In the Days of Chivalry Part 12

It was plainly useless to try to disabuse Roger of the impression that his visitor was other than a supernatural one, and Raymond saw that with the boy's mind so enfeebled and unhinged he had better let him think what he would. He simply held the crucifix over him once again, and said, with a calm authority that surprised even himself:

"Trust not in me, nor in any Saint however holy. In the Name of the Blessed Jesus alone put thy faith. Speak the prayer His lips have taught, and then sleep, and fear nothing."

With hands locked together, and a wonderful look of rest upon his face, Roger repeated after Raymond the long-unused Paternoster which he had never dared to speak beneath the unhallowed roof of his master at Basildene. With the old sense of restful confidence in prayer came at once the old untroubled sleep of the little child; and when Raymond at last looked up from his own devotions at the bedside, it was to see that Roger had fallen into the tranquil slumber that is the truest restorer of health, and that Father Paul was standing on the opposite side of the bed, regarding him with a very gentle yet a very penetrating and authoritative gaze. He bent his head once more as if to demand a blessing, and the Father laid a hand upon his head, and said, in grave, full tones:

"Peace be with thee, my son."

That was all. There was no comment upon what had pa.s.sed; and after partaking of a simple meal, Raymond was advised to retire to rest himself after his long night's ride, and glad enough was he of the sleep that speedily came to him.

All the next day he was occupied with Gaston, who had many charges to undertake for John; and only when his brother had gone was he free to take up his place at John's bedside, and be once again his nurse, companion, and fellow student.

Roger still occupied the bed in the same room where he had first been laid. A low fever of a nature little understood had fastened upon him, and he still fell frequently into those strange unnatural trances which were looked upon by the brothers of the order as due to purely satanic agency. What Father Paul thought about them none ever knew, and none dared to ask.

Father Paul was a man who had lived in the world till past the meridian of life. He was reported to have travelled much, to have seen many lands and many things, and to have been in his youth a reckless and evil liver. Some even believed him to have committed some great crime; but none rightly knew his history, and his present sanct.i.ty and power and holiness were never doubted. A single look into that stern, worn, powerful face, with the coal-black eyes gleaming in their deep sockets, was enough to convince the onlooker that the man was intensely, even terribly in earnest. His was the leading spirit in that small and austere community, and he began at once to exercise a strong influence upon each of the three youths so unexpectedly thrown across his path.

This influence was the greatest at first over Raymond, in whom he appeared to take an almost paternal interest; and the strange warfare that they waged together over the mental malady of the unhappy Roger drew them still closer together.

Certainly for many long weeks it seemed as though the boy were labouring under some demoniacal possession, and Raymond fully believed that such was indeed the case. Often it seemed as though no power could restrain him from at least the attempt to return to the tyrant whom he believed to be summoning him back. Possibly much of the strange malady from which he was suffering might be due to physical causes -- overstrained nerves, and even an unconscious and morbid craving after that very hypnotic condition (as it would now be termed) which had really reduced him to his present pitiable state; but to Raymond it appeared to proceed entirely from some spiritual possession, and in helping the unhappy boy to resist and conquer the voice of the tempter, his own faith and strength of spirit were marvellously strengthened; whilst Roger continued to regard him in the light of a guardian angel, and followed him about like a veritable shadow.

Father Paul watched the two youths with a keen and observant interest.

It was by his command that Raymond was always summoned or roused from sleep whenever the access of nervous terror fell upon Roger and he strove to obey the summoning voice. He would watch with quiet intensity the struggle between the wills of the two lads, and mark, with a faint smile upon his thin lips, the triumph invariably attained by Raymond, and his growing and increasing faith in the power of the Name he invoked in his aid. Seldom indeed had he himself to come to the aid of the boy.

He never did so unless Roger's paroxysm lasted long enough to try Raymond's strength to the verge of exhaustion, and this was very seldom.

The calm smile in the Father's eyes, and his quiet words of commendation, "Well done, my son!" were reward sufficient for Raymond even when his strength had been most severely tasked; and as little by little he and his charge came to know the monk better, and to receive from him from time to time words of teaching, admonition, or encouragement, they found themselves growing more and more dominated by his strong will and personality, more eager day by day to please him, more anxious to win the rare smile that occasionally flashed across the austere face and illuminated it like a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne.

John felt almost the same sense of fascination as Raymond, and was by no means impatient of the tardy convalescence that kept him so long a prisoner beneath the walls of the small religious house. He would indeed have fain tarried longer yet, but that his father sent a retinue of servants at length to bring him home again.

But Raymond did not go with him. His work for Roger was not yet done, and warmly attached as he was to John, his heart was still more centred upon Father Paul. Besides, no mention was made of him in the letter that accompanied the summons home. His brother was he knew not where, and his duty lay with Roger, who looked to him as to a saviour and protector.

There was no thought of Roger's leaving the retreat he had found in his hour of need. He scarce dared put foot outside the quiet cloistered quadrangle behind whose gates and walls he alone felt safe. Besides, his father lay slowly dying in the hospital hard by. It seemed as though the very joy of having his son restored to him had been too much for his enfeebled frame after the long strain of grief that had gone before. The process of decay might be slow, but it was sure, and all knew that the old man would ere long die. He had no desire for life, if only his boy were safe; and to Raymond he presented a pathetic pet.i.tion that he would guard and cherish him, and save him from that terrible possession which had well-nigh been his ruin body and soul.

To Raymond it seemed indeed as if this soul had been given him, and he pa.s.sed his word with a solemnity that brought great comfort to the dying man.

An incident which had occurred shortly before had added to Raymond's sense of responsibility with regard to Roger, and had shown him likewise that a new peril menaced his own path in life, though of personal danger the courageous boy thought little.

One day, some six weeks after his admission to the Monastery, and shortly before John's departure thence, Roger had been strangely uneasy and depressed for many hours. It was no return of the trance-like state in which he was not master of his own words and actions. Those attacks had almost ceased, and he had been rapidly gaining in strength in consequence. This depression and restless uneasiness was something new and strange. Raymond did not know what it might forebode, but he tried to dissipate it by cheerful talk, and Roger did his best to fight against it, though without much success.

"Some evil presence is near!" he exclaimed suddenly; "I know it -- I feel it! I ever felt this sick shuddering when those wicked men approached me. Methinks that one of them must even now be nigh at hand.

Can they take me hence? Do I indeed belong to them? O save me -- help me! Give me not up to their power!"

His agitation became so violent, that it was a relief to Raymond that Father Paul at this moment appeared; and as this phase in Roger's state was something new, and did not partake of the nature of any spiritual possession, he dismissed Raymond with a smile, bidding him go out for one of the brief wanderings in the woods that were at once pleasant and necessary for him, whilst he himself remained beside Roger, soothing his nameless terrors and a.s.suring him that no power in the land, not even that of the King himself, would be strong enough to force from the keeping of the Church any person who had sought Sanctuary beneath her shadow.

Meantime Raymond went forth, as he was wont to do, into the beech wood that lay behind the home of the monks. It was a very beautiful place at all times; never more so than when the first tender green of coming summer was clothing the giant trees, and the primroses and wood sorrel were carpeting the ground, which was yet brown with the fallen leaves of the past autumn. The slanting sunbeams were quivering through the gnarled tree trunks, and the birds were singing rapturously overhead, as Raymond bent his steps along the trodden path which led to the nearest village; but he suddenly stopped short with a start of surprise on encountering the intent gaze of a pair of fierce black eyes, and finding himself face to face with a stranger he had never seen in his life before.

Never seen? No; and yet he knew the man perfectly, and felt that he changed colour as he stood gazing upon the handsome malevolent face that was singularly repulsive despite its regular features and bold beauty.

In a moment he recollected where he had seen those very lineaments portrayed with vivid accuracy, even to the sinister smile and the gleam in the coal-black eyes.

Roger possessed a gift of face drawing that would in these days make the fortune of any portrait painter. He had many times drawn with a piece of rough charcoal pictures of the monks as he saw them in the refectory, the refined and hollow face of John, and the keen and powerful countenance of Father Paul. So had he also portrayed for Raymond the features of the two Sanghursts, father and son. The youth knew perfectly the faces of both; and as he stopped short, gazing at this stranger with wide-open eyes, he knew in a moment that Roger's malevolent foe was nigh at hand, and that the sensitive and morbidly acute faculties of the boy had warned him of the fact, when he could by no possibility have known it by any other means.

Sanghurst stood looking intently at this bright-faced boy, a smile on his lips, a frown in his eyes.

"Methinks thou comest from the Monastery hard by?" he questioned smoothly. "Canst tell me if there be shelter there for a weary traveller this night?"

"For a poor and weary traveller perchance there might be," answered the boy, with a gleam in his eye not lost upon his interlocutor; "but it is no house of entertainment for the rich and prosperous. Those are sent onwards to the Benedictine Brothers, some two miles south from this.

Father Paul opens not his gates save to the sick, the sorrowful, the needy. Shall I put you in the way of the other house, Sir? Methinks it would suit you better than any place which calls Father Paul its head."

The gaze bent upon the boy was searching and distinctly hostile. As the dialogue proceeded, the look of malevolence gradually deepened upon the face of the stranger, till it might have made a timid heart quail.

"How then came John de Brocas to tarry there so long? For aught I know he may be there yet. By what right is he a guest beneath this so hospitable roof?"

"He was sick nigh to the death when he craved admittance," answered Raymond briefly. "He --"

"He had aided and abetted the flight from his true masters of a servant boy bound over to them lawfully and fast. If he thinks to deceive Peter Sanghurst or if you do either, boy that you are, though with the hardihood of a man and the recklessness of a fool -- you little know with whom you have to deal. It was you -- you who broke into our house -- I know not how, but some day I shall know -- and stole away with one you fondly hope to hold against my power. Boy, I warn you fairly: none ever makes of Peter Sanghurst an enemy but he bitterly, bitterly rues the day. I give you one chance of averting the doom which else will fall upon you. Give back the boy. Lure him out hither some day when I am waiting to seize him. Place him once again in my hands, and your rash act shall be forgiven. You have the power to do this. Be advised, and accept my terms. The Sanghursts never forgive. Refuse, and the day will come when you will so long to have done my bidding now, that you would even sell your soul to undo the deed which has brought my enmity upon you. Now choose. Will you deliver up the boy, or --"

"Never!" answered Raymond, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, not even waiting to hear the alternative. "I fear you not. I know you, and I defy you. I will this moment to Father Paul, to warn him of your approach. The gates will be closed, and you will be denied all entrance. You may strive as you will, but your victim has taken Sanctuary, and not all the powers of the world or the devil you serve can prevail against the walls of that haven of refuge. Go back whence you came, or stay and do your worst. We fear you not. The Holy Saints and the Blessed Jesus are our protectors and defenders. You have tried in vain your foul spells. You have seen what their power is against that which is from above. Go, and repent your evil ways ere it be too late. You threaten me with your vengeance; have you ever thought of that vengeance of G.o.d which awaits those who defy His laws and invoke the powers of darkness? My trust is in Him; wherefore I fear you not. Do then your worst. Magnify yourself as you will. Your fate will be like that of the blaspheming giant of Gath who defied the power of the living G.o.d and fell before the sling and the stone of the shepherd boy."

And without waiting to hear the answer which was hurled at him with all the fury of an execration, Raymond turned and sped back to the Monastery, not in any physical fear of the present vengeance of his foe, but anxious to warn the keeper of the gate of the close proximity of one who was so deadly a foe to Father Paul's protege.

Not a word of this adventure ever reached Roger's ears, and indeed Raymond thought little of it after the next few weeks had pa.s.sed without farther molestation from the foe. The old woodman died. Roger, though sincerely mourning his father, was too happy in returning health and strength to be over-much cast down. His mind and body were alike growing stronger. He was never permitted to speak of the past, nor of the abominations of his prison house. Father Paul had from the first bidden the boy to forget, or at least to strive to forget, all that had pa.s.sed there, and never let his thoughts or his words dwell upon it. Raymond, despite an occasional access of boyish curiosity, ever kept this warning in mind, and never sought to discover what Roger had done or had suffered beneath the roof of Basildene. And so soon as the boy had recovered some measure of health, both he and Raymond were regularly instructed by Father Paul in such branches of learning as were likely to be of most service to them in days to come.

Whether or not he hoped that they would embrace the religious life they never knew. He never dropped a hint as to his desires on that point, and they never asked him. They were happy in their quiet home. All the brothers were kind to them, and the Father was an object of loving veneration which bordered on adoration.

Two years slipped thus away so fast that it seemed scarce possible to believe how time had fled by. Save that they had grown much both in body and mind, the boys would have thought it had been months, not years, they had spent in that peaceful retreat.

The break to that quiet life came with a mission which was entrusted by His Holiness himself to Father Paul, and which involved a journey to Rome. With the thought of travel there came to Raymond's mind a longing after his own home and the familiar faces of his childhood. The Father was going to take the route across the sea to Bordeaux, for he had a mission to fulfil there first. Why might not he go with him and see his foster-mother and Father Anselm again? He spoke his wish timidly, but it was kindly and favourably heard; and before the spring green had begun to clothe the trees, Father Paul, together with Raymond and his shadow Roger, had set foot once more upon the soil of France.

CHAPTER XII. ON THE WAR PATH

"Raymond! Is it -- can it be thou?"

"Gaston! I should scarce have known thee!"

The twin brothers stood facing one another within the walls of Caen, grasping each other warmly by the hand, their eyes s.h.i.+ning with delight as they looked each other well over from head to foot, a vivid happiness beaming over each handsome face. It was more than two years since they had parted -- parted in the quiet cloister of the Cistercian Brotherhood; now they met again amid scenes of plunder and rapine: for the English King had just discovered, within the archives of the city his sword had taken, a treaty drawn up many years before, agreeing that its inhabitants should join with the King of France for the invasion of England; and in his rage at the discovery, he had given over the town to plunder, and would even have had the inhabitants ma.s.sacred in cold blood, had not Geoffrey of Harcourt restrained his fury by wise and merciful counsel. But the order for universal pillage was not recalled, and the soldiers were freebooting to their hearts' content all over the ill-fated city.

Raymond had seen sights and had heard sounds as he had pressed through those streets that day in search of his brother that had wrung his soul with indignation and wonder. Where was the vaunted chivalry of its greatest champion, if such scenes could be enacted almost under his very eyes? Were they not true, those lessons Father Paul had slowly and quietly instilled into his mind, that not chivalry, but a true and living Christianity, could alone withhold the natural man from deeds of cruelty and rapacity when the hot blood was stirred by the fierce exultation of battle and victory, and the l.u.s.t of conquest had gained the mastery over his spirit?

The hot July sun was beating down upon the great square where were situated those buildings of which the King and the Prince and their immediate followers had taken temporary possession. The brothers stood together beneath the shadow of a lofty wall. Cries and shouts from the surrounding streets told tales of the work being done there; but that work had carried off almost all the soldiers, and the twins were virtually alone in the place, save for the tall and slight youth who stood a few paces off, and was plainly acting in the capacity of Raymond's servant.

"I thought I should find thee here, Gaston," said his brother, with fond affection in his tones. "I knew that thou wouldst be with the King at such a time; and when I entered within the walls of this city, I said in my heart that my Gaston would have no hand in such scenes as those I was forced to witness as I pa.s.sed along."

Gaston's brow darkened slightly, but he strove to laugh it off.

"Nay, thou must not fall foul of our great and mighty King for what thou hast seen today. In truth I like it not myself; but what would you? The men were furious when they heard of yon treaty; and the King's fierce anger was greatly kindled. The order went forth, and when pillage once begins no man may tell where it will end. War is a glorious pastime, but there must ever be drawbacks. Sure thine own philosophy has taught thee that much since thou hast turned to a man of letters. But tell me of thyself, Raymond. I am hungry for news. For myself, thou mayest guess what has been my life, an thou knowest how these past two years have been spent -- wars and rumours of wars, fruitless negotiations, and journeys and marches for little gain. I am glad enough that we have shaken hands with peace and bid her adieu for a while. She can be a false and treacherous friend, and well pleased am I that the b.l.o.o.d.y banner of true warfare is unfurled at last. England is athirst for some great victory, for some gallant feat of arms which shall reward her for the burdens she has to pay to support our good soldiers. For his people's sake, as well as for his own honour, the King must strike some great blow ere he returns home and we who follow the Prince have sworn to follow him to the death and win our spurs at his side.

"Brother, say that thou wilt join our ranks. Thou hast not forgotten our old dreams? Thou hast not turned monk or friar?"