The difficulties of their progress, however, entirely occupied them. Having diverged from the regular track, they had to make their way through the inundated meadows; sometimes among deep pools, sometimes in quagmires, or ever hedges; while the water that drenched them was fast freezing, and darkness came down on them. All stumbled or were bogged at different times; and Malcolm, shorter and weaker than the rest, and his lameness becoming more felt than usual, could not help impeding their progress, and at last was so spent that but for the King's strong arm he would have spent the night in a bog-hole.
At last the lights were near, the outskirts were gained, the pass- word given to the watch, and the rough but welcome greeting was heard--'That's well! More of you come in! How got you off?'
'The rogues got back, then?' said Kitson.
'Some score of them,' was the answer; 'but 'tis thought most are drowned or stuck by the French. The King is in a proper rage, as well he may be; but what else could come of a false Scot in the camp?'
'Have a care, you foul tongue!' Percy was the first to cry; and as torches were now brought out and cast their light on the well-known faces, the soldiers stood abashed; but James tarried not for their excuses; his heart was hot at the words which implied that Henry suspected him, and he strode hastily on to the convent, where the quadrangle was full of horses and men, and the windows shone with lights. At the door of the refectory stood a figure whose armour flashed with light, and his voice sounded through the closed visor-- 'I tell you, March, I cannot rest till I knew what his hap has been. If he have done this thing-- '
'What then?' answered James out of the darkness, in a voice deep with wrath; but Henry started.
'You there! you safe! Speak again! Come here that I may see. Where is he?'
'Here, Sir King,' said James, gravely.
'Now the saints be thanked!' cried Henry, joyously. 'Where be the caitiffs that brought me their false tale? They shall hang for it at once.'
'It was the less wonder,' said James, still coldly, 'that they should have thought themselves betrayed, since their king believed it of me.'
'Nay, 'twas but for a hot moment--ay, and the bitterest I ever spent. What could I do when the villains swore that there were signals and I know not what devices passing? I hoped yet 'twas but a plea for their own cowardice, and was mounting to come and see for you. Come, I should have known you better; I'd rather the whole world deceived me than have distrusted you, Jamie.'
There was that in his tone which ended all resentment, and James's hand was at once clasped in his, while Henry added, 'Ho, Provost- marshal! to the gallows with these knaves!'
'Nay, Harry,' said James, 'let me plead for them. There was more than ordinary to dismay them.'
'Dismay! ay, the more cause they should have stood like honest men. If a rogue be not to hang for deserting his captain and then maligning him, soon would knavery be master of all.'
'Hear me first, Hal.'
'I'll hear when I return and you are dried. Why, man, thou art an icicle errant; change thy garments while I go round the posts, or I shall hear nought for the chattering of thy teeth.'
'Nor I for your cough, if you go, Harry. Surely, 'tis Salisbury's night!'
'The more cause that I be on the alert! Could I be everywhere, mayhap a few winter blasts would not have chilled and frozen all the manhood out of the host.'
He spoke very sharply as he threw him on his horse, and wrapped his cloak about him--a poor defence, spite of the ermine lining, against the frost of the December night for a man whose mother, the fair and wise Mary de Bohun, had died in early youth from disease of the lungs.
James and the two young partners of his adventure had long been clad in their gowns of peace, and seated by the fire in the refectory, James with his harp in his hand, from time to time dreamily calling forth a few plaintive notes, such as he said always rang in his ears after hearing a Scottish voice, when they again heard Henry's voice in hot displeasure with the provost-marshal for having deferred the execution of the runaways till after the hearing of the story of the King of Scots.
'His commands were not to be transgressed for the king of anything,' and he only reprieved the wretches till morning that their fate might be more signal. He spoke with the peremptory fierceness that had of late almost obscured his natural good-humour and kindliness; and when he entered the refectory and threw himself into a chair by the fire, he looked wearied out in body and mind, shivered and coughed, and said with unwonted depression that the sullen fellows would make a quagmire of their camp after all, since a French reinforcement had come up, and the vigilance that would be needed would occupy the whole army. At supper he ate little and spoke less; and when James would have related his encounter within the Scots, he cut him short, saying, 'Let that rest till morning; I am sick of hearing of it! An air upon thy harp would be more to the purpose.'
Nor would James have been unwilling to be silent on old Douglas's conduct if he had not been anxious to plead for the panic-stricken archers, as well as to extol the conduct of the two youths, and of the Yorkshire squires; but, as he divined that the young Hotspur would regard praise from him as an insult, he deferred the subject for his absence, and launched into a plaintive narrative ballad, to which Henry listened, leaning back in his chair, often dozing, but without relaxation of the anxiety that sat on his pale face, and ever and anon wakening within a heavy sigh, as though his buoyant spirits were giving way under the weight of care he had brought on himself.
James was just singing of one of the many knightly orphans of romance, exposed in woods to the nurture of bears, his father slain, his mother dead of grief--a ditty he had perhaps chosen for its soporific powers--when a gay bugle blast rang through the court of the convent.
'The French would scarce send to parley thus late,' exclaimed James; but the next moment a joyful clamour arose without, and Henry, springing to his feet, spoke not, but stood awaiting the tidings with the colour burning on cheek and brow in suppressed excitement.
An esquire, splashed to the ears, hurried into the room, and falling on his knees, cried aloud, 'God save King Harry! News, news, my lord! The Queen has safely borne you a fair son at Windsor Castle, five days since.'
Henry did not speak, but took the messenger's hand, wrung it, and left a costly ring there. Then, taking off his cap, he put his hands over his face, uttering a few words of fervent thanksgiving almost within himself, and then turning to the esquire, made further inquiries after his wife's welfare, took from him the letter that Archbishop Chicheley had sent, poured out a cup of wine for him, bade the lords around make him good cheer, but craved license for himself to retire.
It was so unlike his usual hilarious manner that all looked at one another in anxiety, and spoke of his unusual susceptibility to fatigue and care; while the squire, looking at the rich jewel in his hand, declared within disappointment in his tone, that he would rather have had a mere flint stone so he had heard King Harry's own cheery voice.
James was not the least anxious of them, but long ere light the next morning Henry stood at his bedside, saying, 'I must go round the posts before mass, Jamie. Will you face the matin frost?'
'I am fitter to face it than thou,' said James, rising. 'Is there need for this?'
'Great need,' said Henry. 'Here are these fresh forces all aglow within their first zeal, and unless they are worse captains than I suppose them, they will attempt some mischief ere long--nor is any time so slack as cock-crow.'
James was speedily ready, and, within some suppressed sighs, so was Malcolm, who knew himself in duty bound to attend his master, and was kept on the alert by seeing Ralf Percy also on foot. But it was a great relief to him that the young gentleman murmured in no measured terms against the intolerable activity of their kings. No other attendants went within them, since Henry was wont to patrol his camp with as little demonstration as possible.