Part 2

Brave sport to singe the beard o' the King of Spain! Brave sport, but in the end dreamed he of home-- Of where the trout-brook lisped among the reeds, Of great chalk cliffs and leagues of yellow gorse, Of peaceful lanes, of London's roaring streets, The crowds, the shops, the pageants in Cheapside, And heard the trumpets blaring for the Queen When 't was the wind that whistled in the shrouds Off Cadiz. Ah, and softer dreams he had Of an unnamed and sweetest mystery, And from the marble of his soul's desire Hewed out the white ideal of his love-- A new Pygmalion! All things drew him home, This mainly. Foot on English earth once more, Dear earth of England his propitious fame A thorn in none but crooked Envy's side, He went cross-gartered, with a silken rose At golden lovelock, diamond brooch at hat Looping one side up very gallantly, And changed his doublet's color twice a day. Ill fare had given his softer senses edge; Good fortune, later, bade him come to dine, Mild Spenser's scholar, Philip Sidney's friend. So took he now his ease; in Devonshire, When Town was dull, or he had need at heart For sight of Wyndham Towers against the sky; But chiefly did he bask him by the Thames, For there 't was that Young England froze and thawed By turns in GLORIANA'S frown and smile.

As some wild animal that gets a wound, And prescience hath of death, will drag itself Back to its cavern sullenly to die, And would not have heaven's airs for witnesses, So Wyndham, shrinking from the very stars And tell-tale places where the moonlight fell, Crept through the huddled shadows back to hall, And in a lonely room where no light was, Save what the moon made at the casement there, Sat pondering his hurt, and in the dark Gave audience to a host of grievances. For never comes reflection, gay or grave, But it brings with it comrades of its hue. So did he fall to thinking how his day Declined, and how his narrow life had run Obscurely through an age of great events Such as men never saw, nor will again Until the globe be riven by God's fire. Others had ventured for the Golden Fleece, Knaves of no parts at all, and got renown, (By force of circumstance and not desert,) While he up there on that rock-bastioned coast Had rotted like some old hulk's skeleton, Whose naked and bleached ribs the lazy tide Laps day by day, and no man thinks of more. Then was jade Fortune in her lavish mood. Why had he not for distant Colchis sailed And been the Jason of these Argonauts? True, some had come to block on Tower Hill, Or quittance made in a less noble sort; Still they had lived, from life's high-mantling cup Had blown the bead. In such case, if one's head Be of its momentary laurel stripped And made a show of stuck on Temple Bar Or at the Southwark end of London Bridge, What mattered it? At worst man dies but once-- So far as known. One may not master death, But life should be one's lackey. He had been Time's dupe and bondsman; ever since his birth Had walked this planet with his eye oblique, Grasped what was worthless, what were most dear missed; Missed love and fame, and all the sum of things Fame gets a man in England--the Queen's smile, Which means, when she 's in humor, abbey-lands, Appointments, stars and ribbons for the breast, And that sleek adulation that takes shape I' the down-drooping of obsequious lids When one ascends a stair or walks the pave. Good Lord! but it was excellent to see How Expectation in the ante-room Crooks back to Greatness passing to the Queen-- “Kind sir!” “Sweet sir!” “I prithee speed my suit!” 'T was somewhat to be flattered, though by fools, For even a fool's coin hath a kind of ring. Yet after all--thus did the grapes turn sour To master Fox, in fable--who would care To moil and toil to gain a little fame, And have each rascal that prowls under heaven Stab one for getting it? Had he wished power, The thing was in the market-place for sale At stated rates--so much for a man's soul! His was a haughty spirit that bent not, And one to rise had need to cringe and creep. So had his brother into favor crawled, Like slug into the bosom of a rose, And battened in the sun. At thought of him, Forgotten for a moment, Wyndham winced, And felt his wound. “Why bides he not in Town With his blond lovelock and wench-luring ways-- There runs his fox! What foul fiend sends him here To Wyndham Towers? Is there not space enough In this our England he needs crowd me so? Has London sack upon his palate staled, That he must come to sip my Devon cream? Are all maids shut in nunneries save this one? What magic philtre hath he given her To thaw the ice that melted not for me? Rich is he now that at his setting forth Had not two silver pieces to his purse. It is his brave apparel dazzles her. Thus puts he bound and barrier to my love. Another man were he abused as I... I'll have no more of him! If I but dared-- Nay, I dare not. I have fawn's blood, I think; I would, and dare not!” Thrice the hooded clock Solemnly, like some old Carthusian monk With meagre face half seen beneath his cowl, Intoned the quarter. Memory went not back When this was not a most familiar sound, Yet as each stroke on the dead silence fell Wyndham turned, startled. Now the sanguine moon, To clouded opal changing momently, Rose sheer above the pine-trees' ragged edge, And through the wide-flung casement reaching hand With cold and spectral finger touched the plates Of his dead father's armor till it gleamed One mass of silver. There it stood complete, That august panoply which once struck dread To foemen on the sunny plains of France, Menacing, terrible, this instant stood, With vizard down and jousting-lance at charge As if that crumbled knight were quick within.

A footfall on the shingle walk below Grated, a footfall light as Mercury's Disdaining earth, and Wyndham in the dark, Half crouched upon the settle with his nails Indenting the soft wood-work, held his breath. Then suddenly a blind rage like a flame Swept over him and hurled him to his feet-- Such rage as must have seized the soul of Cain Meeting his brother in the stubble-field. Anon came one that hummed a blithe sea-song, As he were fresh from tavern and brave cheer, And held the stars that blinked there in the blue Boon comrades. Singing in high-hearted way, His true-love's kiss a memory on his lip, Straight on he came to unrenowned end Whose dream had been in good chain-mail to die On some well-foughten field, at set of sun, With glorious peal of trumpets on his ear Proclaiming victory. So had he dreamed. And there, within an arch at the stair-top And screened behind a painted hanging-cloth Of coiled gold serpents ready to make spring, Ignoble Death stood, his convulsive hand Grasping a rapier part-way down the blade To deal the blow with deadly-jewelled hilt-- Black Death, turned white with horror of himself. Straight on came he that sang the blithe sea-song; And now his step was on the stair, and now He neared the blazoned hanging-cloth, and now...

The lights were out, and all life lay in trance On floor or pallet, blanketed to chin, Each in his mask of sullen-seeming death-- Fond souls that recked not what was in the air, Else had the dead man's scabbard as it clashed Against the balustrade, then on the tiles, Brought awkward witness. One base hind there was Had stolen a venison-pasty on the shelf, And now did penance; him the fall half roused From dreadful nightmare; once he turned and gasped, Then straightway snored again. No other sound Within the dream-enchanted house was heard, Save that the mastiff, lying at the gate With visionary bone, snarled in his sleep. Secret as bridal-kiss may murder be,

Done was the deed that could not be undone Throughout eternity. O silent tongue That would blab all with silence! What to do? How hide this speechless witness from men's gaze? Living, that body vexed us; being dead 'T is like to give us trouble and to spare. O for a cavern in deep-bowelled earth! Quick, ere the dusky petals of the night Unclosing bare the fiery heart of dawn And thus undo us with its garish light, Let us this mute and pale accusing clay In some undreamed-of sepulchre bestow, But where? Hold back thy fleet-wing'd coursers, Time, Whilst we bethink us! Ah--such place there is! Close, too, at hand--a place wherein a man Might lie till doomsday safer from the touch Of prying clown than is the spiced dust Of an Egyptian in his pyramid.

At a dark alcove's end of that long hall, The ancient armor-room in the east wing, A certain door (whereof no mortal knew save Wyndham, now that other lay a-cold) Was to the panels of the wall so set, And with such devilish shrewdness overlaid By carvings of wild-flower and curled grape-leaf, That one not in the favor of the trick, Albeit he knew such mechanism was, Ere he put finger on the secret spring Had need of Job for ancestor, in faith! You pressed a rose, a least suspected rose, And two doors turned on hinge, the inner door Closing a space of say some six feet square, Unlighted, sheathed with iron. Doubtless here The mediaeval Wyndhams hid their plate When things looked wicked from the outer wall, Or, on occasion, a grim ruthless lord Immured some inconvenient two-faced friend-- To banquet bidden, and kept over night. Such pranks were played in Merrie England then. Sealed in the narrow compass of that cell, Shut from God's light and his most precious air, A man might have of life a half-hour's lease If he were hale and well-breathed at the start.

Hither did Richard bear his brother's corse And fling it down. Upon the stone-paved floor In a thin strip of moonlight flung it down, And then drew breath. Perhaps he paused to glance At the white face there, with the strange half-smile Out-living death, the brightness of the hair Lying in loops and tangles round the brow-- A seraph's face of silver set in gold, Such as the deft Italians know to carve; Perhaps his tiger's blood cooled then, perhaps Swift pity at his very heart-strings tugged, And he in that black moment of remorse, Seeing how there his nobler self lay slain, Had bartered all this jewel-studded earth To win life's color back to that wan cheek. Ah, let us hope it, and some mercy feel, Since each at compt shall need of mercy have. Now how it happened, whether 't was the wind, Or whether 't was some incorporeal hand That reached down through the dark and did the thing, Man knoweth not, but suddenly both doors, Ere one could utter cry or put forth arm, Closed with dull clang, and there in his own trap Incontinent was red-stained Richard caught, And as by flash of lightning saw his doom. Call, an thou wilt, but every ear is stuffed With slumber! Shriek, and run quick frenzied hands Along the iron sheathing of thy grave-- For 't is thy grave--no egress shalt thou find, No lock to break, no subtile-sliding bolt, No careless rivet, no half loosened plate For dagger's point to fret at and pry off And let a stifling mortal get to air!

Angels of Light! what were a thousand years Of rankling envy and contemned love And all the bitter draughts a man may drink To that half hour of Richard's with his Dead?

Through silence, gloom, and star-strown paths of Night The breathless hours like phantoms stole away. Black lay the earth, in primal blackness wrapt Ere the great miracle once more was wrought. A chill wind freshened in the pallid East And brought sea-smell of newly blossomed foam, And stirred the leaves and branch-hung nests of birds. Fainter the glow-worm's lantern glimmered now In the marsh land and on the forest's hem, And the slow dawn with purple laced the sky Where sky and sea lay sharply edge to edge. The purple melted, changed to violet, And that to every delicate sea-shell tinge, Blush-pink, deep cinnabar; then no change was, Save that the air had in it sense of wings, Till suddenly the heavens were all aflame, And it was morning. O great miracle! O radiance and splendor of the Throne, Daily vouchsafed to us! Yet saith the fool, “There is no God!” And now a level gleam, Thrust like a spear-head through the tangled boughs, Smote Wyndham's turrets, and the spell was broke.

And one by one, on pallet stretched or floor, The sleepers wakened; each took up afresh His load of life; but two there were woke not, Nor knew 't was daybreak. From the rusty nail The gateman snatched his bunch of ancient keys, And, yawning, vowed the sun an hour too soon; The scullion, with face shining like his pans, Hose down at heel and jerkin half unlaced, On hearthstone knelt to coax the smouldering log; The keeper fetched the yelping hounds their meat; The hostler whistled in the stalls; anon, With rustling skirt and slumber-freshened cheek, The kerchief'd housemaid tripped from room to room (Sweet Gillian, she that broke the groom his heart), While, wroth within, behind a high-backed chair The withered butler for his master waited, Cursing the cook. That day the brewis spoiled.

That day came neither kinsman to break bread. When it was seen that both had lain abroad, The wolf-skins of their couches made that plain As pike-staff, or the mole on Gillian's cheek, The servants stared. Some journey called them hence; At dead of night some messenger had come Of secret import, may be from the Queen, And they paused not for change of raiment even. And yet, in faith, that were but little like; Sir Richard had scant dealings with the Court. Still--if Northumberland were in arms again. 'T was passing strange. No beast had gone from rack. How had they gone, then? Who looked on them last? Up rose the withered butler, he it was: They supped together, of no journey spoke, Spoke little, 't was their custom; after meal The master's brother sallied forth alone, The master stayed within. “That did he not,” Quoth one, “I saw Sir Richard in the close I' the moonrise.” “'T was eleven on the stroke,” Said Gillian softly, “he, or 't was his ghost-- Methought his face was whiter than my smock-- Passed through the courtyard, and so into house. Yet slept he not there!” And that other one, The guest unwelcome, kinsman little loved (How these shrewd varlets turn us inside out At kitchen-conclaves, over our own wine!) Him had no eye seen since he issued forth As curfew sounded. “Call me lying knave”-- He of the venison-pasty had the word-- “And let me nevermore dip beak in ale Or sit at trencher with good smoking meat, If I heard not, in middle of the night, The cock crow thrice, and took it for a sign.” “So, marry, 't was--that thou wert drunk again.” But no one laughed save he that made the jest, Which often happens. The long hours wore on, And gloaming fell. Then came another day, And then another, until seven dawns In Time's slow crucible ran ruddy gold And overflowed the gray horizon's edge; And yet no hosts at table--an ill thing! And now 't was on the eve of Michaelmas.

What could it mean? From out their lethargy At last awaking, searchers in hot haste, Some in the saddle, some afoot with hounds, Scoured moor and woodland, dragged the neighboring weirs And salmon-streams, and watched the wily hawk Slip from his azure ambush overhead, With ever a keen eye for carrion: But no man found, nor aught that once was man. By land they went not; went they water-ways? Might be, from Bideford or Ilfracombe. Mayhap they were in London, who could tell? God help us! do men melt into the air? Yet one there was whose dumb unlanguaged love Had all revealed, had they but given heed. Across the threshold of the armor-room The savage mastiff stretched himself, and starved.

Now where lags he, upon what alehouse bench 'Twixt here and London, who shall lift this weight? Were he not slain upon the Queen's highway Ere he reached Town, or tumbled into ford With too much sack-and-sugar under belt, Then was his face set homeward this same hour, Why lingers he? Ill news, 't is said, flies fast, And good news creeps; then his must needs be good That lets the tortoise pass him on the road. Ride, Dawkins, ride! by flashing tarn and fen And haunted hollow! Look not where in chains On Hounslow heath the malefactor hangs, A lasting terror! Give thy roan jade spur, And spare her not! All Devon waits for thee, Thou, for the moment, most important man! A sevennight later, when the rider sent To Town drew rein before The Falcon inn Under the creaking of the windy sign, And slipped from saddle with most valorous call For beer to wash his throat out, then confessed He brought no scrap of any honest news, The last hope died, and so the quest was done. “They far'd afoot,” quoth one, “but where God wot.”

The blackthorn bloomed anew, and the long grass Was starred with flowers that once Griselda prized, But plucked not. She, poor wench, from moon to moon Waxed pale and paler: of no known disease, The village-leech averred, with lips pursed out And cane at chin; some inward fire, he thought, Consumed. A dark inexplicable blight Had touched her, thinned her, till of that sweet earth Scarce more was left than would have served to grow A lily. Later, at a fresh-turned grave, From out the maiden strewments, as it were, A whisper rose, of most pathetic breath, Of how one maid had been by two men loved-- No names, God's mercy!--and that neither man Would wed her: why?--conjecture faltered there, For whiter was she than new-drifted snow, Or bleached lamb's wool, or any purest thing, Such stuff in sooth as Heaven shapes angels of; And how from their warm, comfortable beds These two men wandered out into the night, Sore stricken and distempered in their mind, And being by Satan blinded and urged on Did fling them headlong from a certain crag That up Clovelly way o'erhangs the sea-- O'erhangs the sea to tempt unhappy folk. From door to door the piteous legend passed, And like a thrifty beggar took from each. And when the long autumnal season came To that bleak, bitter coast, and when at night The deep was shaken, and the pent cloud broke Crashing among the lurid hills of heaven, And in brief sudden swoonings of the gale Contentious voices rose from the sand-dunes, Then to low sobs and murmurs died away, The fishwives, with their lean and sallow cheeks Lit by the flickering driftwood's ruddy glow, Drew closer to the crane, and under breath To awestruck maidens told the fearful tale.

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. 'T was said that once the Queen reached out her hand-- This was at Richmond in her palace there-- And let it rest on Burleigh's velvet sleeve, And spoke--right stately was she in her rouge: “Prithee, good Master Cecil, tell us now Was 't ever known what ill befell those men, Those Wyndhams? Were they never, never found? Look you, 't will be three years come Michaelmas: 'T were well to have at least the bones of them. 'Fore God, sir! this is something should be seen! When the Armada, which God smote and sunk, Threatened our Realm, our buckler and our shield Were such stout hearts as that young Wyndham was. The elder brother--well, Heaven fashioned him. Our subjects are our subjects, mark you that. Not found, forsooth! Why, then, they should be found!” Fain had my good Lord Burleigh solved the thing, And smoothed that ominous wrinkle on the brow Of her Most Sweet Imperious Majesty. Full many a problem his statecraft had solved-- How strangle treason, how soothe turbulent peers, How foil the Pope and Spain, how pay the Fleet-- Mere temporal matters; but this business smelt Strongly of brimstone. Bring back vanished folk! That could not Master Cecil an he would.

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. Dark were the days that came to Wyndham Towers With that grim secret rusting in its heart. On the sea's side along the fissured wall The lichen spread in patches of dull gold Up to the battlements, at times assailed By sheeted ghosts of mist blown from the sea, Now by the whistling arrows of the sleet Pelted, and thrice of lightning scorched and seamed, But stoutly held from dreary year to year By legions of most venerable rooks, Shrill black-robed prelates of the fighting sort. In the wide moat, run dry with summer droughts Great scarlet poppies lay in drifts and heaps, Like bodies fall'n there in some vain assault. Within, decay and dolor had their court-- Dolor, decay, and silence, lords of all. From room to room the wind went shuddering On some vague endless quest; now pausing here To lift an arras, and then hurrying on, To some fresh clue, belike! The sharp-nosed mouse Through joist and floor discreetly gnawed her way, And for her glossy young a lodging made In a cracked corselet that once held a heart. The meditative spider undisturbed Wove his gray tapestry from sill to sill. Over the transom the stone eagle drooped, With one wing gone, in most dejected state Moulting his feathers. A blue poisonous vine, Whose lucent berry, hard as Indian jade, No squirrel tried his tooth on, June by June On the south hill-slope festered in the sun. Man's foot came not there. It was haunted ground.

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. An oak stood where an acorn tumbled once, Ages ago, and all the world was strange. Now, in that year King Charles the Second left Forever the soft arms of Mistress Gwynn And wrapt him in that marble where he lies, The moulder'd pile with its entombed Crime Passed to the keep of a brave new-fledged lord, Who, liking much the sane and wholesome air That bent the boughs and fanned the turret's top, Cried, “Here dwell I!” So fell it on a day The stroke of mallets and the screech of saws In those bleak chambers made such din as stopped The careful spider half-way up his thread, And panic sent to myriad furtive things That dwelt in wainscots and loved not the sun. Vainly in broken phalanx clamorous Did the scared rooks protest, and all in vain The moths on indolent white damask wings At door and casement rallied. Wyndham Towers Should have a bride, and ghosts had word to quit.

And now, behold what strange thing came to pass. A certain workman, in the eastern wing Plying his craft alone as the day waned-- One Gregory Nokes, a very honest soul, By trade wood-carver--stumbled on a door Leading to nowhere at an alcove's end, A double door that of itself swung back In such strange way as no man ever saw; And there, within a closet, on the flags Were two grim shapes which, vaguely seen at first In the half light, grew presently distinct-- Two gnomes or vampires seemed they, or dire imps Straight from the Pit, in guise fantastical Of hose and doublet: one stretched out full length Supine, and one in terror-stricken sort Half toppled forward on the bended knee, Grasping with vise-like grip the other's wrist, As who should say, Arouse thee, sleep no more! But said it not. If they were quick or dead, No sign they gave beyond this sad dumb show. Blurred one face was, yet luminous, like the moon Caught in the fleecy network of a cloud, Or seen glassed on the surface of a tarn When the wind crinkles it and makes all dim; The other, drawn and wrenched by mortal throes, And in the aspect such beseeching look As might befall some poor wretch called to compt On the sudden, even as he kneels at prayer, With Mercy! turned to frost upon the lip.

Thus much saw Nokes within the closet there Ere he drew breath; then backing step by step, The chisel clutched in still uplifted hand, His eyes still fixed upon the ghosts, he reached An open window giving on the court Where the stone-cutters were; to them he called Softly, in whispers under his curved palm, Lest peradventure a loud word should rouse The phantoms; but ere foot could climb the stair, Or the heart's pulses count the sum of ten, Through both dread shapes, as at God's finger-touch, A shiver ran, the wavering outlines broke, And suddenly a chill and mist-like breath Touched Nokes's cheek as he at casement leaned, And nought was left of that most piteous pair Save two long rapiers of some foreign make Lying there crossed, a mass of flaky rust.

O luckless carver of dead images, Saint's-head or gargoyle, thou hast seen a sight Shall last thee to the confines of the grave! Ill were thy stars or ever thou wert born That thou shouldst look upon a thing forbid! Now in thine eye shall it forever live, And the waste solitudes of night inhabit With direful shadows of the nether world, Yet leave thee lonely in the throng of men-- Not of them, thou, but creature set apart Under a ban, and doomed henceforth to know The wise man's scorn, the dull man's sorry jest. For who could credence give to that mad tale Of churchyard folk appearing in broad day, And drifting out at casement like a mist? Marry, not they who crowded up the stair In haste, and peered into that empty cell, And had half mind to buffet Master Nokes, Standing with finger laid across his palm In argumentative, appealing way, Distraught, of countenance most woe-begone. “See!--the two swords. As I 'm a Christian soul!” “Odds, man!” cried one, “thou 'st been a-dreamin', man. Cleave to thy beer, an' let strong drink alone!”

So runs the legend. So from their long sleep Those ghosts arose and fled into the night. But never bride came to that dark abode, For wild flames swept it ere a month was gone, And nothing spared but that forlorn old tower Whereon the invisible fingers of the wind Its fitful and mysterious dirges play.