The Last of the Barons Part 33

"Then go,-go at once; come back no more till thou hast wound up thy courage to brave the sacrifice; no, not till the priest is ready at the altar, not till the bridegroom can claim the bride. And as that time will never come-never-never-leave me to whisper to the breaking heart, 'Courage; honour and virtue are left thee yet, and thy mother from heaven looks down on a stainless child!'"

The resuscitation of the dead could scarcely have startled and awed the courtier more than this abrupt development of life and pa.s.sion and energy in a man who had hitherto seemed to sleep in the folds of his thought, as a chrysalis in its web. But as we have always seen that ever, when this strange being woke from his ideal abstraction, he awoke to honour and courage and truth, so now, whether, as he had said, the absence of the Eureka left his mind to the sense of practical duties, or whether their common suffering had more endeared to him his gentle companion, and affection sharpened reason, Adam Warner became puissant and majestic in his rights and sanct.i.ty of father,-greater in his homely household character, than when, in his mania of inventor, and the sublime hunger of aspiring genius, he had stolen to his daughter's couch, and waked her with the cry of "Gold!"

Before the force and power of Adam's adjuration, his outstretched hand, the anguish, yet authority, written on his face, all the art and self-possession of the accomplished lover deserted him, as one spell-bound.

He was literally without reply; till, suddenly, the sight of Sibyll, who, surprised by this singular conference, but unsuspecting its nature, now came from the house, relieved and nerved him; and his first impulse was then, as ever, worthy and n.o.ble, such as showed, though dimly, how glorious a creature he had been, if cast in a time and amidst a race which could have fostered the impulse into habit.

"Brave old man!" he said, kissing the hand still raised in command, "thou hast spoken as beseems thee; and my answer I will tell thy child." Then hurrying to the wondering Sibyll, he resumed: "Your father says well, that not thus, dubious and in secret, should I visit the home blest by thy beloved presence. I obey; I leave thee, Sibyll. I go to my king, as one who hath served him long and truly, and claims his guerdon,-thee!"

"Oh, my lord!" exclaimed Sibyll, in generous terror, "bethink thee well; remember what thou saidst but last eve. This king so fierce, my name so hated! No, no! leave me. Farewell forever, if it be right, as what thou and my father say must be. But thy life, thy liberty, thy welfare,-they are my happiness; thou hast no right to endanger them!" And she fell at his knees. He raised and strained her to his heart; then resigning her to her father's arms, he said in a voice choked with emotion,- "Not as peer and as knight, but as man, I claim my prerogative of home and hearth. Let Edward frown, call back his gifts, banish me his court,-thou art more worth than all! Look for me, sigh not, weep not, smile till we meet again!" He left them with these words, hastened to the stall where his steed stood, caparisoned it with his own hands, and rode with the speed of one whom pa.s.sion spurs and goads towards the Tower of London.

But as Sibyll started from her father's arms, when she heard the departing hoofs of her lover's steed,-to listen and to listen for the last sound that told of him,-a terrible apparition, ever ominous of woe and horror, met her eye. On the other side of the orchard fence, which concealed her figure, but not her well-known face, which peered above, stood the tymbestere, Graul. A shriek of terror at this recognition burst from Sibyll, as she threw herself again upon Adam's breast; but when he looked round to discover the cause of her alarm, Graul was gone.

CHAPTER III. VIRTUOUS RESOLVES SUBMITTED TO THE TEST OF VANITY AND THE WORLD.

On reaching his own house, Hastings learned that the court was still at Shene. He waited but till the retinue which his rank required were equipped and ready, and reached the court, from which of late he had found so many excuses to absent himself, before night. Edward was then at the banquet, and Hastings was too experienced a courtier to disturb him at such a time. In a mood unfit for companions.h.i.+p, he took his way to the apartments usually reserved for him, when a gentleman met him by the way, and apprised him, with great respect, that the Lord Scales and Rivers had already appropriated those apartments to the princ.i.p.al waiting-lady of his countess,-but that other chambers, if less commodious and s.p.a.cious, were at his command.

Hastings had not the superb and more than regal pride of Warwick and Montagu; but this notice sensibly piqued and galled him.

"My apartments as Lord Chamberlain, as one of the captain-generals in the king's army, given to the waiting-lady of Sir Anthony Woodville's wife! At whose orders, sir?"

"Her highness the queen's; pardon me, my lord," and the gentleman, looking round, and sinking his voice, continued, "pardon me, her highness added, 'If my Lord Chamberlain returns not ere the week ends, he may find not only the apartment, but the office, no longer free.' My lord, we all love you-forgive my zeal, and look well if you would guard your own."

"Thanks, sir. Is my lord of Gloucester in the palace?"

"He is,-and in his chamber. He sits not long at the feast."

"Oblige me by craving his grace's permission to wait on him at leisure; I attend his answer here."

Leaning against the wall of the corridor, Hastings gave himself up to other thoughts than those of love. So strong is habit, so powerful vanity or ambition, once indulged, that this puny slight made a sudden revulsion in the mind of the royal favourite; once more the agitated and brilliant court life stirred and fevered him,-that life, so wearisome when secure, became sweeter when imperilled. To counteract his foes, to humble his rivals, to regain the king's countenance, to baffle, with the easy art of his skilful intellect, every hostile stratagem,-such were the ideas that crossed and hurtled themselves, and Sibyll was forgotten.

The gentleman reappeared. "Prince Richard besought my lord's presence with loving welcome;" and to the duke's apartment went Lord Hastings. Richard, clad in a loose chamber robe, which concealed the defects of his shape, rose from before a table covered with papers, and embraced Hastings with cordial affection.

"Never more gladly hail to thee, dear William. I need thy wise counsels with the king, and I have glad tidings for thine own ear."

"Pardieu, my prince; the king, methinks, will scarce heed the counsels of a dead man."

"Dead?"

"Ay. At court it seems men are dead,-their rooms filled, their places promised or bestowed,-if they come not, morn and night, to convince the king that they are alive." And Hastings, with constrained gayety, repeated the information he had received.

"What would you, Hastings?" said the duke, shrugging his shoulders, but with some latent meaning in his tone. "Lord Rivers were nought in himself; but his lady is a mighty heiress, [Elizabeth secured to her brother, Sir Anthony, the greatest heiress in the kingdom, in the daughter of Lord Scales,-a wife, by the way, who is said to have been a mere child at the time of the marriage.] and requires state, as she bestows pomp. Look round, and tell me what man ever maintained himself in power without the strong connections, the convenient dower, the acute, unseen, unsleeping woman-influence of some n.o.ble wife? How can a poor man defend his repute, his popular name, that airy but all puissant thing we call dignity or station, against the p.r.i.c.ks and stings of female intrigue and female gossip? But he marries, and, lo, a host of fairy champions, who pinch the rival lozels unawares: his wife hath her army of courtpie and jupon, to array against the dames of his foes! Wherefore, my friend, while thou art unwedded, think not to cope with Lord Rivers, who hath a wife with three sisters, two aunts, and a score of she-cousins!"

"And if," replied Hastings, more and more unquiet under the duke's truthful irony,-"if I were now to come to ask the king permission to wed-"

"If thou wert, and the bride-elect were a lady with power and wealth and manifold connections, and the practice of a court, thou wouldst be the mightiest lord in the kingdom since Warwick's exile."

"And if she had but youth, beauty, and virtue?"

"Oh, then, my Lord Hastings, pray thy patron saint for a war,-for in peace thou wouldst be lost amongst the crowd. But truce to these jests; for thou art not the man to prate of youth, virtue, and such like, in sober earnest, amidst this work-day world, where nothing is young and nothing virtuous;-and listen to grave matters."

The duke then communicated to Hastings the last tidings received of the machinations of Warwick. He was in high spirits; for those last tidings but reported Margaret's refusal to entertain the proposition of a nuptial alliance with the earl, though, on the other hand, the Duke of Burgundy, who was in constant correspondence with his spies, wrote word that Warwick was collecting provisions, from his own means, for more than sixty thousand men; and that, with Lancaster or without, the earl was prepared to match his own family interest against the armies of Edward.

"And," said Hastings, "if all his family joined with him, what foreign king could be so formidable an invader? Maltravers and the Mowbrays, Fauconberg, Westmoreland, Fitzhugh, Stanley, Bonville, Worcester-"

"But happily," said Gloucester, "the Mowbrays have been allied also to the queen's sister; Worcester detests Warwick; Stanley always murmurs against us, a sure sign that he will fight for us; and Bonville-I have in view a trusty Yorkist to whom the retainers of that House shall be a.s.signed. But of that anon. What I now wish from thy wisdom is, to aid me in rousing Edward from his lethargy; he laughs at his danger, and neither communicates with his captains nor mans his coasts. His courage makes him a dullard."

After some further talk on these heads, and more detailed account of the preparations which Gloucester deemed necessary to urge on the king, the duke, then moving his chair nearer to Hastings, said with a smile,- "And now, Hastings, to thyself: it seems that thou hast not heard the news which reached us four days since. The Lord Bonville is dead,-died three months ago at his manor house in Devon. [To those who have read the "Paston Letters" it will not seem strange that in that day the death of a n.o.bleman at his country seat should be so long in reaching the metropolis,-the ordinary purveyors of communication were the itinerant attendants of fairs; and a father might be ignorant for months together of the death of his son.] Thy Katherine is free, and in London. Well, man, where is thy joy?"

"Time is, time was!" said Hastings, gloomily. "The day has pa.s.sed when this news could rejoice me."

"Pa.s.sed! nay, thy good stars themselves have fought for thee in delay. Seven goodly manors swell the fair widow's jointure; the n.o.ble dowry she brought returns to her. Her very daughter will bring thee power. Young Cecily Bonville [afterwards married to Dorset], the heiress, Lord Dorset demands in betrothal. Thy wife will be mother-in-law to thy queen's son; on the other hand, she is already aunt to the d.u.c.h.ess of Clarence; and George, be sure, sooner or later, will desert Warwick, and win his pardon. Powerful connections, vast possessions, a lady of immaculate name and surpa.s.sing beauty, and thy first love!-(thy hand trembles!)-thy first love, thy sole love, and thy last!"

"Prince-Prince! forbear! Even if so-In brief, Katherine loves me not!"

"Thou mistakest! I have seen her, and she loves thee not the less because her virtue so long concealed the love." Hastings uttered an exclamation of pa.s.sionate joy, but again his face darkened.

Gloucester watched him in silence; besides any motive suggested by the affection he then sincerely bore to Hastings, policy might well interest the duke in the securing to so loyal a Yorkist the hand and the wealth of Lord Warwick's sister; but, prudently not pressing the subject further, he said, in an altered and careless voice, "Pardon me if I have presumed on matters on which each man judges for himself. But as, despite all obstacle, one day or other Anne Nevile shall be mine, it would have delighted me to know a near connection in Lord Hastings. And now the hour grows late, I prithee let Edward find thee in his chamber."

When Hastings attended the king, he at once perceived that Edward's manner was changed to him. At first, he attributed the cause to the ill offices of the queen and her brother; but the king soon betrayed the true source of his altered humour.

"My lord," he said abruptly, "I am no saint, as thou knowest; but there are some ties, par amour, which, in my mind, become not knights and n.o.bles about a king's person."

"My liege, I arede you not."

"Tush, William!" replied the king, more gently, "thou hast more than once wearied me with application for the pardon of the nigromancer Warner,-the whole court is scandalized at thy love for his daughter. Thou hast absented thyself from thine office on poor pretexts! I know thee too well not to be aware that love alone can make thee neglect thy king,-thy time has been spent at the knees or in the arms of this young sorceress! One word for all times,-he whom a witch snares cannot be a king's true servant! I ask of thee as a right, or as a grace, see this fair ribaude no more! What, man, are there not ladies enough in merry England, that thou shouldst undo thyself for so unchristian a fere?"

"My king! how can this poor maid have angered thee thus?"

"Knowest thou not"-began the king, sharply, and changing colour as he eyed his favourite's mournful astonishment,-"ah, well!" he muttered to himself, "they have been discreet hitherto, but how long will they be so? I am in time yet. It is enough,"-he added, aloud and gravely-"it is enough that our learned [it will be remembered that Edward himself was a man of no learning] Bungey holds her father as a most pestilent wizard, whose spells are muttered for Lancaster and the rebel Warwick; that the girl hath her father's unholy gifts, and I lay my command on thee, as liege king, and I pray thee, as loving friend, to see no more either child or sire! Let this suffice-and now I will hear thee on state matters."

Whatever Hastings might feel, he saw that it was no time to venture remonstrance with the king, and strove to collect his thoughts, and speak indifferently on the high interests to which Edward invited him; but he was so distracted and absent that he made but a sorry counsellor, and the king, taking pity on him, dismissed his chamberlain for the night.

Sleep came not to the couch of Hastings; his acuteness perceived that whatever Edward's superst.i.tion, and he was a devout believer in witchcraft, some more worldly motive actuated him in his resentment to poor Sibyll. But as we need scarcely say that neither from the abstracted Warner nor his innocent daughter had Hastings learned the true cause, he wearied himself with vain conjectures, and knew not that Edward involuntarily did homage to the superior chivalry of his gallant favourite, when he dreaded that, above all men, Hastings should be made aware of the guilty secret which the philosopher and his child could tell. If Hastings gave his name and rank to Sibyll, how powerful a weight would the tale of a witness now so obscure suddenly acquire!

Turning from the image of Sibyll, thus beset with thoughts of danger, embarra.s.sment, humiliation, disgrace, ruin, Lord Hastings recalled the words of Gloucester; and the stately image of Katherine, surrounded with every memory of early pa.s.sion, every attribute of present ambition, rose before him; and he slept at last, to dream not of Sibyll and the humble orchard, but of Katherine in her maiden bloom, of the trysting-tree by the halls of Middleham, of the broken ring, of the rapture and the woe of his youth's first high-placed love.

CHAPTER IV. THE STRIFE WHICH SIBYLL HAD COURTED, BETWEEN KATHERINE AND HERSELF, COMMENCES IN SERIOUS EARNEST.

Hastings felt relieved when, the next day, several couriers arrived with tidings so important as to merge all considerations into those of state. A secret messenger from the French court threw Gloucester into one of those convulsive pa.s.sions of rage, to which, with all his intellect and dissimulation, he was sometimes subject, by the news of Anne's betrothal to Prince Edward; nor did the letter from Clarence to the king, attesting the success of one of his schemes, comfort Richard for the failure of the other. A letter from Burgundy confirmed the report of the spy, announced Duke Charles's intention of sending a fleet to prevent Warwick's invasion, and rated King Edward sharply for his supineness in not preparing suitably against so formidable a foe. The gay and reckless presumption of Edward, worthier of a knight-errant than a monarch, laughed at the word invasion. "Pest on Burgundy's s.h.i.+ps! I only wish that the earl would land!" [Com, iii. c. 5] he said to his council. None echoed the wis.h.!.+ But later in the day came a third messenger with information that roused all Edward's ire; careless of each danger in the distance, he ever sprang into energy and vengeance when a foe was already in the field. And the Lord Fitzhugh (the young n.o.bleman before seen among the rebels at Olney, and who had now succeeded to the honours of his House) had suddenly risen in the North, at the head of a formidable rebellion. No man had so large an experience in the warfare of those districts, the temper of the people, and the inclinations of the various towns and lords.h.i.+ps as Montagu; he was the natural chief to depute against the rebels. Some animated discussion took place as to the dependence to be placed in the marquis at such a crisis; but while the more wary held it safer, at all hazards, not to leave him unemployed, and to command his services in an expedition that would remove him from the neighbourhood of his brother, should the latter land, as was expected, on the coast of Norfolk, Edward, with a blindness of conceit that seems almost incredible, believed firmly in the infatuated loyalty of the man whom he had slighted and impoverished, and whom, by his offer of his daughter to the Lancastrian prince, he had yet more recently cozened and deluded. Montagu was hastily summoned, and received orders to march at once to the North, levy forces, and a.s.sume their command. The marquis obeyed with fewer words than were natural to him, left the presence, sprang on his horse, and as he rode from the palace, drew a letter from his bosom. "Ah, Edward," said he, setting his teeth, "so, after the solemn betrothal of thy daughter to my son, thou wouldst have given her to thy Lancastrian enemy. Coward, to bribe his peace! recreant, to belie thy word! I thank thee for this news, Warwick; for without that injury I feel I could never, when the hour came, have drawn sword against this faithless man,-especially for Lancaster. Ay, tremble, thou who deridest all truth and honour! He who himself betrays, cannot call vengeance treason!"

Meanwhile, Edward departed, for further preparations, to the Tower of London. New evidences of the mine beneath his feet here awaited the incredulous king. On the door of St. Paul's, of many of the metropolitan churches, on the Standard at Chepe, and on London Bridge, during the past night, had been affixed, none knew by whom, the celebrated proclamation, signed by Warwick and Clarence (drawn up in the bold style of the earl), announcing their speedy return, containing a brief and vigorous description of the misrule of the realm, and their determination to reform all evils and redress all wrongs. [See, for this proclamation, Ellis's "Original Letters," vol. i., second series, letter 42.] Though the proclamation named not the restoration of the Lancastrian line (doubtless from regard for Henry's safety), all men in the metropolis were already aware of the formidable league between Margaret and Warwick. Yet, even still, Edward smiled in contempt, for he had faith in the letter received from Clarence, and felt a.s.sured that the moment the duke and the earl landed, the former would betray his companion stealthily to the king; so, despite all these exciting subjects of grave alarm, the nightly banquet at the Tower was never merrier and more joyous. Hastings left the feast ere it deepened into revel, and, absorbed in various and profound contemplation, entered his apartment. He threw himself on a seat, and leaned his face on his hands.

"Oh, no, no!" he muttered; "now, in the hour when true greatness is most seen, when prince and peer crowd around me for counsel, when n.o.ble, knight, and squire crave permission to march in the troop of which Hastings is the leader,-now I feel how impossible, how falsely fair, the dream that I could forget all-all for a life of obscurity, for a young girl's love! Love! as if I had not felt its delusions to palling! love, as if I could love again: or, if love-alas, it must be a light reflected but from memory! And Katherine is free once more!" His eye fell as he spoke, perhaps in shame and remorse that, feeling thus now, he had felt so differently when he bade Sibyll smile till his return!

"It is the air of this accursed court which taints our best resolves!" he murmured, as an apology for himself; but scarcely was the poor excuse made, than the murmur broke into an exclamation of surprise and joy. A letter lay before him; he recognized the hand of Katherine. What years had pa.s.sed since her writing had met his eye, since the lines that bade him "farewell, and forget!" Those lines had been blotted with tears, and these, as he tore open the silk that bound them-these, the trace of tears, too, was on them! Yet they were but few, and in tremulous characters. They ran thus:- To-morrow, before noon, the Lord Hastings is prayed to visit one whose life he hath saddened by the thought and the accusation that she hath clouded and embittered his. KATHERINE DE BONVILLE.

Leaving Hastings to such meditations of fear or of hope as these lines could call forth, we lead the reader to a room not very distant from his own,-the room of the ill.u.s.trious Friar Bungey.

The ex-tregetour was standing before the captured Eureka, and gazing on it with an air of serio-comic despair and rage. We say the Eureka, as comprising all the ingenious contrivances towards one single object invented by its maker, a harmonious compound of many separate details; but the iron creature no longer deserved that superb appellation, for its various members were now disjointed and dislocated, and lay pell-mell in multiform confusion.

By the side of the friar stood a female, enveloped in a long scarlet mantle, with the hood partially drawn over the face, but still leaving visible the hard, thin, villanous lips, the stern, sharp chin, and the jaw resolute and solid as if hewed from stone.

"I tell thee, Graul," said the friar, "that thou hast had far the best of the bargain. I have put this diabolical contrivance to all manner of shapes, and have muttered over it enough Latin to have charmed a monster into civility. And the accursed thing, after nearly pinching off three fingers, and scalding me with seething water, and spluttering and sputtering enough to have terrified any man but Friar Bungey out of his skin, is obstinatus ut mulum,-dogged as a mule; and was absolutely good for nought, till I happily thought of separating this vessel from all the rest of the gear, and it serves now for the boiling my eggs! But by the soul of Father Merlin, whom the saints a.s.soil, I need not have given myself all this torment for a thing which, at best, does the work of a farthing pipkin!"

"Quick, master; the hour is late! I must go while yet the troopers and couriers and riders, hurrying to and fro, keep the gates from closing. What wantest thou with Graul?"

"More reverence, child!" growled the friar. "What I want of thee is briefly told, if thou hast the wit to serve me. This miserable Warner must himself expound to me the uses and trick of his malignant contrivance. Thou must find and bring him hither!"

"And if he will not expound?"

"The deputy governor of the Tower will lend me a stone dungeon, and, if need be, the use of the brake to unlock the dotard's tongue."

"On what plea?"

"That Adam Warner is a wizard, in the pay of Lord Warwick, whom a more mighty master like myself alone can duly examine and defeat."

"And if I bring thee the sorcerer, what wilt thou teach me in return?"

"What desirest thou most?"

Graul mused, and said, "There is war in the wind. Graul follows the camp, her trooper gets gold and booty. But the trooper is stronger than Graul; and when the trooper sleeps it is with his knife by his side, and his sleep is light and broken, for he has wicked dreams. Give me a potion to make sleep deep, that his eyes may not open when Graul filches his gold, and his hand may be too heavy to draw the knife from its sheath!"

"Immunda, detestabilis! thine own paramour!"

"He hath beat me with his bridle rein, he hath given a silver broad piece to Grisell; Grisell hath sat on his knee; Graul never pardons!"

The friar, rogue as he was, shuddered. "I cannot help thee to murder, I cannot give thee the potion; name some other reward."

"I go-"

"Nay, nay, think, pause."

"I know where Warner is hid. By this hour to-morrow night, I can place him in thy power. Say the word, and pledge me the draught."

"Well, well, mulier abominabilis!-that is, irresistible bonnibell. I cannot give thee the potion; but I will teach thee an art which can make sleep heavier than the anodyne, and which wastes not like the essence, but strengthens by usage,-an art thou shalt have at thy fingers' ends, and which often draws from the sleeper the darkest secrets of his heart." [We have before said that animal magnetism was known to Bungey, and familiar to the necromancers, or rather theurgists, of the Middle Ages.]

"It is magic," said Graul, with joy.

"Ay, magic."

"I will bring thee the wizard. But listen; he never stirs abroad, save with his daughter. I must bring both."

"Nay, I want not the girl."

"But I dare not throttle her, for a great lord loves her, who would find out the deed and avenge it; and if she be left behind, she will go to the lord, and the lord will discover what thou hast done with the wizard, and thou wilt hang!"

"Never say 'Hang' to me, Graul: it is ill-mannered and ominous. Who is the lord?"

"Hastings."

"Pest!-and already he hath been searching for the thing yonder; and I have brooded over it night and day, like a hen over a chalk egg,-only that the egg does not snap off the hen's claws, as that diabolism would fain snap off my digits. But the war will carry Hastings away in its whirlwind; and, in danger, the d.u.c.h.ess is my slave, and will bear me through all. So, thou mayst bring the girl; and strangle her not; for no good ever comes of a murder,-unless, indeed, it be absolutely necessary!"

"I know the men who will help me, bold ribauds, whom I will guerdon myself; for I want not thy coins, but thy craft. When the curfew has tolled, and the bat hunts the moth, we will bring thee the quarry-"

Graul turned; but as she gained the door, she stopped, and said abruptly, throwing back her hood,- "What age dost thou deem me?"

"Marry," quoth the friar, "an' I had not seen thee on thy mother's knee when she followed my stage of tregetour, I should have guessed thee for thirty; but thou hast led too jolly a life to look still in the blossom. Why speer'st thou the question?"

"Because when trooper and ribaud say to me, 'Graul, thou art too worn and too old to drink of our cup and sit in the lap, to follow the young fere to the battle, and weave the blithe dance in the fair,' I would depart from my sisters, and have a hut of my own, and a black cat without a white hair, and steal herbs by the new moon, and bones from the charnel, and curse those whom I hate, and cleave the misty air on a besom, like Mother Halkin of Edmonton. Ha, ha! Master, thou shalt present me then to the Sabbat. Graul has the mettle for a bonny witch!"

The tymbestere vanished with a laugh. The friar muttered a paternoster for once, perchance, devoutly, and after having again deliberately scanned the disjecta membra of the Eureka, gravely took forth a duck's egg from his cupboard, and applied the master-agent of the machine which Warner hoped was to change the face of the globe to the only practical utility it possessed to the mountebank's comprehension.

CHAPTER V. THE MEETING OF HASTINGS AND KATHERINE.

The next morning, while Edward was engaged in levying from his opulent citizens all the loans he could extract, knowing that gold is the sinew of war; while Worcester was manning the fortress of the Tower, in which the queen, then near her confinement, was to reside during the campaign; while Gloucester was writing commissions to captains and barons to raise men; while Sir Anthony Lord Rivers was ordering improvements in his dainty damasquine armour, and the whole Fortress Palatine was animated and alive with the stir of the coming strife,-Lord Hastings escaped from the bustle, and repaired to the house of Katherine. With what motive, with what intentions, was not known clearly to himself,-perhaps, for there was bitterness in his very love for Katherine, to enjoy the retaliation due to his own wounded pride, and say to the idol of his youth, as he had said to Gloucester, "Time is, time was;" perhaps with some remembrance of the faith due to Sibyll, wakened up the more now that Katherine seemed actually to escape from the ideal image into the real woman,-to be easily wooed and won. But, certainly, Sibyll's cause was not wholly lost, though greatly shaken and endangered, when Lord Hastings alighted at Lady Bonville's gate; but his face gradually grew paler, his mien less a.s.sured, as he drew nearer and nearer to the apartment and the presence of the widowed Katherine.

She was seated alone, and in the same room in which he had last seen her. Her deep mourning only served, by contrasting the pale and exquisite clearness of her complexion, to enhance her beauty. Hastings bowed low, and seated himself by her side in silence.