He was too kind-hearted not to let Cicely know that he should see her mother, or to refuse to take a billet for her,—a little formal note necessarily silent on the matter at issue, since it had to be laid before the Earl, who smiled at the scrupulous precaution, and let it pass.
Thus the good father parted with Humfrey and Diccon, rejoicing in his heart that they would fight with open foes, instead of struggling with the meshes of perplexity, which beset all concerned with Queen Mary, and then he turned his horse's head towards Wingfield Manor, a grand old castellated mansion of the Talbots, considered by some to excel even Sheffield. It stood high, on ground falling very steeply from the walls on three sides, and on the south well fortified, court within court, and each with a deep-arched and portcullised gateway, with loopholed turrets on either side, a porter's lodge, and yeomen guards.
Mr. Talbot had to give his name and quality, and show his pass, at each of these gates, though they were still guarded by Shrewsbury retainers, with the talbot on their sleeves. He was, however, received with the respect and courtesy due to a trusted kinsman of their lord; and Sir Ralf Sadler, a thin, elderly, careworn statesman, came to greet him at the door of the hall, and would only have been glad could he have remained a week, instead of for the single night he wished to spend at Wingfield.
Sadler was one of Mary's most gentle and courteous warders, and he spoke of her with much kindness, regretting that her health had again begun to suffer from the approach of winter, and far more from disappointment.
The negotiation with Scotland on her behalf was now known to have been abortive. James had fallen into the hands of the faction most hostile to her, and though his mother still clung with desperate hope to the trust that he, at least, was labouring on her behalf, no one else believed that he cared for anything but his own security, and even she had been forced to perceive that her liberation was again adjourned.
"And what think you was her thought when she found that road closed up?" said Sir Ralf. "Why, for her people! Her gentlewoman, Mrs. Mowbray, hath, it seems, been long betrothed."
"Ay, to Gilbert Curll, the long-backed Scotch Secretary. They were to be wed at Stirling so soon as she arrived there again."
"Yea; but when she read the letter that overthrew her hopes, what did she say but that 'her servants must not grow gray-headed with waiting till she was set free'! So she would have me make the case known to Sir Parson, and we had them married in the parish church two days since, they being both good Protestants."
"There is no doubt that her kindness of heart is true," said Richard. "The poor folk at Sheffield and Ecclesfield will miss her plentiful almsgiving."
"Some say it ought to be hindered, for that it is but a purchasing of friends to her cause," said Sadler; "but I have not the heart to check it, and what could these of the meaner sort do to our Queen's prejudice? I take care that nothing goes among them that could hide a billet, and that none of her people have private speech with them, so no harm can ensue from her bounty."