Thereupon the law decrees, that as your steed
Served you in youth, henceforth you shall take heed To comfort his old age, and to provide
Shelter in stall and food and field beside.”
The Knight withdrew abashed; the people all
Led home the steed in triumph to his stall.
The King heard and approved and laughed in glee,
And cried aloud: "Right well it pleaseth me!
Church bells at best but ring us to the door,
But go not into mass: my bell doth more :
It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And this shall make, in every Christian clime,
The Bell of Atri famous for all time."
ONE hundred years ago, and something more,
In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tavern door,
Neat as a pin and blooming as a rose,
Stood Mistress Stavers in her furbelows,
Just as her cuckoo-clock was striking nine.
Above her head, resplendent on the sign,
The portrait of the Earl of Halifax,
In scarlet coat and periwig of flax,
Surveyed at leisure all her varied charms,
Her cap, her bodice, her white folded arms,
And half resolved, though he was past his prime,
And rather damaged by the lapse of time,
To fall down at her feet, and to declare
The passion that had driven him to despair.
For from his lofty station he had seen
Stavers, her husband, dressed in bottle-green,
Drive his new Flying Stage-coach four-in-hand,
Down the long lane and out into the land,
And knew that he was far upon the way
To Ipswich and to Boston-on-the-Bay!
Just then the meditations of the Earl
Were interrupted by a little girl,
Barefooted, ragged, with neglected hair,
Eyes full of laughter, neck and shoulders bare,—
A thin slip of a girl, like a new moon,
Sure to be rounded into beauty soon;
A creature men would worship and adore,
Though now in mean habiliments she bore
A pail of water, dripping, through the street,
And bathing, as she went, her naked feet.
It was a pretty picture full of grace,—
The slender form, the delicate, thin face;
The swaying motion as she hurried by ;
The shining feet, the laughter in her eye,
That o'er her face in ripples gleamed and glanced,
As in her pail the shifting sunbeam danced;
And with uncommon feelings of delight
The Earl of Halifax beheld the sight.
Not so Dame Stavers, for he heard her say
These words, or thought he did, as plain as day :
"O Martha Hilton! Fie! how dare you go
About the town half dressed, and looking so!",
At which the gypsy laughed, and straight replied:
"No matter how I look; I yet shall ride
In my own chariot, ma'am." And on the child
The Earl of Halifax benignly smiled,
As with her heavy burden she passed on,
Looked back, then turned the corner, and was gone.
What next, upon that memorable day,
Drew his august attention, was a gay
And brilliant equipage, that flashed and spun,
The silver harness glittering in the sun,
Outriders with red jackets, lithe and lank,
Pounding their saddles as they rose and sank,
While all alone within the chariot sat
A portly person with three-cornered hat,
A crimson velvet coat, head high in air,
Gold-headed cane, and nicely powdered hair,
And diamond buckles sparkling at his knees,
Dignified, stately, florid, much at ease.
Onward the pageant swept, and as it passed
Fair Mistress Stavers courtesied low and fast;
For this was Governor Wentworth, driving down
To Little Harbour, just beyond the town,
Where his Great House stood looking out to sea,-
A goodly place, where it was good to be.
It was a pleasant mansion, an abode
Near and yet hidden from the great highroad,
Sequestered among trees, a noble pile,
Baronial and colonial in its style;
Gables and dormer-windows everywhere,
And stacks of chimneys rising high in air, -
Pandæan pipes, on which all winds that blew
Made mournful music the whole winter through.
Within, unwonted splendours met the eye,—
Panels, and floors of oak, and tapestry;
Carved chimney-pieces, where on brazen dogs
Revelled and roared the Christmas fires of logs;
Doors opening into darkness unawares,
Mysterious passages and flights of stairs;
And on the walls, in heavy gilded frames,
The ancestral Wentworths with old-Scripture names.
Such was the mansion where the great man dwelt,
A widower and childless; and he felt
The loneliness, the uncongenial gloom
That like a presence haunted every room;
For though not given to weakness, he could feel
The pain of wounds that ache because they heal.
The years came and the years went,-seven in all,—
And passed in cloud and sunshine o'er the Hall;
The dawns their splendour through its chambers shed,
The sunsets flushed its western windows red!
The snow was on its roofs, the wind, the rain;
Its woodlands were in leaf and bare again;
Moons waxed and waned, the lilacs bloomed and died,
In the broad river ebbed and flowed the tide,
Ships went to sea, and ships came home from sea,
And the slow years sailed by, and ceased to be.
And all these years had Martha Hilton served
In the Great House, not wholly unobserved;
By day, by night, the silver crescent grew,
Though hidden by clouds, her light still shining through;
A maid of all work, whether coarse or fine,
A servant who made service seem divine!
Through her each room was fair to look upon,
The mirrors glistened and the brasses shone ;
The very knocker on the outer door,
If she but passed, was brighter than before.
And now the ceaseless turning of the mill
Of Time, that never for an hour stands still,
Ground out the Governor's sixtieth birthday
And powdered his brown hair with silver-grey.
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