St. George and St. Michael

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At length he began to be aware that this was no light preference, no
passing fancy, but something more serious than he had hitherto
known--that in fact he was really, though uncomfortably and
unsatisfactorily, in love with her. He felt she was not like any
other girl he had made his shabby love to, and would have tried to
make beter to her, but she kept him at a distance, and that he began
to find tormenting. One day, for example, meeting her in the court
as she was crossing towards the keep,--

'I would thou didst take apprentices, cousin,' he said, 'so I might
be one, and learn of thee the mysteries of thy trade.'

'Wherefore, cousin?'

'That I might spare thee something of thy labour.'

'That were no kindness. I am not like thee; I find labour a thing to
be courted rather than spared; I am not overwrought.'

Scudamore gazed into her grey eyes, but found there nothing to
contradict, nothing to supplement the indifference of her words.
There was no lurking sparkle of humour, no acknowledgment of
kindness. There was a something, but he could not understand it, for
his poor shapeless soul might not read the cosmic mystery embodied
in their depths. He stammered--who had never known himself stammer
before, broke the joints of an ill-fitted answer, swept the tiles
with the long feather in his hat, and found himself parted from her,
with the feeling that he had not of himself left her, but had been
borne away by some subtle force emanating from her.

Lord Herbert had again left the castle. More soldiers and more must
still be raised for the king. Now he would be paying his majesty a
visit at Oxford, and inspecting the life-guards he had provided him,
now back in South Wales, enlisting men, and straining every power in
him to keep the district of which his father was governor in good
affection and loyal behaviour.

Winter drew nigh, and stayed somewhat the rushx of events, clogged
the wheels of life as they ran towards death, brought a little sleep
to the world and coolness to men's hearts--led in another Christmas,
and looked on for a while.

Nor did the many troubles heaped on England, the drained purses, the
swollen hearts, the anxious minds, the bereaved houses, the
ruptures, the sorrows, and the hatreds, yet reach to dull in any
large measure the merriment of the season at Raglan. Customs are
like carpets, for ever wearing out whether we mark it or no, but
Lord Worcester's patriarchal prejudices, cleaving to the old and
looking askance on the new, caused them to last longer in Raglan
than almost anywhere else: the old were the things of his fathers
which he had loved from his childhood; the new were the things of
his children which he had not proven.

What a fire that was that blazed on the hall-hearth under the great
chimney, which, dividing in two, embraced a fine window, then again
becoming one, sent the hot blast rushing out far into the waste of
wintry air! No one could go within yards of it for the fierce heat
of the blazing logs, now and then augmented by huge lumps of coal.
And when, on the evenings of special merry-making, the candles were
lit, the musicians were playing, and a country dance was filling the
length of the great floor, in which the whole household, from the
marquis himself, if his gout permitted, to the grooms and kitchen-
maids, would take part, a finer outburst of homely splendour, in
which was more colour than gilding, more richness than shine, was
not to be seen in all the island.

On such an occasion Rowland had more than once attempted nearer
approach to Dorothy, but had gained nothing. She neither repelled
nor encouraged him, but smiled at his better jokes, looked grave at
his silly ones, and altogether treated him like a boy, young--or
old--enough to be troublesome if encouraged. He grew desperate, and
so one night summoned up courage as they stood together waiting for
the next dance.

'Why will you never talk to me, cousin Dorothy?' he said.

'Is it so, Mr. Scudamore? I was not aware. If thou spoke and I
answered not, I am sorry.'

'No, I mean not that,' returned Scudamore. 'But when I venture to
speak, you always make me feel as if I ought not to have spoken.
When I call you COUSIN DOROTHY, you reply with MR. SCUDAMORE.'

'The relation is hardly near enough to justify a less measure of
observance.'

'Our mothers loved each other.'

'They found each other worthy.'

'And you do not find me such?' sighed Scudamore, with a smile meant
to be both humble and bewitching.

'N-n-o. Thou hast not made me desire to hold with thee much
converse.'

'Tell me why, cousin, that I may reform that which offends thee.'

'If a man see not his faults with his own eyes, how shall he see
them with the eyes of another?'

'Wilt thou never love me, Dorothy?--not even a little?'

'Wherefore should I love thee, Rowland?'

'We are commanded to love even our enemies.'

'Art thou then mine enemy, cousin?'

'No, forsooth! I am the most loving friend thou hast.'

'Then am I sorely to be pitied.'

'For having my love?'

'Nay; for having none better than thine. But thank God, it is not
so.'

'Must I then be thine enemy indeed before thou wilt love me?'

'No, cousin: cease to be thine own enemy and I will call thee my
friend.'

'Marry! wherein then am I mine own enemy? I lead a sober life
enough--as thou seest, ever under the eye of my lord.'

'But what wouldst thou an' thou wert from under the eye of thy lord?
I know thee better than thou thinkest, cousin. I have read thy
title-page, if not thy whole book.'

'Tell me then how runneth my title-page, cousin.'

'The art of being wilfully blind, or The way to see no farther than
one would.'

'Fair preacher,--' began Rowland, but Dorothy interrupted him.

'Nay then, an' thou betake thee to thy jibes, I have done,' she
said.

'Be not angry with me; it is but my nature, which for thy sake I
will control. If thou canst not love me, wilt thou not then pity me
a little?'

'That I may pity thee, answer me what good thing is there in thee
wherefore I should love thee.'

'Wouldst thou have a man trumpet his own praises?'

'I fear not that of thee who hast but the trumpet--I will tell thee
this much: I have never seen in thee that thou didst love save for
the pastime thereof. I doubt if thou lovest thy master for more than
thy place.'

'Oh cousin!'

'Be honest with thyself, Rowland. If thou would have me for thy
cousin, it must be on the ground of truth.'

Rowland possessed at least goodnature: few young men would have
borne to be so severely handled. But then, while one's good opinion
of himself remains untroubled, confesses no touch, gives out no
hollow sound, shrinks not self-hurt with the doubt of its own
reality, hostile criticism will not go very deep, will not reach to
the quick. The thing that hurts is that which sets trembling the
ground of self-worship, lays bare the shrunk cracks and wormholes
under the golden plates of the idol, shows the ants running about in
it, and renders the foolish smile of the thing hateful. But he who
will then turn away from his imagined self, and refer his life to
the hidden ideal self, the angel that ever beholds the face of the
Father, shall therein be made whole and sound, alive and free.

The dance called them, and their talk ceased. When it was over,
Dorothy left the hall and sought her chamber. But in the fountain
court her cousin overtook her, and had the temerity to resume the
conversation. The moth would still at any risk circle the candle. It
was a still night, and therefore not very cold, although icicles
hung from the mouth of the horse, and here and there from the eaves.
They stood by the marble basin, and the dim lights and scarce dimmer
shadows from many an upper window passed athwart them as they stood.
The chapel was faintly lighted, but the lantern-window on the top
of the hall shone like a yellow diamond in the air.

'Thou dost me scant justice, cousin,' said Rowland, 'maintaining
that I love but myself or for mine own ends. I know that love thee
better than so.'

'For thine own sake, I would, might I but believe it, be glad of the
assurance. But--'

Amanda's behaviour to her having at last roused counter observation
and speculation on Dorothy's part, she had become suddenly aware
that there was an understanding between her and Rowland. It was
gradually, however, that the question rose in her mind: could these
two have been the nightly intruders on the forbidden ground of the
workshop, and afterwards the victims of the watershoot? But the
suspicion grew to all but a conviction. Latterly she had observed
that their behaviour to each other was changed, also that Amanda's
aversion to herself seemed to have gathered force. And one thing she
had found remarkable--that Rowland revealed no concern for Amanda's
misfortunes, or anxiety about her fate. With all these things
potentially present in her mind, she came all at once to the
resolution of attempting a bold stroke.

'--But,' Dorothy went on, 'when I think how thou didst bear thee
with mistress Amanda--'

'My precious Dorothy!' exclaimed Scudamore, filled with a sudden
gush of hope, 'thou wilt never be so unjust to thyself as to be
jealous of her! She is to me as nothing--as if she had never been;
nor care I forsooth if the devil hath indeed flown away with her
bodily, as they will have it in the hall and the guard-room.'

'Thou didst seem to hold friendly enough converse with her while she
was yet one of us.'

'Ye-e-s. But she had no heart like thee, Dorothy, as I soon
discovered. She had indeed a pretty wit of her own, but that was
all. And then she was spiteful. She hated thee, Dorothy.'

He spoke of her as one dead.

'How knewest thou that? Wast thou then so far in her confidence, and
art now able to talk of her thus? Where is thine own heart, Mr.
Scudamore?'

'In thy bosom, lovely Dorothy.'

'Thou mistakest. But mayhap thou dost imagine I picked it up that
night thou didst lay it at mistress Amanda's feet in my lord's
workshop in the keep?'

Dorothy's hatred of humbug--which was not the less in existence then
that they had not the ugly word to express the uglier thing--enabled
her to fix her eyes on him as she spoke, and keep them fixed when
she had ended. He turned pale--visibly pale through the shadowy
night, nor attempted to conceal his confusion. It is strange how
self-conviction will wait upon foreign judgment, as if often only
the general conscience were powerful enough to wake the individual
one.

'Or perhaps,' she continued, 'it was torn from thee by the waters
that swept thee from the bridge, as thou didst venture with her yet
again upon the forbidden ground.'

He hung his head, and stood before her like a chidden child.

'Think'st thou,' she went on, 'that my lord would easily pardon such
things?'

'Thou knewest it, and didst not betray me! Oh Dorothy!' murmured
Scudamore. 'Thou art a very angel of light, Dorothy.'

He seized her hand, and but for the possible eyes upon them, he
would have flung himself at her feet.

Dorothy, however, would not yet lay aside the part she had assumed
as moral physician--surgeon rather.

'But notwithstanding all this, cousin Rowland, when trouble came
upon the young lady, what comfort was there for her in thee? Never
hadst thou loved her, although I doubt not thou didst vow and swear
thereto an hundred times.'

Rowland was silent. He began to fear her.

'Or what love thou hadst was of such sort that thou didst encourage
in her that which was evil, and then let her go like a haggard hawk.
Thou marvellest, forsooth, that I should be so careless of thy
merits! Tell me, cousin, what is there in thee that I should love?
Can there be love for that which is nowise lovely? Thou wilt
doubtless say in thy heart, "She is but a girl, and how then should
she judge concerning men and their ways?" But I appeal to thine own
conscience, Rowland, when I ask thee--is this well? And if a maiden
truly loved thee, it were all one. Thou wouldst but carry thyself
the same to her--if not to-day, then to-morrow, or a year hence.'

'Not if she were good, Dorothy, like thee,' he murmured.

'Not if thou wert good, Rowland, like Him that made thee.'

'Wilt thou not teach me then to be good like thee, Dorothy?'

'Thou must teach thyself to be good like the Rowland thou knowest in
thy better heart, when it is soft and lowly.'

'Wouldst thou then love me a little, Dorothy, if I vowed to be thy
scholar, and study to be good? Give me some hope to help me in the
hard task.'

'He that is good is good for goodness' sake, Rowland. Yet who can
fail to love that which is good in king or knave?'

'Ah! but do not mock me, Dorothy: such is not the love I would have
of thee.'

'It is all thou ever canst have of me, and methinks it is not like
thou wilt ever have it, for verily thou art of nature so light that
any wind may blow thee into the Dead Sea.'

From a saint it was enough to anger any sinner.

'I see!' cried Scudamore. 'For all thy fine reproof, thou too canst
spurn a heart at thy feet. I will lay my life thou lovest the
round-head, and art but a traitress for all thy goodness.'

'I am indeed traitress enough to love any roundhead gentleman better
than a royalist knave,' said Dorothy; and turning from him she
sought the grand staircase.

CHAPTER XLI.

GLAMORGAN.

The winter passed, with much running to and fro, in foul weather and
fair; and still the sounds of war came no nearer to Raglan, which
lay like a great lion in a desert that the hunter dared not arouse.
The whole of Wales, except a castle or two, remained subject to the
king; and this he owed in great measure to the influence and
devotion of the Somersets, his obligation to whom he seemed more and
more bent on acknowledging.

One day in early summer lady Margaret was sitting in her parlour,
busy with her embroidery, and Dorothy was by her side assisting her,
when lord Herbert, who had been absent for many days, walked in.

'How does my lady Glamorgan?' he said gaily.

'What mean you, my Herbert?' returned his wife, looking in his eyes
somewhat eagerly.

'Thy Herbert am I no more; neither plume I myself any more in the
spare feathers of my father. Thou art, my dove, as thou deservest to
be, countess of Glamorgan, in the right of thine own husband, first
earl of the same; for such being the will of his majesty, I doubt
not thou wilt give thy consent thereto, and play the countess
graciously. Come, Dorothy, art not proud to be cousin to an earl?'

'I am proud that you should call me cousin, my lord,' answered
Dorothy; 'but truly to me it is all one whether you be called
Herbert or Glamorgan. So thou remain thou, cousin, and my friend,
the king may call thee what he will, and if thou art pleased, so am
I.'

It was the first time she had ever thou'd him, and she turned pale
at her own daring.

'St. George! but thou hast well spoken, cousin!' cried the earl.
'Hath she not, wife?'

'So well that if she often saith as well, I shall have much ado not
to hate her,' replied lady Glamorgan. 'When didst thou ever cry
"well spoken" to thy mad Irishwoman, Ned?'

'All thou dost is well, my lady. Thou hast all the titles to my
praises already in thy pocket. Besides, cousin Dorothy is young and
meek, and requireth a little encouragement.'

'Whereas thy wife is old and bold, and cares no more for thy good
word, my new lord of Glamorgan?'

Dorothy looked so grave that they both fell a-laughing.

'I would thou couldst teach her a merry jest or two, Margaret,' said
the earl. 'We are decent people enough in Raglan, but she is much
too sober for us. Cheer up, Dorothy! Good times are at hand: that
thou mayest not doubt it, listen--but this is only for thy ear, not
for thy tongue: the king hath made thy cousin, that is me, Edward
Somerset, the husband of this fair lady, generalissimo of his three
armies, and admiral of a fleet, and truly I know not what all, for I
have yet but run my eye over the patent. And, wife, I verily do
believe the king but bides his time to make my father duke of
Somerset, and then one day thou wilt be a duchess, Margaret. Think
on that!'

Lady Glamorgan burst into tears.

'I would I might have a kiss of my Molly!' she cried.

She had never before in Dorothy's hearing uttered the name of her
child since her death. New dignity, strange as it may seem to some,
awoke suddenly the thought of the darling to whom titles were but
words, and the ice was broken. A pause followed.

'Yes, Margaret, thou art right,' said Glamorgan at length; 'it is
all but folly; yet as the marks of a king's favour, such honours are
precious.'

As to what a king's favour itself might be worth, that my lord of
Glamorgan lived to learn.

'It is I who pay for them,' said his wife.

'How so, my dove?'

'Do they not cost me thee, Herbert--and cost me very dear? Art not
ever from my sight? Wish I not often as I lay awake in the dark,
that we were all in heaven and well over with the foolery of it? The
angels keep Molly in mind of us!'

'Yes, my Peggy, it is hard on thee, and hard on me too,' said the
earl tenderly, 'yet not so hard as upon our liege lord, the king,
who selleth his plate and jewels.'

'Pooh! what of that then, Herbert? An' he would leave me thee, he
might have all mine, and welcome; for thou knowest, Ned, I but hold
them for thee to sell when thou wilt.'

'I know; and the time may come, though, thank God, it is not yet.
What wouldst thou say, countess, if with all thy honours thou did
yet come to poverty? Canst be poor and merry, think'st thou?'

'So thou wert with me, Herbert--Glamorgan, I would say, but my lips
frame not themselves to the word. I like not the title greatly, but
when it means thee to me, then shall I love it.'

'Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet content!'

--sang the earl in a mellow tenor voice.

'My lord, an' I have leave to speak,' said Dorothy, 'did you not say
the diamond in that ring Richard Heywood sent me was of some worth?'

'I did, cousin. It is a stone of the finest water, and of good
weight, though truly I weighed it not.'

'Then would I cast it in the king's treasury, an' if your lordship
would condescend to be the bearer of such a small offering.'

'No, child; the king robs not orphans.'

'Did the King of Kings rob the poor widow that cast in her two
mites, then?'

'No; but perhaps the priests did. Still, as I say, the hour may come
when all our mites may be wanted, and thine be accepted with the
rest, but my father and I have yet much to give, and shall have
given it before that hour come. Besides, as to thee, Dorothy, what
would that handsome roundhead of thine say, if instead of keeping
well the ring he gave thee, thou had turned it to the use he liked
the least?'

'He will never ask me concerning it,' said Dorothy, with a faint
smile.

'Be not over-sure of it, child. My lady asks me many things I never
thought to tell her before the priest made us one. Dorothy, I have
no right and no wish to spy into thy future, and fright thee with
what, if it come at all, will come peacefully as June weather. I
have not constructed thy horoscope to cast thy nativity, and
therefore I speak as one of the ignorant; but let me tell thee, for
I do say it confidently, that if these wars were once over, and the
king had his own again, there will be few men in his three kingdoms
so worthy of the hand and heart of Dorothy Vaughan as that same
roundhead fellow, Richard Heywood. I would to God he were as good a
catholic as he is a mistaken puritan! And now, my lady, may I not
send thy maiden from us, for I would talk with thee alone of certain
matters--not from distrust of Dorothy, but that they are not my own
to impart, therefore I pray her absence.'

The parliament having secured the assistance of the Scots, and their
forces having, early in the year, entered England, the king on his
side was now meditating an attempt to secure the assistance of the
Irish catholics, to which the devotion of certain of the old
catholic houses at home encouraged him. But it was a game of
terrible danger, for if he lost it, he lost everything; and that it
should transpire before maturity would be to lose it absolutely; for
the Irish catholics had, truly or falsely, been charged with such
enormities during the rebellion, that they had become absolutely
hateful in the eyes of all English protestants, and any alliance
with them must cost him far more in protestants than he could gain
by it in catholics. It was necessary therefore that he should go
about it with the utmost caution; and indeed in his whole management
of it, the wariness far exceeded the dignity, and was practised at
the expense of his best friends. But the poor king was such a
believer in his father's pet doctrine of the divine right of his
inheritance, that not only would he himself sacrifice everything to
the dim shadow of royalty which usurped the throne of his
conscience, but would, without great difficulty or compunction,
though not always without remorse, accept any sacrifice which a
subject might have devotion enough to bring to the altar before
which Charles Stuart acted as flamen.

In this my story of hearts rather than fortunes, it is not necessary
to follow the river of public events through many of its windings,
although every now and then my track will bring me to a ferry, where
the boat bearing my personages will be seized by the force of the
current, and carried down the stream while crossing to the other
bank.

It must have been, I think, in view of his slowly-maturing intention
to employ lord Herbert in a secret mission to Ireland with the
object above mentioned, that the king had sought to bind him yet
more closely to himself by conferring on him the title of Glamorgan.
It was not, however, until the following year, when his affairs
seemed on the point of becoming desperate, that he proceeded,
possibly with some protestant compunctions, certainly with
considerable protestant apprehension, to carry out his design.
Towards this had pointed the relaxation of his measures against the
catholic rebels for some time previous, and may to some have
indicated hopes entertained of them. It must be remembered that
while these catholics united to defend the religion of their
country, they, like the Scots who had joined the parliament,
professed a sincere attachment to their monarch, and in the persons
of their own enemies had certainly taken up arms against many of
his.

Meantime the Scots had invaded England, and the parliament had
largely increased their forces in the hope of a decisive engagement;
but the king refused battle and gained time. In the north prince
Rupert made some progress, and brought on the battle of Marston
Moor, where the victory was gained by Cromwell, after all had been
regarded as lost by the other parliamentary generals. On the other
hand, the king gained an important advantage in the west country
over Essex and his army.

The trial and execution of Laud, who died in the beginning of the
following year, obeying the king rather than his rebellious lords,
was a terrible sign to the house of Raglan of what the presbyterian
party was capable of. But to Dorothy it would have given a yet
keener pain, had she not begun to learn that neither must the
excesses of individuals be attributed to their party, nor those of
his party taken as embodying the mind of every one who belongs to
it. At the same time the old insuperable difficulty returned; how
could Richard belong to such a party?

CHAPTER XLII.

A NEW SOLDIER.

Moments had scarcely passed after Dorothy left him at the fountain,
ere Scudamore grievously repented of having spoken to her in such a
manner, and would gladly have offered apology and what amends he
might.

But Dorothy, neither easily moved to wrath, nor yet given to the
nourishing of active resentment, was not therefore at all the
readier to forget the results of moral difference, or to permit any
nearer approach on the part of one such as her cousin had shown
himself. As long as he continued so self-serene and unashamed, what
satisfaction to her or what good to him could there be in it, even
were he to content himself with the cousinly friendship which, as
soon as he was capable of it, she was willing to afford him? As it
was now, she granted him only distant recognition in company,
neither seeking nor avoiding him; and as to all opportunity of
private speech, entirely shunning him. For some time, in the vanity
of his experience, he never doubted that these were only feminine
arts, or that when she judged him sufficiently punished, she would
relax the severity of her behaviour and begin to make him amends.
But this demeanour of hers endured so long, and continued so
uniform, that at length he began to doubt the universality of his
experience, and to dread lest the maiden should actually prove what
he had never found maiden before, inexorable. He did not reflect
that he had given her no ground whatever for altering her judgment
or feeling with regard to him. But in truth her thoughts rarely
turned to him at all, and while his were haunting her as one who was
taking pleasure in the idea that she was making him feel her
resentment, she was simply forgetting him, busy perhaps with some
self-offered question that demanded an answer, or perhaps brooding a
little over the past, in which the form of Richard now came and went
at its will.

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