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

Meanwhile, Edward departed, for further preparations, to the Tower of London. New evidences of the mine beneath his feet here awaited the incredulous king. On the door of St. Paul’s, of many of the metropolitan churches, on the Standard at Chepe, and on London Bridge, during the past night, had been affixed, none knew by whom, the celebrated proclamation, signed by Warwick and Clarence (drawn up in the bold style of the earl), announcing their speedy return, containing a brief and vigorous description of the misrule of the realm, and their determination to reform all evils and redress all wrongs. [See, for this proclamation, Ellis’s “Original Letters,” vol. i., second series, letter 42.] Though the proclamation named not the restoration of the Lancastrian line (doubtless from regard for Henry’s safety), all men in the metropolis were already aware of the formidable league between Margaret and Warwick. Yet, even still, Edward smiled in contempt, for he had faith in the letter received from Clarence, and felt assured that the moment the duke and the earl landed, the former would betray his companion stealthily to the king; so, despite all these exciting subjects of grave alarm, the nightly banquet at the Tower was never merrier and more joyous. Hastings left the feast ere it deepened into revel, and, absorbed in various and profound contemplation, entered his apartment. He threw himself on a seat, and leaned his face on his hands.

“Oh, no, no!” he muttered; “now, in the hour when true greatness is most seen, when prince and peer crowd around me for counsel, when noble, knight, and squire crave permission to march in the troop of which Hastings is the leader,—now I feel how impossible, how falsely fair, the dream that I could forget all—all for a life of obscurity, for a young girl’s love! Love! as if I had not felt its delusions to palling! love, as if I could love again: or, if love—alas, it must be a light reflected but from memory! And Katherine is free once more!” His eye fell as he spoke, perhaps in shame and remorse that, feeling thus now, he had felt so differently when he bade Sibyll smile till his return!

“It is the air of this accursed court which taints our best resolves!” he murmured, as an apology for himself; but scarcely was the poor excuse made, than the murmur broke into an exclamation of surprise and joy. A letter lay before him; he recognized the hand of Katherine. What years had passed since her writing had met his eye, since the lines that bade him “farewell, and forget!” Those lines had been blotted with tears, and these, as he tore open the silk that bound them—these, the trace of tears, too, was on them! Yet they were but few, and in tremulous characters. They ran thus:—

To-morrow, before noon, the Lord Hastings is prayed to visit one whose life he hath saddened by the thought and the accusation that she hath clouded and embittered his. KATHERINE DE BONVILLE.

Leaving Hastings to such meditations of fear or of hope as these lines could call forth, we lead the reader to a room not very distant from his own,—the room of the illustrious Friar Bungey.

The ex-tregetour was standing before the captured Eureka, and gazing on it with an air of serio-comic despair and rage. We say the Eureka, as comprising all the ingenious contrivances towards one single object invented by its maker, a harmonious compound of many separate details; but the iron creature no longer deserved that superb appellation, for its various members were now disjointed and dislocated, and lay pell-mell in multiform confusion.

By the side of the friar stood a female, enveloped in a long scarlet mantle, with the hood partially drawn over the face, but still leaving visible the hard, thin, villanous lips, the stern, sharp chin, and the jaw resolute and solid as if hewed from stone.

“I tell thee, Graul,” said the friar, “that thou hast had far the best of the bargain. I have put this diabolical contrivance to all manner of shapes, and have muttered over it enough Latin to have charmed a monster into civility. And the accursed thing, after nearly pinching off three fingers, and scalding me with seething water, and spluttering and sputtering enough to have terrified any man but Friar Bungey out of his skin, is obstinatus ut mulum,—dogged as a mule; and was absolutely good for nought, till I happily thought of separating this vessel from all the rest of the gear, and it serves now for the boiling my eggs! But by the soul of Father Merlin, whom the saints assoil, I need not have given myself all this torment for a thing which, at best, does the work of a farthing pipkin!”

“Quick, master; the hour is late! I must go while yet the troopers and couriers and riders, hurrying to and fro, keep the gates from closing. What wantest thou with Graul?”

“More reverence, child!” growled the friar. “What I want of thee is briefly told, if thou hast the wit to serve me. This miserable Warner must himself expound to me the uses and trick of his malignant contrivance. Thou must find and bring him hither!”

“And if he will not expound?”

“The deputy governor of the Tower will lend me a stone dungeon, and, if need be, the use of the brake to unlock the dotard’s tongue.”

“On what plea?”

“That Adam Warner is a wizard, in the pay of Lord Warwick, whom a more mighty master like myself alone can duly examine and defeat.”

“And if I bring thee the sorcerer, what wilt thou teach me in return?”

“What desirest thou most?”

Graul mused, and said, “There is war in the wind. Graul follows the camp, her trooper gets gold and booty. But the trooper is stronger than Graul; and when the trooper sleeps it is with his knife by his side, and his sleep is light and broken, for he has wicked dreams. Give me a potion to make sleep deep, that his eyes may not open when Graul filches his gold, and his hand may be too heavy to draw the knife from its sheath!”

“Immunda, detestabilis! thine own paramour!”

“He hath beat me with his bridle rein, he hath given a silver broad piece to Grisell; Grisell hath sat on his knee; Graul never pardons!”

The friar, rogue as he was, shuddered. “I cannot help thee to murder, I cannot give thee the potion; name some other reward.”

“I go—”

“Nay, nay, think, pause.”

“I know where Warner is hid. By this hour to-morrow night, I can place him in thy power. Say the word, and pledge me the draught.”

“Well, well, mulier abominabilis!—that is, irresistible bonnibell. I cannot give thee the potion; but I will teach thee an art which can make sleep heavier than the anodyne, and which wastes not like the essence, but strengthens by usage,—an art thou shalt have at thy fingers’ ends, and which often draws from the sleeper the darkest secrets of his heart.” [We have before said that animal magnetism was known to Bungey, and familiar to the necromancers, or rather theurgists, of the Middle Ages.]

“It is magic,” said Graul, with joy.

“Ay, magic.”