The Story of Francis Cludde. Weyman Stanley John
show, had passed into the courtyard.
The light was failing, and the place looked dark and gloomy in spite of the warm glow of burning logs which poured from the lower windows, and some show of green boughs which had been placed over the doorways in honor of the occasion. I glanced up at a lattice in one of the gables-the window of Petronilla's little parlor. There was no face at it, and I turned fretfully into the hall-and yes, there she was, perched up in one of the high window-seats. She was looking out on the chase, as the maids were doing.
Yes, as the maids were doing. She too was watching for his High Mightiness, I muttered, and that angered me afresh. I crossed the rushes in silence, and climbed up beside her.
"Well," I said ungraciously, as she started, hearing me at her shoulder, "well, have you seen enough of him yet, cousin? You will, I warrant you, before he leaves. A little of him goes far."
"A little of whom, Francis?" she asked simply.
Though her voice betrayed some wonder at my rough tone, she was so much engaged with the show that she did not look at me immediately. This of course kept my anger warm, and I began to feel that she was in the conspiracy against me.
"Of my Lord of Winchester, of course," I answered, laughing rudely; "of Sir Hot-Pot!"
"Why do you call him that?" she remonstrated in gentle wonder. And then she did turn her soft dark eyes upon me. She was a slender, willowy girl in those days, with a complexion clear yet pale-a maiden all bending and gracefulness, yet with a great store of secret firmness, as I was to learn. "He seems as handsome an old man," she continued, "as I have ever met, and stately and benevolent, too, as I see him at this distance. What is the matter with you, Francis? What has put you out?"
"Put me out!" I retorted angrily. "Who said anything had put me out?"
But I reddened under her eyes; I was longing to tell her all, and be comforted, while at the same time I shrank with a man's shame from saying to her that I had been beaten.
"I can see that something is the matter," she said sagely, with her head on one side, and that air of being the elder which she often assumed with me, though she was really the younger by two years. "Why did you not wait for the others? Why have you come home alone? Francis," [with sudden conviction] "you have vexed my father! That is it!"
"He has beaten me like a dog!" I blurted out passionately; "and before them all! Before those strangers he flogged me!"
She had her back to the window, and some faint gleam of wintry sunshine, passing through the gules of the shield blazoned behind her, cast a red stain on her dark hair and shapely head. She was silent, probably through pity or consternation; but I could not see her face, and misread her. I thought her hard, and, resenting this, bragged on with a lad's empty violence.
"He did; but I will not stand it! I give you warning, I won't stand it, Petronilla!" and I stamped, young bully that I was, until the dust sprang out of the boards, and the hounds by the distant hearth jumped up and whined. "No! not for all the base bishops in England!" I continued, taking a step this way and that. "He had better not do it again! If he does, I tell you it will be the worse for some one!"
"Francis," she exclaimed abruptly, "you must not speak in that way!"
But I was too angry to be silenced, though instinctively I changed my ground.
"Stephen Gardiner!" I cried furiously. "Who is Stephen Gardiner, I should like to know? He has no right to call himself Gardiner at all! Dr. Stephens he used to call himself, I have heard. A child with no name but his godfather's; that is what he is, for all his airs and his bishopric! Who is he to look on and see a Cludde beaten? If my uncle does not take care-"
"Francis!" she cried again, cutting me short ruthlessly. "Be silent, sir!" [and this time I was silent], "You unmanly boy," she continued, her face glowing with indignation, "to threaten my father before my face! How dare you, sir? How dare you? And who are you, you poor child," she exclaimed, with a startling change from invective to sarcasm-"who are you to talk of bishops, I should like to know?"
"One," I said sullenly, "who thinks less of cardinals and bishops than some folk, Mistress Petronilla!"
"Ay, I know," she retorted scathingly-"I know that you are a kind of half-hearted Protestant-neither fish, flesh, nor fowl!"
"I am what my father made me!" I muttered.
"At any rate," she replied, "you do not see how small you are, or you would not talk of bishops. Heaven help us! That a boy who has done nothing and seen nothing, should talk of the Queen's Chancellor! Go! Go on, you foolish boy, and rule a country, or cut off heads, and then you may talk of such men-men who could unmake you and yours with a stroke of the pen! You, to talk so of Stephen Gardiner! Fie, fie, I say! For shame!"
I looked at her, dazed and bewildered, and had long afterward in my mind a picture of her as she stood above me, in the window bay, her back to the light, her slender figure drawn to its full height, her hand extended toward me. I could scarcely understand or believe that this was my gentle cousin. I turned without a word and stole away, not looking behind me. I was cowed.
It happened that the servants came hurrying in at the moment with a clatter of dishes and knives, and the noise covered my retreat. I had a fancy afterward that, as I moved away, Petronilla called to me. But at the time, what with the confusion and my own disorder, I paid no heed to her, but got myself blindly out of the hall, and away to my own attic.
It was a sharp lesson. But my feelings when, being alone, I had time to feel, need not be set down. After events made them of no moment, for I was even then on the verge of a change so great that all the threats and misgivings, the fevers and agues, of that afternoon, real as they seemed at the time, became in a few hours as immaterial as the dew which fell before yesterday's thunderstorm.
The way the change began to come about was this. I crept in late to supper, facing the din and lights, the rows of guests and the hurrying servants, with a mixture of shame and sullenness. I was sitting down with a scowl next the Bishop's pages-my place was beside them, half-way down the table, and I was not too careful to keep my feet clear of their clothing-when my uncle's voice, raised in a harsher tone than was usual with him, even when he was displeased, summoned me.
"Come here, sirrah!" he cried roundly. "Come here, Master Francis! I have a word to speak to you!"
I went slowly, dragging my feet, while all looked up, and there was a partial silence. I was conscious of this, and it nerved me. For a moment indeed, as I stepped on to the dais I had a vision of scores of candles and rushlights floating in mist, and of innumerable bodiless faces all turned up to me. But the vision and the mistiness passed away, and left only my uncle's long, thin face inflamed with anger, and beside it, in the same ring of light, the watchful eyes and stern, impassive features of Stephen Gardiner. The Bishop's face and his eyes were all I saw then; the same face, the same eyes, I remembered, which had looked unyielding into those of the relentless Cromwell and had scarce dropped before the frown of a Tudor. His purple cap and cassock, the lace and rich fur, the chain of office, I remembered afterward.
"Now, boy," thundered Sir Anthony, pointing out the place where I should stand, "what have you to say for yourself? why have you so misbehaved this afternoon? Let your tongue speak quickly, do you hear, or you will smart for it. And let it be to the purpose, boy!"
I was about to answer something-whether it was likely to make things worse or better, I cannot remember-when Gardiner stayed me. He laid his hand gently on Sir Anthony's sleeve, and interposed. "One moment," he said mildly, "your nephew did not stay for the Church's blessing, I remember. Perhaps he has scruples. There are people nowadays who have. Let us hear if it be so."
This time it was Sir Anthony who did not let me answer.
"No, no," he cried hastily; "no, no; it is not so. He conforms, my lord, he conforms. You conform, sir," he continued, turning fiercely upon me, "do you not? Answer, sir."
"Ah!" the Bishop put in with a sneer, "you conform, do you?"
"I attend mass-to please my uncle," I replied boldly.
"He was ill brought up as a child," Sir Anthony said hastily, speaking in a tone which those below could not hear. "But you know all that, my lord-you