Quentin Durward Part 27

We have already observed that a considerable degree of familiarity had begun to establish itself between them. The elder Countess treated him (being once well a.s.sured of the n.o.bility of his birth) like a favoured equal, and though her niece showed her regard to their protector less freely, yet, under every disadvantage of bashfulness and timidity, Quentin thought he could plainly perceive that his company and conversation were not by any means indifferent to her.

Nothing gives such life and soul to youthful gaiety as the consciousness that it is successfully received, and Quentin had accordingly, during the former period of their journey, amused his fair charge with the liveliness of his conversation and the songs and tales of his country, the former of which he sang in his native language, while his efforts to render the latter into his foreign and imperfect French, gave rise to a hundred little mistakes and errors of speech, as diverting as the narratives themselves. But on this anxious morning, he rode beside the Ladies of Croye without any of his usual attempts to amuse them, and they could not help observing his silence as something remarkable.

"Our young companion has seen a wolf," said the Lady Hameline, alluding to an ancient superst.i.tion, "and he has lost his tongue in consequence."

[Vox quoque Moerim Jam fugit ipsa; lupi Moerim videre priores. Virgilii ix. Ecloga. The commentators add, in explanation of this pa.s.sage, the opinion of Pliny: "The being beheld by a wolf in Italy is accounted noxious, and is supposed to take away the speech of a man, if these animals behold him ere he sees them." S.]

"To say I had tracked a fox were nearer the mark," thought Quentin, but gave the reply no utterance.

"Are you well, Seignior Quentin?" said the Countess Isabelle, in a tone of interest at which she herself blushed, while she felt that it was something more than the distance between them warranted.

"He hath sat up carousing with the jolly friars," said the Lady Hameline, "the Scots are like the Germans, who spend all their mirth over the Rheinwein, and bring only their staggering steps to the dance in the evening, and their aching heads to the ladies' bower in the morning."

"Nay, gentle ladies," said Quentin, "I deserve not your reproach. The good friars were at their devotions almost all night, and for myself, my drink was barely a cup of their thinnest and most ordinary wine."

"It is the badness of his fare that has put him out of humour," said the Countess Isabelle. "Cheer up, Seignior Quentin, and should we ever visit my ancient Castle of Bracquemont together, if I myself should stand your cup bearer, and hand it to you, you shall have a generous cup of wine, that the like never grew upon the vines of Hochheim or Johannisberg."

"A gla.s.s of water, n.o.ble lady, from your hand,"--Thus far did Quentin begin, but his voice trembled, and Isabelle continued, as if she had been insensible of the tenderness of the accentuation upon the personal p.r.o.noun.

"The wine was stocked in the deep vaults of Bracquemont, by my great grandfather the Rhinegrave G.o.dfrey," said the Countess Isabelle.

"Who won the hand of her great grandmother," interjected the Lady Hameline, interrupting her niece, "by proving himself the best son of chivalry, at the great tournament of Strasbourg--ten knights were slain in the lists. But those days are now over, and no one now thinks of encountering peril for the sake of honour, or to relieve distressed beauty."

To this speech, which was made in the tone in which a modern beauty, whose charms are rather on the wane, may be heard to condemn the rudeness of the present age, Quentin took upon him to reply that there was no lack of that chivalry which the Lady Hameline seemed to consider as extinct, and that, were it eclipsed everywhere else, it would still glow in the bosoms of the Scottish gentlemen.

"Hear him!" said the Lady Hameline, "he would have us believe that in his cold and bleak country still lives the n.o.ble fire which has decayed in France and Germany! The poor youth is like a Swiss mountaineer, mad with partiality to his native land--he will next tell us of the vines and olives of Scotland."

"No, madam," said Durward, "of the wine and the oil of our mountains I can say little more than that our swords can compel these rich productions as tribute from our wealthier neighbours. But for the unblemished faith and unfaded honour of Scotland, I must now put to the proof how far you can repose trust in them, however mean the individual who can offer nothing more as a pledge of your safety."

"You speak mysteriously--you know of some pressing and present danger,"

said the Lady Hameline.

"I have read it in his eye for this hour past!" exclaimed the Lady Isabelle, clasping her hands. "Sacred Virgin, what will become of us?"

"Nothing, I hope, but what you would desire," answered Durward. "And now I am compelled to ask--gentle ladies, can you trust me?"

"Trust you?" answered the Countess Hameline. "Certainly. But why the question? Or how far do you ask our confidence?"

"I, on my part," said the Countess Isabelle, "trust you implicitly, and without condition. If you can deceive us, Quentin, I will no more look for truth, save in Heaven!"

"Gentle lady," replied Durward, highly gratified, "you do me but justice. My object is to alter our route, by proceeding directly by the left bank of the Maes to Liege, instead of crossing at Namur. This differs from the order a.s.signed by King Louis and the instructions given to the guide. But I heard news in the monastery of marauders on the right bank of the Maes, and of the march of Burgundian soldiers to suppress them. Both circ.u.mstances alarm me for your safety. Have I your permission so far to deviate from the route of your journey?"

"My ample and full permission," answered the younger lady.

"Cousin," said the Lady Hameline, "I believe with you that the youth means us well--but bethink you--we transgress the instructions of King Louis, so positively iterated."

"And why should we regard his instructions?" said the Lady Isabelle. "I am, I thank Heaven for it, no subject of his, and, as a suppliant, he has abused the confidence he induced me to repose in him. I would not dishonour this young gentleman by weighing his word for an instant against the injunctions of yonder crafty and selfish despot."

"Now, may G.o.d bless you for that very word, lady," said Quentin, joyously, "and if I deserve not the trust it expresses, tearing with wild horses in this life and eternal tortures in the next were e'en too good for my deserts."

So saying, he spurred his horse, and rejoined the Bohemian. This worthy seemed of a remarkably pa.s.sive, if not a forgiving temper. Injury or threat never dwelt, or at least seemed not to dwell in his recollection, and he entered into the conversation which Durward presently commenced, just as if there had been no unkindly word betwixt them in the course of the morning.

The dog, thought the Scot, snarls not now, because he intends to clear scores with me at once and for ever, when he can s.n.a.t.c.h me by the very throat, but we will try for once whether we cannot foil a traitor at his own weapons.

"Honest Hayraddin," he said, "thou hast travelled with us for ten days, yet hast never shown us a specimen of your skill in fortune telling, which you are, nevertheless, so fond of practising that you must needs display your gifts in every convent at which we stop, at the risk of being repaid by a night's lodging under a haystack."

"You have never asked me for a specimen of my skill," said the gipsy.

"You are, like the rest of the world, contented to ridicule those mysteries which they do not understand."

"Give me then a present proof of your skill," said Quentin and, ungloving his hand, he held it out to the gipsy.

Hayraddin carefully regarded all the lines which crossed each other on the Scotchman's palm, and noted, with equally Scrupulous attention, the little risings or swellings at the roots of the fingers, which were then believed as intimately connected with the disposition, habits, and fortunes of the individual, as the organs of the brain are pretended to be in our own time.

"Here is a hand," said Hayraddin, "which speaks of toils endured, and dangers encountered. I read in it an early acquaintance with the hilt of the sword, and yet some acquaintance also with the clasps of the ma.s.s book."

"This of my past life you may have learned elsewhere," said Quentin, "tell me something of the future."

"This line from the hill of Venus," said the Bohemian, "not broken off abruptly, but attending and accompanying the line of life, argues a certain and large fortune by marriage, whereby the party shall be raised among the wealthy and the n.o.ble by the influence of successful love."

"Such promises you make to all who ask your advice," said Quentin, "they are part of your art."

"What I tell you is as certain," said Hayraddin, "as that you shall in brief s.p.a.ce be menaced with mighty danger, which I infer from this bright blood red line cutting the table line transversely, and intimating stroke of sword, or other violence, from which you shall only be saved by the attachment of a faithful friend."

"Thyself, ha?" said Quentin, somewhat indignant that the chiromantist should thus practise on his credulity, and endeavour to found a reputation by predicting the consequences of his own treachery.

"My art," replied the Zingaro, "tells me naught that concerns myself."

"In this, then, the seers of my land," said Quentin, "excel your boasted knowledge, for their skill teaches them the dangers by which they are themselves beset. I left not my hills without having felt a portion of the double vision with which their inhabitants are gifted, and I will give thee a proof of it, in exchange for thy specimen of palmistry.

Hayraddin, the danger which threatens me lies on the right bank of the river--I will avoid it by travelling to Liege on the left bank."

The guide listened with an apathy, which, knowing the circ.u.mstances in which Maugrabin stood, Quentin could not by any means comprehend.

"If you accomplish your purpose," was the Bohemian's reply, "the dangerous crisis will be transferred from your lot to mine."

"I thought," said Quentin, "that you said but now, that you could not presage your own fortune?"

"Not in the manner in which I have but now told you yours," answered Hayraddin, "but it requires little knowledge of Louis of Valois, to presage that he will hang your guide, because your pleasure was to deviate from the road which he recommended."

"The attaining with safety the purpose of the journey, and ensuring its happy termination," said Quentin, "must atone for a deviation from the exact line of the prescribed route."

"Ay," replied the Bohemian, "if you are sure that the King had in his own eye the same termination of the pilgrimage which he insinuated to you."

"And of what other termination is it possible that he could have been meditating? or why should you suppose he had any purpose in his thought, other than was avowed in his direction?" inquired Quentin.

"Simply," replied the Zingaro, "that those who know aught of the Most Christian King, are aware that the purpose about which he is most anxious, is always that which he is least willing to declare. Let our gracious Louis send twelve emba.s.sies, and I will forfeit my neck to the gallows a year before it is due, if in eleven of them there is not something at the bottom of the ink horn more than the pen has written in the letters of credence."

"I regard not your foul suspicions," answered Quentin, "my duty is plain and peremptory--to convey these ladies in safety to Liege, and I take it on me to think that I best discharge that duty in changing our prescribed route, and keeping the left side of the river Maes. It is likewise the direct road to Liege. By crossing the river, we should lose time and incur fatigue to no purpose--wherefore should we do so?"