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Darnley

<h4>CHAPTER XXII.</h4><div class="poem0" style="margin-left:5%"> Gloucester.--Talking of hawking--nothing else, my lord.--Shakspere. </div> On arriving at the palace, Sir Osborne found that he had been sent for by the king; and hurrying his steps towards the privy chamber, he was met by Henry himself, bearing a hawk upon his hand, and armed with a stout leaping-pole, as if prepared for the field. "Come, sir knight," cried the king, "if you would see sport, follow quick. Bennet has just marked a heron go down by the side of the river, and I am resolved to fly young Jacob here, that his wings may not rust. Follow quick!" Thus speaking, the king made all speed out of the palace; and cutting partly across the park, and round the base of the hill, soon reached the edge of the river, where slower progress became necessary, and he could converse with the young knight without interrupting his sport. Their conversation, however, was solely about hawking and its accessories; and winding along by the side of the sedges with which the bank was lined, they tried to raise the game by cries, and by beating the rushes with the leaping-pole. For a long way no heron made its appearance; and Henry was beginning to get impatient, just in the same proportion as he had been eager in setting out. Unwilling, however, to yield his sport, after persisting some time in endeavouring, with the aid of Sir Osborne, to make the prey take flight, he sent back the only attendant that had followed him for a dog, and went on slowly with the knight, pursuing the course of the river. When they had proceeded about two hundred yards, and had arrived at a spot where the bank rose into a little mound, the knight paused, while Henry, rather crossed with not having instantly met with the amusement he expected, sauntered on, bending his eyes upon the ground. "Hist, your grace! hist!" cried Sir Osborne: "I have him!" "Where, man? where?" cried Henry, looking round without seeing anything. "'Odslife, where?" "Here, your grace! here!" replied the knight. "Do you not see him, with one leg raised and the claw contracted, gazing on the water as intently as a lady in a looking-glass, by that branch of a tree that is floating down?" "Ha! yes, yes!" cried Henry. "The long neck and the blue back! 'Tis he. Whoop! sir heron! whoop! Cry him up, Maurice! cry him up!" Sir Osborne joined his voice to the king's; and their united efforts reaching the ears of the long-legged fowl they were in search of, he speedily spread his wings, stretched out his neck, and rose heavily from the water. With a whoop and a cry the king slipped the jesses of his falcon, and flew him after the heron, who, for a moment, not perceiving the adversary that pursued him, took his flight over the fields, instead of rising high. On went the heron, on went the falcon, and on went Henry after them; till, coming to a little muddy creek, which thereabouts found its way into the river, the king planted his pole with his accustomed activity, and threw himself forward for the leap. Unfortunately, however, at the very moment that his whole weight was cast upon the pole, in the midst of the spring, the wood snapped, and in an instant Sir Osborne saw the king fall flat on his face, and nearly disappear in the ooze and water with which the creek was filled. Henry struggled to free himself, but in vain; for the tenacity of the mud prevented his raising his head, so that in another minute he must inevitably have been drowned, had not Sir Osborne plunged in to his aid, and lifted his face above the water, thus giving him room to breathe. Short as had been the time, however, that respiration had been impeded, the king's powers were nearly exhausted, and even with the knight's assistance he could not raise himself from the position in which he had fallen. Though an unsafe experiment for both, considering the mud and slime with which they were entangled, nothing remained for Sir Osborne but to take the king in his arms, and endeavour to carry him to the bank; and this at length he accomplished, sometimes slipping, and sometimes staggering, from the uncertain nature of the footing and the heavy burden that he carried; but, still supported by his vast strength, he contrived to keep himself from falling, proceeding slowly and carefully forward, and assuring himself of the firmness of each step before he took another.[14] With a feeling of inexpressible gladness, he seated Henry on the bank, and kneeling beside him expressed his hopes that he had received no injury. "No," said the king, faintly; "no. But, Maurice, you have saved my life. Thank God, and thank you!" A pause now ensued, and the young knight endeavoured, as well as circumstances would permit, to cleanse the countenance and hands of the monarch from the effects of the fall. While he was thus employed, the king gradually recovered his breath and strength, and from time to time uttered a word or two of thanks or directions, till at last Bennet, the attendant, was seen approaching with the dog. "Stay, stay, Sir Osborne," said the monarch; "here comes Bennet. We will send him for fresh clothes. Where is the falcon? By my faith, I owe you much; ay, as much as life! Whistle for the falcon; I have not breath." Sir Osborne uttered a long falconer's whistle, and in a moment the bird hovered above them, and perched upon the hand the monarch extended to it, showing by its bloody beak and claws that it had struck the prey. Nearly at the same time came up Bennet, who, as may be supposed, expressed no small terror and surprise at beholding the king in such a situation, and was preparing to fill the air with ejaculations and lamentations, when Henry stopped him in the midst. "No, Bennet, no!" cried he; "keep all that for when I am dead quite! Ha, man! 'twill be time enough then. Thanks to Sir Osborne, I am not dead at present. Here, take this bird. I have lost both hood and jesses in that foul creek. Hie to the manor, Bennet, and fetch me a large cloak with a hood, and another for Sir Osborne. We will not return all draggled with the ooze; ha, Maurice! Quick, Bennet! But mind, man; not a word of this misadventure, on your life!" "Ah! your grace knows that I am discreet," replied the footman. "Ay, as discreet as the babbling echo, or a jay, or a magpie," cried Henry; "but get thee gone, quick! and return by the path we came, for we follow slowly. Lend me your arm, Sir Osborne. We will round by yon little bridge. A curse upon the leaping-pole, say I! By my fay, I will have all the creeks in England stopped. I owe my life to you, but hereafter we will speak of that: I will find means to repay it." "I am more than repaid, your grace," said Sir Osborne, "by the knowledge that, but for my poor aid, England might have lost her king, and within a few hours the whole realm might have been drowned in tears." "Ay, poor souls! I do believe they would regret me," said the monarch; "for, heaven knows, it is my wish to see them happy. A king's best elegy is to be found in the tears of his subjects, Sir Osborne; and every king should strive to merit their love when living and their regret when dead." Strange as it may seem, to those accustomed to picture themselves Henry the Eighth as the sanguinary and remorseless tyrant which he appeared in later years, such were the sentiments with which he set out in his regal career, while youth, prosperity, and power were all in their first freshness: 'twas the tale of the spoiled child, which was always good-humoured when it was pleased. Now the first twelve years of Henry's reign offered nought but pleasure, and during their lapse he appeared a gay, light-hearted, gallant monarch, fit to rule and win the hearts of a brave people; for nothing yet had arisen to call into action the mighty vices that lay latent in his nature. Gradually, however, luxury produced disease, and disease pain, and pain called up cruelty; while long prosperity and uncontradicted sway made him imperious, irascible, and almost frantic under opposition. But such was not the case now, and it was only the close observer of human nature that could at all perceive in the young and splendid monarch the traits that promised what he would afterwards become. Discoursing on the unlucky termination of their sport, Henry proceeded with Sir Osborne into the park, and there awaited the coming of the servant with their cloaks; feeling a sort of foppish unwillingness to enter the palace in the state in which his fall had left him, his whole dress being stiff with mud, and both face and hands in anything but a comely condition. Many men might have taken advantage of Sir Osborne's situation to urge their suit; but notwithstanding the very great claim that the accident of the morning had given him upon Henry, the knight was hardly satisfied that it had occurred. He deemed that, in common decency, he should be obliged to delay the communication which he had proposed to make that very evening, and thereby allow Wolsey to arrive before the event was decided, which for every reason he had hoped to avoid. Were he to press his suit now, it would seem, he thought, surprising from the king's gratitude what his justice might have denied, and indelicately to solicit a high reward for an accidental service. His great hope, however, was that in the course of the evening the king might himself renew the subject, and, by offering some token of his thanks, afford him an opportunity of pleading for justice for his father and himself. The discomfited falconers waited not long in the park before they were rejoined by the servant bearing the cloaks which the king had commanded; but although they soon reached the palace, the clammy wetness of his whole dress caused several slight shiverings to pass over the limbs of Henry, and after some persuasion by Sir Osborne he was induced to ask the counsel of his surgeon, who recommended him instantly to bathe, and then endeavour to sleep. This was, of course, a signal for the young knight to withdraw; and taking leave of the king, he retired to his apartments to change his own dress, which was not in a much more comfortable state than that of the monarch. Our old friend Longpole soon answered to his call; and while aiding him in his arrangements, without any comment upon the state of his clothes, which he seemed to regard as nothing extraordinary, the honest custrel often paused to give a glance at his master's face, as one who has something to communicate, the nature of which may not be very palatable to the hearer. "Well, Longpole," said the knight, after observing several of these looks, "when you have trussed these three points, you shall tell me what is the matter, for I see you have something on your mind." "I only wished to ask your worship," said the custrel, "if you had seen him; for he's lurking about here, like a blackbird under a cherry-tree." "Seen whom?" demanded the knight. "Why, the devil, your worship," replied Longpole. "I've seen him twice." "Indeed!" said Sir Osborne; "and pray what did his infernal highness say to you when you did see him? Or rather, what do you mean?" "Why, I mean, sir," replied the other, "that I have seen Sir Payan Wileton twice here in the park during yesterday, if it was not his ghost; for he looked deadly pale, and I fancied I could smell a sort of brimstony smell. Now, I wot, a cunning priest would have told by the flavour whether 'twas purgatory half and half, or unadulterated hell: though, if he's not there, hell's empty." "Hush!" said Sir Osborne; "speak not so lightly. When was this?" "The first time I saw him, sir," answered the yeoman, "was yesterday in the forenoon, soon after the justs, when I took a stroll out into the park with Mistress Geraldine, the Lady Katrine's maid, for a little fresh air after the peck of dust I had broken my fast upon in the field. We had got, I don't know how, your worship, into that lonely part under the hill, when beneath one of the trees hard by I saw Sir Payan standing stock-still, with his hand in the bosom of his doublet. His colour was always little better than that of a turnip, but now it looked like a turnip boiled." "Did he speak to you?" demanded Sir Osborne, "or give any sign that he recognised you?" "He did not speak," replied Longpole; "but when he saw me, he quietly slipped his hand out of the bosom of his doublet, and getting it down to the hilt of his poniard, kept fingering it with a sort of affectionate squeeze, as much as to say, 'Dearly beloved, how I should like to pluck you out of your leathern case, and furnish you with one of flesh and blood!' He was ever fond of playing with his poniard; and when he spoke to you, if it were but of sousing a toast, he would draw it in and out of the scabbard all the time, as though he were afraid of losing the acquaintance if he did not keep up the intimacy." "You neither spoke nor took any notice, I hope," said Sir Osborne. "Oh, no, your worship!" answered the custrel; "I did not even give him bon jour, though he was fond of talking French to me when he wished to say something privately. I only twitched Mistress Geraldine over to the other side, and passed him by close; thinking to myself, 'If I see your dagger in the air, I'll go nigh to sweep your head off with my broadsword, if I have to run to France for it;' but seeing that I looked him in the face, he turned him round upon his heel, with a draw down of the corner of his mouth, which meant a great deal if it were rightly read. "Why, first, it meant--I hate you sufficiently to pretend to despise you. Then--I'll murder you whenever I can do so safely; and again it went to say--Give my best love to your master, and tell him he'll hear more of me soon." "By my faith! a good reading, and, I doubt not, a true one," replied the knight; "but we must try and render his malice of no avail. And now, tell me, when did you see him the second time?" "The second time was after dinner, sir," said Longpole, "when his grace the king, yourself, and the Duke of Suffolk kept the barriers against all comers." "He did not try the field, did he?" demanded Sir Osborne. "Oh, no!" replied Longpole; "he stood looking on at a good distance, wrapped up in a cloak, so that it needed sharp eyes to recognise him; but I saw him all the time fix his eyes upon you, so like a cat before a mouse-hole, that I thought every minute to see him overspring the barrier and take you by the throat. Depend upon it that good and honest knight, like his german-cousin, Satan, never travels for any good, and we shall hear more of him." "I doubt it not," answered Sir Osborne; "and we must guard against him. But now, Longpole, a word or two to you. Did you give the packet, as I directed you, to Mistress Geraldine, Lady Katrine's woman?" "I did, your worship," answered Longpole, somewhat surprised at the serious air that came over his lord's countenance: "I gave it immediately I received it from your hands." "That was right," replied Sir Osborne. "And now, let me say to you, my good Heartley, that I have remarked you often with this same girl Geraldine, and it seems to me that you are seeking her love." "Oh! good now! your worship," cried Longpole; "if you prohibit me from making love, it's all over with me. Indeed, your worship, I could not do without it. It is meat, drink, and sleep to me; better than a stirrup-cup when I rise in the morning, or a sleeping cup when I go to bed at night. 'Faith I could not sleep without being in love. There, when I was with Sir Payan, where there was nothing to fall in love with but the portrait of his grandmother against the wall, I could not sleep o' nights at all, and was forced to take to deer-stealing, just for amusement. 'Odslife! your worship is hard on me. There, you have a bellyful of love, all day long, from the highest ladies of the court, and you would deny me as much as will lie in the palm of a serving-woman." "Nay, nay, Longpole!" said Sir Osborne, laughing; "you have taken me up too hastily. All I meant to say was, merely, that seeing you are evidently seeking this poor girl's love, you must not play her false. I do not wish to imply that you would wrong her virtue: of that I am sure you are incapable; but I mean you must not win her love, and then leave her for another." "Dear heart, no!" cried Longpole; "I would not for the world. Poor little soul! she has suffered enough; so I'm now consoling her, your worship. It's wonderful how soon a broken heart is patched up with a little of the same stuff that broke it. It is the very reverse of piecing a doublet; for in love you mend old love with new, and it's almost as good as ever. However, some day soon we intend to ask your worship's leave and the priest's blessing, and say all those odd little words that tie two folks together." "My leave and good wishes you shall have, Longpole," replied the knight, "and all I can do to assist your purse. Hark! is not that the trumpet to dinner? Give me my bonnet; I will down and dine at the board of estate to-day, as I was not there yesterday." On descending to the hall, Sir Osborne was instantly assailed by a thousand questions respecting the accident which had befallen the king; for, what between the diligent exertions of the attendants and those of the surgeon, the news had already spread through the whole court. In reply, the knight gave as brief and exact an account of the whole occurrence as possible, endeavouring to stop the lying tongue of Rumour by furnishing her with the truth at least. After dinner he returned to his own apartments, and only left them once for a momentary visit to Constance de Grey, remaining in hopes all the evening that the king might send for him when he arose. Such hopes, however, were in vain: day waned and night fell, and the knight's suit was no farther advanced than when Sir Cesar warned him to hasten it in the morning. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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