Lord Montagu's Page: An Historical Romance

by G. P. R. James

It was a great disappointment; for the servant who usually sat there was sometimes male, sometimes female, and he had calculated that he could devise some means of getting either out of the way. The ramparts before his windows were too steep for him to attempt the leap. Had the fosse been immediately below, he might have risked it, trusting that the water would soften his fall; but a ridge of dry ground ran along under the wall, and the breaking or dislocation of a limb, with his consequent recapture, was inevitable. He returned to his room, then, disappointed but not disheartened, and instantly applied himself to form some new scheme. The first thought that struck him was that a rope ladder might be constructed from the ropes which in those days garnished every bedstead in France. It would be short, indeed, but at all events it might diminish the distance between the parapet and the ground, and by dropping from the last round he would not, he thought, have more than eight or ten feet to fall. He instantly set to work to detach the ropes from the sacking; but he had not unlaced a yard before he asked himself how, when it was constructed, he was to fasten the upper end of his ladder to the parapet. With all his ingenuity, he was puzzled. There was nothing in the room of which he could make a hook,—nothing in the world, except an ancient pair of tongs for putting wood upon the fire; and he might as well have tried to make a hook out of the Colossus of Rhodes. He looked round and round in vain, when suddenly, as his eyes rested upon the heavy key in the lock of the door, he thought that keys would sometimes fit more locks than one. He took it out at once, greased it well with oil from the lamp, and walked quietly along to the door at the end of the passage. It was still locked, and by applying his eye to the key-hole he saw that there was no obstruction. The key had been taken away,—probably to prevent any tampering with the servants on the part of the young prisoner. But he saw also three persons sitting by a large fireplace in the long gallery before him. They were a lady of two or three and twenty,—probably Madame de Bourbonne,—a very beautiful child, three years old perhaps, and another woman, whose dress betrayed the soubrette.

Edward had to return to his room again and wait with impatience for the trial of the key. As he meditated by the remains of his fire, he remembered having heard that, but a year or two before, the famous Duke of Buckingham himself, while ambassador in Paris, in a wild frolic had passed through the whole of the royal palace disguised as the White Lady.

"Some sort of disguise might not be amiss," thought Edward. "Each of these old chateaux has some superstitious tale attached to it. A sheet and a little lampblack will make a very good ghost. But it is not yet time."

His impatience had wellnigh ruined all, however; for, just as he was about to take one of the sheets from the bed to tear a hole for his head to pass through, the servant entered his room with a fresh supply of wood.

"When does Monsieur de Bourbonne return?" asked Edward "I hope when he does he will give me a warmer room."

"I do not know," answered the man, piling some more wood on the fire. "Some say he comes Saturday. That is the day after to-morrow."

Edward let him depart, and then sat and listened. For at least two hours sounds were still to be heard in the chateau; but they gradually died away. At midnight the password was heard upon the walls; then there was some tramping up and down; and then all was silent. Edward knew that there was a snug, warm pavilion, or look-out, thrown forth from the walls, whence the whole line of the curtain on that side could be seen, but which was sheltered from all rude winds; and he doubted not the two guards had retreated to its friendly covering,—for it was a cold spring night, and the keen blast was sweeping over the open country round. He waited some five minutes longer, and then wrapped the sheet round him, smeared his face with the soot of the lamp, and sallied out with the key in his hand. All was darkness in the passage, and he had to feel with his fingers along the wall, not without some anxiety as to how he should find his way through the part of the house with which he was not acquainted. Liberty was at stake, however, and on he went. Fortune favored him: at the end of the passage a faint light came through the key-hole of the door he was in search of. It was red, though dim; and he at once comprehended that it did not proceed from any lamp left burning, but from the embers of a half-exhausted fire. Then came the all-important moment. Quietly and slowly he applied the key to the lock. It entered readily; but when he came to turn it there was some resistance. He was almost in despair; but, thinking he might not have pressed the key home, he pushed hard, and it started forward with some noise. He paused to listen, but there was no sound, and, twisting it slowly round, the lock gave way, the door opened, and the gallery he had seen through the key-hole was before him, with the wood fire burnt low in a large fireplace on the left-hand side. There were a number of doors on the right, tight shut, to keep out the wintry air; but the gallery was vacant, and the fire gave light enough. On then he strode toward the opposite end, calculating that he was now in the great tower or lodging-part of the castle, and soon reached the farther extremity of the gallery, where another door presented itself, with the key in the lock. The moment he opened it, the cold air rushed in, and he found himself in a little garden upon the inner ramparts. All was still; and there seemed nothing there but one or two bare apple-trees and some withered shrubs and flowers.

The rampart, however, was very high, and all the young man's trouble would have been in vain had he not divined that there must be some lower outwork to defend the foot of the wall. The moon was not yet up: there was no light but that of the stars; and he walked cautiously along under the parapet till he came to some descending steps. He could see no one on the walls; but the dry leaves crackled under his footsteps and more than once made him stop, thinking a sentinel was near. At the bottom of the steps was another wall, with embrasures and a solitary cannon, evidently commanding the approach from some work below; and, making his way along for about forty steps, Edward reached some more stairs, which led him down to what seemed a small bastion.

At the foot he paused, for upon the wall of the outwork he perceived some dark object, which he could not clearly make out. It was too large for a man, he thought, and it remained motionless; and after gazing for several minutes he quietly mounted the five steps which led up to the platform. He then perceived that the object which had alarmed him was a rude sentry-box, with a cannon hard by; and, having ascertained that it was empty, he looked over and beheld the river flowing quietly through the fosse at the foot.