The Prince and the Page Part 5

"Thanks, reverend Father," returned Richard, "but I am but a landless page, and the Prince mounts me. Said you this poor man had been wounded in the late wars?"

"Ay, hacked and hewed worse than by the Infidels themselves! Woeful it is that here, at home, men's blood should be wasted on your own petty feuds. This same Barons' war now hath cost as much downright courage as would have brought us back to Jerusalem, and all thrown away, without a cause, with no honour, no hope."

"Not without a cause," Richard could not help saying.

"Nay," said the old knight; "no cause is worth the taking of a life, save the cause of the Holy Sepulchre. What be these matters of taxes and laws to ask a man to shed his blood for? Alack, the temper of the cross-bearer is dying out! I pray I may not see this Crusade end like half those I have beheld-and the cross on the shoulder become no better than a mockery."

"That may scarcely be with such leaders as the Prince and the King of France," said Richard.

"Well, well, the Prince is untried; and for King Louis, he is as holy a man as ever lived since King G.o.dfrey of blessed memory, but he has bad luck, ever bad luck. The Saints forefend, but I trow he will listen to some crazy counsel from Rome, belike, or some barefooted hermit-very holy, no doubt, but who does not know a Greek from a Saracen, or a horse's head from his tail-and will go to some pestilential hole like that foul Egyptian swamp, where we stayed till our skin was the colour of an old boot, in hopes of converting the Sultan of Babylon, or the Old Man of the Mountain, or what not, and there he will stay till the flower of his forces have wasted away."

"Were you in Egypt with King Louis?" eagerly exclaimed Richard.

"Ay, marry, was I, and a goodly land it is; but I saw many a good man-at-arms perish miserably in a marsh, who might have been the saving of the Holy City. Why, I myself have never been the same man since! Never could do a month's service out of the infirmary at Acre, though after all there's no work I like so well as the hospital business, and for the last five years I have had to stay here training young brethren! Oh, young man! I envy you your first stroke for the Holy Sepulchre! Would that the Grand-Master would hear my entreaty. I am too old to be worth sparing, and I would fain have one more chance of dying under the banner of the Order!-But I am setting you a bad example, son Raynal; a Hospitalier has no will.- -And look you, young Sir Page, if you stay out at sunset in that clime, 'tis all up with you. And you should veil your helmet well, or the sun smites on your head as deadly as a flake of Greek fire."

So rambled on good old Sir Robert Darcy, Grand Prior of England, a perfect dragon among the Saracens, but everywhere else the mildest and most benevolent of men; his discourse strangely mingling together the deepest enthusiasm with a business-like common-sense appreciation of ways and means, and with minute directions, precautions, and anecdotes, gathered from his practical experience both as captain in the field, priest in the Church, and surgeon in the hospital, and all seen from the most suns.h.i.+ny point of view.

Meanwhile, they were riding along the Strand, a beautiful open road, with gra.s.sy borders shelving down to the Thames. They pa.s.sed through the City of London. The Hospital lay beyond the walls, but the Marshes of Moorfields that protected them were not pa.s.sable without a long circuit; and the fortified gates stood open at Temple Bar, where the Hospitaliers, looking towards the Round Church and stately buildings of the Preceptory, saluted the white-cloaked figures moving about it, with courtesy grim and distant in all but Sir Robert Darcy, who could not even hate a Templar, a creature to the ordinary Hospitalier far more detestable than a Saracen. On then, up ground beginning to rise, below which the little muddy stream called the Flete stagnated along its way, meandering to the Thames. Thatched hovels and wooden booths left so narrow a pa.s.sage that the hors.e.m.e.n were forced to move in single file, and did not gain a clearer s.p.a.ce even when the stone houses of merchants began to stand thick on Ludgate Hill, their carved wooden balconies so projecting, that it would seem to have been an object with the citizens to be able to shake hands across the street. The city was comparatively empty and quiet, as all the world were keeping holiday at Westminster; but even as it was, the pa.s.sengers seemed to swarm in the streets, and knots of persons who had been unable to witness the spectacle, sat with gazing children upon the stairs outside the houses, to admire the fragments of the pageant that came their way. Acclamations of delight greeted the appearance of the scarlet-mantled Hospitaliers, such as Richard had often heard in his boyhood, when riding in his father's train, but far less frequently since he had been a part of the Prince's retinue. And equally diverse was the merry nod and smile of Sir Robert to each gaping shouting group of little ones, from the stately distant courtesy with which Edward returned the popular salutations. He could be gracious-he could not be friendly except to a few.

They pa.s.sed the capitular buildings of St. Paul's, with the beautiful cathedral towering over them, and in its rear, numerous booths for the purchase of rosaries-recent inventions then of St. Dominic, the great friend of Richard's stern grandfather, the persecutor of the Albigenses. Sir Robert drew up, and declared he must buy one for the little maid as a remembrance of the day, and then found she was fast asleep; but he nevertheless purchased a black-beaded chaplet, giving for it one of the sorely-clipped coins of King Henry.

"Prithee let me have one likewise, holy Sir," quoth Richard, "in memory of the talk that hath taught me so much of the import of my crusading vow."

"Thou shalt bring me for it one of the olive of Bethlehem," said Sir Robert; "I have given away all I brought from the East. They are so great a boon to our poor sick folk that I wish I had brought twice as many, but to me they have always a Saracen look. Your Moslem always fingers one much of the same fas.h.i.+on as he parleys."

Ludgate, freshly built, and adorned with new figures to represent the fabulous King Lud, was not yet closed for the night; and the party came forth beyond the walls, with the desolate Moorfields to their left, and before them a number of rising villages cl.u.s.tered round their churches.

The Hospital, a grand fortified monastery, was already to be seen over the fields; but Sir Robert, sending home the rest of his troop, turned aside with Richard and Brother Hilary towards the common, with a border of cottages around it, which went by the name of Bednall Green.

Brother Hilary knew the hut inhabited by Blind Hal, and led the way to it. Low and mud-built, thatched, and with a wattled door, it had a wretched appearance; but the old woman who came to the door was not ill clad. "Blessings on you, holy Father!" she cried; "do I see the child, my lamb, my lady-bird! Would that she may come in time to cheer her poor father!"

"How is it with him then, Gammer?" demanded Sir Robert, springing to the ground with the alacrity of a doctor anxious about his patient.

"Ill, very ill, Sir. Whether the horse's feet hurt his old wound, or whether it be the loss of the child, he hath done nought but moan and rave, and lie as one dead ever since they brought him home. He is lying in one of the dead swoons now! It were not well that the child saw him."

But Bessee, awakening with a cry of joy, saw her borne, and struggled to go to her father, whose name she called on with all her might, disregarding the caresses of the old woman, and the endeavour made by Richard to restrain without alarming her, while Sir Robert went into the hut to endeavour to restore the sufferer.

Suddenly a cry broke from within; and Richard, turning at the voice, beheld the blind man sitting up on his pallet with arms outstretched. "My child!-My Father! hast thou brought her to visit me in limbo?" he cried.

"He raves!" said Richard, using his strength to withhold the child, who broke out into a shriek.

"Nay, nay! she doth not abide here!" he exclaimed. "Her spirit is pure! My sins are not visited on her beyond the grave!"

"Thou art on the earthly side of the grave still, my son," said Sir Robert, at the same time as Bessee sprang from Richard, and nestled on his breast, clinging to his neck.

"My babe-my Bessee!" he exclaimed, gathering her close to him. "Living, living, indeed! Yet how may it be! Surely this is the other world. That voice sounds not among the living!"

"It is the voice of the youth who saved thy child," said the Grand Prior.

"Speak again! Let him speak again!" implored the beggar.

"Can I do aught for you, good man?" asked Richard.

Again there was a strange start and thrill of amazement.

"Only for Heaven's sake tell me who thou art!"

"A page of Prince Edward's good man. I am called Richard Fowen! And who, for Heaven's sake, are you?" added Richard, as Leonillo, who had been smelling about and investigating, threw himself on the blind man in a transport of caresses. "Off, Leon-off!" cried Richard. "It is but a dog!-Fear not, little one!-Tell me, tell me," he added, trembling, as he knelt before the miserable object, holding back the eager Leonillo with one arm round his neck, "who art thou, thou ghost of former times?"

"Knowst me not, Richard?" returned a suppressed voice in Provencal.

"Henry! Henry!" exclaimed Richard, and fell upon the foot of the low bed, weeping bitterly. "Is it come to this?"

"Ay, even to this," said the blind man, "that two sons of one father meet unknown-one with a changed name, the other with none at all, neither with the honoured one they were born to."

"Alack, alack!" was all Richard could say at the first moment, as he lifted himself up to look again at the first-born of his parents, the head of the brave troop of brethren, the gay, handsome, imperious young Lord de Montfort, whose proud head and gallant bearing he had looked at with a younger brother's imitative deference. What did he see but a wreck of a man, sitting crouched on the wretched bed, the left arm a mere stump, a bandage where the bright sarcastic eyes used to flash forth their dark fire, deep scars on all the small portion of the face that was visible through the over-grown ma.s.ses of hair and beard, so plentifully sprinkled with white, that it would have seemed incredible that this man was but eight months older than the Prince, whose rival he had always been in personal beauty and activity. The beautiful child, clasped close to his breast, her face buried on his shoulder under his s.h.a.ggy locks, was a strange contrast to his appearance, but only added to the look of piteous helplessness and desolation, as she hung upon him in her alarm at the agitation around her.

Richard had long been accustomed to think of his brother as dead; but such a spectacle as this was far more terrible to him, and his cheek blanched at the shock, as he gasped again, "Thou here, and thus! thou whom I thought slain!"

"Deem me so still," said his brother, "even as I deem the royal minion dead to me."

"Nay, Henry, thou knowst not."

"Who is present?" interrupted the blind man, raising his head and tossing back his hair with a gesture that for the first time gave Richard a sense that his eldest brother was indeed before him.

"Methought I heard another voice."

"I am here, fair son," replied the old knight, "Father Robert of the Hospital! I will either leave thee, or keep thy secret as though it were thy shrift; but thou art sore spent, and mayst scarce talk more."

"Weariness and pain are past, Father, with my little one again in my bosom," said Henry; "and there are matters that must be spoken between me and this young brother of mine ere he quits this hut; and his voice resumed its old authoritative tone towards Richard. "Said you that he had saved my child?"

"He drew me from the river, Father," said Bessee looking up. "There was nothing to stand on, and it was so cold! And he took me in his arms and pulled me out, and put me in a boat; and the lady pulled off my blue coat, and put this one on me. Feel it, Father; oh, so pretty, so warm!"

"It was the Princess," said Richard; but Henry, not noticing, continued,

"Thou hast earned my pardon, Richard," and held out his remaining hand, somewhere towards the height where his brother's used to be.

Sir Robert smiled, saying, "Thou dost miscalculate thy brother's stature, son." And at the same moment Richard, who was now little short of his Cousin Edward in height, was kneeling by Henry, accepting and returning his embrace with agitation and grat.i.tude, such as showed how their relative positions in the family still maintained their force; but Richard still a.s.serted his independence so as to say, "When you have heard all, brother you will see that there is no need of pardoning me."

Henry, however, as perhaps Sir Robert had foreseen, instead of answering put his hand to his side, and sank back in a paroxysm of pain, ending in another swoon. The child stood by, quiet and frightened but too much used to similar occurrences to be as much terrified as was Richard, who thought his brother dying; but calling in the serving-brother, the old Hospitalier did all that was needed, and the blind man presently recovered and explained in a feeble voice that he had been jostled, thrown down, and trodden on, at the moment when he lost his hold of his little daughter; and this was evidently renewing his sufferings from the effect of an injury received in battle. "And what took thee there, son?" said Sir Robert, somewhat sharply.

"The harvest, Father," answered Henry, rousing himself to speak with a certain sarcasm in his tone. "It is the beggars' harvest wherever King Henry goes. We brethren of the wallet cannot afford to miss such windfalls."

"A beggar!" exclaimed Richard in horror.

"And what art thou?" retorted Henry, with a sudden fierceness.

"Listen, young men," said Sir Robert, "this I know, my patient there will soon be nothing if ye continue in this strain. A litter shall bring him to the infirmary."

"Nay," said Henry hastily, "not so, good Father. Here I abide, hap what may."

"And I abide with him," said Richard.