Sir Christopher: A Romance of a Maryland Manor in 1644

"Thir Chrithtopher. I saw him looking at you last night, and, Mother, dost not think, since he thinks to deal so generously with us, it would be a fine thing for me to give him this portrait of thee to bind the bargain?"

"Foolish baby, 'twill be time enough to think of that when he asks for it."

"Then if he asks for it, I may give it – "

"A safe promise truly," said Elinor, smiling this time with beaming eyes and cheeks, whose rose flush matched the coloring of the ivory portrait. "Now hasten with thy dressing."

Cecil's head was so filled with thoughts of the pomander-box and his own greatness that his mother was fully dressed while he sat mooning over the lacing of his hose and breeches, and gazing with admiring fondness at the red roses on his holiday shoes.

Three times Cousin Mary had called to him to make haste, and when at last he entered the hall every one had finished eating, and he was sent in disgrace to take his breakfast in the buttery. This was too great a blow for his new-swollen pride, and he fell to howling lustily, while the tears flowed into his cup of milk and salted it with their brine. The day which an hour ago had been one glow of rose color all arranged as a background for the figure of Cecil Calvert in his velvet suit and gold-clocked stockings, had become a plain Thursday morning in which a little boy was crying into his milk in a bare buttery hung with pails and pans.

Suddenly he felt a strong arm thrown over his shoulder, and a kind voice said in his ear: "I have been late more than once, Cecil; but it will not do for pioneers, least of all for Little John or Robin Hood."

"Go away; I hate thee," answered the amiable child.

"Dost thou truly? and why?"

"Because were it not for thee I had not put on my best suit with the troublesome lacings, and but for that I had not been late, and but for that Couthin Mary had not been vexed, and but for that Mother had not punished me."

"I see clearly it is I am to blame; and now if thou hast finished thy bread and milk let us go and ask pardon for our – I mean my fault, and perhaps we shall be forgiven."

Hand in hand the Lord of the Manor and his tenant sought the hall.

As they walked along the corridor, Neville's face wore a characteristic smile. This smile of his seemed to begin in one corner of his mouth and ripple along without ever quite reaching the other, which, to tell the truth, would have required a goodly journey. There was a certain fascination in the smile; but one who would fathom its meaning must look for it, not in the lips at all, but in the pucker of the eyelids and the gray twinkle of the eyes and the chuckle that lay hid somewhere in the little creases that the years had drawn in diverging lines from the point where the lids met.

If Neville was amused he felt no need of proclaiming the fact. A sense of the ridiculous marks the noisy man, wit the talkative man; but humor and silence have a strange affinity, and a smile needs no interpreter to itself.

"Pray, Mistress Brent," said Neville, bowing before his hostess when they reached the hall, "wilt thou forgive me for being the cause that Master Cecil did put on his best suit with the troublesome lacings, whereby he was late to breakfast?"

Mary Brent, being a literal soul, replied, "Why, 'twas not thy fault at all."

"Then," said Neville, "let the offence become a fixed charge upon the estate, which I as tenant must assume, and whereupon I promise to give a breakfast party at Robin Hood's Barn to those here present on this date each year in remembrance of this day's delinquency.

"As for thee, Sir Landlord, I will give thee an Indian bow and arrows, that thou mayst play Little John, and when thou dost come a-hunting at Robin Hood's Barn, thou mayst work havoc at thy will among the heron and wild duck which I am told do specially abound on the shores of the bay.

"How say you, Mistress Brent, are the terms accepted, and are we ready for the ceremony of investiture?"

"I have already bidden in the household," said Mary Brent, and following on her words there came filing in a train of men and maid servants, white and black, all arrayed in holiday attire, till the lower part of the long room was filled.

"'Tis a stately ceremonial thou hast planned," said Elinor, smiling at her cousin.

"Well enough!" Mary Brent answered, veiling her satisfaction in deprecation, "since thou hast as yet no tenants, and canst not hold a court baron at Robin Hood's Barn. I would Giles and Leonard Calvert were here, for in truth 'tis as goodly a show as we have held."

The tenantry were gathered.

On the dais stood Cecil, his eyes dancing under the page-cut hair which fell like thatch over his forehead, and his curls tremulous with the excitement, which would not let him be still for an instant. Elinor stood beside him in a white dress with a golden girdle, and on the step knelt Neville.

Elinor found leisure to note the elegance of the jewelled buckles which he wore on his shoes, and that his collar was of Venice point. It pleased her that he had taken as much trouble to array himself for his investiture as he would have done for a court function.

Of what was Neville thinking as he knelt there on the step of the dais?

Was it of Cecil and his manor?

Not at all.

Of law and leases?

Still less.

Of what, then?

Why, of the tiny point of a lady's slipper under a white robe, a slipper that tempted him to bend a little lower still and kiss it. Would she feel it, he wondered? Would she chide him if she did? Men kissed the foot of a saint without blame. If the adorable is to be adored and the lovable to be loved, why was not the kissable to be kissed? Besides, – only a slipper!

He was in the hem-of-the-garment stage of his passion, and fancied himself humble in his desire.

"Stretch out thy rod, Cecil!" It was Elinor's voice that broke in on Neville's indecision.

The boy reached forth the stick of ebony tipped with silver which was Baltimore's gift to Mary Brent on her coming out of England. Neville grasped the other end, and smiling at Cecil, with a single upward glance at Elinor bending over him, he said, —

"Hear you, my lord, that I, Christopher Neville, shall be to you both true and faithful, and shall owe my fidelity to you for the land I hold of you, and lawfully shall do and perform such customs and services as my duty is to you, so help me God and all His saints."

"Amen!" said Father White.

"By the terms assigned I do promise to pay to you on taking possession of the manor at Cecil Point ten Indian arrows and a string of fish, and thereafter, when the land shall be cleared, to yield you three quarters of the harvest yearly."

"Nay," interrupted Cecil, "'tis not the bond mother and I did agree upon; 'twas to be share and share alike. Saidst thou not so in bed this morning, Mother?"

Before Elinor could reply, Father White spoke as he stepped forward, —

"The case may be happily settled, my daughter, by the yielding of the quarter in dispute to the revenue at St. Inigo's for the benefit of Holy Church."

The mutinous blood rose in Neville's cheeks and his chin went out quarter of an inch; but he held his peace and looked toward Elinor, who also colored but spoke firmly, —

"Nay, Father, 'twere not well that the Church should profit by an injustice. What duty Cecil hath to the Church is for thee and me to settle later, but it must come from his share and not from Sir Christopher's. Now, Cecil, 'tis thy turn to make thy promise to thy tenant. Go on: 'I, Cecilius Calvert – '"

"Now, Mother," said the young landlord, shaking off the admonishing hand from his shoulder with a petulance for which a young Puritan would have been roundly punished, "if thou dost prompt me like that none will believe I know my part, and I have learned it as well as thou, thus: I, Cecilius Calvert, do hereby accept thee, Chrithtopher Neville, as my tenant at Cecil Point, and promise to protect thee in thy rights to the extent of the law, and if need be by the aid of my sword."

Neville smiled in spite of himself at the words, and a ripple of laughter went round the circle of tenants as they noted the comparative size of protector and protected; but Cecil was too full of his new-fledged dignity to heed them. He called for the written deed and the candle and the wax, and on the oaken table he scrawled his name under those of his mother and Sir Christopher, and then taking off his signet ring – 'twas his father's and a deal too wide for his chubby finger, – he pressed it firmly into the wax covering the seam of the folded paper, and then stood looking with admiration at the print of the crest; a ducal crown surmounted by two half-bannerets. "'Tis a pretty device, is it not, Thir Chrithtopher? I would you had as pretty a one. Mother, if Thir Chrithtopher Neville married thee would he bear the Calvert crest?"

If one could slay one's child and bring him to life again after an appropriate interval many of us might be tempted to infanticide. A great flame of anger and shame rose to Elinor's cheek; but Neville came to her assistance.

"Nay, little landlord," he said coolly, "no husband of thy mother could bear thy crest. 'Tis for thee, as the only heir in this generation, to bear it worthily before the world. Mistress Brent, is the ceremony ended?"

"Ay, and most happily," said Mary, nervously, struggling between desire to laugh and cry; "let us have in the cake and wine."

The servants went out to fetch the great trays of oaken wood with rim and handles of silver which had been in the Brent family for generations. As they re-entered in procession, – for Mary Brent dearly loved form and ceremony, and kept it up even here in the wilderness, – a knock was heard at the iron-studded door.

Being flung open it revealed the figure of a man, a tall, slender man with Saxon flaxen hair and true blue eyes.