"I saw the deed done with my own eyes, and many an act of horror besides."
"Saw it! and made not in to help the good Prelate!" exclaimed the Count, "or to raise the castle against his murderers? – Know'st thou not, that even to look on such a deed, without resisting it, is profane sacrilege?"
"To be brief, my lord," said Durward, "ere this act was done, the castle was stormed by the blood-thirsty William de la Marck, with help of the insurgent Liegeois."
"I am struck with thunder!" said Crèvecoeur. "Liege in insurrection! – Schonwaldt taken! – the Bishop murdered! – Messenger of sorrow, never did one man unfold such a packet of woes! – Speak – knew you of this assault – of this insurrection – of this murder? – Speak – thou art one of Louis's trusted Archers, and it is he that has aimed this painful arrow. – Speak, or I will have thee torn with wild horses!"
"And if I am so torn, my lord, there can be nothing rent out of me, that may not become a true Scottish gentleman. I know no more of these villainies than you, – was so far from being partaker in them, that I would have withstood them to the uttermost, had my means, in a twentieth degree, equalled my inclination. But what could I do? – they were hundreds, and I but one. My only care was to rescue the Countess Isabelle, and in that I was happily successful. Yet, had I been near enough when the ruffian deed was so cruelly done on the old man, I had saved his grey hairs, or I had avenged them; and as it was, my abhorrence was spoken loud enough to prevent other horrors."
"I believe thee, youth," said the Count; "thou art neither of an age nor nature to be trusted with such bloody work, however well fitted to be the squire of dames. But alas! for the kind and generous Prelate, to be murdered on the hearth where he so often entertained the stranger with Christian charity and princely bounty – and that by a wretch, a monster! a portentous growth of blood and cruelty! – bred up in the very hall where he has imbrued his hands in his benefactor's blood! But I know not Charles of Burgundy – nay, I should doubt of the justice of Heaven, if vengeance be not as sharp, and sudden, and severe, as this villainy has been unexampled in atrocity. And, if no other shall pursue the murderer," – here he paused, grasped his sword, then quitting his bridle, struck both gauntleted hands upon his breast, until his corslet clattered, and finally held them up to Heaven, as he solemnly continued – "I – I, Philip Crèvecoeur of Cordès, make a vow to God, Saint Lambert, and the Three Kings of Cologne, that small shall be my thought of other earthly concerns, till I take full revenge on the murderers of the good Louis of Bourbon, whether I find them in forest or field, in city or in country, in hill or plain, in King's court, or in God's church! and thereto I pledge lands and living, friends and followers, life and honour. So help me God and Saint Lambert of Liege, and the Three Kings of Cologne!"
When the Count of Crèvecoeur had made his vow, his mind seemed in some sort relieved from the overwhelming grief and astonishment with which he had heard the fatal tragedy that had been acted at Schonwaldt, and he proceeded to question Durward more minutely concerning the particulars of that disastrous affair, which the Scot, nowise desirous to abate the spirit of revenge which the Count entertained against William de la Marck, gave him at full length.
"But those blind, unsteady, faithless, fickle beasts, the Liegeois," said the Count, "that they should have combined themselves with this inexorable robber and murderer, to put to death their lawful Prince!"
Durward here informed the enraged Burgundian that the Liegeois, or at least the better class of them, however rashly they had run into the rebellion against their Bishop, had no design, so far as appeared to him, to aid in the execrable deed of De la Marck; but, on the contrary, would have prevented it if they had had the means, and were struck with horror when they beheld it.
"Speak not of the faithless, inconstant, plebeian rabble!" said Crèvecoeur. "When they took arms against a Prince, who had no fault, save that he was too kind and too good a master for such a set of ungrateful slaves – when they armed against him, and broke into his peaceful house, what could there be in their intention but murder? – when they banded themselves with the wild Boar of Ardennes, the greatest homicide in the marches of Flanders, what else could there be in their purpose but murder, which is the very trade he lives by? And again, was it not one of their own vile rabble who did the very deed, by thine own account? – I hope to see their canals running blood by the light of their burning houses. Oh, the kind, noble, generous lord, whom they have slaughtered! – Other vassals have rebelled under the pressure of imposts and penury; but the men of Liege, in the fulness of insolence and plenty." – He again abandoned the reins of his war-horse, and wrung bitterly the hands, which his mail-gloves rendered untractable. Quentin easily saw that the grief which he manifested was augmented by the bitter recollection of past intercourse and friendship with the sufferer, and was silent accordingly; respecting feelings which he was unwilling to aggravate, and at the same time felt it impossible to soothe.
But the Count of Crèvecoeur returned again and again to the subject – questioned him on every particular of the surprise of Schonwaldt, and the death of the Bishop; and then suddenly, as if he had recollected something which had escaped his memory, demanded what had become of the Lady Hameline, and why she was not with her kinswoman? "Not," he added contemptuously, "that I consider her absence as at all a loss to the Countess Isabelle; for, although she was her kinswoman, and upon the whole a well-meaning woman, yet the Court of Cocagne never produced such a fantastic fool; and I hold it for certain, that her niece, whom I have always observed to be a modest and orderly young woman, was led into the absurd frolic of flying from Burgundy to France, by that blundering, romantic, old, match-making and match-seeking idiot!"
What a speech for a romantic lover to hear! and to hear, too, when it would have been ridiculous in him to attempt what it was impossible for him to achieve, – namely, to convince the Count, by force of arms, that he did foul wrong to the Countess – the peerless in sense as in beauty – in terming her a modest and orderly young woman; qualities which might have been predicated with propriety of the daughter of a sunburnt peasant, who lived by goading the oxen, while her father held the plough. And, then, to suppose her under the domination and supreme guidance of a silly and romantic aunt – the slander should have been repelled down the slanderer's throat. But the open, though severe, physiognomy of the Count of Crèvecoeur, the total contempt which he seemed to entertain for those feelings which were uppermost in Quentin's bosom, overawed him; not for fear of the Count's fame in arms – that was a risk which would have increased his desire of making out a challenge – but in dread of ridicule, the weapon of all others most feared by enthusiasts of every description, and which, from its predominance over such minds, often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.
Under the influence of this fear, of becoming an object of scorn rather than resentment, Durward, though with some pain, confined his reply to a confused account of the Lady Hameline having made her escape from Schonwaldt before the attack took place. He could not, indeed, have made his story very distinct, without throwing ridicule on the near relation of Isabelle, and perhaps incurring some himself, as having been the object of her preposterous expectations. He added to his embarrassed detail, that he had heard a report, though a vague one, of the Lady Hameline having again fallen into the hands of William de la Marck.
"I trust in Saint Lambert that he will marry her," said Crèvecoeur; "as, indeed, he is likely enough to do, for the sake of her money-bags; and equally likely to knock her on the head, so soon as these are either secured in his own grasp, or, at farthest, emptied."