Jean looked on, eager to see some of the Scots of their own escort excel the English pock-puddings, but though Dandie and two or three more contended, the habits were too unfamiliar for them to win any great distinction, and George Douglas did not come forward; the competition was not for men of gentle blood, and success would have brought him forward in a manner it was desirable to avoid. There was a good deal of merry talk between Jean and the hosts, enemies though she regarded them. The Duke of York was evidently much struck with her beauty and liveliness, and he asked Sir Patrick in private whether there were any betrothal or contract in consequence of which he was taking her to France.
'None,' said Sir Patrick, 'it is merely to be with her sister, the Dauphiness.'
'Then,' said young Richard Nevil, who was standing by him, and seemed to have instigated the question, 'there would be no hindrance supposing she struck the King's fancy.'
'The King is contracted,' said Sir Patrick.
'Half contracted! but to the beggarly daughter of a Frenchman who calls himself king of half-a-dozen realms without an acre in any of them. It is not gone so far but that it might be thrown over if he had sense and spirit not to be led by the nose by the Cardinal and Suffolk.'
'Hush-hush, Dick! this is dangerous matter,' said the Duke, and Sir Patrick added--
'These ladies are nieces to the Cardinal.'
'That is well, and it would win the more readily consent--even though Suffolk and his shameful peace were thrown over,' eagerly said the future king-maker.
'Gloucester would be willing,' added the Duke. 'He loved the damsel's father, and hateth the French alliance.'
'I spoke with her,' added Nevil, 'and, red-hot little Scot as she is, she only lacks an English wedlock to make her as truly English, which this wench of Anjou can never be.'
'She would give our meek King just the spring and force he needs,' said the Duke; 'but thou wilt hold thy peace, Sir Knight, and let no whisper reach the women-folk.'
This Sir Patrick readily promised. He was considerably tickled by the idea of negotiating such an important affair for his young King and his protegee, feeling that the benefit to Scotland might outweigh any qualms as to the disappointment to the French allies. Besides, if King Henry of Windsor should think proper to fall in love with her, he could not help it; he had not brought her away from home or to England with any such purpose; he had only to stand by and let things take their course, so long as the safety and honour of her, her brother, and the kingdom were secure. So reasoned the canny Scot, but he held his tongue to his Lilias.
CHAPTER 4. ST. HELEN'S
'I thought King Henry had resembled thee, In courage, courtship, and proportion: But all his mind is bent to holiness, To number Ave-Maries on his beads: His champions are the prophets and apostles; His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ.' King Henry VI.
George Douglas's chivalrous venture in defence of the falcon of his lady-love had certainly not done much for him hitherto, as Davie observed. The Lady Joanna, as every one now called her, took it as only the bounden duty and natural service of one of her suite, and would have cared little for his suffering for it personally, except so far as it concerned her own dignity, which she understood much better than she had done in Scotland, where she was only one of 'the lassies,' an encumbrance to every one.
The York retainers had dropped all idea of visiting his offence upon Douglas when they found that he had acted in the service of an honoured guest of their lord, but they did not look with much favour on him or on any other of the Scottish troop, whom their master enjoined them to treat as guests and comrades.
The uniting of so many suites of the mighty nobles of the fifteenth century formed quite a little army, amounting to some two or three hundred horsemen, mostly armed, and well appointed, with their masters' badges on their sleeves,--falcon and fetterlock, dun cow, bear and ragged staff and the cross of Durham, while all likewise wore in their caps the white rose. Waggons with household furniture and kitchen needments had been sent in advance with the numerous 'black guard,' and a provision of cattle for slaughter accompanied these, since it was one of the considerate acts that already had won affection to Richard of York that, unlike many of the great nobles, he always avoided as much as possible letting his train be oppressive to the country-people.
David Drummond had been seeing that all his father's troop were duly provided with the Drummond badge, the thyme, which was requisite as showing them accepted of the Duke of York's company, but as George and his follower had never submitted to wear it, he was somewhat surprised to find the gray blossom prominent in George's steel-guarded cap, and to hear him saying--
'Don it, Ringan, as thou wouldst obey me.'
'His father's son is not his own father,' said Ringan sulkily.
'Then tak' thy choice of wearing it, or winning hame as thou canst--most like hanging on the nearest oak.'
'And I'd gey liefer than demean myself in the Drummond thyme!' replied Ringan, half turning away. 'But then what would come of Gray Meg wi' only the Master to see till her,' muttered he, caressing the mare's neck. 'Weel, aweel, sir'--and he held out his hand for the despised spray.
'Is yon thy wild callant, Geordie?' said David in some surprise, for Ringan was not only provided with a pony, but his thatch of tow-like hair had been trimmed and covered with a barret cap, and his leathern coat and leggings were like those of the other horse-boys.
'Ay,' said George, 'this is no place to be ower kenspeckle.'
'I was coming to ask,' said David, 'if thou wouldst not own thyself to my father, and take thy proper place ere ganging farther south. It irks me to see some of the best blood in Scotland among the grooms.'
'It must irk thee still, Davie,' returned George. 'These English folk might not thole to see my father's son in their hands without winning something out of him, and I saw by what passed the other day that thou and thy father would stand by me, hap what hap, and I'll never embroil him and peril the lady by my freak.'
'My father kens pretty well wha is riding in his companie,' said David.
'Ay, but he is not bound to ken.'
'And thou winna write to the Yerl, as ye said ye would when ye were ower the Border? There's a clerk o' the Bishop of Durham ganging back, and my father is writing letters that he will send forward to the King, and thou couldst get a scart o' the pen to thy father.'
'And what wad be thought of a puir man-at-arms sending letters to the Yerl?' said George. 'Na, na; I may write when we win to France, a friendly land, but while we are in England, the loons shall make naething out of my father's son.'
'Weel, gang thine ain gait, and an unco strange one it is,' said David. 'I marvel what thou count'st on gaining by it!'
'The sicht of her at least,' said George. 'Nay, she needed a stout hand once, she may need it again.'
Whereat David waved his hands in a sort of contemptuous wonder.
'If it were the Duchess of York now!' he said. 'She is far bonnier and even prouder, gin that be what tak's your fancy! And as to our Jeanie, they are all cockering her up till she'll no be content with a king. I doot me if the Paip himself wad be good enough for her!'
It was true that the brilliant and lively Lady Joanna was in high favour with the princely gallants of the cavalcade. The only member of the party at all equal to her in beauty was the Duchess of York, who travelled in a whirlicote with her younger children and her ladies, and at the halting-places never relaxed the stiff dignity with which she treated every one. Eleanor did indeed accompany her sister, but she had not Jean's quick power of repartee, and she often answered at haphazard, and was not understood when she did reply; nor had she Jean's beauty, so that in the opinion of most of the young nobles she was but a raw, almost dumb, Scotswoman, and was left to herself as much as courtesy permitted, except by the young King of the Isle of Wight, a gentle, poetical personage, in somewhat delicate health, with tastes that made him the chosen companion of the scholarly King Henry. He could repeat a great deal of Chaucer's poetry by heart, the chief way in which people could as yet enjoy books, and there was an interchange between them of "Blind Harry "and of the "Canterbury Tales", as they rode side by side, sometimes making their companions laugh, and wonder that the youthful queen was not jealous. Dame Lilias found her congenial companion in the Countess Alice of Salisbury, who could talk with her of that golden age of the two kings, Henry and James, of her brother Malcolm, and of Esclairmonde de Luxembourg, now Sister Clare, whom they hoped soon to see in the sisterhood of St. Katharine's.