CHAPTER XXVI.
Had he been chief warder of a beleaguered fort, Lord Fulmer could not have examined every gate and sally port of the castle more carefully than he did, when he descended from the walls. The figure which he had beheld had evidently seemed to come from the castle; but how it had issued forth he could not divine. Every postern was barred, bolted, and chained; and the porter, and the porter's men were all snoring in their dens, of which he had ocular proof before he retired. The fat old porter, whom he had roused and informed of what he had seen, treated the matter lightly, saying, half sleeping, half waking, it was impossible: it must have been the moonlight on the bank, or a white thorn coming into flower. But, when Fulmer reminded him that the month of May was still far off, and told him he had seen the figure move for some distance, he quietly replied--
"Then it must have been a spirit. There are plenty hereabout;" and, lying down on his pallet again, he was asleep before the young nobleman had quited the lodge.
Fulmer almost felt inclined to believe that the porter's last supposition was correct, and that the music he had heard was a strain of unearthly melody. Perhaps there have been few ages in the world's history more grossly superstitious than those which immediately preceded the reformation. The process of darkening the human mind, by which alone the errors of the church of Rome can be maintained, had been going on for so many centuries, that it had almost reached completeness; and the art of printing, the precursor of Luther, had not yet fulfilled its mission; and though here and there a few great minds were to be found which shook off the garment of superstition with which the papal church had liveried the world--though Wicliffe and John Huss had given the first terrible blow to Rome, yet her partizans laboured but the more strenuously to retain for her the shadowy empire she had created. At this very time new saints were made, and their days appointed to be honoured; and the festivals of old saints were, in many instances, ordered to receive double celebration. In England, especially, every false, abominable, and idolatrous dogma was more sternly and clearly defined, in order to prevent the escape of the Wicliffites through any ambiguity of language. It was solemnly declared that not one particle of the sacramental bread remained bread after consecration, that every drop of the cup was blood. Pilgrimages, the worship of saints, the adoration of the cross and of relics, were enjoined under the penalty of fire; and everything that could lead or tend to superstition was encouraged and upheld. Taught to believe so much of the supernatural within the church, it is not wonderful that the great mass of the people, high and low, should believe in much of the supernatural beyond the church, and that the priest should encourage them in so doing.
Nevertheless, Lord Fulmer was by no means one of the most superstitious of his class. To doubt the occasional apparition of spirits, or even devils, he would not have ventured; but to believe that he had seen one was very different; and, not knowing what to think, or what solution to give to the mystery, he retired to his chamber, and lay down to rest. Sleep did not visit his eyes for some hours; but still he rose early, roused his attendants in the antechamber, and dressed for the day. He then gazed forth from the window for a moment or two; but, as something passed before his eyes, he turned round with a sudden start, and a flushed cheek, and went out.
He passed quickly, through the courts, towards the walls; but, at the foot of the steps, he paused and thought, for a moment or two, and then mounted to the battlements with a slower step and more tranquil air.
About fifty yards in advance was Chartley, the man he sought, walking tranquilly towards him, with his arms folded on his chest, and his eyes bent down in meditation. They were now alone together on the walls; and Fulmer thought that there could be no better time for saying what he proposed to say than that moment. His mood, however, had varied from that of the night before; and, at first, he addressed Lord Chartley courteously enough.
"Good morning, my lord," he said "Summer is coming on us with a swallow's wing;" and he turned to walk back with his companion.
"It is indeed very warm," answered Chartley, mildly; "and the air here seems temperate and fine."
There the conversation halted for a moment, for Lord Fulmer made no answer, and walked on in silence, till they had nearly reached the angle of the wall. There was a struggle going on within--a struggle for calmness; for he felt agitation growing upon him.
At length, however, he said--
"I find, my lord, that you are well acquainted with the Lady Iola St. Leger, and that you rendered her some service a little time ago."
"Service of no great importance," replied Chantey; "and which any gentleman would render to any lady."
"You are, I suppose, aware that she is contracted to me as my future wife," said Lord Fulmer, turning his eyes full upon Chartley's face.
"I was not aware of it at the time," answered Chartley, holding his head very high. "I am now."
"That near connexion," continued Fulmer, "not only gives me a right, but requires me, my good lord, to inquire into the nature of the service that you rendered her, that I may"--he added with a sort of sarcastic smile, "that I may proportion my thanks to its degree."
"I require no thanks," answered Chartley, coldly. "Of what is required of you, my lord, I am no judge. Your right to make the inquiry, I am not called upon to consider; and the lady herself will doubtless give you what information she thinks fit upon the subject."
Fulmer strove to put down the wrath which was rising up in his bosom; but yet there was a great degree of sharpness in his tone as he replied--
"My right to make the inquiry, my good lord, you are called upon to consider; for I make that inquiry of you."
"Then I refuse to answer it," replied Chartley. "If a gentleman have rendered a lady service in any way, it is not his business to speak of it. She may do so, if she thinks proper but his part is different."
"Then, my lord," replied Fulmer, "if you give me not account in one way, you must in another;" and he set his teeth hard, as if to keep down the more violent words which were ready to spring to his lips.
Chartley laughed.
"On my life," he said, "this is the strangest sort of gratitude which it has been my lot to meet with in this wonderful world! Here is a man comes to give me thanks, and then calls me to a rude account, because I will not tell him why! What is the meaning of all this, my lord? Your strange conduct certainly requires explanation--far more than any part of mine, which has always been very open and simple."
"Oh, if you think it requires explanation," exclaimed Lord Fulmer, readily, "I am quite ready to yield it, after the fashion that I hinted."
"Is that a worthy answer, Lord Fulmer?" demanded Chartley. "You seem determined to find cause of quarrel with me, and can meet with no more reasonable pretext than that I once did some slight service to a lady affianced to you."
"Exactly so," replied Lord Fulmer, dryly.
"Well, then," cried Chartley, tossing back his head, "I answer, I will not quarrel with you on such ground. Charge me fairly--accuse me of any wrong that I have done you, or any mortal man, or woman either, and I will either clear myself or make reparation with my person at the sword's point; but I will not bring a lady's name in question, by quarrelling with any man on such a plea as this you bring. If you have aught to say against me, say it boldly."
"Have you not already brought her name in question, by passing one whole night with her in the woods of Atherston?" demanded Fulmer, sternly. "Have you not made it a matter of light talk with lighter tongues--"
"Stay, stay!" exclaimed Chartley, "I do not rightly understand you. Do you mean to say that I ever have lightly used that lady's name--that I have ever made it the subject of my conversation at all?"
"No," answered Fulmer, gravely. "That I cannot say; but I aver that you have given occasion for its being talked of by others, in remaining with her one whole night, as I have said, in the woods of Atherston."
Chartley laughed again.
"He would have had me leave her to her fate, in the midst of the wood!" he exclaimed; "or else have had her fall into the hands of Catesby's rude soldiery, or the ruffian mercenaries of Sir John Godscroft, who were, even at the moment I met her, daintily engaged in burning down the buildings on the abbey green! By St. Peter, the man seems to have a rare notion of courtesy towards a lady! Let me tell you, Lord Fulmer, that had I left her, she must have encountered those who would have treated her somewhat more roughly than I did. Stay, stay, a moment. I have not yet done. You say that I have given occasion for people to talk lightly of her. Give me the name of one who has dared, even by a word, to couple her name to mine in aught that is not pure--ay, even in a jest--and I will make him eat his words or send him to the devil a day before his time."
Fulmer gazed down upon the ground in moody silence. "There may be words," he said at length, "which, separate from the tone and manner, imply but little, but which, eked out with nods and smiles and twinklings of the eye, would go far to blast the fairest reputation. In a word, Lord Chartley, I will not have it said, that the woman I make my wife has passed the whole night alone, in a wild wood, with any living man."
"Then do not make her your wife," answered Chartley. "That is easily settled."
"There is another way of settling it," replied Lord Fulmer, bitterly, "by cutting the throat of him who has done so with her."
"So, so, are you there?" answered Chartley, now made angry, in spite of himself.
"If such be the case, my lord, I will not baulk you. I might refuse your appeal, as a prisoner in ward. I might refuse it, as having no reasonable grounds; but I will not do so; and satisfaction you shall have of the kind you demand; for no earthly man shall say I feared him. But this, my good lord, is not without a condition. It shall be fully and entirely known, how and why you have forced me to this--what is the quarrel you have fixed upon me--and why I have consented. All this shall be clearly stated and proclaimed, for my own character's sake. This I have a right to demand."
"But the lady's fair name!" exclaimed Fulmer, alarmed at the condition.
"Who is it that blackens it?" demanded Chartley, fiercely. "Not I, but you, Lord Fulmer. I proclaim her pure, and good, and true, to you, to me, and all men; and you, if any one, shall stand forth as her calumniator, in forcing this unjust quarrel upon me. I cast the responsibility upon you; and now I leave you."
"Stay, sir, stay," exclaimed Fulmer, driven almost to fury. "You have called me calumniator; and you shall answer for that word, or I will brand you as a coward in every court of Europe."
"Methinks you would get but few to believe you," replied Chartley, proudly; "but let me tell you, if you dare venture to use that term to me, before any competent witnesses, I will punish you on the spot as you deserve. You think, my lord, by taking me here in private, to gratify your malice while you conceal your own weakness, and to leave, perhaps, the blame upon me; but you are mistaken, if you think you have to do with a feeble-minded and passionate boy like yourself."
Fulmer lost all command over himself; and drawing his sword at once, though close before the castle windows, he exclaimed, "Draw! I will bear no more."
But Chartley was comparatively cool, while his adversary was blind with passion; and, springing upon him with a bound, he put aside the raised point with his hand, and wrenched the sword from his grasp, receiving a slight wound in doing so. Then, holding his adversary in a firm grasp, he cast the weapon from him over the castle wall.
"For shame," he said, after a moment's pause, "for shame, Lord Fulmer Go back, sir, to the castle; and, if you have those honourable feelings, those somewhat fantastic and imaginative notions, which I have heard attributed to you, think over your own conduct this morning--ay, think over the doubts and suspicions, unjust, and base, and false as they are, in which such conduct has arisen, and feel shame for both. I am not apt to be a vain man; but when I scan my own behaviour in the events which have given rise to all this rancour on your part, and compare it with your conduct now, I feel there is an immeasurable distance between us; and I regret, for that sweet lady's sake, that she is bound by such ties to such a man."
"You have the advantage, my lord, you have the advantage," repeated Fulmer, doggedly. "The time may come when it will be on my part."
"I think not," answered Chartley, with one of his light laughs; "for we are told God defends the right, and I will never do you wrong."
Thus saying, he turned upon his heel, descended the steps, and walked back into the castle.
Fulmer followed with a slow and sullen step, his eyes bent down upon the ground, and his lips, from time to time, moving. He felt all that had occurred the more bitterly, as he was conscious that it was his own fault. He might feel angry with Chartley; his pride might be bitterly mortified; he might have every inclination to cast the blame upon others; but there was one fact he could not get over, one truth, which, at the very first, carried self-censure home. He had violated all his own resolutions; he had given way to passion, when he had resolved to be calm and cool; and this conviction, perhaps, led him some steps on the path of regret for his whole conduct. At all events, passing through his ante-room without speaking to any of his servants, he entered his own chamber, and cast himself down upon a seat, to scrutinize the acts he had committed.