"Your Highness hath guessed my mind. Nay, madam, though assuredly I do desire it because the Countess bath been ever my good lady, and bred me up ever since I was an orphan, it is not solely for her sake that I would fain pray you, but fully as much for your Majesty's own."
"Madame Talbot sees the matter as I do," said Sir Andrew Melville. "The English Queen is as like to be irate with the reporter of the scandal as with the author of it, even as the wolf bites the barb that pierces him when he cannot reach the archer."
"She is welcome to read the letter," said Mary, smiling; "thy semblance falleth short, my good friend."
"Nay, madam, that was not the whole of my purport," said Susan, standing with folded hands, looking from one to another. "Pardon me. My thought was that to take part in all this repeating of thoughtless, idle words, spoken foolishly indeed, but scarce so much in malice as to amuse your Grace with Court news, and treasured up so long, your Majesty descends from being the patient and suffering princess, meek, generous, and uncomplaining, to be-to be-"
"No better than one of them, wouldst thou add?" asked Mary, somewhat sharply, as Susan paused.
"Your Highness has said it," answered Susan; then, as there was a moment's pause, she looked up, and with clasped hands added, "Oh, madam! would it not be more worthy, more noble, more queenly, more Christian, to refrain from stinging with this repetition of these vain and foolish slanders?"
"Most Christian treatment have I met with," returned Mary; but after a pause she turned to her almoner. Master Belton, saying, "What say you, sir?"
"I say that Mrs. Talbot speaks more Christian words than are often heard in these parts," returned he. "The thankworthiness of suffering is lost by those who return the revilings upon those who utter them."
"Then be it so," returned the Queen. "Elizabeth shall be spared the knowledge that some ladies' tongues can be as busy with her as with her poor cousin."
With her own hands Mary tore up her own letter, but Curll's copy unfortunately escaped destruction, to be discovered in after times. Lord and Lady Shrewsbury never knew the service Susan had rendered them by causing it to be suppressed.
CHAPTER XIII. BEADS AND BRACELETS.
The Countess was by no means pacified by the investigation, and both she and her family remained at Court, maligning her husband and his captive. As the season advanced, bringing the time for the Queen's annual resort to the waters of Buxton, Lord Shrewsbury was obliged to entreat Mrs. Talbot again to be her companion, declaring that he had never known so much peace as with that lady in the Queen's chambers
The journey to Buxton was always the great holiday of the imprisoned Court. The place was part of the Shrewsbury property, and the Earl had a great house there, but there were no conveniences for exercising so strict a watch as at Sheffield, and there was altogether a relaxation of discipline. Exercise was considered an essential part of the treatment, and recreations were there provided.
Cis had heard so much of the charms of the expedition, that she was enraptured to hear that she was to share it, together with Mrs. Talbot. The only drawback was that Humfrey had promised to come home after this present voyage, to see whether his little Cis were ready for him; and his father was much disposed to remain at home, receive him first, and communicate to him the obstacles in the way of wedding the young lady. However, my Lord refused to dispense with the attendance of his most trustworthy kinsman, and leaving Ned at school under charge of the learned Sniggius, the elder and the younger Richard Talbot rode forth with the retinue of the Queen and her warder.
Neither Cicely nor Diccon had ever left home before, and they were in raptures which would have made any journey delightful to them, far more a ride through some of the wildest and loveliest glades that England can display. Nay, it may be that they would better have enjoyed something less like Sheffield Park than the rocks, glens, and woods, through which they rode. Their real delight was in the towns and villages at which there was a halt, and every traveller they saw was such a wonder to them, that at the end of the first day they were almost as full of exultation in their experiences, as if, with Humfrey, they had been far on the way to America.
The delight of sleeping at Tideswell was in their eyes extreme, though the hostel was so crowded that Cis had to share a mattress with Mrs. Talbot, and Diccon had to sleep in his cloak on the floor, which he persuaded himself was high preferment. He woke, however, much sooner than was his wont, and finding it useless to try to fall asleep again, he made his way out among the sleeping figures on the floor and hall, and finding the fountain in the midst of the court, produced his soap and comb from his pocket, and made his morning toilet in the open air with considerable satisfaction at his own alertness. Presently there was a tap at the window above, and he saw Cicely making signals to him to wait for her, and in a few minutes she skipped out from the door into the sunlight of the early summer morning.
"No one is awake yet," she said. "Even the guard before the Queen's door is fast asleep. I only heard a wench or two stirring. We can have a run in the fields and gather May dew before any one is afoot."
"'Tis not May, 'tis June," said matter-of-fact Diccon. "But yonder is a guard at the yard gate; will he let us past?"
"See, here's a little wicket into a garden of pot-herbs," said Cis. "No doubt we can get out that way, and it will bring us the sooner into the fields. I have a cake in my wallet that mother gave me for the journey, so we shall not fast. How sweet the herbs smell in the dew-and see how silvery it lies on the strawberry leaves. Ah! thou naughty lad, think not whether the fruit be ripe. Mayhap we shall find some wild ones beyond."
The gate of the garden was likewise guarded, but by a yeoman who well knew the young Talbots, and made no difficulty about letting them out into the broken ground beyond the garden, sloping up into a little hill. Up bounded the boy and girl, like young mountaineers, through gorse and fern, and presently had gained a sufficient height to look over the country, marking the valleys whence still were rising "fragrant clouds of dewy steam" under the influence of the sunbeams, gazing up at the purple heights of the Peak, where a few lines of snow still lingered in the crevices, trying to track their past journey from their own Sheffield, and with still more interest to guess which wooded valley before them contained Buxton.
"Have you lost your way, my pretty mistress?" said a voice close to them, and turning round hastily they saw a peasant woman with a large basket on her arm.
"No," said Cicely courteously, "we have only come out to take the air before breakfast."
"I crave pardon," said the woman, curtseying, "the pretty lady belongs to the great folk down yonder. Would she look at my poor wares? Here are beads and trinkets of the goodly stones, pins and collars, bracelets and eardrops, white, yellow, and purple," she said, uncovering her basket, where were arranged various ornaments made of Derbyshire spar.
"We have no money, good woman," said Cicely, rising to return, vaguely uncomfortable at the woman's eye, which awoke some remembrance of Tibbott the huckster, and the troubles connected with her.
"Yea, but if my young mistress would only bring me in to the Great Lady there, I know she would buy of me my beads and bracelets, of give me an alms for my poor children. I have five of them, good young lady, and they lie naked and hungry till I can sell my few poor wares, and the yeomen are so rough and hard. They would break and trample every poor bead I have in pieces rather than even let my Lord hear of them. But if even my basket could be carried in and shown, and if the good Earl heard my sad tale, I am sure he would give license."
"He never does!" said Diccon, roughly; "hold off, woman, do not hang on us, or I'll get thee branded for a vagabond."