The Desultory Man / Collection of Ancient and Modern British Novels and Romances. Vol. CXLVII.

by G. P. R. James

He found, too, that his presence cheered her, and that his conversation won her from her grief. She began to cling even more to him than to his sister; for he knew more of the world, and men, and courts, than Emiline, and he thought it but kind to afford her every solace and pleasure he could give. Each day his visits became more frequent, and continued longer.

Sometimes he would liberate her, after a sort, from her voluntary prison, by taking her, with Emiline, in his boat upon the moonlight sea, or even by leading her along, under the eye of Heaven's queen, upon the smooth sands, when the waves of a calm night rippled up to their feet. At other times he would sit upon the stones of the old battlements, rent and rifted by the warfare of ages, and would while her thoughts away from herself by tales of other days, when those battlements had withstood the assault of hosts, and those halls had been the resort of the fair and brave, now dust.

Then, again, he would give her tidings which he had gained while dwelling at Namur or at Tournai; reciting the gallant deeds of the servants of the Cross in distant Palestine, or telling of the horrors of captivity in Paynimrie; and then, too, he would sing, as they sat above the waters, with a voice, and a skill, and a taste, which Marguerite fancied all unequalled in the world.

Day by day, and hour by hour, the fair inexperienced princess of Flanders felt that she was losing her young heart to the youth of low degree; and yet, what could she do to stay the fugitive, or call him back to her own bosom from his hopeless flight? It was not alone that Albert was, in her eyes at least, the most handsome man she had ever beheld, it was not alone that he was gentle, kind, and tender, but it was that on him alone she was cast for aid, protection, amusement, information, hope; that her fate hung upon his word, and that while he seemed to feel and triumph in the task, yet it was with a deep, earnest, anxious solicitude for her peace and for her security.

And did she think, that with all these feelings in her bosom, he had dared to love her in return--to love her, the princess of that land in which he was alone the son of a poor fisherman? She knew he had--she saw it in his eyes, she heard it in every tone, she felt it in the tender touch of the strong hand that aided her in her stolen wanderings. And thus it went on from day to day, till words were spoken that no after-thought could ever recall, and Marguerite owned, that if Heaven willed that her father's lands should never return to her father's house, she could, with a happy heart, see state and dignity pass away from her, and wed the son of the Fisherman of Scarphout.

But still the fisherman himself returned not. Days had grown into weeks, and weeks had become months, yet no tiding of him or his companions had reached the shore, and men began to fancy that the vision of the old priest might be no more than an ordinary dream. Not so, however, the family of the fisherman himself. They, seemed to hold the judgment of the good man infallible, and every day he visited their cottages bringing them tidings of all the events which took place in the struggle that now convulsed the land.

By this time, the King of France had roused himself to chastise the rebels of Flanders, and to reinstate the young count in his dominions. He had summoned his vassals to his standard, and creating two experienced readers marshals of his host, had entered the disturbed territory with lance in the rest. Little armed opposition had been made to his progress, though two or three detached parties from his army had been cut off and slaughtered. But this only exasperated the monarch still more, and he had been heard to vow that nothing but the death of every one of the conspirators would satisfy him for the blood of Charles the Good, and of the faithful friends who had fallen with him.

Such was the tale told by the good priest to Albert, the fisherman's son, one day towards the end of the year, and by him repeated to Marguerite of Flanders, who heard it with very mingled feelings; for if a momentary joy crossed her heart to think that the murderers of her father would meet their just reward, and her brother would recover the coronet of Flanders, the fear, the certainty that she herself would be torn from him she loved, overclouded the brief sunshine, and left her mind all dark.

The next day, however, new tidings reached Albert, and filled his heart with consternation and surprise. Burchard, the chief murderer of the dead count, had, it was said, dispatched a messenger to the King of France, to bid him either hold off from Bruges, or send him a free pardon for himself and all his companions, lest another victim should be added to those already gone from the family of the dead count. "I have in my power," he had added, "the only daughter of Charles, called by you the Good. I know her retreat--I hold her as it were in a chain, and I shall keep her as a hostage, whose blood shall flow if a hard measure be dealt to me."

Albert fell into deep thought. Could it be true, he asked himself, that Burchard had really discovered Marguerite of Flanders? If so, it were time, he thought, to fulfil one part of his father's directions concerning her, at any cost to himself; and as those directions had been, in case danger menaced her in her retreat, to carry her to sea, and, landing on the coast of France, to place her in the hands of the king or his representative, it may easily be conceived that the execution thereof would be not a little painful to one for whom each hour of her society was joy.