The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth

by William Harrison Ainsworth

  “Salud! Conde magnifico!” exclaimed King James, as the Spaniard advanced to make his obeisance to him; “how is it that we find you standing under the shade of the tree friendly to the vine, — amictoe vitibus ulmi as Ovid hath it? Is it that yon blooming Chloe,” he continued, leering significantly at Gillian, “hath more attraction for you than our court dames? Troth! the quean is not ill-favoured; but ye ha’ lost a gude day’s sport, Count, forbye ither losses which we sall na particularize. We hae had a noble flight at the heron, and anither just as guid after the bustard. God’s santy! the run the lang-leggit loon gave us. Lady Exeter, on her braw Spanish barb — we ken whose gift it is — was the only one able to keep with us; and it was her leddyship’s ain peregrine falcon that checked the fleeing carle at last. By our faith the Countess understands the gentle science weel. She cared not to soil her dainty gloves by rewarding her hawk with a soppa, as his Excellency Giustiniano would term it, of the bustard’s heart, bluid, and brains. But wha hae ye gotten wi’ ye?” he added, for the first time noticing Jocelyn.

  “A young gentleman in whom I am much interested, and whom I would crave permission to present to your Majesty,” replied De Gondomar.

  “Saul of our body, Count, the permission is readily granted,” replied James, evidently much pleased with the young man’s appearance. “Ye shall bring him to us in the privy-chamber before we gang to supper, and moreover ye shall hae full licence to advance what you please in his behoof. He is a weel-grown, weel-favoured laddie, almost as much sae as our ain dear dog Steenie; but we wad say to him, in the words of the Roman bard,

  ‘O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori!’

  Gude pairts are better than gude looks; not that the latter are to be undervalued, but baith should exist in the same person. We shall soon discover whether the young man hath been weel nurtured, and if all correspond we shall not refuse him the light of our countenance.”

  “I tender your Majesty thanks for the favour you have conferred upon him,” replied De Gondomar.

  “But ye have not yet tauld us the youth’s name, Count?” said the King.

  “Your Majesty, I trust, will not think I make a mystery where none is needed, if I say that my protegé claims your gracious permission to preserve, for the moment, his incognito,” De Gondomar replied. “When I present him of course his name will be declared.”

  “Be it as you will, Count,” James replied. “We ken fu’ weel ye hae gude reason for a’ ye do. Fail not in your attendance on us at the time appointed.”

  As De Gondomar with a profound obeisance drew back, the King put his steed in motion. General attention having been thus called to Jocelyn, all eyes were turned towards him, his appearance and attire were criticised, and much speculation ensued as to what could be the Spanish Ambassador’s motive for undertaking the presentation.

  Meanwhile, Lord Roos had taken advantage of the brief halt of the hunting party to approach the Countess of Exeter, and pointing out Gillian to her, inquired in a low tone, and in a few words, to which, however, his looks imparted significance, whether she would take the pretty damsel into her service as tire-woman or handmaiden. The Countess seemed surprised at the request, and, after glancing at the Beauty of Tottenham, was about to refuse it, when Lord Roos urged in a whisper, “‘T is for De Gondomar I ask the favour.”

  “In that case I readily assent,” the Countess replied. “I will go speak to the damsel at once, if you desire it. How pretty she is! No wonder his inflammable Excellency should be smitten by her.” And detaching her barb, as she spoke, from the cavalcade, she moved towards Gillian, accompanied by Lord Roos. The pretty damsel was covered with fresh confusion at the great lady’s approach; and was, indeed, so greatly alarmed, that she might have taken to her heels, if she had been on the ground, and not on the pillion behind her grandsire.

  “Be not abashed, my pretty maiden,” the Countess said, in a kind and encouraging tone; “there is nothing to be afraid of. Aware that I am in want of a damsel like yourself, to tire my hair and attend upon me, Lord Roos has drawn my attention to you; and if I may trust to appearances — as I think I may,” she added, with a very flattering and persuasive smile, “in your case — you are the very person to suit me, provided you are willing to enter my service. I am the Countess of Exeter.”

  “A Countess!” exclaimed Gillian. “Do you hear that, grandsire? The beautiful lady is a countess. What an honour it would be to serve her!”

  “It might be,” the old man replied, with hesitation, and in a whisper; “yet I do not exactly like the manner of it.”

  “Don’t accept the offer, Gillian. Don’t go,” said Dick Taverner, whose breast was full of uneasiness.

  “Your answer, my pretty maiden?” the Countess said, with a winning smile.

  “I am much beholden to you, my lady,” Gillian replied, “and it will delight me to serve you as you propose — that is, if I have my grandsire’s consent to it.”

  “And the good man, I am sure, has your welfare too much at heart to withhold it,” the Countess replied. “But follow me to the palace, and we will confer further upon the matter. Inquire for the Countess of Exeter’s apartments.” And with another gracious smile, she rejoined the cavalcade, leaving Lord Roos behind. He thanked her with a look for her complaisance.

  “O Gillian, I am sure ill will come of this,” Dick Taverner exclaimed.

  “Wherefore should it?” she rejoined, almost beside herself with delight at the brilliant prospect suddenly opened before her. “My fortune is made.”

  “You are right, my pretty damsel, it is,” Lord Roos remarked. “Fail not to do as the Countess has directed you, and I will answer for the rest.”

  “You hear what the kind young nobleman says, grandsire?” Gillian whispered in his ear. “You cannot doubt his assurance?”

  “I hear it all,” old Greenford replied; “but I know not what to think. I suppose we must go to the palace.”

  “To be sure we must,” Gillian cried; “I will go there alone, if you will not go with me.”

  Satisfied with what he had heard, Lord Roos moved away, nodding approval at Gillian.

  The cavalcade, as we have said, was once more in motion, but before it had proceeded far, it was again, most unexpectedly, brought to a halt.

  Suddenly stepping from behind a large tree which had concealed him from view, a man in military habiliments, with grizzled hair and beard, and an exceedingly resolute and stern cast of countenance, planted himself directly in the monarch’s path, and extending his hand towards him, exclaimed, in a loud voice,

  “Stand! O King!”

  “Who art thou, fellow? and what wouldst thou?” demanded James, who had checked his horse with such suddenness as almost to throw himself out of his high-holstered saddle.

  “I have a message to deliver to thee from Heaven,” replied Hugh Calveley.

  “Aha!” exclaimed James, recovering in some degree, for he thought he had a madman to deal with. “What may thy message be?”

  And willing to gain a character for courage, though it was wholly foreign to his nature, he motioned those around him to keep back. “Thy message, fellow!” he repeated.

  “Hear, then, what Heaven saith to thee,” the Puritan replied. “Have I not brought thee out of a land of famine into a land of plenty? Thou oughtest, therefore, to have judged my people righteously! But thou hast perverted justice, and not relieved the oppressed. Therefore, unless thou repent, I will rend thy kingdom from thee, and from thy posterity after thee! Thus saith the Lord, whose messenger I am.”

  CHAPTER XXI.

  Consequences of the Puritan’s warning.

  Coupling Hugh Calveley’s present strange appearance and solemn warning with his previous denunciations uttered in secret, and his intimations of some dread design, with which he had sought to connect the young man himself, intimating that its execution would jeopardize his life; putting these things together, we say, Jocelyn could not for an instant doubt that the King was in imminent da
nger, and he felt called upon to interfere, even though he should be compelled to act against his father’s friend, and the father of Aveline. No alternative, in fact, was allowed him. As a loyal subject, his duty imperiously required him to defend his sovereign; and perceiving that no one (in consequence of the King’s injunctions) advanced towards the Puritan, Jocelyn hastily quitted the Conde de Gondomar, and rushing forward stationed himself between the monarch and his bold admonisher; and so near to the latter, that he could easily prevent any attack being made by him upon James.

  Evidently disconcerted by the movement, Hugh Calveley signed to the young man to stand aside, but Jocelyn refused compliance; the rather that he suspected from the manner in which the other placed his hand in his breast that he had some weapon concealed about his person. Casting a look of bitterest reproach at him, which plainly as words said— “Ungrateful boy, thou hast prevented my purpose,” the Puritan folded his hands upon his breast with an air of deep disappointment.

  “Fly!” cried Jocelyn, in a tone calculated only to reach his ears. “I will defend you with my life. Waste not another moment — fly!”

  But Hugh Calveley regarded him with cold disdain, and though he moved not his lips, he seemed to say, “You have destroyed me; and I will not remove the guilt of my destruction from your head.”

  The Puritan’s language and manner had filled James with astonishment and fresh alarm; but feeling secure in the propinquity of Jocelyn to the object of his uneasiness, and being closely environed by his retinue, the foremost of whom had drawn their swords and held themselves in readiness to defend him from the slightest hostile attempt, it was not unnatural that even so timorous a person as he, should regain his confidence. Once more, therefore, he restrained by his gestures the angry impetuosity of the nobles around him, who were burning to chastise the rash intruder, and signified his intention of questioning him before any measures were adopted against him.

  “Let him be,” he cried. “He is some puir demented creature fitter for Bedlam than anywhere else; and we will see that he be sent thither; but molest him not till we hae spoken wi’ him, and certified his condition more fully. Quit not the position ye hae sae judiciously occupied, young Sir, albeit against our orders,” he cried to Jocelyn. “Dinna draw your blade unless the fellow seeks to come till us. Not that we are under ony apprehension; but there are bluidthirsty traitors even in our pacific territories, and as this may be ane of them, it is weel not to neglect due precaution. And now, man,” he added, raising his voice, and addressing the Puritan, who still maintained a steadfast and unmoved demeanour, with his eye constantly fixed upon his interrogator. “Ye say ye are a messenger frae heaven. An it be sae, — whilk we take leave to doubt, rather conceiving ye to be an envoy from the Prince of Darkness than an ambassador from above, — an ill choice hath been made in ye. Unto what order of prophets do ye conceive yourself to belong?”

  To this interrogation, propounded in a jeering tone, the Puritan deigned no reply; but an answer was given for him by Archee, the court jester, who had managed in the confusion to creep up to his royal master’s side.

  “He belongs to the order of Melchisedec,” said Archee. A reply that occasioned some laughter among the nobles, in which the King joined heartily.

  “Tut, fule! ye are as daft as the puir body before us,” cried James. “Ken ye not that Melchisedec was a priest and not a prophet; while to judge frae yon fellow’s abulyiements, if he belongs to any church at all, it maun be to the church militant. And yet, aiblins, ye are na sae far out after a’. Like aneuch, he may be infected with the heresy of the Melchisedecians, — a pestilent sect, who plagued the early Christian Church sairly, placing their master aboon our Blessed Lord himself, and holding him to be identical wi’ the Holy Ghaist. Are ye a Melchisedecian, sirrah?”

  “I am a believer in the Gospel,” the Puritan replied. “And am willing to seal my faith in it with my blood. I am sent hither to warn thee, O King, and thou wilt do well not to despise my words. Repent ere it be too late. Wonderfully hath thy life been preserved. Dedicate the remainder of thy days to the service of the Most High. Persecute not His people, and revile them not. Purge thy City of its uncleanness and idolatry, and thy Court of its corruption. Profane not the Sabbath” —

  “I see how it is,” interrupted Archee with a scream; “the man hath been driven stark wud by your Majesty’s Book of Sports.”

  “A book devised by the devil,” cried Hugh Calveley, catching at the suggestion; “and which ought to be publicly burnt by the hangman, instead of being read in the churches. How much, mischief hath that book done! How many abominations hath it occasioned! And, alas! how much persecution hath it caused; for have not many just men, and sincere preachers of the Word, been prosecuted in thy Court, misnamed of justice, and known, O King! as the Star-Chamber; suffering stripes and imprisonment for refusing to read thy mischievous proclamation to their flocks.”

  “I knew it! — I knew it!” screamed Archee, delighted with the effect he had produced. “Take heed, sirrah,” he cried to the Puritan, “that ye make not acquaintance wi’ ‘that Court misnamed of justice’ yer ain sell.”

  “He is liker to be arraigned at our court styled the King’s Bench, and hanged, drawn, and quartered afterwards,” roared James, far more enraged at the disrespectful mention made of his manifesto, than by anything that had previously occurred. “The man is not sae doited as we supposed him.”

  “He is not sane enough to keep his neck from the halter,” rejoined Archee. “Your Majesty should spare him, since you are indirectly the cause of his malady.”

  “Intercede not for me,” cried Hugh Calveley. “I would not accept any grace at the tyrant’s hands. Let him hew me in pieces, and my blood shall cry out for vengeance upon his head.”

  “By our halidame! a dangerous traitor!” exclaimed James.

  “Hear me, O King!” thundered the Puritan. “For the third and last time I lift up my voice to warn thee. Visions have appeared to me in the night, and mysterious voices have whispered in mine ear. They have revealed to me strange and terrible things — but not more strange and terrible than true. They have told me how thy posterity shall suffer for the injustice thou doest to thy people. They have shown me a scaffold which a King shall mount — and a block whereon a royal head shall be laid. But it shall be better for that unfortunate monarch, though he be brought to judgment by his people, than for him who shall be brought to judgment by his God. Yet more. I have seen in my visions two Kings in exile: one of whom shall be recalled, but the other shall die in a foreign land. As to thee, thou mayst live on yet awhile in fancied security. But destruction shall suddenly overtake thee. Thou shalt be stung to death by the serpent thou nourishest in thy bosom.”

  Whatever credit might be attached to them, the Puritan’s prophetic forebodings produced, from the manner in which they were delivered, a strong impression upon all his auditors. Unquestionably the man was in earnest, and spoke like one who believed that a mission had been entrusted to him. No interruption was offered to his speech, even by the King, though the latter turned pale as these terrible coming events were shadowed forth before him.

  “His words are awsome,” he muttered, “and gar the flesh creep on our banes. Will nane o’ ye stap his tongue?”

  “Better hae stapt it afore this,” said Archee; “he has said ower meikle, or not aneuch, The Deil’s malison on thee, fellow, for a prophet of ill! Hast thou aught to allege why his Majesty should not tuck thee up with a halter?”

  “I have spoken,” responded the Puritan; “let the King do with me what he lists.”

  “Seize him! arrest him! ye are nearest to him, Sir,” shouted the king to Jocelyn.

  The command could not be disobeyed. As Jocelyn drew near, and laid his hand upon Hugh Calveley, the latter looked reproachfully at him, saying, “Thou doest well, son of my old friend.”

  Jocelyn was unable to reply, for a crowd now pressed forward on all sides, completely surrounding the prisoner. Some of
the nobles threatened him with their swords, and the warders, who had come up from the gateway, thrust at him with their partizans. Jocelyn had great difficulty in shielding him from the infuriated throng.

  “Touch him not!” he cried, clearing a space around them with the point of his sword. “His Majesty has committed him to my custody, and I am responsible for him. Pardon me if I disarm you, Sir,” he added in an undertone to the prisoner.

  “Here is my sword,” replied Hugh Calveley, unbuckling his belt and delivering up the weapon it sustained to Jocelyn; “it hath never been dishonoured, and,” he added, lowering his voice, “it hath been twice drawn in thy father’s defence.”

  The reproach cut Jocelyn to the heart.

  At this moment the crowd drew aside to allow the King’s approach.

  “Hath he been searched to see whether any deadly or offensive weapon is concealed about him?” demanded James.

  “He cannot have any more offensive weapon than his tongue,” cried Archee, who accompanied his royal master. “I counsel your Majesty to deprive him of that.”

  “There is something hidden in his breast,” cried one of the warders, searching in his jerkin, and at length drawing forth a short, clumsy pistol, or dag, as the weapon was then called. “It is loaded, an please your Majesty,” the man continued, after examining it.

  Exclamations of horror arose from those around, and Jocelyn had again some difficulty in protecting the prisoner from their fury.

  “A dag!” ejaculated James, “a loaded dag, crammed to the muzzle wi’ bullets, nae doubt. Haud it down, man! haud it down! it may fire off of itsel’, and accomplish the villain’s murtherous and sacrilegious design. And sae this was to be the instrument of our destruction! Dost thou confess thy guilt, thou bluid-thirsty traitor, or shall the torture force the truth from thee?”