Chapter I.

THE MAID'S HOPE, THE COURTIER'S LOVE, AND THE SAGE'S COMFORT.

Fair are thy fields, O England; fair the rural farm and the orchards in which the blossoms have ripened into laughing fruits; and fairer than all, O England, the faces of thy soft-eyed daughters!

From the field where Sibyll and her father had wandered amidst the dead, the dismal witnesses of war had vanished; and over the green pastures roved the gentle flocks. And the farm to which Hastings had led the wanderers looked upon that peaceful field through its leafy screen; and there father and daughter had found a home.

It was a lovely summer evening; and Sibyll put aside the broidery frame, at which, for the last hour, she had not worked, and gliding to the lattice, looked wistfully along the winding lane. The room was in the upper story, and was decorated with a care which the exterior of the house little promised, and which almost approached to elegance. The fresh green rushes that strewed the floor were intermingled with dried wild thyme and other fragrant herbs. The bare walls were hung with serge of a bright and cheerful blue; a rich carpet de cuir covered the oak table, on which lay musical instruments, curiously inlaid, with a few manuscripts, chiefly of English and Provencal poetry. The tabourets were covered with cushions of Norwich worsted, in gay colours. All was simple, it is true, yet all betokened a comfort—ay, a refinement, an evidence of wealth—very rare in the houses even of the second order of nobility.

As Sibyll gazed, her face suddenly brightened; she uttered a joyous cry, hurried from the room, descended the stairs, and passed her father, who was seated without the porch, and seemingly plunged in one of his most abstracted reveries. She kissed his brow (he heeded her not), bounded with a light step over the sward of the orchard, and pausing by a wicket gate, listened with throbbing heart to the advancing sound of a horse's hoofs. Nearer came the sound, and nearer. A cavalier appeared in sight, sprang from his saddle, and, leaving his palfrey to find his way to the well-known stable, sprang lightly over the little gate.

"And thou hast watched for me, Sibyll?"

The girl blushingly withdrew from the eager embrace, and said touchingly,"My heart watcheth for thee alway. Oh, shall I thank or chide thee for so much care? Thou wilt see how thy craftsmen have changed the rugged homestead into the daintiest bower!"

"Alas! my Sibyll! would that it were worthier of thy beauty, and our mutual troth! Blessings on thy trust and sweet patience; may the day soon come when I may lead thee to a nobler home, and hear knight and baron envy the bride of Hastings!"

"My own lord!"said Sibyll, with grateful tears in confiding eyes; but, after a pause, she added timidly,"Does the king still bear so stern a memory against so humble a subject?"

"The king is more wroth than before, since tidings of Lord Warwick's restless machinations in France have soured his temper. He cannot hear thy name without threats against thy father as a secret adherent of Lancaster, and accuseth thee of witching his chamberlain,—as, in truth, thou hast. The Duchess of Bedford is more than ever under the influence of Friar Bungey, to whose spells and charms, and not to our good swords, she ascribes the marvellous flight of Warwick and the dispersion of our foes; and the friar, methinks, has fostered and yet feeds Edward's suspicions of thy harmless father. The king chides himself for having suffered poor Warner to depart unscathed, and even recalls the disastrous adventure of the mechanical, and swears that from the first thy father was in treasonable conspiracy with Margaret. Nay, sure I am, that if I dared to wed thee while his anger lasts, he would condemn thee as a sorceress, and give me up to the secret hate of my old foes the Woodvilles. But fie! be not so appalled, my Sibyll; Edward's passions, though fierce, are changeful, and patience will reward us both."

"Meanwhile, thou lovest me, Hastings!"said Sibyll, with great emotion."Oh, if thou knewest how I torment myself in thine absence! I see thee surrounded by the fairest and the loftiest, and say to myself,'Is it possible that he can remember me?'But thou lovest me still—still—still, and ever! Dost thou not?"

And Hastings said and swore.

"And the Lady Bonville?"asked Sibyll, trying to smile archly, but with the faltering tone of jealous fear.

"I have not seen her for months,"replied the noble, with a slight change of countenance."She is at one of their western manors. They say her lord is sorely ill; and the Lady Bonville is a devout hypocrite, and plays the tender wife. But enough of such ancient and worn-out memories. Thy father—sorrows he still for his Eureka? I can learn no trace of it."

"See,"said Sibyll, recalled to her filial love, and pointing to Warner as they now drew near the house,"see, he shapes another Eureka from his thoughts!"

"How fares it, dear Warner?"asked the noble, taking the scholar's hand.

"Ah,"cried the student, roused at the sight of his powerful protector,"bringest thou tidings of IT? Thy cheerful eye tells me that—no—no—thy face changes! They have destroyed it! Oh, that I could be young once more!"

"What!"said the world-wise man, astonished."If thou hadst another youth, wouldst thou cherish the same delusion, and go again through a life of hardship, persecution, and wrong?"

"My noble son,"said the philosopher,"for hours when I have felt the wrong, the persecution, and the hardship, count the days and the nights when I felt only the hope and the glory and the joy! God is kinder to us all than man can know; for man looks only to the sorrow on the surface, and sees not the consolation in the deeps of the unwitnessed soul."

Sibyll had left Hastings by her father's side, and tripped lightly to the farther part of the house, inhabited by the rustic owners who supplied the homely service, to order the evening banquet,—the happy banquet; for hunger gives not such flavour to the viand, nor thirst such sparkle to the wine, as the presence of a beloved guest.

And as the courtier seated himself on the rude settle under the honeysuckles that wreathed the porch, a delicious calm stole over his sated mind. The pure soul of the student, released a while from the tyranny of an earthly pursuit,—the drudgery of a toil, that however grand, still but ministered to human and material science,—had found for its only other element the contemplation of more solemn and eternal mysteries. Soaring naturally, as a bird freed from a golden cage, into the realms of heaven, he began now, with earnest and spiritual eloquence, to talk of the things and visions lately made familiar to his thoughts. Mounting from philosophy to religion, he indulged in his large ideas upon life and nature: of the stars that now came forth in heaven; of the laws that gave harmony to the universe; of the evidence of a God in the mechanism of creation; of the spark from central divinity, that, kindling in a man's soul, we call"genius;"of the eternal resurrection of the dead, which makes the very principle of being, and types, in the leaf and in the atom, the immortality of the great human race. He was sublimer, that gray old man, hunted from the circle of his kind, in his words, than ever is action in its deeds; for words can fathom truth, and deeds but blunderingly and lamely seek it.

And the sad and gifted and erring intellect of Hastings, rapt from its little ambition of the hour, had no answer when his heart asked,"What can courts and a king's smile give me in exchange for serene tranquillity and devoted love?"