No ba', no meat at a'."
Dame Joan of Waddington was the presiding genius of the feast, the conduit-pipe through which flowed the full stream of daily bounty, dispensing every blessing, even the most minute. In that golden age of domestic discipline it was not beneath the dignity of a careful housewife to attend and take the lead in all culinary arrangements.
The master strode to and fro in the hall, and Elizabeth was humming at her wheel. He looked anxious and ill at ease, often casting a furtive glance towards the entrance, and occasionally a side-look at his daughter. She sometimes watched her father's eye, as though she had caught his restless apprehensions, and would have inquired the cause of his uneasiness. Suddenly a loud bay from a favourite hound that was dozing on the hearth announced the approach of a stranger. Oliver advanced with a quick step into the courtyard, and soon re-entered leading in a middle-sized, middle-aged personage, slightly formed, whose pale and saintly features looked haggard and apprehensive, while his eye wavered to and fro, less perhaps with curiosity than suspicion.
He was wrapped in a grey cloak; and a leathern jerkin, barely meeting in front, displayed a considerable breadth of under garment in the space between hose and doublet. These were fastened together with tags or points, superseding the use of wooden skewers, with which latter mode of suspension not a few of our country yeomen were in those days supplied. His legs were protected by boots of fine brown Spanish leather, lined with deer-skin, tanned with the fur on, and buttoned from the ankle to the knee. He had gloves of the same material, reaching to the elbow when drawn up, but now turned down with the fur outwards. The hands and feet were remarkably small, but well shapen. A low grey cap of coarse woollen completed the costume of this singular visitor. There was, at times, in the expression of his eye, an indescribable mixture of imbecility and enthusiasm, as though the spirit of some Eastern fakir had reanimated a living body. A gleam of almost supernatural intelligence was mingled with an expression of fatuity, that in less enlightened ages would have invested him with the dangerous reputation of priest or prophet in the eyes of the multitude.
Oliver Tempest led the way with great care and formality. To a keen-eyed observer, though, his courtesy would have appeared over acted and fulsome; but the object of his assiduities seemed to pay him little attention, further than by a vacant smile that struggled around the corners of his melancholy and placid mouth.
Dame Joan Tempest now came forth, bending thrice in a deep and formal acknowledgment. The stranger stayed her speech with a look of great benignity.
"I know thy words are what our kindness would interpret, and I thank thee. Your hospitality shall not lose its savour in my remembrance, when England hath grown weary of her guilt,—when the cry of the widow and the fatherless shall have prevailed. I am hunted like a partridge on the mountains; but, by the help of my God, I shall yet escape from the noisome pit, and from the snares of the fowler."
Yet the look which accompanied this prediction seemed incredulous of its purport. He heaved a deep sigh, and his eyes were suddenly bent on the ground. Being introduced into the hall, the seat of honour was assigned him at the table.
Elizabeth, when she saw him, uttered an ill-suppressed exclamation of surprise, and her pale countenance grew almost ghastly. Her lips were bloodless, quivering with terror and dismay. Agony was depicted on her brow—that agony which leaves the spirit without support to struggle with unknown, undefined, uncomprehended evil. Not a word escaped her; she hurried out of the hall, as she thought, without observation; but this sudden movement did not escape the eye of her father. Triumph sat on his brow; and his cheek seemed flushed with joy at the result of his stratagem.
The servitors appeared; and the smoking victuals were disposed in their due order. The joints were placed at the upper end of the board, while broth and pottage steamed out their savoury fumes from the lower end of the table. At some distance below the master and his dame sat the male domestics, then the females, who occupied the lower places at the feast, except two, who waited on the rest.
The master blessed the meal, the whole company standing. The broth was served round to the lower forms, and the meat and dainties to the higher; but Elizabeth was still absent.
When she left the hall it was for the purpose of speaking to Gregory, whom she found skulking and peeping about the premises.
"Gregory, why art thou absent from thy nooning?" inquired Elizabeth, with a suspicious and scrutinising glance.
"I'm not o'er careful to bide i' the house just now. Is there aught come that—that"—Here he stammered and looked round, confirming the suspicions of the inquirer.
"Gregory, thou art a traitor; but thou shalt not escape thy reward. I'll have thee hung—ay, villain, beyond the reach of aught but crows and kites."
"Whoy, mistress, I'd leifer be hung nor stifled to death wi' brimstone and bad humours."
"None o' thy quiddities, thou maker of long lies and quick legs. Confess, or I'll"—
"Whoy, look ye, mistress, you've been kind, and pulled me out of many an ugly ditch."
"Why dost thou hesitate, knave? I'm glad thy memory is not so treacherous as thy tongue."
"Nay, mistress, I've no notion to sup brose wi' t' old one: those that dinner wi' him he may happen ask to supper; and he'd need have a long whittle that cuts crumbs wi' the de'il."
"Art thou at thy riddles again? Speak in sober similitudes, if thou canst, sirrah."
"Your father sent me on a message to the little devilkin last night. I was loth enough to the job; but he catched me as I went wi' the victuals."
"A message!—and to what purport?"
"Nay, that I know not. The invitation was conveyed in a scrap of writing, and I'm not gifted in clerkship an' such like matters."
A ray of intelligence now burst upon her. She saw the imminent danger which threatened the fugitive, who had been hitherto concealed principally by her contrivances. Gregory watched the rapid and changing hues alternating on her cheek. She saw the full extent of the emergency; and, though her father was the traitor, she hesitated not in that trying moment.
No time was to be lost, and measures were immediately taken to countervail these designs.
"What answer sent he?" she hastily inquired.
"The de'il's buckie said his master would be at the hall by dinner-time; and I'll not be one o' the guests where old Clootie has the pick o' the table."
"Thou witless runnion, haste, or we are lost! It is the king! I would I had trusted thee before with the secret. Mayhap thy wit would have been without obscuration. Supernatural terrors have taken thy reason prisoner. Haste, nor look behind thee until thou art under the eaves of Bashall. This to my cousin, Edmund Talbot; he is honest, or my wishes themselves are turned traitors," said the maiden wistfully. She scrawled but one line, with which Gregory departed on his errand.
Oliver Tempest grew uneasy at his daughter's absence. He inquired the cause, but all were alike ignorant. The king inquired too, with some surprise; and a messenger was despatched with a close whisper in his ear.
The meal was nigh finished, when all eyes were turned towards the entrance. A little blackamoor page came waddling in. He made no sign nor obeisance, but took his station, without speaking, behind his master's chair.
"Why, how now, my trusty squire?" said the disguised monarch; "thou wast not bidden to this feast."
The dwarf cast a scowling glance at the master of the house, and he replied, while a hideous grin dilated his thick stubborn features—
"This be goodly wassail, methinks. I am weary of lurching and torchlight."
"Tempest," said the king, "I would crave grace for this follower of mine. He is somewhat fearsome and forbidding, but of an unwearied fidelity."
"Troth," said Tempest, still wishful to maintain the king's incognito, "the Turks having now taken Byzantium, the great bulwark of Christendom, I did fear me that the first of the tribe from that great army of locusts had descended upon us."
"Fear not," said the unfortunate monarch, with a smile; "this poor innocent will do no ill. His mistress brought him for me a present from her father's court; and, to say the truth, he has been a great solace in my trouble. He hath not forsaken me when they who fattened on my bounty—who dipped their hands with me in the dish—have been the first to betray me. The knave is shrewd and playful, but of an incredible strength, being, as ye may observe, double-jointed. Madoc, let them behold some token of thy power."
The cunning rogue obeyed in a twinkling. He seized the host's chair with one hand, lifting its occupant without difficulty from the ground. With the other he laid hold on him by the throat, and would certainly have strangled him but for the king.
The assault was so sudden and unexpected that the domestics stood still a moment, as though rendered powerless by surprise.
The next instant they all fled pell-mell out of the hall, every one struggling to be foremost, apprehending that the great personification of all evil was there, bodily, behind them, and in the very act of flying off with their master.
In vain Joan shouted after the cowardly villains; her threats but increased their speed.
"Fly, King Henry," cried the dwarf, in a voice that sounded like the roar of some infuriated beast; "the rascal curs are barking; the stag is in the net. This traitor"—Here he became at a loss for words; but his gesticulations were more vehement. "Fly!" at length he shouted, in a louder voice than before; "I've seen sword and armour glittering in the forest."
But the king was irresolute, as much amazed as any of the rest. He saw the imminent danger of his host, whose face was blackening above the grip of this fierce antagonist, and he cried out—
"Leave go, Madoc; let the curs bark, we fear them not in this good house. Let go, I command thee."
With a look of pity and of scorn the savage loosened his hold, saying—
"Thou be'st not king now; but Henry with the beads and breviary; and here come thy tormentors."
A loud whistle rang through the hall, and in burst a band of armed men, led on by Sir Thomas Talbot of Bashall, and his oldest son of the same name, together with Sir James Harrington.
Tempest, recovered from his gripe, made a furious dart at the king; but ere he had accomplished his purpose, Edmund Talbot rushed between, at the peril of his life, opening a way for the terrified monarch through the band that had nearly surrounded him.
The king fled through the passage made by his deliverer; and the dwarf, keeping his enemies at bay, heroically and effectually covered his retreat.
"Edmund Talbot, art thou traitor to thy kin?" said Sir Thomas, from the crowd. "Let me pass; 'tis thy father commands thee. 'Tis not thy king, he is a coward and a usurper."
"I care not," said the retreating and faithful Edmund. "My arm shall not compass with traitors. Cowards attack unarmed men at their meals."
"Then take thy reward." It was the eldest brother of Edmund who said this, whilst he aimed a terrific blow; but the dwarf caught his arm ere it descended, and a swinging stroke from a missile which he had picked up in the fray would have settled accounts between the heir of Bashall and posterity had he not stepped aside.
This unequal contest, however, could not long continue, though time, the principal object, was gained, and the king was fast hastening again towards the cavern. In the courtyard he met Elizabeth, who implored him to step aside into another place of concealment; but he was too much terrified to comprehend her meaning. Fear seemed to have bewildered him, and the poor persecuted monarch sped on to his own destruction. In the hurry and uncertainty of his flight, he unfortunately took the wrong path, which led by a circuitous route to the ford; and, as he stepped out of the wood, two of his enemies, having broken through the gallant defence of his adherents, had already gained, and were guarding, the stepping-stones over the river, called "Brunckerley Hippens." Terrified, he flew back into the wood, but was immediately followed; and again his evil destiny seemed to prevail. He took another path, which led him back to the ford. Here he crossed, and, whilst leaping with difficulty over the stones, the pursuers came in full view. Having gained the Lancashire side, he fled into the wood, but his enemies were now too close upon him for escape, and the royal captive was taken, bound, and conveyed to Bashall. Many cruel indignities were heaped upon him; and he was conveyed to London in the most piteous plight, on horseback, with his legs tied to the stirrups. Ere he departed, it is said that he delivered a singular prediction—to wit, that nine generations of the Talbot family, in succession, should consist of a wise and a weak man by turns, after which the name should be lost.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] Whitaker's Craven.
[55] Pennant.
[56] Hist. Whalley.
[57] Webster, in his Metallographia, mentions a field called Skilhorn, in the township of Rivington-within-Craven, "belonging to one Mr Pudsay, an ancient esquire, and owner of Bolton Hall, juxta Bolland; who, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, did get good store of silver-ore, and convert it to his own use, or rather coined it, as many do believe, there being many shillings marked with an escallop, which the people of that country call Pudsay shillings to this day. But whether way soever it was, he procured his pardon for it, and had it, as I am certified from the mouths of those who had seen it." Webster further adds: "While old Basby (a chemist) was with me, I procured some of the ore, which yielded after the rate of twenty-six pounds of silver per ton. Since then, good store of lead has been gotten; but I never could procure any more of the sort formerly gotten; the miners being so cunning, that if they meet with any vein that contains so much ore as will make it a myne royall, they will not discover it."
Dr Whitaker, in his History of Craven, says: "The following papers, lately communicated to me from the evidences of the Pudsays, put the matter out of doubt:—'Case of a myne royall. Although the gold or silver contained in the base metalls of a mine in the land of a subject be of less value than the baser metall, yet if gold and silver doe countervaile the charge of refining, or bee of more value than the baser metall spent in refining itt, this is a myne royall, and as wel the base metall as the gold and silver in it, belongs to the crown.
"'Edw. Herbert, Attorney-General.
Oliver St John, Solicitor-General.
Orl. Bridgman.
Joh. Glanvill.
Jeoffry Palmer.
Tho. Lane.
Jo. Maynard.
Hdw. Hyde.
J. Glynn.
Harbottle Grimstone,' &c.
"So favourable at that time were the opinions of the most constitutional lawyers (for such were the greater part of these illustrious names) to the prerogative. But the law on this head has been very wisely altered by two statutes of William and Mary.—Blackstone, iv. 295.
"The other paper is of later date:—'To the King's most excellent Majestie. The humble petition of Ambrose Pudsay, Esq., sheweth, that your petitioner having suffered much by imprisonment, plunder, &c., for his bounden loyalty, and having many years concealed a myne royall, in Craven, in Yorkshire, prayeth a patent for digging and refining the same.'"
[58] Hist, of Whalley, p. 504.
[59] This lady, whose attractions or good fortune must have been uncommon, says the historian of Craven, was daughter to Henry Pudsay of Bolton. She married, first, Sir Thomas Talbot of Bashall, who died 13 Henry VII.; after which she became the second wife of Henry, Lord Clifford, the shepherd; and, after his decease, by the procurement of Henry VIII., gave her hand to Richard Grey, youngest son of Thomas, Marquis of Dorset.
END OF VOL. I.
Printed by Ballantyne and Company Edinburgh and London