← catalogue

Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent

by G. P. R. James · English · Gutenberg #50854 · 1,039,603 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent

Author: G. P. R. James

Author of introduction, etc.: Laurie Magnus


        
Release date: January 6, 2016 [eBook #50854]
                Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50854

Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by
        Google Books (University of Virginia)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY OF BURGUNDY; OR, THE REVOLT OF GHENT ***

Transcriber's Notes:
   1. Page scan source: Google Books
              https://books.google.com/books?id=hLFEAAAAYAAJ
     (University of Virginia)
   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].






Mary _of_ Burgundy.

_By_
G. P. R. James


London
George Routledge
and Sons Limited.
MDCCCCIII.




_The Introduction is written by_ Laurie Magnus, M.A.;
_the Title-page is designed by_ Ivor I. J. Symes.






INTRODUCTION.


George Payne Rainsford James, Historiographer Royal to King William
IV., was born in London in the first year of the nineteenth century,
and died at Venice in 1860. His comparatively short life was
exceptionally full and active. He was historian, politician and
traveller, the reputed author of upwards of a hundred novels, the
compiler and editor of nearly half as many volumes of letters,
memoirs, and biographies, a poet and a pamphleteer, and, during the
last ten years of his life, British Consul successively in
Massachusetts, Norfolk (Virginia), and Venice. He was on terms of
friendship with most of the eminent men of his day. Scott, on whose
style he founded his own, encouraged him to persevere in his career as
a novelist; Washington Irving admired him, and Walter Savage Landor
composed an epitaph to his memory. He achieved the distinction of
being twice burlesqued, by Thackeray, and two columns are devoted to
an account of him in the new "Dictionary of National Biography." Each
generation follows its own gods, and G. P. R. James was, perhaps, too
prolific an author to maintain the popularity which made him "in some
ways the most successful novelist of his time." But his work bears
selection and revival. It possesses the qualities of seriousness and
interest; his best historical novels are faithful in setting and free
in movement. His narrative is clear, his history conscientious, and
his plots are well-conceived. English learning and literature are
enriched by the work of this writer, who made vivid every epoch in the
world's history by the charm of his romance.


The great passage in this book is so magnificently dramatic that James
feels it due to his conscience as an historian to apologise for its
excellence in a footnote. "It may be necessary," he writes at the foot
of page 234, "to inform those who are not deeply read in the
chronicles of France that this fact is minutely accurate." We are
glad of the reminder, for without it the reader might have thought
that here was something fictitious, or at least exaggerated and
'worked-up,' so intense and true is the tragic setting of the scene.
But if Mary of Burgundy's bearing at the execution of the Lord of
Imbercourt, and her grand historical utterance, recorded on page 305,
"You have banished my best friends, and slain my wisest counsellors,
and now what can I do to deliver you?" if these public appearances of
the heiress of Charles the Bold, and the love which she cherished for
the husband who was chosen for her on political grounds, justify James
in raising her to the title-role in this romance, it must be conceded
that the real hero is Albert Maurice, citizen of Ghent, a noble
mediæval prototype of the _citoyens_ of the French Revolution,
Whatever defects in character-study have been ascribed to James, no
one can deny that in Albert Maurice his skill was equal to its
material. The figure of the young President is firmly and consistently
drawn, and the conception touches considerable heights of human daring
and aspiration. Albert Maurice at the time of his fall was many years
younger than Wolsey, but he could say as genuinely as the Cardinal, "I
charge thee, fling away ambition!" In his story we realize to the full
the tragic import of that warning. His splendid dream of patriotism
was fulfilled by blunders and crimes, committed _per se_ or _per
alios_, for which he felt the responsibility, and at the end the
people of Ghent discovered the ancient truth, that worse than the
tyranny of tyrants is the tyranny of tyrannicides. But by that time
Maurice was dead; the victim of self-delusion would not survive his
disappointment; in the sudden knowledge that his goal was
unattainable, he became aware that his steps to it had been unjust.
This romance of the fifteenth century--Mary of Burgundy was married in
1477--is in what Matthew Arnold called the "grand style," and it is
therefore singularly free from faults of diction and false notes of
any kind. It has a certain attractive naturalness from beginning to
end, and it is one of the best, as it is one of the earliest, of the
series of novels in which James went for his plots to the French
Chroniclers of the Middle Ages.






MARY OF BURGUNDY:
OR,
THE REVOLT OF GHENT.




CHAPTER I.


It was on the evening of a beautiful day in the beginning of
September, 1456--one of those fair autumn days that wean us, as it
were, from the passing summer, with the light as bright, and the sky
as full of rays, as in the richest hours of June; and with nothing but
a scarce perceptible shade of yellow in the woods to tell that it is
not the proudest time of the year's prime. It was in the evening, as I
have said; but nothing yet betokened darkness. The sun had glided a
considerable way on his descent down the bright arch of the western
sky, yet without one ray being shadowed, or any lustre lost. He had
reached that degree of declination alone, at which his beams, pouring
from a spot a little above the horizon, produced, as they streamed
over forest and hill, grand masses of light and shade, with every here
and there a point of dazzling brightness, where the clear evening rays
were reflected from stream or lake.

It was in the heart of a deep forest, too, whose immemorial trees,
worn away by time, or felled by the axe, left in various places wide
open spaces of broken ground and turf, brushwood and dingle,--and
amidst whose deep recesses a thousand spots rich in woodland beauty
lay hidden from the eye of man. Those were not, indeed, times when
taste and cultivation had taught the human race to appreciate fully
all the charms and magnificence wherewith nature's hand has robed the
globe which we inhabit; and the only beings that then trod the deeper
glades of the forest were the woodman, the hunter, or those less
fortunate persons who--as we see them represented by the wild pencil
of Salvator Rosa--might greatly increase the picturesque effect of the
scenes they frequented; but, probably, did not particularly feel it
themselves. But there is, nevertheless, in the heart of man, a native
sense of beauty, a latent sympathy, a harmony with all that is lovely
on the earth, which makes him unconsciously seek out spots of peculiar
sweetness, not only for his daily dwelling, but also for both his
temporary resting place, and for the mansion of his long repose,
whether the age or the country be rude or not.

Look at the common cemetery of a village, and you will generally find
that it is pitched in the most picturesque spot to be found in the
neighbourhood. If left to his free will, the peasant will almost
always--without well knowing why--build his cottage where he may have
something fair or bright before his eyes; and the very herd, while
watching his cattle or his sheep, climbs up the face of the crag, to
sit and gaze over the fair expanse of Nature's face.

It was in the heart of a deep forest, then, at the distance of nearly
twenty miles from Louvain, that a boy, of about twelve years of age,
was seen sleeping by the side of a small stream; which, dashing over a
high rock hard by, gathered its bright waters in a deep basin at the
foot, and then rushed, clear and rapidly, through the green turf
beyond. The old trees of the wood were scattered abroad from the
stream, as if to let the little waterfall sparkle at its will in the
sunshine. One young ash tree, alone, self-sown by the side of the
river, waved over the boy's head, and cast a dancing veil of chequered
light and shade upon features as fair as eye ever looked upon.

At about a hundred yards from the spot where he was lying, a sandy
road wound through the savannah, and plunged into the deeper parts of
the wood. On the other side, however, the ground being of a more open
nature, the path might be seen winding up the steep ascent of a high
hill, with the banks, which occasionally flanked it to the east,
surmounted by long lines of tall overhanging trees.

A rude bridge of stone, whose ruinous condition spoke plainly how
rarely the traveller's foot trod the path through the forest, spanned
over the stream at a little distance. And the evening light, as it
poured in from the west, caught bright upon the countenance of the
sleeping boy, upon the dancing cascade above his head, upon many a
flashing turn in the river, and, after gilding the ivy that mantled
the old bridge, passed on to lose itself gradually in the gloom of the
deep masses of forest-ground beyond.

The dress of the sleeper accorded well with the scene in which he was
found; it consisted of a full coat, of forest-green, gathered round
his waist by a broad belt, together with the long tight hose common at
the period. In his belt was a dagger and knife; and on his head he had
no covering, except the glossy curls of his dark brown hair. Though
the material of his garments was of the finest cloth which the looms
of Ypres could produce, yet marks of toil, and even of strife, were
apparent in the dusty and torn state of his habiliments.

He lay, however, in that calm, deep, placid sleep, only known to
youth, toil, and innocence. His breath was so light, and his slumber
was so calm, that he might have seemed dead, but for the rosy hue of
health that overspread his cheeks. No sound appeared at first to have
any effect upon his ear, though, while he lay beside the stream, a
wild, timid stag came rustling through the brushwood to drink of its
waters, and suddenly seeing a human thing amidst the solitude of the
forest, bounded quick away through the long glades of the wood. After
that, the leaves waved over him, and the wind played with the curls of
his hair for nearly half an hour, without any living creature
approaching to disturb his repose. At the end of that time, some
moving objects made their appearance at the most distant point of the
road that was visible, where it sunk over the hill. At first, all that
could be seen was a dark body moving forward down the descent,
enveloped in a cloud of dust; but, gradually, it separated into
distinct parts, and assumed the form of a party of armed horsemen.
Their number might be ten or twelve; and, by the slowness of their
motions, it seemed that they had already travelled far. More than
once, as they descended the slope, they paused, and appeared to gaze
over the country, as if either contemplating its beauty, or doubtful
of the road they ought to take. These pauses, however, always ended in
their resuming their way towards the spot which we have described.
When they at length reached it, they again drew the rein; and it
became evident, that uncertainty, with regard to their onward course,
had been the cause of their several halts upon the hill.

"By my faith, Sir Thibalt of Neufchatel," said one of the horsemen,
who rode a little in advance of the others, "for Marshal of Burgundy,
you know but little of your lord's dominions. By the Holy Virgin!
methinks that you are much better acquainted with every high-road and
by-path of my poor appanage of Dauphiny. At least, so the worthy
burghers of Vienne were wont to assert, when we would fain have
squeezed the double crowns out of their purses. It was then their
invariable reply, that the Marshal of Burgundy had been upon them with
his lances, and drained them as dry as hay: coming no one knew how,
and going no one knew where."

The man who spoke was yet not only in his prime, but in the early part
of that period of life which is called middle age. There was no
peculiar beauty in his countenance, nor in his person; there was
nothing, apparently, either to strike or to please. Yet it was
impossible to stand before him, and not to feel one's self--without
very well knowing why--in the presence of an extraordinary man. There
was in his deportment to be traced the evident habit of command. He
spoke, as if knowing his words were to be obeyed. But that was not
all; from underneath the overhanging penthouse of his thick eyebrows
shone forth two keen grey eyes, which had in them a prying,
inquisitive cunning, which seemed anxiously exerted to discover at
once the thoughts of those they gazed upon, before any veil, of the
many which man uses, could be drawn over motives or feelings, to
conceal them from that searching glance.

Those given to physiognomy might have gathered, from his high and
projecting, but narrow forehead, the indications of a keen and
observing mind, with but little imagination, superstition without
fancy, and talent without wit. The thin, compressed lips, the
naturally firm-set posture of the teeth, the curling line from the
nostril to the corner of the mouth, might have been construed to imply
a heart naturally cruel, which derived not less pleasure from
inflicting wounds by bitter words than from producing mere corporeal
pain. His dress, at this time of his life, was splendid to excess; and
the horse on which he rode showed the high blood that poured through
its veins, by a degree of fire and energy far superior to that
exhibited by the chargers of his companions, though the journey it had
performed was the same which had so wearied them.

As he spoke the words before detailed, he looked back to a gentleman,
who rode a step or two behind him on his right hand; and on his
countenance appeared, what he intended to be, a smile of frank,
good-humoured raillery. The natural expression of his features mingled
with it nevertheless, and gave it an air of sarcasm, which made the
bitter, perhaps, preponderate over the sweet.

The person to whom he addressed himself, however, listened with
respectful good humour. "In truth, my lord," he replied, "so little
have I dwelt in this part of the duke's dominions that I know my way
less than many a footboy. I once was acquainted with every rood of
ground between Brussels and Tirlemont; but, God be thanked, my memory
is short, and I have forgotten it all, as readily as I hope you, sir,
may forget certain marches in Dauphiny, made when Louis the Dauphin
was an enemy to Burgundy, instead of an honoured guest."

"They are forgotten, Lord Marshal, they are forgotten," replied the
Dauphin, afterwards famous as Louis XI.--"and can never more be
remembered but to show me how much more pleasant it is to have the
lord of Neufchatel for a friend rather than an enemy. But, in Heaven's
name," he added, changing the subject quickly, "before we go farther,
let us seek some one to show us the way, or let us halt our horses
here, and wait for the fat citizens of Ghent, whom we left on the
other side of the river."

His companion shook his head with a doubtful smile, as he replied, "It
would be difficult, I trow, to find any guide here, unless Saint
Hubert, or some other of the good saints, were to send us a white stag
with a collar of gold round his neck, to lead us safely home, as the
old legends tell us they used to do of yore."

"The saints have heard your prayer, my lord," cried one of the party
who had strayed a little to the left, but not so far as to be out of
hearing of the conversation which was passing between the other two;
"the saints have heard your prayer; and here is the white stag, in the
form of a fair boy in a green jerkin."

As he spoke, he pointed forward with his hand towards the little
cascade, where the boy, who had been sleeping by its side, had now
started up, awakened by the sound of voices, and of horses' feet, and
was gazing on the travellers, with anxious eyes, and with his hand
resting on his dagger.

"Why, how now, boy!" cried the Dauphin, spurring up towards the
stream. "Thinkest thou that we are Jews, or cut-throats, or wild men
of the woods, that thou clutchest thy knife so fearfully? Say, canst
thou tell how far we are from Tirlemont?"

The boy eyed the party for several moments ere he replied. "How should
I know whether you be cut-throats or not?" he said, at length; "I have
seen cut-throats in as fine clothes. How far is it from Tirlemont? As
far as it is from Liege or Namur."

"Then, by my troth, Sir Marshal," said the Dauphin, turning to his
companion, "our horses will never carry us thither this night. What is
to be done?"

"What is the nearest town or village, boy?" demanded the Marshal of
Burgundy. "If we be at equal distances from Namur and Liege and
Tirlemont, we cannot be far from Hannut."

"Hannut is the nearest place," answered the boy; "but it is two hours'
ride for a tired horse."

"We will try it, however," said the Marshal; and then added, turning
to the Dauphin, "the lord of the castle of Hannut, sir, though first
cousin of the bad Duke of Gueldres, is a noble gentleman as ever
lived; and I can promise you a fair reception. Though once a famous
soldier, he has long cast by the lance and casque; and, buried deep in
studies--which churchmen say are hardly over holy--he passes his whole
time in solitude, except when some ancient friend breaks in upon his
reveries. Such a liberty I may well take. Now, boy, tell us our road,
and there is a silver piece for thy pains."

The boy stooped not to raise the money which the Marshal threw towards
him, but replied eagerly, "If any one will take me on the croup behind
him, I will show you easily the way. Nay, I beseech you, noble lords,
take me with you; for I am wearied and alone, and I must lie in the
forest all night if you refuse me."

"But dost thou know the way well, my fair boy?" demanded the Dauphin,
approaching nearer, and stooping over his saddle-bow to speak to the
boy with an air of increasing kindness. "Thou art so young, methinks
thou scarce canst know all the turnings of a wood like this. Come, let
us hear if thy knowledge is equal to the task of guiding us?"

"That it is," answered the boy at once. "The road is as easy to find
as a heron's nest in a bare tree. One has nothing to do but to follow
on that road over the bridge, take the two first turnings to the
right, and then the next to the left, and at the end of a league more
the castle is in sight."

"Ay," said the Dauphin, "is it so easy as that? Then, by my faith, I
think we can find it ourselves. Come, Sir Marshall, come!" And, so
saying, he struck his spurs into his horse's sides, and cantered over
the bridge.

The Marshal of Burgundy looked back with a lingering glance of
compassion at the poor boy thus unfeelingly treated by his companion.
But, as the Prince dashed forward and waved his hand for him to
follow, he rode on also, though not without a muttered comment on the
conduct of the other, which might not have given great pleasure had it
been vented aloud. The whole train followed; and, left alone, the boy
stood silent, gazing on them as they departed, with a flushed cheek
and a curling lip. "Out upon the traitors!" he exclaimed, at length.
"All men are knaves; yet it is but little honour to their knavery, to
cheat a boy like me."

The train wound onward into the wood, and the last horseman was soon
hidden from his eyes; but the merry sound of laughing voices, borne by
the wind to his ear for some moments after they were out of sight,
spoke painfully how little interest they took in his feelings or
situation.

He listened till all was still, and then, seating himself on the bank
of the stream, gazed vacantly on the bubbling waters as they rushed
hurriedly by him; while the current of his own thoughts held as rapid
and disturbed a course. As memory after memory of many a painful scene
and sorrow--such as infancy has seldom known--came up before his
sight, his eyes filled, the tears rolled rapidly over his cheeks, and,
casting himself prostrate on the ground, he hid his face amongst the
long grass, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

He had not lain there long, however, when a heavy hand, laid firmly on
his shoulder, caused him once more to start up; and, though the figure
which stood by him when he did so, was not one whose aspect was very
prepossessing, yet it would be difficult to describe the sudden
lightning of joy that sparkled in his eyes through the tears with
which they still overflowed.

The person who had roused him from the prostrate despair in which he
had cast himself down, was a middle-sized, broad-made man, with long
sinewy arms, and a chest like that of a mountain-bull. He might be
nearly forty years of age; and his face, which had once been fair, a
fact which was vouched alone by his light brown hair, and clear blue
eye, had now reached a hue nearly approaching to the colour of
mahogany, by constant exposure to the summer's sun and the winter's
cold. There was in it, withal, an expression of daring hardihood,
softened and, as it were, purified by a frank, free, good-humoured
smile, which was not without a touch of droll humour. His garb at once
bespoke him one of those vagrant sons of Mars, with whom war, in some
shape, was a never-failing trade; a class of which we must speak more
hereafter, and which the abuses of the feudal system, the constant
feuds of chieftain with chieftain, and the long and desolating warfare
between France and England, had at that time rendered but too common
in every part of Europe. He was not, indeed, clothed from head to heel
in cold iron, as was customary with the knight or man-at-arms when
ready for the field; but there was quite a sufficient portion of old
steel about his person, in the form of arms both offensive and
defensive, to show that hard blows were the principal merchandise in
which he traded.

He laid his large hairy hand, as I have said, firmly and familiarly on
the boy's shoulder; and the expression of the young wanderer's
countenance, when he started up, and beheld the person who stood near
him, at once showed, not only that they were old acquaintances, but
that their meeting was both unexpected and joyful.

"Matthew Gournay!" exclaimed the boy, "good Matthew Gournay, is it
you, indeed? Oh, why did you not come before? With your fifty good
lances, we might yet have held the castle out, till we were joined by
the troops from Utrecht; but now all is lost, the castle taken, and my
father----"

"I know it all, Master Hugh," interrupted the soldier; "I know it all
better than the paternoster. Bad news flies faster than a swallow; so
I know it all, and a good deal more than you yourself know. You ask,
why I did not come too. By our Lady! for the simplest reason in the
world--because I could not. I was lying like an old rat in a trap,
with four stone walls all round about me, in the good city of Liege.
Duke Philip heard of the haste I was making to give you help, and
cogged with the old bishop--may his skull be broken!--to send out a
couple of hundred reiters to intercept us on our march. What would you
have? We fought like devils, but we were taken at a disadvantage, by a
superior force. All my gallant fellows were killed or dispersed; and
at last, finding my back against a rock, with six spears at my breast,
and not loving the look of such a kind of toasting-fork, I agreed to
take lodging in the town prison of Liege."

"But how got you out, then!" demanded the boy; "did they free you for
good-will?"

"Not they," replied Matthew Gournay: "they gave me cold water and hard
bread, and vowed every day to stick my head upon the gate of the town,
_as a terror to all marauders_, as they said. But the fools showed
themselves rank burghers, by leaving me my arms; and I soon found
means to get the iron bars out of the windows, ventured a leap of
thirty feet, swam the ditch, climbed the wall, and here I am in the
forest of Hannut. But not alone, Master Hugh. I have got a part of my
old comrades together already, and hope soon to have a better band
than ever. The old seneschal, too, from the castle, is with us, and
from him we heard all the bad news. But, though he talked of murder
and putting to death, and flaying alive, and vowed that everybody in
the castle had been killed but himself, I got an inkling from the old
charcoal-burner's wife, at the hut in the wood, of how you had
escaped, and whither you had gone. So, thinking, as you were on foot
and alone, that you might want help and a horse, I tracked you like a
deer to this place: for your father was always a good friend to me in
the time of need; and I will stand by you, Master Hugh, while I have a
hand for my sword, or a sword for my hand."

"Hark!" cried the boy, almost as the other spoke; "there's a bugle on
the hill! It must be the duke's butchers following me."

"A bugle!" cried the soldier; "a cow's-horn blown by a sow-driver, you
mean. None of the duke's bugles ever blew a blast like that, something
between the groaning of a blacksmith's bellows and the grunting of a
hog. But there they are," he continued, "sure enough, lances and all,
as I live. We must to cover, Hugh, we must to cover! Quick--thy hand,
boy--they are coming down, straggling like fallow deer!"

So saying, Matthew Gournay sprang up the high bank, in falling over
which the little stream formed the cascade we have noticed; and, as he
climbed the rock himself, he assisted, or rather dragged up after him,
his young companion, whose hand he held locked in his own, with a
grasp which no slight weight could have unbent.

For a moment, they paused on the top of the crag, to take another look
at the approaching party, and then plunged into the long shrubs and
tangled brushwood that clothed the sides of the winding glen, down
which the stream wandered previous to its fall.




CHAPTER II.


The party, whose approach had interrupted the conversation of Matthew
Gournay and his young companion, were not long before they reached the
little open spot in the forest, from which they had scared the other
two; and, as it was at that point that their road first fell in with
the stream, they paused for a moment, to water their horses ere they
proceeded. Their appearance and demeanour corresponded well with the
peculiar sound of the horn which they had blown upon the hill; for
though the instrument which announced their approach was martial in
itself, yet the sounds which they produced from it were anything but
military; and though swords and lances, casques and breastplates, were
to be seen in profusion amongst them, there was scarcely one of the
party who had not a certain burgher rotundity of figure, or negligence
of gait, far more in harmony with furred gowns and caps _à la mortier_
than with war-steeds and glittering arms.

The first, who paused beside the stream, had nearly been thrown over
his horse's head, by the animal suddenly bending his neck to drink;
and it was long before the rider could sufficiently compose himself
again in the saddle, to proceed with some tale which he had been
telling to one of his companions, who urged him to make an end of his
story, with an eagerness which seemed to show that the matter was one
of great interest to him at least.

"Well-a-day, Master Nicholas, well-a-day!" cried the discomposed
horseman, "let me but settle myself on my stool--saddle, I mean. God
forgive me! but this cursed beast has pulled the bridle out of my
hands. So ho! Bernard, so ho!--there, there, surely thou couldst drink
without bending thy head so low."

While he thus spoke, by a slow and cautious movement--not unlike that
with which a child approaches a sparrow, to perform the difficult task
of throwing salt upon its tail--he regained a grasp of the bridle-rein
which the horse had twitched out of his hand, and then went on with
his story, interrupting it, however, every now and then, to address
sundry admonitions to his horse, somewhat in the following style:--

"Well, where was I, worthy Master Nicholas? I was saying--so ho!
beast! The devil's in thee, thou wilt have me into the river. I was
saying that, after the castle was taken, and every soul put to the
sword, even the poor boy, Hugh,--for which last, I hear, the duke is
very much grieved,--be quiet, Bernard, hold up thy head!--Count
Adolphus himself fled away by a postern-door, and is now a prisoner
in--"

"Nay, but, Master Martin, you said they were all put to death,"
interrupted one of his companions.

"Remember what the doctors say," replied the other; "namely, that
there is no general rule without its exception. They were all killed
but those that ran away, which were only Count Adolphus and his horse,
who got away together, the one upon the other. Fool that he was to
trust himself upon a horse's back! It was his ruin, alack! it was his
ruin."

"How so?" demanded Master Nicholas; "did the horse throw him and break
his pate? Methought you said, but now, that he was alive and a
prisoner."

"And I said truly, too," answered the other. "Nevertheless, his
mounting that horse was the cause of his ruin; for though he got off
quietly enough, yet, at the bridge below Namur--where, if he had had
no horse, he would have passed free--he was obliged to stop to pay
pontage[1] for his beast. A priest, who was talking with the toll-man,
knew him; and he was taken on the spot, and cast into prison."

"Methinks it was more the priest's fault than the horse's, then,"
replied Master Nicholas; "but whoever it was that betrayed him, bad
was the turn they did to the city of Ghent; for, what with his aid,
and that of the good folks of Gueldres, and the worthy burghers of
Utrecht, we might have held the proud duke at bay, and wrung our
rights from him drop by drop, like water from a sponge."

"God knows, God knows!" replied Martin Fruse, the burgher of Ghent, to
whom this was addressed; "God knows! it is a fine thing to have one's
rights, surely; but, somehow, I thought we were very comfortable and
happy in the good old city, before there was any quarrel about rights
at all. Well I know, we have never been happy since; and I have been
forced to ride on horseback by the week together; for which sin, my
flesh and skin do daily penance, as the chirurgeons of Namur could
vouch if they would. Nevertheless, one must be patriotic, and all
that, so I would not grumble, if this beast would but give over
drinking, which I think he will not do before he or I drop down dead.
Here, horse-boy, come and pluck his nose out of the pool; for I cannot
move him more than I could the town-house."

The worthy burgher was soon relieved from his embarrassments; and his
horse being once more put upon the road, he led the way onward,
followed by the rest of the party, with their servants and attendants.
The place of leader was evidently conceded to good Martin Fruse; but
this distinction was probably assigned to him, more on account of his
wealth and integrity, than from the possession of fine wit, great
sense, energetic activity, or any other requisite for a popular
leader. He was, in truth, a worthy, honest man, somewhat easily
persuaded, especially where his general vanity, and, more
particularly, his own opinion of his powers as a politician, were
brought into play: but his mind was neither very vigorous nor acute;
though sometimes an innate sense of rectitude, and a hatred of
injustice, would lend energy to his actions, and eloquence to his
words.

Amongst those who followed him, however, were two or three spirits of
a higher order; who, without his purity of motives, or kindly
disposition, possessed far greater talents, activity, and vigour.
Nevertheless, turbulent by disposition and by habit, few of the
burghers of Ghent, at that time, possessed any very grand and general
views, whether directed to the assertion of the liberties and rights
of their country, or to the gratification of personal ambition. They
contented themselves with occasional tumults, or with temporary
alliances with the other states and cities in the low countries, few
of which rested long without being in open rebellion against their
governors.

One of the party, however, which accompanied good Martin Fruse must
not pass unmentioned; for, at that time acting no prominent part, he
exerted considerable influence, in after days, on the fortunes of
his country. He was, at the period I speak of, a bold, brave,
high-spirited boy; by no means unlike the one we have seen sleeping by
the cascade, though perhaps two or three years older. He was strong
and well proportioned for his age, and rode a wild young jennet, which
though full of fire, he managed with perfect ease. There was
something, indeed, in the manner in which he excited the horse into
fury, gave it the rein, and let it dash free past all his companions,
as if it had become perfectly ungovernable; and then, without
difficulty, reined it up with a smile of triumph, which gave no bad
picture of a mind conscious of powers of command, ambitious of their
exercise, and fearless of the result. How this character of mind
became afterwards modified by circumstances, will be shown more fully
in the following pages.

In the meanwhile, we must proceed with the train of burghers as they
rode on through the wood; concerting various plans amongst themselves,
for concealing from the Duke of Burgundy the extent of their intrigues
with Adolphus of Gueldres and the revolted citizens of Utrecht, for
excusing themselves on those points which had reached his knowledge,
and for assuaging his anger by presents and submission. The first
thing to be done, before presenting themselves at his court, was, of
course, to strip themselves of the warlike habiliments in which they
had flaunted, while entertaining hopes of a successful revolt. For
this purpose, they proposed to avoid the high road either to Brussels
or Louvain; and as most of them were well acquainted with the country
through which they had to pass, they turned to the left, after having
proceeded about a mile farther on their way, and put spurs to their
horses, in order to get out of the forest before nightfall, which was
now fast approaching.

The way was difficult, however, and full of large ruts and stones, in
some places overgrown with briers, in some places interrupted by deep
ravines. Here, it would go down so steep a descent, that slowness of
progression was absolutely necessary to the safety of their necks;
there, it would climb so deep a hill, that whip and spur were applied
to increase the speed of their beasts in vain.

As they thus journeyed on, making but little way, the bright rosy hue
which tinged the clouds above their heads showed that the sun was
sinking beneath the horizon's edge: the red, after growing deeper and
deeper for some time, began to fade away into the grey; each moment
the light became fainter and more faint; and, at length, while they
had yet at least three miles of forest ground to traverse, night fell
completely over the earth.

The darkness, however, was not so deep as in any degree to prevent
them from finding their way onward, or from distinguishing the objects
round about them, although it lent a mysterious sort of grandeur to
the deep masses and long dim glades of the forest, made the rocks look
like towers and castles, and converted many a tree, to the eyes of the
more timid, into the form of an armed man.

After having gone on in this state for about half an hour--just a
sufficient time, indeed, to work up every sort of apprehension to the
utmost, yet not long enough to familiarize the travellers with the
darkness, and when every one was calling to mind all the thousand
stories--which were, in those days, alas! too true ones--of robbers,
and murderers, and free plunderers--the whole party plunged down into
a deep dell, the aspect of which was not at all calculated to assuage
their terrors, whether reasonable or foolish. Not, indeed, that it was
more gloomy than the road through which they had been lately
travelling; rather, on the contrary. Whatever degree of light yet
remained in the heavens found its way more readily into that valley,
where the trees were less high, and at greater intervals from each
other, than into the narrow road which had led them thither, the high
banks of which were lined all the way along with tall and overhanging
beeches. The sort of dingle, however, which they now entered, was
clothed with low but thick shrubs; and no means of egress whatever
appeared, except by climbing some of the steep ascents which
surrounded it on every side.

There was a small piece of level ground at the bottom, of about a
hundred yards in diameter; and the moment they had reached the flat,
the word "Halt!" pronounced in a loud and imperative voice, caused
every one suddenly to draw his bridle rein with somewhat timid
obedience, though no one distinguished who was the speaker.

The matter was not left long in doubt. A dark figure glided from the
brushwood across their path; half a dozen more followed; and the
glistening of the faint light upon various pieces of polished iron,
showed that there was no lack of arms to compel obedience to the
peremptory order they had received to halt.

As the persons who obstructed the way, however, seemed but few in
number, one of the more bellicose of the burghers called upon his
companions to resist. His magnanimity was suddenly diminished by a
long arm stretched from the bushes beside him, which applied the
stroke of a quarter-staff with full force to his shoulders; and though
a cuirass, by which his person was defended, protected him from any
serious injury, yet he was thrown forward upon his horse's neck, with
a sound very much resembling that produced by the falling of an empty
kettle from the hands of a slovenly cook. All were now of opinion,
that, whatever might have been the result of resistance to the more
open foes before them, it was useless to contend with such invisible
enemies also, especially as those that were visible were gradually
increasing in numbers; and worthy Martin Fruse led the way to a
valorous surrender, by begging the gentlemen of the forest "to spare
them for God's sake."

"Down from your horses, every one of you!" cried the rough voice which
had commanded them to halt, "and we shall soon see what stuff you are
made of."

The citizens hastened to obey; and, in the terror which now reigned
completely amongst them, strange were the attitudes which they
assumed, and strange was the tumbling off, on either side of their
beasts, as they hurried to show prompt submission to the imperious
command they had received. In the confusion and disarray thus
produced, only one person of all their party seemed to retain full
command of his senses; and he was no other than the boy we have before
described, who, now taking advantage of a vacancy he saw in the ranks
of their opponents, dashed forward for a gap in the wood, and had
nearly effected his escape. He was too late, however, by a single
moment: his bridle was caught by a strong arm, before he could force
his way through; and his light jennet, thrown suddenly upon its
haunches, slipped on the green turf, and rolled with her young master
on the ground.

"By my faith," said the man who had thus circumvented him, "thou art a
bold young springal; but thou must back with me, my boy;" and so
saying, he raised him, not unkindly, from the earth, and led him to
the place where his companions stood.

The burghers and their attendants--in all, about ten in number--were
now divested of their arms, offensive and defensive, by the nameless
kind of gentry into whose hands they had fallen. This unpleasant
ceremony, however, was performed without harshness; and, though, no
resistance of any kind was offered, their captors abstained, with very
miraculous forbearance, from examining the contents of their pouches,
and from searching for any other metal than cold iron. When all this
was completed, and the good citizens of Ghent, reduced to their hose
and jerkins, stood passive, in silent expectation of what was to come
next--not at all unlike a flock of sheep that a shepherd's dog has
driven into a corner of a field,--the same hoarse-voiced gentleman,
who had hitherto acted as the leader of their assailants, addressed
them in a bantering tone:--"Now, my masters, tell me truly," he cried,
"whether do ye covet to go with your hands and feet at liberty, or to
have your wrists tied with cords till the blood starts out from
underneath your nails, and your ankles garnished in the same fashion?"

The answer of the citizens may well be conceived; and the other went
on in the same jeering manner:--"Well, then, swear to me by all you
hold holy and dear--but stay! First tell me who and what you are, that
I may frame the oath discreetly; for each man in this world holds holy
and dear that which his neighbour holds foolish and cheap."

"We are poor unhappy burghers of Ghent," replied Martin Fruse, who,
though at first he had been terrified to a very undignified degree,
now began to recover a certain portion of composure,--"we are poor
unhappy burghers of Ghent, who have been induced by vain hopes of some
small profit to ourselves and our good city, to get upon horseback.
Alack! and a well-a-day! that ever honest, sober-minded men should be
persuaded to trust their legs across such galloping, uncertain,
treacherous beasts."

"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the man who had addressed him; "as I live by
sword and dagger, it is good Martin Fruse coming from Namur. Well,
Martin, the oath I shall put to thee is this--that by all thy hopes of
golden florins, by all thy reverence for silks and furs and cloths of
extra fineness, by thy gratitude to the shuttle and the loom, and by
thy respect and love for a fine fleece of English wool, thou wilt not
attempt to escape from my hands, till I fix thy ransom and give thee
leave to go."

Martin Fruse very readily took the oath prescribed, grateful in his
heart for any mitigation of his fears, though trembling somewhat at
the name of ransom, which augured ill for the glittering heaps which
he had left at home. His comrades all followed his example, on an oath
of the same kind being exacted from each; but when it was addressed to
the youth who accompanied them, a different scene was acted. He
replied boldly, "Of cloths and furs I know nothing, but that they
cover me, and I will not take such a warehouse vow for the best man
that ever drew a sword."

"How now, how now, Sir Princox!" cried Martin Fruse; "art thou not my
nephew, Albert Maurice? Take the oath this gentleman offers thee,
sirrah, and be well content that he does not strike off thy young
foolish head."

"I will swear by my honour, uncle," replied the boy, "but I will never
swear by cloth and florins, for such a vow would bind me but little."

"Well, well, thy honour will do," said the leader of their captors;
"though, by my faith, I think we must keep thee with us, and make a
soldier of thee; for doubtless thou art unworthy of the high honour of
becoming a burgher of Ghent."

The sneering tone in which this was spoken expressed not ill the
general feeling of contempt with which the soldiers of that day looked
upon any of the milder occupations of life. Whatever kindness they
showed towards the citizen--which was at times considerable--proceeded
solely from sensations approaching compassion, or from considerations
of self-interest. They looked upon the burgher, indeed, as a sort of
inferior animal, whose helplessness gave it some claim upon their
generosity; and such was probably the feeling that prompted the mild
and indulgent manner in which the body of roving adventurers who had
captured the Gandois travellers, marshalled their prisoners in rank,
and led them away from the high road--where, though improbable, such a
thing as an interruption might accidentally have taken place--to the
deeper parts of the forest, in which silence and solitude seemed to
reign supreme.

This part of the arrangement, however, was not at all to the taste of
good Martin Fruse; and though he certainly did not venture any
opposition, yet, while led along, together with his companions, by
fifteen or sixteen armed and lawless men, it was with fear and
trembling that he rolled his eyes around upon the dark and dreary
masses of wood, down the long profound glades, in which nothing was to
be distinguished, and over the wild and broken rocks, which every now
and then burst through their covering of trees and shrubs, and
towering up into the sky, caught upon their brows the first rays of
the rising moon, invisible to those who wandered through the forest at
their foot.

The scene was altogether a great deal too sublime and picturesque for
his taste; and he could not help thinking, as he walked unwillingly
along, how admirably fitted was the place, into which he was led, for
committing murder, without fear of discovery. Then would he picture to
his own mind, his body left exposed beneath the greenwood trees, to be
preyed on by the ravens, and beaten by the wintry showers; and his
heart would melt with tender compassion for himself, when he thought,
how all his good gossips of Ghent would, in years to come, tell the
lamentable story of worthy Martin Fruse, and how he was murdered in
the forest of Hannut, to the wondering ears of a chance guest, over a
blazing fire, in the midst of the cold winter.

He had nearly wept at the pitiful images he had called up of his own
fate, in his own mind; but, before he reached that point, a distant
neighing met his ear. The horses on which he and his companions had
ridden, and which were led after them by their captors, caught the
sound also, and answered in the same sort; and in a few minutes more,
a bright light began to gleam through the wood, which proved, on their
farther advance, to proceed from a watch-fire, by the side of which a
bird of the same feather with those who had captured them, was lying
asleep. He started up, however, on their approach; and by the
congratulations which passed mutually between him and his comrades, it
became evident to Martin Fruse, that a party of citizens of Ghent was
a rich prize in the eyes of the freemen of the forest. It is true that
he would rather have had his worth appreciated in a different manner;
but the sight of the fire cheered his heart, and a sumpter horse,
which the good burghers had brought with them, being led forward and
relieved of its burden, the various stores of provision with which it
was loaded were spread out upon the grass, and called up more genial
ideas in the mind of the citizen than those which had hitherto
accompanied him on his way through the forest. The pleasures of this
new subject of contemplation, indeed, were for a few minutes
disturbed, by apprehension lest the captors should proceed to divide
the spoil of the panniers, without assigning any part to the original
proprietors. But this source of uneasiness was soon removed; and, on
being made to sit down by the fire, and invited frankly and freely to
partake of all the good things once his own, the heart of Martin Fruse
expanded with joy, the character of robber acquired a dignity and
elevation in his eyes which it had never before possessed; and
deriving from fat cold capon and excellent wine both present
satisfaction and anticipations of future good treatment, he gave
himself up to joy, and began to gaze round upon the faces of his new
comrades with every inclination to be pleased.




CHAPTER III.


Leaving the worthy burgher and his companions in the forest, we must
change the scene for a while, and bring the reader into the interior
of one of the feudal mansions of the period. The room into which we
intend to introduce him was small in size; and, being placed in a
high, square tower, attached to the castle of Hannut, it took the
exact form of the building, except inasmuch as a portion was taken off
the western side, for the purpose of admitting a staircase, on which,
indeed, no great space was thrown away. The furniture of the room was
small in quantity, and consisted of a few large chairs of dark black
oak, (whose upright backs of almost gigantic height were carved in a
thousand quaint devices) together with two or three settles or stools,
without any backs at all, a silver lamp, hanging by a thick brass
chain from the centre of a roof, formed into the shape of a tent by
the meeting of a number of grooved arches, and a small black cabinet,
or closet, one of the doors of which stood open, displaying within, in
splendid bindings of crimson velvet, what might in that day have been
considered a most precious library, comprising about forty tomes of
manuscript.

Besides being decorated by these articles of furniture, the room was
adorned with fine hangings of old tapestry; but the principal object
in the whole chamber was a table and reading-desk of some dark
coloured wood, on which were displayed, wide open, the broad vellum
leaves of a richly illuminated book. The table, and its burden, were
placed exactly beneath the silver lamp already mentioned, which threw
a strong but flickering light upon the pages of the work; and a chair
which stood near seemed to show that somebody had recently been
reading.

The person who had been so employed, however, had by this time ceased;
and having risen from his seat, was standing beside an open casement,
pierced through the thick walls at such a height from the floor, as
just to enable him to lean his arm upon the sill of the window, and
gaze out upon the scene beyond.

Through this open casement, at the time I speak of, the bright stars
of a clear autumn night might be seen twinkling like diamonds in the
unclouded sky; the sweet, warm westerly wind, breathing of peace and
harvest from the plains beyond, sighed over the tops of the tall
forest trees, and poured into the window just raised above them; and
some faint streaks of light to the west told that day had not long
departed. The person who gazed over the wide expanse commanded by the
tower, was a tall, strong man, of perhaps a little more than forty
years of age, with a forehead somewhat bald, and hair which had once
been black, but which was now mingled thickly with grey; while his
beard, which was short and neatly trimmed, had become almost white.
His complexion was of a pale, clear brown, without a tinge of red in
any part except his lips; and, as he gazed out upon the sky, there was
a still calm spread over every feature, which, together with the
bloodless hue of his skin, would have made his countenance look like
that of the dead, had not the light of his large deep brown eye told
of a bright and living soul within. We must take leave to look for a
moment into his bosom as he stood in his lonely study, gazing forth
upon the sky.

"And are those clear orbs," he thought, as with his glance fixed upon
the heavens he saw star after star shine forth, "and are those bright
orbs really the mystic prophets of our future fate? Is yon the book on
which the Almighty hand has written in characters of light the
foreseen history of the world he has created? It may be so: nay,
probably it is; and yet how little do we know of this earth that we
inhabit, and of yon deep blue vault that circles us around. The
peasant, when he hears of my lonely studies, endues my mind, in his
rude fancy, with power over the invisible world, and all the troops of
spirits that possibly throng the very air we breathe; and kings and
princes themselves send to seek knowledge and advice from my lips,
while I could answer to peasant and to king, that all my powers do not
suffice to lay the spirit of past happiness from rising before my
eyes, and all my knowledge does not reach to find that sovereign
elixir--consolation for the fate of man. All that I have learned
teaches me but to know that I have learned nothing; to feel that
science, and philosophy, and wisdom are in vain; and that, hidden
mysteriously within the bosom of this mortal clay, is some fine
essence, some distinct being, which, while it participates in the
pleasures and affections of the earthly thing in which it lies
concealed, thirsts for knowledge beyond the knowledge of this world,
and yearns for joys more pure, and loves more unperishable than the
loves and joys of this earth can ever be. Oh! thou dear spirit, that
in the years past I have seen look forth upon me from the eyes of her
new gone; surely, if ever the immortal being came back to visit the
earth on which it once moved, thou wouldst not have left me so long to
solitude. No, no," he added aloud, "it is all a dream!

"And yet," he thought, after a pause, "the powers with which the
vulgar mind invests me are not all in vain: they give me at least
corporeal peace; repose from all the turbulent follies; the wild
whirling nothings, which men call pleasure, or business, or policy;
more empty, more unimportant, in relation to the grand universe, than
the dancing of the myriad motes in the sunshine of a summer's day.
They give me peace--repose. I am no longer called upon, with an ash
staff, or bar of sharpened iron, to smite the breast of my fellow-men,
in some mad prince's quarrel. I am no longer called upon to take
counsel with a crowd of grey-beard fools, in order to steal a few
roods of dull heavy soil from the dominions of some neighbouring king.
No, no; the very superstitious dread in which they hold me gives me
peace; ay, and even power; that phantom folly of which they are all so
fond; and be it far from me to undeceive them."

Thus thought the Lord of Hannut; and, like most men, in some degree he
cheated himself in regard to his own motives. Doubtless, the
predominating feelings of his heart were such as he believed them to
be. But, besides those motives on which he suffered his mind to rest,
there mingled with the causes of his conduct small portions of the
more ordinary desires and passions which minds of a very elevated tone
are anxious to conceal even from themselves. Learned beyond any one,
perhaps, of his age and country, the Lord of Hannut was not a little
proud of his knowledge; but when we remember the darkness of the times
in which he lived, we shall not wonder that such learning tended but
little to enlighten his mind upon the deep and mysterious subjects,
which the height of human knowledge has but discovered to be beyond
its ken. Judicial astrology, in that day, was held as a science, of
the accuracy of which, ignorance alone could be permitted to doubt;
and the belief that a superhuman agency was not only continually but
visibly at work in the general affairs of this world, was both a point
of faith with the vulgar, and a point admitted by many of the most
scientific. Magic and necromancy were looked upon as sciences. In vain
Friar Bacon had written an elaborate treatise to prove their nullity:
he himself was cited as an instance of their existence; and many of
the most learned were only deterred from following them openly, by the
fear of those consequences which rendered their private pursuit more
interesting from the degree of danger that accompanied it.

Although magic, properly so called, formed no part of his studies, the
reputation of dabbling in that imaginary science was not disagreeable
to the Lord of Hannut; nor was it alone the desire of obtaining peace
and repose, which rendered the awe not unpleasing, wherewith both the
peasantry of the neighbourhood, and his fellow nobles throughout the
land regarded him; but, mingling imperceptibly with the current of
other feelings, gratified vanity had its share also. Nor, indeed,
though he affected to despise the world and the world's power, did the
influence that he exercised upon that world displease him. Perhaps,
too, that influence might be the more gratifying, because it was of an
uncommon kind; and though, doubtless, true philosophy, and a just
estimate of the emptiness of this earth's pleasures and desires, might
have a considerable share in the distant solitude which he maintained,
the pride of superior knowledge had its portion, too, of the contempt
with which he looked upon the generality of beings like himself. Much
true benevolence of heart and susceptibility of feeling, with a
considerable degree of imaginative enthusiasm, were, in fact, the
principal features of his character; yet his reasoning powers also
were strong and clear, and very superior to those of most men in the
age in which he lived; but as we sometimes see, these various
qualities of his mind and heart rather contended against than balanced
each other.

In his early youth, the enthusiasm and the susceptibility had ruled
almost alone. The din of arms, the tumult of conflicting hosts, the
pomp and pageant of the listed field, all had charms for him. The
natural strength of his frame, and the skill and dexterity given by
early education, had made many of the best knights in Europe go down
before his lance, and had obtained for him that degree of glory and
applause which in those days was sure to follow and encourage feats of
arms, and which might have kept him for life one of the rude but
gallant champions of the day. But then came love--love of that deep,
powerful, engrossing nature, which a heart such as his was alone
capable of feeling. The cup of happiness was given to his lip but for
a moment; he was suffered to drink, one deep, short draught; and, when
he had tasted all its sweetness, it was dashed from his hand, never to
be filled again. From that moment his life had passed in solitude, and
his days and nights had been occupied by study: nor had he above once,
for more than twelve years, passed the limits of that forest, over
which his eyes were now cast.

As he leaned upon the window-sill, and gazed out upon the sky,
pondering over the strange mystery of man's being, and the lot which
fate had cast him, the last faint lingering rays of twilight were
withdrawn from the air, and night fell upon one half of the world; but
it was one of those bright, clear, splendid nights, which often come
in the beginning of autumn, as if the heavens loved to look, with all
their thousand eyes, upon the rich harvest and the glowing fruit.
After he had gazed for some time, the eastern edge of the heavens
began to grow lighter, and the clear yellow moon, waxing near her
full, rose up, and poured a tide of golden light over the immense
extent of green leaves and waving boughs spread out beneath his eyes.
All was still, and solemn, and silent, and full of calm splendour, and
tranquil brightness. There there was not a sound, there was not a
motion, except the slow gliding of the beautiful planet up the arch of
heaven, and the whispering of the light wind, as it breathed through
the boughs of the trees.

Suddenly, however, a dull, faint noise was heard at some distance;
which went on increasing slowly, till the sound of horses' feet could
be distinguished, broken occasionally by the tones of a human voice,
speaking a few words of order or inquiry. The Lord of Hannut listened,
and when the horsemen came nearer, he gathered, from an occasional
sentence, spoken as they wound round the foot of the tower in which he
was standing, that the party were directing their course to the gates
of his own dwelling. His brow became slightly clouded; and though
hospitality was a duty at that time never neglected, yet so rarely was
he visited by strangers, and so little did he court society, that he
paused somewhat anxiously to think of how he might best receive them.
To throw the gates of a castle open to all comers, was not, indeed, at
all safe in those days; and though the Lord of Hannut was, at that
time, at feud with no one, and though his personal character, the
strength of his castle, and the number of his retainers, secured him
against the free companions and plunderers of the times, it was not,
of course, without pause and examination, that any large body of men
were to be admitted within the walls at such an hour of the night. He
remained, however, musing somewhat abstractedly, till the horsemen,
whom he had heard below, had wound along the road, which, following
the various sinuosities of the walls and defences of the castle,
skirted the brow of the hill on which it stood, and was only
interrupted by the gate of the barbacan on the northern side of the
building.

Before it the travellers paused; and the sound of a horn winded long
and clearly, gave notice to denizens of the castle that admittance was
demanded by some one without. Still the master of the mansion remained
in thought, leaving to the prudence and discretion of his seneschal
the task of receiving and answering the travellers; and the sound of a
falling drawbridge, with the creaking of its beams, and the clanging
and clash of its rusty chains, followed by the clatter of horses' feet
in the court-yard, soon announced that a considerable number of
cavaliers had obtained admission. Many voices speaking were next
heard, and then, after a pause of comparative silence, a slow step
echoed up the long hollow staircase, which led to the chamber we have
already described. At that sound the Lord of Hannut withdrew from the
window, and seating himself before the book in which he had been
lately reading, fixed his eyes upon the door. There might be a slight
touch of stage effect in it--but no matter--what is there on this
earth without its quackery?

Scarcely had he done so, when some one knocked without, and, on
being desired to come in, presented, at the half-opened door, the
weather-beaten face of an old soldier, who acted the part of
seneschal, bearing a look of apprehension, which sat ill upon features
that seemed originally destined to express anything but fear.

"Come in, Roger, come in!" cried the Lord of Hannut. "Art thou fool
enough, too, to think that I deal with evil spirits?"

"God forbid, my lord!" replied the man. "But ill should I like to see
a spirit of any kind, good or evil; and, therefore, I always like to
have the room clear before I intrude."

"Well, what would you now?" demanded his lord, with somewhat of
impatience in his manner. "Wherefore do you disturb me?"

"So please you, sir," replied the seneschal, "a noble traveller just
alighted in the court below, with a small but gallant train,
consisting of----"

"On with thy tale, good Roger!" interrupted his master. "What of the
traveller? Leave his train to speak for themselves hereafter."

"So please you, my lord," continued the other, "he bade me tell you
that an old tried friend, Thibalt of Neufchatel, craved your
hospitality for a single night."

"Thibalt of Neufchatel!" exclaimed the other, his face brightening for
a moment with a transitory expression of pleasure, and then turning
deadly pale, as the magic of memory, by the spell of that single name,
called up the scenes of the painful past with which that name was
connected. "Thibalt of Neufchatel! an old tried friend, indeed! though
sad was the day of our last meeting. Where is he? Lead the way!"

Thus saying, the Lord of Hannut, without waiting for the guidance of
his seneschal, proceeded, with a rapid step, towards the great hall of
the castle, concluding, as was really the case, that into that place
of general reception the travellers had been shown on their arrival.
It was an immense gloomy apartment, paved with stone, occupying the
whole interior space at the bottom of the chief tower. At one end was
the great door, which opened at once into the court; and at the other
was a high pointed window, not unlike that of a cathedral. Arms, of
every kind then in use, decorated the walls in profusion. On the right
side, as you entered from the court, was the wide open hearth, with
stools and benches round about; and so wide and cool was the chamber,
that at the time I speak of--though a night in the early part of
September--an immense pile of blazing logs sparkled and hissed in the
midst, casting a red and flickering glare around, which, catching on
many a lance, and shield, and suit of armour on the opposite wall,
lost itself in the gloom at either end of the hall, and in the deep
hollow of the vault above.

A cresset--hung by a chain from the centre of the roof--added a degree
of light, which, however, was confined to the part of the hall in the
immediate vicinity of the lamp; and, within its influence,
disencumbering themselves of some of the habiliments of the road, were
seated the party of travellers just arrived, at the moment that the
Lord of Hannut entered. He came in by a small door behind one of the
massy pillars which supported the vault, and advanced at once towards
his guests. The sound of his footstep caused them all to rise, but the
Marshal of Burgundy immediately advanced before the rest to meet his
friend. When within a few steps of each other, both stopped, and
looked with a countenance of doubt and surprise on the face of the
other. Each had forgotten that many years had passed since they last
met, and each had pictured to himself the image of his friend as he
had before seen him, in the pride of youth and health; but, when the
reality was presented to them, both paused in astonishment to gaze
upon the effects of Time's tremendous power, which they mutually
presented to each other. Nor was their surprise at first unmingled
with some degree of doubt as to the identity of the person before them
with the friend from whom they had so long been separated.

"Good God!" exclaimed the Lord of Hannut, "Thibault of Neufchatel!"

"Even so, Maurice of Hannut!" replied the Marshal. "Good faith, old
friend, I scarcely should have known thee. But more of this
hereafter," he added, hastily. "See, here is a mighty prince, the Lord
Louis of Valois, who demands thy care and hospitality for this night,
as under my safe conduct, he journeys to visit his noble cousin, our
sovereign, the Duke of Burgundy."

The Lord of Hannut bowed low at this intimation of the high quality of
one of his guests, and proceeded to welcome the son of the reigning
monarch of France, with that grave and stately dignity which the early
habits of the court and camp had given to his demeanour. The forms and
ceremonies of that day, which would be found dull enough even to
practise at present, would appear still duller in writing than they
would be in act; and, therefore, passing over all the points of
etiquette which were observed in the reception and entertainment of
the Dauphin, the supper that was laid before him, and the spiced wines
that were offered him at his bedside, we will continue for a moment in
the great hall, which, after he retired to rest, remained occupied by
the few attendants who had accompanied himself and the Marshal of
Burgundy thither, and by the usual servants and officers of the Lord
of Hannut.

The presence of their superiors had restrained for a time all free
communication amongst these worthy personages; but, between the squire
of the body to the Marshal of Burgundy, and the seneschal of the Lord
of Hannut, had passed many a glance of recognition, and a friendly,
though silent, pinch of the arm during supper; and no sooner was Louis
of Valois safely housed in his chamber, and his companion, the Lord of
Neufchatel, closeted with the master of the mansion, than a
conversation commenced between two of the followers, a part of which
must be here put down as illustrative of those past events, which, in
some degree, however slight, affect the course of this true history.

"What, Roger de Lorens!" cried the squire of the Marshal, "still
hanging to the skirts of thy old lord? Do I find thee here at the end
of twelve long years?"

"And where could I be better, Regnault of Gand?" replied the other.
"But thou thyself, old friend, art thou not at the same skirts too as
when last I saw thee? How is it, that after such long service thou art
not yet a knight?"

"Why, in good faith, then," replied the squire, "it is that I am too
poor to do honour to knighthood, and too wise to covet a state that I
have not the means to hold. I have made money in the wars on an
occasion too, like my neighbours; but, alack, friend Roger, no sooner
does the right hand put the money in, than the left hand filches it
out again. And is it, then, really twelve long years since we met?
Lord, Lord! it looks but yesterday, when I think of those times; and
yet when I count up all the things I have done since, and make old
Memory notch them down on her tally, it seems like the score of a
hundred years more than twelve. I remember the last day we ever saw
each other; do you?"

"Do you think I could ever forget it?" said the other. "Was it not
that day when the pleasure-house of Lindenmar was burned to the
ground, and our good lord's infant was consumed in the flames?"

"I remember it well," replied the other, musing over the circumstances
of the past; "and I remember that my lord and Adolph of Gueldres, and
all the rest of the nobles that were marching to join the duke, saw
the flames from the road; and all came willingly to help your gallant
young lord. He was gallant and young then. But Adolph of Gueldres
cried to let them all burn, so that the lands of Hannut might come to
him. He said it laughing, indeed; but it was a bitter jest at such a
minute."

"My lord heard of that soon enough," answered the seneschal, "and he
never forgave it."

"Oh, but we heeded him not," exclaimed the other: "we all gave what
aid we could. Mind you not, how my lord rushed in and brought out your
lady in his arms, and how she wept for her child? It was but a
fortnight old, they say!"

"No more, no more!" answered the other: "and I will tell you what, she
never ceased to weep till death dried up her tears: poor thing! But,
hark thee, Regnault," he added, taking the other by the arm, and
drawing him a few paces aside, not only out of earshot of the rest of
the persons who tenanted the hall, but also out of the broad glare of
the lamp, as if what he was about to say were not matter for the open
light:--"but, hark thee, Regnault de Gand! they do say that the
spirits of that lady and her child visit our lord each night in his
chamber at a certain hour."

"Didst thou ever see them, good Roger?" demanded his companion, with a
smile of self-satisfied incredulity. "Didst thou ever set eyes upon
them, thyself?"

"God forbid!" ejaculated the seneschal, fervently; "God forbid! I
would not see them for all the gold of Egypt."

"Well, then, good Roger, fear not," replied Regnault de Gand, "thou
shalt never see them! I have heard a mighty deal of spirits, and
ghosts, and apparitions, and devils; but though I have served in the
countries where they are most plenty, I never could meet with one in
the whole course of my life; and between us two, good Roger, I believe
in none of them; except, indeed, all that the church believes, and the
fourteen thousand virgin martyrs."

"Why that is believing enough in all conscience," replied Roger de
Lorens; "but if you believe in no such things, I will put you to sleep
in the small room at the stairs' foot, just beneath my lord's private
chamber."

Whither this proposal was relished much or little by the worthy
squire, he had made too open a profession of his incredulity to shrink
from the test; and he was fain to take up his abode for the night in a
low-roofed, but not inconvenient chamber, at the foot of the staircase
in the square tower. He looked somewhat pale as his old companion bade
him good-night; but he looked a vast deal paler the next day when they
wished each other good-morning. Not one word, however, did he say,
either of objection at first, or of comment at last; and no one ever
exactly knew how he sped during the night he passed in that chamber,
though, when some months after he married a buxom dame of Ghent, a
report got about amongst the gossips, that though he had not actually
encountered a spirit, he had heard many strange noises, and seen many
a strange beam of light wandering about the apartment, coming he knew
not whence, and disappearing he knew not whither.

He himself told nothing openly; and when the fair dame whom he had
taken to his bosom, and who was supposed to be deeply learned in all
the secrets thereof, was spoken to on the subject, she, too, affected
a tone of mystery, only assuring the ingenious gossip, who tried to
ferret out the details, with a solemn shake of the head, "that those
might disbelieve the apparition of spirits who liked. As for her
husband, Regnault, he had good cause to know better; though he had
once been a scoffer, like all the rest of your swaggering, gallant,
dare-devil men-at-arms."

Having now violated, in some degree, the venerable art of chronology,
and, in favour of the worthy squire, run somewhat forward before the
events of my tale, I must beg the reader to pause on his advance for a
single instant; and, while the Dauphin, the Marshal, and their
respective trains, sleep sound in the massy walls of the castle of
Hannut, to return with me to the party we lately left assembled round
a fire in the heart of the forest.




CHAPTER IV.


From the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth
centuries, and even, perhaps, to a much later period, there existed,
spread over the whole continent--equally in France, in Flanders, in
Italy, and in Germany--a particular class of men, whose livelihood was
obtained by the sword, and by the sword alone. In time of hostility,
they were soldiers; in time of peace, they were plunderers; and long
habituated to reap alone the iron harvest of war, they never dreamed
of turning the sword into the reaping-hook; a sort of proceeding which
they would have considered the basest degradation of an instrument
which they held in as high a degree of veneration, as that in which it
was regarded by the ancient Scythians.

In the interior of France, indeed, such a thing as peace was sometimes
to be found; but Germany, and its frontiers towards France, presented
such a number of great vassals, and independent princes, each of whom
had the right of waging war against his neighbour--a right which they
took care should not fall into desuetude--that the mercenary soldiers,
who at that time infested the world, were rarely, for any long period,
under the necessity of cultivating the arts of peace, even in their
own peculiar manner, in the heart of the green forest.

During the earlier part of the great struggle between France and
England, these men had assembled in bodies of thousands and tens of
thousands; and, during the existence of any of the temporary
suspensions of hostilities, which took place from time to time, they
seized upon some town or castle, lived at free quarters in the
country, and laid prince and peasant, city and village alike, under
contribution. Gradually, however, these great bodies became scattered;
kings found it more imperatively necessary to overcome such internal
foes, than to oppose an external enemy. The nobles also leagued
together to destroy any of the great bands that remained; but the
smaller ones--tolerated at first as a minor evil, consequent upon the
system of warfare of the day--were always in the end encouraged,
protected, and rewarded, when hostilities between any two powers
rendered their services needful to each; and were not very severely
treated, when circumstances compelled them to exercise their military
talents on their own account. Scarcely a great lord through Germany,
or Burgundy, or Flanders, had not a band of this kind, more or less
formidable, according to his wealth and power, either in his pay, or
under his protection. The character of the adventurer, indeed, of each
particular troop, greatly depended upon the disposition and manners of
the lord to whom they were for the time attached; but, on the whole,
they were a very much libelled people; and though in actual warfare
they were certainly worse than the ordinary feudal soldier of the day,
in time of peace they were infinitely better than the class of common
robber, that succeeded upon their extinction. There were times,
indeed, when, under the guidance of some fierce and ruthless leader,
they committed acts which disgraced the history of human nature; but
upon ordinary occasions, though they carried into the camp a strong
touch of the plundering propensities of the freebooters, yet, when war
was over, they bore with them, to the cavern or the wood, many of the
frank and gallant qualities of the chivalrous soldier.

It was in the hands of a body of such men, though of a somewhat better
quality than usual, that we last left Martin Fruse, the worthy burgher
of Ghent, beginning to recover from the apprehensions which he had at
first entertained, and to enjoy himself in proportion to the rapid
transition he had undergone, from a feeling of terror to a sense of
security. The balance of human sensation is so nicely suspended, that
scarcely is a weight removed from the heart, ere up flies the beam, as
far above as it was below; and long does it vibrate before it attains
the equipoise. Such, I believe, are the feelings of every bosom:
though some, ashamed of the sudden transition, have power enough to
master its expression, and clothe themselves with external calmness,
while their hearts are really as much agitated as those of other men.
Not so, however, with good Martin Fruse: though, occasionally, in
affairs of policy, he thought himself called upon to make a bungling
attempt to give an air of diplomatic secrecy and caution to his
language and manner; and though, when prompted by others, he could
speak an equivocal speech, and fancy himself a skilful negotiator upon
the faith of a doubtful sentence, yet, in general, the emotions of his
heart would bubble up to the surface unrestrained. On the present
occasion, as cold capon and rich ham, strong Rhenish and fruity
Moselle, gave pledges of the most satisfactory kind for his future
safety, his joy sparkled forth with somewhat childish glee; and his
good friends, the robbers, in the midst of the green forest, supplied,
in his affections, the place of many a boon companion of the rich town
of Ghent.

The stores of the sumpter-horse were soon nearly consumed; but it was
remarked by the worthy burgher, that a portion which, by nice
computation, he judged might satisfy the appetite of two hungry
citizens, together with a couple of large flasks of the best wine,
were set apart with reverential care, as if for some person who was
not present, but who was held by his companions in a high degree of
respect. After governing his curiosity for some time, that most
unrestrainable of all human passions got the better of him; and by
some sidelong questions he endeavoured to ascertain for whom this
reservation was made.

"Oh no! no, no!" replied the personage who had hitherto acted as the
leader of the freebooters, "we must not touch that; it is put by for
our captain, who will be here presently, and will tell us," he added,
with a malicious grin, as he played upon the apprehensions of the good
citizen--"and will tell us what we are to do with thee and thine, good
Master Martin Fruse. Thou art not the first syndic of the weavers, I
trow, who has dangled from a beam; and one could not choose a more
airy place to hang in, on a summer's day."

Though Martin Fruse perceived that there was a touch of jest at the
bottom of his companion's speech, yet the very thought of dangling
from a beam--a fate which the Duke of Burgundy was fully as likely to
inflict upon a rebellious subject, as the most ferocious freebooter
upon a wandering traveller--caused a peculiar chilly sensation to
pucker up his whole skin; but, as his danger from the robbers was the
more pressing and immediate of the two, he applied himself strenuously
to demonstrate, that it was both unjust and unreasonable to hang a man
either to beam or bough, after having abetted him in making himself
very comfortable in the world in which God had placed him. There was
something in the arguments he deduced from capon and hock, together
with the terror that he evidently felt, and a degree of childish
simplicity of manner, which made the freebooters roar with laughter;
and they were just indulging in one of these merry peals, when a
sudden rustle on the bank over their head gave notice that some one
was approaching.

"Hold by the roots, boy!" cried a rough voice above. "Here! Set your
foot there. Now jump: as far as you can. That's right! Cleared it, by
St. George! Now, slip down. So here we are."

As he spoke the last words, Matthew Gournay, followed by young Hugh of
Gueldres, stood within one pace of the spot where the freebooters had
been regaling. Two or three of the latter had started up to welcome
him, holding high one of the torches, to light his descent; and as he
came forward, his eye ran over the evidences of their supper, and the
party who had partaken of it, with some degree of surprise.

"How now, my merry men?" he cried, laughing. "Ye have had some sport,
it would seem; but, by our Lady! I hope ye have left me a share, and
something for this poor lad, who is dying of hunger."

"Plenty, plenty for both," replied many of the voices; "that is to
say, enough for one meal at least; the next we must find elsewhere."

"But here are some Gandois traders," added one of the party, "waiting
your awful decree, and trembling in every limb lest they should be
hanged upon the next tree."

"God forbid!" replied Matthew Gournay. "We will put them to light
ransoms, for rich citizens. Who is the first? Stand up, good man.
What! Martin Fruse!" he exclaimed, starting back, as the light fell
upon the face of the burgher. "My old friend, Martin Fruse, in whose
house I lodged when I came to teach the men of Ghent how to get up a
tumult! Little did I think I should so soon have thee under
contribution."

"Nay, nay, good Master Gournay," replied the burgher, "right glad am I
to see thee. In truth, I thought I had fallen into worse hands than
thine. I know well enough," he added, with a somewhat doubtful
expression of countenance, notwithstanding the confidence which his
words implied--"I know well enough that thou hast no heart to take a
ransom from thine old companion."

"Faith but thou art wrong, Martin," replied Matthew Gournay, laying
his heavy hand upon the citizen's shoulder. "Thine own ransom shall be
light, and that of thy comrades also, for thy sake; but something we
must have, if it be but to keep up good customs. A trifle, a mere
trifle: a benevolence, as our good kings call it in England, when they
take it into their heads to put the clergy to ransom."

"Nay, but," said Martin Fruse, whose confidence and courage were fully
restored by the sight of his friend's face; "nay, but consider that I
was taken while journeying for the sole purpose of conferring with
thee and Adolph of Gueldres concerning the general rising we
purposed."

"Well, well, we will speak further hereafter," answered Matthew
Gournay. "That job is all over for the present; and as, doubtless, the
duke has heard of our doings, it may go hard with your purses, and
with my neck, if he catch us, which please God he shall not do. But we
must think of some way of getting you all back to Ghent in safety.
Now, Halbert of the hillside," he added, addressing one of his old
band, who was probably an Englishman like himself, "hie thee to the
midway oak. Thou wilt there find the old seneschal. Tell him all is
safe! Bid him tarry there till to-morrow, collecting all our friends
that come thither; and, in the meantime, to send me the leathern
bottles from the hollow tree. These flimsy flasks furnish scarce a
draught for a boy; and, good faith, I will be merry to-night, whatever
befall to-morrow. Up the bank, up the bank," he continued; "'tis but a
quarter of a mile that way."

While the messenger was gone in search of the fresh supply of wine
which the leathern bottles implied, Matthew Gournay, and the young
companion, whom he had brought with him, despatched the provisions
which had been saved by the very miraculous abstinence of the
freebooters; and at the same time the two flasks of Rhenish
disappeared with a celerity truly astonishing. Four capacious bottles,
holding about a gallon each, were soon after added to the supply, and
all present were called upon to partake.

A scene of merriment and joy then succeeded, which would be impossible
to describe; such, indeed, as perhaps no men ever indulged in whose
lives were not held by so uncertain a tenure, whose moments of
security were not counterbalanced by so many hours of danger, and
whose pleasures were not bought by so many labours and pains, that it
became their only policy to quaff the bowl of joy to the very dregs,
while it was yet at their lips, lest, at the first pause,
circumstance, that unkind step-dame, should snatch it angrily from
their hands for ever. The final explosion of their merriment was
called forth by good Martin Fruse, who, after showing many signs and
symptoms of weary drowsiness, declared that he should like to go to
bed, and asked, with much simplicity, where he was to sleep.

"Sleep!" exclaimed Matthew Gourney, "sleep! Why where the fiend would
you sleep?"

"I mean, where's your house, good Master Matthew Gournay?" rejoined
Martin Fruse, with open eyes, from which all expression was banished
by surprise at finding his question a matter of laughter, he knew not
why. "It's all very well to sup in the wood in a fine summer night;
but it's growing late and cold, and I do think we had better a great
deal get us to our warm beds."

The only answer which he received to this speech, from the robbers,
was a new peal of laughter; but, at the same moment, his nephew
plucked him by the sleeve, exclaiming, "Hist, uncle! ye only make the
knaves grin; you may sleep where you are, or not sleep at all for this
night. Have you not heard how these men covet no covering but the
green boughs of the forest?"

"Thou art somewhat malapert, young sir," said Matthew Gournay, fixing
upon him a glance into which various parts of the boy's speech, not
very respectful to the freebooters, had called up a degree of
fierceness that was not the general expression of his countenance;
"thou art somewhat malapert; and, if thy uncle follow my advice, he
will make thy shoulders now and then taste of the cloth-yard measure,
else thou wilt mar his fortune some fine day. The boy says true,
however, good Martin; here sleepest thou this night, if thou sleepest
at all; so get thee under yonder bank, with that broad oak tree above
thy head, to guard thee from the westerly wind, and thank Heaven thou
hast so fair a canopy. There, wrap thy cloak about thee; ask God's
blessing, and sleep sound. To-morrow I will wake thee early, to talk
of what may best be done to speed thee on thy way in safety; for many
of the duke's bands are about; and without we can get thee some good
escort, thou art like to be in the same plight as the ass, who,
running away from a dog, fell in with a lion."

Although Martin Fruse believed himself to be as wise as any man that
ever lived, except King Solomon, he had a peculiar dislike, or rather,
it may be called, a nervous antipathy, to the very name of an ass;
but, when it was introduced, as on the present occasion, in the form
of a simile, to exemplify his own situation, his feelings were wounded
in a deep degree. In silent indignation, therefore, for he knew not
what to reply, he arose, and proceeded to the spot pointed out, where,
having made himself as comfortable as circumstances permitted him to
do, he lay down, and, notwithstanding a firm determination not to
close an eye, he was soon pouring forth a body of nasal music, which
seemed intended to shame the nightingales for their silence in the
autumn season.

The rest of the travellers took up with such couches as they could
find; and the robbers, too, one by one, wrapped their cloaks about
them, and resigned themselves to sleep. The two last who remained
awake were Matthew Gournay and young Hugh of Gueldres, whose slumber
by the cascade in the morning had sufficiently removed the weariness
of his limbs, to leave his mind free to rest upon the sorrows of the
past and the dangers of the present.

With him the leader of the freebooters held a long, and, to them, an
interesting conversation; in the course of which the boy narrated all
the events which had lately occurred to him: the storming of his
father's castle by the troops of Burgundy; the perils he had
undergone; the difficulties of his escape; his desolation and despair
when he found himself a wanderer and an outcast; his long and weary
journey; his adventure with the Dauphin, whom he described as a French
traveller; and the manner in which that base and artful prince had
deceived him. He told it all with so much simple pathos, that he
called up something very like a tear in the adventurer's clear blue
eye; and Matthew Gournay, laying his broad hand affectionately on his
head, exclaimed "Never mind, my young lord, never mind; you are not
without friends, and never shall be, so long as Matthew Gournay lives;
for I swear by the blessed Virgin, and all the saints to boot, that my
sword shall fight your quarrels, and my lance shall be at your
command, till I see you a righted man. But, as you say that the Lord
of Hannut is your cousin in the first degree, thither we must go for
help and counsel. I know him well, too; for my good band helped to
keep his castle for him, when the black riders were about last year:
and what with the troops of spirits that folks say he can command, and
the company of the good fellows that I shall soon gather together
again, we shall be able to do something for you, no doubt. By the
way," he added, seeming suddenly to bethink himself of some fact that
had before escaped his attention, "these travellers, you say, are gone
to Hannut too, and under their escort these Gandois weavers may pass
unsuspected on their way homeward."

"What if they refuse to take them?" said Hugh of Gueldres.

"By the Lord, they shall eat more cold iron than they can well
stomach," replied the adventurer: "but I must sleep, my young lord, I
must sleep, if I would rise fresh to-morrow! Lend us thy hand to shift
off this plastron." So saying, he disencumbered himself of his
breastplate, and the other pieces of defensive armour which might have
rendered his sleep uncomfortable; and, laying them down by his steel
cap or basinet, which he had previously taken off, he wrapped the end
of his mantle round his head, stretched himself on the ground, grasped
the hilt of his dagger tight with his right hand; and, in that
attitude, fell into as sound a sleep as if he had never tasted crime
or heard of danger. The boy soon followed his example, and all was
silence.

About an hour before daylight the following morning, Martin Fruse was
awakened by some one shaking him by the shoulder. He roused himself
with many a yawn, rose up, stretched his round limbs, which were sadly
stiffened by a night's lodging upon the cold ground and, gazing round,
perceived, by the mingled light of the expiring fire and one or two
pine-wood torches stuck in the ground, that the party of adventurers
had been considerably increased during his sleep; and that they were
now all busily employed in saddling horses and preparing for a march,
except, indeed, Matthew Gournay himself, whose grasp it was that had
awakened him. He was now informed, in a few brief words, without any
precise explanation, that a means had suggested itself for sending him
and his companions forward towards Ghent, with less danger than that
to which they would be exposed in travelling alone. For this courtesy,
and for the permission to return at all, Matthew Gournay exacted,
under the name of ransom, a sum so much smaller than the fears of the
worthy burgher had anticipated, that he only affected to haggle for a
florin or two less, in order to keep up the custom of bargaining, so
necessary to him in his mercantile capacity. A hint, however, from
Matthew Gournay, that, if he said another word, the sum demanded
should be tripled, soon set the matter at rest; and in a few minutes
the whole party were on horseback, and on their way to the castle of
Hannut.

On their arrival at the gate of the barbacan, they were instantly
challenged by a sentry, who at that early hour stood watching the
first grey streaks of the dawn. After various inquiries and messages
to and from the interior of the castle, they were led round to a small
postern, and, being made to dismount, were led, one after another, by
torchlight, up one of those narrow, almost interminable staircases,
still to be found in every old building whose erection can be traced
to the feudal period.




CHAPTER V.


It was after dinner on the following morning--which meal, be it
remarked, took place in those days about ten o'clock--that the Dauphin
and the Marshal of Burgundy rose to bid adieu to their noble host, and
offered him, in courteous terms, their thanks for the hospitable
entertainment he had shown them.

"I have, my lord, a favour to ask in return," said the Lord of Hannut,
"which will leave me your debtor. The case is simply this: some worthy
merchants of Ghent, travelling on mercantile affairs, as I am told,
arrived here this morning; and, being fearful of encountering some of
the robbers, who have given to this forest not the best repute, they
are now waiting in the inner court, anxious to join themselves to your
train, and accompany you as far as Cortenbergh, where they will leave
you, and take the short-cut to Ghent."

"Willingly, willingly," replied the Dauphin; "by my faith, if there be
robbers in the wood, the more men we are, the better."

The Marshal of Burgundy looked somewhat grave. "I have heard rumours,
my lord," he said, "that the men of Ghent, who, in my young day, when
I frequented this part of the country, were as turbulent a race of
base mechanics as ever drove a shuttle or worked a loom, have not
forgotten their old habits, and from day to day give my lord the duke
some fresh anxiety."

"Nay, nay," replied the Lord of Hannut; "these men are rich burghers,
returning peacefully to their own city from some profitable
excursion."

"Oh, let us have them, by all means!" exclaimed Louis, who possibly
might have his own views, even at that time, in cultivating a good
understanding with the people of Ghent. At least, we know that he
never ceased to keep up some correspondence with the burghers of the
manufacturing towns of Flanders, from the time of his exile among
them, to the last hour of his life. "Oh! let us have them by all
means. Think of the robbers, my Lord Marshal! By my faith! I have too
few florins in my purse to lose any willingly!"

The Marshal of Burgundy signified his assent by a low inclination of
the head; though it was evident, from his whole manner, that he was
not at all pleased with the new companions thus joined to his band;
and would at once have rejected the proposal, had good manners towards
his host, or respect towards the Dauphin, permitted him to make any
further opposition.

"So necessary do I think caution against the freebooters, my lords,"
said the master of the mansion, as he conducted them towards the
court-yard, where their horses stood saddled, "that I have ordered ten
spears of my own to accompany you to the verge of the forest. They
will join you at the little town of Hannut, about a quarter of a
league distant; and will remain with you as long as you may think it
necessary."

Louis expressed his gratitude in courtly terms; and the Lord of
Neufchatel thanked his old friend more frankly; but said, he should
like to see the boldest freebooter that ever was born, stand before
the Marshal of Burgundy, though he had but four lances and four
horseboys in his train. The party were by this time in the court-yard;
and Louis greeted the burghers, whom he found waiting, with a familiar
cordiality, well calculated to win their hearts, without diminishing
his own dignity. The Marshal of Burgundy, on the contrary, spoke not;
but looked on them with a grim and somewhat contemptuous smile;
muttering between his teeth, with all the haughtiness of a feudal
noble of that day, "The rascallion communes! they are dressed as
proudly as lords of the first degree!"

Notwithstanding his offensive pride, yet untamed by years, the Lord of
Neufchatel was far from treating the burghers with any real
unkindness; and, after the whole party had mounted, and left the
castle of Hannut, he gratified himself every now and then by a sneer,
it is true; but, whenever any occasion presented itself for
contributing to their comfort, or rendering them a substantial
service, the natural courtesy of a chivalrous heart got the better of
the prejudices of education. At an after period, indeed, he went still
further, and greatly changed his demeanour towards the people of the
towns; but at present, his pride offended more than his services
pleased; and when, after a quiet and uninterrupted journey, the two
parties separated at Cortenbergh, though the Marshal left them as a
set of men on whom he should never waste another thought, they
remembered him long as one of those haughty tyrants whose insults and
oppression often goaded the people into tumults, though the time was
not yet come for a successful struggle for emancipation.

From Cortenbergh, the Dauphin and his companions rode on towards
Brussels, sending forward a messenger to inform the Duke of Burgundy
of their approach; but, before they reached the gates of the town,
they received information that the prince whom they sought was even
then in the field against the people of Utrecht. Nevertheless, as a
safe asylum in Brussels was all that Louis demanded, he rode on upon
his way; and, being admitted at once within the walls of the town,
proceeded towards the palace. His coming had been notified to the
Duchess Isabelle: and on arriving at the barriers which at that time
separated the dwelling of every prince or great noble from the common
streets of the town, he found that princess, together with the young
and beautiful Countess of Charolois--the wife of him afterwards famous
as Charles the Bold--waiting to do honour to the heir of the French
throne. No sooner did he perceive them, than, springing from his
horse, he advanced with courtly grace, and gallantly saluted the cheek
of every one of the fair bevy who had descended to welcome him; and
then, offering his arm to the Duchess, wished to lead her into the
palace. But this method of proceeding was not at all permitted by the
mistress of the most ceremonious court, at that time, in Europe; and a
series of formal courtesies began and endured for a mortal half hour,
such as would have slain any queen in modern Europe. At length, the
resistance of the Duchess was vanquished by the Dauphin taking her by
the hand, and thus leading her forward, as he exclaimed, "Nay, nay,
lady, you are overceremonious towards one who is now the poorest
gentleman of all the realm of France, and knows not where to find a
refuge, except with you and my fair uncle of Burgundy."

We might now pursue Louis XI. through all his cunning intrigues at the
court of Burgundy; for, though then a young man, with the ardent blood
of youth mingling strangely, in his veins, with the cold serpent-like
sanies of policy, yet his nature was the same artful nature then that
it appeared in after-years: and treachery and artifice were as
familiar to his mind while combined with the passions and follies of
early life, as they were when connected with the superstitions and
weaknesses of his age.

At present, however, it is neither with Louis nor with the Duke of
Burgundy, nor with his warlike son, that we have principally to do,
but rather with the young Countess of Charolois, then in that
interesting situation when the hopes of a husband and a nation are
fixed upon a coming event, which, with danger to the mother, is to
give an heir to the throne and to the love of both sovereign and
people.

The subjects of Burgundy watched anxiously, till at length, in
the month of February, on St. Valentine's eve, was born Mary of
Burgundy--the only child that ever blessed the bed of Charles the
Bold. The baptism was appointed to take place as soon as possible: and
the Dauphin was invited to hold at the font the infant princess, much
of whose after-being his ambition was destined to render miserable.
Now, however, all was joy and festivity; and magnificent presents, and
splendid preparations, evinced how much the Flemish citizens shared,
or would have seemed to share, in the happiness of their duke and his
family. Even the people of Utrecht, so lately in rebellion, vied with
Bruges and Brussels, Ghent and Ypres, in offering rich testimonies of
their gladness; and Brussels itself was one scene of gorgeous
splendour during the whole day of the christening. The centre of the
great street, from the palace to the church of Cobergh, was enclosed
within railings breast-high; and towards night, four hundred of the
citizens, holding lighted torches of pure wax in their hands, were
stationed along the line. A hundred servants of the house of Burgundy,
furnished also with torches, lined the aisles of the church, and a
hundred more were soon seen issuing from the palace gates, followed by
as splendid a _cortege_ as the world ever beheld. The Duchess of
Burgundy herself, supported by the Dauphin, carried her son's child to
the font; and all the nobles of that brilliant court followed on foot
to the church.

It is not necessary here to describe the pompous ceremonies of that
day, as they are written at full in the very elaborate account given
by Eleonore of Poitiers. Suffice it to say, such joy and profusion
never before reigned in Brussels. The streets of the city flowed with
wine, and blazed with bonfires. Every rich citizen gathered round his
glowing hearth all the friends and relations of his house. Comfits and
spiced hippocras fumed in every dwelling; and the christening of Mary
of Burgundy became an epoch of rejoicing in the memory of men.

One event of that night, however, must be noticed. The fate of the
city of Ghent, whose project of revolt had, in spite of all
precautions, become known to the Duke Philip, had been left in the
hands of the Count of Charolois, that prince's son; and a deputation
from what were then called the three members of Ghent--that is to
say,[2] from the burghers and nobles, from the united trades, and from
the incorporation of weavers--were even then in Brussels, for the
purpose of imploring mercy and forgiveness. The young Count, whose
hasty and passionate nature was prone to be irritated by anything that
hurried or excited him, had been in such a state of fretful impatience
during the preparations for the baptism of his child, that his wiser
counsellors, who wished much that he should deal clemently with the
Gandois, had concealed their arrival, in hopes of a more favourable
moment presenting itself.

They were not, indeed, deceived in this expectation; and, after the
ceremony was over, and all the splendour he could have wished had been
displayed, without cloud or spot, on the christening of his child, the
heart of the Count seemed to expand, and he gave himself up entirely
to the joy of the occasion. His friends and attendants determined to
seize the moment while this favourable mood continued. After the
infant had been carried back from the church and presented to its
mother, and after the cup and sweetmeats had been handed with formal
ceremony to each of the guests, the Lord of Ravestein called the
Prince's attention to a petition he held from his father's humble
vassals, the citizens of Ghent; and seeing that he received the paper
with a smile, he added the information that the deputies were even
then waiting anxiously without, in what was termed the _chambre de
parement_. The Count's brow instantly became clouded; but, without
answering, he beckoned Ravestein, and several others, to follow him
out of the Countess's chamber, in which this conversation had taken
place, and at once entered the apartment in which the burghers were
assembled. There was something in the stern haste of his stride, as he
advanced into the room, which boded little good to the supplicants;
and his brow gave anything but a favourable presage.

The deputation consisted of about twenty persons, chosen from all
ranks; and amongst them were two or three who had followed to the
presence of the prince, from motives of curiosity, and a desire, for
once, to see the splendours of a royal court, though the reception of
the whole party was not likely to be very gratifying. Amongst the
principal personages of the deputation appeared our good friend Martin
Fruse, who had brought with him his nephew, Albert Maurice; and most
of the other persons whom we have seen with him in the forest of
Hannut bore him company also on the present occasion. Though the
burghers of Ghent were sufficiently accustomed to harangue each other,
either in the town-house or the market-place, and had a good conceit
of their own powers of oratory, yet fear, which, of all the affections
of the human mind, is the greatest promoter of humility, had so
completely lessened their confidence in their own gift of eloquence,
that, instead of intrusting the supplications they were about to make
to one of their own body, they had hired a professional advocate, from
a different town, to plead their cause before their offended prince.

"Range out, Messires, range out!" were the first ungracious words of
the Count of Charolois; "range out, and let me see the lovely faces of
the men who would fain have excited our father's subjects to revolt."

By his orders, the deputies from Ghent were arranged in a semicircle
before him; and, according to etiquette, the whole party dropped upon
one knee; though some went farther, and bent both to the ground. In
the meantime, their advocate pronounced a long, florid, and frothy
harangue, after the manner of that day, and calling David, Solomon,
and many others, both sacred and profane, to his aid, as examples of
clemency, besought the Count to show mercy to the repentant citizens
of Ghent.

The heir of Burgundy appeared to give little attention to the studied
and unnatural oration of the advocate, but continued rolling his eyes
over the countenances of the supplicants, with a bent brow, and a
smile, which--as a smile always proceeds from some pleasurable
emotion--could only arise from the gratification of pride and revenge,
at the state of abasement to which he saw the revolted Gandois
reduced.

When the orator had concluded, the Count replied:--"Men of Ghent, I
have heard that in all time ye have been turbulent, discontented,
factious, like a snarling cur that snaps at the hand that feeds it,
but crouches beneath the lash: think not that you shall escape without
due punishment; for know, that it is as much the duty of a prince to
punish the criminal, as to protect the innocent."

He paused, and no one ventured to reply, except the boy Albert
Maurice, who, grasping the hilt of the small dagger, which persons of
almost all ages or ranks then wore, muttered, in a tone not quite
inaudible, the words "Insolent tyrant."

Whether these words caught the ear of any one else or not, they were,
at all events, loud enough to reach that of the Count of Charolois;
and, taking one stride forward, he struck the youth a blow, with the
palm of his open hand, which laid him almost senseless on the ground.

A momentary confusion now ensued; the nobles and attendants
interposed, to prevent any farther act of unprincely violence; the boy
was hurried away out of the room; several of the deputies made their
escape, fearing the immediate consequences of the prince's fury; and
the Count of Ravestein endeavoured to persuade his cousin, Charles of
Burgundy, to quit the apartment, terrified lest he should proceed to
measures which would throw the Gandois into open rebellion.

He was mistaken, however; the rage of the Count had evaporated in the
blow he had struck; and, somewhat ashamed of the act of passion he had
committed, he endeavoured to make it seem, both to himself and to
those around him, not the effect of hasty wrath--which it really
was--but the deliberate punishment of an insolent boy.

To Ravestein's remonstrances and entreaties for him to leave the
apartment, he replied by a loud laugh, demanding, "Thinkest thou I
could be moved to serious anger by a malapert lad like that? He spoke
like a spoiled boy, and I have given him the chastisement suited to a
spoiled boy; with these men of Ghent, I shall deal as towards men."

He was about to proceed, and was resuming the stern air with which he
had formerly addressed the deputies, when the Dauphin, stepping
forward, spoke to him in a low tone, as if to prevent his intercession
from being apparent, though his gesture and manner were quite
sufficient to show the burghers that he was pleading in their behalf.
The Count of Charolois had not yet learned all the intricate duplicity
of Louis's character, and took it for granted that, while he
interceded for the people of Ghent, he did really--as he affected to
do--desire that they should be ignorant of his generous efforts in
their favour.

"Well, be it so, my princely cousin," he replied, smoothing his
ruffled brow; "the godfather of my child shall not be refused his
first request to me, upon the very day of her baptism; but, by my
faith! the honour of this good act shall rest where it is due--with
you, not with me. Know, men of Ghent, that you have a better advocate
here, than this man of many words, whom you have brought to plead your
cause. My noble cousin, Louis of France, condescends to intercede for
you, and ye shall be pardoned upon the payment of a moderate fine.
But, remember! offend not again; for, by the Lord that lives! if ye
do, I will hang ten of each of your estates over the gates of the
city. What have ye there?" he added, suddenly, pointing to some large
objects, wrapped in violet-coloured linen, and carried by two or three
stout attendants, who had followed the men of Ghent to the prince's
presence; "what have ye there?"

"A humble offering, my lord the Count," replied Martin Fruse, rising
from his knees, and walking towards the object which had attracted the
attention of the Count of Charolois; "a humble offering from the city
of Ghent to our noble Count, upon the birth of his fair daughter;
though that foolish advocate forgot to mention all about it in his
speech."

"Well for ye that he did so!" exclaimed the Count; "for had he
attempted to bribe me to forget justice, I doubt much whether one of
the deputies of Ghent would have quitted these palace walls alive."

"But only look at them, my lord the Count," said Martin Fruse, whose
all-engrossing admiration of the rich presents they had brought made
him insensible to the stern tone in which the prince had been
speaking. "Only look at them; they are so beautiful;" and so saying,
he removed the linen which covered them, and exposed to view three
large and richly chased vases of massive silver. Certainly their
effect upon all present very well justified the commendations which he
had bestowed upon their beauty, and his censure of the advocate for
not mentioning them before.

Both Charles of Burgundy and the Dauphin took an involuntary step
forward, to look at them more nearly. But the eyes of Louis, who was
fonder of the examination of the human heart, than of the finest piece
of workmanship ever produced by the hands of man, were soon turned to
the face of his cousin; and, as he marked the evident admiration which
was therein expressed, he said, with a frank laugh, which covered well
the sneer that was lurking in his speech--"By my faith! fair cousin, I
think the advocate _was_ in the wrong."

"Good troth, but I think so too," replied the Count, joining in the
laugh. "Well, my friends," he continued, addressing the deputies in a
very different tone from that which he had formerly used; "get you
gone, and be cautious for the future how ye listen to the delusive
words of vain and ambitious men: the master of our household will see
that ye are well entertained with white bread, good wine, and all the
dainties of a christening; and as for the boy I struck," he added,
taking a gold brooch or fermail from the bosom of his own vest, and
putting it into the hands of Martin Fruse, "give him that to heal the
blow. There, set down the vases on that table. We thank you for them;
and by our faith! we will show them to our lady there within."

With many a lowly reverence the men of Ghent withdrew, very well
satisfied to have obtained pardon on easy terms. Young Albert Maurice
was found below, fully recovered from the blow he had received; but it
was in no degree effaced from his memory. His uncle immediately
presented him with the rich brooch which the Count had sent, never
doubting but the boy would be delighted with the present; but, the
moment he received it, he dashed it down upon the ground, and setting
his foot upon it, trampled it to atoms.

What he muttered at the same time was unheard by any one but his
uncle. The effect upon him, however, was such as to turn him deadly
pale; and after having tasted of the Count's wine, that he might not
be suspected of disaffection, he hurried his nephew away to the house
of a friendly citizen of Brussels, miserable, to all appearance, till
he had got the boy beyond the walls of the palace.




CHAPTER VI.


We have now concluded one period of our tale, and must beg the reader
to leap boldly over nearly twenty years. In regard to the events which
intervened, of some we shall here give a slight sketch before
proceeding; some we shall leave to unravel themselves in the course of
the after history.

Take any body of men, as many in number as the characters which we
have introduced already, and it will be seldom found that, at the end
of so great a lapse of time, the whole are still upon the busy stage
of life; nevertheless, such was the case in the present instance.
Time, the great enemy of man, and of all man's works, had not leagued
himself with death against any of those whom I have particularly
noticed. In other respects, however, he had not failed to do his
accustomed work. The youth had grown up into the man; the man of
middle age was bowed beneath the load of years; and the infant in the
cradle had reached the blossoming days of womanhood.

Of her, then, whose birth and baptism we have just commemorated, we
shall speak in the first place, before proceeding to notice the change
which had occurred in the other characters which we have brought upon
the scene. Her infancy passed in the midst of prosperity and
happiness, while the territories which she was destined to inherit
flourished under the dominion of her grandfather--that wise and
virtuous prince, who redeemed the errors of his early years by the
generous patriotism of his latter days, and both merited and obtained,
from neighbouring princes and his native subjects, the noble
appellation of Philip the Good; and while under the eye of her own
gentle mother, her education proceeded in calm tranquillity, and her
home reposed in peace.

Scarcely had she attained the age of ten years, however, ere, left
alone under the guidance of a severe and imperious father, she found
that, according to the common fate of those in the highest stations,
her lot was to be anything but happy. Gentle, kind, obedient, she
endeavoured, by making her inclinations the slaves of her father's
will, to obtain, at least, peace, by yielding to duty. Her hopes and
expectations were, nevertheless, in vain. The continual perils to
which Charles the Bold exposed himself, of course, kept his family in
constant alarm and agitation; and the frequent and capricious changes
of his policy, without obtaining for himself or his country any real
advantage, only served to wring his daughter's heart.

After the death of his second wife, Isabel de Bourbon, the desire of a
male heir induced him speedily to marry again; and the hatred which he
had, by that time, conceived for Louis XI. made him choose for his
bride, Margaret of York, the sister of the King of England. His hopes
of a son were disappointed; but upon his daughter, Mary of Burgundy,
his marriage conferred an inestimable benefit. Margaret of York fully
replaced in kindness and affection the mother she had lost; and
habituated early herself to cares, to sorrows, and to dangers, she
instilled into the mind of her step-daughter that patient fortitude
which she had acquired in so bitter a school; and taught her, in all
circumstances, both to bear up against despair, and to endure without
complaint.

As years rolled on, the hand of the undoubted heiress of all Burgundy
and Flanders became, of course, an object of ambition to many of the
princes of Europe; and from the time that Mary reached the age of
fifteen, to obtain possession of her person, was a matter of open
negotiation and subtle intrigue to all the neighbouring sovereigns.
The brother of the King of France, the Duke of Calabria, the Prince of
Tarentum, and the Duke of Savoy, became successively the suitors for
her hand; and her father, to each and all, held out hopes and
expectations, which he either never intended to fulfil, or found cause
to disappoint. The most selfish of sovereigns, and, perhaps, of men,
the feelings of his child were never consulted throughout the whole
transactions which followed. He looked upon her simply as an object of
policy, a human seal, which, at his will, was to be affixed to the
charter of conveyance, destined to give to some neighbouring prince
the succession to his vast dominions.

Luckily, however, it so happened, that Mary had made up her mind to
her fate, and so guarded her own heart and feelings, that in her eyes
all men seemed indifferent till the sanction of her father warranted
the gift of her affections. Thus she beheld treaties commenced and
broken, her hand promised and refused, without either pain or
pleasure, till, at length, a suitor appeared, who, with all those
advantages which could satisfy the political ambition of her father,
possessed all those qualities of mind and person calculated to gain
her heart. Brave, chivalrous, and accomplished, graceful and
well-formed in person, and handsome in features, Maximilian, son of
the Emperor Frederick, displayed, at the same time, all that native
kindness of heart, which, giving a gentle courtesy to the whole
demeanour, is far more winning than the most splendid acquirements;
and such qualities might have been quite sufficient to gain the heart
of the heiress of Burgundy. Other things, indeed, were required by her
father; but besides these personal qualities, he was the son of the
richest monarch in Europe, the heir of the duchy of Austria, and would
be, undoubtedly, successor to the imperial throne itself. Every object
seemed attained by such an alliance; and when, after appearing two
years successively at the court of Burgundy, Maximilian demanded the
hand of the beautiful heiress of the land, Mary, for the first time,
heard with joy that it was promised to the new aspirant.

Long negotiations succeeded; and it was agreed that the duchy of
Burgundy, freed from its homage to the crown of France, should be
erected into an independent kingdom.

A grand meeting of the Imperial and Burgundian courts was appointed at
Treves, for the conclusion of the marriage; and Charles the Bold, with
his daughter, accompanied by a train of unrivalled splendour, set out
for the place of rendezvous. Mary's heart beat high as she entered the
ancient city; and now, taught to look upon Maximilian as her future
husband, she yielded her whole heart to the influence of her first
affection. But the greedy ambition of her father was destined to
overthrow, for a time, all those airy fabrics of happiness, of which
her hopes, and her imagination, had been the architects. Charles
insisted that the title of king should be granted to him previous to
his daughter's marriage; while the Emperor, who had watched his
capricious changes on other occasions, with a jealous and somewhat
indignant eye, refused to confer the title he sought, till the hand of
the heiress of Burgundy was irrevocably bestowed upon his son. Charles
argued, and railed, and threatened in vain; and at length the Emperor,
wearied with his pertinacity, and offended by his intemperate
violence, suddenly broke up his court, and left him, mad with rage and
disappointment, to carry back his daughter to Brussels, with her heart
bleeding in secret from the cruel wounds it had received.

Other negotiations succeeded with other princes; and though Mary
heard, with apprehension and terror, of each new proposal, the
capricious uncertainty of her father's disposition saved her from the
still bitterer pangs of yielding her hand to another, while her heart
was really given to Maximilian.

In the meantime, disputes and wars took place; the projects of her
marriage languished, or were abandoned; and while her father hastened
to the last fatal field, where his military renown was extinguished in
his blood, she remained with her gentle stepmother in Ghent, to weep
the perils to which her parent's mad ambition exposed him, and to
tremble at the sight of every packet that reached her from the
Burgundian camp.

Such were the changes and events which had affected the fate of Mary
of Burgundy, since we depicted her as an infant, born shortly after
the arrival of the Dauphin at the court of Brussels. Over the Dauphin
himself, greater alterations still had come in the course of passing
years. From an exiled prince, he had become the king of a mighty
nation; and time had stolen away all the graces of youth, and all
those better feelings, and nobler emotions, which, in the freshness of
early life, are more or less imparted to every human being, whatever
may be the portion of selfish cunning added to neutralize them.
However beneficial might be his policy to the country over which he
ruled, however much his acts might advance the progress of society in
Europe, and lead forward the world to a state of more general freedom
and civilization, his objects were mean and personal, and individual
ambition of the lowest kind was the motive for all his cunning schemes
and artful policy. An immortal pen has, in our own day, portrayed his
character with unequalled skill; and of Louis XI., at this period of
his life, nothing farther can be said, than that he was the Louis XI.
of Sir Walter Scott.

Of those who accompanied him on his journey, Thibalt of Neufchatel,
Marshal of Burgundy, still remained; a weather-beaten warrior, and
still, in a certain sense, a haughty noble. Though age, with its
infirmities, had somewhat broken his strength, and had also softened
his heart, he was ready at all times, nevertheless, to spring into the
saddle at the trumpet's call: but so much, indeed, had he learned to
look upon the inferior ranks with a milder eye, that he had become
rather popular than otherwise; and amongst the peasants and burghers
was generally known, at this time, by the name of good Count Thibalt.
The taint of pride still remained; but its operation was directed in a
different manner; and young nobles, and new soldiers, who were not
always inclined to pay as much respect to the old officer's opinion as
he thought his due, now monopolized the scorn which he had formerly
bestowed upon the citizens; while the degree of popularity he had
lately acquired among the lower classes, and the deference with
which they invariably treated him, contrasting strongly with the
self-sufficient arrogance of some of his youthful compeers, soothed
his pride, gratified his vanity, and made him, day by day, more
bending and complacent to those whom he had formerly despised.

On good Martin Fruse, the passing of twenty years had brought, if not
a green, at least a fat old age. He was not unwieldy, however; was
rosy, and well respected amongst his fellow citizens for his wealth,
for his wisdom, and for his many memories of the mighty past; and, in
short, good Martin Fruse was, in person and appearance, a man who had
gone happily through many changes, increasing in riches, honour, and
comfort, with very few cares to prey upon his mind, and scarcely an
ailment through life to shatter his body. As he had proceeded,
however, experience had done its work: and while he had become wiser,
and had really obtained a greater insight into affairs of policy, he
had grown less vain, and willingly restrained his personal efforts to
composing the municipal squabbles of his native city, and directing
the efforts of his townsmen for the extension of their commerce and
the improvement of their manufactures.

His nephew, Albert Maurice, had been differently changed by the wand
of the enchanter Time. His mind, indeed, was one of those firm, fixed,
and steadfast essences, on which the passing of years make but little
alteration, except by expanding their capabilities by the exercise of
their powers. From a boy, it is true, he had grown into a powerful and
handsome man; and, though in partnership with his uncle, he held the
peaceful station of a rich merchant of Ghent, yet he was skilled in
all military exercises; and, when the communes of Flanders had been
called to the field, on pressing occasions, amongst the various
struggles of that eventful period, he had shown knowledge, courage,
and address, which had excited the wonder, and perhaps the jealousy,
of many of those noble warriors who looked upon the trade of war as
peculiarly their own. Whenever he returned home again, however, from
the camp, he sunk at once into the citizen; seemed to forget or to
despise his military skill; and, though gay and splendid amongst his
own class, far from courting popularity, he appeared to conceal
purposely the deep thoughts and striking qualities of his mind. Once
or twice, indeed, he had been heard to burst into an eloquent and
indignant rebuke to some of the nobles, on the occasion of the haughty
vexations which they continually exercised upon the lower classes; but
he seemed to regret his words as soon as spoken; and--as if he knew
that, at some time, a fearful and deadly contest must arise between
himself and the oppressors of his class, and strove anxiously, and
with a feeling of awe, to delay it as long as possible--he avoided all
matter of quarrel with the nobility of Ghent, or with the officers of
the Duke of Burgundy. He seemed desirous of closing his eyes to
subjects of offence; and, when he heard of a brawl in any neighbouring
part of the town, or when the other young citizens called upon him to
take a lead in their frequent tumults, he would either quit the place
for the time, or shut himself sternly in his own dwelling, in order to
avoid any participation in the dangerous occurrences that were taking
place.

On one of these occasions, when the city of Ghent, though not in open
revolt, was keeping up an angry discussion with the high officers of
the duke, Albert Maurice, then in his twenty-fourth year, obtained his
uncle's consent to travel into Italy, for the purpose of
superintending some transactions which their house was carrying on
with the merchant lords of Venice. In that sweet climate, the nurse of
SONGarts and too often of crimes, he acquired an elegance of taste, and a
grace of manner, unknown to the burghers of his native place. He came
home, skilled in many arts with which they were unacquainted; and, had
his spirit been less powerful, his talents less commanding, it is not
improbable that his fellow citizens might have contemned or laughed at
acquirements which they had not learned to appreciate, and might have
scorned the travelled coxcomb who brought home strange modes and
fashions to his native land. But Albert Maurice made a show of none;
and it was only upon long solicitation, or on some moment of joyous
festivity, that he would sing the sweet songs of a softer people, and
accompany himself with instruments unknown in his own country.

His personal beauty, and the fascinating grace of his manners, made
him seem a creature of a different race, and his superiority in every
quality, both of mind and body, to those around him, might have been a
blessing, had he not felt it himself; but he did feel it, and of
course was discontented; and who can doubt that anything which makes
man discontented with his state, without giving him the certainty of a
better, is a curse? All eyes turned upon him with satisfaction; and
many a soft, kind heart would willingly have given itself to him; but
his thoughts were of another kind, and he could see none to love
amongst the many by whom he was admired. The fair girls of Ghent--and
many a fair girl was then, and is now, within its walls--thought him
cold and proud, and blamed him for what was his misfortune, not his
fault. His heart was one on which love might have taken as firm a hold
as on that of any man that ever burned or died for woman since the
world began: but he sought for his equal--I do not mean in rank, for
that he never heeded--but in mind; and he found none such within the
number of all he knew.

Shut out by circumstance from the higher ranks of society, the finer
feelings, the better aspirations of his soul, were matter for a
thousand disgusts; and though a native sense of what is noble in
itself, and just to others, made him laboriously conceal the very
superiority which he felt, as well as its consequences, yet the
conversation, the manners, the thoughts, of those around him, even
those with whom he was most intimately allied, were constant sources
of hidden pain and annoyance. He lived amongst the people of Ghent,
and he strove to live with them; and so far did he succeed, that
though his talents and his occasional reserve made his townsfolk look
upon him with no small reverence, the urbanity of his manners, when
brought into casual contact with the other citizens, gained him a far
greater degree of popularity than any general familiarity could have
won.

The union of pride and ambition--and he had both qualities in his
bosom--usually leads the man, whose mind is so constituted, to seek to
rise into the class above him: but both his pride and his ambition
were too potent for that. He was proud of the very difference between
his station and himself; he had a deep and settled love, too, of his
country, and even of his class; and while his ambition was of a
quality which would have snatched at empire, had there been a hope of
success, the hatred and contempt in which he held the nobles were far
too great for him to covet aught but the power to trample them down
amongst those ranks whom they now oppressed.

Such had some of the characters, whom we have attempted to depict at
an earlier period of life, become, under the passing of twenty years.
Time, in short, had done his wonted work on all: had expanded the bud
and blossom into the green leaf and the flower, and had changed the
flower and the shoot into the ready fruit and the ripened ear. But
there are others yet to be spoken of, and to them we will now return.




CHAPTER VII.


The withering power of Time--which, in brief space, can make such
havoc on man, and all man's works, that friend shall scarce know
friend, and grass shall have swallowed up the highways--is impotent
against the ever renewing vigour of Nature; and in the forest of
Hannut, the twenty years which had passed, seemed scarcely to show the
difference of a day. Green oaks were withered, it is true; the
lightning had scathed the pine and rent the beech; the woodman's axe
had been busy here and there; but, in constant succession, the
children of the wood had grown up to take the place of those which had
fallen; and the most discerning eye could scarce have traced a single
change in all the forest scene around.

Days seemed to have altered, however, and manners to have changed in
the forest of Hannut; for, instead of very equivocal looking soldiers,
and travellers who wandered on with fear and trembling, there was now
to be seen, near the very same cascade by the side of which we opened
this book, a gay, light party, whose thoughts appeared all of joy, and
to whom terror seemed perfectly a stranger. That party consisted of
three principal personages, with their attendants; and, mounted on
splendid horses, whose high spirit, though bowed to the most complete
obedience to man's will, was in no degree diminished, they rode gaily
across the bridge, and paused by the side of the stream.

The first whom we shall notice--a powerful young cavalier, who might
be in the thirtieth year of his age, who might be less, sun-burnt, but
naturally fair, strong in all his limbs, but easy and graceful in his
movements--sprang to the ground as they approached the waterfall; and
laying his hand on the gilded bridle of a white jennet, that cantered
on by his side, he assisted the person who rode it to dismount.

She was a fair, beautiful girl, of about eighteen or nineteen years of
age, round whose broad white forehead fell clusters of glossy light
brown hair; her eyebrows and her eyelashes, however, were dark; and
through the long deep fringe of the latter looked forth a pair of blue
and laughing eyes, which beamed with the same merry happiness that
curled the arch of her sweet lips.

Two of the attendants who followed, hurried forward to hold the bridle
and the stirrup of the third person of the party, who dismounted more
slowly, as became the gravity of his years. Time, indeed, had not
broken, and had hardly bent him; but evidences of the ironhanded
conqueror's progress were to be traced in the snowy hair and beard,
which had once been of the deepest black; and in the long furrows
strongly marked across the once smooth brow. In other respects the
Lord of Hannut was but little changed. The same dark, grave cast of
countenance remained; the same spare, but vigorous form; though,
indeed, without appearing to stoop, his height seemed somewhat
diminished since last we brought him before the reader's eyes. A gleam
of affectionate pleasure lighted up his countenance, as he marked the
graceful gallantry with which his young companion aided the fair girl
who accompanied them to dismount; and when, after having rendered his
service to the lady, the cavalier turned to offer him his arm also,
with a sort of half apology for not having done so before, he replied,
smiling--"Thou art better employed dear boy; think'st thou I have so
far forgotten my chivalry as to grudge the attention thou bestow'st
upon a lady? Here, spread out here," he continued, turning to the
attendants and pointing to the green short turf which carpeted the
bank of the stream just below the waterfall; "we could not find a
better place for our meal than this."

By the birds which they carried on their wrists, it was evident that
the whole party had been flying their hawks, the favourite amusement,
at that time, of the higher classes throughout Flanders. They now,
however, seated themselves to a sort of sylvan dinner which was spread
upon the turf by the attendants, who--with that mixture of familiarity
and respect which were perfectly compatible with each other, and usual
in those days, and in such sports--sat down with persons of higher
rank, at once to partake of their fare, and assist them at their meal.

The conversation was gay and lively, especially between the two
younger persons whom we have noticed. They were evidently in habits of
intimacy; and on the cavalier's part there appeared that tender but
cheerful attention to his fair companion, which argued feelings of a
somewhat warmer nature than kindred affection, yet without any of that
apprehension which love, if the return be doubtful, is sure to
display. Her manner was of a different kind; it was not less
affectionate, it was not less gentle, but it was of that light and
playful character, under which very deep and powerful attachment
sometimes endeavours to conceal itself: the timidity which hides
itself in boldness, the consciousness of feeling deeply, which
sometimes leads to the assumption of feeling little. It was
understood, however, and appreciated by her lover, who, possibly, had
taken some more serious moment, when the light and active guardian of
the casket slept, to pry into the secret of the heart within.

Love, however, it would appear, is insatiable of assurances; and,
probably, it was on some fresh demand for a new, or greater
acknowledgment, that the lady replied to a half-whispered speech:
"Certainly, dear Hugh! Can you doubt it? I will try, with all my mind,
to love you; for, as we are to be married, whether we love each other
or not, it is but good policy to strive to do so if it be possible."
And as she spoke, she fixed her eyes upon her companion's face, with a
look of malicious inquiry, as if to see what effect the lukewarmness
of her speech would produce upon a heart she knew to be sufficiently
susceptible.

He only laughed, however, and replied, "Sing me a song, then, dear
Alice, to cheer these green woods, and make me think you love me
better than you do."

"Not I, indeed," replied the young lady. "In the first place, I would
not cheat you for the world; and in the next place, neither song nor
_pastourelle_, nor _sirvente_, nor _virelai_, will I ever sing, till I
am asked in song myself. Sing, sing, Hugh! You have been at the bright
court of France, and are, I know, a master of the _gaie science_. Sing
the light lay you sang yester evening; or some other, if you know one.
It matters not which."

"Be it so, if you will sing afterwards," replied the young cavalier;
and without farther question than an inquiring glance towards the Lord
of Hannut, he sang, in a full, rich, melodious voice, one of the
common songs of the day, which was not altogether inapplicable to her
speech. The words, though in a different language, were somewhat to
the following effect:--


SONG.

   Sing in the days of the spring-time, beloved;
     In those days of sweetness, oh, sing to me!
   When all things by one glad spirit are moved,
     From the sky-lark to the bee.

   Sing in the days, too, of summer-time, dearest;
     In those days of fire, oh, sing to me then!
   When suns are the brightest, and skies are clearest,
     Sing, sing in the woods again.

   Sing to me still in the autumn's deep glory;
     In the golden fall-time, oh, be not mute!
   Some sweet, wand'ring ditty from ancient story,
     That well with the time may suit.

   Sing to me still in the dark hours of sadness,
     When winter across the sky is driven;
   But sing not the wild tones of mirth and gladness,
     Then sing of peace and heaven.


"A pretty song enough, for a man to sing," observed the young lady, as
her lover concluded; "but, as I do not choose to be dictated to by
anybody, I shall even sing you such a song as suits me myself, whether
in season or out of season. What say you, dearest uncle?" she added,
turning to the Lord of Hannut; and laying the fair rounded fingers of
her soft hand upon his, "What shall I sing him?" And as she spoke, she
raised her eyes towards the sky, as if trying to remember some
particular lay from amongst the many that she knew; but scarcely had
she done so, when an involuntary cry burst from her lips--"Good
Heaven!" she exclaimed, "there are armed men looking at us from the
top of the bank: there, there!"

Every one started up, and turned their eyes in the direction which
hers had taken. There was, indeed, a rustle heard amongst the trees;
and a stone or two, detached from above, rolled down the crag, and
plunged into the stream at its foot. But no one was to be seen; and,
after gazing for a moment in silence, the lover beckoned one of his
attendants to follow, and bounding up the most difficult part of the
cliff, notwithstanding the fair girl's entreaty to forbear, he plunged
into the brushwood, in pursuit of the person who had disturbed their
tranquillity.

"You are dreaming, my fair Alice," said the Lord of Hannut; "and have
sent poor Hugh de Mortmar on a foolish errand."

"Nay, indeed, uncle," replied Alice, "I dreamed not at all. I am not
one to dream in such a sort. For Heaven's sake! bid one ride to bring
us assistance, and send some of the men up to aid poor Hugh; for, as
sure as I live, I saw two or three faces with steel caps above,
looking through the branches of the trees. Hark! do you not hear
voices? Climb up, sirs, if you be men, and aid your young lord."

The attendants looked to the baron; and on his part, the Lord of
Hannut only smiled with an air of incredulity; when, much, indeed, to
the surprise of Alice, her lover appeared above the moment after; and,
springing easily down the rock, declared that all was clear beyond.

She gazed on him for a moment in serious silence, and then merely
replied--"It is very strange!" Hugh de Mortmar cast himself down again
by her side, and once more pressed her to sing; but it was in vain.
Alice was agitated and alarmed; and finding it impossible to shake off
her terror, she besought her uncle to break up the party and return to
the castle, notwithstanding assurances from all that she must have
been deceived by the waving of some of the boughs, or the misty spray
of the cataract.

Finding, at length, that to reason with her was fruitless, her uncle
agreed to return; and the horses being led forward, the whole party
remounted, and, with their hawks once more upon their hands, made the
best of their way back towards the castle of Hannut. For the first two
or three miles, Alice continued anxiously to watch every opening of
the trees on either side of the road; remaining in such a state of
alarm, that her falcon's wings were continually flapping, from the
agitated haste with which she turned to gaze on every object that they
passed on the road. It was only when they came within sight of the
vassal town, and the castle on its high rock, about half a mile
beyond, that she seemed to consider herself in safety; and the long,
deep breath she drew, as they passed through the barbacan, announced
what a load was taken off her mind when she found herself within the
walls of her uncle's castle.

"You have dwelt so long in cities, dear Alice," said the Lord of
Hannut, laughing, "that the forest is a strange world to you; and your
imagination peoples it with creatures of its own. I shall write to
your father, my good Lord of Imbercourt, to say, that he must leave
you many a month with me yet, till we have cured you of seeing these
wild men of the woods."

"Nay, uncle," replied the young lady, who had by this time recovered
her playful spirits, and looked up in his face as she spoke, with a
smile of arch meaning; "if I were to be terrified with imaginary
things, I can tell you I should not have come at all; for my maids
have got many a goodly story of the castle of Hannut and its forest,
ay, and of its lord to boot; and, on the morning after our arrival, I
found that they had all burnt shoes and twisted necks, with sitting
the whole of the night before, with their feet in the fire and their
heads turned over their shoulders."

The Lord of Hannut heard her with a melancholy smile. "And hadst thou
no fear thyself, my fair Alice?" he demanded; "didst thy imagination
never fill the dark end of the chamber with sprites and hobgoblins?"

"Nay, nay, in truth, not I!" replied the young lady; "such things have
no terrors for me; but, when I saw three armed men looking down upon
us in the forest, and thought that there might be thirty more behind,
there was some cause for terror."

The Lord of Hannut and Hugh de Mortmar--in whom the reader has,
doubtless, by this time discovered that Hugh of Guildres, who, twenty
years before, was found sleeping by the cascade--looked at each other
with a meaning smile, but replied nothing; and, indeed, the
conversation was here brought to a conclusion by a variety of unwonted
sounds which now suddenly rose up from the forest below. Seldom was
it, in truth, that those wild woods rang with the clang of charging
horse, and echoed to the blast of the trumpets; but such was the case
in the present instance; and, as the sounds came borne upon the wind
through the open windows, the brow of the Lord of Hannut darkened, and
his eye flashed, while the cheek of the younger cavalier flushed as if
with anger.

"By the Lord! our fair Alice is right, it would seem!" cried Hugh de
Mortmar; "there are more men in the wood than we thought for. What,
ho! warder!" he exclaimed, leaning from the narrow window and shouting
to some one stationed in the gallery of a tall slender tower, which,
more like some Moorish minaret than anything else, rose, towering
above all the others on the opposite side of the court-yard. "What,
ho! warder, what seest thou down in the woods below? By the Lord!
there is another blast," he added, as the trumpets again echoed
through the woods.

The next moment the loud voice of the warder was heard in reply: "I
see a plump of spears under the arms of Burgundy, running down a
handful of the green riders; but they have not caught them yet. They
come closer: they come closer," he added; "but the riders make
face; they turn again, and spur on; the men-at-arms are thrown out;
but I can see no more, my lord; they have all got beneath the haggard
hill."

"Sound the ban-cloche, ho!" exclaimed the young cavalier: "arm, and
saddle! arm, and saddle, below there!" he continued, shouting to some
of the groups who were assembled in the court-yard. "I would fain see
who it is," he added, turning to the Lord of Hannut, "who dares to
hunt down any men in these woods, your free domain, without your good
leave, my lord."

"Beware, Hugh, beware!" said the Lord of Hannut, holding up his hand
with a monitory gesture.

"I will, I will, indeed, my lord," he replied; "I will be most
cautious." So saying, he sprang down the steps into the court-yard,
and, while the great bell or ban-cloche rang out its warning peal over
hill and dale, he gave rapid orders for arming a small body of men;
and was springing on his own horse to lead them down to the valley,
when the warder called from above, announcing that the party of
Burgundians he had before seen, together with a considerable troop of
strangers, were winding up the steep road that led directly to the
castle.

Hugh de Mortmar paused; and the instant after, a trumpet was blown at
the barbacan, by a squire sent forward by the party to give notice of
the approach of the noble Lord of Imbercourt to the dwelling of his
good brother-in-law of Hannut.

The gates of the castle were immediately thrown open; the armed
retainers of its lord were drawn up to receive his honoured guest; and
Alice ran down to meet her father, whose unexpected coming seemed a
gratifying event to all. Hugh de Mortmar, however, lingered behind,
conversing for a few moments in a low and hurried tone with the Lord
of Hannut; and the only words which were heard, "It is strange that he
should have done so in your domains, my lord, a man so careful in his
conduct as he is in general. They surely would never dare to attack
_him_," seemed to show that the two gentlemen spoke of the events
which had just taken place in the forest.

While thus conversing, they overtook Alice of Imbercourt, whose
impatience had hurried her forward; and then dropping the subject,
they advanced with her even beyond the grate of the barbacan, and
stood on the edge of the hill, looking down upon the large party that
approached, as it wound slowly up the steep ascent which led to the
castle.

The cavalcade soon came near; and it became evident, as it did so,
that it comprised two distinct bodies: the one being but partially
armed, and riding under the banner of the Lord of Imbercourt; the
other being clothed in steel from head to heel, and bearing
conspicuous the cognizance of the house of Burgundy. The first band,
however, was the most numerous, and might consist, perhaps, of a
hundred men-at-arms, independent of a number of grooms, horse-boys,
and varlets, as they were called, leading several spare horses, some
perfectly unburdened, and some loaded with large quantities of armour
tied together confusedly with ropes and chains, and so disposed as to
be little burdensome to the horse. The other party seemed to have no
baggage of any kind; and the arms of all sorts which they employed,
they bore about their own persons.

Thus accoutred, both bodies wound on up the slope, glancing in and out
of the scattered wood, which, tinted with all the thousand shades of
the declining sun, clothed the ascent, and cast long marking shadows
across the winding road of yellow sand. Now, the horsemen passing
through the depths of the wood could scarcely be distinguished from
the trees amidst which they advanced; now, emerging from the
overhanging boughs, they stood out clear upon the evening sky, as
their path skirted along the edge of the cliff. At first all appeared
indistinct: one confused mass of horses and riders; but, soon coming
nearer, the form of each individual horseman became defined; and
gradually their features, as they wore their helmets up, could be
distinguished by those who stood and watched their approach.

At the head of the first party rode a tall, handsome, middle-aged man,
with a countenance which was grave, without being austere. When within
a few yards of the top of the hill, he threw his horse's rein to a
squire, and, springing lightly to the ground, advanced with a quick
step towards the little group of persons assembled to meet him.
Yielding first to natural affection, he cast his arms round his
daughter, Alice of Imbercourt, and pressed her to his bosom. He then
saluted frankly and kindly the Lord of Hannut and Hugh de Mortmar;
and, as he held their hands in each of his, he said, in a low and
hurried tone intended to meet their ear, and their ear alone, before
the rest of the party came up, "I beseech you, my good brother, and
you, my dear Hugh, whom one day I shall call my son, whatever you may
hear presently, bridle your anger. Your rights have been somewhat
violated by the leader of that band behind; but I have prevailed upon
him to desist: and both because he is a high officer of our sovereign
lord the duke, and because these times are too threatening from abroad
to admit of feuds between subjects at home, I entreat you to govern
your indignation as much as may be."

The followers of Imbercourt had halted as soon as they reached the
level ground or terrace in face of the barbacan; and the leader of the
second band, having by this time gained the brow of the hill, now rode
quickly up to the party at the gate. He was a tall, gaunt, bony man of
about forty, with keen eagle's features, and a look of that bold
assurance which proceeds more from animal courage, and a mind
continually upon its guard, than from conscious rectitude of action or
design. He was armed at all points except the head, which was covered
alone by its short curly grizzled hair, while his basinet hung beside
his axe at the saddle-bow. Such was the appearance now borne by
Maillotin du Bac, the famous Prevot Marechal of Burgundy, who, having
been himself one of the most notorious plunderers of the time, had
been appointed by Charles of Burgundy to root out the bands by which
the country was infested, probably on the faith of the old adage,
which recommends us to set a thief to catch a thief.

"You are my Lord of Hannut, fair sir, I presume?" said the Prevot,
dismounting, and speaking in a coarse, sharp, jarring tone of voice,
only fit for a hangman.

The Lord of Hannut answered by a stately bow, and the other proceeded:
"My good Lord of Imbercourt, here, whom I reverence and respect, as in
duty bound, he being as stout a soldier as he is a worthy counsellor,
has but now prayed, or rather commanded, for he having taken the
responsibility upon himself, I have yielded to his injunctions, has
commanded me to desist from pursuing the brigands and plunderers who,
for many years past, have haunted this forest of Hannut."

"Sir," replied the Lord of Hannut, "I, living within the precincts of
the wood itself, am, it appears, sadly ignorant of what goes on
beneath its shade; for during nearly twenty years I have heard of no
outrage whatsoever committed within the bounds of my domain. Had I
done so, had any tale of robbery or pillage met my ears, I, as supreme
lord, holding a right of exercising justice both high and low, would
not have failed to clear the territory within my jurisdiction of such
gentry as you mention; nor shall I certainly suffer any one else to
interfere with my rights, within my own lands."

"My lord! my lord!" replied the Prevot; "I will easily furnish you
with proof that your forest is tenanted as I say. Did we not, within
this half hour, encounter a whole party of as undoubted brigands as
ever lived?"

"That you attacked some persons in the forest, Sir Prevot, was well
enough seen from the belfry of the castle," rejoined Hugh de Mortmar,
with a frowning brow; "but whether they were not as honest or honester
persons than yourself, remains to be proved, and shall be inquired
into most strictly. At all events, sir, you have infringed upon the
rights of my uncle, which must be inquired into also. Well, well, my
dear lord," he added, noticing a sign by which the Lord of Hannut
required him to be silent; "well, well, I say no more, than that these
thief-catchers grow too insolent."

The brow of Maillotin du Bac bent, his eyebrows almost met, and his
left hand played ominously with the hilt of his dagger, as he
muttered, "Thief-catchers!" But farther discussion was cut short by
the Lord of Hannut, who exclaimed, "Peace, Hugh! peace! we must not
show scanty hospitality to any one. Sir Maillotin du Bac, we will
speak farther with you hereafter, on the subjects that you mention;
and if you can prove to us that any outrage of any kind has been
committed within the limits of my domain, both my nephew and myself
will do our best to punish the offenders. But neither duke nor king
shall exercise, within my lordship, the rights which belong alone to
me."

"Outrage, sir!" rejoined the Prevot; "did not the men who burnt the
house of the Lord of Harghen take refuge in your forests within this
month?"

"Whether they did or not, I cannot say," replied the Lord of Hannut;
"but their burning the house of that audacious villain, the oppressor
of the poor, the plunderer of the widow and the orphan, was no very
evil deed in my eyes. However, let us not bandy words here at the
gate; we will speak farther this evening."

The whole party now passed through the barbacan, and the Lord of
Hannut gave special order to his seneschal to attend to the comfort of
the soldiers, while he himself led his brother-in-law, the Lord of
Imbercourt, and a few of that nobleman's most distinguished
attendants, towards the great hall of the castle.

Maillotin du Bac followed boldly, as one of the chief guests; and
finding that no great courtesy was shown him in marshalling the way,
he exclaimed, in a loud and intrusive voice, "My lord! my lord! before
we leave our men, I must crave that you would yield me the use of a
dungeon."

"For your own abode, sir?" demanded Hugh de Mortmar, with not the most
gracious smile in the world.

"No, no," replied the Prevot, "but for yon prisoner there;" and he
pointed to a part of the court-yard, where two of his followers were
aiding a young man of a powerful frame and striking appearance to
dismount from his horse, which was rendered difficult by his arms
being tightly pinioned behind.

"That can be no thief, surely," said Hugh de Mortmar; "I never saw a
nobler countenance. By his dress, too, he seems a burgher of the first
order."

"The gown does not make the monk," replied Maillotin du Bac, with a
grim smile. "If he be no thief, he may be somewhat worse. However, he
was not taken on these territories, and therefore, my good lord, his
capture can be no offence to you. For courtesy's sake, and for the
prince's service, I claim the use of a dungeon for this night. He is a
state prisoner, and must be guarded carefully."

"Be it so, Sir Prevot," answered the Lord of Hannut; "thank God, all
my dungeons are clear at present; and far be it from me to oppose the
due exercise of your office in the duke's service."

"Said like a worthy lord, as I always held you," replied the Prevot.
"Where shall we bestow him?"

"Roger de Lorens," said the Lord of Hannut, turning to his seneschal,
"show this worthy gentleman, the Prevot of our lord the duke, the
different prison-rooms beneath the square tower; let him choose which
he will, as most secure; and when he has made his choice, give him up
the key thereof. Be the prisoner under your own charge, Sir Maillotin
du Bac," he added; "yet, for the honour of my dwelling I trust that
you will let his treatment be as gentle as may be. Let him have wine
and other refreshments to keep his spirits up, I pray you."

"Black bread and foul water would be good enough for him," replied
Maillotin du Bac; "but at your request, my lord, he shall have better
fare. Sir Seneschal, I follow you; lead the way. Ho! Martin du Garch,
bring along the prisoner."

Thus saying, the Prevot of the Duke of Burgundy, who, though a knight
and a man of good family, had once, as we have before noticed, been a
notorious adventurer, and had now become the great persecutor of
his former comrades, followed the seneschal of Hannut across the
court-yard, towards the passage which led to the dungeons. In the
meanwhile, the Lord of Hannut, Hugh de Mortmar, the Lord of
Imbercourt, and his daughter Alice, advanced to the great hall, where
preparations were already in course for serving the evening meal.




CHAPTER VIII.


While the Prevot of Burgundy had remained within ear-shot, Imbercourt
had maintained a profound silence, or, speaking in a low familiar tone
to his daughter, had appeared perfectly inattentive to what was going
on beside him. No sooner, however, had they passed on through the
great hall, and up a flight of steps, into a large sort of withdrawing
room, in which it was the custom of the guests in those days to wash
their hands before dinner, than he closed the door, and earnestly
thanked the two noble gentlemen by whom he was accompanied for their
forbearance on the present occasion. "I have much, much to tell you,
my noble brother-in-law," he said; "and much on which to ask your
advice. Much have I also to tell you, Hugh," he added, laying his hand
on the arm of the younger of the two noblemen; "but I must do it in as
few words as possible, before we are joined by that unworthy man, whom
we must not offend, though he be part spy, part hangman, part
cut-throat. In the first place, in your solitude here, you scarcely
know the state either of the duchy of Burgundy, or of the county of
Flanders; both of which are unhappily in so dangerous a situation,
that it will need infinite moderation, prudence, and skill, on the
part of all true lovers of their country, to keep us from events too
fearful to contemplate. Throughout the whole of Duke Charles's
dominions, the nobles are turbulent and discontented; the citizens
rebellious and insolent; and, to crown all, the duke himself, never
very temperate in his conduct, seems since the defeat of Granson, to
have given unbridled rein to his fury, and to have cast all common
prudence away as a burdensome incumbrance."

"We have heard, indeed," said the Lord of Hannut, "of his having
hanged a garrison of four hundred Swiss, whom he found in a town in
Lorraine, a most barbarous and inhuman act, which, if he commit many
such, will make all good men abandon him."

"Too true, indeed," replied Imbercourt; "but I fear this is but a
prelude to greater outrages."

"Ay, and to greater misfortunes," interrupted the Lord of Hannut. "If
there be any truth in the starry influences, he has met with some deep
misfortune already, and will meet with greater still ere long. When
heard you from the duke?" he added, seeing a doubtful smile curl the
lip of his brother-in-law, as he referred to an art in which
Imbercourt placed less faith than most of his contemporaries.

"Our last news is more than a fortnight old," answered Imbercourt,
"the duke was then marching rapidly towards the mountains. But it was
not of his intemperance towards the Swiss I was about to speak, though
his conduct to them has been cruel enough. Still they were enemies;
but he seems resolved to drive the men of Ghent into revolt also; and
he has commanded his prevot to arrest any one, whether merchant,
mechanic, or noble, who attempts to pass the frontier from Ghent into
France. The prisoner, whom you saw but now, is the first-fruit of this
precious order. That meddling fool, Du Bac, who, like the tiger, loves
blood for blood's sake, takes care to fulfil every intemperate order
of the duke to the very uttermost, especially against the Gandois,
towards whom he and some others of his fellows have a most deadly
hatred. I can hear of no precise offence which the prisoner has
committed, though his captor has shown me some letters found upon him,
which he would fain construe into treason; and if they urge the matter
farther against him, they will drive the men of Ghent mad outright.
Why, one half of their trade is with France!"

"How is it then, my lord," demanded Hugh, "that you do not interfere
to set him at liberty?"

"I dare not for my head," replied Imbercourt. "Besides, I am not here
in the capacity of counsellor: I am now, by the duke's order, marching
to join him with the small force that you see: all, indeed, that I
have been able to raise. But to the object of my coming! Hugh, the
duke needs men, and calls angrily on all his vassals to take the
field. Often and earnestly have I entreated for clemency towards your
father; and my entreaties have been in vain. One good stroke in the
field, however, done by your hand, were worth more than all the
eloquence that the tongue of man could ever boast. Gather together
what forces you can, and follow me to the camp, under the name you
have at present assumed. I will take care that you shall have the
opportunity of distinguishing yourself; and, from your conduct both in
Spain and Italy, I fear not but--"

"It is in vain, my lord, it is in vain," replied Hugh de Mortmar.
"Never will I draw my sword for a man who holds my father a close
prisoner: surely it is enough not to draw my sword against him; and it
has only been for the hope that this fair hand--" and as he spoke he
raised that of Alice, who had been listening, with her deep blue eyes
full of anxious attention--"and it has only been for the hope that
this fair hand would form a bond, which, uniting the fate of
Imbercourt and Gueldres together, would render them too strong for
tyranny to resist, that I have refrained, during the last year, from
attempting to open the gates of my father's prison by force, while the
oppressor is embarrassed with wars and misfortunes that his own
grasping and cruel disposition has brought upon his head."

"I cannot blame your feelings, Hugh," replied the Lord of Imbercourt,
"nor will I hurt you by pointing out the somewhat serious causes of
offence which have induced the duke to treat your father with so great
severity; but do you, at the same time, moderate your angry terms, and
remember that Charles of Burgundy is my sovereign lord, my benefactor,
and my friend. I think I need say no more."

He spoke with grave and impressive earnestness, and seemed about to
proceed to some other part of the subject, when the heavy clanging
step of Maillotin du Bac, as he walked nonchalantly up the stairs,
from the great hall, into the withdrawing room, warned the Lord of
Imbercourt that a suspicious ear was nigh, and he merely added, "We
will speak more to-night."

The Prevot entered the room with a look of great satisfaction,
slipping at the same time the handle of an enormous key over the thong
of his belt, which he again buckled over his shoulder; so that the
key, dropping down till it struck against his sword, hung by the side
of the more chivalrous weapon, offering no bad type of the character
of the wearer.

"Admirable dungeons these, my good Lord of Hannut," he reiterated as
he entered; "Admirable dungeons, admirable dungeons, indeed! Your own
construction, I doubt not, and a good construction it is. I defy the
nimblest cut-purse in the empire to make his way thence, while this
key hangs at my side. The window, indeed, the window is a little too
wide; what the devil the rogues want windows for at all, I don't
understand; but it is just a thought too wide. I have known a fat
young rogue so starve himself down in a week's time, that he would get
through a hole that would not have passed his thigh when first he was
taken. No fear of yon fellow below, however; it would require a
precious hole to pass his chest and shoulders."

"Pray, what is the poor youth's offence?" demanded the Lord of Hannut;
but as the other was about to reply, the pages and varlets, as the
inferior servants were called in that day, brought in basins, ewers,
and napkins, for the guests to wash, while the trumpets sounded loud
without; and, in a few moments afterwards, the whole party were seated
at their evening meal.

As must always be the case in such meetings, when the ingredients of
the assembly are discrepant in themselves, notwithstanding the
fortuitous circumstances which may for the time have brought them
together, the conversation was broken and interrupted. Sometimes the
loud swell of many voices made, for a minute or two, an unspeakable
din. Sometimes one or two protracted the conversation in a lower tone,
after the others had ceased; but still, every subject that was
started, dropped after a few minutes' discussion, and the parties
betook themselves again to demolishing the huge piles of meat which,
according to the custom of those times, were set before them. Wine was
in plenty, but all drank sparingly, except the Prevot, and one or two
of the officers who followed the Lord of Imbercourt. For his part,
Maillotin du Bac seemed determined that, as far as the quality of his
favours went, no jealousy should exist between the trencher and the
pottle-pot. His food swam down his throat in Burgundy, and the
consequences were such as are usual with men of strong constitutions
and well-seasoned brains. He lost not in the least degree the use of
his senses; but his tongue, on which he was never wont to impose any
very strict restraint, obtained an additional degree of liberty after
the fifth or sixth cup he had quaffed; and, perceiving the Lord of
Hannut speaking for a few moments in a low tone to his brother-in-law,
he concluded at once that their conversation must refer to his
prisoner; and, resuming the subject without farther ceremony, he
replied to the question his entertainer had put to him before
dinner--so abruptly, indeed, that for the moment no one understood
what he meant.

"Offence, indeed!" exclaimed Maillotin du Bac; "offence enough, I
trow; why now, I'll tell you how it was. We had just come out of
Namur, where we had supped, not quite so well as we have done here,
it's true; no matter for that, we had wine enough; and we were
quartering ourselves in a little village down below, when one of my
fellows, as stout a hand as ever was born, got saying something civil
to the wife of a draper, just at the door of her shop. What more I
don't know, but the foolish cullion took it into her head to cry out;
when up comes my young gallant there in the dungeon, and at one blow
fells my fellow, Stephen, to the ground with a broken jaw. What the
devil business had he with it? If he had been an old lover of hers,
well enough; but he confesses that he never saw her before till that
moment, and must come up and meddle, because she chose to squeal like
a caught hare."

Hugh de Mortmar turned his eyes upon the Lord of Imbercourt, who bit
his lip, and observed gravely: "Were this all the young man's offence,
Sir Prevot, it would behove us to consider the matter better before we
give way to your hankering for dungeons and cords."

"Ha, ha! my lord," replied the Prevot, with a grin, "not so great a
fool as that either! Had I not thought to make more of the good youth,
I would have split his skull where he stood, with my axe; and his
punishment taking place in _chaudemelee_, as the laws of St. Louis
have it, we should have heard nothing more of the matter: but I knew
the gallant well by sight: one who affects popularity amongst the
turbulent folk of Ghent; and having orders to arrest all who attempted
to cross the frontier into France, I laid hold of him forthwith,
examined his papers, and found sufficient, with a little good
management, to give him a cool dangle by the neck in the fresh air of
some fine September morning. But what need I say more? You yourself
have seen the letters."

"Meddling fool!" muttered Imbercourt to himself; "he will contrive to
drive the duke's subjects into revolt at home, while he is assailed by
enemies abroad." This speech, however, passed no farther than the ears
of the two persons next to him. And the conversation soon turned to
the bands of freebooters which, the Prevot stoutly asserted, harboured
in the forest of Hannut.

A few words passed, in an under tone, between Hugh de Mortmar and the
Lord of Hannut; and at length the old noble proceeded to discuss with
the Prevot of the Duke of Burgundy the infraction of his rights which
had been committed by that officer in the morning. The Prevot,
however, sturdily maintained his ground, declaring that he himself,
and all his band, consisting of about forty persons, had encountered
and pursued a considerable body of men, whose appearance and demeanour
left not the slightest doubt in regard to their general trade and
occupation. Going farther still, he appealed to the Lord of Imbercourt
himself, who came up while the freebooters were still in sight, and
who actually did confirm his account in every particular.

"Well, sir," replied the Lord of Hannut, "since such is the case, far
be it from me to impede the execution of justice. The maintenance of
the law within my own territories I have always hitherto attended to
myself, and that so strictly, that for twenty years I have heard of no
outrage within the limits of my own domain--"

"Why, as to that, my lord," interrupted the Prevot, grinning, "we do
hear that you have an especial police of your own: a sort of airy
archers of the guard, who keep better watch and ward than mortal eyes
can do. Nevertheless I must not neglect my duty, while I am in the
body; and in doing it, I fear neither man nor spirit."

"I know not, to what you are pleased to allude, sir," replied the Lord
of Hannut, frowning: "nevertheless I may find many means to punish
those who are insolent. However, as you say that you have seen
evil-disposed persons in the forest, and my Lord of Imbercourt here
confirms your statement, I will grant you permission for one day to
scour the whole of my domain from side to side; and if you should find
any one strong enough to make head against you, my own vassals shall
be summoned to give you aid. After that day, however, you must
withdraw your troop and retire, nor ever again presume to set foot
within my bounds without my permission."

"One day, my lord," replied the Prevot, "will be hardly--"

"I shall grant no more, sir," said the Lord of Hannut, rising from the
table, in which example he was followed by several of his guests; "I
shall grant no more, sir; and the concession which I make, proceeds
solely from a feeling of respect for my good lord the Duke of
Burgundy. Though I rise," he added, addressing all the party from a
general feeling of courtesy, "though I rise, do not hold it,
gentlemen, as a signal to break off your revelry. Spare not the
flagon, I beseech you; and here are comfits and spices to give zest to
your wine."

Thus saying, he retired from the hall; and, leading the way to the
battlements, entered into a long and, to them, interesting
conversation with Imbercourt and Hugh de Mortmar, as we shall continue
to call the son of the imprisoned Duke of Gueldres.

With all his eloquence, however, Imbercourt failed to persuade the
young cavalier to join the armies of the Duke of Burgundy. To every
argument he replied, that men fought for their friends, not their
enemies; and such he should ever hold Charles of Burgundy to be, till
Adolphus of Gueldres was set at liberty. All that could be obtained
from him was a promise not to attempt his father's liberation by arms,
till one more effort had been made to persuade Charles the Bold to
grant his freedom upon other terms.

"Consider well, Hugh, the peculiar situation in which you stand," said
the Lord of Imbercourt; "the secret of your birth rests with myself
and my good brother here alone; but did the duke know that the son of
Adolphus of Gueldres is still living, the imprisonment of your father
would, in all probability, become more severe, and your own personal
safety might be very doubtful. An ineffectual attempt to liberate him,
must instantly divulge all; nor could I--though I have promised you my
Alice, in case we can obtain by peaceful means that which we so much
desire--nor could I, as a faithful servant of the house of Burgundy,
give you my daughter's hand, if you were once actually in arms against
the lord I serve."

"It is a hard alternative," said Hugh de Mortmar--"it is a hard
alternative;" and as he spoke he bent down his eyes, and pondered for
several minutes on the difficult situation in which he was placed.

His heart, however, was full of the buoyant and rejoicing spirit of
youth; and the cares that ploughed it one minute, only caused it to
bring forth a harvest of fresh hopes the next. Hard as was his fate in
some respects, when he compared it with that of the young man who now
tenanted one of the dungeons of that very castle--a comparison to
which his mind was naturally called--he did not, indeed, feel
gratification, as some would argue, at the evils of his
fellow-creature's lot; but he felt that there was much to be grateful
for in his own. Hope, and liberty, and love, were all before him; and
his expectations rose high, as he thought how much worse his fate
might have been. Such ideas led him to think over, and to pity, the
situation of the unhappy prisoner; and quitting the subject of his own
affairs, he inquired of the Lord of Imbercourt, whether he, as a
counsellor of the duke, could not take upon himself to set the
unfortunate burgher at liberty.

"I would well-nigh give my right hand to do so," replied Imbercourt,
"not alone for the sake of simple justice to an individual, but for
the sake of the peace and tranquillity of the whole state; but I must
not do it, my young friend. I have seen the letters which Du Bac found
upon his person: they consist of little more than the murmurs and
complaints of discontented citizens, such as are to be met with in all
countries and in all times; and which, at any other period would
attract no attention whatever. At present, however, with faction and
turbulence spreading over the whole land; with courtiers, who find it
their interest to urge the duke on to acts of insane violence; and
with a prince, whose temper and power are equally uncontrollable;
those papers _may_ cost the young man's life, _will_ probably set the
city of Ghent into open revolt, and _might_ light a flame in the land
which it would require oceans of blood to extinguish. Nevertheless I
dare not interfere."

Hugh de Mortmar made no reply, but mused for a few moments in silence;
and then, with a gay, light laugh, and a jest about some other matter,
he left his two elder companions, and proceeded to seek his fair Alice
through all the long, rambling chambers, and retired and quiet bowers,
so favourable for whispered words and unmarked meetings, with which
every castle of that day was most conveniently furnished.

Maillotin du Bac, in the meanwhile, continued sturdily to bear up
under the repeated attacks of Burgundy upon his brain. Draught after
draught he swallowed, in company with some of the old and seasoned
soldiers, who were no way loth to join him; but at length the sun went
down, night fell, the cresset was lighted in the large hall; and,
unwillingly giving up his cup, he suffered the board to be removed,
and cast himself down on a seat beside the fire, which the vast extent
of the chamber, and the little sunshine that ever found its way in,
either by the high window or the far door, rendered not unpleasant
even on a summer's evening. A number of others gathered round; and the
wine having produced sufficient effect to render them all rather more
imaginative than usual, the stories of hunting and freebooters, with
which the evening commonly began, in such a castle, soon deviated into
tales of superstition. Every one had something wonderful to relate;
and such, indeed, was the unction with which many a history of ghost,
and spirit, and demon, was told by several of the party and listened
to by the auditory, that two of the Lord of Imbercourt's officers, who
were playing at tables under the light of the lamp, and several
others, who had been amusing themselves at a little distance with the
very ancient and interesting game of "pitch and toss;" abandoned those
occupations, to share more fully in the legends which were going on
round the fire. Each individual helped his neighbour on upon the road
of credulity; and when, at length, Maillotin du Bac rose, from a
sense of duty, to visit his prisoner--an attention which he never
neglected--the greater part of his companions, feeling themselves in a
dwelling whose visitors were very generally reported to be more
frequently of a spiritual than a corporeal nature, got up
simultaneously, and agreed to accompany him on his expedition.

Lighted by a torch, they wound down some of the narrow, tortuous
staircases of the building; and pausing opposite a door, the massive
strength and thickness of which the Prevot did not fail to make his
comrades remark, they were soon gratified farther by beholding the
inside of the dungeon in which the unhappy burgher was confined.
Maillotin du Bac satisfied himself of his presence, by thrusting the
torch rudely towards his face as he half sat, half reclined on a pile
of straw which had been spread out for his bed; and then setting down
a pitcher of wine which he had brought with him, the Prevot closed the
door again without a word. The only further ceremony was that of again
slipping the key over his sword-belt, from which he had detached it to
open the door; and the whole party, once more returning to upper air,
separated for the night, and retired to rest.




CHAPTER IX.


Leaving the brutal officer and his companions to sleep off the fumes
of the wine they had imbibed, we must return to the dungeon where, in
darkness and in gloom, sat Albert Maurice, the young burgher of Ghent;
whom, perhaps, the reader may have already recognised in the prisoner
of Maillotin du Bac.

The silent agony of impotent indignation preyed upon his heart more
painfully even than the dark and fearful anticipations of the future,
which every circumstance of his situation naturally presented to his
mind. Wronged, oppressed, trampled on; insulted by base and ungenerous
men, whose minds were as inferior to his own as their power was
superior; he cared less for the death that in all probability awaited
him, than for the degradation he already suffered, and for the
present and future oppression of his country, his order, and his
fellow-creatures, to which his hopes could anticipate no end, and for
which his mind could devise no remedy. Whatever expectation Fancy
might sometimes, in her wildest dreams, have suggested to his hopes,
of becoming the liberator of his native land, and the general
benefactor of mankind--dreams which he had certainly entertained,
though he had never acted upon them--they were all extinguished at
once by his arrest, and the events which he knew must follow.

The arrest had taken place, indeed, while engaged in no pursuit which
the most jealous tyranny could stigmatize as even seditious. He had
visited Namur with no idea of entering France--a country on which the
Duke of Burgundy looked with suspicious eyes--but simply for the
purpose of transacting the mercantile business which his uncle's house
carried on with various traders of that city. Unfortunately, however,
on his return towards Ghent, he had charged himself with several
letters from different citizens of Namur, to persons in his native
place. Both cities were at that time equally disaffected; and amongst
the papers with which he had thus burdened himself, several had
proved, under the unceremonious inspection of Maillotin du Bac, to be
of a nature which might, by a little perversion, be construed into
treason. The immediate cause of his first detention also--the fact of
having protected a woman, insulted by one of the ruffianly soldiers
of the Prevot's band, and of having punished the offender on the
spot--might, as he knew well, by the aid of a little false swearing--a
thing almost as common in those days as at present--be made to take
the semblance of resistance to legitimate authority, and be brought to
prove his connexion with the letters, of which he had been simply the
bearer, unconscious of their contents.

Under such circumstances, nothing was to be expected but an
ignominious death; no remedy was to be found, no refuge presented
itself. Though his fellow-citizens of Ghent might revolt--though his
friends and relations might murmur and complain--revolt and complaint,
he well knew, would only hurry his own fate, and aggravate its
circumstances, without proving at all beneficial to his country.

Had he, indeed, seen the slightest prospect of the indignation which
his death would cause, wakening the people of his native place to such
great, generous, and well-directed exertions, as would permanently
establish the liberties of the land, there was in his own bosom that
mixture of pride, enthusiasm, and patriotism, which would have carried
him to the scaffold with a feeling of triumph rather than degradation.
But when his eye wandered over all those he knew in Ghent--nay, in all
Flanders--and sought to find a man fitted by nature and by
circumstances to lead and direct the struggles of the middle and lower
classes against the tyranny that then oppressed the land, he could
find none, in whose character and situation there were not
disadvantages which would frustrate his endeavours, or render them
more pernicious than beneficial to the country. His own death, he
felt, must extinguish the last hope of the liberty of Flanders, at
least for the time; and neither zeal nor passion could offer anything,
gathered from the prospect before him, to counterbalance, even in the
slightest degree, the natural antipathy of man to the awful separation
of soul and body. On the contrary, every accessory particular of his
fate was calculated to aggravate his distress, by accumulating upon
his head indignities and wrongs. He was to be dragged into his native
town amongst grooms and horse-boys, bound with cords like a common
thief, paraded through the long and crowded streets in mid-day to the
common prison, from whence he was alone to issue for the gibbet or the
block.

Such were the subjects of his contemplation--such were the images that
thronged before his mind's eye, as, with a burning heart and aching
brow, and with a lip that seemed as if some evil angel had breathed
upon it all the fire of his own, he lay stretched upon the straw,
which was the only bed that his gaoler had afforded him.

The dungeon was all in darkness; for, either from carelessness or
design, no light had been left with him. But could his face have been
seen, notwithstanding the agonizing thoughts that thrilled through his
bosom, none of those wild contortions would there have been traced,
which affect weaker beings under the like pangs. His hand was pressed
sometimes firmly upon his brow, as if to hold the throbbing veins from
bursting outright; and sometimes he bit his under lip unconsciously,
or shut his teeth hard, striving to prevent the despair which mastered
his heart from announcing its dominion by a groan. His eye might have
been seen full of keen anguish, and the bright red flushing of his
cheek might have told how strongly the body sympathized with the pangs
of the mind; but all that the clearest light could have displayed
would have been an effort to repress what was passing within, not the
weakness of yielding to it. He lay quite still, without one voluntary
movement--he suffered not his limbs to writhe--he tossed not to and
fro, in the restlessness of agony--but remained quiet, if not
tranquil, though full of deep, bitter, burning, voiceless thoughts.

Thus hour passed after hour--for the wings of time, as they fly
through the night of despair, are as rapid as when they cut the
mid-day sky of joy. Thus hour passed after hour, from the time that
the brutal Prevot closed the door of the dungeon; and the prisoner
could scarcely believe that the castle clock was right, when
eleven--midnight--one o'clock, chimed rapidly one after another, each
leaving, between itself and the last, an interval that seemed but of a
few minutes.

The single stroke upon the bell--that, echoing through the long,
solitary, and now silent passages and courts of the castle, passed
unheeded by the sleeping guests, and only told to the watchful warder,
or the sentry, that the first hour of a new day was gone--had scarcely
sounded upon the ear of Albert Maurice when a new noise called his
attention. It was a harsh, heavy, grating sound, as of some weighty
body pushed slowly over a rough surface; and it appeared so near that
his eye was immediately turned towards the door of the dungeon,
expecting to see it open. It moved not, however: the sound still went
on; and he now perceived that it did not come from that side of the
cell.

The apartment itself was a low-roofed, massive chamber, just below the
surface of the earth; and seemed to be partly excavated from the rock
on which the castle stood, partly formed by the solid foundations of
the building. A single window, or spiracle, of about twelve inches in
diameter, passed upwards through the thick masonry, to the external
air beyond: and one of those short, massive pillars, which we
sometimes see in the crypts of very ancient churches, standing in the
centre, supported the roof of the dungeon, and apparently the basement
of the castle itself; under the tremendous weight of which, a fanciful
mind might have conceived the column to be crushed down; so broad and
clumsy were its proportions, in comparison with those of the rudest
Tuscan shaft that ever upheld a portico.

From behind this pillar, the sounds that the prisoner heard appeared
to proceed; and he might have imagined that some human being, confined
in a neighbouring chamber, sought to communicate with him through the
walls, had it not happened that he had caught the words of the Lord of
Hannut in the morning; when, in speaking with Maillotin du Bac, that
nobleman had declared that all the dungeons of the castle were
untenanted. Still the noise continued, becoming more and more distinct
every moment; and as, leaning on his arm upon his couch of straw, he
gazed earnestly towards the other side of the vault, a single bright
ray of light burst suddenly forth upon the darkness, and, streaming
across the open space, painted a long perpendicular pencil of yellow
brightness upon the wall close beside him.

Albert Maurice started upon his feet; and perceived, to his surprise,
the ray he beheld issued, beyond all doubt, from the body of the
pillar itself. The reputed commune of the Lord of Hannut with the
beings of another world, his dark and mysterious studies, and the
extraordinary fulfilment which many of his astrological predictions
were reported to have met with, had often reached the ear of Albert
Maurice; but his mind was too enlightened to be credulous, at least,
to that extent to which credulity was generally carried in that age.
All the fearful circumstances, too, of his new situation had hitherto
blotted out from his memory the rumours he had heard; and when he had
entered the castle of Hannut, he looked upon it merely as a place of
temporary confinement, from which he was to be led to ignominy and
death. Now, however, when he beheld with his own eyes a beam of light,
doubly bright from the darkness around, breaking forth from the face
of the solid masonry, without any obvious cause or means, all that he
had heard rose to remembrance, and without absolutely giving credit to
the different tales which he thus recalled, he was certainly startled
and surprised; and held his breath, with a feeling of awe and
expectation, as he gazed on the spot whence that mysterious ray seemed
to proceed.

At the same time, the sound continued, and gradually, as it went on,
the light expanded and grew more and more diffused. At length, it
became evident, that a part of the massy column, about two feet from
the ground, was opening in a perpendicular direction, slowly but
steadily; and that the light issued from the aperture left by the
rolling back, on either side, of two of the large stones which
appeared to form a principal part of the shaft. For the first few
minutes, the vacancy did not extend to a hand's breadth in wideness,
though to about three feet in height, and nothing could be seen
beyond, but the light pouring forth from within. A minute more,
however, so much increased the aperture, that Albert Maurice could
perceive a gauntleted hand, and an arm clothed in steel, turning
slowly round in the inside what seemed to be the winch of a wheel. The
form, to which this hand and arm belonged, was for some time concealed
behind the stone; but, as the opening became larger, the blocks
appeared to move with greater facility, and, at length, rolling back
entirely, displayed to the eyes of the prisoner a narrow staircase in
the heart of the pillar, with the head, arms, and chest of a powerful
man, covered with armour. Beside him stood a complicated piece of
machinery; by the agency of which, two of the large stones, forming
the shaft of the column, were made to revolve upon the pivots of iron,
that connected them with the rest of the masonry; and in a bracket, on
the stairs, was fixed the burning torch, which afforded the light that
now poured into the dungeon.

Albert Maurice stood gazing in no small surprise. The feeling of
awe--which, however near akin to fear, was not fear--that he had felt
on first perceiving the light, was now succeeded by other sensations;
and, had there been the slightest resemblance between the personal
appearance of the man who stood before him, and that of Maillotin du
Bac, or any of his band, he would have supposed that the purpose of
the Prevot was to despatch him in prison; an event which not
unfrequently took place, in the case of prisoners whose public
execution might be dangerous to the tranquillity of the state.

Totally different, however, in every respect, was the person whom he
now beheld; for, though his form could not well be distinguished under
the armour by which he was covered, yet that armour itself was a
sufficient proof, at least to Albert Maurice, that the stranger was in
no way connected with the band of the Prevot. Every plate of his mail
was painted of a deep, leafy green; and even his helmet, which was
without crest or plume, and the visor of which was down, was of the
same forest colour. In other respects he seemed a tall, powerful man,
formed equally for feats of activity and strength.

Little time was allowed the prisoner for making further observations;
for as soon as the stones had been rolled back as far as their
construction permitted, the unexpected visitor at once sprang into the
dungeon; though the young burgher remarked at the same time, that a
leap which would have made any other arms clang, with a noise
sufficient to awaken the whole castle, produced no sound from those of
his new visitor.

The mechanical means which he had used to procure an entrance had, at
once, banished all superstitious fancies from the mind of Albert
Maurice, nor did even his noiseless tread recall them. The young
burgher, however, still looked upon the man-at-arms with some feelings
of doubt and astonishment; though his own presence in the dungeon was
far from seeming to surprise this nocturnal visitor, who, advancing
directly towards him, clasped his arm, saying, in a low voice, "Follow
me!"

Albert Maurice paused, and gazed upon the stranger--over whose green
armour the flashing red light of the torch cast a fitful and
unpleasant glare--with a glance of suspicion and hesitation; but his
irresolution was removed at once, by the other demanding, in the same
clear and distinct, but low tone, "Can you be worse than you are
here?"

"Lead on," he replied; "I follow you."

"Pass through," said his visitor, pointing with his hand to the
aperture in the column. Albert Maurice again hesitated: but a moment's
reflection upon the hopelessness of his situation--the inefficacy of
resistance, even if anything evil were meditated against him--together
with the thought, that it were better to die, murdered in a prison,
than to be exposed as a spectacle to the multitude by public
execution, mingled with a strong hope, that relief was at hand, though
he knew not whence that relief might come--made him cast away all
doubts; and, stepping over the mass of stone, below the aperture, he
found himself in a staircase only sufficiently large to admit the
ascent or descent of one person at a time. The secret entrance, which
it afforded to that dungeon, seemed its only object; for, to all
appearance, it was carried up no farther through the column; the space
above being occupied by the machinery for moving the blocks of stone.

"Descend a few steps," said the stranger, "that I may close the
passage." And as soon as he found himself obeyed, he also entered the
gap; and applying the full strength of his powerful arm to the winch
which moved the machinery, he succeeded, in a few minutes, in rolling
the heavy blocks so exactly back into their places in the masonry,
that not even in the inside could it be seen that they did not form a
part of the wall of the staircase.

When this was accomplished, he said, in the same abrupt manner in
which he had before spoken, "Go on!" and then followed the prisoner,
holding the torch as far before him as possible, to let the other see
the way as he descended step by step. After having proceeded for about
fifteen or twenty yards, Albert Maurice found his further progress
opposed by a strong oaken door, but it was unlocked; and having pushed
it open by the desire of his conductor, he stepped forth into a small
vaulted chamber, not unlike in shape the dungeon he had just left. The
light of another torch which was burning there, however, displayed
various objects strewed about in different parts of the room, which
showed him at once that the purposes to which it was applied were very
different from those of the cell above. Several cloaks and gowns were
piled upon a bench close to the door; and across them leaned, with one
end resting on the floor, a common pike or reiter's lance, and a large
two-handed sword. A barrel of wine, or some other liquor, occupied one
corner of the apartment; and in the midst was placed a table, on which
stood a large leathern bottle, or _bottiau_, with two or three
drinking horns.

Sitting on a bench at the far end of this table, on which his head and
arms rested, was a man apparently sound asleep. He was armed all but
his head, which was covered alone by its own long tangled black hair;
but his armour was of a very different kind from that of the stranger
who had guided Albert Maurice thither, consisting alone of one of
those light suits of body mail, which were called brigandines; and the
common use of which, amongst the lawless soldiers of the day, had
acquired for them the name of brigands. The general hue of his whole
dress, however, was green, like his companion's, and Albert Maurice
was soon led to conceive, that he was in the hands of a party of those
bold adventurers, who in that part of the country had succeeded the
schwarz reiters, or black horsemen, and had obtained, from the general
colour of their dress, the title of green riders. It is true that the
latter had displayed, upon all occasions, a much more generous and
noble spirit than their predecessors, whose sole trade was blood and
carnage. As they abstained totally from plundering the peasants, and
directed their attacks in general against persons who were in some way
obnoxious to the better part of the population, the green riders were
far from unpopular throughout the country. Many of them were known to
show themselves familiarly at village feasts and merry-makings; and
upon the borders of France and Flanders, their general name had been
changed, from these circumstances, into that of _Les Verts Gallants_,
though it seemed that their principal leader was more particularly
distinguished by this appellation. Nor was the acquisition of this
pleasant title the only effect of their popularity, which produced for
themselves a much more beneficial result, by making both peasant and
burgher, and even many of the feudal lords themselves, anxious to
connive at the escape of the green riders, whenever they were pursued
by superior bodies of troops.

Into the hands of some one of their parties Albert Maurice now clearly
saw that he had fallen; and as the sort of romantic life which they
led had caused a thousand stories to be spread concerning them--some
strange and extraordinary enough, but none more common than that of
their finding access into towns and castles without any visible
means--their connexion with the dwelling of the Lord of Hannut
required no explanation to the young citizen.

The moment he had entered the chamber which we have just described,
the Vert Gallant, as we shall henceforth term the person who had led
Albert Maurice thither, closed the heavy door which cut off the
communication with the staircase, and locked and barred it with no
small precaution. Advancing towards the table, he shook the slumberer
by the shoulder, who, starting up, merely required a sign to place
himself in the position of a sentry, at the mouth of a dark passage
which led from the other side of the chamber.

"Now, Sir Burgher," said the Vert Gallant, approaching Albert Maurice,
"you have penetrated into places which the eye of none of your cast or
craft ever beheld before; and, as you have been led thither solely for
your benefit and safety, you must take a serious oath, for the
security of those who have conferred upon you so great a favour."

"That I will willingly," replied Albert Maurice, "although Heaven only
knows whether it may prove a benefit to me or not."

"Rule yoursel

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/50854