In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince by Everett-Green (best romantic books to read TXT) 📖

which had really reduced him to his present pitiable state; but to Raymond it appeared to proceed entirely from some spiritual possession, and in helping the unhappy boy to resist and conquer the voice of the tempter, his own faith and strength of spirit were marvellously strengthened; whilst Roger continued to regard him in the light of a guardian angel, and followed him about like a veritable shadow.

Father Paul watched the two youths with a keen and observant interest. It was by his command that Raymond was always summoned or roused from sleep whenever the access of nervous terror fell upon Roger and he strove to obey the summoning voice. He would watch with quiet intensity the struggle between the wills of the two lads, and mark, with a faint smile upon his thin lips, the triumph invariably attained by Raymond, and his growing and increasing faith in the power of the Name he invoked in his aid. Seldom indeed had he himself to come to the aid of the boy. He never did so unless Roger's paroxysm lasted long enough to try Raymond's strength to the verge of exhaustion, and this was very seldom.

The calm smile in the Father's eyes, and his quiet words of commendation, "Well done, my son!" were reward sufficient for Raymond even when his strength had been most severely tasked; and as little by little he and his charge came to know the monk better, and to receive from him from time to time words of teaching, admonition, or encouragement, they found themselves growing more and more dominated by his strong will and personality, more eager day by day to please him, more anxious to win the rare smile that occasionally flashed across the austere face and illuminated it like a gleam of sunshine.

John felt almost the same sense of fascination as Raymond, and was by no means impatient of the tardy convalescence that kept him so long a prisoner beneath the walls of the small religious house. He would indeed have fain tarried longer yet, but that his father sent a retinue of servants at length to bring him home again.

But Raymond did not go with him. His work for Roger was not yet done, and warmly attached as he was to John, his heart was still more centred upon Father Paul. Besides, no mention was made of him in the letter that accompanied the summons home. His brother was he knew not where, and his duty lay with Roger, who looked to him as to a saviour and protector.

There was no thought of Roger's leaving the retreat he had found in his hour of need. He scarce dared put foot outside the quiet cloistered quadrangle behind whose gates and walls he alone felt safe. Besides, his father lay slowly dying in the hospital hard by. It seemed as though the very joy of having his son restored to him had been too much for his enfeebled frame after the long strain of grief that had gone before. The process of decay might be slow, but it was sure, and all knew that the old man would ere long die. He had no desire for life, if only his boy were safe; and to Raymond he presented a pathetic petition that he would guard and cherish him, and save him from that terrible possession which had well-nigh been his ruin body and soul.

To Raymond it seemed indeed as if this soul had been given him, and he passed his word with a solemnity that brought great comfort to the dying man.

An incident which had occurred shortly before had added to Raymond's sense of responsibility with regard to Roger, and had shown him likewise that a new peril menaced his own path in life, though of personal danger the courageous boy thought little.

One day, some six weeks after his admission to the Monastery, and shortly before John's departure thence, Roger had been strangely uneasy and depressed for many hours. It was no return of the trance-like state in which he was not master of his own words and actions. Those attacks had almost ceased, and he had been rapidly gaining in strength in consequence. This depression and restless uneasiness was something new and strange. Raymond did not know what it might forebode, but he tried to dissipate it by cheerful talk, and Roger did his best to fight against it, though without much success.

"Some evil presence is near!" he exclaimed suddenly; "I know it -- I feel it! I ever felt this sick shuddering when those wicked men approached me. Methinks that one of them must even now be nigh at hand. Can they take me hence? Do I indeed belong to them? O save me -- help me! Give me not up to their power!"

His agitation became so violent, that it was a relief to Raymond that Father Paul at this moment appeared; and as this phase in Roger's state was something new, and did not partake of the nature of any spiritual possession, he dismissed Raymond with a smile, bidding him go out for one of the brief wanderings in the woods that were at once pleasant and necessary for him, whilst he himself remained beside Roger, soothing his nameless terrors and assuring him that no power in the land, not even that of the King himself, would be strong enough to force from the keeping of the Church any person who had sought Sanctuary beneath her shadow.

Meantime Raymond went forth, as he was wont to do, into the beech wood that lay behind the home of the monks. It was a very beautiful place at all times; never more so than when the first tender green of coming summer was clothing the giant trees, and the primroses and wood sorrel were carpeting the ground, which was yet brown with the fallen leaves of the past autumn. The slanting sunbeams were quivering through the gnarled tree trunks, and the birds were singing rapturously overhead, as Raymond bent his steps along the trodden path which led to the nearest village; but he suddenly stopped short with a start of surprise on encountering the intent gaze of a pair of fierce black eyes, and finding himself face to face with a stranger he had never seen in his life before.

Never seen? No; and yet he knew the man perfectly, and felt that he changed colour as he stood gazing upon the handsome malevolent face that was singularly repulsive despite its regular features and bold beauty. In a moment he recollected where he had seen those very lineaments portrayed with vivid accuracy, even to the sinister smile and the gleam in the coal-black eyes.

Roger possessed a gift of face drawing that would in these days make the fortune of any portrait painter. He had many times drawn with a piece of rough charcoal pictures of the monks as he saw them in the refectory, the refined and hollow face of John, and the keen and powerful countenance of Father Paul. So had he also portrayed for Raymond the features of the two Sanghursts, father and son. The youth knew perfectly the faces of both; and as he stopped short, gazing at this stranger with wide-open eyes, he knew in a moment that Roger's malevolent foe was nigh at hand, and that the sensitive and morbidly acute faculties of the boy had warned him of the fact, when he could by no possibility have known it by any other means.

Sanghurst stood looking intently at this bright-faced boy, a smile on his lips, a frown in his eyes.

"Methinks thou comest from the Monastery hard by?" he questioned smoothly. "Canst tell me if there be shelter there for a weary traveller this night?"

"For a poor and weary traveller perchance there might be," answered the boy, with a gleam in his eye not lost upon his interlocutor; "but it is no house of entertainment for the rich and prosperous. Those are sent onwards to the Benedictine Brothers, some two miles south from this. Father Paul opens not his gates save to the sick, the sorrowful, the needy. Shall I put you in the way of the other house, Sir? Methinks it would suit you better than any place which calls Father Paul its head."

The gaze bent upon the boy was searching and distinctly hostile. As the dialogue proceeded, the look of malevolence gradually deepened upon the face of the stranger, till it might have made a timid heart quail.

"How then came John de Brocas to tarry there so long? For aught I know he may be there yet. By what right is he a guest beneath this so hospitable roof?"

"He was sick nigh to the death when he craved admittance," answered Raymond briefly. "He --"

"He had aided and abetted the flight from his true masters of a servant boy bound over to them lawfully and fast. If he thinks to deceive Peter Sanghurst or if you do either, boy that you are, though with the hardihood of a man and the recklessness of a fool -- you little know with whom you have to deal. It was you -- you who broke into our house -- I know not how, but some day I shall know -- and stole away with one you fondly hope to hold against my power. Boy, I warn you fairly: none ever makes of Peter Sanghurst an enemy but he bitterly, bitterly rues the day. I give you one chance of averting the doom which else will fall upon you. Give back the boy. Lure him out hither some day when I am waiting to seize him. Place him once again in my hands, and your rash act shall be forgiven. You have the power to do this. Be advised, and accept my terms. The Sanghursts never forgive. Refuse, and the day will come when you will so long to have done my bidding now, that you would even sell your soul to undo the deed which has brought my enmity upon you. Now choose. Will you deliver up the boy, or --"

"Never!" answered Raymond, with flashing eyes, not even waiting to hear the alternative. "I fear you not. I know you, and I defy you. I will this moment to Father Paul, to warn him of your approach. The gates will be closed, and you will be denied all entrance. You may strive as you will, but your victim has taken Sanctuary, and not all the powers of the world or the devil you serve can prevail against the walls of that haven of refuge. Go back whence you came, or stay and do your worst. We fear you not. The Holy Saints and the Blessed Jesus are our protectors and defenders. You have tried in vain your foul spells. You have seen what their power is against that which is from above. Go, and repent your evil ways ere it be too late. You threaten me with your vengeance; have you ever thought of that vengeance of God which awaits those who defy His laws and invoke the powers of darkness? My trust is in Him; wherefore I fear you not. Do then your worst. Magnify yourself as you will. Your fate will be like that of the blaspheming giant of Gath who defied the power of the living God and fell before the sling and the stone of the shepherd boy."

And without waiting to hear the answer which was hurled at him with all the fury of an execration, Raymond turned and sped back to the Monastery, not in any physical fear of the present vengeance of his foe, but anxious to warn the keeper of the gate of the close proximity of one who was so deadly a foe to Father Paul's protege.

Not a word of this adventure ever reached Roger's ears, and indeed Raymond thought little of it after the next few weeks had passed without farther molestation from the foe. The old woodman died. Roger, though sincerely mourning his father, was too happy in returning health and strength to be over-much cast down. His mind and body were alike growing stronger. He was never permitted to speak of the past, nor of the abominations of his prison house. Father Paul had from the first bidden the boy to forget, or at least to strive to forget, all that had passed there, and never let his thoughts or his words dwell upon it. Raymond, despite an occasional access of boyish curiosity, ever kept this warning in mind, and never sought to discover what Roger had done or had suffered beneath the roof of Basildene. And so soon as the boy had recovered some measure of health, both he and Raymond were regularly instructed by Father Paul in such branches of learning as were likely to be of most service to them in days to come.

Whether or not he hoped that they would embrace the religious life they never knew. He never