Sir Ludar Part 40

"I am come," said he, when I had greeted him and bidden him sit and rest, "like a dove from the ends of the earth, yet with not so much as an olive leaf to fill my mouth withal. My Hollander, even the poet, friend of the immortals, can eat. Even the honey on Mount Athos satisfieth not; and nectar leaveth its void. As a sign of peace and good-will, my humble comrade, I will eat whatsoever bread and meat you may place before me; for in truth my teeth have lost their cunning, and he who late warbled elegiacs hath almost forgot how to swallow a cup of vulgar sack."

'Twas not long before with Jeannette's aid I set before him a meal the very sight of which filled his eyes with tears, and set his hand a trembling. It seemed kinder not to stand by while he devoured it; yet even in the adjoining room we could hear him, betwixt his mouthfuls, talk of Hebe and Ganymede, and utter brave speeches about Venus who ever haunted his wandering steps, and in mortal guise waited on her favoured servant. By which I understood he was struck with the beauty of my sweet Jeannette; for the which I forgave him much.

But when, after a little, we returned to see how he fared, he was fallen forward on the table in a deep sleep, from which it never even roused him when I lifted him in my arms and laid him on a clean straw bed in the corner of the office. And for twenty hours by the clock did he sleep there, never turning a limb, till it seemed a charity to rouse him and give him more food.

Then when he found himself refreshed and filled, he gave us his news; which, shorn of all its flourishes, was shortly this.

After he had written his letter from Chester, he was detained many a week in custody as a vagabond and a lunatic. And at last, shaking the dust of that city from his feet, he tramped to the next, where a like fate awaited him. And so, tossed about, like a drift log on the unpitying ocean, he had found himself cast up at last in London; where, remembering me, he had with many a rebuff sought me out, and here he was.

When he discovered that the maiden--his once mistress and incomparable swan--was of our household, he fell into strange raptures concerning the indulgences of the G.o.ds towards their favourites--meaning himself. And the sight of her, and her goodness to him--for with her own purse she found him a lodging not far off--called up from him many a burst of poetic fire, such as it grieves me to think cannot now be recovered.

More than that, he told us a little of Ludar, whom, as has been said, he encountered at Chester.

More yet, he had one piece of news which was of no little import to the maiden and us all, as you shall hear.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

HOW MASTER WALGRAVE FELL SHORT OF TYPE.

What the poet had to tell might never have been known had he not chanced to hear me speak to the maiden one day of Turlogh Luinech O'Neill, her father, and the Lady Cantire, her step-dame. He p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at the names.

"Hath Fortuna then reserved it to her mortal favourite to discover in my mistress, my paragon of all virtue, the Lady Rose O'Neill? My Hollander, why this churlish secrecy? why told ye not as much before?"

"Why," said I, "I supposed you knew the name of the lady you call your mistress."

"Groundling!" said he, "a poet needeth no name but Love and Beauty. But had I known this lady was she you say, I had relieved my mind of a notable piece of news for her ear."

"Say on, Sir Poet," said the maiden, who had approached and heard these last words.

"Now then, mistress mine," said he, "and thank not this voiceless dabbler in ink for the mercy, that travelling not a week before I reached London, I chanced into the company of a stranger, who fell captive to my wit, and displayed so lively a tooth for the sweets of Parna.s.sus--to wit, my poesy--that, hearing I was about to issue the same imprint, prayed me enrich him with a copy. The which I condescended to promise him. Being thus established in a brotherhood of poetic kinship, we opened our hearts one to another. And in our talk he confessed to me that he was an Irish gentleman in the service of one Turlogh Luinech O'Neill, a notable chieftain in the Isle of the Saints; and that he travelled to London on an errand to no less a man than her Majesty's Secretary of State to report to him the death and burial of one Lady Cantire, an aged servant of her Majesty, and sometime wife to the said Turlogh."

This was news indeed; and the maiden's face flushed with many mingled emotions as she heard it.

"Can it be true?" said she. "Sir Poet, tell me briefly what else this gentleman had to tell of my father?"

"Nay, mistress mine, I can remember little else; for I was thinking not of his master, but his poetic tooth; not of his defunct mistress, but of my living muse. Yet, stay, he told me the old man was desolate, his sons being all established elsewhere, and his one daughter lost. By which I take it, he spoke of thy celestial self. And strange indeed if the loss of such a one were not as blindness itself to one who hath looked in they resplendent face."

"Humphrey," said the maiden, turning from the poet to me, and taking Jeannette's little hand in hers, "this news means much to me. If it be true, I must to my father."

A cloud that sweeps over the April sun could scarce have cast the gloom which did this little speech on us who heard it. For the maiden, lady as she was, had become a sister to us.

Yet she was resolved; and hearing that the poet had remembered where he might hear of this gentleman in London, to deliver to him his poem, she begged me to go with the man of verse and find him out, and if possible bring him to her.

Which I did with no great difficulty. For the Irishman--who seemed a sort of steward of Turlogh's household--was still in his lodgings, waiting an audience with the Secretary's secretary. And when he heard who it was had sent me, he fell on his knees and thanked the saints for vouchsafing his master this great mercy; and, never looking twice at the poet, he came with me joyfully to the maiden.

It was all as the poet had reported. And the fellow had somewhat more to say. Which was that when the lady Cantire, now six months ago, had returned home to die, she had confessed to her lord her wickedness with respect to the maiden, whom she fully believed, despite her flight, to be in the clutches of the wicked English captain, who had vowed to move heaven and earth to find her, and (as had been reported), had been as good as his word. Turlogh found it hard to forgive his lady this great wrong, and, since her death, had longed for his child as he had never longed before. Furthermore, being now old and past fighting, he and his old foe, Sorley Boy, had become friends, and all was quiet in the country of the Glynns.

There was naught to be said to all this, and the maiden, though the tears stood in her eyes as she spoke, told us she must leave us and go home to her father.

It went hard with me then. For my duty to Ludar seemed to demand that I should see the maiden safe to her journey's end. Yet, while a shred of hope remained that he still lived, how dare I quit the place I was in?

Besides, my master every day had more need of my service for his secret printing, and was indeed so restless and nervous concerning the work, that he even grudged my walking out of an evening, or stealing an hour now and again in the company of my sweet Jeannette.

But one day the maiden called me to her, and said--

"Humphrey, you have been a friend and a brother to me. I have two things to ask of you now. One I even command, the other I beg as a precious boon."

"Before you ask," said I, "I will obey the command, for you have a right to command anything; and I will grant the boon, for nothing I can give you can come up to what I would fain give you."

She smiled gently at that and said--

"Wait till you hear, Humphrey. My command is that you quit not London at present."

"I understand," said I, "and had already resolved that only your command should move me hence."

"That makes me happier," said she, with a sigh of relief. "Now for the boon. What if I asked you to spare me Jeannette for a season?"

I think I looked so taken aback by that, that she had it on her lips to take back the request. But I recovered myself in time. "What says she?" I asked.

"I have not asked her," said she.

"I will ask her then," said I, and we went together to where Jeannette sat waiting for us.

"Jeannette," said I, "this maiden asks me to lend her the most precious thing I possess. Say, shall I do so?"

"Yea, Humphrey, and with a willing heart."

"Then, sweetheart," said I, kissing her, "I will even lend her thee."

It surprised me that when it came to asking my master and mistress they gave their leave after but a short parley. For the two maids were so bound together, and the lot of the one was so pitiful and desolate, that it seemed, after all, not too great a boon to ask. And when Jeannette herself seconded the request, and I encouraged it, they yielded.

In truth, my master was just then so full of his work and of the peril he ran, that I think he was all the better disposed to see one of his family thus provided for. Besides, he might safely reckon on the more work from me, when I should have naught to tempt me nightly from my case. As for my mistress, she was already making ready to take her younger children to visit a gossip of hers, one Mistress Crane; and it eased her of some little difficulty to find her party lightened by one for a season.

So all fell out well for the maiden, and sorrowfully for me. Yet, when she reproached herself for her selfishness in robbing me of my sweetheart, I had not the heart to show her all I felt. In sooth, this maiden needed a friend and comforter sorely; and how was she to fare on that long troublesome journey with no comrade but a rough man, and perchance a half-witted poet? For the poet, vowing that Aphrodite should never need for a gallant, nor a maiden in distress for a knight, begged so hard to go too, that she was fain to yield and admit him of the party.

'Twas late in March when our house was left desolate. On the last evening before they went, she asked me to row her and Jeannette once again on the river. I guessed why she asked, and needed no telling which course to take.

And as our boat lay on the oars beneath the shadow of that gloomy tower, she looked up long and wistfully, as one who takes a long farewell.

Then with a sigh she motioned to me to turn the boat's head and row home.

Not a word did any of us say during that sad voyage. Only, when we reached home and I handed her from the boat, she said--

"Humphrey, I am glad you are staying near him."

So, then, I discovered, she believed him living still and that I should see him again.

That night, as Jeannette and I stood in the garden watching the moonbeams play on the water, and feeling our hearts very heavy at the parting that was to come, we heard the splashing of an oar at the river side, and presently a man stepped up the bank and stood before us, saluting. At first I was so startled that my hand went to my belt, and I had out my sword in a twinkling. But I sent it home again directly I heard his voice, and recognised not an enemy but that same Jack Gedge whom Ludar had charged long ago at Dunluce to see to the maiden.