On a certain spring morning, then, the snow still lying in the hollows of the hills, Thomas Bayly came to Wyfern to see his old friend Matthew Herbert.  He was a courteous little man, with a courtesy librating on a knife-edge of deflection towards obsequiousness on the one hand and condescension on the other, for neither of which, however, was his friend Herbert an object.  His eye was keen, and his forehead good, but his carriage inclined to the pompous, and his speech to the formal, ornate, and prolix.  The shape of his mouth was honest, but the closure of the lips indicated self-importance.  The greeting between them was simple and genuine, and ere they parted, Bayly had promised to do his best in representing the matter to the marquis, his daughter-in-law, lady Margaret, the wife of lord Herbert, and his daughter, lady Anne, who, although the most rigid catholic in the house, was already the doctor’s special friend.

It would have been greatly unlike the marquis or any of his family to refuse such a prayer.  Had not their house been for centuries the abode of hospitality, the embodiment of shelter?  On the mere representation of Dr. Bayly, and the fact of the relationship, which, although distant, was well enough known, within two days mistress Dorothy Vaughan received an invitation to enter the family of the marquis, as one of the gentlewomen of lady Margaret’s suite.  It was of course gratefully accepted, and as soon as Mr. Herbert thought himself sufficiently recovered to encounter the fatigues of travelling, he urged on the somewhat laggard preparations of Dorothy, that he might himself see her safely housed on his way to Llangattock, whither he was most anxious to return.

It was a lovely spring morning when they set out together on horseback for Raglan.  The sun looked down like a young father upon his earth-mothered children, peeping out of their beds to greet him after the long winter night.  The rooks were too busy to caw, dibbling deep in the soft red earth with their great beaks.  The red cattle, flaked with white, spotted the clear fresh green of the meadows.  The bare trees had a kind of glory about them, like old men waiting for their youth, which might come suddenly.  A few slow clouds were drifting across the pale sky.  A gentle wind was blowing over the wet fields, but when a cloud swept before the sun, it blew cold.  The roads were bad, but their horses were used to such, and picked their way with the easy carefulness of experience.  The winter might yet return for a season, but this day was of the spring and its promises.  Earth and air, field and sky were full of peace.  But the heart of England was troubled—­troubled with passions both good and evil—­with righteous indignation and unholy scorn, with the love of liberty and the joy of license, with ambition and aspiration.