But Aveline was too much engrossed to heed him. Suddenly her eye caught something she had not previously noticed, and she exclaimed,--"I have detected the stratagem. I knew this authority could never be committed to you."

"What mean you, fair mistress?" cried Sir Francis, surprised and alarmed. "My name may not appear upon the face of the doc.u.ment; but, nevertheless, I am the person referred to by it."

"The doc.u.ment itself disproves your a.s.sertion," cried Aveline, with exultation.

"How so?" demanded Sir Giles, uneasily.

"Why, see you not that he to whom my father designed to give my hand was named Osmond Mounchensey?"

"Osmond Mounchensey!" exclaimed Sir Giles, starting.

"This is pure invention!" cried Sir Francis. "There is no such name on the paper--no name at all, in short--nor could there be any, for reasons I will presently explain."

"Let your own eyes convince you to the contrary," she rejoined, extending the paper to him and revealing to his astounded gaze and to that of his partner, who looked petrified with surprise, the name plainly written as she had described it.

"How came it there?" cried Sir Giles, as soon as he could command himself.

"I cannot say," replied Sir Francis. "I only know it was not there when I--that is, when I received it. It must be Clement Lanyere's handiwork,"

he added in a whisper.

"I see not how that can be," replied the other, in a like low tone. "The alteration must have been made since it has been in your possession. It could not have escaped my observation."

"Nor mine," cried Sir Francis. "'T is pa.s.sing strange!"

"Your infamous project is defeated," cried Aveline. "Let the rightful claimant appear, and it will be time enough to consider what I will do.--But I can hold no further discourse with you, and command your instant departure."

"And think you we mean to return empty-handed, fair mistress?" said Sir Giles, resuming all his wonted audacity. "Be not deceived. By fair means or foul you shall be the bride of Sir Francis Mitch.e.l.l. I have sworn it, and I will keep my oath!"

"As I am a true gentleman, it will infinitely distress me to resort to extremities, fair mistress," said the old usurer, "and I still trust you will listen to reason. If I have put in practice a little harmless stratagem, what matters it? All is fair in love. And if you knew all, you would be aware that I have already paid so dearly for you that I cannot afford to lose you. Cost what it will, you must be mine."

"Never!" exclaimed Aveline, resolutely.

"You will soon alter your tone, when you find how little power of refusal is left you, fair mistress," said Sir Giles. "A litter is waiting for you without. Will it please you to enter it?"

"Not unless by force--and you dare to offer me violence," she replied.

"I advise you not to put our forbearance to the test," said Sir Giles.

"I should be grieved to impose any restraint upon you," subjoined Sir Francis; "and I trust you will not compel me to act against my inclinations. Let me lead you to the litter."

As he advanced towards her, Aveline drew quickly back, and Dame Sherborne uttered a loud scream; but her cries brought no other help than could be afforded by old Anthony Rocke, who, planting himself before his young mistress, menaced Sir Francis to retire.

But this state of things was only of brief duration. It speedily appeared that the two extortioners had abundant a.s.sistance at hand to carry out their infamous design. A whistle was sounded by Sir Giles; and at the call the cottage door was burst open by some half dozen of the myrmidons, headed by Captain Bludder.

Any resistance that the old serving-man could offer was speedily overcome. Knocked down by a pike, he was gagged and pinioned, and carried out of the house. The cries of Aveline and the elderly dame were stifled by scarves tied over their heads; and both being in a fainting condition from fright, they were borne to the litter which was standing at the door, and being shut up within it, were conveyed as quickly as might be to Sir Giles Mompesson's mansion, near the Fleet. Thither, also, was old Anthony Rocke taken, closely guarded on the way by two of the myrmidons.

Chapter XXV.

The "Stone Coffin."

A dreadful dungeon! the last and profoundest of the range of subterranean cells already described as built below the level of the river Fleet: a relict, in fact, of the ancient prison which had escaped the fury of Wat Tyler and his followers, when the rest of the structure was destroyed by them. Not inaptly was the dungeon styled the "Stone Coffin." Those immured within it seldom lived long.

A chill like that of death smote Sir Jocelyn, as he halted before the door of this horrible place. Preceded by Grimbald the jailer, with a lamp in one hand and a bunch of large keys in the other, and closely followed by the deputy-warden and Sir Giles Mompesson, our young knight had traversed an underground corridor with cells on one side of it, and then, descending a flight of stone steps, had reached a still lower pit, in which the dismal receptacle was situated. Here he remained up to the ankles in mud and water, while Grimbald unlocked the ponderous door, and with a grin revealed the interior of the cavernous recess.

Nothing more dank and noisome could be imagined than the dungeon.

Dripping stone-walls, a truckle-bed with a mouldy straw-mattra.s.s, rotting litter scattered about, a floor glistening and slippery with ooze, and a deep pool of water, like that outside, at the further end,--these const.i.tuted the materials of the frightful picture presented to the gaze. No wonder Sir Jocelyn should recoil, and refuse to enter the cell.

"You don't seem to like your lodgings, worshipful Sir," said Grimbald, still grinning, as he held up the lamp; "but you will soon get used to the place, and you will not lack company--rats, I mean: they come from the Fleet in swarms. Look! a score of 'em are making off yonder--swimming to their holes. But they will come back again with some of their comrades, when you are left alone, and without a light. Unlike other vermin, the rats of the Fleet are extraordinarily sociable--ho!

ho!"

And, chuckling at his own jest, Grimbald turned to Sir Giles Mompesson, who, with Joachim Tunstall, was standing at the summit of the steps, as if unwilling to venture into the damp region below, and observed--"The worshipful gentleman does not like the appearance of his quarters, it seems, Sir Giles; but we cannot give him better,--and, though the cell might be somewhat more comfortable if it were drier, and perhaps more wholesome, yet it is uncommonly quiet, and double the size of any other in the Fleet. I never could understand why it should be called the 'Stone Coffin'--but so it is. Some prisoners have imagined they would get their death with cold from a single night pa.s.sed within it--but that's a mistaken notion altogether."

"You have proof to the contrary in Sir Ferdinando Mounchensey, father of the present prisoner," said Sir Giles, in a derisive tone. "He occupied that cell for more than six months. Did he not, good Grimbald? You had charge of him, and ought to know?"

"One hundred and sixty days exactly, counting from the date of his arrival to the hour of his death, was Sir Ferdinando an inmate of the 'Stone Coffin,'" said the jailer, slowly and sententiously; "and he appeared to enjoy his health quite as well as could be expected--at all events, he did so at first. I do not think it was quite so damp in his days--but there couldn't be much difference. In any case, the worthy knight made no complaints; perhaps because he thought there would be no use in making 'em. Ah! worshipful Sir," he added to Sir Jocelyn, in a tone of affected sympathy which only made his mockery more offensive, "your father was a goodly man, of quite as n.o.ble a presence as yourself, though rather stouter and broader in the shoulders, when he first came here; but he was sadly broken down at the last--quite a skeleton. You would hardly have known him."

"He lost the use of his limbs, if I remember right, Grimbald?" remarked Sir Giles, willing to prolong the scene, which appeared to afford him infinite amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Entirely lost the use of 'em," replied the jailer. "But what of that?

He didn't require to take exercise. A friend was permitted to visit him, and that was more grace than the Council usually allows to such offenders."

"It was far more than an offender like Sir Ferdinando deserved," said Sir Giles; "and, if I had known it, he should have had no such indulgence. Star-Chamber delinquents cannot expect to be treated like ordinary prisoners. If they do, they will be undeceived when brought here--eh, Master Tunstall?"

"Most true, Sir Giles, most true!" replied the deputy-warden.

"Star-Chamber prisoners will get little indulgence from me, I warrant them."

"Unless they bribe you well--eh, Master Joachim?" whispered Sir Giles, merrily.

"Rest easy on that score, Sir Giles. I am incorruptible, unless you allow it," rejoined the other, obsequiously.

"My poor father!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sir Jocelyn. "And thou wert condemned without a crime to a death of lingering agony within this horrible cell!

The bare idea of it is madness. But Heaven, though its judgments be slow, will yet avenge thee upon thy murderers!"

"Take heed what you say, prisoner," observed Grimbald, changing his manner, and speaking with great harshness. "Every word you utter against the decrees of the Star-Chamber, will be reported to the Council, and will be brought up against you; so you had best be cautious. Tour father was _not_ murdered. He was immured in this cell in pursuance of a sentence of the High Court, and he died before his term of captivity had expired, that is all."

"O, the days and nights of anguish and despair he must have endured during that long captivity!" exclaimed Sir Jocelyn, before whose gaze a vision of his dying father seemed to pa.s.s, filling him with unutterable horror.

"Days and nights which will henceforth be your own," roared Sir Giles; "and you will then comprehend the nature of your father's feelings. But he escaped what you will _not_ escape--exposure on the pillory, branding on the cheek, loss of ears, slitting of the nose, and it may be, scourging. The goodly appearance you have inherited from your sire will not be long left when the tormentor takes you in hand. Ha! ha!"

"One censured by the Star-Chamber must wear a paper on his breast at the pillory. You must not forget that mark of infamy, Sir Giles," said the deputy-warden, chuckling.

"No, no; I forget it not," laughed the extortioner. "How ingeniously devised are our Star-Chamber punishments, Master Joachim, and how well they meet the offences. Infamous libellers and slanderers of the State, like Sir Jocelyn, are ever punished in one way; but new crimes require new manner of punishment. You recollect the case of Traske, who practised Judaism, and forbade the use of swine's flesh, and who was sentenced to be fed upon nothing but pork during his confinement."

"I recollect it perfectly," cried Tunstall, "a just judgment. The wretch abhorred the food, and would have starved himself rather than take it; but we forced the greasy morsels down his throat. Ha! ha! You are merry, Sir Giles, very merry; I have not seen you so gleesome this many a day--scarcely since the time when Clement Lanyere underwent his sentence."