Gods! you may guess how I did glare at him over the sculptured rim of that great beaker, the while the red wine stood stagnant at my lips—and then how my breath did halt and flag as presently he turned slow and calm upon me, and there—a foot apart—the living and the dead were face to face, and front to front! I scarce durst breathe as he took the heavy pledge-cup from my hand—would he know me? would he leap from his seat with a yell of fear and wonder, and there, from some distant vantage-point among the shadowy pillars, with trembling finger impeach me to that startled table? Hoth! I saw in my mind’s eye those superstitious warriors tumbling from their places, the while I alone sat gloomy and remorseful at the littered tressels, and huddling and crowding to the shadows—as they would not for a thousand Frenchmen—while that brave boy with chattering teeth and white fingers clutched upon the kingly arm did, incoherent, tell my tale, and with husky whisper say how ’twas no soldier of flesh and blood who sat there alone at the long white table, under the taper lights, self-damned by his solitude! I waited to see all this, and then that soldier, nothing wotting, glanced heedlessly over me—he wiped his lips with his napkin, and took a long draught of the wine within the cup. Then smiling as he handed it on, and turning lightly round as he laughed, “A very good tankard, indeed, Sir Stranger—such a one as is some solace for eight hours in a Flemish saddle! But there was just a little too much nutmeg in the brew this time—didst thou not think so?”
I murmured some faint agreement, and sat back into my place, watching the great beaker circle round the table, while my thoughts idly hovered upon what might have chanced had I been known, and how I might have vantaged or lost by recognition. Well! the chance had passed, and I would not take it back. And yet, surely fate was sporting with me! The cup had scarcely made the circle and been drained to the last few drops among the novices at the farther end, when I was again in that very same peril!
“You are new from England, Lord Worringham,” the young Earl said across me to a knight upon my other hand: “is there late news of interest to tell us?”
“Hardly one sentence. All the news we had was stale reports of what you here have done. Men’s minds and eyes have been all upon you, and each homeward courier has been rifled of his budget at every port and village on his way by a hundred hungry speculators, as sharply as though he were a rich wanderer beset by footpads on a lonely heath. The common people are wild to hear of a great victory, and will think of nothing else. There is not one other voice in England—saving, perhaps, that some sleek city merchants do complain of new assessments, and certain reverend abbots, ’tis said, of the havoc you have played with this year’s vintage.”
“Yes,” answered the Earl with a laugh, “one can well believe that last. Sanctity, I have had late cause to know, is thirsty work. Why, the very Abbot of St. Olaf’s himself, usually esteemed a right reverend prelate, did charge me at my last confessional to send him hence some vats of malmsey! No doubt he shrewdly foresaw this dearth that we are making.”
“What!” exclaimed the other Knight, staring across me. “Hast thou actually confessed to that bulky saint? Mon Dieu! but you are in luck! Why, Lord Earl, thou hast disburdened thyself to the wonder of the age—to the most favored son of Mother Church—the associate of beatified beings—and the particularly selected of the Apostles! Dost not know the wonder that has happened to St. Olaf’s?”
“Not a whit. It was ordinary and peaceful when I was there a few weeks back.”
“Then, by my spurs, there is some news for you! You remember that wondrous thing they had, that sleeping image that men swore was an actual living man, and the holy brothers, who, no doubt, were right, declared was a blessed saint that died three hundred years ago? You too must know him, Sir,” he said, turning to me, and looking me full in the face: “you must know him, if you ever were at St. Olaf’s.”
“Yes,” I answered, calmly returning his gaze. “I have been at St. Olaf’s at one time or another, and I doubt if any man living knows that form you speak of better than I do myself.”
“And I,” put in the devout young Earl, “know him too. A holy and very wondrous body! Surely God’s beneficence still shields him in his sleep?”