St. George and St. Michael Vol. II

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There was in the mind of Richard, innate, but more rapidly developed
since his breach with Dorothy, a strong tendency towards the
supernatural--I mean by the word that which neither any one of the
senses nor all of them together, can reveal. He was one of those
young men, few, yet to be found in all ages of the world's history,
who, in health and good earthly hope, and without any marked poetic
or metaphysical tendency, yet know in their nature the need of
conscious communion with the source of that nature--truly the
veriest absurdity if there be no God, but as certainly the most
absolute necessity of conscious existence if there be a first life
from whom our life is born.

'Am I not free now?' he said to himself, as he lay on his bed in his
own gable of the many-nooked house; 'Am I not free to worship God
as I please? Who will interfere with me? Who can prevent me? As to
form and ceremony, what are they, or what is the absence of them, to
the worship in which my soul seeks to go forth? What the better
shall I be when all this is over, even if the best of our party
carry the day? Will Cromwell rend for me the heavy curtain, which,
ever as I lift up my heart, seems to come rolling down between me
and him whom I call my God? If I could pass within that curtain,
what would Charles, or Laud, or Newcastle, or the mighty Cromwell
himself and all his Ironsides be to me? Am I not on the wrong road
for the high peak?'

But then he thought of others--of the oppressed and the
superstitious, of injustice done and not endured--not wrapt in the
pearly antidote of patience, but rankling in the soul; of priests
who, knowing not God, substituted ceremonies for prayer, and led the
seeking heart afar from its goal--and said that his arm could at
least fight for the truth in others, if only his heart could fight
for the truth in himself. No; he would go on as he had begun; for,
might it not be the part of him who could take the form of an angel
of light when he would deceive, to make use of inward truths, which
might well be the strength of his own soul, to withdraw him from the
duties he owed to others, and cause the heart of devotion to
paralyze the arm of battle? Besides, was he not now in a low
physical condition, and therefore the less likely to judge truly
with regard to affairs of active outer life? His business plainly
was to gain strength of body, that the fumes of weakness might no
longer cloud his brain, and that, if he had to die for the truth,
whether in others or in himself, he might die in power, like the
blast of an exploding mine, and not like the flame of an expiring
lamp. And certainly, as his body grew stronger, and the impulses to
action, so powerful in all healthy youth, returned, his doubts grew
weaker, and he became more and more satisfied that he had been in
the right path.

Lady outstripped her master in the race for health, and after a few
days had oats and barley in a profusion which, although far from
careless, might well have seemed to her unlimited. Twice every day,
sometimes oftener, Richard went to see her, and envied the rapidity
of her recovery from the weakness which scanty rations, loss of
blood, and the inflammation of her wounds had caused. Had there been
any immediate call for his services, however, that would have
brought his strength with it. Had the struggle been still going on
upon the fields of battle instead of in the houses of words, he
would have been well in half the time. But Waller and Essex were
almost without an army between them, and were at bitter strife with
each other, while the peace-party seemed likely to carry everything
before them, women themselves presenting a petition for peace, and
some of them using threats to support it.

At length, chiefly through the exertions of the presbyterian
preachers and the common council of the city of London, the
peace-party was defeated, and a vigorous levying and pressing of
troops began anew. So the hour had come for Richard to mount. His
men were all in health and spirits, and their vacancies had been
filled up. Lady was frolicsome, and Richard was perfectly well.

The day before they were to start he took the mare out for a gallop
across the fields. Never had he known her so full of life. She
rushed at hedge and ditch as if they had been squares of royalist
infantry. Her madness woke the fervour of battle in Richard's own
veins, and as they swept along together, it grew until he felt like
one of the Arabs of old, flashing to the harvest field of God, where
the corn to be reaped was the lives of infidels, and the ears to be
gleaned were the heads of the fallen. That night he scarcely slept
for eagerness to be gone.

Waking early from what little sleep he had had, he dressed and armed
himself hurriedly, and ran to the stables, where already his men
were bustling about getting their horses ready for departure.

Lady had a loose box for herself, and thither straight her master
went, wondering as he opened the door of it that he did not hear
usual morning welcome. The place was empty. He called Stopchase.

'Where is my mare?' he said. 'Surely no one has been fool enough to
take her to the water just as we are going to start.'

Stopchase stood and stared without reply, then turned and left the
stable, but came back almost immediately, looking horribly scared.
Lady was nowhere to be seen or heard. Richard rushed hither and
thither, storming. Not a man about the place could give him a word
of enlightenment. All knew she was in that box the night before;
none knew when she left it or where she was now.

He ran to his father, but all his father could see or say was no
more than was plain to every one: the mare had been carried off in
the night, and that with a skill worthy of a professional
horse-thief.

What now was the poor fellow to do? If I were to tell the
truth--namely, that he wept--so courageous are the very cowards of
this century that they would sneer at him; but I do tell it
notwithstanding, for I have little regard to the opinion of any man
who sneers. Whatever he may or may not have been as a man, Richard
felt but half a soldier without his mare, and, his country calling
him, oppressed humanity crying aloud for his sword and arm, his men
waiting for him, and Lady gone, what was he to do?

'Never heed, Dick, my boy,' said his father.--It was the first time
since he had put on man's attire that he had called him Dick,--
'Thou shalt have my Oliver. He is a horse of good courage, as thou
knowest, and twice the weight of thy little mare.'

'Ah, father! you do not know Lady so well as I. Not Cromwell's best
horse could comfort me for her. I MUST find her. Give me leave, sir;
I must go and think. I cannot mount and ride, and leave her I know
not where. Go I will, if it be on a broomstick, but this morning I
ride not. Let the men put up their horses, Stopchase, and break
their fast.'

'It is a wile of the enemy,' said Stopchase. 'Truly, it were no
marvel to me were the good mare at this moment eating her oats in
the very stall where we have even but now in vain sought her. I will
go and search for her with my hands.'

'Verily,' said Mr. Heywood with a smile, 'to fear the devil is not
to run from him!--How much of her hay hath she eaten, Stopchase?'
he added, as the man returned with disconsolate look.

'About a bottle, sir,' answered Stopchase, rather indefinitely; but
the conclusion drawn was, that she had been taken very soon after
the house was quiet.

The fact was, that since the return of their soldiers, poor watch
had been kept by the people of Redware. Increase of confidence had
led to carelessness. Mr. Heywood afterwards made inquiry, and had
small reason to be satisfied with what he discovered.

'The thief must have been one who knew the place,' said Faithful.

'Why dost thou think so?' asked his master.

'How swooped he else so quietly upon the best animal, sir?' returned
the man.

'She was in the place of honour,' answered Mr. Heywood.

'Scudamore!' said Richard to himself. It might be no light--only a
flash in his brain. But that even was precious in the utter
darkness.

'Sir,' he said, turning to his father, 'I would I had a plan of
Raglan stables.'

'What wouldst thou an' thou hadst, my son?' asked Mr. Heywood.

'Nay, sir, that wants thinking. But I believe my poor mare is at
this moment in one of those vaults they tell us of.'

'It may be, my son. It is reported that the earl hath of late been
generous in giving of horses. Poor soldiers the king will find them
that fight for horses, or titles either. Such will never stand
before them that fight for the truth--in the love thereof! Eh,
Richard?'

'Truly, sir, I know not,' answered his son, disconsolately. 'I hope
I love the truth, and I think so doth Stopchase, after his kind; and
yet were we of those that fled from Atherton moor.'

'Thou didst not flee until thou couldst no more, my son. It asketh
greater courage of some men to flee when the hour of flight hath
come, for they would rather fight on to the death than allow, if but
to their own souls, that they are foiled. But a man may flee in
faith as well as fight in faith, my son, and each is good in its
season. There is a time for all things under the sun. In the end,
when the end cometh, we shall see how it hath all gone. When, then,
wilt thou ride?'

'To-morrow, an' it please you, sir. I should fight but evil with the
knowledge that I had left my best battle-friend in the hands of the
Philistines, nor sent even a cry after her.'

'What boots it, Richard? If she be within Raglan walls, they yield
her not again. Bide thy time; and when thou meetest thy foe on thy
friend's back, woe betide him!'

'Amen, sir!' said Richard. 'But with your leave I will not go
to-day. I give you my promise I will go to-morrow.'

'Be it so, then. Stopchase, let the men be ready at this hour on the
morrow. The rest of the day is their own.'

So saying, Roger Heywood turned away, in no small distress, although
he concealed it, both at the loss of the mare and his son's grief
over it. Betaking himself to his study, he plunged himself
straightway deep in the comfort of the last born and longest named
of Milton's tracts.

The moment he was gone, Richard, who had now made up his mind as to
his first procedure, sent Stopchase away, saddled Oliver, rode
slowly out of the yard, and struck across the fields. After a
half-hour's ride he stopped at a lonely cottage at the foot of a
rock on the banks of the Usk. There he dismounted, and having
fastened his horse to the little gate in front, entered a small
garden full of sweet-smelling herbs mingled with a few flowers, and
going up to the door, knocked, and then lifted the latch.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE WITCH'S COTTAGE.

Richard was met on the threshold by mistress Rees, in the same old-
fashioned dress, all but the hat, which I have already described. On
her head she wore a widow's cap, with large crown, thick frill, and
black ribbon encircling it between them. She welcomed him with the
kindness almost of an old nurse, and led the way to the one chair in
the room--beside the hearth, where a fire of peat was smouldering
rather than burning beneath the griddle, on which she was cooking
oat-cake. The cottage was clean and tidy. From the smoky rafters
hung many bunches of dried herbs, which she used partly for
medicines, partly for charms.

To herself, the line dividing these uses was not very clearly
discernible.

'I am in trouble, mistress Rees,' said Richard, as he seated
himself.

'Most men do be in trouble most times, master Heywood,' returned the
old woman. 'Dost find thou hast taken the wrong part, eh?--There be
no need to tell what aileth thee. 'Tis a bit easier to cast off a
maiden than to forget her--eh?'

'No, mistress Rees. I came not to trouble thee concerning what is
past and gone,' said Richard with a sigh. 'It is a taste of thy
knowledge I want rather than of thy skill.'

'What skill I have is honest,' said the old woman.

'Far be it from thee to say otherwise, mother Rees. But I need it
not now. Tell me, hast thou not been once and again within the great
gates of Raglan castle?'

'Yes, my son--oftener than I can tell thee,' answered the old woman.
'It is but a se'night agone that I sat a talking with my son Thomas
Rees in the chimney corner of Raglan kitchen, after the supper was
served and the cook at rest. It was there my lad was turnspit once
upon a time, for as great a man as he is now with my lord and all
the household. Those were hard times after my good man left me,
master Heywood. But the cream will to the top, and there is my son
now--who but he in kitchen and hall? Well, of all places in the
mortal world, that Raglan passes!'

'They tell strange things of the stables there, mistress Rees: know
you aught of them?'

'Strange things, master? They tell nought but good of the stables
that tell the truth. As to the armoury, now--well it is not for such
as mother Rees to tell tales out of school.'

'What I heard, and wanted to ask thee about, mother, was that they
are under ground. Thinkest thou horses can fare well under ground?
Thou knowest a horse as well as a dog, mother.'

Ere she replied, the old woman took her cake from the griddle, and
laid it on a wooden platter, then caught up a three-legged stool,
set it down by Richard, seated herself at his knee, and assumed the
look of mystery wherewith she was in the habit of garnishing every
bit of knowledge, real or fancied, which it pleased her to
communicate.

'Hear me, and hold thy peace, master Richard Heywood,' she said. 'As
good horses as ever stamped in Redware stables go down into Raglan
vaults; but yet they eat their oats and their barley, and when they
lift their heads they look out to the ends of the world. Whether it
be by the skill of the mason or of such as the hidden art of my lord
Herbert knows best how to compel, let them say that list to make
foes where it were safer to have friends. But this I am free to tell
thee--that in the pitched court, betwixt the antechamber to my
lord's parlour that hath its windows to the moat, and the great bay
window of the hall that looks into that court, there goeth a
descent, as it seemeth of stairs only; but to him that knoweth how
to pull a certain tricker, as of an harquebus or musquetoon, the
whole thing turneth around, and straightway from a stair passeth
into an easy matter of a sloping way by the which horses go up and
down. And Thomas he telleth me also that at the further end of the
vaults to which it leads, the which vaults pass under the marquis's
oak parlour, and under all the breadth of the fountain court, as
they do call the other court of the castle, thou wilt come to a
great iron door in the foundations of one of the towers, in which my
lord hath contrived stabling for a hundred and more horses, and
that, mark my words, my son, not in any vault or underground
dungeon, but in the uppermost chamber of all.'

'And how do they get up there, mother?' asked Richard, who listened
with all his ears.

'Why, they go round and round, and ever the rounder the higher, as a
fly might crawl up a corkscrew. And there is a stair also in the
same screw, as it were, my Thomas do tell me, by which the people of
the house do go up and down, and know nothing of the way for the
horses within, neither of the stalls at the top of the tower, where
they stand and see the country. Yet do they often marvel at the
sounds of their hoofs, and their harness, and their cries, and their
chumping of their corn. And that is how Raglan can send forth so
many horseman for the use of the king. But alack, master Heywood! is
it for a wise woman like myself to forget that thou art of the other
part, and that these are secrets of state which scarce another in
the castle but my son Thomas knoweth aught concerning! What will
become of me that I have told them to a Heywood, being, as is well
known, myself no more of a royalist than another?'

And she regarded him a little anxiously.

'What should it signify, mother,'' said Richard, 'so long as neither
you nor I believe a word of it? Horses go up a tower to bed
forsooth! Yet for the matter of that, I will engage to ride my mare
up any corkscrew wide enough to turn her forelock and tail in--ay,
and down again too, which is another business with most horses. But
come now, mother Rees, confess this all a fable of thine own
contriving to make a mock of a farm-bred lad like me.'

'In good sooth, master Heywood,' answered the old woman, 'I tell the
tale as 'twas told to me. I avouch it not for certain, knowing that
my son Thomas hath a seething brain and loveth a joke passing well,
nor heedeth greatly upon whom he putteth it, whether his master or
his mother; but for the stair by the great hall window, that stair
have I seen with mine own eyes, though for the horses to come and go
thereby, that truly have I not seen. And for the rest I only say it
may well be, for there is nothing of it all which the wise man, my
lord Herbert, could not with a word--and that a light one for him to
speak, though truly another might be torn to pieces in saying it.'

'I would I might see the place!' murmured Richard.

'An' it were not thou art such a--! But it boots not talking, master
Heywood. Thou art too well known for a puritan--roundhead they call
thee; and thou hast given them and theirs too many hard knocks, my
son, to look they should be willing to let thee gaze on the wonders
of their great house. Else, being that I am a friend to thee and
thine, I would gladly--. But, as I say, it boots nothing--although
I have a son, who being more of the king's part than I am--.'

'Hast thou not then art enough, mother, to set me within Raglan
walls for an hour or two after midnight? I ask no more,' said
Richard, who, although he was but leading the way to quite another
proposal, nor desired aid of art black or white, yet could not help
a little tremor at making the bare suggestion of the unhallowed
idea.

'An' I had, I dared not use it,' answered the old woman; 'for is not
my lord Herbert there? Were it not for him--well--. But I dare not,
as I say, for his art is stronger than mine, and from his knowledge
I could hide nothing. And I dare not for thy sake either, my young
master. Once inside those walls of stone, those gates of oak, and
those portcullises of iron, and thou comes not out alive again, I
warrant thee.'

'I should like to try once, though,' said Richard. 'Couldst thou not
disguise me, mother Rees, and send me with a message to thy son?'

'I tell thee, young master, I dare not,' answered the old woman,
with utmost solemnity. 'And if I did, thy speech would presently
bewray thee.'

'I would then I knew that part of the wall a man might scramble over
in the dark,' said Richard.

'Thinks thou my lord marquis hath been fortifying his castle for two
years that a young Heywood, even if he be one of the godly, and have
long legs to boot, should make a vaulting horse of it? I know but
one knows the way over Raglan walls, and thou wilt hardly persuade
him to tell thee,' said mother Rees, with a grim chuckle.

As she spoke she rose, and went towards her sleeping chamber. Then
first Richard became aware that for some time he had been hearing a
scratching and whining. She opened the door, and out ran a
wretched-looking dog, huge and gaunt, with the red marks of recent
wounds all over his body, and his neck swathed in a discoloured
bandage. He went straight to Richard, and began fawning upon him and
licking his hands. Miserable and most disreputable as he looked, he
recognised in him Dorothy's mastiff.

'My poor Marquis!' he said, 'what evil hath then befallen thee? What
would thy mistress say to see thee thus?'

Marquis whined and wagged his tail as if he understood every word he
said, and Richard was stung to the heart at the sight of his
apparently forlorn condition.

'Hath thy mistress then forsaken thee too, Marquis?' he said, and
from fellow-feeling could have taken the dog in his arms.

'I think not so,' said mistress Rees. 'He hath been with her in the
castle ever since she went there.'

'Poor fellow, how thou art torn!' said Richard. 'What animal of
thine own size could have brought thee into such a plight? Or can it
be that thou hast found a bigger? But that thou hast beaten him I am
well assured.'

Marquis wagged an affirmative.

'Fangs of biggest dog in Gwent never tore him like that, master
Heywood. Heark'ee now. He cannot tell his tale, so I must tell thee
all I know of the matter. I was over to Raglan village three nights
agone, to get me a bottle of strong waters from mine host of the
White Horse, for the distilling of certain of my herbs good for
inward disorders, when he told me that about an hour before there
had come from the way of the castle all of a sudden the most
terrible noise that ever human ears were pierced withal, as if every
devil in hell of dog or cat kind had broken loose, and fierce battle
was waging between them in the Yellow Tower. I said little, but had
my own fears for my lord Herbert, and came home sad and slow and
went to bed. Now what should wake me the next morning, just as
daylight broke the neck of the darkness, but a pitiful whining and
obstinate scratching at my door! And who should it be but that same
lovely little lapdog of my young mistress now standing by thy knee!
But had thou seen him then, master Richard! It was the devil's
hackles he had been through! Such a torn dishclout of a dog thou
never did see! I understood it all in a moment. He had made one in
the fight, and whether he had had the better or the worse of it,
like a wise dog as he always was, he knew where to find what would
serve his turn, and so when the house was quiet, off he came to old
mother Rees to be plaistered and physicked. But what perplexes my
old brain is, how, at that hour of the night, for to reach my door
when he did, and him hardly able to stand when I let him in, it must
have been dead night when he left--it do perplex me, I say, to think
how at that time of the night he got out of that prison, watched as
it is both night and day by them that sleep not.'

'He couldn't have come over the wall?' suggested Richard.

'Had thou seen him--thou would not make that the question.'

'Then he must have come through or under it; there are but three
ways,' said Richard to himself. 'He's a big dog,' he added aloud,
regarding him thoughtfully as he patted his sullen affectionate
head. 'He's a big dog,' he repeated.

'I think a'most he be the biggest dog _I_ ever saw,' assented
mistress Rees.

'I would I were less about the shoulders,' said Richard.

'Who ever heard a man worth his mess of pottage wish him such a wish
as that, master Heywood! What would mistress Dorothy say to hear
thee? I warrant me she findeth no fault with the breadth of thy
shoulders.'

'I am less in the compass than I was before the last fight,' he went
on, without heeding his hostess, and as if he talked to the dog, who
stood with his chin on his knee, looking up in his face. 'Where
thou, Marquis, canst walk, I doubt not to creep; but if thou must
creep, what then is left for me? Yet how couldst thou creep with
such wounds in thy throat and belly, my poor Marquis?'

The dog whined, and moved all his feet, one after the other, but
without taking his chin off Richard's knee.

'Hast seen thy mistress, little Dick, Marquis?' asked Richard.

Again the dog whined, moved his feet, and turned his head towards
the door. But whether it was that he understood the question, or
only that he recognised the name of his friend, who could tell?

'Will thou take me to Dick, Marquis?'

The dog turned and walked to the door, then stood and looked back,
as if waiting for Richard to open it and follow him.

'No, Marquis, we must not go before night,' said Richard.

The dog returned slowly to his knee, and again laid his chin upon
it.

'What will the dog do next, thinkest thou, mother--when he finds
himself well again, I mean? Will he run from thee?' said Richard.

'He would be like neither dog nor man I ever knew, did he not.'
returned the old woman. 'He will for sure go back where he got his
hurts--to revenge them if he may, for that is the custom also with
both dogs and men.'

'Couldst thou make sure of him that he run not away till I come
again at night, mother?'

'Certain I can, my son. I will shut him up whence he will not break
so long as he hears me nigh him.'

'Do so then an' thou lovest me, mother Rees, and I will be here with
the first of the darkness.'

'An' I love thee, master Richard? Nay, but I do love thy good face
and thy true words, be thou puritan or roundhead, or fanatic, or
what evil name soever the wicked fashion of the times granteth to
men to call thee.'

'Hark in thine ear then, mother: I will call no names; but they of
Raglan have, as I truly believe, stolen from me my Lady.'

'Nay, nay, master Richard,' interrupted mistress Rees; 'did I not
tell thee with my own mouth that she went of her own free will, and
in the company of the reverend sir Matthew Herbert?'

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