Two Penniless Princesses

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'Ah, Madame, our comforter and helper,' said Elleen.

'Call me no French names, dearies. Call me the Leddy Lindsay
or Dame Elspeth, as I should be at home. We be all Scots here,
in one sore stour. If I could win a word to my son, Ritchie,
he would soon have us out of this place.'

'Would not Barbe help us to a messenger?'

'I doubt it. She would scarce bring trouble on her lords; but
we might be worse off than with her.'

'Why does she not come? I want some more drink,' moaned Jean.
Barbe did come, and, moreover, brought not only water but some
tisane of herbs that was good for fever and had been brewing
all night, and she was wonderfully good-humoured at the
patient's fretful refusal, though between coaxing and authority
'Leddy Lindsay' managed to get it taken at last. After
Margaret's experience of her as a stern duenna, her tenderness
in illness and trouble was a real surprise.

No keys were turned on them, but there was little disposition
to go beyond the door which opened on the stone stair in the
gray wall. The view from the windows revealed that they were
very high up. There was a bit of castle wall to be seen below,
and beyond a sea of forest, the dark masses of pine throwing
out the lighter, more delicate sweeps of beech, and pale purple
distance beyond--not another building within view, giving a
sense of vast solitude to Eleanor's eyes, more dreary than the
sea at Dunbar, and far more changeless. An occasional bird was
all the variety to be hoped for.

By and by Barbe brought a message that her masters requested
the ladies' presence at the meal, a dinner, in fact, served
about an hour before noon. Eleanor greatly demurred, but Barbe
strongly advised consent, 'Or my young lord will be coming up
here,' she said; 'they both wish to have speech of you, and
would have been here before now, if my old lord were not so
lame, and the young one so shy, the poor child!'

'Shy,' exclaimed Eleanor, 'after what he has dared to do to
us!'

'All the more for that very reason,' said Barbe.

'True,' returned Madame; 'the savage who is most ferocious in
his acts is most bashful in his breeding.'

'How should my poor boy have had any breeding up here in the
forests?' demanded Barbe. 'Oh, if he had only fixed his mind
on a maiden of his own degree, she might have brought the good
days back; but alas, now he will be only bringing about his own
destruction, which the saints avert.'

It was agreed that Eleanor had better make as royal and
imposing an appearance as possible, so instead of the plain
camlet riding kirtles that she and Lady Lindsay had worn, she
donned a heraldic sort of garment, a tissue of white and gold
thread, with the red lion ramping on back and breast, and the
double tressure edging all the hems, part of the outfit
furnished at her great-uncle's expense in London, but too gaudy
for her taste, and she added to her already considerable height
by the tall, veiled headgear that had been despised as
unfashionable.

Jean from her bed cried out that she looked like Pharaoh's
daughter in the tapestry, and consented to be left to the care
of little Trudchen, since Madame de Ste. Petronelle must act
attendant, and Barbe evidently thought her young master's good
behaviour might be the better secured by her presence.

So, at the bottom of the narrow stone stair, Eleanor shook out
her plumes, the attendant lady arranged her veil over her
yellow hair, and drew out her short train and long hanging sleeves, a little behind the fashion, but the more dignified,
as she swept into the ball, and though her heart beat
desperately, holding her head stiff and high, and looking every
inch a princess, the shrewd Scotch lady behind her flattered
herself that the two Barons did look a little daunted by the
bearing of the creature they had caught.

The father, who had somewhat the look of an old fox, limped
forward with a less ungraceful bow than the son, who had more
of the wolf. Some greeting was mumbled, and the old man would
have taken her hand to lead her to the highest place at table,
but she would not give it.

'I am no willing guest of yours, sir,' she said, perhaps
alarmed at her own boldness, but drawing herself up with great
dignity. 'I desire to know by what right my sister and I,
king's daughters, on our way to King Charles's Court, have thus
been seized and detained?'

'We do not stickle as to rights here on the borders, Lady,'
said the elder Baron in bad French; 'it would be wiser to abate
a little of that outre-cuidance of yours, and listen to our
terms.'

'A captive has no choice save to listen,' returned Eleanor;
'but as to speaking of terms, my brothers-in-law, the Dauphin
and the Duke of Brittany, may have something to say to them.'

'Exactly so,' replied the old Baron, in a tone of some irony,
which she did not like. 'Now, Lady, our terms are these, but
understand first that all this affair is none of my seeking,
but my son here has been backed up in it by some whom'--on a
grunt from Sir Rudiger--'there is no need to name. He--the
more fool he--has taken a fancy to your sister, though, if all
reports be true, she has nought but her royal blood, not so
much as a denier for a dowry nor as ransom for either of you.
However, this I will overlook, dead loss as it is to me and
mine, and so your sister, so soon as she recovers from her
hurt, will become my son's wife, and I will have you and your
lady safely conducted without ransom to the borders of Normandy
or Brittany, as you may list.'

'And think you, sir,' returned Eleanor, quivering with
indignation, 'that the daughter of a hundred kings is like to
lower herself by listening to the suit of a petty robber baron
of the Marches?'

'I do not think! but I know that though I am a fool for giving
in to my son's madness, these are the only terms I propose; and
if you, Lady, so deal with her as to make her accept them, you
are free without ransom to go where you will.'

'You expect me to sell my sister,' said Eleanor disdainfully.

'Look you here,' broke in Rudiger, bursting out of his shyness.
'She is the fairest maiden, gentle or simple, I ever saw; I
love her with all my heart. If she be mine, I swear to make
her a thousand times more cared for than your sister the
Dauphiness; and if all be true your Scottish archers tell me,
you Scottish folk have no great cause to disdain an Elsass
forest castle.'

An awkward recollection, of the Black Knight of Lorn came
across Eleanor, but she did not lose her stately dignity.

'It is not the wealth or poverty that we heed,' she said, 'but
the nobility and princeliness.'

'There is nothing to be done then, son,' said the old Baron,
'but to wait a day or two and see whether the maiden herself
will be less proud and more reasonable. Otherwise, these
ladies understand that there will be close imprisonment and
diet according to the custom of the border till a thousand gold
crowns be paid down for each of these sisters of a Scotch king,
and five hundred for Madame here; and when that is like to be
found, the damoiselle herself may know,' and he laughed.

'We have those who will take care of our ransom,' said Eleanor,
though her heart misgave her. 'Moreover, Duke Sigismund will
visit such an offence dearly!' and there was a glow on her
cheeks.

'He knows better than to meddle with a vassal of Lorraine,'
said the old man.

'King Rene--' began Eleanor.

'He is too wary to meddle with a vassal of Elsass,' sneered the
Baron. 'No, no, Lady, ransom or wedding, there lies your
choice.'

With this there appeared to be a kind of truce, perhaps in
consequence of the appearance of a great pie; and Eleanor did
not refuse to sit down to the table and partake of the food,
though she did not choose to converse; whereas Madame de Ste.
Petronelle thought it wiser to be as agreeable as she could,
and this, in the opinion of the Court of the Dauphiness, was
not going very far.

Long before the Barons and their retainers had finished, little
Trudchen came hurrying down to say that the lady was crying and
calling for her sister, and Eleanor was by no means sorry to
hasten to her side, though only to receive a petulant scolding
for the desertion that had lasted so very long, according to
the sick girl's sensations.

Matters remained in abeyance while the illness continued; Jean
had a night of fever, and when that passed, under the
experienced management of Dame Elspie, as the sisters called
her more and more, she was very weak and sadly depressed.
Sometimes she wept and declared she should die in these dismal
walls, like her mother at Dunbar, and never see Jamie and Mary
again; sometimes she blamed Elleen for having put this mad
scheme into her head; sometimes she fretted for her cousins
Lilias and Annis of Glenuskie, and was sure it was all Elleen's
fault for having let themselves be separated from Sir Patrick;
while at others she declared the Drummonds faithless and
disloyal for having gone after their own affairs and left the
only true and leal heart to die for her; and then came fresh
floods of tears, though sometimes, as she passionately caressed
Skywing, she declared the hawk to be the only faithful creature
in existence.

Baron Rudiger was evidently very uneasy about her; Barbe
reported how gloomy and miserable he was, and how he relieved
his feelings by beating the unfortunate man who had been
leading the horse, and in a wiser manner by seeking fish in the
torrent and birds on the hills for her refreshment, and even
helping Trudchen to gather the mountain strawberries for her.
This was, however, so far from a recommendation to Jean, that
after the first Barbe gave it to be understood that all were
Trudchen's providing.

They suspected that Barbe nattered and soothed 'her boy,' as
she termed him, with hopes, but they owed much to the species
of authority with which she kept him from forcing himself upon
them. Eleanor sometimes tried to soothe her sister, and while
away the time with her harp. The Scotch songs were a great
delight to Dame Elspie, but they made Jean weep in her
weakness, and Elleen's great resource was King Rene's parting
gift of the tales of Huon de Bourdeaux, with its wonderful
chivalrous adventures, and the appearances of the dwarf Oberon;
and she greatly enjoyed the idea of the pleasure it would give
Jamie--if ever she should see Jamie again; and she wondered,
too, whether the Duke of the Tirol knew the story--which even
at some moments amused Jean.

There was a stair above their chamber, likewise in the
thickness of the wall, which Barbe told them they might safely
explore, and thence Eleanor discovered that the castle was one
of the small but regularly-built fortresses not uncommon on the
summit of hills. It was an octagon--as complete as the ground
would permit--with a huge wall and a tower at each angle. One
face, that on the most accessible side, was occupied by the
keep in which they were, with a watch-tower raising its finger
and banner above them, the little, squat, round towers around
not lifting their heads much above the battlements of the wall.
The descent on most of the sides was almost precipitous, on two
entirely so, while in the rear another steep hill rose so
abruptly that it seemed to frown over them though separated by
a ravine.

Nothing was to be seen all round but the tops of trees--dark
pines, beeches, and chestnuts in the gay, light green of
spring, a hopeless and oppressive waste of verdure, where
occasionally a hawk might be seen to soar, and whence the
howlings of wolves might be heard at night.

Jean was, in a week, so well that there was no cause for
deferring the interview any longer, and, indeed, she was
persuaded that Elleen had not been half resolute or severe
enough, and that she could soon show the two Barons that they
detained her at their peril. Still she looked white and thin,
and needed a scarf for her arm, when she caused herself to be
arrayed as splendidly as her sister had been, and descended to
the hall, where, like Eleanor, she took the initiative by an
appeal against the wrong and injustice that held two free-born
royal ladies captive.

'He who has the power may do as he wills, my pretty damsel,'
replied the old Baron. 'Once for all, as I told your sister,
these threats are of no avail, though they sound well to puff
up your little airs. Your own kingdom is a long way off, and
breeds more men than money; and as to our neighbours, they dare
not embroil themselves by meddling with us borderers. You had
better take what we offer, far better than aught your barbarous
northern lords could give, and then your sister will be free,
without ransom, to depart or to stay here till she finds
another bold baron of the Marches to take her to wife. Ha,
thou Rudiger! why dost stand staring like a wild pig in a pit?
Canst not speak a word for thyself?'

'She shall be my queen,' said Rudiger hoarsely, bumping himself
down on his knees, and trying to master her hand, but she drew
it away from him.

'As if I would be queen of a mere nest of robbers and
freebooters,' she said. 'You forget, Messires, that my sister
is daughter-in-law to the King of France. We must long ago
have been missed, and I expect every hour that my brother, the
Dauphin, will be here with his troops.'

'That's what you expect. So you do not know, my proud
demoiselle, that my son would scarce have been rash enough to
meddle with such lofty gear, for all his folly, if he had not
had a hint that maidens with royal blood but no royal portions
were not wanted at Court, and might be had for the picking up!'

'It is a brutal falsehood, or else a mere invention of the
traitor Hall's, our father's murderer!' said Jean, with
flashing eyes. 'I would have you to know, both of you, my
Lords, that were we betrayed and forsaken by every kinsman we
have, I will not degrade the blood royal of Scotland by mating
it with a rude and petty freebooter. You may keep us captives
as you will, but you will not break our spirit.'

So saying, Jean swept back to the stairs, turning a deaf ear to
the Baron's chuckle of applause and murmur, 'A gallant spirited
dame she will make thee, my junker, and hold out the castle
well against all foes, when once she is broken in.'

Jean and Eleanor alike disbelieved that Louis could have
encouraged this audacious attempt, but they were dismayed to
find that Madame de Ste. Petronelle thought it far from
improbable, for she believed him capable of almost any
underhand treachery. She did, however, believe that though
there might be some delay, a stir would be made, if only by her
own son, which would end in their situation being publicly
known, and final release coming, if Jean could only be patient
and resolute.

But to the poor girl it seemed as if the ground were cut from
under her feet; and as her spirits drooped more and more, there
were times when she said, 'Elleen, I must consent. I have been
the death of the one true heart that was mine! Why should I
hold out any longer, and make thee and Dame Elspie wear out
your days in this dismal forest hold? Never shall I be happy
again, so it matters not what becomes of me.'

'It matters to me,' said Elleen. 'Sister, thinkest thou I
could go away to be happy, leaving thee bound to this rude
savage in his donjon? Fie, Jean, this is not worthy of King
James's daughter; he spent all those years of patience in
captivity, and shall we lose heart in a few days?'

'Is it a few days? It is like years!'

'That is because thou hast been sick. See now, let us dance
and sing, so that the jailers may know we are not daunted. We
have been shut up ere now, God brought us out, and He will
again, and we need not pine.'

'Ah, then we were children, and had seen nothing better; and--
and there was not his blood on me!'

And Jean fell a-weeping.

CHAPTER 10

TENDER AND TRUE

'For I am now the Earlis son,
And not a banished, man.'--The Nut-Brown Maid.

'0 St. Andrew! St. Bride! Our Lady of Succour! St. Denys!--
all the lave of you, that may be nearest in this fremd land,--
come and aid him. It is the Master of Angus, ye ken--the hope
of his house. He'll build you churches, gie ye siller cups and
braw vestments gin ye'll bring him back. St. Andrew! St.
Rule! St. Ninian!--you ken a Scots tongue! Stay his blood,--
open his een,--come to help ane that ever loved you and did you
honour!'

So wailed Ringan of the Raefoot, holding his master's head on
his knees, and binding up as best he might an ugly thrust in
the side, and a blow which had crushed the steel cap into the
midst of the hair. When be saw his master fall and the ladies
captured, he had, with the better part of valour, rushed aside
and hid himself in the thicket of thorns and hazels, where,
being manifestly only a stray horseboy, no search was made for
him. He rightly concluded that, dead or alive, his master
might thus be better served than by vainly struggling over his
fallen body.

It seemed as though, in answer to his invocation, a tremor
began to pass through Douglas's frame, and as Ringan exclaimed,
'There! there!--he lives! Sir, sir! Blessings on the saints!
I was sure that a French reiver's lance could never be the end
of the Master,' George opened his eyes.

'What is it?' he said faintly. 'Where are the ladies?'

'Heed not the leddies the noo, sir, but let me bind your head.
That cap has crushed like an egg-shell, and has cut you worse
than the sword. Bide still, sir, I say, if ye mean to do any
gude another time!'

'The ladies--Ringan--'

'The loons rid aff wi' them, sir--up towards the hills yonder.
Nay! but if ye winna thole to let me bind your wound, how d'ye
think to win to their aid, or ever to see bonnie Scotland
again?'

George submitted to this reasoning; but, as his senses
returned, asked if all the troop had gone.

'Na, sir; the ane with that knight who was at the tourney--a
plague light on him--went aff with the leddies--up yonder; but
they, as they called the escort--the Archers of the Guard, as
they behoved to call themselves--they rid aff by the way that
we came by--the traitor loons!'

'Ah! it was black treachery. Follow the track of the ladies,
Ringan;--heed not me.'

'Mickle gude that wad do, sir, if I left you bleeding here!
Na, na; I maun see you safely bestowed first before I meet with
ony other. I'm the Douglas's man, no the Stewart's.'

'Then will I after them!' cried George of Angus, starting up;
but he staggered and had to catch at Ringan.

There was no water near; nothing to refresh or revive him had
been left. Ringan looked about in anxiety and distress on the
desolate scene--bare heath on one side, thicket, gradually
rising into forest and mountain, on the other. Suddenly he
gave a long whistle, and to his great joy there was a crackling
among the bushes and he beheld the shaggy-faced pony on which
he had ridden all the way from Yorkshire, and which had no
doubt eluded the robbers. There was a bundle at the saddle-
bow, and after a little coquetting the pony allowed itself to
be caught, and a leathern bottle was produced from the bag,
containing something exceedingly sour, but with an amount of
strength in it which did something towards reviving the Master.

'I can sit the pony,' he said; 'let us after them.'

'Nae sic fulery,' said Ringan. 'I ken better what sorts a
green wound like yours, sir! Sit the pony ye may, but to be
safely bestowed, ere I stir a foot after the leddies.'

George broke out into fierce language and angry commands, none
of which Ringan heeded in the least.

'Hist:' he cried, 'there's some one on the road. Come into
shelter, sir.'

He was half dragging, half supporting his master to the
concealment of the bushes, when he perceived that the new-
comers were two friars, cowled, black gowned, corded, and
barefooted.

'There will be help in them,' he muttered, placing his master
with his back against a tree; for the late contention had
produced such fresh exhaustion that it was plain the wounds
were more serious than he had thought at first.

The two friars, men with homely, weather-beaten, but simple
good faces, came up, startled at seeing a wounded man on the
way-side, and ready to proffer assistance.

Need like George Douglas's was of all languages, and besides,
Ringan had, among the exigencies of the journey, picked up
something by which he could make himself moderately well
understood. The brethren stooped over the wounded man and
examined his wounds. One of them produced some oil from a
flask in his wallet, and though poor George's own shirt was the
only linen available, they contrived to bandage both hurts far
more effectually than Ringan could.

They asked whether this was the effect of a quarrel or the work
of robbers.

'Routiers,' Ringan said. 'The ladies--we guarded them--they
carried them off--up there.'

'What ladies?--the Scottish princesses?' asked one of the
friars; for they had been at Nanci, and knew who had been
assembled there; besides that, the Scot was known enough all
over France for the nationality of Ringan and his master to
have been perceived at once.

George understood this, and answered vehemently, 'I must follow
them and save them!'

'In good time, with the saints' blessing,' replied Brother
Benigne soothingly, 'but healing must come first. We must have
you to our poor house yonder, where you will be well tended.'

George was lifted to the pony's back, and supported in the
saddle by Ringan and one of the brethren. He had been too much
dazed by the cut on the head to have any clear or consecutive
notion as to what they were doing with him, or what passed
round him; and Ringan did his best to explain the
circumstances, and thought it expedient to explain that his
master was 'Grand Seigneur' in his own country, and would amply
repay whatever was done for him; the which Brother Gerard gave
him to understand was of no consequence to the sons of St.
Francis. The brothers had no doubt that the outrage was
committed by the Balchenburg Baron, the ally of the ecorcheurs
and routiers, the terrors of the country, in his impregnable
castle. No doubt, they said, he meant to demand a heavy ransom
from the good King and Dauphin. For the honour of Scotland,
Ringan, though convinced that Hall had his share in the
treason, withheld that part of the story. To him, and still
more to his master, the journey seemed endless, though in
reality it was not more than two miles before they arrived at a
little oasis of wheat and orchards growing round a vine-clad
building of reddish stone, with a spire rising in the midst.

Here the porter opened the gate in welcome. The history was
volubly told, the brother-infirmarer was summoned, and the
Master of Angus was deposited in a much softer bed than the
good friars allowed themselves. There the infirmarer tended
him in broken feverish sleep all night, Ringan lying on a
pallet near, and starting up at every moan or murmur. But with
early dawn, when the brethren were about to sing prime, the lad
rose up, and between signs and words made them understand that
he must be released, pointing towards the mountains, and
comporting himself much like a dog who wanted to be let out.

Perceiving that he meant to follow the track of the ladies, the
friars not only opened the doors to him, but gave him a piece
of black barley bread, with which he shot off, like an arrow
from a bow, towards the place where the catastrophe had taken
place.

George Douglas's mind wandered a good deal from the blow on his
head, and it was not till two or three days had elapsed that he
was able clearly to understand what his follower had
discovered. Almost with the instinct of a Red Indian, Ringan
had made his way. At first, indeed, the bushes had been
sufficiently trampled for the track to be easy to find, but
after the beech-trees with no underwood had been reached, he
had often very slight indications to guide him. Where the halt
had taken place, however, by the brook-side, there were signs
of trampling, and even a few remnants of food; and after a long
climb higher, he had come on the marks of the fall of a horse,
and picked up a piece of a torn veil, which he recognised at
once as belonging to the Lady Joanna. He inferred a struggle.
What had they been doing to her?

Faithful Ringan had climbed on, and at length had come below
the castle. He had been far too cautious to show himself while
light lasted, but availing himself of the shelter of trees and
of the projections, he had pretty well reconnoitred the castle
as it stood on its steep slopes of turf, on the rounded summit
of the hill, only scarped away on one side, whence probably the
materials had been taken.

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