Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent

by G. P. R. James

"Well, well, if I die, tell the other two to finish it," rejoined Van Halle; "pity it should be wasted;" and so sprang on his horse.

"Hold, Matthew," cried the Vert Gallant, as the two soldiers were about to depart without more words; "meet me five days hence in the wood between Swynaerde and Deynse. So lose no time. You know the red cross near Astene."

The two instantly rode off; and the Vert Gallant then turned to the others, and continued his orders, for marching the whole force he had under his command, which seemed to be considerable, into the woods in the neighbourhood of Ghent.

Those woods, though then very extensive, and covering acres of ground which are now in rich cultivation, were nevertheless too small to afford perfect shelter and concealment for such a large body of adventurers as had long tenanted the vaster and less frequented forest-tracks near Hannut, unless the entire band were subdivided into many smaller ones, and distributed through various parts of the country. All this, however, was foreseen and arranged by the leader of the free companions; and it is probable that he also trusted to the distracted state of the country--throughout which anything like general police was, for the time, at an end--for perfect immunity in his bold advance to the very gates of the capital of Flanders.

All his orders were speedily given, and one by one his companions left him, as they received their instructions, so that at length he stood alone. He paused for a moment on the spot, patting the neck of his strong fiery horse; and--as men will sometimes do when they fancy themselves full of successful designs, and are excited by the expectation of great events--addressing to the nearest object of the brute creation those secret outbreakings of the heart, which he might have feared to trust in the unsafe charge of human beings.

"Now, my bold horse, now," he exclaimed, "the moment is come, for which, during many a long year, I have waited and watched. The star of my house is once more in the ascendant, and the reign of tyranny is at an end; let him who dares, stand between me and my right, for not another hour will I pause till justice is fully done."

While he was thus speaking, a sort of slight distant murmur came along, so mingled with the whistling of the wind, that he had to listen for some moments before he could ascertain whether it proceeded merely from the increased waving of the boughs occasioned by the gale rising, or whether it was the distant sound of a number of persons travelling along the road which he had just passed.

He was soon satisfied; and as he clearly distinguished voices, and the jingling tramp of a travelling party of that day, he sprang upon his charger, leaped him over a small brook that trickled half-congealed through the grass, and plunged into a deep thicket beyond, the bushes and trees of which were of sufficient height to screen him from the observation of the passengers.

The party whose tongues he had heard soon came to the spot where he had lately stood. It comprised about thirty people, all well armed, and dressed splendidly, bearing the straight cross, which at that time distinguished France from Burgundy. The magnificent apparel of the whole body, the number of the men-at-arms of which it was principally composed, together with certain signs of peaceful dispositions on their own part, evinced at once, to the practised eye that watched them, that the cavalcade which came winding along the road consisted of some envoy from France and his escort; furnished, probably, with those letters of safe-conduct which guarded them from any hostile act on the part of the government of the country through which they passed, but prepared to resist any casual attacks from the lawless bands that were then rife.

Not exactly at the head of the cavalcade--for two stout archers, armed at all points, led the way--but at the head of the principal body, appeared a small, dark, ill-featured man, whose person even an extraordinary display of splendour in his apparel, sufficed not to render anything but what it was, insignificant. Velvet and gold and nodding plumes could do nought in his favour; and the only thing which made his appearance in any degree remarkable, was an air of silent, calm, and determined cunning, which had in it something fearful from its very intensity. One gazed upon him as on a serpent, which, however small and powerless in appearance, inspires terror in much mightier things than itself, from the venom of its fangs.