CHAPTER XV: THE GUIDE
He was a son of Egypt, as he told me, And one descended from those dread magicians, Who waged rash war, when Israel dwelt in Goshen, With Israel and her Prophet--matching rod With his, the son's of Levi's--and encountering Jehovah's miracles with incantations, Till upon Egypt came the avenging Angel, And those proud sages wept for their first born, As wept the unletter'd peasant.
ANONYMOUS
The arrival of Lord Crawford and his guard put an immediate end to theengagement which we endeavoured to describe in the last chapter, and theknight, throwing off his helmet, hastily gave the old Lord his sword,saying, "Crawford, I render myself.--But hither--and lend me your ear--aword for God's sake--save the Duke of Orleans!"
"How!--what?--the Duke of Orleans!" exclaimed the Scottish commander."How came this, in the name of the foul fiend? It will ruin the gallantwith the King, for ever and a day."
"Ask no questions," said Dunois--for it was no other than he--"it wasall my fault. See, he stirs. I came forth but to have a snatch at yonderdamsel, and make myself a landed and a married man--and see what is comeon 't. Keep back your canaille--let no man look upon him."
So saying, he opened the visor of Orleans, and threw water on his face,which was afforded by the neighbouring lake.
Quentin Durward, meanwhile, stood like one planet struck [affected bythe supposed influence of the planets], so fast did new adventures pourin upon him. He had now, as the pale features of his first antagonistassured him, borne to the earth the first Prince of the Blood inFrance, and had measured swords with her best champion, the celebratedDunois,--both of them achievements honourable in themselves: but whetherthey might be called good service to the King, or so esteemed by him,was a very different question.
The Duke had now recovered his breath, and was able to sit up and giveattention to what passed betwixt Dunois and Crawford, while the formerpleaded eagerly that there was no occasion to mention in the matter thename of the most noble Orleans, while he was ready to take the wholeblame on his own shoulders, and to avouch that the Duke had only comethither in friendship to him.
Lord Crawford continued listening with his eyes fixed on the ground,and from time to time he sighed and shook his head. At length he said,looking up, "Thou knowest, Dunois, that, for thy father's sake, as wellas thine own, I would full fain do thee a service."
"It is not for myself I demand anything," answered Dunois. "Thou hast mysword, and I am your prisoner--what needs more? But it is for this noblePrince, the only hope of France, if God should call the Dauphin. He onlycame hither to do me a favour--in an effort to make my fortune--in amatter which the King had partly encouraged."
"Dunois," replied Crawford, "if another had told me thou hadst broughtthe noble Prince into this jeopardy to serve any purpose of thine own, Ihad told him it was false. And now that thou dost pretend so thyself, Ican hardly believe it is for the sake of speaking the truth."
"Noble Crawford," said Orleans, who had now entirely recovered from hisswoon, "you are too like in character to your friend Dunois, not to dohim justice. It was indeed I that dragged him hither, most unwillingly,upon an enterprise of harebrained passion, suddenly and rashlyundertaken.--Look on me all who will," he added, rising up and turningto the soldiery, "I am Louis of Orleans, willing to pay the penalty ofmy own folly. I trust the King will limit his displeasure to me, as isbut just.--Meanwhile, as a Child of France must not give up his sword toany one--not even to you, brave Crawford--fare thee well, good steel."
So saying, he drew his sword from its scabbard, and flung it into thelake. It went through the air like a stream of lightning, and sankin the flashing waters, which speedily closed over it. All remainedstanding in irresolution and astonishment, so high was the rank, andso much esteemed was the character, of the culprit, while, at the sametime, all were conscious that the consequences of his rash enterprise,considering the views which the King had upon him, were likely to end inhis utter ruin.
Dunois was the first who spoke, and it was in the chiding tone of anoffended and distrusted friend: "So! your Highness hath judged it fit tocast away your best sword, in the same morning when it was your pleasureto fling away the King's favour, and to slight the friendship ofDunois?"
"My dearest kinsman," said the Duke, "when or how was it in my purposeto slight your friendship by telling the truth, when it was due to yoursafety and my honour?"
"What had you to do with my safety, my most princely cousin, I wouldpray to know?" answered Dunois, gruffly. "What, in God's name, was itto you, if I had a mind to be hanged, or strangled, or flung into theLoire, or poniarded, or broke on the wheel, or hung up alive in an ironcage, or buried alive in a castle fosse, or disposed of in any otherway in which it might please King Louis to get rid of his faithfulsubject?--(You need 'not wink and frown, and point to Tristanl'Hermite--I see the scoundrel as well as you do.) But it would not havestood so hard with me.--And so much for my safety. And then for your ownhonour--by the blush of Saint Magdalene, I think the honour would havebeen to have missed this morning's work, or kept it out of sight. Herehas your Highness got yourself unhorsed by a wild Scottish boy."
"Tut, tut!" said Lord Crawford, "never shame his Highness for that. Itis not the first time a Scottish boy hath broke a good lance--I am gladthe youth hath borne him well."
"I will say nothing to the contrary," said Dunois, "yet, had yourLordship come something later than you did, there might have been avacancy in your band of Archers."
"Ay, ay," answered Lord Crawford, "I can read your handwriting in thatcleft morion. Some one take it from the lad and give him a bonnet,which, with its steel lining, will keep his head better than that brokenloom--And let me tell your Lordship, that your own armour of proof isnot without some marks of good Scottish handwriting. But, Dunois, I mustnow request the Duke of Orleans and you to take horse and accompany me,as I have power and commission to convey you to a place different fromthat which my goodwill might assign you."
"May I not speak one word, my Lord of Crawford, to yonder fair ladies?"said the Duke of Orleans.
"Not one syllable," answered Lord Crawford, "I am too much a friend ofyour Highness to permit such an act of folly."
Then addressing Quentin, he added, "You, young man, have done your duty.Go on to obey the charge with which you are intrusted."
"Under favour, my Lord," said Tristan, with his usual brutality ofmanner, "the youth must find another guide. I cannot do without PetitAndre, when there is so like to be business on hand for him."
"The young man," said Petit Andre, now coming forward, "has only to keepthe path which lies straight before him, and it will conduct him to aplace where he will find the man who is to act as his guide.
"I would not for a thousand ducats be absent from my Chief this dayI have hanged knights and esquires many a one, and wealthy Echevins[during the Middle Ages royal officers possessing a large measure ofpower in local administration], and burgomasters to boot--even countsand marquises have tasted of my handiwork but, a-humph"--he looked atthe Duke, as if to intimate that he would have filled up the blank with"a Prince of the Blood!"
"Ho, ho, ho! Petit Andre, thou wilt be read of in Chronicle!"
"Do you permit your ruffians to hold such language in such a presence?"said Crawford, looking sternly to Tristan.
"Why do you not correct him yourself, my Lord?" said Tristan, sullenly.
"Because thy hand is the only one in this company that can beat himwithout being degraded by such an action."
"Then rule your own men, my Lord, and I will be answerable for mine,"said the Provost Marshal.
Lord Crawford seemed about to give a passionate reply, but as if hehad thought better of it, turned his back short upon Tristan, and,requesting the Duke of Orleans and Dunois to ride one on either hand ofhim, he made a signal of adieu to the ladies, and said to Quentin, "Godbless thee, my child, thou hast begun thy service valiantly, though inan unhappy cause."
H
e was about to go off when Quentin could hear Dunois whisper toCrawford, "Do you carry us to Plessis?"
"No, my unhappy and rash friend," answered Crawford, with a sigh, "toLoches."
"To Loches!" The name of a castle, or rather prison, yet more dreadedthan Plessis itself, fell like a death toll upon the ear of the youngScotchman. He had heard it described as a place destined to the workingsof those secret acts of cruelty with which even Louis shamed to pollutethe interior of his own residence. There were in this place of terrordungeons under dungeons, some of them unknown even to the keepersthemselves, living graves, to which men were consigned with little hopeof farther employment during the rest of their life than to breatheimpure air, and feed on bread and water. At this formidable castle werealso those dreadful places of confinement called cages, in which thewretched prisoner could neither stand upright nor stretch himself atlength, an invention, it is said, of the Cardinal Balue [who himselftenanted one of these dens for more than eleven years. S. De Comines,who also suffered this punishment, describes the cage as eight feetwide, and a foot higher than a man.]. It is no wonder that the name ofthis place of horrors, and the consciousness that he had been partlythe means of dispatching thither two such illustrious victims, struck somuch sadness into the heart of the young Scot that he rode for sometime with his head dejected, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his heartfilled with the most painful reflections.
As he was now again at the head of the little troop, and pursuingthe road which had been pointed out to him, the Lady Hameline had anopportunity to say to him, "Methinks, fair sir, you regret the victorywhich your gallantry has attained in our behalf?"
There was something in the question which sounded like irony, butQuentin had tact enough to answer simply and with sincerity.
"I can regret nothing that is done in the service of such ladies as youare, but, methinks, had it consisted with your safety, I had rather havefallen by the sword of so good a soldier as Dunois, than have been themeans of consigning that renowned knight and his unhappy chief, the Dukeof Orleans, to yonder fearful dungeons."
"It was, then, the Duke of Orleans," said the elder lady, turning toher niece. "I thought so, even at the distance from which we beheld thefray.--You see, kinswoman, what we might have been, had this sly andavaricious monarch permitted us to be seen at his Court. The firstPrince of the Blood of France, and the valiant Dunois, whose name isknown as wide as that of his heroic father.--This young gentleman didhis devoir bravely and well, but methinks 't is pity that he did notsuccumb with honour, since his ill advised gallantry has stood betwixtus and these princely rescuers."
The Countess Isabelle replied in a firm and almost a displeased tone,with an energy, in short, which Quentin had not yet observed heruse. She said, "but that I know you jest, I would say your speech isungrateful to our brave defender, to whom we owe more, perhaps, thanyou are aware of. Had these gentlemen succeeded so far in their rashenterprise as to have defeated our escort, is it not still evident,that, on the arrival of the Royal Guard, we must have shared theircaptivity? For my own part, I give tears, and will soon bestow masses,on the brave man who has fallen, and I trust" (she continued, moretimidly) "that he who lives will accept my grateful thanks."
As Quentin turned his face towards her, to return the fittingacknowledgments, she saw the blood which streamed down on one side ofhis face, and exclaimed, in a tone of deep feeling, "Holy Virgin, he iswounded! he bleeds!--Dismount, sir, and let your wound be bound!"
In spite of all that Durward could say of the slightness of his hurt hewas compelled to dismount, and to seat himself on a bank, and unhelmethimself, while the Ladies of Croye, who, according to a fashion notas yet antiquated, pretended some knowledge of leech craft, washed thewound, stanched the blood, and bound it with the kerchief of the youngerCountess in order to exclude the air, for so their practice prescribed.
In modern times, gallants seldom or never take wounds for ladies' sake,and damsels on their side never meddle with the cure of wounds. Eachhas a danger the less. That which the men escape will be generallyacknowledged, but the peril of dressing such a slight wound as that ofQuentin's, which involved nothing formidable or dangerous, was perhapsas real in its way as the risk of encountering it.
We have already said the patient was eminently handsome, and the removalof his helmet, or more properly, of his morion, had suffered his fairlocks to escape in profusion, around a countenance in which the hilarityof youth was qualified by a blush of modesty at once and pleasure. Andthen the feelings of the younger Countess, when compelled to hold thekerchief to the wound, while her aunt sought in their baggage for somevulnerary remedy, were mingled at once with a sense of delicacy andembarrassment, a thrill of pity for the patient, and of gratitude forhis services, which exaggerated, in her eyes, his good mien and handsomefeatures. In short, this incident seemed intended by Fate to completethe mysterious communication which she had, by many petty and apparentlyaccidental circumstances, established betwixt two persons, who, thoughfar different in rank and fortune, strongly resembled each otherin youth, beauty, and the romantic tenderness of an affectionatedisposition. It was no wonder, therefore, that from this momentthe thoughts of the Countess Isabelle, already so familiar to hisimagination, should become paramount in Quentin's bosom, nor that if themaiden's feelings were of a less decided character, at least so far asknown to herself, she should think of her young defender, to whom shehad just rendered a service so interesting, with more emotion than ofany of the whole band of high born nobles who had for two years pastbesieged her with their adoration. Above all, when the thoughtof Campobasso, the unworthy favourite of Duke Charles, with hishypocritical mien, his base, treacherous spirit, his wry neck and hissquint, occurred to her, his portrait was more disgustingly hideous thanever, and deeply did she resolve no tyranny should make her enter intoso hateful a union.
In the meantime, whether the good Lady Hameline of Croye understood andadmired masculine beauty as much as when she was fifteen years younger(for the good Countess was at least thirty-five, if the records of thatnoble house speak the truth), or whether she thought she had done theiryoung protector less justice than she ought, in the first view which shehad taken of his services, it is certain that he began to find favour inher eyes.
"My niece," she said, "has bestowed on you a kerchief for the bindingof your wound, I will give you one to grace your gallantry, and toencourage you in your farther progress in chivalry."
So saying, she gave him a richly embroidered kerchief of blue andsilver, and pointing to the housing of her palfrey, and the plumes inher riding cap, desired him to observe that the colours were the same.
The fashion of the time prescribed one absolute mode of receiving sucha favour, which Quentin followed accordingly by tying the napkin aroundhis arm, yet his manner of acknowledgment had more of awkwardness, andloss of gallantry in it, than perhaps it might have had at another time,and in another presence, for though the wearing of a lady's favour,given in such a manner, was merely matter of general compliment, hewould much rather have preferred the right of displaying on his arm thatwhich bound the wound inflicted by the sword of Dunois.
Meantime they continued their pilgrimage, Quentin now riding abreast ofthe ladies, into whose society he seemed to be tacitly adopted. He didnot speak much, however, being filled by the silent consciousness ofhappiness, which is afraid of giving too strong vent to its feelings.The Countess Isabelle spoke still less, so that the conversation waschiefly carried on by the Lady Hameline, who showed no inclination tolet it drop, for, to initiate the young Archer, as she said, into theprinciples and practice of chivalry, she detailed to him at full lengththe Passage of Arms at Haflinghem, where she had distributed the prizesamong the victors.
Not much interested, I am sorry to say, in the description of thissplendid scene, or in the heraldic bearings of the different Flemish andGerman knights, which the lady blazoned with pitiless accuracy, Quentinbegan to entertain some alarm lest he should have passed the place whereh
is guide was to join him--a most serious disaster, from which, shouldit really have taken place, the very worst consequences were to beapprehended.
While he hesitated whether it would be better to send back one of hisfollowers to see whether this might not be the case, he heard the blastof a horn, and looking in the direction from which the sound came,beheld a horseman riding very fast towards them. The low size, and wild,shaggy, untrained state of the animal, reminded Quentin of the mountainbreed of horses in his own country, but this was much more finelylimbed, and, with the same appearance of hardiness, was more rapid inits movements. The head particularly, which, in the Scottish pony, isoften lumpish and heavy, was small and well placed in the neck of thisanimal, with thin jaws, full sparkling eyes, and expanded nostrils.
The rider was even more singular in his appearance than the horse whichhe rode, though that was extremely unlike the horses of France. Althoughhe managed his palfrey with great dexterity, he sat with his feet inbroad stirrups, something resembling shovels, so short in the leathersthat his knees were well nigh as high as the pommel of his saddle. Hisdress was a red turban of small size, in which he wore a sullied plume,secured by a clasp of silver, his tunic, which was shaped like those ofthe Estradiots (a sort of troops whom the Venetians at that time leviedin the provinces on the eastern side of their gulf), was green incolour, and tawdrily laced with gold, he wore very wide drawers ortrowsers of white, though none of the cleanest, which gatheredbeneath the knee, and his swarthy legs were quite bare, unless for thecomplicated laces which bound a pair of sandals on his feet, he had nospurs, the edge of his large stirrups being so sharp as to serve togoad the horse in a very severe manner. In a crimson sash this singularhorseman wore a dagger on the right side, and on the left a shortcrooked Moorish sword, and by a tarnished baldric over the shoulder hungthe horn which announced his approach. He had a swarthy and sunburntvisage, with a thin beard, and piercing dark eyes, a well formed mouthand nose, and other features which might have been pronounced handsome,but for the black elf locks which hung around his face, and the air ofwildness and emaciation, which rather seemed to indicate a savage than acivilized man.
"He also is a Bohemian!" said the ladies to each other. "Holy Mary, willthe King again place confidence in these outcasts?"
"I will question the man, if it be your pleasure," said Quentin, "andassure myself of his fidelity as I best may."
Durward, as well as the Ladies of Croye, had recognised in this man'sdress and appearance the habit and the manners of those vagrants withwhom he had nearly been confounded by the hasty proceedings of TroisEschelles and Petit Andre, and he, too, entertained very naturalapprehensions concerning the risk of reposing trust in one of thatvagrant race.
"Art thou come hither to seek us?" was his first question. The strangernodded. "And for what purpose?"
"To guide you to the Palace of Him of Liege."
"Of the Bishop?"
The Bohemian again nodded.
"What token canst thou give me that we should yield credence to thee?"
"Even the old rhyme, and no other," answered the Bohemian.
"The page slew the boar, The peer had the gloire."
"A true token," said Quentin, "lead on, good fellow--I will speakfarther with thee presently."
Then falling back to the ladies, he said, "I am convinced this man isthe guide we are to expect, for he hath brought me a password, known,I think, but to the King and me. But I will discourse with him farther,and endeavour to ascertain how far he is to be trusted."