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

“I will show it you,” answered the guide, “in half an hour.”

“And then you leave us to other guidance?” continued Quentin.

“Even so, Seignior Archer,” replied the man, “my journeys are always short and straight. When you and others, Seignior Archer, go by the bow, I always go by the cord.”

The moon had by this time long been down, and the lights of dawn were beginning to spread bright and strong in the east, and to gleam on the bosom of a small lake, on the verge of which they had been riding for a short space of time. This lake lay in the midst of a wide plain, scattered over with single trees, groves and thickets, but which might be yet termed open, so that objects began to be discerned with sufficient accuracy. Quentin cast his eye on the person whom he rode beside, and under the shadow of a slouched overspreading hat, which resembled the sombrero of a Spanish peasant, he recognised the facetious features of the same Petit Andre whose fingers, not long since, had, in concert with those of his lugubrious brother, Trois Eschelles, been so unpleasantly active about his throat.—Impelled by aversion, not altogether unmixed with fear (for in his own country the executioner is regarded with almost superstitious horror), which his late narrow escape had not diminished, Durward instinctively moved his horse's head to the right, and pressing him at the same time with the spur, made a demi-volte, which separated him eight feet from his hateful companion.

“Ho, ho, ho, ho!” exclaimed Petit Andre, “by Our Lady of the Grave, our young soldier remembers us of old. What! comrade, you bear no malice, I trust?—every one wins his bread in this country. No man need be ashamed of having come through my hands, for I will do my work with any that ever tied a living weight to a dead tree.—And God hath given me grace to be such a merry fellow withal.—Ha! ha! ha!—I could tell you such jests I have cracked between the foot of a ladder and the top of the gallows, that, by my halidome, I have been obliged to do my job rather hastily, for fear the fellows should die with laughing, and so shame my mystery!”

As he thus spoke he edged his horse sideways to regain the interval which the Scot had left between them, saying, at the same time, “Come, Seignior Archer, let there be no unkindness betwixt us!—For my part, I always do my duty without malice, and with a light heart, and I never love a man better than when I have put my scant of wind collar about his neck, to dub him Knight of the order of Saint Patibularius [patibulum, a gibbet], as the Provost's Chaplain, the worthy Father Vaconeldiablo [possibly Baco (Bacchus) el Diablo (the Devil)], is wont to call the Patron Saint of the Provostry.”

“Keep back, thou wretched object!” exclaimed Quentin, as the finisher of the law again sought to approach him closer, “or I shall be tempted to teach you the distance that should be betwixt men of honour and such an outcast.”

“La you there, how hot you are!” said the fellow, “had you said men of honesty, there had been some savour of truth in it, but for men of honour, good lack, I have to deal with them every day, as nearly and closely as I was about to do business with you.—But peace be with you, and keep your company to yourself. I would have bestowed a flagon of Auvernat upon you to wash away every unkindness—-but 't is like you scorn my courtesy.—Well. Be as churlish as you list—I never quarrel with my customers—my jerry come tumbles, my merry dancers, my little playfellows, as Jacques Butcher says to his lambs—those in fine, who, like your seigniorship, have H. E. M. P. written on their foreheads.—No, no, let them use me as they list, they shall have my good service at last—and yourself shall see, when you next come under Petit Andre's hands, that he knows how to forgive an injury.”

So saying, and summing up the whole with a provoking wink, and such an interjectional tchick as men quicken a dull horse with, Petit Andre drew off to the other side of the path, and left the youth to digest the taunts he had treated him with, as his proud Scottish stomach best might. A strong desire had Quentin to have belaboured him while the staff of his lance could hold together, but he put a restraint on his passion, recollecting that a brawl with such a character could be creditable at no time or place, and that a quarrel of any kind, on the present occasion, would be a breach of duty, and might involve the most perilous consequences. He therefore swallowed his wrath at the ill timed and professional jokes of Mons. Petit Andre, and contented himself with devoutly hoping that they had not reached the ears of his fair charge, on which they could not be supposed to make an impression in favour of himself, as one obnoxious to such sarcasms. But he was speedily roused from such thoughts by the cry of both the ladies at once, to “Look back—look back!—For the love of Heaven look yourself, and us—we are pursued!”

Quentin hastily looked back, and saw that two armed men were in fact following them, and riding at such a pace as must soon bring them up with their party. “It can,” he said, “be only some of the Provostry making their rounds in the forest.—Do thou look,” he said to Petit Andre, “and see what they may be.”

Petit Andre obeyed, and rolling himself jocosely in the saddle after he had made his observations, replied, “These, fair sir, are neither your comrades nor mine—neither Archers nor Marshals men—for I think they wear helmets, with visors lowered, and gorgets of the same.—A plague upon these gorgets of all other pieces of armour!—I have fumbled with them an hour before I could undo the rivets.”

“Do you, gracious ladies,” said Durward, without attending to Petit Andre, “ride forward—not so fast as to raise an opinion of your being in flight, and yet fast enough to avail yourself of the impediment which I shall presently place between you and these men who follow us.”

The Countess Isabelle looked to their guide, and then whispered to her aunt, who spoke to Quentin thus: “We have confidence in your care, fair Archer, and will rather abide the risk of whatever may chance in your company, than we will go onward with that man, whose mien is, we think, of no good augury.”

“Be it as you will, ladies,” said the youth. “There are but two who come after us, and though they be knights, as their arms seem to show, they shall, if they have any evil purpose, learn how a Scottish gentleman can do his devour in the presence and for the defence of such as you.

“Which of you,” he continued, addressing the guards whom he commanded, “is willing to be my comrade, and to break a lance with these gallants?”

Two of the men obviously faltered in resolution, but the third, Bertrand Guyot, swore that cap de diou, were they Knights of King Arthur's Round Table, he would try their mettle, for the honour of Gascony.

While he spoke, the two knights—for they seemed of no less rank—came up with the rear of the party, in which Quentin, with his sturdy adherent, had by this time stationed himself. They were fully accoutred in excellent armour of polished steel, without any device by which they could be distinguished.

One of them, as they approached, called out to Quentin, “Sir Squire, give place—we come to relieve you of a charge which is above your rank and condition. You will do well to leave these ladies in our care, who are fitter to wait upon them, especially as we know that in yours they are little better than captives.”

“In return to your demand, sirs,” replied Durward, “know, in the first place, that I am discharging the duty imposed upon me by my present sovereign, and next, that however unworthy I may be, the ladies desire to abide under my protection.”

“Out, sirrah!” exclaimed one of the champions, “will you, a wandering beggar, put yourself on terms of resistance against belted knights?”

“They are indeed terms of resistance,” said Quentin, “since they oppose your insolent and unlawful aggression, and if there be difference of rank between us, which as yet I know not, your discourtesy has done it away. Draw your sword, or if you will use the lance, take ground for your career.”

While the knights turned their horses, and rode back to the distance of about a hundred and fifty yards, Quentin, looking to the ladies, bent low on his saddlebow, as if desiring their favourable regard, and as they streamed towards him their kerchiefs, in token of encouragement, the two assailants had gained the distance necessary for their charge.

Calling to the Gascon to bear himself like a man, Durward put his steed into motion, and the four horsemen met in full career in the midst of the ground which at first separated them. The shock was fatal to the poor Gascon, for his adversary, aiming at his face, which was undefended by a visor, ran him through the eye into the brain, so that he fell dead from his horse.

On the other hand, Quentin, though labouring under the same disadvantage, swayed himself in the saddle so dexterously, that the hostile lance, slightly scratching his cheek, passed over his right shoulder, while his own spear, striking his antagonist fair upon the breast, hurled him to the ground. Quentin jumped off, to unhelm his fallen opponent, but the other knight (who had never yet spoken), seeing the fortune of his companion, dismounted still more speedily than Durward, and bestriding his friend, who lay senseless, exclaimed, “In the name of God and Saint Martin, mount, good fellow, and get thee gone with thy woman's ware—Ventre Saint Gris, they have caused mischief enough this morning.”

“By your leave, Sir Knight,” said Quentin, who could not brook the menacing tone in which this advice was given, “I will first see whom I have had to do with, and learn who is to answer for the death of my comrade.”

“That shalt thou never live to know or to tell,” answered the knight. “Get thee back in peace, good fellow. If we were fools for interrupting your passage, we have had the worst, for thou hast done more evil than the lives of thee and thy whole hand could repay.—Nay, if thou wilt have it” (for Quentin now drew his sword, and advanced on him), “take it with a vengeance!”

So saying, he dealt the Scot such a blow on the helmet, as, till that moment (though bred where good blows were plenty), he had only read of in romance. It descended like a thunderbolt, beating down the guard which the young soldier had raised to protect his head, and, reaching his helmet of proof, cut it through so far as to touch his hair, but without farther injury while Durward, dizzy, stunned, and beaten down on one knee, was for an instant at the mercy of the knight, had it pleased him to second his blow. But compassion for Quentin's youth, or admiration of his courage, or a generous love of fair play, made him withhold from taking such advantage: while Durward, collecting himself, sprang up and attacked his antagonist with the energy of one determined to conquer or die, and at the same time with the presence of mind necessary for fighting the quarrel out to the best advantage. Resolved not again to expose himself to such dreadful blows as he had just obtained, he employed the advantage of superior agility, increased by the comparative lightness of his armour, to harass his antagonist by traversing on all sides, with a suddenness of motion and rapidity of attack against which the knight—in his heavy panoply—found it difficult to defend himself without much fatigue.

It was in vain that this generous antagonist called aloud to Quentin that there now remained no cause of fight betwixt them, and that he was loath to be constrained to do him injury. Listening only to the suggestions of a passionate wish to redeem the shame of his temporary defeat, Durward continued to assail him with the rapidity of lightning—now menacing him with the edge, now with the point of his sword, and ever keeping such an eye on the motions of his opponent, of whose superior strength he had had terrible proof, that he was ready to spring backward, or aside, from under the blows of his tremendous weapon.

“Now the devil be