AN ESCAPE
Farewell, Erin! farewell all
Who live to weep our fall!
MOORE.
On the height of the tower of Ardmore, the White Rose of young Richard
kept her vigils, and looked across the calm sea, and along the passes of
the mountains of Drum, in anxious expectation of the event of the
expedition. Sad forebodings oppressed her; the sentiment that mastered
every other, was that her lord should require her presence, her
assistance, while she was far. He had promised to send a post each day;
when these failed, her heart sank within her. The only change that
occurred, was when she saw the Adalid proceed slowly in the calm towards
Waterford.
One sunny morn she from her watch-tower perceived several straggling
groups descending the mountains. She strained her eyes: no banners
waved; no martial music spoke of victory. That was secondary in her
eyes; it was for Richard's safety that she was solicitous; yet she would
not, did not fear; for there is an instinctive sense in human nature
which, in time of doubt, sallies forth from the ark of refuge, and
brings back tidings of peace or sorrow to the expectant on the perilous
flood; a prophetic spirit which, when it despairs--woe the while!--the
omen proves not false. The Lady Katherine watched anxiously but not in
despair. At length heavy footsteps ascended the tower-stairs; and to
answer the beatings of her heart, Edmund Plantagenet and the mayor of
Cork presented themselves; they eagerly asked, "Is he not here?"
"Nay, he has not fled?" she replied, while for the first time she grew
pale.
"Weigh our words as mere air," said O'Water; "for we know nothing,
gentle dame, but that I must to Cork, to bar out the men of Waterford.
His highness left us for the fleet; and the filling up of those cursed
ponds of Kilbarry--ill luck to them!--cut off his return. Last
night--Saint Patrick knows the deeds of the last night!--weary from
our labour the day before, we were all too carelessly asleep, when our
camp was assaulted. Earl Maurice had ridden to Lismore to hasten his
cousin, the Knight of the Valley. There was some report of an attack
upon the town from the ships. Havoc was the cry that roused the welkin
from east to west. The sum I know not, save that we are runaways--the
siege of Waterford is raised."
"What skiff is that?" interrupted the duchess. Round the point of
Minehead first peeped the bowsprit, then the prow; and last the complete
form of a vessel in full sail, yet scarcely touched by the wind,
weathered the promontory. "Haste we, my friends," she continued; "the
duke may be on board; at least we shall have intelligence."
"I know that craft full well," said O'Water; "her captain is a converted
Moorish pagan."
"The White Rose waves from her mast-top," cried Katherine; "oh, he is
there!"
"Holy angels!" exclaimed Edmund; "it is the Adalid! I will on board on
the instant."
Already the duchess was descending the steep narrow stairs; the
villagers of Ardmore, with many of the soldiers who had fled from
Waterford, were on the shingles, watching the caravel, now full in
sight, yet fearful to venture too near the shelving shore. "They are
bound for Cork," cried a man.
"Oh, not till I first speak to them," said Katherine; "the day is fair,
the sea calm, put off a boat. Ah, my cousin Edmund, take me with thee."
Plantagenet had already got a boat from its moorings. O'Water was beside
the princess to beseech vainly that she would be patient; and poor
Astley, who had been left in special attendance on her, waited near with
blanched cheeks. Accompanied by these dear or humble friends, the White
Rose was borne with the speed of ten oars towards the Adalid. On the
deck, half reclining on a rude bed, very pale, yet with lively, wakeful
eyes, lay the prince of England. In a moment Katherine was assisted on
board. There was no death for Richard; she was there, life of his life;
so young, so beautiful, and true; the celestial goodness that beamed in
her eyes, and dimpled her cherub countenance, was not like that of an
inhalant of this sad planet; except that spirits of beauty and love ever
and anon _do_ animate the frames of the earth-born; so that we behold in
the aspects of our fellow-beings glances and smiles bright as those of
angels. De Faro himself looked with admiration on the bending form of
this lovely one, till accosted by Edmund, whose first question was, "Don
Hernan here--where then is----"
"My beloved Monina you would ask for," said De Faro; "she, who to please
her vagrant father would have crossed the wild Atlantic to visit the
savage Western Isles. Poor child, even at the threshold of this
adventure we were nearly wrecked. She is now in England; she sent me
here--to tell of rebellion against King Henry; to invite Duke Richard
to his kingdom."
Thus they were occupied on the sunny deck; the sea was calm, the keel
almost stationary in the water; they were bound for Cork; Plantagenet
and the mayor gathered eagerly from De Faro the history of the combat.
They learned that it had been expected that Desmond would have assaulted
from land, while York invaded the city from the river; but the fellow
sent with Richard's missive had been taken, the city put on her guard.
Nothing but the desire of the citizens to do too much, and his own
desperate valour, had saved Richard; they resolved at once to receive
and destroy him, and to sally unawares on the earl's camp: they hoped to
make prisoners of all the chiefs. They failed in this, but succeeded in
raising the siege of their city.
Towards evening a land-breeze sprung up, and two others of York's
vessels hove in sight, and passed them quickly; for the Adalid was much
disabled, and made slow way. Soon in pursuit appeared a ship and two
corvettes, which O'Water recognized as belonging to Waterford. The
corvettes proceeded on their way; but the larger vessel spied out the
Adalid, and, being now in advance of her, hove to, with the manifest
resolve of attacking her on her watery way towards Cork. De Faro, with
his keen eyes fixed on the enemy's movements, stood on the forecastle in
silence; while Plantagenet and O'Water eagerly demanded arms, and
exhorted the sailors to a most vain resistance. From the vessel of the
foe the Moorish mariner cast his eyes upwards; the wind was shifting to
the west. With a loud voice he shouted to his crew to man the yards;
then, seizing the rudder, gave the swift orders that made the caravel go
about. Sailing near the wind, her canvass had flapped lazily, now it
filled; the keel felt the impulse, and dashed merrily along, bounding
forward like a courser in the race; the ship, which had furled its sails
in expectation of the combat, was in an instant left far behind; the
other vessels from Waterford were still further to the west, towards
Cork.
All these manœuvres were mysteries to the landsmen: they gladly hailed
the distance placed between them and a superior enemy; but as with a
freshening gale the Adalid still held her swift course towards the east,
and the land began to sink on the horizon, O'Water asked with some
eagerness whither they were bound.
"To safety," De Faro replied, laconically.
"An idle answer," said Edmund; "we must judge where our safety lies?"
"I have ever found best safety on the wide ocean sea," cried the
mariner, looking round proudly on his beloved clement. "Your safeties
and your lords are, methinks, English born; if this wind hold, on the
third morning we shall see the coast of Cornwall."
The mayor was aghast, exclaiming--"Cornwall! England! we are betrayed?"
De Faro looked on him with contempt:--"I do not command here," he
continued, "I obey the prince of England; let him decide. Shall we
engage superior force; be boarded; taken by the enemy: or land, be
wrecked, perchance, upon this savage coast; alive with vengeful
kerns--defeated men among a victorious angry people? Or go where we are
called by your leader's cause, where thousands of men are up in arms to
receive you like brothers, to fight for you, with you; where England,
the long-desired kingdom, makes you welcome to her green, sunny shores?
Ask ye your prince this question; let his word be law."
This statement, upheld by York, brought conviction to the minds of
Plantagenet and O'Water. The latter was aware of the risk he ran from
the awakened vengeance of Henry, to pursue his having fostered rebellion
in the city of which he was magistrate; and a moment's reflection showed
him that there was no security for him, except in flight from Ireland.
Meanwhile the wind, increasing in its strength, and right astern,
carried them over the foaming waters. The early dawn showed them far at
sea: they had outrun or baffled their pursuers; and though, now and
then, with anxious thought, they reflected on the comrades left behind,
on the poor equipage, and diminished numbers with which they were about
to land in England, still there was something so miraculous in their
escape, so unforeseen in the destiny that cut them off, and carried
them, a remnant merely of the war, away from its dangers, that they felt
as if they were under the immediate direction of a ruling Providence,
and so resigned themselves; greedily drinking in the while the highly
coloured picture De Faro painted of the Yorkist army which awaited them
in Cornwall.
Again upon the sea--again impelled by winds and waves to new
scenes--new hopes, tossed here and there by Fortune, it was Richard's
fate to see one frustrated expectation give place to another, which, in
its turn, faded and died. This constant succession of projects kept
alive within him that sanguine spirit which never could be vanquished.
Eagerly he passed from one idea to another, and almost welcomed the last
disaster, which appeared but to pioneer the way to future success.
During this voyage, weak as his wounds had made him, he talked of
England as his own--the dearer because he must spend his blood to win
it. Circumstances had an exactly contrary effect upon Katherine. The
continual change of schemes convinced her of the futility of all. She
felt that, if the first appearance of the duke of York, acknowledged and
upheld by various sovereigns and dear high-born relatives, had not
animated the party of the White Hose in his favour, it was not now,
after many defeats and humiliations on his side, and after triumphs and
arrogant assumptions on that of his enemy, that brilliant success could
be expected. This conviction must soon become general among the
Yorkists, Richard would learn the sad lesson, but she was there to
deprive it of its sting; to prove to him, that tranquillity and
Katherine were of more worth than struggles, even if they proved
successful, for vain power.
It was strange that a girl of royal birth, bred in a palace, accustomed
to a queen-like sovereignty over her father's numerous vassals in the
Highlands, should aim at restricting the ambitious York to mere privacy;
while Monina, the humble daughter of a Moorish mariner, would have felt
honour, reputation, all that is dear to man, at stake, if her friend had
dreamed of renouncing his claims to the English crown. His cause was her
life; his royalty the main spring of all her actions and thoughts. She
had sacrificed love to it--she taught her woman's soul to rejoice in
his marriage with another, because his union with a princess was pledge
to the world of his truth. Perhaps, had the time ever come when he
renounced his struggles, she had felt with a pang that his lowly
fortunes might not incongruously be shared by her, and self had mingled
in the religion of her heart, which was virtuous devotion to him; but as
it was, the idea never presented itself. He must win or die. Did he win,
her happiness would result from the contemplation of his glory; were he
to die, the young hero's grave would not be watered by her tears: she
believed that in that hour her life would cease.
The Lady Katherine saw a vain mask in all the common-place pomp of
palaces; she perceived that power failed most when its end was good; she
saw that in accomplishing its purpose in the cottage, or in halls of
state, felicity resulted from the affections only. It was but being an
actor in different scenes, to be a potentate or a peasant; the outward
garb is not the livery of the mind: the refinement of taste which
enables us to gather pleasure from simple objects; the warmth of heart
which necessitates the exercise of our affections, but which is content
when they are satisfied; these, to her mind, were the only, but they
were the complete ingredients of happiness; and it was rarer to find and
more difficult to retain them, among false-hearted, ambitious courtiers,
and the luxury of palaces, than among simple-minded peasantry and a
plain natural style of living. There was some romance in this idea;
Katherine felt that there was, and subdued herself not to lay too much
store by any change or guise of outward circumstance. She taught herself
to feel and know, that in the tumult of camps and war, in the anxieties
of her present vagrant life, on the throne which she might possess, or
in the prison she might share, by devoting herself to the happiness of
him to whom she was united, whose heroism, goodness and love merited all
her affection, she was performing the part assigned to her on earth, and
securing a portion of happiness, far beyond the common lot of those
whose colder, harder natures require something beyond sympathy to
constitute their misnamed felicity.