CHAPTER II.
Patient _yourself_, madam, and pardon _me_.--Shakspere.
Now, doubtless, every romance-reading person into whose hands thisbook may fall will conclude and determine, and feel perfectlyconvinced in their own minds, that the scream mentioned in the lastchapter announces no less important a being than the heroine of thetale, and will be very much surprised, as well as disappointed, tohear that when the traveller rode through the open gate into thelittle garden attached to the cottage, he perceived a group whichcertainly did not derive any interest it might possess from the gracesof youth and beauty. It consisted simply of an old woman, of thepoorest class, striving, with weak hands, to stay a stout, rosy youth,of mean countenance but good apparel, from repeating a buffet he hadbestowed upon the third person of the group, a venerable old man, whoseemed little calculated to resist his violence. Angry words wereevidently still passing on both parts, and before the traveller couldhear to what they referred, the youth passed the woman, and struck theold man a second blow, which levelled him with the ground.
If one might judge from that traveller's appearance, he had seen manya sight of danger and of horror; but there was something in the viewof the old man's white hair, mingling with the mould of the earth,that blanched his cheek, and made his blood run cold. In a moment hewas off his horse, and by the young man's side. "How now, sirvillain!" cried he, "art thou mad, to strike thy father?"
"He's no father of mine," replied the sturdy youth, turning away hishead with a sort of dogged feeling of shame. "He's no father of mine;I'm better come."
"Better come, misbegotten knave!" cried the traveller; "then thyfather might blush to own thee. Strike an old man like that! Get theegone, quick, lest I flay thee!"
"Get thee gone thyself!" answered the other, his feeling ofreprehension being quickly fled; and turning sharply round, with anair of effrontery which nought but the insolence of office couldinspire, he added: "Who art thou, with thy get thee gones? I am herein right of Sir Payan Wileton, to turn these old vermin out; so getthee gone along with them!" And he ran his eye over the stranger'ssimple garb with a sneer of sturdy defiance.
The traveller gazed at him for a moment, as if in astonishment at hisdaring; then, with a motion as quick as light, laid one hand upon theyeoman's collar, the other upon the thick band of his kersey slopbreeches, raised him from the ground, and giving him one swing back,to allow his arms their full sweep, he pitched him at once over thelow wall of the garden into the heath-bushes beyond.
Without affording a look to his prostrate adversary, the strangerproceeded to assist the old man in rising, and amidst the blessings ofthe good dame, conveyed him into the cottage. He then returned to thelittle garden, lest his horse should commit any ravages upon thescanty provision of the old couple (for he was, it seems, too good asoldier even to allow his horse to live by plunder), and while tyinghim to the gate-post, his eye naturally turned to the bushes intowhich he had thrown his opponent.
The young man had just risen on his feet, and in unutterable rage, wasstamping furiously on the ground; without, however, daring to re-enterthe precincts from which he had been so unceremoniously ejected. Thestranger contented himself with observing that he was not much hurt;and after letting his eye dwell for a moment on the cognisance of aserpent twined round a crane, which was embroidered on the yeoman'scoat, he again entered the cottage, while the other proceeded slowlyover the common, every now and then turning round to shake hisclenched fist towards the garden, in the last struggles of impotentpassion.
"Well, good father, how fares it with thee?" demanded the traveller,approaching the old man. "I fear that young villain has hurt thee."
"Nay, sir, nay," replied the other, "not so; in faith he did notstrike hard: an old man's limbs are soon overthrown. Ah! well, Iremember the day when I would have whacked a score of them. But I'mbroken now. Kate, give his worship the settle. If our boy had seen himlift his hand against his father, 'faith, he'd have broken his pate.Though your worship soon convinced him: God's blessing upon your headfor it!"
The stranger silently sat himself down in the settle, which the oldwoman placed for him with a thousand thanks and gratulations, andsuffered them to proceed undisturbed with all the garrulity of age,while his own thoughts seemed, from some unapparent cause, to havewandered far upon a different track. Whether it was that the swiftwings of memory had retraced in a moment a space that, in the dullmarch of time, had occupied many a long year, or that the lightningspeed of hope had already borne him to a goal which was still farbeyond probability's short view, matters little. Most likely it wasone or the other; for the present is but a point to which but littlethought appertains, while the mind hovers backwards and forwardsbetween the past and the future, expending the store of its regretsupon the one, and wasting all its wishes on the other. He awoke with asigh. "But tell me," said he to the old man, "what was the cause ofall this?"
"Why, heaven bless your worship!" replied the cottager, who had beentalking all the time, "I have just been telling you."
"Nay, but I mean, why you came to live here?" said the traveller, "forthis is but a poor place;" and he glanced his eye over the interior ofthe cottage, which was wretched enough. Its floor formed of hardenedclay; its small lattice windows, boasting no glass in the wickerframes of which they were composed, but showing in its place some thinplates of horn (common enough in the meaner cottages of those times),admitting but a dull and miserable light to the interior; its barewalls of lath, through the crevices of which appeared the mud that hadbeen plastered on the outside: all gave an air of poverty anduncomfort difficult to find in the poorest English cottage of to-day."I think you said that you had been in better circumstances?"continued the traveller.
"I did not say so, your worship," replied the old man, "but it waseasy to guess; yet for twelve long years have I known little butmisery. I was once gate-porter to my good Lord Fitzbernard, at ChilhamCastle, here hard-by; your worship knows it, doubtless. Oh! 'twas afair place in those days, for my lord kept great state, and never aday but what we had the tilt-yard full of gallants, who would bearaway the ring from the best in the land. My old lord could handle alance well, too, though he waxed aged; but 'twas my young Lord Osbornethat was the darling of all our hearts. Poor youth! he was not thenfourteen, yet so strong, he'd break a lance and bide a buffet with thebest. He's over the seas now, alas! and they say, obliged to win hisfood at the sword's point."
"Nay, how so?" asked the traveller. "If he were heir of ChilhamCastle, how is it he fares so hardly, this Lord Osborne?"
"We call him still Lord Osborne," answered the old woman, "for I washis nurse, when he was young, your worship, and his christened namewas Osborne. But his title was Lord Darnley, by those who called himproperly. God bless him for ever! Now, Richard, tell his honour howall the misfortunes happened."
"'Twill but tire his honour," said the old man. "In his young day hemust have heard how Empson and Dudley, the two blackest traitors thatever England had, went through all the country, picking holes in everyhonest man's coat, and sequestrating their estates, as 'twas thencalled. Lord bless thee, Kate! his worship knows it all."
"I have heard something of the matter, but I would fain understand itmore particularly," said the stranger. "I had learned that thesequestrated estates had been restored, and the fines remitted, sincethis young king was upon the throne."
"Ay, truly, sir, the main part of them," answered the old man; "butthere were some men who, being in the court's displeasure, were notlikely to have justice done them. Such a one was my good lord andmaster, who, they say, had been heard to declare, that he held PerkynWarbeck's title as good as King Harry the Seventh's. So, when theyproved the penal statutes against him, as they called it, instead ofcalling for a fine, which every peasant on his land would have broughthis mite to pay, they took the whole estate, and left him a beggar inhis age. But that was not the worst, for doubtless the whole wouldhave been given back again when the good young king did justice onEmpson a
nd Dudley; but as this sequestration was a malice, and not anavarice like the rest, instead of transferring the estate to theking's own hand, they gave it to one Sir Payan Wileton, who, if ever agallows was made higher than Haman's, would well grace it. This manhas many a friend at the court, gained they say by foul means; andthough much stir was made some eight years agone, by the Lord Staffordand the good Duke of Buckingham, to have the old lord's estates givenback again, Sir Payan was strong enough in abettors to outstand themall, and then----; but I hear horses' feet. 'Tis surely Sir Payan sentto hound me out even from this poor place."
As he spoke, the loud neighing of the stranger's horse announced theapproach of some of his four-footed fraternity, and opening thecottage door, the old man looked forth to ascertain if hisapprehensions were just.
The cloud, however, was cleared off his brow in a moment, by theappearance of the person who rode into the garden.
"Joy, good wife! joy!" cried the old man; "it is Sir Cesar! It is SirCesar! We are safe enough now!"
"Sir Cesar!" cried the traveller; "that is a strange name!" and heturned to the cottage door to examine the person that approached.
Cantering through the garden on a milk-white palfrey, adorned withblack leather trapping, appeared a little old man, dressed in singularbut elegant habiliments. His doublet was of black velvet, his hose ofcrimson stuff, and his boots of buff. His cloak was black like hiscoat, but lined with rich miniver fur, of which also was his bonnet.He wore no arms except a small dagger, the steel hilt of whichglittered in his girdle; and to turn and guide his palfrey he made useof neither spur nor rein, but seemed more to direct than urge him witha peeled osier stick, with which he every now and then touched theanimal on either ear.
His person was as singular as his dress. Extremely diminutive instature, his limbs appeared well formed, and even graceful. He was nota dwarf, but still considerably below the middle size; and though notmisshapen in body, his face had that degree of prominence, and his eyethat keen vivacious sparkle, generally discovered in the deformed. Incomplexion he was swarthy to excess, while his long black hair,slightly mingled with gray, escaped from under his bonnet and fellupon his shoulders. Still, the most remarkable feature was his eye,which, though sunk deep in his head, had a quickness and a fire thatcontradicted the calm, placid expression of the rest of hiscountenance, and seemed to indicate a restless, busy spirit; for,glancing rapidly from object to object, it rested not a moment uponany one thing, but appeared to collect the information it sought withthe quickness of lightning, and then fly off to something new.
In this manner he approached the cottage, his look at first rapidlyrunning over the figures of the two cottagers and their guest; butthen turning to their faces, his eye might be seen scanning everyfeature, and seeming to extract their meaning in an instant: as in thesummer we see the bee darting into every flower, and drawing forth itssweet essence, while it scarcely pauses to fold its wings. It seemedas if the face was to him a book, where each line was written withsome tale or some information, but in a character so legible, and alanguage so well known, that a moment sufficed him for the perusal ofthe whole.
At the cottage-door the palfrey stopped of itself, and slipping downout of the saddle with extraordinary activity, the old gentleman stoodbefore the traveller and his host with that sort of sharp, suddenmotion which startles although expected. The old man and his wifereceived their new guest with reverence almost approaching to awe; butbefore noticing them farther than by signing them each with the cross,he turned directly towards the traveller, and doffing his cap ofminiver, he made him a profound bow, while his long hair, parted fromthe crown, fell over his face and almost concealed it. "Sir OsborneMaurice," said he, "well met!"
The traveller bowed in some surprise to find himself recognised by thesingular person who addressed him. "Truly, sir," he answered, "youhave rightly fallen upon the name I bear, and seem to know me well,though in truth I can boast no such knowledge in regard to you. To myremembrance, this is the first time we have met."
"Within the last thousand years," replied the old man, "we have metmore than a thousand times; but I remember you well before that, whenyou commanded a Roman cohort in the first Punic war."
"He's mad!" thought the traveller, "profoundly insane!" and he turnedan inquiring glance to the old cottager and his wife; but far fromshowing any surprise, they stood regarding their strange visiter withlooks of deep awe and respect. However, the traveller at lengthreplied, "Memory, with me, is a more treacherous guardian of the past;but may I crave the name of so ancient an acquaintance?"
"In Britain," answered the old man, "they call me Sir Cesar; in Spain,Don Cesario; and in Padua, simply Cesario il dotto."
"What!" cried Sir Osborne, "the famous----?"
"Ay, ay!" interrupted the old man; "famous if it may so be called. Butno more of that. Fame is but like a billow on a sandy shore, that whenthe tide is in, it seems a mighty thing, and when 'tis out, 'tisnothing. If I have learned nought beside, I have learned to despisefame."
"That your learning must have taught you far more, needs no fartherproof than your knowledge of a stranger that you never saw, at leastwith human eyes," said Sir Osborne; "and in truth, this your knowledgemakes me a believer in that art which, hitherto, I had held asemptiness."
"Cast from you no ore till you have tried it seven times in the fire,"replied Sir Cesar; "hold nothing as emptiness that you have notessayed. But, hark! bend down thine ear, and thou shalt hear moreanon."
The young traveller bowed his head till his ear was on a level withthe mouth of the diminutive speaker, who seemed to whisper not morethan one word, but that was of such a nature as to make Sir Osbornestart back, and fix his eyes upon him with a look of inquiringastonishment, that brought a smile upon the old man's lip. "There isno magic here," said Sir Cesar: "you shall hear more hereafter. But,hush! come into the cottage, for hunger, that vile earthly want, callsupon me for its due: herein, alas! we are all akin unto the hog:come!"
They accordingly entered the lowly dwelling, and sat down to a smalloaken table placed in the midst; Sir Cesar, as if accustomed tocommand there, seating the traveller as his guest, and demanding ofthe old couple a supply of those things he deemed necessary. "Set downthe salt in the middle, Richard Heartley; now bring the bread; takethe bacon from the pot, dame, and if there be a pompion yet notmouldy, put it down to roast in the ashes. Whet Sir Osborne's dagger,Richard. Is it all done? then sit with us, for herein are men allalike. Now tell me, Richard Heartley, while we eat, what has happenedto thee this morning, for I learn thou hast been in jeopardy."
Thus speaking, he carved the bacon with his dagger, and distributed toevery one a portion, while Sir Osborne Maurice looked on, not a littleinterested in the scene, one of the most curious parts of which wasthe profound taciturnity that had succeeded to garrulity in the twoold cottagers, and the promptitude and attention with which theyexecuted all their guest's commands.
The old gentleman's question seemed to untie Richard Heartley's lips,and he communicated, in a somewhat circumlocutory phrase, that thoughhe had built his house and enclosed his garden on common land, which,as he took it, "was free to every one, yet within the last year SirPayan Wileton had demanded for it a rent of two pounds per annum,which was far beyond his means to pay, as Sir Payan well knew; but hedid it only in malice," the old man said, "because he was the last ofthe good old lord's servants who was left upon the ground; and he, SirPayan, was afraid, that even if he were to die there, his bones wouldkeep possession for his old master; so he wished to drive him awayaltogether."
"Go forth on no account!" interrupted Sir Cesar. "Without he take theeby force and lead thee to the bound, and put thee off, go not beyondthe limits of the lordship of Chilham Castle; neither pay him anyrent, but live house free and land free, as I have commanded you."
"In truth," answered the old man, "he has not essayed to put me off;but he sent his bailiff this morning to demand the rent, and to driveme out of the cottage, and to pull off
the thatch, though our Richard,who has returned from the army beyond the seas, is up at the manor todo him man service for the sum."
"Hold!" cried Sir Cesar, "let thy son do him man service, if he will,but do thou him no man service, and own to him no lordship. Sir PayanWileton has but his day; that will soon be over, and all shall beavenged; own him no lordship, I say!"
"Nay, nay, sir, I warrant you," replied the old man; "'twas even thatthat provoked Peter Wilson, the young bailiff, to strike me, because Isaid Sir Payan was not my lord, and I was not his tenant, and that ifhe stood on right, I had as much a right to the soil as he."
"Strike thee! strike thee! Did he strike thee?" cried Sir Cesar, hissmall black eyes glowing like red-hot coals, and twinkling like starson a frosty night. "Sure he did not dare to strike thee?"
"He felled him, Sir Cesar," cried the old woman, whose tongue couldrefrain no longer; "he felled him to the ground. He, a child I havehad upon my knee, felled old Richard Heartley with a heavy blow!"
"My curse upon him!" cried the old knight, while anger and indignationgave to his features an expression almost sublime; "my curse upon him!May he wither heart and limb like a blasted oak! like it, may he bedry and sapless, when all is sunshine and summer, without a green leafto cover the nakedness of his misery; without flower or fruit may hepass away, and fire consume the rottenness of his core!"
"Oh! your worship, curse him not so deeply; we know how heavy yourcurses fall, and he has had some payment already," said the oldcottager: "this honourable gentleman heard my housewife cry, and cameriding up. So, when he saw the clumsy coward strike a feeble old manlike me, he takes him up by the jerkin and the slops, and casts him asclean over the wall on the heath as I've seen Hob Johnson cast a trussout of a hay-cart."
"Sir Osborne, you did well," said the old knight; "you acted like yourrace. But yet I could have wished that this had not happened; 'twouldhave been better that your coming had not been known to your enemiesbefore your friends, which I fear me will now be the case. He withwhom you have to do is one from whose keen eye nought passes withoutquestion. The fly may as well find its way through the spider's web,without wakening the crafty artist of the snare, as one on whom thatman has fixed his eye may stir a step without his knowing it. Butthere is one who sees more deeply than even he does."
"Yourself, of course," replied Sir Osborne; "and indeed I cannot doubtthat it is so; for I sit here in mute astonishment to find that all Iheld most secret is as much known to you as to myself."
"Oh, this is all simplicity!" replied the old man; "these are nowonders, though I may teach you some hereafter. At present I will tellyou the future, against which you must guard, for your fortune isa-making."
"But if our fate be fixed," said Sir Osborne, "so that even mortaleyes can see it in the stars, prudence and caution, wisdom and action,are in vain; for how can we avoid what is certainly to be?"
"Not so, young man," replied Sir Cesar: "some things are certain, someare doubtful: some fixed by fate, some left to human will; and thosewho see such things are certain, may learn to guide their coursethrough things that are not so. Thus, even in life, my young friend,"he continued, speaking more placidly, for at first Sir Osborne'sobservation seemed to have nettled him; "thus, even in life, eachordinary mortal sees before him but one thing sure, which is death. Ithe cannot avoid; yet, how wholesome the sight to guide us inexistence! So, in man's destiny, certain points are fixed, some ofmighty magnitude, some that seem but trivial; and the rest aredetermined by his own conduct. Yet there are none so clearly markedthat they may not be influenced by man's own will, so that when thestars are favourable he may carry his good fortune to the highestpitch by wisely seizing opportunity; and when they threaten evil ordanger, he may fortify himself against the misfortunes that mustoccur, by philosophy; and guard against the peril that menaces, byprudence. Thus, what study is nobler, or greater, or more beneficial,than that which lays open to the eye the book of fate?"
The impressive tone and manner of the old man, joined even with thesingularity of his appearance, and a certain indescribable, almostunearthly fire, that burned in his eye, went greatly in the minds ofhis hearers to supply any deficiency in the chain of his reasoning.The extraordinary, if it be not ludicrous, is always easilyconvertible into the awful; and where, as in the present instance, itbecomes intimately interwoven with all the doubtful, the mysterious,and the fearful in our state of being, it reaches that point of thesublime to which the heart of every man is most sensible. Those alwayswho see the least of what is true are most likely to be influenced bywhat is doubtful; and in an age where little was certainly known, theremote, the uncertain, and the wild, commanded man's reason by hisimagination.
Sir Osborne Maurice mused. If it be asked whether he believedimplicitly in that art which many persons were then said to possess,of reading in the stars the future fate of individuals or nations, itmay be answered, No. But if it be demanded whether he rejected itabsolutely, equally No. He doubted; and that was a stretch ofphilosophy to which few attained in his day, when the study ofjudicial astrology was often combined with the most profound learningin other particulars; when, as a science, it was considered thehighest branch of human knowledge, and its professors were regarded asalmost proceeding a step beyond the just boundary of earthly research:we might say even more, when they produced such evidence of theirextraordinary powers as might well convince the best-informed of anunlettered age, and which affords curious subjects of inquiry even tothe present time.
In the mean while, Sir Cesar proceeded: "I speak thus as preface towhat I have to tell you; not that I suppose you will be dismayed whenyou hear that immediate danger menaces you, because I know you areincapable of fear; but it is because I would have you wisely guardagainst what I foretell. Know, then, I have learned that you arelikely to be in peril to-morrow, towards noon; therefore, holdyourself upon your guard. Divulge not your proceedings to any one.Keep a watchful eye and a shrewd ear. Mark well your company, and seethat your sword be loose in the sheath."
"Certainly, good Sir Cesar, will I follow your counsel," replied SirOsborne. "But might I not crave that you would afford me fartherinformation, and by showing me what sort of danger threatens me, giveme the means of avoiding it altogether?"
"What you ask I cannot comply with," answered the old man. "Think notthat the book of the stars is like a child's horn-book, where everyword is clearly spelled. Vague and undefined are the signs that wegain. Certain it is, that some danger threatens you; but of whatnature, who can say? Know that, at the same time as yourself, wereborn sixty other persons, to whom the planets bore an equalascendancy; and at the same hour to-morrow, each will undergo someparticular peril. Be you on your guard against yours."
"Most assuredly I will, and I give you many thanks," replied SirOsborne. "But I would fain know for what reason you take an interestin my fate more than in any of the other sixty persons you havementioned."
"How know you that I do so?" demanded Sir Cesar drily. "Perchance hadI met any one of them in this cottage, I might have done him the samegood turn. However, 'tis not so. I own I do take an interest in yourfate, more than that of any mortal being. Look not surprised, youngman, for I have cause: nay more--you shall know more. Mark me! ourfates are united for ever in this world, and I _will_ serve you;though I see, darkling through the obscurity of time, that the momentwhich crowns all your wishes and endeavours is the last that I shalldraw breath of life. Yet your enemy is my enemy, your friends are myfriends, and I will serve you, though I die!"
He rose and grasped Sir Osborne's hand, and fixed his dark eye uponhis face. "'Tis hard to part with existence--the warm ties of life,the soft smiling realities of a world we know--and to begin it allagain in forms we cannot guess. Yet, if my will could alter the law offate, I would not delay your happiness an hour; though I know, I feel,that this thrilling blood must then chill, that this quick heart muststop, that the golden light and the glorious world must fade away; andthat my soul must be parted from its
fond companion of earth for everand for ever. Yet it shall be so. It is said. Reply not! Speak not!Follow me! Hush! hush!" And proceeding to the door of the cottage, hemounted his palfrey, which stood ready, and motioned Sir Osborne to dothe same. The young knight did so in silence, and rode along with himto the garden-gate, followed by the old cottagers. There RichardHeartley, as if accustomed so to do, held out his hand; Sir Cesarcounted into it nine nobles of gold, and proceeded on the road insilence.
Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold Page 3
