I touch them? Not I! But I can make her comprehend that she must provide her own entertainment, and that of her servants. It is quite enough for us to give her protection.”
“Put all such thoughts out of thy mind, Bess,” said her husband. “I have positive orders from the Queen that her kinswoman shall have truly royal entertainment, inasmuch as the eyes of the whole world will be upon the house where she is. It would be treason to give room for any one of the Scottish party to say that, while my guest, any person, high or low, had to pay charges, as at an inn.”
“Why then come to us? Why could she not stay at Carlisle? She sought English soil; and there she had it.”
“Her windows looked towards Scotland; and it was easy to make signals. There were two windows from which she might possibly escape into the arms of any party of Border horsemen. Bolton Castle was safer, as being moated round.”
“Then why does she not stay at Bolton Castle?”
“It is not far enough from the Border. From her extreme unwillingness to move, it is supposed that she can carry on Scottish intrigues there. It required all my courtesy to reconcile her to the new arrangements: and I believe it was Knollys who prevailed after all.”
“Knollys’s manners prevail where yours fail!” exclaimed the Countess. “Then the world is turned upside down.”
“It was not his courtesy, but his bluntness which wrought with her,” said the Earl. “She had learned to be afraid of him at Carlisle, where he reasoned with her whether she ought to be deposed or not: and now, every word of his goes through her. At the first hint from him that she must have reasons for objecting to the solace of new scenes and a milder climate, she changed colour, and became cheerful in her inquiries about my house,—my several houses.”
“And about anything further?”
“She could not inquire of me respecting my wife,” observed the Earl, smiling.
“She knows me by repute, no doubt,” replied the Countess. “Every Stuart, from Inverness to Paris, has heard of Bess of Hardwick.”
“It does not need to be a Stuart to have heard of Bess of Hardwick,” said her husband.
“See now if I do not make a better gaoler Now, here you are showing your weakness already,—shivering at the word gaoler as if I had prophesied your being the lady’s headsman! Let us call ourselves what we will, we are this woman’s gaolers. For safe custody alone”
“Safe and honourable custody, Bess; imprisonment softened and sweetened by every device of hospitality.”
“Exactly so. In that view, you will see whether I am not the best turnkey in England. I will baffle her intrigues by carrying her from place to place, with all dutiful profession about her health and amusement.”
“Those are matters for my government,” observed the Earl.
“We are alone,” replied the wife, half-laughing. “We need not keep up appearances at this moment. You do not understand how to govern women: you will do exactly what I say; and you are welcome to the credit of it. But we need not trouble ourselves yet with hypocrisies.”
“Pardon me, Bess. It is not a question of hypocrisies. I have duties that you do not know of, and thoughts which you cannot at present understand.”
“Tell me all, or I will not play hostess to this troublesome guest,” said the Countess.
“I cannot tell you all; and you will play the hostess,” the husband said quietly.
He was right. There was in the case a woman’s spirit more masculine than that of Bess of Hardwick herself. Bess had seen enough of the fate of ladies in prison under the Queen’s displeasure to avoid such punishment for herself: and she was by her husband’s side in all his proceedings from the hour when, on the 14th of January, he received the Queen’s command to assume the charge of her kinswoman of Scotland. By her husband’s side, the Countess rode to Bolton Castle, and, with more graciousness than had ever been seen in her before, she requested the commands of her Grace in everything pertaining to her accommodation or pastime.
CHAPTER II. THE BORDER OF NEEDWOOD FOREST.
The sun had been hidden by black clouds for a week, when, in the afternoon of the 3rd of February, the weather rapidly cleared up. The rays of the low sun lay along the paths of Needwood Forest, and made the moss at the roots of the leafless trees almost dazzling from the vividness of its green. The rock which overhung the river Dove threw the waters into shadow; but the projections of the cliff, and the windows of the castle which crowned it glittered in the sunlight. The summits of the Peak in the distance were snowy; but the lower ridges wore that warm red hue which distinguishes a hilly country on a bright winter day from the grey or pallid plain, as summer from winter. The river banks resounded with human voices; for everybody was coming abroad to see the sport after a week of bad weather. The rapid river which flowed below Tutbury Castle was never frozen over: but there was a broad pond on the verge of the wood where the ball-play of the season flourished. There were almost as many players as men and boys in the neighbourhood, this afternoon. None but very old men were absent. The women and girls came to see, each busy as she moved about, or stood to watch the game. Some few were spinning with the distaff: but most of them were knitting. Some of the knitting was gay in colours; and there seemed to be a great deal to say about it, judging by the eagerness of the groups who compared their works. People in London, and near the coast, might complain of the number of foreigners who had of late entered the country; but in rural places much prosperity was certainly created by the introduction of a new trade. The Flemings and the French seemed to have inoculated the whole kingdom with their arts; for the silk manufacture was now going on from the borders of Wales to the shores which overlooked France.
The gossips could not agree as to the precise hour when the Earl and his train had arrived the
