Sir Nigel, Arthur Conan Doyle [good e books to read .txt] 📗

thundered far away, and the field was deserted save for the numerous groups of weary horsemen who were making their way back, driving their prisoners before them. The archers were scattered over the whole plain, rifling the saddle-bags and gathering the armor of those who had fallen, or searching for their own scattered arrows.

Suddenly, however, as the Prince was turning toward the bush which he had chosen for his headquarters, there broke out from behind him an extraordinary uproar and a group of knights and squires came pouring toward him, all arguing, swearing and abusing each other in French and English at the tops of their voices. In the midst of them limped a stout little man in gold-spangled armor, who appeared to be the object of the contention, for one would drag him one way and one another, as though they would pull him limb from limb. “Nay, fair sirs, gently, gently, I pray you!” he pleaded. “There is enough for all, and no need to treat me so rudely.” But ever the hubbub broke out again, and swords gleamed as the angry disputants glared furiously at each other. The Prince’s eyes fell upon the small prisoner, and he staggered back with a gasp of astonishment.

“King John!” he cried.

A shout of joy rose from the warriors around him. “The King of France! The King of France a prisoner!” they cried in an ecstasy.

“Nay, nay, fair sirs, let him not hear that we rejoice! Let no word bring pain to his soul!” Running forward the Prince clasped the French King by the two hands.

“Most welcome, sire!” he cried. “Indeed it is good for us that so gallant a knight should stay with us for some short time, since the chance of war has so ordered it. Wine there! Bring wine for the King!”

But John was flushed and angry. His helmet had been roughly torn off, and blood was smeared upon his cheek. His noisy captors stood around him in a circle, eying him hungrily like dogs who have been beaten from their quarry. There were Gascons and English, knights, squires and archers, all pushing and straining.

“I pray you, fair Prince, to get rid of these rude fellows,” said King John, “for indeed they have plagued me sorely. By Saint Denis! my arm has been well-nigh pulled from its socket.”

“What wish you then?” asked the Prince, turning angrily upon the noisy swarm of his followers.

“We took him, fair lord. He is ours!” cried a score of voices. They closed in, all yelping together like a pack of wolves. “It was I, fair lord!” - ” Nay, it was I!” - ” You lie, you rascal, it was I!” Again their fierce eyes glared and their blood-stained hands sought the hilts of their weapons.

“Nay, this must be settled here and now!” said the Prince. “I crave your patience, fair and honored sir, for a few brief minutes, since indeed much ill-will may spring from this if it be not set at rest. Who is this tall knight who can scarce keep his hands from the King’s shoulder?”

“It is Denis de Morbecque, my lord, a knight of St. Omer, who is in our service, being an outlaw from France.”

“I call him to mind. How then, Sir Denis? What say you in this matter?”

“He gave himself to me, fair lord. He had fallen in the press, and I came upon him and seized him. I told him that I was a knight from Artois, and he gave me his glove. See here, I bear it in my hand.”

“It is true, fair lord! It is true!” cried a dozen French voices.

“Nay, sir, judge not too soon!” shouted an English squire, pushing his way to the front. “It was I who had him at my mercy, and he is my prisoner, for he spoke to this man only because he could tell by his tongue that he was his own countryman. I took him, and here are a score to prove it.”

“It is true, fair lord. We saw it and it was even so,” cried a chorus of Englishmen.

At all times there was growling and snapping betwixt the English and their allies of France. The Prince saw how easily this might set a light to such a flame as could not readily be quenched. It must be stamped out now ere it had time to mount.

“Fair and honored lord,” he said to the King, “again I pray you for a moment of patience. It is your word and only yours which can tell us what is just and right. To whom were you graciously pleased to commit your royal person?”

King John looked up from the flagon which had been brought to him and wiped his lips with the dawnings of a smile upon his ruddy face.

“It was not this Englishman,” he said, and a cheer burst from the Gascons, “nor was it this bastard Frenchman,” he added. “To neither of them did I surrender.”

There was a hush of surprise.

“To whom then, sir?” asked the Prince.

The King looked slowly round. “There was a devil of a yellow horse,” said he. “My poor palfrey went over like a skittle-pin before a ball. Of the rider I know nothing save that he bore red roses on a silver shield. Ah! by Saint Denis, there is the man himself, and there his thrice-accursed horse!”

His head swimming, and moving as if in a dream, Nigel found himself the center of the circle of armed and angry men.

The Prince laid his hand upon his shoulder. “It is the little cock of Tilford Bridge,” said he. “On my father’s soul, I have ever said that you would win your way. Did you receive the King’s surrender?”

“Nay, fair lord, I did not receive it.”

“Did you hear him give it?”

“I heard, sir, but I did not know that it was the King. My master Lord Chandos had gone on, and I followed after.”

“And left him lying. Then the surrender was not complete, and by the laws of war the ransom goes to Denis de Morbecque, if his story be true.”

“It is true,” said the King. “He was the second.”

“Then the ransom is yours; Denis. But for my part I swear by my father’s soul that I had rather have the honor this Squire has gathered than all the richest ransoms of France.”

At these words spoken before that circle of noble warriors Nigel’s heart gave one great throb, and he dropped upon his knee before the Prince. “Fair lord, how can I thank you?” he murmured. “These words at least are more than any ransom.”

“Rise up!” said the smiling Prince, and he smote with his sword upon his shoulder. “England has lost a brave Squire, and has gained a gallant knight. Nay, linger not, I pray! Rise up, Sir Nigel!”

 

XXVII. HOW THE THIRD MESSENGER CAME TO COSFORD

 

Two months have passed, and the long slopes of Hindhead are russet with the faded ferns - the fuzzy brown pelt which wraps the chilling earth. With whoop and scream the wild November wind sweeps over the great rolling downs, tossing the branches of the Cosford beeches, and rattling at the rude latticed windows. The stout old knight of Duplin, grown even a little stouter, with whiter beard to fringe an ever redder face, sits as of yore at the head of his own board. A well-heaped platter flanked by a foaming tankard stands before him. At his right sits the Lady Mary, her dark, plain, queenly face marked deep with those years of weary waiting, but bearing the gentle grace and dignity which only sorrow and restraint can give. On his left is Matthew, the old priest. Long ago the golden-haired beauty had passed from Cosford to Fernhurst, where the young and beautiful Lady Edith Brocas is the belle of all Sussex, a sunbeam of smiles and merriment, save perhaps when her thoughts for an instant fly back to that dread night when she was plucked from under the very talons of the foul hawk of Shalford.

The old knight looked up as a fresh gust of wind with a dash of rain beat against the window behind him. “By Saint Hubert, it is a wild night!” said he. “I had hoped to-morrow to have a flight at a heron of the pool or a mallard in the brook. How fares it with little Katherine the peregrine, Mary?”

“I have joined the wing, father, and I have imped the feathers; but I fear it will be Christmas ere she can fly again.”

“This is a hard saying,” said Sir John; “for indeed I have seen no bolder better bird. Her wing was broken by a heron’s beak last Sabbath sennight, holy father, and Mary has the mending of it.”

“I trust, my son, that you had heard mass ere you turned to worldly pleasure upon God’s holy day,” Father Matthew answered.

“Tut, tut!” said the old knight, laughing. “Shall I make confession at the head of my own table? I can worship the good God amongst his own works, the woods and the fields, better than in yon pile of stone and wood. But I call to mind a charm for a wounded hawk which was taught me by the fowler of Gaston de Foix. How did it run? `The lion of the Tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered.’ Yes, those were the words to be said three times as you walk round the perch where the bird is mewed.”

The old priest shook his head. “Nay, these charms are tricks of the Devil,” said he. “Holy Church lends them no countenance, for they are neither good nor fair. But how is it now with your tapestry, Lady Mary? When last I was beneath this roof you had half done in five fair colors the story of Theseus and Ariadne.”

“It is half done still, holy father.”

“How is this, my daughter? Have you then so many calls?”

“Nay, holy father, her thoughts are otherwhere,” Sir John answered. “She will sit an hour at a time, the needle in her hand and her soul a hundred leagues from Cosford House. Ever since the Prince’s battle - “

“Good father, I beg you - “

“Nay, Mary, none can hear me, save your own confessor, Father Matthew. Ever since the Prince’s battle, I say, when we heard that young Nigel had won such honor she is brain-wode, and sits ever - well, even as you see her now.”

An intent look had come into Mary’s eyes; her gaze was fixed upon the dark rain-splashed window. It was a face carved from ivory, white-lipped and rigid, on which the old priest looked.

“What is it, my daughter? What do you see?”

“I see nothing, father.”

“What is it then that disturbs you?”

“I hear, father.”

“What do you hear?”

“There are horsemen on the road.”

The old knight laughed. “So it goes on, father. What day is there that a hundred horsemen do not pass our gate, and yet every clink of hoofs sets her poor heart a-trembling. So strong and steadfast she has ever been, my Mary, and now no sound too slight to shake her to the soul! Nay, daughter, nay, I pray you!”

She had half-risen from her chair, her hands clenched and her dark, startled eyes still fixed upon the window. “I hear them, father! I hear them amid the wind and the rain! Yes, yes, they are turning - they have turned! My God, they are at our very door!”

“By Saint Hubert, the girl is right!” cried old Sir John, beating his fist upon the board. “Ho, varlets, out with you to the yard! Set the mulled wine on the blaze once more! There are