"A friend?" said Gray.
"An unfortunate and valiant Count of Flanders."
"Who?"
"Ludwig of Endhoven, a captain of Brabanciones; by St. Christopher our lover is not likely to escape him– eh, Achanna! but now let us to bed – to bed; for we must be in our saddles by cockcrow to-morrow. Achanna, your arm," said the poor young duke, staggering up; "Lua-Luaig – fare, sir – fare you well."
"Good night to your grace, and God be wi' you!" said Gray, opening and closing the door as they separated.
After the duke and Achanna were gone, he sat long and late, full of anxious and bitter thoughts that came thick and fast upon him. He felt agony at the idea of Murielle being about to be sacrificed to the wild, ambitious, and revengeful schemes of the earl of Douglas and the duke of Albany; and he actually trembled lest her heart might have changed or her fancy have been dazzled, for he now remembered with pain the banter of his comrade and kinsman, MacLellan. He pitied and despised the outlawed duke, yet he trembled for the trouble, which he, with the earl, when combined, might give the young king James, their master. He was filled with wrath at the resolution, so fully expressed, to destroy himself, and starting to his feet, he was about to get his sword from the tapster, and summon Achanna forth into the moonlight, which shone brightly, to upbraid him with his villany, and then kill him on the spot; and in doing so, he would not have committed a crime, but have acted simply in the spirit of the age. However, cooler reflection showed that he might serve Murielle, the king, and himself better, by preserving his incognito. So master Achanna, that utilitarian Scot, who would have sold his own father and his mother to boot, without compunction, slept that night without a yard of cold iron in his body.
Yet, as it was impossible for Gray to travel with Duke Robert and this scurvy companion to Bommel, he resolved to set forward alone. Thus, after a restless night, he was up and mounted an hour before sunrise, and while the frowsy haze hung thick and yellow over the pale-green willow-copse of the Maese, veiling all Grave and the quaint old castle of Otho, lord of Cuick and Haverale, he was far on his journey to Bommel.
CHAPTER XXXI
BOMMEL
What mad jest is this, my masters?
I know not where the damsel lives, not I;
But see to it, that ye molest her not! —
After passing Alphen, Sir Patrick crossed an old stone bridge, and found himself in the Bommelerwaard, a fertile island, formed by the Waal and the Maese; and about noon, he reached the object of his destination, the quaint and ancient town of Zalt-Bommel, which stands upon the left bank of the former river.
The ducal banner of Arnold d'Egmont was waving on the castle built by Otho III. of Nassau, count of Gueldres, who walled the city in 1299, and therein dwelt Jacques de Lalain, the governor, then named the Dyck Graf, who kept the town in awe with his cannon, but more by his sluices, by opening which, he could lay the whole district under water, and drown every citizen in five minutes.
While riding forward, Gray had revolved in his mind, a hundred plans for making himself known to Murielle, but none seemed practicable; and then, with no other conviction, than the double necessity for being wary, and procuring a disguise, with a heart that beat lightly though anxiously, he passed through the wide and busy streets of Bommel, along the quays of its now choked-up harbour, and found quarters at an hostelry, that stood near the gardens of the ancient college of Canons, which was founded in 1303, by Reinold the warlike count of Gueldres.
Here he sent for the keeper of a frippery, as a clothing establishment was then named, and obtained the dress of a Muscovite merchant, a long gown of brown cloth trimmed with red braid and sables, a cap of black wolf's skin, and a short crooked sword, which he slung in front by a brass chain, in the oriental fashion. He laid aside all his military trappings, save his chain shirt, which the disguise he had adopted completely concealed, and after dinner he sallied forth into the city in quest of adventure and of Murielle.
It was fortunate that he had obtained so complete a disguise and so readily, for at the corner of a street he was overtaken by three reckless horsemen, who passed at a hard gallop, and so closely, that he was nearly ridden down.
They were the very persons he wished to avoid – the duke of Albany, count Ludwig of Endhoven, and James Achanna. He endeavoured to follow, and see whither they went; but they rode rapidly, and were soon out of sight.
The masses of the population, their bustle, and the business they seemed to transact, with the wealth and luxury he saw on every hand, excited the astonishment of Gray, who had come from a land that was simply warlike and pastoral; for in that age Flanders was the central point of European commerce – the market of all the products of the south, the north, and the Levant.
"As in the course of human affairs," says Schiller, "here a licentious luxury followed prosperity. The seductive example of Philip the Good could not but accelerate its approach. The court of the Burgundian dukes was the most voluptuous and magnificent in Europe, Italy itself not accepted. The costly dress of the higher classes, which afterwards served as patterns to the Spaniards, and eventually with the Burgundian customs, passed over to the court of Austria, soon descended to the lower orders, and the humblest citizen nursed his person in velvet and silk. The pomp and vanity of dress were carried by both sexes to extravagance. The luxury of the table had never reached so great a height among any other people. The immoral assemblage of both sexes at bathing-places, and others of reunion for pleasure and enjoyment, had banished all shame."
This state of society was new and bewildering to the plain soldier, who had come from the hardy and frugal land of the "rough-footed Scots," as he strolled along the thoroughfares of Bommel, disguised as a merchant from Muscovy, without a word of the Muscovite language, and as ignorant of whether he should pretend to import tallow, tar, hogsbristles, iron and flax, or the preserved fruits and luscious wines of the sunny Levant. Thus fearing that his disguise might lead him into a scrape or predicament, he avoided the harbour and mercantile portions of the city, and sought those in which he was most likely to meet some of the earl's train, or discover his locality.
After two days of hopeless inquiry, as the most prudent people are at times the most rash, he conceived the idea of relinquishing his disguise, of resuming his former attire, and applying to the Dyck Graf, who was a Gueldrian noble, and by birth a Burgundian of high rank, when luckily chance threw in his way the most fortunate person he could have met.
He had visited all the churches in time of mass and vespers, hoping to see the earl, or some of his numerous retinue, and on the third day, just as he was leaving, with a heavy heart, the gorgeously-carved porch of St. Genevieve, he heard a familiar voice say —
"Yes, yes, it is all very bad and wicked of the Burgundians no doubt; but are not all the world so? When, through my humble efforts and the agency of our Holy Father, the great master of evil is purified and restored to the place he fell from, such things shall be no more. Veritas mea et misericordia mea cum ipso; et in nomine meo exaltabitur cornuejus!"
"Oh, by good St. Genevieve, this can be no other than my worthy friend and kinsman, the abbot of Tongland!" said Gray, joyously, as he pressed through a crowd of bubous-shaped Flemings, towards where the old abbot, who wore a travelling cassock and calotte cap, with long flaps, stood near a pillar conversing with one whom he knew to be the chaunter of the abbey, an official who conducted the choir and had charge of the library, to increase the MS. stores of which, he had accompanied the earl to the Continent.