THE STRUGGLE IN THE DARK.
"Hold!" cried the newcomer. "Which is for the Archbishop--under dog or
upper dog? A plague on this darkness which lets me see distinctly
neither one nor the other."
Surrey underneath could not speak, and Conrad above thought it more
prudent not to speak.
"Answer, upper dog," cried Roger Kent, peering at them, "or take your
fingers from the under dog's throat and let him answer, otherwise I will
run my knife into you on the chance that you are my enemy."
"You are free," said Conrad, maintaining his hold, but conscious that he
had little chance against the two of them, "therefore declare yourself."
"I have no shame in doing so. I fight for the Archbishop and the
Church."
"Then stand aside and see whether Archbishop or Black Count wins."
"Nay, that I will not do. You are no true follower of the Church or you
would call me to your aid. Release your hold of the other's throat, or I
will draw my knife across yours."
Conrad, seeing that the game was up, and guessing also that the two were
not comrades and accomplices, as he had at first supposed, relaxed his
hold and stood up. The other lay gasping where he had fallen.
"Now speak, fellow, an' enough breath has returned to you; are you for
the White Cross or the Black Count?"
With some difficulty Surrey rose to a sitting posture, and said at last:
"Indeed I think I must be the Black Count himself, for with the choking
I have had, my face, could any see it, more nearly resembles that of His
Swarthiness than it does the lilies of the field."
"Is it you, archer?" asked Conrad in surprise, stepping forward.
"Yes," answered Surrey and Kent simultaneously, then the former added,
shaking himself as he rose to his feet, "at least it was me before your
most unlooked for interference, but who I am now it is beyond me
accurately to tell. If you are Conrad, then what the devil do you here
out of the castle on the hillside after midnight, when all honest folk,
except those on watch, should be sleeping soundly on straw?"
"If it comes to that," replied Conrad, "what do you here, honest
watchman, who at this moment are supposed to be faithfully guarding the
battlements of Castle Thuron?"
"That in truth is a knotty question to answer, and I confess myself
grievously in the wrong, in thus breaking my watch, and feel the more
inclined to say, let us make a pact together, for if you inform not on
me, then is my mouth shut regarding your own flagrant delinquencies.
These I find hard to pardon, for a man owes it to his comrades during
besiegement to stand by them and not to be found coming up from the camp
of the enemy."
"I am not on guard, and therefore have broken no oath. My desertion is
as white compared to thine as was my face to thine a few moments since."
"True, true. There is much to be said on both sides of the question, and
if I had the judging in the matter we should each of us hang, that is,
did the cases come impartially before me, without personal consequences
affecting me in any way. And to think that I once had the privilege of
sending an arrow through you at three yards distance, was begged to
speed it, and neglected the opportunity! It serves me right well to be
choked for thus putting aside the gifts of Providence."
"I am truly sorry I laid hands on you, but I was looking for an attack
by the Archbishop's men, and when you came suddenly upon me I did what
seemed best, for it is ill running up the hill, and I feared to run down
as I heard this fellow on my track."
"I was journeying to meet my friend," said Roger, "and had no thought
that any was before me until I heard the struggle. We seem all three
equally foolish and equally guilty, therefore let us all forgive one
another, as becomes Christians."
"I bear no malice," said Surrey; "but I will say that had he not taken
me unaware, as I was looking for a friend, the contest might have turned
out differently. Still it matters little, unless they have discovered my
absence in the castle and have sent Conrad in search of me, in the which
case I had better abandon bow and take to the camp of the Archbishops.
Were you looking for me, Conrad? If not, why are you here?"
"I left the castle long before you did, most like. I went to the village
to find Hilda, who was with us on the voyage down from Treves."
"Ah, that is the wench for whose sake you risked having an arrow hurtled
through your vitals at Zurlauben, and, learning nothing, stake your life
for her again. The folly of man!"
"Judge him not harshly, John," murmured the poet. "Admire rather the
power wielded by true love. 'Tis the most beautiful thing on earth: the
noblest passion that inspires the human breast. That a man should gladly
venture his life on the chance of a few words with his beloved, shows us
this world is not the sordid, disputatious place we sometimes fancy it
to be. What other motive could so influence a man?"
"Tush, Roger!" cried his friend, with some impatience. "Your head is
ever in the clouds, and you therefore see not what lies at your feet.
Thousands of men continually risk their lives, and lose them, for less
than threepence a day. No such motive as love! Nonsense! Friendship is
every whit as strong, and we stand here to prove it, who have both this
night risked our lives that we may but talk with one another. Out upon
rhapsodies."
"Nay, John, if you were a true poet you would not speak in gross
ignorance as now you do. If you try to weave friendship into verse you
will find that it rouses not the warmth which the smaller word 'love'
calls forth. I say nothing against friendship, for I have tasted the
sweets of it, and I know nothing of love, having never myself
experienced a touch of it, but I find that in the making of poetry love
is the most useful of all the themes that a poet may play upon. Yet have
I but to-day accomplished a poem on the delights of friendship, which I
will now recite to you both, and which I think does justice to the
subject in a manner that has hitherto been withheld from all writers,
save perhaps Homer himself!"
"I must be gone to the castle," said Conrad.
"We will walk up the hill with you," rejoined Surrey, "and, Conrad, I
wish you would take my watch on the wall till I relieve you. I desire to
have converse with my friend here, and we will sit under the wall, where
you can give me timely warning if you hear any one approach from within,
although I think such interruption most unlikely. Was it on your rope I
descended, I wonder?"
"I left a rope dangling at the north-west corner."
"That was it. I marvelled how it came there, and thought it had been
flung up by the besiegers, remaining unseen by the garrison. Will you,
then, take my watch for a time, Conrad?"
"Surely. 'Tis but slight recompense for the choking I----"
"Yes, yes," interrupted the archer, hurriedly, "we will not speak of
that, for you took me by surprise. Mount to the battlements, and you
will find my pike lying on the top of the wall near the place of
descent."
They had by this time reached the castle, and there they stood for a few
moments and listened, but everything was quiet, and Conrad, aided by the
hanging rope, ascended to the top, while the two archers sat down at
the foot of the northern tower.
"The poem on 'Friendship,'--" began Roger.
"Yes," broke in his friend, "we will come to it presently. How is it you
are fighting for the Archbishop?"
"How is it you sent no word back to me as you promised to do?"
"That is a long story. They would not even let me enter Treves, for
there was nothing of all this afoot when I was there. On finding service
at last, having journeyed to a hill-top within a league of this place, I
tried to send tidings to you by the young man who has just left us, but
he was baffled and turned back by the forces of the Archbishop, and
could no more get to Treves than I could enter it once I was at its
gates. We are all prisoners here, and until your arrow tapped my steel
cap I knew not where you were."
"Hearing nothing I went to Treves in search of you, regretting I had not
accompanied you, but you know there were important poems that I wished
to complete when you left me--they are all finished now, and it would
have done you good to hear them, in fact, it was that which made me
follow you to Treves, for the consummation of a poem is the listening to
it. There is one set of verses on 'Sleep' that luckily I remember, and
can recite, if you will but harken."
"What happened when you reached Treves?"
"I made enquiry concerning you from all with whom I could gain speech,
but there was nothing save talk of war in the place, and nowhere could I
hear aught of you. One army had already left Treves, marching eastward,
and another was then filling its ranks. The officer I spoke with, who
was inducing all he could to join, offering great chances of plunder
when the castle was taken, said he remembered you well, and that you had
gone with the first army, leaving word that I was to join and follow
you."
"The liar. I wonder the Archbishop retains the service of such,
although perhaps he does not know his officers hold the truth in
contempt."
"It is strange you should refer so warmly to truth, for I esteem it the
choicest of all virtues, and have written a poem on 'Whiterobed Truth,'
which I hope remains in my memory, seeing it is so dark that no reading
may be done. It begins----"
"You believed him, of course, and enlisted with him?"
"Yes. He said we should find you here, and so indeed have I, but in the
opposite camp. I marched with them down the river, and when we arrived I
heard such wonderful stories of an infallible archer in the castle that
I knew he must be you."
"Yes," cried John, rubbing his hands together in glee, "it was the most
heavenly opportunity ever bestowed upon a mortal man. I wish you had
been there to see. I was in the tower above the enemy, and I shot them
in the neck, stringing them one after another on the shafts, like
running skewers in a round of beef. Not one did I miss."
"Oh, 'tis easily done," commented Roger, carelessly. "'Tis instinct,
largely; you glance at your mark, and next instant your arrow is there."
"Roger Kent," replied the other, in a despondent tone, "I have on
various occasions passed favourable judgment on your poems; I think you
might, in return, admit that I am at least proficient in the rudiments
of archery."
"John Surrey, I have more than once expressed the opinion, which I still
hold, that you will in time, with careful practice, become a creditable
archer. You would not have me say more and thus forswear myself."
"No," admitted John; "I am well content when you say as much, and now if
it pleases you I will listen to as many of your verses as you can
conveniently remember."
Surrey leaned back against the wall with a deep sigh, and the other,
his voice vibrant with enthusiasm said:
"I will recite you first the poem on 'Friendship,' in honour of our
meeting, and then you shall hear the verses on 'Sleep,' which come the
more timely on an occasion when we both deprive ourselves of it, in
order to hear verse which you will be the first to admit is well worth
the sacrifice."
The poet then delivered his lines in smooth and measured tones, to which
the other listened without comment. From poem to poem Roger Kent glided,
sometimes interlarding the pauses between with a few sentences
describing how the following effort came to maturity, thus cementing the
poems together with their history, as a skilful mason lays his mortar
between the stones. No literary enthusiast could have had a more patient
listener, and the night wore on to the tuneful cadence of the poet's
voice. At last he ceased. The steps of the patient Conrad on the
battlements echoed in the still night air.
"Those are all the poems I can remember," he said, "and you see that I
have not misspent the time while you were journeying down the Moselle. I
do not know when I have had a more fruitful season. If I could but
deliver these verses to some monk who would inscribe them on lasting
parchment, for future ages to discuss and con over, I would be a happy
man. Alas, the monks care not to write of aught save the sayings of the
Fathers of the Church, and look askance at poems dealing with human
instincts and passions that are beyond the precincts of the cloister,
even though such poems tend to the future enrichment of literature, had
the holy men but the mind to appreciate them. Thus I fear my verse will
be lost to the world and that, in this deplorably contentious existence
which we lead, my span may be suddenly at an end, with none to put in
permanent form the work to which my life has been devoted. What poem,
think you, of all you have heard, is the most likely to live after we
are gone?"
There was no reply, and in the silence that followed, the even
breathing of John Surrey brought to the mind of the poet the well nigh
incredible suspicion that his friend was asleep. This suspicion,
however, he dismissed as unworthy of either of them, and he shook his
comrade by the shoulder, repeating his question.
"Eh? What?" cried John. "Take your hand from my throat, villain."
"My hand is not on your throat but on your shoulder, and I misdoubt you
have for some time been asleep."
"Asleep?" cried John, with honest indignation. "I was far from being
asleep. When you stopped reciting I had but let my mind wander for a
moment on the rough usage I had had from Conrad, who pretended he did
not know me. I'll wing a shaft by his ear so close that it will make him
jump a dozen yards, and for the space while he counts ten he will be
uncertain whether he is in this world or the next. I called him villain,
and I stick to it."
"But what call you my poems?"
"They are grand--all of them. You are getting better and better at
rhyming; I swear by the bow, you are. I never heard anything to equal
them."
"Indeed," replied the poet, complacently, "a man should improve with
age, like good wine, if he have the right stuff in him, but though all
are so good, there is surely some poem better than the rest, as in a
company of men one must stand taller than his fellows. Which was it,
John?"
"The last one you recited seemed to me the best," said John, scratching
his head dubiously, and then not having the sense to let well enough
alone, added, "the one on 'Sleep.'"
The poet rose to his feet and spoke with justifiable indignation.
"I have recited to you a score since that, you sluggard. You have indeed
been asleep."
"I said not the last, but the first. I say the poem on 'Sleep' is the
best, and that I hold to."
"The first was on 'Friendship,'" said the poet gloomily.
"Nay, I count not the one on 'Friendship' as aught but the introduction.
'Twas given, you said, in honour of our meeting, therefore I regard the
one on 'Sleep' as the beginning, and although all are good, that seemed,
in my poor judgment, the best."
"I had hoped you would have liked the one on 'Woman's Love,'" murmured
Roger, evidently mollified.
"Ah, Roger, what can you expect of a hardened bachelor like me? There
was a time when I would have thrown up my cap and proclaimed that poem
master of them all, which doubtless it will be accounted in the
estimation of the world. Even I admit it was enough to make my old bones
burn again, and while you were reciting it, I was glad young Conrad was
not here, else he had straightway run to Alken in his own despite. That
poem will be the favourite of lovers all the world over; I am sure of
it."
"Say you so, honest John?" cried Roger, with glee. "It is indeed my own
hope. You were the truest and wisest of critics, and no bowman in all
Germany can match you. Forgive me that I mistook your meditation for
slumber. And now, good night, old friend; we will meet again when I have
composed some others, although I doubt if I ever do anything as good as
that one."
And thereupon the friends embraced and parted, each glowing with the
praise of the other.