The White Rose of Langley Part 22

"How have I offended, my Lord?" faltered the poor man.

"No hast," was the response; "but if thou lock not up the gates incontinent, and give the keys to me--"

The keys were in Aumerle's pocket the next minute. An hour later, when his story was told, and his pardon solemnly promised, York and his train came lumbering to the gate, to find his news forestalled. When Henry had read the agreement, which York brought with him, he set out immediately for London, while Aumerle calmly repaired to his tryst at Colnbrook. Here Exeter was the first to join him. Aumerle informed his friends that Henry was coming to meet them with a large army, but they determined nevertheless to advance. They pa.s.sed Maidenhead Bridge in safety, but as soon as they crossed it, the vanguard of Henry's army was visible. To the amazement of his colleagues, Aumerle, on whom they had counted as staunch and loyal, doffed his bonnet with a laugh, and, spurring forward, was received by the enemy as an expected ally. There could be no doubt now that he had betrayed his too trusting friends.

Yet even then, the little band held the bridge till midnight. But by midnight all hope was over. There was left only one alternative--flight or death. The loyal six set spurs to their horses; and Surrey's steed being fleetest, he soon outdistanced the others. All that night Surrey rode at a breathless gallop, and when morning broke he was das.h.i.+ng past Osney Abbey into the gates of Oxford. Exeter came up an hour or two later; the rest followed afterwards. But they did not mean to stop at Oxford for more than a few hours' rest. Then they spurred on to Cirencester. On reaching the city gate, Surrey, with his usual impulsive eagerness, shouted to the Constable, "Arm for King Richard!"

The Constable, supposing that "the luck had turned," obeyed; but the next morning brought an archer from Henry, who must have discovered or guessed whither the fugitives had gone. Surrey received Henry's message and messenger with sovereign contempt; but the Constable, finding that Henry was still in power, immediately went over to the winning side, and there was a town riot. The peers had taken up their temporary abode in an inn, which was surrounded and besieged by the mob. Surrey, impetuous as usual, rushed to the window to address the mob. He was received with a shower of arrows. His friends sprang forward to rescue him; but time and the things of time were over for the young, dauntless, gallant Surrey. They could only lay him gently down on the rushes to breathe out his life. It was a sad end. Fairest and almost highest of the n.o.bles of England, of royal blood, of unblemished character, of great wealth, and only twenty-five--to die on the floor of an inn, in a mob riot!

But what was to become of the rest? Exeter's fertile brain suggested a way of escape.

"Quick--fire the rushes! And then ope the back windows, and drop down into the fosse."

It is manifest from the circ.u.mstances, that the back windows of the inn opened from the town wall upon the ditch which ran round it, and which in all probability was filled with water. John Maudeleyn gathered a handful of the rushes, with which he set fire to the room in two or three places. The five who remained--Exeter, Salisbury, Le Despenser, and the two Maudeleyns,--then dropped down from the window, swam across the fosse, and fled into the fields, where the scattered relics of their own army were advancing to join them. But Exeter's idea had been a shade too brilliant. He frightened by the fire not only his foes, but his friends.

His troops fancied that Henry had come up, and was burning Cirencester; and, panic-stricken, they dispersed in all directions. The five parted into three divisions, and fled themselves.

They fled to death.

Exeter set out alone. His destination was Pleshy, whence he meant to escape to France. But the angel of death met him there in the guise of a woman, Joan Countess of Hereford, mother-in-law of Henry, and sister of Archbishop Arundel. She had never forgiven Exeter for sitting in judgment on her brother the Earl of Arundel, and she rested not now till she saw him stretched before her, a headless corpse.

The two Maudeleyns went towards Scotland. Richard was apprehended, and executed. There is good reason to believe that John, escaped, and that it was he who, in after years, personated King Richard at the Scottish Court.

The Lollard friends, Salisbury and Le Despenser, determined to attempt their escape together.

For a minute they waited, looking regretfully after Exeter: then Le Despenser said to his squire--

"Haste, Lyngern!--for Cardiff!"

They rode hard all that day--wearily all that night. Over hill and dale, fording rivers, pus.h.i.+ng through dense forests, threading mountain pa.s.ses, wading across trackless swamps. Town after town was left behind; river after river was followed or crossed; till at last, as the sun was setting, they cantered along the banks of the broad Severn, with the towers of Berkeley Castle rising in the distance.

It was here that Salisbury drew bridle.

"'Tis no good!" he said. "I can no more. My Lord, mine heart misgiveth me that you be wending but to death. Had it been the pleasure of the Lord that we should escape our enemies, well: but if we be to meet death, let me meet it at home. Go you on to your home, an' it like you; but for me, I rest this night at Berkeley, and with the morrow I turn back to Bisham."

Le Despenser looked sadly in his face. It seemed as though his last friend were leaving him.

"Be it as you list, my Lord of Salisbury," he said. "Only G.o.d go with both of us!"

Who shall say that He did not, though the road lay through the dark river? For on the other side was Paradise.

So the Lollard friends parted: and so went Salisbury to his death. For he never reached Bisham; he only crept back to Cirencester, and there he was recognised and taken, and beheaded by the mob.

A weary way lay still before Le Despenser and Bertram. They journeyed over land; and many a Welsh mountain had to be scaled, and many a brook forded, before--when men and horses were so exhausted that another day of such toil felt like a physical impossibility--spread before them lay the silver sea, and the sun shone on the grim square towers of Cardiff.

"Home!" whispered the n.o.ble fugitive, slackening his pace an instant, as the beloved panorama broke upon his sight. "Now forward, Lyngern-- home!"

Down they galloped wearily to the gates, walked through the town-- stopped every moment by demands for news--till at last the Castle was reached, and in the base court they alighted from their exhausted steeds. And then up-stairs, to Constance's bower, occupied by herself, the Dowager, little Richard, and Maude. Bertram hurriedly preceded his master into the room. The ladies, who were quietly seated at work, and were evidently ignorant of any cause for excitement, looked up in surprise at his entrance.

"Please it the Lady,--the Lord!"

Constance rose quickly, with a more decided welcome than she usually vouchsafed to her husband.

"Why, my Lord! I thought you were in London."

"What ill hath happed, son?" was the more penetrating remark of the Dowager.

"Well nigh all such as could hap, Madam," said Le Despenser wearily. "I am escaped with life--if I have so 'scaped!--but with nought else. And I come now, only to look on your beloved faces, and to bid farewell.-- Maybe a last farewell, my Lady!"

He stood looking into her face with his dark, sad eyes,--looking as if he believed indeed that it would be a last farewell. Constance was startled; and his mother's theories broke down at once, and she sobbed out in an agony--

"O Tom, Tom! My lad, my last one!"

"You mean it, my Lord?" asked Constance, in a tone which showed that she was not wholly indifferent to the question.

"I mean it right sadly, my Lady."

"But you go not hence this moment?"

Le Despenser sank down on the settle like the exhausted man he was.

"This moment!" he repeated. "Nay, not so, even for life. I am weary and worn beyond measure. And to part so soon! One night to rest; and then!--"

"My Lord, are you well a.s.sured of your peril?" suggested Constance.

"This your castle is strong and good, and your serving-men and retainers many, and the townsmen leal--"

She stopped, tacitly answered by her husband's sorrowful smile, which so plainly replied, "_Cui bono_?"

"My Lady!" he said quietly, "think ye there is this moment a tower, or a n.o.ble, or a rood of land, that the Duke of Lancaster will leave unto us?

I cast no doubt that all our lands and goods be forfeit, some days ere now."

He judged truly enough. On the day of the fugitives' flight from Oxford to Cirencester, a writ of confiscation was issued in Parliament against every one of them. That was the 5th of January; and this was the evening of the 10th. There was a mournful rear-supper at Cardiff Castle that night; and no member of the household, except the wearied Bertram Lyngern, thought of sleep. Maude was busied in making up money and jewels into numberless small packages, under the orders of the Dowager, to be concealed on the persons of Le Despenser and his attendant squire.

The intention of her master was to take pa.s.sage on some boat bound for Ireland, and thence to escape into Scotland or France.

Le Despenser slept late into the morning--no wonder for a man who had scarcely been out of his saddle for six days and nights. The preparations for the continuation of his flight were nearly completed; but he had not yet been disturbed, when a strange horn was heard outside the fosse of the Castle. Constance, who had risen early, and was in an excited state of mind, hastily opened a lattice to hear who was the visitor.

"Who goes there?" demanded the warder's deep voice.

"Sir William Hankeford, Justice of the King's Bench, bearing his Highness' warrant. Open quickly!"

There could be no question as to his object--the arrest of Le Despenser.

Constance breathlessly shut the window, bade Maude sweep the little packets of jewellery and coin into her pocket, dashed into her bower, and awoke her still slumbering husband.

"Rise, my Lord, this instant! Harry of Bolingbroke hath sent to take you. We must hide you some whither."

Le Despenser was almost too tired and depressed to care for apprehension.

"Whither, my Lady?" he asked hopelessly. "Better yield, maybe."

"_Ninerias_!" [Nonsense!--literally, _childishness_] cried Constance hastily, using a word of her mother's tongue, which she had frequently heard from the lips of Dona Juana. And springing to the wardrobe in the ante-chamber, she was back in a second, with a thick furred winter gown.