“Are these such fish as may appear at a queen’s table?”
“No doubt: and if you had seen the supper we sat down to last night, you would believe that your offering would be very graciously received.”
“Her Grace is ill-pleased at her reception? That was sure to happen.”
“It was: but there is reason. Bess of Hardwick will need some training before she can fitly order the entertainment of a princess;—not a Scottish amazon, but a lady tenderly reared in the French court. Her Grace does not conceal her disgust this morning.”
“Then I will venture: but if she is displeased—”
“I will take the blame on myself: and so I will if Dame Bess quarrels with you.”
“Dame Bess may say what she will of me and my fish: but we will pick out the best for the Castle.”
The party sat down to sort the prey. The finest were taken charge of by Sampson, who marched off with the pannier on his shoulder. The gentlemen amused themselves with stringing the rest on birch twigs and long rushes.
“There is a dark sentinel up above there,” observed Felton.
“No doubt: wherever her Grace is there must be at least one.”
“Yes; but she is attended everywhere by her own chaplain. I do not mean him.”
“I did not know that more than one was allowed,” said Stansbury.
“You are dull to-day. The dark sentinel wears light-coloured clothes.”
“Plots already!” exclaimed Stansbury.
“That is of course,” replied Felton.
“But it is not of course that I should hear of them,” said Stansbury; “and I had rather not, unless you, as my friend, require it.”
“Nothing of the sort. You and I naturally share all we know: but I will stop wherever you please in my confidences, now and always.”
“It is not like us to have any doors of our minds closed to each other,” said Stansbury; “and I shall never have any secret from you. But look you! it is not that this woman is dangerous, and of doubtful report, but that I, for my part, have no interest about her fortunes, and no right to possess any power of injuring her.”
“Is it not of importance to every son of the Church that a Catholic sovereign may be in the heretic’s seat, if loyal men do their duty?”
“My friend, this is mere wildness!” said Stansbury. “After ten years of heretical rule, which has certainly made the kingdom prosperous with industry and trade, and which has satisfied the world of the genius of the woman who reigns, whatever her impiety, can you suppose that a princess, who for genius has only beauty, who is reviled by all earnest heretics, and who has failed in every scheme she ever was concerned in, will mount the English throne over the neck of her who fills it, and who so commands the homage of her people, that they themselves say there is magic at work somewhere?”
“My view is different—different from what it has been,” observed Felton.
“Since you have seen the dark sentinel?”
“No; I have not exchanged a word with him. He sits there cross-legged, fashioning her Grace’s habit for her rides; and I have no call to accost the castle tailor the first morning. I judge by the open evidence of public affairs. I judge by the new severities against papists, and the hunting of the deprived ministers, and the coldness shown towards the colonists in their poverty as refugees, and by the terror of the noblemen of the court, and by the common rumours of the Queen’s imperiousness of temper, that the state of her kingdom does not please her as it did; and that possibly she may herself not be so satisfied as she was of the firmness of her seat. This is only what thousands of men are thinking. True, very few may be saying it; but men will look in one another’s eyes, in such times, to learn more than the tongue speaks.”
“I trust you have not let the dark sentinel look into your eyes, my friend. Sooner than he should imagine what he saw in mine, I would close them,—would feign sleep in her Grace’s very presence.”
“You could not, Stansbury. There is but one person who could drop asleep in such a presence: and that is Bess of Hardwick. She did it last night. A slight glance of her Grace’s turned the Earl’s eyes towards his lady; and there she was sound asleep, with her head resting on the back of the settle.”
“And the Earl?”
“The Earl made such apology as he could; in which he was but ill seconded by Lady Bess; for she scarcely disguised a stretching of her limbs on waking, and alleged that the slow court pace in journeying had disposed her irresistibly to slumber.”
“I fear there will be bickerings among the ladies,” observed Stansbury.
“Assuredly there will be; and then we know what will happen among the gentlemen. The Earl meant loyalty to his Sovereign when he undertook this charge: but it will cost—”
“A crown?” whispered Stansbury, following his friend’s glance round the spot where they were seated.
“A crown, perhaps:—perhaps that which a crown contains,” Felton replied in a low tone. “Some great catastrophe must ensue from the tangle of affairs. Yes; it is true; there might have been a way out if her Grace had remained in Scotland, or gone anywhere but into this kingdom. But she is here; and—”
“And we had better await events, without looking too curiously into the issue,” said Stansbury. “I am satisfied to fish in the Dove, and leave the dark waters of state intrigue for another sort of anglers. Felton, be one with me in this. Nobody else can have such a claim upon you. Abide by me; and let it stand on our tombstones that we were two Derbyshire squires, who lived in friendship, and died in peace, in a time when other men quarrelled, and every parish had a war in it.”
“So be it,” answered Felton, rising when his