THE OLD KNIGHT OF THE HOSPITAL
“The warriors of the sacred grave,
Who looked to Christ for laws.”
_Lord Houghton_.
RICHARD summoned a small boat, and with two stout men-at-arms, of whom
Adam de Gourdon was one, prepared again to cross the river. Leonillo ran
down the stone stairs with a wistful look of entreaty and it occurred to
both Richard and Adam, that, could the child only lead them to the place
where her father had sat, the dog’s scent might prove their most
efficient guide.
Little Bessee seemed quite comforted when on her way back to her father,
and sat on Richard’s knee, eating the comfits with which the Princess had
provided her, and making him cut a figure that seemed somewhat to amaze
the other boat-loads whom they encountered on the river.
When they landed, the throng was more dispersed, but revelry and sports
of all kinds were going on fast and furiously; each door of the Abbey was
besieged by hungry crowds receiving their dole, and Richard’s inquiries
for a blind man who had lost his child were little heeded, or met with no
satisfactory answer. Bessee herself was bewildered, and incapable of
finding her father’s late station; and Richard was becoming perplexed,
and doubtful whether he ought to take her back, as well as somewhat put
out of countenance by the laughter of Thomas de Clare, and other young
nobles, who rallied him on his strange charge.
At last the little girl’s face lightened as at sight of something
familiar. “Good red monks,” she said. “They give Bessee soup—make
father well.”
With a ray of hope, Richard advanced to a party of Brethren of St. John,
who were mounting at the Abbey gate to return to their house at
Spitalfields, and doffing his bonnet, intimated a desire to address the
tall old war-worn knight with a benevolent face, who was adjusting his
scarlet cloak, before mounting a gray Arab steed looking as old and
worthy as himself.
“Ha! a young Crusader, I perceive,” was the greeting of the old knight,
as his eye fell on the white cross on Richard’s mantle. “Welcome,
brother! Dost thou need counsel on thy goodly Eastern way?”
“Thanks, reverend Sir,” returned Richard, “but my present purpose was to
seek for the father of this little one, who fell into the river in the
press. She pointed to you, saying she had received your bounty.”
“It is Blind Hal’s child, Sir Robert!” exclaimed a serving-brother in
black, coming eagerly forward; “the villeins on the green told me the
poor knave was distraught at having lost his child in the throng!”
“What brought he her there for?” exclaimed Sir Robert. “Poor fool! his
wits must have forsaken him!”
“The child had a craving to see the show,” replied the Brother, “so Hob
the cobbler told me; and all went well till my Lord of Pembroke’s
retainers forced all right and left to make way in the crowd. Hal was
thrown down, and the child thrust away till they feared she had fallen
over the bank. Hob and his wife were fain to get the poor man away, for
his moans and fierce words were awful: and he was not a little hurt in
the scuffle, so I e’en gave them leave to lay him in the cart that
brought up your reverence’s vestments, and the gear we lent the Abbey for
the show.”
“Right, Brother Hilary,” said Sir Robert; “and now the poor knave will
have his best healing.—He must have been a good soldier once,” he added
to Richard; “but he is a mere fragment of a man, wasted in your Earl of
Leicester’s wars.”
“Where dwells he?” asked Richard, keenly interested in all his father’s
old followers; “I would fain restore him his child.”
“In a hut on Bednall Green,” answered the serving-brother; “but twice or
thrice a week he comes to the Spital to have his hurts looked to.”
“Ay! we tell him his little witch must soon be shut out! She turns the
heads of all our brethren,” said Sir Robert, smiling. “Wild work she
makes with our novices.”
“Wilder with our Knights Commanders, maybe, Sir,” retorted, laughing, a
fair open-faced youth in his novitiate. “I shall some day warn Hal how
our brethren, the Templars, are said to play at ball with tender babes on
their lances.”
“No scandal about our brethren of the Temple, Rayland,” said Sir Robert,
looking grave for a moment.—“Young Sir, it would be a favour if you would
ride with us; we would gladly show you the way to Bednall Green.”
“I should rejoice to go, Sir,” returned Richard, “but I am of Prince
Edward’s household—Richard Fowen; and my horse is on the other side of
the river.”
“That is soon remedied,” said Sir Robert, who seemed to have taken a
great fancy to Richard, either for the sake of his crossed shoulder, or
of his kindness to the little plaything of the Spital. “Our young
brother, Engelbert von Fuchstein, has leave to tarry this night with his
brother in the train of the King of the Romans, and his horse is at your
service, if you will do our poor Spital the favour to tarry there this
night, and ride it back in the morn to meet him at Westminster.”
Richard knew that this invitation might be safely accepted without danger
of giving umbrage to the Prince, who was on the best terms with the
Knights of the Hospital. He therefore dismissed Gourdon and the other
man-at-arms with a message explaining the matter; and warmly thanking the
old Grand Prior, laid one hand on the saddle of the great ponderous beast
that was led up to him, and vaulted on its back without touching the
stirrup.
“Well done, my young master,” said Sir Robert, “it is easy to see you are
of the Prince’s household.”
“I cannot yet do as the Prince can,” said Richard,—“take this leap in
full armour.”
“No; and let me give you a bit of counsel, fair Sir. Such pastimes are
very well for the tiltyard, but they should be laid aside in the blessed
Land, and strength reserved for the one cause and purpose.” He crossed
himself; and in the meantime, Bessee intimated her imperious purpose of
not riding before Brother Hilary, but being perched before Richard on the
enormous cream-coloured animal, whence he was looking down from a
considerable elevation upon Sir Robert on his slender Arab.
“These are the German monsters that our brethren bring over,” said Sir
Robert. “Mark me, young brother, cumber not yourself with these beasts
of Europe, which are good for nothing but food for foul birds in the
East. Purvey yourself of an Arab as soon as you land. There is a rogue
at Acre, one Ali by name, who will not cheat you more than is reasonable,
so you mention my name to him, Sir Robert Darcy, at your service.”
“Thanks, reverend Father,” returned Richard, “but I am but a landless
page, and the Prince mounts me. Said you this poor man had been wounded
in the late wars?”
“Ay, hacked and hewed worse than by the Infidels themselves! Woeful it
is that here, at home, men’s blood should be wasted on your own petty
feuds. This same Barons’ war now hath cost as much downright courage as
would have brought us back to Jerusalem, and all thrown away, without a
cause, with no honour, no hope.”
“Not without a cause,” Richard could not help saying.
“Nay,” said the old knight; “no cause is worth the taking of a life, save
the cause of the Holy Sepulchre. What be these matters of taxes and laws
to ask a man to shed his blood for? Alack, the temper of the
cross-bearer is dying out! I pray I may not see this Crusade end like
half those I have beheld—and the cross on the shoulder become no better
than a mockery.”
“That may scarcely be with such leaders as the Prince and the King of
France,” said Richard.
“Well, well, the Prince is untried; and for King Louis, he is as holy a
man as ever lived since King Godfrey of blessed memory, but he has bad
luck, ever bad luck. The Saints forefend, but I trow he will listen to
some crazy counsel from Rome, belike, or some barefooted hermit—very
holy, no doubt, but who does not know a Greek from a Saracen, or a
horse’s head from his tail—and will go to some pestilential hole like
that foul Egyptian swamp, where we stayed till our skin was the colour of
an old boot, in hopes of converting the Sultan of Babylon, or the Old Man
of the Mountain, or what not, and there he will stay till the flower of
his forces have wasted away.”
“Were you in Egypt with King Louis?” eagerly exclaimed Richard.
“Ay, marry, was I, and a goodly land it is; but I saw many a good
man-at-arms perish miserably in a marsh, who might have been the saving
of the Holy City. Why, I myself have never been the same man since!
Never could do a month’s service out of the infirmary at Acre, though
after all there’s no work I like so well as the hospital business, and
for the last five years I have had to stay here training young brethren!
Oh, young man! I envy you your first stroke for the Holy Sepulchre!
Would that the Grand-Master would hear my entreaty. I am too old to be
worth sparing, and I would fain have one more chance of dying under the
banner of the Order!—But I am setting you a bad example, son Raynal; a
Hospitalier has no will.—And look you, young Sir Page, if you stay out at
sunset in that clime, ’tis all up with you. And you should veil your
helmet well, or the sun smites on your head as deadly as a flake of Greek
fire.”
So rambled on good old Sir Robert Darcy, Grand Prior of England, a
perfect dragon among the Saracens, but everywhere else the mildest and
most benevolent of men; his discourse strangely mingling together the
deepest enthusiasm with a business-like common-sense appreciation of ways
and means, and with minute directions, precautions, and anecdotes,
gathered from his practical experience both as captain in the field,
priest in the Church, and surgeon in the hospital, and all seen from the
most sunshiny point of view.
Meanwhile, they were riding along the Strand, a beautiful open road, with
grassy borders shelving down to the Thames. They passed through the City
of London. The Hospital lay beyond the walls, but the Marshes of
Moorfields that protected them were not passable without a long circuit;
and the fortified gates stood open at Temple Bar, where the Hospitaliers,
looking towards the Round Church and stately buildings of the Preceptory,
saluted the white-cloaked figures moving about it, with courtesy grim and
distant in all but Sir Robert Darcy, who could not even hate a Templar, a
creature to the ordinary Hospitalier far more detestable than a Saracen.
On then, up ground beginning to rise, below which the little muddy stream
called the Flete stagnated along its way, meandering to the Thames.
Thatched hovels and wooden booths left so narrow a passage that the
horsemen were forced to move in single file, and did not gain a clearer
space even when the stone houses of merchants began to stand thick on
Ludgate Hill, their carved wooden balconies so projecting, that it would
seem to have been an object with the citizens to be able to shake hands
across the street. The city was comparatively empty and quiet, as all
the world were keeping holiday at Westminster; but even as it was, the
passengers seemed to swarm in the streets, and knots of persons who had
been unable to witness the spectacle, sat with gazing children upon the
stairs outside the houses, to admire the fragments of the pageant that
came their way. Acclamations of delight greeted the appearance of the
scarlet-mantled Hospitaliers, such as Richard had often heard in his
boyhood, when riding in his father’s train, but far less frequently since
he had been a part of the Prince’s retinue. And equally diverse was the
merry nod and smile of Sir Robert to each gaping shouting group of little
ones, from the stately distant courtesy with which Edward returned the
popular salutations. He could be gracious—he could not be friendly
except to a few.
They passed the capitular buildings of St. Paul’s, with the beautiful
cathedral towering over them, and in its rear, numerous booths for the
purchase of rosaries—recent inventions then of St. Dominic, the great
friend of Richard’s stern grandfather, the persecutor of the Albigenses.
Sir Robert drew up, and declared he must buy one for the little maid as a
remembrance of the day, and then found she was fast asleep; but he
nevertheless purchased a black-beaded chaplet, giving for it one of the
sorely-clipped coins of King Henry.
“Prithee let me have one likewise, holy Sir,” quoth Richard, “in memory
of the talk that hath taught me so much of the import of my crusading
vow.”
“Thou shalt bring me for it one of the olive of Bethlehem,” said Sir
Robert; “I have given away all I brought from the East. They are so
great a boon to our poor sick folk that I wish I had brought twice as
many, but to me they have always a Saracen look. Your Moslem always
fingers one much of the same fashion as he parleys.”
Ludgate, freshly built, and adorned with new figures to represent the
fabulous King Lud, was not yet closed for the night; and the party came
forth beyond the walls, with the desolate Moorfields to their left, and
before them a number of rising villages clustered round their churches.
The Hospital, a grand fortified monastery, was already to be seen over
the fields; but Sir Robert, sending home the rest of his troop, turned
aside with Richard and Brother Hilary towards the common, with a border
of cottages around it, which went by the name of Bednall Green.
Brother Hilary knew the hut inhabited by Blind Hal, and led the way to
it. Low and mud-built, thatched, and with a wattled door, it had a
wretched appearance; but the old woman who came to the door was not ill
clad. “Blessings on you, holy Father!” she cried; “do I see the child,
my lamb, my lady-bird! Would that she may come in time to cheer her poor
father!”
“How is it with him then, Gammer?” demanded Sir Robert, springing to the
ground with the alacrity of a doctor anxious about his patient.
“Ill, very ill, Sir. Whether the horse’s feet hurt his old wound, or
whether it be the loss of the child, he hath done nought but moan and
rave, and lie as one dead ever since they brought him home. He is lying
in one of the dead swoons now! It were not well that the child saw him.”
But Bessee, awakening with a cry of joy, saw her borne, and struggled to
go to her father, whose name she called on with all her might,
disregarding the caresses of the old woman, and the endeavour made by
Richard to restrain without alarming her, while Sir Robert went into the
hut to endeavour to restore the sufferer.
Suddenly a cry broke from within; and Richard, turning at the voice,
beheld the blind man sitting up on his pallet with arms outstretched.
“My child!—My Father! hast thou brought her to visit me in limbo?” he
cried.
“He raves!” said Richard, using his strength to withhold the child, who
broke out into a shriek.
“Nay, nay! she doth not abide here!” he exclaimed. “Her spirit is pure!
My sins are not visited on her beyond the grave!”
“Thou art on the earthly side of the grave still, my son,” said Sir
Robert, at the same time as Bessee sprang from Richard, and nestled on
his breast, clinging to his neck.
“My babe—my Bessee!” he exclaimed, gathering her close to him. “Living,
living, indeed! Yet how may it be! Surely this is the other world.
That voice sounds not among the living!”
“It is the voice of the youth who saved thy child,” said the Grand Prior.
“Speak again! Let him speak again!” implored the beggar.
“Can I do aught for you, good man?” asked Richard.
Again there was a strange start and thrill of amazement.
“Only for Heaven’s sake tell me who thou art!”
“A page of Prince Edward’s good man. I am called Richard Fowen! And
who, for Heaven’s sake, are you?” added Richard, as Leonillo, who had
been smelling about and investigating, threw himself on the blind man in
a transport of caresses. “Off, Leon—off!” cried Richard. “It is but a
dog!—Fear not, little one!—Tell me, tell me,” he added, trembling, as he
knelt before the miserable object, holding back the eager Leonillo with
one arm round his neck, “who art thou, thou ghost of former times?”
“Knowst me not, Richard?” returned a suppressed voice in Provençal.
“Henry! Henry!” exclaimed Richard, and fell upon the foot of the low
bed, weeping bitterly. “Is it come to this?”
“Ay, even to this,” said the blind man, “that two sons of one father meet
unknown—one with a changed name, the other with none at all, neither with
the honoured one they were born to.”
“Alack, alack!” was all Richard could say at the first moment, as he
lifted himself up to look again at the first-born of his parents, the
head of the brave troop of brethren, the gay, handsome, imperious young
Lord de Montfort, whose proud head and gallant bearing he had looked at
with a younger brother’s imitative deference. What did he see but a
wreck of a man, sitting crouched on the wretched bed, the left arm a mere
stump, a bandage where the bright sarcastic eyes used to flash forth
their dark fire, deep scars on all the small portion of the face that was
visible through the over-grown masses of hair and beard, so plentifully
sprinkled with white, that it would have seemed incredible that this man
was but eight months older than the Prince, whose rival he had always
been in personal beauty and activity. The beautiful child, clasped close
to his breast, her face buried on his shoulder under his shaggy locks,
was a strange contrast to his appearance, but only added to the look of
piteous helplessness and desolation, as she hung upon him in her alarm at
the agitation around her.
Richard had long been accustomed to think of his brother as dead; but
such a spectacle as this was far more terrible to him, and his cheek
blanched at the shock, as he gasped again, “Thou here, and thus! thou
whom I thought slain!”
“Deem me so still,” said his brother, “even as I deem the royal minion
dead to me.”
“Nay, Henry, thou knowst not.”
“Who is present?” interrupted the blind man, raising his head and tossing
back his hair with a gesture that for the first time gave Richard a sense
that his eldest brother was indeed before him. “Methought I heard
another voice.”
“I am here, fair son,” replied the old knight, “Father Robert of the
Hospital! I will either leave thee, or keep thy secret as though it were
thy shrift; but thou art sore spent, and mayst scarce talk more.”
“Weariness and pain are past, Father, with my little one again in my
bosom,” said Henry; “and there are matters that must be spoken between me
and this young brother of mine ere he quits this hut;” and his voice
resumed its old authoritative tone towards Richard. “Said you that he
had saved my child?”
“He drew me from the river, Father,” said Bessee looking up. “There was
nothing to stand on, and it was so cold! And he took me in his arms and
pulled me out, and put me in a boat; and the lady pulled off my blue
coat, and put this one on me. Feel it, Father; oh, so pretty, so warm!”
“It was the Princess,” said Richard; but Henry, not noticing, continued,
“Thou hast earned my pardon, Richard,” and held out his remaining hand,
somewhere towards the height where his brother’s used to be.
Sir Robert smiled, saying, “Thou dost miscalculate thy brother’s stature,
son.” And at the same moment Richard, who was now little short of his
Cousin Edward in height, was kneeling by Henry, accepting and returning
his embrace with agitation and gratitude, such as showed how their
relative positions in the family still maintained their force; but
Richard still asserted his independence so as to say, “When you have
heard all, brother you will see that there is no need of pardoning me.”
Henry, however, as perhaps Sir Robert had foreseen, instead of answering
put his hand to his side, and sank back in a paroxysm of pain, ending in
another swoon. The child stood by, quiet and frightened but too much
used to similar occurrences to be as much terrified as was Richard, who
thought his brother dying; but calling in the serving-brother, the old
Hospitalier did all that was needed, and the blind man presently
recovered and explained in a feeble voice that he had been jostled,
thrown down, and trodden on, at the moment when he lost his hold of his
little daughter; and this was evidently renewing his sufferings from the
effect of an injury received in battle. “And what took thee there, son?”
said Sir Robert, somewhat sharply.
“The harvest, Father,” answered Henry, rousing himself to speak with a
certain sarcasm in his tone. “It is the beggars’ harvest wherever King
Henry goes. We brethren of the wallet cannot afford to miss such
windfalls.”
“A beggar!” exclaimed Richard in horror.
“And what art thou?” retorted Henry, with a sudden fierceness.
“Listen, young men,” said Sir Robert, “this I know, my patient there will
soon be nothing if ye continue in this strain. A litter shall bring him
to the infirmary.”
“Nay,” said Henry hastily, “not so, good Father. Here I abide, hap what
may.”
“And I abide with him,” said Richard.
“Not so, I say,” returned the Hospitalier, “unless thou wouldst slay him
outright. Return to the Spital with me; and at morn, if he have
recovered himself, unravel these riddles as thou and he will.”
“It is well, Father,” said Henry. “Go with him, Richard; but mark me.
Be silent as the grave, and see me again.”
And reluctant as he was, Richard was forced to comply.