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Yet inevitable Time, which may neither be anticipated or withheld, passed slowly, and surely on. The shadows of the quaint streets, of the carved and traceried steeples, and of the battlemented castle, with its grey old walls and muddy sluices, fell far to the eastward, along the grassy meadows of the Bommelerwaard; the storks were already in their nests on the steep old gables, and long before the appointed hour, Gray was at the porch of St. Genevieve, where, with anxious eyes, he scanned the passengers, and the thoroughfares in every direction.
At last seven tolled from the spire, and every stroke reverberated in his heart. They had not yet come, and just as a sigh of impatience escaped him, a hand was laid upon his shoulder; he turned, and beheld the abbot of Tongland, and standing behind him, on the upper step of the porch, a pace or two within the church, was a lady, wearing a Flemish hood and veil. Gray's heart rose to his lips, as he sprang towards her, and pressed in his the hands of Murielle.
"Beware, Sir Patrick," said the abbot, "we cannot permit such transports here, and in view of the passers, too! Retire into the north aisle, while I betake me to the south, for I have still some leaves of my daily office to read; and when that is over, I shall rejoin you. Be secret – be wary!"
With this advice, the politic old Churchman left Gray and Murielle to themselves, being perfectly well aware that his presence, could in no way enhance the joy of this sudden interview.
The quiet tenderness of Murielle moderated the ardor of Gray; both trembled with the depth of their emotions, and the girl's eyes were full of tears of affection and fear, for she felt as if Gray had been restored to her from the tomb, and sometime passed before she could speak with coherence.
"Ah, that I should miss your presence here for a moment," said Gray, "but I was watching the passers in the streets."
"While I watched you from the church!"
"And how did you enter it – I have been an hour at the porch."
"We came by the postern, which adjoins the great garden of the Dyck Graf's mansion."
"Where you reside?"
"Yes."
"And the earl, too?"
"Yes – but he is hunting with the Dyck Graf. Oh, these wounds on your face," said Murielle, stroking his cheek with her pretty hands, and kissing it; "oh, mother of God, what must you have suffered?"
"More than tongue can say, Murielle, and more in mind than in body; but these scars are the relict of that dreadful day, when Earl James so mercilessly struck me down, as I besought mercy or quarter – not for my own sake, but for yours."
"And when I thought to have died – great is my wonder that I did not, for strenuously the earl, the countess, and all in Thrave strove to convince me of your death."
"But you received my letter, by Sir Thomas – my good and brave MacLellan?"
"Yes – and it restored me to hope, to life as it were, by the assurance that you lived – you, whom all about me wished should die."
Gray drew her close to his heart, and a soft sweet smile overspread the childlike face, while he pressed to his again and again the little rosebud mouth. At that moment he heard something like a cough or snort; Gray looked round, but saw only the shadows of the pillars that lay in long lines across the tessalated floor of the church.
"I thought, Murielle, I should have gone mad with perplexity when I saw you at Antwerp," said Gray.
"At Antwerp – you saw me there?" replied Murielle, a little beam of gratified vanity lighting up her eyes.
"In the procession of the assumption; but the strange part you bore – how came that about?"
"Through the desire of the earl and the bishop of Mechlin (or as some name him, Malines), whom he knew in Scotland as secretary to the Legate Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini; but, believe me, I had no desire to appear as I did."
"And how long do you remain in Bommel?"
"A week."
"Thank heaven! then we shall meet often. Have – have you yet seen the outlawed duke of Albany?" asked Gray; hesitating with the question, while burning with impatience for the answer.
"No," said Murielle, blushing in spite of herself; "I have declined."
Gray pressed her to his breast.
"You know then, dearest, of what the earl is capable," said he; "of forcing you to become the bride of another, who will further his designs and strengthen his power at home and abroad."
"Yes – yes," replied Murielle, weeping; "I knew it – already has he broadly hinted as much."
"Already!"
"And commanded me to obey; ah, pardon me for making this admission!" said she imploringly.
"Pardon you?" reiterated Gray.
"Yes; but the earl rarely condescends to hint."
"Oh my beloved heart!"
"I meant not to add to your griefs, dearest, by naming a rival whose rank renders him so formidable, – but – but – " tears choked her utterance.
"And this rival is the duke of Albany – a French minion – an outlaw; the son of a traitor who plotted for the lawless detention of James I., in England; a roué and swashbuckler, who consorts with the robber, Ludwig of Endhoven!"
"'Tis indeed he, to whom they would sacrifice me," said Murielle, clasping her poor little tremulous hands, and weeping bitterly. Gray remained silent for some moments, while love, pity, and alarm wrung his heart by turns.
"I know it – I know it," said he gloomily, "for Albany's own lips informed me."
"You see, dear Gray, to what lengths Douglas and my sister will go in their thirst for vengeance. The young king dethroned or slain; his banished cousin crowned by English aid as Robert IV., the house of Douglas would become more powerful than ever, and thus attain in the land a strength which none could crush, and before which Livingstone and Crichton assuredly must fall."
The vista these projects opened up, when thus plainly stated, startled even the gallant heart of Gray!
"But Albany dare not," said he huskily, while grasping his dagger; "this should end his treason long ere it reached the mature length his father's did."
"Douglas and Albany will dare anything," sobbed Murielle; "alas, poor me! I am, my sister says, but a child, and a very weak one in their iron hands."
"Then be a woman – let us escape and seek safety by flight together. We are but thirty miles from the sea, where we can soon find a ship for Scotland, and ere the earl's return we may be ready to defy him."
"Oh to what would you tempt me?"
"To save yourself and me. Once wedded, once again in Scotland, under the protection of the king, a boy though he be, we might defy your kinsman and all his followers."
"Oh no – no!" said Murielle, shaking her head mournfully.
"To Gueldres then. Duke Arnold will succour and protect us," urged Gray vehemently.
"Worse still!"
"Oh Murielle, in pity to yourself and me – "
"Nay, nay, this must not be," said the abbot of Tongland angrily, as he came suddenly forward; "Sir Patrick Gray, this is a breach of faith with me. In friendship to her, and you my kinsman – for I dearly love you both – I permitted this meeting; but have no intention that it shall take a turn so startling – so dangerous for the honour of Lady Murielle, and for the lives of us all perhaps! Come – come with me lady, we must return at once."
"But we shall meet again, – good Father Abbot, say we shall meet again?" urged Gray.
"Once, I promise you, once ere we leave Bommel, on the third evening from this, at the same hour," said the abbot, hurrying Murielle away, for at that moment several Flemish ecclesiastics entered the church.
As Gray wished to avoid every one, he withdrew; but resolved that, come what might of it, in his next interview with Murielle, to save her from the perils that were impending. She still loved him truly, and there was every consolation in the knowledge that she did so; yet her love would not save her from Albany when Douglas chose to play the tyrant.
But the abbot's protégé, the serpent, was abroad, and there were many mischiefs to be plotted and many to be worked ere Murielle could be saved from her persecutors.
As she and the abbot passed through the postern door which opened from one of the aisles into the garden of the Dyck Graf – a door over which there may be seen to this day, a strange sculpture of a mitred cat preaching to twelve little mice – a man who had evidently been listening shrunk back into the shade. This person was the somewhat ubiquitous James Achanna, who, inspired alike by impatience and malevolence, repaired immediately to his lord and chief the earl.
CHAPTER XXXIII
HOUSE OF THE DYCK GRAF
With every exertion, the best of men can do but a moderate amount of good; but it seems in the power of the most contemptible individual to do indescribable mischief. – Washington Irving.
While the lonely Sir Patrick Gray, full of sombre and exciting thoughts, retired to his hostelry to consider and to plan the deliverance of Murielle from her own family, the house of Messire Jacques de Lalain, the Dyck Graf or hereditary governor of Bommel, which had been assigned as a temporary residence to the powerful Scottish noble and his retinue, became brilliantly lighted up.
In the principal chamber were grouped together many of the personages whom we last saw together, at the abbot's house in Edinburgh, on that eventful evening of November, 1440. It was noble in aspect, loftily ceiled, and floridly decorated in the Flemish fashion of that age of profusion, the walls and roof being covered with quaint devices and heraldic blazons, by Jan Van Eyck, a native of Maeseyk, who, in 1410, attained great perfection in the mixing of oil colours. Within a fireplace, lined with Dutch tiles, blazed a pile of logs across the massive bar of the and-irons. On an oaken buffet stood a gigantic lion, formed entirely of Delft ware, the crest of Gueldres, as it sprang from a ducal crown. From the ceiling hung a gilded chandelier, a veritable pyramid of candles, which shed a flood of light upon the guests below.
And striking groups they formed, the ladies having long veils of the richest white lace, falling from the summits of their lofty horned head-dresses; while their other garments, cote-hardies and skirts, were of the finest silk, taffeta, and gauze, covered with pearls, jewels, and embroidery; the hues and fashion of the attire of all these noble demoiselles making them resemble the queens of clubs and spades, just as we may see them on a pack of cards.
The apparel of the gentlemen was much of the same material – gay in colour, and gorgeous as embroidery and jewels could make it, with here and there a richly engraved cuirass of Milan plate, a gorget of burnished steel, or a diamond studded dagger-hilt, to impart a military character to the wearer.
An old cavalier, with a high bald forehead, a beard so long that Ferdinand of Toledo might have envied it, and who wore the mantle and jewel of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy, was conversing in French with the earl of Douglas. He was Jacques de Lalain, a noble Burgundian knight, hereditary Burg Graf of the town and castle of Bommel. While seeming to converse with the earl, who was speaking of King Charles VII. and Duke Philip the Good, and what might result from a war between France and Burgundy, with the adverse parts which Scotland and England were certain to take therein, he was gazing with pleasure on a group of Scottish girls, who by the fine carriage of their heads, their general bearing, and more than all by the whiteness of their hands, evinced that they inherited the best blood and highest breeding in the land.
They were, in fact, the Countess Margaret and Murielle, her sister; the countess of Ormond; dark-eyed Maud Douglas, of Pompherston; Mariota, of Glendoning; the golden-haired Caillean Rua; Lady Jean, of Cairnglas; and the three daughters of Sir Alan Lauder. The gentlemen who conversed with them, and played at chess with some, at tables (an old name for backgammon) with others, were the knights and esquires of the earl's retinue.
Amid these were two persons already introduced to the reader – Robert, duke of Albany, and Ludwig, count of Endhoven, whom as a simple Burgundian knight, he had, with his usual recklessness, dared to introduce to this high circle.
It was not without secret emotions of pleasure and satisfaction, that the blasé royal outlaw beheld the girlish beauty of Murielle. Though in no mood for marrying, and long since used to consider women only as tools or playthings, to be cast aside when no longer needed, he conceived that he might find such a wife, for a time, the reverse of a tedium or an encumbrance; and, that on the simple condition of wedding her, he could enter with ardour into those daring schemes which promised vengeance to Douglas and a throne to himself.
Gay, handsome, and richly dressed, he leaned upon the high back of her chair, and insisted on conversing with her, flattering himself that he was making considerable progress, though the memory of Gray's sad loving eyes, and of his lover's kiss, yet lingered in her mind; but she was too well bred to treat the duke as he deserved; too gentle and too timid to repel him; and, moreover, too proud to acknowledge the footing upon which he affected to place himself with her – a position on which she was daily rallied by the countess and her ladies of the tabourette, until her little heart waxed wroth.
There were times also, when Albany, piqued by a coldness and reserve that were new to him, actually nursed himself into the conviction that he was desperately in love with this little beauty – if love in a heart so roué were a possibility.
Near them sat Count Ludwig, affecting to be entirely occupied with a bloodhound, which the Dyck Graf had presented to the countess. It was a spotless dog, of "Black St. Hubert's breed," but white as snow, and was named Souyllard, after that famous hound of the prince of Lorraine, which is thus extolled in the "Noble Art of Venerie:"
"My name first came from holy Hubert's race;Souyllard my sire, a hound of singular grace."The reckless Ludwig, as he gazed on the beauty of Murielle, began to conceive some very daring schemes on his own account, as his armed Brabanciones, to the number of some hundreds, lurked in the Peel morass and woods on the other side of the Waal. He allowed his imagination to run riot, and while affecting to caress the powerful hound on the one hand, and converse with the abbot of Tongland on the other, he saw before him only the sweet girl's gentle eyes, which drooped, and her little coral mouth, which paled, whenever his bold glance fell on her.
The abbot and she exchanged smiles from time to time. He was full of commiseration and alarm for Sir Patrick Gray, whose preceptor he had been, and he was thinking of that peaceful and pleasant time in Tongland Abbey, when he was wont to take him once daily to read the works of St. Augustine, or a page of the Gospels in old monkish Latin. Each of these stood under an iron grating in the church, where a leaf of them was turned daily for the behoof of the learned or the pious; but Gray and MacLellan, like wayward boys, to get rid of the task which bored them, stole the key of the grille, and threw it into the Dee.
The poor old abbot had very little idea of the real character of the personage with whom he was conversing; and the reader may imagine the astonishment with which the robber count listened to him, and the undisguised merriment with which he treated his great project regarding the restoration of the Man of Sin. In short, Count Ludwig deemed our worthy abbot neither a well-deserving divine nor eccentric pedant, but a veritable madman, and so often muttering several times, "Der Teufel hole dich!" or "Sangdieu!" and so forth, he ceased to listen, and continued to gaze covertly at Murielle.
The recent interview with her lover gave a brilliance to her beauty, and a radiance to her expression; her slight but finely rounded form, being clad in cloth of silver under a robe of white gauze, seemed to stand forth in brilliant relief from the dark tapestry of the room. A silver caul confined her hair; her ornaments were all Scottish pearls, and everything about her appeared pure, girlish, and angelic – and so thought both the roué duke and the ruffian count.
Her eyes wandered frequently to the latter, though he terrified her, and she knew not why; but she pitied him for having such a terrible scar on his face, and it made her think of Patrick Gray. Little dreaming that his sword had inflicted it, she timidly inquired of the duke where that wound was received.
"In a battle with the Burgundians," replied the others readily, "a desperate one, when he slew all their men-at-arms."
"But is not he of Burgundy?" said Murielle with surprise.
"Ah, true; I meant to say with the French – but they fight so many," added the unabashed duke.
After this Murielle relapsed into silence, for she listened to Albany rather than conversed with him. Hitherto she had steadily refused to meet him; but she was too little in stature and too gentle in spirit to be a heroine either in romance or history; and perceived now the futility of resisting further to receive him, as it had been arranged that the duke was to accompany the earl to Rome, to the end that during the journey he might ingratiate himself with her, and that there the marriage would be performed, after his betrothal to Mademoiselle of France had been cancelled by the Vatican – a measure which the French king, since Albany's change of fortune and position, most earnestly desired.
And now James Achanna entered, with a smile spreading over his cat-like visage, when he saw how this goodly company were grouped.
He wished to gain the ear of the earl, but that formidable personage was conversing with the Dyck Graf.
When approaching he passed close to Murielle, who, while seeming to listen to Albany, was lost in reverie, and was unconsciously drawing from her pretty finger a pearl ring which Gray in happier times had given her. At that moment it suddenly slipped from her hand, and rolled among the rushes of the floor.
Quick as his wicked thought, Achanna let his handkerchief drop in the same place, and adroitly picked them up together.
"Good," he muttered, "this may prove useful."
We shall soon see what use he made of this ring.
Cautious in action, stealthy in step and eye, sharp in question but vague in answer – his eyes and ears ever open, and his tongue always prepared to speak in an age when men were slower in word than deed, – James Achanna was indeed a fitting tool for an unscrupulous feudal lord. Taking the opportunity of the Dyck Graf addressing a few words to the countesses of Douglas and Ormond, he said to the earl in a whisper, – "Would it please you, my lord, to play a game with me at tables?"
Then perceiving that the earl glanced at him with some disdain in his eye and hauteur in his manner, the politic Achanna added in a low voice, – "I have that to say which must be said instantly, and which none must overhear."
"Oh, we are to play a double game!" replied the earl with a sudden glance of intelligence; "bring hither the tables, the men, and the dice."
Achanna and he withdrew into the recess of a window. The tables were speedily opened, the men were marshalled, and the game began; but Achanna waited until his lord should make the first move.
"Proceed," said the latter impatiently.
"I am, then, to make the first move?"
"If it please you – begin."
They bent their heads near, as if interested in the game, and proceeded to push their men about vaguely, but vigorously.
"I told you, my lord, that I had met a certain Laird of Luaig," commenced Achanna.
"Yes, yes, at Grave."
"Well, I had my suspicions that the pretended laird of Luaig was no other than he we all wot of."
"Whom mean you – Gray?"
"Sir Patrick Gray of Foulis, captain of the king's guard; and now my suspicions are confirmed."
The earl started, and his eyes flashed with dusky fire, but controlling his emotion he simply asked, – "How?"
"I discovered him by watching the Lady Murielle. Cogsbones! I knew that the cock bird would soon find the hen."
"Sirrah," said the earl frowning, "you speak of a sister of the countess of Douglas – quick to the point, lest I hang you from that window by one of the curtain ropes!"
"Your pardon, Lord Earl; my speech is ruder than my thoughts," cringed the other.
"Quick!" continued the earl, almost grinding his teeth.
In a few words Achanna rapidly related the interview, which, by chance, he had overheard, in the church of St. Genevieve, and the earl was filled by such a tempest of anger that he became all but speechless; yet by a great effort of self-control, an effort the more painful that such exertion was quite unusual – he contented himself by glaring from under his black bushy eyebrows at poor unconscious Murielle with an expression as if he would have annihilated her.
"Think you the abbot took her there to meet him?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Where?"
"Thou ass! to the church of St. Genevieve?"
"Heaven forfend! no; 'twas he who saved her from Gray," whined the sycophant vassal.
"It is well," said the earl in a quiet voice, but with fury still kindling in his eye and quivering on his lip; "were it otherwise, by St. Bryde, I'd unfrock and scourge him through these streets of Bommel with a horse halter, a mitred abbot and my confessor though he be!"
"Who, think you, my lord, brought to Lady Murielle at Thrave, the tidings that Gray still lived?"
"I would give this golden chain to know."
"I overheard – "
"His name – his name?"
"Sir Thomas MacLellan, of Bombie."
"Gray's kinsman, the lieutenant of the guard?"
"Yes, my lord," said Achanna, sweeping into his girdle pouch the gold chain which the earl quietly passed to him; "and long ago I had further proof that it was he."
"But for the assurance she received, by letter, of Gray's existence, she would now, I doubt not, have been duchess of Albany, and might have spared us this journey to Rome."
"You remember, my lord, that the letter was tied to an arrow, which struck the turf at her feet as she walked by the side of the Dee?"
"Yes, I remember to have heard so."
"I found that arrow, and a week after, Malise MacKim, the smith, found a quiver full lying among the rushes. The two chevrons sable of MacLellan were painted on it, and the letter which bore the arrow was one of the same sheaf, the same shaft, notch, and feather; for, but a week before, Sir Thomas had bought them in the Friars Wynd, at Dumfries, as he passed south from Edinburgh."
"So, so!" said the earl, grinding his teeth; "if God and St. Bryde of Douglas permit me once again to cross the bridge of Dumfries I shall have a vengeance on MacLellan, so sure and deadly, that all Scotland shall ring with it from sea to sea."
And terribly the earl kept his vow.
"But where," he added, "is our lover at present?"
"That I have yet to discover."
"The Dyck Graf," began the earl, starting up; but Achanna caught his sleeve, saying, "Nay, nay, my lord, he will be certain to protect him. We cannot make a raid in Flanders as we might in Nithsdale."
"True, we must be secret. Oh, that I had them both, this Gray and MacLellan within ten Scottish miles of our gallows knob at Thrave, I would soon mar the interference of the one and the wooing of the other. I would summon all the Corbies in Deeside to his spousals."
"Leave the sequel to me, lord earl," said Achanna, in a low impressive whisper, "and Sir Patrick shall be punished even to your heart's content."
"Assure me but of that, Achanna, and thou shalt pocket a thousand silver crowns," said Douglas, pressing the hand of his trusty vagabond.
With his natural ferocity of disposition, and being usually in the habit of giving full vent to every gust of fury, the earl found great difficulty in preserving an aspect of external composure during the remainder of the evening; but immediately on the Dyck Graf's departure for the castle of Bommel, the company broke up, and Douglas prepared to retire, with a scowl on his brow, and bitterness in his heart.
"God – den to you, father abbot; art still labouring hard to ruin the empire of the prince of darkness? Oh, if ever thou shouldst fall into his hand!" said he with a mocking laugh, as he passed the worthy churchman, who started at the sound, for Douglas seldom laughed, and never in merriment.