Quentin Durward, Walter Scott [good books to read for beginners .txt] 📗

return with you thither, as I think you may need an intercessor.—And I hope the young giddy pate will discharge his duty wisely.”

“So please you, fair uncle,” said Count Stephen, “if you doubt my capacity to conduct the men at arms, even remain with them yourself, and I will be the servant and guard of the Countess Isabelle of Croye.”

“No doubt, fair nephew,” answered his uncle, “this were a goodly improvement on my scheme, but methinks I like it as well in the way I planned it. Please you, therefore, to take notice, that your business here is not to hunt after and stick these black hogs, for which you seemed but now to have felt an especial vocation, but to collect and bring to me true tidings of what is going forward in the country of Liege, concerning which we hear such wild rumours. Let some half score of lances follow me and the rest remain with my banner under your guidance.”

“Yet one moment, cousin of Crevecoeur,” said the Countess Isabelle, “and let me, in yielding myself prisoner, stipulate at least for the safety of those who have befriended me in my misfortunes. Permit this good fellow, my trusty guide, to go back unharmed to his native town of Liege.”

“My nephew,” said Crevecoeur, after looking sharply at Glover's honest breadth of countenance, “shall guard this good fellow, who seems, indeed, to have little harm in him, as far into the territory as he himself advances, and then leave him at liberty.”

“Fail not to remember me to the kind Gertrude,” said the Countess to her guide, and added, taking a string of pearls from under her veil, “Pray her to wear this in remembrance of her unhappy friend.”

Honest Glover took the string of pearls, and kissed with clownish gesture, but with sincere kindness, the fair hand which had found such a delicate mode of remunerating his own labours and peril.

“Umph! signs and tokens,” said the Count, “any farther bequests to make, my fair cousin?—It is time we were on our way.”

“Only,” said the Countess, making an effort to speak, “that you will be pleased to be favourable to this—this young gentleman.”

“Umph!” said Crevecoeur, casting the same penetrating glance on Quentin which he had bestowed on Glover, but apparently with a much less satisfactory result, and mimicking, though not offensively, the embarrassment of the Countess.

“Umph!—Ay—this is a blade of another temper.—And pray, my cousin, what has this—this very young gentleman done, to deserve such intercession at your hands?”

“He has saved my life and honour,” said the Countess, reddening with shame and resentment.

Quentin also blushed with indignation, but wisely concluded that to give vent to it might only make matters worse.

“Life and honour?—Umph!” said again the Count Crevecoeur, “methinks it would have been as well, my cousin, if you had not put yourself in the way of lying under such obligations to this very young gentleman.—But let it pass. The young gentleman may wait on us, if his quality permit, and I will see he has no injury—only I will myself take in future the office of protecting your life and honour, and may perhaps find for him some fitter duty than that of being a squire of the body to damosels errant.”

“My Lord Count,” said Durward, unable to keep silence any longer, “lest you should talk of a stranger in slighter terms than you might afterwards think becoming, I take leave to tell you, that I am Quentin Durward, an Archer of the Scottish Bodyguard, in which, as you well know, none but gentlemen and men of honour are enrolled.”

“I thank you for your information, and I kiss your hands, Seignior Archer,” said Crevecoeur, in the same tone of raillery. “Have the goodness to ride with me to the front of the party.”

As Quentin moved onward at the command of the Count, who had now the power, if not the right, to dictate his motions, he observed that the Lady Isabelle followed his motions with a look of anxious and timid interest, which amounted almost to tenderness, and the sight of which brought water into his eyes. But he remembered that he had a man's part to sustain before Crevecoeur, who, perhaps of all the chivalry in France or Burgundy, was the least likely to be moved to anything but laughter by a tale of true love sorrow. He determined, therefore, not to wait his addressing him, but to open the conversation in a tone which should assert his claim to fair treatment, and to more respect than the Count, offended perhaps at finding a person of such inferior note placed so near the confidence of his high born and wealthy cousin, seemed disposed to entertain for him.

“My Lord Count of Crevecoeur,” he said, in a temperate but firm tone of voice, “may I request of you, before our interview goes farther, to tell me if I am at liberty, or am to account myself your prisoner?”

“A shrewd question,” replied the Count, “which at present I can only answer by another.—Are France and Burgundy, think you, at peace or war with each other?”

“That,” replied the Scot, “you, my lord, should certainly know better than I. I have been absent from the Court of France, and have heard no news for some time.”

“Look you there,” said the Count, “you see how easy it is to ask questions, but how difficult to answer them. Why, I myself, who have been at Peronne with the Duke for this week and better, cannot resolve this riddle any more than you, and yet, Sir Squire, upon the solution of that question depends the said point, whether you are prisoner or free man, and, for the present, I must hold you as the former.—Only, if you have really and honestly been of service to my kinswoman, and for you are candid in your answers to the questions I shall ask, affairs shall stand the better with you.”

“The Countess of Croye,” said Quentin, “is best judge if I have rendered any service, and to her I refer you on that matter. My answers you will yourself judge of when you ask me your questions.”

“Umph!—haughty enough,” muttered the Count of Crevecoeur, “and very like one that wears a lady's favour in his hat, and thinks he must carry things with a high tone, to honour the precious remnant of silk and tinsel. Well, sir, I trust it will be no abatement of your dignity, if you answer me, how long you have been about the person of the Lady Isabelle of Croye?”

“Count of Crevecoeur,” said Quentin Durward, “if I answer questions which are asked in a tone approaching towards insult, it is only lest injurious inferences should be drawn from my silence respecting one to whom we are both obliged to render justice. I have acted as escort to the Lady Isabelle since she left France to retire into Flanders.”

“Ho! ho!” said the Count, “and that is to say, since she fled from Plessis les Tours?—You, an Archer of the Scottish Guard, accompanied her, of course, by the express orders of King Louis?”

However little Quentin thought himself indebted to the King of France, who, in contriving the surprisal of the Countess Isabelle by William de la Marck, had probably calculated on the young Scotchman's being slain in her defence, he did not yet conceive himself at liberty to betray any trust which Louis had reposed, or had seemed to repose, in him, and therefore replied to Count Crevecoeur's inference that it was sufficient for him to have the authority of his superior officer for what he had done, and he inquired no farther.

“It is quite sufficient,” said the Count. “We know the King does not permit his officers to send the Archers of his Guard to prance like paladins by the bridle rein of wandering ladies, unless he hath some politic purpose to serve. It will be difficult for King Louis to continue to aver so boldly that he knew' not of the Ladies of Croye's having escaped from France, since they were escorted by one of his own Life guard.—And whither, Sir Archer, was your retreat directed?”

“To Liege, my lord,” answered the Scot, “where the ladies desired to be placed under the protection of the late Bishop.”

“The late Bishop!” exclaimed the Count of Crevecoeur, “is Louis of Bourbon dead?—Not a word of his illness had reached the Duke.—Of what did he die?”

“He sleeps in a bloody grave, my lord—that is, if his murderers have conferred one on his remains.”

“Murdered!” exclaimed Crevecoeur again.—“Holy Mother of Heaven!—young man, it is impossible!”

“I saw the deed done with my own eyes, and many an act of horror besides.”

“Saw it! and made not in to help the good Prelate!” exclaimed the Count, “or to raise the castle against his murderers?—Know'st thou not that even to look on such a deed, without resisting it, is profane sacrilege?”

“To be brief, my lord,” said Durward, “ere this act was done, the castle was stormed by the bloodthirsty William de la Marck, with help of the insurgent Liegeois.”

“I am struck with thunder,” said Crevecoeur. “Liege in insurrection!—Schonwaldt taken!—the Bishop murdered—Messenger of sorrow, never did one man unfold such a packet of woes!—Speak—knew you of this assault—of this insurrection—of this murder?—Speak—thou art one of Louis's trusted Archers, and it is he that has aimed this painful arrow.—Speak, or I will have thee torn with wild horses!”

“And if I am so torn, my lord, there can be nothing rent out of me, that may not become a true Scottish gentleman: I know no more of these villainies than you—was so far from being partaker in them, that I would have withstood them to the uttermost, had my means in a twentieth degree equalled my inclination. But what could I do?—they were hundreds, and I but one. My only care was to rescue the Countess Isabelle, and in that I was happily successful. Yet, had I been near enough when the ruffian deed was so cruelly done on the old man, I had saved his gray hairs, or I had avenged them, and as it was, my abhorrence was spoken loud enough to prevent other horrors.”

“I believe thee, youth,” said the Count, “thou art neither of an age nor nature to be trusted with such bloody work, however well fitted to be the squire of dames. But alas! for the kind and generous Prelate, to be murdered on the hearth where he so often entertained the stranger with Christian charity and princely bounty—and that by a wretch, a monster! a portentous growth of blood and cruelty!—bred up in the very hall where he has imbrued his hands in his benefactor's blood! But I know not Charles of Burgundy—nay, I should doubt of the justice of Heaven, if vengeance be not as sharp, and sudden, and severe, as this villainy has been unexampled in atrocity. And, if no other shall pursue the murderer”—here he paused, grasped his sword, then quitting his bridle, struck both gauntleted hands upon his breast, until his corselet clattered, and finally held them up to heaven, as he solemnly continued,—“I—I, Philip Crevecoeur of Cordes, make a vow to God, Saint Lambert, and the Three Kings of Cologne, that small shall be my thought of other earthly concerns, till I take full revenge on the murderers of the good Louis of Bourbon, whether I find them in forest or field, in city or in country, in hill or in plain, in King's Court or in God's Church! and thereto I pledge hands and living, friends and followers, life and honour. So help me God, and Saint Lambert of Liege, and the Three Kings of Cologne!”

When the Count of Crevecoeur had made his vow, his mind seemed in some sort relieved from the overwhelming grief and astonishment with which he had heard the fatal tragedy that had been acted at Schonwaldt, and he proceeded to question Durward more minutely concerning the particulars of that disastrous affair, which the Scot, nowise desirous to abate the spirit of revenge which the Count entertained against William de la Marck, gave him at full length.

“But those blind, unsteady, faithless, fickle beasts, the Liegeois,” said the Count, “that they should have combined themselves with this inexorable robber and murderer, to put to death their lawful Prince!”

Durward here informed the enraged Burgundian that the Liegeois, or at least the better class of them, however rashly they had run into the rebellion against their Bishop, had no design, so far as appeared to him, to aid in the execrable deed of De la Marck but, on the contrary, would have prevented it if they had had the means, and were struck with