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

been offended at the elevation of his voice, or as if he had feared to awaken the echoes that lurked among the groined vaults and Gothic drop work on the ceiling of this huge and dreary apartment.

“What are the orders and signs of my watch?” answered Quentin, in the same suppressed tone.

“Is your harquebuss loaded?” replied Oliver, without answering his query.

“That,” answered Quentin, “is soon done;” and proceeded to charge his weapon, and to light the slow match (by which when necessary it was discharged) at the embers of a wood fire, which was expiring in the huge hall chimney—a chimney itself so large that it might have been called a Gothic closet or chapel appertaining to the hall.

When this was performed, Oliver told him that he was ignorant of one of the high privileges of his own corps, which only received orders from the King in person, or the High Constable of France, in lieu of their own officers. “You are placed here by his Majesty's command, young man,” added Oliver, “and you will not be long here without knowing wherefore you are summoned. Meantime your walk extends along this gallery. You are permitted to stand still while you list, but on no account to sit down, or quit your weapon. You are not to sing aloud, or whistle, upon any account; but you may, if you list, mutter some of the church's prayers, or what else you list that has no offence in it, in a low voice. Farewell, and keep good watch.”

“Good watch!” thought the youthful soldier as his guide stole away from him with that noiseless gliding step which was peculiar to him, and vanished through a side door behind the arras.

“Good watch! but upon whom and against whom?—for what, save bats or rats, are there here to contend with, unless these grim old representatives of humanity should start into life for the disturbance of my guard? Well, it is my duty, I suppose, and I must perform it.”

With the vigorous purpose of discharging his duty, even to the very rigour, he tried to while away the time with some of the pious hymns which he had learned in the convent in which he had found shelter after the death of his father—allowing in his own mind, that, but for the change of a novice's frock for the rich military dress which he now wore, his soldierly walk in the royal gallery of France resembled greatly those of which he had tired excessively in the cloistered seclusion of Aberbrothick.

Presently, as if to convince himself he now belonged not to the cell but to the world, he chanted to himself, but in such tone as not to exceed the license given to him, some of the ancient rude ballads which the old family harper had taught him, of the defeat of the Danes at Aberlemno and Forres, the murder of King Duffus at Forfar, and other pithy sonnets and lays which appertained to the history of his distant native country, and particularly of the district to which he belonged. This wore away a considerable space of time, and it was now more than two hours past noon when Quentin was reminded by his appetite that the good fathers of Aberbrothick, however strict in demanding his attendance upon the hours of devotion, were no less punctual in summoning him to those of refection; whereas here, in the interior of a royal palace, after a morning spent in exercise, and a noon exhausted in duty, no man seemed to consider it as a natural consequence that he must be impatient for his dinner.

There are, however, charms in sweet sounds which can lull to rest even the natural feelings of impatience by which Quentin was now visited. At the opposite extremities of the long hall or gallery were two large doors, ornamented with heavy architraves, probably opening into different suites of apartments, to which the gallery served as a medium of mutual communication. As the sentinel directed his solitary walk betwixt these two entrances, which formed the boundary of his duty, he was startled by a strain of music which was suddenly waked near one of those doors, and which, at least in his imagination, was a combination of the same lute and voice by which he had been enchanted on the preceding day. All the dreams of yesterday morning, so much weakened by the agitating circumstances which he had since undergone, again arose more vivid from their slumber, and, planted on the spot where his ear could most conveniently, drink in the sounds, Quentin remained, with his harquebuss shouldered, his mouth half open, ear, eye, and soul directed to the spot, rather the picture of a sentinel than a living form,—without any other idea than that of catching, if possible, each passing sound of the dulcet melody.

These delightful sounds were but partially heard—they languished, lingered, ceased entirely, and were from time to time renewed after uncertain intervals. But, besides that music, like beauty, is often most delightful, or at least most interesting, to the imagination when its charms are but partially displayed and the imagination is left to fill up what is from distance but imperfectly detailed, Quentin had matter enough to fill up his reverie during the intervals of fascination. He could not doubt, from the report of his uncle's comrades and the scene which had passed in the presence chamber that morning, that the siren who thus delighted his ears, was not, as he had profanely supposed, the daughter or kinswoman of a base Cabaretier [inn keeper], but the same disguised and distressed Countess for whose cause kings and princes were now about to buckle on armour, and put lance in rest. A hundred wild dreams, such as romantic and adventurous youth readily nourished in a romantic and adventurous age, chased from his eyes the bodily presentiment of the actual scene, and substituted their own bewildering delusions, when at once, and rudely, they were banished by a rough grasp laid upon his weapon, and a harsh voice which exclaimed, close to his ear, “Ha! Pasques dieu, Sir Squire, methinks you keep sleepy ward.”

The voice was the tuneless, yet impressive and ironical tone of Maitre Pierre, and Quentin, suddenly recalled to himself, saw, with shame and fear, that he had, in his reverie, permitted Louis himself—entering probably by some secret door, and gliding along by the wall, or behind the tapestry—to approach him so nearly as almost to master his weapon.

The first impulse of his surprise was to free his harquebuss by a violent exertion, which made the King stagger backward into the hall. His next apprehension was that, in obeying the animal instinct, as it may be termed, which prompts a brave man to resist an attempt to disarm him, he had aggravated, by a personal struggle with the King, the displeasure produced by the negligence with which he had performed his duty upon guard; and, under this impression, he recovered his harquebuss without almost knowing what he did, and, having again shouldered it, stood motionless before the Monarch, whom he had reason to conclude he had mortally offended.

Louis, whose tyrannical disposition was less founded on natural ferocity or cruelty of temper, than on cold blooded policy and jealous suspicion, had, nevertheless, a share of that caustic severity which would have made him a despot in private conversation, and he always seemed to enjoy the pain which he inflicted on occasions like the present. But he did not push his triumph far, and contented himself with saying, “Thy service of the morning hath already overpaid some negligence in so young a soldier.—Hast thou dined?”

Quentin, who rather looked to be sent to the Provost Marshal than greeted with such a compliment, answered humbly in the negative.

“Poor lad,” said Louis, in a softer tone than he usually spoke in, “hunger hath made him drowsy.—I know thine appetite is a wolf,” he continued; “and I will save thee from one wild beast as thou didst me from another; thou hast been prudent too in that matter, and I thank thee for it.—Canst thou yet hold out an hour without food?”

“Four-and-twenty, Sire,” replied Durward, “or I were no true Scot.”

“I would not for another kingdom be the pasty which should encounter thee after such a vigil,” said the King; “but the question now is, not of thy dinner, but of my own. I admit to my table this day, and in strict privacy, the Cardinal Balue and this Burgundian—this Count de Crevecoeur—and something may chance; the devil is most busy when foes meet on terms of truce.”

He stopped, and remained silent, with a deep and gloomy look. As the King was in no haste to proceed, Quentin at length ventured to ask what his duty was to be in these circumstances.

“To keep watch at the beauffet, with thy loaded weapon,” said Louis; “and if there is treason, to shoot the traitor.”

“Treason, Sire! and in this guarded castle!” exclaimed Durward.

“You think it impossible,” said the King, not offended, it would seem, by his frankness; “but our history has shown that treason can creep into an auger hole.—Treason excluded by guards! Oh, thou silly boy!—quis custodiat ipsos custodes—who shall exclude the treason of those very warders?”

“Their Scottish honour,” answered Durward, boldly.

“True: most right:—thou pleasest me,” said the King, cheerfully; “the Scottish honour was ever true, and I trust it accordingly. But treason!”—here he relapsed into his former gloomy mood, and traversed the apartment with unequal steps—“she sits at our feasts, she sparkles in our bowls, she wears the beard of our counsellors, the smiles of our courtiers, the crazy laugh of our jesters—above all, she lies hid under the friendly air of a reconciled enemy. Louis of Orleans trusted John of Burgundy—he was murdered in the Rue Barbette. John of Burgundy trusted the faction of Orleans—he was murdered on the bridge of Montereau.—I will trust no one—no one. Hark ye; I will keep my eye on that insolent Count; ay, and on the churchman too, whom I hold not too faithful. When I say, Ecosse, en avant [Forward, Scotland], shoot Crevecoeur dead on the spot.”

“It is my duty,” said Quentin, “your Majesty's life being endangered.”

“Certainly—I mean it no otherwise,” said the King. “What should I get by slaying this insolent soldier?—Were it the Constable Saint Paul indeed”—here he paused, as if he thought he had said a word too much, but resumed, laughing, “our brother-in-law, James of Scotland—your own James, Quentin—poniarded the Douglas when on a hospitable visit, within his own royal castle of Skirling.”

[Douglas: the allusion in the text is to the fate of James, Earl of Douglas, who, upon the faith of a safe conduct, after several acts of rebellion, visited James the Second in the Castle of Stirling. The king stabbed Douglas, who received his mortal wound from Sir Patrick Grey, one of the king's attendants.]

“Of Stirling,” said Quentin, “and so please your Highness.—It was a deed of which came little good.”

“Stirling call you the castle?” said the King, overlooking the latter part of Quentin's speech. “Well, let it be Stirling—the name is nothing to the purpose. But I meditate no injury to these men—none.—It would serve me nothing. They may not purpose equally fair by me—I rely on thy harquebuss.”

“I shall be prompt at the signal,” said Quentin; “but yet”

“You hesitate,” said the King. “Speak out—I give thee full leave. From such as thou art, hints may be caught that are right valuable.”

“I would only presume to say,” replied Quentin, “that your Majesty having occasion to distrust this Burgundian, I marvel that you suffer him to approach so near your person, and that in privacy.”

“Oh, content you, Sir Squire,” said the King. “There are some dangers which when they are braved, disappear, and which yet, when there is an obvious and apparent dread of them displayed, become certain and inevitable. When I walk boldly up to a surly mastiff, and caress him, it is ten to one I soothe him to good temper; if I show fear of him, he flies on me and rends me. I will be thus far frank with thee.—It concerns me nearly that this man returns not to his headlong master in a resentful humour. I run my risk, therefore. I have never shunned to expose my life for the weal of my kingdom. Follow me.”

Louis led his young Life Guardsman, for whom he seemed to have taken a special favour, through the side door by which he had himself entered, saying, as he showed it him, “He who would thrive at Court must know the private wickets and concealed staircases—ay, and the traps and pitfalls of the palace, as well as the principal entrances, folding doors, and portals.”

After several turns and passages, the King entered a small vaulted room, where a