The Countess was rising from her chair, when Sir Lambert, after a glance at Roisia, observed that if her Ladyship found any difficulty in that selection, he had no particular objection to be chosen.

"You!" said the Countess. "Oh, very good; it will save trouble. Let it be so."

Roisia appeared to be, if anything, rather gratified by the exchange. But Clarice, looking into the dark, passionate eyes of Felicia, felt troubled for the happiness of Heliet.

Olympias, like Clarice, was promoted to a vacancy among the ladies of the bedchamber. But Sir Lambert and Roisia passed away from the life at Whitehall. The new Maids of Honour were speedily appointed. Their names proved to be Sabina Babingell, Ada Gresley, and Filomena Bray. The Countess declared her intention of keeping four only in the future.

The summer of 1292 saw the King on the Scottish border, and in his train the Earl and Countess of Cornwall, with their household, moved north as far as Oakham. The household had been increased by one more, for in the April previous Clarice Barkeworth became the mother of a little girl. This was the first event which helped to reconcile her to her lot. She had been honestly trying hard to do her duty by Vivian, who scarcely seemed to think that he had any duty towards her, beyond the obvious one of civility in public. All thought of Piers Ingham had been resolutely crushed down, except when it came—as it sometimes did—in the form of a dream of bliss from which she awoke to desolation. A miserable day was sure to follow one of those dreams. The only other moment when she allowed herself to think of him was in her evening prayer.

It was a relief to Clarice that she had never heard a word of Piers since he left Whitehall. Her work would have been harder if his name had remained a household word. And yet in another sense it was hard never to know what had become of him, whether he were as sad as herself, or had been comforted elsewhere.

Vivian's manners in public were perfect to every one, and Clarice shared with the rest. In private she was terribly snubbed whenever he was in a bad temper, and carelessly ignored when he was in a good one. The baby daughter, who was such a comfort to Clarice, was a source of bitter vexation to Vivian. In his eyes, while a son would have been an undoubted blessing, a daughter was something actively worse than a disappointment. When Clarice timidly inquired what name he wished the child to bear, Vivian distinctly intimated that the child and all her belongings were totally beneath his notice. She could call the nuisance what she liked.

Clarice silently folded her insulted darling to her breast, and tacitly promised it that its mother at least should never think it a nuisance.

"What shall I call her?" she said to Mistress Underdone and Olympias, both of whom were inclined to pet the baby exceedingly.

"Oh, something pretty!" said Olympias. "Don't have a plain, common name. Don't call her Joan, or Parnel, or Beatrice, or Margery, or Maud, or Isabel. You meet those at every turn. I am quite glad I was not called anything of that sort."

"I wouldn't have it too long," was Mistress Underdone's recommendation. "I'd never call her Frethesancia, or Florianora, or Aniflesia, or Sauncelina. Let her have a good, honest name, Dame, one syllable, or at most two. You'll have to clip it otherwise."

"I thought of Rose," said Clarice, meditatively.

"Well, it is not common," allowed Olympias. "Still, it is very short. Couldn't you have had it a little longer?"

"That'll do," pronounced Mistress Underdone. "It is short, and it means a pretty, sweet, pleasant thing. I don't know but I should have called my girl Rose, if I'd chosen her name; but her father fancied Heliet, and so it had to be so."

"Well, we can call her Rosamond," comfortingly suggested Olympias.

So, in the course of that evening, Father Bevis baptised little Rose Barkeworth in the chapel of the palace, the Earl standing sponsor for her, with the Lady de Chaucombe and the Lady de Echingham. The Countess had been asked, but to Clarice's private satisfaction had declined, for she would much rather have had the Earl, and the canon law forbade husband and wife being sponsors to the same infant.

Something was the matter with the Countess. Every one agreed upon this, but nobody could guess what it was. She was quieter than her wont, and was given to long, silent reveries, which had not been usual with her.

Filomena, who was of a lively turn of mind, declared that life at Whitehall was becoming absolutely intolerable, and that she should be thankful to go to Oakham, for at least it would be something new.

"Thou wilt be thankful to come away again," said Mistress Underdone, with a smile.

They reached Oakham about the middle of July, and found Heliet, leaning on her crutches, ready to welcome them with smiles in the hall. No news had reached her of their proceedings, and there was a great deal to tell her; but Heliet and the baby took to one another in an instant, as if by some unseen magical force.

The item of news which most concerned herself was not told to Heliet that night. The next morning, when all were seated at work, and baby Rose, in Heliet's lap, was contentedly sucking her very small thumb, Mistress Underdone said rather suddenly, "We have not told thee all, Heliet."

"I dare say not," replied Heliet, brightly. "You must have all done a great deal more in these two years than you have told me."

"Well, lass, 'tis somewhat I never looked I should have to tell thee. There's somebody wants to wed thee."

"Me!" cried Heliet, in large capitals.

"Ay, thee—crutches and all," said her mother laughing. "He said he did not care for thy crutches so they carried thee safe to chapel; and he ran the risk of offending the Lady to get thee. So I reckon he sets some store by thee, lass."

"Who is it?" said Heliet, in a low voice, while a bright red spot burned in each cheek.

"Ademar de Gernet." Two or three voices told her. The bright spots burned deeper.

"Is it to be?" was the next question.

"Ay, the Lady said so much; and I reckon she shall give thee thy gear."

"God has been very good to me," said Heliet, softly, rocking little Rose gently to and fro. "But I never thought He meant to give me that!"

Clarice looked up, and saw a depth of happy love in the lame girl's eyes, which made her sigh for herself. Then, looking further, she perceived a depth of black hate in those of Felicia de Fay, which made her tremble for Heliet.

It appeared very shortly that the Countess was in a hurry to get the wedding over. Perhaps she was weary of weddings in her household, for she did not seem to be in a good temper about this. She always thought Heliet would have had a vocation, she said, which would have been far better for her, with her lameness, than to go limping into chapel to be wed. She wondered nobody saw the impropriety of it. However, as she had promised De Gernet, she supposed it must be so. She did not know what she herself could have been thinking about to make such a foolish promise. She was not usually so silly as that. However, if it must be, it had better be got over.

So got over it was, on an early morning in August, De Gernet receiving knighthood from the Earl at the close of the ceremony.

Mistress Underdone had petitioned that her lame and only child might not be separated from her, and the Countess—according to her own authority, in a moment of foolishness—had granted the petition. So Heliet was drafted among the Ladies of the Bedchamber, but only as an honorary distinction.

The manner of the Countess continued to strike every one as unusual. Long fits of musing with hands lying idle were becoming common with her, and when she rose from them she would generally shut herself up in her oratory for the remainder of the day. Clarice thought, and Heliet agreed with her, that something was going to happen. Once, too, as Clarice was carrying Rose along the terrace, she was met by the Earl, who stopped and noticed the child, as in his intense and unsatisfied love for little children he always did. Clarice thought he looked even unwontedly sorrowful.

From the child, Earl Edmund looked up into the pleased eyes of the young mother.

"Dame Clarice," he asked, gently, "are you happier than you were?"

Her eyes grew suddenly grave.

"Thus far," she said, touching the child. "Otherwise—I try to be content with God's will, fair Lord. It is hard to bear heart-hunger."

"Ah!" The Earl's tone was significant. "Yes, it is hard to bear in any form," he said, after a pause. "May God send you never to know, Dame, that there is a more terrible form than that wherein you bear it."

And he left her almost abruptly.

The winter of 1292 dragged slowly along. Filomena declared that her body was as starved as her mind, and she should be frozen to death if she stayed any longer. The next day, to everybody's astonishment, the Countess issued orders to pack up for travelling. Sir Vivian and Clarice were to go with her—where, she did not say. So were Olympias, Felicia, and Ada. Mistress Underdone, Sir Reginald, Sir Ademar and Heliet, Filomena and Sabina, were left behind at Oakham.

Olympias grumbled extremely at being separated from her husband, and Filomena at being left behind. The Countess would listen to neither.

"When shall we return, under my Lady's leave?" asked Olympias, disconsolately.

"You can return," was the curt answer, "when I have done with you. I doubt if Sir Vivian and his dame will return at all. Ada certainly will not."

"Ha, jolife!" said Ada, under her breath. She did not like Oakham.

Clarice, on the contrary, was inclined to make an exclamation of horror. For never to return to Oakham meant never to see Heliet again. And what could the Countess mean by a statement which sounded at least as if she were not intending to return?

Concerning Felicia the Countess said nothing. That misnamed young lady had during the past few months been trying her best to make Heliet miserable. She began by attempting to flirt with Sir Ademar, but she found him completely impervious material. Her arrows glanced upon his shield, and simply dropped off without further notice. Then she took to taunting Heliet with her lameness, but Heliet kept her temper. Next she sneered at her religious views. Heliet answered her gently, gravely, but held her own with undiminished calmness. This point had been reached when the Countess's order was given to depart from Oakham.

Even those least disposed to note the signs of the times felt the pressure of some impending calamity. The strange manner of the Countess, the restless misery of the Earl, whom they all loved, the busy, bustling, secretly-triumphant air of Father Miles—all denoted some hidden working. Father Bevis had been absent for some weeks, and when he returned he wore the appearance of a baffled and out-wearied man.

"He looks both tired and disappointed," remarked Clarice to Heliet.

"He looks," said Heliet, "like a man who had been trying very hard to scale the wall of a tower, and had been flung back, bruised and helpless, upon the stones below."

During the four months last spent at Oakham, Clarice had been absolutely silent to Heliet on the subject of her own peculiar trouble. Perhaps she might have remained so, had it not been for the approaching separation. But her lips were unsealed by the strong possibility that they might never meet again. It was late on the last evening that Clarice spoke, as she sat rocking Rose's cradle. She laid bare her heart before Heliet's sympathising eyes, until she could trace the whole weary journey through the arid desert sands.

"And now tell me, friend," Clarice ended, "why our Lord deals so differently with thee and with me. Are we not both His children? Yet to thee He hath given the desire of thine heart, and on mine He lays His hand, and says, 'No, child, thou must not have it.'"

"I suppose, beloved," was Heliet's gentle answer, "that the treatment suitable for consumption will not answer for fever. We are both sick of the deadly disease of sin; but it takes a different development in each. Shall we wonder if the Physician bleeds the one, and administers strengthening medicines to the other?"

Clarice's lip quivered, but she rocked Rose's cradle without answering.

"There is also another consideration," pursued Heliet. "If I mistake not—to alter the figure—we have arrived at different points in our education. If one of us can but decline 'puer,' while the other is half through the syntax, is it any wonder if the same lesson be not given to us to learn? Dear Clarice, all God's children need keeping down. I have been kept down all these years by my physical sufferings. That is not appointed to thee; thou art tried in another way. Shall we either marvel or murmur because our Father sees that each needs a different class of discipline?"

"Oh, Heliet, if I might have had thine! It seems to me so much the lighter cross to carry."

"Then, dear, I am the less honoured—the further from the full share of the fellowship of our Lord's sufferings."

Clarice shook her head as if she hardly saw it in that light.

"Clarice, let me tell thee a parable which I read the other day in the writings of the holy Fathers. There were once two monks, dwelling in hermits' cells near to each other, each of whom had one choice tree given him to cultivate. When this had lasted a year, the tree of the one was in flourishing health, while that of the other was all stunted and bare. 'Why, brother,' said the first, 'what hast thou done to thy tree?' 'Now, judge thou, my brother,' replied the second, 'if I could possibly have done more for my tree than I have done. I watched it carefully every day. When I thought it looked dry, I prayed for rain; when the ground was too wet, I prayed for dry weather; I prayed for north wind or south wind, as I saw them needed. All that I asked, I received; and yet look at my poor tree! But how didst thou treat thine? for thy plan has been so much more successful than mine that I would fain try it next year.' The other monk said only, 'I prayed God to make my tree flourish, and left it to Him to send what weather He saw good.'"

"He has sent a bitter blast from the north-east," answered Clarice, with trembling lips.

"And a hedge to shelter the root of the tree," said Heliet, pointing to Rose.

"Oh, my little Rosie!" exclaimed Clarice, kissing the child passionately. "But if God were to take her, Heliet, what would become of me?"

"Do not meet trouble half way, dear," said Heliet, gently. "There is no apparent likelihood of any such thing."

"I do not meet it—it comes!" cried poor Clarice.

"Then wait till it comes. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'"

"Yet when one has learned by experience that evil is perpetually coming, how can one help looking forward to the morrow?"

"Look forward," said Heliet. "But let it be to the day after to-morrow—the day when we shall awake up after Christ's likeness, and be satisfied with it—when the Lord our God shall come, and all the saints with Him. Dear, a gem cannot be engraved without the cutting-tools. Wouldst thou rather be spared the pain of the cutting than have Christ's likeness graven upon thee?"

"Oh, could it not be done with less cutting?"

"Yes—and more faintly graven then."

Clarice sobbed, without speaking.

"If the likeness is to be in high relief, so that all men may see it, and recognise the resemblance, and applaud the graver, Clarice, the tool must cut deep."

"If one could ever know that it was nearly done, it would be easier to bear it."

"Ay, but how if the vision were granted us, and we saw that it was not nearly done by many a year? It is better not to know, dear. Yet it is natural to us all to think that it would be far easier if we could see. Therefore the more 'blessed is he that hath not seen, and yet hath believed.'"

"I do think," said poor Clarice, drearily, "that I must be the worst tried of all His people."

"Clarice," answered Heliet, in a low voice, "I believe there is one in this very castle far worse tried than thou—a cross borne which is ten times heavier than thine, and has no rose-bud twined around it. And it is carried with the patience of an angel, with the unselfish forgetfulness of Christ. The tool is going very deep there, and already the portrait stands out in beautiful relief. And that cross will never be laid down till the sufferer parts with it at the very gate of Heaven. At least, so it seems to me. As the years go on it grows heavier, and it is crushing him almost into the dust now."

"Whom dost thou mean, Heliet?"

"The Lord Earl, our master."

"I can see he is sorely tried; but I never quite understand what his trouble is."

"The sorrow of being actively hated by the only one whom he loves. The prospect of being left to die, in wifeless and childless loneliness— that terrible loneliness of soul which is so much worse to bear than any mere physical solitude. God, for some wise reason, has shut him up to Himself. He has deprived him of all human relationship and human love; has said to him, 'Lean on Me, and walk loose from all other ties.' A wedded man in the eyes of the world, God has called him in reality to be an anchorite of the Order of Providence, to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. And unless mine eyes see very wrongly into the future—as would God they did!—the Master is about to lead this dear servant into the Gethsemane of His passion, that he may be fashioned like Him in all things. Ah, Clarice, that takes close cutting!"

"Heliet, what dost thou mean? Canst thou guess what the Lady is about to do?"

"I think she is going to leave him."

"Alone?—for ever?"

"For earth," said Heliet, softly. "God be thanked, that is not for ever."

"What an intensely cruel woman she is!" cried Clarice, indignantly.

"Because, I believe, she is a most miserable one."

"Canst thou feel any pity for her?"

"It is not so easy as for him. Yet I suspect she needs it even more than he does. Christ have mercy on them both!"

"I cannot comprehend it," said Clarice.

"I will tell thee one thing," answered Heliet. "I would rather change with thee than with Sir Edmund the Earl; and a hundred times rather with thee than with the Lady Margaret. It is hard to suffer; but it is worse to be the occasion of suffering. Let me die a thousand times over with Saint Stephen, before I keep the clothes of the persecutors with Saul."

Clarice stooped and lifted the child from the cradle.

"It is growing late," she said. "I suppose we ought not to be up longer. Good-night, sweetheart, and many thanks for thy counsel. It is all true, I know; yet—"

"In twenty years, may be—or at the longest, when thou hast seen His Face in righteousness—dear Clarice, thou wilt know it, and want to add no yet."

The soft tap of Heliet's crutches had died away, but Clarice stood still with the child in her arms.

"It must be yet now, however," she said, half aloud. "Do Thy will with me—cut me and perfect me; but, O God, leave me, leave me Rosie!"



CHAPTER NINE.

OVERWHELMED.

"I am a useless and an evil man,— God planned my life, and let men spoil His plan."

Isabella Fyvie Mayo.

Oakham was left behind; and to the surprise of the party—except the Countess, her Prime Minister, Father Miles, and her Foreign Secretary, Felicia—they found themselves lodged in Rochester Castle. Here the Countess shut herself up, and communicated with the outward world through her Cabinet only. All orders were brought to the ladies by Felicia, and were passed to Vivian by Father Miles. The latter was closeted with his lady for long periods, and rolls of writing appeared to be the result of these conferences.

The winter moved on with leaden feet, according to the ideas of the household, and of Ada more particularly.

"This sort of life is really something dreadful!" said that young lady. "If the frost would only break up, it would make something fresh to look at. There is nothing to be done!"

"Poor Ada!" responded Olympias, laughing. "Do get some needlework."

"I am tired of needlework," answered Ada. "I am tired of everything!"

Felicia came in as the words were spoken.

"I have permission to tell you something," she said, with a light in her black eyes which Clarice felt sure meant mischief. "The Lady has appealed to the holy Father for a divorce from the Lord Earl."

"Will she get it?" asked Olympias.

"No doubt of it," replied Felicia dogmatically.

"And if so, what will she do then?" asked Ada.

"Her pious intention," said Felicia, the black eyes dancing, "is to become a holy Sister of the Order of the blessed Saint Dominic."

"Then what is to become of the Lord Earl?" queried Olympias. "I suppose he can marry somebody else. I hope he will."

"That is no concern of the Lady's," said Felicia, in a tone of pious severity. "The religious do not trouble their holy repose about externs, except to offer prayers for their salvation."

"Why, then, we shall all be turned out!" blankly cried Ada. "What is to become of us all?"

"What will become of me is already settled," replied Felicia demurely. "I am about to make profession in the same convent with my mistress."

"Thank the saints!" reached Clarice's ears in a whisper from Olympias, and was deliberately echoed in the heart of the former.

"But that will never do for me!" exclaimed Ada. "I am sure I have no vocation. What am I to do?"

"The Lady proposes, in her goodness," said the Countess's mouthpiece, "to get thee an appointment in the household of one of the Ladies the King's daughters."

"Ha, jolife!" said Ada, and ceased her interjections.

"For you, Dames," continued Felicia, turning to Clarice and Olympias, "she says that, being wedded, you are already provided for, and need no thought on her part."

"Oh, then, I may go back to Oakham," answered Olympias in a satisfied tone. "That is what I want."

Clarice wondered sorrowfully what her lot would be—whether she might return to Oakham. She felt more at home there than anywhere else. The question was whether, Clarice being now at large, Vivian would continue in the Earl's service; and even if he did, they might perhaps no longer live in the Castle. Clarice took this new trouble where she carried them all; but the Earl's sorrow was more in her mind than her own. She was learning to cultivate:—

"A heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathise."

She found that Vivian had already heard the news from Father Miles, and she timidly ventured to ask him what he intended to do.

After a few flights of rhetoric concerning the extreme folly of the Countess—to forsake an earldom for the cloister was a proceeding not in Vivian's line at all—that gentleman condescended so far to answer his wife as to observe that he was not fool enough not to know when he was well off. Clarice thankfully conjectured that they would return to Oakham. She thought it better, however, to ask the question point blank; and she received a reply—of course accompanied by a snub.

"Why should we be such fools as to go to Oakham when my Lord is in Bermondsey?"

"Bermondsey!" Clarice was surprised. "You never know anything!" said Vivian. "Of course he is come to town."

Clarice received the snubbing in silence. "You are so taken up with that everlasting brat of yours," added Rose's affectionate father, "that you never know what anybody else is doing."

There had been a time when Clarice would have defended herself against such accusations. She was learning now that she suffered least when she received them in meek silence. The only way to deal with Vivian Barkeworth was to let him alone.

Two long letters went to the Pope that February; one was from the Countess, the other from the Earl. They are both yet extant, and they show the character of each as no description could set it forth.

The Countess's letter is a mixture of pious demureness and querulous selfishness. She tells the Pope that all her life she has intensely desired to be a nun: that she is, unhappily, in the irreligious position of a matron, and, moreover, is the suffering wife of an impious husband. This sinful man requires of her—of her, a soul devoted to religion— that she shall behave as if she belonged to the wicked world which holds himself within its thrall, and shall sacrifice God to him. She humbly and fervently entreats the holy Father to grant her a divorce from these bonds of matrimony which so cruelly oppress her, and to set her soul free that it may soar upwards unrestrained. It is the letter of a woman who did wish to serve God, but who was incapable of recognising that it was possible to do it without shutting herself up in stone walls, and starving body and soul alike.

The Earl's letter is of an entirely different calibre. He tells the Pope in his turn that he is wedded to a woman whom he dearly loves, and who resolutely keeps him at arm's length. She will not make a friend of him, nor behave as a good wife ought to do. This is all he asks of her; he is as far as can be from wishing to be unkind to her or to cross her wishes. He only wants her to live with him on reasonable and ordinary terms. But she—and here the Earl's irrepressible humour breaks out; he must see the comical side even of his own sorest trouble, and certainly this had its comical side—she will not sit next to him at table, but insists on putting her confessor between; she will not answer Yes or No to his simplest question, but invariably returns the answer through a third person. When she goes into her private apartments, she turns the key in his face. Does the holy Father think this is the way that a rational wife ought to behave to her own husband? and will he not remonstrate with her, and induce her to use him a little more kindly and reasonably than she does? The Earl's letter is that of an injured and justly provoked man; of a man who loves his wife too well to coerce or quarrel with her, and who thoroughly perceives the absurdity of his position no less than its pain. Yet he does feel the pain bitterly, and he would do anything to end it.

This letter to the Patriarch of Christendom was his last hope. Entreaties, remonstrances, patient tenderness, loving kindness, all had proved vain. Now:—

"He had set his life upon a cast, And he must run the hazard of the die."

Weary and miserable weeks they were, during which Earl Edmund waited the Pope's answer. It came at last. The Pope replied as only a Romish priest could be expected to reply. For the human anguish of the one he had no sympathy; for the quasi-religious sorrows of the other he had very much. He decreed, in the name of God, a full divorce between Edmund Earl of Cornwall, and Margaret his wife, coldly admonishing the Earl to take the Lord's chastening in good part, and to let the griefs of earth lift his soul towards Heaven.

But it was not there that this sorrow lifted it at first. The human agony had to be lived through before the Divine calm and peace could come to heal it. His last effort had been made in vain. The passionate hope of twenty years, that the day would come when his long, patient love should meet with its reward even on earth, was shattered to the dust. Even if she wished to come back after this, she could never retrace her steps. Compensation he might find in Heaven, but there could be none left for him on earth now. Even hope was dead within him.

The fatal Bull fell from the Earl's hand, and dropped a dead weight on the rushes at his feet. He was a heart-wrecked man, and life had to go on.

Was this man—for his is no fancy picture—a poor weak creature, or was he a strong, heroic soul? Many will write him down the weakling; perhaps all but those who have themselves known much of that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and drains away the moral life-blood drop by drop. It may be that the registers of Heaven held appended to his name a different epithet. It is harder to wait than to work; hardest of all to awake after long suspense to the blank conviction that all has been in vain, and then to take up the cross and meekly follow the Crucified.

Two hours later, a page brought a message to Reginald de Echingham to the effect that he was wanted by his master.

Reginald, in his own eyes, was a thoroughly miserable man. He had nobody to talk with, and nothing to do. He missed Olympias sadly, for as the Earl had once jestingly remarked, she burnt perpetual incense on his altar, and flattery was a necessary of life to Reginald. Olympias was the only person who admired him nearly as much as he did himself. Like the old Romans, partem et circenses constituted his list of indispensables; and had it been inevitable to dispense with one of them for a time, Reginald would have resigned the bread rather than the game. On this particular morning, his basket of grievances was full. The damp had put his moustache out of curl; he had found a poor breakfast provided for him—and Reginald was by no means indifferent to his breakfast—and, worst of all, the mirror was fixed so high up on the wall that he could not see himself comfortably. The usual religious rites of the morning before his own dear image had, therefore, to be very imperfectly performed. Reginald grumbled sorely within himself as he went through the cold stone passages which led to the Earl's chamber.

His master lifted very sad eyes to his face.

"De Echingham, I wish to set out for Ashridge to-morrow. Can you be ready?"

Ashridge! De Echingham would as soon have received marching orders for Spitzbergen. If there were one place in the world which he hated in his inmost soul, it was that Priory in Buckinghamshire, which Earl Edmund had himself founded. He would be worse off there than even in Bermondsey Palace, with nothing around him but silent walls and almost equally silent monks. De Echingham ventured on remonstrance.

"Would not your Lordship find Berkhamsted much more pleasurable, especially at this season?"

"I do not want pleasure," answered the Earl wearily. "I want rest."

And he rose and began to walk aimlessly up and down the room, in that restless manner which was well suited to emphasise his words.

"But—your Lordship's pardon granted—would you not find it far better to seek for distraction and pleasance in the Court, than to shut yourself up in a gloomy cell with those monks?"

Earl Edmund stopped in his walk and looked at Reginald, whose speech touched his quick sense of humour.

"I would advise you to give thanks in your prayers to-night, De Echingham."

"For what, my Lord?"

"That you have as yet no conception of a sorrow which is past distraction by pleasance. 'Vinegar upon nitre!' You never tasted it, I should think."

"I thank your Lordship, I never did," said Reginald, who took the allusion quite literally.

"Well, I have done, and I did not like it," rejoined his master. "I prefer the monks' soupe maigre, if you please. Be so good as to make ready, De Echingham."

Reginald obeyed, but grumbling bitterly within his disappointed soul. Could there be any misery on earth worse than a cold stone bench, a bowl of sorrel soup, and a chapter of Saint Augustine to flavour it? And when they had only just touched the very edge of the London season! Why, he would not get a single ball that spring. Poor Reginald!

They stayed but one night at Berkhamsted, though, to the Earl, Berkhamsted was home. It was the scene of his birth, and of that blessed unapprehensive childhood, when brothers and sisters had played with him on the Castle green, and light, happy laughter had rung through the noble halls; when the hand of his fair Provencal mother had fallen softly in caresses on his head, and his generous, if extravagant, father had been only too ready to shower gold ducats in anticipation of his slightest wish. All was gone now but the cold gold—hard, silent, unfeeling; a miserable comforter indeed. There was one brother left, but he was far away—too far to recall in this desolate hour. Like a sufferer of later date, he must go alone with his God to bear his passion. [Note 1.]

The Priory of Ashridge—of the Order of Bonihomines—which Earl Edmund had founded a few years before, was the only one of its class in England. The Predicant Friars were an offshoot of the Dominican Order; and the Boni-Homines were a special division of the Predicant Friars. It is a singular fact that from this one source of Dominicans or Black Monks, sprang the best and the worst issues that ever emanated from monachism—the Bonihomines and the Inquisition.

The Boni-Homines were, in a word, the Protestants of the Middle Ages. And—a remarkable feature—they were not, like all other seceders, persons who had separated themselves from the corruptions of Rome. They were better off, for they had never been tainted with them. From the first ages of primitive Christianity, while on all sides the stream was gradually growing sluggish and turbid, in the little nest of valleys between Dauphine and Piedmont it had flowed fresh and pure, fed by the Word of God, which the Vaudois [Note 2] mountaineers suffered no Pope nor Church to wrench or shut up from them.

The oldest name by which we know these early Protestants is Paulikians, probably having a reference to the Apostle Paul as either the exponent of their doctrines, or the actual founder of their local church. A little later we find them styled Cathari, or Pure Ones. Then we come on their third name of Albigenses, derived from the neighbouring town of Alby, where a Council was held which condemned them. But by whatever name they are called they are the same people, living in the same valleys, and holding unwaveringly and unadulterated the same faith.

It was by their fourth name of Boni-Homines, or Good Men, that they took advantage of the preaching movement set up by the Dominicans in the thirteenth century. They permeated their ranks, however, very gradually and quietly—perhaps all the more surely. For shortly after the date of this story, in the early part of the fourteenth century, it is said that of every three Predicant Friars, two were Bonihomines.

The Boni-Homines were rife in France before they ever crept into England; and the first man to introduce them into England was Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. A hundred years later, when the Boni-Homines had shown what they really were, and the leaven with which they had saturated society had evolved itself in Lollardism, the monks of other Orders did their best to bring both the movement and the men into disrepute, and to paint in the blackest colours the name of the Prince who had first introduced them into this country. In no monkish chronicle, unless written by a Bonus Homo, will the name of Earl Edmund be found recorded without some word of condemnation. And the Boni-Homines, unfortunately for history, were not much given to writing chronicles. Their business was saving souls.

Most important is it to remember, in forming just estimates of the character of things—whether men or events—in the Middle Ages, that with few exceptions monks were the only historians. Before we can truthfully set down this man as good, or that man as bad, we must, therefore, consult other sources—the chronicles of those few writers who were not monks, the State papers, but above all, where accessible, the personal accounts and private letters of the individuals in question. It is pitiable to see well-meaning Protestant writers, even in our own day, repeating after each other the old monkish calumnies, and never so much as pausing to inquire, Are these things so?

Late on the evening of the following day the Prior and monks of Ashridge stood at the gate ready to receive their founder. The circumstances of his coming were unknown to them, and they were prepared to make it a triumphal occasion. But the first glance at his face altered all that. The Prior quietly waved his monks back, and, going forward himself, kissed his patron's hand, and led him silently into the monastery.

Poor Sir Reginald found himself condemned to all the sorrows he had anticipated, down to the sorrel soup—for it was a vigil—and the straw mattress, which, though considerably softer than the plank beds of the monks, was barely endurable to his ease-loving limbs. He looked as he felt—extremely uncomfortable and exceedingly cross.

The Prior wasted no attentions on him. Such troubles as these were not worth a thought in his eyes; but his founder's face cost him many thoughts. He saw too plainly that for him had come one of those dread hours in life when the floods of deep waters overflow a man, and unless God take him into the ark of His covenant mercy, he will go down in the current. It was after some hours of prayer that the Prior tapped at the door of the royal guest.

Earl Edmund's quiet voice bade him enter.

"How fares it with my Lord?"

"How is it likely to fare," was the sorrowful answer, "with one who hath lost hope?"

The Prior sat down opposite his guest, where he might have the opportunity of studying his countenance. He was himself the senior of the Earl, being a man of about sixty years—a man in whom there had been a great deal of fire, and in whose dark, gleaming eyes there were many sparks left yet.

"Father," said the Earl, in a low, pained voice, "I am perplexed to understand God's dealings with me."

"Did you expect to understand them?" was the reply.

"Thus far I did—that I thought He would finish what He had begun. But all my life—so far as this earthly life is concerned—I have been striving for one aim, and it has come to utter wreck. I set one object before me, and I thought—I thought it was God's will that I should pursue it. If He, by some act of His own providence, had shown me the contrary, I could have understood it better. But He has let men step in and spoil all. It is not He, but they who have brought about this wreck. My barge is not shattered by the winds and waves of God, but scuttled by the violence of pirates. My life is spoiled, and I do not understand why. I have done nothing but what I thought He intended me to do: I have set my heart on one thing, but it was a thing that I believed He meant to give me. It is all mystery to me."

"What is spoiled, my Lord? Is it what God meant you to do, or what you meant God to do?"

The sand grew to a larger heap in the hour-glass before another word was spoken.

"Father," said the Prince at last, "have I been intent on following my own will, when I thought I was pursuing the Lord's will for me? Father Bevis thinks so: he gave me some very hard words before I came here. He accuses me of idolatry; of loving the creature more than the Creator— nay, of setting up my will and aim, and caring nothing for those of the Lord. In his eyes, I ought to have perceived years ago that God called me to a life apart with Him, and to have detached my heart from all but Himself and His Church. Father, it is hard enough to realise the wreck of all a man hoped and longed for: yet it is harder to know that the very hope was sin, that the longing was contrary to the Divine purpose for me. Have I so misunderstood my life? Have I so misunderstood my Master?"

The expression of the Prior's eyes was very pitying and full of tenderness. Hard words were not what he thought needed as the medicine for that patient. They were only to be expected from Father Bevis, who had never suffered the least pang of that description of pain.

"My Lord," answered the Prior, gently, "it is written of the wicked man, 'Thou hast removed Thy judgments from his eyes.' They are not to be seen nor fathomed by him. And to a great extent it is equally true of the righteous man. Man must not look to be able to comprehend the ways of God—they are above him. It is enough for him if he can walk submissively in them."

"I wonder," said the Earl, still pursuing his own train of thought, "if I ought to have been a monk. I never imagined it, for I never felt any vocation. It seemed to me that Providence called me to a life entirely different. Have I made an utter blunder all my life? I cannot think it."

"There is no need to think it, my Lord. We cannot all be monks, even if we would. And why should we? It might, perhaps, be better for you to think one other thing."

"What?" asked the Earl, with more appearance of interest than he had hitherto shown.

"That what you suppose to be the spoiling of your life is just what God intended for you."

The Earl's face grew dark. "What! that all my life long He was leading me up to this?"

"It looks like it," said the Prior, quietly.

"Oh! but why?"

"Now, my Lord, you go beyond me. Neither you nor I can guess that. But He knows."

"Yes, I suppose He knows." But the consideration did not seem to comfort him as it had done before when suggested by Father Bevis.

"Perhaps," said the Prior again, softly, "there was no other way for your Lordship to the gate of the Holy City. He leads us by diverse ways; some through the flowery mead, and some over the desert sands where no water is. But of all it is written, 'He led them forth by the right way, that they might reach the haven of their desire.' Would your Lordship have preferred the mead and have missed the haven?"

"No," answered the Earl, firmly.

"Remember that you hold God's promise that when you awake up after His likeness you shall be satisfied with it. And he is not satisfied with his purchase who accounts it to have cost more than it was worth."

"Will your figure hold if pressed further?" said the Earl, with a wintry smile. "The purchase may be worth a thousand marks, but if I have but five hundred in the world I shall starve to death before the gem is mine."

"No, my Lord, it will not hold. For you cannot pay the price of that gem. The cost of it was His who will keep it safe for you, so that you cannot fling it away in mistake or folly. Figures must fail somewhere; and we want another in this case. My Lord, you are the gem, and the heavenly Graver is fashioning on you the King's likeness. Will you stay His hand before it is perfect?"

"I would it were near perfection!" sighed the Earl.

"Perhaps it is," said the Prior, gently. "Remember, it is your Father who is graving it."

The Earl's lip quivered. "If one could but know when it would be done! If one might know that in seven years—ten years—it would be complete, and one's heart and brain might find rest! But to think of its going on for twenty, thirty, forty—"

"They will look short enough, my Lord, when they are over."

"True. But not while they are passing."

"Nay, 'No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous.' Yet 'faint not when thou art rebuked of Him.'"

"It is the going on, that is so terrible!" said the Earl, almost under his breath. "If one might die when one's hope dies! Father, do you know anything of that?"

"In this world, my Lord, I dug a grave in mine own heart for all my hopes, forty years ago."

"And can you look back on that time calmly?"

"That depends on what you mean by calmness. Trustfully, yes; indifferently, no."

"Yet the religious say that God requires their affections to be detached from the world. That must produce deadness of feeling."

"My Lord, there is such a thing as being alive from the dead. That is what God requires. If we tarry at the dying, we shall stop short of His perfection. We are to be dead to sin; but I nowhere find in Scripture that we are to die to love and happiness. That is man's gloss upon God's precept."

"Is that what you teach in your valleys?"

"We teach God's Word," said the Vaudois Prior. "Alas! for the men that have made it void through their tradition! 'If they speak not according thereunto, it is because there is no light in them.'"

"And you learn—" suggested the Earl in a more interested tone.

"We learn that God requires of His servants that they shall overcome the world; and He has told us what He means by the world—'The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.' Whatever has become that to me, that am I to overcome, if I would reign with Christ when He cometh."

We Protestants can hardly understand the fearful extent to which Rome binds the souls of her votaries. When she goes so far—which she rarely does—as to hold out God's Word with one hand, she carries in the other an antidote to it which she calls the interpretation of the Church, derived from the consent of the Fathers. That the Fathers scarcely ever consent to anything does not trouble her. According to this interpretation, all human affection comes for monk or nun under the head of the lusts of the flesh. [Note 3.] A daughter's love for her mother, a father's for his child, is thus branded. From his cradle Earl Edmund had been taught this; was it any marvel if he found it impossible to get rid of the idea? The Prior's eyes were less blinded. He had come straight from those Piedmontese valleys where, from time immemorial, the Word of God has not been bound, and whosoever would has been free to slake his thirst at the pure fountain of the water of life. Love was not dead in his heart, and he was not ashamed of it.

"But then, Father, you must reckon all love a thing to be left behind?" very naturally queried the Earl.

"It will not be so in Heaven," answered the Prior; "then why should it be on earth? Left behind! Think you I left behind me the one love of my life when I became a Bonus Homo? I trow not. My Lord, forty years ago this summer, I was a young man, just entering life, and betrothed to a maiden of the Val Pellice. God laid His hand upon my hopes of earthly happiness, and said, 'Not so!' But must I, therefore, sweep my Adelaide's memory out of my heart as if I had never loved her, and hold it sin against God to bear her sweet face in tender remembrance? Nay, verily, I have not so learned Christ."

"What happened?" said the Earl.

"God sent His angels for her," answered the Prior in a low voice.

"Ah, but she loved you!" was the response, in a tone still lower. The Earl did not know how much, in those few words, he told the Prior of Ashridge.

"My Lord," said the Prior, "did you ever purchase a gift for one you loved, and keep it by you, carefully wrapped up, not letting him know till the day came to produce it?"

The Earl looked up as if he did not see the object of the question; but he answered in the affirmative.

"It may be," continued the Prior, "that God our Father does the same at times. I believe that many will find gifts on their Father's table, at the great marriage-feast of the Lamb, which they never knew they were to have, and some which they fancied were lost irrevocably on earth. And if there be anything for which our hearts cry out that is not waiting for us, surely He can and will still the craving."

The Prior scarcely realised the effect of his words. He saw afterwards that the most painful part of the Earl's grief was lightened, that the terrible strain was gone from his eyes. He thanked God and took courage. He did not know that he had, to some extent, given him back the most precious thing he had lost—hope. He had only moved it further off—from earth to Heaven; and, if more distant, yet it was safer there.

The Prior left the Earl alone after that interview—alone with the Evangelisterium and the Psalter. The words of God were better for him than any words of men.

He stayed at Ashridge for about a fortnight, and then, to the ecstasy of Sir Reginald, issued orders for return to Berkhamsted. Only a few words passed between the Prior and his patron as they took leave of each other at the gate.

"Farewell, Father, and many thanks. You have done me good—as much good as man can do me now."

"My Lord, that acknowledgment is trust money, which I will pay into the treasury of your Lord and mine."

So they parted, to meet only once again. The Vaudois Prior was to go down with his friend to the river-side, to the last point where man can go with man.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. "Je vais seul avec mon Dieu souffrir ma passion."—Bonnivard, Prior of Saint Victor.

Note 2. Vaudois is not really an accurate epithet, since the "Valley-Men" only acquired it when, in after years, ejected, from their old home, they sought shelter in the Pays de Vaud. But it has come to be regarded as a name expressive of certain doctrines.

Note 3. "They (the Jesuits) were cut off from family and friends. Their vow taught them to forget their father's house, and to esteem themselves holy only when every affection and desire which nature had planted in their breasts had been plucked up by the roots." (Jesuitism, by the Reverend J.A. Wylie, Ll.D.) This statement is simply a shade less true of the other monastic orders.



CHAPTER TEN.

FORGIVENESS NOT TO BE FORGIVEN.

"Ay, there's a blank at my right hand That ne'er can be made up to me."—James Hogg.

Before leaving Bermondsey, the Earl had accomplished one of the hardest pieces of work which ever fell to his lot. This was the execution of the deed of separation which conveyed his legal assent to the departure of his wife, and assigned to her certain lands for her separate sustenance. Himself the richest man in England, he was determined that she should remain the wealthiest woman. He assigned to her all his lands in Norfolk and Suffolk, the manors of Kirketon in Lincolnshire, Malmesbury and Wyntreslawe in Wiltshire, and an annuity on Queenhithe, Middlesex—the whole sum amounting to 800 pounds per annum, which was equivalent to at least 15,000 pounds a year. He reserved to himself the appointments to all priories and churches, and the military feofs and escheats. Moreover, the Countess was not to sell any of the lands, nor had she the right to build castles. So far, in all probability, any man would have gone. But one other item was added, which came straight from the human heart of Earl Edmund, and was in the thirteenth century a very strange item indeed. The Countess, it was expressly provided, should not waste, exile, enslave, nor destroy "the serfs on these estates." [Note 1.]

The soul of Haman the Agagite, which had descended upon Margaret de Clare, fiercely resented this unusual clause. On the same roll which contains the Earl's grant, in ordinary legal language—which must have cost him something where he records her wish, and his assent, "freely during her widowhood to dedicate herself to the service of God,"— there is another document, in very extraordinary language, wherein the Lady Margaret recounts the wrongs which her lord is doing her in respect of this 800 pounds a year. A more spiteful production was hardly ever penned. From the opening address "to all who shall read or hear this document" to the concluding assertion that she has hereto set her seal, the indenture is crammed full of envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. She lets it plainly be seen that all the lands in Norfolk and Suffolk avail her nothing, so long as these restraining clauses are added to the grant. Margaret probably thought that she was merely detailing her wrongs; she did not realise that she was exhibiting her character. But for these four documents, the two letters, and the two indentures, wherein Earl and Countess have respectively "pressed their souls on paper," we might never have known which was to blame in the matter. Out of her own mouth is Margaret judged.

With amazing effrontery, and in flat contradiction not only of her husband's assertion, but of her own admission, the Countess commenced her tirade by bringing against her lord the charge of which she herself was guilty. As he was much the more worthy of credit, I prefer to believe him, confirmed as his statement is by her own letter to the Pope. She went on to detail the terms of separation, making the most of everything against her husband, and wound up with a sentence which must have pierced his heart like a poignard. She solemnly promised never to aggrieve him at any time by asking him to take her back, and never to seek absolution [Note 2] from that oath! In one sentence of cold, cruel, concentrated spite, she sarcastically swore never to demand from him the love for which during one and twenty years he had sued to her in vain.

So now all was over between them. The worst that could come had come.

"All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow, All the aching heart, the restless unsatisfied longing, All the dull deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!"

There was no more left to fear, for there was nothing left to hope.

The Countess, attended by Father Miles and Felicia, left Rochester in June for Romsey Abbey, where she solemnly assumed the veil of a black nun. She was now plain Sister Margaret, and in due course of time and promotion, she would become Mother Margaret, and then, perhaps, Prioress and Abbess. And then—her soul would be required of her.

Mother Margaret! What bitter mockery of a title for the woman who had deliberately flung away from her as a worthless weed the white flower of love which she might have cherished!

Of course, the household was now scattered. Ada had been received into the household of the Countess of Gloucester, the King's daughter Joan. Olympias was pining to return to Reginald, if she could form some idea in what part of the world he might be found; Clarice was awaiting her imperious lord's commands. The morning after the Countess had taken her last farewell of them all, as they were still in this attitude of doubt and expectation, in walked Sir Lambert Aylmer. He was greeted with delight. Roisia was well, he reported, and sent her loving commendations to all; but the object of his coming was not to talk about Roisia. The Earl, with Sir Reginald, was at Restormel, one of his Cornish castles; but in a letter received from the latter gentleman, Sir Lambert had been requested to inform Olympias that their master desired them all to repair to Berkhamsted, whither he meant to come shortly, and they should then hear his intentions for the future.

"The saints send he mean not to be a monk!" said Olympias, shrugging her shoulders.

But nothing was further from Earl Edmund's purpose.

They reached Berkhamsted in a day or two, and to Clarice's great delight, found there not only Mistress Underdone and the two bower-maidens, but Sir Ademar and Heliet. It was a new and pleasant discovery that Heliet could travel. It had been a sort of accepted idea, never investigated, that her leaving Oakham was an impossibility; but Ademar had coaxed her to try, and Heliet was quite willing. The result was that she had reached Berkhamsted in safety, to her own intense enjoyment; for she had never before been a mile from Oakham, and the discovery that she was no longer a fixture, but could accompany her husband wherever duty called him was to Heliet unspeakable delight.

It was not till October that the Earl reached home; for he stayed at Bristol for the wedding of the eldest princess, Alianora, with Henri Duke of Barre, which took place on the twentieth of September. The morning after his arrival he desired to speak with the whole of his household, who were to assemble in the hall for that purpose.

Olympias was positive that her master was about to take the cowl. "And it would be so nice, you see," she said; "just a match to the Lady."

"Nice, indeed!" said Reginald, pulling a terrible face. "Thou hast not spent a fortnight at Ashridge."

"Well, but he would not want to make a monk of thee," answered Olympias, rather blankly.

"He would not manage it, if he tried," responded her lord and master.

When the Earl's intentions were stated, it appeared that he had no further occasion for the services of Sir Reginald and Olympias, and he had secured for them situations, if they chose to accept them, in the household of the royal bride. Olympias was in ecstasies; to live in France was a most delicious fate in her eyes, nor did Reginald in the least object to it. Filomena and Sabina were provided for with the Countess of Lincoln and the Princess Elizabeth, Mistress Underdone, Heliet, and Sir Ademar would remain at Berkhamsted. And then the Earl, turning to Vivian and Clarice, requested as a favour to himself that they would remain also. It was necessary to have a lady of rank— namely, a knight's wife—at the head of the establishment. The Earl had no sister who could take that position; and his brother's widow, the Lady Constance d'Almayne, had preferred to return to her own home in Bearn rather than live in England. Heliet might have answered, but the Earl felt, with his usual considerate gentleness, that her lameness would make it a great charge and trouble to her. He wished Clarice to take it, if her husband would allow her, and was willing to continue in his service.

"And, truth to tell," said the Earl, with a sad smile at Rosie, who was making frantic efforts to compass the fearful distance of three yards between the Earl's chair and Clarice's outstretched hand, "you have here a jewel which I were very loth to lose from my empty casket. So, Sir Vivian, what say you?"

What became of either Clarice or Rosie was a matter of very little importance to Vivian, for he considered them both in the light of encumbrances—which was rather hard on Clarice at least, as she would thankfully have got out of his way if duty had allowed it. But, as he had once said, he knew when he was well off, and he had no wish to pass into the service either of a meaner nobleman or of a harder master. Vivian assented without a qualifying word.

Thus, with Clarice, life sank back into its old groove, and time sped on, uneventful except for the two items that every day little Rosie grew in intelligence and attractiveness, and every month, as it seemed to her mother, the Earl grew a year older. Clarice doubted if Rosie were not his sole tie to life. She became his chief companion, and on the little child who was no kin of his he poured out all the rich treasure of that warm great heart which his own held at so small a value. Rosie, however, was by no means irresponsive. Any one seeing her would have taken the Earl to be her father, and Sir Vivian a stranger of whom she was rather frightened.

The year 1294 was signalised by a remarkable action on the part of King Edward. In order to defray the vast expenses of his Welsh and Breton wars, he took into his own hands all the priories in England, committing their lands and goods to the care of state officials, and allowing eighteenpence per week for the sustenance of each monk. The allowance was handsome, but the proceeding was very like burglary.

The exact religious position of Edward the First is not so easy to define as that of some other monarchs. With respect to any personal and spiritual religion, it is, alas! only too easy. But it is difficult to say how far his opposition to the Pope originated from a deliberate policy, well thought out beforehand, and how far from the momentary irritation of a crossed will. He certainly was not the intelligent supporter of the Boni-Homines from personal conviction, that was to be found in his son, Edward the Second, or in his cousin, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. Yet he did support them to a certain extent, though more in the earlier part of his life than in the later. Like many another man in his position, he was ready enough to assist a body of sensible literary reformers, but, when the doctrine which they held began to press personally on himself, he shrank from the touch of Ithuriel's spear. That his subjects should be made better and more obedient by means of the Decalogue, or any other code, was a most excellent thing; but when the Decalogue came closer and said, "Thou shalt not," to himself, then it was an intrusive nuisance.

In the following year, 1295, the King laid the foundation of borough representation, by directing the sheriffs of the various counties to send to Parliament, along with the knights of the shire, two deputies from each borough, who were to be elected by the townsmen, and empowered to consent, in the name of their constituents, to the decrees of the King and his Council. "It is a most equitable rule," added the Monarch, "that what concerns all should be judged of by all." Concerning the possibility of these members dissenting from his decrees, however, His Majesty was not quite so eloquent. That contingency was one which a sovereign in the thirteenth century could scarcely be expected to take into his august consideration.

But King Edward wanted more money, and apparently preferred to grind it out of his monks rather than his peasants. He now instituted a search of all the monasteries in England, and commanded the confiscation of all cash. The monasteries resisting the excessive taxation laid upon them, the King seized their lay fees.

In the December of this year, Earl Edmund left Berkhamsted for Cornwall, taking with him Vivian, and leaving Ademar behind as the only gentleman in the party. He was going on an errand unpleasant to himself, for the King had committed to his charge a portion of the Gascon army. War and contention were altogether out of his line, yet he had no choice but to obey. He joined his cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, and the Earl of Lincoln, in Cornwall, and together they sailed on the fifteenth of January 1296, from a Cornish port termed Plumhupe in the "Chronicle of Worcester," but not easy to identify now, unless it be taken as a blunder for Plymouth, and the chronicler be supposed ignorant of its county. With them were twenty-five barons and a thousand knights.

During the absence of the Earl, it struck his cousin, the King—for no other reason can be guessed—that the Earl's treasury being much better filled than his own, he might reasonably pay his debts out of his cousin's overflowing coffers. Accordingly he sent to Berkhamsted, much to the dismay of the household, and coolly annexed his cousin's valuables to the Crown. But Earl Edmund was a man in whose eyes gold was of comparatively small value, partly because he set other things much higher, and partly because he had always had so much of it, that poverty was a trouble which he was scarcely able to realise.

A sad year was 1296 to the royal family of England. The Gascon expedition proved so disastrous, that Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, died of grief and disappointment at Bayonne on the fifth of June; and the Scottish one, though brilliantly successful in a political light, cost no less, for an arrow shot at a venture, at the siege of Berwick, quenched the young life of Richard Plantagenet, the only brother and last near relation of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. The triumphant capture of the coronation chair and the Stone of Destiny and their removal from Dunstaffnage to England, was contrasted with a terrible famine, which so affected the vines in particular, that there was hardly wine enough left for mass.

In the midst of these sharp contrasts of triumph and sorrow, Earl Edmund returned to England, escorting his widowed cousin Queen Blanche, and following the coffin of the Earl of Lancaster. They found the King earnestly engaged in effecting a contract of marriage between the young Prince Edward and a daughter of Guy, Count of Flanders, and binding himself to march to Guy's assistance against the King of France.

Ah, had it been God's will that the wife destined for Edward the Second should have been the pure, high-minded, heroic Philippine of Flanders, instead of the she-wolf of France, what a different history he would have had!

For among all the princesses of the thirteenth century one of the fairest souls is this Flemish maiden, who literally laid down her life in ransom for her father. It was not Prince Edward's fault that Philippine was not Queen of England. It was the fault of the ambitious policy alike of King Edward and the King of France, and perhaps still more of his Navarrese Queen. They did not know that they were sacrificing not only Philippine, but Edward. Would they have cared much about it if they had done?

The regalia of Scotland were solemnly offered at the shrine of Saint Edward on the 17th of June. Earl Edmund was present at the ceremony, and after it, "weary with the storms of earth," he went home to court repose at Berkhamsted.

It was the day after he came home, a soft, warm June day. Clarice and Heliet were playing with Rosie, now a bright, lively little child of five years old. In rushing away from Heliet, who was pretending to catch her, Rosie, to the dismay of all parties, ran straight against her father, who had just reached the top of the spiral staircase which led to their own rooms. Vivian, never very amiable when his course was impeded, either by a physical or a moral hindrance, impatiently pushed the child on one side. It was the wrong side. Rosie struggled to recover her balance for one moment, during which her father's hand might have grasped her, had he been quick to do it; her mother had not time to reach her. Then, with an inarticulate cry for help, she went down the well of the staircase.

Past Heliet's exclamation of horror came a sharp ringing shriek—"O Vivian! Rosie!" and darting by her astounded husband, down the stairs fled Clarice, with a celerity that she would have thought impossible an hour before.

Vivian's state of mind was a mixture of selfishness and horror. He had not intended to hurt the child, merely to get her out of his way; but when selfishness and remorse struggle together, the worse of the two usually comes to the front. Vivian's first articulate answer was a growl at his wife.

"Why did you not keep her out of my way? Gramercy, what a fuss about a girl!"

Then he read his guilt in Heliet's eyes, and began faltering out excuses and asseverations that he had not meant anything.

Clarice reached the foot of the stairs without heeding a word he said. But other hands, as tender as her own, were there before her.

"Little Rosie! my poor little child!" came from Earl Edmund's gentle lips, as he lifted the bruised child in his arms. Tenderly as it was done, Rosie could not repress a moan of pain which went to the two hearts that loved her.

She was not killed, but she was dying.

"A few hours," said the Earl's physician, instantly summoned, "a few hours. There was nothing to be done. She would very likely not suffer much—would hardly be conscious of pain until the end came."

The Earl bore her into his own chamber, and laid her on his bed. With speechless agony Clarice watched beside her.

Just once Rosie spoke.

"Mother, Mother, don't cry!"

Clarice was shedding no tears; they would not come yet; but in Rosie's eyes her strained white face was an equivalent.

"Mother, don't cry," said Rosie. "You said—I asked you—why people died. You said our Lord called them. Must go—when our Lord calls."

Clarice was not able to answer; but Rosie's words struck cold to her heart.

"Must go when our Lord calls!"

She could hardly pray. What went up was not prayer, but rather a wild, passionate cry that this thing could not be—should not be.

There were those few hours of half-consciousness, and then, just at the turn of the night, the Lord came and called, and Rosie heard His voice, and went to Him.

Sir Vivian Barkeworth, during that day and night, was not pursuing the even tenor of his way in that state of complacent self-approval which was the usual attitude of his mind. It was not that he mourned the child; his affections were at all times of a microscopic character, and the only spark of regard which he entertained for Rosie was not as his little child, but as his future heiress. Nor was he at all troubled by the sufferings of Clarice. Women were always crying about something; they were decided hindrances and vexations in a man's way; in fact, the existence of women at all, except to see to a man's comforts, and amuse his leisure, was, in Sir Vivian's eyes, an unfortunate mistake in the arrangements of Providence. He mourned first the good opinion which people had of him, and which, by the way, was a much smaller package than Sir Vivian thought it; and secondly, the far more important disturbance of the excellent opinion which he had of himself. He could not rid himself of the unpleasant conviction that a little more patience and amiability on his part would have prevented all this disagreeable affair, though he would not for the world have acknowledged this conviction to Clarice. That was what he thought it—a disagreeable affair. It was the purest accident, he said to himself, and might have happened to any one. At the same time, something, which did not often trouble Vivian, deep down in his inner man, distinctly told him that such an accident would never have happened to the Earl or Sir Ademar. Vivian only growled at his conscience when it gave him that faint prick. He was so accustomed to bid it be quiet, that it had almost ceased to give him any hints, and the pricking was very slight.

"A disagreeable business!" he said, inwardly; "a most disagreeable business. Why did not Clarice attend to her duties better? It was her duty to keep that child from bothering me. What are women good for but to keep their children out of mischief, and to see that their husbands' paths through life are free from every thorn and pebble?"

Sir Vivian had reached this point when one of the Earl's pages brought him a message. His master wished his attendance in his private sitting-room. Vivian inwardly anathematised the Earl, the page, Heliet (as a witness), Rosie (as the offender), but above all, as the head and front of all his misery, Clarice. He was not the less disposed to anathemas when he found Sir Ademar, Heliet, Clarice, and Master Franco, the physician, assembled to receive him with the Earl. It rasped him further to perceive that they were all exceedingly grave, though how he could have expected any of them to look hilarious it would be difficult to say. Especially he resented the look of desolate despair in Clarice's eyes, and the physical exhaustion and mental agony written in every line of her white face. He would not have liked to admit that he felt them all as so many trumpet-tongued accusers against him.

"I desired you all to assemble," said the Earl, in tones as gentle as usual, but with an under-current of pain, "because I wish to inquire in what manner our poor little darling met her death. How came she to fall down the staircase?"

He looked at Heliet, and she was the one to reply.

"It was an accident, my Lord, I think," she said.

"'You think?' Is there some doubt, then?"

No one answered him but Ademar. "Pardon me, my Lord; I was not present."

"Then I ask one who was present. Dame Heliet?"

"I hope there is no doubt, my Lord," answered Heliet. "I should be sorry to think so."

The bushy eyebrows, which were the only blemish to the handsome Plantagenet face of the Earl, were lowered at this reply.

"What am I to understand by that?" he asked. "Did the child throw herself down of her own will?"

"Oh, no, my Lord, no!"

"Did any one push her down?"

Dead silence.

"Sir Ademar was not present. Were you, Sir Vivian?"

Vivian, whose face was far more eloquent in this instance than his tongue, muttered an affirmative.

"Then you can answer me. Did any one push her down?"

Vivian's reply was unintelligible, being hardly articulate.

"Will you have the goodness to repeat that, if you please?" said his master.

In Clarice's heart a terrible tempest had been raging. Ought she not to speak, and declare the fact of which she felt sure, that Vivian had not been intentionally the murderer of his child? that whatever he might have done, he had meant no more than simply to push her aside? Conscientiousness strove hard with bitterness and revenge. Why should she go out of her way to shield the man who had been the misery of her life from the just penalty which he deserved for having made that life more desolate than ever? She knew that her voice would be the most potent there—that her vote would outweigh twenty others. The pleading of the bereaved mother in favour of the father of the dead child was just what would make its way straight to the heart of his judge. Clarice's own heart said passionately, No! Rosie's dead face must stand between him and her for ever. But then upon her spirit's fever fell calming words—words which she repeated every day of her life—words which she had taught Rosie.

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

If God were to forgive her as she forgave Vivian, what would become of her? Would she ever see Rosie again? And then a cry for help and strength to do it went up beyond the stars.

The Earl was quietly waiting for the repetition of Vivian's answer. It came at last—the answer—not a repetition.

"Saint Mary love us, my Lord! I never meant any harm."

"You never meant!" replied a stern voice, not at all like Earl Edmund's gentle tones. "Did you do it?"

Before Vivian could reply, to every one's astonishment, and most of all to his, Clarice threw herself down on her knees, and deprecatingly kissed the hand which rested on the arm of her master's chair.

"Mercy, my good Lord, I entreat you! It was a pure accident, and nothing more. I know Sir Vivian meant no more than to push the child gently out of his way. He did not calculate on the force he used. It was only an accident—he never thought of hurting her. For the sake of my dead darling, whom I know you loved, my gracious Lord, grant me mercy for her father!"

The silence was broken for a moment only by Heliet's sobs. The Earl had covered his face with his hands. Then he looked into Clarice's pleading eyes, with eyes in which unshed tears were glistening.

"Dame Clarice," said Earl Edmund in his softest tone, "you wish me to grant Sir Vivian mercy?"

"I implore it of your Lordship, for His sake to whom my child is gone, and hers."

The Earl's eyes went to Vivian, who stood looking the picture of guilt and misery.

"You hear, Sir Vivian? You are pardoned, but not for your sake. Be it yours to repay this generous heart."

The party dispersed in a few minutes. But when Ademar and Heliet found themselves alone, the former said—"Will he love her after this?"

"Love her!" returned Heliet. "My dear husband, thou dost not know that man. He owes his life to her generosity, and he will never forgive her for it."

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. Rot. Pat., 22 Edward the First.

Note 2. The language of this sentence is remarkable:—"Jeo ou nul autre en moun noun purchace absolucion ou de Apostoile ou de autre souerein." (Rot. Pat., 22 Edward the First.)



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE SUN BREAKS OUT.

"If from Thine ordeal's heated bars, Our feet are seamed with crimson scars, Thy will be done!"—Whittier.

Heliet's penetration had not deceived her. The mean, narrow, withered article which Vivian Barkeworth called his soul, was unable to pardon Clarice for having shown herself morally so much his superior. That his wife should be better than himself was in his eyes an inversion of the proper order of things. And as of course it was impossible that he should be to blame, why, it must be her fault Clarice found herself most cruelly snubbed for days after her interference in behalf of her graceless husband. Not in public; for except in the one instance of this examination, where his sense of shame and guilt had overcome him for a moment, Vivian's company manners were faultless, and a surface observer would have pronounced him a model husband. Poor Clarice had learned by experience that any restraint which Vivian put upon himself when inwardly vexed, was sure to rebound on her devoted head in the form of after suffering in private.

To Clarice herself the reaction came soon and severely. On the evening before Rosie's funeral, Heliet found her seated by the little bier in the hall, gazing dreamily on the face of her lost darling, with dry eyes and strained expression. She sat down beside her. Clarice took no notice. Heliet scarcely knew how to deal with her. If something could be said which would set the tears flowing it might save her great suffering; yet to say the wrong thing might do more harm than good. The supper-bell rang before she had made up her mind. As they rose Clarice slipped her hand into Heliet's arm, and, to the surprise of the latter, thanked her.

"For what?" said Heliet.

"For the only thing any one can do for me—for feeling with me."

After supper Clarice went up to her own rooms; but Heliet returned to the hall where Rosie lay. To her astonishment, she found a sudden and touching change in the surroundings of the dead child. Rosie lay now wreathed round in white rosebuds, tastefully disposed, as by a hand which had grudged neither love nor labour.

"Who has done this?" Heliet spoke aloud in he surprise.

"I have," said a voice beside her. It was no voice which Heliet knew. She looked up into the face of a tall man, with dark hair and beard, and eyes which were at once sad and compassionate.

"You! Who are you?" asked Heliet in the same tone.

"You may not know my name. I am—Piers Ingham."

"Then I do know," replied Heliet, gravely. "But, Sir Piers, she must not know."

"Certainly not," he said, quietly. "Tell her nothing; let her think, if she will, that the angels did it. And—tell me nothing. Farewell."

He stooped down and kissed the cold white brow of the dead child.

"That can hurt no one," said Piers, in a low voice. "And she may be glad to hear it—when she meets the child again."

He glided out of the hall so softly that Heliet did not hear him go, and only looked up and found herself alone. She knelt for a few minutes by the bier and then went quietly to her own room.

The next morning there were abundance of conjectures as to who could have paid this tender and graceful tribute. The Earl was generally suspected, but he at once said that it was no doing of his. Everybody was asked, and all denied it. Father Bevis was appealed to, as being better acquainted with the saints than the rest of the company, to state whether he thought it probable that one of them had been the agent. But Father Bevis's strong common sense declined to credit any but human hands with the deed.

Clarice was one of the last to appear. And when the sweet, fair tribute to her darling broke suddenly upon her sight, the result was attained for which all had been more or less hoping. That touch of nature set the floodgates open, and dropping on her knees beside the bier, Clarice poured forth a rain of passionate tears.

When all was over, and Rosie had been hidden away from sight until the angel-trump should call her, Clarice and Heliet went out together on the Castle green. They sat down on one of the seats in an embrasure. The Earl, with his thoughtful kindness, seeing them, sent word to the commandant to keep the soldiers within so long as the ladies chose to stay there. So they were left undisturbed.

Heliet was longing intensely to comfort Clarice, but she felt entirely at a loss what line to take. Clarice relieved her perplexity by being the first to speak.

"Heliet!" she said, "what does God mean by this?"

"I cannot tell, dear heart, except that He means love and mercy. 'All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth unto the lovers of His will and testimony.' Is not that enough?"

"It might be if one could see it."

"Is it not enough, without seeing?"

"O Heliet, Heliet, she was all I had!"

"I know it, beloved. But how if He would have thee to make Him all thou hast?"

"Could I not have loved God and have had Rosie?"

"Perhaps not," said Heliet, gently.

"I hope He will take me soon," said Clarice. "Surely He can never leave me long now!"

"Or, it may be, make thee content to wait His will."

Clarice shook her head, not so much with a negative air as with a shrinking one. Just in that first agony, to be content with it seemed beyond human nature.

Heliet laid her hand on that of her friend. "Dear, would you have had Rosie suffer as you have done?"

For a moment Clarice's mental eyes ran forward, over what would most likely, according to human prevision, have been the course of Rosie's after life. The thought came to her as with a pang, and grew upon her, that the future could have had no easy lot in store for Vivian Barkeworth's daughter. He would have disposed of her without a thought of her own wish, and no prayers nor tears from her would have availed to turn him from his purpose. No—it was well with the child.

"Thou art right," she said, in a pained voice. "It is better for Rosie as it is. But for me?"

"Leave that with God. He will show thee some day that it was better for thee too."

Clarice rose from her seat; but not till she had said the one thing which Heliet had been hoping that she would not say.

"Who could have laid those flowers there? Heliet, canst thou form any idea? Dost thou think it was an angel?"

Heliet had an excuse in settling her crutches for delaying her reply for a moment. Then she said in a low tone, the source of whose tenderness it was well that Clarice could not guess—"I am not sure, dear, that it was not."

————————————————————————————————————

If Clarice's sufferings had been passive before, they began to be active now. Vivian made her life a torment to her by jealousy on the one hand, and positive cruelty on the other; yet his manners in public were so carefully veiled in courtesy that not one of her friends guessed how much she really suffered. As much time as she could she spent in her oratory, which was the only place where Vivian left her at peace, under a vague idea that it would bring him ill luck to interrupt any one's prayers. Unfortunately for Clarice, he had caught a glimpse of Piers, and, having no conscientiousness in his own composition, he could not imagine it in that of another. That Piers should be at Berkhamsted without at least making an effort to open communication with Clarice, was an idea which Vivian would have refused to entertain for a moment. For what other earthly purpose could he be there? Vivian was a man who had no faith in any human being. In his belief, the only possible means to prevent Clarice from running away with Piers was to keep her either in his sight or locked up when out of it. The idea of trusting to her principles would have struck him as simply ridiculous.

Sir Piers, however, had completely disappeared, as completely as though he had never been seen. And after a while Vivian grew more confident, and not so particular about keeping the key turned. Clarice knew neither why he locked her in, nor why he gave over doing so. Had she had a suspicion of the reason, her indignation would not have been small.

Public affairs meanwhile maintained their interest. The King marched his army to Scotland, and routed Wallace's troops in the battle of Falkirk; but his success was somewhat counterbalanced by the burning of Westminster Palace and Abbey before he left home. It was about this time that Piers Gavestone began to appear at Court, introduced by his father with a view to making his fortune; and to the misfortune of the young Prince Edward, their musical tastes being alike, they became fast friends. The Prince was now only fourteen years of age; and, led by Gavestone, he was guilty—if indeed the charge be true—of a mischievous boyish frolic, in "breaking the parks" of the Bishop of Chester, and appropriating his deer. The boy was fond of venison, and he was still more fond of pets; but neither of these facts excused the raid on the Bishop of Chester, who chose to take the offence far more seriously than any modern bishop would be likely to do, and carried his complaint to the King. The royal father, as his wont was, flew into a passion, and weighted the boys' frolic with the heavy penalty of banishment for Gavestone, and imprisonment for the Prince. In all probability young Edward had never looked on his action in any other light than as a piece of fun. Had his father been concerned about the sin committed against God—exactly the sin of a boy who robs an orchard—he might, with less outward severity, have produced a far more wholesome impression on his son; but what he considered appears to have been merely the dignity of the Prince, which was outraged by the act of the boy who bore the title. A quiet, grave exhortation might have done him good, but imprisonment did none, and left on many minds the impression that the boy had been hardly used.