A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales Part 12

But no sooner opes she her eyes than he hath both her hands hid in one o' his, and close against his breast, and she lying back in 's arms as though she were any chrisom child, and her big eyes wide on his, and he saith to her,

"La.s.s! la.s.s!" saith he, "I ha' come to marry thee, an thou wilt have me," quoth he. "I ha' come to marry thee; and may G.o.d bless thee for saving th' child!"

Then did I understand; but she saith, with her great eyes not moving--saith she--only one word--"Ruth?" saith she, even so, once, low like that--"Ruth?"

"Ay, la.s.s, I know," he saith unto her. "I know," he saith. "But all's well with Ruth. Ruth is in heaven."

Then saith she, while a light leaps out o' her tearful eyes, like as when the sun doth s.h.i.+ne suddenly through April rain--saith she, as she were breathing her life into th' words,

"Methinks I be there too."

And also did I understand her, how that she meant that to be lying in th' arms o' him she loved, after all those weary years, was like being in heaven; but he questions her.

"How, la.s.s?" saith he. "Where dost thou think thou art? Thou art in thy true love's arms," saith he.

"Ay, there is heaven," she saith.

And I stole away to get th' babe some kickshaws i' th' village, that they twain might be alone together.

Well, well, all that was two year ago, comrade--two year ago; and now that la.s.s o' mine hath a babe o' her own, and as valiant a rogue as ever bellowed. Thou must come and sup with us to-night. Na, na, I'll take no refusal--dost hear? I will not. And a word o' persuasion i' thy ear, comrade: Mistress Lemon hath been dead this twelvemonth, comrade. Ah ha!

Wilt a-come the now? That's well. And thou shalt hear that la.s.s o' mine troll thee "Jog on, jog on," and "Mistress mine, where art thou roaming?" and "Listen, Robin, while I woo." Come, comrade, come. But stay; let's crack another drink together ere we go. Joel! What there!

Joel, I say! Another quart o' sack for Master Turnip!

NURSE CRUMPET TELLS THE STORY.

_Time._--A bitter January night in the year of Grace 1669.

_Scene._--Sunderidge Castle--The great hall--A monstrous fire burning in the big fireplace--Nurse Crumpet discovered seated on a settle--At her either knee lean the little Lady Dorothy and her brother, the young Earl of Sunderidge, Lord Humphrey Lennox.

_Nurse Crumpet._--Nay, now, Lady Dorothy, why wilt thou be at the pains o' such a clamoring? Sure thou hast heard that old tale o'er a hundred times; and thou too, my lord? Fie, then! Wouldst seek to flatter thy old nurse with this seeming eagerness? Go to! I say thou canst not in truth want to hear me drone o'er that ancient narrative. Well, then, an I must, I must. Soft! Hold my fan betwixt thy dainty cheeks and the blaze, sweetheart, lest the fire-fiend witch thy roses into very poppy flowers. And thou, my lord, come closer to my side, lest the draught from the bay-window smite thee that thou howlest o' th' morrow with a crick i' thy neck. Well, well, be patient. All in time, in time. Soft, now! Ye both mind that I was but a little la.s.s when thy grandmother, the Lady Elizabeth Lennox, did take me to train as her maid-in-waiting. I was just turned sixteen that Martlemas, and not a fair-sized wench for my years either. Would ye believe? I could set my two thumbs together at my backbone in those days, and my ring-fingers would all but kiss too.

_Lord Humphrey._--Ha! ha! Nurse, thy fingers would be but ill satisfied lovers under those conditions nowadays. Eh, Dolly?

_Lady Dorothy._--Hold thy tongue for an unmannerly lad, Humphrey. Do not thou heed him, nurse, but go on with thy story.

_Nurse Crumpet._--For all thy laughter, my lord, I'd a waist my garter would bind in those days, and was as light on my toes as those flames that dance i' th' chimney. Lord! Lord! how well I mind me o' th' first time that e'er I clapt eyes on Jock Crumpet! I was speeding home with a jug o' water from the spring, and what with his staring as he stood at the road-side to let me pa.s.s, and what with a root i' th' way, I all but lost my footing. Yet did I swing round alone, holding fast my jug, and ne'er one blessed drop o' water spilled I, for all my tripping. "By'r lay'kin!" quoth he, "thou'rt as light on thy feet as a May wind, and as I live I will dance the Barley Break with thee this harvesting or I will dance with none!" And i' faith a was as good as his word, for by hook or by crook, and much scheming and planning, and bringing o' gewgaws to my mother, and a present o' a fine yearling to my father, that harvesting did I dance the Barley Break with Jock Crumpet. And a was a feather-man in a round reel.

Well, 'twas the year o' my meeting with Jock, thou mindst. (And a cold winter that was--Christ save us! There be ne'er such winters nowadays.

This night is as a summer noon i' th' comparison.) 'Twas the year o' my first meeting with Jock, and my lady, your grandmother, sent for me to the castle, to be her waiting-maid. Lord! 'twas a troublous time! What with joy at my good fortune, and sorrow at quitting my mother, I was fain to smile with one corner o' my mouth and look grievously with the other, like a zany at a village fair. And Jock, he would not that I went, for that he could not see me, or consort wi' me so often: Jock was aye honey-combed wi' th' thing ye call "sentiment." A would grin on a flower I had wov'n in my locks by th' hour together. And 'tis my belief a could a spun him a warm doublet out o' the odds and ends o' ribbon and what not he had filched from me when my eyes were elsewhere. And Jock--but 'tis neither here nor there o' Jock. In those days thy grandmother had only one child, a little la.s.s, the Lady Patience. And ne'er was man or maid worse named; for to call such a flibbertigibbet "Patience" were as though one should name a frisksome colt "Slumber," or christen a spring brook "Quiet." Patience, quotha! 'Twas patience in truth a body had need of, who was thrown at all with her little ladys.h.i.+p. But there was ne'er so beautiful a maiden born in all the broad land of England; nor will be again--not though London Tower be standing when the last trump sounds. Meseemed she was an elf-sprite, so tiny was she; and her face like a fair flower, so fresh and pure. Her hair was shed about her face like sunlight on thistle-down, and her eyes made a s.h.i.+ning behind it, like the big blue gems in her mother's jewel-box. When she laughed, it was as water falling into water from a short height, with ripples, and little murmurs, and a clear tinkling sound. But she was ne'er more at rest than the leaves on an aspen-tree.

Hither and thither would she flit, this way and that, up and down, round and round, backward and forward, about and about. I' faith, ofttimes would I be right dizzy come nightfall, with following of her; for ere I had been at the castle a day, she took so mighty a fancy to me, that naught would do but she must have me for her maid; and so my lady, who (G.o.d pardon my boldness!) did utterly spoil her in all things, gave me unto her as a nurse-maid.--But sure ye are a-weary o' this old tale!

_Lady Dorothy and Lord Humphrey in a breath._--Nay, go on, go on.

_Nurse Crumpet._--Well, well, o' all the story-loving bairns! But I must invent me a new history for the next time o' telling.

_Lord Humphrey._--Nay, that thou shalt not. We will ne'er like any as well as we like this one. So despatch.

_Nurse Crumpet._--But my lady had also an adopted daughter, a niece o'

my lord's--one Mistress Marian Every--and she walked beside the little Lady Patience as night might walk beside day, for she was as brown o'

skin as a mountain stream, and her hair like a cloud at even-tide, dark, but of no certain color, albeit as soft as ravelled silk, and marvellous hard to comb on account o' its fineness. Mistress Marian was full head and shoulders taller than her cousin, the Lady Patience, and she could lift her aloft in her arms, and swing her from side to side, as a supple bough swings a bird. And her eyes were dark, and cool to gaze into, like a pool o' clear water o'er autumn leaves, and sometimes there were glints o' light in them, like the spikes i' th' evening-star when thou dost gaze steadily upon it. Black and white were not more different than were they, and they resembled even less in mind than they did in body.

When Lady Patience waxed wroth, her cheeks burned like two coals, and thou couldst hear her little teeth grinding together, like pebbles squeezed i' th' palm o' thy hand; but when Mistress Marian was an-angered, the blood rushed back to her heart, and she was whiter than a lamb at the shearing, and her lips like white threads. Then would the light shoot and spin in her eyes, and her nostrils suck in and out, like those of a fretful horse. And she was fierce after the manner of a man rather than of a maid. Moreo'er, she was full a year younger than the Lady Patience; but she looked it not; rather did her ladys.h.i.+p look full two years younger than Mistress Marian. And I loved them both, and tried as a Christian not to prefer one before the other; but what with my lady's stealings of her arms about my neck as I sat at my st.i.tchery, and popping of comfits in my pocket when I would be otherwise engaged, and teasings, and ticklings, and sundry other pretty witcheries which I do not at this day recall, I was fairly cozened into loving her the best.

(Honey, I charge thee hold my fan betwixt thee and the fire.) But to continue.--Mistress Marian was aye courteous and kindly to me as heart could wish, and every night did she thank me i' th' prettiest fas.h.i.+on, when I had combed and unpinned her for the night; but, Lord! I had much ado to get Lady Patience combed or unpinned at all! First would she jump with both knees upon mine, and hug my very breath away; then, when I had at last coaxed her to get down, first she would perch on one leg and then o' the other, and then be a-twisting her head now over this shoulder, now over that, to see how I came on with the unpinning, that it was with a prayer to G.o.d that I finally set her night-gown over her shoulders, and led her to bed. As for her prayers--Jesu aid me and pardon her!--'twas a matter of hours to get her to say "Our Father"

straight through, what with her vowing that she wished not bread every day, and how that if his lords.h.i.+p her father forgave not trespa.s.sers (for I could ne'er draw the difference between trespa.s.s_es_ and trespa.s.s_ers_ into her pretty pate), neither would she; and how she did not believe G.o.d would lead her into temptation at any time, but that it was the Devil; and how it must anger G.o.d even to think of such doings on His part--what, I say, with all this, methought sometimes it would be c.o.c.k-crow ere I got her safely to sleep. And all this time Mistress Marian would be lying as quiet as any mouse, with her big plait of hair between her fingers, for so she always slept, with her hair fast in her hands, as though she loved its beauty; and in truth it was the one great beauty she had, for my little lady put her out with her glitter as the sunlight doth extinguish a morning moon.

Now I had been at the castle scarce two months when one day it chances that I hear my lady a-telling o' my lord how as her brother, Lord Charles Radnor, dying wifeless, had left his only son to her care until he should come of age. And on that Tuesday the little lord set foot in the castle; and my lady was down at the door-way to meet him, in a new velvet gown, with her wimple sewn in fine pearls, and my lord with her; but my two nurslings waxed shy at the last minute, and would not come down, but leaned and peered through the posts o' the stair-rail, and my little lady let fall one o' her shoes in her eagerness to glimpse at her new cousin. And straightway ran the lad and lifted the wee shoe, and looked upward, laughing, and my lord and lady having retired into the dining-hall, to see that some cold viands were in readiness (it being then near to nightfall, though not yet supper hour).--"Ho! thou little cinder witch," cried he; "I am the prince that has found thy shoe, and when I shall have found thee, if that thy temper be as small as thy shoe, fear not but that I will kiss thee too!" With that, he ran up the stair-way, two and three steps at a leap.

And I followed, for I knew not what would happen an he claimed his kiss as he had threatened (knowing as did I, that in verity my lady's shoe would a been a tight fit for her temper).

But when he was arrived at the top, lo! they had both fled, neither had they left so much as a ribbon behind them. Then the lad laughed again, as pleasant a laugh as e'er I heard in all my days, and quoth he, "I would be but a poor prince an I had not to search for my little princess." So off he starts, and I after him, up and down corridors, in at half-open doors, out upon balconies, hither and thither, after the manner o' my little lady on her most unquiet days, till at last, for the sake o' peace, I did slyly lead him in the direction o' the great nursery. There, catching sight o' a little red petticoat, he enters, where stand my truant elves confessed, Mistress Marian frowning and biting o' her dark hair, but my little lady like to stifle, with both hands over her mouth to hide her smiles, and her blue eyes dancing a very Barley Break o' mirth among the yellow sheaves o' her tresses.

Then there was much parley o'er the fitting o' the shoe, as both damsels did straightway sit down upon their feet, neither for a long time would they move an eyelash, till his lords.h.i.+p, with a twink o' his eye at me, did suggest corns and bunions as a reason for their 'havior--and, Lord!

then 'twas pretty to mark how like little chicks beneath their dam's feathers, first one little foot and then the other did steal out from the rich lace o' their petticoats. And ere one could cry "Oh!" for a pinch, he had slipt the shoe on my little lady's wee foot, and had kissed her right heartily. Moreo'er, what I did most marvel at, was that she neither cuffed nor sought to cuff him, but dropt down her head until her hair made a veil before her face, and moved that foot whereon he had set her shoe, gently back and forth as though the leather was stiff to her ankle, and I saw that she looked at it from under her heavy hair.

But Mistress Marian still held aloof, and chewed upon her dark locks like a heifer on its cud. And her eyes were every whit as dark and solemn as a very cow's. Then the young lord laughed again, and cried out, "Ha! the ox-eyed June!" or some such apery, and went and kneeled before her in mock fas.h.i.+on, as before a queen, and quoth he, "Fair G.o.ddess" (for 'twas afterwards explained to me what manner of being was a G.o.ddess, namely, some kind of a foreign fairy)--"Fair G.o.ddess," quoth he, "show me how I may dispel thy wrath." And still she scowled on him, but spoke no word. And he continued, and said, "I prithee, fair lady, cast but one smile upon thy humble knight" (thou mind'st their pretty foolery has stuck i' my old pate unto this day).

Then she answered and saith, "Thou silly lad, how can I be a G.o.ddess and a lady both in one? Thou hast not even enough wit to make a good fool.

So!" (for Mistress Marian had a sharp tongue at times).

But he was not so much as ruffled, and laughed even again, most heartily. And he said, "I do perceive that thou art not fas.h.i.+oned either as G.o.ddess or lady, therefore be my comrade, and we will fight together for the weal o' yon fairy princess." All at once she laughed too, and yielded him her hand, and said, "I like thee. What is thy name?"

He said, "My name is Ernle; and I like thee too; therefore, I pray thee, tell me thine."

So she told him, and my little lady sidling up, the three fell presently a-chattering like linnets at sunrise, and from that hour on I had no trouble with them.

'Twas pretty to mark them at their fantasies. They were aye out-o'-door save when 'twas rainy weather, and then methought the castle had scarce room enough for them. In all their games Mistress Marian was the little lord's comrade, and wore a helmet o' silvered wood, and carried a wooden sword silvered to match her head-gear, and the little lord was likewise apparelled. And he called her ever "Comrade," and clapped her o' th'

shoulder, as mankind will clap one the other when conversing.

But my little lady, they both agreed, was a fairy princess; and, Lord, Lord! 'twould take me from now 'til Martlemas next to name the perilous 'scapes that did befall her. They fished her out of moats, they bore her from blazing castles, they did drag her from the maws o' dragons and other wild beasts I know not how to name. Thrice was the little Lord of Radnor in dire straits at the claws o' goblin creatures. Three times did his comrade rescue him by thwacking upon the chair which did represent the dreadful beast, till I was in sore dread there would be no mending of it, and me, mayhap, dismissed from the castle for carelessness. And always when 'twas all o'er, and the little princess in safety, I was called upon to act parson and wed my little lady to the little lord, while Mistress Marian leaned on her sword to witness the doings.

One day, in their rovings through the park, they came by chance upon a door in the hill-side, but so o'ergrown with creeping vines that, had not the little lord stumbled upon it, 'twas very like it had been there to this day without discovery. Well, no sooner do they see the door than they must needs open it, spite o' all my scolding, and peer within.

'Twas but a darksome hole, after all--a kind o' cave i' th' hill-side, which they did afterwards find out from thy grandfather was used in days gone by for concealing treasures in time of war. And indeed it seemed a safe place, for there were two rusty bolts as big as my arm, one o' th'

inside and one o' th' outside, and the creeping things hid all. As thou mightst think, it grew to be their favorite coigne for playing their dragon and princess trickeries. I would sit with my st.i.tchery on a fallen log in the suns.h.i.+ne, while they ran in and out o' th' grewsome hole. But in all their frolicking my little lady could ne'er abide the sight o' their swords, and she pleaded ever for gentler games. One day (I shall ne'er forget, though I live to see doomsday) they did crown her a queen, and then my lord would have it that she dubbed him her knight.

She pleaded that prettily against it methought the veriest boor in Christendom would a given in to her, but my little lord was stanch. So they made her a throne o' flowers, and when she was seated thereon, Mistress Marian handed her the great wooden sword, and my lord, kneeling, bade her strike him on the shoulder with the flat side o' th'

sword, saying, "Rise, Sir Ernle, my knight for evermore!"

She got out the words as he bade her, but when 't came to the stroke, what with her natural fright, and what with the sunlight on the silver, she brought down the heavy blade edgewise on the boy's pate, laying wide quite a gash above his left eyebrow, so that the blood trickled down his cheek. When she saw that, meseemed all the blood in her body went to keep his company, for she turned whiter than her smock, and ran and got her arm about him and saith, o'er and o'er again, "Ernle! Ernle! I have killed thee!"

He laughed, to comfort her, and made light of it, and wetting his finger in the blood, drew a cross on his brow and said, "Nay, thou hast not killed me. And moreo'er, I am not only thy knight, but thy Red Cross Knight into the bargain, and thou my lady forever. See! I will seal thee with my very blood!" and ere she could draw back, he had set also a cross on her white brow. She shuddered and fell a-weeping, and drew her hand across her brow to wipe away the ugly stain; and when she saw that she had but smeared it on her hand, she trembled more than ever, and it was not for some days that I could quiet her.

I do but relate this story, to show in what horror my little lady did ever hold swords and bloodshed.

Well, to continue--

This could not last for aye, and when two more years were sped, his uncle sent the little lord to a place o' learning; and afterwards to travel to and fro upon the earth, after the manner of Satan in the Book of Job (G.o.d forgive me! but 't has ever seemed like that to me). And we set not eyes on him for eight years. Now in that time, lo! I was married, and my little lady and Mistress Marian in long kirtles, and their hair looped up upon their heads. Mistress Marian was yet full head and shoulders above my little lady, and her skin as brown as ever.

But my little lady was as bright and slender as a sun-ray.