After all, Alice Montagu was married almost privately, and without any preparation. Tidings came that the Duke of Alençon was besieging Cosne, a city belonging to the Duke of Burgundy, and that instant relief was needed. The Duke was urgent with Henry to save the place for him, and set off at once to collect his brilliant chivalry; while Henry, rousing at the trumpet-call, declared that nothing ailed him but pageants, sent orders to all his troops to collect from different quarters, and prepared to take the command in person; while reports daily came in of the great muster the Armagnacs were making, as though determined to offer battle.
Salisbury was determined not to abide the chances of the battle without first giving a protector to his little daughter; and therefore, as quietly as if she had been merely going to mass, the Lady Alice was wedded to her Sir Richard Nevil, who treated the affair as the simplest matter of course, and troubled himself with very slight demonstrations of affection. The wedding took place at Senlis, whither the female part of the Court had accompanied the King, upon the very day of the parting. No one was present, except one of Sir Richard’s brothers (the whole family numbered twenty-two), his esquire; and on Alice’s side, her father, Esclairmonde, and a few other ladies.
At the last moment, however, the King himself came up, leaning on Warwick’s arm, looking thin, ill, and flushed, but resolved to do honour to his faithful Salisbury, at whose request he had permitted the barony of Montagu to be at once transferred to Nevil, who would thenceforth be called by that title.
After the ceremony, King Henry kissed the gentle bride, placed a costly ring upon her finger, and gave his best and warmest wishes to the newly-married pair. Little guessed any there present what the sound of Warwick and Salisbury would be in forty years’ time to the babe cradled at Windsor.
As the King passed Esclairmonde, he paused, and said, in an undertone, ‘Dear lady, deem not that I have forgotten your holy purpose; but you understand that there are some who are jealous of any benefit conferred on Paris save from themselves, and whose alliance I may not risk. But if God be pleased to grant me this battle also, then, with His good pleasure, I shall not be forced to have such respect to persons; and when I return, lady, whether the endowment come from your bounty or no, God helping us, you shall begin the holy work of St. Katharine’s bedeswomen among the poor of Paris.’
But while Henry V., with all his grave sweetness, spoke these words to Esclairmonde de Luxemburg, this was the farewell of Countess Jaqueline of Hainault to Malcolm Stewart:
‘Look here, my languishing swain; never mind her scorn, but win your spurs in the battle that is to be, and then make some excuse to get back again to us before the two Kings, with all their scruples. Then beshrew me but she shall be yours! If Monseigneur de Thérouenne and I cannot manage one proud girl, I am not Countess of Hainault!’
This promise sent him away, planning the enjoyment of conquering Esclairmonde’s long resistance, and teaching her where to find happiness. Should he punish her, by being stern and tyrannical at first? or should his kindness teach her to repent? When he was a knight, he would be in a condition to assert his authority, he thought; and of knighthood both he and Ralf Percy felt almost certain, in that wholesale dubbing of knights that was wont to be the preliminary of a battle. To be sure, they had indulged in a good many unlicensed pleasures at Paris—Ralf from sheer reckless love of sport, Malcolm in his endeavour to forget himself, and to be manly; but they had escaped detection, and they knew plenty of young Englishmen, and many more Burgundians and Gascons, who had plunged far deeper into mischief, and thought it no disgrace, but rather held that there was some special dispensation for the benefit of warriors.
Malcolm and Ralf were riding with a party of these young men. King Henry had consented to make his first day’s journey as far as Corbeil in a litter, since only there he was to meet the larger number of his troops, whom Bedford and Warwick were assembling. James was riding close beside him, with his immediate attendants; and the two youths, not being needed, had joined their comrades with the advanced guard of the escort.
It was always a fiction maintained by Henry, that he was marching in a friendly country; plunder was strictly forbidden, and everything was to be paid for; but unfortunately, the peasantry on his way never realized this, and the soldiery often took care they should not. Therefore, when the advanced guard came to the village that had been marked out for their halt, instead of finding provisions and forage to be purchased, they met with only bare walls, and a few stray cats; and while storming and raving between hunger and disappointment, a report came from somewhere that the inhabitants had fled, and driven off their cattle to another village some four miles off, in the woods, on the heights above. Of course, they must be taught reason. It was true that the men-at-arms, who were under the command of Sir Christopher Kitson and Sir William Trenton, were obliged to abide where they were, much as Kitson growled at being unable to procure a draught of wine for Trenton, whom he had been nursing for weeks under intermitting fever, caught at Meaux; but the young gentlemen were well pleased to show themselves under no Yorkshireman’s orders, and galloped offen masseto procure refreshment for their horses and themselves, further stimulated by the report that the Armagnacs had left a sick man behind them there, who might be a valuable prisoner.
By and by, a woodland path brought the disorderly party, about forty in number, including their servants and the ruffians who always followed whenever plunder was to be scented, out upon a pretty French village of the better class, built round a green shaded with chestnuts, under which, sure enough, were hay-carts, cows, sheep, and goats, and their owners, taking refuge in a place thought to be out of the track of the invaders.
Here were the malicious defrauders of the hungry warriors. Down upon them flew the angry foragers. Soon the pretty tranquil scene was ringing with the oaths of the plundering and the cries of the plundered; the cattle were being driven off, the houses and farm-yards rifled, blood was flowing, and what could not be carried off was burning. The search for the Armagnac prisoner had, however, relaxed after the first inquiry, and Malcolm, surprised that this had been forgotten, suddenly bethought him of the distinction he should secure by sending a valuable prize to Esclairmonde’s feet. He seized on an old man who had not been able to fly, and stood trembling and panting in a corner, and demanded where the sick man was. The old man pointed to a farm-house, round which clouds of smoke were rolling, and Malcolm hurried into it, shouting, ‘Dog of an Armagnac, come out! Yield, ere thou be burnt!’
No answer; and he dashed forward. In the lower room was a sight that opened his eyes with horror—no other than the shield of Drummond, with the three wavy lines; ay, and with it the helmet and suit of armour, whereof he knew each buckle and brace!
‘Patie! Patrick! Patrick Drummond!’ he wildly shouted, ‘are you there?’
No answer; and seeing through the smoke a stair, he rushed up. There, in an upper room, on a bed, lay a senseless form, suffocated perhaps by the smoke, but unmistakably his cousin! He called to him, seized him, shook him, dragged him out of bed, all in vain; there was no sign of animation. The fire was gaining on the house; Malcolm’s own breath was failing, and his frenzied efforts to carry Patrick’s almost giant form to the stairs were quite unavailing. Wild with horror, he flew shouting down-stairs to call Halbert, whom he had left with his horse, but neither Halbert nor horse was in sight, nor indeed any of the party. Not a man was in sight, except a few hurrying far out of reach, as if something had alarmed them. He wrung his hands in anguish, and was about to make another attempt to drag Patrick down from the already burning house, when suddenly a troop of horse was among the scene of desolation, and at their head King James himself. Malcolm flew to the King, cutting short his angry exclamation with the cry, ‘Help! help! he will burn! Patrick! Patie Drummond! There!’
James had scarce gathered the sense of the words, ere, leaping from his horse, he bounded up the stairs, through the smoke, amid flakes of burning thatch falling from the roof, groped in the dense clouds of smoke for the senseless weight, and holding the shoulders while Malcolm held the feet, they sped down the stair, and rested not till they had laid him under a chestnut tree, out of reach of the crash of the house, which fell in almost instantly.
‘Does he live?’ gasped Malcolm.
‘He will not,’ said the King, ‘if his nation be known here. Keep out of his sight! He must hear only French!’
Remembering how inexorably Henry hung every Scotch prisoner, Malcolm’s heart sank. This was why no one had sought the prisoner. A Scot was not available for ransom! Should he be the murderer of his cousin, Lily’s love?
Meantime James hurriedly explained to Kitson that here was the sick man left by the enemy, summoned Sir Nigel to his side, closed his own visor, and called for water; then hung over the prisoner, anxious to prevent the first word from being broad Scotch. In the free air, some long sobs showed that Patrick was struggling back to life; and James at once said, ‘Rendez vous, Messire;’ but he neither answered, nor was there meaning in his eyes. And James perceived that he was bandaged as though for broken ribs, and that his right shoulder was dislocated, and no doubt had been a second time pulled out when Malcolm had grasped him by the arms. He swooned again at the first attempt to lift him, and a hay-cart having been left in the flight of the marauders, he was laid in it, and covered with the King’s cloak, to be conveyed to Corbeil, where James trusted to secure his life by personal intercession with Henry. He groaned heavily several times, but never opened his eyes or spoke articulately the whole way; and James and Sir Nigel kept on either side of the cart, ready to address him in French the first moment, having told the English that he was a prisoner of quality, who must be carefully conveyed to King James’s tent at Corbeil. Malcolm was not allowed to approach, lest he should be recognized; and he rode along in an agony of shame and suspense, with very different feelings towards Patrick than those with which he had of late thought of him, or of his own promises. If Patrick died through this plundering raid, how should he ever face Lily?
It was nearly night ere they reached Corbeil, where the tents were pitched outside the little town. James committed his captive to the prudent care of old Baird, bidding him send for a French or Burgundian surgeon, unable to detect the Scottish tongue; and then, taking Malcolm with him, he crossed the square in the centre of the camp to the royal pavilion, opposite to which his own was pitched.
It was a sultry night, and Henry had insisted on sleeping in his tent, declaring himself sick of stone walls; and as they approached his voice could be heard in brief excited sentences, giving orders, and asking for the King of Scots.
‘Here, Sir,’ said James, stopping in where the curtain was looped up, and showed King Henry half sitting, half lying, on a couch of cushions and deer-skins, his eyes full of fire, his thin face flushed with deep colour; Bedford, March, Warwick, and Salisbury in attendance.
‘Ho! you are late!’ said Henry. ‘Did you come up with the caitiff robbers?’
‘They made off as we rode up. The village was already burnt.’
‘Who were they? I hope you hung them on the spot, as I bade,’ continued Henry, coughing between his sentences, and almost in spite of himself, putting his hand to his side.
‘I was delayed. There was a life to save: a gentleman who lay sick and stifled in a burning house.’
‘And what was it to you,’ cried Henry, angrily, ‘if a dozen rebel Armagnacs were fried alive, when I sent you to hinder my men from growing mere thieves? Gentleman, forsooth! One would think it the Dauphin himself; or mayhap Buchan. Ha! it is a Scot, then!’
‘Yes, Sir,’ said James; ‘Sir Patrick Drummond, a good knight, hurt and helpless, for whom I entreat your grace.’
‘You disobeyed me to spare a Scot!’ burst forth Henry. ‘You, who call yourself a captain of mine, and who know my will! He hangs instantly!’
‘Harry, bethink yourself. This is no captive taken in battle. He is a sick man, left behind, sorely hurt.’
‘Then wherefore must you be meddling, instead of letting him burn as he deserved, and heeding what you undertook for me? Iwillhave none of your traitor ruffians here. Since you have brought him in, the halter for him!—Here, Ralf Percy, tell the Provost-marshal—’
He was interrupted, for James unbuckled his sword, and tendered it to him.
‘King Harry,’ he said gravely, ‘this morning I was your friend and brother-in-arms; now I am your captive. Hang Patrick Drummond, who aided me at Meaux in saving my honour and such freedom as I have, and I return to any prison you please, and never strike blow for you again.’
‘Take back your sword,’ said Henry. ‘What folly is this? You knew that I count not your rebel subjects as prisoners of war.’
‘I did not know that I was saving a defenceless man from the flames to be used like a dog. I never offered my arm to serve a savage tyrant.’
‘Take your sword!’ reiterated Henry, his passion giving way before James’s steady calmness. ‘We will look into it to-morrow: but it was no soldierly act to take advantage of my weariness, to let my commands be broken the first day of taking the field, and bring the caitiff here. We will leave him for the night, I say. Take up your sword.’
‘Not till I am sure of my liegeman’s life,’ said James.
‘No threats, Sir. I will make no promise,’ said Henry, haughtily; but the words died away in a racking cough.
And Bedford, laying his hand on James’s arm, said, ‘He is fevered and weary. Fret him no longer, but take your sword, and get your fellow out of the camp.’
James was too much hurt to make a compromise. ‘No,’ he said; ‘unless your brother freely spares the life of a man thus taken, I must be his prisoner—but his soldier never!’
He left the tent, followed by Malcolm in an agony of despair and self-reproach.
Henry’s morning decisions were not apt to vary from his evening ones. There was a terrible implacability about him at times, and he had never ceased to visit his brother of Clarence’s death upon the Scots, on the plea that they were in arms against their king. Even Bedford obviously thought that the prisoner would be safest out of his reach; and this could hardly be accomplished, since Patrick had been placed in James’s tent, in the very centre of the camp, near the King’s own. And though Bedford and March might have connived at his being taken away, yet the mass of the soldiery would, if they detected a Scot being smuggled away into the town, have been persuaded that King James was acting treacherously.
Besides, the captive himself proved to be so exhausted, that to transport him any further in his present state would have been almost certainly fatal. A barber surgeon from Corbeil had been fetched, and was dealing with the injuries, which had apparently been the effect of a fall some days previously, probably when on his way to join the French army at Cosne; and the first fever of these hurts had no doubt been aggravated by the adventures of the day. At any rate Patrick lay unconscious, or only from time to time groaning or murmuring a few words, sometimes French, sometimes Scotch.
Malcolm would have fallen on his knees by his side, and striven to win a word or a look, but James forcibly withheld him. ‘If you roused him into loud ravings in our own tongue, all hope of saving him would be gone,’ he said.
‘Shall we? Oh, can we?’ cried Malcolm, catching at the mere wordhope.
‘I only know,’ said the King, ‘that unless we do so by Harry’s good-will, I will never serve under him again.’
‘And if he persists in his cruelty?’
‘Then must some means be found of carrying Drummond into Corbeil. It will go hard with me but he shall be saved, Malcolm. But this whole army is against a Scot; and Harry’s eye is everywhere, and his fierceness unrelenting. Malcolm, thisisbondage! May God and St. Andrew aid us!’
When the King came to saying that, it was plain he deemed the case past all other aid.
Malcolm’s misery was great. The very sight of Patrick had made a mighty revulsion in his feelings. The almost forgotten associations of Glenuskie were revived; the forms of his guardian and of Lily came before him, as he heard familiar names and phrases in the dear home accent fall from the fevered lips. Coldingham rose up before him, and St. Abbs, with Lily watching on the rocks for tidings of her knight—her knight, to whom her brother had once promised to resign all his lands and honours, but who now lay captured by plunderers, among whom that brother made one, and in peril of a shameful death. Oh, far better die in his stead, than return to Lily with tidings such as these!
Was this retribution for his broken purpose, and for having fallen away, not merely into secular life, but into sins that stood between him and religious rites? The King had called St. Andrew to aid! Must a proof of repentance and change be given, ere that aid would come? Should he vow himself again to the cloister, yield up the hope of Esclairmonde, and devote himself for Patrick’s sake? Could he ever be happy with Patrick dead, and Esclairmonde driven and harassed into being his wife? Were it not better to vow at once, that so his cousin were spared he would return to his old purposes?
Almost had he uttered the vow, when, tugging hard at his heart, came the vision of Esclairmonde’s loveliness, and he felt it beyond his strength to resign her voluntarily; besides, how Madame of Hainault and Monseigneur de Thérouenne would deride his uncertainties; and how intolerable it would be to leave Esclairmonde to fall into the hands of Boëmond of Burgundy.
Such a renunciation could not be made; he did not even know that Patrick’s safety depended on it; and instead of that, he promised, with great fervency of devotion, that if St. Andrew would save Patrick Drummond, and bring about the two marriages, a most splendid monastery for educational purposes, such as the King so much wished to found, should be his reward. It should be in honour of St. Andrew, and should be endowed with Esclairmonde’s wealth, which would be quite ample enough, both for this and for a noble portion for Lily. Surely St. Andrew must accept such a vow, and spare Patrick! So Malcolm tried to pacify an anguish of suspense that would not be pacified.
The summer morning came; theréveillesounded, Mass was sung in the chapel tent, without which Henry never moved; and Malcolm tried to reassure his sinking heart by there pledging his vow to St. Andrew.
The English king was not present; but the troops were drawing up in complete array, that he might inspect them before the march. And a glorious array they were, of steel-clad men-at-arms on horseback, in bands around their leader’s banner, and of ranks of sturdy archers, with their long-bows in leathern cases; the orderly multitude, stretching as far as the eye could reach, glittering in the early sun, and waiting with bold and glad hearts to greet the much-loved king, who had always led them to victory.
The only unarmed knight was James of Scotland. He stood in the space beside the standard of England, in his plain suit of chamois leather, his crimson cloak over his shoulder, but with no weapon about him, waiting with crossed arms for the morning’s decision.
Close outside the royal tent waited Henry’s horse, and those of his brother and other immediate attendants; and after a short interval the King came forth in his brightest armour, with the coronal on his helmet, and the beaver up; and as he mounted, not without considerable aid, enthusiastic shouts of ‘Long live King Harry!’ broke forth, and came echoing back and back from troop to troop, gathering fervour as they rose.
The King rode forward towards the standard; but while yet the shouts were pealing from the army, be suddenly caught at his saddle-bow, reeled visibly, and would have fallen before Bedford could bring his horse to his side, had not James sprung forward, and laid one arm round him, and a hand on his rein.
‘It is nothing,’ said Henry. ‘Let me alone.’
Ere the words were finished, he put his hand to his side, dropped his bridle, and gasped, while a look of intense suffering passed over his features; and he was passive while his horse was led back to the tent, and he was lifted down and placed on the couch he had just quitted.
‘Loose my belt,’ he gasped; then trying to smile, ‘Percy has strained it three holes tighter.’
Alas! though it was indeed thus drawn in, his armour was hanging on him like the shell of a last year’s nut. They released him from it, and he lay against the cushions with short painful respiration, and frequent cough.
‘You must go on with the men at once, John,’ he said. ‘I will but be blooded, and follow in the litter.’
‘Warwick and Salisbury—’ began Bedford.
‘No, no!’ peremptorily gasped Henry. ‘It must be you or I, I would, but this stitch in the side catches me, so that I can neither ride nor speak. Go, instantly. You know what I have ordered. I’ll be up with you ere the battle.’
He brooked no resistance. His impatience, and with it the oppression and pain, only grew by remonstrance; and Bedford was forced to obey the command to go himself, and leave no one he could help behind him.
‘You will stay, at least,’ said John, in his distress, turning to the Scottish king.
‘I must,’ said James.
‘You hold not your wrath?’ said Bedford. ‘It will madden me to leave him to any save you in this stress. Some are dull; some he will not heed.’
‘I will tend him like yourself, John,’ said the Scot, taking his hand. ‘Do what he may, Harry is Harry still. Hasten to your command, John; he will be calmer when you are gone.’
Bedford groaned. It was hard to leave his brother at a moment when he must be more than himself—become general of an army, with a battle imminent; but he was under dire necessity, and forced himself to listen to and gather the import of the few terse orders and directions that Henry, breathless as he was, rendered clear and trenchant as ever.
The King almost drove his brother away at last, while a barber was taking a copious stream of blood from him; and as the army had already been set in motion, a great stillness soon prevailed, no one being left save a small escort, and part of the King’s own immediate household, for Henry had himself ordered away Montagu, his chamberlain, Percy, and almost all on whom his eyes fell. The bleeding relieved him; he breathed less tightly, but became deadly pale, and sank into a doze of extreme exhaustion.
‘Who is here?’ he said, awakening. ‘Some drink! What you, Jamie! You that were on fire to see a stricken field!’
‘Not so much as to see you better at ease,’ said James.
‘I am better,’ said Henry. ‘I could move now; and I must. This tent will stifle me by noon.’
‘You will not go forward?’
‘No; I’ll go back. A sick man is best with his wife. And I can battle it no further, nor grudge the glory of the day to John. He deserves it.’
The irascible sharpness had passed from his voice and manner, and given place to a certain languid cheerfulness, as arrangements were made for his return to Vincennes.
There proved to be a large and commodious barge, in which the transit could be effected on the river, with less of discomfort than in the springless horse litter by which he had travelled the day before; and this was at once prepared.
Malcolm had meanwhile remained, as in duty bound, in attendance on his king. James had found time to enjoin him to stay, being, to say the truth, unwilling to trust one so inexperienced and fragile in themêléewithout himself; nor indeed would this have been a becoming moment for him to put himself forward to win his spurs in the English cause.
Nothing had passed about Patrick Drummond, nor the high words of last night. Henry seemed to have forgotten them, between his bodily suffering and the anxiety of being forced to relinquish the command just before a battle; and James would have felt it ungenerous to harass him at such a moment, when absolutely committed to his charge. For the present, there was no fear of the prisoner being summarily executed by any lawful authority, since the King had promised to take cognizance of the case; and the chief danger was from his chance discovery by some lawless man-at-arms, who would think himself doing good service by killing a concealed Scot under any circumstances.
Drummond himself, after his delirious night, had sunk into a heavy sleep; and the King thought the best hope for him would be to remain under the care of Sir Nigel Baird for the present, until he could obtain favour for him from Henry, and could send back orders from Vincennes. He would not leave Malcolm to share the care of him, declaring that the canny Sir Nigel would have quite enough to do in averting suspicion without him; and, besides, he needed Malcolm himself, in the scarcity of attendants who had any tenderness or dexterity of hand to wait upon the suffering King.
Henry had rallied enough to walk down to the river, leaning upon James; and he smiled thanks when he was assisted by Trenton and Kitson to lie along on cushions. ‘So, my Yorkshire knights,’ he said, ‘’tis you that have had to stop from the battle to watch a sick man home!’
‘Ay, Sir,’ said Sir Christopher; ‘I did it with the better will, that Trenton here has not been his own man since the fever; and ‘twere no fair play in the matter your Grace wets of, did I go into battle whole and sound, and he sick and sorry.’
Henry’s look of amusement brightened him into his old self, as he said, ‘Honester guards could I scarce have, good friend.’
At that moment, after a nudge or two from Trenton, Kitson and he came suddenly down on their knees, with an impetus that must have tried the boards of the bottom of the barge. ‘Sir,’ said Kitson, always the spokesman, ‘we have a grace to ask of you.’
‘Say on,’ said Henry. ‘Any boon, save the letting you cut one another’s throats.’
‘No, Sir. Will Trenton’s scarce my match now, more’s the pity; and, moreover, we’ve lost the good will to it we once had. No, Sir; ’twas license to go a pilgrimage.’
‘On pilgrimage!’
‘Ay, Sir; to yon shrine at Breuil—St. Fiacre’s, as they call him. Some of our rogues pillaged his shrine, as you know, Sir; and those that know these parts best, say he was a Scottish hermit, and bears malice like a Scot, saint though he be; and that your sickness, my lord, is all along of that. So we two have vowed to go barefoot there for your healing, my liege, if so be we have your license.’
‘And welcome, with my best thanks, good friends,’ said Henry, exerting himself to lean forward and give his hand to their kiss. Then, as they fell back into their places, with a few inarticulate blessings and assurances that they only wished they could go to Rome, or to Jerusalem, if it would restore their king, Henry said, smiling, as he looked at James, ‘Scotsmen here, there, and everywhere—in Heaven as well as earth! What was it last night about a Scot that moved thine ire, Jamie? Didst not tender me thy sword? By my faith, thou hast it not! What was the rub?’
James now told the story in its fulness. How he had met Sir Patrick Drummond at Glenuskie; how, afterwards, the knight had stood by him in the encounter at Meaux; and how it had been impossible to leave him senseless to the flames; and how he had trusted that a capture made thus, accidentally, of a helpless man, would not fall under Henry’s strict rules against accepting Scottish prisoners.
‘Hm!’ said Henry; ‘it must be as you will; only I trust to you not to let him loose on us, either here or on the Border. Take back your sword, Jamie. If I spoke over hotly last night—a man hardly knows what he says when he has a goad in the side—you forgive it, Jamie.’ And as the Scots king, with the dew in his eyes, wrung his hand, he added anxiously, ‘Your sword! What, not here! Here’s mine. Which is it?’ Then, as James handed it to him: ‘Ay, I would fain you wore it! ’Tis the sword of my knighthood, when poor King Richard dubbed me in Ireland; and many a brave scheme came with it!’
The soft movement of the barge upon the water had a soothing influence; and he was certainly in a less suffering state, though silent and dreamy, as he lay half raised on cushions under an awning, James anxiously watching over him, and Malcolm with a few other attendants near at hand; stout bargemen propelling the craft, and the guard keeping along the bank of the river.
His thoughts were perhaps with the battle, for presently he looked up, and murmured the verse:
‘“I had a dream, a weary dream,Ayont the Isle of Skye;I saw a dead man win a fight,And I think that man was I.”
‘“I had a dream, a weary dream,Ayont the Isle of Skye;I saw a dead man win a fight,And I think that man was I.”
That stave keeps ringing in my brain; nor can I tell where or when I have heard it.’
‘’Tis from the Scottish ballad that sings of the fight of Otterburn,’ said James; ‘I brought it with me from Scotland.’
‘And got little thanks for your pains,’ said Henry, smiling. ‘But, methinks, since no Percy is in the way, I would hear it again; there was true knighthood in the Douglas that died there.’
James’s harp was never far off; and again his mellow voice went through that gallant and plaintive strain, though in a far more subdued manner than the first time he had sung it; and Henry, weakened and softened, actually dropped a brave man’s tear at the ‘bracken bush upon the lily lea,’ and the hero who lay there.
‘That I should weep for a Douglas!’ he said, half laughing; ‘but the hearts of all honest men lie near together, on whatever side they draw their swords. God have mercy on whosoever may fall to-morrow! I trow, Jamie, thou couldst not sing that rough rhyme of Agincourt. I was bashful and ungracious enough to loathe the very sound of it when I came home in my pride of youth; but I would lief hear it once more. Or, stay—Yorkshiremen always have voices;’ and raising his tone, he unspeakably gratified Trenton and Kitson by the request; and their voices, deep and powerful, and not uncultivated, poured forth the Lay of Agincourt to the waves of the French river, and to its mighty victor:
‘Our King went forth to Normandye.’
‘Our King went forth to Normandye.’
Long and lengthily chanted was the triumphant song, with the Latin choruses, which were echoed back by the escort on the bank; while Henry lay, listening and musing; and Malcolm had time for many a thought and impulse.
Patrick’s life was granted; although it had been promised too late to send the intelligence back to the tent at Corbeil. So far, the purpose of his vow to St. Andrew had been accomplished; but with the probability that he should soon again be associated with Patrick, came the sense of the failure in purpose and in promise. Patrick would not reproach him, he well knew—nay, would rejoice in the change; but even this certainty galled him, and made him dread his cousin’s presence as likely to bring him a sense of shame. What would Patrick think of his letting a lady be absolutely compelled to marry him? Might he not say it was the part of Walter Stewart over again? Indeed, Malcolm remembered how carefully King James was prevented from hearing the means by which the Countess intended to make the lady his own; and a sensation came over him, that it was profanation to call on St. Andrew to bless what was to be brought about by such means. Why was it that, as his eyes fell on the face of King Henry, the whole world and all his projects acquired so different a colouring? and a sentence he had once heard Esclairmonde quote would come to him constantly: ‘My son, think not to buy off God. It is thyself that He requires, not thy gifts.’
But the long lay of victory was over; and King Henry had roused himself to thank the singers, then sighed, and said, ‘How long ago that was!’
‘Six years,’ said James.
‘The whole space from the hope and pride of youth to the care and toil of eld,’ said Henry. ‘Your Scots made an old man of me the day they slew Thomas.’
‘Yet that has been your sole mishap,’ said James.
‘Yea, truly! But thenceforth I have learnt that the road to Jerusalem is not so straight and plain as I deemed it when I stood victorious at Agincourt. The Church one again—the Holy Sepulchre redeemed! It seemed then before my eyes, and that I was the man called to do it.’
‘So it may be yet,’ said James. ‘Sickness alters everything, and raises mountains before us.’
‘It may be so,’ said Henry; ‘and yet—Jerusalem! Jerusalem! It was my father’s cry; it was King Edward’s cry; it was St. Louis’ cry; and yet they never got there.’
‘St. Louis was far on his way,’ said James.
‘Ay! he never turned aside!’ said Henry, sighing, and moving restlessly and wearily with something of returning fever.
“‘O bona patria, lumina sobria te speculantur—”
“‘O bona patria, lumina sobria te speculantur—”
Boy, are you there?’ as, in turning, his eye fell on Malcolm. ‘Take warning: the straight road is the best. You see, I have never come to Jerusalem.’ Then again he murmured:
“‘Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur;Non breve vivere, non breve plangere, retribuetur.”
“‘Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur;Non breve vivere, non breve plangere, retribuetur.”
And James, seeing that nothing lulled him like song, offered to sing that mysteriously beautiful rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix.
‘Ay, prithee do so,’ said Henry. ‘There’s a rest there, when the Agincourt lay rings hollow. Well, there is a Jerusalem where our shortcomings are made up; only the straight way—the straight way.’
Malcolm took his part with James in singing the rhythm, which he had learnt long ago at Coldingham, and which thus in every note brought back the vanished aspirations and self-dedication to ‘the straight way.’
For such, an original purpose of self-devotion must ever be—not of course exclusively to the monastic life; but whoever lowers his aims of serving God under any worldly inducement, is deviating from the straight way: and, thought Malcolm, if King Harry feels Agincourt an empty word beside the song of Sion, must not all I have sought for be a very vanity?
Sometimes dozing, but sometimes restless, and with the pain of breathing constantly increasing on him, Henry wore through the greater part of the day, upon the river, until it was necessary to land, and be taken through the forest in his litter. He was now obliged to be lifted from the barge; and his weariness rendered the conveyance very distressing, save that his patient smile never faded; and still he said, ‘All will be well when I come to my Kate!’
Alas! when the gates were reached, James hardly knew how to tell him that the Queen had gone that morning to Paris with her mother. Yet still he was cheerful. ‘If the physicians deal hard with me,’ he said, ‘it will be well that she should not be here till the worst is over.’
The physicians were there. A messenger had gone direct from Corbeil to summon them; and Henry delivered himself up into their hands, to fight out the battle with disease, as he had set himself to fight out many another battle in his time.
A sharp conflict it was—between a keen and aggravated disease, apparently pleurisy coming upon pulmonary affection of long standing, and a strong and resolute nature, unquenched by suffering, and backed by the violent remedies of a half-instructed period. Those who watched him, and strove to fulfil the directions of the physicians, hardly marked the lapse of hours; even though more than one day and night had passed ere in the early twilight of a long summer’s morn he sank into a sleep, his face still distressed, but less acutely, and his breath heavy and labouring, though without the severe pain.
The watchers felt that here might be the turning point, and stood or sat around, not daring to change their postures, or utter the slightest word. Suddenly, James, who stood nearest, leaning against the wall, with his eyes fixed on the face of the sleeper, was aware of a hand on his shoulder, and looking round, saw in the now full light Bedford’s face—so pale, haggard, and replete with anxiety, so dusty and travel-stained, that Henry, awakening at that moment, exclaimed, ‘Ha, John!’ And as his brother was slow to reply—‘Has the day gone against thee? How was it? Never fear to speak, brother; thou art safe; and I know thou hast done valiantly. Valour is never lost, whether in defeat or success. Speak, John. Take it not so much to heart.’
‘There has been no battle, Harry,’ said Bedford, gathering voice with difficulty. ‘The Dauphin would not abide our coming, but broke up his camp.’
‘Beshrew thee, man!’ said Henry; ‘but I thought thou wast just off a flight!’
‘Dost think one can ride fast only for a flight?’ said Bedford. ‘Ah, would that it had been the loss of ten battles rather than this!’
And he fell on his knees, grasping Henry’s hand, and hiding his face against the bed, with the same instinct of turning to him for comfort with which the young motherless children of Henry of Bolingbroke, when turned adrift among the rude Beaufort progeny of John of Gaunt, had clung to their eldest brother, and found tenderness in his love and protection in his fearlessness; so that few royal brethren ever loved better than Henry and John of Lancaster.
‘It was well and kindly done, John,’ said Henry; ‘and thou hast come at a good time; for, thanks be to God, the pain hath left me; and if it were not for this burthen of heaviness and weariness, I should be more at ease than I have been for many weeks.’
But as he spoke, there was that both in his face and voice that chilled with a dread certainty the hearts of those who hung over him.
‘Is my wife come? I could see her now,’ he wistfully asked.
Alas! no. Sir Lewis Robsart, the knight attached to her service, faltered, with a certain shame and difficulty, that the Queen would come when her orisons at Notre Dame were performed.
It was his last disappointment; but still he bore it cheerily.
‘Best,’ he said. ‘My fair one was not made for sights like this; and were she here’—his lip trembled—‘I might bear me less as a Christian man should. My sweet Catherine! Take care of her, John; she will be the most desolate being in the world.’
John promised with all his heart; though pity for cold-hearted Catherine was not the predominant feeling there.
‘I would I had seen my child’s face, and blessed him,’ continued Henry. ‘Poor boy! I would have him Warwick’s charge.’
‘Warwick is waiting admission,’ said Bedford. ‘He and Salisbury and Exeter rode with me.’
The King’s face lighted up with joy as he heard this. ‘It is good for a man to have his friends about him,’ he said; and as they entered he held out his hand to them and thanked them.
Then took place the well-known scene, when, looking back on his career, he pronounced it to have been his endeavour to serve God and his people, and declared himself ready to face death fearlessly, since such was the will of his Maker: grieving only for the infancy of his son, but placing his hope and comfort in his brother John, and commending the babe to the fatherly charge of Warwick. ‘You cannot love him for his own sake as yet; but if you think you owe me aught, repay it to him.’ And as he thought over the fate of other infant kings, he spoke of some having hated the father and loved the child, others who had loved the father and hated the child.
To Humfrey of Gloucester he sent stringent warnings against giving way to his hot and fiery nature, offending Burgundy, or rushing into a doubtful wedlock with Jaqueline of Hainault; speaking of him with an elder brother’s fatherly affection, but turning ever to John of Bedford with full trust and reliance, as one like-minded, and able to carry out all his intentions. For the French prisoners, they might not be released, ‘lest more fire be kindled in one day than can be quenched in three.’
‘And for you, Jamie,’ he said, affectionately holding out his hand, ‘my friend, my brother-in-arms, I must say the same as ever. Pardon me, Jamie; but I have not kept you out of malice, such as man must needs renounce on his death-bed. I trust to John, and to the rest, for giving you freedom at such time as you can safely return to be such a king indeed as we have ever hoped to be. Do you pardon me, James, for this, as for any harshness or rudeness you may have suffered from me?’
James, with full heart, murmured out his ardent love, his sense that no captive had ever been so generously treated as he.
‘And you, my young lord,’ said Henry, looking towards Malcolm, whose light touch and tender hands had made him a welcome attendant in the illness, ‘I have many a kind service to thank you for. And I believe I mightily angered you once; but, boy, remember—ay, and you too, Ralf Percy—that he is your friend who turns you back from things sore to remember in a case like mine!’
After these, and other calm collected farewells, Henry required to know from his physicians how long his time might yet be. There was hesitation in answering, plainly as they saw that mortification had set in.
‘What,’ he said, ‘do ye think I have faced death so many times to fear it now?’
Then came the reply given by the weeping, kneeling physician: ‘Sir, think of your soul, for, without a miracle, you cannot live two hours.’
The King beckoned his confessor, and his friends retired, to return again to take their part in the last rites, the Viaticum and Unction.
Henry was collected, and alive to all that was passing, responding duly, and evidently entering deeply into the devotions that were to aid his spirit in that awful passage; his face gravely set, but firm and fearless as ever. The ceremonial ended, he was still sensible, though with little power of voice or motion left; but the tone, though low, was steady as ever, when he asked for the Penitential Psalms. Still they doubted whether he were following them, for his eyes closed, and his lips ceased to move, until, as they chanted the revival note of David’s mournful penance—‘O be favourable and gracious unto Sion; build Thou the walls of Jerusalem;’—at that much-loved word, the light of the blue eyes once more beamed out, and he spoke again. ‘Jerusalem! On the faith of a dying king, it was my earnest purpose to have composed matters here into peace and union, and so to have delivered Jerusalem. But the will of God be done, since He saw me unworthy.’
Then his eyes closed again; he slept, or seemed to sleep; and then a strange quivering came over the face, the lips moved again, and the words broke from them, ‘Thou liest, foul spirit! thou liest!’ but, as though the parting soul had gained the victory in that conflict, peace came down on the wasted features; and with the very words of his Redeemer Himself, ‘Into Thy hands I commend my spirit,’ he did indeed fall asleep; the mighty soul passed from the worn-out frame.
No one knows how great a tree has been till it has fallen; nor how large a space a mighty man has occupied till he is removed.
King Henry V. left his friends and foes alike almost dizzy, as in place of his grand figure they found a blank; instead of the hand whose force they had constantly felt, mere emptiness.
Malcolm of Glenuskie, who had been asserting constantly that King Henry was no master of his, and had no rights over him, had nevertheless, for the last year or more, been among those to whom the King’s will was the moving spring, fixing the disposal of almost every hour, and making everything dependent thereon.
When the death-hush was broken by the ‘Depart, O Christian soul,’ and Bedford, with a face white and set like a statue, stood up from his knees, and crossed and kissed the still white brow, it was to Malcolm as if the whole universe had become as nothing. To him there remained only the great God, the heavenly Jerusalem into which the King had entered, and himself far off from the straight way, wandering from his promise and his purpose into what seemed to him a mere hollow painted scene, such as came and went in the midst of a banquet. Or, again, it was the grisly Dance of Death that was the only reality; Death had clutched the mightiest in the ring. Whom would he clutch next?
He stood motionless, as one in a dream, or rather as if not knowing which was reality, and which phantom; gazing, gazing on at the bed where the King lay, round which the ecclesiastics were busying themselves, unperceiving that James, Bedford, and the nobles had quitted the apartment, till Percy first spoke to him in a whisper, then almost shook him, and led him out of the room. ‘I am sent for you,’ he said, in a much shaken voice; ‘your king says you can be of use.’ Then tightening his grasp with the force of intense grief, ‘Oh, what a day! what a day! My father! my father! I never knew mine own father! But he has been all to Harry and to me! Oh, woe worth the day!’ And dropping into a window-seat, he covered his face with his hands, and gave way to his grief: pointing, however, to the council-room, where Malcolm found Bedford writing at the table, King James, and a few others, engaged in the same manner.
A few words from James informed him (or would have done so if he could have understood) that the Duke of Bedford, on whom at that terrible moment the weight of two kingdoms and of the war had descended, could not pause to rest, or to grieve, till letters and orders had been sent to the council in England, and to every garrison, every ally in France, to guard against any sudden panic, or faltering in friendship to England and her infant heir. Warwick and Salisbury were already riding post haste to take charge of the army; Robsart was gone to the Queen, Exeter to the Duke of Burgundy; and as the clergy were all engaged with the tendance of the royal corpse, there was scarcely any one to lessen the Duke’s toil. James, knowing Malcolm’s pen to be ready, had sent for him to assist in copying the brief scrolls, addressed to each captain of a fortress or town, announcing the father’s death, and commanding him to do his duty to the son—King Harry VI. Each was then to be signed by the Duke, and despatched by men-at-arms, who waited for the purpose.
Like men stunned, the half-dozen who sat at the council-table worked on, never daring to glance at the empty chair at the upper end. The only words that passed were occasional inquiries of, and orders from, Bedford; and these he spoke with a strange alertness and metallic ring in his voice, as though the words were uttered by mechanism; yet in themselves they were as clear and judicious as possible, as if coming from a mind wound up exclusively to the one necessary object; and the face—though flushed at first, and gradually growing paler, with knitted brows and compressed lips—betrayed no sign of emotion.
Hours passed: he wrote, he ordered, he signed, he sealed; he mentioned name after name, of place and officer, never moving or looking up. And James, who knew from Salisbury that he had neither slept nor eaten since sixty miles off he had met a worse report of his brother, watched him anxiously till, when evening began to fall, he murmured, ‘There is the captain of—of—at—but—’—the pen slipped from his fingers, and he said, ‘I can no more!’
The overtaxed powers, strained so long—mind, memory, and all—were giving way under the mere force of excessive fatigue. He rose from his seat, but stumbled, like one blind, as James upheld him, and led him away to the nearest bed-chamber, where, almost while the attendants divested him of the heavy boots and cuirass he had never paused all these hours to remove, he dropped into a sleep of sheer exhaustion.
James, who was likewise wearied out with watching, turned towards his own quarters; but, in so doing, he could not but turn aside to the chapel, where before the altar had been laid all that was left of King Henry. There he lay, his hands clasped over a crucifix, clad in the same rich green and crimson robes in which he had ridden to meet his Queen at Vincennes but three short months before; the golden circlet from his helmet was on his head, but it could not give additional majesty to the still and severe sweetness of his grand and pure countenance, so youthful in the lofty power that high aspirations had imprinted on it, yet so intensely calm in its marble rest, more than ever with the look of the avenging unpitying angel. To James, it was chiefly the face of the man whom he had best loved and admired, in spite of their strange connection; but to Malcolm, who had as usual followed him closely, it was verily a look from the invisible world—a look of awful warning and reproof, almost as if the pale set lips were unclosing to demand of him where he was in the valley of shadows, through which the way lay to Jerusalem. If Henry had turned back, and warned him at the gate of the heavenly Sion, surely such would have been his countenance; and Malcolm, when, like James, he had sprinkled the holy water on the white brow, and crossed himself while the low chant of Psalms from kneeling priests went up around him—clasped his two hands close together, and breathed forth the words, ‘Oh, I have wandered far! O great King, I will never leave the straight way again! I will cast aside all worldly aims! O God, and the Saints, help me not to lose my way again!’
He would have tarried on still, in the fascination of that wonderful unearthly countenance, and in the inertness of faculties stunned by fatigue and excitement, but James summoned him by a touch, and he again followed him.
‘O Sir!’ he began, when they had turned away, ‘I repent me of my falling away to the world! I give all up. Let me back to my vows of old.’
‘We will talk of that another time,’ said James, gravely. ‘Neither you nor I, Malcolm, can think reasonably under such a blow as this; and I forbid you rashly to bind yourself.’
‘Sir, Sir!’ cried Malcolm, petulantly. ‘You took me from the straight way. You shall not hinder my return!’
‘I hinder no true purpose,’ said King James. ‘I only hinder another rash and hasty pledge, to be felt as a fetter, or left broken on your conscience. Silence now. When men are sad and spent they cannot speak as befits them, and had best hold their peace.’
These words were spoken on the way up the stair that led to the apartments of the King of Scots. On opening the door of the larger room, the first thing they saw was the tall figure of a distinguished-looking knight, who, as they entered, flung himself at King James’s feet, fervently exclaiming, ‘O my liege! accept my homage! Never was vassal so bound to his lord by thankfulness for his life, and for far more than his life!’
‘Sir Patrick Drummond, I am glad to see you better at ease,’ said James. ‘Nay, suffer me,’ he added, giving his hand to raise the knight, but finding it grasped and kissed with passionate devotion, almost overpowering the only half-recovered knight, so that James was forced to use strength to support him, and would at once have lifted him up, but the warm-hearted Patrick resisted, almost sobbing out—‘Nay, Sir! king of my heart indeed! let me first thank you. I knew not how much more I owed you than the poor life you saved—my father’s rescue, and that of all that was most dear.’
‘Speak of such things seated, my good friend,’ said James, trying to raise him; but Drummond still did not second his efforts.
‘I have not given my parole of honour as the captive whose life is again due to you.’
‘You must give that to the Duke of Bedford, Sir Patrick,’ said James. ‘I know not if I am to be put into ward myself. In any case you are safe, by the good King’s grace, so you pledge yourself to draw no sword against England in Scotland or France till ransom be accepted for you.’
‘Alack!’ said Patrick, ‘I have neither sword nor ransom. I would I knew what was to be done with the life you have given me, my lord.’
‘I will find a use for it, never fear,’ said James, sadly, but kindly. ‘Be my knight for the present, till better days come for us both.’
‘With my whole heart!’ said Patrick, fervently. ‘Yours am I for ever, my liege.’
‘Then my first command is that you should rise, and rest,’ said James, assisting the knight to regain his feet, and placing him in the only chair in the room. ‘You must become a whole man as soon as may be.’
For Patrick’s arm was in a sling, and evidently still painful and useless, and he sank back, breathless and unresisting, like one who had by no means regained perfect health, while his handsome features looked worn and pale. ‘I fear me,’ said James, as the two cousins silently shook hands, ‘that you have moved over soon.—You surely had my message, Bairdsbrae?’
‘Oh yes, my lord,’ replied Baird; ‘but the lad was the harder to hold; and after the fever was gone, we deemed he could well brook the journey by water. ’Twas time I was here to guide ye too, my lord; you and the callant baith look sair forfaughten.’
‘We have had a sad time of it, Nigel,’ said James, with trembling lip.
‘And if Brewster tells me right, ye’ve not tasted food the whole day?’ said Nigel, laying an authoritative hand on his royal pupil. ‘Nay, sit ye down; here come the varlets with the meal I bade them have ready.’
James passively yielded, courteously signing to the others to share the food that was spread on a table; and with the same scarcely conscious grace, making inquiries, which elicited that Patrick Drummond’s hurts had been caused by his horse falling and rolling over with him, whilst with Sir John Swinton and other Scottish knights he was reconnoitring the line of the English march. He was too much injured to be taken back to the far distant camp, and had accordingly been intrusted to the French farmer, with no attendant but a young French horse-boy, since he was too poor to keep a squire. He knew nothing more, for fever had run high; and he had not even been sensible of his desertion by his French hosts on the approach of the English, far less of the fire, and of his rescue by the King and Malcolm; but for this he seemed inclined to compensate to the utmost, by the intense eagerness of devotion with which he regarded James, who sat meanwhile crushed down by the weight of his own grief.
‘I can eat no more, Baird,’ said he, swallowing down a draught of wine, and pushing aside his trencher. ‘Your license, gentlemen. I must be alone. Take care of the lads, Nigel. Malcolm is spent too. His deft service was welcome to—to my dearest brother.’
And though he hastily shut himself into his own inner chamber, it was not till they had seen that his grief was becoming uncontrollable.
Patrick could not but murmur, ‘Dearest brother!’
‘Ay, like brothers they loved!’ said Baird, gravely.
‘A strange brotherhood,’ began Drummond.
But Malcolm cried, with much agitation, ‘Not a word, Patie! You know not what you say. Take heed of profaning the name of one who is gone to the Sion above.’
‘You turned English, our wee Malcolm!’ exclaimed Drummond, in amaze.
‘There is no English, French, or Scot where he is gone!’ cried Malcolm. ‘No Babel! O Patie, I have been far fallen! I have done you in heart a grievous wrong! but if I have turned back in time, it is his doing that lies there.’
‘His! what, Harry of Lancaster’s?’ demanded the bewildered Patrick. ‘What had he to do with you?’
‘He has been my only true friend here!’ cried Malcolm. ‘Oh, if my hand be free from actual spoil and bloodshed, it was his doing! Oh, that he could hear me bless him for the chastisement I took so bitterly!’
‘Chastisement!’ demanded Patrick. ‘The English King dared chastiseyou! of Scots blood royal! ’Tis well he is dead!’
‘The laddie’s well-nigh beside himself!’ said Baird. ‘But he speaks true. This king whom Heaven assolizie, kept a tight hand over the youngsters; and falling on Lord Malcolm and some other callants making free with a house at Meaux, dealt some blows, of which my young lord found it hard to stomach his share; though I am glad to see he is come to a better mind. Ay, ’tis pity of this King Harry! Brave and leal was he; never spake an untrue word; never turned eye for fear, nor foot for weariness, nor hand for toil, nor nose for ill savour. A man, look you, to be trusted; never failing his word for good or ill! Right little love has there been between him and me; but I could weep like my own lad in there, to think I shall never see that knightly presence more, nor hear those frank gladsome voices of the boys, as they used to shout up and down Windsor Forest.’
‘You too, Sir Nigel! and with a king like ours!’
‘Ay, Sir Patrick! and if he be such a king as Scotland never had since St. David, and maybe not then, I’m free to own as much of it is due to King Harry as to his own noble self.—Did ye say they had streekit him in the chapel, Lord Malcolm? I’d fain look on the bonnie face of him; I’ll ne’er look on his like again.’
No sooner had old Bairdsbrae gone, than Malcolm flung himself down before his cousin, crying, ‘Oh, Patrick, you will hear me! I cannot rest till you know how changed I have been.’
‘Changed!’ said Patrick; ‘ay, and for the better! Why, Malcolm, I never durst hope to see you so sturdy and so heartsome. My father would have been blithe to see you such a gallant young squire. Even the halt is gone!’
‘Nearly,’ said Malcolm. ‘But I would fain be puny and puling, to have the clear heart that once I had. Oh, hear me! hear me! and pardon me, Patie!’
And Malcolm, in his agitation, poured forth the whole story of his having shifted from his old cherished purpose of devoting himself to the service of Heaven, and leaving lands and vassals to the stronger hands of Patrick and Lilias; how, having thus given himself to the world, he had fallen into temptation; how he had let himself be led to persecute with his suit a noble lady, vowed like himself; how he had almost agreed to marry her by force: and how he had been running into the ordinary dissipations of the camp, abstaining from confession, avoiding mass; disobeying orders, plunging into scenes of plunder, till he had almost been the death of Patrick, whom he had already so cruelly wronged.
So felt the boy. Fresh from that death-bed, the evils his conscience had protested against from the first appeared to him frightfully heinous, and his anguish of self-reproach was such, that Patrick listened in the greatest anxiety lest he should hear of some deadly stain on his young kinsman’s scutcheon; but when the tale was told, and he had demanded ‘Is that all?’ and found that no further overt act was alleged against Malcolm, he breathed a long sigh, and muttered, ‘You daft laddie! you had fairly startled me! So this is the coil, is it? Who ever told you to put on a cowl, I should like to know? Why, ’twas what my poor father ever declared against. I take your lands! By my troth! ‘twould be enough to make me break faith with your sister, if Icould!’
‘The vow was in my heart,’ faltered Malcolm.
‘In a fule’s head!’ said Patrick. ‘What right have babes to be talking of vows? ‘Twould be the best tidings I’ve heard for many a long day, that you were wedded to a lass with a good tocher, and fit to guide your silly pate. What’s that? Her vows! If they are no better than yours, the sooner they are forgot the better. If she had another love, ‘twould be another matter, but with a bishop on your side, you’ve naught to fear.’
Malcolm turned away, sick at heart. To him his present position had become absolute terror. His own words had worked him up to an alarming sense of having lapsed from high aims to mere selfishness; of having profaned vows, consented to violence, and fallen away from grace; and he was in an almost feverish passion to utter something that would irrevocably bind him to his former intentions; but here were the King and Patrick both conspiring to silence him, and hold him back to his fallen and perilous state. Nay, Patrick even derided his penitence. Patrick was an honourable knight, a religious man, as times went, but he had been brought up in a much rougher and more unscrupulous school than Malcolm, and had been hardened by years of service as a soldier of fortune. The Armagnac camp was not like that of England. Warriors of such piety and strictness as Henry and Bedford had never come within his ken; and that any man, professing to be a soldier, should hesitate at the license of war, was incomprehensible to him. The discipline of Henry’s army had been scoffed at in the French camp, and every infraction of it hailed as a token of hypocrisy; and to the stout Scot Malcolm’s grief for the rapine at Meaux, which after all he had not committed, seemed a simple absurdity. Even his own danger, on the second occasion, did not make him alter his opinion; it was all the fortune of war. And he was not sure that he had not best have been stifled at once, since his hands were tied from warfare. And as for Lily—how was he to win her now? Then, as Malcolm opened his mouth, Patrick sharply charged him to hold his tongue as to that folly, unless he wanted to drive him to make a vow on his side, that he would turn Knight of Rhodes, and never wed.
Malcolm, wearied out with excitement, came at last to weeping that no one would hear or understand him; but the scene was ended by Bairdsbrae, who, returning, brought a leech with him, who at once took the command of Patrick, and ordered him to his bed.
Malcolm could not rest. He was feverish with the shock of grief and awe, and absorbed in the thought which had mastered him, and which was much dwelt on in the middle ages:—the monastic path, going towards heaven straight as a sunbeam; the secular, twining its way through a tortuous difficult course—the ‘broad way,’ tending downward to the abyss. To his terrified apprehension, he had abandoned the direct and narrow path for the fatal road, and there might at any moment be captured, and whirled away by the grisly phantom Death, who had just snatched the mightiest in his inevitable clutch; and with something of the timidity of his nature, he was in absolute terror, until he should be able to set himself back on the shining road from which he had swerved, and be rid of the load of transgression which seemed ready to sink him into the gulf.
Those few and perfunctory confessions to a courtly priest who knew nothing about him, and was sure not to be hard on a king’s cousin, now seemed to add to his guilt: and, wandering down-stairs towards the chapel, he met a train of ecclesiastics slowly leaving it, having just been relieved by a bevy of monks from a neighbouring convent, who took up the chants where they had left them.
Looking up at them, he recognized Dr. Bennet’s bent head, and throwing himself before him on his knee, he gasped, ‘O father, father! hear me! Take me back! Give me hope!’
‘What means this, my young lord?’ said Dr. Bennet, pausing, while his brethren passed on. ‘Are you sick?’ he added, kindly, seeing the whiteness of Malcolm’s face, and his startled eye.
‘Oh, no, no! only sick at heart at my own madness, and the doom on it! O Sir, hear me! Take my vow again! give me absolution once more to a true shrift. Oh, if you will hear me, it shall be honest this time! Only put me in the way again.’
The chaplain was sorely sad and weary. He it was whose ministrations had chiefly comforted the dying King. To him it had been the loss of a deeply-loved son and pupil, as well as of almost unbounded hopes for the welfare of the Church; and he had had likewise, in the freshness of his sorrow, to take the lead in the ecclesiastical ceremonies that ensued, so that both in body and mind he was well-nigh worn out, and longed for peace in which to face his own private sorrow; but the wild words and anguished looks of the young Scot showed him that his case was one for immediate hearing, and he drew the lad into the confessional, authoritatively calmed his agitation, and prepared to hear the outpouring of the boy’s self-reproach.
He heard it all—sifting facts from fancies, and learning the early purpose, the terror at the cruel world, the longing for peace and shelter; the desire to smooth his sister’s way, which had led him to devote himself in heart to the cloister, though never permitted openly to pledge himself. Then the discovery that the world was less thorny than he had expected; the allurement of royal favour and greatness; the charm of amusement, and activity in recovered health; the cowardly dread of scorn, leading him not merely into the secular life, but into the gradual dropping of piety and devotion; the actual share he had taken in forbidden diversions; his attempts at plunder; his ill-will to King Henry; and, above all, his persecution of Esclairmonde, which he now regarded as sacrilegious; and he even told how he lay under a half engagement to Countess Jaqueline to return alone to the Court, and bear his part in the forcible marriage she projected.
He told all, with no extenuation; nay, rather with such outbursts of opprobrium on himself, that Dr. Bennet could hardly understand of what positive evils he had been guilty; and he ended by entreating that the almoner would at once hear his vow to become a Benedictine monk, ere—
But Dr. Bennet would not listen. He silenced the boy by saying he had no more right to hear it than Malcolm as yet to make it. Nay, that inner dedication, for which Malcolm yearned as a sacred bond to his own will, the priest forbade. It was no moment to make such a promise in his present mood, when he did not know himself. If broken, he would only be adding sin to sin; nor was Malcolm, with all his errors fresh upon him, in any state to dedicate himself worthily. The errors—which in Ralf Percy, or in most other youths, might have seemed slight—were heavy stains on one who, like Malcolm, had erred, not thoughtlessly, but with a conscience of them all, in wilful abandonment of his higher principles. On these the chaplain mostly dwelt; on these he tried to direct Malcolm’s repentance; and, finding that the youth was in perpetual extremes of remorse, and that his abject submission was a sort of fresh form of wilfulness, almost passion at being forbidden to bind himself by the vow, he told him that the true token of repentance was steadiness and constancy; and that therefore his absolution must be deferred until he had thus shown that his penitence was true and sincere—by perseverance, firstly, in the devotions that the chaplain appointed for him, and, secondly, in meeting whatever temptations might be in store for him. Nay, the cruel chaplain absolutely forbade the white, excited, eager boy to spend half the night in chapel over the first division of these penitential psalms and prayers, but on his obedience sent him at once to his bed.
Malcolm could have torn his hair. Unabsolved! Still under the weight of sin; still unpledged; still on dangerous ground; still left to a secular life—and that without Esclairmonde! Why had he not gone to a French Benedictine, who would have caught at his vow, and crowned his penitence with some magnificent satisfying asceticism?
Yet something in his heart, something in the father’s own authority, made him submit; and in a tumult of feeling, more wretched even than before his confession, he threw himself on his bed, expecting to charge the tossings of a miserable night on Dr. Bennet, and to creep down barefoot to the chapel in the early morning to begin hisMisereres.
Instead of which, his first wakening was in broad daylight, by King James standing over him. ‘Malcolm,’ he said, ‘I have answered for you that you are discreet and trusty. A message of weight is to be placed in your hands. Come with me to the Duke of Bedford.’
Malcolm could only dress himself, and obediently follow to the chamber, where sat the Duke, his whole countenance looking as if the light of his life had gone out, but still steadfastly set to bear the heavy burden that had been placed on his shoulders.
He called Malcolm to him, and showed him a ring, asking whether he knew it.
‘The King’s signet—King Harry’s,’ said Malcolm.
He was then reminded how, in the winter, Henry had lost the ring, and after having caused another to be made at Paris, had found it in the finger of his gauntlet. Very few knew of the existence of this duplicate. Bedford himself was not aware of it till it had been mentioned by James and Lord Fitzhugh the chamberlain; and then search was made for it, without effect, so that it evidently had been left with the Queen. These private signets were of the utmost importance, far more so than even the autograph; for, though signatures were just acquiring individuality enough to become the best authentication, yet up to this very reign the seal was the only valid affirmation. Such signets were always destroyed on a prince’s death, and it was of the utmost importance that the duplicate should not be left in Queen Catherine’s hands—above all, while she was with her mother and her party, who were quite capable of affixing it to forgeries.
Bedford, James, and Fitzhugh were all required at Vincennes; the two latter at the lying-in-state in the chapel. Most of the other trusty nobles had repaired to the army; and, indeed, Bedford, aware of the terrible jealousies that were sure to break out in the headless realm, did not choose to place a charge that might hereafter prove invidious in the hands of any Englishman, or to extend the secret any further than could be helped; since who could tell what suspicion might not be thus cast on any paper sealed by Henry?