The Caged Lion, Charlotte M. Yonge [top 10 most read books in the world TXT] 📗

their tourney of words. They stood opposite one another, on the step of the dais; and Kennedy, as host and challenger, assigned to his opponent the choice of a subject, when Malcolm, brightening, proposed one that he had so often heard and practised on, as to have the arguments at his fingers' ends; namely, that the real consists only in that which is substantial to the senses, and which we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch.

Kennedy's shrewd gray eye glanced at him in a manner that startled him, as he made reply, 'Fellow-_alumnus_, you speak as Oxford scholars speak; but I rede ye well that the real is not that which is grossly tangible to the corporeal sense, but the idea that is conceived within the immortal intelligence.'

The argument was carried on in the vernacular, but there was an unlimited license of quotation from authors of all kinds, classics, Fathers, and schoolmen. It was like a game at chess, in which the first moves were always so much alike, that they might have been made by automatons; and Malcolm was repeating reply and counter-reply, almost by rote, when a citation brought in by Kennedy again startled him.

'Outward things,' said James, 'are the mere mark; for have we not heard how

"Telephus et Peleus, quum pauper et exsul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba"?' {6}

Was this to prove that he recognized a wandering prince in his opponent? thought Malcolm; but, much on his guard, he made answer, as usual, in his native tongue. 'That which is not touched and held is but a vain and fleeting shadow--"_solvitur in nube_." {7}

'_Negatur_, it is denied!' said Kennedy, fixing his eyes full upon him. 'The Speculum of the Soul, which is immortal, retains the image even while the bodily presence is far away. Wherefore else was it that Ulysses sat as a beggar by his paternal hearth, or that Cadmus wandered to seek his sister?'

This was anything but the regular illustration--the argument was far too directly _ad hominem_--and Malcolm hesitated for a moment, ere framing his reply. 'If the image had satisfied the craving of their hearts, they had never wandered, nor endangered themselves.'

'Nor,' said Kennedy, 'endeared themselves to all who love the leal and the brave, and count these indeed as verities for which to live.'

From the manner in which these words were spoken, Malcolm had no further doubt either that Kennedy knew him, or that he meant to assist him; and the discussion thenceforth proceeded without further departures from the regular style, and was sustained with considerable spirit, till the Regent grew weary of it, and bed-time approached, when Kennedy announced his intention of taking his fellow-student to share his chamber; and, as this did not appear at all an unnatural proposal, in the crowded Castle, Malcolm followed him up various winding stairs into a small circular chamber, with a loop-hole window, within one of the flanking towers.

Carefully closing the heavy door, Kennedy held out his hands. 'Fair cousin,' he said, 'this is bravely done of you.'

'Will it save my sister?' asked Malcolm, anxiously.

'It should,' said his kinsman; 'but how can it be? Whatever is done, must be ere Walter Stewart returns.'

'Tell me all! I know nothing--save that she was cruelly lured from St. Abbs.'

'I know little more,' said Kennedy. 'It was on a false report of your death, and Walter had well-nigh obtained a forcible marriage; when her resistance and cries to Heaven daunted the monk who was to have performed the rite, so that he, in a sort, became her protector. When she was brought here, Walter swore he would bend her to his will; shut her up in the old keep, and kept her there, scantily fed, and a close prisoner, while he went forth on one of his forays. The Regent coming here meantime, found the poor maiden in her captivity, and freed her so far that she lives, to all appearance, as becomes his kinswoman; but the Duchess is cruelly strict with her, being resolved, as she says, to take down her pride.'

'They must know that I live,' said Malcolm.

'They do; but Walter is none the less resolved not to be balked. Things came to a wild pass a few weeks syne. The Regent had never dared tell him how far matters had gone for bringing back the King, when one day Walter came in, clad for hawking; and, in his rudest manner, demanded the falcon that was wont to sit on his father's wrist, and that had never been taken out by any other. The Regent refused to part with the bird, as he had oft done before; whereupon his son, in his fury, snatched her from his wrist, and wrung her head off before all our eyes; then turning fiercely on your poor sister, told her that "yon gled should be a token to her, of how they fared who withheld themselves from him." Then rose the Duke, trembling within rage; "Ay, Wat," said he, "ye hae been owermuch for me. We will soon have ane at home that will ken how to guide ye." Walter looked at him insolently, and muttered, "I've heard of this before! They that wad have a master, may live under a master--but I'm not ane of them;" and then, turning upon Lady Lilias, he pointed to the dead hawk, and told her that, unless she yielded to him with a good grace, that bird showed her what she might expect, long ere the King or her brother were across the border.'

'And where is he now?'

'In Fife, striving to get a force together to hinder the King's return. He'll not do that; men are too weary of misrule to join him against King James; but he is like, any day, to come back with reivers enough to terrify his father, and get your sister into his hands--indeed, his mother is ready to give her up to him whenever he asks. He has sworn to have her now, were it merely to vex the King and you, and show that he is to be daunted neither by man, heaven, nor hell.'

'And he may come?'

'Any day or any night,' said James. 'Since he went I have striven, in vain, to devise some escape for your sister; but Heaven has surely sent you to hinder so foul a wrong! Yet, if you went to Glenuskie and raised your vassals--'

'It would be loss of time,' said Malcolm; 'and this matter may not be put to the doubtful issue of a fray between my men and his villains. Out of this place must she go at once. But, alas! how win to the speech of her?'

'That can I do,' said Kennedy. 'For a few brief moments, each day, have I spoken to her in the chapel. Nay, I had left this place before now, had she not prayed me to remain as her only friend.'

'Heaven must requite you, Cousin James,' said Malcolm, warmly. 'I deserved not this of you.'

'All that I desire,' said Kennedy, 'is to see this land of ours cease to be full of darkness and cruel habitations. Malcolm, you know the King better than I; may we not trust that he will come as a redresser of wrongs?'

'Know you not his pledge to himself?--"I will make the key keep the castle, and the bracken bush keep the cow, though I live the life of a dog to bring it about!"'

'God strengthen his hand,' said Kennedy, with tears in his eyes; 'and bring better days to our poor land. Cousin, has not your heart burnt within you, to be doing somewhat to bring these countrymen of ours to better mind?'

'I have grieved,' said Malcolm. 'The sight has been the woe and horror of my whole life; and either it is worse now than when I went away, or I see it clearer.'

'It is both,' said Kennedy; 'and, Malcolm, it is borne in on me that we, who have seen better things, have a heavy charge! The King may punish marauders, and enforce peace; but it will be but the rule of the strong hand, unless men's hearts be moved! Our clergy--they bear the office of priests--but their fierceness and their ignorance would scarce be believed in France or England; and how should it be otherwise, with no schools at home save the abbeys--and the abbeys almost all fortresses held by fierce noblemen's sons?'

Malcolm would much rather have discussed the means of rescuing his sister, but James Kennedy's heart was full of a youth's ardent plans for the re-awakening of religion in his country, chiefly through the improved education of the clergy, and it was not easy to bring his discourse to a close.

'You--you were to wed a great Flemish heiress?' he said. 'You will do your part, Cousin, in the founding of a University--such as has changed ourselves so greatly.'

Malcolm smiled. 'My only bride is learning,' he said; 'my other betrothal is but in name, for the safety of the lady.'

'Then,' cried Kennedy joyfully, 'you will give yourself. Learning and culture turned to God's service, for this poor country's sake, in one of birth like you, may change her indeed.'

Was this the reading of Esclairmonde's riddle? suddenly thought Malcolm. Was the true search for heavenly Light, then, to consist in holding up to his countrymen the lamp he was kindling for himself? Must true wisdom consist in treasuring knowledge, not for his own honour among learned men, or the delectation of his own mind, but to scatter it among these rude northern souls? Must the vision of learned research and scholarly calm vanish, as cloistral peace, and chivalrous love and glory, had vanished before? and was the lot of a hard-working secular priest that which called him?


CHAPTER XVIII: CLERK DAVIE

For Malcolm to speak with his sister was well-nigh an impossibility. Had he been detected, he would have been immediately treated as a spy, and the suspicion thus excited would have been a dangerous preparation for the King as well as for himself; nor was there any pretext for giving the wandering scholar an interview with her.

But harsh and strict as was the Duchess of Albany--a tall, raw-boned, red- haired woman, daughter of the fierce old Earl of Lennox--and resolved as she was to bend Lilias by persecution to accept her son, she could not debar a young gentleman of the royal kindred, like James Kennedy, from entering the apartment where the ladies of the family sat with their needles; and the Regent, half from pity, half from shame, had refused to permit Lilias Stewart's being treated as a mere captive.

Thus Malcolm remained in Kennedy's room in much anxiety, while his cousin went forth to do his best in his cause, and after some hours returned to him with the tidings that he had succeeded in letting Lily know that he was in the Castle. Standing over her while she bent over her embroidery, and thus concealing her trembling agitation, he had found it possible to whisper in her ears the tidings of her brother having come to save her, and of hearing her insist that Malcolm, 'wee Malcolm, must run no peril, but that she would do and dare everything--nay, would prefer death itself to Walter Stewart.'

'Have you any device in this