Yet it was no vision he had seen during the night of that festival—but Murielle Douglas herself—the veritable object of all his hope and love.
We have already stated that the earl of Douglas had left Scotland ostensibly to visit Pope Eugene IV., taking with him the countess, Murielle, and a brilliant train.
The latter, says Tytler (in his "History of Scotland"), consisted of six knights, with their own suites and attendants, and fourteen gentlemen of the best families in the realm, with a retinue of eighty men-at-arms on horseback. Among these were Sir John Forrester, of Corstorphine; Sir Alan Lauder, of the Bass; William Campbell, thane of Cawdor and constable of the castle of Nairne—"all knights," adds Lindesay, of Pitscottie, "whose convoy maid the earle so proud and insolent, that he represented a kingis magnificence wherever he went. Out of Flanderis he passed to France, and out of France to Italie, and so forwardis to Rome, where the Romanes having knowledge of his cuming, mett him with an honourable companie, and veri princelie receaved him within the toun."
In this quotation, however, we are somewhat anticipating the course of events, for Gray and Murielle were yet to meet before the earl and his retinue left Flanders to visit the court of Charles VII. of France.
CHAPTER XXV.
SNICK AND SNEE.
Murder, madam! 'Tis self-defence. Besides, in these skirmishes there are never more than two or three killed; for, supposing they bring the whole body of militia upon us, down with a brace of them and away fly the rest of the covey!—The Lying Valet.
Gray had been repeatedly warned by the friendly hosteller, Maître Baudoin, to beware of travelling in the dusk after passing the boundary of the marquisate of Antwerp, as hordes of disbanded Brabanters and Walloons, the refuse of the wars between Charles of France and the duke of Burgundy, were lurking among the thick woods that lay about Endhoven, and in the then great swampy wilderness, known as the Peel Morass; and these outlaws were led by a kind of leader whom they all tacitly acknowledged, Count Ludwig of Endhoven, who had been expelled from the Burgundian army for his barbarous and outrageous conduct, after having his spurs hacked from his heels, and his coat of arms publicly riven and defaced, by order of Philip the Good.
Gray thanked Maître Baudoin for his friendly warning, and rode on his way, like a soldier and a careless fellow as he was, thinking no more about it.
Refreshed by the halt at Antwerp, his horse carried him with great speed next day. He passed Nonne Kloster, and towards evening, found himself approaching Endhoven, in Brabant, after a fifty-miles' ride.
At the verge of the flat horizon, the sun was setting, but through the evening haze, its light shed a golden lustre upon everything,—the quaint farmhouses, the summer woods, the sluggish canals and browsing cattle,—casting far across the fields the shadow of every village spire and poplar tree; but now here and there rose little hills or swelling eminences to relieve the tedium of the scenery, for tedious it was to a Scottish eye, though the fruitful soil was cultivated like a garden, for he was in the land of cheese, milk, and butter.