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To the boy and girl who by the light of the May moon penetrated the forest glades, they seemed to be peopled with fearful forms and more fearful possibilities. Moonlight and towering tree-trunks, thick undergrowths of hazel and elder, made strange combinations; and as at the sound of their footsteps great owls and woodpeckers started from their roosting-places and screeched and whirred round their heads, hares and foxes rushed through the grass and brambles, and the wind stirred and echoed through the tree-tops, they shuddered, and Nella felt that she had hardly counted the cost of the undertaking. The path was tolerably plain to them; it was a horse track, and led through the forest down to the shore, and they pursued it for about a mile, in almost entire silence, and then turned aside to the right into a narrower one, which shortly led them, to what was always called the blasted oak. This was a great withered tree, which stood alone in the centre of a clearing, without a leaf or a twig to break the forlorn aspect of its wide-stretching arms now glimmering white in the moonlight.
“Now,” said Nella, “we must sound a hunting horn, and some one will show us the way to the witch.”
Harry took hold of the horn that was slung round his neck; to sound it required a considerable effort; but he was ashamed to hesitate in Nella’s presence, and putting it to his lips, blew a blast much fainter than that with which he was accustomed to summon the dogs on a hunting morning. It seemed to them as if the whole forest rang with the sound, as if it echoed away through glade and thicket till it must rouse Northberry Manor itself, nay, as if it might call the whole country to arms.
Nella shrank up to Harry and they both stood trembling and terrified. No one answered their summons.
“The witch will not come, Nella,” said Harry in, it must be confessed, a tone of relief.
“Then we must blow again,” said Nella; but, as she spoke, they saw running in the grass in front of them a little white rabbit. Instead of starting from them it ran up to Nella’s feet, and then away from her for a short distance, then back again. “Is that the witch?” she whispered. “Must I follow that? I will cross myself first.” As the rabbit retained its form and showed no alarm at the holy sign, Nella, summoning all her courage, quitted Harry’s hand – as no two people could, it was supposed, approach the witch together – and followed the little creature, which now turned and ran back into the wood. Nella, child as she was, was of the stuff that makes heroes. She conquered her terrors, and clasping her cross tight, she followed the mysterious summons. It did not occur to her that the animal was pulled by a string attached to its neck. It did not lead her very far, for she soon found herself in front of a low hut, under the door of which the rabbit disappeared. Nella tapped timidly, the door was flung back, and she stepped into a tiny room, very full of smoke, since the chimney consisted only of a hole in the roof. Neither in that respect nor in any other did it differ from the huts of the peasantry round, except that a torch was stuck into a wooden stand of peculiar shape in the centre. The roof was so low that the tall Nella could have touched it with her hand, and on the floor under the torch sat a very little woman, with black eyes, sharp features, and a red cloak over her head. She rose as Nella entered, and stood upright, even then hardly reaching to the girl’s shoulder, and said a few words in a language which Nella recognised, though she did not quite understand. “I cannot speak Cornish,” she said.
Perhaps the witch was not accustomed to visitors with their wits so much about them, though the old Cornish language still crossed the border into Devon, and was not unknown there among the peasantry. Still, it added to the mystery of the witch’s proceedings in the eyes of some of her visitors, and increased the confidence of those to whom it was familiar.
“And what do you want of me then, maiden?” she said in English.
“I am Eleanor Northberry; I want to know where my sister is who was stolen away by the Moors, and I will give you these pearls if you will tell me,” said Nella, who had rehearsed her little speech. She looked at the witch as she spoke, in full confidence of receiving an answer, and with less fear than she had expected. Somehow, there was something very commonplace about the witch now that she had found her.
“You have asked a hard question, my lady,” said the witch in a much more respectful tone. She knew her position too well to frighten the young lady of the Manor to death, aware that, though feared and tolerated, a little too much licence would bring the laws against witchcraft in full operation upon her. She turned her back on Nella, and mumbled and muttered a little to herself, and then facing round, said in a wheedling tone, “Sure, it’s the face of the lovely young lady herself, I read in the stars. Wouldn’t you like to hear what suitors you will have, my pretty lady – about the great lord across the sea?”
“No,” said Nella, though a little reluctantly. “I want to hear about Catalina. For,” she thought, “I shall not be able to pay her to tell me too much, and besides,” – Nella’s thoughts here became hazy even to herself; but they were to the effect that she would not use this sinful means of information more than she could help.
“I see,” said the witch, after a moment, “a maiden like this one before me!”
“Yes,” said Nella, “we were both of an age, and alike exactly.”
“Her eyes are blue, and her face is fair,” looking at her visitor’s. “Those around are – dark – dark.”
“Yes – for the Moors are black,” eagerly said Nella. “Oh, is she alive and happy?”
“The prisoners of the Moors live far away,” said the witch. “One day shall there be a great ransom – and a great deliverance. Friends shall meet across the sea – a talisman will save the lost.”
“Why, I come from across the sea,” said Nella. “A talisman! would it be the cross that Prince Fernando gave us?”
“Ay, the fate of a prince is in the balance,” said the witch, mysteriously.
“But shall I ever see my sister again?” urged Nella.
“Across the sea – across the sea,” repeated the witch. “I can tell no more, my lady – no more.”
“Then I think I had better go home,” said Nella, hardly knowing whether she were impressed or disappointed, but a good deal less frightened than when she came in.
“Give me the pearls, and keep the secret of your visit, else will the talisman work for ill. But now go home, Mistress Nella, go home with Master Harry, and don’t you be coming into the forest at night; ’tisn’t fitting for young ladies like you, and will anger his honour, Sir Walter, sure enough.”
The different tone in which these last words were spoken startled Nella, for the witch dropped all her mysterious solemnity, and spoke, with half-coaxing command, in a voice that sounded strangely familiar.
Perhaps she was afraid of losing the doles of bread that Dame Agnes Northberry dispensed in the courtyard of the Manor, and which old Bess, as she was called, came to claim without any one guessing at her identity with the witch of the forest, who was visited in darkness and mystery. The young lady of Northberry was a client with whom she was afraid to deal.
On the whole, Harry, standing without in the darkness, listening to the strange cries of bird and beast, and watching the awful shadows change and sway in the rising wind, had the hardest time of it. He had followed Nella almost to the door of the hut, and was unspeakably thankful when she ran out alive and unhurt and ready to hurry home as fast as possible.
She hardly spoke, till they were safe out of the forest shades and in the familiar home fields, and then Harry said, in a subdued tone, “Was it very terrible, Nell?”
“No – no,” said Nella, with hesitation. “She said Catalina was across the sea, and had a talisman – the cross, you know – and that if I saw her it would be across the sea. But I was not much frightened, – and I don’t think there was anything – wicked. There were no – demons.” Nella sunk her voice a little, and spoke in a tone of slight disappointment mingled with relief.
“Well,” said Harry, breaking the spell with a laugh, “for all she told you, you might as well have stayed at home, Nell.”
“No, not when I had said I would go.”
But they both thought it rather remarkable that the next morning Harry Hartsed received a letter from his relations at Lisbon, duly favoured by a ship bearing despatches to the court, inviting him to come to Portugal and try his fortunes “across the sea.”
Chapter Ten
His Heart’s Desire
“He greatly longed some land that now did feelThe yoke of misbelieving men once moreTo his Redeemer’s kingdom to restore.”Harry Hartsed arrived in Lisbon while the court was still in mourning for the death of the great and good King Joao the First. He bore various despatches to Sir Walter Northberry from his English cousins, and from his daughter; and was kindly received by his own distant cousin, Sir James Hartsed, and by him placed in the household of the Master of Avis, who showed him much kindness, and made many inquiries after his little favourite, Nella Northberry. There were enough English about the Court of Lisbon to prevent Harry from feeling lonely, and the life there was full of interest and energy. Not that Harry’s disposition led him to emulate the Portuguese princes in their love of literature and science; but he did ardently desire to make as graceful a figure in the tilt-yard as Dom Fernando, and to be able to pick up a nut with the point of his lance when his horse was at full gallop, as cleverly as King Duarte himself. He succeeded beyond his hopes in these aims, growing from an uninformed country lad into an accomplished gentleman; and, moreover, in the atmosphere of earnest piety and strict performance of duty in which he found himself, he could not but perceive that something more than good horsemanship and skill in arms, or even in learning, went to the making of these splendid princes.
The years since the disappearance of Katharine Northberry had been full of changes. The marriage of Dom Pedro had been followed by that of Dom Duarte to Leonora of Aragon. The Princess Isabel had been given by her father to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy; and Dom Joao had also found a wife for himself. These various royal households added greatly to the gaiety of the court; and when the period of mourning for King Joao was over, it proved that the young Queen Leonora loved state and ceremony, and inaugurated many festivities. She was at this time very popular with the people, and every one rejoiced in the presence of a lady at the head of affairs.
Duarte, meanwhile, with an industry and talent equal to his father’s, and with an even greater purity of action and intention, devoted himself to schemes for the good of his subjects, and by so doing made up for the loss of his father’s great minister, Alvarez de Pereira, who had died a few months before the king, and who had long ago put into shape the young princes’ plans for the tithing of Ceuta.
Dom Enrique had been but little at Lisbon, his great undertakings filled up his time, and he had of late joined the King of Aragon in a war with the Duke of Milan, during which he had been taken prisoner, to the great alarm and distress of his brothers; but he had soon regained his liberty, and now, at the end of 1435, was at the court.
Fernando’s health had become somewhat less delicate, though it was still a check on his sharing in his brothers’ exploits; but he led a very busy, useful, and devout life, managing the affairs of the Order of Avis, spending nearly all his private fortune in ransoming prisoners from the Moors, and in acts of charity or devotion. To the poor, wherever he went, he was a personal friend, and the young men of his household regarded him with enthusiastic admiration, marvelling at the combination of such saintly qualities with such a genuine love for all connected with military honour and personal prowess.
The people spoke of his almsgiving, his life of prayer and self-denial, his unfailing gentleness of word and deed, of the sufferings borne with such exemplary patience, and thought that he led the life of a saint on earth. And all this while the life that looked so holy and so peaceful, and was so pure from outward stain, was full of inward storm and struggle, of longings and ambitions, but imperfectly laid at the foot of the Cross. There was much yet to come before Fernando’s victory was won.
One bright winter’s day he was sitting in his private room in the palace. As Master of Avis, he possessed property and residences in more than one part of Portugal; but in Lisbon he still lived under his brother’s roof, chiefly that Duarte might bestow on him, in his frequent illnesses, as much as possible of his scanty intervals of leisure. Besides, Fernando’s tastes were simple, and he loved the surroundings of his boyhood. He had been occupied all the morning, after attending mass in the king’s chapel, with the various affairs of his order, and with a consultation with the Archbishop of Lisbon, over the details of a new mission to be despatched to the coast of Africa, in the wake of some of Dom Enrique’s recent discoveries, and now, wearied with so much exertion, was sitting by the hearth, on which burned a small wood fire.
It was a pleasant room enough, long and narrow, with a high carved and painted ceiling, and a great chimney-piece of white marble, carved with the dragon’s heads that King Joao, in honour of his English Garter, introduced on every occasion, just as he taught his soldiers to shout Saint George.
Harry Hartsed and a young nephew and namesake of the great minister, Alvarez de Pereira, were sitting at the farther end of the room, and talking in a subdued voice, as they looked out between the mullions of the window over the palace garden.
After some discussion between themselves, Harry glanced at the prince, and, perceiving that he was doing nothing, crossed the room and ventured to address him.
“My Lord, Dom Alvarez and I were discussing a question. May I crave leave to ask your opinion on it?”
Fernando started from his reverie, and looked up with the expression in his eyes, half-wistful, half-eager, altogether unsatisfied, that contrasted so strangely with the kind bright smile with which he ever greeted a request.
“You are welcome to my opinion,” he said, gaily; “but I know not if it will be of much value to you.”
“My Lord, Alvarez here declares that his fate has been foretold by the stars, and that certain days in the year are unfavourable to him. That if he went into battle on those days he would assuredly be slain. That being so, it would be well to cast one’s horoscope, and learn how to keep from such dangers.”
“But,” said Fernando, “if duty called Dom Alvarez to battle on these fateful days, he would but go in with a worse heart for thinking it sure that he would never come out again.”
“I should do my duty, my lord, I trust,” said Dom Diego Alvarez, who had followed Hartsed.
“Assuredly, señor; I did but speak to show you how little, to my thinking, knowledge of the future is a help to the present performance of duty. And you have, surely heard, since it is the common story, how a Jewish astrologer would have dissuaded the king, my brother, from receiving the homage of his subjects on the day appointed, declaring it to be an unfortunate one.”
“But his grace was not influenced by a rascally Jew,” said Harry.
“No,” returned the prince; “against the opinions of his councillors he held to his first intention. The king and the dukes, my brothers, having deeply studied the courses of the stars, have found great wonders among them, for which they glorify God; but they do not read in them their own future.”
“Well,” remarked Harry, “I must say that little knowledge came by one attempt I know of, to read the future,” and, in answer to the prince’s question, he related his expedition to the forest with Nella.
“Alas, poor child,” said Fernando, much moved, “it needs no witch to guess at her fate. Young Mistress Nella must have a brave heart.”
“There’s nothing, my lord,” said Harry, “that I should enjoy more than a good blow at the Infidel, and there are many here that think with me. We listen to tales of the siege of Ceuta, and long for our turn.”
“Ay?” said Fernando, thoughtfully. “It seems as if our prayers must be weak when we withhold ourselves. But who is coming?”
“It is the Duke of Viseo, my lord,” said Alvarez.
“Then you may leave us,” said Fernando, as Dom Enrique entered, and, after an affectionate greeting, sat down beside him.
“I think of soon returning to Sagres,” he said; “my sailors will be looking for me. Since we have penetrated to the coast of Africa, I have more business than ever.”
“I should like to go with you for a time to Sagres,” said Fernando. “I could not make observations for you like Duarte, nor work out your mathematics like Pedro, but I long to see more of your doings there.”
“It is so cold at Sagres,” said Enrique; “the winds there are too bleak and rough for you; and yet it would be well for you to spend a few idle weeks.”
“I am strong now,” said Fernando hastily; “nothing will hurt me.”
Enrique smiled and shook his head.
“Nothing ails me now but idleness,” repeated Fernando, as he looked up at his brother with a sort of inquiry in his face.
Enrique was standing leaning his back against the high chimney corner, and now he turned his eyes on Fernando and said —
“Is that thought so fresh in your mind still?”
“Is it ever absent?” cried Fernando, rising in his eagerness. “Can I forget my childish vow, and the longing I have ever had so to devote myself? We have done much with Ceuta for a centre for the spread of the Cross. If Tangier were ours – ” he paused, laying his hand on Enrique’s shoulder. “See, my brother, I am strong enough now for a campaign. I should run no more risk than the rest of you. Is it not my turn? I am the only one of us all whose sword has never been drawn. Am I fit to be head of the Order of Avis? Does such home-staying become my father’s son? Must I be the only one to do nothing for the honour of Portugal or for Holy Church?”
Enrique’s enthusiasm was easily fired. All his life he had been ready to turn aside from his own special objects to strike a blow at the Moor.
“If you and I could head an expedition,” he said, thoughtfully; “much toil need not fall on you.”
“Ah!” cried Fernando. “At such a time I should feel no hardships. I am not so full of my own conceit as to imagine myself a fit leader. Let me but fight under your banner; profit by your experience. Is not our prosperity a shame, while we suffer that unimaginable evil at our very gates?”
“It would consecrate all other efforts,” said Enrique, with the peculiar earnestness that always made his words weighty; “and to fight as we have always wished, side by side, in this holy war!”
“Yes. Alone I could do little! This hope has been my one aim, my prayer, through all the poor life that has borne so little fruit. Enrique, you have known it?”
“Yes. I know that you have never swerved from it. But you must not call your life fruitless, my Fernando.”
“Fruitful of impatience and discontent! In truth I am not worthy of this task.”
“Nevertheless,” said Enrique, with his grave smile, “let us together offer our unworthiness to Him Who will purge our sins away. So shall we win honour for ourselves and our brother.”
Self-devotion and personal glory were so united in the mind during the reign of chivalry, that it was not marvellous that these ardent souls did not quite distinguish between them. Enlightened as the princes of Avis were, they were, even Enrique, men of their own day. Their more personal aims of scientific discovery, missionary work, organised charity and the like, were experimental, and they could not set them quite on a level with the recognised privilege and the duty of distinguishing themselves in the battle-field. First, they must be soldiers, afterwards, men of science and philanthropists, and Fernando felt himself to have missed his vocation. The deep sense of religion, felt in especial by these two, offered them another and higher object. Perhaps the strong desire of self-devotion was the talent specially committed to the “ages of faith.” The evil they wished to remove was great and obvious, and Fernando did not consider that he might be doing the Church’s work perhaps as effectually in another way. He was humble enough in his estimate of himself; he had done the work at hand without a complaint; but the long-restrained wish, once entertained, swept all before it like a flood, and could see no obstacles and no objections. His natural tastes, his religious fervour, his wish for self-denial, and that self which he had not yet altogether learned to deny, all worked together, by the force of his strong will, to attain his object. Enrique loved him too well to oppose him, and moreover was to the full as impetuous, and more used to having his own way.
Chapter Eleven
Diffusing Minds
“How often, O my knights,Your places being vacant at my side,This chance of noble deeds will come and go.”The Princes Enrique and Fernando, having matured their ideas by much discussion, decided on proposing to the King to make an expedition for the taking of Tangier, similar to the one that their father had sent out against Ceuta. Should he, however, be unwilling to make a great national expedition, they would obtain from him his consent, and as much aid as he thought proper, and would devote to the cause all their own resources, which were considerable. Their eagerness grew as their ideas developed, and some inkling of their wishes getting abroad, all the younger nobility caught fire at the notion, and the princes soon saw that their cause would be a popular one.
It was therefore with some confidence in the result that they sought their brother in his private apartments, to lay their plans before him.
Duarte’s life was one of unceasing toil for the good of his subjects. He had already worked out a great scheme for improving the legal system of Portugal, and his industry was immense. His difficulties were much increased by the over-liberality with which his father had given away the crown-lands to his nobility, and many an anxious hour was spent by Duarte in trying to find means to fill his empty exchequer. He set an example of economy in his household, closer than his young queen altogether approved of; but the remedy for this great evil was still to seek. Busy as he was, however, he retained the scholarly tastes of his youth, and his book, El Leal Conselheiro; or, The Faithful Counsellor, a collection of moral and political sayings, was in its day of great value. Nor, however hurried, did he ever fail in kindness and consideration, especially to Fernando, whom he regarded with almost the protecting affection of a father.
He rose now from the table at which he was writing, and greeted his brothers warmly.
“Ah! Enrique,” he said, “have you come to tell me how matters go in your new dominions?”
For Duarte had made Enrique a present of his recent discovery, the island of Madeira.
“Not now, sire,” said Enrique, with some formality. “We have a request to make to you.”
“You can hardly ask me for what I will not grant,” said the King. “Sit here, Fernando,” pointing to a couch by the fire. “You look pale – are you well to-day?”
“I am well and strong,” said Fernando. “You think too much of my weakness.”
And he remained standing, while Enrique, whose words of course carried greater weight, unfolded their cherished scheme. Duarte’s face grew very grave as he listened.
“This is your wish, my Fernando?” he said, moving over to him.
“The wish of my heart – of my life!” said Fernando, as he grasped Duarte’s hand.
“I fear that I see not the way to grant it,” said Duarte, with a reluctant gentleness difficult to contradict.
“Tangier,” said Enrique, “would be a splendid jewel to set in the crown of Portugal. We were young and untried when we took Ceuta; it is little likely that we should now fail.”
“I do not fear failure,” said Duarte; “assuredly not under your leading. Yet my father could not see his way to further conquests in Barbary, nor can I.”
“How so?” said Enrique, bluntly. He was quite as great a man as his brother, and though thoroughly loyal to Duarte, was not much accustomed to opposition from him, but rather to admiring assistance in whatever he proposed.