To Norroway, to Norroway,Out owre the saut seas' foam;The King o' Norroway's daughter,'Tis thou maun bring her home!Old Ballad.
Though the season was summer, theSt. Regulusof Pittenweem did not cross the German Ocean without peril; for one night, and during the following day, there blew a tempest from the south-east, which drove her so far from her course, that the tacking to and fro of a whole week were required ere she could regain the lost distance; for the reader must bear in mind that the high-pooped, high-prowed, and low-waisted craft of those days, were very different from the screw-propellers and iron clippers of the present age; and heavily they lumbered along, with Dutch lee-boards, basketed tops, their spritsail-yards, jack-staffs, and other ponderous hamper.
So, when the gale abated, theSt. Reguluswas off the coast of England, and the tall, surf-beaten cliff, with the old castle of Scarborough, were seen in the distance, as the red rays of the morning sun fell on them from the eastern sky.
And now, as theSt. Regulussquared her yards to bear up for Sluys, a new danger presented itself.
A great ship of England, which had hitherto been concealed by a bank of mist, was seen bearing down towards her, with St. George's ensign flying, and a large white rod or pole lashed to her bowsprit. This was the sign ofamityon the seas in those days, and it was by this token that Sir Andrew Barton, in after years, was lured by Lord Howard to destruction in the Downs; but, as all shipmen were generally addicted to a little piracy, the captain of theSt. Regulus, who was a douce native of the East Neuk, and a lay brother of St. Mary, of Pittenmeen, having a valuable cargo consigned to the famous merchant John Vanderberg of Bruges (who two years before had discovered the Azores), deemed discretion the better part of valour; so, hoisting all the canvas he could spread aloft, he squared his yards and bore right away before the wind.
Immediately on this, the crew of the English ship blew their trumpets, and fired several stone shot from their culverins; thus plainly indicating that though both countries were at peace, they did not deem that the treaty extended into blue water, and that they would make a prize of the Scotsman if they could.
Sir Patrick, who had donned his armour, and appeared on deck with his two-handed sword, was not without fear that the ship might have been dispatched to intercepthim, and spoil his embassy by the influence the earl of Douglas possessed in England—a country which in all ages left nothing undone to break the political ties, which then existed between Scotland and the continent.
But theSt. Regulussailed like an arrow before the wind; and thus, long ere mid-day, her pursuer was far distanced and hull-down in the ocean.
With this single incident she had a prosperous voyage, and on Lammas-day in August made the low flat coast of Flanders, and came to anchor in the then fine harbour of Sluys, close to the strong old castle, where the Duc de Bouillon was kept after his capture at Hesdin; but since those days the sea, which has gradually been washing away the isle of Cadsand, has almost filled up the basin of Sluys.
Sir Patrick Gray landed with his horse, armour, and cloakbags, and presented his credentials to Hervé de Meriadet, the burg graf, who commanded a body of Walloons, in the castle, "where," says the abbot of Tongland, "he was honourably entertained for three days, after which he set out for the court of the duke of Gueldres," which lay about one hundred and fifty miles distant, in the land beyond the Maese.
Though Flanders had been the scene of many bloody battles, and disastrous wars, the people were industrious and peaceful; and then it was not necessary, as in turbulent and warlike Scotland, to travel armed to the teeth; yet, to be provided for any emergency, Sir Patrick Gray wore an open helmet, a gorget, a chain shirt, and gloves of fine mail, with his sword and dagger.
In his cloakbag was a round sum in the current coin of the day, such as Henry nobles valued at twenty-two shillings; salutis, riders, and dauphines, at eleven shillings; and Rhenish guilders at eight, issued to him, in goodly canvas bags, by the treasurer depute, from the rents of the king's lands in Ettrick forest and Gosford in Lothian, which had then been due. Moreover, he had ample letters of credit upon John Vanderberg of Bruges, and two Scottish merchants in Campvere.
Though far from Murielle Douglas, he felt his heart grow light as he surveyed the flat green fields where the sleek cattle browsed, the sandy isles of the Scheldt, where the brown windmills tossed their arms in the breeze; the dull sedgy streams, where great lubberly barges were dragged to and fro by horses of equally lubberly aspect; the taper church spires seen at a vast distance across the far stretching heaths; or the old castles amid the thick primeval woods of Flanders. Health and strength had returned to him amid the bracing air of the German Sea. His purse was well lined; he had a good horse under him; a sharp sword by his side; an honourable commission to execute; and so he rode cheerfully on, with an almost boyish emotion of novelty and longing for adventure, making his heart expand and its pulses quicken, he knew not why.
He was now in Flanders—"the lawlands o'Holland," so famed in many a Scottish song—and whose name is so interwoven with the annals of our exiles and soldiers of fortune.
On the first day of his solitary journey he passed through Ardenburg, which is a league from Sluys, and wasthenthe capital of maritime Flanders; and from thence proceeding along the left bank of the Scheldt he reached Hulst, a small but very ancient town in Dutch Brabant, where he took up his quarters at a Benedictine monastery, whose superior was brother of the burg graf of Sluys, by name Benoit de Meriadet of Burgundy.
When he set forth next morning he saw plainly in the distance the magnificent spire of the great cathedral in the marquisate of Antwerp, reddened by the dun morning sun, standing like a slender pillar of flame, above the vast extent of level pastures which border the Scheldt, and rising far above the dense white motionless mist which the heat of the August morning was exhaling, from the fens and marshes, through which the river flowed so turgidly and slowly towards Zealand and the German Sea.
After a twenty miles' ride through a green and fertile but most monotonous country, he found himself in busy Antwerp, and under the shadow of that colossal spire, which was then one of the wonders of the world, and which was visible alike from the laceworks of Mechlin, the ramparts of Ghent; the plains of Louvain; and the sandy shores of the distant Zealand isles.
In her did beauty, youth, and bounty dwell,A virgin port and features feminine;Far better than my feeble tongue can tell,Did meek-eyed wisdom in her features shine;She seemed perfay, a thing almost divine.James I. of Scotland.
Antwerp was then in the zenith of its commercial glory, and to a traveller like Sir Patrick Gray, who had never seen a larger city than the little Edinburgh of James II. clustering on its rocky ridge, surrounded by forests of oak and pathless hills, the great Flemish town, in the splendour of its mercantile prosperity, with a population of more than two hundred thousand souls, presented a scene of varying wonders, amid which he was almost disposed to forget his embassy, and to linger for a time.
Nor was this desire lessened, when Maître Baudoin, a garrulous little Frenchman, who was keeper of the hostelry at which he lodged—the "Grille of St. Laurence"—informed him that, "by recent rains, all the roads between the Scheldt and Maese were impassable; that the sluices of several of the barrier fortresses had given way; that the rivers had overflowed their banks; and that the Peel Morass, which lies between Brabant and Gueldreland, was, for the time, an actual sea. Moreover," he added, "it is but a few days until the 15th of the month, when the Feast of the Assumption will be held in the cathedral of our Lady of Antwerp, with a splendour never before witnessed in the city; people are arriving from all quarters, and Monseigneur l'Evêque de Mechlin has found a young lady of great beauty and high rank, to appear as our patroness in the procession."
"Though this may be no inducement to a lover, it may be one to a storm-stayed traveller," replied Gray; "but who is this lady, Maître Baudoin?"
"Ah—who indeed, messire!" replied the hosteller shrugging his shoulders; "who indeed!"
"What—is she the Princess Mary of Gueldres?"
"Pardieu! no one can tell who the lady may be, save herself and Monseigneur l'Evêque; it is always kept secret."
"Why—how?"
"You see, messire, secrecy and mystery enhance the charm of her appearance. It is very droll."
"And she is sure to be beautiful?"
"Superbe, messire!"
While the master of the hostel ran on thus, and then proceeded to enumerate all the great personages, such as Monseigneur the prince of Ravenstein, MM. the marquises of Berg and Anvers, the count of Nassau, and others who were sure to be present with their ladies, esquires, and men-at-arms, Gray mentally resolved to tarry for a day or two and witness the spectacle, prior to which he could see all the marvels of this great Flemish capital.
A vast city it was, with its long and quaint streets of old and steep-roofed houses, built of painted brick and carved wood, with a stork's nest on every chimney; the pavement full of life and bustle, and swarming with ruddy-cheeked young fraus, each having a dozen petticoats; and bulbous-shaped Flemings wearing the old proverbial big red or brown trunk-hose, bombasted with sawdust or tow, and bedecked with rows of shiny buttons at the side; its booths, its shops and stores, crammed with treasures and merchandise from all parts of Christendom and the East—the mysterious realms of Prester John; while boats and barges, all glittering with brown varnish paint and gilding, plied to and fro under the bridges of the Scheldt or its canals, laden with boxes, barrels, and bales, or with ruddy fruit, green vegetables, or ponderous cattle, or with men, women, and children, long-robed priests, and mail-clad soldiers, all gabbling and laughing in the gutturalpatoisof the old Lotheringian kingdom. Then there were the long and stately rows of linden trees and the ramparts of the citadel; while, with scores of little shops nestling between its countless buttresses, high over all towered the mighty cathedral, the glory of Antwerp, with its sixty-six chapels, its roof that springs from one hundred and twenty-five pillars—its altars, statues, and pictures, with that gorgeous steeple which seems to pierce the sky, and the carvings of which are so exquisite that Charles V. said, "it should be put into a case and shown only on holidays."
On its summit, four hundred and fifty feet above the busy streets, there hung, in those days, four great copper pans, in which the burghers were wont to kindle fires on the approach of an enemy; for the Gueldrians, Lorainers, Burgundians, and even the Frieslanders from beyond Utrecht and the waveless Zuider Zee, worked the wealthy Antwerpers sore mischief in time of war and tumult.
In this vast city Gray resided unnoticed and unknown, and spent several days pleasantly enough; so the great festival came to pass before the waters subsided on the frontiers.
On the night of the 15th August, after vespers, when the brilliant procession was to issue from the cathedral, Gray armed himself, and, guided by Maître Baudoin, of theGrille de Ste. Laurence, obtained a good place near the porch of the cathedral; within, without, and all around which were assembled the thousands of Antwerp to witness the procession, in which so much of a religious pageant with civic mummery were to mingle. The excitement was increased by the wide-spread rumour that a young foreign girl of high rank—a princess at least—had been chosen on this occasion to represent our Lady of Antwerp; thus all the city were on tiptoe in honour of the occasion, the patroness of their cathedral, of the city, and of all Christian women.
The armed vassals of the powerful and wealthy bishop of Mechlin formed a lane, with their partisans parting the crowd before the cathedral gate. Each soldier bore a torch, and the lurid glow of these fell fitfully on their bearded visages, their steel caps and breastplates, or tipped with seeming fire the points of their partisans. Beyond, the wavering gleam lighted partially the sombre and dusky masses of the people, who crowded all the thoroughfares like a human sea.
The thirty-three bells of the cathedral were tolling, and from the depths of its long-drawn aisles and echoing arches strains of the sacred music within came forth and floated over the bowed heads of the hushed and expectant multitude.
At last the bells rang out a merrier peal; the gilded gates revolved, and, when more torches were lighted, a glow of sudden splendour seemed to fill the great portico of the church, and all the white marble statues of saints, kings, and warriors seemed to start from their canopied niches into life.
There was a palpable vibration among the people—a heaving to and fro of the human tide—as the glitter of the coming pageant appeared in the arched depths of the church; but the heaving was steadily repressed by the steel points of the levelled partisans, while here and there a half-stifled shriek from a woman, or a gruff Flemish oath from a man, announced that the pressure was greater than their patience could endure. But now the procession was seen slowly descending the steps of the portico, and exclamations of pleasure and astonishment burst from time to time in front of the masses; and these, as usual, served but to excite the curiosity and irritate the temper of the less fortunate who were too far off in the rear, or were hopelessly crushed against the adjacent houses.
First came the twenty-eight corporations of the city, clad in gowns of fine cloth, with their banners and insignia; the nine nobles, with their swords and coronets borne by pages; the nine masters of the streets, with their swords and keys; the two burgomasters, and a giant eight feet high (on heels of cork), bearing the banner of Antwerp, heraldically charged with two human hands.
Maître Baudoin informed Gray, in a hasty whisper, that, in ancient times, a giant named Antwerpen had lived there amid the swamps, and was wont to cast into the Scheldt all who displeased him, having previously cut off their hands; and this was the legend of the city's coat armorial.
"And see, messire," added the little Frenchman, "by St. Louis here comes one of his teeth!"
As he spoke, anechevinpassed, bearing on a silver platter this palladium of Antwerp—a gigantichumantooth, said to be "a handbreadth long and sixteen ounces in weight."
The shouts of wonder and laughter excited by the giant, with his shaggy black hair and beard, his red, pimpled nose and mighty scimitar, were hushed when, preceded by choristers and boys swinging silver censers of incense, the dean of the cathedral, with his twenty-four canons and the confraternity of the Holy Circumcision, in all the splendour of their full canonicals, were seen descending into the street and passing on amid the flare of a thousand uplifted torches, a mass of muslin, lace, and embroidery.
Next came the twelve apostles, with their respective badges, each represented by a handsome young man, and all clad in flowing robes of brilliant red, blue, or yellow serge: St. Peter, with his keys, and St. Paul, with a sword; St. Andrew, with a cross-saltire; St. James Minor, with a fuller's pole; St. John, with a cup, out of which an ingeniously-contrived winged serpent strove to fly; St. Bartholomew, with a knife; St. Philip, with a cross-staff; St. Thomas, with a goodly Flemish partisan; St. Mathias, with a battle-axe; St. James Major, with a pilgrim's staff and gourd; St. Simeon, with a saw; and St. Jude, with a club.
Then came an effigy of Judas, with a red beard, dragged by the headsman of the city, and surrounded by a score of merry imps, with horns and tails, all whooping and dancing, as if eager to convey his soul to the shades below; and their tricks and gambols filled the crowd with laughter.
The princess of Ravenstein, robed in pure white, with a diadem sparkling on her brow, a palm-branch in one hand and a flaming sword in the other, was borne past as St. Catherine upon a car, the wheels of which were concealed by flowing drapery.
Preceded by his banner, next came the abbot of St. Michael, an edifice founded by a son of the Palatine, Count Herbert of Picardie; and then, under a canopy borne by the marquises of Antwerp and Berg, the counts of Bommel and Nassau, came the bishop of Mechlin, with his crozier and mitre, his vestments glittering with precious stones and massive embroidery, and all the clergy of the diocese following, with their hands crossed on their breasts, and their eyes lowered on the earth, in token of Christian piety and humility.
But now the excitement reached its height, while something of awe was mingled with the hushed curiosity of the people, and every mailed soldier held his streaming torch aloft, when twelve stout monks of St. Michael's Abbey, all marching slowly in their black cassocks, approached, with a species of throne upon their shoulders, and on that throne sat a female, who represented our Lady of Antwerp.
This chair seemed a veritable blaze of precious stones, as the ladies of the city yearly contributed their jewels to decorate it. Little children, dressed as seraphs, with snow-white wings, nestled at its base, and over it there seemed to float a curiously-contrived silver cloud, amid which shone thirteen stars, that sparkled in the light of the torches.
The lady who personated the Virgin in this strange procession was said to be very beautiful, so Gray pressed vigorously forward to obtain a glimpse of her; and his resolute aspect, his scarred face and athletic form, his long sword and shirt of mail, repressed even the officious petulance of the men-at-arms, who would have thrust him back as a stranger, or one who was unknown to them; and little Maître Baudoin profited by this influence to secure a good place, and rubbed his hands with nervous ecstasy.
On came the marching monks with the glittering throne, and Sir Patrick Gray could see that they bore up a beautiful female figure, clad in robes of the greatest value—for gold, silver, and precious stones were lavished in their adornment, while a glory, composed of diamonds, sparkled and blazed around her sweet young face, which expressed, alternately, alarm, awe, and pleasure at the scene below, and the part she felt so honoured by enacting before so vast a multitude.
Maître Baudoin, who clung to the skirt of Gray's pourpoint, uttered loud exclamations of rapture; but the Captain of the Guard was voiceless as one whom Heaven had stricken dumb; for how great was his bewilderment, how deep were his emotions, how profound his surprise, on recognizing in the damsel who was borne past on that brilliant throne, as our Lady of Antwerp, the features of Murielle Douglas—his own Murielle—whom he fondly believed to be far away in the wilds of Galloway!
Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy;This wide and universal theatrePresents more woeful pageants than the sceneWherein we play in.—As You Like It.
Sir Patrick Gray so entirely lost his self-possession, that he was rapidly swept away, jostled, tossed and pushed here and there, by a rush of the crowd, who were making off to another part of the city where the procession would again be seen as it passed; so, after futilely struggling, and even fighting in some instances, he found himself in a dark street near one of the many bridges of the Scheldt, which flows through Antwerp by no less than eight channels, and there he paused, alone and breathless, with one hand pressed on his brow and the other on his sword.
Was it a dream, or a phantom raised by his nerves or organs of vision being disturbed by the terrible wounds he had received, and by the long and feverish hours of illness and agony he had endured in the castle of Edinburgh?
Again and again he asked this question of himself, without being able to resolve the matter satisfactorily.
He heard the bells of the cathedral still tolling; he saw the variegated lamps that glittered on its glorious spire; he heard even the hum of the distant multitude; but he dared not return and trust himself to look again, lest he might become mad, for already his brain felt weak and giddy, and he cast a haggard glance at the dark, still water that flowed with mud and slime under the quaint old bridge of the Scheldt, as strange wild thoughts occurred to him, but he thrust them aside with shame.
He looked back to the cathedral, and again he seemed to see that fair young face with its diamond tiara, and the almost ethereal form, with the finest and snowiest of Mechlin lace floating like a cloud of frostwork, cold and pure, about it. In a foreign city, amid more than two hundred thousand inhabitants, his chances of discoveringwhothis lady was, and how she bore a resemblance so marvellous, became very slender, if she were known alone to the bishop, who made it part of his sacred drama or mystery to preserve her incognito from all—even from his clergy.
Had he been less a lover—had he waited, he might have seenotherfaces nearly as familiar as that of Murielle, though less startling and bewildering; but, swept away as he had been by the crowd, and having neither power nor presence of mind to regain his place, he saw no more of the procession; and, after long wandering, he thought of returning home.
The night was now considerably advanced; the cathedral bells had ceased to toll; the lights had disappeared amid the delicate traceries of its spire; there were neither moon nor stars, and there came not a breath of wind to disperse the frowsy vapour that overhung the city, and which rose from the many branches of the Scheldt. Sir Patrick had lost his way; his ignorance of the language and of the vast old city forced him to wander to and fro, vainly searching for his hostelry, "the Grille of St. Laurence;" but day dawned before he discovered it and presented himself, to the joy of Maître Baudoin, who feared that he had become embroiled with some of the bishop's men-at-arms, or the Marquises Brabanciones, in the citadel—a surmise which naturally led the maître to ponder upon the value of Sir Patrick's horse and its housings, and also of his cloakbag, which might thereby fall intohispossession.
"How came you to leave me, messire, in such a hurry and at such a time?" asked the little Frenchman.
Gray frankly told him that he thought—indeed that he was almost certain—he had recognized a dear friend in the damsel who appeared as our Lady of Antwerp.
"Ah, Mère de Dieu!do you say so?" exclaimed Maître Baudoin, with sudden interest, "thenwhois she?"
"That is exactly what I wish to know; and shall know, too, ere noon be past."
"Ay, ay, pardieu!but no one can tell you."
"None!"
"Save Monseigneur l'Evêque himself."
"The bishop of Mechlin?"
"Yes, messire."
"I will fly to him!"
"But he left the city after the show was over. I saw him myself, as with all his knights and men-at-arms, and with several ladies——"
"Ladies, say you?"
"Yes, in horse-litters; he passed out by the gate of St. James."
"For where?" asked Gray, starting up.
"I know not."
"Do none in Antwerp know?" asked Gray, impatiently.
"Some say for Mechlin—others for Breda."
"Get me a fleet horse, Maître Baudoin—I can pay you well—I must see this bishop—"
"Horses?—do you mean to ride tobothplaces at once?"
"No—to the nearest first."
"Vain, vain, messire," said the hosteller, shrugging his shoulders, "be assured that he will not tell you."
"Not if I implore him to do so?"
"Not if you dashed out your brains—morbleu!"
"Where did the lady go after the procession dispersed?"
"Back to the cathedral—it is the custom."
"Oh! she may be there yet."
"Ouf, messire! would you have a pretty girl to sleep all night among these cold marble knights and dead bishops? She has left it, of course; but amid the thousands who have left or are leaving the city, and the great trains of the prince of Ravenstein, the counts of Nassau, Bommel, and others, now departing by all our gates and bridges, the task of tracing and discovering her would be no sinecure."
Sir Patrick stamped his right foot with vexation.
"If I had your devil of a bishop on Scottish ground, I would soon wrench the secret out of him."
"Perhaps so, messire; but he has at Mechlin an ugly wheel whereon folks are sometimes broken alive; and that is not pleasant. Is messiresurethat he recognized the lady?"
"Sure, Maître Baudoin, as that I now speak to you. Oh! I would know that sweet face among ten thousand."
"Sweet—hum;" the little Frenchman began to get quite interested; "is she a countrywoman of messire?"
"Yes."
"A sister?" persisted the hosteller, who burned with curiosity.
"No—no."
"Perhaps she is the mother of messire?"
"Prater, how thou talkest! she is my best beloved—my betrothed wife!" said Gray, with enthusiasm.
"Diable! Bon Dieu!" exclaimed Baudoin, making a pirouette. "Messire must not despair."
"I do not despair, Maître Baudoin; but I am sorely bewildered," said poor Gray, passing a hand across his scarred forehead.
"Messire, with your permission, I shall tell you a little story."
"Say on, my friend."
"Have you perceived near the church of Jesus—just about thirty paces from it—a well, covered with curious ironwork?"
"Yes; what about it?"
"The branches from which the pulley hangs are rich with foliaged work of iron, and are deemed a miracle of skill. They were thechef d'œuvreof a famous young smith of Antwerp who dearly loved the daughter of a great painter, and desired greatly to win his esteem; so he lavished all the energies of his soul, and all the cunning of his hands, all his skill and experience, upon that piece of ironwork; but when it was finished, monsieur the painter viewed it coldly, and said, crustily,
"'I cannot agree to have you for a son-in-law.'"
"'I am rich, young, and skilful,' urged the unfortunate lover. 'I am a smith.'
"'Forthatvery reason you shall not have my daughter; for she shall wed a painter, and a painter only!'
"Our smith did not lose heart, but he threw his beloved hammer into the well, where it lies to this day; he assumed the pencil and palette, and after working assiduously, he rapidly became a master in the art; he excelled even the surly old painter who had disdained him; he won for himself a high position in our city, and with it his beautiful young mistress; and all this you may see graven on the brass plate of their tomb, near the gate of the cathedral. But does messire hear me?"
"Yes; but, prythee, Maître Baudoin, what the devil has all this story about painters and smiths, palettes and draw-wells, to do with me?"
"Everything."
"How? I am not in a humour for jesting."
"It is a homily," said the Frenchman, with a low bow.
"Leave homilies to monks and friars; but for what is yours meant?"
"To teach you to hope much and to persevere long; even as that poor lover persevered and hoped."
Three days longer Gray lingered in Antwerp, searching and inquiring everywhere in vain, till at last, in despair of unravelling the mystery, on the subsidence of the waters of the Maese, he ordered his horse, bade adieu to the gossiping Maître Baudoin, and set out for the court of the duke of Gueldres; having at last all but convinced himself that the face which he had recognized in our Lady of Antwerp was the creation of his own imagination, or at most some very remarkable resemblance.
Yet it wasnovision he had seen during the night of that festival—but Murielle Douglas herself—the veritable object of all his hope and love.
We have already stated that the earl of Douglas had left Scotland ostensibly to visit Pope Eugene IV., taking with him the countess, Murielle, and a brilliant train.
The latter, says Tytler (in his "History of Scotland"), consisted of six knights, with their own suites and attendants, and fourteen gentlemen of the best families in the realm, with a retinue of eighty men-at-arms on horseback. Among these were Sir John Forrester, of Corstorphine; Sir Alan Lauder, of the Bass; William Campbell, thane of Cawdor and constable of the castle of Nairne—"all knights," adds Lindesay, of Pitscottie, "whose convoy maid the earle so proud and insolent, that he represented a kingis magnificence wherever he went. Out of Flanderis he passed to France, and out of France to Italie, and so forwardis to Rome, where the Romanes having knowledge of his cuming, mett him with an honourable companie, and veri princelie receaved him within the toun."
In this quotation, however, we are somewhat anticipating the course of events, for Gray and Murielle were yet to meet before the earl and his retinue left Flanders to visit the court of Charles VII. of France.
Murder, madam! 'Tis self-defence. Besides, in these skirmishes there are never more than two or three killed; for, supposing they bring the whole body of militia upon us, down with a brace of them and away fly the rest of the covey!—The Lying Valet.
Gray had been repeatedly warned by the friendly hosteller, Maître Baudoin, to beware of travelling in the dusk after passing the boundary of the marquisate of Antwerp, as hordes of disbanded Brabanters and Walloons, the refuse of the wars between Charles of France and the duke of Burgundy, were lurking among the thick woods that lay about Endhoven, and in the then great swampy wilderness, known as the Peel Morass; and these outlaws were led by a kind of leader whom they all tacitly acknowledged, Count Ludwig of Endhoven, who had been expelled from the Burgundian army for his barbarous and outrageous conduct, after having his spurs hacked from his heels, and his coat of arms publicly riven and defaced, by order of Philip the Good.
Gray thanked Maître Baudoin for his friendly warning, and rode on his way, like a soldier and a careless fellow as he was, thinking no more about it.
Refreshed by the halt at Antwerp, his horse carried him with great speed next day. He passed Nonne Kloster, and towards evening, found himself approaching Endhoven, in Brabant, after a fifty-miles' ride.
At the verge of the flat horizon, the sun was setting, but through the evening haze, its light shed a golden lustre upon everything,—the quaint farmhouses, the summer woods, the sluggish canals and browsing cattle,—casting far across the fields the shadow of every village spire and poplar tree; but now here and there rose little hills or swelling eminences to relieve the tedium of the scenery, for tedious it was to a Scottish eye, though the fruitful soil was cultivated like a garden, for he was in the land of cheese, milk, and butter.
Two miles from the town of Endhoven, stood a wayside hostelry, of quaint aspect, overshadowed by a gigantic oak-tree, on one of the lower branches of which swung its signboard, and under which were placed a rough table and benches for the accommodation of those who choose to loiter there, and refresh them in the open air.
Weary and athirst, Gray alighted from his horse, and knocking with his dagger hilt on the table, brought forth the tapster, who had been observing his approach, from the ivy-covered porch of the hostelry, which seemed to be literally a mass of green leaves, with quaint gablets, and chimneys sticking up in all directions, and curious little windows, peeping out, without order, regularity, or architectural design.
In a jargon, half Flemish and partly French, "eked" out with a word or two of Scottish, Gray ordered a flask of wine for himself, and a feed of corn for his horse, which was led into the stables.
While drinking his wine, and pondering whether he should halt there for the night, or push on to Endhoven, the evening bells of which were ringing in the distance, the sound of voices at an open window made him aware that several fellows of a very rough aspect were observing him from a room, where they seemed to be drinking and playing with dice, and, doubtless, they would have been smoking too, had that useful mode of spending time and money been discovered.
On turning from them, his attention was next arrested by perceiving a knife, formed somewhat like a dagger, dangling at the end of a string, from the lower branch of the tree under which he sat, and there it swung to and fro in the wind.
Each time he raised his eyes to this knife, he heard loud laughter, and a clapping of hands among those who were evidently observing him; and though resolving, if possible, to avoid all brawls, his brow flushed, and his heart beat quicker, on finding himself, as he conceived, insulted by a rabble of Flemish boors.
But in his ignorance of the customs of the country, he knew not that the knife was hung thus as a challenge to snick and snee, as it was named, a combat then common among the lower classes in Flanders, as it was in Holland, in later years.
The bravest or most rash bully of a village or district, usually hung up his knife thus, in some conspicuous place, as the knights of chivalric days were wont, in a warlike fit, to obstruct the high roads, by hanging their shields on a bridge, or by the wayside, to invite all comers, and whoever touched or took the weapon down was compelled to fight the proprietor, or be branded as a coward.
Before engaging, the combatants sometimes tested their strength of arm, by driving their knives into a deal board, and then they were only permitted to use so much of the blade as had penetrated; others broke off the points. On closing, each used his cap or hat as a shield, to protect his face; but such encounters seldom ended until one, sometimes both duellists, had their cheeks, noses, and foreheads slashed and disfigured.
The knife in question, a long, sharp, and assassin-like weapon, continued to swing to and fro within arm's-length of Gray, who, on perceiving something engraved on the buckhorn haft of it, took it in his hand for examination; on this a shout of exultation, too boisterous to pass unnoticed, came from the topers in the hostelry.
Sir Patrick had only time to perceive that a coronet and the letter E were engraven on the handle, when he tore it down, and dashed it right through the latticed window where it fell among those whose mirth seemed so easily excited.
After the silence of a moment, a storm of oaths and threats, mingled with shouts and drunken laughter, greeted this act of hostility, and from the door of the tavern there issued six men, all tattered in dress, bloated by drinking, ruffianly in aspect, and all variously armed with swords, daggers, and mauls. Three of them had rusty helmets and breastplates, which had evidently seen much service.
On the approach of this unexpected rabble, Gray quietly drained the last of his wine, threw down the price thereof, and then starting up, laid his hand on his sword, as one who seemed to be the leader, came boldly and brusquely up to him.
Tall, strongly made, and athletic in form, this personage presented a curious combination of character in his features, which were naturally noble and handsome, but disguised by the masses of his uncombed hair, distorted by ferocity, and bloated by drunkenness. He wore a pair of enormous moustaches, which were twisted up almost to his ears; his attire, which had once been richly laced, was full of rents and holes. He wore a cuirass and back-plate, on each of which a coat of arms was engraved; his neck being destitute of gorget, revealed by its bareness that he was not proprietor of a shirt; a battered helmet, from which the barred vizor had been struck in some battle or brawl, covered his head; his gauntlets and boots were of different fashions; he carried a short battle-axe in his right hand, and in his left the knife which Gray had just tossed through the window.
"Sangdieu!" he exclaimed, in French; "do you know the penalty incurred by what you have done, messire?"
"I neither know nor care," replied Gray, coolly; and then turning to the hosteller—a fat old Flemish boor, who had also come forth, and was trembling at the prospect of a fray upon his premises—he added, "Maître, please you to bring my horse—and do so instantly, as I have no desire to cross my sword with this fellow and hiscoquinaille."
At this epithet, which signifies "a pack of rascals," they uttered a simultaneous shout, and raised their weapons, but Gray confronted them resolutely with his drawn sword.
"My horse, I tell you, fellow, lest I cut you in two!" he reiterated to the loitering hosteller. On this, his roan, the same horse ridden by him when Earl William entered Edinburgh, was brought at once towards the tree, but the armed rabble placed themselves between it and the proprietor.
"Does messire mean to fight me, whom he has insulted and challenged by touchingthisknife," demanded the leader; "or der Teufel, does he mean to——"
"What!" said Gray, "be wary of your words, sir."
"To fly like a coward?" said the other, with a German oath.
"I do not fight with every ignoble ruffian I may meet; there are some whom I would disdain to chastise, and thou, fellow, art one! Yet, if the hosteller would but bring me a good heavy whip, I would make you dance to a tune of your own."
"Sangdieu! do you know to whom you are speaking?" cried the other, whose rage completely sobered him.
"Some robbers or outlaws, I suppose."
"A robber—yes, for misfortune has made me so; an outlaw—yes, for tyrants made me so; but I amyourequal, and perhaps superior, for all that!"
"Indeed! Then who the devil are you, that thus molest peaceful people on the open highway?"
"I am Ludwig, count of Endhoven!"
Gray started on hearing the name of the very personage against whom Maître Baudoin had so solemnly warned him; but, inspired with an emotion of pity for nobility fallen so low, he took his purse from his girdle, and said, "Rumour says you have been a soldier: I am one, and will share what I have with you; but first you must stand aside from between me and my horse, as I can brook no intimidation."
The other laughed scornfully, and said, "In the first place, messire, it was from being a soldier that Philip of Burgundy made me a thief, and changed my cote d'armes into a beggar's gabardine. In the second, I do not ask for that which I can take by force; in the third, I obey no man's orders—yours least of all, when horse and purse, and all you possess, are my lawful spoil."
As he spoke, he made a sudden rush forward, with the intention of tearing away the purse from Sir Patrick, who, quick as thought, sprang back, and received him right upon the point of his sword, with a force which made the iron corslet ring, and stretched its wearer on the earth.
With a shout of rage, he sprang to his feet, swinging his axe in both hands, and, with his five companions, surrounded Gray. Sharp was the conflict that ensued, and most likely it would have terminated fatally for him; for although he dealt many a severe wound, it was long since he had thus used his sword; and since that fatal day, after "the Black Dinner," his wrists had been weak and stiff: but now the distant tramp of horses was heard, and the hosteller, to scare the combatants from his premises, exclaimed, "Gott in Himmel! Herr Count, here comes the burg graf of Gueldres, with his banner and escort!"
On hearing this, Count Ludwig, whose face was streaming with blood from a slash Gray had given him, accompanied by his five companions, sprang over a hedge close by, and, taking to flight, sought refuge where horsemen dared not follow them, among the recesses of a swampy forest.
They had scarcely been gone three minutes, and Sir Patrick had just recovered his breath and equanimity, when a grey-bearded cavalier, all armed save the head (for his helmet hung at his saddle-bow), rode up, attended by three knights, who each wore the jewel and mantle of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy, and by twenty men-at-arms on horseback, one of whom, an esquire, carried a long lance with a square banner, charged with the lion of Gueldres.
O mony a mile Sir Patrick rodeThroughout the border land;To gie that letter braw and braid,Into the earlis hand.—Old Ballad.
Reining in his horse, while all his party did the same, the elder gentleman, who was without the helmet, but wore a plumed cap, and who appeared to be the leader, hastily addressed Gray in German, but finding that he did not reply, repeated his question in French.
"There has been fighting here, messire?"
"As you may plainly see," replied Gray quietly, while carefully wiping his sword-blade, for the lofty bearing of the speaker displeased him.
"About what did you quarrel?"
"Faith, I can scarcely tell you."
"Speak, messire!" said the other, authoritatively.
"A knife that hung from the branch of a tree, it would seem. You have strange fashions among you here in Gueldres," said Gray, with returning anger.
"You are not yet in old Gueldreland, but in Brabant," replied the other; "you appear to be a stranger?"
"Yes, messire, I am a stranger," replied Sir Patrick, who had now mounted, gathered up his reins, and had his horse fully in hand, ready for any emergency, and resolved to admit of no molestation.
"May I ask what object takes you towards Gueldreland?"
"You may, messire, but what if I decline to reply?"
"I can prove that I have the right to ask such questions, and to enforce answers."
"I am come from the court of Scotland to visit old Duke Arnold—is he in Gueldres?"
"No; in Brabant."
"That is unfortunate."
"Not so much so as you suppose. But with whom were you fighting?"
"Those who fought with me: some outlaws, to all appearance, but they got more than they gave."
"Outlaws!" reiterated the armed horseman with displeasure.
"A rabble led by one who called himself Count Ludwig of Endhoven."
"Ha!" exclaimed the other, while all his followers uttered exclamations expressive of surprise and interest.
"Is it thus," said Gray, "your lords of Gueldres amuse themselves upon the highway?"
"I tell you, messire, that you are in Brabant. So these were Ludwig and his Brabanciones? I would give a thousand guilders for his head! But there was blood upon your sword?"
"I laid Count Ludwig's cheek open from eye to chin."
"Then beware you, messire: he is cruel as a pagan, and revengeful as an Italian; and he will track you and seek you day and night while you are among us, to work you mischief, unless, in the interim, he is broken alive upon the wheel by some burg graf or burgomaster. You are going, you say, to the court of the duke of Gueldres?"
"Where I am not likely to arrive soon if I remain chattering here," replied Gray coldly, as he disliked the inquisitorial manner of his questioner, who laughed and said,—
"Are you seeking knight-service? If so, you had better turn your horse's head towards Burgundy, where Duke Philip III. is putting his sword to the grindstone."
"Nay, messire," replied Gray, with increasing displeasure; "I have come on a mission from the court of Scotland, where I have the honour to be Captain of the King's Guard."
"Your name?"
"Sir Patrick Gray, younger of that ilk."
"And this mission?" said the other hastily.
"Concerns not you, messire, but the marriage of the Princess Mary d'Egmont," replied Gray, moving his horse away.
"To your young king?—good. You have, then, a letter for—for the duke?" said the other, following him.
"Yes."
"Permit me to see it. Excuse me, messire, but I have both reason and authority for my request."
Gray, who thought he had been rather unwise in stating the object of his mission to a total stranger, reluctantly opened a pocket in his saddlelap, and drew forth a large square letter, which was covered with a silken wrapper, tied with white ribbon crosswise, and sealed with yellow wax, the colour used by the kings of Scotland and France.
"Messire, you will perceive that it is correctly addressed," said Sir Patrick; "and it is my best credential for being reserved."
"Exactly; I thank you," replied the other, taking the letter in his gauntletted hand, and deliberately tearing it open.
"Messire!" exclaimed Gray, furiously, as he drew his sword; "are you mad, or weary of life, that you dare to open a letter——"
"For Arnold d'Egmont, count of Zutphen, and duke of Gueldres, you would say?"
"Yes, surrender it, messire, or by every saint in heaven, I shall kill you where you stand!"
"Beware—beware!" exclaimed some of the attendants, lowering their lances.
"And why beware?" demanded the sturdy Scot.
"Because I am Arnold himself," replied the old duke, with a hearty laugh, in which the three knights of the Golden Fleece joined.
"You, monseigneur?" said Gray, sinking the point of his sword, and reining back his horse.
"Behold my banner and escort, with Ravenstein, Berg, and Nassau, my three most faithful friends."
"Pardon me," said Gray, sheathing his sword, and reining back his horse.
"I have nothing to pardon, Sir Patrick Gray," replied the duke; "we shall all ride forward together, but this letter, which you have travelled so far to lay before me, is written in the young king's name, and announces, that so soon as affairs are peaceful in his kingdom, his lord chancellor, accompanied by John, bishop of Dunkeld, and Messire Nicholas Otterbourne, official of Lothian, with a suitable train, will visit our court at Gueldres, to receive the Princess Mary, and conduct her to her new home. Poor child! she is very young and tender, to be trusted among your unruly mountaineers. The letter shall be laid before the duchess and council. Meantime, messire, I thank you for the care with which you have brought hither the missive of your king, and the valour with which you were ready to defend it, at all hazards, even against four-and-twenty mounted men."
Sir Patrick bowed low, and kissed the hand which the duke extended towards him.
"You will ride on with us, Sir Patrick," he resumed. "I have a hunting-lodge near Vlierden, on this side of Peel Morass, seventeen miles distant. There we shall halt for to-night, and to-morrow depart for the capital."
I behold the pageants splendidThat adorned those days of old;Stately dames like queens attended,Knights who wore the Fleece of Gold.Longfellow.
The three knights who wore the Golden Fleece of Burgundy, proved to be the prince of Ravenstein, the marquis of Berg, and Englebert, count of Nassau, who was hereditary burg graf, or governor of Antwerp, and who, when a mere boy, in 1404, had espoused the heiress of Loeke and Breda. The prince of Ravenstein's territory lay between Gueldres and Brabant; it is now merged in the duchy of Cleves, but his castle still stands near the Maese.
Gueldres was an ancient and then very powerful dukedom, though it shrank to a petty state after the declaration of independence by the maritime provinces of the Netherlands in 1579, when it lost Nimeguen, the county of Zutphen, and Arnheim, and afterwards Ruremond, which was made over to Prussia; and since then, these portions have frequently changed their masters and form of government.
In the days of Arnold d'Egmont the duchy contained sixteen cities, two hundred and thirty villages, five great fortresses, and a vast number of castles.
The old duke treated Gray with great condescension, and conversed freely with him as they rode on together.
He inquired in what battle Gray received the severe wound the mark of which yet remained upon his face; and for the first time since he had left Scotland, our hero felt his heart glow with petty anger, in having to acknowledge that he had gained it in a mere street brawl with the enemies of the king,—the adherents of the turbulent and unruly house of Douglas.
"Tête Dieu!" said the duke; "that is the family which gives the king, your master, so much trouble. By Saint Louis,Iwould make quick work in disposing of them."
"They can bring twenty thousand men into the field," urged Sir Patrick.
"The great lord of Douglas is now in Flanders."
"Here—here in Flanders!" exclaimed Gray.
"Not in my territories; but on the other side of Brabant, and when last heard of he was travelling with a brilliant train of knights towards Breda, for the purpose of visiting that city, after which he passes forward to France. He was at the Feast of the Assumption in Antwerp, but proudly and haughtily kept aloof from all."
This unexpected intelligence filled Gray with emotions of a varied character, and solved a great mystery, the recollection of which had greatly troubled him.
It was, then, really Murielle Douglas whom he had seen, and no visionary or fancied resemblance; and he felt a glow of pleasure at the conviction that he had looked upon her face so recently, that he had breathed the same air with her; and that even now she was separated from him, not by the stormy German Ocean, and many a league of hill and glen; but only by a few miles of level land, and he mentally resolved, at every hazard and danger, that on leaving the duke of Gueldres, he would follow the Douglases to Breda, and that if they had departed, he would track them elsewhere; so powerful a noble, with so brilliant a retinue, would be easily traced in Flanders.
Pleasure, anticipation, and excitement, made him alternately gay and abstracted; thus he could barely attend with becoming reverence to the kind old prince who, being anxious to make a favourable impression on one who seemed the trusted subject of his intended son-in-law, drew his attention to the various castles, spires, and other features of the country, beguiling the way by many a story and legend, as they rode towards his hunting-lodge, at which they were to pass the night.
It stood upon the Gueldrian side of the Peel Morass. The latter included great tracts of land now dry and fertile, which were then deep swamps; and strange old stories lingered there, of broken dykes and bursting sluices—of overflowings from the Waal and Maese, with inundations from the Zuider Zee, by which whole farms were swept away, strong castles overthrown, and villages submerged; and of mermaids and mermen being swept by the retiring waters to flounder in the slough until they were captured; and the duke averred that in the days of his ancestor, Reinold II., duke of Gueldres, two had been instructed in Christianity and taught to make reverence to a crucifix,—a story corroborated in later times.
The "History of the Seven United Provinces," published at London in 1705, tells us, that "one day, when the sea had broken the banks and overflowed one part of the country, some young damsels of Ednam, going in a boat to milk their cows, found a nymph, or sea-woman, who lay half-covered in the mud, after the waters had been drained off. They drew her out and carried her to Ednam, where they taught her to spin and dress herself like other women; but they could not teach her to speak, nor lose the inclination which she had to return to her former element. There is an author who pretends that they imprinted in her some knowledge of a God, and that she made her reverence as she passed a crucifix. But it was not in Holland only," adds the historian, "that they found mermen in those days. There were some taken on the coast of Norway, which had on them the cross, the mitre, and all the pontifical habits of a bishop; but they only sighed after they were taken, and died very quickly."
Night had closed when the party reached the hunting-lodge, which was an old castle of some extent and considerable antiquity.
"This," said the duke, "is the hereditary mansion of the counts of Endhoven; and under its roof Count Ludwig, the last of that line, was born."
"Where he is not likely to die," added the count of Nassau.
"Since his attainder it has been mine."
"There is a strange story connected with it—or rather with the parents of Ludwig," said the count of Nassau, a noble with a long grave and pleasing countenance.
"His father was a cruel passionate and vindictive man, who used his countess so barbarously that she was wont to carry a dagger in her boddice, for her protection. Six months after Ludwig was born, she died of a broken heart, and the dagger, as she requested with her last breath, was buried with her. For a few weeks the count drank deeply, gamed and hunted, it seemed to all, as if to drown thought; but after a time he recovered, and to lighten the old castle, which seemed so grim and gloomy now, he carried off a beautiful peasant girl from the neighbourhood of Endhoven. Long and bitterly did the girl weep, on finding herself in his power, and earnestly she prayed to be permitted to return to her parents and to her lover, with whom she had been on the point of marriage; but the wild count only laughed, and forced her to drink cup after cup of Rhenish wine, and to sing and play on her ghittern.
"One day, when he was caressing and endeavouring to console her in his own rough way, he swore a terrible oath that he would love her till death, and no one else!
"Believe him not!" exclaimed a hollow voice behind—a voice like that of the dead countess. At the same moment a lean and wasted arm and hand, grasping a dagger, came out of the stone wall, and the count fell dead, stabbed to the heart!
"In his breast was found the countess's dagger—the same weapon that had been buried with her!"
As the count of Nassau concluded this strange story, they rode through the dark archway into the barbican of the castle, which seemed old and gloomy, even to Gray, who had come from a land of grim and guarded fortresses.
Here he saw the king approaching,And he ended gallantly;Left the crowd of knights about him,Bending to the king his knee.Poetry of Spain.
As we have much to narrate, we must hasten over the mere diplomacy in which the captain of the guard was concerned.
Next day the duke's party traversed the marshes of Peeland, and reached the city of Gueldres. A fleet horseman having been sent on before, Gray was received with considerable state at the ducal castle, in honour of the king, his master.
The capital city of Gueldres was then surrounded by marshes which added materially to its security, by making all approaches to it difficult and dangerous to invaders or strangers. It was girt by ramparts and deep trenches, through which flowed the river Niers, and thus it was deemed the strongest place in Flanders.
It was a curious little town of narrow streets, overshadowed by galleried houses of quaint aspect, with projecting eaves and steep roofs; old churches, grim and mysterious in architecture; and convents with high and sombre walls. The mass of the population seemed to be industrious Flemish artisans, mingled with the usual number of peasants, who brought their wares to market; cowled monks, dozing at the gates in the sunshine; and helmeted men-at-arms dicing and drinking in the hostelries.
Twenty great bombards were fired from the ramparts of the ducal castle, as a salute in honour of Sir Patrick's arrival, and the great banner of the duchy,azurea lionorcrowned, for Gueldres; with a liongulesfor Zutphen, was displayed on the keep, while a body of knights, archers, and well-mounted men-at-arms stood in military array within the gates. Gueldres was then famous for its cavalry, and for the spirit of its people, who were deemed so warlike, that to lessen their military genius and secure the possession of that province in his family, Charles V., in after times, excluded its natives from his armies.
The great ducal fortress, a portion of which was built in 878 by Wichardus a Ponte, the first lord of Gueldres, on his marriage with a daughter of the count of Zutphen, was deemed the strongest castle in the Netherlands, till its demolition by the Prussians in 1764.
There, in that old castle, situated amid the thick woods and rushlands, through which the Niers flows towards the Maese, Gray was presented to the duchess, Katherine of Cleves; to her daughter, the future queen of Scotland; the little princess Mary, then in her ninth year; and to her brother, prince Adolphus, by whose wickedness in after years the house of Gueldres was ruined, and its possessions merged into the line of Burgundy.
For when Adolphus rebelled against his father, old Arnold d'Egmont, and shut him up in a close prison, he was disinherited, and his title and patrimony sold in 1473 to Charles the Terrible, Duke of Burgundy, for a yearly pension of fourscore and ten thousand golden crowns of the Rhine; but no thought or anticipation had they then of those dark days that were coming, when civil war and misrule would rend the land asunder; and so old Duke Arnold feasted royally the knight who had come from the Scottish court, in presence of all his peers, the knights of the duchy, the governors of the country districts, and the deputies of Nimeguen, Arnheim, Ruremond, and Zutphen, his four great counties or provinces.
He presented him with a cassock, embroidered with gold and precious stones, worth a thousand ducats. The Duchess Katherine in the name of the princess, her daughter, entrusted him with a valuable ring for the young king, her future son-in-law, to whose ministers letters were prepared, expressive of the pleasure with which the coming ambassadors would be received.
Four days Sir Patrick remained at the castle of Gueldres, and then, leaving with impatience to overtake the Douglases about Breda, he bade adieu to the ducal court, and was convoyed, as the abbot of Tongland relates, twelve miles on his way, as far as Wees, by Prince Adolphus, the counts of Bommel and Nassau, with forty gentlemen on horseback "in cassocks of brocade, each with a gold chain at his neck."
Sir Patrick rejoiced when all this ceremony and state were over; when he was once more alone, and at liberty to pursue his own way towards Breda, which, however, he was fated never to reach.
"I wake to sad reality, the days of youth have fled—The flower, the shrub, the velvet turf have long ere now been dead;The brook that ran so merrily has ceased to bubble by,The pebble bed whereon it flowed is broken up and dry."
As Sir Patrick Gray had no desire to traverse again the swampy wastes of the Peel Morass, with the chance of perhaps encountering, when alone, Ludwig of Endhoven, and his ruffianly Brabanciones, he took the way which led towards the principality of Ravenstein, intending to cross the Maese and travel to Breda through Dutch Brabant.
Eagerness to see, to meet, to rejoin Murielle, or to make his presence there known to her, made him travel without delay; but in his ignorance of the route, through a flat country, destitute of those strong natural features, to which his eyes were accustomed at home, caused him frequently to make mistakes and detours; thus the evening of the first day found him only at the town of Grave, which had a fortress, situated by the margin of the Maese, and of such strength that it was deemed the Key of Gueldreland, and had thus been the object of many a bloody contest between the dukes of Brabant and the earls of Holland.
As the town was small, he soon found an hostelry, and delivered his horse to the groom and his sword to the tapster, according to what was then, and for long after, the custom in all places of entertainment; but retained his chain shirt and dagger while he sat at supper in the large public room, or chamber-of-dais, in which were two gentlemen, apparently travellers like himself, and similarly employed, in deciding upon the merits of broiled fowls and a stoup of Burgundy.
Full of his own thoughts and of Murielle, reckoning the miles of flat and monotonous Flemish scenery that lay between them, the hours that must intervene ere he could see her; the mode in which he should discover himself, the promises he would exact, and the vows he would repeat, Gray took no notice of the strangers, who conversed freely, and somewhat noisily, over their wine, their brusquerie of manner appearing to increase as the twilight deepened with their potations; so that when Gray was at last roused from his reveries and looked towards them, the dusk was so great that he could scarcely discern their features.
They were talking of the proceedings of the great ecclesiastical council, which was then sitting in the Swiss archbishopric of Basle, and of the laws it was framing for the extirpation of heresy—topics upon which all men were beginning to question, or rather tosoundeach other, as such questions, in those days of the stake and faggot, were fraught with danger. They conversed in French; but finding that Gray sat resolutely silent, one turned and said to him abruptly, "Pray, sir, what think you of Procopius?"
"Of—who?" said Gray, with hesitation.
"Procopius, the Shaved."
"The leader of the Hussites?"
"Yes—the protesting heretics."
"I think him a bold Bohemian captain," was the cautious reply.
"What think you of his disputation at the holy council of Basle?" continued the other.
"I am not capable of judging."
"Peste! Did he not bear hard on the monks?" persisted the querist.
"I am not aware," replied Gray, with increasing reserve, "as I have not heard; but what said he?"
"At the head of two hundred gentlemen of his party, the valiant Procopius came before the council, and stoutly maintained that monkery was an invention of the devil.
"'Can you prove this?' asked Cardinal St. Julien, while his face flushed red as his stockings.
"'Yes!' replied the Bohemian, stoutly.
"'How?' thundered the cardinal, knitting his brows.
"'Thus; will you deny that the Saviour didnotinstitute it?'
"'We do not.'
"'Then,' quoth Procopius, ''tis plainly an invention of the devil,' whereat Ænies Sylvius Piccolomini——"
"He who was in Scotland?"
"Yes; burst into a fit of laughter, which however did not prevent him from committing several poor devils to the flames in the course of the evening, where they spluttered and burned bravely for the amusement of all good Catholics."
"We have had some such work at home, where John Resby and Paul Crawar have perished at the stake, for preaching doctrines which some term false and others simply new."
"How doyouterm them?" asked the second traveller.
"Sir," replied Gray, "I am a soldier, and, being neither priest nor clerk may not know the difference."
"So you are of Scotland?" said the first stranger, suddenly relinquishing his French for the old dialect then spoken by the upper classes of the northern kingdom; "we bid you welcome, as countrymen. Pray join us—and harkee, tapster, let us have lights and more wine—we too, sir, are of Scotland."
More Burgundy was promptly brought, and on four torch-like candles of yellow wax being lighted in four great brass sconces, Gray was enabled to observe the aspect and bearing of his fellow travellers, or rather sojourners at the hostelry.
Both had their hair cut closely round above their ears, in the unbecoming fashion of twenty years before. They were moustached, but had their beards and whiskers shaved off in what was then the Scottish mode; they wore armour, with skirts composed of horizontal steel bands, called taces, with circular epaulets, to protect the armpits from sword thrusts, with spikes on the oriellets of their helmets.
The tallest and most handsome forcibly recalled to Gray's memory the late King James I.; he seemed to have something of that unhappy monarch's voice too, but his air and manner, though soldierly and stately, were reckless and blasé, and at times even abrupt and rough, yet not altogether unpleasing.
The other had pale grey cunning eyes, which were either bloodshot by dissipation, or reddened by the fire of innate cruelty, and they twinkled so far apart from his nose that it appeared almost impossible for him to see an object withbothat once, for each seemed to be looking at the ear which adjoined it, and his hair and beard were a fiery red. But what were the emotions of Gray, and how firmly did he grasp his dagger, while a gust of fury filled his heart—a fury which he had great difficulty in repressing—when, in this person we have just described, he recognized that venal wretch, James Achanna!
By the light of the sconces the latter and his companion had a full view of Gray, but they seemed not to recognize him, for, as already stated, the ghisarma of Earl James had laid both cheeks open, thus a hideous wound traversed his whole face like a livid bar sinister. It was slowly passing away, however, for the old duchess of Gueldres had given him a rare balsam, which she said would effectually efface the scars; but as yet they, and a new curl which Gray had fancifully given his moustache, had so effectually altered his appearance, as to conceal his identity from this ruffianly swashbuckler of the earl of Douglas.
"So you are of Scotland, sir?" resumed the other traveller.
"I am come from thence but lately," replied Gray; "and may I ask your names?"
"Certainly," replied our old acquaintance, with perfect confidence; "I am James Achanna, a gentleman of the Lord Douglas, a name at which men prick their ears in Nithsdale, whatever they may do in foggy Flanders."
"And I," said the other, "am the Lord Rosse."
"Rosse!" reiterated Gray; "pardon me, sir, but, under favour, we have no such lord in Scotland."
"Not when I amoutof it," said he, laughing.
"I know not the title," added Gray, coldly.
"Indeed! one seems to be soon forgotten then. Shall I state to you more fully that I am Robert Stewart, duke of Albany and earl of Rosse."
"The son of Duke Murdoch!" exclaimed Gray, starting from his seat with mingled surprise and respect.
"Yes; son of that Duke Murdoch, who, with his second son, and Duncan, earl of Lennox, was foully butchered at the Lady's Rock, before the castle gates of Stirling. Vengeance has a long and bitter memory! and by that extrajudicial murder, for such I will maintain it to be in the face of Europe, I have been since boyhood an exile, a wanderer, and now, when little more than thirty years of age, my hair is greyer than my poor old father's was, when his venerable head rolled in the sand beneath the doomster's axe."
Gray bowed low, for respect to the royal blood was strongly graven then in the hearts of the Scots, in none more than his, and Albany, though exiled and outlawed, in consequence of the malpractices of his father (who had been regent during the detention of James I. in England), was the cousin of King James II.