The Last of the Barons — Complete

In truth, now that Adam was thoroughly in his own sphere, was in the domain of which he was king, and those beings in velvet and ermine were but as ignorant savages admitted to the frontier of his realm, his form seemed to dilate into a majesty the beholders had not before recognized; and even the lazy Edward muttered involuntarily, “By my halidame, the man has a noble presence!”

“I am prepared now, sire,” said Adam, loftily, “to show to my king and to this court, that, unnoticed and obscure, in study and retreat, often live those men whom kings may be proud to call their subjects. Will it please you, my lords, this way!” and he motioned so commandingly to the room in which he had left the Eureka, that his audience rose by a common impulse, and in another minute stood grouped round the model in the adjoining chamber. This really wonderful invention—so wonderful, indeed, that it will surpass the faith of those who do not pause to consider what vast forestallments of modern science have been made and lost in the darkness of ages not fitted to receive them—was, doubtless, in many important details not yet adapted for the practical uses to which Adam designed its application. But as a mere model, as a marvellous essay, for the suggestion of gigantic results, it was, perhaps, to the full as effective as the ingenuity of a mechanic of our own day could construct. It is true that it was crowded with unnecessary cylinders, slides, cocks, and wheals—hideous and clumsy to the eye—but through this intricacy the great simple design accomplished its main object. It contrived to show what force and skill man can obtain from the alliance of nature; the more clearly, inasmuch as the mechanism affixed to it, still more ingenious than itself, was well calculated to illustrate practically one of the many uses to which the principle was destined to be applied.

Adam had not yet fathomed the secret by which to supply the miniature cylinder with sufficient steam for any prolonged effect,—the great truth of latent heat was unknown to him; but he had contrived to regulate the supply of water so as to make the engine discharge its duties sufficiently for the satisfaction of curiosity and the explanation of its objects. And now this strange thing of iron was in full life. From its serpent chimney issued the thick rapid smoke, and the groan of its travail was heard within.

“And what propose you to yourself and to the kingdom in all this, Master Adam?” asked Edward, curiously bending his tall person over the tortured iron.

“I propose to make Nature the labourer of man,” answered Warner. “When I was a child of some eight years old, I observed that water swelleth into vapour when fire is applied to it. Twelve years afterwards, at the age of twenty, I observed that while undergoing this change it exerts a mighty mechanical force. At twenty-five, constantly musing, I said, ‘Why should not that force become subject to man’s art?’ I then began the first rude model, of which this is the descendant. I noticed that the vapour so produced is elastic,—that is, that as it expands, it presses against what opposes it; it has a force applicable everywhere force is needed by man’s labour. Behold a second agency of gigantic resources! And then, still studying this, I perceived that the vapour thus produced can be reconverted into water, shrinking necessarily, while so retransformed, from the space it filled as vapour, and leaving that space a vacuum. But Nature abhors a vacuum; produce a vacuum, and the bodies that surround rush into it. Thus, the vapour again, while changing back into water, becomes also a force,—our agent. And all the while these truths were shaping themselves to my mind, I was devising and improving also the material form by which I might render them useful to man; so at last, out of these truths, arose this invention!”

“Pardie,” said Edward, with the haste natural to royalty, “what in common there can be between thy jargon of smoke and water and this huge ugliness of iron passeth all understanding. But spare us thy speeches, and on to thy puppet-show.”

Adam stared a moment at the king in the surprise that one full of his subject feels when he sees it impossible to make another understand it, sighed, shook his head, and prepared to begin.

“Observe,” he said, “that there is no juggling, no deceit. I will place in this deposit this small lump of brass—would the size of this toy would admit of larger experiment! I will then pray ye to note, as I open door after door, how the metal passes through various changes, all operated by this one agency of vapour. Heed and attend. And if the crowning work please thee, think, great king, what such an agency upon the large scale would be to thee; think how it would multiply all arts and lessen all labour; think that thou hast, in this, achieved for a whole people the true philosopher’s stone. Now note!”

He placed the rough ore in its receptacle, and suddenly it seemed seized by a vice within, and vanished. He proceeded then, while dexterously attending to the complex movements, to open door after door, to show the astonished spectators the rapid transitions the metal underwent, and suddenly, in the midst of his pride, he stopped short, for, like a lightning-flash, came across his mind the remembrance of the fatal papers. Within the next door he was to open, they lay concealed. His change of countenance did not escape Richard, and he noted the door which Adam forbore to open, as the student hurriedly, and with some presence of mind, passed to the next, in which the metal was shortly to appear.

“Open this door,” said the prince, pointing to the handle. “No! forbear! There is danger! forbear!” exclaimed the mechanician.

“Danger to thine own neck, varlet and impostor!” exclaimed the duke; and he was about himself to open the door, when suddenly a loud roar, a terrific explosion was heard. Alas! Adam Warner had not yet discovered for his engine what we now call the safety-valve. The steam contained in the miniature boiler had acquired an undue pressure; Adam’s attention had been too much engrossed to notice the signs of the growing increase, and the rest may be easily conceived. Nothing could equal the stupor and the horror of the spectators at this explosion, save only the boy-duke, who remained immovable, and still frowning. All rushed to the door, huddling one on the other, scarcely knowing what next was to befall them, but certain that the wizard was bent upon their destruction. Edward was the first to recover himself; and seeing that no lives were lost, his first impulse was that of ungovernable rage.

“Foul traitor!” he exclaimed, “was it for this that thou hast pretended to beguile us with thy damnable sorceries? Seize him! Away to the Tower Hill! and let the priest patter an ave while the doomsman knots the rope.”

Not a hand stirred; even Catesby would as lief have touched the king’s lion before meals, as that poor mechanician, standing aghast, and unheeding all, beside his mutilated engine.

“Master Nevile,” said the king, sternly, “dost thou hear us?

“Verily,” muttered the Nevile, approaching very slowly, “I knew what would happen; but to lay hands on my host, an’ he were fifty times a wizard—No! My liege,” he said in a firm tone, but falling on his knee, and his gallant countenance pale with generous terror, “my liege, forgive me. This man succoured me when struck down and wounded by a Lancastrian ruffian; this man gave me shelter, food, and healing. Command me not, O gracious my lord, to aid in taking the life of one to whom I owe my own.”

“His life!” exclaimed the Duchess of Bedford,—“the life of this most illustrious person! Sire, you do not dream it!”

“Heh! by the saints, what now?” cried the king, whose choler, though fierce and ruthless, was as short-lived as the passions of the indolent usually are, and whom the earnest interposition of his mother-in-law much surprised and diverted. “If, fair belle-mere, thou thinkest it so illustrious a deed to frighten us out of our mortal senses, and narrowly to ‘scape sending us across the river like a bevy of balls from a bombard, there is no disputing of tastes. Rise up, Master Nevile, we esteem thee not less for thy boldness; ever be the host and the benefactor revered by English gentlemen and Christian youth. Master Warner may go free.”

Here Warner uttered so deep and hollow a groan, that it startled all present.

“Twenty-five years of labour, and not to have seen this!” he ejaculated. “Twenty and five years, and all wasted! How repair this disaster? O fatal day!”

“What says he? What means he?” said Jacquetta.

“Come home!—home!” said Marmaduke, approaching the philosopher, in great alarm lest he should once more jeopardize his life. But Adam, shaking him off, began eagerly, and with tremulous hands, to examine the machine, and not perceiving any mode by which to guard in future against a danger that he saw at once would, if not removed, render his invention useless, tottered to a chair and covered his face with his hands.

“He seemeth mightily grieved that our bones are still whole!” muttered Edward. “And why, belle-mere mine, wouldst thou protect this pleasant tregetour?”

“What!” said the duchess, “see you not that a man capable of such devices must be of doughty service against our foes?”

“Not I. How?”

“Why, if merely to signify his displeasure at our young Richard’s over-curious meddling, he can cause this strange engine to shake the walls,—nay, to destroy itself,—think what he might do were his power and malice at our disposing. I know something of these nigromancers.”

“And would you knew less! for already the commons murmur at your favour to them. But be it as you will. And now—ho, there! let our steeds be caparisoned.”

“You forget, sire,” said Richard, who had hitherto silently watched the various parties, “the object for which we summoned this worthy man. Please you now, sir, to open that door.”

“No, no!” exclaimed the king, hastily, “I will have no more provoking the foul fiend; conspirator or not, I have had enough of Master Warner. Pah! My poor placard is turned lampblack. Sweet mother-in-law, take him under thy protection; and Richard, come with me.”

So saying, the king linked his arm in that of the reluctant Gloucester, and quitted the room. The duchess then ordered the rest also to depart, and was left alone with the crest-fallen philosopher.

CHAPTER VII. MY LADY DUCHESS’S OPINION OF THE UTILITY OF MASTER WARNER’S INVENTION, AND HER ESTEEM FOR ITS—EXPLOSION

Adam, utterly unheeding, or rather deaf to, the discussion that had taken place, and his narrow escape from cord and gibbet, lifted his head peevishly from his bosom, as the duchess rested her hand almost caressingly on his shoulder, and thus addressed him,—

“Most puissant Sir, think not that I am one of those who, in their ignorance and folly, slight the mysteries of which thou art clearly so great a master. When I heard thee speak of subjecting Nature to Man, I at once comprehended thee, and blushed for the dulness of my kindred.”

“Ah, lady, thou hast studied, then, the mathematics. Alack! this is a grievous blow; but it is no inherent fault in the device. I am clearly of mind that it can be remedied. But oh! what time, what thought, what sleepless nights, what gold will be needed!”

“Give me thy sleepless nights and thy grand thoughts, and thou shalt not want gold.”

“Lady,” cried Adam, starting to his feet, “do I hear aright? Art thou, in truth, the patron I have so long dreamed of? Hast thou the brain and the heart to aid the pursuits of science?”

“Ay! and the power to protect the students! Sage, I am the Duchess of Bedford, whom men accuse of witchcraft,—as thee of wizardy. From the wife of a private gentleman, I have become the mother of a queen. I stand amidst a court full of foes; I desire gold to corrupt, and wisdom to guard against, and means to destroy them. And I seek all these in men like thee!”

Adam turned on her his bewildered eyes, and made no answer.

“They tell me,” said the duchess, “that Henry of Windsor employed learned men to transmute the baser metals into gold. Wert thou one of them?”

“No.”

“Thou knowest that art?”

“I studied it in my youth, but the ingredients of the crucible were too costly.”

“Thou shalt not lack them with me. Thou knowest the lore of the stars, and canst foretell the designs of enemies,—the hour whether to act or to forbear?”

“Astrology I have studied, but that also was in youth; for there dwelleth in the pure mathematics that have led me to this invention—”

“Truce with that invention, whatever it be; think of it no more,—it has served its end in the explosion, which proved thy power of mischief. High objects are now before thee. Wilt thou be of my household, one of my alchemists and astrologers? Thou shalt have leisure, honour, and all the moneys thou canst need.”

“Moneys!” said Adam, eagerly, and casting his eyes upon the mangled model. “Well, I agree; what you will,—alchemist, astrologist, wizard,—what you will. This shall all be repaired,—all; I begin to see now, all! I begin to see; yes, if a pipe by which the too-excessive vapour could—ay, ay!—right, right,” and he rubbed his hands.

Jacquetta was struck with his enthusiasm. “But surely, Master Warner, this has some virtue you have not vouchsafed to explain; confide in me, can it change iron to gold?”

“No; but—”

“Can it predict the future?”

“No; but—”

“Can it prolong life?”

“No; but—”

“Then, in God’s name let us waste no more time about it!” said the duchess, impatiently,—“your art is mine now. Ho, there!—I will send my page to conduct thee to thy apartments, and thou shalt lodge next to Friar Bungey, a man of wondrous lere, Master Warner, and a worthy confrere in thy researches. Hast thou any one of kith and kin at home to whom thou wilt announce thy advancement?”

“Ah, lady! Heaven forgive me, I have a daughter,—an only child,—my Sibyll; I cannot leave her alone, and—”

“Well, nothing should distract thy cares from thine art,—she shall be sent for. I will rank her amongst my maidens. Fare-thee-well, Master Warner! At night I will send for thee, and appoint the tasks I would have thee accomplish.”

So saying, the duchess quitted the room, and left Adam alone, bending over his model in deep revery.

From this absorption it was the poor man’s fate to be again aroused.

The peculiar character of the boy-prince of Gloucester was that of one who, having once seized upon an object, never willingly relinquished it. First, he crept and slid and coiled round it as the snake. But if craft failed, his passion, roused by resistance, sprang at his prey with a lion’s leap: and whoever examines the career of this extraordinary personage, will perceive, that whatever might be his habitual hypocrisy, he seemed to lose sight of it wholly when once resolved upon force. Then the naked ferocity with which the destructive propensity swept away the objects in his path becomes fearfully and startlingly apparent, and offers a strange contrast to the wily duplicity with which, in calmer moments, he seems to have sought to coax the victim into his folds. Firmly convinced that Adam’s engine had been made the medium of dangerous and treasonable correspondence with the royal prisoner, and of that suspicious, restless, feverish temperament which never slept when a fear was wakened, a doubt conceived, he had broke from his brother, whose more open valour and less unquiet intellect were ever willing to leave the crown defended but by the gibbet for the detected traitor, the sword for the declared foe; and obtaining Edward’s permission “to inquire further into these strange matters,” he sent at once for the porter who had conveyed the model to the Tower; but that suspicious accomplice was gone. The sound of the explosion of the engine had no less startled the guard below than the spectators above. Releasing their hold of their prisoner, they had some taken fairly to their heels, others rushed into the palace to learn what mischief had ensued; and Hugh, with the quick discretion of his north country, had not lost so favourable an opportunity for escape. There stood the dozing mule at the door below, but the guide was vanished. More confirmed in his suspicions by this disappearance of Adam’s companion, Richard, giving some preparatory orders to Catesby, turned at once to the room which still held the philosopher and his device. He closed the door on entering, and his brow was dark and sinister as he approached the musing inmate. But here we must return to Sibyll.

CHAPTER VIII. THE OLD WOMAN TALKS OF SORROWS, THE YOUNG WOMAN DREAMS OF LOVE; THE COURTIER FLIES FROM PRESENT POWER TO REMEMBRANCES OF PAST HOPES, AND THE WORLD-BETTERED OPENS UTOPIA, WITH A VIEW OF

THE GIBBET FOR THE SILLY SAGE HE HAS SEDUCED INTO HIS SCHEMES,—SO, EVER AND EVERMORE, RUNS THE WORLD AWAY!

The old lady looked up from her embroidery-frame, as Sibyll sat musing on a stool before her; she scanned the maiden with a wistful and somewhat melancholy eye.

“Fair girl,” she said, breaking a silence that had lasted for some moments, “it seems to me that I have seen thy face before. Wert thou never in Queen Margaret’s court?”

“In childhood, yes, lady.”

“Do you not remember me, the dame of Longueville?” Sibyll started in surprise, and gazed long before she recognized the features of her hostess; for the dame of Longueville had been still, when Sibyll was a child at the court, renowned for matronly beauty, and the change was greater than the lapse of years could account for. The lady smiled sadly: “Yes, you marvel to see me thus bent and faded. Maiden, I lost my husband at the battle of St. Alban’s, and my three sons in the field of Towton. My lands and my wealth have been confiscated to enrich new men; and to one of them—one of the enemies of the only king whom Alice de Longueville will acknowledge—I owe the food for my board and the roof for my head. Do you marvel now that I am so changed?”

Sibyll rose and kissed the lady’s hand, and the tear that sparkled on its surface was her only answer.

“I learn,” said the dame of Longueville, “that your father has an order from the Lord Hastings to see King Henry. I trust that he will rest here as he returns, to tell me how the monarch-saint bears his afflictions. But I know: his example should console us all.” She paused a moment, and resumed, “Sees your father much of the Lord Hastings?”

“He never saw him that I weet of,” answered Sibyll, blushing; “the order was given, but as of usual form to a learned scholar.”

“But given to whom?” persisted the lady. “To—to me,” replied Sibyll, falteringly. The dame of Longueville smiled.

“Ah, Hastings could scarcely say no to a prayer from such rosy lips. But let me not imply aught to disparage his humane and gracious heart. To Lord Hastings, next to God and his saints, I owe all that is left to me on earth. Strange that he is not yet here! This is the usual day and hour on which he comes, from pomp and pleasurement, to visit the lonely widow.” And, pleased to find an attentive listener to her grateful loquacity, the dame then proceeded, with warm eulogies upon her protector, to inform Sibyll that her husband had, in the first outbreak of the Civil War, chanced to capture Hastings, and, moved by his valour and youth, and some old connections with his father, Sir Leonard, had favoured his escape from the certain death that awaited him from the wrath of the relentless Margaret. After the field of Towton, Hastings had accepted one of the manors confiscated from the attainted House of Longueville, solely that he might restore it to the widow of the fallen lord; and with a chivalrous consideration, not contented with beneficence, he omitted no occasion to show to the noblewoman whatever homage and respect might soothe the pride, which, in the poverty of those who have been great, becomes disease. The loyalty of the Lady Longueville was carried to a sentiment most rare in that day, and rather resembling the devotion inspired by the later Stuarts. She made her home within the precincts of the Tower, that, morning and eve, when Henry opened his lattice to greet the rising and the setting sun, she might catch a dim and distant glance of the captive king, or animate, by that sad sight, the hopes and courage of the Lancastrian emissaries, to whom, fearless of danger, she scrupled not to give counsel, and, at need, asylum.

While Sibyll, with enchanted sense, was listening to the praise of Hastings, a low knock at the door was succeeded by the entrance of that nobleman himself. Not to Elizabeth, in the alcoves of Shene, or on the dais of the palace hall, did the graceful courtier bend with more respectful reverence than to the powerless widow, whose very bread was his alms; for the true high-breeding of chivalry exists not without delicacy of feeling, formed originally by warmth of heart; and though the warmth may lose its glow, the delicacy endures, as the steel that acquires through heat its polish retains its lustre, even when the shine but betrays the hardness.

“And how fares my noble lady of Longueville? But need I ask? for her cheek still wears the rose of Lancaster. A companion? Ha! Mistress Warner, I learn now how much pleasure exists in surprise!”

“My young visitor,” said the dame, “is but an old friend; she was one of the child-maidens reared at the court of Queen Margaret.”

“In sooth!” exclaimed Hastings; and then, in an altered tone, he added, “but I should have guessed so much grace had not come all from Nature. And your father has gone to see the Lord Henry, and you rest, here, his return? Ah, noble lady, may you harbour always such innocent Lancastrians!” The fascinations of this eminent person’s voice and manner were such that they soon restored Sibyll, to the ease she had lost at his sudden entrance. He conversed gayly with the old dame upon such matters of court anecdote as in all the changes of state were still welcome to one so long accustomed to court air; but from time to time he addressed himself to Sibyll, and provoked replies which startled herself—for she was not yet well aware of her own gifts—by their spirit and intelligence.

“You do not tell us,” said the Lady Longueville, sarcastically, “of the happy spousailles of Elizabeth’s brother with the Duchess of Norfolk,—a bachelor of twenty, a bride of some eighty-two. [The old chronicler justly calls this a “diabolical marriage.” It greatly roused the wrath of the nobles and indeed of all honourable men, as a proof of the shameless avarice of the queen’s family.] Verily, these alliances are new things in the history of English royalty. But when Edward, who, even if not a rightful king, is at least a born Plantagenet, condescended to marry Mistress Elizabeth, a born Woodville, scarce of good gentleman’s blood, naught else seems strange enough to provoke marvel.”

“As to the last matter,” returned Hastings, gravely, “though her grace the queen be no warm friend to me, I must needs become her champion and the king’s. The lady who refused the dishonouring suit of the fairest prince and the boldest knight in the Christian world thereby made herself worthy of the suit that honoured her; it was not Elizabeth Woodville alone that won the purple. On the day she mounted a throne, the chastity of woman herself was crowned.”

“What!” said the Lady Longueville, angrily, “mean you to say that there is no disgrace in the mal-alliance of kite and falcon, of Plantagenet and Woodville, of high-born and mud-descended?”

“You forget, lady, that the widow of Henry the Fifth, Catherine of Valois, a king’s daughter, married the Welsh soldier, Owen Tudor; that all England teems with brave men born from similar spousailles, where love has levelled all distinctions, and made a purer hearth, and raised a bolder offspring, than the lukewarm likings of hearts that beat but for lands and gold. Wherefore, lady, appeal not to me, a squire of dames, a believer in the old Parliament of Love; whoever is fair and chaste, gentle and loving, is, in the eyes of William de Hastings, the mate and equal of a king!”