When many a many tale and many a song
Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road long.
The rough road, then, returning in a round,
Mock'd our enchanted steps, for all was fairy ground.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
By peep of day Quentin Durward had forsaken his little cell, had roused
the sleepy grooms, and, with more than his wonted care, seen that
everything was prepared for the day's journey. Girths and bridles, the
horse furniture, and the shoes of the horses themselves, were carefully
inspected with his own eyes, that there might be as little chance as
possible of the occurrence of any of those casualties, which, petty as
they seem, often interrupt or disconcert travelling. The horses were
also, under his own inspection, carefully fed, so as to render them fit
for a long day's journey, or, if that should be necessary, for a hasty
flight.
Quentin then betook himself to his own chamber, armed himself with
unusual care, and belted on his sword with the feeling at once of
approaching danger, and of stern determination to dare it to the
uttermost.
These generous feelings gave him a loftiness of step, and a dignity of
manner, which the Ladies of Croye had not yet observed in him, though
they had been highly pleased and interested by the grace, yet naivete,
of his general behaviour and conversation, and the mixture of shrewd
intelligence which naturally belonged to him, with the simplicity
arising from his secluded education and distant country. He let them
understand that it would be necessary that they should prepare for their
journey this morning rather earlier than usual, and, accordingly, they
left the convent immediately after a morning repast, for which, as well
as the other hospitalities of the House, the ladies made acknowledgment
by a donation to the altar, befitting rather their rank than their
appearance. But this excited no suspicion, as they were supposed to be
Englishwomen, and the attribute of superior wealth attached at that time
to the insular character as strongly as in our own day.
The Prior blessed them as they mounted to depart, and congratulated
Quentin on the absence of his heathen guide.
“For,” said the venerable man, “better stumble in the path than be
upheld by the arm of a thief or robber.”
Quentin was not quite of his opinion, for, dangerous as he knew the
Bohemian to be, he thought he could use his services, and, at the same
time, baffle his treasonable purpose, now that he saw clearly to what
it tended. But his anxiety upon this subject was soon at an end, for
the little cavalcade was not an hundred yards from the monastery and the
village before Maugrabin joined it, riding as usual on his little active
and wild looking jennet. Their road led them along the side of the
same brook where Quentin had overheard the mysterious conference the
preceding evening, and Hayraddin had not long rejoined them, ere they
passed under the very willow tree which had afforded Durward the means
of concealment, when he became an unsuspected hearer of what then passed
betwixt that false guide and the lanzknecht.
The recollections which the spot brought back stirred Quentin to enter
abruptly into conversation with his guide, whom hitherto he had scarce
spoken to.
“Where hast thou found night quarter, thou profane knave?” said the
Scot.
“Your wisdom may guess, by looking on my gaberdine,” answered the
Bohemian, pointing to his dress, which was covered with seeds of hay.
“A good haystack,” said Quentin, “is a convenient bed for an astrologer,
and a much better than a heathen scoffer at our blessed religion and its
ministers, ever deserves.”
“It suited my Klepper better than me, though,” said Hayraddin, patting
his horse on the neck, “for he had food and shelter at the same time.
The old bald fools turned him loose, as if a wise man's horse could
have infected with wit or sagacity a whole convent of asses. Lucky that
Klepper knows my whistle, and follows me as truly as a hound, or we had
never met again, and you in your turn might have whistled for a guide.”
“I have told thee more than once,” said Durward, sternly, “to restrain
thy ribaldry when thou chancest to be in worthy men's company, a thing,
which, I believe, hath rarely happened to thee in thy life before now,
and I promise thee, that did I hold thee as faithless a guide as I
esteem thee a blasphemous and worthless caitiff, my Scottish dirk and
thy heathenish heart had ere now been acquainted, although the doing
such a deed were as ignoble as the sticking of swine.”
“A wild boar is near akin to a sow,” said the Bohemian, without
flinching from the sharp look with which Quentin regarded him, or
altering, in the slightest degree, the caustic indifference which he
affected in his language, “and many men,” he subjoined, “find both
pride, pleasure, and profit, in sticking them.”
Astonished at the man's ready confidence, and uncertain whether he did
not know more of his own history and feelings than was pleasant for
him to converse upon, Quentin broke off a conversation in which he had
gained no advantage over Maugrabin, and fell back to his accustomed post
beside the ladies.
We have already observed that a considerable degree of familiarity had
begun to establish itself between them. The elder Countess treated him
(being once well assured of the nobility of his birth) like a favoured
equal, and though her niece showed her regard to their protector less
freely, yet, under every disadvantage of bashfulness and timidity,
Quentin thought he could plainly perceive that his company and
conversation were not by any means indifferent to her.
Nothing gives such life and soul to youthful gaiety as the consciousness
that it is successfully received, and Quentin had accordingly, during
the former period of their journey, amused his fair charge with the
liveliness of his conversation and the songs and tales of his country,
the former of which he sang in his native language, while his efforts to
render the latter into his foreign and imperfect French, gave rise to
a hundred little mistakes and errors of speech, as diverting as the
narratives themselves. But on this anxious morning, he rode beside the
Ladies of Croye without any of his usual attempts to amuse them, and
they could not help observing his silence as something remarkable.
“Our young companion has seen a wolf,” said the Lady Hameline, alluding
to an ancient superstition, “and he has lost his tongue in consequence.”
[Vox quoque Moerim Jam fugit ipsa; lupi Moerim videre priores. Virgilii
ix. Ecloga. The commentators add, in explanation of this passage, the
opinion of Pliny: “The being beheld by a wolf in Italy is accounted
noxious, and is supposed to take away the speech of a man, if these
animals behold him ere he sees them.” S.]
“To say I had tracked a fox were nearer the mark,” thought Quentin, but
gave the reply no utterance.
“Are you well, Seignior Quentin?” said the Countess Isabelle, in a tone
of interest at which she herself blushed, while she felt that it was
something more than the distance between them warranted.
“He hath sat up carousing with the jolly friars,” said the Lady
Hameline, “the Scots are like the Germans, who spend all their mirth
over the Rheinwein, and bring only their staggering steps to the dance
in the evening, and their aching heads to the ladies' bower in the
morning.”
“Nay, gentle ladies,” said Quentin, “I deserve not your reproach. The
good friars were at their devotions almost all night, and for myself, my
drink was barely a cup of their thinnest and most ordinary wine.”
“It is the badness of his fare that has put him out of humour,” said the
Countess Isabelle. “Cheer up, Seignior Quentin, and should we ever visit
my ancient Castle of Bracquemont together, if I myself should stand your
cup bearer, and hand it to you, you shall have a generous cup of wine,
that the like never grew upon the vines of Hochheim or Johannisberg.”
“A glass of water, noble lady, from your hand,”--Thus far did Quentin
begin, but his voice trembled, and Isabelle continued, as if she had
been insensible of the tenderness of the accentuation upon the personal
pronoun.
“The wine was stocked in the deep vaults of Bracquemont, by my great
grandfather the Rhinegrave Godfrey,” said the Countess Isabelle.
“Who won the hand of her great grandmother,” interjected the Lady
Hameline, interrupting her niece, “by proving himself the best son of
chivalry, at the great tournament of Strasbourg--ten knights were slain
in the lists. But those days are now over, and no one now thinks of
encountering peril for the sake of honour, or to relieve distressed
beauty.”
To this speech, which was made in the tone in which a modern beauty,
whose charms are rather on the wane, may be heard to condemn the
rudeness of the present age, Quentin took upon him to reply that there
was no lack of that chivalry which the Lady Hameline seemed to consider
as extinct, and that, were it eclipsed everywhere else, it would still
glow in the bosoms of the Scottish gentlemen.
“Hear him!” said the Lady Hameline, “he would have us believe that in
his cold and bleak country still lives the noble fire which has decayed
in France and Germany! The poor youth is like a Swiss mountaineer, mad
with partiality to his native land--he will next tell us of the vines
and olives of Scotland.”
“No, madam,” said Durward, “of the wine and the oil of our mountains
I can say little more than that our swords can compel these rich
productions as tribute from our wealthier neighbours. But for the
unblemished faith and unfaded honour of Scotland, I must now put to the
proof how far you can repose trust in them, however mean the individual
who can offer nothing more as a pledge of your safety.”
“You speak mysteriously--you know of some pressing and present danger,”
said the Lady Hameline.
“I have read it in his eye for this hour past!” exclaimed the Lady
Isabelle, clasping her hands. “Sacred Virgin, what will become of us?”
“Nothing, I hope, but what you would desire,” answered Durward. “And now
I am compelled to ask--gentle ladies, can you trust me?”
“Trust you?” answered the Countess Hameline. “Certainly. But why the
question? Or how far do you ask our confidence?”
“I, on my part,” said the Countess Isabelle, “trust you implicitly, and
without condition. If you can deceive us, Quentin, I will no more look
for truth, save in Heaven!”
“Gentle lady,” replied Durward, highly gratified, “you do me but
justice. My object is to alter our route, by proceeding directly by
the left bank of the Maes to Liege, instead of crossing at Namur. This
differs from the order assigned by King Louis and the instructions given
to the guide. But I heard news in the monastery of marauders on the
right bank of the Maes, and of the march of Burgundian soldiers to
suppress them. Both circumstances alarm me for your safety. Have I your
permission so far to deviate from the route of your journey?”
“My ample and full permission,” answered the younger lady.
“Cousin,” said the Lady Hameline, “I believe with you that the youth
means us well--but bethink you--we transgress the instructions of King
Louis, so positively iterated.”
“And why should we regard his instructions?” said the Lady Isabelle. “I
am, I thank Heaven for it, no subject of his, and, as a suppliant, he
has abused the confidence he induced me to repose in him. I would not
dishonour this young gentleman by weighing his word for an instant
against the injunctions of yonder crafty and selfish despot.”
“Now, may God bless you for that very word, lady,” said Quentin,
joyously, “and if I deserve not the trust it expresses, tearing with
wild horses in this life and eternal tortures in the next were e'en too
good for my deserts.”
So saying, he spurred his horse, and rejoined the Bohemian. This worthy
seemed of a remarkably passive, if not a forgiving temper. Injury or
threat never dwelt, or at least seemed not to dwell in his recollection,
and he entered into the conversation which Durward presently commenced,
just as if there had been no unkindly word betwixt them in the course of
the morning.
The dog, thought the Scot, snarls not now, because he intends to clear
scores with me at once and for ever, when he can snatch me by the very
throat, but we will try for once whether we cannot foil a traitor at his
own weapons.
“Honest Hayraddin,” he said, “thou hast travelled with us for ten days,
yet hast never shown us a specimen of your skill in fortune telling,
which you are, nevertheless, so fond of practising that you must needs
display your gifts in every convent at which we stop, at the risk of
being repaid by a night's lodging under a haystack.”
“You have never asked me for a specimen of my skill,” said the gipsy.
“You are, like the rest of the world, contented to ridicule those
mysteries which they do not understand.”
“Give me then a present proof of your skill,” said Quentin and,
ungloving his hand, he held it out to the gipsy.
Hayraddin carefully regarded all the lines which crossed each other on
the Scotchman's palm, and noted, with equally Scrupulous attention, the
little risings or swellings at the roots of the fingers, which were
then believed as intimately connected with the disposition, habits, and
fortunes of the individual, as the organs of the brain are pretended to
be in our own time.
“Here is a hand,” said Hayraddin, “which speaks of toils endured, and
dangers encountered. I read in it an early acquaintance with the hilt
of the sword, and yet some acquaintance also with the clasps of the mass
book.”
“This of my past life you may have learned elsewhere,” said Quentin,
“tell me something of the future.”
“This line from the hill of Venus,” said the Bohemian, “not broken off
abruptly, but attending and accompanying the line of life, argues a
certain and large fortune by marriage, whereby the party shall be raised
among the wealthy and the noble by the influence of successful love.”
“Such promises you make to all who ask your advice,” said Quentin, “they
are part of your art.”
“What I tell you is as certain,” said Hayraddin, “as that you shall
in brief space be menaced with mighty danger, which I infer from
this bright blood red line cutting the table line transversely, and
intimating stroke of sword, or other violence, from which you shall only
be saved by the attachment of a faithful friend.”
“Thyself, ha?” said Quentin, somewhat indignant that the chiromantist
should thus practise on his credulity, and endeavour to found a
reputation by predicting the consequences of his own treachery.
“My art,” replied the Zingaro, “tells me naught that concerns myself.”
“In this, then, the seers of my land,” said Quentin, “excel your boasted
knowledge, for their skill teaches them the dangers by which they are
themselves beset. I left not my hills without having felt a portion of
the double vision with which their inhabitants are gifted, and I will
give thee a proof of it, in exchange for thy specimen of palmistry.
Hayraddin, the danger which threatens me lies on the right bank of the
river--I will avoid it by travelling to Liege on the left bank.”
The guide listened with an apathy, which, knowing the circumstances in
which Maugrabin stood, Quentin could not by any means comprehend.
“If you accomplish your purpose,” was the Bohemian's reply, “the
dangerous crisis will be transferred from your lot to mine.”
“I thought,” said Quentin, “that you said but now, that you could not
presage your own fortune?”
“Not in the manner in which I have but now told you yours,” answered
Hayraddin, “but it requires little knowledge of Louis of Valois, to
presage that he will hang your guide, because your pleasure was to
deviate from the road which he recommended.”
“The attaining with safety the purpose of the journey, and ensuring its
happy termination,” said Quentin, “must atone for a deviation from the
exact line of the prescribed route.”
“Ay,” replied the Bohemian, “if you are sure that the King had in his
own eye the same termination of the pilgrimage which he insinuated to
you.”
“And of what other termination is it possible that he could have been
meditating? or why should you suppose he had any purpose in his thought,
other than was avowed in his direction?” inquired Quentin.
“Simply,” replied the Zingaro, “that those who know aught of the Most
Christian King, are aware that the purpose about which he is most
anxious, is always that which he is least willing to declare. Let our
gracious Louis send twelve embassies, and I will forfeit my neck to
the gallows a year before it is due, if in eleven of them there is not
something at the bottom of the ink horn more than the pen has written in
the letters of credence.”
“I regard not your foul suspicions,” answered Quentin, “my duty is plain
and peremptory--to convey these ladies in safety to Liege, and I take
it on me to think that I best discharge that duty in changing our
prescribed route, and keeping the left side of the river Maes. It is
likewise the direct road to Liege. By crossing the river, we should lose
time and incur fatigue to no purpose--wherefore should we do so?”
“Only because pilgrims, as they call themselves, destined for Cologne,”
said Hayraddin, “do not usually descend the Maes so low as Liege, and
that the route of the ladies will be accounted contradictory of their
professed destination.”
“If we are challenged on that account,” said Quentin, “we will say that
alarms of the wicked Duke of Gueldres, or of William de la Marck, or of
the Ecorcheurs [flayers; a name given to bands of wandering troops on
account of their cruelty] and lanzknechts, on the right side of the
river, justify our holding by the left, instead of our intended route.”
“As you will, my good seignior,” replied the Bohemian. “I am, for my
part, equally ready to guide you down the left as down the right side of
the Maes. Your excuse to your master you must make out for yourself.”
Quentin, although rather surprised, was at the same time pleased with
the ready, or at least the unrepugnant acquiescence of Hayraddin in
their change of route, for he needed his assistance as a guide, and yet
had feared that the disconcerting of his intended act of treachery would
have driven him to extremity. Besides, to expel the Bohemian from their
society would have been the ready mode to bring down William de la
Marck, with whom he was in correspondence, upon their intended route,
whereas, if Hayraddin remained with them Quentin thought he could manage
to prevent the Moor from having any communication with strangers unless
he was himself aware of it.
Abandoning, therefore, all thoughts of their original route, the little
party followed that by the left bank of the broad Maes, so speedily and
successfully that the next day early brought them to the proposed end of
their journey. They found that the Bishop of Liege, for the sake of
his health, as he himself alleged, but rather, perhaps, to avoid being
surprised by the numerous and mutinous population of the city, had
established his residence in his beautiful Castle of Schonwaldt, about a
mile without Liege.
Just as they approached the Castle, they saw the Prelate returning
in long procession from the neighbouring city, in which he had been
officiating at the performance of High Mass. He was at the head of a
splendid train of religious, civil and military men, mingled together,
or, as the old ballad maker expresses it,
“With many a cross bearer before,
And many a spear behind.”
The procession made a noble appearance, as winding along the verdant
banks of the broad Maes, it wheeled into, and was as it were devoured
by, the huge Gothic portal of the Episcopal residence.
But when the party came more near, they found that circumstances around
the Castle argued a doubt and sense of insecurity, which contradicted
that display of pomp and power which they had just witnessed. Strong
guards of the Bishop's soldiers were heedfully maintained all around the
mansion and its immediate vicinity, and the prevailing appearances in
an ecclesiastical residence seemed to argue a sense of danger in the
reverend Prelate, who found it necessary thus to surround himself with
all the defensive precautions of war.
The Ladies of Croye, when announced by Quentin, were reverently ushered
into the great Hall, where they met with the most cordial reception from
the Bishop, who met them there at the head of his little Court. He would
not permit them to kiss his hand, but welcomed them with a salute, which
had something in it of gallantry on the part of a prince to fine women,
and something also of the holy affection of a pastor to the sisters of
his flock.
Louis of Bourbon, the reigning Bishop of Liege, was in truth a generous
and kind hearted prince, whose life had not indeed been always confined,
with precise strictness, within the bounds of his clerical profession,
but who, notwithstanding, had uniformly maintained the frank and
honourable character of the House of Bourbon, from which he was
descended.
In latter times, as age advanced, the Prelate had adopted habits more
beseeming a member of the hierarchy than his early reign had exhibited,
and was loved among the neighbouring princes, as a noble ecclesiastic,
generous and magnificent in his ordinary mode of life, though preserving
no very ascetic severity of character, and governing with an easy
indifference, which, amid his wealthy and mutinous subjects, rather
encouraged than subdued rebellious purposes.
The Bishop was so fast an ally of the Duke of Burgundy that the latter
claimed almost a joint sovereignty in his bishopric, and repaid the
good natured ease with which the Prelate admitted claims which he might
easily have disputed, by taking his part on all occasions with the
determined and furious zeal which was a part of his character. He
used to say he considered Liege as his own, the Bishop as his brother
(indeed, they might be accounted such, in consequence of the Duke's
having married for his first wife, the Bishop's sister), and that he who
annoyed Louis of Bourbon, had to do with Charles of Burgundy, a threat
which, considering the character and the power of the prince who used
it, would have been powerful with any but the rich and discontented city
of Liege, where much wealth had, according to the ancient proverb, made
wit waver.
The Prelate, as we have said, assured the Ladies of Croye of such
intercession as his interest at the Court of Burgundy, used to the
uttermost, might gain for them, and which, he hoped, might be the more
effectual, as Campobasso, from some late discoveries, stood rather lower
than formerly in the Duke's personal favour. He promised them also such
protection as it was in his power to afford, but the sigh with which he
gave the warrant seemed to allow that his power was more precarious than
in words he was willing to admit.
“At every event, my dearest daughters,” said the Bishop, with an air
in which, as in his previous salute, a mixture of spiritual unction
qualified the hereditary gallantry of the House of Bourbon, “Heaven
forbid I should abandon the lamb to the wicked wolf, or noble ladies
to the oppression of faitours. I am a man of peace, though my abode now
rings with arms, but be assured I will care for your safety as for my
own, and should matters become yet more distracted here, which, with Our
Lady's grace, we trust will be rather pacified than inflamed, we will
provide for your safe conduct to Germany, for not even the will of our
brother and protector, Charles of Burgundy, shall prevail with us to
dispose of you in any respect contrary to your own inclinations. We
cannot comply with your request of sending you to a convent, for, alas!
such is the influence of the sons of Belial among the inhabitants of
Liege, that we know no retreat to which our authority extends, beyond
the bounds of our own castle, and the protection of our soldiery. But
here you are most welcome, and your train shall have all honourable
entertainment, especially this youth whom you recommend so particularly
to our countenance, and on whom in especial we bestow our blessing.”
Quentin kneeled, as in duty bound, to receive the Episcopal benediction.
“For yourselves,” proceeded the good Prelate, “you shall reside here
with my sister Isabelle, a Canoness of Triers, with whom you may dwell
in all honour, even under the roof of so gay a bachelor as the Bishop of
Liege.”
He gallantly conducted the ladies to his sister's apartment, as he
concluded the harangue of welcome, and his Master of the Household,
an officer who, having taken Deacon's orders, held something between
a secular and ecclesiastical character, entertained Quentin with the
hospitality which his master enjoined, while the other personages of
the retinue of the Ladies of Croye were committed to the inferior
departments.
In this arrangement Quentin could not help remarking that the presence
of the Bohemian, so much objected to in the country convents, seemed, in
the household of this wealthy, and perhaps we might say worldly prelate,
to attract neither objection nor remark.