Agincourt Part 44

Paul explained his meaning to them. He himself with his own party waited for about a quarter of an hour longer, till the hasty litter was prepared for Mary Grey; and then, with some on foot, and some on horseback, they moved on towards the point of rendezvous at Charleville.

It was a happy evening that which they pa.s.sed in Charleville, for there is nought which so heightens the zest of pleasure as remembered pain; nought that so brightens the sense of security as danger past.

All was bustle and confusion in the little town, which was not then fortified; every inn was full, every house was occupied; but it was willing bustle and gay confusion. From one hostel to another, parties were going every moment, and the door of that at which the young Count of Charolois had taken up his quarters, was besieged both by the townspeople and his own friends and followers. The tale of the swollen torrent, and the mill swept away, was told to the n.o.ble Prince by the Lord of St. Paul and Sir John Grey; and when Richard of Woodville, who had lingered a little with Mary Grey, appeared, the Count grasped his hand with a generous warmth, which was very winning in one so high, calling him frequently his friend; and then turning to Sir John Grey, he demanded, "Said I not, n.o.ble knight, of what stuff he was made?"

"You did him but justice, my good lord," replied the knight; "and I do him full justice now. Well has he won his lady's hand, and he shall have it."

"Come!" cried the Prince, starting up; "I will go offer her my homage, too. But why should we not see the wedding ere we part, Sir John?"

"Nay, nay, my lord," answered the English knight; "I have grown proud with restored prosperity; and my child must go to the altar in my own land, and with my own old followers round me."

Oh, slow age, how tardy is it to yield to the eager haste of youth!

But Sir John Grey added words still less pleasant to the ear of Richard of Woodville. "When I return from the Court of the Emperor, my n.o.ble Prince," he continued, "I speed back at once to Westminster. I trust that your expedition will then be over; and Sir Richard here may follow me with all speed. Once there, I will not make him wait."

Such was the first intimation Woodville had received of the course that lay before him and Sir John Grey; for the previous moments had pa.s.sed in words of tenderness with her he loved, and in long, but not uninteresting, explanations with her father. He had hoped that their paths would lie together; and, without inquiring what motive should carry Sir John Grey with the Count of Charolois into the Duchy of Burgundy, he had arrived at the conclusion, that the knight's steps were bent thither as well as his own. It was a bitter disappointment, for imagination in such cases is ever the handmaid of hope; and Richard of Woodville had fancied that, in the course of the long expedition before them, many an opportunity must occur for urging upon Sir John Grey his pet.i.tion for Mary's hand. Now, however, they were again about to be separated, with wide lands between them, and with the certainty of months, perhaps years, elapsing ere they met again.

It is strange, it is very strange, and scarcely to be accounted for, that people advanced in life, and experienced in the uncertainty of all life's things, seem to have a confidence in the future which the young do not possess. They delay, they put off without fear or apprehension; they calculate as if with certainty upon the time to come; while eager youth, on the contrary, at the very name of procrastination conjures up every difficulty and obstacle, every change and chance, not alone within the range of probability, but within the reach of fate. Perhaps it is, that the old have acquired a juster appreciation of all mortal joy; perhaps it is, that the keen edge of antic.i.p.ation being dulled in themselves, they cannot comprehend the impatience of others: that, knowing how little any earthly gratification is really worth, they think it but a small matter, not meriting much thought, whether the hand of the future s.n.a.t.c.hes the desired object from us or not, whether the b.u.t.terfly, enjoyment, be caught by the boy that chases it, or escape.

So it is, however: Sir John Grey seemed not even to understand or to perceive the pain he was inflicting upon the lover; and, as Woodville knew that it would be of no use to argue, he made up his mind to enjoy the present as much as might be, and then with Mary's love for his guidance and encouragement, to seek honour and advancement in the fields before him.

After a few more words he accompanied the Count of Charolois, with the princ.i.p.al n.o.bles of his train and Sir John Grey, to the hostel where the English knight had taken up his abode; but, as they entered, the eyes of Richard of Woodville fell upon the figure of a poor disconsolate looking boy, who stood near, with his arms folded on his chest, and his eyes bent down upon the ground, without being once lifted to the gay and glittering group that was pa.s.sing in; and pointing him out to the Lord of St. Paul, the young knight said, "He was one of those saved from the mill, my lord; and, if I mistake not, he is of kin to some of the men who perished."

"Come hither, boy," said the Constable; "who art thou?"

"I am Edme Mark, my lord," replied the boy, looking up with tearful eyes; "and all my friends are dead."

"Then are you the miller's son?" inquired the Lord of St. Paul.

"No, sir, his nephew," the boy answered, in the jargon of his country.

"Faith, then, we must do something for you," rejoined the n.o.bleman.

"Will you ride with me and be my _coustelier_, or with that knight?"

"I would rather go with him," cried the boy, pointing to the young Englishman, "for he saved my life."

"Well, then, take him with you, Sir Richard," said the Lord of St.

Paul. "You want to swell your band."

"Good faith, I have need, my lord," answered Richard of Woodville; "for the three men I left behind me when I came from Ghent, have never rejoined me."

"I saw some Englishmen with the Count's train in the court of his hostel," replied the Lord of St. Paul. "I knew them by their flat cuira.s.ses, and their long arrows."

"Ah, I marked them not," answered Richard of Woodville; "but I will go and see.--Come hither with me, boy," he continued; and, followed by the lad, he retrod his steps in haste to the inn where he had found the Count. In the court he saw nothing but Flemings and Burgundians; but in the stables, tending their horses, he found the three men whom he sought, and who now informed him, in the brief and scanty words of the English peasant, that they had escorted Ella Brune to Bruges, and there had left her, she having a.s.sured them that she was safe, and required their protection no farther. They had then immediately returned to Ghent; for they had never received the written order which their leader had sent to them; and, having obtained speech of the Count of Charolois, had accompanied him on his expedition, according to his commands. Richard of Woodville mused over this intelligence for some minutes; and then, after placing the boy Edme in their hands, with orders to take care of him, he hurried back to her he loved.

For three or four days Sir John Grey took advantage of the escort of the Count of Charolois, on his journey towards the Imperial Court, purchasing horses and clothing where he could find them, to supply the place of those lost in the torrent. During that time, as may be supposed, Richard of Woodville was constantly by Mary's side, and it pa.s.sed happily to both: nor did any incident occur worthy of record here, till they reached the town of Bar, where they were destined to part. The last conversation that took place between them ere they separated, was in regard to Ella Brune, led on by a half jesting question addressed to Mary by her lover, if she had really never felt jealousy or doubt when so many suspected.

"Neither, Richard," she answered. "I could not suspect you; and besides, I had myself told that poor girl, that I would never doubt or be jealous; and I blamed you to her, Richard, for not taking her, when first she sought to go."

"She seems to have the gift of winning confidence, my Mary," replied the young knight; "and a blessed gift it is."

"'Tis only gained by deserving it, Richard, and not always then,"

answered Mary Markham: "but one cannot well doubt her, either. When one sees a clear stream flowing on abundantly, we judge that the source is pure; and all her thoughts gush so limpid from the heart, we cannot doubt that heart to be unpolluted too."

"Would that we knew where she is, my Mary," said Richard of Woodville, thoughtfully. "I fear for her much, left in the same land with that base villain, who has so persecuted her, and of whose dark wiles there seems no end."

"She is safe, she is safe," exclaimed the lady; "I have heard of her since she departed. She is safe, and with friends able and willing to protect her, I know; but I fear, indeed, that what you say is true in regard to that traitor, Simeon of Roydon. Do you doubt, Richard, that this forged letter from my father was some contrivance of his?"

"And yet," answered Woodville, "we can by no means trace it to him.

The messenger declares he brought the packet as he received it. The Count says he placed your father's and his own together, and gave them to his page, who, in turn, vows he carried them straight to the messenger."

"It is strange, indeed," said Mary; "but as to poor Ella, she is safe; and wherever I am, I will do my best to befriend her, Richard."

They were alone; and he pressed her to his heart with feelings far brighter, far tenderer than mere pa.s.sion; for beauty is but the expression of excellence; and when we find the substance, oh, how much more deeply we love it than the picture! The fairest features that ever were chiselled by the hand of nature, the sweetest form that ever woke wild emotions in the breast, could never have produced in the heart of Richard of Woodville, the sensations that he then felt towards Mary Grey.

Ere long they parted; and while she with her father wended on towards the Court of the Emperor--Sir John Grey, acting as a sort of precursor to the more splendid emba.s.sy soon after sent by Henry V.--the young knight followed the Count of Charolois to Dijon and Besancon, and aided to raise that force with which John the Bold soon after took the field against the rival faction of Armagnac, then all-powerful in the Court of France.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT.

Months had pa.s.sed. The clang of trumpets and timbrels had sounded beneath the walls of Paris, from morning till well nigh vespers; and the clear blue country sky was glowing with the last rays of the sun before he set. But, still the redoubted chivalry of Burgundy, with glittering arms and royal pageantry, stood upon the frosty ground before the gates, the towers of which were crowded with armed men who dared not issue forth to meet their enemies in the field, less because they doubted their own strength--for they were treble at least in number--than because they knew that, within that city, the popular heart beat high to take part with the bold Duke John, "the people's friend."

Faults he had many; crimes of a dark dye he had committed; the blood of the Duke of Orleans was fresh upon his hand; but his princely generosity, his daring courage, and more than all, his love of the Commons, a body grown everywhere already into terrible importance, wiped out all stains in the eyes of the citizens of Paris; and they longed to build up once more the fabric of his power on the ruin of those proud n.o.bles, who, still in their attachment to pure feudal inst.i.tutions, looked upon the craftsman and the merchant as little better than half emanc.i.p.ated serfs.

Long ere this period, the power of the middle cla.s.ses had grown into an engine which might be guided, but could not be resisted without danger. In England, its influence had first been recognised by the great De Montford, who had wisely attempted to direct its young energies in a just and beneficial course; for which the land we live in--nay, perhaps the world--owes him still a deep debt of grat.i.tude.

Influenced by the character of the nation, its progress in this country was marked by slow but steady increase of strength; and it went on gaining fresh vigour, more from the natural result of contests between the various inst.i.tutions which it was destined to supersede, than from its own efforts to extend its sphere. Rebellious n.o.bles looked to it for aid; kings courted its support; usurpers submitted more or less their claims to its approval; and from each and all it obtained concessions. Seldom meeting any severe check--till in long after years, a fatal effort was made to raise an embankment against it, when it burst in a deluge over every obstacle--during the early period of our history it diffused itself calmly, more like the quiet overflowing of the fertilizing rill, than the rush and destructive outbreak of a pent-up torrent. But in France such was not the case, and for ages the struggle to resist it went on; while, partaking of the fierce but desultory and ungoverned activity of the people, it sometimes burst forth, sometimes was driven back, till at length its hour came, and it swept all before it, was.h.i.+ng away the seeds of good and evil alike, and leaving behind a new soil for the plough, difficult to labour, and fertile of thorns as well as verdure.

In these middle ages of which I write, few were wise enough to see the existence, and comprehend the inevitable course, of the great latent principle which was destined to take the place of every other. The fact--the truth--that all power is from the people, and that wisdom is the helm which must guide it, was a discovery of after times; and was, moreover, so repugnant to the spirit of the feudal system--that strange, but great ideal--that in the land where feudal inst.i.tutions were most perfect, the men who owed them all, never dreamed that they could be swept away by the seemingly weak and homely influences which they were accustomed to use at their will: even as our ancestors, not many years ago, little imagined that the vapour which rose from the simmering kettle of the peasant or the mechanic, would one day waft navies through the ocean, and reduce s.p.a.ce to nothing.

If there were any in that land of France who, without a foresight of what was to be, merely owned the existence of a great popular power, it was but to use it for their own purposes, ever prepared to check it the moment it had served their object. Some, indeed, in habits of mind and disposition, were of a character to win its aid by demeanour and conduct, and such was pre-eminently John the Bold. Strange too, to say, that very chivalrous spirit which characterized so many of his actions, won to his side a great body of the n.o.bles without alienating the middle and the lower cla.s.ses; but it was, that he was more the knight than the feudal baron--more the sovereign than the great lord.

It must never be forgotten, in viewing the history of those times, that the original object of the inst.i.tution of chivalry, was to correct the evils of the feudal system; to strike the rod from the hand of the oppressor, to defend the defenceless, and to right the wronged; and had chivalry remained in its purity, it might have averted long the downfall of the system with which it was linked. The people loved the true knight as much as they hated the feudal lord; and long after the decay of the order, even the affectation of its higher qualities both won regard from the lower cla.s.ses, and excited the admiration of all those above them, who retained any sparks of the spirit which once animated it.

Thus, the Duke of Burgundy, though surrounded by many of the highest in the land, and possessed of their affection in an extraordinary degree, was popular with the trader in his shop, and the peasant in his cot. Town after town had opened its gates to him as he advanced; and now he stood before the gates of Paris, trusting to the citizens to rise and give him admission. But the love with which he was regarded by the people was as well known to others as to himself, and all chance of a demonstration in his favour had been guarded against with the most scrupulous care. The Dauphin Duke of Aquitaine, whether willingly or unwillingly it is difficult to say, marched through the streets of the capital surrounded by the family of Orleans, and the partizans of Armagnac, and followed by no less than eleven thousand men-at-arms, exhorting the populace in every quarter, by the voice of a herald, to remain tranquil, and resist the suggestions of the agents of the Burgundian faction: "and thus," says one of the historians of the day, "they provided so well for the guard of the town, that no inconvenience occurred."

The walls and gates were covered with soldiery; the heralds and messengers of the Duke were not suffered to approach, though their words were peaceful; and some of the Burgundian n.o.bles who ventured too near, in order to speak with those whom they thought personally friendly, were driven back by arrows and quarrels. Even the kings of arms were threatened with death if they approached within bow-shot; and, though one was found bold enough to fix the letters of which he was the bearer, on a lance before the gate of St. Anthony, and others contrived to obtain secret admission into the town, to distribute the Duke's proclamation amongst the people, and even affix copies to the gates of the churches and palaces, so strict was watch kept upon the citizens, that a rising was impossible.

Disappointed and angry, but with apparent scorn, the Duke, who had not sufficient forces to render an attack upon the wall successful, even if it had been politic to make it, withdrew to St. Denis at nightfall; and the menacing array disappeared from before Paris, like a pageant that had pa.s.sed away. The leaders of the troops of Burgundy, separated from those of Flanders and Artois, took up their abode where they had been quartered in the morning, at the hostel called "the Lance,"

nearly opposite to the abbey; and, while the Duke remained for several hours closeted with some of his oldest councillors, the Lord of Croy drew Richard of Woodville apart from the rest, and whispered that he wished to speak with him alone in his chamber.

The young knight followed him at once; for the intimacy which had arisen between them at Lille, and on the road to Ghent, had ripened into friends.h.i.+p during their long expedition into Burgundy; and without preface, the n.o.ble Burgundian exclaimed, as soon as the door was closed, "This will not go forward, Woodville. The Duke, bold as he is, will not strike a stroke against the King's capital, with the King therein. I see it well; and, with this enterprise, pa.s.ses away my hope of delivering my poor boy John, who lies, as you know, a prisoner at Montl'herry, unless I can take some counsel for his aid."

"Nay, my good lord," replied Richard, with a smile; "doubtless you have taken counsel already, and all I can say is, that if I can aid you, my hand is ready. Can you not march to Montl'herry, and deliver him? The country is clear of men, for every one capable of bearing arms for the enemy, has been gathered into Paris."

"I have thought of it, Woodville," replied the Lord of Croy; "but a large body moving across the country would soon call the foe forth in great numbers; and, moreover, my lord the Duke could ill spare so many men as your band and mine would carry off. But I would give my land of Nuranville to any one who would lead a small party to Montl'herry, and set free the boy, as I have planned it."

"Ah, my lord, I thought your scheme was fixed," said the young knight, laughing at the circuitous manner in which his friend had announced his wishes. "Let me know what it is, and as I said before, if I can succour your son, I am ready."