CHAPTER IV. THE WORLD'S JUSTICE, AND THE WISDOM OF OUR ANCESTORS.
The night had now commenced, and Sibyll was still listening--or,perhaps, listening not--to the soothing babble of the venerable servant.They were both seated in the little room that adjoined the hall, andtheir only light came through the door opening on the garden,--a gray,indistinct twilight, relieved by the few earliest stars. The peacock,his head under his wing, roosted on the balustrade, and the song of thenightingale, from amidst one of the neighbouring copses, which studdedthe ground towards the chase of Marybone, came soft and distant on theserene air. The balm and freshness of spring were felt in the dews, inthe skies, in the sweet breath of young herb and leaf; through the calmof ever-watchful nature, it seemed as if you might mark, distinct andvisible, minute after minute, the blessed growth of April into May.
Suddenly Madge uttered a cry of alarm, and pointed towards the oppositewall. Sibyll, startled from her revery, looked up, and saw somethingdusk and dwarf-like perched upon the crumbling eminence. Presently thisapparition leaped lightly into the garden, and the alarm of the womenwas lessened on seeing a young boy creep stealthily over the grass andapproach the open door.
"Hey, child!" said Madge, rising. "What wantest thou?"
"Hist, gammer, hist! Ah, the young mistress? That's well. Hist! I sayagain." The boy entered the room. "I'm in time to save you. In halfan hour your house will be broken into, perhaps burned. The boys areclapping their hands now at the thoughts of the bonfire. Father and allthe neighbours are getting ready. Hark! hark! No, it is only the wind!The tymbesteres are to give note. When you hear their bells tinkle, themob will meet. Run for your lives, you and the old man, and don't eversay it was poor Tim who told you this, for Father would beat me todeath. Ye can still get through the garden into the fields. Quick!"
"I will go to the master," exclaimed Madge, hurrying from the room.
The child caught Sibyll's cold hand through the dark. "And I say,mistress, if his worship is a wizard, don't let him punish Father andMother, or poor Tim, or his little sister; though Tim was once naughty,and hooted Master Warner. Many, many, many a time and oft have I seenthat kind, mild face in my sleep, just as when it bent over me, while Ikicked and screamed, and the poor gentleman said, 'Thinkest thou I wouldharm thee?' But he'll forgive me now, will he not? And when I turnedthe seething water over myself, and they said it was all along of thewizard, my heart pained more than the arm. But they whip me, and groanout that the devil is in me, if I don't say that the kettle upset ofitself! Oh, those tymbesteres! Mistress, did you ever see them? Theyfright me. If you could hear how they set on all the neighbours! Andtheir laugh--it makes the hair stand on end! But you will get away,and thank Tim too? Oh, I shall laugh then, when they find the old houseempty!"
"May our dear Lord bless thee--bless thee, child," sobbed Sibyll,clasping the boy in her arms, and kissing him, while her tears bathedhis cheeks.
A light gleamed on the threshold; Madge, holding a candle, appeared withWarner, his hat and cloak thrown on in haste. "What is this?" said thepoor scholar. "Can it be true? Is mankind so cruel? What have I done,woe is me! what have I done to deserve this?"
"Come, dear father, quick," said Sibyll, drying her tears, and wakenedby the presence of the old man into energy and courage. "But put thyhand on this boy's head, and bless him; for it is he who has, haply,saved us."
The boy trembled a moment as the long-bearded face turned towardshim, but when he caught and recognized those meek, sweet eyes, hissuperstition vanished, and it was but a holy and grateful awe thatthrilled his young blood, as the old man placed both withered hands overhis yellow hair, and murmured,--
"God shield thy youth! God make thy manhood worthy! God give theechildren in thine old age with hearts like thine!" Scarcely had theprayer ceased when the clash of timbrels, with their jingling bells,was heard in the street. Once, twice, again, and a fierce yell closedin chorus,--caught up and echoed from corner to corner, from house tohouse.
"Run! run!" cried the boy, turning white with terror.
"But the Eureka--my hope--my mind's child!" exclaimed Adam, suddenly,and halting at the door.
"Eh, eh!" said Madge, pushing him forward. "It is too heavy to move;thou couldst not lift it. Think of thine own flesh and blood, of thydaughter, of her dead mother! Save her life, if thou carest not forthine own!"
"Go, Sibyll, go, and thou, Madge; I will stay. What matters my life,--itis but the servant of a thought! Perish master, perish slave!"
"Father, unless you come with me, I stir not. Fly or perish, your fateis mine! Another minute--Oh, Heaven of mercy, that roar again! We areboth lost!"
"Go, sir, go; they care not for your iron,--iron cannot feel. They willnot touch that! Have not your daughter's life upon your soul!"
"Sibyll, Sibyll, forgive me! Come!" said Warner, conscience-stricken atthe appeal.
Madge and the boy ran forwards; the old woman unbarred the garden-gate;Sibyll and her father went forth; the fields stretched before them calmand solitary; the boy leaped up, kissed Sibyll's pale cheek, and thenbounded across the grass, and vanished.
"Loiter not, Madge. Come!" cried Sibyll.
"Nay," said the old woman, shrinking back, "they bear no grudge to me;I am too old to do aught but burthen ye. I will stay, and perchance savethe house and the chattels, and poor master's deft contrivance. Whist!thou knowest his heart would break if none were by to guard it."
With that the faithful servant thrust the broad pieces that yet remainedof the king's gift into the gipsire Sibyll wore at her girdle, and thenclosed and rebarred the door before they could detain her.
"It is base to leave her," said the scholar-gentleman.
The noble Sibyll could not refute her father. Afar they heard thetramping of feet; suddenly, a dark red light shot up into the blue air,a light from the flame of many torches.
"The wizard, the wizard! Death to the wizard, who would starve thepoor!" yelled forth, and was echoed by a stern hurrah.
Adam stood motionless, Sibyll by his side.
"The wizard and his daughter!" shrieked a sharp single voice, the voiceof Graul the tymbestere.
Adam turned. "Fly, my child,--they now threaten thee. Come, come, come!"and, taking her by the hand, he hurried her across the fields, skirtingthe hedge, their shadows dodging, irregular and quaint, on the starlitsward. The father had lost all thought, all care but for the daughter'slife. They paused at last, out of breath and exhausted: the sounds atthe distance were lulled and hushed. They looked towards the directionof the home they had abandoned, expecting to see the flames destined toconsume it reddening the sky; but all was dark,--or, rather, no lightsave the holy stars and the rising moon offended the majestic heaven.
"They cannot harm the poor old woman; she hath no lore. On her grayhairs has fallen not the curse of men's hate!" said Warner.
"Right, Father! when they found us flown, doubtless the cruel onesdispersed. But they may search yet for thee. Lean on me, I am strong andyoung. Another effort, and we gain the safe coverts of the Chase."
While yet the last word hung on her lips, they saw, on the path theyhad left, the burst of torch-light, and heard the mob hounding on theirtrack. But the thick copses, with their pale green just budding intolife, were at hand. On they fled. The deer started from amidst theentangled fern, but stood and gazed at them without fear; the playfulhares in the green alleys ceased not their nightly sports at theharmless footsteps; and when at last, in the dense thicket, they sunkdown on the mossy roots of a giant oak, the nightingales overheadchanted as if in melancholy welcome. They were saved!
But in their home, fierce fires glared amidst the tossing torch-light;the crowd, baffled by the strength of the door, scaled the wall, brokethrough the lattice-work of the hall window, and streaming throughroom after room, roared forth, "Death to the wizard!" Amidst the sordiddresses of the men, the soiled and faded tinsel of the tymbesteresgleamed and sparkled. It was a scene the she-fiends revelled in,--dearare outrage and m
alice, and the excitement of turbulent passions, andthe savage voices of frantic men, and the thirst of blood to thoseeverlasting furies of a mob, under whatever name we know them, inwhatever time they taint with their presence,--women in whom womanhoodis blasted!
Door after door was burst open with cries of disappointed rage; at lastthey ascended the turret-stairs, they found a small door barred andlocked. Tim's father, a huge axe in his brawny arm, shivered the panels;the crowd rushed in, and there, seated amongst a strange and motleylitter, they found the devoted Madge. The poor old woman had collectedinto this place, as the stronghold of the mansion, whatever portablearticles seemed to her most precious, either from value or association.Sibyll's gittern (Marmaduke's gift) lay amidst a lumber of tools andimplements; a faded robe of her dead mother's, treasured by Madge andSibyll both, as a relic of holy love; a few platters and cups of pewter,the pride of old Madge's heart to keep bright and clean; odds and endsof old hangings; a battered silver brooch (a love-gift to Madge herselfwhen she was young),--these, and suchlike scraps of finery, hoardsinestimable to the household memory and affection, lay confusedly heapedaround the huge grim model, before which, mute and tranquil, sat thebrave old woman.
The crowd halted, and stared round in superstitious terror and dumbmarvel.
The leader of the tymbesteres sprang forward.
"Where is thy master, old hag, and where the bonny maid who glamourslords, and despises us bold lasses?"
"Alack! master and the damsel have gone hours ago! I am alone in thehouse; what's your will?"
"The crone looks parlous witchlike!" said Tim's father; crossinghimself, and somewhat retreating from her gray, unquiet eyes. And,indeed, poor Madge, with her wrinkled face, bony form, and high cap,corresponded far more with the vulgar notions of a dabbler in the blackart than did Adam Warner, with his comely countenance and noble mien.
"So she doth, indeed, and verily," said a hump-backed tinker; "if wewere to try a dip in the horsepool yonder it could do no harm."
"Away with her, away!" cried several voices at that humane suggestion.
"Nay, nay," quoth the baker, "she is a douce creature after all,and hath dealt with me many years. I don't care what becomes of thewizard,--every one knows," he added with pride, "that I was one of thefirst to set fire to his house when Robin gainsayed it! but right'sright--burn the master, not the drudge!"
This intercession might have prevailed, but unhappily, at that momentGraul Skellet, who had secured two stout fellows to accomplish theobject so desired by Friar Bungey, laid hands on the model, and, at hershrill command, the men advanced and dislodged it from its place. At thesame tine the other tymbesteres, caught by the sight of things pleasingto their wonted tastes, threw themselves, one upon the faded robeSibyll's mother had worn in her chaste and happy youth; another, uponpoor Madge's silver brooch; a third, upon the gittern.
These various attacks roused up all the spirit and wrath of the oldwoman: her cries of distress as she darted from one to the other,striking to the right and left with her feeble arms, her form tremblingwith passion, were at once ludicrous and piteous; and these wereresponded to by the shrill exclamations of the fierce tymbesteres, asthey retorted scratch for scratch, and blow for blow. The spectatorsgrew animated by the sight of actual outrage and resistance; thehumpbacked tinker, whose unwholesome fancy one of the aggrievedtymbesteres had mightily warmed, hastened to the relief of his virago;and rendered furious by finding ten nails fastened suddenly on his face,he struck down the poor creature by a blow that stunned her, seized herin his arms,--for deformed and weakly as the tinker was, the old woman,now sense and spirit were gone, was as light as skin and bone couldbe,--and followed by half a score of his comrades, whooping andlaughing, bore her down the stairs. Tim's father, who, whether fromparental affection, or, as is more probable, from the jealous hatredand prejudice of ignorant industry, was bent upon Adam's destruction,hallooed on some of his fierce fellows into the garden, tracked thefootsteps of the fugitives by the trampled grass, and bounded over thewall in fruitless chase. But on went the more giddy of the mob, ratherin sport than in cruelty, with a chorus of drunken apprentices andriotous boys, to the spot where the humpbacked tinker had draggedhis passive burden. The foul green pond near Master Sancroft's hostelreflected the glare of torches; six of the tymbesteres, leaping andwheeling, with doggerel song and discordant music, gave the signal forthe ordeal of the witch,--
"Lake or river, dyke or ditch, Water never drowns the witch. Witch or wizard would ye know? Sink or swim, is ay or no. Lift her, swing her, once and twice, Lift her, swing her o'er the brim,-- Lille--lera--twice and thrice Ha! ha! mother, sink or swim!"
And while the last line was chanted, amidst the full jollity of laughterand clamour and clattering timbrels, there was a splash in the sullenwater; the green slough on the surface parted with an oozing gurgle, andthen came a dead silence.
"A murrain on the hag! she does not even struggle!" said, at last, thehump-backed tinker.
"No,--no! she cares not for water. Try fire! Out with her! out!" criedRed Grisell.
"Aroint her! she is sullen!" said the tinker, as his lean fingersclutched up the dead body, and let it fall upon the margin. "Dead!" saidthe baker, shuddering; "we have done wrong,--I told ye so! She dealtwith me many a year. Poor Madge! Right's right. She was no witch!"
"But that was the only way to try it," said the humpbacked tinker; "andif she was not a witch, why did she look like one? I cannot abide uglyfolks!"
The bystanders shook their heads. But whatever their remorse, it wasdiverted by a double sound: first, a loud hurrah from some of the mobwho had loitered for pillage, and who now emerged from Adam's house,following two men, who, preceded by the terrible Graul, dancing beforethem, and tossing aloft her timbrel, bore in triumph the capturedEureka; and, secondly, the blast of a clarion at the distance, whileup the street marched--horse and foot, with pike and banner--a goodlytroop. The Lord Hastings in person led a royal force, by a night march,against a fresh outbreak of the rebels, not ten miles from the city,under Sir Geoffrey Gates, who had been lately arrested by the LordHoward at Southampton, escaped, collected a disorderly body of suchrestless men as are always disposed to take part in civil commotion, andnow menaced London itself. At the sound of the clarion the valiant mobdispersed in all directions, for even at that day mobs had an instinctof terror at the approach of the military, and a quick reaction fromoutrage to the fear of retaliation.
But, at the sound of martial music, the tymbesteres silenced their owninstruments, and instead of flying, they darted through the crowd, eachto seek the other, and unite as for counsel. Graul, pointing to Mr.Sancroft's hostelry, whispered the bearers of the Eureka to seek refugethere for the present, and to bear their trophy with the dawn to FriarBungey at the Tower; and then, gliding nimbly through the fugitiverioters, sprang into the centre of the circle formed by her companions.
"Ye scent the coming battle?" said the arch-tymbestere.
"Ay, ay, ay!" answered the sisterhood.
"But we have gone miles since noon,--I am faint and weary!" said oneamongst them.
Red Grisell, the youngest of the band, struck her comrade on thecheek--"Faint and weary, ronion, with blood and booty in the wind!"
The tymbesteres smiled grimly on their young sister; but the leaderwhispered "Hush!" and they stood for a second or two with outstretchedthroats, with dilated nostrils, with pent breath, listening to theclarion and the hoofs and the rattling armour, the human vulturesforetasting their feast of carnage; then, obedient to a sign fromtheir chieftainess, they crept lightly and rapidly into the mouth of aneighbouring alley, where they cowered by the squalid huts, concealed.The troop passed on,--a gallant and serried band, horse and foot, aboutfifteen hundred men. As they filed up the thoroughfare, and the trampof the last soldiers fell hollow on the starlit ground, the tymbesteresstole from their retreat, and, at the distance of some few hundredyards, followed the procession, with long, silent, stealt
hy strides,--asthe meaner beasts, in the instinct of hungry cunning, follow the lionfor the garbage of his prey.