[THE FLIGHT.]
A month had passed, and Richard of Woodville sat alone in his solitary chamber, on a dark and stormy night, towards the end of September, reading by the glimmering lamp-light, a book which had been procured for him in the town by his page. The rain blew, the wind whistled, the small panes of glass in the casement rattled and shook, and the howling of the breeze, as it swept round the old tower, seemed full of melancholy thoughts. His own imaginations were heavy and desponding enough--and he eagerly strove to withdraw his attention, both from the voice of the storm without, and from the dark images that rose up in his own heart. But he could not govern his mind as he desired; and still from the pages of the book, he would lift his eyes, and gazing into vacancy revolve every point in his fate, gaining, alas! nothing but fresh matter for sad reflection. He had seen no more of the Count de Vaudemont, the Duke of Orleans, or the Count of Armagnac, and had learned that they had quitted Montl'herry early on the day following that during which he had received their visit. He little heeded their departure, indeed, or desired to see them; for he felt convinced that their only object had been to make a tool of him for secret purposes of their own; and that, disappointed therein, they were in no degree disposed to show him favour, or even to listen to just remonstrance.
What grieved and depressed him more, was the unaccountable disappearance of the young clerk who had brought him the letters from Sir John Grey, but who had been no more seen by the page, after the arrival of the Count de Vaudemont in the town. The boy inquired at the widow's where the clerk had lodged, and was told he had left the place: and no farther trace could be discovered of the course he had pursued, or whither he had turned his steps. The distracted state of the country, indeed, the young knight thought, might have scared the novice away; for the page brought him daily reports of strange events taking place around, of factions, strife, and bloodshed, in almost every province of France, and of rumours that daily grew in strength and consistency, of foreign wars being speedily added to the miseries of the land. Large bodies of armed men passed through the town at different times; the garrison of the castle was diminished to swell the forces preparing for some unexplained enterprise; and the Châtelain himself was called to lead them to the field.
But a stricter guard was kept upon the prisoner than ever. Of the scanty band that remained in the castle, one always remained in arms at his door; and another was stationed at the foot of the stairs. Night and day he was closely watched; and the page himself was not permitted to go in and out, except at certain hours. All chance of escape seemed removed; and bitterly did Richard of Woodville ponder upon the prospect of long captivity, at the very time when, under other circumstances, opportunity must have occurred for the exertion of all those energies by which he had fondly hoped to win glory, station, and renown.
He struggled hard against such thoughts, and all the bitterness they brought with them; and, after indulging them for a few minutes, turned ever to the page of the book he was reading, and laboured through the crabbed lines of the ill-written manuscript; finding perhaps as much interest in making out the words as in their sense. It was after one of the fits of meditation we have spoken of, that he thus again applied himself to read, and turned over several pages carelessly, to see what would come next in the dull old romaunt, when, suddenly he saw a fresher page than any of the others, and found upon it, written in English, and in a different hand from the rest, but in lines of equal length, so as to deceive a careless eye, and lead to a belief that the words were but a continuation of the poem, the following warning and intelligence:
"Be prepared. Lie not down to rest. Take not off your clothes. King Henry is in France. The Earl of Cambridge, the Lord Scrope, and Sir Thomas Grey, have been executed for treason. Harfleur has been taken; and the King is marching on through the land."
There ended the lines, and the young knight, closing the book, started up and clasped his hands with agitation and surprise. "Harfleur taken, and I not there!" he cried. "This is bitter, indeed! I shall go mad if they do not free me soon--Sir Thomas Grey! surely it cannot be written by mistake. I remember one Sir Thomas Grey, a powerful knight of Northumberland. The Lord Scrope, too; why, he was the King's chamberlain! What can all this mean? Prepared--I will be prepared, indeed. Hark, they are changing the guard at the door. I must not let them see me thus agitated, if they look in;" and seating himself again, he opened the book and seemed to read.
No one came near, however, for another hour, and Richard of Woodville gathered together all that might be needful in case his escape should be more near than he ventured to hope--the little stock of money that remained, a few jewels, and trinkets of gold and silver, and a dagger which he had kept concealed since his capture; for the rest of his arms and his armour had been taken from him as fair spoil. After this was done, he sat and watched; but all was silent in the château, except when the guard at his door rose and paced up and down the passage, or hummed a verse or two of some idle song to while away the hours.
At length, however, after a long, dead pause, he heard a whisper; and then the bolt of the door was undrawn without, and rising quietly, he gazed towards it as it opened. The only figure that presented itself was that of the guard, whom he had often seen before, and noticed as apparently a gay, good-humoured man, who treated him civilly, and asked after health in a kindly tone whenever he had occasion to visit him. The man's face was now grave, and Woodville thought a little anxious, and besides his own arms, he bore in his hand a sheathed sword with its baldric, and a large coil of rope upon his arm. Without uttering a word, he crossed the chamber, came close up to the young knight, and put the sword in his hands. Then advancing to the window, he opened it, fastened one end of the rope tight to the iron bar which ran up the centre of the casement, and suffered the other to drop gently down on the outside. Richard of Woodville gazed with some interest at this proceeding, as may be supposed. In the state of his mind at that moment, no means of escape could seem too desperate for him to adopt; and although he doubted that the rope, though strong, would bear his weight, he resolved to make the attempt, notwithstanding the tremendous height of the window from the ground.
Approaching the man, he whispered, "Would it not be better for you to turn the rope round the bar and let me down? My hands have been so long in prison, that I doubt their holding their grasp very tightly."