Lord Montagu's Page Part 27

Soon after, the Abbe Scaglia roused himself in the corner where he had ensconced him, and, moving quietly up, talked in a low tone for some twenty minutes with Lord Montagu. They then roused the rest of the party who had been supping there, and went down into the court-yard, where they found the horses of Edward Langdale and his companions. Their own were hidden in one of those deep vaults under the great tower which were common in most feudal castles, especially in border-districts, as a safe and silent receptacle of stolen cattle and horses.

Though it was still raining, most of the party mounted and rode away, promising to send up a litter and a surgeon as soon as the road was pa.s.sable. Lord Montagu himself said he would remain with the poor lad, and reascended to the chamber where he had left him.

All was silent there: the wounded youth had fallen into a sleep which seemed calm, and the two blacksmiths were nodding beside him. The English n.o.bleman then went up to the floor above, where he found Jacques Beaupre asleep across the door, and Pierrot sitting up, but rubbing his eyes as if he had not been long awake.

In answer to the n.o.bleman's questions, Pierrot detailed all that had occurred upon the road, and dwelt upon the gallant conduct of his young master. "He little thought," said the man, "that he was risking his own life to save the very man who would kill him. But I have often heard say that it is unlucky to rescue a man from drowning. As to this man in here, sir, I believe he is mad; for he has been walking about all night,--sometimes talking to himself, sometimes groaning as if his heart would break. I had better wake him, perhaps."

"No, no! Let him sleep if he can," said Lord Montagu, quickly. "Well may he groan! Pray Heaven neither of us may ever have such cause, my man.

When you hear him move, get him some wine. There is still some down-stairs. Till then, let him alone. If he sleeps, it is the best thing for him."

Thus saying, he went down again, and, finding every thing as before, approached the window and gazed at the morning light, still pale and blue, spreading up from the mountain-edges into the rainy sky. After about half an hour, Edward turned painfully and asked for some water.

His lord gave it to him with a kindly word or two, and the blacksmiths woke up and examined the wound. They seemed satisfied with its appearance, and one of them said, loud enough for Edward to hear, "He will get well, sir."

Oh, what a blessed thing is hope! Those few words were a better balm than any druggist could have supplied. They brought with them, too, the thought of Lucette; and, beckoning to Lord Montagu to hold down his head, he whispered, "If I should die, my lord, I beseech you to write a few lines to the old Marquise de Lagny, to tell her the fact. She will be with the court of France, wherever that may be."

"No, no; you will get well, Ned," said Lord Montagu, in a cheerful tone.

"I do not intend to part with you yet. But now you must positively be silent if you would not increase the evil."

Some four or five hours pa.s.sed. The rain cleared away, the sun broke out, and Lord Montagu looked anxiously from the windows which were turned toward the road, in expectation of the promised litter. All he could see, however, was a large party of Savoyard peasantry working hard, apparently, to remove some obstruction from the highway.

He was still gazing forth, when Pierrot appeared at the door, and, finding all still, beckoned to him.

"My lord," he said, in a low voice, when Montagu had joined him, "I can hear nothing of that man above, nor Jacques either. He could not get out of the windows; and I should not wonder if he has hanged himself."

Lord Montagu started and instantly ran up-stairs, thinking the conclusion at which Pierrot had jumped not at all improbable. He opened the door gently and looked around. The sun was shining full into the room, but Sir Richard Langdale was not there. The only thing that could indicate the mode of his escape was a pair of large riding-boots, very wet, which lay on the floor; and it is probable that, opening the door cautiously while the two men were asleep, he had stepped lightly over them and then gone down the stairs.

"What a thing is the love of life!" thought Lord Montagu. "This man would rather live miserable than risk the grave. However, I cannot be sorry; and I believe poor Ned will be glad."

He entered the room below as silently as possible; but Edward, who had heard his rapid step running up the stairs, turned his head, asking, "Is there any thing the matter above?"

"Only that your brother has escaped," said his lord.

"Thank G.o.d!" said the young man, with a smile. "Pray, do not pursue him, my lord."

"I will not," replied Montagu: "make your mind easy, Ned."

"Here come some people with a litter up the hill," said one of the blacksmiths.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The _auberge_, the _cabaret_, the _gite_, were the usual places of repose for travellers in the reign of Louis XIII., as they had been under that of his father, Henry IV. Some change, indeed, had taken place in point of comfort and refinement; and even before the epoch of Louis XIV., which was now rapidly approaching, many an auberge was a very comfortable and luxurious dwelling. But there was another roof, which, in those days, afforded in Catholic countries--and even now afford, on the less frequented lines of travel--a more peaceful and little less comfortable or luxurious resting-spot than the houses of public entertainment. This was the large monastery, the abbey or the priory of any of the hospitable orders; and in Savoy these were peculiarly numerous, as their splendid ruins still attest.

Alas that in the march of what we call improvement so much that is good is swept away! Many undoubtedly were the vices and the evils which had crept into the Romish Church; great, we Protestants believe, was the corruption of her faith; but the time will come when the whole world will own that to that Church we owe a debt of grat.i.tude for arts, inst.i.tutions, faith itself, preserved, and will regret that in the fanatical zeal of religious innovation the good and the bad were promiscuously crushed together.

With the men who bore the litter sent by the Abbe Scaglia was a surgeon of some eminence, who strongly advised that the wounded youth should be carried to the Abbey of St. Pierre rather than to a noisy inn in Aix. It was but a mile from the city, he said: the air was pure and fine, and the attendance of the sisters, who were of an order of charity, would be worth more than that of any nurses who could be found in the town. They were the servants of G.o.d; the others were the servants of Mammon: and no one could doubt which would do their duty best.

His reasoning was conclusive; and Edward Langdale was accordingly carried to the abbey and kindly received.

No need to dwell upon his illness. It was severe, but it was not fatal; and, by the reader's leave, we will advance six days in our story and look into the chamber which had been a.s.signed him in the hospital-part of the building. Lord Montagu sat by his bedside with a cheerful look, and the young man was already able to raise himself upon his arm and listen to or answer questions. His n.o.ble friend had pa.s.sed the intervening time, as he had proposed, at Aix, and his days were full of business and excitement; but still he had found leisure to ride out each day and visit his page.

"Well, Ned," he said, "you are now in a fair way. The surgeon tells me there is no doubt of your recovery now, if you have even tolerable prudence; so I shall leave you for a day or two and go to Turin. I trust you will be able to travel shortly after I come back; for I have wanted you much during your long absence, and shall want you more now. There is Henry Freeland; he is stupid as an a.s.s; and then George Abbot, who has sense enough when you give him three hours to think over what he has to do, is as slow as an elephant."

"I was indeed very long on my journey, my lord," replied Edward; "but I can a.s.sure you I could not help it. One unfortunate accident after another detained me, as I have partly told you."

"Ay, Madame de Chevreuse wrote me all that," said Montagu. "You were ill from a knock on the head at Roch.e.l.le. You are too quick, my boy, and, I dare say, brought it on yourself; but I would rather have a ready hand and a ready head than a slow heart and a dull understanding. It was unfortunate, it is true; for it gave an excuse for sending away Lord Denbigh's fleet. But that was all a pretext. We understand these Roch.e.l.lais well; and they will quarrel amongst themselves till they lose their city. Then you were caught by this great cardinal and detained by him. You must tell me all about that by-and-by. It is a marvel he hanged you not; and you must have managed him skilfully. But tell me about these two blacksmith horse-doctors you had with you. They say they met you on the road at Chartres, and that you would have none of their company."

"They say true, my lord," answered Edward. "I liked not their faces, and I wished to ride alone. Besides, I had seen one of them, I am sure, at Nantes, in the court of the castle; and I feared he might be one of the cardinal's people. But, as he is here in Savoy, whither he said from the first he was coming, I was probably mistaken. However, it is always better to be sure of your company."

"Oh, they are honest fellows," said Lord Montagu; "and, as I am continually wanting a smith, I have engaged them both to go with me as far at least as Liege. If they were the cardinal's men they would not go out of the cardinal's reach."

It may be necessary to explain that in those days, in Europe, men were much in the same state as travellers in Hindostan at present. Each servant you had with you had his specialty, and the train of a man of means and retinue consisted of a dozen more persons than any one now requires. It is true that at great towns you could find artificers of all sorts, ready to repair your coach or shoe your horses, or perform any services which the accidents of the road might require; but, if one of those accidents occurred between great town and great town, you might have to travel twenty miles with a lame horse or a broken vehicle, unless you had some one with you capable of rectifying the mischance upon the spot. Poor men were obliged to submit to such inconveniences, but the rich were prepared against them; and, as Lord Montagu's object was haste, and that rapidity of movement which is the best concealment, he very naturally desired to guard against all impediments.

The object of that n.o.bleman in the long journey which he was even then taking was to forward the great schemes of one to whom he was devoted with a warmth and sincerity of attachment very rare even then, rarer still now. The famous Duke of Buckingham, favorite of two kings, and ruler for a time of both king and people, was a man of great and daring enterprise, of bold and courageous action, but of small foresight and of less discretion. Unfortunate in action, from causes which he often could not control, he was great in purpose and even obstinate in resolution. The fault was generally a want of capacity for detail, and a miscalculation of the means in his power as proportioned to the end he had in view. For the first time in life, however, he had now considered his steps well and devised each move on the political chess-board accurately. Whatever were his motives, (none has discovered them, nor, perhaps, ever will,) his present object was to humble France and to raise England at her expense; and, while he himself prepared eagerly for a war in which he was not fitted for command, his most intimate friend and confidant, Lord Montagu, was intrusted with the execution of that great political scheme which is the only bright point in Buckingham's career as a statesman. His task was, in the first place, to unite every discontented person and party in France against the crown, to combine Huguenots with dissatisfied Catholics, a turbulent n.o.bility with a turbulent people, and to disunite the powers, wherever they might be, which supported the throne. But in the next place came the still more important part of the scheme. It was to bring together all the foreign enemies of France, a discordant and heterogeneous body, and to direct their efforts in one concentrated torrent against a kingdom already distracted by internal feuds.

Few men could have been better fitted for these tasks; but in some respects Lord Montagu was wanting. He was somewhat too confiding; though politic, he was not sufficiently reserved; though clear-sighted, he was not observant of small particulars.

Hitherto he had been successful in all he had attempted; and now, by Edward's bedside, he spoke with some satisfaction of all he had done:--how he had remained in France in despite of the terrible minister who then already ruled the destinies of that great country; how he had pa.s.sed from house to house and castle to castle, giving consistency to plans and direction to purposes which had previously been vague and undefined; how he had obtained written a.s.surances of co-operation and support from many of the most powerful n.o.bility and the most influential factions in France; how his efforts in Spain and Lorraine and Savoy were all on the eve of triumph.

"Here," he said, "I have met with more difficulty than I expected. The court of the duke is divided. Many of his advisers have been gained by Richelieu, and a number of the chief n.o.bility are attached to an alliance with France. It was to strengthen the hands of our friend the Abbe Scaglia, and to commit irrevocably to our party many of the most influential of these n.o.bles, that we held the secret meeting in the old Chateau of Groslie, where you found us so unexpectedly. Your coming was not, in truth, inopportune; for all was settled, and further discussion would have done harm rather than good."

"I am glad your lordship has been so successful in great matters," said Edward, "while I have been so unsuccessful in smaller ones. Indeed, though I cannot trace my want of success to any fault of my own, yet I cannot help feeling that my failure to accomplish any thing that was intrusted to me must have shaken your lordship's confidence in me.

Either I must have been stupid, or most unfortunate,--which is perhaps worse."

"Nonsense, lad!" said Lord Montagu. "Many of the most successful men I have ever known failed in their first efforts: some failed for many years. There is in circ.u.mstance, my good youth, a dead weight which no human strength can overcome. We sent you to France because you were likely to pa.s.s where no man of riper years and known reputation could have made his way; but we were well aware that you had difficulties to contend with which were sure to try you hard and probably might frustrate all your efforts. But you have not wholly failed. You have been delayed, impeded; but you have made known the views of England where it was necessary they should be known, and you have brought me intelligence of the state of preparation of his Grace of Buckingham, which was most important at the present moment."

"Indeed, my lord!" cried Edward, with a look of extreme surprise. "The cardinal minister opened all the letters and read them in my presence, and I heard no such intelligence."

"Look there!" said Montagu, taking a letter from his pocket and holding it up before the young man's eyes. "You thought that there was nothing on that sheet but what is written in black ink; and so did Richelieu; but he did not and could not discover all that is told in those orange characters unless he had possessed the secret, only known to three persons, of the liquid which brings out the characters from the apparently blank paper. It is only a marvel, my boy, that you pa.s.sed at all. We hardly expected it; but you have pa.s.sed, and, though delayed upon your journey, have brought me this intelligence in time. This cardinal is very shrewd; but there are people as shrewd as he. This news will hurry the movements of Savoy, Lorraine, the empire; and yet he had this letter in his hand and suffered it to pa.s.s."

"No thanks to me," said Edward; "for I knew not what was in it."

He was in a somewhat desponding mood, and inclined to undervalue his own services; but he could not help seeing that papers had been put into his hands which, unknown to himself, must have led him to an ignominious death if they had been discovered; and, for the time at least, he felt sick of political intrigue. There are moments; even in the midst of the bustle and turmoil, the eagerness and the excitement, of this world's objects and ambitions, when a consciousness of the excellence of perfect truth and plain sincerity comes upon us, and we feel that if all men would but follow the pure and plain injunction of the Savior, and do unto others as we would they should do unto us, we should be happier here as well as hereafter. We excuse to ourselves our own acts by the actions of others. We say, "We must fight our adversaries with their own weapons." We would be ready to follow the gospel precept if others would follow it; but each man has the same apology, and no one will commence obedience.

But Edward felt that it did not befit one so young to discuss ethics with his lord; and, changing the subject, he inquired, "How long did your lordship say you would be absent?"

"Some seven days," answered Lord Montagu. "And, from what the surgeon says, I judge you will be able to travel about six days after. I have work here for at least that time."

"I trust so, my lord; for I certainly feel my health improving," said the young man. "But I wish your lordship would not take those blacksmiths with you,--though they treated me well and kindly,--perhaps skilfully too: I can feel grateful to them, but cannot bring my mind to confide in them."

"Why, what is the matter with them?" asked Montagu, bluffly.

"I know not, my lord," said Edward; "but they have both bad faces,--a cunning and a double look."

"Pooh, pooh! prejudice!" said Lord Montagu. "They are mighty good folks.