In this temporary abode, the household of the Queen and of the Earl ate together, in the great hall, and thus while breaking their fast in the morning Jean Kennedy found opportunity to examine Richard Talbot on all the circumstances of the wreck of the Bride of Dunbar, and the finding of the babe. She was much more on her guard than the day before, and said that she had a shrewd suspicion as to who the babe's parents might be, but that she could not be certain without seeing the reliquary and the scroll. Richard replied that they were at home, but made no offer of sending for them. "Nor will I do so," said he to his wife, "unless I am dealt plainly with, and the lady herself asks for them. Then should I have no right to detain them."

M. Gorion would not allow his patient to leave her room that day, and she had to remain there while Susan was in attendance on the Queen, who did not appear to her yet to have heard of the discovery, and who was entering with zest into the routine of the place, where Dr. Jones might be regarded as the supreme legislator.

Each division of the great bath hall was fitted with drying and dressing room, arranged commodiously according to the degree of those who were to use them. Royalty, of course, enjoyed a monopoly, and after the hot bath, which the Queen took immediately after rising, she breakfasted in her own apartments, and then came forth, according to the regimen of the place, by playing at Trowle Madame. A board with arches cut in, just big enough to permit the entrance of the balls used in playing at bowls was placed on the turf at a convenient distance from the player. Each arch was numbered, from one to thirteen, but the numbers were irregularly arranged, and the game consisted in rolling bowls into the holes in succession, each player taking a single turn, and the winner reaching the highest number first,—being, in fact, a sort of lawn bagatelle. Dr. Jones recommended it as good to stretch the rheumatic joints of his patients, and Queen Mary, an adept at all out-of-door games, delighted in it, though she had refused an offer to have the lawn arranged for it at Sheffield, saying that it would only spoil a Buxton delight. She was still too stiff to play herself, but found infinite amusement in teaching the new-comers the game, and poor Susan, with her thoughts far away, was scarcely so apt a pupil as befitted a royal mistress, especially as she missed Mrs. Kennedy.

When she came back, she found that the dame had been sitting with the patient, and had made herself very agreeable to the girl by drawing out from her all she knew of her own story from beginning to end, having first shown that she knew of the wreck of the Bride of Dunbar.

"And, mother," said Cis, "she says she is nearly certain that she knows who my true parents were, and that she could be certain if she saw the swaddling clothes and tokens you had with me. Have you, mother? I never knew of them."

"Yes, child, I have. We did not wish to trouble and perturb your mind, little one, while you were content to be our daughter."

"Ah, mother, I would fain be yours and father's still. They must not take me from you. But suppose I was some great and noble lord's daughter, and had a great inheritance and lordship to give Humfrey!"

"Alas, child! Scottish inheritances are wont to bring more strife than wealth."

Nevertheless, Cis went on supposing and building castles that were pain and grief to her foreboding auditor. That evening, however, Richard called his wife. It was late, but the northern sunset was only just over, and Susan could wander out with him on the greensward in front of the Earl's house.

"So this is the tale we are to be put off with," he said, "from the Queen herself, ay, herself, and told with such an air of truth that it would almost make me discredit the scroll. She told me with one of her sweetest smiles how a favourite kinswoman of hers wedded in secret with a faithful follower of hers, of the clan Hepburn. Oh, I assure you it might have been a ballad sung by a harper for its sadness. Well, this fellow ventured too far in her service, and had to flee to France to become an archer of the guard, while the wife remained and died at Lochleven Castle, having given birth to our Cis, whom the Queen in due time despatched to her father, he being minded to have her bred up in a French nunnery, sending her to Dunbar to be there embarked in the Bride of Dunbar."

"And the father?"

"Oh, forsooth, the father! It cost her as little to dispose of him as of the mother. He was killed in some brawl with the Huguenots; so that the poor child is altogether an orphan, beholden to our care, for which she thanked me with tears in her eyes, that were more true than mayhap the poor woman could help."

"Poor lady," said Susan. "Yet can it not be sooth indeed?"

"Nay, dame, that may not be. The cipher is not one that would be used in simply sending a letter to the father."

"Might not the occasion have been used for corresponding in secret with French friends?"

"I tell thee, wife, if I read one word of that letter, I read that the child was her own, and confided to the Abbess of Soissons! I will read it to thee once more ere I yield it up, that is if I ever do. Wherefore cannot the woman speak truth to me? I would be true and faithful were I trusted, but to be thus put off with lies makes a man ready at once to ride off with the whole to the Queen in council."

"Think, but think, dear sir," pleaded Susan, "how the poor lady is pressed, and how much she has to fear on all sides."

"Ay, because lies have been meat and drink to her, till she cannot speak a soothfast word nor know an honest man when she sees him."

"What would she have?"

"That Cis should remain with us as before, and still pass for our daughter, till such time as these negotiations are over, and she recover her kingdom. That is—so far as I see—like not to be till latter Lammas—but meantime what sayest thou, Susan? Ah! I knew, anything to keep the child with thee! Well, be it so—though if I had known the web we were to be wound into, I'd have sailed for the Indies with Humfrey long ago!"



CHAPTER XV.

MOTHER AND CHILD.

Cicely was well enough the next day to leave her room and come out on the summer's evening to enjoy the novel spectacle of Trowle Madame, in which she burned to participate, so soon as her shoulder should be well. It was with a foreboding heart that her adopted mother fell with her into the rear of the suite who were attending Queen Mary, as she went downstairs to walk on the lawn, and sit under a canopy whence she could watch either that game, or the shooting at the butts which was being carried on a little farther off.

"So, our bonnie maiden," said Mary, brightening as she caught sight of the young girl, "thou art come forth once more to rejoice mine eyes, a sight for sair een, as they say in Scotland," and she kissed the fresh cheeks with a tenderness that gave Susan a strange pang. Then she asked kindly after the hurt, and bade Cis sit at her feet, while she watched a match in archery between some of the younger attendants, now and then laying a caressing hand upon the slender figure.

"Little one," she said, "I would fain have thee to share my pillow. I have had no young bed-fellow since Bess Pierrepoint left us. Wilt thou stoop to come and cheer the poor old caged bird?"

"Oh, madam, how gladly will I do so if I may!" cried Cicely, delighted.

"We will take good care of her, Mistress Talbot," said Mary, "and deliver her up to you whole and sain in the morning," and there was a quivering playfulness in her voice.

"Your Grace is the mistress," answered Susan, with a sadness not quite controlled.

"Ah! you mock me, madam. Would that I were!" returned the Queen. "It is my Lord's consent that we must ask. How say you, my Lord, may I have this maiden for my warder at night?"

Lord Shrewsbury was far from seeing any objection, and the promise was given that Cis should repair to the Queen's chamber for at least that night. She was full of excitement at the prospect.

"Why look you so sadly at me, sweet mother?" she cried, as Susan made ready her hair, and assisted her in all the arrangements for which her shoulder was still too stiff; "you do not fear that they will hurt my arm?"

"No, truly, my child. They have tender and skilful hands."

"May be they will tell me the story of my parents," said Cis; "but you need never doubt me, mother. Though I were to prove to be ever so great a lady, no one could ever be mine own mother like you!"

"Scarcely in love, my child," said Susan, as she wrapped the little figure in a loose gown, and gave her such a kiss as parents seldom permitted themselves, in the fear of "cockering" their children, which was considered to be a most reprehensible practice. Nor could she refrain from closely pressing Cicely's hand as they passed through the corridor to the Queen's apartments, gave the word to the two yeomen who were on guard for the night at the head of the stairs, and tapped at the outmost door of the royal suite of rooms. It was opened by a French valet; but Mrs. Kennedy instantly advanced, took the maiden by the hand, and with a significant smile said: "Gramercy, madam, we will take unco gude tent of the lassie. A fair gude nicht to ye." And Mrs. Talbot felt, as she put the little hand into that of the nurse, and saw the door shut on them, as if she had virtually given up her daughter, and, oh! was it for her good?

Cis was led into the bedchamber, bright with wax tapers, though the sky was not yet dark. She heard a sound as of closing and locking double doors, while some one drew back a crimson, gold-edged velvet curtain, which she had seen several times, and which it was whispered concealed the shrine where Queen Mary performed her devotions. She had just risen from before it, at the sound of Cis's entrance, and two of her ladies, Mary Seaton and Marie de Courcelles, seemed to have been kneeling with her. She was made ready for bed, with a dark-blue velvet gown corded round her, and her hair, now very gray, braided beneath a little round cap, but a square of soft cambric drapery had been thrown over her head, so as to form a perfectly graceful veil, and shelter the features that were aging. Indeed, when Queen Mary wore the exquisite smile that now lit up her face as she held out her arms, no one ever paused to think what those lineaments really were. She held out her arms as Cis advanced bashfully, and said: "Welcome, my sweet bed-fellow, my little Scot—one more loyal subject come to me in my bondage."

Cis's impulse was to put a knee to the ground and kiss the hands that received her. "Thou art our patient," continued Mary. "I will see thee in bed ere I settle myself there." The bed was a tall, large, carved erection, with sweeping green and silver curtains, and a huge bank of lace-bordered pillows. A flight of low steps facilitated the ascent; and Cis, passive in this new scene, was made to throw off her dressing-gown and climb up.

"And now," said the Queen, "let me see the poor little shoulder that hath suffered so much."

"My arm is still bound, madam," said Cis. But she was not listened to; and Mrs. Kennedy, much to her discomfiture, turned back her under-garment. The marks were, in fact, so placed as to be entirely out of her own view, and Mrs. Susan had kept them from the knowledge or remark of any one. They were also high enough up to be quite clear from the bandages, and thus she was amazed to hear the exclamation, "There! sooth enough."

"Monsieur Gorion could swear to them instantly."

"What is it? Oh, what is it, madam?" cried Cis, affrighted; "is there anything on my back? No plague spot, I hope;" and her eyes grew round with terror.

The Queen laughed. "No plague spot, sweet one, save, perhaps, in the eyes of you Protestants, but to me they are a gladsome sight—a token I never hoped to see."

And the bewildered girl felt a pair of soft lips kiss each mark in turn, and then the covering was quickly and caressingly restored, and Mary added, "Lie down, my child, and now to bed, to bed, my maids. Patent the lights." Then, making the sign of the cross, as Cis had seen poor Antony Babington do, the Queen, just as all the lights save one were extinguished, was divested of her wrapper and veil, and took her place beside Cis on the pillows. The two Maries left the chamber, and Jean Kennedy disposed herself on a pallet at the foot of the bed.

"And so," said the Queen, in a low voice, tender, but with a sort of banter, "she thought she had the plague spot on her little white shoulders. Didst thou really not know what marks thou bearest, little one?"

"No, madam," said Cis. "Is it what I have felt with my fingers?"

"Listen, child," said Mary. "Art thou at thine ease; thy poor shoulder resting well? There, then, give me thine hand, and I will tell thee a tale. There was a lonely castle in a lake, grim, cold, and northerly; and thither there was brought by angry men a captive woman. They had dealt with her strangely and subtilly; they had laid on her the guilt of the crimes themselves had wrought; and when she clung to the one man whom at least she thought honest, they had forced and driven her into wedding him, only that all the world might cry out upon her, forsake her, and deliver her up into those cruel hands."

There was something irresistibly pathetic in Mary's voice, and the maiden lay gazing at her with swimming eyes.

"Thou dost pity that poor lady, sweet one? There was little pity for her then! She had looked her last on her lad—bairn; ay, and they had said she had striven to poison him, and they were breeding him up to loathe the very name of his mother; yea, and to hate and persecute the Church of his father and his mother both. And so it was, that the lady vowed that if another babe was granted to her, sprung of that last strange miserable wedlock, these foes of hers should have no part in it, nor knowledge of its very existence, but that it should be bred up beyond their ken—safe out of their reach. Ah! child; good Nurse Kennedy can best tell thee how the jealous eyes and ears were disconcerted, and in secrecy and sorrow that birth took place."

Cis's heart was beating too fast for speech, but there was a tight close pressure of the hand that Mary had placed within hers.

"The poor mother," went on the Queen in a low trembling voice, "durst have scarce one hour's joy of her first and only daughter, ere the trusty Gorion took the little one from her, to be nursed in a hut on the other side of the lake. There," continued Mary, forgetting the third person, "I hoped to have joined her, so soon as I was afoot again. The faithful lavender lent me her garments, and I was already in the boat, but the men-at-arms were rude and would have pulled down my muffler; I raised my hand to protect myself, and it was all too white. They had not let me stain it, because the dye would not befit a washerwoman. So there was I dragged back to ward again, and all our plans overthrown. And it seemed safer and meeter to put my little one out of reach of all my foes, even if it were far away from her mother's aching heart. Not one more embrace could I be granted, but my good chaplain Ross—whom the saints rest—baptized her in secret, and Gorion had set two marks on the soft flesh, which he said could never be blotted out in after years, and then her father's clanswoman, Alison Hepburn, undertook to carry her to France, with a letter of mine bound up in her swathing clothes, committing her to the charge of my good aunt, the Abbess of Soissons, in utter secrecy, until better days should come. Alas! I thought them not so far off. I deemed that were I once beyond the clutches of Morton, Ruthven, and the rest, the loyal would rally once more round my standard, and my crown would be mine own, mine enemies and those of my Church beneath my feet. Little did I guess that my escape would only be to see them slain and routed, and that when I threw myself on the hospitality of my cousin, her tender mercies would prove such as I have found them. 'Libera me, Dominie, libera me.'"

Cis began dimly to understand, but she was still too much awed to make any demonstration, save a convulsive pressure of the Queen's hand, and the murmuring of the Latin prayer distressed her.

Presently Mary resumed. "Long, long did I hope my little one was safely sheltered from all my troubles in the dear old cloisters of Soissons, and that it was caution in my good aunt the abbess that prevented my hearing of her; but through my faithful servants, my Lord Flemyng, who had been charged to speed her from Scotland, at length let me know that the ship in which she sailed, the Bride of Dunbar, had been never heard of more, and was thought to have been cast away in a tempest that raged two days after she quitted Dunbar. And I—I shed some tears, but I could well believe that the innocent babe had been safely welcomed among the saints, and I could not grieve that she was, as I thought, spared from the doom that rests upon the race of Stewart. Till one week back, I gave thanks for that child of sorrow as cradled in Paradise."

Then followed a pause, and then Cis said in a low trembling voice, "And it was from the wreck of the Bride of Dunbar that I was taken?"

"Thou hast said it, child! My bairn, my bonnie bairn!" and the girl was absorbed in a passionate embrace and strained convulsively to a bosom which heaved with the sobs of tempestuous emotion, and the caresses were redoubled upon her again and again with increasing fervour that almost frightened her.

"Speak to me! Speak to me! Let me hear my child's voice."

"Oh, madam—"

"Call me mother! Never have I heard that sound from my child's lips. I have borne two children, two living children, only to be stripped of both. Speak, child—let me hear thee."

Cis contrived to say "Mother, my mother," but scarcely with effusion. It was all so strange, and she could not help feeling as if Susan were the mother she knew and was at ease with. All this was much too like a dream, from which she longed to awake. And there was Mrs. Kennedy too, rising up and crying quite indignantly—"Mother indeed! Is that all thou hast to say, as though it were a task under the rod, when thou art owned for her own bairn by the fairest and most ill-used queen in Christendom? Out on thee! Have the Southron loons chilled thine heart and made thee no leal to thine ain mother that hath hungered for thee?"

The angry tones, and her sense of her own shortcomings, could only make Cis burst into tears.

"Hush, hush, nurse! thou shalt not chide my new-found bairn. She will learn to ken us better in time if they will leave her with us," said Mary. "There, there; greet not so sair, mine ain. I ask thee not to share my sorrows and my woes. That Heaven forefend. I ask thee but to come from time to time and cheer my nights, and lie on my weary bosom to still its ache and yearning, and let me feel that I have indeed a child."

"Oh, mother, mother!" Cis cried again in a stifled voice, as one who could not utter her feelings, but not in the cold dry tone that had called forth Mrs. Kennedy's wrath. "Pardon me, I know not—I cannot say what I would. But oh! I would do anything for—for your Grace."

"All that I would ask of thee is to hold thy peace and keep our counsel. Be Cicely Talbot by day as ever. Only at night be mine—my child, my Bride, for so wast thou named after our Scottish patroness. It was a relic of her sandals that was hung about thy neck, and her ship in which thou didst sail; and lo, she heard and guarded thee, and not merely saved thee from death, but provided thee a happy joyous home and well-nurtured childhood. We must render her our thanks, my child. Beata Brigitta, ora pro nobis."

"It was the good God Almighty who saved me, madam," said Cis bluntly.

"Alack! I forgot that yonder good lady could not fail to rear thee in the outer darkness of her heresy; but thou wilt come back to us, my ain wee thing! Heaven forbid that I should deny Whose Hand it was that saved thee, but it was at the blessed Bride's intercession. No doubt she reserved for me, who had turned to her in my distress, this precious consolation! But I will not vex thy little heart with debate this first night. To be mother and child is enough for us. What art thou pondering?"

"Only, madam, who was it that told your Grace that I was a stranger?"

"The marks, bairnie, the marks," said Mary. "They told their own tale to good Nurse Jeanie; ay, and to Gorion, whom we blamed for his cruelty in branding my poor little lammie."

"Ah! but," said Cicely, "did not yonder woman with the beads and bracelets bid him look?"

If it had been lighter, Cicely would have seen that the Queen was not pleased at the inquiry, but she only heard the answer from Jean's bed, "Hout no, I wad she knew nought of thae brands. How should she?"

"Nay," said Cicely, "she—no, it was Tibbott the huckster-woman told me long ago that I was not what I seemed, and that I came from the north—I cannot understand! Were they the same?"

"The bairn kens too much," said Jean. "Dinna ye deave her Grace with your speirings, my lammie. Ye'll have to learn to keep a quiet sough, and to see mickle ye canna understand here."

"Silence her not, good nurse," said the Queen, "it imports us to know this matter. What saidst thou of Tibbott?"

"She was the woman who got Antony Babington into trouble," explained Cicely. "I deemed her a witch, for she would hint strange things concerning me, but my father always believed she was a kinsman of his, who was concerned in the Rising of the North, and who, he said, had seen me brought in to Hull from the wreck."

"Ay?" said the Queen, as a sign to her to continue.

"And meseemed," added Cicely timidly, "that the strange woman at Tideswell who talked of beads and bracelets minded me of Tibbott, though she was younger, and had not her grizzled brows; but father says that cannot be, for Master Cuthbert Langston is beyond seas at Paris."

"Soh! that is well," returned Mary, in a tone of relief. "See, child. That Langston of whom you speak was a true friend of mine. He has done much for me under many disguises, and at the time of thy birth he lived as a merchant at Hull, trading with Scotland. Thus it may have become known to him that the babe he had seen rescued from the wreck was one who had been embarked at Dunbar. But no more doth he know. The secret of thy birth, my poor bairn, was entrusted to none save a few of those about me, and all of those who are still living thou hast already seen. Lord Flemyng, who put thee on board, believed thee the child of James Hepburn of Lillieburn, the archer, and of my poor Mary Stewart, a kinswoman of mine ain; and it was in that belief doubtless that he, or Tibbott, as thou call'st him, would have spoken with thee."

"But the woman at Tideswell," said Cis, who was getting bewildered—"Diccon said that she spake to Master Gorion."

"That did she, and pointed thee out to him. It is true. She is another faithful friend of mine, and no doubt she had the secret from him. But no more questions, child. Enough that we sleep in each other's arms."

It was a strange night. Cis was more conscious of wonder, excitement, and a certain exultation, than of actual affection. She had not been bred up so as to hunger and crave for love. Indeed she had been treated with more tenderness and indulgence than was usual with people's own daughters, and her adopted parents had absorbed her undoubting love and respect.

Queen Mary's fervent caresses were at least as embarrassing as they were gratifying, because she did not know what response to make, and the novelty and wonder of the situation were absolutely distressing.

They would have been more so but for the Queen's tact. She soon saw that she was overwhelming the girl, and that time must be given for her to become accustomed to the idea. So, saying tenderly something about rest, she lay quietly, leaving Cis, as she supposed, to sleep. This, however, was impossible to the girl, except in snatches which made her have to prove to herself again and again that it was not all a dream. The last of these wakenings was by daylight, as full as the heavy curtains would admit, and she looked up into a face that was watching her with such tender wistfulness that it drew from her perforce the word "Mother."

"Ah! that is the tone with the true ring in it. I thank thee and I bless thee, my bairn," said Mary, making over her the sign of the cross, at which the maiden winced as at an incantation. Then she added, "My little maid, we must be up and stirring. Mind, no word of all this. Thou art Cicely Talbot by day, as ever, and only my child, my Bride, mine ain wee thing, my princess by night. Canst keep counsel?"

"Surely, madam," said Cis, "I have known for five years that I was a foundling on the wreck, and I never uttered a word."

Mary smiled. "This is either a very simple child or a very canny one," she said to Jean Kennedy. "Either she sees no boast in being of royal blood, or she deems that to have the mother she has found is worse than the being the nameless foundling."

"Oh! madam, mother, not so! I meant but that I had held my tongue when I had something to tell!"

"Let thy secrecy stand thee in good stead, child," said the Queen. "Remember that did the bruit once get abroad, thou wouldest assuredly be torn from me, to be mewed up where the English Queen could hinder thee from ever wedding living man. Ay, and it might bring the head of thy foster-father to the block, if he were thought to have concealed the matter. I fear me thou art too young for such a weighty secret."

"I am seventeen years old, madam," returned Cis, with dignity; "I have kept the other secret since I was twelve."

"Then thou wilt, I trust, have the wisdom not to take the princess on thee, nor to give any suspicion that we are more to one another than the caged bird and the bright linnet that comes to sing on the bars of her cage. Only, child, thou must get from Master Talbot these tokens that I hear of. Hast seen them?"

"Never, madam; indeed I knew not of them."

"I need them not to know thee for mine own, but it is not well that they should be in stranger hands. Thou canst say—But hush, we must be mum for the present."

For it became necessary to admit the Queen's morning draught of spiced milk, borne in by one of her suite who had to remain uninitiated; and from that moment no more confidences could be exchanged, until the time that Cis had to leave the Queen's chamber to join the rest of the household in the daily prayers offered in the chapel. Her dress and hair had, according to promise, been carefully attended to, but she was only finished and completed just in time to join her adopted parents on the way down the stairs. She knelt in the hall for their blessing—an action as regular and as mechanical as the morning kiss and greeting now are between parent and child; but there was something in her face that made Susan say to herself, "She knows all."

They could not speak to one another till not only matins but breakfast were ended, and then—after the somewhat solid meal—the ladies had to put on their out-of-door gear to attend Queen Mary in her daily exercise. The dress was not much, high summer as it was, only a loose veil over the stiff cap, and a fan in the gloved hand to act as parasol. However the retirement gave Cicely an interval in which to say, "O mother, she has told me," and as Susan sat holding out her arms, the adopted child threw herself on her knees, hiding her face on that bosom where she had found comfort all her life, and where, her emotion at last finding full outlet, she sobbed without knowing why for some moments, till she started nervously at the entrance of Richard, saying, "The Queen is asking for you both. But how now? Is all told?"

"Ay," whispered his wife.

"So! And why these tears? Tell me, my maid, was not she good to thee? Doth she seek to take thee into her own keeping?"

"Oh no, sir, no," said Cis, still kneeling against the motherly knee and struggling with her sobs. "No one is to guess. I am to be Cicely Talbot all the same, till better days come to her."

"The safer and the happier for thee, child. Here are two honest hearts that will not cast thee off, even if, as I suspect, yonder lady would fain be quit of thee."

"Oh no!" burst from Cicely, then, shocked at having committed the offence of interrupting him, she added, "Dear sir, I crave your pardon, but, indeed, she is all fondness and love."

"Then what means this passion?" he asked, looking from one to the other.

"It means only that the child's senses and spirits are overcome," said Susan, "and that she scarce knows how to take this discovery. Is it not so, sweetheart?"

"Oh, sweet mother, yes in sooth. You will ever be mother to me indeed!"

"Well said, little maid!" said Richard. "Thou mightest search the world over and never hap upon such another."

"But she oweth duty to the true mother," said Susan, with her hand on the girl's neck.

"We wot well of that," answered her husband, "and I trow the first is to be secret."

"Yea, sir," said Cis, recovering herself, "none save the very few who tended her, the Queen at Lochleven, know who I verily am. Such as were aware of the babe being put on board ship at Dunbar, thought me the daughter of a Scottish archer, a Hepburn, and she, the Queen my mother, would, have me pass as such to those who needs must know I am not myself."

"Trust her for making a double web when a single one would do," muttered Richard, but so that the girl could not hear.

"There is no need for any to know at present," said Susan hastily, moved perhaps by the same dislike to deception; "but ah, there's that fortune-telling woman."

Cis, proud of her secret information, here explained that Tibbott was indeed Cuthbert Langston, but not the person whose password was "beads and bracelets," and that both alike could know no more than the story of the Scottish archer and his young wife, but they were here interrupted by the appearance of Diccon, who had been sent by my Lord himself to hasten them at the instance of the Queen. Master Richard sent the boy on with his mother, saying he would wait and bring Cis, as she had still to compose her hair and coif, which had become somewhat disordered.

"My maiden," he said, gravely, "I have somewhat to say unto thee. Thou art in a stranger case than any woman of thy years between the four seas; nay, it may be in Christendom. It is woeful hard for thee not to be a traitor through mere lapse of tongue to thine own mother, or else to thy Queen. So I tell thee this once for all. See as little, hear as little, and, above all, say as little as thou canst."

"Not to mother?" asked Cis.

"No, not to her, above all not to me, and, my girl, pray God daily to keep thee true and loyal, and guard thee and the rest of us from snares. Now have with thee. We may tarry no longer!"

All went as usual for the rest of the day, so that the last night was like a dream, until it became plain that Cicely was again to share the royal apartment.

"Ah, I have thirsted for this hour!" said Mary, holding out her arms and drawing her daughter to her bosom. "Thou art a canny lassie, mine ain wee thing. None could have guessed from thy bearing that there was aught betwixt us."

"In sooth, madam," said the girl, "it seems that I am two maidens in one—Cis Talbot by day, and Bride of Scotland by night."

"That is well! Be all Cis Talbot by day. When there is need to dissemble, believe in thine own feigning. 'Tis for want of that art that these clumsy Southrons make themselves but a laughing-stock whenever they have a secret."

Cis did not understand the maxim, and submitted in silence to some caresses before she said, "My father will give your Grace the tokens when we return."

"Thy father, child?"

"I crave your pardon, madam, it comes too trippingly to my tongue thus to term Master Talbot."

"So much the better. Thy tongue must not lose the trick. I did but feel a moment's fear lest thou hadst not been guarded enough with yonder sailor man, and had let him infer over much."

"O, surely, madam, you never meant me to withhold the truth from father and mother," cried Cis, in astonishment and dismay.

"Tush! silly maid!" said the Queen, really angered. "Father and mother, forsooth! Now shall we have a fresh coil! I should have known better than to have trusted thy word."

"Never would I have given my word to deceive them," cried Cis, hotly.

"Lassie!" exclaimed Jean Kennedy, "ye forget to whom ye speak."

"Nay," said Mary, recovering herself, or rather seeing how best to punish, "'tis the poor bairn who will be the sufferer. Our state cannot be worse than it is already, save that I shall lose her presence, but it pities me to think of her."

"The secret is safe with them," repeated Cis. "O madam, none are to be trusted like them."

"Tell me not," said the Queen. "The sailor's blundering loyalty will not suffer him to hold his tongue. I would lay my two lost crowns that he is down on his honest knees before my Lord craving pardon for having unwittingly fostered one of the viper brood. Then, via! off goes a post—boots and spurs are no doubt already on—and by and by comes Knollys, or Garey, or Walsingham, to bear off the perilous maiden to walk in Queen Bess's train, and have her ears boxed when her Majesty is out of humour, or when she gets weary of dressing St. Katherine's hair, and weds the man of her choice, she begins to taste of prison walls, and is a captive for the rest of her days."

Cis was reduced to tears, and assurances that if the Queen would only broach the subject to Master Richard, she would perceive that he regarded as sacred, secrets that were not his own; and to show that he meant no betrayal, she repeated his advice as to seeing, hearing, and saying as little as possible.

"Wholesome counsel!" said Mary. "Cheer thee, lassie mine, I will credit whatever thou wilt of this foster-father of thine until I see it disproved; and for the good lady his wife, she hath more inward, if less outward, grace than any dame of the mastiff brood which guards our prison court! I should have warned thee that they were not excepted from those who may deem thee my poor Mary's child."

Cicely did not bethink herself that, in point of fact, she had not communicated her royal birth to her adopted parents, but that it had been assumed between them, as, indeed, they had not mentioned their previous knowledge. Mary presently proceeded—"After all, we may not have to lay too heavy a burden on their discretion. Better days are coming. One day shall our faithful lieges open the way to freedom and royalty, and thou shalt have whatever boon thou wouldst ask, even were it pardon for my Lady Shrewsbury."

"There is one question I would fain ask, Madam mother: Doth my real father yet live? The Earl of—"

Jean Kennedy made a sound of indignant warning and consternation, cutting her short in dismay; but the Queen gripped her hand tightly for some moments, and then said: "'Tis not a thing to speir of me, child, of me, the most woefully deceived and forlorn of ladies. Never have I seen nor heard from him since the parting at Carbery Hill, when he left me to bear the brunt! Folk say that he took ship for the north. Believe him dead, child. So were it best for us both; but never name him to me more."

Jean Kennedy knew, though the girl did not, what these words conveyed. If Bothwell no longer lived, there would be no need to declare the marriage null and void, and thus sacrifice his daughter's position; but supposing him to be in existence, Mary had already shown herself resolved to cancel the very irregular bonds which had united them,—a most easy matter for a member of her Church, since they had been married by a Reformed minister, and Bothwell had a living wife at the time. Of all this Cicely was absolutely ignorant, and was soon eagerly listening as the Queen spoke of her hopes of speedy deliverance. "My son, my Jamie, is working for me!" she said. "Nay, dost not ken what is in view for me?"

"No, madam, my good father, Master Richard, I mean, never tells aught that he hears in my Lord's closet."

"That is to assure me of his discretion, I trow! but this is no secret! No treason against our well-beloved cousin Bess! Oh no! But thy brother, mine ain lad-bairn, hath come to years of manhood, and hath shaken himself free of the fetters of Knox and Morton and Buchanan, and all their clamjamfrie. The Stewart lion hath been too strong for them. The puir laddie hath true men about him, at last,—the Master of Gray, as they call him, and Esme Stewart of Aubigny, a Scot polished as the French know how to brighten Scottish steel. Nor will the lad bide that his mother should pine longer in durance. He yearns for her, and hath writ to her and to Elizabeth offering her a share in his throne. Poor laddie, what would be outrecuidance in another is but duteousness in him. What will he say when we bring him a sister as well as a mother? They tell me that he is an unco scholar, but uncouth in his speech and manners, and how should it be otherwise with no woman near him save my old Lady Mar? We shall have to take him in hand to teach him fair courtesy."

"Sure he will be an old pupil!" said Cis, "if he be more than two years my elder."

"Never fear, if we can find a winsome young bride for him, trust mother, wife, and sister for moulding him to kingly bearing. We will make our home in Stirling or Linlithgow, we two, and leave Holyrood to him. I have seen too much there ever to thole the sight of those chambers, far less of the High Street of Edinburgh; but Stirling, bonnie Stirling, ay, I would fain ride a hawking there once more. Methinks a Highland breeze would put life and youth into me again. There's a little chamber opening into mine, where I will bestow thee, my Lady Bride of Scotland, for so long as I may keep thee. Ah! it will not be for long. They will be seeking thee, my brave courtly faithful kindred of Lorraine, and Scottish nobles and English lords will vie for this little hand of thine, where courses the royal blood of both realms."

"So please you, madam, my mother—"

"Eh? What is it? Who is it? I deemed that yonder honourable dame had kept thee from all the frolics and foibles of the poor old profession. Fear not to tell me, little one. Remember thine own mother hath a heart for such matters. I guess already. C'etait un beau garcon, ce pauvre Antoine."

"Oh no, madam," exclaimed Cicely. "When the sailor Goatley disclosed that I was no child of my father's, of Master Richard I mean, and was a nameless creature belonging to no one, Humfrey Talbot stood forth and pledged himself to wed me so soon as we were old enough."

"And what said the squire and dame?"

"That I should then be indeed their daughter."

"And hath the contract gone no farther?"

"No, madam. He hath been to the North with Captain Frobisher, and since that to the Western Main, and we look for his return even now."

"How long is it since this pledge, as thou callest it, was given?"

"Five years next Lammas tide, madam."

"Was it by ring or token?"

"No, madam. Our mother said we were too young, but Humfrey meant it with all his heart."

"Humfrey! That was the urchin who must needs traverse the correspondence through the seeming Tibbott, and so got Antony removed from about us. A stout lubberly Yorkshire lad, fed on beef and pudding, a true Talbot, a mere English bull-dog who will have lost all the little breeding he had, while committing spulzie and piracy at sea on his Catholic Majesty's ships. Bah, mon enfant, I am glad of it. Had he been a graceful young courtly page like the poor Antony, it might have been a little difficult, but a great English carle like that, whom thou hast not seen for five years—" She made a gesture with her graceful hands as if casting away a piece of thistledown.

"Humfrey is my very good—my very good brother, madam," cried Cicely, casting about for words to defend him, and not seizing the most appropriate.

"Brother, quotha? Yea, and as good brother he shall be to thee, and welcome, so long as thou art Cis Talbot by day—but no more, child. Princesses mate not with Yorkshire esquires. When the Lady Bride takes her place in the halls of her forefathers, she will be the property of Scotland, and her hand will be sought by princes. Ah, lassie! let it not grieve thee. One thing thy mother can tell thee from her own experience. There is more bliss in mating with our equals, by the choice of others, than in following our own wild will. Thou gazest at me in wonder, but verily my happy days were with my gentle young king—and so will thine be, I pray the saints happier and more enduring than ever were mine. Nothing has ever lasted with me but captivity, O libera me."

And in the murmured repetition the mother fell asleep, and the daughter, who had slumbered little the night before, could not but likewise drop into the world of soothing oblivion, though with a dull feeling of aching and yearning towards the friendly kindly Humfrey, yet with a certain exultation in the fate that seemed to be carrying her on inevitably beyond his reach.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE PEAK CAVERN.

It was quite true that at this period Queen Mary had good hope of liberation in the most satisfactory manner possible—short of being hailed as English Queen. Negotiations were actually on foot with James VI. and Elizabeth for her release. James had written to her with his own hand, and she had for the first time consented to give him the title of King of Scotland. The project of her reigning jointly with him had been mooted, and each party was showing how enormous a condescension it would be in his or her eyes! Thus there was no great unlikelihood that there would be a recognition of the Lady Bride, and that she would take her position as the daughter of a queen. Therefore, when Mary contrived to speak to Master Richard Talbot and his wife in private, she was able to thank them with gracious condescension for the care they had bestowed in rearing her daughter, much as if she had voluntarily entrusted the maiden to them, saying she trusted to be in condition to reward them.

Mistress Susan's heart swelled high with pain, as though she had been thanked for her care of Humfrey or Diccon, and her husband answered. "We seek no reward, madam. The damsel herself, while she was ours, was reward enough."

"And I must still entreat, that of your goodness you will let her remain yours for a little longer," said Mary, with a touch of imperious grace, "until this treaty is over, and I am free, it is better that she continues to pass for your daughter. The child herself has sworn to me by her great gods," said Mary, smiling with complimentary grace, "that you will preserve her secret—nay, she becomes a little fury when I express my fears lest you should have scruples."

"No, madam, this is no state secret; such as I might not with honour conceal," returned Richard.

"There is true English sense!" exclaimed Mary. "I may then count on your giving my daughter the protection of your name and your home until I can reclaim her and place her in her true position. Yea, and if your concealment should give offence, and bring you under any displeasure of my good sister, those who have so saved and tended my daughter will have the first claim to whatever I can give when restored to my kingdom."

"We are much beholden for your Grace's favour," said Richard, somewhat stiffly, "but I trust never to serve any land save mine own."

"Ah! there is your fierete," cried Mary. "Happy is my sister to have subjects with such a point of honour. Happy is my child to have been bred up by such parents!"

Richard bowed. It was all a man could do at such a speech, and Mary further added, "She has told me to what bounds went your goodness to her. It is well that you acted so prudently that the children's hearts were not engaged; for, as we all know but too well royal blood should have no heart."

"I am quite aware of it, madam," returned Richard, and there for the time the conversation ended. The Queen had been most charming, full of gratitude, and perfectly reasonable in her requests, and yet there was some flaw in the gratification of both, even while neither thought the disappointment would go very hard with their son. Richard could never divest himself of the instinctive prejudice with which soft words inspire men of his nature, and Susan's maternal heart was all in revolt against the inevitable, not merely grieving over the wrench to her affections, but full of forebodings and misgivings as to the future welfare of her adopted child. Even if the brightest hopes should be fulfilled; the destiny of a Scottish princess did not seem to Southern eyes very brilliant at the best, and whether poor Bride Hepburn might be owned as a princess at all was a doubtful matter, since, if her father lived (and he had certainly been living in 1577 in Norway), both the Queen and the Scottish people would be agreed in repudiating the marriage. Any way, Susan saw every reason to fear for the happiness and the religion alike of the child to whom she had given a mother's love. Under her grave, self-contained placid demeanour, perhaps Dame Susan was the most dejected of those at Buxton. The captive Queen had her hopes of freedom and her newly found daughter, who was as yet only a pleasure, and not an encumbrance to her, the Earl had been assured that his wife's slanders had been forgotten. He was secure of his sovereign's favour, and permitted to see the term of his weary jailorship, and thus there was an unusual liveliness and cheerfulness about the whole sojourn at Buxton, where, indeed, there was always more or less of a holiday time.

To Cis herself, her nights were like a perpetual fairy tale, and so indeed were all times when she was alone with the initiated, who were indeed all those original members of her mother's suite who had known of her birth at Lochleven, people who had kept too many perilous secrets not to be safely entrusted with this one, and whose finished habits of caution, in a moment, on the approach of a stranger, would change their manner from the deferential courtesy due to their princess, to the good-natured civility of court ladies to little Cicely Talbot.

Dame Susan had been gratified at first by the young girl's sincere assurances of unchanging affection and allegiance, and, in truth, Cis had clung the most to her with the confidence of a whole life's danghterhood, but as the days went on, and every caress and token of affection imaginable was lavished upon the maiden, every splendid augury held out to her of the future, and every story of the past detailed the charms of Mary's court life in France, seen through the vista of nearly twenty sadly contrasted years, it was in the very nature of things that Cis should regard the time spent perforce with Mistress Talbot much as a petted child views its return to the strict nurse or governess from the delights of the drawing-room. She liked to dazzle the homely housewife with the wonderful tales of French gaieties, or the splendid castles in the air she had heard in the Queen's rooms, but she resented the doubt and disapproval they sometimes excited; she was petulant and fractious at any exercise of authority from her foster-mother, and once or twice went near to betray herself by lapsing into a tone towards her which would have brought down severe personal chastisement on any real daughter even of seventeen. It was well that the Countess and her sharp-eyed daughter Mary were out of sight, as the sight of such "cockering of a malapert maiden" would have led to interference that might have brought matters to extremity. Yet, with all the forbearance thus exercised, Susan could not but feel that the girl's love was being weaned from her; and, after all, how could she complain, since it was by the true mother? If only she could have hoped it was for the dear child's good, it would not have been so hard! But the trial was a bitter one, and not even her husband guessed how bitter it was.

The Queen meantime improved daily in health and vigour in the splendid summer weather. The rheumatism had quitted her, and she daily rode and played at Trowle Madame for hours after supper in the long bright July evenings. Cis, whose shoulder was quite well, played with great delight on the greensward, where one evening she made acquaintance with a young esquire and his sisters from the neighbourhood, who had come with their father to pay their respects to my Lord Earl, as the head of all Hallamshire. The Earl, though it was not quite according to the recent stricter rules, ventured to invite them to stay to sup with the household, and afterwards they came out with the rest upon the lawn.

Cis was walking between the young lad and his sister, laughing and talking with much animation, for she had not for some time enjoyed the pleasure of free intercourse with any of her fellow-denizens in the happy land of youth.

Dame Susan watched her with some uneasiness, and presently saw her taking them where she herself was privileged to go, but strangers were never permitted to approach, on the Trowle Madame sward reserved for the Queen, on which she was even now entering.

"Cicely!" she called, but the young lady either did not or would not hear, and she was obliged to walk hastily forward, meet the party, and with courteous excuses turn them back from the forbidden ground. They submitted at once, apologising, but Cis, with a red spot on her cheek, cried, "The Queen would take no offence."

"That is not the matter in point, Cicely," said Dame Susan gravely. "Master and Mistress Eyre understand that we are bound to obedience to the Earl."

Master Eyre, a well-bred young gentleman, made reply that he well knew that no discourtesy was intended, but Cis pouted and muttered, evidently to the extreme amazement of Mistress Alice Eyre; and Dame Susan, to divert her attention, began to ask about the length of their ride, and the way to their home.

Cis's ill humour never lasted long, and she suddenly broke in, "O mother, Master Eyre saith there is a marvellous cavern near his father's house, all full of pendants from the roof like a minster, and great sheeted tables and statues standing up, all grand and ghostly on the floor, far better than in this Pool's Hole. He says his father will have it lighted up if we will ride over and see it."

"We are much beholden to Master Eyre," said Susan, but Cis read refusal in her tone, and began to urge her to consent.

"It must be as my husband wills," was the grave answer, and at the same time, courteously, but very decidedly, she bade the strangers farewell, and made her daughter do the same, though Cis was inclined to resistance, and in a somewhat defiant tone added, "I shall not forget your promise, sir. I long to see the cave."

"Child, child," entreated Susan, as soon as they were out of hearing, "be on thy guard. Thou wilt betray thyself by such conduct towards me."

"But, mother, they did so long to see the Queen, and there would have been no harm in it. They are well affected, and the young gentleman is a friend of poor Master Babington."

"Nay, Cis, that is further cause that I should not let them pass onward. I marvel not at thee, my maid, but thou and thy mother queen must bear in mind that while thou passest for our daughter, and hast trust placed in thee, thou must do nothing to forfeit it or bring thy fa—, Master Richard I mean, into trouble."

"I meant no harm," said Cis; rather crossly.

"Thou didst not, but harm may be done by such as mean it the least."

"Only, mother, sweet mother," cried the girl, childlike, set upon her pleasure, "I will be as good as can be. I will transgress in nought if only thou wilt get my father to take me to see Master Eyre's cavern."

She was altogether the home daughter again in her eagerness, entreating and promising by turns with the eager curiosity of a young girl bent on an expedition, but Richard was not to be prevailed on. He had little or no acquaintance with the Eyre family, and to let them go to the cost and trouble of lighting up the cavern for the young lady's amusement would be like the encouragement of a possible suit, which would have been a most inconvenient matter. Richard did not believe the young gentleman had warrant from his father in giving this invitation, and if he had, that was the more reason for declining it. The Eyres, then holding the royal castle of the Peak, were suspected of being secretly Roman Catholics, and though the Earl could not avoid hospitably bidding them to supper, the less any Talbot had to do with them the better, and for the present Cis must be contented to be reckoned as one.

So she had to put up with her disappointment, and she did not do so with as good a grace as she would have shown a year ago. Nay, she carried it to Queen Mary, who at night heard her gorgeous description of the wonders of the cavern, which grew in her estimation in proportion to the difficulty of seeing them, and sympathised with her disappointment at the denial.

"Nay, thou shalt not be balked," said Mary, with the old queenly habit of having her own way. "Prisoner as I am, I will accomplish this. My daughter shall have her wish."

So on the ensuing morning, when the Earl came to pay his respects, Mary assailed him with, "There is a marvellous cavern in these parts, my Lord, of which I hear great wonders."

"Does your grace mean Pool's Hole?"

"Nay, nay, my Lord. Have I not been conducted through it by Dr. Jones, and there writ my name for his delectation? This is, I hear, as a palace compared therewith."

"The Peak Cavern, Madam!" said Lord Shrewsbury, with the distaste of middle age for underground expeditions, "is four leagues hence, and a dark, damp, doleful den, most noxious for your Grace's rheumatism."

"Have you ever seen it, my Lord?"

"No, verily," returned his lordship with a shudder.

"Then you will be edified yourself, my Lord, if you will do me the grace to escort me thither," said Mary, with the imperious suavity she well knew how to adopt.

"Madam, madam," cried the unfortunate Earl, "do but consult your physicians. They will tell you that all the benefits of the Buxton waters will be annulled by an hour in yonder subterranean hole."

"I have heard of it from several of my suite," replied Mary, "and they tell me that the work of nature on the lime-droppings is so marvellous that I shall not rest without a sight of it. Many have been instant with me to go and behold the wondrous place."

This was not untrue, but she had never thought of gratifying them in her many previous visits to Buxton. The Earl found himself obliged either to utter a harsh and unreasonable refusal, or to organise an expedition which he personally disliked extremely, and moreover distrusted, for he did not in the least believe that Queen Mary would be so set upon gratifying her curiosity about stalactites without some ulterior motive. He tried to set on Dr. Jones to persuade Messieurs Gorion and Bourgoin, her medical attendants, that the cave would be fatal to her rheumatism, but it so happened that the Peak Cavern was Dr. Jones's favourite lion, the very pride of his heart. Pool's Hole was dear to him, but the Peak Cave was far more precious, and the very idea of the Queen of Scots honouring it with her presence, and leaving behind her the flavour of her name, was so exhilarating to the little man that if the place had been ten times more damp he would have vouched for its salubrity. Moreover, he undertook that fumigations of fragrant woods should remove all peril of noxious exhalations, so that the Earl was obliged to give his orders that Mr. Eyre should be requested to light up the cave, and heartily did he grumble and pour forth his suspicions and annoyance to his cousin Richard.

"And I," said the good sailor, "felt it hard not to be able to tell him that all was for the freak of a silly damsel."

Mistress Cicely laughed a little triumphantly. It was something like being a Queen's daughter to have been the cause of making my Lord himself bestir himself against his will. She had her own way, and might well be good-humoured. "Come, dear sir father," she said, coming up to him in a coaxing, patronising way, which once would have been quite alien to them both, "be not angered. You know nobody means treason! And, after all, 'tis not I but you that are the cause of all the turmoil. If you would but have ridden soberly out with your poor little Cis, there would have been no coil, but my Lord might have paced stately and slow up and down the terrace-walk undisturbed."

"Ah, child, child!" said Susan, vexed, though her husband could not help smiling at the arch drollery of the girl's tone and manner, "do not thou learn light mockery of all that should be honoured."

"I am not bound to honour the Earl," said Cis, proudly.

"Hush, hush!" said Richard. "I have allowed thee unchecked too long, maiden. Wert thou ten times what thou art, it would not give thee the right to mock at the gray-haired, highly-trusted noble, the head of the name thou dost bear."

"And the torment of her whom I am most bound to love," broke from Cicely petulantly.

Richard's response to this sally was to rise up, make the young lady the lowest possible reverence, with extreme and displeased gravity, and then to quit the room. It brought the girl to her bearings at once. "Oh, mother, mother, how have I displeased him?"

"I trow thou canst not help it, child," said Susan, sadly; "but it is hard that thou shouldst bring home to us how thine heart and thine obedience are parted from us."

The maiden was in a passion of tears at once, vowing that she meant no such thing, that she loved and obeyed them as much as ever, and that if only her father would forgive her she would never wish to go near the cavern. She would beg the Queen to give up the plan at once, if only Sir Richard would be her good father as before.

Susan looked at her sadly and tenderly, but smiled, and said that what had been lightly begun could not now be dropped, and that she trusted Cis would be happy in the day's enjoyment, and remember to behave herself as a discreet maiden. "For truly," said she, "so far from discretion being to be despised by Queen's daughters, the higher the estate the greater the need thereof."

This little breeze did not prevent Cicely from setting off in high spirits, as she rode near the Queen, who declared that she wanted to enjoy through the merry maiden, and who was herself in a gay and joyous mood, believing that the term of her captivity was in sight, delighted with her daughter, exhilarated by the fresh breezes and rapid motion, and so mirthful that she could not help teasing and bantering the Earl a little, though all in the way of good-humoured grace.

The ride was long, about eight miles; but though the Peak Castle was a royal one, the Earl preferred not to enter it, but, according to previous arrangement, caused the company to dismount in the valley, or rather ravine, which terminates in the cavern, where a repast was spread on the grass. It was a wonderful place, cool and refreshing, for the huge rocks on either side cast a deep shadow, seldom pierced by the rays of the sun. Lofty, solemn, and rich in dark reds and purples, rose the walls of rock, here and there softened by tapestry of ivy or projecting bushes of sycamore, mountain ash, or with fruit already assuming its brilliant tints, and jackdaws flying in and out of their holes above. Deep beds of rich ferns clothed the lower slopes, and sheets of that delicate flower, the enchanter's nightshade, reared its white blossoms down to the bank of a little clear stream that came flowing from out of the mighty yawning arch of the cavern, while above the precipice rose sheer the keep of Peak Castle.

The banquet was gracefully arranged to suit the scene, and comprised, besides more solid viands, large bowls of milk, with strawberries or cranberries floating in them. Mr. Eyre, the keeper of the castle, and his daughter did the honours, while his son superintended the lighting and fumigation of the cavern, assisted, if not directed by Dr. Jones, whose short black cloak and gold-headed cane were to be seen almost everywhere at once.

Presently clouds of smoke began to issue from the vast archway that closed the ravine. "Beware, my maidens," said the Queen, merrily, "we have roused the dragon in his den, and we shall see him come forth anon, curling his tail and belching flame."

"With a marvellous stomach for a dainty maiden or two," added Gilbert Curll, falling into her humour.

"Hark! Good lack!" cried the Queen, with an affectation of terror, as a most extraordinary noise proceeded from the bowels of the cavern, making Cis start and Marie de Courcelles give a genuine shriek.

"Your Majesty is pleased to be merry," said the Earl, ponderously. "The sound is only the coughing of the torchbearers from the damp whereof I warned your Majesty."

"By my faith," said Mary, "I believe my Lord Earl himself fears the monster of the cavern, to whom he gives the name of Damp. Dread nothing, my Lord; the valorous knight Sir Jones is even now in conflict with the foul worm, as those cries assure me, being in fact caused by his fumigations."

The jest was duly received, and in the midst of the laughter, young Eyre came forward, bowing low, and holding his jewelled hat in his hand, while his eyes betrayed that he had recently been sneezing violently.

"So please your Majesty," he said, "the odour hath rolled away, and all is ready if you will vouchsafe to accept my poor guidance."

"How say you, my Lord?" said Mary. "Will you dare the lair of the conquered foe, or fear you to be pinched with aches and pains by his lurking hobgoblins? If so, we dispense with your attendance."

"Your Majesty knows that where she goes thither I am bound to attend her," said the rueful Earl.

"Even into the abyss!" said Mary. "Valiantly spoken, for have not Ariosto and his fellows sung of captive princesses for whom every cave held an enchanter who could spirit them away into vapour thin as air, and leave their guardians questing in vain for them?"

"Your Majesty jests with edged tools," sighed the Earl.

Old Mr. Eyre was too feeble to act as exhibitor of the cave, and his son was deputed to lead the Queen forward. This was, of course, Lord Shrewsbury's privilege, but he was in truth beholden to her fingers for aid, as she walked eagerly forward, now and then accepting a little help from John Eyre, but in general sure-footed and exploring eagerly by the light of the numerous torches held by yeomen in the Eyre livery, one of whom was stationed wherever there was a dangerous pass or a freak of nature worth studying.

The magnificent vaulted roof grew lower, and presently it became necessary to descend a staircase, which led to a deep hollow chamber, shaped like a bell, and echoing like one. A pool of intensely black water filled it, reflecting the lights on its surface, that only enhanced its darkness, while there moved on a mysterious flat-bottomed boat, breaking them into shimmering sparks, and John Eyre intimated that the visitors must lie down flat in it to be ferried one by one over a space of about fourteen yards.

"Your Majesty will surely not attempt it," said the Earl, with a shudder.

"Wherefore not? It is but a foretaste of Charon's boat!" said Mary, who was one of those people whose spirit of enterprise rises with the occasion, and she murmured to Mary Seaton the line of Dante—

"Quando noi fermerem li nostri passi Su la triate riviera a' Acheronte."

"Will your Majesty enter?" asked John Eyre. "Dr. Jones and some gentlemen wait on the other side to receive you."

"Some gentlemen?" repeated Mary. "You are sure they are not Minos and Rhadamanthus, sir? My obolus is ready; shall I put it in my mouth?"

"Nay, madam, pardon me," said the Earl, spurred by a miserable sense of his duties; "since you will thus venture, far be it from me to let you pass over until I have reached the other aide to see that it is fit for your Majesty!"

"Even as you will, most devoted cavalier," said Mary, drawing back; "we will be content to play the part of the pale ghosts of the unburied dead a little longer. See, Mary, the boat sinks down with him and his mortal flesh! We shall have Charon complaining of him anon."

"Your Highness gars my flesh grue," was the answer of her faithful Mary.

"Ah, ma mie! we have not left all hope behind. We can afford to smile at the doleful knight, ferried o'er on his back, in duteous and loyal submission to his task mistress. Child, Cicely, where art thou? Art afraid to dare the black river?"

"No, madam, not with you on the other side, and my father to follow me."

"Well said. Let the maiden follow next after me. Or mayhap Master Eyre should come next, then the young lady. For you, my ladies, and you, good sirs, you are free to follow or not, as the fancy strikes you. So—here is Charon once more—must I lie down?"

"Ay, madam," said Eyre, "if you would not strike your head against yonder projecting rock."

Mary lay down, her cloak drawn about her, and saying, "Now then, for Acheron. Ah! would that it were Lethe!"

"Her Grace saith well," muttered faithful Jean Kennedy, unversed in classic lore, "would that we were once more at bonnie Leith. Soft there now, 'tis you that follow her next, my fair mistress."

Cicely, not without trepidation, obeyed, laid herself flat, and was soon midway, feeling the passage so grim and awful, that she could think of nothing but the dark passages of the grave, and was shuddering all over, when she was helped out on the other side by the Queen's own hand.

Some of those in the rear did not seem to be similarly affected, or else braved their feelings of awe by shouts and songs, which echoed fearfully through the subterranean vaults. Indeed Diccon, following the example of one or two young pages and grooms of the Earl's, began to get so daring and wild in the strange scene, that his father became anxious, and tarried for him on the other side, in the dread of his wandering away and getting lost, or falling into some of the fearful dark rivers that could be heard—not seen—rushing along. By this means, Master Richard was entirely separated from Cicely, to whom, before crossing the water, he had been watchfully attending, but he knew her to be with the Queen and her ladies, and considered her natural timidity the best safeguard against the chief peril of the cave, namely, wandering away.

Cicely did, however, miss his care, for the Queen could not but be engrossed by her various cicerones and attendants, and it was no one's especial business to look after the young girl over the rough descent to the dripping well called Roger Rain's House, and the grand cathedral-like gallery, with splendid pillars of stalagmite, and pendants above. By the time the steps beyond were reached, a toilsome descent, the Queen had had enough of the expedition, and declined to go any farther, but she good-naturedly yielded to the wish of Master John Eyre and Dr. Jones, that she would inscribe her name on the farthest column that she had reached.

There was a little confusion while this was being done, as some of the more enterprising wished to penetrate as far as possible into the recesses of the cave, and these were allowed to pass forward—Diccon and his father among them. In the passing and repassing, Cicely entirely lost sight of all who had any special care of her, and went stumbling on alone, weary, frightened, and repenting of the wilfulness with which she had urged on the expedition. Each of the other ladies had some cavalier to help her, but none had fallen to Cicely's lot, and though, to an active girl, there was no real danger where the torchbearers lined the way, still there was so much difficulty that she was a laggard in reaching the likeness of Acheron, and could see no father near as she laid herself down in Charon's dismal boat, dimly rejoicing that this time it was to return to the realms of day, and yet feeling as if she should never reach them. A hand was given to assist her from the boat by one of the torchbearers, a voice strangely familiar was in her ears, saying, "Mistress Cicely!" and she knew the eager eyes, and exclaimed under her breath, "Antony, you here? In hiding? What have you done?"

"Nothing," he answered, smiling, and holding her hand, as he helped her forward. "I only put on this garb that I might gaze once more on the most divine and persecuted of queens, and with some hope likewise that I might win a word with her who deigned once to be my playmate. Lady, I know the truth respecting you."

"Do you in very deed?" demanded Cicely, considerably startled.

"I know your true name, and that you are none of the mastiff race," said Antony.

"Did—did Tibbott tell you, sir?" asked Cicely.

"You are one of us," said Antony; "bound by natural allegiance in the land of your birth to this lady."

"Even so," said Cis, here becoming secure of what she had before doubted, that Babington only knew half the truth he referred to.

"And you see and speak with her privily," he added.

"As Bess Pierrepoint did," said she.

These words passed during the ascent, and were much interrupted by the difficulties of the way, in which Antony rendered such aid that she was each moment more impelled to trust to him, and relieved to find herself in such familiar hands. On reaching the summit the light of day could be seen glimmering in the extreme distance, and the maiden's heart bounded at the sight of it; but she found herself led somewhat aside, where in a sort of side aisle of the great bell chamber were standing together four more of the torch-bearers.

One of them, a slight man, made a step forward and said, "The Queen hath dropped her kerchief. Mayhap the young gentlewoman will restore it?"

"She will do more than that!" said Antony, drawing her into the midst of them. "Dost not know her, Langston? She is her sacred Majesty's own born, true, and faithful subject, the Lady—"

"Hush, my friend; thou art ever over outspoken with thy names," returned the other, evidently annoyed at Babington's imprudence.

"I tell thee, she is one of us," replied Antony impatiently. "How is the Queen to know of her friends if we name them not to her?"

"Are these her friends?" asked Cicely, looking round on the five figures in the leathern coats and yeomen's heavy buskins and shoes, and especially at the narrow face and keen pale eyes of Langston.

"Ay, verily," said one, whom Cicely could see even under his disguise to be a slender, graceful youth. "By John Eyre's favour have we come together here to gaze on the true and lawful mistress of our hearts, the champion of our faith, in her martyrdom." Then taking the kerchief from Langston's hand, Babington kissed it reverently, and tore it into five pieces, which he divided among himself and his fellows, saying, "This fair mistress shall bear witness to her sacred Majesty that we—Antony Babington, Chidiock Tichborne, Cuthbert Langston, John Charnock, John Savage—regard her as the sole and lawful Queen of England and Scotland, and that as we have gone for her sake into the likeness of the valley of the shadow of death, so will we meet death itself and stain this linen with our best heart's blood rather than not bring her again to freedom and the throne!"

Then with the most solemn oath each enthusiastically kissed the white token, and put it in his breast, but Langston looked with some alarm at the girl, and said to Babington, "Doth this young lady understand that you have put our lives into her hands?"

"She knows! she knows! I answer for her with my life," said Antony.

"Let her then swear to utter no word of what she has seen save to the Queen," said Langston, and Cicely detected a glitter in that pale eye, and with a horrified leap of thought, recollected how easy it would be to drag her away into one of those black pools, beyond all ken.

"Oh save me, Antony!" she cried clinging to his arm.

"No one shall touch you. I will guard you with my life!" exclaimed the impulsive young man, feeling for the sword that was not there.

"Who spoke of hurting the foolish wench?" growled Savage; but Tichborne said, "No one would hurt you, madam; but it is due to us all that you should give us your word of honour not to disclose what has passed, save to our only true mistress."

"Oh yes! yes!" cried Cicely hastily, scarcely knowing what passed her lips, and only anxious to escape from that gleaming eye of Langston, which had twice before filled her with a nameless sense of the necessity of terrified obedience. "Oh! let me go. I hear my father's voice."

She sprang forward with a cry between joy and terror, and darted up to Richard Talbot, while Savage, the man who looked most entirely unlike a disguised gentleman, stepped forward, and in a rough, north country dialect, averred that the young gentlewoman had lost her way.

"Poor maid," said kind Richard, gathering the two trembling little hands into one of his own broad ones. "How was it? Thanks, good fellow," and he dropped a broad piece into Savage's palm; "thou hast done good service. What, Cis, child, art quaking?"

"Hast seen any hobgoblins, Cis?" said Diccon, at her other side. "I'm sure I heard them laugh."

"Whist, Dick," said his father, putting a strong arm round the girl's waist. "See, my wench, yonder is the goodly light of day. We shall soon be there."

With all his fatherly kindness, he helped the agitated girl up the remaining ascent, as the lovely piece of blue sky between the retreating rocks grew wider, and the archway higher above them. Cis felt that infinite repose and reliance that none else could give, yet the repose was disturbed by the pang of recollection that the secret laid on her was their first severance. It was unjust to his kindness; strange, doubtful, nay grisly, to her foreboding mind, and she shivered alike from that and the chill of the damp cavern, and then he drew her cloak more closely about her, and halted to ask for the flask of wine which one of the adventurous spirits had brought, that Queen Elizabeth's health might be drunk by her true subjects in the bowels of the earth. The wine was, of course, exhausted; but Dr. Jones bustled forward with some cordial waters which he had provided in case of anyone being struck with the chill of the cave, and Cicely was made to swallow some.

By this time she had been missed, and the little party were met by some servants sent by the Earl at the instance of the much-alarmed Queen to inquire for her. A little farther on came Mistress Talbot, in much anxiety and distress, though as Diccon ran forward to meet her, and she saw Cicely on her husband's arm, she resumed her calm and staid demeanour, and when assured that the maiden had suffered no damage, she made no special demonstrations of joy or affection. Indeed, such would have been deemed unbecoming in the presence of strangers, and disrespectful to the Queen and the Earl, who were not far off.

Mary, on the other hand, started up, held out her arms, received the truant with such vehement kisses, as might almost have betrayed their real relationship, and then reproached her, with all sorts of endearing terms, for having so terrified them all; nor would she let the girl go from her side, and kept her hand in her own, Diccon meanwhile had succeeded in securing his father's attention, which had been wholly given to Cicely till she was placed in the women's hands. "Father," he said, "I wish that one of the knaves with the torches who found our Cis was the woman with the beads and bracelets, ay, and Tibbott, too."

"Belike, belike, my son," said Richard. "There are folk who can take as many forms as a barnacle goose. Keep thou a sharp eye as the fellows pass out, and pull me by the cloak if thou seest him."

Of course he was not seen, and Richard, who was growing more and more cautious about bringing vague or half-proved suspicions before his Lord, decided to be silent and to watch, though he sighed to his wife that the poor child would soon be in the web.

Cis had not failed to recognise that same identity, and to feel a half-realised conviction that the Queen had not chosen to confide to her that the two female disguises both belonged to Langston. Yet the contrast between Mary's endearments and the restrained manner of Susan so impelled her towards the veritable mother, that the compunction as to the concealment she had at first experienced passed away, and her heart felt that its obligations were towards her veritable and most loving parent. She told the Queen the whole story at night, to Mary's great delight. She said she was sure her little one had something on her mind, she had so little to say of her adventure, and the next day a little privy council was contrived, in which Cicely was summoned again to tell her tale. The ladies declared they had always hoped much from their darling page, in whom they had kept up the true faith, but Sir Andrew Melville shook his head and said: "I'd misdoot ony plot where the little finger of him was. What garred the silly loon call in the young leddy ere he kenned whether she wad keep counsel?"



CHAPTER XVII.

THE EBBING WELL.

Cicely's thirst for adventures had received a check, but the Queen, being particularly well and in good spirits, and trusting that this would be her last visit to Buxton, was inclined to enterprise, and there were long rides and hawking expeditions on the moors.

The last of these, ere leaving Buxton, brought the party to the hamlet of Barton Clough, where a loose horseshoe of the Earl's caused a halt at a little wayside smithy. Mary, always friendly and free-spoken, asked for a draught of water, and entered into conversation with the smith's rosy-cheeked wife who brought it to her, and said it was sure to be good and pure for the stream came from the Ebbing and Flowing Well, and she pointed up a steep path. Then, on a further question, she proceeded, "Has her ladyship never heard of the Ebbing Well that shows whether true love is soothfast?"

"How so?" asked the Queen. "How precious such a test might be. It would save many a maiden a broken heart, only that the poor fools would ne'er trust it."

"I have heard of it," said the Earl, "and Dr. Jones would demonstrate to your Grace that it is but a superstition of the vulgar regarding a natural phenomenon."

"Yea, my Lord," said the smith, looking up from the horse's foot; "'tis the trade of yonder philosophers to gainsay whatever honest folk believed before them. They'll deny next that hens lay eggs, or blight rots wheat. My good wife speaks but plain truth, and we have seen it o'er and o'er again."

"What have you seen, good man?" asked Mary eagerly, and ready answer was made by the couple, who had acquired some cultivation of speech and manners by their wayside occupation, and likewise as cicerones to the spring.

"Seen, quoth the lady?" said the smith. "Why, he that is a true man and hath a true maid can quaff a draught as deep as his gullet can hold—or she that is true and hath a true love—but let one who hath a flaw in the metal, on the one side or t'other, stoop to drink, and the water shrinks away so as there's not the moistening of a lip."

"Ay: the ladies may laugh," added his wife, "but 'tis soothfast for all that."

"Hast proved it, good dame?" asked the Queen archly, for the pair were still young and well-looking enough to be jested with.

"Ay! have we not, madam?" said the dame. "Was not my man yonder, Rob, the tinker's son, whom my father and brethren, the smiths down yonder at Buxton, thought but scorn of, but we'd taken a sup together at the Ebbing Well, and it played neither of us false, so we held out against 'em all, and when they saw there was no help for it, they gave Bob the second best anvil and bellows for my portion, and here we be."

"Living witnesses to the Well," said the Queen merrily. "How say you, my Lord? I would fain see this marvel. Master Curll, will you try the venture?"

"I fear it not, madam," said the secretary, looking at the blushing Barbara.

Objections did not fail to arise from the Earl as to the difficulties of the path and the lateness of the hour but Bob Smith, perhaps wilfully, discovered another of my Lord's horseshoes to be in a perilous state, and his good wife, Dame Emmott, offered to conduct the ladies by so good a path that they might think themselves on the Queen's Walk at Buxton itself.

Lord Shrewsbury, finding himself a prisoner, was obliged to yield compliance, and leaving Sir Andrew Melville, with the grooms and falconers, in charge of the horses, the Queen, the Earl, Cicely, Mary Seaton, Barbara Mowbray, the two secretaries, and Richard Talbot and young Diccon, started on the walk, together with Dr. Bourgoin, her physician, who was eager to investigate the curiosity, and make it a subject of debate with Dr. Jones.

The path was a beautiful one, through rocks and brushwood, mountain ash bushes showing their coral berries amid their feathery leaves, golden and white stars of stonecrop studding every coign of vantage, and in more level spots the waxy bell-heather beginning to come into blossom. Still it was rather over praise to call it as smooth as the carefully-levelled and much-trodden Queen's path at Buxton, considering that it ascended steeply all the way, and made the solemn, much-enduring Earl pant for breath; but the Queen, her rheumatics for the time entirely in abeyance, bounded on with the mountain step learned in early childhood, and closely followed the brisk Emmott. The last ascent was a steep pull, taking away the disposition to speak, and at its summit Mary stood still holding out one hand, with a finger of the other on her lips as a sign of silence to the rest of the suite and to Emmott, who stood flushed and angered; for what she esteemed her lawful province seemed to have been invaded from the other side of the country.

They were on the side of the descent from the moorlands connected with the Peak, on a small esplanade in the midst of which lay a deep clear pool, with nine small springs or fountains discharging themselves, under fern and wild rose or honeysuckle, into its basin. Steps bad been cut in the rock leading to the verge of the pool, and on the lowest of these, with his back to the new-comers, was kneeling a young man, his brown head bare, his short cloak laid aside, so that his well-knit form could be seen; the sword and spurs that clanked against the rock, as well as the whole fashion and texture of his riding-dress, showing him to be a gentleman.

"We shall see the venture made," whispered Mary to her daughter, who, in virtue of youth and lightness of foot, had kept close behind her. Grasping the girl's arm and smiling, she heard the young man's voice cry aloud to the echoes of the rock, "Cis!" then stoop forward and plunge face and head into the clear translucent water.