*CHAPTER XI.*
*HOME TO USK.*
"We buried him where he was wont to pray, By the calm lake,--even here,--at eventide; We reared this cross in token where he lay, For on the cross, he said, his Lord had died; Now hath he surely reached, o'er mount and wave, That flowery land whose green turf hides no grave." --FELICIA HEMANS.
If any further item of failure could have come into the life of RogerMortimer, it would have been conveyed by a royal letter, dated atWestminster just one week after his death, and, being addressed tohimself, before the news of the calamity at Kenles had reached the King.In this letter, Roger Earl of Ulster and March, Lord Lieutenant ofIreland, is told that "as, by the advice of our Council, we haveconstituted our beloved nephew Thomas Duke of Surrey our Lieutenant inour said land from the first day of September next, for one year, wecommand that you shall not hinder the said Duke from the execution ofhis office, and we also exonerate you from the charge aforesaid, fromthe coming of the said Duke."[#]
[#] Close Roll, 22 Ric. II., Part 1.
Roger was superseded--why, there is no information. It does notnecessarily mean, by any means, that the King was displeased with him,or desired to revoke his policy. It may even have been at his owndesire, but there remains no evidence of this. It is more probable thathis royal cousin wished to have him nearer, and considered that thepresence of his heir presumptive would be of service to himself in thatthorny and difficult path which it had been the lot of Richard ofBordeaux to tread from his early youth. And now all that remained ofRoger Mortimer was coming home indeed, but to another home and a longerrest than those which his royal cousin had designed for him. His crownwas no longer a future possibility: it had come. He should never seeevil any more.
It has been left on record that King Richard's grief and indignation atthe news of Roger's death were very deep and true. It was indeed, apartfrom the personal regard which he entertained for his young cousin, oneof the saddest calamities which could have happened for himself. Hisheir presumptive, instead of being a man who loved and honoured him, wasnow his most implacable enemy--that Henry of Bolingbroke who hated himworse than any other. For according to the old law of England, Roger'sreign would have been an interlude, and his claim, without some furtherdistinct disposition of the Crown, could scarcely devolve upon hischildren. Before the funeral procession set forth, there was an arrivalat Trim Castle. The Lord Bardolf arrived from England, accompanied byhis mother, the Lady Agnes Mortimer, wife of that Sir Thomas Mortimerwho had played a part in Roger's early life. He had chosen to cast inhis lot with Gloucester and the Lords Appellants, and he was now afugitive in hiding.[#]
[#] The Irish Government was charged to search for him in September,1397, as he was supposed to be in that country; and he was executed inEngland, before May 27th, 1399. (Close Roll, 21 Ric. II., Part 1; PatentRoll, 23 ib.)
The Lady Agnes Mortimer, who came to conduct the little Lady Anne backto her English friends, while her son attended to the more publicnecessities of the case, was an elderly woman of girlish character. Shewas by birth a Poynings, and sister-in-law of that Lollard Lady Poyningswho was the daughter of a Princess of Lancaster, and who had beenejected from King Richard's household by the Lords Appellants. But LadyAgnes was no Lollard, as she showed a few years later by making painfulpilgrimage to Cologne and Rome for the good of her soul. She cameforward now to meet Guenllian, answering her deliberate and modestreverence with a shower of rapid words.
"Mistress Wenteline Bevan, is it not so? Not Bevan? 'Ap Evan'!Gramercy, what matter? Ap Evan is Bevan, and Bevan is Ap Evan--'tis allone. I pray you, Mistress Wenteline, carry me whither I may dry me, formy skirts be all sore bemired this rainy day. Good lack, but it wittethhow to rain in this country, by my troth! And how doth your littleLady, trow? Verily, poor child, she must have been moped well-nigh todeath, with all this doole about her. Young things love gleesomeness,and should have it. Is she yet abed?"
Lady Agnes paused a second for the answer, and Guenllian managed toglide in--"No, Madam. Truly I think the child hath too much sorrowedfor her father to take any grief at the doole."
"Ah, well, we will soon have that amended," said Lady Agnes cheerfully."I will have the maid away at once, and not await for aught but the bareneedful: we can amend all when we come to Usk, where my Lady her mothernow abideth."
The Countess had always expressed so much dislike to Usk that it rathersurprised Guenllian to hear that she was there. Lady Agnes answered herlook.
"Ah, my Lady loveth not doole, no more than other folk. She hath heldfair court at Usk, trust me, with a merry lot of knights and dames: andin especial--mark you, Mistress Wenteline--_in especial_--my good LordCharlton of Powys. Marry, but when the news came, she _was_ aggrieved!"
Guenllian was glad to hear it. The thought had lain heavy at her heart,that Alianora would not sorrow. Yet to think of her "holding faircourt" with gay company, while that terrible scene was enacting atKenles, went sorely against her.
"She might well," continued the garrulous lady. "Gramercy, but I wouldhave done the like in the same case! 'Twas but two days--nay, methinks,but one--sithence all her Michaelmas gowns were home from the tailor,new fashioned and right fair--and now but to think of putting all awayfor a lot of dreary doole! Dear heart, but it were enough to aggrieveone! If there had not been at hand my Lord Charlton to divert herwithal, methinks she should well-nigh have gone distraught! We shallhear of a wedding there, Mistress Wenteline, by my troth, so soon asthis weary, dreary doole be but got o'er."
Guenllian's tongue required some hard discipline to keep it quiet.Could _he_ hear it through his coffin-lid,--that still sleeper in thehall beneath? Would he not almost stir upon his satin pillow, if thistale reached him of the utter apathy and heartlessness of the woman towhom he had given his heart's best love, and to whom the news of hisloss brought bitter regret--for the deferred wearing of her Michaelmaswardrobe? Guenllian severely schooled her heart down, and then said--ascalmly as was in her warm Welsh nature--and as soon as a hiatus occurredin Lady Agnes's persistent rattle--
"Would it like your Ladyship to tell me what manner of man is this LordCharlton? Shall he be one that should deal gently with the childre, orno?"
For Guenllian's heart yearned over her darlings, and especially overAnne.
"Eh, good lack!" laughed Lady Agnes, "he shall neither make nor mellwith them. My Lord Charlton is not he that should befool him a-lakingwith childre. 'Tis the mother he loveth, not them. And in good sooth,he is scantly the man for one of her high estate: but--there! you wit,Mistress Wenteline, love is a leveller."
"Love?" said Guenllian inquiringly to her own heart--not to Lady Agnes.Ay, she knew, better than her companion could tell her, of what materialAlianora was made. She was likely enough to
"Crawl to the next shrub or bramble vile, Though from the cedar's stately arm she fell."
"And look you," pursued Lady Agnes, breaking in upon Guenllian'ssorrowful thoughts, "truly it hath been a great trouble unto my Lady,the coming down. She looked to be one day Queen of England, and shouldhave been, had my sometime Lord (whom God pardon) been more wary andwitful. Do but think, to aventure himself afore his army in an Irishhabit--was it not thus he did? Any man with his wits in his head shouldhave wist he might as well have writ his death-warrant. And now allthat lost! Dear, dear, what a misaventure! Verily, I do think my Ladyof March sore to pity, I warrant you. To lose a crown, and spoil anwhole wardrobe, all of a blow--well, as to the losing her baron, theworld holdeth more than one man--" Lady Agnes had found it so--"but invery deed it should sorrowfully grudge me to be in like case."
Guenllian made no answer. She only threw open the door of the LadyAnne's apartments, and motioned to the new disposer of the child'sdestiny to enter. If she thought that both the Countess and the LadyAgnes Mortimer mistook their pearls for pebbles, and their pebbles forpearls, she gav
e no hint of doing so.
The funeral procession set forth, and the lonely and sorrowful child whohad been one of his dearest treasures, followed the coffin of the deadfather. Lady Agnes Mortimer had taken Anne's future into her own hands,and being Guenllian's nominal superior, the latter was bound to obey.She was about to deliver the child into the yet more nominal care of theCountess, to be plunged, when she grew a little older, into all thosepomps and vanities of this wicked world which her father had foreseenand feared for her. So sorrowfully reckoned Guenllian ap Evan: but theGod of Roger Mortimer reckoned very differently. The lot He hadprepared for Anne was far away from pomp and vanity,--a long, eventless,monotonous imprisonment in Windsor Castle, with her sister andbrothers,--the bitter disappointment of an attempted and almostsuccessful rescue, for the lot of Roger Mortimer seemed to pursue hischildren--an imprisonment straiter and sadder than before, until thatone of them whom the usurper had really cause to fear, Roger's brightlittle namesake, his own true son, fervent and energetic like himself,died in his weary prison; till a greater King than Henry of Bolingbrokeundrew the bolts, and set the prisoner free. Then the other three wereallowed to come forth. The King was not afraid of Edmund,--dreamy,indolent, ease-loving Edmund--nor of Alianora, who shared his character.He gave to Edmund, to ensure his safe keeping, a wife of a differenttype from himself, a daughter of the Romish House of Stafford, and agrand-daughter of Gloucester. Alianora was handed over to the care ofthe heir of Courtenay, ever a Lancastrian House. The most wary andcautious men sometimes blunder. And surely it was in a moment of blunderthat that wariest and coldest-hearted of English kings and statesmenpermitted Anne Mortimer,--the heir of Duke Lionel of Clarence if herbrother should die issueless, as he did--to wed the loyal andtrue-hearted Richard of Conisborough, a Prince of the Blood, in whoseeyes Richard of Bordeaux, whose godson he was, was the King, and Henryof Bolingbroke a usurper. Richard of Conisborough was the one love ofAnne Mortimer's true heart. Every fibre of that sterlingcharacter--silent, shy, undemonstrative, but deep and loyal to theheart's core,--wound itself around him by whose side she dwelt in adream of bliss for three short years, and then God called her away fromthe evil to come. He lies--murdered, or rather martyred--in theprecincts of "God's House" at Southampton, she in the Abbey Church ofKing's Langley. They have met in the Garden of God. And if a text wereto be engraven on the tomb of Anne Mortimer, it might well be this,--"Iwill be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee."
She was the mother of all our kings. When one grand climacteric ofyears had rolled round from the death of Roger Mortimer at Kenles, theLancastrian episode was over, and the grandson of Anne Mortimer sat uponthe throne of England. The cup of success, dashed so frequently fromRoger, came to his children's lips at last. But the one point in whichsuccess would have been dearest to his heart has never come. Is it yetin reserve for some descendant of his blood?--or shall the rival sisternations only see eye to eye, when He shall come who is the Desire of allnations--when the Lord shall bring again Zion? One event happened, of adifferent character, before Lord Bardolf and Lady Mortimer set forth,which greatly astonished every body in Trim Castle, and the person mostconcerned more than any other.
Lawrence Madison was slowly creeping back to ordinary life, and was nowable to sit up most of the day, propped with pillows; and with somedifficulty, and a helping arm, to walk the length of the chamber. LordBardolf had shown a particular wish to see him, and to hear the story ofthe Earl's death from his lips, and had pressed Mr. Robesart to allowthe prudence of his doing so before the physician was quite ready toadmit it. The latter, however, was overruled by his superior, and LordBardolf had his wish. The tale was told, at what cost to Lawrence hebest knew.
"And now," said Lord Bardolf, when he paused, exhausted, and Guenllianheld a cup of wine to his white weary lips, "methinks, Master Madison,you have scantly yet told all. We heard of a young squire that, in thethickest of the fight, stood o'er his Lord's body, and well-nigh gavehis own life that the foe should not touch the same. Was it thus, prayyou, or no?"
There was a moment's flash of fiery light in the weak sunken eyes.
"What looked you for?" said Lawrence Madison. "Had he loved me, andfreed me, and grown with me, child and boy and man, and set me, so faras meetness might, as his very self, and should I reckon my poorworthless life as aught beside his? Had a thousand lives been mine, Iwould have given them for his life: and when nought but his dust wasleft to give them for, they were at his service for that!"
Lord Bardolf evidently liked the spirit of the reply.
"So heard the King's grace," said he. "And it liked him to issue acommand to me, which I must obey ere I go hence. Can you rise and standa moment, Master Madison?"
Mr. Robesart stepped forward and lent his aid.
"Can you kneel?" said Lord Bardolf.
Lawrence, with some difficulty, contrived to do so. What was going to bedone to him he did not realise. He was simply obeying, through hismessenger, the command of his King. He was the most astonished personin that chamber, when he felt the light touch of the accolade upon hisshoulder, and heard Lord Bardolf say authoritatively,--
"Rise up, Sir Lawrence Madison!"
"Well, verily, this passeth!" said Guenllian, an hour later, to hersubordinate Beatrice, who was busy packing the few absolute necessarieswhich were to go with the little Lady Anne. "Beattie, heardest thenews? Lawrence is made a knight!"
Guenllian received no answer except a slight sound which she failed tocomprehend. She looked round, and saw that Beatrice was in tears.
"Beattie, doth aught ail thee, mine heart?"
"Oh, nothing--not--Mistress Wenteline, would you have my Lady's furredmantle, or no?"
"Fur mantle! in August!" exclaimed Guenllian. "Why Beattie, where be thywits, dear maid? The gear shall all be sent after my little Lady, longere she lack her furred mantle."
"Oh! aye," said Beatrice confusedly. "I only thought--and I have notyet put up her Ladyship's head-gear."
Guenllian looked after her as Beatrice hastily ran upstairs, with a softlaugh such as had never come to her lips since the death of the Earl.
"Aye, I conceive you, Mistress Beattie!" said she. "You 'only thought'that Sir Lawrence Madison had climbed up above Blumond's Beattie, andwas not like to reach forth an hand to help her to a seat at his side.Well, we shall see what we shall see. But if Lolly be he that shallforget the old friends in the hovel for the new at the castle, then isGuenllian ap Evan no prophetess."
The packing was all done, and the preparations made for the long journeyto Wigmore Abbey. It had been arranged that the ladies should go nofurther than Usk, for the Countess had intimated that her deepdespondency would not permit her to attend the funeral. Her heart wasso nearly broken that another ounce-weight of grief would complete thecatastrophe. Lady Agnes repeated the statement to Guenllian with gravelips, but with a twinkle of fun in her eyes which sufficiently indicatedthat the real character and private intentions of this disconsolatewidow were no secret to her. To Lady Agnes this was pure amusement: toGuenllian it resulted in a mixture of contempt and sorrow. Lord Bardolfof course, would attend the funeral, having now resigned all officialduties to the new Viceroy: and Lawrence Madison had intimated that nopower short of a royal command should keep him from it. He would followthe friend and master whom he had loved so dearly, to the last stepwhere man can go with man. His new honours had rendered Lawrence hisown master, free to take service where he would, or to refrain from itat his pleasure: and to sink into the idle attitude of a hanger on thetrain of the Lady Alianora was far from Lawrence's conception either ofhappiness or duty.
He had now recovered his health in all senses except that physicalstrength was still lacking. Even a short walk, or a slight exertion,fatigued him considerably. How the coming journey was to be borne hehardly knew. But he said to himself that he would go through with it:and in very many cases, where a man _will_ do a thing, he finds that hecan.
It was the e
vening before the journey, and in Lawrence's chamber he andMr. Robesart sat in the oriel window enjoying the quiet of the summerevening. The preceding events had drawn very closely together these twofriends, who alone of all the male members of the household had much incommon with each other.
"Lawrence," said Mr. Robesart--he had attempted to address the newknight by his title, and had been instantly entreated never to do soagain--"Lawrence, what think you to make of your life, now that it liethin your own hands to make or mar it as you will?"
"If it lay in mine hands, Father, it should surely be to mar," saidLawrence with much feeling. "I am thankful it is in God's hands, towhom I have given it, and He shall make thereof whatsoever He will."
"But you must needs have desires and wishes thereunto, my son."
"Aye, I have so," and a slight sigh accompanied the words. "Whetherthey shall ever behold their fulfilment I think greatly to doubt."
"Think you to abide with my Lady Countess?"
"Not so, if our Lord be served[#] otherwise."
[#] If it be His will.
"Then what mean you? To enter other service, or to go to the wars, orwhat so?"
"So far as mine own liking goeth, methinks, neither."
"I have alway counted you a man of peace, Lawrence," said Mr. Robesart,with a smile which betrayed rather more amusement than was indicated byhis words.
"Aye so, to mine own pleasure," was the reply. "But they which best lovepeace be not alway suffered to pursue it."
"And I had thought that, by your good-will, some quiet home far awayfrom strife, amid the green fields and the calm old hills, should havebeen that which should have served you, my son."
"Ah, if it had been possible!" And another sigh followed the wish.
"There be times, howbeit, when man may mistake his vocation," said Mr.Robesart in a musing tone. "I am something feared that is thus with onefriend of ours--I fear it much."
"Whom point you at?" asked Lawrence, but not in any tone of particularinterest.
"Our friend Beatrice, that hath been speaking with me of her desire toenter the cloister."
The "Beatrice!" which answered the communication, was in a verydifferent tone from the last, and ended in a gasp.
"Aye so," replied Mr. Robesart, calmly, paying no apparent attention tothe tone, and bestowing all his ostensible regard upon the planet Venus,which he was reconnoitring through an impromptu telescope made of hisright hand. "I am greatly to doubt if the maid have any true vocation,and be not rather inclined unto the veil by some other reason theretoprovoking her. Howbeit, each knoweth best his own mind. But we werespeaking of thyself."
Mr. Robesart might try to lead the conversation back to the previoussubject, but Lawrence's interest in himself and his own future seemedsuddenly extinguished. He answered all further queries in a short,dreamy manner which showed that his thoughts had been borne elsewhere,and were likely to remain there. Whereby, though he was not aware ofit, he confirmed certain impressions on the priest's mind, which hadbeen formed into distinct convictions by a hint from Guenllian. Allthat Mr. Robesart could learn from what followed was that Lawrence waspossessed of considerable savings, which he meant, on his approachingreturn to Usk, to devote to the comfort of his own relatives.
"What other use have I for it?" he asked sadly, and with a faint returnof his former interest to his tone. "They are poor, and need it: and Inever needed it, nor wist what to do withal. My Lord furnished me withfood and raiment, and what other needs hath a man? I never spent pennyof my wage, save by nows and thens in a gift to some friend, and in thewriting of the holy Evangel that I bear ever about me. I shall part thesame betwixt my mother and sisters, which shall wot far better than Ihow to lay it out to profit."
"'If any man hath not cure of his own, he hath denied the faith,'"quoted Mr. Robesart. "Yet bethink thee, my son, that very charitybiddeth not that a man part with every penny of his having, nor for theneeds of his kinsfolk in the present, empoverish his own future."
"The Lord will have a care of my future. I lack but a cake and a cruseof water, and He can send them by His angels when my need asketh them ofHim."
"Verily: a man may reasonably pack his own needs in small compass. Butdost thou mean to remain single all thy life, Lawrence? My Lady Madisonmay scarce be as content as thou with the cruse and the cake, and in allcases, two lack more provision than one."
Mr. Robesart had dropped almost unconsciously into the familiar _thou_,always used to the little Lawrence of old. His hearer liked it farbetter than the ceremonious _you_, which he had taken up since Lawrencebecame a man.
"I think that is not in my future," was the low-voiced answer.
"Be not too sure," said the priest. "Some of our Father's best giftsare they which we count too good to look for. Yet soothly, Lawrence, Iwould not wish thee a wife like--like some women be."
Lawrence leaned forward with a glow in his eyes, and spoke in a whisper.
"Wala wa! Father, it lieth sore and heavy at mine heart that thefriends _he_ had to mourn him have been only the men and women of hismeynie. The one whom he loved better than all the world hath not shedone true tear for his loss!"
"My son!" said Mr. Robesart tenderly,--with a tenderness which was notall for Lawrence,--"he hath seen the Face of God, and he is satisfiedwith it."
"We loved him dear enough, at least," said Lawrence in a choked voice.
"Lawrence, canst thou not forgive her?--and that man that shot thearrow, hast thou forgiven him? Dost thou know who it was?"
"I am right thankful to answer No to that last. I saw not from what bowthe cursed shaft came. But to think that I may be speaking to that manas a friend, _not_ knowing----"
Lawrence left his sentence unfinished.
"Maybe it were meant for another," said Mr. Robesart quietly. "But ifno--mind thou, my son, how God dealeth with thee and me, whose sins slewthe Son of His love, and He knoweth it."
They set out for Usk the next day, taking the same route which Roger hadtraversed in life only four months before. His coffin was borne upon abier drawn by six horses, through the green valleys of Kildare andCarlow and Wexford, and at Wexford Haven was transferred to a boat, theChanty, which bore it across in the calm August sunlight to Haverford.Two days' journey took them to Caermarthen, where the travellers werehoused in the Castle, and the corpse in the Church of St. Peter, watchedall night by monks and four squires, and sprinkled frequently with holywater. Three days more took them to Merthyr Tydvil, a fourth toPontypool, and on the afternoon of the fifth, which was the first ofSeptember, they marched in slow and solemn procession into Usk.
Before entering the town a fresh arrangement of the procession was made.First came the body of archers, carrying their bows unstrung in sign ofmourning; then two knights of the household of the deceased Earl, theone bearing his pennon, the other his helmet with its crest. Then camehis war-horse, led by a squire bare-headed, and caparisoned with all itsceremonial trappings--the saddle-cloth of blue velvet, broidered withsilver ostrich-feathers (gold ones were peculiar to the monarch), asaddle-cloth which covered the horse from ears to hoofs, leaving only anoutlet for the nose and the eyes--the bridle being of gilded leather,and the stirrup of gilt copper. After the horse walked Mr. Robesart, infull canonicals, bearing aloft a silver cross. Then came the bier,borne by ten spearmen specially selected from the corps--men whosequalifications for the office were good character and much physicalstrength. Immediately following, clad in white, then the colour ofdeepest mourning, came the little Lady Anne, on a white horse--truly thechief mourner for that father who had been her best friend in all theworld. Her horse was led by a bare-headed squire. A little behind her,on the right, rode Lord Bardolf, and on the left the Lady Agnes. Theremainder of the household, which included Guenllian, Beatrice, andLawrence, rode after, and the company of spearmen closed the funeralprocession.
Thus they bore him dead into the Castle of Usk, which he had enteredliving, an infant gift from God, on t
hat very morning, twenty-five yearsbefore.
A trumpeter had been sent forward to announce the coming of theprocession; and when they crossed the drawbridge, and filed slowly inbeneath the portcullis into the court-yard, they were met by a group ofblack monks from the neighbouring Benedictine Abbey, the foremostswinging a censer, and two others sprinkling holy water. The bier wasset down immediately under the portcullis, and there it rested while the_De Profundis_ was chanted, in presence of the garrison and of manymembers of the household. The entire procession was meantime arrested.
With an irrepressible sob, Guenllian whispered to Lawrence, "'They thatbare him stood still.' Here is the city, and there is the bier: butwhere is He that can say, 'Arise'?"
Lawrence answered by a quotation from the same book. "'I am againrising and life; ... he that believeth in Me shall not die withoutenend. Believest thou this?'"
"It is hard to believe where man seeth not."
"Therefore the more 'Blessed is she which hath believed.' 'Nyl ye fere:only believe.'"
"Believe _what_?" said Beatrice, with a dreary sigh, suppressed whenhalf drawn.
"Believe nothing, Mistress Beatrice," replied Lawrence with a softintonation which Guenllian had noticed to come into his voice only whenhe spoke to Beatrice. "'Believe in God, and believe in Me.' It is not_what_ we must believe; it is _whom_. And whom is far easier than what.To believe a thing or a doctrine taketh the head only; but to believe aman, and that the Man that died for you, this methinks taketh the heartbelike. Trust and love be right near akin. And hearts be soft, whileheads be hard to deal withal. Matters be apt to steal into the heart ereyou shall wit it, which should take many a weary hour to beat into thehead."
"Neither come they so easy out when they be once lodged therein," addedGuenllian.
"You speak soothly, Mistress Wenteline," answered Lawrence.
But now the procession moved on again, and they with it. Into the greathall of the Castle they slowly filed, and there found a most effectivedramatic scene prepared to meet them.
The Countess Alianora sat on the dais, robed in pure white, the earliestgarb of widowhood, which covered so much of the face that only thefeatures were left visible in the midst. But she had chosen to hideeverything by an embroidered handkerchief, in which her eyes wereconcealed. There she sat, the image of inconsolable woe and utterdesolation, while Consolation, in the person of the Lord Charlton ofPowys leaned over her chair and tried to gain a hearing. Terrible sobswere rending her breast, and she seemed quite unable to speak. When atlast she managed to rise and approach the coffin,--leaning on the arm ofLord Powys, which appeared absolutely necessary for her support,--shehad scarcely taken the sprinkler from the hand of her chaplain when shedropped it and sank down in a faint. Of course Lord Powys caught her:could he as a knight or a person of any humanity have permitted a ladyto drop to the floor? But Guenllian was so misguided as to allowherself to see that her mistress took care in fainting not to entangleherself in her train, and that she dropped the sprinkler in such aposition that it should not damage her new velvet.
"She hath swooned right away!" exclaimed Beatrice in a pitying tone.She did not see through the stained glass of Alianora's beautiful andbecoming attitudes.
"It is not ill played," was Guenllian's answer, in a rather constrainedtone.
That evening, when Guenllian and Beatrice attended the _coucher_ of theafflicted widow, it fell to the lot of the latter to remove the usedhandkerchief from the pocket of her lady's dress, and place it in thebuck-basket which contained the articles ready for the wash.
"My Lady must have some whither another sudary," observed she toGuenllian. "This is full dry, and she wept sore."
"Lay it in the basket, Beattie," was Guenllian's quiet reply. "Imisdoubt if thou shalt find any other."