Читать книгу Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold - G. P. R. James - Страница 6

Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.--Shakspere.

Now, doubtless, every romance-reading person into whose hands this book may fall will conclude and determine, and feel perfectly convinced in their own minds, that the scream mentioned in the last chapter announces no less important a being than the heroine of the tale, and will be very much surprised, as well as disappointed, to hear that when the traveller rode through the open gate into the little garden attached to the cottage, he perceived a group which certainly did not derive any interest it might possess from the graces of youth and beauty. It consisted simply of an old woman, of the poorest class, striving, with weak hands, to stay a stout, rosy youth, of mean countenance but good apparel, from repeating a buffet he had bestowed upon the third person of the group, a venerable old man, who seemed little calculated to resist his violence. Angry words were evidently still passing on both parts, and before the traveller could hear to what they referred, the youth passed the woman, and struck the old man a second blow, which levelled him with the ground.

If one might judge from that traveller's appearance, he had seen many a sight of danger and of horror; but there was something in the view of 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 he was off his horse, and by the young man's side. "How now, sir villain!" cried he, "art thou mad, to strike thy father?"

"He's no father of mine," replied the sturdy youth, turning away his head 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 thy father might blush to own thee. Strike an old man like that! Get thee gone, quick, lest I flay thee!"

"Get thee gone thyself!" answered the other, his feeling of reprehension being quickly fled; and turning sharply round, with an air of effrontery which nought but the insolence of office could inspire, he added: "Who art thou, with thy get thee gones? I am here in right of Sir Payan Wileton, to turn these old vermin out; so get thee gone along with them!" And he ran his eye over the stranger's simple garb with a sneer of sturdy defiance.

The traveller gazed at him for a moment, as if in astonishment at his daring; then, with a motion as quick as light, laid one hand upon the yeoman's collar, the other upon the thick band of his kersey slop breeches, raised him from the ground, and giving him one swing back, to allow his arms their full sweep, he pitched him at once over the low wall of the garden into the heath-bushes beyond.

Without affording a look to his prostrate adversary, the stranger proceeded to assist the old man in rising, and amidst the blessings of the good dame, conveyed him into the cottage. He then returned to the little garden, lest his horse should commit any ravages upon the scanty provision of the old couple (for he was, it seems, too good a soldier even to allow his horse to live by plunder), and while tying him to the gate-post, his eye naturally turned to the bushes into which he had thrown his opponent.

The young man had just risen on his feet, and in unutterable rage, was stamping furiously on the ground; without, however, daring to re-enter the precincts from which he had been so unceremoniously ejected. The stranger contented himself with observing that he was not much hurt; and after letting his eye dwell for a moment on the cognisance of a serpent twined round a crane, which was embroidered on the yeoman's coat, he again entered the cottage, while the other proceeded slowly over the common, every now and then turning round to shake his clenched fist towards the garden, in the last struggles of impotent passion.

"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 not strike hard: an old man's limbs are soon overthrown. Ah! well, I remember the day when I would have whacked a score of them. But I'm broken now. Kate, give his worship the settle. If our boy had seen him lift his hand against his father, 'faith, he'd have broken his pate. Though your worship soon convinced him: God's blessing upon your head for it!"

The stranger silently sat himself down in the settle, which the old woman placed for him with a thousand thanks and gratulations, and suffered them to proceed undisturbed with all the garrulity of age, while his own thoughts seemed, from some unapparent cause, to have wandered far upon a different track. Whether it was that the swift wings of memory had retraced in a moment a space that, in the dull march of time, had occupied many a long year, or that the lightning speed of hope had already borne him to a goal which was still far beyond probability's short view, matters little. Most likely it was one or the other; for the present is but a point to which but little thought appertains, while the mind hovers backwards and forwards between the past and the future, expending the store of its regrets upon the one, and wasting all its wishes on the other. He awoke with a sigh. "But tell me," said he to the old man, "what was the cause of all this?"

"Why, heaven bless your worship!" replied the cottager, who had been talking all the time, "I have just been telling you."

"Nay, but I mean, why you came to live here?" said the traveller, "for this is but a poor place;" and he glanced his eye over the interior of the cottage, which was wretched enough. Its floor formed of hardened clay; its small lattice windows, boasting no glass in the wicker frames of which they were composed, but showing in its place some thin plates of horn (common enough in the meaner cottages of those times), admitting but a dull and miserable light to the interior; its bare walls of lath, through the crevices of which appeared the mud that had been plastered on the outside: all gave an air of poverty and uncomfort 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 was easy to guess; yet for twelve long years have I known little but misery. I was once gate-porter to my good Lord Fitzbernard, at Chilham Castle, here hard-by; your worship knows it, doubtless. Oh! 'twas a fair place in those days, for my lord kept great state, and never a day but what we had the tilt-yard full of gallants, who would bear away the ring from the best in the land. My old lord could handle a lance well, too, though he waxed aged; but 'twas my young Lord Osborne that was the darling of all our hearts. Poor youth! he was not then fourteen, yet so strong, he'd break a lance and bide a buffet with the best. He's over the seas now, alas! and they say, obliged to win his food at the sword's point."

"Nay, how so?" asked the traveller. "If he were heir of Chilham Castle, how is it he fares so hardly, this Lord Osborne?"

"We call him still Lord Osborne," answered the old woman, "for I was his nurse, when he was young, your worship, and his christened name was Osborne. But his title was Lord Darnley, by those who called him properly. God bless him for ever! Now, Richard, tell his honour how all the misfortunes happened."

"'Twill but tire his honour," said the old man. "In his young day he must have heard how Empson and Dudley, the two blackest traitors that ever England had, went through all the country, picking holes in every honest man's coat, and sequestrating their estates, as 'twas then called. Lord bless thee, Kate! his worship knows it all."

"I have heard something of the matter, but I would fain understand it more particularly," said the stranger. "I had learned that the sequestrated estates had been restored, and the fines remitted, since this young king was upon the throne."

"Ay, truly, sir, the main part of them," answered the old man; "but there were some men who, being in the court's displeasure, were not likely to have justice done them. Such a one was my good lord and master, who, they say, had been heard to declare, that he held Perkyn Warbeck's title as good as King Harry the Seventh's. So, when they proved the penal statutes against him, as they called it, instead of calling for a fine, which every peasant on his land would have brought his mite to pay, they took the whole estate, and left him a beggar in his age. But that was not the worst, for doubtless the whole would have been given back again when the good young king did justice on Empson and Dudley; but as this sequestration was a malice, and not an avarice like the rest, instead of transferring the estate to the king's own hand, they gave it to one Sir Payan Wileton, who, if ever a gallows was made higher than Haman's, would well grace it. This man has many a friend at the court, gained they say by foul means; and though much stir was made some eight years agone, by the Lord Stafford and the good Duke of Buckingham, to have the old lord's estates given back again, Sir Payan was strong enough in abettors to outstand them all, and then----; but I hear horses' feet. 'Tis surely Sir Payan sent to hound me out even from this poor place."

As he spoke, the loud neighing of the stranger's horse announced the approach of some of his four-footed fraternity, and opening the cottage door, the old man looked forth to ascertain if his apprehensions were just.

The cloud, however, was cleared off his brow in a moment, by the appearance of the person who rode into the garden.

"Joy, good wife! joy!" cried the old man; "it is Sir Cesar! It is Sir Cesar! We are safe enough now!"

"Sir Cesar!" cried the traveller; "that is a strange name!" and he turned to the cottage door to examine the person that approached.

Cantering through the garden on a milk-white palfrey, adorned with black leather trapping, appeared a little old man, dressed in singular but elegant habiliments. His doublet was of black velvet, his hose of crimson stuff, and his boots of buff. His cloak was black like his coat, but lined with rich miniver fur, of which also was his bonnet. He wore no arms except a small dagger, the steel hilt of which glittered in his girdle; and to turn and guide his palfrey he made use of neither spur nor rein, but seemed more to direct than urge him with a peeled osier stick, with which he every now and then touched the animal on either ear.

His person was as singular as his dress. Extremely diminutive in stature, his limbs appeared well formed, and even graceful. He was not a dwarf, but still considerably below the middle size; and though not misshapen in body, his face had that degree of prominence, and his eye that keen vivacious sparkle, generally discovered in the deformed. In complexion he was swarthy to excess, while his long black hair, slightly mingled with gray, escaped from under his bonnet and fell upon his shoulders. Still, the most remarkable feature was his eye, which, though sunk deep in his head, had a quickness and a fire that contradicted the calm, placid expression of the rest of his countenance, and seemed to indicate a restless, busy spirit; for, glancing rapidly from object to object, it rested not a moment upon any one thing, but appeared to collect the information it sought with the quickness of lightning, and then fly off to something new.

In this manner he approached the cottage, his look at first rapidly running over the figures of the two cottagers and their guest; but then turning to their faces, his eye might be seen scanning every feature, and seeming to extract their meaning in an instant: as in the summer we see the bee darting into every flower, and drawing forth its sweet essence, while it scarcely pauses to fold its wings. It seemed as if the face was to him a book, where each line was written with some tale or some information, but in a character so legible, and a language so well known, that a moment sufficed him for the perusal of the whole.

At the cottage-door the palfrey stopped of itself, and slipping down out of the saddle with extraordinary activity, the old gentleman stood before the traveller and his host with that sort of sharp, sudden motion which startles although expected. The old man and his wife received their new guest with reverence almost approaching to awe; but before noticing them farther than by signing them each with the cross, he turned directly towards the traveller, and doffing his cap of miniver, he made him a profound bow, while his long hair, parted from the crown, fell over his face and almost concealed it. "Sir Osborne Maurice," said he, "well met!"

The traveller bowed in some surprise to find himself recognised by the singular person who addressed him. "Truly, sir," he answered, "you have 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 my remembrance, this is the first time we have met."

"Within the last thousand years," replied the old man, "we have met more than a thousand times; but I remember you well before that, when you commanded a Roman cohort in the first Punic war."

"He's mad!" thought the traveller, "profoundly insane!" and he turned an inquiring glance to the old cottager and his wife; but far from showing any surprise, they stood regarding their strange visiter with looks of deep awe and respect. However, the traveller at length replied, "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. But no more of that. Fame is but like a billow on a sandy shore, that when the tide is in, it seems a mighty thing, and when 'tis out, 'tis nothing. If I have learned nought beside, I have learned to despise fame."

"That your learning must have taught you far more, needs no farther proof than your knowledge of a stranger that you never saw, at least with human eyes," said Sir Osborne; "and in truth, this your knowledge makes me a believer in that art which, hitherto, I had held as emptiness."

"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 not essayed. But, hark! bend down thine ear, and thou shalt hear more anon."

The young traveller bowed his head till his ear was on a level with the mouth of the diminutive speaker, who seemed to whisper not more than one word, but that was of such a nature as to make Sir Osborne start back, and fix his eyes upon him with a look of inquiring astonishment, that brought a smile upon the old man's lip. "There is no magic here," said Sir Cesar: "you shall hear more hereafter. But, hush! come into the cottage, for hunger, that vile earthly want, calls upon 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 small oaken table placed in the midst; Sir Cesar, as if accustomed to command there, seating the traveller as his guest, and demanding of the old couple a supply of those things he deemed necessary. "Set down the salt in the middle, Richard Heartley; now bring the bread; take the bacon from the pot, dame, and if there be a pompion yet not mouldy, 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 all alike. Now tell me, Richard Heartley, while we eat, what has happened to thee this morning, for I learn thou hast been in jeopardy."

Thus speaking, he carved the bacon with his dagger, and distributed to every one a portion, while Sir Osborne Maurice looked on, not a little interested in the scene, one of the most curious parts of which was the profound taciturnity that had succeeded to garrulity in the two old cottagers, and the promptitude and attention with which they executed 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 though he 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 Sir Payan 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 he did it only in malice," the old man said, "because he was the last of the good old lord's servants who was left upon the ground; and he, Sir Payan, was afraid, that even if he were to die there, his bones would keep possession for his old master; so he wished to drive him away altogether."

"Go forth on no account!" interrupted Sir Cesar. "Without he take thee by force and lead thee to the bound, and put thee off, go not beyond the limits of the lordship of Chilham Castle; neither pay him any rent, 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 drive me 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 to do 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 Payan Wileton has but his day; that will soon be over, and all shall be avenged; own him no lordship, I say!"

"Nay, nay, sir, I warrant you," replied the old man; "'twas even that that provoked Peter Wilson, the young bailiff, to strike me, because I said Sir Payan was not my lord, and I was not his tenant, and that if he 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, his small black eyes glowing like red-hot coals, and twinkling like stars on a frosty night. "Sure he did not dare to strike thee?"

"He felled him, Sir Cesar," cried the old woman, whose tongue could refrain no longer; "he felled him to the ground. He, a child I have had upon my knee, felled old Richard Heartley with a heavy blow!"

"My curse upon him!" cried the old knight, while anger and indignation gave 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 be dry and sapless, when all is sunshine and summer, without a green leaf to cover the nakedness of his misery; without flower or fruit may he pass away, and fire consume the rottenness of his core!"

"Oh! your worship, curse him not so deeply; we know how heavy your curses fall, and he has had some payment already," said the old cottager: "this honourable gentleman heard my housewife cry, and came riding up. So, when he saw the clumsy coward strike a feeble old man like me, he takes him up by the jerkin and the slops, and casts him as clean over the wall on the heath as I've seen Hob Johnson cast a truss out of a hay-cart."

"Sir Osborne, you did well," said the old knight; "you acted like your race. But yet I could have wished that this had not happened; 'twould have been better that your coming had not been known to your enemies before your friends, which I fear me will now be the case. He with whom you have to do is one from whose keen eye nought passes without question. 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 that man has fixed his eye may stir a step without his knowing it. But there is one who sees more deeply than even he does."

"Yourself, of course," replied Sir Osborne; "and indeed I cannot doubt that it is so; for I sit here in mute astonishment to find that all I held most secret is as much known to you as to myself."

"Oh, this is all simplicity!" replied the old man; "these are no wonders, though I may teach you some hereafter. At present I will tell you the future, against which you must guard, for your fortune is a-making."

"But if our fate be fixed," said Sir Osborne, "so that even mortal eyes 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, some are doubtful: some fixed by fate, some left to human will; and those who see such things are certain, may learn to guide their course through things that are not so. Thus, even in life, my young friend," he continued, speaking more placidly, for at first Sir Osborne's observation seemed to have nettled him; "thus, even in life, each ordinary mortal sees before him but one thing sure, which is death. It he cannot avoid; yet, how wholesome the sight to guide us in existence! So, in man's destiny, certain points are fixed, some of mighty magnitude, some that seem but trivial; and the rest are determined by his own conduct. Yet there are none so clearly marked that they may not be influenced by man's own will, so that when the stars are favourable he may carry his good fortune to the highest pitch by wisely seizing opportunity; and when they threaten evil or danger, he may fortify himself against the misfortunes that must occur, by philosophy; and guard against the peril that menaces, by prudence. 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 the singularity of his appearance, and a certain indescribable, almost unearthly fire, that burned in his eye, went greatly in the minds of his hearers to supply any deficiency in the chain of his reasoning. The extraordinary, if it be not ludicrous, is always easily convertible into the awful; and where, as in the present instance, it becomes intimately interwoven with all the doubtful, the mysterious, and the fearful in our state of being, it reaches that point of the sublime to which the heart of every man is most sensible. Those always who see the least of what is true are most likely to be influenced by what is doubtful; and in an age where little was certainly known, the remote, the uncertain, and the wild, commanded man's reason by his imagination.

Sir Osborne Maurice mused. If it be asked whether he believed implicitly in that art which many persons were then said to possess, of reading in the stars the future fate of individuals or nations, it may be answered, No. But if it be demanded whether he rejected it absolutely, equally No. He doubted; and that was a stretch of philosophy to which few attained in his day, when the study of judicial astrology was often combined with the most profound learning in other particulars; when, as a science, it was considered the highest branch of human knowledge, and its professors were regarded as almost proceeding a step beyond the just boundary of earthly research: we might say even more, when they produced such evidence of their extraordinary powers as might well convince the best-informed of an unlettered age, and which affords curious subjects of inquiry even to the present time.

In the mean while, Sir Cesar proceeded: "I speak thus as preface to what I have to tell you; not that I suppose you will be dismayed when you hear that immediate danger menaces you, because I know you are incapable of fear; but it is because I would have you wisely guard against what I foretell. Know, then, I have learned that you are likely to be in peril to-morrow, towards noon; therefore, hold yourself upon your guard. Divulge not your proceedings to any one. Keep a watchful eye and a shrewd ear. Mark well your company, and see that your sword be loose in the sheath."

"Certainly, good Sir Cesar, will I follow your counsel," replied Sir Osborne. "But might I not crave that you would afford me farther information, and by showing me what sort of danger threatens me, give me the means of avoiding it altogether?"

"What you ask I cannot comply with," answered the old man. "Think not that the book of the stars is like a child's horn-book, where every word is clearly spelled. Vague and undefined are the signs that we gain. Certain it is, that some danger threatens you; but of what nature, who can say? Know that, at the same time as yourself, were born sixty other persons, to whom the planets bore an equal ascendancy; and at the same hour to-morrow, each will undergo some particular peril. Be you on your guard against yours."

"Most assuredly I will, and I give you many thanks," replied Sir Osborne. "But I would fain know for what reason you take an interest in my fate more than in any of the other sixty persons you have mentioned."

"How know you that I do so?" demanded Sir Cesar drily. "Perchance had I met any one of them in this cottage, I might have done him the same good turn. However, 'tis not so. I own I do take an interest in your fate, more than that of any mortal being. Look not surprised, young man, for I have cause: nay more--you shall know more. Mark me! our fates are united for ever in this world, and I will serve you; though I see, darkling through the obscurity of time, that the moment which crowns all your wishes and endeavours is the last that I shall draw breath of life. Yet your enemy is my enemy, your friends are my friends, and I will serve you, though I die!"

He rose and grasped Sir Osborne's hand, and fixed his dark eye upon his 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 all again in forms we cannot guess. Yet, if my will could alter the law of fate, I would not delay your happiness an hour; though I know, I feel, that this thrilling blood must then chill, that this quick heart must stop, that the golden light and the glorious world must fade away; and that my soul must be parted from its fond companion of earth for ever and 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, he mounted his palfrey, which stood ready, and motioned Sir Osborne to do the same. The young knight did so in silence, and rode along with him to the garden-gate, followed by the old cottagers. There Richard Heartley, as if accustomed so to do, held out his hand; Sir Cesar counted into it nine nobles of gold, and proceeded on the road in silence.