The Bondman: A Story of the Times of Wat Tyler

by Mrs. O'Neill

"My lady was in the right not to make much stir about it: I suppose there's not one in the parish knows any thing of the matter. But what is it, Dick?"

"A bouncing boy, the wenches say. But I wish, Phil, you would come with me—I don't much like to be trudging this dark road by myself."

The man he addressed consented, and their steps were soon lost in the distance.

Holgrave raised himself erect as the men departed. Wild thoughts, such as he had never known before, rushed through his heart. It is dangerous to snatch from any man, even the lowest of the species, that which he values above every other thing. Be the thing what it may—be it grand or mean, base or beautiful, still the soul has clung to it, has treasured it up, has worshipped before it; and none but the bereaved can comprehend the desolation which the bereavement causes. Holgrave's idol was his freedom; it was the thing he had prized above all things else; it was the thing he had been taught to revere, even as the religion he professed. It must, therefore, have had a strong hold upon his feelings; it must have grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength: and this it is necessary to understand before a perfect idea can be formed of the hatred which he now felt towards the man who had wrested from him his treasure. It is true he might have rejected his terms, at the sacrifice of a thing of less value—his life; but there was then love and hope to contend against him—the hope of a man and a father. But he had now no longer hope; it had fled with the spirit of his little babe; its last faint breath had dissipated all the illusions of far-off happiness; and he now looked forward to a life of degradation, and a death of dishonour.

"Can it be?" said Holgrave, as he looked before him at the castle, which the tapers revealed—"Can it be, that the lord of this castle and I are the sons of the same heavenly Father? Can the same God have created us?—and is his child to live and grow to manhood, that he may trample on his fellow men, as his father has trampled on me? Is this to go on from generation to generation, and the sons to become even worse than the fathers?—No!" said he, pausing; "I have no child—Margaret must forgive me—I have only a worthless life to forfeit." He paused again. "I will attempt it!" he said, vehemently—"he can but hang me; and if I succeed, the noble blood they think so much of may yet——" Holgrave suffered the sentence to remain unfinished, and he rushed towards the castle.

There was a wicket in the northern gate, the common outlet for the domestics, which, as Holgrave had anticipated, the servitor had not closed after him. He entered, and stood within the court-yard; he heard the sound of voices, and the tread of feet, but no human being was near: he paused an instant to consider, and then, with the swiftness of a deer, he sprung towards the stables, and entered the one appropriated to the select stud of the baron. A lamp was burning, but the men who attended on the horses were now away, quaffing ale to the long life of the heir. The baroness's favourite palfrey was lying in a stall; he stept across the animal, and, after pressing his hands on various parts of the wall, a concealed door flew open, and a dark aperture was before him. He stooped and passed through, and ascended a long, winding flight of steps, till a door impeded his progress; he opened it, and stood in a closet hung round with dresses and mantles, and displaying all the graceful trifles of a lady's wardrobe. There was a door opposite the one at which he had entered, which led into the baroness's chamber, where there were lighted candles, and a blazing fire on the hearth. The floor was thickly strewn with rushes, and he could just perceive the high back of a chair, with the arms of the family wrought in the centre; he paused and listened; he heard the faint cry of a babe, and discovered, by the language of the nurse, that she was feeding it; then there was the hush-a-by, and the rocking motion of the attendant. In a few minutes, the sound of a foot on the rushes, and "the lovely babe would sleep," now announced to Holgrave that the child was deposited with its mother: then he heard the curtains of the bed drawn, and the nurse whisper some one to retire, as her ladyship was inclined to sleep; there was another step across the rushes, and a door was softly closed, and then for a few minutes an unbroken silence, which the nurse at length interrupted by muttering something about "whether the good father had come yet." Again there was a tread across the rushes, and the door again was gently closed; and Holgrave, after a moment of intense listening, stepped from the closet, and entered the chamber. In an elevated alcove stood the bed of the baroness; the rich crimson hangings festooned with gold cord, the drapery tastefully fringed with gold, even to the summit, which was surmounted by a splendid coronet. Holgrave, unaccustomed to magnificence, was for a moment awed by the splendid furniture of the apartment—but it was only for a moment—and then the native strength of his soul spurned the gaudy trappings; he stepped lightly across the spacious chamber; he unloosed the rich curtains—the heir of De Boteler was reposing in a deep slumber on a downy pillow; beyond him lay the exhausted mother, her eyes closed, and the noble contour of her face presenting the repose of death. For an instant, Holgrave paused: remorse for the deed that he was about to do sent a sudden glow across his care-worn face—but had not the baron destroyed his offspring? whispered the tempting spirit. He raised the babe from the pillows without disturbing its slumber—he drew the curtains, and—he reached the stable in safety, closed the secret door, and arrived at the postern, which was still unfastened, passed through, and gained his own door without impediment.

"Margaret," said Holgrave, as he entered, "put away that babe, whom your tears cannot restore to life. Here is one that will be wept for as much as yours.—Do you hear me, Margaret? lay your babe under the cover-lid, and take this one and strip it quickly, and clothe it in the dress of your own infant."

"Stephen, what child is this?" her astonishment for a moment overcoming her grief. "The saints preserve us! look at its dress—that mantle is as rich as the high priest's vestment on a festival. Oh! Stephen."

"Silence!" interrupted Holgrave, sternly; "take the babe and strip it and attend to it as a mother should attend to her own infant; and, mark me, it is your own! your child did not die! As you value my life, remember this."

There was a sternness in his tone that entirely awed Margaret. She continued to weep, but she took the strange infant and did as her husband desired her. The changing of its apparel made the little infant cry, but the change was soon effected, and then Margaret put it to her breast and hushed its cries. While this was doing, Holgrave had taken a spade and commenced digging up the earthen floor. The sight agonized the wretched Margaret, and when the task was finished and he approached the bed to consign the little corpse to its kindred earth, it was long ere even his stern remonstrance could prevail on the mother to relinquish her child. She kissed its white cheek and strained it to her convulsed bosom, and Holgrave had to struggle violently with his own feelings, that he too might not betray a similar emotion. But fortitude overcame the yearnings of a father; he forcibly took the babe from its mother's arms and laid it in the cavity he had prepared; and then, as the glittering mantle of the stolen child caught his eyes, he took a small iron box, in which Margaret kept the silks and the needles she had formerly used in her embroidery, and scattering the contents upon the ground, he forced in, in their stead, the different articles the little stranger had worn, and fastening down the lid, laid it beside his child; and then, as swiftly as apprehension could urge, filled up the grave, and trod down the earth to give it the appearance it had worn previous to the interment. A chest was then placed over it, and it seemed to defy the scrutiny of man to detect the deed.