Kenilworth, Walter Scott [children's books read aloud txt] 📗

“Surely,” said the clergyman; “it was a house of removal for the monks of Abingdon.”

“Whose arms,” said Master Michael, “I have seen over a stone chimney in the hall,—a cross patonce betwixt four martlets.”

“There,” said Tressilian, “this unhappy maiden resides, in company with the villain Varney. But for a strange mishap, my sword had revenged all our injuries, as well as hers, on his worthless head.”

“Thank God, that kept thine hand from blood-guiltiness, rash young man!” answered the curate. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay it. It were better study to free her from the villain's nets of infamy.”

“They are called, in heraldry, LAQUEI AMORIS, or LACS D'AMOUR,” said Mumblazen.

“It is in that I require your aid, my friends,” said Tressilian. “I am resolved to accuse this villain, at the very foot of the throne, of falsehood, seduction, and breach of hospitable laws. The Queen shall hear me, though the Earl of Leicester, the villain's patron, stood at her right hand.”

“Her Grace,” said the curate, “hath set a comely example of continence to her subjects, and will doubtless do justice on this inhospitable robber. But wert thou not better apply to the Earl of Leicester, in the first place, for justice on his servant? If he grants it, thou dost save the risk of making thyself a powerful adversary, which will certainly chance if, in the first instance, you accuse his master of the horse and prime favourite before the Queen.”

“My mind revolts from your counsel,” said Tressilian. “I cannot brook to plead my noble patron's cause the unhappy Amy's cause—before any one save my lawful Sovereign. Leicester, thou wilt say, is noble. Be it so; he is but a subject like ourselves, and I will not carry my plaint to him, if I can do better. Still, I will think on what thou hast said; but I must have your assistance to persuade the good Sir Hugh to make me his commissioner and fiduciary in this matter, for it is in his name I must speak, and not in my own. Since she is so far changed as to dote upon this empty profligate courtier, he shall at least do her the justice which is yet in his power.”

“Better she died CAELEBS and SINE PROLE,” said Mumblazen, with more animation than he usually expressed, “than part, PER PALE, the noble coat of Robsart with that of such a miscreant!”

“If it be your object, as I cannot question,” said the clergyman, “to save, as much as is yet possible, the credit of this unhappy young woman, I repeat, you should apply, in the first instance, to the Earl of Leicester. He is as absolute in his household as the Queen in her kingdom, and if he expresses to Varney that such is his pleasure, her honour will not stand so publicly committed.”

“You are right, you are right!” said Tressilian eagerly, “and I thank you for pointing out what I overlooked in my haste. I little thought ever to have besought grace of Leicester; but I could kneel to the proud Dudley, if doing so could remove one shade of shame from this unhappy damsel. You will assist me then to procure the necessary powers from Sir Hugh Robsart?”

The curate assured him of his assistance, and the herald nodded assent.

“You must hold yourselves also in readiness to testify, in case you are called upon, the openhearted hospitality which our good patron exercised towards this deceitful traitor, and the solicitude with which he laboured to seduce his unhappy daughter.”

“At first,” said the clergyman, “she did not, as it seemed to me, much affect his company; but latterly I saw them often together.”

“SEIANT in the parlour,” said Michael Mumblazen, “and PASSANT in the garden.”

“I once came on them by chance,” said the priest, “in the South wood, in a spring evening. Varney was muffled in a russet cloak, so that I saw not his face. They separated hastily, as they heard me rustle amongst the leaves; and I observed she turned her head and looked long after him.”

“With neck REGUARDANT,” said the herald. “And on the day of her flight, and that was on Saint Austen's Eve, I saw Varney's groom, attired in his liveries, hold his master's horse and Mistress Amy's palfrey, bridled and saddled PROPER, behind the wall of the churchyard.”

“And now is she found mewed up in his secret place of retirement,” said Tressilian. “The villain is taken in the manner, and I well wish he may deny his crime, that I may thrust conviction down his false throat! But I must prepare for my journey. Do you, gentlemen, dispose my patron to grant me such powers as are needful to act in his name.”

So saying, Tressilian left the room.

“He is too hot,” said the curate; “and I pray to God that He may grant him the patience to deal with Varney as is fitting.”

“Patience and Varney,” said Mumblazen, “is worse heraldry than metal upon metal. He is more false than a siren, more rapacious than a griffin, more poisonous than a wyvern, and more cruel than a lion rampant.”

“Yet I doubt much,” said the curate, “whether we can with propriety ask from Sir Hugh Robsart, being in his present condition, any deed deputing his paternal right in Mistress Amy to whomsoever—”

“Your reverence need not doubt that,” said Will Badger, who entered as he spoke, “for I will lay my life he is another man when he wakes than he has been these thirty days past.”

“Ay, Will,” said the curate, “hast thou then so much confidence in Doctor Diddleum's draught?”

“Not a whit,” said Will, “because master ne'er tasted a drop on't, seeing it was emptied out by the housemaid. But here's a gentleman, who came attending on Master Tressilian, has given Sir Hugh a draught that is worth twenty of yon un. I have spoken cunningly with him, and a better farrier or one who hath a more just notion of horse and dog ailment I have never seen; and such a one would never be unjust to a Christian man.”

“A farrier! you saucy groom—and by whose authority, pray?” said the curate, rising in surprise and indignation; “or who will be warrant for this new physician?”

“For authority, an it like your reverence, he had mine; and for warrant, I trust I have not been five-and-twenty years in this house without having right to warrant the giving of a draught to beast or body—I who can gie a drench, and a ball, and bleed, or blister, if need, to my very self.”

The counsellors of the house of Robsart thought it meet to carry this information instantly to Tressilian, who as speedily summoned before him Wayland Smith, and demanded of him (in private, however) by what authority he had ventured to administer any medicine to Sir Hugh Robsart?

“Why,” replied the artist, “your worship cannot but remember that I told you I had made more progress into my master's—I mean the learned Doctor Doboobie's—mystery than he was willing to own; and indeed