Arabella Stuart. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ warm by nature, and heated still farther by the fire, gave one of the boors a push with her broad hand, which brought him from his stool to the floor, exclaiming,

      "Get thee gone, Cobbler Hodge; 'tis time for thee to be home with thy wife. The gentry will be here anon, and we must have the place cumbered with the like of thee, must we!"

      "Nay, nay, Maude," said her husband, "the great people ever say half-an-hour before they intend to come. Let the man remain, I tell thee; they wont be here for this hour."

      "And we will stay till they come," cried Hodge, rising up, and resuming his seat a little farther from the fair virago of the inn. "We want to see who are these gentry that arrive so late at night. These are perilous times, Master Millpond, when the Queen is just dead, and the King's Majesty not arrived from the North."

      "It may be the King himself, God bless his Grace!" said another of the boors; but even as he spoke, to prove the conjecture false, as well as the prognostications of the landlord, the sound of horses' feet, and persons speaking, was heard approaching the door; and, the moment after, a voice was added, calling loudly, and in a tone of great authority, for host, ostlers, and horseboys.

      The landlord rushed out with all speed; his wife abused her humble neighbours in no very gentle and tender terms; the peasants themselves drew back in awe, the greater because the object of it was undefined; and, after a few moments of confusion, clatter, and talking without, mine host reappeared, bowing to the ground, as he ushered in his guests.

      The first who entered--nearly a minute before any of the rest--was certainly not the sort of being the persons assembled within expected to see, for the door only gave admission to a beautiful girl of some nineteen or twenty years of age, with her rich, clustering hair, wet with the rain, falling from its bands about her face and shoulders, and with a look of laughing, yet half-rueful, satisfaction on her face as she turned to one of those behind, saying in a sweet, though jesting tone,

      "Good faith, my friend, if thou art as wet as I am, the lowliness of the roof will not mar your joy in taking shelter under it."

      "Lord love you, sweet lady!" cried the hostess, advancing. "Well, you are wet indeed! What a night for such a beautiful lady as you to be out in. Why, all the rich velvet and the gold lace is spoiled. Heart of grace! and your yellow riding-coat is all draggled with mud above your knees!"

      "Ay! good truth," replied the lady, advancing toward the fire, "it is so, indeed, dame. Forty sterling marks cast away upon a miserable shower of rain, and a weary ride from Walden. But here seems the comfort of plentiful food, and a good fire to dry one."

      "Oh, yes, lady; oh, yes," replied the hostess, "everything is quite ready; let me take out that buckle, lady.--Get you home to your beds, fellows! what do you stand staring at there, as if you never saw a young gentlewoman before?--It's all because you're so beautiful, ma'am, that puts them out of their manners. 'Tisn't every day they see a skin like that, I trow."

      The lady tossed her head with a gay laugh. "I thought such words were the coin of courts," she said, "not current in the country; but I am overburdened with such small change, good dame, so tell me no more of my beauty, and do not drive these good people from the fire, where they have as much right as I have. Now, Maltby and Adams, bring in all the bags here, or they will soon be as wet as we are; and do not let the girl Marian stay out there all night to look after goods and chattels which will not melt as easily as herself, I warrant. We must stay here this night, that's clear. Why, what's the matter, Marian: you seemed scared?"

      The girl whom she addressed, and who was evidently the maid of a person of quality, ran up to her mistress with somewhat frightened and mysterious looks, whispering something in her ear; while the hostess, on the other side, assailed her with assurances that everything was quite right and prepared "for her bedchamber, and guest-chamber, and all," muttering between whiles to herself, "Stay here?--To be sure! Marry, when all is made ready, why should she not?"

      The lady might be somewhat embarrassed by the discourses of the two who addressed her at once; but, nevertheless, she seemed to catch the words of each, and replied to both.

      "Four men?" she said, speaking to the maid. "Well, what of that, girl? They will do thee no harm, though they be on horseback. You say, my good dame, that all is made ready for me; but, in good truth, I fear there is some mistake, which, I trust, may not deprive me of my supper and a lodging. I intended to have gone farther to-night,--perhaps to Royston; and it was the rain that drove me hither. Mayhap thy good things are made ready for some other person."

      "For me, madam," said a gentleman, advancing from the door, the threshold of which he had crossed the moment before. "But, right happy am I," he added, "that what was prepared for me may be used by you, whom all men are bound to honour and obey."

      The lady had turned, with some surprise, at first sound of the speaker's voice, and, certainly, his words did not diminish her astonishment. He was a tall, thin, bony man, dark in complexion, somewhat sharp in features, with a cold, calm, steady eye, but a bland and a pleasant smile about the mouth. He was dressed in the style of a military man of some rank, and affected the bushy beard and long mustachios of the swaggering adventurers of the day. Nothing else, however, in his appearance or manner indicated that he belonged to that somewhat disagreeable and dangerous race of animals. But no line or feature in his face called up any recollection of him in the lady's mind; and, after a momentary pause to consider his countenance, she replied, "You seem to know me, sir, and yet may be mistaken. I am a very humble person, whom no one is bound to obey that I know of, but my good girl, Marian, here, and one or two trusty servants, who find the bond more in their affection than their duty."

      "The Lady Arabella Stuart," answered the stranger, "is not to be mistaken; and surely one so near the crown of England may well command our duty."

      "I am the king's most humble subject, though his kinswoman, sir," replied the Lady Arabella, coldly; for, young as she was, she had already been the object of ambitious designs on the part of some, and needless jealousy on the part of others. "I claim no duty from any one but my own people, and would fain make that as light as may be."

      "Your ladyship is wise and right," said the stranger; "and love makes duty light to all men. What I would say is, madam, I rejoice that I yesterday commanded preparations in this poor inn, as all is ready for you, which it might not otherwise have done. Come, dame hostess, show the lady to a chamber where she may change her dress; and, in the meantime, good master, serve the supper, to be ready when she returns. Have you the vacant room prepared which I ordered? With her permission, I will be the Lady Arabella's humble carver."

      The lady bowed her head, gave a quick glance round three or four other faces, which were now gathered together at the farther side of the room, and, accompanied by her maid, retired, with the landlady's daughter lighting her, and one of the two men-servants carrying a pair of ponderous leathern bags, such as were then commonly used for conveying the various articles of dress which a traveller might need upon his journey.

      As soon as she was gone, the gentleman who had been speaking to her, turned to three other personages, who seemed to have arrived in his company, and held a low and earnest conversation with them for some minutes. The landlord's ears were sharp, and he had his own share of shrewdness; but although he manœuvred skilfully to come nearer to the strangers, and used his facility of hearing to the utmost, he could only catch two or three words.

      One said, somewhat louder than the rest, "'Tis most fortunate;" another, "We should have passed them in the night, and missed our mark. Good luck to the rain!"

      The landlord could gather no more; and seeing the eye of the principal visitor upon him, he thought it best to apply himself seriously to carry in the supper into an adjoining chamber, СКАЧАТЬ