“And are you not,” said the younger lady, addressing him in her turn, but with a timorous accent, “the same whom I saw when I was called to wait upon the King at yonder inn?”
Lowering his voice, perhaps from similar feelings of timidity, Quentin answered in the affirmative.
“Then methinks, my cousin,” said the Lady Isabelle, addressing the Lady Hameline, “we must be safe under this young gentleman's safeguard, he looks not, at least, like one to whom the execution of a plan of treacherous cruelty upon two helpless women could be with safety intrusted.”
“On my honour,” said Durward, “by the fame of my house, by the bones of my ancestry, I could not, for France and Scotland laid into one, be guilty of treachery or cruelty towards you!”
“You speak well, young man,” said the Lady Hameline, “but we are accustomed to hear fair speeches from the King of France and his agents. It was by these that we were induced, when the protection of the Bishop of Liege might have been attained with less risk than now, or when we might have thrown ourselves on that of Winceslaus of Germany, or of Edward of England, to seek refuge in France. And in what did the promises of the King result? In an obscure and shameful concealing of us, under plebeian names, as a sort of prohibited wares in yonder paltry hostelry, when we—who, as thou knowest, Marthon” (addressing her domestic), “never put on our head tire save under a canopy, and upon a dais of three degrees—were compelled to attire ourselves, standing on the simple floor, as if we had been two milkmaids.”
Marthon admitted that her lady spoke a most melancholy truth.
“I would that had been the sorest evil, dear kinswoman,” said the Lady Isabelle, “I could gladly have dispensed with state.”
“But not with society,” said the elder Countess, “that, my sweet cousin, was impossible.”
“I would have dispensed with all, my dearest kinswoman,” answered Isabelle, in a voice which penetrated to the very heart of her young conductor and guard, “with all, for a safe and honourable retirement. I wish not—God knows, I never wished—to occasion war betwixt France and my native Burgundy, or that lives should be lost for such as I am. I only implored permission to retire to the Convent of Marmoutier, or to any other holy sanctuary.”
“You spoke then like a fool, my cousin,” answered the elder lady, “and not like a daughter of my noble brother. It is well there is still one alive who hath some of the spirit of the noble House of Croye. How should a high born lady be known from a sunburnt milkmaid, save that spears are broken for the one, and only hazel poles shattered for the other? I tell you, maiden, that while I was in the very earliest bloom, scarcely older than yourself, the famous Passage of Arms at Haflinghem was held in my honour, the challengers were four, the assailants so many as twelve. It lasted three days, and cost the lives of two adventurous knights, the fracture of one backbone, one collarbone, three legs, and two arms, besides flesh wounds and bruises beyond the heralds' counting, and thus have the ladies of our House ever been honoured. Ah! had you but half the heart of your noble ancestry, you would find means at some court where ladies' love and fame in arms are still prized, to maintain a tournament at which your hand should be the prize, as was that of your great grandmother of blessed memory, at the spear running of Strasbourg, and thus should you gain the best lance in Europe, to maintain the rights of the House of Croye, both against the oppression of Burgundy and the policy of France.”