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[Illustration: Agincourt]
THE WORKS
OF
G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE AUTHOR.
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY PREFACE.
"D'autres auteurs l'ont encore plus avili, (le roman,) en y melant les
tableaux degoutant du vice; et tandis que le premier avantage des
fictions est de rassembler autour de l'homme tout ce qui, dans la
nature, peut lui servir de lecon ou de modele, on a imagine qu'on
tirerait une utilite quelconque des peintures odieuses de mauvaises
m[oe]urs; comme si elles pouvaient jamais laisser le c[oe]ur qui les
repousse, dans une situation aussi pure que le c[oe]ur qui les aurait
toujours ignorees. Mais un roman tel qu'on peut le concevoir, tel que
nous en avons quelques modeles, est une des plus belles productions de
l'esprit humain, une des plus influentes sur la morale des individus,
qui doit former ensuite les m[oe]urs publiques."--Madame De Stael.
_Essai sur les Fictions_.
"Poca favilla gran flamma seconda:
Forse diretro a me, con miglior voci
Si preghera, perche Cirra risponda."
Dante. _Paradiso_, Canto I.
VOL. XX.
AGINCOURT.
LONDON:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.
STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
MDCCCXLIX.
AGINCOURT.
A Romance.
BY
G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
* * * * *
LONDON:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.
STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
MDCCCXLIX.
AGINCOURT.
* * *
CHAPTER I.
THE NIGHT RIDE.
The night was as black as ink; not a solitary twinkling star looked
out through that wide expanse of shadow, which our great Poet has
called the "blanket of the dark;" clouds covered the heaven; the moon
had not risen to tinge them even with grey, and the sun had too long
set to leave one faint streak of purple upon the edge of the western
sky. Trees, houses, villages, fields, and gardens, all lay in one
profound obscurity, and even the course of the high-road itself
required eyes well-accustomed to night-travelling to be able to
distinguish it, as it wandered on through a rich part of Hampshire,
amidst alternate woods and meadows. Yet at that murky hour, a
traveller on horseback rode forward upon his way, at an easy pace, and
with a light heart, if one might judge by the snatches of homely
ballads that broke from his lips as he trotted on. These might,
indeed, afford a fallacious indication of what was going on within the
breast, and in his case they did so; for habit is more our master than
we know, and often rules our external demeanour, whenever the spirit
is called to take council in the deep chambers within, showing upon
the surface, without any effort on our part to hide our thoughts, a
very different aspect from that of the mind's business at the moment.
Thus, then, the traveller who there rode along, saluting the ear of
night with scraps of old songs, sung in a low, but melodious voice,
was as thoughtful, if not as sad, as it was in his nature to be; but
yet, as that nature was a cheerful one and all his habits were gay, no
sooner were the eyes of the spirit called to the consideration of
deeper things, than custom exercised her sway over the animal part,
and he gave voice, as we have said, to the old ballads which had
cheered his boyhood and his youth.
Whatever were his contemplations, they were interrupted, just as he
came to a small stream which crossed the road and then wandered along
at its side, by first hearing the quick foot-falls of a horse
approaching, and then a loud, but fine voice, exclaiming, "Who goes
there?"
"A friend to all true men," replied the traveller; "a foe to all false
knaves. 'Merry sings the throstle under the thorn.' Which be you,
friend of the highway?"
"Faith, I hardly know," replied the stranger; "every man is a bit of
both, I believe. But if you can tell me my way to Winchester, I will
give you thanks."
"I want nothing more," answered the first traveller, drawing in his
rein. "But Winchester!--Good faith, that is a long way off; and you
are going from it, master:" and he endeavoured, as far as the darkness
would permit, to gain some knowledge of the stranger's appearance. It
seemed that of a young man of good proportions, tall and slim, but
with broad shoulders and long arms. He wore no cloak, and his dress
fitting tight to his body, as was the fashion of the day, allowed his
interlocutor to perceive the unencumbered outline of his figure.
"A long way off!" said the second traveller, as his new acquaintance
gazed at him; "that is very unlucky; but all my stars are under that
black cloud. What is to be done now, I wonder?"
"What do you want to do?" inquired the first traveller. "Winchester is
distant five and twenty miles or more."
"Odds life! I want to find somewhere to lodge me and my horse for a
night," replied the other, "at a less distance than twenty-five miles,
and yet not quite upon this very spot."
"Why not Andover?" asked his companion; "'tis but six miles, and I am
going thither."
"Humph!" said the stranger, in a tone not quite satisfied; "it must be
so, if better cannot be found; and yet, my friend, I would fain find
some other lodging. Is there no inn hard by, where carriers bait their
beasts and fill their bellies, and country-folks carouse on nights of
merry-making? or some old hall or goodly castle, where a truckle bed,
or one of straw, a nunchion of bread and cheese, and a draught of ale,
is not likely to be refused to a traveller with a good coat on his
back and long-toed shoes?"
"Oh, ay!" rejoined the first; "of the latter there are many round,
but, on my life, it will be difficult to direct you to them. The men
of this part have a fondness for crooked ways, and, unless you were
the Daedalus who made them, or had some fair dame to guide you by the
clue, you might wander about for as many hours as would take you to
Winchester."
"Then Andover it must be, I suppose," answered the other; "though, to
say sooth, I may there have to pay for a frolic, the score of which
might better be reckoned with other men than myself."
"A frolic!" said his companion; "nothing more, my friend?"
"No, on my life!" replied the other; "a scurvy frolic, such as only a
fool would commit; but when a man has nothing else to do, he is sure
to fall into folly, and I am idle perforce."
"Well, I'll believe you," answered the first, after a moment's
thought; "I have, thank Heaven, the gift of credulity, and believe all
that men tell me. Come, I will turn back with you, and guide you to a
place of rest, though I shall be well laughed at for my pains."
"Not for an act of generous courtesy, surely," said the stranger,
quitting the half-jesting tone in which he had hitherto spoken. "If
they laugh at you for that, I care not to lodge with them, and will
not put your kindness to the test, for I should look for a cold
reception."
"Nay, nay, 'tis not for that, they will laugh," rejoined the other,
"and perhaps it may jump with my humour to go back, too. If you have
committed a folly in a frolic to-night, I have committed one in anger.
Come with me, therefore, and, as we go, give me some name by which to
call you when we arrive, that I may not have to throw you into my
uncle's hall as a keeper with a dead deer; and, moreover, before we
go, give me your word that we have no frolics here, for I would not,
for much, that any one I brought, should move the old knight's heart
with aught but pleasure."
"There is my hand, good youth," replied the stranger, following, as
the other turned his horse; "and I never break my word, whatever men
say of me, though they tell strange tales. As for my name, people call
me Hal of Hadnock; it will do as well as another."
"For the nonce," added his companion, understanding well that it was
assumed; "but it matters not. Let us ride on, and the gate shall soon
be opened to you; for I do think they will be glad to see me back
again, though I may not perchance stay long.
'The porter rose anon certaine
As soon as he heard John call.'"
"You seem learned for a countryman," said the traveller, riding on by
his side; "but, perchance, I am speaking to a clerk?"
"Good faith, no," replied the first wayfarer; "more soldier than
clerk, Hal of Hadnock; as old Robert of Langland says, 'I cannot
perfectly my Paternoster, as the priest it singeth, but I can rhyme of
Robin Hode and Randof Earl of Chester.' I have cheered my boyhood with
many a song and my youth with many a ballad. When lying in the field
upon the marches of Wales, I have wiled away many a cold night with
the--
'Quens Mountfort, sa dure mort,'
or,
'Richard of Alemaigne, while he was king,'
and then in the cold blasts of March, I ever found comfort in--
'Summer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu,
Groweth sede and bloweth mode,
And springeth the wode nu.'"
"And good reason, too," said Hal of Hadnock; "I do the same, i'faith;
and when wintry winds are blowing, I think ever, that a warmer day may
come and all be bright again. Were it not for that, indeed, I might
well be cold-hearted."
"Fie, never flinch!" cried his gay companion; "there is but one thing
on earth should make a bold man coldhearted."
"And what may that be?" asked the other; "to lose his dinner?"
"No, good life!" exclaimed the first,--"to lose his lady's love."
"Ay, is it there the saddle galls?" said Hal of Hadnock.
"Faith, not a whit," answered his fellow-traveller; "if it did, I
should leave off singing. You are wrong in your guess, Master Hal. I
may lose my lady, but not my lady's love, or I am much mistaken; and
while that stays with me I will both sing and hope."
"'Tis the best comfort," replied Hal of Hadnock, "and generally brings
success. But what am I to call you, fair sir? for it mars one's speech
to have no name for a companion."
"Now, were not my uncle's house within three miles," said the other,
"I would pay you in your own coin, and bid you call me Dick of
Andover; for I am fond of secrets, and keep them faithfully, except
when they are likely to be found out; but such being the case now, you
must call me Richard of Woodville, if you would have my friends know
you mean a poor squire who has ever sought the places where hard blows
are plenty; but who missed his spurs at Bramham Moor by being sent by
his good friend Sir Thomas Rokeby to bear tidings of Northumberland's
incursion to the King. I would fain have staid and carried news of the
victory; but, good sooth, Sir Thomas said he could trust me to tell
the truth clearly as well as fight, and that, though he could trust
the others to fight, he could not find one who would not make the
matter either more or less to the King, than it really was. See what
bad luck it is to be a plain-spoken fellow."
"Good luck as well as bad," replied Hal of Hadnock; and in such
conversation they pursued their way, riding not quite so fast as
either had been doing when first they met, and slackening their pace
to a walk, when, about half a mile farther forward, they quitted the
high road and took to the narrow lanes of the country, which, as the
reader may easily conceive, were not quite as good for travelling in
those days, as even at present, when in truth they are often bad
enough. They soon issued forth, however, upon a more open track, where
the river again ran along by the roadside, sheltered here and there by
copses which occasionally rose from the very brink; and, just as they
regained it, the moon appearing over the low banks that fell crossing
each other over its course, poured, from beneath the fringe of heavy
clouds that canopied the sky above, her full pale light upon the whole
extent of the stream. There was something fine but melancholy in the
sight, grave and even grand; and though there were none of those large
objects which seem generally necessary to produce the sublime, there
was a feeling of vastness given by the broad expanse of shadow
overhead, and the long line of glistening brightness below, broken by
the thick black masses of brushwood that here and there bent over the
flat surface of the water.
"This is fine," said Hal of Hadnock; "I love such night scenes with
the solitary moon and the deep woods and the gleaming river--ay, even
the dark clouds themselves. They are to me like a king's fate, where
so many heavy things brood over him, so many black and impenetrable
things surround him, and where yet often a clear yet cold effulgence
pours upon his way, grander and calmer than the warmer and gayer beams
that fall upon the course of ordinary men."
His companion turned and gazed at him for a moment by the moonlight,
but made no observation, till the other continued, pointing with his
hand, "What is that drifting on the water? Surely 'tis a man's head!"
"An otter with a trout in his mouth, speeding to his hole," replied
Richard of Woodville; "he will not be long in sight.--See! he is gone.
All things fly from man. We have established our character for
butchery with the brute creation; and they wisely avoid the
slaughter-house of our presence."
"I thought it was something human, living or dead," replied Hal of
Hadnock. "Methinks it were a likely spot for a man to rid himself of
his enemy, and give the carrion to the waters; or for a love-lorn
damsel to bury griefs and memories beneath the sleepy shining of the
moonlight stream. The Leucadian promontory was an awful leap, and bold
as well as sad must have been the heart to take it; but here, timid
despair might creep quietly into the soft closing wave, and find a
more peaceful death-bed than the slow decay of a broken-heart."
"Sad thoughts, sir, sad thoughts," replied Richard of Woodville; "and
yet you seemed merry enough just now."
"Ay, the fit comes upon me as it will, comrade," replied the other;
"and, good faith, I strive not to prevent it. I amuse myself with my
own humours, standing, as it were, without myself, and looking inward
like a spectator at a tournay--now laughing at all I see, now ready to
weep; and yet for the world I would not stop the scene, were it in my
power to cast down my warder at the keenest point of strife, and say,
'Pause! no more!' Sometimes there lives not a merrier heart on this
side the sea, and sometimes not a sadder within the waters. At one
time I could laugh like a clown at a fair, and at others would make
ballads to the little stars, full of sad homilies."
"Not so, I," rejoined Richard of Woodville. "I strive for an equal
mind. I would fain be always light-hearted; and though, when I am
crossed, I may be hot and hasty, ready to strive with others or
myself, yet, in good truth, I soon learn to bear with all things, and
to endure the ills that fall to my portion, as lightly as may be.
Man's a beast of burden, and must carry his pack-saddle; so it is
better to do it quietly than to kick under the load. Out upon those
who go seeking for sorrows, a sort of commodity they may find at their
own door! One whines over man's ingratitude; another takes to heart
the scorn of the great; another broods over his merit neglected, and
his good deeds forgotten; but, were they wise, and did good without
thought of thanks--were they high of heart, and knew themselves as
great in their inmost soul as the greatest in the land--were they
bright in mind, and found pleasure in the mind's exercise--they would
both merit more and repine less, ay, and be surer of their due in the
end."
"By my life, you said you were no clerk, Richard of Woodville," cried
his companion, "and here you have preached me a sermon, fit to banish
moon-sick melancholy from the land. But say, good youth, is yonder
light looking out of your uncle's hall window--there, far on the other
side of the stream?"
"No, no," answered Woodville; "ride after it, and see how far it will
lead you. You will soon find yourself neck deep in the swamp. 'Tis a
Will-o'-the-wisp. My uncle's house lies on before, beyond the village
of Abbot's Ann, just a quarter of a mile from the Abbey; so, as the
one brother owns the hall, and the other rules the monastery, they can
aid and countenance each other, whether it be at a merrymaking or a
broil. Then, too, as the good Abbot is as meek as an ewe in a May
morning, and Sir Philip is as fiery as the sun in June, the one can
tame the other's wrath, or work up his courage, as the case may
be--but here we see the first houses, and lights in the window, too.
Why, how now! Dame Julien has not gone to bed--but, I forgot, there is
a glutton mass to-morrow, and, as the reeve's wife, she must be
cooking capons, truly. But, hark! there is a sound of a cithern, and
some one singing. Good faith, they are making merry by their fireside,
though curfew has tolled long since. Well, Heaven send all good men a
cheerful evening, and a happy hearth! Perhaps they have some poor
minstrel within, and are keeping up his heart with kindness; for
Julien is a bountiful dame, and the reeve, though somewhat hard upon
the young knaves, is no way pinched when there is a sad face at his
door. Well, fair sir, we shall soon be home. A pleasant place is home;
ay, it is a pleasant place, and, when far away, we think of it always.
God help the man who has no home! and let all good Christians befriend
him, for he has need."
Although Hal of Hadnock made no farther observations upon his
companion's mood and character, there was something therein that
struck and pleased him greatly; and he was no mean judge of his
fellow-men, for he had mingled with many of every class and degree.
Quick and ready in discovering, by small traits, the secrets of that
complicated mystery, the human heart, he saw, even in the love of
music and poetry, in a man habituated to camps and fields of battle, a
higher and finer mind than the common society of the day afforded; for
it must not be thought, that either in the knight or the knight's son,
of our old friend Chaucer, the poet gave an accurate picture of the
gentry of the age. That there were such is not to be doubted--but they
were few; and the generality of the nobles and gentlemen of those
times were sadly illiterate and rude. The occasional words Richard of
Woodville let drop, too, regarding his own scheme of home philosophy,
showed, his companion thought, a strength and rigour of character
which might be serviceable to others as well as himself, in any good
and honourable cause; and Hal of Hadnock, as they rode on, said to
himself, "I will see more of this man."
After passing through the little village, and issuing out again into
the open country, they saw, by the light of the moon, now rising
higher, and dispersing the clouds as she advanced, a high isolated
hill standing out, detached from all the woods and scattered
hedge-rows round. At a little distance from its base, upon the left,
appeared the tall pinnacles and tower of an abbey and a church,
cutting dark against the lustrous sky behind; and, partly hidden by
the trees on the right, partly rising above them, were seen the bold
lines of another building, in a sterner style of architecture.
"That is your uncle's dwelling, I suppose?" said Hal of Hadnock,
pointing on with his hand. "Shall we find any one up? It is hard upon
ten o'clock."
"Oh, no fear," replied Richard of Woodville. "Good Sir Philip
Beauchamp sits late in the hall. He will not take his white head to
the pillow for an hour or two; and the ladies like well to keep him
company. Here, to the left, is a shorter way through the wood; but
look to your horse's footing, for the woodmen were busy this morning,
and may have left branches about."
In less than five minutes more they were before the embattled gates of
one of those old English dwellings, half castle, half house, which
denoted the owner to be a man of station and consideration--just a
step below, in fortune or rank, those mighty barons who sheltered
themselves from the storms of a factious and lawless epoch, in
fortresses filled with an army of retainers and dependants. As they
approached, Richard of Woodville raised his voice and called aloud,
"Tim Morris! Tim Morris!" He waited a moment, singing to himself the
two verses he had repeated before--
"'The porter rose again certaine
As soon as he heard John call;'"
and then added, "But it will be different now, I fancy; for honest Tim
is as deaf as a miller, and his boy is sound asleep, I suspect. Tim
Morris, I say!--He will keep us here all night:--Tim Morris!--How now,
old sluggard!" he continued, as the ancient porter rolled back the
gate; "were you snoring in your wicker-chair, that you make us dance
attendance, as you do the country folk of a Monday morning?"
"'Tis fit they should learn to dance the Morris dance, as they call
it, Master Dick," answered the porter, laughing, and holding up his
lantern. "God yield ye, sir! I thought you were gone for the night,
and I was stripping off my jerkin."
"Is Simeon of Roydon gone, then?" asked Woodville.
"Nay, sir, he stays all night," answered the porter. "Here, boy! here,
knave! turn thee out, and run across the court to take the horses."
A sleepy boy, with senses yet but half awake, crept out from the door,
and followed Richard of Woodville and his companion, as they rode
across the small space that separated the gate from the Hall itself.
There, at a flight of steps, leading to a portal which might well
have served a church, they dismounted; and, advancing before his
fellow-traveller, Richard of Woodville raised the heavy bar of
hammered iron, which served for a latch, and entered the hall, singing
aloud--
"'As I rode on a Monday,
Between Wettenden and Wall,
All along the broad way,
I met a little man withal.'"
As he spoke he pushed back the door for Hal of Hadnock to enter, and a
scene was presented to his companion's sight which deserves rather to
begin than end a chapter.