St. George and St. Michael

G >> George MacDonald >> St. George and St. Michael

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Richard stood for a moment in silent perplexity.

'Wilt thou swear to me, Dorothy,' he said at length, 'that thou hast
no papers about thee, neither art the bearer of news or request or
sign to any of the king's party?'

'Richard,' returned Dorothy, 'thou hast thyself taken from my words
the credit: I say to thee again, satisfy thyself.'

'Dorothy, what AM I to do?' he cried.

'Thy duty, Richard,' she answered.

'My duty is to search thee,' he said.

Dorothy was silent. Her heart was beating terribly, but she would
see the end of the path she had taken ere she would think of
turning. And she WOULD trust Richard. Would she then have him fail
of his duty? Would she have the straight-going Richard swerve? Even
in the face of her maidenly fears, she would encounter anything
rather than Richard should for her sake be false. But Richard would
not turn aside. Neither would he shame her. He would find some way.

'Do then thy duty, Richard,' she said, and sliding from her saddle,
she stood before him, one hand grasping Dick's mane.

There was no defiance in her tone. She was but submitting, assured
of deliverance.

What was Richard to do? Never man was more perplexed. He dared not
let her pass. He dared no more touch her than if she had been Luna
herself standing there. He would not had he dared, and yet he must.
She was silent, seemed to herself cruel, and began bitterly to
accuse herself. She saw his hazel eyes slowly darken, then began to
glitter--was it with gathering tears? The glitter grew and
overflowed. The man was weeping! The tenderness of their common
childhood rushed back upon her in a great wave out of the past, ran
into the rising billow of present passion, and swelled it up till it
towered and broke; she threw her arm round his neck and kissed him.
He stood in a dumb ecstasy. Then terror lest he should think she was
tempting him to brave his conscience overpowered her.

'Richard, do thy duty. Regard not me,' she cried in anguish.

Richard gave a strange laugh as he answered,

'There was a time when I had doubted the sun in heaven as soon as
thy word, Dorothy. This is surely an evil time. Tell me, yea or nay,
hast thou missives to the king or any of his people? Palter not with
me.'

But such an appeal was what Dorothy would least willingly encounter.
The necessity yet difficulty of escaping it stimulated the wits that
had been overclouded by feeling. A light appeared. She broke into a
real merry laugh.

'What a pair of fools we are, Richard!' she said. 'Is there never an
honest woman of thy persuasion near--one who would show me no
favour? Let such an one search me, and tell thee the truth.'

'Doubtless,' answered Richard, laughing very differently now at his
stupidity, yet immediately committing a blunder: 'there is mother
Rees!'

'What a baby thou art, Richard!' rejoined Dorothy. 'She is as good a
friend of mine as of thine, and would doubtless favour the wiles of
a woman.'

'True, true! Thou wast always the keener of wit, Dorothy--as
becometh a woman. What say'st thou then to dame Upstill? She is even
now at the farm there, whence she watches over her husband while he
watches over Raglan. Will she answer thy turn?'

'She will,' replied Dorothy. 'And that she may show me no favour,
here comes her husband, who shall bear a witness against me shall
rouse in her all the malice of vengeance for her injured spouse,
whom for his evil language, as thou shalt see, I have so silenced as
neither thou nor any man can restore him to speech.'

While she spoke, Upstill, who had followed his enemy as the sole
hope of deliverance, drew near, in such plight as the dignity of
narrative refuses to describe.

'Upstill,' said Richard, 'what meaneth this? Wherefore hast thou
left thy post? And above all, wherefore hast thou permitted this
lady to pass unquestioned?'

Sounds of gurgle and strangulation, with other cognate noises, was
all Upstill's response.

'Indeed, Mr. Heywood,' said Dorothy, 'he was so far from neglecting
his duty and allowing me to pass unquestioned, that he insulted me
grievously, averring that I consorted with malignant rogues and
papists, and worse--the which drove me to punish him as thou seest.'

'Cast-down Upstill, thou hast shamed thy regiment, carrying thyself
thus to a gentlewoman,' said Richard.

'Then he fired his carbine after me,' said Dorothy.

'That may have been but his duty,' returned Richard.

'And worst of all,' continued Dorothy, 'he said that had he known
what I should grow to, he would never have made shoes for me when I
was an infant. Think on that, master Heywood!'

'Ask the lady to pardon thee, Upstill. I can do nothing for thee,'
said Richard.

Upstill would have knelt, in lack of other mode of petition strong
enough to express the fervour of his desires for release, but
Dorothy was content to see him punished, and would not see him
degraded.

'Nay, master Upstill,' she said, 'I desire not that thou shouldst
take the measure of my foot to-night. Prithee, master Heywood, wilt
thou venture thy fingers in the godly man's mouth for me? Here is
the key of the toy, a sucket which will pass neither teeth nor
throat. I warrant thee it were no evil thing for many a married
woman to possess. I will give it thee when thou marriest, master
Heywood, though, good sooth, it were hardly fair to my kind!'

So saying she took a ring from her finger, raised from it a key, and
directed Richard how to find its hole in the plum.

'There! Follow us now to the farm, and find thy wife, for we need
her aid,' said Richard as he drew by the key the little steel
instrument from Upstill's mouth, and restored him to the general
body of the articulate.

Thereupon he took Dick by the bridle, and Dorothy and he walked side
by side, as if they had been still boy and girl as of old--for of
old it already seemed.

As they went, Richard washed both plum and ring in the dewy grass,
and restored them, putting the ring upon her finger.

'With better light I will one day show thee how the thing worketh,'
she said, thanking him. 'Holding it thus by the ends, thou seest, it
will bear to be pressed; but remove thy finger and thumb, and
straight upon a touch it shooteth its stings in all directions. And
yet another day, when these troubles are over, and honest folk need
no longer fight each other, I will give it thee, Richard.'

'Would that day were here, Dorothy! But what can honest people do,
while St. George and St. Michael are themselves at odds?'

'Mayhap it but seemeth so, and they but dispute across the
Yule-log,' said Dorothy; 'and men down here, like the dogs about the
fire, take it up, and fall a-worrying each other. But the end will
crown all.'

'Discrown some, I fear,' said Richard to himself.

As they reached the farm-house, it was growing light. Upstill
fetched his dame from her bed in the hayloft, and Richard told her,
in formal and authoritative manner, what he required of her.

'I will search her!' answered the dame from between her closed
teeth.

'Mistress Vaughan,' said Richard, 'if she offer thee evil words,
give her the same lesson thou gavest her husband. If all tales be
true, she is not beyond the need of it.--Search her well, mistress
Upstill, but show her no rudeness, for she hath the power to avenge
it in a parlous manner, having gone to school to my lord Herbert of
Raglan. Not the less must thou search her well, else will I look
upon thee as no better than one of the malignants.'

The woman cast a glance of something very like hate, but mingled
with fear, upon Dorothy.

'I like not the business, captain Heywood,' she said.

'Yet the business must be done, mistress Upstill. And hark'ee, for
every paper thou findest upon her, I will give thee its weight in
gold. I care not what it is. Bring it hither, and the dame's
butter-scales withal.'

'I warrant thee, captain!' she returned. '--Come with me, mistress,
and show what thou hast about thee. But, good sooth, I would the sun
were up!'

She led the way to the rick-yard, and round towards the sunrise. It
was the month of August, and several new ricks already stood facing
the east, yellow, and beginning to glow like a second dawn. Between
the two, mistress Upstill began her search, which she made more
thorough than agreeable. Dorothy submitted without complaint.

At last, as she was giving up the quest in despair, her eyes or her
fingers discovered a little opening inside the prisoner bodice, and
there sure enough was a pocket, and in the pocket a slip of paper!
She drew it out in triumph.

'That is nothing,' said Dorothy: 'give it me.' And with flushed face
she made a snatch at it.

'Holy Mary!' cried dame Upstill, whose protestantism was of doubtful
date, and thrust the paper into her own bosom.

'That paper hath nothing to do with state affairs, I protest,'
expostulated Dorothy. 'I will give thee ten times its weight in gold
for it.'

But mistress Upstill had other passions besides avarice, and was not
greatly tempted by the offer. She took Dorothy by the arm, and said,

'An' thou come not quickly, I will cry that all the parish shall
hear me.'

'I tell thee, mistress Upstill, on the oath of a Christian woman, it
is but a private letter of mine own, and beareth nothing upon
affairs. Prithee read a word or two, and satisfy thyself.'

'Nay, mistress, truly I will pry into no secrets that belong not to
me,' said the searcher, who could read no word of writing or print
either. 'This paper is no longer thine, and mine it never was. It
belongeth to the high court of parliament, and goeth straight to
captain Heywood--whom I will inform concerning the bribe wherewith
thou didst seek to corrupt the conscience of a godly woman.'

Dorothy saw there was no help, and yielded to the grasp of the dame,
who led her like a culprit, with burning cheek, back to her judge.

When Richard saw them his heart sank within him.

'What hast thou found?' he asked gruffly.

'I have found that which young mistress here would have had me cover
with a bribe of ten times that your honour promised me for it,'
answered the woman. 'She had it in her bosom, hid in a pocket little
bigger than a crown-piece, inside her bodice.'

'Ha, mistress Dorothy! is this true?' asked Richard, turning on her
a face of distress.

'It is true,' answered Dorothy, with downcast eyes--far more ashamed
however, of that which had not been discovered, and which might have
justified Richard's look, than of that which he now held in his
hand. 'Prithee,' she added, 'do not read it till I am gone.'

'That may hardly be,' returned Richard, almost sullenly. 'Upon this
paper it may depend whether thou go at all.'

'Believe me, Richard, it hath no importance,' she said, and her
blushes deepened. 'I would thou wouldst believe me.'

But as she said it, her conscience smote her.

Richard returned no answer, neither did he open the paper, but stood
with his eyes fixed on the ground.

Dorothy meantime strove to quiet her conscience, saying to herself:
'It matters not; I must marry him one day--an' he will now have me.
Hath not the woman told him where the silly paper was hid? And when
I am married to him, then will I tell him all, and doubtless he will
forgive me--Nay, nay, I must tell him first, for he might not then
wish to have me. Lord! Lord! what a time of lying it is! Sure for
myself I am no better than one of the wicked!'

But now Richard, slowly, reluctantly, with eyes averted, opened the
paper, stood for an instant motionless, then suddenly raised it, and
looked at it. His face changed at once from midnight to morning, and
the sunrise was red. He put the paper to his lips, and thrust it
inside his doublet. It was his own letter to her by Marquis! She had
not thought to remove it from the place where she had carried it
ever since receiving it.

'And now, master Heywood, I may go where I will?' said Dorothy,
venturing a half-roguish, but wholly shamefaced glance at him.

But Dame Upstill was looking on, and Richard therefore brought as
much of the midnight as would obey orders, back over his countenance
as he answered:

'Nay, mistress. An' we had found aught upon thee of greater
consequence it might have made a question. But this hardly accounts
for thy mission. Doubtless thou bearest thy message in thy mind.'

'What! thou wilt not let me go to Wyfern, to my own house, master
Heywood?' said Dorothy in a tone of disappointment, for her heart
now at length began to fail her.

'Not until Raglan is ours,' answered Richard. 'Then shalt thou go
where thou wilt. And go where thou wilt, there will I follow thee,
Dorothy.'

From the last clause of this speech he diverted mistress Upstill's
attention by throwing her a gold noble, an indignity which the woman
rightly resented--but stooped for the money!

'Go tell thy husband that I wait him here,' he said.

'Thou shalt follow me nowhither,' said Dorothy, angrily. 'Wherefore
should not I go to Wyfern and there abide? Thou canst there watch
her whom thou trustest not.'

'Who can tell what manner of person might not creep to Wyfern, to
whom there might messages be given, or whom thou mightest send,
credenced by secret word or sign?'

'Whither, then, am I to go?' asked Dorothy, with dignity.

'Alas, Dorothy!' answered Richard, 'there is no help: I must take
thee to Raglan. But comfort thyself--soon shalt thou go where thou
wilt.'

Dorothy marvelled at her own resignation the while she rode with
Richard back to the castle. Her scheme was a failure, but through no
fault, and she could bear anything with composure except blame.

A word from Richard to colonel Morgan was sufficient. A messenger
with a flag of truce was sent instantly to the castle, and the
firing on both sides ceased. The messenger returned, the gate was
opened, and Dorothy re-entered, defeated, but bringing her secrets
back with her.

'Tit for tat,' said the marquis when she had recounted her
adventures. 'Thou and the roundhead are well matched. There is no
avoiding of it, cousin! It is your fate, as clear as if your two
horoscopes had run into one. Mind thee, hearts are older than
crowns, and love outlives all but leasing.'

'All but leasing!' repeated Dorothy to herself, and the BUT was
bitter.

CHAPTER LIV.

DOMUS DISSOLVITUR.

Scudamore was now much better, partly from the influence of reviving
hopes with regard to Dorothy, for his disposition was such that he
deceived himself in the direction of what he counted advantage; not
like Heywood, who was ever ready to believe what in matters personal
told against him. Tom Fool had just been boasting of his exploit in
escaping from Raglan, and expressing his conviction that Dorothy,
whom he had valiantly protected, was safe at Wyfern, and Rowland was
in consequence dressing as fast as he could to pay her a visit, when
Tom caught sight of Richard riding towards the cottage, and jumping
up, ran into the chimney corner beyond his mother, who was busy with
Scudamore's breakfast. She looked from the window, and spied the
cause of his terror.

'Silly Tom!' she said, for she still treated him like a child,
notwithstanding her boastful belief in his high position and merits,
'he will not harm thee. There never was hurt in a Heywood.'

'Treason, flat treason, witch!' cried the voice of Scudamore from
the closet.

'Thee of all men, sir Rowland, has no cause to say so,' returned
mistress Rees. 'But come and break thy fast while he talks to thee,
and save the precious time which runneth so fast away.'

'I might as well be in my grave for any value it hath to me!' said
Rowland, who was for the moment in a bad mood. His hope and his
faith were ever ready to fall out, and a twinge in his shoulder was
enough to set them jarring.

'Here comes master Hey wood, anyhow,' said the old woman, as
Richard, leaving Lady at the gate, came striding up the walk in his
great brown boots; 'and I pray you, sir Rowland, to let by-gones be
by-gones, for my sake if not for your own, lest thou bring the
vengeance of general Fairfax upon my poor house.'

'Fairfax!' cried Scudamore; 'is that villain come hither?'

'Sir Thomas Fairfax arrived two days agone, answered mistress Rees.
'Alas, it is but too sure a sign that for Raglan the end is near!'

'Good morrow, mother Rees,' said Richard, looking in at the door,
radiant as an Apollo. The same moment out came Scudamore from the
closet, pale as a dying moon.

'I want my horse, Heywood!' he cried, deigning no preliminaries.

'Thy horse is at Redware, Scudamore; I carry him not in my pocket. I
saw him yesterday; his flesh hath swallowed a good many of his bones
since I looked on him last. What wouldst thou with him?'

'What is that to thee? Let me have him.'

'Softly, sir Rowland! It is true I promised thee thy liberty, but
liberty doth not necessarily include a horse.'

'Thou wast never better than a shifting fanatic!' cried sir Rowland.

'An' I served thee as befitted, thou shouldst never see thy horse
again,' returned Richard. 'Yet I promise thee that so soon as Raglan
hath fallen, he shall again be thine. Nay, I care not. Tell me
whither thou goest, and--Ha! art thou there?' he cried,
interrupting himself as he caught sight of Tom in the chimney
corner; and pausing, he stood silent for a moment. '--Wouldst like
to hear, thou rascal,' he resumed presently, 'that mistress Dorothy
Vaughan got safe to Wyfern this morning?'

'God be praised!' said Tom Fool.

'But thou shalt not hear it. I will tell thee better if less welcome
news--that I come from conducting her back to Raglan in safety, and
have seen its gates close upon her. Thou shalt have thy horse, sir
Rowland, an' thou can wait for him an hour; but for thy ride to
Wyfern, that, thou seest, would not avail thee. Thy cousin rode by
here this morning, it is true, but, as I say, she is now within
Raglan walls, whence she will not issue again until the soldiers of
the parliament enter. It is no treason to tell thee that general
Fairfax is about to send his final summons ere he storm the
rampart.'

'Then mayst thou keep the horse, for I will back to Raglan on foot,'
said Scudamore.

'Nay, that wilt thou not, for nought greatly larger than a mouse can
any more pass through the lines. Dost think because I sent back thy
cousin Dorothy, lest she should work mischief outside the walls, I
will therefore send thee back to work mischief within them?'

'And thou art the man who professeth to love mistress Dorothy!'
cried Scudamore with contempt.

'Hark thee, sir Rowland, and for thy good I will tell thee more. It
is but just that as I told thee my doubts, whence thou didst draw
hope, I should now tell thee my hopes, whence thou mayst do well to
draw a little doubt.'

'Thou art a mean and treacherous villain!' cried Scudamore.

'Thou art to blame in speaking that thou dost not believe, sir
Rowland. But wilt thou have thy horse or no?'

'No; I will remain where I am until I hear the worst.'

'Or come home with me, where thou wilt hear it yet sooner. Thou
shalt taste a roundhead's hospitality.'

'I scorn thee and thy false friendship,' cried Rowland, and turning
again into the closet, he bolted the door.

That same morning a great iron ball struck the marble horse on his
proud head, and flung it in fragments over the court. From his neck
the water bubbled up bright and clear, like the life-blood of the
wounded whiteness.

'Poor Molly!' said the marquis, when he looked from his
study-window--then smiled at his pity.

Lord Charles entered: a messenger had come from general Fairfax,
demanding a surrender in the name of the parliament.

'If they had but gone on a little longer, Charles, they might have
saved us the trouble,' said his lordship, 'for there would have been
nothing left to surrender.--But I will consider the proposal,' he
added. 'Pray tell sir Thomas that whatever I do, I look first to
have it approved of the king.'

But there was no longer the shadow of a question as to submission.
All that was left was but the arrangement of conditions. The marquis
was aware that captain Hooper's trenches were rapidly approaching
the rampart; that six great mortars for throwing shells had been got
into position; and that resistance would be the merest folly.

Various meetings, therefore, of commissioners appointed on both
sides for the settling of the terms of submission took place; and at
last, on the fifteenth of August, they were finally arranged, and
the surrender fixed for the seventeenth.

The interval was a sad time. All day long tears were flowing, the
ladies doing their best to conceal, the servants to display them.
Every one was busy gathering together what personal effects might be
carried away. It was especially a sad time for lord Glamorgan's
children, for they were old enough not merely to love the place, but
to know that they loved it; and the thought that the sacred things
of their home were about to pass into other hands, roused in them
wrath and indignation as well as grief; for the sense of property
is, in the minds of children who have been born and brought up in
the midst of family possessions, perhaps stronger than in the minds
of their elders.

As the sun was going down on the evening of the sixteenth, Dorothy,
who had been helping now one and now another of the ladies all day
long, having, indeed, little of her own to demand her attention,
Dick and Marquis being almost her sole valuables, came from the
keep, and was crossing the fountain court to her old room on its
western side. Every one was busy indoors, and the place appeared
deserted. There was a stillness in the air that SOUNDED awful. For
so many weeks it had been shattered with roar upon roar, and now the
guns had ceased to bellow, leaving a sense of vacancy and doubt, an
oppression of silence. The hum that came from the lines outside
seemed but to enhance the stillness within. But the sunlight lived
on sweet and calm, as if all was well. It seemed to promise that
wrath and ruin would pass, and leave no lasting desolation behind
them. Yet she could not help heaving a great sigh, and the tears
came streaming down her cheeks.

'Tut, tut, cousin! Wipe thine eyes. The dreary old house is not
worth such bright tears.'

Dorothy turned, and saw the marquis seated on the edge of the marble
basin, under the headless horse, whose blood seemed still to well
from his truncated form. She saw also that, although his words were
cheerful, his lip quivered. It was some little time before she could
compose herself sufficiently to speak.

'I marvel your lordship is so calm,' she said.

'Come hither, Dorothy,' he returned kindly, 'and sit thee down by my
side. Thou wast right good to my little Molly. Thou hast been a
ministering angel to Raglan and its people. I did thee wrong, and
thou forgavest me with a whole heart. Thou hast returned me good for
evil tenfold, and for all this I love thee; and therefore will I now
tell thee what maketh me quiet at heart, for I am as thou seest me,
and my heart is as my countenance. I have lived my life, and have
now but to die my death. I am thankful to have lived, and I hope to
live hereafter. Goodness and mercy went before my birth, and
goodness and mercy will follow my death. For the ills of this life,
if there was no silence there would be no music. Ignorance is a spur
to knowledge. Darkness is a pavilion for the Almighty, a foil to the
painter to make his shadows. So are afflictions good for our
instruction, and adversities for our amendment. As for the article
of death, shall I shun to meet what she who lay in my bosom hath
passed through? And look you, fair damsel, thou whose body is sweet,
and comely to behold--wherefore should I not rejoice to depart? When
I see my house lying in ruins about me, I look down upon this ugly
overgrown body of mine, the very foundations whereof crumble from
beneath me, and I thank God it is but a tent, and no enduring house
even like this house of Raglan, which yet will ere long be a
dwelling of owls and foxes. Very soon will Death pull out the
tent-pins and let me fly, and therefore am I glad; for, fair damsel
Dorothy, although it may be hard for thee, beholding me as I am, to
comprehend it, I like to be old and ugly as little as wouldst thou,
and my heart, I verily think, is little, older than thine own. One
day, please God, I shall yet be clothed upon with a house that is
from heaven, nor shall I hobble with gouty feet over the golden
pavement--if so be that my sins overpass not mercy. Pray for me,
Dorothy, my daughter, for my end is nigh, that I find at length the
bosom of father Abraham.'

As he ended, a slow flower of music bloomed out upon the silence
from under the fingers of the blind youth hid in the stony shell of
the chapel; and, doubtful at first, its fragrance filled at length
the whole sunset air. It was the music of a Nunc dimittis of
Palestrina. Dorothy knelt and kissed the old man's hand, then rose
and went weeping to her chamber, leaving him still seated by the
broken yet flowing fountain.

Of all who prepared to depart, Caspar Kaltoff was the busiest. What
best things of his master's he could carry with him, he took, but a
multitude he left to a more convenient opportunity, in the hope of
which, alone and unaided, he sunk his precious cabinet, and a chest
besides, filled with curious inventions and favourite tools, in the
secret shaft. But the most valued of all, the fire-engine, he could
not take and would not leave. He stopped the fountain of the white
horse, once more set the water-commanding slave to work, and filled
the cistern until he heard it roar in the waste-pipe. Then he
extinguished the fire and let the furnace cool, and when Dorothy
entered the workshop for the last time to take her mournful leave of
the place, there lay the bones of the mighty creature scattered over
the floor--here a pipe, there a valve, here a piston and there a
cock. Nothing stood but the furnace and the great pipes that ran up
the grooves in the wall outside, between which there was scarce a
hint of connection to be perceived.

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