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+Project Gutenberg's St. George and St. Michael Vol. II, by George MacDonald
+#13 in our series by George MacDonald
+
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+Title: St. George and St. Michael Vol. II
+
+Author: George MacDonald
+
+Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5751]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 23, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks
+and the Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL
+
+BY GEORGE MACDONALD
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES
+
+VOL. II.
+
+LONDON
+
+1876
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE FIRE-ENGINE.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS.
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE ENCHANTED CHAIR.
+
+CHAPTER XX. MOLLY AND THE WHITE HORSE.
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE DAMSEL WHICH FELL SICK.
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE CATARACT.
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. AMANDA--DOROTHY--LORD HERBERT.
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THE GREAT MOGUL.
+
+CHAPTER XXV. RICHARD HEYWOOD.
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. THE WITCH'S COTTAGE.
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE MOAT OF THE KEEP.
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. RAGLAN STABLES.
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. THE APPARITION.
+
+CHAPTER XXX. RICHARD ANDTHE MARQUIS.
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. THE SLEEPLESS.
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. THE TURRET CHAMBER.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. JUDGE GOUT.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. AN EVIL TIME.
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. THE DELIVERER.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. THE DISCOVERY.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. THE HOROSCOPE.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE EXORCISM.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE FIRE-ENGINE.
+
+
+
+
+
+As soon as supper was over in the housekeeper's room, Dorothy sped
+to the keep, where she found Caspar at work.
+
+'My lord is not yet from supper, mistress,' he said. 'Will it please
+you wait while he comes?'
+
+Had it been till midnight, so long as there was a chance of his
+appearing, Dorothy would have waited. Caspar did his best to amuse
+her, and succeeded,--showing her one curious thing after
+another,--amongst the rest a watch that seemed to want no winding
+after being once set agoing, but was in fact wound up a little by
+every opening of the case to see the dial. All the while the
+fire-engine was at work on its mysterious task, with but now and
+then a moment's attention from Caspar, a billet of wood or a
+shovelful of sea-coal on the fire, a pull at a cord, or a hint from
+the hooked rod. The time went rapidly.
+
+Twilight was over, Caspar had lighted his lamp, and the moon had
+risen, before lord Herbert came.
+
+'I am glad to find you have patience as well as punctuality in the
+catalogue of your virtues, mistress Dorothy,' he said as he entered.
+'I too am punctual, and am therefore sorry to have failed now, but
+it is not my fault: I had to attend my father. For his sake pardon
+me.'
+
+'It were but a small matter, my lord, even had it been uncompelled,
+to keep an idle girl waiting.'
+
+'I think not so,' returned lord Herbert. 'But come now, I will
+explain to you my wonderful fire-engine.'
+
+As he spoke, he took her by the hand, and led her towards it. The
+creature blazed, groaned, and puffed, but there was no motion to be
+seen about it save that of the flames through the cracks in the door
+of the furnace, neither was there any clanking noise of metal. A
+great rushing sound somewhere in the distance, that seemed to belong
+to it, yet appeared too far off to have any connection with it.
+
+'It is a noisy thing,' he said, as they stood before it, 'but when I
+make another, it shall do its work that thou wouldst not hear it
+outside the door. Now listen to me for a moment, cousin. Should it
+come to a siege and I not at Raglan--the wise man will always
+provide for the worst--Caspar will be wanted everywhere. Now this
+engine is essential to the health and comfort, if not to the
+absolute life of the castle, and there is no one at present capable
+of managing it save us two. A very little instruction, however,
+would enable any one to do so: will you undertake it, cousin, in
+case of need?'
+
+'Make me assured that I can, and I will, my lord,' answered Dorothy.
+
+'A good and sufficing answer,' returned his lordship, with a smile
+of satisfaction. 'First then,' he went on, 'I will show you wherein
+lies its necessity to the good of the castle. Come with me, cousin
+Dorothy.'
+
+He led the way from the room, and began to ascend the stair which
+rose just outside it. Dorothy followed, winding up through the
+thickness of the wall. And now she could not hear the engine. As she
+went up, however, certain sounds of it came again, and grew louder
+till they seemed close to her ears, then gradually died away and
+once more ceased. But ever, as they ascended, the rushing sound
+which had seemed connected with it, although so distant, drew nearer
+and nearer, until, having surmounted three of the five lofty stories
+of the building, they could scarcely hear each other speak for the
+roar of water, falling in intermittent jets. At last they came out
+on the top of the wall, with nothing between them and the moat below
+but the battlemented parapet, and behold! the mighty tower was
+roofed with water: a little tarn filled all the space within the
+surrounding walk. It undulated in the moonlight like a subsiding
+storm, and beat the encircling banks. For into its depths shot
+rather than poured a great volume of water from a huge orifice in
+the wall, and the roar and the rush were tremendous. It was like the
+birth of a river, bounding at once from its mountain rock, and the
+sound of its fall indicated the great depth of the water into which
+it plunged. Solid indeed must be the walls that sustained the
+outpush of such a weight of water!
+
+'You see now, cousin, what yon fire-souled slave below is labouring
+at,' said his lordship. 'His task is to fill this cistern, and that
+he can in a few hours; and yet, such a slave is he, a child who
+understands his fetters and the joints of his bones can guide him at
+will.'
+
+'But, my lord,' questioned Dorothy, 'is there not water here to
+supply the castle for months? And there is the draw-well in the
+pitched court besides.'
+
+'Enough, I grant you,' he replied, 'for the mere necessities of
+life. But what would come of its pleasures? Would not the
+beleaguered ladies miss the bounty of the marble horse? Whence comes
+the water he gives so freely that he needeth not to drink himself?
+He would thirst indeed but for my water-commanding fiend below. Or
+how would the birds fare, were the fountains on the islands dry in
+the hot summer? And what would the children say if he ceased to
+spout? And how would my lord's tables fare, with the armed men
+besetting every gate, the fish-ponds dry, and the fish rotting in
+the sun? See you, mistress Dorothy? And for the draw-well, know you
+not wherein lies the good of a tower stronger than all the rest? Is
+it not built for final retreat, the rest of the castle being at
+length in the hands of the enemy? Where then is your draw-well?'
+
+'But this tower, large as it is, could not receive those now within
+the walls of the castle,' said Dorothy.
+
+'They will be fewer ere its shelter is needful.'
+
+It was his tone quite as much as the words that drove a sudden
+sickness to the heart of the girl: for one moment she knew what
+siege and battle meant. But she recovered herself with a strong
+effort, and escaped from the thought by another question.
+
+'And whence comes all this water, my lord?' she said, for she was
+one who would ask until she knew all that concerned her.
+
+'Have you not chanced to observe a well in my workshop below, on the
+left-hand side of the door, not far from the great chest?'
+
+'I have observed it, my lord.'
+
+'That is a very deep well, with a powerful spring. Large pipes lead
+from all but the very bottom of that to my fire-engine. The fuller
+the well, the more rapid the flow into the cistern, for the
+shallower the water, the more labour falls to my giant. He is
+finding it harder work now. But you see the cistern is nearly full.'
+
+'Forgive me, my lord, if I am troubling you,' said Dorothy, about to
+ask another question.
+
+'I delight in the questions of the docile,' said his lordship. 'They
+are the little children of wisdom. There! that might be out of the
+book of Ecclesiasticus,' he added, with a merry laugh. 'I might pass
+that off on Dr. Bayly for my father's: he hath already begun to
+gather my father's sayings into a book, as I have discovered. But,
+prithee, cousin, let not my father know of it.'
+
+'Fear not me, my lord,' returned Dorothy. 'Having no secrets of my
+own to house, it were evil indeed to turn my friends' out of doors.'
+
+'Why, that also would do for Dr. Bayly! Well said, Dorothy! Now for
+thy next question.'
+
+'It is this, my lord: having such a well in your foundations, whence
+the need of such a cistern on your roof? I mean now as regards the
+provision of the keep itself in case of ultimate resort.'
+
+'In coming to deal with a place of such strength as this,' replied
+his lordship, '--I mean the keep whereon we now stand, not the
+castle, which, alas! hath many weak points--the enemy would
+assuredly change the siege into a blockade; that is, he would try to
+starve instead of fire us out; and, procuring information
+sufficiently to the point, would be like enough to dig deep and cut
+the water-veins which supply that well; and thereafter all would
+depend on the cistern. From the moment therefore when the first
+signs of siege appear, it will be wisdom and duty on the part of the
+person in charge to keep it constantly full--full as a cup to the
+health of the king. I trust however that such will be the good
+success of his majesty's arms that the worst will only have to be
+provided against, not encountered.--But there is more in it yet.
+Come hither, cousin. Look down through this battlement upon the
+moat. You see the moon in it? No? That is because it is covered so
+thick with weeds. When you go down, mark how low it is. There is
+little defence in the moat that a boy might wade through. I have
+allowed it to get shallow in order to try upon its sides a new
+cement I have lately discovered; but weeks and weeks have passed,
+and I have never found the leisure, and now I am sure I never shall
+until this rebellion is crushed. It is time I filled it. Pray look
+down upon it, cousin. In summer it will be full of the loveliest
+white water-lilies, though now you can see nothing but green weeds.'
+
+He had left her side and gone a few paces away, but kept on
+speaking.
+
+'One strange thing I can tell you about them, cousin--the roots of
+that whitest of flowers make a fine black dye! What apophthegm
+founded upon that, thinkest thou, my father would drop for Dr
+Bayly?'
+
+'You perplex me much, my lord,' said Dorothy. 'I cannot at all
+perceive your lordship's drift.'
+
+'Lay a hand on each side of the battlement where you now stand; lean
+through it and look down. Hold fast and fear nothing.' Dorothy did
+as she was desired, and thus supported gazed upon the moat below,
+where it lay a mere ditch at the foot of the lofty wall.
+
+'My lord, I see nothing,' she said, turning to him, as she thought;
+but he had vanished.
+
+Again she looked at the moat, and then her eyes wandered away over
+the castle. The two courts and their many roofs, even those of all
+the towers, except only the lofty watch-tower on the western side,
+lay bare beneath her, in bright moonlight, flecked and blotted with
+shadows, all wondrous in shape and black as Erebus.
+
+Suddenly, she knew not whence, arose a frightful roaring, a hollow
+bellowing, a pent-up rumbling. Seized by a vague terror, she clung
+to the parapet and trembled. But even the great wall beneath her,
+solid as the earth itself, seemed to tremble under her feet, as with
+some inward commotion or dismay. The next moment the water in the
+moat appeared to rush swiftly upwards, in wild uproar, fiercely
+confused, and covered with foam and spray. To her bewildered eyes,
+it seemed to heap itself up, wave upon furious wave, to reach the
+spot where she stood, greedy to engulf her. For an instant she
+fancied the storming billows pouring over the edge of the
+battlement, and started back in such momentary agony as we suffer in
+dreams. Then, by a sudden rectification of her vision, she perceived
+that what she saw was in reality a multitude of fountain jets
+rushing high towards their parent-cistern, but far-failing ere they
+reached it. The roar of their onset was mingled with the despairing
+tumult of their defeat, and both with the deep tumble and wallowing
+splash of the water from the fire-engine, which grew louder and
+louder as the surface of the water in the reservoir sank. The uproar
+ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, but the moat mirrored a
+thousand moons in the agitated waters which had overwhelmed its
+mantle of weeds.
+
+'You see now,' said lord Herbert, rejoining her while still she
+gazed, 'how necessary the cistern is to the keep? Without it, the
+few poor springs in the moat would but sustain it as you saw it.
+From here I can fill it to the brim.'
+
+'I see,' answered Dorothy. 'But would not a simple overflow serve,
+carried from the well through the wall?'
+
+'It would, were there no other advantages with which this mode
+harmonised. I must mention one thing more--which I was almost
+forgetting, and which I cannot well show you to-night--namely, that
+I can use this water not only as a means of defence in the moat, but
+as an engine of offence also against any one setting unlawful or
+hostile foot upon the stone bridge over it. I can, when I please,
+turn that bridge, the same by which you cross to come here, into a
+rushing aqueduct, and with a torrent of water sweep from it a whole
+company of invaders.'
+
+'But would they not have only to wait until the cistern was empty?'
+
+'As soon and so long as the bridge is clear, the outflow ceases. One
+sweep, and my water-broom would stop, and the rubbish lie sprawling
+under the arch, or half-way over the court. And more still,' he
+added with emphasis: 'I COULD make it boiling!'
+
+'But your lordship would not?' faltered Dorothy.
+
+'That might depend,' he answered with a smile. Then changing his
+tone in absolute and impressive seriousness, 'But this is all
+nothing but child's play,' he said, 'compared with what is involved
+in the matter of this reservoir. The real origin of it was its
+needfulness to the perfecting of my fire-engine.'
+
+'Pardon me, my lord, but it seems to me that without the cistern
+there would be no need for the engine. How should you want or how
+could you use the unhandsome thing? Then how should the cistern be
+necessary to the engine?'
+
+'Handsome is that handsome does,' returned his lordship. 'Truly,
+cousin Dorothy, you speak well, but you must learn to hear better. I
+did not say that the cistern existed for the sake of the engine, but
+for the sake of the perfecting of the engine. Cousin Dorothy, I will
+give you the largest possible proof of my confidence in you, by not
+only explaining to you the working of my fire-engine, but
+acquainting you--only you must not betray me!'
+
+'I, in my turn,' said Dorothy, 'will give your lordship, if not the
+strongest, yet a very strong proof of my confidence: I promise to
+keep your secret before knowing what it is.'
+
+'Thanks, cousin. Listen then: That engine is a mingling of discovery
+and invention such as hath never had its equal since first the
+mechanical powers were brought to the light. For this shall be as a
+soul to animate those, all and each--lever, screw, pulley, wheel,
+and axle--what you will. No engine of mightiest force ever for
+defence or assault invented, let it be by Archimedes himself, but
+could by my fire-engine be rendered tenfold more mighty for safety
+or for destruction, although as yet I have applied it only to the
+blissful operation of lifting water, thus removing the curse of it
+where it is a curse, and carrying it where the parched soil cries
+for its help to unfold the treasures of its thirsty bosom. My
+fire-engine shall yet uplift the nation of England above the heads
+of all richest and most powerful nations on the face of the whole
+earth. For when the troubles of this rebellion are over, which press
+so heavily on his majesty and all loyal subjects, compelling even a
+peaceful man like myself to forsake invention for war, and the
+workman's frock which I love, for the armour which I love not, when
+peace shall smile again on the country, and I shall have time to
+perfect the work of my hands, I shall present it to my royal master,
+a magical supremacy of power, which shall for ever raise him and his
+royal progeny above all use or need of subsidies, ship-money,
+benevolences, or taxes of whatever sort or name, to rule his kingdom
+as independent of his subjects in reality as he is in right; for
+this water-commanding engine, which God hath given me to make, shall
+be the source of such wealth as no accountant can calculate. For
+herewith may marsh-land be thoroughly drained, or dry land perfectly
+watered; great cities kept sweet and wholesome; mines rid of the
+water gathering from springs therein, so as he may enrich himself
+withal; houses be served plentifully on every stage; and gardens in
+the dryest summer beautified and comforted with fountains. Which
+engine when I found that it was in the power of my hands to do, as
+well as of my heart to conceive that it might be done, I did kneel
+down and give humble thanks from the bottom of my heart to the
+omnipotent God whose mercies are fathomless, for his vouchsafing me
+an insight into so great a secret of nature and so beneficial to all
+mankind as this my engine.'
+
+With all her devotion to the king, and all her hatred and contempt
+of the parliament and the puritans, Dorothy could not help a doubt
+whether such independence might be altogether good either for the
+king himself or the people thus subjected to his will. But the
+farther doubt did not occur to her whether a pre-eminence gained
+chiefly by wealth was one to be on any grounds desired for the
+nation, or, setting that aside, was one which carried a single
+element favourable to perpetuity.
+
+All this time they had been standing on the top of the keep, with
+the moonlight around them, and in their ears the noise of the water
+flowing from the dungeon well into the sky-roofed cistern. But now
+it came in diminished flow.
+
+'It is the earth that fails in giving, not my engine in taking,'
+said lord Herbert as he turned to lead the way down the winding
+stair. Ever as they went, the noise of the water grew fainter and
+the noise of the engine grew louder, but just as they stepped from
+the stair, it gave a failing stroke or two, and ceased. A dense
+white cloud met them as they entered the vault.
+
+'Stopped for the night, Caspar?' said his lordship.
+
+'Yes, my lord; the well is nearly out.'
+
+'Let it sleep,' returned his master; 'like a man's heart it will
+fill in the night. Thank God for the night and darkness and sleep,
+in which good things draw nigh like God's thieves, and steal
+themselves in--water into wells, and peace and hope and courage into
+the minds of men. Is it not so, my cousin?'
+
+Dorothy did not answer in words, but she looked up in his face with
+a reverence in her eyes that showed she understood him. And this was
+one of the idolatrous catholics! It was neither the first nor the
+last of many lessons she had to receive, in order to learn that a
+man may be right although the creed for which he is and ought to be
+ready to die, may contain much that is wrong. Alas! that so few,
+even of such men, ever reflect, that it is the element common to all
+the creeds which gives its central value to each.
+
+'I cannot show you the working of the engine to-night,' said lord
+Herbert. 'Caspar has decreed otherwise.'
+
+'I can soon set her agoing again, my lord,' said Caspar.
+
+'No, no. We must to the powder-mill, Caspar. Mistress Dorothy will
+come again to-morrow, and you must yourself explain to her the
+working and management of it, for I shall be away. And do not fear
+to trust my cousin, Caspar, although she be a soft-handed lady. Let
+her have the brute's halter in her own hold.'
+
+Filled with gratitude for the trust he reposed in her, Dorothy took
+her leave, and the two workmen immediately abandoned their shop for
+the night, leaving the door wide open behind them to let out the
+vapours of the fire-engine, in the confidence that no unlicensed
+foot would dare to cross the threshold, and betook themselves to the
+powder-mill, where they continued at work the greater part of the
+night.
+
+His lordship was unfavourable to the storing of powder because of
+the danger, seeing they could, on his calculation, from the
+materials lying ready for mixing, in one week prepare enough to keep
+all the ordnance on the castle walls busy for two. But indeed he had
+not such a high opinion of gunpowder but that he believed engines
+for projection, more powerful as well as less expensive, could be
+constructed, after the fashion of ballista or catapult, by the use
+of a mode he had discovered of immeasurably increasing the strength
+of springs, so that stones of a hundredweight might be thrown into a
+city from a quarter of a mile's distance without any noise audible
+to those within. It was this device he was brooding over when
+Dorothy came upon him by the arblast. Nor did the conviction arise
+from any prejudice against fire-arms, for he had, among many other
+wonderful things of the sort, in cannons, sakers, harquebusses,
+muskets, musquetoons, and all kinds, invented a pistol to discharge
+a dozen times with one loading, and without so much as new priming
+being once requisite, or the possessor having to change it out of
+one hand into the other, or stop his horse.
+
+One who had happened to see lord Herbert as he went about within his
+father's walls, busy yet unhasting, earnest yet cheerful, rapid in
+all his movements yet perfectly composed, would hardly have imagined
+that a day at a time, or perhaps two, was all he was now able to
+spend there, days which were to him as breathing-holes in the ice
+to the wintered fishes. For not merely did he give himself to the
+enlisting of large numbers of men, but commanded both horse and
+foot, meeting all expenses from his own pocket, or with the
+assistance of his father. A few months before the period at which my
+story has arrived, he had in eight days raised six regiments,
+fortified Monmouth and Chepstow, and garrisoned half-a-dozen smaller
+but yet important places. About a hundred noblemen and gentlemen
+whom he had enrolled as a troop of life-guards, he furnished with
+the horses and arms which they were unable to provide with
+sufficient haste for themselves. So prominenf indeed were his
+services on behalf of the king, that his father was uneasy because
+of the jealousy and hate it would certainly rouse in the minds of
+some of his majesty's well-wishers--a just presentiment, as his son
+had too good reason to acknowledge after he had spent a million of
+money, besides the labour and thought and dangerous endeavour of
+years, in the king's service.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS.
+
+
+
+
+
+The next morning, immediately after breakfast, lord Herbert set out
+for Chepstow first and then Monmouth, both which places belonged to
+his father, and were principal sources of his great wealth.
+
+Still, amid the rush of the changeful tides of war around them, and
+the rumour of battle filling the air, all was peaceful within the
+defences of Raglan, and its towers looked abroad over a quiet
+country, where the cattle fed and the green wheat grew. On the far
+outskirts of vision, indeed, a smoke might be seen at times from the
+watch-tower, and across the air would come the dull boom of a great
+gun from one of the fortresses, at which lady Margaret's cheek would
+turn pale; but, although every day something was done to strengthen
+the castle, although masons were at work here and there about the
+walls like bees, and Caspar Kaltoff was busy in all directions, now
+mounting fresh guns, now repairing steel cross-bows, now getting out
+of the armoury the queerest oldest-fashioned engines to place
+wherever available points could be found, there was no hurry and no
+confusion, and indeed so little appearance of unusual activity, that
+an unmilitary stranger might have passed a week in the castle
+without discovering that preparations for defence were actively
+going on. All around them the buds were creeping out, uncurling,
+spreading abroad, straightening themselves, smoothing out the
+creases of their unfolding, and breathing the air of heaven--in some
+way very pleasant to creatures with roots as well as to creatures
+with legs. The apple-blossoms came out, and the orchard was lovely
+as with an upward-driven storm of roseate snow. Ladies were oftener
+seen passing through the gates and walking in the gardens--where
+the fountains had begun to play, and the swans and ducks on the
+lakes felt the return of spring in every fibre of their webby feet
+and cold scaly legs.
+
+And Dorothy sat as it were at the spring-head of the waters, for,
+through her dominion over the fire-engine, she had become the naiad
+of Raglan. The same hour in which lord Herbert departed she went to
+Kaltoff, and was by him instructed in its mysteries. On the third
+day after, so entirely was the Dutchman satisfied with her
+understanding and management of it, that he gave up to her the whole
+water-business. And now, as I say, she sat at the source of all the
+streams and fountains of the place, and governed them all. The horse
+of marble spouted and ceased at her will, but in general she let the
+stream from his mouth flow all day long. Every water-cock on the
+great tower was subject to her. From the urn of her pleasure the
+cistern was daily filled, and from the summit of defence her flood
+went pouring into the moat around its feet, until it mantled to the
+brim, turning the weeds into a cold shadowy pavement of green for a
+foil to its pellucid depth. She understood all the secrets of the
+aqueous catapult, at which its contriver had little more than hinted
+on that memorable night when he disclosed so much, and believed she
+could arrange it for action without assistance. At the same time her
+new responsibilities required but a portion of her leisure, and lady
+Margaret was not the less pleased with the wise-headed girl, whose
+manners and mental ways were such a contrast to her own, that her
+husband considered her fit to be put in charge of his darling
+invention. But Dorothy kept silence concerning the trust to all but
+her mistress, who, on her part, was prudent enough to avoid any
+allusion which might raise yet higher the jealousy of her
+associates, by whom she was already regarded as supplanting them in
+the favour of their mistress.
+
+One lovely evening in May, the moon at the full, the air warm yet
+fresh, the apple-blossoms at their largest, with as yet no spot upon
+their fair skin, and the nightingales singing out of their very
+bones, the season, the hour, the blossoms, and the moon had invaded
+every chamber in the castle, seized every heart of both man and
+beast, and turned all into one congregation of which the
+nightingales were the priests. The cocks were crowing as if it had
+been the dawn itself instead of its ghost they saw; the dogs were
+howling, but whether that was from love or hate of the moon, I
+cannot tell; the pigeons were cooing; the peacock had turned his
+train into a paralune, understanding well that the carnival could
+not be complete without him and his; and the wild beasts were
+restless, uttering a short yell now and then, at least aware that
+something was going on. All the inhabitants of the castle were out
+of doors, the ladies and gentlemen in groups here and there about
+the gardens and lawns and islands, and the domestics, and such of
+the garrison as were not on duty, wandering hither and thither where
+they pleased, careful only not to intrude on their superiors.
+
+Lady Margaret was walking with her step-son Henry on a lawn under
+the northern window of the picture-gallery, and there the ladies
+Elizabeth and Anne joined them--the former a cheerful woman, endowed
+with a large share of her father's genial temperament; joke or jest
+would moult no feather in lady Elizabeth's keeping; the latter
+quiet, sincere, and reverent. The marquis himself, notwithstanding a
+slight attack of the gout, had hobbled on his stick to a chair set
+for him on the same lawn. Beside him sat lady Mary, younger than the
+other two, and specially devoted to her father.
+
+Their gentlewomen were also out, flitting in groups that now and
+then mingled and changed. Rowland Scudamore joined lady Margaret's
+people, and in a moment lady Broughton was laughing merrily. But
+mistress Doughty walked on with straight neck, as if there were
+nobody but herself in heaven or on the earth, although mortals were
+merry by her side, and nightingales singing themselves to death over
+her head. Behind them came Amanda Serafina, with her eyes on her
+feet, and the corners of her pretty mouth drawn down in contempt of
+nobody in particular. Now and then Scudamore, when satisfied with
+his own pretty wit, would throw a glance behind him, and she,
+somehow or other, would, without change of muscle, let him know that
+she had heard him. This group sauntered into the orchard.
+
+After them came Dorothy with Dr Bayly, talking of their common
+friend Mr. Matthew Herbert, and following them into the orchard,
+wandered about among the trees, under the curdled moonlight of the
+apple-blossoms, amid the challenges and responses of five or six
+nightingales, that sang as if their bodies had dwindled under the
+sublimating influences of music, until, with more than cherubic
+denudation, their sum of being was reduced to a soul and a throat.
+
+Moonlight, apple-blossoms, nightingales, with the souls of men and
+women for mirrors and reflectors! The picture is for the musician
+not the painter, either him of words or him of colours. It was like
+a lovely show in the land of dreams, even to the living souls that
+moved in and made part of it. The earth is older now, colder at the
+heart, a little nearer to the fate of cold-hearted things, which is
+to be slaves and serve without love; but she has still the same
+moonlight, the same apple-blossoms, the same nightingales, and we
+have the same hearts, and so can understand it. But, alas! how
+differently should we come in amongst the accessories of such a
+picture! For we men at least are all but given over to ugliness,
+and, artistically considered, even vulgarity, in the matter of
+dress, wherein they, of all generations of English men and women,
+were too easily supreme both as to form and colour. Hence, while
+they are an admiration to us, we shall be but a laughter to those
+that come behind us, and that whether their fashions be better than
+ours or no, for nothing is so ridiculous as ugliness out of date.
+The glimmer of gold and silver, the glitter of polished steel, the
+flashing of jewels, and the flowing of plumes, went well. But, so
+canopied with loveliness, so besung with winged passion, so clothed
+that even with the heavenly delicacies enrounding them they blended
+harmoniously, their moonlit orchard was an island beat by the waves
+of war, its air would quiver and throb by fits, shaken with the roar
+of cannon, and might soon gleam around them with the whirring sweep
+of the troopers' broad blades; while all throughout the land, the
+hateful demon of party spirit tore wide into gashes the wounds first
+made by conscience in the best, and by prejudice in the good.
+
+The elder ladies had floated away together between the mossy stems,
+under the canopies of blossoms; Rowland had fallen behind and joined
+the waiting Amanda, and the two were now flitting about like moths
+in the moonshine; Dorothy and Dr. Bayly had halted in an open spot,
+like a moonlight impluvium, the divine talking eagerly to the
+maiden, and the maiden looking up at the moon, and heeding the
+nightingales more than the divine.
+
+'CAN they be English nightingales?' said Dorothy thoughtfully.
+
+The doctor was bewildered for a moment. He had been talking about
+himself, not the nightingales, but he recovered himself like a
+gentleman.
+
+'Assuredly, mistress Dorothy,' he replied; 'this is the land of
+their birth. Hither they come again when the winter is over.'
+
+'Yes; they take no part in our troubles. They will not sing to
+comfort our hearts in the cold; but give them warmth enough, and
+they sing as careless of battle-fields and dead men as if they were
+but moonlight and apple-blossoms.'
+
+'Is it not better so?' returned the divine after a moment's thought.
+'How would it be if everything in nature but re-echoed our moan?'
+
+Dorothy looked at the little man, and was in her turn a moment
+silent.
+
+'Then,' she said, 'we must see in these birds and blossoms, and that
+great blossom in the sky, so many prophets of a peaceful time and a
+better country, sent to remind us that we pass away and go to them.'
+
+'Nay, my dear mistress Dorothy!' returned the all but obsequious
+doctor; 'such thoughts do not well befit your age, or rather, I
+would say, your youth. Life is before you, and life is good. These
+evil times will go by, the king shall have his own again, the
+fanatics will be scourged as they deserve, and the church will rise
+like the phoenix from the ashes of her purification.'
+
+'But how many will lie out in the fields all the year long, yet
+never see blossoms or hear nightingales more!' said Dorothy.
+
+'Such will have died martyrs,' rejoined the doctor.
+
+'On both sides?' suggested Dorothy.
+
+Again for a moment the good man stood checked. He had not even
+thought of the dead on the other side.
+
+'That cannot be,' he said. And Dorothy looked up again at the moon.
+
+But she listened no more to the songs of the nightingales, and they
+left the orchard together in silence.
+
+'Come, Rowland, we must not be found here alone,' said Amanda, who
+saw them go. 'But tell me one thing first: is mistress Dorothy
+Vaughan indeed your cousin?'
+
+'She is indeed. Her mother and mine were cousins german--sisters'
+children.'
+
+'I thought it could not be a near cousinship. You are not alike at
+all. Hear me, Rowland, but let it die in your ear--I love not
+mistress Dorothy.'
+
+'And the reason, lovely hater? "Is not the maiden fair to see?" as
+the old song says. I do not mean that she is fair as some are fair,
+but she will pass; she offends not.'
+
+'She is fair enough--not beautiful, not even pleasing; but, to be
+just, the demure look she puts on may bear the fault of that.
+Rowland, I would not speak evil of any one, but your cousin is a
+hypocrite. She is false at heart, and she hates me. Trust me, she
+but bides her time to let me know it--and you too, my Rowland.'
+
+'I am sure you mistake her, Amanda,' said Scudamore. 'Her looks are
+but modest, and her words but shy, for she came hither from a lonely
+house. I believe she is honest and good.'
+
+'Seest thou not then how that she makes friends with none but her
+betters? Already hath she wound herself around my lady's heart,
+forsooth! and now she pays her court to the puffing chaplain! Hast
+thou never observed, my Rowland, how oft she crosses the bridge to
+the yellow tower? What seeks she there? Old Kaltoff, the Dutchman,
+it can hardly be. I know she thinks to curry with my lord by
+pretending to love locks and screws and pistols and such like. "But
+why should she haunt the place when my lord is not there?" you will
+ask. Her pretence will hold the better for it, no doubt, and Caspar
+will report concerning her. And if she pleases my lord well, who
+knows but he may give her a pair of watches to hang at her ears, or
+a box that Paracelsus himself could not open without the secret as
+well as the key? I have heard of both such. They say my lord hath
+twenty cartloads of quite as wonderful things in that vault he calls
+his workshop. Hast thou never marked the huge cabinet of black
+inlaid with silver, that stands by the wall--fitter indeed for my
+lady's chamber than such a foul place?'
+
+'I have seen it,' answered Scudamore.
+
+'I warrant me it hath store of gewgaws fit for a duchess.'
+
+'Like enough,' assented Rowland.
+
+'If mistress Dorothy were to find the way through my lord's favour
+into that cabinet--truly it were nothing to thee or me, Rowland.'
+
+'Assuredly not. It would be my lord's own business.'
+
+'Once upon a time I was sent to carry my young lady Raven
+thither--to see my lord earn his bread, as said my lady: and what
+should my lord but give her no less than a ball of silver which,
+thrown into a vessel of water at any moment would plainly tell by
+how much it rose above the top, the very hour and minute of the day
+or night, as well and truly as the castle-clock itself. Tell me
+not, Rowland, that the damsel hath no design in it. Her looks
+betoken a better wisdom. Doth she not, I ask your honesty, far more
+resemble a nose-pinched puritan than a loyal maiden?'
+
+Thus amongst the apple-blossoms talked Amanda Serafina.
+
+'Prithee, be not too severe with my cousin, Amanda,' pleaded
+Scudamore. 'She is much too sober to please my fancy, but wherefore
+should I for that hate her? And if she hath something the look of a
+long-faced fanatic, thou must think, she hath but now, as it were,
+lost her mother.'
+
+'But now! And I never knew mine! Ah, Rowland, how lonely is the
+world!'
+
+'Lovely Amanda!' said Rowland.
+
+So they passed from the orchard and parted, fearful of being missed.
+
+How should such a pair do, but after its kind? Life was dull without
+love-making, so they made it. And the more they made, the more they
+wanted to make, until casual encounters would no longer serve their
+turn.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE ENCHANTED CHAIR.
+
+
+
+
+
+In the castle things went on much the same, nor did the gathering
+tumult without wake more than an echo within. Yet a cloud slowly
+deepened upon the brow of the marquis, and a look of disquiet, to be
+explained neither by the more frequent returns of his gout, nor by
+the more lengthened absences of his favourite son. In his judgment
+the king was losing ground, not only in England but in the deeper
+England of its men. Lady Margaret also, for all her natural good
+spirits and light-heartedness, showed a more continuous anxiety
+than was to be accounted for by her lord's absences and the dangers
+he had to encounter: little Molly, the treasure of her heart next to
+her lord, had never been other than a delicate child, but now had
+begun to show signs of worse than weakness of constitution, and the
+heart of the mother was perpetually brooding over the ever-present
+idea of her sickly darling.
+
+But she always did her endeavour to clear the sky of her countenance
+before sitting down with her father-in-law at the dinner-table,
+where still the marquis had his jest almost as regularly as his
+claret, although varying more in quality and quantity both--now
+teasing his son Charles about the holes in his pasteboard, as he
+styled the castle walls; now his daughter Anne about a design, he
+and no one else attributed to her, of turning protestant and
+marrying Dr. Bayly; now Dr. Bayly about his having been discovered
+blowing the organ in the chapel at high mass, as he said; for when
+no new joke was at hand he was fain to content himself with falling
+back upon old ones. The first of these mentioned was founded on the
+fact, as undeniable as deplorable, of the weakness of many portions
+of the defences, to remedy which, as far as might be, was for the
+present lord Charles's chief endeavour, wherein he had the best
+possible adviser, engineer, superintendent, and workman, all in the
+person of Caspar Kaltoff. The second jest of the marquis was a pure
+invention upon the liking of lady Anne for the company and
+conversation of the worthy chaplain. The last mentioned was but an
+exaggeration of the following fact.
+
+One evening the doctor came upon young Delaware, loitering about the
+door of the chapel, with as disconsolate a look as his lovely
+sightless face was ever seen to wear, and, inquiring what was amiss
+with him, learned that he could find no one to blow the organ
+bellows for him. The youth had for years, boy as he still was, found
+the main solace of his blindness in the chapel-organ, upon which he
+would have played from morning to night could he have got any one to
+blow as long. The doctor, then, finding the poor boy panting for
+music like the hart for the water-brooks, but with no Jacob to roll
+the stone from the well's mouth that he might water the flocks of
+his thirsty thoughts, made willing proffer of his own exertions to
+blow the bellows of the organ, so long as the somewhat wheezy
+bellows of his body would submit to the task.
+
+By degrees however the good doctor had become so absorbed in the
+sounds that rushed, now wailing, now jubilant, now tender as a
+twilight wind, now imperious as the voice of the war-tempest, from
+the fingers of the raptured boy, that the reading of the first
+vesper-psalm had commenced while he was yet watching the slow rising
+index, in the expectation that the organist was about to resume. The
+voice of his Irish brother-chaplain, Sir Toby Mathews, roused him
+from his reverie of delight, and as one ashamed he stole away
+through the door that led from the little organ loft into the
+minstrel's gallery in the great hall, and so escaped the catholic
+service, but not the marquis's roasting. Whether the music had any
+share in the fact that the good man died a good catholic at last, I
+leave to the speculation of who list.
+
+Lady Margaret continued unchangingly kind to Dorothy; and the
+tireless efforts of the girl to amuse and please poor little Molly,
+whom the growing warmth of the season seemed to have no power to
+revive, awoke the deep gratitude of a mother. This, as well as her
+husband's absences, may have had something to do with the interest
+she began to take in the engine of which Dorothy had assumed the
+charge, for which she had always hitherto expressed a special
+dislike, professing to regard it as her rival in the affections of
+her husband, but after which she would now inquire as Dorothy's
+baby, and even listen with patience to her expositions of its
+wonderful construction and capabilities. Ere long Dorothy had a tale
+to tell her in connection with the engine, which, although simple
+and uneventful enough, she yet found considerably more interesting,
+as involving a good deal of at least mental adventure on the part of
+her young cousin.
+
+One evening, after playing with little Molly for an hour, then
+putting her to bed and standing by her crib until she fell asleep,
+Dorothy ran to see to her other baby; for the cistern had fallen
+rather lower than she thought well, and she was going to fill it.
+She found Caspar had lighted the furnace as she had requested; she
+set the engine going, and it soon warmed to its work.
+
+The place was hot, and Dorothy was tired. But where in that wide and
+not over-clean place should she find anything fitter than a
+grindstone to sit upon? Never yet, through all her acquaintance with
+the workshop, had she once seated herself in it. Looking about,
+however, she soon espied, almost hidden in the corner of a recess
+behind the furnace, what seemed an ordinary chair, such as stood in
+the great hall for the use of the family when anything special was
+going on there. With some trouble she got it out, dusted it, and set
+it as far from the furnace as might be, consistently with watching
+the motions of the engine. But the moment she sat down in it, she
+was caught and pinned so fast that she could scarcely stir hand or
+foot, and could no more leave it again than if she had been
+paralyzed in every limb. One scream she uttered of mingled
+indignation and terror, fancying herself seized by human arms; but
+when she found herself only in the power of one of her cousin's
+curiosities, she speedily quieted herself and rested in peace, for
+Caspar always paid a visit to the workshop the last thing before
+going to bed. The pressure of the springs that had closed the trap
+did not hurt her in the least--she was indeed hardly sensible of it;
+but when she made the least attempt to stir, the thing showed itself
+immovably locked, and she had too much confidence in the workmanship
+of her cousin and Caspar to dream of attempting to open it: that she
+knew must be impossible. The worst that threatened her was that the
+engine might require some attention before the hour, or perhaps two,
+which must elapse ere Caspar came would be over, and she did not
+know what the consequences might be.
+
+As it happened, however, something either in the powder-mill or
+about the defences detained Caspar far beyond his usual hour for
+retiring, and the sultriness of the weather having caused him a
+headache, he represented to himself that, with mistress Dorothy
+tending the engine, who knew where and would be sure to find him
+upon the least occasion, there could be no harm in his going to bed
+without paying his usual precautionary visit to the keep.
+
+So Dorothy sat, and waited in vain. The last drops of the day
+trickled down the side of the world, the night filled the crystal
+globe from its bottom of rock to its cover of blue aether, and the
+red glow of the furnace was all that lighted the place. She waited
+and waited in her mind; but Caspar did not come. She began to feel
+miserable. The furnace fire sank, and the rush of the water grew
+slower and slower, and ceased. Caspar did not come. The fire sank
+lower and lower, its red eye dimmed, darkened, went out. Still
+Caspar did not come. Faint fears began to gather about poor
+Dorothy's heart. It was clear at last that there she must be all the
+night long, and who could tell how far into the morning? It was good
+the night was warm, but it would be very dreary. And then to be
+fixed in one position for so long! The thought of it grew in misery
+faster than the thing itself. The greater torment lies always in the
+foreboding. She felt almost as if she were buried alive. Having
+their hands tied even, is enough to drive strong men almost crazy.
+Nor, firm of heart as she was, did no evils of a more undefined and
+less resistible character claim a share in her fast-rising
+apprehensions; she began to discover that she too was assailable by
+the terror of the night, although she had not hitherto been aware of
+it, no one knowing what may lie unhatched in his mind, waiting the
+concurrence of vital conditions.
+
+But Dorothy was better able to bear up under such assaults than
+thousands who believe nothing of many a hideous marvel commonly
+accepted in her day; and anyhow the unavoidable must be encountered,
+if not with indifference, yet with what courage may be found
+responsive to the call of the will. So, with all her energy, a
+larger store than she knew, she braced herself to endure. As to any
+attempt to make herself heard, she knew from the first that was of
+doubtful result, and now must certainly be of no avail when all but
+the warders were asleep. But to spend the night thus was a far less
+evil than to be discovered by the staring domestics, and exposed to
+the open merriment of her friends, and the hidden mockery of her
+enemies. As to Caspar, she was certain of his silence. So she sat
+on, like the lady in Comus, 'in stony fetters fixed and motionless;'
+only, as she said to herself, there was no attendant spirit to
+summon Caspar, who alone could take the part of Sabrina, and 'unlock
+the clasping charm.' Little did Dorothy think, as in her dreary
+imprisonment she recalled that marvellous embodiment of unified
+strength and tenderness, as yet unacknowledged of its author, that
+it was the work of the same detestable fanatic who wrote those
+appalling 'Animadversions, &c.'
+
+She grew chilly and cramped. The night passed very slowly. She dozed
+and woke, and dozed again. At last, from very weariness of both soul
+and body, she fell into a troubled sleep, from which she woke
+suddenly with the sound in her ears of voices whispering. The
+confidence of lord Herbert, both in the evil renown of his wizard
+cave and the character of his father's household, seemed mistaken.
+Still the subdued manner of their conversation appeared to indicate
+it was not without some awe that the speakers, whoever they were,
+had ventured within the forbidden precincts; their whispers, indeed,
+were so low that she could not say of either voice whether it
+belonged to man or woman. Her first idea was to deliver herself from
+the unpleasantness of her enforced espial by the utterance of some
+frightful cry such as would at the same time punish with the pains
+of terror their fool-hardy intrusion. But the spur of the moment was
+seldom indeed so sharp with Dorothy as to drive her to act without
+reflection, and a moment showed her that such persons being in the
+marquis's household as would meet in the middle of the night, and on
+prohibited ground, apparently for the sake of avoiding discovery,
+and even then talked in whispers, he had a right to know who they
+were: to act from her own feelings merely would be to fail in
+loyalty to the head of the house. Who could tell what might not be
+involved in it? For was it not thus that conspiracy and treason
+walked? And any alarm given them now might destroy every chance of
+their discovery. She compelled herself therefore to absolute
+stillness, immeasurably wretched, with but one comfort--no small
+one, however, although negative--that their words continued
+inaudible, a fact which doubtless saved much dispute betwixt her
+propriety and her loyalty.
+
+Long time their talk lasted. Every now and then they would start and
+listen--so Dorothy interpreted sudden silence and broken renewals.
+The genius of the place, although braved, had yet his terrors. At
+length she heard something like a half-conquered yawn, and soon
+after the voices ceased.
+
+Again a weary time, and once more she fell asleep. She woke in the
+grey of the morning, and after yet two long hours, but of more
+hopeful waiting, she heard Caspar's welcome footsteps, and summoned
+all her strength to avoid breaking down on his entrance. His first
+look of amazement she tried to answer with a smile, but at the
+expression of pitiful dismay which followed when another glance had
+revealed the cause of her presence, she burst into tears. The honest
+man was full of compunctious distress at the sight of the suffering
+his breach of custom had so cruelly prolonged.
+
+'And I haf bin slap in mine bed!' he exclaimed with horror at the
+contrast.
+
+Had she been his daughter and his mistress both in one, he could not
+have treated her with greater respect or tenderness. Of course he
+set about relieving her at once, but this was by no means such an
+easy matter as Dorothy had expected. For the key of the chair was in
+the black cabinet; the black cabinet was secured with one of lord
+Herbert's marvellous locks; the key of that lock was in lord
+Herbert's pocket, and lord Herbert was either in bed at Chepstow or
+Monmouth or Usk or Caerlyon, or on horseback somewhere else, nobody
+in Raglan knew where. But Caspar lost no time in unavailing moan. He
+proceeded at once to light a fire on his forge hearth, and in the
+course of a few minutes had fashioned a pick-lock, by means of
+which, after several trials and alterations, at length came the
+welcome sound of the yielding bolts, and Dorothy rose from the
+terrible chair. But so benumbed were all her limbs that she escaped
+being relocked in it only by the quick interposition of Caspar's
+arms. He led her about like a child, until at length she found them
+sufficiently restored to adventure the journey to her chamber, and
+thither she slowly crept. Few of the household were yet astir, and
+she met no one. When she was covered up in bed, then first she knew
+how cold she was, and felt as if she should never be warm again.
+
+At last she fell asleep, and slept long and soundly. Her maid went
+to call her, but finding it difficult to wake her, left her asleep,
+and did not return until breakfast was over. Then finding her still
+asleep she became a little anxious, and meeting mistress Amanda,
+told her she was afraid mistress Dorothy was ill. But mistress
+Amanda was herself sleepy and cross, and gave her a sharp answer,
+whereupon the girl went to lady Broughton. She, however, being on
+her way to morning mass, for it was Sunday, told her to let mistress
+Dorothy have her sleep out.
+
+The noise of horses' hoofs upon the paving of the stone court roused
+her, and then in came the sounds of the organ from the chapel. She
+rose confounded, and hurrying to the window drew back the curtain.
+The same moment lord Herbert walked from the hall into the
+fountain-court in riding dress, followed by some forty or fifty
+officers, the noise of whose armour and feet and voices dispelled at
+once the dim Sabbath feeling that hung vapour-like about the place.
+They gathered around the white horse, leaning or sitting on the
+marble basin, some talking in eager groups, others folding their
+arms in silence, listening, or lost heedless in their own thoughts,
+while their leader entered the staircase door at the right-hand
+corner of the western gate, the nearest way to his wife's apartment
+of the building.
+
+Now Dorothy had gone to sleep in perplexity, and all through her
+dreams had been trying to answer the question what course she should
+take with regard to the nocturnal intrusion. If she told lady
+Margaret she could but go with it to the marquis, and he was but
+just recovering from an attack of the gout, and ought not to be
+troubled except it were absolutely necessary. Was it, or was it not,
+necessary? Or was there no one else to whom she might with propriety
+betake herself in her doubt--lord Charles or Dr. Bayly? But here now
+was lord Herbert come back, and doubt there was none any more. She
+dressed herself in tremulous haste, and hurried to lady Margaret's
+room, where she hoped to see him. No one was there, and she tried
+the nursery, but finding only Molly and her attendant, returned to
+the parlour, and there seated herself to wait, supposing lady
+Margaret and he had gone together to morning service.
+
+They had really gone to the oak parlour, whither the marquis
+generally made his first move after an attack that had confined him
+to his room; for in the large window of that parlour, occupying
+nearly the whole side of it towards the moat, he generally sat when
+well enough to be about and take cognizance of what wa's going on;
+and there they now found him.
+
+'Welcome home, Herbert!' he said, kindly, holding out his hand. 'And
+how does my wild Irishwoman this morning? Crying her eyes out
+because her husband is come back, eh?--But, Herbert, lad, whence is
+all that noise of spurs and scabbards--and in the fountain court,
+too? I heard them go clanking and clattering through the hall like a
+torrent of steel! Here I sit, a poor gouty old man, deserted of my
+children and servants--all gone to church--to serve a better
+Master--not a page or a maid left me to send out to see and bring me
+word what is the occasion thereof! I was on the point of hobbling to
+the door myself when you came.'
+
+'Being on my way to the forest of Dean, my lord, and coming round by
+Raglan to inquire after you and my lady, I did bring with me some of
+my officers to dine and drink your lordship's health on our way.'
+
+'You shall all be welcome, though I fear I shall not make one,' said
+the marquis, with a grimace, for just then he had a twinge of the
+gout.
+
+'I am sorry to see you suffer, sir,' said his son.
+
+'Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,' returned the
+marquis, giving a kick with the leg which contained his inheritance;
+and then came a pause, during which lady Margaret left the room.
+
+'My lord,' said Herbert at length, with embarrassment, and forcing
+himself to speak, 'I am sorry to trouble you again, after all the
+money, enough to build this castle from the foundations--'
+
+'Ah! ha!' interjected the marquis, but lord Herbert went on--
+
+'which you have already spent on behalf of the king, my master,
+but--'
+
+'YOUR master, Herbert!' said the marquis, testily. 'Well?'
+
+'I must have some more money for his pressing necessities.' In his
+self-compulsion he had stumbled upon the wrong word.
+
+'MUST you?' cried the marquis angrily. 'Pray take it.'
+
+And drawing the keys of his treasury from the pocket of his frieze
+coat, he threw them down on the table before him. Lord Herbert
+reddened like a girl, and looked as much abashed as if he had been
+caught in something of which he was ashamed. One moment he stood
+thus, then said,
+
+'Sir, the word was out before I was aware. I do not intend to put it
+into force. I pray will you put up your key again?'
+
+'Truly, son,' replied the marquis, still testily, but in a milder
+tone, 'I shall think my keys not safe in my pocket whilst you have
+so many swords by your side; nor that I have the command of my house
+whilst you have so many officers in it; nor that I am at my own
+disposal, whilst you have so many commanders.'
+
+'My lord,' replied Herbert, 'I do not intend that they shall stay in
+the castle; I mean they shall be gone.'
+
+'I pray, let them. And have care that MUST do not stay behind,' said
+the marquis. 'But let them have their dinner first, lad.'
+
+Lord Herbert bowed, and left the room. Thereupon, in the presence of
+lady Margaret, who just then re-entered, good Dr. Bayly, who,
+unperceived by lord Herbert in his pre-occupation, had been present
+during the interview, stepped up to the marquis and said:
+
+'My good lord, the honourable confidence your lordship has reposed
+in me boldens me to do my duty as, in part at least, your lordship's
+humble spiritual adviser.'
+
+'Thou shouldst want no boldening to do thy duty, doctor,' said the
+marquis, making a wry face.
+
+'May I then beg of your lordship to consider whether you have not
+been more severe with your noble son than the occasion demanded,
+seeing not only was the word uttered by a lapse of the tongue, but
+yourself heard my lord express much sorrow for the overslip?'
+
+'What!' said lady Herbert, something merrily, but looking in the
+face of her father-in-law with a little anxious questioning in her
+eyes, 'has my lord been falling out with my Ned?'
+
+'Hark ye, daughter!' answered the marquis, his face beaming with
+restored good-humour, for the twinge in his toe had abated, 'and you
+too, my good chaplain!--if my son be dejected, I can raise him when
+I please; but it is a question, if he should once take a head,
+whether I could bring him lower when I list. Ned was not wont to use
+such courtship to me, and I believe he intended a better word for
+his father; but MUST was for the king.'
+
+Returning to her own room, lady Margaret found Dorothy waiting for
+her.
+
+'Well, my little lig-a-bed!' she said sweetly, 'what is amiss with
+thee? Thou lookest but soberly.'
+
+'I am well, madam; and that I look soberly,' said Dorothy, 'you will
+not wonder when I tell you wherefore. But first, if it please you, I
+would pray for my lord's presence, that he too may know all.'
+
+'Holy mother! what is the matter, child?' cried lady Margaret, of
+late easily fluttered. 'Is it my lord Herbert you mean, or my lord
+of Worcester?'
+
+'My lord Herbert, my lady. I dread lest he should be gone ere I have
+found a time to tell him.'
+
+'He rides again after dinner,' said lady Margaret.
+
+'Then, dear my lady, if you would keep me from great doubt and
+disquiet, let me have the ear of my lord for a few moments.'
+
+Lady Margaret rang for her page, and sent him to find his master and
+request his presence in her parlour.
+
+Within five minutes lord Herbert was with them, and within five
+more, Dorothy had ended her tale of the night, uninterrupted save by
+lady Margaret's exclamations of sympathy.
+
+'And now, my lord, what am I to do?' she asked in conclusion.
+
+Lord Herbert made no answer for a few moments, but walked up and
+down the room. Dorothy thought he looked angry as well as troubled.
+He burst at length into a laugh, however, and said merrily,
+
+'I have it, ladies! I see how we may save my father much annoyance
+without concealment, for nothing must be concealed from him that in
+any way concerns the house. But the annoyance arising from any
+direct attempt at discovering the wrongdoers would be endless, and
+its failure almost certain. But now, as I would plan it, instead of
+trouble my father shall have laughter, and instead of annoyance such
+a jest as may make him good amends for the wrong done him by the
+breach of his household laws. Caspar has explained to you all
+concerning the water-works, I believe, cousin?'
+
+'All, my lord. I may without presumption affirm that I can, so long
+as there arises no mishap, with my own hand govern them all. Caspar
+has for many weeks left everything to me, save indeed the lighting
+of the furnace-fire.'
+
+'That is as I would have it, cousin. So soon then as it is dark this
+evening, you will together, you and Caspar, set the springs which
+lie under the first stone of the paving of the bridge. Thereafter,
+as you know, the first foot set upon it will drop the drawbridge to
+the stone bridge, and the same instant convert the two into an
+aqueduct, filled with a rushing torrent from the reservoir, which
+will sweep the intruders away. Before they shall have either
+gathered their discomfited wits or raised their prostrate bones, my
+father will be out upon them, nor shall they find shelter for their
+shame ere every soul in the castle has witnessed their disgrace.'
+
+'I had thought of the plan, my lord; but I dreaded the punishment
+might be too severe, not knowing what the water might do upon them.'
+
+'There will be no danger to life, and little to limb,' said his
+lordship. 'The torrent will cease flowing the moment they are swept
+from the bridge. But they shall be both bruised and shamed; and,'
+added his lordship, with an oath such as seldom crossed his lips,
+'in such times as these, they will well deserve what shall befall
+them. Intruding hounds!--But you must take heed, cousin Dorothy,
+that you forget not that you have yourself done. Should you have
+occasion to go on the bridge after setting your vermin-trap, you
+must not omit to place your feet precisely where Caspar will show
+you, else you will have to ride a watery horse half-way, mayhap to
+the marble one--except indeed he throw you from his back against
+the chapel-door.'
+
+When her husband talked in long sentences, as he was not
+unfrequently given to do, lady Margaret, even when their sequences
+were not very clear, seldom interrupted him: she had learned that
+she gained more by letting him talk on; for however circuitous the
+route he might take, he never forgot where he was going. He might
+obscure his object, but there it always was. He was now again
+walking up and down the room, and, perceiving that he had not yet
+arranged all to his satisfaction, she watched him with merriment in
+her Irish eyes, and waited.
+
+'I have it!' he cried again. 'It shall be so, and my father shall
+thus have immediate notice. The nights are weekly growing warmer,
+and he will not therein be tempted to his hurt. Our trusty and
+well-beloved cousin Dorothy, we herewith, in presence of our liege
+and lovely lady, appoint thee our deputy during our absence. No one
+but thyself hath a right to cross the bridge after dark, save Caspar
+and the governor, whom with my father I shall inform and warn
+concerning what is to be done. But I will myself adjust the escape,
+so that the torrent shall not fall too powerful; Caspar must connect
+it with the drawbridge, whose fall will then open it. And pray
+remind him to see first that all the hinges and joints concerned be
+well greased, that it may fall instantly.'
+
+So saying, he left the room, and sought out Caspar, with whom he
+contrived the ringing of a bell in the marquis's chamber by the
+drawbridge in its fall, the arrangement for which Caspar was to
+carry out that same evening after dark. He next sought his father,
+and told him and his brother Charles the whole story; nor did he
+find himself wrong in his expectation that the prospect of so good a
+jest would go far to console the marquis for the annoyance of
+finding that his household was not quite such a pattern one as he
+had supposed. That there was anything of conspiracy or treachery
+involved, he did not for a moment believe.
+
+After dinner, while the horses were brought out, lord Herbert went
+again to his wife's room. There was little Molly waiting to bid him
+good-bye, and she sat upon his knee until it was time for him to go.
+The child's looks made his heart sad, and his wife could not
+restrain her tears when she saw him gaze upon her so mournfully. It
+was with a heavy heart that, when the moment of departure came, he
+rose, gave her into her mother's arms, clasped them both in one
+embrace, and hurried from the room. He ought to be a noble king for
+whom such men and women make such sacrifices.
+
+To witness such devotion on the part of personages to whom she
+looked up with such respect and confidence, would have been in
+itself more than sufficient to secure for its object the
+unquestioning partisanship of Dorothy; partisan already, it raised
+her prejudice to a degree of worship which greatly narrowed what she
+took for one of the widest gulfs separating her from the creed of
+her friends. The favourite dogma of the school-master-king, the
+offspring of his pride and weakness, had found fitting soil in
+Dorothy. When, in the natural growth of the confidence reposed in
+her by her protectors, she came to have some idea of the immensity
+of the sums spent by them on behalf of his son, had, indeed, ere the
+close of another year read the king's own handwriting and signature
+in acknowledgment of a debt of a quarter of a million, she took it
+only as an additional sign--for additional proof there was no
+room--of their ever admirable devotion to his divine right. That the
+marquis and his son were catholics served but to glorify the right
+to which a hostile faith yielded such practical homage.
+
+Immediately after nightfall she repaired to Caspar, and between them
+everything was speedily arranged for the carrying out of lord
+Herbert's counter-plot.
+
+But night after night passed, and the bell in the marquis's room
+remained voiceless.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+MOLLY AND THE WHITE HORSE.
+
+
+
+
+
+Meantime lord Herbert came and went. There was fighting here and
+fighting there, castles taken, defended, re-taken, here a little
+success and there a worse loss, now on this side and now on that;
+but still, to say the best, the king's affairs made little progress;
+and for Mary Somerset, her body and soul made progress in opposite
+directions.
+
+There was a strange pleasant mixture of sweet fretfulness and
+trusting appeal in her. Children suffer less because they feel that
+all is right when father or mother is with them; grown people from
+whom this faith has vanished ere it has led them to its original
+fact, may well be miserable in their sicknesses.
+
+She lay moaning one night in her crib, when suddenly she opened her
+eyes and saw her mother's hand pressed to her forehead. She was
+imitative, like most children, and had some very old-fashioned ways
+of speech.
+
+'Have you got a headache, madam?' she asked.
+
+'Yes, my Molly,' answered her mother.
+
+'Then you will go to mother Mary. She will take you on her knee,
+madam. Mothers is for headaches. Oh me! my headache, madam!'
+
+The poor mother turned away. It was more than she could bear alone.
+Dorothy entered the room, and she rose and left it, that she might
+go to mother Mary as the child had said.
+
+Dorothy's cares were divided between the duties of naiad and
+nursemaid, for the child clung to her as to no one else except her
+mother. The thing that pleased her best was to see the two
+whale-like spouts rise suddenly from the nostrils of the great white
+horse, curve away from each other aloft in the air, and fall back
+into the basin on each side of him. 'See horse spout,' she would say
+moanfully; and that instant, if Dorothy was not present, a messenger
+would be despatched to her. On a bright day this would happen
+repeatedly. For the sake of renewing her delight, the instant she
+turned from it, satisfied for the moment, the fountain ceased to
+play, and the horse remained spoutless, awaiting the revival of the
+darling's desire; for she was not content to see him spouting: she
+must see him spout. Then again she would be carried forth to the
+verge of the marble basin, and gazing up at the rearing animal would
+say, in a tone daintily wavering betwixt entreaty and command,
+'Spout, horse, spout,' and Dorothy, looking down from the far-off
+summit of the tower, and distinguishing by the attitude of the child
+the moment when she uttered her desire, would instantly, with one
+turn of her hand, send the captive water shooting down its dark
+channel to reascend in sunny freedom.
+
+If little Mary Somerset was counted a strange child, the wisdom with
+which she was wise is no more unnatural because few possess it, than
+the death of such is premature because they are yet children. They
+are small fruits whose ripening has outstripped their growth. Of
+such there are some who, by the hot-house assiduities of their
+friends, heating them with sulphurous stoves, and watering them with
+subacid solutions, ripen into insufferable prigs. For them and for
+their families it is well that Death the gardener should speedily
+remove them into the open air. But there are others who, ripening
+from natural, that is divine causes and influences, are the
+daintiest little men and women, gentle in the utmost peevishness of
+their lassitude, generous to share the gifts they most prize, and
+divinely childlike in their repentances. Their falling from the
+stalk is but the passing from the arms of their mothers into those
+of--God knows whom--which is more than enough.
+
+The chief part of little Molly's religious lessons, I do not mean
+training, consisted in a prayer or two in rhyme, and a few verses of
+the kind then in use among catholics. Here is a prayer which her
+nurse taught her, as old, I take it, as Chaucer's time at least:--
+
+    Hail be thou, Mary, that high sittest in throne!
+    I beseech thee, sweet lady, grant me my boon--
+    Jesus to love and dread, and my life to amend soon,
+    And bring me to that bliss that never shall be done.
+
+And here are some verses quite as old, which her mother taught her.
+I give them believing that in understanding and coming nearer to our
+fathers and mothers who are dead, we understand and come nearer to
+our brothers and sisters who are alive. I change nothing but the
+spelling, and a few of the forms of the words.
+
+    Jesu, Lord, that madest me,
+      And with thy blessed blood hast bought,
+    Forgive that I have grieved thee
+      With word, with will, and eke with thought.
+
+    Jesu, for thy wounds' smart,
+      On feet and on thine hands two,
+    Make me meek and low of heart,
+      And thee to love as I should do.
+
+    Jesu, grant me mine asking,
+      Perfect patience in my disease,
+    And never may I do that thing
+      That should thee in any wise displease.
+
+    Jesu, most comfort for to see
+      Of thy saints every one,
+    Comfort them that careful be,
+      And help them that be woe-begone.
+
+    Jesu, keep them that be good,
+      And amend them that have grieved thee,
+    And send them fruits of early food,
+      As each man needeth in his degree.
+
+    Jesu, that art, without lies,
+      Almighty God in trinity,
+    Cease these wars, and send us peace
+      With lasting love and charity.
+
+    Jesu, that art the ghostly stone
+      Of all holy church in middle-earth,
+    Bring thy folds and flocks in one,
+      And rule them rightly with one herd.
+
+    Jesu, for thy blissful blood,
+      Bring, if thou wilt, those souls to bliss
+    From whom I have had any good,
+      And spare that they have done amiss.
+
+This old-fashioned hymn lady Margaret had learned from her
+grandmother, who was an Englishwoman of the pale. She also had
+learned it from her grandmother.
+
+One day, by some accident, Dorothy had not reached her post of naiad
+before Molly arrived in presence of her idol, the white horse, her
+usual application to which was thence for the moment in vain. Having
+waited about three seconds in perfect patience, she turned her head
+slowly round, and gazed in her nurse's countenance with large
+questioning eyes, but said nothing. Then she turned again to the
+horse. Presently a smile broke over her face, and she cried in the
+tone of one who had made a great discovery,
+
+'Horse has ears of stone: he cannot hear, Molly.'
+
+Instantly thereupon she turned her face up to the sky, and said,
+
+'Dear holy Mary, tell horse to spout.'
+
+That moment up into the sun shot the two jets. Molly clapped her
+little hands with delight and cried,
+
+'Thanks, dear holy Mary! I knowed thou would do it for Molly.
+Thanks, madam!'
+
+The nurse told the story to her mistress, and she to Dorothy. It set
+both of them feeling, and Dorothy thinking besides.
+
+'It cannot be,' she thought, 'but that a child's prayer will reach
+its goal, even should she turn her face to the west or the north
+instead of up to the heavens! A prayer somewhat differs from a bolt
+or a bullet.'
+
+'How you protestants CAN live without a woman to pray to!' said lady
+Margaret.
+
+'Her son Jesus never refused to hear a woman, and I see not
+wherefore I should go to his mother, madam,' said Dorothy, bravely.
+
+'Thou and I will not quarrel, Dorothy,' returned lady Margaret
+sweetly; 'for sure am I that would please neither the one nor the
+other of them.'
+
+Dorothy kissed her hand, and the subject dropped.
+
+After that, Molly never asked the horse to spout, or if she happened
+to do so, would correct herself instantly, and turn her request to
+the mother Mary. Nor did the horse ever fail to spout,
+notwithstanding an evil thought which arose in the protestant part
+of Dorothy's mind--the temptation, namely, to try the effect upon
+Molly of a second failure. All the rest of her being on the instant
+turned so violently protestant against the suggestion, that no
+parley with it was possible, and the conscience of her intellect
+cowered before the conscience of her heart.
+
+It was from this fancy of the child's for the spouting of the horse
+that it came to be known in the castle that mistress Dorothy was
+ruler of Raglan waters. In lord Herbert's absence not a person in
+the place but she and Caspar understood their management, and except
+lady Margaret, the marquis, and lord Charles, no one besides even
+knew of the existence of such a contrivance as the water-shoot or
+artificial cataract.
+
+Every night Dorothy and Caspar together set the springs of it, and
+every morning Caspar detached the lever connecting the stone with
+the drawbridge.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE DAMSEL WHICH FELL SICK.
+
+
+
+
+
+From within the great fortress, like the rough husk whence the green
+lobe of a living tree was about to break forth, a lovely child-soul,
+that knew neither of war nor ambition, knew indeed almost nothing
+save love and pain, was gently rising as from the tomb. The bonds of
+the earthly life that had for ever conferred upon it the rights and
+privileges of humanity were giving way, and little, white-faced,
+big-eyed Molly was leaving father and mother and grandfather and
+spouting horse and all, to find--what?--To find what she wanted,
+and wait a little for what she loved.
+
+One sultry evening in the second week of June, the weather had again
+got inside the inhabitants of the castle, forming different
+combinations according to the local atmosphere it found in each.
+Clouds had been slowly steaming up all day from several sides of the
+horizon, and as the sun went down, they met in the zenith. Not a
+wing seemed to be abroad under heaven, so still was the region of
+storms. The air was hot and heavy and hard to breathe--whether from
+lack of life, or too much of it, oppressing the narrow and weak
+recipients thereof, as the sun oppresses and extinguishes earthly
+fires, I at least cannot say. It was weather that made SOME dogs
+bite their masters, made most of the maids quarrelsome, and all the
+men but one or two more or less sullen, made Dorothy sad, Molly long
+after she knew not what, her mother weep, her grandfather feel
+himself growing old, and the hearts of all the lovers, within and
+without the castle, throb for the comfort of each other's lonely
+society. The fish lay still in the ponds, the pigeons sat motionless
+on the roof-ridges, and the fountains did not play; for Dorothy's
+heart was so heavy about Molly, that she had forgotten them.
+
+The marquis, fond of all his grandchildren, had never taken special
+notice of Molly beyond what she naturally claimed as youngest. But
+when it appeared that she was one of the spring-flowers of the human
+family, so soon withdrawing thither whence they come, he found that
+she began to pull at his heart, not merely with the attraction
+betwixt childhood and age, in which there is more than the poets
+have yet sung, but with the dearness which the growing shadow of
+death gives to all upon whom it gathers. The eyes of the child
+seemed to nestle into his bosom. Every morning he paid her a visit,
+and every morning it was clear that little Molly's big heart had
+been waiting for him. The young as well as the old recognize that
+they belong to each other, despite the unwelcome intervention of
+wrinkles and baldness and toothlessness. Molly's eyes brightened
+when she heard his steps at the door, and ere he had come within her
+sight, where she lay half-dressed on her mother's bed, tented in its
+tall carved posts and curtains of embroidered silk, the figures on
+which gave her so much trouble all the half-delirious night long,
+her arms would be stretched out to him, and the words would be
+trembling on her lips, 'Prithee, tell me a tale, sir.'
+
+'Which tale wouldst thou have, my Molly?' the grandsire would say:
+it was the regular form of each day's fresh salutation; and the
+little one would answer, 'Of the good Jesu,' generally adding, 'and
+of the damsel which fell sick and died.'
+
+Torn as the country was, all the good grandparents, catholic and
+protestant, royalist and puritan, told their children the same tales
+about the same man; and I suspect there was more then than there is
+now of that kind of oral teaching, for which any amount of books
+written for children is a sadly poor substitute.
+
+Although Molly asked oftenest for the tale of the damsel who came
+alive again at the word of the man who knew all about death, she did
+not limit her desires to the repetition of what she knew already;
+and in order to keep his treasure supplied with things new as well
+as old, the marquis went the oftener to his Latin bible to refresh
+his memory for Molly's use, and was in both ways, in receiving and
+in giving, a gainer. When the old man came thus to pour out his
+wealth to the child, lady Margaret then first became aware what a
+depth both of religious knowledge and feeling there was in her
+father-in-law. Neither sir Toby Mathews, nor Dr. Bayly, who also
+visited her at times, ever, with the torch of their talk, lighted
+the lamps behind those great eyes, whose glass was growing dull with
+the vapours from the grave; but her grandfather's voice, the moment
+he began to speak to her of the good Jesu, brought her soul to its
+windows.
+
+This sultry evening Molly was restless. 'Madam! madam!' she kept
+calling to her mother--for, like so many of such children, her
+manners and modes of speech resembled those of grown people, 'What
+wouldst thou, chicken?' her mother would ask. 'Madam, I know not,'
+the child would answer. Twenty times in an hour, as the evening went
+on, almost the same words would pass between them. At length, once
+more, 'Madam! madam!' cried the child. 'What would my heart's
+treasure?' said the mother; and Molly answered, 'Madam, I would see
+the white horse spout.'
+
+With a glance and sign to her mistress. Dorothy rose and crept from
+the room, crossed the court and the moat, and dragged her heavy
+heart up the long stair to the top of the keep. Arrived there, she
+looked down through a battlement, and fixed her eyes on a certain
+window, whence presently she caught the wave of a
+signal-handkerchief.
+
+At the open window stood lady Margaret with Molly in her arms. The
+night was so warm that the child could take no hurt; and indeed what
+could hurt her, with the nameless fever-moth within, fretting a
+passage for the new winged body which, in the pains of a second
+birth, struggled to break from its dying chrysalis.
+
+'Now, Molly, tell the horse to spout,' said lady Margaret, with such
+well-simulated cheerfulness as only mothers can put on with hearts
+ready to break.
+
+'Mother Mary, tell the horse to spout,' said Molly; and up went the
+watery parabolas.
+
+The old flame of delight flushed the child's cheek, like the flush
+in the heart of a white rose. But it died almost instantly, and
+murmuring, 'Thanks, good madam!' whether to mother Mary or mother
+Margaret little mattered, Molly turned towards the bed, and her
+mother knew at her heart that the child sought her last sleep--as we
+call it, God forgive us our little faith! 'Madam!' panted the child,
+as she laid her down. 'Darling?' said the mother. 'Madam, I would
+see my lord marquis.' 'I will send and ask him to come.' 'Let Robert
+say that Molly is going--going--where is Molly going, madam?' 'Going
+to mother Mary, child,' answered lady Margaret, choking back the
+sobs that would have kept the tears company. 'And the good Jesu ?'
+'Yes.'--'And the good God over all ?' 'Yes, yes.' 'I want to tell
+my lord marquis. Pray, madam, let him come, and quickly.'
+
+His lordship entered, pale and panting. He knew the end was
+approaching. Molly stretched out to him one hand instead of two, as
+if her hold upon earth were half yielded. He sat down by the
+bedside, and wiped his forehead with a sigh.
+
+'Thee tired too, marquis?' asked the odd little love-bird.
+
+'Yes, I am tired, my Molly. Thou seest I am so fat.'
+
+'Shall I ask the good mother, when I go to her, to make thee spare
+like Molly?'
+
+'No, Molly, thou need'st not trouble her about that. Ask her to make
+me good.'
+
+'Would it then be easier to make thee good than to make thee spare,
+marquis?'
+
+'No, child--much harder, alas!'
+
+'Then why--?' began Molly; but the marquis perceiving her thought,
+made haste to prevent it, for her breath was coming quick and weak.
+
+'But it is so much better worth doing, you see. If she makes me
+good, she will have another in heaven to be good to.'
+
+'Then I know she will. But I will ask her. Mother Mary has so many
+to mind, she might be forgetting.'
+
+After this she lay very quiet with her hand in his. All the windows
+of the room were open, and from the chapel came the mellow sounds of
+the organ. Delaware had captured Tom Fool and got him to blow the
+bellows, and through the heavy air the music surged in. Molly was
+dozing a little, and she spoke as one that speaks in a dream.
+
+'The white horse is spouting music,' she said. 'Look! See how it
+goes up to mother Mary. She twists it round her distaff and spins it
+with her spindle. See, marquis, see! Spout, horse, spout.'
+
+She lay silent again for a long time. The old man sat holding her
+hand; her mother sat on the farther side of the bed, leaning against
+one of the foot-posts, and watching the white face of her darling
+with eyes in which love ruled distraction. Dorothy sat in one of the
+window-seats, and listened to the music, which still came surging
+in, for still the fool blew the bellows, and the blind youth struck
+the keys. And still the clouds gathered overhead and sunk towards
+the earth; and still the horse, which Dorothy had left spouting,
+threw up his twin-fountain, whose musical plash in the basin as it
+fell mingled with the sounds of the organ.
+
+'What is it?' said Molly, waking up. 'My head doth not ache, and my
+heart doth not beat, and I am not affrighted. What is it? I am not
+tired. Marquis, are you no longer tired? Ah, now I know! He cometh!
+He is here!--Marquis, the good Jesu wants Molly's hand. Let him have
+it, marquis. He is lifting me up. I am quite well--quite--'
+
+The sentence remained broken. The hand which the marquis had
+yielded, with the awe of one in bodily presence of the Holy, and
+which he saw raised as if in the grasp of one invisible, fell back
+on the bed, and little Molly was quite well.
+
+But she left sick hearts behind. The mother threw herself on the
+bed, and wailed aloud. The marquis burst into tears, left the room,
+and sought his study. Mechanically he took his Confessio Amantis,
+and sat down, but never opened it; rose again and took his
+Shakespere, opened it, but could not read; rose once more, took his
+Vulgate, and read:
+
+'Quid turbamini, et ploratis? puella non est mortua, sed dormit.'
+
+He laid that book also down, fell on his knees, and prayed for her
+who was not dead but sleeping.
+
+Dorothy, filled with awe, rather from the presence of the mother of
+the dead than death itself, and feeling that the mother would rather
+be alone with her dead, also left the room, and sought her chamber,
+where she threw herself upon the bed. All was still save the
+plashing of the fountain, for the music from the chapel had ceased.
+
+The storm burst in a glare and a peal. The rain fell in straight
+lines and huge drops, which came faster and faster, drowning the
+noise of the fountain, till the sound of it on the many roofs of the
+place was like the trampling of an army of horsemen, and every spout
+was gurgling musically with full throat. The one court was filled
+with a clashing upon its pavement, and the other with a soft singing
+upon its grass, with which mingled a sound as of little castanets
+from the broad leaves of the water-lilies in the moat. Ever and anon
+came the lightning, and the great bass of the thunder to fill up the
+psalm.
+
+At the first thunderclap lady Margaret fell on her knees and prayed
+in an agony for the little soul that had gone forth into the midst
+of the storm. Like many women she had a horror of lightning and
+thunder, and it never came into her mind that she who had so loved
+to see the horse spout was far more likely to be revelling in the
+elemental tumult, with all the added ecstasy of newborn freedom and
+health, than to be trembling like her mortal mother below.
+
+Dorothy was not afraid, but she was heavy and weary; the thunder
+seemed to stun her and the lightning to take the power of motion
+from the shut eyelids through which it shone. She lay without
+moving, and at length fell fast asleep.
+
+To the marquis alone of the mourners the storm came as a relief to
+his overcharged spirit. He had again opened his New Testament, and
+tried to read; but if the truths which alone can comfort are not at
+such a time present to the spirit, the words that embody them will
+seldom be of much avail. When the thunder burst he closed the book
+and went to the window, flung it wide, and looked out into the
+court. Like a tide from the plains of innocent heaven through the
+sultry passionate air of the world, came the coolness to his brow
+and heart. Oxygen, ozone, nitrogen, water, carbonic acid, is it?
+Doubtless--and other things, perhaps, which chemistry cannot
+detect. Nevertheless, give its parts what names you will, its whole
+is yet the wind of the living God to the bodies of men, his spirit
+to their spirits, his breath to their hearts. When I learn that
+there is no primal intent--only chance--in the unspeakable joy that
+it gives, I shall cease to believe in poetry, in music, in woman, in
+God. Nay, I must have already ceased to believe in God ere I could
+believe that the wind that bloweth where it listeth is free because
+God hath forgotten it, and that it bears from him no message to me.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE CATARACT.
+
+
+
+
+
+In the midst of a great psalm, on the geyser column of which his
+spirit was borne heavenward, young Delaware all of a sudden found
+the keys dumb beneath his helpless fingers: the bellows was empty,
+the singing thing dead. He called aloud, and his voice echoed
+through the empty chapel, but no living response came back. Tom Fool
+had grown weary and forsaken him. Disappointed and baffled, he rose
+and left the chapel, not immediately from the organ loft, by a door
+and a few upward steps through the wall to the minstrels' gallery,
+as he had entered, but by the south door into the court, his
+readiest way to reach the rooms he occupied with his father, near
+the marquis's study. Hardly another door in either court was ever
+made fast except this one, which, merely in self-administered
+flattery of his own consequence, the conceited sacristan who assumed
+charge of the key, always locked at night. But there was no reason
+why Delaware should pay any respect to this, or hesitate to remove
+the bar securing one-half of the door, without which the lock
+retained no hold.
+
+Although Tom had indeed deserted his post, the organist was mistaken
+as to the cause and mode of his desertion: oppressed like every one
+else with the sultriness of the night, he had fallen fast asleep,
+leaning against the organ. The thunder only waked him sufficiently
+to render him capable of slipping from the stool on which he had
+lazily seated himself as he worked the lever of the bellows, and
+stretching himself at full length upon the floor; while the coolness
+that by degrees filled the air as the rain kept pouring, made his
+sleep sweeter and deeper. He lay and snored till midnight.
+
+A bell rang in the marquis's chamber.
+
+It was one of his lordship's smaller economic maxims that in every
+house, and the larger the house the more necessary its observance,
+the master thereof should have his private rooms as far apart from
+each other as might, with due respect to general fitness, be
+arranged for, in order that, to use his own figure, he might spread
+his skirts the wider over the place, and chiefly the part occupied
+by his own family and immediate attendants--thereby to give himself,
+without paying more attention to such matters than he could afford,
+a better chance of coming upon the trace of anything that happened
+to be going amiss. 'For,' he said, 'let a man have ever so many
+responsible persons about him, the final responsibility of his
+affairs yet returns upon himself.' Hence, while his bedroom was
+close to the main entrance, that is the gate to the stone court, the
+room he chose for retirement and study was over the western gate,
+that of the fountain-court, nearly a whole side of the double
+quadrangle away from his bedroom, and still farther from the
+library, which was on the other side of the main entrance--whence,
+notwithstanding, he would himself, gout permitting, always fetch any
+book he wanted. It was, therefore, no wonder that, being now in his
+study, the marquis, although it rang loud, never heard the bell
+which Caspar had hung in his bedchamber. He was, however, at the
+moment, looking from a window which commanded the very spot--namely,
+the mouth of the archway--towards which the bell would have drawn
+his attention.
+
+The night was still, the rain was over, and although the moon was
+clouded, there was light enough to recognise a known figure in any
+part of the court, except the shadowed recess where the door of the
+chapel and the archway faced each other, and the door of the hall
+stood at right angles to both.
+
+Came a great clang that echoed loud through the court, followed by
+the roar of water. It sounded as if a captive river had broken
+loose, and grown suddenly frantic with freedom. The marquis could
+not help starting violently, for his nerves were a good deal shaken.
+The same instant, ere there was time for a single conjecture, a
+torrent, visible by the light of its foam, shot from the archway,
+hurled itself against the chapel door, and vanished. Sad and
+startled as he was, lord Worcester, requiring no explanation of the
+phenomenon now that it was completed, laughed aloud and hurried from
+the room.
+
+When he had screwed his unwieldy form to the bottom of the stair,
+and came out into the court, there was Tom Fool flying across the
+turf in mortal terror, his face white as another moon, and his hair
+standing on end--visibly in the dull moonshine.
+
+His terror had either deafened him, or paralysed the nerves of his
+obedience, for the first call of his master was insufficient to stop
+him. At the second, however, he halted, turned mechanically, went to
+him trembling, and stood before him speechless. But when the
+marquis, to satisfy himself that he was really as dry as he seemed,
+laid his hand on his arm, the touch brought him to himself, and,
+assisted by his master's questions, he was able to tell how he had
+fallen asleep in the chapel, had waked but a minute ago, had left it
+by the minstrels' gallery, had reached the floor of the hall, and
+was approaching the western door, which was open, in order to cross
+the court to his lodging near the watch-tower, when a hellish
+explosion, followed by the most frightful roaring, mingled with
+shrieks and demoniacal laughter, arrested him; and the same instant,
+through the open door, he saw, as plainly as he now saw his noble
+master, a torrent rush from the archway, full of dim figures,
+wallowing and shouting. The same moment they all vanished, and the
+flood poured into the hall, wetting him to the knees, and almost
+carrying him off his legs.
+
+Here the marquis professed profound astonishment, remarking that the
+water must indeed have been thickened with devils to be able to lay
+hold of Tom's legs.
+
+'Then,' pursued Tom, reviving a little, 'I summoned up all my
+courage--'
+
+'No great feat,' said the marquis.
+
+But Tom went on unabashed.
+
+'I summoned up the whole of my courage,' he repeated, 'stepped out
+of the hall, carefully examined the ground, looked through the
+arch-way, saw nothing, and was walking slowly across the court to my
+lodging, pondering with myself whether to call my lord governor or
+sir Toby Mathews, when I heard your lordship call me.'
+
+'Tom! Tom! thou liest,' said the marquis. 'Thou wast running as if
+all the devils in hell had been at thy heels.'
+
+Tom turned deadly pale, a fresh access of terror overcoming his
+new-born hardihood.
+
+'Who were they, thinkest thou, whom thou sawest in the water, Tom?'
+resumed his master. 'For what didst thou take them?'
+
+Tom shook his head with an awful significance, looked behind him,
+and said nothing.
+
+Perceiving there was no more to be got out of him, the marquis sent
+him to bed. He went off shivering and shaking. Three times ere he
+reached the watch-tower his face gleamed white over his shoulder as
+he went. The next day he did not appear. He thought himself he was
+doomed, but his illness was only the prostration following upon
+terror.
+
+In the version of the story which he gave his fellow-servants, he
+doubtless mingled the after visions of his bed with what he had when
+half-awake seen and heard through the mists of his startled
+imagination. His tale was this--that he saw the moat swell and rise,
+boil over in a mass, and tumble into the court as full of devils as
+it could hold, swimming in it, floating on it, riding it aloft as if
+it had been a horse; that in a moment they had all vanished again,
+and that he had not a doubt the castle was now swarming with
+them--in fact, he had heard them all the night long.
+
+The marquis walked up to the archway, saw nothing save the grim wall
+of the keep, impassive as granite crag, and the ground wet a long
+way towards the white horse; and never doubting he had lost his
+chance by taking Tom for the culprit, contented himself with the
+reflection that, whoever the night-walkers were, they had received
+both a fright and a ducking, and betook himself to bed, where,
+falling asleep at length, he saw little Molly in the arms of mother
+Mary, who, presently changing to his own lady Anne that left him
+about a year before little Molly came, held out a hand to him to
+help him up beside them, whereupon the bubble sleep, unable to hold
+the swelling of his gladness, burst, and he woke just as the first
+rays of the sun smote the gilded cock on the bell-tower.
+
+The noise of the falling drawbridge and the out-rushing water had
+roused Dorothy also, with most of the lighter sleepers in the
+castle; but when she and all the rest whose windows were to the
+fountain court, ran to them and looked out, they saw nothing but the
+flight of Tom Fool across the turf, its arrest by his master, and
+their following conference. The moon had broken through the clouds,
+and there was no mistaking either of their persons.
+
+Meantime, inside the chapel door stood Amanda and Rowland, both
+dripping, and one of them crying as well. Thither, as into a safe
+harbour, the sudden flood had cast them; and it indicated no small
+amount of ready faculty in Scudamore that, half-stunned as he was,
+he yet had the sense, almost ere he knew where he was, to put up the
+long bar that secured the door.
+
+All the time that the marquis was drawing his story from Tom, they
+stood trembling, in great bewilderment yet very sensible misery,
+bruised, drenched, and horribly frightened, more even at what might
+be than by what had been. There was only one question, but that was
+hard to answer: what were they to do next? Amanda could contribute
+nothing towards its solution, for tears and reproaches resolve no
+enigmas. There were many ways of issue, whereof Rowland knew
+several; but their watery trail, if soon enough followed, would be
+their ruin as certainly as Hop-o'-my-Thumb's pebbles were safety to
+himself and his brothers. He stood therefore the very bond slave of
+perplexity, 'and, like a neutral to his will and matter, did
+nothing.'
+
+Presently they heard the approaching step of the marquis, which
+every one in the castle knew. It stopped within a few feet of them,
+and through the thick door they could hear his short asthmatic
+breathing.
+
+They kept as still as their trembling, and the mad beating of their
+hearts, would permit. Amanda was nearly out of her senses, and
+thought her heart was beating against the door, and not against her
+own ribs. But the marquis never thought of the chapel, having at
+once concluded that they had fled through the open hall. Had he not,
+however, been so weary and sad and listless, he would probably have
+found them, for he would at least have crossed the hall to look into
+the next court, and, the moon now shining brightly, the absence of
+all track on the floor where the traces of the brief inundation
+ceased, would have surely indicated the direction in which they had
+sought refuge.
+
+The acme of terror happily endured but a moment. The sound of his
+departing footsteps took the ghoul from their hearts; they began to
+breathe, and to hope that the danger was gone. But they waited long
+ere at last they ventured, like wild animals overtaken by the
+daylight, to creep out of their shelter and steal back like
+shadows--but separately, Amanda first, and Scudamore some slow
+minutes after--to their different quarters. The tracks they could
+not help leaving in-doors were dried up before the morning.
+
+Rowland had greater reason to fear discovery than any one else in
+the castle, save one, would in like circumstances have had, and that
+one was his bedfellow in the ante-chamber to his master's bedroom.
+Through this room his lordship had to pass to reach his own; but so
+far was he from suspecting Rowland, or indeed any gentleman of his
+retinue, that he never glanced in the direction of his bed, and so
+could not discover that he was absent from it. Had Rowland but
+caught a glimpse of his own figure as he sneaked into that room five
+minutes after the marquis had passed through it, believing his
+master was still in his study, where he had left his candles
+burning, he could hardly for some time have had his usual success in
+regarding himself as a fine gentleman.
+
+Amanda Serafina did not show herself for several days. A bad cold in
+her head luckily afforded sufficient pretext for the concealment of
+a bad bruise upon her cheek. Other bruises she had also, but they,
+although more severe, were of less consequence.
+
+For a whole fortnight the lovers never dared exchange a word.
+
+In the morning the marquis was in no mood to set any inquiry on
+foot. His little lamb had vanished from his fold, and he was sad and
+lonely. Had it been otherwise, possibly the shabby doublet in which
+Scudamore stood behind his chair the next morning, might have set
+him thinking; but as it was, it fell in so well with the gloom in
+which his own spirit shrouded everything, that he never even marked
+the change, and ere long Rowland began to feel himself safe.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+AMANDA--DOROTHY--LORD HERBERT.
+
+
+
+
+
+So also did Amanda; but not the less did she cherish feelings of
+revenge against her whom she more than suspected of having been the
+contriver of her harmful discomfiture. She felt certain that Dorothy
+had laid the snare into which they had fallen, with the hope if not
+the certainty of catching just themselves two in it, and she read in
+her, therefore, jealousy and cruelty as well as coldness and
+treachery. Rowland on the other hand was inclined to attribute the
+mishap to the displeasure of lord Herbert, whose supernatural
+acquirements, he thought, had enabled him both to discover and
+punish their intrusion. Amanda, nevertheless, kept her own opinion,
+and made herself henceforth all eyes and ears for Dorothy, hoping
+ever to find a chance of retaliating, if not in kind yet in
+plentiful measure of vengeance. Dorothy's odd ways, lawless
+movements, and what the rest of the ladies counted her vulgar
+tastes, had for some time been the subject of remark to the
+gossiping portion of the castle community; and it seemed to Amanda
+that in watching and discovering what she was about when she
+supposed herself safe from the eyes of her equals and superiors, lay
+her best chance of finding a mode of requital. Nor was she satisfied
+with observation, but kept her mind busy on the trail, now of one,
+now of another vague-bodied revenge.
+
+The charge of low tastes was founded upon the fact that there was
+not an artisan about the castle, from Caspar downwards, whom Dorothy
+did not know and address by his name; but her detractors, in drawing
+their conclusions from it, never thought of finding any related
+significance in another fact, namely, that there was not a single
+animal either, of consequence enough to have a name, which did not
+know by it. There were very few of the animals indeed which did not
+know her in return, if not by her name, yet by her voice or her
+presence--some of them even by her foot or her hand. She would
+wander about the farmyard and stables for an hour at a time,
+visiting all that were there, and specially her little horse, which
+she had long, oh, so long ago! named Dick, nor had taken his name
+from him any more than from Marquis.
+
+The charge of lawlessness in her movements was founded on another
+fact as well, namely, that she was often seen in the court after
+dusk, and that not merely in running across to the keep, as she
+would be doing at all hours, but loitering about, in full view of
+the windows. It was not denied that this took place only when the
+organ was playing--but then who played the organ? Was not the poor
+afflicted boy, barring the blank of his eyes, beautiful as an angel?
+And was not mistress Dorothy too deep to be fathomed? And so the
+tattling streams flowed on, and the ears of mistress Amanda
+willingly listened to their music, nor did she disdain herself to
+contribute to the reservoir in which those of the castle whose souls
+thirsted after the minutiae of live biography, accumulated their
+stores of fact and fiction, conjecture and falsehood.
+
+Lord Herbert came home to bury his little one, and all that was left
+behind of her was borne to the church of St. Cadocus, the parish
+church of Raglan, and there laid beside the marquis's father and
+mother. He remained with them a fortnight, and his presence was much
+needed to lighten the heavy gloom that had settled over both his
+wife and his father.
+
+As if it were not enough to bury the bodies of the departed, there
+are many, and the marquis and his daughter-in-law were of the
+number, who in a sense seek to bury their souls as well, making a
+graveyard of their own spirits, and laying the stone of silence over
+the memory of the dead. Such never speak of them but when compelled,
+and then almost as if to utter their names were an act of impiety.
+Not In Memoriam but In Oblivionem should be the inscription upon the
+tombs they raise. The memory that forsakes the sunlight, like the
+fishes in the underground river, loses its eyes; the cloud of its
+grief carries no rainbow; behind the veil of its twin-future burns
+no lamp fringing its edges with the light of hope. I can better,
+however, understand the hopelessness of the hopeless than their
+calmness along with it. Surely they must be upheld by the presence
+within them of that very immortality, against whose aurora they shut
+to their doors, then mourn as if there were no such thing.
+
+Radiant as she was by nature, lady Margaret, when sorrow came, could
+do little towards her own support. The marquis said to himself, 'I
+am growing old, and cannot smile at grief so well as once on a day.
+Sorrow is a hawk more fell than I had thought.' The name of little
+Molly was never mentioned between them. But sudden floods of tears
+were the signs of the mother's remembrance; and the outbreak of
+ambushed sighs, which he would make haste to attribute to the gout,
+the signs of the grandfather's.
+
+Dorothy, too, belonged in tendency to the class of the unspeaking.
+Her nature was not a bright one. Her spirit's day was evenly, softly
+lucent, like one of those clouded calm grey mornings of summer,
+which seem more likely to end in rain than sunshine.
+
+Lord Herbert was of a very different temperament. He had hope enough
+in his one single nature to serve the whole castle, if only it could
+have been shared. The veil between him and the future glowed as if
+on fire with mere radiance, and about to vanish in flame. It was not
+that he more than one of the rest imagined he could see through it.
+For him it was enough that beyond it lay the luminous. His eyes, to
+those that looked on him, were lighted with its reflex.
+
+Such as he, are, by those who love them not, misjudged as shallow.
+Depth to some is indicated by gloom, and affection by a persistent
+brooding--as if there were no homage to the past of love save sighs
+and tears. When they meet a man whose eyes shine, whose step is
+light, on whose lips hovers a smile, they shake their heads and say,
+'There goes one who has never loved, and who therefore knows not
+sorrow.' And the man is one of those over whom death has no power;
+whom time nor space can part from those he loves; who lives in the
+future more than in the past! Has not his being ever been for the
+sake of that which was yet to come? Is not his being now for the
+sake of that which it shall be? Has he not infinitely more to do
+with the great future than the little past? The Past has descended
+into hell, is even now ascending glorified, and will, in returning
+cycle, ever and again greet our faith as the more and yet more
+radiant Future.
+
+But even lord Herbert had his moments of sad longing after his
+dainty Molly. Such moments, however, came to him, not when he was at
+home with his wife, but when he rode alone by his troops on a night
+march, or when, upon the eve of an expected battle, he sought sleep
+that he might fight the better on the morrow.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE GREAT MOGUL.
+
+
+
+
+
+One evening, Tom Fool, and a groom, his particular friend, were
+taking their pastime after a somewhat selfish fashion, by no means
+newly discovered in the castle--that of teasing the wild beasts.
+There was one in particular, a panther, which, in a special dislike
+to grimaces, had discovered a special capacity for being teased.
+Betwixt two of the bars of his cage, therefore, Tom was busy
+presenting him with one hideous puritanical face after another, in
+full expectation of a satisfactory outburst of feline rancour. But
+to their disappointment, the panther on this occasion seemed to have
+resolved upon a dignified resistance to temptation, and had
+withdrawn in sultry displeasure to the back of his cage, where he
+lay sideways, deigning to turn neither his back nor his face towards
+the inferior animal, at whom to cast but one glance, he knew, would
+be to ruin his grand Oriental sulks, and fly at the hideous
+ape-visage insulting him in his prison. It was tiresome of the
+brute. Tom Fool grew more daring and threw little stones at him, but
+the panther seemed only to grow the more imperturbable, and to heed
+his missiles as little as his grimaces.
+
+At length, proceeding from bad to worse, as is always the way with
+fools, born or made, Tom betook himself to stronger measures.
+
+The cages of the wild beasts were in the basement of the kitchen
+tower, with a little semicircular yard of their own before them.
+They were solid stone vaults, with open fronts grated with huge iron
+bars--our ancestors, whatever were their faults, did not err in the
+direction of flimsiness. Between two of these bars, then, Tom,
+having procured a long pole, proceeded to poke at the beast; but he
+soon found that the pole thickened too rapidly towards the end he
+held, to pass through the bars far enough to reach him. Thereupon,
+in utter fool-hardiness, backed by the groom, he undid the door a
+little way, and, his companion undertaking to prevent it from
+opening too far, pushed in the pole till it went right in the
+creature's face. One hideous yell--and neither of them knew what was
+occurring till they saw the tail of the panther disappearing over
+the six-foot wall that separated the cages from the stableyard. Tom
+fled at once for the stair leading up to the stone-court, while the
+groom, whose training had given him a better courage, now
+supplemented by the horror of possible consequences, ran to warn the
+stablemen and get help to recapture the animal.
+
+The uproariest tumult of maddest barking which immediately arose
+from the chained dogs, entered the ears of all in the castle, at
+least every one possessed of dog-sympathies, and penetrated even
+those of the rather deaf host of the White Horse in Raglan village.
+Dorothy, sitting in her room, of course, heard it, and hearing it,
+equally of course, hurried to see what was the matter. The marquis
+heard it where he sat in his study, but was in no such young haste
+as Dorothy: it was only after a little, when he found the noise
+increase, and certain other sounds mingle with it, that he rose in
+some anxiety and went to discover the cause.
+
+Halfway across the stone court, Dorothy met Tom running, and the
+moment she saw his face, knew that something serious had happened.
+
+'Get indoors, mistress,' he said, almost rudely, 'the devil is to
+pay down in the yard.' and ran on. 'Shut your door, master cook,'
+she heard him cry as he ran. 'The Great Mogul is out.'
+
+And as she ran too, she heard the door of the kitchen close with a
+great bang.
+
+But Dorothy was not running after the fool, or making for any door
+but that at the bottom of the library tower; for the first terror
+that crossed her mind was the possible fate of Dick, and the first
+comfort that followed, the thought of Marquis; so she was running
+straight for the stable-yard, where the dogs, to judge by the way
+they tore their throats with barking, seemed frantic with rage.
+
+No doubt the panther, when he cleared the wall, hoped exultant to
+find himself in the savage forest, instead of which he came down on
+the top of a pump, fell on the stones, and the same instant was
+caught in a hurricane of canine hate. A little hurt and a good deal
+frightened, for he had not endured such long captivity without
+debasement, he glared around him with sneaking enquiry. But the
+walls were lofty and he saw no gate, and feeling unequal at the
+moment to the necessary spring, he crept almost like a snake under
+what covert seemed readiest, and disappeared--just as the groom
+entering by a door in one of the walls began to look about for him
+in a style wherein caution predominated. Seeing no trace of him, and
+concluding that, as he had expected, the clamour of the dogs had
+driven him further, he went on, crossing the yard to find the men,
+whose voices he heard on the green at the back of the rick-yard,
+when suddenly he found that his arm was both broken and torn. The
+sight of the blood completed the mischief, and he fell down in a
+swoon.
+
+Meantime Dorothy had reached the same door in the wall of the
+stableyard, and peeping in saw nothing but the dogs raging and
+RUGGING at their chains as if they would drag the earth itself after
+them to reach the enemy. She was one of those on whose wits, usually
+sedate in their motions, all sorts of excitement, danger amongst the
+rest, operate favourably. When she specially noticed the fury of
+Marquis, the same moment she perceived the danger in which he, that
+was, all the dogs, would be, if the panther should attack them one
+by one on the chain; not one of them had a chance. With the thought,
+she sped across the space between her and Marquis, who--I really
+cannot say WHICH concerning such a dog--was fortunately not very far
+from the door. Feeling him a little safer now that she stood by his
+side, she resumed her ocular search for the panther, or any further
+sign of his proximity, but with one hand on the dog's collar, ready
+in an instant to seize it with both, and unclasp it.
+
+Nor had she to look long, for all the dogs were straining their
+chains in one direction, and all their lines converged upon a little
+dark shed, where stood a cart: under the cart, between its lower
+shafts, she caught a doubtful luminousness, as if the dark while yet
+dark had begun to throb with coming light. This presently seemed to
+resolve itself, and she saw, vaguely but with conviction, two huge
+lamping cat-eyes. I will not say she felt no fear, but she was not
+terrified, for she had great confidence in Marquis. One moment she
+stood bethinking herself, and one glance she threw at the spot where
+her mastiff's chain was attached to his collar: she would fain have
+had him keep the latter to defend his neck and throat: but alas! it
+was as she knew well enough before--the one was riveted to the
+other, and the two must go together.
+
+And now first, as she raised her head from the momentary inspection,
+she saw the groom lying on the ground within a few yards of the
+shed. Her first thought was that the panther had killed him, but ere
+a second had time to rise in her mind, she saw the terrible animal
+creeping out from under the cart, with his chin on the ground, like
+the great cat he was, and making for the man.
+
+The brute had got the better of his fall, and finding he was not
+pursued, the barking of the dogs, to which in moderation he was
+sufficiently accustomed, had ceased to confuse him, he had recovered
+his awful self, and was now scenting prey. Had the man made a single
+movement he would have been upon him like lightning; but the few
+moments he took in creeping towards him, gave Dorothy all the time
+she needed. With resolute, though trembling hands, she undid
+Marquis's collar.
+
+The instant he was free, the fine animal went at the panther
+straight and fast like a bolt from a cross-bow. But Dorothy loved
+him too well to lose a moment in sending even a glance after him.
+Leaving him to his work, she flew to hers, which lay at the next
+kennel, that of an Irish wolf-hound, whose curling lip showed his
+long teeth to the very root, and whose fury had redoubled at the
+sight of his rival shooting past him free for the fight. So wildly
+did he strain upon his collar, that she found it took all her
+strength to unclasp it. In a much shorter time, however, than she
+fancied, O'Brien too was on the panther, and the sounds of
+cano-feline battle seemed to fill every cranny of her brain.
+
+But now she heard the welcome cries of men and clatter of weapons.
+Some, alarmed by Tom Fool, came rushing from the guard-rooms down
+the stair, and others, chiefly farm-servants and grooms, who had
+heard the frightful news from two that were in the yard when the
+panther bounded over the wall, were approaching from the opposite
+side, armed with scythes and pitchforks, the former more dangerous
+to their bearers than to the beast.
+
+Dorothy, into whom, girl as she was, either Bellona or Diana, or
+both, had entered, was now thoroughly excited by the conflict she
+ruled, although she had not wasted a moment in watching it. Having
+just undone the collar of the fourth dog, she was hounding him on
+with a cry, little needed, as she flew to let go the fifth, a small
+bull-terrier, mad with rage and jealousy, when the crowd swept
+between her and her game. The beast was captured, and the dogs taken
+off him, ere the terrier had had a taste or Dorothy a glimpse of the
+battle.
+
+As the men with cart-ropes dragged the panther away, terribly torn
+by the teeth of the dogs, and Tom Fool was following them, with his
+hands in his pockets, looking sheepish because of the share he had
+had in letting him loose, and the share he had not had in securing
+him again, Dorothy was looking about for her friend Marquis. All at
+once he came bounding up to her, and, exultant in the sense of
+accomplished duty, leaped up against her, at once turning her into a
+sanguineous object frightful to behold; for his wounds were bad,
+although none of them were serious except one in his throat. This
+upon examination she found so severe that to replace his collar was
+out of the question. Telling him therefore to follow her, in the
+confidence that she might now ask for him what she would, she left
+the yard, went up the stair, and was crossing the stone court with
+the trusty fellow behind her, making a red track all the way, when
+out of the hall came the marquis, looking a little frightened. He
+started when he saw her, and turned pale, but perceiving instantly
+from her look that, notwithstanding the condition of her garments,
+she was unhurt, he cast a glance at her now rather
+disreputable-looking attendant, and said,
+
+'I told you so, mistress Dorothy! Now I understand! It is that
+precious mastiff of yours, and no panther of mine, that has been
+making this uproar in my quiet house! Nay, but he looks evil enough
+for any devil's work! Prithee keep him off me.'
+
+He drew back, for the dog, not liking the tone in which he addressed
+his mistress, had taken a step nearer to him.
+
+'My lord,' said Dorothy, as she laid hold of the animal, for the
+first and only time in her life a little inclined to be angry with
+her benefactor, 'you do my poor Marquis wrong. At the risk of his
+own life he has just saved your lordship's groom, Shafto, from being
+torn in pieces by the Great Mogul.'
+
+While she spoke, some of those of the garrison who had been engaged
+in securing the animal came up into the court, and attracted the
+marquis's attraction by their approach, which, in the relaxation of
+discipline consequent on excitement, was rather tumultuous. At their
+head was lord Charles, who had led them to the capture, and without
+whose ruling presence the enemy would not have been re-caged in
+twice the time. As they drew near, and saw Dorothy stand in
+battle-plight, with her dog beside her, even in their lord's
+presence they could not resist the impulse to cheer her. Annoyed at
+their breach of manners, the marquis had not however committed
+himself to displeasure ere he spied a joke:
+
+'I told you so, mistress Dorothy!' he said again. 'That rival of
+mine has, as I feared, already made a party against me. You see how
+my own knaves, before my very face, cheer my enemy! I presume, my
+lord,' he went on, turning to the mastiff, and removing his hat, 'it
+will be my wisdom to resign castle and title at once, and so
+forestall deposition.'
+
+Marquis replied with a growl, and amidst subdued yet merry laughter,
+lord Charles hastened to enlighten his father.
+
+'My lord,' he said, 'the dog has done nobly as ever dog, and
+deserves reward, not mockery, which it is plain he understands, and
+likes not. But it was not the mastiff, it was his fair mistress I
+and my men presumed on saluting in your lordship's presence. No dog
+ever yet shook off collar of Cranford's forging; nor is Marquis the
+only dog that merits your lordship's acknowledgment: O'Brien and Tom
+Fool--the lurcher, I mean--seconded him bravely, and perhaps
+Strafford did best of all.'
+
+'Prithee, now, take me with thee,' said the marquis. 'Was, or was
+not the Great Mogul forth of his cage?'
+
+'Indeed he was, my lord, and might be now in the fields but for
+cousin Vaughan there by your side.'
+
+The marquis turned and looked at her, but in his astonishment said
+nothing, and lord Charles went on.
+
+'When we got into the yard, there was the Great Mogul with three
+dogs upon him, and mistress Dorothy uncollaring Tom Fool and
+hounding him at the devilish brute; while poor Shafto, just waking
+up, lay on the stones, about three yards off the combat. It was the
+finest thing I ever saw, my lord.'
+
+The marquis turned again to Dorothy, and stared without speech or
+motion.
+
+'Mean you--?' he said at length, addressing lord Charles, but still
+staring at Dorothy; 'Mean you--?' he said again, half stammering,
+and still staring.
+
+'I mean, my lord,' answered his son, 'that mistress Dorothy, with
+self-shown courage, and equal judgment as to time and order of
+attack, when Tom Fool had fled, and poor Shafto, already evil torn,
+had swooned from loss of blood, came to the rescue, stood her
+ground, and loosed dog after dog, her own first, upon the animal.
+And, by heaven! it is all owing to her that he is already secured
+and carried back to his cage, nor any great harm done save to the
+groom and the dogs, of which poor Strafford hath a hind leg crushed
+by the jaws of the beast, and must be killed.'
+
+'He shall live,' cried the marquis, 'as long as he hath legs enough
+to eat and sleep with. Mistress Dorothy,' he went on, turning to her
+once more, 'what is thy request? It shall be performed even to the
+half of--of my marquisate.'
+
+'My lord,' returned Dorothy, 'it is a small deed I have strewn to
+gather such weighty thanks.'
+
+'Be honest as well as brave, mistress. Mock me no modesty.' said the
+marquis a little roughly.
+
+'Indeed, my lord, I but spoke as I deemed. The thing HAD to be done,
+and I did but do it. Had there been room to doubt, and I had yet
+done well, then truly I might have earned your lordship's thanks.
+But good my lord, do not therefore recall the word spoken,' she
+added hurriedly, 'but grant me my boon. Your lordship sees my poor
+dog can endure no collar: let him therefore be my chamber-fellow
+until his throat be healed, when I shall again submit him to your
+lordship's mandate.'
+
+'What you will, cousin. He is a noble fellow, and hath a right noble
+mistress.'
+
+'Will you then, my lord Charles, order a bucket of water to be drawn
+for me, that I may wash his wounds ere I take him to my chamber?'
+
+Ten men at the word flew to the draw-well, but lord Charles ordered
+them all back to the guard-room, except two whom he sent to fetch a
+tub. With his own hands he then drew three bucketfuls of water,
+which he poured into the tub, and by the side of the well, in the
+open paved court, Dorothy washed her four-legged hero, and then
+retired with him, to do a like office for herself.
+
+The marquis stood for some time in the gathering dusk, looking on,
+and smiling to see how the sullen animal allowed his mistress to
+handle even his wounds without a whine, not to say a growl, at the
+pain she must have caused him.
+
+'I see, I see!' he said at length, 'I have no chance with a rival
+like that!' and turning away he walked slowly into the oak parlour,
+threw himself down in his great chair, and sat there, gazing at the
+eyeless face of the keep, but thinking all the time of the courage
+and patience of his rival, the mastiff.
+
+'God made us both,' he said at length, 'and he can grant me patience
+as well as him.' and so saying he went to bed.
+
+His washing over, the dog showed himself much exhausted, and it was
+with hanging head he followed his mistress up the grand staircase
+and the second spiral one that led yet higher to her chamber.
+Thither presently came lady Elizabeth, carrying a cushion and a
+deerskin for him to lie upon, and it was with much apparent
+satisfaction that the wounded and wearied animal, having followed
+his tail but one turn, dropped like a log on his well-earned couch.
+
+The night was hot, and Dorothy fell asleep with her door wide open.
+
+In the morning Marquis was nowhere to be found. Dorothy searched for
+him everywhere, but in vain.
+
+'It is because you mocked him, my lord,' said the governor to his
+father at breakfast. 'I doubt not he said to himself, "If I AM a
+dog, my lord need not have mocked me, for I could not help it, and I
+did my duty."'
+
+'I would make him an apology,' returned the marquis, 'an' I had but
+the opportunity. Truly it were evil minded knowingly to offer insult
+to any being capable of so regarding it. But, Charles, I bethink me:
+didst ever learn how our friend got into the castle? It was
+assuredly thy part to discover that secret.'
+
+'No, my lord. It hath never been found out in so far as I know.'
+
+'That is an unworthy answer, lord Charles. As governor of the
+castle, you ought to have had the matter thoroughly searched into.'
+
+'I will see to it now, my lord,' said the governor, rising.
+
+'Do, my lad,' returned his father.
+
+And lord Charles did inquire; but not a ray of light did he succeed
+in letting in upon the mystery. The inquiry might, however, have
+lasted longer and been more successful, had not lord Herbert just
+then come home, with the welcome news of the death of Hampden, from
+a wound received in attacking prince Rupert at Chalgrove. He brought
+news also of prince Maurice's brave fight at Bath, and lord Wilmot's
+victory over sir William Waller at Devizes--which latter, lord
+Herbert confessed, yielded him some personal satisfaction, seeing he
+owed Waller more grudges than as a Christian he had well known how
+to manage: now he was able to bear him a less bitter animosity. The
+queen, too, had reached Oxford, bringing large reinforcement to her
+husband, and prince Rupert had taken Bristol, castle and all. Things
+were looking mighty hopeful, lord Herbert was radiant, and lady
+Margaret, for the first time since Molly's death, was merry. The
+castle was illuminated, and Marquis forgotten by all but Dorothy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+RICHARD HEYWOOD.
+
+
+
+
+
+So things looked ill for the puritans in general, and Richard
+Heywood had his full portion in the distribution of the evils
+allotted them. Following lord Fairfax, he had shared his defeat by
+the marquis of Newcastle on Atherton moor, where of his score of men
+he lost five, and was, along with his mare, pretty severely wounded.
+Hence it had become absolutely necessary for both of them, if they
+were to render good service at any near future, that they should
+have rest and tending. Towards the middle of July, therefore,
+Richard, followed by Stopchase, and several others of his men who
+had also been wounded and were in need of nursing, rode up to his
+father's door. Lady was taken off to her own stall, and Richard was
+led into the house by his father--without a word of tenderness, but
+with eyes and hands that waited and tended like those of a mother.
+
+Roger Heywood was troubled in heart at the aspect of affairs. There
+was now a strong peace-party in the parliament, and to him peace and
+ruin seemed the same thing. If the parliament should now listen to
+overtures of accommodation, all for which he and those with whom he
+chiefly sympathised had striven, was in the greatest peril, and
+might be, if not irrecoverably lost, at least lost sight of, perhaps
+for a century. The thing that mainly comforted him in his anxiety
+was that his son had showed himself worthy, not merely in the matter
+of personal courage, which he took as a thing of course in a
+Heywood, but in his understanding of and spiritual relation to the
+questions really at issue,--not those only which filled the mouths
+of men. For the best men and the weightiest questions are never seen
+in the forefront of the battle of their time, save by "larger other
+eyes than ours."
+
+But now, from his wounds, as he thought, and the depression
+belonging to the haunting sense of defeat, a doubt had come to life
+in Richard's mind, which, because it was born IN weakness, he very
+pardonably looked upon as born OF weakness, and therefore regarded
+as itself weak and cowardly, whereas his mood had been but the
+condition that favoured its development. It came and came again,
+maugre all his self-recrimination because of it: what was all this
+fighting for? It was well indeed that nor king nor bishop should
+interfere with a man's rights, either in matters of taxation or
+worship, but the war could set nothing right either betwixt him and
+his neighbour, or betwixt him and his God.
+
+There was in the mind of Richard, innate, but more rapidly developed
+since his breach with Dorothy, a strong tendency towards the
+supernatural--I mean by the word that which neither any one of the
+senses nor all of them together, can reveal. He was one of those
+young men, few, yet to be found in all ages of the world's history,
+who, in health and good earthly hope, and without any marked poetic
+or metaphysical tendency, yet know in their nature the need of
+conscious communion with the source of that nature--truly the
+veriest absurdity if there be no God, but as certainly the most
+absolute necessity of conscious existence if there be a first life
+from whom our life is born.
+
+'Am I not free now?' he said to himself, as he lay on his bed in his
+own gable of the many-nooked house; 'Am I not free to worship God
+as I please? Who will interfere with me? Who can prevent me? As to
+form and ceremony, what are they, or what is the absence of them, to
+the worship in which my soul seeks to go forth? What the better
+shall I be when all this is over, even if the best of our party
+carry the day? Will Cromwell rend for me the heavy curtain, which,
+ever as I lift up my heart, seems to come rolling down between me
+and him whom I call my God? If I could pass within that curtain,
+what would Charles, or Laud, or Newcastle, or the mighty Cromwell
+himself and all his Ironsides be to me? Am I not on the wrong road
+for the high peak?'
+
+But then he thought of others--of the oppressed and the
+superstitious, of injustice done and not endured--not wrapt in the
+pearly antidote of patience, but rankling in the soul; of priests
+who, knowing not God, substituted ceremonies for prayer, and led the
+seeking heart afar from its goal--and said that his arm could at
+least fight for the truth in others, if only his heart could fight
+for the truth in himself. No; he would go on as he had begun; for,
+might it not be the part of him who could take the form of an angel
+of light when he would deceive, to make use of inward truths, which
+might well be the strength of his own soul, to withdraw him from the
+duties he owed to others, and cause the heart of devotion to
+paralyze the arm of battle? Besides, was he not now in a low
+physical condition, and therefore the less likely to judge truly
+with regard to affairs of active outer life? His business plainly
+was to gain strength of body, that the fumes of weakness might no
+longer cloud his brain, and that, if he had to die for the truth,
+whether in others or in himself, he might die in power, like the
+blast of an exploding mine, and not like the flame of an expiring
+lamp. And certainly, as his body grew stronger, and the impulses to
+action, so powerful in all healthy youth, returned, his doubts grew
+weaker, and he became more and more satisfied that he had been in
+the right path.
+
+Lady outstripped her master in the race for health, and after a few
+days had oats and barley in a profusion which, although far from
+careless, might well have seemed to her unlimited. Twice every day,
+sometimes oftener, Richard went to see her, and envied the rapidity
+of her recovery from the weakness which scanty rations, loss of
+blood, and the inflammation of her wounds had caused. Had there been
+any immediate call for his services, however, that would have
+brought his strength with it. Had the struggle been still going on
+upon the fields of battle instead of in the houses of words, he
+would have been well in half the time. But Waller and Essex were
+almost without an army between them, and were at bitter strife with
+each other, while the peace-party seemed likely to carry everything
+before them, women themselves presenting a petition for peace, and
+some of them using threats to support it.
+
+At length, chiefly through the exertions of the presbyterian
+preachers and the common council of the city of London, the
+peace-party was defeated, and a vigorous levying and pressing of
+troops began anew. So the hour had come for Richard to mount. His
+men were all in health and spirits, and their vacancies had been
+filled up. Lady was frolicsome, and Richard was perfectly well.
+
+The day before they were to start he took the mare out for a gallop
+across the fields. Never had he known her so full of life. She
+rushed at hedge and ditch as if they had been squares of royalist
+infantry. Her madness woke the fervour of battle in Richard's own
+veins, and as they swept along together, it grew until he felt like
+one of the Arabs of old, flashing to the harvest field of God, where
+the corn to be reaped was the lives of infidels, and the ears to be
+gleaned were the heads of the fallen. That night he scarcely slept
+for eagerness to be gone.
+
+Waking early from what little sleep he had had, he dressed and armed
+himself hurriedly, and ran to the stables, where already his men
+were bustling about getting their horses ready for departure.
+
+Lady had a loose box for herself, and thither straight her master
+went, wondering as he opened the door of it that he did not hear
+usual morning welcome. The place was empty. He called Stopchase.
+
+'Where is my mare?' he said. 'Surely no one has been fool enough to
+take her to the water just as we are going to start.'
+
+Stopchase stood and stared without reply, then turned and left the
+stable, but came back almost immediately, looking horribly scared.
+Lady was nowhere to be seen or heard. Richard rushed hither and
+thither, storming. Not a man about the place could give him a word
+of enlightenment. All knew she was in that box the night before;
+none knew when she left it or where she was now.
+
+He ran to his father, but all his father could see or say was no
+more than was plain to every one: the mare had been carried off in
+the night, and that with a skill worthy of a professional
+horse-thief.
+
+What now was the poor fellow to do? If I were to tell the
+truth--namely, that he wept--so courageous are the very cowards of
+this century that they would sneer at him; but I do tell it
+notwithstanding, for I have little regard to the opinion of any man
+who sneers. Whatever he may or may not have been as a man, Richard
+felt but half a soldier without his mare, and, his country calling
+him, oppressed humanity crying aloud for his sword and arm, his men
+waiting for him, and Lady gone, what was he to do?
+
+'Never heed, Dick, my boy,' said his father.--It was the first time
+since he had put on man's attire that he had called him Dick,--
+'Thou shalt have my Oliver. He is a horse of good courage, as thou
+knowest, and twice the weight of thy little mare.'
+
+'Ah, father! you do not know Lady so well as I. Not Cromwell's best
+horse could comfort me for her. I MUST find her. Give me leave, sir;
+I must go and think. I cannot mount and ride, and leave her I know
+not where. Go I will, if it be on a broomstick, but this morning I
+ride not. Let the men put up their horses, Stopchase, and break
+their fast.'
+
+'It is a wile of the enemy,' said Stopchase. 'Truly, it were no
+marvel to me were the good mare at this moment eating her oats in
+the very stall where we have even but now in vain sought her. I will
+go and search for her with my hands.'
+
+'Verily,' said Mr. Heywood with a smile, 'to fear the devil is not
+to run from him!--How much of her hay hath she eaten, Stopchase?'
+he added, as the man returned with disconsolate look.
+
+'About a bottle, sir,' answered Stopchase, rather indefinitely; but
+the conclusion drawn was, that she had been taken very soon after
+the house was quiet.
+
+The fact was, that since the return of their soldiers, poor watch
+had been kept by the people of Redware. Increase of confidence had
+led to carelessness. Mr. Heywood afterwards made inquiry, and had
+small reason to be satisfied with what he discovered.
+
+'The thief must have been one who knew the place,' said Faithful.
+
+'Why dost thou think so?' asked his master.
+
+'How swooped he else so quietly upon the best animal, sir?' returned
+the man.
+
+'She was in the place of honour,' answered Mr. Heywood.
+
+'Scudamore!' said Richard to himself. It might be no light--only a
+flash in his brain. But that even was precious in the utter
+darkness.
+
+'Sir,' he said, turning to his father, 'I would I had a plan of
+Raglan stables.'
+
+'What wouldst thou an' thou hadst, my son?' asked Mr. Heywood.
+
+'Nay, sir, that wants thinking. But I believe my poor mare is at
+this moment in one of those vaults they tell us of.'
+
+'It may be, my son. It is reported that the earl hath of late been
+generous in giving of horses. Poor soldiers the king will find them
+that fight for horses, or titles either. Such will never stand
+before them that fight for the truth--in the love thereof! Eh,
+Richard?'
+
+'Truly, sir, I know not,' answered his son, disconsolately. 'I hope
+I love the truth, and I think so doth Stopchase, after his kind; and
+yet were we of those that fled from Atherton moor.'
+
+'Thou didst not flee until thou couldst no more, my son. It asketh
+greater courage of some men to flee when the hour of flight hath
+come, for they would rather fight on to the death than allow, if but
+to their own souls, that they are foiled. But a man may flee in
+faith as well as fight in faith, my son, and each is good in its
+season. There is a time for all things under the sun. In the end,
+when the end cometh, we shall see how it hath all gone. When, then,
+wilt thou ride?'
+
+'To-morrow, an' it please you, sir. I should fight but evil with the
+knowledge that I had left my best battle-friend in the hands of the
+Philistines, nor sent even a cry after her.'
+
+'What boots it, Richard? If she be within Raglan walls, they yield
+her not again. Bide thy time; and when thou meetest thy foe on thy
+friend's back, woe betide him!'
+
+'Amen, sir!' said Richard. 'But with your leave I will not go
+to-day. I give you my promise I will go to-morrow.'
+
+'Be it so, then. Stopchase, let the men be ready at this hour on the
+morrow. The rest of the day is their own.'
+
+So saying, Roger Heywood turned away, in no small distress, although
+he concealed it, both at the loss of the mare and his son's grief
+over it. Betaking himself to his study, he plunged himself
+straightway deep in the comfort of the last born and longest named
+of Milton's tracts.
+
+The moment he was gone, Richard, who had now made up his mind as to
+his first procedure, sent Stopchase away, saddled Oliver, rode
+slowly out of the yard, and struck across the fields. After a
+half-hour's ride he stopped at a lonely cottage at the foot of a
+rock on the banks of the Usk. There he dismounted, and having
+fastened his horse to the little gate in front, entered a small
+garden full of sweet-smelling herbs mingled with a few flowers, and
+going up to the door, knocked, and then lifted the latch.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE WITCH'S COTTAGE.
+
+
+
+
+
+Richard was met on the threshold by mistress Rees, in the same old-
+fashioned dress, all but the hat, which I have already described. On
+her head she wore a widow's cap, with large crown, thick frill, and
+black ribbon encircling it between them. She welcomed him with the
+kindness almost of an old nurse, and led the way to the one chair in
+the room--beside the hearth, where a fire of peat was smouldering
+rather than burning beneath the griddle, on which she was cooking
+oat-cake. The cottage was clean and tidy. From the smoky rafters
+hung many bunches of dried herbs, which she used partly for
+medicines, partly for charms.
+
+To herself, the line dividing these uses was not very clearly
+discernible.
+
+'I am in trouble, mistress Rees,' said Richard, as he seated
+himself.
+
+'Most men do be in trouble most times, master Heywood,' returned the
+old woman. 'Dost find thou hast taken the wrong part, eh?--There be
+no need to tell what aileth thee. 'Tis a bit easier to cast off a
+maiden than to forget her--eh?'
+
+'No, mistress Rees. I came not to trouble thee concerning what is
+past and gone,' said Richard with a sigh. 'It is a taste of thy
+knowledge I want rather than of thy skill.'
+
+'What skill I have is honest,' said the old woman.
+
+'Far be it from thee to say otherwise, mother Rees. But I need it
+not now. Tell me, hast thou not been once and again within the great
+gates of Raglan castle?'
+
+'Yes, my son--oftener than I can tell thee,' answered the old woman.
+'It is but a se'night agone that I sat a talking with my son Thomas
+Rees in the chimney corner of Raglan kitchen, after the supper was
+served and the cook at rest. It was there my lad was turnspit once
+upon a time, for as great a man as he is now with my lord and all
+the household. Those were hard times after my good man left me,
+master Heywood. But the cream will to the top, and there is my son
+now--who but he in kitchen and hall? Well, of all places in the
+mortal world, that Raglan passes!'
+
+'They tell strange things of the stables there, mistress Rees: know
+you aught of them?'
+
+'Strange things, master? They tell nought but good of the stables
+that tell the truth. As to the armoury, now--well it is not for such
+as mother Rees to tell tales out of school.'
+
+'What I heard, and wanted to ask thee about, mother, was that they
+are under ground. Thinkest thou horses can fare well under ground?
+Thou knowest a horse as well as a dog, mother.'
+
+Ere she replied, the old woman took her cake from the griddle, and
+laid it on a wooden platter, then caught up a three-legged stool,
+set it down by Richard, seated herself at his knee, and assumed the
+look of mystery wherewith she was in the habit of garnishing every
+bit of knowledge, real or fancied, which it pleased her to
+communicate.
+
+'Hear me, and hold thy peace, master Richard Heywood,' she said. 'As
+good horses as ever stamped in Redware stables go down into Raglan
+vaults; but yet they eat their oats and their barley, and when they
+lift their heads they look out to the ends of the world. Whether it
+be by the skill of the mason or of such as the hidden art of my lord
+Herbert knows best how to compel, let them say that list to make
+foes where it were safer to have friends. But this I am free to tell
+thee--that in the pitched court, betwixt the antechamber to my
+lord's parlour that hath its windows to the moat, and the great bay
+window of the hall that looks into that court, there goeth a
+descent, as it seemeth of stairs only; but to him that knoweth how
+to pull a certain tricker, as of an harquebus or musquetoon, the
+whole thing turneth around, and straightway from a stair passeth
+into an easy matter of a sloping way by the which horses go up and
+down. And Thomas he telleth me also that at the further end of the
+vaults to which it leads, the which vaults pass under the marquis's
+oak parlour, and under all the breadth of the fountain court, as
+they do call the other court of the castle, thou wilt come to a
+great iron door in the foundations of one of the towers, in which my
+lord hath contrived stabling for a hundred and more horses, and
+that, mark my words, my son, not in any vault or underground
+dungeon, but in the uppermost chamber of all.'
+
+'And how do they get up there, mother?' asked Richard, who listened
+with all his ears.
+
+'Why, they go round and round, and ever the rounder the higher, as a
+fly might crawl up a corkscrew. And there is a stair also in the
+same screw, as it were, my Thomas do tell me, by which the people of
+the house do go up and down, and know nothing of the way for the
+horses within, neither of the stalls at the top of the tower, where
+they stand and see the country. Yet do they often marvel at the
+sounds of their hoofs, and their harness, and their cries, and their
+chumping of their corn. And that is how Raglan can send forth so
+many horseman for the use of the king. But alack, master Heywood! is
+it for a wise woman like myself to forget that thou art of the other
+part, and that these are secrets of state which scarce another in
+the castle but my son Thomas knoweth aught concerning! What will
+become of me that I have told them to a Heywood, being, as is well
+known, myself no more of a royalist than another?'
+
+And she regarded him a little anxiously.
+
+'What should it signify, mother,'' said Richard, 'so long as neither
+you nor I believe a word of it? Horses go up a tower to bed
+forsooth! Yet for the matter of that, I will engage to ride my mare
+up any corkscrew wide enough to turn her forelock and tail in--ay,
+and down again too, which is another business with most horses. But
+come now, mother Rees, confess this all a fable of thine own
+contriving to make a mock of a farm-bred lad like me.'
+
+'In good sooth, master Heywood,' answered the old woman, 'I tell the
+tale as 'twas told to me. I avouch it not for certain, knowing that
+my son Thomas hath a seething brain and loveth a joke passing well,
+nor heedeth greatly upon whom he putteth it, whether his master or
+his mother; but for the stair by the great hall window, that stair
+have I seen with mine own eyes, though for the horses to come and go
+thereby, that truly have I not seen. And for the rest I only say it
+may well be, for there is nothing of it all which the wise man, my
+lord Herbert, could not with a word--and that a light one for him to
+speak, though truly another might be torn to pieces in saying it.'
+
+'I would I might see the place!' murmured Richard.
+
+'An' it were not thou art such a--! But it boots not talking, master
+Heywood. Thou art too well known for a puritan--roundhead they call
+thee; and thou hast given them and theirs too many hard knocks, my
+son, to look they should be willing to let thee gaze on the wonders
+of their great house. Else, being that I am a friend to thee and
+thine, I would gladly--. But, as I say, it boots nothing--although
+I have a son, who being more of the king's part than I am--.'
+
+'Hast thou not then art enough, mother, to set me within Raglan
+walls for an hour or two after midnight? I ask no more,' said
+Richard, who, although he was but leading the way to quite another
+proposal, nor desired aid of art black or white, yet could not help
+a little tremor at making the bare suggestion of the unhallowed
+idea.
+
+'An' I had, I dared not use it,' answered the old woman; 'for is not
+my lord Herbert there? Were it not for him--well--. But I dare not,
+as I say, for his art is stronger than mine, and from his knowledge
+I could hide nothing. And I dare not for thy sake either, my young
+master. Once inside those walls of stone, those gates of oak, and
+those portcullises of iron, and thou comes not out alive again, I
+warrant thee.'
+
+'I should like to try once, though,' said Richard. 'Couldst thou not
+disguise me, mother Rees, and send me with a message to thy son?'
+
+'I tell thee, young master, I dare not,' answered the old woman,
+with utmost solemnity. 'And if I did, thy speech would presently
+bewray thee.'
+
+'I would then I knew that part of the wall a man might scramble over
+in the dark,' said Richard.
+
+'Thinks thou my lord marquis hath been fortifying his castle for two
+years that a young Heywood, even if he be one of the godly, and have
+long legs to boot, should make a vaulting horse of it? I know but
+one knows the way over Raglan walls, and thou wilt hardly persuade
+him to tell thee,' said mother Rees, with a grim chuckle.
+
+As she spoke she rose, and went towards her sleeping chamber. Then
+first Richard became aware that for some time he had been hearing a
+scratching and whining. She opened the door, and out ran a
+wretched-looking dog, huge and gaunt, with the red marks of recent
+wounds all over his body, and his neck swathed in a discoloured
+bandage. He went straight to Richard, and began fawning upon him and
+licking his hands. Miserable and most disreputable as he looked, he
+recognised in him Dorothy's mastiff.
+
+'My poor Marquis!' he said, 'what evil hath then befallen thee? What
+would thy mistress say to see thee thus?'
+
+Marquis whined and wagged his tail as if he understood every word he
+said, and Richard was stung to the heart at the sight of his
+apparently forlorn condition.
+
+'Hath thy mistress then forsaken thee too, Marquis?' he said, and
+from fellow-feeling could have taken the dog in his arms.
+
+'I think not so,' said mistress Rees. 'He hath been with her in the
+castle ever since she went there.'
+
+'Poor fellow, how thou art torn!' said Richard. 'What animal of
+thine own size could have brought thee into such a plight? Or can it
+be that thou hast found a bigger? But that thou hast beaten him I am
+well assured.'
+
+Marquis wagged an affirmative.
+
+'Fangs of biggest dog in Gwent never tore him like that, master
+Heywood. Heark'ee now. He cannot tell his tale, so I must tell thee
+all I know of the matter. I was over to Raglan village three nights
+agone, to get me a bottle of strong waters from mine host of the
+White Horse, for the distilling of certain of my herbs good for
+inward disorders, when he told me that about an hour before there
+had come from the way of the castle all of a sudden the most
+terrible noise that ever human ears were pierced withal, as if every
+devil in hell of dog or cat kind had broken loose, and fierce battle
+was waging between them in the Yellow Tower. I said little, but had
+my own fears for my lord Herbert, and came home sad and slow and
+went to bed. Now what should wake me the next morning, just as
+daylight broke the neck of the darkness, but a pitiful whining and
+obstinate scratching at my door! And who should it be but that same
+lovely little lapdog of my young mistress now standing by thy knee!
+But had thou seen him then, master Richard! It was the devil's
+hackles he had been through! Such a torn dishclout of a dog thou
+never did see! I understood it all in a moment. He had made one in
+the fight, and whether he had had the better or the worse of it,
+like a wise dog as he always was, he knew where to find what would
+serve his turn, and so when the house was quiet, off he came to old
+mother Rees to be plaistered and physicked. But what perplexes my
+old brain is, how, at that hour of the night, for to reach my door
+when he did, and him hardly able to stand when I let him in, it must
+have been dead night when he left--it do perplex me, I say, to think
+how at that time of the night he got out of that prison, watched as
+it is both night and day by them that sleep not.'
+
+'He couldn't have come over the wall?' suggested Richard.
+
+'Had thou seen him--thou would not make that the question.'
+
+'Then he must have come through or under it; there are but three
+ways,' said Richard to himself. 'He's a big dog,' he added aloud,
+regarding him thoughtfully as he patted his sullen affectionate
+head. 'He's a big dog,' he repeated.
+
+'I think a'most he be the biggest dog _I_ ever saw,' assented
+mistress Rees.
+
+'I would I were less about the shoulders,' said Richard.
+
+'Who ever heard a man worth his mess of pottage wish him such a wish
+as that, master Heywood! What would mistress Dorothy say to hear
+thee? I warrant me she findeth no fault with the breadth of thy
+shoulders.'
+
+'I am less in the compass than I was before the last fight,' he went
+on, without heeding his hostess, and as if he talked to the dog, who
+stood with his chin on his knee, looking up in his face. 'Where
+thou, Marquis, canst walk, I doubt not to creep; but if thou must
+creep, what then is left for me? Yet how couldst thou creep with
+such wounds in thy throat and belly, my poor Marquis?'
+
+The dog whined, and moved all his feet, one after the other, but
+without taking his chin off Richard's knee.
+
+'Hast seen thy mistress, little Dick, Marquis?' asked Richard.
+
+Again the dog whined, moved his feet, and turned his head towards
+the door. But whether it was that he understood the question, or
+only that he recognised the name of his friend, who could tell?
+
+'Will thou take me to Dick, Marquis?'
+
+The dog turned and walked to the door, then stood and looked back,
+as if waiting for Richard to open it and follow him.
+
+'No, Marquis, we must not go before night,' said Richard.
+
+The dog returned slowly to his knee, and again laid his chin upon
+it.
+
+'What will the dog do next, thinkest thou, mother--when he finds
+himself well again, I mean? Will he run from thee?' said Richard.
+
+'He would be like neither dog nor man I ever knew, did he not.'
+returned the old woman. 'He will for sure go back where he got his
+hurts--to revenge them if he may, for that is the custom also with
+both dogs and men.'
+
+'Couldst thou make sure of him that he run not away till I come
+again at night, mother?'
+
+'Certain I can, my son. I will shut him up whence he will not break
+so long as he hears me nigh him.'
+
+'Do so then an' thou lovest me, mother Rees, and I will be here with
+the first of the darkness.'
+
+'An' I love thee, master Richard? Nay, but I do love thy good face
+and thy true words, be thou puritan or roundhead, or fanatic, or
+what evil name soever the wicked fashion of the times granteth to
+men to call thee.'
+
+'Hark in thine ear then, mother: I will call no names; but they of
+Raglan have, as I truly believe, stolen from me my Lady.'
+
+'Nay, nay, master Richard,' interrupted mistress Rees; 'did I not
+tell thee with my own mouth that she went of her own free will, and
+in the company of the reverend sir Matthew Herbert?'
+
+'Alas! thou goest not with me, mother Rees. I meant not mistress
+Dorothy. She is lost to me indeed; but so also is my poor mare,
+which was stolen last night from Redware stables as the watchers
+slept.'
+
+'Alack-a-day!' cried goody Rees, holding up her hands in sore
+trouble for her friend. 'But what then dreams thou of doing? Not
+surely, before all the saints in heaven, will thou adventure thy
+body within Raglan walls? But I speak like a fool. Thou canst not.'
+
+'This good dog,' said Richard, stroking Marquis, 'must, as thou
+thyself plainly seest, have found some way of leaving Raglan without
+the knowledge or will of its warders. Where he gat him forth, will
+he not get him in again? And where dog can go, man may at least
+endeavour to follow.--Mayhap he hath for himself scratched a way, as
+many dogs will.'
+
+'But, for the love of God, master Heywood, what would thou do inside
+that stone cage? Thy mare, be she, as thou hast often vaunted her to
+me, the first for courage and wisdom and strength and fleetness of
+all mares created--be her fore feet like a man's hands and her
+heart like a woman's heart, as thou sayest, yet cannot she overleap
+Raglan walls; and thinks thou they will raise portcullis and open
+gate and drop drawbridge to let thee and her ride forth in peace? It
+were a fool's errand, my young master, and nowise befitting thy
+young wisdom.'
+
+'What I shall do, when I am length within the walls, I cannot tell
+thee, mother. Nor have I ever yet known much good in forecasting. To
+have to think, when the hour is come, of what thou didst before
+resolve, instead of setting thyself to understand what is around
+thee, and perchance the whole matter different from what thou had
+imagined, is to stand like Lazarus bound hand and foot in thine own
+graveclothes. It will be given me to meet what comes; or if not, who
+will bar me from meeting what follows ?'
+
+'Master Heywood,' cried goody Rees, drawing herself with rebuke,
+'for a man that is born of a woman to talk so wisely and so
+foolishly both in a breath!--But,' she added, with a change of tone,
+'I know better than bar the path to a Heywood. An' he will, he will.
+And thou hast been vilely used, my young master. I will do what I
+can to help thee to thine own--and no more--no more than thine own.
+Hark in thine ear now. But first swear to me by the holy cross,
+puritan as thou art, that thou wilt make no other use of what I tell
+thee but to free thy stolen mare. I know thou may be trusted even
+with the secret that would slay thine enemy. But I must have thy
+oath notwithstanding thereto.'
+
+'I will not swear by the cross, which was never holy, for thereby
+was the Holy slain. I will not swear at all, mother Rees. I will
+pledge thee the word of a man who fears God, that I will in no way
+dishonourable make use of that which thou tellest me. An' that
+suffice not, I will go without thy help, trusting in God, who never
+made that mare to carry the enemy of the truth into the battle.'
+
+'But what an' thou should take the staff of strife to measure thy
+doings withal? That may then seem honourable, done to an enemy,
+which thou would scorn to do to one of thine own part, even if he
+wronged thee.'
+
+'Nay, mother; but I will do nothing THOU wouldst think
+dishonourable--that I promise thee. I will use what thou tellest me
+for no manner of hurt to my lord of Worcester or aught that is his.
+But Lady is not his, and her will I carry, if I may, from Raglan
+stables back to Redware.'
+
+'I am content. Hearken then, my son. Raglan watchword for the rest
+of the month is--ST. GEORGE AND ST. PATRICK! May it stand thee in
+good stead.'
+
+'I thank thee, mother, with all my heart,' said Richard, rising
+jubilant. 'Now shut up the dog, and let me go. One day it may lie in
+my power to requite thee.'
+
+'Thou hast requited me beforehand, master Heywood. Old mother Rees
+never forgets. I would have done well by thee with the maiden, an'
+thou would but have hearkened to my words. But the day may yet come.
+Go now, and return with the last of the twilight. Come hither,
+Marquis.'
+
+The dog obeyed, and she shut him again in her chamber.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE MOAT OF THE KEEP.
+
+
+
+
+
+Richard left the cottage, and mounted Oliver. To pass the time and
+indulge a mournful memory, he rode round by Wyfern. When he reached
+home, he found that his father had gone to pay a visit some miles
+off. He went to his own room, cast himself on his bed, and tried to
+think. But his birds would not come at his call, or coming would but
+perch for a moment, and again fly. As he lay thus, his eyes fell on
+his cousin, old Thomas Heywood's little folio, lying on the window
+seat where he had left it two years ago, and straightway his
+fluttering birds alighting there, he thought how the book had been
+lying unopened all the months, while he had been passing through so
+many changes and commotions. How still had the room been around it,
+how silent the sunshine and the snow, while he had inhabited
+tumult--tumult in his heart, tumult in his ears, tumult of sorrows,
+of vain longings, of tongues and of swords! Where was the gain to
+him? Was he nearer to that centre of peace, which the book, as it
+lay there so still, seemed to his eyes to typify? The maiden loved
+from childhood had left him for a foolish king and a phantom-church:
+had he been himself pursuing anything better? He had been fighting
+for the truth: had he then gained her? where was she? what was she
+if not a living thing in the heart? Would the wielding of the sword
+in its name ever embody an abstraction, call it from the vasty deep
+of metaphysics up into self-conscious existence in the essence of a
+man's own vitality? Was not the question still, how, of all loves,
+to grasp the thing his soul thirsted after?
+
+To many a sermon, cleric and lay, had he listened since he left that
+volume there--in church, in barn, in the open field--but the
+religion which seemed to fill all the horizon of these preachers'
+vision, was to him little better than another tumult of words;
+while, far beyond all the tumults, hung still, in the vast of
+thought unarrived, unembodied, that something without a shape, yet
+bearing a name around which hovered a vague light as of something
+dimly understood, after which, in every moment of inbreaking
+silence, his soul straightway began to thirst. And if the Truth was
+not to be found in his own heart, could he think that the blows by
+which he had not gained her had yet given her?--that through means
+of the tumult he had helped to arouse in her name and for her sake,
+but in which he had never caught a sight of her beauteous form, she
+now sat radiantly smiling in any one human soul where she sat not
+before?
+
+Or should he say it was Freedom for which he had fought? Was he then
+one whit more free in the reality of his being than he had been
+before? Or had ever a battle wherein he had perilled his own life,
+striking for liberty, conveyed that liberty into a single human
+heart? Was there one soul the freer within, from the nearer presence
+of that freedom which would have a man endure the heaviest wrong,
+rather than inflict the lightest? He could not tell, but he greatly
+doubted.
+
+His thought went wandering away, and vision after vision, now of war
+and now of love, now of earthly victory and now of what seemed
+unattainable felicity, arose and passed before him, filling its
+place. At length it came back: he would glance again into his cousin
+Thomas's book. He had but to stretch out his hand to take it, for
+his bed was close by the window. Opening it at random, he came upon
+this passage:
+
+And as the Mill, that circumgyreth fast, Refuseth nothing that
+therein is cast, But whatsoever is to it assign'd Gladly receives
+and willing is to grynd, But if the violence be with nothing fed, It
+wasts itselfe: e'en so the heart mis-led, Still turning round,
+unstable as the Ocean, Never at rest, but in continuall Motion,
+Sleepe or awake, is still in agitation Of some presentment in th'
+imagination.
+
+If to the Mill-stone you shall cast in Sand, It troubles them, and
+makes them at a stand; If Pitch, it chokes them; or if Chaffe let
+fall, They are employ'd, but to no use at all. So, bitter thoughts
+molest, uncleane thoughts staine And spot the Heart; while those
+idle and vaine Weare it, and to no purpose. For when 'tis Drowsie
+and carelesse of the future blisse, And to implore Heav'n's aid, it
+doth imply How far is it remote from the most High. For whilst our
+Hearts on Terrhen things we place, There cannot be least hope of
+Divine grace.
+
+'Just such a mill is my mind,' he said to himself. 'But can I
+suppose that to sit down and read all day like a monk, would bring
+me nearer to the thing I want?'
+
+He turned over the volume half thinking, half brooding.
+
+'I will look again,' he thought, 'at the verses which that day my
+father gave me to read. Truly I did not well understand them.'
+
+Once more he read the poem through. It closed with these lines:
+
+So far this Light the Raies extends, As that no place It
+comprehends. So deepe this Sound, that though it speake, It cannot
+by a Sence so weake Be entertain'd. A Redolent Grace The Aire blowes
+not from place to place. A pleasant Taste, of that delight It doth
+confound all appetite. A strict Embrace, not felt, yet leaves That
+vertue, where it takes it cleaves. This Light, this Sound, this
+Savouring Grace, This Tastefull Sweet, this Strict Embrace, No Place
+containes, no Eye can see, My God is; and there's none but Hee.
+
+'I HAVE gained something,' he cried aloud. 'I understand it now--at
+least I think I do. What if, in fighting for the truth as men say,
+the doors of a man's own heart should at length fly open for her
+entrance! What if the understanding of that which is uttered
+concerning her, be a sign that she herself draweth nigh! Then I will
+go on.--And that I may go on, I must recover my mare.'
+
+Honestly, however, he could not quite justify the scheme. All the
+efforts of his imagination, as he rode home, to bring his judgment
+to the same side with itself, had failed, and he had been driven to
+confess the project a foolhardy one. But, on the other hand, had he
+not had a leading thitherward? Whence else the sudden conviction
+that Scudamore had taken her, and the burning desire to seek her in
+Raglan stables? And had he not heard mighty arguments from the lips
+of the most favoured preachers in the army for an unquestioning
+compliance with leadings? Nay, had he not had more than a leading?
+Was it not a sign to encourage him, even a pledge of happy result,
+that, within an hour of it, and in consequence of his first step in
+partial compliance with it, he had come upon the only creature
+capable of conducting him into the robber's hold? And had he not at
+the same time learned the Raglan password?--He WOULD go.
+
+He rose, and descending the little creaking stair of black oak that
+led from his room to the next storey, sought his father's study,
+where he wrote a letter informing him of his intended attempt, and
+the means to its accomplishment that had been already vouchsafed
+him. The rest of his time, after eating his dinner, he spent in
+making overshoes for his mare out of an old buff jerkin. As soon as
+the twilight began to fall, he set out on foot for the witch's
+cottage.
+
+When he arrived, he found her expecting him, but prepared with no
+hearty welcome.
+
+'I had liefer by much thee had not come so pat upon thy promise,
+master Heywood. Then I might have looked to move thee from thy
+purpose, for truly I like it not. But thou will never bring an old
+woman into trouble, master Richard?'
+
+'Or a young one either, if I can help it Mother Rees,' answered
+Richard. 'But come now, thou must trust me, and tell me all I want
+to know.'
+
+He drew from his pocket paper and pencil, and began to put to her
+question after question as to the courts and the various buildings
+forming them, with their chief doors and windows, and ever as she
+gave him an answer, he added its purport to the rough plan he was
+drawing of the place.
+
+'Listen to me, Master Heywood,' said the old woman at length after a
+long, silence, during which he had been pondering over his paper.
+'An' thou get once into the fountain court thou will know where thee
+is by the marble horse that stands in the middle of it. Turn then
+thy back to the horse, with the yellow tower above thee upon thy
+right hand, and thee will be facing the great hall. On the other
+side of the hall is the pitched court with its great gate and double
+portcullis and drawbridge. Nearly at thy back, but to thy right
+hand, will lie the gate to the bowling-green. At which of these
+gates does thee think to lead out thy mare?'
+
+'An' I pass at all, mother, it will be on her back, not at her
+head.'
+
+'Thou wilt not pass, my son. Be counselled. To thy mare, thou wilt
+but lose thyself.'
+
+Richard heard her as though he heard her not.
+
+'At what hour doth the moon rise, mistress Rees?' he asked.
+
+'What would thou with the moon?" she returned. "Is not she the enemy
+of him who roves for plunder? Shines she not that the thief may be
+shaken out of the earth?'
+
+'I am not thief enough to steal in the dark, mother. How shall I
+tell without her help where I am or whither I go?'
+
+'She will be half way to the top of her hill by midnight.'
+
+'An' thou speak by the card, then is it time that Marquis and I were
+going.'
+
+'Here, take thee some fern-seed in thy pouch, that thou may walk
+invisible,' said the old woman. 'If thee chance to be an hungred,
+then eat thereof,' she added, as she transferred something from her
+pocket to his.
+
+She called the dog and opened the chamber door. Out came Marquis,
+walked to Richard, and stood looking up in his face as if he knew
+perfectly that his business was to accompany him. Richard bade the
+old woman good night, and stepped from the cottage.
+
+No sooner was he in the darkness with the dog, than, fearing he
+might lose sight of him, he tied his handkerchief round the dog's
+neck, and fastened to it the thong of his riding whip--the sole
+weapon he had brought with him--and so they walked together, Marquis
+pulling Richard on. Ere long the moon rose, and the country dawned
+into the dim creation of the light.
+
+On and on they trudged, Marquis pulling at his leash as if he had
+been a blind man's dog, and on and on beside them crept their
+shadows, flattened out into strange distortion upon the road. But
+when they had come within about two miles of Raglan, whether it was
+that the sense of proximity to his mistress grew strong in him, or
+that he scented the Great Mogul, as the horse the battle from afar,
+Marquis began to grow restless, and to sniff about on one side of
+the way. When at length they had by a narrow bridge crossed a brook,
+the dog insisted on leaving the road and going down into the meadow
+to the left. Richard made small resistance, and that only for
+experiment upon the animal's determination. Across field after field
+his guide led him, until, but for the great keep towering dimly up
+into the moonlit sky, he could hardly have even conjectured where he
+was. But he was well satisfied, for, ever as they came out of copse
+or hollow, there was the huge thing in the sky, nearer than before.
+
+At last he was able to descry a short stretch of the castle rampart,
+past which, away to the westward, the dog was pulling, along a rough
+cart-track through a field. This he presently found to be a quarry
+road, and straight into the quarry the dog went, pulling eagerly;
+but Richard was compelled to follow with caution, for the ground was
+rough and broken, and the moon cast black misleading shadows.
+Towards the blackest of these the dog led, and entered a hollow way.
+Richard went straight after him, guarding his head with his arm,
+lest he might meet a sudden descent of the roof, and lengthening his
+leash to the utmost, that he might have timely warning of any
+descent of the floor.
+
+It was a very rough tunnel, the intent of which will afterwards
+appear, forming part of one of lord Herbert's later contrivances for
+the safety of the castle; but so well had Mr. Salisbury, the
+surveyor, managed, that not one of the men employed upon it had an
+idea that they were doing more than working the quarry for the
+repair of the fortifications.
+
+From the darkness, and the cautious rate at which he had to proceed,
+holding back the dog who tugged hard at the whip, Richard could not
+even hazard a conjecture as to the distance they had advanced, when
+he heard the noise of a small runnel of water, which seemed from the
+sound to make abrupt descent from some little height. He had gone
+but a few paces further when the handle of the whip received a great
+upward pull and was left loose in his grasp: the dog was away,
+leaving his handkerchief at the end of the thong. So now he had to
+guide himself, and began to feel about him. He seemed at first to
+have come to the end of the passage, for he could touch both sides
+of it by stretching out his arms, and in front a tiny stream of
+water came down the face of the rough rock; but what then had become
+of Marquis? The answer seemed plain: the water must come from
+somewhere, and doubtless its channel had spare room enough for the
+dog to pass thither. He felt up the rock, and found that, at about
+the height of his head, the water came over an obtuse angle.
+Climbing a foot or two, he discovered that the opening whence it
+issued was large enough for him to enter.
+
+Only one who has at some time passed where lengthened creeping was
+necessary, will know how Richard felt, with water under him,
+pitch-darkness about him, and the rock within an inch or two of his
+body all round. By and by the slope became steeper and the ascent
+more difficult. The air grew very close, and he began to fear he
+should be stifled. Then came a hot breath, and a pair of eyes
+gleamed a foot or two from his face. Had he then followed into the
+den of the animal by which poor Marquis had been so frightfully
+torn? But no: it was Marquis himself waiting for him!
+
+'Go on, Marquis,' he said, with a sigh of relief.
+
+The dog obeyed, and in another moment a waft of cool air came in.
+Presently a glimmer of light appeared. The opening through which it
+entered was a little higher than his horizontally posed head, and
+looked alarmingly narrow.
+
+But as he crept nearer it grew wider, and when he came under it he
+found it large enough to let him through. When cautiously he poked
+up his head, there was the huge mass of the keep towering blank
+above him! On a level with his eyes, the broad, lilied waters of the
+moat lay betwixt him and the citadel.
+
+Marquis had brought him to the one neglected, therefore forgotten,
+and thence undefended spot of the whole building. Before the well
+was sunk in the keep, the supply of water to the moat had been far
+more bountiful, and provision for a free overflow was necessary. For
+some reason, probably for the mere sake of facility in the
+construction, the passage for the superfluous water had been made
+larger than needful at the end next the moat. About midway to its
+outlet, however--a mere drain-mouth in a swampy hollow in the middle
+of a field--it had narrowed to a third of the compass. But the
+quarriers had cut across it above the point of contraction; and no
+danger of access occurring to lord Herbert or Mr. Salisbury, while
+they found a certain service in the tiny waterfall, they had left it
+as it was.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+RAGLAN STABLES.
+
+
+
+
+
+The passage for the overflow of the water of the moat was under the
+sunk walk which, reaching from the gate of the stone court round to
+the gate of the fountain court, enclosed the keep and its moat,
+looping them on as it were to the side of the double quadrangle of
+the castle. The only way out of this passage, at whose entrance
+Richard now found himself, was into the moat. As quietly therefore
+as he could, he got through the opening and into the water, amongst
+the lilies, where, much impeded by their tangling roots, which
+caused him many a submergence, but with a moon in her second quarter
+over his head to light him, he swam gently along. As he looked up
+from the water, however, to the huge crag-like tower over his head,
+the soft moonlight smoothing the rigour but bringing out all the
+wasteness of the grim blank, it seemed a hopeless attempt he had
+undertaken. Not the less did he keep his eye on the tower-side of
+the moat, and had not swum far before he caught sight of the little
+stair, which, enclosed in one of the six small round bastions
+encircling it, led up from the moat to the walk immediately around
+the citadel. The foot of this stair was, strangely enough, one of
+the only two points in the defence of the moat not absolutely
+commanded from either one or the other of the two gates of the
+castle. The top of the stair, however, was visible from one extreme
+point over the western gate, and the moment Richard, finding the
+small thick iron-studded door open, put his head out of the bastion,
+he caught sight of a warder far away, against the moonlit sky. All
+of the castle except the spot where that man stood, was hidden by
+the near bulk of the keep. He drew back, and sat down on the top of
+the stair--to think and let the water run from his clothes. When he
+issued, it was again on all-fours. He had, however, only to creep an
+inch or two to the right to be covered by one of the angles of the
+tower.
+
+But this shelter was merely momentary, for he must go round the
+tower in search of some way to reach the courts beyond; and no
+sooner had he passed the next angle than he found himself within
+sight of one of the towers of the main entrance. Dropping once more
+on his hands and knees he crept slowly along, as close as he could
+squeeze to the root of the wall, and when he rounded the next angle,
+was in the shadow of the keep, while he had but to cross the walk to
+be covered by the parapet on the edge of the moat. This he did, and
+having crept round the curve of the next bastion, was just beginning
+to fear lest he should find only a lifted drawbridge, and have to
+take to the water again, when he came to the stone bridge.
+
+It was well for him that Dorothy and Caspar had now omitted the
+setting of their water-trap, otherwise he would have entered the
+fountain court in a manner unfavourable to his project. As it was,
+he got over in safety, never ceasing his slow crawl until he found
+himself in the archway. Here he stood up, straightened his limbs,
+went through a few gymnastics, as silent as energetic, to send the
+blood through his chilled veins, and the next moment was again on
+the move.
+
+Peering from the mouth of the archway, he saw to his left the
+fountain court, with the gleaming head of the great horse rising out
+of the sea of shadow into the moonlight, and knew where he was. Next
+he discovered close to him on his right an open door into a dim
+space, and knew that he was looking into the great hall. Opposite
+the door glimmered the large bay window of which Mrs. Rees had
+spoken.
+
+There was now a point to be ascertained ere he could determine at
+which of the two gates he should attempt his exit--a question which,
+up to the said point, he had thoroughly considered on his way.
+
+The stables opened upon the pitched court, and in that court was the
+main entrance: naturally that was the one to be used. But in front
+of it was a great flight of steps, the whole depth of the ditch,
+with the marble gate at the foot of them; and not knowing the
+carriageway, he feared both suspicion and loss of time, where a
+single moment might be all that divided failure from success. Also
+at this gate were a double portcullis and drawbridge, the working of
+whose machinery took time, and of all things a quick execution was
+essential, seeing that at any moment sleeping suspicion might awake,
+and find enough to keep her so. At the other gate there was but one
+portcullis and no drawbridge, while from it he perfectly knew the
+way to the brick gate. Clearly this was the preferable for his
+attempt. There was but one point to cast in the other scale--namely,
+that, if old Eccles were still the warder of it, there would be
+danger of his recognition in respect both of himself and his mare.
+But, on the other hand, he thought he could turn to account his
+knowledge of the fact that the marquis's room was over it. So here
+the scale had settled to rebound no more--except indeed he should
+now discover any difficulty in passing from the stone court in which
+lay the MOUTH of the stables, to the fountain court in which stood
+the preferable gate. This question he must now settle, for once on
+horseback there must be no deliberation.
+
+One way at least there must be--through the hall: the hall must be
+accessible from both courts. He pulled off his shoes, and stepped
+softly in. Through the high window immediately over the huge
+fireplace, a little moonlight fell on the northern gable-wall,
+turning the minstrels' gallery into an aerial bridge to some strange
+region of loveliness, and in the shadow under it he found at once
+the door he sought, standing open but dark under a deep porch.
+
+Issuing and gliding along by the side of the hall and round the
+great bay window, he came to the stair indicated by Mrs. Rees, and
+descending a little way, stood and listened: plainly enough to his
+practised ear, what the old woman had represented as the underground
+passage to the airiest of stables, was itself full of horses. To go
+down amongst these in the dark, and in ignorance of the construction
+of the stable, was somewhat perilous; but he had not come there to
+avoid risk. Step by step he stole softly down, and, arrived at the
+bottom, seated himself on the last--to wait until his eyes should
+get so far accustomed to the darkness as to distinguish the poor
+difference between the faint dusk sinking down the stair and the
+absolute murk. A little further on, he could descry two or three
+grated openings into the fountain court, but by them nothing could
+enter beyond the faintest reflection of moonlight from the windows
+between the grand staircase and the bell tower.
+
+As soon as his eyes had grown capable of using what light there was,
+which however was scarcely sufficient to render him the smallest
+service, Richard began to whistle, very softly, a certain tune well
+known to Lady, one he always whistled when he fed or curried her
+himself. He had not got more than half through it, when a low drowsy
+whinny made reply from the depths of the darkness before him, and
+the heart of Richard leaped in his bosom for joy. He ceased a
+moment, then whistled again. Again came the response, but this time,
+although still soft and low, free from all the woolliness of sleep.
+Once more he whistled, and once more came the answer. Certain at
+length of the direction, he dropped on his hands and knees, and
+crawled carefully along for a few yards, then stopped, whistled
+again, and listened. After a few more calls and responses, he found
+himself at Lady's heels, which had begun to move restlessly. He
+crept into the stall beside her, spoke to her in a whisper, got upon
+his feet, caressed her, told her to be quiet, and, pulling her buff
+shoes from his pockets, drew them over her hoofs, and tied them
+securely about her pasterns. Then with one stroke of his knife he
+cut her halter, hitched the end round her neck, and telling her to
+follow him, walked softly through the stable and up the stair. She
+followed like a cat, though not without some noise, to whose echoes
+Richard's bosom seemed the beaten drum. The moment her back was
+level, he flung himself upon it, and rode straight through the porch
+and into the hall.
+
+But here at length he was overtaken by the consequences of having an
+ally unequal to the emergency. Marquis, who had doubtless been
+occupied with his friends in the stable yard, came bounding up into
+the court just as Richard threw himself on the back of his mare. At
+the sight of Lady, whom he knew so well, with her master on her
+back, a vision of older and happier times, the poor animal forgot
+himself utterly, rushed through the hall like a whirlwind, and burst
+into a tempest of barking in the middle of the fountain
+court--whether to rouse his mistress, or but to relieve his own
+heart, matters little to my tale. There was not a moment to lose,
+and Richard rode out of the hall and made for the gate.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE APPARITION.
+
+
+
+
+
+The voice of her lost Marquis, which even in her dreams she could
+attribute to none but him, roused Dorothy at once. She sprang from
+her bed, flew to the window, and flung it wide. That same moment,
+from the shadows about the hall-door, came forth a man on horseback,
+and rode along the tiled path to the fountain, where never had hoof
+of horse before trod. Stranger still, the tramp sounded far away,
+and woke no echo in the echo-haunted place. A phantom surely--horse
+and man! As they drew nearer where she stared with wide eyes, the
+head of the rider rose out of the shadow into the moonlight, and she
+recognised the face of Richard--very white and still, though not, as
+she supposed, with the whiteness and stillness of a spectre, but
+with the concentration of eagerness and watchful resolution. The
+same moment she recognised Lady. She trembled from head to foot.
+What could it mean but that beyond a doubt they were both dead,
+slain in battle, and that Richard had come to pay her a last visit
+ere he left the world. On they came. Her heart swelled up into her
+throat, and the effort to queen it over herself, and neither shriek
+nor drop on the floor, was like struggling to support a falling
+wall. When the spectre reached the marble fountain, he gave a little
+start, drew bridle, and seemed to become aware that he had taken a
+wrong path, looked keenly around him, and instead of continuing his
+advance towards her window, turned in the direction of the gate. One
+thing was clear, that whether ghostly or mortal, whether already
+dead or only on the way to death, the apparition was regardless of
+her presence. A pang of disappointment shot through her bosom, and
+for the moment quenched her sense of relief from terror. With it
+sank the typhoon of her emotion, and she became able to note how
+draggled and soiled his garments were, how his hair clung about his
+temples, and that for all accoutrement his mare had but a halter.
+Yet Richard sat erect and proud, and Lady stepped like a mare full
+of life and vigour. And there was Marquis, not cowering or howling
+as dogs do in spectral presence, but madly bounding and barking as
+if in uncontrollable jubilation!
+
+The acme of her bewilderment was reached when the phantom came under
+the marquis's study-window, and she heard it call aloud, in a voice
+which undoubtedly came from corporeal throat, and that throat
+Richard's, ringing of the morning and the sunrise and the wind that
+shakes the wheat--anything rather than of the tomb:
+
+'Ho, master Eccles!' it cried; 'when? when? Must my lord's business
+cool while thou rubbest thy sleepy eyes awake? What, I say! When?
+--Yes, my lord, I will punctually attend to your lordship's orders.
+Expect me back within the hour.'
+
+The last words were uttered in a much lower tone, with the respect
+due to him he seemed addressing, but quite loud enough to be
+distinctly heard by Eccles or any one else in the court.
+
+Dorothy leaned from her window, and looked sideways to the gate,
+expecting to see the marquis bending over his window-sill, and
+talking to Richard. But his window was close shut, nor was there any
+light behind it.
+
+A minute or two passed, during which she heard the combined discords
+of the rising portcullis. Then out came Eccles, slow and sleepy.
+
+'By St. George and St. Patrick!' cried Richard, 'why keep'st thou
+six legs here standing idle? Is thy master's business nothing to
+thee?'
+
+Eccles looked up at him. He was coming to his senses.
+
+'Thou rides in strange graith on my lord's business,' he said, as he
+put the key in the lock.
+
+'What is that to thee? Open the gate. And make haste. If it please
+my lord that I ride thus to escape eyes that else might see further
+than thine, keen as they are, master Eccles, it is nothing to thee.'
+
+The lock clanged, the gate swung open, and Richard rode through.
+
+By this time a process of doubt and reasoning, rapid as only thought
+can be, had produced in the mind of Dorothy the conviction that
+there was something wrong. By what authority was Richard riding from
+Raglan with muffled hoofs between midnight and morning? His speech
+to the marquis was plainly a pretence, and doubtless that to Eccles
+was equally false. To allow him to pass unchallenged would be
+treason against both her host and her king.
+
+'Eccles! Eccles!' she cried, her voice ringing clear through the
+court, 'let not that man pass.'
+
+'He gave the word, mistress,' said Eccles, in dull response.
+
+'Stop him, I say,' cried Dorothy again, with energy almost frantic,
+as she heard the gate swing to heavily. 'Thou shalt be held to
+account.'
+
+'He gave the word.'
+
+'He's a true man, mistress,' returned Eccles, in tone of
+self-justification. 'Heard you not my lord marquis give him his last
+orders from his window?'
+
+'There was no marquis at the window. Stop him, I say.'
+
+'He's gone,' said Eccles quietly, but with waking uneasiness.
+
+'Run after him,' Dorothy almost screamed.
+
+'Stop him at the gate. It is young Heywood of Redware, one of the
+busiest of the round-heads.'
+
+Eccles was already running and shouting and whistling. She heard his
+feet resounding from the bridge. With trembling hands she flung a
+cloak about her, and sped bare-footed down the grand staircase and
+along the north side of the court to the bell-tower, where she
+seized the rope of the alarm-bell, and pulled with all her strength.
+A horrid clangour tore the stillness of the night, re-echoed with
+yelping response from the multitudinous buildings around. Window
+after window flew open, head after head was popped out--amongst the
+first that of the marquis, shouting to know what was amiss. But the
+question found no answer. The courts began to fill. Some said the
+castle was on fire; others, that the wild beasts were all out;
+others, that Waller and Cromwell had scaled the rampart, and were
+now storming the gates; others, that Eccles had turned traitor and
+admitted the enemy. In a few moments all was outcry and confusion.
+Both courts and the great hall were swarming with men and women and
+children, in every possible stage of attire. The main entrance was
+crowded with a tumult of soldiery, and scouts were rushing to
+different stations of outlook, when the cry reached them that the
+western gate was open, the portcullis up, and the guard gone.
+
+The moment Richard was clear of the portcullis, he set off at a
+sharp trot for the brick gate, and had almost reached it when he
+became aware that he was pursued. He had heard the voice of Dorothy
+as he rode out, and knew to whom he owed it. But yet there was a
+chance. Rousing the porter with such a noisy reveillee as drowned in
+his sleepy ears the cries of the warder and those that followed him,
+he gave the watch-word, and the huge key was just turning in the
+wards when the clang of the alarm-bell suddenly racked the air. The
+porter stayed his hand, and stood listening.
+
+'Open the gate,' said Richard in authoritative tone.
+
+'I will know first, master,--' began the man.
+
+'Dost not hear the bell?' cried Richard. 'How long wilt thou
+endanger the castle by thy dulness?'
+
+'I shall know first,' repeated the man deliberately, 'what that
+bell--'
+
+Ere he could finish the sentence, the butt of Richard's whip had
+laid him along the threshold of the gate. Richard flung himself from
+his horse, and turned the key. But his enemies were now close at
+hand--Eccles and the men of his guard. If the porter had but fallen
+the other way! Ere he could drag aside his senseless body and open
+the gate, they were upon him with blows and curses. But the
+puritan's blood was up, and with the heavy handle of his whip he had
+felled one and wounded another ere he was himself stretched on the
+ground with a sword-cut in the head.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+RICHARD AND THE MARQUIS.
+
+
+
+
+
+A very few strokes of the brazen-tongued clamourer had been enough
+to wake the whole castle. Dorothy flew back to her chamber, and
+hurrying on her clothes, descended again to the court. It was
+already in full commotion. The western gate stood open, with the
+portcullis beyond it high in the wall, and there she took her stand,
+waiting the return of Eccles and his men.
+
+Presently lord Charles came through the hall from the stone court,
+and seeing the gate open, called aloud in anger to know what it
+meant. Receiving no reply, he ran with an oath to drop the
+portcullis.
+
+'Is there a mutiny amongst the rascals?' he cried.
+
+'There is no cause for dread, my lord,' said Dorothy from the shadow
+of the gateway.
+
+'How know you that, fair mistress?' returned lord Charles, who knew
+her voice. 'You must not inspire us with too much of your spare
+courage. That would be to make us fool-hardy.'
+
+'Indeed, there is nothing to fear, my lord,' persisted Dorothy. 'The
+warder and his men have but this moment rushed out after one on
+horseback, whom they had let pass with too little question. They are
+ten to one,' added Dorothy with a shudder, as the sounds of the fray
+came up from below.
+
+'If there is then no cause of fear, cousin, why look you so pale?'
+asked lord Charles, for the gleam of a torch had fallen on Dorothy's
+face.
+
+'I think I hear them returning, doubtless with a prisoner,' said
+Dorothy, and stood with her face turned aside, looking anxiously
+through the gateway and along the bridge. She had obeyed her
+conscience, and had now to fight her heart, which unreasonable
+member of the community would insist on hoping that her efforts had
+been foiled. But in a minute more came the gathering noise of
+returning footsteps, and presently Lady's head appeared over the
+crown of the bridge; then rose Eccles, leading her in grim silence;
+and next came Richard, pale and bleeding, betwixt two men, each
+holding him by an arm; the rest of the guard crowded behind. As they
+entered the court, Richard caught sight of Dorothy, and his face
+shone into a wan smile, to which her rebellious heart responded with
+a terrible pang.
+
+The voice of lord Charles reached them from the other side of the
+court.
+
+'Bring the prisoner to the hall,' it cried.
+
+Eccles led the mare away, and the rest took Richard to the hall,
+which now began to be lighted up, and was soon in a blaze of candles
+all about the dais. When Dorothy entered, it was crowded with
+household and garrison, but the marquis, who was tardy at dressing,
+had not yet appeared. Presently, however, he walked slowly in from
+the door at the back of the dais, breathing hard, and seated himself
+heavily in the great chair. Dorothy placed herself near the door,
+where she could see the prisoner.
+
+Lady Mary entered and seated herself beside her father.
+
+'What meaneth all this tumult?' the marquis began. 'Who rang the
+alarum-bell?'
+
+'I did, my lord,' answered Dorothy in a trembling voice.
+
+'Thou, mistress Dorothy!' exclaimed the marquis. 'Then I doubt not
+thou hadst good reason for so doing. Prithee what was the reason?
+Verily it seems thou wast sent hither to be the guardian of my
+house!'
+
+'It was not I, my lord, gave the first alarm, but--' She hesitated,
+then added, 'my poor Marquis.'
+
+'Not so poor for a marquis, cousin Dorothy, as to be called the poor
+Marquis. Why dost thou call me poor?'
+
+'My lord, I mean my dog.'
+
+'The truth will still lie--between me and thy dog,' said the
+marquis. 'But come now, instruct me. Who is this prisoner, and how
+comes he here?'
+
+'He be young Mr. Heywood of Redware, my lord, and a pestilent
+roundhead,' answered one of his captors.
+
+'Who knows him?'
+
+A moment's silence followed. Then came Dorothy's voice again.
+
+'I do, my lord.'
+
+'Tell me, then, all thou knowest from the beginning, cousin,' said
+the marquis.
+
+'I was roused by the barking of my dog,' Dorothy began.
+
+'How came HE hither again?'
+
+'My lord, I know not.'
+
+''Tis passing strange. See to it, lord Charles. Go on, mistress
+Dorothy.'
+
+'I heard my dog bark in the court, my lord, and looking from my
+window saw Mr. Heywood riding through on horseback. Ere I could
+recover from my astonishment, he had passed the gate, and then I
+rang the alarm-bell,' said Dorothy briefly.
+
+'Who opened the gate for him?'
+
+'I did, my lord,' said Eccles. 'He made me believe he was talking to
+your lordship at the study window.'
+
+'Ha! a cunning fox!' said the marquis. 'And then?'
+
+'And then mistress Dorothy fell out upon me--'
+
+'Let thy tongue wag civilly, Eccles.'
+
+'He speaks true, my lord,' said Dorothy. 'I did fall out upon him,
+for he was but half awake, and I knew not what mischief might be at
+hand.'
+
+'Eccles is obliged to you, cousin. And so the lady brought you to
+your senses in time to catch him?'
+
+'Yes, my lord.'
+
+'How comes he wounded? He was but one to a score.'
+
+'My lord, he would else have killed us all.'
+
+'He was armed then?'
+
+Eccles was silent.
+
+'Was he armed?' repeated the marquis.
+
+'He had a heavy whip, my lord.'
+
+'H'm!' said the marquis, and turned to the prisoner.
+
+'Is thy name Heywood, sirrah?' he asked.
+
+'My lord, if you treat me as a clown, you shall have but clown's
+manners of me; I will not answer.'
+
+''Fore heaven!' exclaimed the marquis, 'our squires would rule the
+roast.'
+
+'He that doth right, marquis or squire, will one day rule, my lord,'
+said Richard.
+
+''Tis well said,' returned the marquis. 'I ask your pardon, Mr.
+Heywood. In times like these a man must be excused for occasionally
+dropping his manners.'
+
+'Assuredly, my lord, when he stoops to recover them so gracefully as
+doth the marquis of Worcester.'
+
+'What, then, would'st thou in my house at midnight, Mr. Heywood?'
+asked the marquis courteously.
+
+'Nothing save mine own, my lord. I came but to look for a stolen
+mare.'
+
+'What! thou takest Raglan for a den of thieves?'
+
+'I found the mare in your lordship's stable.'
+
+'How then came the mare in my stable?'
+
+'That is not a question for me to answer, my lord.'
+
+'Doubtless thou didst lose her in battle against thy sovereign.'
+
+'She was in Redware stable last night, my lord.'
+
+'Which of you, knaves, stole the gentleman's mare?' cried the
+marquis.--'But, Mr. Heywood, there can be no theft upon a rebel. He
+is by nature an outlaw, and his life and goods forfeit to the king.'
+
+'He will hardly yield the point, my lord. So long as Might, the
+sword, is in the hand of Right, the--'
+
+'Of Right, the roundhead, I suppose you mean,' interrupted the
+marquis. 'Who carried off Mr. Heywood's mare?' he repeated, rising,
+and looking abroad on the crowd.
+
+'Tom Fool,' answered a voice from the obscure distance.
+
+A buzz of suppressed laughter followed, which as instantly ceased,
+for the marquis looked angrily around.
+
+'Stand forth, Tom Fool,' he said.
+
+Through the crowd came Tom, and stood before the dais, looking
+frightened and sheepish.
+
+'Sure I am, Tom, thou didst never go to steal a mare of thine own
+notion: who went with thee?' said the marquis.
+
+'Mr. Scudamore, my lord,' answered Tom.
+
+'Ha, Rowland! Art thou there?' cried his lordship.
+
+'I gave him fair warning two years ago, my lord, and the king wants
+horses,' said Scudamore cunningly.
+
+'Rowland, I like not such warfare. Yet can the roundheads say nought
+against it, who would filch kingdom from king and church from
+bishops,' said the marquis, turning again to Heywood.
+
+'As they from the pope, my lord,' rejoined Richard.
+
+'True,' answered the marquis; 'but the bishops are the fairer
+thieves, and may one day be brought to reason and restitution.'
+
+'As I trust your lordship will in respect of my mare.'
+
+'Nay, that can hardly be. She shall to Gloucester to the king. I
+would not have sent to Redware to fetch her, but finding thee and
+her in my house at midnight, it would be plain treason to set such
+enemies at liberty. What! hast thou fought against his majesty? Thou
+art scored like an old buckler!'
+
+Richard had started on his adventure very thinly clad, for he had
+expected to find all possible freedom of muscle necessary, and
+indeed could not in his buff coat have entered the castle. In the
+scuffle at the gate, his garment had been torn open, and the eye of
+the marquis had fallen on the scar of a great wound on his chest,
+barely healed.
+
+'What age art thou?' he went on, finding Richard made no answer.
+
+'One and twenty, my lord--almost.'
+
+'And what wilt thou be by the time thou art one and thirty, an' I'll
+let thee go,' said the marquis thoughtfully.
+
+'Dust and ashes, my lord, most likely. Faith, I care not.'
+
+As he spoke he glanced at Dorothy, but she was looking on the
+ground.
+
+'Nay, nay!' said the marquis feelingly. 'These are, but wild and
+hurling words for a fine young fellow like thee. Long ere thou be a
+man, the king will have his own again, and all will be well. Come,
+promise me thou wilt never more bear arms against his majesty, and I
+will set thee and thy mare at liberty the moment thou shalt have
+eaten thy breakfast.'
+
+'Not to save ten lives, my lord, would I give such a promise.'
+
+'Roundhead hypocrite!' cried the marquis, frowning to hide the gleam
+of satisfaction he felt breaking from his eyes. 'What will thy
+father say when he hears thou liest deep in Raglan dungeon?'
+
+'He will thank heaven that I lie there a free man instead of walking
+abroad a slave,' answered Richard.
+
+''Fore heaven!' said the marquis, and was silent for a moment.
+'Owest thou then thy king NOTHING, boy?' he resumed.
+
+'I owe the truth everything,' answered Richard.
+
+'The truth!' echoed the marquis.
+
+'Now speaks my lord Worcester like my lord Pilate,' said Richard.
+
+'Hold thy peace, boy,' returned the marquis sternly. 'Thy godly
+parents have ill taught thee thy manners. How knowest thou what was
+in my thought when I did but repeat after thee the sacred word thou
+didst misuse?'
+
+'My lord, I was wrong, and I beg your lordship's pardon. But an'
+your lordship were standing here with your head half beaten in, and
+your clothes--'
+
+Here Richard bethought himself, and was silent.
+
+'Tell me then how gat'st thou in, lunatic,' said the marquis, not
+unkindly, 'and thou shalt straight to bed.'
+
+'My lord,' returned Richard, 'you have taken my mare, and taken my
+liberty, but the devil is in it if you take my secret.'
+
+'I would thy mare had been poisoned ere she drew thee hither on such
+a fool's errand! I want neither thee nor thy mare, and yet I may not
+let you go!'
+
+'A moment more, and it had been an exploit, and no fool's errand, my
+lord.'
+
+'Then the fool's cap would have been thine, Eccles. How earnest thou
+to let him out? Thou a warder, and ope gate and up portcullis 'twixt
+waking and sleeping!'
+
+'Had he wanted in, my lord, it would have been different,' said
+Eccles. 'But he only wanted out, and gave the watchword.'
+
+'Where got'st thou the watchword, Mr. Heywood?'
+
+'I will tell thee what I gave for it, my lord. More I will not.'
+
+'What gavest thou then?'
+
+'My word that I would work neither thee nor thine any hurt withal,
+my lord.'
+
+'Then there are traitors within my gates!' cried the marquis.
+
+'Truly, that I know not, my lord,' answered Richard.
+
+'Prithee tell me how them gat thee into my house, Mr. Heywood? It
+were but neighbourly.'
+
+'It were but neighbourly, my lord, to hang young Scudamore and Tom
+Fool for thieves.'
+
+'Tell me how thou gat hold of the watchword, good boy, and I will
+set thee free, and give thee thy mare again.'
+
+'I will not, my lord.'
+
+'Then the devil take thee!' said the marquis, rising.
+
+The same moment Richard reeled, and but for the men about him, would
+have fallen heavily.
+
+Dorothy darted forward, but could not come near him for the crowd.
+
+'My lord Charles,' cried the marquis, 'see the poor fellow taken
+care of. Let him sleep, and perchance on the morrow he will listen
+to reason. Mistress Watson will see to his hurts. I would to God he
+were on our side! I like him well.'
+
+The men took him up and followed lord Charles to the housekeeper's
+apartment, where they laid him on a bed in a little turret, and left
+him, still insensible, to her care, with injunctions to turn the key
+in the lock if she went from the chamber but for a moment. 'For who
+can tell,' thought lord Charles, greatly perplexed, 'but as he came
+he may go?'
+
+Some of the household had followed them, and several of the women
+would gladly have stayed, but Mrs. Watson sent all away. Gradually
+the crowd dispersed. The tumult ceased; the household retired. The
+castle grew still, and most of its inhabitants fell asleep again.
+
+'A damned hot-livered roundhead coxcomb!' said lord Worcester to
+himself, pacing his room. 'These pelting cockerel squires and yeomen
+nowadays go strutting and crowing as if all the yard were theirs! We
+shall see how far this heat will carry the rogue! I doubt not the
+boy would tell everything than see his mare whipped. He's a fine
+fellow, and it were a thousand pities he turned coward and gave in.
+But the affair is not mine; it is the king's majesty's. Would to God
+the rascal were of our side! He's the right old English breed. A few
+such were very welcome, if only to show some of our dainty young
+lordlings of yesterday what breed can do. But an ass-foal it is! To
+run his neck into a halter, and set honest people in mortal doubt
+whether to pull the end or no!
+
+How on earth did he ever dream of carrying off a horse out of the
+very courts of Raglan castle! And yet, by saint George! he would
+have done it too, but for that brave wench of a Vaughan! What a
+couple the two would make! They'd give us a race of Arthurs and
+Orlandos between them. God be praised there are such left in
+England! And yet the rogue is but a pestilent roundhead--the more's
+the pity! Those coward rascals need never have mauled him like that.
+Yet had the blow gone a little deeper it had been a mighty gain to
+our side. Out he shall not go till the war be over! It would be
+downright treason.'
+
+So ran the thoughts of the marquis as he paced his chamber. But at
+length he lay down once more, and sought refuge in sleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE SLEEPLESS.
+
+
+
+
+
+There were more than the marquis left awake and thinking; amongst
+the rest one who ought to have been asleep, for the thoughts that
+kept her awake were evil thoughts.
+
+Amanda Serafina Fuller was a twig or leaf upon one of many decaying
+branches, which yet drew what life they had from an ancient
+genealogical tree. Property gone, but the sense of high birth
+swollen to a vice, the one thought in her mother's mind, ever since
+she grew capable of looking upon the social world in its relation to
+herself, had been how, with stinted resources, to make the false
+impression of plentiful ease. For one of the most disappointing
+things in high descent is, that the descent is occasionally into
+depths of meanness. Some who are proudest of their lineage, instead
+of finding therein a spur to nobility of thought and action, find in
+it only a necessity for prostrating themselves with the more abject
+humiliation at the footstool of Mammon, to be admitted into the
+penetralia of which foul god's favours, they will hasten to mingle
+the blood of their pure descent with that of the very kennels,
+yellow with the gold to which a noble man, if poor as Jesus himself,
+would loathe to be indebted for a meal. In 'the high countries'
+there will be a finding of levels more appalling than strange.
+
+Hence Amanda had been born and brought up in falsehood, had been all
+her life witness to a straining after the untrue so energetic, as to
+assume the appearance of conscience; while such was the tenor and
+spirit of the remarks she was constantly hearing, that she grew up
+with the ingrained undisputed idea that she and her mother, whom she
+had only known as a widow, had been wronged, spoiled indeed of their
+lawful rights, by a combination of their rich relatives; whereas in
+truth they had been the objects of very considerable generosity,
+which they resented the more that it had been chiefly exercised by
+such of the family as could least easily afford it, yet accepted in
+their hearts, if not in their words, as their natural right. The
+intercession through which Amanda had been received into lady
+Margaret's household, was the contribution towards their maintenance
+of one of their richer connections: the marquis himself, although
+distantly related, not having previously been aware of their
+existence.
+
+But Amanda felt degraded by her position, and was unaware that to
+herself alone she owed the degradation: she had not yet learned that
+the only service which can degrade is that which is unwillingly
+rendered. To be paid for such, is degradation in its very essence.
+Every one who grumbles at his position as degrading, yet accepts the
+wages thereof, brands himself a slave.
+
+The evil tendencies which she had inherited, had then been nourished
+in her from her very birth--chief of these envy, and a strong
+tendency to dislike. Mean herself, she was full of suspicions with
+regard to others, and found much pleasure in penetrating what she
+took to be disguise, and laying bare the despicable motives which
+her own character enabled her either to discover or imagine, and
+which, in other people, she hated. Moderately good people have no
+idea of the vileness of which their own nature is capable, or which
+has been developed in not a few who pass as respectable persons, and
+have not yet been accused either of theft or poisoning. Such as St.
+Paul alone can fully understand the abyss of moral misery from which
+the in-dwelling spirit of God has raised them.
+
+The one redeeming element in Amanda was her love to her mother, but
+inasmuch as it was isolated and self-reflected, their mutual
+attachment partook of the nature of a cultivated selfishness, and
+had lost much of its primal grace. The remaining chance for such a
+woman, so to speak, seems--that she should either fall in love with
+a worthy man, if that be still possible to her, or, by her own
+conduct, be brought into dismal and incontrovertible disgrace.
+
+She had stood in the hall within a few yards of Dorothy, and had
+intently watched her face all the time Richard was before the
+marquis. But not because she watched the field of their play was
+Amanda able to read the heart whence ascended those strangely
+alternating lights and shadows. She had, by her own confession,
+conceived a strong dislike to Dorothy the moment she saw her, and
+without love there can be no understanding. Hate will sharpen
+observation to the point of microscopic vision, affording
+opportunity for many a shrewd guess, and revealing facts for the
+construction of the cleverest and falsest theories, but will leave
+the observer as blind as any bat to the scope of the whole, or the
+meaning of the parts which can be understood only from the whole;
+for love alone can interpret.
+
+As she gazed on the signs of conflicting emotion in Dorothy's
+changes of colour and expression, Amanda came quickly enough to the
+conclusion that nothing would account for them but the assumption
+that the sly puritanical minx was in love with the handsome young
+roundhead. How else could the deathly pallor of her countenance
+while she fixed her eyes wide and unmoving upon his face, and the
+flush that ever and anon swept its red shadow over the pallor as she
+cast them on the ground at some brave word from the lips of the
+canting psalm-singer, be in the least intelligible? Then came the
+difficulty: how in that case was her share in his capture to be
+explained? But here Amanda felt herself in her own province, and
+before the marquis rose, had constructed a very clever theory, in
+which exercise of ingenuity, however, unluckily for its truth, she
+had taken for granted that Dorothy's nature corresponded to her own,
+and reasoned freely from the character of the one to the conduct of
+the other. This was her theory: Dorothy had expected Richard, and
+contrived his admission. His presence betrayed by the mastiff, and
+his departure challenged by the warder, she had flown instantly to
+the alarm-bell, to screen herself in any case, and to secure the
+chance, if he should be taken, of liberating him without suspicion
+under cover of the credit of his capture. The theory was a bold one,
+but then it accounted for all the points--amongst the rest, how he
+had got the password and why he would not tell--and was indeed in
+the fineness of its invention equally worthy of both the heart and
+the intellect of the theorist.
+
+Nor were mistress Fuller's resolves behind her conclusions in merit:
+of all times since first she had learned to mistrust her, this night
+must Dorothy be watched; and it was with a gush of exultation over
+her own acuteness that she saw her follow the men who bore Richard
+from the hall.
+
+If Dorothy knew more of her own feelings than she who watched her,
+she was far less confident that she understood them. Indeed she
+found them strangely complicated, and as difficult to control as to
+understand, while she stood gazing on the youth who through her
+found himself helpless and wounded in the hands of his enemies. He
+was all in the wrong, no doubt--a rebel against his king, and an
+apostate from the church of his country; but he was the same Richard
+with whom she had played all her childhood, whom her mother had
+loved, and between whom and herself had never fallen shadow before
+that cast by the sudden outblaze of the star of childish preference
+into the sun of youthful love. And was it not when the very mother
+of shadows, the blackness of darkness itself, swept between them and
+separated them for ever, that first she knew how much she had loved
+him? What if not with the love that could listen entranced to its
+own echo!--love of child or love of maiden, Dorothy never asked
+herself which it had been, or which it was now. She was not given to
+self-dissection. The cruel fingers of analysis had never pulled her
+flower to pieces, had never rubbed the bloom from the sun-dyed glow
+of her feelings. But now she could not help the vaporous rise of a
+question: all was over, for Richard had taken the path of
+presumption, rebellion, and violence--how then came it that her
+heart beat with such a strange delight at every answer he made to
+the expostulations or enticements of the marquis? How was it that
+his approval of the intruder, not the less evident that it was
+unspoken, made her heart swell with pride and satisfaction, causing
+her to forget the rude rebellion housed within the form whose youth
+alone prevented it from looking grand in her eyes?
+
+For the moment her heart had the better of--her conscience, shall I
+say? Yes, of that part of her conscience, I will allow, which had
+grown weak by the wandering of its roots into the poor soil of
+opinion. In the delight which the manliness of the young fanatic
+awoke in her, she even forgot the dull pain which had been gnawing
+at her heart ever since first she saw the blood streaming down his
+face as he passed her in the gateway. But when at length he fell
+fainting in the arms of his captors, and the fear that she had slain
+him writhed sickening through her heart, it was with a grim struggle
+indeed that she kept silent and conscious. The voice of the marquis,
+committing him to the care of mistress Watson instead of the rough
+ministrations of the guard, came with the power of a welcome
+restorative, and she hastened after his bearers to satisfy herself
+that the housekeeper was made understand that he was carried to her
+at the marquis's behest. She then retired to her own chamber,
+passing in, the corridor Amanda, whose room was in the, same
+quarter, with a salute careless from weariness and preoccupation.
+
+The moment her head was on her pillow the great fight began--on that
+only battle-field of which all others are but outer types and
+pictures, upon which the thoughts of the same spirit are the
+combatants, accusing and excusing one another.
+
+She had done her duty, but what a remorseless thing that duty was!
+She did not, she could not, repent that she had done it, but her
+heart WOULD complain that she had had it to do. To her, as to
+Hamlet, it was a cursed spite. She had not yet learned the mystery
+of her relation to the Eternal, whose nature in his children it is
+that first shows itself in the feeling of duty. Her religion had not
+as yet been shaken, to test whether it was of the things that remain
+or of those that pass. It is easy for a simple nature to hold by
+what it has been taught, so long as out of that faith springs no
+demand of bitter obedience; but when the very hiding place of life
+begins to be laid bare under the scalpel of the law, when the heart
+must forego its love, when conscience seems at war with kindness,
+and duty at strife with reason, then most good people, let their
+devotion to what they call their religion be what it may, prove
+themselves, although generally without recognising the fact, very
+much of pagans after all. And good reason why! For are they not
+devoted to their church or their religion tenfold more than to the
+living Love, the father of their spirits? and what else is that, be
+the church or religion what it will, but paganism? Gentle and strong
+at once as Dorothy was, she was not yet capable of knowing that,
+however like it may look to a hardship, no duty can be other than a
+privilege. Nor was it any wonder if she did not perceive that she
+was already rewarded for the doing of the painful task, at the
+memory of which her heart ached and rebelled, by the fresh outburst
+in that same troubled heart of the half-choked spring of her love to
+the playmate of her childhood. Had it fallen, as she would have
+judged so much fairer, to some one else of the many in the populous
+place to defeat Richard's intent and secure his person, she would
+have both suffered and loved less. The love, I repeat, was the
+reward of the duty done.
+
+For a long time she tossed sleepless, for what she had just passed
+through had so thorougly possessed her imagination that, ever as her
+wearied brain was sinking under the waves of sleep, up rose the face
+of Richard from its depths, deathlike, with matted curls and
+bloodstained brow, and drove her again ashore on the rocks of
+wakefulness. By and by the form of her suffering changed, and then
+instead of the face of Richard it was his voice, ever as she reached
+the point of oblivion, calling aloud for help in a tone of mingled
+entreaty and reproach, until at last she could no longer resist the
+impression that she was warned to go and save him from some
+impending evil. This once admitted, not for a moment would she delay
+response. She rose, threw on a dressing-gown, and set out in the
+dim light of the breaking day to find again the room into which she
+had seen him carried.
+
+There was yet another in the house who could not sleep, and that was
+Tom Fool. He had a strong suspicion that Richard had learned the
+watchword from his mother, who, like most people desirous of a
+reputation for superior knowledge, was always looking out for scraps
+and orts of peculiar information. In such persons an imagination
+after its kind has considerable play, and when mother Rees had
+succeeded, without much difficulty on her own, or sense of risk on
+her son's part, in drawing from him the watchword of the week, she
+was aware in herself of a huge accession of importance; she felt as
+if she had been intrusted with the keys of the main entrance, and
+trod her clay floor as if the fate of Raglan was hid in her bosom,
+and the great pile rested in safety under the shadow of her wings.
+But her imagined gain was likely to prove her son's loss; for, as he
+reasoned with himself, would Mr. Heywood, now that he knew him for
+the thief of his mare, persist, upon reflection, in refusing to
+betray his mother? If not, then the fault would at once be traced to
+him, with the result at the very least, of disgraceful expulsion
+from the marquis's service. Almost any other risk would be
+preferable.
+
+But he had yet another ground for uneasiness. He knew well his
+mother's attachment to young Mr. Heywood, and had taken care she
+should have no suspicion of the way he was going after leaving her
+the night he told her the watchword; for such was his belief in her
+possession of supernatural powers, that he feared the punishment she
+would certainly inflict for the wrong done to Richard, should it
+come to her knowledge, even more than the wrath of the marquis. For
+both of these weighty reasons therefore he must try what could be
+done to strengthen Richard in his silence, and was prepared with an
+offer, or promise at least, of assistance in making his escape.
+
+As soon as the house was once more quiet, he got up, and, thoroughly
+acquainted with the "crenkles" of it, took his way through dusk and
+dark, through narrow passage and wide chamber, without encountering
+the slightest risk of being heard or seen, until at last he stood,
+breathless with anxiety and terror, at the door of the
+turret-chamber, and laid his ear against it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE TURRET CHAMBER.
+
+
+
+
+
+When mistress Watson had, as gently as if she had been his mother,
+bound up Richard's wounded head, she gave him a composing draught,
+and sat down by his bedside. But as soon as she saw it begin to take
+effect, she withdrew, in the certainty that he would not move for
+some hours at least. Although he did fall asleep, however, Richard's
+mind was too restless and anxious to yield itself to the natural
+influence of the potion. He had given his word to his father that he
+would ride on the morrow; the morrow had come, and here he was!
+Hence the condition which the drug superinduced was rather that of
+dreaming than sleep, the more valuable element, repose, having
+little place in the result.
+
+The key was in the lock, and Tom Fool as he listened softly turned
+it, then lifted the latch, peeped in, and entered. Richard started
+to his elbow, and stared wildly about him. Tom made him an anxious
+sign, and, fevered as he was and but half awake, Richard, whether he
+understood it or not, anyhow kept silence, while Tom Fool approached
+the bed, and began to talk rapidly in a low voice, trembling with
+apprehension. It was some time, however, before Richard began to
+comprehend even a fragment here and there of what he was saying.
+When at length he had gathered this much, that his visitor was
+running no small risk in coming to him, and was in mortal dread of
+discovery, he needed but the disclosure of who he was, which
+presently followed, to spring upon him and seize him by the throat
+with a gripe that rendered it impossible for him to cry out, had he
+been so minded.
+
+'Master, master!' he gurgled, 'let me go. I will swear any oath you
+please--'
+
+'And break it any moment YOU please,' returned Richard through his
+set teeth, and caught with his other hand the coverlid, dragged it
+from the bed, and, twisting it first round his face, flung the
+remainder about his body; then, threatening to knock his brains out
+if he made the least noise, proceeded to tie him up in it with his
+garters and its own corners. No sound escaped poor Tom beyond a
+continuous mumbled entreaty through its folds. Richard laid him on
+the floor, pulled all the bedding upon the top of him, and gliding
+out, closed the door, but, to Tom's unspeakable relief, as his ears,
+agonizedly listening, assured him, did not lock it behind him.
+
+Tom's sole anxiety was now to get back to his garret unseen, and
+nothing was farther from his thoughts than giving the alarm. The
+moment Richard was out of hearing--out of sight he had been for some
+stifling minutes--he devoted his energies to getting clear of his
+entanglement, which he did not find very difficult; then stepping
+softly from the chamber, he crept with a heavy heart back as he had
+come through a labyrinth of by-ways.
+
+About half an hour after, Dorothy came gliding through the house,
+making a long circuit of corridors. Gladly would she have avoided
+passing Amanda's door, and involuntarily held her breath as she
+approached it, stepping as lightly as a thief. But alas! nothing
+save incorporeity could have availed her. The moment she had passed,
+out peeped Amanda and crept after her barefooted, saw her to her joy
+enter the chamber and close the door behind her, then 'like a tiger
+of the wood,' made one noiseless bound, turned the key, and sped
+back to her own chamber--with the feeling of Mark Antony when he
+said, 'Now let it work!'
+
+Dorothy was startled by a slight click, but concluded at once that
+it was nothing but a further fall of the latch, and was glad it was
+no louder. The same moment she saw, by the dim rushlight, the signs
+of struggle which the room presented, and discovered that Richard
+was gone. Her first emotion was an undefined agony: they had
+murdered him, or carried him off to a dungeon! There were the
+bedclothes in a tumbled heap upon the floor! And--yes--it was blood
+with which they were marked! Sickening at the thought, and
+forgetting all about her own situation, she sank on the chair by the
+bedside.
+
+Knowing the castle as she did, a very little reflection convinced
+her that if he had met with violence it must have been in attempting
+to escape; and if he had made the attempt, might he not have
+succeeded? There had certainly been no fresh alarm given. But upon
+this consoling supposition followed instantly the pang of the
+question: what was now required of her? The same hard thing as
+before? Ought she not again to give the alarm, that the poor wounded
+boy might be recaptured? Alas! had not evil enough already befallen
+him at her hand? And if she did--horrible thought!--what account
+could she give this time of her discovery? What indeed but the
+truth? And to what vile comments would not the confession of her
+secret visit in the first grey of the dawn to the chamber of the
+prisoner expose her? Would it not naturally rouse such suspicion as
+any modest woman must shudder to face, if but for the one moment
+between utterance and refutation. And what refutation could there be
+for her, so long as the fact remained? If he had escaped, the alarm
+would serve no good end, and her shame could be spared; but he might
+be hiding somewhere about the castle, and she must choose between
+treachery to the marquis--was it?--on the one hand, and renewed
+hurt, wrong, perhaps, to Richard, coupled with the bitterest
+disgrace to herself, on the other. To weigh such a question
+impartially was impossible; for in the one alternative no hurt would
+befall the marquis, while from the other her very soul recoiled
+sickening. Thus tortured, she sat motionless in the very den of the
+dragon, the one moment vainly endeavouring to rouse up her courage
+and look her duty in the face that she might know with certainty
+what it was; the next, feeling her whole nature rise rebellious
+against the fate that demanded such a sacrifice. Ought she to be
+thus punished for an intent of the purest humanity?
+
+There came a lull, and with the lull a sense of her position: she
+sat in the very, jaws of slander! Any moment mistress Watson or
+another might enter and find her there, and what then more natural
+or irrefutable than the accusation of having liberated him? She
+sprang to her feet, and darted to the door. It was locked!
+
+Her first thought was relief: she had no longer to decide; her
+second, that she was a prisoner--till, horror of horrors! the
+soldiers of the guard came to seek Richard and found her, or stern
+mistress Watson appeared, grim as one of the Fates; or, perhaps, if
+Richard had been carried away, until she was compelled by hunger and
+misery to call aloud for release. But no! she would rather die. Now
+in this case, now in that, her thoughts pursued the horrible
+possibilities, one or other of which was inevitable, through all the
+windings of the torture of anticipation, until for a time she must
+have lost consciousness, for she had no recollection of falling
+where she found herself--on the heap in the middle of the floor. The
+gray heartless dawn had begun to peer in through the dull green
+glass that closed the one loophole. It grew and grew, and its growth
+was the approach of the grinning demon of shame. The nearer a man
+can arrive to the knowledge of such feelings as hers is the
+conviction that he never can comprehend them. The cruel light seemed
+gathering its strength to publish her shame to the universe.
+Blameless as she was, she would have gladly accepted death in escape
+from the misery that every moment grew nearer. Now and then a faint
+glimmer of comfort reached her in the thought that at least the
+escape of Richard, if he had escaped, was thus ensured, and that
+without any blame to her. And perhaps mistress Watson would be
+merciful--only she too had her obligations, and as housekeeper was
+severely responsible. And even if she should prove pitiful, there
+was the locking of the door! It followed so quickly, that some one
+must have seen her enter, and wittingly snared her, believing most
+likely that she was not alone in the chamber.
+
+The terrible bolt at length slid back in the lock, gently, yet with
+tearing sound; mistress Watson entered, stood, stared. Before her
+sat Dorothy by the side of the bedstead, in her dressing-gown, her
+hair about her neck, her face like the moon at sunrise, and her
+eyelids red and swollen with weeping. She stood speechless, staring
+first at the disconsolate maiden, and then at the disorder of the
+room. The prisoner was nowhere. What her thoughts were, I must only
+imagine. That she should stare and be bewildered, finding Dorothy
+where she had left Richard, was at least natural.
+
+The moment Dorothy found herself face to face with her doom, her
+presence of mind returned. The blood rushed from her heart to her
+brain. She rose, and ere the astonished matron, who stood before her
+erect, high-nosed, and open-mouthed like Michael Angelo's Clotho,
+could find utterance, said,
+
+'Mistress Watson, I swear to you by the soul of my mother, that
+although all seeming is against me, W--'
+
+'Where is the young rebel?' interrupted mistress Watson sternly.
+
+'I know not,' answered Dorothy. 'When first I entered the chamber,
+he had already gone.'
+
+'And what then hadst thou to do entering it?' asked the housekeeper,
+in a tone that did Dorothy good by angering her.
+
+Mistress Watson was a kind soul in reality, but few natures can
+resist the debasing influence of a sudden sense of superiority.
+Besides, was not the young gentlewoman in great wrong, and therefore
+before her must she not personify an awful Purity?
+
+'That I will tell to none but my lord marquis,' answered Dorothy,
+with sudden resolve.
+
+'Oh, by all means, mistress! but an' thou think to lead him by the
+nose while I be in Raglan,--'
+
+'Shall I inform his lordship in what high opinion his housekeeper
+holds him?' said Dorothy. 'It seems to me he will hardly savour it.'
+
+'It would be an ill turn to do me, but my lord marquis did never
+heed a tale-bearer.'
+
+'Then will he not heed the tale thou wouldst yield him concerning
+me.'
+
+'What tale should I yield him but that I find--thee here and the
+prisoner gone?'
+
+'The tale I read in thy face and thy voice. Thou lookest and talkest
+as if I were a false woman.'
+
+'Verily to my eyes the thing looketh ill.'
+
+'It would look ill to any eyes, and therefore I need kind eyes to
+read, and just ears to hear my tale. I tell thee this is a matter
+for my lord, and if thou spread any report in the castle ere his
+lordship hear it, whatever evil springs therefrom it will lie at thy
+door.'
+
+'My life! what dost take me for, mistress Dorothy? My age and
+holding deserves some consideration at thy hands! Am I one to go
+tattling about the courts forsooth?'
+
+'Pardon me, madam, but a maiden's good name may be as precious to
+Dorothy Vaughan as a matron's respectability to mistress Watson. An'
+you had left me with that look on your face, and had but spoken my
+name to it, some one would have guessed ten times more than you
+know--or I either for that gear.'
+
+'I must tell the truth,' said mistress Watson, relenting a little.
+
+'Thou must, or I will tell it for thee--but to the marquis. Thou
+shalt be there to hear, and if, after that, thou tell it to another,
+then hast thou no mother's heart in thee.'
+
+Dorothy gave way at last and burst into tears. Mistress Watson was
+touched.
+
+'Nay, child, I would do thee no wrong,' she rejoined. 'Get thee
+to bed. I must rouse the guard to go look for the prisoner, but I
+will say nothing of thee to any but my lord marquis. When he is
+dressed and in his study, I will come for thee myself.'
+
+Dorothy thanked her warmly, and betook herself to her chamber,
+considerably relieved.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+JUDGE GOUT.
+
+
+
+
+
+Dorothy had hardly reached her room when the castle was once more
+astir. The rush of the guard across the stone court, the clang of
+opening lattices, and the voices that called from out-shot heads,
+again filled her ears, but she never once peeped from her window. A
+moment, and the news was all over the castle that the prisoner had
+escaped.
+
+Lord Charles went at once to his father's room. The old man woke
+instantly. He had but just laid his hand on his mane, not mounted
+the shadowy steed, and was ill pleased to be already, and the second
+time, startled back to conscious weariness. When he heard the bad
+tidings he was silent for a few moments.
+
+'I would Herbert were at home, Charles, to stop this rat-hole for
+me,' he said at length. 'Let the roundhead go--I care not. I had but
+half a right to hold him, and he deserves his freedom. But what a
+governor art thou, my lord? Prithee, dost know the rents in thine
+own hose, who knowest not when thy gingerbread bulwarks gape? Find
+me out this rat-hole, I say, or I will depose thee and send for thy
+brother John, whom the king can ill spare.'
+
+'Have patience with me, father,' said lord Charles gently. 'I am
+more ashamed than thou art angry.'
+
+'Thou know'st I did but jest, my son. But in truth an'thou find it
+not I will send for lord Herbert. If he find what thou canst not,
+that will be no disgrace to thee. But find it we must.'
+
+'Think you not, my lord, it were best set mistress Dorothy on the
+search? She hath a wondrous gift of discovery.'
+
+'A good thought, Charles! I will even do as thou sayest. But search
+the castle first, from vane to dungeon, that we may be assured the
+roundhead hath indeed vanished.'
+
+As he spoke the marquis turned him round, to search the wide gray
+fields again for the shadowy horse that roamed them tetherless. But
+the steed would not come to his call; he grew chilly and asthmatic,
+tossed to and fro, and began to dread an attack of the gout.
+
+The sun rose higher; the hive of men and women was astir once more;
+the clatter of the day's work and the buzz of the day's talk began,
+and nothing was in anybody's mouth but the escape of the prisoner.
+His capture and trial were already of the past, forgotten for the
+time in the nearer astonishment. Lord Charles went searching,
+questioning, peering about everywhere, but could find neither
+prisoner nor the traitorous hole.
+
+Meantime mistress Watson was not a little anxious until she should
+have revealed what she knew to the marquis, for the prisoner was in
+her charge when he disappeared. In the course of the morning lord
+Charles came to her apartment to question her, but she begged to be
+excused, because of a certain disclosure she was not at liberty to
+make to any but his father. Lord Charles, whom she had known from
+his boyhood, readily yielded, and mistress Watson, five minutes
+after he had left his room, followed the marquis to his study,
+whither it was his custom always to repair before breakfast. He was
+looking pale from the trouble of the night, which had resulted in
+unmistakeable symptoms of the gout, listened to all she had to tell
+him without comment, looked grave, and told her to fetch mistress
+Dorothy. As soon as she was gone, he called Scudamore from the
+antechamber, and sent him to request lord Charles's presence. He
+came at once, and was there when Dorothy entered.
+
+She was very white and worn, and her eyes were heavily downcast. Her
+face wore that expression so much resembling guilt, which indicates
+the misery the most innocent feel the most under the consciousness
+of suspicion. At the sight of lord Charles, she crimsoned: it was
+one thing to confess to the marquis, and quite another to do so in
+the presence of his son.
+
+The marquis sat with one leg on a stool, already in the gradually
+contracting gripe of his ghoulish enemy. Before Dorothy could
+recover from the annoyance of finding lord Charles present, or open
+her mouth to beg for a more private interview, he addressed her
+abruptly.
+
+'Our young rebel friend hath escaped, it seems, mistress Dorothy!'
+he said, gently but coldly, looking her full in the eyes, with
+searching gaze and hard expression.
+
+'I am glad to hear it, my lord,' returned Dorothy, with a sudden
+influx of courage, coming, as the wind blows, she knew not whence.
+
+'Ha!' said the marquis, quickly; 'then is it news to thee, mistress
+Dorothy?'
+
+His lip, as it seemed to Dorothy, curled into a mocking smile; but
+the gout might have been in it.
+
+'Indeed it is news, my lord. I hoped it might be so, I confess, but
+I knew not that so it was.'
+
+'What, mistress Dorothy! knewest thou not that the young thief was
+gone?'
+
+'I knew that Richard Heywood was gone from his chamber--whether from
+the castle I knew not. He was no thief, my lord. Your lordship's
+page and fool were the thieves.'
+
+'Cousin, I hardly know myself in the change I find in thee! Truly, a
+marvellous change! In the dark night thou takest a roundhead
+prisoner; in the gray of the morning thou settest him free again!
+Hath one visit to his chamber so wrought upon thee? To an old man it
+seemeth less than maidenly.'
+
+Again a burning blush overspread poor Dorothy's countenance. But she
+governed herself, and spoke bravely, although she could not keep her
+voice from trembling.
+
+'My lord,' she said, 'Richard Heywood was my playmate. We were as
+brother and sister, for our fathers'lands bordered each other.'
+
+'Thou didst say nothing of these things last night?'
+
+'My lord! Before the whole hall? Besides, what mattered it? All was
+over long ago, and I had done my part against him.'
+
+'Fell you out together then?'
+
+'What need is there for your lordship to ask? Thou seest him of the
+one part, and me of the other.'
+
+'And from loving thou didst fall to hating?'
+
+'God forbid, my lord! I but do my part against him.'
+
+'For the which thou hadst a noble opportunity unsought, raising the
+hue and cry upon him within his enemy's walls!'
+
+'I would to God, my lord, it had not fallen to me.'
+
+'Thinking better of it, therefore, and repenting of thy harshness,
+thou didst seek his chamber in the night to tell him so? I would
+fain know how a maiden reasoneth with herself when she doth such
+things.'
+
+'Not so, my lord. I will tell you all. I could not sleep for
+thinking of my wounded playmate. And as to what he had done, after
+it became clear that he sought but his own, and meant no
+hair's-breadth of harm to your lordship, I confess the matter looked
+not the same.'
+
+'Therefore you would make him amends and undo what you had done? You
+had caught the bird, and had therefore a right to free the bird when
+you would? All well, mistress Dorothy, had he been indeed a bird!
+But being a man, and in thy friend's house, I doubt thy logic. The
+thing had passed from thy hands into mine, young mistress,' said the
+marquis, into the ball of whose foot the gout that moment ran its
+unicorn-horn.
+
+'I did not set him free, my lord. When I entered the prison-chamber,
+he was already gone.'
+
+'Thou hadst the will and didst it not! Is there yet another in my
+house who had the will and did it?' cried the marquis, who, although
+more than annoyed that she should have so committed herself, yet was
+willing to give such scope to a lover, that if she had but confessed
+she had liberated him, he would have pardoned her heartily. He did
+not yet know how incapable Dorothy was of a lie.
+
+'But, my lord, I had not the will to set him free,' she said.
+
+'Wherefore then didst go to him?'
+
+'My lord, he was sorely wounded, and I had seen him fall fainting,'
+said Dorothy, repressing her tears with much ado.
+
+'And thou didst go to comfort him?'
+
+Dorothy was silent.
+
+'How camest thou locked into his room? Tell me that, mistress.'
+
+'Your lordship knows as much of that as I do. Indeed, I have been
+sorely punished for a little fault.'
+
+'Thou dost confess the fault then?'
+
+'If it WAS a fault to visit him who was sick and in prison, my
+lord.'
+
+The marquis was silent for a whole minute.
+
+'And thou canst not tell how he gat him forth of the walls? Must I
+believe him to be forth of them, my lord?' he said, turning to his
+son.
+
+'I cannot imagine him within them, my lord, after such search as we
+have made.'
+
+'Still,' returned the marquis, the acuteness of whose wits had not
+been swallowed up by that of the gout, 'so long as thou canst not
+tell how he gat forth, I may doubt whether he be forth. If the
+manner of his exit be acknowledged hidden, wherefore not the place
+of his refuge? Mistress Dorothy,' he continued, altogether averse to
+the supposition of treachery amongst his people, 'thou art bound by
+all obligations of loyalty and shelter and truth, to tell what thou
+knowest. An' thou do not, thou art a traitor to the house, yea to
+thy king, for when the worst comes, and this his castle is besieged,
+much harm may be wrought by that secret passage, yea, it may be
+taken thereby.'
+
+'You say true, my lord: I should indeed be so bound, an' I knew what
+my lord would have me disclose.'
+
+'One may be bound and remain bound,' said the marquis, spying
+prevarication. 'Now the thing is over, and the youth safe, all I ask
+of thee, and surely it is not much, is but to bar the door against
+his return--except indeed thou didst from the first contrive so to
+meet thy roundhead lover in my loyal house. Then indeed it were too
+much to require of thee! Ah ha! mistress Dorothy, the little blind
+god is a rascally deceiver. He is but blind nor' nor' west. He
+playeth hoodman, and peepeth over his bandage.'
+
+'My lord, you wrong me much,' said Dorothy, and burst into tears,
+while once more the red lava of the human centre rushed over her
+neck and brow. 'I did think that I had done enough both for my lord
+of Worcester and against Richard Heywood, and I did hope that he had
+escaped: there lies the worst I can lay to my charge even in
+thought, my lord, and I trust it is no more than may be found
+pardonable.'
+
+'It sets an ill example to my quiet house if the ladies therein go
+anights to the gentlemen's chambers.'
+
+'My lord, you are cruel,' said Dorothy.
+
+'Not a soul in the house knows it but myself, my lord,' said
+mistress Watson.
+
+'Hold there, my good woman! Whose hand was it turned the key upon
+her? More than thou must know thereof. Hear me, mistress Dorothy: I
+would be heart-loath to quarrel with thee, and in all honesty I am
+glad thy lover--'
+
+'He is no lover of mine, my lord! At least--'
+
+'Be he what he may, he is a fine fellow, and I am glad he hath
+escaped. Do thou but find out for my lord Charles here the cursed
+rat-hole by which he goes and comes, and I will gladly forgive thee
+all the trouble thou hast brought into my sober house. For truly
+never hath been in my day such confusion and uproar therein as since
+thou earnest hither, and thy dog and thy lover and thy lover's mare
+followed thee.'
+
+'Alas, my lord! if I were fortunate enough to find it, what would
+you but say I found it where I knew well to look for it?'
+
+'Find it, and I promise thee I will never say word on the matter
+again. Thou art a good girl, and thou do venture a hair too far for
+a lover. The still ones are always the worst, mistress Watson.'
+
+'My lord! my lord!' cried Dorothy, but ended not, for his lordship
+gave a louder cry. His face was contorted with anguish, and he
+writhed under the tiger fangs of the gout.
+
+'Go away,' he shouted, 'or I shall disgrace my manhood before women,
+God help me!'
+
+'I trust thee will bear me no malice,' said the housekeeper, as they
+walked in the direction of Dorothy's chamber.
+
+'You did but your duty,' said Dorothy quietly.
+
+'I will do all I can for thee,' continued mistress Watson, mounted
+again, if not on her high horse then on her palfrey, by her master's
+behaviour to the poor girl--'if thou but confess to me how thou
+didst contrive the young gentleman's escape, and wherefore he locked
+the door upon thee.'
+
+At the moment they were close to Dorothy's room; her answer to the
+impertinence was to walk in and shut the door; and mistress Watson
+was thenceforward entirely satisfied of her guilt.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+AN EVIL TIME.
+
+
+
+
+
+And now was an evil time for Dorothy. She retired to her chamber
+more than disheartened by lord Worcester's behaviour to her, vexed
+with herself for doing what she would have been more vexed with
+herself for having left undone, feeling wronged, lonely, and
+disgraced, conscious of honesty, yet ashamed to show herself--and
+all for the sake of a presumptuous boy, whose opinions were a
+disgust to her and his actions a horror! Yet not only did she not
+repent of what she had done, but, fact as strange as natural, began,
+with mingled pleasure and annoyance, to feel her heart drawn towards
+the fanatic as the only one left her in the world capable of doing
+her justice, that was, of understanding her. She thus unknowingly
+made a step towards the discovery that it is infinitely better to
+think wrong and to act right upon that wrong thinking, than it is to
+think right and not to do as that thinking requires of us. In the
+former case the man's house, if not built upon the rock, at least
+has the rock beneath it; in the latter, it is founded on nothing but
+sand. The former man may be a Saul of Tarsus, the latter a Judas
+Iscariot. He who acts right will soon think right; he who acts wrong
+will soon think wrong. Any two persons acting faithfully upon
+opposite convictions, are divided but by a bowing wall; any two, in
+belief most harmonious, who do not act upon it, are divided by,
+infinite gulfs of the blackness of darkness, across which neither
+ever beholds the real self of the other.
+
+Dorothy ought to have gone at once to lady Margaret and told her
+all; but she naturally and rightly shrank from what might seem an
+appeal to the daughter against the judgment of her father; neither
+could she dare hope that, if she did, her judgment would not be
+against her also. Her feelings were now in danger of being turned
+back upon herself, and growing bitter; for a lasting sense of injury
+is, of the human moods, one of the least favourable to sweetness and
+growth. There was no one to whom she could turn. Had good Dr. Bayly
+been at home--but he was away on some important mission from his
+lordship to the king: and indeed she could scarcely have looked for
+refuge from such misery as hers in the judgment of the rather
+priggish old-bachelor ecclesiastic. Gladly would she have forsaken
+the castle, and returned to all the dangers and fears of her lonely
+home; but that would be to yield to a lie, to flee from the devil
+instead of facing him, and with her own hand to fix the imputed
+smirch upon her forehead, exposing herself besides to the suspicion
+of having fled to join her lover, and cast in her lot with his
+amongst the traitors. Besides, she had been left by lord Herbert in
+charge of his fire-engine and the water of the castle, which trust
+she could not abandon. Whatever might be yet to come of it, she must
+stay and encounter it, and would in the meantime set herself to
+discover, if she might, the secret pathway by which dog and man came
+and went at their pleasure. This she owed her friends, even at the
+risk, in case of success, of confirming the marquis's worst
+suspicions.
+
+She was not altogether wrong in her unconscious judgment of lady
+Margaret. Her nature was such as, its nobility tinctured with
+romance, rendered her perfectly capable of understanding either of
+the two halves of Dorothy's behaviour, but was not sufficient to the
+reception and understanding of the two parts together. That is, she
+could have understood the heroic capture of her former lover, or she
+could have understood her going to visit him in his trouble, and
+even, what Dorothy was incapable of, his release; but she was not
+yet equal to understanding how she should set herself so against a
+man, even to his wounding and capture, whom she loved so much as,
+immediately thereupon, to dare the loss of her good name by going to
+his chamber, so placing herself in the power of a man she had
+injured, as well as running a great risk of discovery on the part of
+her friends. Hence she was quite prepared to accept the solution of
+her strange conduct, which by and by, it was hard to say how, came
+to be offered and received all over the castle--that Dorothy first
+admitted, then captured, and finally released the handsome young
+roundhead.
+
+Her first impressions of the affair, lady Margaret received from
+lord Charles, who was certainly prejudiced against Dorothy, and no
+doubt jealous of the relation of the fine young rebel to a loyal
+maiden of Raglan; while the suspicion, almost belief, that she knew
+and would not reveal the flaw in his castle, the idea of which had
+begun to haunt him like some spot in his own body of which pain made
+him unnaturally conscious, annoyed him more and more. To do him
+justice, I must not omit to mention that he never made a
+communication on the matter to any but his sister-in-law, who would
+however have certainly had a more kindly as well as exculpatory
+feeling towards Dorothy, had she first heard the truth from her own
+lips.
+
+For some little time, not perceiving the difficulties in her way,
+and perhaps from unlikeness not understanding the disinclination of
+such a girl to self-defence, lady Margaret continued to expect a
+visit from her, with excuse at least, if not confession and apology
+upon her lips, and was hurt by her silence as much as offended by
+her behaviour. She was yet more annoyed, when they first met, that,
+notwithstanding her evident suffering, she wore such an air of
+reticence, and thence she both regarded and addressed her coldly; so
+that Dorothy was confirmed in her disinclination to confide in her.
+Besides, as she said to herself, she had nothing to tell but what
+she had already told; everything depended on the interpretation
+accorded to the facts, and the right interpretation was just the one
+thing she had found herself unable to convey. If her friends did
+not, she could not justify herself.
+
+She tried hard to behave as she ought, for, conscious how much
+appearances were against her, she felt it would be unjust to allow
+her affection towards her mistress to be in the least shaken by her
+treatment of her, and was if possible more submissive and eager in
+her service than before. But in this she was every now and then
+rudely checked by the fear that lady Margaret would take it as the
+endeavour of guilt to win favour; and, do what she would, instead of
+getting closer to her, she felt every time they met, that the hedge
+of separation which had sprung up between them had in the interval
+grown thicker. By degrees the mistress had assumed towards the poor
+girl that impervious manner of self-contained dignity, which,
+according to her who wears it, is the carriage either of a
+wing-bound angel, the gait of a stork, or the hobble of a crab.
+
+Of a different kind was the change which now began to take place
+towards her on the part of another member of the household.
+
+While she had been intent upon Richard as he stood before the
+marquis, not Amanda only but another as well had been intent upon
+her. Poor creature as Scudamore yet was, he possessed, besides no
+small generosity of nature, a good deal of surface sympathy, and a
+ready interest in the shows of humanity. Hence as he stood regarding
+now the face of the prisoner and now that of Dorothy, whom he knew
+for old friends, he could not help noticing that every phase of the
+prisoner, so to speak, might be read on Dorothy. He was too shallow
+to attribute this to anything more than the interest she must feel
+in the results of the exploit she had performed. The mere suggestion
+of what had afforded such wide ground for speculation on the part of
+Amanda, was to Scudamore rendered impossible by the meeting of two
+things--the fact that the only time he had seen them together,
+Richard was very plainly out of favour, and now the all-important
+share Dorothy had had in his capture. But the longer he looked, the
+more he found himself attracted by the rich changefulness of
+expression on a countenance usually very still. He surmised little
+of the conflict of emotions that sent it to the surface, had to
+construct no theory to calm the restlessness of intellectual
+curiosity, discovered no secret feeding of the flame from behind.
+Yet the flame itself drew him as the candle draws the moth. Emotion
+in the face of a woman was enough to attract Scudamore; the prettier
+the face, the stronger the attraction, but the source or character
+of the emotion mattered nothing to him: he asked no questions any
+more than the moth, but circled the flame. In a word, Dorothy had
+now all at once become to him interesting.
+
+As soon as she found a safe opportunity, Amanda told him of
+Dorothy's being found in the turret chamber, a fact she pretended to
+have heard in confidence from mistress Watson, concealing her own
+part in it, But as Amanda spoke, Dorothy became to Rowland twice as
+interesting as ever Amanda had been. There was a real romance about
+the girl, he thought. And then she LOOKED so quiet! He never thought
+of defending her or playing the true part of a cousin. Amanda might
+think of her as she pleased: Rowland was content. Had he cared ever
+so much more for her judgment than he did, it would have been all
+the same. How far Dorothy had been right or wrong in visiting
+Heywood, he did not even conjecture, not to say consider. It was
+enough that she who had been to him like the blank in the centre of
+the African map, was now a region of marvels and possibilities,
+vague but not the less interesting, or the less worthy of beholding
+the interest she had awaked. As to her loving the roundhead fellow,
+that would not stand long in the way.
+
+In this period then of gloom and wretchedness, Dorothy became aware
+of a certain increase of attention on the part of her cousin. This
+she attributed to kindness generated of pity. But to accept it, and
+so confess that she needed it, would have been to place herself too
+much on a level with one whom she did not respect, while at the same
+time it would confirm him in whatever probably mistaken grounds he
+had for offering it. She therefore met his advances kindly but
+coldly, a treatment under which his feelings towards her began to
+ripen into something a little deeper and more genuine.
+
+During the next ten days or so, Dorothy could not help feeling that
+she was regarded by almost every one in the castle as in disgrace,
+and that deservedly. The most unpleasant proof she had of this was
+the behaviour of the female servants, some of them assuming airs of
+injured innocence, others of offensive familiarity in her presence,
+while only one, a kitchen-maid she seldom saw, Tom Fool's bride in
+the marriage-jest, showed her the same respect as formerly. This
+girl came to her one night in her room, and with tears in her eyes
+besought permission to carry her meals thither, that she might be
+spared eating with the rude ladies, as in her indignation she called
+them. But Dorothy saw that to forsake mistress Watson's table would
+be to fly the field, and therefore, hateful as it was to meet the
+looks of those around it, she did so with unvailed lids and an
+enforced dignity which made itself felt. But the effort was as
+exhausting as painful, and the reflex of shame, felt as shame in
+spite of innocence, was eating into her heart. In vain she said to
+herself that she was guiltless; in vain she folded herself round in
+the cloak of her former composure; the consciousness that, to say
+the least of it, she was regarded as a young woman of questionable
+refinement, weighed down her very eyelids as she crossed the court.
+
+But she was not left utterly forsaken; she had still one refuge--the
+workshop, where Caspar Kaltoff wrought like an 'artificial god;' for
+the worthy German altered his manner to her not a whit, but
+continued to behave with the mingled kindness of a father and
+devotion of a servant. His respect and trustful sympathy showed,
+without word said, that he, if no other, believed nothing to her
+disadvantage, but was as much her humble friend as ever; and to the
+hitherto self-reliant damsel, the blessedness of human sympathy,
+embodied in the looks and tones of the hard-handed mechanic, brought
+such healing and such schooling together, that for a long time she
+never said her prayers by her bedside without thanking God for
+Caspar Kaltoff.
+
+Ere long her worn look, thin cheek, and weary eye began to work on
+the heart of lady Margaret, and she relented in spirit towards the
+favourite of her husband, whose anticipated disappointment in her
+had sharpened the arrows of her resentment. But to the watery dawn
+of favour which followed, the poor girl could not throw wide her
+windows, knowing it arose from no change in lady Margaret's judgment
+concerning her: she could not as a culprit accept what had been as a
+culprit withdrawn from her. The conviction burned in her heart like
+cold fire, that, but for compassion upon the desolate state of an
+orphan, she would have been at once dismissed from the castle.
+Sometimes she ventured to think that if lord Herbert had been at
+home, all this would not have happened; but now what could she
+expect other than that on his return he would regard her and treat
+her in the same way as his wife and father and brother?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE DELIVERER.
+
+
+
+
+
+But she found some relief in applying her mind to the task which
+lord Worcester had set her; and many a night as she tossed sleepless
+on her bed, would she turn from the thoughts that tortured her, to
+brood upon the castle, and invent if she might some new possible
+way, however difficult, of getting out of it unseen: and many a
+morning after the night thus spent, would she hasten, ere the
+household was astir, to examine some spot which had occurred to her
+as perhaps containing the secret she sought. One time it was a
+chimney that might have door and stair concealed within it; another,
+the stables, where she examined every stall in the hope of finding a
+trap to an underground way. Had any one else been in question but
+Richard, the traitor, the roundhead, she might have imagined an
+associate within the walls, in which case farther solution would not
+have been for her; but somehow, she did not make it clear to herself
+how, she could not entertain the idea in connection with Richard.
+Besides, in brooding over everything, it had grown plain to her that
+both Richard and Marquis had that night been through the moat.
+
+Some who caught sight of her in the early dawn, wandering about and
+peering here and there, thought that she was losing her senses;
+others more ingenious in the thinking of evil, imagined she sought
+to impress the household with a notion of her innocence by
+pretending a search for the concealed flaw in the defences.
+
+Ever since she had been put in charge of the water-works, she had
+been in the habit of lingering a little on the roof of the keep as
+often as occasion took her thither, for she delighted in the far
+outlook on the open country which it afforded; and perhaps it was a
+proof of the general healthiness of her nature that now in her
+misery, instead of shutting herself up in her own chamber, she
+oftener sought the walk around the reservoir, looking abroad in
+shadowy hope of some lurking deliverance, like captive lady in the
+stronghold of evil knight. On one of these occasions, in the first
+of the twilight, she was leaning over one of the battlements looking
+down upon the moat and its white and yellow blossoms and great green
+leaves, and feeling very desolate. Her young life seemed to have
+crumbled down upon her and crushed her heart, and all for one gentle
+imprudence.
+
+'Oh my mother!' she murmured,--'an' thou couldst hear me, thou
+wouldst help me an' thou couldst. Thy poor Dorothy is sorely sad and
+forsaken, and she knows no way of escape. Oh my mother, hear me!'
+
+As she spoke, she looked away from the moat to the sky, and spread
+out her arms in the pain of her petition.
+
+There was a step behind her.
+
+'What! what! My little protestant praying to the naughty saints!
+That will never do.'
+
+Dorothy had turned with a great start, and stood speechless and
+trembling before lord Herbert.
+
+'My poor child!' he said, holding out both his hands, and taking
+those which Dorothy did not offer--'did I startle thee then so much?
+I am truly sorry. I heard but thy last words; be not afraid of thy
+secret. But what hath come to thee? Thou art white and thin, there
+are tears on thy face, and it seems as thou wert not so glad to see
+me as I thought thou wouldst have been. What is amiss? I hope thou
+art not sick--but plainly thou art ill at ease! Go not yet after my
+Molly, cousin, for truly we need thee here yet a while.'
+
+'Would I might go to Molly, my lord!' said Dorothy. 'Molly would
+believe me.'
+
+'Thou need'st not go to Molly for that, cousin. I will believe thee.
+Only tell me what thou wouldst have me believe, and I will believe
+it. What! think'st thou I am not magician enough to know whom to
+believe and whom not? Fye, fye, mistress! Thou, on thy part, wilt
+not put faith in thy cousin Herbert!'
+
+His kind words were to her as the voice of him that calleth for the
+waters of the sea that he may pour them out on the face of the
+earth. The poor girl burst into a passion of weeping, fell on her
+knees before him, and holding up her clasped hands, cried out in a
+voice of sob-choked agony--for she was not used to tears, and it
+was to her a rending of the heart to weep--
+
+'Save me, save me, my lord! I have no friend in the world who can
+help me but thee.'
+
+'No friend! What meanest thou, Dorothy?' said lord Herbert, taking
+her two clasped hands between his. 'There is my Margaret and my
+father!'
+
+'Alas, my lord! they mean well by me, but they do not believe me;
+and if your lordship believe me no more than they, I must go from
+Raglan. Yet believing me, I know not how you could any more help
+me.'
+
+'Dorothy, my child, I can do nothing till thou take me with thee. I
+cannot even comfort thee.'
+
+'Your lordship is weary,' said Dorothy, rising and wiping her eyes.
+'You cannot yet have eaten since you came. Go, my lord, and hear my
+tale first from them that believe me not. They will assure you of
+nothing that is not true, only they understand it not, and wrong me
+in their conjectures. Let my lady Margaret tell it you, my lord, and
+then if you have yet faith enough in me to send for me, I will come
+and answer all you ask. If you send not for me, I will ride from
+Raglan to-morrow.'
+
+'It shall be as thou sayest, Dorothy. An' it be not fit for the
+judge to hear both sides of the tale, or an' it boots the innocent
+which side he first heareth, then were he no better judge than good
+king James, of blessed memory, when he was so sore astonished to
+find both sides in the right.'
+
+'A king, my lord, and judge foolishly!'
+
+'A king, my damsel, and judged merrily. But fear me not; I trust in
+God to judge fairly even betwixt friend and foe, and I doubt not it
+will be now to the lightening of thy trouble, my poor storm-beaten
+dove.'
+
+It startled Dorothy with a gladness that stung like pain, to hear
+the word he never used but to his wife thus flit from his lips in
+the tenderness of his pity, and alight like the dove itself upon her
+head. She thanked him with her whole soul, and was silent.
+
+'I will send hither to thee, my child, when I require thy presence;
+and when I send come straight to my lady's parlour.'
+
+Dorothy bowed her head, but could not speak, and lord Herbert walked
+quickly from her. She heard him run down the stair almost with the
+headlong speed of his boy Henry.
+
+Half an hour passed slowly--then lady Margaret's page came lightly
+up the steps, bearing the request that she would favour his mistress
+with her presence. She rose from the battlement where she had seated
+herself to watch the moon, already far up in the heavens, as she
+brightened through the gathering dusk, and followed him with beating
+heart.
+
+When she entered the parlour, where as yet no candles had been
+lighted, she saw and knew nothing till she found herself clasped to
+a bosom heaving with emotion.
+
+'Forgive me, Dorothy,' sobbed lady Margaret. 'I have done thee
+wrong. But thou wilt love me yet again--wilt thou not, Dorothy?'
+
+'Madam! madam !' was all Dorothy could answer, kissing her hands.
+
+Lady Margaret led her to her husband, who kissed her on the
+forehead, and seated her betwixt himself and his wife; and for a
+space there was silence. Then at last said Dorothy:
+
+'Tell me, madam, how is it that I find myself once more in the
+garden of your favour? How know you that I am not all unworthy
+thereof?'
+
+'My lord tells me so,' returned lady Margaret simply.
+
+'And whence doth my lord know it?' asked Dorothy, turning to lord
+Herbert.
+
+''An' thou be not satisfied of thine own innocence, Dorothy, I will
+ask thee a few questions. Listen to thine answers, and judge. How
+came the young puritan into the castle that night? But stay: we must
+have candles, for how can I, the judge, or my lady, the jury, see
+into the heart of the prisoner save through the window of her face?'
+
+Dorothy laughed--her first laugh since the evil fog had ascended and
+swathed her. Lady Margaret rang the bell on her table. Candles were
+brought from where they stood ready in the ante-chamber, and as soon
+as they began to burn clear, lord Herbert repeated his question.
+
+'My lord,' answered Dorothy, 'I look to you to tell me so much, for
+before God I know not.'
+
+'Nay, child! thou need'st not buttress thy words with an oath,' said
+his lordship. 'Thy fair eyes are worth a thousand oaths. But to the
+question: tell me wherefore didst thou not let the young man go when
+first thou spied him? Wherefore didst ring the alarm-bell? Thou
+sawest he was upon his own mare, for thou knewest her--didst thou
+not?'
+
+'I did, my lord; but he had no business there, and I was of my lord
+Worcester's household. Here I am not Dorothy Vaughan, but my lady's
+gentlewoman.'
+
+'Then why didst thou go to his room thereafter? Didst thou not know
+it for the most perilous adventure maiden could undergo?'
+
+'Perilous it hath indeed proved, my lord.'
+
+'And might have proved worse than perilous.'
+
+'No, my lord. Other danger was none where Richard was,' returned
+Dorothy with vehemence.
+
+'It beareth a look as if mayhap thou dost or mightst one day love
+the young man!' said lord Herbert in slow pondering tone.
+
+'My spirit hath of late been driven to hold him company, my lord. It
+seemed that, save Caspar, I had no friend left but him. God help me!
+it were a fearful thing to love a fanatic! But I will resist the
+devil.'
+
+'Truly we are in lack of a few such devils on what we count the
+honest side, Dorothy!' said lord Herbert, laughing. 'Not every man
+that thinks the other way is a rogue or a fool. But thou hast not
+told me why thou didst run the heavy risk of seeking him in the
+night.'
+
+'I could not rest for thinking of him, my lord, with that terrible
+wound in the head I had as good as given him, and from whose effects
+I had last seen him lie as one dead. He was my playmate, and my
+mother loved him.'
+
+Here poor Dorothy broke down and wept, but recovered herself with an
+effort, and proceeded.
+
+'I kept starting awake, seeing him thus at one time, and at another
+hearing him utter my name as if entreating me to go to him, until at
+last I believed that I was called.'
+
+'Called by whom, Dorothy?'
+
+'I thought--I thought, my lord, it might be the same that called
+Samuel, who had opened my ears to hear Richard's voice.'
+
+'And it was indeed therefore thou didst go?'
+
+'I think so, my lord. I am sure, at least, but for that I would not
+have gone. Yet surely I mistook, for see what hath come of it,' she
+added, turning to lady Margaret.
+
+'We must not judge from one consequence where there are a thousand
+yet to follow,' said his lordship. '--And thou sayest, when thou
+didst enter the room thou didst find no one there?'
+
+'I say so, my lord, and it is true.'
+
+'That I know as well as thou. What then didst thou think of the
+matter?'
+
+'I was filled with fear, my lord, when I saw the bedclothes all in a
+heap on the floor, but upon reflection I hoped that he had had the
+better in the struggle, and had escaped; for now at least he could
+do no harm in Raglan, I thought. But when I found the door was
+locked,--I dare hardly think of that, my lord; it makes me tremble
+yet.'
+
+'Now, who thinkest thou in thy heart did lock the door upon thee?'
+
+'Might it not have been Satan himself, my lord?'
+
+'Nay, I cannot tell what might or might not be where such a one is
+so plainly concerned. But I believe he was only acting in his usual
+fashion, which, as a matter of course, must be his worst--I mean
+through the heart and hands of some one in the house who would bring
+thee into trouble.'
+
+'I would it were the other way, my lord.'
+
+'So would I heartily. In his own person I fear him not a whit. But
+hast thou no suspicion of any one owing thee a grudge, who might be
+glad on such opportunity to pay it thee with interest?'
+
+'I must confess I have, my lord; but I beg of your lordship not to
+question me on the matter further, for it reaches only to suspicion.
+I know nothing, and might, if I uttered a word, be guilty of
+grievous wrong. Pardon me, my lord.'
+
+Lord Herbert looked hard at his wife. Lady Margaret dropped her
+head.
+
+'Thou art right, indeed, my good cousin!' he said, turning again to
+Dorothy; 'for that would be to do by another as thou sufferest so
+sorely from others doing by thee. I must send my brains about and
+make a discovery or two for myself. It is well I have a few days to
+spend at home. And now to the first part of the business in hand.
+Hast thou any special way of calling thy dog? It is a moonlit night,
+I believe.'
+
+He rose and went to the window, over which hung a heavy curtain of
+Flemish tapestry.
+
+'It is a three-quarter old moon, my lord,' said Dorothy, 'and very
+bright. I did use to call my dog with a whistle my mother gave me
+when I was a child.'
+
+'Canst thou lay thy hand upon it? Hast thou it with thee in Raglan?'
+
+'I have it in my hand now, my lord.'
+
+'What then with the moon and thy whistle, I think we shall not
+fail.'
+
+'Hast lost thy wits, Ned?' said his wife. 'Or what fiend wouldst
+thou raise to-night?'
+
+'I would lay one rather,' returned lord Herbert. 'But first I would
+discover this same perilous fault in the armour of my house. Is thy
+genet still in thy control, Dorothy?'
+
+'I have no reason to think otherwise, my lord. The frolicker he, the
+merrier ever was I.'
+
+'Darest thou ride him alone in the moonlight--outside the walls.'
+
+'I dare anything on Dick's back--that Dick can do, my lord.'
+
+'Doth thy dog know Caspar--in friendly fashion, I mean?'
+
+'Caspar is the only one in the castle he is quite friendly with, my
+lord.'
+
+'Then is all as I would have it. And now I will tell thee what I
+would not have: I would not have a soul in the place but my lady
+here know that I am searching with thee after this dog-and-man hole.
+Therefore I will saddle thy little horse for thee myself, and--'
+
+'No, no, my lord!' interrupted Dorothy. 'That _I_ can do.'
+
+'So much the better for thee. But I am no boor, fair damsel. Then
+shalt thou mount and ride him forth, and Marquis thy mastiff shall
+see thee go from the yard. Then will I mount the keep, and from that
+point of vantage look down upon the two courts, while Caspar goes to
+stand by thy dog. Thou shalt ride slowly along for a minute or two,
+until these preparations shall have been made; then shalt thou blow
+thy whistle, and set off at a gallop to round the castle, still ever
+and anon blowing thy whistle; by which means, if I should fail to
+see thy Marquis leave the castle, thou mayest perchance discover at
+least from which side of the castle he comes to thee.'
+
+Dorothy sprang to her feet.
+
+'I am ready, my lord,' she said.
+
+'And so am I, my maiden,' returned lord Herbert, rising. 'Wilt go to
+the top of the keep, wife, and grant me the light of eyes in aid of
+the moonshine? I will come thither presently.'
+
+'Thou shalt find me there, Ned, I promise thee. Mother Mary speed
+thy quest?'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE DISCOVERY.
+
+
+
+
+
+All was done as had been arranged. Lord Herbert saddled Dick, not
+unaided of Dorothy, lifted her to his back, and led her to the gate,
+in full vision of Marquis, who went wild at the sight, and
+threatened to pull down kennel and all in his endeavours to follow
+them. Lord Herbert himself opened the yard gate, for the horses had
+already been suppered, and the men were in bed. He then walked by
+her side down to the brick gate. A moment there, and she was free
+and alone, with the wide green fields and the yellow moonlight all
+about her.
+
+She had some difficulty in making Dick go slowly--quietly she could
+not--for the first minute or two, as lord Herbert had directed. He
+had had but little exercise of late, and moved as if his four legs
+felt like wings. Dorothy had ridden him very little since she came
+to the castle, but being very handy, lord Charles had used him, and
+one of the grooms had always taken him to ride messages. He had
+notwithstanding had but little of the pleasure of speed for a long
+time, and when Dorothy at length gave him the rein, he flew as if
+every member of his body from tail to ears and eyelids had been an
+engine of propulsion. But Dorothy had more wings than Dick. Her
+whole being was full of wings. It was a small thing that she had not
+had a right gallop since she left Wyfern; the strength she had been
+putting forth to bear the Atlas burden that night lifted from her
+soul, was now left free to upbear her, and she seemed in spirit to
+soar aloft into the regions of aether. With her horse under her, the
+moon over her, "the wind of their own speed" around them, and her
+heart beating with a joy such as she had never known, she could
+hardly help doubting sometimes for a moment whether she was not out
+in one of those delightful dreams of liberty and motion which had so
+frequently visited her sleep since she came to Raglan. Three shrill
+whistles she had blown, about a hundred yards from the gate, had
+heard the eager crowded bark of her dog in answer, and then Dick
+went flying over the fields like a water-bird over the lake, that
+scratches its smooth surface with its feet as it flies. Around the
+rampart they went. The still night was jubilant around them as they
+flew. The stars shone as if they knew all about her joy, that the
+shadow of guilt had been lifted from her, and that to her the world
+again was fair. She felt as the freed Psyche must feel when she
+drops the clay, and lo! the whole chrysalid world, which had
+hitherto hung as a clog at her foot, fast by the inexorable chain
+our blindness calls gravitation, has dropped from her with the clay,
+and the universe is her own.
+
+At intervals she blew her whistle, and ever kept her keen eyes and
+ears awake, looking and listening before and behind, in the hope of
+hearing her dog, or seeing him come bounding through the moonlight.
+
+Meantime lord Herbert and his wife had taken their stand on the top
+of the great tower, and were looking down--the lady into the stone
+court, and her husband into the grass one. Dorothy's shrill whistle
+came once, twice--and just as it began to sound a third time,
+
+'Here he comes!' cried lady Margaret.
+
+A black shadow went from the foot of the library tower, tearing
+across the moonlight to the hall door, where it vanished. But in
+vain lord Herbert kept his eyes on the fountain court, in the hope
+of its reappearance there. Presently they heard a heavy plunge in
+the water on the other side of the keep, and running round, saw
+plainly, the moat there lying broad in the moonlight, a little black
+object making its way across it. Through the obstructing floats of
+water-lily-leaves, it held steadily over to the other side. There
+for a moment they saw the whole body of the animal, as he scrambled
+out of the water up against the steep side of the moat--when
+suddenly, and most unaccountably to lady Margaret, he disappeared.
+
+'I have it!' cried lord Herbert. 'What an ass I was not to think of
+it before! Come down with me, my dove, and I will show thee.
+Dorothy's Marquis hath got into the drain of the moat! He is a large
+dog, and beyond a doubt that is where the young roundhead entered.
+Who could have dreamed of such a thing! I had no thought it was such
+a size.'
+
+Dorothy, having made the circuit, and arrived again at the brick
+gate, found lord Herbert waiting there, and pulled up.
+
+'I have seen nothing of him, my lord,' she said, as he came to her
+side. 'Shall I ride round once more?'
+
+'Do, prithee, for I see thou dost enjoy it. But we have already
+learned all we want to know, so far as goeth to the security of the
+castle. There is but one marquis in Raglan, and he is, I believe, in
+the oak parlour.'
+
+'You saw my Marquis make his exit then, my lord?'
+
+'My lady and I both saw him.'
+
+'What then can have become of him?--We went very fast, and I
+suppose he gave up the chase in despair.'
+
+'Thou wilt find him the second round. But stay--I will get a horse
+and go with thee.'
+
+Dorothy went within the gate, and lord Herbert ran back to the
+stables. In a few minutes he was by her side again, and together
+they rode around the huge nest. The moon was glorious, with a few
+large white clouds around her, like great mirrors hung up to catch
+and reflect her light. The stars were few, and doubtful near the
+moon, but shone like diamonds in the dark spaces between the clouds.
+The rugged fortress lay swathed in the softness of the creamy light.
+No noise broke the stillness, save the dull drum-beat of their
+horses' hoofs on the turf, or their cymbal-clatter where they
+crossed a road, and the occasional shrill call from Dorothy's
+whistle.
+
+On all sides the green fields, cow-cropped, divided by hedge-rows,
+and spotted with trees, single and in clumps, came close to the
+castle walls, except in one or two places where the corner of a red
+ploughed field came wedging in. All was so quiet and so soft that
+the gaunt old walls looked as if, having at first with harsh
+intrusion forced their way up into the sweet realm of air from the
+stony regions of the earth beneath, by slow degrees, yet long since,
+they had suffered an air change, and been charmed and gentled into
+harmony with soft winds and odours and moonlight. To Dorothy it
+seemed as if peace itself had taken form in the feathery weight that
+filled the flaky air; and as her horse galloped along, flying like a
+bird over ditch and mound, her own heart so light that her body
+seemed to float above the saddle rather than rest upon it, she felt
+like a soul which, having been dragged to hell by a lurking fiend, a
+good and strong angel was bearing aloft into bliss. Few delights can
+equal the mere presence of one whom we trust utterly.
+
+No mastiff came to Dorothy's whistle, and having finished their
+round, they rode back to the stables, put up their horses, and
+rejoined lady Margaret, where she was still pacing the sunk walk
+around the moat. There lord Herbert showed Dorothy where her dog
+vanished, comforting her with the assurance that nothing should be
+altered before the faithful animal returned, as doubtless he would
+the moment he despaired of finding her in the open country.
+
+Lord Herbert said nothing to his father that night lest he should
+spoil his rest, for he was yet far from well, but finding him a good
+deal better the next morning, he laid open the whole matter to him
+according to his convictions concerning Dorothy and her behaviour,
+ending with the words: 'That maiden, my lord, hath truth enough in
+her heart to serve the whole castle, an' if it might be but shared.
+To doubt her is to wrong the very light. I fear there are not many
+maidens in England who would have the courage and honesty, necessary
+both, to act as she hath done.'
+
+The marquis listened attentively, and when lord Herbert had ended,
+sat a few moments in silence; then, for all answer, said,
+
+'Go and fetch her, my lad.'
+
+When Dorothy entered,--
+
+'Come hither, maiden,' he said from his chair. 'Wilt thou kiss an
+old man who hath wronged thee--for so my son hath taught me?'
+
+Dorothy stooped, and he kissed her on both cheeks, with the tears in
+his eyes.
+
+'Thou shalt dine at my table,' he said, 'an' thy mistress will
+permit thee, as I doubt not she will when I ask her, until--thou,
+art weary of our dull company. Hear me, cousin Dorothy: an' thou
+wilt go with us to mass next Sunday, thou shalt sit on one side of
+me and thy mistress on the other, and all the castle shall see thee
+there, and shall know that thou art our dear cousin, mistress
+Dorothy Vaughan, and shall do thee honour.'
+
+'I thank you, my lord, with all my heart,' said Dorothy, with
+troubled look, 'but--may I then speak without offence to your
+lordship, where my heart knoweth nought but honour, love, and
+obedience?'
+
+'Speak what thou wilt, so it be what thou would'st,' answered the
+marquis.
+
+'Then pardon me, my lord, that which would have made my mother sad,
+and would make my good master Herbert sorry that he brought me
+hither. He would fear I had forsaken the church of my fathers.'
+
+'And returned to the church of thy grandfathers--eh, mistress
+Dorothy? And wherefore, then, should that weigh so much with thee,
+so long as thou wert no traitor to our blessed Lord?'
+
+'But should I be no traitor, sir, an' I served him not with my
+best?'
+
+'Thou hast nothing better than thy heart to give him, and nothing
+worse will serve his turn; and that we two have offered where I
+would have thee offer thine--and I trust, Herbert, the offering hath
+not lain unaccepted.'
+
+'I trust not, my lord,' responded Herbert.
+
+'But, my lord,' said Dorothy, with hot cheek and trembling voice,
+'if I brought it him upon a dish which I believed to be of brass,
+when I had one of silver in the house, would it avail with him that
+your lordship knew the dish to be no brass, but the finest of gold?
+I should be unworthy of your lordship's favour, if, to be replaced
+in the honour of men, I did that which needed the pardon of God.'
+
+'I told thee so, sir!' cried lord Herbert, who had been listening
+with radiant countenance.
+
+'Thou art a good girl, Dorothy,' said the marquis. 'Verily I spoke
+but to try thee, and I thank God thou hast stood the trial, and
+answered aright. Now am I sure of thee; and I will no more doubt
+thee--not if I wake in the night and find thee standing over me with
+a drawn dagger like Judith. An' my worthy Bayly had been at home,
+perchance this had not happened; but forgive me, Dorothy, for the
+gout is the sting of the devil's own tail, and driveth men mad.
+Verily, it seemeth now as if I could never have behaved to thee as I
+have done. Why, one might say the foolish fat old man was jealous of
+the handsome young puritan! The wheel will come round, Dorothy. One
+day thou wilt marry him.'
+
+'Never, my lord,' exclaimed Dorothy with vehemence.
+
+'And when thou dost,' the marquis went on, 'all I beg of thee is,
+that on thy wedding day thou whisper thy bridegroom: "My lord of
+Worcester told me so;" and therewith thou shalt have my blessing,
+whether I be down here in Raglan, or up the great stair with little
+Molly.'
+
+Dorothy was silent. The marquis held out his hand. She kissed it,
+left the room, and flew to the top of the keep.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE HOROSCOPE.
+
+
+
+
+
+Ere the next day was over, it was understood throughout the castle
+that lord Herbert was constructing a horoscope--not that there were
+many in the place who understood what a horoscope really was, or had
+any knowledge of the modes of that astrology in whose results they
+firmly believed; yet Kaltoff having been seen carrying several
+mysterious-looking instruments to the top of the library tower, the
+word was presently in everybody's mouth. Nor were the lovers of
+marvel likely to be disappointed, for no sooner was the sun down
+than there was lord Herbert, his head in an outlandish Persian hat,
+visible over the parapet from the stone-court, while from some of
+the higher windows in the grass-court might be seen through a
+battlement his long flowing gown of a golden tint, wrought with
+hieroglyphics in blue. Now he would stand for a while gazing up into
+the heavens, now would be shifting and adjusting this or that
+instrument, then peering along or through it, and then re-arranging
+it, or kneeling and drawing lines, now circular, now straight, upon
+a sheet of paper spread flat on the roof of the tower. There he
+still was when the household retired to rest, and there, in the grey
+dawn, his wife, waking up and peeping from her window, saw him
+still, against the cold sky, pacing the roof with bent head and
+thoughtful demeanour. In the morning he was gone, and no one but
+lady Margaret saw him during the whole of the following day. Nor
+indeed could any but herself or Caspar have found him, for the tale
+Tom Fool told the rustics of a magically concealed armoury had been
+suggested by a rumour current in the house, believed by all without
+any proof, and yet not the less a fact, that lord Herbert had a
+chamber of which none of the domestics knew door or window, or even
+the locality. That recourse should have been had to spells and
+incantations for its concealment, however, as was also commonly
+accepted, would have seemed trouble unnecessary to any one who knew
+the mechanical means his lordship had employed for the purpose. The
+touch of a pin on a certain spot in one of the bookcases in the
+library, admitted him to a wooden stair which, with the aid of
+Caspar, he had constructed in an ancient disused chimney, and which
+led down to a small chamber in the roof of a sort of porch built
+over the stair from the stone-court to the stables. There was no
+other access to it, and the place had never been used, nor had any
+window but one which they had constructed in the roof so cunningly
+as to attract no notice. All the household supposed the hidden
+chamber, whose existence was unquestioned, to be in the great tower,
+somewhere near the workshop.
+
+In this place he kept his books of alchemy and magic, and some of
+his stranger instruments. It would have been hard for himself even
+to say what he did or did not believe of such things. In certain
+moods, especially when under the influence of some fact he had just
+discovered without being able to account for it, he was ready to
+believe everything; in others, especially when he had just
+succeeded, right or wrong, in explaining anything to his own
+satisfaction, he doubted them all considerably. His imagination
+leaned lovingly towards them; his intellect required proofs which he
+had not yet found.
+
+Hither then he had retired--to work out the sequences of the
+horoscopes he had that night constructed. He was far less doubtful
+of astrology than of magic. It would have been difficult, I suspect,
+to find at that time a man who did not more or less believe in the
+former, and the influence of his mechanical pursuits upon lord
+Herbert's mind had not in any way interfered with his capacity for
+such belief. In the present case, however, he trusted for success
+rather to his knowledge of human nature than to his questioning of
+the stars.
+
+Before this, the second day, was over, it was everywhere whispered
+that he was occupied in discovering the hidden way by which entrance
+and exit had been found through the defences of the castle; and the
+next day it was known by everybody that he had been successful--as
+who could doubt he must, with such powers at his command?
+
+For a time curiosity got the better of fear, and there was not a
+soul in the place, except one bedridden old woman, who did not that
+day accept lord Herbert's general invitation, and pass over the
+Gothic bridge to see the opening from the opposite side of the moat.
+To seal the conviction that the discovery had indeed been made,
+permission was given to any one who chose to apply to it the test of
+his own person, but of this only Shafto the groom availed himself.
+It was enough, however: he disappeared, and while the group which
+saw him enter the opening was yet anxiously waiting his return by
+the way he had gone, having re-entered by the western gate he came
+upon them from behind, to the no small consternation of those of
+weaker nerves, and so settled the matter for ever.
+
+As soon as curiosity was satisfied, lord Herbert gave orders which,
+in the course of a few days, rendered the drain as impassable to
+manor dog as the walls of the keep itself.
+
+In the middle of the previous night, Marquis had returned, and
+announced himself by scratching and whining for admittance at the
+door of Dorothy's room. She let him in, but not until the morning
+discovered that he had a handkerchief tied round his neck, and in it
+a letter addressed to herself. Curious, perhaps something more than
+curious, to open it, she yet carried it straight to lord Herbert.
+
+'Canst not break the seal, Dorothy, that thou bringest it to me? I
+will not read it first, lest thou repent,' said his lordship.
+
+'Will you open it then, madam?' she said, turning to lady Margaret.
+
+'What my lord will not, why should I?' rejoined her mistress.
+
+Dorothy opened the letter without more ado, crimsoned, read it to
+the end, and handed it again to lord Herbert.
+
+'Pray read, my lord,' she said.
+
+He took it, and read. It ran thus--
+
+'Mistress Dorothy, I think, and yet I know not, but I think thou
+wilt be pleased to learn that my Wound hath not proved mortal,
+though it hath brought me low, yea, very nigh to Death's Door. Think
+not I feared to enter. But it grieveth me to the Heart to ride
+another than my own Mare to the Wars, and it will pleasure thee to
+know that without my Lady I shall be but Half the Man I was. But do
+thou the Like again when thou mayest, for thou but didst thy Duty
+according to thy Lights; and according to what else should any one
+do? Mistaken as thou art, I love thee as mine own Soul. As to the
+Ring I left for thee, with a safe Messenger, concerning whom I say
+Nothing, for thou wilt con her no Thanks for the doing of aught to
+pleasure me, I restored it not because it was thine, for thy mother
+gave it me, but because, if for Lack of my Mare I should fall in
+some Battle of those that are to follow, then would the Ring pass to
+a Hand whose Heart knew nought of her who gave it me. I am what thou
+knowest not, yet thine old Play-fellow Richard.--When thou hearest
+of me in the Wars, as perchance thou mayest, then curse me not, but
+sigh an thou wilt, and say, he also would in his Blindness do the
+Thing that lay at his Door. God be with thee, mistress Dorothy. Beat
+not thy Dog for bringing thee this.
+
+'RICHARD HEYWOOD.'
+
+Lord Herbert gave the letter to his wife, and paced up and down the
+room while she read. Dorothy stood silent, with glowing face and
+downcast eyes. When lady Margaret had finished it she handed it to
+her, and turned to her husband with the words,--
+
+'What sayest thou, Ned? Is it not a brave epistle?'
+
+'There is matter for thought therein,' he answered. 'Wilt show me
+the ring whereof he writes, cousin?'
+
+'I never had it, my lord.'
+
+'Whom thinkest thou then he calleth his safe messenger? Not thy
+dog--plainly, for the ring had been sent thee before.'
+
+'My lord, I cannot even conjecture,' answered Dorothy.
+
+'There is matter herein that asketh attention. My lady, and cousin
+Dorothy, not a word of all this until I shall have considered what
+it may import!--Beat not thy dog, Dorothy: that were other than he
+deserveth at thy hand. But he is a dangerous go-between, so prithee
+let him be at once chained up.'
+
+'I will not beat him, my lord, and I will chain him up,' answered
+Dorothy, laughing.
+
+Having then announced the discovery of the hidden passage, and given
+orders concerning it, lord Herbert retired yet again to his secret
+chamber, and that night was once more seen of many consulting the
+stars from the top of the library tower.
+
+The following morning another rumour was abroad--to the effect that
+his lordship was now occupied in questioning the stars as to who in
+the castle had aided the young roundhead in making his escape.
+
+In the evening, soon after supper, there came a gentle tap to the
+door of lady Margaret's parlour. At that time she was understood to
+be disengaged, and willing to see any of the household. Harry
+happened to be with her, and she sent him to the door to see who it
+was.
+
+'It is Tom Fool,' he said, returning. 'He begs speech of you,
+madam--with a face as long as the baker's shovel, and a mouth as
+wide as an oven-door.'
+
+With their Irish stepmother the children took far greater freedoms
+than would have been permitted them by the jealous care of their own
+mother over their manners.
+
+Lady Margaret smiled: this was probably the first fruit of her
+husband's astrological investigations.
+
+'Tell him he may enter, and do thou leave him alone with me, Harry,'
+she said.
+
+Allowing for exaggeration, Harry had truly reported Tom's
+appearance. He was trembling from head to foot, and very white.
+
+'What aileth thee, Tom, that thou lookest as thou had seen a
+hobgoblin?' said lady Margaret.
+
+'Please you, my lady,' answered Tom, 'I am in mortal terror of my
+lord Herbert.'
+
+'Then hast thou been doing amiss, Tom? for no well-doer ever yet was
+afeard of my lord. Comest thou because thou wouldst confess the
+truth?'
+
+'Ah, my lady,' faltered Tom.
+
+'Come, then; I will lead thee to my lord.'
+
+'No, no, an't please you, my lady!' cried Tom, trembling yet more.
+'I will confess to you, my lady, and then do you confess to my lord,
+so that he may forgive me.'
+
+'Well, I will venture so far for thee, Tom,' returned her ladyship;
+'that is, if thou be honest, and tell me all.'
+
+Thus encouraged, Tom cleansed his stuffed bosom, telling all the
+part he had borne in Richard's escape, even to the disclosure of the
+watchword to his mother.
+
+Is there not this peculiarity about the fear of the supernatural,
+even let it be of the lowest and most slavish kind, that under it
+men speak the truth, believing that alone can shelter them?
+
+Lady Margaret dismissed him with hopes of forgiveness, and going
+straight to her husband in his secret chamber, amused him largely
+with her vivid representation, amounting indeed to no sparing
+mimicry of Tom's looks and words as he made his confession.
+
+Here was much gained, but Tom had cast no ray of light upon the
+matter of Dorothy's imprisonment. The next day lord Herbert sent for
+him to his workshop, where he was then alone. He appeared in a state
+of abject terror.
+
+'Now, Tom,' said his lordship, 'hast thou made a clean breast of
+it?'
+
+'Yes, my lord,' answered Tom; 'there is but one thing more.'
+
+'What is that? Out with it.'
+
+'As I went back to my chamber, at the top of the stair leading down
+from my lord's dining parlour to the hall, commonly called my lord's
+stair,' said Tom, who delighted in the pseudo-circumstantial, 'I
+stopped to recover my breath, of the which I was sorely bereft, and
+kneeling on the seat of the little window that commands the archway
+to the keep, I saw the prisoner--'
+
+'How knewest thou the prisoner ere it was yet daybreak, and that in
+the darkest corner of all the court?'
+
+'I knew him by the way my bones shook at the white sleeves of his
+shirt, my lord,' said Tom, who was too far gone in fear to make the
+joke of pretending courage.
+
+'Hardly evidence, Tom. But go on.'
+
+'And with him I saw mistress Dorothy--'
+
+'Hold there, Tom!' cried lord Herbert. 'Wherefore didst not impart
+this last night to my lady?'
+
+'Because my lady loveth mistress Dorothy, and I dreaded she would
+therefore refuse to believe me.'
+
+'What a heap of cunning goes to the making of a downright fool!'
+said lord Herbert to himself, but so as Tom could not fail to hear
+him. 'And what saw'st thou pass between them?' he asked.
+
+'Only a whispering with their heads together,' answered Tom.
+
+'And what heard'st thou?'
+
+'Nothing, my lord.'
+
+'And what followed?'
+
+'The roundhead left her, and went through the archway. She stood a
+moment and then followed him. But I, fearful of her coming up the
+stair and finding me, gat me quickly to my own place.'
+
+'Oh, Tom, Tom! I am ashamed of thee. What! Afraid of a woman?
+Verily, thy heart is of wax.'
+
+'That can hardly be, my lord, for I find it still on the wane.'
+
+'An' thy wit were no better than thy courage, thou hadst never had
+enough to play the fool with.'
+
+'No, my lord; I should have had to turn philosopher.'
+
+'A fair hit, Tom! But tell me, why wast thou afeard of mistress
+Dorothy?'
+
+'It might have come to a quarrel in some sort, my lord; and there is
+one thing I have remarked in my wanderings through this valley of
+Baca' said Tom, speaking through his nose, and lengthening his face
+beyond even its own nature, 'namely, that he who quarrels with a
+woman goes ever to the wall.'
+
+'One thing perplexes me, Tom: if thou sawest mistress Dorothy in the
+court with the roundhead, how came she thereafter, thinkest thou,
+locked up in his chamber?'
+
+'It behoves that she went into it again, my lord.'
+
+'How knowest thou she had been there before?'
+
+'Nay, I know not, my lord. I know nothing of the matter.'
+
+'Why say'st it then? Take heed to thy words, Tom. Who then, thinkest
+thou, did lock the door upon her?'
+
+'I know not, my lord, and dare hardly say what I think. But let your
+lordship's wisdom determine whether it might not be one of those
+demons whereof the house hath been full ever since that night when I
+saw them rise from the water of the moat--that even now surrounds
+us, my lord!--and rush into the fountain court.'
+
+'Meddle thou not, even in thy thoughts, with things that are beyond
+thee,' said lord Herbert. 'By what signs knewest thou mistress
+Dorothy in the dark as she stood talking to the roundhead?'
+
+'There was light enough to know woman from man, my lord.'
+
+'And were there then that night no women in the castle but mistress
+Dorothy?'
+
+'Why, who else could it have been, my lord?'
+
+'Why not thine own mother, Tom--rode thither on her broomstick to
+deliver her darling?'
+
+Tom gaped with fresh terror at the awful suggestion.
+
+'Now, hear me, Thomas Rees,' his lordship went on.
+
+'Yes, my lord,' answered Tom.
+
+'An' ever it come to my knowledge that thou say thou then saw
+mistress Dorothy, when all thou sawest was, as thou knowest, a woman
+who might have been thine own mother talking to the roundhead, as
+thou callest a man who might indeed have been Caspar Kaltoff in his
+shirt sleeves, I will set every devil at my command upon thy back
+and thy belly, thy sides and thy soles. Be warned, and not only
+speak the truth, as thou hast for a whole half-hour been trying hard
+to do, but learn to distinguish between thy fancies and God's facts;
+for verily thou art a greater fool than I took thee for, and that
+was no small one. Get thee gone, and send me hither mistress
+Watson.'
+
+Tom crawled away, and presently mistress Watson appeared, looking
+offended, possibly at being called to the workshop, and a little
+frightened.
+
+'I cannot but think thee somewhat remiss in thy ministrations to a
+sick man, mistress Watson,' he said, 'to leave him so long to
+himself. Had he been a king's officer now, wouldst thou not have
+shown him more favour?'
+
+'That indeed may be, my lord,' returned mistress Watson with
+dignity. 'But an' the young fellow had been very sick, he had not
+made his escape.'
+
+'And left the blame thereof with thee. Besides, that he did for his
+escape he may have done in the strength of the fever that followeth
+on such a wound.'
+
+'My lord, I gave him a potion, wherefrom he should have slept until
+I sought him again.'
+
+'Was he or thou to blame that he did not feel the obligation? When a
+man instead of sleeping runneth away, the potion was ill mingled, I
+doubt, mistress Watson--drove him crazy perchance.'
+
+'She who waked him when he ought to have slept hath to bear the
+blame, not I, my lord.'
+
+'Thou shouldst, I say, have kept better watch. But tell me whom
+meanest thou by that same SHE?'
+
+'She who was found in his chamber, my lord,' said mistress Watson,
+compressing her lips, as if, come what might, she would stand on the
+foundation of the truth.
+
+'Ah?--By the way, I would gladly understand how it came to be known
+throughout the castle that thou didst find her there? I have the
+assurance of my lady, my lord marquis, and my lord Charles, that
+never did one of them utter word so to slander an orphan as thou
+hast now done in my hearing. Who then can it be but her who is at
+the head of the meinie of this house, who hath misdemeaned herself
+thus to the spreading amongst those under her of evil reports and
+surmises affecting her lord's cousin, mistress Dorothy Vaughan?'
+
+'You wrong me grievously, my lord,' cried mistress Watson, red with
+the wrath of injury and undeserved reproof.
+
+'Thou hast thyself to thank for it then, for thou hast this night
+said in mine own ears that mistress Dorothy waked thy prisoner,
+importing that she thereafter set him free, when thou knowest that
+she denies the same, and is therein believed by my lord marquis and
+all his house.'
+
+'Therein I believe her not, my lord; but I swear by all the saints
+and angels, that to none but your lordship have I ever said the
+word; neither have I ever opened my lips against her, lest I should
+take from her the chance of betterment.'
+
+'I will be more just to thee than thou hast been to my cousin,
+mistress Watson, for I will believe thee that thou didst only
+harbour evil in thy heart, not send it from the doors of thy lips to
+enter into other bosoms. Was it thou then that did lock the door
+upon her?'
+
+'God forbid, my lord!'
+
+'Thinkest thou. it was the roundhead?'
+
+'No, surely, my lord, for where would be the need?'
+
+'Lest she should issue and give the alarm.'
+
+Mistress Watson smiled an acid smile.
+
+'Then the doer of that evil deed,' pursued lord Herbert, 'must be
+now in the castle, and from this moment every power I possess in
+earth, air, or sea, shall be taxed to the uttermost for the
+discovery of that evil person. Let this vow of mine be known,
+mistress Watson, as a thing thou hast heard me say, not commission
+thee to report. Prithee take heed to what I desire of thee, for I am
+not altogether powerless to enforce that I would.'
+
+Mistress Watson left the workshop in humbled mood. To her spiritual
+benefit lord Herbert had succeeded in punishing her for her cruelty
+to Dorothy; and she was not the less willing to mind his injunction
+as to the mode of mentioning his intent, that it would serve to the
+quenching of any suspicion that she had come under his disapproval.
+
+And now lord Herbert, depending more upon his wits than his
+learning, found himself a good deal in the dark. Confident that
+neither Richard, Tom Fool, nor mistress Watson had locked the door
+of the turret chamber after Dorothy's entrance, he gave one moment
+to the examination of the lock, and was satisfied that an enemy had
+done it. He then started his thoughts on another track, tending
+towards the same point: how was it that the roundhead, who had been
+carried insensible to the turret-chamber, had been able, ere yet
+more than a film of grey thinned the darkness, without alarming a
+single sleeper, to find his way from a part of the house where there
+were no stairs near, and many rooms, all occupied? Clearly by the
+help of her, whoever she was, whom Tom Fool had seen with him by the
+hall door. She had guided him down my lord's stair, and thus avoided
+the risk of crossing the paved court to the hall door within sight
+of the warders of the main entrance. To her indubitably the young
+roundhead had committed the ring for Dorothy. Here then was one
+secret agent in the affair: was it likely there had been two? If
+not, this woman was one and the same with the person who turned the
+key upon Dorothy. She probably had been approaching the snare while
+the traitress talked with the prisoner. What did her presence so
+soon again in the vicinity of the turret-chamber indicate? Possibly
+that her own chamber was near it. The next step then was to learn
+from the housekeeper who slept in the neighbourhood of the
+turret-chamber, and then to narrow the ground of search by inquiring
+which, if any of them, slept alone.
+
+He found there were two who occupied each a chamber by herself; one
+of them was Amanda, the other mistress Watson.
+
+Now therefore he knew distinctly in what direction first he must
+point his tentatives. Before he went farther, however, he drew from
+Dorothy an accurate description of the ring to which Richard's
+letter alluded, and immediately set about making one after it, from
+stage to stage of its progress bringing it to her for examination
+and criticism, until, before the day was over, he had completed a
+model sufficiently like to pass for the same.
+
+The greater portion of the next day he spent in getting into perfect
+condition a certain mechanical toy which he had constructed many
+years before, and familiarising himself with its working. This done,
+he found himself ready for his final venture, to give greater
+solemnity to which he ordered the alarum-bell to be rung, and the
+herald of the castle to call aloud, first from the bell-tower in the
+grass-court, next from the roof of the hall-porch in the stone-
+court, communicating with the minstrels' gallery, that on the
+following day, after dinner, so soon as they should hear the sound
+of the alarum-bell, every soul in the castle, to the infant in
+arms, all of whatever condition, save old mother Prescot, who was
+bed-ridden, should appear in the great hall, that lord Herbert might
+perceive which amongst them had insulted the lord and the rule of
+the house by the locking of one of its doors to the imprisonment and
+wrong of his lordship's cousin, mistress Dorothy Vaughan. Three
+strokes of the great bell opened and closed the announcement, and a
+great hush of expectancy, not unmingled with fear, fell upon the
+place.
+
+There was one in the household, however, who at first objected to
+the whole proceeding. That was sir Toby Mathews, the catholic
+chaplain. He went to the marquis and represented that, if there was
+to be any exercise whatever of unlawful power, the obligations of
+the sacred office with which he was invested would not permit him to
+be present or connive thereat. The marquis merrily insisted that it
+was a case of exorcism; that the devil was in the castle, and out he
+must go; that if Satan assisted in the detection of the guilty and
+the purging of the innocent, then was he divided against himself,
+and what could be better for the church or the world? But for his
+own part he had no hand in it, and if sir Toby had anything to say
+against it, he must go to his son. This he did at once; but lord
+Herbert speedily satisfied him, pledging himself that there should
+be nothing done by aid from beneath, and making solemn assertion
+that if ever he had employed any of the evil powers to work out his
+designs, it had been as their master and not their accomplice.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE EXORCISM.
+
+
+
+
+
+It was the custom in Raglan to close the gates at eleven o'clock
+every morning, and then begin to lay the tables for dinner; nor were
+they opened again until the meal was over, and all had dispersed to
+their various duties. Upon this occasion directions were given that
+the gates should remain closed until the issue of further orders.
+
+There was little talk in the hall during dinner that day, and not
+much in the marquis's dining-room.
+
+In the midst of the meal at the housekeeper's table, mistress Amanda
+was taken suddenly ill, and nearly fell from her chair. A spoonful
+of one of mistress Watson's strong waters revived her, but she was
+compelled to leave the room.
+
+When the remains of the dinner had been cleared away, the tables
+lifted from the trestles, and all removed, solemn preparations began
+to be made in the hall. The dais was covered with crimson cloth, and
+chairs were arranged on each side against the wall for the lords and
+ladies of the family, while in the wide space between was set the
+marquis's chair of state. Immediately below the dais, chairs were
+placed by the walls for the ladies and officers of the household.
+The minstrels' gallery was hung with crimson; long ladders were
+brought, and the windows, the great bay window and all save the
+painted one, were hung with thick cloth of the same colour, so that
+a dull red light filled the huge place. The floor was then strewn
+with fresh rushes, and candles were placed and lighted in sconces on
+the walls, and in two large candlesticks, one on each side of the
+marquis's chair. So numerous were the hands employed in these
+preparations, that about one o'clock the alarum-bell gave three
+great tolls, and then silence fell.
+
+Almost noiselessly, and with faces more than grave, the people of
+the castle in their Sunday clothes began at once to come trooping
+in,--amongst the rest Tom Fool, the very picture of dismay. Mrs.
+Prescot had refused to be left behind, partly from terror, partly
+from curiosity, and supine on a hand-barrow was borne in, and laid
+upon two of the table-trestles. Order and what arrangement was
+needful were enforced amongst them by Mr. Cook, one of the ushers.
+In came the garrison also, with clank and clang, and took their
+places with countenances expressive neither of hardihood nor
+merriment, but a grave expectancy.
+
+Mostly by the other door came the ladies and officers, amongst them
+Dorothy, and seated themselves below the dais. When it seemed at
+length that all were present, the two doors were closed, and silence
+reigned.
+
+A few minutes more and the ladies and gentlemen of the family, in
+full dress, entered by the door at the back of the dais, and were
+shown to their places by Mr. Moyle, the first usher. Next came the
+marquis, leaning on lord Charles, and walking worse than usual. He
+too was, wonderful to tell, in full dress, and, notwithstanding his
+corpulency and lameness, looked every inch a marquis and the head of
+the house. He placed himself in the great chair, and sat upright,
+looking serenely around on the multitude of pale expectant faces,
+while lord Charles took his station erect at his left hand. A moment
+yet, and by the same door, last of all, entered lord Herbert, alone,
+in his garb of astrologer. He came before his father, bowed to him
+profoundly, and taking his place by his right hand, a little in
+front of the chair, cast a keen eye around the assembly. His look
+was grave, even troubled, and indeed somewhat anxious.
+
+'Are all present?' he asked, and was answered only by silence. He
+then waved his right hand three times towards heaven, each time
+throwing open his palm outwards and upwards. At the close of the
+third wafture, a roar as of thunder broke and rolled about the
+place, making the huge hall tremble, and the windows rattle and
+shake fearfully. Some thought it was thunder, others thought it more
+like the consecutive discharge of great guns. It grew darker, and
+through the dim stained window many saw a dense black smoke rising
+from the stone-court, at sight of which they trembled yet more, for
+what could it be but the chariot upon which Modo, or Mahu, or
+whatever the demon might be called, rode up from the infernal lake?
+Again lord Herbert waved his arm three times, and again the thunder
+broke and rolled vibrating about the place. A third time he gave the
+sign, and once more, but now close over their heads, the thunder
+broke, and in the midst of its echoes, high in the oak roof appeared
+a little cloud of smoke. It seemed to catch the eye of lord Herbert.
+He made one step forward, and held out his hand towards it, with the
+gesture of a falconer presenting his wrist to a bird.
+
+'Ha! art thou here?' he said.
+
+And to the eyes of all, a creature like a bat was plainly visible,
+perched upon his forefinger, and waving up and down its filmy wings.
+He looked at it for a moment, bent his head to it, seemed to
+whisper, and then addressed it aloud.
+
+'Go,' he said, 'alight upon the head of him or of her who hath
+wrought the evil thou knowest in this house. For it was of thine own
+kind, and would have smirched a fair brow.'
+
+As he spoke he cast the creature aloft. A smothered cry came from
+some of the women, and Tom Fool gave a great sob and held his breath
+tight. Once round the wide space the bat flew, midway between floor
+and roof, and returning perched again upon lord Herbert's hand.
+
+'Ha!' said his lordship, stooping his head over it, 'what meanest
+thou? Is not the evil-doer in presence? What?--Nay, but it cannot
+be? Not within the walls?--Ha! "Not in the HALL" thou sayest!'
+
+He lifted his head, turned to his father, and said,
+
+'Your lordship's commands have been disregarded. One of your people
+is absent.'
+
+The marquis turned to lord Charles.
+
+'Call me the ushers of the hall, my lord,' he said.
+
+In a moment the two officers were before him.
+
+'Search and see, and bring me word who is absent,' said the marquis.
+
+The two gentlemen went down into the crowd, one from each side of
+the dais.
+
+A minute or two passed, and then Mr. Cook came back and said,--
+
+'My lord, I cannot find Caspar Kaltoff.'
+
+'Caspar! Art not there, Caspar?' cried lord Herbert.
+
+'Here I am, my lord,' answered the voice of Caspar from somewhere in
+the hall.
+
+'I beg your lordship's pardon,' said Mr. Cook. 'I failed to find
+him.'
+
+'It matters not, master usher. Look again,' said lord Herbert.
+
+At the moment, Caspar, the sole attendant spirit, that day at least,
+upon his lord's commands, stood in one of the deep windows behind
+the crimson cloth, more than twenty feet above the heads of the
+assembly. The windows were connected by a narrow gallery in the
+thickness of the wall, communicating also with the minstrels'
+gallery, by means of which, and a ladder against the porch, Caspar
+could come and go unseen.
+
+As lord Herbert spoke, Mr. Moyle came up on the dais, and brought
+his report that mistress Amanda Fuller was not with the rest of the
+ladies.
+
+Lord Herbert turned to his wife.
+
+'My lady,' he said, 'mistress Amanda is of your people: knowest thou
+wherefore she cometh not?'
+
+'I know not, my lord, but I will send and see,' replied lady
+Margaret.--'My lady Broughton, wilt thou go and inquire wherefore
+the damsel disregardeth my lord of Worcester's commands?'
+
+She had chosen the gentlest-hearted of her women to go on the
+message.
+
+Lady Broughton came back pale and trembling--indeed there was much
+pallor and trembling that day in Raglan--with the report that she
+could not find her. A shudder ran through the whole body of the
+hall. Plainly the impression was that she had been FETCHED. The
+thunder and the smoke had not been for nothing: the devil had
+claimed and carried off his own! On the dais the impression was
+somewhat different; but all were one in this, that every eye was
+fixed on lord Herbert, every thought hanging on his pleasure.
+
+For a whole minute he stood, apparently lost in meditation. The bat
+still rested on his hand, but his wings were still.
+
+He had intended causing it to settle on Amanda's head, but now he
+must alter his plan. Nor was he sorry to do so, for it had involved
+no small risk of failure, the toy requiring most delicate
+adjustment, and its management a circumspection and nicety that
+occasioned him no little anxiety. It had indeed been arranged that
+Amanda should sit right under the window next the dais, so that he
+might have the assistance of Caspar from above; but if by any chance
+the mechanical bat should alight upon the head of another, mistress
+Doughty or lady Broughton instead of Amanda--what then? He was not
+sorry to find himself rescued from this jeopardy, and scarcely more
+than a minute had elapsed ere he had devised a plan by which to turn
+the check to the advantage of all--even that of Amanda herself,
+towards whom, while he felt bound to bring her to shame should she
+prove guilty, he was yet willing to remember mercy; while, should
+she be innocent, no harm would now result from his mistaken
+suspicion. He turned and whispered to his father.
+
+'I will back thee, lad. Do as thou wilt,' returned the marquis,
+gravely nodding his head.
+
+'Ushers of the hall,' cried lord Herbert, 'close and lock both its
+doors. Lock also the door to the minstrels' gallery, and, with my
+lord's leave, that to my lord's stair. My lord Charles, go thou
+prithee, and with chalk draw me a pentacle upon the threshold of
+each of the four; and do thou, sir Toby Mathews, make the holy sign
+thereabove upon the lintel and the doorposts. For the door to the
+pitched court, however, leave that until I am gone forth and it is
+closed behind me, and then do thereunto the same as to the others,
+after which let all sit in silence. Move not, neither speak, for any
+sound of fear or smell of horror. For the gift that is in him from
+his mother, Thomas Rees shall accompany me. Go to the door, and wait
+until I come.'
+
+Having thus spoken he raised the bat towards his face, and,
+approaching his lips, seemed once more to be talking to it in
+whispers. The menials and the garrison had no doubt but he talked to
+his familiar spirit. Of their superiors, mistress Watson at least
+was of the same conviction. Then he bent his ear towards it as if he
+were listening, and it began to flutter its wings, at which sir
+Toby's faith in him began to waver. A moment more and he cast the
+creature from him. It flew aloft, traversed the whole length of the
+roof, and vanished.
+
+It had in fact, as its master willed, alighted in the farthest
+corner of the roof, a little dark recess. Then, bowing low to his
+father, the magician stepped down from the dais, and walked through
+a lane of awe-struck domestics and soldiery to the door, where Tom
+stood waiting his approach. The fool was in a strange flutter of
+feelings, a conflict of pride and terror, the latter of which would,
+but for the former, have unnerved him quite; for not only was he
+doubtful of the magician's intent with regard to himself, but the
+hall seemed now the only place of security, and all outside it given
+over to goblins or worse.
+
+The moment they crossed the threshold, the door was closed behind
+them, the holy sign was signed over the one, and the pentacle drawn
+upon the other.
+
+All eyes were turned upon the marquis. He sat motionless.
+Motionless, too, as if they had been carved in stone like the
+leopard and wyvern over their heads, sat all the lords and ladies,
+embodying in themselves the words of the motto there graven, Mulaxe
+Vel Timere Sperno. Motionless sat the ladies beneath the dais, but
+their faces were troubled and pale, for Amanda was one of them, and
+their imaginations were busy with what might now be befalling her.
+Dorothy sat in much distress, for although she could lay no evil
+intent to her own charge, she was yet the cause of the whole fearful
+business. As for Scudamore, though he too was white of blee, he said
+to himself, and honestly, that the devil might fly away with her and
+welcome for what he cared. One woman in the crowd fainted and fell,
+but uttered never a moan. The very children were hushed by the dread
+that pervaded the air, and the smell of sulphur, which from a
+suspicion grew to a plain presence, increased not a little the
+high-wrought awe.
+
+After about half an hour, during which expectation of something
+frightful had been growing with every moment, three great knocks
+came to the porch door. Mr. Moyle opened it, and in walked lord
+Herbert as he had issued, with Tom Fool, in whom the importance had
+now at length banished almost every sign of dread, at his heels. He
+reascended the dais, bowed once more to his father, spoke a few
+words to him in a tone too low to be overheard, and then turning to
+the assembly, said with solemn voice and stern countenance:
+
+'The air is clear. The sin of Raglan is purged. Every one to his
+place.'
+
+Had not Tom Fool, who had remained by the door, led the way from the
+hall, it might have been doubtful when any one would venture to
+stir; but, with many a deep-drawn breath and sigh of relief, they
+trooped slowly out after him, until the body of the hall was empty.
+In their hearts keen curiosity and vague terror contended like fire
+and water.
+
+From that hour, while Raglan stood, the face of Amanda Serafina was
+no more seen within its walls. At midnight shrieks and loud wailings
+were heard, but if they came from Amanda, they were her last signs.
+
+I shall not, however, hide the proceedings of lord Herbert without
+the hall any more than he did himself when he reached the oak
+parlour with the members of his own family, in which Dorothy seemed
+now included. He had taken Tom Fool both because he knew the castle
+so well, and might therefore be useful in searching for Amanda, and
+because he believed he might depend, if not on his discretion, yet
+on his dread, for secrecy. They had scarcely left the hall before
+they were joined by Caspar, who, while his master and the fool went
+in one direction, set off in another, and after a long search in
+vain, at length found her in an empty stall in the subterranean
+stable, as if, in the agony of her terror at the awful noises and
+the impending discovery, she had sought refuge in the companionship
+of the innocent animals. She was crouching, the very image of fear,
+under the manger, gave no cry when he entered, but seemed to gather
+a little courage when she found that the approaching steps were
+those of a human being.
+
+'Mistress Amanda Fuller,' said his lordship with awful severity,
+'thou hast in thy possession a jewel which is not thine own.'
+
+'A jewel, my lord?' faltered Amanda, betaking herself by the force
+of inborn propensity and habit, even when hopeless of success in
+concealment, to the falsehood she carried with her like an
+atmosphere; 'I know not what your lordship means. Of what sort is
+the jewel?'
+
+'One very like this,' returned lord Herbert, producing the false
+ring.
+
+'Why, there you have it, my lord!'
+
+'Traitress to thy king and thy lord, out of thine own mouth have I
+convicted thee. This is not the ring. See!'
+
+As he spoke he squeezed it betwixt his finger and thumb to a
+shapeless mass, and threw it from him--then continued:
+
+'Thou art she who did show the rebel his way from the prison into
+which her lord had cast him.'
+
+'He took me by the throat, my lord,' gasped Amanda, 'and put me in
+mortal terror.'
+
+'Thou slanderest him,' returned lord Herbert. 'The roundhead is a
+gentleman, and would not, to save his life, have harmed thee, even
+had he known what a worthless thing thou art. I will grant that he
+put thee in fear. But wherefore gavest thou no alarm when he was
+gone?'
+
+'He made me swear that I would not betray him.'
+
+'Let it be so. Why didst thou not reveal the way he took?'
+
+'I knew it not.'
+
+'Yet thou wentest after him when he left thee. And wherefore didst
+thou not deliver the ring he gave thee for mistress Dorothy?'
+
+'I feared she would betray me, that I had held talk with the
+prisoner.'
+
+'Let that too pass as less wicked than cowardly. But wherefore didst
+thou lock the door upon her when thou sawest her go into the
+roundhead's prison? Thou knewest that therefrom she must bear the
+blame of having set him free, with other blame, and worse for a
+maiden to endure?'
+
+'It was a sudden temptation, my lord, which I knew not how to
+resist, and was carried away thereby. Have pity upon me, dear my
+lord,' moaned Amanda.
+
+'I will believe thee there also, for I fear me thou hast had so
+little practice in the art of resisting temptation, that thou
+mightst well yield to one that urged thee towards such mere
+essential evil. But how was it that, after thou hadst had leisure to
+reflect, thou didst spread abroad the report that she was found
+there, and that to the hurt not only of her loyal fame, but of her
+maidenly honour, understanding well that no one was there but
+herself, and that he alone who could bear testimony to her innocence
+and thy guilt was parted from her by everything that could divide
+them except hatred? Was the temptation to that also too sudden for
+thy resistance?'
+
+At length Amanda was speechless. She hung her head, for the first
+time in her life ashamed of herself.
+
+'Go before to thy chamber. I follow thee.'
+
+She rose to obey, but she could scarcely walk, and he ordered the
+men to assist her. Arrived in her room she delivered up the ring,
+and at lord Herbert's command proceeded to gather together her few
+possessions. That done, they led her away to the rude chamber in the
+watch tower, where stood the arblast, and there, seated on her
+chest, they left her with the assurance that if she cried out or
+gave any alarm, it would be to the publishing of her own shame.
+
+At the dead of night Caspar and Tom, with four picked men from the
+guard, came to lead her away. Worn out by that time, and with
+nothing to sustain her from within, she fancied they were going to
+kill her, and giving way utterly, cried and shrieked aloud. Obdurate
+however, as gentle, they gave no ear to her petitions, but bore her
+through the western gate, and so to the brick gate in the rampart,
+placed her in a carriage behind six horses, and set out with her for
+Caerleon, where her mother lived in obscurity. At her door they set
+her down, and leaving the carriage at Usk, returned to Raglan one by
+one in the night, mounted on the horses. By the warders who admitted
+them they were supposed to be returned from distinct missions on the
+king's business.
+
+Many were the speculations in the castle as to the fate of mistress
+Amanda Serafina Fuller, but the common belief continued to be that
+she had been carried off by Satan, body and soul.
+
+END OF VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of St. George and St. Michael Vol. II
+by George MacDonald
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL ***
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