The Last of the Barons — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  CHAPTER III. THE PLOT OF THE HOSTELRY--THE MAID AND THE SCHOLAR IN THEIRHOME.

  The country was still disturbed, and the adherents, whether of Henry orthe earl, still rose in many an outbreak, though prevented from swellinginto one common army by the extraordinary vigour not only of Edward,but of Gloucester and Hastings,--when one morning, just after the eventsthus rapidly related, the hostelry of Master Sancroft, in the suburbanparish of Marybone, rejoiced in a motley crowd of customers and topers.

  Some half-score soldiers, returned in triumph from the royal camp, satround a table placed agreeably enough in the deep recess made by thelarge jutting lattice; with them were mingled about as many women,strangely and gaudily clad. These last were all young; one or two,indeed, little advanced from childhood. But there was no expression ofyouth in their hard, sinister features: coarse paint supplied the placeof bloom; the very youngest had a wrinkle on her brow; their formswanted the round and supple grace of early years. Living principally inthe open air, trained from infancy to feats of activity, their muscleswere sharp and prominent, their aspects had something of masculineaudacity and rudeness; health itself seemed in them more loathsomethan disease. Upon those faces of bronze, vice had set its ineffable,unmistaken seal. To those eyes never had sprung the tears of compassionor woman's gentle sorrow; on those brows never had flushed the glow ofmodest shame: their very voices half belied their sex,--harsh and deepand hoarse, their laughter loud and dissonant. Some amongst them werenot destitute of a certain beauty, but it was a beauty of feature with acommon hideousness of expression,--an expression at once cunning,bold, callous, licentious. Womanless through the worst vices of woman,passionless through the premature waste of passion, they stood betweenthe sexes like foul and monstrous anomalies, made up and fashionedfrom the rank depravities of both. These creatures seemed to have newlyarrived from some long wayfaring; their shoes and the hems of theirrobes were covered with dust and mire; their faces were heated, and theveins in their bare, sinewy, sunburned arms were swollen by fatigue.Each had beside her on the floor a timbrel, each wore at her girdle along knife in its sheath: well that the sheaths hid the blades, for notone--not even that which yon cold-eyed child of fifteen wore--but had onits steel the dark stain of human blood!

  The presence of soldiers fresh from the scene of action had naturallybrought into the hostelry several of the idle gossips of the suburb, andthese stood round the table, drinking into their large ears the boastingnarratives of the soldiers. At a small table, apart from the revellers,but evidently listening with attention to all the news of the hour, sata friar, gravely discussing a mighty tankard of huffcap, and ever andanon, as he lifted his head for the purpose of drinking, glancing awanton eye at one of the tymbesteres.

  "But an' you had seen," said a trooper, who was the mouthpiece of hiscomrades--"an' you had seen the raptrils run when King Edward himselfled the charge! Marry, it was like a cat in a rabbit burrow! Easy tosee, I trow, that Earl Warwick was not amongst them! His men, at least,fight like devils!"

  "But there was one tall fellow," said a soldier, setting down histankard, "who made a good fight and dour, and, but for me and mycomrades, would have cut his way to the king."

  "Ay, ay, true; we saved his highness, and ought to have beenknighted,--but there's no gratitude nowadays!"

  "And who was this doughty warrior?" asked one of the bystanders, whosecretly favoured the rebellion.

  "Why, it was said that he was Robin of Redesdale,--he who fought my LordMontagu off York."

  "Our Robin!" exclaimed several voices. "Ay, he was ever a bravefellow--poor Robin!"

  "'Your Robin,' and 'poor Robin,' varlets!" cried the principal trooper."Have a care! What do ye mean by your Robin?"

  "Marry, sir soldier," quoth a butcher, scratching his head, and in ahumble voice, "craving your pardon and the king's, this Master Robinsojourned a short time in this hamlet, and was a kind neighbour, andmighty glib of the tongue. Don't ye mind, neighbours," he added rapidly,eager to change the conversation, "how he made us leave off when we werejust about burning Adam Warner, the old nigromancer, in his den yonder?Who else could have done that? But an' we had known Robin had beena rebel to sweet King Edward, we'd have roasted him along with thewizard!"

  One of the timbrel-girls, the leader of the choir, her arm round asoldier's neck, looked up at the last speech, and her eye followed thegesture of the butcher, as he pointed through the open lattice to thesombre, ruinous abode of Adam Warner.

  "Was that the house ye would have burned?" she asked abruptly.

  "Yes; but Robin told us the king would hang those who took on them theking's blessed privilege of burning nigromancers; and, sure enough,old Adam Warner was advanced to be wizard-in-chief to the king's ownhighness a week or two afterwards."

  The friar had made a slight movement at the name of Warner; he nowpushed his stool nearer to the principal group, and drew his hoodcompletely over his countenance.

  "Yea!" exclaimed the mechanic, whose son had been the innocent cause ofthe memorable siege to poor Adam's dilapidated fortress, related in thefirst book of this narrative"--yea; and what did he when there? Did henot devise a horrible engine for the destruction of the poor,--an enginethat was to do all the work in England by the devil's help?--so that ifa gentleman wanted a coat of mail, or a cloth tunic; if his dame neededa Norwich worsted; if a yeoman lacked a plough or a wagon, or his goodwife a pot or a kettle; they were to go, not to the armourer, and thedraper, and the tailor, and the weaver, and the wheelwright, and theblacksmith,--but, hey presto! Master Warner set his imps a-churning, andturned ye out mail and tunic, worsted and wagon, kettle and pot, spickand span new, from his brewage of vapour and sea-coal. Oh, have I notheard enough of the sorcerer from my brother, who works in the Chepefor Master Stokton, the mercer!--and Master Stokton was one of theworshipful deputies to whom the old nigromancer had the front to boasthis devices."

  "It is true," said the friar, suddenly.

  "Yes, reverend father, it is true," said the mechanic, doffing hiscap, and inclining his swarthy face to this unexpected witness of hisveracity. A murmur of wrath and hatred was heard amongst the bystanders.The soldiers indifferently turned to their female companions. Therewas a brief silence; and, involuntarily, the gossips stretched over thetable to catch sight of the house of so demoniac an oppressor of thepoor.

  "See," said the baker, "the smoke still curls from the rooftop! I heardhe had come back. Old Madge, his handmaid, has bought cimnel-cakes of methe last week or so; nothing less than the finest wheat serves him now,I trow. However, right's right, and--"

  "Come back!" cried the fierce mechanic; "the owl hath kept close in hisroost! An' it were not for the king's favour, I would soon see how thewizard liked to have fire and water brought to bear against himself!"

  "Sit down, sweetheart," whispered one of the young tymbesteres to thelast speaker--

  "Come, kiss me, my darling, Warm kisses I trade for."

  "Avaunt!" quoth the mechanic, gruffly, and shaking off the seductive armof the tymbestere--"avaunt! I have neither liefe nor halfpence for theeand thine. Out on thee!--a child of thy years! a rope's end to thy backwere a friend's best kindness!"

  The girl's eyes sparkled, she instinctively put her hand to her knife;then turning to a soldier by her side, she said, "Hear you that, and sitstill?"

  "Thunder and wounds!" growled the soldier thus appealed to, "morerespect to the sex, knave; if I don't break thy fool's costard withmy sword-hilt, it is only because Red Grisell can take care of herselfagainst twenty such lozels as thou. These honest girls have been to thewars with us; King Edward grudges no man his jolly fere. Speak up forthyself, Grisell! How many tall fellows didst thou put out of their painafter the battle of Losecote?"

  "Only five, Hal," replied the cold-eyed girl, and showing her glitteringteeth with the grin of a young tigress; "but one was a captain. I shalldo better next time; it was my first battle, thou knowest!"

  The more timid of the bystanders exchanged
a glance of horror, and drewback. The mechanic resumed sullenly,--"I seek no quarrel with lass orlover. I am a plain, blunt man, with a wife and children, who are dearto me; and if I have a grudge to the nigromancer, it is because heglamoured my poor boy Tim. See!"--and he caught up a blue-eyed, handsomeboy, who had been clinging to his side, and baring the child's arm,showed it to the spectators; there was a large scar on the limb, and itwas shrunk and withered.

  "It was my own fault," said the little fellow, deprecatingly. Theaffectionate father silenced the sufferer with a cuff on the cheek, andresumed: "Ye note, neighbours, the day when the foul wizard took thislittle one in his arms: well, three weeks afterwards--that very daythree weeks--as he was standing like a lamb by the fire, the good wife'scaldron seethed over, without reason or rhyme, and scalded his arm tillit rivelled up like a leaf in November; and if that is not glamour, whyhave we laws against witchcraft?"

  "True, true!" groaned the chorus.

  The boy, who had borne his father's blow without a murmur, now againattempted remonstrance. "The hot water went over the gray cat, too, butMaster Warner never bewitched her, daddy."

  "He takes his part!--You hear the daff laddy? He takes the oldnigromancer's part,--a sure sign of the witchcraft; but I'll leather itout of thee, I will!" and the mechanic again raised his weighty arm. Thechild did not this time await the blow; he dodged under the butcher'sapron, gained the door, and disappeared. "And he teaches our ownchildren to fly in our faces!" said the father, in a kind of whimper.The neighbours sighed in commiseration.

  "Oh," he exclaimed in a fiercer tone, grinding his teeth, and shakinghis clenched fist towards Adam Warner's melancholy house, "I say again,if the king did not protect the vile sorcerer, I would free the landfrom his devilries ere his black master could come to his help."

  "The king cares not a straw for Master Warner or his inventions, myson," said a rough, loud voice. All turned, and saw the friar standingin the midst of the circle. "Know ye not, my children, that the kingsent the wretch neck and crop out of the palace for having bewitchedthe Earl of Warwick and his grace the Lord Clarence, so that they turnedunnaturally against their own kinsman, his highness? But 'Manus malorumsuos bonos breaket,'--that is to say, the fists of wicked men only whacktheir own bones. Ye have all heard tell of Friar Bungey, my children?"

  "Ay, ay!" answered two or three in a breath,--"a wizard, it's true, anda mighty one; but he never did harm to the poor; though they do say hemade a quaint image of the earl, and--"

  "Tut, tut!" interrupted the friar, "all Bungey did was to try todisenchant the Lord Warwick, whom yon miscreant had spellbound. PoorBungey! he is a friend to the people: and when he found that Master Adamwas making a device for their ruin, he spared no toil, I assure ye, tofrustrate the iniquity. Oh, how he fasted and watched! Oh, how many atime he fought, tooth and nail, with the devil in person, to get at theinfernal invention! for if he had that invention once in his hands, hecould turn it to good account, I can promise ye: and give ye rain forthe green blade and sun for the ripe sheaf. But the fiend got the betterat first; and King Edward, bewitched himself for the moment, would havehanged Friar Bungey for crossing old Adam, if he had not called threetimes, in a loud voice, 'Presto pepranxenon!' changed himself into abird, and flown out of the window. As soon as Master Adam Warner foundthe field clear to himself, he employed his daughter to bewitch the LordHastings; he set brother against brother, and made the king and LordGeorge fall to loggerheads; he stirred up the rebellion; and wherehe would have stopped the foul fiend only knows, if your friend FriarBungey, who, though a wizard as you say, is only so for your benefit(and a holy priest into the bargain), had not, by aid of a good spirit,whom he conjured up in the island of Tartary, disenchanted the king, andmade him see in a dream what the villanous Warner was devising againsthis crown and his people,--whereon his highness sent Master Warner andhis daughter back to their roost, and, helped by Friar Bungey, beat hisenemies out of the kingdom. So, if ye have a mind to save your childrenfrom mischief and malice, ye may set to work with good heart, alwaysprovided that ye touch not old Adam's iron invention. Woe betide ye, ifye think to destroy that! Bring it safe to Friar Bungey, whom ye willfind returned to the palace, and journeyman's wages will be a penny aday higher for the next ten years to come!" With these words the friarthrew down his reckoning, and moved majestically to the door.

  "An' I might trust you!" said Tim's father, laying hold of the friar'sserge.

  "Ye may, ye may!" cried the leader of the tymbesteres, starting up fromthe lap of her soldier, "for it is Friar Bungey himself!"

  A movement of astonishment and terror was universal. "Friar Bungeyhimself!" repeated the burly impostor. "Right, lassie, right; and he nowgoes to the palace of the Tower, to mutter good spells in King Edward'sear,--spells to defeat the malignant ones, and to lower the price ofbeer. Wax wobiscum!"

  With that salutation, more benevolent than accurate, the friar vanishedfrom the room; the chief of the tymbesteres leaped lightly on the table,put one foot on the soldier's shoulder, and sprang through the openlattice. She found the friar in the act of mounting a sturdy mule, whichhad been tied to a post by the door.

  "Fie, Graul Skellet! Fie, Graul!" said the conjurer "Respect for myserge. We must not be noted together out of door in the daylight.There's a groat for thee. Vade, execrabilis,--that is, good-day to thee,pretty rogue!"

  "A word, friar, a word. Wouldst thou have the old man burned, drowned,or torn piecemeal? He hath a daughter too, who once sought to mar ourtrade with her gittern; a daughter, then in a kirtle that I would nothave nimmed from a hedge, but whom I last saw in sarcenet and lawn, witha great lord for her fere." The tymbestere's eyes shone with malignantenvy, as she added, "Graul Skellet loves not to see those who haveworn worsted and say walk in sarcenet and lawn. Graul Skellet loves notwenches who have lords for their feres, and yet who shrink from Grauland her sisters as the sound from the leper."

  "Fegs," answered the friar, impatiently, "I know naught against thedaughter,--a pretty lass, but too high for my kisses. And as for thefather, I want not the man's life,--that is, not very specially,--buthis model, his mechanical. He may go free, if that can be compassed; ifnot, why, the model at all risks. Serve me in this."

  "And thou wilt teach me the last tricks of the cards, and thy great artof making phantoms glide by on the wall?"

  "Bring the model intact, and I will teach thee more, Graul,--the deadman's candle, and the charm of the newt; and I'll give thee, to boot,the Gaul of the parricide that thou hast prayed me so oft for. Hum! thouhast a girl in thy troop who hath a blinking eye that well pleases me;but go now, and obey me. Work before play, and grace before pudding!"

  The tymbestere nodded, snapped her fingers in the air, and humming noholy ditty, returned to the house through the doorway.

  This short conference betrays to the reader the relations, mutuallyadvantageous, which subsisted between the conjuror and the tymbesteres.Their troop (the mothers, perchance, of the generation we treat of)had been familiar to the friar in his old capacity of mountebank, ortregetour, and in his clerical and courtly elevation, he did not disdainan ancient connection that served him well with the populace; for thesegrim children of vice seemed present in every place, where pastime wasgay, or strife was rampant,--in peace, at the merry-makings and thehostelries; in war, following the camp, and seen, at night, prowlingthrough the battlefields to dispatch the wounded and to rifle the slain:in merrymaking, hostelry, or in camp, they could thus still spread thefame of Friar Bungey, and uphold his repute both for terrible lore andfor hearty love of the commons.

  Nor was this all; both tymbesteres and conjuror were fortune-tellers byprofession. They could interchange the anecdotes each picked up in theirdifferent lines. The tymbestere could thus learn the secrets of gentleand courtier, the conjuror those of the artisan and mechanic.

  Unconscious of the formidable dispositions of their neighbours, Sibylland Warner were inhaling the sweet air of the early spring in theirlittle garden. His d
isgrace had affected the philosopher less than mightbe supposed. True, that the loss of the king's favour was the deferringindefinitely--perhaps for life--any practical application of his adoredtheory; and yet, somehow or other, the theory itself consoled him. Atthe worst, he should find some disciple, some ingenious student, morefortunate than himself, to whom he could bequeath the secret, and who,when Adam was in his grave, would teach the world to revere his name.Meanwhile, his time was his own; he was lord of a home, though ruinedand desolate; he was free, with his free thoughts; and therefore, as hepaced the narrow garden, his step was lighter, his mind less absent thanwhen parched with feverish fear and hope for the immediate practicalsuccess of a principle which was to be tried before the hazardoustribunal of prejudice and ignorance.

  "My child," said the sage, "I feel, for the first time for years, thedistinction of the seasons. I feel that we are walking in the pleasantspring. Young days come back to me like dreams; and I could almost thinkthy mother were once more by my side!"

  Sibyll pressed her father's hand, and a soft but melancholy sigh stirredher rosy lips. She, too, felt the balm of the young year; yet herfather's words broke upon sad and anxious musings. Not to youth as toage, not to loving fancy as to baffled wisdom, has seclusion charms thatcompensate for the passionate and active world! On coming back to theold house, on glancing round its mildewed walls, comfortless and bare,the neglected, weed-grown garden, Sibyll had shuddered in dismay. Hadher ambition fallen again into its old abject state? Were all her hopesto restore her ancestral fortunes, to vindicate her dear father's fame,shrunk into this slough of actual poverty,--the butterfly's wings foldedback into the chrysalis shroud of torpor? The vast disparity betweenherself and Hastings had not struck her so forcibly at the court; here,at home, the very walls proclaimed it. When Edward had dismissed theunwelcome witnesses of his attempted crime, he had given orders thatthey should be conducted to their house through the most private ways.He naturally desired to create no curious comment upon their departure.Unperceived by their neighbours, Sibyll and her father had gained accessby the garden gate. Old Madge received them in dismay; for she had beenin the habit of visiting Sibyll weekly at the palace, and had gained,in the old familiarity subsisting, then, between maiden and nurse, someinsight into her heart. She had cherished the fondest hopes for the fateof her young mistress; and now, to labour and to penury had the fatereturned! The guard who accompanied them, according to Edward's orders,left some pieces of gold, which Adam rejected, but Madge secretlyreceived and judiciously expended. And this was all their wealth. Butnot of toil nor of penury in themselves thought Sibyll; she thoughtbut of Hastings,--wildly, passionately, trustfully, unceasingly, of theabsent Hastings. Oh, he would seek her, he would come, her reverse wouldbut the more endear her to him! Hastings came not. She soon learned thewherefore. War threatened the land,--he was at his post, at the head ofarmies.

  Oh, with what panoply of prayer she sought to shield that belovedbreast! And now the old man spoke of the blessed spring, the holidaytime of lovers and of love, and the young girl, sighing, said to hermournful heart, "The world hath its sun,--where is mine?"

  The peacock strutted up to his poor protectors, and spread his plumes tothe gilding beams. And then Sibyll recalled the day when she had walkedin that spot with Marmaduke, and he had talked of his youth, ambition,and lusty hopes, while, silent and absorbed, she had thought withinherself, "Could the world be open to me as to him,--I too have ambition,and it should find its goal." Now what contrast between the two,--theman enriched and honoured, if to-day in peril or in exile, to-morrowfree to march forward still on his career, the world the country to himwhose heart was bold and whose name was stainless! and she, the woman,brought back to the prison-home, scorn around her, impotent to avenge,and forbidden to fly! Wherefore?--Sibyll felt her superiority of mind,of thought, of nature,--wherefore the contrast? The success was thatof man, the discomfiture that of woman. Woe to the man who precedes hisage; but never yet has an age been in which genius and ambition are safeto woman!

  The father and the child turned into their house. The day was declining.Adam mounted to his studious chamber, Sibyll sought the solitaryservant.

  "What tidings, oh, what tidings? The war, you say, is over; thegreat earl, his sweet daughter, safe upon the seas, but Hastings--ob,Hastings! what of him?"

  "My bonnibell, my lady-bird, I have none but good tales to tell thee. Isaw and spoke with a soldier who served under Lord Hastings himself;he is unscathed, he is in London. But they say that one of his bandsis quartered in the suburb, and that there is a report of a rising inHertfordshire."

  "When will peace come to England and to me!" sighed Sibyll.