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

they ascended the gentle hill we have mentioned, and looking from the top, had the pleasure to see that the party which had left Donnington before them were in the little valley or bottom on the other side, where the road was traversed by a rivulet, beside which was a cottage or two. In this place they seemed to have made a pause, which gave Wayland the hope of joining them, and becoming a part of their company, ere Varney should overtake them. He was the more anxious, as his companion, though she made no complaints, and expressed no fear, began to look so deadly pale that he was afraid she might drop from her horse. Notwithstanding this symptom of decaying strength, she pushed on her palfrey so briskly that they joined the party in the bottom of the valley ere Varney appeared on the top of the gentle eminence which they had descended.

They found the company to which they meant to associate themselves in great disorder. The women with dishevelled locks, and looks of great importance, ran in and out of one of the cottages, and the men stood around holding the horses, and looking silly enough, as is usual in cases where their assistance is not wanted.

Wayland and his charge paused, as if out of curiosity, and then gradually, without making any inquiries, or being asked any questions, they mingled with the group, as if they had always made part of it.

They had not stood there above five minutes, anxiously keeping as much to the side of the road as possible, so as to place the other travellers betwixt them and Varney, when Lord Leicester's master of the horse, followed by Lambourne, came riding fiercely down the hill, their horses' flanks and the rowels of their spurs showing bloody tokens of the rate at which they travelled. The appearance of the stationary group around the cottages, wearing their buckram suits in order to protect their masking dresses, having their light cart for transporting their scenery, and carrying various fantastic properties in their hands for the more easy conveyance, let the riders at once into the character and purpose of the company.

“You are revellers,” said Varney, “designing for Kenilworth?”

“RECTE QUIDEM, DOMINE SPECTATISSIME,” answered one of the party.

“And why the devil stand you here?” said Varney, “when your utmost dispatch will but bring you to Kenilworth in time? The Queen dines at Warwick to-morrow, and you loiter here, ye knaves.”

“I very truth, sir,” said a little, diminutive urchin, wearing a vizard with a couple of sprouting horns of an elegant scarlet hue, having, moreover, a black serge jerkin drawn close to his body by lacing, garnished with red stockings, and shoes so shaped as to resemble cloven feet—“in very truth, sir, and you are in the right on't. It is my father the Devil, who, being taken in labour, has delayed our present purpose, by increasing our company with an imp too many.”

“The devil he has!” answered Varney, whose laugh, however, never exceeded a sarcastic smile.

“It is even as the juvenal hath said,” added the masker who spoke first; “Our major devil—for this is but our minor one—is even now at LUCINA, FER OPEM, within that very TUGURIUM.”

“By Saint George, or rather by the Dragon, who may be a kinsman of the fiend in the straw, a most comical chance!” said Varney. “How sayest thou, Lambourne, wilt thou stand godfather for the nonce? If the devil were to choose a gossip, I know no one more fit for the office.”

“Saving always when my betters are in presence,” said Lambourne, with the civil impudence of a servant who knows his services to be so indispensable that his jest will be permitted to pass muster.

“And what is the name of this devil, or devil's dam, who has timed her turns so strangely?” said Varney. “We can ill afford to spare any of our actors.”

“GAUDET NOMINE SIBYLLAE,” said the first speaker; “she is called Sibyl Laneham, wife of Master Robert Laneham—”

“Clerk to the Council-chamber door,” said Varney; “why, she is inexcusable, having had experience how to have ordered her matters better. But who were those, a man and a woman, I think, who rode so hastily up the hill before me even now? Do they belong to your company?”

Wayland was about to hazard a reply to this alarming inquiry, when the little diablotin again thrust in his oar.

“So please you,” he said, coming close up to Varney, and speaking so as not to be overheard by his companions, “the man was our devil major, who has tricks enough to supply the lack of a hundred such as Dame Laneham; and the woman, if you please, is the sage person whose assistance is most particularly necessary to our distressed comrade.”

“Oh, what! you have got the wise woman, then?” said Varney. “Why, truly, she rode like one bound to a place where she was needed. And you have a spare limb of Satan, besides, to supply the place of Mistress Laneham?”

“Ay, sir,” said the boy; “they are not so scarce in this world as your honour's virtuous eminence would suppose. This master-fiend shall spit a few flashes of fire, and eruct a volume or two of smoke on the spot, if it will do you pleasure—you would think he had AEtna in his abdomen.”

“I lack time just now, most hopeful imp of darkness, to witness his performance,” said Varney; “but here is something for you all to drink the lucky hour—and so, as the play says, 'God be with Your labour!'”

Thus speaking, he struck his horse with the spurs, and rode on his way.

Lambourne tarried a moment or two behind his master, and rummaged his pouch for a piece of silver, which he bestowed on the communicative imp, as he said, for his encouragement on his path to the infernal regions, some sparks of whose fire, he said, he could discover flashing from him already. Then having received the boy's thanks for his generosity he also spurred his horse, and rode after his master as fast as the fire flashes from flint.

“And now,” said the wily imp, sidling close up to Wayland's horse, and cutting a gambol in the air which seemed to vindicate his title to relationship with the prince of that element, “I have told them who YOU are, do you in return tell me who I am?”

“Either Flibbertigibbet,” answered Wayland Smith, “or else an imp of the devil in good earnest.”

“Thou hast hit it,” answered Dickie Sludge. “I am thine own Flibbertigibbet, man; and I have broken forth of bounds, along with my learned preceptor, as I told thee I would do, whether he would or not. But what lady hast thou got with thee? I saw thou wert at fault the first question was asked, and so I drew up for thy assistance. But I must know all who she is, dear Wayland.”

“Thou shalt know fifty finer things, my dear ingle,” said Wayland; “but a truce to thine inquiries just now. And since you are bound for Kenilworth, thither will I too, even for the love of thy sweet face and waggish company.”

“Thou shouldst have said my waggish face and sweet company,” said Dickie; “but how wilt thou travel with us—I mean in what character?”