Autumn Leaves Part 6

Then did the woodman embrace him with tears, crying, "My brother, O my brother! it is I! it is Richard!"

"Thou in England!" cried the Count. "Art thou mad?" And he frowned gloomily.

"Fear not for me," replied the exile, tenderly raising the Count from the ground.

A narrow path wound through the wood to a ruined hermitage. The outlaw here prepared a bed of leaves for the Count, laid him softly thereon, and went to seek some refreshment. His loved brother might revive, and yet smile kindly on the playmate of his youth, though under a ban.

When Richard returned, there followed him like a dog a horse of the North-country breed, s.h.a.ggy, and in size not much greater than a stag-hound. Robert viewed him with surprise, and it seemed with derision.

"Despise not him who is able to bear thee out of the wood," said Richard. "Thou art faint; here is wine, and of no mean vintage."

Robert drank from the earthen bottle, and his eye grew brighter, yet looked it not the more lovingly on Richard. He ate right gladly of the store of the landless and penniless,--dried venison and oaten bread,--and was refreshed, yet thanked him not. Richard gave fragments to the neighing steed. He ate no morsel himself, nor tasted the wine. His heart was full to bursting.

"Tell me of home,--of--of our father," he said, at last, with deep, strong sobs.

"On the morrow, on the morrow," said Robert, disposing himself for sleep. "Thou wilt hear soon enough."

But Richard seized him wildly by the shoulder, and bade him tell the worst.

"Nay, then, if thou _wilt_ know, he is dead. I, thy younger brother, am now thy superior."

"For that I care not. As well thou, as I, to sit in my father's seat. But oh! left he no blessing for me? Did he not at the last believe me the victim of calumny?--Alas! No word? Not one dying thought of Richard?"

"He died suddenly."

Richard wept long and bitterly, and when, with faltering tongue, he asked tidings of his betrothed, his face was covered; he saw not the guilty flush upon his brother's brow, for that he had spread a lying report of the exile's death.

"Would Bertha still brave the king's displeasure? Was she yet true to the unfortunate?"

"Bertha is a very woman. She hath forgotten the absent lover, and chosen another, and a better man."

"Who, who hath supplanted me?" cried Richard fiercely, and springing upon his feet.

"I tell thee not, lest thou wreak on him thy spite against thy faithless fair."

"Know that Bertha's choice, though a traitor, is safe from me, even were I, as I was, a man to meet a knight on equal terms."

His generous heart could not dream of fraternal treachery. And when his rival saw this, and that he suspected him not as yet, he smiled to himself, turned his face to the wall, and closed his eyes, if so be he might cut off further question. Soon, falling into slumber, he clenched his hands, and ground his teeth. The sleep of a traitor is ever haunted by uneasy dreams, and dark shadows of coming doom fell upon his spirit.

Richard watched till dawn. Sometimes he started up to walk to and fro, beating his bosom, and wringing his hands in agony. Anon he threw himself prostrate in the stupor of despair. At the first carol of birds in the forest, sleep surprised his weary senses, and the peace of the innocent settled upon his features.

Side by side lay the brothers, alike in form, alike even in feature. But in heart they bore no mark of the resemblance of kindred.

Envy of the elder-born early possessed the soul of Robert, like a base fiend; first had it driven thence love, and lastly honor.

Does no one seek for the absent lord of the castle, while the weary hunters return to be his guests? Keeps no one anxious vigil, the live-long night? The unloving is not loved. But he hath a king beneath his roof; a king and lords of high degree sit at the morning board, and shall none but va.s.sals be hospitably proud and busy?

Ladies of rank were there, and among them, pale and silent, sat Bertha, looking on the king, it seemed, with an upbraiding eye. An angry gloom sat upon his grimly compressed lips, and sadness was upon his brow; for kingly power was naught, since remorse could not undo a wrong done to one who no longer lived, and vengeance could not reach its absent object. Richard's innocence had come to light, and Robert, albeit he knew it not, was now the dishonored outlaw.

Ere the clock of the distant minster rung the hour of ten, the royal cavalcade wound from the gates of the castle. At the same hour Count Robert awoke, and saw that the sun was already very high. It shone upon the calm face of Richard, tempered with quivering shadows from the leafy canopy above.

"Up, brother Richard!" cried the Count; "thou wast ever a sluggard."

And Richard, at his bidding, filled his hunting-pouch with provisions for the way, and went before, leading the little Northern nag, which the Count bestrode. He bore himself bravely under the weight of a rider whose feet nearly grazed the turf on each side.

Slowly they wound through the tangled wood. "Stay, I will lighten thy burden for thee," said Robert, "if thou hast not left the bottle behind. Here's to the fair Bertha. What, thou wilt not drink? Then thou hast resigned her;--she is not worth a thought. Thou wilt not peril thy life to see her again, the false one who careth not for thee. Now depart, and when the king's wrath is overpast, I will beseech him for thee. Leave thy cause in a brother's hands." But Richard went not back, though, when they came to the edge of the wood, they beheld the king's train advancing in the broad highway.

"Fly, Richard; escape while thou mayest!" cried Robert, yet offered he not the horse for the greater speed. "Found on English ground, thou diest a felon's death. Disgrace not thy family. Carest thou not for life?" he cried, pursuing Richard, who stinted not, nor stayed, at the sight of the king, but the rather hasted forward.

"What is life to me?" said Richard. "Let the king do with me as he will." He strode onward proudly, with folded arms, offering himself to the view of Edward, who as yet saw him not, or only as a forester.

"Halt at least that I may spur on and implore for thee," said Robert, for he hoped that he might deliver him a prisoner to some one in attendance, that he should not come to speech of the king.

With this wily purpose, he galloped forward. A shout arose, "The traitor! The traitor!" He was made prisoner by no gentle hands, and, at a nod from the king, found himself led away to the rear, but not far removed.

He looked about for Richard. Could he not yet wave him back? Should the king see that n.o.ble face, he must be moved to mercy, at least so far as to give him audience. The brothers know not yet that all is reversed. Robert sees a man in russet clothing kneel at the king's stirrup; he sees the royal hand extended to raise him; he sees many press forward eager to welcome the wanderer. He turns away, sick at the sight.

One look more. Bertha has thrown herself into the arms of his hated brother. He tears his beard; he curses his own natal day, and the stars that presided over his birth and destiny.

Yet must he look once more, though to an envious soul the sight of a brother's happiness is like the torment of purgatorial fire. Richard is standing with his hand extended towards him. He is pleading the cause of the mean and cowardly enemy who betrayed him. He pities and forgives him; he even loves him still, for is he not his brother? As the eyes of the king and of all the surrounding crowd are turned on him, burning shame subdues the warring pa.s.sions that fill the heart of Robert, and a faint emotion of grat.i.tude brings a tear to fall upon his hot cheek. Something of old, childish love awakes in his bosom, like dew in a dry land.

The king granted Richard's prayer, the more readily because his anger was smothered by contempt. The t.i.tle and inheritance returned to the heir, who was worthy his ancient name. Robert, to the day of his death, lived on his brother's bounty, harmless, the rather that the king's decree had gone forth that in no case should he be Richard's successor, or inherit aught from him.

NOTE.--Here ends the tale, but by patient research we have discovered one verse of an ancient ballad, supposed to have the same tradition for its subject. It is preserved in a curious collection of fragmentary poetry, to be found in most private libraries, and, in its more ancient and valuable editions, in the repositories of antiquaries. It stands, in the modern copy which we possess, as follows:--

Richard and Robert were two pretty men; Both laid abed till the clock struck ten.

Up jumps Robert, and looks at the sky; "Oho, brother Richard, the sun's very high!

You go before, with the bottle and bag, And I'll come behind, on little Jack nag."

THE SEA.

"We sent him to school, we set him to learn a trade, we sent him far back into the country; but it was of no use, he must go to sea."--THE GRANDMOTHER'S STORY.

A child was ever haunted by a thought of mystery, Of the dark, sh.o.r.eless, desolate, heaving and moaning sea, Which round about the cold, still earth goes drifting to and fro, As a mother, holding her dead child, swayeth herself with woe.

In all the jar and bustle and hurrying of trade, Through the hoa.r.s.e, distracting din by rattling pavements made, There sounded ever in his ear a low and solemn moan, And his soul grew sick with listening to that deep undertone.

He wandered from the busy streets, he wandered far away, To where the dim old forest stands, and in its shadows lay, And listened to the song it sang; but its murmurs seemed to be The whispered echo of the sad, sweet warbling of the sea.

His soul grew sick with longing, and shadowy and dim Seemed all the beauty of the land, and all its joys, to him,-- Its mountains vast, its forests old. He only longed to be Away upon the measureless, unfathomed, restless sea.

Thither he went. The foam-capped waves yet beat upon the strand, With a low and solemn murmuring that none may understand; And he lieth drifting to and fro, amid the ocean's roar, With the drifting tide he loved to hear, but shall hear never more.

And thus we all are haunted,--there soundeth in our ear, A low and restless moaning, that we struggle not to hear.

Yet still it soundeth, the faint cry of the dark deeps of the soul,-- Dark, barren, restless, as the sea which doth for ever roll Hither and thither, bearing still some half-shaped form of good, The flickering shadow of the moon upon the "moon-led flood."

And ever, 'mid all the joys and weary cares of life, Through the dull sleep of sluggishness, and clangor of the strife, We hear the low, deep murmuring of that Infinity Which stretcheth round us dim and vast, as wraps the earth the sea.

And in the twilight dimness, in silence and alone, The soul is almost startled by the power of its solemn tone.

When we view the fairest works of Nature and of Art, They ever fill with longings, never satisfy, the heart; But, like the lines of weed and sh.e.l.ls that stretch along the beach, And show how far the flowing tide and the high waters reach, They seem like barriers to hold back, like weedy lines, to show How far into this busy world the waves of beauty flow.