Books: The Herd Boy and His Hermit
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Herd Boy and His Hermit
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The tall spire of old St. Paul's and the four turrets of the Tower
began to rise on them, and were pointed out by Master Lorimer, for
even Sir Giles had only once in his life visited the City, and no one
else of the whole band from the north had ever been there. The road
was bordered by the high walls of monasteries, overshadowed by trees,
and at the deep gateway of one of these Lorimer called a halt. It
was the house of the Minoresses or Poor Clares, where the ladies were
to remain. The six weeks' companionship would come to an end, and
the Prioress was heartily sorry for it. 'I shall scarce meet such
good company at the Clares',' she said, laughing, as she took leave
of Lord Musgrave, 'Mayhap when I go back to my hills I shall remember
your goodwife's offer of hospitality, Master Lorimer.'
Master Lorimer bowed low, expressed his delight in the prospect, and
kissed the Prioress's hand, but the heavy door was already being
opened, and with an expressive look of drollery and resignation, the
good lady withdrew her hand, hastily brought her Benedictine hood and
veil closely over her face, and rode into the court, followed by her
suite. Anne had time to let her hand be kissed by Sir Giles and Hal,
who felt as if a world had closed on him as the heavy doors clanged
together behind the Sisters. But the previous affection of his young
life lay before him as Sir Giles rode on to the fortified Aldgate,
and after a challenge from the guard, answered by a watchword from
Lorimer, and an inquiry for whom the knight held, they were admitted,
and went on through an increasing crowd trailing boughs of holly and
mistletoe, to the north gateway of the Tower. Here they parted with
Lorimer, with friendly greetings and promises to come and see his
stall at Cheapside.
There was a man-at-arms with the star of the De Veres emblazoned on
his breast, and a red rosette on his steel cap, but he would not
admit the new-comers till Sir Giles had given his name, and it had
been sent in by another of the garrison to the Earl of Oxford.
Presently, after some waiting in the rain, and looking up with awe at
the massive defences, two knights appeared with outstretched hands of
welcome. Down went the drawbridge, up went the portcullis, the
horses clattered over the moat, and the reception was hearty indeed.
'Well met, my Lord of Musgrave! I knew you would soon be where Red
Roses grew.'
'Welcome, Sir Giles! Methought you had escaped after the fight at
Hexham.'
'Glad indeed to meet you, brave Sir John, and you, good Lord of
Holmdale! Is all well with the King?'
'As well as ever it will be. The Constable is nigh at hand! You
have brought us a stout band of archers, I see! We will find a use
for them if March chooses to show his presumptuous nose here again!'
'And hither comes my Lord Constable! It rejoices his heart to hear
of such staunch following.'
The Earl of Oxford, a stern, grave man of early middle age, was
coming across the court-yard, and received Sir Giles with the
heartiness that became the welcome of a proved and trustworthy ally.
After a few words, Musgrave turned and beckoned to Hal, who advanced,
shy and colouring.
'Ha! young Lord Clifford! I am glad to see you! I knew your father
well, rest his soul! The King spoke to me of the son of a loyal
house living among the moors.'
'The King was very good to me,' faltered Hal, crimson with eagerness.
'Ay, ay! I sent not after you, having enough to do here; and
besides, till we have the strong hand, and can do without that heady
kinsman of Warwick, it will be ill for you to disturb the rogue--
what's his name--to whom your lands have been granted, and who might
turn against the cause and maybe make a speedy end of you if he knew
you present. Be known for the present as Sir Giles counsels. Better
not put his name forward,' he added to Musgrave.
'I care not for lands,' said Hal, 'only to see the King.'
'See him you shall, my young lord, and if he be not in one of his
trances, he will be right glad to see you and remember you. But he
is scarce half a man,' added Oxford, turning to Musgrave. 'Cares for
nought but his prayers! Keeps his Hours like a monk! We can hardly
bring him to sit in the Council, and when he is there he sits scarce
knowing what we say. 'Tis my belief, when the Queen and Prince come,
that we shall have to make the Prince rule in his name, and let him
alone to his prayers! He will be in the church. 'Tis nones, or some
hour as they call it, and he makes one stretch out to another.'
They entered the low archway of St. Peter ad Vincula, and there Hal
perceived a figure in a dark mantle just touched with gold, kneeling
near the chancel step, almost crouching. Did he not know the
attitude, though the back was broader than of old? He paused, as did
his companions; but there was one who did not pause, and would not be
left outside. Watch unseen had pattered up, and was rearing up,
jumping and fawning. There was a call of 'Watch! here sirrah!' but
'Watch! Watch! Good dog! Is it thou indeed?' was exclaimed at the
same moment, and with Watch springing up, King Henry stood on his
feet looking round with his dazed glance.
'My King! my hermit father! Forgive! Down, Watch!' cried Hal,
falling down at his feet, with one arm holding down Watch, who tried
to lick his face and the King's hand by turns.
'Is it thou, my child, my shepherd?' said Henry, his hands on the
lad's head. 'Bless thee! Oh, bless thee, much loved child of my
wanderings! I have longed after thee, and prayed for thee, and now
God hath given thee to me at this shrine! Kneel and give the Lord
thy best thanks, my lad! Ah! how tall thou art! I should not have
known thee, Hal, but for Watch.'
'It is well,' muttered Oxford to Musgrave. 'I have not seen him so
well nor so cheery all this day. The lad will waken him up and do
him good.'
CHAPTER XVII. A CAPTIVE KING
And we see far on holy ground,
If duly purged our mental view.--KEBLE.
The King held Harry Clifford by the hand as he left St. Peter's
Church. 'My child, my shepherd boy,' he said, and he called Watch
after him, and interested himself in establishing a kind of
suspicious peace between the shaggy collie and his own 'Minion,' a
small white curly-haired dog, which belonged to a family that had
been brought by Queen Margaret from Provence.
His attendant knight, Sir Nicolas Romford, told Sir Giles Musgrave
that he had really never seemed so happy since his deliverance, and
Sir Nicolas had waited on him ever since his capture, six years
previously. He led the youth along to the royal rooms, asking on the
way after his sheep and the goodwife who had sent him presents of
eggs, then showing him the bullfinch, that greeted his return with
loving chirps, and when released from its cage came and sat upon his
shoulder and played with his hair, 'A better pet than a fierce hawk,
eh, Hal?' he said.
He laughed when he found that Harry thought he had spent all this
time in a dark underground dungeon with fetters on his feet.
'Oh no!' he said; 'they were kindly jailors. They dealt better with
me than with my Master.'
'Sir, sir, that terrible ride through Cheapside!' said Harry. 'We
heard of it at Derwent-side, and we longed to have our pikes at the
throats of the villain traitors.'
The King looked as if he hardly remembered that cruel procession,
when he was set upon a sorry jade with his feet tied to the stirrups,
and shouts of 'Behold the traitor!' around him. Then with a sweet
smile of sudden recollection, he said, 'Ah! I recall it, and how I
rejoiced to be led in the steps of my Lord, and how the cries
sounded, "We will not have this man to reign over us!" Gratias ago,
unworthy me, who by my own fault could not reign.'
Harry was silenced, awe-struck, and by-and-by the King took him to
see his old chamber in the White Tower, up a winding stone stair. It
was not much inferior to the royal lodgings, except in the matter of
dais, canopy, and tapestry, and the window looked out into the
country, so that the King said he had loved it, and it had many a
happy thought connected with it.
Hal followed him in a sort of silent wonder, if not awe, not daring
to answer him in monosyllables. This was not quite the hermit of
Derwentdale. It was a broader man--not with the breadth of full
strength, but of inactivity and advance of years, though the fiftieth
year was only lately completed--and the royal robe of crimson,
touched with gold, suited him far less thaft the brown serge of the
anchoret. The face was no longer thin, sunburnt, and worn, but pale,
and his checks slightly puffed, and the eyes and smile, with more of
the strange look of innocent happiness than of old, and of that which
seemed to bring back to his young visitor the sense of peace and
well-being that the saintly hermit had always given him.
There was consultation that evening between Lord Oxford and Sir Giles
Musgrave. It was better, they agreed, to let young Clifford remain
with the King as much as possible, but without divulging his name.
The King knew it, and indeed had known it, when he received the boy
at his hermitage, but he seemed to have forgotten it, as he had much
besides. Oxford said that though he could be roused into actual
fulfilment of such forms as were required of him, and understood what
was set before him, his memory and other powers seemed to have been
much impaired, and it was held wiser not to call on him more than
could be helped, till the Queen and her son should come to supply the
energy that was wanting. They would make the gay and brilliant
appearance that the Londoners had admired in Edward of York, and
which could not be obtained from poor Henry.
His memory for actual matters was much impaired. Never for two days
together could he recollect that his son and Warwick's daughter were
married, and it was always by an effort that he remembered that the
Prince of Wales was not the eight-years-old child whom he had last
seen. As to young Clifford, he sometimes seemed to think the tall
nineteen-years-old stripling was just where he had left the child of
twelve or thirteen, and if he perceived the age, was so far confused
that it was not quite certain that he might not mix him up with his
own son, though the knight in constant attendance was sure that he
was clear on that point, and only looked on 'Hal' as the child of his
teaching and prayers.
But Harry Clifford could not persuade him to enter into that which
more and more lay near the youthful heart, the rescuing Anne St. John
from the suitor of whom little that was hopeful was heard; and the
obtaining her from his father. Of course this could not be unless
Harry could win his father's property, and no longer be under the
attaint in blood, so as to be able to lay claim to the lands of the
De Vescis through his mother; but though the King listened with
kindly interest to the story of the children's adventure on the
Londesborough moor, and the subsequent meeting in Westmorland, the
rescue from the outlaws, and the journey together, it was all like a
romance to him--he would nod his head and promise to do what he
could, if he could, but he never remembered it for two days together,
and if Hal ventured on anything like pressure, the only answer was,
'Patience, my son, patience must have her work! It is the will of
God, it will be right.'
And when Hal began to despair and work himself up and seek to do more
with one so impracticable, Lord Oxford and Sir Giles warned him not
to force his real name and claims too much, for he did not need too
many enemies nor to have Lord St. John and the Nevil who held his
lands both anxious to sweep him from their path.
Nor was anything heard from or of the Prioress of Greystone, and
whenever the name of George Nevil, the Chancellor and Archbishop of
York, was heard, Hal's heart burnt with anxiety, and fear that the
lady had forgotten him, though as Dick Nevil, who held the lands of
Clifford, was known to be in his suite, it was probable that she was
acting out of prudence.
The turmoil of anxious impatience seemed to be quelled when Hal sat
on a stool before the King, with Watch leaning against his knee. The
instruction or meditation seemed to be taken up much where it had
been left six years before, with the same unanswerable questions,
only the youth had thought out a great deal more, and the hermit had
advanced in a wisdom which was not that of the rough, practical
world.
Part of Clifford's day was spent in the tilt-yard, where his two
friends, as well as himself, were anxious that he should acquire
proficiency and ease such as would become his station, when he
recovered it; and a martinet old squire of Oxford proved himself
nearly as hard a master as ever Simon Bunce had been.
One very joyous day came to Henry in his regal capacity. Christmas
Day had been quietly spent. There was much noisy revelling in the
city, and the guards in the castle had their feastings, but Warwick
was daily expected to return from France, and neither his brother nor
the Archbishop thought that there was much policy in making a public
spectacle of a puppet King.
But there was one ceremony from which Henry would not be debarred.
He would make the public offering on the Epiphany in Westminster
Abbey. He had done so ever since he was old enough to totter up to
the altar and hold the offerings; and his heart was set on doing so
once more. So a large and quiet cream-coloured Flemish horse was
brought for him, he was robed in purple and ermine, with a coronal
around the cap that covered his hair, fast becoming white. His train
in full array followed him, and the streets were thronged, but there
was an ominous lack of applause, and even a few audible jeers at the
monk dressed up like the jackdaw in peacock's plumes, and comparisons
with Edward, in sooth a king worth looking at.
Henry seemed not to heed or hear. His blue eyes looked upward, his
face was set in peaceful contemplation, his lips were moving, and
those who were near enough caught murmurs of 'Vidimus enim stellam
Ejus in Oriente et venimus adorare Eum.' Truly the one might be a
king to suit the kingdoms of this world, the other had a soul near
the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Dean and choir received him at the west door, and with the same
rapt countenance he paced up to the sanctuary, and knelt before the
chair appropriated to him, while the grand Epiphany Celebration was
gone through, in all its glory and beauty of sound and sight, and
with the King kneeling with clasped hands, and a radiant look of
happiness almost transfiguring that worn face.
When the offertory anthem was sung, he rose up, and advanced to the
altar. A salver of gold coins was presented to him, which he took
and solemnly laid on the altar, but paused for a moment, and removed
his crown with both hands, placing it likewise on the altar, and
kneeling for a moment ere he turned to take the vase whence breathed
the fragrant odour of frankincense; and presenting this, and
afterwards kneeling and bowing low with clasped hands, he again took
the salver in which the myrrh was laid. This again he placed on the
altar, and remained kneeling in intense devotion through the
remainder of the service, only looking up at the 'Sursum Corda,' when
those near enough to see his countenance said that they never knew
before the full import of those words, nor how the heart could be
uplifted.
It was the first time that Hal Clifford had ever joined in the full
ceremonial of the Church, or in such splendid accompaniment, for
though there had been the rightful ritual at St. Peter's in the
Tower, the space had been confined, and the clergy few, and the
whole, even on Christmas Day, had been more or less a training to him
to enter into what he now saw and heard. He had in these last weeks
gathered much of the meaning of all this from the King, who perhaps
never fully disentangled the full-grown youth from the boy he had
taught at Derwentdale, but who, perhaps for that very cause, really
suited better the strange mixture of ignorance, simplicity,
observation and aspiration of the shepherd lord.
The King did not help more but less than he had done before in Hal's
researches and wonderings about natural objects; he had forgotten the
philosophies he had once read, and the supposed circuits of moon,
planets and stars only perplexed and worried his brain. It was much
more satisfactory to refer all to 'He hath made them fast for ever
and ever, He hath given them a law which shall not be broken,' and he
could not understand Hal's desire to find out what that law was, and
far less his calculations about the tides. He had scarcely ever seen
the sea, and as to its motions, 'Hitherto shalt thou come and no
farther' was sufficient explanation, and when Hal tried to show him
the correspondence between spring tides and full moons he either
waved him away or fell asleep.
But on the spiritual side of his mind there was no torpor. He loved
to explain the sense of the prayers to his willing pupil, and to tell
him the Gospel story, dwelling on whatever could waken or carry on
the Christian life; and between the tiltyard and the oratory Hal
spent a strange life.
That question which had occurred to him on the journey Hal ventured
to lay before his King--'Was it really and truly better and more
acceptable worship that came to breathe through him when alone with
God under the open vault of Heaven, with endless stars above and
beyond, or was the best that which was beautified and guided by
priests, with all that man's devices could lavish upon its
embellishment?' Such, though in more broken and hesitating words,
was the herd boy's difficulty, and Henry put his head back, and after
having once said, 'Adam had the one, God directed the other,' he shut
his eyes, and Hal feared he would put it aside as he had with the
moon and the tides, but after some delay, he leant forward and said,
'My son, if man had always been innocent, that worship as Adam and
Eve had it might--nay, would--have sufficed them. The more innocent
man is, the better his heart rises. But sin came into the world, and
expiation was needed, not only here on earth, but before the just God
in Heaven above. Therefore doth He, who hath once offered Himself in
sacrifice for us, eternally present His offering in Heaven before the
Mercy-Seat, and we endeavour as much as our poor feeble efforts can,
to take part in what He does above, and bring it home to our senses
by all that can represent to us the glories of Heaven.'
There was much in this that went beyond Hal, who knitted his brow,
and would have asked further, but the King fell into a state of
contemplation, and noticed nothing, until presently he broke out into
a thanksgiving: 'Blessed be my Lord, who hath granted me once more to
follow in the steps of the kings of the East, though but as in a
dream, and lay my crown and my prayer before Him. Once more I thank
Thee, O my true King of kings, and Lord of lords.'
'Oh, do not say once more!' exclaimed Hal. 'Again and again, I
trust, sir. It is no dream. It is real.'
The King smiled and shook his head. 'It is all a dream to me,' he
said, 'the pageants and the whole. They will not last! Oh, no! It
is all but an empty show.'
Hal looked up anxiously, and the King went on: 'Well do I remember
the day when, scarce able to walk, and weighed down by my robes, I
tottered up to the altar and was well pleased to make my offering,
and how my Lord of Warwick, who was then, took me in his arms, and
showed me my great father's figure on his grave, and told me I was
bound to be such a king as he! Alas! was it mine own error that I so
failed?--
Henry born at Monmouth shall short live and gain all,
Henry born at Windsor shall long live and lose all.'
'Oh, sir, sir, do not speak of that old saw!'
Still the King smiled. 'It has come true, my child. All is lost,
and it may be well for my soul that thus it should be, and that I
should go into the presence of my God freed from the load of what was
gained unjustly. I know not whether, if my hand had been stronger, I
should have striven to have borne up the burthen of these two realms,
but they never ought to have been mine, and if the sins of the
forefathers be visited on the children to the third and fourth
generation, no marvel that my brain and mine arm could but sink under
the weight. Would that I had yielded at once, and spared the
bloodshed and sacrilege! Miserere mei! My son was a temptation.
Oh, my poor boy! is he to be the heir to all that has come on me?
Have pity on him, good Lord!'
'Nay, sir, your brave son will come home to comfort you, and help you
and make all well.'
'I know not! I know not! I cannot believe that I shall see him
again, or that the visitation of these crimes is not still to come!
My son, my sweet son, I can only pray that he might give up his soul
sackless and freer of guilt than his father can be, when I remember
all that I ought to have hindered when I could think and use my will!
Now, now all is but confusion! God has taken away my judgment, even
as He did with my French grandsire, and I can only let others act as
they will, and pray for them and for myself.'
He had never spoken at such length, nor so clearly, and whenever he
was required to come forward, he merely walked, rode, sat or signed
rolls as he was told to do, and continually made mistakes as to the
persons brought to him, generally calling them by their fathers'
names, if he recognised them at all, but still to his nearest
attendants, and especially to his beloved herd boy, he was the same
gentle, affectionate being, never so happy as at his prayers, and
sometimes speaking of holy things as one almost inspired.
CHAPTER XVIII. AT THE MINORESSES'
The bird that hath been limed in a bush,
With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush.
SHAKESPEARE.
One day, soon after that Twelfth Day, Hal accompanied Sir Giles
Musgrave to the shop or stall of Master Lorimer in Cheapside, a wide
space, open by day but closed by shutters at night, where all sorts
of gilded and emblazoned leather-works for man or horse were
displayed, and young 'prentices called, 'What d'ye lack?' 'Saddle of
the newest make?' 'Buff coat fit to keep out the spear of Black
Douglas himself?'
''Tis Master Lorimer himself I lack,' said Musgrave with a good-
humoured smile, and the merchant appeared from a room in the rear,
something between a counting-house and a bedroom, where he welcomed
his former companions, and insisted on their tasting the good sherris
sack that had been sent with his last cargo of Spanish leather.
'I would I could send a flask to our good Prioress,' he said, 'to
cheer her heart. I went to the Minoresses' as she bade me, to settle
some matters of account with her, and after some ado, Sister Mabel
came down to the parlour and told me the Prioress is very sick with a
tertian fever, and they misdoubt her recovering.'
'And the young Lady of St. John.'
'She is well enough, but sadly woeful as to the Mother Prioress, and
likewise as to what they hear of the Lord Redgrave. It is the old
man, not his son, a hard and stark old man, as I remember. He would
have bargained with me for the coats of the poor rogues slain at St.
Albans, and right evil was his face as he spoke thereof, he being
then for Queen Margaret; but then he went over to King Edward, and
glutted himself with slaughter at Towton, and here he calls himself
Red Rose again. Ill-luck to the poor young maid if she falls to
him!'
It was terrible news for Hal, and Musgrave could not but gratify him
by riding by the Minories to endeavour to hear further tidings of the
Prioress.
It was a grand building in fine pointed architecture, for the Clares,
though once poor, in imitation of St. Clara and St. Francis, had been
dispensed collectively from their vow of poverty, and though singly
incapable of holding property, had a considerable accumulation en
masse. They were themselves a strict Order, but they often gave
lodgings to ladies either in retreat or for any cause detained near
London.
Sir Giles and Harry were only admitted to the outer court, whence the
portress went with their message of inquiry. They waited a long
time, and then the Greystone lay Sister who had been the companion of
their journey came back in company with the portress.
'Benedicite, dear gentles,' she said; 'oh, you are a sight for sair
een.'
'And how fares the good Mother Prioress?' asked the Lord of Peelholm.
'Alack! she is woefully ill when the fever takes her, and she is
wasted away so that you would scarce know her; but this is one of the
better days, and if you, sir, will come into the parlour, she will
see you. She was arraying herself as I came down. She was neither
to have nor to hold when she heard you were there, and said a north
country face would be better to her than all the Sisters' potions!'
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