THE DISCOMFITED SCRIVENER.
Grasp's return home was somewhat more sudden than he had intended. He returned indeed in an exceedingly discomfited and excited state.
His friend Dismal was the only person who had gained access to him, and that but for a few moments. During the interview, however, Dismal had gathered from Doubletongue, who also arrived in all haste, that great events had transpired in London, of one sort or other. But so extraordinary and so perturbed did both the lawyer and his friend seem, that except certain incoherent expressions about an attempt upon the Queen's life, a spectre he himself had beheld, and various allusions to poison, assassination, death, destruction, and utter ruin. Dismal completely failed in discovering the exact news the travellers had to tall, and hence the variety of reports circulated through the town. Something certainly seemed to have gone all wrong with the lawyer. His friend Doubletongue had never seen him so put out, and altogether he feared that his wits were going.
To explain the meaning of this agitated and nervous state of the worthy Stratford lawyer, we must go back a few paces in our history.
Grasp, then, it will be remembered, whilst in London, had considerably extended his practice. He had apparently involved Walter Arderne in ruin; he had even carried on his intrigues so as to make the dark Earl, he of Leicester, a party concerned in his plot. For Grasp had given the Earl a hint about certain abbey lands and a manor near Kenilworth, which would fall to the said Earl in the event of Arderne's decease. He had ferreted out the existence of a plot, by means of which he hoped to rise to great preferment; and he had succeeded in beguiling a simple-minded gentleman, resident in Warwickshire, that he was indeed the real and undisputed heir to the estates of the before-named Clara de Mowbray, and actually by bribery, and using all sorts of villainy, got a verdict in such person's favour, and placed him in possession of some portion of the property.
Somehow or other, however, like the labours of the alchemist, which at the moment of projection are frequently overthrown by the bursting of some vessel containing the divine elixir, so all Grasp's schemes seemed unaccountably blown to the winds, and himself discomfited.
Acting upon wrong information, he had followed a female, who travelled in male disguise, as far as Oxford, where he lost all trace of her; and whilst he tarried at the City of Palaces, an express overtook him, with directions to hasten with all speed to Cornbury Park, where the Earl of Leicester was then lying sick, having arrived there by easy stages on the way to Kenilworth, a few days before.
Now, Grasp, since his first introduction to the Earl of Leicester, had made such considerable advances in that bad man's good graces, that the Earl had sent an express for him, in order to make some alterations in his will.
Grasp accordingly set forth, leaving directions that Sir Humphrey Graball, the gentleman who was disputing the succession of the Mowbray estates, and Master Quillett, the Temple lawyer, and with whom he had arranged a meeting at Oxford, should follow him to Cornbury. For Grasp argued very wisely, that both the matters of business apertaining to the Earl's claim, and the concoction of a new will, might be arranged at one and the same time.
The will of the sick and fallen favourite, had we space to dilate upon it, would perhaps be well worthy of contemplation. That part of it especially in which he bequeathed a costly legacy to his royal mistress—the bequest being wrapped up in a preamble of honeyed words, being not the least curious part of the document.
It was night when the Earl finished his business with Grasp, and the bleak winds of September sounded through the park of Cornbury, as the lawyer, after the interview, sat with the before-named client and the Templar, in a small apartment of the mansion. It was a dark hour, and a certain feeling of awe seemed to pervade that household.
The overgrown and fallen courtier lying helpless and hopeless, alike body and soul. His "ill-weaved ambition" shrank to the smallest span—his parks, his walks, his manors forsaking him. His swollen body, a thing abhorrent even to himself. That beautiful Countess too, attending upon him without love; and whilst duty called her to the side of him who had so vilely used her, the selfish courtier even envying her the life and health she enjoyed.
Nothing however, could exceed the elation of Grasp. He beheld in prospect a glorious array of difficulties and litigation consequent upon the matters he was engaged in; and most of all the success of his machinations in favour of Sir Humphrey Graball, and his succession to the manors of Mowbray, promised him endless profits.
"Sir Humphrey is altogether an easy simpleton," he said, "a most weak and debile man, and can as easily be led by the nose as an ass. Ergo, I shall thrive."
Accordingly, as Grasp sat with his client discussing matters of moment, whilst they relieved their labours by occasional indulgence in the good wine of the house, amongst other papers called for, was the will of the Lady Clara de Mowbray—an instrument we have, on a former occasion seen in his possession. There is always a secret horror suitable to the time, when in some antique apartment, and, by night, men meet together to peruse the musty documents which speak the last wishes of those within the tomb, more especially when sickness and those signs which foretell the ending of mortality pervade the habitation. On this rough night
"The owl shrieked, the fatal bellman
Which gives the sternest good night."
Suddenly, as Grasp glanced upon that will, he became, as it were, transfixed. At the same moment a sort of hubbub seemed to pervade the house. In place of the silence which the sick Earl had commanded there was suddenly heard an opening and shutting of doors—a summons of persons in all haste, and something apparently of dreadful import in agitation.
Grasp, however, heeded it not. He seemed still engrossed with the parchment before him. He held it back at arm's length; he drew it close to his nose; he uttered an exclamation of astonishment, and the word "codicil" escaped, as one of the domestics rushed into tho room to announce that the Earl was dying in fearful agony.
Without heeding the news, Grasp fled from the room, rushed to the stable, mounted his horse, and rode off for Oxford. With the will still in his hand, the excited lawyer dismounted from his steed, and strode into the tavern, where, heeding not the assembled guests, he threw himself into a vacant seat, with the air of one possessed by a demon. And, again, with fearful eye, regarded the instrument he hold in his hand.
"Can such things be?" he said. "Can the dead return to life, or is it the evil one himself who thus palters with my sight and senses?"
The tavern was on this night tolerably well filled with guests. One of them, who was seated opposite to the lawyer, was a person of a most expressive and pleasant style of countenance. His conversation and wit had indeed been setting the whole assemblage, gentle and simple, in roars, during the entire evening—the host and hostess of the tavern being not the least amused.
The advent of Grasp in his perturbed state, his extraordinary grimaces, his abstracted demeanour, and his travel-stained appearance altogether, called forth from this person so many curious remarks, that the laughter which had for the moment been interrupted by his entrance was renewed tenfold at Grasp's expense, till, as on unfixing his gaze from the basilisk he seemed to hold in his hand, he looked round upon the assemblage, and then steadily regarded his tormentor, he beheld himself face to face with the old subject of his former enmity—Master William Shakespeare.
"There is no rest for the wicked," saith the old proverb; and the renewed roar which followed the expression of Grasp's countenance at this sudden recognition, was actually driving him from the room, when Doubletongue, who had followed his friend, suddenly entered, and whispered something in his ear.
"Poisoned say ye?" exclaimed Grasp, starting in surprise; "my Lord of Leicester deceased—dead—defunct, and thus suddenly? Poisoned, say ye? Art sure 'tis the Countess you mean?"
"No, 'tis the Earl himself," said Doubletongue; "and your having been with him just before, together with your sudden departure, hath raised a suspicion among the household that——"
"'Fore heaven, what mean ye?" said Grasp. "They surely suspect not that I had ought to do with the poisoning of my Lord of Leicester? There must have been some dire mistake in the matter. 'Fore heaven, I shall be hanged through this mistake!" and Grasp immediately left the room, bribed the ostler to procure him a fresh horse, and set off with all speed towards Stratford-upon-Avon.
Scarce had he gained a dozen miles when he came up with a couple of riders progressing the same road as himself. Company was ever welcome in those days, and the horsemen gladly acceded to his request to be allowed to ride in their escort.
The habitual caution of the lawyer, however, caused him to cast certain searching glances at his companions as often as the moon's light gave him opportunity of doing so, and ere long he became almost confirmed in the belief that in one of the armed riders he was accompanying he had fallen in with the identical female in male apparel whom he had before been in search of. There was comfort, at all events, in this supposition, and as they emerged from the dark covert of a wood they had been progressing through, he managed to push his horse between them and gain a good look at their features. And here again Grasp apparently beheld that which renewed his former perturbation. The face of the rider he first encountered wore the actual expression of one he had reason to believe had long been dead, and as he turned his startled glance upon the other, he beheld the exact lineaments of Clara de Mowbray. Pale she looked, as if her features were of sculptured alabaster; but as she turned her countenance full upon him, he could not be mistaken in their identity.
Conscience had already made a coward of Grasp—his clear spirit was puddled. The deep sea had apparently cast up the dead to discomfort him, and clapping spars to his steed, he fled onwards on his route towards Stratford-upon-Avon.