No one knows how great a tree has been till it has fallen; nor how large
a space a mighty man has occupied till he is removed.
King Henry V. left his friends and foes alike almost dizzy, as in place
of his grand figure they found a blank; instead of the hand whose force
they had constantly felt, mere emptiness.
Malcolm of Glenuskie, who had been asserting constantly that King Henry
was no master of his, and had no rights over him, had nevertheless, for
the last year or more, been among those to whom the King's will was the
moving spring, fixing the disposal of almost every hour, and making
everything dependent thereon.
When the death-hush was broken by the 'Depart, O Christian soul,' and
Bedford, with a face white and set like a statue, stood up from his
knees, and crossed and kissed the still white brow, it was to Malcolm as
if the whole universe had become as nothing. To him there remained only
the great God, the heavenly Jerusalem into which the King had entered,
and himself far off from the straight way, wandering from his promise and
his purpose into what seemed to him a mere hollow painted scene, such as
came and went in the midst of a banquet. Or, again, it was the grisly
Dance of Death that was the only reality; Death had clutched the
mightiest in the ring. Whom would he clutch next?
He stood motionless, as one in a dream, or rather as if not knowing which
was reality, and which phantom; gazing, gazing on at the bed where the
King lay, round which the ecclesiastics were busying themselves,
unperceiving that James, Bedford, and the nobles had quitted the
apartment, till Percy first spoke to him in a whisper, then almost shook
him, and led him out of the room. 'I am sent for you,' he said, in a
much shaken voice; 'your king says you can be of use.' Then tightening
his grasp with the force of intense grief, 'Oh, what a day! what a day!
My father! my father! I never knew mine own father! But he has been all
to Harry and to me! Oh, woe worth the day!' And dropping into a window-
seat, he covered his face with his hands, and gave way to his grief:
pointing, however, to the council-room, where Malcolm found Bedford
writing at the table, King James, and a few others, engaged in the same
manner.
A few words from James informed him (or would have done so if he could
have understood) that the Duke of Bedford, on whom at that terrible
moment the weight of two kingdoms and of the war had descended, could not
pause to rest, or to grieve, till letters and orders had been sent to the
council in England, and to every garrison, every ally in France, to guard
against any sudden panic, or faltering in friendship to England and her
infant heir. Warwick and Salisbury were already riding post haste to
take charge of the army; Robsart was gone to the Queen, Exeter to the
Duke of Burgundy; and as the clergy were all engaged with the tendance of
the royal corpse, there was scarcely any one to lessen the Duke's toil.
James, knowing Malcolm's pen to be ready, had sent for him to assist in
copying the brief scrolls, addressed to each captain of a fortress or
town, announcing the father's death, and commanding him to do his duty to
the son--King Harry VI. Each was then to be signed by the Duke, and
despatched by men-at-arms, who waited for the purpose.
Like men stunned, the half-dozen who sat at the council-table worked on,
never daring to glance at the empty chair at the upper end. The only
words that passed were occasional inquiries of, and orders from, Bedford;
and these he spoke with a strange alertness and metallic ring in his
voice, as though the words were uttered by mechanism; yet in themselves
they were as clear and judicious as possible, as if coming from a mind
wound up exclusively to the one necessary object; and the face--though
flushed at first, and gradually growing paler, with knitted brows and
compressed lips--betrayed no sign of emotion.
Hours passed: he wrote, he ordered, he signed, he sealed; he mentioned
name after name, of place and officer, never moving or looking up. And
James, who knew from Salisbury that he had neither slept nor eaten since
sixty miles off he had met a worse report of his brother, watched him
anxiously till, when evening began to fall, he murmured, 'There is the
captain of--of--at--but--'--the pen slipped from his fingers, and he
said, 'I can no more!'
The overtaxed powers, strained so long--mind, memory, and all--were
giving way under the mere force of excessive fatigue. He rose from his
seat, but stumbled, like one blind, as James upheld him, and led him away
to the nearest bed-chamber, where, almost while the attendants divested
him of the heavy boots and cuirass he had never paused all these hours to
remove, he dropped into a sleep of sheer exhaustion.
James, who was likewise wearied out with watching, turned towards his own
quarters; but, in so doing, he could not but turn aside to the chapel,
where before the altar had been laid all that was left of King Henry.
There he lay, his hands clasped over a crucifix, clad in the same rich
green and crimson robes in which he had ridden to meet his Queen at
Vincennes but three short months before; the golden circlet from his
helmet was on his head, but it could not give additional majesty to the
still and severe sweetness of his grand and pure countenance, so youthful
in the lofty power that high aspirations had imprinted on it, yet so
intensely calm in its marble rest, more than ever with the look of the
avenging unpitying angel. To James, it was chiefly the face of the man
whom he had best loved and admired, in spite of their strange connection;
but to Malcolm, who had as usual followed him closely, it was verily a
look from the invisible world--a look of awful warning and reproof,
almost as if the pale set lips were unclosing to demand of him where he
was in the valley of shadows, through which the way lay to Jerusalem. If
Henry had turned back, and warned him at the gate of the heavenly Sion,
surely such would have been his countenance; and Malcolm, when, like
James, he had sprinkled the holy water on the white brow, and crossed
himself while the low chant of Psalms from kneeling priests went up
around him--clasped his two hands close together, and breathed forth the
words, 'Oh, I have wandered far! O great King, I will never leave the
straight way again! I will cast aside all worldly aims! O God, and the
Saints, help me not to lose my way again!'
He would have tarried on still, in the fascination of that wonderful
unearthly countenance, and in the inertness of faculties stunned by
fatigue and excitement, but James summoned him by a touch, and he again
followed him.
'O Sir!' he began, when they had turned away, 'I repent me of my falling
away to the world! I give all up. Let me back to my vows of old.'
'We will talk of that another time,' said James, gravely. 'Neither you
nor I, Malcolm, can think reasonably under such a blow as this; and I
forbid you rashly to bind yourself.'
'Sir, Sir!' cried Malcolm, petulantly. 'You took me from the straight
way. You shall not hinder my return!'
'I hinder no true purpose,' said King James. 'I only hinder another rash
and hasty pledge, to be felt as a fetter, or left broken on your
conscience. Silence now. When men are sad and spent they cannot speak
as befits them, and had best hold their peace.'
These words were spoken on the way up the stair that led to the
apartments of the King of Scots. On opening the door of the larger room,
the first thing they saw was the tall figure of a distinguished-looking
knight, who, as they entered, flung himself at King James's feet,
fervently exclaiming, 'O my liege! accept my homage! Never was vassal so
bound to his lord by thankfulness for his life, and for far more than his
life!'
'Sir Patrick Drummond, I am glad to see you better at ease,' said James.
'Nay, suffer me,' he added, giving his hand to raise the knight, but
finding it grasped and kissed with passionate devotion, almost
overpowering the only half-recovered knight, so that James was forced to
use strength to support him, and would at once have lifted him up, but
the warm-hearted Patrick resisted, almost sobbing out--'Nay, Sir! king of
my heart indeed! let me first thank you. I knew not how much more I owed
you than the poor life you saved--my father's rescue, and that of all
that was most dear.'
'Speak of such things seated, my good friend,' said James, trying to
raise him; but Drummond still did not second his efforts.
'I have not given my parole of honour as the captive whose life is again
due to you.'
'You must give that to the Duke of Bedford, Sir Patrick,' said James. 'I
know not if I am to be put into ward myself. In any case you are safe,
by the good King's grace, so you pledge yourself to draw no sword against
England in Scotland or France till ransom be accepted for you.'
'Alack!' said Patrick, 'I have neither sword nor ransom. I would I knew
what was to be done with the life you have given me, my lord.'
'I will find a use for it, never fear,' said James, sadly, but kindly.
'Be my knight for the present, till better days come for us both.'
'With my whole heart!' said Patrick, fervently. 'Yours am I for ever, my
liege.'
'Then my first command is that you should rise, and rest,' said James,
assisting the knight to regain his feet, and placing him in the only
chair in the room. 'You must become a whole man as soon as may be.'
For Patrick's arm was in a sling, and evidently still painful and
useless, and he sank back, breathless and unresisting, like one who had
by no means regained perfect health, while his handsome features looked
worn and pale. 'I fear me,' said James, as the two cousins silently
shook hands, 'that you have moved over soon.--You surely had my message,
Bairdsbrae?'
'Oh yes, my lord,' replied Baird; 'but the lad was the harder to hold;
and after the fever was gone, we deemed he could well brook the journey
by water. 'Twas time I was here to guide ye too, my lord; you and the
callant baith look sair forfaughten.'
'We have had a sad time of it, Nigel,' said James, with trembling lip.
'And if Brewster tells me right, ye've not tasted food the whole day?'
said Nigel, laying an authoritative hand on his royal pupil. 'Nay, sit
ye down; here come the varlets with the meal I bade them have ready.'
James passively yielded, courteously signing to the others to share the
food that was spread on a table; and with the same scarcely conscious
grace, making inquiries, which elicited that Patrick Drummond's hurts had
been caused by his horse falling and rolling over with him, whilst with
Sir John Swinton and other Scottish knights he was reconnoitring the line
of the English march. He was too much injured to be taken back to the
far distant camp, and had accordingly been intrusted to the French
farmer, with no attendant but a young French horse-boy, since he was too
poor to keep a squire. He knew nothing more, for fever had run high; and
he had not even been sensible of his desertion by his French hosts on the
approach of the English, far less of the fire, and of his rescue by the
King and Malcolm; but for this he seemed inclined to compensate to the
utmost, by the intense eagerness of devotion with which he regarded
James, who sat meanwhile crushed down by the weight of his own grief.
'I can eat no more, Baird,' said he, swallowing down a draught of wine,
and pushing aside his trencher. 'Your license, gentlemen. I must be
alone. Take care of the lads, Nigel. Malcolm is spent too. His deft
service was welcome to--to my dearest brother.'
And though he hastily shut himself into his own inner chamber, it was not
till they had seen that his grief was becoming uncontrollable.
Patrick could not but murmur, 'Dearest brother!'
'Ay, like brothers they loved!' said Baird, gravely.
'A strange brotherhood,' began Drummond.
But Malcolm cried, with much agitation, 'Not a word, Patie! You know not
what you say. Take heed of profaning the name of one who is gone to the
Sion above.'
'You turned English, our wee Malcolm!' exclaimed Drummond, in amaze.
'There is no English, French, or Scot where he is gone!' cried Malcolm.
'No Babel! O Patie, I have been far fallen! I have done you in heart a
grievous wrong! but if I have turned back in time, it is his doing that
lies there.'
'His! what, Harry of Lancaster's?' demanded the bewildered Patrick. 'What
had he to do with you?'
'He has been my only true friend here!' cried Malcolm. 'Oh, if my hand
be free from actual spoil and bloodshed, it was his doing! Oh, that he
could hear me bless him for the chastisement I took so bitterly!'
'Chastisement!' demanded Patrick. 'The English King dared chastise
_you_! of Scots blood royal! 'Tis well he is dead!'
'The laddie's well-nigh beside himself!' said Baird. 'But he speaks
true. This king whom Heaven assolizie, kept a tight hand over the
youngsters; and falling on Lord Malcolm and some other callants making
free with a house at Meaux, dealt some blows, of which my young lord
found it hard to stomach his share; though I am glad to see he is come to
a better mind. Ay, 'tis pity of this King Harry! Brave and leal was he;
never spake an untrue word; never turned eye for fear, nor foot for
weariness, nor hand for toil, nor nose for ill savour. A man, look you,
to be trusted; never failing his word for good or ill! Right little love
has there been between him and me; but I could weep like my own lad in
there, to think I shall never see that knightly presence more, nor hear
those frank gladsome voices of the boys, as they used to shout up and
down Windsor Forest.'
'You too, Sir Nigel! and with a king like ours!'
'Ay, Sir Patrick! and if he be such a king as Scotland never had since
St. David, and maybe not then, I'm free to own as much of it is due to
King Harry as to his own noble self.--Did ye say they had streekit him in
the chapel, Lord Malcolm? I'd fain look on the bonnie face of him; I'll
ne'er look on his like again.'
No sooner had old Bairdsbrae gone, than Malcolm flung himself down before
his cousin, crying, 'Oh, Patrick, you will hear me! I cannot rest till
you know how changed I have been.'
'Changed!' said Patrick; 'ay, and for the better! Why, Malcolm, I never
durst hope to see you so sturdy and so heartsome. My father would have
been blithe to see you such a gallant young squire. Even the halt is
gone!'
'Nearly,' said Malcolm. 'But I would fain be puny and puling, to have
the clear heart that once I had. Oh, hear me! hear me! and pardon me,
Patie!'
And Malcolm, in his agitation, poured forth the whole story of his having
shifted from his old cherished purpose of devoting himself to the service
of Heaven, and leaving lands and vassals to the stronger hands of Patrick
and Lilias; how, having thus given himself to the world, he had fallen
into temptation; how he had let himself be led to persecute with his suit
a noble lady, vowed like himself; how he had almost agreed to marry her
by force: and how he had been running into the ordinary dissipations of
the camp, abstaining from confession, avoiding mass; disobeying orders,
plunging into scenes of plunder, till he had almost been the death of
Patrick, whom he had already so cruelly wronged.
So felt the boy. Fresh from that death-bed, the evils his conscience had
protested against from the first appeared to him frightfully heinous, and
his anguish of self-reproach was such, that Patrick listened in the
greatest anxiety lest he should hear of some deadly stain on his young
kinsman's scutcheon; but when the tale was told, and he had demanded 'Is
that all?' and found that no further overt act was alleged against
Malcolm, he breathed a long sigh, and muttered, 'You daft laddie! you had
fairly startled me! So this is the coil, is it? Who ever told you to
put on a cowl, I should like to know? Why, 'twas what my poor father
ever declared against. I take your lands! By my troth! 'twould be
enough to make me break faith with your sister, if I _could_!'
'The vow was in my heart,' faltered Malcolm.
'In a fule's head!' said Patrick. 'What right have babes to be talking
of vows? 'Twould be the best tidings I've heard for many a long day,
that you were wedded to a lass with a good tocher, and fit to guide your
silly pate. What's that? Her vows! If they are no better than yours,
the sooner they are forgot the better. If she had another love, 'twould
be another matter, but with a bishop on your side, you've naught to
fear.'
Malcolm turned away, sick at heart. To him his present position had
become absolute terror. His own words had worked him up to an alarming
sense of having lapsed from high aims to mere selfishness; of having
profaned vows, consented to violence, and fallen away from grace; and he
was in an almost feverish passion to utter something that would
irrevocably bind him to his former intentions; but here were the King and
Patrick both conspiring to silence him, and hold him back to his fallen
and perilous state. Nay, Patrick even derided his penitence. Patrick
was an honourable knight, a religious man, as times went, but he had been
brought up in a much rougher and more unscrupulous school than Malcolm,
and had been hardened by years of service as a soldier of fortune. The
Armagnac camp was not like that of England. Warriors of such piety and
strictness as Henry and Bedford had never come within his ken; and that
any man, professing to be a soldier, should hesitate at the license of
war, was incomprehensible to him. The discipline of Henry's army had
been scoffed at in the French camp, and every infraction of it hailed as
a token of hypocrisy; and to the stout Scot Malcolm's grief for the
rapine at Meaux, which after all he had not committed, seemed a simple
absurdity. Even his own danger, on the second occasion, did not make him
alter his opinion; it was all the fortune of war. And he was not sure
that he had not best have been stifled at once, since his hands were tied
from warfare. And as for Lily--how was he to win her now? Then, as
Malcolm opened his mouth, Patrick sharply charged him to hold his tongue
as to that folly, unless he wanted to drive him to make a vow on his
side, that he would turn Knight of Rhodes, and never wed.
Malcolm, wearied out with excitement, came at last to weeping that no one
would hear or understand him; but the scene was ended by Bairdsbrae, who,
returning, brought a leech with him, who at once took the command of
Patrick, and ordered him to his bed.
Malcolm could not rest. He was feverish with the shock of grief and awe,
and absorbed in the thought which had mastered him, and which was much
dwelt on in the middle ages:--the monastic path, going towards heaven
straight as a sunbeam; the secular, twining its way through a tortuous
difficult course--the 'broad way,' tending downward to the abyss. To his
terrified apprehension, he had abandoned the direct and narrow path for
the fatal road, and there might at any moment be captured, and whirled
away by the grisly phantom Death, who had just snatched the mightiest in
his inevitable clutch; and with something of the timidity of his nature,
he was in absolute terror, until he should be able to set himself back on
the shining road from which he had swerved, and be rid of the load of
transgression which seemed ready to sink him into the gulf.
Those few and perfunctory confessions to a courtly priest who knew
nothing about him, and was sure not to be hard on a king's cousin, now
seemed to add to his guilt: and, wandering down-stairs towards the
chapel, he met a train of ecclesiastics slowly leaving it, having just
been relieved by a bevy of monks from a neighbouring convent, who took up
the chants where they had left them.
Looking up at them, he recognized Dr. Bennet's bent head, and throwing
himself before him on his knee, he gasped, 'O father, father! hear me!
Take me back! Give me hope!'
'What means this, my young lord?' said Dr. Bennet, pausing, while his
brethren passed on. 'Are you sick?' he added, kindly, seeing the
whiteness of Malcolm's face, and his startled eye.
'Oh, no, no! only sick at heart at my own madness, and the doom on it! O
Sir, hear me! Take my vow again! give me absolution once more to a true
shrift. Oh, if you will hear me, it shall be honest this time! Only put
me in the way again.'
The chaplain was sorely sad and weary. He it was whose ministrations had
chiefly comforted the dying King. To him it had been the loss of a
deeply-loved son and pupil, as well as of almost unbounded hopes for the
welfare of the Church; and he had had likewise, in the freshness of his
sorrow, to take the lead in the ecclesiastical ceremonies that ensued, so
that both in body and mind he was well-nigh worn out, and longed for
peace in which to face his own private sorrow; but the wild words and
anguished looks of the young Scot showed him that his case was one for
immediate hearing, and he drew the lad into the confessional,
authoritatively calmed his agitation, and prepared to hear the outpouring
of the boy's self-reproach.
He heard it all--sifting facts from fancies, and learning the early
purpose, the terror at the cruel world, the longing for peace and
shelter; the desire to smooth his sister's way, which had led him to
devote himself in heart to the cloister, though never permitted openly to
pledge himself. Then the discovery that the world was less thorny than
he had expected; the allurement of royal favour and greatness; the charm
of amusement, and activity in recovered health; the cowardly dread of
scorn, leading him not merely into the secular life, but into the gradual
dropping of piety and devotion; the actual share he had taken in
forbidden diversions; his attempts at plunder; his ill-will to King
Henry; and, above all, his persecution of Esclairmonde, which he now
regarded as sacrilegious; and he even told how he lay under a half
engagement to Countess Jaqueline to return alone to the Court, and bear
his part in the forcible marriage she projected.
He told all, with no extenuation; nay, rather with such outbursts of
opprobrium on himself, that Dr. Bennet could hardly understand of what
positive evils he had been guilty; and he ended by entreating that the
almoner would at once hear his vow to become a Benedictine monk, ere--
But Dr. Bennet would not listen. He silenced the boy by saying he had no
more right to hear it than Malcolm as yet to make it. Nay, that inner
dedication, for which Malcolm yearned as a sacred bond to his own will,
the priest forbade. It was no moment to make such a promise in his
present mood, when he did not know himself. If broken, he would only be
adding sin to sin; nor was Malcolm, with all his errors fresh upon him,
in any state to dedicate himself worthily. The errors--which in Ralf
Percy, or in most other youths, might have seemed slight--were heavy
stains on one who, like Malcolm, had erred, not thoughtlessly, but with a
conscience of them all, in wilful abandonment of his higher principles.
On these the chaplain mostly dwelt; on these he tried to direct Malcolm's
repentance; and, finding that the youth was in perpetual extremes of
remorse, and that his abject submission was a sort of fresh form of
wilfulness, almost passion at being forbidden to bind himself by the vow,
he told him that the true token of repentance was steadiness and
constancy; and that therefore his absolution must be deferred until he
had thus shown that his penitence was true and sincere--by perseverance,
firstly, in the devotions that the chaplain appointed for him, and,
secondly, in meeting whatever temptations might be in store for him. Nay,
the cruel chaplain absolutely forbade the white, excited, eager boy to
spend half the night in chapel over the first division of these
penitential psalms and prayers, but on his obedience sent him at once to
his bed.
Malcolm could have torn his hair. Unabsolved! Still under the weight of
sin; still unpledged; still on dangerous ground; still left to a secular
life--and that without Esclairmonde! Why had he not gone to a French
Benedictine, who would have caught at his vow, and crowned his penitence
with some magnificent satisfying asceticism?
Yet something in his heart, something in the father's own authority, made
him submit; and in a tumult of feeling, more wretched even than before
his confession, he threw himself on his bed, expecting to charge the
tossings of a miserable night on Dr. Bennet, and to creep down barefoot
to the chapel in the early morning to begin his _Misereres_.
Instead of which, his first wakening was in broad daylight, by King James
standing over him. 'Malcolm,' he said, 'I have answered for you that you
are discreet and trusty. A message of weight is to be placed in your
hands. Come with me to the Duke of Bedford.'
Malcolm could only dress himself, and obediently follow to the chamber,
where sat the Duke, his whole countenance looking as if the light of his
life had gone out, but still steadfastly set to bear the heavy burden
that had been placed on his shoulders.
He called Malcolm to him, and showed him a ring, asking whether he knew
it.
'The King's signet--King Harry's,' said Malcolm.
He was then reminded how, in the winter, Henry had lost the ring, and
after having caused another to be made at Paris, had found it in the
finger of his gauntlet. Very few knew of the existence of this
duplicate. Bedford himself was not aware of it till it had been
mentioned by James and Lord Fitzhugh the chamberlain; and then search was
made for it, without effect, so that it evidently had been left with the
Queen. These private signets were of the utmost importance, far more so
than even the autograph; for, though signatures were just acquiring
individuality enough to become the best authentication, yet up to this
very reign the seal was the only valid affirmation. Such signets were
always destroyed on a prince's death, and it was of the utmost importance
that the duplicate should not be left in Queen Catherine's hands--above
all, while she was with her mother and her party, who were quite capable
of affixing it to forgeries.
Bedford, James, and Fitzhugh were all required at Vincennes; the two
latter at the lying-in-state in the chapel. Most of the other trusty
nobles had repaired to the army; and, indeed, Bedford, aware of the
terrible jealousies that were sure to break out in the headless realm,
did not choose to place a charge that might hereafter prove invidious in
the hands of any Englishman, or to extend the secret any further than
could be helped; since who could tell what suspicion might not be thus
cast on any paper sealed by Henry?
In his perplexity, James had suggested young Malcolm, who had assisted in
the search for the lost ring, and been witness to its discovery; and whom
he could easily send as bearer of his condolences to the widowed Queen;
who had indeed the _entree_ of the palace, but had no political standing,
was neither French nor English, and had shown himself discreet enough
with other secrets to deserve confidence.
Bedford caught at the proposal. And Malcolm now received orders to take
horse, with a sufficient escort, and hasten at once to Paris, where he
should try if possible to obtain the ring from the Queen herself; but if
he could not speak to her in private, he might apply to Sir Lewis
Robsart. No other person was to be informed of the real object of the
mission, and he was to get back to Vincennes as soon as possible.
Neither prince could understand the scared, distressed looks with which
Malcolm listened to commands showing so much confidence in a youth of his
years. They encouraged him by assurances that Sir Lewis Robsart, who had
a curious kind of authority, half fatherly, half nurselike, over the
Queen, would manage all for him. And King James, provoked by his
reluctance, began, as they left Bedford's chamber, to chide him for
ungraciousness in the time of distress, and insensibility to the honour
conferred on him.
'Nay, nay,' disclaimed Malcolm, almost ready to weep, 'but I have a whole
world of penance!'
'Penance! Plague on the boy's perverseness! What penance is so good as
obedience?' said James, much displeased.
'Sir, Sir,' panted Malcolm, ''tis not only that. Could any one but be
sent in my stead? My returning alone is what Madame of Hainault
bade--for--for some scheme on--'
His voice was choked, and his face was burning.
'Is the lad gone daft?' cried James, in great anger. 'If Madame of
Hainault were so lost to decorum as to hatch such schemes at such a
moment, I trow you are neither puppet nor fool in her hands for her to do
what she will with. I'll have no more fooling!'
Malcolm could only obey.
In the brief space while the horses were preparing, and he had to equip
and take food, he sped in search of Dr. Bennet, hoping, he knew not what,
from his interference, or trusting, at any rate, to explain his own
sudden absence.
But, looking into the chapel, he recognized the chaplain as one of the
leading priests in one of the lengthiest of masses, which was just
commencing. It was impossible to wait for the conclusion. He could but
kneel down, find himself too much hurried and confused to recollect any
prayer, then dash back again to don his riding-gear, before King James
should miss him, and be angered again.
'Unabsolved--unvowed!' he thought. 'Sent off thither against my will.
Whatever may fall out, it is no fault of mine!'