The Caged Lion, Charlotte M. Yonge [dark books to read TXT] 📗

Malcolm woke early, attended Matins and Mass in the chapel, studied grammar and logic, mastered difficult passages in the Fathers, or copied out portions for himself in the chamber which he as a gentleman commoner, as we should call him, possessed, instead of living in a common dormitory with the other scholars.  Or in the open cloister he listened and took notes of the lectures of the fellows and tutors of the college, and seated on a bench or walking up and down received special instructions.  Then ensued the meal, spread in the hall; the period of recreation, in the meadows, or in the licensed sports, or on the river; fresh studies, chapel, and a social but quiet evening over the supper in the hall.  All this was varied by Latin sermons at St. Mary’s, or disputations and lectures by notable doctors, and public arguments between scholars, by which they absolutely fought out their degrees.  There were few colleges as yet, and those resident in them were the élite; beyond, there was a great mob of scholars living in rooms as they could, generally very poor, and often very disorderly; but they did not mar the quiet semi-monastic stillness within the foundations, and to Malcolm it seemed as if the truly congenial home was opened.

The curriculum of science began to reveal itself to him with all the stages so inviting to a mind conscious of power and longing for cultivation.  The books, the learned atmosphere, the infinite possibilities, were delightful to him, and opened a more delightful future.  His metaphysical Scottish mind delighted in the scholastic arguments that were now first set before him, and his readiness, appreciation, and eager power of acquiring surprised his teachers, and made him the pride of New College.

When he looked back at his year of court and camp, he could only marvel at having ever preferred them.  In war his want of bodily strength would make real distinction impossible; here he felt himself excelling; here was absolute enjoyment, and of a kind without drawback.  Scholarship must be his true element and study: the deep universal study of the sisterhood of science that the University offered was his veritable vocation.  Surely it was not without significance that the ring that shone on his finger betrothed him to Esclairmonde, the Light of the World; for though in person the maiden was never to be his own, she was the emblem to him of the pure virgin light of truth and wisdom that he would be for ever wooing, and winning only to see further lights beyond.  Human nature felt a pang at the knowledge that he was bound to deliver up the ring and resign his connection with that fair and stately maiden; but the pain that had been sore at first had diminished under the sense that he stood in a post of generous trust, and that his sacrifice was the passport to her grateful esteem.  He knew her to be with Lady Montagu, awaiting a vacancy at St. Katharine’s, and this would be the signal for dissolving the contract of marriage, after which his present vision was to bestow Lilias upon Patrick, make over his estates to them, take minor orders, and set forth for Italy, there to pursue those deeper studies in theology and language for which Padua and Bologna were famous.  It was many months since he had heard of Lilias; but this did not give him any great uneasiness, for messengers were few, and letter-writing far from being a common practice.  He had himself written at every turning-point of his life, and sent his letters when the King communicated with Scotland; but from his sister he had heard nothing.

He had lately won his first degree as Bachelor of Arts, and was descending the stair from the Hall after a Lenten meal on salt fish, when he saw below him the well-known figure of King James’s English servant, who doffing his cap held out to him a small strip of folded paper, fastened by a piece of crimson silk and the royal seal.  It only bore the words:—

‘To our right trusty and well-beloved Cousin the Lord Malcolm Stewart of Glenuskie this letter be taken.

‘DEAR COUSIN,

‘We greet you well, and pray you to come to us without loss of time, having need of you, we being a free man and no captive.

‘Yours,
‘JAMES R.

‘Written at the Castle of Windsor this St. David’s Day, 1424.’

‘A free man:’ the words kept ringing in Malcolm’s ears while he hastened to obtain license from Warden John Bonke, and to take leave of Dr. Bennet.  He had not left Oxford since the beginning of his residence there.  Vacations were not general dispersions when ways and means of transit were so scarce and tardy, and Malcolm had been long without seeing his king.  Joy on his sovereign’s account, and his country’s, seemed to swallow up all other thoughts; as to himself, when he bade his friends and masters farewell, he declared it was merely for a time, and when they shook their heads and augured otherwise, he replied: ‘Nay, think you I could live in the Cimmerian darkness yonder, dear sirs?  Our poor country hath nothing better than mere monastery schools, and light of science having once shone on me, I cannot but dwell in her courts for ever!  Soon shall I be altogether her son and slave!’

Nevertheless, Malcolm was full of eagerness, and pressed on rapidly through the lanes between Oxford and Windsor, rejoicing to find himself amid the noble trees of the forest, over which arose in all its grandeur the Castle and Round Tower, as beautiful though less unique than now, and bearing on it the royal standard, for the little King was still nursed there.

Under the vaulted gateway James—with Patrick and Bairdsbrae behind him—met Malcolm, and threw his arms round him, crying: ‘Ay, kiss me, boy; ’tis a king and no caitiff you kiss now!  Another six weeks, and then for the mountain and the moor and the bonnie north countree.’

‘And why not for a month?’ was Malcolm’s question, as hand and eye and face responded heartily.

‘Why?  Why, because moneys must be told down, and treaties signed; ay, and Lent is no time for weddings, nor March for southland roses to travel to our cold winds.  Ay, Malcolm, you see a bridegroom that is to be!  Did you think I was going home without her?’

‘I did not think you would be in such glee even at being free, my lord, if you were.’

‘And now, Malcolm, ken ye of ony fair Scottish lassie—a cousin of mine ain, who could be had to countenance my bride at our wedding, and ride with us thereafter to Scotland?’

‘I know whom your Grace means,’ said Malcolm, smiling.

‘An if you do, maybe, Malcolm, sin she bides not far frae the border, ye’d do me the favour of riding with Sir Patrick here, and bringing her to the bridal,’ said the King, making his accent more home-like and Scottish than Malcolm had ever heard it before.

The happiness of that spring afternoon was surpassing.  The King linked his arm into Malcolm’s, and walked up and down with him on the slopes, telling him all that had led to this consummation; how Walter Stewart and his brothers had become so insolent and violent as to pass the endurance of their father the Regent, as well as of all honest Scots; and how, after secret negotiations and vain endeavours to obtain from him a pledge of indemnity for all that had happened, the matter had been at length opened with Gloucester, Beaufort, and the Council.  The Scottish nation, with Albany at the head, was really recalling the King.  This was the condition on which Henry V. had always declared that he should be liberated; these were the terms on which he had always hoped to return; and his patience was at last rewarded.  Bedford had sent his joyful consent, and all was now concluded.  James was really free, and waited only for his marriage.

‘I would not tell you, Malcolm, while there might yet be a slip between cup and lip,’ said the King; ‘it might have hindered the humanities; and yet I needed you as much when I was glad as when all seemed like to fail!’

‘You had Patrick,’ said Malcolm.

‘Patrick’s a tall and trusty fellow,’ said the King, ‘with a shrewd wit, and like to be a right-hand man; but there’s something in you, Malcolm, that makes a man turn to you for fellow-feeling, even as to a wife.’

Nevertheless, the King and Patrick had grown much attached to each other, though the latter, being no lover of books, had wearied sorely of the sojourn at Windsor, which the King himself only found endurable by much study and reflection.  Their only variety had been keeping Christmas at Hertford with Queen Catherine; ‘sorry pastime,’ as Drummond reported it to him, though gladdened to the King by Joan Beaufort’s presence, in all her charms.

‘The Demoiselle of Luxemburg was there too, statelier than ever,’ said James.  ‘She is now at Middleham Castle, with the Lady Montagu, and you might make it your way northward, and lodge a night there.  If you can win her consent, it were well to be wedded when we are.’

‘Never shall I, my lord.  I should not dare even to speak of it.’

‘It is well; but, Malcolm, you merit something from the damsel.  You are ten times the man you were when she flouted you.  If women were not mostly witless, you would be much to be preferred to any mere Ajax or Fierabras; and if this damsel should have come to the wiser mind that it were pity to be buried to the world—’

‘Sir, I pray you say no more.  I were forsworn to ask such a thing.’

‘I bid you not, only I would I were there to see that all be not lost for want of a word in season; and it is high time that something be done.  Here be letters from my Lord of Thérouenne, demanding the performance of the contract ere our return home.’

‘He cannot reach her here,’ said Malcolm.

‘No; but his outcry can reach your honour; and it were ill to have such a house as that of Luxemburg crying out upon you for breach of faith to their daughter.’

Malcolm smiled.  ‘That I should heed little, Sir.  I would fain bear something for her.’

‘Why, this is mere sublimated devoir, too fine for our gross understandings,’ said James, ironically.  ‘Mayhap the sight of the soft roseate cheek may bring it somewhat down to poor human flesh and blood once more.’

‘Once I was tempted, Sir,’ said Malcolm, blushing deeply; ‘but did I not know that her holiness is the guardian of her earthly beauty, I would not see her again.’

‘Nay, there I command you,’ said the King; ‘soon I shall have subjects enough; but while I have but half a dozen, I cannot be disobeyed by them!  I bid you go to Middleham, and there I leave all to the sight.’

The King spoke gaily, and with such kind good-humour that Malcolm, humiliated by the thought of the past, durst not make fresh asseverations.  James, in the supreme moment of the pure and innocent romance of which he was the hero, looked on love like his own as the highest crown of human life, and distrusted the efforts after the superhuman which too often were mere simulation or imitation; but a certain recollection of Henry’s warnings withheld him from pressing the matter, and he returned to his own joys and hopes, looking on the struggles he expected with a strong man’s exulting joy, and not even counting the years of his captivity wasted, though they had taken away his first youth.

‘What should I have been,’ he said, ‘bred up in the tumults at home?  What could I have known better than Perth?  Nay, had I been sent home when I came to age, as a raw lad, how would one or other by fraud or force have got the upper hand, so as I might never have won it back.  No, I would not have foregone one year of study—far less that campaign in France, and the sight of Harry in war and in policy.’

James also took Malcolm to see the child king, his little master.  This, the third king of James’s captivity, was now a fair creature of two years old.  He trotted to meet his visitor, calling him by a baby name for brother, and stretching out his arms to be lifted up and fondled; for, as Dame Alice Boteller, his gouvernante, muttered, he knew the King of Scots better than he did his own mother.

A retinue had been already collected, and equipments prepared, so that there was no delay in sending forth Malcolm and Patrick upon their northward journey.  At the nearest town they halted, sending forward a messenger to announce their neighbourhood to the old Countess of Salisbury and her grand-daughter