The Last of the Barons — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (books to read for self improvement TXT) 📕

Graul Skellet, tossing up her timbrel, darted to the fugitives and grinned a ghastly grin when she heard the news,—for the tymbesteres were all loyal to a king who loved women, and who had a wink and a jest for every tramping wench! The troopers tarried not, however, for further converse, but, having satisfied their thirst, hurried and clattered from the yard. At the sight of the ominous tymbesteres Sibyll had drawn back, without daring to close the lattice she had opened; and the women, seating themselves on a bench, began sleeking their long hair and smoothing their garments from the scraps of straw and litter which betokened the nature of their resting-place.

“Ho, girls!” said the fat landlord, “ye will pay me for board and bed, I trust, by a show of your craft. I have two right worshipful lodgers up yonder, whose lattice looks on the yard, and whom ye may serve to divert.”

Sibyll trembled, and crept to her father’s side.

“And,” continued the landlord, “if they like the clash of your musicals, it may bring ye a groat or so, to help ye on your journey. By the way, whither wend ye, wenches?”

“To a bonny, jolly fair,” answered the sinister voice of Graul,—

“Where a mighty SHOWMAN dyes The greenery into red; Where, presto! at the word Lies his Fool without a head; Where he gathers in the crowd To the trumpet and the drum, With a jingle and a tinkle, Graul’s merry lasses come!”

As the two closing lines were caught by the rest of the tymbesteres, striking their timbrels, the crew formed themselves into a semicircle, and commenced their dance. Their movements, though wanton and fantastic, were not without a certain wild grace; and the address with which, from time to time, they cast up their instruments and caught them in descending, joined to the surprising agility with which, in the evolutions of the dance, one seemed now to chase, now to fly from, the other, darting to and fro through the ranks of her companions, winding and wheeling,—the chain now seemingly broken in disorder, now united link to link, as the whole force of the instruments clashed in chorus,—made an exhibition inexpressibly attractive to the vulgar.

The tymbesteres, however, as may well be supposed, failed to draw Sibyll or Warner to the window; and they exchanged glances of spite and disappointment.

“Marry,” quoth the landlord, after a hearty laugh at the diversion, “I do wrong to be so gay, when so many good friends perhaps are lying stark and cold. But what then? Life is short,—laugh while we can!”

“Hist!” whispered his housekeeper; “art wode, Ned? Wouldst thou have it discovered that thou hast such quality birds in the cage—noble Yorkists—at the very time when Lord Hastings himself may be riding this way after the victory?”

“Always right, Meg,—and I’m an ass!” answered the host, in the same undertone. “But my good nature will be the death of me some day. Poor gentlefolks, they must be unked dull, yonder!”

“If the Yorkists come hither,—which we shall soon know by the scouts,—we must shift Sir John and the damsel to the back of the house, over thy tap-room.”

“Manage it as thou wilt, Meg; but thou seest they keep quiet and snug. Ho, ho, ho! that tall tymbestere is supple enough to make an owl hold his sides with laughing. Ah! hollo, there, tymbesteres, ribaudes, tramps, the devil’s chickens,—down, down!”

The host was too late in his order. With a sudden spring, Graul, who had long fixed her eye on the open lattice of the prisoners, had wreathed herself round one of the pillars that supported the stairs, swung lightly over the balustrade; and with a faint shriek the startled Sibyll beheld the tymbestere’s hard, fierce eyes, glaring upon her through the lattice, as her long arm extended the timbrel for largess. But no sooner had Sibyll raised her face than she was recognized.

“Ho, the wizard and the wizard’s daughter! Ho, the girl who glamours lords, and wears sarcenet and lawn! Ho, the nigromancer who starves the poor!”

At the sound of their leader’s cry, up sprang, up climbed the hellish sisters! One after the other, they darted through the lattice into the chamber.

“The ronions! the foul fiend has distraught them!” groaned the landlord, motionless with astonishment; but the more active Meg, calling to the varlets and scullions, whom the tymbesteres had collected in the yard, to follow her, bounded up the stairs, unlocked the door, and arrived in time to throw herself between the captives and the harpies, whom Sibyll’s rich super-tunic and Adam’s costly gown had inflamed into all the rage of appropriation.

“What mean ye, wretches?” cried the bold Meg, purple with anger. “Do ye come for this into honest folk’s hostelries, to rob their guests in broad day—noble guests—guests of mark! Oh, Sir John! Sir John! what will ye think of us?”

“Oh, Sir John! Sir John!” groaned the landlord, who had now moved his slow bulk into the room. “They shall be scourged, Sir John! They shall be put in the stocks, they shall be brent with hot iron, they—”

“Ha, ha!” interrupted the terrible Graul, “guests of mark! noble guests, trow ye! Adam Warner, the wizard, and his daughter, whom we drove last night from their den, as many a time, sisters, and many, we have driven the rats from charnel and cave.”

“Wizard! Adam! Blood of my life!” stammered the landlord, “is his name Adam after all?”

“My name is Adam Warner,” said the old man, with dignity, “no wizard—a humble scholar, and a poor gentleman, who has injured no one. Wherefore, women—if women ye are—would ye injure mine and me?”

“Faugh, wizard!” returned Graul, folding her arms. “Didst thou not send thy spawn, yonder, to spoil our mart with her gittern? Hast thou not taught her the spells to win love from the noble and young? Ho, how daintily the young witch robes herself! Ho, laces and satins, and we shiver with the cold, and parch with the heat—and—doff thy tunic, minion!”

And Graul’s fierce gripe was on the robe, when the landlord interposed his huge arm, and held her at bay.

“Softly, my sucking dove, softly! Clear the room and be off!”

“Look to thyself, man. If thou harbourest a wizard against law,—a wizard whom King Edward hath given up to the people,—look to thy barns,—they shall burn; look to thy cattle,—they shall rot; look to thy secrets,—they shall be told. Lancastrian, thou shalt hang! We go! we go! We have friends amongst the mailed men of York. We go,—we will return! Woe to thee, if thou harbourest the wizard and the succuba!”

With that Graul moved slowly to the door. Host and housekeeper, varlet, groom, and scullion made way for her in terror; and still, as she moved, she kept her eyes on Sibyll, till her sisters, following in successive file, shut out the hideous aspect: and Meg, ordering away her gaping train, closed the door.

The host and the housekeeper then gazed gravely at each other. Sibyll lay in her father’s arms breathing hard and convulsively. The old man’s face