John Markham, with a head beyond his years, was passing wise for his station. He was no ordinary servant, but one high in the regard of Sir John Feversham, the Constable of Nottingham Castle, that grim pile half-a-mile off, rising sheer from its rock in the midst of the water-meadows. Learned in hawking, he was esteemed by gentle and simple for many a mile. His skill in the craft of princes had even carried his fame as far as Belvoir, under whose shadow he had been bred. He was a shrewd, a skilful, a bold young fellow, wise in all things except that he worshiped the ground upon which his young mistress trod.
That was the fault of his youth. He had been less than he was, far less, could he have attended her pleasure without dreaming of her in the long watches of the night, or desiring in his hours of madness that she should plunge into his heart the silver-hilted poniard she wore at her waist. This was her eighteenth birthday, and he was rising twenty-five. She was rich, important, beautiful, capricious. For she was the only child and heiress of the greatest man for ten miles round.
And he, who was he? Well, if the truth must be told, he was the byblow of a kitchen-wench and one of great place who had shown him not a spark of kindness. Yes, if the truth must be told—and John Markham thanked no man for telling it—born and bred under the shadow of Belvoir, given the soul and the features of a noble race, but without birth, favor or education, except that he was learned in hawking. Encased in that fine livery was a strong, tormented soul.
His young mistress never allowed him to forget that he was a servant. In her gentlest moods she would throw her words to him as if he had been a dog. She knew he was her slave, happy only in his chains, one barred by fortune from an equality she could never forgive his not being able to claim. His passive acceptance of the bar seemed to make her cruel. He was so tall, so brave, so handsome; not a man in all the county of Notts could cast a main of hawks like him. Only a month ago the Queen had praised him to his face. Yet was he like a hound that came to heel at her word, or a horse that took sugar out of her hand without hurting it. In the presence of others he could be proud enough, but in hers he was as humble as the meanest of her servants, who asks only to be allowed to wait upon her will.
At this moment, be it said, the will of Mistress Anne was making John Markham decidedly unhappy. It had done so indeed for a fortnight past. In the Queen’s train during her recent visit to Sir John, his master, at the Castle, had come the ladies of her household. Among these had been two who, not to put too fine a point upon the matter, had given Mistress Anne ideas. Brazenly enough as it had seemed to chaste minds, yet it was to be feared with the sanction of their august mistress, had they gone a-hawking in the meadows astride their horses, the nether woman arrayed in brown leather galligaskins!
Honest John Markham was not alone in his horror of so sad a spectacle. More than one graybeard had wagged over it in the buttery; more than one prim kirtle had lamented it bitterly in the hall. What were the women of England coming to, if the highest in the land—! The matter was one scarce fit for persons of delicacy. If such a practice spread, who should say to what heights ere long the vaunting spirit of woman would aspire?
Alas! the matter had not ended here. Mistress Anne, in the very insolence of daring, had seen the last word in modishness in this most perilous innovation. Nothing would content her but that she should have a pair of leather hawking-breeches for her wear. John Markham, that trusty henchman, was sent at once to Master Nicholas Tidey, the man’s tailor of Nottingham, with careful instructions from his mistress.
She was not able herself to visit that worthy, because she had been expressly forbidden by her father to pass through the town gate. Thus had the task been laid upon John Markham of haranguing the accomplished Master Tidey. And in the last resort he summoned that famous craftsman in person to the Castle, since it presently appeared that there are subtleties in the design of a pair of hawking-breeches which cannot be dealt with by third parties. Finally John it was who bore the sinister parcel into the Castle under cover of night, carrying it with his own faithful hands into the presence of the lady on the eve of the eighteenth anniversary of her birth.
Truly a very perilous innovation. Honest John did not go beyond that. Whether that other honest John, his master, from whom she derived her over-riding temper, would be content with such a moderation—well, that was a matter that the future would soon be called upon to decide.
Mistress Anne, riding slowly down the street ten yards ahead of the falconer, checking her blood-horse, Cytherea, with one hand and holding her pied merlin in the other, was a picture to haunt the young man’s dreams for many a day to come. Already she had much skill in the art he had taught her: she could bring down her bird with the best; she sat her horse like a young goddess; the galligaskins of supple brown leather—alas! that was a subject to which the honest fellow durst not lend his mind.