“May thy trial in these last be over,” answered Alwyn; “but the humble must console their state by thinking that the great have their trials too; and, as our homely adage hath it, ‘That is not always good in the maw which is sweet in the mouth.’ Thou seest much of my gentle foster-brother, Mistress Sibyll?”
“But in the court dances, Master Alwyn; for most of the hours in which my lady duchess needs me not are spent here. Oh, my father hopes great things! and now at last fame dawns upon him.”
“I rejoice to hear it, mistress; and so, having paid ye both my homage, I take my leave, praying that I may visit you from time to time, if it be only to consult this worshipful master touching certain improvements in the horologe, in which his mathematics can doubtless instruct me. Farewell. I have some jewels to show to the Lady of Bonville.”
“The Lady of Bonville!” repeated Sibyll, changing colour; “she is a dame of notable loveliness.”
“So men say,—and mated to a foolish lord; but scandal, which spares few, breathes not on her,—rare praise for a court dame. Few Houses can have the boast of Lord Warwick’s,—‘that all the men are without fear, and all the women without stain.’”
“It is said,” observed Sibyll, looking down, “that my Lord Hastings once much affectioned the Lady Bonville. Hast thou heard such gossip?”
“Surely, yes; in the city we hear all the tales of the court; for many a courtier, following King Edward’s exemplar, dines with the citizen to-day, that he may borrow gold from the citizen to-morrow. Surely, yes; and hence, they say, the small love the wise Hastings bears to the stout earl.”
“How runs the tale? Be seated, Master Alwyn.”
“Marry, thus: when William Hastings was but a squire, and much favoured by Richard, Duke of York, he lifted his eyes to the Lady Katherine Nevile, sister to the Earl of Warwick, and in beauty and in dower, as in birth, a mate for a king’s son.”
“And, doubtless, the Lady Katherine returned his love?”