Kenilworth

They could not exclude from these deliberations Master Michael Mumblazen; and they admitted him the more readily, that besides what hopes they entertained from his sagacity, they knew him to be so great a friend to taciturnity, that there was no doubt of his keeping counsel. He was an old bachelor, of good family, but small fortune, and distantly related to the House of Robsart; in virtue of which connection, Lidcote Hall had been honoured with his residence for the last twenty years. His company was agreeable to Sir Hugh, chiefly on account of his profound learning, which, though it only related to heraldry and genealogy, with such scraps of history as connected themselves with these subjects, was precisely of a kind to captivate the good old knight; besides the convenience which he found in having a friend to appeal to when his own memory, as frequently happened, proved infirm and played him false concerning names and dates, which, and all similar deficiencies, Master Michael Mumblazen supplied with due brevity and discretion. And, indeed, in matters concerning the modern world, he often gave, in his enigmatical and heraldic phrase, advice which was well worth attending to, or, in Will Badger’s language, started the game while others beat the bush.

“We have had an unhappy time of it with the good knight, Master Edmund,” said the curate. “I have not suffered so much since I was torn away from my beloved flock, and compelled to abandon them to the Romish wolves.”

“That was in TERTIO MARIAE,” said Master Mumblazen.

“In the name of Heaven,” continued the curate, “tell us, has your time been better spent than ours, or have you any news of that unhappy maiden, who, being for so many years the principal joy of this broken-down house, is now proved our greatest unhappiness? Have you not at least discovered her place of residence?”

“I have,” replied Tressilian. “Know you Cumnor Place, near Oxford?”

“Surely,” said the clergyman; “it was a house of removal for the monks of Abingdon.”

“Whose arms,” said Master Michael, “I have seen over a stone chimney in the hall, – a cross patonce betwixt four martlets.”

“There,” said Tressilian, “this unhappy maiden resides, in company with the villain Varney. But for a strange mishap, my sword had revenged all our injuries, as well as hers, on his worthless head.”

“Thank God, that kept thine hand from blood-guiltiness, rash young man!” answered the curate. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay it. It were better study to free her from the villain’s nets of infamy.”

“They are called, in heraldry, LAQUEI AMORIS, or LACS D’AMOUR,” said Mumblazen.

“It is in that I require your aid, my friends,” said Tressilian. “I am resolved to accuse this villain, at the very foot of the throne, of falsehood, seduction, and breach of hospitable laws. The Queen shall hear me, though the Earl of Leicester, the villain’s patron, stood at her right hand.”

“Her Grace,” said the curate, “hath set a comely example of continence to her subjects, and will doubtless do justice on this inhospitable robber. But wert thou not better apply to the Earl of Leicester, in the first place, for justice on his servant? If he grants it, thou dost save the risk of making thyself a powerful adversary, which will certainly chance if, in the first instance, you accuse his master of the horse and prime favourite before the Queen.”

“My mind revolts from your counsel,” said Tressilian. “I cannot brook to plead my noble patron’s cause the unhappy Amy’s cause – before any one save my lawful Sovereign. Leicester, thou wilt say, is noble. Be it so; he is but a subject like ourselves, and I will not carry my plaint to him, if I can do better. Still, I will think on what thou hast said; but I must have your assistance to persuade the good Sir Hugh to make me his commissioner and fiduciary in this matter, for it is in his name I must speak, and not in my own. Since she is so far changed as to dote upon this empty profligate courtier, he shall at least do her the justice which is yet in his power.”

“Better she died CAELEBS and SINE PROLE,” said Mumblazen, with more animation than he usually expressed, “than part, PER PALE, the noble coat of Robsart with that of such a miscreant!”

“If it be your object, as I cannot question,” said the clergyman, “to save, as much as is yet possible, the credit of this unhappy young woman, I repeat, you should apply, in the first instance, to the Earl of Leicester. He is as absolute in his household as the Queen in her kingdom, and if he expresses to Varney that such is his pleasure, her honour will not stand so publicly committed.”

“You are right, you are right!” said Tressilian eagerly, “and I thank you for pointing out what I overlooked in my haste. I little thought ever to have besought grace of Leicester; but I could kneel to the proud Dudley, if doing so could remove one shade of shame from this unhappy damsel. You will assist me then to procure the necessary powers from Sir Hugh Robsart?”

The curate assured him of his assistance, and the herald nodded assent.

“You must hold yourselves also in readiness to testify, in case you are called upon, the openhearted hospitality which our good patron exercised towards this deceitful traitor, and the solicitude with which he laboured to seduce his unhappy daughter.”

“At first,” said the clergyman, “she did not, as it seemed to me, much affect his company; but latterly I saw them often together.”

“SEIANT in the parlour,” said Michael Mumblazen, “and PASSANT in the garden.”

“I once came on them by chance,” said the priest, “in the South wood, in a spring evening. Varney was muffled in a russet cloak, so that I saw not his face. They separated hastily, as they heard me rustle amongst the leaves; and I observed she turned her head and looked long after him.”

“With neck REGUARDANT,” said the herald. “And on the day of her flight, and that was on Saint Austen’s Eve, I saw Varney’s groom, attired in his liveries, hold his master’s horse and Mistress Amy’s palfrey, bridled and saddled PROPER, behind the wall of the churchyard.”

“And now is she found mewed up in his secret place of retirement,” said Tressilian. “The villain is taken in the manner, and I well wish he may deny his crime, that I may thrust conviction down his false throat! But I must prepare for my journey. Do you, gentlemen, dispose my patron to grant me such powers as are needful to act in his name.”

So saying, Tressilian left the room.

“He is too hot,” said the curate; “and I pray to God that He may grant him the patience to deal with Varney as is fitting.”

“Patience and Varney,” said Mumblazen, “is worse heraldry than metal upon metal. He is more false than a siren, more rapacious than a griffin, more poisonous than a wyvern, and more cruel than a lion rampant.”

“Yet I doubt much,” said the curate, “whether we can with propriety ask from Sir Hugh Robsart, being in his present condition, any deed deputing his paternal right in Mistress Amy to whomsoever – ”

“Your reverence need not doubt that,” said Will Badger, who entered as he spoke, “for I will lay my life he is another man when he wakes than he has been these thirty days past.”

“Ay, Will,” said the curate, “hast thou then so much confidence in Doctor Diddleum’s draught?”

“Not a whit,” said Will, “because master ne’er tasted a drop on’t, seeing it was emptied out by the housemaid. But here’s a gentleman, who came attending on Master Tressilian, has given Sir Hugh a draught that is worth twenty of yon un. I have spoken cunningly with him, and a better farrier or one who hath a more just notion of horse and dog ailment I have never seen; and such a one would never be unjust to a Christian man.”

“A farrier! you saucy groom – and by whose authority, pray?” said the curate, rising in surprise and indignation; “or who will be warrant for this new physician?”

“For authority, an it like your reverence, he had mine; and for warrant, I trust I have not been five-and-twenty years in this house without having right to warrant the giving of a draught to beast or body – I who can gie a drench, and a ball, and bleed, or blister, if need, to my very self.”

The counsellors of the house of Robsart thought it meet to carry this information instantly to Tressilian, who as speedily summoned before him Wayland Smith, and demanded of him (in private, however) by what authority he had ventured to administer any medicine to Sir Hugh Robsart?

“Why,” replied the artist, “your worship cannot but remember that I told you I had made more progress into my master’s – I mean the learned Doctor Doboobie’s – mystery than he was willing to own; and indeed half of his quarrel and malice against me was that, besides that I got something too deep into his secrets, several discerning persons, and particularly a buxom young widow of Abingdon, preferred my prescriptions to his.”

“None of thy buffoonery, sir,” said Tressilian sternly. “If thou hast trifled with us – much more, if thou hast done aught that may prejudice Sir Hugh Robsart’s health, thou shalt find thy grave at the bottom of a tin-mine.”

“I know too little of the great ARCANUM to convert the ore to gold,” said Wayland firmly. “But truce to your apprehensions, Master Tressilian. I understood the good knight’s case from what Master William Badger told me; and I hope I am able enough to administer a poor dose of mandragora, which, with the sleep that must needs follow, is all that Sir Hugh Robsart requires to settle his distraught brains.”

“I trust thou dealest fairly with me, Wayland?” said Tressilian.

“Most fairly and honestly, as the event shall show,” replied the artist. “What would it avail me to harm the poor old man for whom you are interested? – you, to whom I owe it that Gaffer Pinniewinks is not even now rending my flesh and sinews with his accursed pincers, and probing every mole in my body with his sharpened awl (a murrain on the hands which forged it!) in order to find out the witch’s mark? – I trust to yoke myself as a humble follower to your worship’s train, and I only wish to have my faith judged of by the result of the good knight’s slumbers.”

Wayland Smith was right in his prognostication. The sedative draught which his skill had prepared, and Will Badger’s confidence had administered, was attended with the most beneficial effects. The patient’s sleep was long and healthful, and the poor old knight awoke, humbled indeed in thought and weak in frame, yet a much better judge of whatever was subjected to his intellect than he had been for some time past. He resisted for a while the proposal made by his friends that Tressilian should undertake a journey to court, to attempt the recovery of his daughter, and the redress of her wrongs, in so far as they might yet be repaired. “Let her go,” he said; “she is but a hawk that goes down the wind; I would not bestow even a whistle to reclaim her.” But though he for some time maintained this argument, he was at length convinced it was his duty to take the part to which natural affection inclined him, and consent that such efforts as could yet be made should be used by Tressilian in behalf of his daughter. He subscribed, therefore, a warrant of attorney, such as the curate’s skill enabled him to draw up; for in those simple days the clergy were often the advisers of their flock in law as well as in gospel.

All matters were prepared for Tressilian’s second departure, within twenty-four hours after he had returned to Lidcote Hall; but one material circumstance had been forgotten, which was first called to the remembrance of Tressilian by Master Mumblazen. “You are going to court, Master Tressilian,” said he; “you will please remember that your blazonry must be ARGENT and OR – no other tinctures will pass current.” The remark was equally just and embarrassing. To prosecute a suit at court, ready money was as indispensable even in the golden days of Elizabeth as at any succeeding period; and it was a commodity little at the command of the inhabitants of Lidcote Hall. Tressilian was himself poor; the revenues of good Sir Hugh Robsart were consumed, and even anticipated, in his hospitable mode of living; and it was finally necessary that the herald who started the doubt should himself solve it. Master Michael Mumblazen did so by producing a bag of money, containing nearly three hundred pounds in gold and silver of various coinage, the savings of twenty years, which he now, without speaking a syllable upon the subject, dedicated to the service of the patron whose shelter and protection had given him the means of making this little hoard. Tressilian accepted it without affecting a moment’s hesitation, and a mutual grasp of the hand was all that passed betwixt them, to express the pleasure which the one felt in dedicating his all to such a purpose, and that which the other received from finding so material an obstacle to the success of his journey so suddenly removed, and in a manner so unexpected.

While Tressilian was making preparations for his departure early the ensuing morning, Wayland Smith desired to speak with him, and, expressing his hope that he had been pleased with the operation of his medicine in behalf of Sir Hugh Robsart, added his desire to accompany him to court. This was indeed what Tressilian himself had several times thought of; for the shrewdness, alertness of understanding, and variety of resource which this fellow had exhibited during the time they had travelled together, had made him sensible that his assistance might be of importance. But then Wayland was in danger from the grasp of law; and of this Tressilian reminded him, mentioning something, at the same time, of the pincers of Pinniewinks and the warrant of Master Justice Blindas. Wayland Smith laughed both to scorn.

“See you, sir!” said he, “I have changed my garb from that of a farrier to a serving-man; but were it still as it was, look at my moustaches. They now hang down; I will but turn them up, and dye them with a tincture that I know of, and the devil would scarce know me again.”

He accompanied these words with the appropriate action, and in less than a minute, by setting up, his moustaches and his hair, he seemed a different person from him that had but now entered the room. Still, however, Tressilian hesitated to accept his services, and the artist became proportionably urgent.

“I owe you life and limb,” he said, “and I would fain pay a part of the debt, especially as I know from Will Badger on what dangerous service your worship is bound. I do not, indeed, pretend to be what is called a man of mettle, one of those ruffling tear-cats who maintain their master’s quarrel with sword and buckler. Nay, I am even one of those who hold the end of a feast better than the beginning of a fray. But I know that I can serve your worship better, in such quest as yours, than any of these sword-and-dagger men, and that my head will be worth an hundred of their hands.”

Tressilian still hesitated. He knew not much of this strange fellow, and was doubtful how far he could repose in him the confidence necessary to render him a useful attendant upon the present emergency. Ere he had come to a determination, the trampling of a horse was heard in the courtyard, and Master Mumblazen and Will Badger both entered hastily into Tressilian’s chamber, speaking almost at the same moment.

“Here is a serving-man on the bonniest grey tit I ever see’d in my life,” said Will Badger, who got the start – “having on his arm a silver cognizance, being a fire-drake holding in his mouth a brickbat, under a coronet of an Earl’s degree,” said Master Mumblazen, “and bearing a letter sealed of the same.”

Tressilian took the letter, which was addressed “To the worshipful Master Edmund Tressilian, our loving kinsman – These – ride, ride, ride – for thy life, for thy life, for thy life.” He then opened it, and found the following contents: —

“MASTER TRESSILIAN, OUR GOOD FRIEND AND COUSIN,

“We are at present so ill at ease, and otherwise so unhappily circumstanced, that we are desirous to have around us those of our friends on whose loving-kindness we can most especially repose confidence; amongst whom we hold our good Master Tressilian one of the foremost and nearest, both in good will and good ability. We therefore pray you, with your most convenient speed, to repair to our poor lodging, at Sayes Court, near Deptford, where we will treat further with you of matters which we deem it not fit to commit unto writing. And so we bid you heartily farewell, being your loving kinsman to command,

“RATCLIFFE, EARL OF SUSSEX.”

“Send up the messenger instantly, Will Badger,” said Tressilian; and as the man entered the room, he exclaimed, “Ah, Stevens, is it you? how does my good lord?”

“Ill, Master Tressilian,” was the messenger’s reply, “and having therefore the more need of good friends around him.”

“But what is my lord’s malady?” said Tressilian anxiously; “I heard nothing of his being ill.”

“I know not, sir,” replied the man; “he is very ill at ease. The leeches are at a stand, and many of his household suspect foul practice-witchcraft, or worse.”

“What are the symptoms?” said Wayland Smith, stepping forward hastily.

“Anan?” said the messenger, not comprehending his meaning.

“What does he ail?” said Wayland; “where lies his disease?”

The man looked at Tressilian, as if to know whether he should answer these inquiries from a stranger, and receiving a sign in the affirmative, he hastily enumerated gradual loss of strength, nocturnal perspiration, and loss of appetite, faintness, etc.

“Joined,” said Wayland, “to a gnawing pain in the stomach, and a low fever?”

“Even so,” said the messenger, somewhat surprised.

“I know how the disease is caused,” said the artist, “and I know the cause. Your master has eaten of the manna of Saint Nicholas. I know the cure too – my master shall not say I studied in his laboratory for nothing.”

“How mean you?” said Tressilian, frowning; “we speak of one of the first nobles of England. Bethink you, this is no subject for buffoonery.”

“God forbid!” said Wayland Smith. “I say that I know this disease, and can cure him. Remember what I did for Sir Hugh Robsart.”

“We will set forth instantly,” said Tressilian. “God calls us.”

Accordingly, hastily mentioning this new motive for his instant departure, though without alluding to either the suspicions of Stevens, or the assurances of Wayland Smith, he took the kindest leave of Sir Hugh and the family at Lidcote Hall, who accompanied him with prayers and blessings, and, attended by Wayland and the Earl of Sussex’s domestic, travelled with the utmost speed towards London.

CHAPTER XIII

     Ay, I know you have arsenic,     Vitriol, sal-tartre, argaile, alkaly,     Cinoper:  I know all. – This fellow, Captain,     Will come in time to be a great distiller,     And give a say (I will not say directly,     But very near) at the philosopher’s stone.THE ALCHEMIST.

Tressilian and his attendants pressed their route with all dispatch. He had asked the smith, indeed, when their departure was resolved on, whether he would not rather choose to avoid Berkshire, in which he had played a part so conspicuous? But Wayland returned a confident answer. He had employed the short interval they passed at Lidcote Hall in transforming himself in a wonderful manner. His wild and overgrown thicket of beard was now restrained to two small moustaches on the upper lip, turned up in a military fashion. A tailor from the village of Lidcote (well paid) had exerted his skill, under his customer’s directions, so as completely to alter Wayland’s outward man, and take off from his appearance almost twenty years of age. Formerly, besmeared with soot and charcoal, overgrown with hair, and bent double with the nature of his labour, disfigured too by his odd and fantastic dress, he seemed a man of fifty years old. But now, in a handsome suit of Tressilian’s livery, with a sword by his side and a buckler on his shoulder, he looked like a gay ruffling serving-man, whose age might be betwixt thirty and thirty-five, the very prime of human life. His loutish, savage-looking demeanour seemed equally changed, into a forward, sharp, and impudent alertness of look and action.

When challenged by Tressilian, who desired to know the cause of a metamorphosis so singular and so absolute, Wayland only answered by singing a stave from a comedy, which was then new, and was supposed, among the more favourable judges, to augur some genius on the part of the author. We are happy to preserve the couplet, which ran exactly thus, —

     “Ban, ban, ca Caliban —     Get a new master – Be a new man.”

Although Tressilian did not recollect the verses, yet they reminded him that Wayland had once been a stage player, a circumstance which, of itself, accounted indifferently well for the readiness with which he could assume so total a change of personal appearance. The artist himself was so confident of his disguise being completely changed, or of his having completely changed his disguise, which may be the more correct mode of speaking, that he regretted they were not to pass near his old place of retreat.

“I could venture,” he said, “in my present dress, and with your worship’s backing, to face Master Justice Blindas, even on a day of Quarter Sessions; and I would like to know what is become of Hobgoblin, who is like to play the devil in the world, if he can once slip the string, and leave his granny and his dominie. – Ay, and the scathed vault!” he said; “I would willingly have seen what havoc the explosion of so much gunpowder has made among Doctor Demetrius Doboobie’s retorts and phials. I warrant me, my fame haunts the Vale of the Whitehorse long after my body is rotten; and that many a lout ties up his horse, lays down his silver groat, and pipes like a sailor whistling in a calm for Wayland Smith to come and shoe his tit for him. But the horse will catch the founders ere the smith answers the call.”

In this particular, indeed, Wayland proved a true prophet; and so easily do fables rise, that an obscure tradition of his extraordinary practice in farriery prevails in the Vale of Whitehorse even unto this day; and neither the tradition of Alfred’s Victory, nor of the celebrated Pusey Horn, are better preserved in Berkshire than the wild legend of Wayland Smith. [See Note 2, Legend of Wayland Smith.]

The haste of the travellers admitted their making no stay upon their journey, save what the refreshment of the horses required; and as many of the places through which they passed were under the influence of the Earl of Leicester, or persons immediately dependent on him, they thought it prudent to disguise their names and the purpose of their journey. On such occasions the agency of Wayland Smith (by which name we shall continue to distinguish the artist, though his real name was Lancelot Wayland) was extremely serviceable. He seemed, indeed, to have a pleasure in displaying the alertness with which he could baffle investigation, and amuse himself by putting the curiosity of tapsters and inn-keepers on a false scent. During the course of their brief journey, three different and inconsistent reports were circulated by him on their account – namely, first, that Tressilian was the Lord Deputy of Ireland, come over in disguise to take the Queen’s pleasure concerning the great rebel Rory Oge MacCarthy MacMahon; secondly, that the said Tressilian was an agent of Monsieur, coming to urge his suit to the hand of Elizabeth; thirdly, that he was the Duke of Medina, come over, incognito, to adjust the quarrel betwixt Philip and that princess.

Tressilian was angry, and expostulated with the artist on the various inconveniences, and, in particular, the unnecessary degree of attention to which they were subjected by the figments he thus circulated; but he was pacified (for who could be proof against such an argument?) by Wayland’s assuring him that a general importance was attached to his own (Tressilian’s) striking presence, which rendered it necessary to give an extraordinary reason for the rapidity and secrecy of his journey.

At length they approached the metropolis, where, owing to the more general recourse of strangers, their appearance excited neither observation nor inquiry, and finally they entered London itself.

It was Tressilian’s purpose to go down directly to Deptford, where Lord Sussex resided, in order to be near the court, then held at Greenwich, the favourite residence of Elizabeth, and honoured as her birthplace. Still a brief halt in London was necessary; and it was somewhat prolonged by the earnest entreaties of Wayland Smith, who desired permission to take a walk through the city.