My horse is weary of the stall, And I am sick of captive thrall.--LADY
OF THE LAKE
Letters! They were hailed like drops of water in a thirsty land. No
doubt they had been long on the way, ere they had reached the hands of
the Chevalier de Ribaumont, and it was quite possible that they had been
read and selected; but, as Berenger said, he defied any Frenchman to
imitate either Lord Walwyn’s style or Sir Marmaduke’s, and when late
in the autumn the packet was delivered to him, the two captives gloated
over the very outsides before they opened them.
The first intelligence that greeted them made them give a cry of
amusement and surprise. Lady Thistlewood, whose regrets that each of her
girls was not a boy had passed into a proverb, had at length, in Dolly’s
seventh year, given birth to a son on Midsummer Day.
‘Well,’ said Philip, sighing, ‘we must drink his health tonight! It is
well, if we are to rot here, that some one should make it up to them!’
‘And join Walwyn and Hurst!’ said Berenger; and then both faces grew
much graver, as by these letters, dated three months since, they
understood how many they must have missed, and likewise that nothing had
been heard of themselves since they had left Paris sixteen months ago.
Their letters, both to their relations and to Sir Francis Walsingham,
had evidently been suppressed; and Lord North, who had succeeded
Walsingham as ambassador, had probably been misled by design, either
by Narcisse de Nid-de-Merle himself, or by some of his agents, for Lord
Walwyn had heard from him that the young men were loitering among the
castles and garrisons of Anjou, leading a gay and dissipated life,
and that it was universally believed that the Baron de Ribaumont had
embraced the Catholic faith, and would shortly be presented to Henry
III. to receive the grant of the Selinville honours, upon his
marriage with his cousin, the widow of the last of the line. With much
earnestness and sorrow did good old Lord Walwyn write to his grandson,
conjuring him to bethink himself of his some, his pure faith, his loving
friends, and the hopes of his youth: and, at least, if he himself had
been led away by the allurements of the other party, to remember that
Philip had been intrusted to him in full confidence, and to return him
to his home. ‘It was grief and shame to him,’ said the good old man,
‘to look at Sir Marmaduke, who had risked his son in the charge of one
hitherto deemed trustworthy; and even if Berenger had indeed forgotten
and cast away those whom he had once seemed to regard with love and
duty, he commanded him to send home Philip, who owed an obedience to
his father that could not be gainsaid.’ Lord Walwyn further bade his
grandson remember that the arrangements respecting his inheritance had
been made in confidence that his heir was English in heart and faith,
and that neither the Queen nor his own conscience would allow him to let
his inheritance pass into French of Papist hands. There was scarcely a
direct reproach, but the shaken, altered handwriting showed how stricken
the aged man must be; and after his signature was added one still more
trembling line, ‘An ye return not speedily, ye will never see the old
grandsire more.’
Berenger scarcely finished the letter through his burning tears of
agony, and then, casting it from him, began to pace the room in fierce
agitation, bursting out into incoherent exclamations, grasping at
his hair, even launching himself against the massive window with such
frenzied gestures and wild words that Philip, who had read through all
with his usual silent obtuseness, became dismayed, and, laying hold of
him, said, ‘Prithee, brother, do not thus! What serves such passion?’
Berenger burst into a strange loud laugh at the matter-of-fact tone.
‘What serves it! what serves anything!’ he cried, ‘but to make me feel
what a miserable wretch I am? But he will die, Philip--he will die--not
having believed me! How shall we keep ourselves from the smooth-tongued
villain’s throat? That I should be thus judged a traitor by my
grandfather----’
And with a cry as of bodily anguish, he hid his face on the table, and
groaned as he felt the utter helplessness of his strong youth in bonds.
‘It can’t be helped,’ was the next of the unconsolatory platitudes
uttered by Philip, who always grew sullen and dogged when his brother’s
French temperament broke forth under any sudden stroke. ‘If they will
believe such things, let them! You have not heard what my father says to
it.’
‘It will be all the same,’ groaned Berenger.
‘Nay! now that’s a foul slander, and you should be ashamed of doing my
father such wrong,’ said Philip, ‘Listen;’ and he read: ‘I will believe
no ill of the lad no more than of thee, Phil. It is but a wild-goose
chase, and the poor young woman is scarce like to be above ground;
but, as I daily tell them, ‘tis hard a man should forfeit his land for
seeking his wife. My Lord North sends rumours that he is under Papist
guiding, and sworn brother with the Black Ribaumonts; and my Lady, his
grandmother, is like to break her heart, and my Lord credits them more
than he ought, and never a line as a token comes from you. Then there’s
Dame Annora, as proud of the babe as though neither she nor woman born
ever had a son before, and plains over him, that both his brothers
should be endowed, and he but a younger son. What will be the end on’t I
cannot tell. I will stand up for the right as best man may do, and never
forget that Berry is her first-born, and that his child may be living;
but the matter is none of mine, and my Lord is very aged, nor can a man
meddle between his wife and her father. So this I tell you that you may
make your brother lay it to heart. The sooner he is here the better,
if he be still, as I verily believe and maintain him to be, an honest
English heart that snaps his fingers at French papistry.’ ‘There,’
conclude Philip triumphantly, ‘he knows an honest man! He’s friend and
good father to you as much as ever. Heed none of the rest. He’ll never
let this little rogue stand in your light.’
‘as if I cared for that!’ said Berenger, beginning his caged-tiger walk
again, and, though he tried to repress his anguish, breaking out at
times into fierce revilings of the cruel toils that beset him, and
despairing lamentations over those beloved ones at home, with sobs,
groans, and tears, such as Philip could not brook to witness. Both
because they were so violent and mourn-full, and because he thought them
womanish, though in effect no woman’s grief could have had half that
despairing force. The _fierte_ of the French noble, however, came to
his aid. At the first sound of the great supper-bell he dashed away his
tears, composed his features, washed his face, and demanded haughtily
of Philip, whether there were any traces in his looks that the cruel
hypocrite, their jailer, could gloat over.
And with proud step and indifferent air he marched into the hall,
answered the Chevalier’s polite inquiry whether the letter had brought
good tidings by coolly thanking him and saying that all at home were
well; and when he met the old man’s inquiring glance out of the little
keen black bead in the puckered, withered eyelid, he put a perfectly
stony unmeaningness into his own gaze, till his eyes looked like the
blue porcelain from China so much prized by the Abbess. He even played
at chess all the evening with such concentrated attention as to be
uniformly victorious.
Yet half the night Philip heard suppressed moans and sobs--then knew
that he was on his knees--then, after long and comparatively silent
weeping, he lay down again, and from the hour when he awoke in the
morning, he returned no more to the letters; and though for some little
time more sad and dispirited, he seemed to have come to regard the
misjudgment at home as a part of the burthen he was already bearing.
That burthen was, however, pressing more heavily. The temperaments of
the two brothers so differed that while the French one was prostrated by
the agony of a stroke, and then rallied patiently to endure the effects,
the English character opposed a passive resistance to the blow, gave no
sign of grief or pain, and from that very determination suffered a sort
of exhaustion that made the effects of the evil more and more left.
Thus, from the time Philip’s somewhat tardy imagination had been made
to realize his home, his father, and his sisters, the home-sickness,
and weariness of his captivity, which had already begun to undermine his
health and spirits, took increasing effect.
He made no complaint--he never expressed a wish--but, in the words of
the prophet, he seemed ‘pining away on his feet.’ He did not sleep, and
though, to avoid remark, he never failed to appear at meals, he scarcely
tasted food. He never willingly stirred from cowering over the fire, and
was so surly and ill-tempered that only Berenger’s unfailing good-humour
could have endured it. Even a wolf-hunt did not stir him. He only said
he hated outlandish beasts, and that it was not like chasing the hare in
Dorset. His calf-love for Madame de Selinville had entirely faded away
in his yearnings after home. She was only one of the tediously recurring
sights of his captivity, and was loathed like all the rest. The
regulation rides with the Chevalier were more detestable than ever,
and by and by they caused such fatigue that Berenger perceived that
his strength must be warning, and became so seriously alarmed that one
evening, when Philip had barely dragged himself to the hall, tasted
nothing but a few drops of wine, and then dropped into an uneasy slumber
in his chair, he could not but turn to the Chevalier an appealing,
indignant countenance, as he said, in a low but quivering voice, ‘You
see, sir, how he is altered!’
‘Alas! fair nephew, it is but too plain. He is just of the age when such
restraint tells severely upon the health.’
Then Berenger spoke out upon the foul iniquity of the boy’s detention.
For himself, he observed, he had nothing to say; he knew the term of his
release, and had not accepted them; but Philip, innocent of all damage
to the Ribaumont interests, the heir of an honourable family, what had
he done to incur the cruel imprisonment that was eating away his life?
‘I tell you, sir,’ said Berenger, with eyes filled with tears,’ that his
liberty is more precious to me than my own. Were he but restored to our
home, full half the weight would be gone from my spirit.’
‘Fair nephew,’ said the Chevalier, ‘you speak as though I had any power
in the matter, and were not merely standing between you and the King.’
‘Then if so,’ said Berenger, ‘let the King do as he will with me, but
let Philip’s case be known to our Ambassador.’
‘My poor cousin,’ said the Chevalier, ‘you know not what you ask. Did I
grant your desire, you would only learn how implacable King Henri is
to those who have personally offended him--above all, to heretics. Nor
could the Ambassador do anything for one who resisted by force of
arms the King’s justice. Leave it to me; put yourself in my hands, and
deliverance shall come for him first, then for you.’
‘How, sir?’
‘One token of concession--one attendance at mass--one pledge that
the alliance shall take place when the formalities have been complied
with--then can I report you our own; give you almost freedom at once;
despatch our young friend to England without loss of time; so will
brotherly affection conquer those chivalrous scruples, most honourable
in you, but which, carried too far, become cruel obstinacy.’
Berenger looked at Philip; saw how faded and wan was the ruddy sun-burnt
complexion, how lank and bony the sturdy form, how listless and wasted
the hands. Then arose, bursting within him, the devoted generosity of
the French nature, which would even accept sin and ruin for self, that
so the friend may be saved; and after all, had he not gone to mass out
of mere curiosity?--did he not believe that there was salvation in the
Gallican Church? Was it not possible that, with Philip free to tell
his story at home, his own deliverance might come before he should be
irrevocably committed to Madame de Selinville? If Eustacie were living,
her claims must overthrow that which her rival was forcing upon him at
her own peril. Nay, how else could he obtain tidings of her? And for
those at home, did they deserve that he should sacrifice all, Philip
included, for their sake? The thoughts, long floating round his brain,
now surged upon him in one flood, and seemed to overwhelm in those
moments of confusion all his powers of calling up the other side of the
argument; he only had an instinct remaining that it would be a lie to
God and man alike. ‘God help me!’ he sighed to himself; and there was
sufficient consideration and perplexity expressed in his countenance to
cause the Chevalier to feel his cause almost gained; and rising eagerly,
with tears in his eyes, he exclaimed, ‘Embrace me, my dear, dear son!
The thing is done! Oh! what peace, what joy!’
The instinct of recoil came stronger now. He stepped back with folded
arms, saying again, ‘God help me! God forbid that I should be a
traitor!’
‘My son, hear me; these are but easily removed points of honour,’ began
the Chevalier; but at that moment Philip suddenly started from, or in
his slumber, leapt on his feet, and called out, ‘Avaunt, Satan!’ then
opened his eyes, and looked, as if barely recalling where he was.
‘Philip!’ exclaimed Berenger, ‘did you hear?’
‘I--I don’t know,’ he said, half-bewildered. ‘Was I dreaming that the
fiend was parleying with us in the voice of M. le Chevalier there to
sell our souls for one hour of home?’
He spoke English, but Berenger replied in French.
‘You were not wrong, Philip. Sir, he dreamt that the devil was
tempting me in your voice while you were promising me his liberty on my
fulfilling your first condition.’
‘What?’ said Philip, now fully awake, and gathering the state of things,
as he remembered the words that had doubtless been the cause of his
dream. ‘And if you did, Berenger, I give you warning they should never
see me at home. What! could I show my face there with such tidings? No!
I should go straight to La Noue, or to the Low Countries, and kill every
Papist I could for having debauched you!’
‘Hush! hush! Philip,’ said Berenger; ‘I could not break my faith to
Heaven or my wife even for your sake, and my cousin sees how little
beholden you would be to me for so doing. With your leave, Monsieur, we
will retire.’
The Chevalier detained Berenger for a moment to whisper, ‘What I see
is so noble a heart that I know you cannot sacrifice him to your
punctilio.’
Philip was so angry with Berenger, so excited, and so determined to show
that nothing ailed him, that for a short time he was roused, and seemed
to be recovering; but in a few days he flagged again, only, if possible
with more gruffness, moodiness, and pertinacity in not allowing that
anything was amiss. It was the bitterest drop of all in Berenger’s cup,
when in the end of January he looked back at what Philip had been only
a month before, and saw how he had wasted away and lost strength; the
impulse rather to ruin himself that destroy his brother came with such
force that he could scarcely escape it by his ever-recurring cry
for help to withstand it. And then Diane, in her splendid beauty and
withchery, would rise before him, so that he knew how a relaxation of
the lengthened weary effort would make his whole self break its
bonds and go out to her. Dreams of felicity and liberty, and not
with Eustacie, would even come over him, and he would awaken to
disappointment before he came to a sense of relief and thankfulness
that he was still his own. The dislike, distaste, and dread that came
so easily in his time of pain and weakness were less easy to maintain
in his full health and forced inactivity. Occupation of mind and hope
seemed the only chance of enabling either of the two to weather this
most dreary desert period; and Berenger, setting his thoughts resolutely
to consider what would be the best means of rousing Philip, decided
at length that any endeavour to escape, however arduous and desperate,
would be better than his present apathetic languor, even if it led to
nothing. After the first examination of their prison, Berenger had had
no thought of escape; he was then still weak and unenterprising. He had
for many months lived in hopes of interference from home; and, besides,
the likelihood that so English a party as his own would be quickly
pursued and recaptured, where they did not know their road and had
no passports, had deterred him lest should fall into still straiter
imprisonment. But he had since gained, in the course of his rides, and
by observation from the top of the tower, a much fuller knowledge of the
country. He knew the way to the grange du Temple, and to the chief towns
in the neighbourhood. Philip and Humfrey had both lost something of
their intensely national look and speech, and, moreover, was having
broken out again, there was hope of falling in with Huguenot partisans
even nearer that at La Rochelle. But whether successful or not, some
enterprise was absolutely needed to save Philip from his despondent
apathy; and Berenger, who in these eighteen months had grown into the
strength and vigour of manhood, felt as if he had force and power for
almost any effort save this hopeless waiting.
He held council with Humfrey, who suggested that it might be well to
examine the vaults below the keep. He had a few days before, while
going after some of the firewood stored below the ground-floor chamber,
observed a door, locked, but with such rusty iron hinges that they might
possibly yield to vigorous efforts with a stone; and who could tell
where the underground passages might come out?
Berenger eagerly seized the idea. Philip’s mood of contradiction
prompted him to pronounce it useless folly, and he vouchsafed no
interest in the arrangements for securing light, by selecting all the
bits of firewood fittest for torches, and saving all the oil possible
from the two lamps they were allowed. The chief difficulty was that
Guibert was not trusted, so that all had to be done out of his sight;
and on the first day Berenger was obliged to make the exploration alone,
since Humfrey was forced to engross Guibert in some occupation out of
sight, and Philip had refused to have anything to do with it, or be like
a rat routing in the corners of his trap.
However, Berenger had only just ascertained that the ironwork was
so entirely rusted away as to offer no impediment, when Philip came
languidly roaming into the cellar, saying, ‘Here! I’ll hold the torch!
You’ll be losing yourself in this wolf’s mouth of a place if you go
alone.’
The investigation justified Philip’s predictions of its uselessness.
Nothing was detected but rats, and vaults, and cobwebs; it was cold,
earthy, and damp; and when they thought they must have penetrated far
beyond the precincts of the keep, they heard Humfrey’s voice close to
them, warning them that it was nearly dinner-time.
The next day brought them a more promising discovery, namely of a long
straight passage, with a gleam of light at the end of it; and this for
the first time excited Philip’s interest or curiosity. He would have
hastened along it at once, but for the warning summons from Humfrey; and
in the excitement of even this grain of interest, he ate more heartily
at supper than he had done for weeks, and was afterwards more eager
to prove to Berenger that night was the best time to pursue their
researches.
And Berenger, when convinced that Guibert was sound asleep, thought so
too, and accompanied by Humfrey, they descended into the passage. The
light, of course, was no longer visible, but the form of the crypt,
through which they now passed, was less antique than that under the
keep, and it was plain they were beneath a later portion of the Castle.
The gallery concluded in a wall, with a small barred, unglazed window,
perfectly dark, so that Berenger, who alone could reach to the bottom of
it, could not uses where it looked out.
‘We must return by daylight; then, maybe, we may judge,’ sighed Philip.
‘Hark!’ exclaimed Berenger.
‘Rats,’ said Philip.
‘No--listen--a voice! Take care!’ he added, in a lower tone, ‘we may be
close on some of the servants.’
But, much nearer than he expected, a voice on his right hand demanded,
‘Does any good Christian hear me?’
‘Who is there?’ exclaimed Philip.
‘Ah! good sir, do I hear the voice of a companion in misery? Or, if you
be free, would you but send tidings to my poor father?’
‘It is a Norman accent!’ cried Berenger. ‘Ah! ah! can it be poor Landry
Osbert?’
‘I am--I am that wretch. Oh, would that M. le Baron could know!’
‘My dear, faithful foster-brother! They deceived me,’ cried Berenger,
in great agitation, as an absolute howl came from the other side of the
wall: ‘M. le Baron come to this! Woe worth the day!’ and Berenger with
difficulty mitigated his affectionate servant’s lamentations enough to
learn from him how he had been seized almost at the gates of Bellaise,
closely interrogated, deprived of the letter to Madame la Baronne,
and thrown into this dungeon. The Chevalier. Not an unmerciful man,
according to the time, had probably meant to release him as soon as the
marriage between his son and niece should have rendered it superfluous
to detain this witness to Berenger’s existence. There, then, the poor
fellow had lain for three years, and his work during this weary time
had been the scraping with a potsherd at the stone of his wall, and his
pertinacious perseverance had succeeded in forming a hole just large
enough to enable him to see the light of the torch carried by the
gentlemen. On his side, he said, there was nothing but a strong iron
door, and a heavily-barred window, looking, like that in the passage,
into the fosse within the walled garden; but, on the other hand, if he
could enlarge his hole sufficiently to creep through it, he could escape
with them in case of their finding a subterranean outlet. The opening
within his cell was, of course, much larger than the very small space
he had made by loosening a stone towards the passage, but he was obliged
always to build up each side of his burrow at the hours of his jailer’s
visit, lest his work should be detected, and to stamp the rubbish into
his floor. But while they talked, Humfrey and Philip, with their knives,
scraped so diligently that two more stones could be displaced; and,
looking down the widening hole through the prodigious mass of wall,
they could see a ghastly, ragged, long-bearded scarecrow, with an almost
piteous expression of joy on his face, at once again seeing familiar
faces. And when, at his earnest entreaty, Berenger stood so as to allow
his countenance to be as visible as the torch could make it through the
‘wall’s-hole,’ the vault echoed with the poor fellow’s delighted cry.
‘I am happy! M. le Baron is himself again. The assassin’s cruel work is
gone! Ah! thanks to the saints! Blessed be St. Lucie, it was not in vain
that I entreated her!’
The torches were, however, waxing so low that the sight could not long
be afforded poor Osbert; and, with a promise to return to him next day,
the party returned to the upper air, where they warmed themselves over
the fire, and held council over measures for the present relief of the
captive. Berenger grieved that he had given him up so entirely for lost
as to have made no exertions on his behalf, and declared his resolution
of entreating that he might be allowed to enjoy comparative comfort with
them in the keep. It was a risk, but the Chevalier might fairly suppose
that the knowledge of Osbert’s situation had oozed out through the
servants, and gratitude and humanity alike impelled Berenger to run some
risk for his foster-brother’s sake. He was greatly touched at the poor
fellow’s devotion, and somewhat amused, though with an almost tearful
smile at the joy with which he had proclaimed--what Berenger was quite
unaware of, since the keep furnished no mirrors--the disappearance of
his scars. ‘’Tis even so,’ said Philip, ‘though I never heeded it. You
are as white from crown to beard as one of the statues at Paris; but the
great red gash is a mere seam, save when yon old Satan angers you, and
then it blushes for all the rest of your face.’
‘And the cheek-wound is hidden, I suppose,’ said Berenger, feeling
under the long fair moustache and the beard, which was developing into
respectable proportions.
‘Hidden? ay, entirely. No one would think your bald crown had only
twenty-one years over it; but you are a personable fellow still, quite
enough to please Daphne,’ said Philip.
‘Pshaw!’ replied Berenger, pleased nevertheless to hear the shadow of a
jest again from Philip.
It was quite true. These months of quiescence--enforced though they
were--had given his health and constitution time to rally after the
terrible shock they had sustained. The severe bleedings had, indeed,
rendered his complexion perfectly colourless; but there was something
in this, as well as in the height which the loss of hair gave his brow,
which, added to the depth and loftiness of countenance that this long
period of patience and resolution had impressed on his naturally fine
features, without taking away that open candour that had first attracted
Diane when he was a rosy lad. His frame had strengthened at the same
time, and assumed the proportions of manhood; so that, instead of
being the overgrown maypole that Narcisse used to sneer at, he was now
broad-shouldered and robust, exceedingly powerful, and so well made
that his height, upwards of six feet, was scarcely observed, except by
comparison with the rest of the world.
And his character had not stood still. He had first come to Paris
a good, honest, docile, though high-spirited boy: and though manly
affections, cares, and sorrows had been thrust on him, he had met them
like the boy that he was, hardly conscious how deep they went. Then
had come the long dream of physical suffering, with only one thought
pertinaciously held throughout--that of constancy to his lost wife;
and from this he had only thoroughly wakened in his captivity,
the resolution still holding fast, but with more of reflection and
principle, less of mere instinct, than when his powers were lost or
distracted in the effort of constant endurance of pain and weakness. The
charge of Philip, the endeavour both of educating him and keeping up
his spirits, as well as the controversy with Pere Bonami, had been no
insignificant parts of the discipline of these months; and, little as
the Chevalier had intended it, he had trained his young kinsman into a
far more substantial and perilous adversary, both in body and mind, than
when he had caged him in his castle of the Blackbird’s Nest.