The Last of the Barons — Complete

  CHAPTER IX. HOW THE DESTRUCTIVE ORGAN OF PRINCE RICHARD PROMISES GOODLYDEVELOPMENT.

  The Duke of Gloucester approached Adam as he stood gazing on his model."Old man," said the prince, touching him with the point of his sheatheddagger, "look up and answer. What converse hast thou held with Henryof Windsor, and who commissioned thee to visit him in his confinement?Speak, and the truth! for by holy Paul, I am one who can detect a lie,and without that door stands--the Tormentor!"

  Upon a pleasing and joyous dream broke these harsh words; for Adam thenwas full of the contrivance by which to repair the defect of the engine,and with this suggestion was blent confusedly the thought that he wasnow protected by royalty, that he should have means and leisure toaccomplish his great design, that he should have friends whose powercould obtain its adoption by the king. He raised his eyes, and thatyoung dark face frowned upon him,--the child menacing the sage, bruteforce in a pigmy shape, having authority of life and death over thegiant strength of genius. But these words, which recalled Warner fromhis existence as philosopher, woke that of the gentle but brave andhonourable man which he was, when reduced to earth.

  "Sir," he said gravely, "if I have consented to hold converse with theunhappy, it was not as the tell-tale and the spier. I had formal warrantfor my visit, and I was solicited to render it by an early friend andcomrade, who sought to be my benefactor in aiding with gold my poorstudies for the king's people."

  "Tut!" said Richard, impatiently, and playing with his dagger hilt; "thywords, stealthy and evasive, prove thy guilt! Sure am I that this irontraitor with its intricate hollows and recesses holds what, unlessconfessed, will give thee to the hangman! Confess all, and thou artspared."

  "If," said Adam, mildly, "your Highness--for though I know not yourquality, I opine that no one less than royal could so menace--if yourHighness imagines that I have been intrusted by a fallen man, wrongme not by supposing that I could fear death more than dishonour; forcertes!" continued Adam, with innocent pedantry, "to put the casescholastically, and in the logic familiar, doubtless, to your Highness,either I have something to confess or I have not; if I have--"

  "Hound!" interrupted the prince, stamping his foot, "thinkest thou tobanter me,--see!" As his foot shook the floor, the door opened, and aman with his arms bare, covered from head to foot in a black gown ofserge, with his features concealed by a hideous mask, stood ominously atthe aperture.

  The prince motioned to the torturer (or tormentor, as he was technicallystyled) to approach, which he did noiselessly, till he stood, tall,grim, and lowering, beside Adam, like some silent and devouring monsterby its prey.

  "Dost thou repent thy contumacy? A moment, and I render my questioningto another!"

  "Sir," said Adam, drawing himself up, and with so sudden a change ofmien, that his loftiness almost awed even the dauntless Richard,--"sir,my fathers feared not death when they did battle for the throne ofEngland; and why?--because in their loyal valour they placed not theinterests of a mortal man, but the cause of imperishable honour! Andthough their son be a poor scholar, and wears not the spurs of gold;though his frame be weak and his hairs gray, he loveth honour also welleno' to look without dread on death!"

  Fierce and ruthless, when irritated and opposed, as the prince was, hewas still in his first youth,--ambition had here no motive to hardenhim into stone. He was naturally so brave himself that bravery could notfail to win from him something of respect and sympathy, and he was takenwholly by surprise in hearing the language of a knight and hero fromone whom he had regarded but as the artful impostor or the despicableintriguer.

  He changed countenance as Warner spoke, and remained a moment silent.Then as a thought occurred to him, at which his features relaxed intoa half-smile, he beckoned to the tormentor, said a word in his ear, andthe horrible intruder nodded and withdrew.

  "Master Warner," then said the prince, in his customary sweet andgliding tones, "it were a pity that so gallant a gentleman should beexposed to peril for adhesion to a cause that can never prosper, andthat would be fatal, could it prosper, to our common country. For lookyou, this Margaret, who is now, we believe, in London" (here he examinedAdam's countenance, which evinced surprise), "this Margaret, who isseeking to rekindle the brand and brennen of civil war, has already soldfor base gold to the enemy of the realm, to Louis XI., that very Calaiswhich your fathers, doubtless, lavished their blood to annex to ourpossessions. Shame on the lewd harlot! What woman so bloody and sodissolute? What man so feeble and craven as her lord?"

  "Alas! sir," said Adam, "I am unfitted for these high considerations ofstate. I live but for my art, and in it. And now, behold how my kingdomis shaken and rent!" he pointed with so touching a smile, and so simplea sadness, to the broken engine, that Richard was moved.

  "Thou lovest this, thy toy? I can comprehend that love for somedumb thing that we have toiled for. Ay!" continued the prince,thoughtfully,--"ay! I have noted myself in life that there are objects,senseless as that mould of iron, which if we labour at them wind roundour hearts as if they were flesh and blood. So some men love learning,others glory, others power. Well, man, thou lovest that mechanical? Howmany years hast thou been about it?"

  "From the first to the last, twenty-five years, and it is stillincomplete."

  "Um!" said the prince, smiling, "Master Warner, thou hast read of thejudgment of Solomon,--how the wise king discovered the truth by orderingthe child's death?"

  "It was indeed," said Adam, unsuspectingly, "a most shrewd suggestion ofnative wit and clerkly wisdom."

  "Glad am I thou approvest it, Master Warner," said Richard. And as hespoke the tormentor reappeared with a smith, armed with the implementsof his trade.

  "Good smith, break into pieces this stubborn iron; bare all itsreceptacles; leave not one fragment standing on the other! 'Delenda esttua Carthago,' Master Warner. There is Latin in answer to thy logic."

  It is impossible to convey any notion of the terror, the rage, thedespair, which seized upon the unhappy sage when these words smote hisear, and he saw the smith's brawny arms swing on high the ponderoushammer. He flung himself between the murderous stroke and his belovedmodel. He embraced the grim iron tightly. "Kill me!" he exclaimedsublimely, "kill me!--not my THOUGHT!"

  "Solomon was verily and indeed a wise king," said the duke, with a lowinward laugh. "And now, man, I have thee! To save thy infant, thineart's hideous infant, confess the whole!"

  It was then that a fierce struggle evidently took place in Adam's bosom.It was, perhaps--O reader! thou whom pleasure, love, ambition, hatred,avarice, in thine and our ordinary existence, tempt--it was, perhaps, tohim the one arch-temptation of a life. In the changing countenance, theheaving breast, the trembling lip, the eyes that closed and opened toclose again, as if to shut out the unworthy weakness,--yea, in the wholephysical man,--was seen the crisis of the moral struggle. And what, intruth, to him an Edward or a Henry, a Lancaster or a York? Nothing. Butstill that instinct, that principle, that conscience, ever strongest inthose whose eyes are accustomed to the search of truth, prevailed. Sohe rose suddenly and quietly, drew himself apart, left his work to theDestroyer, and said,--

  "Prince, thou art a boy! Let a boy's voice annihilate that which shouldhave served all time. Strike!"

  Richard motioned; the hammer descended, the engine and its appurtenancesreeled and crashed, the doors flew open, the wheels rattled, the sparksflew. And Adam Warner fell to the ground, as if the blow had broken hisown heart. Little heeding the insensible victim of his hard and cunningpolicy, Richard advanced to the inspection of the interior recesses ofthe machinery. But that which promised Adam's destruction saved him. Theheavy stroke had battered in the receptacle of the documents, hadburied them in the layers of iron. The faithful Eureka, even amidst itsinjuries and wrecks, preserved the secret of its master.

  The prince, with impatient hands, explored all the apertures yetrevealed, and after wasting many minutes in a fruitless search, wasabout to bid the smith complete the work of destruction, when the
doorsuddenly opened and Lord Hastings entered. His quick eye took in thewhole scene; he arrested the lifted arm of the smith, and passingdeliberately to Gloucester, said, with a profound reverence, but ahalf-reproachful smile, "My lord! my lord! your Highness is indeedsevere upon my poor scholar."

  "Canst thou answer for thy scholar's loyalty?" said the duke, gloomily.

  Hastings drew the prince aside, and said, in a low tone, "His loyalty!poor man, I know not; but his guilelessness, surely, yes. Look you,sweet prince, I know the interest thou hast in keeping well with theEarl of Warwick, whom I, in sooth, have slight cause to love. Thou hasttrusted me with thy young hopes of the Lady Anne; this new Nevile placedabout the king, and whose fortunes Warwick hath made his care, hath,I have reason to think, some love passages with the scholar'sdaughter,--the daughter came to me for the passport. Shall thisMarmaduke Nevile have it to say to his fair kinswoman, with theunforgiving malice of a lover's memory, that the princely Gloucesterstooped to be the torturer of yon poor old man? If there be treason inthe scholar or in yon battered craft-work, leave the search to me!"

  The duke raised his dark, penetrating eyes to those of Hastings, whichdid not quail; for here world-genius encountered world-genius, and art,art.

  "Thine argument hath more subtlety and circumlocution than suit withsimple truth," said the prince, smiling. "But it is enough to Richardthat Hastings wills protection even to a spy!"

  Hastings kissed the duke's hand in silence, and going to the door, hedisappeared a moment and returned with Sibyll. As she entered, pale andtrembling, Adam rose, and the girl with a wild cry flew to his bosom.

  "It is a winsome face, Hastings," said the duke, dryly. "I pity MasterNevile the lover, and envy my Lord Chamberlain the protector."

  Hastings laughed, for he was well pleased that Richard's suspicion tookthat turn.

  "And now," he said, "I suppose Master Nevile and the Duchess ofBedford's page may enter. Your guard stopped them hitherto. They comefor this gentleman from her highness the queen's mother."

  "Enter, Master Nevile, and you, Sir Page. What is your errand?"

  "My lady, the duchess," said the page, "has sent me to conduct MasterWarner to the apartments prepared for him as her special multiplier andalchemist."

  "What!" said the prince, who, unlike the irritable Clarence, made ithis policy to show all decorous homage to the queen's kin, "hath thatillustrious lady taken this gentleman into her service? Why announcedyou not, Master Warner, what at once had saved you from furtherquestioning? Lord Hastings, I thank you now for your intercession."

  Hastings, in answer, pointed archly at Marmaduke, who was aiding Sibyllto support her father. "Do you suspect me still, prince?" he whispered.

  The duke shrugged his shoulders, and Adam, breaking from Marmadukeand Sibyll, passed with tottering steps to the shattered labour of hissolitary life. He looked at the ruin with mournful despondence, withquivering lips. "Have you done with me?" then he said, bowing his headlowlily, for his pride was gone; "may we--that is, I and this, my poordevice--withdraw from your palace? I see we are not fit for kings!"

  "Say not so," said the young duke, gently: "we have now convincedourselves of our error, and I crave thy pardon, Master Warner, for myharsh dealings. As for this, thy toy, the king's workmen shall set itright for thee. Smith, call the fellows yonder, to help bear this to--"He paused, and glanced at Hastings.

  "To my apartments," said the chamberlain. "Your Highness may be surethat I will there inspect it. Fear not, Master Warner; no further harmshall chance to thy contrivance."

  "Come, sir, forgive me," said the duke. With gracious affability theyoung prince held out his hand, the fingers of which sparkled withcostly gems, to the old man. The old man bowed as if his beard wouldhave swept the earth, but he did not touch the hand. He seemed still ina state between dream and reason, life and death: he moved not, spokenot, till the men came to bear the model; and he then followed it, hisarms folded in his gown, till, on entering the court, it was borne ina contrary direction from his own, to the chamberlain's apartment; thenwistfully pursuing it with his eyes, he uttered such a sigh as mighthave come from a resigned father losing the last glimpse of a belovedson.

  Richard hesitated a moment, loth to relinquish his research, anddoubtful whether to follow the Eureka for renewed investigation; butpartly unwilling to compromise his dignity in the eyes of Hastings,should his suspicions prove unfounded, and partly indisposed to risk thedispleasure of the vindictive Duchess of Bedford by further molestationof one now under her protection, he reluctantly trusted all furtherinquiry to the well-known loyalty of Hastings. "If Margaret be inLondon," he muttered to himself as he turned slowly away, "now is thetime to seize and chain the lioness! Ho, Catesby,--hither (avaluable man that Catesby--a lawyer's nurturing with a bloodhound'snature!)--Catesby, while King Edward rides for pleasure, let thou andI track the scent of his foes. If the she-wolf of Anjou hath venturedhither, she hides in some convent or monastery, be sure. See to ourpalfreys, Catesby! Strange," added the prince, muttering to himself,"that I am more restless to guard the crown than he who wears it! Nay,a crown is a goodly heirloom in a man's family, and a fair sight to seenear--and near--and near--"

  The prince abruptly paused, opened and shut his right hand convulsively,and drew a long sigh.