The Caged Lion

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Caged Lion


The loving Alice of Montagu, though the mother of many a bold boy and
girl, and busy with all the cares of the great Nevil household, regarded
as the chief delight in a journey to court the sight of her dear Sister
Clare. It was to Sister Clare that Alice turned for comfort when her
brave old father died at the siege of Orleans; and it was while daily
soothing and ministering to her sorrow that Esclairmonde heard the
strange wild tales of the terrible witch maiden who had appeared on
behalf of the French, and turned whole English armies to flight, by power
that the French declared to come from the saints, but which the English
never doubted to be infernal. Maimed and wounded soldiers, whom
Esclairmonde relieved and tended as they returned from lost battles, gave
her fearful accounts of the panic that La Pucelle inspired. Even the
hardy veteran, Sir John Fastolfe, had not been able to withstand her
spells, but had fled from the field of Jergeau, where gallant Sir Ralf
Percy had died, in a vain attempt to gather the men to resist the
irresistible maiden. His groom, who had succumbed for a time to wounds
and weakness on his way home to Alnwick, was touched by the warmth and
emotion with which the kind bedeswoman listened to his lamentation over
the good and loyal knight, whom she pictured to herself resisting the
enchantress's dread power as dauntlessly as he had defied the phantoms of
the Dance of Death.

No whisper ever reached Esclairmonde that the terrible Pucelle was a
maiden as pure and high-souled as herself. All that she heard more was
that this terror of the English and Burgundians was taken, imprisoned for
a time by her own Luxemburg kindred, and then carried to Rouen, where the
kind Duchess Anne of Bedford did her best to persuade her to overcome the
superstition that kept her in male garments, thus greatly tending to
increase the belief in her connection with the powers of evil. French
and Burgundian bishops, and even the University of Paris, were the judges
of the maiden; and the dastard prince she had crowned never stirred a
finger nor uttered a protest in her behalf. Bedford, always disposed to
belief in witchcraft, acquiesced in the decision of Churchmen, which was
therefore called the judgment of the Church; but when he removed himself
and his duchess from Rouen, and left the conduct of the matter to the
sterner and harder Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, it was with little thought
that after-generations would load his memory with the fate of Jeanne
d'Arc, as though her sufferings had proceeded from his individual malice.

Esclairmonde never saw Bedford again, and only heard through Alice, now
Countess of Salisbury, how when good Duchess Anne was dead, and her
gentle influence removed, Burgundy's disinclination to the English cause
was no longer balanced; and how Bedford, perplexed, disheartened, broken
in health, but still earnest to propitiate friends for his helpless
nephew, had listened to the wily whisper of the Bishop of Therouenne,
that his niece, Jaquette, would secure the devotion of the Count de St.
Pol, and that she was moreover like unto another Demoiselle de Luxemburg.

How like, Esclairmonde could judge, when her kinswoman, widowed in her
eighteenth year, at six months' end, came to London to claim her dower.
Never, since her days of wandering and anxiety, had Esclairmonde felt
such pain as when she perceived how little store the thoughtless girl had
set by the great and noble spirit that had been quenched under the load
of toil and care with which it had battled for thirteen long years.
Faithful, great-hearted Bedford, striving to uphold a losing cause, to
reconcile selfish contentions, to retain conquests that, though unjustly
made, he had no power to relinquish; and all without one trustworthy
relation, with friends and fellow-warriors dying, disputing, betraying,
or deserting, his was as self-devoted and as mournful a career as ever
was run by any prince at any age of the world; and while he slept in his
grave at Rouen, that grave which even Louis XI. respected, Esclairmonde,
as, like a true bedeswoman of St. Katharine, she joined in the orisons
for the repose of the souls of the royal kindred, never heard the name of
the Lord John without a throb of prayer, and a throb too that warmed her
heart with tenderness.

It was some four years later, and the even tenor of Sister Clare's course
had only been interrupted by her kinswoman, Jaquette, making her way to
her to confess her marriage with Richard Wydville, and to entreat her
intercession with the Luxemburg family; when one summer night she was
called on to attend a pilgrim priest from the Holy Land, who had been
landed from a Flemish vessel, and lay dangerously sick at the 'God's
house,' or hospital, by the river side. He was thought by his accent to
be foreign, and Sister Clare was always called on to wait upon the
stranger.

As she stood by his bedside, she beheld a man of middle age, but wasted
with sickness, and with a certain strange look of horror so imprinted on
his brow, that even as he lay asleep, though his mouth was grave and
peaceful, the lines were still there, and the locks that hung from around
his tonsure were of a whiteness that scarce accorded with the features.
It was a face that Esclairmonde could not look at without waking strange
memories; but it was not till the sleeper awakened, opened two dark eyes,
gazed on her with dreamy doubtful wonder, and then clasped his hands with
the murmured thanksgiving, 'My God, hast Thou granted me this? Light of
my life!' that she was assured to whom she was speaking.

Malcolm Stewart it verily was. Canon Malcolm Stewart of Dunkeld was his
proper title, for he had, as she knew, long ceased to be Lord of
Glenuskie. It was not at first that she knew how he had been brought
where she now saw him; but after some few days of her tender care and
skilful leechcraft, he somewhat rallied, and she gathered his history
from his conversation when he was able to speak.

He had had a time of happy labour in Scotland, fully carrying out the
designs with which he and his cousin James Kennedy had taken upon them
the ministry. Their own birth, and the appointments their King gave
them, so soon as their age permitted, made them able to exert an
influence that told upon the rude and unenlightened clergy around. It
had been almost a mission of conversion, to awaken a spirit of
Christianity in the country, that had so long been a prey to anarchy. The
King's declaration, 'I will make the key keep the castle, and the bracken-
bush keep the cow, though I live the life of a dog to bring it about,'
had been the moving spring of their lives. James had fought hour by hour
with the foul habits of lawlessness, savagery, and violence, that had
hitherto been absolutely unchecked; and while he strove with the sword of
justice, the two young priests worked within the Word of truth, to
implant some sense of conscience in the neglected people.

It had been a life of constant exertion, but full of hope and
cheerfulness. Amid that rude country, James's own home was always a
bright spot of peace, sunshine, and refinement. With his beloved queen,
and their fair little brood of children, the King cast aside his cares,
and was all, and more than all, he had been as the ornament of Henry's
Court. There all that was sweet, innocent, and beautiful was to be
found; and there Malcolm, his royal kinsman's confidant, counsellor, and
chaplain, was always welcome as one of the home circle and family, till
he broke away from such delights to labour in his task of reviving
religion in the land. A little band of men were gathering round, clergy
awakening from their sloth or worldliness, young nobles who began to see
what chivalry meant, burghers who rejoiced in order; and hope and
encouragement strengthened the hands of the three kinsmen.

But, alas! there were those who deemed James's justice on the savage
prince and noble mere sacrilege on high blood, and who absolutely hated
and loathed peace and order. Those thirteen years of cheerful progress
ended in that murder so unspeakably horrible in all its circumstances,
which almost merits the name of a martyrdom to right and justice. Malcolm
so shuddered when he did but touch on it, and was so rent with agitation,
that Esclairmonde perceived that when his beloved King had perished, he
had indeed received the death-wound to his own fragile nature.

He had been actually in the Abbey of Perth; and had been one of those who
lifted the mangled corpse from the vault, and sought in vain for a
remnant of life, if but to grant the absolution, for which the victim had
so piteously besought his murderers. No wonder that Fastern's E'en had
whitened Malcolm's hair!

But when the assassins were captured, and Joan of Beaufort was resolved
that their death should be as atrocious as their crime, it was Malcolm
who strove to bend her to forgiveness. He bade her recollect King Henry,
and how, when dealing with that cruel monster, the Castellane of Meaux,
he had merely required death, without enhancing the agony; but Joan, in
her rage and misery, had left the Englishwoman behind her, and was
implacable. All that human cruelty could invent was to be the lot of
Robert Graham and his associates; and whereas they had granted no priest
to their victim, none should be granted to them.

And then it was that all Malcolm had learnt of the true spirit of the
Christian triumphed--not only over the dark Keltic spirit of revenge, but
over the shuddering of a tender and pitiful nature. Where no other
priest durst venture, he went. Through all the frightful and protracted
sufferings of Athol, Graham, Hall, and the rest, it was Malcolm Stewart
who, never flinching, prayed with and for them; gathered their agonized
sobs of confession, or strove to soften their hardness; spoke the words
of absolution, and commended their departing souls.

When he awoke from the long unconsciousness and delirium that ensued upon
the force he had put on himself, he found himself tended by his sister at
Glenuskie. Patrick Drummond had transported him thither; finding that
the angry Queen, in the madness of her vindictiveness, was well-nigh
disposed to connect him with the treasonable designs of Athol and Graham.
He slowly and partially recovered, but his influence was gone; the Queen
would not brook the sound of his name, the little king was beyond his
reach, James Kennedy was biding his time, and the country was returned to
its state of misrule and violence, wherein an individual priest could do
little: yet Malcolm would have held by his post, had not his health been
so utterly shattered that he was incapable of the work he had hitherto
done, as a confessor and a preacher. And therefore, as the state of his
beloved King, 'sent to his account unhouselled, disappointed,
unannealed,' hung heavy on his mind, he determined, so soon as he was in
any degree convalescent, to set forth on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the
object of so many dreams of King Henry; there to offer masses and prayers
for the welfare of his departed prince, as well as of the unhappy
murderers, and for the country in its distracted condition.

And there, at the Holy Sepulchre, had Malcolm, in the fervour of his
heart, offered the greatest treasure he possessed--nay, the only one that
he still really cared for--namely his betrothal ring, which Esclairmonde
had worn for so long and had returned to him. As a priest, he had deemed
that it was not unlawful for him to retain the memorial of the link that
had bound him to her who had been the light that led him to the true
Light beyond; but as youth passed away, as devotion burned brighter, as
the experiences of those years became more dream-like, and the horror,
grief, and misery of his King's death had been assuaged only by the
steadier contemplation of the Light of Eternity, he had felt that this
last pledge of his once lower aims and hopes ought to be resigned; and
that if it cost him a pang, it was well that it should be so, to render
the offering a sacrifice. So the ring that had once been Esclairmonde's
protection was laid on the altar of the Holy Tomb.

There Malcolm had well-nigh died, under the influences of agitation,
fatigue, and climate; but he had revived enough to set out on his return
from his pilgrimage, and had made his way tardily and wearily, losing his
attendants through death and desertion on the road; and passing from one
religious house to another, as his strength and nearly exhausted means
served him. Unable to find any vessel bound for Leith, he had taken ship
for London; concealing his quality, lest, in the always probable
contingency of a war, it might lead to his being made prisoner; and thus
he had arrived, sick indeed unto death, but peaceful, rejoicing, and
hopeful.

'Sister,' he said, 'the morn that I had offered my ring, I was feeble and
faint; and when I knelt on before the altar in continued prayer--I know
not whether I slept or whether it were a vision, but it was to me as
though I were again on the river, and again the hymn of Bernard of
Morlaix was sung around and above me, by the voice I never thought to
hear again. I looked up, and behold it was I that was in the boat--my
King was there no more. Nay, he stood on the shore, and his eyes beamed
on me; while the ghastly wounds that I once strove in anguish to staunch
shone out like a ruby cross on his breast--the hands, that were so sorely
gashed, were to me as though marked by the impress of the Sacred Wounds.
He spake not; but by his side stood King Henry, beautiful and
spirit-like, and smiled on me, and seemed as though he pointed to the
wounds, as he said, "Blessed is the king who died by his people's hand,
for withstanding his people's sin! Blessed is every faint image of the
true King!"

'Then methought they held out their arms to me; and I would have come to
them on their shore of rest, but the river bore me away--and I looked up,
to find I was as yet only in the earthly Jerusalem; but I watch for them
every hour, to call me once and for ever.'




FOOTNOTES


{1} 'Hail, reverend brother. I come from Paris.'

{2} Student of the first year.

{3} Manners are lacking to the Northerners.

{4} Wretches.

{5} For supper.

{6} Telephus and Peleus, when both are poor and exiled, dismiss boasting
and six-foot words.

{7} It is dispersed in a cloud.