Part 6 (1/2)

”Not so, I say,” returned the Hospitalier, ”unless thou wouldst slay him outright. Return to the Spital with me; and at morn, if he have recovered himself, unravel these riddles as thou and he will.”

”It is well, Father,” said Henry. ”Go with him, Richard; but mark me. Be silent as the grave, and see me again.”

And reluctant as he was, Richard was forced to comply.

CHAPTER VI-THE BEGGAR EARL

”Along with the n.o.bles that fell at that tyde, His eldest son Henrye, who fought by his syde, Was felde by a blow he receivde in the fight; A blow that for ever deprivde him of sight.”

Old Beggar.

The chapel at the Spital was open to all who chose to attend. The deep choir was filled with the members of the Order, half a dozen knights in the stalls, and the novices and serving-brothers so ranged as to give full effect to the body of voice. Richard knelt on the stone floor outside the choir, intending after early ma.s.s to seek his brother; but to his surprise he found the blind man with his child at his feet in what was evidently his accustomed place, just within the door. His hair and beard were now arranged, his appearance was no longer squalid; but when he rose to depart, guided in part by the child, but also groping with a stick, he looked even more helpless than on his bed, and Richard sprang forward to proffer an arm for his support.

”Flemish cloth and frieze gown,” said the object of his solicitude in a strange gibing voice; ”court page and street beggar-how now, my master?”

”Lord Earl and elder brother,” returned Richard, ”thine is my service through life.”

”Mine? Ho, ho! That much for thy service!” with a disdainful gesture of his fingers. ”A strapping lad like thee would be the ruin of my trade. I might as well give up bag and staff at once.”

”Nay, surely, wilt thou not?” exclaimed Richard in broken words from his extreme surprise. ”The King and Prince only long to pardon and restore, and-”

”And thou wouldst well like to lord it at Kenilworth, earl in all but the name? Thou mayst do so yet without being c.u.mbered with me or mine!”

”Thou dost me wrong, Henry,” said Richard, much distressed. ”I love the Prince, for none so truly honoured our blessed father as he, and for his sake he hath been most kind lord to me; but thou art the head of my house, my brother, and with all my heart do I long to render thee such service as-as may lighten these piteous sufferings.”

”I believe thee, Richard; thou wert ever an honest simple-hearted lad,” said Henry, in a different tone; ”but the only service thou canst render me is to let me alone, and keep my secret. Here-I feel that we are at the stone bench, where I bask in the sun, and lay out my dish for the visitors of the gracious Order.-Here, Bessee, child, put the dish down,” he added, retaining his hold of his brother, as if to feel whether Richard winced at this persistence in his strange profession. The little girl obeyed, and betook herself to the quiet sports of a lonely child, amusing herself with Leonillo, and sometimes returning to her father and obtaining his attention for a few moments, sometimes prattling to some pa.s.sing brother of the Order, who perhaps made all the more of the pretty creature because this might be called an innocent breach of discipline. ”And now, Master Page,” said Henry in his tone of authority, yet with some sarcasm, ”let us hear how long-legged Edward finished the work he had began on thee at Hereford-made thee captive in the battle, eh?”

Richard briefly narrated his life with Gourdon, and his capture by the Prince, adding, ”My mother was willing I should remain with him; she bade me do anything rather than join Simon and Guy; and verily, brother, save that the Prince is less free of speech, his whole life seems moulded upon our blessed father's-”

”Speak not of them in the same breath,” cried Henry hastily. ”And wherefore-if such be his honour to him whom he slew and mutilated- art thou to disown thy name, and stand before him like some chance foundling?”

”That was the King's doing,” said Richard. ”The Prince was averse to it, but King Henry, though he wept over me and called me his dear nephew, made it his special desire that he might not hear the name of Montfort; and the Prince, though overruling him in all that pertains to matters of state, is most dutiful in all lesser matters. I hoped at least to be called Fitz Simon, but some mumble of the King turned it into Fowen, and so it has continued. I believe no one at court is really ignorant of my lineage; but among the people, Montfort is still a trumpet-call, and the King fears to hear it.”

”Well he may!” laughed Henry. ”Rememberest thou, Richard, the sorry figure our good uncle cut, when we armed him so courteously, and put him on his horse to meet the rebels at Evesham-how he durst not hang back, and loved still less to go onward, and kept calling me his loving nephew all the time?”

”Ah! Henry-but didst thou not hear my father mutter, when he saw the crowned helm under the standard, that it was ill done, and no good could come of seething the kid in the mother's milk? And verily, had not the Prince been carrying his father from the field, I trow the Mortimers had not refused us quarter, nor had their cruel will of us.”

”Oh ho! thou art come to have opinions of thine own!” laughed Henry, with the scoff of a senior unable to brook that his younger brother should think for himself. Yet this tone was so familiar to Richard's ears, that it absolutely encouraged him to a nearer step to intimacy. He said, ”But how scapedst thou, Henry? I could have sworn that I saw thee fall, skull and helmet cleft, a dead man!”

Instead of answering, Henry put his hand under the chin of his child, who was leaning against him, and holding up her face to his brother, said, ”Thou canst see this child's face? Tell me what like she is.”

”Like little Eleanor, like Amaury. The home-look of her eyes won my heart at once. Even the Princess remarked their resemblance to mine. Think of Eleanor and thy mind's eye will see her.”

”No other likeness?” said the blind man wistfully; ”but no-thou wast at Hereford when she was at Odiham.”

”Who?”

He grasped Richard's hand, and under his breath uttered the name ”Isabel.”

”Isabel Mortimer!” exclaimed Richard, who had been, of course, aware of his brother's betrothal, when the two families of Montfort and Mortimer had been on friendly terms; ”we heard she had taken the veil!”