."

The two girls laughed gaily; and in a few minutes they were seated, as had been arranged, at the plentiful table which had been prepared for their aunt's distinguished guests. I will not pause upon the feast. The reader is well aware of the abundant provision which had been made by the worthy woodman, and would be but little edified to hear of the strange ways in which the various dishes were dressed, or the odd sauces with which they were savoured.

The meal, as was usual in those days, lasted a long while; and the conversation was somewhat more gay and lively than one would be inclined to imagine was common within the walls of a convent. At first, indeed, it was somewhat stiff and restrained; but there was a gay, careless, happy spirit in the bosom of the young nobleman, who sat beside the abbess, which soon banished the restraint of fresh acquaintance, and made every one feel as if they had known him for years. This was less difficult to effect with the elder lady than with Iola who sat on his other hand; but even she could not resist the current long; and a certain degree of timidity, the natural fruit of retirement from the world, gave way under the influence of his cheerful tone, till she caught herself laughing and talking gaily with him, and suffering unconsciously all the fresh thoughts of a bright pure heart to well forth like the waters of a spring. She paused and blushed deeply, when first she suddenly discovered that such was the case; and, bending down his head, for the conversation at the moment was general and loud, he said, with a kind and graceful smile, but in a low tone--

"Nay, nay, close not the casket! The jewels are well worthy of being seen."

"I know not what you mean, my lord;" she said, blushing more deeply than before.

"I mean," he answered, "that, judging by your look and sudden pause, I think you have just found out that the door of the heart and the mind has been partly opened to the eye of a stranger,--though it is but by a chink,--and I would fain have you not close it against him, with the key of cold formality. In a word, let us go on as if you had not made the discovery, and do not draw back into yourself, as if you were afraid of letting your real nature come abroad lest it should take cold."

Whether she would or not, a smile came upon her lip; and, after a minute's pause, she answered frankly--

"Well, I will not. It is but for a little time that it can take the air."

At that moment the general conversation seemed to drop; and Lord Chartley saw the eye of the abbess turned towards him.

"It is excellent good," he said aloud, "made into a pie; but, I hate pasties of all kinds, if it be but for hiding under a thick crust the good things they contain. Nevertheless, it is excellent good."

"What?" asked the abbess.

"A squirrel," replied Lord Chartley. "Oh, there is nothing like your gay clambering nutcracker, who scrambles about from branch to branch, drinking the dew of heaven, leaping through the free air, and feeding on the topmost fruits, of which he must ever crack the shell to get at the kernel. He is excellent in a pasty, I assure you. Is he not, Hungerford?"

"Exceeding good," answered the knight, from the other side of the table; "but a young pea-fowl is better."

In this sort of conversation passed the time; and Iola, to say sooth, was amused and pleased. She did not, however, forget to show kind attention to the friar on her right; and he, on his part, seemed pleased and interested by her manner towards him. He spoke little, indeed; but all that he did say was powerful and pointed. Iola, however, could not but remark that he eat hardly anything, while the others seemed to enjoy the dainties prepared for them highly; and she pressed him kindly to take more food.

"I am much fatigued, my daughter," he said aloud, "and do not feel well to-night. The less, therefore, I take perhaps the better."

Lord Charley instantly caught at the words--

"Nay, good father," he said, "were it not better for you to take a little repose in your chamber, before we ride? I have marked all the evening that you seemed ill."

"Perhaps it were as well," answered the friar, rising; "but let me not abridge your enjoyment. I will find my way to my lodging and lie down for a while;" and, thus saying, he quitted the room.

The slightest possible smile curled the lip of Sir Charles Weinants. It passed away instantly; but it had been remarked; and, being the most discreet man in the world, he felt that the smile was an indiscretion, and, to cover it, asked in a gay but ordinary tone--

"Why, what is the matter with the friar? You have knocked him up, my excellent lord, with your quick travelling. The poor man, I should think, is not accustomed to the back of a hard-trotting horse; and we rode those last ten miles in less than an hour."

"He seems, indeed, a good deal tired," replied Chartley; "but I think it was yesterday's journey, rather than to-day's, that so much fatigued him. We rode full forty miles before we met with you, and five or six afterwards. You know, I never think, Weinants, or I should have had more compassion."

Here the conversation dropped; and, after sitting at table for about half an hour longer, the whole party rose, and Lord Chartley bade a graceful adieu to the abbess, saying--

"I trust that my poor friend, father William, is by this time well enough to proceed."

"Can you not leave him here, my son?" said the abbess. "He shall be well tended, and gladly entertained."

"Oh, no, no;" replied the young nobleman. "I dare say he is well enough now; and I am bound to my own paternal castle, dear lady, and about to establish for the first time therein a regular household. I must take him with me; therefore, if it be possible, for an almoner is the first great requisite. Farewell then, with many grateful thanks for your hospitality. I will not forget the subjects on which we spoke; and they shall have immediate attention."

CHAPTER VI.

The trumpet sounded on the green beyond the walls; and by torch and lantern light the young lord and his companions mounted in the court before the chapel, and rode forth to join their attendants, after bestowing some rich gifts upon the abbey. Though the sky was not unclouded, for there were large masses of heavy vapour rolling across the southern part of the horizon, and the night was much warmer than that which had preceded, auguring rain to the minds of the weather-wise, yet the moon was bright and clear, displaying every object upon the little green as clearly almost as if it had been day. Though not very fond of deeds of darkness, young Lord Chartley perhaps might have wished the beams of the fair planet not quite so bright. At all events, he seemed in a great hurry to proceed upon his journey, without any very strict inspection of his band; for he exclaimed at once--

"Now, Arden; now, Weinants; let us on at a quick canter. We shall sleep well tonight."

But the eye of Sir Charles Weinants scanned the party by the moonlight more accurately than that of his companion; and he demanded aloud--

"Why, where is the friar?"

"He is too unwell to ride on to-night. He will follow to-morrow," said Lord Chartley, in a careless tone; and, striking his horse with the spur, he proceeded, but not before he had remarked Sir Charles Weinants make a very particular sign to one of his own attendants. The knight raised his finger to his lips, pointed with his thumb to the abbey, and then held up two fingers of the same hand. No sooner was this done than he shook his rein, and followed his companion, apparently unconscious that he had been observed.

For a minute or two the young lord seemed uneasy, riding on in silence, and frequently giving a sharp glance round to those who came behind; but he soon recovered his equanimity, I might say cheerfulness, for he laughed and talked gaily with those around him, especially when they came to that part of the road where, passing through the forest, it ascended a hill so steep that the pace of the horses was necessarily slackened. Sir Charles Weinants, for his part, joined in, with his quiet gentlemanly cheerfulness, and seemed perfectly free and unembarrassed.

The subject of their conversation, it is true, was not a very merry one; for they soon began to speak of the discovery of a dead man lying on that very road, the night before--killed, as was supposed, by a fall from his horse--an account of which they had received at the abbey, where the corpse was still lying. Light-hearted superficial man, however, rarely suffers any event which happens to his neighbours to produce any very deep or permanent impression on himself; and it is wonderful how merry that party of gentlemen made themselves with the fate of the dead man.

"See what it is to go too fast, Weinants," said Lord Chartley. "Doubtless this fellow was riding a hired horse, and thought he might ride him, up hill and down dale, as hard as he liked; and so the poor beast threw him to get rid of an unpleasant burden."

"Served him quite right, I dare say," said bluff Sir William Arden.

"Why, how can you know, Arden?" demanded Sir Edward Hungerford, who was riding his own beast in the most delicate and approved manner of the times. "He might be as virtuous as an anchorite for aught you know."

"The best man that ever lived," answered Arden, "deserves every hour to break his neck, and worse too; and there never yet was a king's courier, which they say this was, who is not worthy of the pillory from the moment he puts the livery on his back. A set of vermin. I wish I had but the purifying of the court. You would see very few ears, or noses either, walking about the purlieus of the palace; and as for couriers, I'd set them upon horseback, and have relays of men behind them, to flog them on from station to station, for two or three thousand miles, till they dropped off dead from fatigue and starvation--I would indeed. They should neither have meat, nor drink, nor sleep, nor rest, till they expired."

Lord Chartley laughed, for he knew his friend well; and Sir Charles Weinants enquired--

"Why, what do the poor wretches do, to merit such high indignation, Arden?"

"Do!" exclaimed the other. "What do they not do? Are they not the petty tyrants of every inn and every village? Do they not think themselves justified by the beastly livery they wear, to rob every host and every farmer, to pay for nothing that they take, to drink ale and wine gratis, to kiss the daughter, seduce the wife, and ride the horses to death, because they are on a king's service, forsooth--out upon the whole race of them. We have not a punishment within the whole scope of our criminal law that is not too good for them."

"Hush, hush, Arden," cried Lord Chartley, laughing again; "if you do not mind, Weinants will tell the king; and it will be brought in high treason."

"How so, how so?" demanded Sir William Arden, with a start; for the very name of high treason was a serious affair in those days, when the axe was seldom long polished before it was dimmed again with human blood.

"Why, do you not know the old proverb, 'like master like man?'" asked Chartley; "so that if you abuse the king's couriers you abuse the king himself. It seems to me constructive treason at all events. What say you, Hungerford?"

"Very shocking indeed," said the gentleman whom he addressed, yawning heartily; "but I hate all couriers too. They are very unsavoury fellows, give you their billets with hot hands, and bring a hideous smell of horse flesh and boot leather into the chamber with them. I always order those who come to me to be kept an hour in a chill ante-room, to cool and air themselves."

From the characters of all who surrounded him, Lord Chartley seemed to draw no little amusement; but still, it would appear, his eye was watchful, and his ear too; for, when they had ridden about a couple of miles through the wood, and were in a shady place, where the beams of the moon did not penetrate, he suddenly reined in his horse, exclaiming--

"Some one has left the company--Hark! Who is that riding away?"

"Faith, I know not," said Sir Charles Weinants.

"I hear nobody," replied Hungerford.

"There go a horse's feet, nevertheless," cried Sir William Arden.

"Gentlemen all, have you sent any one back?" demanded the young baron, in a stern tone.

A general negative was the reply; and Chartley exclaimed--

"Then, by the Lord, I will find him. Ride on, gentlemen, ride on. I will overtake you soon."

"Let me come with you, my good lord," said Sir William Arden.

"No, no, I will find him, and deal with him alone," replied the young lord; and, turning his head to add--"You can wait for me at Hinckley if you will," he spurred on sharply, on the road which led back towards the abbey. The party whom he left remained gathered together for a moment, in surprise at the rapidity and the strangeness of his movements.

"In the name of fortune," cried Sir Edward Hungerford, "why does he not take somebody with him?"

"Every one knows his own business best," said Arden gruffly.

"Hush! hush!" said Sir Charles Weinants. "Let us hear which way he takes."

Now at the distance of perhaps two hundred yards behind them, the road through the wood divided into two; that on the left, by which they had come, leading direct to the abbey and its little hamlet; that on the right pursuing a somewhat circuitous course towards the small town of Atherston. The footfalls of Lord Chartley's horse, as he urged him furiously on, could be clearly heard as soon as Sir Charles Weinants had done speaking; and a moment after they seemed to take a direction to the right. The party still paused and listened, however, till it became clear by the sounds that the young nobleman had gone upon the road to Atherston.

Then Sir Charles Weinants drew a deep breath, and said, in an easy tone: "Well, let us ride on. We can wait for him at Hinckley. Doubtless, he is safe enough."

Sir William Arden seemed to hesitate; and Lord Chartley's steward said in a doubtful tone: "I think we ought to wait for my lord."

"You heard what he said himself," replied Sir Charles Weinants. "Our business is to go slowly on, and wait for him at Hinckley, if he does not overtake us by the way."

So was it in the end determined, and the party proceeded at a foot pace in the direction which they had before been taking. Mile after mile they rode on without being overtaken by their companion, every now and then pausing for a minute or two, to listen for his horse's feet, and then resuming their progress, till at length they arrived at Hinckley. They entered the inn yard, just at the moment that the carriers from Ashby de la Zouche to Northampton usually presented themselves with their packhorses; and they instantly had out landlord and ostlers, and all the retinue of the inn, with lanterns in abundance.

"Stay!" said Sir William Arden, as the attendants were hurrying to dismount, and lead their lords' horses to the stables. "Please Heaven, we will see who it is that is wanting."

"No need of that," exclaimed Sir Charles Weinants. "We shall learn soon enough, no doubt."

But the good knight, who was a steady campaigner, and one of the best soldiers of his day, adhered tenaciously to his purpose, ordered the gates of the inn-yard to be closed, and the doors of the house and of the stables to be shut and locked. He next insisted that the servants should draw up in separate bodies, the attendants of each master in a distinct line, and then made the ostlers carry their lanterns along the face of each.

"One of your men is wanting, Sir Charles Weinants," he said at length. "It must have been he who rode away, and left his company in the forest."

"More fool, or more knave he," replied Sir Charles Weinants, coolly. "He shall be punished for his pains by losing his wages. But, if I am not mistaken, there is another wanting too. Where is Lord Chartley's Moor? I have not seen him for some time, and do not perceive him now."

"He staid behind in the wood, Sir Charles," replied one of the servants, "to look after the noble lord. He said--let go who would, he would stay there."

"Perhaps my man staid for the same purpose?" said Sir Charles Weinants.

"No, sir," answered another of the servants, attached to Sir William Arden. "He left us some minutes before Lord Chartley, while we were still riding on through the forest."

"Well, gentlemen, I shall remain here till my friend comes," said Arden, in a marked tone; "for I do not altogether like this affair."

"And I shall stay, because I have had riding enough for one day; and the inn looks comfortable," said Sir Edward Hungerford.

"I shall ride on, as soon as my horses have been fed and watered," rejoined Sir Charles Weinants, in a cold resolute tone; "because I have business of importance which calls me to Leicester."

His determination did not seem very pleasant to Sir William Arden, who looked at him steadily for a moment, from under his bent brows, and then walked once or twice up and down the court, without ordering the doors of the stables to be opened.