an army more numerous than his own, and his nobles representing to him
that the rich and weighty booty which they had taken in their inroad
into England, together with the oxen and the horses, would be awkward
encumbrances in a battle, he reluctantly abandoned the siege of the
castle, and commenced his march towards Jed Forest, about six hours
before the arrival of Edward and Sir William Montague.
Madeline took the hand of her lover as he entered, and tears of silent
joy fell down her cheeks; but the countess forgot to thank him, in her
eagerness to display her beauty and her gratitude in the eyes of her
sovereign and kinsman. The young monarch gazed, enraptured, on the fair
face of his lovely cousin; and it was evident, while he gazed in her
eyes, he thought not of gentle Philippa, the wife of his boyhood; nor
was it less evident that she, flattered by the gallantry of her princely
relative, forgot her absent husband, though in the presence of his
brother. Edward, finding that it would be imprudent to follow the
Scottish army into the forest, addressing the countess, said, "Our
knights expected, fair coz, to have tried the fair temper of their
lances on the Scottish shields, but, as it may not be, in honour of your
deliverance, to-morrow we proclaim a tournament to be held in the
castle-yard, when each true knight shall prove on the morion of his
antagonist whose ladye-love is the fairest."
The eyes of the countess flashed joy; and she smiled, well pleased at
the proposal of the sovereign; but Madeline trembled as she heard it.
Early on the following morning the castle-yard was fitted up for the
tournament. The monarch and the countess were seated on a dais covered
with a purple canopy, and the latter held in her hand a ring which
gleamed as a morning star, and which the monarch had taken from his
finger, that she might bestow it upon the victor. Near their feet sat
Madeline, an unwilling spectator of the conflict. The names of the
combatants were known to the pursuivants only, and each entered the
lists armed with lance and spear, with their visors down, and having,
for defence, a shield, a sort of cuirass, the helmet, gauntlet, and
gorget. Several knights had been wounded, and many dismounted; but the
interest of the day turned upon the combat of two who already had each
discomfited three. They contended long and keenly; their strength, their
skill, their activity seemed equal. Victory hung suspended between them.
"Our ladye!" exclaimed the monarch, rising with delight; "but they fight
bravely! Who may they be? Were it not that he cannot yet be in England,
I should say the knight in dark armour is Sir John Aubrey."
Madeline uttered a suppressed scream, and cast round a look of mingled
agony and surprise at the monarch; but the half-stifled cry was drowned
by the spectators, who, at that moment, burst into a shout; the knight
in dark armour was unhorsed--his conqueror suddenly placed his lance to
his breast, but as suddenly withdrew it; and, stretching out his mailed
hand to the other, said, "Rise, mine equal! 'twas thy horse's fault, and
none of thine, that chance gave me the victory, though I wished it
much." The conqueror of the day approached the canopy beneath which the
monarch and the countess sat, and, kneeling before the dais, received
the ring from her hands. While she had held the splendid bauble in her
hands during the contest, conscious of her own beauty, of which Border
minstrel and foreign troubadour had sung, she expected, on placing it in
those of the victor, to behold it in homage laid again at her feet. But
it was not so. The knight, on receiving it, bowed his head, and,
stepping back again, knelt before the more lowly seat of Madeline.
"Accept this, dear Madeline," whispered he; and she blushed and startled
at the voice which she knew and loved. The countess cast a glance of
envy on her companion as she beheld the victor at her feet; yet it was
but one, which passed away as the young monarch poured his practised
flatteries in her ear.
The king commanded that the two last combatants should raise their
visors. The victor, still standing by the side of Madeline, obeyed. It
was Sir William Montague.
"Ha! Montague!" said the monarch, "it is you! Well, for your gallant
bearing to-day, you shall accompany us to France--we shall need such
hands as thine to secure the sceptre of our lawful kingdom. But what
modest flower is this that ye deck with your hard-won diamond?" added
he, glancing towards Madeline; and, without waiting a reply, he turned
to the countess, saying, "Is she of thy suite, dear coz? She hath a fair
face, worthy the hand-maiden of beauty's queen."
The countess liked not his inquiries, but, nevertheless, was flattered
by the compliment with which he concluded; and she replied that she was
the orphan daughter of her father's friend, and the worshipful divinity
of Sir William. The other combatant now approached also; and, kneeling
in front of the dais, raised his visor.
"Aubrey!" exclaimed the monarch.
"My brother!" cried Madeline, starting to his side.
"Your brother?" responded Sir William.
"What! my little Madeline a woman?" replied the stranger. "Bless thee,
my own sister!"
"What!" exclaimed the monarch, "the paragon of our tournament the sister
of bold Aubrey? And you, too, the combatant against her chosen champion!
Had ye spilled blood on either side, this day's sport might have spoiled
a bridal. But whence come ye, Aubrey, and when?"
"My liege," replied the other, "having arrived at Knaresborough on the
day after the departure of your majesty, I hastened hither to inform
your grace that France lies open to our arms, and our troops are eager
to embark."
In a few days Edward left Wark, leaving behind him a powerful garrison
for the defence of the castle; but he had left it desolate to poor
Madeline, for he had taken to accompany him, on his invasion of France,
her betrothed husband and her brother. That brother whom she had met but
three days before, she had not seen from childhood--nor was she certain
that he lived--for he had been a soldier from his boyhood, and his life
had been spent in the camp and in foreign wars; while she had been
nurtured under the protection of the Countess of Salisbury.
It was about seven years after the events we have alluded to had
occurred, that Edward, covered with all the fame of a conqueror, if not
the advantages of conquest, returned to England. During his victories
and the din of war, however, he had not forgotten the beauty of his fair
cousin, whose glances had bewildered him at Wark Castle; and now, when
he returned, his admiration was renewed, and she appeared as the first
favourite of his court. He had provided a royal banquet for the nobles
and the knights who had distinguished themselves during the French wars.
A thousand lights blazed in the noble hall--martial music pealed
around--and hundreds of the brightest eyes in England looked love and
delight. The fairest and the noblest in the land thronged the assembly.
Jewels sparkled and studded the gorgeous apparel of the crowd. In the
midst of the hall walked the gay and courtly monarch, with the fair Joan
of Salisbury resting on his arm. They spoke of their first meeting at
Wark, of the siege and the tournament, and again they whispered, and
hands were pressed, and looks exchanged; and, while they walked
together, a blue garter, decked with gold, pearls, and precious stones,
and which, with a golden buckle, had fastened the sandal of the fair
Joan round the best-turned ankle in the hall, became loose and entangled
among her feet. The countess blushed; and the monarch, with the easy
unembarrassment and politeness of a practised gallant, stooped to fasten
the unfortunate riband. As the nobles beheld the sovereign kneel with
the foot of the fair countess on his knee, a hardly suppressed smile
ran through the assembly. But, observing the smile upon the face of his
nobles, the monarch rose proudly, and, with the garter in his hand,
exclaimed, "_Honi soit qui mal y pense_!"--"Shame be to him who thinks
ill of it!" and buckling the garter round his left knee, he added, "Be
this the Order of St George!--and the proudest monarchs and most valiant
knights in Christendom shall be proud to be honoured with the emblem of
thy garter, fair coz."
Scarce, however, was the royal banquet closed, when the voice of
lamentation was heard in every house, though the mourners went not about
the streets; for the living feared to follow their dead to the
sepulchre. The angel of death breathed upon the land; he stretched out
his wings and covered it--at his breath the land sickened--beneath the
shadow of his wings the people perished. The green fields became as a
wilderness, and death and desolation reigned in the market-places. Along
the streets moved cavalcades of the dead--the hearse of the noble and
the car of the citizen; and the dead bodies of the poor were picked up
upon the streets! The churchyards rose as hills, and fields were turned
up for the dead! The husband fled from his dying wife; the mother feared
to kiss her own child; and the bridegroom turned in terror from her who
was to have been his bride upon the morn. There was no cry heard but
"The dead!--the dead!" The plague walked in silence, sweeping its
millions from the earth, laughing at the noisy slaughter of the sword,
making kings to tremble, and trampling upon conquerors as dust.
Such was the state of London, when Sir William Montague and Sir John
Aubrey arrived from France. In every street they met the long trains of
the dead being borne to their grave; but the living had deserted them;
and, if they met an occasional passenger, fear and paleness were upon
his face. They hurried along the streets in silence--for each would have
concealed his thoughts from the other--but the thoughts of both were of
Madeline; and the one trembled lest he should find his betrothed, the
other his sister, with the dead! They proceeded to the house of the
Duchess of Salisbury; but they were told that she had fled, to seek a
place of refuge from the destroying glance of the pestilence. From the
domestics, however, they learned that Madeline had ceased to be the
companion of the duchess; but they were also directed where they would
find her, with a friend in the city--if she yet lived! But, added their
informants, they had heard that, in the street which they named, the
inhabitants died faster than the living could bury them. When the
haughty Joan became the acknowledged favourite of the king, she was no
longer a meet friend or protector to the gentle Madeline; and the latter
had taken up her residence in the house of a merchant, who, in his
youth, had fought by her father's side; and where, if she enjoyed not
the splendour and the luxuries of wealth, neither was she clothed with
the trappings of shame.
With anxious steps the betrothed husband and the brother hastened to the
dwelling of the merchant. They reached it.
"Doth Madeline Aubrey reside here?" inquired they in the same breath.
"Does she live?--does she live?"
"She doth reside here," answered the citizen, "and--the saints be
praised!--good Madeline hath escaped, with my whole house; and I believe
it is for her sake, though she feareth no more the breath of the
pestilence, than though it were healthsome as the summer breeze bearing
the fragrance of the May-thorn. But, belike, ye would speak with her,
gentlemen--ye may step in, good sirs, and wait till her return."
Her brother started back.
"Gracious Heaven! can my Madeline be abroad at a time like this!"
exclaimed Sir William, "when men tremble to meet each other, and the
hands of friends convey contagion! Can ye inform us, good man, where we
shall find her?"
"Nay, that I cannot," answered he; "for, as I have told ye, sweet
Madeline feareth not the plague, but walketh abroad as though it existed
not; and now, doubtless, she is soothing the afflicted, or handing a cup
of water to the dying stranger, whom his own kindred have fled from and
forsaken, when the evil came upon him. But, as ye seem acquainted with
her, will not ye tarry till she come?"
They gazed towards each other with horror and with fear; yet, in the
midst of their apprehensions and dismay, each admired the more than
courage of her of whom Joan Plantagenet had said that she had more
wisdom of head than boldness of heart. They entered the house, and they
sat down together in silence. Slowly, wearily the moments passed on,
each strengthening anxiety, each pregnant with agony.
"She may never return!" groaned Sir William; "for the healthy have been
smitten down upon the streets; and the wretched hirelings, who make a
harvest of death, have borne to the same grave the dying with the dead!"
At length a light footstep was heard upon the stairs. They started to
their feet. The door opened, and Madeline, more beautiful than ever they
had beheld her, stood before them.
"My own!--my Madeline!" cried Sir William, hastening to meet her.
"My sister!" exclaimed her brother.
Her head rested on the bosom of those she loved; and, in the rapture of
the moment, the pestilence and the desolation that reigned around were
forgotten. At length, the danger to which she had exposed herself
recurring to his mind--
"Let us flee from this horrid charnel-house, dearest," said Sir
William, "to where our bridal may not be mingled with sights of wo, and
where the pestilence pursueth not its victims. Come, my own--my
betrothed--my Madeline, let us haste away."
"Wherefore would my William fly?" said she--and a smile of joy and of
confidence played upon her lips; "have ye not defied death from the
sword and the spear, and braved it as it sped with the swift-flying
arrow, and would ye turn and flee from the pestilence which worketh only
what the sword performs, and what chivalry requires as a sacrifice to
the madness of woman's folly? But whither would you flee to escape it?
Be it south or north, it is there; and east or west, it is there also.
If ye flee from the pestilence, would ye flee also from the eye of Him
who sends it?"
Again they urged her to leave the city; and again she endeavoured to
smile; but it died languidly on her lip--the rose on her cheek vanished,
and her mild eyes in a moment became dim. She sank her head upon the
bosom of her lover, and her hand rested on the shoulder of her brother.
The contagion had entered her heart. A darkening spot gathered upon her
fair cheek--it was the shadow of the finger of death--the seal of
eternity!
"My Madeline!" cried Sir William. "Merciful Heaven!--spare her! spare
her!"
"Oh, my sister!" exclaimed her brother, "have I hastened to my native
land, but to behold thee die?"
She feebly pressed their hands in hers--"Leave me--leave me, loved
ones!--my William!--my brother!--flee from me!--there is death in the
touch of your Madeline!--We shall meet again!"
The disease which at that time desolated England was in some respects
peculiar, even as a plague. The dark spots which so clearly indicated
the presence of the spoiler began in a mere darkening of some part of
the body; but so virulent was the disease, and so rapid its onset and
course, that even a visitor might perceive the beginning, and mark the
progress towards death, during the short period of a call.
The plague-spot darkened on the cheek of Madeline Aubrey, and, in a few
hours, she was numbered with its victims.
END OF VOL. XIV