“Now, who dare ridicule us for believing in Prince Guy?”
“It all fits in too well,” said candid Prima, sorrowfully.
But the local savans do not discredit the discovery on that account. We drove out to Guy’s Cliff the next afternoon to attend service in the family chapel of the Percys, whose handsome mansion is built hard by. The stables are hewn out of the same rocky ridge in which Guy dug his cell. The chapel occupies the site of the old oratory. The bell was tinkling for the hour of worship as we entered the porch. It is a pretty little building, of gray stone, as are the surrounding offices, and on this occasion was tolerably well filled with servants and tenants of “the Family.” In a front slip sat the worshippers from the Great House—an old lady in widow’s mourning, who was, we were told, Lady Percy, and three portly British matrons, simple in attire and devout in demeanor. A much more august personage, pursy and puffing behind a vast red waistcoat, whom we supposed to be Chief Butler on week days and verger on Sabbath, assigned to us a seat directly back of the ladies, and, what was of more consequence in our eyes, in a line with a niche in which stands a gigantic statue of Earl Guy. This was set up on the site of the oratory, two hundred years after his death, by the first of the Plantagenets, Henry II.
“Our lord, the King, has each day a school for right well-lettered men,” says a chronicler of his reign. “Hence, his conversation that he hath with them is busy discussing of questions. None is more honest than our king in speaking, ne in alms largess. Therefore, as Holy Writ saith, we may say of him—‘His name is a precious ointment, and the alms of him all the church shall take.’”
Whether as an erudite antiquarian, or as a pious son of the church he caused this statue to be placed here, History, nor its elder sister, Tradition informs us. We may surmise shrewdly, and less charitably, that repentant visitings of conscience touching his marital infidelities, or the scandal of Fair Rosamond, or peradventure, the desire to appease the manes of the murdered Becket had something to do with the offering. The effigy was thrown down in the ruin of the oratory in the Civil Wars, and for many years, lay forgotten in the rubbish. The Percys have raised it with reverent hands, and set it—sadly broken and defaced—in the place of honor in their chapel.
There was charming incongruity in the aspect of the towering gray figure, with one uplifted arm from which sword or battle-axe has fallen, and the appointments and occupants of the temple. The head is much disfigured, worn away, more than shattered. But there is majesty in the outlines and attitude. Our eyes strayed to it oftener, dwelt upon it longer, than on the fresh-colored face of the spruce Anglican who intoned the service and read a neat little homily upon the 51st Psalm, prefaced by a modest mention of David’s sin in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. From what depth of blood-guiltiness had our noble recluse entreated deliverance in a day when blood weighed lightly upon the souls of brave men?
The Sabbath light flowed through the stained windows of the chancel and bathed in blessing, the feet of the graven figure; the lifted arm menaced no more, but signified supplication as we prayed:
“Spare Thou those who confess their sins!”
—was tossed aloft in thanksgiving in the last hymn:—
“O Paradise, O Paradise!