Now, however, he

examined Berenger closely on all the proceedings Paris and at

Montpipeau, and soon understood that the ceremony had been renewed,

ratifying the vows taken in infancy. The old statesman's face

cleared up at once; for, as he explained, he had now no anxieties

as to the validity of the marriage by English law, at least, in

spite of the decree from Rome, which, as he pointed out to his

grandson, was wholly contingent on the absence of subsequent

consent, since the parties had come to an age for free-will. Had

he known of this, the re-marriage, he said, he should certainly

have been less supine. Why had Berenger been silent?

'I was commanded, sir. I fear I have transgressed the command by

mentioning it now. I must pray you to be secret.'

'Secret, foolish lad. Know you not that the rights of your wife

and your children rest upon it?' and as the change in Berenger's

looks showed that he had not comprehended the full importance of

the second ceremony as nullifying the papal sentence, which could

only quash the first on the ground of want of mutual consent, he

proceeded, 'Command, quotha? Who there had any right to command

you, boy?'

'Only one, sir.'

'Come, this no moment for lover's folly. It was not the girl,

then? Then it could no other than the miserable King--was it so?'

'Yes, sir,' said Berenger. 'He bade me as king, and requested me

as the friend who gave her to me. I could do no otherwise, and I

thought it would be but a matter of a few days, and that our

original marriage was the only important one.'

'Have you any parchment to prove it?'

'No, sir. It passed but as a ceremony to satisfy the Queen's

scruples ere she gave my wife to me to take home. I even think the

King was displeased at her requiring it.'

'Was Mr. Sidney a witness?'

'No, sir. None was present, save the King and Queen, her German

countess, and the German priest.'

'The day?'

'Lammas-day.'

'The 1st of August of the year of grace 1572. I will write to

Walsingham to obtain the testimony, if possible, of king or of

priest; but belike they will deny it all. It was part of the

trick. Shame upon it that a king should dig pits for so small a

game as you, my poor lad!'

'Verily, my Lord,' said Berenger, 'I think the King meant us

kindly, and would gladly have sped us well away. Methought he felt

his bondage bitterly, and would fain have dared to be a true king.

Even at the last, he bade me to his garde-robe, and all there

were unhurt.'

'And wherefore obeyed you not?'

'The carouse would have kept me too late for our flight.'

'King's behests may not lightly be disregarded,' said the old

courtier, with a smile. 'However, since he showed such seeming

favour to you, surely you might send a petition to him privately,

through Sir Francis Walsingham, to let the priest testify to your

renewal of contract, engaging not to use it to his detriment in

France.'

'I will do so, sir. Meanwhile,' he added, as one who felt he had

earned a right to be heard in his turn, 'I have your permission to

hasten to bring home my wife?'

Lord Walwyn was startled at this demand from one still so far from

recovered as Berenger. Even this talk, eager as the youth was, had

not been carried on without much difficulty, repetitions, and

altered phrases, when he could not pronounce distinctly enough to

be understood and the effort brought lines of pain into his brow.

He could take little solid food, had hardly any strength for

walking or riding; and, though all his wounds were whole, except

that one unmanageable shot in the mouth, he looked entirely unfit

to venture on a long journey in the very country that had sent him

home a year before scarcely alive. Lord Walwyn had already devised

what he thought a far more practicable arrangement; namely, to send

Mr. Adderley and some of my Lady's women by sea, under the charge

of Master Hobbs, a shipmaster at Weymouth, who traded with Bordeaux

for wine, and could easily put in near La Sablerie, and bring off

the lady and child, and, if she wished it, the pastor to whom such

a debt of gratitude was owing.

Berenger was delighted with the notion of the sea rather than the

land journey; but he pointed out at once that this would remove all

objection to his going in person. He had often been out whole

nights with the fishermen, and knew that a sea-voyage would be

better for his health than anything,--certainly better than pining

and languishing at home, as he had done for months. He could not

bear to think of separation from Eustacie an hour longer than

needful; nay, she had been cruelly entreated enough already; and as

long as he could keep his feet, it was absolutely due to her that

he should not let others, instead of himself, go in search of her.

It would be almost death to him to stay at home.

Lord Walwyn looked at the pallid, wasted face, with all its marks

of suffering and intense eagerness of expression, increased by the

difficulty of utterance and need of subduing agitation. He felt

that the long-misunderstood patience and endurance had earned

something; and he knew, too, that for all his grandson's submission

and respect, the boy, as a husband and father, had rights and

duties that would assert themselves manfully if opposed. It was

true that the sea-voyage obviated many difficulties, and it was

better to consent with a good grace than drive one hitherto so

dutiful to rebellion. He did then consent, and was rewarded by the

lightning flash of joy and gratitude in the bright blue eyes, and

the fervent pressure and kiss of his hand, as Berenger exclaimed,

'Ah! sir, Eustacie will be such a daughter to you. You should have

seen how the Admiral liked her!'

The news of Lord Walwyn's consent raised much commotion in the

family. Dame Annora was sure her poor son would be murdered

outright this time, and that nobody cared because he was only HER

son; and she strove hard to stir up Sir Marmaduke to remonstrate

with her father; but the good knight had never disputed a judgment

of 'my Lord's' in his whole life, and had even received his first

wife from his hands, when forsaken by the gay Annora. So she could

only ride over the Combe, be silenced by her father, as effectually

as if Jupiter had nodded, and bewail and murmur to her mother till

she lashed Lady Walwyn up into finding every possible reason why

Berenger should and must sail. Then she went home, was very sharp

with Lucy, and was reckoned by saucy little Nan to have nineteen

times exclaimed 'Tilley-valley' in the course of one day.

The effect upon Philip was a vehement insistence on going with his

brother. He was sure no one else would see to Berry half as well;

and as to letting Berry go to be murdered again without him, he

would not hear of it; he must go, he would not stay at home; he

should not study; no, no, he should be ready to hang himself for

vexation, and thinking what they were doing to his brother. And

thus he extorted from his kind-hearted father an avowal that he

should be easier a bout the lad if Phil were there, and that he

might go, provided Berry would have him, and my Lord saw no

objection. The first point was soon settled; and as to the second,

there was no reason at all that Philip should not go where his

brother did. In fact, excepting for Berenger's state of health,

there was hardly any risk about the matter. Master Hobbs, to whom

Philip rode down ecstatically to request him to come and speak to

my Lord, was a stout, honest, experienced seaman, who was perfectly

at home in the Bay of Biscay, and had so strong a feudal feeling

for the house of Walwyn, that he placed himself and his best ship,

the THROSTLE, entirely at his disposal. The THROSTLE was a capital

sailer, and carried arms quite sufficient in English hands to

protect her against Algerine corsairs or Spanish pirates. He only

asked for a week to make her cabin ready for the reception of a

lady, and this time was spent in sending a post to London, to

obtain for Berenger the permit from the Queen, and the passport

from the French Ambassador, without which he could not safely have

gone; and, as a further precaution, letters were requested from

some of the secret agents of the Huguenots to facilitate his

admission into La Sablerie.

In the meantime, poor Mr. Adderley had submitted meekly to the

decree that sentenced him to weeks of misery on board the THROSTLE,

but to his infinite relief, an inspection of the cabins proved the

space so small, that Berenger represented to him grandfather that

the excellent tutor would be only an incumbrance to himself and

every one else, and that with Philip he should need no one.

Indeed, he had made such a start into vigour and alertness during

the last few days that there was far less anxiety about him, though

with several sighs for poor Osbert. Cecily initiated Philip into

her simple rules for her patient's treatment in case of the return

of his more painful symptoms. The notion of sending female

attendants for Eustacie was also abandoned: her husband's presence

rendered them unnecessary, or they might be procured at La

Sablerie; and thus it happened that the only servants whom Berenger

was to take with him were Humfrey Holt and John Smithers, the same

honest fellows whose steadiness had so much conduced to his rescue

at Paris.

Claude de Mericour had in the meantime been treated as an honoured

guest at Combe Walwyn, and was in good esteem with its master. He

would have set forth at once on his journey to Scotland, but that

Lord Walwyn advised him to wait and ascertain the condition of his

relatives there before throwing himself on them. Berenger had,

accordingly, when writing to Sidney by the messenger above

mentioned, begged him to find out from Sir Robert Melville, the

Scottish Envoy, all he could about the family whose designation he

wrote down at a venture from Mericour's lips.

Sidney returned a most affectionate answer, saying that he had

never been able to believe the little shepherdess a traitor and was

charmed that she had proved herself a heroine; he should endeavour

to greet her with all his best powers as a poet, when she should

brighten the English court; but his friend, Master Spenser, alone

was fit to celebrate such constancy. As to M. l'Abbe de Mericour's

friends, Sir Robert Melville had recognized their name at once, and

had pronounced them to be fierce Catholics and Queensmen, so sorely

pressed by the Douglases, that it was believed they would soon fly

the country altogether; and Sidney added, what Lord Walwyn had

already said, that to seek Scotland rather than France as a

resting-place in which to weigh between Calvinism and Catholicism,

was only trebly hot and fanatical. His counsel was that M. de

Mericour should so far conform himself to the English Church as to

obtain admission to one of the universities, and, through his uncle

of Leicester, he could obtain for him an opening at Oxford, where

he might fully study the subject.

There was much to incline Mericour to accept this counsel. He had

had much conversation with Mr. Adderley, and had attended his

ministrations in the chapel, and both satisfied him far better than

what he had seen among the French Calninists; and the peace and

family affection of the two houses were like a new world to him.

But he had not yet made up his mind to that absolute disavowal of

his own branch of the Church, which alone could have rendered him

eligible for any foundation at Oxford. His attainments in classics

would, Mr. Adderley thought, reach such a standard as to gain one

of the very few scholarships open to foreigners; and his noble

blood revolted at becoming a pensioner of Leicester's, or of any

other nobleman.

Lord Walwyn, upon this, made an earnest offer of his hospitality,

and entreated the young man to remain at Hurst Walwyn till the

return of Berenger and Philip, during which time he might study

under the directions of Mr. Adderley, and come to a decision

whether to seek reconciliation with his native Church and his

brother, or to remain in England. In this latter case, he might

perhaps accompany both the youths to Oxford, for, in spite of

Berenger's marriage, his education was still not supposed to be

complete. And when Mericour still demurred with reluctance to

become a burden on the bounty of the noble house, he was reminded

gracefully of the debt of gratitude that the family owed to him for

the relief he had brought to Berenger; and, moreover, Dame Annora

giggled out that, 'if he would teach Nan and Bess to speak and read

French and Italian, it would be worth something to them.' The

others of the family would have hushed up this uncalled-for

proposal; but Mericour caught at it as the most congenial mode of

returning the obligation. Every morning he undertook to walk or

ride over to the Manor, and there gave his lessons to the young

ladies, with whom he was extremely popular. He was a far more

brilliant teacher than Lucy, and ten thousand times preferable to

Mr. Adderley, who had once begun to teach Annora her accidence with

lamentable want of success.




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