To dwell minutely upon a period unfilled by action, and merely marked
by the revolution of day and night, even in the life of a person in
whom we have some interest, would be almost as dull as to describe in
detail the turning of a grindstone. It is not with the eventless
events of a history that we have to do--not with the flat spaces on
the road of life. We sit not down to relate a sleep or to paint a
fishpond.
Little occurred to Jean Charost during the rest of his stay in France
that is worth the telling which will not be referred to hereafter. Let
us change the scene then, and, spreading the wings of Fancy, fly on
through the air of Time to a spot some years in advance.
There was an old house, or rather palace, and well it deserved the
name, situated near the great city of London, close upon the banks of
the River Thames. Men now living can remember parts of it still
standing, choked up with houses, like some great shell of the green
deep incrusted with limpets and other tiny habitations of the vermin
of the sea. At the time of this history it had gardens running all
around it, extending wide and pleasantly on the water side, though but
narrow between the palace itself and the stone-battlemented wall which
separated them from the great Strand road leading from the Temple gate
of the city to the village of Charing.
Fretted and richly carved in some parts, plain and stern in others,
the old palace of the Savoy combined in itself the architecture of
several ages. Many were the purposes it had served too--sometimes the
place of revelry and mirth--sometimes the witness of the prisoner's
tears. It had been the residence of John, king of France, during his
captivity in England some half century before; and since that time it
had principally served--grown almost by prescription to be so used--as
an honorable prison for foreign enemies when the chances of war
brought them in bonds to England.
In the midst of the embattled wall that I have mentioned, and
projecting a little beyond its line, stood a great gate-house, which
has long since been pulled down, or has fallen, perhaps, without the
aid of man; and that gate-house had two large towers of three stories
each, affording very comfortable apartments, as that day went, to
their occasional tenants. They were roomy and pleasant of aspect
enough. One of these towers was appropriated to the wardens of the
Savoy and their families, while the other received at various times a
great number of different denizens, sometimes princes, sometimes
prisoners, sometimes refugees, people who remained but a few days,
people who passed there half a lifetime. The stone walls within were
thickly traced with names, some scrawled with chalk, or written in
ink; and among these the most conspicuous were records of the
existence there for several years of persons attached to the
unfortunate King John.
It was a cheerful building in those days; nothing obscured the view or
hid the sunshine; and the smiling gardens, the glittering river, or
the busy high-road could be seen from most of the windows of the
palace.
In a room on the first floor of the eastern tower of the gate-house,
Jean Charost is once more before us. Monterreau's blood-stained
bridge, the dauphin and the murderers, and the dying Duke of Burgundy,
have passed away; and there are but two women with him. Yes, I may
call them women both, though their ages are very far apart. One is in
the silver-haired decline of life, the other is just blossoming; they
are the withered flower and the bud.
They were seated round a little table, and had evidently been talking
earnestly. Madame De Brecy's eyes had traces of tears on them, and
those of the young girl, turned up to Jean Charost's face, were full
of eagerness and entreaty.
"In vain, dear mother--in vain," said Jean Charost. "My resolution is
as firm as ever. Jacques C[oe]ur is generous; but I can not lay myself
under such an obligation, and even at the most moderate rate, to raise
such a sum in the present state of France, would deprive you of two
thirds of your whole income. This captivity is weary to me. To remain
here year after year, while France has been dismembered, her crown
bought and sold, her fair fields ravaged, her cities become
slaughter-houses, has been terrible--has doubled the load of time, has
depressed my light spirits, and almost worn out hope and expectation.
But yet I will not trust the fate of two, so dear as you two are, to
the power of circumstances. You say, apply to Lord Willoughby. I have
applied; but it is in vain. He gives me, as you know, all kindly
liberty: no act of kindness or courtesy is wanting. But on one point
he is inflexible, and we all feel and know that he is ruled by a power
which he must obey. It is the same with others who have prisoners of
some consideration. They can not place them at reasonable ransom,
though the rules of chivalry and courtesy require it."
"He seems a kind man, Jean," said the young girl, still looking in his
face. "He spoke gently and good-humoredly to me."
"Ay, gentleness and good humor, my sweet Agnes," said Jean Charost,
"will not make a man disobey the commands of his monarch. Another
month, and I shall have lain a prisoner seven long years. Why, Agnes,
my hair is growing gray, while yours is getting darker every hour. I
can recollect your locks like sunshine on a hill, and now a raven's
wing is hardly blacker."
"Ah, I saw a gray hair the other day in that curl upon your temple,"
said the girl, with a laugh. "You will soon be a white-headed old man,
Jean, if you obstinately remain here, when our dear mother would
willingly sell all to free you. Though I think, after all, you are
getting a little younger since we came. We have now been three years
with you in this horrible country, and I think you look a year
younger."
Jean Charost smiled, saying, "Certainly I do, Sunshine, else do you
shine in vain."
"Well, I am going out to seek more sunshine," said the girl. "I will
wander away up the bank of the river, and say an ave at the
Blackfriars' Church. And then, perhaps, I will go into the Church of
the Templar's, and look at the tombs of the old knights, with their
feet crossed, and their swords half drawn; and then I will come back
again; for then it will be dinner-time. Good-by till then."
She tripped away with a light step, down the stair-case, out upon the
road; and when Jean Charost looked after her out of the window he saw
her going slowly and thoughtfully along. But Agnes did not continue
that pace for any great distance. As soon as she was out of the gate
tower of the Savoy, she hurried on with great rapidity, turned up a
narrow lane between two fields on the west of the road, and, passing
the house of the Bishop of Lincoln, not even stopping to scent her
favorite briar rose which was thick upon the hedges, paused at a
modern brick house--modern in those days--with towers and turrets in
plenty, and the arms of the house of Willoughby hung out from a spear
above the gate.
An old white-headed man sat upon the great stone bench beneath the
archway; and a soldier moved backward and forward upon a projecting
gallery in front of the building. A page, playing with a cat, was seen
further in under the arch, in the blue shade, and one or two loiterers
appeared in the court beyond, on the side where the summer sun could
not visit them.
Agnes stopped by the porter's side, and asked if she could see the
Lord Willoughby.
"Doubtless, doubtless," said the man, "if he be not taking his
forenoon sleep, and that can hardly be, for old Thomas of Erpingham
has been with him, and the right worshipful deaf knight's sweet voice
would well-nigh rouse the dead--'specially when he talks of Azincourt.
Go, boy, to our lord, and tell him a young maiden wants to see him.
Ah, I can recollect the time when that news would have got a speedy
answer. But alack, fair lady, we grow slow as we get old. Sit you down
by me now, till the page returns, and then the saucy fellows in the
court dare not gibe."
Agnes seated herself, as he invited her; but she had not waited long
ere the boy returned, and ushered her through one long passage to a
room on the ground floor, where she found the old lord writing a
letter--with some difficulty it must be confessed; for he was no great
scribe--but very diligently. He hardly looked round, but continued his
occupation, saying, "What is it, child? The boy tells me you would
speak with me."
"When you have leisure, my good lord," replied Agnes, standing a
little behind him. But the old man started at her voice, and turned
round to gaze at her.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "My little French lady, is that you? It is very
strange, your face always puts me in mind of some one else, and your
tongue does so too. However, there is no time in life to think of such
things. Sit you down--sit you down a moment. I shall soon have
finished this epistle--would it were in the fire. I have but a line to
add."
He was near a quarter of an hour, however, in finishing that line; and
Agnes sat mute and thoughtful, gazing at his face, and, as one will do
when one has important interests depending on another, drawing
auguries from every line about it. It was a good, honest old English
face, with an expression of frank good nature, a little testiness, and
much courtesy; and the young girl drew favorable inferences before she
ended her reverie.
At length the letter was finished, folded, sealed, and dispatched; and
then turning to Agnes, the old soldier took her hands in his, saying,
"I am glad to see you, my dear. What is it you want? Our friend at the
Savoy--your father--brother--husband--I know not what, is not ill, I
hope."
"Very ill," replied Agnes, in a quiet, gentle tone.
"Ha!" cried the old gentleman. "How so? What is the matter?"
"He is ill at ease, my lord--sick at heart--is in a fever to return to
his own land."
"You little deceiver," cried Lord Willoughby, laughing. "You made me
anxious about the good young baron, and now it is but the old story,
after all. But why should he pine so to get back to France? This is a
fine country--this a fine city; and God is my witness I do all I can
to make him happy. He is little more than a prisoner in name."
"But still a prisoner, my lord," replied Agnes, with a touching
earnestness. "The very name is the chain. Think you not that to a
gentleman, a man of a free spirit, the very feeling of being a
prisoner is heavier than fetters of iron to a serf. You may cage a
singing-bird, my lord, but an eagle beats itself to death against the
bars. Would you be content to rest a captive in France, however well
treated you might be? Would you be content to know that you could not
revisit your own dear land, see the scenes where your youth had
passed, embrace your friends and relations, breathe your own native
air? Would you be content to sit down at night in a lonely room, not
in your own castle, and, looking at your wrists, though you saw not
the fetters there, say to yourself, 'I am a captive, nevertheless. A
captive to my fellowman--I can not go where I would, do what I would.
I am bound down to times and places--a prisoner--a prisoner still,
though I may carry my prison about with me!' Would any man be content
with this? and if so, how much less can a knight and a gentleman sit
down in peace and quiet, content to be a prisoner in a foreign land,
when his country needs his services, when every gentleman of France is
wanted for the aid of France, when his king is to be served, his
country's battles to be fought, even against you, my lord, and his own
honor and renown to be maintained?"
"Ay; you touch me there--you touch me there, young lady," said the old
nobleman. "On my life, for my part, I would never keep a brave enemy
in prison, but have him pay only what he could for ransom, and then
let him go to fight me again another day."
"Monsieur De Brecy's father," continued Agnes, simply, "died in a lost
field against the English. The son is here in an English prison. Think
you not that he envies his father?"
"Perhaps he does, perhaps he does," cried Lord Willoughby, starting
up, and walking backward and forward in the room. "But what can I do?"
he continued, stopping before Agnes and gazing at her with a look of
sincere distress. "The king made me promise that I would not liberate
any of my prisoners, so long as he and I both lived, without his
special consent, except at the heavy ransoms he himself had fixed. My
dear child, you talk like a woman, and yet you touch me like a child.
But you can, I am sure, understand that it is not in my power; or,
upon my faith and chivalry, I would grant what you desire."
The tears rose in Agnes's beautiful eyes. "I know you would be kind,"
she said. "But his mother insisted upon selling all they have to pay
his ransom. He would not have it; for it would reduce her to poverty,
and I came away to see if I could not move you."
"On my life," cried Lord Willoughby, "I have a mind to send you to the
king."
"Where is he?" cried Agnes. "I am ready to go to him at once."
The old lord shook his head: "He is in France," he said; and was going
to add something more, when a tall servant suddenly opened the door,
and began some announcement by saying, "My lord, here is--"
But he was not suffered to finish the sentence; for a powerful,
middle-aged man, unarmed, but booted and spurred, pushed past him into
the room, and Lord Willoughby exclaimed, "Ha, Dorset! what brings you
from France? Has aught gone amiss?"
There was some cause for the latter question; for there was more than
haste in the expression of the Earl of Dorset's countenance: there was
grief, and there was anxiety.
With a hasty step he advanced to Lord Willoughby, laid his hand upon
his arm, and said something in a low voice which Agnes did not hear.
The old lord started back with a look of sorrow and consternation.
"Dead!" he exclaimed. "Dead! So young--so full of life--so needful to
his people. Dorset, Dorset; in God's name, say that my ears have
deceived me. Killed in battle, ha! Some random bolt from that petty
town of Cone, whither he was marching when last I heard. It must be
so. He, like the great Richard, was doomed to find such a fate--to
fall before an insignificant hamlet by a peasant's hand. He exposed
himself too much, Dorset--he exposed himself too much."
Dorset shook his head: "No," he replied, "he died of sickness in his
bed; but like a soldier and a hero still--calmly, courageously,
without a faltering thought or sickly fear. Heaven rest his soul: we
shall never have a greater or a better king. But harkee, Willoughby, I
must go on at once and summon the council. Come you up with all speed;
for there will be much matter for anxious deliberation, and need of
wise heads, and much experience."
"I will, I will," replied Lord Willoughby. "Ho, boy! without there.
Get my horses ready with all speed. Farewell, Dorset; I will join you
in half an hour. Now--Odds' life, my sweet young lady, I had forgot
your presence. What was it we were saying? Oh, I remember now. The
course of earthly events is very strange. That which brings tears to
some eyes wipes them away from others. Come hither; I will write a
note to your young guardian, and none but yourself shall be its
bearer. My duty to my king is done, and I am free to act as I will.
Stay for it; it shall be very short."
He then drew a scrap of paper toward him, and wrote slowly, "The
ransom of the Baron De Brecy is diminished one half.
"In witness whereof I have set my hand.
"WILLOUGHBY."
"There, take it, dear child," he said, "and let him thank God, and
thank you;" and drawing her toward him, he imprinted a kind and
fatherly kiss upon her forehead, and then led her courteously to the
door.