.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 44464
   :PG.Title: Under One Sceptre
   :PG.Released: 2013-12-18
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Emily Sarah Holt
   :DC.Title: Under One Sceptre, or Mortimer's Mission
              The Story of the Lord of the Marches
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1899
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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UNDER ONE SCEPTRE
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      *Under One Sceptre*

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      *Or*

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      *Mortimer's Mission*

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      *The Story of the Lord of the Marches*

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      BY

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      EMILY SARAH HOLT

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      AUTHOR OF
      "MISTRESS MARGERY," "THE WHITE ROSE OF LANGLEY," ETC.

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      |  "The gesture was heroic.  If his hand
      |  Accomplished nothing—well, it is not proved—
      |  That empty hand thrown impotently out
      |  Were sooner caught, I think, by One in Heaven,
      |  Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in,
      |  And keeps the scythe's glow on it."
      |                            ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

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      *NEW EDITION*

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      LONDON
      JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.
      48 PATERNOSTER ROW
      1899  

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   PREFACE.

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A great authority once pronounced *Don
Quixote* to be the saddest book ever written.
The very word quixotic has come to imply
not only unusual, but absurd action.  Yet what would
the world be if all the Quixotes, secular or religious,
were taken out of it?  There are not a few of them
among the ranks of those of whom the highest
authority has pronounced that the world is not
worthy.  They generally come to be understood at
last—but it is often not till the next century.

This is the story of a Don Quixote who lived,
fought, and died, five hundred years ago.  Like his
prototype, he too tilted with the windmills and tried
to liberate the captive lions.  And the windmills
stood firm against his spear, and the lions turned
upon and tore him.  It usually is so.  The energy
seems totally wasted—the heroism vain and lost.
Yet now and then the windmill falls, discovered to be
really an enchanter's castle, revealing rotten
foundations and evil things: and then men remember the
dead knight who gave the first stroke.  Or, more
often, they do not remember him.

He would be thought indeed quixotic who should
set before him as his life-work what Roger Mortimer
did.  Yet who can declare it impossible?  Some
day, the castle of the enchanter may fall, and the
free air of heaven may blow into the dark dungeons
and dispel the fetid mists.  Ireland may be free with
that freedom which Christ only gives, and which
many an English heart longs to secure to her.  But
will any one remember the hand which was the first
to strike the frowning portals of the fortress, and
which has been dust for five hundred years in the
vaults of the Abbey of Wigmore?

It is well for him that he has won the better reward
of his Father which is in Heaven.  And we know, on
the word of our Master Himself, that the unfading
garland will be all the fairer because no human
hands wreathed earthly bays for the head which it is
to crown.

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   CONTENTS.

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CHAPTER I.

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`THE TWO BEGIN THEIR JOURNEY`_

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CHAPTER II.

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`WATCHWORDS`_


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CHAPTER III.

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`CAST ON THE WORLD`_


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CHAPTER IV.

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`WHAT CAME OF SELF-WILL`_


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CHAPTER V.

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`A CHANGE IN ROGER'S DESTINY`_


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CHAPTER VI.

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`FAIR AND FICKLE`_


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CHAPTER VII.

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`ROGER HAS HIS WISH`_


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CHAPTER VIII.

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`MISCALCULATION`_


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CHAPTER IX.

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`ROGER FINDS HIS MISSION`_


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CHAPTER X.

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`MARCUS CURTIUS`_


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CHAPTER XI.

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`HOME TO USK`_


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CHAPTER XII.

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`LAWRENCE'S REWARD`_

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`HISTORICAL APPENDIX`_





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.. _`THE TWO BEGIN THEIR JOURNEY`:

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   THE LORD OF THE MARCHES.

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   CHAPTER I.

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   THE TWO BEGIN THEIR JOURNEY.

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   |  "O guide me through this life's uncertain wild!
   |    And for aught else beneath the circling sun,
   |  So Thou in Thine own bosom keep Thy child,
   |    Father!  Thy will be done!"

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That every baby enters the world with a
spoon of some metal in its mouth, is an
old saying which is easy of interpretation.
And in the ancient town of Usk, in Monmouthshire,
on the first day of September, 1373, were born two
babies, not many yards apart, whose spoons were
made of exceedingly diverse metal.

The baby who was born in the morning of that
day, in the Castle of Usk, brought with him a spoon
of gold, beautifully embossed, and exquisite in shape.
He found the world—as represented by the mantle
in which his nurse enveloped him—soft, rich, velvety,
and fur-lined.  If he cried, the sound won immediate
attention; and the faintest sign of illness on his part
struck despair into hearts which beat with the bluest
blood.

The baby who was born in the evening, in a
squalid mud hovel, one of a dozen which nestled
close under the Castle wall, was accompanied by a
battered old spoon of the very rustiest iron.  His
world was a sheepskin, extremely dirty, and not
particularly fragrant.  His cries were answered—when
they were answered—by a rough toss in the arms
of his eldest sister, a slipshod, shock-headed girl of
eleven years; and the possibility of his early death
neither dismayed nor grieved any one, for even his
mother was of opinion that he was one too many in
the hovel, which could scarcely find room for the
nine persons who occupied it.

Baby Number One was baptized in the chapel of
the Castle, borne in his velvet wrapper by a lady of
title, with the accompaniment of sweet music and
joyous bells.  His sponsors were a bishop, an abbot,
and a prioress.  He received the family name of
Roger; for a hundred and fifty years back, the heirs
of that family had been Rogers and Edmunds
alternately, and it was the turn for the former.
Roger Mortimer—an ominous name!  For this boy
was the heir of the earldom of March, one of the
proudest coronets of England; and his mother, a
fair girl of eighteen, was a Princess of the Blood.

Baby Number Two was christened in the parish
church, one of a batch of ten, and might not have
been christened at all if the curate had not been one
who looked sharply after his baptismal fees.  He
received the name of Lawrence, which was the first
that occurred to his parents.  Very naturally
protesting in his baby style against a sprinkling with
cold water, he was tumbled with no particular care
into the thin arms of Mariot, who rewarded him with
a private shake for his vocal performance, the only
music which accompanied the ceremony.  As to
surname, he could not be said to have any.  What did
the son of a serf want with a surname?  As he grew
older, however, some distinction between him and
other Lawrences being felt desirable, his neighbours
took to calling him Lawrence Madison, or son of
Maud,—his mother being a woman with a tongue,
and as such a more prominent character than her
quiet and silent husband.

The family physician, Master Gilbert Besseford,
carefully drew out the horoscope of the young Lord.
It appeared from this elaborate document that he
was to be a highly accomplished and intellectual
youth, since Mercury was busy about him; that he
would be most fortunate in wedlock, for Venus was
doing something; that he would rise to the highest
honours of the State, and might possibly achieve a
crown, as Jupiter was most benevolently disposed to
him.  At any rate, something was to happen about
his twenty-fifth birthday, which would place him in
a position that none of his fathers had equalled.  He
would have a long life and a happy one.

Two items of the horoscope were true.  He was to
be indeed an intellectual and accomplished youth:
and in his twenty-fifth year a crown was to be his,
to which few of his fathers had attained.  But those
around him thought of a corruptible crown, and that
which God had prepared for him was an incorruptible.
And the happy wedlock, and the long life, and the
rise to worldly honour, were not the portion of Roger
Mortimer, but of Lawrence Madison in the hovel
below.

That Roger should exercise in the future considerable
influence over the fortunes of Lawrence, was
extremely probable; since they would some day
stand to each other in the relations of master and
vassal, and the former possessed absolute power over
the latter.  But the idea that Lawrence could in any
sense sway the fortunes of Roger would have been
laughed to scorn by the household at the Castle.
Yet this was to be.

In a small, but very prettily furnished boudoir in
one of the Castle turrets, sat the Countess Dowager
of March.  She was considered an elderly woman,
though we should think her only middle-aged; for in
the days of our shorter-lived forefathers, who looked
upon fifty as old age, and sixty as advanced senility,
a woman of forty was some way down the hill.  From
a father whose character stood high both as warrior
and statesman, and a mother whose remarkable
wisdom and good sense were a proverb among her
contemporaries, Philippa Montacute had inherited
a character of unusual power, moral and mental.
Her energy was tempered by her prudence, while
warm affections and shrewd common sense held
sway together over her actions.  The character was
not transmitted, except in the affections, to that
handsome, eloquent, amiable young man of one-and-twenty,
who was the only one left living of her four
children: but it was to be reproduced in every point
save one, in the baby grandson for whose birth
the chapel bells were ringing melodiously, and in
whose honour all the thralls were to have a holiday
the next day.  Alas, that the omitted item was the
one which should have been a girdle to all the
rest!  Warm-hearted, energetic to impulsiveness, with
plenty of good sense and fine understanding, the gifts
bestowed on little Roger did not include prudence.

The Countess sat alone in her bower in the
September twilight, and took "blind man's holiday," her
imagination and memory scanning both the future
and the past.

It was not quite dark when the door of the bower
opened, and a woman of some thirty years came
forward, dropping a courtesy as she approached her
mistress.

"Come in, Wenteline," said the Countess; for thus
the medieval English pronounced the old British
name, Guenllian.  "Is David yet back from his
errand?"

"An't please your Ladyship, he came but now,
and he brings tidings, agreeably to your Ladyship's
pleasure, that among the thralls be two babes to-day
born.  Maud, the wife of Nicholas in the huts, hath
a man-child; and your Ladyship's god-daughter,
Philippa, wife of Blumond the fishmonger, a maid-child."

"Good," answered the Countess, feeling for the
gold and ivory tablet which hung by a silver chain
from her girdle, that she might therein enter the
information for which she had sent.  "Then, as born
on the birthday of the heir, they shall be allowed
some privileges.  What names are the babes
christened by?"

"Please it your Ladyship, the little maid is
Beatrice—so baptized by Dan Robesart this afternoon.  For
the knave, being born but an hour back, he is not yet
baptized; but they think to call him Lawrence."

Both names went down on the Countess's tablet,
after Guenllian had lighted a candle for that purpose.

"Did David give the thralls to wit of the games
and rejoicings allowed to-morrow?"

"Ay, my Lady: and he saith one and all were
greatly gladded thereby.  My young Lord shall be
right welcome to all his vassals some day to be."

The Countess drew a long breath of semi-apprehension.
"May he be none the less desired, God
grant, when they shall lay his head beneath the
mould!  O my maid, how great and awesome a
thing is the life of a man on earth!"

"Madam, I heard once the parson of Ludgarshal,
Dan John, to say"——

"Have on.  A good man is Dan John.  What said he?"

"That our Lord bound Him to care for the childer
of them that feared Him; and that no prayer so made
should ever be lost."

"But how answered?" was the low-toned reply.
"Wenteline, our prayers be sometimes heard in a
manner that crusheth the heart of him that prayed
them.  If the babe were to die!"

"Very dear Lady, it might be, elsewise, that a
twenty years' space hereafter, you should heartily
wish that he had died the sooner.  Surely it can be
no evil thing for a little child to go right to God,
while he is yet lapped about with the white robes of
his chrisom."

"I have buried three, Wenteline: and of them one
went so.  The other were pretty little childer that
prattled at my knee.  And it was like burying a
piece of mine own heart to part with every one."

"Yet now, my Lady—would you have them back now?"

"Know I what I would?  Surely it is better for
them.  And may God's will be done.  Only to-night,
Wenteline—to-night, holding that little babe, the
thought came sorrowfully of my Roger, and how he
faded from me like a white flower of the earth, or a star
that goes out in the sky.  Hand me yonder French
Bible, Wenteline.  Let me read a little touching the
City where my childer dwell, and the King unto whose
presence they be gone.  May be it shall still my
yearning when I think of them as there, and not here."

There were no Bibles at that date but in French
or Latin; seven years were yet to elapse before John
Wycliffe, to whom Guenllian had just referred, was
to begin the translation of the first English Bible.
But French Bibles and Latin Psalters were no
unusual possession of noble families.  Those families
who were not noble were expected to get to heaven
without any; for one of the most singular medieval
ideas was that which restricted all intellect to those
of noble blood.  Blood and brains went together.
If a man had not the former, it was out of all
calculation that he should possess the latter.

Guenllian reached down from a high shelf the
French Bible, bound in dark green velvet, with golden
rims and embossed corners, and amethysts gleaming
from every corner.  The Countess unfastened the
clasps, and turned to the last chapters of the book.
She read, to herself and Guenllian, of the Golden
City and the River of Gladness and the Tree of Life,
until the world seemed to grow small and dim, and
the world's conventionalities to become very poor
and worthless.  And then, turning a little further
back, she read of the Good Shepherd who calleth
His flock by name, and leadeth them out; and they
know His voice, and follow Him.  Then the golden
clasps were closed, and the lady sat in silence for a
few moments.

"Wenteline," she said, "we have tried to follow
the Shepherd, thou and I, in the sunlit plains.
Thinkest thou thy feet would fail if we come by-and-by
to the arid slopes of the stony hills?"

Guenllian looked down, and nervously played with
her chatelaine.  "I cannot tell, an' it like my Lady.
You look not for such troubles, Madam?"

"They that be sure of Satan's enmity had best
look for trouble," was the pithy answer.  "It is not
here—yet.  But it may be."

And it was to be.  But it came not until Philippa
Montacute was safe in the shelter of the Golden
City, and under the shade of the Tree of Life.  Then
it broke fiercely on the unsheltered heads of those
on the stony slope, and the baby that lay that day
in the velvet wrapper came in for some drops of the
thunderstorm.

The children in the Castle and in the hovel grew
and thrived.  They were both pretty, but had
Lawrence Madison been kept as clean and dressed as
nicely as the little Lord, he would have been the
prettier of the two.  As he grew old enough to take
note of things, to tumble about on the sheepskin at
the door, while his mother and Mariot attended to
their duties within, and to listen and talk, a great
ambition arose in his young heart.  He did not envy
the young heir at the Castle: an idea so lofty and
preposterous never suggested itself for an instant.
Lawrence would as soon have thought of grumbling
because he was not an archangel, as because he was
not my Lord Roger of March.  But he did indescribably
admire and envy the fishmonger across the
street.  He had a whole coat, and a clean apron;
he looked like a man who always had plenty of nice
things to eat, and a fire to warm himself by in cold
weather.  And the fishes were so beautiful!
Lawrence had crept across the street and looked up at
their lovely prismatic scales, as they lay in the
baskets level with his head.  He had seen Blumond's
wife as she came to the door with her child in her
arms.  Little Beatrice was kept cleaner and nicer
than he was.  Why did not Mother give him nice
things to wear like hers?  And why, that evening
when she and Father were talking about something—what
were they talking about?—did Father look
across at Lawrence, and say, with a lowered brow
and a sulky tone quite unusual with him, something
about letting a freeman manage for himself, and not
be beholden to a villein?  Now that he thought
about it—and Lawrence was given to thinking about
things—Father did seem more cross with him than
the others.  What had he done?

After many long cogitations on this and other
puzzles, of which nobody knew, since he kept them
all to himself, Lawrence finished by astounding his
world.

Lawrence's world was very small, for it was bounded
by a few yards of the street at its widest extent.  The
inner circle of this sphere, namely, the hovel, was built
of mud and wooden laths, and was about fifteen feet
in longitude.  Separate rooms were an unimaginable
luxury.  Nine persons—Lawrence's father, mother,
and grandmother, his two brothers, three sisters,
and himself—ate, slept, and mostly worked, in the
one chamber which formed the whole of the hut.
There were also additional inhabitants in the shape
of two cats, three hens, and a small and lively pig.
It was not easy to move without falling over
somebody or something which was apt to resent it in a way
not suggestive of polished society.  Perhaps it was
quite as well, considering these circumstances, that
the space was not cumbered with much furniture.
Alike of bedsteads, chairs, and tables, the hut was
entirely guiltless, and the inhabitants would scarcely
have known what to do with them.  A bundle of
straw littered down in a corner, with a sheepskin
thrown over it, was their idea of the utmost luxury
in the way of sleeping accommodation—a luxury
which they could rarely attain: and the ordinary
bed was one of dry leaves from the neighbouring
forest, which, when they were able to reach such a
pitch of comfort, were stuffed into a sack.  A long
form, set against the wall, represented the chair
element, and was reserved for the elders, the children
squatting on the mud floor with the pig, cats, and
hens.  The minds of the inhabitants had not reached
the table idea.

Nicholas, the father of Lawrence, was by trade a
tanner—not a master-tanner by any means.  He
worked for a man who in his turn worked under
another, and all were serfs, at the Earl's tan-pits, a
mile from the city.  Maud, his wife, was the daughter
of another serf, the blacksmith who shoed the Earl's
horses.  To all these the Lord of Usk was a sort of
minor divinity, almost too far above them to be
thought of as a human creature like themselves, and
much too inaccessible for any complaints or requests
to reach him, except through the medium of a dozen
persons at least.  People of this kind were not
expected to have any manners, beyond the indispensable
one of making the most obsequious reverences
to the meanest dweller in the Castle, or to a priest.
The sailor's pithy description of the savages with
whom he met—"Manners, none; customs, nasty"—were
in most cases only too descriptive of the
medieval villein.

Does not this manner of life among the lower
orders, five hundred years ago, account for much
of the power obtained by the priesthood, and the
blind obedience with which the people followed the
clergy?  The priest was something more to the
masses than he was to the aristocracy.  To the
latter, he was the man who stood between them and
God: to the former, he was also the mediator
between man and man.  He was the only person
among the upper ranks who treated these poor
down-trodden creatures, not as machines out of
which so much profit was to be ground, but as men
and women with human sins and sorrows.

The children saw very little of their father.  He
went to work as soon as it was light, and often did
not return before they were fast asleep on the leaves.
They saw only too much of their mother, whose
tongue was never still when awake, and was governed
by a cross temper and a discontented mind.  The
grandmother was an old woman bent by rheumatism,
and enfeebled by years of hard work and hard usage.
The girls, Mariot, Emmot, and Joan, had nothing to
look forward to but similar lives, and after
them—they hardly knew what.  They had a dim notion
that there was a pleasant place where some people
went at death, and where nobody did any work:
this was derived from the priests.  They had also
a notion, dug up out of the natural soil of the
human heart, that having met with very little
comfort in this life, it was sure to be waiting for them in
the next.  Of God their principal idea was that He
was a very great and rich man, above even my Lord,
and was in some mysterious manner connected with
hearing mass.  The boys might expect the serf's usual
life—hard work and many blows, with such intervals of
pleasure as an animal would be capable of appreciating,
chiefly connected with eating and drinking, an
occasional dance or game on the village green on saints'
days, and any rough horse-play among themselves.

They were not badly off in respect of food, for
their master fed them, and it was to his profit that
they should be in good bodily condition.  They had
therefore, plenty of food of the coarsest kind, and
sufficient clothing of the same quality, which they
had about as much notion of keeping clean as a
monkey has of writing letters.  Wages, of course,
were never heard of between master and serf.
Whatever they needed had to be reported to their
superior in office, and they received it if and when
he found it convenient.

Is it not a singular fact that the less a man has,
the more contented he is often found to be?  The
majority of these serfs, thus comfortlessly situated,
were more contented men than their descendants,
who have privileges and possessions of which they
never dreamed, and many of whom are never satisfied
with them.

These were the circumstances in which Lawrence
was placed, and such were the persons whom he
astonished when his time came to do so.

"Get out of the way, childer!" said Mariot one
night, not crossly, but like the tired girl she was, as
she came and threw herself down on the sheepskin
among them at the door.  "I am weary as a dog.
There never is any pleasure in life—our lives,
anywise.  Simon, have done!—and Emmot, give o'er
pushing.  Let a body have a bit of rest, do!"

And rolling one corner of the sheepskin into a
bolster, Mariot made herself comfortable—as much
so, that is, as the circumstances admitted.

"Mariot, what is a villein?"

"What's *what*?" exclaimed Mariot, her head
coming up in astonishment.  "Lo' you now, if
Slow-o'-Words hasn't found his tongue!"

"What's a villein, Mariot?"

"What we all are—saving thee, little plague o' my
life."

"Why amn't I like you?" said Lawrence, opening
his eyes wide.

"The deer knows!" replied Simon grumpily.

"Well, but I know beside the deer," said Mariot.
"Well, what for but by reason thou wert born on
the same day as the young Lord up yonder,—thou
and Blumond's Beattie—and ye were both made free
therefor."

"What's *free*, Mariot?"

"It means, do what you will."

"Does it so?  May I have one of those fishes, then?"

"Oh, well—it means not, do ill and thieve.  Wait
a bit, Lolly, till thou art grown bigger, and thou wilt
know what free means—better than ever we are like
to know it."

"Why isn't everybody free, Mariot?"

"What wot I?  They aren't."

"Is Beattie free too?"

"Ay."

"But we were *made* free.  Is nobody free that isn't
made?"

"Lots of folks."

"Then why isn't everybody?" repeated little
Lawrence meditatively.

"Oh, give o'er, and reive not my head!" cried
Mariot.  "Loll, if thou goest about to ask questions
that none can answer, I shall want thee dumb again
I promise thee."

"Can't nobody answer them?  Couldn't the parson?"

"The parson, in good sooth!  The like of thee to
ask questions at the parson!  Shut thine eyes, and
go to sleep: I'm as sleepy as a squirrel in winter."

Lawrence crept on his hands and knees to the
edge of the sheepskin, avoiding his brother Simon,
who lay on his face in the middle of it, amusing
himself by kicks up at the atmosphere: and looking out
into the still summer evening, saw Blumond's wife
Philippa carrying in the baskets of fish, and little
Beatrice trotting beside her.  Prettiest of the three
children was Beatrice, with dainty little ways which
woke Lawrence's admiration, and made her a perpetual
attraction to him.  In fact, he hardly knew
which he liked best, Beatrice or the fishes!

As to the magnificent people in the Castle,
Lawrence barely presumed to lift his eyes to them.  Now
and then, as he sat on the sheepskin, some squire on
horseback or messenger on foot would flash past in
the Earl's livery—blue and gold, guarded with
white—who was to the children in the huts as good as a
show at Whitsuntide Fair.  But before Lawrence was
quite two years old, the Castle was deserted, and the
Earl and all his family had removed to Ludlow.
Thence came rumours from time to time of their
doings.  A daughter was born, in honour of whom
a holiday was given to the villeins; and two years
later, a son, for whom they had a great feast.  But
immediately after that came sadder news, for the
royal mother, yet only twenty-two, survived her
boy's birth scarcely six weeks.  All the bells of Usk
tolled in mourning, catafalques of black and silver
were in every church, and the chant of doleful
litanies for the dead floated through the perfumed
aisles.  And after the death of the young Countess,
the Earl and Countess Dowager returned no more
to Usk; for two years later, the Earl was made
Viceroy of Ireland, and removed thither, while his
mother and children remained at Wigmore.

The connection between England and Ireland had
hitherto been disastrous to both parties.  Had the
Pope intended by his gift of that island to punish all
the royal dynasty for their sins, past and future, he
could not have succeeded better; and had he desired
to visit on the Green Isle the penalty for all her
crimes, he could scarcely have devised a sorer
punishment than the infliction of such rulers as
England sent her for several hundred years.  The
conquerors and the conquered understood each other
as little as Celt and Teuton commonly do: and
what was still worse, they did not try to do so.  The
English notion of governing was first to kill off the
Irish chieftains, and then to divide the land among a
quantity of Norman adventurers whose capacity for
"land-hunger" was something remarkable.  When
Earl Edmund of March assumed the government, it
was only seventeen years since the passing of the
Statute of Kilkenny, which forbade marriage between
the English and the Irish, and commanded the use
of the English language and customs on pain of
death.  Even Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who was
considered one of the gentlest of men, had, as his
first step on landing in Ireland, forbidden any
Irishman to approach his camp.  His son-in-law was a
wiser man.  There was Irish blood in his own veins—in
small proportion to the English, it is true; still,
he was the descendant of an Irish King, and the
pedigree-loving Celts were not likely to forget it.
He began by showing a strong hand upon the reins,
and in six months had Ireland at his feet.  Then he
laid aside whip and spur, and permitted his natural
character to take its course.  The result was that he
became exceedingly popular, as a ruler usually is in
Celtic nations who ordinarily exhibits himself in an
amiable light, and yet shows that he has power, and
can use it when required.  Earl Edmund shut
himself up from no one.  Any Irishman who pleased
could have access to him at any time, and his native
eloquence recommended him strongly to their easily
touched feelings.  But his beneficent reign did not
last long, and perhaps his short tenure of power was
quite as well for his popularity.  Human nature, in
all countries, is apt to become accustomed to
kindness, and to take advantage of it.  And doubtless
the Earl's popularity was partly due to the fact that
he succeeded rulers harsher and less attractive than
himself.

One great disadvantage on the part of England
was that while she realised to the full the inferior
civilisation of the Irish, she failed to discover that
they possessed a faith purer than her own.  The true
old and Catholic religion implanted by St. Patrick
and others of his type had received far less corruption
from Rome than the religion of England.  But the
English were much more concerned in improving the
manners of the Irish nobles than in improving their
own spirituality.  That an Irish king wore no trousers,
and that his attendant minstrel shared his plate and
glass, struck them infinitely more than the condition
of his morals.  When once they had satisfied
themselves that the Irish believed in the Triune God, and
had heard of the existence of a Bishop at Rome
who was the Pontiff of Western Christendom—points
apparently of equal importance to them—they gave
themselves no further trouble on the religious
question.  Political and social questions came nearer and
pressed more heavily.

With the usual individuality of our race, they
resented the use of a separate language, to which the
Irish, as individual in their way, clung as for very
life.  If, instead of trying to suppress the venerable
and beloved tongue, England had given Ireland an
open Bible in it—if she had insisted on the study of
Holy Writ, and had left the manners to take care of
themselves under its influence, what a different future
there might have been!

Are we still as blind as five hundred years ago, or
shall we some day see that peace for Ireland, as
for every other land and soul, must come through
the teaching of the Spirit, and the blood of the
Cross?





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.. _`WATCHWORDS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER II.


.. class:: center medium bold

   WATCHWORDS.

..

   |  "Then out and spake a gude auld man—
   |    A gude death micht he dee!—
   |  'Whatever ye do, my gude maister,
   |    Take God your Guide to be.'"
   |                        —OLD BALLAD.

.. vspace:: 2

While Earl Edmund was governing across
the sea, his little son Roger grew in health
and stature under the loving care of his
grandmother at Wigmore.  The Earls of March had
many castles and seats, but Wigmore Castle was the
family seat of the Mortimers.  The old Countess was
extremely anxious that the boy should grow up a
good man; the rather because she recognised in him
a quality beyond her own energy and activity—that
passionate, impetuous nature which belonged to his
mother's blood.  She brought him up on a course
of philosophy, and above all of Scripture, in the hope
of calming it down.  The eradication was hopeless
enough; but the Scripture sank deep.  Young as he
was when he lost her, Roger Mortimer never forgot
those lessons at his grandmother's knee.  But the
quiet years of holy teaching were not long.  In the
spring of 1381, Earl Edmund sent letters to his
mother, requesting that his eldest son might be sent
over to him, as he wished him to make acquaintance
with the tenants on his Irish lands.  The whole
province of Ulster would lie one day at the pleasure
of its future Earl.

Sir Thomas Mortimer, a distant relative of the
Earl, brought his noble kinsman's letters.  He was
appointed the governor of little Roger, and was to
take care of him on his perilous journey.  In order
to impress the Irish with a sense of the child's
grandeur and importance, he was to have a distinct
establishment; and the Earl had suggested that the
majority of the new servants had better come from
his Welsh estates.  Two Celtic races, which centuries
ago were one, would, as he thought, be more likely to
amalgamate with each other than either with the
Saxon.  Perhaps he forgot that the meeting of two
fires will scarcely extinguish a conflagration.

Sir Thomas therefore had come through Usk,
where he had imparted the Earl's commands to the
keeper of the Castle, ordering him to have ready by
a certain day, to meet him at Holyhead, such and
such persons—so many men and boys to fill so many
offices—much as he might have ordered as many
garments or loaves of bread.  The villeins were
bound to serve in the menial offices; and for higher
places, the neighbouring gentry and their sons would
only be too glad to hear of the vacancies.

One appointment was to be made, at her son's
request, by the Countess herself.  This was perhaps
the most important of all, for it was the choice of a
woman who should look after the child's necessities,
and fill so far as possible the place of the dead
mother and the absent grandmother.  The boy,
having passed his seventh birthday, was ostensibly
emancipated from the nursery: yet, with no lady at
the head of the household, the presence of some
responsible woman about the child became needful.
The Countess's choice was soon made.  It fell on
her own waiting-woman, Guenllian, in whom she had
more confidence than in any one else.  It was an
additional recommendation that Guenllian had been
about the child from his infancy, so that he would
feel her to be a familiar friend.  Yet, though she
was sending with him the person of all others in
whom she most relied, the Countess suffered severe
anxiety in parting with her boy, who, after his father,
was her one darling in all the world.  What would
become of him?  Suppose he were drowned in crossing
the sea, and never reached his father!  Suppose he
were murdered by the "wild Irish," who, in the eyes
of all English people of that date, were savages of the
most dreadful type.  Or, worse still,—suppose he grew
up to be a monster of wickedness,—that pretty little
child who now lifted his pure blue eyes so honestly
and confidingly to hers!  She thought it would break
her heart.  And strong as that heart was to cleave
to God and do the right, yet, as the event proved,
it was not one to bear much suffering.

"Very dear Lady," suggested Guenllian tenderly,
"can you not trust the young Lord into the merciful
hands of God?  Can my young Lord go whither He
is not?"

"Thy faith shames mine, my maid.  May God
verily go with you!  Wenteline, thou wilt surely
promise me that my darling shall be bred up to
prize this," and she laid her hand on the French
Bible.  "Let the Word of the Lord never be out of
his reach, nor of his hearing.  Rising up and lying
down—coming in and going out—let him pillow his
soul upon it, and be made strong."

Guenllian gave the required promise very quietly.
Her mistress knew she might be trusted.

"And if it should come—as we hear rumour afloat—that
Dan John busieth himself to render the Book
into the English tongue, then will I send it o'er so
soon as may be.  An whole Bible in English!  Ay,
that day that seeth it shall be a merry day for
England."

The French Bible was the Countess's parting gift
to her grandson.  It was no mean gift, for the
writing of its fellow, which was to remain with her, had
cost her more than twenty pounds.

To the child himself she said comparatively little.
She wished her words to sink deep and take root;
and she knew that an important means to that end
was that they should be few.  So, as her last words,
she gave him two mottoes, in the language which
was only then ceasing to be the mother tongue of
English nobles.

"*Fais ce que doy, advienne que fourra*."  And—"*Un
Dieu, un Roy, servir je day*."

And thus, with a thousand prayers and blessings,
the boy left her.

"Ah, when to meet again?" she sighed, as from
the castle turret she watched him go, turning to kiss
his hand to her as he rode away towards Shropshire.
"O my darling, mine heart misgiveth me sore!—when
to meet again?"

Never any more, Philippa Mortimer, till both stand
in the street of the Golden City, and under the shade
of the Tree of Life.

Little Roger and his suite travelled, as was usual
at the time, on horseback.  The charette was
reserved for short journeys in civilised places, where
there was some semblance of a road; while the litter
was the vehicle of ladies and invalids.  A dark
roan-coloured "trotter," or saddle-horse, was selected for
the little lord, and fitted with a black velvet saddle
embroidered in gold.  The harness was also black.
There was no saddle-cloth, as this was an article
used on ceremonial occasions; and as the horse was
going on a journey which would lie chiefly upon turf,
he was not shod.

Roger himself was dressed in a long robe of dark
blue damask, relieved by narrow stripes of white and
red; and over it he wore a hood of black velvet.
On the top of this sat a brown felt hat, in shape
something like a modern "wide-awake," with one
dark-green plume standing straight up in its front, and
fastened to the hat by a small golden clasp.  A little
white frill surrounded his throat beneath the hood,
which latter article could be cast aside if the weather
were sufficiently warm.  The sleeves of the robe
were extremely wide and full, and lined with white;
and beneath them were closer sleeves of apple-green,
but these were far wider than gentlemen wear them
now.  Dark-green boots, with white buttons, and
spurs of gilt copper, completed the young gentleman's
costume.  His stirrups were of white metal,
and in his hand was an excessively long white whip,
much taller than himself.[#]  It was the first time that
Roger had been allowed to ride alone on a journey,
and he was as proud of the distinction as might be
expected.


[#] This description is mainly taken from one of
Creton's illuminations.  Harl. MS. 1319, illum. ix.


Before the convoy went two running footmen,
attired loosely in a costume somewhat resembling
the Highland kilt, one of whom bore a pennon with
the Earl's arms, and the other a trumpet, which was
sounded whenever they drew near to any town or
village.  Every man carried a drinking-cup at his
girdle, and his dagger served for a knife.  The
travellers beguiled the long day by singing songs and
ballads, among which was a new song just become
popular, of which the first line only has descended to
us, and that has a decidedly minor tone—"*J'ay tout
perdu mon temps et mon labour*."

Thus accoutred and equipped, conducted by two
knights, eight squires, fifty men-at-arms, and a
hundred archers, Roger set forth on his journey.  A
pleasant ride of eight miles brought them to Clun Castle,
which belonged to Roger's cousin, the young Lord Le
Despenser, and the keeper of the castle was delighted
to show hospitality to one so nearly related to the
owner.  Here they stayed for dinner, Roger being
seated in the place of honour at the head of the daïs,
and all present anxious to gratify his slightest fancy.
Eight miles more, after dinner, brought them to
Montgomery, where the castle received its heir for
the night.

In the streets of the towns, but especially on the
bridges and in the church porches—where in Roman
Catholic countries they usually lie in wait—were
always congregated a larger or smaller swarm of
beggars, who invariably seized upon a group of
travellers with avidity.  And as giving of alms,
however indiscriminate, was a good work in the
eyes of the Church, Sir Thomas Mortimer had
provided himself with a purse full of pennies, out of
which he doled twopences and fourpences to every
crowd of suppliants.

The next day was Sunday; but the only difference
which it made in the day's programme was that, before
the travellers set forth, they attended mass in the fine
old cruciform church of Montgomery.  Mass being
conducted in a tongue unknown to the vulgar of all
nations, may be attended in any country with equal
advantage—or disadvantage.  The stage that day was
rather shorter, but they were now among the
mountains, and travelling became a slow and wearisome
process.  They reached before night the village of
Languadan, where they stayed the night, Sir Thomas and
his precious charge being accommodated at the village
inn, and the guard encamping outside in the open
air.  A third day's journey of thirteen miles brought
them to Kemmer Abbey, and a fourth, long and
fatiguing, winding round the base of Snowdon, to
Beddgelert.  They made up for their extra work by
riding only ten miles on the Wednesday, which ended
at Caernarvon.  Here they returned to more civilised
life, and found better accommodation than they had
done since leaving Montgomery.  But the Thursday's
journey was again long and tedious, for they had to
sail across the Menai, and round Anglesey.  Five
boats awaited them here, the St. Mary, the Michael,
the Grace Dieu, the Margaret, and the Katherine:
their tonnage ran from sixty to a hundred and fifty
tons.  They were simply large, deep brown boats,
with one mast and no deck, and neither cabin nor any
other form of shelter.  Sir Thomas and Roger
embarked on the Grace Dieu, which was the largest of
the boats, and the guard were packed into the other
four, the squires going with their betters.

On arrival at Holyhead, Sir Thomas was met by
the deputy keeper of Usk Castle, who presented to
him two more squires, three "varlets," and a boy,
who were to serve in the household of the young
Lord.  One of the squires was named Reginald de
Pageham, and his family had been in the service of
the Earls of Ulster from time immemorial.  The
other was named Constantine Byterre, and was the
son of a squire of the Earl.  The varlets were villeins
from Usk.  And the boy was Lawrence Madison.

If any reader of modern ideas should desire to
know how or why a child of seven years old was
selected for a servant, be it known that in the Middle
Ages that was the usual period for a boy to
commence service.  He was to fill the posts of page of
the chamber and whipping-boy: in other words, and
practically, he was to fetch and carry for his little
master, to learn and play with him, and when Roger
was naughty and required chastisement,—which could
scarcely be expected not to occur,—Lawrence, not
Roger was to be whipped.

The combination of boy with boy was a curious
one.  Roger had been most carefully brought up, led
by tender hands every step of the way hitherto
traversed.  Lawrence had scrambled up on hands
and knees, as he might, with no leading at all except
the rare catechising in church, and the personal
influence of Beatrice and the fishes.  But these three
had been for good.  The Rev. Mr. Robesart, the only
one of the clergy of the parish church at Usk who
cared to catechise the children, had been one of those
rare stars among the medieval priesthood who both
loved the perishing souls of men, and were themselves
in possession of the Bread of Life to break to them.

Little Beatrice had repeated her lessons to
Lawrence, whom she was pleased to like, in a funny,
patronising little way, and they had done him at least
as much good as they did to her.  And the fishes
had also had a share in his education, for their
beauty had gratified his taste, and their helpless
condition had stirred feelings of pity which do not
often find such ready entrance into a boy's heart as
they did into that of Lawrence Madison.

It was not on account of any intellectual or moral
qualifications that Lawrence had been chosen for his
post of service.  It was simply because he was a
pretty child, and would look well in the Earl's livery.
His parents were only too thankful for such a chance
of promotion for him.  He was one too many for
their financial resources.  On Lawrence's part there
was only one person whom he was sorry to leave,
and that was the little playmate over the way.  He
had gone proudly across to the fishmonger's, to
show himself in his new splendours, and to say
farewell.

"Love us, sweet Saint Mary!" was Philippa's
exclamation.  "How fine art thou!"

"Oh, how pretty, how pretty!" cried little Beatrice.
"Lolly, where gattest such pretty raiment?"

"'Tis my Lord his livery, child," said Blumond.
"And what place hast thou, lad?  Kitchen knave?"

This was the lowest position that a boy could have
in a noble household.  Lawrence's head went up in
a style which would have amused most students of
human nature.

"Nay, Master Blumond," said he: "I am to be
page of the chamber to my Lord's son."

"Gramercy, how grand we are!" laughed Blumond.
"Prithee, good Master Lawrence, let me beseech thee
to have a favour unto me."

Lawrence had an uneasy perception that the
fishmonger was laughing at him.  He struggled for a
moment with the new sense of dignity which sat so
stiffly upon him, and then, speaking in his natural
way, said,—

"I shall never forget you, Master Blumond, nor
Philippa, nor Beattie.  But I wis not when I shall
see you all again.  The little Lord goeth to Ireland,
and I withal."

"Where's Ireland?" asked Beattie, with wide-open
eyes, "Ireland" having immediately presented to her
imagination a large park with a castle in the middle
of it.

"That wis I not," answered ignorant Lawrence.
"'Tis somewhere.  I shall see when we be there."

Blumond was a little wiser, but only a little.
"Well, now, is't not across seas?" suggested he.

Lawrence's eyes brightened, and Beatrice's grew
sorrowful.

"Wilt thou ever be back, Lolly?" she said in a
mournful tone.

"To be sure!" quickly responded Blumond.  "He
shall come back a grand young gentleman, a-riding
of a big black courser, with a scarlet saddle-cloth all
broidered o' gold and silver."

There was a general laugh at this highly improbable
suggestion, which was checked by Philippa's
query if Lawrence had taken leave of Dan Robesart.

"Nay.  Should I so?" asked the boy doubtfully.

"Aye, for sure.  Haste thee up the hill, for he
went into the church but now."

And with a hasty farewell at last Lawrence ran off.

He found the priest pacing meditatively up and
down the north aisle of the church, with folded arms
and a very grave face.

"Didst seek me, my son?" he inquired, pausing
as Lawrence came up and stood rather timidly at a
little distance.

"An't please you, good Father, I go hence as
to-morrow, and Philippa would have me ask you of
your blessing ere I went."

"That shalt thou have, right heartily."  And the
thin white hand was laid on the child's head.  "Our
Lord bless thee, and make thee a blessing.  May He
be thy Guide and Shield and Comforter; yea, may
He cover thee with His wings all the day long, and be
unto thee a buckler from the face of evil.  Lawrence,
my son, I would fain have thy promise to a thing."

"What thing, Father?"

"Pass thy word to me, and never forget it, that in
all thy life thou wilt never go any whither without
asking our Lord to go with thee."

The priest had somewhat failed to realise the
extreme youth and worse ignorance of the child to
whom he was talking.  The reply recalled him to
these facts.

"Where shall I find Him?—in the church?  Must
I hear mass every morning?"

One of the strangest things in Romanism to a
Protestant mind is the fancy that prayer must be
offered in a consecrated building to be thoroughly
acceptable.  Of course, when a man localises the
presence of Christ as confined to a particular piece of
stone, it is natural that he should fancy he must go to
the stone to find Him.  From this unscriptural notion
the Lollards had to a great extent emancipated
themselves.  Mr. Robesart therefore answered Lawrence
as most priests would not have done, for in his eyes
the presence of Christ was not restricted to the
altar-stone and the consecrated wafer.

"My son, say in thine heart—thou needest not
speak it loud—'Jesus, be with me,' before thou dost
any matter, or goest any whither.  Our Lord will
hear thee.  Wilt thou so do?"

Lawrence gave the promise, with a child's readiness
to promise anything asked by a person whom he loved
and reverenced.  The priest lifted his eyes.

"Lord keep him in mind!" he said in a low voice.
"Keep Thyself in the child's heart, and bear him
upon Thine before the Father!—Now, my son, go,
and God be with thee."

Mr. Robesart laid his hand again on the child's
head, and with a slower step than before, as if some
awe rested upon him, Lawrence went down to the
hovel below the hill.

The journey from Usk to Ireland was a far more
new and strange experience to Lawrence than it could
be to Roger.  The latter had taken various short
journeys from one of his father's castles to another,
or on occasional visits to friends and relatives of the
family: but the former had spent all his little life in
the hovel at Usk, and his own feet were the only
mode of travelling with which he had hitherto been
acquainted.  The sea was something completely new
to both.  Lawrence was deeply interested in finding
out that fishes lived in that mighty ocean which
seemed alike so potent and so interminable.  He
wanted to go down to the bottom and see the fishes
alive in their own haunts, and find out what was there
beside them.  But after timidly hinting at these
aspirations to an archer and a squire, and perceiving that
both were inclined to laugh at him, Lawrence locked
up the remainder of his fancies in his own breast,
and awaited further light and future opportunities.

Meditations of this kind did not trouble Roger.
He found quite enough to look at in the visible world,
without puzzling his brain by speculations concerning
the unseen.  His nature disposed him at all times to
action rather than thought.

Two months were consumed on the voyage to
Ireland: not by any means an unreasonable time,
when that period or longer was frequently required
between Dover and Calais.  They were detained
previously at Holyhead, waiting for a south-east wind,
only for a fortnight, which was rather a matter for
congratulation; as was also the fact that they were only
twice in danger of their lives during the voyage.  Perils
in the wilderness, and perils in the sea, were much
more intelligible to our forefathers than to ourselves.

Roger was growing dreadfully tired of sea and
sky long before the shore of Antrim was sighted.
Lawrence was tired of nothing but his own ignorance
and incapacity to understand what he saw.  He
wanted to know—to dive to the bottom of every
thing, literally and figuratively: and he did not know
how to get there, and nobody could or would tell him.
Surely things had an end somewhere—if one could
only find it out!

The voyage came to one, at any rate; and on a
beautiful summer morning, the keel of the Grace
Dieu at last grated upon the shingle of Ulster.
Half-a-dozen of the crew jumped out into the surf, and
twice as many came to help from the land.  The
great boat was dragged on shore by the help of ropes,
a ladder set against her side, and Roger carefully
carried ashore by a squire.  Lawrence was left to
climb down as he best could.  Both reached the
ground in safety, and found themselves in presence
of a crowd of officers and retainers in the Earl of
Ulster's livery; from among whom in a moment the
Earl himself came forward, and gave a warm fatherly
welcome to his little son.  After mutual greetings
had been sufficiently exchanged between old residents
and new-comers, the Earl mounted his horse, a superb
bay caparisoned with a scarlet saddle-cloth, and Roger
having been lifted on a white pony beside him, they
rode away to the Castle of Carrickfergus.

Ulster was in the fourteenth century, as it still is
in the nineteenth, in a much more settled, and to
English eyes a more civilised condition, than the Milesian
parts of Ireland: but even there, that hatred of rent
which seems characteristic of the Irish race, flourished
quite as luxuriantly as now.  Fifty years before this
date, Maud of Lancaster, the girl-widow of the
murdered Earl of Ulster, and great-grandmother of
little Roger, had been constrained to address piteous
appeals to King Edward III. for his charity, on
the ground that while nominally possessed of large
property, she had really nothing to live upon, since
her Irish tenants would not pay their rents.

The English mind, which is apt to pride itself upon
its steady-going, law-abiding tendencies, was much
exercised with this Irish peculiarity, which it could
not understand at all.  Why a man should not pay
rent for land which the law affirmed was not his own,
and what possible objection he could have to doing
so beyond a wish to keep his money in his pocket,
was wholly unintelligible to the Saxon mind, which
never comprehended that passionate love for the soil,
that blind clinging to the homestead, which are
characteristic of the Celt.  Those who have those qualities,
among our now mixed race, whatever their known
pedigree be, may rest assured that Celtic blood—whether
British, Gaelic, or Erse—has entered their
veins from some quarter.

The Irish, on their part, were for ever looking back
to that day when they were lords of the soil, before
the foot of the stranger had ever pressed the turf of
the Green Isle.  It was the land which they yearned
to emancipate rather than themselves.  In Celtic
eyes a monarch is king of the land, and the people
who dwell on it are merely adventitious coincidences:
in Saxon eyes he is king of the people, and the land
is simply the piece of matter which holds the people
in obedience to the law of gravitation.  The latter
must necessarily be an emigrating and colonising
race: the former as certainly, by the very nature of
things, must feel subjection to a foreign nation an
intolerable yoke, and exile one of the bitterest
penalties that can be visited on man.  How are these two
types of mind ever to understand each other?

It has been well said that "there is not only one
Mediator between God and man, but also one
Mediator between man and man, the Man Christ Jesus."  Never,
as Man, was a truer patriot, and yet never was
a more thorough cosmopolitan, than He whose eyes
as God are always upon the Land of Israel, and who
hath loved Zion.  Can we not all learn of Him, and
bear with each other till the day comes when we
shall see eye to eye—when there shall be one nation
upon the mountains of Israel, and one King over all
the earth,—one flock, and one Shepherd?





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CAST ON THE WORLD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III.


.. class:: center medium bold

   CAST ON THE WORLD.

..

   |  "But He who feeds the ravens young
   |    Lets naething pass He disna see,
   |  He'll some time judge o' richt and wrang,
   |    And aye provide for you and me."
   |                          —JAMES HOGG.

.. vspace:: 2

"Would it please your good Lordship to stand
still but one minute?"

"No, Wenteline, it wouldn't."  And little
Roger twisted himself out of the hands which were
vainly endeavouring to smoothe down his vest of
violet velvet embroidered in silver, and to fasten it
round the waist with a richly-chased silver belt.

"Then, when my gracious Lord sends Master
Constantine for your Lordship, am I to say you will
not be donned, so you cannot go down to hall?"

"Thou canst say what it list thee.  I want to play
at soldiers with Lolly."

"So shall your Lordship when you be donned,"
answered Guenllian firmly.

Little Roger looked up into her face, and seeing
no relenting, broke into a merry little laugh, and
resigned himself to the inevitable.

"Oh, come then, make haste!"

Vanity was not among Roger's failings, and
impatience very decidedly was.  Guenllian obeyed her
little charge's bidding, and in a few minutes released
him from bondage.  He rewarded her with a hurried
kiss, and scampered off into the ante-chamber, calling
out,—

"Lolly, Lolly, come and play at soldiers!"

The two boys, master and servant, were very fond
of each other.  This was the more remarkable since
not only their temperaments, but their tastes, were
diverse.  Roger liked noise and show, was lively,
impulsive, ardent: he had no particular love for
lessons, and no capacity for sitting still.  Lawrence
was grave and calm, gifted with an insatiable thirst
for knowledge, and of a quiet, almost indolent
physical temperament.  The one point on which
their tastes met was a liking for music; and even in
this case Roger delighted in stirring martial strains,
while Lawrence preferred soft and plaintive airs.
Playing at soldiers, therefore, was rather in Roger's
line than in Lawrence's: but the latter never dreamed
of setting his will in antagonism to that of his master.
The game had gone on for about half an hour
when a young man of twenty presented himself at
the door of the ante-chamber.  He was clad in a blue
tunic reaching nearly to the knee, and girded with a
black belt round the hips, studded with gold; a red
hood encircled his neck; his stockings were diverse,
the right being of the same shade as the hood, and
the left of green stripped with black.  Low black
shoes, with very pointed toes, completed his costume.

"Now, Master Constantine, you may go away.  I
want nought with you," shouted little Roger, still
struggling with Lawrence, whom he had almost forced
into a corner.

"Please it your Lordship," returned Master
Constantine with an amused smile, "I want somewhat
with you.  My gracious Lord hath sent me to fetch
you to hall."

"O you bad man, you have spoiled my fun!"
cried little Roger.  "I had nearly won the battle.—Come
along then, Lolly, we will make an end at after.
Draw off the troops—right about face!  March!"

A smile broke over the somewhat weary face of
the Viceroy, when, two minutes later, his little son
came marching into the hall, shouldering his toy
spear, and followed by Lawrence, who carried a long
stick in a manner similar as to position, but dissimilar
as to the appearance of interest.  At the edge of the
dalts Lawrence dropped his stick, made a low bow to
his master, and retreated among the household beneath.
Roger bounded on the daïs, kissed his father's hand,
and squatted himself down—for half a minute—on a
hassock at the Earl's feet.  The father's hand lingered
tenderly among the fair curls on the boy's head.

"Little Roger," he said, "I have somewhat to tell thee."

"Is it a battle?" exclaimed Roger eagerly.

His father laughed.  "Of a truth, thou art cut out
for a soldier, my lad.  Nay, 'tis not a battle; it is a
journey."

"Shall I take a journey?"

"Not yet a while.  Perchance, some day.  But
what sayest?  Canst do without me for a month or
twain?"

"Whither go you, my Lord?"

"I set forth for Cork this next Wednesday."

"Where's Cork?"

"There shall be nigh all Ireland between us, little
Roger."

"But musn't I go?" said Roger in a very disappointed
tone.

"Not yet a while," repeated his father.  "Cork is
wilder by far than Antrim.  I must ensure me first
that it shall be safe to have thee.  If so be, I may
send for thee in time."

"But must I be all alone?" demanded the child in
a changed tone.

"All alone—with Wenteline and Master Byterre
and Lawrence—for a little while.  Then thou shalt
either come to me, or go back to my Lady thy
grandmother."

"Oh, let me come to your Lordship!  I love not
women!" cried Roger, with the usual want of
gallantry of small boys.

"In very deed, I am shocked!" said the Earl, with
a twinkle of amusement in his eyes which made more
impression on Roger than the accompanying words.
"Howbeit, we shall see.  Thou shouldst dearly love thy
grandmother, Roger, for she loveth thee right well."

"Oh aye, I love her all right!—but women wit
nought of war and knighthood, and such like.  They
think you be good if you sit still and stare on a book.
And that is monks' gear, not soldiers'.  I am a
soldier."

"Art thou, forsooth?" responded the Earl with a
laugh.  "Thou shalt be one day, maybe.  Now, my
doughty warrior, run to thy nurse.  I have ado with
these gentlemen."

Two years had passed when this dialogue took
place, since little Roger came from Wigmore to
Ireland.  He was growing a bright boy, still not
particularly fond of study, but less averse to it than
he had been, and developing a strong taste for
military matters, and for the lighter accomplishments.
He danced and sang well for his age, and was learning
to play the cithern or guitar.  He rode fearlessly,
was a great climber and leaper, and considering his
years a good archer, and a first-rate player of chess,
foot-ball, club-ball (cricket), hand-tennis (fives), mall
battledore and shuttlecock, and tables or back-gammon.
As to drawing, nobody ever dreamed of teaching
that to a medieval noble.  The three Rs were also
progressing fairly for a boy in the fourteenth century.

The small household left at Carrickfergus had but
a dull time of it after the Earl had ridden away for
Cork.  Two months, and half of a third, dragged
wearily along, and not a word came from either Cork
or Wigmore.  The third month was drawing to its
close when, late one snowy winter night, the faint
sound of a horn announced the approach of visitors.

"The saints give it maybe my Lord!" exclaimed
Constantine Byterre, who was as weary of comparative
solitude as a lively young man could well be.

The drawbridge was thrown across, the portcullis
pulled up, and Sir Thomas Mortimer rode into the
courtyard, followed by Reginald de Pageham and
various other members of the Earl's household.
They had evidently ridden a long way, for their
horses were exceedingly jaded.

"How does my Lord Roger?" were the first
words of Sir Thomas, and the porter perceived that
he was either very tired, or very sad.

"Well, sweet Sir: in his bed, as a child should be
at this hour."

"Thank God!  Bid Mistress Wenteline down to
hall, for I must speak with her quickly."

"Sweet Sir, I pray you of your grace, is aught ill?"

"Very ill indeed, good Alan."  But Sir Thomas
did not explain himself until Guenllian appeared.

It was necessary to rouse her gently, since she slept
in little Roger's chamber, and Sir Thomas had given
orders that if possible he should not be disturbed.
Fearing she knew not what, Guenllian wrapped
herself in a thick robe, and descended to the hall.

"Mistress, I give you good greeting: and I do
you to wit right heavy tidings, for Lord Edmund the
Earl lieth dead in Cork Castle."

A low cry of pain and horror broke from Guenllian.

"Surely not slain of the wild men?"

"In no wise.  He died a less glorious death, for
he took ill rheum, fording the Lee, and in five days
therefrom he was no more."

It was as natural for a Lollard as for any other to
respond, "Whose soul God pardon!"

"Amen," said Sir Thomas, crossing himself.  "I
trust you, mistress mine, to break these tidings to the
young Earl.  Have here my dead Lord's token"—and
he held forth a chased gold ring.  "I am bidden,
if it shall stand with the King's pleasure, to have
back his little Lordship to my Lady his grandmother
at Wigmore."

"Poor child!" said Guenllian tremulously.  "Poor child!"

"Aye, 'tis sad news for him," was the answer.
"Yet childre's grief lasteth not long.  Methought,
good my mistress, it were as well he should not hear
it until the morrow."

"Trust me, Sir.  It were cruelty to wake a child
up to such news.  Aye, but I am woe for my little
child!  Mereckoneth he were not one to grow up well
without a father—and without mother belike!  The
morrow's tears shall be the least part of his sorrow."

"Ah, well!  God must do His will," replied Sir
Thomas in a fatalistic manner.

To him, God's will was only another term for what
a heathen would have styled inevitable destiny.  In
connection with the expression, he no more thought
of God as a real, living, loving Personality, than he
would have thought of Destiny in like manner.  It
was simply as an impalpable but invincible law that
had to take its course.  But on Guenllian's ear the
expression came with a wholly different meaning.
That Almighty Being who to the one was merely the
embodiment of stern fate, was to the other at once
God and Father—the incarnation of all wisdom and
of all love.  It was His will that little Roger should
be left fatherless.  Then it was the best thing that
He could do for him: and He would be Himself the
child's Father.  The very thought which was the
worst part of the sorrow to the one was the greatest
alleviation of it to the other.

Little Roger's grief was according to his
character—intense, but not abiding.  Novelty had for him the
charm which it has for all children; and he soon
began to look forward to the coming journey to
England, and the meeting with his grandmother, and
with his brother and sisters, who had been left in her
care.  But before the journey could be taken, the
royal assent and formal licence were an absolute
necessity.  By the death of the Earl, the viceroyalty
devolved on his successor in the earldom until a fresh
appointment was made; and the Viceroy must not
leave his post except under leave of the Sovereign.
Master Richard Byterre, squire of the late Earl, was
sent to England to tell the news, and obtain the
necessary authorisation, and until his return the
household at Carrickfergus was occupied in quietly
preparing for the change which was about to come
upon it.

But before the return of Byterre, Reginald de
Pyrpount arrived from England with the heaviest
news of all.

The coffin of the Earl had been taken by sea
direct from Cork to Milford Haven, and thence to
Wigmore.  Perhaps too suddenly, the tidings of the
death of her last child were broken to the widowed
mother.  She came down into the hall of the Castle,
whither the Coffin had been carried: the lid was
lifted, and she gazed long and earnestly on the face
of her dead: but through it all she never shed a tear.
When she had regained her own rooms, her squire
asked if it were her pleasure that the funeral should
be proceeded with on the next day.

"Nay, not all so soon," was the answer.  "Wait
but a little, and ye shall bear my coffin too."

Despite all the efforts of her anxious suite, the
Countess Philippa refused to be comforted.  She
would go down, into the grave unto her son, mourning.
She took to her bed on the second day.  Her
confessor came to reason with her.

"This is not well, Lady," said he.  "You are a
rebellious subject unto your heavenly King—a child
that will not kiss the Father's rod.  Submit you to
Him, and be at peace."

"Not a rebel, Father," answered the low pathetic
voice.  "Only a child too tired to work any more.
Let me go to Him that calleth me."

"But there is much for you to live for, Lady——"
resumed the confessor, but she interrupted him.

"I know.  And I would have lived if I could.  I
would have lived for my little Roger.  But I cannot,
Father.  Heart and brain and life are tired out.  God
must have a care of my little child.  I am too weary
to tend him.  Let me go!"

They had to let her go.  On the evening of
the third day, with one deep sigh as of relief
in the ending of the struggle, she laid down the
weary weight of life, and went to Him who had
called her.

The House of Mortimer of March was represented
by those four lonely little children, of whom the eldest
was only nine years old.  It seemed as if every vestige
of a shield for the tender plants was to be taken away
and they were to be exposed to the full fury of the
winter blasts.

For a whole year little Roger was detained at
Carrickfergus, nominal Viceroy of Ireland, with his future
still undetermined.  This was not the fault of the
King, a boy only just fifteen years of age; but of the
commission of Regency which governed in his name.
At the end of that time orders came from Westminster.

Sir Thomas Mortimer was to bring home the little
Viceroy, to receive his exoneration from the arduous
honour which had been thrust upon him, and to
deliver him to the Earl of Arundel, whose ward he
had been made, and with whom he was to reside till
his majority.  To Sir Thomas this news was
indifferent: he desired the child's welfare, which, as he
understood it, was likely to be well secured by this
arrangement.  But as Guenllian understood it, there
was fair chance of the boy's ruin.  If there were in
the world one layman more than another who hated
Wycliffe and Lollardism from the centre of his soul,
it was that Earl of Arundel to whom Roger's future
education was thus entrusted.  And the astute
statesman who was really—not ostensibly—the ruler of
England, knew this quite as well as she did.  This
was Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest and
cleverest of the sons of Edward III.  And we have
now arrived at a point in our story which makes it
necessary to interpose a few words upon the state of
politics at that time.

The King, as has just been said, was a mere boy,
and the reins of power were in the hands of his three
uncles.  Of these Princes, the one whom nature and
fortune alike pointed out as the leader was the eldest,
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.  And had he
really taken the lead, the disastrous reign of Richard
II. might, humanly speaking, have ended very
differently.  His next brother, Edmund, Duke of York,
was so extremely weak in mind as to be little better
than half-witted, and was entirely under the control
of whoever chose to control him.  The youngest, of
whom I have spoken above, was clever in the worst
sense of that word: but the only man whom he
feared was his brother John, and had John chosen
he might have reduced the active wickedness of
Thomas to a point of merely nominal value.  He did
not choose.  Never was a finer character more completely
rendered useless and inert by moral indolence;
never were such magnificent opportunities of serving
God and man more utterly wasted—than in the case
of John of Gaunt.

The word "moral" is used advisedly.  Of physical
or mental indolence he had none.  His greatest
delight, on his own authority, was "to hear of gallant
deeds of arms" or to perform them: and few, even of
royal blood, were more thoroughly well educated and
accomplished according to the standard of his day.
But all was spoiled by this moral indolence—this
*laissez faire* which would take no trouble.  Too much
has been said of the libertinism of John of Gaunt.
He was not a man of pure life; but he was not so
bad as he is usually supposed to have been.  Yet in
one point he was a perfect rehearsal of Charles the
Second—that so-called "sauntering," which I have
termed moral indolence, and which it is said that
Charles loved better than he ever loved any human
being.  And in the case of John of Gaunt it is the
sadder to relate, because he had more perfect
knowledge of the way of righteousness than most of those
around him.  The one instance in which he broke
through the bonds of his besetting sin was in order
to stand by John Wycliffe in the hour of persecution.
Oh, how terrible is the reckoning for him who was
not ignorant, who was not even in doubt of the
right—who knew his Lord's will, and did it not!

In consequence of this sad lapse, the reins of power
fell into the hands of Gloucester.  And Gloucester
was one of those men who know how to wait, to
feel the pulse of circumstances, and when the right
moment comes, to strike a decisive blow.  How far
he ever loved any one may be doubtful: but that he
was a splendid hater is beyond all doubt.  There
were a few men whom he trusted and favoured; and
of these—with one exception, the chief of them—was
Richard Earl of Arundel.

The wardship of little Roger Mortimer would much
more naturally have been given to one of his only
adult relatives—his two grand-uncles, William, Earl
of Salisbury, and Sir John de Montacute.  But in the
eyes of Gloucester, no Montacute was a person to be
trusted.  The family were by tradition favourers of
the Boin-Homines—or, in other words, among the
Protestants of that period.  And Gloucester was a
"black Papist."  It is true that the Earl of Salisbury
was an exception to the family rule in this particular:
but it did not suit Gloucester's views to allow little
Roger to reside in his house.  He had a wife whose
mother was one of the most prominent Lollards of
the day: and he was himself much under the
influence of the Lollard Princess of Wales, whom he
had loved in her brilliant youth.  His surroundings,
therefore, were dubious.  And deep down in Gloucester's
crafty brain lay a scheme in which poor little
Roger was to be chief actor, and if he were brought
up as a Lollard there would be very little hope of
utilising him for it.  He must be made the ward of
somebody who would diligently cultivate any sparks
of ambition latent in his mind, who would give him a
bias in favour of his uncle Gloucester personally, and
against the King, and who would teach him to hate
Lollardism.  So the child was consigned to the care
of the Earl of Arundel, and to make surety doubly
sure, was solemnly affianced to his daughter.

A very clever Jesuit is recorded to have said, "Let
me have the education of a child till he is seven years
old, and you may have him for the rest of his life."  The
child thus plotted against had passed the test
age.  It might have been thought that his ruin was
sure.  But graven deep down in that fervent heart,
below all the digging of Gloucester and his
myrmidons, lay the mottoes of Philippa Montacute: and
no efforts of theirs would ever efface that graving.
"*Un Dieu, un Roy*"—and "*Fais ce que doy*."  They
were a hedge of God's planting around the tender
shoot.  He seemed to have said to the enemy,
"Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his moral life."

It was a bitter sorrow to Guenllian that the Earl
of Arundel gave her a civil *congé*.  He had not the
least doubt that she would be invaluable to the
younger children: he could not think of depriving
them of her.  And little Roger would be amply
provided with care.  The Countess herself would see
to him.

Guenllian was not reassured.  The Countess was
one of those soft, languid, placid, India-rubber women
who would lay aside a novel deliberately if they knew
that their children were in danger of drowning.  She
was not fit to bring up Guenllian's darling!  She
pleaded with the Earl piteously to allow her to
remain with the child.  She was sure the old
Countess would have wished it.  The Earl inquired if she
had made any actual promise to this effect.  In so
many words, Guenllian could not say that she had:
but that the tacit understanding had existed she
knew full well.  And she had distinctly promised
that Roger should read constantly and diligently in
the French Bible.  The Earl assured her with an
insinuating smile that there was not the least
difficulty about that.  He had a French Bible, and read
it.  Just then, Lollardism was walking in silver
slippers, and the Bible was ranked among fashionable
literature.  Guenllian knew well that the reading
with and without her would be two very different
things.  There would be all the difference in them
between a living man and an automaton.  But she
was powerless.  The matter was out of her hands.
She must let her darling go.

She lifted up her soul as she turned away.

"Lord, they cannot bar Thee out of Arundel
Castle! go with this child of many prayers!  Teach
him Thyself, and then he will be taught: save him,
and he will be saved!  Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did He,—in heaven and in the earth and in the
sea, and in all deep places.  Let them curse, but
bless Thou!"

And so, having touched the hem of Christ's
garment, Guenllian went in peace.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WHAT CAME OF SELF-WILL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   WHAT CAME OF SELF-WILL.

..

   |  "Are not the worst things that befal us here,
   |  That seem devoid of meaning, or contain
   |  The least of love and beauty, those from which
   |  The heavenly Alchemist extracts the gold
   |  That makes us rich?"
   |                    —REV. HORATIUS BONAR.

.. vspace:: 2

It was not in the old Castle in Sussex, the
ancient home of the Earls of Arundel, that
little Roger Mortimer found his home at first.
The Earl was about to reside for a time in Town.
His city residence, Bermondsey House, was situated
on Fish Wharf, near to that delicious part of the
City of London now known as Billingsgate.  It may
be safely asserted that no member of the English
peerage would be likely to select this locality in the
present day for the site of his town house.  But, five
hundred years ago, matters were very different, and
the banks of the river near London Bridge were
pleasant and airy places.  This was, in fact, a
fashionable part of the City: and here the premier
Earl of England held his court, almost rivalling that
of the sovereign in costliness and magnificence.
Little Roger, for the past year a comparatively
lonely child, found himself suddenly transported into
the midst of a large and lively family.  Liveliness was
not, indeed, a characteristic of the Countess, a near
relative of Roger, for her father and his grandfather
were sons of one mother.  She was a calm,
imperturbable specimen of humanity, who spoke, moved,
and thought, in a slow, self-complacent style, which
would have sent an impatient person into a passion.

The Earl was almost the antipodes of his wife.
The Fitzalans of Arundel were anything but faultless
persons as a rule, but too much slowness and caution
were assuredly not among their failings.  He was an
extremely clever man, gifted with much originality
of conception, as well as talent in execution: not
unamiable to those whom he loved, but capable of
intense harshness, and even cruelty, where he hated.
Energetic even to passion in everything which he
did, a "whole man" to the one thing at the one
moment, capable of seeing very far into that which
he chose to see, but of being totally blind to that
which he did not.  Richard, Earl of Arundel, was one
of the last men to whom such a charge as Roger
Mortimer ought to have been entrusted.

The family of this dissimilar pair amounted to five
in number when little Roger joined them.  These
were, Richard, a youth of sixteen years; John, aged
fourteen; Elizabeth, aged ten, and already married
to Roger's cousin, William de Montacute; Alice,
aged five; and Joan, aged three.  Both the boys
were too old for Roger to feel much sympathy with
them, or they with him; while the girls, both as
being younger, and as being girls, were in his eyes
beneath his notice.  He therefore remained a speckled
bird in the family, instead of amalgamating with it;
a fact which drew him closer, despite all inequalities
of position, to the one boy whom he did like,
Lawrence Madison, the only one of his old acquaintances
who was permitted to accompany him to
Bermondsey House.  The Earl had meant to cut all
the old ties; but little Roger pleaded hard for the
retention of Lawrence, alleging truthfully that he
played at soldiers with him.  It was just because
this one item was so utterly insignificant that the
Earl permitted it to escape the general doom: and
thereby, little as he knew it, rendered inoperative
all the rest of his cautionary arrangements.  It was
Lawrence who helped Roger more than any one else
to keep true to his grandmother's early teaching.
When Roger went astray, Lawrence either refused
aid altogether, or went only so far as he thought
right, and then stood like a granite rock, immovable
by commands or entreaties.  When the former was
less obstinate, and more capable of being influenced,
the look of earnest remonstrance in Lawrence's eyes
or even his disapproving silence, were often enough
to turn away the versatile and sensitive mind of
Roger from a project of doubtful character.  The
little servant did not appear to care for hard epithets,
passionate words, or even blows, to which naughty
Roger sometimes descended when his temper got
the better of him: but he did care deeply to see his
little master do right and grow wiser.  The influence
of the young Arundels—which was small, since
Roger never liked any of them—was often bad, and
always doubtful: but Lawrence could be relied upon
as a force ever on the side of right, or at least of that
which he believed to be so.

It was Alice, the little girl of five years old, who
had been solemnly affianced to young Roger Mortimer.
She was the only one of the children who in character
resembled her mother, nor was this resemblance
perfect.  It made her physically idle, and mentally
dull; but it did not save her from that moral intensity
which was the characteristic of the Arundel family.
In her, instead of expending itself in mental and
physical energy as it did with most of them, it formed
a most unhappy combination with those features
inherited from her mother.  Passionate with a passion
which was weakness and not strength, with an energy
which was destructive and not constructive, with a
capacity for loving which centred in herself, and a
perversity of will which only served to lead astray,
she went to wreck early, a boat with no compass and
no rudder.  It was well for Roger Mortimer that
however men might think to order his future life,
God had not destined Alice of Arundel for him.

It is scarcely necessary to say that notwithstanding
the unction wherewith the Earl had expatiated to
Guenllian on his possession of a French Bible, he did
not see the least necessity for bringing Roger in
contact with that volume.  He had indeed come
upon certain passages therein which he theoretically
regarded with reverence as "good words," but which
he was nevertheless far from elevating into rules for
his daily conduct.  It never occurred to him that his
Bible and his life had anything to do with one
another.  He would have thought it as reasonable to
regulate his diet by the particular clothes he wore,
as to guide his actions by that compilation of
"excellent matter" upon which he looked as supremely
uninteresting and hardly intended for laymen.

About a week had elapsed since Roger became an
inmate of the Earl's household.  He and Lawrence
slept in a small turret chamber, with a young priest,
by name Sir Gerard de Stanhope, whom the Earl
had appointed governor of his youthful ward.  The
boys, who went to bed earlier than the governor,
very frequently employed the interval before his
arrival, not in sleep, but in confidential conversation—the
rather since it was the only time of day when
they could talk together without fear of being overheard.

"Lolly!" said Roger on the night in question.
He lay in a blue silk bed embroidered with red and
gold griffins; Lawrence in a little plain trundle-bed
which was pushed under the larger one in the day-time.

"My Lord?" obediently responded Lawrence.

"How doth this place like thee?"

"Please it your Lordship, it liketh me reasonable
well," answered Lawrence, in a tone even less decisive
than the words.

"It liketh me unreasonable ill," returned Roger in
a voice wherein no want of decision could be traced.

"What ails you thereat, my Lord?"

"Lolly, I like nobody here but thee."

"That grudgeth me, my Lord."  By which
Lawrence meant to say that he was sorry to hear it.
"Loves not your Lordship neither my Lord nor my
Lady?"

"My Lord's a big lion, and they sometimes bite
and claw you.  And my Lady's a hen, and all she
cares for is to snuggle her in the sand and cluck.
Beside, she's a woman, and women be no good.  I
would there had been some lads."

"So there be, saving your Lordship's pleasure."

"They aren't lads, they are men.  My Lord
Richard were not so ill, if he were younger, but he is
a grown man: and as to my Lord John, he doth
nought but make mowes[#] at me.  I tell thee, Lolly,
there is nobody here, out-taken[#] thyself, that I would
buy for a farthing."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Grimaces.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Except.

.. vspace:: 2

"Truly, I am sorry your Lordship is of such ill cheer."

"Lolly, what was it—didst hear?—that my Lord
spake to Sir Gerard, mighty low, when thou and I
were going forth of the chamber this morrow?"

"I heard not all of it," said Lawrence.  "Only
it was somewhat touching Mistress Wenteline, that
had desired your Lordship to be well learned in the
French Bible."

"Doth he look to cause me learn long tasks thereout
by heart?" asked Roger, with a wry face.  "I
reckoned thou shouldst hear, for thou wert nearer
than I."

"In no wise, my Lord, so far as I might hear, for
he bade Sir Gerard have a care you touched it not."

"Then I'll read it right through!" cried Roger
with childish perversity.  "That cannot be an ill
deed, for my Lady my grandmother was set to have
me do the same."

Lawrence made no reply.

Though nothing on earth would have drawn the
confession from him, yet for all his expressed
contempt for women, little Roger sorely missed Guenllian.
She had been his virtual mother for so long that,
suddenly deprived of her, he felt like a chicken
roughly taken from under the brooding wings of the
hen.  He was far more inclined to respect her wishes
than he would have been had she remained with
him: and there was also a certain zest added by the
instinctive knowledge that what was good in the
eyes of Guenllian was not unlikely to be bad in those
of my Lord Arundel.  Little Roger felt as if he had
the pleasure of doing wrong, without the conscientious
reaction which usually followed.

The impulsive little mind was made up that he
would read that French Bible.  That it was locked
up in a tall press, at least four feet above his reach,
was rather an additional incentive than a hindrance.
To be always on the watch for a possible leaving
about of the keys formed an object in life; and the
subsequent scaling of the shelves like a cat was
decidedly a pleasure to be anticipated.  The keys
were in charge of Sir Gerard, who was the Earl's
librarian; and he put them every night beneath his
pillow.  He need not have taken the precaution, so
far as Roger was concerned; for to possess himself
of the keys by theft would have been utterly
dishonourable and unchivalrous in the eyes of the future
knight.  Yet with odd inconsistency—are we not all
guilty of that at times?—he had no such scruple as
to possessing himself of the Bible, if he could only
find the keys.  But weeks went on, and this
hoped-for discovery had not been made.

It came suddenly at last, when one morning the
Earl had occasion to send for Sir Gerard in haste, at
a moment when that gentleman, having just finished
his dressing, was about to put the usual contents into
his pockets.  He left the articles lying on the table,
and hurriedly obeyed the summons: which he had
no sooner done than the small Earl of March pounced
upon the keys.  He had been watching the process
with considerable fluttering of his little heart; the
next moment the key of the press was slipped off
the ring, and was safe at the bottom of his pocket.
Lawrence looked on with very doubtful eyes, the
expression of which was easily read by Roger.

"Now, Loll, hold thy peace!" said he, though
Lawrence had not uttered a word.  "I must have it,
and I will!"

It will easily be surmised that Roger's ambition
involved no particular desire of learning, least of all
the study of divinity.  The delight of outwitting the
Earl and Sir Gerard was great; and the pleasure of
doing something that Guenllian and his grandmother
had wished him to do, deprived the action of all
wrong in his eyes, and added to it a sentimental zest.
Had the two motives been weighed in a balance, the
first would have proved the heavier.

The press containing the Bible stood in a large room
which opened off the hall.  The expedition to secure
it must remain a future gratification for the present.
If only Sir Gerard would not miss the key!  Was it safe
to carry it in Roger's pocket?  Roger consulted Lawrence,
who agreed with him that it was a serious risk to
run.  He advised its restoration, but to that hypothesis
his young master would not listen for a moment.

The study of the garden wall now became sensationally
interesting; likewise of sundry old trees
within the enclosure.  The alternatives seemed to
have equal chances of adoption, when a little hole was
discovered in the wall, at the further end of the
garden, delightfully hidden by a small loose stone
which just fitted nicely into the crevice.  The key
was safely concealed, and Roger, with the most
angelic innocence of face, returned to the house to
repeat his Latin lesson to Sir Gerard.

Roger had been taught that to hide any thing
from his confessor was a sin of the most deadly type.
Conveniently for him, his confessor was not his tutor
Sir Gerard, but the Earl's family chaplain, Friar
Thomas Ashbourne, a fat sleepy old priest, who
never inflicted a penance that he could help, and was
more frequently than not employed in mental
wool-gathering during the process of confession, merely
waking up to pronounce the absolution at the close.
It was not at all difficult to get on the blind side of
this comfortable official, especially if a morning could
be selected when his thoughts were likely to be
preoccupied with some subject interesting to himself.

Roger, having a very good idea what interested
Dan Thomas, laid a trap to catch him for the next
occasion of shrift.  In order to do this, he had first
to catch the cook: and for that purpose, he must
angle with the master of the household, who happily
for his object was a good-natured man, and liked
children.  Running through a gallery with the hope
of discovering him, he nearly fell over the person for
whom he was searching.

"Nay, now! what make you here, my Lord?"

"O Master Wynkfeld!  I was a-looking for you.
Pray you, let us have a capon endored[#] this even for
supper, with *sauce Madame*."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Larded.

.. vspace:: 2

The master of the household laughed.  "At your
Lordship's pleasure.  I wist not you loved capon so
dear."

Nor did he: but Dan Thomas did.  Little Roger
stood on tiptoe, and pulled down the master to
whisper in his ear.

"Look you, Dan Thomas loveth a capon thus
dressed, and I would have him do a thing for me
that I wot of."

"Oho! is that it?" laughed the master.  "Then
be your Lordship assured Dan Thomas shall have
the capon."

"With *sauce Madame*, look you!"

"With *sauce Madame*: good."

"But don't you tell!"

"Tell!  Not I," responded the amused and good-humoured
master: and little Roger scampered off.

An hour later, my Lord of March was summoned
to be shriven.  Having knelt down in the confessional,
and gabbled over the formal prelude to the effect
that he confessed his sins, not only to God, but to
the most blessed Lady St. Mary, to my Lord
St. John the Baptist, my Lords Saints Peter and Paul,
and all the saints and saintesses in Heaven, little
Roger added at the conclusion, all in a breath, as if
it were part of the *Confiteor*,—

"Father, I begged Master Wynkfeld to have for
supper a capon endored, with *sauce Madame*, by reason
I knew you loved it thus."

"That shall scantly be amongst thy sins, my son,"
answered Friar Thomas, jovially.  "I thank thee:
but keep thee now to the matter in hand."

Roger was doing that much more strictly than
was ever supposed by Friar Thomas, who was the
most unsuspicious of men.  He proceeded at once
to the catalogue of his sins, satisfied that they would
now receive small attention from the confessor.  In
silence, with as much rapidity and in as low a voice
as he dared without exciting suspicion, Roger accused
himself of having taken a key from the table and
hidden it in the wall.  What key it was, he was not
careful to state; if the confessor wished to know
that, he could ask him the question.  But at this
point Roger's heart gave a bound, for he was asked
a question.

"Thou hiddest *what* in the wall?"

"A key," mumbled Roger.

"A pea!" repeated the Friar, misunderstanding
him, and not having much care to investigate.  "No
need to confess such like small matter, my son.
Didst thou name *sauce Madame* to Master Wynkfeld?"

"Oh yes, Father, twice over!" answered Roger
eagerly.

"Good lad.  Now keep thee to thy confession."

Which Roger diligently did for the rest of the
time, and then, absolved and "clean shriven," ran
back to Lawrence in the highest glee.

"Now, Lolly, my sins be all clean gone.  Go thou
to shrift, and get rid of thine; and then, as soon as
ever we can, we'll have yon big book."

It was about a week later that the desired
opportunity at last occurred.  The Earl had carried away
Sir Gerard—for what purpose Roger neither knew
nor cared—and he and Lawrence had been bidden to
play in the press-chamber, and be good boys till they
were called to supper.  No sooner were they safely
shut in than Roger indulged in a gleeful chuckle.

"Look, Lolly!" said he, holding up the key.  "I
heard my Lord say to my Lady that he should not
be home ere supper-time, and I thought we might
have luck, so I ran and fetched the key.  Now for it!
Set me that settle under the press."

"But your Lordship cannot climb up yonder!"
responded Lawrence, as he obeyed.

"I can do what I will!" said Roger stubbornly.
"Nay, but look how the press boweth outward!
How shall you pass the same?"

The press, which was itself of wood, was built into
the wall, in such a manner that the upper half
projected further than the lower.

"Dost think a wooden press shall master *me*?  I'll
show him I'm his master!"

Roger sprang upon the settle, set one foot upon a
carved boss, and climbed up with sufficient agility till
he was stopped by the projection.  No efforts could
get him any higher.  He returned to the settle,
looking considerably discomfited.

"I'll have it yet!" said he.  "See, Lolly—if I
could catch yonder great brass rod that sticketh out,
I am sicker[#] I could climb up by that I shall jump
for it."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Certain.

.. vspace:: 2

"Eh, good lack! do not so, my Lord! you shall
hurt yourself greatly, if you have not a care."

"Thou go whistle for a fair wind!  Here goes!"  And
little Roger, gathering all his forces, gave a
wild upward leap from the settle, intent on catching
the brass rod which was part of the ornamentation
of the press, and was not very firmly fixed.  To
Lawrence's surprise, he caught it; but the next
moment the end of the rod came out in his hand,
and the natural result followed.  Down came the
rod, and down came Roger, overturning the settle,
and bringing his head into violent contact with the
floor.  There he lay stunned, with Lawrence looking
at him in a terrible fright.

"Gramercy, what a to-do is here!" said the voice
of Master Salveyn at the door.  "Were ye not bidden
be good lads til!——  Mercy, Saint Mary! my Lord
bleeds!  How happened this?"

Lawrence tremblingly replied that he had been
climbing, and had fallen.  His own nerves had
received a much worse shock than those of Salveyn.

"Good lack, will lads ever be out of mischief?"
demanded that gentleman.  "Shut them up in a
chamber where you should think none ill could hap
them short of earth-moving,[#] and ere you shall well have
turned your back, they shall be killing either
themselves or one another!  Run thou to call Mistress
Grenestede, while I bear my young Lord to his chamber."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Earthquake.

.. vspace:: 2

Lawrence rushed off for the middle-aged and
useful person in question, the children's nurse,
governess, prescriber, chemist, confectioner, and general
factotum: and in a few minutes Roger was laid in
bed, and Mistress Grenestede was bathing his injured
head with warm water.  She improved the occasion
by giving a lecture to Lawrence—who did not need
it—on imprudence and rashness.  But when time
went on, and her little patient did not return to
consciousness, Mistress Grenestede began to look
uneasy.  A whispered consultation with Salveyn
resulted in the sending of a varlet on some errand.
Another half-hour elapsed without change, and then
Lawrence, standing beside his master's bed, half
hidden by the curtain, heard somebody say, "He is
come."  A step forward to enable him to see who it
was, and a smothered exclamation of pleasure broke
from him.  Master Salveyn was ushering in a priest
in long black robe—all physicians were priests at
that date—and though the new-comer failed to
recognise Lawrence, the boy knew him.

"Father Robesart!  God be thanked!"

The priest heard him, and turned towards him.

"Who art thou, my son?"

Lawrence's delight overcame his shyness.

"Father Robesart, wit you not me?  I am Lawrence,
son of Nicholas, tanner, in the huts at Usk, that
went away these two years gone.  I bade you farewell
in the church aisle, and you blessed me, and told me
I should pass word to you never to go any whither
that I had not first asked our Lord to be with me."

"Good, my son.  I remember thee now, and will
have more talk with thee anon.  Now let me look
on the sick child.  Is it my little Lord of March?"

"That is he, good Father."

"How gat he this hurt?"

Mistress Grenestede and Master Salveyn knew so
little about it that Lawrence was called forward to
say what he knew.  His instinct told him that it
would be best to confess the whole truth to Father
Robesart, which he did, thereby calling up a look
on the face of his old friend which was a mixture
of amusement and pity.

"Poor child!" he said softly, when Lawrence's
story was told,—rather astonishing Mistress Grenestede,
that one of the first nobles in England should
be thought or called a poor child.

"Please it you, Father, did my Lord a wrong
thing herein?" asked Lawrence, timidly.

"I fear he did, my son."

Mr. Robesart said no more, but proceeded to his
professional duties.  When he had finished his
examination of the patient, and had given his instructions
to Mistress Grenestede—which involved some learned
references to the occultation of certain beneficent
planets by malevolent ones, and hints that the herbs
prescribed were to be gathered with reference to the
position of the sun with respect to the Zodiac—he
called Lawrence out into the ante-chamber.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CHANGE IN ROGER'S DESTINY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A CHANGE IN ROGER'S DESTINY.

..

   |  "We shall be together, my Lord and I,
   |    While the crowds around us come and go;
   |  When false hearts wander, and true hearts die,
   |    My Friend will still be mine own, I know."
   |                                  —SARAH DOUDNEY.

.. vspace:: 2

On the wide cushioned seat in the window,
Mr. Robesart sat down, and Lawrence placed
himself in front, waiting to be questioned.
He had to wait in silence for a few moments, while
the priest seemed lost in thought; then he turned
back to the child.

"Now, my son, I would have some talk with thee.
I am faint to find thou hast thought on my
words at parting.  Hast thou done them, Lawrence
Madison?"

"Mean you, Father, if I have asked at our Lord
that He would go with me whithersoever I went?"

"That mean I, my son."

"Aye, nearly alway, Father," said Lawrence, lifting
a pair of honest eyes to his friend's face, and adding
more shyly, "I forgat sometimes."

"Good lad!  Take thou God's blessing and mine"—and
Mr. Robesart laid his hand on the boy's head.
"Hath He been with thee, Lawrence?"

Lawrence looked up in some surprise.  Mr. Robesart's
question suggested two entirely new
ideas: that prayers might have some result attached
to them, and that the presence of God was
something which he could know and feel.  Hitherto he
had always looked upon praying as something which
had to be done—a good work, and the saying of good
words—but a work which had no possible connection
with any source or consequence.  As a child once
said, Lawrence "had plenty of think in him," but he
sadly wanted teaching how to put his thoughts to
practical purpose.  The thoughts now came so fast
that the words were slow.  Mr. Robesart was wise,
and waited for them.  How many priceless
opportunities have been thrown away, through not waiting
quite long enough at such moments!  For one
temptation to be silent when we ought to speak, are there
not a score to speak when we ought to be silent?

"Father!  How can I know?" came at last.

"If He never went with thee, thou canst not know,"
was the pithy answer.  "That which one hath not,
how can he lose or miss?"

Lawrence was silent, playing with one of the
bright buttons of his tunic in a style which
indicated that his thoughts were not on the button.

"There is one manner, my son," then continued
the priest, "wherein God goeth with all men—in His
providence as their Creator and Preserver.  Were
He not ever with thee after this fashion, thou wouldst
not live a moment.  But it is after another manner
that he goeth with His beloved—as their Father and
Friend.  Is He that to thee?"

"There be different sorts of fathers," said Lawrence,
meditatively.

"Aye.  Alas for the human fathers that do misturn[#]
the heavenly Father!  It is only the good, true, and
loving, my child, that be in their lesser way like God."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Pervert, misrepresent.

.. vspace:: 2

"Like my sometime Lord was to him?" said
Lawrence, with brightening eyes, and a nod towards
the door of the inner chamber.

Mr. Robesart smiled a little sadly.  "Aye, Lawrence.
Take thou for example the best and truest thou hast
known, but remember that he must needs fall far
behind."

Lawrence went back to the button, uttering his
thoughts in a low voice, as if he spoke to it rather
than to the priest.

"He alway loved to have my little Lord at his
knee," he reflected in this manner.  "And he used to
lift him up, and kiss him.  And if he were in any
trouble, my Lord would stay and hear him, even
were it to his own travail.  And had he been hither
this morrow, I reckon it should have gone nigh to
break his heart to see him thus.—Father Robesart!
Doth God Almighty care for any man like *that*?"

"He cares like that for thee, Lawrence Madison."

Mr. Robesart paused an instant, and Lawrence
thought the sentence was finished.  But it was not,
for one word followed it.  "If——"

"If what?" said the boy quickly.

"If thou wilt have it so."

"If I will have it!  Father Robesart, never nobody
loved me!  Never, in all my life!"

"Then see thou reject not the love which passeth
all loves."

"What am I to do?"

"What doth any with love?  Take it—enjoy it—return
it—do thy little best for Him that giveth it."

"But serve him, *how*?"  It sounded to Lawrence
like telling a serf child lying in the mire to rise and
offer the golden cup to a king.  Would the great
nobles around the throne ever permit him to approach
it?  A dim idea pervaded his brain that Father
Robesart, as a priest, could give him a passport
through the ranks of the angels.  But the answer
brought him back to earth again.

"My son, thou servest God when thou servest any
whom God loveth."

"Doth God love my Lord?  I suppose He will,
being thus noble."

"'Not many noble are called,'" said Mr. Robesart,
speaking rather to himself than to Lawrence.  "Yet
'I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after
thee.'  Aye, little Lawrence, I cannot doubt it.  God teach
thee, poor child, better than I can!  Remember, my
son, that thou servest not God in following thy little
Lord into sin and mischief.  Thou wilt serve God by
keeping him out thereof."

"My Lord bade me so keep him—my Lord of
March, I would say, not he of Arundel.  I misdoubt
if he care."

"Poor children!" repeated the priest sorrowfully.
"Tell me, Lawrence, what would thy little Lord with
the Bible?"

"Was it wrong to get that, Father?"

"Assuredly it was wrong to steal the key."

"O Father, we never stole it!  We only took it
when Sir Gerard left it behind him."

Mr. Robesart smiled and shook his head.  "Ye
stole it, my son.  What is it but stealing to take a
thing which he that ought[#] it would not yield unto
you?  But what wanted my Lord with the book?"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Owned.

.. vspace:: 2

"Please, Father, he desired much to read the same,
and my old Lady his grandmother had bidden him
so to do.  And he heard—leastwise I heard, and he
asked at me—my Lord of Arundel once to say that
he would not have him lay finger thereon; so he was
set on it."

Another very pitying smile parted the lips of
Mr. Robesart.  "I marvel whether the bidding or the
forbidding were the more tempting bait!  Poor
little child!"

"Please, Father——"

"Speak thy will, my son."

"Will my Lord get well again?"

"I trust, if it be our Lord's pleasure, he shall do
well, my son."

"Oh, I am so glad!"  And Lawrence's sparkling
eyes by no means belied his words.

"Dost thou love thy little Lord, Lawrence?"

"Aye, Father—so much!  Please, there never
was any body else but him and Beattie."  Lawrence
was very near adding, "and you."  A feeling of
reverence restrained him, but he might have done it
safely.

"Who is Beattie?"

"Blumond's Beattie—at the fishmonger's at Usk."

"Oh!  I know.  A good child."

"May I love Beattie, please, Father?"

"Thou mayest love who so thou wilt, and as much
as ever thou wilt, so long as thou lovest our Lord
first and most."

"Whoever I will?"

"Certainly.  Who dost thou think too great to be
loved?"

"Not great, exactly; but—Father Robesart, might
I love you?  I never thought I dare, before."

Mr. Robesart was more touched than he thought
it well to let Lawrence see.  But he did what nobody
had ever done to the boy in all his life—he stooped
and kissed him.  It was an affirmative of the strongest
type, and Lawrence felt it so.

Roger's recovery was more rapid than any one
about him had anticipated.  His body seemed as
active and as easily impressed as his mind, as much
subject to ups and downs, and generally either on
the top of the mount, or in the bottom of the valley:
the transition was quick from one to the other, and
he was never in either position for long.

Three years more passed uneventfully, until Roger
and Lawrence were boys of twelve years old.  Both
had developed their respective characters.  Roger
was beginning to see that the lesson-books which
he had in old days unreasonably detested, were
machines for imparting knowledge and power.  If
he were only a little older, his own master, and out
in the world, what could he not do!  The change in
his case was more or less radical, for he was learning
to govern himself.  He had drawn no closer to the
Arundel family.  He disliked them every one—from
the Earl to his youngest child: but most especially
he disliked Alice, his betrothed.  When he grew to
manhood he would pay the fine, and rid himself of
that galling bond.  He did not care for girls: he
wanted to feel free.

The change which had taken place in Lawrence
Madison was only in the direction of growth.  The
fetters of service and etiquette pressed lightly upon
him, for he loved his young Lord more than he had
ever loved his own brothers; and love makes fetters
sit easily.  Lawrence did not care for power, as Roger
did: but for knowledge his thirst was insatiable.  And
above all he longed for the knowledge of God—for
the realisation of that Presence of which the priest had
spoken to him.  Like a flower shooting in the spring-time,
he kept his face ever towards the light, hoping to
reach it some day.  Sir Gerard said he was not like a
boy.  Master Salveyn opined that the lad had a bee
in his hood.  Mistress Grenestede shook her head with
an assumption of superior wisdom, and murmured
that such lads as Lawrence Madison died early.

Outside, matters went quietly enough so far as the
boys were concerned, till on the third of April, 1383,
shortly after the birth of her daughter Margaret, the
Countess of Arundel died.  Little care as she had
taken of them, yet the children felt a blank when she
was gone.

Not many weeks after the death of the Countess,
when the early roses were just beginning to bud,
Mistress Grenestede came into the room where the
children were studying under Sir Gerard, in a state
of some excitement.

"Give you good den,[#] Sir Gerard!  Here is
somewhat befallen one of your chicks, for sure!"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Day.

.. vspace:: 2

"Take me with you,[#] good Mistress?"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Explain yourself.

.. vspace:: 2

"Why, 'tis him," said the ungrammatical lady,
nodding towards Roger.  "Who but my Lady
Princess hath sent for to have him to come and
speak with her?"

At this date, there was in the kingdom but one
Princess.  The daughters of the monarch did not
bear that title until the accession of the House of
Stuart.  "My Lady Princess," therefore, meant Joan
of Kent, widow of the Black Prince, and mother of
King Richard.  She had been in her early youth a
very giddy girl, and had sobered down in later life,
under the instrumentality of Wycliffe, into the chief
nursing mother of the Lollard Church.  Her influence
with her royal son was powerful, and she was one of
the three practical rulers of England at this juncture.
For the Princess to send for Roger might therefore
mean something of greater import than a mere
impulse of kindliness from a lady to a child.

"Is that sooth?"[#] demanded Sir Gerard, almost
as excited as Mistress Grenestede.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Truth.

.. vspace:: 2

"True as truth, I do ensure you.  What shall hap
of it, think you?"

"Dear heart, who wist?  Shall it be now?"

"Nay, time enough.  To-morrow.  My Lord bade
me don him in his best array, and at eight o' the
clock Sir Lewis Clifford shall come for him."

"Who for?" demanded Roger, quite as ungrammatically,
and looking up with an eager expression
in his eyes.

"Lo' you now, if he be not a-hearkening!—Why,
for you, fair Lord.  At eight o' the clock to-morrow."

"Who cometh for me?"

"Sir Lewis de Clifford, Knight of the Body to my
Lady Princess.  Now hark you, sweet Lord; I trust
you shall be of gentle conditions—not too masterful,
nor yet abashed,[#] but with good manners.  'Tis a
great thing for a young gentleman like you to be
sent for to my Lady the Princess."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Frightened, nervous.

.. vspace:: 2

"She's only a woman!" said Roger, trying to hit
the inkstand with a paper pellet.  "Why did the
King not send for me himself?"

"Good lack, sweet Lord, but you must never be
thus masterful!  The King, quotha!"

"The King doth what he will," said Sir Gerard,
reprovingly.

"I would, if I were king," responded Roger, aiming
another pellet at the inkstand.

"Love us, all the saints!" ejaculated Mistress
Grenestede.

"The cockerel crows well, trow?" said Sir Gerard
with a laugh.  "Look you, good Mistress, he hath
the Blood in him.  'Tis no wonder.  But have a care,
my good Lord, that you use not over much
homeliness[#] toward my Lady Princess."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Do not be too familiar.

.. vspace:: 2

"What would she with me?"

"Nay, who wist?  Carry yourself well and seemly,
and you shall see."

"Shall Lolly go with me?"

Mistress Grenestede was about to exclaim, "Nay,
for sure!" but she stopped and looked at Sir Gerard.

"His Lordship were better have an elder serving-man,"
answered the tutor.

"If Lolly must not go, I won't be good!"

"Heard any ever the like!"

"Then my Lord must needs send word by Sir
Lewis that your Lordship is so naughty a lad, you
be not fit to go speak with my Lady's Grace?"

Sir Gerard calculated rightly that this consideration
would have some weight.  Roger was sensitive
to the opinions of other people, and particularly of
those much above him in rank.

"I don't see why Lolly could not go!" said he
with a pout.

"We shall see," said the tutor.  "Perchance, if
your Lordship order yourself after his will, my Lord
may give leave that you shall choose whom you list."

The Earl, on being appealed to, carelessly replied
that Roger might take the man in the moon, if he
wished it, provided he were fittingly attired.  Roger,
who had got over his pet—indeed, his pets were less
frequent than they used to be—submitted with
nothing more than a little impatience to the tedious
ceremony of his own arraying.  Mistress Grenestede
was very particular, for she desired Roger to make a
good impression on the Princess, upon whom she
looked with very different eyes from his.  When the
young Earl's attiring was over, he found himself in a
long robe of apple-green satin, edged with cloth of
gold, ruby-coloured hose, over which the garter was
clasped, and a cap adorned with a very full, long
plume of white feathers.  His shoes were slate-coloured,
with a red diamond pattern.  Gold buttons
ran all down his sleeves: a rich golden girdle, set
with gems, clasped his waist; a golden collar, with
diamonds and rubies, was round his neck; and, in
compliment to the Princess, her badge of the white
hart gorged and couchant was suspended at his breast
from a rich gold chain.  Thus splendidly arrayed,
Roger marched into the hall, where three persons
awaited him, clad in his own livery, blue and gold,
guarded with white.  These were two squires and
Lawrence.  With considerable impatience the young
Earl sat on the form awaiting Sir Lewis Clifford, who
was punctual to his time, though Roger could hardly
believe it.  The party then mounted their horses, and
rode away to Kennington Palace, where the Princess
was at that time.

Kennington Palace was then in a neighbourhood
at least as rural as Hampton Court is now.  Sir
Lewis led his youthful charge, followed by the
attendants, into a pleasant chamber hung with yellow
say and panelled with cedar.  Here were two ladies and
a gentleman—the former seated at work, the latter
standing in the window.  Sir Lewis, leading Roger up
to one of the ladies, dropped on one knee to say—

"Here is the young Lord of March, to wait on my
Lady's Grace."

.. figure:: images/img-090.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "Here is the young Lord of March, to wait on my Lady's Grace."

   "Here is the young Lord of March, to wait on my Lady's Grace."

With some curiosity Roger looked up, and saw a
short, smiling, exceedingly fat woman, clad in a
crimson damask dress embroidered with rings of gold.
Threads of silver were mingled with her golden hair,
and the remains of what had been extreme beauty
could be traced in her countenance.

"Come hither, little Cousin," said the Princess
affably, smiling all over her plump face.  "Of a
truth, I am right glad to see thee.  I can go visit
none now, for I am so fat I may scarce mount
mine horse.  Didst ever behold a woman fatter
than I?"

Roger's head squire, who had been spending
considerable pains in coaching him for this interview,
was horrified to hear him reply with charming
candour—

"No, Dame; that did I never."

"Why, thou sayest well!" laughed the Princess,
evidently not in the least offended.  "Alway speak
truth, fair Cousin."

"So do I," answered Roger rather proudly.  "My
Lady my grandmother told me ever so to do; and
she learned me two sayings by the which I should
rule me, and I so will.  Under your pleasure, Dame,"
he added in an instant, with a sudden recollection of
the squire's instructions and those of Sir Gerard.

"Come, tell me what they were!" responded the
Princess, coaxingly.  "Thou lovest my Lady thy
grandmother, that can I see."

"Well, I did, middling, Dame," said Roger, coolly.
"Howbeit she were only a woman."

The squire was ready to sink into the earth, till
he was relieved by the Princess leaning back in
her gilded chair with a burst of the heartiest
laughter.

"Gramercy, little Cousin, but thou art right
covenable![#]  I see, we shall be good friends.  But I desire
thy two sayings.  Tell me the same."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Agreeable, amusing.

.. vspace:: 2

Roger repeated them rather proudly.

"'*Fais ce que doy, advienne que pourra:*' '*Un* and
*Dieu, un Roy, servir je doy.*'"

"And dost mean to rule thee by them?" asked
the Princess, still smiling.

"That do I, Dame.  I will serve God and the
King to my power, but none other."

"He will do, trow?" said the Princess, looking
up at somebody whom Roger had not previously
noticed.  His eyes followed hers, and he saw
standing on her right hand a young man of eighteen,
clad in a tunic of black baldekyn, figured with red
balls and purplish-gray flowers.  Above it was a
white tippet; the sleeves were red, with gold cuffs;
and he wore yellow shoes with a red pattern.[#]  He
was of short stature and slight figure: his
complexion was of feminine fairness, his hair flaxen
tinged with gold, his eyes blue and dove-like.  So
great was his soft and pathetic beauty, that artists
selected his face as the model for "that Face which
now outshines the cherubim."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] This is King Richard's costume in the Golden
Book of St. Albans.

.. vspace:: 2

Something in the face won Roger's heart.  What
it was he did not know himself.  It was, in truth, a
vague remembrance of that fair young mother who
had passed away from him so early, and a likeness
to whom he detected without recognising it, in the
face before him.  An affectionate smile from the
royal cousin completed his conquest of the heart of
Roger Mortimer.

"He will do, in very truth," said the King, answering
his mother first: then he turned to Roger.  "Be
right welcome, fair Cousin: I trust to see more of
you in time coming."

"Sir," asked Roger, looking up, "be you Lord
Richard the King?"

"Even so, fair Cousin.  What can I do to pleasure you?"

Natures like those of Roger Mortimer are always
capable of intense hero-worship.  And Roger had
found his hero.  He dropped on one knee without
any prompting.

"Then, Sire, I will live and die with you!"

The King unfastened from his chain of rubies a
golden broom-pod wrought with green enamel.  It
was one of his own badges.

"Then shalt thou be mine own man, by thy
covenant," said he, smiling, and attaching the badge
to Roger's gold chain: "and thereto is my token."

"Why, well said!" interpolated the Princess, who
seemed unable to keep silence long.  "Come hither,
little Cousin—here, set a stool for my Lord of
March,—and tell me how it liketh thee to dwell with my
Lord of Arundel."

"Not in no wise, Dame," answered Roger, boldly.

"Not in no wise, quotha!  Why what ails thee at him?"

"I love him not, Dame, nor he me."

"Dear heart, here is a pity!  But thou lovest
my Lady Alice, trow?—though she be but a
woman."  The Princess's fat shoulders shook with
laughter.

"Our young cousin's chivalry is scarce fledged,
methinks," said the King.

"If you will learn me, Sire, I will do your bidding,"
said Roger, who did not know what bashfulness was.
"My Lady Alice, said your Grace?  Good lack, but
I cannot abear her!"

"Cannot bear her, quotha!  Nay, now, she is to
be thy wife!"

"My Lord the King's command except, that shall
she never!" said Roger sturdily.

"See you, fair Son?" was the Princess's comment,
with a glance at the King.  "And wouldst thou be
much aggrieved, little Cousin, if thou wert to depart
thence, and to dwell in another household, where
thou shouldst have jolly lads and lasses to pleasure
and couldst see the King thy cousin well-nigh thee,
every day?"

Roger's eyes shone with delight.

"Please it you, Dame, that should like me right
well.  Howbeit, I hope there should be more lads
than lasses."

The Princess indulged in another hilarious convulsion.

"Thy time will come, lad!" said she, when she
was able to speak.  "Till it do, thou canst lake thee
with Tom, which is scarce the younger of thee.—It
shall do right well, fair Son: and I pray you heartily
to set the matter in train."

"Aye, methinks it were well done," answered the King.

But neither of them explained what was to be
done, though Roger's curiosity was intense.
Manifestly, he was to be taken from the Earl of Arundel,
and given in wardship to some other nobleman.  That
was a delightful prospect.  If he could only be rid of
Alice as well, Roger thought he would be in Paradise.
And the King had offered him a favour.  Roger
turned boldly to His Majesty.

"Sire, your Grace said you would pleasure me.
Pray you, have me rid of yon Alice.  I love no
maids, and her least of all."

Once more the Princess burst out laughing.  The
King looked quietly amused.

"Is that the dearest wish of your heart, fair Cousin?"

"It is so, at this present, my Liege."

"He shall have a dearer anon, or I am no
prophetess," exclaimed the convulsed Princess.

"Maybe," said the King.  "Well, fair Cousin, we
will pleasure you in this matter,—the rather seeing"—and
he turned to his mother with a smile—"that it
shall pleasure your Grace as well."

At this moment a slight noise outside preceded a
scratching at the door, a lifting of the arras, and the
announcement of—"My Lady's Grace of Lancaster."

The royal hosts took leave of their little guest rather
hastily, yet very kindly, and thus dismissed, Roger
was reconducted to Bermondsey House by Sir Lewis
Clifford.

There was a good deal to talk over when Roger
and Lawrence were safely tucked up in their respective
beds.

"I say, Loll!" came from the big blue bed, "this
is jolly!"

"I am glad your Lordship is well content therewith,"
was the response in the quieter voice from the
pallet.

"I am so fain to get rid of yon Alice!" said
unchivalrous Roger.  "And I am right fain, too, to be
out of this dull house.  Who is Tom, I marvel, that
she said I could lake me withal?  Metrusteth he is
a lad of some mettle, and not a dull lump of stuff
like yon Jack Arundel.  I would, though, he had
been something elder than me in the stead of
younger.  I love not laking with children."

Master Roger was beginning to consider himself
above the degradation of childhood.  Lawrence
contented himself with replying that he trusted his
Lordship might find matters as should be to his
satisfaction.

"Where shall it be, Loll, thinkest?  I would it
might be in the Palace!  Aye, and said she not that
I should see the King my cousin well-nigh every
morrow?  I would like that best of all.  I could
die for him, Lolly!—and shall some day, I cast no
doubt."

Lawrence's reply was merely a respectful intimation
that he was listening.  He was quite as ready
as Roger to die for one whom he might love, but not
by any means so ready to talk about it.

"O Lolly, I could jump up to the moon, 'tis so
jolly!" and Roger executed a *pas seul* outside his
bedclothes.  "But I say!—I hope they shall 'noy me
with no more maids!  Why can folk not leave a man
be, I would fain wit?" demanded his Lordship, loftily,
lying down again, and drawing the satin coverlet over
him, by no means tidily.  "I would in very sooth I
were but a bit bigger!  Howbeit, I reckon we shall
grow.  And then, Loll, thou shalt be mine own
especial knight, and shalt bear mine arms, and fight
right behind me."

"I thank your good Lordship," said Lawrence
dutifully, though the prospect of fighting, whether
before or behind his master, was not particularly
enlivening to his mind.  Could Lawrence have chosen
his lot, there would have been no fighting in it.

"I reckon we shall see," went on Roger, not quite
in so lively a tone.  "But it shall be right
jolly—any how.  And I do not—I should not——"

Roger was asleep.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FAIR AND FICKLE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   FAIR AND FICKLE.

..

   |  "Wel were hym that wyste
   |  To whom he mytte tryste;
   |  Beter were hym that knewe
   |  The falsè fro the trewe."
   |        —OLD POEM OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

.. vspace:: 2

The hidden intentions of the Princess were
very soon revealed.  Roger and his suite
were transferred from Bermondsey House
to Woking Manor, the seat of Thomas, Earl of Kent,
the eldest son of the Princess, and half-brother of
the King.  The Countess of Kent was a sister of the
Earl of Arundel, but of a quieter and less decided
character than most of her family.  Her children, in
whom Roger felt more interest than in herself, were
six in number, exclusive of two boys who had died
in the cradle.  They were Alianora, aged fourteen;
Thomas, aged twelve; Anne, aged six; Edmund,
aged three; Joan, aged two; and Margaret, an infant.
The eldest boy was of course the Tom to whom the
Princess had alluded.  He was present when Roger
was introduced to the Countess, and Roger was
gratified to discover that Tom, though by a few
months the younger, was taller than himself.  All
the Holands of Kent were tall, fully developed, of
very fair complexion, and exceedingly handsome.
But Roger's eyes had not reached beyond Tom, when
they lighted on some one else who was entering
the room, and from that moment he had eyes
for no other.

If it be true, as it has been said, that the
metaphorical gentleman termed Cupid usually takes the
severest vengeance on those who despise his power,
he must have been in that mind with regard to Roger
Mortimer.  One instantaneous glance proved
sufficient to awaken in the bosom of Roger, who hated
and despised all girls, a fervent boyish passion which
reached down to his heart's core, and never left him
until his life's end.

The girl of whom the sight proved thus potent was
the Lady Alianora de Holand, eldest daughter of the
Earl and Countess of Kent.  Though only fourteen,
she was so tall and stately that she had a grown-up
aspect.  She stood, when Roger saw her, just in the
doorway, her arms full of flowers which she had been
gathering in the garden, and her abundant fair hair
falling about her like a golden glory.  Her little
brother Edmund had pulled it down in play; and
had she known of the existence of visitors in the hall,
the Lady Alianora, who was quite old enough to be
particular about her personal appearance, would
never have presented herself before them in this
dishevelled guise.  She stopped, blushed, and hastily
dropping her flowers on the nearest form, fled to her
chamber to make herself presentable,—leaving on
Roger's mind an impression of angelic loveliness.

No such impression was conveyed to Lawrence
Madison.  Roger, who was in an exalted mood which
disposed him, knight-errant-like, to insist upon all
beholders' instantaneous acknowledgment of the
pre-eminence of the lady of his heart, was quite put
out by the cool, indifferent tone in which Lawrence
assented to his rapturous comments on the beauty of
the Lady Alianora.  Accustomed as he was to sudden
changes in his impulsive master, yet this one took
Lawrence by surprise.  He had not expected Roger
to alter in that direction.  Love, to him, was not a
blow to be struck all at once, but a plant to ripen by
degrees.  The sudden and absorbing passion which
had taken possession of Roger's heart by assault, was
not merely unexpected to Lawrence; it was
incomprehensible.

The transfer of Roger from the care of the Earl of
Arundel to that of the Earl of Kent was marked by
one peculiarity very unusual at the time.  It was
purely a personal transfer, and did not include any
change with regard to the administration of the
estates, which were still left in the hands of Arundel,
except that the Earls of Warwick and Northumberland
were joined with him in the guardianship.  The
care of the heir and of the estate so generally went
together as to rouse the suspicion in this case that
the severance was a fresh clever move on the part of
the Princess.  To leave the estate in the enemy's
hands might be intended as a hidden purchase of his
acquiesence in the transfer of the boy.  It was a
sacrifice of the casket to secure the safety of the gem.
Perhaps the Princess was also sagacious enough to
divine that—as it turned out—there would be no
sacrifice in the matter.  Arundel proved in this case
an honourable man, and administered the estates
well, resigning them without difficulty into Roger's
hands when he was called upon to do so.

Between Roger and Thomas, eternal friendship
was sworn without delay.  Their characters were
somewhat alike, save that Roger was slightly the
more impulsive, and considerably the more self-willed.
The younger children were in Roger's eyes
quite beneath his contempt.

There was one point of the matter in respect to
which Lawrence was by no means indifferent.  The
style in which the Lady Alianora behaved to her
youthful admirer enraged him beyond words.  The
beautiful girl was a born coquette.  And she treated
Roger to every variety of behaviour suggested by that
despicable type of character.  One day she would
lift him up to the heights of ecstacy with her notice
and favour, and on the next would plunge him into
the lowest depths of despair.  It appeared to delight
her to play with his feelings like a cat with a mouse.
That she had any of her own Lawrence could not
discover.  But as time went on, and they grew older,
and the sentimental adoration of the boy, instead of
fading away, blossomed into the solid and enduring
love of the man, the sensation of aversion on
Lawrence's part became stronger than ever.  He
would never have used Roger as she did, had he
been in her place.

Roger appeared not to perceive this blemish in his
chosen idol.  All that she chose to do was perfection
in his eyes.

It may perhaps strike the reader as hardly possible
that a boy of Roger's age could have entertained
such feelings.  But we have abundant evidence that
our fathers, five hundred years ago, grew up much
earlier than we do—probably in part from the
shorter average duration of human life, and in part
from the forcing nature of the life they led.  A boy
of twelve, in 1385, had attained a period of life
equivalent to that of a youth of at least sixteen in
the present day.

If it could have been whispered to Roger Mortimer
that he was flinging away his true and faithful heart
upon a worthless weed, while there were modest
violets to be found under the leaves—that he was
bartering his priceless diamonds for glass beads
which were not worth the picking up—well, he would
not have believed it.  But in truth he had met with
the evil angel of his life, and he was yielding unto
her fair false hands the perfect trust and the
passionate devotion which were only due to God.
Would he ever awake from the dream? and if he
did, would it be while there was yet time left to repair
his blunder, or only when it was too late, and there
remained but a long weary stretch of the wilderness
before the end should come?

Ah, the Good Shepherd goes after His lost sheep,
until He find them.  But they are apt to lead Him
up arid steeps and into sunless gulfs, through thorns
which tear their feet as well as His, and into dry
places where no water is beside the stream which
flows from the smitten Rock.

Reserve and reticence were not in the nature of
Roger Mortimer.  The Princess very soon perceived,
with equal amusement and delight, the fulfilment of
her prophecy; and urged upon her royal son the
desirability of at once betrothing Roger and Alianora.
The King, however, preferred a little delay.  There
was time enough, he said: both were yet very young;
matters might alter before they were old enough to
be married.  So the formal ceremony, though fully
intended, was deferred, leaving an element of
uncertainty which added to Roger's intermittent misery.

The autumn which followed the spring of Roger's
transference to Woking witnessed some most painful
events.  The second son of the Princess, Sir John de
Holand, entering into a squabble between his attendants
out of which he had far better have kept himself,
killed Sir Ralph Stafford, the favourite squire of the
young Queen.  He was condemned to die, and the
Princess in an agony of grief, sent Sir Lewis Clifford
to the King at York, earnestly beseeching for mercy
to his brother.  She was refused, and it was the first
refusal which her royal son had ever given to an
intercession of hers.  As the event proved, he was
ready enough to grant it as man, but he could not
feel it his duty as King.  The Princess laid it so to
heart that her heart broke.  A fortnight after the
return of Sir Lewis from his fruitless errand, she lay
dead at Wallingford Castle.

In the first impulse of his anguish and remorse,
King Richard granted a full pardon to his brother,
on condition of his making a pilgrimage to Syria.
He was a man of the deepest affections, and next to
his wife, his mother had been nearest to his heart.
Perhaps it was the remembrance of this one rejected
appeal and the agony of its result, which made
Richard in after years so perpetual a pardoner of the
transgressions of those whom he loved.

Another result of these sorrowful circumstances
was to cause the King to carry into immediate action
various intentions which he knew had been his
mother's wish.  And in pursuance of one of these, on
a morning in October, he sent for the Earl of March.

The royal officers conducted Roger, somewhat to
his surprise, to the King's private closet, and motioned
to his suite to remain in the ante-chamber.  He was
to pass in alone.

Roger found, however, that the interview was not
to be *tête-à-tête*.  Seated in a curule chair by the side
of His Majesty was the uncle of both, Thomas, Duke
of Gloucester, the most astute man in England, and
the evil angel of the King.  Roger made his reverences
to his royal kinsman, and was directed to seat
himself on a velvet settle which faced them.  A
slight motion from the young King appeared to be a
preconcerted signal at which Gloucester took up the word.

.. figure:: images/img-104.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: 'Roger made his reverences to his royal kinsman, and was directed to seat himself on a velvet settle which faced them.'

   'Roger made his reverences to his royal kinsman, and was directed to seat himself on a velvet settle which faced them.'

"Methinks, fair Cousin," said he, addressing Roger,
"that you be not now to learn that your mother, the
Lady Philippa of March, was daughter and heir unto
my fair brother of Clarence, whom God assoil?"

Roger intimated that this was no news to him.

"And you may lightly guess, moreover, that, my
said brother standing next in age to my most
honoured Lord the Prince, whom likewise may God
pardon, had the said Prince deceased unhappily
without issue him outliving, my said brother your
grand-sire should have stood next to be king."

Roger bowed his head.  He began to wonder what
was coming.  Was evil about to befall him for the
crime of being a great-grandson of King Edward?

"Bear with me, then, my fair Cousin, while I
recount unto you the causes of that which I am about
to lay before you under command of my Liege here
present."

One of the secrets of Gloucester's popularity was
his exquisite veneer.  Very few persons realised how
thin the coating was, or what was the material which
lay beneath.  Least likely to discover it of all was
the young King, in whose single-eyed nature
suspicion had no place, and whose warm heart was ready
to take in every creature who professed a shred of
devotion to himself.

"Maybe, being as you are but right youthful, fair
Cousin," pursued Gloucester, "you shall have need
to be told in words that after the old custom of
England it was not used that, the King's son dying
afore his father, his childre should be held to fill his
place.  This ancient custom, howbeit, was changed
by my redoubted Lord and father King Edward, of
set purpose that the King our Liege who here sitteth
should succeed him on the throne.  In case,
therefore, that our said Liege should leave no
issue—which God defend!—he must needs appoint him a
successor after his pleasure.  Now my said Liege,
accounting it ill (as in very sooth it should be) that
men's minds should be unsettled touching so weighty
a matter, and knowing moreover that life standeth
alway at the pleasure of God, and that men may not
dwell on middle earth no longer than it listeth
Him—" there was a vast reservoir of piety in
Gloucester, but it went no lower than his tongue—"it
hath pleased my Liege to make choice of him that
shall succeed him, if in evil case he should chance to
decease without child.  To make an end, fair Cousin,
without further words, you are he whom my Lord
hath chosen to sit on the throne when the pleasure of
God shall be fulfilled in him."

Roger sat dumfoundered.  The last conclusion
he had expected was the one that had come upon
him.  Among all the suppositions as to the chosen
heir which had been coursing through his thoughts
while his uncle spoke, the faintest idea that it might
be himself had never occurred to his mind.

He did not know that it had been in existence,
nearly as long as he had, in the three governing
minds of England, of which one had just passed away.
It was the only point of all their opinions in which
the Princess and the Dukes of Lancaster and
Gloucester were agreed.  The private reasons of each
were utterly diverse from those of the other two.
The Princess wished to secure two points—the
happiness of her son, and the welfare of the Lollard
Church of which she was the nursing mother.  To
this end the heir must entertain a personal affection
for His Majesty which would prevent him from
coveting his position, and must be brought up in an
atmosphere which would dispose him toward the
Lollard doctrines.  The Duke of Lancaster's object
was the welfare of England; added to which he did
not want to reign himself, and Roger or his brother
were the only persons who could reasonably be
placed before him.  The Duke of Gloucester's object
was almost the opposite of the last.  He did wish
to reign, but he cared more for the reality of power
than for the semblance, and knowing that equity
would be outraged by his being preferred to his elder
brothers, he desired such a monarch as he would
easily be able to influence.  This he fancied he saw
in Roger,—warm-hearted, impulsive, readily swayed,
and not too suspicious of ulterior motives.

The only person, at that day, who had ever been
able to read the true character of Gloucester was the
dead Princess.  She must have been a very clever
woman.  Her feminine instinct penetrated all the
joints of his closely-riveted armour, and without his
being in the least aware of it, "to her he had shown
his naked heart."  Somebody who could be trusted
must be put in his way; and she read Roger also more
accurately than he had done.  Through all the
outward impulsiveness she discerned the heart's
fidelity—through all the thorny surroundings of temptation
the ever straightforward aim at the one goal of right.
Perhaps her cleverest move of all was just that which
looked on the surface the least likely to forward her
intentions.  She had removed him from the noxious
atmosphere of Bermondsey House, and had placed
him in a family which was not marked by Lollard
proclivities—a family of which, in that respect, even the
anti-Lollard Gloucester could feel no suspicion.  But
she saw that Roger was more easily led than driven:
that his intensely Lollard uncle, John de Montacute,
"the most pestilent of all that sect," was likely to
have far more influence with him as an occasional
and interesting visitor, than as the man who decided
his fate and sat in judgment on all his little
peccadilloes; beside which, had he been consigned to the
care of a distinctly Lollard family, Gloucester would
have been certain to scheme for his removal.  He
would probably be content to leave him at Woking,
where Lollardism was something quite outside the
family notions—a matter which they left to the
priesthood, whose business they considered it to be.
His suspicions of any sinister design on the part of
the Princess would scarcely be aroused by her very
natural wish that her youngest son's chosen heir
should be in the care of her eldest son.

Roger, of course, had not the slightest conception
of all these wheels within wheels which he now saw
to his amazement were bearing him forward to the
throne.  The result was to him the only thing
apparent, and that left him in a state of speechless
astonishment.  The only two clear ideas in his
confused head, beyond surprise, were deep devotion to
the royal cousin who had marked him by such signal
favour, and a rapturous throb of his heart at the
thought that now, at least, Alianora was safely
assured to him.  He knew that a prospective crown
would weigh heavily with her, no less than with her
parents: and as for him who wore it, and who
certainly would weigh less, Roger's loyal heart was
content to accept the very crumbs of affection from
the hand which he loved, rather than a plentiful
board spread by any other.

The King's voice broke Roger's astounded silence.

"Methinks we have somewhat taken you by surprise,
fair Cousin," said he, with that exquisitely
sweet smile which Richard knew how to give.

"In very deed, my gracious Lord, but you so
have!" was the answer.  "Mefeareth, my Liege, that
your bestowal upon me is far over my dementing."

"Strive then to deserve the same, fair Cousin,"
said Gloucester didactically.  "In all things submit
you obeissantly to my Lord his pleasure."

A speech which meant much more than it said,
since Gloucester aimed at governing Roger through
the King.  Like other astute persons, the former
scarcely comprehended a mind which had but one
aim, and assuredly never intended to strengthen
Roger's personal love for his royal cousin.  His real
intention was to attract it to himself.  But Roger's
powers of discrimination were greater than those of
King Richard, and he had an uneasy sense of some
ulterior meaning on the part of his uncle, which
cooled his demeanour and lessened his words.  He
had no intention of confiding his heart's secrets to
that over-clever relative.

"I am at ease thereanent," said the King,
answering Roger with another smile.  "And now, Cousin,
God give you good day, for methinks you have food
enough for thought."

Roger could not have told whether he returned to
Woking through smiling valleys or barren mountains.
The family of the Earl of Kent, the elder branches
of which had been admitted into the secret, were
amused to see how silent and meditative their young
ward became after the proclamation of his future
brilliant destiny.  Roger was growing up fast—faster
in mind than in body.  Very grave and thoughtful
grew the young heir.  The radiant crown which hung
before him, though in a probably distant future,
seemed to have descended upon his head not as an
ornament, but as a weight.  The Earl of Kent was
much surprised at it.  The side of Roger's character
which was outwardly exhibited—the lighter and more
childish side of it—was the only one which he had
yet seen.  But the depths were there, and they had
been stirred at last.

They were stirred in more ways than one.  The
prospective crown which had struck Roger into
gravity, struck the Lady Alianora into a flutter.
To her it was merely the most becoming decoration
which could rest upon her head.  The thought of
any duty or responsibility in connection with it was
entirely foreign to her mind.  But it became desirable
to cultivate Roger, and to let him see unmistakably
that he was established in her good graces.  To
lose him now was not to be thought of for a moment.
But had the King changed his mind, and transferred
his favours to any other person, what the Lady
Alianora called her heart would have followed in
their wake.  The dog-like fidelity which characterised
Lawrence Madison, and to which it would have been
of no moment whether his master sat upon a throne
or a dunghill, was simply inconceivable to her.

It was Sunday evening, and the churches were
slowly emptying of the worshippers at vespers.
Lawrence was making his way out at the western
door, when looking up he encountered a pair of bright
eyes attentively regarding him.  They belonged to
a girl of about his own age, who wore a dress of blue
camlet, and was evidently in the middle class of life.
She was very pretty, but apparently very shy.  Her
eyes dropped the instant they encountered his, but
kept returning to his face as if she found something
attractive in it.  Behind her came an older woman
whom Lawrence felt certain, as soon as he glanced
at her, that he had met somewhere before.  As soon
as they were clear of the sacred edifice, Lawrence
saw the girl turn round to the woman behind her,
and address her in an earnest whisper.  The woman
replied aloud.

"Nay, child: it were not like, methinks."

"But it might be!  Will you not ask, Mistress
Wenteline?"

The name solved Lawrence's difficulty in a
moment.  In another instant he had pressed through
the crowd, and was by the side of his old friend.

"Mistress Wenteline!  Come you from Ludlow—from
Usk?  Know you not Lawrence Madison?"

"Well, of a surety, but it is!" cried Guenllian,
heartily enough.  "Lad, how camest thou hither?
The maid said it were like thee, but I never
thought—Is my Lord hereaway?  My Lord of Arundel
hath no place in this vicinage, trow?"

"My Lord is not now in ward to him, good
Mistress; but unto my Lord of Kent, that dwelleth
at the Manor here."

"Now God be thanked therefor!" said Guenllian warmly.

Lawrence turned to the girl.  "Methinks I should
know you likewise: and in truth, you be like some one
that I have known, but I cannot give you a name."

The bright eyes laughed, but their owner seemed
too shy to speak.  Guenllian looked at both with an
amused expression.

"Nay, twain friends so dear as you were of old
should not have forgot each other," said she.  "Lolly,
dost not know thine old playfellow?  'Tis Blumond's
Beattie."

"Beattie!" broke from Lawrence with more warmth
than usual.  But as soon as the greeting was over,
both relapsed into extreme shyness.

"And pray you, Mistress Wenteline, how came you hither?"

"Marry, lad, we be tarrying a two-three days,
under the King's gracious leave, at his manor of
Byfleet, and as Tuesday we journey onward to
London town.  Beattie and I, we thought we would
come to Church something a longer walk, and two
of my Lord's squires be with us"—Guenllian paused
and looked about for them—"I marvel whither they
be gone in this crowd.  Beattie, canst see any whither
Master Orewell or Master Chauntemarle?"

Beattie thought she saw Master Chauntemarle's
cap over yonder: but Lawrence interposed with a
question which he was burning to ask.

"But, Mistress Wenteline, how came you hither?"

"Why, look you, we be now of the following of the
Lady de Percy, and the Lord of these squires and of
us is my Lord of Northumberland."

"And the Lady de Percy is at Byfleet?  Me
reckoneth my Lord were right fain to see his sister."

"Aye, and the Lady Elizabeth was ever his
favourite.  But, Lolly, I would fain see my dear child.
He is at the Manor here, trow?"

"If it like you to bide for compline, Mistress, you
shall then see him with no further travail; or if you
will come up to the Manor, I rest well assured that
Mistress Dayrell, which keepeth house, shall make
you right welcome."

"Beattie, run thou to Master Orewell, which I see
searching us o'er by yon yew-tree, and do him to wit
of this.  Say we will return with Lawrence to the
Manor, and ask at him if he or Master Chauntemarle
list to come with us.  If not, then will we leave our
returning as it shall please God."

Beatrice obeyed, and in a minute returned with
Master Orewell, who intimated that his pleasure would
be to accompany the ladies, but Master Chauntemarle
preferred to return to Byfleet.  Guenllian accordingly
sent through the latter her excuses to Lady
Northumberland, and the party set out for the Manor.

Lawrence left his friends in charge of Mistress
Dayrell, who was well pleased with the prospect of
a gossip, and dashed up the stairs, three at a time,
in search of his young master.  Roger was playing
hand-tennis with the other young people—an
occupation the suitability of which to Sunday evening it
never occurred to him or any one else to doubt.  The
moment that he heard who was below, he flung down
his battledore, and rushed down the stairs as quickly
as Lawrence had come up them.

Guenllian had not realised the change that years
could make until Roger stood before her.  She had
been unconsciously expecting to see the child of
nine, and when the handsome boy of thirteen, who
looked older than he was, came into the room and
welcomed her, she could scarcely believe his identity.
But the warmth and brightness were those of the
old Roger, and they comforted Guenllian after all her
fears and heart-sinkings lest he should be changed
and spoiled at Bermondsey House.

"Mine own dear child!" she said lovingly.  "Verily,
I ask your Lordship's pardon; but you shall seem
always my child to me, even when you be a man grown."

Roger had arrived at the age when a boy is rather
ashamed of being kissed, and feels it a humiliation.
But like a true gentleman as he was in nature as well
as name, he put his own feelings aside, and permitted
his old nurse to pet him to her heart's content.

"And now, mine heart, give me leave to ask you,"
inquired Guenllian, in whose diction the new
deference was somewhat at variance with the old familiar
love, "if you be welsome and happy hereaway?"

"Very, very happy," said Roger's eyes no less than
his voice.  The Lady Alianora had been unusually
complaisant for the past week.

"And how did your Lordship like at Arundel Castle?"

"Very ill, Wenteline.  I am rejoiced to be away
thence."

Guenllian was privately rejoiced to hear it.

"Metrusteth Lawrence continueth a good lad?"

"Much better than Roger," said the owner of the
latter name, with a bright laugh.  "He alway were so."

"And your Lordship, as I do hear, is in right high
favour with the King?"

Roger smiled and blushed slightly.  His honours
were still fresh upon him.

"Aye, Wenteline, I have been denounced[#] heir of
England."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Announced, proclaimed.

.. vspace:: 2

"But to think of it!" exclaimed she.  "Well, my
dear child, God give thee His grace!  Thou shalt
make but an ill King without it."

Guenllian thought that Roger's eyes responded,
but his voice was silent.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ROGER HAS HIS WISH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   ROGER HAS HIS WISH.

..

   |  "Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings."
   |                              —SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

.. vspace:: 2

The paths that had joined for a moment
parted again, and Guenllian and Beatrice
passed out of the sight of Roger and
Lawrence.  The life which they led at Woking was
very quiet—so quiet that Roger at least began to
feel restless, and to complain to Lawrence, that every
thing stagnated around him.  But before six months
were over, the second political convulsion of the
century had begun.  Gloucester only awaited the
removal of his brother Lancaster, who was the
barricade against his ambitious designs, to draw the bow
which he was holding ready.

The Duke of Lancaster sailed from Plymouth on
the ninth of July.  By Michaelmas, Gloucester was
in London, gathering his conspirators around him.
The one with whom he first took counsel was his
nephew, Edward, afterwards Earl of Rutland, eldest
son of the Duke of York.  This man seems to have
delighted in dissimulation and treachery, not as
means to an end, but for their own sakes.  He cared
not whom he joined, so long as he could afterwards
betray them; and he was ready to agree to anything,
if it only involved a plot.  Love, kinship,
gratitude, even interest, were no barriers in his way.
This man had been one of the dearest friends of
the young King—the friendship being on the King's
side, and only the outward profession of it on
Rutland's: but no sooner did Gloucester lay his
plans before Rutland, than the latter sacrificed his
friend to the pleasure of a conspiracy.

There were four of the Privy Councillors of whom
Gloucester had resolved to get rid.  These were the
Archbishop of York, the Duke of Ireland, the Earl
of Suffolk, and Sir Simon Burley.  The first and last
were professed Lollards: the second, and perhaps
the third, almost certainly held those doctrines, though
less openly than the other two.  There is an old
proverb that "If you want to hang a dog, it is easy
enough to find a rope:" and the conspirators found
no difficulty in fixing on charges calculated to render
the four councillors impopular.  The Archbishop,
who was a Neville of Raby, and the Duke, who was
ninth Earl of Oxford, could not be accused of humble
origin; but the Earl of Suffolk was open to this
impeachment, and they made the most of it, by
contemptuously addressing him as "Michael," even in
full Parliament.  Sir Simon Burley had been the
King's tutor, and an old friend of the Black Prince,
who had great confidence in him; it might have
been supposed difficult to find the rope in his case.
But who ever knew a Romish priest short of an
excuse to disparage the character of a heretic, by
whatever name he might be called?  Behind the
conspirators himself unseen, but quietly pulling the
strings which moved all these puppets at his pleasure,
stood Sir Thomas de Arundel, Bishop of Ely, and
brother of the Earl, who was at once the instigator,
the assistant, and the absolver of them all.

The Earl of Arundel had been induced by his brother
to unite with the conspirators, who were also joined by
Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, a weak man
who was as much a dupe as a criminal.  It was not till
a later period that they were joined by the cautious
Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, and by another
who ought for very shame to have held aloof,—the
King's favoured friend and trusted councillor, Thomas
Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk.  William Courtenay,
Archbishop of Canterbury, was also ready to help them,
on account of his personal dislike to his brother
Archbishop, who had recently received a lucrative
appointment whereon Courtenay had set covetous eyes.

Of course the real causes of hatred were not
paraded before that innocent, deceivable creature, the
public.  The true reasons for hating the four
obnoxious councillors were that they had the ear of the
King, while he declined to be governed by the five
conspirators and their priestly guides, who were
accordingly much scandalised at his allowing
himself to be governed by any one—themselves of
course excepted.  This is the usual secret of
complaints that a man is governed.  Put the complainer
in the place of the governor, and the complaint will
not be heard again.

The ostensible reasons were plausible.  The Archbishop
of York, said the conspirators, was covetous and
arrogant, and took liberties with the King: which of
course meant that equal liberties were not allowed to
themselves, the Archbishop being in reality one of the
gentlest and most unworldly of men.  The Duke of
Ireland was "a puppy;" he made the King do
whatever he liked, and bestow on him lands, titles, and
offices (instead of on the conspirators).  The Earl of
Suffolk was a mere nobody, the scum of the earth,
yet he took upon himself to dictate to the King and
to oppose the nobles.  Sir Simon Burley had
proposed, under colour of an expected invasion of the
French, to remove the shrine of St. Thomas from
Canterbury Cathedral to Dover Castle, on the
pretence that Canterbury was not so strong as Dover:
of course he could only mean to pocket the rich
offerings, and make his own profit out of the
guardianship of the shrine.  All of them were accused of
defalcations of the Crown revenues.

There was a further charge against Ireland, which
has been ever since received as historical fact,
though it was not substantiated by a single
document, nor by any thing but the bare word of the
conspirators, and some inferences from circumstantial
evidence, which might or might not be true.  The
Duke had always lived unhappily with his Duchess,
who was a cousin of the King.  The differences
between them were partly ecclesiastical, he siding with
the Antipope Urban, she with Pope Clement.  There
is also reason to suspect that her temper was somewhat
less than angelic.  The chroniclers tell us that Ireland
fell violently in love with a German lady in the
Queen's suite, whose name was Lancerona or Lancecrona
(a suspiciously manufactured epithet): that the
Queen wrote a letter to Pope Urban entreating that
he might receive a divorce; that Urban thereupon
divorced Ireland and Philippa, and that the Duke
married his German love: that his mother was
extremely indignant, and took Philippa to live with
her; that the Sire de Coucy, father of the Duchess,
and the King of France, almost took up arms against
England in consequence of these wicked proceedings.
The real truth of the matter is that no evidence
whatever exists to support these alleged facts.  We
have evidence that Gloucester and others took pains
to spread them as a rumour, but none to show that
they were true.  Not only is the Queen's letter not
forthcoming, but there is no document to show that
a divorce ever took place![#]  There is no evidence—except
the *ipse dixit* of Gloucester and his partisans—that
Ireland ever contracted a second marriage;
while the facts that after his banishment he was
invited to visit the French Court, that his wife bore
the title of Duchess of Ireland to the day of her
death, which followed his, and that his mother ran
great personal risk in warmly espousing his cause
and that of King Richard when both were at the
lowest ebb, do not took favourable to the
representations of Gloucester.  It may be added that this
Lancecrona, who is stated to have been a lady in
waiting and a laundress—two utterly incompatible
positions, even more so at that time than now—does
not appear at all as one of the royal suite in any
mention of them contained in the state papers, and
there is cause for suspicion which almost reaches
certainty, that she never existed beyond the inner
consciousness of my Lord Duke of Gloucester.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Carter, one of the most accurate of our historians,
records his
opinion that "there is no reason to think
that a divorce was ever
granted, *nor even solicited*,
between Ireland and Philippa." (ii. 581.)

.. vspace:: 2

These tales, true or false, were assiduously spread
among the populace, and Gloucester very secretly,
but very diligently, advised them to refuse any
further payment of taxes.  The King, said he, would
have plenty of money at his command, if the wicked
councillors were only forced to disgorge their
ill-gotten booty.  Yet with all their cleverness,
Gloucester and his allies could not succeed in accusing
Suffolk of any greater covetousness than "taking
from the King a thousand marks a year since he
was made an Earl"—which was the ordinary grant
from the Crown to every earl in England.

That the animosity of these plotters was really
and originally religious is shown in the fact that
when the whole power in the kingdom fell into their
hands, they weeded the state offices and the royal
household of all the Lollards, and let others alone.
They descended even to squires and ladies—so long
as they were Lollards.  The Lady de Poynings, a
princess's daughter, was not too high for them to
aim at; nor was John Calverley, the Queen's squire,
too low to feel their vengeance.  Sir Bernard Brocas,
the Queen's Chamberlain, and the Lady Molyneux,
wife of Sir Thomas, were also swept out of her
household.  Neither prayers nor tears availed to
soften them.  For four hours the Queen herself,
"Cæsar's daughter," knelt to the Earl of Arundel,
imploring him to spare Calverley, whom they had
condemned to death.  It was all in vain.  Arundel
savagely told her to pray for herself.  She had cause
enough.  Sir Bernard Brocas was also put to death:
the ladies were dropped into obscurity, where they
were wise enough to remain.

The long and sad story of this persecution—it
deserves no other name—belongs to general history:
but the end is soon told.  Ireland, Suffolk, and
Archbishop Neville fled abroad, and died there.  Burley
meant to have preceded them in this step, but was
unfortunately dissuaded by Ireland, at that time
unable to conceive the possibility of the conspirators
presuming to put any man to death.  He generously
offered him forty thousand marks to refund in respect
of the defalcations of which Burley, "that gentle,
gallant, and prudent knight," had been falsely
accused.  But the Lords Appellants, as it pleased
the conspirators to term themselves, wanted blood,
not bribes: nor did it suit them to accept as a gift
what they meant to take with a high hand.  They
got the King out of the way, and instantly seized on
his old tutor, whom he was unable to deliver from
their malicious hands.  Burley died on Tower Hill.
The other less obnoxious councillors were got rid of,
mostly by death without the pretence of a trial: and
then my Lords Appellants, having reduced their
Sovereign to the status of their slave, courteously,
and in subservient language requested him to come
home, to obey their orders, and as the first, to deliver
into their hands all the state records and twenty
thousand pounds.

Ten years later, when the slave had resumed the
status of the Sovereign, after a trial on which
Lancaster sat as judge, the Earl of Arundel was beheaded
in Cheapside.  And modern writers regard Richard
as a tyrant, and Arundel as a murdered patriot!
There is one Book written by truer pens than theirs,
wherein other appellations are probably attached to
the names.

Perhaps few households in high positions throughout
England were less disturbed by the political
earthquake than that at Woking Manor.  The Earl
of Kent, with whomsoever he might side in his heart,
practically held aloof from the entire struggle; and
the Countess Alesia, though she was sister alike of
the Earl of Arundel and the Bishop of Ely, who with
Gloucester formed the soul of the conspiracy, appears
herself to have entertained no political bias, and to
have followed her husband along the quiet bye-path
into which he thought it prudent to turn until the
storm blew over.  Rumours, however, were not slow
in reaching them: and no one was more eager to
hear all the news than Roger.  It need hardly be
said that he was a vehement partisan of his royal
cousin, and hotly indignant against the Lords
Appellants.  The suspicions which he had entertained
already concerning the fidelity of his uncle of
Gloucester were now confirmed to the full, and
beyond it.

Those who, being conscious of Lollardism, or
knowing themselves suspected of it, felt danger
threatening them, got out of the way, or in some
other manner prepared for the inevitable as best they
could.  The prominent Lollard, Sir John Montacute,
Roger's great-uncle, made his will, and then waited
the event.  The young Lord Le Despenser, a boy of
Roger's age, was sent off by his friends to sea, being
sagaciously placed under the nominal care of the
Earl of Arundel.

Having finished their work, the Lords Appellants
now thought it time to distribute their rewards.  The
heaviest prize fell to Gloucester's share, for he granted
himself—of course in the King's name—all the lands
of the Duke of Ireland, about the second man in
England as to wealth, and the smaller property of
the Earl of Suffolk.  He also appropriated to himself
the office of Justice of Chester, which the conspirators
had showed such indignation that Ireland should
possess.  To Arundel was granted the marriage of
the young Lord Poynings.  To Edward of York
was given the earldom of Rutland, with lands in the
county, and a hundred marks in money.  The Bishop
of Ely received the archbishopric of York.  Derby
was more easily satisfied: he coveted only the
breastplate of Sir John Beauchamp, one of the murdered
Lollards.  He was, in truth, not anxious to show too
distinctly his status as one of the conspirators.  The
Archbishop of Canterbury was made happy by a
proclamation that "whosoever should be found to
possess any books, pamphlets, or handbills, of Master
John Wycliffe and others, deceased, in English or in
Latin, should be arrested and put under penalty by
the Council."  Norfolk and Warwick it was not
thought necessary to notice in the general distribution:
but, perhaps to blind the eyes of the public,
perhaps to keep the King content in the menial
position which they had assigned to him, that
suppressed gentleman was allowed to make a few
insignificant grants to his own friends.  He was
graciously permitted to restore a single manor to
Lady Poynings, their own inheritances to Emma
Tresilian, and Idonia Brembre, and her wardrobe to Joan
Salesbury, widows of his murdered councillors.[#]  He
was also allowed to grant to his younger brother the
castles of Berkhamsted and Tintagel, and to the elder
the constableship of the Tower, and the marriage of
Roger, Earl of March.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The widows of Tresilian and Brembre,
the two members of the
attainted group who alone were not Lollards,
received by far the best
treatment of any.

.. vspace:: 2

"'Tis an ill wind blows nobody good," said Mistress
Grenestede when this last piece of news was published.

"Ah, my dear master! is it good it has blown
you?" was the silent response of Lawrence Madison
in his inmost heart.

Whatever were Lawrence's doubts, none oppressed
Roger.  He arrayed himself for his bridal without a
shadow of apprehension of any sort.

The King, the Queen, the royal Dukes and
Duchesses, and half the nobility, were bidden to the
marriage of the heir of England, which took place
early in March, in the Royal chapel of the Tower.[#]  The
bridegroom was dressed in blue golden baldekyn,
one of the richest silk stuffs then manufactured, the
cost of which when plain was about seven guineas:
but this was richly wrought with fleurs-de-lis in gold
embroidery, which had cost three pounds more.
White frills of costly lace encircled his neck and
wrists, and closer sleeves of crimson velvet
protruded from the wider sleeves of the blue gown.
His boots were of crimson velvet, buttoned with
pearls.  In his hand was a hat of black velvet, over
which swept a full plume of white ostrich feathers.
From a chain of massy gold about his neck
depended the White Hart, in enamel and gold, which
was at once the badge of the King and that of the
bride.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The place is not on record; February or March, 1389,
is the probable date.

.. vspace:: 2

The Lady Alianora, who was given away by her
royal uncle,—an uncle only about five years older
than his niece—was arrayed with the utmost care
and costliness that her wardrobe could afford.  She
appeared in a long robe of crimson velvet, embroidered
with golden flowers in an elaborate rambling pattern,
and over it a cote-hardie, or close jacket without
sleeves, of the choicest miniver, cut low in the neck,
as a bridal dress then usually was: cuffs of gold
filagree finished the sleeve at the wrist, and a girdle
formed of ten golden clasps fitted round the hips.
Down the front of the cote-hardie ran a row of
gleaming jewels—sapphires, rubies, diamonds, and
emeralds—which flashed and sparkled with every
motion of the wearer.  A golden fillet adorned her
head, set with similar gems; and from under it flowed
the golden glory of her magnificent hair, which
streamed almost to the ground.  This last item was
an essential part of the bride's costume at this date.
Beneath the crimson velvet robe, when she lifted it
out of her way, could be seen glimpses of a rich skirt of
gold-coloured satin, and black velvet shoes studded
with gold.  The bride wore no gloves: they were not
usual except on some ceremonial occasions, and then
only for royal persons, or for the bird to perch upon
in hawking.  The wedding-ring was set with a ruby.

Around the principal actors stood a crowd of the
English nobility, and on its outskirts a motley
assemblage of officials then deemed necessary—seneschals,
heralds, minstrels, trumpeters, and many others.

When the priest reached the words "With all my
worldly goods I thee endow," it was incumbent
upon the bridegroom to put a sum of money on the
book, in gold and silver, which became the private
possession of the bride.  Roger laid down the
princely sum of three marks, which Alianora swept
composedly into her pocket.  Pockets were
comparative novelties, having only existed for about
forty years; and ladies, like gentlemen, had one on
each side.  Enormous bags they were, within which,
had it so pleased her, the bride could easily have
disposed of her fillet or her cote-hardie.

Immediately after the ceremony followed the
mass,—a low mass, at which the wedded pair alone
communicated with the priest.  The bride was then
led between two married nobles to the banquet-hall,
where the wedding-feast was spread, and the
bridegroom followed, led in like manner.  Precedence
even before royalty was given to them for that day.
They sat together in the place of honour, the middle
of the table on the daïs, the King being on the
right hand of the bride, and the Queen on the left
of the bridegroom.  Such plate as was included
in the bridal gifts—and plate was more frequently
given than anything else—was used at the feast.
Stately gold and silver hanaps, or cups about the
size of a chalice, in all manner of diverse forms
dictated by fashion or fancy—swans, eagles, dragons,
roses,—gold and silver ewers, often matching the
hanaps; dishes, plates, porringers, cups, saucers,
salt-cellars, spoons—all these had been poured before
the feet of Alianora, and all figured at her bridal
festival.

This was above all others the era of elaborate
cookery, and of marvellous and unintelligible names
bestowed upon it.  The guests were offered Bouce
Jane and Bardolf—both being of the nature of a
fricasee; Daryalys and Mon Amy, which may be
classed under the head of custards; Aqua Patys,
which was garlic broth, and Raynecles, which
somewhat resembled croquets.  It is, however, very
difficult to compare these dishes with our own, since the
former were far more elaborate, and generally
involved most extraordinary mixtures of incongruous
ingredients.  There were also oxen, pigs, and sheep,
roasted whole; pies of all descriptions, made of flesh,
fowl, and fruit; smaller beasts and birds of every
kind, many of which are now deemed inedible, such
as hedgehogs, squirrels, swans, and herons; and
lastly, two regal dishes at the top and bottom of the
high table, the boar's head and the peacock in his
pride—namely, with the tail fully spread.  In the
midst of the table, at every course, stood a different
"subtlety"—now a castle of silvered cardboard,
attacked by painted wooden knights; now a bronze
mill turning its wheel through a stream of Gascon
wine; now a lady standing on a mossy bank, with
her cavalier kneeling at her feet, while his squire
held his horse, ready for departure, behind them;
finally, a King seated on his throne, with his Court
standing around.  This table ornament might or
might not be of edible materials; it was more
frequently the latter.

After this splendid feast, and when the basin of
rose-water had been carried round, the hall was
cleared for dancing, commenced by a minuet in
which the wedded pair were partners.  How gentlemen
contrived to dance with those long gowns, like
dressing-gowns, flapping about their feet, may be left
to themselves to explain.  They must have been
more awkward to manage than a woman's dress,
being open in front, and therefore much more likely
to entangle the legs.  Swords were another difficulty;
and to fall over the sword in dancing was not an
unknown calamity.  The simple expedient of laying
it aside for the occasion appears not to have occurred
to the wearers, and would, perhaps, have been thought
unknightly behaviour.

The bride, who of course was the observed of all
observers, conducted herself through the whole
ceremony in a composed and self-possessed manner,
which the elder ladies thought extremely edifying,
and pointed out to their giddy or excitable daughters
as a model of proper behaviour.

To women of Alianora's type, the matrimonial
ceremony is the great event of life—the ceremony,
rather than the fact.  And she was perfectly
satisfied, for she had obtained all she wanted.  She had
longed for a gown of blue cloth of gold, and
she possessed it, and many equally expensive and
handsome.  She was now a matron, which meant
that she was emancipated from parental control,
could go where she liked, and do what she pleased.
Before her hung the glittering prospect of a queenly
crown, with the adornment of a rich coronet while she
waited for it.  There was only one element in her
jewelled world with which she would have been quite
ready to dispense, if she could have had the other
items without it, which was unhappily impossible.
And that was—Roger.

"Happy is the bride the sun shines on!" said
Mistress Grenestede, who dealt largely in proverbs,
"Look you, we could not have had a better day,
might we have ordered the same our own selves:
nay, nor a jollier wedding.  What think you, Master
Madison?  Forsooth, methinks you be somewhat
unjocund.  You grudge not your Lord a fair and
princely bride, trow?"

"I grudge my Lord nothing that shall be for his
good, nor for his pleasure," was Lawrence's grave
answer.  "He above wist that."

"Then, prithee, why be you not better accommodated?"[#]

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[#] More at ease.

.. vspace:: 2

"By reason, Mistress, that I much question the
good: and I do yet more doubt the pleasure."

"Nay, now, heard you ever the like?" demanded
Mistress Grenestede of any body who chose to
answer, as Lawrence walked quietly away.  "Yon lad
is either to presume more than him ought,[#] or elsewise
can he see further into a millstone than other folk."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] More suspicious than he should be.

.. vspace:: 2

Lawrence was not so far off that he failed to hear
her, and he stopped for a moment to reply.

"Any man may see through a millstone, Mistress
mine, if he will but set his eye on line with the hole."

.. vspace:: 2

About the close of 1393, the King resolved to
make Roger Viceroy of Ireland.  He was now twenty
years of age—equivalent to twenty-five in the present
day—and His Majesty thought it desirable that he
should try his hand at that government of which so
much might eventually be thrust upon him.  He had
been married for four years, and most people would
have thought him fully competent to take care, not
only of himself, but of Ireland.  But his wise friend
and father-in-law, Kent, who seems to have been
much attached to him, was not easy to let him go
alone.  He resolved to accompany him in person:
not only this, but he prepared a petition to the King
in Council, in Roger's name, containing the following
large stipulations, before Roger should take the
lieutenancy upon him.

First, he requested that notwithstanding his
nonage, full livery should be granted to the Earl of
March of all his estates, in England, Wales, or
Ireland; and of all "lordships, castles, manors, towns,
lands, tenements, rents, services, franchises, fees, and
advowsons, with all other appurtenances and
commodities, whether existing in fee, or hereafter to
return to the said heritage by reversion or remainder,
or by any other way whatever.  Item, all the revenues
and profits of all the lordships and lands, with all
their appurtenances and commodities whatever,
belonging to our Lord the King in all the land of
Ireland during the nonage of the said Roger.  Item,
two thousand marks in money to be paid in hand.
Item, that he have ... full power to charge his said
heritage" for one year, in order to provide money
for the voyage.  Item, that Roger should not be
obliged to take the said lieutenancy upon him, before
attaining his majority.  Item, that the Earl of Kent
should accompany him, with sufficient attendance,
specially indicating the Lord Lovel, Sir John Stanley,
Sir John Sandes, and Sir Ralph Cheyne.  Lastly,
that this should be done within a year from the
nativity of St. John next ensuing, whereupon Roger
would assume the duties of Viceroy.  These demands
were very large; but that they were perfectly
reasonable is shown by the fact that not only did the King
assent to them, but that Arundel and his co-trustees
gave a ready and formal consent.  The entire estates
of March, therefore, were at once resigned into
Roger's keeping, though he was yet some months
short of his full age.  Arundel and his colleagues
had done their duty well by Roger in this matter.
The possessions handed over to him were in the best
possible condition.  He "found all his castles and
houses in good repair, amply stored with rich furniture,
his lands stocked with cattle, and forty thousand
marks in the treasury."

The King intended to have set out for Ireland
about the end of April.  But before he was able to
leave Shene, where he was then residing, the saddest
loss of all his sad life fell upon him.  The "black
death," that dreadful plague which had scourged
England in 1340 and in 1369, returned to ravage it
in 1394.  One of its first victims, about the 20th or
25th of April, was the beloved Lollard Queen.

This is not the date usually given for her death
but it is nearer the truth than the accepted one.
Froissart, who states that she died at Whitsuntide
(which that year was June 7), and who has been
followed by all other writers, contradicts himself by
saying that the King's journey was deferred for two
months in consequence of the Queen's death, and
that he set out about the 24th of June.  In this case,
she died about the 24th of April: a date shown to be
near the truth by an entry on the Issue Roll,
recording payment for the carriage of the waxen image to
be borne on the coffin at her burial, on the third of
June.  There must therefore have been time, before
this, to manufacture the wax statue, which assuredly
never was commenced while the Queen was alive;
nor only this, but to convey it by water from London
to Richmond, which the entry informs us had been done.

It was not until after the tenth of August that
Roger set forth on his journey to Ireland.  His
retinue consisted of (his own) March Herald, two
knights banneret, eight other knights, a hundred
men-at-arms, 200 horsed archers, and 400 foot
archers.  With him, inseparable as his shadow, went
Lawrence Madison.





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.. _`MISCALCULATION`:

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   CHAPTER VIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MISCALCULATION.

..

   |  "Keep them thy gifts for them that value gold
   |  Above their souls' redemption and hearts' love!
   |  What! shall I stain mine honour, lose my God,
   |  Do violence to mine heart, at such a price?
   |  This very bait the Devil fished withal
   |  For Christ our Master, urging Him to buy
   |  What was His own an hour too soon, and pay
   |  For the hour's tinsel glory, hope and peace.
   |  Go, buy the traitors that will sell their souls!
   |  From thy perfidious hand I draw mine own,
   |  Clean of its lucre and its perfidy."

.. vspace:: 2

An account of the state of affairs in Ireland,
when Roger sailed from Holyhead to Dublin—the
fact which is supposed to underlie
the enigmatical assertion of the worthy Canon
of Chimay, Sir John Froissart, that the Lords sent
to govern Ireland embarked from Lolighet, and
landed at Dimelin—would if in detail require a
volume to itself, and would be a mere list of names
and battles, diversified by occasional murders.  A
short epitome of the facts is however requisite, in order
to make clear much that follows.  There were three
parties at this time in Ireland, whom the English
styled the Wild Irish, or Irishry; the Rebellious
Irish; and the English.  The first were the
unsubdued natives, who had retired to the mountains,
bogs, and forests; the second, who dwelt in the
territory known as the English pale, between the
Irishry and the sea, were the descendants of mixed
marriages between the English and Irish; they
partially adopted the customs of both countries, and
were subject to the English or not as they found it
convenient: more frequently they did not find it so.
Among these we find reckoned "the Butyllers,
Powers, Gerardyns [Fitzgeralds], Bermynghams,
Daltons, Barettes, and Dillons."  The last class, the
English proper, consisted of "a confused medley of
soldiers, merchants, men of needy or desperate
fortunes, and those whom the English government had
invested with authority: they occupied the principal
towns and cities and small tracts around them, chiefly
in Leinster, and on the eastern and southern coasts."  The
"rebellious English" were also termed English
*by birth*, while to the "obedient English" was restricted
the title of English *by blood*.

Since the death of Roger's father, Earl Edmund of
March, matters had gradually been going from bad
to worse, until now the state of things was little
removed from anarchy.  "Sometimes the septs were
destroying each other; at other times they were
making inroads upon the English pale, or joining
with the great settlers in their mutual ravages."  The
most unmanageable of all the Irish chieftains at this
period was Arthur MacMorogh, of Leinster, who with
the Earl of Desmond wasted the whole south of the
country at intervals.  Lesser troublers to the English,
but still sufficiently vexatious, were the O'Brien in the
east, and the O'Neile in Ulster.  The chief helper of
the government was the Earl of Ormonde, head of
the great family of Boteler.  Connaught was almost
entirely given up to the "wild Irish."

The appearance and tactics of King Richard
restored order, and four Kings of the "wild Irish"
submitted themselves to him, rather "through love
and good-humour than by battle or force," and mainly
through the persuasions of the Earl of Ormonde.
The four were, O'Neile, King of Meath; Brian, King
of Thomond; "Contruo, King of Chenour," which
may mean the O'Conor; and Arthur MacMorogh
himself, King of Leinster, who claimed to be the
Ardriagh, or Lord Paramount over the whole island.
At Dublin, on the 25th of March, 1395, these four
chieftains were knighted by the King in St. Patrick's
Cathedral, after mass, having "watched" the previous
night in the church.  It may be well to note in
passing that Froissart gravely informs us that St. John
the Baptist was the founder of the Cathedral.  To
instruct these four potentates in English customs in
general, and in the ceremonies of the forthcoming
solemnity in particular, the King appointed a tutor in the
person of an English squire of uncertain name, called
in different MSS. of Froissart and by other writers,
Henry Castide, Cristeed, Cristall, and Cristelle.  This
man had long been a captive among the "wild Irish,"
and had married an Irish damsel.  His first care was
to improve the chieftains' table manners, which in his
eyes were those of savages: the next, to induce them
to lay aside their Irish cloaks, and attire themselves
in silken robes trimmed with fur; the third, to make
them use saddles and stirrups, both which they were
very unwilling to do.  They appear, however, on this
occasion, to have been in a most amiable and
accommodating temper.  What they least liked they
submitted to cheerfully, on being assured that it was the
King's wish that while they were his guests they
should conform to English customs.  On one point,
however, they showed that they intended to listen to
no instruction.  When the squire tried to investigate
their religious faith, "they seemed so displeased that
he was forced to silence."

"We believe in God, Three in One," said the
Irish Kings: "thus far there is no difference between
our creed and yours."

Their teacher would not quit the subject until he
had ascertained one point which was in his eyes of
primary importance.  To what Pope did they profess
obedience?  Was their pontiff the successor of
St. Peter who reigned at Rome, or the wicked schismatic
who had set himself up at Avignon?  In fear and
trembling he put the question.  He might have been
easy; for the fierce struggle between Pope and
Anti-pope had not penetrated the bogs of the Emerald
Isle.  The Irish Kings at once answered that their
Pope was at Rome.

He then asked if they would like to be made
knights.  They replied that they were knights
already, for every Irish prince was made a knight by
his royal father when he was seven years of age.
The squire responded rather contemptuously that
the King of England would not be satisfied with
that kind of childish knighthood, but would create
them knights in church with solemn ceremonies.

Shortly before this solemnity, the Earl of Ormonde
paid a visit to his royal *protegés*.  He inquired if they
were satisfied with Castide—a question which they
answered like gentlemen.

"Perfectly.  He has prudently and wisely taught
us the manners and usages of his country, for which
we ought to be obliged, and do thank him."

The Earl then gave them a full explanation of the
honour about to be done them, and the ceremonies
which would attend it, laying stress on the great
value which they ought to set upon it.  The four Kings
seem to have behaved admirably.  They allowed
themselves to be richly dressed, of course in the
English manner: and let us hope that it did not include
cracowes, those ridiculous boots which tapered to a
point, and preceded their wearer by several inches,—for
these must have been woful inflictions upon an
Irish chieftain, accustomed either to wear no boots
at all, or to tie on simply "the dun deer's hide."  They
dined at King Richard's table, where, said Master
Castide, "they were much stared at by the Lords and
those present—not indeed without reason; for they
were strange figures, and differently countenanced
to the English or other nations.  We are naturally
inclined to gaze at anything strange," naïvely added
the squire, "and it was certainly, Sir John, at that
time, a great novelty to see four Irish Kings."

Castide's opinion is worth record as to the reasons
why the Irish submitted themselves so readily.  He
thought the "rebellious English" were alarmed at
the blockade of their coasts, which was so strict that
"neither provision nor merchandise could be landed":
but he admitted that the "wild Irish" cared nothing
for this, since they lived by hunting, and were
strangers to commerce.  Their reason, he considered,
was the personal respect which they bore to King
Richard, whom they accounted to be a prudent and
conscientious man, and whose reverence for the
memory of Edward the Confessor was shared by
themselves,—a fact undisturbed by any inconvenient
knowledge that Richard, if not the Irish Kings also,
had at least as much sanctity about him as Edward
the Confessor.  How that most unamiable of men,
whose cruelty as a husband was only equalled by his
irreverence as a son, ever came to be canonised and
honoured as Saint Edward, must be left as one of
the many insoluble enigmas which Rome propounds
to the crushed hearts, smothered intelligences, and
stifled consciences of her votaries.  For any other
reason, Castide remitted it to the grace of God.  The
Canon of Chimay, whose exquisite naïve simplicity
at times cuts sharply as a knife, made answer, with
more wit than he was aware, that "the grace of God
is good, and of infinite value to those who can obtain
it: but we see few lords now-o'-days augment their
territories otherwise than by force."

The campaign thus ended, Roger returned to
England in company with his royal cousin, and
rejoined his family in London on May, 1395, much
to the satisfaction of both himself and Lawrence
Madison, who greatly preferred to follow his master
out of battle rather than into it, though he wisely
kept to himself that sentiment, which would only have
earned him a character for cowardice.  On very few
men had the idea then dawned that any person could
love peace for other reasons than laziness and fear of
being hurt.  The two characteristics of King Richard
which his uncle Gloucester specially detested and
despised were his religious opinions, and his dislike to
war and tumult.  It might truly be said, paradox
though it be, that Gloucester was never at peace
except when he was at war.

During the twelve months following his return to
London, Roger kept himself exceedingly quiet.  It was
the only safe thing he could do.  It is said that an
eminent man was asked how, being a resident in Paris, he
contrived to live through the Reign of Terror.  "I
made myself of no reputation, and kept silence," was
the significant answer.  The Earl of March followed
the same plan.

The beginning of 1395 was characterised by a
strong agitation against the Lollard party, provoked
by a very bold step on their part.  Sir John
Oldcastle, afterwards Lord Cobham, issued his "Book
of Conclusions"—an epitome of Lollard doctrines, as
well as a damaging attack on the opposite
party—which was presented to Parliament by Lord Latimer
and Sir Richard Stury, and posted up on the doors
of St. Paul's Cathedral and the gates of Westminster
Abbey.  The two Archbishops took alarm in good
earnest.  They were strongly opposed to the "new"
doctrines—which were not new, but as old as
Christianity itself—and they rightly judged that unless
these views had been spreading considerably in
secret, they would scarcely have made this flourishing
appearance in public.  King Richard must be
appealed to, and entreated to put down this
unwelcome manifestation with the strong arm of the law:
and the astute prelates well knew that only at one
point, like Achilles, was Richard vulnerable on the
Lollard question.  The religious views were his own,
and he would listen to no diatribe against them.
But the political aspirations of the advanced Lollards
he dreaded and disliked as much as the hierarchy.
Archbishop Courtenay trusted to no tongue less
skilful than his own the task of winning the King
over.  He started for Ireland without delay, taking
with him Bishop Braybroke, a prelate whom the
King liked and respected.  Richard, the most open
and unsuspicious of men, was no match for one of
the wiliest priests who ever wore a mitre.  Under
his dexterous hands he was induced to believe that
the political aims of the advanced section included
his own deposition—the exact contrary was the
truth—and the beloved Queen, who had hitherto
always guided his sceptre on this point, was now
beyond the fitful fever of earthly tumults.  "Never
was there King of England who so easily believed
what was told him," says the chronicler Froissart,
who knew Richard personally.

The King, thus influenced, departed from the
course approved by his own better judgment, and
for one moment swerved from that kindly support
which he had always given hitherto to the Lollard
party.  He called before him the four most
prominent Lollards then in his suite—Lord Latimer,
Sir John Montacute, Sir Lewis Clifford, and Sir
Richard Stury—and sharply rebuked them for their
favour shown to traitors, with a threat of expulsion
from the household if they did not change their
political aspect.  Latimer, Clifford, and Stury, were
terrified, especially the last, who fell upon his knees
and vowed that he would never do it again.

All these were old men.  But the youngest of the
group,—John Montacute, who was but four-and-twenty—held
his peace, and promised nothing.

Could King Richard have looked forward five
short years, he would have seen that one young man,
who now refused to follow his King to evil, alone of
all the four giving his life for that King's sake.  The
man who would not deny his God for fear of his
sovereign, was the one who was ready to die for God
and him.

It was during this short period of glamour thrown
over King Richard by the astute Archbishop that
certain Lollards were imprisoned in Beaumaris
Castle, that some recanted, and that various edicts
were issued, in the strong language wherein
Gloucester and Courtenay delighted, against those who
"sowed tares among the people."  The complete
change of tone in the royal mandates is very striking,
between those periods when Gloucester's influence
paralysed the King, and the two short intervals
when Richard was left to himself.  Yet to this day
Richard, not Gloucester or Courtenay, is assailed
with all the obloquy which is due only to the two
latter.  On this occasion Richard followed the
Archbishop's leading up to a certain point.  But
when Courtenay pressed the advantage which he
had gained, and urged capital punishment for the
heretics, the King drew back.  The cards had been
shown a little too plainly.  A short term of
imprisonment for obnoxious politics was consonant with
Richard's ideas of right and justice: but death as
the penalty of religious opinions he would not give.
Was it likely, when the religious opinions were to
some extent his own?

Courtenay appeared to waive the matter.  Ostensibly,
he deferred to the King's judgment.  And
Richard never suspected that the sentence of death
had merely been, by Courtenay and Gloucester,
transferred to another person, and that their resolve
was that if he would not permit the heretics to die,
Richard must die himself.

It was during this period that Earl Roger kept
quiet and silent,—so quiet that we never hear a word
about him for a whole twelvemonth, though
circumstantial evidence tends to show that he was in
London all the time.  His high position, and his
known opinions, alike placed him in danger.  The
only safe thing to do was, so far as possible, to
reduce himself to a nonentity, and hope that
Gloucester and his myrmidons would forget him.

During the last two years death had been very
busy in high places.  The plague of 1394 had made
three royal widowers—the Duke of Lancaster, the
King, and the Earl of Derby.  In the summer of
1396, Archbishop Courtenay was also summoned to
the judgment bar.  Removed from Courtenay's
influence, the King awoke from his dream, and
determined to initiate a new order of things.  He knew
at last—all but too late—that Gloucester and Arundel
were among his worst enemies.  Had he seen it with
regard to one man more—his cousin Derby—the
course of English history would probably have been
different.

There was another person awake also, with the
important difference that he had never been asleep.
Gloucester was ready to act just as soon as his royal
nephew: sooner, in fact, for his plans were already
matured, while Richard's were only in process of
formation.  The time was come when that blow was
to be struck which he had foreseen so long, for which
he had waited so patiently and paved the way so
elaborately, and which for so many years past, he
had mentally destined Roger Mortimer to strike.
The edge of the tool must be felt, to see whether
the metal were sufficiently strong for the work to
be done, and the point sufficiently sharp.

The July sun streamed full into a large low
chamber of a handsome house on St. Paul's Wharf.
The chamber was hung with dark blue silk relieved
by silver embroidery.  Velvet settles of the same
colour stood at intervals around the walls, and
half-a-dozen curule chairs of ebony inlaid with ivory, and
furnished with blue silk cushions, were scattered
about the room.  On one of the velvet settles, with
his head supported by a cushion, lay the only
occupant of this handsome chamber—a young man of
twenty-two years of age, fair-complexioned and very
good-looking.  His eyes were closed, but he certainly
was not asleep, for he drew long sighs at intervals
which were not long.  On a small table beside him
a large book lay open, bound in violet velvet, and
clasped with gold.

A soft scratch at the door without announced a
visitor, who was desired to come in, without any
change of position on the part of the occupant of the
settle.  A middle-aged man, clad in blue and gold
livery, entered accordingly.

"Please it your Lordship, Master Westcombe is
here come from Fleshy, from my Lord Duke of
Gloucester, desiring speech of your Lordship."

The slight contraction of his Lordship's brow
might indicate that he could have borne to be
deprived of the pleasure of an interview with
Mr. Westcombe.

"Good.  Bring him hither."

He rose from the settle, gave his long blue silk
gown a slight shake, and resting his hand on the
book, awaited his visitor.

The visitor proved to be a squire in royal livery,
with the badge of the Duke of Gloucester—a golden
swan—fastened to his left sleeve.  He made a
courtesy—for in those days the courtesy was the
gentleman's reverence—and then with many words
and some flowery expletives informed his very dear
Lord that his gracious Lord the Duke lovingly
prayed him to speed with all haste to Fleshy, for he
desired to speak with him immediately.

Earl Roger's expression of face on this communication
was much like that of a man who is just on
the point of swallowing a necessary but very
unpalatable dose of medicine.  He gave a rather short
reply, to the effect that he would start for Fleshy
early the next morning: and having dismissed
Mr. Westcombe courteously but quickly, he made his
way to another room on the same floor of the house.
Sounds of lively conversation and laughter issued
from this room as soon as the door was opened.
The Earl, in whose face the expression with which he
had received his uncle's behest had rather increased
than disappeared from it, made his way up the long
narrow room, filled with brilliant company, pausing
now to greet one, and now another, till he reached a
lady attired in white and ruby satin, who sat at the
further end in a curule chair, surrounded by gentle
men who appeared to be paying court to her.

"Pray, suffer me not to let your diversion,"
remarked the Earl, with the faintest possible tone of
satire under his polished accents: "I suppose I may
have leave to speak with her Ladyship among her
other servitors.—I came but to say, my Lady, that
my fair uncle of Gloucester hath sent unto me this
evening, praying me to render visit unto him at
Fleshy, as early as may stand at mine ease.  I think,
therefore, to set forth with the morning light, and I
shall maybe not have the pleasure to see your
Ladyship again ere my departing."

The voice of the Countess replied, "Then, my Lord,
you will not be here for the dance to-morrow?
Truly, this is displeasant tidings!"  But what her
eyes said was,—"Really, what a convenient
coincidence!  I am delighted to hear it."

"I dare not flatter myself that your Ladyship will
miss me," was Earl Roger's answer, in the same
slightly ironical tone.  Then he turned round, kissed
his hand to her, and made his way out of the room.

Just outside he met his children and their nurses,
returning from the garden.  They were four very
pretty, attractive little children, the eldest not quite
seven years of age, and the youngest only two.  The
Earl stopped, and took up the eldest in his arms.

"God bless my Nannette!" he said.  "Has
Nannette been in the garden?"

Little Anne nodded, and looked earnestly into her
father's eyes.  The expression of them distressed her.
Children can read the expression of a face long
before they can read anything else.  She thought, in
her child language, that "somebody had hurt him;"
she realised that he wanted comforting and diversion
of thought: and her idea of administering both was
to pat his cheek, and to hold up her doll for him to
look at.

Somebody had indeed hurt him—somebody who
was always hurting him—somebody who cared not a
straw whether he was hurt or not.  But who that
was must never be told, except to the two privileged
persons who had discovered it without telling, and
whose sympathy was ready and sure.

The Earl kissed his little girl and set her down;
laid his hand on his boy's head and blessed him.
As he turned away, he said to a gentleman usher
who was in waiting,—"Has Dan Robesart returned home?"

"Not yet, my Lord."

"No matter.  Send Madison to me."  And the
Earl went on to the room he had first occupied.
There he sat down by the window, and for a moment
yielded to his own sorrowful thoughts.

He was not usually a man to brood over his
sorrows, nor to nurse grievances.  His feelings were
more of the sharp and short order, and his disposition
was not only cheerful, but playful.  But when
he had just received a fresh sting, the wound would
smart and rankle for a moment.  Otherwise, youth
and natural good spirits commonly helped him to
bear his daily cross.  Just now it pressed hard.
Those lovely blue eyes—as lovely as they were
unloving—had so plainly told him that their owner
would be glad to get rid of him, even for a few days.
That bright illusion of past days, when he had
fancied differently, was over long ago.  He had
woke early from his sweet dream.  He knew that
his idol was not merely dethroned—it was broken.
The Alianora whom he had so passionately loved
was a creature of his own imagination: and the real
being, to whom he was tied for life, was neither
loveable nor loving.

There was no jealousy mixed with these feelings
of disappointed loneliness.  It was not that he had
any apprehension of her loving some one else better
than himself.  He said to himself bitterly that she
had not heart enough for that.  What she enjoyed
in those ceaseless flirtations in which she spent her
life was just their very emptiness and frivolity.  For
anything like genuine attachment—anything which
involved strength and colour and warmth and
reality—her nature was too light.

Oh, when will women learn that a flirt is a woman
who has deliberately flung aside the very flower
and glory of her womanhood?—who is preparing for
herself a middle age of misery, and an old age of
contempt and loneliness: to add to them, unless
God's mercy interpose to save her, an eternity of
remorse.  No type of woman is so utterly despicable as
this.  "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Earl Roger was not a man to shut his eyes to
anything which he did not wish to see, nor to go on
hoping against hope in the face of what he knew to
be facts.  His position was very much the same as
that of another near connection of royalty, just a
hundred years before him.[#]  But Earl Edmund of
Cornwall and Earl Roger of March were men of two
very different types.  The one had sunk under his
burden; the other rose superior to it.  Roger was
not so utterly swallowed up in his disappointment as
his predecessor had been.  For him, his territorial
affairs, his children, politics, and other interests, came
in to relieve the weight.  Only now and then, as it
was to-night, his heart sank low, and felt a yearning
want of that human sympathy which he never
received but from two persons—his family physician,
Mr. Robesart, and his body-squire, Lawrence
Madison.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The reader who desires to know more of
this will find it in "Not For Him."

.. vspace:: 2

He lifted his head now to bid the latter enter.

"Your Lordship is not at ease, I fear?" said the
squire with an intonation of genuine interest in his
master.

He had grown into a taller and stronger-built man
than Roger: dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a pale
grave face, a smile of considerable sweetness, and a
clear pleasant voice.

"Only the old story, lad," was the quiet answer.
"Aye, and a little further travail thereto.  My Lord
of Gloucester, mine uncle, hath sent for me.  We
must needs be away toward Fleshy as early as the
sun to-morrow."

"At your Lordship's pleasure.  Shall it be to tarry?"

"I trow not.  Best, maybe, to be prepared for a
two-three days.  But I shall be here again in the
even, an' I may."

Lawrence bowed, and withdrew from the chamber.

Half an hour later, Mr. Robesart entered it, and
found the Earl bending over the large Bible.

"I was told," said he, "that your Lordship had
asked for me a short space agone.  Metrusteth you
be not indisposed?"

"Not here, good Father, I thank you," answered
the Earl, touching his head.  "Only here"—and he
laid a hand upon his heart.  "Methought I would fain
hear somewhat of your counsel ere my departing,
which shall be right early on the morrow."  And
he repeated the explanation given to Lawrence.

"Your Lordship," responded the physician, "hath
not, as methinks, overmuch trust in my Lord Duke?"

"Fair fall he that hath that in any man!" returned
Roger with a gesture of contempt.  "In truth,
Father, my belief in the Duke's discretion, not to
say loyalty, would go by the eye of a needle.  If he
would but keep his plots to himself and my fair
cousin of Rutland, which 'joyeth so much therein
that I could not for compassion wish him thereout!
Verily, I am alway something afeard lest some day
he essay to drag me in."

"Counts your Lordship that his Grace hath sent
for you with that intent?"

"I know not wherefore he hath so done, and that
is the very truth."  And the Earl passed his hand
wearily over his forehead.

"It will be well that we both ask God for wisdom
for your Lordship.  But there is more than that
troubling you, or I mistake."

"More than that?  Aye so.  Not more than
custom is.  Father, see you yon fly a-walking over
the page of this book?  If I shall say, That fly is in
my way, and brush him thereout, roughly, so that he
die—what is it?  To me, but a little matter of
disease[#] whereof I have rid me.  But to him it is the
end of health, and life, and all things.  Ah! there be
many fly-crushers among us human creatures.  God
help the crushed flies!"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Inconvenience.

.. vspace:: 2

"Does He not help them?"

"How wot I?  You must needs tell me what is
help ere I can answer you.  You mind that part of
the story of my Lord Saint John Baptist, when he
sent them twain to our Lord to ask at Him if He
were He that should come, or no?  There be will
tell us that he sent them for their teaching; it could
not be for his own.  Methinks such have been in but
few deep places, where the floods overflowed them.
Was it not that the man's heart was wrung to behold
the Christ, his own kinsman, pass him by on the
other side—heal and comfort and help all that came,
and never turn to him?  Ah, it is evil waiting with
patience and faith, when Christ passeth a man by."

"And you scarce twenty-three, my Lord!" said
Mr. Robesart sadly, and not so inconsequently as it
seemed.

"After men's reckoning.  Be there any years in
God's eternity?  A man, methinks, may live a
thousand years in one day, whether they be years of
happiness or of misery."  The Earl's head was lifted
suddenly.  "Father, tell me, what means He for me?
It might have been so different!"  And with the
saddest of intonations, the young head sank again.

Mr. Robesart laid his hand on that of the Earl.

"He means,—'My son, give Me thine heart.'"

"I thought I had done so."

"Then he means,—My child, come nearer to Me.
'Each branch that beareth fruit, He shall purge it,
that it bear the more fruit.'"

The Earl made no reply, except to say after an
interval,—"Father, I would fain find you here when
I return.  I hope that will be to-morrow at even."

"I will await your Lordship," answered Mr. Robesart:
and the interview ended.

The journey to Fleshy was hot and dusty, though they
arrived there before the sun had reached the meridian.
My Lord Duke kept his young kinsman waiting for
him some time, and when he came, took him into the
most secret recess of his own private room.

"Very dear Cousin," said he—and Roger felt sure
from that moment that he meant mischief—"I do
earnestly desire to unbosom myself to thee of all the
secrets of mine heart.  I am well assured that I need
not unfold to thee the very numerous reasons which
render our fair Lord King Richard wholly unfit to
govern this realm, as being neither worthy nor
capable to do so."

Roger contrived to hold his tongue, and kept his
amazement as much out of his eyes as he could.

"You are well aware," continued the Duke—people
are apt to assume your perfect agreement
when they utter opinions with which you
particularly disagree—"you are well aware, very dear
Cousin, that the King cares for nothing but the
pleasures of the table and the amusements of ladies."

What Gloucester meant by this sweeping statement[#]
was that the King disliked war, which his
uncle regarded as the only occupation fit for a prince:
and preferred literature, music, conversation, and
field sports, which in the eyes of his uncle were
sufficiently mean to be level to the feminine intellect.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] These words from Gloucester are matter of history,
and were used more than once in substance at least.

.. vspace:: 2

"Now, very dear Cousin, it is much communed[#]
that these things are so: and hard is to know what
shall be done in the matter, the rather since the
people are right heartily discontent, and action must
needs be taken."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Talked about.

.. vspace:: 2

My Lord of Gloucester's language was usually as
full of "the people" as that of any modern Radical:
and, also like some modern speakers, he was greatly
given to crediting the people with whatever desires
he himself might entertain.  Roger felt strongly
inclined to inquire (with Lord Melbourne), "Can't
you let it alone?" but he held his peace, accounting
it the wisest plan to let Gloucester unwind his
peroration.  Every time that he found himself
addressed as "very dear cousin," Roger's sensation of
distrust deepened.

"I do you to wit, very dear Cousin, that I am
already joined by my Lord of Arundel, your old
friend and guardian,—his son Sir John, my Lord of
Warwick, and many other prelates and barons, all
which be at one and busy about this matter.  The
King shall be deposed, and prisoned so long as he
shall live, in due state of a prince, and full provision
allowed for his maintenance.  We do desire to see
you our King, being fully satisfied that you shall be
of very diverse liking and conditions from him that
is now such, and shall well content your nobles and
people.  What say you?"

Not what he thought.  Had Roger spoken that
out, the solitary word "Scoundrel!" would have
been sufficient to convey it.  But he held his
peace.  During a few seconds of silence his thoughts
rapidly revolved probabilities, possibilities,
desirabilities.  Gloucester watched him narrowly until at
last Roger looked up and spoke.

"Fair Uncle, and my gracious Lord, these matters
be of weighty import, and ask grave meditation.  It
would not be possible that with so little time I
should give you an answer touching a business so
great."

Roger's manner was so cautious, if not cold, that
Gloucester took the alarm.

"Have a care, nevertheless, most sweet Cousin,
and this I pray you right heartily, that the matter
get not abroad.  If it be published, and come to the
King's ears, ere the business be ripe——"

"Trust me, fair Uncle.  I will take due thought,
and observe all secrecy.  And now, if your Grace
have said so much as it list you, I pray you let me
be on my way home, for I have urgent business in
hand, and it shall be late ere I win thither."

An hour afterwards, Roger and his suite set out
from Fleshy.  As he climbed the last slope whence
the Castle could be seen, he drew bridle for an
instant, and looked back.

"Thank God that I have escaped from that hole
with mine head on!" he murmured, in so low a tone
that he was unheard except by the safe ears of
Lawrence Madison.  "If my gracious Lord of
Gloucester ever again set eyes on me within those
his walls, I grant him free leave to dub Roger
Mortimer a fool!  'Very dear Cousin,' forsooth!
'Most sweet Cousin!'  Methinks, the further I drew
away from him, the dearer and sweeter I became.
We will see, most sweet and very dear Uncle, if the
young cannot outrun the old!—Lawrence!"

"My Lord?"

"We must be ready, thou and I, to set out for
Ireland as to-morrow."

"For Ireland, my Lord!"

"Aye.  I shall never feel at ease till I have set the
sea betwixt me and those prating traitors.  Once at
Carrickfergus or Trim Castle, and I may snap my
fingers at my very dear uncle and my most sweet
cousins.  They shall not be so foot-hot to fetch me
from Ireland as from Paul's Wharf.  The rascal
crew!—the vile traitors!  Pardoned over and over again
as some of them have been!—raised to honours and
riches by the King they are ready to betray!  Would
I be their King?—the ungrateful, disloyal adders!
Nay, fair Uncle of Gloucester!  Roger Mortimer can
lay down his life if need be, but he can never sell his
King and betray his friend—never break his trust,
nor be unfaithful to his troth!  '*Un Dieu, un
Roy*'—'*Fais ce que doy!*'  Come, let us hie on."

"Methinks," said Lawrence, a little hesitatingly,
"her Ladyship shall scantly be ready to obey so
unlooked-for a summons."

"Her Ladyship—will do her pleasure."  There was
a pause between the words.  "It may be it shall
not list her to follow me thus far.  If she so think,
she can 'bide at which of my castles she will."

Nothing more was said on the subject until they
reached Thames Street, when Lawrence was sent to
give instant notice to the servants of their master's
sudden departure, and warn them to be ready for him
to set out at four o'clock the next morning, and the
Earl himself went to convey the intelligence to the
Countess.

"Bid Dan Robesart await me in my chamber," he
said to the gentleman usher as he passed.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ROGER FINDS HIS MISSION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   ROGER FINDS HIS MISSION.

..

   |  "And how can man die better
   |    Than facing fearful odds,
   |  For the ashes of his fathers
   |    And the temples of his gods?"
   |                      —LORD MACAULAY.

.. vspace:: 2

Earl Roger found his Countess in the same
room in which he had left her when he went
to Fleshy.  Hypocras and spices, which
constituted the "void," a light meal corresponding to
afternoon tea, were being served round as he entered.
Roger made his way to the side of Alianora, declined
the hypocras—a light, sweet wine—and sat down by
her while she sipped it.

"You are early, my Lord," said the Countess,
whose eyes were occupied in watching an interchange
of frothy banter between a knight and a lady at a
little distance.

"I had need, my Lady.  Will it meet with your
wishes to follow me to Ireland, whether urgent cause
removeth me, and without delay?"

"Ireland!  What part of Ireland?"

"Kilkenny, at the first; afterward, maybe, to Trim."

"And what moveth your Lordship to go among
those savages, who should scantly wit if you ware
red velvet or blue damask?"

"Those savages are my kinsfolk, under your
Ladyship's leave.  Moreover, savages commonly have
better sight than civil[#] men."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Civilised.

.. vspace:: 2

"Verily, your Lordship hath some sweet kinsfolk
to wake your pride!" said the Countess with a light
laugh.

"Therein is your Ladyship not deceived," was the
dry answer.  "I leave behind me some most sweet
ones.  Well, what saith your Ladyship to my point?"

"What, *I* go to Ireland?  Gramercy, your Lordship
is pleasant!  Aye, when I have cause to wear
up mine old gowns and ugsome[#] head-gear, then
will I think of following you in that direction.  But
till it so happen, under your leave, I would as lief
'bide on Paul's Wharf or at Ludlow."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Ugly.

.. vspace:: 2

"As your Ladyship will."

"When go you?  Soon, is it?—this next week?"

"I set forth as four o'clock to-morrow morning."

"And you looked for me to go withal?  Verily,
what unwitty[#] fantasies have these men!  Why, one
might scarce fold a borel[#] cloth in the time.  What
moveth you to be thus foot-hot,[#] forsooth?"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Silly.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] A very common, coarse material.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] In hot haste.

.. vspace:: 2

"There is cause, Dame," said the Earl gravely.

"Then I bid your Lordship good even," said the
Countess, laughing, "for elsewise shall you ne'er have
space to put on your hood.  I wish you a joyous
meeting with those your dear kinsfolk, and that they
may not eat you ere I behold you again!"

She held out her hand, and he touched his lips
to it.

"May God bless my Lady!" he said very gravely.

Then he left her, and went upstairs, to say
good-bye to his children.  As he slowly mounted, the
thought occurred to him,—What does blessing
mean?  If God blessed Alianora, what would He do
to her?  According to the usual ideas of men, He
would give her beauty, talent, wealth, luxury, and
happiness.  But was this what God meant by the
word?  Had He no better blessings than such as
these?  Were not His sweetest fruits wrapped often
in unsightly husks—His rarest gems in crusts which
concealed their brilliance?  Might He not be blessing
Roger himself by means of his disappointments, and
not blessing Alianora through all the gifts He
showered on her?  Was there not something in that
Book which Roger was beginning to know so well,
and to apply instinctively to every thing which
happened to him, about one to whom God gave corn,
and wine, and oil, and silver, and gold, which she
prepared for Baal?  If men turned His blessings into
means of sinning, was there no fear lest He should
turn them into curses?

Little Anne ran to meet her father as soon as she
heard his step.  He stooped and took her in his arms.

"Little Nan," he said rather sadly, "what wilt
thou grow to be?"

"A lady," said she readily, with brightening eyes.

"There be two sorts of women, my little maid.
There be heart-comforters, and there be
heart-breakers.  Which wilt thou be?"

The question was beyond her in details.  She replied
to its scope, which was all that she understood.

"I will be what God makes me."

"Amen," answered the Earl.  "Be what God makes
thee,—not Satan, nor thine own foolish fantasies.
Farewell, my little one.  I am going a long journey,
my Nannette."

"Will you be back soon?"

"Nay, I think not.  Farewell, my darling—God
go with thee and bless thee!"

He kissed them all and gave them his blessing.
Then he went back to his own room, where he found
Mr. Robesart awaiting him.

"Father, it behoveth me to set forth for Ireland
with the dawn, and I would vain have taken you
withal.  Can you be ready?"

"A priest is always ready," was the reply.  "At
what hour shall I wait upon your Lordship?"

"At four of the clock I think to set out."

"You shall find me in attendance.  Can I serve
your Lordship in any other way?"

"Methinks not, save by taking that into your safe
keeping," said the Earl, touching the large Bible.
"I would have it go withal, as well as you.  Nought
else, I thank you."

But before Mr. Robesart had quite reached the
door, his young master's voice arrested his steps.

"Father, tell me ere you go, what doth God when
He blesseth us?"

"What do you, my Lord, when you bless your childre?"

"I do desire all good to hap unto them: but I may
not ensure it."

"And He alway ensureth it.  I see none other
difference.  God's blessing is God's love.  Every gift of
God is a loving thought of God's heart toward His
childre."

"But how, toward them that are not such?"

"'He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on
the good,'" replied Mr. Robesart.  "His common,
earthly blessings He gives to all alike."

"And what call you such gifts as beauty, learning,
and riches?  Be they blessings, or no?"

"All things that God has made are good.  They
are blessings when they leave His hand.  If we
would have them abide blessings, we must give them
back to Him.  If we keep them to adorn ourselves
withal, they become curses to us.  God's first and
greatest blessing is Himself.  Let us keep Him in
His right place—on the throne of the heart—and all
else will fall into his right place, as by the wave of a
magician's wand."

"Things be sorely apt to get out of their places!"
said the Earl with a sigh.  "I thank you, Father."

"My Lord, when you find things out of their
places, look and see if you have not given leave to
somewhat else to occupy His place.  God give you
a good even!"

A very small suite accompanied Earl Roger to
Ireland; but it included his two best friends,
Mr. Robesart and Lawrence Madison.  His outside
friends were considerably puzzled to know why he
should leave England at such a particularly awkward
moment as this, when the negotiations for the King's
marriage were in progress.  The Earl of Kent, his
late guardian—since Roger's majority he had ceased
to be a practical one so far as any personal control
was concerned—was specially perplexed and
astonished at this step.  But he knew nothing of the
interview at Fleshy.

To all of them Roger gave a general and vague
explanation, which had reference to the necessary
care of his Irish estates.  His own sole fervent desire
was to put himself where Gloucester could not find
him—to lose himself, as far as the conspirators were
concerned.  It was the only way that he could see just
then to serve that God, and that King, to both of whom
in his early youth he had pledged his heart's devotion.

Rarely has any journey been taken in more
feverish haste than that of Roger Earl of March to
Ireland in the summer of 1396.  He felt as though
he were not safe for a day until he had put the
breadth of St. George's Channel between himself
and his uncle Gloucester.  His journey from London
to Haverford was almost a flight.  His unsuspecting
suite complained bitterly of the long forced
marches over the mountains of South Wales which
their unreasonable master obliged them to take.
Two days delay at Haverford, before the wind
would serve, brought Roger's patience to the verge
of distraction.

"I *must* go!" he said passionately to Mr. Robesart.

"My Lord," was the grave answer, "it ill suits the
archer to wear the uniform of the general.  There is
no must but one, and it is meet but for the lips of the
Lord of all."

"Yet surely He knoweth my necessity?"

"Soothly: but I pray your Lordship to remember
that what is *must* with you may be *must not* with Him."

"I cannot rest till I be hence!"

"We shall rest in the life to come," quietly replied
Mr. Robesart.  "In the life that now is, we have but
to be and do God's will."

"You take it calmly, Father!  But then, for you
there is no such need.  'Tis easy gear to counsel a
man to lie still whose veins burn with fever, when your
own pulse is as quiet as a mill-tarn."  And Roger
laughed, with a laugh which was not all mirth.

Mr. Robesart's answering smile was rather pathetic.

"Having lived through the fever, I may know
your Lordship's feelings."

On the third day the wind changed, and they set
sail from Haverford.  Three weeks—a very favourable
passage—landed them at Wexford; and as Roger set
foot upon the shore of Ireland, he turned and looked
across to the invisible mountains of Wales.

"Fair fall thou, my native land!" he said half
sarcastically.  "From henceforth is this land of my
fathers mine own land, and thou must serve thee
without me."

The autumn and winter of that year found him at
Kilkenny, spending his time in an unusual manner
for a noble of the fourteenth century.  He summoned
Irish minstrels and chroniclers around him, and went
deep into Irish history.  Perhaps it was a natural
result that Irish history went deep into him.  He
became an enthusiastic admirer of the character and
annals of the nation the blood of whose kings ran in
his veins.  His own natural impetuosity drove him
along the groove which he had chosen, and ere long
one passionate aspiration took possession of his soul,
next after that "*Un Dieu, un Roy*" which had
possessed and would possess it for ever.  England and
Ireland should be at peace, and he would be the means
of it.  They should live and love as sisters, happy and
tranquil, under one sceptre, having but one aim, and
the glory of the one should be the glory of the other.
To this he would give himself as long as he should
live.  He would secure it—or die in the attempt.

All the Mortimers had entertained an affection for
Ireland, and could never forget their Irish blood.
King Richard also had a liking for that country, of
which his uncle of Gloucester was pleased to speak
very scornfully.

"He is a fool who thinks of conquering Ireland,"
said Gloucester, in his usual unwatered diction.
"The Irish are a poor and wicked people, with an
impoverished country; and he who should conquer
it one year would lose it the next."

This affection of the young Earl for the Green
Isle by no means increased his popularity with his
English retainers.  Saxon and Celt have always
mutually looked down upon each other.  The Irish
saw in the English intruding strangers, none the
more welcome for being conquerors; the English
reckoned the Irish uncivilised barbarians with whom
no person of refinement could be satisfied to
associate.  They were not themselves so over-refined
that they need have been particular: but the
half-educated man (still more woman) is usually more
fastidious on the score of vulgarity than the
blue-blooded noble.  There were murmurs among Roger's
suit that he was too accessible to the masses, and
that his heart was rather Irish than English.

When the King discovered, somewhat to his surprise,
that his chosen heir had so unexpectedly disappeared
from the scene on the plea of looking after his Irish
property, he sent him a commission of lieutenancy
for Ulster, Connaught, and Meath—a most convenient
arrangement for Roger, since it afforded him
a full excuse for not returning to England until the
state of affairs should have changed.  His Majesty
was not the only person who was puzzled by Roger's
proceedings.  But there was another person who was
not puzzled at all.  Of one point Roger might safely
have felt assured—that, however his sudden
disappearance might surprise and perplex others, his
uncle Gloucester at least would not fail to
understand it.  But the fact that a particular material had
proved unsuitable for his purpose was not likely to
ruin the designs of so far-seeing and scheming a
conspirator as Gloucester.  Having convinced himself
that his nephew of March was not the soft and
malleable article that he had supposed him, Gloucester
merely cast the useless thing on one side, and set his
busy brain to work to evolve a fresh project.  It
proved a very different one from the last.  His new
scheme involved a partition of the kingdom into four
parts, of which his brother of Lancaster was to be
bought off with one (a matter somewhat easier said
than done); York, who was plastic as putty in the
hands of Gloucester, was to have another; Arundel
was to be rewarded with the third; and the fourth fell
to Gloucester himself.  March was left out altogether.

How long this sagacious disposition of political
affairs would have lasted, may be very reasonably
questioned: certainly not, at the furthest, beyond the
second generation.  A quarter of England would
never have contented Derby, for whose ambitious soul
the world was scarcely wide enough, nor could
Rutland have reigned an hour in his division without
plotting against the other three.

The end was near—the end of one phase of the
political tumult.  On the 28th of July, Gloucester
and his fellow conspirators met at Arundel, to perfect
their plot.  Just eight days later, in full Parliament,
at Westminster, that extremely "honourable man,"
my Lord of Rutland, humbly presented a petition
of impeachment against Gloucester, Arundel, and
Warwick.  Five days afterwards Gloucester was
arrested and sent to Calais; and on the 8th of
September he died in the Castle of that town.  The King
had borne with him, to use his own words, "as long as
he had been able"—and no other Sovereign, perhaps
excepting Henry VI., would have borne with him
half so long.

It was asserted by the King's enemies, long afterwards,
and is now generally believed, that Gloucester
was "murdered" by being smothered between two
feather beds.  Unfortunately for the assertion, this
very report was spread, with the view of aspersing
the King, while Gloucester was still alive.  The
subsequent elaborate account, therefore, was simply
a more carefully revised version of the old slander.
The truth is that Gloucester was either privately
executed, or that he died of apoplexy before the
execution took place.  Why a man under sentence
of death, approved as inevitable by his own brother, the
just and humane Lancaster, should not have suffered
execution, must be left to those modern writers of
the "follow-my-leader" school, who persist in terming
the execution a murder.  How many times the penalty
had been deserved it would not be easy to reckon.

Things were not now, as previously, done by
halves—except in one item, and that spoiled the whole.
The Earl of Arundel was beheaded on the 21st of
September.  The Archbishop, Norfolk, and Warwick,
were banished for life.  If one other execution had
taken place, the rebellion would have been crushed,
and King Richard's life would have been safe.  It
was entirely his own fault that it did not.  Derby
had been engaged in a multitude of plots—more
than any one knew except himself—he had plotted
the death of the King, and had drawn his sword
upon him in the Queen's presence: he had been
twice, if not three times, condemned to death by his
own father.  The Duke of Bretagne had said to the
King on their last interview, "You will never be safe
while Henry of Lancaster lives."  Richard knew all
this, but his heart failed him.  For all the
provocation received both as monarch and as man, that true
and tender heart refused to condemn the old
playmate, and instead of it lifted him to honour.  He
fancied this step would ensure the love and fidelity
of a man who knew not what love and faithfulness
were.  He laid this adder to warm in his bosom, and
like the adder that it was, it stung him to death.

While these stirring events were passing in
England, Earl Roger of March maintained that distance
and silence which he had evidently perceived to be
the only safe course for himself.  How far was he
neglecting his duties in so doing? is a question
which may reasonably be asked.  The date at which
he returned to England seems to show that he was
actuated, not by a cowardly fear for his personal
safety—a supposition contradicted by every other
action of his life—but by a fear of his name being
dragged into the contest on the wrong side, and
without his own consent.  As soon as he could feel
sure that Gloucester had laid aside the idea of
making a tool of him, and before any appearance
of retribution had overtaken Gloucester, Roger
returned to Usk.  The little cloud which had
overhung the Lollard party had been long dispersed, and
during the period of that shadow Roger had sought
safety not in flight, but in silence.

The Countess was still in London, and she made
no attempt to join her lord in Monmouthshire.  He
felt so hopeless of her doing so, that he did not even
ask her.  But one other thing he did—he sent for
his children.  Beyond his natural wish for their
occasional company, was his strong desire to rescue
them from the contamination of the society into
which, so soon as they were old enough, their mother
was likely to plunge them.  He was anxious to
accomplish a project which had occurred to him, and
which he did not expect her to oppose—to obtain
his old foster-mother, Guenllian, to take the same
position with respect to his children.  Their mother
cared too little about them to care who was with
them, so long as it was some one who would take
all responsibility off her shoulders.  Guenllian, on
her part, was ready enough to return to her sometime
nursling, whom she had always loved the best of all
her charges.  Roger was more easy when he had
secured her.  With her came Beatrice, who had
always been her satellite since she entered service,
and was considered as an indispensable appendage.

The following Michaelmas brought a magnificent
ceremony, in the creation of some dozen new peers
at Westminster.  The list was headed by the traitor
Derby and the treacherous Rutland, who were
respectively created Dukes of Hereford and Aumerle.
But the heir presumptive of the Crown kept away
from both politics and pageants in his seclusion at
Usk, and never showed himself until the ensuing
January, when he was summoned to the Parliament
at Shrewsbury, to take an oath which had been
administered to all the peers, and which March was
the last of the peers to take.  It was a particularly
useless one, for a member of any party could have
taken it with a clear conscience.  It was sworn by
the body of the peers on the shrine of St. Edward,
and by March alone upon the cross of Canterbury
(probably as being portable, which the shrine was
not): and it bound him who took it "to hold, sustain,
and maintain well and loyally, without fraud or evil
intent, all statutes, etc., made in this present
Parliament, without ever going contrary thereto or to any
part of them, and never to revoke nor annul them,
nor never to suffer their repeal, living nor
dying—saving to the King his royalty and liberty, and the
rights of the Crown."  The last item annulled all the
rest so far as the royalists were concerned; the whole
was useless as directed against the traitors.

Roger did not remain at Shrewsbury.  He followed
the King and Parliament to Bristol, and as soon as
he was released from his parliamentary duties, he
came on to London.  He was there for a few weeks,
until signs appeared in the political world of another
tumult.  It is popularly said that when thieves fall
out, honest men come by their own: and in this
instance the thieves, who were Hereford and Norfolk,
fell out most decidedly.  They appeared together
before the King, each of them bringing against the
other a charge of that disloyalty of which both were
as guilty as any man could well be.  A rumour of
disturbances in Ireland afforded Roger a chance of
getting out of the way, before either of these most
honourable men should drag him into their toils,
or bring charges against him which, however untrue,
he might find it difficult to refute.

Once more he offered to Alianora the choice of
accompanying him.  They had been separated for
nearly two years, and had only met a few weeks
before.  But the Countess could not think of it.  In
fact, she declared herself quite astonished that her
lord could be so unreasonable as to ask for her
company.  Her new dresses for Whitsuntide were in
course of preparation, and had cost her a month's
reflection.  Did he suppose that they could be finished
in a day? or if they had been finished, how could he
imagine that she would be satisfied to waste their
resplendency on a handful of common knights and
squires, or a horde of Irish barbarians?  Leave Town in
the beginning of April!  It was perfectly preposterous,
impossible.  And she was quite sure he did not want
her—which last was said in a tone decidedly indicative
of the companion fact that she did not want him.

He did not want her as he had once done.  His
wish for the company of the real woman whom he
had long seen her to be, was far less than it had
been erewhile for the society of the loved and
loveable ideal which he was now convinced that she was
not.  Still the old love, though stifled, repressed, and
repulsed, was yet alive, and might have been blown
into a flame had Alianora cared to take the trouble.
Roger sighed as he turned away.

"Be it so, Dame," he answered, speaking more
lightly than he felt.  "But your Ladyship will
scarce look for me to rest content in being utterly
bereft of the company of ladies.  I shall take
Nannette withal from Usk."

"Gramercy! to what end?" demanded Alianora,
opening her handsome eyes in astonishment.

A smile of rather bitter amusement played round
the lips of the Earl.  "Choose your Ladyship the
reason," said he, still lightly.  "You have no grudge
thereunto?"

"I?  Good lack, nay!  An' it like your Lordship
to burden you with a maid of nine years, you be
welcome of very inwitte.[#]  I shall have the lesser
charge."

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.. class:: noindent small

[#] Most heartily.

.. vspace:: 2

Her husband might reasonably have inquired what
charge she had ever taken of the children, or how it
was to be lessened when they were already out of
her care: but he passed it by.

"Wenteline will ease you thereof," said he.  "Your
Ladyship grudgeth not, methinks, that she should
bide hence with the childre?"

"Not I, forsooth!  Have with them whom you
will," was the careless answer.  "I love none of them
so dear that I may not live without them."

Roger knew as well as Alianora that the pronoun
included himself.  He sent Anne into raptures, and
Guenllian into much surprise, by an order that they
should be ready to accompany him.  His male
friends were inclined to be exceedingly merry over
this odd notion of the Earl.  That he should have
taken even his heir, at that early age, would have
seemed to them amusing; but to choose a girl of
nine for his companion struck them as a preposterous
absurdity.  Earl Roger paid no attention to them.
Extremely sensitive to the lightest censure from lips
that he loved, he was now perfectly callous alike to
ridicule and to anger from others.

Of the four children, Anne was his special darling.
She and her brother Roger took after himself in
character, while Edmund and Alianora were their
mother's children.  Least attractive of them was
Edmund, in whose disposition indolence and
selfishness were already manifesting themselves strongly.
When the children were summoned in the morning,
Anne and Roger were always up in a moment, while
Edmund had to be dug out of bed amid a storm of
grumbles.  All that Anne owed to her mother was
that graceful and gracious manner, which with the
mother was merely artificial polish, but in the
daughter was ingrained as a part of her character.
The child's affection for her father was intense: she
always shrank from her mother.  The instinct of her
true heart discerned the utter hollowness of Alianora,
and the two natures could never amalgamate.

April had almost bloomed into May when the
party reached Trim Castle, where Roger meant to
remain for a few weeks.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MARCUS CURTIUS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MARCUS CURTIUS.

..

   |  "Yet thy true heart and loving faith,
   |  And agony of martyr death,
   |  God saw,—and He remembereth."
   |                      —F. J. PALGRAVE.

.. vspace:: 2

"What think you on thus sadly, my son?" said
Mr. Robesart to Lawrence Madison, whom
he found standing with folded arms, gazing
out of an embrasure as though he were not
contemplating the landscape.

"I was thinking, Father," was the answer, in a
low, dreamy tone, "wherein success lieth."

"What fashion of success?"

Lawrence smiled, "I am beginning to learn that
there be more fashions thereof than one."

"It is good to learn it early," said the priest.
"For man is apt to think that alone success which
hath a gloss and a glitter about it.  We be too oft
like childre, which would rather a brass counter
that did shine bravely, than a gold noble that was
dull and covered with dirt.  But what be thy
thoughts thereon, my son?"

"I thought, Father, that many men did destroy
their own success by being too eager to grasp
thereat, afore God had it ready."

"Thou hast well spoken, Lawrence—'afore God
had it ready.'  Hast thou read certain words of Saint
Stephen the martyr touching Moyses, that great
Prophet of God?  'He guessed that his brethren
should understand that God should give to them
health by the hand of him: but they understood
not.'  How should they?  Nor was it they that
were lacking.  It was Moyses that understood
not—understood not that the day of deliverance was not
come by forty years—that forty years' keeping of sheep
in Midian must needs be first.  Yet God did mean
to deliver them by his hand; it was not undone,
only latered.[#]  He did so when the right time
came—when He was ready, and when Moyses was ready,
and when Israel was ready."

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.. class:: noindent small

[#] Deferred.

.. vspace:: 2

"It seemeth me," answered Lawrence, sighing,
"that man lacketh much training at our Lord's hand,
ere he be fit for a deliverer."

"More than any can rightly judge, out-taken our
Lord.  The fellowship of Christ's work may well
include the fellowship of Christ's sufferings.  Mark
thou, a stone-breaker needs no training; a goldsmith
must have much.  The finer the tool shall be, the
sharper must be the grinding of it.  What is behind
thy thoughts, Lawrence?"

"Methinks, Father, you wit my Lord's earnest
desire to be he that should peace Ireland with
England?—and you know how foot-hot he flingeth
himself, soul and body, into all that cometh to his hand
for to be done?"

"I know," said Mr. Robesart, with a smile in which
amusement and pity had equal shares.

"I was marvelling if he were ready," said Lawrence
in the same low voice.  "I am something feared lest
he may run ere he be sent."

"Men of his disposition are prone to make that
blunder."

"That would not bring success."

"Not the brass counter of it, in very sooth: yet it
might be a step on the way to the gold.  It were
more like to bring a lesson to himself than success to
his plan.  Yet even there, Lawrence, that is at times
the truest success which hath most the look of failure.
It did not look like success when the cross was
reared on the hill of Calvary.  Yet that night he was
destroyed that had the power of death, and the gates
of the kingdom of Heaven were flung open to all
believers."

Lawrence did not answer for a moment.  Then he
said, in a lower tone than ever,—"There be that
seem as though they could not learn from the past."

"Let us have a care we be not of them.  And for
others let us pray."

"It is hard," was the reply with an unsteady voice,
"to see a life flung away and lost, for the which you
would give your own and count it nothing worth."

"That is not lost," was Mr. Robesart's answer, "which
is given to God and our neighbour.  The only lost
lives are those that be cast away upon Satan and
ourselves.  He will not lose his life: another may."

Lawrence had no need to inquire if Mr. Robesart
were thinking of the Countess.

"And if it were as thou shouldst seem to fear,"
resumed the priest, "if our young Lord should fling
away all, even to earthly life, upon this earnest
burning desire that hath possessed him,—who are we to
say him nay?  This may be God's work for him.
It were a good work, surely, if it could be done."

"It were a good work to dry up a quicksand,"
answered Lawrence, significantly: "yet if a man
flung therein all the gold of his having, it should be
cast away, and the quicksand be no drier.  Father,
it seems to me a work that cannot be done, or that,
if it were done, should cost a thousand lives as fair
as his, and take maybe a thousand years to do it."

"Lawrence Madison," said Mr. Robesart, gravely,
"thou and I had better let the Lord's purposes
alone, for the chances be an hundred to one that we
shall do them mischief.  It were unwisdom to stay
the wheels of the world lest they should crush a fly."

Lawrence gave a gesture of impatience, almost
involuntary.

"My son," continued the priest, laying his hand on
Lawrence's shoulder, "childre be apt to make wrong
reckonings.  Remember, He that driveth the charette
is the Father of us all.  He will not crush, nor 'noy
one of his childre without good cause.  And mind
thou, that meaneth good cause for him, no less than
for the general matter.  If the Master of the garden
will pluck one of His flowers in the bud, which of His
weeding-lads shall say Him nay?  And if our Father
see it well to call His child to Him, somewhat sooner
than the other childre would fain part with him, is it
ill for the child thus called, or is it well?"

"By how rough a road!"

"It will not matter when he hath reached Home.
Yet is it so?  Dost thou know which road should be
the rougher—the short, sharp climb up the steep
rock, or the weary winding around it?  I would
scarce presume to say.  Forty years in the wilderness
be apt to tire a man sorely.  Let it rest, Lawrence;
it is better.  Only pray for him.  He will give his
life for somewhat, either by the sharp climb or the
weary desert way.  Pray that he may give it for what
God means it.  We shall meet and rest at Home."

"God grant it be so!"

"And one other thing, Lawrence, I will say unto
thee, of the which I think thou hast need.  Be not
too careful to spare pain to them thou lovest.  It is
not the best kind of love.  And too often—I would
but caution thee, my son, to keep out of the wiles of
Satan—what it truly signifieth is that we would fain
spare ourselves the pain of seeing it.  Methinks thy
danger should be on that side, wherefore have a care.
God loves us better than that.  Aye, and He only
knows our hearts, as He only knows those good
works which He hath prepared for us to walk in.
'It sufficeth to each day his own evil.'  Pray as much
as ever thou wilt; only beware of giving commands
to God.  And when thou hast prayed, and canst do
nothing, then is the time to stand still and see His
salvation.  Remember, for him that is God's child,
nothing is verily ill that God doth to him."

"Nay, but if it break his heart?"

"Hearts take more breaking than men think," said
Mr. Robesart, quietly.  "And He healeth 'all that
have need of healing.'  By times, when we think we
lack the plaster, we do in very deed want the probe."

Lawrence looked up suddenly, with pained eyes.

"The probe gives the most pain when a man shall
struggle against it.  'Thy will, not mine,' is the most
wholesome medicine for all our ills, my son."

"It is a bitter one," said Lawrence, his lip slightly
trembling.

"Aye, whiles we be swallowing of it.  But if thou
wouldst make thy physic specially bitter, the way is
to look thereon a while aforehand, and feed thy
fantasy with the bitterness thereof, and swallow the
same grudgingly at last."

Lawrence smiled.

"Aye me!" said Mr. Robesart, sadly.  "For every
time that we say to God with our lips, '*Fiat voluntas
tua*' how many times do we say to Him with our
hearts, '*Fiat voluntas mea!*'  Nay, at times we pass
a step further yet, and say, 'Do Thou my will!'  May
God save thee and me from that rank treason against
our heavenly King!  We be all likely to fall therein.
And yet His will is for our best welfare—our sanctification
here, our bliss hereafter; and our will is but
for present ease and passing pleasure.  Lord, teach
us to do Thy will!"

The same evening, a horn sounded without the
gate, and the Earl of Ormonde was announced in
the hall of Trim Castle.  Roger, who was playing
chess with one of his knights, rose to meet his
kinsman, a man ten years older than himself.

"Fair fall your Lordship in your light battle
to-night!" said Ormonde, with a rather grim smile and
a glance at the chess-board.  "If you be of my mind,
we shall find somewhat heavier work to-morrow."

"Truly, what mean you, fair Cousin?"

"The O'Brien is up, my Lord: and that means
work for me—and for you, if you will have with me."

"Have with you?  Aye, with all my heart!"
returned the Viceroy, with a flash in his eyes.  "The
O'Brien! ungrateful traitor! was it for this the King
knighted him in Dublin Cathedral?  Howbeit, you
and I shall soon bring him to book, and without
tumult, I would fain hope."

"Your Pandora hath her coffer a good size,"
answered Ormonde, with the same grim smile.

"You think my hopes be over-great, trow?"

"A dram or so bigger than mine."

"I will never fight mine own kin, if I may away
therewith," said Roger, cheerfully.  "Let me but
parley with the Irishry myself, and you shall behold
somewhat come thereof."

"Truly, of that doubt I nothing," said Ormonde
in the same tone.  "But whether that which comes
thereof shall be to your gracious Lordship's
ease—well, I was not bred up for a prophet."

"Whither march we?"

"Down the Boyne and up the Blackwater.  The
sept are gathered at Kenles."[#]

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.. class:: noindent small

[#] Now called Kells.

.. vspace:: 2

"How much is your following?"

"All the Botelers, and a good parcel more of the
English pale.  We are well enough for that."

"I will march to meet them with the dawn," said
the Viceroy.  "Madison, order all things in good
readiness for early morrow.  Maybe I shall find my
work there."

It was said in a cheerful, almost exultant voice;
and Roger quitted the hall, leaving Lawrence very,
very sad.

"Maybe he shall find his death there!" he said in
a low mournful voice to Mr. Robesart.

"Be it so, my son," answered the priest, though his
own tones were not without sorrow.  "Let him only
find God's work; and then he shall find also God's
hire unto His servants.  He gives not grudgingly,
Lawrence Madison."

The armies met at Kenles, on the 20th of July 1398.
When they were yet at a short distance, the Earl of
March suddenly sprang from his horse, and bade
Lawrence dismount also.

"Quick, and aid me!" said he, in his usual
impulsive manner.  "I will don the Irish habit, and meet
them thus arrayed.  They will list me if I come to
them in their own habit, and speaking their own
tongue.  Is not the blood of their ancient kings
mine own?  Lolly"—the old childish epithet came
back to his lips in this moment of haste and
excitement—"wherefore standest gazing thus moonstruck?
Make haste and help me."

"My Lord, I am sore afeared lest they hurt you."

"They hurt me!  Am I not one of them by blood?
Have I not learned to be one of them in language?
Let me but don their habit, and I am of them in all
things.  Quick!  Cast thy fears and fantasies to the
winds!  This is no time for them."

While Roger spoke, he was hastily throwing aside
his English dress, and arraying himself in the Irish
national costume—the tunic and braccæ which dated
from Roman days, the loose hood, the plaid, the bare
foot in the stirrup, and the spear in the hand.  Thus
accoutred, and commanding his men to stand still
until after the parley, he dashed up the slope to meet
the Irish leaders.

For an instant Roger's handsome face and lithe
figure were seen at the summit of the knoll, as he
cried in Irish to the advancing host.

"God speed you, my brethren!  What are your demands?"

There was a moment's pause for consultation among
the Irish leaders.  Then two appeared to separate
from the rest, and to come forth towards Roger.

At that moment came the sharp whirr of an arrow
whizzing past, a wild passionate cry, a sudden rush
forward, and the next instant a prostrate figure lay
on the ground at the top of the slope, and over it
stood Lawrence Madison, sword in hand, guarding it
alike from friend and foe.  Then a sudden word of
command from the Irish chieftain, and down the side
of the slope charged the sept of the O'Briens,
completely overwhelming the English forces.

Let us draw a veil over the next scene.  The
customs of the Irish septs in war were very terrible.
The enemy who fell into their hands alive could
rarely expect mercy: while he who met their
vengeance dead was sure of a form of wild revenge which
makes the reader shudder.

Six hours later, the returned relics of the English
army were reviewed, and the roll called, in the
courtyard of Trim Castle.  Ten disabled archers
were answered for by others: so were twenty-seven
wounded or captured spearmen.  So men spoke up
for Lawrence Madison, rescued alive almost by
miracle, but brought home sorely wounded and
insensible, and delivered into the tender care of
Guenllian, to be nursed back to life if that might be.

But there was one name which won no answer of
any kind, except the bare bowed heads which greeted
its sound, and let it pass by them in solemn silence.
And that was Roger Mortimer, Earl of Ulster and
March, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

The drawbridge was in place at Trim Castle; the
portcullis was lifted, and the gates stood open.  In
the hall was a great catafalque of black and silver,
where lighted tapers burned at the head and foot of
the bier.  And into that hall, now open to every
comer, came men of all kinds and classes, and of both
rival nationalities—soldiers in uniform, and squires of
the neighbourhood, of the English pale, and bare-footed
Irish peasantry wrapped in their tartan cloaks,
to gaze upon that still white face which lay so calm
and quiet now.  The words which could be heard
whispered were not all alike.  Some of the squires
and the soldiers said angrily, "He was too much for
the Irish"—"He was no true Englishman."  Others
hushed them, with, "Nay, he was England's heir," or,
"He meant well, poor young gentleman!"  But at
last came one old man wrapped in the national
tartan, and bearing a harp upon his back, who sat
down, and played upon the instrument a wild, weird,
sweet keen, in the softest notes it would produce.
And then, rising, he bound his harp again upon his
shoulders, and went up to the black-robed priest who
stood holding the sprinkler with the holy water,
which each one who pleased it took and sprinkled
the corpse.  The old man took it from his hand, and
softly scattered the fresh drops on the calm figure
lying there.  While he did so he spoke in Irish.

"Sweet be thy sleep, son of the Kings of Erin!
Light lie the earth upon thy fair young face!  May
He that reigneth in the heavens count thee among
the white-winged, and the dark spirits of evil flee
away from thy path to glory!  Sleep, son of Una the
daughter of Cahil!  The winds, whistling in thy soft
hair, shall not awaken thee.  Depart on thy wings, O
blast of the north! for thou shalt not disturb his
rest.  Long is the night that cometh, but his eyes
are heavy.  Draw over him the curtain of peace, and
let peace be his coverlet."

As his murmured words ended he caught the eyes
of the priest.

"I was only blessing him, Father!" said the old
man quietly.  "Didst thou think the words in my
lips were reproaches or curses?  A bard of
Roscommon curse the son of Cahil!  We could not do it,
Father.  And he loved us, and died for us.  They
will not leave us his dust, methinks.  We would
enshrine it at Tara where holy Patrick preached, or
on the Rock of Cashel with the dust of his royal
fathers.  Ah, it is not likely.  They do not trust us.
And maybe, at times, we have not deserved the trust.
But we would not have hurt *him*."

"Yet you killed him!" said Mr. Robesart in a
choked voice.

"*We?*" was the significant answer, in a pathetic
tone.  "God be Judge between us.  You will know
one day,—not, perchance, till the great doom shall
be.  Father!"—the old man, who had moved a little
away, suddenly stopped, and fixed his eyes on
Mr. Robesart.  "There will be some wrong things to be
set right, when that shall be."

"There will," was the answer in the same tone.

"Aye," pursued the aged bard, dreamily.  "Some
false things to be made true, and crooked things to
be made straight, and justice to be done by the
great Judge that day.  It will be a long day,
that—the longest earth shall know.  It may well take a
thousand years."  He turned to the corpse.  "Sleep
till the morning come, golden-haired love of Erin!
We shall all be there, every one, the accuser and
the accused, the oppressor and the oppressed, the
murderer and the slain.  There will be some of us
who would be glad to change.  Peace be on thee,
and God forgive us all!"

And the old bard, with the harp bound upon his
back, went slowly out of the hall: and Mr. Robesart,
looking after him, murmured, "*Pax tecum!*"

In the upper chambers of Trim Castle, the scenes
were nearly as sad as in the hall beneath.  In the
private rooms of the ladies' tower, the dead father's
darling had wept herself to sleep, when exhausted
nature could bear no more grief for the moment:
and in an upper chamber of the adjoining tower,
Lawrence Madison lay in fever and delirium.  Between
the two Guenllian came and went, with light steps
and heavy heart: and Beatrice sat by the velvet
bed, watching for the child to wake, and longing to
comfort her.

There were two reasons why Guenllian kept
Beatrice out of the sick chamber, but neither of
them was the one which would occur to a modern
nurse.  Our fathers, at that time, had little fear of
contagion, for they scarcely realised its existence:
when an infectious disease broke out, they
immediately thought the wells had been poisoned—which
perhaps they had, though not by deliberate malice,
as was then imagined.  One of Guenllian's motives
was a desire to keep the young girl from hearing
poor Lawrence's perpetual repetition of the dreadful
scene just enacted at Kenles—that was one of the
two topics on which his fevered thoughts ran
endlessly: and the other—motive and topic alike—was
that Lawrence in his delirium had told Guenllian a
secret, which she wanted time to consider whether
it would be well to share with Beatrice.  Guenllian
had entertained some suspicion of the truth already,
but she knew now with certainty that Lawrence
loved Beatrice, and that he felt certain she did not
love him.  On the latter point Guenllian was entirely
ignorant, for if Beatrice had any secret feelings of
this kind, she confided them to no one.  The former
was inclined to think that any partiality which
Beatrice might feel for Lawrence was only the
sisterly kindness which had always existed between
them, and if that were so, she was very sorry for
Lawrence.  Guenllian knew him well enough to be
aware that his love, once given, would be given for
ever, and that there could be no second time for him.
But it was only now and then that Beatrice's name
came into the passionate flood of words which were
poured forth from the unguarded lips of the sufferer.
Nearly all night through he was at Kenles, going
over, over, over that awful scene, but—Guenllian
noticed—never coming quite to the end.  When he
reached the most terrible point—just before the death
of his master—he always gave a sob and a low cry
as if in pain, and turned back again to the beginning.
This peculiarity, however, had not struck her as any
thing remarkable, until the second day, when in
giving a minute account of the patient, she
mentioned it among other items to the physician.

"Aye so?" asked Mr. Robesart significantly.
"Methinks, Mistress Guenllian, that hath a meaning.
I would fain be here the next time that it happeth."

"That may you with little trouble, good Father,
since I count it happeth every hour at the furthest."

Mr. Robesart sat down and waited.  He had no
need to wait long.  Before the hour was over, poor
Lawrence was once more pouring out his fervid and
dreadful tale, as though he were relating it to a
listener, broken constantly by disjointed words, yet
ever coming back to the one subject.

"Then he rade to the top of the mount—primroses
grow there—no, not primroses—what call you them?—he
rade up, in his Irish habit—habit—Mistress
Wenteline, can you amend this rent in mine habit?
The Irish have torn it—he called to them in the
Irish tongue—nay, I cannot tell you; I wis not
the Irish—they be wild folk.  They talk alway;
they talked then.  And two of them came riding
forward at after—Master Byterre, look to your
saddle-girth; methinks there is somewhat
awry—my Lord bent to his saddle-bow when he answered
them.  Then one of them laid his spear in
rest—rest!  Oh for rest!  Mine head burneth—'I will
give you rest'—aye, only He can give it—but
methought the man were not hostile, he seemed
as though he held forth his hand—O wala, wala
wa!  Help, my God!"

And with this cry, not sharply and loudly delivered,
but in a low voice of intense anguish, poor Lawrence
sank back upon his pillow, and a cold perspiration
broke out over his face.

"Lo' you, right this doth he alway!" whispered
Guenllian.

Mr. Robesart shook his head.  He laid his soft,
cool, quieting hand upon the patient's brow.

"My son Lawrence, dost thou hear me?"

A lucid interval seemed to occur, for Lawrence
looked up into his old friend's face, with calm weak
eyes.

"I see thou dost.  What came then to pass?  Try
to tell me."

"When, Father?" answered the faint voice.  He
had evidently no recollection of what had just
happened.

"When the Irish leader came up to thy Lord with
his spear in rest, and held forth his hand, or seemed
as though he should do it."

A look of unutterable pain came into the sick man's
eyes, and his tongue appeared to refuse its office.

"Tell me, my son," urged Mr. Robesart with
gentle firmness.  "Was it then the Irish shot him?"

Lawrence tried to lift himself, and looked round
uneasily.  Mr. Robesart helped him into a more
elevated position, and with a look to Guenllian sent
her behind the curtain.

"Under *benedicite*, if I must!" whispered the
patient.

"Be it so," answered the priest, and signed to
Guenllian to quit the chamber.  "Now, my son, here
be no ears save mine—and His that knoweth all
things.  Speak on."

"Father!" continued the low but fervent tone, "the
Irish never shot him.  That shot came *from our own
side*."

"Never!" broke from the amazed priest.  "Lawrence,
my son, calm thee!  Thou art speaking——"

"I am speaking the heavy truth," answered the
sufferer.  "Nay Father, I am in good wit now, whatso
I may have been.  I tell you again, the Irish did it
not.  It was his own men that slew him."

"Christ pardon him that did it!"

"I will say Amen so soon as I can," answered
Lawrence Madison with a sob.  "That is not yet."

The priest did not reprove him.  Perhaps he was
too shocked to say anything: or perhaps he felt that
in a case like this, nature must have its way at first,
and even grace could hardly overcome it in the
opening bitterness of love's agony.

Guenllian had felt much afraid of Mr. Robesart's
making Lawrence thus speak out the point which in
his delirium he seemed unable to utter, like a nervous
horse refusing to pass a special object.  But the
event proved the physician's judgment right.  From
the hour that the burden was shared with another,
the patient began to amend.

Who was it that slew Roger Mortimer, and why?
God knoweth, and men never knew.  The chroniclers
plainly enough assert the fact of his death; but they
content themselves with the vaguest possible hints at
the further facts—that his own men slew him, and
that they did it out of jealousy on account of what
they deemed his Irish proclivities.  Just enough to
make us guess it they suggest: they were evidently
afraid to say more.

The old bard had spoken truly, for the dust of
Roger Mortimer was not left to repose in Ireland.
Amid solemn pomp and glittering funeral gloom,
the coffin of the heir of England was borne over
St. George's Channel to his ancestral home at Wigmore.
There they laid him with the elder Mortimers, and
not, like his father, with his Montacute ancestors,
at Bisham.  There, by the side of the valiant and
wise Edmund Mortimer and his royally descended
Margaret, who may be termed the founders of the
house, by the first Earl of darkened memory, by the
young and royal mother whom he could barely
remember, sleeps Roger Mortimer, heir presumptive
of England, first and last Lollard of the House of
March.

England has forgotten him long ago, her own
chosen heir to whom her faith was sworn, and from
whose lips, time after time, the cup of success seemed
snatched, just as he was about to drink the sweet wine.
But should Ireland utterly forget that scion of her
ancient kings, the young, warm-hearted, gallant
Prince who, prudently of imprudently, gave his life
for her, and did not achieve the end in the hope of
which he gave it?





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   CHAPTER XI.


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   HOME TO USK.

..

   |  "We buried him where he was wont to pray,
   |    By the calm lake,—even here,—at eventide;
   |  We reared this cross in token where he lay,
   |    For on the cross, he said, his Lord had died;
   |  Now hath he surely reached, o'er mount and wave,
   |    That flowery land whose green turf hides no grave."
   |                                        —FELICIA HEMANS.

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If any further item of failure could have come
into the life of Roger Mortimer, it would
have been conveyed by a royal letter, dated
at Westminster just one week after his death, and,
being addressed to himself, before the news of the
calamity at Kenles had reached the King.  In this
letter, Roger Earl of Ulster and March, Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, is told that "as, by the advice of
our Council, we have constituted our beloved nephew
Thomas Duke of Surrey our Lieutenant in our said
land from the first day of September next, for one
year, we command that you shall not hinder the said
Duke from the execution of his office, and we also
exonerate you from the charge aforesaid, from the
coming of the said Duke."[#]

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[#] Close Roll, 22 Ric. II., Part 1.

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Roger was superseded—why, there is no information.
It does not necessarily mean, by any means,
that the King was displeased with him, or desired to
revoke his policy.  It may even have been at his
own desire, but there remains no evidence of this.  It
is more probable that his royal cousin wished to have
him nearer, and considered that the presence of his
heir presumptive would be of service to himself in
that thorny and difficult path which it had been
the lot of Richard of Bordeaux to tread from his
early youth.  And now all that remained of Roger
Mortimer was coming home indeed, but to another
home and a longer rest than those which his royal
cousin had designed for him.  His crown was no
longer a future possibility: it had come.  He should
never see evil any more.

It has been left on record that King Richard's grief
and indignation at the news of Roger's death were
very deep and true.  It was indeed, apart from the
personal regard which he entertained for his young
cousin, one of the saddest calamities which could
have happened for himself.  His heir presumptive,
instead of being a man who loved and honoured him,
was now his most implacable enemy—that Henry of
Bolingbroke who hated him worse than any other.
For according to the old law of England, Roger's reign
would have been an interlude, and his claim, without
some further distinct disposition of the Crown, could
scarcely devolve upon his children.  Before the
funeral procession set forth, there was an arrival at
Trim Castle.  The Lord Bardolf arrived from
England, accompanied by his mother, the Lady Agnes
Mortimer, wife of that Sir Thomas Mortimer who
had played a part in Roger's early life.  He had chosen
to cast in his lot with Gloucester and the Lords
Appellants, and he was now a fugitive in hiding.[#]

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[#] The Irish Government was charged to search
for him in September,
1397, as he was supposed to be in that country;
and he was executed
in England, before May 27th, 1399.
(Close Roll, 21 Ric. II., Part 1; Patent Roll, 23 ib.)

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The Lady Agnes Mortimer, who came to conduct
the little Lady Anne back to her English friends,
while her son attended to the more public necessities
of the case, was an elderly woman of girlish character.
She was by birth a Poynings, and sister-in-law of that
Lollard Lady Poynings who was the daughter of a
Princess of Lancaster, and who had been ejected from
King Richard's household by the Lords Appellants.
But Lady Agnes was no Lollard, as she showed a few
years later by making painful pilgrimage to Cologne
and Rome for the good of her soul.  She came
forward now to meet Guenllian, answering her deliberate
and modest reverence with a shower of rapid words.

"Mistress Wenteline Bevan, is it not so?  Not
Bevan?  'Ap Evan'!  Gramercy, what matter?  Ap
Evan is Bevan, and Bevan is Ap Evan—'tis all one.
I pray you, Mistress Wenteline, carry me whither I
may dry me, for my skirts be all sore bemired this
rainy day.  Good lack, but it witteth how to rain in
this country, by my troth!  And how doth your little
Lady, trow?  Verily, poor child, she must have been
moped well-nigh to death, with all this doole about
her.  Young things love gleesomeness, and should
have it.  Is she yet abed?"

Lady Agnes paused a second for the answer, and
Guenllian managed to glide in—"No, Madam.  Truly
I think the child hath too much sorrowed for her
father to take any grief at the doole."

"Ah, well, we will soon have that amended," said
Lady Agnes cheerfully.  "I will have the maid away
at once, and not await for aught but the bare needful:
we can amend all when we come to Usk, where my
Lady her mother now abideth."

The Countess had always expressed so much dislike
to Usk that it rather surprised Guenllian to hear
that she was there.  Lady Agnes answered her look.

"Ah, my Lady loveth not doole, no more than other
folk.  She hath held fair court at Usk, trust me, with
a merry lot of knights and dames: and in especial—mark
you, Mistress Wenteline—*in especial*—my good
Lord Charlton of Powys.  Marry, but when the news
came, she *was* aggrieved!"

Guenllian was glad to hear it.  The thought had
lain heavy at her heart, that Alianora would not
sorrow.  Yet to think of her "holding fair court"
with gay company, while that terrible scene was
enacting at Kenles, went sorely against her.

"She might well," continued the garrulous lady.
"Gramercy, but I would have done the like in the
same case!  'Twas but two days—nay, methinks, but
one—sithence all her Michaelmas gowns were home
from the tailor, new fashioned and right fair—and
now but to think of putting all away for a lot of
dreary doole!  Dear heart, but it were enough to
aggrieve one!  If there had not been at hand my
Lord Charlton to divert her withal, methinks she
should well-nigh have gone distraught!  We shall hear
of a wedding there, Mistress Wenteline, by my troth,
so soon as this weary, dreary doole be but got o'er."

Guenllian's tongue required some hard discipline to
keep it quiet.  Could *he* hear it through his
coffin-lid,—that still sleeper in the hall beneath?  Would he
not almost stir upon his satin pillow, if this tale
reached him of the utter apathy and heartlessness of
the woman to whom he had given his heart's best love,
and to whom the news of his loss brought bitter
regret—for the deferred wearing of her Michaelmas
wardrobe?  Guenllian severely schooled her heart down,
and then said—as calmly as was in her warm Welsh
nature—and as soon as a hiatus occurred in Lady
Agnes's persistent rattle—

"Would it like your Ladyship to tell me what
manner of man is this Lord Charlton?  Shall he be
one that should deal gently with the childre, or no?"

For Guenllian's heart yearned over her darlings,
and especially over Anne.

"Eh, good lack!" laughed Lady Agnes, "he shall
neither make nor mell with them.  My Lord Charlton
is not he that should befool him a-laking with childre.
'Tis the mother he loveth, not them.  And in good sooth,
he is scantly the man for one of her high estate:
but—there! you wit, Mistress Wenteline, love is a leveller."

"Love?" said Guenllian inquiringly to her own
heart—not to Lady Agnes.  Ay, she knew, better
than her companion could tell her, of what
material Alianora was made.  She was likely enough to

   |      "Crawl to the next shrub or bramble vile,
   |  Though from the cedar's stately arm she fell."


"And look you," pursued Lady Agnes, breaking
in upon Guenllian's sorrowful thoughts, "truly it
hath been a great trouble unto my Lady, the coming
down.  She looked to be one day Queen of England,
and should have been, had my sometime Lord (whom
God pardon) been more wary and witful.  Do but
think, to aventure himself afore his army in an Irish
habit—was it not thus he did?  Any man with his
wits in his head should have wist he might as well
have writ his death-warrant.  And now all that lost!
Dear, dear, what a misaventure!  Verily, I do think
my Lady of March sore to pity, I warrant you.  To
lose a crown, and spoil an whole wardrobe, all of a
blow—well, as to the losing her baron, the world
holdeth more than one man—" Lady Agnes had
found it so—"but in very deed it should sorrowfully
grudge me to be in like case."

Guenllian made no answer.  She only threw open the
door of the Lady Anne's apartments, and motioned
to the new disposer of the child's destiny to enter.
If she thought that both the Countess and the Lady
Agnes Mortimer mistook their pearls for pebbles, and
their pebbles for pearls, she gave no hint of doing so.

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The funeral procession set forth, and the lonely and
sorrowful child who had been one of his dearest
treasures, followed the coffin of the dead father.  Lady
Agnes Mortimer had taken Anne's future into her
own hands, and being Guenllian's nominal superior,
the latter was bound to obey.  She was about to
deliver the child into the yet more nominal care of
the Countess, to be plunged, when she grew a little
older, into all those pomps and vanities of this wicked
world which her father had foreseen and feared for
her.  So sorrowfully reckoned Guenllian ap Evan:
but the God of Roger Mortimer reckoned very
differently.  The lot He had prepared for Anne
was far away from pomp and vanity,—a long,
eventless, monotonous imprisonment in Windsor Castle,
with her sister and brothers,—the bitter disappointment
of an attempted and almost successful rescue,
for the lot of Roger Mortimer seemed to pursue his
children—an imprisonment straiter and sadder than
before, until that one of them whom the usurper
had really cause to fear, Roger's bright little
namesake, his own true son, fervent and energetic like
himself, died in his weary prison; till a greater King
than Henry of Bolingbroke undrew the bolts, and
set the prisoner free.  Then the other three were
allowed to come forth.  The King was not afraid of
Edmund,—dreamy, indolent, ease-loving Edmund—nor
of Alianora, who shared his character.  He gave
to Edmund, to ensure his safe keeping, a wife of a
different type from himself, a daughter of the Romish
House of Stafford, and a grand-daughter of
Gloucester.  Alianora was handed over to the care of the
heir of Courtenay, ever a Lancastrian House.  The
most wary and cautious men sometimes blunder.
And surely it was in a moment of blunder that that
wariest and coldest-hearted of English kings and
statesmen permitted Anne Mortimer,—the heir of
Duke Lionel of Clarence if her brother should die
issueless, as he did—to wed the loyal and
true-hearted Richard of Conisborough, a Prince of the
Blood, in whose eyes Richard of Bordeaux, whose
godson he was, was the King, and Henry of
Bolingbroke a usurper.  Richard of Conisborough was the
one love of Anne Mortimer's true heart.  Every
fibre of that sterling character—silent, shy,
undemonstrative, but deep and loyal to the heart's
core,—wound itself around him by whose side she dwelt
in a dream of bliss for three short years, and then
God called her away from the evil to come.  He
lies—murdered, or rather martyred—in the precincts of
"God's House" at Southampton, she in the Abbey
Church of King's Langley.  They have met in the
Garden of God.  And if a text were to be engraven on
the tomb of Anne Mortimer, it might well be this,—"I
will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee."

She was the mother of all our kings.  When one
grand climacteric of years had rolled round from the
death of Roger Mortimer at Kenles, the Lancastrian
episode was over, and the grandson of Anne
Mortimer sat upon the throne of England.  The cup of
success, dashed so frequently from Roger, came to his
children's lips at last.  But the one point in which
success would have been dearest to his heart has
never come.  Is it yet in reserve for some descendant
of his blood?—or shall the rival sister nations only
see eye to eye, when He shall come who is the Desire
of all nations—when the Lord shall bring again Zion?
One event happened, of a different character, before
Lord Bardolf and Lady Mortimer set forth, which
greatly astonished every body in Trim Castle, and the
person most concerned more than any other.

Lawrence Madison was slowly creeping back to
ordinary life, and was now able to sit up most of the
day, propped with pillows; and with some difficulty,
and a helping arm, to walk the length of the
chamber.  Lord Bardolf had shown a particular wish
to see him, and to hear the story of the Earl's death
from his lips, and had pressed Mr. Robesart to allow
the prudence of his doing so before the physician
was quite ready to admit it.  The latter, however,
was overruled by his superior, and Lord Bardolf had
his wish.  The tale was told, at what cost to
Lawrence he best knew.

"And now," said Lord Bardolf, when he paused,
exhausted, and Guenllian held a cup of wine to his
white weary lips, "methinks, Master Madison, you
have scantly yet told all.  We heard of a young
squire that, in the thickest of the fight, stood o'er his
Lord's body, and well-nigh gave his own life that the
foe should not touch the same.  Was it thus, pray
you, or no?"

There was a moment's flash of fiery light in the
weak sunken eyes.

"What looked you for?" said Lawrence Madison.
"Had he loved me, and freed me, and grown with
me, child and boy and man, and set me, so far as
meetness might, as his very self, and should I reckon
my poor worthless life as aught beside his?  Had a
thousand lives been mine, I would have given them
for his life: and when nought but his dust was left
to give them for, they were at his service for that!"

Lord Bardolf evidently liked the spirit of the reply.

"So heard the King's grace," said he.  "And it
liked him to issue a command to me, which I must
obey ere I go hence.  Can you rise and stand a
moment, Master Madison?"

Mr. Robesart stepped forward and lent his aid.

"Can you kneel?" said Lord Bardolf.

Lawrence, with some difficulty, contrived to do so.
What was going to be done to him he did not realise.
He was simply obeying, through his messenger, the
command of his King.  He was the most astonished
person in that chamber, when he felt the light touch
of the accolade upon his shoulder, and heard Lord
Bardolf say authoritatively,—

"Rise up, Sir Lawrence Madison!"

"Well, verily, this passeth!" said Guenllian, an
hour later, to her subordinate Beatrice, who was busy
packing the few absolute necessaries which were to
go with the little Lady Anne.  "Beattie, heardest
the news?  Lawrence is made a knight!"

Guenllian received no answer except a slight sound
which she failed to comprehend.  She looked round,
and saw that Beatrice was in tears.

"Beattie, doth aught ail thee, mine heart?"

"Oh, nothing—not—Mistress Wenteline, would
you have my Lady's furred mantle, or no?"

"Fur mantle! in August!" exclaimed Guenllian.
"Why Beattie, where be thy wits, dear maid?  The
gear shall all be sent after my little Lady, long ere
she lack her furred mantle."

"Oh! aye," said Beatrice confusedly.  "I only
thought—and I have not yet put up her Ladyship's
head-gear."

Guenllian looked after her as Beatrice hastily ran
upstairs, with a soft laugh such as had never come to
her lips since the death of the Earl.

"Aye, I conceive you, Mistress Beattie!" said she.
"You 'only thought' that Sir Lawrence Madison
had climbed up above Blumond's Beattie, and was
not like to reach forth an hand to help her to a seat
at his side.  Well, we shall see what we shall see.
But if Lolly be he that shall forget the old friends in
the hovel for the new at the castle, then is Guenllian
ap Evan no prophetess."

The packing was all done, and the preparations
made for the long journey to Wigmore Abbey.  It
had been arranged that the ladies should go no
further than Usk, for the Countess had intimated
that her deep despondency would not permit her to
attend the funeral.  Her heart was so nearly broken
that another ounce-weight of grief would complete
the catastrophe.  Lady Agnes repeated the statement
to Guenllian with grave lips, but with a twinkle
of fun in her eyes which sufficiently indicated that
the real character and private intentions of this
disconsolate widow were no secret to her.  To Lady
Agnes this was pure amusement: to Guenllian it
resulted in a mixture of contempt and sorrow.  Lord
Bardolf of course, would attend the funeral, having
now resigned all official duties to the new Viceroy:
and Lawrence Madison had intimated that no power
short of a royal command should keep him from it.
He would follow the friend and master whom he had
loved so dearly, to the last step where man can go with
man.  His new honours had rendered Lawrence his
own master, free to take service where he would, or
to refrain from it at his pleasure: and to sink into
the idle attitude of a hanger on the train of the Lady
Alianora was far from Lawrence's conception either
of happiness or duty.

He had now recovered his health in all senses
except that physical strength was still lacking.  Even
a short walk, or a slight exertion, fatigued him
considerably.  How the coming journey was to be borne
he hardly knew.  But he said to himself that he
would go through with it: and in very many cases,
where a man *will* do a thing, he finds that he can.

It was the evening before the journey, and in
Lawrence's chamber he and Mr. Robesart sat in the
oriel window enjoying the quiet of the summer
evening.  The preceding events had drawn very
closely together these two friends, who alone of all
the male members of the household had much in
common with each other.

"Lawrence," said Mr. Robesart—he had attempted
to address the new knight by his title, and had been
instantly entreated never to do so again—"Lawrence,
what think you to make of your life, now that it
lieth in your own hands to make or mar it as you will?"

"If it lay in mine hands, Father, it should surely
be to mar," said Lawrence with much feeling.  "I am
thankful it is in God's hands, to whom I have given
it, and He shall make thereof whatsoever He will."

"But you must needs have desires and wishes
thereunto, my son."

"Aye, I have so," and a slight sigh accompanied
the words.  "Whether they shall ever behold their
fulfilment I think greatly to doubt."

"Think you to abide with my Lady Countess?"

"Not so, if our Lord be served[#] otherwise."

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[#] If it be His will.

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"Then what mean you?  To enter other service,
or to go to the wars, or what so?"

"So far as mine own liking goeth, methinks, neither."

"I have alway counted you a man of peace,
Lawrence," said Mr. Robesart, with a smile which
betrayed rather more amusement than was indicated
by his words.

"Aye so, to mine own pleasure," was the reply.
"But they which best love peace be not alway suffered
to pursue it."

"And I had thought that, by your good-will, some
quiet home far away from strife, amid the green fields
and the calm old hills, should have been that which
should have served you, my son."

"Ah, if it had been possible!"  And another sigh
followed the wish.

"There be times, howbeit, when man may mistake
his vocation," said Mr. Robesart in a musing tone.
"I am something feared that is thus with one friend
of ours—I fear it much."

"Whom point you at?" asked Lawrence, but not
in any tone of particular interest.

"Our friend Beatrice, that hath been speaking with
me of her desire to enter the cloister."

The "Beatrice!" which answered the communication,
was in a very different tone from the last, and
ended in a gasp.

"Aye so," replied Mr. Robesart, calmly, paying no
apparent attention to the tone, and bestowing all his
ostensible regard upon the planet Venus, which he
was reconnoitring through an impromptu telescope
made of his right hand.  "I am greatly to doubt if
the maid have any true vocation, and be not rather
inclined unto the veil by some other reason thereto
provoking her.  Howbeit, each knoweth best his own
mind.  But we were speaking of thyself."

Mr. Robesart might try to lead the conversation
back to the previous subject, but Lawrence's interest
in himself and his own future seemed suddenly
extinguished.  He answered all further queries in a
short, dreamy manner which showed that his thoughts
had been borne elsewhere, and were likely to remain
there.  Whereby, though he was not aware of it, he
confirmed certain impressions on the priest's mind,
which had been formed into distinct convictions by a
hint from Guenllian.  All that Mr. Robesart could
learn from what followed was that Lawrence was
possessed of considerable savings, which he meant, on
his approaching return to Usk, to devote to the
comfort of his own relatives.

"What other use have I for it?" he asked sadly,
and with a faint return of his former interest to his
tone.  "They are poor, and need it: and I never
needed it, nor wist what to do withal.  My Lord
furnished me with food and raiment, and what other
needs hath a man?  I never spent penny of my
wage, save by nows and thens in a gift to some friend,
and in the writing of the holy Evangel that I bear
ever about me.  I shall part the same betwixt my
mother and sisters, which shall wot far better than I
how to lay it out to profit."

"'If any man hath not cure of his own, he hath
denied the faith,'" quoted Mr. Robesart.  "Yet
bethink thee, my son, that very charity biddeth not that
a man part with every penny of his having, nor for
the needs of his kinsfolk in the present, empoverish
his own future."

"The Lord will have a care of my future.  I lack
but a cake and a cruse of water, and He can send them
by His angels when my need asketh them of Him."

"Verily: a man may reasonably pack his own
needs in small compass.  But dost thou mean to
remain single all thy life, Lawrence?  My Lady
Madison may scarce be as content as thou with the
cruse and the cake, and in all cases, two lack more
provision than one."

Mr. Robesart had dropped almost unconsciously
into the familiar *thou*, always used to the little
Lawrence of old.  His hearer liked it far better than
the ceremonious *you*, which he had taken up since
Lawrence became a man.

"I think that is not in my future," was the
low-voiced answer.

"Be not too sure," said the priest.  "Some of our
Father's best gifts are they which we count too good
to look for.  Yet soothly, Lawrence, I would not wish
thee a wife like—like some women be."

Lawrence leaned forward with a glow in his eyes,
and spoke in a whisper.

"Wala wa!  Father, it lieth sore and heavy at
mine heart that the friends *he* had to mourn him have
been only the men and women of his meynie.  The
one whom he loved better than all the world hath not
shed one true tear for his loss!"

"My son!" said Mr. Robesart tenderly,—with a
tenderness which was not all for Lawrence,—"he hath
seen the Face of God, and he is satisfied with it."

"We loved him dear enough, at least," said
Lawrence in a choked voice.

"Lawrence, canst thou not forgive her?—and that
man that shot the arrow, hast thou forgiven him?
Dost thou know who it was?"

"I am right thankful to answer No to that last.  I
saw not from what bow the cursed shaft came.  But
to think that I may be speaking to that man as a
friend, *not* knowing——"

Lawrence left his sentence unfinished.

"Maybe it were meant for another," said Mr. Robesart
quietly.  "But if no—mind thou, my son,
how God dealeth with thee and me, whose sins slew
the Son of His love, and He knoweth it."

They set out for Usk the next day, taking the same
route which Roger had traversed in life only four
months before.  His coffin was borne upon a bier
drawn by six horses, through the green valleys of
Kildare and Carlow and Wexford, and at Wexford
Haven was transferred to a boat, the Chanty, which
bore it across in the calm August sunlight to
Haverford.  Two days' journey took them to
Caermarthen, where the travellers were housed in the
Castle, and the corpse in the Church of St. Peter,
watched all night by monks and four squires, and
sprinkled frequently with holy water.  Three days
more took them to Merthyr Tydvil, a fourth to
Pontypool, and on the afternoon of the fifth, which
was the first of September, they marched in slow and
solemn procession into Usk.

Before entering the town a fresh arrangement of
the procession was made.  First came the body of
archers, carrying their bows unstrung in sign of
mourning; then two knights of the household of the
deceased Earl, the one bearing his pennon, the other
his helmet with its crest.  Then came his war-horse,
led by a squire bare-headed, and caparisoned with all
its ceremonial trappings—the saddle-cloth of blue
velvet, broidered with silver ostrich-feathers (gold
ones were peculiar to the monarch), a saddle-cloth
which covered the horse from ears to hoofs, leaving
only an outlet for the nose and the eyes—the bridle
being of gilded leather, and the stirrup of gilt copper.
After the horse walked Mr. Robesart, in full canonicals,
bearing aloft a silver cross.  Then came the bier,
borne by ten spearmen specially selected from the
corps—men whose qualifications for the office were good
character and much physical strength.  Immediately
following, clad in white, then the colour of deepest
mourning, came the little Lady Anne, on a white
horse—truly the chief mourner for that father who
had been her best friend in all the world.  Her horse
was led by a bare-headed squire.  A little behind her,
on the right, rode Lord Bardolf, and on the left the
Lady Agnes.  The remainder of the household, which
included Guenllian, Beatrice, and Lawrence, rode after,
and the company of spearmen closed the funeral
procession.

Thus they bore him dead into the Castle of Usk,
which he had entered living, an infant gift from God,
on that very morning, twenty-five years before.

A trumpeter had been sent forward to announce the
coming of the procession; and when they crossed the
drawbridge, and filed slowly in beneath the portcullis
into the court-yard, they were met by a group of black
monks from the neighbouring Benedictine Abbey, the
foremost swinging a censer, and two others sprinkling
holy water.  The bier was set down immediately under
the portcullis, and there it rested while the *De
Profundis* was chanted, in presence of the garrison and
of many members of the household.  The entire
procession was meantime arrested.

With an irrepressible sob, Guenllian whispered to
Lawrence, "'They that bare him stood still.'  Here is
the city, and there is the bier: but where is He that
can say, 'Arise'?"

Lawrence answered by a quotation from the same
book.  "'I am again rising and life; ... he that
believeth in Me shall not die withouten end.  Believest
thou this?'"

"It is hard to believe where man seeth not."

"Therefore the more 'Blessed is she which hath
believed.'  'Nyl ye fere: only believe.'"

"Believe *what*?" said Beatrice, with a dreary sigh,
suppressed when half drawn.

"Believe nothing, Mistress Beatrice," replied
Lawrence with a soft intonation which Guenllian had
noticed to come into his voice only when he spoke to
Beatrice.  "'Believe in God, and believe in Me.'  It
is not *what* we must believe; it is *whom*.  And whom
is far easier than what.  To believe a thing or a
doctrine taketh the head only; but to believe a man, and
that the Man that died for you, this methinks taketh the
heart belike.  Trust and love be right near akin.  And
hearts be soft, while heads be hard to deal withal.
Matters be apt to steal into the heart ere you shall wit
it, which should take many a weary hour to beat into
the head."

"Neither come they so easy out when they be once
lodged therein," added Guenllian.

"You speak soothly, Mistress Wenteline," answered
Lawrence.

But now the procession moved on again, and they
with it.  Into the great hall of the Castle they slowly
filed, and there found a most effective dramatic scene
prepared to meet them.

The Countess Alianora sat on the daïs, robed in
pure white, the earliest garb of widowhood, which
covered so much of the face that only the features
were left visible in the midst.  But she had chosen
to hide everything by an embroidered handkerchief,
in which her eyes were concealed.  There she sat, the
image of inconsolable woe and utter desolation, while
Consolation, in the person of the Lord Charlton of
Powys leaned over her chair and tried to gain a hearing.
Terrible sobs were rending her breast, and she seemed
quite unable to speak.  When at last she managed
to rise and approach the coffin,—leaning on the
arm of Lord Powys, which appeared absolutely
necessary for her support,—she had scarcely taken the
sprinkler from the hand of her chaplain when she
dropped it and sank down in a faint.  Of course
Lord Powys caught her: could he as a knight or
a person of any humanity have permitted a lady
to drop to the floor?  But Guenllian was so
misguided as to allow herself to see that her
mistress took care in fainting not to entangle herself in
her train, and that she dropped the sprinkler in such
a position that it should not damage her new
velvet.

"She hath swooned right away!" exclaimed Beatrice
in a pitying tone.  She did not see through the
stained glass of Alianora's beautiful and becoming
attitudes.

"It is not ill played," was Guenllian's answer, in a
rather constrained tone.

That evening, when Guenllian and Beatrice attended
the *coucher* of the afflicted widow, it fell to
the lot of the latter to remove the used handkerchief
from the pocket of her lady's dress, and place it in
the buck-basket which contained the articles ready
for the wash.

"My Lady must have some whither another
sudary," observed she to Guenllian.  "This is full
dry, and she wept sore."

"Lay it in the basket, Beattie," was Guenllian's
quiet reply.  "I misdoubt if thou shalt find any other."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`LAWRENCE'S REWARD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   LAWRENCE'S REWARD.

..

   |  "Walking together o'er the restless earth
   |  With faces set to the eternal hills."
   |                            —REV. HORATIUS BONAR.

.. vspace:: 2

Lawrence Madison had time given
him to recover, for it was November before
the funeral cortège left Usk for Wigmore.
Earl Roger was found to have died intestate.  It was
no wonder, for how could he have anticipated that
his life would end as or when it had done?  This
fact left all the details of his burial, usually so
carefully provided for in the will of the deceased, to the
decision of the survivors.  The Countess, when
appealed to, replied that her unspeakable affliction
could not concern itself with matters of that kind;
she would be obliged to Lord Bardolf to see that all
was done properly, and to leave her alone with her
life-long sorrow.  Having said which, she called for
a backgammon board, and was soon smilingly
interested in a game with my Lord Powys.

Lord Powys, however, perceived that notwithstanding
the distraction of backgammon, something
was really annoying the lady of his heart: and after
a sufficient administration of flattery and coaxing, he
succeeded in inducing her to confess what it was.
She was seriously distressed at the discovery that
her husband had left no will, for what that meant
was that her only claim on his property was a third
share in the estate.  Had he attended properly to
his conjugal duties, he ought to have made a much
better provision for her.  Now, when her eldest son
came of age, and his wardship ceased, two-thirds of
the estate would go to him, and she would be left in
a position which it pleased her to regard as equivalent
to destitution.  Considering that this lamentable
descent from affluence to poverty would leave her
Ladyship with a small balance of about a hundred
and fifty thousand pounds, according to the value of
money at the present day, it may be supposed that
there was a slight twinkle in the eyes of Lord Powys
while he condoled in a grave voice with the calamitous
widow.  He thought her still quite sufficiently
golden to be worth the trouble of wooing, and she
knew it.  He was moreover aware that a very large
casket of jewels lay at her disposal, and that
dexterous management might squeeze a further grant out
of the Crown.  Alianora was troubled by no fear of
losing Lord Powys, and had she been so, would
readily have comforted herself with anybody else who
possessed good looks, gentlemanly manners, and a
flattering tongue.  But before this little arrangement
with Lord Powys could come to pass, a licence was
required from the Crown, and this in Alianora's case
would be an awkward and delicate business.  The
King might not approve—probably would not approve—of
the widow of his heir presumptive throwing herself
away on an obscure Welsh baron.  And Alianora
was determined to marry Lord Powys, who suited
her taste much better than Roger had done.  He was
not a handsomer man, but he was good-looking, and
he possessed a tongue of that silvery description
which, to use the Irishman's expression, "would wile
a bird off a tree."  His tastes accorded with hers;
he knew how to please her—an art in which Roger,
with all his desire to do it, had been much less of an
adept—he was an exquisite hand at that airy
small-talk which Alianora loved better than she loved her
children, and his supply of flattery equalled the
demand, which implies that it was deep and extensive
indeed.  Alianora, therefore, set what she called
her heart—namely, an obstinate unreasoning
will—upon Edward Charlton, and was determined to
marry him, obstacles or no obstacles.  In order to
do this, a licence to marry whom she would must be
procured from the Crown,—no hint being given of
whom it was to be: and this could not in decency be
asked for until some months had elapsed after Roger's
death.  She obtained it, however, before twelve
months were over: and having done so, she instantly
gave her hand to Lord Powys in the Castle chapel,
to the annoyance of all her own relations, and the
decided displeasure of the King.  That did not matter
to her: once secure of her prize, she could snap her
fingers at them all.

She had, in fact, though it may be doubted if King
Richard knew it, done the one thing which her licence
bound her not to do, and married one of the King's
enemies.  Lord Powys was an adherent of Henry of
Lancaster, and one of the bitterest anti-Lollards in
the kingdom.[#]  They both knew that they could
reasonably expect no extraordinary favours at the
hands of the reigning King, and they contrived to
bear existence on that poor pittance of a hundred and
fifty thousand pounds, until, only four months after
the granting of the licence, which was one of the last
acts of King Richard, Henry of Lancaster, Earl of
Derby, unseated his cousin and occupied his throne.
He might be expected to have friendly intentions
towards Powys and Alianora.  She accordingly, in
due time and form, represented to the new King
"the charge she was at in maintenance of her two
daughters," Anne and Alianora; "the devastation of
all her dowry in Wales, and the spoil of her late
husband's lands by the Welsh," and prayed for relief
from the Crown.  Henry answered her characteristically,
and in a manner which arouses an idea that
his clear cold eyes saw through her dramatic craft.
He granted her, to the value of a hundred guineas
per annum, all annuities, forfeitures, and reversions
which Earl Roger had assigned during his life:—a
clever mode of making provision in name, with very
little solid advantage to accrue.  It was not for long
that Alianora survived this episode.  She died at the
birth of Joyce Charlton, the second child of her second
marriage, leaving her elder children in prison, and
going to her own place—the place she was fit for,
and the place she had chosen.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] It is doubtful if he were not
also to some extent an adherent of
Gloucester, for in the previous
November he had suffered eleven days
imprisonment in the Tower,
evidently on some such suspicion.  (Close
Roll, 21 Ric. II., Part 1.)

.. vspace:: 2

But this is an anticipation, and we must return to
that November morning on which the funeral procession
quitted Usk for Wigmore.

The bier was placed on a charette, and covered with
a pall of black cloth, surmounted by the waxen image
then always carried outside the coffin, the face of which
was a mask taken from that of the corpse beneath.
Two horses drew the charette until about a mile from
Wigmore, when four more were added in order to form
a more imposing spectacle.  Lord Bardolf rode behind
the coffin, on the right hand of the young Earl, who was
chief mourner, and whose horse was led, at the leader's
special request, by Sir Lawrence Madison.  It was
usual to depute a squire to this work: and it was paying
the highest honour in his power to the dead and the
living, that Lawrence should demean himself to do it.

The little Earl, seven years old, behaved extremely
well, as was admitted and admired by everybody.
He really behaved so well, because he felt so little.
The true son of Alianora, it was not in his nature to
love any creature but Edmund Mortimer, nor even for
his own ultimate benefit was he ready to take much
trouble.  He took the loss of a father at seven years
of age, as he afterwards took the loss of a crown at
fourteen, with the most philosophical placidity.

At the door of the Abbey Church of St. James at
Wigmore, the Benedictine Abbot and his canons
met the coffin of the Lord of the Marches of Wales.
Over the coffin was a pall of cloth of gold, edged
with blue, the colours of the house of Mortimer.  It
was borne by six squires on each side, but once more
Sir Lawrence Madison stepped forward, and took
the place of the foremost squire.  His hand should
be among those which performed the last offices to
the brother of his love,—"More than his brothers
were to him."

When the bier was set down before the high altar,
twenty-five poor men clad in white, according to the
number of the years of the dead, came forward to
receive the thick wax tapers which they were to hold
during the service, standing about the coffin.

Then came the solemn mass, accompanied as it
always is, by that grandest of all funeral hymns
which, like the inspired hymnal of King David,
seems to be inimitable in translated metre:—

   |  "Recordare, Jesu pie,
   |  Quod sum causa taæ viæ;
   |  Ne me perdas ilia die!
   |
   |  "Quærens me sedisti lassus,
   |  Redemisti crucem passus;
   |  Tantus labor non sit cassus."
   |

When the coffin had been lowered into the vault,—to
which again, the last office, Lawrence lent his
hand—the mourners slowly filed out of the church,
each as he passed the vault receiving the sprinkler
from the hand of a priest in attendance, and
sprinkling the coffin with holy water.  They returned to
Usk not as they had come, in ceremonial procession,
but in a quiet and orderly group.

.. vspace:: 2

Considerable time elapsed, and much investigation
was necessary, before Lawrence could discover what
had become of the relatives whom he had left in the
hut at the foot of the castle, eighteen years before.
The parents of Beatrice (his old friends Blumond
and Philippa) were dead; and having been an only
child, she had no near relatives whose assistance
could be lent in the matter.  For a long while, all
that he could ascertain with any certainty was that
the present inhabitants of the hut knew nothing of
the late ones, and that an old woman, the only person
left of those who had dwelt there in Lawrence's
childhood, could tell him that his mother was dead,
two of his sisters married and gone, and that his
father and his brother Simon had been removed to
some other estate of their feudal owner—"down
yonder," said she, with a nod of her head towards
the north, which might take in a large tract of
country.  What had befallen the younger brother
and sister she appeared to have no idea.  All to
whom Lawrence applied gave him an answer, half
awe-struck, half kindly, excepting those whose brains
and hearts seemed dulled by hard usage.  Most
promised to bear the matter in mind, and to make
such inquiries as they had opportunity.

Lawrence had never realised the immensity of the
change in himself, until he attempted thus to resume
the old familiar relations with that stratum of society
into which he was born.  Through constant association
with educated gentlemen, he had become one of
them in thought and feeling; but he was never aware
how thoroughly, until he tried to be once more that
which he had ceased to be.  His first thought was
that the people of Usk had changed—they were more
cold-hearted, and less homely and pleasant, than they
had been in his boyhood.  He discovered in time that
the alteration was not in them, but in himself, and that
all they were guilty of was the unavoidable and intuitive
recognition that he belonged to the group of masters,
and no more to that of serfs.  But the discovery was
not perfected until one evening, when a dirty, slatternly
woman of about thirty years of age presented herself
at the porter's lodge of Usk Castle, and demanded in
a whining tone to see one Lawrence Madison.

"'Lawrence Madison,' forsooth!" returned the
scandalised porter.  "Is it thus thou wouldst speak
of one of the most gallant knights in England?  Mend
thy ways, woman, and say Sir Lawrence, and then
maybe I can find the time to answer thee."

"Eh, lo' you now!" exclaimed the woman, resting
a dirty hand against the stone wall.  "Is't so fine as
that, trow?  Well, Master Porter, or Sir Porter, or my
Lord Porter, as it shall like your Bigness, I would see
*Sir* Lawrence Madison, if it should like you demean
you to go and tell him so much, and him to come
hither and behold his sister."

"His what?" inquired the porter in an indescribable
tone, reviewing the querist in a style which was
scarcely flattering.

"His sister," coolly returned the unabashed young
woman.  "His father's daughter, and his mother's
belike, byname Emmot, and wife unto Will
Sumpterman, that keepeth my Lord Le Despenser his
baggage mules, and hath trapesed many a weary mile to
speak with my said worshipful knight.  Canst carry
so much, thinkest?"

The disgusted porter turned away without
deigning a reply; but his wife, who had overheard the
colloquy, came forward and in politic wise invited
Emmot to enter the lodge.  There Lawrence found
her when the porter returned with him.  His first idea
had been one of great pleasure.  But when he saw the
dirty, untidy, miserable-looking creature who called
him Brother, a mixed feeling of compassion and
disgust took its place.

To him she was another woman, and was very far
from braving him as she had done the porter.

"Give you good den, Sir Lawrence," said she,
louting low: "Metrusteth you shall not have forgat
your sister Emmot, that is your own flesh and blood,
and right ill off, with eight childre that have scarce a
rag to their backs, nor an handful of meal to put in
their mouths, I do ensure you.  We have heard you
be come back a knight, worshipful Sir, with a fortune
in broad gold pieces, and sure you would never forget
your own flesh and blood.  Mariot hath but five
childre, and her man was better off than mine; and
Joan hath but two.  So you shall see, sweet Sir, I
cast no doubt, that 'tis I have the most need of your
bountifulness, good Sir Lawrence."

Lawrence's awakened pity was rapidly passing
into unspeakable disgust.  He had come home
prepared to divide his savings among these relatives, as
being his own flesh and blood: but he was not
prepared to find them throwing themselves upon him
like a pack of wolves, intent upon nothing but the
horrible emulation which of them could bite the
largest piece out of him, and each utterly unconcerned
whether the rest got any thing at all.  It cost
him something to say "Sister" to this wretched
creature—not because she was poor,—Lawrence
would never have felt that—but because she was
vulgar and slovenly, disgusting alike in mind and
body.  He controlled himself, however, and passing
by the too evident spirit of her speech, asked what
she could tell him of the other members of the family.
Emmot's communicativeness cooled manifestly.  She
professed that she knew nothing of the others, and
Lawrence had to remind her what she had just said.
After a little fencing she admitted that she knew
where nearly all of them were.  Mariot was living
about two miles from Usk, and her husband had
been a miner; he was dead, and she made a living
by plaiting straw.  One of her sons was quite old
enough to work—a fact on which Emmot laid great
stress; her husband had been a freeman, and none
of the family were serfs except herself, which was an
enormous advantage: and Joan's husband was a
serf, so that she and her family were kept at their
master's cost, and needed nothing whatever,—another
enormous advantage; and she had only two children.
And once more the eight children of the illogical
Emmot were paraded rhetorically before Lawrence.

He gave her a handsome donation, over which she
grumbled sorely, and he turned away sick at heart.

Lawrence's next work was to visit his father, who
lived a day's journey away, with his son Simon and
his family.  Nicholas showed some interest in his
youngest son, and some slight affection for him; and
he did not ask for money—an omission fully made
up by Simon's wife.  Simon himself proved the
least changed of any of the family.  Grim and surly
as far back as Lawrence could recollect him, he was
grim and surly still.  Lawrence left another donation
here, and coming back, went a little out of his way to
call upon his sister Joan.

If this lady had fewer children than her sister, she
supplied the gap by a larger quantity of grumbling.
When he left her—having had hard work to get
away—Lawrence really wondered if she could have been
more abusive had he refused her a penny.  It was with
a sensation of utter disgust with the whole concern
that he went to pay his last visit, to his sister Mariot.

He found a trim, neat little cottage by the roadside,
where a clean, smiling lad was cutting up a log of wood,
and a tidy, pleasant-looking girl was sewing in the
little porch.  And when Lawrence had made known his
wishes, and the girl had called "Mother!" to someone
in the inner room—the cottage only held two—the
woman who came forward in answer had a clean rosy
face, and smooth black hair neatly braided.

"Mariot, dost thou mind thy youngest brother?"

"Lolly!  Eh, my little lad, is it thou?"

She laid both hands on his shoulders and turned
him round to the light.

"My dear lad!  My own little Lolly!  Mind
thee? aye, that do I, forsooth.  And thou art come
back to Usk?—is it to 'bide there?  And how goes
it with thee, lad? art wed? and hast done well?
Tell me all about thee, Lolly."

It was an entirely different welcome from any of
the rest.  The news that Lawrence was a knight,
and had returned possessed of a sum which in her
eyes was great riches, did not seem to strike Mariot
in any light but that of being glad for him.  And
when he offered her the same sum which he had
given to the rest, and they had received so
murmuringly, to his surprise she refused it.

"Nay, lad, I'll not take thy gold," said Mariot.
"I want for nought, God be thanked, and my
childre be good childre; and Jack hath so much as
he can do, and Alice yonder can make a pretty
penny in the straw plaiting, and Maud comes on well
with her sewing.  Surely it were ill done, even had
I need, that thy brethren and sisters should strip
thee of every penny!  Little Lolly, I guess I was
pretty nigh the only one that loved thee as a babe,
and now, thanks be to God, since I knew how He
loved me I have learned to love better.  Go thy
ways, lad, and see to thine own well-doing, and keep
thy bits of savings in thy pocket.  I am every whit
as much beholden to thee as if thou hadst given me a
thousand marks.  But bethink thee somewhat of thine
own future: for when folk think not of their own
selves—of the which sort there be main few, by
my troth—other folk must think for them.  Thou
shalt wish to wed one of these days, an' thou dost
not now: and how shall that be compassed with
never a plack in thy pocket?  Go thy ways, and get
thee a good wife and a pleasant home—the which
shall do me a much more pleasure than to have the
spending of thy gold.  Choose her by a true heart,
and not by a fair face, and ask our Lord to help thee
in the choosing, and then thou shalt do well.  And
now and anon, when thou hast an hour or twain to
spare, come down hither and drink thy four-hours with
us, and give me to wit of thy welfare—that shall
pleasure me full greatly.  My Lady Madison, trow, shall
be too fine to sup her four-hours with a miner's widow;
but I would like to see thee by nows and thens."

"She will not be my wife an' she so be," said
Lawrence: "but truly, Mariot, I look for no such,
and it should better serve that thou wouldst leave
me help thee."

"Go to!" said Mariot with a knowing smile.  "How
many a time, thinkest, have I heard that saying from
folks at whose wedding I have danced within the next
twelvemonth?  Thine eyes be tell-tales, Lolly.  An'
thou be heart-free, mine eyes be no true men."

"Thou sayest sooth," was Lawrence's answer, in
rather a sorrowful tone.  "But one heart is not
enough for a wedding, my sister.  More than one
swallow goeth to make a summer."

"Dear heart, two swallows were plenty for that
summer," replied Mariot, laughing.  "Hast asked
her, lad?" she added somewhat drily.

Lawrence confessed the negative.

"Art awaiting till she ask thee?" demanded
Mariot with an amused look.

"Scarce that, methinks.  Nay, Mariot, she hath
thought of the veil.  Who am I, that I should set
me in rivalry with God?"

"Go to!" returned Mariot, with a strong good
sense which was not common in her era.  "Veils be
for broken hearts and worn-down widows, and
unchilded mothers—for women which have smoothed
down the green turf over their hearts' best love.
They be not for young maids, fresh and bright, with
life opening afore them.  Never think it!"

"Yet we should give God the best," said Lawrence
sadly.

"Give Him what He asketh of thee, Lolly.  Methinks
that is not often the making a man's life desolate.
But is the cloister the only way to give to God?
Didst learn that from the Word, or out of thine own
heart?  He that trusteth his own heart is a fool."

"Why, Mariot, art not giving me counsel to trust
mine own heart in this matter?"

"Never a whit.  I counsel thee to trust God's
providence, and let Him choose for thee.  If He have
not meant this maid for thee, have no fear she shall
say yea to thine asking.  Do the thing that did King
Ezekias, my dear lad—spread it before the Lord,
and ask Him to lead her in accordance with His
will.  Then speak, and fear not.  How wist thou that
in her mind the choice lieth not betwixt the cloister
and thee,—and if thy tongue be dumb, she must needs
choose the other.  She'll not ask thee, I reckon."

"She loveth me not at all," said Lawrence.

"I'd make sure," was Mariot's quiet conclusion.
"There be some nuts be all o'er prickles o' the outside,
which be good enough when thou hast stripped off
the bur."

.. vspace:: 2

"Mistress Wenteline," said Lawrence, the next
morning, "will you do me so much favour as tell me
if Mistress Beatrice hath yet purpose to be a nun?"

"I believe," answered Guenllian, "she hath
purpose to be veiled with the White Ladies of
Limbroke, if it may be, this next month."  But as
Lawrence passed on, she said to herself, "Unless you can
persuade her out of it!"

A few hours later, when the dusk had come, as
Lawrence crossed the ante-chamber, into which the
moon was shining brightly, he saw a dark figure
standing in the recess of the window, and went up to
it.  His heart, rather than his eyes, told him who it was.

"Is it you, Mistress Beatrice?"

"It is I, Sir Lawrence."

The old playmates had become excessively ceremonious
to each other.  The brotherly sort of intercourse,
resumed on their meeting at Trim, had been
quite dropped, and they were as distantly civil as if
they had made acquaintance only a few days before.

"You can scarce see much hence, methinketh."

"It is fair enough," said Beatrice, absently; adding
after a moment, "fair enough for one who shall soon
behold nought beyond convent walls."

"Are you well avised thereabout, Mistress Beatrice?"

"I think so much," she answered, gravely.

"Thus said Father Robesart.  Yet he seemed,
something doubtful if you have well judged therein,
as methought.  It were grave matter to blunder over,
Mistress Beatrice.  There is no coming forth,
howsoe'er one may desire it."

"No," she said—and said no more.

Lawrence took another step, and dropped a little
of his ceremoniousness to do it.

"Beatrice, dear old friend, is this for your happiness?
Not one other word will I speak if you ensure
me thereof."

"Happiness is not the only thing," she said in a
constrained voice.

"Not so, maybe, for you to think on: yet methinks
you might allow for your friends to concern them
touching the same."

Beatrice made no reply.

"Are you well assured that our Lord calls you to
that life, dear Beatrice?  Might it not be better for
you, no less than for other, that you should make
happy some home and heart, rather than bury yourself
in the cloister?  Think well of it, ere you cast
die that can never be recalled."

"I have thought of it," said Beatrice in rather a
hard tone.  "I am not wanted otherwhere.  Why
should I not be a nun?"

"Because you were never meant for one.  Because
it is not the right life for you, for whom life is but
just opening.  Because——"

Beatrice interrupted him.  "Life opening!  Your
pardon, Sir Lawrence.  Life has closed for me."

"You think so much now," he answered, gently.
"This time next year, will you so think?  Not wanted!
Would you come where you were?  I could tell you
of one who wanteth you more than words can tell,—to
whom the world will be black gloom if you go forth
of it.  But let that pass.  I meant not to speak—Beattie,
old friend, old playmate, sister if I may call you so,
leave me plead with you this once, ere you bury your
youth and hope where neither hope nor gladness can
enter more.  I know you too well, Beattie!  You would
be miserable in the cloister.  Why not make some
other life happy, and your own joined thereto?"

He listened earnestly for her answer.  One more
negative, and he would let her alone, to go her own
way, though his way would be darkness and loneliness
thenceforward.  Lawrence's love was very unselfish.
If Beatrice had loved some one who was not himself,
he would have given her every penny he possessed for
her fortune, had he thought that the want of fortune
barred her from happiness.  But he did not think that
she loved any one, and himself least of all.  Only he
could not bear the thought of the cloister for Blumond's
Beattie, and he thought he knew her well enough to
be sure that it would be misery in the latter end.

"I will," said Beatrice in a low voice, keeping her
face in shadow.  "I will, if——"

"If what, dear Beattie?"

"If it may be yours, Lawrence."





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.. _`HISTORICAL APPENDIX`:

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   HISTORICAL APPENDIX.

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   MORTIMER OF MARCH.

.. vspace:: 2

Roger Mortimer, third Earl of March, eldest and only
surviving son of Edmund second Earl and Elizabeth de Badlesmere
was born in 1328, and stood eighth on the list of original Knights
of the Garter: died at Rouvray, in Burgundy, Feb. 26th, 1360;
buried at Wigmore.  Married

PHILIPPA, daughter of William de Montacute, first Earl of
Salisbury, and Katherine Grandison; for whom Earl Roger's
marriage was granted to her father, 1336: died Jan. 5th, 1382;
buried at Bisham.


Issue:—

\1. Roger, died young.

\2. Alice, affianced in 1354 to Edmund, son of Richard Earl
of Arundel, and then under thirteen years of age; died before
marriage.

\3. EDMUND, 4th Earl, born at Langenith, Feb. 1st, 1352;
affianced 1354 to Alice, daughter of Richard Earl of Arundel
(marriage broken off); received into fraternity, Canterbury
Cathedral, July 7th, 1379; died at Cork, from cold taken in
fording the Lee, Dec. 27th, 1381; buried at Bisham.  Married

PHILIPPA, only child of Lionel Duke of Clarence (son of
Edward III.) and his first wife Elizabeth de Burgh: born at
Eltham Palace, Aug. 16th, 1355; married in the Queen's
Chapel, probably at Reading, 1359, apparently before Feb. 15th,
and certainly before July 16th: died shortly before Jan. 7th,
1378; buried at Wigmore.

\4. John, died young.


Issue of Edmund 4th Earl:—

\1. Elizabeth, born at Usk,
Feb. 12th, 1371; married (1) before May 1st, 1380, Henry Lord
Percy, surnamed Hotspur (2) after Oct. 8th, 1403, Thomas Lord
Camoys; living 1417; Inq. Post Mortem, 5 Hen. V.: buried at
Trotton with second husband.  Left issue by both marriages.

\2. ROGER, 5th Earl; born at Usk, Sept. 1st, 1373; affianced
1385 to (probably Alice) daughter of Richard 12th Earl of
Arundel (marriage broken off at the request of Princess of
Wales): Viceroy of Ireland 20 to 22 Ric. II.: killed in skirmish,
Kenles, Ireland, "adventuring himself before his army in an
Irish habit," July 20th, 1398; buried at Wigmore.  Declared
heir of the Crown in Parliament, 9 Ric. II.  Married

ALIANORA, eldest daughter of Thomas de Holand, Earl of
Kent, and Alesia de Arundel: born 1370-2, married after Oct. 7th,
1388, when Earl Roger's marriage was granted to her father
(re-married, licence dat. June 19th, 1399, Edward de Charlton,
Lord Powys): died Oct. 23rd, 1405; buried at Wigmore.

\3. Philippa, born at Ludlow, Nov. 21st, 1375: married (1)
John Hastings, 3rd and last Earl of Pembroke, after Sept. 24th,
1383 (2) pardon dat. Nov. 10, 1391, for fine of 500 marks, Richard,
12th Earl of Arundel, (3) after Sept. 1397, John, Lord St. John
of Basing: died Sept. 24th, 1401 (Inq. P. Mort.), Sept. 26th,
1400 (Registry of Lewes): buried at Boxgrove.  Left issue by
last marriage only.

Edmund, born at Ludlow, Nov. 1377: fled into Wales after
battle of Shrewsbury, 1403; Inq. 16 Hen. VI. 24.  Married

Katherine, daughter of Owain Glyndwr and Margaret
Hanmer, married 1402; died prisoner, London, about Nov. 1413;
buried there in St. Swithin's Church.  Issue doubtful,
but comprising a son and two daughters at least.

Issue of Roger 5th Earl:—ANNE, born Dec. 27th, 1388
(Dugdale, doubtless a mistake for 1389): married after
Jan. 9th, 1407, Richard of York, Earl of Cambridge; died about
Sept. 1410; buried probably in Abbey Church, King's Langley.

\2. Edmund, 6th and last Earl, born in New Forest, Nov. 6th,
1391; died at Trim Castle, Jan. 19th, 1425; buried at Stoke
Clare.  Married (but left no issue),

Anne, daughter of Edmund Earl of Stafford and Princess
Anne of Gloucester: married about 1413-1415; (remarried,
1429, John de Holand, Duke of Exeter); died Sept. 20th or
24th, 1432; buried in Church of St. Katherine, Tower, with
second husband.

\3. Roger, born at Nethewode, Mar. 24th, 1393; died prisoner
in Windsor Castle, after Aug. 26th, 1404, and probably after
1405; buried at Stoke Priory.

.. vspace:: 4

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold

   Stories of English Life.

.. class:: center medium bold

   BY EMILY S. HOLT.

.. vspace:: 2

::

   A.D. 597

   I. Imogen:
   A TALE OF THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH.


   A.D. 1066

   II. Behind the Veil:
   A STORY OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST.


   A.D. 1159

   III. One Snowy Night;
   OR, LONG AGO AT OXFORD.


   A.D. 1189

   IV. Lady Sybil's Choice:
   A TALE OF THE CRUSADES.


   A.D. 1214

   V. Earl Hubert's Daughter;
   OR, THE POLISHING OF THE PEARL.


   A.D. 1325

   VI. In all Time of our Tribulation:
   THE STORY OF PIERS GAVESTONE.


   A.D. 1350

   VII. The White Lady of Hazelwood:
   THE WARRIOR COUNTESS OF MONTFORT.


   A.D. 1352

   VIII. Countess Maud;
   OR, THE CHANGES OF THE WORLD.


   A.D. 1360

   IX. In Convent Walls:
   THE STORY OF THE DESPENSERS.


   A.D. 1377

   X. John De Wycliffe,
   AND WHAT HE DID FOR ENGLAND.


   A.D. 1384

   XI. The Lord Mayor:
   A TALK OF LONDON IN 1384.


   A.D. 1390

   XII. Under One Sceptre:
   THE STORY OF THE LORD OF THE MARCHES


   A.D. 1400

   XIII. The White Rose of Langley;
   OR, THE STORY OF CONSTANCE LE DESPENSER.


   A.D. 1400

   XIV. Mistress Margery:
   A TALE OF THE LOLLARDS.


   A.D. 1400

   XV. Margery's Son;
   OR, UNTIL HE FIND IT.


   A.D. 1470

   XVI. Red and White;
   OR, THE WARS OF THE ROSES.


   A.D. 1480

   XVII. The Tangled Web:
   A TALE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.


   A.D. 1515

   XVIII. The Harvest of Yesterday:
   A TALE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.


   A.D. 1530

   XIX. Lettice Eden;
   OR, THE LAMPS OF EARTH AND THE LIGHTS OF HEAVEN.


   A.D. 1535

   XX. Isoult Barry of Wynscote:
   A TALE OF TUDOR TIMES.


   A.D. 1544

   XXI. Through the Storm;
   OR, THE LORD'S PRISONERS.


   A.D. 1555

   XXII. Robin Tremayne:
   A TALE OF THE MARIAN PERSECUTION.


   A.D. 1556

   XXIII. All's Well;
   OR, ALICE'S VICTORY.


   A.D. 1556

   XXIV. The King's Daughters.
   HOW TWO GIRLS KEPT THE FAITH.


   A.D. 1569

   XXV. Sister Rose;
   OR, THE EVE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.


   A.D. 1579

   XXVI. Joyce Morrell's Harvest:
   A STORY OF THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.


   A.D. 1588

   XXVII. Clare Avery:
   A STORY OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.


   A.D. 1605

   XXVIII. It Might Have Been:
   THE STORY OF GUNPOWDER PLOT.


   A.D. 1635

   XXIX. Minster Lovel:
   A STORY OF THE DAYS OF LAUD.


   A.D. 1662

   XXX. Wearyholme;
   A STORY OF THE RESTORATION.


   A.D. 1712

   XXXI. The Maiden's Lodge;
   OR, THE DAYS OF QUEEN ANNE.


   A.D. 1745

   XXXII. Out in the Forty-five;
   OR, DUNCAN KEITH'S VOW.


   A.D. 1750

   XXXIII. Ashcliffe Hall:
   A TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY.


   XXXIV.  A.D. 1556

           For the Master's Sake;
           OR, THE DAYS OF QUEEN MARY.


           A.D. 1345

           The Well in the Desert.
           AN OLD LEGEND.


   XXXV.   A.D. 1559

           All for the Best;
           OR, BERNARD GILPIN'S MOTTO.


           A.D. 1560

           At the Grene Griffin:
           A TALE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.


   XXXVI.  A.D. 1270

           Our Little Lady;
           OR, SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO

           A.D. 1652

           Gold that Glitters;
           OR, THE MISTAKES OF JENNY LAVENDER.


   XXXVII.  A.D. 1290

            A Forgotten Hero:
            THE STORY OF ROGER DE MORTIMER.

            A.D. 1266

            Princess Adelaide:
            A STORY OF THE SIEGE OF KENILWORTH.


   XXXVIII.  1ST CENTURY.

             The Slave Girl of Pompeii.


             2ND CENTURY.

             The Way of the Cross.
             TALES OF THE EARLY CHURCH


   A.D. 870 to 1580

   XXXIX. Lights in the Darkness:
   BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.


   A.D. 1873

   XL. Verena.
   SAFE PATHS AND SLIPPERY BYE-WAYS.
   A Story of To-day.


.. vspace:: 3

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FOR HONOUR NOT HONOURS.  The Story of Gordon of Khartoum.

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.. class:: noindent

BRITAIN'S QUEEN.  The Story of her Reign.  By THOMAS PAUL.

.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

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EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN.

.. vspace:: 3

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A TRUE GENTLEWOMAN.  The Story of Dame Margaret Hoby.

.. class:: noindent

THE END CROWNS ALL.  A Story of Life.

.. class:: noindent

BISHOP'S CRANWORTH; or, Rosamond's Lamp.

.. class:: noindent

LITTLE QUEENIE.  A Story of Child-life Sixty Years Ago.

.. class:: noindent

DEAN'S COURT; or, Lady-bird and her Friends.

.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

LITTLE MISS JOY.

.. class:: noindent

HURLY-BURLY; or, After a Storm comes a Calm.

.. class:: noindent

CURLEY'S CRYSTAL; or, A Light Heart Lives Long.

.. class:: noindent

ROBERT'S RACE; or, More Haste Less Speed.

.. class:: noindent

PETER'S PROMISES; or, Look before you Leap.

.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

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.. vspace:: 3

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.. class:: center small

Author of "Sun, Moon, and Stars," &c.

.. vspace:: 1

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.. class:: noindent

EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS.  A Tale.

.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

LIFE-TANGLES; or, The Journal of Rhoda Frith.

.. class:: noindent

LIFE IN A NUTSHELL: A Story.

.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

WILL FOSTER OF THE FERRY.

.. class:: noindent

TOO DEARLY BOUGHT.

.. class:: noindent

MISS PRIMROSE.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

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.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

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.. class:: noindent

ALICK'S HERO.

.. class:: noindent

ONLY A COUSIN.

.. class:: noindent

THE GABLED FARM; or, Young Workers for the King.

.. class:: noindent

IN THE SUNLIGHT AND OUT OF IT.  A Year of my Life-story.

.. class:: noindent

NELLIE ARUNDEL.  A Tale of Home-life.

.. class:: noindent

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.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large

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.. class:: center medium

SELECTED BY CATHARINE SHAW.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

\1st.  OUTLINE TEXTS FOR PAINTING.
\2nd.  HAPPY HOURS WITH THE BIBLE.
\3rd.  ECHOES FROM THE BIBLE.
\4th.  ALPHABET TEXTS for PRICKING or PAINTING.
\5th.  MESSAGES FROM HEAVEN.
\6th.  GLEAMS OF GLORY FROM THE GOSPELS.
\7th.  A LARGE THOUGHT IN A LARGE WORD.
\8th.  SCRIPTURE FEAR NOTS.
\9th.  "ALL THINGS ARE YOURS."
\10th.  TEXTS FOR THE CHILDREN.
\llth.  CONSIDER THE LILIES.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large

STORIES BY L. T. MEADE,

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Author of "Scamp and I," &c.

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DOROTHY'S STORY; or, Great St. Benedict's.

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A KNIGHT OF TO-DAY.  A Tale.

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BEL-MARJORY.  A Tale.

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SCAMP AND I.  A Story of City Byeways.

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THE CHILDREN'S KINGDOM; or, The Story of a Great Endeavour.

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WATER GIPSIES.  A Tale.

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DAVID'S LITTLE LAD.

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DOT AND HER TREASURES.  With Illustrations.

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OUTCAST ROBIN; or, Your Brother and Mine.

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WHITE LILIES, AND OTHER TALES.

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LETTIE'S LAST HOME.

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THOSE BOYS.  A Story for all Little Fellows.

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STORIES BY GRACE STEBBING.

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NEVER GIVE IN.  The Story of Gustavus Adolphus.

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A REAL HERO.  A Story of the Conquest of Mexico.

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IN ALL OUR DOINGS.  A Story for Boys.

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GRAHAM'S VICTORY.  A Tale of the Covenanters.

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WINNING AN EMPIRE; or, The Story of Clive.

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SILVERDALE RECTORY; or, The Golden Links.

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BRAVE GEORDIE.  The Story of an English Boy.

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BEATING THE RECORD.  A Story of the Life and Times of George
Stephenson.

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Picture Stories for Young People

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DEEDS OF DARING.  STORIES OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE.

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CONFLICT AND CONQUEST, AND OTHER STORIES BY SYDNEY WATSON.

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PRETTY PICTURES FOR LITTLE PETS.

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OUR DARLINGS STORY BOOK.

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ALL PLAY.  By ISMAY THORN.

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ANIMAL LAND.  STORIES AND ANECDOTES.

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BIRDS AND BEASTS.

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FULL OF FUN.

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STARLIGHT STORIES.

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PETS AND PLAYMATES.

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FUN AND FROLIC.

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REV. W. HAY AITKEN'S NEW VOLUME.

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THE ROMANCE OF CHRISTIAN WORK AND EXPERIENCE.

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By REV. W. HAY M. H. AITKEN, M.A.

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WITH PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR.

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Contents.

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\1.—Spiritual Facts Stranger than Fiction.
\2.—Great Results from Small Causes.
\3.—Strange Calls and Prompt Answers.
\4.—Spontaneous Confession and Restitution.
\5.—The Surrender of the Affections.
\6.—The Bringing Down of the Mountains.
\7.—Remarkable Conversions.
\8.—A Great Salvation for Great Sinners.
\9.—Deliverance for the Captives.
\10.—Just In Time.
\11.—The Last Call Unheeded.
\12.—Standing up for Jesus.
\13.—"Wisdom in the Scorn of Consequence."
\14.—God's Messengers.
\15.—The Bow Drawn at a Venture.
\16.—"After Many Days."
\17.—Noteworthy Answers to Prayer.
\18.—Special Providences.
\19.—The Last Enemy.

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LONDON: JOHN F. SHAW & CO., 48, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

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