R LIBRAR

ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

SIR WILLIAM RODEN, Knight, had made his will, and the long parchment lay upon the table. He had left large benefactions to the poor, and to the parish church; he had given exact directions for his burial in the chapel north of the choir (where his wife and his two sons already lay), as to the torches that were to be carried in his funeral procession and the tapers to be burnt upon his grave for seven years after and on every anniversary following, as to the prayers for his soul to be said in that same chapel (which indeed he had built) by an honest priest of good conversation, for a period of time that he did not think it necessary to limit. The dim future might be safely left to the care of God, and to the piety of his one dear grandchild and her descendants. To her, Margaret Roden, he left everything; the castle and manor of Ruddiford, with all its estates and tenements, farms, mills, pastures, market dues, and advantages of every kind, and the household goods of which he added a long inventory. And, in case the rheumatism which racked his limbs should kill him while she was still young and unmarried, he committed her to the care and guardianship of the Lady Isabel, Baroness Marlowe, the widow of his

No. 535.-VOL. XC.

Thomas Pye the Vicar of Ruddiford, and the Masters Simon and Timothy Toste, brothers, the doctor and the lawyer, in whom he placed confidence. And so, with many pious words, he ended his testament.

"Now read it in our ears, my good Timothy," he said.

The attorney obeyed him, his thin voice ringing through such silence as could be had on that November afternoon, with the great west wind rattling the lattices and roaring in the wide chimney. There was an unearthly pause, the stillness of death for a minute or two, through which the voice piped clearly; then the thundering waves came rolling up once more over moor and meadow and forest, and the wind yelled and screeched with more fury for the long breath it had taken.

Logs were burning on the hearth, and Sir William, a noble-looking old man with a white beard, was sitting in his high carved chair close to the chimney-corner, his velvet gown folded round his knees. In the middle of

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the vaulted room, his own room, reached by a short flight of steps from the castle hall, four persons sat opposite to him at a table, one of them reading, the other three listening to the will, the contents of which they all knew already; for three of them were executors, and the fourth, Sir William's secretary, had acted as clerk to Timothy Toste on the occasion.

The two listening old friends,-Sir Thomas the Vicar, thin and tall, with a face like a turnip-lanthorn, so did the spirit shine through the starvedlooking flesh, and Simon Toste the apothecary, fat, short, with a beaming smile that almost undid the harm of his medicines-shook their heads simultaneously as they realised the unbounded confidence their patron was placing in the Lady Marlowe. The secretary smiled faintly as he watched them, seeming to read their thought. He was a marvellously handsome young man, an Italian, brought to England when a boy by John Roden, Sir William's son, who had lived much abroad and had married a Venetian lady at the court of King René of Anjou. These two had followed the Princess Margaret when she came to England as the bride of Henry the Sixth, and both had died of the English fogs, leaving as a legacy to Sir William their small page Antonio, picked up as a beggar in the street, and their precious little daughter, the Queen's godchild, Margaret. Before this time, William Roden, the knight's elder son, had been killed in a brawl in London streets, dying unmarried, so that the baby child was the one hope of the house of Ruddiford.

Both children, Antonio being seven years older than Margaret and her slave and play-fellow, throve wonderfully in the chilly northern air and hardy life of the castle. Sir William,

the most simple-minded of men, had watched them growing up and developing side by side, stronger and more beautiful every day, and had given no thought to the probable end of this childish intimacy, or to the necessity of providing his grandchild with some other companion than the low-born, velvet-eyed foreign boy, till Master Simon Toste plucked up courage to speak to him on the subject. Then Sir William, unwillingly convinced, did the easiest thing that came to hand, sending to his neighbours the Tilneys at King's Hall, half a dozen miles away, and proposing that their daughter Alice, a couple of years older than Margaret, should come to Ruddiford and live with her for an indefinite time. This proposal being kindly received, he was satisfied, and would not listen for a moment to Simon Toste's further advice,"Send the Italian fellow back to Italy." Sir William was fond of Antonio, who knew how to make himself indispensable, and who now very easily, as it seemed, transferred his caressing ways from Mistress Margaret to her grandfather. The old man was growing helpless. Antonio became his devoted personal attendant as well as his capable secretary. Though the steward, the bailiff, the town officials, the men-at-arms even (for Ruddiford had its little garrison) were disposed to sneer at receiving Sir William's orders frequently by the mouth of Antonio, they had no real fault to find. He did no harm to any one. If he had any evil passions or wild ambitions, they were kept well in check. He was a foreigner, with a clever head and a face of classical beauty. Perhaps this was enough to make the sturdy Midlanders hate him. With women, as a rule, he did as he pleased, though no scandal had yet touched him, and through his discretion no one knew

that Mistress Alice Tilney had fallen desperately in love with him.

This young girl's parents had both died of the pestilence since she came to live at Ruddiford, and King's Hall had now fallen into the hands of her brother, Jasper Tilney, who kept house there with a set of wild and daring companions, and had lately given great offence to Sir William Roden by coming forward as a suitor for Margaret. The estates marched : this was his only excuse for such presumption; and Sir William refused his offer with a cold politeness very near contempt, thus turning his neighbour into a troublesome enemy.

Such was the state of affairs when Sir William Roden made his will; and beyond the boundaries of Ruddiford and King's Hall, the war of the Red and White Roses, in that year of our Lord 1460, was desolating the land in its wandering changing way. At this moment, the party of the White Rose had the best of it, and King Henry was a prisoner in their hands, while the Queen and the young Prince were fugitives in Scotland.

"That is my will," Sir William said loudly, when Timothy ceased to read. "Now to sign it. But we must have witnesses. Go, Tony, call a couple of fellows who can write; Nick Steward for one, the parish clerk for t'other. You might have brought him with you, master

Parson."

The secretary rose readily enough, but looked askance, as he did so, at the three old executors. They were putting their heads together, muttering doubtfully. Antonio's dark and brilliant eyes, glancing from them to his master, seemed to convey to him the consciousness of disapproval on their part.

"What's the matter?" the Knight cried sharply, and his impatient temper surged up red into his pale

cheeks. "What are you plotting, you three? Anything wrong with the will? Keep your fault-finding till I ask for it. Your business is not to carp, but to carry out faithfully. Fetch the witnesses, you rascal, Tony. Am I to be obeyed? -Well, Parson, say your say."

"It is about these Marlowes, Sir William," said the Vicar.

"Ay, Sir Thomas, and what about them? My oldest friends, remember." "A friendship of a long while back, if I am not mistaken."

"And pray, sir, is it the worse for that? A that? A long while back? Yes, from the field of Agincourt,-not that it began then. We were brothers in arms, Marlowe and I. King Harry knighted us both with his own hand, after the battle. He bound us for ever to his service, and that of his son. Ah, in those days, England wanted no one but Harry. He was our man, a man indeed! All these Yorks, with their false pretty faces and curly pates,-away with 'em! I'll leave Meg in the charge of a good Lancastrian, and though I have not seen Harry Marlowe for years, I know he is as true a man as his father, God rest him. Well, Parson, what maggot have you got in that wise head of yours?"

Thomas Pye listened patiently. He knew very well that his patron, once fairly off on the legend of Agincourt and the friends of his youth, would not be checked by reason. Indeed, Sir William was at no time very reasonable. With With charming qualities, he was a wilful man, and it was sometimes easier to lead him in small matters than in great. If once convinced in his own mind, opposition was apt to be useless. The good men of Ruddiford took him as he was and followed him meekly, except where Mistress Margaret was concerned. There, love and duty gave

William became calm, and sat for a long time silent by the fire. The raging wind had fallen; there was no sound in the room but the crackling of the logs, and now and then the pushing of benches, the clatter of steel, and the hum of voices in the hall below. Antonio sat at the table, his face in his hands, and watched the old man between his fingers. He loved him in his cat-like way, and admired his high spirit and suddenly flaming temper. It gave

him a thrill of physical pleasure to see those three wise worthies discredited and driven out like a set of fools by Sir William's proud loyalty to his old traditions and the name of his earliest friend. What did it matter if the Vicar was right, if these Marlowes were unworthy of the trust to be placed in them? It might not be any the worse, in the end, for Antonio.

A low whistle from the old master fetched him to his feet. It was the call of his childhood, to which he had answered always like a dog, fearless of the fiery temper that kept most people on their guard. Next probably to his grandchild, though with a long interval and on a different plane altogether, Sir William loved this other legacy from the handsome, luxurious, wandering younger son who had come home to Ruddiford only to die.

Antonio made two steps across the floor and crouched before Sir William, whose thin hand fumbled with his black mop of hair.

"Tony, I hate to be thwarted," he said.

"And it is the worse for those who thwart you," murmured the Italian. "You send them skipping, dear Sir," and he showed his white teeth, laughing silently.

"Peace, rascal, no irreverence," said the old man. "Sir Thomas is a

saint ; but what should move him to listen to that peddling brother of his against my noble friends, and to expect me-me!-to change my plan for his scandalous gossiping? He might have considered,-here is Meg sixteen years old and more-I may die next week,-to-night, for that matter,-Tony, I may die to-night."

"No, no," the young man murmured soothingly; "but if you did, there is the will safely made."

"No thanks to those three fools," said Sir William. "Yes, 'tis safely made; but if I had listened to them, and died, or even did I live to make another, in these frightful times, how could I devise to protect Margaret? Her old nurse and Alice Tilney against the world! No marriage

arranged for,-Jasper Tilney bold as the very devil,-he and his Fellowship might step in and carry her off before she could reach safety with the Abbess of Coleford! There, to the abbey, she would have to go, and Alice with her, for in her own castle she would not be safe. Yes, by Our Lady, and as I hope to be saved, the will is not enough, Tony. Fetch your ink and pens. You will write a letter to my Lady Marlowe ; you will tell her of the trust I have placed in her and Harry, and of the whole state of things here; you will bid her send a person, with authority from herself, to take charge of my grandchild if need arises, and in case of my death or any other accident to fetch her away to Swanlea or elsewhere, if it be her will. We shall have men enough for an escort, unless indeed my Lady finds Meg a husband in the meanwhile, who can enter into possession here and guard his wife and her estates. Well, well, all this in good time. Light up your candles, throw on another log, and sit down and write as I bid you. My Lady go over to York, because