'Spare me, mother!' Mary said. 'I cannot bear much more to-night.'
'Much more! Sure, Mary, you make an ado about nothing. What have you to bear, I'd like to know, with a roof over your head, and your child fed and clothed? Bear indeed!' and with a low, mocking laugh, Mistress Forrester stumped with her heavy tread up the stairs which led to the upper floor from the further end of the kitchen.
Mary went into the porch, and the peaceful landscape before her seemed to quiet her troubled spirit. She was so keenly alive to all that was beautiful in nature; her education had been imperfect, but she was open to receive all impressions, and, during her short married life, she had been brought into contact with the people who were attached to the Earl of Leicester's household, and had read books which had quickened her poetic taste and given a colour to her life.
It is difficult for those who live in these times to realise the fervour with which the few books then brought within the reach of the people were received by those who were hungry for self-culture. The Queen was an accomplished scholar, and did her best to encourage the spread of literature in the country. But though the tide had set in with an ever-increasing flow, the flood had not as yet reached the women in Mary Forrester's position. Thus, when she married Ambrose Gifford, a new world was opened to her by such books as Surrey's Translation of the Æneid, and Painter's Tales from Boccaccio. She had an excellent memory, and had learned by heart Wyatt's Translation of the Psalms, and many parts of Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar. This evening she took from the folds of her gown a small book in a brown cover, which had been a gift to her that very day from Mary, Countess of Pembroke.
It was the Psalms in English verse, which the brother and sister had produced together in the preceding year when Philip Sidney, weary of the Court, and burdened with the weight of his love for Stella, had soothed his spirit by this joint work with his sister as they walked together in the wide domain of Wilton, the home to which Mary Sidney went from her native Penshurst, and which was scarcely less fair and beautiful than that which she left to become the wife of the Earl of Pembroke.
It was at Wilton that The Arcadia had its birth, and the description of the fair country where Sir Philip Sidney and his sister placed the heroes and heroines of the story may well answer as a description of both places, as they write of proud heights, garnished with stately trees; and humble valleys comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers; the meadows enamelled with all sorts of flowers; the fields garnished with roses, which made the earth blush as bashful at its own beauty—with other imagery which, after the lapse of more than three hundred years, shines out through the tangled labyrinth of the story of The Arcadia, like golden threads, the lustre of which time has no power to dim.
Mary Gifford has paid dearly for those five years spent in the world, which was so far removed from the peace and seclusion of her native hills. And now, as she sits in the porch, and opening the little book which had been the gift that day from the Countess of Pembroke, she tried, in the dim waning light, to read some verses from the thick page, which the lines printed close in black letters made somewhat difficult. Presently the book fell from her hand and she started to her feet, as there was a rustle near and a soft tread of stealthy footsteps.
In another moment the tall black figure Lucy had spoken of stood before her.
Her heart beat fast, and it needed all her courage not to cry aloud with fear.