"Gone!" cried Sir Osborne. "Gone! In the name of heaven, whither is she gone? Who is gone with her?"
"Jesu Maria, sir! don't look so wild," cried the woman, who thought herself quite pretty enough, even in her tears, to be a little familiar. "Dr. Wilbraham is with the Lady Constance, and so is Mistress Margaret, and therefore she is safe enough, surely."
"But cannot you say whither she is gone?" cried the knight. "When did she go? How?"
"She went but now, sir," replied the woman. "She was sent for about an hour or more ago to the little tapestry-hall, to speak with my lord cardinal; and after that she came back very grave and serious, and made Mistress Margaret pack up a great parcel of things, while she herself spoke with Dr. Wilbraham; and when that was done, they all three went away together; but before she went she gave each of us fifty marks a-piece, and said that she would give us news of her."
"Did she not drop any word in regard to her destination?" demanded Sir Osborne. "Anything that might lead you to imagine whither she was gone?"
"Mistress Margaret said they were going to London," said the other girl, turning round from the window, and speaking through her tears. "She said that they were going because such was my lord cardinal's will. But I don't believe it, for she said it like a lie; and I'm sure I shall never see my young lady again. I'm sure I shan't! So now, sir knight, go away and leave us, for we can tell you nothing more."
The knight turned away. "Oh, Constance! Constance!" thought he, as he paced back to his apartments; "will you ever be able to resist all the influence they may bring against you? When you hear, too, of your lover's disgrace! Well, God is good, and sometimes joy shines forth out of sorrow, like the sun that dispels the storm." As he thought thus, the prediction of Sir Cesar, that their misfortune should be but of short duration, came across his mind. "The evil part of his prophecy," thought he, "is already on my head. Why should I doubt the good? Come, I will be superstitious, and believe it fully; for hope is surely as much better than fear as joy is better than sorrow. Will Constance ever give her hand to another? Oh, no, no! And surely, surely, I shall win her yet."
Of all the bright gifts with which heaven has blessed our youth, there is none more excellent than that elasticity of spirit which rebounds strongly from the depressing load of a world's care, and after the heaviest weight of sorrow, or the severest stroke of disappointment, raises us lightly up, and gives us back to hope and to enjoyment. It is peculiar to youth, and it is peculiar to good conduct; for the reiterated burdens that years cast upon us as they fly gradually rob the spring of expectation of its flexibility, and vice feels within itself that it has not the same right to hope as virtue. Sir Osborne's spirit was all rebound; and though surrounded with doubts, with difficulties, and with dangers, it was not long before he was ready to try again the wide adventurous world, with unabated vigour of endeavour, though rebuffed in his first endeavours and disappointed in his brightest expectations.
On returning to his apartment he found his faithful attendant ready prepared; and there was a sort of easy, careless confidence in the honest yeoman's manner, that well seconded the efforts of reviving hope in his master's breast. It seemed as if he never thought for a moment that want of success was possible; and, besides, he was one of those over whom Fortune has little power. He himself had no extraneous wants or wishes. Happy by temperament, and independent by bodily vigour, he derived from nature all that neither Stoic nor Epicurean could obtain by art. He was a philosopher by frame; and more than a philosopher, as the word is generally used, for he had a warm heart and a generous spirit, and joined affection for others to carelessness about himself.
Such was the companion, of all others, fitted to cheer Sir Osborne on his way; far more so than if he had been one of equal rank or equal refinement, for he was always ready to assist, to serve, to amuse, or advise, without sufficient appreciation of finer feelings to encourage, even by understanding them, those thoughts upon which the knight might have dwelt painfully in conversation with any one else.