While his stately form vanished under the dark archway which led out of the quadrangle, Varney muttered, “There goes fine policy – the servant before the master!” then as he disappeared, seized the moment to speak a word with Foster. “Thou look’st dark on me, Anthony,” he said, “as if I had deprived thee of a parting nod of my lord; but I have moved him to leave thee a better remembrance for thy faithful service. See here! a purse of as good gold as ever chinked under a miser’s thumb and fore-finger. Ay, count them, lad,” said he, as Foster received the gold with a grim smile, “and add to them the goodly remembrance he gave last night to Janet.”
“How’s this? how’s this?” said Anthony Foster hastily; “gave he gold to Janet?”
“Ay, man, wherefore not? – does not her service to his fair lady require guerdon?”
“She shall have none on’t,” said Foster; “she shall return it. I know his dotage on one face is as brief as it is deep. His affections are as fickle as the moon.”
“Why, Foster, thou art mad – thou dost not hope for such good fortune as that my lord should cast an eye on Janet? Who, in the fiend’s name, would listen to the thrush while the nightingale is singing?”
“Thrush or nightingale, all is one to the fowler; and, Master Varney, you can sound the quail-pipe most daintily to wile wantons into his nets. I desire no such devil’s preferment for Janet as you have brought many a poor maiden to. Dost thou laugh? I will keep one limb of my family, at least, from Satan’s clutches, that thou mayest rely on. She shall restore the gold.”
“Ay, or give it to thy keeping, Tony, which will serve as well,” answered Varney; “but I have that to say which is more serious. Our lord is returning to court in an evil humour for us.”
“How meanest thou?” said Foster. “Is he tired already of his pretty toy – his plaything yonder? He has purchased her at a monarch’s ransom, and I warrant me he rues his bargain.”
“Not a whit, Tony,” answered the master of the horse; “he dotes on her, and will forsake the court for her. Then down go hopes, possessions, and safety – church-lands are resumed, Tony, and well if the holders be not called to account in Exchequer.”
“That were ruin,” said Foster, his brow darkening with apprehensions; “and all this for a woman! Had it been for his soul’s sake, it were something; and I sometimes wish I myself could fling away the world that cleaves to me, and be as one of the poorest of our church.”
“Thou art like enough to be so, Tony,” answered Varney; “but I think the devil will give thee little credit for thy compelled poverty, and so thou losest on all hands. But follow my counsel, and Cumnor Place shall be thy copyhold yet. Say nothing of this Tressilian’s visit – not a word until I give thee notice.”
“And wherefore, I pray you?” asked Foster, suspiciously.
“Dull beast!” replied Varney. “In my lord’s present humour it were the ready way to confirm him in his resolution of retirement, should he know that his lady was haunted with such a spectre in his absence. He would be for playing the dragon himself over his golden fruit, and then, Tony, thy occupation is ended. A word to the wise. Farewell! I must follow him.”
He turned his horse, struck him with the spurs, and rode off under the archway in pursuit of his lord.
“Would thy occupation were ended, or thy neck broken, damned pander!” said Anthony Foster. “But I must follow his beck, for his interest and mine are the same, and he can wind the proud Earl to his will. Janet shall give me those pieces though; they shall be laid out in some way for God’s service, and I will keep them separate in my strong chest, till I can fall upon a fitting employment for them. No contagious vapour shall breathe on Janet – she shall remain pure as a blessed spirit, were it but to pray God for her father. I need her prayers, for I am at a hard pass. Strange reports are abroad concerning my way of life. The congregation look cold on me, and when Master Holdforth spoke of hypocrites being like a whited sepulchre, which within was full of dead men’s bones, methought he looked full at me. The Romish was a comfortable faith; Lambourne spoke true in that. A man had but to follow his thrift by such ways as offered – tell his beads, hear a mass, confess, and be absolved. These Puritans tread a harder and a rougher path; but I will try – I will read my Bible for an hour ere I again open mine iron chest.”
Varney, meantime, spurred after his lord, whom he found waiting for him at the postern gate of the park.
“You waste time, Varney,” said the Earl, “and it presses. I must be at Woodstock before I can safely lay aside my disguise, and till then I journey in some peril.”
“It is but two hours’ brisk riding, my lord,” said Varney. “For me, I only stopped to enforce your commands of care and secrecy on yonder Foster, and to inquire about the abode of the gentleman whom I would promote to your lordship’s train, in the room of Trevors.”
“Is he fit for the meridian of the antechamber, think’st thou?” said the Earl.
“He promises well, my lord,” replied Varney; “but if your lordship were pleased to ride on, I could go back to Cumnor, and bring him to your lordship at Woodstock before you are out of bed.”
“Why, I am asleep there, thou knowest, at this moment,” said the Earl; “and I pray you not to spare horse-flesh, that you may be with me at my levee.”
So saying, he gave his horse the spur, and proceeded on his journey, while Varney rode back to Cumnor by the public road, avoiding the park. The latter alighted at the door of the bonny Black Bear, and desired to speak with Master Michael Lambourne, That respectable character was not long of appearing before his new patron, but it was with downcast looks.
“Thou hast lost the scent,” said Varney, “of thy comrade Tressilian. I know it by thy hang-dog visage. Is this thy alacrity, thou impudent knave?”
“Cogswounds!” said Lambourne, “there was never a trail so finely hunted. I saw him to earth at mine uncle’s here – stuck to him like bees’-wax – saw him at supper – watched him to his chamber, and, presto! he is gone next morning, the very hostler knows not where.”
“This sounds like practice upon me, sir,” replied Varney; “and if it proves so, by my soul you shall repent it!”
“Sir, the best hound will be sometimes at fault,” answered Lambourne; “how should it serve me that this fellow should have thus evanished? You may ask mine host, Giles Gosling – ask the tapster and hostler – ask Cicely, and the whole household, how I kept eyes on Tressilian while he was on foot. On my soul, I could not be expected to watch him like a sick nurse, when I had seen him fairly a-bed in his chamber. That will be allowed me, surely.”
Varney did, in fact, make some inquiry among the household, which confirmed the truth of Lambourne’s statement. Tressilian, it was unanimously agreed, had departed suddenly and unexpectedly, betwixt night and morning.
“But I will wrong no one,” said mine host; “he left on the table in his lodging the full value of his reckoning, with some allowance to the servants of the house, which was the less necessary that he saddled his own gelding, as it seems, without the hostler’s assistance.”
Thus satisfied of the rectitude of Lambourne’s conduct, Varney began to talk to him upon his future prospects, and the mode in which he meant to bestow himself, intimating that he understood from Foster he was not disinclined to enter into the household of a nobleman.
“Have you,” said he, “ever been at court?”
“No,” replied Lambourne; “but ever since I was ten years old, I have dreamt once a week that I was there, and made my fortune.”
“It may be your own fault if your dream comes not true,” said Varney. “Are you needy?”
“Um!” replied Lambourne; “I love pleasure.”
“That is a sufficient answer, and an honest one,” said Varney. “Know you aught of the requisites expected from the retainer of a rising courtier?”
“I have imagined them to myself, sir,” answered Lambourne; “as, for example, a quick eye, a close mouth, a ready and bold hand, a sharp wit, and a blunt conscience.”
“And thine, I suppose,” said Varney, “has had its edge blunted long since?”
“I cannot remember, sir, that its edge was ever over-keen,” replied Lambourne. “When I was a youth, I had some few whimsies; but I rubbed them partly out of my recollection on the rough grindstone of the wars, and what remained I washed out in the broad waves of the Atlantic.”
“Thou hast served, then, in the Indies?”
“In both East and West,” answered the candidate for court service, “by both sea and land. I have served both the Portugal and the Spaniard, both the Dutchman and the Frenchman, and have made war on our own account with a crew of jolly fellows, who held there was no peace beyond the Line.” [Sir Francis Drake, Morgan, and many a bold buccaneer of those days, were, in fact, little better than pirates.]
“Thou mayest do me, and my lord, and thyself, good service,” said Varney, after a pause. “But observe, I know the world – and answer me truly, canst thou be faithful?”
“Did you not know the world,” answered Lambourne, “it were my duty to say ay, without further circumstance, and to swear to it with life and honour, and so forth. But as it seems to me that your worship is one who desires rather honest truth than politic falsehood, I reply to you, that I can be faithful to the gallows’ foot, ay, to the loop that dangles from it, if I am well used and well recompensed – not otherwise.”
“To thy other virtues thou canst add, no doubt,” said Varney, in a jeering tone, “the knack of seeming serious and religious, when the moment demands it?”
“It would cost me nothing,” said Lambourne, “to say yes; but, to speak on the square, I must needs say no. If you want a hypocrite, you may take Anthony Foster, who, from his childhood, had some sort of phantom haunting him, which he called religion, though it was that sort of godliness which always ended in being great gain. But I have no such knack of it.”
“Well,” replied Varney, “if thou hast no hypocrisy, hast thou not a nag here in the stable?”
“Ay, sir,” said Lambourne, “that shall take hedge and ditch with my Lord Duke’s best hunters. Then I made a little mistake on Shooter’s Hill, and stopped an ancient grazier whose pouches were better lined than his brain-pan, the bonny bay nag carried me sheer off in spite of the whole hue and cry.”
“Saddle him then instantly, and attend me,” said Varney. “Leave thy clothes and baggage under charge of mine host; and I will conduct thee to a service, in which, if thou do not better thyself, the fault shall not be fortune’s, but thine own.”
“Brave and hearty!” said Lambourne, “and I am mounted in an instant. – Knave, hostler, saddle my nag without the loss of one second, as thou dost value the safety of thy noddle. – Pretty Cicely, take half this purse to comfort thee for my sudden departure.”
“Gogsnouns!” replied the father, “Cicely wants no such token from thee. Go away, Mike, and gather grace if thou canst, though I think thou goest not to the land where it grows.”
“Let me look at this Cicely of thine, mine host,” said Varney; “I have heard much talk of her beauty.”
“It is a sunburnt beauty,” said mine host, “well qualified to stand out rain and wind, but little calculated to please such critical gallants as yourself. She keeps her chamber, and cannot encounter the glance of such sunny-day courtiers as my noble guest.”
“Well, peace be with her, my good host,” answered Varney; “our horses are impatient – we bid you good day.”
“Does my nephew go with you, so please you?” said Gosling.
“Ay, such is his purpose,” answered Richard Varney.
“You are right – fully right,” replied mine host – “you are, I say, fully right, my kinsman. Thou hast got a gay horse; see thou light not unaware upon a halter – or, if thou wilt needs be made immortal by means of a rope, which thy purpose of following this gentleman renders not unlikely, I charge thee to find a gallows as far from Cumnor as thou conveniently mayest. And so I commend you to your saddle.”
The master of the horse and his new retainer mounted accordingly, leaving the landlord to conclude his ill-omened farewell, to himself and at leisure; and set off together at a rapid pace, which prevented conversation until the ascent of a steep sandy hill permitted them to resume it.
“You are contented, then,” said Varney to his companion, “to take court service?”
“Ay, worshipful sir, if you like my terms as well as I like yours.”
“And what are your terms?” demanded Varney.
“If I am to have a quick eye for my patron’s interest, he must have a dull one towards my faults,” said Lambourne.
“Ay,” said Varney, “so they lie not so grossly open that he must needs break his shins over them.”
“Agreed,” said Lambourne. “Next, if I run down game, I must have the picking of the bones.”
“That is but reason,” replied Varney, “so that your betters are served before you.”
“Good,” said Lambourne; “and it only remains to be said, that if the law and I quarrel, my patron must bear me out, for that is a chief point.”
“Reason again,” said Varney, “if the quarrel hath happened in your master’s service.”
“For the wage and so forth, I say nothing,” proceeded Lambourne; “it is the secret guerdon that I must live by.”
“Never fear,” said Varney; “thou shalt have clothes and spending money to ruffle it with the best of thy degree, for thou goest to a household where you have gold, as they say, by the eye.”
“That jumps all with my humour,” replied Michael Lambourne; “and it only remains that you tell me my master’s name.”
“My name is Master Richard Varney,” answered his companion.
“But I mean,” said Lambourne, “the name of the noble lord to whose service you are to prefer me.”
“How, knave, art thou too good to call me master?” said Varney hastily; “I would have thee bold to others, but not saucy to me.”
“I crave your worship’s pardon,” said Lambourne, “but you seemed familiar with Anthony Foster; now I am familiar with Anthony myself.”
“Thou art a shrewd knave, I see,” replied Varney. “Mark me – I do indeed propose to introduce thee into a nobleman’s household; but it is upon my person thou wilt chiefly wait, and upon my countenance that thou wilt depend. I am his master of horse. Thou wilt soon know his name – it is one that shakes the council and wields the state.”
“By this light, a brave spell to conjure with,” said Lambourne, “if a man would discover hidden treasures!”
“Used with discretion, it may prove so,” replied Varney; “but mark – if thou conjure with it at thine own hand, it may raise a devil who will tear thee in fragments.”
“Enough said,” replied Lambourne; “I will not exceed my limits.”
The travellers then resumed the rapid rate of travelling which their discourse had interrupted, and soon arrived at the Royal Park of Woodstock. This ancient possession of the crown of England was then very different from what it had been when it was the residence of the fair Rosamond, and the scene of Henry the Second’s secret and illicit amours; and yet more unlike to the scene which it exhibits in the present day, when Blenheim House commemorates the victory of Marlborough, and no less the genius of Vanbrugh, though decried in his own time by persons of taste far inferior to his own. It was, in Elizabeth’s time, an ancient mansion in bad repair, which had long ceased to be honoured with the royal residence, to the great impoverishment of the adjacent village. The inhabitants, however, had made several petitions to the Queen to have the favour of the sovereign’s countenance occasionally bestowed upon them; and upon this very business, ostensibly at least, was the noble lord, whom we have already introduced to our readers, a visitor at Woodstock.
Varney and Lambourne galloped without ceremony into the courtyard of the ancient and dilapidated mansion, which presented on that morning a scene of bustle which it had not exhibited for two reigns. Officers of the Earl’s household, liverymen and retainers, went and came with all the insolent fracas which attaches to their profession. The neigh of horses and the baying of hounds were heard; for my lord, in his occupation of inspecting and surveying the manor and demesne, was of course provided with the means of following his pleasure in the chase or park, said to have been the earliest that was enclosed in England, and which was well stocked with deer that had long roamed there unmolested. Several of the inhabitants of the village, in anxious hope of a favourable result from this unwonted visit, loitered about the courtyard, and awaited the great man’s coming forth. Their attention was excited by the hasty arrival of Varney, and a murmur ran amongst them, “The Earl’s master of the horse!” while they hurried to bespeak favour by hastily unbonneting, and proffering to hold the bridle and stirrup of the favoured retainer and his attendant.
“Stand somewhat aloof, my masters!” said Varney haughtily, “and let the domestics do their office.”
The mortified citizens and peasants fell back at the signal; while Lambourne, who had his eye upon his superior’s deportment, repelled the services of those who offered to assist him, with yet more discourtesy – “Stand back, Jack peasant, with a murrain to you, and let these knave footmen do their duty!”
While they gave their nags to the attendants of the household, and walked into the mansion with an air of superiority which long practice and consciousness of birth rendered natural to Varney, and which Lambourne endeavoured to imitate as well as he could, the poor inhabitants of Woodstock whispered to each other, “Well-a-day! God save us from all such misproud princoxes! An the master be like the men, why, the fiend may take all, and yet have no more than his due.”
“Silence, good neighbours!” said the bailiff, “keep tongue betwixt teeth; we shall know more by-and-by. But never will a lord come to Woodstock so welcome as bluff old King Harry! He would horsewhip a fellow one day with his own royal hand, and then fling him an handful of silver groats, with his own broad face on them, to ‘noint the sore withal.”
“Ay, rest be with him!” echoed the auditors; “it will be long ere this Lady Elizabeth horsewhip any of us.”
“There is no saying,” answered the bailiff. “Meanwhile, patience, good neighbours, and let us comfort ourselves by thinking that we deserve such notice at her Grace’s hands.”
Meanwhile, Varney, closely followed by his new dependant, made his way to the hall, where men of more note and consequence than those left in the courtyard awaited the appearance of the Earl, who as yet kept his chamber. All paid court to Varney, with more or less deference, as suited their own rank, or the urgency of the business which brought them to his lord’s levee. To the general question of, “When comes my lord forth, Master Varney?” he gave brief answers, as, “See you not my boots? I am but just returned from Oxford, and know nothing of it,” and the like, until the same query was put in a higher tone by a personage of more importance. “I will inquire of the chamberlain, Sir Thomas Copely,” was the reply. The chamberlain, distinguished by his silver key, answered that the Earl only awaited Master Varney’s return to come down, but that he would first speak with him in his private chamber. Varney, therefore, bowed to the company, and took leave, to enter his lord’s apartment.
There was a murmur of expectation which lasted a few minutes, and was at length hushed by the opening of the folding-doors at the upper end or the apartment, through which the Earl made his entrance, marshalled by his chamberlain and the steward of his family, and followed by Richard Varney. In his noble mien and princely features, men read nothing of that insolence which was practised by his dependants. His courtesies were, indeed, measured by the rank of those to whom they were addressed, but even the meanest person present had a share of his gracious notice. The inquiries which he made respecting the condition of the manor, of the Queen’s rights there, and of the advantages and disadvantages which might attend her occasional residence at the royal seat of Woodstock, seemed to show that he had most earnestly investigated the matter of the petition of the inhabitants, and with a desire to forward the interest of the place.
“Now the Lord love his noble countenance!” said the bailiff, who had thrust himself into the presence-chamber; “he looks somewhat pale. I warrant him he hath spent the whole night in perusing our memorial. Master Toughyarn, who took six months to draw it up, said it would take a week to understand it; and see if the Earl hath not knocked the marrow out of it in twenty-four hours!”
The Earl then acquainted them that he should move their sovereign to honour Woodstock occasionally with her residence during her royal progresses, that the town and its vicinity might derive, from her countenance and favour, the same advantages as from those of her predecessors. Meanwhile, he rejoiced to be the expounder of her gracious pleasure, in assuring them that, for the increase of trade and encouragement of the worthy burgesses of Woodstock, her Majesty was minded to erect the town into a Staple for wool.
This joyful intelligence was received with the acclamations not only of the better sort who were admitted to the audience-chamber, but of the commons who awaited without.
The freedom of the corporation was presented to the Earl upon knee by the magistrates of the place, together with a purse of gold pieces, which the Earl handed to Varney, who, on his part, gave a share to Lambourne, as the most acceptable earnest of his new service.
The Earl and his retinue took horse soon after to return to court, accompanied by the shouts of the inhabitants of Woodstock, who made the old oaks ring with re-echoing, “Long live Queen Elizabeth, and the noble Earl of Leicester!” The urbanity and courtesy of the Earl even threw a gleam of popularity over his attendants, as their haughty deportment had formerly obscured that of their master; and men shouted, “Long life to the Earl, and to his gallant followers!” as Varney and Lambourne, each in his rank, rode proudly through the streets of Woodstock.