When the commons, trusting to a deceitful promise, had lost that unity which could alone render them formidable, it was no matter of difficulty to secure Holgrave, as he rushed forward to revenge Tyler\'s death. Besides his being a leader, a reward from the baron was offered for his capture; and it was to little purpose that he fought and struggled against a body which attacked him on every side; he was overpowered, and thrown into a cell in St. Bartholomew\'s priory, from which, when the tumult had ceased, he was removed, and, at the baron\'s request, delivered over to him for punishment.
This unexpected consummation wrought upon Holgrave so much, that, with the sullen determination which had marked his character on previous occasions, he resolved not to answer any questions whatever. We should have premised, that the galleyman had given Holgrave a solemn promise, that if any ill befel him, Margaret should be cared for like his own wife. This was a solace to him, as he thought over his mother\'s death, and his own evil destiny. But there was another solace, that, strange as it may appear to some minds, arose from the thought, that whatever might befall him, the baron\'s heir would share in it. At first, when he had been removed to Sudley, mild measures were resorted to. He was lodged in a comfortable apartment, fed plentifully, and promised his freedom with whatever reward he might claim, if he would but speak satisfactorily as to the lost child. When this failed, he was sent to the keep, and for a week black bread and cold water were the only articles of aliment supplied; and then the peine forte et dure was resorted to. But though his face was swollen, and of a livid, purple hue, and the eyes seemed starting from their sockets at the pressure on his chest, as he lay with his limbs extended on the earth, yet would he not speak the word which would have released him from all this suffering. The extreme punishment, however, of adding weights until nature could sustain no more, was delayed from day to day. The baroness had twice given birth to children who had survived but a few hours; the third had lived, but it was a daughter; and as she dwelt upon the approaching extinction of their noble line, she dared not permit the order to be given that might deprive her of all hope. Day after day were the weights pressing and stifling, and forcing the blood that still crept through his veins to his extremities, and distending the hands and feet with a feeling of agony. But though the pressure was at each time removed when the leech pronounced the prisoner exhausted, yet it appeared repetition, though slow, would effect the work as surely as if the punishment had been in the first instance applied in all its legal rigour.
Calverley, although he feigned to exert himself, would not in reality seek for Margaret while Holgrave lived; but Black Jack, who, after eluding the pursuit of Leicester, returned to Sudley, and domesticated himself in the castle under the hope of supplanting Calverley, had, of course, no motive for deception; and the baron\'s offer of gold was too tempting not to call forth all his ingenuity. But neither he, nor fifty other mercenaries who were out upon the scent, could discover the track.
Holgrave had been about a month a prisoner, when Sir Robert Knowles came to Sudley, to announce that Richard would honour the castle with his presence on the following day, and on the next proceed on to Gloucester to hold a parliament. As they were sitting at the evening banquet—
"My Lord de Boteler," said Sir Robert Knowles, "do you remember the circumstance of a certain vassal of yours being accused of shooting a buck?"
"Yes, perfectly."
"His name, I think, was Stephen Holgrave—the same Holgrave that was among the rebels, is it not?"
"The same man, Sir Robert."
"So I thought," returned the knight; "but, however, that must not weigh now. Have you a vassal named John Byles?"
Calverley, who was handing a replenished goblet to Sir Robert\'s page, started so much at this interrogatory, that the wine-cup dropped from his hands.
"Yes," replied De Boteler.
"Has that man a wife named Mary?"
"He has," quickly replied Isabella, unable to divine the cause of such singular enquiries.
"Then, my lord, I request that John Byles and his wife be instantly brought before us; and with your leave, no one passes from this hall except my page, till they appear," continued Sir Robert, as he observed a movement in the steward, indicating an intention to retire.
"Martin," he added to his page, "go you to one of the servitors in the court-yard, and tell him to accompany you to this John Byles; you know how to keep your counsel, and remember, that the Baron de Boteler commands John Byles and his wife to come instantly to the castle. Do you not, my lord?"
"Yes, if it is your pleasure," said the baron, with a smile.
"I perceive," resumed Sir Robert, as the page withdrew, "that my conduct surprises you; but I cannot yet explain."
The surprise, indeed, was not confined to the individuals who sat at the upper table; gradually, as the purport of Sir Robert\'s words was whispered about, did the hall become hushed, and the eyes of those who sat below, and of those who were in attendance, were fixed with a kind of painful expectation upon the baron\'s guest. The domestics, however, were not so entirely engrossed by Sir Robert as to be wholly unmindful of Calverley; and significant nods and smiles were exchanged, as they saw, or fancied they saw, evidences of extreme agitation in the steward. After a few minutes\' expectation, John Byles and his wife were ushered in by the page.
Sir Robert looked inquisitively at the yeoman and his wife, but more particularly at Mary; and, as if he read her character in her countenance, said something in a low voice to De Boteler, who instantly ordered Byles to retire into the ante-room till called for. The door being closed, the baron, at Sir Robert\'s request, bade Mary Byles approach. Mary, upon entering the hall, had looked a very comely sort of personage; but as misgivings gave place to the flattered confidence which had given firmness to her step as she entered, she now presented a totally different aspect.
"Come closer to the table, Mary Byles," said Sir Robert, addressing her in an authoritative, but yet in a familiar tone—"come nearer; and with my Lord de Boteler\'s leave, I shall ask you a few questions." Mary curtsied, and rather hesitatingly approached the foot of the table.
"Now, Mary Byles, I wish you to tell me what kind of a night it was when John Byles and your servitor, Sam, went into my Lord de Boteler\'s chase to kill a buck?"
Mary was of a florid complexion; but at this unexpected question, she stood before the searching look of the baron with her cheeks as colourless as if she had been struck by the angel of death.
"Are you striving to recollect?" asked Sir Robert, without any symptoms of anger.
"I don\'t understand your lordship," at length tremblingly articulated Mary.
"Do you not?—I think I speak plain language—however, if you forget the appearance of the night when the buck was shot, perhaps you can tell me on what day of the week your man, Sam, managed to get into Holgrave\'s cottage, and steal the shafts from the quiver over the fire-place?"
Up to this period the hall had been as still as if Sir Robert and Mary were its only occupants; but at this point a murmur arose, as if by the power of magic, each was in a moment convinced of Holgrave\'s innocence.
"Peace!" vociferated De Boteler—"Answer, woman!" he continued, stamping his foot.
Mary saw that she had nothing to do but deny, and this she did most stoutly.
"Wretch!" said De Boteler, "Why do you not tell the truth?"
But Mary was not to be intimidated, and Sir Robert, perceiving he could gain nothing from her in this way, arose, and approaching the baroness, who had been looking on with much interest, said, softly, "My Lady de Boteler, I wish to put a question or two to this woman, but as what I shall ask must be distressing to you, perhaps you had better retire."
"No—no," replied Isabella, "do not fear for me?—This is so strange, I must hear what you have to say."
"Prepare yourself then, lady," said Sir Robert, and he resumed his seat.
"Mary Byles," he began, "I have one more question to ask you. How many drops of that fatal potion was it that Edith Holgrave told you to give my lord\'s infant?"
A smothered sob from Isabella, now added to Mary\'s perplexity, her cheeks and temples became flushed, and, with a bewildered look, she said—
"I don\'t know—I don\'t remember any thing about it!"
"Now, Mary Byles," resumed Sir Robert, speaking more decisively than he had yet spoken, "I insist upon your giving me a true answer to this—Did you not say to your husband, on the evening you returned from Gloucester, after Edith\'s trial, \'Edith\'s death lies like murder on my conscience; oh, I wish I hadn\'t taken Calverley\'s advice, but had told my lady of the mistake?\'"
"Calverley!" repeated De Boteler, "What did you say of Calverley? What, did Calverley advise you to?"
Mary had sustained herself wonderfully well, considering how unprepared she had been, but this last interrogatory of Sir Robert, conjuring up, as it were, Edith\'s ghost, was too much; she struggled against nature for an instant, and then, giving an hysterical shriek, fell back in strong convulsions.
Two of the domestics were ordered to bear her from the hall; and, when there was again silence, Sir Robert said, "That woman is too artful to betray herself! Let Byles be called in?"
The yeoman re-entered, and Sir Robert began, in a voice so familiar, that Byles was thrown off his guard. "John Byles, how came you to be so foolish as to fall in the ravine the night you and Sam went to shoot the buck?"
"It wasn\'t I who fell in, my lord—it was—"
"—Sam—who fell in," said Sir Robert, as he saw Byles hesitate to proceed farther. "You are right, yeoman, it was Sam, and you helped him out—but I desire you to tell me, if you had succeeded in conveying the buck to Holgrave\'s shed, how many nobles Master Calverley was to have given you?"
Byles looked at his interrogator as if he had been the evil one himself; but he had committed himself, so he thought it the wiser way to say nothing.
"Why do you not answer, man?" continued Sir Robert, at the same time giving De Boteler a glance, intimating that he wished not to be interrupted. "I know how many the steward promised you, but I desire to know how much you received."
"I neither gave nor promised him any thing," said Calverley, approaching the table under the impression of giving a tone to what Byles should say.
"Thou liest, kern!" said Sir Robert, rising suddenly, and in a voice which made Calverley start back. "My Lord de Boteler, I accuse your steward of bribing yonder caitiff to slay a buck with shafts stolen from Stephen Holgrave, and then to lay the slaughtered animal in Holgrave\'s barn. I also accuse him of prevailing upon that man\'s wife to lay the crime of murder upon an innocent woman! And, my lord, if you will hold a court to-morrow morning, one whom I found in the Tower, will prove my charges, and the wronged shall be righted."
"Calverley done all this!" said the baron in a tone of incredulity; but then, as the steward\'s persevering hostility to Holgrave flashed across his mind, it seemed to bring conviction.
The hall at this moment presented a strange spectacle. Every individual except Isabella and Oakley, were on their feet. The domestics, though not venturing to proceed beyond their own table, were bending their heads eagerly forward, to look more particularly at Calverley than at Byles, as if this charge of crime had developed some new feature in the man. Byles, with his hale complexion, changed to the paleness of a corpse, stood trembling at the foot of the table, at the head of which was standing De Boteler, with a flushed countenance and his eyes fixed upon Calverley, with such a look, that if the glance of an eye could have killed, the steward would have been consumed on the spot. There was an instant of silence, or at least there was nothing but an indistinct murmur from the lower end of the hall; and Calverley, who seemed strangely composed, took advantage of the moment to say, though without raising his eyes—
"My lord, whatever charges Sir Robert Knowles may have against me, I am ready to meet them."
"Peace, wretch!" said De Boteler, choking with passion. "Here, let these plotters be confined separately till the morrow—and, Luke," he added, to the old steward, "let you and John Oakley go instantly to Holgrave, and see him removed from the keep, and put him into a warm bed—and take ye a flask of wine and pour some down his throat—and see that the leech attend him." He now turned to Isabella and strove to dispel from her mind the sad thoughts that the last half hour had called up, but it was not, as the baron imagined, the remembrance of her murdered child alone, which had sent a paleness to her cheek, and a tremor through her frame; it was rather the thought that through judging rashly she had been an accessory to the death of one who perhaps deserved reward rather than punishment.
The next morning the hall was again converted into a court of justice. De Boteler took his seat, and the eager vassals crowded in to hear the expected justification of Stephen Holgrave. Calverley, as being a party accused, was of course incapacitated from filling the accustomed situation in the court; and as old Luke was too infirm, Oakley was selected. Black Jack had begun to be very calculating—a portion of the money he had received in London had already disappeared in his secret debauchery. The bribe was not so large as he had been led to expect, and he had sense enough to know that his habits were not adapted for turning what remained to any account. The stewardship of Sudley was so easy and profitable! The very thought of it was delightful—and as nothing had as yet transpired to criminate him, he accepted of the temporary dignity with the most sanguine hopes that Calverley\'s delinquencies might fix him in it permanently.
But lo! when Calverley\'s prison door was opened, for the purpose of conducting him to the hall, he was not to be found! It was to no purpose that the baron stormed and threatened, no trace of Calverley could be discovered; but John Byles was brought forward, and, upon being confronted with his own servitor, and promised that if he made a full disclosure, the punishment of the crime should be remitted, he confessed all with which the reader was made acquainted in the early part of the tale. The question of poisoning was then put, but Byles had cunning enough to remember that no one was privy to this but Calverley, and as it might peril Mary\'s life, he stoutly denied all knowledge of the matter. Mary Byles, who had also been kept in durance, was then introduced, but she was more collected than on the preceding evening, and would admit nothing. She knew not any thing of the buck—and she could say nothing more respecting the poisoning than she had already said at Gloucester, and the supposition of Edith\'s innocence, was compelled to rest upon the servitor\'s oath, who swore that he had heard Mary say, on the evening she returned from Gloucester, what Sir Robert had repeated. This, coupled with the circumstance that, together with the poisoning, Mary had denied what her husband had admitted, and what could not have happened without her knowledge, brought sufficiently conclusive evidence to convince every one that Edith had died a martyr to Mary\'s cruelty or carelessness.
As the baron had promised not to punish, Byles and his wife were dismissed unharmed; but from that hour forward, they were regarded by all as under ban, and therefore shunned as much as possible. We should premise, however, that before Byles was permitted to leave the hall, Stephen Holgrave was led in, that he might receive a public acquittal. When Holgrave entered, supported by one of the servitors, and, appearing unable to stand, was seated on a stool, Sir Robert Knowles, who had more than once taken a strong interest in him, started up, and was about to make some observation; but recollecting himself, he resumed his seat, and remained silent. De Boteler himself felt a glow of shame and a qualm of conscience, as he looked upon the white, swollen face, and bent and shrunken form of one who had, in the moment of peril, sprung, with the vigour and ferocity of the tiger, between him and death. Holgrave had not been informed why the agonizing punishment had been remitted, nor why he had been placed in a comfortable bed, and every attention paid him; and he only suspected that, perceiving severity could effect nothing, they were unwilling to lose their victim, and wished again to try the effect of a milder treatment. His suspicions seemed confirmed, when, upon an order from De Boteler, a page approached, and presented him with a cup of wine. Although, as we have said, suspecting the motive of so much indulgence, he drank the wine, and then, looking round the hall, wondered why there had been such a gathering of the vassals, and why their looks were bent upon him with such friendly interest, and why words of pity and triumph were murmured amongst them; then he wondered why Jack Straw was sitting in Calverley\'s place, and what fault John Byles and his wife had committed, that they stood there like criminals. These thoughts, however, had scarcely passed through his mind, when the baron addressed him in a gentle tone.
"Stephen Holgrave," said he, "you remember, some seven years since, being accused of shooting a buck in my chase. It is not to repeat the charge that I sent for you, but, before this noble sir and these vassals, publicly to acquit you of the base deed. He who stole your arrows, and shot the animal, stands there!" and he pointed towards Byles.—"And he who bribed him to be a thief and a liar, aware of his guilt, has fled, and has for the present escaped my vengeance. And now, Holgrave, it repents me that I dealt so hardly by your mother, for, as I hope to die a Christian\'s death, I believe she died innocent."
Sir Robert had remarked the sudden flush, and then the death-like paleness, which had passed over Holgrave\'s face, as his glance fixed upon Byles; and perceiving that, as his dead mother was spoken of, he became excessively agitated, he ordered his page to carry him another cup of wine; and the two criminals being removed, De Boteler continued,
"Approach, Stephen Holgrave."
Holgrave arose, and though he trembled, excitement had lent him such strength, that he walked up to the baron without assistance. De Boteler then, taking Holgrave\'s right hand, pushed him, with a gentle violence, away, at the same instant repeating, in a loud voice, "Away! thou art free!" and then added, "Hear, all ye assembled, that I, Roland de Boteler, release Stephen Holgrave from his bondage, and that from henceforth he oweth me no allegiance, except what is due as a vassal in chivalry."
And now the vassals, who had hitherto kept in tolerable order, upon seeing Holgrave again a free man, set up such a joyful shout, that the approach of the royal guest was not known until the portals were thrown open, and Richard, leaning familiarly upon the arm of the Earl of Oxford, entered the hall.
"You hold a court to-day, my Lord de Boteler," said Richard, as the baron hurried forward between the ranks of the shrinking vassals to welcome the monarch.
Words of courteous gratulation were uttered by De Boteler, as he led his visitor to a splendid chair which had been prepared for him, and presented, on his knee, a cup of spiced wine. During this, Isabella and Lady Ann Knowles had entered the hall, and, after being presented to the king, Lady Ann whispered to Sir Robert, who requested that Holgrave, who was about to depart, although no longer a prisoner, should remain in the castle, at least for that day. Holgrave promised acquiescence, and the hall being cleared of the tenantry, Richard and the attendant lords, whom he and his favourite had by half an hour outstripped, presently sat down to a splendid banquet.
During their ride, Robert de Vere had acquainted Richard with the singular disappearance of his sister\'s infant son, and with the suspicions she entertained respecting Holgrave. That love of the marvellous, which seems inherent in youth, was awakened in all its vigour in the young king; and, as the repast concluded, he heard, with a feeling of pleasure, De Boteler ask permission to interrogate a vassal in his presence.
"Please your highness," continued the baron, "the man is exceedingly stubborn. We suspect him of having stolen our child, but nothing has as yet been able to extract a confession, though, perhaps, your highness\'s presence may have some effect."
The domestics at the lower table had withdrawn, and Oakley, who was continued in his functions as steward, was ordered to see that Holgrave attended.
"Stephen Holgrave," said De Boteler, as the former approached, "I have sent for you, to certify, in this presence, that I restore to you the land you were once possessed of, with its stock and crops; and whatever you may need besides shall be given you from the stores of the castle:—it is only giving you back your own, Stephen. But it is his grace\'s pleasure, that now, as your late offences are forgiven, you make a full disclosure of whatever you know respecting my stolen child."
All eyes were now riveted upon Holgrave; and a mind, less firm, would have trembled and hesitated until the whole truth was either revealed or suspected: but Holgrave, although prepared for such interrogatories, did not appear disposed to give an immediate reply. He had lost the confidence in fair speeches he once possessed. His freedom had been torn from him, and, though now pronounced free, what surety had he that the morrow might not again behold him a bond-slave? Thoughts like these could easily be detected in the contraction of the brow, and compression of the lips; and there might also have been detected, together with a resentment for the suspicions which had been cast upon his mother, a determination not to subject himself to the chances of further persecution by acknowledging the wrong he had done. At this moment, when the colour was receding from De Boteler\'s cheek, and when every respiration which Isabella drew was distinctly audible, a figure, which had stood unnoticed behind one of the statues, moved on, and, ascending one step of the elevation, threw back a cloak from his shoulders and a cowl from his head, revealing the strongly marked countenance and imposing figure of John Ball! Several of the attendants sprung forward to secure him; but a motion from De Boteler restrained their zeal, and, without noticing the action of the menials, the monk, regarding those only who sat round the table, addressed them in that deep, solemn tone peculiar to him.
"Start not," said he, "John Ball is not come to harm you;—he never harmed any to whom God gave the breath of life,—neither did he counsel the blood which has been spilt. A price is set upon his head—but think ye the homeless wanderer fears to die? Baron of Sudley, I have come thus far to tell you what I told you once before—that if ye will swear to set free the bondmen of Sudley, the child you mourn as dead shall be restored to you!"
"O! swear, Roland! swear!" said Isabella, starting from her seat, and, forgetful of all save her own intense feelings, she clasped her hands on her husband\'s shoulder.
"I do swear," said De Boteler, taking a crucifix from the monk, who extended one towards him, and kneeling before Richard; "I do swear, upon this blessed cross, and before my liege lord, that if my child is restored to me, so that I can claim him as my own, I will release every bondman within this manor, and that, from thenceforth, there shall be no more bondage in the barony of Sudley."
"Stephen, will ye restore the child?"
"I will," replied Holgrave, with softened feelings and a brightening countenance, "the child, my lord, shall be given up to you."
"He shall be given up," repeated the monk; and then, clasping his hands upon his bosom, he descended the steps, strode through the hall, and, in less than a minut............