The Story of Francis Cludde

by Stanley John Weyman

"It is true enough!" muttered Baldwin sullenly: a stout, dour man, not much afraid of his master, but loving him exceedingly. "I knew him again myself."

Sir Anthony strode firmly out of the room, and in the courtyard near the great gate found a man and a woman standing in the dusk. He walked up to the former and looked him in the face. "What do you here?" he said, in a strange, hard voice.

"I want shelter for a night for myself and my wife; a meal and some words with you--no more," was the answer. "Give me this," the stranger continued, "which every idle passer-by may claim at Coton End, and you shall see no more of me, Anthony."

For a moment the knight seemed to hesitate. Then he answered, pointing sternly with his hand, "There is the hall and supper. Go and eat and drink. Or, stay!" he resumed. And he turned and gave some orders to Baldwin, who went swiftly to the hall, and in a moment came again. "Now go! What you want the servants will prepare for you."

"I want speech of you," said the newcomer.

Sir Anthony seemed about to refuse, but thought better of it. "You can come to my room when you have supped," he said, in the same ungracious tone, speaking with his eyes averted.

"And you--do you not take supper?"

"I have finished," said the knight, albeit he had eaten little. And he turned on his heel.

Very few of those who sat round the table and watched with astonishment the tall stranger's entrance knew him again. It was thirteen years since Ferdinand Cludde had last sat there; sitting there of right. And the thirteen years had worked much change in him. When he found that Petronilla, obeying her father's message, had disappeared, he said haughtily that his wife would sup in her own room; and with a flashing eye and curling lip, bade Baldwin see to it. Then, seating himself in a place next Sir Anthony's, he looked down the board at which all sat silent. His sarcastic eye, his high bearing, his manner--the manner of one who had gone long with his life in his hand--awed these simple folk. Then, too, he was a Cludde. Father Carey was absent that evening. Martin Luther had one of those turns, half-sick, half-sullen, which alternated with his moods of merriment; and kept his straw pallet in some corner or other. There was no one to come between the servants and this dark-visaged stranger, who was yet no stranger.

He had his way and his talk with Sir Anthony; the latter lasting far into the night and producing odd results. In the first place, the unbidden guest and his wife stayed on over next day, and over many days to come, and seemed gradually to grow more and more at home. The knight began to take long walks and rides with his brother, and from each walk and ride came back with a more gloomy face and a curter manner. Petronilla, his companion of old, found herself set aside for her uncle, and cast, for society, on Ferdinand's wife, the strange young woman with the brilliant eyes, whose odd changes from grave to gay rivaled Martin Luther's; and who now scared the girl by wild laughter and wilder gibes, and now moved her to pity by fits of weeping or dark moods of gloom. That Uncle Ferdinand's wife stood in dread of her husband, Petronilla soon learned, and even began to share this dread, to shrink from his presence, and to shut herself up more and more closely in her own chamber.