 | CHAPTER XXI. The brothers : |  |
21. CHAPTER XXI.
I tender free to Scotland's laws.
Are these so weak, as must require
The aid of your misguided ire?
Or, if I suffer causeless wrong,
Is then my selfish rage so strong,
My sense of public weal so low,
That, for mean vengeance on a foe,
Those cords of love I should unbind,
Which knit my country and my kind?”
Lady of the Lake.
Scarcely had I passed into the outer tent—
even then unsuspicious of aught beyond some trivial
disturbance of the men, elevated, perhaps, by
their late victory, beyond the sobriety of discipline—ere
I was overpowered by a sudden rush
of many soldiers; and, although not disarmed or
mastered, was borne violently backward into the
apartment I had just quitted.
On finding myself standing in the centre of the
tent, opposed to at least a score of men, whom I
my first sensation was of sheer astonishment—the
second prompted me to snatch my pistols
from the table, on which they lay in readiness
to my hand, and to raise my bugle to my lips.
In that moment of confusion and surprise, my
eye turned instinctively to Isabel. She stood, as
I had left her, with hands clasped and pallid features;
but her eye was bright and calm, nor was
there aught of weak or womanish terror in the
expression of her noble countenance.
“No nearer—on your lives, no nearer, villains!”
I whispered, sternly and audibly through my set
teeth. “What means this insolent intrusion?”
I covered the leader of the band with my levelled
pistol, as I spoke, apprehending any thing
of lawless mutiny rather than my deliberate and
legal arrest.
“We regret, fair sir—believe me, we regret,
while we must execute, our duty,” replied the young
officer who led the party. “I have a warrant
here from the commander, to secure the person of
Major-general Harry Mornington, on charges of
neglect of duty, of murder, and of the abduction
of a royal ward! You must give up your sword
and follow us—peaceably, if you will; but follow
us you must! We would be courteous in pursuance
own security and your safe-keeping.”
“And at whose say—what villain's say—am I,
a general of division, thus felon-like arrested? or
at whose lawless warrant?” I exclaimed, fiercely,
and without withdrawing my aim from the person
of the speaker. “Go, learn your duty better, sir
provost, or sir hangman! For me, you take me
not alive, save by the sign-manual of my true
superior. An I but blow one call upon this bugle,
ye are all dead men—one call to the Swiss
troops of D'Erlach! Look to it, sir; withdraw
your scoundrel sergeants, and that, too, on the instant,
or, by the ashes of my fathers, you shall die
the death!”
“That you may have the power,” replied the
other, calmly, “to resist us, to your own safety
and to our destruction, I will not gainsay. How
far such a proceeding will be to the honour of your
name, it is for you to balance. We have already
weighed the chances; and it likes us better to fall
in the performance of our duty than to die like
dogs for breach of it. I do beseech you, sir, put
us not to the need of offering violence to an officer
of your distinction, and in the presence of so fair
a lady! If there be aught of pleasure our courtesy
may yield you, command us.”
Almost for the first time in my life I was undecided.
The man who stood before me was, indeed,
innocent of aught, save the performance of
his duties—his distasteful duties—to his superiors;
and would it, as he said, be a deed fitting the
name of Mornington, to slay an honest servitor for
the fault of the bad master? Would it be wise or
seemly to provoke a deadly brawl, in which mortal
weapons would be wielded by resolved and
skilful hands, and that, too, in the very presence of
my recovered bride? And yet, how might I quit
her with the certainty of meeting her again? While
I was yet revolving these wild questions in my
brain, she threw herself between me and the provost
of the guard, flung her white arms around me,
and, turning the fatal weapon from its level,—
“For my sake, Harry, for my sake,” she cried,
“do no such madness. Is it that you fear—is it
that you are conscious of your guilt, that you
would shun the proof? For shame! for shame!
Go forth, my noble husband, trusting in the strength
of your own pure nobility, of your own spotless
innocence! Strike but one blow against the officers
of justice—strike but one blow—and you are
lost for ever—condemned beyond redemption!
Guiltless though you be—spotless of sin or shame
—yet, if you do resist the mandate of the law, you
the bold man who has spoken treason on your
name—challenge him, not to the arbitry of blood,
but to the proof of judgment—go forth, and tremble
not! Go forth, and let the guilty shudder!”
“It is for you,” I cried, moved almost to tears
by her enthusiastic speech—“it is for you alone
that I would strive—”
“For me!” she interrupted me—“for me! and
wherefore? Think you that I would not deem it
better to follow you, a man proved innocent, but
guiltlessly condemned—to follow you to the dungeon,
to the scaffold, to the grave!—than to sit
beside you on earth's proudest throne, if shielded
from the power of law by lawless violence?”
“Isabel,” I answered—“Isabel, you have prevailed!”
and turning to the officer, who had
waited with patient sympathy, and with somewhat
of disgust against his employers working in his
features, I addressed him:—“On one condition,
sir, and on one only, will I follow you. This lady
is my wife, my lawful wife. She—by the villany
of one who was my prisoner some hours since, and
who is now, an I misjudge it not, my foul accuser
—she has been torn from me, and immured, these
months past, in a convent-jail! Her will I not
leave unprotected, and liable to his new outrages,
perish! Let one of your men summon hither
D'Erlach, that to his trust I may commit her, and,
be it to my death, I follow you without inquiry or
resistance. I pledge to you a word unbroken—a
name immaculate!”
“It is enough, sir. You, Croquart, summon
hither instantly the leader of the Switzers; and
the rest of you withdraw, but wait without. Your
honour, sir, that, rescue or no rescue, you escape
not?”
“My honour.”
Slowly and wearily did the moments creep
along. The excitement, which had nerved the
lovely girl to such almost unnatural courage, had,
with the cause that called it forth, departed. She
had sunk down upon the couch, sobbing like one
whose heart was already broken; and I, I gazed
upon her in mute, icy, speechless despair! The
revulsion from the summit of hope and joy to the
depths of misery had been too sudden, not to be
felt overpoweringly by a spirit which, though self-disciplined,
was yet so excitable, and fraught with
passions sensitive and violent, as my own. I
thought the messenger would never have returned;
yet was it but a scant half-hour before the veteran
D'Erlach stood before me. He gazed about him
gave way to fiercer feelings.
“To you, sir,” I said, “as to one whom I deem
honest and honourable, whether as a friend or foe,
I have a request to offer. I am arrested, by the
warrant of the Comte D'Harcourt, arrested as a
traitor, murderer, and—”
“Ten thousand devils! that shall never be,”
cried the choleric old Bernois; “never! while there
be a Switzer in the camp can wield a halberd!”
“Ay, but it shall,” I interrupted him, coolly
enough, though not, in truth, unmoved by this sudden
and unexpected sympathy—“ay, but it shall,
and must! Guiltless I am, and guiltless will I be
proved, before my peers! But here is the pinch of
this matter. This lady—my most unhappy bride—
hath for her unworthy cousin that dog De Chateaufort!—would
God I had but stricken one good
blow, this morning, when I held him by the lying
throat!—For love of her estates, hath he persecuted
her as man nor devil ever persecuted woman!
For love of her estates, hath he torn her
from the arms of me, her lawful husband, and immured
her in a dungeon! For love of her estates,
thrice hath he sought my life by the assassin's
weapon; and now would seek it, murderously as
before, by the perverted sword of justice! 'Twas
her—for her—I shame not to confess it—I am a
COWARD! But swear to me that thou wilt shield
her to the death! Swear to me by your own and
country's honour—by the God of your fathers, and
your hopes of life hereafter—swear that you will
place her, as soon as may be, under the protection
of the great Condé,—swear this, and—I fear
nothing!”
“That shall I do,” he answered—“that shall I
do, by God!”
“Isabel,” I cried, in tones which I struggled
hard to render calm—“Isabel, I commit you to
the charge of this true gentleman,—to the protection
of Him who only can protect. Farewell!
D'Erlach, to you I give my sword; keep it, as you
would keep your honour, bright and untarnished.
Farewell, and remember!”
The provost-marshal passed his arm through
my own, his men fell into close array before us
and in our rear, and we proceeded swiftly through
the moonlight camp towards the pavilion of the
maréchal.
“This is a painful duty, sir,” said D'Harcourt,
as I was brought before him, with an affectation
of candour and sympathy, although a sneer of
self-satisfied resentment played over his saturnine
morning hath brought such charges against you—
such clear charges—that, by my soul, it is my
duty to hold you in security to answer them!”
“At your will, sir!” I answered. “To you shall
I make no defence, knowing you my enemy! Thus
much, however: this prisoner, whose word you
dare—ay, dare, sir—dare I said—and when my
arms shall be unfettered by the verdict of my peers,
you shall right strictly answer for this daring!—
this prisoner is an attainted traitor!—this prisoner
is, by the laws of war, amenable to instant penalty,
as the defender of a position grossly untenable;
and further as the attempted murderer of a herald!
Five hundred eyes beheld me fall, this very day of
Jesus, beneath his shot, a flag of truce in my hands,
and a friendly summons on my lips! Look to it,
count, how you shall answer for your present actions
to the prince, hereafter!”
“Best think of your own defence, sir,” was his
reply; “for, by my soul, I deem it will go hardly
with you else!”
“You dare not,” I answered, “hold me to trial
here: the charges are not such as fall within the
jurisdiction of a court-martial; and if they were,
you have no peers of mine, whereof to call one! I
claim to be sent into Paris, with the dawn, to make
to call you to a heavy reckoning!”
“In this respect, sir, I shall pleasure you,” he
again sneeringly replied; “retaining the lady—”
He was interrupted by the sudden entrance of
an officer, pale and terrified, with his sword drawn,
and garments much disordered.
“My lord, there is a movement in the camp—
the Switzers have rushed to their weapons, and are
in fierce rebellion; the cavalry, too, with all their
officers, are getting under arms—we fear violence!”
“Fear, sir!” shouted D'Harcourt—“fear is no
word for men—much less for officers!—if the Swiss
dogs rebel, we will right shortly send them howling
to their kennels! Beat the alarm!—sound
trumpets!—let the troops of Weimar get into their
array! Look to the prisoner, provost-marshal!”
The trumpets sounded to arms, and were answered,
throughout every quarter of the camp, by
the heavy tramp of disciplined men, the clash of
weapons, and the shouts of officers and orderlies.
But over all, and through all, rang the hoarse roar
of the Switzers, “Unterwald and Uri!” and ever
and anon the bugles of the cavalry, pealing in their
wild symphonies, were mingled with the cheery
shout of, “France—Mornington for France and
assembled—and half of them were averse to action—the
Switzers, in spite of D'Erlach, had seized
the magazines, imprisoned the officers, and turned
the ordnance from the breastworks upon the quarters
of the maréchal. In ten minutes' space the
same officer rushed in, accompanied by a dozen
others, all dismayed, and evidently hopeless of resistance.
“How now, sirs! are the men of Weimar ready?
Let them advance, and, if it needs be, fire; justice
shall hold her own!”
“They are not ready, sir; nor will they stir a
foot, much less discharge an arquebuse, in this same
matter. Your own body-guard are alone faithful!”
“Then let them fire on the mutineers!”
“'Twere madness, sir, rank madness! They
number scarce five hundred, and the mutineers as
many thousands!”
“Do you dispute my will, sir? Before God! an
you do not my bidding, you shall first share the
punishment of mutiny! Away, sir, to your duty!”
But it was in vain; for the next instant the red
glare of a thousand torches gleamed through the
canvass walls; and the hoarse cries of the mutineers
came close and terrible. I saw it was the
and with a steady eye addressed my enemy:—
“The time is come,” I said, “when I might triumph,
were I what you have dared to name me!
But I at least will fill the duties of a soldier and a
man! Let me go forth, and speak with these unruly
men; and, by mine honour, the mutiny shall
cease!”
“So deal not I with traitors—sooner will I die!”
“Death! Death!” shouted the mutineers without—“Death!
or De Mornington!” and the remnant
of D'Harcourt's guard was actually driven
into the presence of its commander—disarmed,
and utterly defeated.
“Slay me this ringleader!” shouted the count,
maddened by obstinacy, and rendered desperate by
his defeat—“Up with him to the tent-poles; let his
followers see the meed they have brought on their
general!” The terrified guards of the provost in vain
remonstrated—the field-officers protested—and at
length positively refused obedience. In the next
moment the canvass of the pavilion was rent into
a thousand pieces; the tent-poles broken; the cords
severed by the sword and halberd! We stood—
prisoner and judge—accuser and accused—in the
centre of a circle of twice two thousand men,
desperate and successful mutineers! D'Harcourt
every officer must have perished. With a light
spring I vaulted on the table, which fortunately had
not been overset in the confusion.
“Hear me,” I cried, in high, clear notes; “hear
me, ye cavaliers of France, and ye free Switzers!
You have mistaken, not yourselves, but me—
me, whom you would thus rescue! Think you so
basely of me, then, my fellow-soldiers—think you
so basely of the man who has already led you—
led you—I will say the words—to glory,—as that
he could shrink from justice! There is no safety
to the innocent, but in the law; and in the law put I
my trust! But I speak not to men of reason—nor
plead I to my equals! Soldiers! I do command
you—`ground your arms!'—Down with those rebel
pikes! Now, let me see the slave that dares to
disobey me!”
From the moment in which I first spoke to them
there had been a dead silence—a breathless pause.
I was listened to with the deepest attention: and
now, though from the farthest crowd there did
arise a cry of—“Save him, despite himself!—Rescue
for Mornington!”—the pikes of the front ranks
were lowered, and the butts of a thousand arquebuses
rang heavily, as they were grounded at my
bidding.
“Now, men and soldiers,” I continued, “since,
as men and soldiers I may now address ye, will I
speak to your senses; now will I plead for you
with my friend the Maréchal D'Harcourt, that ye
may be restored, without disgrace or punishment,
to your old standing in his favour—pledging myself
and my own honour, that ye offend not in the
like again! For myself, at my own pleasure go
I to Paris, under honourable ward, to clear my
good name from the calumnies of a false traitor;
and here, before you all, I take the time to thank
our common leader, the noble Cômte D'Harcourt,
that he hath given me this prompt occasion to
prove my innocence! I doubt not, he will grant
the escort of a troop of mine own cavalry, to
assure mine and my lady's safety; and that, with
the same party, he will pledge his stainless word
to send in my accuser! I speak not this for my
own satisfaction—for, by St. George, I doubt not,
nor fear any thing—but to show you—men misguided
as ye are, and maddened—the terms on
which we stand—I and the Cômte D'Harcourt!”
The popular mind was touched—the proverbial
fickleness of mobs was proved once more! The
very men who, but a few short moments before,
were brandishing their thirsty weapons—thirsty for
the blood of their commander—now answered my
and hearty shout!
“Live! live! our noble leaders—live, Mornington
and D'Harcourt!”
The tumult was already at an end; and, making
a virtue of necessity, my obstinate old enemy, who
was nevertheless, despite his rankling hatred, more
moved by my forbearance than he would have
been willing to admit, offered me his hand, as I descended
from my elevated station, with some show
at least of cordiality; pledging himself, in the most
unreserved manner, to all which I had promised in
his behalf; thanking me for my noble conduct; and
expressing himself fully confident that my trial
must result in full and honourable acquittal!
Nothing further remained to be done: the mutineers
dispersed peaceably to their several quarters;
the heavy ordnance was restored to its proper
situation; the officers were released from their
temporary restraint; the night sentinels hurried to
their posts; and all around seemed eager, by their
alacrity and prompt obedience, to efface the remembrance
of their late misconduct.
As far as I was myself concerned, nothing could
have fallen out better; for, although I expected
much future inconvenience and annoyance, I could
not anticipate much of peril, from charges so absurdly
For the rest, I was assured, by my knowledge
of D'Harcourt's fears and policy, if not of his
probity, that his faith would be strictly preserved;
that I should be sent, in company with Isabel,
to Paris, where all disputes and doubts would be
brought to a speedy and just solution; and that
my enemy would be under the same restraint with
myself and so prevented from any further machinations
against my life, my happiness, or my honour.
For that night I was kept, indeed, under honourable
arrest in the quarters of the commander. I
was allowed to see my old servant, whom I had fixed
upon as one of my own escort, and, through him,
to communicate with Isabel; and, although by no
means free from care for the future, contrary I believe
to the common course of things, I slept calmly
and soundly till the morning's dawn.
With the break of day I was informed that the
detachment, consisting of an entire regiment of
D'Harcourt's German cavalry, was in readiness. I
was permitted to select the officers, and even privates,
of my own guard of honour; and, having
pledged my sacred word for myself and escort,
that I would not attempt either to escape or to
communicate with Isabel—for whom a horse-litter
had been provided—received my sword from the
of far more neatness than sincerity; and mounting
my good Bayard, rode forth as a prisoner from the
lines in which I had so lately commanded, accompanied
by my wife—nominally as a hostage for my
safe-conduct—and by the captive of my own sword,
and an attainted traitor to boot, as my accuser!
So much for popularity and power—so much for
the stability of mortal things!
| CHAPTER XXI. The brothers : | |