Humfrey

“ Humfrey asked whether he had told Mr. Secretary of the man in Richmond Park.
"Never fear! he knows it," returned the budding statesman. "Why, look you, a man like Sir Francis has ten thousand means of intelligence that a simple mariner like you would never guess at. I thought it strange myself when I came first into business of State, but he hath eyes and ears everywhere, like the Queen's gown in her picture. ”

“ His eye glanced with an enthusiasm which Humfrey thought somewhat wild, and he said, "Whist! these are not things to be thus spoken of."
"All is safe," said Babington, drawing him within shelter of the chantry of Sir John Beauchamp's tomb. "Never heed Diccon—Pierrepoint can guide him," and Humfrey saw their figures, apparently absorbed in listening to the bidding for a horse. "I have things of moment to say to thee, Humfrey Talbot. We have been old comrades, and had that childish emulation which turns to love in manhood in the face of perils." ”

“ Humfrey, recollecting how they had parted, held out his hand in recognition of the friendliness.
"I would fain save thee," said Babington. "Heretic and rival as thou art, I cannot but love thee, and I would have thee die, if die thou must, in honourable fight by sea or land, rather than be overtaken by the doom that will fall on all who are persecuting our true and lawful confessor and sovereign." ”

“ Yet, as he said afterwards to his son, "There was no forbidding the maiden to do her utmost for her own mother, neither was there any letting her run the risk alone."
To which Humfrey heartily responded.
"The Queen may forbid her, or the purpose may pass away," added Richard, "or it may be clearly useless and impossible to make the attempt; but I cannot as a Christian man strive to dissuade her from doing what she can. And as thou saidst, Humfrey, she is changed. She hath borne her modestly and discreetly, ay and truly, through all. ”

“ And after a few further words of explanation, Humfrey called in the prisoner and his guards, and before his face gave an account of his attempt upon the helpless Queen.
"Godless and murderous villain!" said Paulett, "what hast thou to say for thyself that I should not hang thee from the highest tower?"
"Naught that will hinder you, worshipful seignior," returned the man with a sneer. "In sooth I see no great odds between taking life with a dagger and with an axe, save that fewer folk are regaled with the spectacle." ”

“ But, in sustaining power, the advantage was decidedly in Humfrey's favour. His phrases are always compact, and firmly knit together in true logical sequence; while, as a general rule, the Anthems of Wise are broken into an infinity of fragmentary passages, which, despite their pleasing changes of expression, lack the continuity of idea which undoubtedly gives a higher tone to many of Humfrey's more fully developed Movements. ”

“ Even the father himself could not well brook to hear the girl blamed, and both he and Humfrey could not help treating her with a kind of deference that made the younger brothers gape and wonder what had come to Humfrey on his travels "to make him treat our Cis as a born princess."
"You irreverent varlets," said Humfrey, "you have yet to learn that every woman ought to be treated as a born princess." ”

“ The great man's house was not far off, and he walked thither with Humfrey, who told him what he had seen, and asked whether it ought not at once to be reported to Walsingham.
Will whistled. "They are driving it very close," he said. "Humfrey; old comrade, thy brains were always more of the order fit to face a tough breeze than to meddle with Court plots. Credit me, there is cause for what amazed thee. The Queen and her Council know what they are about. Risk a little, and put an end to all the plottings for ever! ”

“ Humfrey was very sorry for them, having had some acquaintance with them all his life, and he was dismayed to find himself, instead of watching over Cicely, separated from her and made a jailer against his will. And when he returned to the Queen's apartments, he found Cavendish holding a taper, while Paulett and Wade were vigorously affixing cords, fastened at each end by huge red seals bearing the royal arms, to every receptacle, and rudely plucking back the curtains that veiled the ivory crucifix. ”

“ The Queen will become Semiramis or Zenobia, I know not which, and my Lord of Leicester, Master Hatton, and the others, will be called Ninus or Longinus, or some such heathenish long-tailed terms, and speak speeches of mighty length. Are they to be in Latin, Humfrey?"
"Oh no, sir," said Humfrey, with a shudder. "Master Sniggius would have had them so, but the young ladies said they would have nothing to do with the affair if there were one word of Latin uttered. It is bad enough as it is. ”

“ A drop of royal blood is in these days a mere drop of poison to them that have the ill luck to inherit it. As my lord said the other day, it brings the headsman's axe after it."
"And our boy Humfrey calls himself contracted to her!"
"So long as we let the secret die with us that can do her no ill. Happily the wench favours not her mother, save sometimes in a certain lordly carriage of the head and shoulders. She is like enough to some of the Scots retinue to make me think she must take her face from her father, the villain, who, someone told me, was beetle-browed and swarthy." ”

“ The last gleam of her youthful sunshine had faded with Humfrey; but youth is but a fraction of human existence, and there were further phases to be gone through and lessons to be learnt; although she was feeling as if all were over with her in this world, and neither hope, love, nor protection were left her, nor any interest save cherishing Humfrey Charlecote’s memory, as she sat designing the brass tablet which was to record his name and age in old English illuminated letters, surrounded by a border of ears of corn and grapes. ”

“ So they flitted out of sight as Richard and his son turned from the place of encounter, the former saying, "Son Humfrey, I had deemed thee a wiser man."
"Sir, how could a man brook seeing that fellow on his knee to her? Is it not enough to be debarred from my sweet princess myself, but I must see her beset by a Papist and traitor, fostered and encouraged too?"
"And thou couldst not rest secure in the utter impossibility of her being given to him? He is as much out of reach of her as thou art." ”

“ When marshalled into the ordinary dining-hall, they proved to be Lord Buckhurst, a dignified-looking nobleman, who bore a sad and grave countenance full of presage, with Mr. Beale, the Clerk of the Council, and two or three other officials and secretaries, among whom Humfrey perceived the inevitable Will Cavendish.
The two old comrades quickly sought each other out, Will observing, "So here you are still, Humfrey. We are like to see the end of a long story." ”

“ So Humfrey was permitted to consider her as peculiarly his own, and he exerted this right of property by a certain jealousy of Antony Babington which amused his parents, and teased the young lady. Nor was he wholly actuated by the jealousy of proprietorship, for he knew the devotion with which Antony regarded Queen Mary, and did not wholly trust him. His sense of honour and duty to his father's trust was one thing, Antony's knight-errantry to the beautiful captive was another; each boy thought himself strictly honourable, while they moved in parallel lines and could not understand one another ”

“ In a letter of John Humfrey, written from London, Dec. 9, 1636, in reply to one just received from his brother-in-law, Isaac Johnson, from the colony, he says, in speaking of Mr. Downing: “He is the only man for Council that is heartily ours in the town; and yet, unless you settle upon a good river and in a less snowy and cold place, I can see no great edge on him to come unto us.” Further on he says, “My Lord of Warwick will take a patent of that place you writ of for himself, and so we may be bold to do there as if it were our own.” ”

“ Why can thy kind never let well alone? I have sufficient on my hands without reading of scrolls!"
Humfrey's delight was extreme when he found that he was to ride forth with his father, and half-a-dozen of the earl's yeomen, in search of the supposed witch. They traced her as far as Chesterfield; but having met the carrier's waggon on the way, they carefully examined Faithful Ekins on his report, but all the youth was clear about was the halt and the orange tawny cloak, and after entering Chesterfield, no one knew anything of these tokens. ”

“ Humfrey came to London, where he gathered a congregational church, which met in Duke's Place, afterwards in Rosemary Lane, finally in Boar's Head Yard, Petticoat Lane, Whitechapel. His views on church matters were extremely moderate, and he spent much ink in futile recommendations of a union of all protestants. In the theological disputes of the time he was a man of no side. He was certainly not an antinomian, as Wilson supposes, though he criticised the critics of Tobias Crisp [q. v.] He always had a way of his own, but men of all parties respected him. ”

“ Honora was much disposed to laugh at this freak of the old man’s fancy, but to her surprise Humfrey coloured up, and looked so much out of countenance that a question darted through her mind whether he could have any such step in contemplation, and she began to review the young ladies of the neighbourhood, and to decide on each in turn that it would be intolerable to see her as Humfrey’s wife; more at home at the Holt than herself. ”

“ Though Humfrey had set forth merely as a lieutenant, he had returned in command of a vessel, and stood in high repute for good discipline, readiness of resource, and personal exploits. His ship had, however, suffered so severely as to be scarcely seaworthy when the fleet arrived in Plymouth harbour; and Sir Francis, finding it necessary to put her into dock and dismiss her crew, had chosen the young Captain Talbot to ride to London with his despatches to her Majesty. ”

“ It was a point of honour with every good housewife to have a store of linen equal to any emergency, and, indeed, as there were no washing days in the winter, the stock of personal body-linen was at all times nearly a sufficient outfit; so the main of Humfrey's shirts were to be despatched by a carrier, in the trust that they would reach him before the expedition should sail. ”

“ His recent conduct towards Humfrey gave him a certain right to friendly attention, though, as the frank-hearted mariner said to himself, it was hard that a plain man, who never told a lie, nor willingly had a concealment of his own, should be involved in a many-sided secret like this, a sort of web, where there was no knowing whether straining the wrong strand might not amount to a betrayal, all because he had rescued an infant, and not at once proclaimed her an alien. ”

“ Good-natured Humfrey, thought she, it is all that I may not be mortified; but after all it is not those very good-natured people who best appreciate lofty actions. He is inviting Owen Sandbrook more because he thinks it would please papa, and because he compassionates him in his solitary lodgings, than because he feels the force of his glorious self-sacrifice. ”

“ Look at His House," said Babington.
"He is more like to bless honest men who fight for their Queen, their homes and hearths, than traitors who would bring in slaughterers and butchers to work their will!"
"His glory is worked through judgment, and thus must it begin!" returned the young man. "But I would save thee, Humfrey," he added. "Go thou back to Plymouth, and be warned to hold aloof from that prison where the keepers will meet their fit doom! and the captive will be set free. Thou dost not believe," he added. ”

“ His song 'I pass all my hours in a shady old grove' was first printed in the appendix to Hawkins's History. J. S. Smith included 5 songs by Humfrey in his 'Musica Antiqua,' amongst them 'Whereever I am and whatever I do,' composed for Dryden's 'Conquest of Granada,' part i., 1672. Humfrey is said to have been the author of the words of several songs published in the collections of his time, and to have been a fine lutenist. He introduced many new and beautiful effects into his compositions. ”

“ On All Saints’ Day, while James stood with Humfrey of Gloucester at the head of the grave at Westminster, where Henry’s earthly form was laid to rest amid the kings his fathers, amid the wail of a people as sorrowful as if they knew all the woes that were to ensue, Bedford was in like manner standing over a grave at the Royal Abbey of St. Denis. He, the victor’s brother, represented all the princely kindred of Charles VI. of France, and, with his heart at Westminster, filled the chief mourner’s place over the king who had pined to death for his conqueror. ”

“ Cis is as open as ever to thy mother, for I cannot believe she hath yet learnt to dissemble, and I greatly suspect that the Queen, hoping to return to Scotland, may be willing to keep her a Protestant, the better to win favour with her brother and the lords of his council; but if he be such a cur as thou sayest, all hope of honourable release is at an end. So thou seest, Humfrey, how it lies, and how, in my judgment, to remain here is but to wring thine own heart, and bring the wench and thyself to sore straits. I lay not my commands on thee, a man grown, but such is my opinion on the matter. ”

“ Along those paths paced, book in hand, a tall, well-grown maiden, of good straight features, and clear, pale skin, with eyes and rich luxuriant hair of the same colour, a peculiarly bright shade of auburn, such as painters of old had loved, and Owen Sandbrook called golden, while Humfrey Charlecote would declare he was always glad to see Honor’s carrots. ”