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(University of Illinois-Urbana)
THE CLASH OF ARMS
THE CLASH OF ARMS
A ROMANCE
BY
JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON
"MON ÉSPÉE EST SI CARNACIERE QU'À CHASQUE PAS ELLE ME DONNEROIT LA
PEINE DE LA TIRER HORS DU FOURREAU."--_Brantôme_.
NEW AND CHEAPER ISSUE
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published . . . October 1897_
_Second Edition . . . November 1897_
_New and Cheaper Issue . 1905_
TO MY FRIEND
J. G. J. PENDEREL-BRODHURST
I INSCRIBE THIS ROMANCE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE BRAVO
II. THE WRONG THAT WAS DONE
III. ONE SUMMER NIGHT
IV. WHAT HAVE I STUMBLED ON?
V. "HIS NAME IS--WHAT?"
VI. THE VICOMTE DE BOIS-VALLÉE
VII. THE HONOUR OF THE HOUSE
VIII. THE FIRST MEETING
IX. THE FURY OF DESPAIR
X. "THE LITTLE WOOD AT ENTZHEIM"
XI. INNOCENT
XII. A LIKENESS AND A CLUE
XIII. TO REMIREMONT
XIV. ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS
XV. "HE IS MINE. MUST BE MINE NOW"
XVI. THE HOUSE OF THE ENEMY
XVII. "A WOMAN IS THERE"
XVIII. THE SLEEPERS
XIX. WHERE IS DE BOIS-VALLÉE?
XX. ACROSS THE CHASM
XXI. IN THE ENEMY'S HOUSE
XXII. MARION WYATT
XXIII. L'ÉSPÉE CARNACIERE
XXIV. THE WEIRD WOMAN
XXV. THE UNEXPECTED
XXVI. A TRAPPED WOLF
XXVII. NEARER AND NEARER
XXVIII. ESCAPE
XXIX. THE LAST CHANCE
XXX. FREE
XXXI. THE STORY OF MARION WYATT
XXXII. MORE LIGHT
XXXIII. THE LAST MEETING
XXXIV. ADIEU
THE CLASH OF ARMS
CHAPTER I.
THE BRAVO
"If," said the sick man, a little complainingly, perhaps a little
peevishly, "he comes not soon, he is as like as not to see me in my
coffin. Yet," he added a moment later, "he was ever used to keep his
word. With all his faults he always did that. Prided himself on it,
indeed, almost as much as on the broils and fights and troubles he was
always in."
"If," said the other person in the room, "he said he would come, he
will come. Andrew Vause ever kept his promise."
"What did he tell the messenger who found him when he rode to
London?--in a tavern, be sure! Tell me again the message he sent."
"That he would come the instant he had seen the King--which it was
most urgent he should do. That His Majesty had promised him an
interview for to-day, and that the moment it was over he would take
horse and ride here. Also he sent you this," and the old woman drew
from a pouch at her girdle a bit of paper, and, adjusting her glasses,
began to read what was written on it--though as she did so she could
not resist a smile.
"Why do you laugh, Bridget?" the sick man queried, still peevishly.
"Surely, knowing how near I am to death, Andrew has made no jest on
me. We have not met for five years--it is quite that, come Christmas,
since he has been roaming and fighting about the world--he could not
do that."
"Nay, what he sends comes with a good heart, be sure. Yet I cannot
help but laugh in spite of--of--," she was going to say the nearness
to death in which the invalid stood, but changed it to "your poor
health." "I cannot help but laugh. 'Tis a new-fangled recipe for
lambswool, which he says you should drink frequently. Also, he writes
that he fears you do not take sufficient creature comforts. Alas!" she
exclaimed, her face clouding a little as she saw the look of annoyance
on the other's, "he cannot surely guess how ill you are. Otherwise, he
would scarce talk of lambswool--a draught, doubtless, he himself
partakes of far too often."
"'Tis Andrew--that tells all! Andrew--the scapegrace, the
ne'er-do-well, the joker and giber. Heavens! when was he ever serious,
when did he ever apply himself to aught but ruffling and fighting and
brawling! Yet--yet----"
"Yet, now you would see him! Long to see him! Philip Vause, you love
your brother better than you think--leastways, better than you say."
"Nay, nay. I do not say I do not love him. Heavens! we all loved him.
And who could help but love him, after all! Yet I would he had been
more serious, would he were more serious now, as he scarce seems to
have become, judging by his--his--paper about lambswool. Could he send
me naught but that?"
"Remember he is not like you. You have ever been a scholar and a
thinker--he a soldier and in many lands. He cannot be so sober as
those who bend only over books all day, whose companions are books
alone----"
"Hark!" the other interrupted. "Hark! Do you hear anything? The hoofs
of a horse clattering along the road--it may be he, Bridget. Look to
the window. See."
The old woman did as she was bid--going to the casement and gazing
along a broad, dusty road, bordered by limes almost flowering in the
warm May air, which led from the Downs above to the old house in which
the Vauses had lived longer than even the parish records told of; and
there, in the soft light of the fast-gathering twilight, she espied a
horseman riding at a good pace; a man who, she could see very well,
sat his horse easily, and seemed to extract a considerable speed from
it without any effort of spur or rein.
"Ay," she said, "'tis a horseman sure enough--you have good ears,
Master Philip, ailing though you be; better ears in truth than I have
eyes, for they are dimmed somewhat with age; I cannot see if 'tis
Andrew. Yet," she went on, as the rider drew nearer and came more into
her view, while man and horse were suffused by the cherry glow of the
setting sun, "'tis his form and figure, too; large, broad, and brawny.
And, heaven preserve us! what a great, fierce sword clanks against his
horse's ribs with every stride it takes, and what a beard upon his
upper lip he has!"
"'Tis very certain," the invalid interrupted from the couch on which
he lay, "that 'tis Andrew. Here, Bridget, help me up, let me see him."
"It is he," the old woman said; "lie there, Master Philip, no need to
rise. He will be here ere many moments have passed. Ha!" she
exclaimed, thrusting open the lattice in her excitement, "he sees me,
waves his hand--he has not forgotten the old nurse--I will go down and
greet him, then bring him to you": while, excited and nervous, she
unceremoniously quitted Philip Vause and ran down the broad polished
staircase as fast as her old legs would carry her to where the hall
door stood open to the evening air, and thus reached the stoop as the
horseman drew up in front of it.
"So, Bridget," he said, leaping from his horse and flinging the reins
to a serving-man who came from out the shrubbery hard by the house,
"so, Bridget, 'tis you in very truth, and not a day older than when I
went away, I do protest," and he stooped down over her and kissed her
grey hair where it waved across her old and wrinkled forehead. And,
pleased with his greeting, the woman smiled and cooed round the great
man standing above her, and muttered:
"Why, Master Andrew, you are bigger than ever since you went away.
What a man! What a man you are now! So great and stalwart--alas! that
your poor brother Philip was as you."
Indeed, he at whom she gazed well merited the praise she lavished on
his size and thews and sinews. Full six English feet in height stood
Andrew Vause, and broad and deep in chest was he, with great muscular
arms that looked as though it might be ill for any caught in their
grip. And, though doubtless unconsciously so to their wearer, his
garments themselves lent something to his powerful appearance. On his
body he wore a brown buckskin tunic--good for riding in, or, perhaps,
even for turning aside a rapier or dagger thrust--a tunic ornamented
at the opening with quilted leather of the same kind, and fringed in
the same manner below; his lower limbs were encased in stout hose, or,
at least, so much of them as could be seen betwixt the ending of his
jacket and the tops of his great riding boots of brown untanned
leather that reached almost to his thighs. And the sword old Bridget
had spoken of was there, its hilt reposing against one of those
thighs, while its long length ran behind him. A wicked-looking,
fighting rapier this, with its great _pas d'âne_ and enormous
quillons; a rapier that looked as though, once out of its sheath,
mischief was meant and to be dreaded from it. For the rest, his handsome
face was bronzed to copper hue, his brown moustache--Bridget's "beard on
the upper lip"--hung down below his under jaw, his thick brown hair fell
to his shoulders, and above it flapped a loose sombrero hat ornamented
with a single black feather.
A vastly different-looking man this from the sickly elder brother
above!
"Ay, Philip!" he said in answer to her mention of his brother's name,
as he strode into the tiled hall, making it ring with the jangle of
his brass spurs upon his heels. "Poor Philip! So he is sick--the
messenger found me at the Duck in Westminster!--'sick unto death,' he
wrote. Bridget, is this true, and if true what ails him? He was not
strong--nor like to be, since he pored ever over those accursed
books!--yet books need not kill a man. What ails him, Bridget?" he
repeated.
"He is not well--seems to have no life nor strength in him. And--and
you know, you have heard, even in those foreign lands to which he
wrote you letters--he had a grievous sorrow fall upon him. Oh! he was
treacherously served!"
"Ay, ay. And so he did write. Yet, fore gad! a man dies not for love
of woman--not though she jilts him cruelly. Odd's faith! no woman ever
jilted me--nor spoilt my rest o' nights. Yet," and he lowered his
voice a little, and seemed graver as he asked, "who was she? He never
told me that--seemed, indeed, in his letters to carefully refrain from
writing her name."
"Let him tell you," the old woman said; "best hear it all from him."
"But will he tell? Philip was ever somewhat too silent and secret--I
doubt me much if he will tell. Will hint at wrongs done--at cruel
treatments--be vague, but say no more."
"I think he will tell you," she replied. "He has longed so to see you
since he knew you had returned from France. And, Andrew," the old
woman said, laying her hand on the sleeve of the great stalwart
soldier whom, as a lad, she had dandled on her knee, "I think he
cherishes hopes of revenge on her; above all, on him who did the
greater wrong."
"Revenge! Why! what can he do? Unable to leave his chamber, a poor
scholar who knows neither passado nor cunning fence of any kind," and
the fingers of his left hand played lovingly with the hilt of his
sword as he spoke, "nor has ever wandered fifty miles from this old
Surrey home of ours--poor Philip! what can he do?"
But as he asked the question, there clattered down the oak staircase
the high-heeled shoes worn by a waiting-maid, the wearer whereof
said--though not before she had cast a glance of approval over the
great sunburned man who stood before her--that her master desired to
know if his brother meant not to come and see him now he had come
home?
"Ay, sweetheart," that brother said, looking down on the comely girl,
and winning her heart at once by that debonair manner which never
failed in its effect "Ay, sweetheart, I come at once. Shall we go
together, Bridget?"
"Nay," she said, "go in alone to him. There needs no witness of your
meeting, and he has much to say. And, Andrew, you asked but now how he
might compass revenge for the wrong done him. Can you not guess what
he may hope to do--how it may come about?"
"In truth, I cannot," he answered, while his eye still glanced at the
shapely waiting-maid now vanishing through a doorway to the back
portion of the house, "in truth, I cannot. No thinker I, as you may
remember, Bridget; 'twas ever Philip who did that for both of us. And,
had he not so thought, the Puritan justices of our boyhood would have
clapped me into jail often enough, and been glad of the chance to
punish my old cavalier father through me. No, if he means to get
vengeance he must make it clear. I will go and see him now."
He strode towards the wide staircase as he spoke, and mounted it,
clattering still as he went; looking round the old hall, though, while
he did so, and thinking--wanderer as he had been--that, after all, it
was good to be under the old roof once more.
"Well enough and pleasant," he muttered to himself, "the life of camps
and noise of brawls and battles and the sweet clash of steel 'gainst
steel--yet good, too, to come home, now and again."
And, because he was not all a bravo nor free lance who lived only for
such fortune as came at the sword's point, his thoughts went back to
his childhood's day, when he used to come leaping down those stairs
three steps at a time, or swung by his gentle mother's side, his hand
in hers; also, he recalled her soft looks and words, and found himself
remembering the little simple prayers she had taught him to say.
But by now he was at the head of the stairs, which made but one turn
from the hall to the corridor above, and at that head was the door of
the chief room of the old house, the room in which he knew his elder
brother lay. Then he knocked gently, and, hearing Philip's eager tones
of welcome, went in to him, bearing about him, as it seemed to the
poor invalid, an atmosphere of health and strength, and a suggestion
of fresh air and the wind that comes sweeping across salt seas and
breezy downs and moorlands.
"And now!" Philip exclaimed, sitting up on his couch and holding out
his two thin, white hands to the swart soldier, who came in and seized
them in his own strong grasp, "now, Andrew, you have come back to me."
It seemed to Philip, lying there, that the voice of that younger
brother was not as strong and powerful as he remembered it to have
been once--seemed not, indeed, to be the fierce tones that the soldier
of fortune should possess--as, stooping down on one knee so as better
to bring his face on a level with his brother's, Andrew said very
gently:
"Philip! Philip! how is it that I find you thus? Oh, Philip!" and he
turned his face away for some reason as he spoke, "I did not know,
never guessed, you were as worn and sick as this."
Then the other understood why the bronzed face had been turned from
him, and why the strong masterful voice had been so gentle when he
spoke. For, as Andrew turned back that face, the dark eyes were full
and running over with tears that coursed each other down the brown
cheeks, and a sob broke from his lips.
"Nay, nay," Philip said, laying his hand on the long locks of the
other and stroking them. "Nay, Andrew, do not weep--I cannot bear
that. You are so strong and big, you must not weep, and--and--tears
are not for a soldier. Andrew, do not weep for me."
But the brawler and ruffler made no answer, only, bending his head
still lower to his brother's shoulder, he let it lie there. And again
he muttered:
"I did not understand. I did not know."