In the Dungeons of the Tower of London.
Let us now return to Sir Patrick Hepborne, and inquire into his fate,
as well as endeavour to explain how he was enabled to render so speedy
aid to the Lady Beatrice.
After having heard everything from the Minstrel, he resolved to avail
himself of the invitation he had received from the Lady de Vere; by
doing which immediately, he hoped to have some happy accidental
opportunity of seeing and conversing with the Lady Beatrice. He had no
sooner presented himself at the door of her apartments, than a page,
who seemed to have been on the watch for him, sprang forward, and
ushered him into a small chamber, voluptuously furnished, and
moderately lighted by a single lamp. In his way thither he heard voices
and laughing in another place. The page left him, and in a very short
time he heard the light trip of a woman’s foot. The door opened, and
the Lady de Vere entered alone. She accosted him with an easy gaiety of
manner, and, ordering her page to bring in spiced wine, she began to
assail his heart with all the allurements of which she was mistress.
Sir Patrick, still hoping for an opportunity of seeing her whom he so
much loved, mustered up all his ingenuity to keep the lady in play, but
his mind was so much employed in thinking of the Lady Beatrice, that he
ministered but awkwardly to the coquetry of the Lady de Vere, and met
her warm advances so coldly, that she began to think in her own mind
that this phœnix of Scottish chivalry was little better than a frigid
fool.
It was whilst he was engaged in playing this truly difficult game that
the shrieks of the Lady Beatrice reached his ear. He started up at once
from the Lady de Vere’s side, and, drawing his sword, made his way with
the speed of lightning towards the chamber whence the screams
proceeded, and, with the force of a thunderbolt centred in his foot,
burst open the door as we have already seen. The Lady de Vere, boiling
with indignation at being so abandoned by him, called for some of the
King’s guards, and, arriving with them just in time to hear the
language in which he was talking of her to Beatrice, her rage knew no
bounds, and the reader is already aware to what a cruel extremity it
carried her against the hapless lovers.
The blow which Sir Patrick received, though it effectually stunned him,
was by no means fatal. When he recovered from the swoon into which it
had thrown him, he found himself stretched on a heap of straw, on the
floor of a dungeon. The grey twilight that peeped through a small
grated window placed high in the wall, told him that morning was
approaching. He arose, with a head giddy from the blow it had received,
and found that the axe-wound in his scalp had bled so profusely as to
have deluged his hair, and so clotted it together that it had of itself
stopped the effusion. The knight then began to examine the place of his
confinement, when, to his surprise, he beheld another prisoner in the
vault, who seemed to sleep soundly. Sir Patrick approached to look upon
him, and he was not a little astonished to discover that it was no
other than his landlord, Master Lawrence Ratcliffe. He hesitated for a
time to disturb so sound a repose; but at length curiosity to know how
he came there got the better of everything else, and he gently shook
him from his slumbers. The wine merchant started up—rubbed his eyes,
and betrayed, by his look of terror, that he was awakened to a full
recollection of his situation, and that he feared he was called to meet
his doom; till, seeing that it was his Scottish guest whose countenance
he beheld, his expression changed.
“So thou hast come to look upon the victim of thy traiterie,” said he,
with a reproachful tone.
“What meanest thou, my good friend?” replied Hepborne; “I am a prisoner
here, as well as thyself.”
“Ha, ha! So then, whilst they listened to thy tale, they did begin to
suspect thee of having had some share in the treason,” said Ratcliffe.
“What treason?” demanded Hepborne; “I protest, on the honour of a
knight, that I am altogether ignorant of what thou dost mean. Believe
me, I am here for no matter connected with aught that thou mayest have
done. My crime is the having dared to rescue a virtuous demoiselle from
the wicked assault of King Richard. I was on the eve of springing
forward to punish him on the spot for his villainy, when he fled. I was
suddenly rendered senseless by a blow from the halberd of one of his
guards, and I recovered not from my swoon until I found myself on
yonder straw. But what, I pr’ythee, hath made thee the tenant of this
gloomy dungeon?”
“And art thou really innocent of betraying me then?” demanded
Ratcliffe, with a strong remnant of doubt in his countenance.
“I have already declared, on the faith of knighthood, that I know not
what I could have betrayed thee in,” replied Hepborne, a little
displeased that his truth should be thus questioned; “Depardieux, I am
not wont to be thus interrogated and suspected.”
“Nay, pardon me, good Sir Knight,” cried Master Ratcliffe, starting up,
and stretching out his hand to Hepborne; “by St. Paul, I do now most
readily believe thee, and I am heartily ashamed of having ever doubted
thee for a moment. But thou camest in on us so strangely, as we were in
secret conclave assembled, that when my arrest came at midnight, I
could not but believe that thou hadst betrayed me.”
“What could I have betrayed thee in?” said Sir Patrick. “I came in on
thee and thy friends by an accident, and I neither did know, nor did I
seek to know, the subject of your deliberation.”
“Nay, trust me, it was matter of no weight, Sir Knight,” cried
Ratcliffe eagerly; “simple traffic, I promise thee. Yet men’s most
innocent dealings be cruelly perverted in these slippery times; and
some one, I trow, hath sorely misrepresented mine, else had I not been
here. But right glad am I to find that thou art free from such
suspicion; for verily the disappointment I felt in discovering that
thou wert, as I did then think, a traitor, was even more bitter to me
than the effect of the traiterie of the which I did suppose thee
guilty. But tell me, Sir Knight,” said he, rapidly changing the
subject, and speaking with an air of eagerness, “tell me how did King
Richard escape thine arm? Methought that arm of thine mought have
crushed him like a gnat. Ha! trust me, thou needst have no fear that
England should have lacked a monarch, if thou hadst chanced to have rid
her of him who now reigns. But, blessed St. Erkenwold, what noise is
that I hear? Holy St. Mary, grant that there be not spies about us!”
The door of the dungeon opened, a man entered, and the guards who
brought him retreated, after again locking the door.
“Mortimer Sang!” cried Sir Patrick Hepborne; “what, I pray thee, hath
brought thee hither? There was at least some spark of kindness in their
thus admitting thee to visit thy master.”
“Nay, not a whit, Sir Knight,” replied Sang; “for albeit I am right
glad to have the good fortune thus to share thy captivity, by St.
Baldrid, I came thither as no matter of favour, seeing I am a prisoner
like thyself.”
“A prisoner!” cried Hepborne; “and what canst thou have done to merit
imprisonment?”
“I sat up for thee yesternight, until I did become alarmed for thy
safety, Sir Knight,” replied Sang; “and knowing those who had the guard
at the Tower gate, I made my way in, and was in the act of entering the
Palace to inquire about thee, when, as I crossed the threshold, I was
met by two friars, one of whom bore a lady in his arms. She was
disguised in a monk’s habit; but my recollection of Maurice de Grey,
together with what your worship hath told me, made me recognize her at
once as the Lady Beatrice. The Franciscan who carried her——”
“Franciscan!” cried Hepborne. “What! he who came to Lochyndorbe to
denounce the Bishop of Moray’s threatened excommunication against Lord
Badenoch?”
“The same,” replied Sang.
“Then,” cried Hepborne in distraction, “then hath the hapless lady’s
murder been made the consummation of their guilt. That friar was an
assassin. He did once attempt her life at midnight. Ah, would I could
break through these walls, to sacrifice him who hath been the author of
a deed so foul; would I were led forth to death, for that alone can now
give relief to my misery. But,” continued he, turning reproachfully to
his esquire, “how couldst thou behold her whom my soul adores thus
borne to her death, and not strike one blow for her deliverance?”
“Nay, verily I did rush to her rescue, Sir Knight,” replied Sang; “but
ere I could reach her, I was beset by some dozen of the guards from the
Palace, and, ere I wist, I was beaten to the earth, captured, and
thrown into a vault, where I lay for the remainder of the night, and
whence I have been this moment brought hither, being accused of
treason, in attempting to enter the Royal Palace at midnight, with
intent to kill the King.”
Hepborne threw himself down on his straw, and yielded himself up to the
full flood of the affliction that came on him with the thought of the
Lady Beatrice’s fate. He reproached himself in a thousand ways for not
having prevented that over which he could have had no control; and
neither his esquire nor Master Lawrence Ratcliffe could succeed in
giving him the smallest consolation.