The house of the wizard

IN the days of King Henry VIII., between Honiton and Exeter, at Luppit, stood Mohun’s Ottery, the great house of the Carews of Devon. Built like a fortress, it was too strong to...

MICHAELMAS had come and gone, and it was past the middle of October when a messenger came down post-haste from London. It was after supper, and there was revelry among the retai...

UNDER a gray sky and over moors, brown with the frost, rode Mistress Betty Carew upon her first journey into the great world. She and her uncle were escorted by Master Raby and...

THE shadows of evening were gathering fast when the little party halted at the gates of Kimbolton. There was much parley, and the royal warrant was produced before the visitors...

QUEEN CATHERINE’S prediction that life at Kimbolton would be gloomy for a young girl, seemed likely to be fulfilled. Happily, for Mistress Betty’s comfort, she had already under...

IN their gloomy rooms Queen Catherine and her maids sat working when Mistress Betty entered, rosy from her ride and the excitement of her adventure, which promised now to be of...

IT was dusk; the shadows were folding thickly about the gloomy walls of Kimbolton. In the queen’s drawing-room Betty Carew sat alone, a solitary taper burning on the table besid...

THE seventh of January had passed, the Queen of England had been carried to her last resting-place at Peterborough Abbey, and that other Queen of England rejoiced at Greenwich....

IT was a cold and dreary night in London, and through the mist the lights of the inn blinked like great yellow eyes. Within the public room there was much jovial entertainment....

IT was an hour before noon and the gates of Greenwich palace stood open. A crowd of attendants and gentlemen ushers were assembled in the anterooms, and the royal guards lined t...

THUS a great change came into Betty Carew’s life. After her introduction to the court at Greenwich, Sir William formally placed her in the charge of his eccentric relative and w...

MISTRESS CAREW, finding herself pursued even to Wildrick Hall by the bold addresses of Sir Barton Henge, and having a superstitious dread of his scarred face, withdrew from the...

WHEN Sir William’s barge stopped at the water-stairs at Greenwich Palace, Master Raby came down to meet Mistress Betty and her uncle. It was an accident, yet his pleasure at the...

IT was evening and it was strangely quiet at Greenwich Palace. The king was again absent, and the queen kept her state alone. The gay rufflers of the court were gathered in othe...

THE little party at the wizard’s door stood a moment confounded by this mysterious response to their summons. They looked anxiously up the narrow flight of stairs, expecting to...

IN the gallery adjoining the apartments of the queen, Simon Raby waited for tidings of her condition, and also for a glimpse of Mistress Betty. Francis Bryan had been called awa...

RABY would gladly have parted with old Madam at once and made his way on foot to the palace, for he did not wish to be seen in his disordered dress, and there was blood, too, on...

THAT strange house upon the Thames, with its receding upper stories and its many windows, had strange visitors. Not in the daytime; then its numerous eyes were often blinded wit...

IT was the first of May; the trees in Greenwich Park were budding with the tender tints of spring, and the short turf was studded with the little daisies, pink and white, and th...

MY Lady Crabtree hurried Mistress Betty from Greenwich. At sunset of that fateful day, the two went by water to Deptford. The barge glided gently along the placid river; the sof...

IN the strange house upon the Thames, the wizard entertained a guest in a small, dark room upon the lower floor. There was a low chimney in the corner, and on the hearth some lo...

LORD RABY and Mistress Carew walked up and down the terrace before Wildrick Hall, while at the water-stairs a barge waited to take him to Whitehall. Her white gown fluttered in...

TIDINGS of an arrest for high treason travelled but slowly. The movements of the government were swift and secret. A man might be pounced upon, examined, committed to prison, an...

SIR WILLIAM CAREW and Mistress Betty were both kindly received by Cromwell. He gave them a private audience, and Betty sat in the window recess in silent suspense, while her unc...

LORD RABY was arrested in June, and at the time there seemed to be an immediate prospect of a trial, and he looked forward to it with the earnest hope of establishing his innoce...

IT was the hour appointed for the prince’s baptism. It was night at Hampton Court; the king’s equerries ran to and fro, the ladies of the queen were crowding the anterooms of th...

SUPERSTITION works its own miracles, and strangely enough, even in the Tower of London, its spell took effect. The royal officers had secured the person of the wizard and had su...

MISTRESS BETTY left the Tower with a heavy heart; she could not believe in the success of the wizard’s plans, and she had failed to see Lord Raby. He was that day carried before...

THE instant that Betty Carew recognized Sir Barton’s dark face, she recoiled with a cry of terror. Her first thought was of the door by which she had entered, but when she ran t...

SIMON RABY stood only a moment on the threshold; a single glance at the interior of the room, at Betty, at Master Cross-Eyes, lying prostrate, and at the furious face of Henge,...

IN the trial that followed, the lost threads of the great conspiracy were found; and more, it was said that the secret examination of Henge gave Cromwell the first clue to the t...