The Prince and the Page: A Story of the Last Crusade by Charlotte M. Yonge (ebook reader .TXT) 📖

be a faithful and loving lord to her.”

“Hath he sought her?” asked the King.

“Even so, my liege.  The maid is scarce sixteen; I thought to have kept her longer; but so it was—old Winny, her mother’s old nurse, fell sick and died in the winter; and the Dominican, who came to shrive her, must needs craze the poor fool with threats that she did a deadly sin in bringing my sweet wife and me together; and for all the Grand Prior, who, monk as he is, has a soldier’s sense, could say of the love that conquered death, nothing would serve the poor woman to die in peace till my Bessee had vowed to make a six weeks’ station at her patroness’s well, where we were wedded, and pray for her soul and her blessed mother’s.  So there we journeyed for our summer roaming; and all had been well, had you not come down on us with all the idle danglers of the court to gaze and rhyme and tilt about the first fair face they saw.  Even then so discreet was the girl that no more had befallen, but as ill-luck would have it, my old Evesham keepsake,” touching his side, “burst forth again one evening, and left me so spent, that Bessee sent the boy to get me a draught of wine.  The boy—mountebank as he is—lost her groat, and played truant; and she, poor wench, got into such fear for me that she went herself, and fell in with a sort of insolent masterful rogues, from whom this young knight saved her.  I took her home safe enough after that, and thought to be rid of the knaves when they saw my wallet; and so truly I am, all save this lad!”

“O father! it is true love!” whispered Joan.

“What hast to do with true love, popinjay?  And so John of Dunster came undaunted to the breach, did he, Henry?”

“Not a whit dismayed he!  Now either that is making light of his honour, or ’tis an honour higher than most lads understand.  Cousin, I would have the child be loved as her father and mother loved!  And methinks she affects this blade.  The child hath been less like my merry lark since we met him.  A plague on the springalds!  But you know him.  Has he your good word?”

“John of Dunster?” said the King.  “Henry, didst thou not know for whose sake I had loved and proved him?  He was Richard’s pupil.  I was forced to take the child with me, for old Sir Reginald had been unruly enough, and I thought would be the less troublesome to my father were his son in my keeping.  But I half repented when I saw what a small urchin it was, to be cast about among grooms and pages!  But Richard aided the little uncouth varlet, nursed him when sick, guarded him when well, trained him to be loyal and steadfast.  The little fellow came bravely to my aid in my grapple with the traitor before Acre; and when the blow had fallen on Richard, the boy’s grief was such that I loved him ever after.  And of late I have had no truer trustier warrior.  I warrant me he was too shy to tell thee that I knighted him last year in the midst of some of the best feats of arms I ever beheld against the Welsh!  Whatever John de Mohun saith is sooth, and I would rather mate my daughter with him than with many a man of fairer speech.”

“Then shall he have my pretty Bessee!” said the beggar, lingering over the words.  “But one boon I would further ask, cousin; that thou breathe no word to him of my having sought thee.”

The young Lord of Dunster had not been noted for choiceness of apparel; but when he repaired to the trysting-tree, none could have found fault with the folds of his long crimson tunic, worked with the black and gold colours of his family, nor with the sit of the broad belt that sustained his sword, assuredly none with his beautiful sleek black charger.

But under the tree stood not the blind beggar, but the beggar’s boy.

“Blind Hal bids you meet him at the Spital, at your good pleasure,” said the boy; and like the mountebank he was, tumbled three times head over heels.

John de Mohun looked round and about, and saw no alternative but to obey.  All his love was required to endure so strange a father-in-law, who did not seem in the least grateful for the honour intended to his daughter; but the knight’s word was pledged, and he rode towards the Hospital.

The court of the Hospital was full of steeds and serving-men.  A strange conviction came over John that he saw the King’s strong white charger—ay, and the palfreys of the elder princesses; and he asked the lay-brother who offered to take his horse, if the King were there.  The brother only replied by motioning him towards the inner quadrangle.

He passed on accordingly, and as he went, the bells broke forth into a merry peal.  On the top of the steps leading to the arched doorway, he saw a scarlet cluster of knights, and among them the Grand Prior, robed as for Mass.  A space was clear within the deep porch, and there stood the beggar in his russet suit.

“Sir John de Mohun of Dunster,” he said, “thou art come hither to espouse my daughter?”

“I hope, so, Sir,” said John, somewhat taken by surprise.

“Come hither, maiden,” said her father.

The cluster of knights opened, and from within the church there appeared before the astonished bridegroom the stately form of King Edward, leading in his hand the dark-tressed, dark-haired maiden, dressed in spotless white, the only adornment she wore a circlet of diamonds round her flowing dark hair—the Queen indeed of the Dew-drops.  And behind her walked with calm dignity the beautiful Princess Eleanor, now nearly a woman, holding with a warning hand the merry mischievous Joan.

Well might John of Dunster stand dazzled and amazed, but hesitation or delay there was none.  Then and there, by the Grand Prior himself, was the ceremony performed, without a word of further explanation.  The rite over, when the bridegroom took the bride’s hand to follow, as all were marshalled on their way, he knew not whither, she looked up to him through her dark eyelashes, and murmured, “They would not have it otherwise!”

“Deem you that I would?” said the knight fervently, pressing her hand.

“I deemed that you should know all—who I am,” she faltered.

“My wife, the Lady of Dunster.  That is all I need to know,” replied Sir John, with the honest trustworthy look that showed it was indeed enough to secure his heart-whole love and reverence.

The great hall of the Spital was decked for the bridal feast.  The bride and bridegroom were placed at the head of the table, and the King gave up his place beside the bride to her blind father.  All the space within the cloister without was strewn with rushes, where sat and feasted the whole fraternity of beggars; and well did the Grand Prior and his knights do their part in the entertainment.

Then when the banquet was drawing to its close, the blind beggar bade the boy that waited near him fetch his harp.  And, as had often before been his practice, he sang in a deep manly voice, to the boy’s accompaniment on his harp.  But the song that then he sang had never been heard before, nor was its exact like ever heard again; though tradition has handed down a few of the main features, and (as may be seen by this veracious narration) somewhat vulgarized them:—

“A poore beggar’s daughter did dwell on a greene,
Who might for her faireness have well been a queene;
A blithe bonny lasse and a dainty was she,
And many one callèd her pretty Bessee.”

Even the King, who had so well guarded the secret, was entirely unprepared to hear the Montfort parentage thus publicly avowed; and the bride, who had as little known of her father’s intentions, sat with downcast eyes, blushing and tearful, while the beggar’s recitative went briefly and somewhat tremulously over his resuscitation, under the hands of the fair and faithful Isabel.  Her hand was held by her bridegroom from the first, with a pressure meant to assure her that no discovery could alter his love and regard; but when the name of Montfort sounded on his ear, the hand wrung hers with anxiety; and when the entire tale had been told, and the last chord was dying away, he murmured, “Look up at me, my loveliest.  Now I know why I first loved thine eyes.  Thou art dearer to me than ever, for the sake of my first and best friend!”

His words were only for herself.  The King was saying aloud,

“Well sung, fair cousin!  A health, my Lords and Knights, for Sir Henry de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.”

“Not so, Lords and Knights!” called this strange personage, the only one who would thus have contradicted the King; “the Earl of Leicester has long ago been dead, as you have heard.  If you drink, let it be to Blind Hal of Bethnal Green.”

Nor could all the entreaties of daughter, son-in-law, nor King, move him from his purpose of living and dying as Blind Hal, the beggar.  He had tasted too long of liberty, he said, to put himself under constraint.  To live in Somersetshire, as his daughter wished, would have been banishment and solitude to one used to divert himself with every humour of the city; and to be, as he declared, a far more complete king of the beggars than ever his cousin Edward was over England.  All he would consent to, was that a room in a lodge in Windsor Park should be set apart for him under charge of Adam de Gourdon, who had been present at this scene, and was infinitely rejoiced at the sight of a scion of the House of Montfort.  For the rest, he bade every one to forget his avowal, which, as he said, he had only made that the blanch lion might share with the Mohun cross; and as he added to Princess Eleanor, “that you court dames may never flout at pretty Bessee!  Had the Cheddar Yeoman been the true man, none had ever known that she was a Montfort.”

“Would you have given her to the Cheddar Yeoman?” burst out Joan furiously.

“That he will say so, to anger thee, is certain, Joan,” said the King.  “Farewell, Henry.  Remember, I hold thee bound to be my comrade when I can return to the Holy War.”

“Ay, when you have tamed Scotland, even as you have tamed Wales,” returned Henry.

“No fear of my good brother Alexander’s realm needing such taming.  Heaven forbid!” said Edward.

But the beggar parted from him with a laugh.

CHAPTER XVI
THE PAGE’S MEMORY

The pure calm picture of a blameless friend.

Lyra Apostolica.

Ten years later, King Edward was walking in the park at Windsor with slow and weary steps.  His rich dark brown hair and beard were lined with gray, his face was not only grave but worn and melancholy, and more severe than ever.  The sorrow of his life, his queen’s death, had fallen on him, and with her had gone much of softening influence; the only son who had been spared to him was, though a mere child, grieving him by the wayward frivolities not of a strong but of a weak nature; he had wrought much for his country’s good, but had often been thwarted and never thanked; his mercies and benefits were forgotten, his justice counted as harshness, and hatred and opposition had met him everywhere.  Above all, and weighting him perhaps most severely, was that his first step beyond his just bounds had been taken in the North.  John Baliol was indeed king, but Edward in his zeal for discipline had bound Scotland with obligations—for her good indeed, but beyond his just right to impose; and the sense of aggression was embittering him against the Scottish resistance, while at the same time adding to his sadness.

A knight came forth from one of the paths that led into that along which he was pacing with folded arms, and unwilling to break upon his mood, stood waiting, till Edward himself looked up and asked impatiently, “So, Sir John, what now?  Another outbreak of those intolerable Scotch?”

“Not so, my Lord; but the Bailiff of Acre awaits to see you.”

“Bailiff of Acre!  What is the Bailiff of Acre to me?  I cannot hear all their importunities for a crusade!  Heaven knows how gladly I would hasten to the Holy War, if these savage Scots would give me peace at home.  I am weary of their solicitations.  Cannot you tell him I would be private, John?”

“My Lord, he says he has matter for your private ear, concerning one whom you met in Palestine—and, my Lord, you will sure remember him—Sir Reginald Ferrers.”

“The friend of Richard!” said Edward, with a changed countenance.  “Bring him with you to your father-in-law’s