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The Caged Lion

by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #2573 · 618,675 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Caged Lion

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: April 1, 2001 [eBook #2573]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2573

Credits: Transcribed from the 1912 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAGED LION ***






Transcribed from the 1912 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk





THE CAGED LION


PREFACE


When the venture has been made of dealing with historical events and
characters, it always seems fair towards the reader to avow what
liberties have been taken, and how much of the sketch is founded on
history.  In the present case, it is scarcely necessary to do more than
refer to the almost unique relations that subsisted between Henry V. and
his prisoner, James I. of Scotland; who lived with him throughout his
reign on the terms of friend rather than of captive, and was absolutely
sheltered by this imprisonment throughout his nonage and early youth from
the frightful violence and presumption of the nobles of his kingdom.

James's expedition to Scotland is wholly imaginary, though there appears
to have been space for it during Henry's progress to the North to pay his
devotions at Beverley Minster.  The hero of the story is likewise
invention, though, as Froissart ascribes to King Robert II. 'eleven sons
who loved arms,' Malcolm may well be supposed to be the son of one of
those unaccounted for in the pedigrees of Stewart.  The same may be said
of Esclairmonde.  There were plenty of Luxemburgs in the Low Countries,
but the individual is not to be identified.  Readers of Tyler's 'Henry
V.,' of Agnes Strickland's 'Queens,' Tytler's 'Scotland,' and Barante's
'Histoire de Bourgogne' will be at no loss for the origin of all I have
ventured to say of the really historical personages.  Mr. Fox Bourne's
'English Merchants' furnished the tradition respecting Whittington.  I am
afraid the knighthood was really conferred on Henry's first return to
England, after the battle of Agincourt; but human--or at least
story-telling--nature could not resist an anachronism of a few years for
such a story.  The only other wilful alteration of a matter of time is
with regard to the Duke of Burgundy's interview with Henry.  At the time
of Henry's last stay at Paris the Duke was attending the death-bed of his
wife, Michelle of France, but he had been several times in the King's
camp at the siege of Meaux.

Another alteration of fact is that Ralf Percy, instead of being second
son of Hotspur, should have been Henry Percy, son of Hotspur's brother
Ralf; but the name would have been so confusing that it was thought
better to set Dugdale at defiance and consider the reader's convenience.
Alice Montagu, though her name sounds as if it came out of the most
commonplace novelist's repertory, was a veritable personage--the heiress
of the brave line of Montacute, or Montagu; daughter to the Earl of
Salisbury who was killed at the siege of Orleans; wife to the Earl of the
same title (in her right) who won the battle of Blore Heath and was
beheaded at Wakefield; and mother to Earl Warwick the King-maker, the
Marquis of Montagu, and George Nevil, Archbishop of York.  As nothing is
known of her but her name, I have ventured to make use of the blank.

For Jaqueline of Hainault, and her pranks, they are to be found in
Monstrelet of old, and now in Barante; though justice to her and Queen
Isabeau compels me to state that the incident of the ring is wholly
fictitious.  Of the trial of Walter Stewart no record is preserved save
that he was accused of '_roborica_.'  James Kennedy was the first great
benefactor to learning in Scotland, and founder of her earliest
University, having been himself educated at Paris.

The Abbey of Coldingham is described from a local compilation of the
early part of the century, with an account of the history of that grand
old foundation, and the struggle for appointments between the parent
house at Durham and the Scottish Government.  Priors Akefield and Drax
are historical, and as the latter really did commission a body of moss-
troopers to divert an instalment of King James's ransom into his own
private coffers, I do not think I can have done him much injustice.  As
the nunnery of St. Abbs has gone bodily into the sea, I have been the
less constrained by the inconvenient action of fact upon fiction.  And
for the Hospital of St. Katharine's-by-the-Tower, its history is to be
found in Stowe's 'Survey of London,' and likewise in the evidence before
the Parliamentary Commission, which shows what it was intended by Queen
Philippa to have been to the river-side population, and what it might
have been had such intentions been understood and acted on--nay, what it
may yet become, since the foundation remains intact, although the
building has been removed.

C. M. YONGE.

November 24, 1869.




CHAPTER I: THE GUEST OF GLENUSKIE


A master hand has so often described the glens and ravines of Scotland,
that it seems vain and presumptuous to meddle with them; and yet we must
ask our readers to figure to themselves a sharp cleft sloping downwards
to a brawling mountain stream, the sides scattered with gray rocks of
every imaginable size, interspersed here and there with heather, gorse,
or furze.  Just in the widest part of the valley, a sort of platform of
rock jutted out from the hill-side, and afforded a station for one of
those tall, narrow, grim-looking fastnesses that were the strength of
Scotland, as well as her bane.

Either by nature or art, the rock had been scarped away on three sides,
so that the walls of the castle rose sheer from the steep descent, except
where the platform was connected with the mountain side by, as it were,
an isthmus joining the peninsula to the main rock; and even this isthmus,
a narrow ridge of rock just wide enough for the passage of a single
horse, had been cut through, no doubt with great labour, and rendered
impassable, except by the lowering of a drawbridge.  Glenuskie Castle was
thus nearly impregnable, so long as it was supplied with water, and for
this all possible provision had been made, by guiding a stream into the
court.

The castle was necessarily narrow and confined; its massive walls took up
much even of the narrow space that the rock afforded; but it had been so
piled up that it seemed as though the builders wished to make height
compensate for straitness.  There was, too, an unusual amount of grace,
both in the outline of the gateway with its mighty flanking towers, and
of the lofty donjon tower, that shot up like a great finger above the
Massy More, as the main building was commonly called by the inhabitants
of Glenuskie.

Wondrous as were the walls, and deep-set as were the arches, they had all
that peculiar slenderness of contour that Scottish taste seemed to have
learnt from France; and a little more space was gained at the top, both
of the gateway towers and the donjon, by a projecting cornice of
beautifully vaulted arches supporting a battlement, that gave the
building a crowned look.  On the topmost tower was of course planted the
ensign of the owner, and that ensign was no other than the regal ruddy
Lion of Scotland, ramping on his gold field within his tressure fiery and
counter flory, but surmounted by a label divided into twelve, and placed
upon a pen-noncel, or triangular piece of silk.  The eyes of the early
fifteenth century easily deciphered such hieroglyphics as these, which to
every one with the least tincture of 'the noble science' indicated that
the owner of the castle was of royal Stewart blood, but of a younger
branch, and not yet admitted to the rank of knighthood.

The early spring of the year 1421 was bleak and dreary in that wild
lonely vale, and large was the fire burning on the hearth in the castle
hall, in the full warmth of which there sat, with a light blue cloth
cloak drawn tightly round him, a tall old man, of the giant mould of
Scotland, and with a massive thoughtful brow, whose grand form was
rendered visible by the absence of hair, only a few remnants of yellow
locks mixed with silver floating from his temples to mingle with his
magnificent white beard.  A small blue bonnet, with a short eagle
feather, fastened with a brooch of river pearl, was held in the hands
that were clasped over his face, as, bending down in his chair, he
murmured through his white beard, 'Have mercy, good Lord, have mercy on
the land.  Have mercy on my son,--and guard him when he goes out and when
he comes in.  Have mercy on the children I have toiled for, and teach me
to judge and act for them aright in these sore straits; and above all,
have mercy on our King, break his fetters, and send him home to be the
healer of his land, the avenger of her cruel wrongs.'

So absorbed was the old man that he never heard the step that came across
the hall.  It was a slightly unequal step, but was carefully hushed at
entrance, as if supposing the old man asleep; and at a slow pace the new-
comer crossed the hall to the chimney, where he stood by the fire,
warming himself and looking wistfully at the old Knight.

He was wrapped in a plaid, black and white, which increased the gray
appearance of the pale sallow face and sad expression of the wearer, a
boy of about seventeen, with soft pensive dark eyes and a sickly
complexion, with that peculiar wistful cast of countenance that is apt to
accompany deformity, though there was no actual malformation apparent,
unless such might be reckoned the slight halt in the gait, and the small
stature of the lad, who was no taller than many boys of twelve or
fourteen.  But there was a depth of melancholy in those dark brown eyes,
that went far into the heart of any one who had the power to be touched
with their yearning, appealing, almost piteous gaze, as though their
owner had come into a world that was much too hard for him, and were
looking out in bewilderment and entreaty for some haven of peace.

He had stood for some minutes looking thoughtfully into the fire, and the
sadness of his expression ever deepening, before the old man raised his
face, and said, 'You here, Malcolm? where are the others?'

'Patie and Lily are still on the turret-top, fair Uncle,' returned the
boy.  'It was so cold;' and he shivered again, and seemed as though he
would creep into the fire.

'And the reek?' asked the uncle.

'There is another reek broken out farther west,' replied Malcolm.  'Patie
is sure now that it is as you deemed, Uncle; that it is a cattle-lifting
from Badenoch.'

'Heaven help them!' sighed the old man, again folding his hands in
prayer.  'How long, O Lord, how long?'

Malcolm took up the appeal of the Psalm, repeating it in Latin, but with
none the less fervency; that Psalm that has ever since David's time
served as the agonized voice of hearts hot-burning at the sight of wrong.

'Ah yes,' he ended, 'there is nothing else for it!  Uncle, this was
wherefore I came.  It was to speak to you of my purpose.'

'The old purpose, Malcolm?  Nay, that hath been answered before.'

'But listen, listen, dear Uncle.  I have not spoken of it for a full year
now.  So that you cannot say it is the caresses of the good monks.  No,
nor the rude sayings of the Master of Albany,' he added, colouring at a
look of his uncle.  'You bade me say no more till I be of full age; nor
would I, save that I were safe lodged in an abbey; then might Patrick and
Lily be wedded, and he not have to leave us and seek his fortune far away
in France; and in Patie's hands and leading, my vassals might be safe;
but what could the doited helpless cripple do?' he added, the colour
rising hotly to his cheek with pain and shame.  'Oh, Sir, let me but save
my soul, and find peace in Coldingham!'

'My poor bairn,' said his uncle, laying a kind hand upon him, as in his
eagerness he knelt on one knee beside the chair, 'it must not be.  It is
true that the Regent and his sons would willingly see you in a cloister.
Nay, that unmanly jeer of Walter Stewart's was, I verily believe, meant
to drive you thither.  But were you there, then would poor Lilias become
a prize worth having, and the only question would be, whether Walter of
Albany, or Robert of Athole, or any of the rest of them, should tear her
away to be the lady of their fierce ungodly households.'

'You could give her to Patrick, Uncle.'

'No, Malcolm, that were not consistent with mine honour, or oaths to the
King and State.  You living, and Laird of Glenuskie, Lilias is a mere
younger sister, whom you may give in marriage as you will; but were you
dead to the world, under a cowl, then the Lady of Glenuskie, a king's
grandchild, may not be disposed of, save by her royal kinsman, or by
those who, woe worth the day! stand in his place.  I were no better than
yon Wolf of Badenoch or the Master of Albany, did I steal a march on the
Regent, and give the poor lassie to my own son!'

'And so Lilias must pine, and Patrick wander off to the weary French
war,' sighed Malcolm; 'and I must be scorned by my cousins whenever the
House of Stewart meets together; and must strive with these fierce cruel
men, that will ever be too hard for me when Patie is gone.'  His eyes
filled with tears as he continued, 'Ah! that fair chapel, with the sweet
chant of the choir, the green smooth-shaven quadrangle, the calm cloister
walk; there, there alone is rest.  There, one ceases to be a prey and a
laughing-stock; there, one sees no more bloodshed and spulzie; there, one
need not be forced to treachery or violence.  Oh, Uncle! my very soul is
sick for Coldingham.  How many years will it be ere I can myself bestow
my sister on Patie, and hide my head in peace!'

Before his uncle had done more than answer, 'Nay, nay, Malcolm, these are
no words for the oe of Bruce; you are born to dare as well as to suffer,'
there was an approach of footsteps, and two young people entered the
hall; the first a girl, with a family likeness to Malcolm, but tall,
upright, beautiful, and with the rich colouring of perfect health, her
plaid still hanging in a loose swelling hood round her brilliant face and
dark hair, snooded with a crimson ribbon and diamond clasp; the other, a
knightly young man, of stately height and robust limbs, keen bright blue
eyes and amber hair and beard, moving with the ease and grace that showed
his training in the highest school of chivalry.

'Good Uncle,' cried the maiden in eager excitement, 'there is a guest
coming.  He has just turned over the brae side, and can be coming nowhere
but here.'

'A guest!' cried both Malcolm and the elder knight, 'of what kind, Lily?'

'A knight--a knight in bright steel, and with three attendants,' said
Lilias; 'one of Patrick's French comrades, say I, by the grace of his
riding.'

'Not a message from the Regent, I trust,' sighed Malcolm.  'Patie, oh do
not lower the drawbridge, till we hear whether it be friend or foe.'

'Nay, Malcolm, 'tis well none save friends heard that,' said Patrick.
'When shall we make a brave man of you?'

'Nevertheless, Patie,' said the old gentleman, 'though I had rather the
caution had come from the eldest rather than the youngest head among us,
parley as much as may serve with honour and courtesy ere opening the gate
to the stranger.  Hark, there is his bugle.'

A certain look of nervous terror passed over young Malcolm's face, while
his sister watched full of animation and curiosity, as one to whom
excitement of any kind could hardly come amiss, exclaiming, as she looked
from the window, 'Fear not, most prudent Malcolm; Father Ninian is with
him: Father Ninian must have invited him.'

'Strange,' muttered Patrick, 'that Father Ninian should be picking up and
bringing home stray wandering land-loupers;' and with an anxious glance
at Lilias, he went forward unwillingly to perform those duties of
hospitality which had become necessary, since the presence of the castle
chaplain was a voucher for the guest.  The drawbridge had already been
lowered, and the new-comer was crossing it upon a powerful black steed,
guided by Father Ninian upon his rough mountain pony, on which he had
shortly before left the castle, to attend at a Church festival held at
Coldingham.

The chaplain was a wise, prudent, and much-respected man; nevertheless,
young Sir Patrick Drummond felt little esteem for his prudence in
displaying one at least of the treasures of the castle to the knight on
the black horse.  The stranger was a very tall man, of robust and
stalwart make, apparently aged about seven or eight and twenty years,
clad in steel armour, enamelled so as to have a burnished blue
appearance; but the vizor of the helmet was raised, and the face beneath
it was a manly open face, thoroughly Scottish in its forms, but very
handsome, and with short dark auburn hair, and eyes of the same peculiar
tint, glancing with a light that once seen could never be forgotten; and
the bearing was such, that Patrick at once growled to himself, 'One of
our haughty loons, brimful of _outre cuidance_; and yet how coolly he
bears it off.  If he looks to find us his humble servants, he will find
himself mistaken, I trow.'

'Sir Patrick,' said Father Ninian, who was by this time close to him,
'let me present to you Sir James Stewart, a captive knight who is come to
collect his ransom.  I fell in with him on the road, and as his road lay
with mine, I made bold to assure him of a welcome from your honoured
father and Lord Malcolm.'

Patrick's face cleared.  It was no grace or beauty that he feared in any
stranger, but the sheer might and unright that their Regency enabled the
House of Albany to exercise over the orphans of the royal family, whose
head was absent; and a captive knight could be no mischievous person.
Still this might be only a specious pretence to impose on the chaplain,
and gain admittance to the castle; and Patrick was resolved to be well on
his guard, though he replied courteously to the graceful bow with which
the stranger greeted him, saying in a manly mellow voice and southern
accent, 'I have been bold enough to presume on the good father's offer of
hospitality, Sir.'

'You are welcome, Sir,' returned Patrick, taking the stranger's bridle
that he might dismount; 'my father and my cousin will gladly further on
his way a prisoner seeking freedom.'

'A captive may well be welcome, for the sake of one prisoner,' said his
father, who had in the meantime come forward, and extended his hand to
the knight, who took it, and uncovering his bright locks, respectfully
said, 'I am in the presence of the noble Tutor of Glenuskie.'

'Even so, Sir,' returned Sir David Drummond, who was, in fact, as his
nephew's guardian, usually known by this curious title; 'and you here see
my wards, the Lord Malcolm and Lady Lilias.  Your knighthood will make
allowances for the lad, he is but home-bred.'  For while Lilias with
stately grace responded to Sir James Stewart's courtly greeting, Malcolm
bashfully made an awkward bow, and seemed ready to shrink within himself,
as, indeed, the brutal jests of his rude cousins had made him dread and
hate the eye of a stranger; and while the knight was led forward to the
hall fire, he merely pressed up to the priest, and eagerly demanded under
his breath, 'Have you brought me the book?' but Father Ninian had only
time to nod, and sign that a volume was in his bosom, before old Sir
David called out, 'What now, Malcolm, forgetting that your part is to
come and disarm the knight who does you the honour to be your guest?'  And
Sir Patrick rather roughly pushed him forward, gruffly whispering, 'Leave
not Lily to supply your lack of courtesy.'

Malcolm shambled forward, bewildered, as the keen auburn eye fell on him,
and the cheery kindly voice said, 'Ha! a new book--a romance?  Well may
that drive out other thoughts.'

'Had he ears to hear such a whisper?' thought Malcolm, as he mumbled in
the hoarse voice of bashful boyhood, 'Not a romance, Sir, but whatever
the good fathers at Coldingham would lend me.'

'It is the "Itinerarium" of the blessed Adamnanus,' replied Father
Ninian, producing from his bosom a parcel, apparently done up in many
wrappers, a seal-skin above all.

'The "Itinerarium"!' exclaimed Sir James, 'methought I had heard of such
a book.  I have a friend in England who would give many a fair rose noble
for a sight of it.'

'A friend in England!'--the words had a sinister sound to the audience,
and while Malcolm jealously gathered up the book into his arms, the
priest made cold answer, that the book was the property of the Monastery
at Coldingham, and had only been lent to Lord Malcolm Stewart by special
favour.  The guest could not help smiling, and saying he was glad books
were thus prized in Scotland; but at that moment, as the sunny look shone
on his face, and he stood before the fire in the close suit of chamois
leather which he wore under his armour, old Sir David exclaimed, 'Ha!
never did I see such a likeness.  Patie, you should be old enough to
remember; do you not see it?'

'What should I see?  Who is he like?' asked Patrick, surprised at his
father's manner.

'Who?' whispered Sir David in a lowered voice; 'do you not see it? to the
unhappy lad, the Duke of Rothsay.'

Patrick could not help smiling, for he had been scarcely seven years old
at the time of the murder of the unfortunate Prince of Scotland; but a
flush of colour rose into the face of the guest, and he shortly answered,
'So I have been told;' and then assuming a seat near Sir David, he
entered into conversation with him upon the condition of Scotland at the
period, inquiring into the state of many of the families and districts by
name.  Almost always there was but one answer--murder--harrying--foray;
and when the question followed, 'What had the Regent done?' there was a
shrug of the shoulders, and as often Sir James's face flushed with a dark
red fire, and his hand clenched at the hilt of the sword by his side.

'And is there not a man in Scotland left to strike for the right?' he
demanded at last; 'cannot nobles, clergy, and burghers, band themselves
in parliament to put down Albany and his bloody house, and recall their
true head?'

'They love to have it so,' returned Sir David sadly.  'United, they might
be strong enough; but each knows that his fellow, Douglas, Lennox, March,
or Mar, would be ready to play the same game as Albany; and to raise a
rival none will stir.'

'And so,' proceeded Sir James, bitterly, 'the manhood of Scotland goes
forth to waste itself in an empty foreign war, merely to keep France in
as wretched a state of misrule as itself.'

'Nay, nay, Sir,' cried Patrick angrily, 'it is to save an ancient ally
from the tyranny of our foulest foe.  It is the only place where a
Scotsman can seek his fortune with honour, and without staining his soul
with foul deeds.  Bring our King home, and every sword shall be at his
service.'

'What, when they have all been lavished on the crazy Frenchman?' said Sir
James.

'No, Sir,' said Patrick, rising in his vehemence; 'when they have been
brightened there by honourable warfare, not tarnished by home
barbarities.'

'He speaks truly,' said Sir David; 'and though it will go to my heart to
part with the lad, yet may I not say a word to detain him in a land where
the contagion of violence can scarce be escaped by a brave man.'

Sir James gave a deep sigh as of pain, but as if to hinder its being
remarked, promptly answered, 'That may be; but what is to be the lot of a
land whose honest men desert her cause as too evil for them, and seek out
another, that when seen closer is scarce less evil?'

'How, Sir!' cried Patrick; 'you a prisoner of England, yet speaking
against our noble French allies, so foully trampled on?'

'I have lived long enough in England,' returned Sir James, 'to think that
land happiest where law is strong enough to enforce peace and order.'

'The coward loons!' muttered Patrick, chiefly out of the spirit of
opposition.

'You have been long in England, Sir?' said Lilias, hoping to direct the
conversation into a more peaceful current.

'Many years, fair lady,' he replied, turning courteously to her; 'I was
taken when I was a mere lad, but I have had gentle captors, and no over
harsh prison.'

'And has no one ransomed you?' she asked pitifully, as one much moved by
a certain patience on his brow, and in his sweet full voice.

'No one, lady.  My uncle was but too willing that the heir should be kept
aloof; and it is only now he is dead, that I have obtained leave from my
friendly captor to come in search of my ransom.'

Lilias would have liked to know the amount, but it was not manners to
ask, since the rate of ransom was the personal value of the knight; and
her uncle put in the question, who was his keeper.

'The Earl of Somerset,' rather hastily answered Sir James; and then at
once Lilias exclaimed, 'Ah, Uncle, is not the King, too, in his charge?'
And then questions crowded on.  'What like is the King?  How brooks he
his durance?  What freedom hath he?  What hope is there of his return?
Can he brook to hear of his people's wretchedness?'

This was the first question at which Sir James attempted to unclose his
hitherto smiling and amused lip.  Then it quivered, and the dew glittered
in his eyes as he answered, 'Brook it!  No indeed, lady.  His heart burns
within him at every cry that comes over the Border, and will well-nigh
burst at what I have seen and heard!  King Harry tells him that to send
him home were but tossing him on the swords of the Albany.  Better,
better so, to die in one grapple for his country's sake, than lie bound,
hearing her bitter wails, and unable to stir for her redress!' and as he
dashed the indignant tear from his eyes, Patrick caught his hand.

'Your heart is in the right place, friend,' he said; 'I look on you as an
honest man and brother in arms from this moment.'

''Tis a bargain,' said Sir James, the smile returning, and his eyes again
glistening as he wrung Sir Patrick's hand.  'When the hour comes for the
true rescue of Scotland, we will strike together.'

'And you will tell the King,' added Patrick, 'that here are true hearts,
and I could find many more, only longing to fence him from the Albany
swords, about which King Harry is so good as to fash himself.'

'But what like is the King?' asked Lilias eagerly.  'Oh, I would fain see
him.  Is it true that he was the tallest man at King Harry's sacring?
more shame that he were there!'

'He and I are much of a height, lady,' returned the knight.  'Maybe I may
give you the justest notion of him by saying that I am said to be his
very marrow.'

'That explains your likeness to the poor Duke,' said Sir David,
satisfied; 'and you too count kindred with our royal house, methinks?'

'I am sprung from Walter the Stewart, so much I know; my lands lie
Carrick-wards,' said Sir James lightly, 'but I have been a prisoner so
long, that the pedigree of my house was never taught me, and I can make
no figure in describing my own descent.'  And as though to put an end to
the inquiry, he walked to the window, where Malcolm so soon as they had
begun to talk of the misrule of Scotland, had ensconced himself in the
window-seat with his new book, making the most of the failing light, and
asked him whether the Monk of Iona equalled his expectations.

Malcolm was not easy to draw out at first, but it presently appeared that
he had been baffled by a tough bit of Latinity.  The knight looked, and
readily expounded the sentence, so that all became plain; and then, as it
was already too dark to pursue the study with comfort, he stood over the
boy, talking to him of books and of poems, while the usually pale,
listless, uninterested countenance responded by looks of eager delight
and flushing colour.

It seemed as though each were equally pleased with the other: Sir James,
at finding so much knowledge and understanding in a Scottish castle; and
Malcolm, at, for the first time, meeting anything but contempt for his
tastes from aught but an ecclesiastic.

Their talk continued till they were summoned to supper, which had been
somewhat delayed to provide for the new-comers.  It was a simple enough
meal, suited to Lent, and was merely of dried fish, with barley bread and
kail brose; but there were few other places in Scotland where it would
have been served with so much of the refinement that Sir David Drummond
and his late wife had learnt in France.  A tablecloth and napkins,
separate trenchers, and water for hand cleansing, were not always to be
found in the houses of the nobles; and in fact, there were those who
charged Malcolm's delicacy and timidity on the _nisete_ or folly of his
effeminate education; the having the rushes on the floor frequently
changed, the preference of lamps for pine torches, and the not keeping
falcons, dogs, swine, and all, pell mell in the great hall.

Lilias sat between her uncle and his guest, looking so fair and bright
that Patrick felt fresh accesses of angry jealousy, while the visitor
talked as one able to report to the natives from another world, and that
world the hateful England, which as a Scotsman he was bound to abhor.  Had
it been France, it had been endurable, but praise of English habits was
mere disloyalty; and yet, whenever Patrick tried to throw in a
disparaging word, he found himself met with a quiet superiority such as
he had believed no knight in Scotland could assume with him, and still it
was neither brow-beating nor insolence, nothing that could give offence.

Malcolm begged to know whether there had not been a rare good poet in
England, called Chaucer.  Verily there had been, said the knight; and on
a little solicitation, so soon as supper was over, he recited to the
eager and delighted auditors the tale of patient Grisel, as rendered by
Chaucer, calling forth eager comments from both Patrick and Lily, on the
unknightliness of the Marquis.  Malcolm, however, added, 'Yet, after all,
she was but a mere peasant wench.'

'What makes that, young Sir?' replied Sir James gravely.  'I would have
you to know that the husband's rank is the wife's, and the more unequal
were their lot before, the more is he bound to respect her, and to make
her be respected.'

'That may be, after the deed is done,' said Sir David, in a warning
voice; 'but it is not well that like should not match with like.  Many an
evil have I seen in my time, from unequal mating.'

'And, Sir,' eagerly exclaimed Patrick, 'no doubt you can gainsay the
slander, that our noble King has been caught in the toils of an artful
Englishwoman, and been drawn in to promise her a share in his crown.'

A flush of crimson flamed forth on Sir James Stewart's cheeks, and his
tawny eye glanced with a fire like red lightning, but he seemed, as it
were, to be holding himself in, and answered with a voice forcibly kept
low and calm, and therefore the more terribly stern, 'Young Sir, I warn
you to honour your future queen.'

Sir David made a gesture with his hand, enforcing restraint upon his son,
and turning to Sir James, said, 'Our queen will we honour, when such she
is, Sir; but if you are returning to the King, it were well that he
should know that our hot Scottish bloods, here, could scarce brook an
English alliance, and certainly not one beneath his birth.'

'The King would answer, Sir,' returned Sir James, haughtily, but with
recovered command over himself, 'that it is for him to judge whom his
subjects shall brook as their queen.  Moreover,' he added, in a different
and more conciliatory voice, 'Scotsmen must be proud indeed who disdain
the late King's niece, the great-granddaughter of King Edward III., and
as noble and queenly a demoiselle as ever was born in a palace.'

'She is so very fair, then?' said Lilies, who was of course on the side
of true love.  'You have seen her, gentle Sir?  Oh, tell us what are her
beauties?'

'Fair damsel,' said Sir James, in a much more gentle tone, 'you forget
that I am only a poor prisoner, who have only now and then viewed the
lady Joan Beaufort with distant reverence, as destined to be my queen.
All I can tell is, that her walk and bearing mark her out for a throne.'

'And oh!' cried Malcolm, 'is it not true that the King hath composed
songs and poems in her honour?'

'Pah!' muttered Patrick; 'as though the King would be no better than a
wandering minstrel rhymester!'

'Or than King David!' dryly said Sir James.

'It is true, then, Sir,' exclaimed Lilias.  'He doth verily add
minstrelsy to his other graces?  Know you the lines, Sir?  Can you sing
them to us?  Oh, I pray you.'

'Nay, fair maid,' returned Sir James, 'methinks I might but add to the
scorn wherewith Sir Patrick is but too much inclined to regard the
captive King.'

'A captive, a captive--ay, minstrelsy is the right solace for a captive,'
said Patrick; 'at least, so they say and sing.  Our king will have better
work when he gains his freedom.  Only there will come before me a
subtilty I once saw in jelly and blanc-mange, at a banquet in France,
where a lion fell in love with a hunter's daughter, and let her, for
love's sake, draw his teeth and clip his claws, whereupon he found
himself made a sport for her father's hounds.'

'I promise you, Sir Patrick,' replied the guest, 'that the Lady Joan is
more hike to send her Lion forth from the hunter's toils, with claws and
teeth fresh-whetted by the desire of honour.

'But the lay--the hay, Sir,' entreated Lilias; 'who knows that it may not
win Patrick to be the Lady Joan's devoted servant?  Malcolm, your harp!'

Malcolm had already gone in quest of the harp he loved all the better for
the discouragement thrown on his gentle tastes.

The knight leant back, with a pensive look softening his features as he
said, after a little consideration, 'Then, fair lady, I will sing you the
song made by King James, when he had first seen the fair mistress of his
heart, on the slopes of Windsor, looking from his chamber window.  He
feigns her to be a nightingale.'

'And what is that, Sir?' demanded Lilias.  'I have heard the word in
romances, and deemed it a kind of angel that sings by night.'

'It is a bird, sister,' replied Malcolm; 'Philomel, that pierces her
breast with a thorn, and sings sweetly even to her death.'

'That's mere minstrel leasing, Malcolm,' said Patrick.  'I have both seen
and heard the bird in France--_Rossignol_, as we call it there; and were
I a lady, I should deem it small compliment to be likened to a little
russet-backed, homely fowl such as that.'

'While I,' replied the prisoner, 'feel so much with your fair sister,
that nightingales are a sort of angels that sing by night, that it pains
me, when I think of winning my freedom, to remember that I shall never
again hear their songs answering one another through the forest of
Windsor.'

Patrick shrugged his shoulders, but Lilias was so anxious to hear the
lay, that she entreated him to be silent; and Sir James, with a manly
mellow voice, with an exceedingly sweet strain in it, and a skill, both
of modulation and finger, such as showed admirable taste and instruction,
poured forth that beautiful song of the nightingale at Windsor, which
commences King James's story of his love, in his poem of the King's
Quhair.

There was an eager pressing round to hear, and not only were Lilias and
Malcolm, but old Sir David himself, much affected by the strain, which
the latter said put him in mind of the days of King Robert III., which,
sad as they were, now seemed like good old times, so much worse was the
present state of affairs.  Sir James, however, seemed anxious to prevent
discussion of the verses he had sung, and applied to Malcolm to give a
specimen of his powers: and thus, with music, ballad, and lay, the
evening passed away, till the parting cup was sent round, and the Tutor
of Glenuskie and Malcolm marshalled their guest to the apartment where he
was to sleep, in a wainscoted box bedstead, and his two attendant
squires, a great iron-gray Scot and a rosy honest-faced Englishman, on
pallets on the floor.

In the morning he went on his journey, but not without an invitation to
rest there again on his way back, whether with or without his ransom.  He
promised to come, saying that he should gladly bear to the King the last
advices from one so honoured as the Tutor of Glenuskie; and, on their
sides, Malcolm and Sir David resolved to do their best to have some gold
pieces to contribute, rather than so 'proper a knight' should fail in
raising his ransom; but gold was never plenty, and Patrick needed all
that his uncle could supply, to bear him to those wars in France, where
he looked for renown and fortune.

For these were, as may have been gathered, those evil days when James I.
of Scotland was still a captive to England, and when the House of Albany
exercised its cruel misrule upon Scotland; delaying to ransom the King,
lest they should bring home a master.

Old Robert of Albany had been King Stork, his son Murdoch was King Log;
and the misery was infinitely increased by the violence and lawlessness
of Murdoch's sons.  King Robert II. had left Scotland the fearful legacy
of, as Froissart says, 'eleven sons who loved arms.'  Of these, Robert
III. was the eldest, the Duke of Albany the second.  These were both
dead, and were represented, the one by the captive young King James, the
other by the Regent, Duke Murdoch of Albany, and his brother John, Earl
of Buchan, now about to head a Scottish force, among whom Patrick
Drummond intended to sail, to assist the French.

Others of the eleven, Earls of Athol, Menteith, &c., survived; but the
youngest of the brotherhood, by name Malcolm, who had married the heiress
of Glenuskie, had been killed at Homildon Hill, when he had solemnly
charged his Stewart nephews and brothers to leave his two orphan children
to the sole charge of their mother's cousin, Sir David Drummond, a good
old man, who had been the best supporter and confidant of poor Robert
III. in his unhappy reign, and in embassies to France had lost much of
the rugged barbarism to which Scotland had retrograded during the wars
with England.




CHAPTER II: THE RESCUE OF COLDINGHAM


It was a lonely tract of road, marked only by the bare space trodden by
feet of man and horse, and yet, in truth, the highway between Berwick and
Edinburgh, which descended from a heathery moorland into a somewhat
spacious valley, with copsewood clothing one side, in the midst of which
rose a high mound or knoll, probably once the site of a camp, for it
still bore lines of circumvallation, although it was entirely deserted,
except by the wandering shepherds of the neighbourhood, or occasionally
by outlaws, who found an admirable ambush in the rear.

The spring had hung the hazels with tassels, bedecked the willows with
golden downy tufts, and opened the primroses and celandines beneath them,
when the solitary dale was disturbed by the hasty clatter of horses'
feet, and hard, heavy breathing as of those who had galloped headlong
beyond their strength.  Here, however, the foremost of the party, an old
esquire, who grasped the bridle-rein of youth by his side, drew up his
own horse, and that which he was dragging on with him, saying--

'We may breathe here a moment; there is shelter in the wood.  And you,
Rab, get ye up to the top of Jill's Knowe, and keep a good look-out.'

'Let me go back, you false villain!' sobbed the boy, with the first use
of his recovered breath.

'Do not be so daft, Lord Malcolm,' replied the Squire, retaining his hold
on the boy's bridle; 'what, rin your head into the wolf's mouth again,
when we've barely brought you off haill and sain?'

'Haill and sain?  Dastard and forlorn,' cried Malcolm, with passionate
weeping.  'I--I to flee and leave my sister--my uncle!  Oh, where are
they?  Halbert, let me go; I'll never pardon thee.'

'Hoot, my lord! would I let you gang, when the Tutor spak to me as plain
as I hear you now?  "Take off Lord Malcolm," says he; "save him, and you
save the rest.  See him safe to the Earl of Mar."  Those were his words,
my lord; and if you wilna heed them, I will.'

'What, and leave my sister to the reivers?  Oh, what may not they be
doing to her?  Let us go back and fall on them, Halbert; better die
saving her than know her in Walter Stewart's hands.  Then were I the
wretched craven he calls me.'

'Look you, Lord Malcolm,' said Halbert, laying his finger on his nose,
with a knowing expression, 'my young lady is safe from harm so long as
you are out of the Master of Albany's reach.  Had you come by a canny
thrust in the fray, as no doubt was his purpose, or were you in his hands
to be mewed in a convent, then were your sister worth the wedding; but
the Master will never wed her while you live and have friends to back
you, and his father, the Regent, will see she has no ill-usage.  You'll
do best for yourself and her too, as well as Sir David, if you make for
Dunbar, and call ben your uncles of Athole and Strathern.--How now, Rab?
are the loons making this way?'

'Na, na!' said Rab, descending; ''tis from the other gate; 'tis a knight
in blue damasked steel: he, methinks, that harboured in our castle some
weeks syne.'

'Hm!' said Halbert, considering; 'he looked like a trusty cheild: maybe
he'd guide my lord here to a wiser wit, and a good lance on the way to
Dunbar is not to be scorned.'

In fact, there would have been no time for one party to conceal
themselves from the other; for, hidden by the copsewood, and unheeded by
the watchers who were gazing in the opposite direction, Sir James Stewart
and his two attendants suddenly came round the foot of Jill's Knowe upon
the fugitives, who were profiting by the interval to loosen the girths of
their horses, and water them at the pool under the thicket, whilst
Halbert in vain tried to pacify and reason with the young master, who had
thrown himself on the grass in an agony of grief and despair.  Sir James,
after the first momentary start, recognized the party in an instant, and
at once leapt from his horse, exclaiming--

'How now, my bonnie man--my kind host--what is it? what makes this
grief?'

'Do not speak to me, Sir,' muttered the unhappy boy.  'They have been
reft--reft from me, and I have done nothing for them.  Walter of Albany
has them, and I am here.'

And he gave way to another paroxysm of grief, while Halbert explained to
Sir James Stewart that when Sir Patrick Drummond had gone to embark for
France, with the army led to the aid of Charles VI. by the Earl of
Buchan, his father and cousins, with a large escort, had accompanied him
to Eyemouth; whence, after taking leave of him, they had set out to spend
Passion-tide and Easter at Coldingham Abbey, after the frequent fashion
of the devoutly inclined among the Scottish nobility, in whose castles
there was often little commodity for religious observances.  Short,
however, as was the distance, they had in the midst of it been suddenly
assailed by a band of armed men, among whom might easily be recognized
the giant form of young Walter Stewart, the Master of Albany, the Regent
Duke Murdoch's eldest son, who was well known for his lawless excesses
and violence.  His father's silky sayings, and his own ruder speeches,
had long made it known to the House of Glenuskie that the family policy
was to cajole or to drive the sickly heir into a convent, and, rendering
Lilias the possessor of the broad lands inherited from both parents,
unite her and them to the Albany family.

The almost barbarous fierceness and wild licentiousness of Walter would
have made the arrangement abhorrent to Lilias, even had not love passages
already passed between her and her cousin, Patrick Drummond, and Sir
David had hitherto protected her by keeping Malcolm in the secular life;
but Walter, it seemed, had grown impatient, and had made this treacherous
attack, evidently hoping to rid himself of the brother, and secure the
sister.  No sooner had the Tutor of Glenuskie perceived that his own
party were overmatched, than he had bidden his faithful squire to secure
the bairns--if not both, at least the boy; and Halbert, perceiving that
Lilias had already been pounced upon by Sir Walter himself and several
more, seized the bridle of the bewildered Malcolm, who was still trying
to draw his sword, and had absolutely swept him away from the scene of
action before he had well realized what was passing; and now that the
poor lad understood the whole, his horror, grief, and shame were
unspeakable.

Before Sir James had done more than hear the outline of Halbert's tale,
however, the watchers on the mound gave the signal that the reivers were
coming that way--a matter hitherto doubtful, since no one could guess
whether Walter Stewart would make for Edinburgh or for Doune.  With the
utmost agility Sir James sprang up the side of the mound, reconnoitred,
and returned again just as Halbert was trying to stir his master from the
ground, and Malcolm answering sullenly that he would not move--he would
be taken and die with the rest.

'You may save them instead, if you will attend to me,' said Sir James;
and at his words the boy suddenly started up with a look of hope.

'How many fell upon you?' demanded Sir James.

'Full a hundred lances,' replied Halbert (and a lance meant at least
three men).  'It wad be a fule's wark to withstand them.  Best bide fast
in the covert, for our horses are sair forfaughten.'

'If there are now more than twenty lances, I am greatly mistaken,'
returned Sir James.  'They must have broken up after striking their blow,
or have sent to secure Glenuskie; and we, falling on them from this
thicket--'

'I see, I see,' cried Halbert.  'Back, ye loons; back among the hazels.
Hold every one his horse ready to mount.'

'With your favour, Sir Squire, I say, bind each man his horse to a tree.
The skene and broadsword, which I see you all wear, will be ten times as
effective on foot.'

'Do as the knight bids,' said Malcolm, starting forth with colour on his
cheek, light in his eye, that made him another being.  'In him there is
help.'

'Ay, ay, Lord Malcolm,' muttered Halbert; 'you need not tell me that: I
know my duty better than not to do the bidding of a belted knight, and
pretty man too of his inches.'

The two attendants of Sir James were meantime apparently uttering some
remonstrance, to which he lightly replied, 'Tut, Nigel; it will do thine
heart good to hew down a minion of Albany.  What were I worth could I not
strike a blow against so foul a wrong to my own orphan kindred?  Brewster,
I'll answer it to thy master.  These are his foes, as well as those of
all honest men.  Ha! thou art as glad to be at them as I myself.'

By this time he had exchanged his cap for a steel helmet, and was
assuming the command as his natural right, as he placed the men in their
ambush behind the knoll, received reports from those he had set to watch,
and concerted the signal with Halbert and his own followers.  Malcolm
kept by him, shivering with intense excitement and eagerness; and thus
they waited till the horses' hoofs and clank of armour were distinctly
audible.  But even then Sir James, with outstretched hand, signed his
followers back, and kept them in the leash, as it were, until the troop
was fairly in the valley, those in front beginning to halt to give their
horses water.  They were, in effect, riding somewhat carelessly, and with
the ease of men whose feat was performed, and who expected no more
opposition.  Full in the midst was Lilias, entirely muffled and pinioned
by a large plaid drawn closely round her, and held upon the front of the
saddle of a large tall horse, ridden by a slender, light-limbed, wiry
groom, whom Malcolm knew as Christopher Hall, a retainer of the Duke of
Albany; and beside him rode her captor, Sir Walter Stewart, a man little
above twenty, but with a bronzed, hardened, reckless expression that made
him look much older, and of huge height and giant build.  Malcolm knew
him well, and regarded him with unmitigated horror and dread, both from
the knowledge of his ruffianly violence even towards his father, from
fear of his intentions, and from the misery that his brutal jests,
scoffs, and practical jokes had often personally inflicted: and the sight
of his sister in the power of this wicked man was the realization of all
his worst fears.  But ere there was time for more than one strong pang of
consternation and constitutional terror, Sir James's shout of 'St. Andrew
for the right!' was ringing out, echoed by all the fifteen in ambush with
him, as simultaneously they leapt forward.  Malcolm, among the first,
darting with one spring, as it were, to the horse where his sister was
carried, seized the bridle with his left hand, and flashing his sword
upon the ruffian with the other, shouted, 'Let go, villain; give me my
sister!' Hall's first impulse was to push his horse forward so as to
trample the boy down, but Malcolm's hold rendered this impossible;
besides, there was the shouting, the clang, the confusion of the outburst
of an ambush all around and on every side, and before the man could free
his hand to draw his weapon he necessarily loosed his grasp of Lilias,
who, half springing, half falling, came to the ground, almost
overthrowing her brother in her descent, but just saved by him from
coming down prostrate.  The horse, suddenly released, started forward
with its rider and at the same moment Malcolm, recovering himself, stood
with his sword in his hand, his arm round his sister's waist, assuring
her that she was safe, and himself glowing for the first time with manly
exultation.  Had he not saved and rescued her himself?

It was as well, however, that the rescue did not depend on his sole
prowess.  Indeed, by the time the brother and sister were clinging
together and turning to look round, the first shock was over, and the
retainers of Albany, probably fancying the attack made by a much larger
troop, were either in full flight, or getting decidedly the worst in
their encounters with their assailants.

Sir James Stewart had at the first onset sprung like a lion upon the
Master of Albany, and without drawing his sword had grappled with him.
'In the name of St. Andrew and the King, yield thy prey, thou dastard,'
were his words as he threw his arms round the body of Sir Walter, and
exerted his full strength to drag him from his horse.  The young giant
writhed, struggled, cursed, raged; he had not space to draw sword or even
dagger, but he struck furiously with his gauntleted hand, strove to drive
his horse forward.  The struggle like that of Hercules and Antaeus, so
desperate and mighty was the strength put forth on either side, but
nothing could unclasp the iron grip of those sinewy arms, and almost as
soon as Malcolm and Lilias had eyes to see what was passing, Walter
Stewart was being dragged off his horse by that tremendous grapple, and
the next moment his armour rung as he lay prostrate on his back upon the
ground.

His conqueror set his mailed foot upon his neck lightly, but so as to
prevent any attempt to rise, and after one moment's pause to gather
breath, said in a clear deep trumpet voice, 'Walter Stewart of Albany, on
one condition I grant thee thy life.  It is that thou take the most
solemn oath on the spot that no spulzie or private brawl shall henceforth
stain that hand of thine while thy father holds the power in Scotland.
Take that oath, thou livest: refuse it, and--'  He held up the deadly
little dagger called the misericorde.

'And who art thou, caitiff land-louper,' muttered Walter, 'to put to oath
knights and princes?'

The knight raised the visor of his helmet.  The evening sun shone
resplendently on his damasked blue armour and the St. Andrew's cross on
his breast, and lighted up that red fire that lurked in his eyes, and
withal the calm power and righteous indignation on his features might
have befitted an avenging angel wielding the lightning.

'Thou wilt know me when we meet again,' was all he said; and for the very
calmness of the voice the Master of Albany, who was but a mere
commonplace insolent ruffian, quailed with awe and terror to the very
backbone.

'Loose me, and I will swear,' he faintly murmured.

Sir James, before removing his foot, unclasped his gorget, and undoing a
chain, held up a jewel shaped like a St. Andrew's cross, with a diamond
in the midst, covering a fragmentary relic.  At the sight Walter
Stewart's eyes, large pale ones, dilated as if with increased
consternation, the sweat started on his forehead, and his breath came in
shorter gasps.  Malcolm and Lilias, standing near, likewise felt a sense
of strange awe, for they too had heard of this relic, a supposed fragment
of St. Andrew's own instrument of martyrdom, which had belonged to St.
Margaret, and had been thought a palladium to the royal family and House
of Stewart.

'Rise on thy knees,' said Sir James, now taking away his foot, 'and swear
upon this.'

Walter, completely cowed and overawed, rose to his knees at his victor's
command, laid his hand on the relic, and in a shaken, almost tremulous
voice, repeated the words of the oath after his dictation: 'I, Walter
Stewart, Master of Albany, hereby swear to God and St. Andrew, to fight
in no private brawl, to spoil no man nor woman, to oppress no poor man,
clerk, widow, maid, or orphan, to abstain from all wrong or spulzie from
this hour until the King shall come again in peace.'

He uttered the words, and kissed the jewel that was tendered to him; and
then Sir James said, in the same cold and dignified tone, 'Let thine oath
be sacred, or beware.  Now, mount and go thy way, but take heed _how_ I
meet thee again.'

Sir Walter's horse was held for him by Brewster, the knight's English
attendant, and without another word he flung himself into the saddle, and
rode away to join such of his followers as were waiting dispersed at a
safe distance to mark his fate, but without attempting anything for his
assistance.

'Oh, Sir!' burst forth Malcolm; but then, even as he was about to utter
his thanks, his eye sought for the guardian who had ever been his
mouthpiece, and, with a sudden shriek of dismay, he cried, 'My uncle!
where is he? where is Sir David?'

'Alack! alack!' cried Lilias.  'Oh, brother, I saw him on the ground; he
fell before my horse.  I saw no more, for the Master held me, and muffled
my face.  Oh, let us back, he may yet live.'

'Yea, let us back,' said Sir James, 'if we may yet save the good old man.
Those villains will not dare to follow; or if they do, Nigel--Brewster,
you understand guarding the rear.'

'Sir,' began Lilias, 'how can we thank--'

'Not at all, lady,' replied Sir James, smiling; 'you will do better to
take your seat; I fear it must be _en croupe_, for we can scarce dismount
one of your guards.'

'She shall ride behind me,' said Malcolm, in a more alert and confident
voice than had ever been heard from him before.

'Ay, right,' said Sir James, placing a kind hand on his shoulder; 'thou
hast won her back by thine own exploit, and mayst well have the keeping
of her.  That rush on the caitiff groom was well and shrewdly done.'

And for all Malcolm's anxiety for his uncle, his heart had never given
such a leap as at finding himself suddenly raised from the depressed down-
trodden coward into something like manhood and self-respect.

Lilias, who, like most damsels of her time, was hardy and active, saw no
difficulties in the mode of conveyance, and, so soon as Malcolm had
seated himself on horseback, she placed one foot upon his toe, and with a
spring of her own, assisted by Sir James's well-practised hand, was
instantly perched on the crupper, clasping her brother round the waist
with her arms, and laying her head on his shoulder in loving pride at his
exploit, while for her further security Sir James threw round them both
the long plaid that had so lately bound her.

'Dear Malcolm'--and her whisper fell sweetly on his ear--'it will be
bonnie tidings for Patie that thou didst loose me all thyself.  The false
tyrant, to fall on us the very hour Patie was on the salt sea.'

But they were riding so fast that there was scant possibility for words;
and, besides, Sir James kept too close to them for private whispers.  In
about an hour's time they had crossed the bit of table-land that formed
the moor, and descended into another little gorge, which was the place
where the attack had been made upon the travellers.

This was where it was possible that they might find Sir David; but no
trace was to be seen, except that the grass was trampled and stained with
blood.  Perhaps, both Lilias and old Halbert suggested, some of their
people had returned and taken him to the Abbey of Coldingham, and as this
was by far the safest lodging and refuge for her and her brother, the
horses' heads were at once turned thitherwards.

The grand old Priory of Coldingham, founded by King Edgar, son of
Margaret the Saint, and of Malcolm Ceanmohr, in testimony of his
gratitude for his recovery of his father's throne from the usurper
Donaldbane, was a Benedictine monastery under the dominion of the great
central Abbey of Durham.

It had been a great favourite with the Scottish kings of that glorious
dynasty which sprung from Margaret of Wessex, and had ample estates,
which, when it was in good hands, enabled it to supply the manifold
purposes of an ecclesiastical school, a model farm, a harbour for
travellers, and a fortified castle.  At this period, the Prior, John de
Akecliff, or Oakcliff, was an excellent man, a great friend of Sir David
Drummond, and much disliked and persecuted by the House of Albany, so
that there was little doubt that this would be the first refuge thought
of by Sir David's followers.

Accordingly Malcolm and his companions rode up to the chief gateway, a
grand circular archway, with all the noble though grotesque mouldings,
zigzag and cable, dog-tooth and parrot-beak, visages human and diabolic,
wherewith the Norman builders loved to surround their doorways.  The
doors were of solid oak, heavily guarded with iron, and from a little
wicket in the midst peered out a cowled head, and instantly ensued the
exclamation--

'Benedicite!  Welcome, my Lord Malcolm!  Ah! but this will ease the heart
of the Tutor of Glenuskie!'

'Ah! then he is here?' cried Malcolm.

'Here, Sir, but in woful plight; borne in an hour syne by four carles who
said you had been set upon by the Master of Albany, and sair harried, and
they say the Tutor doth nought but wail for his bairns.  How won ye out
of his hands, my Lord?'

'Thanks to this good knight,' said Malcolm; and the gate was opened, and
the new-comers dismounted to pass under the archway, which taught
humility.  A number of the brethren met them as they came forth into the
first quadrangle, surrounded by a beautiful cloister, and containing what
was called Edgar's Walls, a house raised by the good founder, for his own
lodging and that of visitors, within the monastery.  It was a narrow
building, about thirty feet from the church, was perfectly familiar to
Malcolm, who bent his steps at once thither, among the congratulations of
the monks; and Lilias was not prevented from accompanying him thus far
within the convent, but all beyond the nave of the church was forbidden
ground to her sex, though the original monastery destroyed by the Danes
had been one of the double foundations for monks and nuns.

Entering the building, the brother and sister hastily crossed a sort of
outer hall to a chamber where Sir David lay on his bed, attended by the
Prior Akecliff and the Infirmarer.  The glad tidings had already reached
him, and he held out his hands, kissed and blessed his restored charges,
and gave thanks with all his heart; but there was a strange wanness upon
his face, and a spasm of severe pain crossed him more than once, though,
as Lilias eagerly asked after his hurts, he called them nothing, since he
had her safe again, and then bade Malcolm summon the captive knight that
he might thank him.

Sir James Stewart had been left in the hall without, to the hospitality
of the monks; he had laid aside his helmet, washed his face, and arranged
his bright locks, and as he rose to follow Malcolm, his majestic stature
and bearing seemed to befit the home of the old Scottish King.

As he entered the chamber, Sir David slightly raised himself on the
pillow, and, with his eyes dilating into a bewildered gaze, exclaimed,
'My liege, my dear master!'

'He raves,' sighed Lilias, clasping Malcolm's hand in dire distress.

'No,' muttered the sick man, sinking back.  'Good King Robert has been in
his grave many a day; his sons, woe is me!--Sir,' recovering himself,
'pardon the error of an old dying man, who owes you more than he can
express.'

'Then, Sir,' said James Stewart, 'grant me the favour of a few moments'
private speech with you.  I will not keep you long from him,' he added to
Malcolm and Lilias.

His manner was never one to be disputed, there was an atmosphere of
obedience about the whole monastery, and the Prior added--

'Yes, my children, it is but fitting that you should give thanks in the
church for your unlooked-for deliverance.'

Malcolm was forced to lead Lilias away into the exquisite cross church,
built in the loveliest Early English style, of which a few graceful
remnants still exist.  The two young things knelt together hand in hand
in the lornness of their approaching desolation, neither of them having
dared to utter the foreboding upon their hearts, but feeling it all the
more surely; and while the sister's spirit longed fervently after him
whose protection had been only just removed, the brother looked up to the
sheltering vaults, lost in the tranquil twilight, and felt that here
alone was his haven of peace, the refuge for the feeble and the
fatherless.

Their devotions performed, they ventured back to the outer hall, and on
their return being notified, they were again admitted.  Sir James, who
had been seated on a stool by the sick man's head, immediately rose and
resigned his place to Lilias, but did not leave the room and Sir David
thus spoke: 'Bairns, God in His mercy hath raised you up the best of
guardians in the stead of your ain poor Tutor.  Malcolm, laddie, you will
ride the morn with this gentleman to the true head of your name, your ain
King, whom God for ever bless!'  His voice quivered.  'And be it your
study so to profit by his example and nurture, as to do your devoir by
him for ever.'

'Nay, father,' cried Malcolm, 'I cannot leave you and Lily.'

'If you call me father, do my bidding,' said Sir David.  'Lily can be
safely bestowed with the good Sisters of St. Abbs, nor while you are out
of Albany's reach is the poor lassie worth his molesting; but when I am
gone, your uncles of Albany and Athole become your tutors, and the Prior
has no power to save you.  Only over the Border with the King is there
safety from them, and your ruin is the ruin of your sister.'

'And,' added Sir James, 'when the King is at liberty, or when you
yourself are of age, you will return to resume the charge of your fair
sister, unless some nearer protector be found.  Meantime,' he laid one
hand on Malcolm's head, and with the other took out the relic which had
had so great an effect upon Walter Stewart, 'I swear on this holy Rood of
St. Andrew, that Malcolm Stewart of Glenuskie shall be my charge, not
merely as my kinsman, but as my young brother.'

'You hear, Malcolm,' said Sir David.  'You will strive to merit such
goodness.'

'Father,' broke out the poor boy again, 'you cannot mean to part us!  Let
us abide as we have been till I am of age to take my vows!  I am not fit
to serve the King.'

'He is the best judge of that,' returned Sir James.

'And,' added Sir David, 'I tell you, lad, that I shall never be as I was
before, and that were I a whole man and sain, riding back to Glenuskie
the morn, I should still bless the saints and bid you gang.'

Rarely did the youth of the fifteenth century venture to question the
authority of an elder, but Malcolm was only silenced for a moment, and
though by no means understanding that his guardian believed his injuries
mortal, he threw himself upon the advice of the Prior, whom he entreated
to allow him to judge for himself, and to remain to protect his sister--he
talked boldly of protecting her after this day's exploit.  But Prior
Akecliff gave him no more encouragement than did his uncle.  The
Benedictine vows were out of the question till he should be eighteen, and
the renunciation of the world they involved would be ruinous to Lilias,
since she would become his heiress.  Moreover, the Prior himself was
almost in a state of siege, for the Regent was endeavouring to intrude on
the convent one Brother William Drake, or Drax, by his own nomination,
instead of the canonical appointment emanating from Durham, and as
national feeling went with the Regent's nominee, it was by no means
certain that the present Prior would be able to maintain his position.

'Oh, go! yes, go, dear brother,' entreated Lilias.  'I should be far
happier to know you in safety.  They cannot hurt me while you are safe.'

'But you, Lily!  What if this villain Drax have his way?'

'He could not harm her in St. Ebba's fold,' returned the Prior.  'The
Abbess herself could not yield her; and, as you have so often been told,
my young Lord, your absence is a far greater protection to your sister
than your presence.  Moreover, were the Tutor's mind at rest, there would
be far better hope of his recovery.'

There was no alternative, and Malcolm could not but submit.  Lilias was
to be conducted before daybreak to the monastery of St. Abbs, about six
miles off, whence she could be summoned at any time to be with her uncle
in Coldingham; and Malcolm was to set off at daybreak with the captive
knight, whose return to England could no longer be delayed.

Poor children! while Sir James Stewart was in the Prior's chamber, they
sat silent and mournful by the bedside where their guardian lay dozing,
even till the bell for Matins summoned them in common with all the other
inmates of the convent; they knelt on the floor of the candle-lit church,
and held each other's hands as they prayed; Lilias still the stronger and
more hopeful, while Malcolm, as he looked up at those dear familiar
vaultings, felt as if he were a bird driven from its calm peaceful nest
to battle with the tossing winds and storms of ocean, without one near
him whom he had learnt to love.

It was still dark when the service had ended, and Prior Akecliff came
towards them.  'Daughter,' he said to Lilias, 'we deem it safer that you
should ride to St. Abbs ere daylight.  Your palfrey is ready, the Mother
Abbess is warned, and I will myself conduct you thither.'

Priors were not people to be kept waiting, and as it was reported that
the Tutor of Glenuskie was still asleep, Lilias had to depart without
taking leave of him.  With Malcolm the last words were spoken while
crossing the court.  'Fear not, Lily; my heart will only weary till the
Church owns me, and Patie has you.'

'Nay, my Malcolm; mayhap, as the Prior tells me, your strength and
manhood will come in the south country.'

'Let them,' said Malcolm; 'I will neither cheat the Church nor Patie.'

'It were no cheat.  There never was any compact.  Patie is winning his
fortune by his own sword; he would scorn--'

'Hush, Lily!  When the King sees what a weakling Sir James has brought
him, he will be but too glad to exchange Patie for me, and leave me safe
in these blessed walls.'

But here they were under the archway, and the convoy of armed men, whom
the exigencies of the time forced the convent to maintain, were already
mounted.  Sir James stood ready to assist the lady to her saddle, and
with one long earnest embrace the brother and sister were parted, and
Lilias rode away with the Prior by her side, letting the tears flow
quietly down her cheeks in the darkness, and but half hearing the long
arguments by which good Father Akecliff was proving to her that the
decision was the best for both Malcolm and herself.

By and by the dawn began to appear, the air of the March night became
sharper, and in the distance the murmur and plash of the tide was heard.
Then, standing heavy and dark against the clear pale eastern sky, there
arose the dark mass of St. Ebba's monastery, the parent of Coldingham,
standing on the very verge of the cliff to which it has left the name of
St. Abb's Head, upon ground which has since been undermined by the waves,
and has been devoured by them.  The sea, far below, calmly brightened
with the brightening sky, and reflected the morning stars in a lucid
track of light, strong enough to make the lights glisten red in the
convent windows.  Lilias was expected, was a frequent guest, and had many
friends there, and as the sweet sound of the Lauds came from the chapel,
and while she dismounted in the court the concluding 'Amen' swelled and
died away, she, though no convent bird, felt herself in a safe home and
shelter under the wing of kind Abbess Annabel Drummond, and only mourned
that Malcolm, so much tenderer and more shrinking than herself, should be
driven into the unknown world that he dreaded so much more than she did.




CHAPTER III: HAL


The sun had not long been shining on the dark walls of St. Ebba's
monastery, before the low-browed gate of Coldingham Priory opened to let
pass the guests of the previous night.  Malcolm had been kissed and
blessed by his guardian, and bidden to transfer his dutiful obedience to
his new protector; and somewhat comforted by believing Sir David to be
mending since last night, he had rent himself away, and was riding in the
frosty morning air beside the kinsman who had so strangely taken charge
of him, and accompanied by Sir James's tall old Scottish squire, by the
English groom, and by Malcolm's own servant, Halbert.

For a long space there was perfect silence: and as Malcolm began to
detach his thoughts from all that he had left behind, he could not help
being struck with the expressions that flitted over his companion's
countenance.  For a time he would seem lost in some deep mournful
reverie, and his head drooped as if in sadness or perplexity; then a
sudden gleam would light up his face, as if a brilliant project had
occurred to him, his lips would part, his eyes flash, he would impel his
horse forward as though leading a charge, or lift up his head with
kindling looks, like one rehearsing a speech; but ever a check would come
on him in the midst, his mouth closed in dejection, his brow drew
together in an anguish of impatience, his eyelids drooped in weariness,
and he would ride on in deep reflection, till roused perhaps by the
flight of a moor-fowl, or the rush of a startled roe, he would hum some
gay French hunting-song or plaintive Scottish ballad.

Scarcely a word had been uttered, until towards noon, on the borders of a
little narrow valley, the merry sound of bells clashed up to their ears,
and therewith sounds of music.  ''Tis the toon of Christ's Kirk on the
Green,' said the squire, as Sir James looked at him for information,
'where we were to bait.  Methought in Lent we had been spared this
gallimawfrey.'

''Tis Midlent week, you pagan,' replied Sir James.  'These good folk have
come a-mothering, and a share of their simnels we'll have.'

'Sir,' entreated the squire, 'were it not more prudent of you to tarry
without, and let me fetch provisions?'

'Hoot, man, a throng is our best friend!  Besides, the horses must rest.'

So saying, Sir James rode eagerly forward; Malcolm following, not without
wonder at not having been consulted, for though kept in strict discipline
by his uncle, it had always been with every courtesy due to his rank as a
king's grandson; and the cousins, from whom he had suffered, were of the
same rank with himself.  Did this wandering landless knight, now he had
him in his power, mean to disregard all that was his due?  But when Sir
James turned round his face sparkling with good-humour and amusement, and
laughed as he said, 'Now then for the humours of a Scottish fair!' all
his offended dignity was forgotten.

The greensward was surrounded by small huts and hovels; a little old
stone church on one side, and a hostel near it, shadowed by a single tall
elm, beneath which was the very centre of the village wake.  Not only was
it Midlent, but the day was the feast of a local saint, in whose honour
Lenten requirements were relaxed.  Monks and priests were there in
plenty, and so were jugglers and maskers, Robin Hood and Marion, glee-men
and harpers, merchants and hucksters, masterful beggars and sorners,
shepherds in gray mauds with wise collies at their feet, shrewd old
carlines with their winter's spinning of yarn, lean wolf-like borderers
peaceable for the nonce, merry lasses with tow-like locks floating from
their snoods, all seen by the intensely glittering sun of a clear March
day, dry and not too cold for these hardy northern folk.

Nigel, the squire, sighed in despondency; and Malcolm, who hated crowds,
and knew himself a mark for the rude observations of a free-spoken
populace, shrank up to him, when Sir James, nodding in time to the tones
of a bagpipe that was playing at the hostel door, flung his bridle to
Brewster the groom, laughed at his glum and contemptuous looks, merrily
hailed the gudewife with her brown face and big silver ear-rings, seated
himself on the bench at the long wooden table under the great garland of
fir-boughs, willow catkins, and primroses, hung over the boughs of the
tree, crossed himself, murmured his _Benedictus benedicat_, drew his
dagger, carved a slice of the haunch of ox on the table, offered it to
the reluctant Malcolm, then helping himself, entered into conversation
with the lean friar on one side of him, and the stalwart man-at-arms
opposite, apparently as indifferent as the rest of the company to the
fact that the uncovered boards of the table were the only trenchers, and
the salt and mustard were taken by the point of each man's dagger from
common receptacles dispersed along the board.  Probably the only person
really disgusted or amazed was the English Brewster, who, though too
cautious to express a word of his feelings, preserved the most complete
silence, and could scarcely persuade himself to taste the rude fare.

Nor when the meal was over was Sir James disposed to heed the wistful
looks of his attendants, but wandered off to watch the contest in archery
at the butts, where arrow after arrow flew wide of the clout, for the
strength of Scotland did not lie in the long-bow, and Albany's edict that
shooting should be practised on Sundays and holidays had not produced as
yet any great dexterity.

Sir James at first laughed merrily at the extraordinary screwings of
visage and contortions of attitude, and the useless demonstration of
effort with which the clowns aimed their shafts and drew their bow,
sometimes to find the arrow on the grass at their feet, sometimes to see
it producing consternation among the bystanders; but when he saw Brewster
standing silently apart, viewing their efforts with a scorn visible
enough in the dead stolidity of his countenance, he murmured a bitter
interjection, and turned away with folded arms and frowning brow.

Nigel again urged their departure, but at that moment the sweet notes of
a long narrative ballad began to sound to the accompaniment of a harp,
and he stood motionless while the wild mournful ditty told of the cruelty
of the Lady of Frendraught, and how

   'Morning sun ne'er shone upon
   Lord John and Rothiemay.

Large tears were dropping from under the hand with he veiled his emotion;
and when Nigel touched his cloak to remind him that the horses were
ready, he pressed the old man's hand, saying, with a sigh, 'I heard that
last at my father's knee!  It rung in my ears for many a year!  Here,
lad!' and dropping a gold coin into the wooden bowl carried round by the
blind minstrel's attendant, he was turning away, when the glee-man,
detecting perhaps the ring of the coin, broke forth in stirring tones--

   "It fell about the Lammas tide,
      When moormen win their hay,
   The doughty Earl of Douglas rode
      Into England to catch a prey."

Again he stood transfixed, beating time with his hand, his eyes beaming,
his hips moving as he followed the spirit-stirring ballad; and then, as
Douglas falls, and is laid beneath the bracken bush, unseen by his men,
and Montgomery forces Hotspur to yield, not to him, but

         'to the bracken bush
   That grows upon the lily lea,'

he sobbed without disguise; and no sooner was the ballad ended than he
sprang forward to the harper, crying, 'Again, again; another gold crown
to hear it again!'

'Sir,' entreated Nigel, 'remember how much hangs on your speed.'

'The ballad I _must_ have,' exclaimed Sir James, trying to shake him off.
'It moves the heart more than aught I ever heard!  How runs it?'

'_I_ know the ballad,' said Malcolm, half in impatience, half in
contempt.  'I could sing every word of it.  Every glee-man has it.'

'Nay--hear you, Sir--the lad can sing it,' reiterated Nigel; and Sir
James, throwing the promised guerdon to the minstrel, let himself be led
away to the front of the inn; but there was a piper, playing to a group
of dancers, and as if his feet could not resist the fascination, Sir
James held out his hand to the first comely lass he saw disengaged, and
in spite of the steel-guarded boots that he wore, answered foot for foot,
spring for spring, to the deft manoeuvres of her shoeless feet, with
equal agility and greater grace.  Nigel frowned more than ever at this
exhibition, and when the knight had led his panting partner to a seat,
and called for a tankard of ale for her refreshment, he remonstrated more
seriously still.  'Sir, the gates of Berwick will be shut.'

'The days lengthen, man.'

'And who knows if some of yon land-loupers be not of Walter Stewart's
meine?  Granted that they ken not yourself, that lad is only too
ken-speckle.  Moreover, you ye made free enough with your siller to set
the haill crew of moss-troopers on our track.'

'Twenty mile to Berwick-gate,' said Sir James, carelessly; 'nor need you
ever look behind you at jades like theirs.  Nay, friend, I come, since
you grudge me for once the sight of a little wholesome glee among my own
people.  My holiday is dropping from me like sands in an hour-glass!'

He mounted, however, and put his horse to as round a pace as could be
maintained by the whole party with out distress; nor did he again break
silence for many miles.

At the gates of Berwick, then in English hands, be gave a pass-word, and
was admitted, he bade Nigel conduct Lord Malcolm to an inn, explaining
that it was his duty to present himself to the governor; and, being
detained to sup with him, was seen no more till they started the next
morning.  The governor rode out with them some ten miles, with a strong
guard of spearmen; and after parting with him they pushed on to the
south.

After the first day's journey, Malcolm was amazed to see Sir James mount
without any of his defensive armour, which was piled on the spare horse;
his head was covered by a chaperon, or flat cap with a short curtain to
it, and his sword was the only weapon he retained.  Nigel was also nearly
unarmed, and Sir James advised Malcolm himself to lay aside the light
hawberk he wore; then, at his amazed look, said, 'Poor lad! he never saw
the day when he could ride abroad scathless.  When will the breadth of
Scotland be as safe as these English hills?'

He was very kind to his young companion, treating him in all things like
a guest, pointing out what was worthy of note, and explaining what was
new and surprising.  Malcolm would have asked much concerning the King,
to whom he was bound, but these questions were the only ones Sir James
put aside, saying that his kinsman would one day learn that it ill
beseemed those who were about a king's person to speak of him freely.

One night was spent at Durham, the parent of Coldingham, and here Malcolm
felt at home, far more grand as was that mighty cathedral institution.
There it stood, with the Weir encircling it, on its own fair though
mighty hill, with all the glory of its Norman mister and lovely
Lady-chapel; yet it seemed to the boy more like a glorified Coldingham
than like a strange region.

'The peace of God rests on the place,' he said, when Sir James asked his
thoughts as he looked back at the grand mass of buildings.  'These are
the only spots where the holy and tender can grow, like the Palestine
lilies sheltered from the blast in the Abbot's garden at Coldingham.'

'Nay, lad, it were an ill world did lilies only grow in abbots' gardens.'

'It is an ill world,' said Malcolm.

'Let us hear what you say in a month's time,' replied the knight,
lightly: then dreaming over the words.

A few days more, and they were riding among the lovely rock and woodland
scenery of Yorkshire, when suddenly there leaped from behind a bush three
or four young men, with a loud shout of 'Stand.'

'Reivers!' thought Malcolm, sick with dismay, as the foremost grasped Sir
James's bridle; but the latter merely laughed, saying, 'How now, Hal! be
these your old tricks?'

'Ay, when such prizes are errant,' said the assailant and Sir James,
springing from his horse, embraced him and his companion with a
cordiality that made Malcolm not a little uneasy.  Could he have been
kidnapped by a false Englishman into a den of robbers for the sake of his
ransom?

'You are strict to your time,' said the chief robber.  'I knew you would
be.  So, when Ned Marmion came to Beverley, and would have us to see his
hunting at Tanfield, we came on thinking to meet you.  Marmion here has a
nooning spread in the forest; ere we go on to Thirsk, where I have a
matter to settle between two wrong-headed churls.  How has it been with
you, Jamie? you have added to your meine.'

'Ah, Hal! never in all your cut-purse days did you fall on such an
emprise as I have achieved.'

'Let us hear,' said Hal, linking his arm in Sir James's, who turned for a
moment to say, 'Take care of the lad, John; he is a young kinsman of
mine.'

'Kinsman!' thought Malcolm; 'do all wandering Stewarts claim kin to the
blood royal?' but then, as he looked at Sir James's stately head, he felt
that no assumption could be unbecoming in one of such a presence, and so
kind to himself; and, ashamed of the moment's petulance, dismounted, and,
as John said, 'This is the way to our noon meat,' he let himself be
conducted through the trees to a glade, sheltered from the wind, where a
Lenten though not unsavoury meal of bread, dried fish, and eggs was laid
out on the grass, in a bright warm sunshine; and Hal, declaring himself
to have a hunter's appetite, and that he knew Jamie had been starved in
Scotland, and was as lean as a greyhound, seated himself on the grass,
and to Malcolm's extreme surprise, not to say disgust, was served by Lord
Marmion on the knee and with doffed cap.

While the meal was being eaten, Malcolm studied the strangers.  Lord
Marmion was a good-humoured, hearty-looking young Yorkshireman, but the
other two attracted his attention far more.  They were evidently
brothers, one perhaps just above, the other just below, thirty; both of
the most perfect mould of symmetry, activity, and strength, though
perhaps more inclining to agility than robustness.  Both were
fair-complexioned, and wore no beard; but John was the paler, graver, and
more sedate, and his aquiline profile had an older look than that borne
by Hal's perfectly regular features.  It would have been hard to define
what instantly showed the seniority of his brother, for the clearness of
his colouring--bright red and white like a lady's--his short,
well-moulded chin, and the fresh earnestness and animation of his
countenance, gave an air of perpetual youth in spite of the scar of an
arrow on the cheek which told of at least one battle; but there were
those manifestations of being used to be the first which are the evident
tokens of elder sonship, and the lordly manner more and more impressed
Malcolm.  He was glad that his own Sir James was equal in dignity, as
well as superior in height, and he thought the terrible red lightning of
those auburn eyes would be impossible to the sparkling azure eyes of the
Englishman, steadfast, keen, and brilliant unspeakably though they were;
but so soon as Sir James seemed to have made his explanation, the look
was most winningly turned on him, a hand held out, and he was thus
greeted: 'Welcome, my young Prince Malcolm; I am happy that your cousin
thinks so well of our cheer, that he has brought you to partake it.'

'His keeper, Somerset,' thought Malcolm, as he bowed stiffly; 'he seems
to treat me coolly enough.  I come to serve my King,' he said, but he was
scarcely heard; for as Hal unbuckled his sword before sitting down on the
grass, he thrust into his bosom a small black volume, with which he
seemed to have been beguiling the time; and John exclaimed--

'There goes Godfrey de Bulloin.  I tell you, Jamie, 'tis well you are
come!  Now have I some one to speak with.  Ever since Harry borrowed my
Lady of Westmoreland's book of the Holy War, he has not had a word to
fling at me.'

'Ah!' said Sir James, 'I saw a book, indeed, of the Holy Land!  It would
tempt him too much to hear how near the Border it dwells!  What was it
named, Malcolm?'

'The "Itinerarium of Adamnanus,"' replied Malcolm, blushing at the sudden
appeal.

'Ha!  I've heard of it,' cried the English knight.  'I sent to half the
convent libraries to beg the loan when Gilbert de Lannoy set forth for
the survey of Palestine.  Does the Monk of Iona tell what commodity of
landing there may be on the coast?'

Malcolm had the sea-port towns at his fingers' ends, and having in the
hard process of translation, and reading and re-reading one of the few
books that came into his hands, nearly mastered the contents, he was able
to reply with promptness and precision, although with much amazement, for

   'Much he marvelled a knight of pride
   Like book-bosomed priest should ride;'

nor had he ever before found his accomplishments treated as aught but
matters of scorn among the princes and nobles with whom he had
occasionally been thrown.

'Good! good!' said Sir Harry at last.  'Well read, and clearly called to
mind.  The stripling will do you credit, James.  Where have you studied,
fair cousin?'

Cousin! was it English fashion to make a cousin of everybody?  But
gentle, humble Malcolm had no resentment in him, and felt gratified at
the friendly tone of so grand and manly-looking a knight.  'At home,' he
answered, 'with a travelling scholar who had studied at Padua and Paris.'

'That is where you Scots love to haunt!  But know you how they are served
there?  I have seen the gibbet where the Mayor of Paris hung two clerks'
sons for loving his daughters over well!'

'The clerks' twa sons of Owsenford that were foully slain!' cried
Malcolm, his face lighting up.  'Oh, Sir, have you seen their gibbet?'

'What? were they friends of yours?' asked Hal, much amused, and shaking
his head merrily at Sir James.  'Ill company, I fear--'

'Only in a ballad,' said Malcolm, colouring, 'that tells how at Yuletide
the ghosts came to their mother with their hats made of the birk that
grew at the gates of Paradise.'

'A rare ballad must that be!' exclaimed Hal.  'Canst sing it?  Or are you
weary?--Marmion, prithee tell some of the fellows to bring my harp from
the baggage.'

'His own harp is with ours,' said Sir James; 'he will make a better
figure therewith.'

At his sign, the attendant, Nigel, the only person besides Lord Marmion
of Tanfield who had been present at the meal, besides the two Stewarts
and the English brothers, rose and disappeared between the trees, beyond
which a hum of voices, an occasional laugh, and the stamping of horses
and jingling of bridles, betokened that a good many followers were in
waiting.  Malcolm's harp was quickly brought, having been slung in its
case to the saddle of Halbert's horse; and as he had used it to beguile
the last evening's halt, it did not need much tuning.  Surprised as his
princely notions were at being commanded rather than requested to sing,
the sweet encouraging smile and tone of kind authority banished all
hesitation in complying, and he gave the ballad of the Clerks' Twa Sons
of Owsenford with much grace and sweetness, while the weakness of his
voice was compensated by the manlier strains with which Sir James
occasionally chimed in.  Then, as Harry gave full meed of appreciative
praise and thanks, Sir James said, 'Lend me thine harp, Malcolm; I have
learnt thy song now; and thou, Harry, must hear and own how far our
Scottish minstrelsy exceeds thy boasted Chevy Chase.'

And forth rang in all the mellow beauty of his voice that most glorious
of ballads, the Battle of Otterburn, as much more grand than it had been
when he heard it from the glee-man or from Malcolm, as a magnificent
voice, patriotic enthusiasm, and cultivation and refinement, could make
it.  He had lost himself and all around in the passion of the victory,
the pathos of the death.  But no such bright look of thanks recompensed
him.  Harry's face grew dark, and he growled, 'Douglas dead?  Ay, he wins
more fields so than alive!  I wish you would keep my old Shrewsbury
friend, Earl Tyneman, as you call him, at home.'

''Tis ill keeping the scholars in bounds when the master is away,'
returned Sir James.

'Well, by this time Tom has taught them how to transgress--sent them home
with the long scourge from robbing orchards in Anjou.  He writes to me
almost with his foot in the stirrup, about to give Douglas and Buchan a
lesson.  I shall make short halts and long stages south.  This is too far
off for tidings.'

'True,' said Sir John, with a satirical curl of the lip; 'above all, when
fair ladies brook not to ink their ivory fingers.'

'There spake the envious fiend,' laughed the elder brother.  'John bears
not the sight of what he will not or cannot get.'

'I'll never be chained to a lady's litter, nor be forced to loiter till
her wimple is pinned,' retorted John.  'Nor do I like dames with two
husbands besides.'

'One would have cancelled the other, as grammarians tell us,' said Harry,
'if thy charms, John, had cancelled thine hook nose!  I would they had,
ere her first marriage.  Humfrey will burn his fingers there, and we must
hasten back to look after that among other things.--My Lord Marmion,' he
added, starting hastily up, and calling to him as he stood at some
distance conversing with the Scottish Nigel, 'so please you, let us have
the horses;' and as the gentleman hastened to give the summons, he said,
'We shall make good way now.  We shall come on Watling Street.  Ha,
Jamie, when shall we prove ourselves better men than a pack of Pagan
Romans, by having a set of roads fit for man or beast, of our own making
instead of theirs half decayed?  Look where I will, in England or France,
their roads are the same in build--firm as the world itself, straight as
arrows.  An army is off one's mind when once one gets on a Roman way.
I'll learn the trick, and have them from Edinburgh to Bordeaux ere ten
years are out; and then, what with traffic and converse with the world,
and ready justice, neither Highland men minor Gascons will have leisure
or taste for robbery.'

'Perhaps Gascons and Scots will have a voice in the matter,' said James,
a little stiffly; and the horses being by this time brought, Sir Harry
mounted, and keeping his horse near that of young Malcolm, to whom he had
evidently taken a fancy, he began to talk to him in so friendly and
winning a manner, that he easily drew from the youth the whole history of
his acquaintance with Sir James Stewart, of the rescue of his sister, and
the promise to conduct him to the captive King of Scots, as the only
means of saving him from his rapacious kindred.

'Poor lad!' said Harry, gravely.

'Do you know King James, Sir?' asked Malcolm, timidly.

'Know him?' said Harry, turning round to scan the boy with his merry blue
eye.  'I know him--yes; that as far as a poor Welsh knight can know his
Grace of Scotland.'

'And, Sir, will he be good lord to me?'

'Eh! that's as you may take him.  I would not be one of yonder Scots
under his hands!'

'Has he learned to hate his own countrymen?' asked Malcolm, in an awe-
stricken voice.

'Hate?  I trow he has little to love them for.  He is a good fellow
enough, my young lord, when left to himself; but best beware.  Lions in a
cage have strange tempers.'

A courier rode up at the moment, and presented some letters, which Sir
Harry at once opened and read, beckoning his brother and Sir James to his
side, while Malcolm rode on in their wake, in a state of dismay and
bewilderment.  Nigel and Lord Marmion were together at so great an
interval that he could not fall back on them, nor learn from them who
these brothers were.  And there was something in the ironical suppressed
pity with which Harry had spoken of his prospects with the King of Scots,
that terrified him all the more, because he knew that Sir James and Nigel
would both hold it unworthy of him to have spoken freely of his own
sovereign with an Englishman.  Would James be another Walter? and, if so,
would Sir James Stewart protect him?  He had acquired much affection for,
and strong reliance on, the knight; but there was something unexplained,
and his heart sank.

The smooth line of Watling Street at length opened into the old town of
Thirsk, and here bells were ringing, flags flying from the steeple, music
sounded, a mayor and his corporation in their robes rode slowly forth,
crowds lined the road-side, caps were flung up, and a tremendous shout
arose, 'God save King Harry!'

Malcolm gazed about more utterly discomfited.  There was 'Harry,' upright
on his horse, listening with a gracious smile, while the mayor rehearsed
a speech about welcome and victories, and the hopeful queen, and, what
was still more to the purpose, tendered a huge pair of gauntlets, each
filled to the brim, one with gold, and the other with silver pieces.

'Eh!  Thanks, Master Mayor, but these gloves must be cleared, ere there
is room for me to use them in battle!'

And handing the gold glove to his brother, he scattered the contents of
the silver one far and wide among the populace, who shouted their
blessings louder than ever, and thus he reached the market-place.  There
all was set forth as for the lists, a horseman in armour on either side.

'Heigh now, Sirs,' said Harry, 'have we not wars enough toward without
these mummings of vanity?'

'This is no show, my Lord King,' returned the mayor, abashed.  'This is
deadly earnest.  These are two honourable gentlemen of Yorkshire, who are
come hither to fight out their quarrel before your Grace.'

'Two honourable foolsheads!' muttered Harry; then, raising his voice,
'Come hither, gentlemen, let us hear your quarrel.'

The two gentlemen were big Yorkshiremen, heavy-browed, and their native
shrewdness packed far away behind a bumpkin stolidity and surliness that
barely allowed them to show respect to the King.

'So please you, Sir,' growled the first in his throat, 'here stands
Christopher Kitson of Barrowbridge, ready to avouch himself a true man,
and prove in yonder fellow's teeth that it was not a broken-kneed beast
that I sent up for a heriard to my Lord Archbishop when my father died;
but that he of Easingwold is a black slanderer and backbiter.'

'And here,' shouted the other, 'stands honest William Trenton of
Easingwold, ready to thrust his lies down his throat, and prove on his
body that the heriard he sent to my Lord Archbishop was a sorry jade.'

'That were best proved by the beast's body,' interposed time King.

'And,' proceeded the doughty Kitson, as though repeating a lesson,
'having vainly pleaded the matter these nine years, we are come to demand
licence to fight it out, with lance, sword, and dagger, in your royal
presence, to set the matter at rest for ever.'

'Breaking a man's head to prove the soundness of a horse!' ejaculated
Harry.

'Your licence is given, Sir King?' demanded Kitson.

'My licence is given for a combat _a l'outrance_,' said Henry; but, as
they were about to flounder back on their big farm-horses, he raised his
voice to a thundering sound: 'Solely on this condition, that he who slays
his neighbour, be he Trenton or Kitson, shall hang for the murder ere I
leave Thirsk.'

There was a recoil, and the mayor himself ventured to observe something
about the judgment of God, and 'never so seen.'

'And I say,' thundered Henry, and his blue eyes seemed to flame with
vehement indignation, 'I say that the ordeal of battle is shamefully
abused, and that it is a taking of God's name--ay, and man's life--in
vain, to appeal thereto on every coxcomb's quarrel, risking the life that
was given him to serve God's ends, not his own sullen fancy.  I will have
an end of such things!--And you, gentlemen, since the heriard is dead, or
too old to settle the question, shake hands, and if you must let blood,
come to France with me next month, and flesh your knives on French and
Scots.'

'So please you, Sir,' grumbled Kitson, 'there's Mistress Agnes of
Mineshull; she's been in doubt between the two of us these five years,
and she'd promised to wed whichever of us got the better.'

'I'll settle her mind for her!  Whichever I find foremost among the
French, I'll send home to her a knight, and with better sense to boot
than to squabble for nine years as to an old horse.'

He then dismounted, and was conducted into the town-hall, where a banquet
was prepared, taking by the hand Sir James Stewart, and followed by his
brother John, and by Malcolm, who felt as though his brain were turning,
partly with amazement, partly with confusion at his own dulness, as he
perceived that not only was the free-spoken Hal, Henry of Monmouth, King
of England, but that his wandering benefactor, the captive knight, whose
claim of kindred he had almost spurned, was his native sovereign, James
the First of Scotland.




CHAPTER IV: THE TIDINGS OF BEAUGE


Malcolm understood it at last.  In the great chamber where he was bidden
to wait within 'Nigel' till 'Sir James' came from a private conference
with 'Harry,' he had all explained to him, but within a curtness and
brevity that must not be imitated in the present narrative.

The squire Nigel was in fact Sir Nigel Baird, Baron of Bairdsbrae, the
gentleman to whom poor King Robert II. had committed the charge of his
young son James, when at fourteen he had been sent to France, nominally
for education, but in reality to secure him from the fate of his brother
Rothsay.

Captured by English vessels on the way, the heir of Scotland had been too
valuable a prize to be resigned by the politic Henry IV., who had lodged
him at Windsor Castle, together with Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, and
placed both under the nominal charge of the Prince of Wales, a youth of a
few years older.  Unjust as was the detention, it had been far from
severe; the boys had as much liberty as their age and recreation
required, and received the choicest training both in the arts of war and
peace.  They were bred up in close intercourse with the King's own four
sons, and were united with them by the warmest sympathy.

In fact, since usurpation had filled Henry of Lancaster's mind with
distrust and jealousy, his eldest son had been in no such enviable
position as to be beyond the capacity of fellow-feeling for the royal
prisoner.

Of a peculiarly frank, open, and affectionate nature, young Henry had so
warmly loved the gentle and fascinating Richard II., that his trust in
the father, of whom he had seen little in his boyhood, had received a
severe shock through Richard's fate.  Under the influence of a new,
suspicious, and avaricious wife, the King kept his son as much at a
distance as possible, chiefly on the Welsh marches, learning the art of
war under Hotspur and Oldcastle; and when the father and son were brought
together again, the bold, free bearing and extraordinary ability of the
Prince filled the suspicious mind of the King with alarm and jealousy.  To
keep him down, give him no money, and let him gain no influence, was the
narrow policy of the King; and Henry, chafing, dreaming, feeling the
injustice, and pining for occupation, shared his complaints within James,
and in many a day-dream restored him freely to his throne, and together
redressed the wrongs of the world.  Meantime, James studied deep in
preparation, and recreated himself with poetry, inspired by the charms of
Joan Beaufort, the lovely daughter of the King's legitimatized brother,
the Earl of Somerset; while Henry persisted in a boy's passionate love to
King Richard's maiden widow, Isabel of France.  Entirely unrequited as
his affection was, it had a beneficial effect.  Next after his deep sense
of religion, it kept his life pure and chivalrous.  He was for ever
faithful to his future wife, even when Isabel had been returned to
France, and his romantic passion had fixed itself on her younger sister
Catherine, whom he endowed in imagination with all he had seen or
supposed in her.

Credited with every excess by the tongue of his stepmother, too active-
minded not to indulge in freakish sports and experiments in life very
astounding to commonplace minds, sometimes when in dire distress even
helping himself to his unpaid allowance from his father's mails, and
always with buoyant high spirits and unfailing drollery that scandalized
the grave seniors of the Court, there is full proof that Prince Hal ever
kept free from the gross vices which a later age has fancied inseparably
connected with his frolics; and though always in disgrace, the vexation
of the Court, and a by-word for mirth, he was true to the grand ideal he
was waiting to accomplish, and never dimmed the purity and loftiness of
his aim.  That little band of princely youths, who sported, studied,
laughed, sang, and schemed in the glades of Windsor, were strangely
brought together--the captive exiled King, the disinherited heir of the
realm, and the sons of the monarch who held the one in durance and
occupied the throne of the other; and yet their affection had all the
frank delight of youthful friendship.  The younger lads were in more
favour with their father than was the elder.  Thomas was sometimes
preferred to him in a mortifying manner, John's grave, quiet nature
prevented him from ever incurring displeasure, and Humfrey was the spoilt
pet of the family; but nothing could lessen Harry's large-minded love of
his brothers; and he was the idol and hero of the whole young party, who
implicitly believed in his mighty destinies as a renovator of the world,
the deliverer of Jerusalem, and restorer of the unity and purity of the
Church.

'Harry the Fifth was crowned,' and with the full intention of carrying
out his great dream.  But his promise of releasing James became matter of
question.  The House of Albany, who held the chief power in Scotland, had
bound Henry IV. over not to free their master; and it was plain that to
send him home before his welcome was ensured would be but tossing him on
their spears.  In vain James pleaded that he was no boy, and was able to
protect himself; and vowed that when the faithful should rally round his
standard, he would be more than a match for his enemies; or that if not,
he would rather die free than live in bondage.  Henry would not listen,
and insisted upon retaining him until he should himself be at leisure to
bring him home with a high hand, utterly disregarding his assurance that
this would only be rendering him in the eyes of his subjects another
despised and hated Balliol.

Deeming himself a divinely-appointed redresser of wrongs, Henry was
already beginning on his great work of purifying Europe in preparation
for his mighty Crusade; and having won that splendid victory which laid
distracted France at his feet, he only waited to complete the conquest as
thoroughly and rapidly as might be; and, lest his grand purpose should be
obstructed, this great practical visionary, though full of kindness and
generosity, kept in thraldom a whole troop of royal and noble captives.

He had, however, been so far moved by James's entreaties, as to consent
that when he himself offered his devotions at the shrine of St. John of
Beverley, the native saint who shared with the two cordwainers his
gratitude for the glories of 'Crispin Crispian's day,' his prisoner
should, unknown to any save the few who shared the pilgrimage, push on to
reconnoitre his own country, and judge for himself, having first sworn to
reveal himself to no one, and to avoid all who could recognize him.  James
had visited Glenuskie within a special view to profiting by the wisdom of
Sir David Drummond, and had then been at Stirling, Edinburgh, and Perth.
On his way back, falling in with Malcolm in his distress, he had
conceived the project of taking him to England; and finding himself
already more than half recognized by Sir David, had obtained his most
grateful and joyous consent.  In truth, James's heart had yearned to his
young cousin, his own situation had become much more lonely of late; for
Henry was no longer the comrade he had once been, since he had become a
keeper instead of a fellow-sufferer.  It was true that he did his best to
forget this by lavishing indulgences on his captive, and insisting on
being treated on terms of brotherly familiarity; but though his
transcendent qualities commanded love, the intimacy could be but a
semblance of the once equal friendship.  Moreover, that conspiracy which
cost the life of the Earl of Cambridge had taught James that cautious
reserve was needed in dealing with even his old friends the princes, so
easily might he be accused of plotting either with Henry's immediate heir
or with the Mortimers; and, in this guarded life, he had hailed with
delight the opportunity of taking to himself the young orphan cousin of
kindred blood, of congenial tastes, and home-like speech, whom he might
treat at once as a younger brother and friend, and mould by and by into a
trusty counsellor and assistant.  That peculiar wistfulness and
gentleness of Malcolm's look and manner, together with the refinement and
intellect apparent to all who conversed with him without alarming him,
had won the King's heart, and made him long to keep the boy with him.  As
to Malcolm's longing for the cloister, he deemed it the result of the
weakly health and refined nature which shrank from the barbarism of the
outer world, and he thought it would pass away under shelter from the
rude taunts of the fierce cousins, at a distance from the well-meaning
exhortations of the monks, and at the spectacle of brave and active men
who could also be pious, conscientious, and cultivated.  In the renewed
sojourn at Windsor which James apprehended, the training of such a youth
as Malcolm of Glenuskie would be no small solace.

By the time Malcolm had learnt as much of all this as Sir Nigel Baird
knew, or chose to communicate, the King entered the room.  He flung
himself on his knees, exclaiming, with warm gratitude, as he kissed the
King's hand, 'My liege, I little kenned--'

'I meant thee to ken little,' said James, smiling.  'Well, laddie, wilt
thou share the prisoner's cell?--Ay, Bairdsbrae, you were a true prophet.
Harry will do all himself, and will not hear of losing me to deal with my
own people at my own gate.  No, no, he'll have me back with Southron bows
and bills, so soon as this small trifle of France lies quiet in his
grasp!  I had nearly flung back my parole in his face, and told him that
no English sword should set me on the Bruce's throne; but there is
something in Harry of Monmouth that one _must_ love, and there are
moments when to see and hear him one would as soon doubt the commission
of an angel with a flaming sword.'

'A black angel!' growled Sir Nigel.

'Scoff and chafe, Baird, but look at his work.  Look at Normandy, freed
from misrule and exaction, in peace and order.  Look at this land.  Was
ever king so loved?  Or how durst he act as he did this day?'

'Nay, an it were so at home,' said Baird, 'I had as lief stay here as
where a man is not free to fight out his own feud.  Even this sackless
callant thought it shame to see two honest men baulked.'

'Poor Scotland!' sighed James.  'Woe is the land where such thoughts come
readiest to gray-haired men and innocent boys.  I tell you, cousin, this
precious right is the very cause that our poor country is so lawless and
bloody, that yon poor silly sparrow would fain be caged for fear of the
kites and carrion-crows.'

'Alack, my Lord, let me but have my way.  I cannot fight!  Let Patrick
Drummond have my sister and my lands, and your service will be far better
done,' said Malcolm.

'I know all that,' said the King, kindly.  'There is time enough for
settling that question; and meantime you will not be spoilt for monk or
priest by cheering me awhile in my captivity.  I need you, laddie,' me
added, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, with all the instinctive
fascination of a Stewart.  'I lack a comrade of my own blood, for I am
all alone!'

'Oh, Sir!' and Malcolm, looking into his face, saw it full of tenderness.

'Books and masters you shall have,' continued James, 'such as for church
or state, cathedral, cloister, or camp, shall render you the meeter
prince; and I pass you my royal word, that if at full age the cowl be
your choice, I will not gainsay you.  Meantime, abide with me, and be the
young brother I have yearned for.'

The King threw his arms round Malcolm, who felt, and unconsciously
manifested, a strange bliss in that embrace, even while fixed in his
determination that nothing should make him swerve from his chosen path,
nor render him false to his promise to Patrick and Lilias.  It was a
strange change, from being despised and down-trodden by fierce cousins,
or only fondled, pitied, and treated with consideration by his own
nearest and dearest friends, to be the chosen companion of a king, and
_such_ a king.  Nor could it be a wile of Satan, thought Malcolm, since
James still promised him liberty of choice.  He would ask counsel of a
priest next time he went to confession; and in the meantime, in the full
tide of gratitude, admiration, and affection, he gave himself up to the
enjoyment of his new situation, and of time King's kindness and
solicitude.  This was indeed absolutely that of an elder brother; for,
observing that Malcolm's dress and equipments, the work of Glenuskie
looms, supplemented by a few Edinburgh purchases, was uncouth enough to
attract some scornful glances from the crowd who came out to welcome the
royal entrance into York the next day, he instantly sent Brewster in
search of the best tailor and lorimer in the city, and provided so
handsomely for the appearance of young Glenuskie, his horse, and his
attendants, that the whole floor of their quarters was strewn with
doublets, boots, chaperons, and gloves, saddles, bridles, and spurs, when
the Duke of Bedford loitered into the room, and began to banter James for
thus (as he supposed) pranking himself out to meet the lady of his love;
and then bemoaned the fripperies that had become the rage in their once
bachelor court, vowing, between sport and earnest, that Hal was so
enamoured of his fair bride, that anon the conquest of France would be
left to himself and his brother, Tom of Clarence; while James retorted by
thrusts at Bedford's own rusticity of garb, and by endeavouring to force
on him a pair of shoes with points like ram's horns, as a special
passport to the favour of Dame Jac--a lady who seemed to be the object of
Duke John's great distaste.

Suddenly a voice was heard in the gallery of the great old mansion where
they were lodged.  'John!  John!  Here!--Where is the Duke, I say?'  It
was thick and husky, as with some terrible emotion; and the King and Duke
had already started in dismay before the door was thrown open, and King
Henry stood among them, his face of a burning red.

'See here, John!' he said, holding out a letter; and then, with an accent
of wrathful anguish, and a terrible frown, he turned on James,
exclaiming, 'I would send you to the Tower, Sir, did I think you had a
hand in this!'

Malcolm trembled, and sidled nearer his prince; while James, with an
equally fierce look, replied, 'Hold, Sir!  Send me where you will, but
dare not dishonour my name!'  Then changing, as he saw the exceeding
grief on Henry's brow, and heard John's smothered cry of dismay, 'For
Heaven's sake, Harry, what is it?'

'This!' said Henry, less loudly, less hotly, but still with an agony of
indignation: 'Thomas is dead--and by the hand of two of your traitor
Scots!'

'Murdered!' cried James, aghast.

'Murdered by all honest laws of war, but on the battlefield,' said Henry.
'Your cousin of Buchan and old Douglas fell on my brave fellows at
Beauge, when they were spent with travel to stop the robberies in Anjou.
They closed in with their pikes on my brave fellows, took Somerset
prisoner, and for Thomas, while he was dealing with a knight named
Swinton in front, the villain Buchan comes behind and cleaves his head in
twain; and that is what you Scots call fighting!'

'It was worthy of a son of Albany!' said James.  'Would that vengeance
were in my power!'

'Ay, you loved him!' said Henry, grasping James's hand, his passion
softened into a burst of tears, as he wrung his prisoner's hand.  'Nay,
who did not love him, my brave, free-hearted brother?  And that I--I
should have dallied here and left him to bear the brunt, and be cut off
by you felon Scots!'  And he hid his face, struggling within an agony of
heart-rending grief, which seemed to sway his whole tall, powerful frame
as he leant against the high back of a chair; while John, together with
James, was imploring him not to accuse himself, for his presence had been
needful at home; and, to turn the tenor of his thought, James inquired
whether there were any further disaster.

'Not as yet,' said Henry; 'there is not a man left in that
heaven-abandoned crew who knows how to profit by what they have got! but
I must back again ere the devil stir them up a man of wit!--And you, Sir,
can you take order with these heady Scots?'

'From Windsor? no,' said James; 'but set me in the saddle, let me learn
war under such a captain as yourself, and maybe they will not take the
field against me; or if they do, the slayer of Clarence shall rue it.'

'Be it so,' said Henry, wringing his hand.  'You shall with me to France,
Jamie, and see war.  The Scots should flock to the Lion rampant, and
without them the French are mo better than deer, under the fool and
murderer they call Dauphin.  Yet, alas! will any success give me back my
brother--my brother, the brave and true?' he added, weeping again within
time _abandon_ of an open nature and simple age.  'It was for my sins, my
forgetfulness of my great work, that this has come on me.--Ho, Marmion!
carry these tidings from me to the Dean; pray him that the knell be
tolled at the Minster, and a requiem sung for my brother and all who fell
with him.  We will be there ourselves, and the mayor must hold us excused
from his banquet; these men are too loyal not to grieve for their King.'

And, with his arm round the neck of his brother John, Henry left the
room; and before another word could be said, Sir Nigel was there, having
only retired on the King's entrance.  The news was of course all over the
house, and with an old attendant's freedom he exclaimed, 'So, Sir, the
English have found tough cummers at last!'

'Not too honourably,' said James, sadly.

'Hout, would not the puir loons be glad enow of any gate of coming by a
clout at the man's brother that keeps you captive!'

'They have taken away one of those I loved best!' said James.

'I'm no speaking ill of the lad Clarence himself,' said Nigel; 'he was a
braw youth, leal and bold, and he has died in his helm and spurs, as a
good knight should.  I'd wish none of these princes a waur ending.
Moreover, could Swinton have had the wit to keep him living, he'd have
been a bonnie barter for you, my Lord; but ony way the fight was a
gallant one, and the very squire that brought the tidings cannot deny
that our Scots fought like lions.'

'Would Douglas but so fight in any good quarrel!' sighed the King.  'But
what are you longing to ask, Malcolm?  Is it for your kinsman Patrick?  I
fear me that there is little chance of your hearing by name of him.'

'I wot not,' said Sir Nigel; 'I did but ask for that hare-brained young
cousin of mine, Davie Baird, that must needs be off on this journey to
France; and the squire tells me he was no herald, to be answerable for
the rogues that fought on the other side.'

'We shall soon see for ourselves,' said James; 'I am to make this
campaign.'

'You! you, my liege!  Against your own ally, and under the standard of
England!  Woe's me, how could ye be so lost!'

James argued on his own conviction that the true France was with poor
Charles VI., and that it was doing the country no service to prolong the
resistance of the Armagnacs and the Dauphin, who then appeared mere
partisans instead of patriots.  As to fighting under the English banner,
no subjection was involved in an adventurer king so doing: had not the
King of Bohemia thus fought at Crecy? and was not the King of Sicily with
the French army?  Moreover, James himself felt the necessity of gaining
some experience in the art of war.  Theoretically he had studied it with
all his might, from Caesar, Quintus Curtius, and that favourite modern
authority, the learned ecclesiastic, Jean Pave, who was the Vauban of the
fifteenth century; and he had likewise obtained greedily all the
information he could from Henry himself and his warriors; but all this
had convinced him that if war was to be more than a mere raid, conducted
by mere spirit and instinct, some actual apprenticeship was necessary.
Even for such a dash, Henry himself had told him that he would find his
book-knowledge an absolute impediment without some practice, and would
probably fail for that very reason when opposed to tough old seasoned
warriors.  And, prudence apart, James, at five-and-twenty, absolutely
glowed with shame at the thought that every one of his companions had
borne arms for at least ten years past, while his arrows had no mark but
the target, his lances had all been broken in the tilt-yard.  It was this
argument that above all served to pacify old Bairdsbrae; though he
confessed himself very uneasy as to the prejudice it would create in
Scotland, and so evidently loathed the expedition, that James urged on
him to return to Scotland, instead of continuing his attendance.  There
was no fear but that his ransom would be accepted, and he had been absent
twelve years from his home.

'No, no, my Lord; I sware to your father that I'd never quit you till I
brought you safe home again, and, God willing, I'll keep my oath.  But
what's this puir callant to do, that you were set upon rearing upon your
books at Windsor?'

'He shall choose,' said James.  'Either he shall study at the learned
university at Oxford or at Paris, or he shall ride with me, and see how
cities and battles are won.  Speak not yet, cousin; it takes many months
to shake out the royal banner, and you shall look about you ere deciding.
Now give me yonder black cloak; they are assembling for the requiem.'

Malcolm, as he followed his king, was not a little amazed to see that
Henry, the magnificent victor, was wrapped in a plain black serge
garment, his short dark hair uncovered, his feet bare; and that on
arriving at the Minster he threw himself on his knees, almost on his
face, before the choir steps, there remaining while the _De profundis_
and the like solemn and mournful strains floated through the dark
vaultings above him, perhaps soothing while giving expression to the
agony of his affliction, and self-accusation, not for the devastation of
the turbulent country of an insane sovereign, but for his having relaxed
in the mighty work of renovation that he had imposed on himself.

Even when the service was ended, the King would not leave the Minster.  He
lifted himself up to bid Bedford and his companions return; but for
himself, he intended to remain and confess, in preparation for being
'houselled' at the Mass for the dead early the next morning, before
hastening on the southern journey.

Was this, thought the bewildered Malcolm as he fell asleep, the godless
atmosphere he had been used to think all that was not Glenuskie or
Coldingham--England above all?

Indeed, in the frosty twilight of the spring morning, though Henry was
now clad in his usual garb, sleeplessness, sorrow, and fasting made him
as wan and haggard as any ascetic monk; his eyes were sunken, and his
closed lips bore a stern fixed expression, which scarcely softened even
when the sacrificial rite struck the notes of praise; and though a light
came into his eye, it was rather the devotion of one who had offered
himself, than the gleam of hopeful exultation.  The horses stood saddled
at the west door, for Henry was feverishly eager to reach Pontefract,
where he had left his queen, and wished to avoid the delay of breaking
his fast at York, but only to snatch a meal at some country hostel on his
way.

Round the horses, however, a crowd of the citizens were collected to
gaze; and two or three women with children in their arms made piteous
entreaties for the King's healing touch for their little ones.  The kind
Henry waited, ungloved his hand, asked his treasurer for the gold pieces
that were a much-esteemed part of the cure, and signed to his attendant
chaplain to say the Collect appointed for the rite.

Fervent blessings were meantime murmured through the crowd, which broke
out into loud shouts of 'God save King Harry!' as he at length leapt into
the saddle; but at that moment, a feeble, withered old man, leaning on a
staff, and wearing a bedesman's gown, peered up, and muttered to a
comrade--

'Fair-faced, quotha--fair, maybe, but not long for this world!  One is
gone already, and the rest will not be long after; the holy man's words
will have their way--the death mark is on him.'

The words caught James's ear, and he angrily turned round: 'Foul-mouthed
raven, peace with thy traitor croak!' but Bedford caught his arm, crying--

'Hush! 'tis a mere bedesman;' and bending forward to pour a handful of
silver into the beggar's cap, he said, 'Pray, Gaffer, pray--pray for the
dead and living, both.'

'So,' said James, as both mounted, 'there's a fee for a boding traitor.'

'I knew his face,' said Bedford, with a shudder; 'he belonged to
Archbishop Scrope.'

'A traitor, too,' said James.

'Nay, there was too much cause for his words.  Never shall I forget the
day when Scrope was put to death on this very moor on which we are
entering.  There sat my father on his horse, with us four boys around
him, when the old man passed in front of us, and looked at him with a
face pitiful and terrible.  "Harry of Bolingbroke," he said, "because
thou hast done these things, therefore shall thy foes be of thine own
household; the sword shall never depart therefrom, but all the increase
of thy house shall die in the flower of their age, and in the fourth
generation shall their name be clean cut off."  The commons will have it
that at that moment my father was struck with leprosy; and struck to the
heart assuredly he was, nor was he ever the same man again.  I always
believed that those words made him harder upon every prank of poor Hal's,
till any son save Hal would have become his foe!  And see now, the old
bedesman may be in the right; poor pretty Blanche has long been in her
grave, Thomas is with her now, and Jamie,'--he lowered his voice,--'when
men say that Harry hath more of Alexander in him than there is in other
men, it strikes to my heart to think of the ring lying on the empty
throne.'

'Now,' said James, 'what strikes _me_ is, what doleful bodings can come
into a brave man's head on a chill morning before he has broken his fast.
A tankard of hot ale will chase away omens, whether of bishop or
bedesman.'

'It may chase them from the mind, but will not make away with them,' said
John.  'But I might have known better than to speak to you of such
things--you who are well-nigh a Lollard in disbelief of all beyond
nature.'

'No Lollard am I,' said James.  'What Holy Church tells me, I believe
devoutly; but not in that which she bids me loathe as either craft of
devils or of men.'

'Ay, of which?  There lies the question,' said John.

'Of men,' said the Scottish king; 'of men who have wit enough to lay hold
of the weaker side even of a sober youth such as Lord John of Lancaster!
Your proneness to believe in sayings and prophecies, in sorceries and
magic, is the weakest point of all of you.'

'And it is the weakest point in you, James, that you will not credit upon
proof, such proof as was the fulfilment of the prophecy of the place of
my father's death.'

'One such saying as that, fulfilled to the ear, though not in truth, is
made the plea for all this heart-sinking--ay, and what is worse, for the
durance of your father's widow as a witch, and of her brave young son,
because forsooth his name is Arthur of Richemont, and some old Welsh
rhymester hath whispered to Harry that Richmond shall come out of
Brittany, and be king of England.'

'Arthur is no worse off than any other captive of Agincourt,' said
Bedford; 'and I tell you, James, the day may come when you will rue your
want of heed to timely warnings.'

'Better rue once than pine under them all my life, and far better than
let them betray me into deeming some grewsome crime an act of justice, as
you may yet let them do,' said James.

Such converse passed between the two princes, while King Henry rode in
advance, for the most part silent, and only desirous of reaching
Pontefract Castle, where he had left the young wife whose presence he
longed for the more in his trouble.  The afternoon set in with heavy
rain, but he would not halt, although he gave free permission to any of
his suite to do so; and James recommended Malcolm to remain, and come on
the next day with Brewster.  The boy, however, disclaimed all weariness,
partly because bashfulness made him unwilling to venture from under his
royal kinsman's wing, and partly because he could not bear to let the
English suppose that a Scotsman and a Stewart could be afraid of weather.
As the rain became harder with the evening twilight, silence sank upon
the whole troop, and they went splashing on through the deep lanes, in
mud and mire, until the lights of Pontefract Castle shimmered on high
from its hill.  The gates were opened, the horses clattered in, torches
came forth, flickering and hissing in the darkness.  The travellers went
through what seemed to Malcolm an interminable number of courts and
gateways, and at length flung themselves off their horses, when Henry,
striding on, mounted the steps, entered the building, and, turning the
corner of a great carved screen, he and his brother, with James and
Malcolm, found themselves in the midst of a blaze of cressets and tapers,
which lighted up the wainscoted part of the hall.

The whole scene was dazzling to eyes coming in from the dark, and only
after a moment or two could Malcolm perceive that, close to the great
fire, sat a party of four, playing at what he supposed to be that French
game with painted cards of which Patrick Drummond had told him, and that
the rest seemed to be in attendance upon them.

Dark eyed and haired, with a creamy ivory skin, and faultless form and
feature, the fair Catherine would have been unmistakable, save that as
Henry hurried forward, the lights glancing on his jaded face, matted
hair, and soaked dress, the first to spring forward to meet him was a
handsome young man, who wrung his hand, crying, 'Ah, Harry, Harry, then
'tis too true!' while the lady made scarcely a step forwards: no shade of
colour tinged her delicate cheek; and though she did not resist his
fervent embrace, it was with a sort of recoil, and all she was heard to
say was, '_Eh, Messire, vos bottes sont crottees_!'

'You know all, Kate?' he asked, still holding her hand, and looking
afraid of inflicting a blow.

'The battle?  Is it then so great a disaster?' and, seeing his amazed
glance, 'The poor Messire de Clarence! it was pity of him; he was a
handsome prince.'

'Ah, sweet, he held thee dear,' said Henry, catching at the crumb of
sympathy.

'But yes,' said Catherine, evidently perplexed by the strength of his
feeling, and repeating, 'He was a _beau sieur courtois_.  But surely it
will not give the Armagnacs the advantage?'

'With Heaven's aid, no!  But how fares it with poor Madge--his wife, I
mean?'

'She is away to her estates.  She went this morn, and wished to have
taken with her the Demoiselle de Beaufort; but I forbade that--I could
not be left without one lady of the blood.'

'Alack, Joan--' and Henry was turning, but Catherine interrupted him.
'You have not spoken to Madame of Hainault, nor to the Duke of Orleans.
Nay, you are in no guise to speak to any one,' she added, looking with
repugnance at the splashes of mud that reached even to his waist.

'I will don a fresh doublet, sweetheart,' said Henry, more rebuked than
seemed fitting, 'and be ready to sup anon.'

'Supper!  We supped long ago.'

'That may be; but we have ridden long since we snatched our meal, that I
might be with thee the sooner, my Kate.'

'That was not well in you, my Lord, to come in thus dishevelled, steaming
with wet--not like a king.  You will be sick, my Lord.'

The little word of solicitude recalled his sweet tender smile of
gratitude.  No fear, _ma belle_; sickness dares not touch me.'

'Then,' said the Queen, 'you will be served in your chamber, and we will
finish our game.'

Henry turned submissively away; but Bedford tarried an instant to say,
'Fair sister, he is sore distressed.  It would comfort him to have you
with him.  He has longed for you.'

Catherine opened her beautiful brown eyes in a stare of surprise and
reproof at the infraction of the rules of ceremony which she had brought
with her.  John of Bedford had never seemed to her either _beau_ or
_courtois_, and she looked unutterable things, to which he replied by an
elevation of his marked eyebrows.

She sat down to her game, utterly ignoring the other princes in their
weather-beaten condition; and they were forced to follow the King, and
make their way to their several chambers, for Queen Catherine's will was
law in matters of etiquette.

'The proud peat!  She is jealous of every word Harry speaks--even to his
cousin,' muttered James, as he reached his own room.  'You saw her,
though,--you saw her!' he added, smiling, as he laid his hand on
Malcolm's shoulder.

The boy coloured like a poppy, and answered awkwardly enough, 'The Lady
Joan, Sir?'

'Who but the Lady Joan, thou silly lad?  How say'st thou?  Will not
Scotland forget in the sight of that fair face all those fule
phantasies--the only folly I heard at Glenuskie?'

'Methinks,' said Malcolm, looking down in sheer awkwardness, 'it were
easier to bow to her than to King Harry's dame.  She hath more of
stateliness.'

'Humph!' said James, 'dost so serve thy courtly 'prenticeship?  Nay, but
in a sort I see thy meaning.  The royal blood of England shows itself to
one who hath an eye for princeliness of nature.'

'Nay,' said Malcolm, gratified, 'those dark eyes and swart locks--'

'Dark eyes--swart locks!' interrupted the King.  'His wits have gone wool-
gathering.'

'Indeed, Sir!' exclaimed Malcolm, 'I thought you meant the lady who stood
by the Queen's table, with the grand turn of the neck and the white
wimple and veil.'

'Pshaw!' said James; 'the foolish callant! he hath taken that great brown
Luxemburg nun of Dame Jac's for the Rose of Somerset.'

However, James, seeing how confounded the boy was by this momentary
displeasure, explained to him who the other persons he had seen
were--Jaqueline, the runaway Countess of Hainault in her own right, and
Duchess of Brabant by marriage; Humfrey, duke of Gloucester, the King's
young, brilliant brother; the grave, melancholy Duke of Orleans, who had
been taken captive at Agincourt, and was at present quartered at
Pontefract; the handsome, but stout and heavy-looking Earl of March;
brave Lord Warwick; Sir Lewis Robsart, the old knight to whose charge the
Queen had been specially committed from the moment of her betrothal; and
a young, bold, gay-looking lad, of Malcolm's own age, but far taller and
stouter, and with a merry, half-defiant, half-insouciant air, who had
greatly taken his fancy, was, he was told, Ralf Percy, the second son of
Sir Harry Percy.

'Of him they called Hotspur?--who was taken captive at Otterburn, who
died a rebel!' exclaimed Malcolm.

'Ay,' said James; 'but King Harry had learnt the art of war as a boy,
first under Hotspur, in Wales; nor doth he love that northern fashion of
ours of keeping up feud from generation to generation.  So hath he
restored the eldest son to his barony, and set him to watch our Borders;
and the younger, Ralf, he is training in his own school of chivalry.'

More wonders for Malcolm Stewart, who had learnt to believe it mere
dishonour and tameness to forgive the son for his father's deeds.  A
cloistered priest could hardly do so: pardon to a hostile family came
only with the last mortal throe; and here was this warlike king forgiving
as a mere matter of course!

'But,' added James, 'you had best not speak of your bent conventwards in
the Court here.  I should not like to have you called the monkling!'

Malcolm crimsoned, with the resolution never to betray himself.




CHAPTER V: WHITTINGTON S FEAST


The next day the royal train set forth from Pontefract, and ere mounting,
James presented his young kinsman to the true Joan Beaufort--fair-haired,
soft-featured, blue-eyed, and with a lovely air of graciousness, as she
greeted him with a sweet, blushing, sunny smile, half that of the queen
in anticipation, half that of the kindly maiden wishing to set a stranger
at ease.  So beautiful was she, that Malcolm felt annihilated at the
thought of his blunder of last night.

As they rode on, James was entirely occupied with the lady, and Malcolm
was a good deal left to himself; for, though the party was numerous, he
knew no one except the Duke of Bedford, who was riding with the King and
Lord Warwick, in deep consultation, while Sir Nigel Baird, Lord Marmion,
and the rest were in the rear.  He fell into a mood of depression such as
had not come upon him since he passed the border, thinking himself
despised by all for being ill-favoured and ill-dressed, and chafing,
above all, at the gay contempt he fancied in young Ralf Percy's eye.  He
became constantly more discontented with this noisy turmoil, and more
resolved to insist on returning to the peaceful cloister where alone he
could hide his head and be at rest.

The troop halted for what they called their noon meat at the abode of a
hospitable Yorkshire knight; but King Henry, in order that the good
gentleman's means should not be overtasked, had given directions that
only the ladies and the princes should enter the house, while the rest of
the suite should take their meal at the village inn.

King James, in attending to Joan, had entirely forgotten his cousin; and
Malcolm, doubtful and diffident, was looking hesitatingly at the gateway,
when Ralf Percy called out, 'Ha! you there, this is our way.  That is
only for the royal folk; but there's good sack and better sport down
here!  I'll show you the way,' he added, good-naturedly, softened, as
most were, by the startled, wistful, timid look.

Malcolm, ashamed to say he was royal, but surprised at the patronage, was
gratefully following, when old Bairdsbrae indignantly laid his hand on
the rein.  'Not so, Sir; this is no place for you!'

'Let me alone!' entreated Malcolm, as he saw Percy's amazed look and
whistle of scorn.  'They don't want me.'

'You will never have your place if you do not take it,' said the old
gentleman; and leading the trembling, shrinking boy up to the door, he
continued, 'For the honour of Scotland, Sir!' and then announcing Malcolm
by his rank and title, he almost thrust him in.

Fancying he detected a laugh on Ralf Percy's face, and a sneer on that of
the stout English porter, Malcolm felt doubly wretched as he was ushered
into the hall and the buzz of talk and the confusion made by the
attendance of the worthy knight and his many sons, one of whom, waiting
with better will than skill, had nearly run down the shy limping
Scotsman, who looked wildly for refuge at some table.  In his height of
distress, a kindly gesture of invitation beckoned to him, and he found
himself seated and addressed, first in French, and then in careful
foreign English, by the same lady whom he had yesterday taken for Joan of
Somerset, namely, Esclairmonde de Luxemburg.

He was too much confused to look up till the piece of pasty and the wine
with which the lady had caused him to be supplied were almost consumed,
and it was not till she had made some observations on the journey that he
became at ease enough to hazard any sort of answer, and then it was in
his sweet low Scottish voice, with that irresistibly attractive look of
shy wistful gratitude in his great soft brown eyes, while his un-English
accent caused her to say, 'I am a stranger here, like yourself, my Lord;'
and at the same moment he first raised his eyes to behold what seemed to
him perfect beauty and dignity, an oval face, richly-tinted olive
complexion, dark pensive eyes, a sweet grave mouth smiling with
encouraging kindness, and a lofty brow that gave the whole face a
magnificent air, not so much stately as above and beyond this world.  It
might have befitted St. Barbara or St. Katherine, the great intellectual
virgin visions of purity and holiness of the middle ages; but the
kindness of the smile went to Malcolm's heart, and emboldened him to
answer in his best French, 'You are from Holland, lady?'

'Not from the fens,' she answered.  'My home lies in the borders of the
forest of Ardennes.'

And then they found that they understood each other best when she spoke
French, and Malcolm English, or rather Scotch; and their acquaintance
made so much progress, that when the signal was again given to mount, the
Lady Esclairmonde permitted Malcolm to assist her to her saddle; and as
he rode beside her he felt pleased with himself, and as if Ralf Percy
were welcome to look at him now.

On Esclairmonde's other hand there rode a small, slight girl, whom
Malcolm took for quite a child, and paid no attention to; but presently
old Sir Lewis Robsart rode back with a message that my Lady of
Westmoreland wished to know where the Lady Alice Montagu was.  A gentle,
timid voice answered, 'O Sir, I am well here with Lady Esclairmonde.  Pray
tell my good lady so.'

And therewith Sir Lewis smiled, and said, 'You could scarcely be in
better hands, fair damsel,' and rode back again; while Alice was still
entreating, 'May I stay with you, dear lady?  It is all so strange and
new!'

Esclairmonde smiled, and said, 'You make me at home here, Mademoiselle.
It is I who am the stranger!'

'Ah! but you have been in Courts before.  I never lived anywhere but at
Middleham Castle till they fetched me away to meet the Queen.'

For the gentle little maiden, a slender, fair-haired, childish-faced
creature, in her sixteenth year, was the motherless child and heiress of
the stout Earl of Salisbury, the last of the Montacutes, or Montagues,
who was at present fighting the King's battles in France, but had sent
his commands that she should be brought to Court, in preparation for
fulfilling the long-arranged contract between her and Sir Richard Nevil,
one of the twenty-two children of the Earl of Westmoreland.

She was under the charge of the Countess--a stately dame, with all the
Beaufort pride; and much afraid of her she was, as everything that was
shy or forlorn seemed to turn towards the maiden whose countenance not
only promised kindness but protection.

Presently the cavalcade passed a gray building in the midst of green
fields and orchards, where, under the trees, some black-veiled figures
sat spinning.

'A nunnery!' quoth Esclairmonde, looking eagerly after it as she rode
past.

'A nunnery!' said Malcolm, encouraged into the simple confidingness of a
young boy.  'How unlike the one where my sister is!  Not a tree is near
it; it is perched upon a wild crag overhanging the angry sea, and the
winds roar, and the gulls and eagles scream, and the waves thunder round
it!'

'Yet it is not the less a haven of peace,' replied Esclairmonde.

'Verily,' said Malcolm, 'one knows what peace is under that cloister,
where all is calm while the winds rave without.'

'You know how to love a cloister,' said the lady, as she heard his soft,
sad tones.

'I had promised myself to make my home in one,' said Malcolm; 'but my
King will have me make trial of the world first.  And so please you,' he
added, recollecting himself, 'he forbade me to make my purpose known; so
pray, lady, be so good as to forget what I have said.'

'I will be silent,' said Esclairmonde; 'but I will not forget, for I look
on you as one like myself, my young lord.  I too am dedicated, and only
longing to reach my cloistered haven.'

She spoke it out with the ease of those days when the monastic was as
recognized a profession as any other calling, and yet with something of
the desire to make it evident on what ground she stood.

Lady Alice uttered an exclamation of surprise.

'Yes,' said Esclairmonde, 'I was dedicated his my infancy, and promised
myself in the nunnery at Dijon when I was seven years old.'

Then, as if to turn the conversation from herself, she asked of Malcolm
if he too had made any vow.

'Only to myself,' said Malcolm.  'Neither my Tutor nor the Prior of
Coldingham would hear my vows.'  And he was soon drawn into telling his
whole story, to which the ladies both listened with great interest and
kindness, Esclairmonde commending his resolution to leave the care of his
lands and vassals to one whom he represented as so much better fitted to
bear them as Patrick Drummond, and only regretting the silence King James
had enjoined, saying she felt that there was safety and protection in
being avowed as a destined religious.

'And you are one,' said Lady Alice, looking at her in wonder.  'And yet
you are with _that_ lady--'  And the girl's innocent face expressed a
certain wonder and disgust that no one could marvel at who had heard the
Flemish Countess talk in the loudest, broadest, most hoydenish style.

'She has been my very good lady,' said Esclairmonde; 'she has, under the
saints, saved me from much.'

'Oh, I entreat you, tell us, dear lady!' entreated Alice.  It was not a
reticent age.  Malcolm Stewart had already avowed himself in his own
estimation pledged to a monastic life, and Esclairmonde of Luxemburg had
reasons for wishing her position and intentions to be distinctly
understood by all with whom she came in contact; moreover, there was a
certain congeniality in both her companions, their innocence and
simplicity, that drew out confidence, and impelled her to defend her
lady.

'My poor Countess,' she said, 'she has been sorely used, and has suffered
much.  It is a piteous thing when our little imperial fiefs go to the
spindle side!'

'What are her lands?' asked Malcolm.

'Hainault, Holland, and Zealand,' replied the lady.  'Her father was
Count of Hainault, her mother the sister of the last Duke of Burgundy--him
that was slain on the bridge of Montereau.  She was married as a mere
babe to the Duke of Touraine, who was for a brief time Dauphin, but he
died ere she was sixteen, and her father died at the same time.  Some say
they both were poisoned.  The saints forfend it should be true; but thus
it was my poor Countess was left desolate, and her uncle, the Bishop of
Liege--Jean Sans Pitie, as they call him--claimed her inheritance.  You
should have seen how undaunted she was!'

'Were you with her then?' asked Alice Montagu.

'Yes.  I had been taken from our convent at Dijon, when my dear brothers,
to whom Heaven be merciful! died at Azincourt.  My _oncles a la mode de
Bretagne_--how call you it in English?'

'Welsh uncles,' said Alice.

'They are the Count de St. Pol and the Bishop of Therouenne.  They came
to Dijon.  In another month I should have been seventeen, and been
admitted as a novice; but, alack! there were all the lands that came
through my grandmother, in Holland and in Flanders, all falling to me,
and Monseigneur of Therouenne, like almost all secular clergy, cannot
endure the religious orders, and would not hear of my becoming a Sister.
They took me away, and the Bishop declared my dedication null, and they
would have bestowed me in marriage at once, I believe, if Heaven had not
aided me, and they could not agree on the person.  And then my dear
Countess promised me that she would never let me be given without my free
will.'

'Then,' said Alice, 'the Bishop did cancel your dedication?'

'Yes,' said Esclairmonde; 'but none can cancel the dedication of my
heart.  So said the holy man at Zwoll.'

'How, lady?' anxiously inquired Malcolm; 'has not a bishop power to bind
and unloose?'

'Yea,' said Esclairmonde, 'such power that if my childish promise had
been made without purpose or conscience thereof, or indeed if my will
were not with it, it would bind me no more, there were no sin in wedlock
for me, no broken vow.  But my own conscience of my vow, and my sense
that I belong to my Heavenly Spouse, proved, he said, that it was not my
duty to give myself to another, and that whereas none have a parent's
right over me, if I have indeed chosen the better part, He to whom I have
promised myself will not let it be taken from me, though I might have to
bear much for His sake.  And when I said in presumption that such would
lie light on me, he bade me speak less and pray more, for I knew not the
cost.'

'He must have been a very holy man,' said Alice, 'and strict withal.  Who
was he?'

'One Father Thomas, a Canon Regular of the chapter of St. Agnes, a very
saint, who spends his life in copying and illuminating the Holy
Scripture, and in writing holy thoughts that verily seem to have been
breathed into him by special inspiration of God.  It was a sermon of his
in Lent, upon chastening and perplexity, that I heard when first I was
snatched from Dijon, that made me never rest till I had obtained his
ghostly counsel.  If I never meet him again, I shall thank Heaven for
those months at Zwoll all my life--ere the Duke of Burgundy made my
Countess resign Holland for twelve years to her uncle, and we left the
place.  Then, well-nigh against her will, they forced her into a marriage
with the Duke of Brabant, though he be her first cousin, her godson, and
a mere rude boy.  I cannot tell you how evil were the days we often had
then.  If he had been left to himself, Madame might have guided him; but
ill men came about him; they maddened him with wine and beer; they
excited him to show that he feared her not; he struck her, and more than
once almost put her in danger of her life.  Then, too, his mother married
the Bishop of Liege, her enemy--

'The Bishop!'

'He had never been consecrated, and had a dispensation.  That marriage
deprived my poor lady of even her mother's help.  All were against her
then; and for me too it went ill, for the Duke of Burgundy insisted on my
being given to a half-brother of his, one they call Sir Boemond of
Burgundy--a hard man of blood and revelry.  The Duke of Brabant was all
for him, and so was the Duchess-mother; and though my uncles would not
have chosen him, yet they durst not withstand the Duke of Burgundy.  I
tried to appeal to the Emperor Sigismund, the head of our house, but I
know not if he ever heard of my petition.  I was in an exceeding strait,
and had only one trust, namely, that Father Thomas had told me that the
more I threw myself upon God, the more He would save me from man.  But
oh! they seemed all closing in on me, and I knew that Sir Boemond had
sworn that I should pay heavily for my resistance.  Then one night my
Countess came to me.  She showed me the bruises her lord had left on her
arms, and told me that he was about to banish all of us, her ladies, into
Holland, and to keep her alone to bear his fury, and she was resolved to
escape, and would I come with her?  It seemed to me the message of
deliverance.  Her nurse brought us peasant dresses, high stiff caps,
black boddices, petticoats of many colours, and therein we dressed
ourselves, and stole out, ere dawn, to a church, where we knelt till the
Sieur d'Escaillon--the gentleman who attends Madame still--drove up in a
farmer's garb, with a market cart, and so forth from Bruges we drove.  We
cause to Valenciennes, to her mother; but we found that she, by
persuasion of the Duke, would give us both up; so the Sieur d'Escaillon
got together sixty lances, and therewith we rode to Calais, where never
were weary travellers more courteously received than we by Lord
Northumberland, the captain of Calais.'

'Oh, I am glad you came to us English!' cried Alice.  'Only I would it
had been my father who welcomed you.  And now?'

'Now I remain with my lady, as the only demoiselle she has from her
country; and, moreover, I am waiting in the trust that my kinsmen will
give up their purpose of bestowing me in marriage, now that I am beyond
their reach; and in time I hope to obtain sufficient of my own goods for
a dowry for whatever convent I may enter.'

'Oh, let it be an English one!' cried Alice.

'I have learnt to breathe freer since I have been on English soil,' said
Esclairmonde, smiling; 'but where I may rest at last, Heaven only knows!'

'This is a strange country,' said Malcolm.  'No one seems afraid of
violence and wrong here.'

'Is that so strange?' asked Alice, amazed.  'Why, men would be hanged if
they did violence!'

'I would we were as sure of justice at my home,' sighed Esclairmonde.
'King Henry will bring about a better rule.'

'Never doubt,' cried Salisbury's daughter.  'When France is once subdued,
there will be no more trouble, he will make your kinsmen do you right,
dear demoiselle, and oh! will you not found a beauteous convent?'

'King Henry has not conquered France yet,' was all Esclairmonde said.

'Ha!' cried the buxom Countess Jaqueline, as the ladies dismounted,
'never speak to me more, our solemn sister.  When have I done worse than
lure a young cavalier, and chain him all day with my tongue?'

'He is a gentle boy!' said Esclairmonde, smiling.

'Truly he looked like a calf turned loose among strange cattle!  How gat
he into the hall?'

'He is of royal Scottish blood,' said Esclairmonde 'cousin-german to King
James.'

'And our grave nun has a fancy to tame the wild Scots, like a second St.
Margaret!  A king's grandson! fie, fie! what, become ambitious,
Clairette?  Eh? you were so occupied, that I should have been left to no
one but Monseigneur of Gloucester, but that I was discreet, and rode with
my Lord Bishop of Winchester.  How he chafed! but I know better than to
have _tete-a-tetes_ with young sprigs of the blood royal!'

Esclairmonde laughed good-humouredly, partly in courtesy to her hoyden
mistress, but partly at the burning, blushing indignation she beheld in
the artless face of Alice Montagu.

The girl was as shy as a fawn, frightened at every word from knight or
lady, and much in awe of her future mother-in-law, a stiff and stately
dame, with all the Beaufort haughtiness; so that Lady Westmoreland gladly
and graciously consented to the offer of the Demoiselle de Luxemburg to
attend to the little maiden, and let her share her chamber and her bed.
And indeed Alice Montagu, bred up in strictness and in both piety and
learning, as was sometimes the case with the daughters of the nobility,
had in all her simplicity and bashfulness a purity and depth that made
her a congenial spirit with the grave votaress, whom she regarded on her
side with a young girl's enthusiastic admiration for a grown woman,
although in point of fact the years between them were few.

The other ladies of the Court were a little in awe of the Demoiselle de
Luxemburg, and did not seek her when they wished to indulge in the gossip
whose malice and coarseness she kept in check; but if they were anxious,
or in trouble, they always came to her as their natural consoler; and the
Countess Jaqueline, bold and hoydenish as she was, kept the license of
her tongue and manners under some shadow of restraint before her, and
though sometimes bantering her, often neglecting her counsel, evidently
felt her attendance a sort of safeguard and protection.

The gentlemen were mostly of the opinion of the Duke of Gloucester, who
said that the Lady Esclairmonde was so like Deborah, come out of a
Mystery, that it seemed to be always Passion-tide where she was; and she,
moreover, was always guarded in her manner towards them, keeping her
vocation in the recollection of all by her gravely and coldly courteous
demeanour, and the sober hues and fashion of her dress; but being aware
of Malcolm's destination, perceiving his loneliness, and really attracted
by his pensive gentleness, she admitted him to far more friendly
intercourse than any other young noble, while he revered and clung to her
much as Lady Alice did, as protector and friend.

King James was indeed so much absorbed in his own lady-love as to have
little attention to bestow on his young cousin, and he knew, moreover,
that to be left to such womanly training as ladies were bound to bestow
on young squires and pages was the best treatment for the youth, who was
really thriving and growing happier every day, as he lost his awkwardness
and acquired a freedom and self-confidence such as he could never have
imagined possible in his original brow-beaten state, though without
losing the gentle modesty and refinement that gave him such a charm.

A great sorrow awaited him, however, at Leicester, where Easter was to be
spent.  A messenger came from Durham, bringing letters from Coldingham to
announce the death of good Sir David Drummond, which had taken place two
days after Malcolm had left him, all but the youth himself having well
known that his state was hopeless.

In his grief, Malcolm found his chief comforter in Esclairmonde, who
kindly listened when he talked of the happy old times at Glenuskie, and
of the kindness and piety of his guardian; while she lifted his mind to
dwell on the company of the saints; and when he knew that her thoughts
went, like his, to his fatherly friend in the solemn services connected
with the departed, he was no longer desolate, and there was almost a
sweetness in the grief of which his fair saint had taken up a part.  She
showed him likewise some vellum pages on which her ghostly father, the
Canon of St. Agnes, had written certain dialogues between the Divine
Master and His disciple, which seemed indeed to have been whispered by
heavenly inspiration, and which soothed and hallowed his mourning for the
guide and protector of his youth.  He loved to dwell on her very name,
Esclairmonde--'light of the world.'  The taste of the day hung many a pun
and conceit upon names, and to Malcolm this--which had, in fact, been
culled out of romance--seemed meetly to express the pure radiance of
consolation and encouragement that seemed to him to shine from her, and
brighten the life that had hitherto been dull and gloomy--nay, even to
give him light and joy in the midst of his grief.

At that period Courts were not much burdened with etiquette.  No feudal
monarch was more than the first gentleman, and there was no rigid line of
separation of ranks, especially where, as among the kings of the Red
Rose, the boundaries were so faint between the princes and the nobility;
and as Catherine of Valois was fond of company, and indolently heedless
of all that did not affect her own dignity or ease, the whole Court,
including some of the princely captives, lived as one large family,
meeting at morning Mass in church or chapel, taking their meals in
common, riding, hunting, hawking, playing at bowls, tennis, or
stool-ball, or any other pastime, in such parties as suited their
inclinations; and spending the evening in the great hall, in conversation
varied by chess, dice, and cards, recitals of romance, and music,
sometimes performed by the choristers of the Royal chapel, or sometimes
by the company themselves, and often by one or other of the two kings,
who were both proficients as well with the voice as with the lute and
organ.

Thus Malcolm had many opportunities of being with the Demoiselle of
Luxemburg: and almost a right was established, that when she sat in the
deep embrasure of a window with her spinning, he should be on the
cushioned step beneath; when she mounted, he held the stirrup; and when
the church bells were ringing, he led her by her fair fingers to her
place in the nave, and back again to the hall; and when the manchet and
rere supper were brought into the hall, he mixed her wine and water, and
held the silver basin and napkin to her on bended knee, and had become
her recognized cavalier.  He was really thriving.  Even the high-spirited
son of Hotspur could not help loving and protecting him.

'Have a care,' said Ralf to a lad of ruder mould; 'I'll no more see that
lame young Scot maltreated than a girl.'

'He is no better than a girl,' growled his comrade; 'my little brother
Dick would be more than a match for him!'

'I wot not that,' said Percy; 'there's a drop of life and spirit at the
bottom; and for the rest, when he looks up with those eyes of his, and
smiles his smile, it is somehow as if it were beneath a man to vex him
wilfully.  And he sees so much meaning in everything, too, that it is a
dozen times better sport to hear him talk than one of you fellows, who
have only wit enough to know a hawk from a heron-schaw.'

After a grave Easter-tide spent at Leicester, the Court moved to
Westminster, where Henry had to meet his parliament, and obtain supplies
for the campaign which was to revenge the death of Clarence.

There was no great increase of gaiety even here, for Henry was extremely
occupied, both with regulating matters for government during his absence,
and in training the troops who began to flock to his standard; so that
the Queen complained that his presence in England was of little service
to her, since he never had any leisure, and there were no pastimes.

'Well, Dame,' said Henry, gaily, 'there is one revel for you.  I have
promised to knight the Lord Mayor, honest Whittington, and I hear he is
preparing a notable banquet in the Guild Hall.'

'A city mayor!' exclaimed Queen Catherine, with ineffable disgust.  'My
brothers would sooner cut off his _roturier_ head than dub him knight!'

'Belike,' said Henry, dryly; 'but what kind of friends have thy brothers
found at Paris?  Moreover, this Whittington may content thee as to blood.
Rougedragon hath been unfolding to me his lineage of a good house in
Gloucestershire.'

'More shame that he should soil his hands with trade!' said the Queen.

'See what you say when he has cased those fair hands in Spanish gloves.
You ladies should know better than to fall out with a mercer.'

'Ah!' said Duke Humfrey, 'they never saw the silks and samites wherewith
he fitted out my sister Philippa for the Swedes!  Lucky the bride whose
wardrobe is purveyed by honest Dick!'

'Is it not honour enough for the mechanical hinds that we wear their
stuffs,' said Countess Jaqueline, 'without demeaning ourselves to eat at
their boards?  The _outrecuidance_ of the rogues in the Netherlands would
be surpassing, did we feed it in that sort.'

''Tis you that will be fed, Dame Jac,' laughed Henry.  'I can tell you,
their sack and their pasties, their march-pane and blanc-manger, far
exceed aught that a poor soldier can set before you.'

'Moreover,' observed Humfrey, 'the ladies ought to see the romaunt of the
Cat complete.'

'How!' cried Jaqueline, 'is it, then, true that this Vittentone is the
miller's son whose cat wore boots and made his fortune?'

'I have heard my aunt of Orleans divert my father with that story,'
murmured Catherine.  'How went the tale?  I thought it folly, and marked
it not.  What became of the cat?'

'The cat desired to test his master's gratitude, so tells Straparola,'
said the Duke of Orleans, in his dry satirical tone; 'and whereas he had
been wont to promise his benefactor a golden coffin and state funeral,
Puss feigned death, and thereby heard the lady inform her husband that
the old cat was dead.  "_A la bonne heure_!" said the Marquis.  "Take him
by the tail, and fling him on the muck-heap beneath the window!"'

'Thereof I acquit Whittington, who never was thankless to man or brute,'
said King Henry.  'Moreover, his cat, or her grandchildren, must be now
in high preferment at the King of Barbary's Court.'

'A marvellous beast is that cat,' said James.  'When I was a child in
Scotland, we used to tell the story of her exchange for a freight of gold
and spices, only the ship sailed from Denmark,'

'Maybe,' said Henry; 'but I would maintain the truth of Whittington's cat
with my lance, and would gladly have no worse cause!  You'll see his cat
painted beside him in the Guild Hall, and may hear the tale from him, as
I loved to hear him when I was a lad.

   "Turn again, Whittington,
   Thrice Lord Mayor of London town!"

I told my good old friend I must have come over from France on purpose to
keep his third mayoralty.  So I am for the City on Thursday; and whoever
loves good wine, good sturgeon, good gold, or good men, had best come
with me.'

Such inducements were not to be neglected, and though Queen Catherine
minced and bridled, and apologized to Duchess Jaqueline for her husband's
taste for low company, neither princess wished to forego the chance of
amusement; and a brilliant cavalcade set forth in full order of
precedence.  The King and Queen were first; then, to his great disgust,
the King of Scots, with Duchess Jaqueline; Bedford, with Lady Somerset;
Gloucester, with the Countess of March; the Duke of Orleans, with the
Countess of Exeter; and Malcolm of Glenuskie found himself paired off
with his sovereign's lady-love, Joan Beaufort, and a good deal overawed
by the tall horned tower that crowned her flaxen locks, as well as by
knowing that her uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, the stateliest,
stiffest, and most unapproachable person in all the Court, was riding
just behind him, beside the Demoiselle de Luxemburg.

Temple Bar was closed, and there was a flourish of trumpets and a parley
ere the gate was flung open to admit the royal guests; but Malcolm, in
his place, could not see the aldermen on horseback, in their robes of
scarlet and white, drawn up to receive the King.  All that way up
Holborn, every house was hung with tapestry, and the citizens formed a
gorgeously-apparelled lane, shouting in unison, their greetings attuned
to bursts of music from trumpets and nakers.

Beautiful old St. Paul's, with the exquisite cross for open-air preaching
in front, rose on their view; and before the lofty west door the princely
guests dismounted, each gentleman leading his lady up the nave to the
seat prepared in such manner that he might be opposite to her.  The
clergy lined the stalls, and a magnificent mass was sung, and was
concluded by the advance of the King to the altar step, followed by a
fine old man in scarlet robes bordered with white fur, the collar of SS.
round his neck, and his silvery hair and lofty brow crowning a face as
sagacious as it was dignified and benevolent.

It seemed a reversal of the ordinary ceremonial when the slender agile
young man took in hand the sword, and laid the honour of knighthood on
the gray-headed substantial senior, whom he bade to arise Sir Richard
Whittington.  Jaqueline of Hainault had the bad taste to glance across to
Humfrey and titter, but the Duke valued popularity among the citizens,
and would not catch her eye; and in the line behind the royal ladies
there was a sweet elderly face, beautiful, though time-worn, with blue
eyes misty with proud glad tears, and a mouth trembling with tender
exultation.

After the ceremony was concluded, King Henry offered his hand to the Lady
Mayoress, Dame Alice Whittington, making her bright tears drop in glad
confusion at his frank, hearty congratulation and warm praise of her
husband; and though the fair Catherine could have shuddered when Sir
Richard advanced to lead her, she was too royal to compromise her dignity
by visible scorn, and she soon found that the merchant could speak much
better French than most of the nobles.

Malcolm felt as averse as did the French princesses to burgher wealth and
splendour, and his mind had not opened to understand burgher worth and
weight; and when he saw the princes John and Humfrey, and even his own
king, seeking out city dames and accosting them with friendly looks, it
seemed to him a degrading truckling to riches, from which he was anxious
to save his future queen; but when he would have offered his arm to Lady
Joan, he saw her already being led away by an alderman measuring at least
a yard across the shoulders; and the good-natured Earl of March, seeing
him at a loss, presented him to a round merry wife in a scarlet petticoat
and black boddice, its plump curves wreathed with geld chains, who began
pitying him for having been sent to the wars so young, being, as usual,
charmed into pity by his soft appealing eyes and unconscious grace; would
not believe his assertions that he was neither a captive nor a
Frenchman;--'don't tell her, when he spoke like a stranger, and halted
from a wound.'

Colouring to the ears, he explained that he had never walked otherwise;
whereupon her pity redoubled, and she by turns advised him to consult
Master Doctor Caius, and to obtain a recipe from Mistress--she meant
Dame--Alice Whittington, the kindest soul living, and, Lady Mayoress as
she was, with no more pride than the meanest scullion.  Pity she had no
child--yet scarce pity either, since she and the good Lord Mayor were
father and mother to all orphans and destitute--nay, to all who had any
care on their minds.

Malcolm was in extreme alarm lest he should be walked up to the Lady
Mayoress for inspection before all the world when they entered the Guild
Hall, a building of grand proportions, which, as good Mistress Bolt
informed him, had lately been paved and glazed at Sir Richard
Whittington's own expense.  The bright new red and yellow tiles, and the
stained glass of the tall windows high up, as well as the panels of the
wainscot, were embellished with trade-marks and the armorial bearings of
the guilds; and the long tables, hung with snowy napery, groaned with
gold and silver plate, such as, the Duke of Orleans observed to
Catherine, no citizens would dare exhibit in France to any prince or
noble, at peril of being mulcted of all, with or without excuse.

On an open hearth beneath the louvre, or opening for smoke, burnt a fire
diffusing all around an incense-like fragrance, from the logs, composed
of cinnamon and other choice woods and spices, that fed the flame.  The
odour and the warmth on a bleak day of May were alike delicious; and King
Henry, after heading Dame Alice up to it, stood warming his hands and
extolling the choice scent, adding: 'You spoil us, Sir Richard.  How are
we to go back to the smoke of wood and peat, and fires puffed with our
own mouths, after such pampering as this--the costliest fire I have seen
in the two realms?'

'It shall be choicer yet, Sir,' said Sir Richard Whittington, who had
just handed the Queen to her seat.

'Scarce possible,' replied Henry, 'unless I threw in my crown, and that I
cannot afford.  I shall be pawning it ere long.'

Instead of answering, the Lord Mayor quietly put his hand into his furred
pouch, and drawing out a bundle of parchments tied with a ribbon, held
them towards the King, with a grave smile.

'Lo you now, Sir Richard,' said Henry, with a playful face of disgust;
'this is to save your dainty meats, by spoiling my appetite by that
unwelcome sight.  What, man! have you bought up all the bonds I gave in
my need to a whole synagogue of Jews and bench of Loin-bards?  I shall
have to send for my crown before you let me go; though verily,' he added,
with frank, open face, 'I'm better off with a good friend like you for my
creditor--only I'm sorry for you, Sir Richard.  I fear it will be long
ere you see your good gold in the stead of your dirty paper, even though
I gave you an order on the tolls.  How now!  What, man, Dick Whittington!
Art raving?  Here, the tongs!'

For Sir Richard, gently smiling, had placed the bundle of bonds on the
glowing bed of embers.

Henry, even while calling for the tongs, was raking them out with his
sword, and would have grasped them in his hand in a moment, but the Lord
Mayor caught his arm.

'Pardon, my lord, and grant your new knight's boon.'

'When he is not moon-struck!' said Henry, still guarding the documents.
'Why, my Lady Mayoress, know you what is here?'

'Sixty thousand, my liege,' composedly answered Dame Alice.  'My husband
hath his whims, and I pray your Grace not to hinder what he hath so long
been preparing.'

'Yea, Sir,' added Whittington, earnestly.  'You wot that God hath
prospered us richly.  We have no child, and our nephews are well endowed.
How, then, can our goods belong to any save God, our king, and the poor?'

Henry drew one hand over his eyes, and with the other wrung that of
Whittington.  'Had ever king such a subject?' he murmured.

'Had ever subject such a king?' was Whittington's return.

'Thou hast conquered, Whittington,' said the King, presently looking up
with a sunny smile.  'To send me over the seas a free man, beholden to
you in heart though not by purse, is, as I well believe, worth all that
sum to thy loyal heart.  Thou art setting me far on my way to Jerusalem,
my dear friend!  Thank him, Kate--he hath done much for thine husband!'

Catherine looked amiable, and held out a white hand to be kissed, aware
that the King was pleased, though hardly understanding why he should be
glad that an odour of singed parchment should overpower the gums and
cinnamon.  This was soon remedied by the fresh handful of spices that
were cast into the flame, and the banquet began, magnificent with
peacocks, cranes, and swans in full plumage; the tusky bear crunched his
apple, deer's antlers adorned the haunch, the royal sturgeon floated in
wine, fountains of perfumed waters sprang up from shells, towers of
pastry and of jelly presented the endless allegorical devices of mediaeval
fancy, and, pre-eminent over all, a figure of the cat, with emerald eyes,
fulfilled, as Henry said, the proverb, 'A cat might look at a king;' and
truly the cat and her master had earned the right; therefore his first
toast was, 'To the Cat!'

Each guest found at his or her place a beautiful fragrant pair of gloves,
in Spanish leather, on the back of which was once more embroidered, in
all her tabby charms, the cat's face.  Therewith began a lengthy meal;
and Malcolm Stewart rejoiced at finding himself seated next to the Lady
Esclairmonde, but he grudged her attention to her companion, a slender,
dark, thoughtful representative of the Goldsmiths' Company, to whom she
talked with courtesy such as Malcolm had scorned to show his city dame.

'Who,' said Esclairmonde, presently, 'was a dame in a religious garb whom
I marked near the door here?  She hooked like one of the Beguines of my
own country.'

'We have no such order here, lady,' said the goldsmiths, puzzled.

'Hey, Master Price,' cried Mistress Bolt, speaking across Malcolm, 'I can
tell the lady who it was.  'Twas good Sister Avice Rodney, to whom the
Lady Mayoress promised some of these curious cooling drinks for the poor
shipwright who hath well-nigh cloven off his own foot with his axe.'

'Yea, truly,' returned the goldsmith; 'it must have been one of the
bedeswomen of St. Katharine's whom the lady has seen.'

'What order may that be?' asked Esclairmonde.  'I have seen nothing so
like my own country since I came hither.'

'That may well be, madam,' said Mistress Belt, 'seeing that these
bedeswomen were first instituted by a countrywoman of your own--Queen
Philippa, of blessed memory.'

'By your leave, Mistress Bolt,' interposed Master Price, 'the hospital of
St. Katharine by the Tower is of far older foundation.'

'By _your_ leave, sir, I know what I say.  The hospital was founded I
know not when, but these bedeswomen were especially added by the good
Queen, by the same token that mine aunt Cis, who was tirewoman to the
blessed Lady Joan, was one of the first.'

'How was it?  What is their office?' eagerly inquired Esclairmonde.  And
Mistress Bolt arranged herself for a long discourse.

'Well, fair sirs and sweet lady, though you be younger than I, you have
surely heard of the Black Death.  Well named was it, for never was
pestilence more dire; and the venom was so strong, that the very lips and
eyelids grew livid black, and then there was no hope.  Little thought of
such disease was there, I trow, in kings' houses, and all the fair young
lords and ladies, the children of King Edward, as then was, were full of
sport and gamesomeness as you see these dukes be now.  And never a one
was blither than the Lady Joan--she they called Joan of the Tower, being
a true Londoner born--bless her!  My aunt Cis would talk by the hour of
her pretty ways and kindly mirth.  But 'twas even as the children have
the game in the streets--

   "There come three knights all out of Spain,
   Are come to fetch your daughter Jane."

'Twas for the King of Castille, that same Peter for whom the Black Prince
of Wales fought, and of whom such grewsome tales were told.  The pretty
princess might almost have had a boding what sort of husband they had for
her, for she begged and prayed, even on her knees, that her father would
leave her; but her sisters were all espoused, and there was no help for
it.  But, as one comfort to her, my aunt Cis, who had been about her from
her cradle, was to go with her; and oft she would tell of the long
journey in litters through France, and how welcome were the English
tongues they heard again at Bordeaux, and how when poor Lady Joan saw her
brother, the Prince, she clung about his neck and sobbed, and how he
soothed her, and said she would soon laugh at her own unwillingness to go
to her husband.  But even then the Black Death was in Bordeaux, and being
low and mournful at heart, the sweet maid contracted it, and lay down to
die ere she had made two days' journey, and her last words were, "My God
hath shown me more pity than father or brother;" and so she died like a
lamb, and mine aunt was sent by the Prince to bear home the tidings to
the good Queen, who was a woeful woman.  And therewith, here was the
pestilence in London, raging among the poor creatures that lived in the
wharves and on the river bank, in damp and filth, so that whole
households lay dead at once, and the contagion, gathering force, spread
into the city, and even to the nobles and their ladies.  Then my good
aunt, having some knowledge of the sickness already, and being without
fear, went among the sick, and by her care, and the food, wine, and
clothing she brought, saved a many lives.  And from whom should the
bounties come, save from the good Queen, who ever had a great pity for
those touched like her own fair child?  Moreover, when she heard from my
aunt how the poor things lived in uncleanness and filth, and how, what
with many being strangers coming by sea, and others being serfs fled from
home, they were a nameless, masterless sort, who knew not where to seek a
parish priest, and whom the friars shunned for their poverty, she devised
a fresh foundation to be added to the hospital of St. Katharine's in the
Docks, providing for a chapter of ten bedeswomen, gentle and
well-nurtured, who should both sing in choir, and likewise go forth
constantly among the poor, to seek out the children, see that they learn
their Credo, Ave, and Pater Noster, bring the more toward to be further
taught in St. Katharine's school, and likewise to stir poor folk up to go
to mass and lead a godly life; to visit the sick, feed and tend them, and
so instruct them, that they may desire the Sacraments of the Church.'

'Ah! good Flemish Queen!' cried Esclairmonde.  'She learnt that of our
Beguines!'

'If your ladyship will have it so,' said Mrs. Bolt; 'but my aunt Cicely
began!'

'Who nominates these bedeswomen?' asked Esclairmonde.

'That does the Queen,' said Mistress Bolt.  'Not this young Queen, as
yet, for Queen Joan, the late King's widow, holds the hospital till her
death, unless it should be taken from her for her sorceries, from which
Heaven defend us!'

'Can it be visited?' said Esclairmonde.  'I feel much drawn thither, as I
ever did to the Beguines.'

'Ay, marry may it!' cried delighted Mrs. Bolt.  'I have more than one
gossip there, foreby Sister Avice, who was godchild to Aunt Cis; and if
the good lady would wish to see the hospital, I would bear her company
with all my heart.'

To Malcolm's disgust, Esclairmonde caught at the proposal, which the
Scottish haughtiness that lay under all his gentleness held somewhat
degrading to the cousin of the Emperor.  He fell into a state of gloom,
which lasted till the loving-cup had gone round and been partaken of in
pairs.

After hands had been washed in rose-water, the royal party took their
seats in barges to return to Westminster by the broad and beautiful
highway of the Thames.

Here at once Alice Montagu nestled to Esclairmonde's side, delighted with
her cat gloves, and further delighted with an old captain of trained
bands, to whose lot she had fallen, and who, on finding that she was the
daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, under whom he had served, had launched
forth by the hour into the praises of that brave nobleman, both for his
courage and his kindness to his troops.

'No wonder King Henry loves his citizens so well!' cried Esclairmonde.
'Would that our Netherlandish princes and burghers could take pride and
pleasure in one another's wealth and prowess, instead of grudging and
fearing thereat!'

'To my mind,' said Malcolm, 'they were a forward generation.  That city
dame will burst with pride, if you, lady, go with her to see those
bedeswomen.'

'I trust not,' laughed Esclairmonde, 'for I mean to try.'

'Nay, but,' said Malcolm, 'what should a mere matter of old rockers and
worn-out tirewomen concern a demoiselle of birth?'

'I honour them for doing their Master's work,' said Esclairmonde, 'and
would fain be worthy to follow in their steps.'

'Surely,' said Malcolm, 'there are houses fit for persons of high and
princely birth to live apart from gross contact with the world.'

'There are,' said Esclairmonde; 'but I trust I may be pardoned for saying
that such often seem to me to play at humility when they stickle for
birth and dower with the haughtiest.  I never honoured any nuns so much
as the humble Sisters of St. Begga, who never ask for sixteen
quarterings, but only for a tender hand, soft step, pure life, and pious
heart.'

'I deemed,' said Malcolm, 'that heavenly contemplation was the purpose of
convents.'

'Even so, for such as can contemplate like the holy man I have told you
of,' said Esclairmonde; 'but labour hath been greatly laid aside in
convents of late, and I doubt me if it be well, or if their prayers be
the better for it.'

'And so,' said Alice, 'I heard my Lord of Winchester saying how it were
well to suppress the alien priories, and give their wealth to found
colleges like that founded by Bishop Wykeham.'

For in truths the spirit of the age was beginning to set against
monasticism.  It was the period when perhaps there was more of license
and less of saintliness than at any other, and when the long continuance
of the Great Schism had so injured Church discipline that the clergy and
ecclesiastics were in the worst state of all, especially the monastic
orders, who owned no superior but the Pope, and between the two rivals
could avoid supervision altogether.  Such men as Thomas a Kempis, or the
great Jean Gerson, were rare indeed; and the monasteries had let
themselves lose their missionary character, and become mere large farms,
inhabited by celibate gentlemen and their attendants, or by the
superfluous daughters of the nobles and gentry.  Such devotion as led
Esclairmonde to the pure atmosphere of prayer and self-sacrifice had well-
nigh died out, and almost every other lady of the time would have
regarded her release from the vows made for her its her babyhood a happy
escape.

Still less, at a time when no active order of Sisters, save that of the
Beguines in Holland, had been invented, and when no nun ever dreamt of
carrying her charity beyond the quadrangle of her own convent, could any
one be expected to enter into Esclairmonde's admiration and longing for
out-of-door works; but the person whom she had chiefly made her friend
was the King's almoner and chaplain, sometimes called Sir Martin Bennet,
at others Dr. Bennet, a great Oxford scholar, bred up among William of
Wykeham's original seventy at Winchester and New College, and now much
trusted and favoured by the King, whom he everywhere accompanied.  That
Sir Martin was a pluralist must be confessed, but he was most
conscientious in providing substitutes, and was a man of much thought and
of great piety, in whom the fair pupil of the Canon of St. Agnes found a
congenial spirit.




CHAPTER VI: MALCOLM'S SUIT


'That is a gentle and gracious slip of the Stewart.  What shall you do
with him?' asked King Henry of James, as they stood together at one end
of the tilt-yard at Westminster, watching Malcolm Stewart and Ralf Percy,
who were playing at closhey, the early form of nine-pins.

'I know what I should like to do,' said James.

'What may that be?'

'To marry him to the Lady Esclairmonde de Luxemburg.'

Henry gave a long whistle.

'Have you other views for her?'

'Not I!  Am I to have designs on every poor dove who flies into my tent
from the hawk?  Besides, are not they both of them vowed to a religious
life?'

'Neither vow is valid,' replied James.

'To meddle with such things is what I should not _dare_,' said Henry.

'Monks and friars are no such holy beings, that I should greatly concern
me about keeping an innocent had out of their company,' said James.

'Nor do I say they are,' said Henry; 'but it is ill to cross a vow of
devotion, and to bring a man back to the world is apt to render him not
worth the having.  You may perchance get him down lower than you
intended.'

'This boy never had any real vocation at all,' said James; 'it was only
the timidity born of ill-health, and the longing for food for the mind.'

'Maybe so,' replied the English king, 'and you may be in the right; but
why fix on that grand Luxemburg wench, who ought to be a Lady Abbess of
Fontainebleau at least, or a very St. Hilda, to rule monks and nuns
alike?'

'Because they have fixed on each other.  Malcolm needs a woman like her
to make a man of him; and with her spirit and fervent charity, we should
have them working a mighty change in Scotland.'

'If you get her there!'

'Have I your consent, Harry?'

'Mine?  It's no affair of mine!  You must settle it with Madame of
Hainault; but you had best take care.  You are more like to make your
tame lambkin into a ravening wolf, than to get that Deborah the
prophetess to herd him.'

James in sooth viewed this warning as another touch of Lancastrian
superstition, and only considered how to broach the question.  Malcolm,
meantime, was balancing between the now approaching decision between
Oxford and France.  He certainly felt something of his old horror of
warlike scenes; but even this was lessening; he was aware that battles
were not every-day occurrences, and that often there was no danger at
all.  He would not willingly be separated from his king; and if the
female part of the Court were to accompany the campaign, it would be
losing sight of all he cared for, if he were left among a set of stranger
shavelings at Oxford.  Yet he was reluctant to break with the old habits
that had hitherto been part of his nature; he felt, after every word of
Esclairmonde--nay, after every glance towards her--as though it were a
blessed thing to have, like her, chosen the better part; he knew she
would approve his resort to the home of piety and learning; he was aware
that when with Ralf Percy and the other youths of the Court he was
ashamed of his own scrupulousness, and tempted to neglect observances
that they might call monkish and unmanly; and he was not at all sure that
in face of the enemy a panic might not seize him and disgrace him for
ever!  In effect he did not know what he wished, even when he found that
the Queen had decided against going across the sea, and that therefore
all the ladies would remain with her at Shene or Windsor.

He should probably never again see Esclairmonde, the guiding star of his
recent life, the embodiment of all that he had imagined when conning the
quaint old English poems that told the Legend of Seynct Katharine; and as
he leant musingly against a lattice, feeling as if the brightness of his
life was going out, King James merrily addressed him:--

'Eh! the fit is on you too, boy!'

'What fit, Sir?'  Malcolm opened his eyes.

'The pleasing madness.'

Malcolm uttered a cry like horror, and reddened crimson.  'Sir!  Sir!
Sir!' he stammered.

'A well-known token of the disease is raving.'

'Sir, Sir!  I implore you to speak of nothing so profane.'

'I am not given to profanity,' said James, endeavouring to look severe,
but with laughter in his voice.  'Methought you were not yet so sacred a
personage.'

'Myself!  No; but that I--I should dare to have such thoughts of--oh,
Sir!' and Malcolm covered his face with his hands.  'Oh, that you should
have so mistaken me!'

'I have _not_ mistaken you,' said James, fixing his keen eyes on him.

'Oh, Sir!' cried Malcolm, like one freshly stung, 'you have!  Never,
never dreamt I of aught but worshipping as a living saint, as I would
entreat St. Margaret or--'

There was still the King's steady look and the suppressed smile.  Malcolm
broke off, and with a sudden agony wrung his hands together.  The King
still smiled.  'Ay, Malcolm, it will not do; you are man, not monk.'

'But why be so cruel as to make me vile in my own eyes?' almost sobbed
Malcolm.

'Because,' said the King, 'she is not a saint in heaven, nor a nun in a
convent, but a free woman, to be won by the youth she has marked out.'

'Marked!  Oh, Sir, she only condescended because she knew my
destination.'

'That is well,' said King James.  'Thus sparks kindle at unawares.'

Malcolm's groan and murmur of 'Never!' made James almost laugh at the
evidence that on one side at least the touch-wood was ready.

'Oh, Sir,' he sighed, 'why put the thought before me, to make me
wretched!  Even were she for the world, she would never be for me.
I--doited--hirpling--'

'Peace, silly lad; all that is past and gone.  You are quite another now,
and a year or two of Harry's school of chivalry will send you home a
gallant knight and minstrel, such as no maiden will despise.'

The King went, and Malcolm fell into a silent state of musing.  He was
entirely overpowered, both by the consciousness awakened within himself,
by the doubt whether it were not a great sin, and by the strangeness that
the King, hitherto his oracle, should infuse such a hope.  What King
James deemed possible could never be so incredible, or even sacrilegious,
as he deemed it.  Restless, ashamed, rent by a thousand conflicting
feelings, Malcolm roamed up and down his chamber, writhed, tried to sit
and think, then, finding his thoughts in a whirl, renewed his frantic
pacings.  And when dire necessity brought him again into the ladies'
chamber, he was silent, blushing, ungainly, abstracted, and retreated
into the farthest possible corner from the unconscious Esclairmonde.

Then, when again alone with the King, he began with the assertion, 'It is
utterly impossible, Sir;' and James smiled to see his poison working.  Not
that he viewed it as poison.  Monasticism was at a discount, and the
ranks of the religious orders were chiefly filled, the old Benedictine
and Augustinian foundations by gentlemen of good family who wanted the
easy life of a sort of bachelor squire, and the friaries were recruited
by the sort of men who would in modern times be dissenting teachers of
the lower stamp.  James was persuaded that Malcolm was fit for better
things than were usually to be seen in a convent, and that it was a real
kindness not to let him merely retire thither out of faintness of heart,
mistaken for devotion; and he also felt as if he should be doing good
service, not only to Malcolm, but to Scotland, if he could obtain for him
a wife of the grand character of Esclairmonde de Luxemburg.

He even risked the mention of the project to the Countess of Hainault,
without whose consent nothing could be effected.  Jaqueline laughed long
and loud at the notion of her stately Esclairmonde being the lady-love of
King James's little white-visaged cousin; but if he could bring it about
she had no objection, she should be very glad that the demoiselle should
come down from the height and be like other people; but she would wager
the King of Scots her emerald carcanet against his heron's plume, that
Esclairmonde would never marry unless her hands were held for her.  Was
she not at that very moment visiting some foundation of bedeswomen--that
was all she heard of at yonder feast of cats!

In fact, under Dr. Bennet's escort, Esclairmonde and Alice were in a
barge dropping down the Thames to the neighbourhood of the frowning
fortress of the Tower--as yet unstained; and at the steps leading to the
Hospitium of St. Katharine the ladies were met, not only by their friend
Mrs. Bolt, but by Sir Richard Whittington, his kindly dame, and by
'Master William Kedbesby,' a grave and gentle-looking old man, who had
been Master of St. Katharine's ever since the first year of King Richard
II., and delighted to tell of the visits 'Good Queen Anne' of Bohemia had
made to her hospital, and the kind words she had said to the old alms-
folk and the children of the schools; and when he heard that the Lady
Esclairmonde was of the same princely house of Luxemburg, he seemed to
think no honour sufficient for her.  They visited the two houses, one for
old men, the other for old women, each with a common apartment, with a
fire, and a dining-table in the midst, and sleeping cells screened off
round it, and with a paved terrace walk overhanging the river, where the
old people could sit and sun themselves, and be amused by the gay barges
and the swans that expatiated there.  The bedeswomen, ten in number, had
a house arranged like an ordinary nunnery, except that they were not in
seclusion, had no grating, and shared the quadrangle with the alms-folk
and children.  They were gentle and well-nurtured women, chiefly
belonging to the city and country families that furnished servants to the
queens; and they applied themselves to various offices of charity, going
forth into the city to tend the poor, and to teach the women and
children.  The appointments of alms-folk and admissions to the school
were chiefly made at their recommendation; and though a master taught all
the book-learning in the busy hive of scholars--eighty in number--one or
more of them instructed the little girls in spinning and in stitchery, to
say nothing of gentle and modest demeanour.  There was a great look of
happiness and good order about all; and the church, fair and graceful,
seemed well to complete and rule the institution.  Esclairmonde could but
sigh with a sort of regret as she left it, and let herself be conducted
by Sir Richard Whittington to a refection at his beautiful house in
Crutched Friars, built round a square, combining warehouse and
manor-house; richly-carved shields, with the arms of the companies of
London, supporting the tier of first-floor windows, and another row of
brackets above supporting another overhanging story.  A fountain was in
the centre of a beautiful greensward, with beds of roses, pansies, pinks,
stars of Bethlehem, and other good old flowers, among which a monkey was
chained to a tree, while a cat roamed about at a safe distance from him.

Alice Montagu raised a laugh by asking if it were _the_ cat; to which her
city namesake replied that 'her master' never could abide to be without a
cat in memory of his first friend, and marshalled them into the beautiful
hall, with wainscot lining below, surmounted by an arcade containing
statues, and above a beautiful carved ceiling.  Here a meal was served to
them, and the Lady talked with Whittington of the grand town-halls and
other buildings of the merchants of the Low Countries, with whom he was a
trader for their rich stuffs; and the visit passed off with no small
satisfaction to both parties.

Esclairmonde sat in the barge on her return, looking out on the gray
clear water, and on the bright gardens that sloped down to it, gay with
roses and fruitful with mulberries, apples, and strawberries, and the
mansions and churches that were never quite out of sight, though there
were some open fields and wild country ere coming to Westminster, all as
if she did not see them, but was wrapped in deep contemplation.

Alice at last, weary of silence, stole her arm round her waist, and
peeped up into her face.  'May I guess thy thoughts, sweet Clairette?
Thou wilt found such a hospice thyself?'

'Say not I _will_, child,' said Esclairmonde, with a crystal drop
starting in each dark eye.  'I would strive and hope, but--'

'Ah! thou wilt, thou wilt,' cried Alice; 'and since there are Beguines
enough for their own Netherlands, thou wilt come to England and be our
foundress here.'

'Nay, little one; here are the bedeswomen of St. Katharine's in London.'

'Ah! but we have other cities.  Good Father, have we not?
Hull--Southampton--oh! so many, where poor strangers come that need
ghostly tendance as well as bodily.  Esclairmonde--Light of the World--oh!
it was not for nothing that they gave thee that goodly name.  The hospice
shall bear it!'

'Hush, hush! sweet pyet; mine own name is what they must not bear.'

'Ah! but the people will give it; and our Holy Father the Pope, he will
put thee into the canon of saints.  Only pity that I cannot live to hear
of Ste. Esclairmonde--nay, but then I must overlive thee, mind I should
not love that.'

'Oh, silence, silence, child; these are no thoughts to begin a work with.
Little flatterer, it may be well for me that our lives must needs lie so
far apart that I shall not oft hear that fond silly tongue.'

'Nay,' said Alice, in the luxury, not of castle-building but of convent-
building; 'it may be that when that knight over there sees me so small
and ill-favoured he will none of me, and then I'll thank him so, and pray
my father to let him have all my lands and houses except just enough to
dower me to follow thee with, dear Lady Prioress.'

But here Alice was summarily silenced.  Such talk, both priest and
votaress told her, was not meet for dutiful daughter or betrothed maiden.
Her lot was fixed, and she must do her duty therein as the good wife and
lady of the castle, the noble English matron; and as she looked half
disposed to pout, Esclairmonde drew such a picture of the beneficent
influence of the good baronial dame, ruling her castle, bringing up her
children and the daughters of her vassals in good and pious nurture,
making 'the heart of her husband safely trust in her,' benefiting the
poor, and fostering holy men, wayfarers, and pilgrims, that the girl's
eyes filled within tears as she looked up and said, 'Ah! lady, this is
the life fitted for thee, who can paint it so well.  Why have I not a
brother, that you might be Countess of Salisbury, and I a poor little
sister in a nunnery?'

Esclairmonde shook her head.  'Silly child, _petite niaise_, our lots
were fixed by other hands than ours.  We will strive each to serve our
God, in the coif or in the veil, in samite or in serge, and He will only
ask which of us has been most faithful, not whether we have lived in
castle or in cloister.'

Little had Esclairmonde expected to hear the greeting with which the
Countess received her, breaking out into peals of merriment as she told
her of the choice destiny in store for her, to be wedded to the little
lame Scot, pretending to read her a grave lecture on the consequences of
the advances she had made to him.

Esclairmonde was not put out of countenance; in fact, she did not think
the Countess in earnest, and merely replied with a smile that at least
there was less harm in Lord Malcolm than in the suitors at home.

Jaqueline clapped her hands and cried, 'Good tidings, Clairette.  I'll
never forgive you if you make me lose my emerald carcanet!  So the arrow
was winged, after all.  She prefers him--her heart is touched by the
dainty step.'

'Madame!' entreated Esclairmonde, with agitation; 'at least, infirmity
should be spared.'

'It touches her deeply!' exclaimed the Duchess.  'Ah! to see her in the
mountains teaching the wild men to say their Aye, and to wear _culottes_,
the little prince interpreting for her, as King James told us in his
story of the saint his ancestor.'

Raillery about Malcolm had been attempted before, but never so
pertinaciously; and Esclairmonde heeded it not at all, till James himself
sought her out, and, within all his own persuasive grace, told her that
he was rejoiced to hear from Madame of Hainault that she had spoken
kindly of his youthful kinsman, for whose improvement he was sure he had
in great measure to thank her.

Esclairmonde replied composedly, but as one on her guard, that the Sieur
de Glenuskie was a gentle and a holy youth, of a good and toward wit.

'As I saw from the first,' said James, 'when I brought him away from
being crushed among our rude cousins; but, lady, I knew not how the task
of training the boy would be taken out of my hands by your kindness; and
now, pardon me, lady, only one thing is wanting to complete your work,
and that is hope.'

'Hope is always before a holy man, Sir.'

'O, madame! but we peer earthly beings require an earthly hope, nearer
home, to brace our hearts, and nerve our arms.'

'I thought the Sieur de Glenuskie was destined to a religious life.'

'Never by any save his enemies, lady.  The Regent Albany and his fierce
sons have striven to scare Malcolm into a cloister, that his sister and
his lands may be their prey; and they would have succeeded had not I come
to Scotland in time.  The lad never had any true vocation.'

'That may be,' said Esclairmonde, somewhat sorrowfully.

'Still,' added James, 'he is of a thoughtful and somewhat tender mould,
and the rudeness of life will try him sorely unless he have some cheering
star, some light of love, to bear him up and guide him on his way.'

'If so, may he find a 

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