Sir Mortimer

e one might halt to admire a fair picture of an old house set in old gardens. Old were the trees that shadowed it, and ivy darkened all its walls; without sound a l

ght a sigh: as for Arden, when he had checked his horse he looked upon

ed for him his new house! There should be the front, there the tower, there the great room where the Queen should lie when

s saddle and looked abou

as it stands, nor will I tear down what my forefathers built. Plain honor and plain truth are the walls thereof, and encompassed by them, the Queen's Grace may lie down with pride.' Brave wor

, ruinous lodge and a twilit avenue, silent and sad beneath the heavy interlacing of leafy boughs. Closing the vista rose a squat do

nd greening spring, he could count upon the fingers of one hand the number of those who had come that way where once there had been gay travelling beneath the locked elms. Another moment and he was at Arden's side, clinging to that gentleman's

ster, Robin-a-dal

Master Arden. This side o' the house the sun shines." Despite his boyish will the tears again filled his eyes. "'Tis May-time now, and there's been none but him above the salt since Lammas-tide. Sir John came and Sir Phil

hence into a long room, cold and shadowy, with the light stealing in through deep windows past screens of fir and yew. Touched by this wan

Robin-a-dale. "Here be c

o brush away thick cobwebs. "Is it you, Giles Arden?" he aske

g! Even the Muses were not bountiful, for my men and I wellnigh ate Edmund Spenser out of Kilcolman. He sends you greeting, Mor

s there any doubt that the man-at-arms who hath lost his uses in the struggle of this wo

nt offence," bega

red. "I have grown churlish of late.

Mortimer? And if, old memories stirring, I have ridden from

est," sa

itterly thou

all who knocked, but it is not so now. Ride on to the town below the hill, and take your rest in the inn! Your bedfellow ma

l, and the town will be crowded with mummers and players, grooms, cutpurses, quacksalvers, and cockatrices, travel

kindness, and withal a curiosity as ignoble as it was keen. Suddenly, as though the fire of that knowledge had leaped to his own heart from that of his host, he knew in every fibre how intolerable was the case of the master of the house, sitting alone in this gloomy chamber, served by this frightened boy, by that old man whose gaze was ever greedy for the quiver of

thy aforetime friend. I will not believe th

he other, steadily. "Nowadays I se

osen," began Arden, h

his feet, pushing from him with a grating sound the heavy oaken settle. "Go!" he cried. "The players and mummers are there. Go sit upon the stage, and in the middle of the play cry to your neighbors: 'These be no actors! Why, once I knew a man who could so mask it that he deceived himself!' There are quacksalvers who will sell you anyth

he said, "Master Arden ever loved a good song. Now sing him the

ster," answered the boy, an

k again beneath his hand. "Did I not exerc

. "Shall I not also torture where I can? Sing, Robin, my man! Fling back your head and sing like the

to sing, with bravado, a fierce red in his

ladies, and lis

your ears of a fa

honor, but he treas

o her hands his

ed city with the pal

he Cygnet, and it s

hore, they're tak

in galleys or their

is sleep, the crav

ir bones, their bloo

at the interruption, ceased his singing, and in the heavy silence that fol

and laid the hand upon his head.

too little what thou wast of old, and thou seest not fairly in these shadows. I know that Philip Sidney and John Nevil have come to Ferne House, and

mney-piece. There was that in the quiet, almost stealthy regularity of his motions that gave sub

e is not One who may read the writing beneath the blot. But from the time of Cain to the

brother wilfull

cade I, their leader, sent them.... I fell, not wilfully, but through lack of will. Now, an the Godhead within me be not flown, I will recover myself,--but never what is past and gone, never the dead flowers, never the souls I set loose, never one hour's eternal scar!... Enough

n occasion," said Arden. "Ride with me now, Mortime

taken me there. But now that I have so

pace the floor. "I did never think to hear of Ferne House fallen to strange hands! Your f

r, "but I, his son, am of iron, or what baser

d the other. "'Tis not by that pagan's advic

ney," said F

o more forever; soldier and sea-king, comrade and leader of brave men never, never again,--what wanted he so much, what other was his imperative need than this old, quiet house sunk in the shadows of its age-old trees, grave with a certain solemnity, to

hat he does the Queen noble service.... Well, even

d the visitor. "What more retire

ght and mournful, yet wonder. "Of course you also would think that," he said at last. "Even Robin thinks that the stained blade should rust in its sc

d to take me with you!" and flung himself down upon

villains and desperate folk, or they would not sail with me. Some that seemed honest have fallen away since they knew the

nded Arden, and whee

ll forget me, but Spain may remember.... For the rest, I go to search for Robert Baldry; to seek if not to find my enemy, the foe that I held in contempt, whom in my heart I despised because he was not poet and

spered Arden. "Su

him die. And we know that these Spanish tombs do somet

he Holy Office!" cried the other. "One ship--a scoundrel

e do cry out for deliverance, looking towards the sea, thinking, 'Where is now a friend?'" He left the table and came near to Arden. "'Twas a kindl

to the Indies, Morti

then, "No, no," answered Fern

d him not; John Nevil was in the north and had helpers enough. The slaying of Spaniards was at once good service and good sport. Best take him along for ol

urse me by all your gods! Speak not to me--I am not hungry for a friend! I have no faith to pledge against your trust! The rabble which await me upon my ship, I have bought them with my gold, and they know me, who I am. For Robin--God help the boy! He had a fever, and he would not cease his cries un

s borne in upon him that here and now friendship could give no aid. When, half an hour later, he arrived at the Blue Swan in the neighboring town and called for aqua-vit?, mine host, jolly and ro

eaches in the garden walls where they had crumbled into ruin, and through these openings, beyond dark masses of all-covering ivy, sight might be had of old trees set in alleys, of primrose-yellowed downs, and of a distant cliff-head where sheep grazed, while far below gleamed a sap

th of a purpose slowly formed, then held like iron; there had been the humble pleading for freedom, the long delay, the hope deferred; then, his petition granted, the going forth to mart and highway, the bargaining, amidst curious traffickers, for that rotting sh

ently, with spirit touch, it brought him healing simples. Utterly weary as he was, the balm of the hour at last flowed over him, faintl

st leaves. The long ridge of them kept the late sunshine, and so far was it lifted above the earth, so still in that dreamy hour, so touched with pale gold, so distant and so delicate against high heaven, that it caught and held eye and soul of the man for whom Fate had borrowed Ixion's wheel. He gazed until the poet in him sighed with pure pleasure; then came forgetfulness; then, presently, he looked into his he

d with something rich and strange in her bearing and her dress. Cloth of silver sheathed her body, while the flowing sleeves that half revealed, half hid her white and rounded arms were of silver tissue over watchet blue, and of watchet was the mantle which she had let fall upon the step beside her. A net of w

Queen upon her progress," she said. "This day at the Earl's there is a great masque of Dian and her huntresses, satyrs, fauns, all manner of sylvan folk. At last I might steal aside unmissed.... By the favor of a friend I

. They took their seat upon the wide stone bench, with the primroses at their feet, and above them the empurpling arch of the sky. Throughout the past months, when he dreamed of her, when he thought of her, he bowed himself before her, he raised not his eyes to hers. But now their looks met, and his countenance of a hag

he first

e gone since that

swered, "se

on life that way. Since that day at Whit

If to have done so is to your irreparable loss, then this, also, is to be forgiven.... Long life

happy wishes! Let me not think that such wishes dwell in your heart. Since that

have sorely wounded her whom I love, and with my own words I have seared that wou

My brother's face came between us.... Oh, my broth

justly," he began, but she interr

ot if they heard me, there be so many that clamor in their ears...." With a quick movement she arose from the stone seat and began to pace the grass-plot, her hands clasped behind her head, t

her. "And thy heart led thee t

igh noon had returned to the garden. "Pluck me yonder lil

g. "Presently it will close,"

not," she answered. "Think you not ther

ered. They paced again the

e, there, at the court even, else, beshrew me, if I had come this way to-day! I know that thou goest forth--" Her voice broke and the gold star shook with t

lds of her silver gown and held her where she stood. "For my soul's w

and there fell from her eyes a bright rain of tears, quickly come, quickly checked. "Ah, a contrary world

arms. "The story is true," he w

was done.' Say I, 'Thou didst it!'

it, and buried her face in her arms. He kneeled beside her, and presently she was crouching against his breast, that rose

h, God wot! brother and sister we have loved you well.... If I could keep tryst, after all, if thou couldst make me thy wife before thou goest--or if kindred and the Queen be too powerful, I could esca

K NOT SO

d purples towards the kiss of heaven and sea--flotsam of this earth, jetsam of age-distant shores, each to the other paradise and all in all! How profound the stillness--how deep the fragrance of the lily--what indifference, what quiet as of scorn did the Maker of man, having placed his creature in the lists, turn aside to other spectacles!... Should man be more careful than his God? Righ

nd bit the flesh until blood started; he moved towards her where she sat with her hands clasped above her knee, her head thrown back, watching his coming with those deep

am that I would leave thee here blasted by my name, or that I would carr

ith thee," she

roken wall, and leaning upon it, looked out to that far line o

he breathed. "How bran

nswered, "so I shall

ines on," he said. "Thy lips are like

, and raised her face to his.

ken, swallows circled past. "It grows late

n the

I would I were a queen. If thou goest to death--oh God!

her hands. Raising her arm

om its fellow of watchet blue she detached her floating silver s

When I may, my lady," he said, with his eyes upon the s

e thrush was silent now, but from a covert rushed suddenly the full tide of a nightingale's song. With a cry the

u how broken I am? I that myself loosed all the winds--I that kneel, a penitent, before the just and the unjust, before my lover and my foe! But when all's said, all's done, all's quiet:--the arrow sped, the stone fallen, the curfew rung, the dust returned to dust! then shall stand my soul.... A rui

reside here. Think, 'Even in this wavering life I have an abiding home, a heart that's true, true, true to me!' When thou diest--if thou diest first--linger for me; where a thousand years are as a day travel not so far t

oo deep for dreaming. For we plan a temple though we build it not.... That falconer's whist

of an atom of space, they sent their linked hopes, their mailed certainties forth to the unseen, untrenched fields of the future, and held their love coeval with existence. Then, slowly, she withdrew herself from his clasp, and as slowly moved backward to the broken stair. He waited by the stone seat, for she must go secretly and in silence, and he might not, as in old times, lead her with

been vouchsafed to him going through the orchard that eventide, felt as light a heart as if no shadowy ship awaited in the little port down by the little town, whose people either cursed or looked askance. Waking in the middle of the night, he thought he saw a knight at prayer--one of the old stone Templars from Ferne church, where