"He will be glad to hear of your Lordship's goodness. I shall go after him to-morrow and take his mails and little Diccon to him."

"That is well," said the Earl. "And give him this, with his kinsman's good wishes that he may win ten times more from the Don," pushing towards Richard a packet of twenty broad gold pieces, stamped with Queen Bess in all her glory; and then, after receiving due thanks for the gift, which was meant half as friendly feudal patronage from the head of the family, half as a contribution to the royal service, the Earl added, "I would crave of thee, Richard, to extend thy journey to Wingfield. Here are some accounts of which I could not sooner get the items, to be discharged between me and the lady there—and I would fain send thee as the man whom I can most entirely trust. I will give thee a pass, and a letter to Sadler, bidding him admit thee to her presence, since there are matters here which can sooner be discharged by one word of mouth than by many weary lines of writing."

Good Master Richard's conscience had little occasion to wince, yet he could not but feel somewhat guilty when this opportune commission was given to him, since the Earl gave it unaware of his secret understanding with the captive. He accepted it, however, without hesitation, since he was certainly not going to make a mischievous use of it, and bent all his mind to understand the complicated accounts that he was to lay before the Queen or her comptroller of the household.

He had still another interview to undergo with Antony Babington, who overtook him on his way home through the crackling leaves that strewed the avenue, as the October twilight fell. His recent conduct towards Humfrey gave him a certain right to friendly attention, though, as the frank-hearted mariner said to himself, it was hard that a plain man, who never told a lie, nor willingly had a concealment of his own, should be involved in a many-sided secret like this, a sort of web, where there was no knowing whether straining the wrong strand might not amount to a betrayal, all because he had rescued an infant, and not at once proclaimed her an alien.

"Sir," said Antony, "if my impatience to accost the maiden we wot of, when I saw her alone, had not misled me, I should have sought you first to tell you that no man knows better than I that my Lady Countess's good will is not what is wanting to forward my suit."

"Knowing then that it is not in my power or right to dispose of her, thine ardent wooing was out of place," said Richard.

"I own it, sir, though had I but had time I should have let the maiden know that I sought her subject to other approval, which I trust to obtain so as to satisfy you."

"Young man," said Richard, "listen to friendly counsel, and meddle not in perilous matters. I ask thee not whether Dethick hath any commerce with Wingfield; but I warn thee earnestly to eschew beginning again that which caused the trouble of thy childhood. Thou mayst do it innocently, seeking the consent of the lady to this courtship of thine; but I tell thee, as one who knows more of the matter than thou canst, that thou wilt only meet with disappointment."

"Hath the Queen other schemes for her?" asked Babington, anxiously; and Richard, thinking of the vista of possible archdukes, replied that she had; but that he was not free to speak, though he replied to Babington's half-uttered question that his son Humfrey was by no means intended.

"Ah!" cried Antony, "you give me hope, sir. I will do her such service that she shall refuse me nothing! Sir! do you mock me!" he added, with a fierce change of note.

"My poor lad, I could not but laugh to think what a simple plotter you are, and what fine service you will render if thou utterest thy vows to the very last person who should hear them! Credit me, thou wast never made for privy schemes and conspiracies, and a Queen who can only be served by such, is no mistress for thee. Thou wilt but run thine own neck into the noose, and belike that of others."

"That will I never do," quoth Antony. "I may peril myself, but no others."

"Then the more you keep out of secrets the better. Thou art too open-hearted and unguarded for them! So speaks thy well-wisher, Antony, whose friendship thou hast won by thine honourable conduct towards my rash boy; though I tell thee plainly, the maiden is not for thee, whether as Scottish or English, Cis or Bride."

So they parted at the gate of the park, the younger man full of hope and confidence, the elder full of pitying misgiving.

He was too kind-hearted not to let Cicely know that he should see her mother, or to refuse to take a billet for her,—a little formal note necessarily silent on the matter at issue, since it had to be laid before the Earl, who smiled at the scrupulous precaution, and let it pass.

Thus the good father parted with Humfrey and Diccon, rejoicing in his heart that they would fight with open foes, instead of struggling with the meshes of perplexity, which beset all concerned with Queen Mary, and then he turned his horse's head towards Wingfield Manor, a grand old castellated mansion of the Talbots, considered by some to excel even Sheffield. It stood high, on ground falling very steeply from the walls on three sides, and on the south well fortified, court within court, and each with a deep-arched and portcullised gateway, with loopholed turrets on either side, a porter's lodge, and yeomen guards.

Mr. Talbot had to give his name and quality, and show his pass, at each of these gates, though they were still guarded by Shrewsbury retainers, with the talbot on their sleeves. He was, however, received with the respect and courtesy due to a trusted kinsman of their lord; and Sir Ralf Sadler, a thin, elderly, careworn statesman, came to greet him at the door of the hall, and would only have been glad could he have remained a week, instead of for the single night he wished to spend at Wingfield.

Sadler was one of Mary's most gentle and courteous warders, and he spoke of her with much kindness, regretting that her health had again begun to suffer from the approach of winter, and far more from disappointment.

The negotiation with Scotland on her behalf was now known to have been abortive. James had fallen into the hands of the faction most hostile to her, and though his mother still clung with desperate hope to the trust that he, at least, was labouring on her behalf, no one else believed that he cared for anything but his own security, and even she had been forced to perceive that her liberation was again adjourned.

"And what think you was her thought when she found that road closed up?" said Sir Ralf. "Why, for her people! Her gentlewoman, Mrs. Mowbray, hath, it seems, been long betrothed."

"Ay, to Gilbert Curll, the long-backed Scotch Secretary. They were to be wed at Stirling so soon as she arrived there again."

"Yea; but when she read the letter that overthrew her hopes, what did she say but that 'her servants must not grow gray-headed with waiting till she was set free'! So she would have me make the case known to Sir Parson, and we had them married in the parish church two days since, they being both good Protestants."

"There is no doubt that her kindness of heart is true," said Richard. "The poor folk at Sheffield and Ecclesfield will miss her plentiful almsgiving."

"Some say it ought to be hindered, for that it is but a purchasing of friends to her cause," said Sadler; "but I have not the heart to check it, and what could these of the meaner sort do to our Queen's prejudice? I take care that nothing goes among them that could hide a billet, and that none of her people have private speech with them, so no harm can ensue from her bounty."

A message here came that the Queen was ready to admit Mr. Talbot, and Richard found himself in her presence chamber, a larger and finer room than that in the lodge at Sheffield, and with splendid tapestry hangings and plenishings; but the windows all looked into the inner quadrangle, instead of on the expanse of park, and thus, as Mary said, she felt more entirely the prisoner. This, however, was not perceptible at the time, for the autumn evening had closed in; there were two large fires burning, one at each end of the room, and tall tapestry-covered screens and high-backed settles were arranged so as to exclude the draughts around the hearth, where Mary reclined on a couch-like chair. She looked ill, and though she brightened with her sweet smile to welcome her guest, there were dark circles round her eyes, and an air of dejection in her whole appearance. She held out her hand graciously, as Richard approached, closely followed by his host; he put his knee to the ground and kissed it, as she said, "You must pardon me, Mr. Talbot, for discourtesy, if I am less agile than when we were at Buxton. You see my old foe lies in wait to plague me with aches and pains so soon as the year declines."

"I am sorry to see your Grace thus," returned Richard, standing on the step.

"The while I am glad to see you thus well, sir. And how does the good lady, your wife, and my sweet playfellow, your daughter?"

"Well, madam, I thank your Grace, and Cicely has presumed to send a billet by mine hand."

"Ah! the dear bairnie," and all the Queen's consummate art could not repress the smile of gladness and the movement of eager joy with which she held out her hand for it, so that Richard regretted its extreme brevity and unsatisfying nature, and Mary, recollecting herself in a second, added, smiling at Sadler, "Mr. Talbot knows how a poor prisoner must love the pretty playfellows that are lent to her for a time."

Sir Ralf's presence hindered any more intimate conversation, and Richard had certainly committed a solecism in giving Cicely's letter the precedence over the Earl's. The Queen, however, had recalled her caution, and inquired for the health of the Lord and Lady, and, with a certain sarcasm on her lips, trusted that the peace of the family was complete, and that they were once more setting Hallamshire the example of living together as household doves.

Her hazel eyes meantime archly scanned the face of Richard, who could not quite forget the very undovelike treatment he had received, though he could and did sturdily aver that "my Lord and my Lady were perfectly reconciled, and seemed most happy in their reunion."

"Well-a-day, let us trust that there will be no further disturbances to their harmony," said Mary, "a prayer I may utter most sincerely. Is the little Arbell come back with them?"

"Yea, madam."

"And is she installed in my former rooms, with the canopy over her cradle to befit her strain of royalty?"

"I think not, madam. Meseems that my Lady Countess hath seen reason to be heedful on that score. My young lady hath come back with a grave gouvernante, who makes her read her primer and sew her seam, and save that she sat next my Lady at the wedding feast there is little difference made between her and the other grandchildren."

The Queen then inquired into the circumstances of the wedding festivities with the interest of one to whom most of the parties were more or less known, and who seldom had the treat of a little feminine gossip. She asked who had been "her little Cis's partner," and when she heard of Babington, she said, "Ah ha, then, the poor youth has made his peace with my Lord?"

"Certes, madam, he is regarded with high favour by both my Lord and my Lady," said Richard, heartily wishing himself rid of his host.

"I rejoice to hear it," said Mary; "I was afraid that his childish knight-errantry towards the captive dame had damaged the poor stripling's prospects for ever. He is our neighbour here, and I believe Sir Ralf regards him as somewhat perilous."

"Nay, madam, if my Lord of Shrewsbury be satisfied with him, so surely ought I to be," said Sir Ralf.

Nothing more of importance passed that night. The packet of accounts was handed over to Sir Andrew Melville, and the two gentlemen dismissed with gracious good-nights.

Richard Talbot was entirely trusted, and when the next morning after prayers, breakfast, and a turn among the stables, it was intimated that the Queen was ready to see him anent my Lord's business, Sir Ralf Sadler, who had his week's report to write to the Council, requested that his presence might be dispensed with, and thus Mr. Talbot was ushered into the Queen's closet without any witnesses to their interview save Sir Andrew Melville and Marie de Courcelles. The Queen was seated in a large chair, leaning against cushions, and evidently in a good deal of pain, but, as Richard made his obeisance, her eyes shone as she quoted two lines from an old Scotch ballad—

"'Madame, how does my gay goss hawk? Madame, how does my doo?'

Now can I hear what I hunger for!"

"My gay gosshawk, madam, is flown to join Sir Francis Drake at Plymouth, and taken his little brother with him. I come now from speeding them as far as Derby."

"Ah! you must not ask me to pray for success to them, my good sir,—only that there may be a time when nations may be no more divided, and I fear me we shall not live to see it. And my doo—my little Cis, did she weep as became a sister for the bold laddies?"

"She wept many tears, madam, but we are sore perplexed by a matter that I must lay before your Grace. My Lady Countess is hotly bent on a match between the maiden and young Babington."

"Babington!" exclaimed the Queen, with the lioness sparkle in her eye. "You refused the fellow of course?"

"Flatly, madam, but your Grace knows that it is ill making the Countess accept a denial of her will."

Mary laughed "Ah ha! methought, sir, you looked somewhat as if you had had a recent taste of my Lord of Shrewsbury's dove. But you are a man to hold your own sturdy will, Master Richard, let Lord or Lady say what they choose."

"I trust so, madam, I am master of mine own house, and, as I should certainly not give mine own daughter to Babington, so shall I guard your Grace's."

"You would not give the child to him if she were your own?"

"No, madam."

"And wherefore not? Because he is too much inclined to the poor prisoner and her faith? Is it so, sir?"

"Your Grace speaks the truth in part," said Richard, and then with effort added, "and likewise, madam, with your pardon, I would say that though I verily believe it is nobleness of heart and spirit that inclines poor Antony to espouse your Grace's cause, there is to my mind a shallowness and indiscretion about his nature, even when most in earnest, such as would make me loath to commit any woman, or any secret, to his charge."

"You are an honest man, Mr. Talbot," said Mary; "I am glad my poor maid is in your charge. Tell me, is this suit on his part made to your daughter or to the Scottish orphan?"

"To the Scottish orphan, madam. Thus much he knows, though by what means I cannot tell, unless it be through that kinsman of mine, who, as I told your Grace, saw the babe the night I brought her in."

"Doubtless," responded Mary. "Take care he neither knows more, nor hints what he doth know to the Countess."

"So far as I can, I will, madam," said Richard, "but his tongue is not easy to silence; I marvel that he hath not let the secret ooze out already."

"Proving him to have more discretion than you gave him credit for, my good sir," said the Queen, smiling. "Refuse him, however, staunchly, grounding your refusal, if it so please you, on the very causes for which I should accept him, were the lassie verily what he deems her, my ward and kinswoman. Nor do you accede to him, whatever word or token he may declare that he brings from me, unless it bear this mark," and she hastily traced a peculiar-twisted form of M. "You know it?" she asked.

"I have seen it, madam," said Richard, gravely, for he knew it as the letter which had been traced on the child's shoulders.

"Ah, good Master Richard," she said, with a sweet and wistful expression, looking up to his face in pleading, and changing to the familiar pronoun, "thou likest not my charge, and I know that it is hard on an upright man like thee to have all this dissembling thrust on thee, but what can a poor captive mother do but strive to save her child from an unworthy lot, or from captivity like her own? I ask thee to say nought, that is all, and to shelter the maid, who hath been as thine own daughter, yet a little longer. Thou wilt not deny me, for her sake."

"Madam, I deny nothing that a Christian man and my Queen's faithful servant may in honour do. Your Grace has the right to choose your own daughter's lot, and with her I will deal as you direct me. But, madam, were it not well to bethink yourself whether it be not a perilous and a cruel policy to hold out a bait to nourish hope in order to bind to your service a foolish though a generous youth, whose devotion may, after all, work you and himself more ill than good?"

Mary looked a good deal struck, and waved back her two attendants, who were both startled and offended at what Marie de Courcelles described as the Englishman's brutal boldness.

"Silence, dear friends," said she. "Would that I had always had counsellors who would deal with me with such honour and disinterestedness. Then should I not be here."

However, she then turned her attention to the accounts, where Sir Andrew Melville was ready to question and debate every item set down by Shrewsbury's steward; while his mistress showed herself liberal and open-handed. Indeed she had considerable command of money from her French dowry, the proceeds of which were, in spite of the troubles of the League, regularly paid to her, and no doubt served her well in maintaining the correspondence which, throughout her captivity, eluded the vigilance of her keepers. On taking leave of her, which Richard Talbot did before joining his host at the mid-day meal, she reiterated her thanks for his care of her daughter, and her charges to let no persuasion induce him to consent to Babington's overtures, adding that she hoped soon to obtain permission to have the maiden amongst her authorised attendants. She gave him a billet, loosely tied with black floss silk and unsealed, so that if needful, Sadler and Shrewsbury might both inspect the tender, playful, messages she wrote to her "mignonne," and which she took care should not outrun those which she had often addressed to Bessie Pierrepoint.

Cicely was a little disappointed when she first opened the letter, but ere long she bethought herself of the directions she had received to hold such notes to the fire, and accordingly she watched, waiting even till the next day before she could have free and solitary access to either of the two fires in the house, those in the hall and in the kitchen.

At last, while the master was out farming, Ned at school, and the mistress and all her maids engaged in the unsavoury occupation of making candles, by repeated dipping of rushes into a caldron of melted fat, after the winter's salting, she escaped under pretext of attending to the hall fire, and kneeling beside the glowing embers, she held the paper over it, and soon saw pale yellow characters appear and deepen into a sort of brown or green, in which she read, "My little jewel must share the ring with none less precious. Yet be not amazed if commendations as from me be brought thee. Jewels are sometimes useful to dazzle the eyes of those who shall never possess them. Therefore seem not cold nor over coy, so as to take away all hope. It may be much for my service. Thou art discreet, and thy good guardians will hinder all from going too far. It might be well that he should deem thee and me inclined to what they oppose. Be secret. Keep thine own counsel, and let them not even guess what thou hast here read. So fare thee well, with my longing, yearning blessing."

Cicely hastily hid the letter in the large housewifely pocket attached to her girdle, feeling excited and important at having a real secret unguessed by any one, and yet experiencing some of the reluctance natural to the pupil of Susan Talbot at the notion of acting a part towards Babington. She really liked him, and her heart warmed to him as a true friend of her much-injured mother, so that it seemed the more cruel to delude him with false hopes. Yet here was she asked to do a real service to her mother!

Poor Cis, she knelt gazing perplexed into the embers, now and then touching a stick to make them glow, till Nat, the chief of "the old blue bottles of serving-men," came in to lay the cloth for dinner, exclaiming, "So, Mistress Cis! Madam doth cocker thee truly, letting thee dream over the coals, till thy face be as red as my Lady's new farthingale, while she is toiling away like a very scullion."



CHAPTER XXI.

A TANGLE.

It was a rainy November afternoon. Dinner was over, the great wood fire had been made up, and Mistress Talbot was presiding over the womenfolk of her household and their tasks with needle and distaff. She had laid hands on her unwilling son Edward to show his father how well he could read the piece de resistance of the family, Fabyan's Chronicle; and the boy, with an elbow firmly planted on either side of the great folio, was floundering through the miseries of King Stephen's time; while Mr. Talbot, after smoothing the head of his largest hound for some minutes, had leant back in his chair and dropped asleep. Cicely's hand tardily drew out her thread, her spindle scarcely balanced itself on the floor, and her maiden meditation was in an inactive sort of way occupied with the sense of dulness after the summer excitements, and wonder whether her greatness were all a dream, and anything would happen to recall her once more to be a princess. The kitten at her feet took the spindle for a lazily moving creature, and thought herself fascinating it, so she stared hard, with only an occasional whisk of the end of her striped tail; and Mistress Susan was only kept awake by her anxiety to adapt Diccon's last year's jerkin to Ned's use.

Suddenly the dogs outside bayed, the dogs inside pricked their ears, Ned joyfully halted, his father uttered the unconscious falsehood, "I'm not asleep, lad, go on," then woke up as horses' feet were heard; Ned dashed out into the porch, and was in time to hold the horse of one of the two gentlemen, who, with cloaks over their heads, had ridden up to the door. He helped them off with their cloaks in the porch, exchanging greetings with William Cavendish and Antony Babington.

"Will Mrs. Talbot pardon our riding-boots?" said the former. "We have only come down from the Manor-house, and we rode mostly on the grass."

Their excuses were accepted, though Susan had rather Master William had brought any other companion. However, on such an afternoon, almost any variety was welcome, especially to the younger folk, and room was made for them in the circle, and according to the hospitality of the time, a cup of canary fetched for each to warm him after the ride, while another was brought to the master of the house to pledge them in—a relic of the barbarous ages, when such a security was needed that the beverage was not poisoned.

Will Cavendish then explained that a post had come that morning to his stepfather from Wingfield, having been joined on the way by Babington (people always preferred travelling in companies for security's sake), and that, as there was a packet from Sir Ralf Sadler for Master Richard, he had brought it down, accompanied by his friend, who was anxious to pay his devoirs to the ladies, and though Will spoke to the mother, he smiled and nodded comprehension at the daughter, who blushed furiously, and set her spindle to twirl and leap so violently, as to make the kitten believe the creature had taken fright, and was going to escape. On she dashed with a sudden spring, involving herself and it in the flax. The old watch-dog roused himself with a growl to keep order. Cicely flung herself on the cat, Antony hurried to the rescue to help her disentangle it, and received a fierce scratch for his pains, which made him start back, while Mrs. Talbot put in her word. "Ah, Master Babington, it is ill meddling with a cat in the toils, specially for men folk! Here, Cis, hold her fast and I will soon have her free. Still, Tib!"

Cicely's cheeks were of a still deeper colour as she held fast the mischievous favourite, while the good mother untwisted the flax from its little claws and supple limbs, while it winked, twisted its head about sentimentally, purred, and altogether wore an air of injured innocence and forgiveness.

"I am afraid, air, you receive nothing but damage at our house," said Mrs. Talbot politely. "Hast drawn blood? Oh fie! thou ill-mannered Tib! Will you have a tuft from a beaver to stop the blood?"

"Thanks, madam, no, it is a small scratch. I would, I would that I could face truer perils for this lady's sake!"

"That I hope you will not, sir," said Richard, in a serious tone, which conveyed a meaning to the ears of the initiated, though Will Cavendish only laughed, and said,

"Our kinsman takes it gravely! It was in the days of our grandfathers that ladies could throw a glove among the lions, and bid a knight fetch it out for her love."

"It has not needed a lion to defeat Mr. Babington," observed Ned, looking up from his book with a sober twinkle in his eye, which set them all laughing, though his father declared that he ought to have his ears boxed for a malapert varlet.

Will Cavendish declared that the least the fair damsel could do for her knight-errant was to bind up his wounds, but Cis was too shy to show any disposition so to do, and it was Mrs. Talbot who salved the scratch for him. She had a feeling for the motherless youth, upon whom she foreboded that a fatal game might be played.

When quiet was restored, Mr. Talbot craved license from his guests, and opened the packet. There was a letter for Mistress Cicely Talbot in Queen Mary's well-known beautiful hand, which Antony followed with eager eyes, and a low gasp of "Ah! favoured maiden," making the good mother, who overheard it, say to herself, "Methinks his love is chiefly for the maid as something appertaining to the Queen, though he wots not how nearly. His heart is most for the Queen herself, poor lad."

The maiden did not show any great haste to open the letter, being aware that the true gist of it could only be discovered in private, and her father was studying his own likewise in silence. It was from Sir Ralf Sadler to request that Mistress Cicely might be permitted to become a regular member of the household. There was now a vacancy since, though Mrs. Curll was nearly as much about the Queen as ever, it was as the secretary's wife, not as one of the maiden attendants; and Sir Ralf wrote that he wished the more to profit by the opportunity, as he might soon be displaced by some one not of a temper greatly to consider the prisoner's wishes. Moreover, he said the poor lady was ill at ease, and much dejected at the tenor of her late letters from Scotland, and that she had said repeatedly that nothing would do her good but the presence of her pretty playfellow. Sir Ralf added assurances that he would watch over the maiden like his own daughter, and would take the utmost care of the faith and good order of all within his household. Curll also wrote by order of his mistress a formal application for the young lady, to which Mary had added in her own hand, "I thank the good Master Richard and Mrs. Susan beforehand, for I know they will not deny me."

Refusal was, of course, impossible to a mother who had every right to claim her own child; and there was nothing to be done but to fix the time for setting off: and Cicely, who had by this time read her own letter, or at least all that was on the surface, looked up tremulous, with a strange frightened gladness, and said, "Mother, she needs me."

"I shall shortly be returning home," said Antony, "and shall much rejoice if I may be one of the party who will escort this fair maiden."

"I shall take my daughter myself on a pillion, sir," said Richard, shortly.

"Then, sir, I may tell my Lord that you purpose to grant this request," said Will Cavendish, who had expected at least some time to be asked for deliberation, and knew his mother would expect her permission to be requested.

"I may not choose but do so," replied Richard; and then, thinking he might have said too much, he added, "It were sheer cruelty to deny any solace to the poor lady."

"Sick and in prison, and balked by her only son," added Susan, "one's heart cannot but ache for her."

"Let not Mr. Secretary Walsingham hear you say so, good madam," said Cavendish, smiling. "In London they think of her solely as a kind of malicious fury shut up in a cage, and there were those who looked askance at me when I declared that she was a gentlewoman of great sweetness and kindness of demeanour. I believe myself they will not rest till they have her blood!"

Cis and Susan cried out with horror, and Babington with stammering wrath demanded whether she was to be assassinated in the Spanish fashion, or on what pretext a charge could be brought against her. "Well," Cavendish answered, "as the saying is, give her rope enough, and she will hang herself. Indeed, there's no doubt but that she tampered enough with Throckmorton's plot to have been convicted of misprision of treason, and so she would have been, but that her most sacred Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, would have no charge made against her.

"Treason from one sovereign to another, that is new law!" said Babington.

"So to speak," said Richard; "but if she claim to be heiress to the crown, she must also be a subject. Heaven forefend that she should come to the throne!"

To which all except Cis and Babington uttered a hearty amen, while a picture arose before the girl of herself standing beside her royal mother robed in velvet and ermine on the throne, and of the faces of Lady Shrewsbury and her daughter as they recognised her, and were pardoned.

Cavendish presently took his leave, and carried the unwilling Babington off with him, rightly divining that the family would wish to make their arrangements alone. To Richard's relief, Babington had brought him no private message, and to Cicely's disappointment, there was no addition in sympathetic ink to her letter, though she scorched the paper brown in trying to bring one out. The Scottish Queen was much too wary to waste and risk her secret expedients without necessity.

To Richard and Susan this was the real resignation of their foster-child into the hands of her own parent. It was true that she would still bear their name, and pass for their daughter, but that would be only so long as it might suit her mother's convenience; and instead of seeing her every day, and enjoying her full confidence (so far as they knew), she would be out of reach, and given up to influences, both moral and religious, which they deeply distrusted; also to a fate looming in the future with all the dark uncertainty that brooded over all connected with Tudor or Stewart royalty.

How much good Susan wept and prayed that night, only her pillow knew, not even her husband; and there was no particular comfort when my Lady Countess descended on her in the first interval of fine weather, full of wrath at not having been consulted, and discharging it in all sorts of predictions as to Cis's future. No honest and loyal husband would have her, after being turned loose in such company; she would be corrupted in morals and manners, and a disgrace to the Talbots; she would be perverted in faith, become a Papist, and die in a nunnery beyond sea; or she would be led into plots and have her head cut off; or pressed to death by the peine forte et dure.

Susan had nothing to say to all this, but that her husband thought it right, and then had a little vigorous advice on her own score against tamely submitting to any man, a weakness which certainly could not be laid to the charge of the termagant of Hardwicke.

Cicely herself was glad to go. She loved her mother with a romantic enthusiastic affection, missed her engaging caresses, and felt her Bridgefield home eminently dull, flat, and even severe, especially since she had lost the excitement of Humfrey's presence, and likewise her companion Diccon. So she made her preparations with a joyful alacrity, which secretly pained her good foster-parents, and made Susan almost ready to reproach her with ingratitude.

They lectured her, after the fashion of the time, on the need of never forgetting her duty to her God in her affection to her mother, Susan trusting that she would never let herself be led away to the Romish faith, and Richard warning her strongly against untruth and falsehood, though she must be exposed to cruel perplexities as to the right— "But if thou be true to man, thou wilt be true to God," he said. "If thou be false to man, thou wilt soon be false to thy God likewise."

"We will pray for thee, child," said Susan. "Do thou pray earnestly for thyself that thou mayest ever see the right."

"My queen mother is a right pious woman. She is ever praying and reading holy books," said Cis. "Mother Susan, I marvel you, who know her, can speak thus."

"Nay, child, I would not lessen thy love and duty to her, poor soul, but it is not even piety in a mother that can keep a maiden from temptation. I blame not her in warning thee."

Richard himself escorted the damsel to her new home. There was no preventing their being joined by Babington, who, being well acquainted with the road, and being also known as a gentleman of good estate, was able to do much to make their journey easy to them, and secure good accommodation for them at the inns, though Mr. Talbot entirely baffled his attempts to make them his guests, and insisted on bearing a full share of the reckoning. Neither did Cicely fulfil her mother's commission to show herself inclined to accept his attentions. If she had been under contrary orders, there would have been some excitement in going as far as she durst, but the only effect on her was embarrassment, and she treated Antony with the same shy stiffness she had shown to Humfrey, during the earlier part of his residence at home. Besides, she clung more and more to her adopted father, who, now that they were away from home and he was about to part with her, treated her with a tender, chivalrous deference, most winning in itself, and making her feel herself no longer a child.

Arriving at last at Wingfield, Sir Ralf Sadler had hardly greeted them before a messenger was sent to summon the young lady to the presence of the Queen of Scots. Her welcome amounted to ecstasy. The Queen rose from her cushioned invalid chair as the bright young face appeared at the door, held out her arms, gathered her into them, and, covering her with kisses, called her by all sorts of tender names in French and Scottish.

"O ma mie, my lassie, ma fille, mine ain wee thing, how sweet to have one bairn who is mine, mine ain, whom they have not robbed me of, for thy brother, ah, thy brother, he hath forsaken me! He is made of the false Darnley stuff, and compacted by Knox and Buchanan and the rest, and he will not stand a blast of Queen Elizabeth's wrath for the poor mother that bore him. Ay, he hath betrayed me, and deluded me, my child; he hath sold me once more to the English loons! I am set faster in prison than ever, the iron entereth into my soul. Thou art but daughter to a captive queen, who looks to thee to be her one bairn, one comfort and solace."

Cicely responded by caresses, and indeed felt herself more than ever before the actual daughter, as she heard with indignation of James's desertion of his mother's cause; but Mary, whatever she said herself, would not brook to hear her speak severely of him. "The poor laddie," she said, "he was no better than a prisoner among those dour Scots lords," and she described in graphic terms some of her own experiences of royalty in Scotland.

The other ladies all welcomed the newcomer as the best medicine both to the spirit and body of their Queen. She was regularly enrolled among the Queen's maidens, and shared their meals. Mary dined and supped alone, sixteen dishes being served to her, both on "fish and flesh days," and the reversion of these as well as a provision of their own came to the higher table of her attendants, where Cicely ranked with the two Maries, Jean Kennedy, and Sir Andrew Melville. There was a second table, at which ate the two secretaries, Mrs. Curll, and Elizabeth Curll, Gilbert's sister, a most faithful attendant on the Queen. As before, she shared the Queen's chamber, and there it was that Mary asked her, "Well, mignonne, and how fares it with thine ardent suitor? Didst say that he rode with thee?"

"As far as the Manor gates, madam."

"And what said he? Was he very pressing?"

"Nay, madam, I was ever with my father—Mr. Talbot."

"And he keeps the poor youth at arm's length. Thine other swain, the sailor, his son, is gone off once more to rob the Spaniards, is he not?—so there is the more open field."

"Ay! but not till he had taught Antony a lesson."

The Queen made Cis tell the story of the encounter, at which she was much amused. "So my princess, even unknown, can make hearts beat and swords ring for her. Well done! thou art worthy to be one of the maids in Perceforest or Amadis de Gaul, who are bred in obscurity, and set all the knights a sparring together. Tourneys are gone out since my poor gude-father perished by mischance at one, or we would set thee aloft to be contended for."

"O madame mere, it made me greatly afraid, and poor Humfrey had to go off without leave-taking, my Lady Countess was so wrathful."

"So my Lady Countess is playing our game, is she! Backing Babington and banishing Talbot? Ha, ha," and Mary again laughed with a merriment that rejoiced the faithful ears of Jean Kennedy, under her bedclothes, but somewhat vexed Cicely. "Indeed, madam mother," she said, "if I must wed under my degree, I had rather it were Humfrey than Antony Babington."

"I tell thee, simple child, thou shall wed neither. A woman does not wed every man to whom she gives a smile and a nod. So long as thou bear'st the name of this Talbot, he is a good watch-dog to hinder Babington from winning thee: but if my Lady Countess choose to send the swain here, favoured by her to pay his court to thee, why then, she gives us the best chance we have had for many a long day of holding intercourse with our friends without, and a hope of thee will bind him the more closely."

"He is all yours, heart and soul, already, madam."

"I know it, child, but men are men, and no chains are so strong as can be forged by a lady's lip and eye, if she do it cunningly. So said my belle mere in France, and well do I believe it. Why, if one of the sour-visaged reformers who haunt this place chanced to have a daughter with sweetness enough to temper the acidity, the youth might be throwing up his cap the next hour for Queen Bess and the Reformation, unless we can tie him down with a silken cable while he is in the mind."

"Yea, madam, you who are beautiful and winsome, you can do such things, I am homely and awkward."

"Mort de ma vie, child! the beauty of the best of us is in the man's eyes who looks at us. 'Tis true, thou hast more of the Border lassie than the princess. The likeness of some ewe-milking, cheese-making sonsie Hepburn hath descended to thee, and hath been fostered by country breeding. But thou hast by nature the turn of the neck, and the tread that belong to our Lorraine blood, the blood of Charlemagne, and now that I have thee altogether, see if I train thee not so as to bring out the princess that is in thee; and so, good-night, my bairnie, my sweet child; I shall sleep to-night, now that I have thy warm fresh young cheek beside mine. Thou art life to me, my little one."



CHAPTER XXII.

TUTBURY

James VI. again cruelly tore his mother's heart and dashed her hopes by an unfeeling letter, in which he declared her incapable of being treated with, since she was a prisoner and deposed. The not unreasonable expectation, that his manhood might reverse the proceedings wrought in his name in his infancy, was frustrated. Mary could no longer believe that he was constrained by a faction, but perceived clearly that he merely considered her as a rival, whose liberation would endanger his throne, and that whatever scruples he might once have entertained had given way to English gold and Scottish intimidation.

"The more simple was I to look for any other in the son of Darnley and the pupil of Buchanan," said she, "but a mother's heart is slow to give up her trust."

"And is there now no hope?" asked Cicely.

"Hope, child? Dum spiro, spero. The hope of coming forth honourably to him and to Elizabeth is at an end. There is another mode of coming forth," she added with a glittering eye, "a mode which shall make them rue that they have driven patience to extremity."

"By force of arms? Oh, madam!" cried Cicely.

"And wherefore not? My noble kinsman, Guise, is the paramount ruler in France, and will soon have crushed the heretics there; Parma is triumphant in the Low Countries, and has only to tread out the last remnants of faction with his iron boot. They wait only the call, which my motherly weakness has delayed, to bring their hosts to avenge my wrongs, and restore this island to the true faith. Then thou, child, wilt be my heiress. We will give thee to one who will worthily bear the sceptre, and make thee blessed at home. The Austrians make good husbands, I am told. Matthias or Albert would be a noble mate for thee; only thou must be trained to more princely bearing, my little home-bred lassie."

In spite—nay, perhaps, in consequence—of these anticipations, an entire change began for Cicely. It was as if all the romance of her princely station had died out and the reality had set in. Her freedom was at an end. As one of the suite of the Queen of Scots, she was as much a prisoner as the rest; whereas before, both at Buxton and Sheffield, she had been like a dog or kitten admitted to be petted and played with, but living another life elsewhere, while now there was nothing to relieve the weariness and monotony of the restraint.

Nor was the petting what it was at first. Mary was far from being in the almost frolicsome mood which had possessed her at Buxton; her hopes and spirits had sunk to the lowest pitch, and though she had an admirably sweet and considerate temper, and was scarcely ever fretful or unreasonable with her attendants, still depression, illness, and anxiety could not but tell on her mode of dealing with her surroundings. Sometimes she gave way entirely, and declared she should waste away and perish in her captivity, and that she only brought misery and destruction on all who tried to befriend her; or, again, that she knew that Burghley and Walsingham were determined to have her blood.

It was in these moments that Cicely loved her most warmly, for caresses and endearments soothed her, and the grateful affection which received them would be very sweet. Or in a higher tone, she would trust that, if she were to perish, she might be a martyr and confessor for her Church, though, as she owned, the sacrifice would be stained by many a sin; and she betook herself to the devotions which then touched her daughter more than in any other respect.

More often, however, her indomitable spirit resorted to fresh schemes, and chafed fiercely and hotly at thought of her wrongs; and this made her the more critical of all that displeased her in Cicely.

Much that had been treated as charming and amusing when Cicely was her plaything and her visitor was now treated as unbecoming English rusticity. The Princess Bride must speak French and Italian, perhaps Latin; and the girl, whose literary education had stopped short when she ceased to attend Master Sniggius's school, was made to study her Cicero once more with the almoner, who was now a French priest named De Preaux, while Queen Mary herself heard her read French, and, though always good-natured, was excruciated by her pronunciation.

Moreover, Mary was too admirable a needlewoman not to wish to make her daughter the same; whereas Cicely's turn had always been for the department of housewifery, and she could make a castle in pastry far better than in tapestry; but where Queen Mary had a whole service of cooks and pantlers of her own, this accomplishment was uncalled for, and was in fact considered undignified. She had to sit still and learn all the embroidery stitches and lace-making arts brought by Mary from the Court of France, till her eyes grew weary, her heart faint, and her young limbs ached for the freedom of Bridgefield Pleasaunce and Sheffield Park.

Her mother sometimes saw her weariness, and would try to enliven her by setting her to dance, but here poor Cicely's untaught movements were sure to incur reproof; and even if they had been far more satisfactory to the beholders, what refreshment were they in comparison with gathering cranberries in the park, or holding a basket for Ned in the apple-tree? Mrs. Kennedy made no scruple of scolding her roundly for fretting in a month over what the Queen had borne for full eighteen years.

"Ah!" said poor Cicely, "but she had always been a queen, and was used to being mewed up close!"

And if this was the case at Wingfield, how much more was it so at Tutbury, whither Mary was removed in January. The space was far smaller, and the rooms were cold and damp; there was much less outlet, the atmosphere was unwholesome, and the furniture insufficient. Mary was in bed with rheumatism almost from the time of her arrival, but she seemed thus to become the more vigilant over her daughter, and distressed by her shortcomings. If the Queen did not take exercise, the suite were not supposed to require any, and indeed it was never desired by her elder ladies, but to the country maiden it was absolute punishment to be thus shut up day after day. Neither Sir Ralf Sadler nor his colleague, Mr. Somer, had brought a wife to share the charge, so that there was none of the neutral ground afforded by intercourse with the ladies of the Talbot family, and at first the only variety Cicely ever had was the attendance at chapel on the other side of the court.

It was remarkable that Mary discouraged all proselytising towards the Protestants of her train, and even forbore to make any open attempt on her daughter's faith. "Cela viendra," she said to Marie de Courcelles. "The sermons of M. le Pasteur will do more to convert her to our side than a hundred controversial arguments of our excellent Abbe; and when the good time comes, one High Mass will be enough to win her over."

"Alas! when shall we ever again assist at the Holy Sacrifice in all its glory!" sighed the lady.

"Ah, my good Courcelles! of what have you not deprived yourself for me! Sacrifice, ah! truly you share it! But for the child, it would give needless offence and difficulty were she to embrace our holy faith at present. She is simple and impetuous, and has not yet sufficiently outgrown the rude straightforward breeding of the good housewife, Madam Susan, not to rush into open confession of her faith, and then! oh the fracas! The wicked wolves would have stolen a precious lamb from M. le Pasteur's fold! Master Richard would be sent for! Our restraint would be the closer! Moreover, even when the moment of freedom strikes, who knows that to find her of their own religion may not win us favour with the English?"

So, from whatever motive, Cis remained unmolested in her religion, save by the weariness of the controversial sermons, during which the young lady contrived to abstract her mind pretty completely. If in good spirits she would construct airy castles for her Archduke; if dispirited, she yearned with a homesick feeling for Bridgefield and Mrs. Talbot. There was something in the firm sober wisdom and steady kindness of that good lady which inspired a sense of confidence, for which no caresses nor brilliant auguries could compensate.

Weary and cramped she was to the point of having a feverish attack, and on one slightly delirious night she fretted piteously after "mother," and shook off the Queen's hand, entreating that "mother, real mother," would come. Mary was much pained, and declared that if the child were not better the next day she should have a messenger sent to summon Mrs. Talbot. However, she was better in the morning; and the Queen, who had been making strong representations of the unhealthiness and other inconveniences of Tutbury, received a promise that she should change her abode as soon as Chartley, a house belonging to the young Earl of Essex, could be prepared for her.

The giving away large alms had always been one of her great solaces—not that she was often permitted any personal contact with the poor: only to sit at a window watching them as they flocked into the court, to be relieved by her servants under supervision from some officer of her warders, so as to hinder any surreptitious communication from passing between them. Sometimes, however, the poor would accost her or her suite as she rode out; and she had a great compassion for them, deprived, as she said, of the alms of the religious houses, and flogged or branded if hunger forced them into beggary. On a fine spring day Sir Ralf Sadler invited the ladies out to a hawking party on the banks of the Dove, with the little sparrow hawks, whose prey was specially larks. Pity for the beautiful soaring songster, or for the young ones that might be starved in their nests, if the parent birds were killed, had not then been thought of. A gallop on the moors, though they were strangely dull, gray, and stony, was always the best remedy for the Queen's ailments; and the party got into the saddle gaily, and joyously followed the chase, thinking only of the dexterity and beauty of the flight of pursuer and pursued, instead of the deadly terror and cruel death to which they condemned the created creature, the very proverb for joyousness.

It was during the halt which followed the slaughter of one of the larks, and the reclaiming of the hawk, that Cicely strayed a little away from the rest of the party to gather some golden willow catkins and sprays of white sloe thorn wherewith to adorn a beaupot that might cheer the dull rooms at Tutbury.

She had jumped down from her pony for the purpose, and was culling the branch, when from the copsewood that clothed the gorge of the river a ragged woman, with a hood tied over her head, came forward with outstretched hand asking for alms.

"Yon may have something from the Queen anon, Goody, when I can get back to her," said Cis, not much liking the looks or the voice of the woman.

"And have you nothing to cross the poor woman's hand with, fair mistress?" returned the beggar. "She brought you fair fortune once; how know you but she can bring you more?"

And Cicely recognised the person who had haunted her at Sheffield, Tideswell, and Buxton, and whom she had heard pronounced to be no woman at all.

"I need no fortune of your bringing," she said proudly, and trying to get nearer the rest of the party, heartily wishing she was on, not off, her little rough pony.

"My young lady is proud," said her tormentor, fixing on her the little pale eyes she so much disliked. "She is not one of the maidens who would thank one who can make or mar her life, and cast spells that can help her to a princely husband or leave her to a prison."

"Let go," said Cicely, as she saw a retaining hand laid on her pony's bridle; "I will not be beset thus."

"And this is your gratitude to her who helped you to lie in a queen's bosom; ay, and who could aid you to rise higher or fall lower?"

"I owe nothing to you," said Cicely, too angry to think of prudence. "Let me go!"

There was a laugh, and not a woman's laugh. "You owe nothing, quoth my mistress? Not to one who saw you, a drenched babe, brought in from the wreck, and who gave the sign which has raised you to your present honours? Beware!"

By this time, however, the conversation had attracted notice, and several riders were coming towards them.

There was an immediate change of voice from the threatening tone to the beggar's whine; but the words were—"I must have my reward ere I speak out."

"What is this? A masterful beggar wife besetting Mistress Talbot," said Mr. Somer, who came first.

"I had naught to give her," said Cicely.

"She should have the lash for thus frightening you," said Somer. "Yonder lady is too good to such vagabonds, and they come about us in swarms. Stand back, woman, or it may be the worse for you. Let me help you to your horse, Mistress Cicely."

Instead of obeying, the seeming woman, to gain time perhaps, began a story of woe; and Mr. Somer, being anxious to remount the young lady, did not immediately stop it, so that before Cis was in her saddle the Queen had ridden up, with Sir Ralf Sadler a little behind her. There were thus a few seconds free, in which the stranger sprang to the Queen's bridle and said a few hasty words almost inaudibly, and as Cis thought, in French; but they were answered aloud in English—"My good woman, I know all that you can tell me, and more, of this young lady's fortune. Here are such alms as are mine to give; but hold your peace, and quit us now."

Sir Ralf Sadler and his son-in-law both looked suspicious at this interview, and bade one of the grooms ride after the woman and see what became of her, but the fellow soon lost right of her in the broken ground by the river-side.

When the party reached home, there was an anxious consultation of the inner circle of confidantes over Cicely's story. Neither she nor the Queen had the least doubt that the stranger was Cuthbert Langston, who had been employed as an agent of hers for many years past; his insignificant stature and colourless features eminently fitting him for it. No concealment was made now that he was the messenger with the beads and bracelets, which were explained to refer to some ivory beads which had been once placed among some spare purchased by the Queen, and which Jean had recognised as part of a rosary belonging to poor Alison Hepburn, the nurse who had carried the babe from Lochleven. This had opened the way to the recovery of her daughter. Mary and Sir Andrew Melville had always held him to be devotedly faithful, but there had certainly been something of greed, and something of menace in his language which excited anxiety. Cicely was sure that his expressions conveyed that he really knew her royal birth, and meant to threaten her with the consequences, but the few who had known it were absolutely persuaded that this was impossible, and believed that he could only surmise that she was of more importance than an archer's daughter.

He had told the Queen in French that he was in great need, and expected a reward for his discretion respecting what he had brought her. And when he perceived the danger of being overheard, he had changed it into a pleading, "I did but tell the fair young lady that I could cast a spell that would bring her some good fortune. Would her Grace hear it?"

"So," said Mary, "I could but answer him as I did, Sadler and Somer being both nigh. I gave him my purse, with all there was therein. How much was it, Andrew?"

"Five golden pieces, besides groats and testers, madam," replied Sir Andrew.

"If he come again, he must have more, if it can be contrived without suspicion," said the Queen. "I fear me he may become troublesome if he guess somewhat, and have to be paid to hold his tongue."

"I dread worse than that," said Melville, apart to Jean Kennedy; "there was a scunner in his een that I mislikit, as though her Grace had offended him. And if the lust of the penny-fee hath possessed him, 'tis but who can bid the highest, to have him fast body and soul. Those lads! those lads! I've seen a mony of them. They'll begin for pure love of the Queen and of Holy Church, but ye see, 'tis lying and falsehood and disguise that is needed, and one way or other they get so in love with it, that they come at last to lie to us as well as to the other side, and then none kens where to have them! Cuthbert has been over to that weary Paris, and once a man goes there, he leaves his truth and honour behind him, and ye kenna whether he be serving you, or Queen Elizabeth, or the deil himsel'. I wish I could stop that loon's thrapple, or else wot how much he kens anent our Lady Bride."



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE LOVE TOKEN.

"Yonder woman came to tell this young lady's fortune," said Sir Ralf, a few days later. "Did she guess what I, an old man, have to bode for her!" and he smiled at the Queen. "Here is a token I was entreated by a young gentleman to deliver to this young lady, with his humble suit that he may pay his devoirs to her to-morrow, your Grace permitting."

"I knew not," said Mary, "that my women had license to receive visitors."

"Assuredly not, as a rule, but this young gentleman, Mr. Babington of Dethick, has my Lord and Lady of Shrewsbury's special commendation."

"I knew the young man," said Mary, with perfectly acted heedlessness. "He was my Lady Shrewsbury's page in his boyhood. I should have no objection to receive him."

"That, madam, may not be," returned Sadler. "I am sorry to say it is contrary to the orders of the council, but if Mr. and Mrs. Curll, and the fair Mistress Cicely, will do me the honour to dine with me to-morrow in the hall, we may bring about the auspicious meeting my Lady desires."

Cicely's first impulse had been to pout and say she wanted none of Mr. Babington's tokens, nor his company; but her mother's eye held her back, and besides any sort of change of scene, or any new face, could not but be delightful, so there was a certain leap of the young heart when the invitation was accepted for her; and she let Sir Ralf put the token into her hand, and a choice one it was. Everybody pressed to look at it, while she stood blushing, coy and unwilling to display the small egg-shaped watch of the kind recently invented at Nuremberg. Sir Ralf observed that the young lady showed a comely shamefast maidenliness, and therewith bowed himself out of the room.

Cicely laughed with impatient scorn. "Well spoken, reverend seignior," she said, as she found herself alone with the Queen. "I wish my Lady Countess would leave me alone. I am none of hers."

"Nay, mademoiselle, be not thus disdainful," said the Queen, in a gay tone of banter; "give me here this poor token that thou dost so despise, when many a maiden would be distraught with delight and gratitude. Let me see it, I say."

And as Cicely, restraining with difficulty an impatient, uncourtly gesture, placed the watch in her hand, her delicate deft fingers opened the case, disregarding both the face and the place for inserting the key; but dealing with a spring, which revealed that the case was double, and that between the two thin plates of silver which formed it, was inserted a tiny piece of the thinnest paper, written from corner to corner with the smallest characters in cipher. Mary laughed joyously and triumphantly as she held it up. "There, mignonne! What sayest thou to thy token now? This is the first secret news I have had from the outer world since we came to this weary Tutbury. And oh! the exquisite jest that my Lady and Sir Ralf Sadler should be the bearers! I always knew some good would come of that suitor of thine! Thou must not flout him, my fair lady, nor scowl at him so with thy beetle brows."

"It seems but hard to lure him on with false hopes," said Cicely, gravely.

"Hoots, lassie," as Dame Jean would say, "'tis but joy and delight to men to be thus tickled. 'Tis the greatest kindness we can do them thus to amuse them," said Mary, drawing up her head with the conscious fascination of the serpent of old Nile, and toying the while with the ciphered letter, in eagerness, and yet dread, of what it might contain.

Such things were not easy to make out, even to those who had the key, and Mary, unwilling to trust it out of her own hands, leant over it, spelling it out for many minutes, but at last broke forth into a clear ringing burst of girlish laughter and clasped her hands together, "Mignonne, mignonne, it is too rare a jest to hold back. Deem not that your Highness stands first here! Oh no! 'Tis a letter from Bernardo de Mendoza with a proposition for whose hand thinkest thou? For this poor old captive hand! For mine, maiden. Ay, and from whom? From his Excellency, the Prince of Parma, Lieutenant of the Netherlands. Anon will he be here with 30,000 picked men and the Spanish fleet; and then I shall ride once again at the head of my brave men, hear trumpets bray, and see banners fly! We will begin to work our banner at once, child, and let Sir Ralf think it is a bed-quilt for her sacred Majesty, Elizabeth. Thou look'st dismayed, little maiden."

"Spanish ships and men, madam, ah! and how would it be with my father—Mr. and Mrs. Talbot, I mean?"

"Not a hair of their heads shall be touched, child. We will send down a chosen troop to protect them, with Babington at its head if thou wilt. But," added the Queen, recollecting herself, and perceiving that she had startled and even shocked her daughter, "it is not to be to-morrow, nor for many a weary month. All that is here demanded is whether, all being well, he might look for my hand as his guerdon. Shall I propose thine instead?"

"O madam, he is an old man and full of gout!"

"Well! we will not pull caps for him just yet. And see, thou must be secret as the grave, child, or thou wilt ruin thy mother. I ought not to have told thee, but the surprise was too much for me, and thou canst keep a secret. Leave me now, child, and send me Monsieur Nau."

The next time any converse was held between mother and daughter, Queen Mary said, "Will it grieve thee much, my lassie, to return this bauble, on the plea of thy duty to the good couple at Bridgefield?"

After all Cicely had become so fond of the curious and ingenious egg that she was rather sorry to part with it, and there was a little dismal resignation in her answer, "I will do your bidding, madam."

"Thou shalt have a better. I will write to Chateauneuf for the choicest that Paris can furnish," said Mary, "but seest thou, none other mode is so safe for conveying an answer to this suitor of mine! Nay, little one, do not fear. He is not at hand, and if he be so gout-ridden and stern as I have heard, we will find some way to content him and make him do the service without giving thee a stepfather, even though he be grandson to an emperor."

There was something perplexing and distressing to Cis in this sudden mood of exultation at such a suitor. However, Parma's proposal might mean liberty and a recovered throne, and who could wonder at the joy that even the faintest gleam of light afforded to one whose captivity had lasted longer than Cicely's young life?—and then once more there was an alternation of feeling at the last moment, when Cicely, dressed in her best, came to receive instructions.

"I ken not, I ken not," said Mary, speaking the Scottish tongue, to which she recurred in her moments of deepest feeling, "I ought not to let it go. I ought to tell the noble Prince to have naught to do with a being like me. 'Tis not only the jettatura wherewith the Queen Mother used to reproach me. Men need but bear me good will, and misery overtakes them. Death is the best that befalls them! The gentle husband of my girlhood—then the frantic Chastelar, my poor, poor good Davie, Darnley, Bothwell, Geordie Douglas, young Willie, and again Norfolk, and the noble and knightly Don John! One spark of love and devotion to the wretched Mary, and all is over with them! Give me back that paper, child, and warn Babington against ever dreaming of aid to a wretch like me. I will perish alone! It is enough! I will drag down no more generous spirits in the whirlpool around me."

"Madam! madam!" exclaimed De Preaux the almoner, who was standing, "this is not like your noble self. Have you endured so much to be fainthearted when the end is near, and you are made a smooth and polished instrument, welded in the fire, for the triumph of the Church over her enemies?"

"Ah, Father!" said the Queen, "how should not my heart fail me when I think of the many high spirits who have fallen for my sake? Ay, and when I look out on yonder peaceful vales and happy homesteads, and think of them ravaged by those furious Spaniards and Italians, whom my brother of Anjou himself called very fiends!"

"Fiends are the tools of Divine wrath," returned Preaux. "Look at the profaned sanctuaries and outraged convents on which these proud English have waxen fat, and say whether a heavy retribution be not due to them."

"Ah, father! I may be weak, but I never loved persecution. King Francis and I were dragged to behold the executions at Amboise. That was enough for us. His gentle spirit never recovered it, and I—I see their contorted visages and forms still in my restless nights; and if the Spanish dogs should deal with England as with Haarlem or Antwerp, and all through me!—Oh! I should be happier dying within these walls!"

"Nay, madam, as Queen you would have the reins in your own hand: you could exercise what wholesome severity or well-tempered leniency you chose," urged the almoner; "it were ill requiting the favour of the saints who have opened this door to you at last to turn aside now in terror at the phantasy that long weariness of spirit hath conjured up before you."

So Mary rallied herself, and in five minutes more was as eager in giving her directions to Cicely and to the Curlls as though her heart had not recently failed her.

Cis was to go forth with her chaperons, not by any means enjoying the message to Babington, and yet unable to help being very glad to escape for ever so short a time from the dull prison apartments. There might be no great faith in her powers of diplomacy, but as it was probable that Babington would have more opportunity of conversing with her than with the Curlls, she was charged to attend heedfully to whatever he might say.

Sir Ralf's son-in-law, Mr. Somer, was sent to escort the trio to the hall at the hour of noon; and there, pacing the ample chamber, while the board at the upper end was being laid, were Sir Ralf Sadler and his guest Mr. Babington. Antony was dressed in green velvet slashed with primrose satin, setting off his good mien to the greatest advantage, and he came up with suppressed but rapturous eagerness, bowing low to Mrs. Curll and the secretary, but falling on his knee to kiss the hand of the dark-browed girl. Her recent courtly training made her much less rustically awkward than she would have been a few months before, but she was extremely stiff, and held her head as though her ruff were buckram, as she began her lesson. "Sir, I am greatly beholden to you for this token, but if it be not sent with the knowledge and consent of my honoured father and mother I may not accept of it."

"Alas! that you will say so, fair mistress," said Antony, but he was probably prepared for this rejection, for he did not seem utterly overwhelmed by it.

"The young lady exercises a wise discretion," said Sir Ralf Sadler to Mrs. Curll. "If I had known that mine old friend Mr. Talbot of Bridgefield was unfavourable to the suit, I would not have harboured the young spark, but when he brought my Lady Countess's commendation, I thought all was well."

Barbara Curll had her cue, namely, to occupy Sir Ralf so as to leave the young people to themselves, so she drew him off to tell him in confidence a long and not particularly veracious story of the objections of the Talbots to Antony Babington; whilst her husband engaged the attention of Mr. Somer, and there was a space in which, as Antony took back the watch, he was able to inquire "Was the egg-shell opened?"

"Ay," said Cis, blushing furiously and against her will, "the egg was sucked and replenished."

"Take consolation," said Antony, and as some one came near them, "Duty and discretion shall, I trust, both be satisfied when I next sun myself in the light of those lovely eyes." Then, as the coast became more clear, "You are about shortly to move. Chartley is preparing for you."

"So we are told."

"There are others preparing," said Antony, bending over her, holding her hand, and apparently making love to her with all his might. "Tell me, lady, who hath charge of the Queen's buttery? Is it faithful old Halbert as at Sheffield?"

"It is," replied Cis.

"Then let him look well at the bottom of each barrel of beer supplied for the use of her household. There is an honest man, a brewer, at Burton, whom Paulett will employ, who will provide that letters be sent to and fro. Gifford and Langston, who are both of these parts, know him well." Cis started at the name. "Do you trust Langston then?" she asked.

"Wholly! Why, he is the keenest and ablest of all. Have you not seen him and had speech with him in many strange shapes? He can change his voice, and whine like any beggar wife."

"Yea," said Cis, "but the Queen and Sir Andrew doubted a little if he meant not threats last time we met."

"All put on—excellent dissembling to beguile the keepers. He told me all," said Antony, "and how he had to scare thee and change tone suddenly. Why, he it is who laid this same egg, and will receive it. There is a sworn band, as you know already, who will let her know our plans, and be at her commands through that means. Then, when we have done service approaching to be worthy of her, then it may be that I shall have earned at least a look or sign."

"Alas! sir," said Cicely, "how can I give you false hopes?" For her honest heart burnt to tell the poor fellow that she would in case of his success be farther removed from him than ever.

"What would be false now shall be true then. I will wring love from thee by my deeds for her whom we both alike love, and then wilt thou be mine own, my true Bride!"

By this time other guests had arrived, and the dinner was ready. Babington was, in deference to the Countess, allowed to sit next to his lady-love. She found he had been at Sheffield, and had visited Bridgefield, vainly endeavouring to obtain sanction to his addresses from her adopted parents. He saw how her eyes brightened and heard how her voice quivered with eagerness to hear of what still seemed home to her, and he was pleased to feel himself gratifying her by telling her how Mrs. Talbot looked, and how Brown Dumpling had been turned out in the Park, and Mr. Talbot had taken a new horse, which Ned had insisted on calling "Fulvius," from its colour, for Ned was such a scholar that he was to be sent to study at Cambridge. Then he would have wandered off to little Lady Arbell's being put under Master Sniggius's tuition, but Cicely would bring him back to Bridgefield, and to Ned's brothers.

No, the boasted expedition to Spain had not begun yet. Sir Francis Drake was lingering about Plymouth, digging a ditch, it was said, to bring water from Dartmoor. He would never get license to attack King Philip on his own shores. The Queen knew better than to give it. Humfrey and Diccon would get no better sport than robbing a ship or two on the way to the Netherlands. Antony, for his part, could not see that piracy on the high seas was fit work for a gentleman.

"A gentleman loves to serve his queen and country in all places," said Cicely.

"Ah!" said Antony, with a long breath, as though making a discovery, "sits the wind in that quarter?"

"Antony," exclaimed she, in her eagerness calling him by the familiar name of childhood, "you are in error. I declare most solemnly that it is quite another matter that stands in your way."

"And you will not tell me wherefore you are thus cruel?"

"I cannot, sir. You will understand in time that what you call cruelty is true kindness."

This was the gist of the interview. All the rest only repeated it in one form or another; and when Cis returned, it was with a saddened heart, for she could not but perceive that Antony was well-nigh crazed, not so much with love of her, as with the contemplation of the wrongs of the Church and the Queen, whom he regarded with equally passionate devotion, and with burning zeal and indignation to avenge their sufferings, and restore them to their pristine glory. He did, indeed, love her, as he professed to have done from infancy, but as if she were to be his own personal portion of the reward. Indeed there was magnanimity enough in the youth almost to lose the individual hope in the dazzle of the great victory for which he was willing to devote his own life and happiness in the true spirit of a crusader. Cicely did not fully or consciously realise all this, but she had such a glimpse of it as to give her a guilty feeling in concealing from him the whole truth, which would have shown how fallacious were the hopes that her mother did not scruple, for her own purposes, to encourage. Poor Cicely! she had not had royal training enough to look on all subjects as simply pawns on the monarch's chess-board; and she was so evidently unhappy over Babington's courtship, and so little disposed to enjoy her first feminine triumph, that the Queen declared that Nature had designed her for the convent she had so narrowly missed; and, valuable as was the intelligence she had brought, she was never trusted with the contents of the correspondence. On the removal of Mary to Chartley the barrel with the false bottom came into use, but the secretaries Nau and Curll alone knew in full what was there conveyed. Little more was said to Cicely of Babington.

However, it was a relief when, before the end of this summer, Cicely heard of his marriage to a young lady selected by the Earl. She hoped it would make him forget his dangerous inclination to herself; but yet there was a little lurking vanity which believed that it had been rather a marriage for property's than for love's sake.



CHAPTER XXIV.

A LIONESS AT BAY.

It was in the middle of the summer of 1586 that Humfrey and his young brother Richard, in broad grass hats and long feathers, found themselves again in London, Diccon looking considerably taller and leaner than when he went away. For when, after many months' delay, the naval expedition had taken place, he had been laid low with fever during the attack on Florida by Sir Francis Drake's little fleet; and the return to England had been only just in time to save his life. Though Humfrey had set forth merely as a lieutenant, he had returned in command of a vessel, and stood in high repute for good discipline, readiness of resource, and personal exploits. His ship had, however, suffered so severely as to be scarcely seaworthy when the fleet arrived in Plymouth harbour; and Sir Francis, finding it necessary to put her into dock and dismiss her crew, had chosen the young Captain Talbot to ride to London with his despatches to her Majesty.

The commission might well delight the brothers, who were burning to hear of home, and to know how it fared with Cicely, having been absolutely without intelligence ever since they had sailed from Plymouth in January, since which they had plundered the Spaniard both at home and in the West Indies, but had had no letters.

They rode post into London, taking their last change of horses at Kensington, on a fine June evening, when the sun was mounting high upon the steeple of St. Paul's, and speeding through the fields in hopes of being able to reach the Strand in time for supper at Lord Shrewsbury's mansion, which, even in the absence of my Lord, was always a harbour for all of the name of Talbot. Nor, indeed, was it safe to be out after dark, for the neighbourhood of the city was full of roisterers of all sorts, if not of highwaymen and cutpurses, who might come in numbers too large even for the two young gentlemen and the two servants, who remained out of the four volunteers from Bridgefield.

They were just passing Westminster where the Abbey, Hall, and St. Stephen's Chapel, and their precincts, stood up in their venerable but unstained beauty among the fields and fine trees, and some of the Westminster boys, flat-capped, gowned, and yellow-stockinged, ran out with the cry that always flattered Diccon, not to say Humfrey, though he tried to be superior to it, "Mariners! mariners from the Western Main! Hurrah for gallant Drake! Down with the Don!" For the tokens of the sea, in the form of clothes and weapons, were well known and highly esteemed.

Two or three gentlemen who were walking along the road turned and looked up, and the young sailors recognised in a moment a home face. There was an exclamation on either side of "Antony Babington!" and "Humfrey Talbot!" and a ready clasp of the hand in right of old companionship.

"Welcome home!" exclaimed Antony. "Is all well with you?"

"Royally well," returned Humfrey. "Know'st thou aught of our father and mother?"

"All was well with them when last I heard," said Antony.

"And Cis—my sister I mean?" said Diccon, putting, in his unconsciousness, the very question Humfrey was burning to ask.

"She is still with the Queen of Scots, at Chartley," replied Babington.

"Chartley, where is that? It is a new place for her captivity."

"'Tis a house of my Lord of Essex, not far from Lichfield," returned Antony. "They sent her thither this spring, after they had well-nigh slain her with the damp and wretched lodgings they provided at Tutbury."

"Who? Not our Cis?" asked Diccon.

"Nay," said Antony, "it hurt not her vigorous youth—but I meant the long-suffering princess."

"Hath Sir Ralf Sadler still the charge of her?" inquired Humfrey.

"No, indeed. He was too gentle a jailer for the Council. They have given her Sir Amias Paulett, a mere Puritan and Leicestrian, who is as hard as the nether millstone, and well-nigh as dull," said Babington, with a little significant chuckle, which perhaps alarmed one of his companions, a small slight man with a slight halt, clad in black like a lawyer. "Mr. Babington," he said, "pardon me for interrupting you, but we shall make Mr. Gage tarry supper for us."

"Nay, Mr. Langston," said Babington, who was in high spirits, "these are kinsmen of your own, sons of Mr. Richard Talbot of Bridgefield, to whom you have often told me you were akin."

Mr. Langston was thus compelled to come forward, shake hands with the young travellers, welcome them home, and desire to be commended to their worthy parents; and Babington, in the exuberance of his welcome, named his other two companions—Mr. Tichborne, a fine, handsome, graceful, and somewhat melancholy young man; Captain Fortescue, a bearded moustached bravo, in the height of the fashion, a long plume in his Spanish hat, and his short gray cloak glittering with silver lace. Humfrey returned their salute, but was as glad as they evidently were when they got Babington away with them, and left the brothers to pursue their way, after inviting them to come and see him at his lodgings as early as possible.

"It is before supper," said Diccon, sagely, "or I should say Master Antony had been acquainted with some good canary."

"More likely he is uplifted with some fancy of his own. It may be only with the meeting of me after our encounter," said Humfrey. "He is a brave fellow and kindly, but never did craft so want ballast as does that pate of his!"

"Humfrey," said his brother, riding nearer to him, "did he not call that fellow in black, Langston?"

"Ay, Cuthbert Langston. I have heard of him. No good comrade for his weak brain."

"Humfrey, it is so, though father would not credit me. I knew his halt and his eye—just like the venomous little snake that was the death, of poor Foster. He is the same with the witch woman Tibbott, ay, and with her with the beads and bracelets, who beset Cis and me at Buxton."

Young Diccon had proved himself on the voyage to have an unerring eye for recognition, and his brother gave a low whistle. "I fear me then Master Antony may be running himself into trouble."

"See, they turn in mounting the steps to the upper fence of yonder house with the deep carved balcony. Another has joined them! I like not his looks. He is like one of those hardened cavaliers from the Netherlands."

"Ay! who seem to have left pity and conscience behind them there," said Humfrey, looking anxiously up at the fine old gabled house with its projecting timbered front, and doubting inwardly whether it would be wise to act on his old playfellow's invitation, yet with an almost sick longing to know on what terms the youth stood with Cicely.

In another quarter of an hour they were at the gateway of Shrewsbury House, where the porter proved to be one of the Sheffield retainers, and admitted them joyfully. My Lord Earl was in Yorkshire, he said, but my Lord and Lady Talbot were at home, and would be fain to see them, and there too was Master William Cavendish.

They were handed on into the courtyard, where servants ran to take their horses, and as the news ran that Master Richard's sons had arrived from the Indies, Will Cavendish came running down the hall steps to embrace them in his glee, while Lord Talbot came to the door of the hall to welcome them. These great London houses, which had not quite lost their names of hostels or inns, did really serve as free lodgings to all members of the family who might visit town, and above all such travellers as these, bringing news of grand national achievements.

Very soon after Gilbert's accession to the heirship, quarrels had begun between his wife and her mother the Countess.

Lord Talbot had much of his father's stately grace, and his wife was a finished lady. They heartily welcomed the two lads who had grown from boys to men. My lady smilingly excused the riding-gear, and as soon as the dust of travel had been removed they were seated at the board, and called on to tell of the gallant deeds in which they had taken part, whilst they heard in exchange of Lord Leicester's doings in the Netherlands, and the splendid exploits of the Stanleys at Zutphen.

Lord Talbot promised to take Humfrey to Richmond the next day, to be presented to her Majesty, so soon as he should be equipped, so as not to lose his character of mariner, but still not to affront her sensibilities by aught of uncourtly or unstudied in his apparel.

They confirmed what Babington had said of the Queen of Scots' changes of residence and of keepers. As to Cicely, they had been lately so little at Sheffield that they had almost forgotten her, but they thought that if she were still at Chartley, there could be no objection to her brothers having an interview with her on their way home, if they chose to go out of their road for it.

Humfrey mentioned his meeting with Babington in Westminster, and Lord Talbot made some inquiries as to his companions, adding that there were strange stories and suspicions afloat, and that he feared that the young man was disaffected and was consorting with Popish recusants. Diccon's tongue was on the alert with his observation, but at a sign from his brother, who did not wish to get Babington into trouble, he was silent. Cavendish, however, laughed and said he was for ever in Mr. Secretary's house, and even had a room there.

Very early the next morning the body servant of his Lordship was in attendance with a barber and the fashionable tailor of the Court, and in good time Humfrey and Diccon were arrayed in such garments as were judged to suit the Queen's taste, and to become the character of young mariners from the West. Humfrey had a dainty jewel of shell-work from the spoils of Carthagena, entrusted to him by Drake to present to the Queen as a foretaste of what was to come. Lady Talbot greatly admired its novelty and beauty, and thought the Queen would be enchanted with it, giving him a pretty little perfumed box to present it in.

Lord Talbot, well pleased to introduce his spirited young cousins, took them in his boat to Richmond, which they reached just as the evening coolness came on. They were told that her Majesty was walking in the Park, and thither, so soon as the ruffs had been adjusted and the fresh Spanish gloves drawn on, they resorted.

The Queen walked freely there without guards—without even swords being worn by the gentlemen in attendance—loving as she did to display her confidence in her people. No precautions were taken, but they were allowed to gather together on the greensward to watch her, as among the beautiful shady trees she paced along.

The eyes of the two youths were eagerly directed towards her, as they followed Lord Talbot. Was she not indeed the cynosure of all the realm? Did she not hold the heart of every loyal Englishman by an invisible rein? Was not her favour their dream and their reward? She was a little in advance of her suite. Her hair, of that light sandy tint which is slow to whiten, was built up in curls under a rich stiff coif, covered with silver lace, and lifted high at the temples. From this a light gauze veil hung round her shoulders and over her splendid standing ruff, which stood up like the erected neck ornaments of some birds, opening in front, and showing the lesser ruff or frill encircling her throat, and terminating a lace tucker within her low-cut boddice. Rich necklaces, the jewel of the Garter, and a whole constellation of brilliants, decorated her bosom, and the boddice of her blue satin dress and its sleeves were laced with seed pearls. The waist, a very slender one, was encircled with a gold cord and heavy tassels, the farthingale spread out its magnificent proportions, and a richly embroidered white satin petticoat showed itself in front, but did not conceal the active, well-shaped feet. There was something extraordinarily majestic in her whole bearing, especially the poise of her head, which made the spectator never perceive how small her stature actually was. Her face and complexion, too, were of the cast on which time is slow to make an impression, being always pale and fair, with keen and delicately-cut features; so that her admirers had quite as much reason to be dazzled as when she was half her present age; nay, perhaps more, for the habit of command had added to the regality which really was her principal beauty. Sir Christopher Hatton, with a handsome but very small face at the top of a very tall and portly frame, dressed in the extreme of foppery, came behind her, and then a bevy of ladies and gentlemen.

As the Talbots approached, she was moving slowly on, unusually erect even for her, and her face composed to severe majesty, like that of a judge, the tawny eyes with a strange gleam in them fixed on some one in the throng on the grass near at hand. Lord Talbot advanced with a bow so low that he swept the ground with his plume, and while the two youths followed his example, Diccon's quick eye noted that she glanced for one rapid second at their weapons, then continued her steady gaze, never withdrawing it even to receive Lord Talbot's salutation as he knelt before her, though she said, "We greet you well, my good lord. Are not we well guarded, not having one man with a sword near me?"

"Here are three good swords, madam," returned he, "mine own, and those of my two young kinsmen, whom I venture to present to your Majesty, as they bear greetings from your trusty servant, Sir Francis Drake."

While he spoke there had been a by-play unperceived by him, or by the somewhat slow and tardy Hatton. A touch from Diccon had made Humfrey follow the direction of the Queen's eye, and they saw it was fixed on a figure in a loose cloak strangely resembling that which they had seen on the stair of the house Babington had entered. They also saw a certain quailing and cowering of the form, and a scowl on the shaggy red eyebrows, and Irish features, and Humfrey at once edged himself so as to come between the fellow and the Queen, though he was ready to expect a pistol shot in his back, but better thus, was his thought, than that it should strike her,—and both laid their hands on their swords.

"How now!" said Hatton, "young men, you are over prompt. Her Majesty needs no swords. You are out of rank. Fall in and do your obeisance."

Something in the Queen's relaxed gaze told Humfrey that the peril was over, and that he might kneel as Talbot named him, explaining his lineage as Elizabeth always wished to have done. A sort of tremor passed over her, but she instantly recalled her attention. "From Drake!" she said, in her clear, somewhat shrill voice. "So, young gentleman, you have been with the pirate who outruns our orders, and fills our brother of Spain with malice such that he would have our life by fair or foul means."

"That shall he never do while your Grace has English watch-dogs to guard you," returned Talbot.

"The Talbot is a trusty hound by water or by land," said Elizabeth, surveying the goodly proportion of the elder brother. "Whelps of a good litter, though yonder lad be somewhat long and lean. Well, and how fares Sir Francis? Let him make his will, for the Spaniards one day will have his blood."

"I have letters and a token from him for your Grace," said Humfrey.

"Come then in," said the Queen. "We will see it in the bower, and hear what thou wouldst say."

A bower, or small summer-house, stood at the end of the path, and here she took her way, seating herself on a kind of rustic throne evidently intended for her, and there receiving from Humfrey the letter and the gift, and asking some questions about the voyage; but she seemed preoccupied and anxious, and did not show the enthusiastic approbation of her sailors' exploits which the young men expected. After glancing over it, she bade them carry the letter to Mr. Secretary Walsingham the next day; nor did she bid the party remain to supper; but as soon as half a dozen of her gentlemen pensioners, who had been summoned by her orders, came up, she rose to return to the palace.



CHAPTER XXV.

PAUL'S WALK.

Will Cavendish, who was in training for a statesman, and acted as a secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, advised that the letters should be carried to him at once that same evening, as he would be in attendance on the Queen the next morning, and she would inquire for them.

The great man's house was not far off, and he walked thither with Humfrey, who told him what he had seen, and asked whether it ought not at once to be reported to Walsingham.

Will whistled. "They are driving it very close," he said. "Humfrey; old comrade, thy brains were always more of the order fit to face a tough breeze than to meddle with Court plots. Credit me, there is cause for what amazed thee. The Queen and her Council know what they are about. Risk a little, and put an end to all the plottings for ever! That's the word."

"Risk even the Queen's life?"

Will Cavendish looked sapient, and replied, "We of the Council Board know many a thing that looks passing strange."

Mr. Secretary Walsingham's town house was, like Lord Talbot's, built round a court, across which Cavendish led the way, with the assured air of one used to the service, and at home there. The hall was thronged with people waiting, but Cavendish passed it, opened a little wicket, and admitted his friends into a small anteroom, where he bade them remain, while he announced them to Sir Francis.

He disappeared, shutting a door behind him, and after a moment's interval another person, with a brown cloak round him, came hastily and stealthily across to the door. He had let down the cloak which muffled his chin, not expecting the presence of any one, and there was a moment's start as he was conscious of the young men standing there. He passed through the door instantly, but not before Humfrey had had time to recognise in him no other than Cuthbert Langston, almost the last person he would have looked for at Sir Francis Walsingham's. Directly afterwards Cavendish returned.

"Sir Francis could not see Captain Talbot, and prayed him to excuse him, and send in the letter."

"It can't be helped," said Cavendish, with his youthful airs of patronage. "He would gladly have spoken with you when I told him of you, but that Maude is just come on business that may not tarry. So you must e'en entrust your packet to me."

"Maude," repeated Humfrey, "Was that man's name Maude? I should have dared be sworn that he was my father's kinsman, Cuthbert Langston."

"Very like," said Will, "I would dare be sworn to nothing concerning him, but that he is one of the greatest and most useful villains unhung."

So saying, Will Cavendish disappeared with the letters. He probably had had a caution administered to him, for when he returned he was evidently swelling with the consciousness of a State secret, which he would not on any account betray, yet of the existence of which he desired to make his old comrade aware.

Humfrey asked whether he had told Mr. Secretary of the man in Richmond Park.

"Never fear! he knows it," returned the budding statesman. "Why, look you, a man like Sir Francis has ten thousand means of intelligence that a simple mariner like you would never guess at. I thought it strange myself when I came first into business of State, but he hath eyes and ears everywhere, like the Queen's gown in her picture. Men of the Privy Council, you see, must despise none, for the lewdest and meanest rogues oft prove those who can do the best service, just as the bandy-legged cur will turn the spit, or unearth the fox when your gallant hound can do nought but bay outside."

"Is this Maude, or Langston, such a cur?"

Cavendish gave his head a shake that expressed unutterable things, saying: "Your kinsman, said you? I trust not on the Talbot side of the house?"

"No. On his mother's side. I wondered the more to see him here as he got that halt in the Rising of the North, and on the wrong side, and hath ever been reckoned a concealed Papist."

"Ay, ay. Dost not see, mine honest Humfrey, that's the very point that fits him for our purpose?"

"You mean that he is a double traitor and informer."

"We do not use such hard words in the Privy Council Board as you do on deck, my good friend," said Cavendish. "We have our secret intelligencers, you see, all in the Queen's service. Foul and dirty work, but you can't dig out a fox without soiling of fingers, and if there be those that take kindly to the work, why, e'en let them do it."

"Then there is a plot?"

"Content you, Humfrey! You'll hear enough of it anon. A most foul, bloody, and horrible plot, quite enough to hang every soul that has meddled in it, and yet safe to do no harm—like poor Hal's blunderbuss, which would never go off, except when it burst, and blew him to pieces."

Will felt that he had said quite enough to impress Humfrey with a sense of his statecraft and importance, and was not sorry for an interruption before he should have said anything dangerous. It was from Frank Pierrepoint, who had been Diccon's schoolmate, and was enchanted to see him. Humfrey was to stay one day longer in town in case Walsingham should wish to see him, and to show Diccon something of London, which they had missed on their way to Plymouth.

St. Paul's Cathedral was even then the sight that all Englishmen were expected to have seen, and the brothers took their way thither, accompanied by Frank Pierrepoint, who took their guidance on his hands. Had the lads seen the place at the opening of the century they would have thought it a piteous spectacle, for desecration and sacrilege had rioted there unchecked, the magnificent peal of bells had been gambled away at a single throw of the dice, the library had been utterly destroyed, the magnificent plate melted up, and what covetous fanaticism had spared had been further ravaged by a terrible fire. At this time Bishop Bancroft had done his utmost towards reparation, and the old spire had been replaced by a wooden one; but there was much of ruin and decay visible all around, where stood the famous octagon building called Paul's Cross, where outdoor sermons were preached to listeners of all ranks. This was of wood, and was kept in moderately good repair. Beyond, the nave of the Cathedral stretched its length, the greatest in England. Two sets of doors immediately opposite to one another on the north and south sides had rendered it a thoroughfare in very early times, in spite of the endeavours of the clergy; and at this time "Duke Humfrey's Walk," from the tomb of Duke Humfrey Stafford, as the twelve grand Norman bays of this unrivalled nave were called, was the prime place for the humours of London; and it may be feared that this, rather than the architecture, was the chief idea in the minds of the youths, as a babel of strange sounds fell on their ears, "a still roar like a humming of bees," as it was described by a contemporary, or, as Humfrey said, like the sea in a great hollow cave. A cluster of choir-boys were watching at the door to fall on any one entering with spurs on, to levy their spur money, and one gentleman, whom they had thus attacked, was endeavouring to save his purse by calling on the youngest boy to sing his gamut.

Near at hand was a pillar, round which stood a set of men, some rough, some knavish-looking, with the blue coats, badges, short swords, and bucklers carried by serving-men. They were waiting to be hired, as if in a statute fair, and two or three loud-voiced bargains were going on. In the middle aisle, gentlemen in all the glory of plumed hats, jewelled ears, ruffed necks, Spanish cloaks, silken jerkins, velvet hose, and be-rosed shoes, were marching up and down, some attitudinising to show their graces, some discussing the news of the day, for "Paul's Walk" was the Bond Street, the Row, the Tattersall's, the Club of London. Twelve scriveners had their tables to act as letter-writers, and sometimes as legal advisers, and great amusement might be had by those who chose to stand listening to the blundering directions of their clients. In the side aisles, horse-dealing, merchants' exchanges, everything imaginable in the way of traffic was going on. Disreputable-looking men, who there were in sanctuary from their creditors, there lurked around Humfrey Stafford's tomb; and young Pierrepoint's warning to guard their purses was evidently not wasted, for a country fellow, who had just lost his, was loudly demanding justice, and getting jeered at for his simplicity in expecting to recover it.