The Caged Lion Part 15

'That is poor welcome for your heir,' said James.

'Poor child!' said Henry; then, after they had walked some s.p.a.ce in silence, he added, 'You'll mock me, but I would that this had not befallen at Windsor. I had laid my plans that it should be otherwise; but ladies are ill to guide.'

'And wherefore should it not have been at fair Windsor? If I can love it as a prison, sure your son may well love it as a cradle.'

'No dishonour to Windsor,' said Henry; 'but, sleeping or waking, this whole night hath this adage rung in my ears-

"Harry, born at Monmouth, shall short time live and all get; Harry, born at Windsor, shall long time live and lose all."'

'A most choice piece of royal poesy and prophecy,' laughed James.

'Nay, do not charge me with it, thou dainty minstrel. It was sung to me by mime old Herefordshire nurse, when Windsor seemed as little within my reach as Meaux, and I never thought of it again till I looked to have a son.'

'Then balk the prophecy,' said James; 'Edward born at Windsor got enough, and lived long enough to boot!'

'Too late!' was the answer. 'The Archbishop christened the poor child Harry in the very hour of his birth.'

'Poor child!' echoed James, rather sarcastically.

'Nay, 'tis not solely the rhyme,' said Henry; 'but this has been a wakeful night, and not without misgivings whether I am one who ought to look for joy in his children.'

'What is past was not such that you alone should cry mea culpa,' said James.

'I never thought so till now,' said Henry. 'Yet who knows? My father was a winsome young man ere his exile, full of tenderness to us all, at the rare times he was with us. Who knows what cares may make of me ere my boy learns to knew me?'

'You will not hold him aloof, and give him no chance of loving you?'

'I trow not! I'll have him with me in the camp, and he and my brave men shall be one another's pride. Which Roman emperor is it that hears the nickname his father's soldiers gave him as a child? Nay-Caligula was it? Omens are against me this morning.'

'Then laughs them to scorn, and be yourself,' said James. 'Bless G.o.d for the goodly child, who is born to two kingdoms, won by his father's and his grandsire's swords.'

'Ah!' said Henry, depressed by failing health, a sleepless night, and hungry morning, 'maybe it were better for him, soul and body both, did I stand here Duke of Lancaster, and good Edmund of March yonder were head of realm and army.'

'Never would he be head of this army,' said James. 'He would be snoring at Shene; that is, if he could sleep for the trouble the Duke of Lancaster would be giving him.'

Henry laughed at last. 'Good King Edmund, he would a.s.suredly never try to set the world right on its hinges. Honest fellow, soon he will be as hearty in his congratulations as though he did not lie under a great wrong. Heigh-ho! such as he may be in the right on't. I've marvelled of late, whether any priest or hermit could bring back my old a.s.surance, that all this is my work on earth, or tell me if it be all one grand error. Men there have been like Caesar, Alexander, or Charlemagne, who thought my thoughts and worked them out; and surely Church and nations cry aloud for purifying. Jerusalem, and a general council-I saw them once clear and bright before me; but now a mist seems to rise up from Richard's blood, and hide them from me; and there comes from it my father's voice when he asked on his deathbed what right I had to the crown. What would it be if I had to leave this work half done?'

He was interrupted by the sight of a young knight stealing into the camp, after a furtive expedition to Paris. It was enough to rouse him from his despondent state; and the severity of his wrath was in full proportion to the offence. Nor did he again utter his misgivings, but was full of his usual alacrity and life, as though daylight had restored his buoyancy.

James, on the way back to the thanksgiving ma.s.s, interceded for last night's offenders, as an act of grace suitable to the occasion; but Henry was inexorable.

'Had they stood to die like Englishmen, they had not lied like dogs! 'he said; 'and as dogs they shall hang!'

In fact, in the critical state of his army, he knew that the only safety lay in the promptest and sternest justice; and therefore the three foremost in accusing King James of treachery were hung long before noon.

However, he called for the two Yorkshiremen, and thus addressed them: 'Well done, my masters! Thanks for showing Scots and Frenchmen what stuff Englishmen are made of! I keep my word, good fellows. Kneel down, and I'll dub each a knight. How now! what are you blundering and whispering for?'

'So please you, Sir,' said Kitson, 'this is no matter to win one's spurs for-mere standing still without a blow.'

'I would all had that same gift of standing still,' returned Henry. 'What is it sticks in your gizzard, friend? If 'tis the fees, I take them on myself.'

'No, Sir,' hoa.r.s.ely cried both.

And Kitson explained: 'Sir, you said you'd knight the one of us that was foremost. Now, the two being dubbed, we shall be but where we were before as to Mistress Agnes of Mineshull, unless of your good-will you would be pleased to let us fight out the wager of the heriard in all peace and amity.'

Henry burst out laughing, with all his old merriment, as he said, 'For no Mistress Agnes living can I have honest men's lives wasted, specially of such as have that gift of standing still. If she does not knew her own mind, one of you must get himself killed by the Frenchmen, not by one another. So kneel down, and we'll make your knighthood's feast fall in with that of my son.'

Thus Sir Christopher Kitson and Sir William Trenton rose up knights; and bore their honours with a certain bluntness that made them b.u.t.ts, even while they were the heroes of the day; and Henry, who had resumed his gay temper, made much diversion out of their mingled shrewdness and gruffness.

'So,' muttered Malcolm to Ralf Percy, 'we are pa.s.sed over in the self-same matter for which these fellows are knighted.'

'Tush!' answered Percy; 'I'd scorn to be confounded with a couple of clowns like them! Moreover,' he added, with better reason, 'their valour was more exercised than ours, inasmuch as they thought there was treachery, and we did not. No, no; when my spurs are won, it shall be for some prowess, better than standing stock-still.'

Malcolm held his tongue, unwilling that Percy should see that he did feel this an achievement; but he was vexed at the lack of reward, fancying that knighthood would be no small step in the favour of that imaginary Esclairmonde whom he had made for himself.

'Light of the world' he loved to call her still, but it was in the commonplace romance of his time, the mere light of beauty and grace illuminating the world of chivalry.

CHAPTER VIII: THE CAPTURE

The seven months' siege ended at last, but it was not until the brightness of May was on the fields outside, and the deadly blight of famine on all within, that a haggard, wasted-looking deputation came down from the upper city to treat with the King.

Henry was never severe with the inhabitants of French cities, and exacted no harsh terms, save that he insisted that Vaurus, the robber captain, and his two chief lieutenants, should be given up to him to suffer condign punishment. The warriors who had shut themselves up to hold out the place by honourable warfare for the Dauphin must be put to ransom as prisoners of war; but the burghers were to be unmolested, on condition of their swearing allegiance to Henry as regent for, and heir of, Charles VI.

To this the deputies consented, and the next day was fixed for the surrender. The difficulty was, as Henry had found at Harfleur, Rouen, and many other places, to enforce forbearance on his soldiery, who regarded plunder as their lawful prey, the enemy as their natural game, and the trouble a city had given them as a cause for unmercifulness. The more time changed his army from the feudal gathering of English country gentlemen and yeomen to mercenary bands of men-at-arms, the mere greedy, rapacious, and insubordinate became their temper. Well knowing the greatness of the peril, and that the very best of his captains had scarcely the will, if they had the power, to restrain the license that soon became barbarity unimaginable, he spoke sadly overnight of his dread of the day of surrender, when it might prove impossible to prevent deeds that would be not merely a blot on his scutcheon, but a shame to human nature; looking back to the exultation with which he had entered Harfleur as a mere effect of boyish ignorance and thoughtlessness.

Having taken all possible precautions, he stood in his full armour, with the fox's brush in his helmet, under the great elm in the market-place, received the keys, accepted the sword of the captain commissioned by Charles with royal courtesy, gave his hand to be kissed by the mayor; and then, with grave inexorable air, like a statue of steel, watched as the freebooter Vaurus and his two chief companions were led down with their hands tied, halters round their necks, and priests at their sides, preparing them to be hung on that very tree. They were proud hard men, and uttered no entreaty for grace. They had hung too many travellers upon these same branches not to expect their own turn, and they were no cravens to abase themselves.

That act of justice ended, Henry mounted his warhorse and rode in at the gates. His wont was to go straight to the princ.i.p.al church, and there attend a solemn ma.s.s of thanksgiving; but experience had taught him that his devotions were the very opportunity of his men's rapine: he had therefore arranged that as soon as he should have arrived in the choir of the cathedral, James should take his place, and he slip out by a side door, so as to return to the scene of action.

In full procession he and his suite reached the chief door, and there dismounted in an immense crowd, which thronged in at the doors.

'Come, Glenuskie,' said Ralf Percy, as the two youths were pushed chose together in the press; 'if you have a fancy for being smothered in the minster, I have none. We shall never be missed. 'Twill be sport to walk round and see how these hardy rogues contrived to hold out.'

Malcolm willingly turned aside with him, and looked down the sloping street, which was swarming with comers and goers. The whole place was in an inflammable state. Soldiers were demanding quarters, which the citizens unwillingly gave. A refusal or expostulation against a rough entry led to violence; and ever as the two youths walked farther from the cathedral, there was more of excitement, more rude oaths of soldiers, more shrieking of women, often crying out even before any harm was done to them or their houses.

At last, before a tall overhanging house, there was an immense press, and a frightful din of shouts and imprecations, filling both the new-comers with infectious eagerness.

'How now? how now?' called Percy. 'Keep the peace, good fellows.'

'Sir,' cried a number of voices, pa.s.sionately, 'the French villains have barred their door. There's a lot of cowardly Armagnacs hid there with their gold, trying to balk honest men of their ransom.'

Such was the cry resounding on all sides. 'Have at them! There's the rogue at the windows. Out on the fellows! Burn down the door! 'Tis Vaurus himself and all his gold. Treason! treason!'

The clamour was convincing to the spirit, if not to the senses. The two lads believed in the concealed Armagnacs, or perhaps more truly were carried away by the vehemence around them; and with something of the spirit of the chase, threw themselves headlong into the affair.

'Open! open!' shouted Ralf. 'Open, in the name of King Henry!'