The Young Lovell Read online

  Produced by Al Haines.

  THE YOUNG LOVELL

  A ROMANCE

  BY FORD MADOX HUEFFER

  "When they were come to Hutton Ha' They ride that proper place about,But the laird he was the wiser man, For he had left nae gear about." _Border Ballad_.

  LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1913

  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED LONDON AND BECCLES

  _All rights reserved_

  HISTORICAL NOVELS BY FORD MADOX HUEFFER

  THE FIFTH QUEEN PRIVY SEAL THE FIFTH QUEEN CROWNED

  THE HALF MOON THE PORTRAIT LADIES WHOSE BRIGHT EYES

  THE YOUNG LOVELL

  PART I

  I

  In the darkness Young Lovell of the Castle rose from his knees, and sohe broke his vow. Since he had knelt from midnight, and it was now thesixth hour of the day, he staggered; innumerable echoes brushed throughthe blackness of the chapel; the blood made flames in his eyes androared in his ears. It should have been the dawn, or at least the falsedawn, he thought, long since. But he knew that, in that stone place,like a coffer, with the ancient arched windows set in walls a man'slength deep, it would be infinitely long before the light came to hiseyes. Yet he had vowed to keep his vigil, kneeling till the dawn ...

  When the night had been younger it had been easier but more terrible.Visions had come to him; a perpetual flutter of wings, shudderingthrough the cold silence. He had seen through the thick walls, Behemothriding amidst crystal seas, Leviathan who threw up the smoke and flamesof volcanoes. Mahound had passed that way with his cortege of pagans anddiamonded apes; Helen of Troy had beckoned to him, standing in thesunlight, and the Witch of Endor, an exceedingly fair woman, and a nakedone, riding on a shell over a sea with waves like dove's feathers. TheSoldan's daughter had stretched out her arms to him, and a courtesan hehad seen in Venice long ago, but her smile had turned to a skull'sgrinning beneath a wimple. He had known all these for demons. Thehermit of Liddeside with his long beard and foul garments, such as theyhad seen him when they went raiding up Dunbar way, had swept into thatplace and had imperiously bidden him up from his knees to drive theScots from Barnside, but he had known that the anchorite had been deadthis three years and, seeing that the Warden of the Eastern Marches andthe Bishop of Durham, with all his own father's forces and all theirs,lay in the castle and its sheilings, it was not likely that the falseScots would be so near. Young gallants with staghounds, brachets andHamboro dogs had bidden him to the chase; magicians with crucibles hadbidden him come view their alembics where the philosopher's stone stoodrevealed; spirits holding flames in their hands had sought to teach himthe sin against the Holy Ghost, and Syrians in robes of gold, strangesins. There had come cooks with strange and alluring messes whoseodours make you faint with desires, and the buttling friars fromfriaries with great wine-skins of sack. But all of them, too, he hadknown for demons, though at each apparition desire had shaken him.

  All these he had taken to be in the nature of the very old chapel, sinceit had stood there over the tiresome and northern sea ever sinceChristendom had come to the land, and it was proper to think that, justas those walls had seen the murdering of blessed saint Oddry by heathensand Scots whilst he sang mass, and even as pagans and sorcerers had inthe old times contended for that ground, now, having done it in thebody, in their souls they should still haunt that spot and contend forthe soul of a young lording that should be made a knight upon themorrow. But when the tower-warden had churned out four o'clock the birdof dawn had crowed twice....

  Three times would have been of better omen. At that moment Satanhimself, the master fiend, with legs of scarlet, a bull's hide sweepingbehind and horns all gold and aquamarine, had been dancing with mightyleaps above a coal fire, up through which, livid and in flaming shrouds,there had risen the poor souls of folk in purgatory. And with a charterfrom which there dangled a seal dripping blood to hiss in the coals andbecome each drop a viper--with this charter held out towards YoungLovell, Satan had offered him any of these souls to be redeemed frompurgatory at the price of selling his own to Satan.

  He had been about to say that he knew too much of these temptations andthat the damnation of one soul would be infinitely more grievous to OurLady than the temporary sojourn in purgatory of an infinite number. Butat the crowing of the cock Satan and his firelit leer had vanished as ifa candle had been blown out in a cavern....

  There had begun an intolerable period of waiting. He tried to say hissixty Aves, but the perpetual whirling of wings that brushed his browtook away his thoughts. He knew them now for the wings of anxious batsthat his presence disturbed. When he began upon his Paters, a rat thathad crept into his harness of proof overset his helmet and the prayerwent out of his head. When he would have crossed himself, suddenly hisfoster-brother and cousin, Decies of the South, that should have watchedin the chapel porchway, began to snore and cried out in his sleep thename "Margaret." Three times Decies of the South cried "Margaret."

  Then Young Lovell knew that the spirits having power between cockcrowand dawn, in the period when men die and life ebbs down the sands--thatthese spirits were casting their spells upon him.

  These were the old, ancient gods of a time unknown--the gods to whom thebaal fires were lit; gods of the giants and heroes of whom even hisconfessor spoke with bated breath. Angels, some said they were, notfallen, but indifferent. And some of the poor would have them to belittle people that dwelt in bogs and raths, and others held them forgreat and fair. He could not pray; he could not cross himself; histongue clove to his jaws; his limbs were leaden. His mind was filledwith curiosity, with desire, with hope. He had a great thirst and thecramp in his limbs. He could see a form and he could not see a form.He could see a light and no light at all.

  Yet it was a light. It was a light of a rosy, stealing nature. It fellthrough one of the little, rounded windows, the shadows of thecrab-apple branches outside the wall, moving slowly across the floor.When he looked again it was gone and not gone. Without a doubt someeyes were peering into the chapel; eyes that could see in the dark werewatching him. Kind eyes; eyes unmoved. His heart beat enormously....

  And then he was upon his feet, reeling and stretching out his arms, withprayers that he had never prayed before upon his lips. Then prudencecame into his heart and he argued with himself. It was to himself andto no other man or priest that he had vowed to watch above his harnessfrom midnight to dawning. That was a newish fashion and neither theBorder Warden nor the Prince Bishop would ask him had he done it or no.They would knight him without this new French manner of it. Then hemight well go to see if the dawn were painting the heavens. He fumbledat the bar and cast the door open, stepping out.

  It was grey; the sea grey and all the rushes of the sands. The foam wasgrey where it beat on the islands at sea and in the no-light the greatcliff of his father's castle wall was like grey clouts hung from themists. He perceived an old witch toiling up the dunes to come to him.She had a red cloak and a faggot over her shoulder. She waved hercrutch to make him await her, and suddenly he thought she sailed, highin the air from the heavy sand to the stone at his feet. He thoughtthis, but he could not be sure, for at that moment he was rubbing theheavy sleep from his eyes.
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  "That ye could do this, well I knew," he said, "but I had not thought tosee ye do it over my ground."

  Often he had seen the old witch. Sometimes she was in the form of arusset hare, slinking into her bed when he had been in harness withoutbow or light gun or hounds to chase her with. At other times he hadseen her in her red cloak creeping about her affairs in the grey woodsby Barnside.

  Her filthy locks fell across her red eyes and she laughed so that herepented having spared her life in the woods.

  "Gowd ye sall putten across my hand," she said, and her voice was likethe wither of dried leaves and the weary creak of bough on bough in agreat gale when the woods are perilous because of falling oaks. Heanswered that he had no gold because he had left his poke in his chestin the castle.

  And with great boldness she bade him give her one of the pearls from thecap that hung at his belt. He reached to his left side for his sword,but it lay in the chapel across his armour of damascened steel andbright gold.

  "Ye shall drown in my castle well when I have this business redded up,"he said, but he wished he had slain her with his sword, for she was avery evil creature and it was not well in him to let her corrupt thesouls of his poor. He lifted from his girdle his tablets to write downthat the witch must drown, but the tablets the pen and the knife weretangled with their red silken tassels and skeins. A heavy snore camefrom within the chapel porch where Decies of the South was sleepingagainst the wall.

  "If my bride had not begged your life of me..." the Young Lovell began.

  Decies of the South muttered: "Margaret," just at his left hand.

  "Bride," the old witch tittered. "Ye shall never plight your troth.But that sleeper shall be plighted to my lording's bride and take hisgear. And another shall have his lands."

  "Get you back to Hell!" the Young Lovell said.

  "Look," the witch cried out.

  She pointed down the wind, across the miles of dim dunes underneathwhere the Cheviots were like ghosts for the snow. The dunes rose inlittle hummocks amongst grey fields. A high crag was to the left. Itwas all grey over Holy Island; smoke rose from its courtyard.Dunstanburgh was lost in clouds of white sea spray, and in great cloudsthe sea-birds were drifting inland in strings of thousands each. Stillno sun came over the sea.

  The witch pointed with her crutch....

  A little thing like a rabbit was digging laboriously at the foot of thecrag; it ran here and there, moving a heavy stone.

  "That man shall be your master," the witch cried.

  A white horse moved slowly across the dunes. It had about it a swirlingcloud of brown and a swirling cloud of the colour of pearly shells.

  "And that shall be your bane," the witch said, in a little voice. "Ahme, for the fine young lording."

  Young Lovell coursed to the shed beyond the chapel yew where his horsewhinned at the sound of his voice. He haled out the goodly roan thatwas called Hamewarts because they had bought him in Marseilles to ridehomewards through France; his father and he had been to Rome after hisfather did the great and nameless sin and expiated it in that journey.He had ridden Hamewarts up from the Castle of Lovell so that, standingin the shed whilst his master kept his vigil, the horse might share hisbenediction.

  The roan stallion lifted his head to gaze down the wind. He drew in theair through his nostrils that were as broad as your palm; he sprang onhigh and neighed as he had done at the battle of Kenchie's Burn.

  The horse had no need of spurs, and young Lovell had none. It ran likethe wind in the direction of the white steed at a distance.Nevertheless, the rider heard through the muffled sound of hoofs on theheavy sand the old witch who cried out, "Eya," to show that she had moreto say, and he drew the reins of his charger. The sand flew all overhim from beneath the horse's feet, and he heard the witch's voice cryout:

  "To-day your dad shall die, but you's get none of his lands nor gear.From the now you shall be a houseless man."

  But when he turned in his saddle he could see no old beldam in a scarletcloak. Only a russet hare ran beneath the belly of Hamewarts andsquealed like a new-born baby.

  Whilst he rode furiously as if he were in chase of the grey wolf YoungLovell had leisure to reflect, he had ample time in which to inspect theearly digger and the beclouded horse. At eight o'clock he was to beknighted by the double accolade of the Warden of the Eastern Marches andof the Prince Bishop, following a custom that was observed in cases ofgreat eminence or merit in the parties. And not only was Young Lovellson to Lord Lovell of the Castle, but he had fought very well againstthe Scots, in the French wars and in Border tulzies. So at eight, thathe might not fast the longer, he was to be knighted. It was barely six,for still no sun showed above the long horizon of the northern sea.

  It was bitter cold and the little digger, with his back to the rider,was blowing on his fingers and muttering over a squared stone that hadhalf of it muddied from burial. At first Young Lovell took the littleman for a brownie, then for an ape. Then he knew him for Master Stone,the man of law.

  He cried out:

  "Body of God, Master Furred Cat, where be's thy gown?"

  And the little man span round, spitting and screaming, with his spaderaised on high. But his tone changed to fawning and then to acomplacence that would have done well between two rogues over a booty.

  "Worshipful Knight," he brought out, and his voice was between the creakof a door and the snarl of a dog fox, though his thin knees knockedtogether for fear. "A man must live, I in my garret as thou in thycastle bower with the pretty, fair dames."

  "Ay, a man mun live," the Young Lovell answered. "But what sort ofliving is this to be seeking treasure trove on my land before the sun beup?"

  "Treasure trove?" the lawyer mumbled. "Well, it is a treasure."

  "It is very like black Magic," Young Lovell said harshly. "Amislikeable thing to me. I must have thee burnt. What things a mansees upon his lands before the sun is up!"

  "Magic," the lawyer screamed in a high and comic panic. "God help me, Ihave nothing of Mishego and Mishago. This is plain lawyer's work and ifyour honour will share, one half my fees you shall have from theimprovident peasants."

  At the high sound of his voice Hamewarts, who all the while wasstraining after the white horse, bounded three strides; when YoungLovell took him strongly back, he had the square stone at another angle.Upon its mossed side he saw a large "S" carved that had two crosses inits loops, upon the side that was bare was one "S" with the upper loopstruck through.

  "Body of God, a boundary stone," he cried out. "And you, Furred Cat, areremoving it." He had got the epithet of Furred Cat from talking to theSire de Montloisir whilst they played at the dice.

  "Indeed it is more profitable than treasure-troving and seeking thephilosopher's stone," the lawyer tittered, and he rubbed, from habit,his hands together, so that little, triturated grains of mud fell fromthem into the peasant's poor, boggy grass. "This is Hal o' the Mill'sland, and I have moved the stone a furlong into the feu of TimothyWynvate. There shall arise from this a lawsuit that shall last theKing's reign out. Aye, belike, one of the twain shall slay the other.His land your honour may take back as forfeit, and the other's asdeodand. I will so contrive it, for I will foment these suits and havethe handling of them. By these means, in time, your lordingship mayhave back all the lands ye ever feu'd. In time. Only give me time...."

  The Young Lovell lifted up his fist to the sky. The most violent ragewas in his heart.

  "Now by the paps of Venus and the thunder of Jove, I have forgotten thepenalty of him that removeth his neighbour's landmark! But if I do notdie before night, and I think I shall not, that death you shall die.Say your foul prayers, filth, your doom is said...."

  Master Stone lifted up both his hands, clasped together, to beg his lifeof this hot but charitable youth. But Young Lovell had leaped his horseacross a dune faster than the words could follow him.

  He came upon a narrow strip of nibbled turf running down a valley ofrushy sand
-hills. Hamewarts guided him. They went over one ridge andhad sight of the white horse; they sank into another dale and lost it.

  On the summit of the next ridge Hamewarts became suddenly like a horseof bronze and the Young Lovell had a great dizziness. He had a sense ofbrown, of pearly blue, of white, of many colours, of many great flowersas large as millstones. With a heavy sense of reluctance he lookedbehind him. The mists were rising like curtains from over Bamborough;since the tide was falling the pall of spray was not so white onDunstanburgh. Upon his own castle, covering its promontory near athand, they were hoisting a flag, so that from there the tower wardenmust have already perceived the sun. From over the castle on HolyIsland the pall of smoke was drifting slowly to sea. No doubt in thecourtyard they had been roasting sheep and kine whole against the visitof the Warden and the Prince Bishop who would ride on there with alltheir men by nine of the clock.

  In every bay and reedy promontory the cruel surf gnawed the sand; theravens were flying down to the detritus of the night, on the wet marginsof the tide. The lawyer was climbing over the shoulder of a dune, asack upon his back; a shepherd, for the first time that spring, wasdriving a flock of sheep past the chapel yew. There was much surf onLindisfarne.

  Suddenly, from the middle of the bow of the grey horizon there shot up asingle, broadening beam. Young Lovell waved his arm to the golden diskthat hastened over the grey line.

  "If you had come sooner," he said to the sun, "you might have saved mefrom this spell. Now these fairies have me."

  Slowly, with mincing and as if shy footsteps, Hamewarts went downthrough the rushes from that very real world. Young Lovell perceivedthat the brown was a carpeting that fluttered, all of sparrows. It had apearly and restless border of blue doves, and in this carpet the whitehorse stepped ankle-deep without crushing one little fowl. He perceivedthe great-petalled flowers, scarlet and white and all golden. On agreen hill there stood a pink temple, and the woman on the back of thewhite horse held a white falcon. She smiled at him with the mockingeyes of the naked woman that stood upon the shell in the picture he hadseen in Italy.

  "But for you," he heard himself think, "I might have been the prosperestknight of all this Northland and the world, for I have never met mymatch in the courteous arts, the chase or the practice and exercises ofarms."

  And he heard her answering thoughts:

  "Save for that I had not called thee from the twilight."