"Dona Juana! lacked you Maude a season?"

Half an hour previous, Juana had been urging on her workwomen with reminders that very little time was left before the dresses must be ready; but Maude had learned now that in the eyes of the Mistress, Constance's will was law, and she therefore received with little surprise the order to "sue the Senorita." Resigning her work into the hands of Sybil, Maude followed her imperious little lady into the chamber of Dame Agnes de La Marche, who was busy arranging fresh flax for her spinning.

"Your fingers be busy, Dame Agnes," observed the little Princess. "Is your tongue at leisure?"

"Both be alway at your service, Damosel," replied the courtly old lady.

"Then, I pray you, tell to me and Maude your fair story of the Lyonesse."

"With a very good will."

"Then, prithee, set about it," said Constance, ensconcing herself in the big chair. "Sit thou on that stool, Maude."

The old lady took her distaff, now ready, and sat down, smiling at the impatience of the capricious child.

"Once upon a time," she began, "the ending of the realm of England was not that stide [place] which men now call the Land's End in Cornwall. Far beyond, even as far as the Isles of Scilly, stretched the fair green plains: a kingdom lay betwixt the two, and men called it La Lyonesse. And in the good olden days, when Arthur was king, the Lyonesse had her prince, and on her plains and hills were fair rich cities, and through her forests pricked good knights on the quest of the Holy Grail, [see note 2] that none, save unsinning eyes, might ever see. For of all the four-and-twenty Knights of the Round Table, none ever saw the Holy Grail save one, and that was Sir Galahad, that was pure of heart and clean of life. Howbeit, one night came a mighty tempest. The sea raged and roared on the Cornish coast, and dashed its waters far up the rocks, washing the very walls of the Castle of Tintagel. And they that saw upon that night told after, that there came one wild flash of lightning that lightened sky and earth; and men looked and saw by its light, statelily standing, the rich cities and green forests of the Lyonesse; and then came black darkness, and a roar, and a crash, and a rending, as though all the rocks and the mountains should be torent [violently torn asunder]; and then another wild flash lightened sky and earth, and men looked, and the rich cities and green forests of the Lyonesse were gone."

Maude was listening entranced, with parted lips; Constance carelessly, as if she knew all about it beforehand, and were chiefly amusing herself by watching the rapt face of her fellow-listener.

"Long years thereafter," resumed Dame Agnes, "ay, and even now, men said and say, that at times ye may yet hear the sound and see the sight of the drowned cities of the Lyonesse. Ever sithence that tempestuous night, the deep green sea lies heavy on the bosom of the lost land; and no man of unpure heart, nor of evil life, ne unbaptised, ne unshriven, may see nor hear. But if one of Christian blood, a christened man, pure of heart and clean in life, that is newly shriven, whether man or maid, will sail forth at midnight over the green sea, and when he cometh to the place where lieth the Lyonesse, will bend him down from the boat, and look and listen, then shall come up around his ears soft weird music from the church bells in the silver steeples of the doomed cities: yea, and there have been so pure, and our Lady hath shown them such grace, that they have seen the very self streets down at the bottom of the sea, where the dead walk and speak as they did of old—the knights and the ladies, as in the days gone by, when Arthur was King, a thousand years ago, when he held his court in the palaces of the lost land. And the Islands of Scilly, as men say, be the summits of the mountains, that towered once hoary and barren over the green forests and the rich cities." [This story is a veritable legend of the Middle Ages.]

The story was being told to an uncritical and unchronological audience, or Dame Agnes might have received a gentle intimation that she was antedating the reign of King Arthur by the short period of two hundred years.

The silence which followed—for both the little girls were meditating on the story, and Dame Agnes's flax was just then entangled in a troublesome knot—was broken, suddenly and very thoroughly, by the unexpected entrance, quiet though it were, of the Countess herself. Dame Agnes gave no heed to her broken thread, but rose instantly, distaff in hand, with a low reverence; Constance rubbed her sleepy eyes and slowly descended from her great chair; while Maude, recalled to the present, dropped her lowest courtesy and stood waiting.

There was a peculiar air about the Countess Isabel, which suggested to bystanders the idea of a tired, worn-out woman. It was not discontent, not irritability, not exactly even sadness; it was the tone of one who had never fitted rightly into the place assigned to her, and who never felt at home. Though it disappeared when she spoke, yet as soon as her features were at rest it came again. It was little wonder that her face wore such an expression, for she was the daughter of a murdered father and a slandered mother, and the wife of a man who valued her very highly as the Infanta of Castilla, but as Isabel his wife not at all. During her early years, she had sought rest and comfort in the world. She plunged wildly into every manner of dissipation and pleasure; like Solomon, she withheld not her heart from any good; and like Solomon's, her verdict at the close was "Vanity and vexation of spirit." And then—just when she had arrived at the conclusion that there was nothing upon earth worth living for—when she had "come to the end of everything, and cared for nothing," she met with an old priest of venerable aspect, a trusted servant of King Edward, whose first words touched the deepest chord in her heart, while his second brought the healing balm. His name was John de Wycliffe. Was it any wonder that she accepted him as a very angel of God?

For he showed her where rest was, not within, but without; not from beneath, nor from around, but from above. So the tired heart rested in Jesus here, looking forward to its perfected rest in the presence of Jesus hereafter.

For so far as the world was concerned, there was no rest any longer. It was fearfully up-hill work for Isabel to aim at such a walk as should please God. Her husband did not oppose her; he was as profoundly indifferent to her new opinions and practices as he had been to her old ones, as he was to herself. So far as her life was concerned, of the two he considered that she had altered for the better. There had never been but one heart which had loved Isabel, and that heart she pierced as with a sword when she entered her new path on the narrow way.

To Constanca of Castilla, the sister who had shared with her their "heritage of woe," this younger sister was inexpressibly dear. The two sisters had married two brothers, and they saw a good deal of each other until that time; but after Isabel cast in her lot with Wycliffe, very little. The Gospel parted these loving sisters as with a sword; the magnet was received by each at an opposite end. It attracted Isabel, and repelled Constanca. The elder wanted nothing more than she had always had; the gorgeous ceremonies and absolving priests of the old Church satisfied her, and she demanded no further comfort. She was "a woman devout above all others" in the eyes of the monkish chroniclers. And that usually meant that in this world she never awoke to her soul's uttermost need, and she was therefore content with the meagre supply she found. So the difference between the sisters was that Constanca slept peacefully while Isabel had awoke.

It was because Isabel had awoke, that she was unsatisfied with the round of ritual observances which were all in all to her sister. She could confess to man, and be absolved by man; but how could she wrestle against the conviction that she rose from the confessional with a soul none the cleaner, with a heart just as disinclined to go and sin no more? The branches might be lopped; but what mattered that while the root of bitterness remained? It is only when we hear God say, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," that it is possible to go in peace. And Isabel never heard it until she came to Him. Then, when she came empty-handed, He filled her hands with gifts; He breathed into the harassed soul rest and hope.

This was what God gave her. But men gave her something very different. They had nothing better for this woman that had been a sinner, than the old comment of Simon the Pharisee. They were not ready to cast the remembrance of her iniquities into the depths of the sea—far from it. What they gave her was a scorned and slandered name, a character sketched in words that dwelt gloatingly on her early devotion to the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and left unwritten the story of her subsequent devotion to God. The later portion of her life is passed over in silence. We see something of its probable character in the supreme contempt of the monkish chroniclers; in the heretical epithet of "pestilent" applied to her; in the Lollard terms of her last will; in her choice of eminent Lollards as executors; in her bosom friendship with the Lollard Queen.

But at another Table from that of Simon the Pharisee, "many that are first shall be last, and the last first."

We have kept Maude standing for a long while, before her mistress, seated in the great chair in Dame Agnes de La Marche's chamber.

"And how lovest thy new fashion of life, my maid?" demanded the Countess, when she had taken her seat.

"Right well, an' it like your Grace."

"Thou art here welsomer [more comfortable] than in the kitchen?"

"Surely so, Madam."

"Dame Joan speaketh well of thy cunning." [Skill.]

Maude smiled and courtesied. She was gradually learning Court manners.

"And hast thou yet thy book-leaf, the which I read unto thee?"

"Oh ay, Madam!"

"'Thy book-leaf!'" interjected Constance. "What book hast thou?"

"A part of God's Word, my daughter," replied her mother gravely; "touching His great City, the holy Jerusalem, which shall come down from God out of Heaven, and is lightened with His glory."

"When will it come?" said Constance, with unwonted gravity.

"God wot. To all seeming, not ere thou and I be either within the same, or without His gates for ever."

The Countess turned back to Maude.

"My maid, thou wouldst fain know at that time whether I had any dwelling in that city. Wist thou that an' thou wilt, there thou mayest dwell?"

"I, Madam! In very sooth, should it like your Grace to take me?" And Maude's eyes sparkled with delight.

"I cannot take thee, my child!" was the reply, spoken in a tone so grave that it was almost sad. "If thou wouldst go, it is Another must bear thee thither."

"The Lady Custance?" inquired Maude, glancing at her.

"The Lord Jesus Christ."

Agnes mechanically crossed herself. Maude's memory ran far back.

"Sister Christian, that was a nun at Pleshy," she observed, dreamily, "was wont to say, long time agone, unto Mother and me, that holy Mary's Son did love us and die for us; but I never wist nought beyond that. Would your Grace, of your goodness, tell me wherefore it were?"

"Wherefore He died? It was in the stead of thee, my maid, if thou wilt have it so: He died that thou mightest never die withouten end.—Or wherefore He loved, wouldst know? Truly, I can but bid thee ask that of Himself, for none wist that mystery save His own great heart. There was nought in us that He should love us; but there was every cause in Himself wherefore He should love."

Maude was silent; but the thought which she was revolving in her mind was whether any great saint had ever asked such a question of Him who to her was only "holy Mary's Son." Of course it would have to be asked through Mary. No one, not even the greatest saint, considered Maude, had ever spoken direct to Him, except in a vision. The next remark of the Countess rather startled her.

"My maid, dost ever pray?"

"An' it like your Grace, I do say every even the Hail Mary, and every morrow the Credo; and of Sundays and holy days likewise the Paternoster."

"And didst never feel no want ne lack, for the which thou findest not words in the Hail Mary ne in the Credo, if it be not an holy day?"

Ay, many a want, as Maude well knew, but what had Credo or Angelus to do with wants? Prayer, in her eyes, meant either long repetitions imposed as penances by the priest, or else the daily use of a charm, the omission of which might entail evil consequences. Of prayer as a real means of procuring something about which she cared, she had no more notion than Dame Agnes's squirrel, at that moment running round his cage, had of the distance and extent of Sherwood Forest. Maude looked up in the face of her mistress with an expression of deep perplexity.

"Child," said the Countess, "when Dame Joan would send word touching some matter unto Dame Agnes here, falleth she a-saying unto herself of Dan Chaucer's brave Romaunt of The Flower and the Leaf?"

"Surely, no, Madam."

"Then what doth she?"

"She cometh unto her," said Maude, immediately adding, in a matter-of-fact way, "without she should send Mistress Sybil or some other."

"Good. Then arede [inform] me wherefore thou shouldst fall a-saying the Credo when thou wouldst send word of thy need unto God, any more than Dame Joan should fall a-saying the Romaunt?"

"But God heareth us, and conceiveth us, Madam," said Maude timidly, "and Dame Agnes no doth."

"Truth, my maid. Therein faileth my parable. But setting this aside, tell me,—how shall the Credo give to wit thy need?"

Maude cogitated for a minute in silence. Then she answered—

"No shall it, Madam."

"Then wherefore not speak thy lack straightway?"

Maude was silent, but not because she was stupid.

"My maid, what saith the Credo? When thus thou prayest, dost thou aught save look up to Heaven, and say, 'God, I believe in Thee'? So far as it goeth, good. But seest not that an' thou shouldst say to me, 'Madam, I crede and trust you,' thou shouldst have asked nought from me—have neither confessed need, ne presented petition? The Credo is matter said to men—not to God. Were it not better to say, 'Lord, I love Thee?' Or best of all, 'Lord, love Thou me?'"

"I wis, Madam, that our Lord loveth the saints," said Maude in a low voice.

She felt very much in the condition graphically described by John Bunyan as "tumbled up and down in one's mind."

"Ah, child!" was the Countess's answer, "they be lost sheep whom Christ seeketh. And whoso Christ setteth out to seek shall, sooner or later, find the way to Him."

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. Harl. Ms. 4016, folios 1, 2.

Note 2. The "Holy Grail" was one of the most singular of Romish superstitions. A glass vessel, supported by a foot, was shown to the people as the cup in which Christ gave the wine to His disciples at the Last Supper; and they were taught, not only that Joseph of Arimathea had caught the blood from His side in the same vessel, but that he and Mary Magdalene, sailing on Joseph's shirt, had brought over the relic from Palestine to Glastonbury. "The Quest of the Saint Graal" was the highest achievement of the Knights of the Round Table.



CHAPTER FOUR.

IN THE SCRIPTORIUM.

"There are days of deepest sorrow In the season of our life; There are wild, despairing moments, There are hours of mental strife; There are times of stony anguish, When the tears refuse to fall; But the waiting time, my brothers, Is the hardest time of all." Sarah Doudney.

Beside a Gothic window, and under a groined stone roof, that afternoon sat a monk at his work. The work was illumination. The room was bare of all kinds of furniture, with the exception of a wooden erection which was chair and desk in one. On the desk lay a large square piece of parchment, a future leaf of a book, in which the text was already written, but the illuminated border was not yet begun. There was a pen in the monk's hand, with which he was about to execute the outline; but the pen was dry, and the old man's eyes were fixed dreamily upon the landscape without.

"'In wisdom hast Thou made them all,'" he murmured half audibly. "O Lord, 'the earth is full of Thy riches!'"

It was early morning, for the illuminator was at work betimes. From a little cottage visible across the green, he saw a peasant go forth to his daily work, his wife watching him a moment from the door of the hut, and two little children calling to him lovingly to come back soon.

"And life also is full of Thy riches," whispered the solitary monk. "This poor hind hath none other riches than what Thine hand hath given him. Is he in truth the poorer for it? We live on Thy daily bounty even more than he; for like Thy lilies, we toil not, neither do we spin. Yet Thou hast given to him, as sweetening to his toil, solace denied by Thy holy will to us. Wherefore denied to us? Because we are set apart for Thee. So were Thy priests of old, in Thy Temple at Jerusalem: yet it was not denied to them. Why should we love Thee less for loving little children?"

The monk turned back abruptly to his work.

"Ah me! these be problems beyond mine art. And whatso be the solving of the general matter, I have no doubt as to Thy will for me. The joys of earth be not for me; but Thou art my portion, O Lord! And I am content—ay, satisfied abundantly. Maybe, on the golden hills of the Urbs Beata, we shall find joys far passing the sweetest here, kept for that undefouled company which shall sue the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. And could any joy pass that?"

The venerable head was bent over the parchment, upon which the grotesque outline of a griffin began to grow, twisted round a very conventional tree, with the stem issuing from its mouth, and its elongated tail executing marvellous spiral curves. The illuminator was taken by surprise the next instant, and the curve of the griffin's tail then pending was by no means round in consequence.

"Alway at work, Father Wilfred?" [A fictitious person.]

"Bertram Lyngern," said the monk calmly, "thou hast marred my griffin."

"What, have I made him a wyvern?"

"That had less mattered. A twist of his tail is square, thy sudden speech being the cause thereof."

"Let be, Father Wilfred. 'Tis a new pattern."

The monk smiled, but shook his head, and proceeded to erase the faulty strokes by means of a large piece of pumice-stone. Bertram sat contemplating his friend's work, curled up in the wide stone window-ledge, to which he had climbed from the horse-block below it. The lattice was open, so there was no hindrance to conversation.

"I would I were a knight!" said Bertram suddenly, after a few minutes' silence on both sides.

"To wear gilded spurs?" inquired Wilfred calmly resuming his pen, and going on with the griffin.

"Thou countest me surely not such a loon, Father Wilfred? No,—I long to be great. I feel as though greatness stirred within me. But what can I do,—a squire? If I were a knight I could sign my shoulder with the holy cross, and go fight for our Lord's sepulchre. That were something worth. But to dangle at the heels of my Lord Edward all the day long, and fly an half-dozen hawks, and meditate on pretty sayings to the Lady's damsels, and eat venison, and dance—Father Wilfred, is this life meet for a man's living?"

The illuminator laid his pen down, and looked up at the lad.

"Bertram," he said, "just fifty years gone, I was what thou art, and my thoughts then were thine."

"Thou wert, Father?" responded Bertram in an interested tone. "Well, and what was the end?"

"The end is not yet. But the next thing was, that I did as thou fain wouldst do:—I signed me with the good red cross, and I went to the Holy Land."

"And thou earnest back, great of name, and blessed in soul?"

"I came back, having won no name, and with no blessing, for I knew more of evil than when I set forth."

"But, Father, at our Lord's sepulchre!" urged Bertram.

"Youngling," said Wilfred, a rare, sweet smile flitting across his lips, "dost thou blunder as Mary did? Is the Lord yet in the sepulchre? 'He is not here; He is risen.' And why then should His sepulchre be holier than other graves, when He that made the holiness is there no longer?"

"But where then is our Lord?" asked Bertram, rather perplexed.

"He is where thou wouldst have Him," was the quiet answer. "If that be in thine heart, ay:—and if no, no."

Bertram meditated for a little while upon this reply.

"But seest thou any reason, Father, wherefore I should not become a great man?" he said, reverting to his original topic.

"I see no reason at all, Bertram Lyngern, wherefore thou shouldst not become a very great man."

Still Bertram was dissatisfied. He had an instinctive suspicion that his great man and Wilfred's were not exactly the same person.

"But what meanest by a great man, Father?"

"What meanest thou?"

"I mean a warrior," said the lad, "dauntless in war, and faithful in love—brave, noble, and high-souled, alway and every whither."

"And so mean I."

"But I mean one that men shall talk of, and tell much of his noble deeds and mighty prowess."

"Were he less brave without?"

"He were less puissant, Father."

Wilfred did not reply for a minute, but devoted himself to hanging golden apples from the stiff boughs of his very medieval tree.

"The heroes of the world and those of the Church," he said at last, "be rarely the same men. A man cannot be an hero in all things. The warrior is not the statesman, nor is neither of them the bishop. Thou must choose thy calling, lad."

"Yet a true hero must be an hero all the world over, Father—in every calling."

"How much hast heard of one Master Vegelius?"

"Never afore this minute."

"I thought so much."

"Who was he?" inquired Bertram.

"The best and most cunning limner of this or any land."

"Oh! Only a scriptorius?"

"Only a scriptorius," said the monk quietly—not at all offended. "And it may be that he never heard of some of thy heroes."

"My heroes are Alexander and Charlemagne," said Bertram proudly. "He must have heard of them."

Wilfred dipped his pen in the ink with a rather amused smile.

"Now, Father Wilfred!"

"I was only thinking, lad, that when I set up my hero, he shall not be a man that met his death in a wine-butt."

"What?—Oh! Alexander. Well, we have all our failings," admitted Bertram, reluctant to give up his favourite.

"Thou sayest sooth, lad."

"Father Wilfred, who is thine hero?"

"Wist thou who is God's hero?" asked the illuminator, laying down his pen, and fixing his eyes on the boy. "God Himself once told men who was their greatest. And who was it, countest?"

"Was it Charlemagne?" eagerly responded the unchronological Bertram.

"'Among men that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than—'"

"Whom?" interpolated the boy, when Wilfred paused.

"'John the Baptist.'"

Bertram's face fell with a most disappointed look.

"Why, what did he? How was he great?"

"He was great in four matters, methinks, in one whereof only thou or I may not have leave to follow him. In that he foreran our Lord, his deed is beyond our reach: but in three other concernments, in no wise. Firstly, he preached Christ."

"That the priests do," interjected Bertram.

"Do they so?" asked Wilfred rather drily. "Secondly, he feared not, when need were, to gainsay a master in whose hand lay his life. And lastly, he knew how to deny himself."

"But, Father Wilfred! all those be easy enough."

"Be they so, lad? How many times hast tried them?"

"In good sooth, never tried I any of them," said Bertram honestly.

"Then wait ere thou say so much."

There was another pause; and then Bertram found another question.

"Father Wilfred, what thinkest of Sir John de Wycliffe?"

"I never brake bread with him, lad," said the monk, busy with the griffin.

"But what thinkest?"

"How should I know?"

Evidently the illuminator did not mean to commit himself.

"Is he a great man or a small?"

"God wot," said the monk.

"Hugh Calverley saith he is the greatest man that ever lived," said Bertram.

"Greater than Saint John Baptist?"

"His work is of the like sort," pursued Bertram meditatively. "'Tis preaching and reproving men of their sins."

"God speed all His work!" said the monk.

"Father, what didst after thy turning back from Holy Land?"

"What all men do once a life. What thou wilt do."

"Marry, what so?"

"Why, I became a fool."

"Father Wilfred! I counted thee alway a wise man."

"A sorry blunder, lad," said Wilfred, putting in the griffin's teeth.

"Wouldst say a Court fool?"

"Nay—a worser fool than that."

"How so?"

"I trusted a woman," answered Wilfred,—bitterly, for him.

"Father! hadst thou ever a lady-love?"

Bertram's interest was intense at this juncture.

"Go to, Bertram Lyngern!" answered the monk, looking up with a smile. "Be thy thoughts on lady-loves already? Nay, lad; she that I trusted was a kinswoman—no love. Little love in very deed was there betwixt us. And yet"—his voice altered suddenly—"I knew what that was too— once."

"And she mocked thee, trow?" asked Bertram, who expected a small sensation novel to spring out of this avowal.

Wilfred worked in silence for a minute. Then he said in a low tone, "Forty years' violets have freshened and faded on her grave; nor one of all of them more fair ne sweet than she." But there was something in his manner which said, "Question me no further." And, curious as Bertram was, he obeyed the tacit request.

"And what stood next in thy life, Father?"

"This, lad," said the monk, touching his cowl.

Bertram did not consider this by any means satisfactory.

"Well! All said, Father Wilfred, we come back to the first matter. What wouldst thou do an' thou wert I?"

"Soothly, that wis I not," said the illuminator rather drily. "What thou shouldst do an' thou wert I, might be easier gear."

"Well—and that were?"

"To set claws unto this griffin."

"Now, Father Wilfred! My work is not to paint griffins."

"What thy work is, do," replied the monk sententiously.

"But 'tis sheer idlesse! 'Tis not work at all. It is but to wait till I am called to work."

"The waiting is harder than the work," replied Wilfred, again laying down his pen. "If thou be well assured that waiting is thy work, wit thou that 'tis matter worthy of the wits of angels, for there is no work harder than to wait for God."

"But 'tis not work, Father!"

"If thou so think, thou art not yet master of that art."

"Of what art?"

"Waiting." Wilfred's pen pursued its journey for a moment before he added, "Lad, this that I am on is but play and revelry. But the lack thereof—the time passed in awaiting till the lad that enscribeth the text have fresh parchment ready—that is work."

Bertram frowned and pursed his lips as if he could not see it.

"For forty years, Bertram, all the wisdom of the wisest nation in the world was sometime taught unto a man named Moyses. His work was to lead the chosen folk of God into the land that God should give them. But at the end of that forty years, he was but half learned. So for other forty years, he was sent into a wilderness for to keep sheep."

"Why, he were past work then!"

"Nay, he was but then ready for it."

"And did he lead the folk after all?"

"He did so."

"And what gave him our Lord for guerdon, when his toil was done?"

"Was the work no guerdon?" responded Wilfred thoughtfully. "Well, lad, He gave him—a grave in Moab, far away from home and friends and country, and from His land."

"Father, what mean you? That was no guerdon!"

"Then thou wist not that jewels be alway covered with stone-crust, ere the cutter polish them?"

"Soothly, Father, I can see the stone-crust yonder, but verily mine eyes be too weak to pierce to the gem."

"Ah! our eyes be rarely strong enough for that. It taketh God's eyes many times. They say,"—Wilfred went on dreamily, scanning the white clouds which floated across the blue—"they say, the old writers of the Jews, that this man Moyses died by the kiss of God. Methinks that were brave payment for the grave in Moab. And after all, every man of us must have his grave dug some whither. Is it of heavy moment, mewondereth, whether men delve it in the swamps of Somerset or in the Priory at Langley? God shall see the dust as clear in either; and shall know, moreover, to count it His treasure."

"Father Wilfred, where wouldst thou fain be buried?"

"What matter, lad?"

"I know where I would:—in the holy minster at Canterbury, nigh unto the tomb of Edward the Prince, that was so great an hero, and not far from the blessed shrine of Saint Thomas the martyr."

"Ah!" said the monk with a sigh, "there is a little church among the hills of Cumberland, that I had chosen rather. But the days of my choosing are over. I would have God choose for me."

"But that might be the sea, Father Wilfred, or the traitors' elms [Tyburn.] by London, or the plague dead-pit."

"Child! when the Lord cometh with all His saints, there will be no labels on the raised bodies, to note where the dust was found lying."

And Wilfred turned back to his desk, and took up his pen. Both were silent for a time; but it was the old monk who resumed the conversation.

"Thou wouldst fain attain greatness, Bertram," he said. "Shall I tell thee of two deeds done but this sennight past, that I saw through yonder lattice as I sat at my painting? Go to! I saw, firstly, a poor shepherd lad crossing the green one morrow, on his needful toil, clad in rough russet; and another lad lesser than he, clad in goodly velvets and brave broidery, bade him scornfully thence out of his sight, calling him rascal, fool, lither oaf, and the like noisome words—the shepherd lad having in nowise offended save by his presence. And I say, lad, that was a little deed—the deed of a little soul; a mean, base deed; and he that did it, except God touch his heart, will never be a great man."

"But, Father Wilfred! I saw it—it was the Lord Edward; and he is great even now, and like to be greater."

"Mark my words, lad,—he will never be a great man."

Bertram looked as if he thought the proposition incomprehensible.

"Well, the day thereafter," pursued Wilfred, "I was aware, in the very same place, of other two lads—bravely clad, though not so brave as he— bearing betwixt them a pail of water, for the easement of an halt and aged wife that might scarce lift it from the ground. And I heard the one say to the other, as they came by this lattice,—'How if some of our fellows see us now?'—with his answer returned,—'Be it so; we do no wrong.' And I say, boy, that was a great deed, the deed of a great soul; and I look for both those lads to be great men, though I verily think the greater to have been he that was in no wise shamed of his deed."

Bertram's face was crimson, for he very well knew that on this occasion the heroes of Wilfred's adventure were himself and his friend, Hugh Calverley. He remembered, moreover, that he had felt ashamed, and afraid to be seen, and had taken his share in the act, partly from his own kindness of heart, but partly from a wish to retain Hugh's good opinion.

"Shall I tell thee another tale, lad?"

"Prithee, Father, so do."

"Touching greatness in a woman?"

"By my Lady Saint Mary! can a woman be great?"

"Methinks, Bertram, she was," said Wilfred quietly, "But it was not of Saint Mary, nor of any other saint, that I had intent to tell thee, but of one whom no Pope ever took the pain to canonise, and who yet, as methinks, was the greatest woman of whom ever I heard. It may perchance astound thee somewhat, to learn that I am not purely an English man. My mother came from far over seas,—from Dutchland, [Germany.] in the dominions of the Duke's Grace of Austria. And when she was a young maid, at home in her country, that befel of which I am about to tell thee. It happed that in the Court of the Emperor's Majesty, [Note 1] which at that time was Albright [Albert] the First, was a young noble, by name Rudolph, Count von der Wart. My mother was handmaid unto my Lady Gertrude his wife, and she spake right well of her mistress. A young gentle lady, said she, meek and soft of speech, loving and obedient unto her lord, and in especial shamefaced, shrinking from any public note of herself or any deed she did. This lady had not been wed long time, when the Emperor Albright died. And he died by poison. Some among his following had given it; and his judges sat to try whom. God wot who it were, and assoil [forgive] him! But some men thought that his cousin, Sir Henry of Luxemburg, which was Emperor at after him, had been more in his place at the bar than on the bench. The sentence of the court was that divers men were cast for death. And one of them thus convinced [convicted] was the young Count von der Wart."

"But was he not innocent, Father?"

"He was innocent. But he was doomed to the awful death of the wheel, and he suffered it."

"Pity of his soul!" cried Bertram indignantly.

"And when the news was brought to the Lady Gertrude, she went white as death, and fell back in a swoon into the arms of my mother."

"And she was borne to her bed, and brake her heart, and so died!" interjected Bertram, who thought that this would be the proper poetical ending of the story.

"Thou shalt hear. When the day of execution came, a great throng of men gathered in the market-place for to see the same. And when all was done,"—Wilfred evidently shrank from any lingering over the harrowing details—"when the dusk fell, and the prisoners had suffered their torments, such as yet overlived were left bound on the wheel to die there. Left, amid the jeers and mockings of the fool [foolish] throng, which dispersed not, but waited to behold their woe—left, with unbound wounds, to the chill night, and with no mercy to look for saving mercy of God. But no sooner were the executioners gone, than, lapped in a furred cloak, the Lady Gertrude left her house, and went out into the midst of the cruel, taunting crowd."

"But what did she?"

Wilfred's answer was in that low, tremulous voice, which would have hinted to a more experienced listener that his sympathies were deeply stirred by the story he was telling.

"She climbed up on the great wheel, lad, and sat upon the rim of it; and she did off her fur cloak, and laid it over her dying lord; and when that served not, so strong was the shivering which had seized him, she stripped off her gown, and spread that over him likewise. And when in his death-thirst he craved for water, she clomb down again, and drew from the well in her shoe, for she had nought else:—and there sat she, all that woeful night, giving him to drink, bathing his brows, covering his wounds, whispering holy and loving words. And when the morrow brake, there below were the throng, mocking her all they might, and calling her by every evil name their tongues might utter."

"How could she hear it, and abide?" [bear] broke forth Bertram.

"Did she hear it?" answered Wilfred in the same low voice. "Ah, child! love is stronger than death. So, when all was over—when Count Rudolph's eyes had looked their last upon her—when his voice had whispered the last loving word—'Gertrude, thou hast been faithful until death!'—and it was not till high noon,—then she laid her hand upon his eyes, and clomb down from the wheel, and went back to her void and lonely home. Boy, I never heard of any woman greater than Gertrude von der Wart." [Note 2.]

"I marvel how she bare it!" said Bertram, under his breath.

"And to worsen her sorrow," added Wilfred, "when day brake, came the Duke's Grace of Austria, and his sister, Queen Agnes of Hungary, and all their following, to behold the scene—men and women amongst whom she had dwelt, that had touched hand or lip with her many a time—all mocking and jibing. Methinks that were not the least bitter thing for her to see—if by that time she could see anything, save Rudolph in his agony, and God in His Heaven."

"And after that—she died, of force?" said Bertram, clinging still to the proper and conventional close of the tale.

"She was alive thirty years thereafter," replied Wilfred quietly, turning his attention to a bunch of leaves which ended a bough of his tree.

Bertram privately thought this a lame and impotent conclusion. For a few minutes he sat thinking deeply, while Wilfred sketched in silence.

"Father Wilfred!" the boy broke forth at last, "why letteth God such things be?"

"If thou canst perceive the answer to that, lad, thou hast sharper sight than I. God knoweth. But what He doth, we know not now. Passing that word, none other response cometh unto us from Him unto whose eyes alone is present the eternal future."

"Must we then never know it?" asked Bertram drearily.

"Ay—'thou shalt know hereafter.' Yet this behest [promise] is given alonely unto them that sue the Lamb whithersoever He goeth above; and they which begin not that suing through the mire of the base court, shall never end it in the golden banquet hall."

"But what is it to sue the Lamb?" replied Bertram almost impatiently.

Wilfred laid down his pen, and looked up into the boy's face, with one of his sweet smiles flitting across his lips. The sketch was finished at last.

"Dear lad!" he said lovingly, "Bertram Lyngern, ask the Lamb to show thee."

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. A title at this time restricted to the Emperor of Germany. The first English King to whom it was applied, was Richard the Second. It is often said that Henry the Eighth was the first to assume it, but this is an error.

Note 2. It is surely not the least interesting association with the Castle of the Wartburg, whose best-known memories are connected with Luther, to remember that it was the home of Rudolph and Gertrude von der Wart.



CHAPTER FIVE.

CHANGES AND CHANCES OF THIS MORTAL LIFE.

"Now is done thy long day's work; Fold thy palms across thy breast, Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest, Let them rave." Tennyson.

The Earl and Countess were away from home, during the whole spring of the next year; but Constance stayed at Langley, and so did Alvena and Maude. There was a grand gala day in the following August, when the Lord of Langley was raised from the dignity of Earl of Cambridge to the higher title of Duke of York: but three days later, the cloth of gold was changed for mourning serge. A royal courier, on his way from Reading to London, stayed a few hours at Langley; and he brought word that the mother of the King, "the Lady Princess," was lying dead at Wallingford.

The blow was in reality far heavier than it appeared on the surface, and to the infant Church of the Lollards the loss was irreparable. For the Princess was a Lollard; and being a woman of most able and energetic character, she had been until now the de facto Queen of England. She must have been possessed of consummate tact and prudence, for she contrived to live on excellent terms with half-a-dozen people of completely incompatible tempers. When the reins dropped from her dead hand a struggle ensued among these incompatible persons, who should pick them up. The struggle was sharp, but short. The elder brothers retired from the contest, and the reins were left in the Duke of Gloucester's hand. And woe to the infant Church of the Lollards, when Gloucester held the reins!

He began his reign—for henceforward he was virtually King—by buying over his brother of York. Edmund, already the passive servant of Gloucester, was bribed to active adherence by a grant of a thousand pounds. The Duke of Lancaster, who was not his brother's tool, was quietly disposed of for the moment, by making him so exceedingly uncomfortable, that with the miserable laisser-aller, which was the bane of his fine character, he went home to enjoy himself as a country gentleman, leaving politics to take care of themselves.

But an incident happened which disconcerted for a moment the plans of the Regent. The young King, without consulting his powerful uncle, declared his second cousin, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, heir presumptive of England, and—in obedience to a previous suggestion of the Princess—broke off March's engagement with a lady of the Arundel family, and married him to Richard's own niece, the Lady Alianora de Holand.

The annoyance to Gloucester, consisted in two points: first, that it recognised female inheritance and representation, which put him a good deal further from the throne; and secondly, that Roger Mortimer, owing to the education received from his Montacute grandmother, had stepped out of his family ranks, and was the sole Lollard ever known in the House of March.

Gloucester carried his trouble to his confessor. The appointed heir to the throne a Lollard!—nor only that, but married to a grand-daughter of the Lollard Princess, a niece of the semi-Lollard King! What was to be done to save England to Catholicism?

Sir Thomas de Arundel laughed a low, quiet laugh in answer.

"What matters all that, my Lord? Is not Alianora my sister's daughter? The lad is young, yielding, lazy, and lusty [self-indulgent, pleasure-loving.] Leave all to me."

Arundel saw further than the Princess had done.

And Gloucester was Arundel's slave. Item by item he worked the will of his master, and no one suspected for a moment whither those acts were tending. The obnoxious, politically-Lollard Duke of Lancaster was shunted out of the way, by being induced to undertake a voyage to Castilla for the recovery of the inheritance of his wife Constanca and her sister Isabel; a statute was passed conferring plenipotentiary powers on "our dearest uncle of Gloucester;" all vacant offices under the Crown were filled with orthodox nominees of the Regent; the Lollard Earl of Suffolk was impeached; a secret meeting was held at Huntingdon, when Gloucester and four other nobles solemnly renounced their allegiance to the King, and declared themselves at liberty to do what was right in their own eyes. The other four (of whom we shall hear again) were Henry Earl of Derby, son of the Duke of Lancaster; Richard Earl of Arundel, brother of Gloucester's confessor; Thomas Earl of Nottingham his brother-in-law; and Thomas Earl of Warwick, a weak waverer, the least guilty of the evil five. The conspirators conferred upon themselves the grand title of "the Lords Appellants;" and to divert from themselves and their doings the public mind, they amused that innocent, unsuspecting creature by a splendid tournament in Smithfield.

Of one fact, as we follow their track, we must never lose sight:—that behind these visible five, securely hidden, stood the invisible one, Sir Thomas de Arundel, setting all these puppets in motion according to his pleasure, and for "the good of the Church;" working on the insufferable pride of Gloucester, the baffled ambition of Derby, the arrogant rashness of Arundel, the vain, time-serving nature of Nottingham, and the weak fears of Warwick. Did he think he was doing God service? Did he ever care to think of God at all?

The further career of the Lords Appellants must be told as shortly as possible, but without some account of it much of the remainder of my story will be unintelligible. They drew a cordon of forty thousand men round London, capturing the King like a bird taken in a net; granted to themselves, for their own purposes, twenty thousand pounds out of the royal revenues; met and utterly routed a little band raised by the Duke of Ireland with the object of rescuing the sovereign from their power; impeached those members of the Council who were loyalists and Lollards; plotted to murder the King and the whole Council, which included near blood relations of their own; prohibited the possession of any of Wycliffe's books under severe penalties; murdered three, and banished two, of the five faithful friends of the King left in the Council. The Church stood to them above all human ties; and Sir Thomas de Arundel was ready to say "Absolvo te" to every one of them.

This reign of terror is known as the session of the Merciless Parliament, and it closed with the cruel mockery of a renewal of the oath of allegiance to the hapless and helpless King. Then Gloucester proceeded to distribute his rewards. The archbishopric of York was conferred on Sir Thomas de Arundel, and Gloucester appropriated as his own share of the rich spoil, the vast estates of the banished Duke of Ireland.

And then the traitor, robber, and murderer, knelt down at the feet of Archbishop Arundel, and heard—from man's lips—"Thy sins are forgiven thee"—but not "Go, and sin no more."

"Master Calverley, you? God have mercy! what aileth you?"

For Hugh Calverley stood at one of the hall windows of Langley Palace, on the brightest of May mornings, in the year 1388, his face hidden in his hands, and his whole mien and aspect bearing the traces of sudden and intense anguish.

"God had no mercy, Mistress Maude!" he wailed under his voice. "We had no friend save Him, and He was silent to us. He cared nought for us—He left us alone in the uttermost hour of our woe."

"Nay, sweet Hugh! it was men, not God!" said Bertram's voice soothingly behind them.

"He gave them leave," replied Hugh in an agonised tone.

It was the old reproachful cry, "Lord, carest thou not that we perish?" but Maude could not understand it at all. That cry, when it rises within the fold, is sometimes a triumph, and always a mystery, to those that are without. "You believe yourselves even now as safe as the angels, and shortly to be as happy, and you complain thus!" True; but we are not angels yet. Poor weak, suffering humanity is always rebellious, without an accompanying unction from the Holy One. But it is not good for us to forget that such moods are rebellion, and that they often cause the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.

Bertram quietly drew Maude aside into the next window.

"Let the poor fellow be!" he said compassionately. "Alack, 'tis no marvel. These traitor loons have hanged his father. And never, methinks, did son love father more."

"Master Calverley's father!—the Queen's squire?"

"He. And look you, Maude,—heard man ever the like! the Queen's own Grace was on her knees three hours unto my Lord of Arundel, praying him to spare Master Calverley's life. Think of it, Maude!—Caesar's daughter!"

"Mercy, Jesu!"—Maude could imagine nothing more frightful. It seemed to her equivalent to the whole world tumbling into chaos. What was to become of "slender folk," such as Bertram and herself, when men breathed who could hear unmoved the pleadings of "Caesar's daughter?"

"But what said he?"

"Who—my Lord of Arundel? The unpiteous, traitorous, hang-dog lither oaf!" Bertram would apparently have chosen more opprobrious words if they would kindly have occurred to him. "Why, he said—'Pray for yourself and your lord, Lady, and let this be; it were the better for you.' The great Devil, to whom he 'longeth, be his aid in the like case!"

"Truly, he may be in the like case one day," said Maude.

"And that were at undern [Eleven o'clock a.m.] this morrow, an' I were King!" cried Bertram wrathfully.

"But what had Master Calverley done?" Bertram dared only whisper the name of the horrible crime of which alone poor Calverley stood accused. "He was a Lollard—a Gospeller."

"Be they such ill fawtors?" asked Maude in a shocked tone.

"Judge for yourself what manner of men they be," said Bertram indignantly, "when the King's Highness and the Queen, and our own Lady's Grace, and the Lady Princess that was, and the Duke of Lancaster, be of them. Ay, and many another could I name beyond these."

"I will never crede any ill of our Lady's Grace!" said Maude warmly.

"Good morrow, Bertram, my son," said a voice behind them—a voice strange to Maude, but familiar to Bertram.

"Father Wilfred! Christ save you, right heartily! You be here in the nick of time. You are come—"

"I am come, by ordainment of the Lord Prior, to receive certain commands of my Lord Duke touching a book that he desireth to have written and ourned [ornamented] with painting in the Priory," said Wilfred in his quiet manner. "But what aileth yonder young master?—for he seemeth me in trouble."

What ailed poor Hugh was soon told; and Wilfred, after a critical look at him, went up and spoke to him.

"So thou hast a quarrel with God, my son?"

"Nay! Who may quarrel with God?" answered Hugh drearily.

"Only men and devils," said Wilfred. "Such as be God's enemies be alway quarrelling with Him; but such as be His own dear children—should they so?"

"Dealeth He thus with His children?" was the bitter answer.

"Ay, oftentimes; so oft, that He aredeth [tells] us, that they which be alway out of chastising be no sons of His."

Hugh could take no comfort. "You know not what it is!" he said, with the impatience of pain.

"Know I not?" said Wilfred, very tenderly, laying his hand upon Hugh's shoulder. "Youngling, my father fell in fight with the Saracens, and my mother—my blessed mother—was brent for Christ's sake at Cologne."

Hugh looked up at last. The words, the tone, the fellowship of suffering, touched the wrung heart through its own sorrow.

"You know, then!" he said, his voice softer and less bitter.

"'Bithenke ghe on him that suffride such aghenseiynge of synful men aghens himsilff, that ghe be not maad weri, failynge in ghoure soulis.' Bethink ye: the which signifieth, meditate on Him, arm ye with His patience. Look on Him, and look to Him."

Bertram stared in astonishment. The cautious scriptorius, who never broke bread with Wycliffe, and declined to decide upon his great or small position, was quoting his Bible word for word.

Hugh looked up in Wilfred's face, with the expression of one who had at last found somebody to understand him.

"Father," he said, "did you ever doubt of every thing?"

"Ay," said Wilfred, quietly.

"Even of God's love? yea, even of God?"

"Ay."

Bertram was horrified to hear such words. And from Hugh, of all people! But Wilfred, to his surprise, took them as quietly as if Hugh had been repeating the Creed.

"And what was your remedy?"

"I know but one remedy for all manner of doubt, and travail, and sorrow, Master; and that is to take them unto Christ."

"Yet how so," asked Hugh, heaving a deep sigh, "when we cannot see Christ to take them to Him?"

"I know not that your seeing matters, Master, so that He seeth. And when your doubts come in and vex you, do you but call upon Him with a true heart, desiring to find Him, and He will soon show you that He is. Ah!" and Wilfred's eyes lighted up, "the solving of all riddles touching Christ's being, is only to talk with Christ."

Bertram could not see that Wilfred had offered Hugh the faintest shadow of comfort; but in some manner inexplicable to him, Hugh seemed comforted thenceforward.

There was a great stir at Langley in the April of 1389; for the King and Queen stayed there a night on their way to Westminster. Maude was in the highest excitement: she had never seen a live King before, and she expected a formidable creature of the lion-rampant type, who would order every body about in the most tyrannical manner, and command Master Warine to be instantly hanged if dinner were not punctual. She saw a very handsome young man of three and twenty years of age, dressed in a much quieter style than any of his suite; of the gentlest manners, a model of courtesy even to the meanest, delicately considerate of every one but himself, and especially and tenderly careful of that darling wife who was the only true friend he had left. Ever after that day, the faintest disparagement of her King would have met with no reception from Maude short of burning indignation.

King Richard recovered his power by a coup d'etat, on the 3rd of May, 1389. He suddenly dissolved and reconstituted his Council, leaving out the traitor Lords Appellants. It was done at the first moment when he had the power to do it. But a year and a half later, Gloucester crept in again, a professedly reformed penitent; and from the hour that he did so, Richard was King no longer.

During all this struggle the Duke of York had kept extremely quiet. The King marked his sense of his uncle's allegiance by creating his son Edward Earl of Rutland. Perhaps, after all, Isabel had more power over her husband than he cared to allow; for when her gentle influence was removed, his conduct altered for the worse. But a stronger influence was at work on him; for his brother of Lancaster had come home; and though Gloucester moulded York at his will when Lancaster was absent, yet in his presence he was powerless. So peace reigned for a time.

And meanwhile, what was passing in the domestic circle at Langley?

In the first place, Maude had once more changed her position. From the lower-place of tire-woman, or dresser, to the Duchess, she was now promoted to be bower-maiden to the Lady Constance. This meant that she was henceforth to be her young mistress's constant companion and habitual confidant. She was to sleep on a pallet in her room, to go wherever she went, to be entrusted with the care alike of her jewels and her secrets, and to do everything for her which required the highest responsibility and caution.

In the second place, both Constance and Maude were no longer children, but women. The Princess was now eighteen years of age, while her bower-maiden had reached twenty.

And in the third place, over the calm horizon of Langley had appeared a little cloud, as yet no more than "a man's hand," which was destined in its effects to change the whole current of life there. No one about her had in the least realised it as yet; but the Duchess Isabel was dying.

Very gently and slowly, at a rate which alarmed not even her physician, the Lollard Infanta descended to the portals of the grave. She knew herself whither she was going before any other eyes perceived it; and noiselessly she set her house in order. She executed her last will in terms which show that she died a Gospeller, as distinctly as if she had written it at the outset; she left bequests to her friends—"a fret of pearls to her dear daughter, Constance Le Despenser;" she named two of the most eminent Lollards living (Sir Lewis Clifford and Sir Richard Stury) as her executors; she showed that she retained, like the majority of the Lollards, a belief in Purgatory, by one bequest for masses to be sung for her soul; and lastly—a very Protestant item when considered with the rest—she desired to be interred, not by the shrine of any saint or martyr, but "whithersoever her Lord should appoint."

The priests said that she died "very penitent." But for what? For her early follies and sins, no doubt she did. But of course they wished it to be understood that it was for her Wycliffite heresies.

It was about the beginning of February, 1393, that the Duchess died. Her husband never awoke fully to his irreparable loss until long after he had lost her. But he held her memory in honour at her burial, with a gentle respect which showed some faint sense of it. The cemetery which he selected for her resting-place was that nearest her home—the Priory Church of Langley. There the dust slept quietly; and the soul which had never nestled down on earth, found its first and final home in Heaven.

It might not unreasonably have been expected that Constance, now left the only woman of her family, would have remembered that there was another family to which she also belonged, and a far-off individual who stood to her in the nominal relation of husband. But it did not please her Ladyship to remember any such thing. She liked queening it in her father's palace; and she did not like the prospect of yielding precedence to her mother-in-law, which would have been a necessity of her married life. As to the Lord Le Despenser, she was absolutely indifferent to him. Her childish feeling of contempt had not been replaced by any kindlier one. It was not that she disliked him: she cared too little about him even to hate him. When the thought of going to Cardiff crossed her mind, which was not often, it was always associated with the old Lady Le Despenser, not at all with the young Lord.

Now and then the husband and wife met for a few minutes. The Lord Le Despenser had grown into a handsome and most graceful gentleman, of accomplished manners and noble bearing. When they thus met, they greeted each other with formal reverences; the Baron kissed the hand of the Princess; each hoped the other was well; they exchanged a few remarks on the prominent topics of the day, and then took leave with equal ceremony, and saw no more of one another for some months.

The Lady Le Despenser, it must be admitted, was not the woman calculated to attract such a nature as that of Constance. She was a Lollard, by birth no less than by marriage; but in her creed she was an ascetic of the sternest and most unbending type. In her judgment a laugh was indecorum, and smelling a rose was indulgence of the flesh. Her behaviour to her royal daughter-in-law was marked by the utmost outward deference, yet she never failed to leave the impression on Constance's mind that she regarded her as an outsider and a reprobate. Moreover, the Lady Le Despenser had some singular notions on the subject of love. Fortunately for her children, her heart was larger than her creed, and often overstepped the bounds assigned; but her theory was that human affections should be kept made up in labelled parcels, so much and no more to be allowed in each case. Favouritism was idolatry affectionate words were foolish condescensions to the flesh; while loving caresses savoured altogether of the evil one.

Now Constance liked dearly both to pet and to be petted. She loved, as she hated, intensely. The calm, sedate personal regard, in consideration of the meritorious qualities of the individual in question, which the Lady Le Despenser termed love, was not love at all in the eyes of Constance. The Dowager, moreover, was cool and deliberate; she objected to impulses, and after her calm fashion disliked impulsive people, whom she thought were not to be trusted. And Constance was all impulse. The squeaking of a mouse would have called forth gestures and ejaculations from the one, which the other would have deemed too extreme to be appropriate to an earthquake.

The Lord Le Despenser was the last of his mother's three sons—the youngest-born, and the only survivor; and she loved him in reality far more than she would have been willing to allow, and to an extent which she would have deemed iniquitous idolatry in any other woman. In character he resembled her but slightly. The narrow-mindedness and obstinacy inherent in her family—for no Burghersh was ever known to see more than one side of any thing—was softened and modified in him into firmness and fidelity. His heart was large enough to hold a deep reservoir of love, but not so wide at its exit as to allow the stream to flow forth in all directions at once. If this be narrow-mindedness, then he was narrow-minded. But he was loyal to the heart's core, faithful unto death, true in every fibre of his being. "He loved one only, and he clave to her," and there was room in his heart for none other.

The Dowager had several times hinted to the Duke of York that she considered it high time that Constance should take up her residence at Cardiff, for she was a firm believer in "the eternal fitness of things," and while too much love was in her eyes deeply reprehensible, a proper quantity of matrimony, at a suitable age, was a highly respectable thing, and a state into which every man and woman ought to enter, with due prudence and decorum. And as a wife married in childhood was usually resigned to her husband at an age some years earlier than Constance had now attained, the Dowager was scandalised by her persistent absence. The Duke, who recognised in his daughter a more self-reliant character than his own, and was therefore afraid of her, had passed over the intimation, accompanied with a request that she would do as she liked about it. That Constance would do as she liked her father well knew; and she did it. She stayed at home, the Queen of Langley, where no oppressive pseudo-maternal atmosphere interfered with her perfect freedom.

But in the October following the death of her mother, a thunderbolt fell at Constance's feet, which eventually drove her to Cardiff.

The Duke was from home, and, as everybody supposed, at Court. He was really in mischief; for mischief it proved, to himself and all his family. Late one evening a courier reached Langley, where in her bower Constance was disrobing for the night, and Maude was combing out her mistress's long light hair. A sudden application for admission, in itself an unusual event at that hour, brought Maude to the door, where Dona Juana, pale and excited, besought immediate audience of her Senorita.

The Princess, without looking back, desired her to come forward.

"Senorita, my Lord's courier, Rodrigo, is arrived hither from Brockenhurst, and he bringeth his Lord's bidding that we make ready his Grace's chamber for to-morrow."

"From Brockenhurst! Well, what further?"

"And likewise her Grace's chamber—whom Jesu pardon!—for the Lady newly-espoused that cometh with my Lord."

"Mary Mother!" exclaimed Maude, dropping the silver comb in her sudden surprise.

Constance had sprung up from her seat with such quick abruptness that the chair, though no light one, fell to the ground behind her.

"Say that again!" she commanded, in a hard, steel-like voice; and, in a more excited tone than ever, Dona Juana repeated her unwelcome tidings.

"So I must needs have a mistress over me! Who is she?"

"From all that Rodrigo heard, Senorita, he counteth that it should be the Lady Joan de Holand, sister unto my Lord of Kent and my Lady of March. She is, saith he, of a rare beauty, and of most royal presence."

"Royal presence, quotha!—and a small child of ten years!" cried the indignant girl of nineteen. "Marry, I guess wherefore he told me not aforetime. He was afeard of me."

She pressed her lips together till they looked like a crimson thread, and a bright spot of anger burned on either cheek. But all at once her usual expression returned, and she resumed her seat quietly enough on the chair which Maude had mechanically restored to its place.

"Go, Dona Juana, and bid the chambers be prepared, as is meet. But no garnishing of the chambers of my heart shall be for this wedding. Make an end, Maude. 'A thing done cannot be undone.' I will abide and see this small damsel's conditions [disposition]; but my heart misgiveth me if it were not better dwelling with my Lord Le Despenser than with her."

Maude obeyed, feeling rather sorry for the Lord Le Despenser, whose loving spouse seemed to regard him as the less of two evils.

The new Duchess proved to be, like most of the Holands, very tall and extremely fair. No one would have supposed her to be only ten years old, and her proud, demure, unbashful bearing helped to make her look older than she was. The whole current of life at Langley changed with her coming. From morning to night every day was filled with feasts, junkets, hawking parties, picnics, joustings, and dances. The Duke was devoted to her, und fulfilled, if he did not anticipate, her every wish. Her youthful Grace was entirely devoid of shyness, and she made a point of letting Constance feel her inferiority by addressing her on every occasion as "Fair Daughter." She also ordered a much stricter observance of etiquette than had been usual during the life of the Infanta, whose rule, Spaniard though she was, had been rather lax in this particular. The stiff manners commonly expected from girls towards their mothers had only hitherto been exacted from Constance upon state occasions. But the new Duchess quickly let it be understood that she required them to the smallest detail. She was particular that her step-daughter's chair should not be set one inch further under the canopy than was precisely proper; her fur trimmings must be carefully regulated, so as not to equal those of the Duchess in breadth; instead of the old home name of "the Lady Custance," she must be styled "the Lady Le Despenser;" and the Duchess strongly objected to her using such vulgar nicknames as "Ned" and "Dickon," desiring that she would in future address her brothers properly as "my Lord." Angrily the royal lioness chafed against this tyranny. Many a time Maude noticed the flush of annoyance which rose to her lady's cheek, and the tremor of her lip, as if she could with difficulty restrain herself from wrathful words. It evidently vexed her to be given her married name; but the interference with the pet name of the pet brother was what she felt most bitterly of all. And Maude began to wonder how long it would last.

It was a calm, mild evening in January, 1394, and in the Princess's bower, or bedroom, stood Maude, re-arranging a portion of her lady's wardrobe. The Duchess had been that day more than usually exacting and precise, much to the amusement of Bertram Lyngern, at present at Langley in the train of his master. The door of Constance's bower was suddenly opened and dashed to again, and the Princess herself entered, and began pacing up and down the room like a chafed lioness—a habit of all the Plantagenets when in a passion. She stopped a minute opposite Maude, and said in a determined voice:

"Make ready for Cardiff!"

And she resumed her angry march.

In this manner the Lady Le Despenser intimated her condescending intention of fulfilling her matrimonial duties at last. Maude knew her too well to reply by anything beyond a respectful indication of obedience. Constance only gave her one day to prepare. The next morning but one the whole train of the Lady Le Despenser set forth on their eventful journey.



CHAPTER SIX.

TRUE GOLD AND FALSE.

"Woe be to fearful hearts and faint hands, and the sinner that goeth two ways!"—Ecclus. two 12.

Whatever may have been the feeling which possessed the mind of Constance on her departure from Langley, the incident was felt by Maude as a wrench and an uprooting, surpassing any previous incident of her life since leaving Pleshy. The old house itself had come to feel like a mute friend; the people left behind were acquaintances of many years; the ground was all familiar. She was going now once more into a new world, to new acquaintances, new scenes, new incidents. The journey over land was in itself very pleasant. But the journey over sea from Bristol was so exceedingly unpleasant, that poor Maude found herself acquainted with a degree of physical misery which until then she had never imagined to exist. And when at last the great, grim, square towers of the Castle of Cardiff, which was to be her new home, rose before her eyes, she thought them absolutely lovely—because they were terra firma. It can only be ascribed to her unusual haste on the one hand, or to her usual caprice on the other, that it had not pleased the Lady of Cardiff to give any notice of her approach. Of course nobody expected her; and when her trumpeter sounded his blast outside the moat, the warder looked forth in some surprise. It was late in the evening for a guest to arrive.

"Who goeth yonder?"

"The Lady and her train."

"Saint Taffy and Saint Guenhyfar!" said the warder.

"Put forth the bridge!" roared the trumpeter.

"It had peen better to send word," calmly returned the warder.

"Send word to thy Lord, thou lither oaf!" cried the irate trumpeter, "and see whether it liketh him to keep the Lady awaiting hither on an even in January, while thou pratest in chopped English!"

Thereupon arose a passage of arms between the two affronted persons of diverse nationalities, which was terminated by Constance, with one of her sudden impulses, riding forward to the front, and taking the business on herself.

"Sir Warder," she said—with that exquisite grace and lofty courtesy which was natural to every Plantagenet, be the other features of his character what they might,—"I am your Lady, and I pray you to notify unto your Lord that I am come hither."

The warder was instantly mollified, and blew his horn to announce the arrival of a guest. There was a minute's bustle among the minor officials about the gate, a little running to and fro, and then the drawbridge was thrown across, and the next moment the Lord Le Despenser knelt low to his royal spouse. He could have had no idea of her coming five minutes before, but he did his best to show her that any omissions in her welcome were no fault on his part.

Thomas Le Despenser was just twenty years of age. He was only of moderate height for a man; and Constance, who was a tall woman, nearly equalled him. His Norman blood showed itself in his dark glossy hair, his semi-bronzed complexion, and his dark liquid eyes, the expression of which was grave almost to sadness. An extremely short upper lip perhaps indicated blue blood, but it gave a haughty appearance to his features, which was not indicative of his character. He had a sweet low-toned voice, and an extremely winning smile.

The Princess suffered her husband to lift her from the pillion on which she rode behind Bertram Lyngern, who had been transferred to her service by her father's wish. At the door of the banquet-hall the Dowager Lady met them. Maude's impression of her was not exactly pleasant. She thought her a stiff, solemn-looking, elderly woman, in widow's garb. The Lady Elizabeth received her royal guest with the lowest of courtesies, and taking her hand, conducted her with great formality to a state chair on the dais, the Lord Le Despenser standing, bare-headed, on the step below.

The ensuing ten minutes were painfully irksome to all parties. Everybody was shy of everybody else. A few common-place questions were asked and answered; but when the Dowager suggested that "the Lady" must be tired with her journey, and would probably like to rest for an hour ere the rear-supper was served, it was a manifest relief to all.

A sudden incursion of so many persons into an unprepared house was less annoying in the fourteenth century than it would be in the nineteenth. There was then always superfluous provision for guests who might suddenly arrive; a castle was invariably victualled in advance of the consumption expected; and as to sleeping accommodation, a sack filled with chaff and a couple of blankets was all that any person anticipated who was not of "high degree." Maude slept the first night in a long gallery, with ten other women; for the future she would occupy the pallet in her lady's chamber. Bertram was provided for along with the other squires, in the banquet-hall, the chaff beds and blankets being carried out of the way in the morning; and as to draughts, our forefathers were never out of one inside their houses, and therefore did not trouble themselves on that score. The washing arrangements, likewise, were of the most primitive description. Princes and the higher class of peers washed in silver basins in their own rooms; but a squire or a knight's daughter would have been thought unwarrantably fastidious who was not fully satisfied with a tub and a towel. A comb was the only instrument used for dressing the hair, except where crisping-pins were required; and mirrors were always fixtures against the wall.

A long time elapsed before Maude felt at home at Cardiff; and she could not avoid seeing that a still longer period passed before Constance did so. The latter was restless and unsettled. She had escaped from the rule of her step-mother to that of her mother-in-law, and she disliked the one only a little less than the other; though "Daughter" fell very differently on the ear from the lips of a child of ten, and from those of a woman who was approaching sixty. But the worst point of Constance's new life was her utter indifference to her husband. She looked upon his gentle deference to her wishes as want of spirit, and upon his quiet, reserved, undemonstrative manner as want of brains. From loving him she was as far as she had been in those old days when she had so cruelly told his sister Margaret that "when she loved Tom, she would let him know."

That he loved her, and that very dearly, was patent to the most superficial observer. Maude, who was not very observant of others, used to notice how his eyes followed her wherever she went, brightened at the sound of her step, and kindled eagerly when she spoke. The Dowager saw it too, with considerable disapproval; and thought it desirable to turn her observations to profit by a grave admonition to her son upon the sin and folly of idolatry. She meant rightly enough, yet it sounded harsh and cruel, when she bluntly reminded him that Constance manifestly cared nothing for him.

Le Despenser's lip quivered with pain.

"Let be, fair Mother," he said gently. "It may be yet, one day, that my Lady's heart shall come home to God and me, and that she shall then say unto me, 'I love thee.'"

Did that day ever come? Ay, it did come; but not during his day. The time came when no music could have been comparable to the sound of his voice—when she would have given all the world for one glimpse of his smile—when she felt, like Avice, as though she could have climbed and rent the heavens to have won him back to her. But the heavens had closed between them before that day came. While they journeyed side by side in this mortal world, he never heard her say, "I love thee."

The news received during the next few months was not likely to make Constance feel more at home at Cardiff than before. It was one constant funeral wail. On the 24th of March, 1394, her aunt Constanca, Duchess of Lancaster, died of the plague at Leicester; in the close of May, of the same disease, the beloved Lollard Queen; and on the first of July her cousin, Mary Countess of Derby. Constance grew so restless, that when orders came for her husband to attend the King at Haverford, where he was about to embark on his journey to Ireland, she determined to go there also.

"I can breathe better any whither than at Cardiff!" she said confidentially to Maude.

But in truth it was not Cardiff from which he fled, but her own restless spirit. The vine had been transplanted, and its tendrils refused to twine round the strange boughs offered for its support.

The Princess found her father at Haverford, but the pair were very shy of one another. The Duke was beginning to discover that he had made a blunder, that his fair young wife's temper was not all sunshine, and that his intended plaything was likely to prove his eventual tyrant. Constance, on her part, felt a twinge of conscience for her pettish desertion of him in his old age; for to her apprehension he was now an old man: and she was privately conscious that she could not honestly plead any preconsideration for her husband. She had merely pleased herself, both in going and staying, and she knew it. But she spent her whole life in gathering apples of Sodom, and flinging away one after another in bitter disappointment. Yet the next which offered was always grasped as eagerly as any that had gone before it.

Perhaps it was due to some feeling of regret on the Duke's part that he invited his daughter and son-in-law to return with him. Constance accepted the offer readily. The Duke was Regent all that winter, during the King's absence in Ireland; and, as was usual, he took up his residence in the royal Palace of Westminster. Constance liked her visit to Westminster; she was nearly as tired of Langley as of Cardiff, and this was something new. And a slight bond of union sprang up between herself and her husband; for she made him, as well as Maude, the confidant of all her complaints and vexations regarding her step-mother. Le Despenser was satisfied if she would make a friend of him about anything, and he was anxious to shield her from every annoyance in his power.

It appeared to Maude, who had grown into a quiet, meditative woman, that the feeling of the Duchess towards her step-daughter was not far from positive hatred. She seemed to seek occasions to mortify her, and to manufacture quarrels which it would have been no trouble to avoid. It was some time before Maude could discern the cause. But one day, in a quiet talk with Bertram Lyngern, still her chief friend, she asked him whether he had noticed it.

"Have I eyes, trow?" responded Bertram with a smile.

"But wherefore is it, count you?"

"Marry, the old tale, methinks. Two men seldom discern alike; and he that looketh on the blue side of a changeable sarcenet [shot silk], can never join hands with him that seeth nought save the red."

"You riddle, Master Lyngern."

"Why, look you, our Lady Custance was rocked in a Lollard cradle; but my Lady Duchess' Grace had a saint's bone for her rattle. And her mother is an Arundel."

"But so is my Lord's Grace of York [the archbishop] himself an Arundel."

"Ay—as mecounteth you shall see, one day."

"Doth not the doctrine of Sir John de Wycliffe like, him well?"

"Time will show," said Bertram, drily.

It was quite true that Archbishop Arundel had for some two years been throwing dust in Lollard eyes by plausible professions of conversion to some of the views of that party. At a time when I was less acquainted with his character and antecedents, I gave him credit for sincerity. [Note 1.] I know him better now. He was merely playing a very deep game, and this was one of his subtlest moves. His assumption of Lollardism, or of certain items of it, was only the assumption of a mask, to be worn as long as it proved serviceable, and then to be dropped and forgotten. The time for the mask to drop had come now. The death of Archbishop Courtenay, July 31, 1396, left open to Thomas de Arundel the sole seat of honour in which he was not already installed. Almost born in the purple [Note 2], he had climbed up from ecclesiastical dignity to dignity, till at last there was only one further height left for him to scale. It could surprise no one to see the vacant mitre set on the astute head of Gloucester's confessor and prompter.

The Earl of Rutland presented himself at Westminster Palace before his sister left it, attended as usual by his squire, Hugh Calverley. Bertram and Maude at once wished to know all the news of Langley, from which place they had come. Hugh seemed acquainted with no news except one item, which was that Father Dominic, having obtained a canonry, had resigned his post of household confessor to the Palace; and a new confessor had been appointed in his stead.

"And who is the new priest?" asked Bertram. "One Sir Marmaduke de Tyneworth." [A fictitious person.]

"And what manner of man is he?"

"A right honest man and a proper [a fitting, satisfactory man], say they who have confessed unto him; more kindly and courteous than Father Dominic."

"He hath then not yet confessed thee?"

"I never confess," said Hugh quietly. The impression made upon Bertram's feelings by this statement was very much that which would be left on ours, if we heard a man with a high reputation for piety calmly remark that he never prayed.

"Never confess!" he repeated in astonished tones. "Not to men. I confess unto God only."

"But how canst, other than by the priest?"

"What hardship, trow? Can I not speak save by the priest?"

"But thou canst receive no absolving!"

"No can I? Ay verily, friend, I can!"

"But—" Bertram stopped, with a puzzled look.

"Come, out with all thy buts," said Hugh, smilingly.

"Why, methinks—and holy Church saith it—that this is God's means whereby men shall approach unto Him: nor hath He given unto us other."

"Holy Church saith it? Ay so. But where saith God such a thing?"

Bertram was by no means ignorant of Wycliffe's Bible, and he searched his memory for authority or precedent.

"Well, thou wist that the man which had leprosy was bidden to show him unto the priest, the which was to declare if his malady were true leprosy or no."

"The priest being therein an emblem or mystery of Christ, which is true Healer of the malady of sin."

"Ah!" said Bertram triumphantly, "but lo' thou, when our Lord Himself did heal one that had leprosy, what quoth He? 'Show thyself to the priest,' saith He: not, 'I am the true Priest, and therefore thou mayest slack to show thee to yon other priest, which is but the emblem of Me.'"

"Because," replied Hugh, "He did fulfil the law, and made it honourable. Therefore saith He, 'Show thyself to the priest.' The law held good until He should have fulfilled the same."

"But mind thou," urged Bertram eagerly, "it was but the lither [wicked, abandoned] Pharisees which did speak like unto thee. What said they save the very thing thou wouldst fain utter—to wit, 'Who may forgyve synnes but God aloone?' And alway our Lord did snyb and rebuke these ill fawtors."

"Friend, countest thou that the Jew which had leprosy, and betook him unto the high priest, did meet with contakes because he went not likewise unto one of the lesser? Either this confession unto the priest is to be used with, or without, the confession unto God. If to be used without, what is this but saying the priest to be God? And if to be used with, what but saying that God is not sufficient, and the High Priest may not act without the lesser priest do aid Him?"

"But what sayest touching the Pharisees?" repeated Bertram, who was not able to answer Hugh's argument, and considered his own unanswerable.

"What say I?" was the calm answer. "Why, I say they spake very sooth, saving that they pushed not the matter to its full issue. Had they followed their reasoning on to the further end, then would they have said, and spoken truly, 'If this man can in very deed forgive sin, then is He God.' Mark, I pray thee, what did our Lord in this matter. He brought forth His letters of warrant. He healed the palsied man afore them—'that ye wite,' saith He, 'that mannes sone hath power in erthe to forgyve synnes.' As though He had said unto them, 'Ye say well; none may forgive sins but God alone: wherefore see, in My forgiving of sin, the plain proof that I am God's Son.' To show them that He had power to forgive sin, He did heal this man of his malady. And verily I ask no more of any priest that would confess me, but only that he bring forth his letters of warrant, as did his Master and mine. When I shall I see him to heal the sick with a word, then will I crede that he can forgive sin in like manner. Lo' thou, if he can forgive, he can heal: if he can heal by his word, then can he forgive."

The waters were rather too deep for Bertram to wade in. He tried another line of argument.

"Saint James also saith that men should confess their sins."

"'Ech to othire'—well: when it liketh Sir Marmaduke to knowledge his sins unto me, then will I mine unto him, if we have done any wrong each to other. But look thou into that matter of Saint James, and thou shalt find it to touch not well men, but only sick; which, knowledging their sins when their conscience is troubled, and praying each for other, shall be healed of their sickness."

"Moreover, Achan did confession unto Josue," said Bertram, starting another hare.

"Ah! Josue was a priest, trow?"

"Nay, but if it be well to knowledge our sins each to other, it shall not be worse because the man is a priest."

"Nor better," said Hugh, in his quietest manner.

"Nay!" urged Bertram, who thought he had the advantage here, "but an' it be well to confess at all, it is good to confess unto any: and if to any, to a woman; or if to a woman, to a man; or to a man, then to a priest."

Hugh gave a soft little laugh.

"Good friend, I could prove any gear in the world by that manner of reasoning. If it be good to confess unto any, then unto anything that liveth; and if so, then to a beast; and if to a beast, then to yonder cat. Come hither, Puss, and hear this my friend his confession!"

"Have done with thy mocking!" cried Bertram. "And mind thou, the Lord did charge the holy apostles with power to forgive sins."

"Granting that so be—what then?"

"What then? Why, that priests have now the like power."

"But what toucheth it the priests?"

"In that they be successors unto the apostles."

"In what manner?"

Hugh was evidently not disposed to take any links of the chain for granted.

"Man!" exclaimed Bertram, almost in a pet, "wist not that Paul did ordain Timothy Bishop of Ephesus, and bade him do the like to other,— and so from each to other was the blessed grace handed down, till it gat at the priests that now be?"

"Was it so?" said Hugh coolly. "But when and where bade Paul that Timothy should forgive sins?"

Bertram found it much harder to prove his assertion than to state it. He could only answer that he did not know.

"Nor I neither," returned Hugh. "Nor Timothy neither, without I much mistake."

"I must needs give thee up. Thou art the worst caitiff to reason withal, ever mortal man did see!"

Hugh laughed.

"Lo' you, friend, I ask but for one instance of authority. Show unto me any passage of authority in God's Word, whereby any priest shall forgive sins; or show unto me any priest that now liveth, which shall bring forth his letters of warrant by healing a man all suddenly of his sickness whatsoever, and I am at a point. Bring him forth, prithee; or else confess thou hast no such to bring."

"Hold thy peace, for love of Mary Mother!" said Bertram, passing his irrepressible opponent a plateful of smoking pasty, for the party were at supper; "and fill thy jaws herewith, the which is so hot thou shalt occupy it some time."

"My words being, somewhat too hot for thee, trow?" rejoined Hugh comically. "Good. I can hold my peace right well when I am wanted so to do."

When Constance returned home to Cardiff, she remained there for some little time without any further visit to Court. She alone of all the Princesses was absent from the Church of Saint Nicholas at Calais, when the King was married there to the Princess Isabelle of France—a child of only eight years old. Something far more interesting to herself detained her at Cardiff; where, on the 30th of November, 1396, an heir was born to the House of Le Despenser.

That the will of "the Lady" stood paramount we see in the name given to the infant. He was christened after her favourite brother, Richard—a name unknown in his father's line, whose family names were always Hugh and Edward.

In their unfeigned admiration of this paragon of babies, its mother and grandmother sank all their previous differences. But when the difficult question of education arose, the differences reappeared as strongly as ever. The only notion which Constance had of bringing up a child was to give it everything it cried for; while the Dowager was prepared to go a long way in the opposite direction, and give it nothing in respect to which it showed the slightest temper. The practical result was that the boy was committed to the care of Maude, whom both agreed in trusting, with the most contradictory orders concerning his training. Maude followed the dictates of her own common sense, and implicitly obeyed the commands of neither of the rival authorities; but as little Richard throve well under her care, she was never called to account by either.

The year 1397 brought a political earthquake, which ended in the destruction of three of the five grand traitors, the Lords Appellants. The commons had at last opened their eyes to the real state of affairs. The conspirators were meditating fresh projects of treachery, when by the advice of the Dukes of Lancaster and York, Gloucester was arrested and imprisoned at Calais, where he died on the 15th of September, either from apoplexy or by a private execution. Richard Earl of Arundel, the tool of his priestly brother, was beheaded six days later. The Earl of Warwick, who had been merely the blind dupe of the others, was banished to the Isle of Man. The remaining two—the ambitious Derby, and the conceited Nottingham—contrived in the cleverest manner, not only to escape punishment, but to obtain substantial rewards for their loyalty! Derby presented a very humble petition on behalf of both, in which he owned, with so exquisite a show of penitence, to having listened to the suggestions of the deceased traitors, and been concerned in "several riotous disturbances"—professed himself and his friend to be so abjectly repentant, and so irrevocably faithful for ever henceforward— that King Richard, as easily deceived as usual, hastened to pardon the repenting sinners. But there was one man in the world who was not deceived by Derby's plausible professions. Old Lancaster shook his white head when he heard that his son was not only pardoned, but restored to favour.

"'Tis hard matter for father thus to speak of son," he said to his royal nephew; "nathless, my gracious Lord, I do you to wit that you have done a fool deed this day. You shall never have peace while Hal is in this kingdom."