Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ it is from Liege or Namur."

      "Then, by my troth, Sir Marshal," said the Dauphin, turning to his companion, "our horses will never carry us thither this night. What is to be done?"

      "What is the nearest town or village, boy?" demanded the Marshal of Burgundy. "If we be at equal distances from Namur and Liege and Tirlemont, we cannot be far from Hannut."

      "Hannut is the nearest place," answered the boy; "but it is two hours' ride for a tired horse."

      "We will try it, however," said the Marshal; and then added, turning to the Dauphin, "the lord of the castle of Hannut, sir, though first cousin of the bad Duke of Gueldres, is a noble gentleman as ever lived; and I can promise you a fair reception. Though once a famous soldier, he has long cast by the lance and casque; and, buried deep in studies--which churchmen say are hardly over holy--he passes his whole time in solitude, except when some ancient friend breaks in upon his reveries. Such a liberty I may well take. Now, boy, tell us our road, and there is a silver piece for thy pains."

      The boy stooped not to raise the money which the Marshal threw towards him, but replied eagerly, "If any one will take me on the croup behind him, I will show you easily the way. Nay, I beseech you, noble lords, take me with you; for I am wearied and alone, and I must lie in the forest all night if you refuse me."

      "But dost thou know the way well, my fair boy?" demanded the Dauphin, approaching nearer, and stooping over his saddle-bow to speak to the boy with an air of increasing kindness. "Thou art so young, methinks thou scarce canst know all the turnings of a wood like this. Come, let us hear if thy knowledge is equal to the task of guiding us?"

      "That it is," answered the boy at once. "The road is as easy to find as a heron's nest in a bare tree. One has nothing to do but to follow on that road over the bridge, take the two first turnings to the right, and then the next to the left, and at the end of a league more the castle is in sight."

      "Ay," said the Dauphin, "is it so easy as that? Then, by my faith, I think we can find it ourselves. Come, Sir Marshall, come!" And, so saying, he struck his spurs into his horse's sides, and cantered over the bridge.

      The Marshal of Burgundy looked back with a lingering glance of compassion at the poor boy thus unfeelingly treated by his companion. But, as the Prince dashed forward and waved his hand for him to follow, he rode on also, though not without a muttered comment on the conduct of the other, which might not have given great pleasure had it been vented aloud. The whole train followed; and, left alone, the boy stood silent, gazing on them as they departed, with a flushed cheek and a curling lip. "Out upon the traitors!" he exclaimed, at length. "All men are knaves; yet it is but little honour to their knavery, to cheat a boy like me."

      The train wound onward into the wood, and the last horseman was soon hidden from his eyes; but the merry sound of laughing voices, borne by the wind to his ear for some moments after they were out of sight, spoke painfully how little interest they took in his feelings or situation.

      He listened till all was still, and then, seating himself on the bank of the stream, gazed vacantly on the bubbling waters as they rushed hurriedly by him; while the current of his own thoughts held as rapid and disturbed a course. As memory after memory of many a painful scene and sorrow--such as infancy has seldom known--came up before his sight, his eyes filled, the tears rolled rapidly over his cheeks, and, casting himself prostrate on the ground, he hid his face amongst the long grass, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

      He had not lain there long, however, when a heavy hand, laid firmly on his shoulder, caused him once more to start up; and, though the figure which stood by him when he did so, was not one whose aspect was very prepossessing, yet it would be difficult to describe the sudden lightning of joy that sparkled in his eyes through the tears with which they still overflowed.

      The person who had roused him from the prostrate despair in which he had cast himself down, was a middle-sized, broad-made man, with long sinewy arms, and a chest like that of a mountain-bull. He might be nearly forty years of age; and his face, which had once been fair, a fact which was vouched alone by his light brown hair, and clear blue eye, had now reached a hue nearly approaching to the colour of mahogany, by constant exposure to the summer's sun and the winter's cold. There was in it, withal, an expression of daring hardihood, softened and, as it were, purified by a frank, free, good-humoured smile, which was not without a touch of droll humour. His garb at once bespoke him one of those vagrant sons of Mars, with whom war, in some shape, was a never-failing trade; a class of which we must speak more hereafter, and which the abuses of the feudal system, the constant feuds of chieftain with chieftain, and the long and desolating warfare between France and England, had at that time rendered but too common in every part of Europe. He was not, indeed, clothed from head to heel in cold iron, as was customary with the knight or man-at-arms when ready for the field; but there was quite a sufficient portion of old steel about his person, in the form of arms both offensive and defensive, to show that hard blows were the principal merchandise in which he traded.

      He laid his large hairy hand, as I have said, firmly and familiarly on the boy's shoulder; and the expression of the young wanderer's countenance, when he started up, and beheld the person who stood near him, at once showed, not only that they were old acquaintances, but that their meeting was both unexpected and joyful.

      "Matthew Gournay!" exclaimed the boy, "good Matthew Gournay, is it you, indeed? Oh, why did you not come before? With your fifty good lances, we might yet have held the castle out, till we were joined by the troops from Utrecht; but now all is lost, the castle taken, and my father----"

      "I know it all, Master Hugh," interrupted the soldier; "I know it all better than the paternoster. Bad news flies faster than a swallow; so I know it all, and a good deal more than you yourself know. You ask, why I did not come too. By our Lady! for the simplest reason in the world--because I could not. I was lying like an old rat in a trap, with four stone walls all round about me, in the good city of Liege. Duke Philip heard of the haste I was making to give you help, and cogged with the old bishop--may his skull be broken!--to send out a couple of hundred reiters to intercept us on our march. What would you have? We fought like devils, but we were taken at a disadvantage, by a superior force. All my gallant fellows were killed or dispersed; and at last, finding my back against a rock, with six spears at my breast, and not loving the look of such a kind of toasting-fork, I agreed to take lodging in the town prison of Liege."

      "But how got you out, then!" demanded the boy; "did they free you for good-will?"

      "Not they," replied Matthew Gournay: "they gave me cold water and hard bread, and vowed every day to stick my head upon the gate of the town, as a terror to all marauders, as they said. But the fools showed themselves rank burghers, by leaving me my arms; and I soon found means to get the iron bars out of the windows, ventured a leap of thirty feet, swam the ditch, climbed the wall, and here I am in the forest of Hannut. But not alone, Master Hugh. I have got a part of my old comrades together already, and hope soon to have a better band than ever. The old seneschal, too, from the castle, is with us, and from him we heard all the bad news. But, though he talked of murder and putting to death, and flaying alive, and vowed that everybody in the castle had been killed but himself, I got an inkling from the old charcoal-burner's wife, at the hut in the wood, of how you had escaped, and whither you had gone. So, thinking, as you were on foot and alone, that you might want help and a horse, I tracked you like a deer to this place: for your father was always a good friend to me in the time of need; and I will stand by you, Master Hugh, while I have a hand for my sword, or a sword for my hand."

      "Hark!" cried the boy, almost as the other spoke; "there's a bugle on the hill! It must be the duke's butchers following me."

      "A bugle!" cried the soldier; "a cow's-horn blown by a sow-driver, you mean. None of the duke's bugles ever blew a blast like that, something СКАЧАТЬ