"Seest thou this?" said a voice close to Humfrey, and he found a hand on his arm, and Babington, in the handsome equipment of one of the loungers, close to him.

"A sorry sight, that would grieve my good mother," returned Humfrey.

"My Mother, the Church, is grieved," responded Antony. "This is what you have brought us to, for your so-called religion," he added, ignorant or oblivious that these desecrations had been quite as shocking before the Reformation. "All will soon be changed, however," he added.

"Sir Thomas Gresham's New Exchange has cleared off some of the traffic, they say," returned Humfrey.

"Pshaw!" said Antony; "I meant no such folly. That were cleansing one stone while the whole house is foul with shame. No. There shall be a swift vengeance on these desecrators. The purifier shall come again, and the glory and the beauty of the true Faith shall be here as of old, when our fathers bowed before the Holy Rood, instead of tearing it down." His eye glanced with an enthusiasm which Humfrey thought somewhat wild, and he said, "Whist! these are not things to be thus spoken of."

"All is safe," said Babington, drawing him within shelter of the chantry of Sir John Beauchamp's tomb. "Never heed Diccon—Pierrepoint can guide him," and Humfrey saw their figures, apparently absorbed in listening to the bidding for a horse. "I have things of moment to say to thee, Humfrey Talbot. We have been old comrades, and had that childish emulation which turns to love in manhood in the face of perils."

Humfrey, recollecting how they had parted, held out his hand in recognition of the friendliness.

"I would fain save thee," said Babington. "Heretic and rival as thou art, I cannot but love thee, and I would have thee die, if die thou must, in honourable fight by sea or land, rather than be overtaken by the doom that will fall on all who are persecuting our true and lawful confessor and sovereign."

"Gramercy for thy good will, Tony," said Humfrey, looking anxiously to see whether his old companion was in his right mind, yet remembering what had been said of plots.

"Thou deem'st me raving," said Antony, smiling at the perplexed countenance before him, "but thou wilt see too late that I speak sooth, when the armies of the Church avenge the Name that has been profaned among you!"

"The Spaniards, I suppose you mean," said Humfrey coolly. "You must be far gone indeed to hope to see those fiends turned loose on this peaceful land, but by God's blessing we have kept them aloof before, I trust we may again."

"You talk of God's blessing. Look at His House," said Babington.

"He is more like to bless honest men who fight for their Queen, their homes and hearths, than traitors who would bring in slaughterers and butchers to work their will!"

"His glory is worked through judgment, and thus must it begin!" returned the young man. "But I would save thee, Humfrey," he added. "Go thou back to Plymouth, and be warned to hold aloof from that prison where the keepers will meet their fit doom! and the captive will be set free. Thou dost not believe," he added. "See here," and drawing into the most sheltered part of the chantry, he produced from his bosom a picture in the miniature style of the period, containing six heads, among which his own was plainly to be recognised, and likewise a face which Humfrey felt as if he should never forget, that which he had seen in Richmond Park, quailing beneath the Queen's eye. Round the picture was the motto—

"Hi mihi sunt comites quos ipsa pericula jungunt."

"I tell thee, Humfrey, thou wilt hear—if thou dost live to hear—of these six as having wrought the greatest deed of our times!"

"May it only be a deed an honest man need not be ashamed of," said Humfrey, not at all convinced of his friend's sanity.

"Ashamed of!" exclaimed Babington. "It is blest, I tell thee, blest by holy men, blest by the noble and suffering woman who will thus be delivered from her martyrdom."

"Babington, if thou talkest thus, it will be my duty to have thee put in ward," said Humfrey.

Antony laughed, and there was a triumphant ring very like insanity in his laughter. Humfrey, with a moment's idea that to hint that the conspiracy was known would blast it at once, if it were real, said, "I see not Cuthbert Langston among your six. Know you, I saw him only yestereven going into Secretary Walsingham's privy chamber."

"Was he so?" answered Babington. "Ha! ha! he holds them all in play till the great stroke be struck! Why! am not I myself in Walsingham's confidence? He thinketh that he is about to send me to France to watch the League. Ha! ha!"

Here Humfrey's other companions turned back in search of him; Babington vanished in the crowd, he hardly knew how, and he was left in perplexity and extreme difficulty as to what was his duty as friend or as subject. If Babington were sane, there must be a conspiracy for killing the Queen, bringing in the Spaniards and liberating Mary, and he had expressly spoken of having had the latter lady's sanction, while the sight of the fellow in Richmond Park gave a colour of probability to the guess. Yet the imprudence and absurdity of having portraits taken of six assassins before the blow was struck seemed to contradict all the rest. On the other hand, Cavendish had spoken of having all the meshes of the web in the hands of the Council; and Langston or Maude seemed to be trusted by both parties.

Humfrey decided to feel his way with Will Cavendish, and that evening spoke of having met Babington and having serious doubts whether he were in his right mind. Cavendish laughed, "Poor wretch! I could pity him," he said, "though his plans be wicked enough to merit no compassion. Nay, never fear, Humfrey. All were overthrown, did I speak openly. Nay, to utter one word would ruin me for ever. 'Tis quite sufficient to say that he and his fellows are only at large till Mr. Secretary sees fit, that so his grip may be the more sure."

Humfrey saw he was to be treated with no confidence, and this made him the more free to act. There were many recusant gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Chartley, and an assault and fight there were not improbable, if, as Cavendish hinted, there was a purpose of letting the traitors implicate themselves in the largest numbers and as fatally as possible. On the other hand, Babington's hot head might only fancy he had authority from the Queen for his projects. If, through Cicely, he could convey the information to Mary, it might save her from even appearing to be cognisant of these wild schemes, whatever they might be, and to hint that they were known was the surest way to prevent their taking effect. Any way, Humfrey's heart was at Chartley, and every warning he had received made him doubly anxious to be there in person, to be Cicely's guardian in case of whatever danger might threaten her. He blessed the fiction which still represented him as her brother, and which must open a way for him to see her, but he resolved not to take Diccon thither, and parted with him when the roads diverged towards Lichfield, sending to his father a letter which Diccon was to deliver only into his own hand, with full details of all he had seen and heard, and his motives for repairing to Chartley.

"Shall I see my little Cis?" thought he. "And even if she play the princess to me, how will she meet me? She scorned me even when she was at home. How will it be now when she has been for well-nigh a year in this Queen's training? Ah! she will be taught to despise me! Heigh ho! At least she may be in need of a true heart and strong arm to guard her, and they shall not fail her."

Will Cavendish, in the plenitude of the official importance with which he liked to dazzle his old playfellow, had offered him a pass to facilitate his entrance, and he found reason to be glad that he had accepted it, for there was a guard at the gate of Chartley Park, and he was detained there while his letter was sent up for inspection to Sir Amias Paulett, who had for the last few months acted as warder to the Queen.

However, a friendly message came back, inviting him to ride up. The house—though called a castle—had been rebuilt in hospitable domestic style, and looked much less like a prison than Sheffield Lodge, but at every enclosure stood yeomen who challenged the passers-by, as though this were a time of alarm. However, at the hall-door itself stood Sir Amias Paulett, a thin, narrow-browed, anxious-looking man, with the stiffest of ruffs, over which hung a scanty yellow beard.

"Welcome, sir," he said, with a nervous anxious distressed manner. "Welcome, most welcome. You will pardon any discourtesy, sir, but these are evil times. The son, I think, of good Master Richard Talbot of Bridgefield? Ay, I would not for worlds have shown any lack of hospitality to one of his family. It is no want of respect, sir. No; nor of my Lord's house; but these are ill days, and with my charge, sir—if Heaven itself keep not the house—who knows what may chance or what may be laid on me?"

"I understand," said Humfrey, smiling. "I was bred close to Sheffield, and hardly knew what 'twas to live beyond watch and ward."

"Yea!" said Paulett, shaking his head. "You come of a loyal house, sir; but even the good Earl was less exercised than I am in the charge of this same lady. But I am glad, glad to see you, sir. And you would see your sister, sir? A modest young lady, and not indevout, though I have sometimes seen her sleep at sermon. It is well that the poor maiden should see some one well affected, for she sitteth in the very gate of Babylon; and with respect, sir, I marvel that a woman, so godly as Mistress Talbot of Bridgefield is reported to be, should suffer it. However, I do my poor best, under Heaven, to hinder the faithful of the household from being tainted. I have removed Preaux, who is well known to be a Popish priest in disguise, and thus he can spread no more of his errors. Moreover, my chaplain, Master Blunden, with other godly men, preaches three times a week against Romish errors, and all are enforced to attend. May their ears be opened to the truth! I am about to attend this lady on a ride in the Park, sir. It might—if she be willing—be arranged that your sister, Mistress Talbot, should spend the time in your company, and methinks the lady will thereto agree, for she is ever ready to show a certain carnal and worldly complaisance to the wishes of her attendants, and I have observed that she greatly affects the damsel, more, I fear, than may be for the eternal welfare of the maiden's soul."



CHAPTER XXVI.

IN THE WEB.

It was a beautiful bright summer day, and Queen Mary and some of her train were preparing for their ride. The Queen was in high spirits, and that wonderful and changeful countenance of hers was beaming with anticipation and hope, while her demeanour was altogether delightful to every one who approached her. She was adding some last instructions to Nau, who was writing a letter for her to the French ambassador, and Cicely stood by her, holding her little dog in a leash, and looking somewhat anxious and wistful. There was more going on round the girl than she was allowed to understand, and it made her anxious and uneasy. She knew that the correspondence through the brewer was actively carried on, but she was not informed of what passed. Only she was aware that some crisis must be expected, for her mother was ceaselessly restless and full of expectation. She had put all her jewels and valuables into as small a compass as possible, and talked more than ever of her plans for giving her daughter either to the Archduke Matthias, or to some great noble, as if the English crown were already within her grasp. Anxious, curious, and feeling injured by the want of confidence, yet not daring to complain, Cicely felt almost fretful at her mother's buoyancy, but she had been taught a good many lessons in the past year, and one of them was that she might indeed be caressed, but that she must show neither humour nor will of her own, and the least presumption in inquiry or criticism was promptly quashed.

There was a knock at the door, and the usher announced that Sir Amias Paulett prayed to speak with her Grace. Her eye glanced round with the rapid emotion of one doubtful whether it were for weal or woe, yet with undaunted spirit to meet either, and as she granted her permission, Cis heard her whisper to Nau, "A rider came up even now! 'Tis the tidings! Are the Catholics of Derby in the saddle? Are the ships on the coast?"

In came the tall old man with a stiff reverence: "Madam, your Grace's horses attend you, and I have tidings"—(Mary started forward)—"tidings for this young lady, Mistress Cicely Talbot. Her brother is arrived from the Spanish Main, and requests permission to see and speak with her."

Radiance flashed out on Cicely's countenance as excitement faded on that of her mother: "Humfrey! O madam! let me go to him!" she entreated, with a spring of joy and clasped hands.

Mary was far too kind-hearted to refuse, besides to have done so would have excited suspicion at a perilous moment, and the arrangement Sir Amias proposed was quickly made. Mary Seaton was to attend the Queen in Cicely's stead, and she was allowed to hurry downstairs, and only one warning was possible:

"Go then, poor child, take thine holiday, only bear in mind what and who thou art."

Yet the words had scarce died on her ears before she was oblivious of all save that it was a familial home figure who stood at the bottom of the stairs, one of the faces she trusted most in all the world which beamed out upon her, the hands which she knew would guard her through everything were stretched out to her, the lips with veritable love in them kissed the cheeks she did not withhold. Sir Amias stood by and gave the kindest smile she had seen from him, quite changing his pinched features, and he proposed to the two young people to go and walk in the garden together, letting them out into the square walled garden, very formal, but very bright and gay, and with a pleached alley to shelter them from the sun.

"Good old gentleman!" exclaimed Humfrey, holding the maiden's hand in his. "It is a shame to win such pleasure by feigning."

"As for that," sighed Cis, "I never know what is sooth here, and what am I save a living lie myself? O Humfrey! I am so weary of it all."

"Ah I would that I could bear thee home with me," he said, little prepared for this reception.

"Would that thou couldst! O that I were indeed thy sister, or that the writing in my swaddling bands had been washed out!—Nay," catching back her words, "I meant not that! I would not but belong to the dear Lady here. She says I comfort her more than any of them, and oh! she is—she is, there is no telling how sweet and how noble. It was only that the sight of thee awoke the yearning to be at home with mother and with father. Forget my folly, Humfrey."

"I cannot soon forget that Bridgefield seems to thee thy true home," he said, putting strong restraint on himself to say and do no more, while his heart throbbed with a violence unawakened by storm or Spaniard.

"Tell me of them all," she said. "I have heard naught of them since we left Tutbury, where at least we were in my Lord's house, and the dear old silver dog was on every sleeve. Ah! there he is, the trusty rogue."

And snatching up Humfrey's hat, which was fastened with a brooch of his crest in the fashion of the day, she kissed the familiar token. Then, however, she blushed and drew herself up, remembering the caution not to forget who she was, and with an assumption of more formal dignity, she said, "And how fares it with the good Mrs. Talbot?"

"Well, when I last heard," said Humfrey, "but I have not been at home. I only know what Will Cavendish and my Lord Talbot told me. I sent Diccon on to Bridgefield, and came out of the way to see you, lady," he concluded, with the same regard to actual circumstances that she had shown.

"Oh, that was good!" she whispered, and they both seemed to feel a certain safety in avoiding personal subjects. Humfrey had the history of his voyage to narrate—to tell of little Diccon's gallant doings, and to exalt Sir Francis Drake's skill and bravery, and at last to let it ooze out, under Cis's eager questioning, that when his captain had died of fever on the Hispaniola coast, and they had been overtaken by a tornado, Sir Francis had declared that it was Humfrey's skill and steadfastness which had saved the ship and crew.

"And it was that tornado," he said, "which stemmed the fever, and saved little Diccon's life. Oh! when he lay moaning below, then was the time to long for my mother."

Time sped on till the great hall clock made Cicely look up and say she feared that the riders would soon return, and then Humfrey knew that he must make sure to speak the words of warning he came to utter. He told, in haste, of his message to Queen Elizabeth, and of his being sent on to Secretary Walsingham, adding, "But I saw not the great man, for he was closeted—with whom think you? No other than Cuthbert Langston, whom Cavendish called by another name. It amazed me the more, because I had two days before met him in Westminster with Antony Babington, who presented him to me by his own name."

"Saw you Antony Babington?" asked Cis, raising her eyes to his face, but looking uneasy.

"Twice, at Westminster, and again in Paul's Walk. Had you seen him since you have been here?"

"Not here, but at Tutbury. He came once, and I was invited to dine in the hall, because he brought recommendations from the Countess." There was a pause, and then, as if she had begun to take in the import of Humfrey's words, she added, "What said you? That Mr. Langston was going between him and Mr. Secretary?"

"Not exactly that," and Humfrey repeated with more detail what he had seen of Langston, forbearing to ask any questions which Cicely might not be able to answer with honour; but they had been too much together in childhood not to catch one another's meaning with half a hint, and she said, "I see why you came here, Humfrey. It was good and true and kind, befitting you. I will tell the Queen. If Langston be in it, there is sure to be treachery. But, indeed, I know nothing or well-nigh nothing."

"I am glad of it," fervently exclaimed Humfrey.

"No; I only know that she has high hopes, and thinks that the term of her captivity is well-nigh over. But it is Madame de Courcelles whom she trusts, not me," said Cicely, a little hurt.

"So is it much better for thee to know as little as possible," said Humfrey, growing intimate in tone again in spite of himself. "She hath not changed thee much, Cis, only thou art more grave and womanly, ay, and thou art taller, yea, and thinner, and paler, as I fear me thou mayest well be."

"Ah, Humfrey, 'tis a poor joy to be a princess in prison! And yet I shame me that I long to be away. Oh no, I would not. Mistress Seaton and Mrs. Curll and the rest might be free, yet they have borne this durance patiently all these years—and I think—I think she loves me a little, and oh! she is hardly used. Humfrey, what think'st thou that Mr. Langston meant? I wot now for certain that it was he who twice came to beset us, as Tibbott the huckster, and with the beads and bracelets! They all deem him a true friend to my Queen."

"So doth Babington," said Humfrey, curtly.

"Ah!" she said, with a little terrified sound of conviction, then added, "What thought you of Master Babington?"

"That he is half-crazed," said Humfrey.

"We may say no more," said Cis, seeing a servant advancing from the house to tell her that the riders were returning. "Shall I see you again, Humfrey?"

"If Sir Amias should invite me to lie here to-night, and remain to-morrow, since it will be Sunday."

"At least I shall see you in the morning, ere you depart," she said, as with unwilling yet prompt steps she returned to the house, Humfrey feeling that she was indeed his little Cis, yet that some change had come over her, not so much altering her, as developing the capabilities he had always seen.

For herself, poor child, her feelings were in a strange turmoil, more than usually conscious of that dual existence which had tormented her ever since she had been made aware of her true birth. Moreover, she had a sense of impending danger and evil, and, by force of contrast, the frank, open-hearted manner of Humfrey made her the more sensible of being kept in the dark as to serious matters, while outwardly made a pet and plaything by her mother, "just like Bijou," as she said to herself.

"So, little one," said Queen Mary, as she returned, "thou hast been revelling once more in tidings of Sheffield! How long will it take me to polish away the dulness of thy clownish contact?"

"Humphrey does not come from home, madam, but from London. Madam, let me tell you in your ear—"

Mary's eye instantly took the terrified alert expression which had come from many a shock and alarm. "What is it, child?" she asked, however, in a voice of affected merriment. "I wager it is that he has found his true Cis. Nay, whisper it to me, if it touch thy silly little heart so deeply."

Cicely knelt down, the Queen bending over her, while she murmured in her ear, "He saw Cuthbert Langston, by a feigned name, admitted to Mr. Secretary Walsingham's privy chamber."

She felt the violent start this information caused, but the command of voice and countenance was perfect.

"What of that, mignonne?" she said. "What knoweth he of this Langston, as thou callest him?"

"He is my—no—his father's kinsman, madam, and is known to be but a plotter. Oh, surely, he is not in your secrets, madam, my mother, after that day at Tutbury?"

"Alack, my lassie, Gifford or Babington answered for him," said the Queen, "and he kens more than I could desire. But this Humfrey of thine! How came he to blunder out such tidings to thee?"

"It was no blunder, madam. He came here of purpose."

"Sure," exclaimed Mary, "it were too good to hope that he hath become well affected. He—a sailor of Drake's, a son of Master Richard! Hath Babington won him over; or is it for thy sake, child? For I bestowed no pains to cast smiles to him at Sheffield, even had he come in my way."

"I think, madam," said Cicely, "that he is too loyal-hearted to bear the sight of treachery without a word of warning."

"Is he so? Then he is the first of his nation who hath been of such a mind! Nay, mignonne, deny not thy conquest. This is thy work."

"I deny not that—that I am beloved by Humfrey," said Cicely, "for I have known it all my life; but that goes for naught in what he deems it right to do."

"There spoke so truly Mistress Susan's scholar that thou makest me laugh in spite of myself and all the rest. Hold him fast, my maiden; think what thou wilt of his service, and leave me now, and send Melville and Curll to me."

Cicely went away full of that undefined discomfort experienced by generous young spirits when their elders, more worldly-wise (or foolish), fail even to comprehend the purity or loftiness of motive which they themselves thoroughly believe. Yet, though she had infinitely more faith in Humfrey's affection than she had in that of Babington, she had not by any means the same dread of being used to bait the hook for him, partly because she knew his integrity too well to expect to shake it, and partly because he was perfectly aware of her real birth, and could not be gulled with such delusive hopes as poor Antony might once have been.

Humfrey meantime was made very welcome by Sir Amias Paulett, who insisted on his spending the next day, Sunday, at Chartley, and made him understand that he was absolutely welcome, as having a strong arm, stout heart, and clear brain used to command. "Trusty aid do I need," said poor Sir Amias, "if ever man lacked an arm of flesh. The Council is putting more on me than ever man had to bear, in an open place like this, hard to be defended, and they will not increase the guard lest they should give the alarm, forsooth!"

"What is it that you apprehend?" inquired Humfrey.

"There's enough to apprehend when all the hot-headed Papists of Stafford and Derbyshire are waiting the signal to fire the outhouses and carry off this lady under cover of the confusion. Mr. Secretary swears they will not stir till the signal be given, and that it never will; but such sort of fellows are like enough to mistake the sign, and the stress may come through their dillydallying to make all sure as they say, and then, if there be any mischance, I shall be the one to bear the blame. Ay, if it be their own work!" he added, speaking to himself, "Murder under trust! That would serve as an answer to foreign princes, and my head would have to pay for it, however welcome it might be! So, good Mr. Talbot, supposing any alarm should arise, keep you close to the person of this lady, for there be those who would make the fray a colour for taking her life, under pretext of hindering her from being carried off."

It was no wonder that a warder in such circumstances looked harassed and perplexed, and showed himself glad of being joined by any ally whom he could trust. In truth, harsh and narrow as he was, Paulett was too good and religious a man for the task that had been thrust on him, where loyal obedience, sense of expediency, and even religious fanaticism, were all in opposition to the primary principles of truth, mercy, and honour. He was, besides, in constant anxiety, living as he did between plot and counterplot, and with the certainty that emissaries of the Council surrounded him who would have no scruple in taking Mary's life, and leaving him to bear the blame, when Elizabeth would have to explain the deed to the other sovereigns of Europe. He disclosed almost all this to Humfrey, whose frank, trustworthy expression seemed to move him to unusual confidence.

At supper-time another person appeared, whom Humfrey thought he had once seen at Sheffield—a thin, yellow-haired and bearded man, much marked with smallpox, in the black dress of a lawyer, who sat above the household servants, though below the salt. Paulett once drank to him with a certain air of patronage, calling him Master Phillipps, a name that came as a revelation to Humfrey. Phillipps was the decipherer who had, he knew, been employed to interpret Queen Mary's letters after the Norfolk plot. Were there, then, fresh letters of that unfortunate lady in his hands, or were any to be searched for and captured?



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE CASTLE WELL.

"What vantage or what thing Gett'st thou thus for to sting, Thou false and flatt'ring liar? Thy tongue doth hurt, it's seen No less than arrows keen Or hot consuming fire."

So sang the congregation in the chapel at Chartley, in the strains of Sternhold and Hopkins, while Humfrey Talbot could not forbear from a misgiving whether these falsehoods were entirely on the side to which they were thus liberally attributed. Opposite to him stood Cicely, in her dainty Sunday farthingale of white, embroidered with violet buds, and a green and violet boddice to match, holding herself with that unconscious royal bearing which had always distinguished her, but with an expression of care and anxiety drawing her dark brows nearer together as she bent over her book.

She knew that her mother had left her bed with the earliest peep of summer dawn, and had met the two secretaries in her cabinet. There they were busy for hours, and she had only returned to her bed just as the household began to bestir itself.

"My child," she said to Cicely, "I am about to put my life into thy keeping and that of this Talbot lad. If what he saith of this Langston be sooth, I am again betrayed, fool that I was to expect aught else. My life is spent in being betrayed. The fellow hath been a go-between in all that hath passed between Babington and me. If he hath uttered it to Walsingham, all is over with our hopes, and the window in whose sunlight I have been basking is closed for ever! But something may yet be saved. Something? What do I say?—The letters I hold here would give colour for taking my life, ay, and Babington's and Curll's, and many more. I trusted to have burnt them, but in this summer time there is no coming by fire or candle without suspicion, and if I tore them they might be pieced together, nay, and with addition. They must be carried forth and made away with beyond the ken of Paulett and his spies. Now, this lad hath some bowels of compassion and generous indignation. Thou wilt see him again, alone and unsuspected, ere he departs. Thou must deal with him to bear this packet away, and when he is far out of reach to drop it into the most glowing fire, or the deepest pool he can find. Tell him it may concern thy life and liberty, and he will do it, but be not simple enough to say ought of Babington."

"He would be as like to do it for Babington as for any other," said Cis.

The Queen smiled and said, "Nineteen years old, and know thus little of men."

"I know Humfrey at least," said Cis.

"Then deal with him after thy best knowledge, to make him convey away this perilous matter ere a search come upon us. Do it we must, maiden, not for thy poor mother's sake alone, but for that of many a faithful spirit outside, and above all of poor Curll. Think of our Barbara! Would that I could have sent her out of reach of our alarms and shocks, but Paulett is bent on penning us together like silly birds in the net. Still proofs will be wanting if thou canst get this youth to destroy this packet unseen. Tell him that I know his parents' son too well to offer him any meed save the prayers and blessings of a poor captive, or to fear that he would yield it for the largest reward Elizabeth's coffers could yield."

"It shall be done, madam," said Cicely. But there was a strong purpose in her mind that Humfrey should not be implicated in the matter.

When after dinner Sir Amias Paulett made his daily visit of inspection to the Queen, she begged that the young Talbots might be permitted another walk in the garden; and when he replied that he did not approve of worldly pastime on the Sabbath, she pleaded the celebrated example of John Knox finding Calvin playing at bowls on a Sunday afternoon at Geneva, and thus absolutely prevailed on him to let them take a short walk together in brotherly love, while the rest of the household was collected in the hall to be catechised by the chaplain.

So out they went together, but to Humfrey's surprise, Cicely walked on hardly speaking to him, so that he fancied at first that she must have had a lecture on her demeanour to him. She took him along the broad terrace beside the bowling-green, through some yew-tree walks to a stone wall, and a gate which proved to be locked. She looked much disappointed, but scanning the wall with her eye, said, "We have scaled walls together before now, and higher than this. Humfrey, I cannot tell you why, but I must go over here."

The wall was overgrown with stout branches of ivy, and though the Sunday farthingale was not very appropriate for climbing, Cicely's active feet and Humfrey's strong arm carried her safely to where she could jump down on the other side, into a sort of wilderness where thorn and apple trees grew among green mounds, heaps of stones and broken walls, the ruins of some old outbuilding of the former castle. There was only a certain trembling eagerness about her, none of the mirthful exultation that the recurrence of such an escapade with her old companion would naturally have excited, and all she said was, "Stand here, Humfrey; an you love me, follow me not. I will return anon."

With stealthy stop she disappeared behind a mound covered by a thicket of brambles, but Humfrey was much too anxious for her safety not to move quietly onwards. He saw her kneeling by one of those black yawning holes, often to be found in ruins, intent upon fastening a small packet to a stone; he understood all in a moment, and drew back far enough to secure that no one molested her. There was something in this reticence of hers that touched him greatly; it showed so entirely that she had learnt the lesson of loyalty which his father's influence had impressed, and likewise one of self-dependence. What was right for her to do for her mother and Queen might not be right for him, as an Englishman, to aid and abet; and small as the deed seemed in itself, her thus silently taking it on herself rather than perplex him with it, added a certain esteem and respect to the affection he had always had for her.

She came back to him with bounding steps, as if with a lightened heart, and as he asked her what this strange place was, she explained that here were said to be the ruins of the former castle, and that beyond lay the ground where sometimes the party shot at the butts. A little dog of Mary Seaton's had been lost the last time of their archery, and it was feared that he had fallen down the old well to which Cis now conducted Humfrey. There was a sound—long, hollow, reverberating, when Humfrey threw a stone down, and when Cecily asked him, in an awestruck voice, whether he thought anything thrown there would ever be heard of more, he could well say that he believed not.

She breathed freely, but they were out of bounds, and had to scramble back, which they did undetected, and with much more mirth than the first time. Cicely was young enough to be glad to throw off her anxieties and forget them. She did not want to talk over the plots she only guessed at; which were not to her exciting mysteries, but gloomy terrors into which she feared to look. Nor was she free to say much to Humfrey of what she knew. Indeed the rebound, and the satisfaction of having fulfilled her commission, had raised Cicely's spirits, so that she was altogether the bright childish companion Humfrey had known her before he went to sea, or royalty had revealed itself to her; and Sir Amias Paulett would hardly have thought them solemn and serious enough for an edifying Sunday talk could he have heard them laughing over Humfrey's adventures on board ship, or her troubles in learning to dance in a high and disposed manner. She came in so glowing and happy that the Queen smiled and sighed, and called her her little milkmaid, commending her highly, however, for having disposed of the dangerous parcel unknown (as she believed) to her companion. "The fewer who have to keep counsel, the sickerer it is," she said.

Humfrey meantime joined the rest of the household, and comported himself at the evening sermon with such exemplary discretion as entirely to win the heart of Sir Amias Paulett, who thought him listening to Mr. Blunden's oft-divided headings, while he was in fact revolving on what pretext he could remain to protect Cicely. The Knight gave him that pretext, when he spoke of departing early on Monday morning, offering him, or rather praying him to accept, the command of the guards, whose former captain had been dismissed as untrustworthy. Sir Amias undertook that a special messenger should be sent to take a letter to Bridgefield, explaining Humfrey's delay, and asking permission from his parents to undertake the charge, since it was at this very crisis that he was especially in need of God-fearing men of full integrity. Then moved to confidence, the old gentleman disclosed that not only was he in fear of an attack on the house from the Roman Catholic gentry in the neighbourhood, which was to take place as soon as Parma's ships were seen on the coast, but that he dreaded his own servants being tampered with by some whom he would not mention to take the life of the prisoner secretly.

"It hath been mooted to me," he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, "that to take such a deed on me would be good service to the Queen and to religion, but I cast the thought from me. It can be nought but a deadly sin—accursed of God—and were I to consent, I should be the first to be accused."

"It would be no better than the King of Spain himself," exclaimed Humfrey.

"Even so, young man, and right glad am I to find one who thinks with me. For the other practices, they are none of mine, and is it not written 'In the same pit which they laid privily is their foot taken'?"

"Then there are other practices?"

"Ask me no questions, Mr. Talbot. All will be known soon enough. Be content that I will lay nothing on you inconsistent with the honour of a Christian man, knowing that you will serve the Queen faithfully."

Humfrey gave his word, resolving that he would warn Cicely to reckon henceforth on nothing on his part that did not befit a man in charge.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

HUNTING DOWN THE DEER

Humfrey had been sworn in of the service of the Queen, and had been put in charge of the guard mustered at Chartley for about ten days, during which he seldom saw Cicely, and wondered much not to have heard from home: when a stag-hunt was arranged to take place at the neighbouring park of Tickhill or Tixall, belonging to Sir Walter Ashton.

The chase always invigorated Queen Mary, and she came down in cheerful spirits, with Cicely and Mary Seaton as her attendants, and with the two secretaries, Nau and Curll, heading the other attendants.

"Now," she said to Cicely, "shall I see this swain, or this brother of thine, who hath done us such good service, and I promise you there will be more in my greeting than will meet Sir Amias's ear."

But to Cicely's disappointment Humfrey was not among the horsemen mustered at the door to attend and guard the Queen.

"My little maid's eye is seeking for her brother," said Mary, as Sir Amias advanced to assist her to her horse.

"He hath another charge which will keep him at home," replied Paulett, somewhat gruffly, and they rode on.

It was a beautiful day in early August, the trees in full foliage, the fields seen here and there through them assuming their amber harvest tints, the twin spires of Lichfield rising in the distance, the park and forest ground through which the little hunting-party rode rich with purple heather, illuminated here and there with a bright yellow spike or star, and the rapid motion of her brisk palfrey animated the Queen. She began to hope that Humfrey had after all brought a false alarm, and that either he had been mistaken or that Langston was deceiving the Council itself, and though Sir Amias Paulett's close proximity held her silent, those who knew her best saw that her indomitably buoyant spirits were rising, and she hummed to herself the refrain of a gay French hunting-song, with the more zest perhaps that her warder held himself trebly upright, stiff and solemn under it, as one who thought such lively times equally unbefitting a lady, a queen, and a captive. So at least Cis imagined as she watched them, little guessing that there might be deeper reasons of compassion and something like compunction to add to the gravity of the old knight's face.

As they came in sight of the gate of Tickhill Park, they became aware of a company whose steel caps and shouldered arquebuses did not look like those of huntsmen. Mary bounded in her saddle, she looked round at her little suite with a glance of exultation in her eye, which said as plainly as words, "My brave friends, the hour has come!" and she quickened her steed, expecting, no doubt, that she might have to outride Sir Amias in order to join them.

One gentleman came forward from the rest. He held a parchment in his hand, and as soon as he was alongside of the Queen thus read:—

"Mary, late Queen of Scots and Queen Dowager of France, I, Thomas Gorges, attaint thee of high treason and of compassing the life of our most Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in company with Antony Babington, John Ballard, Chidiock Tichborne, Robert Barnwell, and others."

Mary held up her hands, and raised her eyes to Heaven, and a protest was on her lips, but Gorges cut it short with, "It skills not denying it, madam. The proofs are in our hands. I have orders to conduct you to Tickhill, while seals are put on your effects."

"That there may be proofs of your own making," said the Queen, with dignity. "I have experience of that mode of judgment. So, Sir Amias Paulett, the chase you lured me to was truly of a poor hunted doe whom you think you have run down at last. A worthy chase indeed, and of long continuance!"

"I do but obey my orders, madam," said Paulett, gloomily.

"Oh ay, and so does the sleuth-hound," said Mary.

"Your Grace must be pleased to ride on with me," said Mr. Gorges, laying his hand on her bridle.

"What are you doing with those gentlemen?" cried Mary, sharply reining in her horse, as she saw Nau and Curll surrounded by the armed men.

"They will be dealt with after her Majesty's pleasure," returned Paulett.

Mary dropped her rein and threw up her hands with a gesture of despair, but as Gorges was leading her away, she turned on her saddle, and raised her voice to call out, "Farewell, my true and faithful servants! Betide what may, your mistress will remember you in her prayers. Curll, we will take care of your wife."

And she waved her hand to them as they were made, with a strong guard, to ride off in the direction of Lichfield. All the way to Tickhill, whither she was conducted with Gorges and Paulett on either side of her horse, Cis could hear her pleading for consideration for poor Barbara Curll, for whose sake she forgot her own dignity and became a suppliant.

Sir Walter Ashton, a dull heavy-looking country gentleman of burly form and ruddy countenance, stood at his door, and somewhat clownishly offered his services to hand her from her horse.

She submitted passively till she had reached the upper chamber which had been prepared for her, and there, turning on the three gentlemen, demanded the meaning of this treatment.

"You will soon know, madam," said Paulett. "I am sorry that thus it should be."

"Thus!" repeated Mary, scornfully. "What means this?"

"It means, madam," said Gorges, a ruder man of less feeling even than Paulett, "that your practices with recusants and seminary priests have been detected. The traitors are in the Counter, and will shortly be brought to judgment for the evil purposes which have been frustrated by the mercy of Heaven."

"It is well if treason against my good sister's person have been detected and frustrated," said Mary; "but how doth that concern me?"

"That, madam, the papers at Chartley will show," returned Gorges. "Meantime you will remain here, till her Majesty's pleasure be known."

"Where, then, are my women and my servants?" inquired the Queen.

"Your Grace will be attended by the servants of Sir Walter Ashton."

"Gentlemen, this is not seemly," said Mary, the colour coming hotly into her face. "I know it is not the will of my cousin, the Queen of England, that I should remain here without any woman to attend me, nor any change of garments. You are exceeding your commission, and she shall hear of it."

Sir Amias Paulett here laid his hand on Gorges' arm, and after exchanging a few words with him, said—

"Madam, this young lady, Mistress Talbot, being simple, and of a loyal house, may remain with you for the present. For the rest, seals are put on all your effects at Chartley, and nothing can be removed from thence, but what is needful will be supplied by my Lady Ashton. I bid your Grace farewell, craving your pardon for what may have been hasty in this."

Mary stood in the centre of the floor, full of her own peculiar injured dignity, not answering, but making a low ironical reverence. Mary Seaton fell on her knees, clung to the Queen's dress, and declared that while she lived, she would not leave her mistress.

"Endure this also, ma mie," said the Queen, in French. "Give them no excuse for using violence. They would not scruple—" and as a demonstration to hinder French-speaking was made by the gentlemen, "Fear not for me, I shall not be alone."

"I understand your Grace and obey," said Mary Seaton, rising, with a certain bitterness in her tone, which made Mary say— "Ah! why must jealousy mar the fondest affection? Remember, it is their choice, not mine, my Seaton, friend of my youth. Bear my loving greetings to all. And take care of poor Barbara!"

"Madam, there must be no private messages," said Paulett.

"I send no messages save what you yourself may hear, sir," replied the Queen. "My greetings to my faithful servants, and my entreaty that all care and tenderness may be shown to Mrs. Curll."

"I will bear them, madam," said the knight, "and so I commend you to God's keeping, praying that He may send you repentance. Believe me, madam, I am sorry that this has been put upon me."

To this Mary only replied by a gesture of dismissal. The three gentlemen drew back, a key grated in the lock, and the mother and daughter were left alone.

To Cicely it was a terrible hopeless sound, and even to her mother it was a lower depth of wretchedness. She had been practically a captive for nearly twenty years. She had been insulted, watched, guarded, coerced, but never in this manner locked up before.

She clasped her hands together, dropped on her knees at the table that stood by her, and hid her face. So she continued till she was roused by the sound of Cicely's sobs. Frightened and oppressed, and new to all terror and sorrow, the girl had followed her example in kneeling, but the very attempt to pray brought on a fit of weeping, and the endeavour to restrain what might disturb the Queen only rendered the sobs more choking and strangling, till at last Mary heard, and coming towards her, sat down on the floor, gathered her into her arms, and kissing her forehead, said, "Poor bairnie, and did she weep for her mother? Have the sorrows of her house come on her?"

"O mother, I could not help it! I meant to have comforted you," said Cicely, between her sobs.

"And so thou dost, my child. Unwittingly they have left me that which was most precious to me."

There was consolation in the fondness of the loving embrace, at least to such sorrows as those of the maiden; and Queen Mary had an inalienable power of charming the will and affections of those in contact with her, so that insensibly there came into Cicely's heart a sense that, so far from weeping, she should rejoice at being the one creature left to console her mother.

"And," she said by and by, looking up with a smile, "they must go to the bottom of the old well to find anything."

"Hush, lassie. Never speak above thy breath in a prison till thou know'st whether walls have ears. And, apropos, let us examine what sort of a prison they have given us this time."

So saying Mary rose, and leaning on her daughter's arm, proceeded to explore her new abode. Like her apartment at the Lodge, it was at the top of the house, a fashion not uncommon when it was desirable to make the lower regions defensible; but, whereas she had always hitherto been placed in the castles of the highest nobility, she was now in that of a country knight of no great wealth or refinement, and, moreover, taken by surprise.

So the plenishing was of the simplest. The walls were covered with tapestry so faded that the pattern could hardly be detected. The hearth yawned dark and dull, and by it stood one chair with a moth-eaten cushion. A heavy oaken table and two forms were in the middle of the room, and there was the dreary, fusty smell of want of habitation. The Queen, whose instincts for fresh air were always a distress to her ladies, sprang to the mullioned window, but the heavy lattice defied all her efforts.

"Let us see the rest of our dominions," she said, turning to a door, which led to a still more gloomy bedroom, where the only articles of furniture were a great carved bed, with curtains of some undefined dark colour, and an oaken chest. The window was a mere slit, and even more impracticable than that of the outer room. However, this did not seem to horrify Mary so much as it did her daughter. "They cannot mean to keep us here long," she said; "perhaps only for the day, while they make their search—their unsuccessful search—thanks to—we know whom, little one."

"I hope so! How could we sleep there?" said Cicely, looking with a shudder at the bed.

"Tush! I have seen worse in Scotland, mignonne, ay and when I was welcomed as liege lady, not as a captive. I have slept in a box like a coffin with one side open, and I have likewise slept on a plaidie on the braw purple blossoms of freshly pulled heather! Nay, the very thought makes this chamber doubly mouldy and stifling! Let the old knight beware. If he open not his window I shall break it! Soft. Here he comes."

Sir Walter Ashton appeared, louting low, looking half-dogged, half-sheepish, and escorting two heavy-footed, blue-coated serving-men, who proceeded to lay the cloth, which at least had the merit of being perfectly clean and white. Two more brought in covered silver dishes, one of which contained a Yorkshire pudding, the other a piece of roast-beef, apparently calculated to satisfy five hungry men. A flagon of sack, a tankard of ale, a dish of apples, and a large loaf of bread, completed the meal; at which the Queen and Cicely, accustomed daily to a first table of sixteen dishes and a second of nine, compounded by her Grace's own French cooks and pantlers, looked with a certain amused dismay, as Sir Walter, standing by the table, produced a dagger from a sheath at his belt, and took up with it first a mouthful of the pudding, then cut off a corner of the beef, finished off some of the bread, and having swallowed these, as well as a draught of each of the liquors, said, "Good and sound meats, not tampered with, as I hereby testify. You take us suddenly, madam; but I thank Heaven, none ever found us unprovided. Will it please you to fall to? Your woman can eat after you."

Mary's courtesy was unfailing, and though she felt all a Frenchwoman's disgust at the roast-beef of old England, she said, "We are too close companions not to eat together, and I fear she will be the best trencher comrade, for, sir, I am a woman sick and sorrowful, and have little stomach for meat."

As Sir Walter carved a huge red piece from the ribs, she could not help shrinking back from it, so that he said with some affront, "You need not be queasy, madam, it was cut from a home-fed bullock, only killed three days since, and as prime a beast as any in Stafford."

"Ah! yea, sir. It is not the fault of the beef, but of my feebleness. Mistress Talbot will do it reason. But I, methinks I could eat better were the windows opened."

But Sir Walter replied that these windows were not of the new-fangled sort, made to open, that honest men might get rheums, and foolish maids prate therefrom. So there was no hope in that direction. He really seemed to be less ungracious than utterly clownish, dull, and untaught, and extremely shy and embarrassed with his prisoner.

Cicely poured out some wine, and persuaded her to dip some bread in, which, with an apple, was all she could taste. However, the fare, though less nicely served than by good Mrs. Susan, was not so alien to Cicely, and she was of an age and constitution to be made hungry by anxiety and trouble, so that—encouraged by the Queen whenever she would have desisted—she ended by demolishing a reasonable amount.

Sir Walter stood all the time, looking on moodily and stolidly, with his cap in his hand. The Queen tried to talk to him, and make inquiries of him, but he had probably steeled himself to her blandishments, for nothing but gruff monosyllables could be extracted from him, except when he finally asked what she would be pleased to have for supper.

"Mine own cook and pantler have hitherto provided for me. They would save your household the charge, sir," said Mary, "and I would be at charges for them."

"Madam, I can bear the charge in the Queen's service. Your black guard are under ward. And if not, no French jackanapes shall ever brew his messes in my kitchen! Command honest English fare, madam, and if it be within my compass, you shall have it. No one shall be stinted in Walter Ashton's house; but I'll not away with any of your outlandish kickshaws. Come, what say you to eggs and bacon, madam?"

"As you will, sir," replied Mary, listlessly. And Sir Walter, opening the door, shouted to his serving-man, who speedily removed the meal, he going last and making his clumsy reverence at the door, which he locked behind him.

"So," said Mary, "I descend! I have had the statesman, the earl, the courtly knight, the pedantic Huguenot, for my warders. Now am I come to the clown. Soon will it be the dungeon and the headsman."

"O dear madam mother, speak not thus," cried Cicely. "Remember they can find nothing against you."

"They can make what they cannot find, my poor child. If they thirst for my blood, it will cost them little to forge a plea. Ah, lassie! there have been times when nothing but my cousin Elizabeth's conscience, or her pity, stood between me and doom. If she be brought to think that I have compassed her death, why then there is naught for it but to lay my head on the same pillow as Norfolk and More and holy Fisher, and many another beside. Well, be it so! I shall die a martyr for the Holy Church, and thus may I atone by God's mercy for my many sins! Yea, I offer myself a sacrifice," she said, folding her hands and looking upward with a light on her face. "O do Thou accept it, and let my sufferings purge away my many misdeeds, and render it a pure and acceptable offering unto Thee. Child, child," she added, turning to Cicely, "would that thou wert of my faith, then couldst thou pray for me."

"O mother, mother, I can do that. I do pray for thee."

And hand in hand with tears often rising, they knelt while Mary repeated in broken voice the Miserere.



CHAPTER XXIX.

THE SEARCH.

Humfrey had been much disappointed, when, instead of joining the hunt, Sir Amias Paulett bade him undertake the instruction of half a dozen extremely awkward peasants, who had been called in to increase the guard, but who did not know how to shoulder, load, or fire an arquebus, had no command of their own limbs, and, if put to stand sentry, would quite innocently loll in the nearest corner, and go to sleep. However, he reflected that if he were resident in the same house as Cicely he could not expect opportunities to be daily made for their meeting, and he addressed himself with all his might to the endeavour to teach his awkward squad to stand upright for five minutes together. Sturdy fellows as they were, he had not been able to hinder them from lopping over in all directions, when horses were heard approaching. Every man of them, regardless of discipline, lumbered off to stare, and Humfrey, after shouting at them in vain, and wishing he had them all on board ship, gave up the endeavour to recall them, and followed their example, repairing to the hall-door, when he found Sir Amias Paulett dismounting, together with a clerkly-looking personage, attended by Will Cavendish. Mary Seaton was being assisted from her horse, evidently in great grief; and others of the personal attendants of Mary were there, but neither herself, Cicely, nor the Secretaries.

Before he had time to ask questions, his old companion came up to him. "You here still, Humfrey? Well. You have come in for the outburst of the train you scented out when you were with us in London, though I could not then speak explicitly."

"What mean you? Where is Cicely? Where is the Queen of Scots?" asked Humfrey anxiously.

Sir Amias Paulett heard him, and replied, "Your sister is safe, Master Talbot, and with the Queen of Scots at Tixall Castle. We permitted her attendance, as being young, simple, and loyal; she is less like to serve for plots than her elders in that lady's service."

Sir Annas strode on, conducting with him his guest, whom Cavendish explained to be Mr. Wade, sworn by her Majesty's Council to take possession of Queen Mary's effects, and there make search for evidence of the conspiracy. Cavendish followed, and Humfrey took leave to do the same.

The doors of the Queen's apartment were opened at the summons of Sir Amias Paulett, and Sir Andrew Melville, Mistress Kennedy, Marie de Courcelles, and the rest, stood anxiously demanding what was become of their Queen. They were briefly and harshly told that her foul and abominable plots and conspiracies against the life of the Queen, and the peace of the Kingdom, had been brought to light, and that she was under secure ward.

Jean Kennedy demanded to be taken to her at once, but Paulett replied, "That must not be, madam. We have strict commands to keep her secluded from all."

Marie de Courcelles screamed aloud and wrung her hands, crying, "If ye have slain her, only tell us quickly!" Sir Andrew Melville gravely protested against such a barbarous insult to a Queen of Scotland and France, and was answered, "No queen, sir, but a State criminal, as we shall presently show."

Here Barbara Curll pressed forward, asking wildly for her husband; and Wade replying, with brutal brevity, that he was taken to London to be examined for his practices before the Council, the poor lady, well knowing that examination often meant torture, fell back in a swoon.

"We shall do nothing with all these women crying and standing about," said Wade impatiently; "have them all away, while we put seals on the effects."

"Nay, sirs," said Jean Kennedy. "Suffer me first to send her Grace some changes of garments."

"I tell thee, woman," said Wade, "our orders are precise! Not so much as a kerchief is to be taken from these chambers till search hath been made. We know what practices may lurk in the smallest rag."

"It is barbarous! It is atrocious! The King of France shall hear of it," shrieked Marie de Courcelles.

"The King of France has enough to do to take care of himself, my good lady," returned Wade, with a sneer.

"Sir," said Jean Kennedy, with more dignity, turning to Sir Amias Paulett, "I cannot believe that it can be by the orders of the Queen of England, herself a woman, that my mistress, her cousin, should be deprived of all attendance, and even of a change of linen. Such unseemly commands can never have been issued from herself."

"She is not without attendance," replied the knight, "the little Talbot wench is with her, and for the rest, Sir Walter and Lady Ashton have orders to supply her needs during her stay among them. She is treated with all honour, and is lodged in the best chambers," he added, consolingly.

"We must dally no longer," called out Wade. "Have away all this throng into ward, Sir Amias. We can do nothing with them here."

There was no help for it. Sir Andrew Melville did indeed pause to enter his protest, but that, of course, went for nothing with the Commissioners, and Humfrey was ordered to conduct them to the upper gallery, there to await further orders. It was a long passage, in the highly pointed roof, with small chambers on either side which could be used when there was a press of guests. There was a steep stair, as the only access, and it could be easily guarded, so Sir Amias directed Humfrey to post a couple of men at the foot, and to visit and relieve them from time to time.

It was a sad procession that climbed up those narrow stairs, of those faithful followers who were separated from their Queen for the first time. The servants of lower rank were merely watched in their kitchen, and not allowed to go beyond its courtyard, but were permitted to cook for and wait on the others, and bring them such needful furniture as was required.

Humfrey was very sorry for them, having had some acquaintance with them all his life, and he was dismayed to find himself, instead of watching over Cicely, separated from her and made a jailer against his will. And when he returned to the Queen's apartments, he found Cavendish holding a taper, while Paulett and Wade were vigorously affixing cords, fastened at each end by huge red seals bearing the royal arms, to every receptacle, and rudely plucking back the curtains that veiled the ivory crucifix. Sir Amias's zeal would have "plucked down the idol," as he said, but Wade restrained him by reminding him that all injury or damage was forbidden.

Not till all was sealed, and a guard had been stationed at the doors, would the Commissioners taste any dinner, and then their conversation was brief and guarded, so that Humfrey could discover little. He did, indeed, catch the name of Babington in connection with the "Counter prison," and a glance of inquiry to Cavendish, with a nod in return, showed him that his suspicions were correct, but he learnt little or nothing more till the two, together with Phillipps, drew together in the deep window, with wine, apples, and pears on the ledge before them, for a private discussion. Humfrey went away to see that the sentries at the staircase were relieved, and to secure that a sufficient meal for the unfortunate captives in the upper stories had been allowed to pass. Will Cavendish went with him. He had known these ladies and gentlemen far more intimately than Humfrey had done, and allowed that it was harsh measure that they suffered for their fidelity to their native sovereign.

"No harm will come to them in the end," he said, "but what can we do? That very faithfulness would lead them to traverse our purposes did we not shut them up closely out of reach of meddling, and there is no other place where it can be done."

"And what are these same purposes?" asked Humfrey, as, having fulfilled his commission, the two young men strolled out into the garden and threw themselves on the grass, close to a large mulberry-tree, whose luscious fruit dropped round, and hung within easy reach.

"To trace out all the coils of as villainous and bloodthirsty a plot as ever was hatched in a traitor's brain," said Will; "but they little knew that we overlooked their designs the whole time. Thou wast mystified in London, honest Humfrey, I saw it plainly; but I might not then speak out," he added, with all his official self-importance.

"And poor Tony hath brought himself within compass of the law?"

"Verily you may say so. But Tony Babington always was a fool, and a wrong-headed fool, who was sure to ruin himself sooner or later. You remember the decoy for the wild-fowl? Well, never was silly duck or goose so ready to swim into the nets as was he!"

"He always loved this Queen, yea, and the old faith."

"He sucked in the poison with his mother's milk, you may say. Mrs. Babington was naught but a concealed Papist, and, coming from her, it cost nothing to this Queen to beguile him when he was a mere lad, and make him do her errands, as you know full well. Then what must my Lord Earl do but send him to that bitter Puritan at Cambridge, who turned him all the more that way, out of very contradiction. My Lord thought him cured of his Popish inclinations, and never guessed they had only led him among those who taught him to dissemble."

"And that not over well," said Humfrey. "My father never trusted him."

"And would not give him your sister. Yea, but the counterfeit was good enough for my Lord who sees nothing but what is before his nose, and for my mother who sees nothing but what she will see. Well, he had fallen in with those who deem this same Mary our only lawful Queen, and would fain set her on the throne to bring back fire and faggot by the Spanish sword among us."

"I deemed him well-nigh demented with brooding over her troubles and those of his church."

"Demented in verity. His folly was surpassing. He put his faith in a recusant priest—one John Ballard—who goes ruffling about as Captain Fortescue in velvet hose and a silver-laced cloak."

"Ha!"

"Hast seen him?"

"Ay, in company with Babington, on the day I came to London, passing through Westminster."

"Very like. Their chief place of meeting was at a house at Westminster belonging to a fellow named Gage. We took some of them there. Well, this Ballard teaches poor Antony, by way of gospel truth, that 'tis the mere duty of a good Catholic to slay the enemies of the church, and that he who kills our gracious Queen, whom God defend, will do the holiest deed; just as they gulled the fellow, who murdered the Prince of Orange, and then died in torments, deeming himself a holy martyr."

"But it was not Babington whom I saw at Richmond."

"Hold, I am coming to that. Let me tell you the Queen bore it in mind, and asked after you. Well, Babington has a number of friends, as hot-brained and fanatical as himself, and when once he had swallowed the notion of privily murdering the Queen, he got so enamoured of it, that he swore in five more to aid him in the enterprise, and then what must they do but have all their portraits taken in one picture with a Latin motto around them. What! Thou hast seen it?"

"He showed it to me in Paul's Walk, and said I should hear of them, and I thought one of them marvellously like the fellow I had seen in Richmond Park."

"So thought her Majesty. But more of that anon. On the self-same day as the Queen was to be slain by these sacrilegious wretches, another band was to fall on this place, free the lady and proclaim her, while the Prince of Parma landed from the Netherlands and brought fire and sword with him."

"And Antony would have brought this upon us?" said Humfrey, still slow to believe it of his old comrade.

"All for the true religion's sake," said Cavendish. "They were ringing bells and giving thanks, for the discovery and baffling thereof, when we came down from London."

"As well they might," said Humfrey. "But how was it detected and overthrown? Was it through Langston?"

"Ah, ha! we had had the strings in our hands all along. Why, Langston, as thou namest him, though we call him Maude, and a master spy called Gifford, have kept us warned thoroughly of every stage in the business. Maude even contrived to borrow the picture under colour of getting it blessed by the Pope's agent, and lent it to Mr. Secretary Walsingham, by whom it was privily shown to the Queen. Thereby she recognised the rogue Barnwell, an Irishman it seems, when she was walking in the Park at Richmond with only her women and Sir Christopher Hatton, who is better at dancing than at fighting. Not a sign did she give, but she kept him in check with her royal eye, so that he durst not so much as draw his pistol from his cloak; but she owned afterwards to my Lady Norris that she could have kissed you when you came between, and all the more, when you caught her meaning and followed her bidding silently. You will hear of it again, Humps."

"However that may be, it is a noble thing to have seen such courage in a woman and a queen. But how could they let it go so near? I could shudder now to think of the risk to her person!"

"There goes more to policy than you yet wot of," said Will, in his patronising tone. "In truth, Barnwell had started off unknown to his comrades, hoping to have the glory of the achievement all to himself by forestalling them, or else Mr. Secretary would have been warned in time to secure the Queen."

"But wherefore leave these traitors at large to work mischief?"

"See you not, you simple Humfrey, that, as I said methinks some time since, it is well sometimes to give a rogue rope enough and he will hang himself? Close the trap too soon, and you miss the biggest rat of all. So we waited until the prey seemed shy and about to escape. Babington had, it seems, suspected Maude or Langston, or whatever you call him, and had ridden out of town, hiding in St. John's Wood with some of his fellows, till they were starved out, and trying to creep into some outbuildings at Harrow, were there taken, and brought into London the morning we came away. Ballard, the blackest villain of all, is likewise in ward, and here we are to complete our evidence."

"Nay, throughout all you have said, I have heard nothing to explain this morning's work."

Will laughed outright. "And so you think all this would have been done without a word from their liege lady, the princess they all wanted to deliver from captivity! No, no, sir! 'Twas thus. There's an honest man at Burton, a brewer, who sends beer week by week for this house, and very good ale it is, as I can testify. I wish I had a tankard of it here to qualify these mulberries. This same brewer is instructed by Gifford, whose uncle lives in these parts, to fit a false bottom to one of his barrels, wherein is a box fitted for the receipt of letters and parcels. Then by some means, through Langston I believe, Babington and Gifford made known to the Queen of Scots and the French ambassador that here was a sure way of sending and receiving letters. The Queen's butler, old Hannibal, was to look in the bottom of the barrel with the yellow hoop, and one Barnes, a familiar of Gifford and Babington, undertook the freight at the other end. The ambassador, M. de Chateauneuf, seemed to doubt at first, and sent a single letter by way of experiment, and that having been duly delivered and answered, the bait was swallowed, and not a week has gone by but letters have come and gone from hence, all being first opened, copied, and deciphered by worthy Mr. Phillipps, and every word of them laid before the Council."

"Hum! We should not have reckoned that fair play when we went to Master Sniggius's," observed Humfrey, as he heard his companion's tone of exultation.

"Fair play is a jewel that will not pass current in statecraft," responded Cavendish. "Moreover, that the plotter should be plotted against is surely only his desert. But thou art a mere sailor, my Talbot, and these subtilties of policy are not for thee."

"For the which Heaven be praised!" said Humfrey. "Yet having, as you say, read all these letters by the way, I see not wherefore ye are come down to seek for more."

Will here imitated the Lord Treasurer's nod as well as in him lay, not perhaps himself knowing the darker recesses of this same plot. He did know so much as that every stage in it had been revealed to Walsingham and Burghley as it proceeded. He did not know that the entire scheme had been hatched, not by a blind and fanatical partisan of Mary's, doing evil that what he supposed to be good, might come, but by Gifford and Morgan, Walsingham's agents, for the express purpose of causing Mary totally to ruin herself, and to compel Elizabeth to put her to death, and that the unhappy Babington and his friends were thus recklessly sacrificed. The assassin had even been permitted to appear in Elizabeth's presence in order to terrify her into the conviction that her life could only be secured by Mary's death. They, too, did evil that good might come, thinking Mary's death alone could ensure them from Pope and Spaniard; but surely they descended into a lower depth of iniquity than did their victims.

Will himself was not certain what was wanted among the Queen's papers, unless it might be the actual letters, from Babington, copies of which had been given by Phillips to the Council, so he only looked sagacious; and Humfrey thought of the Castle Well, and felt the satisfaction there is in seeing a hunted creature escape. He asked, however, about Cuthbert Langston, saying, "He is—worse luck, as you may have heard—akin to my father, who always pitied him as misguided, but thought him as sincere in his folly as ever was this unlucky Babington."

"So he seems to have been till of late. He hovered about in sundry disguises, as you know, much to the torment of us all; but finally he seems to have taken some umbrage at the lady, thinking she flouted his services, or did not pay him high enough for them, and Gifford bought him over easily enough; but he goes with us by the name of Maude, and the best of it is that the poor fools thought he was hoodwinking us all the time. They never dreamt that we saw through them like glass. Babington was himself with Mr. Secretary only last week, offering to go to France on business for him—the traitor! Hark! there are more sounds of horse hoofs. Who comes now, I marvel!"

This was soon answered by a serving-man, who hurried out to tell Humfrey that his father was arrived, and in a few moments the young man was blessed and embraced by the good Richard, while Diccon stood by, considerably repaired in flesh and colour by his brief stay under his mother's care.

Mr. Richard Talbot was heartily welcomed by Sir Amias Paulett, who regretted that his daughter was out of reach, but did not make any offer of facilitating their meeting.

Richard explained that he was on his way to London on behalf of the Earl. Reports and letters, not very clear, had reached Sheffield of young Babington being engaged in a most horrible conspiracy against the Queen and country, and my Lord and my Lady, who still preserved a great kindness for their former ward, could hardly believe it, and had sent their useful and trustworthy kinsman to learn the truth, and to find out whether any amount of fine or forfeiture would avail to save his life.

Sir Amias thought it would be a fruitless errand, and so did Richard himself, when he had heard as much of the history as it suited Paulett and Wade to tell, and though they esteemed and trusted him, they did not care to go beneath that outer surface of the plot which was filling all London with fury.

When, having finished their after-dinner repose, they repaired to make farther search, taking Cavendish to assist, they somewhat reluctantly thought it due to Mr. Talbot to invite his presence, but he declined. He and his son had much to say to one another, he observed, and not long to say it in.

"Besides," he added, when he found himself alone with Humfrey, having despatched Diccon on some errand to the stables, "'tis a sorry sight to see all the poor Lady's dainty hoards turned out by strangers. If it must be, it must, but it would irk me to be an idle gazer thereon."

"I would only," said Humfrey, "be assured that they would not light on the proofs of Cicely's birth."

"Thou mayst be at rest on that score, my son. The Lady saw them, owned them, and bade thy mother keep them, saying ours were safer hands than hers. Thy mother was sore grieved, Humfrey, when she saw thee not; but she sends thee her blessing, and saith thou dost right to stay and watch over poor little Cis."

"It were well if I were watching over her," said Humfrey, "but she is mewed up at Tixall, and I am only keeping guard over poor Mistress Seaton and the rest."

"Thou hast seen her?"

"Yea, and she was far more our own sweet maid than when she came back to us at Bridgefield."

And Humfrey told his father all he had to tell of what he had seen and heard since he had been at Chartley. His adventures in London had already been made known by Diccon. Mr. Talbot was aghast, perhaps most of all at finding that his cousin Cuthbert was a double traitor. From the Roman Catholic point of view, there had been no treason in his former machinations on behalf of Mary, if she were in his eyes his rightful sovereign, but the betrayal of confidence reposed in him was so horrible that the good Master Richard refused to believe it, till he had heard the proofs again and again, and then he exclaimed,

"That such a Judas should ever call cousin with us!"

There could be little hope, as both agreed, of saving the unfortunate victims; but Richard was all the more bent on fulfilling Lord Shrewsbury's orders, and doing his utmost for Babington. As to Humfrey, it would be better that he should remain where he was, so that Cicely might have some protector near her in case of any sudden dispersion of Mary's suite.

"Poor maiden!" said her foster-father, "she is in a manner ours, and we cannot but watch over her; but after all, I doubt me whether it had not been better for her and for us, if the waves had beaten the little life out of her ere I carried her home."

"She hath been the joy of my life," said Humfrey, low and hoarsely.

"And I fear me she will be the sorrow of it. Not by her fault, poor wench, but what hope canst thou have, my son?"

"None, sir," said Humfrey, "except of giving up all if I can so defend her from aught." He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact way that made his father look with some inquiry at his grave settled face, quite calm, as if saying nothing new, but expressing a long-formed quiet purpose.

Nor, though Humfrey was his eldest son and heir, did Richard Talbot try to cross it.

He asked whether he might see Cicely before going on to London, but Sir Amias said that in that case she would not be allowed to return to the Queen, and that to have had any intercourse with the prisoners might overthrow all his designs in London, and he therefore only left with Humfrey his commendations to her, with a pot of fresh honey and a lavender-scented set of kerchiefs from Mistress Susan.



CHAPTER XXX.

TETE-A-TETE.

During that close imprisonment at Tixall Cicely learnt to know her mother both in her strength and weakness. They were quite alone; except that Sir Walter Ashton daily came to perform the office of taster and carver at their meals, and on the first evening his wife dragged herself upstairs to superintend the arrangement of their bedroom, and to supply them with toilette requisites according to her own very limited notions and possessions. The Dame was a very homely, hard-featured lady, deaf, and extremely fat and heavy, one of the old uncultivated rustic gentry who had lagged far behind the general civilisation of the country, and regarded all refinements as effeminate French vanities. She believed, likewise, all that was said against Queen Mary, whom she looked on as barely restrained from plunging a dagger into Elizabeth's heart, and letting Parma's hell-hounds loose upon Tixall. To have such a guest imposed on her was no small grievance, and nothing but her husband's absolute mandate could have induced her to come up with the maids who brought sheets for the bed, pillows, and the like needments. Mary tried to make her requests as moderate as necessity would permit; but when they had been shouted into her ears by one of the maids, she shook her head at most of them, as articles unknown to her. Nor did she ever appear again. The arrangement of the bed-chamber was performed by two maidservants, the Knight himself meanwhile standing a grim sentinel over the two ladies in the outer apartment to hinder their holding any communication through the servants. All requests had to be made to him, and on the first morning Mary made a most urgent one for writing materials, books, and either needlework or spinning.

Pen and ink had been expressly forbidden, the only book in the house was a thumbed and torn primer, but Dame Joan, after much grumbling at fine ladies' whims, vouchsafed to send up a distaff, some wool, a piece of unbleached linen, and a skein of white thread.

Queen Mary executed therewith an exquisite piece of embroidery, which having escaped Dame Joan's first impulse to burn it on the spot, remained for many years the show and the wonder of Tixall. Save for this employment, she said she should have gone mad in her utter uncertainty about her own fate, or that of those involved with her. To ask questions of Ashton was like asking them of a post. He would give her no notion whether her servants were at Chartley or not, whether they were at large or in confinement, far less as to who was accused of the plot, and what had been discovered. All that could be said for him was that his churlishness was passive and according to his ideas of duty. He was a very reluctant and uncomfortable jailer, but he never insulted, nor wilfully ill-used his unfortunate captive.

Thus Mary was left to dwell on the little she knew, namely, that Babington and his fellows were arrested, and that she was supposed to be implicated; but there her knowledge ceased, except that Humfrey's warning convinced her that Cuthbert Langston had been at least one of the traitors. He had no doubt been offended and disappointed at that meeting during the hawking at Tutbury.

"Yet I need scarcely seek the why or the wherefore," she said. "I have spent my life in a world of treachery. No sooner do I take a step on ground that seems ever so firm, than it proves a quicksand. They will swallow me at last."

Daily—more than daily—did she and Cicely go over together that hurried conversation on the moor, and try to guess whether Langston intended to hint at Cicely's real birth. He had certainly not disclosed her secret as yet, or Paulett would never have selected her as sprung of a loyal house, but he might guess at the truth, and be waiting for an opportunity to sell it dearly to those who would regard her as possessed of dangerous pretensions.

And far more anxiously did the Queen recur to examining Cicely on what she had gathered from Humfrey. This was in fact nothing, for he had been on his guard against either telling or hearing anything inconsistent with loyalty to the English Queen, and thus had avoided conversation on these subjects.

Nor did the Queen communicate much. Cicely never understood clearly what she dreaded, what she expected to be found among her papers, or what had been in the packet thrown into the well. The girl did not dare to ask direct questions, and the Queen always turned off indirect inquiries, or else assured her that she was still a simple happy child, and that it was better for her own sake that she should know nothing, then caressed her, and fondly pitied her for not being admitted to her mother's confidence, but said piteously that she knew not what the secrets of Queens and captives were, not like those of Mistress Susan about the goose to be dressed, or the crimson hose to be knitted for a surprise to her good husband.

But Cicely could see that she expected the worst, and believed in a set purpose to shed her blood, and she spent much time in devotion, though sorely distressed by the absence of all those appliances which her Church had taught her to rest upon. And these prayers, which often began with floods of tears, so that Cicely drew away into the window with her distaff in order not to seem to watch them, ended with rendering her serene and calm, with a look of high resignation, as having offered herself as a sacrifice and martyr for her Church.

And yet was it wholly as a Roman Catholic that she had been hated, intrigued against, and deposed in her own kingdom? Was it simply as a Roman Catholic that she was, as she said, the subject of a more cruel plot than that of which she was accused?

Mysterious woman that she was, she was never more mysterious than to her daughter in those seventeen days that they were shut up together! It did not so much strike Cicely at the time, when she was carried along with all her mother's impulses and emotions, without reflecting on them, but when in after times she thought over all that then had passed, she felt how little she had understood.

They suffered a good deal from the heat and closeness of the rooms, for Mary was like a modern Englishwoman in her craving for free air, and these were the dog-days. They had contrived by the help of a diamond that the Queen carried about with her, after the fashion of the time, to extract a pane or two from the lattices so ingeniously that the master of the house never found it out. And as their two apartments looked out different ways, they avoided the full sunshine, for they had neither curtains nor blinds to their windows, by moving from one to the other; but still the closeness was very oppressive, and in the heat of the day, just after dinner, they could do nothing but lie on the table, while the Queen told stories of her old life in France, till sometimes they both went to sleep. Most of her dainty needlework was done in the long light mornings, for she hardly slept at all in the hot nights. Cis scarcely saw her in bed, for she prayed long after the maiden had fallen asleep, and was up with the light and embroidering by the window.

She only now began to urge Cicely to believe as she did, and to join her Church, taking blame to herself for never having attempted it more seriously. She told of the oneness and the glory of Roman Catholicism as she had seen it in France, held out its promises and professions, and dwelt on the comfort of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints; assuring Cicely that there was nothing but sacrilege, confusion, and cruelty on the other side.

Sometimes the maiden was much moved by the tender manner and persuasive words, and she really had so much affection and admiration for her mother as to be willing to do all that she wished, and to believe her the ablest and most clear-sighted of human beings; but whenever Mary was not actually talking to her, there was a curious swaying back of the pendulum in her mind to the conviction that what Master Richard and Mistress Susan believed must be the right thing, that led to trustworthy goodness. She had an enthusiastic love for the Queen, but her faith and trust were in them and in Humfrey, and she could see religious matters from their point of view better than from that of her mother.

So, though the Queen often felt herself carrying her daughter along, she always found that there had been a slipping back to the old standpoint every time she began again. She was considering with some anxiety of the young maiden's future.

"Could I but send thee to my good sister, the Duchess of Lorraine, she would see thee well and royally married," she said. "Then couldst thou be known by thine own name, and rank as Princess of Scotland. If I can only see my Courcelles again, she would take thee safely and prove all—and thy hand will be precious to many. It may yet bring back the true faith to England, when my brave cousin of Guise has put down the Bearnese, and when the poor stumbling-block here is taken away."

"Oh speak not of that, dear madam, my mother."

"I must speak, child. I must think how it will be with thee, so marvellously saved, and restored to be my comfort. I must provide for thy safety and honour. Happily the saints guarded me from ever mentioning thee in my letters, so that there is no fear that Elizabeth should lay hands on thee, unless Langston should have spoken—the which can hardly be. But if all be broken up here, I must find thee a dwelling with my kindred worthy of thy birth."

"Mr. and Mrs. Talbot would take me home," murmured Cicely.

"Girl! After all the training I have bestowed on thee, is it possible that thou wouldst fain go back to make cheeses and brew small beer with those Yorkshire boors, rather than reign a princess? I thought thy heart was nobler."

Cicely hung her head ashamed. "I was very happy there," she said in excuse.

"Happy—ay, with the milkmaid's bliss. There may be fewer sorrows in such a life as that—just as those comely kine of Ashton's that I see grazing in the park have fewer sorrows than human creatures. But what know they of our joys, or what know the commonalty of the joy of ruling, calling brave men one's own, riding before one's men in the field, wielding counsels of State, winning the love of thousands? Nay, nay, I will not believe it of my child, unless 'tis the base Border blood that is in her which speaks."

Cicely was somewhat overborne by being thus accused of meanness of tastes, when she had heard the Queen talk enviously of that same homely life which now she despised so heartily. She faltered in excuse, "Methought, madam, you would be glad to think there was one loving shelter ever open to me."

"Loving! Ah! I see what it is," said the Queen, in a tone of disgust. "It is the sailor loon that has overthrown it all. A couple of walks in the garden with him, and the silly maid is ready to throw over all nobler thoughts."