The Well in the Desert | Page 2

when he cometh!"

"That may be," said Alina, under her breath. "Get you in, Ralph and
Jocelyn, or she shall be after again."
And she turned and walked quickly into the castle, still carrying the
child.
Eleven hours later, a very different procession climbed the castle-hill,
and passed in at the portcullis. It was headed by a sumptuous litter,
beside which rode a gentleman magnificently attired. Behind came a
hundred horsemen in livery, and the line was closed by a crowd of
archers in Lincoln green, bearing cross-bows. From the litter, assisted
by the gentleman, descended a young lady of some three-and-twenty
years, upon whose lips hovered a smile of pleasure, and whose fair hair
flowed in natural ringlets from beneath a golden fillet. The gentleman
was her senior by about fifteen years. He was a tall, active, handsome
man, with a dark face, stern, set lips, and a pair of dark, quick,
eagle-like eyes, beneath which the group of servants manifestly
quailed.
"Is the Lady's bower ready?" he asked, addressing the foremost of the
women--the one who had so roughly insisted on Alina's return.
"It is so, an't like your noble Lordship," answered she with a low
reverence; "it shall be found as well appointed as our poor labours
might compass."
He made no answer; but, offering his hand to the young lady who had
alighted from the litter, he led her up the stairs from the banqueting-hall,
into a suite of fair, stately apartments, according to the taste of that
period. Rich tapestry decorated the walls, fresh green rushes were
strewn upon the floor, all the painting had been renewed, and above the
fireplace stood two armorial shields newly chiselled.
"Lady," he said, in a soft, courtly tone, "here is the bower. Doth it like
the bird?"
"It is beauteous," answered the lady, with a bright smile.

"It hath been anew swept and garnished," replied the master, bowing
low, as he took his leave. "Yonder silver bell shall summon your
women."
The lady moved to the casement on his departure. It stood open, and
the lovely sea-view was to be seen from it.
"In good sooth, 'tis a fair spot!" she said half aloud. "And all new swept
and garnished!"
There was no mocking echo in the chamber. If there had been, the
words might have been borne back to the ear of the royal
Alianora--"Not only garnished, but swept!"
My Lady touched the silver bell, and a crowd of damsels answered her
call. Among them came Alina; and she held by the hand the little
flaxen-haired child, who had played so prominent a part in the events of
the morning.
"Do you all speak French?" asked the Countess in that language--which,
be it remembered, was in the reign of Edward the Third the
mother-tongue of the English nobles.
She received an affirmative reply from all.
"That is well. See to my sumpter-mules being unladen, and the gear
brought up hither.--What a pretty child! whose is it?"
Alina brought the little girl forward, and answered for her. "The Lady
Philippa Fitzalan, my Lord's daughter."
"My Lord's daughter!" And a visible frown clouded the Countess's
brow. "I knew not he had a daughter--Oh! that child! Take her away--I
do not want her. Mistress Philippa, for the future. That is my pleasure."
And with a decided pout on her previously smiling lips, the Lady of
Arundel seated herself at her tiring-glass. Alina caught up the child, and
took her away to a distant chamber in a turret of the castle, where she

set her on her knee, and shed a torrent of tears on the little flaxen head.
"Poor little babe! fatherless and motherless!" she cried. "Would to our
dear Lady that thou wert no worse! The blessed saints help thee, for
none other be like to do it save them and me."
And suddenly rising, she slipped down on her knees, holding the child
before her, beside a niche where a lamp made of pottery burned before
a blackened wooden doll.
"Lady of Pity, hast thou none for this little child? Mother of Mercy, for
thee to deceive me! This whole month have I been on my knees to thee
many times in the day, praying thee to incline the Lady's heart, when
she should come, to show a mother's pity to this motherless one. And
thou hast not heard me--thou hast not heard me. Holy Virgin, what
doest thou? Have I not offered candles at thy shrine? Have I not
deprived myself of needful things to pay for thy litanies? What could I
have done more? Is this thy pity, Lady of Pity?--this thy compassion,
Mother and Maiden?"
But the passionate appeal was lost on the lifeless image to which it was
made. As of old, so now, "there was neither