Mrs. Lovell

“ The Lord Lovell of the Castle agreed with him, but said that the women would so have it. He was an immense, gross man, the rolls of fat behind his head, growing black curly hair that ran into his black and curly beard, mantled high up on his neck. His eyes were keen, peeble-blue, sagacious and mocking. The Lady Rohtraut, his wife, a fair, thin woman of forty-three, one of the Dacres of the North, leaned across the Bishop Palatine to disagree with the Warden. Thin as she was she wore an immense gown of red damask worked with leaves, birds and pomegranates. ”

“ Lovell thought that that was good--from her. "He is a man who is extremely difficile, Monsieur. I do not think you have a word which expresses what I would say in English. He is extremely jealous; he is enraged that his wife should use the eyes which are in her head! The very day on which we arrived at Spa we had a dreadful quarrel. I will not speak of the treatment to which I was subjected; it is enough to say that he locked the door so that I should not leave the room--he wished to make of me a prisoner. ”

“ She caught at her basket and she ran to his bridle.
"Come away," she cried out. "Cullerford and Haltwistle have ta'en your bonny Castle. Your father's dead. Your mother's jailed. There is no soul of yours true to you here."
If there was one thing that distinguished the Young Lovell amongst the captains of the North—and his name was very well known to the Scots of the Border—it was that he was quick in thinking. ”

“ Old gentlemen have their pets, and Mrs. Lovell was a pet of Sir William's.
She was on the present occasion quite mistress of herself, though the stake was large. She was mistress of herself when Lord Suckling, who had driven from the Downs and brushed all save a spot of white dust out of his baby moustache to make himself presentable, rode up to her to say that the horse Templemore was beaten, and that his sagacity in always betting against favourites would, in this last instance, transfer a "pot of money" from alien pockets to his own. ”

“ You come straightway from Lovell Tower? My father and mother be well? And Mistress Katherine, and Cicely, and all the maidens? And Lyard, and old Beaudesert? (naming her palfrey and the watchdog) . And all mine old friends—Sir Ralph Marston, and Master Carew?”
Richard smiled a grave, almost mournful smile.
“You ask too many questions, good my Lady, to be answered in a breath. But Dame Lovell is in health, and greets you well by me, bidding you be assured ever of her love and blessing.” ”

“ It was then that Ann Lovell, who was a godchild of Sir Philip’s, had learned to know and love Tony’s mother. Motherless herself, she had soon discovered that the frailly beautiful, sad-faced woman who had come to live with her somewhat irascible godparent, filled a gap in her small life of which, hitherto, she had been only dimly conscious. With the passing of the years came a clearer understanding of how much Virginia’s advent had meant to her, and ultimately no bond between actual mother and daughter could have been stronger than the bond which had subsisted between these two. ”

“ Lovell's brain was, just then, preoccupied.
"It was a dream. And yet, as I told Warren at the time, it certainly was the most vivid dream I ever dreamt." Deserting his canvas he began to move about the room. "Supposing it wasn't a dream, and the woman was a creature of flesh and blood! Then she must have come into my room, and kissed me while I slept. I'll swear that someone kissed me. By Jove! the Vicomte won't like to be told a tale like that! As he says, a man ought to know his own wife's face when he sees it, even in a portrait. ”

“ Lovell.
One morning, about the middle of June, a card was brought in to Mr. Lovell, while he was working in his studio. On it was inscribed a name--Vicomte d'Humières. The card was immediately followed by its owner, a tall, slightly built gentleman; unmistakably a foreigner. He saluted Mr. Lovell with a bow which was undoubtedly Parisian.
"Mr. Gerald Lovell?"
The accent was French, but, for a Frenchman, the English was fair.
"I am Gerald Lovell."
"Ah! That is good! You are a gentleman, Mr. Lovell, whom I particularly wish to see." ”

“ After her happy marriage, Lady Lovell continued to practise all kinds of good; and took great pains in increasing and improving the school of which she had been the mistress, and placed there a poor but worthy scholar and his wife to preside over it.
"No firm surpasses Messrs. ”

“ But because the Young Lovell knew that land so well, he threaded Hamewarts between bog and soft places, calling the notes of the chase to hasten him. Thus the great horse breathed deep and made large bounds. And the Young Lovell thought that times were not all that they should be when every footman must run from every gentle upon a horse and upon Lovell ground. ”

“ When he began upon his Paters, a rat that had crept into his harness of proof overset his helmet and the prayer went out of his head. When he would have crossed himself, suddenly his foster-brother and cousin, Decies of the South, that should have watched in the chapel porchway, began to snore and cried out in his sleep the name "Margaret." Three times Decies of the South cried "Margaret."
Then Young Lovell knew that the spirits having power between cockcrow and dawn, in the period when men die and life ebbs down the sands—that these spirits were casting their spells upon him. ”

“ He cried out:
"Body of God, Master Furred Cat, where be's thy gown?"
And the little man span round, spitting and screaming, with his spade raised on high. But his tone changed to fawning and then to a complacence that would have done well between two rogues over a booty.
"Worshipful Knight," he brought out, and his voice was between the creak of a door and the snarl of a dog fox, though his thin knees knocked together for fear. "A man must live, I in my garret as thou in thy castle bower with the pretty, fair dames."
"Ay, a man mun live," the Young Lovell answered. ”

“ And, ever as he rode along—and he went slowly for that purpose—came men-at-arms and bowmen hastening out of the hay-fields, where they had taken service, to come under the banner of the Young Lovell, until he had forty men and more. And at a cross in the hill-paths, ten miles below Belford, there were awaiting them Cressingham and La Rougerie, esquires that had been in service at Castle Lovell. They were well armed, upon little Scots horses, and came out of the hills where there was a deserted tower. ”

“ This padlock a man with a hammer knocked off, and a chain went down into that well, the well being dry. So they pulled up that chain, and at the end of it was the muniment-box of the Lady Rohtraut that the Young Lovell well knew. So when he had had the iron lid prised open with a lance-head—for without doubt the Lady Isopel wore the little gold key of it round her neck—the Young Lovell recognised that the deeds were there, for, though he had no time to read them, he knew them by their seals. ”

“ So, just as the young moon set, Sir Matthew Grey with all the men-at-arms, all the bowmen and fifty of the rievers, making in all two hundred and fifty men, having with him all the knights and esquires as well as the Young Lovell's most trusted esquire, Cressingham, that knew very well the ways into Castle Lovell—all rode over the whiteness of the river at the ford and were lost beneath the light of the stars. ”

“ Then such of the ladies as would sleep at Castle Cramlin went into it; the others had already ridden away with their attendants. The cooks and scullions and serving men began to take down that great silken tent, and the men-at-arms that remained struck those that had sheltered their former comrades. The Young Lovell begged the Lady Margaret very courteously that she would walk with him in the grove of the river where he had talked with Sir Matthew Grey. ”

“ And to him there had resorted from time to time certain strong fellows that were still faithful to their master, creeping in the night along the narrow bridge into the tower ... such as Richard Raket, the Young Lovell's groom that had lost his teeth at the fight of Kenchie's Burn. There might be a matter of twenty-five of them that held it and victualled it by boats from the sea at night.
"Old woman," the Young Lovell said, "ye keep the best wine for the last, but ye have our Lord's warrant for that." ”

“ I infer that she thought Mary Pickard had been a very bad girl.
Her mother's name was Lovell,—Mary Lovell,—granddaughter of "Master Lovell," long known as a classical teacher in colonial Boston, and daughter of James Lovell, an active Revolutionist, a prominent member of the Continental Congress and, from the end of the war to his death, Naval officer in the Boston Custom House. Mr. Lovell had eight sons, one of whom was a successful London merchant, and one daughter, who remained with her parents until at twenty-five she married Mr. ”

“ They had with them seventeen men, and four women that had served in Castle Lovell, and all were well fed and found, so what they had done in the meantime it was better not to inquire, though they swore that all they had came from the Scots' side of the border. The Young Lovell was well heartened by the sight of all these men, and they rode onward, to the number of sixty-five men and two esquires; twenty-two men having no horses and holding by the stirrups of them that had.
They made a circuit round Alnwick, for the monk Francis doubted the friendship of the Earl of Northumberland. ”

“ As Lovell was climbing up that old gallows ladder,
He called out so gaily for his highway cap and feather:
"Well, I've always been a lively lad, but never murdered any;
I think it bloody hard to swing for liftin' a bit of money!" ”

“ This embrace was witnessed with horror by Phyllis, who could not imagine any one safely taking such liberties with her mistress; her horror changed to astonishment when Sarah returned the caress.
"The world must be coming to an end," thought Phyllis, as she went into the dining room, with May at her heels. "I never saw Miss Sarah so melted—like—somebody will have to pay for it! She's like a pair of scales: when one is up in her opinion somebody else is way down." ”

“ She is said to have possessed a vigorous mind, to have been well educated and a fine conversationalist, with a commanding figure, benignant countenance, and dignified demeanor, so that one said of her, "She seems to have been born for an empress." Like her husband she was an Episcopalian though, according to the Memoirs, less strenuously Episcopalian than Mr. Pickard. She had been reared in a different school. Her father,—Mr. James Lovell—we are told, was a free-thinker, or as the Memoirs put it, "had adopted some infidel principles," and "treated religion with little respect in his family." ”

“ This Frenchman the old Lord Lovell had brought from France to see to the building of the White Tower, which he wished to make a citadel, as it were, of Castle Lovell. And this esquire had learned much of his father; the Young Lovell could trust him very well. So the Young Lovell sent that La Rougerie into the countryside to find masons and stone workers, and he found some, though not many, for most men of that class worked in the fisheries in summertime, coming back to building only when the storms drove them off the seas. ”

“ They had a right royal celebration, and a supper such as the Blair housewives could produce. There were speeches and songs and tales. Lovell kept himself in the background and helped Mrs. Stetson cut cake in the pantry all the evening. But when the guests had gone, he went to Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom, who were sitting by the fire.
"Here's a little golden wedding present for you," he said awkwardly, putting a purse into Aunt Sally's hand. "I reckon there's enough there to keep you from ever having to go to the poorhouse again and if not, there'll be more where that comes from when it's done." ”

“ Privately, she hoped it would prove true, since a man is very often caught at the rebound, and, judiciously managed, it seemed quite possible that Coventry, shocked and disgusted at Ann Lovell’s flightiness of character, might turn with relief and admiration to so modest and well-brought-up a girl as her own daughter. To see dear Muriel installed as mistress of Heronsmere had been her ambition from the first moment of its new owner’s coming to live at Silverquay, and when Miss Caroline had volunteered the news of Ann’s supposed engagement to him, it had come as a rude shock to her plans. ”

“ The Hazelnooks and even the Plainville boys and Ethel and Julia followed Gay to Rose Cottage and were waiting on the porch for the doctor, and when they saw him they cried in one voice,—
"How is she?"
"Weak, but she bore it like a hero, boys!" replied the jolly doctor. "You will have to stand on your own merits next time; May won't play ball again this summer—the little Amazon!" ”

“ Thus there might be as many as three hundred stout fellows there, and that might make the adventure a difficult one, for the Young Lovell had not gathered any more men himself, though what he had were mostly very proved fighting men, there being five knights that were his friends, twenty-seven esquires, one hundred and twenty of his own men, and those the best, and one hundred and seventy that were the picked men of his friends and of the Lady Margaret of Glororem.
So he had gone up to the battlements to see how many men he could observe in that Castle. ”