The Last of the Barons — Complete

  CHAPTER VI. HASTINGS LEARNS WHAT HAS BEFALLEN SIBYLL, REPAIRS TO THEKING, AND ENCOUNTERS AN OLD RIVAL.

  "It is destiny," said Hastings to himself, when early the next morninghe was on his road to the farm--"it is destiny,--and who can resist hisfate?"

  "It is destiny!"--phrase of the weak human heart! "It is destiny!" darkapology for every error! The strong and the virtuous admit no destiny!On earth guides conscience, in heaven watches God. And destiny is butthe phantom we invoke to silence the one, to dethrone the other!

  Hastings spared not his good steed. With great difficulty had hesnatched a brief respite from imperious business, to accomplish the lastpoor duty now left to him to fulfil,--to confront the maid whose hearthe had seduced in vain, and say at length, honestly and firmly, "Icannot wed thee. Forget me, and farewell."

  Doubtless his learned and ingenious mind conjured up softer words thanthese, and more purfled periods wherein to dress the iron truth. But inthese two sentences the truth lay. He arrived at the farm, he enteredthe house; he felt it as a reprieve that he met not the bounding stepof the welcoming Sibyll. He sat down in the humble chamber, and waited awhile in patience,--no voice was heard. The silence at length surprisedand alarmed him. He proceeded farther. He was met by the widowed ownerof the house, who was weeping; and her first greeting prepared him forwhat had chanced. "Oh, my lord, you have come to tell me they aresafe, they have not fallen into the hands of their enemies,--the goodgentleman, so meek, the poor lady, so fair!"

  Hastings stood aghast; a few sentences more explained all that healready guessed. A strange man had arrived the evening before at thehouse, praying Adam and his daughter to accompany him to the LordHastings, who had been thrown from his horse, and was now in a cottagein the neighbouring lane,--not hurt dangerously, but unable to beremoved, and who had urgent matters to communicate. Not questioning thetruth of this story, Adam and Sibyll had hurried forth, and returned nomore. Alarmed by their long absence, the widow, who at first receivedthe message from the stranger, went herself to the cottage, and foundthat the story was a fable. Every search had since been made for Adamand his daughter, but in vain. The widow, confirmed in her previousbelief that her lodgers had been attainted Lancastrians, could butsuppose that they had been thus betrayed to their enemies. Hastingsheard this with a dismay and remorse impossible to express. His onlyconjecture was that the king had discovered their retreat, and takenthis measure to break off the intercourse he had so sternly denounced.Full of these ideas, he hastily remounted, and stopped not till oncemore at the gates of the Tower. Hastening to Edward's closet, the momenthe saw the king, he exclaimed, in great emotion, "My liege, my liege, donot at this hour, when I have need of my whole energy to serve thee,do not madden my brain, and palsy my arm. This old man--the poormaid--Sibyll--Warner,--speak, my liege--only tell me they are safe;promise me they shall go free, and I swear to obey thee in all else! Iwill thank thee in the battlefield!"

  "Thou art mad, Hastings!" said the king, in great astonishment. "Hush!"and he glanced significantly at a person who stood before severalheaps of gold, ranged upon a table in the recess of the room. "See,"he whispered, "yonder is the goldsmith, who hath brought me a loan fromhimself and his fellows! Pretty tales for the city thy folly will sendabroad!"

  But before Hastings could vent his impatient answer, this person,to Edward's still greater surprise, had advanced from his place, andforgetting all ceremony, had seized Hastings by the hem of his surcoat,exclaiming,--

  "My lord, my lord, what new horror is this? Sibyll!--methought she wasworthless, and had fled to thee!"

  "Ten thousand devils!" shouted the king, "am I ever to be tormented bythat damnable wizard and his witch child? And is it, Sir Peer and SirGoldsmith, in your king's closet that ye come, the very eve before hemarches to battle, to speer and glower at each other like two madmen asye are?"

  Neither peer nor goldsmith gave way, till the courtier, naturallyrecovering himself the first, fell on his knee; and said, with firmthough profound respect: "Sire, if poor William Hastings has evermerited from the king one kindly thought, one generous word, forgivenow whatever may displease thee in his passion or his suit, and tellhim what prison contains those whom it would forever dishonour hisknighthood to know punished and endangered but for his offence."

  "My lord," answered the king, softened but still surprised, "think youseriously that I, who but reluctantly in this lovely month leave mygreen lawns of Shene to save a crown, could have been vexing my brain bystratagems to seize a lass, whom I swear by Saint George I do not envythee in the least? If that does not suffice, incredulous dullard, whythen take my kingly word, never before passed for so slight an occasion,that I know nothing whatsoever of thy damsel's whereabout nor herpestilent father's,--where they abode of late, where they now be; and,what is more, if any man has usurped his king's right to imprisonthe king's subjects, find him out, and name his punishment. Art thouconvinced?"

  "I am, my liege," said Hastings.

  "But--" began the goldsmith.

  "Holloa, you, too, sir! This is too much! We have condescended to answerthe man who arms three thousand retainers--"

  "And I, please your Highness, bring you the gold to pay them," said thetrader, bluntly.

  The king bit his lip, and then burst into his usual merry laugh.

  "Thou art in the right, Master Alwyn. Finish counting the pieces,and then go and consult with my chamberlain,--he must off with thecock-crow; but, since ye seem to understand each other, he shall makethee his lieutenant of search, and I will sign any order he pleasesfor the recovery of the lost wisdom and the stolen beauty. Go and calmthyself, Hastings."

  "I will attend you presently, my lord," said Alwyn, aside, "in your ownapartment."

  "Do so," said Hastings; and, grateful for the king's consideration, hesought his rooms. There, indeed, Alwyn soon joined him, and learned fromthe nobleman what filled him at once with joy and terror. Knowing thatWarner and Sibyll had left the Tower, he had surmised that the girl'svirtue had at last succumbed; and it delighted him to hear from LordHastings, whose word to men was never questionable, the solemnassurance of her unstained chastity. But he trembled at this mysteriousdisappearance, and knew not to whom to impute the snare, till thepenetration of Hastings suddenly alighted near, at least, to the clew."The Duchess of Bedford," said he, "ever increasing in superstitionas danger increases, may have desired to refind so great a scholar andreputed an astrologer and magician; if so, all is safe. On the otherhand, her favourite, the friar, ever bore a jealous grudge to poor Adam,and may have sought to abstract him from her grace's search; here theremay be molestation to Adam, but surely no danger to Sibyll. Hark ye,Alwyn, thou lovest the maid more worthily, and--" Hastings stoppedshort; for such is infirm human nature, that, though he had mentallyresigned Sibyll forever, he could not yet calmly face the thought ofresigning her to a rival. "Thou lovest her," he renewed, more coldly,"and to thee, therefore, I may safely trust the search which time andcircumstance and a soldier's duty forbid to me. And believe--oh, believethat I say not this from a passion which may move thy jealousy, butrather with a brother's holy love. If thou canst but see her safe, andlodged where no danger nor wrong can find her, thou hast no friend inthe wide world whose service through life thou mayst command like mine."

  "My lord," said Alwyn, dryly, "I want no friends! Young as I am, I havelived long enough to see that friends follow fortune, but never make it!I will find this poor maid and her honoured father, if I spend my lastgroat on the search. Get me but such an order from the king as may placethe law at my control, and awe even her grace of Bedford,--and I promisethe rest!"

  Hastings, much relieved, deigned to press the goldsmith's reluctanthand; and, leaving him alone for a few minutes, returned with awarrant from the king, which seemed to Alwyn sufficiently precise andauthoritative. The goldsmith then departed, and first he sought thefriar, but found him not at home. Bungey had taken with him, as washis wont, the keys of his mysterious apartment. Alwyn then hastenede
lsewhere, to secure those experienced in such a search, and to headit in person. At the Tower, the evening was passed in bustle andexcitement,--the last preparations for departure. The queen, who wasthen far advanced towards her confinement, was, as we before said, toremain at the Tower, which was now strongly manned. Roused from herwonted apathy by the imminent dangers that awaited Edward, the nightwas passed by her in tears and prayers, by him in the sound sleep ofconfident valour. The next morning departed for the North the severalleaders,--Gloucester, Rivers, Hastings, and the king.