Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/183

. 9, 1862.] “They will fire the four corners of his house while he is asleep. They say that every hair of his body, and every word of his books and writings, must be burnt. I was listening all last night. O, no! the Wise Man has not been bewitching me, nor anybody. Indeed, what he said to me was just warning me—”

She suddenly stopped, and no satisfactory account could be obtained from her of what he had warned her about. As his words now rushed back upon her mind she stood covered with confusion, and Father Berthon resolved that he must learn from her every syllable of the Wise Man’s warnings.

“What others?” the Queen asked. “What do they say of Father Berthon?”

“They say he is the only bit of merry England that is left. He is as good as a barber for news, they say, besides being learned in the modes, as her Grace’s needleman ought to be.”

“And is that all?”

“Yes,” said Polly; “and that is more praise than any one else gets. The gentlemen who come to sport give their money freely, but I doubt their being welcome. Some think they are foreign papists sent—”

“What! Felton and Stansbury!” exclaimed Father Berthon. “They speak good Derbyshire English, if anybody does.”

“Yes; and they are among the bewitched.”

Again there would have been a smile, but for the Queen’s extreme gravity. Polly went on:

“There is more said about their being—what they should not—than about others: and it is certain that people have reason to give for it. Three persons at one time—Martin, and Nancy Sporle, and Geoffrey Clippesby—saw Mr. Felton up high on the rock, between the great rowan and the terrace wall, where it is steepest. Now, that is a place where nobody ever yet climbed, or can climb, because it is upright and smooth as a wall. They say the Devil, who can carry one up to a pinnacle of the Temple, set him there, and brought him down again: and they believe it the more because Mr. Stansbury pretended to be only fishing, and not to see Mr. Felton at all, when he had certainly been watching him the minute before.”

“You shall show me the place from the terrace,” Father Berthon told Polly.

Being pressed to say what she dreaded,—what she thought would happen,—Polly could only declare that all was at sixes and sevens; or, perhaps, it seemed so to her, because she was confused and dizzy from fear and want of sleep. She believed her father would send her to gaol, and that the Wise Man’s house would be burnt; and that the visitors in the neighbourhood might at any moment be mobbed and stoned as papists and foreign enemies. Some persons expected an invasion of the kingdom, and that Queen Bess would be deposed; and many talked of a general slaughter of the Protestants; or, at any rate, of the Calvinists. Nobody seemed to think that Old England would ever be Merry England again.

The tears sprang as Polly said this. The priest patted her on the shoulder, and bade her hope better things. Mary observed, with a look of kind compassion, that the poor thing had been hardly dealt with, by her husband having been sent away without any reference to his young wife’s feelings. If it was really known that Polly had returned to the old faith, the Castle was the proper place for her; and she commanded Polly to remain, and consider herself in the service of the Queen of Scots. Having found Polly willing to take the vows of service, the Queen went on to console her with some wonderful words. She said, while the priest looked upon the ground, as if in some doubt of the prudence of her so speaking:

“Those are not far wrong, my child, who expect changes soon. Old England is going to be Merry England again, under a sovereign who will restore the ancient faith, and put an end to all the religious quarrels which make men so rude and unhappy. If you will stay with me, and if Sampson brings us such news as he will in all likelihood be charged with, you will not repent having married him, nor having made friends of us. You shall go to rest this night, free from fear of any worse prison than your mistress inhabits. We shall all be free and happy soon.”

“And I, for my part,” said the priest, “will keep watch over yonder Wise Man’s house. I know where to look in the wood for the blaze, if they were to put the torch to his house:—we can see it from the terrace. But we will keep a better watch than that. The house shall not be attacked.”

Polly curtseyed low at each promise of relief; and then she was taken to the terrace, to show Father Berthon the spot where Mr. Felton was seen, perched there by the Powers of Evil.

was the mania for china less strong in France, than it was amongst ourselves. Louis XIV. sent to China for his porcelain. Madame Dubarri, in her memoirs, tells a story of the ingenious way in which the King made a present to the Due de la Vauguyon, through whose instrumentality the princesses had been induced to “receive” her. The King bought a solitaire of the value of 36,000 livres, and proposed that she should present it to the Duke.

“I dare not,” replied Madame: “I shall surely offend him.”

“Nonsense,” said the King; “no one here will murder you for presenting a cadeau, but do it discreetly.” Then thinking for a moment. “Parbleu,” added he, “here is a way. Put this diamond on the finger of that mandarin yonder, and give him the pagoda with the jewel attached by way of ornament. Surely the most immaculate will not refuse to receive a porcelain monster.”

Madame was charmed, and applauded the idea. So the ring was attached to the mandarin, and at once dispatched to the probably not unwilling Duke.

Madame de Pompadour, who reigned supreme in France for twenty years, was a strenuous patroness of the ceramic art. Her taste for luxury, and her love for the fine arts, were unbounded. Among other useful projects, she