Quentin Durward by Walter Scott (good romance books to read TXT) 📖

was somewhat strict in life withal—matrimony did all this for him. Now, I care little about these comforts, and I can look on a pretty woman without thinking on the sacrament of wedlock—I am scarce holy enough for that.”

“Alas! dear uncle, my mother was left a widow a year since, when Glen Houlakin was harried by the Ogilvies. My father, and my two uncles, and my two elder brothers, and seven of my kinsmen, and the harper, and the tasker, and some six more of our people, were killed in defending the castle, and there is not a burning hearth or a standing stone in all Glen Houlakin.”

“Cross of Saint Andrew!” said Le Balafre; “that is what I call an onslaught! Ay, these Ogilvies were ever but sorry neighbours to Glen Houlakin—an evil chance it was; but fate of war—fate of war.—When did this mishap befall, fair nephew?” With that he took a deep draught of wine, and shook his head with much solemnity, when his kinsman replied that his family had been destroyed upon the festival of Saint Jude [October 28] last bypast.

“Look ye there,” said the soldier; “I said it was all chance—on that very day I and twenty of my comrades carried the Castle of Roche Noir by storm, from Amaury Bras de fer, a captain of free lances, whom you must have heard of. I killed him on his own threshold, and gained as much gold as made this fair chain, which was once twice as long as it now is—and that minds me to send part of it on an holy errand.—Here, Andrew—Andrew!”

Andrew, his yeoman, entered, dressed like the Archer himself in the general equipment, but without the armour for the limbs—that of the body more coarsely manufactured—his cap without a plume, and his cassock made of serge, or ordinary cloth, instead of rich velvet. Untwining his gold chain from his neck, Balafre twisted off, with his firm and strong set teeth, about four inches from the one end of it, and said to his attendant, “Here, Andrew, carry this to my gossip, jolly Father Boniface, the monk of St. Martin's; greet him well from me, by the same token that he could not say God save ye when we last parted at midnight.—Tell my gossip that my brother and sister, and some others of my house, are all dead and gone, and I pray him to say masses for their souls as far as the value of these links will carry him, and to do on trust what else may be necessary to free them from Purgatory. And hark ye, as they were just living people, and free from all heresy, it may be that they are well nigh out of limbo already, so that a little matter may have them free of the fetlocks; and in that case, look ye, ye will say I desire to take out the balance of the gold in curses upon a generation called the Ogilvies of Angus Shire, in what way soever the church may best come at them. You understand all this, Andrew?”

The coutelier nodded.

“Then look that none of the links find their way to the wine house ere the monk touches them; for if it so chance, thou shalt taste of saddle girth and stirrup leather till thou art as raw as Saint Bartholomew [he was flayed alive. In Michael Angelo's Last Judgment he is represented as holding his skin in his hand]—Yet hold, I see thy eye has fixed on the wine measure, and thou shalt not go without tasting.”

So saying, he filled him a brimful cup, which the coutelier drank off, and retired to do his patron's commission.

“And now, fair nephew, let us hear what was your own fortune in this unhappy matter.”

“I fought it out among those who were older and stouter than I was, till we were all brought down,” said Durward, “and I received a cruel wound.”

“Not a worse slash than I received ten years since myself,” said Le Balafre. “Look at this, now, my fair nephew,” tracing the dark crimson gash which was imprinted on his face.—“An Ogilvy's sword never ploughed so deep a furrow.”

“They ploughed deep enough,” answered Quentin, sadly, “but they were tired at last, and my mother's entreaties procured mercy for me, when I was found to retain some spark of life; but although a learned monk of Aberbrothik, who chanced to be our guest at the fatal time, and narrowly escaped being killed in the fray, was permitted to bind my wounds, and finally to remove me to a place of safety, it was only on promise, given both by my mother and him, that I should become a monk.”

“A monk!” exclaimed the uncle. “Holy Saint Andrew! that is what never befell me. No one, from my childhood upwards, ever so much as dreamed of making me a monk. And yet I wonder when I think of it; for you will allow that, bating the reading and writing, which I could never learn, and the psalmody, which I could never endure, and the dress, which is that of a mad beggar—Our Lady forgive me! [here he crossed himself] and their fasts, which do not suit my appetite, I would have made every whit as good a monk as my little gossip at St. Martin's yonder. But I know not why, none ever proposed the station to me.—Oh, so, fair nephew, you were to be a monk, then—and wherefore, I pray you?”

“That my father's house might be ended, either in the cloister or in the tomb,” answered Quentin, with deep feeling.

“I see,” answered his uncle—“I comprehend. Cunning rogues—very cunning! They might have been cheated, though; for, look ye, fair nephew, I myself remember the canon Robersart who had taken the vows and afterwards broke out of cloister, and became a captain of Free Companions. He had a mistress, the prettiest wench I ever saw, and three as beautiful children.—There is no trusting monks, fair nephew—no trusting them—they may become soldiers and fathers when you least expect it—but on with your tale.”

“I have little more to tell,” said Durward, “except that, considering my poor mother to be in some degree a pledge for me, I was induced to take upon me the dress of a novice, and conformed to the cloister rules, and even learned to read and write.”

“To read and write!” exclaimed Le Balafre, who was one of that sort of people who think all knowledge is miraculous which chances to exceed their own. “To write, say'st thou, and to read! I cannot believe it—never Durward could write his name that ever I heard of, nor Lesly either. I can answer for one of them—I can no more write than I can fly. Now, in Saint Louis's name, how did they teach it you?”

“It was troublesome at first,” said Durward, “but became more easy by use; and I was weak with my wounds, and loss of blood, and desirous to gratify my preserver, Father Peter, and so I was the more easily kept to my task. But after several months' languishing, my good, kind mother died, and as my health was now fully restored, I communicated to my benefactor, who was also Sub Prior of the convent, my reluctance to take the vows; and it was agreed between us, since my vocation lay not to the cloister, that I should be sent out into the world to seek my fortune, and that to save the Sub Prior from the anger of the Ogilvies, my departure should have the appearance of flight; and to colour it I brought off the Abbot's hawk with me. But I was regularly dismissed, as will appear from the hand and seal of the Abbot himself.”

“That is right, that is well,” said his uncle. “Our King cares little what other theft thou mayst have made, but hath a horror at anything like a breach of the cloister. And I warrant thee, thou hadst no great treasure to bear thy charges?”

“Only a few pieces of silver,” said the youth; “for to you, fair uncle, I must make a free confession.”

“Alas!” replied Le Balafre, “that is hard. Now, though I am never a hoarder of my pay, because it doth ill to bear a charge about one in these perilous times, yet I always have (and I would advise you to follow my example) some odd gold chain, or bracelet, or carcanet, that serves for the ornament of my person, and can at need spare a superfluous link or two, or it may be a superfluous stone for sale, that can answer any immediate purpose. But you may ask, fair kinsman, how you are to come by such toys as this.” (He shook his chain with complacent triumph.) “They hang not on every bush—they grow not in the fields like the daffodils, with whose stalks children make knights' collars. What then?—you may get such where I got this, in the service of the good King of France, where there is always wealth to be found, if a man has but the heart to seek it at the risk of a little life or so.”

“I understood,” said Quentin, evading a decision to which he felt himself as yet scarcely competent, “that the Duke of Burgundy keeps a more noble state than the King of France, and that there is more honour to be won under his banners—that good blows are struck there, and deeds of arms done; while the most Christian King, they say, gains his victories by his ambassadors' tongues.”

“You speak like a foolish boy, fair nephew,” answered he with the scar; “and yet, I bethink me, when I came hither I was nearly as simple: I could never think of a King but what I supposed him either sitting under the high deas, and feasting amid his high vassals and Paladins, eating blanc mange, with a great gold crown upon his head, or else charging at the head of his troops like Charlemagne in the romaunts, or like Robert Bruce or William Wallace in our own true histories, such as Barbour and the Minstrel. Hark in thine ear, man—it is all moonshine in the water. Policy—policy does it all. But what is policy, you will say? It is an art this French King of ours has found out, to fight with other men's swords, and to wage his soldiers out of other men's purses. Ah! it is the wisest prince that ever put purple on his back—and yet he weareth not much of that neither—I see him often go plainer than I would think befitted me to do.”

[Charlemagne (742?-814): King of the Franks and crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800. His kingdom included Germany and France, the greater part of Italy, and Spain as far as the Ebro. As Emperor of the West he bore the title Caesar Augustus. He established churches and monasteries, and encouraged arts and learning. He figures largely in mediaeval minstrelsy, where the achievements of his knights, or paladins, rival those of Arthur's court.]

[Robert Bruce: the grandson of Robert Bruce, the competitor with John Baliol for the Scottish throne. He defeated the English forces at Bannockburn in 1314, and thus secured the independence of Scotland, an independence which lasted until the two kingdoms were united under one crown in 1707.]

[William Wallace: another brave Scottish leader in the war for independence against Edward I of England. Wallace was betrayed in 1305 and carried to London, where he was cruelly executed as a traitor.]

[Barbour: an eminent Scottish poet contemporary with Chaucer. His principal work, The Bruce, records the life and deeds of Robert Bruce.]

[Harry the Minstrel or “Blind Harry” was the author of a poem on the life and deeds of Wallace which was held in peculiar reverence by the Scotch people.]

“But you meet not my exception, fair uncle,” answered young Durward; “I would serve, since serve I must in a foreign land, somewhere where a brave deed, were it my hap to do one, might work me a name.”

“I understand you, my fair nephew,” said the royal man at arms, “I understand you passing well; but you are unripe in these matters. The Duke of Burgundy is a hot brained, impetuous, pudding headed, iron ribbed dare all. He charges at the head of his nobles and native knights, his liegemen of Artois and Hainault; think you, if you were there, or if I were there myself, that we could be much farther forward than the Duke and all his brave nobles of his own land? If we were not up with them, we had a chance to be turned on the Provost Marshal's hands for being slow in making to; if we were abreast of them,