The Lady of Loyalty House: A Novel Read online

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  THE LADY OF LOYALTY HOUSE

  A Novel

  BY

  JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY

  AUTHOR OF "MARJORIE" "THE PROUD PRINCE" ETC.

  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON 1904

  Copyright, 1904, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

  _All rights reserved._ Published October, 1904.

  AD SILVIAM

  Take for our lady's loyal sake This vagrant tale of mine, Where Cavalier and Roundhead break A reed for Right Divine, A tale it pleasured me to make, And most to make it thine.

  The Solemn Muse that watches o'er The actions of the great, And bids this Venturer to soar, And that to stand and wait, Will swear she never heard before The deeds that I relate.

  But all is true for me and you, Though History denies; I know thy Royal Standard flew Against autumnal skies, And find thy rarest, bravest blue In Brilliana's eyes.

  J. H. McC. _August 10, 1904._

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  PROLOGUE 1 I. THE STRANGER AT THE GATES 4 II. HARBY 16 III. MY LORD THE LADY 26 IV. THE LEAGUER OF HARBY 33 V. A MONSTROUS REGIMENT 40 VI. HOW WILL ALL END? 49 VII. MISTRESS AND MAN 56 VIII. THE ENVOY 62 IX. HOW THE SIEGE WAS RAISED 73 X. PRISONER OF WAR 82 XI. AT BAY 90 XII. A USE FOR A PRISONER 99 XIII. A GILDED CAGE 110 XIV. A PASSAGE AT ARMS 120 XV. MY LADY'S PLEASAUNCE 129 XVI. A PURITAN APPRAISED 138 XVII. SET A KNAVE TO CATCH A KNAVE 149 XVIII. SERVING THE KING 156 XIX. SIR BLAISE PAYS HIS RESPECTS 165 XX. SIR BLAISE PAYS HIS PENALTY 180 XXI. A PUZZLING PURITAN 188 XXII. MASTER PAUL AND MASTER PETER 203 XXIII. A DAY PASSES 212 XXIV. A HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 223 XXV. ROMEO AND JULIET 235 XXVI. RESURRECTION 249 XXVII. THE KING'S IMAGE 256 XXVIII. LOVER AND LOVER 266 XXIX. THE KING MAKES A FRIEND 273 XXX. RUFUS PROPOSES 281 XXXI. HALFMAN DISPOSES 286 EPILOGUE 296

  THE LADY OF LOYALTY HOUSE

  PROLOGUE

  In the October of 1642 there came to Cambridge a man from over-seas.He was travelling backward, after the interval of a generation,through the stages of his youth. From his landing at the port whencehe had sailed so many years before in chase of fortune he came toLondon, where he had bustled and thundered as a stage-player. Herehe found a new drama playing in a theatre that took a capital cityfor its cockpit. He observed, sinister and diverted, for a while,and, being an adaptable man, shifted his southern-colored garments,over-blue, over-red, over-yellow in their seafaring way, for thesombre gray surcharged with solemn black. A translated man, if nota changed man, he journeyed to the university town of his stormystudent hours, and there the black in his habit deepened at theexpense of the gray. In the quadrangle of Sidney Sussex College hemeditated much on the changes that had come about since the days whenSidney Sussex had expelled him, very peremptorily, from her gates.The college herself had altered greatly since his day. The fair courtthat Ralph Symons had constructed had now its complement in the fairnew court of Francis Clerke. The enlargement of his mother-collegewas not so marvellous to him, however, as the enlargement of oneamong her sons. A fellow-commoner of his time had, like himself, comeagain to Cambridge, arriving thither by a different road. Thisfellow-commoner was now the member in Parliament for Cambridge, hadbuckled a soldier's baldric over a farmer's coat, had carried thingswith a high hand in the ancient collegiate city, had made himselfgreatly liked by these, greatly disliked by those.

  Musing philosophically, but also observing shrewdly and inquiring aspertinaciously as dexterously, our traveller made himself familiarwith places of public resort, sat in taverns where he tasted ale moresoberly than was his use or his pleasure, listened, patently devout,to godly exhortations, and implicated himself by an interestedsilence in strenuous political opinions. From all this he learnedmuch that amazed, much that amused him, but what interested him mostof all had to do with the third stage of his retrospectivepilgrimage. If he had not been bound for Harby eventually, what cameto his ears by chance would have spurred him thither, ever keen as hewas to behold the vivid, the theatrical in life. Women had alwaysdelighted him, if they had often damned him, and there was a woman'sname on rumor's many tongues when rumor talked of Harby. So it cameto be that he rode sooner than he had proposed, and far harder thanhe had proposed, through green, level Cambridgeshire, through green,hilly Oxfordshire, with Harby for his goal. Chameleon-like, hechanged hues on the way, shifting, with the help of his wallet, backinto a gaudier garb less likely to be frowned on in regions kindly tothe King.