Agincourt Part 14

"And that was--" exclaimed Richard.

"The holy Catholic faith!" replied the girl, crossing herself; "and nothing has ever been able to turn me from it. But still, I could not let it break all bonds--could I, n.o.ble sir?"

"Perhaps not," replied Richard of Woodville; "but let me hear farther."

"When the Earl fled, and my mother died," continued the girl, "my grandfather took me with him to the town of York; and, as he was wealthy, as I have said, his kinsfolk, who were many in the place, were glad to see him. He was very kind to me--oh, how kind! and taught me to sing, and play on many instruments. But there came a disciple of Wicliffe into the town, where there were already many Lollards in secret; and the poor old man listened to them, and became one of them.

I would not hear them; for I ever thought of my mother, and what she had taught me; and this caused the first unkind words my grandfather ever gave me. He mourned for them afterwards, when he found I was not undutiful, as he had called me. But, in the mean time, he went on with the Lollards; till, one night, as they were coming from a place where they had met, a crowd of rabble and loose people set upon them with sticks and stones, and beat them terribly; and the poor old man was brought home, with his face and eyes sadly cut. Some of the Lollards were taken, and two were tried, and burnt as heretics. But my grandfather escaped that fate; for, by this time, his eyes had become red and fiery, and he kept close to his own house. The redness at length went away--but light went too; and he was in daily fear of persecution. One night, when he was very sad, I asked him why he stayed in York, where there were so many perils; but he shook his head, and answered, 'Because I am sightless, my child; and I have none to guide me.' Then I asked him again, if he had not me; and if he thought I would not go with him to the world's end; and I found, by what he said, that he had long thought of going to foreign lands, but did not speak of it, because he thought that, as I would not hear his people, I would refuse to go. When he found I was ready, however, his mind was soon made up, and we went first to a town called Liege, where he had a brother, and there we lived happily enough for some time; for that, brother, and all his family, thought on many matters with him.

But he heard of a man named Huss, who is a great leader of that sect in a country called Bohemia, and he resolved to go thither, as he was threatened with persecution in Liege. We then wandered far and wide through strange lands. But why should I make my tale long? We suffered many things--were plundered, wronged, persecuted, beaten; and the money that he had began to melt away, with no resource behind; for we had heard that our own relations and friends in York had pillaged his house; and one had taken possession of it as his own. I then proposed to him that I should sing at festivals and tournaments, that he might keep the little he still had against an evil day. Thus we came through Germany, and Burgundy, and part of France and Brabant; and, at length, he determined that he would come back to his own country, which he did, only to be murdered last night, for we have not been a month in England."

"Alas! my poor girl," said Richard of Woodville, "yours is, indeed, a sad history; and, in truth, I know not what counsel to give you for the future. Alone, as you are, in the world, you need some one much to protect you."

"I do indeed," replied the girl, "but I have none; and yet," she added, after a moment, "these are foolish thoughts, brought upon me but by grief. I can protect myself. Many have a worse fate than I have; for how often are those who have been softly nurtured cast suddenly into misfortune and distress! I have been inured to it by degrees--taught step by step to struggle and resist. Mine is not a heart to yield to evil chances. The little that I want in life, I trust, I can honestly obtain; and, if not honestly, why, I can die.

There is still a home for the wanderer--there is still a place of repose for the weary." But, as she spoke, the tears that rolled over her cheeks belied the fort.i.tude which she a.s.sumed.

Richard of Woodville paused and meditated, ere he replied. "Stay," he said, at length, as the girl rose, and covered her head again with her hood, which she had cast back, as if she were about to depart. "Stay!

a thought has struck me. Perchance I can call the King's bounty to you. I myself am now about to depart for distant lands. I am going to the court of Burgundy in a few days, and shall not see our sovereign again before I set out; but I have a servant, who was once the King's, and he will have the means of telling your sad tale."

"To the court of Burgundy!" exclaimed the girl, eagerly; "Oh! that I were going thither with you!"

"That may hardly be," replied Woodville, with a smile, as she gazed with her large dark eyes upon his face.

"I know it," she answered, sighing, and cast her eyes down to the ground again, with the blood mounting into her cheek; "yet, why not in the same s.h.i.+p?--I have kinsfolk both in Liege and in Peronne--you would not see wrong done to me?"

"a.s.suredly not," said the young gentleman; "but if the King can be engaged to show you kindness, it will be better. What little I can spare, my poor girl, shall be yours; and I will send this man of whom I spoke, to see you and tell you more. First, however, you must let me know where you are lodged, and for whom he must ask, as it may be three or four days before he returns from the errand he is now gone to perform."

"My name is Ella Brune," replied the girl; and she went on to describe to Richard of Woodville the situation of the house in which she and her grandfather had taken up their abode, on their arrival in London a few days before. He found from her account that it was a small hostel just within the walls of the city, which the old man had known and frequented in former years; that the host and his good dame were kind and homely people; and that, though the poor girl had remained out watching the corpse at the lodge of the convent, she had returned that morning to explain the cause of her absence, and had been received with sympathy and consolation. Knowing well, however, that there is a limit to the tenderness of most innkeepers, and that that limit is seldom, if ever, extended beyond the length of their guest's purse, the young gentleman took three half n.o.bles, which, to say truth, was as much as he could spare, and offered them to his fair companion, saying, "Trouble yourself not in regard to expenses of the funeral, Ella, or of the ma.s.ses. The porter of the convent has been here this morning before I went out, and I have arranged all that with him."

The girl looked at the money in his hand, with a tearful eye and a burning cheek; but, after gazing for a moment, she put his hand gently away, saying, "No, no, I cannot take it--from you I cannot take it."

"And why not from me?" asked Richard of Woodville in some surprise.

She hesitated for an instant, and then replied, "Because you have been so good and kind already. Were it from a stranger, I might--but you have already given me much, paid much; and you shall not hurt yourself for me. I have enough."

"Nay, nay, Ella," said Richard, with a smile. "If I have been kind, that is a reason why you must not grieve me by refusing the little I can give; and as to what I have paid, I will say to you with Little John, whom you have heard of--

"I have done thee a good turn for an Quit me when thou may."

"And what did Robin answer?" said the girl, a light coming up into her eyes as she forgot, for an instant, her loss and her desolate situation, in the struggle of generosity which she kept up against her young benefactor--

"Nay by my troth, said Robin, So shall it never be."

"It must be, if you would not pain me," replied Richard of Woodville; "you must not be left in this wide place, my poor girl, without friend or money."

"Nay, but I have enough," she answered; "if I were tempted to take it, 'twould only be with the thought of crossing the sea, which costs much money, I know."

"Then take it for that chance, my poor Ella," replied Woodville, forcing the money into her hand; "and tell me what store you have got, in order that, if I have ought more to spare, when I have received what my copse-wood brings, I may send it to you by the servant I spoke of."

"Indeed, I know not," said Ella Brune; "there is a small leathern bag at the inn, in which we used to put all that we gathered; but I thought not to look what it contained. My heart was too heavy when I went back, to reckon money. But there is enough to pay all that we owe, I know; and as for the time to come," she added, with a melancholy smile, "I eat little, and drink less; so that my diet is soon paid."

Her words and manner had that harmony in them, which can rarely be attained when both do not spring from the heart; and Richard of Woodville became more and more interested in the fair object of his kindness every moment. He detained her some time longer to ask farther questions; but, at length, the host opened the door, and told him, there was a young man without who sought to speak with him. This interruption terminated his conversation with Ella Brune; for, drawing her hood farther still over her face, she again rose, took his hand and pressed her lips upon it.

"The blessing of the queen of heaven be upon you, n.o.ble sir," she said; and then pa.s.sed through the door, at which the landlord still stood, wondering a little at the deep grat.i.tude which she seemed to feel towards his young guest.

CHAPTER XI.

THE DECEIVER.

The King of England remained seated for many minutes exactly where Richard of Woodville had left him. His right hand rested on the arm of his chair; his left upon the hilt of his dagger; and his eyes remained fixed apparently upon the heavy building of the Abbey, such as it then appeared, before a far successor of his added to it a structure, rich, and perhaps beautiful in itself, but sadly out of keeping with the rest of the pile. But Henry saw not the long straight lines of the solemn ma.s.s of masonry; he heard not the bells chiming from the belfry hard by: his mind was absent from the scene in which his body dwelt; and his thoughts busy with things very different from those that surrounded him.

On what did they rest? Over what did the spirit of the great English monarch ponder, the very day after he had solemnly a.s.sumed the crown and sceptre?--Who can say?

He might, perhaps, remember other days with some regret; for we can never lose aught that we have possessed, without some mournful feelings of deprivation returning upon us from time to time, however great and overpowering be the compensation that we obtain; we can never change from one state and station in our mortal course to another without sometimes thinking of former joys, and gone-by happiness, even though we have acquired grander blessings, and a more expansive sphere: and oh! how great is the change, even from the position of a prince, to that of a monarch! so great, indeed, that none who have not known it can even divine.

He might already, perhaps, feel what a burden a crown may sometimes become; how heavy are occasionally the gorgeous robes of state; he might look back to the free buoyancy of his early life, and long to roam the wide plains and fields of his kingdom alone, and at his ease.

Or he might think of friends.h.i.+p--and there was none more capable of knowing and valuing it aright--and might wonder whether a monarch could indeed have a friend; one into whose bosom he could pour his secret thoughts, or with whose wit he could try his own, in free, but not undignified encounter; one in whom he could trust, and with whom he might relax, certain that the condescension of the sovereign would not be mistaken, nor the confidence of the friend betrayed.

Again, he might ponder upon all the difficulties and pains of a royal station: he might think, "Each of my subjects is burdened with his own cares and anxieties, but I with the care and anxiety of the whole:" or his mind might turn to the especial troubles and discomforts of a monarch, and remember how many he must have to disappoint; how often he must have to punish; how much he must have to refuse; how seldom he might be permitted to forgive; what great works he must necessarily leave undone; what good deeds be might be obliged to neglect; what faults he must be called upon to overlook; what pain and grief, even to the good and wise, a stern necessity might compel him to inflict.

He might, perhaps, think of any or all of these things, for they were all within the grasp of his character, as Henry was peculiarly a thoughtful monarch. We are, indeed, only accustomed to look upon him either as a wild youth, suddenly and somewhat strangely reformed, or as a great conqueror and skilful general, a prudent and ambitious prince. But those who will inquire into his private life, who will mark the recorded words that occasionally broke from his lips, trace the causes and course of his actions, examine his conduct to his friends, and even to his enemies, who will, in short, strip off the monarch's robes and look upon the man, will find a meditative spirit, though a quick one; a warm heart, though a firm one; a rich and lively imagination, though a clear and vigorous judgment. He was not one to take upon him the cares of government without feeling all their weight; to regard a throne as a seat of ease and pleasure; or to a.s.sume the grand responsibilities of sovereign power, without examining them stedfastly and sternly, seeing all that is bright and all that is dark therein, and feeling keenly every sacrifice for which they call.

To love and to be beloved by a whole nation, to give and to receive happiness by a wise government of a great people, is a.s.suredly a mighty recompence for all the pains of royal station; but yet those pains will be felt hourly while the reward is afar; and the monarch's conversation with Richard of Woodville had awakened him to some of those evils which the wisest rule cannot entirely remedy. Almost under the windows of his palace, on the very day of his coronation, in the midst of rejoicing and festivity, one of his subjects, an innocent inoffensive old man, had been brutally deprived of life by a party of those who had been feasting at his own table; and, when he remembered all the scenes with which the course of his early life had made him acquainted throughout this wide land, he saw what a task it would be to restrain the wild licence of a host of turbulent n.o.bles, and to bind them to submission to the laws, and to reverence for the rights and happiness of others.

The monarch was still deep in thought when the page whom he had sent for Sir Simeon of Roydon, returned, announcing that he was in waiting without; and Henry at once ordered him to be admitted. The knight advanced with courtly bows, and more than due reverence; for he was one of those who, overbearing and haughty to their inferiors, are always cringing and fawning towards those above them, at least until they are detected.

But Henry came to the point at once, saying, with a stern brow, "I hear matters regarding you, Sir Simeon of Roydon, that please me not; and I would fain hear from your own lips, what explanation you can give. Know, sir, that the subjects of this crown are not to be murdered with impunity, and that sooner or later blood will find a tongue to accuse those that spill it."

The knight turned somewhat pale under the keen eye of the King; but he answered at once, in smooth and fluent tones, "I was not aware, Sire, that I had done aught that should bring upon me the greatest punishment that I could receive--that of falling under the displeasure of your Highness; for any other infliction which might follow that severe misfortune, would seem nothing in comparison, or light, indeed, if by any bodily suffering I could remove the heavy weight of your anger. May I humbly inquire what is my fault? It must be great, I am sure, though I know it not, to make so clement a King regard his servant so harshly."

"It is great, sir," replied Henry, who could not be deluded with fair words. "Did you not, last night, after quitting the Hall below, cause the death of an old man by a most brutal outrage?"

"Nay, Heaven forbid!" cried Roydon, with well-feigned surprise and grief. "Your Highness does not, I trust, mean to say that the poor old man is dead?"

"He was killed upon the spot, sir," answered Henry; "and I am told you did not even stop to inquire what had been the result of your own act."

"I will go home and have him slaughtered without delay," exclaimed Roydon, as if speaking to himself in a paroxysm of regret.

"Have whom slaughtered?" asked the King, gazing upon him coldly; for he began to divine the course his defence was to take.

"The brute that did it, Sire," replied the knight; "three times has that horse nearly deprived me of life, which I heeded not much, for it is a fine though unruly animal; but now that he has taken the life of another, his own shall be forfeit. Scarcely had I mounted when, with the bit between his teeth, he set off at full speed; some of my companions galloped after to stop him, if possible, but were unable, till a gentleman on foot, I know not who, caught the bridle in the crowd; and I, not seeing what had befallen, rode on, keeping him in with difficulty."

A slight smile curled the lip of the King, showing to Sir Simeon Roydon that he was not fully believed; and a dark feeling of anger--the rage of detected meanness--gathered itself in the inmost recesses of his heart, with only the more bitter intensity because he dared not suffer it to peep forth. There is nothing that we hate so much as one whom, however much he may offend us, we cannot injure.