Part 9

“Well! now are we in Arden,” said an English traveller to his companion, as they passed between Coventry and Warwick, over ground, which his dear Shakspeare had made classic. As he uttered this exclamation of Rosalind, he looked forward with somewhat of the surprise and curiosity, which she may be supposed to have felt, and with an enthusiasm all his own, on beholding the very scene, into which the imagination of the poet had so often transported him with a faint degree of its own rapture. He was not, it appears, one of those critics, who think that the Arden of Shakspeare, lay in France. But he looked in vain for the thick and gloomy woods, which, in a former age, were the home of the doubtful fugitive, and so much the terror of the traveller, that it had been found necessary, on this very road, to clear the ground, for a breadth of six acres on each side, in order to protect the wayfaring part of his Majesty’s liege subjects.

Now, albeit the landscape was still wild and woody, he could not any where espy a forest scene of dignity sufficient to call up before his fancy the exiled duke and his court, at their hunter-feast, beneath the twilight of the boughs; nor a single beech, under the grandeur of whose shade the melancholy Jaques, might “lose and neglect the creeping hours of time,” while he sadly sympathized with the poor stag, that, escaped from the pursuit of man, came to drop his tears into the running brook, and to die in quiet. Not even a grove appeared, through whose deep vista the traveller might fancy that he caught, in the gayer light, a glimpse of the wandering Rosalind and her companions, the wearied princess and the motley fool, or of the figure of Orlando, leaning against an oak, and listening to her song: he could not even catch the last faint echo of that song, in a scene so different from the one his fancy had represented to him for the forest of Arden.

“Alas!” said he, “that enchanting vision is no more found, except in the very heart of a populous city, and then neither by the glimmering of the dawn, nor by the glow of evening, but by the paltry light of stage-lamps. Yet there, surrounded by a noisy multitude, whose cat-calls often piped instead of the black-bird, I have found myself transported into the wildest region of poetry and solitude; while here, on the very spot which Shakspeare drew, I am suddenly let down from the full glow of my holiday-feelings into the plain reality of this work-a-day world.”

Here ensued a conversation on illusions of the imagination and on the various powers of exciting them, shown by English poets, especially by Shakspeare and Milton, which it is unnecessary to repeat in this place. Such was its length, that Mr. Simpson’s part in it had gradually become less and less active, while Willoughton’s increased earnestness had rendered him less and less sensible of the deficiency of replies. At last, on his asking, rather peremptorily, whether his friend did not recollect some fine effects of the towers of Windsor Castle upon the imagination, Mr. Simpson, fortunately concealing how nearly he had approached to a nap, answered, “No, no; I do not recollect any thing of what you tell me; but you were talking a little while ago of Hamlet and towers; now, if you want towers that would do honour to Hamlet, go to Warwick Castle, and if we reach it, as we hope, this night, you can walk from the inn while supper is preparing, and you will find, on the terrace or platform before the gates, towers frowning and majestic enough. If the moon is up, you will see them to perfection, and, as you are so fond of ghosts, you can hardly fail to make an assignation with one there.” “I shall delight in the advantage,” replied Willoughton, laughing: “Though I am not so fond of ghosts in general, as you seem to think. It is only for a few of particular excellence, that I feel a friendship; for them, indeed, I am willing to own even an affection.”

Willoughton, not receiving a rejoinder, observed, that his friend had fallen again into his nap; and he returned to the busy thoughts, to which his first view of this land of Arden, the ground of Shakspeare, had led. Sunk in reverie, he was no longer in the living scene, but ranging over worlds of his own, till a jolt of the carriage awoke his companion; who, shaking his head, and looking out of the window, with the sudden alertness of one who thinks he has been losing time, now supposed himself bound to brush up his thoughts and to talk to his friend.

Willoughton could well have spared the interruption, till a remark, delivered with an air of self-satisfaction, touched the string that recalled him willingly to the present scene.

“There now is an oak,” said Simpson, “that may have been of Elizabeth’s time, by the hollowness of its vast trunk and the state of its branches.”

“Ay, long before her time,” said his companion, “and perhaps Shakspeare’s eyes have dwelt on it; perhaps he has rested under its shade:—O! we are coming now to something like the Forest of Arden: see how finely the woods rise in the distance, and what a rich gleam the western sun throws along the ground, beyond those low-hung boughs on our left.”

As the travellers advanced upon Kenilworth-chace, the country assumed a more forest-like appearance, and a new train of ideas engaged Willoughton, on approaching the venerable ruins of the once magnificent castle, at one period its prison, and at another, the _plaisance_ of royalty, where Edward the II. groaned under the traiterous power of Mortimer, and his abandoned Queen; and where the crafty Leicester entertained Elizabeth, with princely splendour. The domain of this castle, with its parks and chaces, included a circuit of nearly twenty miles; and when a survey of it was taken in the reign of James the I., on its forfeiture by the voluntary exile and contempt of Sir Robert Dudley, the son of Leicester and of his first wife, the Lady Sheffield,—the woods alone were valued at twenty thousand pounds, according to Dugdale, who observes of the castle and its territory, that “the like, both for strength, state, and pleasure, was not within the realm of England.”

Recollections of the long and varied history of this castle, crowded upon the mind of Willoughton, and he looked out, with impatience, for a glimpse of its stately towers in the distance, and then of its mouldering gateways, in the sun gleam, beneath the woods that now rose round him with majestic shade. Here, at least, was a mass and pomp of foliage worthy of the noble ruin he was approaching and of the memory of Arden; and, when he first caught a view of the grey walls and turrets overtopping the woods, lighted up by the evening sun, whose long beams, slanting now under the boughs, touched with a golden flush the bending trunk of many an old beech standing deep within the shade, he uttered a note of admiration and curiosity that discomposed Mr. Simpson, who immediately directed the postilion to make his way to the nearest gate.

Soon afterwards they found themselves in a valley, whose woody slopes excluded all distant prospect, and confined their attention to the venerable relique, which seemed to characterise, with its own quiet gloom, the surrounding landscape. They observed the several fine and detached masses of the castle rising on a lone rock in the centre of this secluded little valley; and, as they drove towards the only entrance of the area of these deserted courts, near the square-turreted gateway, which Leicester built for the grand approach to the castle, the impatience of Willoughton became tempered with a gentle and luxurious melancholy, and he forgot even Shakspeare, while he was influenced by somewhat of the poet’s feelings.

But a sense of real life broke in upon him even in this scene of solemn grandeur, and it required somewhat of the patience of a philosopher to endure, in the full glow of his present enthusiasm, the clamorous impetuosity of idle children, who, on the first sound of wheels, were seen running to assail the strangers from every cottage on the neighbouring banks. The visions of quiet solitude and of venerable antiquity were, in an instant, dispersed; the chaise was surrounded, and the travellers, having alighted, made their way with difficulty to the little gate, that led through a garden beside Leicester’s ruined tower into the area that was once the lower court of the castle, followed by a noisy troop, whom neither money, nor command, could for some time disperse.

The tower—the gateway being now closed up,—was no longer accessible to curiosity, nor could gratify it by any traits of the customs of former times. No warder’s bench lurked within the gloom, nor portcullis hung in the arch. The warden’s chamber for those, who, by military tenure, kept guard on certain nights of the year, was transformed into a light parlour, and the whole building changed into a modern habitation. From the green and broken square, anciently the lower court-yard, the travellers looked up to the noble mass of ruins that yet stand proudly on their rocky knoll, and form three irregular sides of what was once the inner and grand court.

Of the fourth side, which separated the upper from the lower court, are now no vestiges, save in the inequality of the ground where their foundations stood, and where the walls, fallen from above, may lie buried under the turf and briers, that now cover the spot.

On the left, the shattered walls of that lofty pile, built by Leicester and still called by his name, advance proudly to the edge of the eminence that overlooked the lower court, hung with the richest drapery of ivy; on the right, stands the strong square tower, called Cæsar’s, which, though the most ancient part of the castle, appears fresher and less injured by time, than parts that were raised some ages later. This was the keep, or citadel, of the castle; and the prodigious thickness of the walls appears through the three arches in front, proportioned and shaped like some which may yet be seen in aqueducts near Rome; the walls here show a depth of fifteen or sixteen feet. The stone, of which this noble tower is built, is of closer texture and of a greyer hue, than that in any other part of the building; and this hue harmonizes beautifully with the ivy towers, which overshadow its arches and doorcases, and with the ashlings and elder crowning its summit, which highly overtops every relique of this once magnificent abode of princes.

“It should seem,” said Willoughton, “that no human force could lay low walls of such strength as these; yet, as one side of the tower is destroyed, while the other three remain nearly entire, it must have been assailed by some power more sudden and partial than that of time.”

“Yes, Sir, yes,” said a man, who had been standing by, observing the strangers with attentive curiosity, “that part was pulled down by Cromwell’s soldiers, and, if they had had more time on their side, they would have pulled it all down; as it was, they did a mort of mischief.”

Willoughton turned to look at his informer, and saw a tall, thin man, who appeared to be a villager, and who, without waiting for encouragement, proceeded: “I have heard say, they destroyed all that stood between Cæsar’s and John O’Gaunts tower there, at the end of the great hall, and a deal on the other side of the court, between the Whitehall and Lord Leicester’s buildings.”

“Are those walls before us the remains of the great hall?” inquired Mr. Simpson, pointing to a picturesque mass of ruins, standing on the third side of the upper court and seen in perspective between the other two.

“Yes, Sir,” said the man, “that there was the great banqueting-hall where”—

“Leicester entertained Queen Elizabeth,” observed Willoughton. “How beautifully the ivy falls over those light Gothic window-mullions and that arched door-way, so appropriately and elegantly sculptured with vine-leaves! The sun now slopes its rays through the arch, as if purposely to show the beauty of its proportion and the grace of the vine that entwines it.”

“Ay,” said Mr. Simpson, “many a pitcher of wine and many a baron of beef have been carried under that arch by the king’s yeomen, when Henry the Third kept his court here.”

“I doubt whether by yeomen,” replied Willoughton, “for, though yeomen of the household are mentioned, about this time, yeomen of the guard, a part of whose office it afterwards became to carry certain dishes to the king’s table, do not occur till the reign of Henry the Seventh. However, it is probable, that, before the appointment of the latter, yeomen of the household might perform this business on state occasions, and in that very hall may have stood before the long tables, in double row, with wine ewers in their hands.”

“Those were times worth living in,” observed Mr. Simpson.

“Ay, those were jolly times! Sir,” said the stranger man; “it’s lonely and sad enough in that old hall now; nothing but briers and ivy. Why, there is an ivy tree now against that old wall there, partly as old as the wall itself. Look, Sir, it is as grey, and almost as sapless as the stone it crawls upon, though the trunk is such a size, and hardly shows a green leaf, spring or summer.”

The travellers made their way among the briers to take a nearer view of it; and, if verdant festoons of younger plants had charmed them, Willoughton, at least, was no less affected by the withered sinews and grey locks of this most forlorn and aged tree, which had itself become a ruin, while adorning another. He climbed over hillocks of briers and weeds, which now covered the ruins of walls, fallen into this court-yard, and he looked down into the area of the great hall, through a door-way which had once led from it by a vestibule towards the white hall, of which latter hardly a vestige remains, and to King Henry’s lodgings. Here he distinguished the upper end of that magnificent banqueting-room, the very spot where the _deis_, or high table, had stood, which had feasted kings and princes, its lords, or visitors; where Henry the Third had sitten, where John O’Gaunt had caroused, and where Elizabeth had received the homage of Leicester.

At one end of this platform were still the remains of the large bay-window, opening upon the grand court, where the cup-board had stood, and the golden plate was piled; at the other end, a windowed recess bowed out towards the spot, where there had been a lake, and to woods, that still flourished. This also, on state occasions, had probably held a plate-board, or cup-board, and, on others, had been occupied as a pleasant seat, commanding the finest views of the park.

The four walls only of this noble hall marked its former grandeur, not a fragment of either roof, or floor, remaining; the ground, upon which Willoughton immediately looked, having been the foundation of a chamber, or hall, for domestic and inferior guests, under the great one, which was eighty-six feet in length, and forty-five in width.

Those walls, where gorgeous tapestry had hung, showed only the remains of doorways and of beautiful gothic windows, that had admitted the light of the same sun, which at this moment sent the last gleam of another day upon Willoughton, and warned him, that another portion of his life too was departing.

The melancholy scene around him spoke, with the simplicity of truth, the brevity and nothingness of this life. Those walls seemed to say—“Generations have beheld us and passed away, as you now behold us, and shall pass away. They have thought of the generations before their time, as you now think of _them_, and as future ones shall think of you. The voices, that revelled beneath us, the pomp of power, the magnificence of wealth, the grace of beauty, the joy of hope, the interests of high passion and of low pursuits have passed from this scene for ever; yet we remain, the spectres of departed years and shall remain, feeble as we are, when you, who now gaze upon us, shall have ceased to be in this world!”

“Why, here is a stone bench yet in this old window,” said Mr. Simpson; “and a pleasant window it is still. This homely bench has outlived all the trappings of the castle, though, I dare say, it was little valued in their time!”

“You see, Sir,” said the old man, “it belongs to the wall itself; else it would have been carried off long ago.”

Willoughton turned at the now repeated voice of this stranger, whose intrusion he did not entirely like, though his knowledge of the castle might be useful, and his conduct did not appear to be ill-meant. To an inquiry, whether he lived in the neighbourhood, he answered, “Hard by, Sir, in Kenilworth. I saw you was a stranger, Sir, and thought you might like to know a little about the castle here; and, unless you hap to light on such a one as me, you may go away as wise as you came—for, you will know nothing. No offence, I hope, Sir.”

“No, no; no offence at all;” replied Willoughton; “and since you are so well acquainted with this spot, let me hear a little of what you know of it.”

“Ay, let us hear what you have to say,” said Mr. Simpson.

Willoughton, turning as he heard this, perceived his friend seated in the recess he had before noticed. Much remained of the beautiful stone-work of this bay-window, and it now showed itself upon the glowing west, where the sun had just descended, behind the dark woods of the valley. He advanced into it, and looking out upon the scenery, was interested by the stillness and solemnity that began to prevail over it. At some distance down the steep bank on which the castle stands, he could distinguish fragments of the walls that once surrounded it, with here and there some remains of a tower, or a banqueting-house. The ground below seemed marshy, but pasture of a better green stretched up the opposite slopes, and mingled with the woods, that, on every side, shut out the world! This valley seemed the home of a composed melancholy.

“But where,” said Willoughton, “is the noble lake that, in Leicester’s time, surrounded this castle, on which, as you may have heard, Queen Elizabeth was welcomed with pageants and so much flattery?”

“Ay, where is it?” echoed Mr. Simpson, looking at the old man with an air that seemed to say, “Now we have some use for you, and will put you to the test.”

But Willoughton, without giving him time to reply, proceeded:—

“I am doomed to disappointment in Arden. For many miles, I could not discover any thing like a forest-shade, that might have sheltered a banished court, or favourite; and here not a wave of the lake, that delighted a festive one, and which might have supplied me with a floating island, moving to the sound of invisible music, or to the shells of surrounding tritons and sea-nymphs. Nay, I cannot even catch a gleam of the torches, which, on such an occasion, might have thrown their light on the woods and towers of the castle, and have quivered on the waters over which they passed.”

“No, sir,” said the old man, “it would be a hard matter to find any thing of all that now. Cromwell’s people would have knocked all that o’ the head, when they drained off the water, if such things had been there then.”

“Cromwell’s people again! However it is as well to remember them. What had the venerable scenes of Kenilworth to do with politics, or freedom? But thus it is; if even the leaders in political agitations have a better taste themselves than to destroy, for the mere sake of destruction, they let the envy and malice of their followers rage away against whatsoever is beautiful, or grand.”

So said Willoughton to his friend, who smiled, as he perceived that the indignant admirer of antiquity had allowed himself to speak of a military operation, as though it had been a popular commotion.

“Where went the line of the lake, my man of Kenilworth?” asked Simpson.

“Why, Sir, it flowed round two sides of the castle, as I have heard say; it went from the tilt-yard, all along the valley here, for half a mile, and spread out at the foot of these banks,—as wide as to the woods yonder, on the hill side.”

“What a noble sheet of water,” exclaimed Willoughton, “with lawns and woods sloping to its margin and reflected on its surface!”

“Yes, Sir, all that on the opposite side was a deer-park then, as I’ve heard from the account of some book, except that low ground further on, and that was pasture for cattle.”

“For cattle!” exclaimed Mr. Simpson,—“how they would poach such ground as that!”

“But what a beautiful picture they helped to make from the castle windows here,” said Willoughton; “when, on a summer’s noon, they lay under those shades, or stood in the cool waters of the lake.”

“Ay,” said Mr. Simpson, “to such as did not value the land.”

“It was just opposite the Pleasant, yonder,” said the aged historian.

“The _Pleasant_!”

“Yes, Sir; if you look this way, I will tell you where it stood:—it was a banqueting-house on the lake.”

“O! the _Plaisance_!”

“It stood on the walls there, down in the valley, to the right of John O’Gaunt’s tower here, and not far from the Swan Tower; but it is so dusk now you can hardly see where I mean.”

Willoughton inquired where the Swan Tower stood.

“Further off, a good way, Sir; but there is nothing of it to be seen now. It stood at the corner of the garden-wall, just where the lake came up; but there is nothing to be seen of that garden either now, Sir, though we know the place where it was. Queen Elizabeth used to take great delight in the banqueting-house, as I’ve heard.”

“It was pleasantly seated;” observed Willoughton.

“Yes, Sir; but there was rare feasting and music too, I reckon. She used to be fond of sitting in this very window, too!”

“How do you know all this, my friend?”

“Why, Sir, the place is called Queen Elizabeth’s turret, to this day, because she took such a fancy to it; and it was pleasant enough to be sure, for it overlooked the widest part of the lake;—this bench had velvet trappings enough then, I warrant.”

“I have no pleasure in remembering Elizabeth;” said Willoughton, as he turned to look for his friend.

“No!—not in remembering the wisest princess that ever reigned?” said Mr. Simpson.

“No: her wisdom partook too much of craft, and her policy of treachery; and her cruelty to poor Mary is a bloody hand in her escutcheon, that will for ever haunt the memory of her.”

“You are too ardent,” observed Mr. Simpson; “much may be said on her conduct on that head.”

“She inspires me only with aversion and horror,” replied Willoughton.

“She gives other people the horrors, too,” said the villager.

“How do you mean, friend?”

“There are strange stories told, Sir, if one could but believe them;—there are old men now in the parish, who say they have seen her about the castle here, dressed in a great ruff about her neck, just as she is in her picture; they knew her by that.”

Here Mr. Simpson, giving Willoughton a look of sly congratulation, on his having met with a person of taste seemingly so congenial with his own, burst forth into a laugh, or rather a shout, that made every echo of the ruin vocal, his friend smile, and the old man stare; who, somewhat gravely, proceeded——

“They say, too, she has been seen sitting there, in that very window, when there was but just light enough to see her by.”

“A ghost in a ruff and farthingale!” exclaimed Mr. Simpson, in exultation;—“that is, surely, the very perfection of propriety in the ghost-costume;” and again the roar of laughter rolled round every turret of the castle.

“Why does that strike you as so absurd?” asked Willoughton; “this is only a ghost representing the familiar image of the person when alive. Can it be more ridiculous than the Scotch plaid for the supernatural being, whom we call a witch? And yet, when you and I used to discuss the taste of ghost-dresses, you did not object to that appearance; but justified it, as one with which popular superstition was familiar.”