CHAPTER LXXI.
The Scottish Knights in London—Father Rushak’s Tale.
Allowing the Wolfe of Badenoch and his friend the Franciscan to proceed on their journey, we must now return to inquire into the fate of Sir Patrick Hepborne. We left him lying on the straw in his dungeon, giving way to a paroxysm of grief for having been so cruelly rent from Lady Beatrice, tormenting himself with fears for her safety, and refusing the comfort which his esquire Mortimer Sang, and Master Lawrence Ratcliffe, were in vain attempting to administer to him. Whilst he was in this state of bitter affliction, the door of the dungeon was again opened, and a number of guards entering, silently approached him. Believing that they were about to lead him to immediate execution, he rose to meet them.
“I am ready,” said he recklessly; “my life is now but of little value to me. The sooner it is over the better. Lead on, then, my friends.”
Mortimer Sang sprang forward to prevent their seizure of his master, but he was speedily overpowered, and Sir Patrick was led passively away.
He was conducted through a long dark passage, and finally lodged in a cell, to which he ascended by a short circular flight of steps. He questioned his conductors as to what was to be his fate, but they retired without giving him any reply. His new prison, though small, was less dark and gloomy than the larger dungeon from which he had been taken; and though sufficiently strong, it had an air of greater comfort about it; yet would he willingly have exchanged it for that he had left, to have been again blessed with the society of his esquire and the wine merchant. He seemed to be now condemned to solitary imprisonment, and he anticipated the worst possible intentions from this seclusion. The survey he took of the four walls that enclosed him left no hope of escape. There was indeed another small door besides that by which he had entered, but both were so powerfully fenced with iron as to be perfectly impregnable. He viewed this second door with an eye of suspicion, and the idea that through it might enter the assassins who were privily to despatch him, presented death to him in a shape so uninviting, that, ready as he had been to lay down his life but the moment before, he now resolved to sell it as dearly [[577]]as he could, although he had no other weapon but his hands to defend himself with.
He sat down on a stone bench in a niche in the wall opposite to this suspicious door, and, fixing his eye on it, he fell into a reverie, from which he was roused by the sound of footsteps, as if descending towards it. He sprang up, that he might be prepared for action. The door opened, and a young man in the garb of a lacquey, and altogether unarmed, appeared at the bottom of a very narrow spiral staircase. He made an obeisance to Sir Patrick, and silently, but respectfully beckoned him to follow; and the knight, resolving to pursue his fate, immediately obeyed. He was conducted up several flights of steps, until at length, to his great surprise, he was brought into a little oratory, where he was again left alone.
He had not waited long, when a pannel in the wall, behind the altar, opened, and a Franciscan Friar appeared. The knight regarded him with a calm and steady look. It was Friar Rushak, the King’s Confessor.
“Sir Patrick Hepborne,” said the monk mildly to him, “I come to thee on private embassage from the Royal Richard. Thine intemperance in breaking in upon his privacy as thou didst, hath led thee to be accused, by some who are more zealous than prudent, of having made a premeditated attempt to assassinate His Majesty. But this hath been done without the Royal sanction; for albeit that appearances do of a surety most powerfully array themselves against thee, yet he doth acquit thee of all such traitorous intent. But thou hast been led by blind fury to lift thine hand against the Sovereign whose hospitality thou dost now enjoy, and that, too, in defence of one against whom he did mean nothing dishonourable, though circumstances may have wrought up her fears to believe that he did.”