VOL. CVII

No. DCXXXIX

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ND so," she ended, you may seize the revenues of Allonby with unwashed hands, cousin."

"Why have you done this?" I cried. I was half frighted by the sudden whirl of Dame Fortune's wheel.

"Dear cousin in motley," grinned the beldame, "'twas for hatred of Tom Allonby and all his accursed race that I have kept the secret thus long. Now comes a braver revenge: and I wreak my vengeance on all the spawn of Allonbyah, how entirely!-by setting you at their head. Will you jest for them in counsel, good cousin?-reward your henchmen with a merry quip?-lead them to battle with a bawdy song?-ugh! ugh!" Her

voice crackled like burning timber, and sputtered in groans that would have been fanged curses had breath not failed her: for my aunt Elinor had a nimble tongue, whetted, as rumor had it, by the attendance of divers Sabbats, and the chaunting of such songs as honest men may not hear and live, however highly succubi and leprichaunes commend them.

I squinted down at one green leg, scratched the crimson fellow to it with my bauble, and could not deny that her argument was just.

'Twas a strange tale she had ended, speaking swiftly lest the worms grow impatient and Charon weigh anchor ere she had done: and the proofs of the tale's

verity, set forth in a fair clerkly handwriting, rustled in my hand-scratches of a long-rotted pen that transferred me to the right side of the blanket, and transformed the motley of a fool into the ermine of a peer.

All Devon knew that I was son to Tom Allonby, who had been Marquis of Falmouth at his uncle's death, had he not first broken his neck in a fox-hunt; but Dan Gabriel, come post-haste from heaven, had scarce convinced the village idiot that Holy Church had smiled upon his union with a tanner's daughter, and that their son was lord of Allonby Shaw. I doubted it, even as I read the proof. Yet it was true-true that I had precedence even of Monsieur de Puysange, friend of the King's though he was, who had kept me on a shifty diet, first coins, then curses, these ten years past-true that my father, rogue in all else, had yet dealt honestly with my mother ere he died-true that my aunt, less fairly treated by him, had shared their secret with the priest that married them, and had most maliciously preserved it till now, when her words fell before me like Jove's shower before the Lady Danae, chinking, sparkling, pregnant with undreamed-of chances that stirred as yet blindly in the womb of Time.

A sick anger woke in me, remembering the burden of ignoble years she had suffered me to bear; yet my callow gentility bade me deal tenderly with this dying peasant woman, who, when all was said,

had been but ill used by our house. Death hath a strange potency: commanding as he doth, unquestioned and unchidden, the emperor to have done with slaying, the poet to rise from his unfinished rhyme, the tender and gracious lady to cease from all denying words (mixt though they be with pitiful sighs that break their sequence as an amorous ditty heard through the strains of a martial stave), and all men, gentle or base, to follow his gaunt standard into unknown realms, his majesty enshrines the veriest churl on whom the weight of his chill finger hath fallen. I doubt not that Cain's children wept about his death-bed, and that the centurions spake in whispers as they lowered Iscariot from the elder-tree: and in like manner the maledictions that stirred in my brain had no power to move my lips. The frail carnal tenement, swept and cleansed of all mortality, was garnished for Death's coming; I must, perforce, shout "Huzzay!" at his grim pageant, nor could I sorrow at his advent; and it was not mine to question the nobility of the prey which Age and Poverty, his unleashed hounds, now harried at the door of the tomb.

"I forgive you," said I.

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"Dear Marquis," quoth she, and her sunken jaws quivered angrily, one might think I had kept from you the mastership of this wattled hut, rather than the wardage of Allonby Shaw. Believe me, Monsieur de Puysange did not take the news so calmly."

"You have told him?"

I sprang to my feet, half overcome with fear, for the cold hatred of her face was rather that of Bellona, who, as clerks avow, ever bore carnage and dissension in her train, than that of a mortal, mutton-fed woman.

The hag laughed-flat and shrill, like a man's laughter heard in hell between the roaring of the flames. "Were it not common kindness," she asked, "since his daughter is troth-plight to the usurper? He hath known since morning."

"And-and Adeliza?" I cried, in a voice that tricked me.

"Knows nothing as yet. But I think she is like to learn: for the ear of Monsieur de Puysange is keen to catch the melody of a sovereign that jostles with many fellows. Dear cousin, he means to

take the estate of Allonby as it stands; what live-stock, whether crack-brained or not, may go therewith is all one. He will not balk at a drachm or two of brains in his son-in-law. You have but to ask-but to ask, cousin!"

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Woman," I cried, hoarsely, "have you no heart?"

"I gave it to your father," she answered, "and he taught me the worth of it." There was a smile upon her lips, such as that with which the Lady Clytemnestra greeted King Agamemnon, come flushed from the sack of Troy Town. “I gave it -ah, go, ere I curse you, son of Thomas Allonby! Go, cast out your kinsman, and play the fool with all that Tom Allonby held dear-go, make his name a byword that begot a fool to play at quoits with coronets! I have nurtured you for this, and you will not fail me; you are not all fool, but you will serve my purpose. Go, my lord Marquis; it is not meet that death intrude thus unmannerly into your Grace's presence. Go, fool, and let me die in peace!"

I was no longer frighted at the whip (ah, familiar, unkindly whip!) that hung beside the door of the hut; but, I confess, my aunt's looks were none too reassuring, and old custom rendered her wrath yet terrible. If the farmers thereabouts were to be trusted, I knew Lucifer would come erelong for a certain overdue soul, escheat and forfeited to him by many years of cruel witchcrafts, close wiles, and nameless sorceries; and I could never abide unpared nails. Therefore, I left her gladly to the village gossips, who waited without, and tucked my bauble under my arm.

"Dear cousin," said I, "farewell!"
"Farewell!" said she; "play the fool

yet."

""Tis my vocation," quoth I, briefly: and so went forth into the night.

CAME to Tiverton Manor through a darkness black as the lining of Baalzebub's oldest cloak: for the moon was not yet risen, and the clouds hung heavy as

feather beds between mankind and the stars; even the swollen Exe was scarce visible as I crossed the bridge, though it

roared hoarsely beneath me, and shook the frail timbers hungrily. For the bridge had long been unsafe: Monsieur de Puysange had planned one stronger and less hazardous than the old edifice, of which the arches yet remained, and this was now in the making, as divers piles of unhewn lumber and stone attested: meanwhile, the roadway was but a makeshift of half-rotten wood that shook villainously in the wind. I stood for a moment and heard the waters lapping and splashing and laughing beneath, as though they held it rare and desirable mirth to swallow and spew forth a powerful marquis, and grind his body among the battered timber and tree boles and dead sheep swept from the hills, and at last vomit him into the sea, that a corpse, wide-eyed and livid, might bob up and down the beach, in quest of a quiet grave where the name of Allonby was scarce known. The imagination was so vivid that it frighted me as I picked my way through the dark. The folk of Tiverton Manor were knotting on their nightcaps, by this; but there was a light in the Lady Adeliza's window, faint as a sick glowworm. I rolled in the seeded grass and laughed softly, as I thought of what might be, and murmured to myself an old cradle-song of Devon that she loved and often sang; and was, ere I knew it, singing aloud, for pure wantonness and joy that Monsieur de Puysange was not like to have me whipped now, however much I chose to carol. Sang I:

"In the lapse of years there lingers yet A fair and free extent

Of shadowy turret and parapet— 'Tis the Castle of Content.

"Ei ho! Ei ho! the Castle of Content, With drowsy music drowning merriment, Where Dreams and Visions held high carnival,

And Love, vine-crowned, sat laughing over all.

Ei ho!

The vanished Castle of Content!"

As I ended, the casement was pushed open, and the Lady Adeliza came wonderingly to the balcony, the light streaming from behind her in such fashion as made her appear an angel peering out of

heaven at our mortal antics. Indeed, there was something more than human in her beauty, though it savored less of divinity than of a vision of some silent, great-eyed queen of faery, such as those whose feet glide unwetted over our fenwaters as they roam o' nights in search of unwary travellers; the perfection of her comeliness left men almost cold. She was a fair beauty; that is, her eyes were the color of opals, and her complexion as the first rose of spring, blushing at her haste to snare men's hearts with beauty; and her loosened hair rippled in such a burst of glory, that I have seen the shifting gold reflected on her bared shoulders where the scented waves fell heavily against the tender flesh. She was somewhat proud, they said; and to others she may have been, but to me, never. Her voice was a low, sweet song, her look even such as that of St. Elizabeth in the Chapel, and her many deeds of kindness to me so manifold that I cannot set them down: indeed, there was a gracious kindliness in all she did that made a courteous word from her of more worth than a purse from another.

"Is it you, Will?" said she.

"Madam," I answered, "with whom else should the owls confer? 'Tis an ancient word that extremes meet. And here you may behold it exemplified, as in the conference of an epicure and an estrich: though, for this once, Wisdom makes bold to sit above Folly."

“Did you carol, then, to them?" quoth she.

"Indeed," said I, "my grim gossips care less for my melody than for the squeaking of a mouse; and I sang rather for joy that at last I may enter into the Castle of Content."

The Lady Adeliza sighed, I thought, though I could scarce be certain. "With whom?" said she.

"Madam," said I, "your wit was ever ready. Tis but a woman's hand may lower the drawbridge.'

"You-you-?" cried she, incredulous laughter breaking the soft flow of speech.

"By the horns of Europa's bull! 'tis even so: the fool yearns for a fair woman, as a shallow pool were enamored of a summer cloud. What else, being a fool? Ah, madam, as Love, borne on motleycolored wings, sprang long since from