"Well, then, I swear, princess; I swear by your mother's spirit to betray not a word of what you are going to tell me."

"I thank you, John. Now lean this way nearer to me, lest the breeze may catch a single word of mine and bear it farther. John, I love!"

She saw the half-surprised, half-incredulous smile which played around John Heywood's lips. "Oh," continued she, passionately, "you believe me not. You consider my fourteen years, and you think the child knows nothing yet of a maiden's feelings. But remember, John, that those girls who live under a warm sun are early ripened by his glowing rays, and are already wives and mothers when they should still be dreaming children. Well, now, I too am the daughter of a torrid zone, only mine has not been the sun of prosperity, and it has been sorrow and misfortune which have matured my heart. Believe me, John, I love! A glowing, consuming fire rages within me; it is at once my delight and my misery, my happiness and my future.

"The king has robbed me of a brilliant and glorious future; let them not, then, grudge me a happy one, at least. Since I am never to be a queen, I will at least be a happy and beloved wife. If I am condemned to live in obscurity and lowliness, at the very least, I must not be prohibited from adorning this obscure and inglorious existence with flowers, which thrive not at the foot of the throne, and to illuminate it with stars more sparkling than the refulgence of the most radiant kingly crown."

"Oh, you are mistaken about your own self!" said John Heywood, sorrowfully. "You choose the one only because the other is denied. You would love only because you cannot rule; and since your heart, which thirsts for fame and honor, can find no other satisfaction, you would quench its thirst with some other draught, and would administer love as an opiate to lull to rest its burning pains. Believe me, princess, you do not yet know yourself! You were not born to be merely a loving wife, and your brow is much too high and haughty to wear only a crown of myrtle. Therefore, consider well what you do, princess! Be not carried away by your father's passionate blood, which boils in your veins also. Think well before you act. Your foot is yet on one of the steps to the throne. Draw it not back voluntarily. Maintain your position; then, the next step brings you again one stair higher up. Do not voluntarily renounce your just claim, but abide in patience the coming of the day of retribution and justice. Only do not yourself make it impossible, that there may then be a full and glorious reparation. PRINCESS Elizabeth may yet one day be queen, provided she has not exchanged her name for one less glorious and noble."

"John Heywood," said she, with a bewitching smile, "I have told you I love him."

"Well, love him as much as you please, but do it in silence, and tell him not of it; but teach your love resignation."

"John, he knows it already."

"Ah, poor princess! you are still but a child, that sticks its hands in the fire with smiling bravery and scorches them, because it knows not that fire burns."

"Let it burn, John, burn! and let the flames curl over my head! Better be consumed in fire than perish slowly and horribly with a deadly chill! I love him, I tell you, and he already knows it!"

"Well, then, love him, but, at least, do not marry him!" cried John Heywood, surlily.

"Marry!" cried she, with astonishment. "Marry! I had never thought of it."

She dropped her head upon her breast, and stood there, silent and thoughtful.

"I am much afraid I made a blunder, then!" muttered John Heywood. "I have suggested a new thought to her. Ah, ah, King Henry has done well in appointing me his fool! Just when we deem ourselves the wisest, we are the greatest fools!"

"John," said Elizabeth, as she raised her head again and smiled to him in a glow of excitement, "John, you are entirely right; if we love, we must marry."

"But I said just the contrary, princess!"

"All right!" said she, resolutely. "All this belongs to the future; we will busy ourselves with the present. I have promised my lover an interview."

"An interview!" cried John Heywood, in amazement. "You will not be so foolhardy as to keep your promise?"

"John Heywood," said she, with an air of approaching solemnity, "King Henry's daughter will never make a promise without fulfilling it. For better or for worse, I will always keep my plighted word, even if the greatest misery and ruin were the result!"

John Heywood ventured to offer no further opposition. There was at this moment something peculiarly lofty, proud, and truly royal in her air, which impressed him with awe, and before which he bowed.

"I have granted him an interview because he wished it," said Elizabeth; "and, John, I will confess it to you, my own heart longed for it. Seek not, then, to shake my resolution; it is as firm as a rock. But if you are not willing to stand by me, say so, and I will then look about me for another friend, who loves me enough to impose silence on his thoughts."

"But who, perhaps, will go and betray you. No, no, it has been once resolved upon, and unalterably; so no one but I must be your confidant. Tell me, then, what I am to do, and I will obey you."

"You know, John, that my apartments are situated in yonder wing, overlooking the garden. Well, in my dressing-room, behind one of the large wall pictures, I have discovered a door leading into a lonely, dark corridor. From this corridor there is a passage up into yonder tower. It is unoccupied and deserted. Nobody ever thinks of entering that part of the castle, and the quiet of the grave reigns throughout those apartments, which nevertheless are furnished with a magnificence truly regal. There will I receive him."

"But how shall he make his way thither?"

"Oh, do not be concerned; I have thought over that many days since; and while I was refusing my lover the interview for which he again and again implored me, I was quietly preparing everything so as to be able one day to grant it to him. Today this object is attained, and today have I fulfilled his wish, voluntarily and unasked; for I saw he had no more courage to ask again. Listen, then. From the tower, a spiral staircase leads down to a small door, through which you gain entrance into the garden. I have a key to this door. Here it is. Once in possession of this key, he has nothing further to do but remain behind in the park this evening, instead of leaving the castle; and by means of this he will come to me, for I will wait for him in the tower, in the large room directly opposite the staircase landing. Here, take the key; give it to him, and repeat to him all that I have said."

"Well, princess, there remains for you now only to appoint the hour at which you will receive him there."

"The hour," said she, as she turned away her blushing face. "You understand, John, that it is not feasible to receive him there by day, because there is by day not a single moment in which I am not watched."

"You will then receive him by night!" said John Heywood, sadly. "At what hour?"

"At midnight! And now you know all; and I beg you, John, hasten and carry him my message; for, look, the sun is setting, and it will soon be night."

She nodded to him with a smile, and turned to go.

"Princess, you have forgotten the most important point. You have not yet told me his name."

"My God! and you do not guess it? John Heywood, who has such sharp eyes, sees not that there is at this court but a single one that deserves to be loved by a daughter of the king!"

"And the name of this single one is—"

"Thomas Seymour, Earl of Sudley!" whispered Elizabeth, as she turned away quickly and entered the castle.

"Oh, Thomas Seymour!" said John Heywood, utterly astounded. As if paralyzed with horror, he stood there motionless, staring up at the sky and repealing over and over, "Thomas Seymour! Thomas Seymour! So he is a sorcerer who administers a love-potion to all the women, and befools them with his handsome, saucy face. Thomas Seymour! The queen loves him; the princess loves him; and then there is this Duchess of Richmond, who will by all means be his wife! This much, however, is certain, he is a traitor who deceives both, because to both he has made the same confession of love. And there again is that imp, chance, which compels me to be the confidant of both these women. But I will be well on my guard against executing both my commissions to this sorcerer. Let him at any rate become the husband of the princess; perhaps this would be the surest means of freeing the queen from her unfortunate love."

He was silent, and still gazed up thoughtfully at the sky. "Yes," said he then, quite cheerfully, "thus shall it be. I will combat the one love with the other. For the queen to love him, is dangerous. I will therefore so conduct matters that she must hate him. I will remain her confidant. I will receive her letters and her commissions, but I will burn her letters and not execute her commissions. I am not at liberty to tell her that the faithless Thomas Seymour is false to her, for I have solemnly pledged my word to the princess never to breathe her secret to any one; and I will and must keep my word. Smile and love, then; dream on thy sweet dream of love, queen; I wake for thee; I will cause the dark cloud resting on thee to pass by. It may, perhaps, touch thine heart; but thy noble and beautiful head—that at least it shall not be allowed to crush; that—"

"Now, then, what are you staring up at the sky for, as if you read there a new epigram with which to make the king laugh, and the parsons rave?" asked a voice near him; and a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder.

John Heywood did not look round at all; he remained in the same attitude, gazing up steadily at the sky. He had very readily recognized the voice of him who had addressed him; he knew very well that he who stood near him was no other than the bold sorcerer whom he was just then cursing at the bottom of his heart; no other than Thomas Seymour, Earl of Sudley.

"Say, John, is it really an epigram?" asked Thomas Seymour again. "An epigram on the hypocritical, lustful, and sanctimonious priestly rabble, that with blasphemous hypocrisy fawn about the king, and are ever watchful how they can set a trap for one of us honorable and brave men? Is that what Heaven is now revealing to you?"

"No, my lord, I am only looking at a hawk which hovers about there in the clouds. I saw him mount, earl, and only think of the wonder—he had in each talon a dove! Two doves for one hawk. Is not that too much—wholly contrary to law and nature?"

The earl cast on him a penetrating and distrustful look. But John Heywood, remaining perfectly calm and unembarrassed, continued looking at the clouds.

"How stupid such a brute is, and how much to his disadvantage will his very greediness be! For since he holds a dove in each claw, he will not be able to enjoy either of them; because he has no claw at liberty with which to tear them. Soon as he wishes to enjoy the one, the other will escape; when he grabs after that, the other flies away; and so at last he will have nothing at all, because he was too rapacious and wanted more than he could use."

"And you are looking after this hawk in the skies? But you are perhaps mistaken, and he whom you seek is not above there at all, but here below, and perchance quite close to you?" asked Thomas Seymour significantly.

But John Heywood would not understand him.

"Nay," said he, "he still flies, but it will not last long. For verily I saw the owner of the dovecot from which the hawk has stolen the two doves. He had a weapon; and he, be ye sure of it—he will kill this hawk, because he has robbed him of his pet doves."

"Enough, enough!" cried the earl, impatiently. "You would give me a lesson, but you must know I take no counsel from a fool, even were he the wisest."

"In that you are right, my lord, for only fools are so foolish as to hearken to the voice of wisdom. Besides, each man forges his own fortune. And now, wise sir, I will give you a key, which you yourself have forged, and behind which lies your fortune. There, take this key; and if you at midnight slip through the garden to the tower over yonder, this key will open to you the door of the same, and you can then without hesitation mount the spiral staircase and open the door which is opposite the staircase. Behind that you will find the fortune which you have forged for yourself, sir blacksmith, and which will bid you welcome with warm lips and soft arms. And so commending you to God, I must hasten home to think over the comedy which the king has commanded me to write."

"But you do not so much as tell me from whom this message comes?" said Earl Sudley, retaining him. "You invite me to a meeting and give me a key, and I know not who will await me there in that tower."

"Oh, you do not know? There is then more than one who might await you there? Well, then, it is the youngest and smallest of the two doves who sends you the key."

"Princess Elizabeth?"

"You have named her, not I!" said John Heywood, as he disengaged himself from the earl's grasp and hurried across the courtyard to betake himself to his lodgings.

Thomas Seymour watched him with a scowl, and then slowly directed his eyes to the key that Heywood had given him.

"The princess then awaits me," whispered he, softly. "Ah, who can read it in the stars? who can know whither the crown will roll when it tumbles from King Henry's head? I love Catharine, but I love ambition still more; and if it is demanded, to ambition must I sacrifice my heart."



CHAPTER XVII. GAMMER GUETON'S NEEDLE.

Slowly and lost in gloomy thought, John Heywood walked toward his lodgings. These lodgings were situated in the second or inner court of the vast palace of Whitehall, in that wing of the castle which contained the apartments of all the higher officers of the royal household, and so those of the court-jesters also; for the king's fool was at that period a very important and respectable personage, who occupied a rank equal to that of a gentleman of the royal bed-chamber.

John Heywood had just crossed this second courtyard, when all at once loud, wrangling voices, and the clear, peculiar ring of a box on the ear, startled him out of his meditations. He stopped and listened. His face, before so serious, had now reassumed its usual merry and shrewd expression; his large eyes again glittered with humor and mischief. "There again verily is my sweet, charming housekeeper, Gammer Gurton," said John Heywood, laughing; "and she no doubt is quarrelling again with my excellent servant, that poor, long-legged, blear-eyed Hodge. Ah! ha! Yesterday I surprised her as she applied a kiss to him, at which he made as doleful a face as if a bee had stung him. To-day I hear how she is boxing his ears. He is perhaps now laughing at it, and thinks it is a rose-leaf which cools his cheek. That Hodge is such a queer bird! But we will at once see what there is to-day, and what farce is being performed now."

He crept softly up-stairs, and, opening the door of his room, closed it again behind him quickly and gently. Gammer Gurton, who was in the room adjoining, had heard nothing, seen nothing; and had the heavens come tumbling down at that moment, she would have scarcely noticed it; for she had eyes and sense only for this long, lank lackey who stood before her shaking with fear, and staring at her out of his great bluish-white eyes. Her whole soul lay in her tongue; and her tongue ran as fast as a will-wheel, and with the force of thunder. How, then, could Gammer Gurton well have time and ears to hear her master, who had softly entered his chamber and slyly crept to the door, only half closed, which separated his room from that of the housekeeper? "How!" screamed Gammer Gurtoh, "you silly raga muffin, you wish to make me believe that it was the cat that ran away with my sewing-needle, as if my sewing-needle were a mouse and smelt of bacon, you stupid, blear-eyed fool!"

"Ah, you call me a fool," cried Hodge, with a laugh, which caused his mouth to describe a graceful line across his face from ear to ear; "you call me a fool, and that is a great honor for me, for then I am a servant worthy of my master. And as to being blear-eyed, that must be caused by the simple fact that I have nothing all day long before my eyes but you, Gammer Gurton—you, with your face like a full moon—you, sailing through the room like a frigate, and with your grappling-irons, your hands, smashing to pieces everything except your own looking-glass."

"You shall pay me for that, you double-faced, thread-bare lout!" screamed Gammer Gurton, as she rushed on Hodge with clenched fist.

But John Heywood's cunning servant had anticipated this; he had already slipped under the large table which stood in the middle of the room. As the housekeeper now made a plunge to drag him out of his extemporary fortress, he gave her such a hearty pinch on the leg, that she sprang back with a scream, and sank, wholly overcome by the pain, into the huge, leather-covered elbow-chair which was near her workstand at the window.

"You are a monster, Hodge," groaned she, exhausted—"a heartless, horrible monster. You have stolen my sewing-needle—you only. For you knew very well that it was my last one, and that, if I have not that, I must go at once to the shopkeeper to buy some needles. And that is just what you want, you weathercock, you. You only want me to go out, that you may have an opportunity to play with Tib."

"Tib? Who is Tib?" asked Hodge as he stretched out his long neck from under the table, and stared at Gammer Gurton with well-assumed astonishment.

"Now this otter wants me yet to tell him who Tib is!" screamed the exasperated dame. "Well, then, I will tell you. Tib is the cook for the major-domo over there—a black-eyed, false, coquettish little devil, who is bad and mean enough to troll away the lover of an honest and virtuous woman, as I am; a lover who is such a pitiful little thing that one would think no one but myself could find him out and see him; nor could I have done it had I not for forty years trained my eyes to the search, and for forty years looked around for the man who was at length to marry me, and make me a respectable mistress. Since my eyes then were at last steadily fixed on this phantom of man, and I found nothing there, I finally discovered you, you cobweb of a man!"

"What! you call me a cobweb?" screamed Hodge, as he crept from under the table, and, drawing himself up to his full height, placed himself threateningly in front of Gammer Gurton's elbow-chair. "You call me a cobweb? Now, I swear to you that you shall henceforth never more be the spider that dwells in that web! For you are a garden-spider, an abominable, dumpy, old garden-spider, for whom a web, such as Hodge is, is much too fine and much too elegant. Be quiet, therefore, old spider, and spin your net elsewhere! You shall not live in my net, but Tib—for, yes, I do know Tib. She is a lovely, charming child of fourteen, as quick and nimble as a kid, with lips red as the coral which you wear on your fat pudding of a neck, with eyes which shine yet brighter than your nose, and with a figure so slender and graceful that she might have been carved out of one of your fingers. Yes, yes, I know Tib. She is an affectionate, good child, who would never be so hard-hearted as to abuse the man she loves, and could not be so mean and pitiful, even in thought, as to wish to marry the man she did not love. Just because he is a man. Yes, I know Tib, and now I will go straight to her and ask her if she will marry a good, honest lad, who, to be sure, is somewhat lean, but who doubtless will become fatter if he has any other fare than the meagre, abominable stuff on which Gammer Gurton feeds him; a lad who, to be sure, is blear-eyed, but will soon get over that disease when he no more sees Gammer Gurton, who acts on his eyes like a stinking onion, and makes them always red and running water. Good-by, old onion! I am going to Tib."

But Gammer Gurton whirled up out of her elbow-chair like a top, and was upon Hodge, whom she held by the coat-tail, and brought him to a stand.

"You dare go to Tib again! You dare pass that door and you shall see that the gentle, peaceable, and patient Gammer Gurton is changed into a lioness, when any one tries to tear from her that most sacred and dearest of treasures, her husband. For you are my husband, inasmuch as I have your word that you will marry me."

"But I have not told you when and where I will do it, Gammer Gurton; and so you can wait to all eternity, for only in heaven will I be your husband."

"That is an abominable, malicious lie!" screamed Gammer Gurton. "A good-for-nothing lie, say I! For did you not long ago snivel and beg till I was forced to promise you to make a will, and in it declare Hodge, my beloved husband, sole heir of all my goods and chattels, and bequeath to him everything I have scraped together in my virtuous and industrious life?"

"But you did not make it—the will. You broke your word; and, therefore, I will do the same."

"Yes, I have made it, you greyhound. I have made it; and this very day I was going with you to a justice of the peace and have it signed, and then to-morrow we would have got married."

"You have made the will, you round world of love?" said Hodge tenderly, as with his long, withered, spindling arms he tried to clasp the gigantic waist of his beloved. "You have made the will and declared me your heir? Come, then, Gammer Gurton, come, let us go to the justice of the peace!"

"But do you not see, then," said Gammer Gurton, with a tender, cat-like purr, "do you not see, then, that you rumple my frill when you hug me so? Let me go, then, and help me find my needle quickly, for without the needle we cannot go to the justice of the peace."

"What, without the needle not go to the justice of the peace?"

"No; for only see this hole which Gib, the cat, tore in my prettiest cap awhile ago, as I took the cap out of the box and laid it on the table. Indeed I cannot go to the justice of the peace with such a hole in my cap! Search then, Hodge, search, so that I can mend my cap, and go with you to the justice of the peace!"

"Lord God, where in the world can it be, the unlucky needle? I must have it, I must find it, so that Gammer Gurton may take her will to the justice of the peace!"

And in frantic desperation, Hodge searched all about on the floor for the lost needle, and Gammer Gurton stuck her large spectacles on her flaming red nose and peered about on the table. So eager was she in the search, that she even let her tongue rest a little, and deep silence reigned in the room.

Suddenly this silence was broken by a voice; which seemed to come from the courtyard. It was a soft, sweet voice that cried: "Hodge, dear Hodge, are you there? Come to me in the court, only for a few minutes! I want to have a bit of a laugh with you!"

It was as though an electric shock had passed through the room with that voice, and struck at the same time both Gammer Gurton and Hodge.

Both startled, and discontinuing the search, stood there wholly immovable, as if petrified. Hodge especially, poor Hodge, was as if struck by lightning. His great bluish-white eyes appeared to be coming out of their sockets; his long arms hung down, flapping and dangling about like a flail; his knees, half bent, seemed already to be giving way in expectation of the approaching storm.

This storm did not in fact make him wait long. "That is Tib!" screamed Gammer Gurton, springing like a lioness upon Hodge and seizing him by the shoulders with both her hands. "That is Tib, you thread-like, pitiful greyhound! Well, was I not right, now, when I called you a faithless, good-for-nothing scamp, that spares not innocence, and breaks the hearts of the women as he would a cracker, which he swallows at his pleasure? Was I not right, in saying that you were only watching for me to go out in order to go and sport with Tib?"

"Hodge, my dear, darling Hodge," cried the voice beneath there, and this time louder and more tender than before, "Hodge, oh come, do now, come with me in the court, as you promised me; come and get the kiss for which you begged me this morning!"

"I will be a damned otter, if I begged her for it, and if I understand a single word of what she says!" said Hodge, wholly dumfounded and quaking all over.

"Ah, you understand not a word of what she says?" screamed Gammer Gurton. "Well, but I understand it. I understand that everything between us is past and done with, and that I have nothing more to do with you, you Moloch, you! I understand that I shall not go and make my will, to become your wife and fret myself to death over this skeleton of a husband, that I may leave you to chuckle as my heir. No, no, it is past. I am not going to the justice of the peace, and I will tear up my will!"

"Oh, she is going to tear up her will!" howled Hodge; "and then I have tormented myself in vain; in vain have endured the horrible luck of being loved by this old owl! Oh, oh, she will not make her will, and Hodge will remain the same miserable dog he always was!"

Gammer Gurton laughed scornfully. "Ah, you are aware at last what a pitiable wretch you are, and how much a noble and handsome person, as I am, lowered herself when she made up her mind to pick up such a weed and make him her husband."

"Yes, yes, I know it!" whined Hodge; "and I pray you pick me up and take me, and above all things make your will!"

"No, I will not take you, and I shall not make my will! It is all over with, I tell you; and now you can go as soon as you please to Tib, who has called you so lovingly. But first give me back my sewing-needle, you magpie, you! Give me here my sewing-needle, which you have stolen. It is of no use to you now, for it is not necessary for me to go out in order that you may go and see Tib. We have nothing more to do with each other, and you can go where you wish. My sewing-needle, say I—my needle, or I will hang you as a scarecrow in my pea-patch, to frighten the sparrows out of it. My sewing-needle, or—"

She shook her clenched fist threateningly at Hodge, fully convinced that now, as always before, Hodge would retreat before this menacing weapon of his jealous and irritable lady-love, and seek safety under the bed or the table.

This time, however, she was mistaken. Hodge, who saw that all was lost, felt that his patience was at length exhausted; and his timidity was now changed to the madness of despair. The lamb was transformed into a tiger, and with a tiger's rage he pounced upon Gammer Gurton, and, throwing aside her fist, he dealt her a good sound blow on the cheek.

The signal was given, and the battle began. It was waged by both sides with equal animosity and equal vigor; only Hodge's bony hand made by far the most telling blows on Gammer Gurton's mass of flesh, and was always certain, wherever he struck, to hit some spot of this huge mass; while Gammer Gurton's soft hand seldom touched that thin, threadlike figure, which dexterously parried every blow.

"Stop, you fools!" suddenly shouted a stentorian voice. "See you not, you goblins, that your lord and master is here? Peace, peace then, you devils, and do not be hammering away at one another, but love each other."

"It is the master!" exclaimed Gammer Gurton, lowering her fist in the utmost contrition.

"Do not turn me away, sir!" moaned Hodge; "do not dismiss me from your service because at last I have for once given the old hag a good bruising. She has deserved it a long time, and an angel himself must at last lose patience with her."

"I turn you out of my service!" exclaimed John Heywood, as he wiped his eyes, wet with laughing. "No, Hodge, you are a real jewel, a mine of fun and merriment; and you two have, without knowing it, furnished me with the choicest materials for a piece which, by the king's order, I have to write within six days. I owe you, then, many thanks, and will show my gratitude forthwith. Listen well to me, my amorous and tender pair of turtle-doves, and mark what I have to say to you. One cannot always tell the wolf by his hide, for he sometimes put on a sheep's skin; and so, too, a man cannot always be recognized by his voice, for he sometimes borrows that of his neighbor. Thus, for example, I know a certain John Heywood, who can mimic exactly the voice of a certain little miss named Tib, and who knows how to warble as she herself: 'Hodge, my dear Hodge!'" And he repeated to them exactly, and with the same tone and expression, the words that the voice had previously cried.

"Ah, it was you, sir?" cried Hodge, with a broad grin—"that Tib in the court there, that Tib about whom we have been pummelling each other?"

"I was Tib, Hodge—I who was present during the whole of your quarrel, and found it hugely comical to send Tib's voice thundering into the midst of our lovers' quarrel, like a cannon-stroke! Ah, ha! Hodge, that was a fine bomb-shell, was it not? And as I said 'Hodge, my dear Hodge,' you tumbled about like a kernel of corn which a dung-beetle blows with his breath. No, no, my worthy and virtuous Gammer Gurton, it was not Tib who called the handsome Hodge, and more than that, I saw Tib, as your contest began, go out at the courtyard gate."

"It was not Tib!" exclaimed Gammer Gurton, much moved, and happy as love could make her. "It was not Tib, and she was not in the court at all, and Hodge could not then go down to her, while I went to the shopkeeper's to buy needles. Oh, Hodge, Hodge, will you forgive me for this; will you forget the hard words which I spoke in the fury of my anguish, and can you love me again?"

"I will try," said Hodge, gravely; "and without doubt I shall succeed, provided you go to-day forthwith to the justice, and make your will."

"I will make my will, and to-morrow we will go to the priest; shall it not be so, my angel?"

"Yes, we go to the priest to-morrow!" growled Hodge, as with a frightful grimace he scratched himself behind the ears.

"And now come, my angel, and give me a kiss of reconciliation!" She spread her arms out, and when Houge did not come to her, but remained immovable, and steadfast in his position, she went to Hodge and pressed him tenderly to her heart.

Suddenly she uttered a shriek, and let go of Hodge, She had felt a terrible pain in her breast. It seemed as though a small dagger had pierced her bosom.

And there it was, the lost needle, and Hodge then was innocent and pure as the early dawn.

He had not mischievously purloined the needle, so that Gammer Gurton would be compelled to leave her house in order to fetch some new needles from the shopkeeper's; he had not intended to go to Tib, for Tib was not in the court, but had gone out.

"Oh Hodge, Hodge, good Hodge, you innocent dove, will you forgive me?"

"Come to the justice of the peace, Gammer Gurton, and I forgive you!"

They sank tenderly into each other's arms, wholly forgetful of their master, who still stood near them, and looked on, laughing and nodding his head.

"Now, then, I have found the finest and most splendid materials for my piece," said John Heywood, as he left the loving pair and betook himself to his own room. "Gammer Gurton has saved me, and King Henry will not have the satisfaction of seeing me whipped by those most virtuous and most lovely ladies of his court. To work, then, straightway to work!"

He seated himself at his writing-desk, and seized pen and paper.

"But how!" asked he, suddenly pausing. "That is certainly a rich subject for a composition; but I can never in the world get an interlude out of it! What shall I do with it? Abandon this subject altogether, and again jeer at the monks and ridicule the nuns? That is antiquated and worn out! I will write something new, something wholly new, and something which will make the king so merry, that he will not sign a death-warrant for a whole day. Yes, yes, a merry play shall it be, and then I will call it boldly and fearlessly a comedy!"

He seized his pen and wrote: "Gammer Gurton's Needle, a right pithy, pleasant, and merry comedy."

And thus originated the first English comedy, by John Heywood, fool to King Henry the Eighth. [Footnote: This comedy was first printed in the year 1661, but it was represented at Christ College fully a hundred years previously. Who was the author of it is not known with certainty; but it is possible that the writer of it was John Heywood, the epigrammatist and court-jester.—See Dramaturgic oder Theorie und Geschichte der dramatischen Kunst, von Theodore Mundt, vol i, p. 809. Flogel's Geschichte der Hofnarren, p. 399.]



CHAPTER XVIII. LADY JANE.

All was quiet in the palace of Whitehall. Even the servants on guard in the vestibule of the king's bedchamber had been a long time slumbering, for the king had been snoring for several hours; and this majestical sound was, to the dwellers in the palace, the joyful announcement that for one fine night they were exempt from service, and might be free men.

The queen also had long since retired to her apartments, and dismissed her ladies at an unusually early hour. She felt, she said, wearied by the chase, and much needed rest. No one, therefore, was to disturb her, unless the king should order it.

But the king, as we have said, slept, and the queen had no reason to fear that her night's rest would be disturbed.

Deep silence reigned in the palace. The corridors were empty and deserted, the apartments all silent.

Suddenly a figure tripped along softly and cautiously through the long feebly lighted corridor. She was wrapped in a black mantle; a veil concealed her face.

Scarcely touching the floor with her feet, she floated away, and glided down a little staircase. Now she stops and listens. There is nothing to hear; all is noiseless and still.

Then, on again. Now she wings her steps. For here she is sure of not being heard. It is the unoccupied wing of the castle of Whitehall. Nobody watches her here.

On, then, on, adown that corridor, descending those stairs. There she stops before a door leading into the summer-house. She puts her ear to the door, and listens. Then she claps her hands three times.

The sound is reechoed from the other side.

"Oh, he is there, he is there!" Forgotten now are her cares, forgotten her pains and tears. He is there. She has him again.

She throws open the door. It is dark indeed in the chamber, but she sees him, for the eye of love pierces the night; and if the sees him not, yet she feels his presence.

She rests on his heart; he presses her closely to his breast. Leaning on each other, they grope cautiously along through the dark, desolate chamber to the divan at the upper end, and there, both locked in a happy embrace, they sink upon the cushion.

"At last I have you again! and my arms again clasp this divine form, and again my lips press this crimson mouth! Oh, my beloved, what an eternity has this separation been! Six days! Six long nights of agony! Have you not felt how my soul cried out for you, and was filled with trepidation; how I stretched my arms out into the night, and let them fall again disconsolate and trembling with anguish, because they clasped nothing—naught but the cold, vacant night breeze! Did you not hear, my beloved, how I cried to you with sighs and tears, how in glowing dithyrambics I poured forth to you my longing, my love, my rapture? But you, cruel you, remained ever cold, ever smiling. Your eyes were ever flashing in all the pride and grandeur of a Juno. The roses on your cheeks were not one whit the paler. No, no, you have not longed for me; your heart has not felt this painful, blissful anguish. You are first and above all things the proud, cold queen, and next, next the loving woman."

"How unjust and hard you are, my Henry!" whispered she softly. "I have indeed suffered; and perhaps my pains have been more cruel and bitter than yours, for I—I had to let them consume me within. You could pour them forth, you could stretch out your arms after me, you could utter lamentations and sighs. You were not, like me, condemned to laugh, and to jest, and to listen with apparently attentive ear to all those often heard and constantly repeated phrases of praise and adoration from those about me. You were at least free to suffer. I was not. It is true I smiled, but amidst the pains of death. It is true my cheeks did not blanch, but rouge was the veil with which I covered their paleness; and then, Henry, in the midst of my pains and longings, I had, too, a sweet consolation—your letters, your poems, which fell like the dew of heaven upon my sick soul, and restored it to health, for new torments and new hopes. Oh, how I love them—those poems, in whose noble and enchanting language your love and our sufferings are reechoed! How my whole soul flew forth to meet them when I received them, and how pressed I my lips thousands and thousands of times on the paper which seemed to me redolent with your breath and your sighs! How I love that good, faithful Jane, the silent messenger of our love! When I behold her entering my chamber, with the unsullied paper in hand, she is to me the dove with the olive-leaf, that brings me peace and happiness, and I rush to her, and press her to my bosom; and give her all the kisses I would give you, and feel how poor and powerless I am, because I cannot repay her all the happiness that she brings me. Ah, Henry, how many thanks do we owe to poor Jane!"

"Why do you call her poor, when she can be near you, always behold yon, always hear you?"

"I call her poor, because she is unhappy. For she loves, Henry—she loves to desperation, to madness, and she is not loved. She is pining away with grief and pain, and wrings her hands in boundless woe. Have you not noticed how pale she is, and how her eyes become daily more dim?"

"No, I have not seen it, for I see naught but you, and Lady Jane is to me a lifeless image, as are all other women. But what! You tremble; and your whole frame writhes in my arms, as if in a convulsion! And what is that? Are you weeping?"

"Oh, I weep, because I am so happy. I weep, because I was thinking how fearful the suffering must be, to give the whole heart away, and receive nothing in return, naught but death! Poor Jane!"

"What is she to us? We, we love each other. Come, dear one, let me kiss the tears from your eyes; let me drink this nectar, that it may inspire me, and transfigure me to a god! Weep no more—no, weep not; or, if you will do so, be it only in the excess of rapture, and because word and heart are too poor to hold all this bliss!"

"Yes, yes, let us shout for joy; let us be lost in blessedness!" exclaimed she passionately, as with frantic violence she threw herself on his bosom.

Both were now silent, mutely resting on each other's heart.

Oh, how sweet this silence; how entrancing this noiseless, sacred night! How the trees without there murmur and rustle, as if they were singing a heavenly lullaby to the lovers! how inquisitively the pale crescent moon peeps through the window, as though she were seeking the twain whose blessed confidante she is!

But happiness is so swift-winged, and time flies so fast, when love is their companion!

Even now they must part again—now they must again say farewell. "Not yet, beloved, stay yet! See, the night is still dark; and hark, the castle clock is just striking two. No, go not yet."

"I must, Henry, I must; the hours are past in which I can be happy."

"Oh, you cold, proud soul! Does the head already long again for the crown; and can you wait no longer for the purple to again cover your shoulders? Come, let me kiss your shoulder; and think now, dear, that my crimson lips are also a purple robe."

"And a purple robe for which I would gladly give my crown and my life!" cried she, with the utmost enthusiasm, as she folded him in her arms.

"Do you love me, then? Do you really love me?"

"Yes, I love you!"

"Can you swear to me that you love no one except me?"

"I can swear it, as true as there is a God above us, who hears my oath."

"Bless you for it, you dear, you only one—oh, how shall I call you?—you whose name I may not utter! Oh, do you know that it is cruel never to name the name of the loved one? Withdraw that prohibition; grudge me not the painfully sweet pleasure of being able at least to call you by your name!"

"No," said she, with a shudder; "for know you not that the sleep-walkers awake out of their dreams when they are called by name? I am a somnambulist, who, with smiling courage, moves along a dizzy height; call me by name, and I shall awake, and, shuddering, plunge into the abyss beneath. Ah, Henry, I hate my name, for it is pronounced by other lips than yours. For you I will not be named as other men call me. Baptize me, my Henry; give me another name—a name which is our secret, and which no one knows besides us."

"I name you Geraldine; and as Geraldine I will praise and laud you before all the world. I will, in spite of all these spies and listeners, repeat again and again that I love you, and no one, not the king himself, shall be able to forbid me."

"Hush!" said she, with a shudder, "speak not of him! Oh, I conjure you, my Henry, be cautious; think that you have sworn to me ever to think of the danger that threatens us, and will, without doubt, dash us in pieces if you, by only a sound, a look, or a smile, betray the sweet secret that unites us two. Are you still aware what you have sworn to me?"

"I am aware of it! But it is an unnatural Draconian law. What! even when I am alone with you, shall I never be allowed to address you otherwise than with that reverence and restrain which is due the queen? Even when no one can hear us, may I, by no syllable, by none, not the slightest intimation, remind you of our love?"

"No, no, do it not; for this castle has everywhere eyes and ears, and everywhere are spies and listeners behind the tapestry; behind the curtains; everywhere are they concealed and lurking, watching every feature, every smile, every word, whether it may not afford ground for suspicion. No, no, Henry; swear to me by our love that you will never, unless here in this room, address me otherwise than your queen. Swear to me that, beyond these walls, you will be to me only the respectful servant of your queen, and at the same time the proud earl and lord, of whom it is said that never has a woman been able to touch his heart. Swear to me that you will not, by a look, by a smile, by even the gentlest pressure of the hand, betray what beyond this room is a crime for both of us. Let this room be the temple of our love; but when we once pass its threshold, we will not profane the sweet mysteries of our happiness, by allowing unholy eyes to behold even a single ray of it. Shall it be so, my Henry?

"Yes, it shall be so!" said he, with a troubled voice; "although I must confess that this dreadful illusion often tortures me almost to death. Oh, Geraldine, when I meet you elsewhere, when I observe the eye so icy and immovable, with which you meet my look, I feel as it were my heart convulsed; and I say to myself: 'This is not she, whom I love—not the tender, passionate woman, whom in the darkness of the night I sometimes lock in my arms. This is Catharine, the queen, but not my loved one. A woman cannot so disguise herself; art goes not so far as to falsify the entire nature, the innermost being and life of a person.' Oh, there have been hours, awful, horrible hours, when it seemed to me as though all this were a delusion, a mystification—as though in some way an evil demon assumed the queen's form by night to mock me, poor frenzied visionary, with a happiness that has no existence, but lives only in my imagination. When such thoughts come to me, I feel a frenzied fury, a crushing despair, and I could, regardless of my oath and even the danger that threatens you, rush to you, and, before all the courtly rabble and the king himself, ask: 'Are you really what you seem? Are you, Catharine Parr, King Henry's wife—nothing more, nothing else than that? Or are you, my beloved, the woman who is mine in her every thought, her every breath; who has vowed to me eternal love and unchanging truth; and whom I, in spite of the whole world, and the king, press to my heart as my own?'"

"Unhappy man, if you ever venture that, you doom us both to death!"

"Be it so, then! In death you will at least be mine, and no one would longer dare separate us, and your eyes would no longer look so cold and strangely upon me, as they often now do. Oh, I conjure you, gaze not upon me at all, if you cannot do it otherwise than with those cold, proud looks, that benumb my heart. Turn away your eyes, and speak to me with averted face."

"Then, men will say that I hate you, Henry."

"It is more agreeable to me for them to say you abhor me than for them to see that I am wholly indifferent to you; that I am to you nothing more than the Earl of Surrey, your lord chamberlain."

"No, no, Henry. They shall see that you are more to me than merely that. Before the whole assembled court I will give you a token of my love. Will you then believe, you dear, foolish enthusiast, that I love you, and that it is no demon that rests here in your arms and swears that she loves nothing but you? Say, will you then believe me?"

"I will believe you! But no, there is no need of any sign, or any assurance. Nay, I know it; I feel indeed the sweet reality that cuddles to my side, warm, and filling me with happiness; and it is only the excess of happiness that makes me incredulous."

"I will convince you thoroughly; and you shall doubt no more, not even in the intoxication of happiness. Listen, then. The king, as you know, is about to hold a great tournament and festival of the poets, and it will take place in a few days. Now, then, at this fete I will publicly, in the presence of the king and his court, give you a rosette that I wear on my shoulder, and in the silver fringe of which you will find a note from me. Will that satisfy you, my Henry?"

"And do you still question it, my dear? Do you question it, when you will make me proud and happy above all others of your court?"

He pressed her closely to his heart and kissed her. But suddenly she writhed in his arms, and started up in wild alarm.

"Day is breaking, day is breaking! See there! a red streak is spreading over the clouds. The sun is coming; day is coming, and already begins to dawn."

He endeavored to detain her still; but she tore herself passionately away, and again enveloped her head in her veil.

"Yes," said he, "day is breaking and it is growing light! Let me then, for a moment at least, see your face. My soul thirsts for it as the parched earth for the dew. Come, it is light here at the window. Let me see your eyes."

She tore herself vehemently away. "No, no, you must be gone! Hark, it is already three o'clock. Soon everything will be astir in the castle. Did it not seem as if some person passed by the door here? Haste, haste, if you do not wish me to die of dread!" She threw his cloak over him; she drew his hat over his brow; then once more she threw her arms around his neck and pressed on his lips a burning kiss. "Farewell, my beloved! farewell, Henry Howard! When we see each other again to-day, you are the Earl of Surrey, and I, the queen—not your loved one—not the woman who loves you! Happiness is past, and suffering awakes anew. Farewell."

She herself opened the glass door, and pushed her lover out.

"Farewell, Geraldine; good-night, my dear! Day comes, and I again greet you as my queen, and I shall have to endure again the torture of your cold looks and your haughty smiles."



CHAPTER XIX. LOYOLA'S GENERAL.

She rushed to the window and gazed after him till he had disappeared, then she uttered a deep cry of anguish, and, wholly overcome by her agony, she sank down on her knees weeping and wailing, wringing her hands, and raising them to God.

But just before so happy and joyful, she was now full of woe and anguish; and bitter sighs of complaint came trembling from her lips.

"Oh, oh," moaned she, with sobs; "what terrible agonies are these, and how full of despair the anguish that lacerates my breast! I have lain in his arms; I have received his vows of love and accepted his kisses; and these vows are not mine, and these kisses he gave not to me. He kissed me, and he loves in me only her whom I hate. He lays his hands in mine and utters vows of love which he dedicates to her. He thinks and feels for her only—her alone. What a terrible torture this is! To be loved under her name; under her name to receive the vows of love that yet belong to me only—to me alone! For he loves me, me exclusively. They are my lips that he kisses, my form that he embraces; to me are addressed his words and his letters; and it is I that reply to them. He loves me, me only, and yet he puts no faith in me. I am nothing to him, naught but a lifeless image, like other women. This he has told me; and I did not become frenzied; and I had the cruel energy to pass off the tears wrung from me by despair, for tears of rapture. Oh, detestable, horrible mockery of fate—to be what I am not, and not to be what I am!"

And with a shrill cry of agony she tore her hair, and with her fist smote upon her breast, and wept and moaned aloud.

She heard naught; she saw naught; she felt naught but her inexpressible and despairing anguish.

She did not once tremble for herself; she thought not at all of this—that she would be lost if she were found in this place.

And yet at the other side of the room a door had opened, softly and noiselessly, and a man had entered.

He shut the door behind him and walked up to Lady Jane, who still lay on the floor. He stood behind her while she uttered her despairing lamentation. He heard every word of her quivering lips; her whole heart painfully convulsed and torn with grief lay unveiled before him; and she knew it not.

Now he bent over her; and with his hand he lightly touched her shoulder. At this touch she gave a convulsive start, as if hit by the stroke of a sword, and her sobbing was immediately silenced.

An awful pause ensued. The woman lay on the floor motionless, breathless, and near her, tall and cold as a figure of bronze, stood the man.

"Lady Jane Douglas," said he then, sternly and solemnly, "stand up. It becomes not your father's daughter to be upon her knees, when it is not God to whom she kneels. But you are not kneeling to God, but to an idol, which you yourself have made, and to which you hate erected a temple in your heart. This idol is called 'Your own personal misfortune.' But it is written, 'Thou shalt have no other Gods but me.' Therefore I say to you once more, Lady Jane Douglas, rise from your knees, for it is not your God to whom you kneel."

And as though these words exercised a magnetic power over her, she raised herself up slowly from the floor, and now stood there before her father, stern and cold as a statue of marble.

"Cast from you the sorrows of this world, which burden you, and hinder you in the sacred work which God has imposed on you!" continued Earl Douglas in his metallic, solemn voice. "It is written, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,' saith our God. But you, Jane, you are to throw down your trouble at the foot of the throne; and your burden will become a crown that will glorify your head."

He laid his hand on her head, but she wildly shook it off.

"No," cried she, with heavy, faltering tongue, as if confused in a dream. "Away with this crown! I wish no crown upon which devils have laid a spell. I wish no royal robe that has been dyed crimson with the blood of my beloved."

"She is still in the delirium of her anguish," muttered the earl, as he contemplated the pale, trembling woman who had now sunk again to her knees, and was staring straight before her with eyes bewildered and stretched wide open. But the looks of the earl remained cold and unmoved, and not the least compassion was aroused in him for his poor daughter, now penetrated with anguish.

"Arise," said he, in a hard, steelly voice. "The Church, by my mouth, commands you to serve her as you have vowed to do; that is to say, with glad heart and a sense of your reliance on God; that is to say, with smiling lips and a serene, beaming eye, as becomes a disciple inspired by faith, and as you have sworn to do in the hands of our lord and master, Ignatius Loyola."

"I cannot! I cannot!" moaned she, in a low tone. "I cannot be glad at heart when despair, like a wild boar, is rending my heart; I cannot command my eye to shine when my eyes are dimmed with tears of anguish. Oh, have pity, have compassion! Remember that you are my father; that I am your daughter—the daughter of a wife whom you loved, and who would find in the grave no rest if she knew how you are racking and torturing me. My mother, my mother, if thy spirit is near me, come and protect me. Let thy mild looks overshadow my head, and breathe a breath of thy love into the heart of this cruel father, who is ready to sacrifice his child on the altar of his God."

"God has called me," said the earl, "and, like Abraham, I too will learn to obey. But I will not adorn my victim with flowers, but with a royal crown. I will not plunge a knife into her breast, but will put a golden sceptre into her hand and say: Thou art a queen before men, but before God be thou a faithful and obedient servant. Thou hast all to command. But the holy Church, to whose service thou hast consecrated thyself, and who will bless thee if thou art faithful, who will dash thee in pieces with her curse if thou darest deal treacherously, she commands thee. No, you are not my daughter, but the priestess of the Church, consecrated to her holy service. No, I have no sympathy with your tear's and this anguish, for I see the end of these sorrows, and I know that these tears will be as a diadem of pearls about your temples. Lady Jane Douglas, it is the saintly Loyola who sends you his commands by my mouth. Obey them, not because I am your father, but because I am the general to whom you have sworn obedience and fidelity unto your life's end."

"Then kill me, my father!" said she, feebly. "Let this life end, which is but a torture, a protracted martyrdom. Punish me for my disobedience by plunging your dagger deep into my breast. Punish me, and grudge me not the repose of the grave."

"Poor enthusiast!" said the father; "suppose you, we would be foolish enough to subject you to so light a punishment! No, no, if you dare, in insolent disobedience, rebel against my commands, your penance shall be a terrible one, and your punishment without end. I will not kill you, but him whom you love; it will be his head that falls; and you will be his murderess. He shall die on the scaffold and you—you shall live in disgrace."

"Oh, horrible!" groaned Jane, as she buried her face in her hands.

Her father continued: "Silly, short-sighted child, who thought she could play with the sword, and did not see that she herself might feel the stroke of this double-edged blade! You wanted to be the servant of the Church, that you might thereby become mistress of the world. You would acquire glory, but this glory must not singe your head with its fiery rays. Silly child! he who plays with fire will be consumed. But we penetrated your thoughts and the wish of which you yourself were unconscious. We looked into the depths of your being, and when we found love there, we made use of love for our own purposes and your salvation. What do you bewail, then, and why do you weep? Have we not allowed you to love? Have we not authorized you to give yourself entirely up to this love? Do you not call yourself Earl Surrey's wife, though you cannot name to me the priest that married you? Lady Jane, obey, and we envy you not the happiness of your love; dare to rebel against us, and disgrace and shame overtake you, and you shall stand before all the world disowned and scoffed at; you the strumpet, that—"

"Stop, my father!" cried Jane, as she sprang vehemently from the floor. "Desist from your terrible words if you do not wish me to die of shame. Nay, I submit, I obey! You are right, I cannot draw back."

"And why would you either? Is it not a life pleasant and full of enjoyment? Is it not rare good fortune to see our sins transfigured to virtue; to be able to account earthly enjoyment the service of Heaven? And what do you bewail then? That he does not love you? Nay, he does love you; his vows of love still echo in your ears; your heart still trembles with the fruition of happiness. What matters it if the Earl of Surrey with his inward eyes sees the woman he folds in his arms to be another than you? Yet in reality he loves but you alone. Whether you are for him named Catharine Parr or Jane Douglas, it is all the same if you only are his love."

"But a day will come when he will discover his mistake, and when he will curse me."

"That day will never come. The holy Church will find a way to avert that, if you bow to her will and are obedient to her."

"I do bow to it!" sighed Jane. "I will obey; only promise me, my father, that no harm shall happen to him; that I shall not be his murderess."

"No, you shall become his savior and deliverer. Only you must fulfil punctually the work I commit to you. First of all, then, tell me the result of your meeting to-day. He does not doubt that you are the queen?"

"No, he believes it so firmly that he would take the sacrament on it. That is to say, he believes it now because I have promised him to give him publicly a sign by which he may recognize that it is the queen that loves him."

"And this sign?" inquired her father, with a look beaming with joy.

"I have promised him that at the great tournament, the queen will give him a rosette, and that in that rosette be will find a note from the queen."

"Ah, the idea is an admirable one!" exclaimed Lord Douglas, "and only a woman who wishes to avenge herself could conceive it. So, then, the queen will become her own accuser, and herself give into our hands a proof of her guilt. The only difficulty in the way is to bring the queen, without arousing her suspicion, to wear this rosette, and to give it to Surrey."

"She will do it if I beg her to do so, for she loves me; and I shall so represent it to her that she will do it as an act of kindness to me. Catharine is good-natured and agreeable, and cannot refuse a request."

"And I will apprise the king of it. That is to say, I shall take good care not to do this myself, for it is always dangerous to approach a hungry tiger in his cage and carry him his food, because he might in his voracity very readily devour our own hand together with the proffered meat."

"But how?" asked she with an expression of alarm. "Will he content himself with punishing Catharine alone; will he not also crush him—him whom he must look upon as her lover?"

"He will do so. But you yourself shall save him and set him free. You shall open his prison and give him freedom, and he will love you—you, the savior of his life."

"Father, father, it is a hazardous game that you are playing; and it may happen that you will become thereby your daughter's murderer. For, listen well to what I tell you; if his head falls, I die by my own hands; if you make me his murderess, you become thereby mine; and I will curse you and execrate you in hell! What to me is a royal crown if it is stained with Henry Howard's blood? What care I for renown and honor, if he is not there to see my greatness, and if his beaming eyes do not reflect back to me the light of my crown? Protect him, therefore; guard his life as the apple of your eye, if you wish me to accept the royal crown that you offer me, so that the King of England may become again a vassal of the Church!"

"And that the whole of devout Christendom may praise Jane Douglas, the pious queen who has succeeded in the holy work of bringing the rebellious and recreant son of the Church, Henry the Eighth, back to the Holy Father in Rome, to the only consecrated lord of the Church, truly penitent. On, on, my daughter; do not despond. A high aim beckons you, and a brilliant fortune awaits you! Our holy mother, the Church, will bless and praise you, and Henry the Eighth will declare you his queen."



CHAPTER XX. THE PRISONER.

Still all was calm and quiet in the palace of Whitehall. Nothing was stirring, and nobody had heard how Lady Jane Douglas left her chamber and glided down the corridor.

No one has heard it, and no eye is awake, and none sees what is now taking place in the queen's room. She is alone—all alone. The servants are all asleep in their chambers. The queen herself has bolted the doors of the anteroom on the inside, and no other door leads into her boudoir and bedroom, except through this anteroom. She is therefore perfectly secluded, perfectly secure.

Speedily and in haste she envelops herself in a long black mantle, the hood of which she draws well over her head and brow, and which completely covers and conceals her form.

And now she presses on a spring inserted in the frame of a picture. The picture flies back and shows an opening, through which a person can quite conveniently pass out.

Catharine does so. Then she carefully pushes the picture back to its place from the outside, and for a long time walks on in the passage hollowed out of the solid wall, till groping along she at last lays hold again of a knob in the wall. She presses on it; and now at her feet opens a trap-door, through which a feeble light forces its way and renders visible a small narrow staircase there situated. Catharine enters and descends the steps with winged feet. Now at the foot of the staircase she again presses on a secret spring; and again a door opens, through which the queen passes into a large hall.

"Oh," whispered she, fetching a long breath, "the green summer house at last."

She quickly traversed it and opened the next door.

"John Heywood?"

"I am here, queen!"

"Hush, hush! gently as possible, that the watch, who walks up and down just behind the door, may not hear us. Come, we still have a long walk—let us make haste."

Again she pressed on a spring inserted in the wall; and again a door opens. But before Catharine bolts this door, she takes the lamp burning on the table there, which is to lighten the dark and difficult path through which they are now to wend their way.

Now she bolts the door behind them; and they enter a long, dark corridor, at the end of which is found still another staircase, and down which they both go. Numberless steps conduct them below; gradually the air becomes dense, the steps moist. The stillness of the grave is around them. No sound of life, not the least noise, is now perceptible.

They are in a subterranean passage, which stretches out in length before them farther than the eye can reach. Catharine turns to John Heywood; the lamp lights up her face, which is pale, but exhibits an expression firm and resolute.

"John Heywood, reflect once more! I ask not whether you have courage, for I know that. I only wish to know whether you will employ this courage for your queen?"

"No, not for the queen, but for the noble woman who has saved my son."

"You must then be my protector to-day if we meet with dangers. But if it be God's will, we shall encounter no dangers. Let us go."

They go vigorously forward, silent all the way. At length they come to a place where the passage grows broader, and spreads out into a little open chamber, on the side walls of which a few teats are placed.

"We have now accomplished half of the journey," said Catharine; "and here we will rest a little."

She placed the lamp on the small marble table in the middle of the passage, and sat down, pointing to John Heywood to take a seat near her.

"I am not the queen, here," said she; "and you are not the king's fool; but I am a poor weak woman, and you are my protector. You may, therefore, well have the right to sit by me."

But John shook his head with a smile, and sat down at her feet. "St. Catharine, savior of my son, I lie at thy feet, and devoutly return thanks to thee."

"John, are you acquainted with this subterranean passage?" asked the queen.

John gave a sad smile. "I am acquainted with it, queen."

"Ah, you know it? I supposed it was a secret of the king and queen."

"Then you will readily conceive that the fool knows it. For the King of England and the fool are twin brothers. Yes, queen, I know this passage; and I once wended it in anguish and tears."

"What! You yourself, John Heywood?"

"Yes, queen. And now I ask you, do you know the history of this underground passage? You are silent. Now, well for you that you do not know it. It is a long and bloody history, and if I should narrate to you the whole of it, the night would be too short for it. When this passage was built, Henry was still young, and possessed yet a heart. At that time, he loved not merely his wives, but his friends and servants also—specially Cromwell, the all-powerful minister. He then resided at Whitehall, and Henry in the royal apartments of the Tower. But Henry was always longing for his favorite; and so Cromwell one day surprised him with this subterranean passage, the construction of which had occupied a hundred men a whole year. Ah, ah, the king was then very much moved, and thanked his powerful minister for this surprise with tears and hugs. There passed scarcely a day that Henry did not go to Cromwell through this passage. So he saw each day how the palace of Whitehall became more and more splendid and glorious; and when he returned to the Tower, he discovered that this residence was altogether unworthy of a king; but that his minister lived by far more magnificently than the King of England. That, queen, was the cause of Cromwell's fall! The king wanted Whitehall. The sly Cromwell noticed it, and made him a present of his gem, the palace on whose construction and decoration he had labored ten years. Henry accepted the present; but now Cromwell's fall was irrevocable. The king could not, of course, forgive Cromwell for having dared to offer him a present so valuable, that Henry could not or would not repay it. He remained, therefore, Cromwell's debtor; and since this tormented and vexed him, he swore Cromwell's ruin. When Henry moved into Whitehall, it was concluded that Cromwell must ascend the scaffold. Ah, the king is such an economical builder! A palace costs him nothing but the head of a subject. With Cromwell's bead be paid for Whitehall; and Wolsey died for Hampton Court."

"Not on the scaffold, though, John."

"Oh, no; Henry preferred merely to break his heart, and not his head. First, he had that wonderful pleasure-villa, Hampton Court, with all its treasures, presented him by Wolsey; then he removed him from all his offices, and deprived him of all his honors. Finally, he was to go to the Tower as a prisoner; but he died on his way thither. No, you are right! Wolsey did not die on the scaffold, he was put to death much more slowly and more cruelly. He was not killed with the sword, but pricked to death with pins!"

"Did you not say, John, that you had travelled this way once before?"

"Yes, queen, and I did it to bid farewell to the noblest of men, and the truest of friends, Thomas More! I begged and besought Cromwell so long that he had compassion on my anguish, and allowed me to go through this passage to Thomas More, that I might at least receive the blessing and last kiss of affection of this saint. Ah, queen, speak no more of it to me! From that day I became a fool; for I saw it was not worth the trouble to be an honest man, when such men as More are executed as criminals. Come, queen, let us go on!"

"Yes, on, John!" said she, rising. "But do you know then whither we are going?"

"Ah, queen, do I not then know you? and did I not tell you that Anne Askew is to be stretched upon the rack to-morrow, unless she recant?"

"I see that you have understood me," said she, giving him a friendly nod. "Yes, I am going to Anne Askew."

"But how will you, without being seen and discovered, find out her cell?"

"John, even the unhappy have friends. Yes, the queen herself has a few; and so chance, or it may be even God's will, has so arranged matters, that Anne Askew is occupying, just at this time, that small room in which the secret passage terminates."

"Is she alone in that room?"

"Yes, all alone. The guard stands without before the door."

"And should they hear you, and open the door?"

"Then without doubt I am lost, unless God supports me."

They walked on in silence, both too much occupied with their own thoughts to interrupt them by conversation.

But this long, extended walk at length wearied Catharine. She leaned exhausted against the wall.

"Will you do me a favor, queen?" asked John Heywood. "Permit me to carry you. Your little feet can bear you no farther; make me your feet, your majesty!"

She refused with a friendly smile. "No, John, these are the passion-stations of a saint; and you know one must make the round of them in the sweat of his face, and on his knees."

"Oh, queen, how noble and how courageous you are!" exclaimed John Heywood. "You do good without display, and you shun no danger, if it avails toward the accomplishment of noble work."

"Yet, John," said she, with a bewitching smile, "I dread danger; and just on that account I begged you to accompany me. I shudder at the long, desolate way, at the darkness and grave-like stillness of this passage. Ah, John, I thought to myself, if I came here alone, the shades of Anne Boleyn and Catharine would be roused from their sleep by me who wear their crown; they would hover about me, and seize me by the hand and lead me to their graves, to show me that there is yet room there for me likewise. You see, then, that I am not at all courageous, but a cowardly and trembling woman."

"And nevertheless, you came, queen."

"I reckoned on you, John Heywood. It was my duty to risk this passage, to save, perchance, the life of the poor enthusiastic girl. For it shall not be said that Catharine deserts her friends in misfortune, and that she shrinks back at danger. I am but a poor, weak woman, John, who cannot defend her friends with weapons, and, therefore, I must resort to other means. But see, John, here the path forks! Ah, my God! I know it only from the description that was given me, but no one said anything of this to me. John, which way must we now turn?"

"This way, queen; and here we are at the end of our journey. That path there leads to the torture-chamber, that is to say, to a small grated window, through which one can overlook that room. When King Henry was in special good-humor, he would resort with his friend to this grating to divert himself a little with the tortures of the damned and blasphemers. For you well know, queen, only such as have blasphemed God, or have not recognized King Henry as the pope of their Church, have the honor of the rack as their clue. But hush! here we are at the door, and here is the spring that opens it."

Catharine set her lamp on the ground and pressed the spring.

The door turned slowly and noiselessly on its hinges, and softly, like shades, the two entered.

They now found themselves in a small, circular apartment, which seemed to have been originally a niche formed in the wall of the Tower, rather than a room. Through a narrow grated opening in the wall only a little air and light penetrated into this dungeon, the bald, bare walls of which showed the stones of the masonry. There was no chair, no table in the whole space; only yonder in that corner on the earth they had heaped up some straw. On this straw lay a pale, tender creature; the sunken, thin cheeks, transparently white as alabaster; the brow so pure and clear; the entire countenance so peaceful; the bare, meagre arms thrown back over the head; the hands folded over the forehead, the head bent to one side in quiet, peaceful slumber; the delicate, tender form wrapped in a long black dress, gently stretched out, and on her lips a smile, such as only the happy know.

That was Anne Askew, the criminal, the condemned—Anne Askew, who was an atheist only for this, because she did not believe in the king's vast elevation and godlikeness, and would not subject her own free soul to that of the king.

"She sleeps," whispered Catharine, deeply mored, Wholly involuntarily she folded her hands as she stepped to the couch of the sufferer, and a low prayer trembled on her lips.

"So sleep the gust!" said Hey wood. "Angels comfort them in their slumbers; and the breath of God refreshes them. Poor girl; how soon, and they will wrench these noble, fair limbs, and torture thee for the honor of God, and open to tones of distress that mouth which now smiles so peacefully!"

"No, no," said the queen, hastily. "I have come to save her, and God will assist me to do it. I cannot spare her slumbers any longer. I must wake her."

She bent down and pressed a kiss on the young girl's forehead. "Anne, awake; I am here! I will save you and set you free. Anne, Anne, awake!"

She slowly raised her large, brilliant eyes, and nodded a salutation to Catharine.

"Catharine Parr!" said she, with a smile. "I expected only a letter from you; and have you come yourself?"

"The guards have been dismissed, and the turnkeys changed, Anne; for our correspondence had been discovered."

"Ah, you will write to me no more in future! And yet your letters were my only comfort," sighed Anne Askew. "But that also is well; and perhaps it will only make the path that I have to tread still easier. The heart may move its pinions freely and easily, and return to God."

"Hear me, Anne, hear," said Catharine in a low and hurried voice. "A terrible danger threatens you! The king has given orders to move you, by means of the rack, to recant."

"Well, and what more?" asked Anne, with smiling face.

"Unfortunate, you know not what you are saying! You know not what fearful agonies await you! You know not the power of pains, which are perhaps still mightier than the spirit, and may overcome it."

"And if I did know them now, what would it avail me?" asked Anne Askew. "You say they will put me to the rack. Well, then, I shall have to bear it, for I have no power to change their will."

"Yet, Anne, yet you have the power! Retract what you have said, Anne! Declare that you repent, and that you perceive that you have been deluded! Say that you will recognize the king as lord of the Church; that you will swear to the six articles, and never believe in the Pope of Rome. Ah, Anne, God sees your heart and knows your thoughts. You have no need to make them known by your lips. He has given you life, and you have no right to throw it away; you must seek to keep it so long as you can. Recant, then! It is perfectly allowable to deceive those who would murder us. Recant, then, Anne, recant! When they in their haughty arrogance demand of you to say what they say, consider them as lunatics, to whom you make apparent concessions only to keep them from raving. Of what consequence is it whether you do or do not say that the king is the head of the Church? From His heavens above, God looks down and smiles at this petty earthly strife which concerns not Him, but men only. Let scholars and theologians wrangle; we women have nothing to do with it. If we only believe in God, and bear Him to our hearts, the form in which we do it is a matter of indifference. But in this case the question is not about God, but merely about external dogmas. Why should you trouble yourself with these? What have you to do with the controversies of the priests? Recant, then, poor enthusiastic child, recant!"

While Catharine, in a low tone and with fluttering breath, thus spoke, Anne Askew had slowly arisen from her couch, and now stood, like a lily, so slender and delicate, confronting the queen.

Her noble countenance expressed deep indignation. Her eyes shot lightning, and a contemptuous smile was on her lips.

"What! Can you thus advise me?" said she. "Can you wish me to deny my faith, and abjure my God, only to escape earthly pain? And your tongue does not refuse to utter this, and your heart does not shrink with shame while you do it? Look at these arms; what are they worth that I should not sacrifice them to God? See these feeble limbs! Are they so precious that I, like a disgusting niggard, should spare them? No, no, God is my highest good—not this feeble, decaying body! For God I sacrifice it. I should recant? Never! Faith is not enveloped in this or that garb; it must be naked and open. So may mine be. And if I then am chosen to be an example of pure faith, that denies not, and makes profession—well, then, envy me not this preeminence. 'Many are called, but few are chosen.' If I am one of the chosen, I thank God for it, and bless the erring mortals who wish to make me such by means of the torture of the rack. Ah, believe me, Catharine, I rejoice to die, for it is such a sad, desolate, and desperate thing to live. Let me die, Catharine—die, to enter into blessedness!"

"But, poor, pitiable child! this is more than death; it is the torture of earth that threatens you. Oh, bethink you, Anne, that you are only a feeble woman. Who knows whether the rack may not yet conquer your spirit, and whether you, with your mangled limbs, may not by the fury of the pain yet be brought to that point that you will recant and abjure your faith?"

"If I could do that," cried Anne Askew, with flashing eyes, "believe me, queen, as soon as I came to my senses I would lay violent hands on myself, in order to give myself over to eternal damnation, as the punishment of my recantation! God has ordered that I shall be a sign of the true faith. Be His command fulfilled!"

"Well, then, so be it," said Catharine resolutely. "Do not recant, but save yourself from your executioners! I, Anne, I, will save you! I cannot bear—I cannot think of it—that this dear noble form should be sacrificed to a vile delusion of man; that they will torture to the honor of God a noble likeness of the same God! Oh, come, come, I will save you! I, the queen! Give me your hand. Follow me out of this dungeon. I know a path that leads out of this place; and I will conceal you so long in my own apartments that you can continue your flight without danger."

"No, no, queen, you shall not conceal her with you!" said John Heywood. "You have been graciously pleased to allow me to be your confidant; envy me not, then, a share in your noble work also. Not with you shall Anne Askew find refuge, but with me. Oh, come, Anne, follow your friends. It is life that calls you, that opens the doors to you, and desires to call you by a thousand names to itself! Do you not hear them, all those sweet and alluring voices; do you not see them, all those noble and smiling faces, how they greet you and beckon to you? Anne Askew, it is the noble husband that calls you! You know him not as yet, but he is waiting for you there in the world without. Anne Askew, there are your children, who are stretching their tender arms out to you. You have not yet borne them; but love holds them in her arms, and will bring them to meet you. It is the wife and the mother that the world yet demands of you, Anne. You ought not to shun the holy calling which God has given you. Come, then, and follow us—follow your queen, who has the right to order her subject. Follow the friend, who has sworn that he will watch over you and protect you as a father!"

"Father in heaven, protect me!" exclaimed Anne Askew, falling on her knees and stretching her hands upward. "Father in heaven! they would tear away Thy child, and alienate my heart from Thee! They are leading me into temptation and alluring me with their words. Protect me, my Father; make my ear deaf, that I may not hear them! Give me a sign that I am Thine; that no one has any longer power over me, save Thou alone! A sign, that Thou, Father, callest me!"

And as if God had really heard her prayer, a loud knocking was now perceived at the outer door, and a voice cried: "Anne Askew, awake! and hold yourself ready! The high chancellor and the Bishop of Winchester come to fetch you away!"

"Ah, the rack!" groaned Catharine, as with a shudder she buried her face in her hands.

"Yes, the rack!" said Anne, with a blissful smile. "God calls me!"

John Heywood had approached the queen and impetuously seized her hand. "You see it is in vain," said he, urgently. "Make haste then to save yourself! Hasten to leave this prison before the door there opens."

"No," said Catharine, firmly and resolutely. "No, I stay. She shall not surpass me in courage and greatness of soul! She will not deny her God; well, then, I also will be a witness of my God. I will not in shame cast my eyes to the ground before this young girl; like her, I will frankly and openly profess my faith; like her I will say: 'God alone is Lord of his Church,' God—"

There was a movement without; a key was heard to turn in the lock.

"Queen, I conjure you," besought John Heywood, "by all that is holy to you, by your love, come, come!"

"No, no!" cried she, vehemently.

But now Anne seized her hand, and stretching the other arm toward heaven, she said in a loud, commanding voice: "In the name of God, I order you to leave me!"

While Catharine drew back wholly involuntarily, John Heywood pushed her to the secret door, and urging her out almost with violence, he drew the door to behind them both.

Just as the secret door had closed, the other on the opposite side opened. "With whom were you speaking?" asked Gardiner, peering around the room with a sharp look.

"With the tempter, that wished to alienate me from God," said she—"with the tempter, who at the approach of your footsteps wanted to fool my heart with fear, and persuade me to recant!"

"You are, then, firmly resolved? you do not retract?" asked Gardiner; and a savage joy shone in his pale, hard countenance.

"No, I do not recant!" said she, with a face beaming with smiles.

"Then, in the name of God and of the king, I take you into the torture-chamber!" cried Chancellor Wriothesley, as he advanced and laid his heavy hand on Anne's shoulder. "You would not hear the voice of love warning you and calling you, so we will now try to arouse you from your madness by the voice of wrath and damnation." He beckoned to the attendants on the rack, who stood behind him in the open door, and ordered them to seize her and carry her to the torture-chamber.

Anne, smiling, turned them back. "Nay, not so!" said she. "The Saviour went on foot, and bore His cross to the place of execution. I will tread His path. Show me the way, I follow you. But let no one dare touch me. I will show you that not by constraint, but gladly and freely, I tread the path of suffering, which I shall endure for the sake of my God. Rejoice, oh my soul!—sing, my lips! for the bridegroom is near, and the feast is about to begin."

And in exultant tones Anne Askew began to sing a hymn, that had not died away when she entered the torture-chamber.



CHAPTER XXI. PRINCESS ELIZABETH.

The king sleeps. Let him sleep! He is old and infirm, and God has severely punished the restless tyrant with a vacillating, ever-disquieted, never-satisfied spirit, while He bound his body and made the spirit prisoner of the body; while He made the ambitious king, struggling for the infinite, a slave to his own flesh. How high soever his thoughts soar, still the king remains a clumsy, confined, powerless child of humanity; how much soever his conscience harasses him with disquiet and dread, yet he must be calm and endure it. He cannot run away from his conscience; God has fettered him by the flesh. The king is sleeping! But the queen is not; and Jane Douglas is not; neither is the Princess Elizabeth. She has watched with heart beating high. She is restless, and, pacing her room up and down in strange confusion, waited for the hour that she had appointed for the meeting. Now the hour had arrived. A glowing crimson overspread the face of the young princess; and her hand trembled as she took the light and opened the secret door to the corridor. She stood still for a moment, hesitating; then, ashamed of her irresolution, she crossed the corridor and ascended the small staircase which led to the tower-chamber. With a hasty movement she pushed open the door and entered the small slip that was at the end of her journey, and Thomas Seymour was already there.

As she saw him, an involuntary trepidation came over her, and for the first time she now became conscious of her hazardous step.

As Seymour, the ardent young man, approached her with a passionate salutation, she stepped shyly back and pushed away his hand.

"How! you will not allow me to kiss your hand?" asked he, and she thought she observed on his face a slight, scornful smile. "You make me the happiest of mortals by inviting me to this interview, and now you stand before me rigid and cold, and I am not once permitted to clasp you in my arms, Elizabeth!"

Elizabeth! He had called her by her first name without her having given him permission to do so. That offended her. In the midst of her confusion, that aroused the pride of the princess, and made her aware how much she must have forgotten her own dignity, when another could be so forgetful of it.

She wished to regain it. At this moment she would have given a year of her life if she had not taken this step—if she had not invited the earl to this meeting.

She wanted to try and regain in his eyes her lost position, and again to become to him the princess.

Pride in her was still mightier than love. She meant her lover should at the same time bow before her as her favored servant.

Therefore she gravely said: "Earl Thomas Seymour, you have often begged us for a private conversation; we now grant it to you. Speak, then! what matter of importance have you to bring before us?"

And with an air of gravity she stepped to an easy-chair, on which she seated herself slowly and solemnly like a queen, who gives audience to her vassals.

Poor, innocent child, that in her unconscious trepidation wished to intrench herself behind her grandeur, as behind a shield, which might conceal her maidenly fear and girlish anxiety!

Thomas Seymour, however, divined her thoughts; and his proud and cold heart revolted against this child's attempt to defy him.

He wanted to humble her; he wished to compel her to bow before him, and implore his love as a gracious gift.

He therefore bowed low to the princess, and respectfully said: "Your highness, it is true I have often besought you for an audience; but you have so long refused me, that at last I could no longer summon up courage to solicit it; and I let my wish be silent and my heart dumb. Therefore seek not now, when these pains have been subdued, to excite them again. My heart should remain dead, my lips mute. You have so willed; and I have submitted to your will. Farewell, then, princess, and may your days be happier and more serene than those of poor Thomas Seymour!"

He bowed low before her, and then went slowly to the door. He had already opened it and was about to step out, when a hand was suddenly laid on his shoulder and drew him with vehement impetuosity back into the room.

"Do you want to go?" asked Elizabeth, with fluttering breath and trembling voice. "You want to leave me, and, flouting me, you want now, it may be, to go to the Duchess of Richmond, your mistress, and relate to her with a sneer that the Princess Elizabeth granted you an interview, and that you have flouted her?"

"The Duchess of Richmond is not my mistress," said the earl, earnestly.

"No, not your mistress; but she will very soon be your wife!"

"She will never be my wife!"

"And why not?"

"Because I do not love her, princess."

A beam of delight passed over Elizabeth's pale, agitated face. "Why do you call me princess?" asked she.

"Because you have come as a princess to favor your poor servant with an audience. But, ah, it would be greatly abusing your princely grace did I want to protract this audience still further. I therefore retire, princess."

And again he approached the door. But Elizabeth rushed after him, and, laying hold of his arms with both her hands, she wildly pushed him back.

Her eyes shot lightning; her lips trembled; a passionate warmth was manifested in her whole being. Now she was the true daughter of her father, inconsiderate and passionate in her wrath, destroying in her ferocity.

"You shall not go," muttered she, with her teeth firmly set. "I will not let you go! I will not let you confront me any longer with that cold, smiling face. Scold me; cast on me the bitterest reproaches, because I have dared to brave you so long; curse me, if you can! Anything but this smiling calmness. It kills me; it pierces my heart like a dagger. For you see well enough that I have no longer the power to withstand you; you see well enough that I love you. Yes, I love you to ecstasy and to desperation; with desire and dread. I love you as my demon and my angel. I am angry, because you have so entirely crushed the pride of my heart. I curse you, because you have made me so entirely your slave; and the next moment I fall on my knees and beseech God to forgive me this crime against you. I love you, I say—not as those soft, gentle-hearted women love, with a smile on the lip; but with madness and desperation, with jealousy and wrath. I love you as my father loved Anne Boleyn, whom, in the hatred of his love and the cruel wrath of his jealousy, he made to mount the scaffold, because he had been told that she was untrue to him. Ah, had I the power, I would do as my father did; I would murder you, if you should dare ever to cease to love me. And now, Thomas Seymour, now say whether you have the courage to desire to leave me?"

She looked bewitching in the naming might of her passion; she was so young, so ardent; and Thomas Seymour was so ambitious! In his eyes Elizabeth was not merely the beautiful, charming maiden, who loved him: she was more than that: she was the daughter of Henry the Eighth, the Princess of England, perchance some day the heiress of the throne. It is true, her father had disinherited her, and by act of Parliament declared her unworthy of succeeding to the throne.[Footnote: Burnet, vol. i, p. 138] But Henry's vacillating mind might change, and the disowned princess might one day become queen.

The earl thought of this as he gazed on Elizabeth—as he saw her before him, so charming, so young, and so glowing with passion. He thought of it as he now clasped her in his arms, and pressed on her lips a burning kiss.

"No, I will not go," whispered he. "I will never more depart from your side, if you do not wish me to go. I am yours!—your slave, your vassal; and I will never be anything else but this alone. They may betray me; your father may punish me for high treason; yet will I exult in my good fortune, for Elizabeth loves me, and it will be for Elizabeth that I die!"

"You shall not die!" cried she, clinging fast to him. "You shall live, live at my side, proud, great, and happy! You shall be my lord and my master; and if I am ever queen, and I feel here in my heart that I must become so, then will Thomas Seymour be King of England."

"That is to say, in the quiet and secrecy of your chamber I should perhaps be so!" said he with a sigh. "But there without, before the world, I shall still be ever only a servant; and at the best, I shall be called the favorite."

"Never, never, that I swear to you! Said I not that I loved you?"

"But the love of a woman is so changeable! Who knows how long it will be before you will tread under your feet poor Thomas Seymour, when once the crown has adorned your brow."

She looked at him well-nigh horrified. "Can this be, then? Is it possible that one can forget and forsake what he once loved?"

"Do you ask, Elizabeth? Has not your father already his sixth wife?"

"It is true," said she, as mournfully she dropped her head upon her breast. "But I," said she, after a pause, "I shall not be like my father in that. I shall love you eternally! And that you may have a guaranty of my faithfulness, I offer myself to you as your wife."

Astonished, he looked inquiringly into her excited, glowing face! He did not understand her.

But she continued, passionately: "Yes, you shall be my lord and my husband! Come, my beloved, come! I have not called you to take upon yourself the disgraceful role of the secret lover of a princess—I have called you to be my husband. I wish a bond to unite us two, that is so indissoluble that not even the wrath and will of my father, but only death itself, can sever it. I will give you proof of my love and my devotion; and you shall be forced to acknowledge that I truly love you. Come, my beloved, that I may soon hail you as my husband!"

He looked at her as though petrified. "Whither will you lead me?"

"To the private chapel," said she, innocently. "I have written Cranmer to await me there at daybreak. Let us hasten, then!"

"Cranmer! You have written to the archbishop?" cried Seymour, amazed. "How! what say you? Cranmer awaits us in the private chapel?"

"Without doubt he is waiting for us, as I have written him to do so."

"And what is he to do? What do you want of him?"

She looked at him in astonishment. "What do I want of him? Why, that he may marry us!"

The earl staggered back as if stunned. "And have you written him that also?"

"Nay, indeed," said she, with a charming, childlike smile. "I know very well that it is dangerous to trust such secrets to paper. I have only written him to come in his official robes, because I have an important secret to confess to him."

"Oh, God be praised! We are not lost," sighed Seymour.

"But how, I do not understand you?" asked she. "You do not extend me your hand! You do not hasten to conduct me to the chapel!"

"Tell me, I conjure you, tell me only this one thing: have you ever spoken to the archbishop of your—no—of our love? Have you ever betrayed to him so much, as a syllable of that which stirs our hearts?"

She blushed deeply beneath the steady gaze which he fixed on her. "Upbraid me, Seymour," whispered she. "But my heart was weak and timorous; and as often as I tried to fulfil the holy duty, and confess everything honestly and frankly to the archbishop, I could not do it! The word died on my lips; and it was as though an invisible power paralyzed my tongue."

"So, then, Cranmer knows nothing?"

"No, Seymour, he knows nothing as yet. But now he shall learn all; now we will go before him and tell him that we love each other, and constrain him, by our prayers, to bless our union, and join our hands."

"Impossible!" cried Seymour. "That can never be!"

"How! What do you say?" asked she in astonishment.

"I say that Cranmer will never be so insane, nay, so criminal, as to fulfil your wish. I say that you can never be my wife."

She looked him full and square in the face. "Have you not then told me that you loved me?" asked she. "Have I not sworn to you that I loved you in return? Must we then not be married, in order to sanctify the union of our hearts?"

Seymour sank his eyes to the ground before her pure innocent look, and blushed for shame. She did not understand this blush; because he was silent, she deemed him convinced.

"Come," said she, "come; Cranmer is waiting for us!"

He again raised his eyes and looked at her in amazement, "Do you not see, then, this is all only a dream that can never become reality? Do you not feel that this precious fantasy of your great and noble heart will never be realized? How! are you then so little acquainted with your father as not to know that he would destroy us both if we should dare to set at naught his paternal and his royal authority? Your birth would not secure you from his destroying fury, for you well know he is unyielding and reckless in his wrath; and the voice of consanguinity sounds not so loud in him that it would not be drowned by the thunder of his wrath. Poor child, you have learned that already! Remember with what cruelty he has already revenged himself on you for the pretended fault of your mother; how he transferred to you his wrath against her. Remember that he refused your hand to the Dauphin of France, not for the sake of your happiness, but because he said you were not worthy of so exalted a position. Anne Boleyn's bastard could never become Queen of France. And after such a proof of his cruel wrath against you, will you dare cast in his face this terrible insult?—compel him to recognize a subject, a servant, as his son?"