He had scarcely time to give a nod of recognition to several neighbours who stood near the entrance, when the steward approached, and, desiring him to walk further up the hall, placed him at the first step that elevated the upper end, thus cutting off every possibility of communicating with his neighbours. Holgrave felt any thing but composure in his present conspicuous situation: though strong in the rectitude of his conscience, yet he felt apprehensions and misgivings; and the strange silence that was observed respecting the intended charge alarmed him the more. As the hall was always open on such occasions, he speedily saw a crowd of vassals pouring insome anxious to know the event, either through a feeling of friendship or hatred, and others merely from curiosity. The eyes of each man as he entered, fell, as if instinctively, upon the yeoman; and he could perceive, as they formed into groups, that he was the subject of their conversation. Presently his mother, supported by an old friend named Hartwell, entered, and he thought she regarded him with an earnest and sorrowful look. But his attention was immediately diverted;the upper door opened, and De Boteler and the baroness, with Sir Robert and Lady Knowles, entered the hall.
The abbot of Winchcombe had now become a frequent guest at Sudley. The feelings enkindled by the detention of Edith, and the defiance of De Boteler had passed away and were forgotten. Expiatory presents had been made to the abbey, and a promise given that a gift of land should be added to its already ample endowments. Sudbury, as we have already related, had questioned the monk respecting Holgrave and the child, and, from the evasive replies returned, was strongly inclined to favour the opinion of Isabella, who now, that the application to the smith had failed, became more urgent that some compulsory measure should exact an unequivocal avowal from father John. The wishes of one so powerfully connected as the wife of the influential De Boteler, were, no doubt, of some weight with the abbot; but these certainly would not have influenced him so far as to induce him to adopt a conduct incompatible with the dignity of his character, had not father John been known of late to express strange opinions; and the monk, though poor and friendless, was one of those whose opinions somehow (it can scarcely be said why) appeared of consequence. It was true that, although but an illiterate bondman when he gained admission to the cloister, he was now, if not entirely, the most learned, undoubtedly the most talented and industrious within its walls: no monk transcribed so much, none was more devout, more strict in discipline, more attentive to the numerous and fatiguing duties of his situation as a secular monk in administering the sacraments, attending the sick, &c. But, though thus exemplary, strange things were said of him. He had been heard to declare, for instance, that villeinage was oppressive, and in every sense unjust; and that every villein was justified, whenever an opportunity offered, in escaping from bondage. These opinions, although not sufficiently heinous to have subjected him to ecclesiastical punishment, were yet considered sinful;the first as uncharitable, and the second as subversive of good order: and they induced Sudbury to act with more rigour than he would have been inclined to adopt had there been only the vague suspicions of the lady to urge his interference. Father John, therefore, was again questioned, and commanded, by his vow of obedience, to disclose the retreat of Holgrave, and reveal all he knew respecting the lost child: but threats availed not. In the midst of these adjurations, the abbot received a paper from a messenger, who burst breathless into the room, with the intelligence that the Lady Isabella had fallen down in a swoon in her own chamber.
ONE:Oh, Boarzell, Boarzell!... his love, his dream, his promised land, lying there in the cold white hope of morning! No degenerate sons could rob him of his Moor, though they might leave him terribly alone on it. After all, better be alone with his ambition, than share it with their defiling thoughts, their sordid, humdrum, milk-and-water schemes. In future he would try no more to interest his children in Boarzell. He had tried to thrill Robert and Albert and Richard with his glorious enterprise, and they had all forsaken himone for love, one for fame, and one for some still unknown unworthiness. He would not trouble about the others;[Pg 191] they should serve him for no other reason but that he was a hard master. He had been hard with the three boys, but he had been exciting and confiding too. Now he would drop all that. He would cease to look for comradeship in his children, as years ago he had ceased to look for it in his wife. It would be enough if they were just slaves working under his whip. He had been a fool to expect sympathy.... Boarzell, looming blacker and blacker against the glowing pinks and purples of the sky, seemed to mock at sympathy and its cheap colours, seemed to bid him Be Hard, Be Strong, Be RemorselessBe Alone.
TWO:He managed to slip over to Eggs Hole that evening. Albert, whom his father had not treated gently on the day of the choir practice, refused to be his accomplice a second time, but Reuben, thinking his rebellion crushed, kept a less strict watch over him, and took himself off after supper to the Cocks, where he had weighty matters of politics and agriculture to discuss. Robert seized his opportunity, and ran the whole way to Eggs Holelaid his plans before Bessieand ran the whole way back again.
TWO:Calverley's specious arguments availed no longer, and, muttering curses upon the jailor, whose officiousness had prevented the possibility of that consummation he so devoutly wished, he received the command to set Holgrave at liberty."Follow him!" said De Boteler, in a voice that was reverberated from the high-carved roof, "and place him instantly in the tumbrel, if the whole force of the castle should be employed." But it was easier, however, to command than to enforce; the whole strength of the castle could not attack a single individual; and Wat, on leaving the apartment, had rushed through the doorway that separated the two court-yards, and, seizing a large splinter of wood that lay on the ground, now stood with his back against the wall of the stables.
TWO:"I am afraid, Isabella," replied De Boteler, "that the knave has escaped us. Dean Forest is a royal demesne, and a bondman, remaining unclaimed, in such a place, for a year and a day, can claim the privilege of a king's villein."
THREE:How horrible everything had been! How horrible everything was still, with that loggish, inanimate thing lying there, all that was left of Beautiful Harry. Reuben wondered if he would die. If so, he had killed himhe had ignored his own inexperience and played splashy tricks with his new land. But nohe had not killed himit was Boarzell, claiming a victim in the signal-rite of its subjection. He remembered how that thirsty ground had drunk up Harry's blood. Perhaps it would drink up much more blood before he had done with itperhaps it would one day drink up his blood.... A vague, a sudden, a ridiculous fear clutched his thoughts; for the first time he felt afraid of the thing he had set out to conquerfor the first time Boarzell was not just unfruitful soil, harsh heather clumps and gorse-rootsit was something personal, opposing, vindictive, blood-drinking.
