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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.

Two miles from the town of Endhoven, stood a wayside hostelry, of quaint aspect, overshadowed by a gigantic oak-tree, on one of the lower branches of which swung its signboard, and under which were placed a rough table and benches for the accommodation of those who choose to loiter there, and refresh them in the open air.

Weary and athirst, Gray alighted from his horse, and knocking with his dagger hilt on the table, brought forth the tapster, who had been observing his approach, from the ivy-covered porch of the hostelry, which seemed to be literally a mass of green leaves, with quaint gablets, and chimneys sticking up in all directions, and curious little windows, peeping out, without order, regularity, or architectural design.

In a jargon, half Flemish and partly French, "eked" out with a word or two of Scottish, Gray ordered a flask of wine for himself, and a feed of corn for his horse, which was led into the stables.

While drinking his wine, and pondering whether he should halt there for the night, or push on to Endhoven, the evening bells of which were ringing in the distance, the sound of voices at an open window made him aware that several fellows of a very rough aspect were observing him from a room, where they seemed to be drinking and playing with dice, and, doubtless, they would have been smoking too, had that useful mode of spending time and money been discovered.

On turning from them, his attention was next arrested by perceiving a knife, formed somewhat like a dagger, dangling at the end of a string, from the lower branch of the tree under which he sat, and there it swung to and fro in the wind.

Each time he raised his eyes to this knife, he heard loud laughter, and a clapping of hands among those who were evidently observing him; and though resolving, if possible, to avoid all brawls, his brow flushed, and his heart beat quicker, on finding himself, as he conceived, insulted by a rabble of Flemish boors.

But in his ignorance of the customs of the country, he knew not that the knife was hung thus as a challenge to snick and snee, as it was named, a combat then common among the lower classes in Flanders, as it was in Holland, in later years.

The bravest or most rash bully of a village or district, usually hung up his knife thus, in some conspicuous place, as the knights of chivalric days were wont, in a warlike fit, to obstruct the high roads, by hanging their shields on a bridge, or by the wayside, to invite all comers, and whoever touched or took the weapon down was compelled to fight the proprietor, or be branded as a coward.

Before engaging, the combatants sometimes tested their strength of arm, by driving their knives into a deal board, and then they were only permitted to use so much of the blade as had penetrated; others broke off the points. On closing, each used his cap or hat as a shield, to protect his face; but such encounters seldom ended until one, sometimes both duellists, had their cheeks, noses, and foreheads slashed and disfigured.

The knife in question, a long, sharp, and assassin-like weapon, continued to swing to and fro within arm's-length of Gray, who, on perceiving something engraved on the buckhorn haft of it, took it in his hand for examination; on this a shout of exultation, too boisterous to pass unnoticed, came from the topers in the hostelry.

Sir Patrick had only time to perceive that a coronet and the letter E were engraven on the handle, when he tore it down, and dashed it right through the latticed window where it fell among those whose mirth seemed so easily excited.

After the silence of a moment, a storm of oaths and threats, mingled with shouts and drunken laughter, greeted this act of hostility, and from the door of the tavern there issued six men, all tattered in dress, bloated by drinking, ruffianly in aspect, and all variously armed with swords, daggers, and mauls. Three of them had rusty helmets and breastplates, which had evidently seen much service.

On the approach of this unexpected rabble, Gray quietly drained the last of his wine, threw down the price thereof, and then starting up, laid his hand on his sword, as one who seemed to be the leader, came boldly and brusquely up to him.

Tall, strongly made, and athletic in form, this personage presented a curious combination of character in his features, which were naturally noble and handsome, but disguised by the masses of his uncombed hair, distorted by ferocity, and bloated by drunkenness. He wore a pair of enormous moustaches, which were twisted up almost to his ears; his attire, which had once been richly laced, was full of rents and holes. He wore a cuirass and back-plate, on each of which a coat of arms was engraved; his neck being destitute of gorget, revealed by its bareness that he was not proprietor of a shirt; a battered helmet, from which the barred vizor had been struck in some battle or brawl, covered his head; his gauntlets and boots were of different fashions; he carried a short battle-axe in his right hand, and in his left the knife which Gray had just tossed through the window.

"Sangdieu!" he exclaimed, in French; "do you know the penalty incurred by what you have done, messire?"

"I neither know nor care," replied Gray, coolly; and then turning to the hosteller – a fat old Flemish boor, who had also come forth, and was trembling at the prospect of a fray upon his premises – he added, "Maître, please you to bring my horse – and do so instantly, as I have no desire to cross my sword with this fellow and his coquinaille."

At this epithet, which signifies "a pack of rascals," they uttered a simultaneous shout, and raised their weapons, but Gray confronted them resolutely with his drawn sword.

"My horse, I tell you, fellow, lest I cut you in two!" he reiterated to the loitering hosteller. On this, his roan, the same horse ridden by him when Earl William entered Edinburgh, was brought at once towards the tree, but the armed rabble placed themselves between it and the proprietor.

"Does messire mean to fight me, whom he has insulted and challenged by touching this knife," demanded the leader; "or der Teufel, does he mean to – "

"What!" said Gray, "be wary of your words, sir."

"To fly like a coward?" said the other, with a German oath.

"I do not fight with every ignoble ruffian I may meet; there are some whom I would disdain to chastise, and thou, fellow, art one! Yet, if the hosteller would but bring me a good heavy whip, I would make you dance to a tune of your own."

"Sangdieu! do you know to whom you are speaking?" cried the other, whose rage completely sobered him.

"Some robbers or outlaws, I suppose."

"A robber – yes, for misfortune has made me so; an outlaw – yes, for tyrants made me so; but I am your equal, and perhaps superior, for all that!"

"Indeed! Then who the devil are you, that thus molest peaceful people on the open highway?"

"I am Ludwig, count of Endhoven!"

Gray started on hearing the name of the very personage against whom Maître Baudoin had so solemnly warned him; but, inspired with an emotion of pity for nobility fallen so low, he took his purse from his girdle, and said, "Rumour says you have been a soldier: I am one, and will share what I have with you; but first you must stand aside from between me and my horse, as I can brook no intimidation."

The other laughed scornfully, and said, "In the first place, messire, it was from being a soldier that Philip of Burgundy made me a thief, and changed my cote d'armes into a beggar's gabardine. In the second, I do not ask for that which I can take by force; in the third, I obey no man's orders – yours least of all, when horse and purse, and all you possess, are my lawful spoil."

As he spoke, he made a sudden rush forward, with the intention of tearing away the purse from Sir Patrick, who, quick as thought, sprang back, and received him right upon the point of his sword, with a force which made the iron corslet ring, and stretched its wearer on the earth.

With a shout of rage, he sprang to his feet, swinging his axe in both hands, and, with his five companions, surrounded Gray. Sharp was the conflict that ensued, and most likely it would have terminated fatally for him; for although he dealt many a severe wound, it was long since he had thus used his sword; and since that fatal day, after "the Black Dinner," his wrists had been weak and stiff: but now the distant tramp of horses was heard, and the hosteller, to scare the combatants from his premises, exclaimed, "Gott in Himmel! Herr Count, here comes the burg graf of Gueldres, with his banner and escort!"

On hearing this, Count Ludwig, whose face was streaming with blood from a slash Gray had given him, accompanied by his five companions, sprang over a hedge close by, and, taking to flight, sought refuge where horsemen dared not follow them, among the recesses of a swampy forest.

They had scarcely been gone three minutes, and Sir Patrick had just recovered his breath and equanimity, when a grey-bearded cavalier, all armed save the head (for his helmet hung at his saddle-bow), rode up, attended by three knights, who each wore the jewel and mantle of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy, and by twenty men-at-arms on horseback, one of whom, an esquire, carried a long lance with a square banner, charged with the lion of Gueldres.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE ROYAL LETTER

O mony a mile Sir Patrick rode

Throughout the border land;

To gie that letter braw and braid,

Into the earlis hand. —

Old Ballad.

Reining in his horse, while all his party did the same, the elder gentleman, who was without the helmet, but wore a plumed cap, and who appeared to be the leader, hastily addressed Gray in German, but finding that he did not reply, repeated his question in French.

"There has been fighting here, messire?"

"As you may plainly see," replied Gray quietly, while carefully wiping his sword-blade, for the lofty bearing of the speaker displeased him.

"About what did you quarrel?"

"Faith, I can scarcely tell you."

"Speak, messire!" said the other, authoritatively.

"A knife that hung from the branch of a tree, it would seem. You have strange fashions among you here in Gueldres," said Gray, with returning anger.

"You are not yet in old Gueldreland, but in Brabant," replied the other; "you appear to be a stranger?"

"Yes, messire, I am a stranger," replied Sir Patrick, who had now mounted, gathered up his reins, and had his horse fully in hand, ready for any emergency, and resolved to admit of no molestation.

"May I ask what object takes you towards Gueldreland?"

"You may, messire, but what if I decline to reply?"

"I can prove that I have the right to ask such questions, and to enforce answers."

"I am come from the court of Scotland to visit old Duke Arnold – is he in Gueldres?"

"No; in Brabant."

"That is unfortunate."

"Not so much so as you suppose. But with whom were you fighting?"

"Those who fought with me: some outlaws, to all appearance, but they got more than they gave."

"Outlaws!" reiterated the armed horseman with displeasure.

"A rabble led by one who called himself Count Ludwig of Endhoven."

"Ha!" exclaimed the other, while all his followers uttered exclamations expressive of surprise and interest.

"Is it thus," said Gray, "your lords of Gueldres amuse themselves upon the highway?"

"I tell you, messire, that you are in Brabant. So these were Ludwig and his Brabanciones? I would give a thousand guilders for his head! But there was blood upon your sword?"

"I laid Count Ludwig's cheek open from eye to chin."

"Then beware you, messire: he is cruel as a pagan, and revengeful as an Italian; and he will track you and seek you day and night while you are among us, to work you mischief, unless, in the interim, he is broken alive upon the wheel by some burg graf or burgomaster. You are going, you say, to the court of the duke of Gueldres?"

"Where I am not likely to arrive soon if I remain chattering here," replied Gray coldly, as he disliked the inquisitorial manner of his questioner, who laughed and said, —

"Are you seeking knight-service? If so, you had better turn your horse's head towards Burgundy, where Duke Philip III. is putting his sword to the grindstone."

"Nay, messire," replied Gray, with increasing displeasure; "I have come on a mission from the court of Scotland, where I have the honour to be Captain of the King's Guard."

"Your name?"

"Sir Patrick Gray, younger of that ilk."

"And this mission?" said the other hastily.

"Concerns not you, messire, but the marriage of the Princess Mary d'Egmont," replied Gray, moving his horse away.

"To your young king? – good. You have, then, a letter for – for the duke?" said the other, following him.

"Yes."

"Permit me to see it. Excuse me, messire, but I have both reason and authority for my request."

Gray, who thought he had been rather unwise in stating the object of his mission to a total stranger, reluctantly opened a pocket in his saddlelap, and drew forth a large square letter, which was covered with a silken wrapper, tied with white ribbon crosswise, and sealed with yellow wax, the colour used by the kings of Scotland and France.

"Messire, you will perceive that it is correctly addressed," said Sir Patrick; "and it is my best credential for being reserved."

"Exactly; I thank you," replied the other, taking the letter in his gauntletted hand, and deliberately tearing it open.

"Messire!" exclaimed Gray, furiously, as he drew his sword; "are you mad, or weary of life, that you dare to open a letter – "

"For Arnold d'Egmont, count of Zutphen, and duke of Gueldres, you would say?"

"Yes, surrender it, messire, or by every saint in heaven, I shall kill you where you stand!"

"Beware – beware!" exclaimed some of the attendants, lowering their lances.

"And why beware?" demanded the sturdy Scot.

"Because I am Arnold himself," replied the old duke, with a hearty laugh, in which the three knights of the Golden Fleece joined.

"You, monseigneur?" said Gray, sinking the point of his sword, and reining back his horse.

"Behold my banner and escort, with Ravenstein, Berg, and Nassau, my three most faithful friends."

"Pardon me," said Gray, sheathing his sword, and reining back his horse.

"I have nothing to pardon, Sir Patrick Gray," replied the duke; "we shall all ride forward together, but this letter, which you have travelled so far to lay before me, is written in the young king's name, and announces, that so soon as affairs are peaceful in his kingdom, his lord chancellor, accompanied by John, bishop of Dunkeld, and Messire Nicholas Otterbourne, official of Lothian, with a suitable train, will visit our court at Gueldres, to receive the Princess Mary, and conduct her to her new home. Poor child! she is very young and tender, to be trusted among your unruly mountaineers. The letter shall be laid before the duchess and council. Meantime, messire, I thank you for the care with which you have brought hither the missive of your king, and the valour with which you were ready to defend it, at all hazards, even against four-and-twenty mounted men."

Sir Patrick bowed low, and kissed the hand which the duke extended towards him.

"You will ride on with us, Sir Patrick," he resumed. "I have a hunting-lodge near Vlierden, on this side of Peel Morass, seventeen miles distant. There we shall halt for to-night, and to-morrow depart for the capital."

CHAPTER XXVII
THE CASTLE OF ENDHOVEN

I behold the pageants splendid

That adorned those days of old;

Stately dames like queens attended,

Knights who wore the Fleece of Gold.

Longfellow.

The three knights who wore the Golden Fleece of Burgundy, proved to be the prince of Ravenstein, the marquis of Berg, and Englebert, count of Nassau, who was hereditary burg graf, or governor of Antwerp, and who, when a mere boy, in 1404, had espoused the heiress of Loeke and Breda. The prince of Ravenstein's territory lay between Gueldres and Brabant; it is now merged in the duchy of Cleves, but his castle still stands near the Maese.

Gueldres was an ancient and then very powerful dukedom, though it shrank to a petty state after the declaration of independence by the maritime provinces of the Netherlands in 1579, when it lost Nimeguen, the county of Zutphen, and Arnheim, and afterwards Ruremond, which was made over to Prussia; and since then, these portions have frequently changed their masters and form of government.

In the days of Arnold d'Egmont the duchy contained sixteen cities, two hundred and thirty villages, five great fortresses, and a vast number of castles.

The old duke treated Gray with great condescension, and conversed freely with him as they rode on together.

He inquired in what battle Gray received the severe wound the mark of which yet remained upon his face; and for the first time since he had left Scotland, our hero felt his heart glow with petty anger, in having to acknowledge that he had gained it in a mere street brawl with the enemies of the king, – the adherents of the turbulent and unruly house of Douglas.

"Tête Dieu!" said the duke; "that is the family which gives the king, your master, so much trouble. By Saint Louis, I would make quick work in disposing of them."

"They can bring twenty thousand men into the field," urged Sir Patrick.

"The great lord of Douglas is now in Flanders."

"Here – here in Flanders!" exclaimed Gray.

"Not in my territories; but on the other side of Brabant, and when last heard of he was travelling with a brilliant train of knights towards Breda, for the purpose of visiting that city, after which he passes forward to France. He was at the Feast of the Assumption in Antwerp, but proudly and haughtily kept aloof from all."

This unexpected intelligence filled Gray with emotions of a varied character, and solved a great mystery, the recollection of which had greatly troubled him.

It was, then, really Murielle Douglas whom he had seen, and no visionary or fancied resemblance; and he felt a glow of pleasure at the conviction that he had looked upon her face so recently, that he had breathed the same air with her; and that even now she was separated from him, not by the stormy German Ocean, and many a league of hill and glen; but only by a few miles of level land, and he mentally resolved, at every hazard and danger, that on leaving the duke of Gueldres, he would follow the Douglases to Breda, and that if they had departed, he would track them elsewhere; so powerful a noble, with so brilliant a retinue, would be easily traced in Flanders.

Pleasure, anticipation, and excitement, made him alternately gay and abstracted; thus he could barely attend with becoming reverence to the kind old prince who, being anxious to make a favourable impression on one who seemed the trusted subject of his intended son-in-law, drew his attention to the various castles, spires, and other features of the country, beguiling the way by many a story and legend, as they rode towards his hunting-lodge, at which they were to pass the night.

It stood upon the Gueldrian side of the Peel Morass. The latter included great tracts of land now dry and fertile, which were then deep swamps; and strange old stories lingered there, of broken dykes and bursting sluices – of overflowings from the Waal and Maese, with inundations from the Zuider Zee, by which whole farms were swept away, strong castles overthrown, and villages submerged; and of mermaids and mermen being swept by the retiring waters to flounder in the slough until they were captured; and the duke averred that in the days of his ancestor, Reinold II., duke of Gueldres, two had been instructed in Christianity and taught to make reverence to a crucifix, – a story corroborated in later times.

The "History of the Seven United Provinces," published at London in 1705, tells us, that "one day, when the sea had broken the banks and overflowed one part of the country, some young damsels of Ednam, going in a boat to milk their cows, found a nymph, or sea-woman, who lay half-covered in the mud, after the waters had been drained off. They drew her out and carried her to Ednam, where they taught her to spin and dress herself like other women; but they could not teach her to speak, nor lose the inclination which she had to return to her former element. There is an author who pretends that they imprinted in her some knowledge of a God, and that she made her reverence as she passed a crucifix. But it was not in Holland only," adds the historian, "that they found mermen in those days. There were some taken on the coast of Norway, which had on them the cross, the mitre, and all the pontifical habits of a bishop; but they only sighed after they were taken, and died very quickly."

Night had closed when the party reached the hunting-lodge, which was an old castle of some extent and considerable antiquity.

"This," said the duke, "is the hereditary mansion of the counts of Endhoven; and under its roof Count Ludwig, the last of that line, was born."

"Where he is not likely to die," added the count of Nassau.

"Since his attainder it has been mine."

"There is a strange story connected with it – or rather with the parents of Ludwig," said the count of Nassau, a noble with a long grave and pleasing countenance.

"His father was a cruel passionate and vindictive man, who used his countess so barbarously that she was wont to carry a dagger in her boddice, for her protection. Six months after Ludwig was born, she died of a broken heart, and the dagger, as she requested with her last breath, was buried with her. For a few weeks the count drank deeply, gamed and hunted, it seemed to all, as if to drown thought; but after a time he recovered, and to lighten the old castle, which seemed so grim and gloomy now, he carried off a beautiful peasant girl from the neighbourhood of Endhoven. Long and bitterly did the girl weep, on finding herself in his power, and earnestly she prayed to be permitted to return to her parents and to her lover, with whom she had been on the point of marriage; but the wild count only laughed, and forced her to drink cup after cup of Rhenish wine, and to sing and play on her ghittern.

"One day, when he was caressing and endeavouring to console her in his own rough way, he swore a terrible oath that he would love her till death, and no one else!

"Believe him not!" exclaimed a hollow voice behind – a voice like that of the dead countess. At the same moment a lean and wasted arm and hand, grasping a dagger, came out of the stone wall, and the count fell dead, stabbed to the heart!

"In his breast was found the countess's dagger – the same weapon that had been buried with her!"

As the count of Nassau concluded this strange story, they rode through the dark archway into the barbican of the castle, which seemed old and gloomy, even to Gray, who had come from a land of grim and guarded fortresses.