His attendant knight, Sir Nicolas Romford, told Sir Giles Musgrave that he had really never seemed so happy since his deliverance, and Sir Nicolas had waited on him ever since his capture, six years previously. He led the youth along to the royal rooms, asking on the way after his sheep and the goodwife who had sent him presents of eggs, then showing him the bullfinch, that greeted his return with loving chirps, and when released from its cage came and sat upon his shoulder and played with his hair, 'A better pet than a fierce hawk, eh, Hal?' he said.

He laughed when he found that Harry thought he had spent all this time in a dark underground dungeon with fetters on his feet.

'Oh no!' he said; 'they were kindly jailors. They dealt better with me than with my Master.'

'Sir, sir, that terrible ride through Cheapside!' said Harry. 'We heard of it at Derwent-side, and we longed to have our pikes at the throats of the villain traitors.'

The King looked as if he hardly remembered that cruel procession, when he was set upon a sorry jade with his feet tied to the stirrups, and shouts of 'Behold the traitor!' around him. Then with a sweet smile of sudden recollection, he said, 'Ah! I recall it, and how I rejoiced to be led in the steps of my Lord, and how the cries sounded, "We will not have this man to reign over us!" Gratias ago, unworthy me, who by my own fault could not reign.'

Harry was silenced, awe-struck, and by-and-by the King took him to see his old chamber in the White Tower, up a winding stone stair. It was not much inferior to the royal lodgings, except in the matter of dais, canopy, and tapestry, and the window looked out into the country, so that the King said he had loved it, and it had many a happy thought connected with it.

Hal followed him in a sort of silent wonder, if not awe, not daring to answer him in monosyllables. This was not quite the hermit of Derwentdale. It was a broader man—not with the breadth of full strength, but of inactivity and advance of years, though the fiftieth year was only lately completed—and the royal robe of crimson, touched with gold, suited him far less thaft the brown serge of the anchoret. The face was no longer thin, sunburnt, and worn, but pale, and his checks slightly puffed, and the eyes and smile, with more of the strange look of innocent happiness than of old, and of that which seemed to bring back to his young visitor the sense of peace and well-being that the saintly hermit had always given him.

There was consultation that evening between Lord Oxford and Sir Giles Musgrave. It was better, they agreed, to let young Clifford remain with the King as much as possible, but without divulging his name. The King knew it, and indeed had known it, when he received the boy at his hermitage, but he seemed to have forgotten it, as he had much besides. Oxford said that though he could be roused into actual fulfilment of such forms as were required of him, and understood what was set before him, his memory and other powers seemed to have been much impaired, and it was held wiser not to call on him more than could be helped, till the Queen and her son should come to supply the energy that was wanting. They would make the gay and brilliant appearance that the Londoners had admired in Edward of York, and which could not be obtained from poor Henry.

His memory for actual matters was much impaired. Never for two days together could he recollect that his son and Warwick's daughter were married, and it was always by an effort that he remembered that the Prince of Wales was not the eight-years-old child whom he had last seen. As to young Clifford, he sometimes seemed to think the tall nineteen-years-old stripling was just where he had left the child of twelve or thirteen, and if he perceived the age, was so far confused that it was not quite certain that he might not mix him up with his own son, though the knight in constant attendance was sure that he was clear on that point, and only looked on 'Hal' as the child of his teaching and prayers.

But Harry Clifford could not persuade him to enter into that which more and more lay near the youthful heart, the rescuing Anne St. John from the suitor of whom little that was hopeful was heard; and the obtaining her from his father. Of course this could not be unless Harry could win his father's property, and no longer be under the attaint in blood, so as to be able to lay claim to the lands of the De Vescis through his mother; but though the King listened with kindly interest to the story of the children's adventure on the Londesborough moor, and the subsequent meeting in Westmorland, the rescue from the outlaws, and the journey together, it was all like a romance to him—he would nod his head and promise to do what he could, if he could, but he never remembered it for two days together, and if Hal ventured on anything like pressure, the only answer was, 'Patience, my son, patience must have her work! It is the will of God, it will be right.'

And when Hal began to despair and work himself up and seek to do more with one so impracticable, Lord Oxford and Sir Giles warned him not to force his real name and claims too much, for he did not need too many enemies nor to have Lord St. John and the Nevil who held his lands both anxious to sweep him from their path.

Nor was anything heard from or of the Prioress of Greystone, and whenever the name of George Nevil, the Chancellor and Archbishop of York, was heard, Hal's heart burnt with anxiety, and fear that the lady had forgotten him, though as Dick Nevil, who held the lands of Clifford, was known to be in his suite, it was probable that she was acting out of prudence.

The turmoil of anxious impatience seemed to be quelled when Hal sat on a stool before the King, with Watch leaning against his knee. The instruction or meditation seemed to be taken up much where it had been left six years before, with the same unanswerable questions, only the youth had thought out a great deal more, and the hermit had advanced in a wisdom which was not that of the rough, practical world.

Part of Clifford's day was spent in the tilt-yard, where his two friends, as well as himself, were anxious that he should acquire proficiency and ease such as would become his station, when he recovered it; and a martinet old squire of Oxford proved himself nearly as hard a master as ever Simon Bunce had been.

One very joyous day came to Henry in his regal capacity. Christmas Day had been quietly spent. There was much noisy revelling in the city, and the guards in the castle had their feastings, but Warwick was daily expected to return from France, and neither his brother nor the Archbishop thought that there was much policy in making a public spectacle of a puppet King.

But there was one ceremony from which Henry would not be debarred. He would make the public offering on the Epiphany in Westminster Abbey. He had done so ever since he was old enough to totter up to the altar and hold the offerings; and his heart was set on doing so once more. So a large and quiet cream-coloured Flemish horse was brought for him, he was robed in purple and ermine, with a coronal around the cap that covered his hair, fast becoming white. His train in full array followed him, and the streets were thronged, but there was an ominous lack of applause, and even a few audible jeers at the monk dressed up like the jackdaw in peacock's plumes, and comparisons with Edward, in sooth a king worth looking at.

Henry seemed not to heed or hear. His blue eyes looked upward, his face was set in peaceful contemplation, his lips were moving, and those who were near enough caught murmurs of 'Vidimus enim stellam Ejus in Oriente et venimus adorare Eum.' Truly the one might be a king to suit the kingdoms of this world, the other had a soul near the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Dean and choir received him at the west door, and with the same rapt countenance he paced up to the sanctuary, and knelt before the chair appropriated to him, while the grand Epiphany Celebration was gone through, in all its glory and beauty of sound and sight, and with the King kneeling with clasped hands, and a radiant look of happiness almost transfiguring that worn face.

When the offertory anthem was sung, he rose up, and advanced to the altar. A salver of gold coins was presented to him, which he took and solemnly laid on the altar, but paused for a moment, and removed his crown with both hands, placing it likewise on the altar, and kneeling for a moment ere he turned to take the vase whence breathed the fragrant odour of frankincense; and presenting this, and afterwards kneeling and bowing low with clasped hands, he again took the salver in which the myrrh was laid. This again he placed on the altar, and remained kneeling in intense devotion through the remainder of the service, only looking up at the 'Sursum Corda,' when those near enough to see his countenance said that they never knew before the full import of those words, nor how the heart could be uplifted.

It was the first time that Hal Clifford had ever joined in the full ceremonial of the Church, or in such splendid accompaniment, for though there had been the rightful ritual at St. Peter's in the Tower, the space had been confined, and the clergy few, and the whole, even on Christmas Day, had been more or less a training to him to enter into what he now saw and heard. He had in these last weeks gathered much of the meaning of all this from the King, who perhaps never fully disentangled the full-grown youth from the boy he had taught at Derwentdale, but who, perhaps for that very cause, really suited better the strange mixture of ignorance, simplicity, observation and aspiration of the shepherd lord.

The King did not help more but less than he had done before in Hal's researches and wonderings about natural objects; he had forgotten the philosophies he had once read, and the supposed circuits of moon, planets and stars only perplexed and worried his brain. It was much more satisfactory to refer all to 'He hath made them fast for ever and ever, He hath given them a law which shall not be broken,' and he could not understand Hal's desire to find out what that law was, and far less his calculations about the tides. He had scarcely ever seen the sea, and as to its motions, 'Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther' was sufficient explanation, and when Hal tried to show him the correspondence between spring tides and full moons he either waved him away or fell asleep.

But on the spiritual side of his mind there was no torpor. He loved to explain the sense of the prayers to his willing pupil, and to tell him the Gospel story, dwelling on whatever could waken or carry on the Christian life; and between the tiltyard and the oratory Hal spent a strange life.

That question which had occurred to him on the journey Hal ventured to lay before his King—'Was it really and truly better and more acceptable worship that came to breathe through him when alone with God under the open vault of Heaven, with endless stars above and beyond, or was the best that which was beautified and guided by priests, with all that man's devices could lavish upon its embellishment?' Such, though in more broken and hesitating words, was the herd boy's difficulty, and Henry put his head back, and after having once said, 'Adam had the one, God directed the other,' he shut his eyes, and Hal feared he would put it aside as he had with the moon and the tides, but after some delay, he leant forward and said, 'My son, if man had always been innocent, that worship as Adam and Eve had it might—nay, would—have sufficed them. The more innocent man is, the better his heart rises. But sin came into the world, and expiation was needed, not only here on earth, but before the just God in Heaven above. Therefore doth He, who hath once offered Himself in sacrifice for us, eternally present His offering in Heaven before the Mercy-Seat, and we endeavour as much as our poor feeble efforts can, to take part in what He does above, and bring it home to our senses by all that can represent to us the glories of Heaven.'

There was much in this that went beyond Hal, who knitted his brow, and would have asked further, but the King fell into a state of contemplation, and noticed nothing, until presently he broke out into a thanksgiving: 'Blessed be my Lord, who hath granted me once more to follow in the steps of the kings of the East, though but as in a dream, and lay my crown and my prayer before Him. Once more I thank Thee, O my true King of kings, and Lord of lords.'

'Oh, do not say once more!' exclaimed Hal. 'Again and again, I trust, sir. It is no dream. It is real.'

The King smiled and shook his head. 'It is all a dream to me,' he said, 'the pageants and the whole. They will not last! Oh, no! It is all but an empty show.'

Hal looked up anxiously, and the King went on: 'Well do I remember the day when, scarce able to walk, and weighed down by my robes, I tottered up to the altar and was well pleased to make my offering, and how my Lord of Warwick, who was then, took me in his arms, and showed me my great father's figure on his grave, and told me I was bound to be such a king as he! Alas! was it mine own error that I so failed?—

Henry born at Monmouth shall short live and gain all, Henry born at Windsor shall long live and lose all.'

'Oh, sir, sir, do not speak of that old saw!'

Still the King smiled. 'It has come true, my child. All is lost, and it may be well for my soul that thus it should be, and that I should go into the presence of my God freed from the load of what was gained unjustly. I know not whether, if my hand had been stronger, I should have striven to have borne up the burthen of these two realms, but they never ought to have been mine, and if the sins of the forefathers be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation, no marvel that my brain and mine arm could but sink under the weight. Would that I had yielded at once, and spared the bloodshed and sacrilege! Miserere mei! My son was a temptation. Oh, my poor boy! is he to be the heir to all that has come on me? Have pity on him, good Lord!'

'Nay, sir, your brave son will come home to comfort you, and help you and make all well.'

'I know not! I know not! I cannot believe that I shall see him again, or that the visitation of these crimes is not still to come! My son, my sweet son, I can only pray that he might give up his soul sackless and freer of guilt than his father can be, when I remember all that I ought to have hindered when I could think and use my will! Now, now all is but confusion! God has taken away my judgment, even as He did with my French grandsire, and I can only let others act as they will, and pray for them and for myself.'

He had never spoken at such length, nor so clearly, and whenever he was required to come forward, he merely walked, rode, sat or signed rolls as he was told to do, and continually made mistakes as to the persons brought to him, generally calling them by their fathers' names, if he recognised them at all, but still to his nearest attendants, and especially to his beloved herd boy, he was the same gentle, affectionate being, never so happy as at his prayers, and sometimes speaking of holy things as one almost inspired.



CHAPTER XVIII. AT THE MINORESSES'



The bird that hath been limed in a bush, With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush. SHAKESPEARE.

One day, soon after that Twelfth Day, Hal accompanied Sir Giles Musgrave to the shop or stall of Master Lorimer in Cheapside, a wide space, open by day but closed by shutters at night, where all sorts of gilded and emblazoned leather-works for man or horse were displayed, and young 'prentices called, 'What d'ye lack?' 'Saddle of the newest make?' 'Buff coat fit to keep out the spear of Black Douglas himself?'

''Tis Master Lorimer himself I lack,' said Musgrave with a good- humoured smile, and the merchant appeared from a room in the rear, something between a counting-house and a bedroom, where he welcomed his former companions, and insisted on their tasting the good sherris sack that had been sent with his last cargo of Spanish leather.

'I would I could send a flask to our good Prioress,' he said, 'to cheer her heart. I went to the Minoresses' as she bade me, to settle some matters of account with her, and after some ado, Sister Mabel came down to the parlour and told me the Prioress is very sick with a tertian fever, and they misdoubt her recovering.'

'And the young Lady of St. John.'

'She is well enough, but sadly woeful as to the Mother Prioress, and likewise as to what they hear of the Lord Redgrave. It is the old man, not his son, a hard and stark old man, as I remember. He would have bargained with me for the coats of the poor rogues slain at St. Albans, and right evil was his face as he spoke thereof, he being then for Queen Margaret; but then he went over to King Edward, and glutted himself with slaughter at Towton, and here he calls himself Red Rose again. Ill-luck to the poor young maid if she falls to him!'

It was terrible news for Hal, and Musgrave could not but gratify him by riding by the Minories to endeavour to hear further tidings of the Prioress.

It was a grand building in fine pointed architecture, for the Clares, though once poor, in imitation of St. Clara and St. Francis, had been dispensed collectively from their vow of poverty, and though singly incapable of holding property, had a considerable accumulation en masse. They were themselves a strict Order, but they often gave lodgings to ladies either in retreat or for any cause detained near London.

Sir Giles and Harry were only admitted to the outer court, whence the portress went with their message of inquiry. They waited a long time, and then the Greystone lay Sister who had been the companion of their journey came back in company with the portress.

'Benedicite, dear gentles,' she said; 'oh, you are a sight for sair een.'

'And how fares the good Mother Prioress?' asked the Lord of Peelholm.

'Alack! she is woefully ill when the fever takes her, and she is wasted away so that you would scarce know her; but this is one of the better days, and if you, sir, will come into the parlour, she will see you. She was arraying herself as I came down. She was neither to have nor to hold when she heard you were there, and said a north country face would be better to her than all the Sisters' potions!'

They were accordingly conducted through a graceful cloister, overgrown with trailing ivy, to a bare room, with mullioned windows, and frescoes on the Walls with the history of St. Francis relieving beggars, preaching to the birds, &c., and with a stout open work barrier cutting off half the room.

Presently the Prioress tottered in, leaning heavily on the arms of Sister Mabel and of Anne St. John, while her own lay Sister and another placed a seat for her; but before she would sit down, she would go up to the opening, and turning back her veil, put out a hand to be grasped. 'Right glad am I to see you, good Sir Giles and young Harry. Are you going back to the wholesome winds of our moors?'

'Not yet, holy Mother. It grieves me to see you faring so ill.'

'Ah! a breeze from the north would bring life back to my old bones. Aye, Giles, this place has made an old woman of me.' And truly her bright ruddy face was faded to a purple hue, and her cheeks hung haggard and almost withered, but as her visitors expressed their grief and sympathy, she went on in her own tone. 'And tell me somewhat of how things are going. How doth Richard of Warwick comport himself to the King? Hath your King zest enough to reign? Is my White Rose King still abroad in Burgundy?' And as Sir Giles replied to each inquiry in turn, and told all he could of political matters, she exclaimed: 'Ah! that is better than the hearing whether the black hen hath laid an egg, or the skein of yellow silk matches. I am weary, O! I am weary. Moreover, young Hal, I know as matters are that could I see George Nevil face to face I could do somewhat with him, and I laid my plans to obtain a meeting, but therewith, what with vexation and weariness and lack of air, comes this sickness, and I am laid aside and can do nought but pray, and lay my plans to meet him some day in the fields, and show him what a hawk can do, then shame him into listening to my tale. But I must be a sound woman first! And maybe his brother Warwick, being a sturdy gentleman who loves a brave man, will be better to deal with. I am a sinful woman, and maybe my devotions here will help me to be more worthy to be heard. Moreover, I hoped you had done somewhat in thine own cause with thy King and Earl Oxford,' she proceeded. 'Thou hast an esquire's coat; hast thou any hope of thy lands?'

'I must strive to earn them by deeds,' said Hal. 'And—'

'Well spoken, lad! 'Tis the manly way; but methought you hadst interest with this King of thine, or hath he only a royal memory for services?'

'He is good to me. Yea, most good,' began Harry.

'Ay, he loves the boy,' said Sir Giles, 'no question about that; but his memory for all that is about him hath failed, and there is nothing for it save to wait for the Queen and the Prince, who will bear the boy's father's services in mind.'

'And wherefore tarries the French woman? This maid's father is to come over with her. He is forming her English court, I trow; she can have few beside from England.'

'When he comes,' said Harry, with a look into Anne's eyes that made them droop and her cheeks burn, 'then shall we put it to the touch. Then shall I know whether I have mine own, and what is more than mine own.'

'Thine own,' whispered Anne. 'Oh, better live in the sheepfolds with thee than with this Baron! I shudder at the thought.'

This, and a few more such words were an aside, while the Prioress continued her conversation with Sir Giles, and went on to say that she was sure she should never recover till she was out of these walls, and away from London smoke and London smells, and she naughtily added in a whisper the weary talk of these good nuns, who had never flown a hawk or chased a deer in their lives, and thought Florimond a mere wolf, if not the evil one himself, and kept the poor hound chained up like a malefactor in gyves, till she was fain to send him away with Master Lorimer to keep for her.

She would not go back to her Priory till Anne's fate was settled, being in hopes of doing something yet for the poor wench; but meantime she should die if she stayed there much longer, and she meant to set forth on pilgrimage in good time, before she had scandalised the good ladies enough to make them gossip to the dames of St. Helen's, who would be only too glad to have a story against the Benedictines. A ride over the Kentish downs was the only cure for her or for Anne, who had been pining ever since they had been mewed up here, though, looking across at the girl, whose head was leaning against the bars, Sir Giles seemed to have brought a remedy to judge by those cheeks.

'Would that we could hope it would be an effectual and lasting remedy,' sighed Sir Giles; 'but unless this poor King could be roused to insist, or the Earl of Warwick fell out with his cousin, I do not see much chance for the lad.'

'Is it Warwick who is his chief foe or King Edward?' asked the Prioress.

'King Edward, doubtless, for his father's slaughter of young Rutland at Wakefield.'

'That bodes ill,' said the lady. 'By all I gather, King Edward is a tiger when once roused, but at other times is like that same tiger, purring and slow to move. But there's a bell that warns us to vespers. They are mightily more strict here than ever we are at Greystone. Ah! you won't tell tales, Sir Giles! You'll soon hear of me at St. Thomas's shrine at Canterbury.'

The knight took his leave. It was impossible not to like and pity the Prioress, though the life among devout nuns was clearly beyond her powers.

The dreamy peaceful days of the Tower of London were stirred by the arrival of the great Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, as people already called him. He took up his residence in his own mighty establishment at Warwick House near St. Paul's; and the day after his arrival, he came clanking over London Bridge with a great following of knights and squires to pay his respects to King Henry.

Henry Clifford was not disposed to meet him, and only watched from a window when the drawbridge was lowered, and the sturdy man, with grizzled hair and marked, determined features, rode into the gateway, where he was received by the Earl of Oxford.

The interview was long, and when it was finished, the two Earls made the round of the defences, and Oxford drew up his garrison on the Tower Green to be inspected.

When Warwick had taken his leave, Hal was summoned to the Constable's hall. 'We must be jogging, my young master,' he said. 'There are rumours of King Edward making another attempt for his crown, and my Lord of Warwick would have me go and watch the eastern seaboard. And you had best go with me.'

'The King—' began Hal.

'You will come back to the King by-and-by if so be he misses you, but he was more dazed than ever to-day, and perhaps it was well, for Warwick brought with him Dick Nevil, who has got your lands of Clifford, and might be tempted to put you out of the way in one of the dungeons that lie so handy.'

'No one save the King knows who I am,' said Hal, 'and he forgets from day to day all save that I am the herd boy, and I think it cheers him to have me with him. I will stay beside him even as a varlet.'

'Nay, my lord, that may not be. 'Tis true he loves thee, but he will forget anon, and I may not suffer the risk. Too many know or guess.'

Harry Clifford repeated that he recked not of the risk when he could serve and comfort his beloved King, and, indeed, his mind was made up on the subject. He had taken measures for remaining as one of the men-at-arms of the garrison; but King Henry himself surprised him by saying, 'My young Lord of Clifford, fare thee well. Thou goest forth to-morrow with the Constable of Oxford. Take my blessing with thee, my child. Thou hast been granted to me to make life very sweet to me of late, and I thank God for it, but the time is come that thou must part from me.'

'Oh, sir, never! None was ever so dear to me! For weal or woe I will be with you! Suffer me to be your meanest varlet, and serve you as none other can do.'

Henry shook his head. 'It may not be, my child, let not thy blood also be on my head! Go with Oxford and his men. Thou hast learnt to draw sword and use lance. Thou wilt be serving me still if again there be, which Heaven forefend, stricken fields in my cause or my son's.'

'Sir, if I must fight, let no less holy hand than thine lay knighthood on my shoulder,' sobbed Hal, kneeling.

Henry smiled. 'I have well-nigh forgotten the fashion. But if it will please thee, my son, give me thy sword, Oxford. In the name of God and St. George of England I dub thee knight. For the Church, for the honour of God, for a good cause, fight. Arise, Sir Henry Clifford!'



CHAPTER XIX. A STRANGE EASTER EVE



And spare, O spare The meek usurper's holy head.—GRAY.

Once more, at the close of morning service, while it was still dark, did Harry Clifford, the new-made knight, kneel before King Henry and feel his hand in blessing on his head. Then he went forth to join Musgrave and the troop that the Earl of Oxford was leading from the Tower to raise the counties of East Anglia and watch the coast against a descent of King Edward from the Low Countries.

As they passed the walls enclosing the Minories Convent, and Hal gazed at it wistfully, the wide gateway was opened and out came a party of black-hooded nuns, mounted on ponies and mules, evidently waiting till Oxford's band had gone by. Harry drew Sir Giles's attention, and they lingered, as they became certain that they beheld the Prioress Selby of Greystone, hawk, hound and all, riding forth, nearly smothered in her hood, and not so upright as of old.

'Ay, here I am!' she said, as he reined up and bowed his greeting. 'Here I am on my pilgrimage! I got Father Ridley, the Benedictine head, to order me forth. Methinks he was glad, being a north countryman, to send me out before I either died on the Poor Clares' hands, or gave them a fuller store of tales against us of St. Bennet's! Not but that they are good women, too godly and devout for a poor wild north country Selby like me, who cannot live without air.

O the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree, They flourish best at home in the north countree.

Flori, Flori, whither away? Ah! thou hast found thine old friend. Birds of a feather. Eh? the young folk have foregathered likewise. Watch! And thou, sir knight, whither are you away?'

'On our way to Norfolk in case the Duke of York should show himself on the coast. And yours, reverend Mother?'

'To Canterbury first by easy journeys. We sleep to-night at the Tabard, where we shall meet other pilgrims.'

'Here, alack! our way severs from yours. Farewell, holy Mother, may you find health on your pilgrimage.'

'Every breath I take in is health,' said the Mother, who had already manoeuvred an opening in her veil, and gasped to throw it back as soon as she should attain an unfrequented place. 'There are so many coming and going here that all the air is used up by their greasy nostrils! Well! good luck, and God's blessing go with you, and you, young Hal, I may say so far, whichever side ye be, but still I hold that York has the right, and yours may be a saint, but not a king.'

Hal had meantime 'forgathered' as the Prioress said with Anne, marching, in spite of his new honours, close to her stirrup, and venturing to whisper to her that he was now her knight, and 'her colours,' which he was to wear for her, were only a tiny scrap of ribbon from her glove, which he cut off with his dagger, and kissed, saying he should wear it next his heart, though he might not do so openly.

Their love was more implied than ever it had been before, and she repeated her confidence that the kind Prioress would never leave her till she had done her utmost for them both.

'But you, my good stripling, I am ashamed to see you. I have done nothing for you. I sent a humble message to ask to see the Archbishop, but had no answer, and by-and-by, when I stirred again, who should come to sec me but young Bertram Selby, and "Kinswoman," said he, "you had best keep quiet. The Archbishop hath asked me whether rumours were sooth that yours was scarce a regular Priory." The squire stood up for me and said, as became one of the family, that an outlying cell, where there were ill neighbours of Scots, thieves, borderers, and the like, could scarce look to be as trim as a city nunnery, and that none had ever heard harm of Mother Agnes. But then one of his priests took on him to whisper in his ear, and he demanded whether we had not gone so far as to hide traitors from justice, to which Bertram returned a stout denial as well he might, though he thought it well to give me warning, but for the present there was no use in attempting anything more. The Archbishop was exceedingly busy with the work of his office and the defence of London in case of Edward's threatened return; but he had not yet come, and no one thought there was a reasonable doubt that Warwick, the Kingmaker, would not be victorious, and he had carried his son- in-law, the Duke of Clarence, with him.' After the cause of the Red Rose was won, there was no fear but that the services of Clifford would be remembered. So Harry Clifford parted with Anne, promising himself and her that there should be fresh Clifford services, winning a recognition of the De Vesci inheritance if of no more.

The ladies went on their way in the track which Chaucer has made memorable, laying their count to meet Queen Margaret and her son, and win their ears beforehand, and wondering that they came not. Kentish breezes soon revived the Prioress, and she went through many strange devotions at the shrine of Becket, which, it might be feared, did not improve her spiritual, so much as her bodily, health, while Anne's chiefly resolved themselves into prayers that Harry Clifford might be guarded and restored, and that she herself might be saved from the dreaded Lord Redgrave.

They did not set out on the return to London till they had inhaled plenty of sea breezes by visiting the shrine of St. Mildred in the isle of Thanet, and St. Eanswith at Folkestone, till Lent had begun, and the first fresh tidings that they met were that Edward had landed in Yorkshire, but his fleet had been dispersed by storms, and the people did not rise to join him, so that he was fain to proclaim that he only came to assert his right to his father's inheritance of the Dukedom of York.

At the Minoresses' Convent they found that a messenger had arrived, bidding Anne go to meet her father at his castle in Bedfordshire. He was coming over with the Queen whenever she could obtain a convoy from King Louis of France. Lord Redgrave was with him, and the marriage should take place as soon as they arrived.

'Never fear, child,' said the Prioress; 'many is the slip between the cup and the lip.'

Further tidings came that Edward had thrown off his first plea, that he had passed Warwick's brother Montagu at Pontefract, and that men from his own hereditary estates were flocking to his royal banner. Warwick was calling up his men in all directions, and both armies were advancing on London. Then it was known that 'false, fleeting, perjured Clarence' had deserted his father-in-law, and returned to his brother; and worthless as he individually was, it boded ill for Lancaster, though still hope continued in the uniform success of the Kingmaker. Warwick was about twenty miles in advance of Edward, till that King actually passed him and reached the town of Warwick itself. Still the Earl wrote to his brother that if he could only hold out London for forty-eight hours all would be well.

Once more poor King Henry was set on horseback and paraded through the streets. Brother Martin went out with the chaplain of the Poor Clares to gaze upon him, and they came back declaring that he was more than ever like the image carried in a procession, seeming quite as helpless and indifferent, except, said Brother Martin, when he passed a church, and then a heavenly look came over his still features as he bowed his head; but none of the crowd who came out to gaze cried 'Save King Harry!' or 'God bless him!'

There were two or three thousand Yorkists in the various sanctuaries of London, and they were preparing to rise in favour of their King Edward, and only a few hundred were mustering in St. Paul's Churchyard for the Red Rose.

The Poor Clares were in much terror, though nunneries and religious houses, and indeed non-combatants in general, were usually respected by each side in these wars; but the Prioress of Greystone was not sorry that the summons to her protegee called her party off on the way to Bedfordshire, and they all set forward together, intending to make Master Lorimer's household at Chipping Barnet their first stage, as they had engaged to do.

Their intention had been notified to Lorimer's people in his London shop, who had sent on word to their master, and the good man came out to meet them, full of surprise at the valour of the ladies in attempting the journey. But they could not possibly go further. King Edward was at St. Albans, and was on his way to London, and the Earl of Warwick was coming up from Dunstable with the Earls of Somerset and Oxford. For ladies, even of religious orders, to ride on between the two hosts was manifestly impossible, and he and his wife were delighted to entertain the Lady Prioress till the roads should be safe.

The Prioress was nothing loth. She always enjoyed the freedom of a secular household, and she was glad to remain within hearing of the last news in this great crisis of York and Lancaster.

'I marvel if there will be a battle,' she said. 'Never have I had the good luck to see or hear one.'

'Oh! Mother, are you not afraid?' cried Sister Mabel.

'Afraid! What should I be afraid of, silly maid? Do you think the men-at-arms are wolves to snap you up?'

'And,' murmured Anne, 'we shall know how it goes with my Lord of Oxford's people.'

These were the last days of Lent, and were carefully kept in the matter of food by the household, but the religious observances were much disturbed by the tidings that poured in. King Henry and Archbishop Nevil had taken refuge in the house of Bishop Kemp of London, Urswick the Recorder, with the consent of the Aldermen, had opened the gates to Edward, and the Good Friday Services at Barnet, the Psalms and prayers in the church, were disturbed by men-at-arms galloping to and fro, and reports coming in continually.

There could be no going out to gather flowers to deck the Church the next day, for King Edward was on the London side, and Warwick with his army had reached the low hills of Hadley, and their tents, their banners, and the glint of their armour might be seen over the heathy slope between them and the lanes and fields, surrounded by hedges, that fenced in the valley of Barnet. The little town itself, though lying between the two armies, remained unoccupied by either party, and only men-at-arms came down into it, not as plunderers, but to buy food.

Warwick's cannon, however, thundered all night, a very awful sound to such unaccustomed ears, but they were so directed that the charges flew far away from Barnet, under a false impression as to the situation of the Yorkist forces.

Mistress Lorimer had heard them before, but accompanied every report with a pious prayer; Sister Mabel screamed at each, then joined in; the Prioress was greatly excited, and walked about with Master Lorimer, now on the roof, trying to see, now at the gate, trying to hear. Anne fancied it meant victory to Hal's party, but knelt, tried to pray while she listened, and the dogs barked incessantly. And that Hal must be in the army above the little town they guessed, for in the evening Watch came floundering into the courtyard, hungry and muddy, but full of affectionate recognition of his old friends and the quarters he had learnt to know. Florimond, who happened to be loose, had a romp with him in their old fashion, and to the vexation and alarm of his mistress, they both ran off together, and must have gone hunting on the heath, for there was no response to her silver whistle.



CHAPTER XX. BARNET



A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew The mist aside.—TENNYSON.

And Sir Henry Clifford? Still he was Hal of Derwentdale, for the perilous usurper, Sir Richard Nevil, was known to be continually with Warwick, and Musgrave was convinced that the concealment was safest.

The youth then remained with the Peelholm men, and became a good deal more practised in warlike affairs, and accustomed to campaigning, during the three months when Oxford was watching the eastern coast. On this Easter night he lay down on the hill-side with Watch beside him, his shepherd's plaid round him, his heart rising as he thought himself near upon gaining fame and honour wherewith to win his early love, and winning victory and safety for his beloved King, or rather his hermit. For as his hermit did that mild unearthly face always come before him. He could not think of it wearing that golden crown, which seemed alien to it, but rather, as he lay on his back, after his old habit looking up at the stars, either he saw and recognised the Northern Crown, or his dazed and sleepy fancy wove a radiant coronet of stars above that meek countenance that he knew and loved so well; and as at intervals the cannon boomed and wakened him, he looked on at the bright Northern Cross and dreamily linked together the cross and crown.

Easter Sunday morning came dawning, but no one looked to see the sun dance, even if the morning had not been dull and grey, a thick fog covering everything; but through it came a dull and heavy sound, and the clang of armour. Even by their own force the radiant star of the De Veres could hardly be seen on the banner, as the Earl of Oxford rode up and down, putting his men in battle array. Hal was on foot as an archer, meaning to deserve the spurs that he had not yet worn. The hosts were close to one another, and at first only the continual rain of arrows darkened the air; but as the sun rose and the two armies saw one another, Oxford's star was to be seen carried into the very midst of the opposing force under Lord Hastings. On, on, with cries of victory, the knights rode, the archers ran across the heath carrying all before them, never doubting that the day was theirs, but not knowing where they were till trumpets sounded, halt was called, and they were drawn up together, as best they might, round their leading star. But as they advanced, behold there was an unexpected shout of treason. Arrows came thickly on them, men-at-arms bearing Warwick's ragged staff came thundering headlong upon them. 'Treason, treason,' echoed on all sides, and with that sound in his ears Harry Clifford was cut down, and fell under a huge horse and man, and lay senseless under a gorse-bush.

He knew no more but that horses and men seemed for ever trampling over him and treading him down, and then all was lost to him—for how long he knew not, but for one second he was roused so far as to hear a furious growling and barking of Watch, but with dazed senses he thought it was over the sheep, tried to raise himself, could not, thought himself dying, and sank back again.

The next thing he knew was 'Here, Master Lorimer, you know this gear better than I; unfasten this buff coat. There, he can breathe. Drink this, my lad.'

It was the Prioress's voice! He felt a jolt as of a waggon, and opened his eyes. It was dark, but he knew he was under the tilt of Lorimer's waggon, which was moving on. The Prioress was kneeling over him on one side, Lorimer on the other, and his head was on a soft lap—nay, a warm tear dropped on his face, a sweet though stifled voice said, 'Is he truly better?'

Then came sounds of 'hushing,' yet of reassurance; and when there was a halt, and clearer consciousness began to revive, while kind hands were busy about him, and a cordial was poured down his throat, by the light of a lantern cautiously shown, Hal found speech to say, as he felt a long soft tongue on his face, 'Watch, Watch, is it thou, man?'

'Ay, Watch it is,' said the Prioress. 'Well may you thank him! It is to him you owe all, and to my good Florimond.'

'But what—how—where am I?' asked Hal, trying to look round, but feeling sharp thrills and shoots of pain at every motion.

'Lie still till they bring their bandages, and I will tell you. Gently, Nan, gently—thy sobs shake him!' But, as he managed to hold and press Anne's hand, the Prioress went on, 'You are in good Lorimer's warehouse. Safer thus, though it is too odorous, for the men of York do not respect sanctuary in the hour of victory.'

The word roused Hal further. 'The victory was ours!' he said. 'We had driven Hastings' banner off the field! Say, was there a cry of treason?'

'Even so, my son. So far as Master Lorimer understands, Lord Oxford's banner of the beaming star was mistaken for the sun of York, and the men of Warwick turned on you as you came back from the chase, but all was utter confusion. No one knows who was staunch and who not, and the fields and lanes are full of blood and slaughtered men; and Edward's royal banner is set up on the market cross, and trumpets were sounding round it. And here come Master Lorimer and the goodwife to bind these wounds.'

'But Sir Giles Musgrave?' still asked Hal.

'Belike fled with Lord Oxford and his men, who all made off at the cry of treason,' was the answer.

Lorimer returned with his wife and various appliances, and likewise with fresh tidings. There was no doubt that the brothers Warwick and Montagu had been slain. They had been found—Warwick under a hedge impeded by his heavy armour, and Montagu on the field itself. Each body had been thrown over a horse, and shown at the market cross; and they would be carried to London on the morrow. 'And so end,' said Lorimer, 'two brave and open-handed gentlemen as ever lived, with whom I have had many friendly dealings.'

One thing more Hal longed to hear—namely, how he had been saved. He remembered that Watch had come back to him with Florimond the evening before. They had probably been hunting together, and the hound, who had always been very fond of him on the journey, had accompanied Watch to his side before going back to his chain in Barnet; but he had lost sight of them in the morning, and regretted that he could not find Watch to provide for his safety. He knew, he said, by the presence of Florimond, who must be in Barnet. And he also had a dim recollection of being licked by Watch's tongue as he lay, and likewise of hearing a furious barking, yelling and growling, whether of one or both dogs he was not sure.

It seemed that towards the evening, when the battle-cries had grown fainter, and the sun was going down, Florimond had burst in on his mistress, panting and blood-stained—but not with his own blood, as was soon ascertained—and made vehement demonstrations by which, as a true dog-lover, the Prioress perceived that he wanted her to follow him. And Anne, who thought she saw a piece of Hal's plaid caught in his collar, was 'neither to have nor to hold,' as the Mother said, till Master Lorimer was found, and entreated to follow the hound, ay, and to take them with him. He demurred much as to their safety, but the Prioress declared that it was the part of the religious to take care of the wounded, and not inconsistent with her vow. See the Sisters of St. Katharine's of the Tower! And though her interpretation was a broad one, and would have shocked alike her own Abbess and her of the Minoresses, he was fain to accept it in such a cause; but he commanded his waggoners to bring the wain in the rear, both as an excuse, and a possible protection for the ladies, and, it might be, a conveyance for the wounded.

Florimond, who had sprung about, barked, fawned and made entreating sounds all this time (longer in narrative than in reality) led them, not through the central field of slaughter, but somewhat to the left, among the heath—where, in fact, Oxford had lost his way in the fog, and his own allies had charged him, but had not followed far beyond the place of Hal's fall, discovering the fatal error that spread confusion through their ranks, where everyone distrusted his fellow leader.

There, after a weary and perilous way, diversified by the horrid shouts of plunderers of the slain, happily not near at hand, and when Lorimer, but for the ladies, would have given up the quest as useless, they were greeted by Watch's bark, and found him lying with his fine head alert and ready over his senseless master.

There was no doubt but that the two good creatures, both powerful and formidable animals, must have saved him from the spoilers, and then been sagacious enough to let the hound go down to fetch assistance while the sheep-dog remained as his master's faithful guardian. How honoured and caressed they were can hardly be described, but all will know.

The joy and gratitude of knowing of Anne's devotion, and the pleasure of his good dog's faithfulness, helped Hal through the painful process of having his hurts dealt with. Surgeons, even barbers, were fully occupied, and Lorimer did not wish to have it known that a Lancastrian was in his house. His wife and her old nurse, as well as the Prioress, had some knowledge of simple practical surgery; and Hal's disasters proved to be a severe cut on the head, a slash on the shoulder, various bruises, and a broken rib and thigh-bone, all which were within their capabilities, with assistance from the master's stronger hand. No one could tell whether the savage nature of the York brothers might not slake their revenge in a general massacre of their antagonists; so Lorimer caused Hal's bed to be made in the waggon in the warehouse, where he was safe from detection until the victorious army should have quitted Barnet.



CHAPTER XXI. TEWKESBURY



The last shoot of that ancient tree Was budding fair as fair might be; Its buds they crop Its branches lop Then leave the sapless stem to die. SOPHOCLES (Anstice).

Harry Clifford lay fevered, and knowing little of what passed, for several days, only murmuring sometimes of his flock at home, sometimes of the royal hermit, and sometimes in distress of the men- at-arms with whom he had been thrown, and whose habits and language had plainly been a great shock to his innocent mind, trained by the company of the sheep, and the hermit. He took the Prioress's hand for Good-wife Dolly's, but he generally knew Anne, who could soothe him better than any other.

Master Lorimer was fully occupied by combatants who came to have their equipments renewed or repaired, and he spent the days in his shop in London, but rode home in the long evenings with his budget of news. King Henry was in the Tower again, as passive as ever, but on the very day of the battle of Barnet Queen Margaret had landed at Weymouth with her son, and the war would be renewed in Somersetshire.

Search for prisoners being over at Barnet, Hal was removed to the guest chamber of his hosts, where he lay in a huge square bed, and in the better air began to recover, understand what was going on round him, and be anxious for his friends, especially Sir Giles Musgrave and Simon Bunce. The ladies still attended to him, as Lorimer pronounced the journey to be absolutely unsafe, while so many soldiers disbanded, or on their way to the Queen's army, were roaming about, and the Burgundians brought by Edward might not be respectful to an English Prioress. It was safer to wait for tidings from Lord St. John, which were certain to come either from Bletso or the Minoresses'.

So May had begun when Lorimer hurried home with the tidings that a messenger had come in haste from King Edward from the battlefield of Tewkesbury, with the tidings of a complete victory. Prince Edward, the fair and spirited hope of Lancaster, was slain, Somerset and his friends had taken sanctuary in the Abbey Church, Queen Margaret and the young wife of the prince in a small convent, and beyond all had been flight and slaughter.

For a few days no more was known, but then came fuller and sadder tidings. The young prince had been brutally slain by his cousins, Edward, George, and Richard, excited as they were to tiger-like ferocity by the late revolt. The nobles in the sanctuary, who had for one night been protected by a cord drawn in front of them by a priest, had in the morning been dragged out and beheaded. Among them was Anne's father, Lord St. John of Bletso, and on the field the heralds had recognised the corpse of her suitor, Lord Redgrave. To expect that Anne felt any acute sorrow for a father whom she had never seen since she was six years old, and who then had never seemed to care for her, was not possible.

And what was to be her fate? Her young brother, the heir of Bletso, was in Flanders with his foreign mother, and she knew not what might be her own claims through her own mother, though the Prioress and Master Lorimer knew that it could be ascertained through the seneschal at Bletso, if he had not perished with his lord, or the agents at York through whom Anne's pension had been paid. If she were an heiress, she would become a ward of the Crown, a dreary prospect, for it meant to be disposed of to some unknown minion of the Court.



CHAPTER XXII. THE NUT-BROWN MAID



All my wellfare to trouble and care Should change if you were gone, For in my mynde, of all mankind I love but you alone.—NUT-BROWN MAID.

Anne St. John, in her 'doul' or deep mourning, sat by Hal's couch or daybed in tears, as he lay in the deep bay of the mullioned window, and told him of the consultation that had been held.

'Ah, dear lady!' he said, 'now am I grieved that I have not mine own to endow you with! Well would I remain the landless shepherd were it not for you.'

'Nay,' she said, looking up through her tears, 'and wherefore should I not share your shepherd's lot?'

'You! Nan, sweet Nan, tenderly nurtured in the convent while I have ever lived as a rough hardy shepherd!'

'And I have ever been a moorland maid,' she answered, 'bred to no soft ways. I know not how to be the lady of a castle—I shall be a much better herdsman's wife, like your good old Dolly, whom I have always loved and envied.'

'You never saw us snowed up in winter with all things scarce, and hardly able to milk a goat.'

'Have not we been snowed up at Greystone for five weeks at a time?'

'Ay, but with thick walls round and a stack of peat at hand,' said Hal, his heart beating violently as more and more he felt that the maiden did not speak in jest, but in full earnestness of love.

'Verily one would deem you took me for a fine dainty dame, such as I saw at the Minoresses', shivering at the least gust of fresh wind, and not daring to wet their satin shoes if there had been a shower of rain in the cloisters. Were we not all stifled within the walls, and never breathed till we were out of them? Nay, Hal, there is none to come between us now. Take me to your moors and hills! I will be your good housewife and shepherdess, and make you such a home! And you will teach me of the stars and of the flowers and all the holy lore of your good royal hermit.'

'Ah! my hermit, my master, how fares it with him? Would that I could go and see!'

'Which do you love best—me or the hermit?' asked Anne archly, lifting up her head, which was lying on his shoulder.

'I love you, mine own love and sweetheart, with all my heart,' he said, regaining her hand, 'but my King and master with my soul; and oh! that I had any strength to give him! I love him as my master in holy things, and as my true prince, and what would I not give to know how it is with him and how he bears these dreadful tidings!'

He bent his head, choking with sobs as he spoke, and Anne wept with him, her momentary jealousy subdued by the picture of the lonely prisoner, his friends slain in his cause, and his only child cut off in early prime; but she tried the comfort of hoping that his Queen would be with him. Thus talking now of love, now of grief, now of the future, now of the past, the Prioress found them, and as she was inclined to blame Anne for letting her patient weep, the maiden looked up to her and said, 'Dear Mother, we are disputing—I want this same Hal to wed me so soon as he can stand and walk. Then I would go home with him to Derwentside, and take care of him.'

The Prioress burst out laughing. 'Make porridge, milk the ewes and spin their wool? Eh? Meet work for a baron's daughter!'

'So I tell her,' said Harry. 'She knows not how hard the life is.'

'Do I not?' said Anne. 'Have I not spent a night and day, the happiest my childhood knew, in your hut? Has it not been a dream of joy ever since?'

'Ay, a summer's dream!' said Hal. 'Tell her the folly of it.'

'I verily believe he does not want me. If he had not a lame leg, I trow he would be trying to be mewed up with his King!'

'It would be my duty,' murmured Hal, 'nor should I love thee the less.'

''Tis a duty beyond your reach,' said the Prioress. 'Master Lorimer hears that none have access to King Henry, God help him! and he sits as in a trance, as though he understood and took heed of nothing—not even of this last sore battle.'

'God aid him! Aye, and his converse is with Him,' said Hal, with a gush of tears. 'He minds nought of earth, not even earthly griefs.'

'But we, we are of earth still, and have our years before us,' said Anne, 'and I will not spend mine the dreary lady of a dull castle. Either I will back and take my vows in your Priory, reverend Mother, if Hal there disdains to have me.'

'Nan, Nan! when you know that all I dread is to have you mewed behind a wall of snow as thick as the walls of the Tower and freezing to the bone!'

'With you behind it telling all the tales. Mother, prithee prove to him that I am not made of sugar like the Clares, but that I love a fresh wind and the open moorlands.'

The Prioress laughed and took her away, but in private the maiden convinced her that the proposal, however wild, was in full earnest, and not in utter ignorance of the way of life that was preferred.

Afterwards the good lady discussed it with the Lorimers. 'For my part,' she said, 'I see nought to gainsay the children having their way. They are equal in birth and breeding, and love one another heartily, and the times may turn about to bring them to their own proper station.'

'But the hardness and the roughness of the life,' objected Mistress Lorimer, 'for a dainty, convent-bred lady.'

'My convent—God, forgive me!—is not like the Poor Clares. We knew there what cold and hunger mean, as well as what free air and mountains are. Moreover, though the maid thinks not of it, I do not believe the life will be so bare and comfortless. The lad's mother hath not let him want, and there is a heritage through the Vescis that must come to him, even if he never can claim the lands of Clifford.'

'And now that all Lancaster is gone, King Edward may be less vindictive against the Red Rose,' said Lorimer.

'There must be a dowry secured to the maid,' said the Prioress. 'Let them only lie quiet for a time till the remains of the late tempest have blown over, and all will be well with them. Ay, and Master Lorimer, the Lady Threlkeld, as well as myself, will fully acquit ourselves of the heavy charges you have been put to for your hospitality to us.'

Master Lorimer disclaimed all save his delight in the honour paid to his poor house, and appealed to his wife, who seconded him courteously, though perhaps the expenses of a wounded knight, three nuns, a noble damsel and their horses, were felt by her enough to make the promise gratifying.

While the elders talked, a horseman was heard in the court, asking whether the young demoiselle of Bletso were lodged there. It was the seneschal Wenlock, who had come with what might be called the official report of his lord's death, and to consider of the disposal of the young lady, being glad to find the Prioress of Greystone, to whom she had originally been committed by her father.

Before summoning her, he explained to the Prioress that a small estate which had belonged to her mother devolved upon her. The proceeds of the property were not large, but they had been sufficient to keep her at the convent, on the moderate charges of the time. Anne was only eighteen, and at no time of their lives were women, even widows, reckoned able to dispose of themselves. She would naturally become a ward of the Crown, and Lord Redgrave having been killed, the seneschal was about to go and inform King Edward of the situation.

'But,' said the Prioress, 'suppose you found her already betrothed to a gentleman of equal birth, and with claims to an even greater inheritance? Would you not be silent till the match was concluded, and the King had no chance of breaking it?'

'If it were well for the maid's honour and fortune,' said the seneschal. 'If you, reverend Mother, have found a fair marriage for her, it might be better to let well alone.'

Then the Prioress set forth the situation and claims of young Clifford, and the certainty, that even if it were more prudent not to advance them at present, yet the ruin of the house of Nevil removed one great barrier, and at least the Vesci inheritance held by his mother must come to him, and she was the more likely to make a portion over to him when she found that he had married nobly.

The seneschal acquiesced, even though the Prioress confessed that the betrothal had not actually taken place. In fact he was relieved that the maiden, whom he had known as a fair child, should be off his hands, and secured from the greed of some Yorkist partisan needing a reward.

When Anne, her dark eyes and hair shaded by her mourning veil, came down, and had heard his greeting, with such details of her father's death and the state of the family as he could give her, she rose and said: 'Sir, there have been passages between Sir Harry Clifford and myself, and I would wed none other than him.'

Nor did the seneschal gainsay her.

All that he desired was that what was decided upon should be done quickly, before heralds or lawyers brought to the knowledge of the Woodvilles that there was any sort of prize to be had in the damsel of St. John, and he went off, early the next morning, back to Bletso, that he might seem to know nothing of the matter.

The Prioress laughed at men being so much more afraid than women. She was willing to bear all the consequences, but then the Plantagenets were not in the habit of treating ladies as traitors. However, all agreed that it would be wiser to be out of reach of London as soon as possible, and Master Lorimer, who had become deeply interested in this romance of true love, arranged to send one of his wains to York, in which the bride and bridegroom might travel unsuspected, until the latter should be able to ride and all were out of reach of pursuit. The Prioress would go thus far with them, 'And then! And then,' she said sighing, 'I shall have to dree my penance for all my friskings!'

'But, oh, what kindly friskings!' cried Anne, throwing herself into those tender arms.

'Little they will reck of kindness out of rule,' sighed the Prioress. 'If only they will send me back to Greystone, then shall I hear of thee, and thou hadst better take Florimond, poor hound, or the Sisters at York may put him to penance too!'

Henry Clifford was able to walk again, though still lame, when, in the early morning of Ascension Day, he and Anne St. John were married in the hall of Master Lorimer's house by a trusty priest of Barnet, and in the afternoon, when the thanksgiving worship at the church had been gone through, they started in the waggon for the first stage of the journey, to be overtaken at the halting-place by the Prioress and Master Lorimer, who had had to ride into London to finish some business.

And he brought tidings that rendered that wedding-day one of mournful, if peaceful, remembrances.

For he had seen, borne from the Tower, along Cheapside, the bier on which lay the body of King Henry, his hands clasped on his breast, his white face upturned with that heavenly expression which Hal knew so well, enhanced into perfect peace, every toil, every grief at an end.

Whether blood dropped as the procession moved along, Lorimer could not certainly tell. Whether so it was, or whoever shed it, there was no marring the absolute rest and joy that had crowned the 'meek usurper's holy head,' after his dreary half-century of suffering under the retribution of the ancestral sins of two lines of forefathers. All had been undergone in a deep and holy trust and faith such as could render even his hereditary insanity an actual shield from the poignancy of grief.

Tears were shed, not bitter nor vengeful. Such thoughts would have seemed out of place with the memory of the gentle countenance of love, good-will and peace, and as Harry and Anne joined in the service that the Prioress had requested to have in the early daylight before starting, Hal felt that to the hermit saint of his boyhood he verily owed his own self.



CHAPTER XXIII. BROUGHAM CASTLE



And now am I an Earlis son, And not a banished man.—NUT-BROWN MAID.

That journey northward in the long summer days was a honeymoon to the young couple. The Prioress left them as much to themselves as possible, trying to rejoice fully in their gladness, and not to think what might have been hers but for that vow of her parents, keeping her hours diligently in preparation for the stricter rule awaiting her.

When they parted she sent Florimond with them, to be restored if she were allowed to return to Greystone, and Anne parted with her with many tears as the truest mother and friend she had ever known.

By this time Harry was able to ride, and the two, with a couple of men-at-arms hired as escort, made their way over the moors, Harry's head throbbing with gladness, as, with a shout of joy, he hailed his own mountain-heads, Helvellyn and Saddleback, in all their purple cloud-like majesty.

They agreed first to go to Dolly's homestead, drawn as much by affection as by prudence. Delight it was to Hal to point out the rocks and bushes of his home; but when he came in sight of Piers and the sheep, the dumb boy broke out into a cry of terror, and rushed away headlong, nor did he turn till he felt Watch's very substantial paws bounding on him in ecstasy.

Watch was indeed a forerunner, for Dolly and her husband could scarcely be induced by his solid presence and caresses to come out and see for themselves that the tall knight and lady were no ghostly shades, nor bewildered travellers, but that this was their own nursling Hal, whom Simon Bunce had reported to be lying dead under a gorse-bush at Barnet, and further that the lovely brunette lady was the little lost child whom Dolly had mothered for a night.

While the happy goodwife was regaling them with the best she had to offer, Hob set forth to announce their arrival at Threlkeld, being not certain what the cautious Sir Lancelot would deem advisable, since the Lancaster race had perished, and York was in the ascendant.

There was a long time to wait, but finally Sir Lancelot himself came riding through the wood, no longer afraid to welcome his stepson at the castle, and the more willing since the bride newly arrived was no maiden of low degree, but a damsel of equal birth and with unquestioned rights.

So all was well, and the lady no longer had to embrace her son in fear and trembling, but to see him a handsome and thoughtful young man, well able to take his place in her halls.

Since he had been actually in arms against King Edward it was not thought safe to assert his claims to his father's domains, but the lady gave up to him a portion of her own inheritance from the Vescis, where he and Anne were able to live in Barden Tower in Yorkshire, not far from Bolton Abbey. So Hal's shepherd days were over, though he still loved country habits and ways. Hob came to be once more his attendant, Dolly was Anne's bower-woman, and Simon Bunce Sir Harry's squire, though he never ceased blaming himself for having left his master, dead as he thought, when even a poor hound was more trusty.

Florimond was restored to the Prioress, who was reinstated at Greystone, a graver woman than before she had set forth, the better for having watched deeper devotion at the Minoresses', and still more for the terrible realities of the battle of Barnet. At Bolton Abbey Harry found monks who encouraged his craving for information on natural science, and could carry him on much farther in these researches than his hermit, though he always maintained that the royal anchorite and prisoner saw farther into heavenly things than any other whom he had known, and that his soul and insight rose the higher with his outward troubles and bodily decay.

So peacefully went the world with them till Henry was one-and-thirty, and then the tidings of Bosworth Field came north. The great tragedy of Plantagenet was complete, and the ambitious and blood-stained house of York, who had avenged the usurpation of Henry of Lancaster, had perished, chiefly by the hands of each other, and the distantly related descendant of John of Gaunt, Henry Tudor, triumphed.

The Threlkelds were not slow to recollect that it was time for the Cliffords to show their heads; moreover, that the St. Johns of Bletso were related to the Tudors. Though now an aged woman, she descended from her hills, called upon her son and his wife with their little nine-year-old son to come with her, and pay homage to the new sovereign in their own names, and rode with them to Westminster.

There a very different monarch from the saint of Harry's memory received and favoured him. The lands of Westmoreland were granted to him as his right, and on their return, Master Lorimer coming by special invitation, the family were welcomed at Brougham Castle, the cradle of their race, where Harry Clifford, no longer an outlaw, began the career thus described:

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie, His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him the savage virtue of the race, Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead, Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place The wisdom that adversity had bred.

Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth, The Shepherd Lord was honoured more and more, And ages after he was laid in earth The Good Lord Clifford was the name he bore.



FINIS