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Lord Denbeigh and his friend were bending over the lad, who lay out-stretched between them, with his white face turned up to the white sky, looking like the face of a dead man at the bottom of a clear pool. Then could I not withhold my grief, but cried aloud, "My master, my master!" and tried to feel with my trembling old hands for the wound. Then said the earl, "Not here!
It was towards the setting of the sun when Sir John and Lord Denbeigh rode up to the door of Amhurste, and my lady, knowing naught, came out at the sound of the horses' feet, thinking only to greet her uncle. The red light from the west shone on her, and dabbled her white kirtle as with blood, and her face was like one of the red roses in her garden.
At the same moment the lad stirred, and opened his eyes, and began to clutch feebly at his doublet, drawing it together. I made naught of it until Lord Denbeigh did turn to me, with the face of a dead man, and quoth he, "Stay here while I fetch women," and so rushed out like one in truth distraught.
Albeit, the earl seemed to feel his presence, for shortly he turned and saw the lad. "How!" quoth he. "Thou here?" And the boy said, "I told thee I would follow thee." And Lord Denbeigh answered him, "Dost thou know of what thou speakest?"
Then fled I, as though I had drawn away the veil from the sanctuary, for I thought that God would surely smite me for having beheld that look. So Lord Denbeigh sailed with the Earl of Essex for the war in Spain, and my lady's soul left her body and went with him; for surely 'twas but her body that remained at Amhurste.
Third, to inquire and seek out a certain villain of mine acquaintance, of whom you have doubtless heard;" and forthwith did he say to her of how the wicked Lord Denbeigh was the son of a friend and comrade, and of how he had known him when a lad, together with much more, at which my lady pricked up her ears, as 'twere, having all a lady's love for stories of wicked men who are not yet either old or ill-favored.
Lord Robert, methinks, was eke as goodly, after his way, as either his sister or Lord Denbeigh, being close clad from head to foot in crimson sarcenet, slashed all with cloth of gold.
I made answer, with a great calmness, for I saw that she sought to rouse my spleen. "Well, do not bellow," blurted she, "for my mistress is as sound as a gold-piece." Then quoth my lady, a-rising up on her elbow, "Nay, that she is not. And, moreover, she would hear all the stories concerning this bad and bloody Lord of Denbeigh!"
There had been news of the return of one Lord Denbeigh to Warwickshire by report as wild a cavalier as ever fought, and a godless body to boot. Marian, who, as I have said, had always a certain knack for ghost stories and the like, froze me with her accounts o' this wild lord's doings.
I will out with it, however, and the Almighty knows that I have not done with repentance even yet. So be it. But let me not defer longer. I, Anthony Butter, of respectable parents, and counted among my fellows and betters an honest man, did go to this window, and did most deliberately listen to the words that passed between my mistress and the Earl of Denbeigh.
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