Unknown to History: a story of the captivity of Mary of Scotland / Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 1823-1901

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Title: Unknown to History
       A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland

Author: Charlotte M Yonge

Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4596]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on February 13, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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This Project Gutenberg Etext of Unknown to History--A Story of the
Captivity of Mary of Scotland, by Charlotte M Yonge, was prepared
by Sandra Laythorpe, laythorpe@tiscali.co.uk, from the 1891 edition.
A web page for Charlotte M Yonge will be found at 
www.menorot.com/cmyonge.htm.






Unknown to History

A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland

By Charlotte M Yonge.





PREFACE.




In p. 58 of vol. ii. of the second edition of Miss Strickland's Life
of Mary Queen of Scots, or p. 100, vol. v. of Burton's History of
Scotland, will be found the report on which this tale is founded.

If circumstances regarding the Queen's captivity and Babington's plot
have been found to be omitted, as well as many interesting personages
in the suite of the captive Queen, it must be remembered that the art
of the story-teller makes it needful to curtail some of the incidents
which would render the narrative too complicated to be interesting to
those who wish more for a view of noted characters in remarkable
situations, than for a minute and accurate sifting of facts and
evidence.

                                               C. M. YONGE.

February 27, 1882.





CONTENTS.




CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE WAIF

CHAPTER II. EVIL TIDINGS

CHAPTER III. THE CAPTIVE

CHAPTER IV. THE OAK AND THE OAKEN HALL

CHAPTER V. THE HUCKSTERING WOMAN

CHAPTER VI. THE BEWITCHED WHISTLE

CHAPTER VII. THE BLAST OF THE WHISTLE

CHAPTER VIII. THE KEY OF THE CIPHER

CHAPTER IX. UNQUIET

CHAPTER X. THE LADY ARBELL

CHAPTER XI. QUEEN MARY'S PRESENCE CHAMBER

CHAPTER XII. A FURIOUS LETTER

CHAPTER XIII. BEADS AND BRACELETS

CHAPTER XIV. THE MONOGRAMS

CHAPTER XV. MOTHER AND CHILD

CHAPTER XVI. THE PEAK CAVERN

CHAPTER XVII. THE EBBING WELL

CHAPTER XVIII. CIS OR SISTER

CHAPTER XIX. THE CLASH OF SWORDS

CHAPTER XX. WINGFIELD MANOR

CHAPTER XXI. A TANGLE

CHAPTER XXII. TUTBURY

CHAPTER XXIII. THE LOVE TOKEN

CHAPTER XXIV. A LIONESS AT BAY

CHAPTER XXV. PAUL'S WALK

CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE WEB

CHAPTER XXVII. THE CASTLE WELL

CHAPTER XXVIII. HUNTING DOWN THE DEER

CHAPTER XXIX. THE SEARCH

CHAPTER XXX. TETE-A-TETE

CHAPTER XXXI. EVIDENCE

CHAPTER XXXII. WESTMINSTER HALL

CHAPTER XXXIII. IN THE TOWER

CHAPTER XXXIV. FOTHERINGHAY

CHAPTER XXXV. BEFORE THE COMMISSIONERS

CHAPTER XXXVI. A VENTURE

CHAPTER XXXVII. MY LADY'S REMORSE

CHAPTER XXXVIII. MASTER TALBOT AND HIS CHARGE

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE FETTERLOCK COURT

CHAPTER XL. THE SENTENCE

CHAPTER XLI. HER ROYAL HIGHNESS

CHAPTER XLII. THE SUPPLICATION

CHAPTER XLIII. THE WARRANT

CHAPTER XLIV. ON THE HUMBER

CHAPTER XLV. TEN YEARS AFTER





UNKNOWN TO HISTORY.




Poor scape-goat of crimes, where,--her part what it may,
So tortured, so hunted to die,
Foul age of deceit and of hate,--on her head
Least stains of gore-guiltiness lie;
To the hearts of the just her blood from the dust
Not in vain for mercy will cry.

Poor scape-goat of nations and faiths in their strife
So cruel,--and thou so fair!
Poor girl!--so, best, in her misery named,--
Discrown'd of two kingdoms, and bare;
Not first nor last on this one was cast
The burden that others should share.
                 Visions of England, by F. T. Palgrave




CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE WAIF.



On a spring day, in the year 1568, Mistress Talbot sat in her lodging
at Hull, an upper chamber, with a large latticed window, glazed with
the circle and diamond leading perpetuated in Dutch pictures, and
opening on a carved balcony, whence, had she been so minded, she
could have shaken hands with her opposite neighbour.  There was a
richly carved mantel-piece, with a sea-coal fire burning in it, for
though it was May, the sea winds blew cold, and there was a fishy
odour about the town, such as it was well to counteract.  The floor
was of slippery polished oak, the walls hung with leather, gilded in
some places and depending from cornices, whose ornaments proved to an
initiated eye, that this had once been the refectory of a small
priory, or cell, broken up at the Reformation.

Of furniture there was not much, only an open cupboard, displaying
two silver cups and tankards, a sauce-pan of the same metal, a few
tall, slender, Venetian glasses, a little pewter, and some rare
shells.  A few high-backed chairs were ranged against the wall; there
was a tall "armory," i.e. a linen-press of dark oak, guarded on each
side by the twisted weapons of the sea unicorn, and in the middle of
the room stood a large, solid-looking table, adorned with a brown
earthenware beau-pot, containing a stiff posy of roses, southernwood,
gillyflowers, pinks and pansies, of small dimensions.  On hooks,
against the wall, hung a pair of spurs, a shield, a breastplate, and
other pieces of armour, with an open helmet bearing the dog, the
well-known crest of the Talbots of the Shrewsbury line.

On the polished floor, near the window, were a child's cart, a little
boat, some whelks and limpets.  Their owner, a stout boy of three
years old, in a tight, borderless, round cap, and home-spun, madder-
dyed frock, lay fast asleep in a big wooden cradle, scarcely large
enough, however, to contain him, as he lay curled up, sucking his
thumb, and hugging to his breast the soft fragment of a sea-bird's
downy breast.  If he stirred, his mother's foot was on the rocker, as
she sat spinning, but her spindle danced languidly on the floor, as
if "feeble was her hand, and silly her thread;" while she listened
anxiously, for every sound in the street below.  She wore a dark blue
dress, with a small lace ruff opening in front, deep cuffs to match,
and a white apron likewise edged with lace, and a coif, bent down in
the centre, over a sweet countenance, matronly, though youthful, and
now full of wistful expectancy; not untinged with anxiety and sorrow.

Susan Hardwicke was a distant kinswoman of the famous Bess of
Hardwicke, and had formed one of the little court of gentlewomen with
whom great ladies were wont to surround themselves.  There she met
Richard Talbot, the second son of a relative of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, a young man who, with the indifference of those days to
service by land or sea, had been at one time a gentleman pensioner of
Queen Mary; at another had sailed under some of the great mariners of
the western main.  There he had acquired substance enough to make the
offer of his hand to the dowerless Susan no great imprudence; and as
neither could be a subject for ambitious plans, no obstacle was
raised to their wedding.

He took his wife home to his old father's house in the precincts of
Sheffield Park, where she was kindly welcomed; but wealth did not so
abound in the family but that, when opportunity offered, he was
thankful to accept the command of the Mastiff, a vessel commissioned
by Queen Elizabeth, but built, manned, and maintained at the expense
of the Earl of Shrewsbury.  It formed part of a small squadron which
was cruising on the eastern coast to watch over the intercourse
between France and Scotland, whether in the interest of the
imprisoned Mary, or of the Lords of the Congregation.  He had
obtained lodgings for Mistress Susan at Hull, so that he might be
with her when he put into harbour, and she was expecting him for the
first time since the loss of their second child, a daughter whom he
had scarcely seen during her little life of a few months.

Moreover, there had been a sharp storm a few days previously, and
experience had not hardened her to the anxieties of a sailor's wife.
She had been down once already to the quay, and learnt all that the
old sailors could tell her of chances and conjectures; and when her
boy began to fret from hunger and weariness, she had left her
serving-man, Gervas, to watch for further tidings.  Yet, so does one
trouble drive out another, that whereas she had a few days ago
dreaded the sorrow of his return, she would now have given worlds to
hear his step.

Hark, what is that in the street?  Oh, folly!  If the Mastiff were
in, would not Gervas have long ago brought her the tidings?  Should
she look over the balcony only to be disappointed again?  Ah! she had
been prudent, for the sounds were dying away.  Nay, there was a foot
at the door!  Gervas with ill news!  No, no, it bounded as never did
Gervas's step!  It was coming up.  She started from the chair,
quivering with eagerness, as the door opened and in hurried her
suntanned sailor!  She was in his arms in a trance of joy.  That was
all she knew for a moment, and then, it was as if something else were
given back to her.  No, it was not a dream!  It was substance.  In
her arms was a little swaddled baby, in her ears its feeble wail,
mingled with the glad shout of little Humfrey, as he scrambled from
the cradle to be uplifted in his father's arms.

"What is this?" she asked, gazing at the infant between terror and
tenderness, as its weak cry and exhausted state forcibly recalled the
last hours of her own child.

"It is the only thing we could save from a wreck off the Spurn," said
her husband.  "Scottish as I take it.  The rogues seem to have taken
to their boats, leaving behind them a poor woman and her child.  I
trust they met their deserts and were swamped.  We saw the fluttering
of her coats as we made for the Humber, and I sent Goatley and Jaques
in the boat to see if anything lived.  The poor wench was gone before
they could lift her up, but the little one cried lustily, though it
has waxen weaker since.  We had no milk on board, and could only give
it bits of soft bread soaked in beer, and I misdoubt me whether it
did not all run out at the corners of its mouth."

This was interspersed with little Humfrey's eager outcries that
little sister was come again, and Mrs. Talbot, the tears running down
her cheeks, hastened to summon her one woman-servant, Colet, to bring
the porringer of milk.

Captain Talbot had only hurried ashore to bring the infant, and show
himself to his wife.  He was forced instantly to return to the wharf,
but he promised to come back as soon as he should have taken order
for his men, and for the Mastiff, which had suffered considerably in
the storm, and would need to be refitted.

Colet hastily put a manchet of fresh bread, a pasty, and a stoup of
wine into a basket, and sent it by her husband, Gervas, after their
master; and then eagerly assisted her mistress in coaxing the infant
to swallow food, and in removing the soaked swaddling clothes which
the captain and his crew had not dared to meddle with.

When Captain Talbot returned, as the rays of the setting sun glanced
high on the roofs and chimneys, little Humfrey stood peeping through
the tracery of the balcony, watching for him, and shrieking with joy
at the first glimpse of the sea-bird's feather in his cap.  The
spotless home-spun cloth and the trenchers were laid for supper, a
festive capon was prepared by the choicest skill of Mistress Susan,
and the little shipwrecked stranger lay fast asleep in the cradle.

All was well with it now, Mrs. Talbot said.  Nothing had ailed it but
cold and hunger, and when it had been fed, warmed, and dressed, it
had fallen sweetly asleep in her arms, appeasing her heartache for
her own little Sue, while Humfrey fully believed that father had
brought his little sister back again.

The child was in truth a girl, apparently three or four months old.
She had been rolled up in Mrs. Talbot's baby's clothes, and her own
long swaddling bands hung over the back of a chair, where they had
been dried before the fire.  They were of the finest woollen below,
and cambric above, and the outermost were edged with lace, whose
quality Mrs. Talbot estimated very highly.

"See," she added, "what we found within.  A Popish relic, is it not?
Colet and Mistress Gale were for making away with it at once, but it
seemed to me that it was a token whereby the poor babe's friends may
know her again, if she have any kindred not lost at sea."

The token was a small gold cross, of peculiar workmanship, with a
crystal in the middle, through which might be seen some mysterious
object neither husband nor wife could make out, but which they agreed
must be carefully preserved for the identification of their little
waif.  Mrs. Talbot also produced a strip of writing which she had
found sewn to the inmost band wrapped round the little body, but it
had no superscription, and she believed it to be either French,
Latin, or High Dutch, for she could make nothing of it.  Indeed, the
good lady's education had only included reading, writing, needlework
and cookery, and she knew no language but her own.  Her husband had
been taught Latin, but his acquaintance with modern tongues was of
the nautical order, and entirely oral and vernacular.  However, it
enabled him to aver that the letter--if such it were--was neither
Scottish, French, Spanish, nor High or Low Dutch.  He looked at it in
all directions, and shook his head over it.

"Who can read it, for us?" asked Mrs. Talbot.  "Shall we ask Master
Heatherthwayte? he is a scholar, and he said he would look in to see
how you fared."

"At supper-time, I trow," said Richard, rather grimly, "the smell of
thy stew will bring him down in good time."

"Nay, dear sir, I thought you would be fain to see the good man, and
he lives but poorly in his garret."

"Scarce while he hath good wives like thee to boil his pot for him,"
said Richard, smiling.  "Tell me, hath he heard aught of this gear?
thou hast not laid this scroll before him?"

"No, Colet brought it to me only now, having found it when washing
the swaddling-bands, stitched into one of them."

"Then hark thee, good wife, not one word to him of the writing."

"Might he not interpret it?"

"Not he!  I must know more about it ere I let it pass forth from mine
hands, or any strange eye fall upon it-- Ha, in good time!  I hear
his step on the stair."

The captain hastily rolled up the scroll and put it into his pouch,
while Mistress Susan felt as if she had made a mistake in her
hospitality, yet almost as if her husband were unjust towards the
good man who had been such a comfort to her in her sorrow; but there
was no lack of cordiality or courtesy in Richard's manner when, after
a short, quick knock, there entered a figure in hat, cassock, gown,
and bands, with a pleasant, though grave countenance, the complexion
showing that it had been tanned and sunburnt in early youth, although
it wore later traces of a sedentary student life, and, it might be,
of less genial living than had nourished the up-growth of that
sturdily-built frame.

Master Joseph Heatherthwayte was the greatly underpaid curate of a
small parish on the outskirts of Hull.  He contrived to live on some
(pounds)10 per annum in the attic of the house where the Talbots lodged,--
and not only to live, but to be full of charitable deeds, mostly at
the expense of his own appetite.  The square cut of his bands, and
the uncompromising roundness of the hat which he doffed on his
entrance, marked him as inclined to the Puritan party, which, being
that of apparent progress, attracted most of the ardent spirits of
the time.

Captain Talbot's inclinations did not lie that way, but he respected
and liked his fellow-lodger, and his vexation had been merely the
momentary disinclination of a man to be interrupted, especially on
his first evening at home.  He responded heartily to Master
Heatherthwayte's warm pressure of the hand and piously expressed
congratulation on his safety, mixed with condolence on the grief that
had befallen him.

"And you have been a good friend to my poor wife in her sorrow," said
Richard, "for the which I thank you heartily, sir."

"Truly, sir, I could have been her scholar, with such edifying
resignation did she submit to the dispensation," returned the
clergyman, uttering these long words in a broad northern accent which
had nothing incongruous in it to Richard's ears, and taking advantage
of the lady's absence on "hospitable tasks intent" to speak in her
praise.

Little Humfrey, on his father's knee, comprehending that they were
speaking of the recent sorrow, put in his piece of information that
"father had brought little sister back from the sea."

"Ah, child!" said Master Heatherthwayte, in the ponderous tone of one
unused to children, "thou hast yet to learn the words of the holy
David, 'I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.'"

"Bring not that thought forward, Master Heatherthwayte," said
Richard, "I am well pleased that my poor wife and this little lad can
take the poor little one as a solace sent them by God, as she
assuredly is."

"Mean you, then, to adopt her into your family?" asked the minister.

"We know not if she hath any kin," said Richard, and at that moment
Susan entered, followed by the man and maid, each bearing a portion
of the meal, which was consumed by the captain and the clergyman as
thoroughly hungry men eat; and there was silence till the capon's
bones were bare and two large tankards had been filled with Xeres
sack, captured in a Spanish ship, "the only good thing that ever came
from Spain," quoth the sailor.

Then he began to tell how he had weathered the storm on the
Berwickshire coast; but he was interrupted by another knock, followed
by the entrance of a small, pale, spare man, with the lightest
possible hair, very short, and almost invisible eyebrows; he had a
round ruff round his neck, and a black, scholarly gown, belted round
his waist with a girdle, in which he carried writing tools.

"Ha, Cuthbert Langston, art thou there?" said the captain, rising.
"Thou art kindly welcome.  Sit down and crush a cup of sack with
Master Heatherthwayte and me."

"Thanks, cousin," returned the visitor, "I heard that the Mastiff was
come in, and I came to see whether all was well."

"It was kindly done, lad," said Richard, while the others did their
part of the welcome, though scarcely so willingly.  Cuthbert Langston
was a distant relation on the mother's side of Richard, a young
scholar, who, after his education at Oxford, had gone abroad with a
nobleman's son as his pupil, and on his return, instead of taking
Holy Orders, as was expected, had obtained employment in a merchant's
counting-house at Hull, for which his knowledge of languages
eminently fitted him.  Though he possessed none of the noble blood of
the Talbots, the employment was thought by Mistress Susan somewhat
derogatory to the family dignity, and there was a strong suspicion
both in her mind and that of Master Heatherthwayte that his change of
purpose was due to the change of religion in England, although he was
a perfectly regular church-goer.  Captain Talbot, however, laughed at
all this, and, though he had not much in common with his kinsman,
always treated him in a cousinly fashion.  He too had heard a rumour
of the foundling, and made inquiry for it, upon which Richard told
his story in greater detail, and his wife asked what the poor mother
was like.

"I saw her not," he answered, "but Goatley thought the poor woman to
whom she was bound more like to be nurse than mother, judging by her
years and her garments."

"The mother may have been washed off before," said Susan, lifting the
little one from the cradle, and hushing it.
"Weep not, poor babe, thou hast found a mother here."

"Saw you no sign of the crew?" asked Master Heatherthwayte.

"None at all.  The vessel I knew of old as the brig Bride of Dunbar,
one of the craft that ply between Dunbar and the French ports."

"And how think you?  Were none like to be saved?"

"I mean to ride along the coast to-morrow, to see whether aught can
be heard of them, but even if their boats could live in such a sea,
they would have evil hap among the wreckers if they came ashore.  I
would not desire to be a shipwrecked man in these parts, and if I had
a Scottish or a French tongue in my head so much the worse for me."

"Ah, Master Heatherthwayte," said Susan, "should not a man give up
the sea when he is a husband and father?"

"Tush, dame!  With God's blessing the good ship Mastiff will ride out
many another such gale.  Tell thy mother, little Numpy, that an
English sailor is worth a dozen French or Scottish lubbers."

"Sir," said Master Heatherthwayte, "the pious trust of the former
part of your discourse is contradicted by the boast of the latter
end."

"Nay, Sir Minister, what doth a sailor put his trust in but his God
foremost, and then his good ship and his brave men?"

It should be observed that all the three men wore their hats, and
each made a reverent gesture of touching them.  The clergyman seemed
satisfied by the answer, and presently added that it would be well,
if Master and Mistress Talbot meant to adopt the child, that she
should be baptized.

"How now?" said Richard, "we are not so near any coast of Turks or
Infidels that we should deem her sprung of heathen folk."

"Assuredly not," said Cuthbert Langston, whose quick, light-coloured
eyes had spied the reliquary in Mistress Susan's work-basket, "if
this belongs to her.  By your leave, kinswoman," and he lifted it in
his hand with evident veneration, and began examining it.

"It is Babylonish gold, an accursed thing!" exclaimed Master
Heatherthwayte.  "Beware, Master Talbot, and cast it from thee."

"Nay," said Richard," that shall I not do.  It may lead to the
discovery of the child's kindred.  Why, my master, what harm think
you it will do to us in my dame's casket?  Or what right have we to
make away with the little one's property?"

His common sense was equally far removed from the horror of the one
visitor as from the reverence of the other, and so it pleased
neither.  Master Langston was the first to speak, observing that the
relic made it evident that the child must have been baptized.

"A Popish baptism," said Master Heatherthwayte, "with chrism and
taper and words and gestures to destroy the pure simplicity of the
sacrament."

Controversy here seemed to be setting in, and the infant cause of it
here setting up a cry, Susan escaped under pretext of putting Humfrey
to bed in the next room, and carried off both the little ones.  The
conversation then fell upon the voyage, and the captain described the
impregnable aspect of the castle of Dumbarton, which was held for
Queen Mary by her faithful partisan, Lord Flemyng.  On this, Cuthbert
Langston asked whether he had heard any tidings of the imprisoned
Queen, and he answered that it was reported at Leith that she had
well-nigh escaped from Lochleven, in the disguise of a lavender or
washerwoman.  She was actually in the boat, and about to cross the
lake, when a rude oarsman attempted to pull aside her muffler, and
the whiteness of the hand she raised in self-protection betrayed her,
so that she was carried back.  "If she had reached Dumbarton," he
said, "she might have mocked at the Lords of the Congregation.  Nay,
she might have been in that very brig, whose wreck I beheld."

"And well would it have been for Scotland and England had it been the
will of Heaven that so it should fall out," observed the Puritan.

"Or it may be," said the merchant, "that the poor lady's escape was
frustrated by Providence, that she might be saved from the rocks of
the Spurn."

"The poor lady, truly!  Say rather the murtheress," quoth
Heatherthwayte.

"Say rather the victim and scapegoat of other men's plots," protested
Langston.

"Come, come, sirs," says Talbot, "we'll have no high words here on
what Heaven only knoweth.  Poor lady she is, in all sooth, if
sackless; poorer still if guilty; so I know not what matter there is
for falling out about.  In any sort, I will not have it at my table."
He spoke with the authority of the captain of a ship, and the two
visitors, scarce knowing it, submitted to his decision of manner, but
the harmony of the evening seemed ended.  Cuthbert Langston soon rose
to bid good-night, first asking his cousin at what hour he proposed
to set forth for the Spurn, to which Richard briefly replied that it
depended on what had to be done as to the repairs of the ship.

The clergyman tarried behind him to say, "Master Talbot, I marvel
that so godly a man as you have ever been should be willing to
harbour one so popishly affected, and whom many suspect of being a
seminary priest."

"Master Heatherthwayte," returned the captain, "my kinsman is my
kinsman, and my house is my house.  No offence, sir, but I brook not
meddling."

The clergyman protested that no offence was intended, only caution,
and betook himself to his own bare chamber, high above.  No sooner
was he gone than Captain Talbot again became absorbed in the
endeavour to spell out the mystery of the scroll, with his elbows on
the table and his hands over his ears, nor did he look up till he was
touched by his wife, when he uttered an impatient demand what she
wanted now.

She had the little waif in her arms undressed, and with only a
woollen coverlet loosely wrapped round her, and without speaking she
pointed to the little shoulder-blades, where two marks had been
indelibly made--on one side the crowned monogram of the Blessed
Virgin, on the other a device like the Labarum, only that the upright
was surmounted by a fleur-de-lis.

Richard Talbot gave a sort of perplexed grunt of annoyance to
acknowledge that he saw them.

"Poor little maid! how could they be so cruel?  They have been
branded with a hot iron," said the lady.

"They that parted from her meant to know her again," returned Talbot.

"Surely they are Popish marks," added Mistress Susan.

"Look you here, Dame Sue, I know you for a discreet woman.  Keep this
gear to yourself, both the letter and the marks.  Who hath seen
them?"

"I doubt me whether even Colet has seen this mark."

"That is well.  Keep all out of sight.  Many a man has been brought
into trouble for a less matter swelled by prating tongues."

"Have you made it out?"

"Not I.  It may be only the child's horoscope, or some old wife's
charm that is here sewn up, and these marks may be naught but some
sailor's freak; but, on the other hand, they may be concerned with
perilous matter, so the less said the better."

"Should they not be shown to my lord, or to her Grace's Council ?"

"I'm not going to run my head into trouble for making a coil about
what may be naught.  That's what befell honest Mark Walton.  He
thought he had seized matter of State, and went up to Master
Walsingham, swelling like an Indian turkey-cock, with his secret
letters, and behold they turned out to be a Dutch fishwife's charm to
bring the herrings.  I can tell you he has rued the work he made
about it ever since.  On the other hand, let it get abroad through
yonder prating fellow, Heatherthwayte, or any other, that Master
Richard Talbot had in his house a child with, I know not what Popish
tokens, and a scroll in an unknown tongue, and I should be had up in
gyves for suspicion of treason, or may be harbouring the Prince of
Scotland himself, when it is only some poor Scottish archer's babe."

"You would not have me part with the poor little one?"

"Am I a Turk or a Pagan?  No.  Only hold thy peace, as I shall hold
mine, until such time as I can meet some one whom I can trust to read
this riddle.  Tell me--what like is the child?  Wouldst guess it to
be of gentle, or of clownish blood, if women can tell such things ?"

"Of gentle blood, assuredly," cried the lady, so that he smiled and
said, "I might have known that so thou wouldst answer."

"Nay, but see her little hands and fingers, and the mould of her
dainty limbs.  No Scottish fisher clown was her father, I dare be
sworn.  Her skin is as fair and fine as my Humfrey's, and moreover
she has always been in hands that knew how a babe should be tended.
Any woman can tell you that!"

"And what like is she in your woman's eyes?  What complexion doth she
promise?"

"Her hair, what she has of it, is dark; her eyes--bless them--are of
a deep blue, or purple, such as most babes have till they take their
true tint.  There is no guessing.  Humfrey's eyes were once like to
be brown, now are they as blue as thine own."

"I understand all that," said Captain Talbot, smiling.  "If she have
kindred, they will know her better by the sign manual on her tender
flesh than by her face."

"And who are they?"

"Who are they?" echoed the captain, rolling up the scroll in despair.
"Here, take it, Susan, and keep it safe from all eyes.  Whatever it
may be, it may serve thereafter to prove her true name.  And above
all, not a word or breath to Heatherthwayte, or any of thy gossips,
wear they coif or bands."

"Ah, sir! that you will mistrust the good man."

"I said not I mistrust any one; only that I will have no word of all
this go forth!  Not one!  Thou heedest me, wife?"

"Verily I do, sir; I will be mute."




CHAPTER II. EVIL TIDINGS.



After giving orders for the repairs of the Mastiff, and the disposal
of her crew, Master Richard Talbot purveyed himself of a horse at the
hostel, and set forth for Spurn Head to make inquiries along the
coast respecting the wreck of the Bride of Dunbar, and he was joined
by Cuthbert Langston, who said his house had had dealings with her
owners, and that he must ascertain the fate of her wares.  His good
lady remained in charge of the mysterious little waif, over whom her
tender heart yearned more and more, while her little boy hovered
about in serene contemplation of the treasure he thought he had
recovered.  To him the babe seemed really his little sister; to his
mother, if she sometimes awakened pangs of keen regret, yet she
filled up much of the dreary void of the last few weeks.

Mrs. Talbot was a quiet, reserved woman, not prone to gadding abroad,
and she had made few acquaintances during her sojourn at Hull; but
every creature she knew, or might have known, seemed to her to drop
in that day, and bring at least two friends to inspect the orphan of
the wreck, and demand all particulars.

The little girl was clad in the swaddling garments of Mrs. Talbot's
own children, and the mysterious marks were suspected by no one, far
less the letter which Susan, for security's sake, had locked up in
her nearly empty, steel-bound, money casket.  The opinions of the
gossips varied, some thinking the babe might belong to some of the
Queen of Scotland's party fleeing to France, others fathering her on
the refugees from the persecutions in Flanders, a third party
believing her a mere fisherman's child, and one lean, lantern-jawed
old crone, Mistress Rotherford, observing, "Take my word, Mrs.
Talbot, and keep her not with you.  They that are cast up by the sea
never bring good with them."

The court of female inquiry was still sitting when a heavy tread was
heard, and Colet announced "a serving-man from Bridgefield had ridden
post haste to speak with madam," and the messenger, booted and
spurred, with the mastiff badge on his sleeve, and the hat he held in
his hand, followed closely.

"What news, Nathanael?" she asked, as she responded to his greeting.

"Ill enough news, mistress," was the answer.  "Master Richard's ship
be in, they tell me."

"Yes, but he is rid out to make inquiry for a wreck," said the lady.
"Is all well with my good father-in-law?"

"He ails less in body than in mind, so please you.  Being that Master
Humfrey was thrown by Blackfoot, the beast being scared by a flash of
lightning, and never spoke again."

"Master Humfrey!"

"Ay, mistress.  Pitched on his head against the south gate-post.  I
saw how it was with him when we took him up, and he never so much as
lifted an eyelid, but died at the turn of the night.  Heaven rest his
soul!'

"Heaven rest his soul!" echoed Susan, and the ladies around chimed
in.  They had come for one excitement, and here was another.

"There!  See but what I said!" quoth Mrs. Rotherford, uplifting a
skinny finger to emphasise that the poor little flotsome had already
brought evil.

"Nay," said the portly wife of a merchant, "begging your pardon, this
may be a fat instead of a lean sorrow.  Leaves the poor gentleman
heirs, Mrs. Talbot?"

"Oh no!" said Susan, with tears in her eyes.  "His wife died two
years back, and her chrisom babe with her.  He loved her too well to
turn his mind to wed again, and now he is with her for aye."  And she
covered her face and sobbed, regardless of the congratulations of the
merchant's wife, and exclaiming, "Oh! the poor old lady!"

"In sooth, mistress," said Nathanael, who had stood all this time as
if he had by no means emptied his budget of ill news, "poor old madam
fell down all of a heap on the floor, and when the wenches lifted
her, they found she was stricken with the dead palsy, and she has not
spoken, and there's no one knows what to do, for the poor old squire
is like one distraught, sitting by her bed like an image on a
monument, with the tears flowing down his old cheeks.  'But,' says he
to me, 'get you to Hull, Nat, and take madam's palfrey and a couple
of sumpter beasts, and bring my good daughter Talbot back with you as
fast as she and the babes may brook.'  I made bold to say, 'And
Master Richard, your worship?' then he groaned somewhat, and said,
'If my son's ship be come in, he must do as her Grace's service
permits, but meantime he must spare us his wife, for she is sorely
needed here.'  And he looked at the bed so as it would break your
heart to see, for since old Nurse Took hath been doited, there's not
been a wench about the house that can do a hand's turn for a sick
body."

Susan knew this was true, for her mother-in-law had been one of those
bustling, managing housewives, who prefer doing everything themselves
to training others, and she was appalled at the idea of the probable
desolation and helplessness of the bereaved household.

It was far too late to start that day, even had her husband been at
home, for the horses sent for her had to rest.  The visitors would
fain have extracted some more particulars about the old squire's age,
his kindred to the great Earl, and the amount of estate to which her
husband had become heir.  There were those among them who could not
understand Susan's genuine grief, and there were others whose
consolations were no less distressing to one of her reserved
character.  She made brief answer that the squire was threescore and
fifteen years old, his wife nigh about his age; that her husband was
now their only child; that he was descended from a son of the great
Earl John, killed at the Bridge of Chatillon, that he held the estate
of Bridgefield in fief on tenure of military service to the head of
his family.  She did not know how much it was worth by the year, but
she must pray the good ladies to excuse her, as she had many
preparations to make.  Volunteers to assist her in packing her mails
were made, but she declined them all, and rejoiced when left alone
with Colet to arrange for what would be probably her final departure
from Hull.

It was a blow to find that she must part from her servant-woman, who,
as well as her husband Gervas, was a native of Hull.  Not only were
they both unwilling to leave, but the inland country was to their
imagination a wild unexplored desert.  Indeed, Colet had only entered
Mrs. Talbot's service to supply the place of a maid who bad sickened
with fever and ague, and had to be sent back to her native
Hallamshire.

Ere long Mr. Heatherthwayte came down to offer his consolation, and
still more his advice, that the little foundling should be at once
baptized--conditionally, if the lady preferred it.

The Reformed of imperfect theological training, and as such Joseph
Heatherthwayte must be classed, were apt to view the ceremonial of
the old baptismal form, symbolical and beautiful as it was, as almost
destroying the efficacy of the rite.  Moreover, there was a further
impression that the Church by which the child was baptized, had a
right to bring it up, and thus the clergyman was urgent with the lady
that she should seize this opportunity for the little one's baptism.

"Not without my husband's consent and knowledge," she said
resolutely.

"Master Talbot is a good man, but somewhat careless of sound
doctrine, as be the most of seafaring men."

Susan had been a little nettled by her husband's implied belief that
she was influenced by the minister, so there was double resolution,
as well as some offence in her reply, that she knew her duty as a
wife too well to consent to such a thing without him.  As to his
being careless, he was a true and God-fearing man, and Mr,
Heatherthwayte should know better than to speak thus of him to his
wife.

Mr. Heatherthwayte's real piety and goodness had made him a great
comfort to Susan in her lonely grief, but he had not the delicate
tact of gentle blood, and had not known where to stop, and as he
stood half apologising and half exhorting, she felt that her Richard
was quite right, and that he could be both meddling and presuming.
He was exceedingly in the way of her packing too, and she was at her
wit's end to get rid of him, when suddenly Humfrey managed to pinch
his fingers in a box, and set up such a yell, as, seconded by the
frightened baby, was more than any masculine ears could endure, and
drove Master Heatherthwayte to beat a retreat.

Mistress Susan was well on in her work when her husband returned, and
as she expected, was greatly overcome by the tidings of his brother's
death.  He closely questioned Nathanael on every detail, and could
think of nothing but the happy days he had shared with his brother,
and of the grief of his parents.  He approved of all that his wife
had done; and as the damage sustained by the Mastiff could not be
repaired under a month, he had no doubt about leaving his crew in the
charge of his lieutenant while he took his family home.

So busy were both, and so full of needful cares, the one in giving up
her lodging, the other in leaving his men, that it was impossible to
inquire into the result of his researches, for the captain was in
that mood of suppressed grief and vehement haste in which irrelevant
inquiry is perfectly unbearable.

It was not till late in the evening that Richard told his wife of his
want of success in his investigations.  He had found witnesses of the
destruction of the ship, but he did not give them full credit.  "The
fellows say the ship drove on the rock, and that they saw her boats
go down with every soul on board, and that they would not lie to an
officer of her Grace.  Heaven pardon me if I do them injustice in
believing they would lie to him sooner than to any one else.  They
are rogues enough to take good care that no poor wretch should
survive even if he did chance to come to land."

"Then if there be no one to claim her, we may bring up as our own the
sweet babe whom Heaven hath sent us."

"Not so fast, dame.  Thou wert wont to be more discreet.  I said not
so, but for the nonce, till I can come by the rights of that scroll,
there's no need to make a coil.  Let no one know of it, or of the
trinket--Thou hast them safe?"

"Laid up with the Indian gold chain, thy wedding gift, dear sir."

"'Tis well.  My mother!--ah me," he added, catching himself up;
"little like is she to ask questions, poor soul."

Then Susan diffidently told of Master Heatherthwayte's earnest wish
to christen the child, and, what certainly biased her a good deal,
the suggestion that this would secure her to their own religion.

"There is something in that," said Richard, "specially after what
Cuthbert said as to the golden toy yonder.  If times changed again--
which Heaven forfend--that fellow might give us trouble about the
matter."

"You doubt him then, sir!" she asked.

"I relished not his ways on our ride to-day," said Richard.  "Sure
I am that he had some secret cause for being so curious about the
wreck.  I suspect him of some secret commerce with the Queen of
Scots' folk."

"Yet you were on his side against Mr. Heatherthwayte," said Susan.

"I would not have my kinsman browbeaten at mine own table by the
self-conceited son of a dalesman, even if he have got a round hat and
Geneva band!  Ah, well! one good thing is we shall leave both of them
well behind us, though I would it were for another cause."

Something in the remonstrance had, however, so worked on Richard
Talbot, that before morning be declared that, hap what hap, if he and
his wife were to bring up the child, she should be made a good
Protestant Christian before they left the house, and there should be
no more ado about it.

It was altogether illogical and untheological; but Master
Heatherthwayte was delighted when in the very early morning his
devotions were interrupted, and he was summoned by the captain
himself to christen the child.

Richard and his wife were sponsors, but the question of name had
never occurred to any one.  However, in the pause of perplexity, when
the response lagged to "Name this child," little Humfrey, a delighted
spectator, broke out again with "Little Sis."

And forthwith, "Cicely, if thou art not already baptized," was
uttered over the child, and Cicely became her name.  It cost Susan a
pang, as it had been that of her own little daughter, but it was too
late to object, and she uttered no regret, but took the child to her
heart, as sent instead of her who had been taken from her.

Master Heatherthwayte bade them good speed, and Master Langston stood
at the door of his office and waved them a farewell, both alike
unconscious of the rejoicing with which they were left behind.
Mistress Talbot rode on the palfrey sent for her use, with the little
stranger slung to her neck for security's sake.  Her boy rode "a
cock-horse" before his father, but a resting-place was provided for
him on a sort of pannier on one of the sumpter beasts.  What these
animals could not carry of the household stuff was left in Colet's
charge to be despatched by carriers; and the travellers jogged slowly
on through deep Yorkshire lanes, often halting to refresh the horses
and supply the wants of the little children at homely wayside inns,
their entrance usually garnished with an archway formed of the
jawbones of whales, which often served for gate-posts in that eastern
part of Yorkshire.  And thus they journeyed, with frequent halts,
until they came to the Derbyshire borders.

Bridgefield House stood on the top of a steep slope leading to the
river Dun, with a high arched bridge and a mill below it.  From the
bridge proceeded one of the magnificent avenues of oak-trees which
led up to the lordly lodge, full four miles off, right across
Sheffield Park.

The Bridgefield estate had been a younger son's portion, and its
owners had always been regarded as gentlemen retainers of the head of
their name, the Earl of Shrewsbury.  Tudor jealousy had forbidden the
marshalling of such a meine as the old feudal lords had loved to
assemble, and each generation of the Bridgefield Talbots had become
more independent than the former one.  The father had spent his
younger days as esquire to the late Earl, but had since become a
justice of the peace, and took rank with the substantial landowners
of the country.  Humfrey, his eldest son, had been a gentleman
pensioner of the Queen till his marriage, and Richard, though
beginning his career as page to the present Earl's first wife, had
likewise entered the service of her Majesty, though still it was
understood that the head of their name had a claim to their immediate
service, and had he been called to take up arms, they would have been
the first to follow his banner.  Indeed, a pair of spurs was all the
annual rent they paid for their estate, which they held on this
tenure, as well as on paying the heriard horse on the death of the
head of the family, and other contributions to their lord's splendour
when he knighted his son or married his daughter.  In fact, they
stood on the borderland of that feudal retainership which was being
rapidly extinguished.  The estate, carved out of the great Sheffield
property, was sufficient to maintain the owner in the dignities of an
English gentleman, and to portion off the daughters, provided that
the superfluous sons shifted for themselves, as Richard had hitherto
done.  The house had been ruined in the time of the Wars of the
Roses, and rebuilt in the later fashion, with a friendly-looking
front, containing two large windows, and a porch projecting between
them.  The hall reached to the top of the house, and had a waggon
ceiling, with mastiffs alternating with roses on portcullises at the
intersections of the timbers.  This was the family sitting and dining
room, and had a huge chimney never devoid of a wood fire.  One end
had a buttery-hatch communicating with the kitchen and offices; at
the other was a small room, sacred to the master of the house, niched
under the broad staircase that led to the upper rooms, which opened
on a gallery running round three sides of the hall.

Outside, on the southern side of the house, was a garden of potherbs,
with the green walks edged by a few bright flowers for beau-pots and
posies.  This had stone walls separating it from the paddock, which
sloped down to the river, and was a good deal broken by ivy-covered
rocks.  Adjoining the stables were farm buildings and barns, for
there were several fields for tillage along the river-side, and the
mill and two more farms were the property of the Bridgefield squire,
so that the inheritance was a very fair one, wedged in, as it were,
between the river and the great Chase of Sheffield, up whose stately
avenue the riding party looked as they crossed the bridge, Richard
having become more silent than ever as he came among the familiar
rocks and trees of his boyhood, and knew he should not meet that
hearty welcome from his brother which had never hitherto failed to
greet his return.  The house had that strange air of forlornness
which seems to proclaim sorrow within.  The great court doors stood
open, and a big, rough deer-hound, at the sound of the approaching
hoofs, rose slowly up, and began a series of long, deep-mouthed
barks, with pauses between, sounding like a knell.  One or two men
and maids ran out at the sound, and as the travellers rode up to the
horse-block, an old gray-bearded serving-man came stumbling forth
with "Oh!  Master Diccon, woe worth the day!"

"How does my mother?" asked Richard, as he sprang off and set his boy
on his feet.

"No worse, sir, but she hath not yet spoken a word--back, Thunder--
ah! sir, the poor dog knows you."

For the great hound had sprung up to Richard in eager greeting, but
then, as soon as he heard his voice, the creature drooped his ears
and tail, and instead of continuing his demonstrations of joy, stood
quietly by, only now and then poking his long, rough nose into
Richard's hand, knowing as well as possible that though not his dear
lost master, he was the next thing!

Mistress Susan and the infant were lifted down--a hurried question
and answer assured them that the funeral was over yesterday.  My Lady
Countess had come down and would have it so; my lord was at Court,
and Sir Gilbert and his brothers had been present, but the old
servants thought it hard that none nearer in blood should be there to
lay their young squire in his grave, nor to support his father, who,
poor old man, had tottered, and been so like to swoon as he passed
the hall door, that Sir Gilbert and old Diggory could but, help him
back again, fearing lest he, too, might have a stroke.

It was a great grief to Richard, who had longed to look on his
brother's face again, but he could say nothing, only he gave one hand
to his wife and the other to his son, and led them into the hall,
which was in an indescribable state of confusion.  The trestles which
had supported the coffin were still at one end of the room, the long
tables were still covered with cloths, trenchers, knives, cups, and
the remains of the funeral baked meats, and there were overthrown
tankards and stains of wine on the cloth, as though, whatever else
were lacking, the Talbot retainers had not missed their revel.

One of the dishevelled rough-looking maidens began some hurried
muttering about being so distraught, and not looking for madam so
early, but Susan could not listen to her, and merely putting the babe
into her arms, came with her husband up the stairs, leaving little
Humfrey with Nathanael.

Richard knocked at the bedroom door, and, receiving no answer, opened
it.  There in the tapestry-hung chamber was the huge old bedstead
with its solid posts.  In it lay something motionless, but the first
thing the husband and wife saw was the bent head which was lifted up
by the burly but broken figure in the chair beside it.

The two knotted old hands clasped the arms of the chair, and the
squire prepared to rise, his lip trembling under his white beard, and
emotion working in his dejected features.  They were beforehand with
him.  Ere he could rise both were on their knees before him, while
Richard in a broken voice cried, "Father, O father!"

"Thank God that thou art come, my son," said the old man, laying his
hands on his shoulders, with a gleam of joy, for as they afterwards
knew, he had sorely feared for Richard's ship in the storm that had
caused Humfrey's death.  "I looked for thee, my daughter," he added,
stretching out one hand to Susan, who kissed it.  "Now it may go
better with her!  Speak to thy mother, Richard, she may know thy
voice."

Alas! no; the recently active, ready old lady was utterly stricken,
and as yet held in the deadly grasp of paralysis, unconscious of all
that passed around her.

Susan found herself obliged at once to take up the reins, and become
head nurse and housekeeper.  The old squire trusted implicitly to
her, and helplessly put the keys into her hands, and the serving-men
and maids, in some shame at the condition in which the hall had been
found, bestirred themselves to set it in order, so that there was a
chance of the ordinary appearance of things being restored by supper-
time, when Richard hoped to persuade his father to come down to his
usual place.

Long before this, however, a trampling had been heard in the court,
and a shrill voice, well known to Richard and Susan, was heard
demanding, "Come home, is she--Master Diccon too?  More shame for
you, you sluttish queans and lazy lubbers, never to have let me know;
but none of you have any respect--"

A visit from my Lady Countess was a greater favour to such a
household as that of Bridgefield than it would be to a cottage of the
present day; Richard was hurrying downstairs, and Susan only tarried
to throw off the housewifely apron in which she had been compounding
a cooling drink for the poor old lady, and to wash her hands, while
Humfrey, rushing up to her, exclaimed "Mother, mother, is it the
Queen?"

Queen Elizabeth herself was not inaptly represented by her namesake
of Hardwicke, the Queen of Hallamshire, sitting on her great white
mule at the door, sideways, with her feet on a board, as little
children now ride, and attended by a whole troop of gentlemen ushers,
maidens, prickers, and running footmen.  She was a woman of the same
type as the Queen, which was of course enough to stamp her as a
celebrated beauty, and though she had reached middle age, her pale,
clear complexion and delicate features were well preserved.  Her chin
was too sharp, and there was something too thin and keen about her
nose and lips to promise good temper.  She was small of stature, but
she made up for it in dignity of presence, and as she sat there, with
her rich embroidered green satin farthingale spreading out over the
mule, her tall ruff standing up fanlike on her shoulders, her riding-
rod in her hand, and her master of the horse standing at her rein,
while a gentleman usher wielded an enormous, long-handled, green fan,
to keep the sun from incommoding her, she was, perhaps, even more
magnificent than the maiden queen herself might have been in her more
private expeditions.  Indeed, she was new to her dignity as Countess,
having been only a few weeks married to the Earl, her fourth husband.
Captain Talbot did not feel it derogatory to his dignity as a
gentleman to advance with his hat in his hand to kiss her hand, and
put a knee to the ground as he invited her to alight, an invitation
his wife heard with dismay as she reached the door, for things were
by no means yet as they should be in the hall.  She curtsied low, and
advanced with her son holding her hand, but shrinking behind her.

"Ha, kinswoman, is it thou!" was her greeting, as she, too, kissed
the small, shapely, white, but exceedingly strong hand that was
extended to her; "So thou art come, and high time too.  Thou shouldst
never have gone a-gadding to Hull, living in lodgings; awaiting thine
husband, forsooth.  Thou art over young a matron for such gear, and
so I told Diccon Talbot long ago."

"Yea, madam," said Richard, somewhat hotly, "and I made answer that
my Susan was to be trusted, and truly no harm has come thereof."

"Ho! and you reckon it no harm that thy father and mother were left
to a set of feckless, brainless, idle serving-men and maids in their
trouble?  Why, none would so much as have seen to thy brother's poor
body being laid in a decent grave had not I been at hand to take
order for it as became a distant kinsman of my lord.  I tell thee,
Richard, there must be no more of these vagabond seafaring ways.
Thou must serve my lord, as a true retainer and kinsman is bound--
Nay," in reply to a gesture, "I will not come in, I know too well in
what ill order the house is like to be.  I did but take my ride this
way to ask how it fared with the mistress, and try if I could shake
the squire from his lethargy, if Mrs. Susan had not had the grace yet
to be here.  How do they?"  Then in answer, "Thou must waken him,
Diccon--rouse him, and tell him that I and my lord expect it of him
that he should bear his loss as a true and honest Christian man, and
not pule and moan, since he has a son left--ay, and a grandson.  You
should breed your boy up to know his manners, Susan Talbot," as
Humfrey resisted an attempt to make him do his reverence to my lady;
"that stout knave of yours wants the rod.  Methought I heard you'd
borne another, Susan!  Ay! as I said it would be," as her eye fell on
the swaddled babe in a maid's arms.  "No lack of fools to eat up the
poor old squire's substance.  A maid, is it?  Beshrew me, if your
voyages will find portions for all your wenches!  Has the leech let
blood to thy good-mother, Susan?  There! not one amongst you all
bears any brains.  Knew you not how to send up to the castle for
Master Drewitt?  Farewell!  Thou wilt be at the lodge to-morrow to
let me know how it fares with thy mother, when her brain is cleared
by further blood-letting.  And for the squire, let him know that I
expect it of him that he shall eat, and show himself a man!"

So saying, the great lady departed, escorted as far as the avenue
gate by Richard Talbot, and leaving the family gratified by her
condescension, and not allowing to themselves how much their feelings
were chafed.




CHAPTER III. THE CAPTIVE.



Death and sorrow seemed to have marked the house of Bridgefield, for
the old lady never rallied after the blood-letting enjoined by the
Countess's medical science, and her husband, though for some months
able to creep about the house, and even sometimes to visit the
fields, had lost his memory, and became more childish week by week.

Richard Talbot was obliged to return to his ship at the end of the
month, but as soon as she was laid up for the winter he resigned his
command, and returned home, where he was needed to assume the part of
master.  In truth he became actually master before the next spring,
for his father took to his bed with the first winter frosts, and in
spite of the duteous cares lavished upon him by his son and daughter-
in-law, passed from his bed to his grave at the Christmas feast.
Richard Talbot inherited house and lands, with the undefined sense of
feudal obligation to the head of his name, and ere long he was called
upon to fulfil those obligations by service to his lord.

There had been another act in the great Scottish tragedy.  Queen Mary
had effected her escape from Lochleven, but only to be at once
defeated, and then to cross the Solway and throw herself into the
hands of the English Queen.

Bolton Castle had been proved to be too perilously near the Border to
serve as her residence, and the inquiry at York, and afterwards at
Westminster, having proved unsatisfactory, Elizabeth had decided on
detaining her in the kingdom, and committed her to the charge of the
Earl of Shrewsbury.

To go into the history of that ill-managed investigation is not the
purpose of this tale.  It is probable that Elizabeth believed her
cousin guilty, and wished to shield that guilt from being proclaimed,
while her councillors, in their dread of the captive, wished to
enhance the crime in Elizabeth's eyes, and were by no means
scrupulous as to the kind of evidence they adduced.  However, this
lies outside our story; all that concerns it is that Lord Shrewsbury
sent a summons to his trusty and well-beloved cousin, Richard Talbot
of Bridgefield, to come and form part of the guard of honour which
was to escort the Queen of Scots to Tutbury Castle, and there attend
upon her.

All this time no hint had been given that the little Cicely was of
alien blood.  The old squire and his lady had been in no state to
hear of the death of their own grandchild, or of the adoption of the
orphan and Susan was too reserved a woman to speak needlessly of her
griefs to one so unsympathising as the Countess or so flighty as the
daughters at the great house.  The men who had brought the summons to
Hull had not been lodged in the house, but at an inn, where they
either had heard nothing of Master Richard's adventure or had drowned
their memory in ale, for they said nothing; and thus, without any
formed intention of secrecy, the child's parentage had never come
into question.

Indeed, though without doubt Mrs. Talbot was very loyal in heart to
her noble kinsfolk, it is not to be denied that she was a good deal
more at peace when they were not at the lodge.  She tried devoutly to
follow out the directions of my Lady Countess, and thought herself in
fault when things went amiss, but she prospered far more when free
from such dictation.

She had nothing to wish except that her husband could be more often
at home, but it was better to have him only a few hours' ride from
her, at Chatsworth or Tutbury, than to know him exposed to the perils
of the sea.  He rode over as often as he could be spared, to see his
family and look after his property; but his attendance was close, and
my Lord and my Lady were exacting with one whom they could thoroughly
trust, and it was well that in her quiet way Mistress Susan proved
capable of ruling men and maids, farm and stable as well as house,
servants and children, to whom another boy was added in the course of
the year after her return to Bridgefield.

In the autumn, notice was sent that the Queen of Scots was to be
lodged at Sheffield, and long trains of waggons and sumpter horses
and mules began to arrive, bringing her plenishing and household
stuff in advance.  Servants without number were sent on, both by her
and by the Earl, to make preparations, and on a November day, tidings
came that the arrival might be expected in the afternoon.  Commands
were sent that the inhabitants of the little town at the park gate
should keep within doors, and not come forth to give any show of
welcome to their lord and lady, lest it should be taken as homage to
the captive queen; but at the Manor-house there was a little family
gathering to hail the Earl and Countess. It chiefly consisted of
ladies with their children, the husbands of most being in the suite
of the Earl acting as escort or guard to the Queen.  Susan Talbot,
being akin to the family on both sides, was there with the two elder
children; Humfrey, both that he might greet his father the sooner,
and that he might be able to remember the memorable arrival of the
captive queen, and Cicely, because he had clamoured loudly for her
company.  Lady Talbot, of the Herbert blood, wife to the heir, was
present with two young sisters-in-law, Lady Grace, daughter to the
Earl, and Mary, daughter to the Countess, who had been respectively
married to Sir Henry Cavendish and Sir Gilbert Talbot, a few weeks
before their respective parents were wedded, when the brides were
only twelve and fourteen years old.  There, too, was Mrs. Babington
of Dethick, the recent widow of a kinsman of Lord Shrewsbury, to whom
had been granted the wardship of her son, and the little party
waiting in the hall also numbered Elizabeth and William Cavendish,
the Countess's youngest children, and many dependants mustered in the
background, ready for the reception.  Indeed, the castle and manor-
house, with their offices, lodges, and outbuildings, were an absolute
little city in themselves.  The castle was still kept in perfect
repair, for the battle of Bosworth was not quite beyond the memory of
living men's fathers; and besides, who could tell whether any day
England might not have to be contested inch by inch with the
Spaniard?  So the gray walls stood on the tongue of land in the
valley, formed by the junction of the rivers Sheaf and Dun, with
towers at all the gateways, enclosing a space of no less than eight
acres, and with the actual fortress, crisp, strong, hard, and
unmouldered in the midst, its tallest square tower serving as a look-
out place for those who watched to give the first intimation of the
arrival.

The castle had its population, but chiefly of grooms, warders, and
their families.  The state-rooms high up in that square tower were so
exceedingly confined, so stern and grim, that the grandfather of the
present earl had built a manor-house for his family residence on the
sloping ground on the farther side of the Dun.

This house, built of stone, timber, and brick, with two large courts,
two gardens, and three yards, covered nearly as much space as the
castle itself.  A pleasant, smooth, grass lawn lay in front, and on
it converged the avenues of oaks and walnuts, stretching towards the
gates of the park, narrowing to the eye into single lines, then going
absolutely out of sight, and the sea of foliage presenting the utmost
variety of beautiful tints of orange, yellow, brown, and red.  There
was a great gateway between two new octagon towers of red brick, with
battlements and dressings of stone, and from this porch a staircase
led upwards to the great stone-paved hall, with a huge fire burning
on the open hearth.  Around it had gathered the ladies of the Talbot
family waiting for the reception.  The warder on the tower had blown
his horn as a signal that the master and his royal guest were within
the park, and the banner of the Talbots had been raised to announce
their coming, but nearly half an hour must pass while the party came
along the avenue from the drawbridge over the Sheaf ere they could
arrive at the lodge.

So the ladies, in full state dresses, hovered over the fire, while
the children played in the window seat near at hand.

Gilbert Talbot's wife, a thin, yellow-haired, young creature,
promising to be like her mother, the Countess, had a tongue which
loved to run, and with the precocity and importance of wifehood at
sixteen, she dilated to her companions on her mother's constant
attendance on the Queen, and the perpetual plots for that lady's
escape.  "She is as shifty and active as any cat-a-mount; and at
Chatsworth she had a scheme for being off out of her bedchamber
window to meet a traitor fellow named Boll; but my husband smelt it
out in good time, and had the guard beneath my lady's window, and the
fellows are in gyves, and to see the lady the day it was found out!
Not a wry face did she make.  Oh no!  'Twas all my good lord, and my
sweet sir with her.  I promise you butter would not melt in her
mouth, for my Lord Treasurer Cecil hath been to see her, and he has
promised to bring her to speech of her Majesty.  May I be there to
see.  I promise you 'twill be diamond cut diamond between them."

"How did she and my Lord Treasurer fare together?" asked Mrs.
Babington.

"Well, you know there's not a man of them all that is proof against
her blandishments.  Her Majesty should have women warders for her.
'Twas good sport to see the furrows in his old brow smoothing out
against his will as it were, while she plied him with her tongue.
I never saw the Queen herself win such a smile as came on his lips,
but then he is always a sort of master, or tutor, as it were, to the
Queen.  Ay," on some exclamation from Lady Talbot, "she heeds him
like no one else.  She may fling out, and run counter to him for the
very pleasure of feeling that she has the power, but she will come
round at last, and 'tis his will that is done in the long run.  If
this lady could beguile him indeed, she might be a free woman in the
end."

"And think you that she did?"

"Not she!  The Lord Treasurer is too long-headed, and has too strong
a hate to all Papistry, to be beguiled more than for the very moment
he was before her.  He cannot help the being a man, you see, and they
are all alike when once in her presence--your lord and father, like
the rest of them, sister Grace.  Mark me if there be not tempests
brewing, an we be not the sooner rid of this guest of ours.  My
mother is not the woman to bear it long."

Dame Mary's tongue was apt to run on too fast, and Lady Talbot
interrupted its career with an amused gesture towards the children.

For the little Cis, babe as she was, had all the three boys at her
service.  Humfrey, with a paternal air, was holding her on the
window-seat; Antony Babington was standing to receive the ball that
was being tossed to and fro between them, but as she never caught it,
Will Cavendish was content to pick it up every time and return it to
her, appearing amply rewarded by her laugh of delight.

The two mothers could not but laugh, and Mrs. Babington said the
brave lads were learning their knightly courtesy early, while Mary
Talbot began observing on the want of likeness between Cis and either
the Talbot or Hardwicke race.  The little girl was much darker in
colouring than any of the boys, and had a pair of black, dark, heavy
brows, that prevented her from being a pretty child.  Her adopted
mother shrank from such observations, and was rejoiced that a winding
of horns, and a shout from the boys, announced that the expected
arrival was about to take place.  The ladies darted to the window,
and beholding the avenue full of horsemen and horsewomen, their
accoutrements and those of their escort gleaming in the sun, each
mother gathered her own chicks to herself, smoothed the plumage
somewhat ruffled by sport, and advanced to the head of the stone
steps, William Cavendish, the eldest of the boys, being sent down to
take his stepfather's rein and hold his stirrup, page fashion.

Clattering and jingling the troop arrived.  The Earl, a stout, square
man, with a long narrow face, lengthened out farther by a light-
coloured, silky beard, which fell below his ruff, descended from his
steed, gave his hat to Richard Talbot, and handed from her horse a
hooded and veiled lady of slender proportions, who leant on his arm
as she ascended the steps.

The ladies knelt, whether in respect to the heads of the family, or
to the royal guest, may be doubtful.

The Queen came up the stairs with rheumatic steps, declaring,
however, as she did so, that she felt the better for her ride, and
was less fatigued than when she set forth.  She had the soft, low,
sweet Scottish voice, and a thorough Scottish accent and language,
tempered, however, by French tones, and as, coming into the warmer
air of the hall, she withdrew her veil, her countenance was seen.
Mary Stuart was only thirty-one at this time, and her face was still
youthful, though worn and wearied, and bearing tokens of illness.
The features were far from being regularly beautiful; there was a
decided cast in one of the eyes, and in spite of all that Mary
Talbot's detracting tongue had said, Susan's first impression was
disappointment.  But, as the Queen greeted the lady whom she already
knew, and the Earl presented his daughter, Lady Grace, his
stepdaughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, and his kinswoman, Mistress Susan
Talbot, the extraordinary magic of her eye and lip beamed on them,
the queenly grace and dignity joined with a wonderful sweetness
impressed them all, and each in measure felt the fascination.

The Earl led the Queen to the fire to obtain a little warmth before
mounting the stairs to her own apartments, and likewise while Lady
Shrewsbury was dismounting, and being handed up the stairs by her
second stepson, Gilbert.  The ladies likewise knelt on one knee to
greet this mighty dame, and the children should have done so too, but
little Cis, catching sight of Captain Richard, who had come up
bearing the Earl's hat, in immediate attendance on him, broke out
with an exulting cry of "Father! father! father!" trotted with
outspread arms right in front of the royal lady, embraced the booted
leg in ecstasy, and then stretching out, exclaimed "Up! up!"

"How now, malapert poppet!" exclaimed the Countess, and though at
some distance, uplifted her riding-rod.  Susan was ready to sink into
the earth with confusion at the great lady's displeasure, but Richard
had stooped and lifted the little maid in his arms, while Queen Mary
turned, her face lit up as by a sunbeam, and said, "Ah, bonnibell,
art thou fain to see thy father?  Wilt thou give me one of thy
kisses, sweet bairnie?" and as Richard held her up to the kind face,
"A goodly child, brave sir.  Thou must let me have her at times for a
playfellow.  Wilt come and comfort a poor prisoner, little sweeting?"

The child responded with "Poor poor," stroking the soft delicate
cheek, but the Countess interfered, still wrathful.  "Master Richard,
I marvel that you should let her Grace be beset by a child, who, if
she cannot demean herself decorously, should have been left at home.
Susan Hardwicke, I thought I had schooled you better."

"Nay, madam, may not a babe's gentle deed of pity be pardoned?" said
Mary.

"Oh! if it pleasures you, madam, so be it," said Lady Shrewsbury,
deferentially; "but there be children here more worthy of your notice
than yonder little black-browed wench, who hath been allowed to
thrust herself forward, while others have been kept back from
importuning your Grace."

"No child can importune a mother who is cut off from her own," said
Mary, eager to make up for the jealousy she had excited.  "Is this
bonnie laddie yours, madam?  Ah! I should have known it by the
resemblance."

She held her white hand to receive the kisses of the boys: William
Cavendish, under his mother's eye, knelt obediently; Antony
Babington, a fair, pretty lad, of eight or nine, of a beautiful pink
and white complexion, pressed forward with an eager devotion which
made the Queen smile and press her delicate hand on his curled locks;
as for Humfrey, he retreated behind the shelter of his mother's
farthingale, where his presence was forgotten by every one else, and,
after the rebuff just administered to Cicely, there was no
inclination to bring him to light, or combat with his bashfulness.

The introductions over, Mary gave her hand to the Earl to be
conducted from the hall up the broad staircase, and along the great
western gallery to the south front, where for many days her
properties had been in course of being arranged.

Lady Shrewsbury followed as mistress of the house, and behind, in
order of precedence, came the Scottish Queen's household, in which
the dark, keen features of the French, and the rufous hues of the
Scots, were nearly equally divided.  Lady Livingstone and Mistress
Seaton, two of the Queen's Maries of the same age with herself, came
next, the one led by Lord Talbot, the other by Lord Livingstone.
There was also the faithful French Marie de Courcelles, paired with
Master Beatoun, comptroller of the household, and Jean Kennedy, a
stiff Scotswoman, whose hard outlines did not do justice to her
tenderness and fidelity, and with her was a tall, active, keen-faced
stripling, looked on with special suspicion by the English, as Willie
Douglas, the contriver of the Queen's flight from Lochleven.  Two
secretaries, French and Scottish, were shrewdly suspected of being
priests, and there were besides, a physician, surgeon, apothecary,
with perfumers, cooks, pantlers, scullions, lacqueys, to the number
of thirty, besides their wives and attendants, these last being
"permitted of my lord's benevolence."

They were all eyed askance by the sturdy, north country English, who
naturally hated all strangers, above all French and Scotch, and
viewed the band of captives much like a caged herd of wild beasts.

When on the way home Mistress Susan asked her little boy why he would
not make his obeisance to the pretty lady, he sturdily answered, "She
is no pretty lady of mine.  She is an evil woman who slew her
husband."

"Poor lady! tongues have been busy with her," said his father.

"How, sir?" asked Susan, amazed, "do you think her guiltless in the
matter?"

"I cannot tell," returned Richard.  "All I know is that many who have
no mercy on her would change their minds if they beheld her patient
and kindly demeanour to all."

This was a sort of shock to Susan, as it seemed to her to prove the
truth of little Lady Talbot's words, that no one was proof against
Queen Mary's wiles; but she was happy in having her husband at home
once more, though, as he told her, he would be occupied most of each
alternate day at Sheffield, he and another relation having been
appointed "gentlemen porters," which meant that they were to wait in
a chamber at the foot of the stairs, and keep watch over whatever
went in or out of the apartments of the captive and her suite.

"And," said Richard, "who think you came to see me at Wingfield?
None other than Cuthbert Langston"

"Hath he left his merchandise at Hull?"

"Ay, so he saith.  He would fain have had my good word to my lord for
a post in the household, as comptroller of accounts, clerk, or the
like.  It seemed as though there were no office he would not take so
that he might hang about the neighbourhood of this queen."

"Then you would not grant him your recommendation?"

"Nay, truly.  I could not answer for him, and his very anxiety made
me the more bent on not bringing him hither.  I'd fain serve in no
ship where I know not the honesty of all the crew, and Cuthbert hath
ever had a hankering after the old profession."

"Verily then it were not well to bring him hither."

"Moreover, he is a lover of mysteries and schemes," said Richard.
"He would never be content to let alone the question of our little
wench's birth, and would be fretting us for ever about the matter."

"Did he speak of it?"

"Yes.  He would have me to wit that a nurse and babe had been put on
board at Dumbarton.  Well, said I, and so they must have been, since
on board they were.  Is that all thou hast to tell me?  And mighty as
was the work he would have made of it, this was all he seemed to
know.  I asked, in my turn, how he came to know thus much about a
vessel sailing from a port in arms against the Lords of the
Congregation, the allies of her Majesty?"

"What said he?"

"That his house had dealings with the owners of the Bride of Dunbar.
I like not such dealings, and so long as this lady and her train are
near us, I would by no means have him whispering here and there that
she is a Scottish orphan."

"It would chafe my Lady Countess!" said Susan, to whom this was a
serious matter.  "Yet doth it not behove us to endeavour to find out
her parentage ?"

"I tell you I proved to myself that he knew nothing, and all that we
have to do is to hinder him from making mischief out of that little,"
returned Richard impatiently.

The honest captain could scarcely have told the cause of his distrust
or of his secrecy, but he had a general feeling that to let an
intriguer like Cuthbert Langston rake up any tale that could be
connected with the party of the captive queen, could only lead to
danger and trouble.




CHAPTER IV. THE OAK AND THE OAKEN HALL.



The oaks of Sheffield Park were one of the greatest glories of the
place.  Giants of the forest stretched their huge arms over the turf,
kept smooth and velvety by the creatures, wild and tame, that browsed
on it, and made their covert in the deep glades of fern and copse
wood that formed the background.

There were not a few whose huge trunks, of such girth that two men
together could not encompass them with outstretched arms, rose to a
height of more than sixty feet before throwing out a horizontal
branch, and these branches, almost trees in themselves, spread forty-
eight feet on each side of the bole, lifting a mountain of rich
verdure above them, and casting a delicious shade upon the ground
beneath them.  Beneath one of these noble trees, some years after the
arrival of the hapless Mary Stuart, a party of children were playing,
much to the amusement of an audience of which they were utterly
unaware, namely, of sundry members of a deer-hunting party; a lady
and gentleman who, having become separated from the rest, were
standing in the deep bracken, which rose nearly as high as their
heads, and were further sheltered by a rock, looking and listening.

"Now then, Cis, bravely done!  Show how she treats her ladies--"

"Who will be her lady?  Thou must, Humfrey!"

"No, no, I'll never be a lady," said Humfrey gruffly.

"Thou then, Diccon."

"No, no," and the little fellow shrank back, "thou wilt hurt me,
Cis."

"Come then, do thou, Tony!  I'll not strike too hard!"

"As if a wench could strike too hard."

"He might have turned that more chivalrously," whispered the lady to
her companion.  "What are they about to represent?  Mort de ma vie,
the profane little imps!  I, believe it is my sacred cousin, the
Majesty of England herself!  Truly the little maid hath a bearing
that might serve a queen, though she be all too black and beetle-
browed for Queen Elizabeth.  Who is she, Master Gilbert?"

"She is Cicely Talbot, daughter to the gentleman porter of your
Majesty's lodge."

"See to her--mark her little dignity with her heather and bluebell
crown as she sits on the rock, as stately as jewels could make her!
See her gesture with her hands, to mark where the standing ruff ought
to be.  She hath the true spirit of the Comedy--ah! and here cometh
young Antony with mincing pace, with a dock-leaf for a fan, and a
mantle for a farthingale!  She speaks! now hark!"

"Good morrow to you, my young mistress," began a voice pitched two
notes higher than its actual childlike key.  "Thou hast a new
farthingale, I see!  O Antony, that's not the way to curtsey--do it
like this.  No no! thou clumsy fellow--back and knees together."

"Never mind, Cis," interposed one of the boys--"we shall lose all our
play time if you try to make him do it with a grace.  Curtsies are
women's work--go on."

"Where was I?  O--" (resuming her dignity after these asides) "Thou
hast a new farthingale, I see."

"To do my poor honour to your Grace's birthday."

"Oh ho!  Is it so?  Methought it had been to do honour to my fair
mistress's own taper waist.  And pray how much an ell was yonder
broidered stuff?"

"Two crowns, an't please your Grace," returned the supposed lady,
making a wild conjecture.

"Two crowns! thou foolish Antony!"  Then recollecting herself, "two
crowns! what, when mine costs but half!  Thou presumptuous, lavish
varlet--no, no, wench! what right hast thou to wear gowns finer than
thy liege?--I'll teach you."  Wherewith, erecting all her talons, and
clawing frightfully with them in the air, the supposed Queen Bess
leapt at the unfortunate maid of honour, appeared to tear the
imaginary robe, and drove her victim on the stage with a great air of
violence, amid peals of laughter from the other children, loud enough
to drown those of the elders, who could hardly restrain their
merriment.

Gilbert Talbot, however, had been looking about him anxiously all the
time, and would fain have moved away; but a sign from Queen Mary
withheld him, as one of the children cried,

"Now! show us how she serves her lords."

The play seemed well understood between them, for the mimic queen
again settled herself on her throne, while Will Cavendish, calling
out, "Now I'm Master Hatton," began to tread a stately measure on the
grass, while the queen exclaimed, "Who is this new star of my court?
What stalwart limbs, what graceful tread!  Who art thou, sir?"

"Madam, I am--I am.  What is it?  An ef--ef--"

"A daddy-long-legs," mischievously suggested another of the group.

"No, it's Latin.  Is it Ephraim?  No; it's a fly, something like a
gnat" (then at an impatient gesture from her Majesty) "disporting
itself in the beams of the noontide sun."

"Blood-sucking," whispered the real Queen behind the fern.  "He is
not so far out there.  See! see! with what a grace the child holds
out her little hand for him to kiss.  I doubt me if Elizabeth herself
could be more stately.  But who comes here?"

"I'm Sir Philip Sydney."

"No, no," shouted Humfrey, "Sir Philip shall not come into this
fooling.  My father says he's the best knight in England."

"He is as bad as the rest in flattery to the Queen," returned young
Cavendish.

"I'll not have it, I say.  You may be Lord Leicester an you will!
He's but Robin Dudley."

"Ah!" began the lad, now advancing and shading his eyes.  "What
burnished splendour dazzles my weak sight?  Is it a second Juno that
I behold, or lovely Venus herself?  Nay, there is a wisdom in her
that can only belong to the great Minerva herself!  So youthful too.
Is it Hebe descended to this earth?"

Cis smirked, and held out a hand, saying in an affected tone, "Lord
Earl, are thy wits astray?"

"Whose wits would not be perturbed at the mere sight of such
exquisite beauty?"

"Come and sit at our feet, and we will try to restore them," said the
stage queen; but here little Diccon, the youngest of the party, eager
for more action, called out, "Show us how she treats her lords and
ladies together."

On which young Babington, as the lady, and Humfrey, made
demonstrations of love-making and betrothal, upon which their
sovereign lady descended on them with furious tokens of indignation,
abusing them right and left, until in the midst the great castle bell
pealed forth, and caused a flight general, being, in fact, the
summons to the school kept in one of the castle chambers by one
Master Snigg, or Sniggius, for the children of the numerous colony
who peopled the castle.  Girls, as well as boys, were taught there,
and thus Cis accompanied Humfrey and Diccon, and consorted with their
companions.

Queen Mary was allowed to hunt and take out-of-door exercise in the
park whenever she pleased, but Lord Shrewsbury, or one of his sons,
Gilbert and Francis, never was absent from her for a moment when she
went beyond the door of the lesser lodge, which the Earl had erected
for her, with a flat, leaded, and parapeted roof, where she could
take the air, and with only one entrance, where was stationed a
"gentleman porter," with two subordinates, whose business it was to
keep a close watch over every person or thing that went in or out.
If she had any purpose of losing herself in the thickets of fern, or
copsewood, in the park, or holding unperceived conference under
shelter of the chase, these plans were rendered impossible by the
pertinacious presence of one or other of the Talbots, who acted
completely up to their name.

Thus it was that the Queen, with Gilbert in close attendance, had
found herself an unseen spectator of the children's performance,
which she watched with the keen enjoyment that sometimes made her
forget her troubles for the moment.

"How got the imps such knowledge?" mused Gilbert Talbot, as he led
the Queen out on the sward which had been the theatre of their
mimicry.

"Do _you_ ask that, Sir Gilbert?" said the Queen with emphasis, for
indeed it was his wife who had been the chief retailer of scandal
about Queen Elizabeth, to the not unwilling ears of herself and his
mother; and Antony Babington, as my lady's page, had but used his
opportunities.

"They are insolent varlets and deserve the rod," continued Gilbert.

"You are too ready with the rod, you English," returned Mary.  "You
flog all that is clever and spirited out of your poor children!"

"That is the question, madam.  Have the English been found so
deficient in spirit compared with other nations?"

"Ah! we all know what you English can say for yourselves," returned
the Queen.  "See what Master John Coke hath made of the herald's
argument before Dame Renown, in his translation.  He hath twisted all
the other way."

"Yea, madam, but the French herald had it all his own way before.  So
it was but just we should have our turn."

Here a cry from the other hunters greeted them, and they found Lord
Shrewsbury, some of the ladies, and a number of prickers, looking
anxiously for them.

"Here we are, good my lord," said the Queen, who, when free from
rheumatism, was a most active walker.  "We have only been stalking my
sister Queen's court in small, the prettiest and drollest pastime I
have seen for many a long day."

Much had happened in the course of the past years.  The intrigues
with Northumberland and Norfolk, and the secret efforts of the
unfortunate Queen to obtain friends, and stir up enemies against
Elizabeth, had resulted in her bonds being drawn closer and closer.
The Rising of the North had taken place, and Cuthbert Langston had
been heard of as taking a prominent part beneath the sacred banner,
but he had been wounded and not since heard of, and his kindred knew
not whether he were among the unnamed dead who loaded the trees in
the rear of the army of Sussex, or whether he had escaped beyond
seas.  Richard Talbot still remained as one of the trusted kinsmen of
Lord Shrewsbury, on whom that nobleman depended for the execution of
the charge which yearly became more wearisome and onerous, as hope
decayed and plots thickened.

Though resident in the new lodge with her train, it was greatly
diminished by the dismissal from time to time of persons who were
regarded as suspicious; Mary still continued on intimate terms with
Lady Shrewsbury and her daughters, specially distinguishing with her
favour Bessie Pierrepoint, the eldest grandchild of the Countess, who
slept with her, and was her plaything and her pupil in French and
needlework.  The fiction of her being guest and not prisoner had not
entirely passed away; visitors were admitted, and she went in and out
of the lodge, walked or rode at will, only under pretext of courtesy.
She never was unaccompanied by the Earl or one of his sons, and they
endeavoured to make all private conversation with strangers, or
persons unauthorised from Court, impossible to her.

The invitation given to little Cicely on the arrival had not been
followed up.  The Countess wished to reserve to her own family all
the favours of one who might at any moment become the Queen of
England, and she kept Susan Talbot and her children in what she
called their meet place, in which that good lady thoroughly
acquiesced, having her hands much too full of household affairs to
run after queens.

There was a good deal of talk about this child's play, a thing which
had much better have been left where it was; but in a seclusion like
that of Sheffield subjects of conversation were not over numerous,
and every topic which occurred was apt to be worried to shreds.  So
Lady Shrewsbury and her daughters heard the Queen's arch description
of the children's mimicry, and instantly conceived a desire to see
the scene repeated.  The gentlemen did not like it at all: their
loyalty was offended at the insult to her gracious Majesty, and
besides, what might not happen if such sports ever came to her ears?
However, the Countess ruled Sheffield; and Mary Talbot and Bessie
Cavendish ruled the Countess, and they were bent on their own way.
So the representation was to take place in the great hall of the
manor-house, and the actors were to be dressed in character from my
lady's stores.

"They will ruin it, these clumsy English, after their own fashion,"
said Queen Mary, among her ladies.  "It was the unpremeditated grace
and innocent audacity of the little ones that gave the charm.  Now it
will be a mere broad farce, worthy of Bess of Hardwicke.  Mais que
voulez vous?"

The performance was, however, laid under a great disadvantage by the
absolute refusal of Richard and Susan Talbot to allow their Cicely to
assume the part of Queen Elizabeth.  They had been dismayed at her
doing so in child's play, and since she could read fluently, write
pretty well, and cipher a little, the good mother had decided to put
a stop to this free association with the boys at the castle, and to
keep her at home to study needlework and housewifery.  As to her
acting with boys before the assembled households, the proposal seemed
to them absolutely insulting to any daughter of the Talbot line, and
they had by this time forgotten that she was no such thing.  Bess
Cavendish, the special spoilt child of the house, even rode down,
armed with her mother's commands, but her feudal feeling did not here
sway Mistress Susan.

Public acting was esteemed an indignity for women, and, though Cis
was a mere child, all Susan's womanhood awoke, and she made answer
firmly that she could not obey my lady Countess in this.

Bess flounced out of the house, indignantly telling her she should
rue the day, and Cis herself cried passionately, longing after the
fine robes and jewels, and the presentation of herself as a queen
before the whole company of the castle.  The harsh system of the time
made the good mother think it her duty to requite this rebellion with
the rod, and to set the child down to her seam in the corner, and
there sat Cis, pouting and brooding over what Antony Babington had
told her of what he had picked up when in his page's capacity,
attending his lady, of Queen Mary's admiration of the pretty ways and
airs of the little mimic Queen Bess, till she felt as if she were
defrauded of her due.  The captive Queen was her dream, and to hear
her commendations, perhaps be kissed by her, would be supreme bliss.
Nay, she still hoped that there would be an interference of the
higher powers on her behalf, which would give her a triumph.

No!  Captain Talbot came home, saying, "So, Mistress Sue, thou art a
steadfast woman, to have resisted my lady's will!"

"I knew, my good husband, that thou wouldst never see our Cis even in
sport a player!"

"Assuredly not, and thou hadst the best of it, for when Mistress Bess
came in as full of wrath as a petard of powder, and made your refusal
known, my lord himself cried out, 'And she's in the right o't!  What
a child may do in sport is not fit for a gentlewoman in earnest.'"

"Then, hath not my lord put a stop to the whole?"

"Fain would he do so, but the Countess and her daughters are set on
carrying out the sport.  They have set Master Sniggius to indite the
speeches, and the boys of the school are to take the parts for their
autumn interlude."

"Surely that is perilous, should it come to the knowledge of those at
Court."

"Oh, I promise you, Sniggius hath a device for disguising all that
could give offence.  The Queen will become Semiramis or Zenobia, I
know not which, and my Lord of Leicester, Master Hatton, and the
others, will be called Ninus or Longinus, or some such heathenish
long-tailed terms, and speak speeches of mighty length.  Are they to
be in Latin, Humfrey?"

"Oh no, sir," said Humfrey, with a shudder.  "Master Sniggius would
have had them so, but the young ladies said they would have nothing
to do with the affair if there were one word of Latin uttered.  It is
bad enough as it is.  I am to be Philidaspes, an Assyrian knight, and
have some speeches to learn, at least one is twenty-five lines, and
not one is less than five!"

"A right requital for thy presumptuous and treasonable game, my son,"
said his father, teasing him.

"And who is to be the Queen?" asked the mother.

"Antony Babington," said Humfrey, "because he can amble and mince
more like a wench than any of us.  The worse luck for him.  He will
have more speeches than any one of us to learn."

The report of the number of speeches to be learnt took off the sting
of Cis's disappointment, though she would not allow that it did so,
declaring with truth that she could learn by hearing faster than any
of the boys.  Indeed, she did learn all Humfrey's speeches, and
Antony's to boot, and assisted both of them with all her might in
committing them to memory.

As Captain Talbot had foretold, the boys' sport was quite
sufficiently punished by being made into earnest.  Master Sniggius
was far from merciful as to length, and his satire was so extremely
remote that Queen Elizabeth herself could hardly have found out that
Zenobia's fine moral lecture on the vanities of too aspiring ruffs
was founded on the box on the ear which rewarded poor Lady Mary
Howard's display of her rich petticoat, nor would her cheeks have
tingled when the Queen of the East--by a bold adaptation--played the
part of Lion in interrupting the interview of our old friends Pyramus
and Thisbe, who, by an awful anachronism, were carried to Palmyra.
It was no plagiarism from "Midsummer Night's Dream," only drawn from
the common stock of playwrights.

So, shorn of all that was perilous, and only understood by the
initiated, the play took place in the Castle Hall, the largest
available place, with Queen Mary seated upon the dais, with a canopy
of State over her head, Lady Shrewsbury on a chair nearly as high,
the Earl, the gentlemen and ladies of their suites drawn up in a
circle, the servants where they could, the Earl's musicians
thundering with drums, tooting with fifes, twanging on fiddles,
overhead in a gallery.  Cis and Diccon, on either side of Susan
Talbot, gazing on the stage, where, much encumbered by hoop and
farthingale, and arrayed in a yellow curled wig, strutted forth
Antony Babington, declaiming--


          "Great Queen Zenobia am I,
           The Roman Power I defy.
           At my Palmyra, in the East,
           I rule o'er every man and beast"


Here was an allusion couched in the Roman power, which Master Antony
had missed, or he would hardly have uttered it, since he was of a
Roman Catholic family, though, while in the Earl's household, he had
to conform outwardly.

A slender, scholarly lad, with a pretty, innocent face, and a voice
that could "speak small, like a woman," came in and announced himself
thus--


          "I'm Thisbe, an Assyrian maid,
           My robe's with jewels overlaid."


The stiff colloquy between the two boys, encumbered with their
dresses, shy and awkward, and rehearsing their lines like a task, was
no small contrast to the merry impromptu under the oak, and the gay,
free grace of the children.

Poor Philidaspes acquitted himself worst of all, for when done up in
a glittering suit of sham armour, with a sword and dagger of lath,
his entire speech, though well conned, deserted him, and he stood
red-faced, hesitating, and ready to cry, when suddenly from the midst
of the spectators there issued a childish voice, "Go on, Humfrey!


          "Philidaspes am I, most valorous knight,
           Ever ready for Church and Queen to fight.


"Go on, I say!" and she gave a little stamp of impatience, to the
extreme confusion of the mother and the great amusement of the
assembled company.  Humfrey, once started, delivered himself of the
rest of his oration in a glum and droning voice, occasioning fits of
laughter, such as by no means added to his self-possession.

The excellent Sniggius and his company of boys had certainly, whether
intentionally or not, deprived the performance of all its personal
sting, and most likewise of its interest.  Such diversion as the
spectators derived was such as Hippolyta seems to have found in
listening to Wall, Lion, Moonshine and Co.; but, like Theseus, Lord
Shrewsbury was very courteous, and complimented both playwright and
actors, relieved and thankful, no doubt, that Queen Zenobia was so
unlike his royal mistress.

There was nothing so much enforced by Queen Elizabeth as that
strangers should not have resort to Sheffield Castle.  No spectators,
except those attached to the household, and actually forming part of
the colony within the park, were therefore supposed to be admitted,
and all of them were carefully kept at a distant part of the hall,
where they could have no access to the now much reduced train of the
Scottish Queen, with whom all intercourse was forbidden.

Humfrey was therefore surprised when, just as he had come out of the
tiring-room, glad to divest himself of his encumbering and gaudy
equipments, a man touched him on the arm and humbly said, "Sir, I
have a humble entreaty to make of you.  If you would convey my
petition to the Queen of Scots!"

"I have nothing to do with the Queen of Scots," said the ex-
Philidaspes, glancing suspiciously at the man's sleeve, where,
however, he saw the silver dog, the family badge.

"She is a charitable lady," continued the man, who looked like a
groom, "and if she only knew that my poor old aunt is lying
famishing, she would aid her.  Pray you, good my lord, help me to let
this scroll reach to her."

"I'm no lord, and I have naught to do with the Queen," repeated
Humfrey, while at the same moment Antony, who had been rather longer
in getting out of his female attire, presented himself; and Humfrey,
pitying the man's distress, said, "This young gentleman is the
Countess's page.  He sometimes sees the Queen."

The man eagerly told his story, how his aunt, the widow of a
huckster, had gone on with the trade till she had been cruelly robbed
and beaten, and now was utterly destitute, needing aid to set herself
up again.  The Queen of Scots was noted for her beneficent
almsgiving, and a few silver pieces from her would be quite
sufficient to replenish her basket.

Neither boy doubted a moment.  Antony had the entree to the presence
chamber, where on this festival night the Earl and Countess were sure
to be with the Queen.  He went straightway thither, and trained as he
was in the usages of the place, told his business to the Earl, who
was seated near the Queen.  Lord Shrewsbury took the petition from
him, glanced it over, and asked, "Who knew the Guy Norman who sent
it?"  Frank Talbot answered for him, that he was a yeoman pricker,
and the Earl permitted the paper to be carried to Mary, watching her
carefully as she read it, when Antony had presented it on one knee.

"Poor woman!" she said, "it is a piteous case.  Master Beatoun, hast
thou my purse?  Here, Master Babington, wilt thou be the bearer of
this angel for me, since I know that the delight of being the bearer
will be a reward to thy kind heart."

Antony gracefully kissed the fair hand, and ran off joyously with the
Queen's bounty.  Little did any one guess what the career thus begun
would bring that fair boy.




CHAPTER V. THE HUCKSTERING WOMAN.



The huckstering woman, Tibbott by name, was tended by Queen Mary's
apothecary, and in due time was sent off well provided, to the great
fair of York, whence she returned with a basket of needles, pins
(such as they were), bodkins, and the like articles, wherewith to
circulate about Hallamshire, but the gate-wards would not relax their
rules so far as to admit her into the park.  She was permitted,
however, to bring her wares to the town of Sheffield, and to
Bridgefield, but she might come no farther.

Thither Antony Babington came down to lay out the crown which had
been given to him on his birthday, and indeed half Master Sniggius's
scholars discovered needs, and came down either to spend, or to give
advice to the happy owners of groats and testers.  So far so good;
but the huckster-woman soon made Bridgefield part of her regular
rounds, and took little commissions which she executed for the
household of Sheffield, who were, as the Cavendish sisters often said
in their spleen, almost as much prisoners as the Queen of Scots.
Antony Babington was always her special patron, and being Humfrey's
great companion and playfellow, he was allowed to come in and out of
the gates unquestioned, to play with him and with Cis, who no longer
went to school, but was trained at home in needlework and
housewifery.

Match-making began at so early an age, that when Mistress Susan had
twice found her and Antony Babington with their heads together over
the lamentable ballad of the cold fish that had been a lady, and
which sang its own history "forty thousand fathom above water," she
began to question whether the girl were the attraction.  He was now
an orphan, and his wardship and marriage had been granted to the
Earl, who, having disposed of all his daughters and stepdaughters,
except Bessie Cavendish, might very fairly bestow on the daughter of
his kinsman so good a match as the young squire of Dethick.

"Then should we have to consider of her parentage," said Richard,
when his wife had propounded her views.

"I never can bear in mind that the dear wench is none of ours," said
Susan.  "Thou didst say thou wouldst portion her as if she were our
own little maid, and I have nine webs ready for her household linen.
Must we speak of her as a stranger?"

"It would scarce be just towards another family to let them deem her
of true Talbot blood, if she were to enter among them," said Richard;
"though I look on the little merry maid as if she were mine own
child.  But there is no need yet to begin upon any such coil; and,
indeed, I would wager that my lady hath other views for young
Babington."

After all, parents often know very little of what passes in
children's minds, and Cis never hinted to her mother that the bond of
union between her and Antony was devotion to the captive Queen.  Cis
had only had a glimpse or two of her, riding by when hunting or
hawking, or when, on festive occasions, all who were privileged to
enter the park were mustered together, among whom the Talbots ranked
high as kindred to both Earl and Countess; but those glimpses had
been enough to fill the young heart with romance, such as the matter-
of-fact elders never guessed at.  Antony Babington, who was often
actually in the gracious presence, and received occasional smiles,
and even greetings, was immeasurably devoted to the Queen, and
maintained Cicely's admiration by his vivid descriptions of the
kindness, the grace, the charms of the royal captive, in contrast
with the innate vulgarity of their own Countess.

Willie Douglas (the real Roland Graeme of the escape from Lochleven)
had long ago been dismissed from Mary's train, with all the other
servants who were deemed superfluous; but Antony had heard the
details of the story from Jean Kennedy (Mrs. Kennett, as the English
were pleased to call her), and Willie was the hero of his emulative
imagination.

"What would I not do to be like him!" he fervently exclaimed when he
had narrated the story to Humfrey and Cis, as they lay on a nest in
the fern one fine autumn day, resting after an expedition to gather
blackberries for the mother's preserving.

"I would not be him for anything," said Humfrey.

"Fie, Humfrey," cried Cis; "would not you dare exile or anything else
in a good cause?"

"For a good cause, ay," said Humfrey in his stolid way.

"And what can be a better cause than that of the fairest of captive
queens?" exclaimed Antony, hotly.

"I would not be a traitor," returned Humfrey, as he lay on his back,
looking up through the chequerwork of the branches of the trees
towards the sky.

"Who dares link the word traitor with my name?" said Babington,
feeling for the imaginary handle of a sword.

"Not I; but you'll get it linked if you go on in this sort."

"For shame, Humfrey," again cried Cis, passionately.  "Why,
delivering imprisoned princesses always was the work of a true
knight."

"Yea; but they first defied the giant openly," said Humfrey.

"What of that?" said Antony.

"They did not do it under trust," said Humfrey.

"I am not under trust," said Antony.  "Your father may be a sworn
servant of the Earl and, the Queen--Queen Elizabeth, I mean; but I
have taken no oaths--nobody asked me if I would come here."

"No," said Humfrey, knitting his brows, "but you see we are all
trusted to go in and out as we please, on the understanding that we
do nought that can be unfaithful to the Earl; and I suppose it was
thus with this same Willie Douglas."

"She was his own true and lawful Queen," cried Cis.  "His first duty
was to her."

Humfrey sat up and looked perplexed, but with a sudden thought
exclaimed, "No Scots are we, thanks be to Heaven! and what might be
loyalty in him would be rank treason in us."

"How know you that?" said Antony.  "I have heard those who say that
our lawful Queen is there," and he pointed towards the walls that
rose in the distance above the woods.

Humfrey rose wrathful.  "Then truly you are no better than a traitor,
and a Spaniard, and a Papist," and fists were clenched on both aides,
while Cis flew between, pulling down Humfrey's uplifted hand, and
crying, "No, no; he did not say he thought so, only he had heard it."

"Let him say it again!" growled Antony, his arm bared.

"No, don't, Humfrey!" as if she saw it between his clenched teeth.
"You know you only meant if Tony thought so, and he didn't.  Now how
can you two be so foolish and unkind to me, to bring me out for a
holiday to eat blackberries and make heather crowns, and then go and
spoil it all with folly about Papists, and Spaniards, and grown-up
people's nonsense that nobody cares about!"

Cis had a rare power over both her comrades, and her piteous appeal
actually disarmed them, since there was no one present to make them
ashamed of their own placability.  Grown-up people's follies were
avoided by mutual consent through the rest of the walk, and the three
children parted amicably when Antony had to return to fulfil his
page's duties at my lord's supper, and Humfrey and Cis carried home
their big basket of blackberries.

When they entered their own hall they found their mother engaged in
conversation with a tall, stout, and weather-beaten man, whom she
announced--"See here, my children, here is a good friend of your
father's, Master Goatley, who was his chief mate in all his voyages,
and hath now come over all the way from Hull to see him!  He will be
here anon, sir, so soon as the guard is changed at the Queen's lodge.
Meantime, here are the elder children."

Diccon, who had been kept at home by some temporary damage to his
foot, and little Edward were devouring the sailor with their eyes;
and Humfrey and Cis were equally delighted with the introduction,
especially as Master Goatley was just returned from the Western Main,
and from a curious grass-woven basket which he carried slung to his
side, produced sundry curiosities in the way of beads, shell-work,
feather-work, and a hatchet of stone, and even a curious armlet of
soft, dull gold, with pearls set in it.  This he had, with great
difficulty, obtained on purpose for Mistress Talbot, who had once
cured him of a bad festering hurt received on board ship.

The children clustered round in ecstasies of admiration and wonder as
they heard of the dark brown atives, the curious expedients by which
barter was carried on; also of cruel Spaniards, and of savage fishes,
with all the marvels of flying-fish, corals, palm-trees, humming
birds--all that is lesson work to our modern youth, but was the most
brilliant of living fairy tales at this Elizabethan period.  Humfrey
and Diccon were ready to rush off to voyage that instant, and even
little Ned cried imitatively in his imperfect language that he would
be "a tailor."

Then their father came home, and joyfully welcomed and clasped hands
with his faithful mate, declaring that the sight did him good; and
they sat down to supper and talked of voyages, till the boys' eyes
glowed, and they beat upon their own knees with the enthusiasm that
their strict manners bade them repress; while their mother kept back
her sighs as she saw them becoming infected with that sea fever so
dreaded by parents.  Nay, she saw it in her husband himself.  She
knew him to be grievously weary of a charge most monotonously dull,
and only varied by suspicions and petty detections; and that he was
hungering and thirsting for his good ship and to be facing winds and
waves.  She could hear his longing in the very sound of the "Ays?"
and brief inquiries by which he encouraged Goatley to proceed in the
story of voyages and adventures, and she could not wonder when
Goatley said, "Your heart is in it still, sir.  Not one of us all but
says it is a pity such a noble captain should be lost as a landsman,
with nothing to do but to lock the door on a lady."

"Speak not of it, my good Goatley," said Richard, hastily, "or you
will set me dreaming and make me mad."

"Then it is indeed so," returned Goatley.  "Wherefore then come you
not, sir, where a crew is waiting for you of as good fellows as ever
stepped on a deck, and who, one and all, are longing after such a
captain as you are, sir?  Wherefore hold back while still in your
prime?"

"Ask the mistress, there," said Richard, as he saw his Susan's white
face and trembling fingers, though she kept her eyes on her work to
prevent them from betraying their tears and their wistfulness.

"O sweet father," burst forth Humfrey, "do but go, and take me.  I am
quite old enough."

"Nay, Humfrey, 'tis no matter of liking," said his father, not
wishing to prolong his wife's suspense.  "Look you here, boy, my Lord
Earl is captain of all of his name by right of birth, and so long as
he needs my services, I have no right to take them from him.  Dost
see, my boy?"

Humfrey reluctantly did see.  It was a great favour to be thus argued
with, and admitted of no reply.

Mrs. Talbot's heart rejoiced, but she was not sorry that it was time
for her to carry off Diccon and Ned to their beds, away from the
fascinating narrative, and she would give no respite, though Diccon
pleaded hard.  In fact, the danger might be the greatest to him,
since Humfrey, though born within the smell of the sea, might be
retained by the call of duty like his father.  To Cis, at least, she
thought the sailor's conversation could do no harm, little foreboding
the words that presently ensued.  "And, sir, what befell the babe we
found in our last voyage off the Spurn?  It would methinks be about
the age of this pretty mistress."

Richard Talbot endeavoured to telegraph a look both of assent and
warning, but though Master Goatley would have been sharp to detect
the least token of a Spanish galleon on the most distant horizon, the
signal fell utterly short.  "Ay, sir.  What, is it so?  Bless me!
The very maiden!  And you have bred her up for your own."

"Sir!  Father!" cried Cis, looking from one to the other, with eyes
and mouth wide open.

"Soh!" cried the sailor, "what have I done?  I beg your pardon, sir,
if I have overhauled what should have been let alone.  But,"
continued the honest, but tactless man, "who could have thought of
the like of that, and that the pretty maid never knew it?  Ay, ay,
dear heart.  Never fear but that the captain will be good father to
you all the same."

For Richard Talbot had held out his arm, and, as Cis ran up to him,
he had seated her on his knee, and held her close to him.  Humfrey
likewise started up with an impulse to contradict, which was suddenly
cut short by a strange flash of memory, so all he did was to come up
to his father, and grasp one of the girl's hands as fast as he could.
She trembled and shivered, but there was something in the presence of
this strange man which choked back all inquiry, and the silence, the
vehement grasp, and the shuddering, alarmed the captain, lest she
might suddenly go off into a fit upon his hands.

"This is gear for mother," said he, and taking her up like a baby,
carried her off, followed closely by Humfrey.  He met Susan coming
down, asking anxiously, "Is she sick?"

"I hope not, mother," he said, "but honest Goatley, thinking no harm,
hath blurted out that which we had never meant her to know, at least
not yet awhile, and it hath wrought strangely with her."

"Then it is true, father?" said Humfrey, in rather an awe-stricken
voice, while Cis still buried her face on the captain's breast.

"Yes," he said, "yea, my children, it is true that God sent us a
daughter from the sea and the wreck when He had taken our own little
maid to His rest.  But we have ever loved our Cis as well, and hope
ever to do so while she is our good child.  Take her, mother, and
tell the children how it befell; if I go not down, the fellow will
spread it all over the house, and happily none were present save
Humfrey and the little maiden."

Susan put the child down on her own bed, and there, with Humfrey
standing by, told the history of the father carrying in the little
shipwrecked babe.  They both listened with eyes devouring her, but
they were as yet too young to ask questions about evidences, and
Susan did not volunteer these, only when the girl asked, "Then, have
I no name?" she answered, "A godly minister, Master Heatherthwayte,
gave thee the name of Cicely when he christened thee."

"I marvel who I am?" said Cis, gazing round her, as if the world were
all new to her.

"It does not matter," said Humfrey, "you are just the same to us, is
she not, mother?"

"She is our dear Heaven-sent child," said the mother tenderly.

"But thou art not my true mother, nor Humfrey nor Diccon my
brethren," she said, stretching out her hands like one in the dark.

"If I'm not your brother, Cis, I'll be your husband, and then you
will have a real right to be called Talbot.  That's better than if
you were my sister, for then you would go away, I don't know where,
and now you will always be mine--mine--mine very own."

And as he gave Cis a hug in assurance of his intentions, his father,
who was uneasy about the matter, looked in again, and as Susan, with
tears in her eyes, pointed to the children, the good man said, "By my
faith, the boy has found the way to cut the knot--or rather to tie
it.  What say you, dame?  If we do not get a portion for him, we do
not have to give one with her, so it is as broad as it is long, and
she remains our dear child.  Only listen, children, you are both old
enough to keep a secret.  Not one word of all this matter is to be
breathed to any soul till I bid you."

"Not to Diccon," said Humfrey decidedly.

"Nor to Antony?" asked Cis wistfully.

"To Antony?  No, indeed!  What has he to do with it?  Now, to your
beds, children, and forget all about this tale."

"There, Humfrey," broke out Cis, as soon as they were alone together,
"Huckstress Tibbott _is_ a wise woman, whatever thou mayest say."

"How?" said Humfrey.

"Mindst thou not the day when I crossed her hand with the tester
father gave me?"

"When mother whipped thee for listening to fortune-tellers and
wasting thy substance.  Ay, I mind it well," said Humfrey, "and how
thou didst stand simpering at her pack of lies, ere mother made thee
sing another tune."

"Nay, Humfrey, they were no lies, though I thought them so then.  She
said I was not what I seemed, and that the Talbots' kennel would not
always hold one of the noble northern eagles.  So Humfrey, sweet
Humfrey, thou must not make too sure of wedding me."

"I'll wed thee though all the lying old gipsy-wives in England wore
their false throats out in screeching out that I shall not," cried
Humfrey.

"But she must have known," said Cis, in an awestruck voice; "the
spirits must have spoken with her, and said that I am none of the
Talbots."

"Hath mother heard this?" asked Humfrey, recoiling a little, but
never thinking of the more plausible explanation.

"Oh no, no! tell her not, Humfrey, tell her not.  She said she would
whip me again if ever I talked again of the follies that the fortune-
telling woman had gulled me with, for if they were not deceits, they
were worse.  And, thou seest, they are worse, Humfrey!"

With which awe-stricken conclusion the children went off to bed.




CHAPTER VI. THE BEWITCHED WHISTLE.



A child's point of view is so different from that of a grown person,
that the discovery did not make half so much difference to Cis as her
adopted parents expected.  In fact it was like a dream to her.  She
found her daily life and her surroundings the same, and her chief
interest was--at least apparently--how soon she could escape from
psalter and seam, to play with little Ned, and look out for the elder
boys returning, or watch for the Scottish Queen taking her daily
ride.  Once, prompted by Antony, Cis had made a beautiful nosegay of
lilies and held it up to the Queen when she rode in at the gate on
her return from Buxton.  She had been rewarded by the sweetest of
smiles, but Captain Talbot had said it must never happen again, or he
should be accused of letting billets pass in posies.  The whole place
was pervaded, in fact, by an atmosphere of suspicion, and the
vigilance, which might have been endurable for a few months, was
wearing the spirits and temper of all concerned, now that it had
already lasted for seven or eight years, and there seemed no end to
it.  Moreover, in spite of all care, it every now and then became
apparent that Queen Mary had some communication with the outer world
which no one could trace, though the effects endangered the life of
Queen Elizabeth, the peace of the kingdom, and the existence of the
English Church.  The blame always fell upon Lord Shrewsbury; and who
could wonder that he was becoming captiously suspicious, and soured
in temper, so that even such faithful kinsmen as Richard Talbot could
sometimes hardly bear with him, and became punctiliously anxious that
there should not be the smallest loophole for censure of the conduct
of himself and his family?

The person on whom Master Goatley's visit had left the most
impression seemed to be Humfrey.  On the one hand, his father's words
had made him enter into his situation of trust and loyalty, and
perceive something of the constant sacrifice of self to duty that it
required, and, on the other hand, he had assumed a position towards
Cis of which he in some degree felt the force.  There was nothing in
the opinions of the time to render their semi-betrothal ridiculous.
At the Manor house itself, Gilbert Talbot and Mary Cavendish had been
married when no older than he was; half their contemporaries were
already plighted, and the only difference was that in the present
harassing state of surveillance in which every one lived, the parents
thought that to avow the secret so long kept might bring about
inquiry and suspicion, and they therefore wished it to be guarded
till the marriage could be contracted.  As Cis developed, she had
looks and tones which so curiously harmonised, now with the Scotch,
now with the French element in the royal captive's suite, and which
made Captain Richard believe that she must belong to some of the
families who seemed amphibious between the two courts; and her
identification as a Seaton, a Flemyng, a Beatoun, or as a member of
any of the families attached to the losing cause, would only involve
her in exile and disgrace.  Besides, there was every reason to think
her an orphan, and a distant kinsman was scarcely likely to give her
such a home as she had at Bridgefield, where she had always been
looked on as a daughter, and was now regarded as doubly their own in
right of their son.  So Humfrey was permitted to consider her as
peculiarly his own, and he exerted this right of property by a
certain jealousy of Antony Babington which amused his parents, and
teased the young lady.  Nor was he wholly actuated by the jealousy of
proprietorship, for he knew the devotion with which Antony regarded
Queen Mary, and did not wholly trust him.  His sense of honour and
duty to his father's trust was one thing, Antony's knight-errantry to
the beautiful captive was another; each boy thought himself strictly
honourable, while they moved in parallel lines and could not
understand one another; yet, with the reserve of childhood, all that
passed between them was a secret, till one afternoon when loud angry
sounds and suppressed sobs attracted Mistress Susan to the garden,
where she found Cis crying bitterly, and little Diccon staring
eagerly, while a pitched battle was going on between her eldest son
and young Antony Babington, who were pommelling each other too
furiously to perceive her approach.

"Boys! boys! fie for shame," she cried, with a hand on the shoulder
of each, and they stood apart at her touch, though still fiercely
looking at one another.

"See what spectacles you have made of yourselves!" she continued.
"Is this your treatment of your guest, Humfrey?  How is my Lord's
page to show himself at Chatsworth to-morrow with such an eye?  What
is it all about?"

Both combatants eyed each other in sullen silence.

"Tell me, Cis.  Tell me, Diccon.  I will know, or you shall have the
rod as well as Humfrey."

Diccon, who was still in the era of timidity, instead of
secretiveness, spoke out.  "He," indicating his brother, "wanted the
packet."

"What packet?" exclaimed the mother, alarmed.

"The packet that _he_ (another nod towards Antony) wanted Cis to give
that witch in case she came while he is at Chatsworth."

"It was the dog-whistle," said Cis.  "It hath no sound in it, and
Antony would have me change it for him, because Huckster Tibbott may
not come within the gates.  I did not want to do so; I fear Tibbott,
and when Humfrey found me crying he fell on Antony.  So blame him
not, mother."

"If Humfrey is a jealous churl, and Cis a little fool, there's no
help for it," said Antony, disdainfully turning his back on his late
adversary.

"Then let me take charge of this whistle," returned the lady, moved
by the universal habit of caution, but Antony sprang hastily to
intercept her as she was taking from the little girl a small paper
packet tied round with coloured yarn, but he was not in time, and
could only exclaim, "Nay, nay, madam, I will not trouble you.  It is
nothing."

"Master Babington," said Susan firmly, "you know as well as I do that
no packet may pass out of the park unopened.  If you wished to have
the whistle changed you should have brought it uncovered.  I am sorry
for the discourtesy, and ask your pardon, but this parcel may not
pass."

"Then," said Antony, with difficulty repressing something much more
passionate and disrespectful, "let me have it again."

"Nay, Master Babington, that would not suit with my duty."

The boy altogether lost his temper.  "Duty! duty!" he cried.  "I am
sick of the word.  All it means is a mere feigned excuse for prying
and spying, and besetting the most beautiful and unhappy princess in
the world for her true faith and true right!"

"Master Antony Babington," said Susan gravely, "you had better take
care what you are about.  If those words of yours had been spoken in
my Lord's hearing, they would bring you worse than the rod or bread
and water."

"What care I what I suffer for such a Queen?" exclaimed Antony.

"Suffering is a different matter from saying 'What care I,'" returned
the lady, "as I fear you will learn, Master Antony."

"O mother! sweet mother," said Cis, "you will not tell of him!"--but
mother shook her head.

"Prithee, dear mother," added Humfrey, seeing no relenting in her
countenance, "I did but mean to hinder Cis from being maltreated and
a go-between in this traffic with an old witch, not to bring Tony
into trouble."

"His face is a tell-tale, Humfrey," said Susan.  "I meant ere now to
have put a piece of beef on it.  Come in, Antony, and let me wash
it."

"Thank you, madam, I need nothing here," said Antony, stalking
proudly off; while Humfrey, exclaiming "Don't be an ass, Tony!--
Mother, no one would care to ask what we had given one another black
eyes for in a friendly way," tried to hold him back, and he did
linger when Cis added her persuasions to him not to return the
spectacle he was at present.

"If this lady will promise not to betray an unfortunate Queen," he
said, as if permission to deal with his bruises were a great reward.

"Oh! you foolish boy!" exclaimed Mistress Talbot, "you were never
meant for a plotter! you have yourself betrayed that you are her
messenger."

"And I am not ashamed of it," said Antony, holding his head high.
"Madam, madam, if you have surprised this from me, you are the more
bound not to betray her.  Think, lady, if you were shut up from your
children and friends, would you not seek to send tidings to them?"

"Child, child!  Heaven knows I am not blaming the poor lady within
there.  I am only thinking what is right."

"Well," said Antony, somewhat hopefully, "if that be all, give me
back the packet, or tear it up, if you