VOL. VI.

The Red Rose of Castle Crawley.

A TALE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
BY EMMA MARSHALL,

Author of 'Life's Aftermath, Memories of Troublous Times,' &c. &c.

steps.

(Continued from p. 5.)

CHAPTER II.—AN ANGEL UNAWARES.

S Rose looked out over the frozen plain lying before the castle, she noticed a black figure moving over it with slow

As it came nearer, she saw it was a traveller with a staff, and a wallet slung over his shoulder. He seemed doubtful as to the way, and turned once to the right and again to the left; but at last, seeing the castle, made for the wooden bridge.

A traveller out on the Cotswolds on a winter's afternoon with the light rapidly fading, excited Rose's curiosity.

'He must be bidden to rest-he will be lost in the snow-drift!' she exclaimed aloud. And as she spoke, the old wolf-hound, who had been lying motionless on the threshold of the halldoor throughout the day, raised his shaggy head, and gave his low, deep-mouthed bay.

The sound took Giles to the heavy oaken door with huge rusty nails starred all over it; and it took Rose down from her watch-tower to call to Giles.

'Methinks Wolf is barking at the footfall of a traveller. Hasten, Giles, and open the gate; he cannot be left to die in the snow.'

'Open the gate, faith, Mistress Rose? thou art a wiseacre ! I don't open the gate of Castle Crawley without knowing first who I be like to see there. Whist! he knocks.'

No. 54.

Giles put his foot on the ledge of stone at the side of the huge door-way, and peeped out of the slit in the wall, saying, 'Who goes there?' A voice was quick to reply,

'Canst tell à traveller how far it is to Cicester, good porter? I am half frozen with cold, and I have missed the track.'

'Open the gate, Giles!' Rose exclaimed: 'pray thee open the gate. Keep not a human being without. The voice tells me that the speaker is honest.'

'Aye, aye; like thy youth,-like thy youth,' Giles grumbled. 'As if a voice should show thee the difference between a knave and an honest man. But I can't deny, there looks not much harm in him ; so I will do thy bidding, Mistress Rose.'

So saying, Giles descended from his elevation, and slowly began to unfasten the stout bars and draw back the heavy bolts which fastened the small entrance-gate in the middle of the huge doors, which was never opened but on state occasions.

Wolf stood erect as the stranger put his foot into the hall, and Rose, with her hand upon the dog's head, said, with stately grace,—

'You are bid welcome, sir; we pray you rest by the fire, and we will ask you to partake what simple fare is provided for the supper of the household.'

.

The traveller had thrown aside his long cloak and shaken the snow from his heavy buck-skin leggings: doffing his cap, he bowed low, and said, in a voice wonderfully sweet in its tone,

'I crave pardon, ladye, for thus seeking shelter; but I am a stranger, and this country is as a puzzle to me. I thought to find myself at Cicester, and I have been wandering hither and thither since yester morn. Seeing this castle-tower, I hailed it as a friend: and, forsooth, I have not misjudged it.'

As he spoke, the young traveller had resigned his cloak to Giles; and having loosened the straps of his wallet, he still held possession of it, and followed Rose to the kitchen, which, as I have said, opened from the large hall, and where supper was preparing. The only servant was at the fire twisting a spit, and, turning round, looked vacantly at the stranger.

He was dumb, having had his tongue slit and both his ears sliced off, in Cirencester, for daring to say that Edward of Lancaster was his king, and that he would never own another. It was wonderful that he escaped with his life. Perhaps it was thought this mutilation was a severer punishment. And with his hands tied at his back he was turned out of the gate of the town, and left to find his way to his master's castle bleeding and mutilated. This was long years ago, when yet a boy; and as the fortunes of the Crawleys declined, and one by one the retainers and servants had to go forth to seek their bread, poor dumb Alfred repaid the tender care of good Marjory with faithful and devoted service. He performed every domestic office in the castlescullion, cook, and general cleaner of the hall and chambers, strewing fresh rushes on the floors, and carrying out the old ones to make a bonfire in the court-yard, with other rubbish, at stated intervals.

'You will rest here to-night, sir?' Rose said. 'My grandfather, the master of Castle Crawley, is very sick, but the board will be spread for supper anon; and meanwhile I pray you to seek the guest-chamber, where you can place your wallet, if so it pleaseth you.'

So saying Rose preceded the traveller to the passage, or narrow corridor, where her own chamber was situated, and was reached by the rough stone stairs, and pointing to a door

half-way up, she bid Giles conduct him thither, and see that it was prepared for him.

Supper was served at four: Rose and the young traveller sitting at the head of the long table at the end of the large hall, the servants below the 'salt,' or boundary-line which marked the difference in rank of the guests, and Sir Richard slumbering in his chair by the hearth.

After the meal was over, Rose beckoned to the traveller to draw near the hearth, and taking up her position by the old man's side, she invited her guest to seat himself in one of the large oak-chairs, like the one Sir Richard occupied. For a few minutes there was silence. Sir Richard breathed gently, and seemed in a peaceful slumber. The huge logs with which Alfred fed the fire blazed and sparkled, and the stranger looked upon the scene before him with intense interest. How beautiful Rose was, he thought, as her delicate profile and outline of her slender throat was defined against the dark velvet mantle of the old man. The walls were hung at the upper part of the hall with tapestry, and over the wide hearth were quaint carvings and devices of many kinds. In the centre hung the battered helmet and shield of old Sir Richard, with its many deep dents; his spears and bows and arrows were arranged round them, and told of the warfare and struggle of past years. All over now! Those thin white hands would never more wield axe or lance-never again would that helmet glitter in the sun as Sir Richard rode out to meet the foe! The last enemy that shall be destroyed was near; but Sir Richard would make no resistance: he was sinking gently under the power which, resisted or not, must overcome us all-of every age and every time and lay low old and young, gentle and simple, with no respect of person, and no possibility of escape.

Marjory came and bent over her master's chair, saying,

'He sleeps well; the posset has warmed him. I will make another, and bring it with spiced wine and cake for the guest,' nodding her head towards the chair opposite.

Rose smiled, and taking Marjory's rough brown hand in hers, kissed it.

"Your nurse?' the stranger asked.

'My nurse and best friend,' Rose replied. 'I think, as he sleeps, I will fetch hither my wheel: the torch-light flickering in his face might awaken him. Is it distasteful to you, sir, this dim light?'

'Nay, lady, most sweet and pleasant, if it please you,' was the reply.

Rose looked up at the speaker, and was struck with the face which was turned towards her. A young face, with a great profusion of tangled locks, of tawny gold, turned back from the white, square brow.. Under the brow were eyes so clear and steadfast in their gaze, that truth seemed to lie in their depths. The nose was short and straight, and beneath it a silky beard hid the outline of a mouth and chin, which, when the lips parted in a smile, showed a row of regular white teeth.

'There is light enow for talk, fair lady.' 'Call me Mistress Rose,' was the quick rejoinder; and by what name should I call you?'

'I have been known as Raymond of Then he paused. If it pleaseth you, fair ladye, call me thus.'

'Sir Raymond,' Rose began.

'Nay, nay! I have not won my spurs. I have eschewed the fights and warfare of the country. Think not I wear the white feather, sweet Mistress Rose. I have been living of late away from my kindred in foreign lands, watching the wondrous power of the pen, and that which shall bring the words, written by the hand of the learned, within the reach of all.'

'How could that be, good Master Raymond?' Rose asked.

He answered by another question.

"You have a book, there, ladye,-nay, Mistress Rose, if so it please you.'

'Yes, I have a missal of value here, and painted in many colours by the monks of the Abbey of Gloucester; and I have the Holy Gospel of Saint Mark, writ in fine characters by one

Brother Anthony, who has been in sad trouble with the Abbot for preaching in these parts doctrines other than the Church allows.'

The young man's eyes kindled as he answered:

'Ah! Mistress Rose, the time is coming when the Holy Gospel will be multiplied by hundreds and tens of hundreds, and neither Pope nor Abbot will be able to stop the fresh stream of the Water of Life which shall be poured upon the thirsty world. Thou hast heard of Wycliffe ?'

'Yes,' Rose said; but his doctrines are full of danger; are they not?'

'Nay, full of life,--but see!' he said, unfastening his wallet, which Rose noticed he never allowed to leave his side; 'see! I will show you a book not writ by the fingers, often stiff and weary with their task, but printed—printed, I say—by the skill of the master with whom I have been sojourning, and to be near whom I have left home and kindred, and have of late come back with him to England, where, at Westminster, he is setting up his press for printing.'

Then, as the wintry wind howled through the crevices of the castle hall, as the fire-light cast fitful shadows around, and Sir Richard lay back in the chair breathing gently like a tired child, the fruits of William Caxton's first labours at the press were displayed to Rose's wondering eyes, The Game and Playe at Chess, translated out of the French, and printed at the 'Reed Pale,' at Westminster.

**

Then as Rose, and old Marjory, who had drawn near to watch by the side of the master of the castle, looked and marvelled, the traveller told the story of the old printer's life. How he had struggled and laboured, and in the very year when England's best blood was shed on Barnet Heath, one of England's sons in a foreign land had brought out the first book he had written at Bruges, namely, a translation into English of the work of Raoul le Fevre.

* The name of the three-storied house at Westminster where Caxton lived.

'And ere long, fair Mistress Rose,' Raymond said, 'the Gospel writ by Wycliffe shall be multiplied even as this Book of Chess is multiplied; and there will be no need for Brother Anthony to trace the blessed words with aching hand and dim eyes, as he pores over his work in the Scriptorium of the Gloucester Cloister.' As he talked thus, Sir Richard opened his eyes.

'Who is here?' he asked; 'who speaks?' 'It is a traveller, who had missed the track in the snow, grandfather, and I bid him rest here in your name.'

Sir Richard's eyes looked as if they would fain read the face of the man who sat opposite him; but though he shaded his brow with one trembling hand, he said,

'I cannot see him. Bid him draw nigh. I must see him.'

Rose tried to soothe the old man, saying,— 'The stranger is near you, grandfather;' for the young man had risen, and bending over the chair, he said in clear, distinct tone,—

'Sir, I thank you for the shelter of your roof.' 'Your name! your name?' the old man interrupted.

'Raymond,' was the answer.

" Raymond! And whence do you come?' 'From many wanderings, sir, in distant lands.' 'Dost know a kinsman of mine in the Northern Country? Ralph-black Ralphblack-hearted Ralph. Curse him-my bitter foe?'

'Speak not so, sir,' said the young man gently; we have all sinned against the Lord. Let us all forgive as we would be forgiven,-our Lord is a Lord of love, and not hate. Know you not the Gospel, which saith, "Love your enemies?""

Something there was in the voice of Raymond which soothed and comforted. A poet of our own day says that the soul of man is heard in the voice; and the pure, beautiful soul of Raymond seemed to make itself felt as he spoke.

With a strange and mysterious power, it seemed to wake an answer in the old man's

heart, long so hard and cold-long past buried in misery and ruin.

Raymond lifted up his voice in prayer, and Sir Richard said Amen. Raymond spoke words of peace from the Word of God, and Sir Richard listened; and as the Cross of the Lord Jesus was preached to him by this young disciple, he grasped the hope held before him.

The snow fell thick and fast without Castle Crawley, and when the morning dawned, the drifts lay so high all around that no one could leave the house. All that day was Raymond an angel of comfort to the little household. A stranger had, indeed, proved an angel

unawares.

Sir Richard's strength ebbed fast, and death drew on apace.

What a stay and support this friend was I have no words to describe. Instinctively they all trusted him, and one of the old man's last conscious acts was to lay the little hand of his grandchild in that of the stranger's, saying, 'Take the ring for a token; seek for her sake the son of my son Guy. Seek him, and bring him hither from Angers. He is my heir, and he alone must open the chest there.'

He spoke once or twice again in indistinct murmurs about fighting and conquests. Once, too, he turned a searching glance on Raymond, saying,

'Promise-vow to do it.'

'To do what?' Raymond asked.

'To find my grandson, Guy Crawley.'

'I promise,' was the low answer; and then the serene, clear voice repeated the prayer of the Master in the English language as it stands in Wycliffe's translation.

Sir Richard's spirit departed, and Rose fell fainting into the arms of her faithful Margery.

As Raymond turned from closing the eyes of the dead, to gaze upon the pallid face of the living, and Rose lay unconscious of all around, he repeated in a low voice,—

'Yes, I have promised. God helping me, will keep that vow, but at what a cost!' (To le continued.)

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