Two Penniless Princesses by Charlotte M. Yonge (the two towers ebook TXT) 📖

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.

‘Hers hath been the happy course, the blessed dedication,’ said Countess Alice.

‘We have both been blessed too, thanks to the saints,’ returned Lilias.

‘That is indeed sooth,’ replied the other lady. ‘My lord hath ever been most good to me, and I have had joy of my sons. Yet there is much that my mind forbodes and shrinks back from in dread, as I watch my son Richard’s overmastering spirit.’

‘The Cardinal and the Duke of Gloucester have long been at strife, as we heard,’ said Lady Drummond, ‘but sure that will be appeased now that the Cardinal is an old man and your King come to years of discretion.’

‘The King is a sweet youth, a very saint already,’ replied the Countess, ‘but I misdoubt whether he have the stout heart and strong hand of his father, and he is set on peace.’

‘Peace is to be followed,’ said Lilias, amazed at the tone in which her friend mentioned it.

‘Peace at home! Ay, but peace at home is only to be had by war abroad. Peace abroad without honour only leaves these fiery spirits to fume, and fly at one another’s throats, or at those who wrought it. My mind misgives me, mine old friend, lest wrangling lead to blows. I had rather see my Richard spurring against the French than against his cousins of Somerset, and while they advance themselves and claim to be nearer in blood to the King than our good host of York, so long will there be cause of bitterness.’

‘Our kindly host seems to wish evil to no man.’

‘Nay, he is content enough, but my sister his wife, and alas! my son, cannot let him forget that after the Duke of Gloucester he is highest in the direct male line to King Edward of Windsor, and in the female line stands nearer than this present King.’

‘In Scotland he would not forget that his father suffered for that very cause.’

‘Ah, Lilias, thou hast seen enow of what such blood-feuds work in Scotland to know how much I dread and how I pray they may never awaken here. The blessed King Harry of Monmouth kept them down by the strong hand, while he won all hearts to himself. It is my prayer that his young son may do the like, and that my Lord of York be not fretted out of his peaceful loyalty by the Somerset “outrecuidance”, and above all that my own son be not the make-bate; but Richard is proud