“I was wrong, mother,” Aline said, penitently. “I was very cross and ill- behaved, but it came suddenly upon me, and it seemed to me hard that Albert and Edgar should both seem delighted at what pained me so much. Forgive me, Albert.”
“There is nothing to forgive, dear. Of course I understand your feeling that it will be hard for us to part, when we have been so much together. I shall be very sorry to leave you, but I am sure you will agree with me that it is less hard to do so now than it would have been if I had been going to be shut up in a convent to prepare for entering the Church, as we once thought would be the case.”
“I should think so,” the girl said. “This will be nothing to it. Then you would have been going out of our lives; now we shall have an interest in all you do, and you will often be coming back to us; there will be that to look forward to. Well, you won't hear me say another word of grumbling until you have gone. And when are you to go?”
“To-morrow or next day,” her father said. “Mynheer Van Voorden says, 'I am about to start,' which may mean three days or six. It will need a whole day for your mother and the maids to see to Albert's clothes, and that all is decent and in order. To-day is Monday, and I think that if we say that Albert will arrive there on Thursday by noon it will do very well. Will you be ready by that time, Edgar?”
“Easily enough, Sir Ralph; for, indeed, as we have no maid, my clothes need but little preparation. I wear them until they are worn out, and then get new ones; and I doubt not that I shall be able to replenish my wardrobe to-morrow at Dartford.”
Well pleased to find that Albert was to accompany him, Edgar rode home. As he passed in at the gates, Hal Carter ran up to him. “Master tells me that you are going away, Master Edgar. Are you going to take me with you?”
“Not this time, Hal. I am going to Flanders as a guest of a Flemish gentleman, and I could not therefore take a man-at-arms with me; besides, as you know naught of the language, you would be altogether useless there. But do not think that I shall not fulfil my promise. This is but a short absence, and when I return I shall enter the train of some warlike knight or other, and then you shall go with me, never fear.”
“Thank you, sir. 'Tis strange to me to be pent up here; not that I have aught in the world to complain of; your father is most kind to me, and I do hope that I am of some use to him.”
“Yes, my father has told me several times how useful you were to him in washing out his apparatus and cleaning his crucibles and getting his fires going in readiness. He wonders now how he got on so long without a helper, and will be sorry when the time comes for you to go with me. Indeed he said, but two days ago, that when you went he should certainly look for someone to fill your place.”
“So long as he feels that, Master Edgar, I shall be willing enough to stay, but it seemed to me that I was doing but small service in return for meat and drink and shelter. I should feel that I was getting fat and lazy, were it not that I swing a battle-axe every day for an hour, as you bade me.”
“Look through your apparel, Edgar,” his father said that evening, “and see what you lack. To-morrow morning I will give you moneys wherewith you can repair deficiencies. The suits you got in London will suffice you for the present, but as winter approaches you must get yourself cloth garments, and these can be purchased more cheaply in Flanders than here. Of course, I know not how long your stay there may be; that must depend upon your host. It would be well if, at the end of a month, you should speak about returning, then you will see by his manner whether he really wishes you to make a longer stay or not. Methinks, however, that it is likely he will like you to stay with him until the spring if there is no matter of importance for which you would wish to return. I am sure that he feels very earnestly how much he owes to you, and is desirous of doing you real service; and to my thinking he can do it in no better manner than by giving you six months in Flanders.”
Accordingly, three days later, the two friends again rode to London. Each was followed by a man on horseback leading a sumpter-horse carrying the baggage; and Hal Carter was much pleased when he was told that he was to perform this service. Both, for the convenience of carriage, wore their body-armour and arm-pieces, the helmets and greaves being carried with their baggage. On their arrival they were most cordially received by Van Voorden and his family, and found that they were to start on Saturday. On the following morning the lads went to the Tower to pay their respects to the king.
“Be sure you do not neglect that,” Sir Ralph had said; “the king is mightily well disposed to you, as I told you. I had related to him in full the affairs in which you took part in London, and on my return after the fight here, I, of course, told him the incidents of the battle, and he said, 'If all my knights had borne themselves as well as your son and his friend, I should not have been in so sore a strait. I should be glad to have them about my person now; but I can well understand that you wish your son to make a name for himself as a valiant knight, and that for a time I must curb my desire.'“
The king received them very graciously. “Sir Ralph and you did good work in dispersing that Kentish rabble, and doing with one blow what it has taken six weeks to accomplish in Essex and Hertford. So you are going to Flanders? You will see there what has come of allowing the rabble to get the mastery. But of a truth the knaves of Ghent and Bruges are of very different mettle to those here, and fight as stoutly as many men-at-arms.”
“'Tis true, your Majesty,” Edgar said, “but not because they are stouter men, for those we defeated so easily down in Kent are of the same mettle as our archers and men-at-arms who fought so stoutly at Cressy and Poictiers, but they have no leading and no discipline. They know, too, that against mail-clad men they are powerless; but if they were freemen, and called out on your Majesty's service, they would fight as well as did their forefathers.”
“You are in favour, then, of granting them freedom?”
“It seems to me that it would strengthen your Majesty's power, and would add considerably to the force that you could put in the field, and would make the people happier and more contented. Living down among them as we do, one cannot but see that 'tis hard on men that they may not go to open market, but must work for such wages as their lords may choose to give them, and be viewed as men of no account, whereas they are as strong and able to work as others.”
“You may be right,” the young king said, “but you see, my councillors think otherwise, and I am not yet rightly my own master. In one matter, however, I can have my way, and that is in dispensing honours. You know what I said to you before you went hence, that, young as you were, I would fain knight you for the valiant work that you had done. Since then you have done me good service, as well as the realm, by having, with Sir Ralph De Courcy and Sir Robert Gaiton, defeated a great body of the Kentish rebels, who were the worst and most violent of all, though there were with you but fifty men-at-arms. This is truly knightly service, and their defeat drove all rioters in that part to their homes, whereas, had they not been so beaten, there might have been much more trouble, and many worthy men might have been slain by them.
[Illustration: EDGAR AND ALBERT ARE KNIGHTED BY KING RICHARD.]
“Moreover, as you are going to Flanders with our good friend Mynheer Van Voorden, who is in a way charged with a mission from us, it is well that you should travel as knights. It will give you more influence, and may aid him to further my object. Therefore, I am sure, that all here who know how stoutly you have wielded your swords, and how you gave aid and rescue to the worshipful Mynheer Van Voorden and his family, to stout Sir Robert Gaiton, Dame De Courcy and her daughter, and how you bore yourselves in the fight down in Kent, will agree with me that you have right well won the honour.”