“She only said,—‘The day is dreary,
He will not come,’ she said:
She wept,—‘I am aweary, weary,—
O God, that I were dead!’”
Tennyson.
“What, ho! Gate, ho! Open unto my Lord elect of York!”
The cry startled the porter at Hazelwood Manor from an afternoon nap. He sprang up and hurried out, in utter confusion at his negligence. To keep a priest waiting would have been bad manners enough, and an abbot still worse; but an archbishop was, in the porter’s estimate, a semi-celestial being. True, this Archbishop was not yet consecrated, nor had he received his pallium from Rome, both which considerations detracted from his holiness, and therefore from his importance; but he was the Archbishop of the province, and the shadow of his future dignity was imposing to an insignificant porter. Poor Wilkin went down on his knees in a puddle, as soon as he had got the gate open, to beg the potentate’s pardon and blessing, and only rose from them summarily to collar Colle, who had so little notion of the paramount claims of an archbishop that he received the cavalcade with barks as noisy as he would have bestowed on any worldly pedlar. Nay, so very unmannerly was Colle, that when he was let go, he marched straight to the Archbishop, and after a prolonged sniff at the archiepiscopal boots, presumed so far as to wag his very secular tail, and even to give an uninvited lick to the archiepiscopal glove. The Archbishop, instead of excommunicating Colle, laid his hand gently on the dog’s head and patted him; which so emboldened that audacious quadruped that he actually climbed up the prelate, with more decided wagging than before.
“Nay, my son!” said the Archbishop, gently, to an officious young priest in his suite, who would have dragged the dog away—“grudge me not my welcome. Dogs be honest creatures, and dissemble not. Hast thou never heard the saw, that ‘they be ill folks that dogs and children will not go withal’?”
And with another pat of Colle’s head, the Archbishop dismissed him, and walked into the hall to meet a further welcome from the whole family and household, all upon their knees. Blessing them in the usual priestly manner, he commanded them to rise, and Sir Godfrey then presented his sons and squire, while Lady Foljambe did the same for the young ladies.
“Mistress Margaret Foljambe, my son’s wife, an’ it please your Grace; and Mistress Perrote de Carhaix, my head chamberer. These be my bower-women, Agatha de La Beche and Amphillis Neville.”
“Neville!” echoed the Archbishop, instantly. “Of what Nevilles comest thou, my maid?”
“Please it you, holy Father,” said the confused Amphillis, more frightened still to hear a sharp “your Grace!” whispered from Lady Foljambe; “I know little of my kin, an’ it like your Grace. My father was Walter Neville, and his father a Ralph, but more know I not, under your Grace’s pleasure.”
“How comes it thou wist no more?”
“May it please your Grace, my father dwelt in Hertfordshire, and he wedded under his estate, so that his family cast him off, as I have heard,” said Amphillis, growing every moment more hot and confused, for it was no light ordeal for one in her position to be singled out for conversation by an archbishop, and she sorely feared an after ebullition of Lady Foljambe’s wrath.