Part 5 (2/2)

Again there was a strange start and thrill of amazement.

”Only for Heaven's sake tell me who thou art!”

”A page of Prince Edward's good man. I am called Richard Fowen! And who, for Heaven's sake, are you?” added Richard, as Leonillo, who had been smelling about and investigating, threw himself on the blind man in a transport of caresses. ”Off, Leon-off!” cried Richard. ”It is but a dog!-Fear not, little one!-Tell me, tell me,” he added, trembling, as he knelt before the miserable object, holding back the eager Leonillo with one arm round his neck, ”who art thou, thou ghost of former times?”

”Knowst me not, Richard?” returned a suppressed voice in Provencal.

”Henry! Henry!” exclaimed Richard, and fell upon the foot of the low bed, weeping bitterly. ”Is it come to this?”

”Ay, even to this,” said the blind man, ”that two sons of one father meet unknown-one with a changed name, the other with none at all, neither with the honoured one they were born to.”

”Alack, alack!” was all Richard could say at the first moment, as he lifted himself up to look again at the first-born of his parents, the head of the brave troop of brethren, the gay, handsome, imperious young Lord de Montfort, whose proud head and gallant bearing he had looked at with a younger brother's imitative deference. What did he see but a wreck of a man, sitting crouched on the wretched bed, the left arm a mere stump, a bandage where the bright sarcastic eyes used to flash forth their dark fire, deep scars on all the small portion of the face that was visible through the over-grown ma.s.ses of hair and beard, so plentifully sprinkled with white, that it would have seemed incredible that this man was but eight months older than the Prince, whose rival he had always been in personal beauty and activity. The beautiful child, clasped close to his breast, her face buried on his shoulder under his s.h.a.ggy locks, was a strange contrast to his appearance, but only added to the look of piteous helplessness and desolation, as she hung upon him in her alarm at the agitation around her.

Richard had long been accustomed to think of his brother as dead; but such a spectacle as this was far more terrible to him, and his cheek blanched at the shock, as he gasped again, ”Thou here, and thus! thou whom I thought slain!”

”Deem me so still,” said his brother, ”even as I deem the royal minion dead to me.”

”Nay, Henry, thou knowst not.”

”Who is present?” interrupted the blind man, raising his head and tossing back his hair with a gesture that for the first time gave Richard a sense that his eldest brother was indeed before him.

”Methought I heard another voice.”

”I am here, fair son,” replied the old knight, ”Father Robert of the Hospital! I will either leave thee, or keep thy secret as though it were thy shrift; but thou art sore spent, and mayst scarce talk more.”

”Weariness and pain are past, Father, with my little one again in my bosom,” said Henry; ”and there are matters that must be spoken between me and this young brother of mine ere he quits this hut; and his voice resumed its old authoritative tone towards Richard. ”Said you that he had saved my child?”

”He drew me from the river, Father,” said Bessee looking up. ”There was nothing to stand on, and it was so cold! And he took me in his arms and pulled me out, and put me in a boat; and the lady pulled off my blue coat, and put this one on me. Feel it, Father; oh, so pretty, so warm!”

”It was the Princess,” said Richard; but Henry, not noticing, continued,

”Thou hast earned my pardon, Richard,” and held out his remaining hand, somewhere towards the height where his brother's used to be.

Sir Robert smiled, saying, ”Thou dost miscalculate thy brother's stature, son.” And at the same moment Richard, who was now little short of his Cousin Edward in height, was kneeling by Henry, accepting and returning his embrace with agitation and grat.i.tude, such as showed how their relative positions in the family still maintained their force; but Richard still a.s.serted his independence so as to say, ”When you have heard all, brother you will see that there is no need of pardoning me.”

Henry, however, as perhaps Sir Robert had foreseen, instead of answering put his hand to his side, and sank back in a paroxysm of pain, ending in another swoon. The child stood by, quiet and frightened but too much used to similar occurrences to be as much terrified as was Richard, who thought his brother dying; but calling in the serving-brother, the old Hospitalier did all that was needed, and the blind man presently recovered and explained in a feeble voice that he had been jostled, thrown down, and trodden on, at the moment when he lost his hold of his little daughter; and this was evidently renewing his sufferings from the effect of an injury received in battle. ”And what took thee there, son?” said Sir Robert, somewhat sharply.

”The harvest, Father,” answered Henry, rousing himself to speak with a certain sarcasm in his tone. ”It is the beggars' harvest wherever King Henry goes. We brethren of the wallet cannot afford to miss such windfalls.”

”A beggar!” exclaimed Richard in horror.

”And what art thou?” retorted Henry, with a sudden fierceness.

”Listen, young men,” said Sir Robert, ”this I know, my patient there will soon be nothing if ye continue in this strain. A litter shall bring him to the infirmary.”

”Nay,” said Henry hastily, ”not so, good Father. Here I abide, hap what may.”

”And I abide with him,” said Richard.

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