The house of the wizard

Tidings of an arrest for high treason travelled but slowly. The movements of the government were swift and secret. A man might be pounced upon, examined, committed to prison, and his own family be unconscious of his situation. It was a golden opportunity for the false witness; for the public gratification of private malice. The marvellous stories told at the trials showed the luxuriance of the popular imagination.

No intimation of Lord Raby’s fate reached the household at Deptford. He had been expected to return almost immediately, but he came not, and his absence was attributed to some unlooked-for business. At first, Sir William threatened to set out for Devon without him, but seeing his niece’s disappointment and remembering that Raby had accepted a commission from him, he decided to wait, although he chafed under the delay.

The third day after Raby’s departure, Mistress Betty was riding through the fields behind Lady Crabtree’s house. She had been out with her uncle and was returning alone by a short cut, leaving Sir William some distance behind, engaged in conversation with an acquaintance. The meadow through which Betty rode lay behind the orchards and was skirted on the right by a copse of beech-trees. She was walking her horse and had come nearly to the middle of the field, when a man stepped out from the shadow of the trees. At first, taking him for one of old Madam’s household, she did not notice him, and it was not until he had fairly placed himself before her horse that she recognized Sir Barton Henge. Her animal stopping of its own accord, Henge caught the bridle and for the moment held her prisoner. She was not naturally fearful and her only feeling was one of indignation.

“Let go the bridle, sir!” she said angrily; “what right have you to stop me?”

“I have tidings for you, fair mistress,” Sir Barton replied, with an evil smile upon his handsome face; “tidings of my Lord Raby, which are for your ear alone.”

“Sir, loose my horse!” she cried, vainly endeavoring to drive the animal forward or to one side, but Henge was too strong for her and held the creature’s head.

“You seem not over-anxious to hear tidings of your lover,” he said mockingly; “yet it may be that you will presently find it difficult to get any more.”

Something in his manner, more than his words, drove the blood to her heart. What had this wretch done? Where was Simon Raby? Yet so little was she like other women that she forbore to cry out or ask a question. She sat her horse like a statue, her face white and her great dark eyes fixed on her tormentor. She scorned him, scorned even his power to injure her, and he saw it and hated her the more; for between this wild passion, that such men call love, and hatred there is but a single step. Her beauty set his blood on fire, her scorn of him awoke every evil impulse in his breast and made him long to humble her.

“So,” he said, with keen anticipation of the pain he had in store for her, “you have no questions to ask, and Simon Raby’s fate is a matter of indifference to you? ’Tis well; it would be a shame to spoil those bright eyes with tears—even for a lover.”

She set her teeth and struck her horse upon the flank; the animal plunged, but Henge held him yet. She looked back wildly for aid, but she could not see her uncle. What folly had made her ride on alone?

“Well, well, I must tell you,” Henge said, smiling in evil triumph, “since you are too shy to ask. Lord Raby is in the Tower.”

She knew the man to be a villain, yet something in his manner convinced her that he spoke the truth. Raby’s long absence was explained, and a chill of horror crept over her, but her pride sustained her resolution.

“He was taken the day he left you here,” continued Henge, a little baffled by her manner and her silence; “he is charged with high treason and is like to suffer for his sins. All these years he has but fawned upon the king’s grace to betray him. A traitor and a pretty rogue, this lover of yours, Mistress Carew!”

Wrath overcame Mistress Betty’s womanly fears; in her right hand she held a stout whip, and she sat upright in her saddle, looking like a beautiful young fury.

“You knave!” she cried; “you lying knave!” and she struck him full across the face, below the eyes, with such sudden violence that he relaxed his hold, and her horse plunging, set her free, and dashed away across the field, while Sir Barton Henge stood staring after her, a curse upon his lips and on his face the great red welt that followed her lash. And she, riding to the house, dismounted, and running into the hall, fell on her knees before old Madam, and hiding her face in her lap, cried out that Simon Raby was in the Tower.

“Yea, I know,” said my lady, calmly, “and they have taken the wizard, Zachary Sanders; ’tis a pretty mess. Come, my wench, tears will not mend the matter nor unlock the jail.”

As she spoke, Sir William came in, fresh from a gallop across the fields, and smiling; but at the sight of Betty’s white face and the frown between old Madam’s brows, he stopped.

“What means this?” he asked; “you look as if you had seen a corpse-light.”

“There be tidings from London,” Lady Crabtree answered; “Lord Raby hath gone to the Tower accused of high treason.”

Amazement tied Sir William’s tongue; he seated himself opposite his cousin and waited for an explanation, his honest face much clouded. Lady Crabtree spread out a letter on her knee and prepared to read the news.

“This comes from Mistress Gaynsford, Queen Anne’s maid,” she said, her open hand resting on the long roll of parchment; “she is a gossip, but I doubt not the truth of the matter.”

“Let us hear it, Zenobia,” Carew returned impatiently.

“She says of the arrest,” began my lady, reading, “‘Lord Raby was taken on a charge, secretly preferred to my lord privy seal, and on examination, a packet was found on his person, filled with treasonable papers, and exposing the network of a huge conspiracy. Many names were on a list therein; whose we know not, but Cromwell and the king’s grace have the papers, and doubtless many tremble in the fear of apprehension. No one knows where the lightning hath struck or who is spared, but ’tis said the gentlemen in the northern counties are many of them singed. The strangest part of the matter is that there runs a story that Raby gave this budget to my lord privy seal himself with every show of innocence, and when it was thought that he did it through an error, having two upon his person, he was searched, but none other was found; and what madness made him give this to Cromwell, no man can devise.’”

“’Tis passing strange,” remarked Sir William; “where was my packet?”

“‘These papers,’” continued old Madam, reading, “‘contained such full betrayal of the wizard Sanders, who so frightened the late queen, that the order for his arrest was given. The fashion in which he was taken will furnish you with entertainment withal. The man who played the informer, in the first instance, before Raby’s arrest, had mastered almost every secret of the strange house upon the river. He told the officers of the guard who went to take the astrologer that there was a tunnel from the cellar of the house, and that they must guard first the outlet of that before they strove to force the upper part. The entrance in the house he had never found, but the outlet by the river he knew. They said ’twas scarce larger than a mole-hill and cleverly concealed. Well, here sat down three of the king’s men, while others went and searched the house. There they were transfixed by terror, for when each one looked in that magic mirror, he saw the devil, horns and hoofs and tail, but when they all looked, it was blank. A young page with them had a fit from fright. ’Tis said by some that it is only too faithful a glass. They found not the wizard, nor was there a bit of writing there. But the trio by the hole in the ground had better luck. Out of it the magician appeared so suddenly, and was so near the color of the earth in his russet cloak, that he frightened them so much that two fell sprawling in the river mud, and had not the third been a big man and valiant, my lord wizard would have escaped. They have him now safe in the Tower, though ’tis said he rides out of it each night upon a moonbeam and returns when the cocks are crowing.

“‘How came my Lord Raby to conspire with this man? I remember that he and Francis Bryan were ready to slit his throat the night the queen took her fright. Yet ’tis said that the case is clear enough, and there is some wonder when the trial will come off.

“‘The court is dull; Queen Jane is not yet crowned, though there is constant talk of it. She will have no maids save those who wear a girdle of over a hundred and twenty-five pearls. Anne Basset had one from her mother, Lady Lisle, of a hundred and twenty, and she could not appear in it. The king’s leg is said to be worse than reported; he is fond of the queen, whom some think fairer than Anne; she can, at least, wear more fine clothes at once and look better, while Queen Anne was more beautiful in simple robes. This queen is very gracious to the Lady Mary Tudor and ’tis thought will win upon the papists. She is—’”

“Oh, hush!” ejaculated Carew; “the woman’s pen is worse than her tongue. I must to London to see what can be done for Raby; ’tis a bad business, and I understand it not.”

All the while, Mistress Betty had listened with a pale face, resolution growing in it as the matter unfolded itself. She did not speak of Barton Henge; his part in it sank into insignificance now.

“Uncle,” she said firmly, “I will go with you.”

“What, wench?” he said in surprise; “of what use would you be?”

“Nevertheless, deny me not,” Betty said; “I would go and, at least, I will not hinder you.”

“Let her have her way, William,” Lady Crabtree said; “the girl’s face will help you, and she is in a mood to fret out her heart here.”