Solomon was deeply mortified. He had great veneration for court, but he had greater for his own talent, and he loved not to hear it called in question: he therefore scanned the waiting-maid after his peculiar mode, and then drawing himself up, stroked his chin, and replied, "That great men had sat at his master's table, and had, he was well a.s.sured, praised his skill in words which could not be repeated--that Lady Frances herself had condescended to ask his method of blanching almonds, and lauded his white chicken soup; and that he should not dread being commanded to serve a banquet unto the Lord Protector himself."

Mistress Maud sneered, and examined a third jelly, which she was reluctantly compelled to quit by a summons from her lady.

"What robe would your ladyship desire?" she inquired of Lady Frances, whose eyes were red with weeping, and who appeared astonishingly careless upon a point that usually occupied much of her attention.

"Would your ladyship like the white and silver, with the pearl loopings and diamond stomacher?"

"What need to trouble me as to the robe?" at length she replied with an irritability of manner to which she too often yielded. "Why do I entertain two lazy hussies, but to see after my robings, and save me the trouble of thinking thereon?--Go to!--you have no brain."

Maud and her a.s.sistant laid out the dress and the jewels, yet Lady Frances was ill satisfied.

"Said I not that the stomacher needed lengthening?--The point is not a point, but a round!--Saw one ever the like?--It is as square as a dove's tail, instead of tapering off like a parroquet's!"

"Did your ladyship mean," said the elder of the bewildered girls, "that the stomacher was square or round?"

She perfectly agreed with her mistress in thinking a stomacher a matter of great importance, but was most sadly perplexed that Lady Frances should so markedly object to that which she had so warmly praised on a former occasion.

"Square or round!" repeated Lady Frances impetuously--"neither:--it is to be peaked--thus!"

The poor maid, in her eagerness to hold the stomacher for her lady's inspection, let it fall--the princ.i.p.al jewel-band caught in a hook, and was scattered in fragments upon the ground. This was more than Lady Frances could bear, and she turned both women out of the room, commanding them to send Barbara in their stead. The little Puritan had been weeping plentifully, but when she came, Lady Frances appeared to have forgotten her wrath, and greeted her with much gentleness.

"Your mistress, my pretty maid--is she dressed?"

"No, my lady."

"See what havoc these girls have wrought with my stomacher! Pick me up the jewels, Barbara, if your mistress can spare you such brief time."

"I was not with her, my lady: she said she would call when I was wanted.

I can hear her in this chamber."

While Barbara was gathering the jewels, her tears fell fast upon them.

Lady Frances observed it, and smiling said,--

"You are gemming my ornaments, setting them in crystal instead of gold."

"I can't help my tears, dear lady, when I think how she weeps. Oh, it is a mournful thing to see an oak bend like a willow, or a stately rose low as a little wild flower! Something has crushed her heart, and I cannot help her. I would lay down my life to make her happy, if I knew but how!

The very dogs hang their tails, and steal across the rooms they used to gambol in! Ah, madam, she has wealth, and rank, and all that a poor girl would call great glory. Yet her step is like the step of an aged woman, and her head is bent, though not with the weight of years. I think of a little poem I knew when I was a child. I believe I heard it before I could speak the words thereof, yet it is so perfect on my mind. Did you ever hear it, madam? it is called 'The Lady of Castile.'"

"Never; but I should like to hear it, Barbara, while you hook on the diamonds those careless minxes scattered so heedlessly. What tune is it to?"

"I know not the tune, madam; nor could I sing it now if I did. I often wonder how the birds can sing when they lose their mates; though their notes are not, as at other times, cheery; and no wonder. It's very cruel to kill poor innocent birds."

"Let me hear the ballad, Barbara."

"I fear me, it has gone out of my head; but, madam, it began thus, something after a popish fashion; but no harm, no great harm in it:--

"'The lady was of n.o.ble birth, And fairest in Castile, And many suitors came to her----'

And many suitors came to her," repeated Barbara. "I forget the last line, but it ended with 'feel.' I am sorry, madam, that I have lost the words, quite lost them to-day, though I could have said them all yesterday. But the lady had many sweethearts, as my lady had, and like my lady sent them all away; only she was over nice. And she made up her mind at last to marry one whose name was ill thought of, and her wedding day was fixed; and the night before, as she was sleeping, who should visit her (it is here comes the Popery) but the Virgin? And the Virgin gave her her hand, and led her to a beautiful grove; and this grove was filled with the most beautiful birds in the world; and the Virgin said to her, take any one of these birds that you choose, and keep it as your own; and you may walk to the end of the grove and take any one you meet; but you must choose it before you come back, and not come back without one; you must not have the power to take one after you begin to return. And the bird you take will be lord of your estates, and of yourself, and the eyes of all Castile will be upon him. And the lady was very beautiful, as beautiful as my lady, only not good or well-taught like her. If she had been, she would not have believed in the Virgin. So the lady walked on and on, and the sweet birds were singing to her, and courting her, and striving to win her favour all the way. They were such birds as I never heard of but in that song--with diamond eyes, and ruby wings, and feet of pearl; but she found some fault with every one she met, and fancied she might find a better before her walk was done. And, behold! at last she got to the end of the grove without having made any choice; and what think you, my lady, sat there?

why a black vulture, a wicked, deceitful, cruel bird. And she was forced to take him. She had pa.s.sed by many good and beautiful, and their sweet songs still sounded in her ears; yet she was forced to take that hideous and cruel bird. Only think, my lady, how horrid! The poor lady of Castile awoke, and began thinking what the dream could mean; and after praying awhile, she remembered how much she wished in her sleep that she had taken the first bird she saw. And it brought back to her mind the companion of her youth, who had loved her long, and she likened this gallant gentleman to the sweet bird of her dream. So she put away him whose name was ill thought of, and wedded the knight who had loved her long. And so the song finishes with

"'Happy lady of Castile!'"

"And a good ending too," said Lady Frances; "I wish our wedding was likely to terminate so favourably."

"Amen to that prayer!" said Barbara, earnestly, and added, shuddering as she spoke, "It is very odd, madam, but one of your ladies, who was arraying the communion-table, scared away a great toad, whose bloated sides were leaning on the step, and, she says, on the very spot where Sir Willmott Burrell must kneel to-night.--Hush! that was his door which shut at the end of the corridor--the very sound of his foot-fall makes me shudder--the Lord preserve us! It is astonishing, my lady, the wisdom of some dumb animals: Crisp can't bear the sight of him; but Crisp is very knowledgeable!"

"There will be another miserable match," thought Lady Frances; "that pretty modest creature will sacrifice herself to that deformed piece of nature's workmanship; even his nasty cur, long-backed and bandy, shares her favour: I will beg her of Constantia, take her to court, and get her a proper husband.--Crisp is an ill-favoured puppy, Barbara," she said aloud, "and the sooner you get rid of him the better. You must come to court with me, and be one of my bower-girls for a season; it will polish you, and cure your Shepey prejudices. I shall ask Mistress Cecil to let you come."

Barbara thought first of Robin, then of her father; and was about to speak of the latter, when she remembered her promise of secrecy.

"Thank your ladyship; a poor girl, like me had better remain where--where--she is likely to bide. A field-mouse cannot climb a tree like a gay squirrel, my lady, though the poor thing is as happy on the earth as the fine squirrel among the branches, and, mayhap, a deal safer: and as to Crisp! beauty is deceitful--but honesty is a thing to lean upon--the creature's heart is one great lump of faithfulness."

"You must get a courtly husband, Barbara."

"Your ladyship jests; and so would a courtly husband, at one like me.

Mayhap I may never live to marry; but if I did, I should not like my husband to be ashamed of me.--The jewels are all on, my lady!"

"Should you not like to be as my maidens are?"

"Thank you, madam, no: for they have too little to do, and that begets sorrow. Were my lady happy, and--and---- But that is my lady's call.

Shall I send your women, madam?"

"I have often thought and often said," murmured Lady Frances, as Barbara meekly closed the door, "that nothing is so perplexing to the worldly as straight forward honesty and truth. It is not to be intimidated, nor bribed nor flattered, nor destroyed--not destroyed even by death. I would give half my dowry--alas! do _I_ talk of dowry?--great as my father is, he may be low as others, who have been as great. And now I must accompany my sweet friend to the altar on which she is to be sacrificed. Alas! better would be for her if death were to meet and claim her upon the threshold of the chapel she is about to enter!"

CHAPTER XVI.

Nought is there under heaven's wide hollownesse That moves more dear compa.s.sion of mind, Than beautie brought t'unworthie wretchednesse Through envious snares or fortune's freaks unkinde.

To think how causeless of her own accord This gentle damzell, whom I write upon, Should plonged be in such affliction, Without all hope of comfort or reliefe.

SPENSER.

"I am driven to it, I am driven to it!" repeated Sir Willmott Burrell, as he attired himself in his gayest robes, while his eyes wandered restlessly over the dial of a small clock that stood upon the dressing-table. "No one has seen her--and I have forced Constantia to wed at six, instead of seven. Once wed--why, there's an end of it; and if the worst should come, and Zillah persecutes me still, I can but swear her mad, and this will terminate her fitful fever." He placed a small pistol within his embroidered dress, and girded his jewelled sword more tightly than before. "The minutes linger more tardily than ever,"

he continued: "full fifteen to the time.--Would it were over! I am certain Cromwell would not interfere, if once she was my wife; he loves her honour better than the Jew's."

Again he drew forth the pistol and examined it, and then replaced it as before--again girded his sword; and having drunk copiously of some ardent spirit, a flask of which had been placed near him, he descended to the library.

The only person in the apartment was Sir Robert Cecil: he was leaning, in the very att.i.tude in which we first met him, against the high and dark chimney-piece of marble; but, oh, how altered! His hand trembled with emotion as he held it to Sir Willmott, who took it with that air of easy politeness and cordiality of manner he could so well a.s.sume.

"The hour is nearly arrived," said the old man, "and you will become the husband of my only child. Treat her kindly--oh, as you ever hope to have children of your own, treat her kindly: be to her what I ought to have been--a protector! Sir Willmott, I cannot live very long; say only that you will treat her kindly. Whatever I have shall be yours: you will be kind, will you not?" And he looked at Sir Willmott with an air of such perfect childishness, that the knight imagined his mind had given way.

"Sit down, my good sir; compose yourself--you are much agitated--I pray you be composed."

"Broad lands are a great temptation," continued Sir Robert, with the same appearance of wavering intellect--"Broad lands and gold are great temptations, and yet they do not make one happy. Stoop your head--closer--closer--there:--now I will tell you a secret, but you must not tell it to Constantia, because it would give her pain--I have never been happy since I possessed them! Stop, I will tell you all, from beginning to end. My brother, Sir Herbert--I was not Sir Robert then--my brother, I say----"