"Stay, fair maiden!" continued Ned Dyram, who well knew where the hostelry of the Falcon was situate--"It may be as well to keep our counsel, whatever it be, from host and hostess. Gossip is a part of their trade; and it is wise to avoid giving them occasion. I will give you, when we are within, a letter from my young lord, and read it to you, too, as perchance you cannot do that yourself; but it will let the people see that I am not without authority to hold converse with you, which may be needful."
"Nay," answered Ella, "I can read it myself; for I have not been without such training."
"Ay, I forgot," rejoined Ned Dyram, with one of his light sneers; "had you been a princess, you would not have been able to read. Such clerk-craft is only fit for citizens and monks. I wonder how Childe Richard learned to read and write. I fear it will spoil him for a soldier."
The satire was not altogether just; for, though it did not unfrequently happen that high nobles and celebrated warriors and statesmen were as illiterate as the merest boors, and in some instances (especially after the wars of the Roses had deluged the land with blood, and interrupted all the peaceful arts of life) the barons affected to treat with sovereign contempt the cultivation of the mind, yet such was not by any means so generally the case, as the pride of modern civilization has been eager to show. We have proofs incontestable, that, in the reigns of Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V., men were by no means so generally ignorant as has been supposed. The House of Lancaster was proud of its patronage of literature; and, though more than one valiant nobleman could not sign his own name, or could do so with difficulty, there is much reason to believe that the exceptions have been pointed out as the rule; for we know that many a citizen of London could not only maintain, without the aid of another hand, long and intricate correspondence with foreign merchants, but also took delight in the reading during winter's nights of Chaucer and Gower, if not in studying secretly the writings of Wickliffe and his disciples.
Ella Brune replied not, but walked on into the house, calling the good hostess, who, in that day as in others, often supplied the place of both master and mistress in a house of public entertainment. Ned Dyram followed her with his eyes into the house, scrutinizing with keen and wondering glance the beauties of form which even the long loose robe of serge could not fully conceal. He marvelled at the grace he beheld, even more rare at that day amongst the sons and daughters of toil than at present; and, although the pride of rank and station could not, in his case, suggest the bold disregard of all law and decency in seeking the gratification of passion, his feelings towards Ella Brune were not very far different from those of Sir Simeon of Roydon. He might have more respect for the opinion of the world, by which he hoped to rise; he might even have more respect for, and more belief in, virtue, for he was a wiser man; he might seek to obtain his ends by other means; he was even not incapable of love,--strong, passionate, overpowering love; but the moving power was the same. It was all animal; for, strange to say, though his intellect was far superior to that of most men of his day; though he had far more mind than was needful, or even advantageous, in his commerce with the world of that age, his impulses were all animal towards others. That which he cared for little in himself, he admired, he almost worshipped, in woman. It was beauty of form and feature only that attracted him. Mind he cared not for--he thought not of; nay, up to that moment, he perhaps either doubted whether it existed in the other sex, or thought it a disadvantage if it did. Even more, the heart itself he valued little; or, rather, that strange and complex tissue of emotions, springing from what source we know not, entwined with our mortal nature--by what delicate threads who can say?--which we are accustomed to ascribe to the heart, he regarded but as an almost worthless adjunct. His was the eager love--forgive me, if I profane what should be a holy name, rather than use a coarser term--of the wild beast; the appetite of the tiger, only tempered by the shrewdness of the fox. I mean not to say it always remained so; for, under the power of passion and circumstances, the human heart is tutored as a child. Neither would I say that aught like love had yet touched his bosom for Ella Brune. I speak but of his ordinary feeling towards woman; but feelings of that sort are sooner roused than those of a higher nature. He saw that she was very beautiful--more beautiful, he thought, than any woman of his own station that ever he had beheld; and that was enough to make him determine upon counteracting his master's wishes and counsel, and persuading Ella to turn her steps in the same course in which his own were directed. He knew not how willing she was to be persuaded; he knew not that she was at heart already resolved: but he managed skilfully, he watched shrewdly, through the whole of his after-communications with her during the day. He discovered much--he discovered all, indeed, but one deep secret, which might have been penetrated by a woman's eyes, but which was hid from his, with all their keenness--the motive, the feeling, that led her so strongly in the very path he wished. He saw, indeed, that she was so inclined; he saw that there was a voice always seconding him in her heart, and he took especial care to furnish that voice with arguments which seemed irresistible. He contrived, too, to win upon her much; for there was in his conversation that mingling of frankness and flattering courtesy, of apparent carelessness of pleasing, with all the arts of giving pleasure, and that range of desultory knowledge and tone of superior mind, with apparent simplicity of manner, and contempt for assumption, which of all things are the most calculated to dazzle and impress for a time. 'Tis the lighter qualities that catch, the deeper ones that bind; and though, had there been a comparison drawn between him, who was her companion for a great part of that evening, and Richard of Woodville, Ella Brune would have laughed in scorn; yet she listened, well pleased, to the varied conversation with which he whiled away the hours, when she could wean her thoughts from dearer, though more painful themes; yielded to his arguments when they seconded the purposes of her own heart, and readily accepted his offered service to aid her in executing the plan she adopted.
CHAPTER XVIII.
[THE JOURNEY AND THE VOYAGE.]
The sun rose behind some light grey clouds, and the blue sky was veiled; but the birds made the welkin ring from amongst the young leaves of the April trees, and told of the coming brightness of the day. Why, or wherefore, let men of science say; but one thing is certain, the seasons at that time were different from those at present; they were earlier; they were more distinct; spring was spring, and summer was summer; and winter, content with holding his own right stiffly, did not attempt to invade the rights of his brethren. Far in the north of England we had vines growing and bearing fruit in the open air. At Hexham there was a vineyard; and wine was made in more than one English county--not very good, it is to be supposed, but still good enough to be drunk, and to prove the longer and more genial reign of summer in our island. Thus, though the morning was grey, as I have said, and April had not yet come to an end, the air was as warm as it is often now in June, and every bank was already covered with flowers.
There were horses before the gate of Richard of Woodville's house, and men busily preparing them for a journey. There was the heavy charger, or battle horse, with tall and bony limbs, well fitted to bear up under the weight of a steel-covered rider; and the lighter, but still powerful palfrey, somewhat of the size and make of a hunter of the present day, to carry the master along the road. Besides these, appeared many another beast; horses for the yeomen and servants, and horses and mules for the baggage: the load of armour for himself and for his men which the young adventurer carried with him, requiring not a few of those serviceable brutes who bow their heads to man's will, in order to carry it to the sea-shore. At length all was prepared; the packs were put upon the beasts, the drivers were at their heads, the yeomen by their saddles; and with ten stout men and two boys, fourteen horses, three mules, a plentiful store of arms, and all the money he could raise, in his wallet, Richard of Woodville issued forth, gave his last commands to the old man and woman whom he left behind in the hall, and, springing into the saddle, began his journey towards Dover.
It was not without a sigh that he set out; for he was leaving the land in which Mary Markham dwelt; but yet he thought he was going to win honour for her sake--perchance to win her herself; and all the bright hopes and expectations of youth soon gathered on his way, more vivid and more glowing in his case, than they could be in that of any youth of the present day, taking his departure for foreign lands. If at present each country knows but very little in reality of its neighbour, if England entertains false views and wild imaginations regarding France and her people, and France has not the slightest particle of knowledge in regard to the feelings, character, and habits of thought, of the English, how much more must such have been the case in an age when communication was rare, and then only or chiefly by word of mouth! It is true that the state of geographical knowledge was not so low as has been generally supposed, for we are very apt to look upon ourselves as wonderful people, and to imagine that nobody knew anything before ourselves; and the difference between former ages and the present is more in the general diffusion of knowledge than in its amount. In the very age of which we speak, the famous Henry of Vasco was pursuing his great project for reaching India by passing round Africa, attempting to establish Portuguese stations on the coast of that continent, and to communicate with the natives; "e poi aver con essi loro comercio per l'onore e utiltà del Regno."[[4]]