Kenilworth Part 21

As he spoke, the door opened, and Master Mumblazen appeared--a withered, thin, elderly gentleman, with a cheek like a winter apple, and his grey hair partly concealed by a small, high hat, shaped like a cone, or rather like such a strawberry-basket as London fruiterers exhibit at their windows. He was too sententious a person to waste words on mere salutation; so, having welcomed Tressilian with a nod and a shake of the hand, he beckoned him to follow to Sir Hugh's great chamber, which the good knight usually inhabited. Will Badger followed, unasked, anxious to see whether his master would be relieved from his state of apathy by the arrival of Tressilian.

In a long, low parlour, amply furnished with implements of the chase, and with silvan trophies, by a ma.s.sive stone chimney, over which hung a sword and suit of armour somewhat obscured by neglect, sat Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote, a man of large size, which had been only kept within moderate compa.s.s by the constant use of violent exercise, It seemed to Tressilian that the lethargy, under which his old friend appeared to labour, had, even during his few weeks' absence, added bulk to his person--at least it had obviously diminished the vivacity of his eye, which, as they entered, first followed Master Mumblazen slowly to a large oaken desk, on which a ponderous volume lay open, and then rested, as if in uncertainty, on the stranger who had entered along with him.

The curate, a grey-headed clergyman, who had been a confessor in the days of Queen Mary, sat with a book in his hand in another recess in the apartment. He, too, signed a mournful greeting to Tressilian, and laid his book aside, to watch the effect his appearance should produce on the afflicted old man.

As Tressilian, his own eyes filling fast with tears, approached more and more nearly to the father of his betrothed bride, Sir Hugh's intelligence seemed to revive. He sighed heavily, as one who awakens from a state of stupor; a slight convulsion pa.s.sed over his features; he opened his arms without speaking a word, and, as Tressilian threw himself into them, he folded him to his bosom.

"There is something left to live for yet," were the first words he uttered; and while he spoke, he gave vent to his feelings in a paroxysm of weeping, the tears chasing each other down his sunburnt cheeks and long white beard.

"I ne'er thought to have thanked G.o.d to see my master weep," said Will Badger; "but now I do, though I am like to weep for company."

"I will ask thee no questions," said the old knight; "no questions--none, Edmund. Thou hast not found her--or so found her, that she were better lost."

Tressilian was unable to reply otherwise than by putting his hands before his face.

"It is enough--it is enough. But do not thou weep for her, Edmund. I have cause to weep, for she was my daughter; thou hast cause to rejoice, that she did not become thy wife.--Great G.o.d! thou knowest best what is good for us. It was my nightly prayer that I should see Amy and Edmund wedded,--had it been granted, it had now been gall added to bitterness."

"Be comforted, my friend," said the curate, addressing Sir Hugh, "it cannot be that the daughter of all our hopes and affections is the vile creature you would bespeak her."

"Oh, no," replied Sir Hugh impatiently, "I were wrong to name broadly the base thing she is become--there is some new court name for it, I warrant me. It is honour enough for the daughter of an old Devonshire clown to be the leman of a gay courtier--of Varney too--of Varney, whose grandsire was relieved by my father, when his fortune was broken, at the battle of--the battle of--where Richard was slain--out on my memory!--and I warrant none of you will help me--"

"The battle of Bosworth," said Master Mumblazen--"stricken between Richard Crookback and Henry Tudor, grandsire of the Queen that now is, PRIMO HENRICI SEPTIMI; and in the year one thousand four hundred and eighty-five, POST CHRISTUM NATUM."

"Ay, even so," said the old knight; "every child knows it. But my poor head forgets all it should remember, and remembers only what it would most willingly forget. My brain has been at fault, Tressilian, almost ever since thou hast been away, and even yet it hunts counter."

"Your worship," said the good clergyman, "had better retire to your apartment, and try to sleep for a little s.p.a.ce. The physician left a composing draught; and our Great Physician has commanded us to use earthly means, that we may be strengthened to sustain the trials He sends us."

"True, true, old friend," said Sir Hugh; "and we will bear our trials manfully--we have lost but a woman.--See, Tressilian,"--he drew from his bosom a long ringlet of glossy hair,--"see this lock! I tell thee, Edmund, the very night she disappeared, when she bid me good even, as she was wont, she hung about my neck, and fondled me more than usual; and I, like an old fool, held her by this lock, until she took her scissors, severed it, and left it in my hand--as all I was ever to see more of her!"

Tressilian was unable to reply, well judging what a complication of feelings must have crossed the bosom of the unhappy fugitive at that cruel moment. The clergyman was about to speak, but Sir Hugh interrupted him.

"I know what you would say, Master Curate,--After all, it is but a lock of woman's tresses; and by woman, shame, and sin, and death came into an innocent world.--And learned Master Mumblazen, too, can say scholarly things of their inferiority."

"C'EST L'HOMME," said Master Mumblazen, "QUI SE BAST, ET QUI CONSEILLE."

"True," said Sir Hugh, "and we will bear us, therefore, like men who have both mettle and wisdom in us.--Tressilian, thou art as welcome as if thou hadst brought better news. But we have spoken too long dry-lipped.--Amy, fill a cup of wine to Edmund, and another to me." Then instantly recollecting that he called upon her who could not hear, he shook his head, and said to the clergyman, "This grief is to my bewildered mind what the church of Lidcote is to our park: we may lose ourselves among the briers and thickets for a little s.p.a.ce, but from the end of each avenue we see the old grey steeple and the grave of my forefathers. I would I were to travel that road tomorrow!"

Tressilian and the curate joined in urging the exhausted old man to lay himself to rest, and at length prevailed. Tressilian remained by his pillow till he saw that slumber at length sunk down on him, and then returned to consult with the curate what steps should be adopted in these unhappy circ.u.mstances.

They could not exclude from these deliberations Master Michael Mumblazen; and they admitted him the more readily, that besides what hopes they entertained from his sagacity, they knew him to be so great a friend to taciturnity, that there was no doubt of his keeping counsel.

He was an old bachelor, of good family, but small fortune, and distantly related to the House of Robsart; in virtue of which connection, Lidcote Hall had been honoured with his residence for the last twenty years. His company was agreeable to Sir Hugh, chiefly on account of his profound learning, which, though it only related to heraldry and genealogy, with such sc.r.a.ps of history as connected themselves with these subjects, was precisely of a kind to captivate the good old knight; besides the convenience which he found in having a friend to appeal to when his own memory, as frequently happened, proved infirm and played him false concerning names and dates, which, and all similar deficiencies, Master Michael Mumblazen supplied with due brevity and discretion. And, indeed, in matters concerning the modern world, he often gave, in his enigmatical and heraldic phrase, advice which was well worth attending to, or, in Will Badger's language, started the game while others beat the bush.

"We have had an unhappy time of it with the good knight, Master Edmund,"

said the curate. "I have not suffered so much since I was torn away from my beloved flock, and compelled to abandon them to the Romish wolves."

"That was in TERTIO MARIAE," said Master Mumblazen.

"In the name of Heaven," continued the curate, "tell us, has your time been better spent than ours, or have you any news of that unhappy maiden, who, being for so many years the princ.i.p.al joy of this broken-down house, is now proved our greatest unhappiness? Have you not at least discovered her place of residence?"

"I have," replied Tressilian. "Know you c.u.mnor Place, near Oxford?"

"Surely," said the clergyman; "it was a house of removal for the monks of Abingdon."

"Whose arms," said Master Michael, "I have seen over a stone chimney in the hall,--a cross patonce betwixt four martlets."

"There," said Tressilian, "this unhappy maiden resides, in company with the villain Varney. But for a strange mishap, my sword had revenged all our injuries, as well as hers, on his worthless head."

"Thank G.o.d, that kept thine hand from blood-guiltiness, rash young man!"

answered the curate. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay it. It were better study to free her from the villain's nets of infamy."

"They are called, in heraldry, LAQUEI AMORIS, or LACS D'AMOUR," said Mumblazen.

"It is in that I require your aid, my friends," said Tressilian. "I am resolved to accuse this villain, at the very foot of the throne, of falsehood, seduction, and breach of hospitable laws. The Queen shall hear me, though the Earl of Leicester, the villain's patron, stood at her right hand."

"Her Grace," said the curate, "hath set a comely example of continence to her subjects, and will doubtless do justice on this inhospitable robber. But wert thou not better apply to the Earl of Leicester, in the first place, for justice on his servant? If he grants it, thou dost save the risk of making thyself a powerful adversary, which will certainly chance if, in the first instance, you accuse his master of the horse and prime favourite before the Queen."

"My mind revolts from your counsel," said Tressilian. "I cannot brook to plead my n.o.ble patron's cause the unhappy Amy's cause--before any one save my lawful Sovereign. Leicester, thou wilt say, is n.o.ble. Be it so; he is but a subject like ourselves, and I will not carry my plaint to him, if I can do better. Still, I will think on what thou hast said; but I must have your a.s.sistance to persuade the good Sir Hugh to make me his commissioner and fiduciary in this matter, for it is in his name I must speak, and not in my own. Since she is so far changed as to dote upon this empty profligate courtier, he shall at least do her the justice which is yet in his power."

"Better she died CAELEBS and SINE PROLE," said Mumblazen, with more animation than he usually expressed, "than part, PER PALE, the n.o.ble coat of Robsart with that of such a miscreant!"

"If it be your object, as I cannot question," said the clergyman, "to save, as much as is yet possible, the credit of this unhappy young woman, I repeat, you should apply, in the first instance, to the Earl of Leicester. He is as absolute in his household as the Queen in her kingdom, and if he expresses to Varney that such is his pleasure, her honour will not stand so publicly committed."

"You are right, you are right!" said Tressilian eagerly, "and I thank you for pointing out what I overlooked in my haste. I little thought ever to have besought grace of Leicester; but I could kneel to the proud Dudley, if doing so could remove one shade of shame from this unhappy damsel. You will a.s.sist me then to procure the necessary powers from Sir Hugh Robsart?"

The curate a.s.sured him of his a.s.sistance, and the herald nodded a.s.sent.

"You must hold yourselves also in readiness to testify, in case you are called upon, the openhearted hospitality which our good patron exercised towards this deceitful traitor, and the solicitude with which he laboured to seduce his unhappy daughter."

"At first," said the clergyman, "she did not, as it seemed to me, much affect his company; but latterly I saw them often together."

"SEIANT in the parlour," said Michael Mumblazen, "and Pa.s.sANT in the garden."

"I once came on them by chance," said the priest, "in the South wood, in a spring evening. Varney was m.u.f.fled in a russet cloak, so that I saw not his face. They separated hastily, as they heard me rustle amongst the leaves; and I observed she turned her head and looked long after him."

"With neck REGUARDANT," said the herald. "And on the day of her flight, and that was on Saint Austen's Eve, I saw Varney's groom, attired in his liveries, hold his master's horse and Mistress Amy's palfrey, bridled and saddled PROPER, behind the wall of the churchyard."

"And now is she found mewed up in his secret place of retirement," said Tressilian. "The villain is taken in the manner, and I well wish he may deny his crime, that I may thrust conviction down his false throat! But I must prepare for my journey. Do you, gentlemen, dispose my patron to grant me such powers as are needful to act in his name."

So saying, Tressilian left the room.

"He is too hot," said the curate; "and I pray to G.o.d that He may grant him the patience to deal with Varney as is fitting."

"Patience and Varney," said Mumblazen, "is worse heraldry than metal upon metal. He is more false than a siren, more rapacious than a griffin, more poisonous than a wyvern, and more cruel than a lion rampant."

"Yet I doubt much," said the curate, "whether we can with propriety ask from Sir Hugh Robsart, being in his present condition, any deed deputing his paternal right in Mistress Amy to whomsoever--"

"Your reverence need not doubt that," said Will Badger, who entered as he spoke, "for I will lay my life he is another man when he wakes than he has been these thirty days past."

"Ay, Will," said the curate, "hast thou then so much confidence in Doctor Diddleum's draught?"