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

CHAPTER XXIII: THE FLIGHT Now bid me run, And I will strive with things impossible; Yea, get the better of them. Set on your foot; And, with a heart new fired, I follow you, To do I know not what. JULIUS CAESAR

In spite of a mixture of joy and fear, doubt, anxiety, and other agitating passions, the exhausting fatigues of the preceding day were powerful enough to throw the young Scot into a deep and profound repose, which lasted until late on the day following, when his worthy host entered the apartment with looks of care on his brow.

He seated himself by his guest's bedside, and began a long and complicated discourse upon the domestic duties of a married life, and especially upon the awful power and right supremacy which it became married men to sustain in all differences of opinion with their wives. Quentin listened with some anxiety. He knew that husbands, like other belligerent powers, were sometimes disposed to sing Te Deum [Te Deum laudamus: We praise Thee, O God; the first words of an ancient hymn, sung in the morning service of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches], rather to conceal a defeat than to celebrate a victory, and he hastened to probe the matter more closely, by hoping their arrival had been attended with no inconvenience to the good lady of the household.

“Inconvenience!—no,” answered the Burgomaster.—“No woman can be less taken unawares than Mother Mabel—always happy to see her friends—always a clean lodging and a handsome meal ready for them, with God's blessing on bed and board.—No woman on earth so hospitable—only 'tis pity her temper is something particular.”

“Our residence here is disagreeable to her, in short?” said the Scot, starting out of bed, and beginning to dress himself hastily. “Were I but sure the Lady Isabelle were fit for travel after the horrors of the last night, we would not increase the offence by remaining here an instant longer.”

“Nay,” said Pavillon, “that is just what the young lady herself said to Mother Mabel, and truly I wish you saw the colour that came to her face as she said it—a milkmaid that has skated five miles to market against the frost wind is a lily compared to it—I do not wonder Mother Mabel may be a little jealous, poor dear soul.”

“Has the Lady Isabelle then left her apartment?” said the youth, continuing his toilette operations with more dispatch than before.

“Yes,” replied Pavillon, “and she expects your approach with much impatience, to determine which way you shall go since you are both determined on going. But I trust you will tarry breakfast?”

“Why did you not tell me this sooner?” said Durward, impatiently.

“Softly—softly,” said the Syndic, “I have told it you too soon, I think, if it puts you into such a hasty fluster. Now I have some more matter for your ear, if I saw you had some patience to listen to me.”

“Speak it, worthy sir, as soon and as fast as you can—I listen devoutly.”

“Well,” resumed the Burgomaster, “I have but one word to say, and that is that Trudchen, who is as sorry to part with yonder pretty lady as if she had been some sister of hers, wants you to take some other disguise, for there is word in the town that the Ladies of Croye travel the country in pilgrim's dresses, attended by a French life guardsman of the Scottish Archers, and it is said one of them was brought into Schonwaldt last night by a Bohemian after we had left it, and it was said still farther, that this same Bohemian had assured William de la Marck that you were charged with no message either to him or to the good people of Liege, and that you had stolen away the young Countess, and travelled with her as her paramour. And all this news hath come from Schonwaldt this morning, and it has been told to us and the other councillors, who know not well what to advise, for though our own opinion is that William de la Marck has been a thought too rough both with the Bishop and with ourselves, yet there is a great belief that he is a good natured soul at bottom—that is, when he is sober—and that he is the only leader in the world to command us against the Duke of Burgundy, and, in truth, as matters stand, it is partly my own mind that we must keep fair with him, for we have gone too far to draw back.”

“Your daughter advises well,” said Quentin Durward, abstaining from reproaches or exhortations, which he saw would be alike unavailing to sway a resolution which had been adopted by the worthy magistrate in compliance at once with the prejudices of his party and the inclination of his wife.

“Your daughter counsels well.—We must part in disguise, and that instantly. We may, I trust, rely upon you for the necessary secrecy, and for the means of escape?”

“With all my heart—with all my heart,” said the honest citizen, who, not much satisfied with the dignity of his own conduct, was eager to find some mode of atonement. “I cannot but remember that I owed you my life last night, both for unclasping that accursed steel doublet, and helping me through the other scrape, which was worse, for yonder Boar and his brood look more like devils than men. So I will be true to you as blade to haft, as our cutlers say, who are the best in the whole world. Nay, now you are ready, come this way—you shall see how far I can trust you.”

The Syndic led him from the chamber in which he had slept to his own counting room, in which he transacted his affairs of business, and after bolting the door, and casting a piercing and careful eye around him, he opened a concealed and vaulted closet behind the tapestry, in which stood more than one iron chest. He proceeded to open one which was full of guilders, and placed it at Quentin's discretion to take whatever sum he might think necessary for his companion's expenses and his own.

As the money with which Quentin was furnished on leaving Plessis was now nearly expended, he hesitated not to accept the sum of two hundred guilders, and by doing so took a great weight from the mind of Pavillon, who considered the desperate transaction in which he thus voluntarily became the creditor as an atonement for the breach of hospitality which various considerations in a great measure compelled him to commit.

Having carefully locked his treasure chamber, the wealthy Fleming next conveyed his guest to the parlour, where, in full possession of her activity of mind and body, though pale from the scenes of the preceding night, he found the Countess attired in the fashion of a Flemish maiden of the middling class. No other was present excepting Trudchen, who was sedulously employed in completing the Countess's dress, and instructing her how to bear herself. She extended her hand to him, which, when he had reverently kissed, she said to him, “Seignior Quentin, we must leave our friends here unless I would bring on them a part of the misery which has pursued me ever since my father's death. You must change your dress and go with me, unless you also are tired of befriending a being so unfortunate.”

“I!—I tired of being your attendant!—To the end of the earth will I guard you! But you—you yourself—are you equal to the task you undertake!—Can you, after the terrors of last night”

“Do not recall them to my memory,” answered the Countess, “I remember but the confusion of a horrid dream.—Has the excellent Bishop escaped?”

“I trust he is in freedom,” said Quentin, making a sign to Pavillon, who seemed about to enter on the dreadful narrative, to be silent.

“Is it possible for us to rejoin him?—Hath he gathered any power?” said the lady.

“His only hopes are in Heaven,” said the Scot, “but wherever you wish to go, I stand by your side, a determined guide and guard.”

“We will consider,” said Isabelle, and after a moment's pause, she added, “A convent would be my choice, but that I fear it would prove a weak defence against those who pursue me.”

“Hem! hem!” said the Syndic, “I could not well recommend a convent within the district of Liege, because the Boar of Ardennes, though in the main a brave leader, a trusty confederate, and a well wisher to our city, has, nevertheless, rough humours, and payeth, on the whole, little regard to cloisters, convents, nunneries, and the like. Men say that there are a score of nuns—that is, such as were nuns—who march always with his company.”

“Get yourself in readiness hastily, Seignior Durward,” said Isabelle, interrupting this detail, “since to your faith I must needs commit myself.”

No sooner had the Syndic and Quentin left the room than Isabelle began to ask of Gertrude various questions concerning the roads, and so forth, with such clearness of spirit and pertinence, that the latter could not help exclaiming, “Lady, I wonder at you!—I have heard of masculine firmness, but yours appears to me more than belongs to humanity.”

“Necessity,” answered the Countess,—“necessity, my friend, is the mother of courage, as of invention. No long time since, I might have fainted when I saw a drop of blood shed from a trifling cut—I have since seen life blood flow around me, I may say, in waves, yet I have retained my senses and my self possession.—Do not think it was an easy task,” she added, laying on Gertrude's arm a trembling hand, although she still spoke with a firm voice, “the little world within me is like a garrison besieged by a thousand foes, whom nothing but the most determined resolution can keep from storming it on every hand, and at every moment. Were my situation one whit less perilous than it is—were I not sensible that my only chance to escape a fate more horrible than death is to retain my recollection and self possession—Gertrude, I would at this moment throw myself into your arms, and relieve my bursting bosom by such a transport of tears and agony of terror as never rushed from a breaking heart.”

“Do not do so, lady!” said the sympathizing Fleming, “take courage, tell your beads, throw yourself on the care of Heaven, and surely, if ever Heaven sent a deliverer to one ready to perish, that bold and adventurous young gentleman must be designed for yours. There is one, too,” she added, blushing deeply, “in whom I have some interest. Say nothing to my father, but I have ordered my bachelor, Hans Glover, to wait for you at the eastern gate, and never to see my face more, unless he brings word that he has guided you safe from the territory.”

To kiss her tenderly was the only way in which the young Countess could express her thanks to the frank and kind hearted city maiden, who returned the embrace affectionately, and added, with a smile, “Nay, if two maidens and their devoted