That night was dancing in the hall; and a little surprised was I that Sir William de Montacute [Note 3] should make choice of me as his partner. He was one of the bravest knights in all the King's following—a young man, with all his wits about him, and lately wed to the Lady Katherine de Grandison, a full fair lady of much skill [Note 4] and exceeding good repute. It was the pavon [Note 5] we danced, and not many steps were taken when Sir William saith—

"Dame Cicely, I have somewhat to say to you, under your good leave."

"Say on, Sir William," quoth I.

"Say I well, Dame, in supposing you true of heart to the old King, as Dame Alice de Lethegreve's daughter should be?"

"You do so, in good sooth," I made answer.

"So I reckoned," quoth he. "Verily, an' I had doubted it, I had held my peace. But now to business:—Dame, will you help me?"

I could not choose but laugh to hear him talk of business.

"That is well," saith he. "Laugh, I pray you; then shall man think we do but discourse of light matter. But what say you to my question?"

"Why, I will help you with a very good will," said I, "if you go about a good matter, and if I am able, and if mine husband forbid me not."

"Any more ifs?" quoth he—that I reckon wished to make me to laugh, the which I did.

"Not at this present," made I answer.

"Then hearken me," saith he. "Can you do a deed in the dark, unwitting of the cause—knowing only that it is for the King's honour and true good, and that they which ask it be true men?"

I meditated a moment. Then said I,—"Ay; I can so."

"Will you pass your word," saith he, "to the endeavouring yourself to keep eye on the Queen and my Lord of March this even betwixt four and five o' the clock? Will you look from time to time on Sir John de Molynes, and if you hear either of them speak any thing as though they should go speak with the King, will you rub your left eye when Sir John shall look on you? But be you ware you do it not elsewise."

"What, not though it itch?" said I, yet laughing.

"Not though it itch to drive you distraught."

"Well!" said I, "'tis but for a hour. But what means it, I pray you?"

"It means," saith he, "that if the King's good is to be sought, and his honour to be saved, you be she that must help to do it."

Then all suddenly it came on me, like to a levenand [lightning] flash, what it was that Sir William and his fellows went about to do. I looked full into his eyes. And if ever I saw truth, honour, and valour writ in man's eyes, I read them there.

"I see what you purpose," said I.

"You be marvellous woman an' you do," answered he.

"Judge you. You have chosen that hour to speak with the King, and to endeavour the opening of his eyes. For Queen Isabel or my Lord of March to enter should spoil your game. Sir John de Molynes is he that shall give you notice if such be like to befall, and I am to signify the same to him."

Right at that minute I had to take a volt [jump], and turn to the right round Sir John Neville. When I returned back to my partner, saith he, so that Sir John could hear—

"Dame Cicely, you vault marvellous well!"

"That was not so ill as might have been, I reckon," quoth I.

"Truly, nay," he made answer: "it was right well done."

I knew he meant to signify that I had guessed soothly.

"Will you try it yet again?" saith he.

"That will I," I said: and I saw we were at one thereon.

"Good," saith he. "I reckoned, if any failed me at this pinch, it should not be Dame Alice's daughter."

That eve stood I upon tenterhooks. As the saints would have it, the Queen was a-broidering a certain work whereon Dame Elizabeth wrought with her: and for once in my life I thanked the said hallows [saints] for Dame Elizabeth's laziness.

"Dame Cicely," quoth she, "an' you be not sore pressed for time, pray you, thread me a two-three needles. I wis not how it befalleth, but thread a neeld can I never."

I could have told her well that how, for whenso she threadeth a neeld she maketh no bones of the eye, but thrusteth forward the thread any whither it shall go, on the chance that it shall hit, which by times it doth: I should not marvel an' she essayed to thread the point. Howbeit, her ill husbandry was right then mine encheson [Note 6].

"Look you," said I, "I can bring my work to that end of the chamber; then shall I be at hand to thread your neeld as it shall be voided."

"Verily, you be gent therein," saith she.

The which I fear I was little. Howbeit, there sat I, a-threading Dame Elizabeth her neeld, now with red silk and now with black, as she lacked, and under all having care that I rubbed not my left eye, the which I felt strong desire to frote [rub]. I marvel how it was, for the hour over, I had no list to touch it all the even.

My task turned out light enough, for my Lord of March was playing of tables [backgammon] with Sir Edward de Bohun, and never left his seat for all the hour: and the Queen wrought peacefully on her golden vulture, and moved no more than he. When I saw it was five o' the clock [Note 7], I cast an eye on Sir John de Molynes, which threw a look to the clock, and then winked an eye on me; and I saw he took it we had finished our duty.

The next morrow, which was Saint Luke's even [October 17th], came a surprise for all men. It was found that the Constable of the Castle, with Sir William de Montacute, Sir Edward de Bohun, Sir John de Molynes, the Lord Ufford, the Lord Stafford, the Lord Clinton, and Sir John Neville, had ridden away from the town the night afore, taking no man into their counsel. None could tell wherefore their departure, nor what they purposed. I knew only that the King was aware thereof, though soothly he counterfeited surprise as well as any man.

"What can they signify?" saith Sir Edmund de Mortimer, the eldest son of my Lord of March—a much better man than his father, though not nigh so crafty.

"Hold thy peace for a fool as thou art!" saith his father roughly. "They are afraid of me, I cast no doubt at all. And they do well. I could sweep them away as lightly as so many flies, and none should miss them!"

He ended with a mocking laugh. Verily, pride such as this was full ready for a fall.

We knew afterward what had passed in that hour the day afore. The King had been hard to insense [cause to understand: still a Northern provincialism] at the first. So great was his faith in his mother that he ne could ne would believe any evil of her. As to the Mortimer, he was ready enough, for even now was he a-chafing under the yoke.

"Be he what he may—the very foul fiend himself an' you will," had he said to his Lords: "but she, mine own mother, my beloved—Oh, not she, not she!"

Then—for themselves were lost an' they proved not their case—they were fain to bring forth their proofs. Sir William de Montacute told my Jack it was all pitiful to see how our poor young King's heart fought full gallantly against the light as it brake on his understanding. Poor lad! for he was but a lad; and it troubled him sore. But they knew they must carry the matter through.

"Oh, have away your testimonies!" he cried more than once. "Spare her— and spare me! Mother, my mother, mine own dear Lady! how is this possible?"

At the last he knew all: knew who had set England in flame, who had done Sir Hugh Le Despenser and his son to death, who had been his own father's murderer. The scales were off his eyes; and had he list to do it, he could never set them on again. They said he covered his face, and wept like the child he nearhand was. Then he lifted his head, the tears over, and in his eyes was the light of a settled purpose, and in his lips a stern avisement. No latsummes [backwardness, reluctance] was in him when once fully set.

"Take the Mortimer," quoth he, firm enough.

"Sir," quoth Sir William de Montacute, "we, not being lodged in the Castle, shall never be able to seize him without help of the Constable."

"Now, surely," saith the King, "I love you well: wherefore go to the Constable in my name, and bid him aid you in taking of the Mortimer, on peril of life and limb."

"Sir, then God grant us speed!" saith Sir William.

So to the Constable they went, and brake the matter, only at first bidding him in the King's name (having his ring for a token) to aid them in a certain enterprise which concerned the King's honour and safety. The Constable sware so to do, and then saith Sir William—

"Now, surely, dear friend, it behoved us to win your assent, in order to seize on the Mortimer, sith you are Keeper of the Castle, and have the keys at your disposal."

Then the Constable, having first lift his brows and made grimace of his mouth, fell in therewith, and quoth he—

"Sirs, if it be thus, you shall wit that the gates of the Castle be locked with the locks that Queen Isabel sent hither, and at night she hath all the keys thereof, and layeth them under the pillow of her bed while morning: and so I may not help you into the Castle at the gates by any means. But I know an hole that stretcheth out of the ward under earth into the Castle, beginning on the west side [still called Mortimer's Hole], which neither the Queen nor her following nor Mortimer himself, nor none of his company, know anything of; and through this passage I will lead you till you come into the Castle without espial of enemies."

Thereupon went they forth that even, as though to flee away from the town, none being privy thereto save the King. And Saint Luke's Day passed over quiet enough. The Queen went to mass in the Church of the White Friars, and offered at the high altar five shillings, her customary offering on the great feasts and chief saints' days. All peaceful sped the day; the Queen gat her abed, and the keys being brought of the Constable's deputy, I (that was that night in waiting) presented them unto her, which she received in her own hands and laid under the pillow of her bed. Then went we, her dames and damsels, forth unto our own chambers in the upper storey of the Castle: and I, set at the casement, had unlatched the same and thrown it open (being nigh as warm as summer), and was hearkening to the soft flow of the waters of the Leene, which on that side do nearhand wash the Castle wall. I was but then thinking how peaceful were all things, and what sore pity it were that man should bring in wrong, and bitterness, and anguish, on that which God had made so beautiful—when all suddenly my fair peace changed to fierce tumult and the clang of armed men—the tramp of mail-clad feet and the hoarse crying of roaring voices. I was as though I held my breath: for I could well guess what this portended. Then above all the routing and bruit [shouting and noise], came the voice of Queen Isabel, clear and shrill.

"Now, fair Sirs, I pray you that you do no harm unto his body, for he is a worthy knight, our well-beloved friend, and our dear cousin."

"They have him, then!" quoth I, scarce witting that I spake aloud, nor who heard me.

"'Have him!'" saith Dame Joan de Vaux beside me: "whom have they?"

Then, suddenly, a word or twain in the King's voice came up to where we stood; on which hearing, an anguished cry rang out from Queen Isabel.

"Fair Son, fair Son! have pity on the sweet Mortimer!" [Note 8.]

Wala wa! that time was past. And she had shown no pity.

I never loved her, as in mine opening words I writ: yet in that dread moment I could not find in mine heart to leave her all alone in her agony. I have ever found that he which brings his sorrows on his own head doth not suffer less thereby, but more. And let her be what she would, she was a woman, and in sorrow, not to say mine own liege Lady: and signing to Dame Joan to follow me, down degrees ran I with all haste, and not staying to scratch on the door [Note 9], into the chamber to the Queen.

We found her sitting up in her bed, her hands held forth, and a look of agony and horror on her face.

"Cicely, is it thou?" she shrieked. "Joan! Whence come ye? Saw ye aught? What do they to him? who be the miscreants? Is my son there? Have they won him over—the coward neddirs [serpents] that they be! Speak I who be they?—and what will they do? Ah, Mary Mother, what will they do with him?"

Her voice choked, and I spake.

"Dame, the King is there, and divers with him."

"What do they?" she wailed like a woman in her last agony.

"There hath been sharp assault, Dame," said I, "and I fear some slain; for as I ran in hither, I saw that which seemed me the body of a dead man at the head of degrees."

"Who?" She nearhand screamed.

"Dame," I said, "I think it was Sir Hugh de Turpington."

"But what do they with him?" she moaned again, an accent of anguish on that last word.

I save no answer. What could I have given?

Dame Joan de Vaux saith, "Dame, the King is there, and God will be with the King. We may well be ensured that no wrong shall be done to them that have done no wrong. This is not the contekes [quarrel] of a rabble rout; it is the justice of the Crown upon his enemies."

"His enemies?—whose? Mine enemies are dead and gone. All of them— all! I left not one. Who be these? who be they, I say? Cicely, answer me!"

Afore I could speak word, I was called by another voice. I was fain enough of the reprieve. Leaving Dame Joan with the Queen, I ran forth into the Queen's closet, where stood the King.

What change had come over him in those few hours! No longer a bashful lad that was nearhand afraid to speak for himself ere he were bidden. This was a young man [he was now close on eighteen years of age] that stood afore me, a youthful warrior, a budding Achilles, that would stand to no man's bidding, but would do his will. King of England was this man. I louted low before my master.

He spake in a voice wherein was both cold constrainedness, and bitterness, and stern determination—yet under them all something else— I think it was the sorely bruised yet living soul of that deep unutterable tenderness which had been ever his for the mother of his love, but could be the same never more. Man is oft cold and bitter and stern, when an hour before he hath dug a grave in his own heart, and hath therein laid all his hopes and his affections. And they that look on from afar behold the sheet of ice, but they see not the grave beneath it. They only see him cold and silent: and they reckon he cares for nought, and feels nothing.

"Dame Cicely, you have been with the Queen?"

"Sir, I have so."

"Take heed she hath all things at her pleasure, of such as lie in your power. Let my physician be sent for if need arise, as well as her own; and if she would see any holy father, let him be fetched incontinent [immediately]. See to it, I charge you, that she be served with all honour and reverence, as you would have our favour."

He turned as if to depart. Then all suddenly the ice went out of his voice, and the tears came in.

"How hath she taken it?" saith he.

"Sir," said I, "full hardly as yet, and is sore troubled touching my Lord of March, fearing some ill shall be done him. Moreover, my Lady biddeth me tell her who these be. Is it your pleasure that I answer the same?"

"Ay, answer her," saith he sorrowfully, "for it shall do no mischief now. As for my Lord of March, no worser fate awaits him than he hath given better men."

He strade forth after that kingly fashion which was so new in him, and yet sat so seemly upon him, and I went back to the Queen's chamber.

"Cicely, is that my son?" she cried.

"In good sooth, Dame," said I.

"What said he to thee?"

I told her the King had bidden me answer all her desire; that if she required physician she should be tended of his chirurgeon beside her own, and she should speak with any priest she would. I had thought it should apay [gratify] her to know the same; but my words had the contrariwise effect, for she looked more frightened than afore.

"Nought more said he?"

"Dame," said I, "the Lord King bade me to serve you with all honour and reverence. And he said, for my Lord of March—"

"Fare forth!" [go on] she cried, though I scarce knew that I paused.

"He answered, that no worser should befall him than he had caused to better men than he."

"Mary, Mother!"

I thought I had scarce ever heard wofuller wail than she made then. She sank down in the bed, clutching the coverlet with her hands, and casting it over her, as she buried her face in the pillows. I went nigh, and drew the coverlet full setely [properly, neatly] over her.

"Let be!" she saith in a smothered voice. "It is all over. Life must fare forth, and life is of no more worth. My bird is flown from the cage, and none can win him back. Is there so much as one of the saints will speak for me? As I have wrought, so hast Thou paid me, God!"

Not an other word spake she all the livelong day. Never day seemed longer than that weary eve of Saint Ursula [October 20th]. That morrow were taken in the town the two sons of my Lord of March, Sir Edmund and Sir Geoffrey, beside divers of his friends—Sir Oliver Byngham, Sir Simon de Bereford, and Sir John Deveroil the chief. All were sent that same day under guard to London, with the Mortimer himself.

No voice compassionated him. Nay, "my Lord of March" was no more, but in every man's mouth "the Mortimer" as of old time. Some that had seemed his greatest losengers [flatterers] now spake of him with the most disdain, while they that, while they allowed him not [did not approve of him], had yet never abused ne reviled him, were the least wrathful against him. I heard that when he was told of all, my Lord of Lancaster flung up his cap for joy.

Some things afterward said were not true. It was false slander to say, as did some, that the Mortimer was taken in the Queen's own chamber. He was arrest in the Bishop of Lincoln's chamber (which had his lodging next the Queen), and in conference with the said Bishop. They took not that priest of Baal; I had shed no tears had they so done. Sir Hugh de Turpington and Sir John Monmouth, creatures of the Mortimer, were slain; Sir John Neville, on the other side, was wounded.

Fourteen charges were set forth against the Mortimer. The murder of King Edward was one; the death of my Lord of Kent an other. One thing was not set down, but every man knew how to read betwixt the lines, when the indictment writ that other articles there were against him, which in respect of the King's honour were not to be drawn up in writing. Wala wa! there was honour concerned therein beside his own: but he was very tender of her. His way was hard to walk and beset with snares, and he walked it with cleaner feet than most men should. Never heard I from his lips word unreverent toward her; and if other lips spake the same to his knowing, they forthank [regretted] it.

That same day the King departed from Nottingham for Leicester, on his way to London. He left behind him the Lord Wake de Lydel, in whose charge he placed Queen Isabel, commanding that she should be taken to Berkhamsted Castle as soon as might be. I know not certainly if he spake with her afore he set forth, but I think rather nay than yea.

October was not out when we reached Berkhamsted. The Queen's first anguish was over, and she scarce spake; but I could see she hearkened well if aught was said in her hearing.

The King sent command to seize all lands and goods of the Mortimer into his hands; but the Lady of March he bade to be treated with all respect and kindliness, and that never a jewel nor a thread of her having should be taken. Indeed, I heard never man nor woman speak of her but tenderly and pitifully. She was good woman, and had borne more than many. For the Lady Margaret her mother-in-law, so much will I not say; for she was a firebrand that (as saith Solomon) scattered arrows and death: but the Lady Joan was full gent and reverend, and demerited better husband than the Fates gave her. Nay, that may I not say, sith no such thing is as Fate, but only God, that knoweth to bring good out of evil, and hath comforted the Lady Joan in Paradise these four years gone.

But scarce three weeks we tarried at Berkhamsted, and then the Lord Wake bore to the Queen tidings that it was the King's pleasure she should remove to Windsor. My time of duty was then run out all but a two-three days; and the Queen my mistress was pleased to say I might serve me of those for mine own ease, so that I should go home in the stead of journeying with her to Windsor. At that time my little maid Vivien was not in o'er good health, and it paid me well to be with her. So from this point mine own remembrances have an end, and I serve me, for the rest, of the memory of Dame Joan de Vaux, mine old and dear-worthy friend, and of them that abode with Queen Isabel till she died. For when her household was 'minished and again stablished on a new footing, it liked the King of his grace to give leave to such as should desire the same to depart to their own homes, and such as would were at liberty to remain—one except, to wit, Dame Isabel de Lapyoun, to whom he gave conge with no choice. I was of them that chose to depart. Forsooth, I had seen enough and to spare of Court life (the which I never did much love), and I desired no better than to spend the rest of my life at home, with my Jack and my little maids, and my dear mother, so long as God should grant me.

My brother Robert (of whom, if I spake not much, it was from no lack of loving-kindness), on the contrary part, chose to remain. He hath ever loved a busy life.

I found my Vivien full sick, and a weariful and ugsome time had I with her ere she recovered of her malady. Soothly, I discovered that diachylum emplasture was tenpence the pound, and tamarinds fivepence; and grew well weary of ringing the changes upon rosin and frankincense, litharge and turpentine, oil of violets and flowers of beans, Gratia Dei, camomile, and mallows. At long last, I thank God, she amended; but it were a while ere mine ears were open to public matter, and not full filled of the moaning of my poor little maid. So now, to have back to my story, as the end thereof was told me by Dame Joan de Vaux.

Queen Isabel came to Windsor about Saint Edmund the King [November 20th]; and nine days thereafter, on the eve of Saint Andrew [November 29th], was the Mortimer hanged at Tyburn. He was cast [sentenced] as commoner, not as noble, and was dragged at horse's tail for a league outside the city of London to the Elms. But the penalties that commonly came after were not exacted, seeing his body was not quartered, nor his head set up on bridge ne gate. His body was sent to the Friars Minors' Church at Coventry, whence one year thereafter, it was at the King's command delivered to the Lady Joan his widow and Sir Edmund his son, that they might bury him in the Abbey of Wigmore with his fathers. His mother, the Lady Margaret, overlived him but four years; but the Lady Joan his wife died four years gone, the very day and month that he was taken prisoner, to wit, the nineteenth day of October, 1356, nigh two years afore Queen Isabel.

The eve of Saint Andrew, as I writ, was the Mortimer hanged, without defence by him made (he had allowed none to Sir Hugh Le Despenser and my Lord of Kent): and four days hung his body in irons on the gibbet, as Sir Hugh's the father had done. Verily, as he had done, so did God apay him, which is just Judge over all the earth.

And the very next day, Saint Andrew, came His dread judgment upon one other—upon her that had wrought evil and not good, and that had betrayed her own lord to his cruel death. All suddenly, without one instant's warning, came the bolt out of Heaven upon Isabel of France. While the body of the Mortimer hung upon the gibbet at the Elms of Tyburn, God stripped that sinful woman of the light of reason which she had used so ill, and she fell into a full awesome frenzy, so dread that she was fain to be strapped down, and her cries and shrieks were nearhand enough to drive all wood that heard her. While the body hung there lasted this fearsome frenzy. But the hour it was taken down, came change over her. She sank that same hour into the piteous thing she was for long afterward, right as a little child, well apaid with toys and shows, a few glass beads serving her as well as costly jewels, and a yard of tinsel or fringe bright coloured a precious treasure. The King was sore troubled; but what could he do? At the first the physicians counselled that she should change the air often; and first to Odiham Castle was she taken, and thence to Hertford, and after to Rising. But nothing was to make difference to her any more for many a year,—only that by now and then, for a two-three hours, she hath come to her wit, and then is she full gent and sad, desiring ever the grace of our Lord for her ill deeds, and divers times saying that as she hath done, so hath God requited her. I have heard say that as time passed on, these times of coming to her wit were something oftener and tarried longer, until at last, a year afore she died, she came to her full wit, and so abode to the end.

The King, that dealt full well with her, and had as much care of her honour as of his own (and it was whispered that our holy Father the Pope writ unto him that he should so do), did at the first appoint her to keep her estate in two of her own castles, to wit, Hertford and Rising: and set forth a new household for her, appointing Sir John de Molynes her Seneschal, and Dame Joan de Vaux her chief dame in waiting. Seldom hath she come to Town, but when there, she tarried in the Palace of my Lord of Winchester at Southwark, on the river side, and was once in presence when the King delivered the great Seal to Sir Robert Parving. Then she was in her wit for a short time. But commonly, at the King's command, she hath tarried in those two her castles,—to wit, Hertford and Rising—passing from one to the other according to the counsel of her physicians. The King hath many times visited her (though never the Queen, which he ever left at Norwich when he journeyed to Rising), and so, at times, have divers of his children. Ten years afore her death, the King's adversary of France, Philippe de Valois, that now calleth him King thereof, moved the King that Queen Isabel should come to Eu to treat with his wife concerning peace: and so careful is the King, and hath ever been, of his mother's honour, that he would not answer him with the true reason contrary thereto, but treated with him on that footing, and only at the last moment made excuse to appoint other envoys. Poor soul! she had no wit thereto. I never saw her after I left her service saving once, which was when she was at Shene, on Cantate Sunday [April 29th], an eleven years ere her death, at supper in the even, where were also the King, the Queen of Scots [her younger daughter], and the Earl of March [grandson of the first Earl]; and soothly, for all the ill she wrought, mine heart was woe for the caged tigress with the beautiful eyes, that was wont to roam the forest wilds at her pleasure, and now could only pace to and fro, up and down her cage, and toy with the straws upon the floor thereof. It was pitiful to see her essaying, like a babe, as she sat at the board, to cause a wafer to stand on end, and when she had so done, to clap her hands and laugh with childish glee, and call her son and daughter to look. Very gent was the King unto her, that looked at her bidding, and lauded her skill and patience, as he should have done to his own little maid that was but three years old. Ah me, it was piteous sight! the grand, queenly creature that had fallen so low! Verily, as she had done, so God requited her.

She died at Hertford Castle, two days afore Saint Bartholomew next thereafter [August 22nd, 1358. See Note in Appendix]. I heard that in her last hours, her wit being returned to her as good as ever it had been, she had her shriven clean, and spake full meek [humble] and excellent words of penitence for all her sins, and desired to be buried in the Church of the Friars Minors in London town, and the heart of her dead lord to be laid upon her breast. They have met now in the presence above, and he would forgive her there. Lalme de qui Dieux eit mercie! Amen.

Here have ending the Annals of Cicely.

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Note 1. The chroniclers (and after them the follow-my-leader school of modern historians) are unanimous in their assertion that the Black Prince was born on June 15th. If this be so, it is, to say the least, a little singular that the expenses of the Queen's churching were defrayed on the 24th and 28th of April previous (Issue Roll, Easter, 4 Edward the Third). On the 3rd, 5th, and 13th of April, the King dates his mandates from Woodstock; on the 24th of March he was at Reading. This looks very much as if the Prince's birth had taken place about the beginning of April. The 8th of that month was Easter Day.

Note 2. Modern writers make no difference between a Colloquy and a Parliament. The Rolls always distinguish them, treating; the Colloquy as a lesser and more informal gathering.

Note 3. Second son of the elder Sir William de Montacute and Elizabeth de Montfort. He appears as a boy in the first chapter of the companion volume, In All Time of our Tribulation.

Note 4. Discretion, wisdom.

Note 5. The pavon was a slow, stately dance, but it also included high leaps.

Note 6. Occasion, opportunity. Needles, at this time, were great treasures; a woman who possessed three or four thought herself wealthy indeed.

Note 7. Striking clocks were not invented until about 1368.

Note 8. Had the Queen spoken in English, she would certainly have said sweet, not gentle, which last is an incorrect translation of gentil. This latter speech, though better known, is scarcely so well authenticated as the previous one.

Note 9. Royal etiquette prescribed a scratch on the door, like that of a pet animal; the knock was too rough and plebeian an appeal for admission.



PART TWO, CHAPTER 1.

WHEREIN AGNES THE LADY OF PEMBROKE TELLETH TALE (1348).

THE CHILDREN OF LUDLOW CASTLE.

"O little feet, that, such long years, Must wander on through hopes and fears, Must ache and bleed beneath your load: I, nearer to the wayside inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin, Am weary, thinking of your road."

Longfellow.

Hereby I promise, and I truly mean to execute it, to give my new green silk cloth of gold piece, bordered with heads of griffins in golden broidery, to the Abbey of Saint Austin at Canterbury, if any that liveth, man or woman, will tell me certainly how evil came into this world. I want to know why Eva plucked that apple. She must have plucked it herself, for the serpent could not give it her, having no hands. And if man—or woman—will go a step further, and tell me why Adam ate another, he shall have my India-coloured silk, broidered with golden lions and vultures, whereof I had meant to make me a new gown for this next Michaelmas feast. It doth seem as if none but a very idiot could have let in evil and sin and sorrow and pain all over this world, for the sake of a sweet apple. It must have been sweet, I should think, because it grew in Eden. But was there never another in all the garden save only on that tree? Or did man not know what would happen? or was it that man would not think? That is the way sometimes with some folks, else that heedless Nichola had not broken my favourite comb.

The question has been in my head many a score of times; but it came just now because my Lady, my lord's mother, was earnest with me to write in a book what I could remember of mine early days, when my Lady mine own mother was carried to Skipton and Pomfret. If those were not evil days, I know not how to spell the word. And I am very sure it was evil men that made them; and evil women. I believe bad woman is far worse than bad man. So saith the Lady Julian, my lord's mother; and being herself woman, and having been thrice wed, she should know somewhat of women and men too. Ay, and I were ill daughter if I writ not down also that a good woman is one of God's blessedest gifts to this evil world; for such is mine own mother, the Lady Joan de Geneville, that was sometime wife unto the Lord Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, whose name men of this day know but too well.

Well-a-day! if a thing is to be, it is best over. It is never any good to sit on the brink shivering before man plunge in. So, if I must needs write, be it done. Here is a dozen of parchment, and a full inkhorn, and grey goose-quills: and I need nothing else save brains; whereof, I thank the saints, I have enough and to spare. And indeed, it is as well I should, for in this world—I say not, in this house—there be folks who have none too many. But I reckon, before I begin my tale, I had best say who and what I am, else shall those who read my book be like men that walk in a mist, which is not pleasant, as I found this last summer, when for a time I lost my company—and thereby, myself—on the top of a Welsh mountain.

I, then, who write, am Agnes de Hastings, Countess of Pembroke and Lady of Leybourne: and I am wife unto the Lord Lawrence de Hastings, Earl and Baron of the same. My father and mother I have already named, but I may say further that my said mother is a Princess born, being of that great House of Joinville in France—which men call Geneville in England—that are nobles of the foremost rank in that country. These my parents had twelve children, of whom I stand right in the midst, being the seventh. My brother Edmund was the eldest of us; then came Margaret, Joan, Roger, Geoffrey, Isabel, and Katherine; then stand I Agnes, and after me are Maud, John, Blanche, and Beatrice [Note 1]. And of them, Edmund and Margaret have been commanded to God. He died young, my poor brother Edmund, for he set his heart on being restored to the name and lands which our father had forfeited, and our Lord the King thought not good to grant it; so his heart broke, and he died. Poor soul! I would not say an unkind word over his grave; where the treasure is, there will the heart be; but I would rather set my heart on worthier treasure, and I think I should scarce be so weak as to die for the loss. God assoil him, poor soul!

I was born in the Castle of Ludlow, on the morrow of the Translation of Saint Thomas, in the year of King Edward of Caernarvon the eleventh [Note 2], so that I am now thirty years of age. I am somewhat elder than my lord, who was born at Allesley, by Coventry town, on Saint Cuthbert's Day, in the fourteenth year of the same [March 20th, 1321]. I might say I was wiser, and not look forward to much penance for lying; for I should be more likely to have it set me if I said that all the wits in this world were in his head. Howbeit, there is many a worse man than he: a valiant knight, and courteous, and of rarely gentle and gracious ways; and maybe, if he were wiser, he would give me more trouble to rule him, which is easy enough to do. Neverthelatter, there be times when it should do me ease to take him by the shoulders and give him an hearty shake, if I could thereby shake a bit more sense into him: and there be times when it comes over me that he might have been better matched, as our sometime Lord King Edward meant him to have been, with the Lady Alianora La Despenser, that Queen Isabel packed off to a nunnery in hot haste when she came in. Poor soul! He certainly is not matched with me, unless two horses be matched whereof one is black and of sixteen handfuls, and steppeth like a prince, and the other is white, and of twelve handfuls, and ambles of a jog-trot. I would he had a bit more stir in him. Not that he lacks knightly courage—never a whit; carry him into battle, and he shall quit him like a man; but when all is said, he is fitter for the cloister, for he loveth better to sit at home with Joan of his knee, and a great clerkly book afore him wherein he will read by the hour, which is full well for a priest, but not for a noble of the King's Court. He never gave me an ill word (veriliest [truly], I marvel if ever he said 'I won't!' in all his life), yet, for all his hendihood [courtesy, sweetness], will he have his own way by times, I can never make out how. But he is a good man on the whole, and doth pretty well as he is bid, and I might change for a worse without taking a long journey. So, take it all in all, there are many women have more to trouble them than I, the blessed saints be thanked, and our sweetest Lady Saint Mary and my patron Saint Agnes in especial. Only I do hope Jack shall have more wit than his father, and I shall think the fairies have changed him if he have not. My son should not be short of brains.

But now, to have back, and begin my story: for I reckon I shall never make an end if I am thus lone: in coming to the beginning.

We were all brought up in the Castle of Ludlow, going now and then to sweeten [to have the house thoroughly cleaned] to the Castle of Wigmore. Of course, while we were little children, we knew scarce any thing of our parents, as beseemed persons of our rank. The people whom I verily knew were Dame Hilda our mistress [governess], and Maud and Ellen our damsels, and Master Terrico our Chamberlain, and Robert atte Wardrobe, our wardrobe-keeper, and Sir Philip the clerk (I cry him mercy, he should have had place of Robert), and Stephen the usher of the chamber, and our four nurses, whose names were Emelina, Thomasia, Joan, and Margery, and little Blaise the page. They were my world. But into this world, every now and then, came a sweet, fair presence—a vision of a gracious lady in velvet robes, whose hand I knelt to kiss, and who used to lay it on my head and bless me: and at times she would take up one of us in her arms, and sit down with the babe on her velvet lap, and a look would come into her eyes which I never saw in Dame Hilda's; and she would bend her fair head and kiss the babe as if she loved her very much. But that was mostly while we were babies. I cannot recollect her doing that to me—it was chiefly to Blanche and Beatrice. Until one day, and then—

Nay, I have not come to that yet. And then, at times, we should hear a voice below—a stern, deep voice, or a peal of loud laughter—and in an instant the light and the joy would die out of the tender eyes of that gracious vision, and instead would come a frightened look like that of a hunted hare, and commonly she would rise suddenly, and put down the babe, and hasten away, as if she had been indulging in some forbidden pleasure, and was afraid of being caught. I can remember wishing that the loud laugh and the stern angry voice would go away, and never come back, but that the gracious vision would stay always with us, and not only pay us a rare visit. Ay, and I can remember wishing that she would take me on that velvet lap, and let me nestle into her soft arms, and dare to lay my little head on her warm bosom. I think she would have done it, if she had known! I used to feel in those days like a little chicken hardly feathered, and longed to be under the soft brooding wings of the hen. The memory of it hath caused me to pet my Jack and Joan a deal more than I should without it.

Then, sometimes, we had a visit from a very different sort of guest. That was an old lady—about a hundred and fifty, I used to fancy her— dressed in velvet full as costly, but how differently she wore it! She never took us on her lap—not she, indeed! We used to have to kneel and kiss her hand—and Roger whispered to me once that if he dared, he would bite it. This horrid old thing (who called herself our grandmother) used to be like a storm blowing through the house. She never was two minutes in the room before she began to scold somebody; and if she could not find reasonable fault with any body, that seemed to vex her more than anything else. Then she scolded us all in a lump together. "Dame Hilda, what an untidy chamber!"—she usually began in that way—"why don't you make these children put their playthings tidy? (Of course Dame Hilda did, at the end of the day; but how could we have playthings tidy while we were playing with them?) Meg, your hair is no better than a mop! Jack, how got you that rent in your sleeve? (I never knew Jack without a rent in some part of his clothes; I should not have thought it was Jack if he had come in whole garments.) Joan, how ungainly you sit! pluck yourself up this minute. Nym, take your elbows off the table. Maud, your chaucers [slippers] are down at heel. How dirty your hands are, Roger! go and wash them. Agnes, that wimple of yours is all awry; who pinned it up?"

So she went on—rattle and scold, scold and rattle—as long as she stayed in the room. Jack, always the saucy one, asked her one day, when he was very little—

"Are you really Grandmother?"

"Certes, child," said she, turning to look at him: "why?"

"Because I wish you were somebody else!"

Ha, chetife! did Jack forget that afternoon? I trow not.

I had a sound whipping once myself from Dame Hilda, because I said, right out, that I hated the Lady Margaret: and Joan,—poor delicate Joan, who was perpetually scolded for stooping—looked at me as if she wished she dared say it too. Roger had his ears boxed because he drawled out, "Amen!" I think we all said Amen in our hearts.

Sometimes the Lady Margaret did not come upstairs, but sent for some of us down to her. That was worse than ever. There were generally a number of gentlemen there, who seemed to think that children were only made to be teased: and some of them I disliked, and others I despised. Only of one I was terribly afraid: and that was—mercy, Jesu!—mine own father.

I should have found it difficult to say what it was in him that frightened me. I used to call it fear then; but when I look back on the feeling from my present state, I think it was rather a kind of ungovernable antipathy. He did not scold us all round as Lady Margaret did. The worst thing, I think, that I remember his saying to me was a sharp—"Get out of the way, girl!" And I wished I only could get out of his way, for ever and ever. Something made me feel as if I could not bear to be in the same room with him. I used to shiver all over, if I only heard his voice. Yet he never ill-used any of us; he scarcely even looked at us. It was not any thing he did which made me feel so; it was just himself.

Surely never did man dress more superbly than he. I recollect thinking that the King was not half so fine; yet King Edward liked velvet and gold as well as most men. My Lord my father never wore worsted summer tunics or woollen winter cloaks, like others. Silk, velvet, samite, and cloth of gold, were his meanest wear; and his furs were budge, ermine, miniver, and gris. I can remember hearing how once, when the furrier sent him in a robe of velvet guarded with hare's fur, he flung it on one side in a fury, and ordered the poor man to be beaten cruelly. He always wore much golden broidery, and buttons of gems or solid gold; and he never would wear a suit of any man's livery—not even the King's,— save once, when he wore the Earl of Chester's at the coronation of the Queen of France, just to vex King Edward—as it sorely did, for he was then a proscribed fugitive, who had no right to use it.

It is a hard matter when a child is frightened of its own father. It is yet harder when he makes it hate him. Ah, it is easy to say, That was wicked of thee. So it was: and I know it. But doth not sin lead to sin?—spring out of it, like branches from a stem, like leaves from a branch? And when one man's act of sin creates sin in another man, and that again in a third, whose is the sin—the black root, whereof came the rotten branches and the withered leaves? Are we not all our brothers' and our sisters' keepers? Well, it will not answer to pursue that road: for I know well I should trace up the sin too high, to one of whom it were not meet for me to speak in the same breath with ugly words. Ay me! what poor weak things we mortal creatures are! Little marvel, little marvel for the woe that was wrought!—so fair, so fair she was! She had the soul of a fiend with the face of an angel. Was it any wonder that men—ay, and some women—were beguiled with that angel face, and fancied but too rashly that the soul must be as sweet as it? God have mercy on all Christian souls! Verily, I myself, only this last spring-time, was ready to yield to the witch's spell—never was woman such enchantress as she!—and athwart all the past, despite all I knew, gazing on that face, even yet fairer than the faces of younger women, to think it possible that all the tales were false, and all the past a vision of the night, and that the lovely face and the sweet, soft voice covered a soul white as the saints in Heaven! And men are easier deluded by such dreams than women—or at least I think it. My poor father! If only he had never seen her that haled him to his undoing! he might, perchance, have been a better man. Any way, he paid the bill in his heart's blood. So here I leave him. God forgive us all!

And now to my story. While I was but a little child, we saw little of our mother: little more, indeed, than we did of our father. I think, of the two, we oftener saw our grandmother. And little children, as God hath wisely ordered it, live in the present moment, and take no note of things around them which men and women see with half an eye. Now, looking back, I can recall events which then passed by me as of no import. It was so, and there was an end of it. But I can see now why it was so: and I know enough to guess the often sorrowful nature of that wherefore.

So it was nothing to us children, unless it were a relief, that after I was about four years old, we missed our father almost entirely. We never knew why he tarried away for months at a time. We had not a notion that he was first in the prison of the Tower, and afterwards a refugee over seas. And we saw without seeing that our mother grew thin and white, and her sweet eyes were heavy with tears which we never saw her shed. All we perceived was that she came oftener to the nursery, and stayed longer with us, and petted the babies more than had been her wont. And that such matters had a meaning,—a deep, sad, terrible meaning—never entered our heads. Later on we knew that during those lonely years her heart was being crucified, and crucifixion is a dying that lasts long. But she never let us know it. I think she would not damp our fresh childish glee by even the spray of that roaring cataract wherein her life was overwhelmed. Mothers—such mothers as she—are like a reflection of God.

I remember well, though I was but just seven years old, the night when news came to Ludlow Castle that my father had escaped from the Tower. It was a very hot night in August—too hot to sleep—and I lay awake, chattering to Kate and Isabel, who were my bedfellows, about some grand play we meant to have the next afternoon, in the great gallery—when all at once we heard a horse come dashing up to the portcullis, past our chamber wall, and a horn crying out into the night.

Isabel sat up in bed, and listened.

"Is it my Lord coming home?" I said.

"What, all alone, with no company?" answered Isabel, who is four years elder than I. "Silly child! It is some news for my Lady my mother. The saints grant it be good!"

Of course we could hear nothing of what passed at the portcullis, as our window opened on the base court. But in a few minutes we heard the horse come trotting into our court, and the rider 'lighted down: and Isabel, who lay with her head next the casement, sat up again and put her head out of the curtain. It was a beautiful moonlight night, almost as bright as day.

"What is it, Ibbot?" said Kate.

"It is a man in livery," answered Isabel; "but whose livery I know not. It is not ours."

Then we heard the man call to the porter, and the door open, and the sound of muffled voices to and fro for a minute; and then Master Inge's step, which we knew—he was then castellan—coming in great haste past our door as if he were going to my Lady's chamber. Then the door of the large nursery opened, and we heard Dame Hilda within, saying to Tamzine, "Thou wert better run and see." And Tamzine went quickly along the gallery, as if she, too, were going to my Lady.

For a long, long time, as it seemed to us—I dare say it was not many minutes—we lay and listened in vain. At length Tamzine came back.

"Good tidings, or bad?" we heard Dame Hilda ask.

"The saints wot!" whispered Tamzine. "My Lord is 'scaped from the Tower."

"Ha, chetife! will he come here?" said Dame Hilda: and we saw that it was bad news in her eyes.

"Forsooth, nay!" replied Tamzine. "There be hues and cries all over for him, but man saith he is fled beyond seas."

"Amen!" ejaculated Dame Hilda. "He may win to Cathay [China] by my good will; and if he turn not again till mine hair be white, then will I give my patron saint a measure in wax. But what saith my Lady?"

"Her I saw not," answered Tamzine; "but Mistress Robergia, who told me, said she went white and red both at once, and her breast heaved as though her very heart should come forth."

"Gramercy!" said Dame Hilda. "How some folks do set their best pearls in copper!"

"Eh, our Lady love us!" responded Tamzine. "That's been ever sith world began to run, Dame, I can tell you."

"I lack no telling, lass," was Dame Hilda's answer. "Never was there finer pearl set in poorer ore than that thou and I wot of."

I remember that bit of talk because I puzzled myself sorely as to what Dame Hilda could mean. Kate was puzzled, too, for she said to Isabel—

"What means the Dame? I never saw my Lady wear a pearl set in copper."

"Oh, let be!" said Isabel. "'Tis but one of the Dame's strange sayings. She is full of fantasies."

But whether Isabel were herself perplexed, or whether she understood, and thought it better to shut our mouths, that cannot I tell to this day.

Well, after that things were quiet again for a while: a very long while, it seemed to me. I believe it was really about six months. During that time, we saw much more of our mother than we used to do; she would come often into the nursery, and take one of the little ones on her lap—it was oftenest Blanche—and sit there with her. Sometimes she would talk with Dame Hilda; but more frequently she was silent and sad, at times looking long from the casement as if she saw somewhat that none other eyes could see. Jack said one day—

"Whither go Mother's eyes when she looks out of the window?"

"For shame, Damsel [Note 3] John!" cried Dame Hilda. "'Mother,' indeed! Only common children use such a word. Say 'my Lady' if you please."

"She is my mother, isn't she?" said Jack stubbornly. "Why shouldn't I call her so, I should like to know? But you haven't answered me, Dame."

"I know not what you mean, Damsel."

"Why, when she sits down in that chair, and takes Blanchette on her knee,—her eyes go running out of the window first thing. Whither wend they?"

"Children like you cannot understand," replied Dame Hilda, with one of those superior smiles which used to make me feel so very naughty. It seemed to say, "My poor, little, despicable insect, how could you dream of supposing that your intellect was even with Mine?" (There, I have writ that a capital M in red ink. To have answered to Dame Hilda's tone when she put that smile on, it should have been in vermilion and gold leaf.) Howbeit, Jack never cared for all the airs she put on.

"Then why don't you make us understand it?" said he.

I do not remember what Dame Hilda said to that, but I dare say she boxed Jack's ears.

Deary me, how ill doth my tale get forward! Little things keep a-coming to my mind, and I turn aside after them, like a second deer crossing the path of the first. That shall never serve; I must keep to my quarry.

All this time our mother grew thinner and whiter. Poor soul, she loved him well!—but so sure as the towel of the blessed Nicodemus is in the sacristy of our Lady at Warwick, cannot I tell for why. Very certain am I that he never gave her any reason.

We reckoned those six months dreary work. There were no banquets in hall, nor shows came to the Castle, nor even so much as a pedlar, that we children saw; only the same every-day round, and tired enough we were of it. All the music we ever heard was in our lessons from Piers le Sautreour; and if ever child loved her music lessons, her name was not Agnes de Mortimer. All the laughter that was amongst us we made ourselves; and all the shows were when Jack chose to tumble somersaults, or Maud twisted some cold lace round her head, and said, "Now I am Queen Isabel." Dreary work, in good sooth! yet was it a very Michaelmas show and an Easter Day choir to that which lay ahead.

And then, one night,—ah, what a night that was! It was near our bed-time, and Jack, Kate, and I, were playing on the landing and up and down the staircase of our tower. I remember, Jack was the stag, and Kate and I were the hunters; and rarely did Jack throw up his head, to show off his branching horns—which were divers twigs tied on his head by a lace of Dame Hilda's, for the use whereof Jack paid a pretty penny when she knew it. Kate had just made a grab at him, and should have caught him, had his tunic held, but it gave way, and all she won was an handful of worsted and a slip of the step that grazed her shins; and she was rubbing of her leg and crying "Lack-a-day!" and Jack above, well out of reach, was making mowes [grimaces] at us—when all at once an horn rang loud through the Castle, and man on little ambling nag came into the court-yard. Kate forgat her leg, and Jack his mowes, and all we, stag and hunters alike, ran to the gallery window for to gaze.

I know not how long we should have tarried at the window, had not Emelina come and swept us afore her into the nursery, with an impatient—"Deary me! here be these children for ever in the way!"

And Jack cries, "You always say we are in the way; but mustn't we be any where?"

Whereto she makes answer—"Go and get you tucked into bed; that's the only safe place for the like of you!"

Jack loudly resented being sent to bed before the proper time, whereupon he and Emelina had a fight (as they had most nights), and Kate and I ran into the nursery to get out of the way. Here was Margery, turning down the beds, but Dame Hilda we saw not till, an half-hour after, as we were doffing us for bed, she came, with her important face which she was wont to wear when some eventful thing had befallen her or us.

"Are the damsels abed, Emelina?" saith she.

"The babes be, Dame; and the elders be a-doffing them."

Dame Hilda came forward into the night nursery.

"Hold you there, young ladies!" saith she: "at the least, I would say my three elder young ladies—Dame Margaret, Dame Joan, and Dame Isabel. Pray you, don you once more, but of your warmest gear, for a journey by night."

"Are we not to go to bed?" asked Joan in surprise: but our three sisters donned themselves anew, as Dame Hilda had said, of their warmest gear. Dame Hilda spake not word till they were all ready. Then Meg saith—

"Whither be we bound, Dame?—and with whom?"

"With my Lady, Dame Margaret, to Southampton."

I think we all cried out "Southampton!" in diverse tones.

"There is news come to her Ladyship, as she herself may tell you," said Dame Hilda, mysteriously.

"Aren't we to go, Dame?" saith Blanche's little voice.

Dame Hilda turned round sharply, as if she went about to snap Blanche's head off; and Blanche shrank in dismay.

"Certainly not, Dame Blanche! What should my Lady do to be worried with babes like you? She has enough else on her mind at this present, without a pack of tiresome children—holy saints be her help! Eh dear, dear, this world!"

"Dame, is this world so bad?" saith Jack, letting his nose appear above the bed-clothes.

"Go to sleep, the weary lot of you!" was Dame Hilda's irritable answer.

"Because," saith Jack, ne'er a whit daunted—nothing ever cowed Jack—"if it is so bad, hadn't you better be off out of it? You'd be better off, I suppose, and we shouldn't miss you,—that I'll promise. Do go, Dame!"

Jack spake these last words with a full compassionate air, as though he were seriously concerned for Dame Hilda's happiness; but she, marching up to the bed where Jack lay, dealt him a stinging slap for his impudence.

"Ah!" saith Jack in a mumbled voice, having disappeared under the bed-clothes, "this is a bad world, I warrant you, where folks return evil for good o' this fashion!"

We heard no more of Jack beyond divers awesome snores, which I think were not altogether sooth-fast: but before many minutes had passed, the door of the antechamber opened, and my Lady, donned in travelling gear, entered the nursery.

Dame Hilda's words had given me the fancy that some sorrowful, if not shocking news, had come to her; and I was therefore much astonished to see a faint flush in her cheeks, and a brilliant light in her eyes, which looked as though she had heard good news.

"My children," said our mother, "I come to bid you all farewell—may be a long farewell. I have heard that—never mind what; that which will take me away. Meg, and Joan, and Ibbot, must go with me."

"Take me too!" pleaded little Blanche.

"Thee too!" repeated our mother, with a loving smile. "Nay, sweetheart! That cannot be. Now, my children, I hope you will all be good and obedient to Dame Hilda while I am away."

It was on Kate that her glance fell, being the next eldest after Isabel; and Kate answered readily—

"We will all be good as gold, Dame."

"Nym, and Hodge, and Geoffrey," she went on, "go also with me; so thou, Kate, wilt be eldest left here, and I look to thee to set a good ensample to thy brethren,—especially my little wilful Jack."

Jack's snoring had stopped when she came in, and now, as she went over and sat her down by the bed wherein Jack lay of the outside, up came Jack's head from under the blue velvet coverlet. Our mother laid her hand tenderly upon it.

"My dear little Jack!" she said; "my poor little Jack!"

"Dame, I'm not poor, an't like you!" made answer Jack, in a tone of considerable astonishment. "I've got a whole ball of new string, and two battledores and a shuttlecock, and a ball, and a bow and arrows."

"Yes, my little Jack," she said, tenderly.

"There are lots of lads poorer than me!" quoth Jack. "Nym himself hasn't got a whole ball of string, and Geoff hasn't a bit. I asked him. Master Inge gave it me yesterday. I'm going to make reins with it for Annis and Maud, and lots of cats' cradles."

"You're not going to make reins for me," said Maud from our bed. "Dame, it is horrid playing horses with Jack. He wants you to take the string in your mouth, and you don't know where he's had it. I don't mind having it tied to my arms, but I won't have it in my mouth."

"Did you ever see a horse with his reins tied to his arms?" scornfully demanded Jack. "You do as you are bid, my Lady Maud, or I'll come and make you."

"Children!" said our mother's soft voice, before Maud could answer, "are you going to quarrel this last night when I have come to say farewell? For shame, Maud! this was thy blame."

"Oh, of course, it is always me," muttered Maud, too angry for grammar. "Jack's always the favourite; I never do any thing right."

"Yes, you do—now and then, by accident," responded Joan, who was sitting at the foot of our bed; a speech which did not better Maud's temper, and it was never angelic.

Jack seemed to have forgotten his passage-at-arms with Maud. He was always good-tempered enough, though he did tease outrageously.

"Why am I poor, Dame?" quoth Jack.

"Little Jack, thou must shortly go into the wars, and thou hast no armour."

"But you'll get me a suit. Dame?"

"I cannot, Jack. Not for these wars. Neither can I give thee the wealth to make thee rich, as I fain would."

"Then, Dame, you will petition the King for a grant, will you not?" saith Meg.

"True, my daughter," saith our mother softly. "I must needs petition the King, both for the riches from His treasury, and for the arms from His armoury." And then she bent down to kiss Jack. "O my boy, lay not up treasure for thyself, and thus fail to be rich in God."

I began then to see what she meant; but I rather wondered why she said it. Such talk as that, it seemed to me, was only fit for Sunday. And then I remembered that she was going away for a long, long time, and that therefore Sunday talk might be appropriate.

I do not recollect any thing she said to the others, only to Jack and me. Jack and I were always fellows. We children had paired ourselves off, not altogether according to age, but rather according to tastes. Edmund and Meg should have gone together, and then Hodge and Joan, and so forth: whereas it was always Nym and Joan, and Meg and Hodge. Then Geoffrey and Isabel made the right pair, and Kate, Jack, and I, went in a trio. Maud was by herself; she paired with nobody, and nobody wanted her, she was so cross. Blanche was every body's pet while she was the baby, and Beatrice came last of all.

Our mother went round, and kissed and blessed us all. I lay inside with Kate and Maud, and when she said, "Now, my little Agnes,"—I crept out and travelled over the tawny silk coverlet, to those gentle velvet arms, and she took me on her lap, and lapped me up in a fur mantle that Meg bare on her arm.

"And what shall I say to my little Agnes?"

"Mother, say you love me!"

It came out before I knew it, and when I had said it, I was so frightened that I hid my face in the fur. It did not encourage me to hear Dame Hilda's exclamation—

"Lack-a-day! what next, trow?"

But the other voice was very tender and gentle.

"Didst thou lack that told thee, mine own little Annis? Ay me! Maybe men are happier lower down. Who should love thee, my floweret, if not thine own mother? Kiss me, and say thou wilt be good maid till I see thee again."

I managed to whisper, "I will try, Dame."

"How long will it be?" cries Jack.

"I cannot tell thee, Jack," she saith. "Some months, I fear. Not years—I do trust, not years. But God knoweth—and to Him I commit you." And as she bent her head low over the mantle wherein I was lapped, I heard her say—"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, Jesu!"

I knew that, because I always had to repeat it in my evening prayers, though I never could tell what it meant, only, as it seemed to say "Agnes" and "Monday," I supposed it had something to do with me, and was to make me good after some fashion, but I saw not why it must be only on a Monday, especially as I had to say it every day. Now, of course, I know what it means, and I wonder children and ignorant people are not taught what prayers mean, instead of being made to say them just like popinjays. I wanted to teach my Joan what it meant, but the Lady Julian, my lord's mother, commanded me not to do so, for it was unlucky. I begged her to tell me why, and she said the Latin was a holy tongue, known to God and the saints, and so long as they understood our prayers, we did not need to understand them.

"But, Dame," said I, "saving your presence, if I say prayers I understand not, how can I tell the way to use them? I may be asking for a basket of pears when I want a pair of shoes."

"Wherefore trouble the blessed saints for either?" saith she. "Prayers be only for high and holy concerns—not for base worldly matter, such as be pears and shoes."

"But I am worldly matter, under your leave, Dame," said I. "And saith not the Paternoster somewhat touching daily bread?"

"Ay, the food of the soul—'panem supersubstantialem da nobis'" quoth she. "It means not a loaf of bread, child."

"That's Saint Matthew," said I. "But Saint Luke hath it 'panem quotidianum,' and saith nought of 'supersubstantialem.' And surely common food cometh from God."

"Daughter!" saith she, somewhat severely, "thou shouldst do a deal better to leave thy fantasies and the workings of thine own brain, and listen with meek submission to the holy doctors that can teach thee with authority."

"Dame, I cry you mercy," said I. "But surely our Lord teacheth with more authority than they all; and if I have His words, what need I of theirs?"

Ha, chetife! she would not listen to me,—only bade me yet again to beware of pride and presumption, lest I should fall into heresy, from the which Saint Agnes preserve me! But it doth seem strange that folks should fall into heresy by studying our Lord's words; I had thought they should rather thereby keep them out of it.

Well—dear heart, here again am I got away from my story! this it is to have too quick a wit—our mother blessed us, and kissed us all, and set forth, the six eldest with her, for Southampton. I know now, though I heard not then, that she was on her way to join our father. News had come that he was safe over seas, in France, with the Sieurs de Fienles, the Lady Margaret's kin, and no sooner had she learned it than she set forth to join him. I doubt greatly if he sent for her. Nay, I should rather say he would scarce have blessed her for coming. But she got not thus far on her way, as shall be seen.

His tarrying with the Sieurs de Fienles was in truth but a blind to hide his true proceedings. He stayed in Normandy but a few weeks, until the hue and cry was over, and folks in England should all have got well in their heads that he was there: then, or ever harm should befall him by tarrying there too long, he made quiet departure, and ere any knew of it he was safe in the King of France's dominions. At this time the King of France was King Charles le Bel, youngest brother of our Queen. I suppose he was too much taken up with the study of his own perfections to see the perfections or imperfections of any body else: otherwise had he scarce been so stone-blind to all that went on but just afore his nose. There be folks that can see a mouse a mile off, and there be others that cannot see an elephant a yard in front of them. But there be a third sort, and to my honest belief King Charles was of them, that can see the mouse as clear as sunlight when it is their own interest to detect him, but have not a notion of the elephant being there when they do not choose to look at him. When he wanted to be rid of his first wife Queen Blanche, he could see her well enough, and all her failings too, as black as midnight; but when his sister behaved herself as ill as ever his wife did or could have done, he only shut his eyes and took a comfortable nap. Now King Charles had himself expelled my father from his dominions, for some old grudge that I never rightly understood; yet never a word said he when he came back without licence. Marry, but our old King Edward should not have treated thus the unlicenced return of a banished man! He would have been hung within the week, with him on the throne. But King Charles was not cut from that stuff. He let my father alone till the Queen came over—our Queen Isabel, his sister, I mean— and then who but he in all the French Court! Howbeit, they kept things pretty quiet for that time; nought came to King Edward's ears, and she did her work and went home. Forsooth, it was sweet work, for she treated with her brother as the sister of France, and not as the wife of England. King Charles had taken Guienne, and she, sent to demand restitution, concluded a treaty of peace on his bare word that it should be restored, with no pledge nor security whatever: but bitter complaints she laid of the King her husband, and the way in which he treated her. Well, it is true, he did not treat her as I should have done in his place, for he gave in to all her whims a deal too much, where a good buffet on her ear should have been ever so much more for her good—and his too, I will warrant. Deary me, but if some folks were drowned, the world would get along without them! I mention no names (only that weary Nichola, that is for ever mashing my favourite things). So the Queen came home, and all went on for a while.

But halt, my goose-quill! thou marchest too fast. Have back a season.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. This is the probable order of birth. The date assigned to the birth of Agnes is fictitious, but that of her husband is taken from his Probatio Aetatis.

Note 2. July 8th, 1317; this is about the probable time. The Countess is supposed to be writing in the spring of 1348.

Note 3. This word was then used of both sexes, and was the proper designation of the son of a prince or peer not yet arrived at the age of knighthood.



PART TWO, CHAPTER 2.

THE LADY OF LUDLOW.

"Toil-worn and very weary— For the waiting-time is long; Leaning upon the promise— For the Promiser is strong."

So were we children left alone in the Castle of Ludlow, and two weary months we had of it. Wearier were they by far than the six that ran afore them, when our mother was there, and our elder brethren, that she had now carried away. Lessons dragged, and play had no interest. It had been Meg that devised all our games, and Nym that made boats and wooden horses for us, and Joan that wove wreaths and tied cowslip balls—and they were all away. There was not a bit of life nor fun anywhere except in Jack, and if Jack were shut in a coal-hole by himself, he would make the coals play with him o' some fashion. But even Jack could fetch no fun out of amo, amas, amat; and I grew sore weary of pulling my neeld [needle] in and out, and being banged o'er the head with the fiddlestick when I played the wrong string. If we could swallow learning as we do meat, what a lessening of human misery should it be!

No news came all this while—at least, none that we heard. Winter grew into spring, and May came with her flowers. Ay, and with something else.

The day rose like the long, dreary days that had come before it, and nobody guessed that any thing was likely to happen. We ate eggs and butter, and said our verbs and the commandments of God and the Church, to Sir Philip, and played some weary, dreary exercises on the spinnet to Dame Hilda, and dined (I mind it was on lamb, finches, and flaunes [custards]), and then Kate, I, and Maud, were set down to our needles. Blanche was something too young for needlework, saving to pull coloured silks in and out of a bit of rag for practice. We had scarce taken twenty stitches, when far in the distance we heard a horn sounded.

"Is that my Lady a-coming home?" said I to Kate.

"Eh, would it were!" quoth she. "I reckon it is some hunters in the neighbourhood."

I looked to and fro, and no Dame Hilda could I see—only Margery, and she was easy enough with us for little things; so I crept out on tiptoe into the long gallery, and looked through the great oriel, which I could well reach by climbing on the window-seat. I remember what a sweet, peaceful scene lay before me,—the fields and cottages lighted up with the May sunshine, which glinted on the Teme as it wound here and there amid the trees. I looked right and left, but saw no hunters—nothing at all, I thought at first. And then, as I was going to leave the oriel, I saw the sun glance on something that moved, and looked like a dark square, and I heard the horn ring out again a little nearer. I watched the square thing grow—from dark to red, from an indistinct mass to a compact body of marching men, with mounted officers at their head; and then, forgetting Dame Hilda and every thing else except the startling news I brought, I rushed back into the nursery, crying out—

"The King's troops! Jack, Kate, the King's troops are coming! Come and see!"

Dame Hilda was there, but she did not scold me. She turned as white as the sindon in her hand, and stood up.

"Dame Agnes, what mean you? Surely 'tis never thus! Holy Mary, shield us!"

And she hurried forth to the oriel window, where Jack was already perched.

The square had grown larger and plainer now. It was evident they were marching straight for the Castle.

Dame Hilda hastened away—I guessed, to confer with Master Inge—and having so done, she came back to the nursery, bade us put aside our sewing and wash our hands, and come down with her to hall. We all trooped after, Beatrice led by her hand, and she ranged us afore her in the great hall, on the dais, standing after our ages,—Kate at the head, then I, Maud, and Jack. And so we awaited our fate.

I scarce think I was frighted. I knew too little what was likely to happen, to feel so. That something was going to happen, I had uncertain fantasy; but our life had been colourless for so long, that the idea of any thing to happen which would make a change was rather agreeable than otherwise.

We heard the last loud summons of the trumpet, which in our ignorance we had mistaken for a hunting-horn, and the trumpeter's cry of "Open to the King's troops!" We heard the portcullis lifted, and the steady tramp of the soldiers as they marched into the court-yard. There was a little parleying outside, and then two officers in the King's livery [Note 1] came forward into the hall, bowing low to us and Dame Hilda.

The Dame spoke first. "Sir Thomas Gobioun, if I err not?"

"He, and your servant, Dame," answered one of the officers.

"Then I must needs do you to wit, Sir, that in this castle is neither Lord nor Lady, and I trust our Lord the King wars not with little children such as you see here."

"Stale news, good Dame!" answered Sir Thomas, with (as methought) a rather grim smile. "We know something more, I reckon, than you, touching your Lord and Lady. Sir Roger de Mortimer is o'er seas in Normandy, and the Lady Joan at Skipton Castle."

"At Southampton, you surely mean?" said Master Inge, who stood at the other end of the line whereof I made the midmost link.

The knight laughed out. "Nay, worthy Master Inge, I mean not Southampton, but Skipton. 'Tis true, both begin with an S, and end with a p and a ton; but there is a mile or twain betwixt the places."

"What should my Lady do at Skipton?" saith Dame Hilda.

"Verily, I conceive not this!" saith Master Inge, knitting his brows. "It was to Southampton my Lady went—at least so she told us."

"Your Lady told you truth, Master Castellan. She set forth for Southampton, and reached it. But ere a fair wind blew for her voyage, came a somewhat rougher gale in the shape of a command from the King's Grace to the Sheriff to take her into keeping, and send her into ward at Skipton Castle, whither she set forth a fortnight past. Now, methinks, Master Inge, you are something wiser than you were a minute gone."

"And our young damsels?" cries Dame Hilda. "Be they also gone to Skipton?"

I felt Kate's hand close tighter upon mine.

"Soft you, now, good Dame!" saith Sir Thomas—who, or I thought so, took it all as a very good joke. "Your damsels be parted in so many as they be, and sent to separate convents,—one to Shuldham, one to Sempringham, and one to Chicksand—and their brothers be had likewise into ward."

To my unspeakable amazement, Dame Hilda burst into tears, and catched up Beatrice in her arms. I had never seen her weep in my life: and a most new and strange idea was taking possession of me—did Dame Hilda actually care something for us?

"Sir," she sobbed, "you will never have the heart to part these babes from all familiar faces, and send them amongst strangers that may use them hardly, to break their baby hearts? Surely the King, that is father of his people, hath never commanded such a thing as that? At the least leave me this little one—or put me in ward with her."

I was beginning to feel frightened now. I looked at Kate, and read in her face that she was as terrified as I was.

"Tut, tut, Dame," saith the other officer (Sir Thomas, it seemed to me, enjoyed the scene, and rather wished to prolong it, but this other was of softer metal), "take not on where is no cause, I pray you. The little ones bide here under your good care. Only, as you may guess, we be commanded to take to the King's use this Castle of Ludlow and all therein, and we charge you—" and he bowed to Dame Hilda, and then to Master Inge—"and you, in the King's name, that you thwart not nor hinder us, in the execution of his pleasure. Have here our commission."

Master Inge took the parchment, and scrutinised it most carefully, while Dame Hilda wiped her eyes and put Beatrice down with a fervent "Bless thee, my jewel!"

Now out bursts Jack, with a big sob that he could contain no longer. "Does the King want my new ball of string, and my battledores?"

"Certes," answered Sir Thomas: but I saw a twinkle in his eye, though his mouth was as grave as might be.

Jack fell a-blubbering.

"No, no—nonsense!" saith the other officer. "Don't spoil the fun, man!" quoth Sir Thomas. "Fun! it is no fun to these babes," answered the other. "I've a little lad at home, and this mindeth me of him. I cannot bear to see a child cry—and for no cause!—Nay, my little one," saith he to Jack, "all in this Castle now belongs to the King, as aforetime to thy father: but thy father took not thy balls and battledores from thee, nor will he. Cheer up, for thou hast nought to fear."

"Please, Sir," saith Kate, "shall all our brothers and sisters be made monks and nuns, whether they like or no?"

Sir Thomas roared with laughter. His comrade saith gently, "Nay, my little damsel, the King's will is not so. It is but that they shall be kept safe there during his pleasure."

"And will they get any dinner and supper?" saith Maud.

"Plenty!" he answered: "and right good learning, and play in the convent garden at recreation-time, with such other young damsels as shall be bred up there. They will be merry as crickets, I warrant."

Kate fetched a great sigh of relief. She told me afterwards that she had felt quite sure we should every one of us be had to separate convents, and never see each other any more.

So matters dropped down again into their wonted course. For over two years, our mother tarried at Skipton, and then she was moved into straiter ward at Pomfret, about six weeks only [Note 2] before Queen Isabel landed with her alien troops under Sir John of Ostrevant, and drave King Edward first from his throne, and finally from this life. Our father came with her. And this will I say, that our mother might have been set free something earlier [Note 3], if every body had done his duty. But folks are not much given to doing their duties, so far as I can see. They are as ready as you please to contend for their rights—which generally seems to mean, "Let me have somebody else's rights;" ay, they will get up a battle for that at short notice: but who ever heard of a man petitioning, much less fighting, for the right to do his duty? And yet is not that, really and verily, the only right a man has?

It was a gala day for us when our mother returned home, and our brothers and sisters were gathered and sent back to us. Nym (always a little given to romance) drew heart-rending pictures of his utter misery, while in ward; but Roger said it was not so bad, setting aside that it was prison, and we were parted from one another. And Geoffrey, the sensible boy of the family, said that while he would not like a monk's life on the whole, being idle and useless, yet he did like the quiet and peacefulness of it.

"But I am not secure," said our mother, "that such quiet is what God would for us, saving some few. Soldiers be not bred by lying of a bed of rose-leaves beside scented waters. And I think the soldiers of Christ will scarce be taught o' that fashion."

Diverse likewise were the maids' fantasies. Meg said she would not have bidden at Shuldham one day longer than she was forced. Joan said she liked not ill at Sempringham, only for being alone. But Isabel, as she sat afore the fire with me on her lap, the even of her coming home— Isabel had ever petted me—and Dame Hilda asked her touching her life at Chicksand—Isabel said, gazing with a far-away look into the red ashes—

"I shall go back to Chicksand, some day, if I may win leave of mine elders."

"Why, Dame Isabel!" quoth Dame Hilda in some surprise. "Liked you so well as that?"

"Ay, I liked well," she said, in that dreamy fashion. "Not that I did not miss you all, Dame; and in especial my babe here,—who is no longer a babe"—and she smiled down at me. "And verily, I could see that sins be not shut out by convent walls, but rather shut in. Yet—"

"Ay?" said Dame Hilda when she stayed. I think she wanted to make her talk.

"I scarce know how to say it," quoth she. "But it seemed to me that for those who would have it so, Satan was shut in with them, and pleasure was shut out. And also, for those who would have it so, God was shut in with them, and snares and temptations—some of them—were shut out. Only some: but it was something to be rid of them. If it were possible to have only those who wanted to shut out the world, and to shut themselves in with God! That is the theory: and that would be Heaven on earth. But it does not work in practice."

"Yet you would fain return thither?" said Dame Hilda.

Isabel looked into the fire and answered not, until she said, all suddenly, "Dame Hilda, be there two of you, or but one?"

"Truly, Dame Isabel, I take not your meaning."

"Ah!" saith she; "then is there but one of you. If so, you cannot conceive me. Thou dost, Ellen?"

"Ay, Dame Isabel, that do I, but too well."

"They have easier lives, methinks, that are but one. You look on me, Dame Hilda, as who should say, What nonsense doth this maid talk! But if you knew what it was to have two natures within you, pulling you diverse ways, sometimes the one uppermost, and at times the other; and which of the twain be you, that cannot you tell—I will tell you, I have noted this many times"—Isabel's voice sank as if she feared to be overheard—"in them whose father and mother have been of divers dispositions. Some of the children may take after the one, and some after the other; but there will be one, at least, who partaketh both, and then they pull him divers ways, that he knoweth no peace." Isabel's audience had been larger than she supposed. As she ended, with a weary sigh, a soft hand fell upon her head, and I who, sat upon her knees, could better see than she, looked up into my Lady's face.

"Sit still, daughter," said she, as Isabel strove to rise. "Nay, sweet heart, I am not angered at thy fantasy, though truly I, being but one like Dame Hilda, conceive not thy meaning. It may be so. I have not all the wit upon earth, that I should scorn or set down the words of them that speak out of other knowledge than mine. But, my Isabel, there is another way than this wherein thou mayest have two natures."

"How so, Dame, an' it like you?"

"The nature of sinful man, and the nature of God Almighty."

"They must be marvellous saints that so have," said Dame Hilda, crossing herself.

"Some of them," said my Lady gently, "were once marvellous sinners."

"Why, you should have to strive a very lifetime for that," quoth Dame Hilda. "I should think no man could rise thereto that dwelt not in anchorite's cell, and scourged him on the bare back every morrow, and ate but of black rye-bread, and drank of ditch-water. Deary me, but I would not like that! I'd put up with a bit less saintliness, I would!"

"You are all out there, Dame," my Lady made answer. "This fashion of saintliness may be along with such matters, but it cometh not by their help."

"How comes it then, Dame, an't like you?"

"By asking for it," saith our mother, quietly.

"Good lack! but which of the saints must I ask for it?" quoth she. "I'll give him all the wax candles in Ludlow, a week afore I die. I'd rather not have it sooner."

"When go you about to die, Dame?"

"Our Lady love us! That cannot I say."

"Then you shall scarce know the week before, I think."

"Oh, no! but the saint shall know. Look you, Dame, to be too much of a saint should stand sore in man's way. I could not sing, nor dance, nor lake me a bit, if I were a saint; and that fashion of saintliness you speak of must needs be sorest of all. If I do but just get it to go to Heaven with, that shall serve me the best."

"I thought they sang in Heaven," saith Isabel.

"Bless you, Damsel!—nought but Church music."

"Dame Hilda, I marvel if you would be happy in Heaven."

"Oh, I should be like, when I got there."

My Lady shook her head.

"For that," quoth she, "you must be partaker of the Divine nature. Which means not, doing good works contrary to your liking, but having the nature which delights in doing them."

"Oh, ay, that will come when we be there."

"On the contrary part, they that have it not here on earth shall not win there. They only that be partakers of Christ may look to enter Heaven. And no man that partaketh Christ's merits can miss to partake Christ's nature."

"Marry, then but few shall win there."

"So do I fear," saith my Lady.

"Dame, under your good pleasure," saith Dame Hilda, looking her earnestly in the face, "where gat you such notions? They be something new. At the least, never heard I your Ladyship so to speak aforetime."

My Lady's cheek faintly flushed.

"May God forgive me," saith she, "all these years to have locked up his Word, which was burning in mine own heart! Yet in good sooth, Dame, you are partly right. Ere I went to Skipton, I was like one that seeth a veiled face, or that gazeth through smoked glass. But now mine eyes have beheld the face of Him that was veiled, and I have spoken with Him, as man speaketh with his friend. And if you would know who helped me thereto, it was an holy hermit, by name Richard Rolle, that did divers times visit me in my prison at Skipton. And he knows Him full well."

"Dame!" saith Dame Hilda, looking somewhat anxiously on my mother, "I do trust you go not about to die, nor to hie in cloister and leave all these poor babes! Do bethink you, I pray, ere you do either."

My Lady smiled. "Nay, good my Dame!" saith she. "How can I go in cloister, that am wedded wife?"

"Eh, but you might get your lord's consent thereto—some wedded women doth."

I was looking on my Lady, and I saw a terrible change in her face when Dame Hilda spoke those words. I felt, too, Isabel's sudden nervous shiver. And I guessed what they both thought—that assent would be easy enough to win. For in all those months since Queen Isabel came over, he had never come near us. He was ever at the Court, waiting upon her. And though his duties—if he had them, but what they were we knew not— might keep him at the Court in general, yet surely, had he been very desirous to see us, he might have won leave to run over when the Queen was at Hereford, were it only for an hour or twain.

Our mother did not answer for a moment. When she did, it was to say—"Nay, vows may not be thus lightly done away. 'Till death' scarce means, till one have opportunity to undo."

"Then, pray you, go not and die, Dame!"

"I am immortal till God bids me die," she made answer. "But why should man die because he loveth Jesu Christ better than he was wont?"

"Oh, folks always do when they get marvellous good."

"It were ill for the world an' they so did," saith my Lady. "That is bad enough to lack good folks."

"It is bad enough to lack you," saith Dame Hilda.

My Lady gave a little laugh, and so the converse ended.

The next thing that I can remember, after that, was the visit of our father. He only came that once, and tarried scarce ten days; but he took Nym and Geoffrey back with him. I heard Dame Hilda whisper somewhat to Tamzine, as though he had desired to have also one or two of the elder damsels, and that my Lady had so earnestly begged and prayed to the contrary that for once he gave way to her. It was not often, I think, that he did that. It was four years good ere we saw either of our brothers again—not till all was over—and then Geoff told us a sorry tale indeed of all that had happed.

It was at the time when our father paid us this visit that my marriage and that of Beatrice were covenanted. King Edward of Caernarvon had contracted my lord that now is to the Lady Alianora La Despenser, daughter of my sometime Lord of Gloucester [Hugh Le Despenser the Younger], who was put to death at Hereford by Queen Isabel. But she—I mean the Queen—who hated him and all his, sent the Lady Alianora to Sempringham, with command to veil her instantly, and gave the marriage of my Lord to my Lord Prince, the King that now is [Edward the Third]. So my father, being then at top of the tree, begged the marriage for one of his daughters, and it was settled that should be me. I liked it well enough, to feel myself the most important person in the pageant, and to be beautifully donned, and all that; and as I was not to leave home for some years to come, it was but a show, and cost me nothing. I dare say it cost somebody a pretty penny. Beatrice was higher mated, with my Lord of Norfolk's son, who was the King's cousin, but he died a lad, poor soul! so her grandeur came to nought, and she wedded at last a much lesser noble.

Thus dwelt we maids with our mother in the Castle of Ludlow, seeing nought of the fine doings that were at Court, save just for the time of our marriages, which were at Wynchecombe on the day of Saint Lazarus, that is the morrow of O Sapientia [Note 4]. The King was present himself, and the young Lady Philippa, who the next month became our Queen, and his sisters the Ladies Alianora and Joan, and more Earls and Countesses than I can count, all donned their finest. Well-a-day, but there must have been many a yard of velvet in that chapel, and an whole army of beasts ermines must have laid their lives down to purfile [trim with fur] the same! I was donned myself of blue velvet guarded of miniver, and wore all my Lady's jewels on mine head and corsage; and marry, but I queened it! Who but I for that morrow, in very sooth!

Ay, and somebody else [Queen Isabelle, the young King's mother] was there, whom I have not named. Somebody robed in snow-white velvet, with close hood and wimple, so that all that showed of her face was from the eyebrows to the lips,—all pure, unstained mourning white. Little I knew of the horrible stains on that black heart beneath! And I thought her so sweet, so fair! Come, I have spoken too plainly to add a name.

So all passed away like a dream, and we won back to Ludlow, and matters fell back to the old ways, as if nought had ever happened—the only real difference being that instead of "Damsel Agnes" I was "my Lady of Pembroke," and our baby Beatrice, instead of "Damsel Beattie," was "my Lady Beatrice of Norfolk." And about a year after that came letters from Nym, addressed to "my Lady Countess of March," in which he writ that the King had made divers earls, and our father amongst them. Dame Hilda told us the news in the nursery, and Jack turned a somersault, and stood on his hands, with his heels up in the air.

"Call me Jack any more, if you dare!" cries he. "I am my Lord John of March, and I shall expect to be addressed so, properly. Do you hear, children?"

"I hear one of the children, in good sooth," said Meg, comically. And Maud saith—

"Prithee, Jack, take no airs, for they beseem thee but very ill."

Whereon Jack fell a-moaning and a-crying out, that Dame Hilda thought he was rare sick, and ordered Emelina to get ready a dose of violet oil. But before Emelina could so much as fetch a spoon, there was Jack dancing a hornpipe and singing, or rather screaming, at the top of his voice, till Dame Hilda put her hands over her ears and cried for mercy. I never did see such another lad as Jack.

We heard but little, and being children, we cared less, for the events that followed—the beheading of my Lord of Kent, and the rising under my Lord of Lancaster. And the next thing after that was the last thing of all.

It was in October, 1330. We had no more idea of such a blow falling on us than we had of the visitation of an angel. I remember we were all gathered—except the little ones—in my Lady's closet, for after my marriage I was no longer kept in the nursery, though Beattie, on account of her much youth, was made an exception to that rule. My Lady was spinning, and her damsel Aveline carding, and Joan and I, our arms round each others' waists, sat in the corner, Joan having on her lap a piece of finished broidery, and I having nothing: what the others were doing I forget. Then came the familiar sound of the horn, and my Lady turned white. I never felt sure why she always turned white when a horn sounded: whether she expected bad news, or whether she expected our father. She was exceeding afraid of him, and yet she loved him, I know: I cannot tell how she managed it.

After the horn, we heard the tramp of troops entering the court-yard, and I think we all felt that once more something was going to happen. Aveline glanced at my Lady, who returned the look, but did not speak; and then Lettice, one of the other maidens, rose and went forth, at a look from Aveline. But she could scarcely have got beyond the door when Master Inge came in.

"Dame," said he, "my news is best told quickly. The Castle and all therein is confiscate to the Crown. But the King hath sent strict command that the wardrobe, jewels, and all goods, of your Ladyship, and of all ladies and children dwelling with you, shall be free from seizure, and no hand shall be laid on you nor any thing belonging to you."

My Lady rose up, resting her hand on the chair from which she rose; I think it was to support her.

"I return humble thanks to the Lord King," said she, in a trembling voice. "What hath happened, Master Inge?"

"Dame," quoth he, "how shall I tell you? My Lord is a prisoner of the Tower, and Sir Edmund and Sir Geoffrey with him—"

If my Lady could turn whiter, I think she did. I felt Joan's hand-clasp tighten upon mine, till I could almost have cried out.

"And Dame Isabel the Queen is herself under ward in the Castle of Berkhamsted, and all matters turned upside down. Man saith that the great men with the King be now Sir William de Montacute and Sir Edward de Bohun, and divers more of like sort. And my Lord of Lancaster, man saith, flung up his cap, and thanked God that he had lived to see that day."

My Lady had stood as still and silent as an image, all the while Master Inge was speaking, only that when he said the Queen was in ward, she gave a sort of gasp. When he had done, she clasped her hands, and looked up to Heaven.

"Dost Thou come," she said, in a strange voice that did not sound like hers, "dost Thou come to judge the earth? We have waited long for Thee. Yet—Oh, if it be possible—if it be possible! Spare my boys to me! And spare—"

A strange kind of sob seemed to come up in her throat, and she held out her hands as if she could not see. I believe, if Master Inge and Lettice had not been quick to spring forward and catch her by the arms, she would have fallen to the floor. They bore her into her bedchamber close by; and we children saw her not for some time. Dame Hilda was in and out; but when we asked her how my Lady fared, she did nought save shake her head, from which we learned little except that things went ill in some way. When we asked Lettice, she said—

"There, now! don't hinder me. Poor children, you will know soon enough."

Aveline was the best, for she sat down and gathered us into her arms and comforted us; but even she gave us no real answer, only she kept saying, "Poor maids! poor little maids!"

So above a month passed away. Master John de Melbourne was sent down from the King as supervisor of the lands and goods of my Lady and her children; but he came with the men-at-arms, so he brought no fresh news: and it was after Christmas before we knew the rest. Then, one winter morrow, came a warrant of the Chancery, granting to my Lady all the lands of her own inheritance, by reason of the execution of her husband. And then she knew that all had come that would come.

We children, Meg except, had not yet been allowed to see our mother, who had never stirred from her bedchamber. One evening, early in January, we were sitting in her closet, clad in our new doole raiment (how I hated it!), talking to one another in low voices, for I think we all had a sort of instinct that things were going wrong somehow, even the babies who understood least about it: when all at once, for none of us saw her enter, a lady stood before us. A lady whom we did not know, clad in white widow-doole, tall and stately, with a white, white face, so that her weeds were scarcely whiter, and a kind of fixed, unalterable expression of intense pain, yet unchangeable peace. It seemed to me such a strange look. Whether the pain or the peace were the greater I knew not, nor could I tell which was the newer. We girls sat and looked at her with puzzled faces. Then a faint smile broke through the pain, on the white face, like the sun breaking through clouds, and a voice we knew, asked of us—