"Yes, but I mean in his mind and character?"
"Well, Madam," answered Patient, rather doubtfully, "he was much like other men. He had good points and bad points. He was a kindly gentleman, and open-handed. He was not an angel."
"You scarce liked him, I think, Patient."
"I ought not to say so, Madam. He was alway a good and kind master to me. Truly, he was not the man I should have chosen for Miss Magdalene; but I seldom see folks choose as I should in their places. Yet that is little marvel, since, fifteen years gone, Patient Leslie made a choice that Patient Irvine would be little like to make now."
Patient's dry, sarcastic tone warned Celia that she had better turn the conversation.
"And where was I born, Patient?"
"Well, Madam, you know what happened that summer your brother was born. He that was called Prince of Wales was born in the same month;[[5]] and in October King James fled away, sending his wife Queen Mary[[6]] and the babe to France. When King William landed, it was expected that he would seize all belonging to the malignants;[[7]] this was not so entirely, yet so much that Sir Edward was sore afeared to lose his. He kept marvellous quiet for a time, trusting that such as were then in power would maybe not think of him. But when King James landed in Ireland, he was constrained to join him, but he left my Lady behind, and me with her, at his own house in Cheshire. After the battle of Boyne Water,[[8]] whereat he fought, it happed as he feared, for all his property was escheated to the Crown. At this time Mr. Francis Grey came back into the country, and for a time Sir Edward and my Lady abode with him at a house which he had near the Border, on the English side: but Sir Edward by his work on the Boyne had made the place too hot for to hold him, and he bethought himself of escaping after King James to France. So about March, 1691, we began to journey slowly all down England from the Border to the south sea. Sir Edward was mortal afeared of being known and seized, so that he would not go near any place where he could possibly be known: and having no acquaintance anywhere in the parts of Devon, made him fix upon Plymouth whence to sail. It was in the last of May that we left Exeter. We had journeyed but a little thence, when I saw that my Lady, who had been ailing for some time, was like to fall sick unto death. I told Sir Edward that methought she was more sick than he guessed, but I think he counted my words but idle clavers and foolish fancies. At last she grew so very bad that he began to believe me. 'Patient,' he said to me one morn, 'I shall go on to Plymouth and inquire for a ship. Tend your Lady well, and so soon as she can abide the journeying, she must come after. If I find it needful, I may sail the first.' It was on a Monday that Sir Edward rode away, leaving my Lady and the little Master, with me and Roswith to tend them, at a poor cot, the abode of one Betty Walling."
"Betty Walling of Ashcliffe? Why, Patient, I know her!"
"Do you so, Madam? She knows you, I guess, and could have told you somewhat anent yourself. Not that she knew my Lady's name: I kept that from her. It was on the Friday following that you were born. Saving your presence, Madam, you were such a poor, weak, puny babe, that none thought you would live even a day. Betty said, I mind, 'Poor little soul! 'twill soon be out of its suffering—you may take that comfort!' I myself never reckoned that you could live. I marvel whether Madam Passmore would remember Betty Walling's coming unto her one wet even in June, to beg a stoup of wine for a sick woman with her? That sick woman was my dear Lady. It was the Saturday eve, and she died on the Sunday morning. I laid her out for the burying, which was to be on the Wednesday, and was preparing to go thence unto Plymouth afterward, with Roswith and the babes, when on the Tuesday night I was aroused from sleep by a rapping on the window. I crept to the casement and oped it, and was surprised to hear my Master's voice saying softly, 'Patient, come and open to me.' I ran then quickly and let him in; he looked very white and tired, and his dress soiled as if he had ridden hard and long. Quoth he, 'How fares Magdalene?' As softly as I could break it, I told him that she would never suffer any more, but she had left him a baby daughter which he must cherish for her sake. He was sore grieved as ever I saw man for aught. After a while, he told me much, quickly, for there was little time. He had not entered Plymouth, when, riding softly in the dark, another horseman met him, and aroused his wonder by riding back after him and away again; and this he did twice over. At length the strange horseman rode right up to him, and asked him plainly, 'Are you Sir Edward Ingram, holding King James's commission?' And when he said he was, then said the horseman, 'If you look to sail from Plymouth, I would have you know that you are expected there, and spies be abroad looking for you, and you will be taken immediately you show yourself. If you love your life, turn back!' Sir Edward desiring to know both who he was and how he knew this, the horseman saith, 'That I may not tell you: but ride hard, or they will be on your track; for they already misdoubt that you are at Ashcliffe, where if your following be, I counsel you to remove thence with all the speed that may be.' Sir Edward said that he had ridden for life all through three days and nights, and now we must move away without awaiting aught. 'And we will go,' quoth he, 'by Bideford; for they will expect me now, if they find I have given them the slip, to take passage by Portsmouth or Southampton, and will scarce count on my turning westward.' It grieved us both sore to leave my Lady unburied, but there was no help; and Betty passed her word to follow the body, and see that she was meetly laid in her grave. 'And how will I carry the babe?' quoth I. 'Nay, truly,' said he, sorrowfully, 'the babe cannot go with us; it will bewray all by its crying. We must needs leave it somewhere at nurse, and when better times come, and the King hath his own again, I will return and claim it.' For Master Edward was a braw laddie, that scarce ever cried or plained; while you, Madam, under your leave, did keep up a continual whining and mewling, which would have entirely hindered our lying hid, or journeying under cover of darkness. So I called Betty when it grew light, and conferred with her; and she said, 'Leave the babe at the gate of the Hall, and watch it till one cometh to take it.' Madam Passmore, she told us, was a kindly gentlewoman, that had sent word she would have come to see my Lady herself if she also had not been sick; and at this time having a little babe of her own, Betty thought she would be of soft heart unto any other desolate and needful babe. So I clad you in laced wraps, and pinned a paper on your coat with a gold pin of my Lady's, and Sir Edward wrote on the paper your name, 'Celia,' the which my poor Lady, as she lay a-dying, had felt a fancy to have you called. He said he had ever wished, should he have a daughter, to name her Grissel, which was my Lady his mother's name; 'But,' quoth he, 'if my poor Magdalene in dying had asked me to name the child Nebuchadnezzar, I would not have said her nay.' He was such a gentleman as that, Madam; in his deepest troubles he scarce could forbear jesting. So I carried you to the Hall, and laid you softly down at the gate, and rang the bell, and hid and watched among the trees. There first the Master rode up, looked strangely on you, though pitifully enough, but touched you not: and anon came out a kindly-looking woman of some fifty-and-five or sixty years, and took you up, and carried you away in her arms, chirping pleasantly unto you the while. So I was satisfied for the babe."
"That was Cicely Aggett," said Celia, smiling: "dear old Cicely! she told me about her finding me."