Quentin Durward

[Vox quoque Moerim Jam fugit ipsa; lupi Moerim videre priores. Virgilii ix. Ecloga. The commentators add, in explanation of this passage, the opinion of Pliny: “The being beheld by a wolf in Italy is accounted noxious, and is supposed to take away the speech of a man, if these animals behold him ere he sees them.” S.]

“To say I had tracked a fox were nearer the mark,” thought Quentin, but gave the reply no utterance.

“Are you well, Seignior Quentin?” said the Countess Isabelle, in a tone of interest at which she herself blushed, while she felt that it was something more than the distance between them warranted.

“He hath sat up carousing with the jolly friars,” said the Lady Hameline, “the Scots are like the Germans, who spend all their mirth over the Rheinwein, and bring only their staggering steps to the dance in the evening, and their aching heads to the ladies’ bower in the morning.”

“Nay, gentle ladies,” said Quentin, “I deserve not your reproach. The good friars were at their devotions almost all night, and for myself, my drink was barely a cup of their thinnest and most ordinary wine.”

“It is the badness of his fare that has put him out of humour,” said the Countess Isabelle. “Cheer up, Seignior Quentin, and should we ever visit my ancient Castle of Bracquemont together, if I myself should stand your cup bearer, and hand it to you, you shall have a generous cup of wine, that the like never grew upon the vines of Hochheim or Johannisberg.”

“A glass of water, noble lady, from your hand,” – Thus far did Quentin begin, but his voice trembled, and Isabelle continued, as if she had been insensible of the tenderness of the accentuation upon the personal pronoun.

“The wine was stocked in the deep vaults of Bracquemont, by my great grandfather the Rhinegrave Godfrey,” said the Countess Isabelle.

“Who won the hand of her great grandmother,” interjected the Lady Hameline, interrupting her niece, “by proving himself the best son of chivalry, at the great tournament of Strasbourg – ten knights were slain in the lists. But those days are now over, and no one now thinks of encountering peril for the sake of honour, or to relieve distressed beauty.”

To this speech, which was made in the tone in which a modern beauty, whose charms are rather on the wane, may be heard to condemn the rudeness of the present age, Quentin took upon him to reply that there was no lack of that chivalry which the Lady Hameline seemed to consider as extinct, and that, were it eclipsed everywhere else, it would still glow in the bosoms of the Scottish gentlemen.

“Hear him!” said the Lady Hameline, “he would have us believe that in his cold and bleak country still lives the noble fire which has decayed in France and Germany! The poor youth is like a Swiss mountaineer, mad with partiality to his native land – he will next tell us of the vines and olives of Scotland.”

“No, madam,” said Durward, “of the wine and the oil of our mountains I can say little more than that our swords can compel these rich productions as tribute from our wealthier neighbours. But for the unblemished faith and unfaded honour of Scotland, I must now put to the proof how far you can repose trust in them, however mean the individual who can offer nothing more as a pledge of your safety.”

“You speak mysteriously – you know of some pressing and present danger,” said the Lady Hameline.

“I have read it in his eye for this hour past!” exclaimed the Lady Isabelle, clasping her hands. “Sacred Virgin, what will become of us?”

“Nothing, I hope, but what you would desire,” answered Durward. “And now I am compelled to ask – gentle ladies, can you trust me?”

“Trust you?” answered the Countess Hameline. “Certainly. But why the question? Or how far do you ask our confidence?”

“I, on my part,” said the Countess Isabelle, “trust you implicitly, and without condition. If you can deceive us, Quentin, I will no more look for truth, save in Heaven!”

“Gentle lady,” replied Durward, highly gratified, “you do me but justice. My object is to alter our route, by proceeding directly by the left bank of the Maes to Liege, instead of crossing at Namur. This differs from the order assigned by King Louis and the instructions given to the guide. But I heard news in the monastery of marauders on the right bank of the Maes, and of the march of Burgundian soldiers to suppress them. Both circumstances alarm me for your safety. Have I your permission so far to deviate from the route of your journey?”

“My ample and full permission,” answered the younger lady.

“Cousin,” said the Lady Hameline, “I believe with you that the youth means us well – but bethink you – we transgress the instructions of King Louis, so positively iterated.”

“And why should we regard his instructions?” said the Lady Isabelle. “I am, I thank Heaven for it, no subject of his, and, as a suppliant, he has abused the confidence he induced me to repose in him. I would not dishonour this young gentleman by weighing his word for an instant against the injunctions of yonder crafty and selfish despot.”

“Now, may God bless you for that very word, lady,” said Quentin, joyously, “and if I deserve not the trust it expresses, tearing with wild horses in this life and eternal tortures in the next were e’en too good for my deserts.”

So saying, he spurred his horse, and rejoined the Bohemian. This worthy seemed of a remarkably passive, if not a forgiving temper. Injury or threat never dwelt, or at least seemed not to dwell in his recollection, and he entered into the conversation which Durward presently commenced, just as if there had been no unkindly word betwixt them in the course of the morning.

The dog, thought the Scot, snarls not now, because he intends to clear scores with me at once and for ever, when he can snatch me by the very throat, but we will try for once whether we cannot foil a traitor at his own weapons.

“Honest Hayraddin,” he said, “thou hast travelled with us for ten days, yet hast never shown us a specimen of your skill in fortune telling, which you are, nevertheless, so fond of practising that you must needs display your gifts in every convent at which we stop, at the risk of being repaid by a night’s lodging under a haystack.”

“You have never asked me for a specimen of my skill,” said the gipsy. “You are, like the rest of the world, contented to ridicule those mysteries which they do not understand.”

“Give me then a present proof of your skill,” said Quentin and, ungloving his hand, he held it out to the gipsy.

Hayraddin carefully regarded all the lines which crossed each other on the Scotchman’s palm, and noted, with equally Scrupulous attention, the little risings or swellings at the roots of the fingers, which were then believed as intimately connected with the disposition, habits, and fortunes of the individual, as the organs of the brain are pretended to be in our own time.

“Here is a hand,” said Hayraddin, “which speaks of toils endured, and dangers encountered. I read in it an early acquaintance with the hilt of the sword, and yet some acquaintance also with the clasps of the mass book.”

“This of my past life you may have learned elsewhere,” said Quentin, “tell me something of the future.”

“This line from the hill of Venus,” said the Bohemian, “not broken off abruptly, but attending and accompanying the line of life, argues a certain and large fortune by marriage, whereby the party shall be raised among the wealthy and the noble by the influence of successful love.”

“Such promises you make to all who ask your advice,” said Quentin, “they are part of your art.”

“What I tell you is as certain,” said Hayraddin, “as that you shall in brief space be menaced with mighty danger, which I infer from this bright blood red line cutting the table line transversely, and intimating stroke of sword, or other violence, from which you shall only be saved by the attachment of a faithful friend.”

“Thyself, ha?” said Quentin, somewhat indignant that the chiromantist should thus practise on his credulity, and endeavour to found a reputation by predicting the consequences of his own treachery.

“My art,” replied the Zingaro, “tells me naught that concerns myself.”

“In this, then, the seers of my land,” said Quentin, “excel your boasted knowledge, for their skill teaches them the dangers by which they are themselves beset. I left not my hills without having felt a portion of the double vision with which their inhabitants are gifted, and I will give thee a proof of it, in exchange for thy specimen of palmistry. Hayraddin, the danger which threatens me lies on the right bank of the river – I will avoid it by travelling to Liege on the left bank.”

The guide listened with an apathy, which, knowing the circumstances in which Maugrabin stood, Quentin could not by any means comprehend.

“If you accomplish your purpose,” was the Bohemian’s reply, “the dangerous crisis will be transferred from your lot to mine.”

“I thought,” said Quentin, “that you said but now, that you could not presage your own fortune?”

“Not in the manner in which I have but now told you yours,” answered Hayraddin, “but it requires little knowledge of Louis of Valois, to presage that he will hang your guide, because your pleasure was to deviate from the road which he recommended.”

“The attaining with safety the purpose of the journey, and ensuring its happy termination,” said Quentin, “must atone for a deviation from the exact line of the prescribed route.”

“Ay,” replied the Bohemian, “if you are sure that the King had in his own eye the same termination of the pilgrimage which he insinuated to you.”

“And of what other termination is it possible that he could have been meditating? or why should you suppose he had any purpose in his thought, other than was avowed in his direction?” inquired Quentin.

“Simply,” replied the Zingaro, “that those who know aught of the Most Christian King, are aware that the purpose about which he is most anxious, is always that which he is least willing to declare. Let our gracious Louis send twelve embassies, and I will forfeit my neck to the gallows a year before it is due, if in eleven of them there is not something at the bottom of the ink horn more than the pen has written in the letters of credence.”

“I regard not your foul suspicions,” answered Quentin, “my duty is plain and peremptory – to convey these ladies in safety to Liege, and I take it on me to think that I best discharge that duty in changing our prescribed route, and keeping the left side of the river Maes. It is likewise the direct road to Liege. By crossing the river, we should lose time and incur fatigue to no purpose – wherefore should we do so?”

“Only because pilgrims, as they call themselves, destined for Cologne,” said Hayraddin, “do not usually descend the Maes so low as Liege, and that the route of the ladies will be accounted contradictory of their professed destination.”

“If we are challenged on that account,” said Quentin, “we will say that alarms of the wicked Duke of Gueldres, or of William de la Marck, or of the Ecorcheurs [flayers; a name given to bands of wandering troops on account of their cruelty] and lanzknechts, on the right side of the river, justify our holding by the left, instead of our intended route.”

“As you will, my good seignior,” replied the Bohemian. “I am, for my part, equally ready to guide you down the left as down the right side of the Maes. Your excuse to your master you must make out for yourself.”

Quentin, although rather surprised, was at the same time pleased with the ready, or at least the unrepugnant acquiescence of Hayraddin in their change of route, for he needed his assistance as a guide, and yet had feared that the disconcerting of his intended act of treachery would have driven him to extremity. Besides, to expel the Bohemian from their society would have been the ready mode to bring down William de la Marck, with whom he was in correspondence, upon their intended route, whereas, if Hayraddin remained with them Quentin thought he could manage to prevent the Moor from having any communication with strangers unless he was himself aware of it.

Abandoning, therefore, all thoughts of their original route, the little party followed that by the left bank of the broad Maes, so speedily and successfully that the next day early brought them to the proposed end of their journey. They found that the Bishop of Liege, for the sake of his health, as he himself alleged, but rather, perhaps, to avoid being surprised by the numerous and mutinous population of the city, had established his residence in his beautiful Castle of Schonwaldt, about a mile without Liege.

Just as they approached the Castle, they saw the Prelate returning in long procession from the neighbouring city, in which he had been officiating at the performance of High Mass. He was at the head of a splendid train of religious, civil and military men, mingled together, or, as the old ballad maker expresses it,

“With many a cross bearer before,And many a spear behind.”

The procession made a noble appearance, as winding along the verdant banks of the broad Maes, it wheeled into, and was as it were devoured by, the huge Gothic portal of the Episcopal residence.

But when the party came more near, they found that circumstances around the Castle argued a doubt and sense of insecurity, which contradicted that display of pomp and power which they had just witnessed. Strong guards of the Bishop’s soldiers were heedfully maintained all around the mansion and its immediate vicinity, and the prevailing appearances in an ecclesiastical residence seemed to argue a sense of danger in the reverend Prelate, who found it necessary thus to surround himself with all the defensive precautions of war.

The Ladies of Croye, when announced by Quentin, were reverently ushered into the great Hall, where they met with the most cordial reception from the Bishop, who met them there at the head of his little Court. He would not permit them to kiss his hand, but welcomed them with a salute, which had something in it of gallantry on the part of a prince to fine women, and something also of the holy affection of a pastor to the sisters of his flock.

Louis of Bourbon, the reigning Bishop of Liege, was in truth a generous and kind hearted prince, whose life had not indeed been always confined, with precise strictness, within the bounds of his clerical profession, but who, notwithstanding, had uniformly maintained the frank and honourable character of the House of Bourbon, from which he was descended.

In latter times, as age advanced, the Prelate had adopted habits more beseeming a member of the hierarchy than his early reign had exhibited, and was loved among the neighbouring princes, as a noble ecclesiastic, generous and magnificent in his ordinary mode of life, though preserving no very ascetic severity of character, and governing with an easy indifference, which, amid his wealthy and mutinous subjects, rather encouraged than subdued rebellious purposes.

The Bishop was so fast an ally of the Duke of Burgundy that the latter claimed almost a joint sovereignty in his bishopric, and repaid the good natured ease with which the Prelate admitted claims which he might easily have disputed, by taking his part on all occasions with the determined and furious zeal which was a part of his character. He used to say he considered Liege as his own, the Bishop as his brother (indeed, they might be accounted such, in consequence of the Duke’s having married for his first wife, the Bishop’s sister), and that he who annoyed Louis of Bourbon, had to do with Charles of Burgundy, a threat which, considering the character and the power of the prince who used it, would have been powerful with any but the rich and discontented city of Liege, where much wealth had, according to the ancient proverb, made wit waver.

The Prelate, as we have said, assured the Ladies of Croye of such intercession as his interest at the Court of Burgundy, used to the uttermost, might gain for them, and which, he hoped, might be the more effectual, as Campobasso, from some late discoveries, stood rather lower than formerly in the Duke’s personal favour. He promised them also such protection as it was in his power to afford, but the sigh with which he gave the warrant seemed to allow that his power was more precarious than in words he was willing to admit.

“At every event, my dearest daughters,” said the Bishop, with an air in which, as in his previous salute, a mixture of spiritual unction qualified the hereditary gallantry of the House of Bourbon, “Heaven forbid I should abandon the lamb to the wicked wolf, or noble ladies to the oppression of faitours. I am a man of peace, though my abode now rings with arms, but be assured I will care for your safety as for my own, and should matters become yet more distracted here, which, with Our Lady’s grace, we trust will be rather pacified than inflamed, we will provide for your safe conduct to Germany, for not even the will of our brother and protector, Charles of Burgundy, shall prevail with us to dispose of you in any respect contrary to your own inclinations. We cannot comply with your request of sending you to a convent, for, alas! such is the influence of the sons of Belial among the inhabitants of Liege, that we know no retreat to which our authority extends, beyond the bounds of our own castle, and the protection of our soldiery. But here you are most welcome, and your train shall have all honourable entertainment, especially this youth whom you recommend so particularly to our countenance, and on whom in especial we bestow our blessing.”

Quentin kneeled, as in duty bound, to receive the Episcopal benediction.

“For yourselves,” proceeded the good Prelate, “you shall reside here with my sister Isabelle, a Canoness of Triers, with whom you may dwell in all honour, even under the roof of so gay a bachelor as the Bishop of Liege.”

He gallantly conducted the ladies to his sister’s apartment, as he concluded the harangue of welcome, and his Master of the Household, an officer who, having taken Deacon’s orders, held something between a secular and ecclesiastical character, entertained Quentin with the hospitality which his master enjoined, while the other personages of the retinue of the Ladies of Croye were committed to the inferior departments.

In this arrangement Quentin could not help remarking that the presence of the Bohemian, so much objected to in the country convents, seemed, in the household of this wealthy, and perhaps we might say worldly prelate, to attract neither objection nor remark.

CHAPTER XIX: THE CITY

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you upTo any sudden act of mutiny.JULIUS CAESAR

Separated from the Lady Isabelle, whose looks had been for so many days his loadstar, Quentin felt a strange vacancy and chillness of the heart, which he had not yet experienced in any of the vicissitudes to which his life had subjected him. No doubt the cessation of the close and unavoidable intercourse and intimacy betwixt them was the necessary consequence of the Countess’s having obtained a place of settled residence, for under what pretext could she, had she meditated such an impropriety, have had a gallant young squire such as Quentin in constant attendance upon her?

But the shock of the separation was not the more welcome that it seemed unavoidable, and the proud heart of Quentin swelled at finding he was parted with like an ordinary postilion, or an escort whose duty is discharged, while his eyes sympathised so far as to drop a secret tear or two over the ruins of all those airy castles, so many of which he had employed himself in constructing during their too interesting journey. He made a manly, but, at first, a vain effort to throw off this mental dejection, and so, yielding to the feelings he could not suppress, he sat him down in one of the deep recesses formed by a window which lighted the great Gothic hall of Schonwaldt, and there mused upon his hard fortune, which had not assigned him rank or wealth sufficient to prosecute his daring suit.

Quentin tried to dispel the sadness which overhung him by dispatching Charlet, one of the valets, with letters to the court of Louis, announcing the arrival of the Ladies of Croye at Liege. At length his natural buoyancy of temper returned, much excited by the title of an old romaunt [a poetical romance] which had been just printed at Strasbourg, and which lay beside him in the window, the title of which set forth —

How the Squire of lowe degreeLoved the King’s daughter of Hungarie.[An old English poem reprinted in Hazlitt’s Remains of Early Popular Poetry of England.]

While he was tracing the “letters blake” of the ditty so congenial to his own situation, Quentin was interrupted by a touch on the shoulder, and, looking up, beheld the Bohemian standing by him.

Hayraddin, never a welcome sight, was odious from his late treachery, and Quentin sternly asked him why he dared take the freedom to touch a Christian and a gentleman?

“Simply,” answered the Bohemian, “because I wished to know if the Christian gentleman had lost his feeling as well as his eyes and ears. I have stood speaking to you these five minutes, and you have stared on that scrap of yellow paper, as if it were a spell to turn you into a statue, and had already wrought half its purpose.”

“Well, what dost thou want? Speak, and begone!”

“I want what all men want, though few are satisfied with it,” said Hayraddin, “I want my due, ten crowns of gold for guiding the ladies hither.”

“With what face darest thou ask any guerdon beyond my sparing thy worthless life?” said Durward, fiercely, “thou knowest that it was thy purpose to have betrayed them on the road.”

“But I did not betray them,” said Hayraddin, “if I had, I would have asked no guerdon from you or from them, but from him whom their keeping on the right hand side of the river might have benefited. The party that I have served is the party who must pay me.”

“Thy guerdon perish with thee, then, traitor,” said Quentin, telling out the money. “Get thee to the Boar of Ardennes, or to the devil! but keep hereafter out of my sight, lest I send thee thither before thy time.”

“The Boar of Ardennes!” repeated the Bohemian, with a stronger emotion of surprise than his features usually expressed – “it was then no vague guess – no general suspicion – which made you insist on changing the road? – Can it be – are there really in other lands arts of prophecy more sure than those of our wandering tribes? The willow tree under which we spoke could tell no tales. But no – no – no – dolt that I was! – I have it – I have it! – the willow by the brook near yonder convent – I saw you look towards it as you passed it, about half a mile from yon hive of drones – that could not indeed speak, but it might hide one who could hear! I will hold my councils in an open plain henceforth, not a bunch of thistles shall be near me for a Scot to shroud amongst. – Ha! ha! the Scot hath beat the Zingaro at his own subtle weapons. But know, Quentin Durward, that you have foiled me to the marring of thine own fortune. – Yes! the fortune I have told thee of, from the lines on thy hand, had been richly accomplished but for thine own obstinacy.”

“By Saint. Andrew,” said Quentin, “thy impudence makes me laugh in spite of myself. – How, or in what, should thy successful villainy have been of service to me? I heard, indeed, that you did stipulate to save my life, which condition your worthy allies would speedily have forgotten, had we once come to blows – but in what thy betrayal of these ladies could have served me, but by exposing me to death or captivity, is a matter beyond human brains to conjecture.”

“No matter thinking of it, then,” said Hayraddin, “for I mean still to surprise you with my gratitude. Had you kept back my hire, I should have held that we were quit, and had left you to your own foolish guidance. As it is, I remain your debtor for yonder matter on the banks of the Cher.”

“Methinks I have already taken out the payment in cursing and abusing thee,” said Quentin.

“Hard words, or kind ones,” said the Zingaro, “are but wind, which make no weight in the balance. Had you struck me, indeed, instead of threatening – ”

“I am likely enough to take out payment in that way, if you provoke me longer.”

“I would not advise it,” said the Zingaro, “such payment, made by a rash hand, might exceed the debt, and unhappily leave a balance on your side, which I am not one to forget or forgive. And now farewell, but not for a long space – I go to bid adieu to the Ladies of Croye.”