Agincourt Part 18

"Nay," answered Sir Simeon, "we have ways of taming wolves--but I seek nothing but your good and happiness, foolish girl. Is it not much better for you to live in comfort and luxury, with rich garments, and dainty food, and glowing wine, to lie soft, and have no task, but to sing and play and please yourself, than to wander about over the wide world, the sport of 'prentices, or the companion of ruffians?"

"There are ruffians in all stations." rejoined Ella Brune; "else had I not been here."

The cheek of the knight glowed with an angry spot; but then again he laughed the moment after, in a tone more of mockery than of merriment, saying, "We will tame thee, pretty wolf, we will tame thee. Thou showest thy white teeth; but thou wilt not bite."

"Be not sure of that," answered Ella Brune. "I know well how to defend myself, should need be, and have done so before now."

"Well, we will see," replied Sir Simeon; "it takes some time to break a horse or hound, or train a hawk; and you shall have s.p.a.ce allowed you. All soft and kindly entertainment shall you have. With me shall you eat and drink, and talk and sing, if you will. You shall have courts.h.i.+p, like a lady of the land, to try whether gentle means will do. But mark me, pretty Ella, if they will not, we must try others. I am resolved that you shall be mine by force, if not by kindness."

"You dare not use it," answered Ella Brune.

"And why not?" demanded the knight, with a haughty smile; "I have done more daring things than vanquish a coy maiden."

"I know you have," said Ella Brune, in a grave and fearless tone; "but I will tell you why not. First, because, whatever be your care, it would come to the King's ears, and you would pay for it with your head. Next, because I carry about me wherewithal to defend myself;"

and, putting her hand into her bosom, she drew forth a small short broad-bladed knife, in a silver case. "This is my only friend left me here," she continued; "and you may think, perchance, most gallant knight, and warrior upon women, that this, in so weak a hand as mine, is no very frightful weapon. But, let me tell you, that it was tempered in distant lands--ay, and anointed too; and you had better far give your heart to the bite of the most poisonous snake that crawls the valley of Egypt, than receive the lightest scratch from this. The hilt is always at hand--so, beware!"

"Oh, we have antidotes," replied the knight; "antidotes for everything but love, sweet maid--and I swear, by your own bright eyes, that you shall be mine--so 'tis vain to resist. You shall have three days of tenderness; and then I may take a different tone."

As he spoke, some one knocked for the second time--the first had been unheeded. The knight turned to the door, and opened it, demanding impatiently, "What is it?"

"The Lord Combe and Sir Harry Alsover are in the court, desiring to speak with you," replied the servant who appeared.

"Well, take them up to the other chamber," answered the knight; and, without saying more to his fair captive, he quitted the room, and once more locked the door.

The moment he was in the corridor, however, he stopped, saying, in a meditative tone, "Stay, Easton." He hesitated for an instant, asking himself whether it were worth his while to pursue this course any farther, for a low minstrel girl, against such unexpected resistance.

The hand of Heaven almost always, in its great mercy, casts obstacles in the way of the gratification of our baser pa.s.sions, which give us time for thought and for repentance; so that, in almost every case, if we commit sin or crime, it is with the perverse determination of conquering both impediments and conviction. Conscience is seldom, if ever, left unaided by circ.u.mstances. But the wicked find, in those very circ.u.mstances which oppose their course, motives for pursuing it more fiercely.

"No!" said Sir Simeon of Roydon, to himself--"By--! she shall not conquer me!--Tell the King!--She shall never have the means; for I will either tame her, till she be but my bird, to sing what note I please, or I will silence her tongue effectually. To be conquered by a woman!--No, no! She is very lovely; and her very lion look is worth all the soft simpering smiles on earth. Hark ye, Easton: there is a druggist, down by the Vintry, with whom I have had some dealings in days of yore. This girl has a poisoned dagger about her, which must be got from her. 'Tis a marvel she used it not on you, as you brought her along, for she drew it forth on me but now. The man's name is Tyler; and he would sell his soul for gold. Tell him that I have need of some cunning drug to make men sleep--to sleep, I say--understand me, not to die: to sleep so sound, however, that a light touch, or a low tone, would not awaken them. It must have as little taste as may be, that we may put it in her drink, or in her food; and then, while she sleeps, we'll draw the lion's teeth. He will give you anything for a n.o.ble;"

and, after these innocent directions, the knight betook himself to the chamber whither he had directed his friends to be brought, and was soon in full tide of laughter and merriment at all the idle stories of the Court.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE REMEDY.

Nearly opposite to the old, half ruined gate of the Temple, there commenced, in the days I speak of, a very narrow lane, which wound up northward, till it joined the place now called Holborn, pa.s.sing, in its course, under the walls of the inn, or house, of the Bishop of Lincoln, round his garden wall, and through the grounds of the Old Temple house, inhabited by the Knights Templars, before they built a dwelling for themselves, by the banks of the Thames. This Temple house, still called the Old Temple in the reign of Henry V., had been abandoned by the brethren in the year 1184, or thereabout. For some time it was used to lodge any of the fraternity who might visit England from foreign countries, when the new building was too full to afford them accommodation; but gradually this custom ceased, even before the suppression of the Order, and at its dissolution the Old Temple fell into sore decay. When the lands of the Templars were afterwards granted to the Knights of St. John, certain portions of the building, and several of the out-buildings, were granted by them to various artisans, who found it more convenient to carry on their several pursuits beyond the actual precincts of the city of London.

One large antique gate, of heavy architecture, with immense walls, and with rooms in either of the two towers which flanked the lane I have mentioned, was tenanted by an armourer, who had erected his st.i.thy behind, and who stored his various completed arms in the chamber on the right of the gate, where the porter had formerly lodged. Over the window of this room was suspended, under a rude penthouse of straw, to keep it from the rain, a huge casque, indicative of the tenant's profession; and, at about eight o'clock of the same morning on which Richard of Woodville quitted London, a little cavalcade, consisting of a tall gaunt old man on a strong black horse, a young lady on a white genet, and three stout yeomen, rode slowly up to the gate-house, and drew their bridles there, pausing to gaze for a moment or two through the deep arch at the forge beyond, where the flame glowed and the anvil rang, throwing a red glare into the shadowy doorway, and drowning the sound of the horses' feet.

"Halloo! Launcelot Pla.s.se!" cried old Sir Philip Beauchamp, in as loud a tone as he thought needful to call the attention of the person he wanted--"halloo!"

But the cyclops within went on with their hammering; and, after another ineffectual effort to make them hear, the good knight called up his men to hold the horses, and lifting Mary Markham as lightly to the ground as if she had been but the weight of a feather, he said, "We must go in and bellow in this deaf man's ear, till we outdo his own noise. Stay here, Mary, I will rouse him;" and, advancing through the open gate, he seized the bare arm of the armourer, exclaiming, "What, Launcelot! wouldst thou brain me?--Why, how now, man! has the roaring of thine own forge deafened thee?"

The elderly white-headed man to whom he spoke turned round and gazed at him, leaning his strong muscular arm upon his hammer, and wiping the drops from his brow. "By St. Jude!" he cried, after a moment's consideration, "I think it is Sir Philip Beauchamp. Yet your head is as white as the ashes, and when I knew him it was a grizzled black, like pauldrons traced with silver lines; and you are mighty thin and bony for stout Sir Philip, whose right hand would have knocked down an ox!"

"Fifteen years, Launcelot! fifteen years!" answered the knight; "they bend a stout frame, as thou beatest out a bit of iron; and, if my head be white, thy black hairs are more easy to be counted than found. Yet both our arms might do some service in their own way yet."

"Well, I am glad to see you again, n.o.ble knight," replied the armourer; "though I thought that it would be no more, before you and I went our ways to dust. But, what lack you? There must be some wars toward, to bring an old knight to the st.i.thy; for well I wot, you are not going to buy a tilting suit, or do battle for a fair lady. G.o.d send us some good wholesome wars right soon! We have had nothing lately, but the emprise of the Duke of Clarence. King Harry the Fourth got tired of his armour; pray Heaven, his son love the weight better, or I must let the forge cool, and that were a shame."

"Nay, 'tis not for myself," replied Sir Philip. "I have more arms, Launcelot, than ever I shall don in life again. My next suit--unless the King make haste--will be in the chancel of the church at Abbot's Ann. What I want is for my nephew, d.i.c.kon of Woodville; he is going to foreign lands, in search of renown; and I would fain choose him a suit myself, for you know I am somewhat of a judge in steel."

"You were always accounted so, n.o.ble sir," replied the armourer, with a grave and important face; "and, if you had not been a knight, might have taken my trade out of my hands. But whither does Childe Richard go? We must know that, for every land has its own arms; and it would not do to give him for Italy what is good for France, nor for Palestine what would suit Italy."

The old knight informed him that his nephew was first to visit Burgundy; and the armourer exclaimed, with a well satisfied air, "Then I can provide him to a point; for I have Burgundian arms all ready, even to flaming swords, if he must have them; but 'tis a foolish and fanciful weapon, far less serviceable than the good straight edge and point. But come, Sir Philip, let us go into the armoury. 'Tis well nigh crammed full, for gentlemen buy little; and yet I go on hammering with my men, till I have put all the money that I got in the wars, into arms."

Thus saying, he covered himself with the leathern jerkin, which he had cast off while at work, and returned with his old acquaintance to the room in which the various pieces of armour, that he kept ready, were preserved. Sir Philip called Mary Markham to a.s.sist in the choice; but it soon became evident to both, that no selection could be made in good Launcelot Pla.s.se's armoury--for not only was the room, to their eyes, as dark as the pit of Acheron, but the armour was piled up in such confused heaps, that it was hardly possible to take a step therein without stumbling over breast-plate or bascinet, pauldrons or bra.s.sieres.

"Fie, Launcelot, fie!" cried Sir Philip; "this is a sad deranged show.

Why, a stout man-at-arms always keeps his armour in array."

"When he has room and time, Sir Philip," answered the man; "but here I have neither. However, you and the fair lady go forth under the arch, and I will bring you out what is wanted. Here, knave Martin," he continued, calling one of his men from the forge, "bring out the great bench, and set it under the gate, quick!--What is your nephew's height, Sir Philip?"

"What my own used to be," replied the old knight; "six feet and half an inch--and there is his measure round the waist."

The bench was soon brought forward, being nothing else than a large solid table of some six inches thick; and by it Sir Philip Beauchamp and fair Mary Markham took their station, while Launcelot Pla.s.se, with the aid of one of his men, dug out from the piles within, various pieces of armour which he thought might suit the taste of his old customer, laying them down at the door, to be brought forward as required. The first article, however, that he carried to the bench, was a cuira.s.s of one piece, evidently old--for not only was it somewhat rusty about the angles, but in the centre there was a large rough-edged hole.

"Why, what is this?" exclaimed Sir Philip; "this will never do--"

"Nay, it has done, and left undone enough," replied the armourer. "I brought it but to show you. In that placcate was killed Harry Hotspur.

I do not say that was the hole that let death in; for men aver that it was a stab in the throat with a coustel, when he was down, that slew him; but the blow that made _that_ bore him to the ground, other wise Shrewsbury field might have gone differently. Now I will fetch the rest. You see, fairest lady, what gentlemen undergo for the love of praise, and your bright eyes."

Thus saying, he took back the breast-plate, and brought forward, supported on his arm, one of the bascinets or casques worn in the field, which were lighter and considerably smaller than the jousting helmets. It was of a round or globular shape, with a small elevation at the top, in which to fix the feathers then usually displayed; and on the forehead was a plate, or band of white enamel, inscribed with the words, "Ave Maria." Sir Philip Beauchamp made some objections to the form; but Mary Markham, after she had read the inscription, p.r.o.nounced in favour of the bascinet; and the armourer himself had so much to say of its defensive qualities, of the excellent invention of making the ventaille rise by plates from below, and of the temper of the steel, that Sir Philip, after having examined it minutely, waived his objections. The price being fixed, the body armour to match was brought forward, piece by piece, and laid upon the bench. It was of complete plate, as was now the custom of the day, but yet many pieces of the old chain hauberk were retained to cover the joinings of the different parts. Thus beneath the gorget, or camail, which covered the throat, was a sort of tippet formed of interlaced rings of steel, to hang down over the cuira.s.s and afford additional protection; while, at the same time, from the ta.s.sets which terminated the cuira.s.s, hung a broad edge of the same, to complete their junction with the cuissards, or thigh pieces.

This arrangement pleased the old knight very much; for it was a remnant of the customs of ancient times, when he himself was young, and which totally disappeared before many years were over; but with the cuira.s.s he quarrelled very much, exclaiming, "What, will men never have done with their idle fancies? 'Tis bad enough to divide the breast-plate into two, and hang the lower part to the upper by that red strap and buckle; but what is the use of sticking out the breast, like that of a fat-cropped pigeon?"

"It gives greater use to the arms, n.o.ble sir," replied Launcelot Pla.s.se, "and turns a lance much easier, from being quite round.

Besides, it is the fas.h.i.+on of the court of Burgundy: and no n.o.ble gentleman could appear there well without. The palettes, too, you see, are shaped like a fan, and gilt with quaint figures at the corners. It cost me nine days to make these palettes alone, and the genouillieres, which have the same work upon them. Then the pauldrons--see how they are artfully turned over at the top of the shoulder with a gilt bordure."

"And pray, what may that be for?" demanded the old knight; "we had no such tricks in my days to make a man look like a cray-fish."

"That is to give the arm fuller sweep and sway, either with axe or sword," answered the armourer. "You can thus raise your hand quite up to your very crest, which you could never do before, since pauldrons were invented."

"We used to give good stout strokes in the year eighty," rejoined Sir Philip Beauchamp, "as you well know, Master Launcelot. But boys must have boys' things--so let it pa.s.s; but, what between one piece and another, it will take a man an hour to get into his harness, with all these buckles and straps. But I will tell you what, Master Launcelot, I will have no tuilles over the cuissards; they were a barbarous and unnatural custom, and very inconvenient too. I was once nearly thrown to the ground in Gascony, by the point catching the saddle as I mounted."

"Oh! they are quite gone out of use," replied the armourer; "and we now either make the ta.s.sets long, or add a guipon of mail, coming down to the thighs."

The jambes or steel boots, the sollerets or coverings for the feet, the bra.s.sards, gauntlets, and vambraces were then discussed and purchased, not without some chaffering on the part of the old knight, who was a connoisseur in the price as well as in the fas.h.i.+on of armour; but Launcelot Pla.s.se had so much to say in favour of his commodities, that he obtained very nearly the sum he demanded.

He then proceeded to prove to Sir Philip Beauchamp, that the suit would not be complete without the testiere, the chanfron, and the manefaire and poitral of, the horse to correspond; and, though his customer was not inclined to spend anymore money, yet a soft word or two from Mary Markham won the day for the armourer, and he was directed to bring forth the horse armour for inspection.

While he and his men were busy fulfilling this command, the old knight turned, hearing some one speaking eagerly, and apparently imploringly, to his attendants; and, seeing an old woman poorly dressed conversing with them, he inquired, "What does the woman want, Hugh?"

"Ah! n.o.ble sir," replied the old dame, "if you would but interfere, it might save sin and wrong. I have just seen a poor girl dragged away by two men up to a house in the lane, called Burwash-house, where they have taken her in against her will."

"Ha!" cried Sir Philip Beauchamp; "why, he is an old and reverend man, my good Lord of Burwash, and will not suffer such things in his mansion. I will send up one of the men to tell him."