The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan

l to deal with. She would cry at the top of her voice orders that it was very difficult to understand, and, when her servants did not swiftly carry these out, she would

s as sour as his wine. For that King, being a niggard, served very sour wine to his guests. Richard III had laughed at her; the Queen Elizabeth Woodville had gone crying with rage to King Edward IV. King Henry VII had affected not to hear her, which was the more prudent way. For her father, the Duke of Croy, who still lived, though a very ancient man of more than ninety, was yet a very potent and sovereign lord in Flanders, Almain, and towards Burgundy. Seventy thousand troops of

than as if she had been a court jester, and affected to wonder that she had once been a beautiful and young Princess, fo

ed so much of it by reason of his marriage with the Lady Rohtraut, the Princess's daughter. The lawsuits about these lands were not yet concluded, and it was these that the knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle were seeking to force from the Lady Rohtraut by keeping her imprisoned. The Princess had, however, by no means abandoned her claim to these lands and it was to prosecute her lawsuits that, each summer, she came to the North. She wa

hrone upon three stone steps covered with a carpet. She had behind her yet another carpet that mounted the wal

scarlet velvet, covered with a net of fine gold chains uniting large pearls. Such a thing had not been seen in England for two or three score years, but the ladies at her father's court ha

rt. Each history was divided from the other by ribs of stone painted fairly in scarlet with green scrolls. There you might see how the good monks set out from Holy Island, or how the coffin floated of itself, or how the women called one to the other about the Dun Cow. This room without doubt had formerly been some council chamber or judgment room of the Prince Bishop's in o

oats and the rest that her tenants owed her. She thought it was not enough. And consequently messengers came in from the Prince Bishop, from the Dean, from the Chapter, down to the sacristan, to ask how it was with her health after her long journey from London city to Durham. She had come there the night before. And one brought her the

ut pared his finger-nails with a little knife. He looked between whiles out upon the high, wooded banks of the Wear that confronted his gaze across the river, and were all ablaze with the sunlight: once the Princess Rohtraut t

chuckled and added, "Do you hear me, Sir Bertram o

y torch-light, over a steep bridge above a black river. The gate into the tower had been opened for them only after long parleying, but he had perceived walls well planned and formidable,

rst portcullis and be captured by the second, so that they would be like rats in a trap. By craning his head out of his window he could see, further along, both to his right and to his left, tall towers in this inner wall, each tower having the appearance of an arch let into its face. But this Sir Bertram was an engineer well skilled in the plans of fortresses, and he knew that what appeared to be arches led up to two slanting holes in each tower, and that the slant of each hole was directed wi

foreign foes, but from his own townsmen, which was not so often the way with Bishops. For it is the habit of townsmen to be at perpetual strife with their Bishops, seeking to break in on them by armed force and to make the Bishops

ines of St. Cuthbert and of the Venerable Bede. To these, year in, year out, at all s

this Palatine Prince even though the Percy had reported to King He

ntrary to that Prince's idea of kingship to have within his realm a Palatine county with a Bishop there having such sovereign powers that it was as if there was no King at all in the realm. But, to be rid of the bishopric, even King Henry thought would be impossible since it would raise against him all the Church and get him called heretic and interdicted as King John had

ght window, he perceived how steeply perched was the house in which he was. Sheer down to the river ran rocky paths with here and there a tree. At the bottom was a high wall well battlemented and slit for archers to hold it. The river ran very

r than Windsor. If the Percy had them, it was difficult to think that he could drag them there into position, and all that would take a year or two years. So, this Sir Bertram, who had been sent there by the King to advise him, considered, as h

ndly to the Earl and hated the Bishop. Without that there would be no doing it. And the same might be said of any project for dragging cannon on to thos

er men, this Sir Bertram thought it was possible that the Earl Percy was not so strong nor yet so beloved in those parts as he would have the King believe. In that case, if he relied upon this Earl and this Earl's faith, the King might get great discredit and no

slow thinker, adding point to point in his mind, to have as it were a

you will lend your sanction and your wealth we may speedily have down not only these robbers th

eeled with her voluminous rich gown all about her and held out her two hands towards the Princess whom he could not see. The Princess did not

an who is so hated

estion? The Princess had been leaning back in her chair with both elbows upon the arms and a hand caressing her chin, for all the world a

bade the lady, who was the Lady Margaret of Glororem, to fetch a stool from a corner of the room and set it by her throne on the step. And there she had the Lady Margaret sit beside her and that Sir Bertram fetch off his hat

an and one very beautiful and proud one before whom to abase himself. So he made an apology, saying that he had not known that lady to be of such high rank, she being

ected now a complaisance towards that gentleman. S

so this Sir Bertram of Lyonesse is the King's commissioner to inquire into the state of these North parts. And if you will ask me what make of a thing a comm

o see if he winced. But that knight turne

u may count that for truth. I a

est with him as if he had been a peasant boy. She considered English lords as of so low a rank against her own that she thought not much about them, one with another, exc

the Lady Margare

els of King Henry VII. Why this should be so, God knows, for one says one thing and one will say a

rtram looked upon

d him when he walked in the gardens. And I have farmed the King's private lands to greater profit than came to him before and, having studied the art of fortifying of a pupil of the monk Olberitz that made most of the strong castles of France, I have designed or strengthened successfully certain strong places for this King. If I could say I had saved this King's life

e King's gear and so on. Now he is sent here as the King's spy-the King's reconciler or the King's trumpeter or what you will. For his missio

r Bertram said to the Lady Mar

en, "as soon as I have your opinion on certain words I said two

very gladly," Sir

his train and bearing a share of her expenses, so that he might the better make out the affairs of the Dacres, what was their wealth, who resorted to them, and whether they seemed to conspire with other rebels. And, upon the road, in three various towns, three delayed messengers had met the Princess of Croy, coming fro

Princess had told that story she was impatient to know, but with sarcastic and hard words, what this adviser of the King would advise her to do. For her own part, she said, it was her purpose to go with a small train, and unarmed, up to that Castle Lovell and in at the door. And she did not thi

raid that the Princess had too much displeasure against her daughter, seei

o less than decency demanded for their rescue and sustenance. She would not wish that Lady Rohtraut to dwell in her house and at her charges for ever, for she must have her due

ery quickly release the Princess's daughter. For they would fear the might of the Dacres and the Duke of

emings and Almains landing in his dominion; but the Lady Margaret might be certain that that

iercely that her eyes grew red and dreadful. She smote her breast wit

Duke of Croy, that shall go to that Castle but I alone and bij Gott! It is at my wrath

upon that knight and asked him, jesting bitterly, if he had any better advice to give her. He said that he had none, but that he would very gladly

was minded to break the great lords of the North and that that was the King's mind, Sir Bertram frowned heavily. When she said that it was the duty of great lords not to support too readily a new King that they had set up, nor too abjectly to obey him or lavishly fawn upon him, that knight's eyebrows went

f the matter was that all the English and their lords were murderers and wallowers in blood, sl

ur of the Lady Margaret. He was a King set up by certain lords and pulled down again when they found him evil. And, as far as the practice went, he would be satisfied to have that the touchstone for King Henry VII. For he was certain that that King would prove a dread lord benign, loving and prudent; all mighty lords and Princes of the N

d that upon such terms they might soon be good friends.

d not think all these thoughts of the constitution of this realm of England

adise! For such a gentle lording or one so wise in the reading of books, anxious for the good of his estate, so fine of his fair body, so fierce in war and fightful in the breach, or so merciful to his foes, they

lowered his

. "This was a very gallant gentleman. I

Prince

such a swan and phoenix

You have lived too much amongst the Dacres to

no windows at all towards the street, to make it the stronger, and that staircase served all the rooms. This old fashion struck the Lord Dacre as very barbarous, and he would have it all pulled down, with a big hall and hangings upon the ground floor and large square windows with carvings on them, as was t

hat his fish and trout, eels and lampreys, were not fine enough to set before that Princess. Much of this could be heard in that room, and then came the sounds of the feet of a company of horse and the clank

that fisherman into the kitchen and he to be given twenty stripes-for she had heard what passed between him and the steward-the door into the street was to be shut and news to be brought h

little and winding. Then they heard her clamorously upbraiding alike old steward and the fisherman for the clamour they

for it, since, as you tell me, that late King showed great courtesy here in the North parts when he was Duke of Gloucester. And well King Richard III knew how to bear courtesy when it suited him, though at other times he

set up a chantry where masses may be said for the dead King's soul. If he had been alive I would have fought for him, but now I will see if I may live at peace with Henry of Richmond for a King. For to be sure, what we need in these North parts is peace amongst ourselves, that husbandry and mining and fisheries may flourish on my lands and others. And so on

out here, "you speak more like a lawye

in gravely upon the Lady Margaret who, in her voluminous gown, sat on her little stool beside that kind of throne an

agreement with me in the gentle Lord Lovell's na

re of Holy Church. Yet nowadays strange things are seen, books not written by hand, Greek sorcerers, as I have heard, driven out of Byzantium by the Sultan, who press with new learnings across Christendom. I have heard there

long a prisoner amongst the false Scots or the thieves of

white mail or black, as the saying is. And maybe, as you think, they clapped that messenger into prison for greater secrecy, so that the countryside might have no news of your lord but consider him gone away with warlocks and others. But, in the first place, is it to be thought that such a messenger could be come from that Elliott to Castle Lovell and no one know it? Would not the Castle Lovell bondsmen see him and report it to your bondsmen and so on through all the countryside? For what cause should that messenger have in going to Castle Lovell, to be very secret, though Cullerford and Haltwh

lled out at this. "Ye knew it and

ondon Town under a fortnight, should not that Gib Elliott know it in a day or two days at the most, seeing that all the countryside talked of that and nought else? For it is not every day that a great lord dies and robbers seize upon his Castle and imprison his sad widow. So, very surely, this Gib Elliott would hear of this thing or ever his messenger could come to Cas

times Saint Katharine, whom I love above other saints, appeared to me in a gown of gold and damask and leaning upon her wheel

knight rai

are true dreams and false dreams and dreams wrongly interpreted. And of this I am instantly ass

reast heaved as she bade him say then where he considered that that lord shoul

g which is for ordinary men, a thing very evil at all times, leading to sorceries and civil strife and change. And from the West is talk of a New World possessed with demons and pagans and dusky fiends as is now on the lips of all men. And I hold it for certain that, if anything evil an

said; "what shall a parcel of soft Greeks or I

-fangled lore, as I have heard: he has read in many books of which I know not so much as the name; such as Ysidores Ethimologicarum or Summa Reymundi-or maybe I have the names wrong. And he has travelled to Venice where many evil, eldritch and strange t

y Margaret said, "and so fair and kin

rtram cross

ked, "heard where she

t she was the King's mistress of Sco

with a monk and a small company of spears go over Framwell Gate Bridge. The sun was upon their armour. And, as they rode over it, I perceived upon the banks before me a wondrous fair figure of a woman in white garments, going among the thick of the trees as lightly as if it had been a flower garden. And, as she went, she held her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun so as to gaze upon that

r hand to her throat. Her face was

ye lie. For that lady had the

, "are, as is known to all men, best fe

ried at him, "I have heard such

so she fell enamoured of him. Such things happen. And so, coming in a magic boat, in the morning before cockcrow she finds him-having waited many years for this chance-by the sea-shore where you say that chapel was. And so she beguile

e words upon his lips. And so they heard a voice speak

knight, "I think you do lie. For I hear my tr

ps a sort of fear descended upon both Sir Bertram and

the eighth wond