Dunois was the first who spoke, and it was in the chiding tone of an offended, and distrusted friend: – "So! your Highness hath judged it fit to cast away your best sword, in the same morning when it was your pleasure to fling away the King's favour, and to slight the friendship of Dunois?"
"My dearest kinsman," said the Duke, "when or how was it in my purpose to slight your friendship, by telling the truth, when it was due to your safety and my honour?"
"What had you to do with my safety, my most princely cousin, I would pray to know?" answered Dunois gruffly; – "What, in God's name, was it to you, if I had a mind to be hanged or strangled, or flung into the Loire, or poniarded, or broke on the wheel, or hung up alive in an iron cage, or buried alive in a castle-fosse, or disposed of in any other way in which it might please King Louis to get rid of his faithful subject? – (you need not wink and frown, and point to Tristan l'Hermite – I see the scoundrel as well as you do.) But it would not have stood so hard with me – And so much for my safety. And then for your own honour – by the blush of Saint Magdalene, I think the honour would have been to have missed this morning's work, or kept it out of sight. Here has your highness got yourself unhorsed by a wild Scottish boy."
"Tut, tut!" said Lord Crawford; "never shame his Highness for that. It is not the first time a Scottish boy hath broke a good lance – I am glad the youth hath borne him well."
"I will say nothing to the contrary," said Dunois; "yet, had your Lordship come something later than you did, there might have been a vacancy in your band of Archers."
"Ay, ay," answered Lord Crawford; "I can read your handwriting in that cleft morion. – Some one take it from the lad, and give him a bonnet, which, with its steel lining, will keep his head better than that broken loom. – And let me tell your Lordship, that your own armour of proof is not without some marks of good Scottish handwriting. – But, Dunois, I must now request the Duke of Orleans and you to take horse and accompany me, as I have power and commission to convey you to a place different from that which my good-will might assign you."
"May I not speak one word, my Lord of Crawford, to yonder fair ladies?" said the Duke of Orleans.
"Not one syllable," answered Lord Crawford; "I am too much a friend of your Highness to permit such an act of folly." – Then, addressing Quentin, he added, "You, young man, have done your duty. Go on to obey the charge with which you are instrusted."
"Under favour, my Lord," said Tristan, with his usual brutality of manner, "the youth must find another guide. I cannot do without Petit-André, when there is so like to be business on hand for him."
"The young man," said Petit-André, now coming forward, "has only to keep the path which lies straight before him, and it will conduct him to a place where he will find the man who is to act as his guide. – I would not for a thousand ducats be absent from my Chief this day! I have hanged knights and squires many a one, and wealthy Echevins, and burgomasters to boot – even counts and marquisses have tasted of my handywork – but, a-humph" – He looked at the Duke, as if to intimate that he would have filled up the blank, with "a Prince of the blood!" – "Ho, ho, ho! Petit-André, thou wilt be read of in Chronicle!"
"Do you permit your ruffians to hold such language in such a presence?" said Crawford, looking sternly to Tristan.
"Why do you not correct him yourself, my Lord?" said Tristan, sullenly.
"Because thy hand is the only one in this company that can beat him, without being degraded by such an action."
"Then rule your own men, my Lord, and I will be answerable for mine," said the Provost-Marshal.
Lord Crawford seemed about to give a passionate reply; but, as if he had thought better of it, turned his back short upon Tristan, and requesting the Duke of Orleans and Dunois to ride one on either hand of him, he made a signal of adieu to the ladies, and said to Quentin, "God bless thee, my child; thou hast begun thy service valiantly, though in an unhappy cause." He was about to go off – when Quentin could hear Dunois whisper to Crawford, "Do you carry us to Plessis?"
"No, my unhappy and rash friend," answered Crawford, with a sigh; "to Loches."
"To Loches!" The name of a castle, or rather prison, yet more dreaded than Plessis itself, fell like a death-toll upon the ear of the young Scotchman. He had heard it described as a place destined to the workings of those secret acts of cruelty with which even Louis shamed to pollute the interior of his own residence. There were in this place of terror dungeons under dungeons, some of them unknown even to the keepers themselves; living graves, to which men were consigned, with little hope of farther employment during the rest of their life, than to breathe impure air, and feed on bread and water. At this formidable castle were also those dreadful places of confinement called cages, in which the wretched prisoner could neither stand upright, nor stretch himself at length, an invention, it is said, of the Cardinal Balue[29]. It is no wonder that the name of this place of horrors, and the consciousness that he had been partly the means of dispatching thither two such illustrious victims, struck so much sadness into the heart of the young Scot, that he rode for some time with his head dejected, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his heart filled with the most painful reflections.
As he was now again at the head of the little troop, and pursuing the road which had been pointed out to him, the Lady Hameline had an opportunity to say to him, –
"Methinks, fair sir, you regret the victory which your gallantry has attained in our behalf?"
There was something in the question which sounded like irony, but Quentin had tact enough to answer simply and with sincerity,
"I can regret nothing that is done in the service of such ladies as you are; but, methinks, had it consisted with your safety, I had rather have fallen by the sword of so good a soldier as Dunois, than have been the means of consigning that renowned knight and his unhappy chief, the Duke of Orleans, to yonder fearful dungeons."
"It was, then, the Duke of Orleans," said the elder lady, turning to her niece. "I thought so, even at the distance from which we beheld the fray. – You see, kinswoman, what we might have been, had this sly and avaricious monarch permitted us to be seen at his Court. The first Prince of the blood of France, and the valiant Dunois, whose name is known as wide as that of his heroic father – This young gentleman did his devoir bravely and well; but methinks 'tis pity that he did not succumb with honour, since his ill-advised gallantry has stood betwixt us and these princely rescuers."
The Countess Isabelle replied in a firm and almost a displeased tone; with an energy, in short, which Quentin had not yet observed her use.
"Madam," she said, "but that I know you jest, I would say your speech is ungrateful to our brave defender, to whom we owe more, perhaps, than you are aware of. Had these gentelemen succeeded so far in their rash enterprise as to have defeated our escort, is it not still evident, that, on the arrival of the Royal Guard, we must have shared their captivity? For my own part, I give tears, and will soon bestow masses, on the brave man who has fallen, and I trust," (she continued, more timidly,) "that he who lives will accept my grateful thanks."
As Quentin turned his face towards her, to return the fitting acknowledgments, she saw the blood which streamed down on one side of his face, and exclaimed, in a tone of deep feeling, "Holy Virgin, he is wounded! he bleeds! – Dismount, sir, and let your wound be bound up."