The Broken Font (Historical Novel). Moyle Sherer
of sterner stuff, Sir Oliver, than to wish a rogue safe from the beadle, or a traitor from the headsman; but I am not so taught as to think the mistakes of a severe piety treasons deserving of torture.”
“Odd’s life! I see how it is—thou art bitten by these gloomy fanatics—the venom is in thy veins:—well for me that I have seen its first workings. By my fathers! these new papists, these worse Carthusians, would drive sunshine from the earth, and kill the flowers, and stop the singing of birds, and give us a world of rock and clouds—hard as their stony hearts, and gloomy as their cold minds! Master Cuthbert, we must part. I’ll not have the path of my boy shadowed over before it be God’s will. The earth is green and goodly, and pleasant to the eyes; and long may his heart rejoice in it, as mine has before him. Look you, we must part.”
“At your pleasure I came, Sir Oliver, and I am ready, at your pleasure, to return to my father’s. My stay with you has been short, and I would fain hope that I have not failed in my duty to you. May you be more fortunate in your choice of a tutor for Master Arthur than you have been in me!”
Cuthbert spoke these words with so much self-command that not one syllable trembled in the utterance; yet the tone was at once mournful and resolved.
The better feelings of Sir Oliver were touched: the expression of his eye showed plainly that he was repenting of his hastiness, relenting in his decision. What his reply might have been, may, in its spirit, be easily imagined; but a sudden interruption checked the words that were rising to his lips; and a sounder and more prudential reason for desiring the departure of Cuthbert was presented to his judgment than any objection which could have been urged at that time, with any semblance of fairness, against his errors as a churchman, or his sins as a subject.
“Master Noble,” called a rich clear voice from above them—“Master Noble, we poor players do wait your pleasure, and are ready with our parts; but we cannot go on with our rehearsal till the manager doth come to us.” Looking up, Sir Oliver saw his daughter leaning over the balustrade, with a paper in one hand, and a tall wand wreathed with flowers in the other; and, as he turned his eyes upon Cuthbert Noble, the strong emotions with which Cuthbert was evidently struggling did not escape his observation.
“I have business with him just now, Kate,” said her father: “go thy way. He shall come to thee in the hall anon.” But as he spoke, the boy Arthur came down the steps, leading in his hand the little girl; and, running up to Cuthbert with joyous eagerness, cried out, “Kitten can do her part—she can say every word quite perfect—you must hear her.” With that, the little girl letting go his hand, and putting back her sunny curls, which had fallen over her blue eyes, repeated, with an air of sweet intelligence and pretty innocence, these lines:—
“I do childhood represent,
Listen to my argument:
Mine the magic power to bring
Pleasure out of every thing;
Sunbeams, flowers, and summer air,
Music, wonders, visions fair,
All my happy steps attend;
Mine is peace without an end;—
All things are at peace with me,
Beast in field, and bird on tree;
The sheep that lie upon the grass
Never stir as I do pass;
If by the singing bird I stray,
He never quits his chosen spray;
If to the squirrel’s haunt I go,
He comes with curious eye below;
Earth and I are full of love,
I fear no harm from Heav’n above,
For there, as here, all things do tell
A Father God doth surely dwell:—
O! could I be a child alway,
How happy were life’s holyday!”
The countenance of Sir Oliver recovered all its wonted expression of good humour, as the child prettily recited these lines; and patting her on the head, as she concluded, he turned to Cuthbert and said, in his usual kind tone, “We will talk our matter over another time: I see that you are no joy-killer, and would never mar an innocent pleasure-making—I was ever fond of a good play—a pox on these prick-eared knaves that would forbid them!
“ ‘Why kings and emperors have taen delight
To make experience of their wits in plays,’
as Master Kyd hath it, in his Spanish tragedy.”
Cuthbert said nothing; but having a recollection of the passage from which Sir Oliver had quoted, thought he might have found a more comfortable sanction and a much better authority.
“But, prithee,” continued Sir Oliver, “whose rhymes be these that the child has just spoken?”
“They are my poor doggerel,” answered Cuthbert; “for this dear child would give me no rest till I made a part for her in the Birthday Masque.”
“Marry,” rejoined the knight, “the fancy of them pleaseth me, and for the verse I care not.”
They all now turned to ascend the steps; and as they did so, apparent at the same instant to both Sir Oliver and Cuthbert was Mistress Katharine, leaning over the balustrade of the upper terrace, with an air of grave and perplexed curiosity.
As soon as they reached the top, which was level with the lawn in front of the mansion, Katharine caught Kitten in her arms, kissed her fair brow, and ran with her towards the house; the happy child calling out the while, “Come along, Master Noble, pray, come,” and at the same time clapping together her two little hands at thought of the coming pleasure.
CHAP. II.
“White, I dare not say good, witches (for woe be to him
that calleth evil good!) heal those that are hurt, and help them
to lost goods.
“Methinks she should bewitch to herself a golden mine, at
least good meat, and whole clothes.”
Fuller’s Profane State.
While a select few among the maidens and the serving men, who were, to their great contentment, to figure beneath strange dresses and uncouth vizards in the antimasque, and while some neighbouring gentles of quality, who were to take part in the masque itself, were rehearsing in the hall, old Philip, the butler, betook himself to the outer gate, and there sitting down on the porter’s stone, replenished his pipe, and fell a-thinking about Sir Oliver and Master Noble. But the more he thought, the more he was puzzled; and so he opened his vest to catch the breeze from the valley, and smoked with half-closed eyes, too much accustomed to the glorious scene before him to be always moved by its beauties. Below him, in the rich bottom of the vale, flowed the shining Avon. The white foam of the water at Guy’s mill might be seen, and the rush of it might be almost heard.
The cliff of the renowned Guy presented a fine scarp of stone, the summit of which was overhung with knotted and rude shrubs of a fantastic growth; and far away to the left, at a distance of two miles, might be seen the lordly towers, and the tall and ivied wall of Warwick Castle. Such were the objects, which might, we say, have been discerned from the spot where old Philip sate, together with broad and pleasant meadows, well stocked with kine and sheep, and many goodly trees of a stately size, and many a distant coppice of rich underwood. Doubtless the old man had often felt the glad influence of that scene—but now, overcome with heat, tobacco, and the labour of perplexed guesses about the grave mood of his master, he fell fast asleep. Philip was one of those good faithful old creatures whose world was his master’s, and