The Last of the Barons — Complete

  CHAPTER IV. THE STRIFE WHICH SIBYLL HAD COURTED, BETWEEN KATHERINE ANDHERSELF, COMMENCES IN SERIOUS EARNEST.

  Hastings felt relieved when, the next day, several couriers arrived withtidings so important as to merge all considerations into those of state.A secret messenger from the French court threw Gloucester into one ofthose convulsive passions of rage, to which, with all his intellect anddissimulation, he was sometimes subject, by the news of Anne's betrothalto Prince Edward; nor did the letter from Clarence to the king,attesting the success of one of his schemes, comfort Richard for thefailure of the other. A letter from Burgundy confirmed the report of thespy, announced Duke Charles's intention of sending a fleet to preventWarwick's invasion, and rated King Edward sharply for his supineness innot preparing suitably against so formidable a foe. The gay and recklesspresumption of Edward, worthier of a knight-errant than a monarch,laughed at the word invasion. "Pest on Burgundy's ships! I only wishthat the earl would land!" [Com, iii. c. 5] he said to his council.None echoed the wish! But later in the day came a third messenger withinformation that roused all Edward's ire; careless of each danger inthe distance, he ever sprang into energy and vengeance when a foe wasalready in the field. And the Lord Fitzhugh (the young nobleman beforeseen among the rebels at Olney, and who had now succeeded to thehonours of his House) had suddenly risen in the North, at the head of aformidable rebellion. No man had so large an experience in the warfareof those districts, the temper of the people, and the inclinations ofthe various towns and lordships as Montagu; he was the natural chief todepute against the rebels. Some animated discussion took place as to thedependence to be placed in the marquis at such a crisis; but while themore wary held it safer, at all hazards, not to leave him unemployed,and to command his services in an expedition that would remove himfrom the neighbourhood of his brother, should the latter land, as wasexpected, on the coast of Norfolk, Edward, with a blindness of conceitthat seems almost incredible, believed firmly in the infatuated loyaltyof the man whom he had slighted and impoverished, and whom, by his offerof his daughter to the Lancastrian prince, he had yet more recentlycozened and deluded. Montagu was hastily summoned, and received ordersto march at once to the North, levy forces, and assume their command.The marquis obeyed with fewer words than were natural to him, left thepresence, sprang on his horse, and as he rode from the palace, drew aletter from his bosom. "Ah, Edward," said he, setting his teeth, "so,after the solemn betrothal of thy daughter to my son, thou wouldsthave given her to thy Lancastrian enemy. Coward, to bribe his peace!recreant, to belie thy word! I thank thee for this news, Warwick; forwithout that injury I feel I could never, when the hour came, havedrawn sword against this faithless man,--especially for Lancaster. Ay,tremble, thou who deridest all truth and honour! He who himself betrays,cannot call vengeance treason!"

  Meanwhile, Edward departed, for further preparations, to the Tower ofLondon. New evidences of the mine beneath his feet here awaited theincredulous king. On the door of St. Paul's, of many of the metropolitanchurches, on the Standard at Chepe, and on London Bridge, duringthe past night, had been affixed, none knew by whom, the celebratedproclamation, signed by Warwick and Clarence (drawn up in the bold styleof the earl), announcing their speedy return, containing a briefand vigorous description of the misrule of the realm, and theirdetermination to reform all evils and redress all wrongs. [See, for thisproclamation, Ellis's "Original Letters," vol. i., second series,letter 42.] Though the proclamation named not the restoration of theLancastrian line (doubtless from regard for Henry's safety), all menin the metropolis were already aware of the formidable league betweenMargaret and Warwick. Yet, even still, Edward smiled in contempt, forhe had faith in the letter received from Clarence, and felt assured thatthe moment the duke and the earl landed, the former would betrayhis companion stealthily to the king; so, despite all these excitingsubjects of grave alarm, the nightly banquet at the Tower was nevermerrier and more joyous. Hastings left the feast ere it deepened intorevel, and, absorbed in various and profound contemplation, entered hisapartment. He threw himself on a seat, and leaned his face on his hands.

  "Oh, no, no!" he muttered; "now, in the hour when true greatness ismost seen, when prince and peer crowd around me for counsel, when noble,knight, and squire crave permission to march in the troop of whichHastings is the leader,--now I feel how impossible, how falsely fair,the dream that I could forget all--all for a life of obscurity, for ayoung girl's love! Love! as if I had not felt its delusions to palling!love, as if I could love again: or, if love--alas, it must be a lightreflected but from memory! And Katherine is free once more!" His eyefell as he spoke, perhaps in shame and remorse that, feeling thus now,he had felt so differently when he bade Sibyll smile till his return!

  "It is the air of this accursed court which taints our best resolves!"he murmured, as an apology for himself; but scarcely was the poor excusemade, than the murmur broke into an exclamation of surprise and joy. Aletter lay before him; he recognized the hand of Katherine. What yearshad passed since her writing had met his eye, since the lines that badehim "farewell, and forget!" Those lines had been blotted with tears,and these, as he tore open the silk that bound them--these, the traceof tears, too, was on them! Yet they were but few, and in tremulouscharacters. They ran thus:--

  To-morrow, before noon, the Lord Hastings is prayed to visit one whoselife he hath saddened by the thought and the accusation that she hathclouded and embittered his. KATHERINE DE BONVILLE.

  Leaving Hastings to such meditations of fear or of hope as these linescould call forth, we lead the reader to a room not very distant from hisown,--the room of the illustrious Friar Bungey.

  The ex-tregetour was standing before the captured Eureka, and gazing onit with an air of serio-comic despair and rage. We say the Eureka, ascomprising all the ingenious contrivances towards one single objectinvented by its maker, a harmonious compound of many separate details;but the iron creature no longer deserved that superb appellation,for its various members were now disjointed and dislocated, and laypell-mell in multiform confusion.

  By the side of the friar stood a female, enveloped in a long scarletmantle, with the hood partially drawn over the face, but still leavingvisible the hard, thin, villanous lips, the stern, sharp chin, and thejaw resolute and solid as if hewed from stone.

  "I tell thee, Graul," said the friar, "that thou hast had far the bestof the bargain. I have put this diabolical contrivance to all manner ofshapes, and have muttered over it enough Latin to have charmed a monsterinto civility. And the accursed thing, after nearly pinching off threefingers, and scalding me with seething water, and spluttering andsputtering enough to have terrified any man but Friar Bungey out of hisskin, is obstinatus ut mulum,--dogged as a mule; and was absolutely goodfor nought, till I happily thought of separating this vessel from allthe rest of the gear, and it serves now for the boiling my eggs! But bythe soul of Father Merlin, whom the saints assoil, I need not have givenmyself all this torment for a thing which, at best, does the work of afarthing pipkin!"

  "Quick, master; the hour is late! I must go while yet the troopers andcouriers and riders, hurrying to and fro, keep the gates from closing.What wantest thou with Graul?"

  "More reverence, child!" growled the friar. "What I want of thee isbriefly told, if thou hast the wit to serve me. This miserableWarner must himself expound to me the uses and trick of his malignantcontrivance. Thou must find and bring him hither!"

  "And if he will not expound?"

  "The deputy governor of the Tower will lend me a stone dungeon, and, ifneed be, the use of the brake to unlock the dotard's tongue."

  "On what plea?"

  "That Adam Warner is a wizard, in the pay of Lord Warwick, whom a moremighty master like myself alone can duly examine and defeat."

  "And if I bring thee the sorcerer, what wilt thou teach me in return?"

  "What desirest thou most?"

  Graul mused, and said, "There is war in the wind. Graul follows thecamp, her trooper gets gold and booty. But t
he trooper is stronger thanGraul; and when the trooper sleeps it is with his knife by his side,and his sleep is light and broken, for he has wicked dreams. Give me apotion to make sleep deep, that his eyes may not open when Graul filcheshis gold, and his hand may be too heavy to draw the knife from itssheath!"

  "Immunda, detestabilis! thine own paramour!"

  "He hath beat me with his bridle rein, he hath given a silver broadpiece to Grisell; Grisell hath sat on his knee; Graul never pardons!"

  The friar, rogue as he was, shuddered. "I cannot help thee to murder, Icannot give thee the potion; name some other reward."

  "I go--"

  "Nay, nay, think, pause."

  "I know where Warner is hid. By this hour to-morrow night, I can placehim in thy power. Say the word, and pledge me the draught."

  "Well, well, mulier abominabilis!--that is, irresistible bonnibell. Icannot give thee the potion; but I will teach thee an art which can makesleep heavier than the anodyne, and which wastes not like the essence,but strengthens by usage,--an art thou shalt have at thy fingers'ends, and which often draws from the sleeper the darkest secrets of hisheart." [We have before said that animal magnetism was known to Bungey,and familiar to the necromancers, or rather theurgists, of the MiddleAges.]

  "It is magic," said Graul, with joy.

  "Ay, magic."

  "I will bring thee the wizard. But listen; he never stirs abroad, savewith his daughter. I must bring both."

  "Nay, I want not the girl."

  "But I dare not throttle her, for a great lord loves her, who would findout the deed and avenge it; and if she be left behind, she will goto the lord, and the lord will discover what thou hast done with thewizard, and thou wilt hang!"

  "Never say 'Hang' to me, Graul: it is ill-mannered and ominous. Who isthe lord?"

  "Hastings."

  "Pest!--and already he hath been searching for the thing yonder; and Ihave brooded over it night and day, like a hen over a chalk egg,--onlythat the egg does not snap off the hen's claws, as that diabolism wouldfain snap off my digits. But the war will carry Hastings away in itswhirlwind; and, in danger, the duchess is my slave, and will bear methrough all. So, thou mayst bring the girl; and strangle her not; forno good ever comes of a murder,--unless, indeed, it be absolutelynecessary!"

  "I know the men who will help me, bold ribauds, whom I will guerdonmyself; for I want not thy coins, but thy craft. When the curfew hastolled, and the bat hunts the moth, we will bring thee the quarry--"

  Graul turned; but as she gained the door, she stopped, and saidabruptly, throwing back her hood,--

  "What age dost thou deem me?"

  "Marry," quoth the friar, "an' I had not seen thee on thy mother's kneewhen she followed my stage of tregetour, I should have guessed thee forthirty; but thou hast led too jolly a life to look still in the blossom.Why speer'st thou the question?"

  "Because when trooper and ribaud say to me, 'Graul, thou art too wornand too old to drink of our cup and sit in the lap, to follow the youngfere to the battle, and weave the blithe dance in the fair,' I woulddepart from my sisters, and have a hut of my own, and a black catwithout a white hair, and steal herbs by the new moon, and bones fromthe charnel, and curse those whom I hate, and cleave the misty air ona besom, like Mother Halkin of Edmonton. Ha, ha! Master, thou shaltpresent me then to the Sabbat. Graul has the mettle for a bonny witch!"

  The tymbestere vanished with a laugh. The friar muttered a paternosterfor once, perchance, devoutly, and after having again deliberatelyscanned the disjecta membra of the Eureka, gravely took forth a duck'segg from his cupboard, and applied the master-agent of the machine whichWarner hoped was to change the face of the globe to the only practicalutility it possessed to the mountebank's comprehension.