How he was to be drowned by water that fled from him was not clear, but with a muttered malediction he arose and glanced round as if he thought the mortification a trick on the part of the higher powers, since the Earl did not think him a match for the Countess's grandchild, and the Queen had made it known to him that she considered Bess Pierrepoint to have too much of her grandmother's conditions to be likely to be a good wife. There was a laugh too, scarce controlled by some of the less well-mannered of the suite, especially as the Earl, wishing to punish his presumption, loudly set the example.

There was a pause, as the discomfited secretary came back, and the guide exclaimed, "Come, my masters, be not daunted! Will none of you come on? Hath none of you faith in your love? Oh, fie!"

"We are married men, good women," said Richard, hoping to put an end to the scene, "and thus can laugh at your well."

"But will not these pretty ladies try it? It speaks as sooth to la.s.s as to lad."

"I am ready," said Barbara Mowbray, as Curll gave her his hand to bound lightly down the steps. And to the general amazement, no sooner had "Gilbert" echoed from her lips than the fountains again burst forth, the water rose, and she had no difficulty in reaching it, while no one could help bursting forth in applause. Her Gilbert fervently kissed the hand she gave him to aid her steps up the slope, and Dame Emmott, in triumphant congratulation, scanned them over and exclaimed, "Ay, trust the well for knowing true sweetheart and true maid. Come you next, fair mistress?" Poor Mary Seaton shook her head, with a look that the kindly woman understood, and she turned towards Cicely, who had a girl's unthinking impulse of curiosity, and had already put her hand into Humfrey's, when his father exclaimed, "Nay, nay, the maid is yet too young!" and the Queen added, "Come back, thou silly little one, these tests be not for babes like thee."

She was forced to be obedient, but she pouted a little as she was absolutely held fast by Richard Talbot's strong hand. Humfrey was disappointed too; but all was bright with him just then, and as the party turned to make the descent, he said to her, "It matters not, little Cis! I'm sure of thee with the water or without, and after all, thou couldst but have whispered my name, till my father lets us speak all out!"

They were too much hemmed in by other people for a private word, and a little mischievous banter was going on with Sir Andrew Melville, who was supposed to have a grave elderly courtship with Mistress Kennedy. Humfrey was left in the absolute bliss of ignorance, while the old habit and instinct of joy and gladness in his presence rea.s.serted itself in Cis, so that, as he handed her down the rocks, she answered in the old tone all his inquiries about his mother, and all else that concerned them at home, Diccon meantime risking his limbs by scrambling outside the path, to keep abreast of his brother, and to put in his word whenever he could.

On reaching the smithy, Humfrey had to go round another way to fetch his horse, and could hardly hope to come up with the rest before they reached Buxton. His brother was spared to go with him, but his father was too important a part of the escort to be spared. So Cicely rode near the Queen, and heard no more except the Earl's version of Dr. Jones's explanation of the intermitting spring. They reached home only just in time to prepare for supper, and the two youths appeared almost simultaneously, so that Mistress Talbot, sitting at her needle on the broad terrace in front of the Earl's lodge, beheld to her amazement and delight the figure that, grown and altered as it was, she recognised in an instant. In another second Humfrey had sprung from his horse, rushed up the steps, he knew not how, and the Queen, with tears trembling in her eyes was saying, "Ah, Melville! see how sons meet their mothers!"

The great clock was striking seven, a preposterously late hour for supper, and etiquette was stronger than sentiment or perplexity. Every one hastened to a.s.sume an evening toilette, for a riding-dress would have been an insult to the Earl, and the bell soon clanged to call them down to their places in the hall. Even Humfrey had brought in his cloak-bag wherewithal to make himself presentable, and soon appeared, a well-knit and active figure, in a plain dark blue jerkin, with white slashes, and long hose knitted by his mother's dainty fingers, and well-preserved shoes with blue rosettes, and a flat blue velvet cap, with an exquisite black and sapphire feather in it fastened by a curious brooch. His hair was so short that its naturally strong curl could hardly be seen, his ruddy sunburnt face could hardly be called handsome, but it was full of frankness and intelligence, and beaming with honest joy, and close to him moved little Diccon, hardly able to repress his ecstasy within company bounds, and letting it find vent in odd little gestures, wriggling with his body, playing tunes on his knee, or making dancing-steps with his feet.

Lord Shrewsbury welcomed his young kinsman as one who had grown from a mere boy into a st.u.r.dy and effective supporter. He made the new-comer sit near him, and asked many questions, so that Humfrey was the chief speaker all supper time, with here and there a note from his father, the only person who had made the same voyage. All heard with eager interest of the voyage, the weeds in the Gulf Stream, the strange birds and fishes, of Walter Raleigh's Virginian colony and its ill success, of the half-starved men whom Sir Richard Grenville had found only too ready to leave Roanoake, of dark-skinned Indians, of chases of Spanish ships, of the Peak of Teneriffe rising white from the waves, of phosph.o.r.escent seas, of storms, and of shark-catching.

Supper over, the audience again gathered round the young traveller, a perfect fountain of various and wonderful information to those who had for the most part never seen a book of travels. He narrated simply and well, without his boyish shy embarra.s.sment and awkwardness, and likewise, as his father alone could judge, without boasting, though, if to no one else, to Diccon and Cis, listening with wide open eyes, he seemed a hero of heroes. In the midst of his narration a message came that the Queen of Scots requested the presence of Mistress Cicely. Humfrey stared in discomfiture, and asked when she would return.

"Not to-night," faltered the girl, and the mother added, for the benefit of the bystanders, "For lack of other ladies of the household, much service hath of late fallen to Cicely and myself, and she shares the Queen's chamber."

Humfrey had to submit to exchange good-nights with Cicely, and she made her way less willingly than usual to the apartments of the Queen, who was being made ready for her bed. "Here comes our truant," she exclaimed as the maiden entered. "I sent to rescue thee from the western seafarer who had clawed thee in his tarry clutch. Thou didst act the sister's part pa.s.sing well. I hear my Lord and all his meine have been sitting, open-mouthed, hearkening to his tales of savages and cannibals."

"O madam, he told us of such lovely isles," said Cis. "The sea, he said, is blue, bluer than we can conceive, with white waves of dazzling surf, breaking on islands fringed with white sh.e.l.ls and coral, and with palms, their tops like the biggest ferns in the brake, and laden with red golden fruit as big as goose eggs. And the birds! O madam, my mother, the birds! They are small, small as our b.u.t.terflies and beetles, and they hang hovering and quivering over a flower so that Humfrey thought they were moths, for he saw nothing but a whizzing and a whirring till he smote the pretty thing dead, and then he said that I should have wept for pity, for it was a little bird with a long bill, and a breast that shines red in one light, purple in another, and flame-coloured in a third. He has brought home the little skin and feathers of it for me."

"Thou hast supped full of travellers' tales, my simple child."

"Yea, madam, but my Lord listened, and made Humfrey sit beside him, and made much of him-my Lord himself! I would fain bring him to you, madam. It is so wondrous to hear him tell of the Red Men with crowns of feathers and belts of beads. Such gentle savages they be, and their chiefs as courteous and stately as any of our princes, and yet those cruel Spaniards make them slaves and force them to dig in mines, so that they die and perish under their hands."

"And better so than that they should not come to the knowledge of the faith," said Mary.

"I forgot that your Grace loves the Spaniards," said Cis, much in the tone in which she might have spoken of a taste in her Grace for spiders, adders, or any other noxious animal.

"One day my child will grow out of her little heretic prejudices, and learn to love her mother's staunch friends, the champions of Holy Church, and the representatives of true knighthood in these degenerate days. Ah, child! couldst thou but see a true Spanish caballero, or again, could I but show thee my n.o.ble cousin of Guise, then wouldst thou know how to rate these gross clownish English mastiffs who now turn thy silly little brain. Ah, that thou couldst once meet a true prince!"

"The well," murmured Cicely.

"Tush, child," said the Queen, amused. "What of that? Thy name is not Cis, is it? 'Tis only the slough that serves thee for the nonce. The good youth will find himself linked to some homely, housewifely Cis in due time, when the Princess Bride is queening it in France or Austria, and will own that the well was wiser than he."

Poor Cis! If her inmost heart declared Humfrey Talbot to be prince enough for her, she durst not entertain the sentiment, not knowing whether it were unworthy, and while Marie de Courcelles read aloud a French legend of a saint to soothe the Queen to sleep, she lay longing after the more sympathetic mother, and wondering what was pa.s.sing in the hall.

Richard Talbot had communed with his wife's eyes, and made up his mind that Humfrey should know the full truth before the Queen should enjoin his being put off with the story of the parentage she had invented for Bride Hepburn; and while some of the gentlemen followed their habit of sitting late over the wine cup, he craved their leave to have his son to himself a little while, and took him out in the summer twilight on the greensward, going through the guards, for whom he, as the gentleman warder, had the pa.s.sword of the night. In compliment to the expedition of the day it had been made "True love and the Flowing Well." It sounded agreeable in Humfrey's ears; he repeated it again, and then added "Little Cis! she hath come to woman's estate, and she hath caught some of the captive lady's pretty tricks of the head and hands. How long hath she been so thick with her?"

"Since this journey. I have to speak with thee, my son."

"I wait your pleasure, sir," said Humfrey, and as his father paused a moment ere communicating his strange tidings, he rendered the matter less easy by saying, "I guess your purpose. If I may at once wed my little Cis I will send word to Sir John Norreys that I am not for this expedition to the Low Countries, though there is good and manly work to be done there, and I have the offer of a command, but I gave not my word till I knew your will, and whether we might wed at once."

"Thou hast much to hear, my son."

"Nay, surely no one has come between!" exclaimed Humfrey. "Methought she was less frank and more coy than of old. If that sneaking traitor Babington hath been making up to her I will slit his false gullet for him."

"Hush, hush, Humfrey! thy seafaring boasts skill not here. No man hath come between thee and yonder poor maid."

"Poor! You mean not that she is sickly. Were she so, I would so tend her that she should be well for mere tenderness. But no, she was the very image of health. No man, said you, father? Then it is a woman. Ah! my Lady Countess is it, bent on making her match her own way? Sir, you are too good and upright to let a tyrannous dame like that sever between us, though she be near of kin to us. My mother might scruple to cross her, but you have seen the world, sir."

"My lad, you are right in that it is a woman who stands between you and Cis, but it is not the Countess. None would have the right to do so, save the maiden's own mother."

"Her mother! You have discovered her lineage! Can she have ought against me?-I, your son, sir, of the Talbot blood, and not ill endowed?"

"Alack, son, the Talbot may be a good dog but the lioness will scarce esteem him her mate. Riddles apart, it is proved beyond question that our little maid is of birth as high as it is unhappy. Thou canst be secret, I know, Humfrey, and thou must be silent as the grave, for it touches my honour and the poor child's liberty."

"Who is she, then?" demanded Humfrey sharply.

His father pointed to the Queen's window. Humfrey stared at him, and muttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, then exclaimed, "How and when was this known?"

Richard went over the facts, giving as few names as possible, while his son stood looking down and drawing lines with the point of his sword.

"I hoped," ended the father, "that these five years' absence might have made thee forget thy childish inclination;" and as Humfrey, without raising his face, emphatically shook his head, he went on to add- "So, my dear son, meseemeth that there is no remedy, but that, for her peace and thine own, thou shouldest accept this offer of brave Norreys, and by the time the campaign is ended, they may be both safe in Scotland, out of reach of vexing thy heart, my poor boy."

"Is it so sure that her royal lineage will be owned?" muttered Humfrey. "Out on me for saying so! But sure this lady hath made light enough of her wedlock with yonder villain."

"Even so, but that was when she deemed its offspring safe beneath the waves. I fear me that, however our poor damsel be regarded, she will be treated as a mere bait and tool. If not bestowed on some foreign prince (and there hath been talk of dukes and archdukes), she may serve to tickle the pride of some Scottish thief, such as was her father."

"Sir! sir! how can you speak patiently of such profanation and cruelty? Papist butchers and Scottish thieves, for the child of your hearth! Were it not better that I stole her safely away and wedded her in secret, so that at least she might have an honest husband?"

"Nay, his honesty would scarce be thus manifest," said Richard, "even if the maid would consent, which I think she would not. Her head is too full of her new greatness to have room for thee, my poor lad. Best that thou shouldest face the truth. And, verily, what is it but her duty to obey her mother, her true and veritable mother, Humfrey? It is but making her ease harder, and adding to her griefs, to strive to awaken any inclination she may have had for thee; and therefore it is that I counsel thee, nay, I might command thee, to absent thyself while it is still needful that she remain with us, pa.s.sing for our daughter."

Humfrey still traced lines with his sword in the dust. He had always been a strong-willed though an obedient and honourable boy, and his father felt that these five years had made a man of him, whom, in spite of mediaeval obedience, it was not easy to dispose of arbitrarily.

"There's no haste," he muttered. "Norreys will not go till my Lord of Leicester's commission be made out. It is five years since I was at home."

"My son, thou knowest that I would not send thee from me willingly. I had not done so ere now, but that it was well for thee to know the world and men, and Sheffield is a mere nest of intrigue and falsehood, where even if one keeps one's integrity, it is hard to be believed. But for my Lord, thy mother, and my poor folk, I would gladly go with thee to strike honest downright blows at a foe I could see and feel, rather than be nothing better than a warder, and be driven distracted with women's tongues. Why, they have even set division between my Lord and his son Gilbert, who was ever the dearest to him. Young as he is, methinks Diccon would be better away with thee than where the very air smells of plots and lies."

"I trow the Queen of Scots will not be here much longer," said Humfrey. "Men say in London that Sir Ralf Sadler is even now setting forth to take charge of her, and send my Lord to London."

"We have had such hopes too often, my son," said Richard. "Nay, she hath left us more than once, but always to fall back upon Sheffield like a weight to the ground. But she is full of hope in her son, now that he is come of age, and hath put to death her great foe, the Earl of Morton."

"The poor lady might as well put her faith in-in a jelly-fish," said Humfrey, falling on a comparison perfectly appreciated by the old sailor.

"Heh? She will get naught but stings. How knowest thou?"

"Why, do none know here that King James is in the hands of him they call the Master of Gray?"

"Queen Mary puts in him her chief hope."

"Then she hath indeed grasped a jelly-fish. Know you not, father, those proud and gay ones, with rose-coloured bladders and long blue beards-blue as the azure of a herald's coat?"