CHAPTER X.
"Yes, sir, yes," said the King of England lolling upon his left leg, and sticking out his right hip, as if he had dislocated the joint, at the same time thrusting one hand into the wide open pocket of his black velvet hose, "yes, sir, ye had better gang your way back. As ye've staid awa sae lang, I think ye may stay awa a while mair. We'll just conseeder o' the matter--haud your tongue, Steenie, nane o' yer clavers; I've said the word!"
The Duke of Buckingham, who had stepped forward, as if to speak, drew back again with a very significant and uncourtier like look of disgust and impatience; but Buckingham by this time rested the ladder of ambition rather upon the favour of the Prince than of the King, and feared not every now and then to express his dissent somewhat boldly from the Monarch's views.
James's words were addressed to Algernon, Earl of Hillingdon, who stood before him in the midst of a circle of courtiers and flatterers somewhat surprised at the cold, careless, determined manner of the young peer.
The Monarch ended his sentence; but then, seeing that the young lord did not withdraw, he added somewhat sharply: "God's life, man! you shall know our pleasure when it is time."
"I hope your Majesty's pleasure may be to do me justice," answered Algernon Grey; "but, by your gracious permission, I must add a few words before I go. Famous lawyers, bearing high offices in your royal court, have pronounced this marriage null by reason of the age of the contracting parties. Ecclesiastical judges, appointed by yourself, have come to the same conclusion. Your Majesty hesitates, from some scruples, to suffer the sentence to be pronounced; but let me add, that I must by some means soon learn whether this contract, entered into in my infancy, is a marriage or not. If not, I have nought to say; for all parties are free. But if the law pronounces it a marriage, I must, without loss of time, move my peers for a divorce, on account of the lady's adultery with a person high in your royal favour."
"Hout, tout!" cried the King, with his sallow face flushing, and his thick lips quivering, while his large tongue rolled round and round in his mouth, as if he had a plum, or some other extraneous substance therein; "By God! you shall have neither one, nor the other. What! are we not oursels the supreme head both of the church and the law, God's vicegerent in this puir kingdom of England! Awa wi' ye, sir; and let me hear nae mair. Tak the man awa;" and with a blasphemous oath he added: "ye'll drive me daft."
Prince Charles advanced to his father's side and tried to calm him; while the Duke of Buckingham took the Earl's arm and led him gently from the King's presence.
"Go, Hillingdon, go," he said; "and do not enrage him more. We will do the best for you.--You have said too much already, my lord."
"Not more than was needful to say, Duke," replied Algernon Grey, somewhat sharply; but then, feeling that irritation had made him ungracious towards a man who had exerted himself strenuously in his behalf, he took Buckingham's hand, adding, "Pardon me, your Grace, I thank you a thousand times for all that you have done; but it moves me, I do confess, to see a pitiful, unworthy, ungentlemanly upstart, like this Lord Marston, have power to pervert the course of justice and impede the operation of the law. This is a bitter disappointment to me altogether; and your Grace must pardon something in a man so circumstanced."
"I do, I do," answered Buckingham; "and I counsel you but for your own advantage. Leave the kingdom as soon as may be, and trust to me and his Royal Highness." He paused an instant; and then, laying his hand on Algernon's arm, he added, with a proud and significant air, "This man is my enemy, as well as yours! Is not that sufficient?"
"Methinks, it ought to be," said Algernon Grey; "but in this strange world, where merit and unworthiness, wisdom and folly, seem alternately to succeed, as if upon the chances of the dice, one may be permitted always to doubt what will come next. However, I will follow your Grace's advice; and, repeating my thanks, withdraw."
"The sooner the better," replied Buckingham; "for the Tower is near at hand; and your best friends might find it difficult to keep you out, if the King be wilful; or to get you out, if once in."
Thus saying, he turned away; and Algernon Grey retired from the palace, and proceeded to his house on the bank of the river, in what is, and was then called, the Strand.
"Pack up everything for instant departure, Tony," he said, speaking to his old servant, who opened the door of his bed-room for him. "Let the barge be ready in half an hour, and call a wherry up to the stairs at the end of the garden. See that all the men be warned that they will have to embark to-night on board the 'Mary Anne,' for Rotterdam."
The good man looked in his lord's face, and for a moment was inclined to ask,--"Has all been settled to your satisfaction?" but the expression of Algernon's countenance was answer sufficient; and, without a word, he retired to make the arrangements required. It is strange the influence of the character of a master upon servants and dependants. There be some men, who, without any effort to conciliate or win regard, seem to command it; and their joys or sorrows diffuse themselves around, as it were in eddies, to the utmost limit of those who know them. A few words from the old servant, as he communicated his lord's commands to the rest of the household, spread gloom over the whole; and the attendants went about their preparations with a sad and sorrowful air, as if each had received some personal disappointment.
At the end of half an hour, Algernon Grey issued forth from his chamber with several written papers in his hand. They were merely orders, which he was more inclined to write than to speak. The greater part of his attendants were to accompany him to Germany; but were to wait where they were an hour or two for the return of his barge, which was now ready to convey him, with six or seven whom he had selected, to a vessel about to sail for the mouth of the Rhine. The rest were to remain in London till they heard farther. Some stores of arms, not yet ready, were to be sent after him to Germany in another vessel. Especial care was ordered to be taken of his tenantry, and of two or three old pensioners of the family; and, according to a laudable custom of that time, which the law of Elizabeth had not altogether abrogated, a certain sum was to be distributed in weekly alms to any deserving poor.
Several of his principal servants delayed his departure for a short time by asking directions in various matters which he had not remembered; but ere an hour and a half had passed, after he had quitted the palace, he was floating on the broad bosom of the Thames; and, in about half an hour more, had embarked for Rotterdam. His followers showed zealous punctuality in joining him without delay. Baggage and arms were embarked safely; and, with the first tide that night the ship dropped down the river. The passage could hardly be called fair, for it blew a gale from river-mouth to river-mouth; but the wind was favourable, and speed was all he cared for.
Often he asked himself, however, why he should so eagerly press forward; what but pain and grief lay before him; what he had to communicate to her he best loved, but doubt, uncertainty, and disappointment; and yet the thought of seeing her again, of holding her hand in his--of gazing into those beautiful and speaking eyes--of reading there love, and hope, and confidence--of gaining new trust for the future from her very look, drew him onward, and formed at least one bright spot in the future, which all the cares and sorrows that surrounded him had no power to cloud. Then, again, at times, he would revolve all that had taken place in England since he had again visited his native land; and he would ask himself, with doubt, whether all had been fair in the conduct of those who professed themselves his friends, and pretended to support his cause. Whether Buckingham was sincere,--whether Prince Charles himself had not been deceiving him? and then he would accuse himself of mean suspicions, and try to cast them from his mind. There was one point, indeed, on which the more he thought, the more he doubted. Had the Lady Catherine's family, though affecting to urge the nullification of the marriage, really exerted themselves to the utmost? They were powerful; in high favour at court, and he could not but remember that the contract between the lady and himself, while both were mere children, had been first proposed by the very uncle with whom she now lived,--a man not very pure in morals, and ambitious in character. Ere he reached the shores of Holland, he resolved to take one step more, to write to the Lady Catherine herself, and, telling her he had done all he could to set her free from an engagement she detested, leave her to move her own relations to exert themselves more strenuously than before. He would trust the letter, he thought, to his old servant and the page,--the one having many friends in the household to which he was sent, from whom he was sure to learn much of the past; the other being of a character almost too remarking, who would form a very sure notion of the disposition of all parties at present. He gave them no orders, indeed, to inquire or to observe, but simply sent them back to England with the letter, as soon as his foot touched the shore, desiring them to obtain an answer, and hasten to join him at Heidelberg.
The voyage up the Rhine, in those days, was slow and difficult; but for some way the strife which was then actually going on in the Low Countries, deterred him from landing; and it was only when he reached the first state of the Protestant Union that he disembarked with his followers, and took his way forward on horseback. Many difficulties and impediments delayed him on the road; and rumours continually reached him of the movements of contending armies in the Palatinate, some true, and many false. He gathered, however, from all accounts, that the temporary prosperity which had visited the arms of the King of Bohemia had by this time passed away; that Mansfeld had retreated into Alsace; that the Prince of Orange had been recalled to Holland; that greater discord than ever reigned among the united princes, and that Horace Vere and his troops, nearly confined to the town of Mannheim and its immediate neighbourhood, could effect little or nothing, against a superior force led by one of the first generals of the age. Tilly, with the united Bavarian, Austrian, and Spanish armies, ranged and ravaged the Palatinate without check. Frankenthal, indeed, resisted still; but there was no power in the open field to protect the villages from oppression, or to maintain the smaller towns against the invader. Every report he received was more or less gloomy; and by some it was stated that Heidelberg itself was menaced, while others represented that the city was already invested.
All these accounts but served to make the young Englishman press more eagerly forward. The men, as well as their horses, were wearied with the rapid advance; but they did not complain, for they all comprehended the feelings in their lord's bosom; and there was sufficient of chivalry, even in the lower classes of that day, to make them think it would be hard that he should be kept from the lady whom he loved, simply because they were tired. Thus, on the ninth day after they had reached Rotterdam, they entered the dominions of the Elector Palatine; and, after a weary march through the plains of the Rhine, with no intelligence but vague rumours amongst the peasantry, they reached, towards nightfall, a large village about eight miles from Mannheim, and somewhat more from Heidelberg. During the last day's journey, sad traces of the ravages of war had been apparent at every step. Villages burnt, houses and churches in ruins, and here and there a dead body lying unburied within a few yards of the road, had marked the devastating course; but the village that they now approached seemed to have escaped better than most of those they had met with; and a barricade drawn across the end of the little street showed that it had been prepared for defence by one or other of the contending parties. A number of the peasantry, armed with heavy arquebuses, presented themselves to the eyes of Algernon Grey just within the barricade; and a loud call to halt and keep off was almost instantly followed by two or three unceremonious shots, which, luckily, did not take effect. Bidding his men retire a little, the young Englishman rode on alone, and was suffered to approach the barrier; but, though he spoke to the peasants in German, begging shelter and repose for at least a few hours, his foreign accent created suspicion; and, with a sagacious shake of the head, the leader of the peasantry told him that they knew better.
"Well, my brave man," answered Algernon Grey, "you seem to be frightened by a very small number; I have not thirty men with me in all; and, if I were an enemy, it would be much more dangerous for me to trust myself within your place than for you to let me in; however, if I must ride on to Heidelberg with weary men and horses, it cannot be helped; but you are not serving your Prince, I can tell you; for I am one of the King's officers, and was with him in Prague."
"Heidelberg!" said the peasant; "I doubt that you will get in. Whom do you want in Heidelberg?"
"Either Colonel Herbert or the Baron of Oberntraut," answered the young Englishman.
"The Baron of Oberntraut!" said the good man, eyeing the other from head to foot; "you may find him without going to Heidelberg--perhaps sooner than you like, if you be what I think."
"Whatever you may think," answered Algernon Grey, "I cannot find him sooner than I should like."
"Well, then, I will send for some one to show you where he is," replied the peasant. "It is not far; and he has two hundred good Reiters with him." Thus saying, he turned to the people who surrounded him, and whispered a word or two to a light, active lad. The latter instantly laid down his arquebuse, and ran full speed up the village.
"The Baron is in the place, my good friend," said Algernon Grey at once. "I understand it all; so you can have no objection to open your barrier and let me in alone to speak with him."
But the worthy peasant was a very cautious man; and he would not venture even upon so safe a step till, in about five minutes, Oberntraut himself was seen coming down the street on foot; the next moment Algernon's hand was grasped in his. The men were brought into the village and obtained some scanty refreshment; and in the mean time, while night fell rapidly, the two gentlemen walked up and down before the church in eager conversation. Algernon Grey now learned that Tilly, reinforced by a large detachment from the army of the Archduke, had been for the last three days drawing nearer and nearer to Heidelberg, evidently with the intention of besieging that city.
"He has not men enough to invest it entirely," said Oberntraut; "but, alas! there are too few in the place to defend it long against the force he has."
"Then I will go on to-night," answered Algernon Grey; "under such circumstances every arm is something."
"Your men may indeed give assistance," said the young Baron; "mine are only accustomed to the open field and their horses' backs; therefore they can be of more service without than within. I will give you escort, however, as far as Neunheim; for the way is not without danger."
"Where does Tilly lie?" asked Algernon Grey. "It would take a large force to close all communication with the town."
"The last news showed all his foot at Rohrbach," answered Oberntraut, "and his horse scattered about by Wiesloch, Russloch, and Wieblingen. There are few parties, if any, on this side of the Neckar; but they cross from time to time, especially at night; so that it will be better that I and my people should go with you. We may, perhaps, gain some advantage by the way."
In the latter expectation, however, Oberntraut was disappointed. The whole forces of the Bavarian general remained on the other side of the Neckar; and Algernon and Oberntraut, with their several forces, reached Neunheim without seeing any human beings, except a few of the unfortunate peasantry, who fled across the fields as soon as they heard the sound of horses' feet.
Furnished with the pass-word, Algernon Grey presented himself at the gates of the bridge, and was immediately recognised by the officer on guard, who had seen him before at Prague. The news spread amongst the soldiery of a reinforcement having come to the aid of the garrison; the word passed from mouth to mouth over the bridge and into the city. Some of the boys and the students, who were loitering about, took it up; a little crowd collected, gathering as it went, and accompanied the English party with loud cheers to the gates of the castle.
The sounds reached Agnes Herbert, as she sat sad and lonely in her own chamber; and, with the presentiment of love, a glow spread over her cheek; a thrill passed through her whole frame; and, leaning her head upon her hand, she wept under the struggle of hope and fear. Some time passed by, however; and every thing remained quiet and sad; for Algernon Grey had been, in the first instance, led to the apartments of the governor Merven, which lay in a distant part of the castle. Hope gave way to apprehension: "I have deceived myself," she thought; "it is not he! The place will be invested; and he will not be able to force his way in;" but at the end of half an hour, there were rapid steps heard coming along the corridor. She knew her father's foot; but there was another, too, the tread of which was hardly less familiar to her ear. Joy overpowered her more than sorrow had ever done. She could not rise--she could not move from her chair; but, with her eyes raised, her hands clasped, her bosom heaving with the quick, short breath of expectation, she gazed towards the door. The next moment there was a light knock; she had hardly strength to say, "Come in;" but, whether he heard the words or not, Herbert threw it open and drew back to let her lover pass in first.
What a painful thing is the struggle between the natural feelings of the heart and the conventional modes of life! Had Agnes given way to what she felt, she would have sprung to Algernon's arms and poured forth her love upon his bosom; but she dared not; and, rising with timid grace, her cheek flushed with emotion, and eyes in which the tears would scarcely be restrained, she glided forward, with her fair hand extended.
He took it and pressed his hands upon it warmly, tenderly, eagerly; but she remarked at once that there was a melancholy shade upon his brow, a look of sadness in his eyes. What could it mean? she asked herself. A letter, received ten days before, breathed nothing but hope and joyful expectation; it had told of difficulties overcome, of all obstacles removed, of a clear course towards love, and union, and happiness. Whence could that sadness proceed, then? It must arise from the dangerous position of the town; from the thoughts of the approaching siege; from a knowledge of the weakness of the garrison; from the apprehension of danger to those he loved; from any thing--any thing, Agnes was willing to believe, but new obstacles, fresh barriers having risen up between him and her. Every thing but that was light to her. Perils she feared not; privations she was ready to endure; but upon the thought of disappointed love she dared not suffer her mind to rest even for a moment.
No time, however, was given for explanation; for, after a very few words had been spoken, Herbert took her lover's arm, saying, "There, my dear child, I was resolved that you should see our friend safe and well; but now I must go to visit the new redoubt I am throwing up behind the Alte Schloss; for it must be carried on night and day; and he has promised to go with me."
Thus saying, he turned to the door; but Algernon Grey lingered yet for a moment, saying, in a low voice, "I must find a moment to speak with you alone to-morrow, dearest Agnes. Matters do not proceed so quickly as I could wish, but all will go well, I trust."
The door closed upon them, and Agnes Herbert sank into her seat again, and sadly covered her eyes with her hand. Oh, how often in life is the long looked-for moment of joy alloyed by bitter disappointment!