Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/418

398 lover, but never once the traitor. Of the fortress of Nueva Cordoba and of what had happened therein, of a Spaniard noble but in name, of an English knight and leader who had not endured, who, where many a simple soul had stood fast to the end, had redeemed his body with his honor, the man who raved of all things else made no mention. Now with the sugared and fantastic protestation demanded by court fashion and the deep, chivalric loyalty of his type he spoke to the Queen of England, and now he was with Sidney at Penshurst, Platonist, poet. Arcadian. Now he lived over old adventures, old voyages, past battles, wrongs done and wrongs received, unremembered loves and hatreds, and now he walked with Damaris Sedley in the garden of his ancient house of Ferne.

Then at last he came to a land where he lay and watched always a small round of azure wave and sky, lay idly with no need of thought or memory, until, after a lifetime of the sapphire round, it occurred to him to put forth a wasted hand, touch a sun-embrowned one, and whisper, "Robin!" It was a day later, the ships nearing the Grand Canary, and land birds flying past his circlet of sky and ocean, when, after lying in silence for an hour with a faint frown upon his brow, he at last remembered, and turned his face to the wall.

N a small withdrawing-room at Whitehall an agreeable young gentleman pensioner, in love with his own voice, which was in truth mellifluous, read aloud to a knot of the Queen's ladies. The room looked upon the park, and the pale autumn sunshine flooding it made the most of rich court raiment, purple hangings, green rushes on the floor, lengths of crimson velvet designed for a notable piece of arras, and kindled into flame the jewels upon white and flying fingers embroidering upon the velvet the history of King David and the wife of Uriah.

It is not the color that commendeth a good painter, read the gentleman pensioner, but the good countenance; nor the cutting that valueth the diamond, but the virtue; nor the gloze of the tongue that tryeth a friend, but the faith.

Mistress Damaris Sedley put the needle somewhat slowly through the velvet, her fancy busy with other embroidery, not so much listening to the spoken words as pursuing in her mind a sweet and passionate rhetoric of her own.

Of a stranger I can bear much, went on the Lydian tones, for I know not his manners; of an enemy more, for that all proceedeth of malice; all things of a friend if it be but to try me, nothing if it be to betray me. I am of Scipio's mind, who had rather that Hannibal should eat his heart with salt than that Lælius should grieve it with unkindness; and of the like with Lælius, who chose rather to be slain with the Spaniards than suspected of Scipio.

Damaris quite left her work upon Bathsheba's long gold tresses and sat with idle hands, her level gaze upon nothing short of the great highway of the sea and certain ships thereon. Where now was the ship?—off what green island, what strange, rich shore?

On went the gentleman pensioner: I can better take a blister of a nettle than a prick of a rose; more willing that a raven should peck out my eyes than a dove. To die of the meat one liketh not is better than to surfeit of that he loveth; and I had rather an enemy should bury me quick than a friend belie me when I am dead.

The reader made pause and received his due of soft plaudits. But Damaris dreamed on, the gold thread loose between her fingers. She was the fairest there, and the gentleman was piqued because she looked not at him, but at some fine Arachne web of her own weaving.

"Sweet Mistress Damaris—" he began; and again, "Fair Mistress Damaris—"; but Damaris was counting days and heard him not. A lesser beauty left her work upon King David's crown to laugh aloud, with some malice and some envy in her mirth. "Prithee, let her alone! She will dream thus even in the presence. But I have a spell will make her awaken." She leaned forward and called "Dione!" then with renewed laughter sank back into her seat. "Lo! you now—"

The maid of honor, who at her own name stirred not, at the name of a poet's giving had started from her dream with widened eyes and an exquisite blush.