The summer morning came; the _reveille_ sounded, Mass was sung in the
chapel tent, without which Henry never moved; and Malcolm tried to
reassure his sinking heart by there pledging his vow to St. Andrew.
The English king was not present; but the troops were drawing up in
complete array, that he might inspect them before the march. And a
glorious array they were, of steel-clad men-at-arms on horseback, in
bands around their leader's banner, and of ranks of sturdy archers, with
their long-bows in leathern cases; the orderly multitude, stretching as
far as the eye could reach, glittering in the early sun, and waiting with
bold and glad hearts to greet the much-loved king, who had always led
them to victory.
The only unarmed knight was James of Scotland. He stood in the space
beside the standard of England, in his plain suit of chamois leather, his
crimson cloak over his shoulder, but with no weapon about him, waiting
with crossed arms for the morning's decision.
Close outside the royal tent waited Henry's horse, and those of his
brother and other immediate attendants; and after a short interval the
King came forth in his brightest armour, with the coronal on his helmet,
and the beaver up; and as he mounted, not without considerable aid,
enthusiastic shouts of 'Long live King Harry!' broke forth, and came
echoing back and back from troop to troop, gathering fervour as they
rose.
The King rode forward towards the standard; but while yet the shouts were
pealing from the army, be suddenly caught at his saddle-bow, reeled
visibly, and would have fallen before Bedford could bring his horse to
his side, had not James sprung forward, and laid one arm round him, and a
hand on his rein.
'It is nothing,' said Henry. 'Let me alone.'
Ere the words were finished, he put his hand to his side, dropped his
bridle, and gasped, while a look of intense suffering passed over his
features; and he was passive while his horse was led back to the tent,
and he was lifted down and placed on the couch he had just quitted.
'Loose my belt,' he gasped; then trying to smile, 'Percy has strained it
three holes tighter.'
Alas! though it was indeed thus drawn in, his armour was hanging on him
like the shell of a last year's nut. They released him from it, and he
lay against the cushions with short painful respiration, and frequent
cough.
'You must go on with the men at once, John,' he said. 'I will but be
blooded, and follow in the litter.'
'Warwick and Salisbury--' began Bedford.
'No, no!' peremptorily gasped Henry. 'It must be you or I, I would, but
this stitch in the side catches me, so that I can neither ride nor speak.
Go, instantly. You know what I have ordered. I'll be up with you ere
the battle.'
He brooked no resistance. His impatience, and with it the oppression and
pain, only grew by remonstrance; and Bedford was forced to obey the
command to go himself, and leave no one he could help behind him.
'You will stay, at least,' said John, in his distress, turning to the
Scottish king.
'I must,' said James.
'You hold not your wrath?' said Bedford. 'It will madden me to leave him
to any save you in this stress. Some are dull; some he will not heed.'
'I will tend him like yourself, John,' said the Scot, taking his hand.
'Do what he may, Harry is Harry still. Hasten to your command, John; he
will be calmer when you are gone.'
Bedford groaned. It was hard to leave his brother at a moment when he
must be more than himself--become general of an army, with a battle
imminent; but he was under dire necessity, and forced himself to listen
to and gather the import of the few terse orders and directions that
Henry, breathless as he was, rendered clear and trenchant as ever.
The King almost drove his brother away at last, while a barber was taking
a copious stream of blood from him; and as the army had already been set
in motion, a great stillness soon prevailed, no one being left save a
small escort, and part of the King's own immediate household, for Henry
had himself ordered away Montagu, his chamberlain, Percy, and almost all
on whom his eyes fell. The bleeding relieved him; he breathed less
tightly, but became deadly pale, and sank into a doze of extreme
exhaustion.
'Who is here?' he said, awakening. 'Some drink! What you, Jamie! You
that were on fire to see a stricken field!'
'Not so much as to see you better at ease,' said James.
'I am better,' said Henry. 'I could move now; and I must. This tent
will stifle me by noon.'
'You will not go forward?'
'No; I'll go back. A sick man is best with his wife. And I can battle
it no further, nor grudge the glory of the day to John. He deserves it.'
The irascible sharpness had passed from his voice and manner, and given
place to a certain languid cheerfulness, as arrangements were made for
his return to Vincennes.
There proved to be a large and commodious barge, in which the transit
could be effected on the river, with less of discomfort than in the
springless horse litter by which he had travelled the day before; and
this was at once prepared.
Malcolm had meanwhile remained, as in duty bound, in attendance on his
king. James had found time to enjoin him to stay, being, to say the
truth, unwilling to trust one so inexperienced and fragile in the _melee_
without himself; nor indeed would this have been a becoming moment for
him to put himself forward to win his spurs in the English cause.
Nothing had passed about Patrick Drummond, nor the high words of last
night. Henry seemed to have forgotten them, between his bodily suffering
and the anxiety of being forced to relinquish the command just before a
battle; and James would have felt it ungenerous to harass him at such a
moment, when absolutely committed to his charge. For the present, there
was no fear of the prisoner being summarily executed by any lawful
authority, since the King had promised to take cognizance of the case;
and the chief danger was from his chance discovery by some lawless man-at-
arms, who would think himself doing good service by killing a concealed
Scot under any circumstances.
Drummond himself, after his delirious night, had sunk into a heavy sleep;
and the King thought the best hope for him would be to remain under the
care of Sir Nigel Baird for the present, until he could obtain favour for
him from Henry, and could send back orders from Vincennes. He would not
leave Malcolm to share the care of him, declaring that the canny Sir
Nigel would have quite enough to do in averting suspicion without him;
and, besides, he needed Malcolm himself, in the scarcity of attendants
who had any tenderness or dexterity of hand to wait upon the suffering
King.
Henry had rallied enough to walk down to the river, leaning upon James;
and he smiled thanks when he was assisted by Trenton and Kitson to lie
along on cushions. 'So, my Yorkshire knights,' he said, ''tis you that
have had to stop from the battle to watch a sick man home!'
'Ay, Sir,' said Sir Christopher; 'I did it with the better will, that
Trenton here has not been his own man since the fever; and 'twere no fair
play in the matter your Grace wets of, did I go into battle whole and
sound, and he sick and sorry.'
Henry's look of amusement brightened him into his old self, as he said,
'Honester guards could I scarce have, good friend.'
At that moment, after a nudge or two from Trenton, Kitson and he came
suddenly down on their knees, with an impetus that must have tried the
boards of the bottom of the barge. 'Sir,' said Kitson, always the
spokesman, 'we have a grace to ask of you.'
'Say on,' said Henry. 'Any boon, save the letting you cut one another's
throats.'
'No, Sir. Will Trenton's scarce my match now, more's the pity; and,
moreover, we've lost the good will to it we once had. No, Sir; 'twas
license to go a pilgrimage.'
'On pilgrimage!'
'Ay, Sir; to yon shrine at Breuil--St. Fiacre's, as they call him. Some
of our rogues pillaged his shrine, as you know, Sir; and those that know
these parts best, say he was a Scottish hermit, and bears malice like a
Scot, saint though he be; and that your sickness, my lord, is all along
of that. So we two have vowed to go barefoot there for your healing, my
liege, if so be we have your license.'
'And welcome, with my best thanks, good friends,' said Henry, exerting
himself to lean forward and give his hand to their kiss. Then, as they
fell back into their places, with a few inarticulate blessings and
assurances that they only wished they could go to Rome, or to Jerusalem,
if it would restore their king, Henry said, smiling, as he looked at
James, 'Scotsmen here, there, and everywhere--in Heaven as well as earth!
What was it last night about a Scot that moved thine ire, Jamie? Didst
not tender me thy sword? By my faith, thou hast it not! What was the
rub?'
James now told the story in its fulness. How he had met Sir Patrick
Drummond at Glenuskie; how, afterwards, the knight had stood by him in
the encounter at Meaux; and how it had been impossible to leave him
senseless to the flames; and how he had trusted that a capture made thus,
accidentally, of a helpless man, would not fall under Henry's strict
rules against accepting Scottish prisoners.
'Hm!' said Henry; 'it must be as you will; only I trust to you not to let
him loose on us, either here or on the Border. Take back your sword,
Jamie. If I spoke over hotly last night--a man hardly knows what he says
when he has a goad in the side--you forgive it, Jamie.' And as the Scots
king, with the dew in his eyes, wrung his hand, he added anxiously, 'Your
sword! What, not here! Here's mine. Which is it?' Then, as James
handed it to him: 'Ay, I would fain you wore it! 'Tis the sword of my
knighthood, when poor King Richard dubbed me in Ireland; and many a brave
scheme came with it!'
The soft movement of the barge upon the water had a soothing influence;
and he was certainly in a less suffering state, though silent and dreamy,
as he lay half raised on cushions under an awning, James anxiously
watching over him, and Malcolm with a few other attendants near at hand;
stout bargemen propelling the craft, and the guard keeping along the bank
of the river.
His thoughts were perhaps with the battle, for presently he looked up,
and murmured the verse:
'"I had a dream, a weary dream,
Ayont the Isle of Skye;
I saw a dead man win a fight,
And I think that man was I."
That stave keeps ringing in my brain; nor can I tell where or when I have
heard it.'
''Tis from the Scottish ballad that sings of the fight of Otterburn,'
said James; 'I brought it with me from Scotland.'
'And got little thanks for your pains,' said Henry, smiling. 'But,
methinks, since no Percy is in the way, I would hear it again; there was
true knighthood in the Douglas that died there.'
James's harp was never far off; and again his mellow voice went through
that gallant and plaintive strain, though in a far more subdued manner
than the first time he had sung it; and Henry, weakened and softened,
actually dropped a brave man's tear at the 'bracken bush upon the lily
lea,' and the hero who lay there.
'That I should weep for a Douglas!' he said, half laughing; 'but the
hearts of all honest men lie near together, on whatever side they draw
their swords. God have mercy on whosoever may fall to-morrow! I trow,
Jamie, thou couldst not sing that rough rhyme of Agincourt. I was
bashful and ungracious enough to loathe the very sound of it when I came
home in my pride of youth; but I would lief hear it once more. Or,
stay--Yorkshiremen always have voices;' and raising his tone, he
unspeakably gratified Trenton and Kitson by the request; and their
voices, deep and powerful, and not uncultivated, poured forth the Lay of
Agincourt to the waves of the French river, and to its mighty victor:
'Our King went forth to Normandye.'
Long and lengthily chanted was the triumphant song, with the Latin
choruses, which were echoed back by the escort on the bank; while Henry
lay, listening and musing; and Malcolm had time for many a thought and
impulse.
Patrick's life was granted; although it had been promised too late to
send the intelligence back to the tent at Corbeil. So far, the purpose
of his vow to St. Andrew had been accomplished; but with the probability
that he should soon again be associated with Patrick, came the sense of
the failure in purpose and in promise. Patrick would not reproach him,
he well knew--nay, would rejoice in the change; but even this certainty
galled him, and made him dread his cousin's presence as likely to bring
him a sense of shame. What would Patrick think of his letting a lady be
absolutely compelled to marry him? Might he not say it was the part of
Walter Stewart over again? Indeed, Malcolm remembered how carefully King
James was prevented from hearing the means by which the Countess intended
to make the lady his own; and a sensation came over him, that it was
profanation to call on St. Andrew to bless what was to be brought about
by such means. Why was it that, as his eyes fell on the face of King
Henry, the whole world and all his projects acquired so different a
colouring? and a sentence he had once heard Esclairmonde quote would come
to him constantly: 'My son, think not to buy off God. It is thyself that
He requires, not thy gifts.'
But the long lay of victory was over; and King Henry had roused himself
to thank the singers, then sighed, and said, 'How long ago that was!'
'Six years,' said James.
'The whole space from the hope and pride of youth to the care and toil of
eld,' said Henry. 'Your Scots made an old man of me the day they slew
Thomas.'
'Yet that has been your sole mishap,' said James.
'Yea, truly! But thenceforth I have learnt that the road to Jerusalem is
not so straight and plain as I deemed it when I stood victorious at
Agincourt. The Church one again--the Holy Sepulchre redeemed! It seemed
then before my eyes, and that I was the man called to do it.'
'So it may be yet,' said James. 'Sickness alters everything, and raises
mountains before us.'
'It may be so,' said Henry; 'and yet--Jerusalem! Jerusalem! It was my
father's cry; it was King Edward's cry; it was St. Louis' cry; and yet
they never got there.'
'St. Louis was far on his way,' said James.
'Ay! he never turned aside!' said Henry, sighing, and moving restlessly
and wearily with something of returning fever.
"'O bona patria, lumina sobria te speculantur--"
Boy, are you there?' as, in turning, his eye fell on Malcolm. 'Take
warning: the straight road is the best. You see, I have never come to
Jerusalem.' Then again he murmured:
"'Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur;
Non breve vivere, non breve plangere, retribuetur."
And James, seeing that nothing lulled him like song, offered to sing that
mysteriously beautiful rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix.
'Ay, prithee do so,' said Henry. 'There's a rest there, when the
Agincourt lay rings hollow. Well, there is a Jerusalem where our
shortcomings are made up; only the straight way--the straight way.'
Malcolm took his part with James in singing the rhythm, which he had
learnt long ago at Coldingham, and which thus in every note brought back
the vanished aspirations and self-dedication to 'the straight way.'
For such, an original purpose of self-devotion must ever be--not of
course exclusively to the monastic life; but whoever lowers his aims of
serving God under any worldly inducement, is deviating from the straight
way: and, thought Malcolm, if King Harry feels Agincourt an empty word
beside the song of Sion, must not all I have sought for be a very vanity?
Sometimes dozing, but sometimes restless, and with the pain of breathing
constantly increasing on him, Henry wore through the greater part of the
day, upon the river, until it was necessary to land, and be taken through
the forest in his litter. He was now obliged to be lifted from the
barge; and his weariness rendered the conveyance very distressing, save
that his patient smile never faded; and still he said, 'All will be well
when I come to my Kate!'
Alas! when the gates were reached, James hardly knew how to tell him that
the Queen had gone that morning to Paris with her mother. Yet still he
was cheerful. 'If the physicians deal hard with me,' he said, 'it will
be well that she should not be here till the worst is over.'
The physicians were there. A messenger had gone direct from Corbeil to
summon them; and Henry delivered himself up into their hands, to fight
out the battle with disease, as he had set himself to fight out many
another battle in his time.
A sharp conflict it was--between a keen and aggravated disease,
apparently pleurisy coming upon pulmonary affection of long standing, and
a strong and resolute nature, unquenched by suffering, and backed by the
violent remedies of a half-instructed period. Those who watched him, and
strove to fulfil the directions of the physicians, hardly marked the
lapse of hours; even though more than one day and night had passed ere in
the early twilight of a long summer's morn he sank into a sleep, his face
still distressed, but less acutely, and his breath heavy and labouring,
though without the severe pain.
The watchers felt that here might be the turning point, and stood or sat
around, not daring to change their postures, or utter the slightest word.
Suddenly, James, who stood nearest, leaning against the wall, with his
eyes fixed on the face of the sleeper, was aware of a hand on his
shoulder, and looking round, saw in the now full light Bedford's face--so
pale, haggard, and replete with anxiety, so dusty and travel-stained,
that Henry, awakening at that moment, exclaimed, 'Ha, John!' And as his
brother was slow to reply--'Has the day gone against thee? How was it?
Never fear to speak, brother; thou art safe; and I know thou hast done
valiantly. Valour is never lost, whether in defeat or success. Speak,
John. Take it not so much to heart.'
'There has been no battle, Harry,' said Bedford, gathering voice with
difficulty. 'The Dauphin would not abide our coming, but broke up his
camp.'
'Beshrew thee, man!' said Henry; 'but I thought thou wast just off a
flight!'
'Dost think one can ride fast only for a flight?' said Bedford. 'Ah,
would that it had been the loss of ten battles rather than this!'
And he fell on his knees, grasping Henry's hand, and hiding his face
against the bed, with the same instinct of turning to him for comfort
with which the young motherless children of Henry of Bolingbroke, when
turned adrift among the rude Beaufort progeny of John of Gaunt, had clung
to their eldest brother, and found tenderness in his love and protection
in his fearlessness; so that few royal brethren ever loved better than
Henry and John of Lancaster.
'It was well and kindly done, John,' said Henry; 'and thou hast come at a
good time; for, thanks be to God, the pain hath left me; and if it were
not for this burthen of heaviness and weariness, I should be more at ease
than I have been for many weeks.'
But as he spoke, there was that both in his face and voice that chilled
with a dread certainty the hearts of those who hung over him.
'Is my wife come? I could see her now,' he wistfully asked.
Alas! no. Sir Lewis Robsart, the knight attached to her service,
faltered, with a certain shame and difficulty, that the Queen would come
when her orisons at Notre Dame were performed.
It was his last disappointment; but still he bore it cheerily.
'Best,' he said. 'My fair one was not made for sights like this; and
were she here'--his lip trembled--'I might bear me less as a Christian
man should. My sweet Catherine! Take care of her, John; she will be the
most desolate being in the world.'
John promised with all his heart; though pity for cold-hearted Catherine
was not the predominant feeling there.
'I would I had seen my child's face, and blessed him,' continued Henry.
'Poor boy! I would have him Warwick's charge.'
'Warwick is waiting admission,' said Bedford. 'He and Salisbury and
Exeter rode with me.'
The King's face lighted up with joy as he heard this. 'It is good for a
man to have his friends about him,' he said; and as they entered he held
out his hand to them and thanked them.
Then took place the well-known scene, when, looking back on his career,
he pronounced it to have been his endeavour to serve God and his people,
and declared himself ready to face death fearlessly, since such was the
will of his Maker: grieving only for the infancy of his son, but placing
his hope and comfort in his brother John, and commending the babe to the
fatherly charge of Warwick. 'You cannot love him for his own sake as
yet; but if you think you owe me aught, repay it to him.' And as he
thought over the fate of other infant kings, he spoke of some having
hated the father and loved the child, others who had loved the father and
hated the child.
To Humfrey of Gloucester he sent stringent warnings against giving way to
his hot and fiery nature, offending Burgundy, or rushing into a doubtful
wedlock with Jaqueline of Hainault; speaking of him with an elder
brother's fatherly affection, but turning ever to John of Bedford with
full trust and reliance, as one like-minded, and able to carry out all
his intentions. For the French prisoners, they might not be released,
'lest more fire be kindled in one day than can be quenched in three.'
'And for you, Jamie,' he said, affectionately holding out his hand, 'my
friend, my brother-in-arms, I must say the same as ever. Pardon me,
Jamie; but I have not kept you out of malice, such as man must needs
renounce on his death-bed. I trust to John, and to the rest, for giving
you freedom at such time as you can safely return to be such a king
indeed as we have ever hoped to be. Do you pardon me, James, for this,
as for any harshness or rudeness you may have suffered from me?'
James, with full heart, murmured out his ardent love, his sense that no
captive had ever been so generously treated as he.
'And you, my young lord,' said Henry, looking towards Malcolm, whose
light touch and tender hands had made him a welcome attendant in the
illness, 'I have many a kind service to thank you for. And I believe I
mightily angered you once; but, boy, remember--ay, and you too, Ralf
Percy--that he is your friend who turns you back from things sore to
remember in a case like mine!'
After these, and other calm collected farewells, Henry required to know
from his physicians how long his time might yet be. There was hesitation
in answering, plainly as they saw that mortification had set in.
'What,' he said, 'do ye think I have faced death so many times to fear it
now?'
Then came the reply given by the weeping, kneeling physician: 'Sir, think
of your soul, for, without a miracle, you cannot live two hours.'
The King beckoned his confessor, and his friends retired, to return again
to take their part in the last rites, the Viaticum and Unction.
Henry was collected, and alive to all that was passing, responding duly,
and evidently entering deeply into the devotions that were to aid his
spirit in that awful passage; his face gravely set, but firm and fearless
as ever. The ceremonial ended, he was still sensible, though with little
power of voice or motion left; but the tone, though low, was steady as
ever, when he asked for the Penitential Psalms. Still they doubted
whether he were following them, for his eyes closed, and his lips ceased
to move, until, as they chanted the revival note of David's mournful
penance--'O be favourable and gracious unto Sion; build Thou the walls of
Jerusalem;'--at that much-loved word, the light of the blue eyes once
more beamed out, and he spoke again. 'Jerusalem! On the faith of a
dying king, it was my earnest purpose to have composed matters here into
peace and union, and so to have delivered Jerusalem. But the will of God
be done, since He saw me unworthy.'
Then his eyes closed again; he slept, or seemed to sleep; and then a
strange quivering came over the face, the lips moved again, and the words
broke from them, 'Thou liest, foul spirit! thou liest!' but, as though
the parting soul had gained the victory in that conflict, peace came down
on the wasted features; and with the very words of his Redeemer Himself,
'Into Thy hands I commend my spirit,' he did indeed fall asleep; the
mighty soul passed from the worn-out frame.