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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Prince and the Page, by Charlotte M.
+Yonge, Illustrated by Adrian Stokes
+
+
+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'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Prince and the Page
+       A Story of the Last Crusade
+
+
+Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 28, 2019  [eBook #3696]
+[This file was first posted July 24, 2001]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCE AND THE PAGE***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1909 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+                          [Picture: Book cover]
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+                           PRINCE AND THE PAGE
+
+
+                       A STORY OF THE LAST CRUSADE
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                             BY THE AUTHOR OF
+                         “THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE,”
+                                   ETC.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                   WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY ADRIAN STOKES
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                        MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
+                       ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
+                                   1909
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                     RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
+                       BREAD STREET HILL, E.C. AND
+                             BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
+
+  _First Edition printed_ 1865 (_Pott_ 8_vo_).  _Reprinted_ 1873, 1875,
+                             1877, 1878, 1881
+ (_Globe_ 8_vo_), _March and November_ 1883, 1886.  _Second Edition_ 1891
+                             (_Crown_ 8_vo_)
+          _Reprinted_ 1893, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1903, 1906, 1909.
+                        _Shilling Edition_, 1908.
+
+                         [Picture: Frontispiece]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+IN these days of exactness even a child’s historical romance must point
+to what the French term its _pièces justficatives_.  We own that ours do
+not lie very deep.  The picture of Simon de Montfort drawn by his wife’s
+own household books, as quoted by Mrs. Everett Green in her Lives of the
+Princesses, and that of Edward I. in Carte’s History, and more recently
+in the Greatest of the Plantagenets, furnished the two chief influences
+of the story.  The household accounts show that Earl Simon and Eleanor of
+England had five sons.  Henry fell with his father at Evesham.  Simon and
+Guy deeply injured his cause by their violence, and after holding out
+Kenilworth against the Prince, retired to the Continent, where they
+sacrilegiously murdered Henry, son of the King of the Romans—a crime so
+much abhorred in Italy that Dante represents himself as meeting them in
+torments in the _Inferno_, not however before Guy had become the founder
+of the family of the Counts of Monforte in the Maremma.  Richard, the
+fourth son, appears in the household books as possessing dogs, and having
+garments bought for him; but his history has not been traced after his
+mother left England.  The youngest son, Amaury, obtained the hereditary
+French possessions of the family, and continued the line of Montfort as a
+French subject.  Eleanor, the only daughter, called the Demoiselle de
+Montfort, married, as is well known, the last native prince of Wales, and
+died after a few years.
+
+The adventure of Edward with the outlaw of Alton Wood is one of the stock
+anecdotes of history, and many years ago the romance of the encounter led
+the author to begin a tale upon it, in which the outlaw became the
+protector of one of the proscribed family of Montfort.  The commencement
+was placed in one of the manuscript magazines which are so often the
+amusement of a circle of friends.  It was not particularly correct in its
+details, and the hero bore the peculiarly improbable name of Wilfred (by
+which he has since appeared in the _Monthly Packet_).  The story slept
+for many years in MS., until further reading and thought had brought
+stronger interest in the period, and for better or for worse it was taken
+in hand again.  Joinville, together with the authorities quoted by
+Sismondi, assisted in picturing the arrival of the English after the
+death of St. Louis, and the murder of Henry of Almayne is related in all
+crusading histories; but for Simon’s further career, and for his
+implication in the attempt on Edward’s life at Acre, the author is alone
+responsible, taking refuge in the entire uncertainty that prevails as to
+the real originator of the crime, and perhaps an apology is likewise due
+to Dante for having reversed his doom.
+
+For the latter part of the story, the old ballad of The Blind Beggar of
+Bethnal Green, gives the framework.  That ballad is believed to be
+Elizabethan in date, and the manners therein certainly are scarcely
+accordant with the real thirteenth century, and still less with our
+notions of the days of chivalry.  Some liberties therefore have been
+taken with it, the chief of them being that Bessee is not permitted to go
+forth to seek her fortune in the inn at Romford, and the readers are
+entreated to believe that the alteration was made by the traditions which
+repeated Henry de Montfort’s song.
+
+It was the late Hugh Millar who alleged that the huge stone under which
+Edward sleeps in Westminster Abbey agrees in structure with no rocks
+nearer than those whence the mighty stones of the Temple at Jerusalem
+were hewn, and there is no doubt that earth and stones were frequently
+brought by crusaders from the Holy Land with a view to the hallowing of
+their own tombs.
+
+The author is well aware that this tale has all the incorrectnesses and
+inconsistencies that are sure to attend a historical tale; but the dream
+that has been pleasant to dream may be pleasant to listen to; and there
+can be no doubt that, in spite of all inevitable faults, this style of
+composition does tend to fix young people’s interest and attention on the
+scenes it treats of, and to vivify the characters it describes; and if
+this sketch at all tends to prepare young people’s minds to look with
+sympathy and appreciation on any of the great characters of our early
+annals, it will have done at least one work.
+
+_December_ 12_th_, 1865.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+THE STATELY HUNTER
+
+
+    “‘Now who are thou of the darksome brow
+          Who wanderest here so free?’
+    “‘Oh, I’m one that will walk the green green woods,
+          Nor ever ask leave of thee.’”—S. M.
+
+A FINE EVENING—six centuries ago—shed a bright parting light over Alton
+Wood, illuminating the gray lichens that clung to the rugged trunks of
+the old oak trees, and shining on the smoother bark of the graceful
+beech, with that sidelong light that, towards evening, gives an especial
+charm to woodland scenery.  The long shadows lay across an open green
+glade, narrowing towards one end, where a path, nearly lost amid dwarf
+furze, crested heather, and soft bent-grass, led towards a hut, rudely
+constructed of sods of turf and branches of trees, whose gray crackling
+foliage contrasted with the fresh verdure around.  There was no endeavour
+at a window, nor chimney; but the door of wattled boughs was carefully
+secured by a long twisted withe.
+
+A halbert, a broken arrow, a deer-skin pegged out on the ground to dry, a
+bundle of faggots, a bare and blackened patch of grass, strewn with wood
+ashes, were tokens of recent habitation, though the reiterations of the
+nightingale, the deep tones of the blackbird and the hum of insects, were
+the only sounds that broke the stillness.
+
+Suddenly the silence was interrupted by a clear, loud, ringing whistle,
+repeated at brief intervals and now and then exchanged for the
+call—“Leonillo!  Leon!”  A footstep approached, rapidly overtaken and
+passed by the rushing gallop of a large animal; and there broke on the
+scene a large tawny hound, prancing, bounding, and turning round
+joyfully, pawing the air, and wagging his tail, in welcome to the figure
+who followed him.
+
+This was a youth thirteen years old, wearing such a dress as was usual
+with foresters—namely, a garment of home-spun undyed wool, reaching to
+the knee, and there met by buskins of deer-skin, with the dappled hair
+outside; but the belt which crossed one shoulder was clasped with gold,
+and sustained a dagger, whose hilt and sheath were of exquisite
+workmanship.  The cap on his head was of gray rabbit-skin, but a heron’s
+plume waved in it; the dark curling locks beneath were carefully
+arranged; and the port of his head and shoulders, the mould of his limbs,
+the cast of his features, and the fairness of his complexion, made his
+appearance ill accord with the homeliness of his garb.  In one hand he
+carried a bow over his shoulder; in the other he held by the ears a
+couple of dead rabbits, with which he playfully tantalized the dog,
+holding them to his nose, and then lifting them high aloft, while the
+hound, perfectly entering into the sport, leapt high after them with open
+mouth, and pretended to seize them, then bounded and careered round his
+young master with gay short barks, till both were out of breath; and the
+boy, flinging the rabbits on the turf, threw himself down on it, with one
+arm upon the neck of the panting dog, whose great gasps, like a sobbing
+of laughter, heaved his whole frame.
+
+“Ay, good Leonillo, take your rest!” said the boy: “we have done yeoman’s
+service to-day, and shown ourselves fit to earn our own livelihood!  We
+are outlaws now, my lion of the Pyrenees; and you at least lead a merrier
+life than in the castle halls, when we hunted for sport, and not for
+sustenance!  Well-a-day, my Leon!”—as the creature closed his mouth, and
+looked wistfully up at him with almost human sympathy and
+intelligence—“would that we knew where are all that were once wont to go
+with us to the chase!  But for them, I would be well content to be a bold
+forester all my days!  Better so, than to be ever vexed and crossed in
+every design for the country’s weal—distrusted above—betrayed beneath!
+Alack! alack! my noble father, why wert thou wrecked in every hope—in
+every aim!”
+
+These murmurings were broken off as Leonillo suddenly crested his head,
+and changed his expression of repose for one of intense listening.
+
+“Already!” exclaimed the boy, springing to his feet, as Leonillo bounded
+forward to meet a stout hardy forester, who was advancing from the
+opposite end of the glade.  This was a man of the largest and most sinewy
+mould, his face tanned by sun and wind to a uniform hard ruddy brown, and
+his shaggy black hair untrimmed, as well as his dark bristly beard.  His
+jerkin was of rough leather, crossed by a belt, sustaining sword and
+dagger; a bow and arrows were at his back; a huge quarter-staff in his
+hand; and his whole aspect was that of a ferocious outlaw, whose hand was
+against every man.
+
+But the youth started towards him gleefully, as if the very sight of him
+had dispelled all melancholy musings, and shouted merrily,
+“Welcome—welcome, Adam!  Why so early home?  Have the Alton boors turned
+surly? or are the King’s prickers abroad, and the neighbourhood
+unwholesome for bold clerks of St. Nicholas?”
+
+“Worse!” was the gruff mutter in reply.  “Down, Leon: I am in no mood for
+thy freaks!”
+
+“What is it, Adam?  Have the keepers carried their complaints to the
+King, of the venison we have consumed, with small thanks to him?”
+
+“Prince Edward is at Alton!  What think you of that, Sir?  Come to seek
+through copse and brake for the arrant deer-stealer and outlaw, and all
+his gang!”
+
+“Why, there’s preferment for you!” said the boy, laughing.  “High game
+for the heir of the throne!  And his gang!  Hold up your head, Leonillo:
+you and I come in for a share of the honour!”
+
+“Hold up your head!” said the outlaw bitterly.  “You may chance to hold
+it as high as your father’s is, for all your gibes and jests, my young
+Lord, if the Longshanks gets a hold of you, which our Lady forefend.”
+
+“Nay, I think better of my Cousin Longshanks.  I loved him well when I
+was his page at Hereford: he was tenderer to me than ever my brothers
+were; and I scarce think he would hang, draw, and quarter me now.”
+
+“You may try, if you are not the better guided.”
+
+“How did you hear these tidings?” inquired the boy, changing his mood to
+a graver one.
+
+“From the monk to whom you confessed a fortnight back.  Did you let him
+know your lineage?”
+
+“How could I do otherwise?”
+
+“He looked like a man who would keep a secret; and yet—”
+
+“Shame—shame to doubt the good father!”
+
+“Nay, I do not say that I do; but I would have the secret in as few men’s
+power as may be.  Nevertheless, I thank the good brother.  He called out
+to me as he saw me about to enter the town, that if I had any tenderness
+for my own life, I had best not show myself there; and he went on to tell
+me how the Prince was come to his hunting-lodge, with hawk and hound
+indeed, but for the following of men rather than bird or beast.”
+
+“And what would you have me do?”
+
+“Be instantly on the way to the coast, ere the search begins; and there,
+either for love of Sir Simon the righteous or for that gilt knife of
+yours, we may get ferried over to the Isle of Wight, whence—But what ails
+the dog!  Whist, Leonillo!  Hold your throat: I can hear naught but your
+clamour!”
+
+The hound was in fact barking with a tremendous lion-like note; and when,
+on reiterated commands from his master and the outlaw, he changed it for
+a low continuous growling like distant thunder, a step and a rustling of
+the boughs became audible.
+
+“They are upon us already!” cried the boy, snatching up and stringing his
+bow.
+
+“Leave me to deal with him!” returned the outlaw.  “Off to Alton: the
+good father will receive you to sanctuary!”
+
+“Flee!—never!” cried the boy.  “You teaching my father’s son to flee!”
+
+“Tush!—’tis but one!” said the outlaw.  “He is easily dealt with; and he
+shall have no time to call his fellows.”
+
+So saying, the forester strode forward into the wood, where a tall figure
+was seen through the trees; and with uplifted quarter-staff, dealt a blow
+of sudden and deadly force as soon as the stranger came within its sweep,
+totally without warning.  The power of the stroke might have felled an
+ox, and would have at once overthrown the new-comer, but that he was a
+man of unusual stature; and this being unperceived in the outlaw’s haste,
+the blow lighted on his left shoulder instead of on his head.
+
+“Ha, caitiff!” he exclaimed; and shortening the hunting-pole in his hand,
+he returned the stroke with interest, but the outlaw had already prepared
+himself to receive the blow on his staff.  For some seconds there was a
+rapid exchange; and all that the boy could detect in the fierce flourish
+of weapons was, that his champion was at least equally matched.  The
+height of the stranger was superior; and his movements, if less quick and
+violent, had an equableness that showed him a thorough master of his
+weapon.  But ere the lad had time to cross the heather to the scene of
+action, the fight was over; the outlaw lay stunned and motionless on the
+ground, and the gigantic stranger was leaning on his hunting-pole,
+regarding him with a grave unmoved countenance, the fair skin of which
+was scarcely flushed by the exertion.
+
+“Spare him! spare him!” cried the boy, leaping forwards.  “I am the prey
+you seek!”
+
+“Well met, my young Lord,” was the stern reply.  “You have found yourself
+a worthy way of life, and an honourable companion.”
+
+“Honourable indeed, if faithfulness be honour!” replied the boy.  “Myself
+I yield, Sir; but spare him, if yet he lives!—O Adam, my only friend!” he
+sobbed, as kneeling over him, he raised his head, undid his collar, and
+parted the black locks, to seek for the mark of the blow, whence blood
+was fast oozing.
+
+“He lives—he will do well enough,” said the hunter.  “Now, tell me,
+boy—what brought you here?”
+
+“The loving fidelity of this man!” was the prompt reply:—“a Poitevin, a
+falconer at Kenilworth, who found me sore wounded on the field at
+Evesham, and ever since has tended me as never vassal tended lord; and
+now—now hath he indeed died for me!” and the boy, endeavouring to raise
+the inanimate form, dropped heavy tears on the senseless face.
+
+“True,” rigidly spoke the hunter, though there was somewhat of a
+quivering of the muscles of the cheek discernible amid the curls of his
+chestnut beard: “robbery is not the wonted service demanded of
+retainers.”
+
+“Poor Adam!” said the youth with a flash of spirit, “at least he never
+stripped the peaceful homestead and humble farmer, like the royal
+purveyors!”
+
+“Ha—young rebel!” exclaimed the hunter.  “Know you what you say?”
+
+“I reck not,” replied the boy: “you have slain my father and my brothers,
+and now you have slain my last and only friend.  Do as you will with
+me—only for my mother’s sake, let it not be a shameful death; and let my
+sister Eleanor have my poor Leonillo.  And let me, too, leave this gold
+with the priest of Alton, that my true-hearted loving Adam may have fit
+burial and masses.”
+
+“I tell thee, boy, he is in no more need of a burial than thou or I.  I
+touched him warily.  Here—his face more to the air.”
+
+And the stranger bent down, and with his powerful strength lifted the
+heavy form of Adam, so that the boy could better support him.  Then
+taking some wine from the hunting-flask slung to his own shoulder, he
+applied some drops to the bruise.  The smart produced signs of life, and
+the hunter put his flask into the boy’s hand, saying, “Give him a
+draught, and then—” he put his finger to his own lips, and stood somewhat
+apart.
+
+Adam opened his eyes, and made some inarticulate murmurs; then, the
+liquor being held to his lips, he drank, and with fresh vigour raised
+himself.
+
+“The boy!—where is he?  What has chanced?  Is it you, Sir?  Where is the
+rogue?  Fled, the villain?  We shall have the Prince upon us next!  I
+must after him, and cut his story short!  Your hand, Sir!”
+
+“Nay, Adam—your hurt!”
+
+“A broken head!  Tush, ’tis naught!  Here, your hand!  Canst not lend a
+hand to help a man up in your own service?” he added testily, as stiff
+and dizzy he sat up and tried to rise.  “You might have sent an arrow to
+stop his traitorous tongue; but there is no help in you!” he added,
+provoked at seeing a certain embarrassment about the youth.  “Desert me
+at this pinch!  It is not like his father’s son!” and he was sinking
+back, when at sight of the hunter he stumbled eagerly to his feet, but
+only to stagger against a tree.
+
+“You are my prisoner!” said the calm deep voice.
+
+“Well and good,” said Adam surlily.  “But let the lad go free: he is a
+yeoman’s son, who came but to bear me company.”
+
+“And learn thy trade?  Goodly lessons in falling unawares on the King’s
+huntsmen, and sending arrows after them!  Fair breeding, in sooth!”
+repeated the stranger, standing with his arms crossed upon his mighty
+breadth of chest, and looking at Adam with a still, grave, commanding
+blue eye, that seemed to pierce him and hold him down, as it were, and a
+countenance whose youthfulness and perfect regularity of feature did but
+enhance its exceeding severity of expression.  “You know the meed of
+robbery and murder?”
+
+“A halter and a bough,” said Adam readily.  “Well and good; but I tell
+thee that concerns not the boy—since,” he added bitterly, “he is too meek
+and tender so much as to lift a hand in his own cause!  He has never
+crossed the laws.”
+
+“I understand you, friend,” said the hunter: “he is a valued charge—maybe
+the son of one of the traitor barons.  Take my advice—yield him to the
+King’s justice, and secure your own pardon.”
+
+“Out, miscreant!” shouted Adam; and was about to spring at him again, but
+the powerful arm collared him, and he recognized at once that he was like
+a child in that grasp.  He ground his teeth with rage and muttered, “That
+a fellow with such thews should give such dastardly counsel, and _he_
+yonder not lift a finger to aid!”
+
+“Wilt follow me,” composedly demanded the stranger, “with hands free? or
+must I bind them?”
+
+“Follow?” replied Adam, ruefully looking at the boy with eyes full of
+reproach—“ay, follow to any gallows thou wilt—and the nearest tree were
+the best!  Come on!”
+
+“I have no warrant,” returned the grave hunter.
+
+“Tush! what warrant is needed for hanging a well-known outlaw—made so by
+the Prince’s tender mercies?  The Prince will thank thee, man, for
+ridding the realm of the robber who fell on the treasurer bearing the
+bags from Leicester!”
+
+And meanwhile, with uncouth cunning, Adam was striving to telegraph by
+winks and gestures to the boy who had so grievously disappointed him,
+that the moment of his own summary execution would be an excellent one
+for his companion’s escape.
+
+But the eye, so steady yet so quick under its somewhat drooping eyelid,
+detected the simple stratagem.
+
+“I trow the Prince might thank me more for bringing in this charge of
+thine.”
+
+“Small thanks, I trow, for laying hands on a poor orphan—the son of a
+Poitevin man-at-arms—that I kept with me for love of his father, though
+he is fitter for a convent than the green wood!” added Adam, with the
+same sound of keen reproach and disappointment in his voice.
+
+“That shall we learn at Guildford,” replied the stranger.  “There are
+means of teaching a man to speak.”
+
+“None that will serve with me,” stoutly responded Adam.
+
+“That shall we see,” was the brief answer.
+
+And he signed to his prisoners to move on before him, taking care so to
+interpose his stately person between them, that there should be no
+communication by word, far less by look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+THE LADY OF THE FOREST
+
+
+    “Behold how mercy softeneth still
+          The haughtiest heart that beats:
+    Pride with disdain may he answered again,
+          But pardon at once defeats!”—S. M.
+
+THE so-called forest was in many parts mere open heath, thickly adorned
+by the beautiful purple ling, blending into a rich carpet with the dwarf
+furze, and backed by thickets of trees in the hollows of the ground.
+
+Across this wild country the tall forester conducted his captives in
+silence—moving along with a pace that evidently cost him so little
+exertion, and was so steady and even, that his companions might have
+supposed it slow, had they only watched it, and not been obliged to keep
+up with it.  Light of foot as the youth was, he was at times reduced to
+an almost breathless run; and Adam plodded along, with strides that
+worked his arms and shoulders in sympathy.
+
+After about three miles, when the boy was beginning to feel as if he must
+soon be in danger of lagging, they came into a dip of the ground where
+stood a long, low, irregular building, partly wood and partly stone,
+roofed with shingle in some parts, in others with heather.  The last
+addition, a deep porch, still retained the fresh tints of the bark on the
+timber sides, and the purple of the ling that roofed it.
+
+Sheds and out-houses surrounded it; dogs in couples, horses, grooms, and
+foresters, were congregated in the background; but around this new porch
+were gathered a troop of peasant women, children, and aged men.  The fine
+bald brow and profile of the old peasant, the eager face of the
+curly-haired child, the worn countenance of the hard-tasked mother, were
+all uplifted towards the doorway, in which stood, slightly above them, a
+lady, with two long plaited flaxen tresses descending on her shoulders,
+under a black silken veil, that disclosed a youthful countenance, full of
+pure calm loveliness, of a simple but dignified and devotional
+expression, that might have befitted an angel of charity.  A priest and a
+lady were dispensing loaves and warm garments to the throng around; but
+each gift was accompanied by a gentle word from the lady, framed with
+difficulty to their homely English tongue, but listened to even by
+uncomprehending ears like a strain of Church music.
+
+Adam had expected the forester to turn aside to the group of servants,
+but in blank amazement saw him lead the way through the poor at the gate;
+and advancing to the porch with a courteous bending of his head, he said
+in the soft Provençal—far more familiar than English to Adam’s ears—“Hast
+room for another suppliant, mi Dona?”
+
+The sweet fair face lighted up with a sudden sunbeam of joy; and a
+musical voice replied.  “Welcome, my dearest Lord: much did I need thee
+to hear the plaints of some of these thy lieges, which my ears can scarce
+understand!  But why art thou alone? or rather, why thus strangely
+accompanied?”
+
+“These are the captives won by my single arm, whom, according to all laws
+of chivalry, thine own true knight thus lays at thy feet, fair lady mine,
+to be disposed of at thine own gracious will and pleasure.”
+
+And a smile of such sweetness lightened his features, that a murmur of
+“Blessings on his comely face!” ran through the assembly; and Adam
+indulged in a gruff startled murmur of “’Tis the Prince, or the devil
+himself!” while his young master, comprehending the gesture of the
+Prince, and overborne by the lovely winning graces of the Princess,
+stepped forward, doffing his cap and bending his knee, and signing to
+Adam to follow his example.
+
+“Thou hast been daring peril again!” said the Princess, holding her
+husband’s arm, and looking up into his face with lovingly reproachful yet
+exulting eyes.  “Yet I will not be troubled!  Naught is danger to thee!
+And yet alone and unarmed to encounter such a sturdy savage as I see
+yonder!  But there is blood on his brow!  Let his hurt be looked to ere
+we speak of his fate.”
+
+“He is at thy disposal, mi Dona,” returned Edward: “thou art the judge of
+both, and shall decide their lot when thou hast heard their tale.”
+
+“It can scarce be a very dark one,” replied Eleanor, “or thou wouldst
+never have led them to such a judge!”  Then turning to the prisoners, she
+began to say in her foreign English, “Follow the good father, friends—”
+when she broke off at fuller sight of the boy’s countenance, and
+exclaimed in Provençal, “I know the like of that face and mien!”
+
+“Truly dost thou know it,” her husband replied; “but peace till thou hast
+cleared thy present court, and we can be private.—Follow the priest,” he
+added, “and await the Princess’s pleasure.”
+
+They obeyed; and the priest led them through a side-door, through which
+they could still hear Eleanor’s sweet Castillian voice laying before her
+husband her difficulties in comprehending her various petitioners.  The
+priest being English, was hardly more easily understood than his flock;
+and her lady spoke little but _langue d’oui_, the Northern French, which
+was as little serviceable in dealing with her Spanish and Provençal as
+with the rude West-Saxon-English.  Edward’s deep manly tones were to be
+heard, however, now interrogating the peasants in their own tongue, now
+briefly interpreting to his wife in Provençal; and a listener could
+easily gather that his hand was as bounteous, his heart as merciful, as
+hers, save where attacks on the royal game had been requited by the
+trouble complained of; and that in such cases she pleaded in vain.
+
+The captives, whom her husband had surrendered to her mercy, had been led
+into a great, long, low hall, with rudely-timbered sides, and rough beams
+to the roof, with a stone floor, and great open fire, over which a
+man-cook was chattering French to his bewildered English scullion.  An
+oak table, and settles on either side of it, ran the whole length of the
+hall; and here the priest bade the two prisoners seat themselves.  They
+obeyed—the boy slouching his cap over his face, averting it, and keeping
+as far as possible from the group of servants near the fire.  The priest
+called for bread, meat, and beer, to be set before them; and after a
+moment’s examination of Adam’s bruise, applied the simple remedy that was
+all it required, and left them to their meal.  Adam took this opportunity
+to growl in an undertone, “Does _he_ there know you?”  The reply was a
+nod of assent.  “And you knew him?”  Another nod; and then the boy,
+looking heedfully round, added in a quick, undertone, “Not till you were
+down.  Then he helped me to restore you.  You forgive me, Adam, now?” and
+he held out his hand, and wrung the rugged one of the forester.
+
+“What should I forgive!  Poor lad! you could not have striven in the
+Longshanks’ grasp!  I was a fool not to guess how it was, when I saw you
+not knowing which way to look!”
+
+“Hush!” broke in the youth with uplifted hand, as a page of about his own
+age came daintily into the hall, gathering his green robe about him as if
+he disdained the neighbourhood, and holding his head high under his
+jaunty tall feathered cap.
+
+“Outlaws!” he said, speaking English, but with a strong foreign accent,
+and as if it were a great condescension, “the gracious Princess summons
+you to her presence.  Follow me!”
+
+The colour rushed to the boy’s temples, and a retort was on his lips, but
+he struggled to withhold it; and likewise speaking English, said, “I
+would we could have some water, and make ourselves meeter for her
+presence.”
+
+“Scarce worth the pains,” returned the page.  “As if thou couldst ever be
+meet for her presence!  She had rather be rid of thee promptly, than wait
+to be regaled with thy May-day braveries—honest lad!”
+
+Again the answer was only restrained with exceeding difficulty; and there
+was a scornful smile on the young prisoner’s cheek, that caused the page
+to exclaim angrily, “What means that insolence, malapert boy?”
+
+But there was no time for further strife; for the door was pushed open,
+and the Prince’s voice called, “Hamlyn de Valence, why tarry the
+prisoners?”
+
+“Only, Sir,” returned Hamlyn, “that this young robber is offended that he
+hath not time to deck himself out in his last stolen gold chain, to
+gratify the Princess!”
+
+“Peace, Hamlyn,” returned the Prince: “thou speakest thou knowest not
+what.—Come hither, boy,” he added, laying his hand on his young captive’s
+shoulder, and putting him through the door with a familiarity that
+astonished Hamlyn—all the more, when he found that while both prisoners
+were admitted, he himself was excluded!
+
+Princess Eleanor was alone in another chamber of the sylvan lodge, hung
+with tapestry representing hunting scenes, the floor laid with
+deer-skins, and deer’s antlers projecting from the wall, to support the
+feminine properties that marked it as her special abode.  She was
+standing when they entered; and was turning eagerly with outstretched
+hand and face of recognition, when Prince Edward checked her by saying,
+“Nay, the cause is not yet tried:” and placing her in a large carved
+oaken chair, where she sat with a lily-like grace and dignity, half
+wondering, but following his lead, he proceeded, “Sit thou there, fair
+dame, and exercise thy right, as judge of the two captives whom I place
+at thy feet.”
+
+“And you, my Lord?” she asked.
+
+“I stand as their accuser,” said Edward.  “Advance, prisoners!—Now, most
+fair judge, what dost thou decree for the doom of Adam de Gourdon, rebel
+first, and since that the terror of our royal father’s lieges, the robber
+of his treasurers, the rifler of our Cousin Pembroke’s jewellery, the
+slayer of our deer?”
+
+“Alas! my Lord, why put such questions to me,” said Eleanor imploringly,
+“unless, as I would fain hope, thou dost but jest?”
+
+“Do I speak jest, Gourdon?” said Edward, regarding Adam with a lion-like
+glance.
+
+“’Tis all true,” growled Adam.
+
+“And,” proceeded the Prince, “if thy gentle lips refuse to utter the doom
+merited by such deeds, what wilt thou say to hear that, not content with
+these traitorous deeds of his own, he fosters the treason of others?
+Here stands a young rebel, who would have perished at Evesham, but for
+the care and protection of this Gourdon—who healed his wounds, guarded
+him, robbed for him, for him spurned the offer of amnesty, and finally,
+set on thine own husband in Alton Wood—all to shelter yonder young
+traitor from the hands of justice!  Speak the sentence he merits, most
+just of judges!”
+
+“The sentence he merits?” said Eleanor, with swimming eyes.  “Oh! would
+that I were indeed monarch, to dispense life or death!  What he merits he
+shall have, from my whole heart—mine own poor esteem for his fidelity,
+and our joint entreaties to the King for his pardon!  Brave man—thou
+shalt come with me to seek thy pardon from King Henry!”
+
+“Thanks, Lady,” said Adam with rude courtesy; “but it were better to seek
+my young lord’s.”
+
+“My own dear young cousin!” exclaimed Eleanor, laying aside her assumed
+judicial power, and again holding out her hands to him, “we deemed you
+slain!”
+
+“Yes, come hither,” said Edward, “my jailer at Hereford—the rebel who
+drew his maiden sword against his King and uncle—the outlaw who would try
+whether Leicester fits as well as Huntingdon with a bandit life!  What
+hast thou to say for thyself, Richard de Montfort?”
+
+“That my fate, be it what it may, must not stand in the way of Adam’s
+pardon!” said Richard, standing still, without response to the Princess’s
+invitation.  “My Lord, you have spoken much of his noble devotion to me
+for my father’s sake; but you know not the half of what he has done and
+dared for me.  Oh! plead for him, Lady!”
+
+“Plead for him!” said Eleanor: “that will I do with all my heart; and
+well do I know that the good old King will weep with gratitude to him for
+having preserved the life of his young nephew.  Yes, Richard, oft have we
+grieved for thee, my husband’s kind young companion in his captivity, and
+mourned that no tidings could be gained of thee!”
+
+It was not Richard who replied to this winning address.  He stood
+flushed, irresolute, with eyes resolutely cast down, as if to avoid
+seeing the Princess’s sweet face.
+
+Adam, however, spoke: “Then, Lady, I am indeed beholden to you; provided
+that the boy is safe.”
+
+“He is safe,” said Prince Edward.  “His age is protection sufficient.—My
+young cousin, thou art no outlaw: thine uncle will welcome thee gladly;
+and a career is open to thee where thou mayst redeem the honour of thy
+name.”
+
+The colour came with deeper crimson to the boy’s cheek, as he answered in
+a choked voice, “My father’s name needs no redemption!”
+
+Simultaneously a pleading interjection from the Princess, and a warning
+growl from De Gourdon, admonished Richard that he was on perilous ground;
+but the Prince responded in a tone of deep feeling, “Well said, Richard:
+the term does not befit that worthy name.  I should have said that I
+would fain help thee to maintain its honour.  My page once, wilt thou be
+so again? and one day my knight—my trusty baron?”
+
+“How can I?” said Richard, still in the same undertone, subdued but
+determined: “it was you who slew him and my brothers!”
+
+“Nay, nay!” exclaimed the Princess: “the poor boy thinks all his kindred
+are slain!”
+
+“And they are not!” cried Richard, raising his face with sudden
+animation.  “They are safe?”
+
+“Thy brother Henry died with—with the Earl,” said Eleanor; “but all the
+rest are safe, and in France.”
+
+“And my mother and sister?” asked Richard.
+
+“They are likewise abroad,” said the Prince.  “And, Richard, thou art
+free to join them if thou wilt.  But listen first to me.  We tarry yet
+two days at this forest lodge: remain with us for that space—thy name and
+rank unknown if thou wilt—and if thou shalt still look on me as guilty of
+thy father’s death, and not as a loving kinsman, who honoured him deeply,
+I will send thee safely to the coast, with letters to my uncle, the King
+of France.”
+
+Richard raised his head with a searching glance, to see whether this were
+invitation or command.
+
+“Thou art my captive,” said Eleanor softly, coming towards him with a
+young matron’s caressing manner to a boy whom she would win and
+encourage.
+
+“Not captive, but guest,” said Edward; but Richard perceived in the tones
+that no choice was left him, as far as these two days were concerned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+ALTON LODGE
+
+
+    “Ever were his sons hawtayn,
+    And bold for their vilanye;
+    Bothe to knight and sweyn
+    Did they vilanye.”
+
+                                       _Old Ballad of Simon de Montforte_.
+
+FOR the first time for many a month, Richard de Montfort lay down to
+sleep in a pallet bed, instead of a couch of heather; but his heart was
+ill at ease.  He was the fourth son of the great Earl of Leicester, Simon
+de Montfort; and for the earlier years of his life, he had been under the
+careful training of the excellent chaplain, Adam de Marisco, a pupil and
+disciple of the great Robert Grostête, Bishop of Lincoln.  His elder
+brothers had early left this wholesome control; pushed forward by the sad
+circumstances that finally drove their father to take up arms against the
+King, and strangers to the noble temper that actuated him in his
+championship of the English people, they became mere lawless
+rebels—fiercely profiting by his elevation, not for the good of the
+people, but for their own gratification.
+
+Richard had been still a mere boy under constant control, and being
+intelligent, spirited, and docile, had been an especial favourite with
+his father.  To him the great Earl had been the model of all that was
+admirable, wise, and noble; deeply religious, just, and charitable, and
+perfect in all the arts of chivalry and accomplishments of peace—a tender
+and indulgent father, and a firm and wise head of a household—he had been
+ardently loved and looked up to by the young son, who had perhaps more in
+common with him by nature than any other of the family.
+
+Wrongs and injuries had been heaped upon Montfort by the weak and fickle
+King, who would far better have understood him, if, like the selfish
+kinsmen who encircled the throne, he had struggled for his own advantage,
+and not for the maintenance of the Great Charter.  Richard was too young
+to remember the early days when his elder brothers had been companions,
+almost on equal terms, to their first cousins, the King’s sons; his whole
+impression of his parents’ relations with the court was of injustice and
+perfidy from the King and his counsellors, vehemently blamed by his
+mother and brothers, but sometimes palliated by his father, who almost
+always, even at the worst, pleaded the King’s helplessness, and Prince
+Edward’s honourable intentions.  Understanding little of the rights of
+the case, Richard only saw his father as the maintainer of the laws, and
+defender of the oppressed against covenant breakers; and when the appeal
+to arms was at length made, he saw the white cross assumed by his father
+and brothers, in full belief that the war in defence of Magna Carta was
+indeed as sacred as a crusade, and he had earnestly entreated to be
+allowed to bear arms; but he had been deemed as yet too young, and thus
+had had no share in the victory of Lewes, save the full triumph in it
+that was felt by all at Kenilworth.  Afterwards, when sent to be Prince
+Edward’s page at Hereford, he was prepared to regard his royal cousin as
+a ferocious enemy, and was much taken by surprise to find him a graceful
+courtly knight, peculiarly gentle in manner, loving music, romances, and
+all chivalrous accomplishments; and far from the pride and haughtiness
+that had been the theme of all the vassals who assembled at Kenilworth,
+he was gracious to all, and distinguished his young page by treating him
+as a kinsman and favourite companion; showing him indeed far more
+consideration than ever he had received from his unruly turbulent
+brothers.
+
+When Edward had effected his escape, and had joined the Mortimers and
+Clares, Richard had gone home, where his expressions of affection for the
+Prince were listened to by his father, indeed, with a well-pleased though
+melancholy smile, and an augury that one day his brave godson would shake
+off the old King’s evil counsellors, and show himself in his true and
+noble colouring.  His brothers, however, laughed and chid any word about
+the Prince’s kindness.  Edward’s flattery and seduction, they declared,
+had won the young De Clare from their cause.  And in vain did their
+father assure them that they had lost the alliance of the house of
+Gloucester solely by their own over-bearing injustice—a tyranny worse
+than had been exercised under the name of the King.
+
+With Henry of Winchester in their hands, however, theirs seemed the loyal
+cause; and Richard had, by the influence of his elders, been made ashamed
+of his regard for the Prince, and looked upon it as a treacherous
+rebellion, when Edward mustered his forces, and fell upon Leicester and
+his followers.  His father had mournfully yielded to the boy’s entreaty
+to remain with him, instead of being sent away with his mother and the
+younger ones for security: an honourable death, said the Earl, might be
+better for him than an outlawed and proscribed life.  And thus Richard
+had heard his father’s exclamation on marking the well-ordered advance of
+the Royalists: “They have learnt this style from me.  Now, God have mercy
+on our souls, for our bodies are the Prince’s!”
+
+And when Henry, his eldest son, spoke words of confidence, entreating him
+not to despair, he had answered, “I do not, my son; but your presumption,
+and the pride of thy brothers, have brought me to this pass.  I firmly
+believe I shall die for the cause of God and justice.”
+
+Richard had shared his father’s last Communion, received his last
+blessing, and had stood beside him in the desperate ring, which in true
+English fashion died on the field of battle, but never was driven from
+it.  Since that time, the boy’s life had been a wandering amid outlaws
+and peasants—all in one mind of bitter hatred to the court for its cruel
+vexations and oppressions, and of intense love and regret for their
+champion, Sir Simon the Righteous, of whose beneficence tales were
+everywhere told, rising at every step into greater wonder, until at
+length they were enhanced into miracles, wrought by his severed head and
+hands.  Each day had made the boy prouder of his father’s memory, more
+deeply incensed against the Court party that had brought about his fall;
+and keen and bitter were his feelings at finding himself in the hands of
+the Prince himself.  He chafed all the more at feeling the ascendency
+which Edward’s lofty demeanour and personal kindness had formerly exerted
+over him, reviving again by force of habit; he hated himself for not
+having at once challenged his father’s murderer; so as, if he could not
+do more, to have died by his hand; and he despised himself the more, for
+knowing that all he could have said would have been good-naturedly put
+down by the Prince; all he could have done would have been but like a
+gnat’s efforts against that mighty strength.  Then how despicable it was
+to be sensible, in spite of himself, that this atmosphere of courtly
+refinement was far more natural to him—the son of a Provençal noble, and
+of a princess mother—than the rude forest life he had lately led.  The
+greenwood liberty had its charms; and he had truly loved Adam de Gourdon;
+but the soft tones and refined accents were like a note of home to him;
+and though he had never seen the Princess before—she having been sent to
+the Court of St. Louis during the troubles—yet the whole of the interview
+gave him an inexplicable sense of being again among kindred and friends.
+He told himself that it was base, resolved that he would show himself
+determined to cast in his lot with his exiled brethren, and made up his
+mind to maintain a dignified silence during these two days, and at the
+end of them to leave with the Prince a challenge, to be fought out when
+he should have attained manly strength and skill in arms.
+
+In pursuance of this resolution, he appeared at the morning mass and meal
+still grave and silent, and especially avoiding young Hamlyn de Valence,
+who, as the son of one of the half brothers of Henry III., stood in the
+same relationship to Prince Edward and to Richard, whose mother was the
+sister of King Henry.  Probably Hamlyn had had a hint from the Prince,
+for though he regarded young Montfort with no friendly eyes, he yielded
+him an equality of precedence, which hardly consorted with Richard’s rude
+forest garments.
+
+The chase was the order of the day.  The Prince rode forth with a boar
+spear to hunt one of these monsters of the wood, of which vague reports
+had reached him, unconfirmed, till Adam de Gourdon had undertaken to show
+him the creature’s lair.  He had proposed to Richard to join the hunt;
+but the boy, firm to his resolution of accepting no favour from him, that
+could be helped, had refused as curtly as he could; and then, not without
+a feeling of disappointment, had stood holding Leonillo in, as the
+gallant train of hunters rode down the woodland glade, and he figured to
+himself the brave sport in which they would soon be engaged.
+
+The most part of the day was spent by him in lying under a tree, with his
+dog by his side, thinking over the scenes of his earlier life, which had
+passed by his childish mind like those of a drama, in which he had no
+part nor comprehension, but which now, with clearer perceptions, he
+strove to recall and explain to himself.  Ever his father’s stately
+figure was the centre of his recollections, whether receiving tidings of
+infractions of engagements, taking prompt measures for action, or
+striving to repress the violence of his sons and partizans, or it might
+be gazing on his younger boys with sad anxiety.  Richard well remembered
+his saying, when he heard that his sons, Simon and Guy, had been
+plundering the merchant ships in the Channel: “Alas! alas! when I was
+more loyal to the law than to the Crown, I little deemed that I was
+rearing a brood who would scorn all law and loyalty!”
+
+And well too did Richard recollect that when the proposal had been made
+that he should become the attendant of the Prince at Hereford, his father
+had told him that here he would see the mirror of all that was knightly
+and virtuous; and had added, on the loud outcry of the more prejudiced
+brothers: “It is only the truth.  Were it not that the King’s folly and
+his perjured counsellors had come between my nephew Edward and his better
+self, we should have in him a sovereign who might fitly be reckoned as a
+tenth worthy.  It is his very duty to a misruled father that has ranged
+him against us.”
+
+“Yet,” thought Richard, “on the man who thus thought and spoke of him the
+Prince could make savage warfare; nay, offer his senseless corpse foul
+despite.  How can I tarry these two days in such keeping?  I had
+rather—if he will still keep me—be a captive in his lowest dungeon, than
+eat of his bread as a guest!  By our Lady, I will tell him so to his
+face!  I will none of his favours!  Alone I will go to the coast—alone
+make my way to Simon and Guy, with no letters to the French king!  All
+kings, however saintly they may be called, are in league, and make common
+cause; as said my poor brother Henry, when the Mise of Lewes was to be
+laid before this Frenchman!  I will none of them!  Pshaw! is this the
+Princess coming?  I trust she will not see me.  I want none of her fair
+words.”
+
+He had prepared himself to be ungracious; but his courtly breeding was
+too much of an instinct with him for him not to rise, doff his cap, and
+stand aside, as Eleanor of Castille slowly moved towards the woodland
+path, with her graceful Spanish step, followed, but at some distance, by
+two of her women.  She turned as she was passing him, and smiled with a
+sweet radiance that would have won him instantly, had he not heard his
+elder brothers sneer at the cheap coin of royal smiles.  He only bowed;
+but Leonillo was more accessible, and started forward to pay his homage
+of dignified blandishments to the queenly sweetness that pleased his
+canine appreciation.  Richard was forced to step forth, call him in, and
+make his excuses; but the Princess responded by praises of the noble
+animal, and caresses, to which Leonillo replied with a grand gratitude,
+that showed him as nobly bred as his young master.
+
+“Thou art a gallant creature,” said Eleanor, her hand upon the proud
+head; “and no doubt as faithful as beautiful!”
+
+“Faithful to the death, Lady,” replied Richard warmly.
+
+“He is thine own, I trow,” said the Princess,—“not thy groom’s?  I
+remember, that when thy brave father brought my lord and me back from our
+bridal at Burgos, he procured two hounds in the Pyrenees, of meseems,
+such a breed.”
+
+“True, Lady; they were the parents of my Leonillo,” said Richard,
+gratified, in spite of himself.
+
+“How well I remember,” continued Eleanor, “that first sight of the great
+Earl.  My brothers had teased me for going so far north, and told me the
+English were mere rude islanders—boorish, and unlettered; but, child as I
+was, scarce eleven years old, I could perceive the nobleness of the Earl.
+‘If all thy new subjects be like him,’ said my brother to me, ‘thou wilt
+reign over a race of kings.’  And how good he was to me when I wept at
+leaving my home and friends!  How he framed his tongue to speak my own
+Castillian to me; how he comforted me, when the Queen, my mother-in-law,
+required more dignity of me than I yet knew how to assume; and how he
+chid my boy bridegroom for showing scant regard for his girl bride!” said
+Eleanor, smiling at the recollection, as the beloved wife of eleven years
+could well afford to do.  “I mind me well that he found me weeping,
+because my Edward had tied the scarf I gave him on the neck of one of
+those very dogs, and the fatherly counsel he gave me.  Ah, Leonillo, thy
+wise wistful face brings back many thoughts to my mind!  I am glad I may
+honour thee for fidelity!”
+
+“Indeed you may, Lady,” said Richard.  “It was he that above all saved my
+life.”
+
+“Prithee let me hear,” said the Princess, who had already so moved on,
+while herself speaking, as to draw Richard into walking with her along
+the path that had been cleared under the beech trees.  “We have so much
+longed to know thy fate.”
+
+“I cannot tell you much, Lady,” returned Richard.  “The last thing I
+recollect on that dreadful day was, that my father asked for quarter—for
+us—for my brother Henry and me.  We heard the reply: ‘No quarter for
+traitors!’ and Henry fell before us a dead man.  My father shouted, ‘By
+the arm of St. James, it is time for me to die!’  I saw him, with his
+sword in both hands, cut down a wild Welshman who was rushing on me.
+Then I saw no more, till in the moonlight I was awakened by this dog’s
+cool tongue licking the blood from my face, and heard his low whining
+over me.”
+
+“Good dog, good dog!” murmured Eleanor, caressing the animal.  “And thou,
+Richard, thou wert sorely wounded?”
+
+“Sorely,” said Richard; “my side had been pierced with a lance, a Welsh
+two-handed sword had broken through my helmet, and well-nigh cleft my
+skull; and the men-at-arms, riding over me I suppose, must have broken my
+leg, for I could not move: and oh! I felt it hard that I had yet to die.
+Then, Lady, came lights and murmuring voices.  They were Mortimer’s
+plundering Welsh robbers.  I heard their wild gibbering tongue; and I
+knew how it would be with me, should they see the white cross on my
+breast.  But, Lady, Leonillo stood over me.  His lion bark chased them
+aside; and when one bolder than the rest came near the mound where we
+lay, good Leonillo flew at his savage throat.  I heard the struggle as I
+lay—the growls of the dog, the howls of the man; and then they were cut
+short.  And next I heard de Gourdon’s gruff voice commending the good
+hound, whose note had led him to the spot, from the woods, where he was
+hiding after the battle.  The faithful beast sprang from him, and in a
+moment more had led him to me.  Then—ah, then, Lady! when Adam had freed
+me from my broken helm, and lifted me in his arms, what a sight had I!
+Oh, what a field that harvest moon shone upon! how thickly heaped was
+that little mound!  And there was my father’s face up-turned in the white
+moonlight!  O Lady, never in hall or bower could it have been so
+peaceful, or so majestic!  I bade Adam lay me down by his side, and keep
+guard through the night with Leonillo; but he said that the plunderers
+would come in numbers too great for him, and that he must care for the
+living rather than the dead; and withstand him as I would, he bore me
+away.  O Lady, Lady, foul wrong was done when we were gone!”
+
+“Think not on that,” said Eleanor; “it bitterly grieved my lord that so
+it should have been.  Thou knowest, I hope, that he was the chief mourner
+when those honoured limbs were laid in the holy ground at Evesham Abbey.
+They told me, who saw him that day, that his weeping for his godfather
+and his Cousin Henry overcame all joy in his victory.  And I can assure
+thee, dear Richard, that when, three months after, I came to him at
+Canterbury, just after he had been with thy mother at Dover, even then he
+was sad and mournful.  He said that the wisest and best baron in England
+had been made a rebel of, and then slain; and he was full of sorrow for
+thee, only then understanding from thy mother that thou hadst been in the
+battle at all, and that nothing had been heard of thee.  He said thou
+wert the most like to thy father of all his sons; and truly I knew thee
+at once by thine eyes, Richard.  Where wast thou all these months?”
+
+“At first,” said Richard, “I was in an anchoret’s cell, in the wall of a
+church.  So please you, Madame, I must not name names; but when Adam,
+bearing me faint and well-nigh dying on his back, saw the twinkling light
+in the churchyard, he knocked, and entreated aid.  The good anchoret
+pitied my need at first, and when he learnt my name, he gave me shelter
+for my father’s sake, the friend of all religious men.  I lay on his
+little bed, in the chamber in the wall, till I could again walk.
+Meanwhile, Adam watched in the woods at hand, and from time to time came
+at night to see how I fared, and bring me tidings.  Simon was still
+holding out Kenilworth, and we hoped to join him there; but when we set
+forth I was still lame, and too feeble to go far in a day; and we fell in
+with—within short, with a band of robbers, who detained us, half as
+guests, half as captives.  They needed Adam’s stout arm; and there was a
+shrewd, gray, tough old fellow, who had been in Robin Hood’s band, and
+was looked up to as a sort of prince among them, who was bent on making
+us one with them.  Lady, you would smile to hear how the old man used to
+sit by me as I lay on the rushes, and talk of outlawry, as Father Adam de
+Marisco used to talk of learning—as a good and noble science, decaying
+for want of spirit and valour in these days.  It was all laziness, he
+said; barons and princes must needs have their wars, and use up all the
+stout men that were fit to bend a bow in a thicket.  If the Prince went
+on at this rate, he said, there would soon be not an honest outlaw to be
+found in England!  But he was a kind old man, and very good to me; and he
+taught me how to shoot with the long bow better than ever our master at
+Odiham could.  However, I could not brook the spoiler’s life, and the
+band did not trust me; so, as we found that Kenilworth had fallen, as
+soon as my strength had returned to me, we stole away from the outlaws,
+and came southwards, hoping to find my mother at Odiham.  Hearing that
+Odiham too was gone from us, we have lurked in Alton Wood till means
+should serve us for reaching the coast.”
+
+“Till thou hast found the friend who has longed for thee, and sought for
+thee,” replied Eleanor.  “What didst thou do, young Richard, to win my
+husband’s heart so entirely in his captivity?”
+
+“I know not, Lady, why he should take thought for me,” bluntly said
+Richard, with a return of the sensation of being coaxed and talked over.
+
+“Methinks I can tell thee one cause,” returned the Princess.  “Was there
+not a time when thou didst overhear him concerting with Thomas de Clare
+the plan of an escape, and thou didst warn them that thou wast at hand;
+ay, and yet didst send notice to thy father?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Richard with surprise; “I could do no other.”
+
+“Even so,” said Eleanor.  “And thus didst thou win the esteem of thy
+kinsman.  ‘The stripling is loyal and trustworthy,’ he has said to me;
+‘pity that such a heart should be pierced in an inglorious field.  Would
+that I could find him, and strive to return to him something of what his
+father’s care hath wrought for me.’  Richard, trust me, it would be a
+real joy and lightening of his grief to have thee with him.”
+
+“Grief, Madame!” repeated Richard.  “I little thought he grieved for my
+father, who, but for him, would be—” and a sob checked him, as the
+contrast rose before him of the great Earl and beautiful Countess
+presiding over their large family and princely household, and the
+scattered ruined state of all at present.
+
+“He shall answer that question himself,” said Eleanor.  “See, here he
+comes to meet us by the beechwood alley.”
+
+And in fact, a form, well suited to its setting within the stately aisles
+of the beech trees, was pacing towards them.  The chase had ended, and
+hearing that his wife had walked forth into the wood, the Prince had come
+by another path to meet her, and his rare and beautiful smile shone out
+as he saw who was her companion.  “Art making friends with my young
+cousin?” he said affectionately.
+
+“I would fain do so,” replied Eleanor; “but alas, my Lord! he feels that
+there is a long dark reckoning behind, that stands in the way of our
+friendship.”
+
+Richard looked down, and did not speak.  The Princess had put his thought
+into words.
+
+“Richard,” said the Prince, “I feel the same.  It is for that very cause
+that I seek to have thee with me.  Hear me.  Thou art grown older, and
+hast seen man’s work and man’s sorrows, since I left thee on the
+hill-side at Hereford.  Thou canst see, perchance, that a question hath
+two sides—though it is not given to all men to do so.  Hearken then.—Thy
+father was the greatest man I have known—nay, but for the thought of my
+uncle of France, I should say the holiest.  He was my teacher in all
+knightly doings, and in all kingly thoughts, such as I pray may be with
+me through life.  It was from him I learnt that this royal, this noble
+power, is not given to exalt ourselves, but as a trust for the welfare of
+others.  It was the spring of action that was with him through life.”
+
+“It was,” murmured Richard, calling to mind many a saying of his
+father’s.
+
+“And fain would he have impressed it on all around,” added Edward: “but
+there were others who deemed that kingly power was but a means of
+enjoyment, and that restraint was an outrage on the crown.  They drew one
+way, the Earl drew the other, and, as his noble nature prompted him, made
+common cause with the injured.  It skills not to go through the past.
+Those whom he joined had selfish aims, and pushed him on; and as the
+crown had been led to invade the rights of the vassals, so the vassals
+invaded my father’s rights.  Oaths were extorted, though both sides knew
+they could never be observed; and between violences, now on one side, now
+on the other, the right course could scarce be kept.  The Earl imagined
+that, with my father in his hands, removed from all other influences, he
+could give England the happy days they talk of her having enjoyed under
+my patron St. Edward; but, as thou knowest, Richard, the authority he
+held, being unlawful, was unregarded, and its worst transgressors came
+out of his own bosom.  He could not enforce the terms on which I had
+yielded myself—he could not even prevent my father from being a mere
+captive; and for the English folk, their miseries were but multiplied by
+the tyrants who had arisen.”
+
+“It was no doing of his,” said Richard, with cheek hotly glowing.
+
+“None know that better than I,” said the Prince; “but if he had snatched
+the bridle from a feeble hand, it was only to find that the steed could
+not be ruled by him.  What was left for me but to break my bonds, and
+deliver my father, in the hope that, being come to man’s estate, I might
+set matters on a surer footing?  I had hoped—I had greatly hoped, so to
+rule affairs, that the Earl might own that his training had not been lost
+on his nephew, and that the Crown might be trusted not to infringe the
+Charter.  I had hoped that he might yet be my wisest counsellor.  But,
+Richard, I too had supporters who outran my commands.  Bitter hatred and
+malice had been awakened, and cruel resolves that none should be spared.
+When I returned from bearing my father, bleeding and dismayed, from the
+battle, whither he had been cruelly led, it was to find that my orders
+had been disobeyed—that there had been foul and cruel slaughter; and that
+all my hopes that my uncle of Leicester would forgive me and look
+friendly on me were ended!”
+
+The Prince’s lip trembled as he spoke, and tears glistened in his eyes;
+and the evident struggle to repress his feelings, brought home deeply and
+forcibly the conviction to Richard that his sorrow was genuine.
+
+He could not speak for some seconds; then he added: “I marvel not that I
+am looked on among you as guilty of his blood.  Simon and Guy regard me
+as one with whom they are at deadly feud, and cannot understand that it
+was their own excesses that armed those merciless hands against him.
+Even my aunt shrank from me, and implored my mercy as though I were a
+ruthless tyrant.  But thou, Richard, thou hast inherited enough of thy
+father’s mind to be able to understand how unwillingly was my share in
+his fall, and how great would be my comfort and joy in being good kinsman
+to one of his sons.”
+
+The strong man’s generous pleading was most touching.  Richard bowed his
+head; the Princess watched him eagerly.  The boy spoke at last in
+perplexity.  “My Lord, you know better than I.  Would it be knightly,
+would it be honourable?”
+
+The Princess started in some indignation at such a question to her
+husband; but Edward understood the boy better, and said, “That which is
+most Christian is most knightly.”  Then pausing: “Ask thine heart,
+Richard; which would thy father choose for thee—to live in such guidance
+as I hope will ever be found in my household, or to share the wandering,
+I fear me freebooting, life of thy brothers?”
+
+Richard could not forget how his father had sternly withheld him from
+going with Simon to besiege Pevensey.  He knew that these two brethren
+had long been a pain and grief to his father; and began to understand
+that the nephew, with whom the Earl’s last battle had been fought, was
+nevertheless his truest pupil.
+
+“Thou wilt remain,” said Edward decisively; “and let us strive one day to
+bring to pass the state of things for which thy father and I fought
+alike, though, alas! in opposite ranks.”
+
+“If my mother consents,” said Richard, his head bent down, and uttering
+the words with the more difficulty, because he felt so strongly drawn
+towards his cousin, who never seemed so mighty as in his condescension.
+
+“Then, Richard de Montfort,” said Edward gravely, “let us render to one
+another the kiss of peace, as kinsmen who have put away all thought of
+wrong between them.”
+
+Richard looked up; and the Prince bending his lofty head, there was
+exchanged between them that solemn embrace, which in the early middle
+ages was the deepest token of amity.
+
+And with that kiss, it was as though the soul of Richard de Montfort were
+knit to the soul of Edward of England with the heart-whole devotion,
+composed of affection and loyal homage to a great character, which ever
+since the days of the bond between the son of the doomed King of Israel
+and the youthful slayer of the Philistine champion, has been one of the
+noblest passions of a young heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE TRANSLATION
+
+
+    “Now in gems their relics lie,
+    And their names in blazonry,
+    And their forms in storied panes
+    Gleam athwart their own loved fanes.”
+
+                                                       _Lyra Innocentium_.
+
+IF novelty has its charms, so has old age, and to us the great abbey
+church of Westminster has become doubly beloved by long generations of
+affection, and doubly beautiful by the softening handiwork of time and of
+smoke.
+
+Yet what a glorious sight must it not have been when it was fresh from
+the hands of the builder, the creamy stone clear and sharp at every
+angle, and each moulding and flower true and perfect as the chisel had
+newly left it.  The deep archway of the west front opened in stately
+magnificence, and yet with a light loftiness hitherto unknown in England,
+and somewhat approaching to the style in which the great French
+cathedrals were then rising.  And its accompaniments were, on the one
+hand the palace and hall, on the other hand the monastery, with its high
+walled courts and deep-browed cloisters, its noble refectory and vaulted
+kitchen, the herbarium or garden, shady with trees, and enriched with
+curious plants of Palestine, sloping down to the broad and majestic
+Thames, pure and blue as he pursued his silver winding way through
+emerald meadows and softly rising hills clothed with copses and woods.
+To the east, seated upon her hills, stood the crowned and battlemented
+city, the massive White Tower rising above the fortifications.
+
+The autumn brilliance of October, 1269, never enlightened a more gorgeous
+scene than when it shone upon the ceremony still noted in our Calendar as
+the Translation of King Edward.  Buried at first in his own low-browed
+heavy-arched Norman structure, which he had built, as he believed, at the
+express bidding of St. Peter; the Confessor, whose tender-hearted and
+devout nature had, by force of contrast with those of his fierce foreign
+successors, come to assume a saintly halo in the eyes not merely of the
+English, but of their Angevin lords themselves, was, now to reign on
+almost equal terms with the great Apostle himself, as one of the
+hallowing patrons of the Abbey—nay, since at least his relics were entire
+and undoubted, as its chief attraction.
+
+The new chapel in his especial honour, behind the exquisite bayed apsidal
+chancel, was at length complete; and on this day he was to take
+possession of it.  An ark of pure gold, chased and ornamented with the
+surpassing grace of that period of perfect taste, had received the
+royally robed corpse, which Churchmen averred lay calm and beautiful,
+untainted by decay; and this was now uplifted by the arms of King Henry
+himself, of Richard King of the Romans his brother, and of the two
+princes, Edward and Edmund.
+
+It was a striking sight to see those two pairs of brothers.  The two
+kings, nearly of an age, and so fondly attached that they could hardly
+brook a separation, till the death of the one broke the wearied heart of
+the other, were both gray-haired prematurely-aged men, of features that
+time instead of hardening had rendered more feeble and uncertain.  Their
+faces were much alike, but Henry might be known from Richard by a certain
+inequality in the outline of his eyebrows; and their dress, though both
+alike wore long flowing gowns, the side seams only coming down as far as
+the thigh so as to allow play for the limbs, so far differed that Henry’s
+was of blue, with the English lions embroidered in red and gold on his
+breast, and Richard was in the imperial purple, or rather scarlet, and
+the eagle of the empire on his breast testified to the futile election
+which he had purchased with the wealth of his Cornish mines.  Both the
+elders together, with all their best will and their simple faith in the
+availing merit of the action they were performing, would have been
+physically incapable of proceeding many steps with their burden, but for
+the support it received from the two younger men who sustained the feet
+of the saint, using some dexterity in adapting their strength so that the
+coffin might be carried evenly.
+
+One was the hunter we have already seen in Alton Wood.  His features wore
+their characteristic stamp of deep awe and enthusiasm, and even as he
+slowly and calmly moved, sustaining the chief of the weight with scarcely
+an effort of his giant strength, his head towering high above all those
+around, his eyes might be observed to be seeing, though not marking, what
+was before them, but to be fixed as though the soul were in
+contemplation, far far away.  He did not see in the present scene four
+princes rendering homage to a royal saint, who, from personal connection
+and by a brilliant display of devotion, might be propitiated into
+becoming a valuable patron amid intercessor; still less did it present
+itself to him as a pageant in which he was to bow his splendid powers,
+mental and bodily, to aid two feeble-minded old men to totter under the
+gold-cased corpse of a still more foolish and mischievous prince, dead
+two hundred years back.  No, rather thought and eye were alike upon the
+great invisible world, the echo of whose chants might perchance be
+ringing on his ear; that world where holy kings cast their crowns before
+the Throne, and where the lamb-like spirit of the Confessor might be
+joining in the praise, and offering these tokens of honour to Him to whom
+all honour and praise and glory and blessing are due.
+
+Of shorter stature, darker browed, of less regular feature and less clear
+complexion, so as to look as if he were the elder of the brothers, Prince
+Edmund moved by his side, using much exertion, and bending with the
+effort, so as to increase the slight sloop that had led to his historical
+nickname of the Crouchback, though some think this was merely taken from
+his crusading cross.  He bore the arms of Sicily, to which he had not yet
+resigned his claim.  His eye wandered, but not far away, like that of his
+brother.  It was in search of his young betrothed, the Lady Aveline of
+Lancaster, the fair young heiress to whom he was to owe the great earldom
+that was a fair portion for a younger brother even of royalty.
+
+All the four were bare-footed, and both princes were in robes much
+resembling that of their father, except that upon the left shoulder of
+each might be seen, in white cloth, the two lines of the Cross, that
+marked them as pilgrims and Crusaders, already on the eve of departure
+for the Holy Land.
+
+The shrine where the golden coffin was to rest is substantially the same
+in our own day, with its triple-cusped arches below, the stage of six and
+stage of four above them, and the twisted columns in imitation of that
+which was supposed to have come from the Beautiful Gate of the Temple.
+But at that time it was a glittering fabric of mosaic work, in gold,
+lapis-lazuli, and precious stones, aided here and there by fragments of
+coloured glass, the only part of the costly workmanship that has come
+down to us.  Around this shrine the preceding members of the procession
+had taken their places.  Archbishop Boniface of Savoy was there, old age
+ennobling a countenance that once had been light and frivolous, and all
+his bishops in the splendour of their richest copes, solidly embroidered
+with absolute scenes and portraits in embroidery, with tall mitres worked
+with gold wire and jewels, and crosiers of beauteous workmanship in gold,
+ivory, and enamel.  Mitred abbots, no less glorious in array, stood in
+another rank; the scarlet-mantled Grand Prior of the Hospital, and the
+white-cloaked Templar, made a link between the ecclesiastic and the
+warrior.  Priests and monks, selected for their voices’ sake, clustered
+in every available space; and, in full radiance, on a stage on the
+further side, were seated the ladies of the court, mostly with their hair
+uncovered, and surrounded by a garland of precious stones.  Queen Eleanor
+of Provence, still bent on youthfulness, looked somewhat haggard in this
+garb; but it well became Beatrix von Falkmorite, the young German girl
+whom Richard King of the Romans had wedded in his old age for the sake of
+her fair face.  Smiling, plump, and rosy, she sat opening her wide blue
+eyes, wearing her emerald and ruby wreath as though it had been a coronal
+of daisies, and gazing with childish whisperings as she watched the
+movements of her king, and clung for direction and help in her own part
+of the pageant to the Princess Eleanor, who sat beside her, little the
+elder in years, less beautiful in colouring, but how far surpassing her
+in queenly pensive grace and dignity!  Leaning on Eleanor’s lap was a
+bright-eyed, bright-haired boy of four years old, watching with puzzled
+looks the brilliant ceremony, which he only half understood, and his
+glances wandering between his father and the blue and white robed little
+acolytes who stood nearest to the shrine, holding by chains the silver
+censers, which from time to time sent forth a fragrant vapour, curling
+round the heads of the nearest figures, and floating away in the lofty
+vaultings of the roof.
+
+The actual ceremony could only be beheld by a favoured few; the official
+clergy, the many connections of royalty, and the chief nobility, filled
+the church to overflowing, but the rest of the world repaid itself by
+making a magnificent holiday.  Good-natured King Henry had been permitted
+by his son, who had now, though behind the scenes, assumed the reins of
+government, to spend freely, and make a feast to his heart’s content.
+Roasting and boiling were going on on a fast and furious scale, not only
+in the palace and abbey, but in booths erected in the fields; and tables
+were spreading and rushes strewing for the accommodation of all ranks.
+Near the entrance of the Abbey, the trains of the personages within
+awaited their coming forth in some sort of order, the more reverent
+listening to the sounds from within, and bending or crossing themselves
+as the familiar words of higher notes of praise rose loud enough to reach
+their ears; but for the most part, the tones and gestures were as various
+as the appearance of the attendants.  Here were black Benedictines, there
+white Augustinians clustered round the sleek mules of their abbots; there
+scornful dark Templars, in their black and white, sowed the seeds of
+hatred against their order, and scarlet Hospitaliers looked bright and
+friendly even while repelling the jostling of the crowd.  A hoary old
+squire, who had been with the King through all his troubles, kept
+together his immediate attendants; a party of boorish-looking Germans
+waited for Richard of Cornwall; and the slender, richly-caparisoned
+palfreys of the ladies were in charge of high-born pages, who sometimes,
+with means fair or foul, pushed back the throng, sometimes themselves
+became enamoured of its humours.
+
+For not only had the neighbouring city of London poured forth her
+merchants and artizans, to gaze, wonder, and censure the extravagance—not
+only had beggars of every degree been attracted by the largesse that
+Henry delighted to dispense, and peasants had poured in from all the
+villages around, but no sort of entertainment was lacking.  Here were
+minstrels and story-tellers gathering groups around them; here was the
+mountebank, clearing a stage in which to perform feats of jugglery,
+tossing from one hand to another a never-ending circle of balls,
+balancing a lance upon his nose, with a popinjay on its point; here were
+a bevy of girls with strange garments fastened to their ankles, who would
+dance on their hands instead of their feet, while their uplifted toes
+jangled little bells.
+
+Peasant and beggar, citizen and performer, sightseer and professional,
+all alike strove to get into the space before the great entrance, where
+the procession must come forth to gratify the eyes of the gazers, and
+mayhap shower down such bounty as the elder mendicants averred had been
+given when Prince Edward (the saints defend him!) had been weighed at
+five years old, and, to avert ill luck, the counterbalance of pure gold
+had been thrown among the poor to purchase their prayers.
+
+His weight in gold at his present stature could hardly be expected by the
+wildest imaginations, but hungry eyes had been estimating the weight of
+his little heir, and discontented lips had declared that the child was of
+too slender make to be ever worth so much to them as his father.  Yet a
+whisper of the possibility had quickly been magnified to a certainty of
+such a largesse, and the multitude were thus stimulated to furious
+exertions to win the most favourable spot for gathering up such a golden
+rain as even little Prince Henry’s counterpoise would afford; and ever as
+time waxed later, the throng grew denser and more unruly, and the
+struggle fiercer and more violent.
+
+The screams and expostulations of the weak, elbowed and trampled down,
+mingled with more festive sounds; and the attendants who waited on the
+river in the large and beautifully-ornamented barges which were the usual
+conveyances of distinguished personages, began to agree with one another
+that if they saw less than if they were on the bank, they escaped a
+considerable amount of discomfort as well as danger.
+
+“For,” murmured one of the pages, “I suppose it would be a dire offence
+to the Prince to lay about among the churls as they deserve.”
+
+“Ay, truly, among Londoners above all,” was the answer of his companion,
+whom the last four years had rendered considerably taller than when we
+saw him last.
+
+“Not that there is much love lost between them.  He hath never forgotten
+the day when they pelted the Queen with rotten eggs, and sang their
+ribald songs; nor they the day he rode them down at Lewes like corn
+before the reaper.”
+
+“And lost the day,” muttered the other page; then added, “The less love,
+the more cause for caution.”
+
+“Oh yes, we know you are politic, Master Richard,” was the sneering
+reply, “but you need not fear my quarrelling with your citizen friends.
+I would not be the man to face Prince Edward if I had made too free with
+any of the caitiffs.”
+
+“Hark! Master Hamlyn, the tumult is louder than ever,” interposed an
+elderly man of lower rank, who was in charge of the stout rowers in the
+royal colours of red and gold.  “Young gentlemen, the Mass must be ended;
+it were better to draw to the stairs, than to talk of you know not what,”
+he muttered.
+
+Hamlyn de Valence, who held the rudder, steered towards the wide stone
+steps that descended to the river, nearest to the apse in which “St.
+Peter’s Abbey Church” terminated before Henry VII. had added his chapel.
+At that moment a louder burst of sound, half imprecation, half shriek,
+was heard; there was a heavy splash a little way above, and a small blue
+bundle was seen on the river, apparently totally unheeded by the frantic
+crowd on the bank.  No sooner was it seen by Richard, however, than he
+threw back his mantle and sprang out of the barge.  There was a loud cry
+from the third page, a little fellow of nine or ten years old; but
+Richard gallantly swam out, battled with the current, and succeeded in
+laying hold of a young child, with whom he made for the barge, partly
+aided by the stream; but he was breathless, and heartily glad to reach
+the boat and support himself against the gunwale.
+
+“A pretty boat companion you!” said Hamlyn maliciously.  “How are we to
+take you in, over the velvet cushions?”
+
+The little page gave an expostulating cry.
+
+“Hold the child an instant, John,” gasped Richard, raising it towards his
+younger friend; “I will but recover breath, and then land and seek out
+her friends.”
+
+“How is this?” said a voice above them; and looking up, they found that
+while all had been absorbed in the rescue, the Prince, with his little
+son in his arms and his wife hanging on his arm, had come to the stone
+stairs, and was looking down.  “Richard overboard!”
+
+“A child fell over the bank, my Lord,” eagerly shouted the little John,
+with cap in hand, “and he swam out to pick it up.”
+
+“Into the barge instantly, Richard,” commanded the Prince.  “’Tis as much
+as his life is worth to remain in this cold stream!”
+
+And truly Richard was beginning to feel as much.  He was assisted in by
+two of the oarsmen, and the barge then putting towards the steps, the
+Princess was handed into her place, and began instantly to ask after the
+poor child.  It had not been long enough in the water to lose its
+consciousness, though it had hitherto been too much frightened to cry;
+but it no sooner opened a wide pair of dark eyes to find itself in
+strange hands, than it set up a lamentable wail, calling in broken
+accents for “Da-da.”
+
+“Let me take it ashore at once, gracious lady,” said Richard, revived by
+a draught of wine from the stores provided for the long day; “I will find
+its friends.”
+
+“Nay,” said the Princess, “it were frenzy to take it thus in its wet
+garments; and frenzy to remain in thine, Richard.”  As she spoke, the
+Prince and the other persons of the suite had embarked, and the barge was
+pushing away from the steps.  “Give the child to me,” she added, holding
+out her arms, and disregarding a remonstrance from one of her ladies,
+disregarding too the sobs and struggles of the child, whom she strove to
+soothe, while hastily removing the little thing’s soaked blue frock and
+hood, and wrapping it up in a warm woollen cloak.  “It is a pretty little
+maiden,” she said, “and not ill cared for.  Some mother’s heart must be
+bursting for her!—Hush thee! hush thee, little one; we will take thee
+home and clothe thee, and then thou shalt go to thy mother,” she added,
+in better English than she had spoken four years earlier in Alton Wood.
+But the child still cried for her da-da, and the Princess asked again,
+“What is thy father’s name, little maid?”
+
+“Père,” she answered, with a peculiar accent that made the Prince say,
+“That is a Provençal tongue.”
+
+“They are Provençal eyes likewise,” added Eleanor.  “See how like their
+hue is to Richard’s own;” and in Provençal she repeated the question what
+the father’s name and the child’s own might be.  But “Père” again, and
+“Bessee, pretty Bessee,” was all the answer she obtained, the last in
+unmistakable English.
+
+“I thought,” said Eleanor, “that it was only my own children that scarce
+knew whether they spoke English, Languédoc, or Languéd’ouì.”
+
+“It was the same with us, Lady,” said Richard.  “Father Adam was wont to
+say we were a little Babel.”
+
+The child looked towards him on hearing his voice, and held out her hands
+to go to him, reiterating an entreaty to be taken to her father.
+
+“She is probably the child of some minstrel or troubadour,” said the
+Prince.  “We will send in search of him as soon as we have reached the
+Savoy.”
+
+The Savoy Palace had been built for Queen Eleanor’s obnoxious uncle,
+Prince Thomas of Savoy, and had recently been purchased by the Queen
+herself, as a wedding gift for her son Edmund; but in the meantime Edward
+and his family were occupying it during their stay near Westminster, and
+their barge was brought up to the wide stairs of its noble court.
+Richard was obliged to give up the child to the Princess and her ladies,
+though she shrieked after him so pertinaciously, that Eleanor called to
+him to return so soon as he should have changed his garments.
+
+In a few minutes he again appeared, and found the little girl dressed in
+a little garment of one of the royal children, but totally insensible to
+the honour, turning away from all the dainties offered to her, and
+sobbing for her father, much to the indignation of the two little
+princes, Henry and John, who stood hand in hand staring at her.  She flew
+to him directly, with a broken entreaty that she might be taken to her
+father.  Again they tried questioning her, but Richard, whether speaking
+English or Provençal, always succeeded in obtaining readier and more
+comprehensible replies than did the Princess.  Whether she recognized him
+as her preserver, or whether his language had a familiar tone, she seemed
+exclusively attracted by him; and he it was who learnt that she lived at
+home—far off—on the Green near the red monks, and that her father could
+not see—he would be lost without Bessee to lead him.  And the little
+creature, hardly three years old if so much, was evidently in the
+greatest trouble at her father having lost her guidance and protection.
+
+Richard, touched and flattered by the little maiden’s exclusive
+preference, and owning in her Provençal eyes and speech something
+strangely like his own young sister Eleanor, entreated permission to be
+himself the person to take her in search of her friends.  The Princess
+added her persuasions, declaring it would be cruel to send the poor
+little thing with another stranger, and that his Provençal tongue was
+needed in order to discovering her father among the troubadours.
+
+Edward yielded to her persuasion, adding, however, that Richard must take
+two men-at-arms with him, and gravely bidding him be on his guard.  Nor
+would he permit him to be accompanied by little John de Mohun, who, half
+page, half hostage, had lately been added to the Princess’s train, and
+being often bullied and teased by Hamlyn and his fellows, had vehemently
+attached himself to Richard, and now entreated in vain to go with him on
+the adventure.  In fact, Prince Edward was a stern disciplinarian,
+equally severe against either familiarity or insolence towards the
+external world, and especially towards any one connected with London.  If
+Richard ever gave him any offence, it was by a certain freedom of manner
+towards inferiors, such as the Earl of Leicester had diligently
+inculcated on his family, but which more than once had excited a shade of
+vexation on the Prince’s part.  Even after Richard had reached the door,
+he was called back and commanded on no pretext to loiter or enter on any
+dispute, and if his search should detain him late, to sleep at the Tower,
+rather than be questioned and stopped at any of the gates which were
+guarded at night by the citizens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+THE OLD KNIGHT OF THE HOSPITAL
+
+
+    “The warriors of the sacred grave,
+          Who looked to Christ for laws.”
+
+                                                          _Lord Houghton_.
+
+RICHARD summoned a small boat, and with two stout men-at-arms, of whom
+Adam de Gourdon was one, prepared again to cross the river.  Leonillo ran
+down the stone stairs with a wistful look of entreaty and it occurred to
+both Richard and Adam, that, could the child only lead them to the place
+where her father had sat, the dog’s scent might prove their most
+efficient guide.
+
+Little Bessee seemed quite comforted when on her way back to her father,
+and sat on Richard’s knee, eating the comfits with which the Princess had
+provided her, and making him cut a figure that seemed somewhat to amaze
+the other boat-loads whom they encountered on the river.
+
+When they landed, the throng was more dispersed, but revelry and sports
+of all kinds were going on fast and furiously; each door of the Abbey was
+besieged by hungry crowds receiving their dole, and Richard’s inquiries
+for a blind man who had lost his child were little heeded, or met with no
+satisfactory answer.  Bessee herself was bewildered, and incapable of
+finding her father’s late station; and Richard was becoming perplexed,
+and doubtful whether he ought to take her back, as well as somewhat put
+out of countenance by the laughter of Thomas de Clare, and other young
+nobles, who rallied him on his strange charge.
+
+At last the little girl’s face lightened as at sight of something
+familiar.  “Good red monks,” she said.  “They give Bessee soup—make
+father well.”
+
+With a ray of hope, Richard advanced to a party of Brethren of St. John,
+who were mounting at the Abbey gate to return to their house at
+Spitalfields, and doffing his bonnet, intimated a desire to address the
+tall old war-worn knight with a benevolent face, who was adjusting his
+scarlet cloak, before mounting a gray Arab steed looking as old and
+worthy as himself.
+
+“Ha! a young Crusader, I perceive,” was the greeting of the old knight,
+as his eye fell on the white cross on Richard’s mantle.  “Welcome,
+brother!  Dost thou need counsel on thy goodly Eastern way?”
+
+“Thanks, reverend Sir,” returned Richard, “but my present purpose was to
+seek for the father of this little one, who fell into the river in the
+press.  She pointed to you, saying she had received your bounty.”
+
+“It is Blind Hal’s child, Sir Robert!” exclaimed a serving-brother in
+black, coming eagerly forward; “the villeins on the green told me the
+poor knave was distraught at having lost his child in the throng!”
+
+“What brought he her there for?” exclaimed Sir Robert.  “Poor fool! his
+wits must have forsaken him!”
+
+“The child had a craving to see the show,” replied the Brother, “so Hob
+the cobbler told me; and all went well till my Lord of Pembroke’s
+retainers forced all right and left to make way in the crowd.  Hal was
+thrown down, and the child thrust away till they feared she had fallen
+over the bank.  Hob and his wife were fain to get the poor man away, for
+his moans and fierce words were awful: and he was not a little hurt in
+the scuffle, so I e’en gave them leave to lay him in the cart that
+brought up your reverence’s vestments, and the gear we lent the Abbey for
+the show.”
+
+“Right, Brother Hilary,” said Sir Robert; “and now the poor knave will
+have his best healing.—He must have been a good soldier once,” he added
+to Richard; “but he is a mere fragment of a man, wasted in your Earl of
+Leicester’s wars.”
+
+“Where dwells he?” asked Richard, keenly interested in all his father’s
+old followers; “I would fain restore him his child.”
+
+“In a hut on Bednall Green,” answered the serving-brother; “but twice or
+thrice a week he comes to the Spital to have his hurts looked to.”
+
+“Ay! we tell him his little witch must soon be shut out!  She turns the
+heads of all our brethren,” said Sir Robert, smiling.  “Wild work she
+makes with our novices.”
+
+“Wilder with our Knights Commanders, maybe, Sir,” retorted, laughing, a
+fair open-faced youth in his novitiate.  “I shall some day warn Hal how
+our brethren, the Templars, are said to play at ball with tender babes on
+their lances.”
+
+“No scandal about our brethren of the Temple, Rayland,” said Sir Robert,
+looking grave for a moment.—“Young Sir, it would be a favour if you would
+ride with us; we would gladly show you the way to Bednall Green.”
+
+“I should rejoice to go, Sir,” returned Richard, “but I am of Prince
+Edward’s household—Richard Fowen; and my horse is on the other side of
+the river.”
+
+“That is soon remedied,” said Sir Robert, who seemed to have taken a
+great fancy to Richard, either for the sake of his crossed shoulder, or
+of his kindness to the little plaything of the Spital.  “Our young
+brother, Engelbert von Fuchstein, has leave to tarry this night with his
+brother in the train of the King of the Romans, and his horse is at your
+service, if you will do our poor Spital the favour to tarry there this
+night, and ride it back in the morn to meet him at Westminster.”
+
+Richard knew that this invitation might be safely accepted without danger
+of giving umbrage to the Prince, who was on the best terms with the
+Knights of the Hospital.  He therefore dismissed Gourdon and the other
+man-at-arms with a message explaining the matter; and warmly thanking the
+old Grand Prior, laid one hand on the saddle of the great ponderous beast
+that was led up to him, and vaulted on its back without touching the
+stirrup.
+
+“Well done, my young master,” said Sir Robert, “it is easy to see you are
+of the Prince’s household.”
+
+“I cannot yet do as the Prince can,” said Richard,—“take this leap in
+full armour.”
+
+“No; and let me give you a bit of counsel, fair Sir.  Such pastimes are
+very well for the tiltyard, but they should be laid aside in the blessed
+Land, and strength reserved for the one cause and purpose.”  He crossed
+himself; and in the meantime, Bessee intimated her imperious purpose of
+not riding before Brother Hilary, but being perched before Richard on the
+enormous cream-coloured animal, whence he was looking down from a
+considerable elevation upon Sir Robert on his slender Arab.
+
+“These are the German monsters that our brethren bring over,” said Sir
+Robert.  “Mark me, young brother, cumber not yourself with these beasts
+of Europe, which are good for nothing but food for foul birds in the
+East.  Purvey yourself of an Arab as soon as you land.  There is a rogue
+at Acre, one Ali by name, who will not cheat you more than is reasonable,
+so you mention my name to him, Sir Robert Darcy, at your service.”
+
+“Thanks, reverend Father,” returned Richard, “but I am but a landless
+page, and the Prince mounts me.  Said you this poor man had been wounded
+in the late wars?”
+
+“Ay, hacked and hewed worse than by the Infidels themselves!  Woeful it
+is that here, at home, men’s blood should be wasted on your own petty
+feuds.  This same Barons’ war now hath cost as much downright courage as
+would have brought us back to Jerusalem, and all thrown away, without a
+cause, with no honour, no hope.”
+
+“Not without a cause,” Richard could not help saying.
+
+“Nay,” said the old knight; “no cause is worth the taking of a life, save
+the cause of the Holy Sepulchre.  What be these matters of taxes and laws
+to ask a man to shed his blood for?  Alack, the temper of the
+cross-bearer is dying out!  I pray I may not see this Crusade end like
+half those I have beheld—and the cross on the shoulder become no better
+than a mockery.”
+
+“That may scarcely be with such leaders as the Prince and the King of
+France,” said Richard.
+
+“Well, well, the Prince is untried; and for King Louis, he is as holy a
+man as ever lived since King Godfrey of blessed memory, but he has bad
+luck, ever bad luck.  The Saints forefend, but I trow he will listen to
+some crazy counsel from Rome, belike, or some barefooted hermit—very
+holy, no doubt, but who does not know a Greek from a Saracen, or a
+horse’s head from his tail—and will go to some pestilential hole like
+that foul Egyptian swamp, where we stayed till our skin was the colour of
+an old boot, in hopes of converting the Sultan of Babylon, or the Old Man
+of the Mountain, or what not, and there he will stay till the flower of
+his forces have wasted away.”
+
+“Were you in Egypt with King Louis?” eagerly exclaimed Richard.
+
+“Ay, marry, was I, and a goodly land it is; but I saw many a good
+man-at-arms perish miserably in a marsh, who might have been the saving
+of the Holy City.  Why, I myself have never been the same man since!
+Never could do a month’s service out of the infirmary at Acre, though
+after all there’s no work I like so well as the hospital business, and
+for the last five years I have had to stay here training young brethren!
+Oh, young man!  I envy you your first stroke for the Holy Sepulchre!
+Would that the Grand-Master would hear my entreaty.  I am too old to be
+worth sparing, and I would fain have one more chance of dying under the
+banner of the Order!—But I am setting you a bad example, son Raynal; a
+Hospitalier has no will.—And look you, young Sir Page, if you stay out at
+sunset in that clime, ’tis all up with you.  And you should veil your
+helmet well, or the sun smites on your head as deadly as a flake of Greek
+fire.”
+
+So rambled on good old Sir Robert Darcy, Grand Prior of England, a
+perfect dragon among the Saracens, but everywhere else the mildest and
+most benevolent of men; his discourse strangely mingling together the
+deepest enthusiasm with a business-like common-sense appreciation of ways
+and means, and with minute directions, precautions, and anecdotes,
+gathered from his practical experience both as captain in the field,
+priest in the Church, and surgeon in the hospital, and all seen from the
+most sunshiny point of view.
+
+Meanwhile, they were riding along the Strand, a beautiful open road, with
+grassy borders shelving down to the Thames.  They passed through the City
+of London.  The Hospital lay beyond the walls, but the Marshes of
+Moorfields that protected them were not passable without a long circuit;
+and the fortified gates stood open at Temple Bar, where the Hospitaliers,
+looking towards the Round Church and stately buildings of the Preceptory,
+saluted the white-cloaked figures moving about it, with courtesy grim and
+distant in all but Sir Robert Darcy, who could not even hate a Templar, a
+creature to the ordinary Hospitalier far more detestable than a Saracen.
+On then, up ground beginning to rise, below which the little muddy stream
+called the Flete stagnated along its way, meandering to the Thames.
+Thatched hovels and wooden booths left so narrow a passage that the
+horsemen were forced to move in single file, and did not gain a clearer
+space even when the stone houses of merchants began to stand thick on
+Ludgate Hill, their carved wooden balconies so projecting, that it would
+seem to have been an object with the citizens to be able to shake hands
+across the street.  The city was comparatively empty and quiet, as all
+the world were keeping holiday at Westminster; but even as it was, the
+passengers seemed to swarm in the streets, and knots of persons who had
+been unable to witness the spectacle, sat with gazing children upon the
+stairs outside the houses, to admire the fragments of the pageant that
+came their way.  Acclamations of delight greeted the appearance of the
+scarlet-mantled Hospitaliers, such as Richard had often heard in his
+boyhood, when riding in his father’s train, but far less frequently since
+he had been a part of the Prince’s retinue.  And equally diverse was the
+merry nod and smile of Sir Robert to each gaping shouting group of little
+ones, from the stately distant courtesy with which Edward returned the
+popular salutations.  He could be gracious—he could not be friendly
+except to a few.
+
+They passed the capitular buildings of St. Paul’s, with the beautiful
+cathedral towering over them, and in its rear, numerous booths for the
+purchase of rosaries—recent inventions then of St. Dominic, the great
+friend of Richard’s stern grandfather, the persecutor of the Albigenses.
+Sir Robert drew up, and declared he must buy one for the little maid as a
+remembrance of the day, and then found she was fast asleep; but he
+nevertheless purchased a black-beaded chaplet, giving for it one of the
+sorely-clipped coins of King Henry.
+
+“Prithee let me have one likewise, holy Sir,” quoth Richard, “in memory
+of the talk that hath taught me so much of the import of my crusading
+vow.”
+
+“Thou shalt bring me for it one of the olive of Bethlehem,” said Sir
+Robert; “I have given away all I brought from the East.  They are so
+great a boon to our poor sick folk that I wish I had brought twice as
+many, but to me they have always a Saracen look.  Your Moslem always
+fingers one much of the same fashion as he parleys.”
+
+Ludgate, freshly built, and adorned with new figures to represent the
+fabulous King Lud, was not yet closed for the night; and the party came
+forth beyond the walls, with the desolate Moorfields to their left, and
+before them a number of rising villages clustered round their churches.
+
+The Hospital, a grand fortified monastery, was already to be seen over
+the fields; but Sir Robert, sending home the rest of his troop, turned
+aside with Richard and Brother Hilary towards the common, with a border
+of cottages around it, which went by the name of Bednall Green.
+
+Brother Hilary knew the hut inhabited by Blind Hal, and led the way to
+it.  Low and mud-built, thatched, and with a wattled door, it had a
+wretched appearance; but the old woman who came to the door was not ill
+clad.  “Blessings on you, holy Father!” she cried; “do I see the child,
+my lamb, my lady-bird!  Would that she may come in time to cheer her poor
+father!”
+
+“How is it with him then, Gammer?” demanded Sir Robert, springing to the
+ground with the alacrity of a doctor anxious about his patient.
+
+“Ill, very ill, Sir.  Whether the horse’s feet hurt his old wound, or
+whether it be the loss of the child, he hath done nought but moan and
+rave, and lie as one dead ever since they brought him home.  He is lying
+in one of the dead swoons now!  It were not well that the child saw him.”
+
+But Bessee, awakening with a cry of joy, saw her borne, and struggled to
+go to her father, whose name she called on with all her might,
+disregarding the caresses of the old woman, and the endeavour made by
+Richard to restrain without alarming her, while Sir Robert went into the
+hut to endeavour to restore the sufferer.
+
+Suddenly a cry broke from within; and Richard, turning at the voice,
+beheld the blind man sitting up on his pallet with arms outstretched.
+“My child!—My Father! hast thou brought her to visit me in limbo?” he
+cried.
+
+“He raves!” said Richard, using his strength to withhold the child, who
+broke out into a shriek.
+
+“Nay, nay! she doth not abide here!” he exclaimed.  “Her spirit is pure!
+My sins are not visited on her beyond the grave!”
+
+“Thou art on the earthly side of the grave still, my son,” said Sir
+Robert, at the same time as Bessee sprang from Richard, and nestled on
+his breast, clinging to his neck.
+
+“My babe—my Bessee!” he exclaimed, gathering her close to him.  “Living,
+living, indeed!  Yet how may it be!  Surely this is the other world.
+That voice sounds not among the living!”
+
+“It is the voice of the youth who saved thy child,” said the Grand Prior.
+
+“Speak again!  Let him speak again!” implored the beggar.
+
+“Can I do aught for you, good man?” asked Richard.
+
+Again there was a strange start and thrill of amazement.
+
+“Only for Heaven’s sake tell me who thou art!”
+
+“A page of Prince Edward’s good man.  I am called Richard Fowen!  And
+who, for Heaven’s sake, are you?” added Richard, as Leonillo, who had
+been smelling about and investigating, threw himself on the blind man in
+a transport of caresses.  “Off, Leon—off!” cried Richard.  “It is but a
+dog!—Fear not, little one!—Tell me, tell me,” he added, trembling, as he
+knelt before the miserable object, holding back the eager Leonillo with
+one arm round his neck, “who art thou, thou ghost of former times?”
+
+“Knowst me not, Richard?” returned a suppressed voice in Provençal.
+
+“Henry!  Henry!” exclaimed Richard, and fell upon the foot of the low
+bed, weeping bitterly.  “Is it come to this?”
+
+“Ay, even to this,” said the blind man, “that two sons of one father meet
+unknown—one with a changed name, the other with none at all, neither with
+the honoured one they were born to.”
+
+“Alack, alack!” was all Richard could say at the first moment, as he
+lifted himself up to look again at the first-born of his parents, the
+head of the brave troop of brethren, the gay, handsome, imperious young
+Lord de Montfort, whose proud head and gallant bearing he had looked at
+with a younger brother’s imitative deference.  What did he see but a
+wreck of a man, sitting crouched on the wretched bed, the left arm a mere
+stump, a bandage where the bright sarcastic eyes used to flash forth
+their dark fire, deep scars on all the small portion of the face that was
+visible through the over-grown masses of hair and beard, so plentifully
+sprinkled with white, that it would have seemed incredible that this man
+was but eight months older than the Prince, whose rival he had always
+been in personal beauty and activity.  The beautiful child, clasped close
+to his breast, her face buried on his shoulder under his shaggy locks,
+was a strange contrast to his appearance, but only added to the look of
+piteous helplessness and desolation, as she hung upon him in her alarm at
+the agitation around her.
+
+Richard had long been accustomed to think of his brother as dead; but
+such a spectacle as this was far more terrible to him, and his cheek
+blanched at the shock, as he gasped again, “Thou here, and thus! thou
+whom I thought slain!”
+
+“Deem me so still,” said his brother, “even as I deem the royal minion
+dead to me.”
+
+“Nay, Henry, thou knowst not.”
+
+“Who is present?” interrupted the blind man, raising his head and tossing
+back his hair with a gesture that for the first time gave Richard a sense
+that his eldest brother was indeed before him.  “Methought I heard
+another voice.”
+
+“I am here, fair son,” replied the old knight, “Father Robert of the
+Hospital!  I will either leave thee, or keep thy secret as though it were
+thy shrift; but thou art sore spent, and mayst scarce talk more.”
+
+“Weariness and pain are past, Father, with my little one again in my
+bosom,” said Henry; “and there are matters that must be spoken between me
+and this young brother of mine ere he quits this hut;” and his voice
+resumed its old authoritative tone towards Richard.  “Said you that he
+had saved my child?”
+
+“He drew me from the river, Father,” said Bessee looking up.  “There was
+nothing to stand on, and it was so cold!  And he took me in his arms and
+pulled me out, and put me in a boat; and the lady pulled off my blue
+coat, and put this one on me.  Feel it, Father; oh, so pretty, so warm!”
+
+“It was the Princess,” said Richard; but Henry, not noticing, continued,
+
+“Thou hast earned my pardon, Richard,” and held out his remaining hand,
+somewhere towards the height where his brother’s used to be.
+
+Sir Robert smiled, saying, “Thou dost miscalculate thy brother’s stature,
+son.”  And at the same moment Richard, who was now little short of his
+Cousin Edward in height, was kneeling by Henry, accepting and returning
+his embrace with agitation and gratitude, such as showed how their
+relative positions in the family still maintained their force; but
+Richard still asserted his independence so as to say, “When you have
+heard all, brother you will see that there is no need of pardoning me.”
+
+Henry, however, as perhaps Sir Robert had foreseen, instead of answering
+put his hand to his side, and sank back in a paroxysm of pain, ending in
+another swoon.  The child stood by, quiet and frightened but too much
+used to similar occurrences to be as much terrified as was Richard, who
+thought his brother dying; but calling in the serving-brother, the old
+Hospitalier did all that was needed, and the blind man presently
+recovered and explained in a feeble voice that he had been jostled,
+thrown down, and trodden on, at the moment when he lost his hold of his
+little daughter; and this was evidently renewing his sufferings from the
+effect of an injury received in battle.  “And what took thee there, son?”
+said Sir Robert, somewhat sharply.
+
+“The harvest, Father,” answered Henry, rousing himself to speak with a
+certain sarcasm in his tone.  “It is the beggars’ harvest wherever King
+Henry goes.  We brethren of the wallet cannot afford to miss such
+windfalls.”
+
+“A beggar!” exclaimed Richard in horror.
+
+“And what art thou?” retorted Henry, with a sudden fierceness.
+
+“Listen, young men,” said Sir Robert, “this I know, my patient there will
+soon be nothing if ye continue in this strain.  A litter shall bring him
+to the infirmary.”
+
+“Nay,” said Henry hastily, “not so, good Father.  Here I abide, hap what
+may.”
+
+“And I abide with him,” said Richard.
+
+“Not so, I say,” returned the Hospitalier, “unless thou wouldst slay him
+outright.  Return to the Spital with me; and at morn, if he have
+recovered himself, unravel these riddles as thou and he will.”
+
+“It is well, Father,” said Henry.  “Go with him, Richard; but mark me.
+Be silent as the grave, and see me again.”
+
+And reluctant as he was, Richard was forced to comply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE BEGGAR EARL
+
+
+    “Along with the nobles that fell at that tyde,
+    His eldest son Henrye, who fought by his syde,
+    Was felde by a blow he receivde in the fight;
+    A blow that for ever deprivde him of sight.”
+
+                                                             _Old Beggar_.
+
+THE chapel at the Spital was open to all who chose to attend.  The deep
+choir was filled with the members of the Order, half a dozen knights in
+the stalls, and the novices and serving-brothers so ranged as to give
+full effect to the body of voice.  Richard knelt on the stone floor
+outside the choir, intending after early mass to seek his brother; but to
+his surprise he found the blind man with his child at his feet in what
+was evidently his accustomed place, just within the door.  His hair and
+beard were now arranged, his appearance was no longer squalid; but when
+he rose to depart, guided in part by the child, but also groping with a
+stick, he looked even more helpless than on his bed, and Richard sprang
+forward to proffer an arm for his support.
+
+“Flemish cloth and frieze gown,” said the object of his solicitude in a
+strange gibing voice; “court page and street beggar—how now, my master?”
+
+“Lord Earl and elder brother,” returned Richard, “thine is my service
+through life.”
+
+“Mine?  Ho, ho!  That much for thy service!” with a disdainful gesture of
+his fingers.  “A strapping lad like thee would be the ruin of my trade.
+I might as well give up bag and staff at once.”
+
+“Nay, surely, wilt thou not?” exclaimed Richard in broken words from his
+extreme surprise.  “The King and Prince only long to pardon and restore,
+and—”
+
+“And thou wouldst well like to lord it at Kenilworth, earl in all but the
+name?  Thou mayst do so yet without being cumbered with me or mine!”
+
+“Thou dost me wrong, Henry,” said Richard, much distressed.  “I love the
+Prince, for none so truly honoured our blessed father as he, and for his
+sake he hath been most kind lord to me; but thou art the head of my
+house, my brother, and with all my heart do I long to render thee such
+service as—as may lighten these piteous sufferings.”
+
+“I believe thee, Richard; thou wert ever an honest simple-hearted lad,”
+said Henry, in a different tone; “but the only service thou canst render
+me is to let me alone, and keep my secret.  Here—I feel that we are at
+the stone bench, where I bask in the sun, and lay out my dish for the
+visitors of the gracious Order.—Here, Bessee, child, put the dish down,”
+he added, retaining his hold of his brother, as if to feel whether
+Richard winced at this persistence in his strange profession.  The little
+girl obeyed, and betook herself to the quiet sports of a lonely child,
+amusing herself with Leonillo, and sometimes returning to her father and
+obtaining his attention for a few moments, sometimes prattling to some
+passing brother of the Order, who perhaps made all the more of the pretty
+creature because this might be called an innocent breach of discipline.
+“And now, Master Page,” said Henry in his tone of authority, yet with
+some sarcasm, “let us hear how long-legged Edward finished the work he
+had began on thee at Hereford—made thee captive in the battle, eh?”
+
+Richard briefly narrated his life with Gourdon, and his capture by the
+Prince, adding, “My mother was willing I should remain with him; she bade
+me do anything rather than join Simon and Guy; and verily, brother, save
+that the Prince is less free of speech, his whole life seems moulded upon
+our blessed father’s—”
+
+“Speak not of them in the same breath,” cried Henry hastily.  “And
+wherefore—if such be his honour to him whom he slew and mutilated—art
+thou to disown thy name, and stand before him like some chance
+foundling?”
+
+“That was the King’s doing,” said Richard.  “The Prince was averse to it,
+but King Henry, though he wept over me and called me his dear nephew,
+made it his special desire that he might not hear the name of Montfort;
+and the Prince, though overruling him in all that pertains to matters of
+state, is most dutiful in all lesser matters.  I hoped at least to be
+called Fitz Simon, but some mumble of the King turned it into Fowen, and
+so it has continued.  I believe no one at court is really ignorant of my
+lineage; but among the people, Montfort is still a trumpet-call, and the
+King fears to hear it.”
+
+“Well he may!” laughed Henry.  “Rememberest thou, Richard, the sorry
+figure our good uncle cut, when we armed him so courteously, and put him
+on his horse to meet the rebels at Evesham—how he durst not hang back,
+and loved still less to go onward, and kept calling me his loving nephew
+all the time?”
+
+“Ah!  Henry—but didst thou not hear my father mutter, when he saw the
+crowned helm under the standard, that it was ill done, and no good could
+come of seething the kid in the mother’s milk?  And verily, had not the
+Prince been carrying his father from the field, I trow the Mortimers had
+not refused us quarter, nor had their cruel will of us.”
+
+“Oh ho! thou art come to have opinions of thine own!” laughed Henry, with
+the scoff of a senior unable to brook that his younger brother should
+think for himself.  Yet this tone was so familiar to Richard’s ears, that
+it absolutely encouraged him to a nearer step to intimacy.  He said, “But
+how scapedst thou, Henry?  I could have sworn that I saw thee fall, skull
+and helmet cleft, a dead man!”
+
+Instead of answering, Henry put his hand under the chin of his child, who
+was leaning against him, and holding up her face to his brother, said,
+“Thou canst see this child’s face?  Tell me what like she is.”
+
+“Like little Eleanor, like Amaury.  The home-look of her eyes won my
+heart at once.  Even the Princess remarked their resemblance to mine.
+Think of Eleanor and thy mind’s eye will see her.”
+
+“No other likeness?” said the blind man wistfully; “but no—thou wast at
+Hereford when she was at Odiham.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+He grasped Richard’s hand, and under his breath uttered the name
+“Isabel.”
+
+“Isabel Mortimer!” exclaimed Richard, who had been, of course, aware of
+his brother’s betrothal, when the two families of Montfort and Mortimer
+had been on friendly terms; “we heard she had taken the veil!”
+
+“And so thou sawst me slain!” said Henry de Montfort dryly.
+
+“But how—how was it?” asked Richard eagerly.
+
+“Men sometimes tie knots faster than they intend,” said Henry.  “When
+Roger Mortimer took Simon’s doings in wrath, and vowed that his sister
+should never wed a Montfort, he knew not what he did.  He and his proud
+wife could flout and scorn my Isabel—they might not break her faith to
+me.  Thou knowst, perhaps, Richard, since thou art hand and glove with
+our foes, that like a raven to the slaughter, the Lady Mortimer came as
+near the battle-field as her care for her dainty person would allow; and
+there was one whom she brought with her.  And, gentle dame, what doth she
+do but carry her sister-in-law a sweet and womanly gift?  What thinkst
+thou it was, Richard?”
+
+“I fear I know,” said Richard, choked; “my father’s hand.”
+
+“Nay, that was a choicer morsel reserved for my lady countess herself.
+It was mine own, with our betrothal-ring thereon.  Now, quoth that loving
+sister, might Isabel resume her ring.  No plighted troth could be her
+excuse any longer for refusing to wed my Lord of Gloucester.  Then rose
+up my love, ‘It beckons me!’ she said, and bade them leave it with her.
+They deemed that it was for death that it beckoned.  So mayhap did she.
+I wot Countess Maud had little grieved.  But little dreamed they of her
+true purpose—my perfect jewel of constant love—namely, to restore the
+lopped hand to the poor corpse, that it might likewise have Christian
+burial.  Her old nurse, Welsh Winny, was as true to her as she was to me;
+and forth they sped, fearless of the spoilers, and made their way at
+nightfall even to the Abbey Church, where Edward, less savage than the
+fair countess, had caused us to be laid before the altar, awaiting our
+burial in the vaults.”
+
+“Thou wert senseless all this time?”
+
+“Ay, and so continued.  The pang when my hand was severed had roused me
+for a few moments, but only to darkness; and my effort to speak had been
+rewarded with as many Welsh knives as could pierce my flesh at once.”
+
+“And thou didst not bleed to death?”
+
+“The swoon checked my blood.  And the monks of Evesham must have
+staunched and bandaged so as to make a decent corpse of me.  Had they had
+a man-at-arms among them, they would have known that mine were not the
+wounds of a dead but of a living man.  The old nurse knew it, when my
+sweet lady would needs unbind my wrist, to place my hand in its right
+place.  An old crone such as Welsh Winny never stirs without her cordial
+potion.  They poured it into my lips—and if I were never more to awake to
+the light of day, I awoke to the sound that was yet dearer to me—while,
+alas! it still was left to me.”
+
+He became silent, till Richard’s question drew him on.
+
+“What with their care and support, when once on my feet I found strength
+to stumble out of the chapel and gain shelter in the woods ere day; and I
+believe the monks got credit for their zeal in casting out the
+excommunicate body.”
+
+“Not credit,” said Richard; “the Prince was full of grief, more
+especially as they all disavowed the deed.  But, brother, art thou
+excommunicate still?”
+
+“Far from it, most pious Crusader.  If seas of holy wells could assoil
+me, I should be pure enough.  My sweet Isabel deemed that some such
+washing might bring back mine eyesight; and from one to another we
+wandered as my limbs could bear it.  And at St. Winifred’s there was a
+priest who told us strange tales of the miracles wrought in the Mortimer
+household by my father’s severed hand; nay, that it had so worked on Lord
+Mortimer’s sister, that she had left the vanities of the world, and gone
+into a nunnery.  He seemed so convinced of my father’s saintliness, and
+so honest a fellow, that Isabel insisted on unbosoming ourselves to him
+under seal of confession.  No longer was the old nurse to be my mother
+and she my sister; and the good man made no difficulties, but absolved
+me, and wedded me to the truest, most loving wife that ever blessed a man
+bereft of all else.”
+
+“And you begged!  O Henry, the noble lady—”
+
+“At first we had the knightly chain and spurs in which the monks had
+kindly pranked me up.  Isabel too had worn a few jewels; but after all, a
+palmer need never hunger.  My father always said no trade was so well
+paid as begging, under King Henry, and verily we found it so.  She used
+at times to gather berries and thread them for chaplets to sell at the
+holy wells; but I trow sheer beggary throve better!”
+
+“But wherefore?  Even had pardon not been ready, Simon held out
+Kenilworth for months.”
+
+Henry laughed his dry laugh.
+
+“Simple boy, dost think I would trust Simon with an elder brother whose
+hand could no longer keep his head?”
+
+“And my mother—”
+
+“She had always hated the Mortimers, even when the contract was matter of
+policy.  Would I have taken my sweet Isabel to abide her royal scorn, it
+might be incredulity of our marriage?  Though for that matter it is more
+unimpeachable than her own!  Nay, nay, out of ken and out of reach was
+our only security from our kin on either side, unless we desired that my
+head should follow my hand as a dainty dish for Countess Maud.”
+
+“How could the lady brook it?”
+
+“She dyed her fair skin with walnut, wore russet gown and hood, and was a
+very nightingale for blitheness and sweet song through that first year,”
+said Henry; “blither than ever when that little one was born in the
+sunshiny days of Whitsuntide.  I tell thee, those were happier days than
+ever I passed as Lord de Montfort at Kenilworth.  But after that, the
+bruised hurt in my side, which had never healed when the cleaner gashes
+did, became more painful and troublesome.  Holy wells did nothing for it;
+and she wasted with watching it, as though my pain had been hers.  Naught
+would serve her but coming here, because she had been told that the
+Knights of St. John had better experience of old battle-wounds than any
+men in the realm.  Much ado had we to get here—the young babe in her
+arms, and I well-nigh distraught with pain.  We crept into this same hut,
+and I had a weary sickness throughout the winter—living, I know not how,
+by the bounty of the Spital, and by the works of her fingers, which Winny
+would take out to sell on feast-days in the city.  Oh that eyes had been
+left me to note how she pined away! but I had scarce felt how thin and
+bony were her tender fingers ere the blasts of the cruel March wind
+finished the work.”
+
+“Alack! alack! poor Henry,” said Richard; “never, never was lady of
+romaunt so noble, and so true!”
+
+“No more,” said Henry hastily, leaning his brow on the top of his staff.
+“Come hither, Bessee,” he added after a brief pause; “say thy prayer for
+thy blessed mother, child.”
+
+And holding out his one hand, he inclosed her two clasped ones within it,
+as the little voice ran over an utterly unintelligible form of childishly
+clipped Latin, sounding, however, sweet and birdlike from the very
+liberties the little memory had taken in twisting its mellifluous words
+into a rhythm of her own.  And there was catchword enough for Richard to
+recognize and follow it, with bonnet doffed, and crossing himself.
+
+“And now,” he said, “surely the need for secrecy is ended.  The land is
+tranquil, the King ruled by the Prince, the Prince owning all the past
+folly and want of faith that goaded our father into resistance.
+Wherefore not seek his willing favour?  Thou art ever a pilgrim.  Be with
+us in the crusade.  Who knows what the Jordan waves may effect for thee?”
+
+“No, no,” grimly laughed Henry.  “Dost think any favour would make it
+tolerable to be wept over and pitied by the King—pitied by _the King_,”
+he repeated in ineffable disgust; “or to be the show of the court, among
+all that knew me of old, when I _was_ a man?  Hob the cobbler, and Martin
+the bagster, are better company than Pembroke and Gloucester, and I meet
+with more humours on Cheapside than I should at Winchester—more regard
+too.  Why, they deem me threescore years old at least, and I am a very
+oracle of wisdom among them.  Earl of Leicester, forsooth! he would be
+nobody compared with Blind Hal!  And as to freedom—with child and staff
+the whole country and city are before me—no shouts to dull retainers, and
+jackanape pages to set my blind lordship on horseback, without his bridle
+hand, and lead him at their will anywhere but at his own.
+
+“All this I can understand for thyself,” said Richard; “but for thy
+child’s sake canst thou not be moved?”
+
+“My child, quotha?  What, when her Uncle Simon is true grandson to King
+John?”
+
+Richard started.  “I cannot believe what thou sayest of Simon,” he
+answered in displeasure.
+
+“One day thou wilt,” calmly answered Henry; “but I had rather not have it
+proved upon the heiress of Leicester and Montfort.”
+
+“Leicester is forfeit—Simon an outlawed man.”
+
+“If the humour for pardon is set in, Cousin Edward is no man to do things
+by halves.  If he owned me at all, the lands would be mine again, and
+such a bait would be smelt out by Simon were he at the ends of the earth.
+Or if not, that poor child would be granted to any needy kinsman or
+grasping baron that Edward wanted to portion.  My child shall be my own,
+and none other’s.  Better a beggar’s brat than an earl’s heiress!”
+
+“She is a lovely little maiden.  I know not how thou canst endure letting
+her grow up in poverty, an alien from her birth and rank.”
+
+“Poverty,” Henry laughed.  “Little knowest thou of the jolly beggar’s
+business!  I would fain wager thee, Richard, that pretty Bessee’s
+marriage-portion shall be a heavier bag of gold than the Lady Elizabeth
+de Montfort would gather by all the aids due to her father from his
+vassals—and won moreover without curses.”
+
+“But who would be the bridegroom?”
+
+“Her own choice, not the King’s,” answered Henry briefly.
+
+“And this is all,” said Richard, perceiving that according to the
+previous day’s agreement the cream-coloured elephant of a German horse
+was being led forth for his use, and Sir Robert preparing to accompany
+him.  “I must leave thee in this strange condition?”
+
+“Ay, that must thou.  Betray me, and thou shalt have the curse of the
+head of thine house.  Had thy voice not become so strangely like my
+father’s, I had never made myself known to thee.”
+
+“I will see thee again.”
+
+“That will be as thou canst.  I trow Edward hardly gives freedom enough
+to his pages for them to pay visits unknown,” replied Henry, with a
+strange sneering triumph in his own wild liberty.
+
+“If aught ails thee, if I can aid thee, swear to me that thou wilt send
+to me.”
+
+Henry laughed with somewhat of a tone of mockery, adding, “Well,
+well—keep thou thy plight to me so long as I want thee not, and I will
+keep mine to thee if ever I should need thee.  Now away with thee.  I
+hear the horses impatient for thee; and what would be the lot of the
+beggar if he were seen chattering longer with a lordly young page than
+might suffice for his plaint?  I hear voices.  Put a tester in my dish,
+fair Sir, for appearance’ sake.  Thou hast it not? aha—I told thee I was
+the richer as well as the freer man.  What’s that?  That is no ring of
+coin.”
+
+“’Tis a fair jewel, father, green and sparkling,” cried Bessee.
+
+“Nay, nay, I’ll have none of it.  Some token from thy new masters?  Ha,
+boy?”
+
+“From the Princess, on New Year’s Day,” replied Richard.  “But keep it,
+oh, keep it, Henry; it breaks my heart to leave thee thus.”
+
+“Keep it!  Not I.  What wouldst say to thy dainty dame?  Nor should I get
+half its value from the Jews.  No, no, take back thy jewel, Sir Page;
+I’ll not put thee in need of telling more lies than becomes thine
+office.”
+
+Richard glowed with irritation; but what was the use of anger with a
+blind beggar?  And while Henry bestowed far more demonstration of
+affection on Leonillo than on his brother, it became needful to mount and
+ride off, resolving to tell the Prince and Princess, what would be no
+falsehood, that the child belonged to a Kenilworth man-at-arms, sorely
+wounded at Evesham, and at present befriended by the Knights of St. John.
+
+Old Sir Robert Darcy knew so much that it was needful to confide fully in
+him; and he gave Richard some satisfaction by a promise to watch over his
+brother as far as was possible with a man of such uncertain vagrant
+habits; and he likewise engaged to let him know, even in the Holy Land,
+of any change in the beggar’s condition; and this, considering the
+wide-spread connections of the Order, and that some of its members were
+sure to be in any crusading army, was all that Richard could reasonably
+hope.
+
+“Canst write?” asked Sir Robert.
+
+“Yea, Father.”
+
+“I could once!  But if there be need to send thee a scroll, I’ll take
+care it is writ by a trusty hand.”
+
+More than this Richard could not hope.  There had always been a strange
+self-willed wildness of character about his eldest brother, who, though
+far less violent and overbearing in actual deed than the two next in age,
+Simon and Guy, had contrived to incur even greater odium than they, by
+his mocking careless manner and love of taunts and gibing.  Simon de
+Montfort the elder had indeed strangely failed in the bringing up of his
+sons.  Whether it were that their royal connection had inflated them with
+pride, or that the King’s indulgence had counteracted the good effects of
+the admirable education provided for them at home, they had done little
+justice to their parentage, or to their tutor, the excellent Robert
+Grostête.  Perhaps the Earl himself was too affectionate: perhaps his
+occupation in public affairs hindered him from enforcing family
+discipline.  At any rate, neither of the elder three could have been
+naturally endowed with his largeness of mind, and high unselfish views.
+He was a man before his age; not only deeply pious, but with a devoted
+feeling for justice and mercy carried into all the details of life, till
+his loyalty to the law overcame his loyalty to the King.  Simon and Guy,
+on the other hand, were commonplace young nobles of the thirteenth
+century, heedless of all but themselves, and disdaining all beneath them;
+and when their father had seized the reins of government in order to
+enforce the laws that the King would not observe, they saw in his
+elevation a means of gratifying themselves, and being above all law.  The
+cry throughout England had been that Simon’s “sons made themselves vile,
+and he restrained them not.”
+
+Henry de Montfort had not indeed, like his brothers, plundered the ships
+in the Channel, extorted money from peaceful yeomen, nor insulted the
+poor old captive King to his face; but his deference had been more
+galling than their defiance; his scornful smiles and keen cutting jests
+had mortally offended many a partizan; and when positive work was to be
+done, Simon with all his fierceness and cruelty was far more to be
+depended on than Henry, who might at any time fly off upon some
+incalculable freak.  To Richard’s boyish recollection, if Simon had been
+the most tyrannical towards him in deed, Henry had been infinitely more
+annoying and provoking in the lesser arts of teasing.
+
+And looking back on the past, he could understand how intolerable a life
+of helplessness would be among the equals whom Henry had so often stung
+with his keen wit, and that to a man of his peculiar tone of mind there
+was infinitely more liberty in thus sinking to the lowest depths, where
+his infirmities were absolute capital to him, than in being hedged about
+with the restraints of his rank.  Any way, it was impossible to
+interfere, even for the child’s sake, and all Richard could do to console
+himself was to look forward to his return from the Crusade an esquire or
+even a knight, with exploits that Henry might respect—a standing in the
+Court that would give him some right to speak—perhaps in time a home and
+lady wife to whom his brother would intrust his child, who would then be
+growing out of a mere toy.  Or might not his services win him a fresh
+grant of the earldom, and could he not then prove his sincerity by laying
+it at the true Earl’s feet?
+
+Pretty Bessee, too!  Richard remembered stories current in the family, of
+their grandmother, Amicia, Countess of Leicester in her own right, being
+forced when a young girl to wed the stern grim old persecuting Simon de
+Montfort, and how vain had been her struggles against her doom.  He lost
+himself in graceful romantic visions of the young knight whose love he
+would watch and foster, and whose marriage to his lovely niece should be
+securely concluded ere her rank should be made known, when her guardian
+uncle would yield all to her.  And from that day forth Richard looked out
+with keen eyes among the playfellows of the little princes for Bessee’s
+future knight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+AMONG THE RUINS OF CARTHAGE
+
+
+    “But man is more than law, and I may have
+    Some impress of myself upon the world;
+    One poor brief life, helping to feed the flame
+    Of chivalry, and keep alive the truth
+    That courage, honour, mercy, make a knight.”
+
+                                                _Queen Isabel_, _by S. M._
+
+“LAND in sight!  Cheer up, John, my man!” said Richard, leaning over a
+bundle of cloaks that lay on the deck of a Genoese galley.
+
+The cross floated high aloft, accompanied by the lions of English
+royalty; the bulwark was hung round with blazoned shields, and the
+graceful white sails were filled by a gay breeze that sent the good ship
+dancing over the crested waves of the Mediterranean, in company with many
+another of her gallant sisters, crowded with the chivalry of England.
+
+Woeful was however the plight of great part of that chivalry.  Merrily
+merrily bounded the bark, but her sport felt very like death to many of
+her freight, and among others to poor little John de Mohun.
+
+His father, Baron Mohun of Dunster, had been deeply implicated in the
+Barons’ Wars, and had been a personal friend of the Earl of Leicester,
+from whom he had only separated himself in consequence of the outrageous
+exactions and acts of insolence perpetrated by the young Montforts.  He
+had indeed received a disabling wound while fighting on the Prince’s side
+at Evesham; but his submission had been thought so insecure that his son
+and heir had been required of him, ostensibly as page, but really as
+hostage.
+
+In spite of his Norman surname, little John of Dunster was, at twelve
+years old, a sturdy thoroughgoing English lad, with the strongest
+possible hatred to all foreigners, whom with grand indifference to
+natural history he termed “locusts sucking the blood of Englishmen.”  Not
+a word or command would he understand except in his mother tongue; and no
+blows nor reproofs had sufficed to tame his sturdy obstinacy.  The other
+pages had teased, fagged, and bullied him to their hearts’ content,
+without disturbing his determination to go his own way; and his only
+friend and protector had been Richard, whom, under the name of Fowen, he
+took for a genuine Englishman, and loved with all his heart.  If anything
+would ever cure him of his wilful awkwardness and dogged bashfulness, it
+was likely to be the kindness of Richard—above all, in the absence of the
+tormentors, for Hamlyn de Valence alone of the other pages had been
+selected to attend upon the Prince in this expedition; and he, though
+scornful and peremptory, did not think the boy worthy of his attention,
+and did not actively tease him.
+
+At present Hamlyn de Valence, as well as most others of the passengers,
+lay prostrate; scarcely alive even to the assurance of Richard, who had
+still kept his feet, that the outline of the hills was quickly becoming
+distinct, and that they were fast entering the gulf where lay the fleet
+that had brought the crusaders of France and Sicily, whom they hoped to
+join in the conquest and conversion of Tunis.  On arriving at Aigues
+Mortes, they had found that the French King had already sailed for
+Sicily; and following him thither, learnt that his brother, Charles of
+Anjou, had persuaded him to begin his crusade by a descent on Tunis, to
+which the Sicilian crown was said to have some claim; that he had sailed
+thither at once, and Charles had followed him so soon as the Genoese
+transports could return for the Sicilian troops.
+
+“I see the masts!” exclaimed Richard; “the bay is crowded with them!
+There must be a goodly force.  Yonder are two headlands; within them we
+shall have smoother water—see—”
+
+“What strikes thee so suddenly silent?” growled one of the muffled
+figures stretched on deck.
+
+“The ensigns are but half-mast high, my Lord,” returned Richard in an
+awe-struck voice; “the lilies of France are hung drooping downward.”
+
+“These plaguy southern winds at their tricks,” muttered at first Earl
+Gilbert of Gloucester, for he it was who had spoken, though Richard had
+not known him to be so near; then sitting up, he came to a fuller view:
+“Hm—it looks ill!  Thou canst keep thy feet, Fowen, or what do they call
+thee?  Down with thee to the cabin, and let the Prince know.”
+
+Stepping across the prostrate forms, and meeting with vituperations as he
+trode, Richard made his way to the ladder that led below, and notified
+his presence behind the curtain that veiled the royal cabin.  He was
+summoned to enter at once.  The Prince was endeavouring to write at a
+swinging-table, the Princess lay white and resigned on a couch, attended
+on by Dame Idonea (or more properly Iduna) Osbright, a lady who had lost
+her husband in a former Crusade, and had ever since been a sort of
+high-born head nurse in the palace.  A Danish skald, who had once been at
+the English court, had said that she seemed to have eaten her namesake’s
+apple of immortality, without her apple of beauty, for no one could ever
+remember to have seen her other than a tiny dried-up old witch, with keen
+gray eyes, a sharp tongue, an ever ready foot and hand, and a frame
+utterly unaffected by any of the influences so sinister to far younger
+and stronger ones.  Devoted to all the royal family, her special passion
+was for Prince Edmund, who, in his mother’s repugnance to his deformity,
+had been left almost entirely to her, and she had accompanied the
+Princess Eleanor all the more willingly from her desire to look after her
+favourite nursling.
+
+“There, Lady,” said Edward to his wife, “the tossing is all but over;
+here is Richard come to tell us that we are nigh on land.”
+
+“Even so, my Lord,” returned Richard; “we are entering the gulf, but my
+Lord of Gloucester has sent me to report to you that in all the ships the
+colours are trailing.”
+
+“Sayst thou?” exclaimed the Prince, hastily laying aside his writing
+materials.  “Fear not, _mi Dona_, I will return anon and tell thee how it
+is.  We are in smoother water already.”
+
+“So much smoother that I will come with thee out of this stifling cabin,”
+said Eleanor.  “O would that we had been in time for thee to have
+counselled thine uncles—”
+
+“We will see what we have to grieve for ere we bemoan ourselves,” said
+the Prince.  “My good uncle of France would put his whole fleet in
+mourning for one barefooted friar!”
+
+“Depend on it, my Lord, ’tis mourning for something in earnest,”
+interposed Dame Iduna; “I said it was not for nothing that a single pyot
+came and rocked up his ill-omened tail while we were taking horse for
+this expedition, and my Lady there was kissing the little ones at home,
+nor that a hare ran over our road at Bagshot—”
+
+“Well, Dame,” interposed the Prince good-humouredly, seeing his wife
+somewhat affected by the list of omens, “I know you have a horse-shoe in
+your luggage, so you will come safe off, whoever does not!”
+
+“And what matters what my luck is,” returned the Dame, “an old beldame
+such as me, so long as you and your brother come off safe, and find the
+blessed princes at home well and sound?  Would that we were out of this
+sandy hole, or that any one would resolve me why we cannot go straight to
+Jerusalem when we are about it!”
+
+The Dame had delayed them while she spoke, in order to adjust the
+Princess’s muffler over her somewhat dishevelled locks; but Eleanor
+seeing that her husband was impatient, put a speedy end to her
+operations, and took his arm.
+
+Meantime the vessel had come within the Gulf of Goletta, and others of
+the passengers had revived, and were standing on deck to watch their
+entrance into the very harbour that two thousand years before had
+sheltered the storm-tossed fleet of Æneas; but if the Trojan had there
+found a wooded haven, the groves and sylvan shades must long since have
+been destroyed, for to the new-comers the bay appeared inclosed by spits
+of sand, though there was a rising ground in front that cut off the view.
+In the centre of the bay was a low sandy islet, covered with remains of
+masonry, and with a fort in the midst.  On this was mounted the French
+banner, but likewise drooping; and all around it lay the ships with
+furled sails and trailing ensigns, giving them an inexpressibly
+mysterious look of woe, like living creatures with folded wings and
+vailed crests, lying on the face of the waters in a silent sleep of
+sorrow.  There was an awe of suspense that kept each one on the deck
+silent, unable to utter the conjecture that weighed upon his breast.
+
+A boat was already putting off, and its quick movements seemed to mar the
+solemn stillness, as, impelled by the regular strokes of a dozen dark
+handsome Genoese mariners with gaily-tinted caps, it shot towards the
+vessel.  A Genoese captain in graver garb sat at the helm, and as they
+came alongside, a whisper, almost a shudder, seemed to thrill upwards
+from the boat to the crew, and through them to the passengers, “_Il Rè_!”
+“_il Rè santo_,” “_il Rè di Francia_.”  It seemed to have pervaded the
+whole ship even before the Genoese had had time to take the rope flung to
+him and to climb up the ship’s side, where as his fellow-captain greeted
+him, he asked hastily for the _Principe Inglese_.
+
+For Edward had not come forward, but was standing with his back against
+the mainmast, with colourless cheek and eyes set and fixed.  Eleanor
+looked up to him in silence, aware that he was mastering vehement
+agitation, and would endure no token of sympathy or sorrow that would
+unnerve him when dignity required firmness.  To him, Louis IX., the
+husband of his mother’s sister, had been the guiding friend and noble
+pattern denied to him in his father; and Eleanor, intrusted to his
+uncle’s care during the troubles of England, a maiden wife in her first
+years of womanhood, had been formed and moulded by that holy and upright
+influence.  To both the loss was as that of a father; and the murmur
+among the sailors was to them as a voice saying, “Knowest thou that God
+will take away thy master from thy head to-day?”  For the moment,
+however, the Princess’s sole thought was how her husband would bear it,
+and she watched anxiously till the struggle was over, in the space of a
+few seconds, and he met the Genoese with his usual reserved courtesy; and
+returning his salutation, signed to him to communicate his tidings.
+
+They were however brief, for the captain had held by his ship, and all he
+knew was that deadly sickness, fever, and plague had raged in the camp.
+The Papal Legate was dead, and the good King of France.  His son was dead
+too, and many another beside.
+
+“Which son?”
+
+“Not the eldest—he lay sick, but there were hopes of him; but the little
+one—he had been carried on board his ship, but it had not saved him.”
+
+“Poor little Tristan!” sighed Eleanor; “true Cross-bearer, born in one
+hapless Crusade to die in another.”
+
+“The King of Sicily?” demanded Edward between his teeth.
+
+“He had arrived the very day of his brother’s death,” said the Genoese;
+“and when he had seen how matters stood, he had concluded a truce with
+the King of Tunis, and intended to sail as soon as the new King of France
+could bear to be moved.”
+
+In the meantime the vessel had been anchored, and preparations were made
+for landing; but the Princes impatience to hear details would not brook
+even the delay of waiting till his horse could be set ashore.  He
+committed to the Earl of Gloucester the charge of encamping his men on
+the island, left a message with him for his brother Edmund, who was in
+another ship, and perceiving that Richard had suffered the least of all
+his suite, summoned him to attend him in the boat which was at once
+lowered.
+
+This would have been a welcome call had not Richard found that poor
+little John de Mohun had not revived like the other passengers, but still
+lay inert and sometimes moaning.  All Richard could do was to beg the
+groom specially attached to the pages’ service, to have a care of the
+little fellow, and get him sheltered in a tent as soon as possible; but
+the Prince never suffered any hesitation in obeying him, and it was
+needful to hurry at once into the boat.
+
+Without a word, the Prince with long swift strides, in the light of the
+sinking sun, walked up the low hill, the same where erst the pious Æneas
+climbed with his faithful Achates following.  From the brow the Trojan
+prince had beheld the rising city in the valley—the English prince came
+on its desolation.  Yet nature had made the vale lovely—green with
+well-watered verdure, fields of beauteous green maize, graceful date
+palms, and majestic cork trees; and among them were white flat-roofed
+Moorish houses; but many a black stain on the fair landscape told of the
+fresh havoc of an invading army.
+
+Utterly blotted out was Carthage.  Half demolished, half choked with
+sand, the city of Dido, the city of Hannibal, the city of Cyprian—all had
+vanished alike, and nothing remained erect but a Moorish fortress, built
+up with fragments of the huge stones of the old Phoenicians, intermixed
+with the friezes and sculptures of Græcising Rome, and the whole fabric
+in the graceful Saracenic taste; while completing the strange mixture of
+periods, another of those mournful French banners drooped from the
+battlements, and around it spread the white tents of the armies of France
+and the Two Sicilies, like it with trailing banners; an orphaned
+plague-stricken host in a ruined city.
+
+While the Prince paused for a moment’s glance, a party of knights came
+spurring up the hill, who had been ordered off to meet him on the first
+intelligence that his fleet was in sight, but had been taken by surprise
+by his alertness.
+
+They met with bowed heads and dejected mien; and there was one who hid
+his face and wept aloud as he exclaimed, “Ah!  Messire, our holy King
+loved you well!”
+
+“Alas, beau sire Guillaume de Porçeles!” was all that Edward could say,
+as with tears in his eyes he held out his hand to the good Provençal
+knight, adding, “Let me hear!”
+
+The knight, leading his horse and walking by Edward’s side, told how the
+King had been induced to make his descent on Tunis, from some wild hope
+of the king’s conversion, which had been magnified by Charles of Anjou,
+from his dislike to let so gallant an army pass by without endeavouring
+to obtain some personal advantage to his own realm of Sicily.  Though a
+vassal of Beatrix of Provence, the Sire de Porçeles was no devoted
+admirer of her husband, Charles of Anjou, and spoke with no concealment
+of the unhappy perversion of the Crusade.  Charles of Anjou was
+all-powerful with the court of Rome, and in crusading matters Louis
+deemed it right absolutely to surrender to the ecclesiastical power all
+that judgment which had made him so prudent and wise a king at home,
+while his crusades were lamentable failures.  Thus in him it had been a
+piece of obedient self-denial not to press forward to the Holy Sepulchre;
+but to land in this malarious bay to fulfil aims that, had he but used
+his common sense, he would have seen to be merely those of private
+ambition.  There it had been one scene of wasting sickness.  A few deeds
+of arms had been done to refresh the spirits of the French, such as the
+taking of the fort of Carthage, and now and then a skirmish of some
+foraging party; but in general the Moors launched their spears and fled
+without staying for combat.  Many who had hid themselves in the vaults
+and cellars of Carthage had been dragged out and put to death, and their
+bodies had aided in breeding pestilence.  Name after name fell from the
+lips of the knight, like the roll of warriors fallen in a great battle,
+when
+
+    “They melted from the field like snow,
+    Their king, their lords, their mightiest low.”
+
+And the last foreign embassy that ever reached Louis IX. had been that of
+the Greek Emperor Michael Palæologos, come to set before him the savage
+barbarities perpetrated upon Christians by this brother—
+
+    “Who had spoilt the purpose of his life.”
+
+It was as Charles entered the port, that Louis, lying on a bed of ashes,
+with his hands crossed upon his breast, and the words, “O Jerusalem,
+Jerusalem!” entered not the Jerusalem of his earthly schemes, but the
+Jerusalem of his true aspirations.
+
+“Shall we conduct you to my Lord the King of Sicily?” asked De Porçeles.
+
+“No!” said Edward, with bitter sternness; “to my uncle of France.”
+
+“Down, down, my Lord, and all of you instantly,” shouted Porçeles
+suddenly, throwing himself face downwards on the ground.  Edward was too
+good a soldier not to follow the injunction instantaneously, and Richard
+did the same, as well as all the knights who had come up with Porçeles.
+Even the horses buried their noses in the hot sandy soil.  A strange
+rushing roaring sound passed over them; there was a sense of intense
+suffocation, then of heat, pricking, and irritation.  The Provençals were
+rising; and the Prince and his page doing the same, shook off a plentiful
+load of sand, and beheld, careering furiously away, between them and the
+western sun, what looked like a purple column, reaching from earth to
+heaven, and bespangled with living gold-dust, whirling round in giddy
+spirals, and all the time fleeting so fast that it was diminishing every
+moment, and was gone in a wink of the eye.
+
+“Is it enchantment?” gasped Richard to the squire nearest him, as he
+strove to clear his eyes from the sand and gaze after the wonder.
+
+“Worse than enchantment,” quoth the squire; “it is a sand whirlwind.”
+
+They were soon crossing the ditch that had been dug around the camp among
+the ruins, and passed through lanes of tents erected among the thick
+foliage that mantled the broken walls; here and there tracks of mosaic
+pavement; of temples to Dido or Anna peeping forth beneath either the
+luxuriant vegetation or the heavy sand-drifts; or columns of the new
+Carthage lying veiled by acanthus; or remnants of churches destroyed by
+Genseric—all alike disregarded by the sickly drooping figures that moved
+feebly about among them, regarding them as little save stumbling-blocks.
+
+A Moorish house in the midst of a once well-laid-out garden, now trampled
+and destroyed, was the place to which the Provençal knight led the
+English Prince.  Entering the doorway of a court, where a fountain
+sparkled in the midst of a marble pavement, they saw the richly-latticed
+stone doorway of the house guarded by two figures in armour like iron
+statues; and passing between them, they came into the principal chamber,
+marble-floored, and with a divan of cushions round it; but full in the
+midst of the room lay a coffin, covered with the lilied banner, and the
+standard of the Cross; the crowned helmet, good sword, knightly spurs,
+and cross-marked shield lying upon it; solemn forms in armour guarded it,
+and priests knelt and chanted prayers and psalms around it.  Within were
+only the bones of Louis, which were to be taken to St. Denis.  The flesh,
+which had been removed by being boiled in wine and spices, was already on
+its way to Palermo in a vessel whose melancholy ensigns would have
+announced the loss to the English had they not passed it in the night.
+
+Long did Edward kneel beside the remains of his uncle, with his face
+hidden and thoughts beyond our power to trace.  Richard’s heart was full
+of that strange question “Wherefore?”  Wherefore should the best and
+purest schemes planned by the highest souls fall over like a crested wave
+and become lost?  So it had been, he would have said, with the Round
+Table under Arthur, so with England’s rights beneath his own noble
+father, so with the Crusade under such leaders as Edward of England and
+Louis of France.  Did he mark the answer in those Psalms that the priests
+were singing around—
+
+    “Qui seminant in lacrymis, in exultatione metent,
+    Euntes ibant et flebant mittentes semina sua,
+    Venientes autem venient cum exultatione portantes manipulos suos.”
+    {100}
+
+Surely we may believe that Simon of Leicester and Louis of France were
+alike beyond grief at their marred visions, their errors of deed or of
+judgment were washed away, and their true purpose was accepted, both
+waiting the harvest when their works should follow them, and it should
+have been made manifest that the effect of what they had been and had
+suffered had told far more on future generations than what they had
+wrought out in their own lifetime.
+
+It was at that moment that the sensation that an eye was upon him caused
+Richard to raise his eyes from the floor.  One of the armed figures, who
+had hitherto stood as still as suits of armour in a castle hall, had
+partially lowered the visor of the helmet, and eyes, nose, and a part of
+the cheeks were visible.  Richard looked up, and they were those of his
+father! was it a delusion of his fancy?  He closed his eyes and looked
+again.  Again it was the deep brown Montfort eye, the clearly-cut nose,
+the embrowned skin!  He glanced at the bearings on the shield.  Behold,
+it was his own—the red field and white lion rampant with a forked tail,
+which he had not seen for so long.
+
+Almost at the same moment another person entered the chamber—a man with a
+sallow complexion, narrow French features, sharp gray eyes, and a certain
+royal bearing that even a cunning shrewdness of expression could not
+destroy.  His face was composed to a look of melancholy, and he crossed
+himself and knelt down near Edward to await the conclusion of his
+devotions.  Edward, who knelt absorbed in grief, with his cloak partly
+over his face, apparently did not perceive him, and after two or three
+unheeded endeavours at attracting notice, he at length rose and said in a
+low voice, “My fair nephew.”  For a moment the Prince lifted up his face,
+and Richard had rather have died than have encountered that glance of
+mournful reproof; then hiding his face in his hands again, he continued
+his devotions.
+
+When these were ended he rose from his knees; and when out of the
+death-chamber bowed his bead and with grave courtesy exchanged greetings
+with Charles of Anjou, asking at the same time to see his young cousin
+Philippe, the new King of France.
+
+An inquiry from an attendant elicited that Philippe had just dropped
+asleep under the influence of a potion from his leech.
+
+“Then, fair nephew,” said Charles of Sicily, “be content with your old
+uncle, and come to my apartments, where I will set before you the
+necessities that have led me to conclude the truce that is baffling your
+eager desire of deeds of arms.”
+
+“Pardon me, royal uncle,” returned Edward, “I must see my camp set up.
+It is already late, and I must take order that my troops mingle not where
+contagion might seize them.  Another time,” he added, “I may brook the
+argument better.”
+
+Charles of Anjou did not press him further.  There was that in his face
+and voice which betokened that his fierce indignation and overpowering
+grief were scarcely restrained, and that a word of excuse in his present
+mood would but have roused the lion.
+
+Horses had been provided for him and his attendant.  He flung himself on
+his steed at once, and Richard was obliged to follow without a moment’s
+opportunity of making inquiry about the wonderful apparition he had seen
+in the chamber of death.
+
+For some distance Edward galloped rapidly over the sandy soil, then
+drawing up his horse when he had come to the brow from which he could see
+on the one side the valley of Carthage, on the other the bay, he made an
+exclamation which Richard took for a summons, and he came up asking if he
+were called.  “No, boy, no!  I only spoke my thoughts aloud!  Failure and
+success!  We’ve seen them both to-day—in the two kings!  What thinkst
+thou of them?”
+
+“Better be wrecked than work the wreck, my Lord,” said Richard.
+
+“Ay! but why surrender the wit to the worker of the wreck?” said Edward.
+Then knitting his brow, “Two holy men have I known who did not blind
+their wit for their conscience’ sake—two alone—did it fare better with
+them?  One was the good Bishop of Lincoln—the other thou knowst, Richard!
+Well, one goes after another—first good Bishop Grostête, then the Lord of
+Leicester, and now mine uncle of France; and if earth is to have no
+better than such as it pleases the Saints to leave in it, it will not be
+worth staying in much longer.”
+
+“My Lord,” said Richard, coming near, “methought I saw my father’s face
+under a visor—one of the knightly guards beside the holy King.”
+
+“Well might thy fancy call him up in such a presence,” said Edward.
+“They twain had hearts in the same place above, though they saw the world
+below on different sides, and knew each other little, and loved each
+other less, in life.  That’s all at an end now!  Well, back to our camp
+to make the best of the world they have left behind them!”  And then in a
+tone that Richard was not meant to hear, “While _mi dona_ Leonor remains
+to me there is something saintly and softening still in this world!
+Heaven help me—ay, and all my foes—were she gone from it too!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+RICHARD’S WRAITH
+
+
+    “No distance breaks the tie of blood;
+    Brothers are brothers evermore;
+    Nor wrong, nor wrath of deadliest mood,
+    That magic may o’erpower.”—_Christian Year_.
+
+IT was nearly dark when the Prince and the Page landed on the island, and
+found the tents already set up in their due order and rank, according to
+the discipline that no one durst transgress where Edward was the
+commander.
+
+Richard attended him to his pavilion, and being there dismissed until
+supper-time, crossed the square space which was always left around the
+royal banner, to the tent at the southern corner, which was regularly
+appropriated to the pages’ use.  On lifting its curtain he was, however,
+dismayed to see a kirtle there, and imagining that he must have fallen
+upon the ladies’ quarters, he was retreating with an apology; when the
+sharp voice of Dame Idonea called out, “Oh yes, Master Page! ’tis you
+that are at home here.  I was merely tarrying till ’twas the will of one
+of you to come in and look to the poor child.”
+
+And little John of Dunster called from a couch of mantles, “Richard, oh!
+is it he at last?”
+
+“It is I,” said Richard, advancing into the light of a brass lamp, hung
+by chains from the top of the tent.  “This is kind indeed, Lady!  But is
+he indeed so ill at ease?”
+
+“How should he be otherwise, with none of you idle-pated pages casting a
+thought to him?”
+
+“I was grieved to leave him—but the Prince summoned me,” began Richard.
+
+“Beshrew thee!  Tell me not of princes, as though there were no one whom
+thou couldst bid to have a care of the little lad!”
+
+“I did bid Piers—,” Richard made another attempt.
+
+“Piers, quotha?  Why didst not bid the Jackanapes that sits on the
+luggage?  A proper warder for a sick babe!”
+
+“I am no babe!” here burst out John; “I am twelve years old come
+Martinmas, and I need no tendance but Richard’s.”
+
+“Ha, ha!  So those are all the thanks we ladies get, when we are not
+young and fair!” laughed Dame Idonea, rather amused.
+
+“I want no women, young or old,” petulantly repeated John; “I want
+Richard.—Lift me up, Richard; take away this cloak.”
+
+“For his life, no!” returned the Dame; “he has the heats and the chills
+on him, and to let him take cold would be mere slaughter.”
+
+“Alas!” said Richard, “I hoped nothing ailed him but the sea, and that
+landing would make all well.”
+
+“As if the sea ever made a child shiver and burn by turns!  Nay, ’tis the
+trick of the sun in these parts.  Strange that the sun himself should be
+a mere ally of the Infidel!  I tell thee, if the child is ever to see
+Dunster again, thou must watch him well, keep him from the sun by day and
+the chill by night; or he’ll be like the poor creatures in the French
+camp out there, whom, I suppose, you found in fine case.”
+
+“Alack yes, Lady!”
+
+“I’ve seen it many a time; and all their disorders will be creeping into
+our camp next.  Tell me, is it even as they told us, one king dead and
+the other dying?”
+
+Richard began to wonder whether he should ever get her out of his tent,
+for she insisted on his telling her every possible particular—who had
+died, who had lived, who was sick, who well; and as from the close
+connection between the English, French, and Sicilian courts, whose queens
+were all sisters, she knew who every one was, and accounted for the
+history of each person she inquired after, back to the last
+generation—happy if it were not to the third—her conversation was not
+quickly over.  She ended at last, by desiring Richard to give her patient
+some of a febrifuge, which she had brought with her, every two hours, and
+when it was all spent, or in case of any change in the boy’s state, to
+summon her from the ladies’ tent; adding, however, “But what’s the use of
+leaving a pert springald like thee in charge?  Thou wilt sleep like a
+very dormouse, I’ll warrant!  I’d best call Mother Jugge.”
+
+“Oh no, no!” cried John; to whom the attendance of Mother Jugge would
+have been a worse indignity than the being nursed by Dame Idonea; “let me
+have no one but Richard!  Richard knows all I want.—Richard, leave me not
+again.”
+
+“Ay, ay; a little lad ever hangs to a bigger, were he to torture the life
+out of him.  Small thanks for us women after our good looks be past.  But
+I’ll look in on the child in early morn, thanks or no thanks; for I know
+his mother well, and if I can help it, the hyenas shall not make game of
+his bones, as I hear them doing by the French yonder.”
+
+John strove to say that, indeed, he thanked her, and had been infinitely
+comforted and refreshed by her care, and that all he meant was to express
+his distaste to Mother Jugge, the lavender (_i.e._ laundress), and his
+desire for Richard Fowen’s company; but he was little attended to, and
+apparently more than half offended, the brisk old lady trotted away.
+
+That island was a dreary place; without a tree or any shelter from the
+glare of sun and sea, whose combined influences threatened blindness,
+sun-stroke, or at the very least blistered the faces of those who stepped
+beyond their tents by day.  The Prince’s orders, however, strictly
+confined his army within its bounds, except that at twilight parties were
+sent ashore for water and provisions, under strict orders, however, to
+hold no parley with any one from the French or Sicilian camps, lest they
+should bring home the infection of the pestilence; and always under the
+command of some trustworthy knight, able and willing to enforce the
+command.
+
+The Prince himself refused all participation in the counsels of Charles
+of Anjou, and confined himself, like his men, entirely to the fleet and
+island.  Charles contrived to spread a report, that his displeasure was
+solely due to his disappointment at being balked of fighting with the
+Tunisians; and that instead of indignant grief at the perversion of the
+wrecked Crusade, he was only showing the sullenness of an aggrieved
+swordsman.  Even young Philippe le Hardi, a dull, heavy, ignorant youth,
+was led to suppose this was the cause of his offence, and though daily
+inquiries were sent through the Genoese crews for his health, he made no
+demonstration of willingness to see his cousin of England.
+
+Thus Richard had no opportunity of ascertaining whether there were any
+basis for the strange impression he had received in St. Louis’s
+death-chamber.  It would have been an act of disobedience, not soon
+overlooked by the Prince, had one of his immediate suite transgressed his
+commands, and indeed, so strict was the discipline, that it would
+scarcely have been possible to make the attempt.  Besides, Richard’s time
+was entirely engrossed between his duties in attending on the Prince, and
+his care of little John of Dunster, who had a sharp attack of fever, and
+was no doubt only carried through it by the experienced skill of Dame
+Idonea Osbright, and by Richard’s tender nursing.  Somehow the dame’s
+heart was not won, even by the elder page’s dutiful care and obedience to
+all her directions.  Partly she viewed him as a rival in the affections
+of the patient—who, poor little fellow, would in his companion’s absence
+be the child he was, and let her treat him like his mother, or old nurse,
+chattering to her freely about home, and his home-sick longings; whereas
+the instant any male companion appeared, he made it a point of honour to
+be the manly warrior and crusader, just succeeding so far as to be sullen
+instead of plaintive; though when left to Richard, he could again relax
+his dignity, and become natural and affectionate.  But besides this
+species of jealousy, Richard suspected that Lady Osbright knew, or at
+least guessed, his own parentage, and disliked him for it accordingly.
+She had never forgotten the distress and degradation of his mother’s
+stolen marriage, nor forgiven his father for it; she had often stung the
+proud heart of his brother Henry, when he shared the nursery of his
+cousins the princes; and her sturdy English dislike of foreigners, and
+her strong narrow personal loyalty, had alike resulted in the most
+vehement hatred of the Earl of Leicester, whose head she would assuredly
+have welcomed with barbarous exultation, worthy of her Danish ancestors.
+Little chance, then, was there that she would regard with favour his son
+under a feigned name, fostered in the Prince’s own court and camp.
+
+She was a constraint, and almost a vexation, to Richard, and he heartily
+wished that the boy’s recovery would free his tent from her.  The boy did
+recover favourably, in spite of all the discomforts of the island, and
+was decidedly convalescent when, after nearly ten days’ isolation on the
+island, Edward drew out his whole force upon the shore to do honour to
+the embarkation of the relics of Louis IX.  It was one of the most solemn
+and melancholy pageants that could be conceived.  A wide lane of mailed
+soldiers was drawn up, Sicilians and Provençals on the one side, and on
+the other, English and the Knights of the two Orders.  All stood, or sat
+on horseback in shining steel, guarding the way along which were carried
+the coffins.  In memory, perhaps, of Louis’s own words, “I, your leader,
+am going first,” his remains headed the procession, closely followed by
+those of his young son; and behind it marched his two brothers, Charles
+and Alfonse, and his son-in-law, the King of Navarre (the two latter
+already bearing the seeds of the fatal malady), and the three English
+princes, Edward, Edmund, and Henry of Almayne, each followed by his
+immediate suite.  The long line of coffins of French counts and nobles,
+whose lives had in like manner been sacrificed, brought up the rear; and
+alas! how many nameless dead must have been left in the ruins!
+
+Each coffin when brought to the shore was placed in a boat, and with
+muffled oars transplanted to the vessel ready to receive it, while the
+troops remained drawn up on the shore.  The procession that ensued was
+almost more mournful.  It was still of biers, but these were not of the
+dead but of the living, and again the foremost was the King of France,
+while next to him came his sister, the Queen of Navarre.  Edward went
+down to his litter, as it was brought on the beach, and offered him his
+arm as he feebly stepped forth to enter the boat.  Philippe looked up to
+his tall cousin, and wrung his hands as he murmured, “Alas! what is to be
+the end of all this?”  Edward made kind and cheerful reply, that things
+would look better when they met at Trapani, and then almost lifted the
+young king into his boat.  Poor youth, he had not yet seen the end!  He
+was yet to lose his wife, his brother-in-law, and his uncle and aunt, ere
+he should see his home again.
+
+Richard and Hamlyn de Valence, as part of the Prince’s train, had moved
+in the procession; and they were for the rest of the day in close
+attendance on their lord, conveying his numerous orders for the
+embarkation of the troops on the morrow, on their return to Sicily.  It
+was not till night-fall that Richard returned to his tent, where John of
+Dunster was sitting on the sand at the door, eagerly watching for him.
+“Well, Jack, my lad, how hast thou sped?” asked he, advancing.  “Couldst
+see our doleful array?”
+
+“Is it thou, indeed, this time?” said the boy, catching at his cloak.
+
+“Why, who should it be?”
+
+“Thy wraith!  Thy double-ganger has been here Richard.”
+
+“What, dreaming again?”
+
+“No no!  I am well, I am strong.  But this _is_ the land of enchantment!
+Thou knowst it is.  Did we not see a fleet of fairy boats sailing on the
+sea? and a leaf eat up a fly here on this very tent pole?  And did not
+the Fay Morgaine show us towns and castles and churches in the sea?  Thou
+didst not call me light-headed then, Richard; thou sawest it too!”
+
+“But this wraith of mine!  Where didst see it?”
+
+“In this tent.  I was lying on the sand, trying if I could make it hold
+enough to build a castle of it, when the curtain was put back, and there
+thou stoodest, Richard!”
+
+“Well, did I speak or vanish?”
+
+“Oh, thou spakest—I mean the _thing_ spake, and it said, ‘Is this the
+tent of the young Lord of Montfort?’  How now—what have I said?”
+
+“Whom did he ask for?” demanded Richard breathlessly.
+
+“Montfort—young Lord de Montfort!” replied John; “I know it was, for he
+said it twice over.”
+
+“And what didst thou answer?”
+
+“What should I answer?  I said we had no Montforts here; for they were
+all dishonoured traitors, slain and outlawed.”
+
+Richard could not restrain a sudden indignant exclamation that startled
+the boy.  “Every one says so!  My father says so!” he returned, somewhat
+defiantly.
+
+“Not of the Earl,” said Richard, recollecting himself.
+
+“He said every one of the young Montforts was a foul traitor, and
+man-sworn tyrant, as bad as King John had been ere the Charter,” repeated
+John hotly, “and their father was as bad, since he would give no redress.
+Thou knowst how they served us in Somerset and Devon!”
+
+“I have heard, I have heard,” said Richard, cutting short the story, and
+controlling his own burning pain, glad that the darkness concealed his
+face.  “No more of that; but tell me, what said this stranger?”
+
+“Thou thinkest it was really a stranger, and not thy wraith?” said John
+anxiously.  “I hope it was, for Dame Idonea said if it were a wraith, it
+betokened that thou wouldst not—live long—and oh, Richard!  I could not
+spare thee!”
+
+And the little fellow came nestling up to his friend’s breast in an
+access of tenderness, such as perhaps he would have disdained save in the
+darkness.
+
+“Did Dame Idonea see him?” asked Richard.
+
+“No; but she came in soon after he had vanished.”
+
+“Vanished!  What, like Fay Morgaine’s castles?  Tell me in sooth, John;
+it imports me to know.  What did this stranger, when thou spakest thus of
+the House of Montfort?”
+
+“He answered,” said John; “he did not answer courteously—he said, that I
+was a malapert little ass, and demanded again where this young Montfort’s
+tent was.  So then I said, that if a Montfort dared to show his traitor’s
+face in this camp, the Prince would hang him as high as Judas; for I
+wanted to be rid of him, Richard! it was so dreadful to see thy face, and
+hear thy voice talking French, and asking for dead traitors.”
+
+“French!” said Richard.  “Methought thou knewst no French!”
+
+“I—I have heard it long now, more’s the pity,” faltered John, “and—and
+I’d have spoken anything to be rid of that shape.”
+
+“And wert thou rid?  What befell then?”
+
+“It cursed the Prince, and King, and all of them,” said John with a
+shudder; “it looked black and deadly, and I crossed myself, and said the
+Blessed Name, and no doubt it writhed itself and went off in brimstone
+and smoke, for I shut my eyes, and when I looked up again it was gone!”
+
+“Gone!  Didst look after him?”
+
+“Oh, no!  Earthly things are all food for a brave man’s sword,” said
+Master John, drawing himself up very valiantly, “but wraiths and things
+from beneath—they do scare the very heart out of a man.  And I lay, I
+don’t know how, till Dame Idonea came in; and she said either the foul
+fiend had put on thy shape because he boded thee ill, or it was one of
+the traitor brood looking for his like.”
+
+“Tell me, John,” said Richard anxiously; “surely he was not in all points
+like me.  Had he our English white cross?”
+
+“I cannot say as to the cross,” said John; “meseemed it was all
+you—yourself—and that was all—only I thought your voice was strange and
+hollow—and—now I think of it—yes—he was bearded—brown bearded.  And,”
+with a sudden thought, “stand up, prithee, in the opening of the tent;”
+and then taking his post where he had been sitting at the time of the
+apparition, “He was not so tall as thou art.  Thy head comes above the
+fold of the curtain, and his, I know, did not touch it, for I saw the
+light over it.  Then thou dost not think it was thy wraith?” he added
+anxiously.
+
+“I think my wraith would have measured me more exactly both in stature
+and in age,” said Richard lightly.  “But how did Leonillo comport
+himself?  He brooks not a stranger in general; and dogs cannot endure the
+presence of a spirit.”
+
+“Ah! but he fawned upon this one, and thrust his nose into his hand,”
+said John, “and I think he must have run after him; for it was so long
+ere he came back to me, that I had feared greatly he was gone, and oh,
+Richard! then I must have gone too!  I could never have met you without
+Leonillo.”
+
+By this time Richard had little doubt that the visitor must have been one
+of his brothers, Simon or Guy, who were not unlikely to be among the
+Provençals, in the army of Charles of Anjou.  He had not been thought to
+resemble them as a boy, but he had observed how much more alike brothers
+appear to strangers than they do to their own family; and he knew by
+occasional observations from the Prince, as well as from his brother
+Henry’s recognition of his voice, that the old Montfort characteristics
+must be strong in himself.  He would not, however, avow his belief to
+John of Dunster.  Secrecy on his own birth had been enjoined on him by
+his uncle the King; and disobedience to the old man’s most trifling
+commands was always sharply resented by the Prince; nor was the boy’s
+view of the House of Montfort very favourable to such a declaration.
+Richard really loved the brave little fellow, and trusted that some day
+when the discovery must be made, it would be coupled with some exploit
+that would show it was no name to be ashamed of.  So he only told the boy
+that he had no doubt the stranger was a foreign knight, who had once
+known the old Leicester family; but bade him mention the circumstance to
+no one.  He feared, however, that the caution came too late, since Dame
+Idonea was not only an inveterate gossip, but was likely to hold in
+direful suspicion any one who had been inquired for by such a name.
+
+The personal disappointment of having missed his brother was great.
+Richard was very lonely.  The Princes, and Hamlyn de Valence, were the
+only persons who knew his secret, and both by Prince Edmund and De
+Valence he was treated with indifference or dislike.  Edward himself,
+though the object of his fervent affection, and his protector in all
+essentials, was of a reserved nature, and kept all his attendants at a
+great distance.  On very rare occasions, when his feelings had been
+strongly stirred—as in the instance of his visit to his uncle’s
+death-chamber—he might sometimes unbend; and momentary flashes from the
+glow of his warm deep heart went further in securing the love and
+devotion of those around him, than would the daily affability of a lower
+nature; but in ordinary life, towards all concerned with him except his
+nearest relations, he was a strict, cold, grave disciplinarian, ever
+just, though on the side of severity, and stern towards the slightest
+neglect or breach of observance, nor did he make any exception in favour
+of Richard.  If the youth seldom received one of his brief annihilating
+reproofs, it was because they were scarcely ever merited; but he had
+experienced that any want of exactitude in his duties was quite as
+severely visited as if he had not been the Prince’s close kinsman,
+romantically rescued by him, and placed near his person by his special
+desire.  And Eleanor, with all her gentle courtesy and kindness, was
+strictly withheld by her husband from pampering or cockering his pages;
+nor did she ever transgress his will.
+
+The atmosphere was perhaps bracing, but it was bleak: and there were
+times when Richard regretted his acceptance of the Prince’s offer, and
+yearned after family ties, equality, and freedom.  Simon and Guy had
+never been kind to him, but at least they were his brothers, and with
+them disguise and constraint would be over—he should, too, be in
+communication with his mother and sister.  He was strongly inclined to
+cast in his lot with them, and end this life of secrecy, and distrust
+from all around him save one, and his loyal love ill requited even by
+that one.  It grieved him keenly that one of his brothers should have
+been repulsed from his tent; an absolutely famished longing for fraternal
+intercourse gained possession of him, and as he lay on his pallet that
+night in the dark, he even shed tears at the thought of the greeting and
+embrace that he had missed.
+
+Still he had hopes for the future.  There must be meetings and
+possibilities of inquiries passing between the three armies, and he would
+let no opportunity go by.  The next day, however, there was no chance.
+The English troops were embarked in their vessels, and after a short and
+prosperous passage were again landed at Trapani, the western angle of
+Sicily.  The French had sailed first, but were not in harbour when the
+English came in; and the Sicilians, who had brought up the rear, arrived
+the next day, but still there was no tidings of the French.  Towards the
+evening, however, the royal vessel bearing Philippe III. came into
+harbour, and all the rest were in sight, when at sunset a frightful storm
+arose, and the ships were in fearful case.  Many foundered, many were
+wrecked on the rocky islets around the port, and the French army was
+almost as much reduced in numbers as it had been by the Plague of
+Carthage.
+
+Charles of Anjou remained himself in the town of Trapani, but knowing the
+evils of crowding a small space with troops, he at once sent his men
+inland, and Richard was again disappointed of the hope of seeing or
+hearing of his brothers; for the Prince still forbade all intercourse
+with the shattered remnant of the French army, justly dreading that they
+might still carry about them the seeds of the infection of the camp.
+
+The three heads of the Crusade, however, met in the Castle of Trapani to
+hold council on their future proceedings.  The place was the
+state-chamber of the castle.
+
+Each prince had brought with him a single attendant, and the three stood
+in waiting near the door, in full view of their lords, though out of
+earshot.  It was an opportunity that Richard could not bear to miss of
+asking for his brothers, unheard by any of those English ears who would
+be suspicious about his solicitude for the House of Montfort.  A
+lively-looking Neapolitan lad was the attendant of King Charles; and in
+spite of all the perils of attempting conversation while thus waiting,
+Richard had—while the princes were greeting one another, and taking their
+seats—ventured the question, whether any of the sons of the English Earl
+of Leicester were in the Sicilian army.  Of Earl of Leicester the Italian
+knew nothing; but Count of Montfort was a more familiar sound.  “Si, si,
+vero!”  Sicily had rung with it; and Count Rosso Aldobrandini, of the
+Maremma Toscana, had given his only daughter and heiress to the banished
+English knight, Guido di Monforte, who had served in the king’s army as a
+Provençal.
+
+Richard’s heart beat high.  Guy a well-endowed count, with a castle,
+lands, and home!  He would have asked where Guy now was, and how far off
+was the Maremma; but the conference between the princes was actually
+commencing, and silence became necessary on the part of their attendants.
+
+They could only hear the murmur of voices; but could discern plainly the
+keen looks and animated gestures of Charles of Anjou, the sickly sullen
+indifference of Philippe, and the majestic gravity of Edward, whose noble
+head towered above the other two as if he were their natural judge.
+Charles was, in fact, trying to persuade the others to sail with him for
+Greece, and there turn their forces on the unfortunate Michael
+Palæologos, who had lately recovered Constantinople, the Empire that
+Charles hoped to win for himself, the favoured champion of Rome.
+
+Philippe merely replied that he had had enough of crusading, he was sick
+and weary, he must go home and bury his father, and get himself crowned.
+Charles might be then seen trying a little hypocrisy; and telling
+Philippe that his saintly father would only have wished to speed him on
+the way of the Cross.  Then that trumpet voice of Edward, whose tones
+Richard never missed, answered, “What is the way of the Cross, fair
+uncle?”
+
+It was well known that Louis IX. had refused to crusade against
+Christians, even Greek Christians, and Philippe soon sheltered himself
+under the plea that had not at first occurred to his dull mind.  In
+effect, he laid particulars before his uncle, that quickly made it plain
+that the French army was in too miserable a condition to do anything but
+return home; and Charles then addressed his persuasions to
+Edward—striving to convince him in the first place of the sanctity of a
+war against Greek heretics, and when Edward proved past being persuaded
+that arms meant for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre ought not to be
+employed against Christians who reverenced it, he tried to demonstrate
+the uselessness of hoping to conquer the Holy Land, even by such a
+Crusade as had been at first planned, far less with the few attached to
+Edward’s individual banner.  Long did the king argue on.  His low voice
+was scarcely audible, even without the words; but Edward’s brief,
+ringing, almost scornful, replies, never failed to reach Richard’s ear,
+and the last of them was, “It skills not, my fair uncle.  For the Holy
+Land I am vowed to fight, and thither would I go had I none with me but
+Fowen, my groom!”
+
+And withal his eye lit on Richard, with a look of certainty of response;
+of security that here was one to partake his genuine ardour, and of
+refreshment in the midst of his disgust with the selfish uncle and
+sluggish cousin.  That look, that half smile, made the youth’s heart
+bound once more.  Yes, with him he would go to the ends of the earth!
+What was the freedom of Guy’s castle, to the following of such a lord and
+leader in such a cause?
+
+Richard could have thrown himself at his feet, and poured forth pledges
+of fidelity.  But in ten minutes he was following home the
+unapproachable, silent, cold warrior.
+
+And the lack of any outlet for his aspirations turned them back upon
+themselves, with a strange sense of bitterness and almost of resentment.
+Leonillo alone, as the creature lay at his feet, and looked up into his
+face with eyes of deep wistful meaning, seemed to him to have any feeling
+for him; and Leonillo became the recipient of many an outpouring of
+something between discontent and melancholy.  Leonillo, the sole remnant
+of his home!  He burnt for that Holy Land where he was to win the name
+and fame lacking to him; but there was to be long delay.
+
+Fain would the Prince have proceeded at once to Palestine; but the
+Genoese, from whom, in the abeyance of the English navy, he had been
+obliged to hire his transports, absolutely refused to sail for the East
+until after the three winter months; and he was therefore obliged to
+remain in Sicily.  King Charles invited him to spend Christmas at the
+court at Syracuse or Naples, in hopes, perhaps, of persuading him to the
+Greek expedition; but Edward was far too much displeased with the Angevin
+to accept his hospitality; recollecting, perhaps, that such a sojourn had
+been little beneficial to his great-uncle Cœur de Lion’s army.  He
+decided upon staying where he was, in the remotest corner of Sicily, and
+keeping his three hundred crusaders as much to themselves and to strict
+military discipline as possible, maintaining them at his own cost, and
+avoiding as far as he could all transactions with the cruel and violent
+Provençal adventurers, with whom Charles had filled the island.
+
+Thus Richard found his hopes of obtaining further intelligence about his
+brothers entirely passing away.  He did, indeed, venture on one day
+saying to the Prince, “My Lord, I hear that my brother Guy hath become a
+Neapolitan count!”
+
+“A Tuscan robber would be nearer the mark!” coldly replied Edward.
+
+“And,” added Richard, “methought, while the host is in winter quarters, I
+would venture on craving your license, my Lord, to visit him?”
+
+“Thou hast thy choice, Richard,” answered the Prince, with grave
+displeasure; “loyalty and honour with me, or lawlessness and violence
+with thy brother.  Both cannot be thine!”
+
+And returning to his study of the Lais of Marie de France, he made it
+evident that he would hear no more, and left Richard to a sharp struggle;
+in which hot irritation and wounded feeling would have carried him away
+at once from the stern superior who required the sacrifice of all his
+family, and gave not a word of sympathy in return.  It was the crusading
+vow alone that detained the youth.  He could not throw away his pledge to
+the wars of the Cross, and it was plain that if he went now to seek out
+Guy, he should never be allowed to return to the crusading army.  But
+that vow once fulfilled, proud Edward should see, that not merely
+sufferance but friendliness was needed to bind the son of his father’s
+sister to his service.  The brother at Bednall Green was right, this
+bondage was worse than beggary.  Nor, under the influence of these
+feelings, had Richard’s service the alacrity and affection for which it
+had once been remarkable: the Prince rebuked his short-comings
+unsparingly, and thus added to the sense of injury that had caused them;
+Hamlyn de Valence sneered, and Dame Idonea took good care to point out
+both the youth’s neglects and his sullenness, and to whisper
+significantly that she did not wonder, considering the stock he came of.
+A soothing word or gentle excuse from the kind-hearted Princess were the
+only gleams of comfort that rendered the present state of things
+endurable.
+
+Just after Christmas arrived a vessel with reinforcements from home.
+Among them came a small body of Hospitaliers, with the novice Raynal at
+their head, now a full-blown knight, in dazzling scarlet and white, as
+Sir Reginald Ferrers.  Richard at once recognized him, when he came to
+present himself to the Prince, and was very desirous of learning whether
+he knew aught of that other brother, so mysteriously hidden in obscurity.
+Sir Raynal on his side seemed to share the desire; he exchanged a
+friendly glance with the page, and when the formality of the reception
+was over sought him out, saying, “I have a greeting for you, Master
+Fowen.”
+
+“From Sir Robert Darcy?” asked Richard.  “How fares it with the kind old
+knight?”
+
+“Excellent well!  Nay, nothing fares amiss with Father Robert!” said the
+young knight, smiling.  “Everything is the very best that could have
+befallen him—to hear him speak.  He is the very sunshine of the Spital,
+and had he been ordered on this Crusade, I think all the hamlets round
+would have risen to withhold him.”
+
+“Ah!” said Richard, hoping he was acting indifference; “said he aught of
+the little maiden with the blind father?”
+
+“Pretty Bessee and Blind Hal of Bednall Green?  Verily, that was the
+purport of my message.  The poor knave hath been sorely sick and more
+cracked than ever this autumn; insomuch that Father Robert spent whole
+nights with him; and though he be better now, and as much in his senses
+as e’er he will be, such another access is like to make an end of him.
+Now, Father Robert saith that you, Sir Page, know who the poor man is by
+birth, and that he prays you to send him word what had best be done with
+the child, in case either of his death or of his getting so frenzied as
+to be unable to take care of her.”
+
+“Send him word!” repeated Richard in perplexity.
+
+“We shall certainly have some one returning soon to the Spital,” replied
+Sir Raynal.  “Indeed, methinks some of the princes will be like to
+return, for the old King of the Romans is failing fast, and King Henry
+implored that the Prince of Almayne would come to hearten him.”
+
+“Then must I write to Sir Robert?” said Richard; “mine is scarce a
+message for word of mouth.”
+
+“So he said it was like to be,” returned the knight, “and he took thought
+to send you a slip of parchment, knowing, he said, that such things are
+not wont to be found in a crusader’s budget.  Moreover, if ink be
+wanting, he bade me tell you that there’s a fish in these seas, with many
+arms, and very like the foul fiend, that carries a bag of ink as good as
+any scrivener’s.”
+
+“I have seen the monster,” said Richard, who had often been down to the
+beach to see the unlading of the fishermen’s boats, and to share little
+John of Dunster’s unfailing marvel, that the Mediterranean should produce
+such outlandish creatures, so alien to his Bristol Channel experiences.
+
+And the very next time the boats came in, Richard made his way to the
+shore, on the beautiful, rocky, broken coast; and presently encountered a
+sepia, which fully justified Sir Robert’s comparison, lying at the bottom
+of a boat.  The fisherman intended it for his own dinner, when all his
+choicer fish should have gone to supply the Friday’s meal of the English
+chivalry; and he was a good deal amazed when the young gentleman, making
+his Provençal as like Sicilian as he could, began to traffic with him for
+it, and at last made him understand that it was only its ink-bag that he
+wanted.
+
+The said ink, secured in a shell, was brought home by Richard, together
+with a couple of the largest sea-bird’s quills that he could find—and
+which he shaped with his dagger, as best he might, in remembrance of
+Father Adam de Marisco’s writing lessons.  He meditated what should be
+the language of his letter, which was not likely to be secure from the
+eyes of the few who could read it; and finally decided that English was
+the tongue known to the fewest readers, who, if they knew letters at all,
+were sure to be acquainted with French and Latin.
+
+On a strip of parchment, then, about nine inches long and three wide, he
+proceeded to indite, in upright cramped letters, with many contractions,
+nearly in such terms as these—
+
+    REVEREND AND KNIGHTLY FATHER,
+
+    The good ghostly father and knight, Sir Raynald Ferrers, hath borne
+    to me your tidings of my brother’s sickness, and of all your goodness
+    to him—whereof I pray that our blessed Lady and good St. John may
+    reward you, for I can only pray for you.  Touching his poor little
+    daughter, in case of his death or frenzy, which the Saints of their
+    mercy forefend, I would entreat you of your goodness to place her in
+    some nunnery, but without making known her name and quality until my
+    return; so Heaven bring me home safe.  But an if I should be slain in
+    this Eastern land, then were it most for the little one’s good to
+    present her to the gracious lady Princess, by whom she would be most
+    lovingly and naturally cared for; and would be more safe than with
+    such as might shun to own her rights of blood and heirship.  Commend
+    me to my brother, if so be that he cares to hear of me; and tell him
+    that Guy hath wedded the lady of a castle in the land of Italy.  And
+    so praying you, ghostly father, for your blessing, I greet you well,
+    and rest your grateful bedesman and servant,
+
+                                                     RICHARD OF LEICESTER.
+
+    Given at the Prince’s camp at Drepanum, in the realm of Sicilia, on
+    the octave of the Epiphany, in the year of grace MCCLXX.; and so our
+    Lord have you heartily in His keeping.
+
+Letter-writing was a mighty task; and Richard’s extemporary implements
+were not of the best.  He laboured hard over his composition, kneeling
+against a chest in the tent.  When at length he raised his head, he
+encountered a face full of the most utter amazement.  Little John of
+Dunster had come into the tent, and stood gazing at him with open eyes
+and gaping mouth, as if he were perpetrating an incantation.  Richard
+could not help laughing.
+
+“Why, Jack, dost think I am framing a spell for thee?”
+
+“Writing!” gasped John, relieving his distended mouth by at length
+closing it.
+
+“Wherefore not?  Did not I see the chaplain teaching thee to write at
+Guildford?”
+
+“Ay—but that was when I was a babe!  Writing!  Why, my father never
+writes!”
+
+“But the Prince does.  Thou hast seen him write.  Come now,” added
+Richard: “if thou wilt, I will help thee to write a letter to send thy
+greetings home to Dunster.  Thy father and mother will be right glad to
+hear thou hast ’scaped that African fever.”
+
+“They!—They’d think me no better than a French monk!” said John.  “And
+none of them could read it either!  I’ll never write!  My grandsire only
+set his cross to the great charter!”
+
+And John retreated—in fear perhaps that Richard would sully his manhood
+with a writing lesson!
+
+The letter was rolled up in a scroll, bound with a silken thread, and
+committed to the charge of Sir Raynald Ferrers, who was going shortly to
+be commandery of his Order at Castel San Giovanni, whence he had no doubt
+of being able to send the letter safely to Sir Robert Darcy, at the Grand
+Priory.
+
+It would perhaps have been more expeditious to have intrusted the letter
+to one of the suite of Prince Henry of Almayne, who had been recalled by
+the tidings of the state of his father’s health; but Richard dreaded
+betraying his brother’s secret too much to venture on confiding the
+missive to any of this party—none of whom were indeed likely to wish to
+oblige him.  Hamlyn de Valence was going with Henry as his esquire; and
+his absence seemed to Richard like the beginning of better days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+ASH WEDNESDAY
+
+
+    “Mostrocci un ombra da l’ un canto sola
+    Dicendo ‘Colui feese in grembo a Dio
+    Lo cuor che’n su Tamigi ancor si cola.’”
+
+                                                        DANTE.  _Inferno_.
+
+SHROVETIDE had come, and the Prince had, before leaving Trapani, been
+taking some share in the entertainments of the Carnival.  Personally, his
+grave reserve made gaieties distasteful to him; and the disastrous
+commencement of the Crusade weighed on his spirits.  But when state and
+show were necessary, he provided for them with royal bounty and
+magnificence, and caused them to be regulated with the admirable taste of
+that age of exceeding beauty in which he lived.
+
+Thus, in this festal season, banquets were provided, and military shows
+took place, for the benefit of the Sicilian nobility and of the citizens
+of Trapani, on such a scale, that the English rose high in general
+esteem; and many were the secret wishes that Edmund of Lancaster rather
+than Charles of Anjou had been able to make good the grant from the Pope.
+
+Splendid were the displays, and no slight toil did they involve on the
+part of the immediate train of the Prince, few in number as they were,
+and destitute of the appliances of the resident court.  Richard hurrying
+hither and thither, and waiting upon every one, had little of the
+diversion of the affair; but he would willingly have taken treble the
+care and toil in the relief it was to be free from the prying mistrustful
+eyes of Hamlyn de Valence.  Looking after little John of Dunster was,
+however, no small part of his trouble; the urchin was so certain to get
+into some mischief if left to himself—now treading on a lady’s train, now
+upsetting a flagon of wine, now nearly impaling himself upon the point of
+a whole spitful of ortolans that were being handed round to the company,
+now becoming uncivilly deaf upon his French ear.  Altogether, it was a
+relief to Richard’s mind when he stumbled upon the little fellow fast
+asleep, even though it was in the middle of the Princess’s violet velvet
+and ermine mantle, which she had laid down in order to tread a stately
+measure with Sire Guillaume de Porçeles.
+
+After all Richard’s exertions that evening, it was no wonder that the
+morning found him fast asleep at the unexampled hour of eight!  His
+wakening was a strange one.  His little fellow-page was standing beside
+him with a strange frightened yet important air.
+
+“What is the matter, John?  It is late?  Is the Prince gone to Mass?  Has
+he missed me?” cried Richard, starting up in dismay, for unpunctuality
+was a great offence with Edward.
+
+“He is gone to Mass,” said John, “but, before he comes back,” he came
+near and lowered his voice, “Hob Longbow sent me to say you had better
+flee.”
+
+“Flee!  Boy, why should I flee?  Are _your_ senses fleeing?”
+
+“O Richard,” cried John, his face clearing up, “then it is not true!  You
+are not one of the traitor Montforts!”
+
+“If I were a hundred Montforts, what has that to do with it?”
+
+“Then all is well,” exclaimed the boy.  “I said you were no such thing!
+I’ll tell Hob he lied in his throat.”
+
+“If he said I was a traitor, verily he did; but as to being a
+Montfort—But, how now, John, what means all this?”
+
+“Then it is so!  O Richard, Richard, you cannot be one of them!  You
+cannot have written that letter to warn them to murder Prince Henry.”
+
+“To murder Prince Henry!” Richard stood transfixed.  “Not the Prince’s
+little son!”
+
+“Oh no, Prince Henry of Almayne!  At Viterbo!  Hamlyn de Valence saw it.
+He is come back.  It was in the Cathedral.  O Richard—at the elevation of
+the Host!  Guy and Simon de Montfort fell on him, stabbed him to the
+heart, and rushed out.  Then they came back again, and dragged him by the
+hair of his head into the mire, and shouted that so their father had been
+dragged through the streets of Evesham.  And then they went off to the
+Maremma!  And,” continued the boy breathlessly, “Hob Long-bow is on
+guard, and he bade me tell you, that for love of your father he will let
+you pass; and then you can hide; if only you can go ere the Prince comes
+forth.”
+
+“Hide!  Wherefore should I hide?  This is most horrible, but it is no
+deed of mine!” said Richard.  “Who dares to think it is?”
+
+“Then you are none of them!  You had no part in it!  I shall tell Hob he
+is a villain—”
+
+“Stay,” said Richard, laying a detaining hand on the boy.  “Why does Hob
+think me in danger?  Is anything stirring against me?”
+
+“They all—all of poor Prince Henry’s meiné, that are come back with
+Hamlyn—say that you are a Montfort too, and—oh! do not look so
+fierce!—that you sent a letter to warn your brethren where to meet, and
+fall on the Prince.  And the murderers being fled, they are keen to have
+your life; and, Richard, you know I saw you write the letter.”
+
+“That you saw me write a letter, is as certain as that my name is
+Montfort,” said Richard, “but I am not therefore leagued with traitors or
+murderers!  In the church, saidst thou?  Oh, well that the Prince forbade
+me to visit Guy!”
+
+“Then you will not flee?”
+
+“No, forsooth.  I will stay and prove my innocence.”
+
+“But you are a Montfort!  And I saw you write the letter.”
+
+“Did you speak of my having written the letter?” asked Richard, pausing.
+
+The boy hung his head, and muttered something about Dame Idonea.
+
+By this time, even if Richard had thought of flight, it would have been
+impossible.  Two archers made their presence apparent at the entrance of
+the tent, and in brief gruff tones informed Richard that the Prince
+required his presence.  The space between his tent and the royal pavilion
+was short, but in those few steps Richard had time to glance over the
+dangers of his position, and take up his resolution though with a certain
+stunned sense that nothing could be before the member of a proscribed
+family, but failure, suspicion, and ruin.
+
+The two brothers, Edward and Edmund, with the Earl of Gloucester, and
+their other chief councillors, were assembled; and there were looks of
+deep concern on the faces of all, making Edward’s more than ever like a
+rigid marble statue; while Edmund had evidently been weeping bitterly,
+though his features were full of fierce indignation.  Hamlyn de Valence,
+and a few other members of the murdered Prince’s suite, stood near in
+deep mourning suits.
+
+“Richard de Montfort,” said Prince Edward, looking at him with a
+sorrowful reproachful sternness that went to his heart, “we have sent for
+you to answer for yourself, on a grave charge.  You have heard of that
+which has befallen?”
+
+“I have heard, my Lord, of a foul crime which my soul abhors.  I trust
+none present here think me capable of sharing in it!  Whoever dares to
+accuse me, shall be answered by my sword!” and he glanced fiercely at
+Hamlyn.
+
+“Hold!” said Edward severely, “no one is so senseless as to accuse you of
+taking actual part in a crime that took place beyond the sea; but there
+is only too much reason to believe that you have been tampered with by
+your brothers.”
+
+Then, as his brother Edmund made some suggestion to him, he added, “Is
+John de Mohun of Dunster here?”
+
+“Yea, my Lord,” said the little boy, coming forward, with a flush on his
+face, and a bold though wistful look, “but verily Richard is no traitor,
+be he who he may!”
+
+“That is not what we wished to ask of you,” said the Prince, too sad and
+earnest to be amused even for a moment.  “Tell us whom you said, even
+now, you had seen in the tent you shared with him in Africa.”
+
+“I said I had seen his wraith,” said John.
+
+No smile lighted upon the Prince’s features; they were as serious as
+those of the boy, as he commented, “His likeness—his exact likeness—you
+mean.”
+
+“Ay,” said the boy; “but Richard proved to me after, that it had been
+less tall, and was bearded likewise.  So I hoped it did not bode him
+ill.”
+
+“Worse, I fear, than if it had in sooth been his double,” said Gloucester
+to Prince Edmund.  The Prince added the question whether this visitor had
+spoken; and John related the inquiry for Richard by the name of Montfort,
+and his own reply, which elicited a murmur of amused applause among the
+bystanders.
+
+The Prince, however, continued in the same grave manner to draw from the
+little witness his account of Richard’s injunction to secresy; and then
+asked about the letter-writing, of which John gave his plain account.
+The Prince then said, “Speak now, Hamlyn.”
+
+“This, then, I have to add, my Lord, that I, as all the world, remarked
+that Richard de Montfort consorted much with Sir Reginald de Ferrières,
+who, as we all remember, is the son of a family deeply concerned in the
+Mad Parliament.  By Sir Reginald, on his arrival at Castel San Giovanni,
+a messenger is despatched, bearing letters to the Hospital at Florence,
+and it is immediately after his arrival there, that the two Montforts
+speed from the Maremma to the unhappy and bloody Mass at Viterbo.”
+
+“You hear, Richard!” said the Prince.  “I bade you choose between me and
+your brothers.  Had you believed me that you could not serve both, it had
+been better for you.  I credit not that you incited them to the
+assassination; but your tidings led them to perpetrate it.  I cannot
+retain the spy of the Montforts in my camp.”
+
+“My Lord,” said Richard, at last finding space for speech, “I deny all
+collusion with my brothers.  I have neither seen, spoken with, nor sent
+to them by letter nor word.”
+
+“Then to whom was this letter?” demanded the Prince.
+
+“To Sir Robert Darcy, the Grand Prior of England,” answered Richard.
+
+A murmur of incredulous amazement was heard.
+
+“The purport?” continued Edward.
+
+“That, my Lord, it consorts not with my duty to tell.”
+
+“Look here, Richard,” interposed Gilbert of Gloucester, “this is an
+unlikely tale.  You can have no cause for secresy, save in connection
+with these brothers; and if you will point to some way of clearing
+yourself of being art and part in this foul act of murder, you may be
+sent scot free from the camp; but if you wilfully maintain this denial,
+what can we do but treat you as a traitor?  No obstinacy!  What can a lad
+like you have to say to good old Sir Robert Darcy, that all the world
+might not know?”
+
+“My Lord of Gloucester,” said Richard, “I am bound in honour not to
+reveal the matters between me and Sir Robert; I can only declare on the
+faith of a Christian gentleman that I have neither had, nor attempted to
+have, any dealings with either of my brothers, Guy or Simon; and if any
+man says I have, I will prove his falsehood on his body.”  And Richard
+flung down his glove before the Prince.
+
+At the same moment Hamlyn de Valence sprang forward.
+
+“Then, Richard de Montfort, I take up the gage.  I give thee the lie in
+thy throat, and will prove on thy body that thou art a man-sworn traitor,
+in league with thy false brethren.”
+
+“I commit me to the judgment of God,” said Richard, looking upwards.
+
+“My Lord,” said Hamlyn, “have we your permission to fight out the
+matter?”
+
+“You have,” said Edward, “since to that holy judgment Richard hath
+appealed.”
+
+But the Prince looked far from contented with the appeal.  He allowed the
+preliminaries of place and time to be fixed without his interposition;
+and when the council broke up, he fixed his clear deep eyes upon Richard
+in a manner which seemed to the boy to upbraid him with the want of
+confidence, for which, however, he would not condescend to ask.  Richard
+felt that, let the issue of the combat be what it would, he had lost that
+full trust on the part of the Prince, which had hitherto been his one
+drop of comfort; and if he were dismissed from the camp, he should be
+more than ever desolate, for his soul could scarce yet bring itself to
+grasp the horror of the crime of his brothers.
+
+The combat could not take place for two days—waiting, on one, in order
+that Hamlyn might have time to rest, and recover his full strength after
+his voyage, and the next, because it was Ash Wednesday.  In the meantime
+Richard was left solitary; under no restraint, but universally avoided.
+The judicial combat did not make him uneasy; the two youths had often
+measured their strength together, and though Hamlyn was the elder,
+Richard was the taller, and had inherited something of the Plantagenet
+frame, so remarkable in those two
+
+    Lords of the biting axe and beamy spear,
+
+“wide conquering Edward” and “Lion Richard”; and each believed in the
+righteousness of his own cause sufficiently to have implicit confidence
+that the right would be shown on his side.
+
+In fact, Richard soon understood that though Prince Edward, with a sense
+of the value of definite evidence far in advance of the time, and
+befitting the English Justinian, had only allowed the charge to be
+brought against him which could in a manner be substantiated, yet that
+the general belief went much further.  Proved to be a Montfort, and to
+have written a letter, he was therefore convicted, by universal consent,
+of a league with his brothers for the revenge of their house; to have
+instigated the assassination at Viterbo, and to be only biding his time
+for the like act at Trapani.  Even the Prince was deeply offended by his
+silence, and imputed it to no good motive; trust and affection were gone,
+and Richard felt no tie to retain him where he was, save his duty as a
+crusader.  Let him fail in the combat, and the best he could look for
+would be to be ignominiously branded and expelled: let him gain, and he
+much doubted whether, though the ordeal of battle was always respected,
+he would regain his former position.  With keen suffering and
+indignation, he rebelled against Edward’s harshness and distrust.  He—who
+had brought him there—who ought to have known him better!  Moreover,
+there was the crushing sense of the guilt of his brothers; guilt most
+horrible in its sacrilegious audacity, and doubly shocking to the
+feelings of a family where the grim sanctity of the first Simon de
+Montfort, and the enlightened devotion of the second, formed such a
+contrast to the savage outrage of him who now bore their name.  Richard,
+as with bare feet and ashes whitening his dark locks he knelt on the cold
+stones of the dark Norman church at Trapani, wept hot and bitter tears of
+humiliation over the family crimes that had brought them so low; prayed
+in an agony for repentance for his brothers; and for himself, some
+opening for expiating their sin against at least the generous royal
+family.  “O! could I but die for my Prince, and know that he forgave and
+they repented!”
+
+Only when on his way back to the camp was he sensible of the murmurs of
+censure at his hypocrisy in joining the penitential procession at all.
+Dame Idonea, in a complete suit of sackcloth, was informing her friends
+that she had made a vow not to wash her face till the whole adder brood
+of Montfort had been crushed; and that she trusted to see the beginning
+of justice done to-morrow.  She had offered a candle to St. James to that
+effect, hoping to induce him to turn away his patronage from the family.
+
+Every one, knight or squire, shrank away from Richard, if he did but look
+towards them; and he was seriously discomfited by the difficulty of
+obtaining a godfather for the combat.  No one chose even to be asked,
+lest they might be suspected of approving of the murder of Prince Henry;
+and the unhappy page re-entered his tent with the most desolate sense of
+being abandoned by heaven and man.
+
+Fastened upon the pole of the tent by an arrowhead, a small scroll of
+parchment met his eyes.  He read in English—“A steed and a lance are
+ready for the lioncel who would rather avenge his father than lick the
+tyrant’s feet.  A guide awaits thee.”
+
+Some weeks since, this might have been a tempting summons; but now the
+sickening sense of the sacrilegious murder, and of the life of outlawry
+utterly unrestrained, passed over Richard.  Yet, if he should not accept
+the offer, what was before him?  A shameful death, perhaps; if he failed
+in the ordeal, disgrace, captivity, or expulsion; if he succeeded,
+bondage and distrust for ever.  Some new accusation! some deeper fall!
+
+There was a low growl from Leonillo; the hangings of the tent were
+raised, and an archer bending his head said, “A word with you, Sir.”
+
+“Who art thou?” demanded Richard.
+
+“Hob Longbow, Sir.  Remember you not old passages—in the forest,
+there—and Master Adam?”
+
+Richard did remember the archer in the days of his outlaw life, in a very
+different capacity.
+
+“You were grown so tall, Sir, and so hand and glove with the Longshanks,
+that Nick Dustifoot and I knew not an if it were yourself—but now your
+name is out, and the wind is in another quarter”—he grinned, then seeing
+Richard impatient of the approach to familiarity, “You did not know Nick
+Dustifoot?  He was one of young Sir Simon’s men-at-arms, you see, and
+took to the woods, like other folk, after Kenilworth was given up, till
+stout men were awanting for this Crusade.  And he knew Sir Guy when he
+came to the camp yon by Tunis, and spake with him; moreover, he went in
+the train of him of Almayne to Viterbo, and had speech again with Sir
+Simon, who gave him this scroll.  And if you will meet him at the Syren’s
+Rock to-night, my Lord Richard, he will bring you to those who will
+conduct you to Sir Guy’s brave castle, where he laughs kings and counts
+to scorn!  We have the guard, and will see you safe past the gates of the
+camp.”
+
+The way to liberty was open: Richard deliberated.  The atmosphere of
+distrust and suspicion under the Prince’s coldness was well-nigh
+unbearable.  Danger faced him for the next day!  Disgrace was everywhere.
+Should he leave it behind, where, at least, he would not hear and feel
+it?  Should he, when all had turned from him, meet a brotherly welcome?
+
+Then came back on him the thought of what Simon and Guy had made
+themselves; the thought of his father’s grief at former doings of theirs,
+which had fallen so far short of the atrocity of this.  He knew that his
+father had rather have seen each one of his five sons slain, or helpless
+cripples like the firstborn, than have been thus avenged.  Nay, had he
+this morning prayed for the pardon of a crime, to which he would thus
+become a consenting party?
+
+He looked up resolutely.  “No, Hob Longbow.  Hap what hap, my part can
+never be with those who have stained the Church with blood.  Let my
+brothers know that my heart yearned to them before, but now all is over
+between us.  I can only bear the doom they have brought upon me!”
+
+It was not possible to remain and argue.  A tent was a dangerous place
+for secret conferences, and Hob Longbow could only growl, “As you will,
+Sir.  Now nor you nor any one else can say I have not done my charge.”
+
+“Alack, alack!” sighed Richard, “would that, my honour once redeemed,
+Hamlyn might make an end of me!  But for thee, my poor Leonillo, I have
+no comforter or friend!” and he flung his arms round the dog’s neck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+THE COMBAT
+
+
+    “And now with sae sharp of steele
+    They ’gan to lay on load.”
+
+                                                            _Sir Cauline_.
+
+HEAVY-hearted and pale-cheeked with his rigidly observed fast, Richard
+armed himself in early morning, and set forth to the chapel tent, where
+the previous solemnities had to be observed.  He had made up his mind to
+make an earnest appeal to the Earl of Gloucester, for the sake of the old
+friendship with his father, to become his godfather in the combat, as one
+whose character stood too high to be injured by connection with him.
+Even this plan was frustrated, for Hamlyn de Valence entered, led by Earl
+Gilbert as his sponsor.  Should he turn to his one other friend, the
+Prince himself?  Nay, the Prince was umpire and judge.  Never stood
+warrior so lonely.  Little John of Dunster crept up to his side; and but
+for fear of injuring the child, he would almost have asked him to be his
+sponsor.  At that moment, however, the tramp of horses’ feet was heard,
+and Sir Reginald de Ferrières, with his squires, galloped up to the tent.
+
+The young Hospitalier held out his hand cordially.  “In time, I hope,”
+said he; “I have ridden ever since Lauds at Castel San Giovanni, hoping
+to be with you, so as to stand by you in this matter.”
+
+“It was kindly done of you,” said Richard, tears of gratitude swelling in
+his eyes, as he wrung Sir Raynald’s hand.  “I have not even a godfather
+for the fight!  How could you know of my need?”
+
+“Some of our brethren came over from the camp, for our Ash Wednesday
+procession, and spoke of the stress you were in—that your Montfort
+lineage was out, and that you were thought to have writ a letter—but
+stay, there’s no time for words; methinks here’s the Prince and all his
+train.”
+
+Sir Raynald went through the solemnity of presenting Richard de Montfort
+as about to fight in defence of his own innocence.  The Prince coldly
+accepted the presentation.  Richard knew that Sir Raynald was deemed
+anything but a satisfactory sponsor; but the young knight’s hearty
+sympathy, a sort of radiance caught from good old Sir Robert, was too
+comforting not to be reposed on.
+
+Each champion then confessed.  Raynald heard Richard’s shrift, and nearly
+wept over it—it was the first the young priestly knight had received, and
+he could scarcely clear his voice to speak the words of absolution.  Even
+as they left the confessional, he grasped Richard’s hand and said, “Cast
+in thy lot with us!  St. John will find thee father and home and
+brethren!”
+
+And a gleam of joy and hope flashed on the youth’s heart, and shone
+brighter as he participated in the solemn Mass in preparation for the
+combat.  This over, each champion made oath of the justice of his quarrel
+in the hands of his godfather before the Prince: Hamlyn de Valence
+swearing that to the best of his belief, Richard de Montfort was a
+traitor, in league with his brothers, and art and part in the murder of
+Prince Henry of Almayne, and offering to prove it on his body; while on
+the other hand Richard swore that he was a true and faithful liegeman to
+the King, free from all intercourse with his brethren, and sackless of
+the death of Prince Henry.
+
+Then each mounted on horseback, the trumpets sounded, the sponsors led
+them to their places, and the Prince’s clear voice exclaimed, “And so God
+show the right.”  One glance of pitying sympathy would have filled
+Richard’s arm with fresh vigour.
+
+The two youths closed with shivered lances, and horses reeling from the
+shock.  Backing their steeds, each received a fresh lance.  Again they
+met; Richard felt the point of Hamlyn’s lance glint against his
+breastplate, glide down, enter, make its way into his flesh; but at the
+same instant his lance was pushing, driving, bearing on Hamlyn before
+him; the sheer force in his Plantagenet shoulders was telling now, the
+very pain seemed as it were to add to the energy with which he pressed
+on—on, till the hostile spear dropped from his own side, and Hamlyn was
+borne backwards over the croup of the staggering horse, till he fell with
+crashing ringing armour upon the ground.  Little John clapped his hands,
+and shouted for joy; but no one responded.
+
+Richard leapt down in another second, and stood over him.  “Yield thee,
+Hamlyn de Valence.  Confess that thou hast slandered me with an
+ungrounded accusation.”
+
+Hamlyn had no choice.  “Let me rise,” he said sullenly; “I will confess,
+so thou letst me open my visor.”
+
+And Richard standing aside, Hamlyn spoke out in a dogged formal tone.  “I
+hereby own, that by the judgment of Heaven, Richard de Montfort hath
+cleared himself of all share in the foul murder of Lord Henry, whose soul
+Heaven assoilzie.  Also that he hath disproven the charge of leaguing
+with his brethren.”
+
+Richard was the victor, but where were the gratulations?  Young John’s
+hearty but slender hurrah was lost in the general silence.
+
+The Prince reared his stately form, and said, “The judgment of Heaven is
+final.  Richard de Montfort is pronounced free of all penalty for treason
+in the matter of the death of our dear cousin, and is free to go where he
+will.”
+
+Cold as ice was the Prince’s face.  That Richard meant murder to Henry,
+he had never believed; but that he had hankered after his brothers, and
+held dangerous communings with them, was evidently still credited and
+unforgiven.  The very form of words was a dismissal—and the youth’s heart
+was wrung.
+
+He stood, looking earnestly up as the Prince moved from his place,
+without a glance towards him.  The next moment Raynald’s kind hand was on
+his shoulder, and his voice saying, “Well fought, brother, a brave
+stroke!  Come with me, thou art hurt.”
+
+“Would it were to the death!” murmured Richard dreamily, as Raynald,
+throwing his arm round him, led him away; but before they had reached the
+tent there was a plunging rush and scampering behind them, and John of
+Dunster came dashing up.  “I knew it!  I knew it!” he cried.  “I knew he
+would overset spiteful Hamlyn!  Hurrah!  They can’t keep me away now,
+Richard—now the judgment of Heaven has gone for you!”
+
+Richard smiled, and put his gauntleted hand caressingly on the boy’s
+shoulder.
+
+“I was afraid,” added John, “that you would think me like the rest of
+them.  Miscreants, all!  Not one would shout for you—you, the victor!
+They don’t heed the judgment of Heaven one jot.  And that’s what they
+call being warriors of the Cross!  If the Prince were a true-born
+Englishman, he would be ashamed of himself.  But never heed, Richard.
+Why don’t you speak to me?  Are you angered that I told of the letter?
+Indeed, I never guessed—”
+
+“Hush, varlet,” said Sir Raynald, “see you not that he has neither breath
+nor voice to speak?  If you wish to do him a service, hie to our
+tents—down yonder, to the east, where you see the eight-pointed cross—”
+
+“I know, Sir,” said John, perfectly civil on hearing accents as English
+as his own.
+
+“And bring up Brother Bartlemy, he is a better infirmarer than I.  Bid
+him from me bring his salves and bandages.”
+
+Richard was barely conscious when he reached the tent, as much from rigid
+fasting and sleeplessness as from the actual loss of blood.  His friend
+disarmed him tenderly, and revived him with bread and wine, silencing a
+half-murmured scruple about Lenten diet with the dispensation due to
+sickness.  The wound was not likely to be serious or disabling, and the
+cares of the Hospitalier and his infirmarer had presently set their
+patient so much at ease that he dropped into a sound sleep, having
+scarcely said a word, beyond a few faintly uttered thanks, since he had
+fought the combat.
+
+At first his sleep was profound, but by and by the associations of blows
+and wounds carried him back to the field of Evesham.  The wild _mêlée_
+was renewed, he heard the voice of his father, but always in that strange
+distressing manner peculiar to dreams of the departed, always far away,
+and just beyond his reach, ever just about to give him the succour he
+needed, but ever withheld.  The thunderstorm that broke over the
+contending armies roared again in his ears; and then again recurred the
+calm still night, when he had lain helpless on the battle-field; even the
+caress of Leonillo, and his low growl, were vividly repeated; but as the
+dog moved, it was to Richard as if the form of his father rose up in its
+armour from the dark field, and said in a deep hollow voice, “Well
+fought, my son; I will give thee knighthood.”  Then Richard thought he
+was kneeling before his father, and hearing that same voice saying, “My
+son, be true and loyal.  In the name of God and St. James.  I dub thee
+knight of death!” and looking up, he beheld under the helmet, not Simon
+de Montfort’s face but the Prince’s.  He awoke with a start of
+disappointment—and there stood Edward himself, leaning against the
+tent-pole, looking down at him!
+
+He sprang on his feet, scarcely knowing whether he slept or woke; but
+Edward said, in that voice that at times was so ineffably sweet, “Be
+still, Richard; I fear me thou hast suffered a wrong, and I am come to
+repair it, as far as I can!  Lay thee down again.”
+
+And the Prince seated himself on the oaken chest; while Richard, after a
+few words, sat down on his couch.
+
+“Is this the letter about which there has been such a coil?” said Edward,
+giving him the scroll in its sepia ink.
+
+“It is!” replied Richard in amazement and dismay.
+
+“The only letter thou didst write?”
+
+“The only one,” repeated Richard.
+
+“And,” added Edward, “it concerns thy brother Henry.”
+
+Richard turned even paler than before, and could not suppress a gasp of
+dismay.  “My Lord, make me not forsworn!”
+
+“Listen to me, Richard,” said Edward.  “My sweet lady gave me no rest
+about thee.  She held that I had withdrawn my trust over lightly, for
+what was no blame to thine heart; and that having set thee here apart
+from thy natural friends, we owed thee more notice than I have been wont
+to think wholesome for untried striplings.  Others, and I among them,
+held that Raynald Ferrers’ friendship and countenance showed thee
+stubbornly set on old connections, and many thought the letter to the
+Grand Prior Darcy a mere excuse.  But when Hamlyn fell, and I still held
+that thou wert merely cleared from wilful share in the deadly crime of
+which I had never held thee guilty, then she spake more earnestly.  She
+of her own will sent for Raynald Ferrers to our tent, and called me to
+speak with him, sure that, even though his family had been our foes, he
+was too honourable a knight to have espoused thy cause without good
+reason.  Then it was that he told us of thine interest for the blind
+beggar whose child thou didst save, and of the Grand Prior’s message.
+Also, as full exculpation of thee, he gave me the letter, which, having
+failed to find a home-bound messenger at San Giovanni, he had brought
+back to the camp.  And now, Richard, what can I say more, than that I did
+thee wrong, and pray thee to give me thy hand in pardon?”
+
+Richard hid his face and sobbed, completely overwhelmed by the simple
+dignity of the humility of such a man as Edward.  He held the Prince’s
+hand to his lips, and exclaimed, “Oh, how—how could I have ever felt
+discontent, or faltered? not in truth—oh, no—but in trust and patience?
+Oh! my Lord, that I could die for you!”
+
+“Not yet,” said Edward, smiling; “we have much to do together first.  And
+now tell me, Richard, this beggar is indeed Henry?”
+
+Richard hung his head.
+
+“What, thou mayst not betray him?”
+
+“I am under an oath, my Lord.”
+
+“Nay, I know well-nigh all, Richard.  I did indeed see my dear old
+comrade laid in Evesham Church, so as it broke my heart to see him,
+bleeding from many wounds, and even his hand lopped by the savage
+Mortimers.  Then, as I bent down, and gave his brow a last kiss, it
+struck me, for a moment, that the touch was not that of a dead man’s
+skin.  But I looked again at the deadly wounds of head and breast, and
+thought it would be but cruelty to strive to bring back the glimmer of
+life only to—to see the ruin of his house; and all that he could not be
+saved from.  O Richard, to no man in either host could the day of Evesham
+have been so sore, as to me, who had to sit in the gate, to gladden men’s
+hearts, like holy King David, when he would fain have been weeping for
+his son!  But in early morning came Abbot William of Whitchurch to my
+chamber, and with much secrecy told me that the corpse of Henry de
+Montfort had been stolen from the church by night, praying me to excuse
+that the monks, wearied out with the day of alarms, and the care of our
+wounded, had not kept better watch.  Then knew I that some one had been
+less faithless than I, and I hoped that poor Henry was at least dying in
+peace; I had never deemed that he could survive.  But when I saw thy
+billet, and heard Ferrers’ tale, I had no further doubt, remembering
+likewise how strangely familiar was the face of that little one at
+Westminster.”
+
+“Yes, my Lord, it was even as a strange, wild, wilful, blind beggar that
+I found poor Henry; and heavy was the curse he laid me under, should I
+make him known to you.  He calls himself thus a freer and happier man
+than he could be even were he pardoned and reinstated; and he can indulge
+his vein of mockery.”
+
+“I dare be sworn that consoles him for all,” said Edward, nearly
+laughing.  “So long as he could utter his gibe, Henry little recked which
+way the world passed round him; and I trow he has found some mate of low
+degree, that he would be loth to produce in open day.”
+
+“Not so, my Lord: it is so wild a tale of true love that I can sometimes
+scarce believe a minstrel did not sing it to me!”  And Richard told the
+history of Isabel Mortimer’s fidelity.  The Prince was deeply touched,
+and then remembered the marked manner in which the Baron of Mortimer had
+replied to his inquiry, in what convent he had bestowed Henry de
+Montfort’s betrothed.  “She is dead, my Lord, dead to us.”  Then he added
+suddenly, “So that black-eyed babe is the heiress of Leicester and all
+the honours of Montfort!”
+
+“It is one of the causes for Henry’s resolve to be secret,” said Richard.
+“I thought it harsh and distrustful then, but he dreaded Simon’s
+knowledge of her.”
+
+“We will find a way of securing her from Simon,” said the Prince.  “But
+fear not, Richard, Henry’s secret shall be safe with me!  I have kept his
+secrets before now,” he added, with a smile.  “Only, when we are at home
+again—so it please the Saints to spare us—thou shalt strive to show him
+cause to trust my Lady with his child, if he doth not seek to breed her
+up to scrip and wallet.  I see such is thy counsel in this scroll, and it
+is well.”
+
+“How could I say other?” said Richard, “and now, more than ever!  I long
+to thank the gracious Princess this very evening.”
+
+“Thy wound?’ said the Prince.
+
+“My wound is naught, I scarce feel it.”
+
+“Then,” said the Prince, “unless the leech gainsay it, it would be as
+well to be at our pavilion this evening, that men may see thou art not in
+any disgrace.  Rest then till supper-time.”  And as he spoke he rose to
+depart, but Richard made a gesture of entreaty.  “So please your Grace,
+grant me a few farther words.  I sware, and truly, that I had heard
+nothing from my brothers when I was accused of writing that letter to
+them.  But see here, what yester-morn was pinned to that tent-pole.”
+
+He gave Edward the scroll, at which the Prince looked half smiling.  “So!
+A dagger in store for me too, is there?  Well, my cousins have a goodly
+thirst for vengeance!  Hast thou any suspicion how this billet came
+here?”
+
+“Ay, my Lord; and for that cause I would warn you against two of the
+archers, one of whom was in Simon’s troop, and went with the late prince
+to Viterbo.  I gave them no promise of silence.”
+
+“You spoke with them?”
+
+“With one, who was charged to let me through the outposts to a spot where
+means were provided for bringing me to Guy.”
+
+“And thou,” said Edward, smiling, “didst choose to bide the buffet?”
+
+“Sir,” said Richard, “I did indeed long after my brethren when Guy had
+been so near me in Africa; but now, I would far rather die than cast in
+my lot with them.”
+
+“Thou art wise,” said Edward; “not merely right, but wise.  I have sent
+Gloucester to my uncle of Sicily with such messages that he will scarce
+dare to leave them scatheless!  Then, at supper-time we meet again—in
+thine own name, Richard, and as my kinsman and esquire.  Thou shalt bear
+thine own name and arms.  I will cause a mourning suit to be sent to
+thee—thou art equally of kin with myself to poor Henry—and shalt mourn
+him with Edmund and me at the requiem to-morrow.  So will it best be
+manifest to the camp, that we exempt thee from all blame.”  Again he was
+departing, when Richard added—“The archers, my Lord—were it not good to
+dismiss them?”
+
+“Tush,” said Edward; “tell me not their names.  So soon as the wind
+veers, they will be beyond Guy’s reach; and if I were to stand on my
+guard against every man who loved thy father better than mine, what good
+would my life do me?  The poor knaves will be true enough when they see a
+Saracen before them!”
+
+And away went Edward, to be glanced at as he passed through the camp, as
+a severe, hard, cruel tyrant.  Had he only been gay, open-hearted, and
+careless, he might have hung both the guilty archers, and a dozen
+innocent ones into the bargain, and yet have never won the character for
+harshness and unmercifulness that he had acquired even while condoning
+many a dire offence, simply from his stern gravity, and his punctilious
+exactitude in matters of discipline.  But the evils of a lax and
+easy-going court had been so fatal, and had produced such suffering, that
+it was no marvel that he had adopted a rule of iron; and in the pain and
+distress of seeing his closest friends, the noblest subjects in the
+realm, pushed into a rebellion where he had himself to maintain his
+father’s cause, and then to watch, without being able to hinder, the
+mean-spirited revenge of his own partizans, his manner had acquired that
+silent reserve and coldness which made him feared and hated by the many,
+while intensely beloved by the few.  Even towards those few it was
+absolutely difficult to him to unbend, as he had done in this hour of
+effusion towards Richard; and the youth was proportionably moved and
+agitated with fervent gratitude and affection.
+
+He had scarcely had so happy an evening since he had been a boy at
+Odiham.  He was indeed feeble and dizzy at times, but with a far from
+painful languor; and the Princess, enjoying the permission to follow the
+dictates of her own heart, was kind to him with a motherly or sisterly
+kindness, could not bear to receive from him his wonted attendance, but
+made him lie upon the cushions at her feet, and when out of hearing of
+every one, talked of the faithful Isabel, and of “pretty Bessee,” on whom
+she already looked as the companion of her little Eleanor, whom she had
+left at home.
+
+It might be questioned whether Richard did not undergo more in watching
+little John de Mohun’s endeavours at waiting than he would have suffered
+from doing it himself.  And not a few dissatisfied glances were levelled
+at the favoured stripling, besides the literally as well as figuratively
+sour glances of Dame Idonea.
+
+Edward, being of course unable to betray his real grounds for acquitting
+Richard, had only deigned to inform Prince Edmund that he knew all, and
+was perfectly satisfied.  Now Prince Edmund, as well as all the old court
+faction, deemed Edward’s regard for the Barons’ party an unreasonable
+weakness that they durst not indeed combat openly, but which angered them
+as a species of disaffection to his own cause.  The outer world thought
+him a tyrant, but there was an inner world to whom he appeared weakly
+good-natured and generous; and this inner world thought Richard had
+successfully hoodwinked him!
+
+Therefore Edmund of Lancaster desired to adopt Hamlyn de Valence as his
+own squire, to save him from association with Richard; and both prince
+and squire, and all the rest of the train, made it perfectly evident to
+the young Montfort that he was barely tolerated out of respect for the
+Prince.
+
+But Richard in his joy could have borne worse than this, for the Prince
+had not relaxed in his kindness, and made his young cousin’s wound an
+excuse for showing him more tenderness and consideration than he would
+otherwise have thought befitting.  Moreover, an esquire, as Richard had
+now become, might be in much closer relations of intimacy with his master
+than was possible to a page; and the day that had begun so sadly was like
+the dawn of a brighter period.
+
+Sir Raynald Ferrers had been invited to the Prince’s pavilion, but the
+rules of his Order did not permit his joining a secular entertainment in
+Lent, and he did not admit either the camp life or the gravity of the
+Prince’s mourning household as a dispensation.  However, when Richard,
+leaning fondly on little John’s ready shoulder, crossed to his own tent,
+he found his good friend waiting there to attend to his wound, which Sir
+Raynald professed to regard as an excellent subject to practise upon, and
+likewise to hear whether all had been cleared up, and had gone right with
+him.
+
+“Though,” he said, “I could not doubt of it when that fair and lovely
+Princess had taken your matters in hand.  Tell me, Richard, have you
+secular men many such dames as that abroad in the world?”
+
+“Not many such as she,” said Richard, smiling.
+
+“Well, I have not spoken to a female thing, save perhaps pretty Bessee,
+since I went into the Spital, ten years ago; and verily the sound of the
+lady’s voice was to me as if St. Margaret had begun talking to me!  And
+so wise and clear of wit too.  I thought women were feather-pated wilful
+beings, from whom there was no choice but to shut oneself up!  I trow,
+that now all is well with thee, thou wilt scarce turn a thought again
+towards our brotherhood, where to glance at such a being becomes a sin.”
+And Raynald crossed himself, with an effort to recall his wonted
+asceticism.
+
+“Ladies’ love is not like to be mine,” said Richard, laughing, as one not
+yet awake to the force of the motive.  “No!  Gladly would I be one of
+your noble brotherhood, where alone have I met with kindness—but, Sir
+Raynald, my first duty under Heaven must be to redeem my father’s name,
+by my service to the Prince.  My brothers think they uphold it by deadly
+revenge.  I want to show what a true Montfort can be with such a master
+as my father never had!  And, Raynald, I cannot but fear that further
+schemes of vengeance may be afloat.  The Prince is too fearless to take
+heed to himself, and who is so bound to watch for him as I?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+THE VIEW FROM CARMEL
+
+
+    “On her who knew that love can conquer death;
+       Who, kneeling with one arm about her king,
+    Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,
+          Sweet as new buds in spring.”—TENNYSON.
+
+A YEAR had elapsed since the crusaders had landed in Palestine; Nazareth
+had been taken, and the Christian host were encamped upon the plain
+before Acre, according to their Prince’s constant habit of preferring to
+keep his troops in the open field, rather than to expose them to the
+temptations of the city—which was, alas! in a state most unworthy of the
+last stronghold of Latin Christianity in the Holy Land.
+
+It was on a scorching June day, Whitsun Tuesday, in the exquisite beauty
+of an early summer in the mountains of the Levant—when “the flowers
+appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the
+voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her
+green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell,”—that
+Richard de Montfort was descending the wooded sides of Mount Carmel.
+
+Anxious tidings had of late come from England respecting the health of
+the little Prince John; and Princess Eleanor was desirous of offering
+gifts and obtaining prayers on his behalf, on the part of the good
+Fathers of the convent associated with the memory of the great Prophet
+who had raised the dead child to life.  She herself, however, was at the
+time unfit for a mountain ride; and Prince Edward, who was a lay brother
+of the Carmelite order, and had fully intended himself to go and offer
+his devotions for his child, was so unwell on that day, from the feverish
+heat of the summer, that he could not expose himself to the sun; and
+Richard was therefore despatched on the part of the royal pair.  He had
+ascended in the cool of the morning, setting forth before sunrise, and
+attending the regular Mass.  The good Fathers would fain have detained
+him till the heat of the day should be past; but his anxiety not to
+overpass in the slightest degree the time fixed by the Prince, made him
+resolved on setting out so soon as his errand was sped.
+
+Unspeakably beautiful was his ride—through rocky dells filled with
+copsewood, among which jessamine, lilies, and exquisite flowers were
+peeping up, and the coney, the fawn, and other animals, made Leonillo
+prick his ears and wistfully seek from his master’s eye permission to
+dash off in pursuit.  Or the “oaks of Carmel,” with many a dark-leaved
+evergreen, towered in impenetrable thicket, and at an opening glade might
+be beheld on the north-east, “that goodly mountain Lebanon” rising in a
+thick clothing of wood; and beyond, in sharp cool softness, the white
+cone of rain-distilling Hermon.  Far to the west lay the glorious
+glittering sheet of the Mediterranean; but nearer, almost beneath his
+feet, was the curving bay and harbour of Ptolemais, filled with white
+sails, the white city of Acre full of fortresses and towers; while on the
+plain beside it, green with verdure as Richard’s own home greenwood of
+Odiham, lay the white tents of the Christian army, in so clear an
+atmosphere that he could see the flash of the weapons of the men on
+guard, and almost distinguish the blazonry of the banners.
+
+Richard dismounted to gather some roses and jessamine for the Princess,
+and to collect some of the curious fossil echini, which he believed to be
+olives turned to stone by the Prophet Elijah, as a punishment to a
+churlish peasant who refused him a meal.  He thought that such treasures
+would be a welcome addition to the store he was accumulating for the good
+old Grand Prior.  He gave his horse to Hob Longbow, his only attendant
+except a young Sicilian lad.  This same Longbow had stuck to him with a
+pertinacity that he could not shake off, and in truth had hitherto
+justified the Prince’s prediction that he would be a brave and faithful
+fellow when his allegiance was no further disturbed by the proximity of
+the outlawed Montforts.  There had been nothing to lead Richard to think
+he ought to indicate either him or Nick Dustifoot to the Prince as the
+persons who had been connected with Guy in Italy.
+
+Presently Leonillo bounded forward, and Richard became aware of the
+figure of a man in light armour standing partly hidden among the
+brushwood, but looking down intently into the Christian camp.  The dog
+leapt up, fawning on the stranger with demonstrations of rapture; and he,
+turning in haste, stood face to face with Richard.
+
+“Here!” was his exclamation, and a grasp was instantly laid upon his
+sword.
+
+“Simon!” burst from Richard’s lips at the same moment, “dost not know
+me?”
+
+“Thou, boy?” and the hold was relaxed.  “What lucky familiar sent thee
+hither?  What—thou art grown such a huge fellow that I had well-nigh
+struck thee down for Longshanks himself, had it not been for thy voice.
+Thou hast his very bearing.”
+
+“Simon!” again repeated Richard, in his extremity of amazement.  “What
+dost thou?  How camest thou here?  Whence—?”
+
+“That thou shalt soon see,” said Simon.  “A right free and merry home and
+company have we up yonder,”—and he pointed towards Mount Lebanon.
+
+“Thou and Guy?”
+
+“No, no; Guy turned craven.  Could not endure our wanderings in the
+marshes and hills, pined for his wife forsooth, fell sick, and must needs
+go and give himself up to the Pope; so he sings the penitential psalms
+night and day.”
+
+“And we heard thou wast dead at Siena.”
+
+“Thou hearest many a false tale,” said Simon.  “Of my death thou shalt
+judge, if thou wilt turn thy horse and ride with me to our hill-fort of
+Ain Gebel, in Galilee.  They say ’tis the very one which King David or
+King Herod, whichever it was, could only take by letting down his
+men-at-arms in boxes!  I should like to see the boxes that we could not
+send skimming down the abyss!  And a wondrous place they have left
+us—vaults as cool as a convent wine-cellar, fountains out of the rock,
+marble columns.”
+
+“But, brother, for whom do you hold it?  For the King of Cyprus or—?”
+
+“For myself, boy!  For King Simon, an it like you better!  None can touch
+me or my merry band there, and a goodly company we are—pilgrims grown
+wiser, and runaway captives, and Druses, and bold Arabs too: and the
+choicest of many a heretic Armenian merchants’ caravan is ours, and of
+many a Saracen village; corn and wine, fair dames, and Damascus blades,
+and Arab steeds.  Nothing has been wanting to me but thee and vengeance,
+and both are, I hope, on the way!”
+
+“Not I, certainly!” said Richard, shrinking back in horror: “I—a sworn
+crusader!”
+
+“Tush, what are we but crusaders too, boy?  ’Tis all service against the
+Moslem!  Thy patron saint sent thee to me to-day from special care for
+thy safety.”
+
+“How so!” exclaimed Richard.  “If peril threaten my Lord, I must be with
+him at once.”
+
+“Much hast thou gained by hanging on upon him,” said Simon scornfully,
+glancing at Richard’s heels; “not so much as a pair of gilt spurs!
+Creeping after him like a hound, thou hast not even the bones!”
+
+“I have all I seek,” said Richard.  “I have his brotherly kindness.  I
+have the opportunity of redeeming my name.  Nay, I should even regret any
+honour that took me from the services I now perform.  Simon, didst thou
+but know his love for our father!”
+
+“Silence, base caitiff!” thundered Simon; “I know his deeds, and that is
+enough for me!  Look here, mean-spirited as thou wert to be taken with
+his hypocrisy, I have pity on thee yet.  I would spare thee what awaits
+thee in the camp!”
+
+“For heaven’s sake, Simon, dost know of any attack of the Emir?  The
+Princess must at once be conveyed into the town!  As thou art a man, a
+Christian, speak plainly!”
+
+“Foolish lad, the infidels are quiet enough!  No peril threatens the
+camp!  Only if thou wilt run thy head into it, thou art like to find it
+too hot to hold thee!”
+
+“I am afraid of no accusations,” said Richard; “my Lord knows and trusts
+me.”
+
+Simon laughed a loud ringing scornful laugh.
+
+“Wilful will to water,” he said.  “Well, thou besotted lad, if it be not
+too late when thou getst into the hands of Crookbacked Edmund and Red
+Gilbert, remember the way to Galilee, that is all!”
+
+“I tell thee, Simon,” said Richard, turning round and fully facing him;
+“I would rather perish an innocent man by the hands of the Provost
+Marshal, than darken my soul with thy counsels of blood.  O Simon!  What
+thy purpose may be I know not; but canst thou deem it faithfulness to our
+father, saint as he was, to live this dark wild life, so utterly
+abhorrent to him?”
+
+“Let those look to that who slew him, and made me such as I am,” returned
+Simon, turning from him, and gazing steadfastly down into the camp.
+Suddenly a gleam of fierce exultation lighted up his face, and again
+facing Richard he exclaimed, “Yes, go home, tame cringing spaniel, and
+see whether a Montfort is still in favour below there!  See if proud
+Edward is still ready to meet thy fawning with his scornful patronage!
+See if the honour of a murdered father has not been left in better hands
+than thine!  And when thou hast had thy lesson, find the way to Ain
+Gebel, or ask Nick Dustifoot.”
+
+Richard, with a startled exclamation, looked down, but could discern
+nothing unusual in the camp.  The royal banner hung in heavy folds over
+the Prince’s pavilions, and all was evidently still in the same noontide
+repose, or rather exhaustion, to which the Syrian sun reduced even the
+hardy active Englishmen.  “What mean you?” he began; but Simon was no
+longer beside him.  He called, but echo alone answered; and all he could
+do was to throw himself on his horse, and hurry down the mountain side,
+with a vague presentiment of evil, and a burning desire to warn his lord
+or share his peril.
+
+He understood Simon’s position.  Many of the almost inaccessible rocks,
+where the sons of Anak had built their Cyclopean fortresses, and which
+had been abodes of almost fabulous beauty and strength in the Herodian
+days, had been resorted to again by the crusaders, and had served as
+isolated strongholds whence to annoy the enemy.  Frightfully lawless had,
+in too many instances, been the life there led, more especially by the
+Levant-born sons of Europeans; and in the universal disorganization of
+the Kingdom of Jerusalem, that took place in consequence of the disputed
+rights of Cyprus and Hohenstaufen, most of them had become free from all
+control.  If the garrisons bore the Christian name at all, it chiefly was
+as an excuse for preying on all around; but too often they were renegades
+of every variety of nation, drawn together by the vilest passions,
+commanded by some reckless adventurer, and paying a species of allegiance
+to any power that either endangered them, or afforded them the hopes of
+plunder.  Bloodthirsty and voluptuous alike, they were viewed with equal
+terror by the Frank pilgrim, the Syriac villager, the Armenian merchant,
+and the Saracen hadji—whose ransom and whose spoil enriched their
+chambers, with all that the licentious tastes of East and West united
+could desire.  There were comparatively few of these nests of iniquity in
+these latter days of the Crusades, but some still survived; and Richard
+had seen some of their captains with their followers at the siege of
+Nazareth, where the atrocities they had committed had been such as to
+make the English army stand aghast.  As a member of such a crew, Simon
+could hardly fail to find means of attempting that revenge on which it
+was but too evident that he was still bent; and Richard, as every
+possible risk rose before him, urged his horse to perilous speed down the
+steep descent, and chid every obstacle, though in fact the descent which
+ordinarily occupied two hours, for men who cared for their own necks, was
+effected by him in a quarter of the time.  He came to the entrenched
+camp.  The entrance, where the Prince made so strict a point of keeping a
+sentinel, was completely unguarded.  The foremost tents were empty, but
+there was a sound as of the murmuring voices of numbers towards the
+centre of the camp.  The next moment he met Hamlyn de Valence riding
+quickly, and followed by two attendants.
+
+“Hamlyn! a moment!” he gasped.  “Has aught befallen the Prince?”
+
+“You were aware of it, then!” said Hamlyn, checking his horse, and
+looking him full in the face.
+
+“Answer me, for Heaven’s sake!  Is all well with the Princes?”
+
+“As well as your house desires—or it may be somewhat better,” said
+Hamlyn; “but let me pass.  I am on an errand of life or death.”
+
+So saying, Hamlyn dashed forwards; and Richard, in double alarm, made his
+way to the space in the centre of the camp, where he found himself on the
+outskirts of a crowd, talking in the various tongues of English, French,
+and Lingua Franca.  “He lives—the good Princess—the dogs of
+infidels—poison—” were the words he caught.  He flung himself from his
+horse, and was about to interrogate the nearest man, when John of Dunster
+came hurrying towards him from the tents, and threw himself upon him,
+sobbing with agitation and dismay.
+
+“What is it?  Speak, John!  The Prince!”
+
+“Oh, if you had but been there!  It will not cease bleeding.  O Richard,
+he looks worse than my father when he came home!”
+
+“Let me hear!  Where?  How is he hurt?”
+
+“In the arm and brow,” said the boy.
+
+“The arm!” said Richard, much relieved.
+
+“Ah, but they say the dagger is poisoned!  Stay, Richard, I’ll tell you
+all.  Dame Idonea turned me out of the tent, and she will not let any one
+in.  It was thus—even now the Prince was lying on the day-bed in his own
+outer tent, no one else there save myself.  I believe everybody was
+asleep, I know I was—when Nick Dustifoot called me, and bade me tell the
+Prince there was a messenger from the Emir of Joppa, asking to see him.
+So the Prince roused himself up, and bade him come in.  He was one of
+those quick-eyed Moorish-looking infidels, in the big turbans and great
+goat’s hair cloaks; and he went down on his knees, and hit the ground
+with his forehead, and said Salam aleikum—traitor that he was—and gave
+the Prince a letter.  Well, the Prince muttered something about his head
+aching so sorely that he could scarce see the writing, and had just put
+up his hand to shade his eyes from the light, when the dog was out with a
+dagger and fell on him!  The Prince’s arm being raised, caught the
+stroke, you see; and that moment his foot was up,” said John, acting the
+kick, “and down went the rogue upon his back!  And I—I threw myself right
+down over him!”
+
+“Did you, my brave little fellow?  Well done of you!” cried Richard.
+
+“And the Prince wrested the dagger out of the rogue’s hand, only he tore
+his own forehead sorely, as the point flew up with the shock—and then
+stabbed the villain to the heart—see how the blood rushed over me!  Then
+the Prince pulled me up, and called me a brave lad, and set me on my
+feet, and asked me if I were sure I was not hurt.  And by that time the
+archers were coming in, when all was over; and Long Robin must needs
+snatch up a joint stool and have a stroke at the Moor’s head.  I trow the
+Prince was wrath with the cowardly clown for striking a dead man.  He
+said I alone had been any aid!”
+
+“‘Well?” anxiously asked Richard, gathering intense alarm as he saw that
+the boy’s trouble still exceeded his elation, even at such commendation
+as this.
+
+“But then,” said John sadly, “even while he called it nothing, there came
+a dizziness over him.  And even then the Princess had heard the outcry,
+and came in haste with Dame Idonea.  And so soon as the Dame had picked
+up the dagger and looked well at it, and smelt it, she said there was
+poison on it.  No sooner did the Princess hear that, than, without one
+word, she put her lips to his arm to suck forth the venom.  He was for
+withholding her, but the Dame said that was the only safeguard for his
+life; and she looked—oh, so imploring!”
+
+“Blessings on the sweet Princess and true wife!” cried the men-at-arms,
+great numbers of whom had gathered round the little eye-witness to hear
+his account.
+
+“And so is he saved?” said Richard, with a long breath.
+
+“Ah! but,” said John, his eyes beginning to fill with tears, “there is
+the Grand Master of the Templars come now, and he says that to suck the
+poison is of no avail; and that nothing will save him but cutting away
+the living flesh as I would carve the wing of a bustard; and Dame Idonea
+says that is just the way King Cœur de Lion died, and the Princess is
+weeping, and the wound will not stop bleeding; and Hamlyn is gone to Acre
+for a surgeon, and they are all wrangling, and Dame Idonea boxed my ears
+at last, and said I was gaping there.”  The boy absolutely burst into
+sobs and tears, and at the same moment a growl arose among the archers,
+of “Curses on the Moslem hounds!  Not one shall escape!  Death to every
+captive in our hands!”
+
+“Nay, nay,” exclaimed Richard, looking up in horror; “the poor captives
+are utterly guiltless!  Far more justly make me suffer,” murmured he
+sadly.
+
+“All tarred with the same stick,” said the nearest; “serve them as they
+deserve.”
+
+“Think,” added Richard, “if the Prince would see no dishonour done to the
+dead carcase of the murderer himself, would he be willing to have ill
+worked on living men, sackless of the wrong?  English turning
+butchers—that were fit work for Paynims.”
+
+“No, no, not one shall live to laugh at our Edward’s fall,” burst out the
+men; and a voice among them added, “Sure the young squire seems to know a
+vast deal about the guilty and the guiltless—the Montfort!  Ay!  Away
+with all foes to our Edward—”
+
+“Best withdraw yourself, Sir,” said Hob Longbow; “their blood is up.
+Baulk them of their prey, and they will set on you next.”
+
+Richard just then beheld a person from whose interposition he had much
+greater hopes, namely the Earl of Gloucester, who, though still a young
+man, was the chief English noble in the camp, and whose special charge
+the Saracen captives were.  He hurried towards him, and asked tidings of
+the Prince.
+
+“Ill tidings, I trow,” said the Earl, bitterly.  “Ay, Richard de
+Montfort, you had best take heed to yourself, he was your best friend;
+and a sore lookout it is for us all.  Between the old dotard his father
+and the poor babes his children, England is in woeful plight.  Would that
+your father’s wits were among us still!  There’s some curse on this
+fools’ errand of a Crusade, for here is the sixth prince it hath slain,
+and well if we lose not our Princess too.  But what is all this uproar!”
+
+“The men-at-arms, my Lord,” said Richard, “fierce to visit the crime on
+the captives.”
+
+“A good riddance!” said Earl Gilbert; “the miscreants eat as much as ten
+score yeomen, and my knaves are weary with guarding them.  If this matter
+brings all the pagans in Palestine on our hands, we shall have enough to
+do without looking after this nest of heathens.”
+
+“But would the Prince have it so?”
+
+“I fear me the Prince is like to have little will in the matter!  No, no,
+I’m not the man to order a butchery, but if the honest fellows must needs
+shed blood for blood, I’m not going to meddle between them and the
+heathen wolves.”
+
+Assuredly nothing was to be done with the Red de Clare, and Richard
+pushed on, with throbbing dismayed heart, to the tent, dreading to behold
+the condition of him whom he best loved and honoured on earth.  The tent
+was crowded, but Richard’s unusual height enabled him to see, over the
+heads of those nearest, that Edward was sitting on the edge of his couch,
+his wife and Dame Idonea endeavouring to check the flow of blood from his
+wound.  The elbow of his other arm was on his knee, and his head on his
+hand, but the opening of the curtain let in the light; he looked up, and
+Richard saw how deathly white his face had become, and the streaks of
+blood from the scratch upon his brow.  He greeted Richard, however, with
+the look of recognition to which his young squire had now become used—not
+exactly a smile, but a well-satisfied welcome; and though he spoke low
+and feebly to his brother who stood near him, Richard caught the words
+with a thrill of emotion.
+
+“Let him near me, Edmund.  He hath a ready hand, and may aid thee, sweet
+wife.  Thou art wearying thyself.”  Then, as Richard approached, “Thou
+hast sped well!  I looked not for thee so soon.”
+
+“Alack, my Lord!” said Richard, “I hurried on to warn you.  Ah! would I
+had been in time!”
+
+“Thy little pupil, John, did all man could do,” said Edward, languidly
+smiling.  “But what—hast aught in charge to say to me?  Be brief, for I
+am strangely dizzy.”
+
+“My Lord,” said Richard, “the archers and men-at-arms are furiously wrath
+with the Saracens.  They would wreak their vengeance on the prisoners,
+who at least are guiltless!”
+
+“The knaves!” exclaimed Edward promptly.  “Why looks not Gloucester to
+this?”
+
+“My Lord, the Earl saith that he would not command the slaughter, but
+that he will not forbid it.”
+
+“Saints and angels!” burst forth the Prince, and to the amazement of all,
+he started at once on his feet, and striding through the bystanders to
+the opening of the tent, he looked out on the crowd, who were already
+rushing towards the inclosure where their victims were penned.  Raising
+his mighty voice as in a battle-day, he called aloud to them to halt,
+turn back, and hear him.  They turned, and beheld the lofty form in the
+entrance of the tent, wrapped in a long loose robe, which, as well as his
+hair, was profusely stained with blood, his wan face, however, making
+that marble dignity and sternness of his even more awful and majestic as
+he spoke aloud.  “So, men, you would have me go down to my grave
+blood-stained and accursed by the death of guiltless captives?  And I
+pray you, what is to be the lot of our countrymen, now on pilgrimage to
+Jerusalem, if you thus deal with our prisoners, taken in war?  Senseless
+bloody-minded hounds that ye are, mark my words.  The life of one of you
+for the life of a Saracen captive; and should I die, I lay my curse on ye
+all, if every man of them be not set free the hour my last breath is
+drawn.  Do you hear me, ye cravens?”
+
+Unsparing, unconciliatory as ever, even when most merciful and generous,
+Edward turned, but reeled as he re-entered the tent, and his dizziness
+recurring, needed the support of both his brother and Richard to lay him
+down on the couch.
+
+The Grand Master of the Temple renewed his assurance that this was a
+token of the poison, and Eleanor was unheeded when she declared that her
+dear lord had been affected in the same manner before his wound, ever
+since indeed the Whit Sunday when he had ridden home from the great
+Church of St. John of Acre in the full heat of the sun.
+
+Dame Idonea was muttering the mediæval equivalent for fiddlesticks, as
+plain as her respect for the Temple would allow her.
+
+At that moment the leech whom Hamlyn had been sent into the town to
+summon, made his appearance, and fully confirmed the Templar’s opinion.
+Neither the wizened Greek physician, nor the dignified Templar,
+considered the soft but piteous assurance of the wife that the venom had
+at once been removed by her own lips as more than mere feminine folly,
+and Dame Idonea’s real experience of knights thus saved, and on the other
+hand of the fatal consequences of rude surgery in such a climate, were
+disregarded as an old woman’s babble.  Her voice waxed shrill and angry,
+and her antagonists’ replies in Lingua Franca, mixed with Arabic, Latin,
+and Greek, rang through the tent, till the Prince could bear it no
+longer.
+
+“Peace,” he said, with an asperity unlike his usual stern patience, “I
+had liefer brook your knives than your tongues!  Without further
+jangling, tell me clearly, learned physician, the peril of either
+submitting or not submitting to your steel.”
+
+The Greek told, with as little tergiversation as was in his nature, that
+he viewed a refusal as certain death, but several times Dame Idonea was
+bursting out upon him, and Edward had to hold up his finger to silence
+her.
+
+“Now, kind lady,” quoth he, “let me hear the worst you foretell for me
+from your experience.”
+
+Dame Idonea did not spare him either the fate of Cœur de Lion, the
+dangers of fever and pain, and above all “of that strange enchantment
+that binds the teeth together and forbids a man to swallow his food.”
+Poor Eleanor looked at him imploringly all the time, but as none of them
+had ever heard of the circulation of the blood, they could not tell that
+her simple remedy had been truly efficacious, and that if it had been
+otherwise the incisions would now come too late.  Thus the balance of
+prudence made itself appear to be on the side of the physician, and for
+him the Prince decided.  “Mi Doña,” he said, ever his most caressing term
+for her, “it must be so!  I think not lightly of what thou hast done for
+me, but, as matters stand, too much hangs upon this life of mine for me
+not to be bound to run no needless risk for fear of a little pain.  If I
+live and speak now, next to highest Heaven it is owing to thee; and when
+we came on this holy war, sweet Eleanor, didst thou not promise to hinder
+me from naught that a true warrior of the Cross ought to undergo?  And is
+this the land to shrink from the Cross?”
+
+Alas! to Eleanor the pang was the belief in the uselessness of his
+suffering and danger.  She never withstood his will, but physically she
+was weak, and her weeping was piteous in its silence.  Edward bade his
+brother lead her away; and Edmund, after the usual fashion, vented his
+own perplexity and distress upon the most submissive person in his way.
+He assumed more resistance on the part of his gentle sister-in-law than
+she made, and carrying her from the tent, roughly told her, silent as she
+was, that it was better that she should scream and cry than all England
+wail and lament.
+
+And so Eleanor’s devoted deed, the true saving of her husband, has lived
+on as a mere delusive tradition, weakly credited by the romantic, while
+the credit of his recovery has been retained by the Knight-Templars’
+leech.  Not a sound was uttered by the Prince while under those hands;
+but when his wife was permitted to return to him, she found him in a dead
+faint, and the silver reliquary she had left with him crushed flat and
+limp between his fingers.
+
+Richard had given his attendance all the time, and for several hours
+afterwards, during which the Princess hung over her husband, endeavouring
+to restore him from the state of exhaustion in which he scarcely seemed
+conscious of anything but her presence.  Late in the evening, some one
+came to the entrance of the tent, and beckoned to the young squire; he
+came out expecting to receive some message, but to his extreme surprise
+found himself in the grasp of the Provost Marshal.
+
+“On what charge?” he demanded, so soon as he was far enough beyond the
+precincts of his tent not to risk a disturbance.
+
+“By the command of the council.  On the charge of being privy to the
+attempt on the Prince’s life.”
+
+“By whom preferred?” asked Richard.
+
+“By the Lord Hamlyn de Valence.”
+
+Richard attempted not another word.  In effect the condition of the
+Prince seemed to him so hopeless that his most acute suffering at the
+moment was in the being prevented from ministering to him, or watching
+for a last word or look of recognition.  He had no heart for
+self-vindication, even if he had not known its utter futility with men
+who had been prejudiced against him from the outset.  Nor had he the
+opportunity, for the Provost Marshal conducted him at once to the tent
+where he was to be in ward for the night, a heap of straw for him to lie
+upon, and a guard of half a dozen archers outside; and there was he left
+to his despairing prayers for the Prince’s life.  He could dwell on
+nothing else, there was no room in his mind for any thought but of that
+glory of manhood thus laid low, and of the anguish of the sweet face of
+the Princess.
+
+“Sir—!” there was a low murmur near him—“now is the time.  I have brought
+an archer’s gown and barrett, and we may easily get past the yeomen.”
+These last words were uttered, as on hands and knees a figure whose dark
+outline could barely be discerned, crept under the border of the tent.
+
+“Who art thou?” hastily inquired Richard.
+
+“You should know me, Sir,—I have done you many a good turn, and served
+your house truly.”
+
+“Talk not of truth, thou traitor,” said Richard, recognizing Dustifoot’s
+voice.  “Knowst thou that but for the Prince’s clemency thou hadst a year
+ago been out of the reach of the cruel evil thou hast now shared in.”
+
+“Nay, now, Lord Richard,” returned the man, “you should not treat thus an
+honest fellow that would fain do you service.”
+
+“I need no service such as thine,” returned Richard.  “Thy service has
+made my brothers murderers, and brought ruin and woe unspeakable upon the
+land.”
+
+“Beshrew me,” muttered the man, “but one would have thought the young
+damoiseau would have had more feeling about his father’s death!  But I
+swore to do Sir Simon’s bidding, so that is no concern of mine; and he
+bade me, if any one strove to lay hands on you, Sir, to lead you down to
+Kishon Brook, where he will meet us with a plump of spears.”
+
+“Meet him then,” said Richard, “and say to him that if from his crag
+above, on Carmel, he sees me hung on the gallows tree as a traitor, he
+may count that I am willingly offered for our family sin!  Ay, and that
+if he thinks an old man’s hairs brought down to the grave, a
+broken-hearted wife, helpless orphans, and a land without a head, to be a
+grateful offering to my father, let him enjoy the thought of how the
+righteous Earl would have viewed all the desolation that will fall on
+England without the one—one scholar who knew how to value and honour his
+lessons.”
+
+“Hush!  Sir,” hastily interposed Dustifoot; but it was too late, the
+murmur of voices had already been caught by the guard, and quick as he
+was to retreat, their torches discovered him as he was creeping out, and
+he was dragged back by the feet, and the light held up to his face, while
+many voices proclaimed him as the rogue who had been foremost in
+admitting the assassin to the royal tent.  It was from the tumult of
+voices that Richard first understood that on examining the body of the
+murderer, it had been ascertained that he was neither a Bedouin nor one
+of the assassins belonging to the Old Man of the Mountain, but an
+European, probably a Provençal; and this, added to Hamlyn’s
+representation of Richard’s words, together with what the Earls of
+Lancaster and Gloucester recollected, had directed the suspicion upon
+himself.  And here was, as it seemed, undeniable evidence of his
+connection with the plot!
+
+The miserable Dustifoot, vainly imploring his intercession, was tied hand
+and foot, and the guard returned to the outside of the tent, except one
+archer, who thought it needful to bring in his torch, and keep the
+prisoners in sight.
+
+The night passed wearily, and with morning Dustifoot was removed to a
+place of captivity more befitting his degree; but of the Prince, Richard
+only heard that he continued to be in great danger.  No attempt on the
+part of the council was made to examine their prisoner; and Richard
+suspected, as time wore on, that no one chose to act in this time of
+suspense for fear of incurring the lion-like wrath of Edward in the event
+of his recovery, but that in case of his death, small would be his own
+chances of life.  Death had fewer horrors for the lonely boy than it
+would have had for one with whom life had been brighter.  In battle for
+the Cross, or in shielding his Prince’s life, it would have been welcome,
+but death, branded with vile ingratitude, as a traitor to that master,
+was abhorrent.  Shrunk up in the corner of the tent, half asleep after
+the night’s vigil, yet too miserable for the entire oblivion of rest,
+Richard spent the day in dull despair, listening for sounds without with
+an intensity of attention that seemed to pervade every limb, and yet with
+snatches of sleep that brought dreams more intolerable than the reality
+which they yet seemed to enhance.
+
+At last, however, the sultry closeness of the day subsided, the Angelus
+bell sounded far off from the churches and convents of Acre, and near
+from the chapel tent, and the devotions that it proclaimed were not ended
+when Richard heard the cry of the crusading watch—“Remember the Holy
+Sepulchre.”
+
+Yes, the Holy Sepulchre might not be recovered and reached by the English
+army, but it might still be remembered, and therein be laid down all
+struggles of the will, all rebellious agony, at the being misunderstood,
+misused, vituperated, all suffering might there be offered up; nor could
+the most ignominious death stand between him and the thought of that Holy
+Tomb, and of the joy beyond.—Son of a man who, sorely tried, had drawn
+his sword against his king, brother of wilful murderers, perhaps to die
+innocent was the best fate he could hope; and in accordance with the
+doctrine of his time, he hoped that his death might serve as a part of a
+sacrifice for the family guilt.  Nay, the Prince gone, wherefore should
+he wish to live?
+
+“Don’t you see?  The Prince’s signet!  He said I should bring him!  Clown
+that thou art, hast no eyes nor ears?  What, don’t you know me?  I am the
+young lord of Dunster, the Prince’s foot-page.  It is his command.”
+
+And amid some perplexed mutterings from the guard, little John of Dunster
+burst into the tent.  “Up, up,” he cried, “you are to come to the Prince
+instantly.”
+
+“How fares he?”—Richard’s one question of the day.
+
+“Sorely ill at ease,” said the boy, “but he wants you, he calls for you,
+and no one would tell him where you were, so I spoke out at last, and he
+bade me take his ring and bring you, for ’tis his pleasure.  Come now,
+for the Earl of Lancaster and Hamlyn are gone to take the Princess to
+Acre, and my Lord of Gloucester has taken his red head off to sleep, and
+no one is there but old Raymond and some of the grooms.
+
+“The Princess gone!”
+
+“Ay, and Dame Idonea with her.  So we shall hear no more of King Cœur de
+Lion.  Hamlyn swears she was on his crusade.  Do you think she was,
+Richard? nobody knows how old she is.”
+
+Richard was a great deal too anxious to ask questions himself, to be able
+to answer this query.  And as the yeomen let him pass them, only begging
+him to bear him out with the Princes, he hastily gathered from the boy
+all that he could tell.  The Prince had, it appeared, been in a most
+suffering state from pain and fever all the night and the ensuing day,
+and had hardly noticed any one but his devoted wife, who had attended him
+unremittingly, until with the cooler air of evening she saw him slightly
+revived, but was herself so completely spent, and so unwell, as to be
+incapable of opposing his decision that she should at once be carried
+into the city to receive the succours her state demanded.  When she was
+gone, Edward, who had perhaps sought to spare her the sight of his last
+agony, had roused himself to make his will, and choose protectors for his
+father and young children; and it was after this that his inquiries
+became urgent for Richard de Montfort.  He was at length answered by the
+indignant little foot-page; and greatly resenting the action of the
+council, he had, as John said, “frowned and spoken like himself,” and
+sent the little fellow in quest of the young esquire.
+
+The tent was nearly dark, and Richard could only see the outline of the
+tall form laid prostrate, but the voice he had feared never to hear
+again, spoke, though slowly and wearily, and a hand was held out.
+“Welcome, cousin,” he said.  “Poor boy, they must needs have at thee ere
+the breath was out of my body; but for that, at least, they shall wait,
+and longer if my word and will can avail after I am gone.  What has given
+them occasion against thee, Richard?”
+
+“Alas! my Lord, you are too ill at ease to vex yourself with my matters.”
+
+“Nay, but I must see thee righted, Richard; there are services for thee
+to do to me.  Hark thee!  I have bequeathed thee thy mother’s lands at
+Odiham, which my father gave to me.  So mayest thou do for Henry whate’er
+he will brook,” he added, with a languid smile, holding Richard’s hand in
+such a manner as to impress that though his words came very tardily, he
+did not mean to be interrupted.  “Methinks Henry will not grudge a kindly
+thought and a few prayers for his old comrade.  And, Richard, strive to
+be near my poor boys; strive that they be bred in strict self-rule, and
+let them hear of the purposes thy father left to me: I think thou knowst
+them or canst divine them better than any other near me.  Thou _shall_ be
+with them if—if Heaven and the blessed Saints bear my sweet wife through
+this trouble.  She will love and trust thee.”
+
+Edward’s voice broke down in a half-strangled sob between grief and pain;
+he could not contemplate the thought of his wife, and weakness had broken
+down much of his power over himself.  He did not speak at once, or invite
+an answer; and when he did, his words were an exclamation of despairing
+weariness at the trumpet of a gnat that hovered above him.
+
+Richard presently understood that the thin goats’ hair curtains which
+even the crusaders had learnt to adopt from their Oriental neighbours as
+protections against these enemies, being continually disarranged to give
+the Prince drink or to put cool applications to his wound, the winged
+foes were sure to enter, and with their exasperating hum further destroy
+all chance of rest.  The Prince had not slept since he had been wounded,
+and was well-nigh distraught with wakefulness, and with the continual
+suffering, which was only diminished at the first moment that a cold
+lotion touched his arm.  The Hospitaliers had sent in some ice from Mount
+Hermon, but no one knew how to apply it, and even Dame Idonea had
+despised it.
+
+Fortunately, however, Richard had spent a few weeks on his first arrival
+in the infirmary of the Knights of St. John, and before his recovery had
+become familiar with their treatment of both ice and mosquito curtains;
+and when Edmund of Lancaster came into the tent cautiously in early dawn,
+he could hardly credit his eyes, for the squire whom he believed to be in
+close custody was beside his brother, holding the cold applications on
+the arm, and it was impossible to utter inquiry or remonstrance, for the
+Prince was in the profoundest, most tranquil slumber.
+
+Nor did he awake till the camp was astir in the morning with the activity
+that in this summer time could only be exerted before the sun had come to
+his full strength.  Then, when at length he opened his eyes, he
+pronounced himself to be greatly refreshed; and the physician at the same
+time found the state of the wound greatly improved.  A cheerful answer
+was returned by the patient to the message of anxious inquiry sent from
+his Princess at Acre and then looking up kindly at Richard, he said,
+“Boy, if my wife saved my life once, I think thou hast saved it a second
+time.”
+
+“Brother!” here broke in the Earl of Lancaster, “I would not grieve you,
+but for your own safety you ought to know of the grave suspicion that has
+fallen on this youth.”
+
+“I know that you all have suspected him from the first, Edmund,” returned
+the Prince coolly, “but I little expected that the first hour of my
+sickness would be spent in slaking your hatred of him.”
+
+“You do not know the reasons, brother,” said Edmund, confused; “nor are
+you in a state to hear them.”
+
+“Wherefore not?” said Edward.  “Thanks to him, I have my wits clear and
+cool, and ere the day is older his cause shall be heard.  Fetch
+Gloucester, fetch the rest of the council, and let me hear your witnesses
+against him!  What! do you think I could rest or amend while I know not
+whether I have a traitor or not beside me?”
+
+There could be no doubt that Edward was fully himself after his night’s
+rest, determined and prompt as ever.  No one durst withstand him, and
+Edmund went to take measures for his being obeyed.  Meantime, the Prince
+grasped Richard by the wrist, and looking him through with the keen blue
+eyes that seemed capable of piercing any disguise, he said, “Boy, hast
+thou aught that thou wouldst tell to thy kinsman Edward in this strait,
+that thou couldst not say to the Prince in council?”
+
+“Sir,” said Richard, with choking voice, “I was on my way to give that
+very warning, when I found that the blow had fallen.  My Lord,” he added,
+lowering his tone, as he knelt by the Prince’s couch, “Simon lives; I met
+him on Mount Carmel.”
+
+“I thought so,” muttered the Prince.  “And this is his work?”
+
+Richard hurriedly told the circumstances of the encounter, a matter on
+which he had the less scruple as Simon was entirely out of reach.  He had
+hardly completed his narration when Prince Edmund returned, and with him
+came others of the council.  Edmund was followed by his squire, Hamlyn;
+and some of the archers were left without.  Richard had told his tale,
+but had had no assurance of how the Prince would act upon it, nor how far
+the brand of shame might be made to rest on him and his unhappy house.
+He had avowed his brother’s guilt to the Prince; alas! must it again be
+blazoned through the camp?
+
+The greetings and inquiries of the new arrivals were hastily got over by
+the Prince, who lay—holding truly a bed of justice—partly raised by his
+cushions, with bloodless cheeks indeed, but with flashing eyes, and lips
+set to all their wonted resoluteness.
+
+“Let me hear, my Lords,” he said, “wherefore—so soon as I was
+disabled—you thought it meet to put mine own body squire and kinsman in
+ward?”
+
+“Sir,” said the Provost Marshal, “these knaves of mine have let an
+accomplice escape who peradventure might have been made to tell more.”
+
+“An accomplice?  Of whom?” demanded the Prince.
+
+“Of the—the assassin, my Lord, on whom your own strong hand inflicted
+chastisement.  This Dustifoot, who was the yeoman on guard by your tent,
+and introduced him to your presence, was seized by the villains at night,
+endeavouring to hold converse with this gentleman, and was by them taken
+into custody, whence, I grieve to say, he hath escaped.”
+
+“Give his guard due punishment!” said Edward shortly.  “But how concerns
+this the Lord Richard de Montfort’s durance?”
+
+“Sir,” added the Earl of Gloucester, “is it known to you that the dog of
+a murderer was yet no Moslem?”
+
+“What of that?” sharply demanded Edward.
+
+“There can scarcely be a doubt,” continued the red-haired Earl, “that an
+attempt on your life, my Lord, could only come from one quarter.”
+
+“Oh,” dryly replied Edward, “good cause for you to be willing that the
+Saracen captives should be massacred.”
+
+“Sir, I did not then know that the miscreant was not of their faith,”
+said Gloucester.  “I now believe that the same revenge that caused the
+death of Lord Henry of Almayne has now nearly quenched the hope of
+England, that if you will not be warned, my Lord, worse evil may yet
+betide.”
+
+Gloucester spoke with much feeling, but Edward did not show himself
+touched; he only said, “All this may be very well, but my question is not
+answered—Why was my squire put in ward?”
+
+“Speak, Hamlyn,” said Edmund of Lancaster; “say to the Prince what thou
+didst tell me.”
+
+Hamlyn stood forth, excusing himself for the painful task of accusing his
+kinsman, but seeing the Prince’s impatient frown, he came to the point,
+and declared that Richard de Montfort, on meeting him speeding to Acre,
+had eagerly asked him if aught had befallen the Prince, and had looked
+startled and confused on being taxed with being aware of what had taken
+place.
+
+“Well!” said Edward.
+
+Gloucester next beckoned a yeoman forward, who, much confused under the
+Prince’s keen eye, stammered out that he did not wish to harm the young
+gentleman, but that he had seemed mighty anxious to spare the Pagan
+hounds of prisoners, and had even been heard to say that their revenge
+would better fall on himself.
+
+“And is this all for which you had laid hands on him?” said the Prince,
+looking from one to the other.
+
+“Nay, brother,” said Edmund.  “It might have been unmarked by thee, but
+in the first hour myself and others heard him speak of having made speed
+to warn thee, but finding it too late.  Therefore did we conclude that it
+were well to have him in ward, lest, as in the former unhappy matter, he
+should have been conversant with traitors, and thus that we might obtain
+intelligence from him.  Remember likewise the fellow who was found in the
+tent.”
+
+“So!” said Edward, “an honourable youth hath been treated as a traitor,
+because of another springald’s opinion of his looks, and because a few
+yeomen thought he seemed over-anxious to save a few wretched captives,
+whom they knew to be guiltless.  Will there ever come a time when
+Englishmen will learn what _is_ witness?”
+
+“His name and lineage, brother,” began Edmund.
+
+“That, gentles, is the witness upon which the wolf slew the lamb for
+fouling the stream.”
+
+“Then you will not examine him?” asked Gloucester.
+
+“Not as a suspected felon,” said Edward.  “One who by your own evidence
+was heedless of himself in seeking to save the helpless—nay, who spake of
+hasting to warn me—scarce merits such usage.  What consorts with his
+honour and my safety, I can trust to him to tell me as true friend and
+liegeman!” and the confiding smile with which he looked at Richard was
+like a sunbeam in a dark cloud.
+
+“My Lord Prince,” objected Gloucester, “we cannot think that this is for
+your safety.”
+
+“See here, Gloucester,” said Edward.  “Till my arm can keep my head
+again, double the guards, and search all envoys, under whatever pretext
+they may enter; but never for the rest of thy life brand a man with
+imprisonment till you have reasonable proof against him.  Thanks for your
+care of me, my Lords, but I can scarce yet brook long converse.  The
+council is dismissed.”
+
+Richard, infinitely relieved, could hardly wait till he could safely
+speak to the Prince to express his gratitude and joy that he had been not
+only defended, but freed from all examination, so as to have been spared
+from denouncing his brother, and that the family had been spared from
+this additional stigma.  Edward, who like all reserved men could not
+endure the expression of thanks, even while their utter omission would
+have been wounding, cut him short.
+
+“Tush, boy, Simon is as much my cousin as thy brother, and I would not
+help to throw fresh stains on the name that, but for my father’s selfish
+counsellors, would stand highest at home!  Besides,” he added, as one
+half ashamed of his generosity and willing to qualify it, “supposing it
+got abroad that he had aimed this stroke at the heir of England—why, then
+England’s honour would be concerned, and we should have stout Gilbert de
+Clare and all the rest of them wild to storm Simon in his Galilean
+fastness, without King Herod’s boxes, I trow.  Then would all the Druses,
+and the Maronites, and the Saracens, and the half-breeds, the worst of
+the whole, come down on them in some impassable gorge, and the troops I
+have taken such pains to keep in health and training would leave their
+bones in those doleful passes; and not for the sake of the Holy
+Sepulchre, but of my private quarrel.  No, no, Richard, we will keep our
+own counsel, and do our best that Simon may not get another chance,
+before I can move within the walls of Acre; and then we will spread our
+sails, and pray that the Holy Land may make a holier man of him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+THE GARDEN OF THE HOSPITAL
+
+
+    “And who is yon page lying cold at his knee?”—SCOTT.
+
+EDWARD differed from Cœur de Lion in this, that he was one of the most
+abstemious men in his army, and disciplined himself at least as rigidly
+as he did other people.  And it was probably on this account that he did
+not fulfil Dame Idonea’s predictions, but recovered favourably, and by
+the end of a fortnight was able, in the first coolness of early morning,
+to ride gently into the city of Acre, where a few days previously the
+Princess Eleanor had given birth to a daughter.  She was christened Joan
+on the day of her father’s arrival, and afterwards became the special
+spoilt favourite of Edward, whose sternness gave place to excessive
+fondness among his children.  Moreover, she in the end became the wife of
+that same red-haired Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, who at this time stood
+holding his wax taper, and looking at the small swaddled morsel of
+royalty with all a bachelor’s contempt for infancy, and little dreaming
+that he beheld his future Countess.
+
+Prince Edward had accepted the invitation of Sir Hugh de Revel, Grand
+Master of the Order of St. John, to take up his quarters in the
+Commandery of the brotherhood; and Richard was greatly relieved to have
+him there, since no watch or ward in the open camp could be so secure as
+this double fortress, protected in the first place by the walls of the
+city, and in the second by those of the Hospital itself, with its strict
+military and monastic discipline.
+
+A wonderful place was that Hospital—infirmary, monastery, and castle, all
+in one, and with a certain Eastern grace and beauty of its own.  The deep
+massive walls, heavy towers, and portcullised gateway, were in the most
+elaborate and majestic style of defensive architecture; and the main
+building rose to a great height, filled with galleries of small, bare,
+rigid-looking cells, just large enough for a knight, his pallet, and his
+armour.  Below was a noble vaulted hall, the walls hung with well-tried
+hawberks, and shields and helmets which had stood many a dint; captured
+crescents and green banners waved as trophies over crooked scymetars and
+Damascus blades inlaid with sentences from the Koran in gold, and twisted
+cuirasses rich with barbaric gold and gems; the blazoned arms of the
+noblest families of France, Spain, England, Germany, and Italy, decked
+the panels and brightened the windows; while the stone pulpit for the
+reader showed that it was still a convent refectory.
+
+The chapel was grave and massive, but at the same time gorgeous with
+colouring suited to eyes accustomed to Oriental brightness of hue; the
+chancel walls were inlaid with the porphyry, jasper, and marble, of
+exquisite tints, that came from the mountains around; the shrines were
+touched with gold, and the roofs and vaultings painted with fretwork of
+unapproachable brilliance and purity of tints; yet all harmonizing
+together, as only Eastern colouring can harmonize, and giving a sense of
+rest and coolness.
+
+Within those huge thick walls, whose windows, sunk deep into their solid
+mass, only let in threads of jewelled light, under their solemn circular
+richly carved brows, between those marble pillars; the elder ones, round
+and solid, with Romanesque mighty strength; the new graceful clusters of
+shining blood-red marble shafts, surrounding a slender white one, all
+banded together with gold, under the vaults of the stone roof, upon the
+mosaic floor—there was always a still refreshing coolness, like the
+“shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”  One transept had a window
+communicating with the upper room of the Infirmary, so that the sick who
+there lay in their beds might take part in the services in the chapel.
+
+The outer court, with the great fortified gateway towards the street, was
+a tilt-yard, where martial exercises took place as in any other castle;
+but pass through the great hall to the inner court, of which the chapel
+formed one side, and where could such cloisters have been found in the
+West?  Their heavy columns and deep-browed arches clinging against the
+thick walls, afforded unfailing shelter from the sun, and their coolness
+was increased by the marble of the pavement, inlaid in rich intricate
+mosaics.
+
+Extending around the interior of the external wall, they enclosed an
+exquisite Eastern garden, perfumed with flowering shrubs, shady with
+trees, and lovely with tall white lilies, hollyhocks, purple irises,
+stars of Bethlehem, and many another Eastern flower, which would send
+forth seeds or roots for the supply of the trim gardens of Western
+convents.  The soft bubbling of fountains gave a sense of delicious
+freshness; doves flew hither and thither, and their soft murmuring was
+heard in the branches; and at certain openings in their foliage might be
+seen the azure of the Mediterranean, which little John of Dunster
+persisted in calling too blue—why could it not be a sober proper-coloured
+sea like his own Bristol Channel?
+
+Richard was very happy here.  There was something of the same charm as in
+modern days is experienced in staying at a college.  The brethren were
+thorough monks in religious observance, but they were also high-bred
+nobles, and had seen many wild adventures, and hard-fought battles, and
+moreover, had entertained in turn almost every variety of pilgrim who had
+visited the Holy Land; so that none could have been found who had more of
+interest to tell, or more friendly hospitable kindness towards their
+guests.  Richard was a favourite there, not only as a friend of Reginald
+Ferrers, but as acquainted with the Grand Prior, Sir Robert Darcy, whose
+memory was still green in Palestine.  Tales of his feats of mighty
+strength still lingered at Acre; how he had held together, by his single
+arm, the gates of a house in the retreat from Damietta, against a whole
+troop of Mamelukes, until every Christian had left it on the other side,
+and then had slowly followed them, not a Moslem daring to attack him; how
+he had borne off wounded knights on his back, and on sultry marches would
+load himself with the armour of any one who was exhausted, and never fail
+to declare it was exactly what he liked best!  More than once it had been
+intimated that Richard de Montfort would be gladly accepted as a brother
+of the Order; and he often thought over the offer, but not only was he
+unwilling to separate himself from the Prince, but he felt it needful at
+any rate to return to England to judge of the condition of his brother
+Henry, ere becoming one of an Order where he could no longer dispose of
+himself.
+
+He was resolved never to quit the Prince till he had seen him beyond the
+reach of any machination of his brother’s, nor indeed was it easy to
+think of parting at all, for Edward, who had relaxed all coldness of
+manner towards him ever since the affair at Trapani, had now become
+warmly affectionate and confidential.  The Prince was still far from
+having regained his usual health, his arm was still in a scarf, and was
+often painful, and the least exposure to the sun brought on violent
+headache, which some attributed to the poison in the scratch on his
+forehead, but the Hospitaliers, more reasonably, ascribed to a slight
+sun-stroke.  Their character of infirmarers rendered them especially
+considerate hosts, and they never overwhelmed their guest with the stiff
+formalities of courtesy for his rank’s sake, but allowed him to follow
+his inclination, and this led him to spend great part of his time in a
+pavilion, a thoroughly Eastern erection, which stood in the garden, at
+the top of the white marble steps leading to a fountain of delicious
+sparkling water, and sheltered from the sun by the dark solid horizontal
+branches of a noble Cedar of Lebanon, which tradition connected with the
+visit of the Empress Helena.  Here, lying upon mats placed on the steps,
+the convalescent Prince would rest for hours, sometimes holding converse
+with the Grand Master, or counsel with his visitors from the camp; but
+more often in the dreamy repose of recovery, silent or talking to Richard
+of matters that lay deep within his heart; but which, perhaps, nothing
+but this softening species of waking dream would have drawn from him.  He
+would dwell on those two hero models of his boyhood, so diverse, yet so
+closely connected together by their influence upon his character, Louis
+of France, and Simon of Leicester; and of the impression both had left,
+that judgment, mercy, faith, and the subject’s welfare, were the primary
+duties of a sovereign—an idea only now and then glimpsed by the feudal
+sovereigns, who thought that the people lived for them rather than they
+for the people.  And when, as in England, the King’s good-nature had been
+abused by swarms of foreign-born relations, who had not even his claims
+on the people, no wonder the yoke had been galling beyond endurance.  Of
+the end Edward could not bear to think—of the broken friendships—the
+enmity of kindred—the faults on either side that had embittered the
+strife, till he had been forced to become the sword in the hands of the
+royal party to liberate his father—and with consequences that had so far
+out-run his powers of controlling them.  To make England the land of law,
+peace, and order, that Simon de Montfort would fain have seen it, was his
+present aspiration; and then, he said, when all was purified at home, it
+might yet be permitted to him to return and win back the Holy City,
+Jerusalem, to the Christian world.  In the meantime, as a memorial of
+this, his earnest longing, he was causing, at great expense and labour,
+one of the huge stones of the Temple to be transported over the hills,
+and embarked on board a ship, to carry home with him.  Richard, meantime,
+learnt to know and love his Prince with a more devoted love, if that were
+possible, and to grieve the more at the persistent hatred of his
+brothers, who, utterly uncomprehending their father’s high purposes
+themselves, sought blindly to slake their vengeance for the ruin they had
+themselves provoked, and upon one who mourned him far more truly than
+they could ever do.
+
+A few days had thus passed, when Richard was one day called by his
+friend, Sir Raynald, into the Infirmary, to speak a few kind words to a
+dying English pilgrim, who had come from his native country, and confided
+to him his dearly-purchased palm and scallop shell, to be conveyed to his
+aged mother.
+
+As Richard was passing along the great lofty chamber, two rows of beds
+were arranged; one of the patients rather hastily, as it seemed to him,
+enveloped himself in his coverlet, leaving nothing visible but a great
+black patch which seemed to cover the whole side of his face.
+
+“That is a strange varlet,” said Raynald, as they passed him; “it is an
+old wound that the patch covers, not what has brought him here; and what
+the nature of his ailment may be, not one of our infirmarers can make
+out; his tongue is purple, and he hath such strange shiverings and
+contortions in all his limbs, that they are at their wits’ end, and some
+hold that he must have undergone some sorcery in his passage through the
+Infidel domains.”
+
+“He came from the East, then?” asked Richard.
+
+“Yea, verily.  We have many more sick among the returning than the
+out-going pilgrims.”
+
+“And what is his nation?”
+
+“Nay; all the scanty words he hath spoken have been in Lingua Franca, and
+he hath been in such trances and trembling fits that it hath not been
+easy to question him.  Nor is it our custom to trouble a pilgrim with
+inquiries.”
+
+“How did he enter?” said Richard.
+
+“Brother Antonio found him yester-eve cast down, gasping for breath, by
+the gate of the Hospital, just able to entreat for the love of St. John
+to be admitted.  He had all the tokens of a pilgrim about him, and seemed
+better at first, walked lustily to bath and bed, and did not show himself
+helpless; but I much suspect his disease is the work of the Arch Enemy,
+for he is always at his worst if one of our Brethren in full orders comes
+near him.  You saw how he cowered and hid himself when I did but pass
+through the hall.  I shall speak to the Preceptor, and see if it were not
+best to try what exorcism will do.”
+
+There was something in all this that made Richard vaguely uneasy.  After
+the recent attack upon the Prince, he suspected all that he did not fully
+understand; and though in the guarded precincts of the Hospital he had
+once dismissed his anxiety, it returned upon him in redoubled force.  He
+thought of Nick Dustifoot, but that worthy was of a uniform tint of
+whitey brown, skin, hair and all; and Richard had assured himself that
+the strange patient had black hair and a brown skin, but that was all
+that he could guess at.  The exorcism would, however, be an effectual
+means of disclosing the “myster wight’s” person, and it sometimes
+included measures so strong, that few pretences could hold out against
+them.  But it was too serious and complicated a ceremony to be got up at
+short notice; and when they met in the Refectory for supper, Raynald told
+Richard that the Grand Master intended to make a personal inspection next
+day, before deciding on using his spiritual weapons.
+
+“And then!” cried John of Dunster, dancing round, “you will let me be
+there!  Pray, good Father, let me be there!  Oh, I hope there will be a
+rare smell of brimstone, and the foul fiend will come out with huge
+claws, and a forked tail.  I don’t care to see him if he only comes out
+like a black crow; I can see crows enough in the trees at Dunster.”
+
+“Peace, John; this is no place for idle talk,” said Richard gravely.
+“Stand aside, here comes the Prince.”
+
+The Prince had spent a fatiguing day over the terms of the ten years, ten
+months, ten weeks, ten days, ten hours, and ten minutes’ truce with the
+Emir of Joppa; he ate little, and after the meal, took Richard’s arm, and
+craved leave from the Grand Master to seek the fresh air beneath the
+cedar tree.  And when there, he could not endure the return to the
+closeness of his own apartment, but declared his intention of sleeping in
+the pavilion.  He dismissed his attendants, saying he needed no one but
+Richard, who, since his illness, had always slept upon cushions at his
+feet.
+
+Where was Richard?
+
+He presently appeared, carrying on one arm a mantle, and over the other
+shoulder the Prince’s immense two-handled sword; while his own sword was
+in his belt.  Leonillo followed him.
+
+“How now!” said Edward, “are we to have a joust?  Dost look for phantom
+Saracens out of yonder fountain, such as my Doña tells me rise out of the
+fair wells in Castille, wring their hands and pray for baptism?”
+
+“You said your hand should keep your head, my Lord,” said Richard; “this
+is but a lone place.”
+
+“What! amid all the guards of the good Fathers!  Well, old comrade,” as
+he took his sword in his right hand; “I am glad to handle thee once more,
+and I hope soon to grasp thee as I am wont, with both hands.  Lay it
+down, Richard.  There—thanks—that is well.  I wonder what my father would
+have thought if one of his many crusading vows had led him hither.
+Should we ever have had him back again?  How well this dreamy leisure
+would have suited him!  It would almost make a troubadour of a rough
+warrior like me.  See the towers and pinnacles against the sky, and the
+lights within the windows—and the stars above like lamps of gold, and the
+moonshine sparkling on the bubbles of the water, ever floating off, yet
+ever in the same place.  Were the good old man here, how peacefully would
+he sing, and pray, and dream, free from debts, parliament and barons.
+Ah! had his kinsmen let him keep his vow, it had been happier for us
+all.”
+
+So mused the Prince, and with a weary smile resigned himself to rest.
+
+But Richard was too full of vague uneasiness to sleep.  He could not
+dismiss from his mind the thought of the unknown pilgrim, and was
+resolved to relax no point of vigilance until the full investigation
+should have satisfied him that his fears were unfounded.  He had been
+accustomed to watching and broken rest during the Prince’s illness, and
+though he durst not pace up and down for fear of disturbing the
+sleeper—nay, could hardly venture a movement—he strained his eyes into
+the twilight, and told his beads fervently; but sleep hung on him like a
+spell, and even while sitting upright there were strange dreams before
+him, and one that he had had before, though with a variation.  It was the
+field of Evesham once more; but this time the strange pilgrim rose in his
+dark wrappings before him, and suddenly developed into that same shadowy
+form of his father, who again struck him on the shoulder with his sword,
+and dubbed him again “The Knight of Death.”
+
+Hark! there was a growl from Leonillo; a footstep, a dark figure—the
+pilgrim himself!  Richard shouted aloud, grasped at his sword, and flung
+himself forward.
+
+“Montfort’s vengeance!”  The sound rang in his ears as a sharp pang
+thrilled through his side; the hot blood welled up, and he was dashed to
+the ground; but even in falling he heard the Prince’s “What treason is
+this?” and felt the rising of the mighty form.  At the same moment the
+murderer was in the grasp of that strong right hand, and was dragged
+forward into the full light of the lamp that hung from the roof of the
+pavilion.
+
+“Thou!” he gasped.  “Who—what?”
+
+“Richard!” exclaimed the Prince, and relaxing his hold, “Simon de
+Montfort, thou hast slain thy brother!”
+
+The sudden shock and awe had overwhelmed Simon, who was indeed
+weaponless, since his dagger remained in Richard’s wound.  He silently
+assisted the Prince in lifting Richard to the cushions of the couch, and
+the low groan convinced them that he lived: looked anxiously for the
+wound.  The dagger had gone deep between the ribs, and little but the
+haft could be seen.
+
+“Poisoned?” Edward asked, looking up at Simon.
+
+“No.  It failed once.  He may live,” said Simon, with bent brows and
+folded arms.
+
+“No, no.  My death-blow!” gasped Richard, with sobbing breath.  “Best so,
+if—Oh, could I but speak!”
+
+The Prince raised him, supporting his head on his own broad breast and
+shoulder, and signed to Simon to hold to his lips the cup of water that
+stood near.  Richard slightly revived, and in this posture breathed more
+easily.
+
+“He might yet live.  Call speedy aid!” said the Prince, who seemed to
+have utterly forgotten that he was practically alone with his persevering
+and desperate enemy.
+
+“Wait!  Oh, wait!” cried Richard, holding out his hand; “it would be
+vain; but it will be all joy did I but know that there will be no more of
+this.  Simon, he loved my father—he has spared thee again and again.”
+
+“Simon,” said the Prince, “for this dear youth’s sake and thy father’s, I
+raise no hand against thee.  Bitter wrong has been done to thy house, by
+what persons, and how provoked, it skills not now to ask.  Twice thy fury
+has fallen on the guiltless.  Enough blood has been shed.  Let there be
+peace henceforth.”
+
+Simon stood moody, with folded arms, and Richard groaned, and essayed to
+speak.
+
+“Peace, boy,” tenderly said Edward; “and thou, Simon, hear me.  I loved
+thy father, and knew the upright noble spirit that arrayed him against
+us.  Heaven is my witness that I would have given my life to have been
+able to save him on yon wretched battle-field.  But he fell in fair
+fight, in helm and corselet, like a good knight.  Peace be with him!
+Surely in this land of pardon and redemption his son and nephew may cease
+to seek one another’s blood for his sake!  Cheer thy brother by letting
+him feel his brave deed hath not been fruitless.  Free thou shalt go—do
+what thou wilt; no word of mine shall betray that this deed is thine.”
+
+“Lay aside thy purpose,” entreated Richard.  “Bind him by oath, my Lord.”
+
+“Nay,” said the Prince.  “Here, on foreign soil, the strife lies between
+the cousins, the sons of Henry and of Eleanor; and if Simon must needs
+still slake his revenge in my blood, he may have better success another
+time.  Or, so soon as I can wear my armour again, I offer him a fair
+combat in the lists, man to man; better so than staining his soul with
+privy murder—but I had far rather that it should be peace between us—and
+that thou shouldst see it.”  And Edward, still supporting Richard on his
+breast, held out his right hand to Simon, adding, “Let not thy brother’s
+blood be shed in vain.”
+
+Richard made a gesture of agonized entreaty.
+
+“My father—my father!” he said.  “He forgave—he hated blood; Simon, didst
+but know—”
+
+“I see,” said Simon impatiently, “that Heaven and earth alike are set
+against my purpose.  Fear not for his days, Richard, they are safe from
+me, and here is my hand upon it.”
+
+The tone was sullen and grudging, and Richard looked scarcely comforted;
+but the Prince was in haste that he should be succoured at once, and even
+while receiving Simon’s unwilling hand, said, “We lose time.  Speed near
+enough to the Spital to be heard, and shout for aid.  Then seek thine own
+safety.  I will say no more of thy share in this matter.”
+
+Simon lingered one moment.  “Boy,” he said, “I told thee thou wast over
+like him.  Live, live if thou canst!  Alas!  I had thought to make surer
+work this time; but thou dost pardon me the mischance?”
+
+“More than pardon—thank thee—since he is safe,” whispered Richard, and as
+Simon bent over him the boy crossed his brow, and returned a look of
+absolute joy.
+
+Simon sped away; and the Prince, when left alone with Richard, put no
+restraint upon the warmth of his feelings, and his tears fell fast and
+freely.
+
+“Boy, boy,” he said; “I little thought thou wast to bear what was meant
+for me!”  And then, with tenderness that would have seemed foreign to his
+nature, he inquired into the pain that Richard was suffering, tried to
+make his position more easy, and lamented that he could not venture to
+draw out the weapon until the leeches should come.
+
+“It has been my best hope,” said Richard; “and now that it should have
+been thus.  With your goodness I have nothing—nothing to wish.  Sir
+Raynald will be here—I have only my charge for Henry to give him—and poor
+Leonillo!”
+
+“I will bear thy charges to Henry,” said the Prince.  “Nor shall he think
+thou didst betray his secret.  I will watch over him so far as he will
+let me, and do all I may for his child.  Yet it may be thou wilt still
+return.  I hear the stir in the House.  They will be here anon.  Thou
+must live, Richard, my friend, where I have few friends.  I thought to
+have knighted thee, boy, when thou hadst won fame.  Oh, would that I had
+shown thee more of my love while it was time!”
+
+“All, all I hoped or longed for I have,” murmured Richard.  “If you see
+Henry, my Lord, bear him my greetings—and to poor Adam—yea, and my
+mother.  Oh! would that I could make them all know your kindness and my
+joy—that it should be thus!”
+
+By this time the whole Hospital was astir, and the knights and lay
+brethren came flocking out in consternation and dread of finding their
+royal host himself murdered within their cloisters.
+
+Great was the confusion, and eager the search for the assassin, while
+others crowded round the Prince, who still would not give up his post of
+supporting the sufferer in his arms, while a few moments’ examination
+convinced the experienced infirmarers that the wound was mortal, and that
+the extraction of the dagger would but hasten death, which could not be
+other than very near.  Indeed, Richard already spoke with such difficulty
+that only the Prince’s ear could detect his entreaty that Raynald Ferrers
+might act as his priest.  Raynald was already near, only withheld by the
+crowd of knights of higher degree who had thronged before him.  Richard
+looked up to him with a face that in all its mortal agony seemed to ask
+congratulation.  The power of making confession was gone, and when
+Raynald would have offered to take him in his own arms, both he and the
+Prince showed disinclination to the move.  So thus they still remained,
+while the young knightly priest spoke the words of Absolution, and then,
+across the solemn darkness of the garden, amid the light of tapers, the
+Host was borne from the Chapel, while the low subdued chant of the
+brethren swelled up through the night air.  Poor little John of Dunster,
+with his arms round Leonillo’s neck, to keep him from disturbing his
+master, knelt, sobbing as though his heart would break, but trying to
+stifle the sounds as the priest’s voice came grave and full on the silent
+air, responded to by the gathered tones of the brethren: the fountain
+bubbled on, and the wakening birds began to stir in the trees.
+
+Once more Richard opened his eyes, looked up at his Prince, and smiled.
+That smile remained while Edward kissed his brow with fervour, laid him
+down on the cushions, and rising to his feet, bowed his head to the Grand
+Master, but did not even strive to speak, and gravely walked across the
+cloister, with a slow though steady step, to his own chamber.  No one saw
+him again till the sun was high, when, with looks as composed as ever, he
+went forth to lay his page’s head in the grave, and thence visit and calm
+the fears of his Princess.
+
+Search had everywhere been made for the assassin, but no traces of him
+were found.  Only the strange pilgrim had vanished in the confusion; and
+the Prince never contradicted the Grand Master in his indignation that a
+Moslem hound should have assumed such a disguise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE BEGGAR AND THE PRINCE
+
+
+    “This favour only, that thou would’st stand out of my sunshine.”
+
+                                                                 DIOGENES.
+
+IT was the last week of August, 1274, the morrow of the most splendid
+coronation that England had ever beheld, either for the personal
+qualities and appearance of the sovereigns, or for the magnificence of
+the adornments, and the bounteous feasting of multitudes.
+
+A whole fortnight of entertainments to rich and poor had been somewhat
+exhausting, even to the guests; and the suburbs of London wore an
+unusually sleepy and quiescent appearance in the hot beams of the August
+sun.  Bethnal Green lay very silent, parched, and weary, not even
+enlivened by its usual gabbling flocks of geese, all of whom, poor
+things! except the patriarchal gander, and one or two of his ladies, had
+gone to the festival—but to return no more!
+
+One of those who had been in the midst of the pageant, and had returned
+unscathed, was Blind Hal of Bethnal Green.  Many a coin had gone into his
+scrip—uncontested king of the beggars as he was; many a savoury morsel
+had been conveyed to him and his child by his admiring brethren of the
+wallet; with many a gibing scoff had he driven from the field presuming
+mendicants, not of his own fraternity; and with half-bitter, half-amused
+remarks, had he listened to the rapturous descriptions of the splendours
+of king, queen, and their noble suite.  And pretty Bessee had clung fast
+to his hand, and discreetly guided him through every maze of the crowd,
+with the strange dexterity of a child bred up in throngs.  And now tired
+out with the long-continued festivities, the beggar sat in front of his
+hut, basking in the sun, and more than half asleep; while Bessee, her lap
+full of heather-blossoms and long bents of grass, was endeavouring to
+weave herself chains, bracelets, and coronals, in imitation of those
+which had recently dazzled her eyes.
+
+She had just encircled her dark auburn locks with a garland of purple
+heather, studded here and there with white or gold, when, starting upon
+her little bare but delicately clean pink feet, she laid her hand on her
+father’s lap, and said, “Father, hark!  I see two of the good red monks
+coming!”
+
+“Well, child; and wherefore waken me?  They are after their own affairs,
+I trow.  Moreover, I hear no horses’ feet.”
+
+“They are not riding,” said Bessee; “and they are walking this way.  They
+have a dog, too!  Oh, such a gallant glorious dog, father!  Ah,” cried
+she joyfully, “’tis the good Father Grand Prior!” and she was about to
+start forward, but the blind man’s ear could now distinguish the
+foot-falls; and holding her fast, he almost gasped—“And the other,
+child—who is he?”
+
+“No knight at our Spital!  A stranger, father.  So tall, so tall!  His
+mantle hardly reaches his knee his robe leaves his ankles bare.  O
+father, they are coming.  Let me go to meet dear good Father Robert!  But
+what—Oh, is the fit coming?  Father Robert will stop it!”
+
+“Hush thy prattle,” said the beggar, clutching her fast, and listening as
+one all ear; and by this time the two knights were close at hand, the
+taller holding the dog, straining in a leash, while the good Grand Prior
+spoke.  “How fares it with thee, friend?  And thou, my pretty one?  No
+mishaps among the throng?”
+
+“None,” returned Hal; “though the King and his suite _did_ let loose five
+hundred chargers in the crowd at their dismounting, to trample down
+helpless folk, and be caught by rogues.  Largesse they called it!  Fair
+and convenient largesse—easily providing for those that received it!”
+
+“No harm was done,” briefly but sharply exclaimed the strange knight; and
+the blind man, who had, as little Bessee at least perceived, been turning
+his acute ear in that direction all the time he had been speaking, now
+let his features light up with sudden perception.
+
+But Sir Robert Darcy, thinking that he only now became aware of the
+stranger’s presence, said, “A knight is here from the East, who brings
+thee tidings, my son.”
+
+Sir Robert would have said more, but the beggar standing up, cut him
+short, by saying, “So, cousin, you have yet to learn the vanity of
+disguises and feignings towards a blind man.”
+
+“Nay, fair cousin,” was the answer, “my feigning was not towards you; but
+I doubted me whether you would have the world see me visit you in my
+proper character.  Will not you give me a hand, Henry?”
+
+“First say to me,” said Henry, embracing with his maimed arm his staff,
+planted in front of him defiantly, and still holding tight his little
+daughter in his hand, “what brings you here to break into the peace of
+the poor remnant of a man you have left?”
+
+“I come,” said Edward patiently, “to fulfil my last—my parting promise,
+to one who loved us both—and gave his life for me.”
+
+“Loved you, ay! and well enough to betray me to you!” said Henry
+bitterly.
+
+“No, Henry de Montfort, ten thousand times no!” said Edward.  “I would
+maintain in the lists the honour and loyalty of my Richard towards you
+and me and all others.  His faithfulness to you brought him into peril of
+death and disgrace in the wretched matter of poor Henry of Almayne; and
+he would have met both rather than have broken his faith.”
+
+“Then,” said Henry, still with the same mocking tone, “how was it that my
+worthless existence became known to his Grace?”
+
+“I knew of your having vanished from Evesham Abbey,” returned Edward:
+“and thus knowing, I understood a letter, the writing of which had
+brought suspicion on Richard, and which was brought back to me when we
+were seeking into—”
+
+“Into the deed of Simon and Guy,” said Henry.  “Poor Henry!  It was a
+foul crime; and Father Robert can bear me witness that I did penance for
+it, when that kindly heart of his was laid in St. Peter’s Abbey.”
+
+“Then, Henry, thou own’st thy kinship to us still,” said Edward
+earnestly.  “Give me thine hand, man, and let me embrace my lovely little
+kinswoman—a queen in her trappings.  Ah, Henry!  Heaven hath dealt
+lovingly with thee in sparing thee thy child!”
+
+“You have children left!” said Henry quickly, and not withholding a
+hand—which, be it remarked, was as delicately shaped and well kept as
+that which took it.
+
+Twice had the beggar received a dole at Westminster at the obsequies of
+Edward’s little sons; yea, though he and all his brethren of the dish had
+all the winter before had alms given them to purchase their prayers for
+the health of the last.
+
+“Three—but three out of six,” answered Edward; “nor dare I reckon on the
+life of the frail babe that England hailed yesterday as my heir.  I
+sometimes deem that the blight of broken covenants has fallen on my
+sons.”
+
+“They were none of your breaking,” said Henry.
+
+“Say’st thou so!” exclaimed Edward, looking up, with the animation of a
+man hearing an acquittal from a quarter whose sincerity he could
+thoroughly trust.
+
+But Henry made no courtly answer.  “Pshaw! no living man that had to deal
+with or for your father could keep a covenant.  You were but the
+spear-point of the broken reed, good cousin; and we pitied and excused
+you accordingly.”
+
+“Your father did,” said Edward hoarsely.  He could brook pity from the
+great Simon better than from the blind beggar.
+
+“Ay, marry, that did he,” returned Henry, “as he closed his visor that
+last morn, after looking out on that wild Welsh border scum that my fair
+brother-in-law had marshalled against us.  ‘By the arm of St. James,’
+said he, ‘if Edward take not heed, that rascaille will deal with us in a
+way that will be worse for him than for us!’”
+
+“A true foreboding,” said the King.  “Henry, do thou come and be with me.
+All are gone!  Scarce a face that I left in England has welcomed me on my
+return.  Come, thou, in what guise thou wilt—earl, counsellor, or
+bedesman—only be with me, and speak to me thy father’s words.”
+
+“Who—I, my Lord?” returned Henry.  “I am no man to speak my father’s
+words!  They flew high over my head, and were only caught by grave youths
+such as yourself.  I, who was never trusted with so much as a convoy.
+No, no; all the counsel I shall ever give, is to the beggars, which
+coat-of-arms is like to rain clipped silver, and which honest round penny
+pieces!  Poor Richard! he bore the best brain of us all, and might have
+served your purpose.  Sit down, and tell me of the lad.—Bessee, little
+one, bring out the joint-stool for the holy Father.”
+
+And Henry de Montfort made way on the rude bench outside his hut, with
+all the ease and courtesy of the Earl of Leicester receiving his kinsman
+the King.  But meantime, the dog, which had been straining in the leash,
+held by Edward throughout the conference, leapt forward, and vehemently
+solicited the beggar’s caresses.  “Ah, Leonillo!” he said, recognizing
+him at once, “thou hast lost thy master!  Poor dog! thou art the one
+truly loyal to thy master’s blood!”
+
+“It was Richard’s charge to take him to thee,” said Edward: “but if he be
+burdensome to thee, I would gladly cherish him, or would commit him to
+faithful Gourdon, with whom he might be happier.  Since he lost his
+master the poor hound hath much pined away, and will take food from none
+but me, or little John of Dunster.”
+
+Leonillo, however, who seemed to have an unfailing instinct for a
+Montfort, was willingly accepting the eager and delighted attentions of
+the little girl; though he preferred those of her father, and cowered
+down beneath his hand, with depressed ears and gently waving tail, as
+though there were something in the touch and voice that conferred what
+was as near bliss as the faithful creature could enjoy without his deity
+and master.
+
+Meantime, the Grand Prior discreetly removed his joint-stool out of
+hearing of the two cousins, and called the little maid to rehearse to him
+the Credo and Ave, with their English equivalents—a task that pretty
+Bessee highly disapproved after the fortnight’s dissipation, and would
+hardly have performed for one less beloved of children than Father
+Robert.
+
+The good Grand Prior knew that the King would have much to say that would
+beseem no ear save his kinsman’s; and in effect Edward told what none
+besides would ever hear respecting the true author of the attempts on his
+own life.
+
+“Spiteful fox.  Such Simon ever was!” was the beggar’s muttered comment.
+“Well that he knows not of my poor child!  So, cousin, thou hast kept his
+counsel,” he added in a different tone.  “I thank thee in the name of
+Montfort and Leicester.  It was well and nobly done.”
+
+And Henry de Montfort held out his hand with the dignity of head of the
+family whose honour Edward had shielded.
+
+“It was for thy father’s sake and Richard’s,” said Edward, receiving the
+acknowledgment as it was meant.
+
+“Ah, well,” said Henry, relapsing into his usual half-scoffing tone; “in
+that boy our Montfort blood seems to have run clear of the taint it got
+from the she-fiend of Anjou.”
+
+“Thy share was from a mocking fiend!” returned the King.
+
+“Ay, and a fair portion it is!” said the beggar.  “My jest and my song
+have borne me through more than my sword and spurs ever did—and have been
+more to me than English earldom or French county.  Poor Richard!” he
+added with feeling; “I told him his was the bondage and mine the
+freedom!”
+
+“Alas!  I fear that so it was,” said Edward.  “My favour only embittered
+his foes.  Had I known how it would end, I had never taken him to me; but
+my heart yearned to my uncle’s goodly son.”
+
+“Maybe it is well,” said Henry.  “Had the boy grown up verily like my
+father, thou and he might have fallen out; or if not—why, you knights and
+nobles ride in miry bloody ways, and ’tis a wonder if even the best of
+you does not bring his harness home befouled and besmirched—not as
+shining bright as he took it out.  Well, what didst thou with the poor
+lad?  Cut him in fragments?  You mince your best loved now as fine as if
+they were traitors.”
+
+“No,” said Edward; “the boy lies sleeping in the Church of St. John, at
+Acre.  I rose from my sickbed that I might lay him in his grave as a
+brother.  Lights burn round him, and masses are said; and the brethren
+were left in charge to place his effigy on his tomb, in carven stone.
+One day I trust to see it.  My brother Alexander of Scotland, Llewellyn
+of Wales, and I, have sworn to one another to bring all within these four
+seas into concord and good order; and then we may look for such a
+blessing on our united arms as may bear us onward to Jerusalem!  Then
+come with us, Henry, and let us pray together at Richard’s grave.”
+
+“I may safely promise,” said Henry, smiling, “if this same Crusade is to
+be when peace and order are within the four seas.  Moreover, thou wilt
+have ruined my trade by that time!”
+
+“Nay, Henry, cease fooling.  See—if thou wilt not be thyself, I will find
+thee a lodge in any park of mine.  None shall know who thou art; but thou
+shalt have free range, and—”
+
+“And weary of my life!  No, no, cousin.  I am in thy power now; and thou
+canst throw me into prison as the attainted Lord de Montfort.  Do so if
+thou wilt; but I were fooling indeed to give up my free range, my power,
+my authority, to be a poor suspected, pitied, maimed pensioner on thy
+bounty.  Park, quotha! with none to speak to from morn to night.  I can
+have my will of any park of thine I please, whenever I choose!”
+
+Edward would have persisted, but Henry silenced him effectually, with a
+sarcastic hint that his favours had done little for Richard.  Then the
+King prayed at least that he would consider his child; but to the
+proposal of taking her to the palace, Henry returned an indignant
+negative: “He had seen enough of the court ladies,” he said.
+
+A hot glow of anger lighted Edward’s cheek, for he loved his mother; but
+the blind beggar could not be the subject of his wrath, and he merely
+said, “Thou didst not know my wife!”
+
+“Ay, I will believe the court as perfect as thou thinkest to make the
+isle; but Bessee shall not bide there.  She is the blind beggar’s child,
+and such shall she remain.  Send me to a dungeon, as I said, and thou
+canst pen her in a convent, or make her a menial to thy princesses, as
+thou wilt; but while my life and my freedom are my own I keep my child.”
+
+“I could find it in my heart to arrest thee,” said Edward, “when I look
+at that beautiful child, and think to what thou wouldst bring her.”
+
+“She is fair then,” said the beggar eagerly.
+
+“Fair!  She is the loveliest child mine eyes have looked on: though some
+of mine own have been very lovely.  But she hath the very features of our
+royal line—though with eyes deep and dark, like thy father’s, or my
+Richard’s—and a dark glow of sunny health on her fair skin.  She bears
+her, too, right royally.  Henry, thou canst not wreck the fate of a child
+like that.”
+
+“No, assuredly,” said Henry dryly.  “I have not done so ill by her
+hitherto, by thine own showing, that I should not be trusted with her for
+the future.”
+
+“The parting would be bitter,” began Edward “but thou shouldst see her
+often.”
+
+“Slay me, and make her a ward of the crown,” said Henry.  “Otherwise I
+will need no man’s leave for seeing my daughter.  But ask her.  If she
+will go with thee, I will say no more.”
+
+King Edward was fond of children—most indulgent to his own, and kind to
+all little ones, who, attracted by the sweetness which his stern, grave,
+beautiful countenance would assume when he looked at them—always made
+friends with him readily.  So he trusted to this fascination in the case
+of the little Lady Elizabeth.  He held out his hands to her, and claimed
+her as his cousin; and she came readily to him, and stood between his
+knees.  “Little cousin,” he said, “wilt thou come home with me, to be
+with my two little maids, the elder much of thine age?”
+
+“You are a red monk!” said Bessee, amazed.
+
+“That’s his shell, Bessee,” said her father; “he has come a-masking, and
+forgot his part.”
+
+“I don’t like masking,” said Bessee, trying to get away.
+
+“Then we will mask no more,” said Edward.  “Thou hast looked in my face
+long enough with those great black eyes.  Dost know me, child?”
+
+Bessee cast the black eyes down, and coloured.
+
+“Dost know me?” he repeated.
+
+“I think,” she whispered at last, “that you are masking still.  You are
+like—like the King that was crowned at the Abbey.”
+
+“Well said, little maid!  And shall I take thee home, and give thee
+pearls and emeralds to braid thy locks, instead of these heath-bells?”
+
+“Father,” said Bessee, trying to withdraw her little hands out of
+Edward’s large one, which held both fast.  “O father, is he masking
+still?”
+
+“No, child; it is the King indeed,” said Henry.  “Hear what he saith to
+thee.”
+
+And again Edward spoke of all that would tempt a child.
+
+“Father,” said Bessee, “if father comes!”
+
+“No, Bessee,” said her father; “I have done with palaces.  No places they
+for blind beggars.”
+
+“Oh, let me go! let me go!” cried Bessee, struggling.  And as the King
+released her hands, she flew to her father.  “He would lose himself
+without me!  I must be with father.  O King, go away!  Father, don’t let
+him take me!  Let me cry for Jock of the Wooden Spoon, and Trig One Leg,
+and Hedgerow Wat!”
+
+“Hush, hush, Bess!” said Henry, not desirous that his royal cousin should
+understand the strength of his body-guard of honour.  “The King here is
+as trusty and loyal as the boldest beggar among us.  He only gave thee
+thy choice between him and me!”
+
+“Thee, thee, father.  He can’t want me.  He has two eyes and two hands,
+and a queen and two little girls; and thou hast only me!” and she clung
+round her father’s neck.
+
+“Little one,” said Edward, “thou need’st not shrink from me.  I will not
+take thee away.  Thy father hath a treasure, and ’tis his part to strive
+not to throw it away.  Only should either thou or he ever condescend so
+far as to seek for counsel with this poor cousin of thine, send this
+token to me, and I will be with thee.”
+
+But it was full nine years ere Edward saw that jewel again.  Meantime he
+was not entirely without knowledge of his kinsman.  On every great
+occasion the figure, conspicuous for the scrupulous cleanliness of the
+dark russet gown, and the careful arrangement of the hair and beard, and
+the fillet which covered the eyes, as well as for a lordly bearing, that
+even the stoop of blindness could not disguise, was to be seen dominating
+over all the other beggars, sitting on the steps of church or palace
+gates, as if they had been a throne; troubling himself little to beg, but
+exchanging shrewd remarks with all who addressed him, and raising many a
+laugh among the bystanders.  Leonillo lay contented at his feet; but
+after just enough time had elapsed to show that he cared not for the
+King’s remonstrance, he ceased to be accompanied by his little daughter,
+and was led by a boy in her stead.
+
+The King, making inquiries of the Grand Prior, learnt that pretty Bessee
+was daily deposited at the sisterhood of Poor Clares, where she remained
+while her father was out on his begging expeditions, and learnt such
+breeding as convents then gave.
+
+“In sooth,” said Sir Robert, “honest Hal believes it is all for good-will
+and charity and love to the pretty little wench; and so it is in great
+part: but methought it best to give a hint to the mother prioress that
+the child came of good blood.  She is a discreet lady, and knows how to
+deal with her; and truly she tells me their house has prospered since the
+little one came to them.  Every feast-day morn have they found their
+alms-dish weightier with coin than ever she knew it before.”
+
+When Edward repeated this intelligence to his queen, she recollected Dame
+Idonea’s gossiping information—that brave Sir Robert, the flower of the
+House of Darcy, had only entered the Order of St. John, when fair Alda
+Braithwayte, in the strong enthusiasm of the Franciscan preaching, had
+pleaded a vow of virginity against all suitors, and had finally become a
+Sister of the Poor Clares.  And after all his wars and wanderings, the
+regulations of his Order had ended by bringing the Hospitalier in his old
+age into the immediate neighbourhood of Prioress Alda; and into that
+distant business intercourse that the heads of religious houses had from
+time to time to carry on together.
+
+The world passed on.  Eleanor de Montfort came from France, and the King
+himself acted the part of a father to her at her marriage with Llewellyn
+of Wales.  He knew—though she little guessed—that the beggar, by whom her
+jewelled train swept with rustling sound, was the first-born of her
+father’s house, and should have held her hand.  Two years only did that
+marriage last; Eleanor died, leaving an infant daughter; and Llewellyn
+soon after was in arms against the English.  Perhaps Edward bethought him
+of his cousin’s ironical promise to go with him to the East after the
+pacification of the whole island, when he found himself obliged to summon
+the fierce Pyrenean to pursue the wild Welsh in their mountains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+THE QUEEN OF THE DEW-DROPS
+
+
+    “This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
+    Ran on a green sward.”—_Winter’s Tale_.
+
+IT was the summer of 1283; the babe of Carnarvon had been accepted as the
+native prince, speaking no tongue but Welsh, and Edward had since been
+employed in establishing his dominion over Wales.  His Whitsuntide was
+kept by the Queen’s special entreaty at St. Winifred’s Well.  Such
+wonders had been told her of the miracles wrought by this favourite Welsh
+saint, that she hoped that by early placing her little Welsh-born son
+under such protection, she might secure for him healthier and longer life
+than had been the share of his brethren.
+
+So to Holy-well went the court and army.  Some lodged in the convent
+attached to the well; but many and many more dwelt in tents, or lodged in
+cottages, or raised huts of boughs of trees.  Noble ladies of Eleanor’s
+suite were glad to obtain a lodging in rude Welsh huts; and as the
+weather was beautiful, there was plenty of gay feasting, dancing, and
+jousting on the greensward, when the religious observances of the day
+were over.  Pilgrims thronged from all parts, attracted both by the
+presence of the court and the unusual tranquillity of Wales; and for
+nearly a mile around the Holy-well it was like one great motley fair,
+resorted to by persons of all stations.  Beggars of course were there in
+numbers, and among them the unfailing blind beggar of Bethnal Green, who
+always made a pilgrimage in the summer to some station of easy access
+from London, but whom some wondered to see at such a distance.
+
+“Had he scented that the court was coming?” asked the young nobles.
+
+“Not he; he never haunted courts.  He would have kept away had he known
+that such a gabbling flock of popinjays were on the wing thither!”
+
+But the young gallants were chiefly bent on speculating on the vision of
+loveliness that had flashed on the eyes of some early visitants at the
+well.  A maiden in a dark pilgrim dress, and broad hat, which, however,
+could not entirely conceal a glowing complexion, at once rich and pure;
+perfect features, magnificent dark eyes and hair, and a tall form, which,
+though very youthful, was of unmistakable dignity and grace.  She was
+always at the well exceedingly early in the morning, moving slowly round
+it on her beautiful bare feet, and never looking up from the string of
+dark beads—the larger ones of amber, which she held in her fingers—as her
+lips conned over the prayers connected with each.  No ring was on the
+delicate hand, no ear-ring in the ear; there was no ornament in the
+dress, but such a garb was wont to be assumed by ladies of any rank when
+performing a vow; and its simplicity at once enhanced her beauty, and
+added to the general curiosity.  Between four and six in the dewy
+freshness of morning seemed to be her time for devotion; and though the
+habits of the court were early, it was only the first astir who caught a
+sight of this Queen of the Dew-drops, as it was the fashion to call her.
+Late comers never caught sight of her, and affected incredulity when the
+younger and more active knights and squires raved about her.  Then it was
+reported that the King himself had been seen speaking to her; and
+thereupon excitement grew the more intense, because Edward’s exclusive
+devotion to his Queen had been such, that from his youth up the most
+determined scandal had never found a wandering glance to note in him.
+
+She was the Princess of France—of Navarre—of Aragon—in disguise; nay, at
+the Whit-Sunday banquet there were those who cast anxious glances to the
+door, expecting that, in the very land of King Arthur, she would walk in
+like his errant dames at Pentecost, to demand a champion.  And when a
+joust was given on the sward, young Sir John de Mohun, the Lord of
+Dunster, announced his intention of tilting in honour of no one save the
+Queen of the Dew-drops.  The ladies of the court were rather scandalized,
+and appealed to the King whether the choice of an unknown girl, of no
+acknowledged rank, should be permitted; but the King, strict punctilious
+man as he was, only laughed, and adjudged the Queen of the Dew-drops to
+be fully worthy of the honour.
+
+After this, early rising became the fashion of Holy-well.  All the
+gentlemen got up early to look at the Queen of the Dew-drops; and all the
+ladies got up early to see that the gentlemen did not get into mischief;
+and the maiden’s devotions became far from solitary; but she moved on,
+with a sort of superb unconcern, never lifting the dark fringes that
+veiled the eyes so steadily fixed on the beads that dropped through her
+fingers, until, as she finished, she raised up her head with a
+straightforward fearless look at the way she was going, so completely
+self-possessed that no one ventured to accost her, and to follow her at
+less than such a respectful distance, that she was always lost sight of
+in the wood.
+
+At last, late one evening, there was a sudden start of exultant
+satisfaction among some of the young men who were lounging on the green;
+for the most part not the nobles of the court, but certain young
+merchants of London and Bristol, who had followed the course of
+pilgrimage by the magnetism of fashionable resort.  The Queen of the
+Dew-drops was seen, carrying a pitcher!  Up started four or five
+gallants, offering assistance, and standing round her, wrangling with one
+another, and besetting her steps.
+
+“Let me pass, gentles,” she said with dignity, “I am carrying wine in
+haste to my father.”
+
+“Nay, fair one, you pass not our bounds without toll,” said the portliest
+of the set.
+
+“Hush, rudesby; fair dames in disguise must be treated after other sort.”
+
+Every variety of half-insulting compliment was pouring upon her; but she,
+with head erect, and steady foot, still quietly moved on, taking no
+notice, till a hand was laid on her pitcher.
+
+“Let go!” then she said in no terrified voice.  “Let go, Sir, or I can
+summon help.”
+
+And as if to realize her words, the intrusive hand was thrust aside by a
+powerful arm, and a voice exclaimed—
+
+“This lady is to pass free, Sir!  None of your insolence!”
+
+“A court-gallant,” passed round the hostile bourgeoise; “none of your
+court airs, Sir.”
+
+“No airs—but those of an honest Englishman, who will not see a woman
+cowardly beset!”
+
+“Will Silk-jerkin not bide a buffet!” quoth the bully of the party,
+clenching his fist.
+
+“As many as thou wilt,” returned Silk-jerkin, “so soon as I have seen the
+lady safe home!”
+
+“Ho! ho!—a fetch that!” and the fellow, a coarse rude-looking man, though
+rather expensively dressed, flourished his fist in the face of the young
+man, but was requited that instant with a round blow that levelled him
+with the ground.  The others fell back from the tall strong-limbed,
+open-faced youth, and the girl took the opportunity of moving forward,
+swiftly indeed, but so steadily as to betray no air of terror.  Meantime,
+the young gentleman’s voice might be heard, assuring his adversaries that
+he was ready to encounter one or all of them so soon as he had escorted
+the lady safe home.  Perhaps she hoped that another attack would delay
+him; but if so, her expectations were disappointed, for in a second or
+two his quick firm tread followed her, and just as she had gained the
+mazy wood-path, he was beside her.
+
+“Thanks, Sir,” she said, “for the service you have done me, but I am now
+in safety.”
+
+“Nay, Lady, do me the grace of letting me bear your load.”
+
+“Thanks,” again she said; “but I feel no weight.”
+
+“But my knighthood does, seeing you thus laden.”
+
+“Spare your knighthood the sight, then,” she said smiling, and looking up
+with a glance of brightness, such as her hitherto sedate face had never
+before revealed to him.
+
+“That cannot be!” he exclaimed with fervency.  “You bid me in vain leave
+you till I see you safe; and while with you, all laws of courtesy call on
+me to bear your burthen!  So, Lady—”
+
+And he laid his hand upon the leathern thong that sustained the pitcher;
+but at that moment three or four heaps of rags, that had been lying under
+the trees by the woodland path, erected themselves, and one in especial,
+whom the young knight had observed as a frightful cripple seated by day
+near the well, now came forward brandishing his crutch in a formidable
+manner, and uttering a howl of defiance.  But the lady silenced him at
+once—
+
+“Peace, good Trig, nothing is amiss!  It is only this gentleman’s
+courtesy.  He hath done me good service on the green yonder!”
+
+And as her strange body-guard retreated growling, she, perhaps to show
+her confidence, resigned her pitcher into the knight’s hand.
+
+“So, fair Queen of the Dew-drops,” he said, half bewildered, “thou dost
+work miracles!”
+
+“Ay, when the dew is on the grass, and the nightingale sings,” she
+returned gaily; “by day the enchantment is over.”
+
+By this time they had reached a low turf hut; and the maiden, turning at
+the door, held out her hand, and said, “Thanks, fair Sir, I must enter my
+enchanted palace alone; but grammercy for thy kind service, and
+farewell.”
+
+The maiden and the pitcher vanished.  The knight watched the rude door in
+vain—he only saw a few streaks of light through the boards.  Then he
+bethought him of questioning her guards, but when he reached their tree
+they were gone.  It was fast growing dark, and he was one of the King’s
+personal attendants, and subject to the strict regulations of his
+household; so, dazed and bewildered as he was, he walked hastily back to
+the hospice, where the King and Queen lodged.  Supper had already begun,
+and the glare of lights dazzled his eyes.  In his bewilderment, he served
+the King with mustard instead of honey from the great silver ship full of
+condiments, in the centre of the table.
+
+“How’s this, Sir John?” said the King, who always had a kindly corner in
+his heart for this young knight.  “Are these the idle days of thy Crusade
+come again?”
+
+“I could well-nigh think so!” half-whispered Sir John.
+
+“He looks moonstruck!” cried that spoilt ten years old damsel, Joan of
+Acre, clasping her hands with mischievous fun.  “Oh! has he seen the
+Queen of the Dew-drops?”
+
+“What dost thou know of the Queen of the Dew-drops, my Lady Malapert?”
+said King Edward, marking the red flush that mounted to the very brow of
+the downright young knight.
+
+“Oh, I know that she is at the well every morning, and is as lovely as
+the dawn!  Ay, and vanishes so soon as the sun is up; but not ere she has
+bewitched every knight of them all!  And did not my Lord of Dunster hold
+the field in her honour against all comers?  No wonder she appears to
+him.—Oh! tell us, Sir John! what like was she?”
+
+“Hush, Joan,” said Queen Eleanor, bending forward, “no infanta in my time
+ever said so much in a breath.”
+
+“No, Lady-mother; because you had to speak whole mouthfuls of grave
+Castillian words.  Now, good English can be run off in a breath.  Reyna
+del Rocio—that’s more majestic, but not so like fairyland as Queen of the
+Dew-drops!”
+
+Princess Joan’s mouth was effectually stopped this time.
+
+The adventure of the evening had led to the discovery of the hut of the
+Queen of the Dew-drops.  The young knight had as usual been betimes at
+the well, but the maiden did not appear there.  Then he questioned the
+cripple—who by day was an absolute helpless cripple—but the man utterly
+denied all knowledge of any such circumstance.  He, why, poor wretch that
+he was, he never hobbled further than the shed close behind the well; he
+would give the world if he could get as far as the wood—he knew nothing
+about ladies or pilgrims—such a leg as his was enough to think about.
+And the display to which he forthwith treated the Knight of Dunster was
+highly convincing as to his incapacity.
+
+Into the wood wandered the much-confused knight, recognizing, step by
+step, the path of the night before.  The turf hut was before him—the door
+was open—and in the doorway sat the maiden herself, spinning, the distaff
+by her side, the spindle dancing on the ground, and the pilgrim’s hat no
+longer hiding her beauteous brow and wealth of dark braided hair.  But,
+intolerable sight, seven or eight of last night’s loungers were dispersed
+hither and thither in the bushes, gazing with all their eyes,
+endeavouring to attract her attention; some by conversations with one
+another; one richly-dressed Gascon squire, of the train of Edward’s ally,
+the Count de Béarn, by singing a Provençal love ditty; while a merchant
+of Bristol set up a counter attempt with a long doleful English ballad.
+All the time the fair spinster sat in the doorway, with the utmost
+gravity, twisting her thread and twirling her spindle; but it might be
+observed that she had so placed herself as to have full command of the
+door, and to be able to shut herself in whenever she chose.
+
+No one had yet ventured to accost her.  There was something in her air
+that rendered it almost impossible for any one to force himself upon her,
+and a sort of fear mingled with the impression she made.  However, the
+young knight, although a bashful man by nature, had one advantage in his
+court breeding, and another in the acquaintance he had made last night.
+He walked straight up, and doffing his velvet cap, began, “Greet you
+well, fair Queen.  I could not but take your challenge to see whether
+your power lasted when the dew was off.”
+
+The damsel rose with due courtesy as he approached, but ere she had
+attempted an answer, nay, even before the words were out of his mouth,
+the Gascon was shouting in French that this was no fair play, he had
+stolen a march; and the merchant had sprung forward saying, “Girl,
+beware, court gallants mean not well by country wenches.”
+
+“Thou liest in thy throat,” burst forth the knight.  “Discourteous
+lubber, to call such a queen of beauty a country wench!”
+
+“Listen to me, girl.”
+
+“Lady, hear me.”
+
+“Hearken not to the popinjay foreigner.”
+
+These, and many more tumultuary exclamations, threats, and entreaties,
+crowded on one another, and the various speakers were laying hand on
+staff or sword, and glaring angrily on one another, when the word
+“Peace,” in the maiden’s clear silvery notes, sounded among them.  They
+all turned as she stood in the doorway, drawn up to her full height.
+
+“Peace,” she said; “I can have no brawling here!  My father was
+grievously sick yesterday, and is still ill at ease.  One by one speak
+your business, and begone.  You first, Sir,” to the Gascon, she said in
+French.
+
+“Ah! fair Lady, what business could be mine, save to tell you how lovely
+you are?”
+
+“You have said,” she answered, without a blush, waving him aside.  “Now
+you, Sir,” to the tuneful merchant of Bristol.
+
+“I told you, Madam, he meant not well.  Those aliens never do.”
+
+“You too have said,” she answered.
+
+The merchant would have persisted, but a London merchant, a much more
+substantial and considerable character, pushed him aside, and the numbers
+being all against him, he was forced to give way.
+
+“Young woman,” said the merchant, “you are plainly of better birth and
+breeding than you choose to affect.  Now I am thinking of getting
+married.  I have ships at sea, and stuffs and jewels coming from Venice
+and Araby; and I am like to be Lord Mayor ere long; but there’s that I
+like in your face and discreet bearing, and I’ll make you my wife, and
+give you all my keys—your father willing!”
+
+“Your turn’s out, old burgher,” said a big, burly, and much younger man,
+pressing forward.  “Pretty wench!  I’m not like to be Lord Mayor, nor
+nothing of that sort; but I’m a score of years nigher thine age, and a
+lusty fellow to boot, that could floor any man at single-stick, within
+the four seas.  Ay, and have been thought comely too, though Joyce o’ the
+haugh did play me false; and I come o’ this pilgrimage just to be merry
+and forget it.  If thou wilt take me, and come back to spite Joyce, thou
+shalt be hostess of the Black Bull, at Brentford, where all the great
+folk from the North ever put up when they come to town; the merriest and
+richest hostel, and will have the comeliest host and hostess round about
+London town!”
+
+The lady bowed her head.  Perhaps those rosy lips were trying hard to
+keep from laughing.
+
+“A hostel’s no place for a discreet dame to bide in,” put forth an honest
+voice.  “Maiden, I know not who or what you are, but I came o’ this
+pilgrimage to please my old mother, who said I might do my soul good, and
+bring home a wife—better over the moor than over the mixen—and I know she
+would give thee a right good welcome.  I’m Baldric of the Cheddar Cliff,
+and we have held our land ever since the old days, or ever the Norman
+kings came here.  Three hundred kine, woman, and seven score swine, and
+many an acre of good corn land under the hill.”
+
+The lady had never looked up while these suitors were speaking.  When
+Baldric of Cheddar had done, she gave one furtive glance through her long
+eyelashes, as if to see if there were any more, and then her cheek
+flushed.  There still remained the knight.  Some others had slunk away
+when brought to such close quarters, but he stepped forth more
+hesitatingly, and said, “Lady, I know not whether the bare rock and
+castle I have to offer can weigh against the ships, the hostel, or the
+swine.  I have few of either; I am but a poor baron, but such as I am, I
+am wholly yours.  Thine eyes have bound me to you for ever, and all I
+seek is leave to make myself better known, and to ask that your noble
+father may not deem me wholly unworthy to be your suitor.”
+
+The lady trembled a little, but she held her place in the doorway.
+“Gentles,” she said, “I thank ye for the honour ye have done me, but I
+may not dispose of mine own self.  My father is ill at ease, and can see
+no one; but he bids me tell you that he will meet all who have aught to
+say to him, under the trysting tree at Bethnal Green, the day after the
+Midsummer feast.”
+
+With these words she retired into her hut, and closed the door.  She was
+seen again no more that day; and on the next the hut stood open, empty,
+and deserted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+THE BEGGAR’S DOWRY
+
+
+    “‘But first you shall promise and have it well knowne
+    The gold that you drop shall all be your owne;’
+    With that they replyed, ‘Contented we bee;’
+    ‘Then here’s,’ quoth the beggar, ‘for pretty Bessee.’”
+
+                                                             _Old Ballad_.
+
+THE day after Midsummer had come, and towards the fine elm tree that then
+adorned the centre of Bethnal Green, three horsemen were wending their
+way.  Each had his steed a good deal loaded: each looked about him
+anxiously.
+
+“By St. Boniface,” said one, “the girl’s father is not there.  Saucy
+little baggage, was she deluding us all?”
+
+“Belike he is bringing too long a train of mules with her dowry to make
+much speed,” quoth the merchant.  “He will think it needful to collect
+all his gear to meet the offers of Master Lambert of Cripple-gate.  Ha!
+Sir Knight, well met!  You are going to try your venture!”
+
+“I must!  So it were not all enchantment,” said the knight, almost
+breathlessly, gazing round him.  “Yet,” he said, almost to himself,
+“those eyes had a soul and memories that ne’er came out of fairyland!”
+
+“Ha!” exclaimed the innkeeper, “there’s old Blind Hal under the tree!
+I’ll tell him to get out of our way.  Hal!” he shouted, “here’s a tester
+for thee, but thou’st best keep out of the way of the mules.”
+
+“What mules, Master Samson?” coolly demanded Hal, who had comfortably
+established himself under the tree with his back against the trunk.
+
+“The mules that the brave burgess is going to bring his daughter’s dowry
+on.  They are cranky brutes, Hal; bad customers for blind men—best let me
+give thee a hand out of the way.”
+
+“But who is this burgess that you talk of?” asked the beggar.
+
+“The father of the pilgrim lass that prayed at St. Winifred’s Well,” said
+Samson.
+
+“And was called Queen of the Dew-drops?”
+
+“Ay, ay, old fellow!  Thou knowest every bird that flies!  She is to be
+my wife, I tell thee, and a right warm corner shall she keep for thee at
+the Black Bull, for thou canst make sport for the guests right well.”
+
+“I hope she will keep a warm corner for me,” said the beggar; “for no man
+will treat for her marriage save myself.”
+
+“Thou!  Old man, who sent thee here to insult us?” cried the merchant.
+
+“None, Master Lambert.  I trysted you to meet me here if you purposed
+still to seek my child in marriage.”
+
+“Thy child?” cried all three, vehemently.
+
+“My child!” answered the beggar.  “Mine own lawful child.”
+
+There was a silence.  Presently Samson growled, “I mind me he used to
+have a little black-eyed brat with him.”
+
+“Caitiff!” exclaimed the merchant; “I’ll have thy old vagabond bones in
+the Fleet for daring so to cheat his Grace’s lieges.”
+
+“If you can prove a cheat against me I will readily abye it, Sir,”
+returned the beggar.
+
+“Palming a beggar’s brat off for a noble dame.”
+
+“So please you, Sir,” interrupted the beggar, “keep truth with you.  What
+did the child or I ever profess, save what we were?  No foul words here.
+I trysted you to meet me here, anent her marriage.  Have you any offers
+to make me?”
+
+“Aye, of a cell in the Fleet if you persist in your insolence!” cried the
+merchant.
+
+“Thanks,” quietly said the beggar.  “And you, Master Samson?”
+
+“’Tis a sweet pretty lass,” said Samson, ruefully; “and pity of her too,
+but you see a man like me must look to his credit.  I’ll give her twenty
+marks to help her to a husband, Hal, only let her keep out of my sight
+for ever and a day.”
+
+“I thought I heard another voice,” said the beggar.  “I trow the third
+suitor has made off without further ado.”
+
+“Not so, fair Sir,” said a voice close to him, thick and choked with
+feeling.  “Your daughter is too dear to me for me thus to part, even were
+mine honour not pledged.”
+
+“Sir knight,” interfered the merchant, “you will get into a desperate
+coil with your friends.”
+
+“I am my own master,” answered the knight.  “My parents are dead.  I am
+of age, and, Sir, I offer myself and all that is mine to your fair
+daughter, as I did at Saint Winifred’s Well, as one bound both by honour
+and love.”
+
+“It is spoken honourably,” said Hal; “but, Sir, canst thou answer me with
+her dowry?  Tell down coin for coin.”
+
+He held up a heavy leathern bag.  The knight, who had come prepared, took
+down another such bag from his saddle-bow.  Down went one silver piece
+from the knight.  Down went another from the beggar.
+
+“Stay, stay,” cried Samson.  “I can play at that game too.”
+
+“No, no, Master Samson,” said the beggar; “your pretensions are resigned.
+Your chance is over.”
+
+Mark after mark—crown after crown—all the Dunster rents; all the old
+hoards, with queer figures of Saxon kings, lay on the grass, still for
+each the beggar had rained down its fellow, and inexhaustible seemed the
+bags that he sat upon.  Samson bit his lips, and the merchant muttered
+with vexation.  It could not be fairly come by: he must be the president
+of a den of robbers; it should be looked to.
+
+The last bag of the knight lay thin and exhausted; the beggar clutched
+one bursting with repletion.
+
+“I could not put the lands and castle of Dunster into a bag and add
+thereto,” said the knight, at last.  “Would that I could, my sword, my
+spurs, and knightly blood to boot, and lay them at your daughter’s feet.”
+
+“Let them weigh in the balance,” said the beggar; “and therewith thy
+truth to thy word.”
+
+“And will you own me?” exclaimed the knight.  “Will you take me to your
+daughter?”
+
+“Nay, I said not so,” returned Blind Hal.  “I am not in such haste.  Come
+back on this day week, when I shall have learnt whether thou art worthy
+to match with my child.”
+
+“Worthy!” John of Dunster chafed and bit his lips at such words from a
+beggar.
+
+“Ay, worthy,” repeated the beggar, guessing his irritation.  “I like thee
+well, as a man of thy word, so far, but I must know more of him who is to
+mate with my pretty Bessee.”
+
+It was that evening that a page entered the royal apartments, and giving
+a ring to the King, informed him that a blind beggar had sent it in, and
+entreated to speak with him.
+
+“Pray him to come hither,” said the King; “and lead him carefully.  Thou,
+Joan, hadst better seek thy mother and sister.”
+
+“O sweet father,” cried Joan, “don’t order me off.  This can be no state
+business.  Prithee let me hear it.”
+
+“That must be as my guest pleases, Joan,” he answered; “and thou must be
+very discreet, or we shall have him reproaching me for trying to rule the
+realm when I cannot rule my own house.”
+
+“Father, I verily think you are afraid of that beggar!  I am sure he is
+as mysterious as the Queen of the Dew-drops!” cried the mischievous girl.
+
+The curtain over the doorway was drawn back, and the beggar was led into
+the chamber.  The King advanced to meet him, and took his hand to lead
+him to a seat.  “Good morrow to thee,” he said; “cousin, I am glad thou
+art come at last to see me.”
+
+“Thanks, my Lord,” said the beggar, with more of courtly tone than when
+they had met before, and yet Joan thought she had never seen her father
+addressed so much as an equal; “are any here present with you?”
+
+“Only my wilful little crusading daughter, Joan,” said Edward, beckoning
+to her, and putting her proud reluctant fingers into the hand of the
+beggar, who bent and raised them to his lips—as the fashion then
+was—while the maiden reddened and looked to her father, but saw him only
+smiling; “she shall leave us,” he added, “if thy matters are for my
+private ear.  In what can I aid thee?”
+
+“In this matter of daughters,” answered the beggar; “not that I need aid
+of yours, but counsel.  I would know if the heir of old Reginald
+Mohun—John, I think they call him—be a worthy mate for my wench.”
+
+Joan had in the meantime placed herself between her father’s knees, where
+she stood regarding this wonderful beggar with the most unmitigated
+astonishment.
+
+“John of Dunster!” said the King, stroking down Joan’s hair, “thou knowst
+his lineage as well as I, cousin.”
+
+“His lineage, true,” replied Henry; “but look you, my Lord, my child, the
+light of mine eyes, may not go from me without being assured that it is
+to one who will, I say, not equal her in birth, but will be a faithful
+and loving lord to her.”
+
+“Hath he sought her?” asked the King.
+
+“Even so, my liege.  The maid is scarce sixteen; I thought to have kept
+her longer; but so it was—old Winny, her mother’s old nurse, fell sick
+and died in the winter; and the Dominican, who came to shrive her, must
+needs craze the poor fool with threats that she did a deadly sin in
+bringing my sweet wife and me together; and for all the Grand Prior, who,
+monk as he is, has a soldier’s sense, could say of the love that
+conquered death, nothing would serve the poor woman to die in peace till
+my Bessee had vowed to make a six weeks’ station at her patroness’s well,
+where we were wedded, and pray for her soul and her blessed mother’s.  So
+there we journeyed for our summer roaming; and all had been well, had you
+not come down on us with all the idle danglers of the court to gaze and
+rhyme and tilt about the first fair face they saw.  Even then so discreet
+was the girl that no more had befallen, but as ill-luck would have it, my
+old Evesham keepsake,” touching his side, “burst forth again one evening,
+and left me so spent, that Bessee sent the boy to get me a draught of
+wine.  The boy—mountebank as he is—lost her groat, and played truant; and
+she, poor wench, got into such fear for me that she went herself, and
+fell in with a sort of insolent masterful rogues, from whom this young
+knight saved her.  I took her home safe enough after that, and thought to
+be rid of the knaves when they saw my wallet; and so truly I am, all save
+this lad!”
+
+“O father! it is true love!” whispered Joan.
+
+“What hast to do with true love, popinjay?  And so John of Dunster came
+undaunted to the breach, did he, Henry?”
+
+“Not a whit dismayed he!  Now either that is making light of his honour,
+or ’tis an honour higher than most lads understand.  Cousin, I would have
+the child be loved as her father and mother loved!  And methinks she
+affects this blade.  The child hath been less like my merry lark since we
+met him.  A plague on the springalds!  But you know him.  Has he your
+good word?”
+
+“John of Dunster?” said the King.  “Henry, didst thou not know for whose
+sake I had loved and proved him?  He was Richard’s pupil.  I was forced
+to take the child with me, for old Sir Reginald had been unruly enough,
+and I thought would be the less troublesome to my father were his son in
+my keeping.  But I half repented when I saw what a small urchin it was,
+to be cast about among grooms and pages!  But Richard aided the little
+uncouth varlet, nursed him when sick, guarded him when well, trained him
+to be loyal and steadfast.  The little fellow came bravely to my aid in
+my grapple with the traitor before Acre; and when the blow had fallen on
+Richard, the boy’s grief was such that I loved him ever after.  And of
+late I have had no truer trustier warrior.  I warrant me he was too shy
+to tell thee that I knighted him last year in the midst of some of the
+best feats of arms I ever beheld against the Welsh!  Whatever John de
+Mohun saith is sooth, and I would rather mate my daughter with him than
+with many a man of fairer speech.”
+
+“Then shall he have my pretty Bessee!” said the beggar, lingering over
+the words.  “But one boon I would further ask, cousin; that thou breathe
+no word to him of my having sought thee.”
+
+The young Lord of Dunster had not been noted for choiceness of apparel;
+but when he repaired to the trysting-tree, none could have found fault
+with the folds of his long crimson tunic, worked with the black and gold
+colours of his family, nor with the sit of the broad belt that sustained
+his sword, assuredly none with his beautiful sleek black charger.
+
+But under the tree stood not the blind beggar, but the beggar’s boy.
+
+“Blind Hal bids you meet him at the Spital, at your good pleasure,” said
+the boy; and like the mountebank he was, tumbled three times head over
+heels.
+
+John de Mohun looked round and about, and saw no alternative but to obey.
+All his love was required to endure so strange a father-in-law, who did
+not seem in the least grateful for the honour intended to his daughter;
+but the knight’s word was pledged, and he rode towards the Hospital.
+
+The court of the Hospital was full of steeds and serving-men.  A strange
+conviction came over John that he saw the King’s strong white charger—ay,
+and the palfreys of the elder princesses; and he asked the lay-brother
+who offered to take his horse, if the King were there.  The brother only
+replied by motioning him towards the inner quadrangle.
+
+He passed on accordingly, and as he went, the bells broke forth into a
+merry peal.  On the top of the steps leading to the arched doorway, he
+saw a scarlet cluster of knights, and among them the Grand Prior, robed
+as for Mass.  A space was clear within the deep porch, and there stood
+the beggar in his russet suit.
+
+“Sir John de Mohun of Dunster,” he said, “thou art come hither to espouse
+my daughter?”
+
+“I hope, so, Sir,” said John, somewhat taken by surprise.
+
+“Come hither, maiden,” said her father.
+
+The cluster of knights opened, and from within the church there appeared
+before the astonished bridegroom the stately form of King Edward, leading
+in his hand the dark-tressed, dark-haired maiden, dressed in spotless
+white, the only adornment she wore a circlet of diamonds round her
+flowing dark hair—the Queen indeed of the Dew-drops.  And behind her
+walked with calm dignity the beautiful Princess Eleanor, now nearly a
+woman, holding with a warning hand the merry mischievous Joan.
+
+Well might John of Dunster stand dazzled and amazed, but hesitation or
+delay there was none.  Then and there, by the Grand Prior himself, was
+the ceremony performed, without a word of further explanation.  The rite
+over, when the bridegroom took the bride’s hand to follow, as all were
+marshalled on their way, he knew not whither, she looked up to him
+through her dark eyelashes, and murmured, “They would not have it
+otherwise!”
+
+“Deem you that I would?” said the knight fervently, pressing her hand.
+
+“I deemed that you should know all—who I am,” she faltered.
+
+“My wife, the Lady of Dunster.  That is all I need to know,” replied Sir
+John, with the honest trustworthy look that showed it was indeed enough
+to secure his heart-whole love and reverence.
+
+The great hall of the Spital was decked for the bridal feast.  The bride
+and bridegroom were placed at the head of the table, and the King gave up
+his place beside the bride to her blind father.  All the space within the
+cloister without was strewn with rushes, where sat and feasted the whole
+fraternity of beggars; and well did the Grand Prior and his knights do
+their part in the entertainment.
+
+Then when the banquet was drawing to its close, the blind beggar bade the
+boy that waited near him fetch his harp.  And, as had often before been
+his practice, he sang in a deep manly voice, to the boy’s accompaniment
+on his harp.  But the song that then he sang had never been heard before,
+nor was its exact like ever heard again; though tradition has handed down
+a few of the main features, and (as may be seen by this veracious
+narration) somewhat vulgarized them:—
+
+    “A poore beggar’s daughter did dwell on a greene,
+    Who might for her faireness have well been a queene;
+    A blithe bonny lasse and a dainty was she,
+    And many one callèd her pretty Bessee.”
+
+Even the King, who had so well guarded the secret, was entirely
+unprepared to hear the Montfort parentage thus publicly avowed; and the
+bride, who had as little known of her father’s intentions, sat with
+downcast eyes, blushing and tearful, while the beggar’s recitative went
+briefly and somewhat tremulously over his resuscitation, under the hands
+of the fair and faithful Isabel.  Her hand was held by her bridegroom
+from the first, with a pressure meant to assure her that no discovery
+could alter his love and regard; but when the name of Montfort sounded on
+his ear, the hand wrung hers with anxiety; and when the entire tale had
+been told, and the last chord was dying away, he murmured, “Look up at
+me, my loveliest.  Now I know why I first loved thine eyes.  Thou art
+dearer to me than ever, for the sake of my first and best friend!”
+
+His words were only for herself.  The King was saying aloud,
+
+“Well sung, fair cousin!  A health, my Lords and Knights, for Sir Henry
+de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.”
+
+“Not so, Lords and Knights!” called this strange personage, the only one
+who would thus have contradicted the King; “the Earl of Leicester has
+long ago been dead, as you have heard.  If you drink, let it be to Blind
+Hal of Bethnal Green.”
+
+Nor could all the entreaties of daughter, son-in-law, nor King, move him
+from his purpose of living and dying as Blind Hal, the beggar.  He had
+tasted too long of liberty, he said, to put himself under constraint.  To
+live in Somersetshire, as his daughter wished, would have been banishment
+and solitude to one used to divert himself with every humour of the city;
+and to be, as he declared, a far more complete king of the beggars than
+ever his cousin Edward was over England.  All he would consent to, was
+that a room in a lodge in Windsor Park should be set apart for him under
+charge of Adam de Gourdon, who had been present at this scene, and was
+infinitely rejoiced at the sight of a scion of the House of Montfort.
+For the rest, he bade every one to forget his avowal, which, as he said,
+he had only made that the blanch lion might share with the Mohun cross;
+and as he added to Princess Eleanor, “that you court dames may never
+flout at pretty Bessee!  Had the Cheddar Yeoman been the true man, none
+had ever known that she was a Montfort.”
+
+“Would you have given her to the Cheddar Yeoman?” burst out Joan
+furiously.
+
+“That he will say so, to anger thee, is certain, Joan,” said the King.
+“Farewell, Henry.  Remember, I hold thee bound to be my comrade when I
+can return to the Holy War.”
+
+“Ay, when you have tamed Scotland, even as you have tamed Wales,”
+returned Henry.
+
+“No fear of my good brother Alexander’s realm needing such taming.
+Heaven forbid!” said Edward.
+
+But the beggar parted from him with a laugh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+THE PAGE’S MEMORY
+
+
+    The pure calm picture of a blameless friend.
+
+                                                        _Lyra Apostolica_.
+
+TEN years later, King Edward was walking in the park at Windsor with slow
+and weary steps.  His rich dark brown hair and beard were lined with
+gray, his face was not only grave but worn and melancholy, and more
+severe than ever.  The sorrow of his life, his queen’s death, had fallen
+on him, and with her had gone much of softening influence; the only son
+who had been spared to him was, though a mere child, grieving him by the
+wayward frivolities not of a strong but of a weak nature; he had wrought
+much for his country’s good, but had often been thwarted and never
+thanked; his mercies and benefits were forgotten, his justice counted as
+harshness, and hatred and opposition had met him everywhere.  Above all,
+and weighting him perhaps most severely, was that his first step beyond
+his just bounds had been taken in the North.  John Baliol was indeed
+king, but Edward in his zeal for discipline had bound Scotland with
+obligations—for her good indeed, but beyond his just right to impose; and
+the sense of aggression was embittering him against the Scottish
+resistance, while at the same time adding to his sadness.
+
+A knight came forth from one of the paths that led into that along which
+he was pacing with folded arms, and unwilling to break upon his mood,
+stood waiting, till Edward himself looked up and asked impatiently, “So,
+Sir John, what now?  Another outbreak of those intolerable Scotch?”
+
+“Not so, my Lord; but the Bailiff of Acre awaits to see you.”
+
+“Bailiff of Acre!  What is the Bailiff of Acre to me?  I cannot hear all
+their importunities for a crusade!  Heaven knows how gladly I would
+hasten to the Holy War, if these savage Scots would give me peace at
+home.  I am weary of their solicitations.  Cannot you tell him I would be
+private, John?”
+
+“My Lord, he says he has matter for your private ear, concerning one whom
+you met in Palestine—and, my Lord, you will sure remember him—Sir
+Reginald Ferrers.”
+
+“The friend of Richard!” said Edward, with a changed countenance.  “Bring
+him with you to your father-in-law’s lodge, John.  If there be aught to
+hear of the House of Montfort, it concerns him and you likewise.  I was
+on my way thither.”
+
+In a short time the woodland lodge, in one of the most beautiful glades
+of Windsor Forest, beheld the King seated on a bench placed beneath a
+magnificent oak, standing alone in its own glade, and beside him the
+Blind Beggar in his russet suit; far less changed than his royal cousin
+during these years.  Since Edward’s great sorrow, Henry de Montfort had
+held less apart from him; and whenever the King was at leisure to snatch
+a short retirement at one of his hunting lodges, he always sent an
+intimation to the beggar, who would journey down on a sober ass, and
+under the care of De Gourdon, now the chief of the hunting staff, would
+meet the King in some sylvan glade.  Why it was a comfort to Edward to be
+with him, it would be hard to say; probably from the habit of old
+fellowship, for Henry’s humour had not grown more courtly or less
+caustic.
+
+From under the trees came John de Mohun, now a brave, stout,
+hearty-looking English baron; and with him, wrapped in a battered and
+soiled scarlet mantle, a war-worn soldier, his complexion tanned to deep
+brown, his hair bleached with toil and sun, a scar on his cheek, a halt
+on his step—altogether a man in whom none would have recognized the
+bright, graceful, high-spirited young Hospitalier of twenty years since.
+Only when he spoke, and the smiling light beamed in his eye, could he be
+known for Sir Reginald Ferrers.
+
+He would have bent his knee, but Edward took his hand, and bowing his own
+bared head said, “It is we who should crave a blessing from you, holy
+Father, last defender of the sacred land.”
+
+“Alas, my Lord,” said Sir Raynald, as he made the gesture of blessing;
+“Heaven’s will he done!  Had we but been worthier!  Sir,” he added, “I am
+in no guise for a royal presence, but I have been sent home from Cyprus
+to recover from my wounds; and I had a message for you which I deemed you
+would gladly hear before I had joined mine Order.”
+
+“A message?” said Edward.
+
+“A message from a dying penitent, craving pardon,” replied Sir Raynald.
+
+“If it concerns the House of Montfort, speak on,” said Edward.  “None are
+so near to it as those present with me!”
+
+“Thou hast guessed right, my Lord King!” replied Sir Raynald.  “It does
+concern that House.  Have I your license to tell my tale at some length?”
+
+Edward gave permission; and a seat having been brought, Sir Raynald
+proceeded to speak of that last Siege of Acre, when, amid the
+multitudinous tribunals of mixed races, and the many sanctuaries which
+sheltered crime, the unhappy city had become a disgrace to the Christian
+name.  The Sultan Malek Seraf was concentrating his forces on it; all the
+unwarlike inhabitants had been sent away; and the Knights of the two
+Orders, with the King of Cyprus and his troops, had shut themselves up
+for their last resistance—when among the mercenaries, who enrolled
+themselves in the pay of the Hospitaliers, came a sunburnt warrior, who
+had evidently had long experience of Eastern warfare, though his speech
+was English, French, or Provençal, according to the person who addressed
+him.  Fierce and dreadful was the daily strife; the new soldier fought
+well, but he was not noticed, till one night.  “Ah, Sir!” said the
+Hospitalier, “even then our holy and beautiful house was in dire
+confusion, our garden trodden down and desolate!  One night, I heard
+strange choking sobs as of one in anguish.  I deemed that one of our
+wounded had in delirium wandered into the garden, and was dying there.
+But I found—at the foot of the stone cross we set beside the fountain,
+where the attempt on you, Sir, was made—this warrior lying, so writhing
+with anguish, that I could scarce believe it was grief, not pain, that
+thus wrought with him!  I lifted him up, and spake of repentance and
+pardon.  No pardon for him, he said; it was here that he had slain his
+brother!  I spake long and earnestly with him, but he called himself
+sacrilegious murderer again and again.  Nay, he had even—when after that
+wretched night you wot of, Sir, he left our House—in his despair and hope
+to leave remorse behind, he had become a Moslem, and fought in the
+Saracen ranks.  All hope he spurned.  No mercy for him, was his cry!  I
+would have deemed so—but oh! I thought of Richard’s parting hope; I
+remembered our German brethren’s tale, how the Holy Father, the Pope,
+said there was as little hope of pardon as that his staff should bud and
+blossom; and lo, in one night it bore bud and flower.  I besought him for
+Richard’s sake to let me strive in prayer for him.  All day we fought on
+the walls—all night, beside Richard’s cross, did he lie and weep and
+groan, and I would pray till strength failed both of us.  Day after day,
+night after night, and still the miserable man looked gray with despair,
+and still he told me that he knew Absolution would but mock his doom.  He
+could fear, but could not sorrow.  And still I spoke of the Saviour’s
+love of man—and still I prayed, and all our house prayed with me, though
+they knew not who the sinner was for whom I besought their prayers.  At
+last—it was the day when the towers on the walls had been won—I came back
+from the breach, and scarce rested to eat bread, ere I went on to the
+Cedar and the Cross.  Beside it knelt Sir Simon.  ‘Father,’ he said, ‘I
+trust that the pardon that takes away the sin of the world, will take
+away mine.  Grant me Absolution.’  He was with us when, ere dawn, such of
+us as still lived met for our last mass in our beautiful chapel.  He went
+forth with us to the wall.  By and by, the command was given that we
+should make a sally upon the enemy’s camp.  We went back for the last
+time to our house to fetch our horses; I knew there could be no return,
+and went for one last look into our chapel, and at Richard’s tomb.  Upon
+it lay the knight, horribly scathed with Greek fire—he had dragged him
+there to die.  He was dead, but his looks were upward; his face was as
+calm as Richard’s was, my Lord, when we laid him down by the fountain.
+And now his message, my Lord.  He bade me say, if I survived the siege,
+that he had often cursed you for the worse revenge of letting him live to
+his remorse—now he blessed you for sparing him to repent.”
+
+“And Richard’s grave has passed to the Infidels!” said Edward, after a
+long silence.
+
+“Even as the graves of our brethren—the holiest Grave of all,” said the
+Knight Hospitalier.
+
+“Cheer up and hope, Father,” said the King.  “Let me see peace and order
+at home, and we will win back Acre, ay and Jerusalem, from the Infidels.
+Alas! our young hopes and joys may never return; but, home purified, then
+may God bless our arms beneath the Cross.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Fifteen years more, and in the beautiful Westminster Abbey, amid the
+gorgeous tombs, there stood four sorrowful figures.  A sturdy knight,
+with bowed head and mournful look, carefully guided a white-haired,
+white-bearded old man, while a beautiful matronly lady was handed by her
+tall handsome son.
+
+Among the richly inlaid shrines and monuments, they sought out one the
+latest of all, but consisting of one enormous block of stone, with no
+ornament save one slender band of inscription.
+
+“Ah!” said the knight, “well do I remember the shipping of that stone
+from Acre, little guessing its purpose!”
+
+“Then it is indeed a stone from the ruined Temple of Jerusalem,” said the
+lady.  “Read the inscription, my Son.”
+
+The young man read and translated—
+
+“Edwardus Primus.           Malleus Scotorum       Pactum serva.
+Edward the First.       The Hammer of the Scots.   Keep covenant.”
+
+“It was scarce worth while to bring a stone from Jerusalem, to mark it
+with ‘the Hammer of the Scots!’” said the lady.
+
+“Alas, my cousin Edward!” sighed the beggar.  “Ever with a great scheme,
+ever going earnestly on to its fulfilment; with a mind too far above
+those of other men to be understood or loved as thou shouldst have been!
+Alack, that the Scottish temptation came between thee and the brightness
+of thy glory!  Art thou indeed gone—like Richard—to Jerusalem; and shall
+I yet follow thee there?  Let us pray for the peace of his soul,
+children; for a greater and better man lies here than England knows or
+heeds.”
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+{100}  Psalm cxxvi. 6, 7.
+
+
+
+
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