The Caged Lion

by Charlotte M. Yonge

  CHAPTER XIII: THE RING AND THE EMPTY THRONE

  No one knows how great a tree has been till it has fallen; nor how largea space a mighty man has occupied till he is removed.

  King Henry V. left his friends and foes alike almost dizzy, as in placeof his grand figure they found a blank; instead of the hand whose forcethey had constantly felt, mere emptiness.

  Malcolm of Glenuskie, who had been asserting constantly that King Henrywas no master of his, and had no rights over him, had nevertheless, forthe last year or more, been among those to whom the King's will was themoving spring, fixing the disposal of almost every hour, and makingeverything dependent thereon.

  When the death-hush was broken by the 'Depart, O Christian soul,' andBedford, with a face white and set like a statue, stood up from hisknees, and crossed and kissed the still white brow, it was to Malcolm asif the whole universe had become as nothing. To him there remained onlythe great God, the heavenly Jerusalem into which the King had entered,and himself far off from the straight way, wandering from his promise andhis purpose into what seemed to him a mere hollow painted scene, such ascame and went in the midst of a banquet. Or, again, it was the grislyDance of Death that was the only reality; Death had clutched themightiest in the ring. Whom would he clutch next?

  He stood motionless, as one in a dream, or rather as if not knowing whichwas reality, and which phantom; gazing, gazing on at the bed where theKing lay, round which the ecclesiastics were busying themselves,unperceiving that James, Bedford, and the nobles had quitted theapartment, till Percy first spoke to him in a whisper, then almost shookhim, and led him out of the room. 'I am sent for you,' he said, in amuch shaken voice; 'your king says you can be of use.' Then tighteninghis grasp with the force of intense grief, 'Oh, what a day! what a day!My father! my father! I never knew mine own father! But he has been allto Harry and to me! Oh, woe worth the day!' And dropping into a window-seat, he covered his face with his hands, and gave way to his grief:pointing, however, to the council-room, where Malcolm found Bedfordwriting at the table, King James, and a few others, engaged in the samemanner.

  A few words from James informed him (or would have done so if he couldhave understood) that the Duke of Bedford, on whom at that terriblemoment the weight of two kingdoms and of the war had descended, could notpause to rest, or to grieve, till letters and orders had been sent to thecouncil in England, and to every garrison, every ally in France, to guardagainst any sudden panic, or faltering in friendship to England and herinfant heir. Warwick and Salisbury were already riding post haste totake charge of the army; Robsart was gone to the Queen, Exeter to theDuke of Burgundy; and as the clergy were all engaged with the tendance ofthe royal corpse, there was scarcely any one to lessen the Duke's toil.James, knowing Malcolm's pen to be ready, had sent for him to assist incopying the brief scrolls, addressed to each captain of a fortress ortown, announcing the father's death, and commanding him to do his duty tothe son--King Harry VI. Each was then to be signed by the Duke, anddespatched by men-at-arms, who waited for the purpose.

  Like men stunned, the half-dozen who sat at the council-table worked on,never daring to glance at the empty chair at the upper end. The onlywords that passed were occasional inquiries of, and orders from, Bedford;and these he spoke with a strange alertness and metallic ring in hisvoice, as though the words were uttered by mechanism; yet in themselvesthey were as clear and judicious as possible, as if coming from a mindwound up exclusively to the one necessary object; and the face--thoughflushed at first, and gradually growing paler, with knitted brows andcompressed lips--betrayed no sign of emotion.

  Hours passed: he wrote, he ordered, he signed, he sealed; he mentionedname after name, of place and officer, never moving or looking up. AndJames, who knew from Salisbury that he had neither slept nor eaten sincesixty miles off he had met a worse report of his brother, watched himanxiously till, when evening began to fall, he murmured, 'There is thecaptain of--of--at--but--'--the pen slipped from his fingers, and hesaid, 'I can no more!'

  The overtaxed powers, strained so long--mind, memory, and all--weregiving way under the mere force of excessive fatigue. He rose from hisseat, but stumbled, like one blind, as James upheld him, and led him awayto the nearest bed-chamber, where, almost while the attendants divestedhim of the heavy boots and cuirass he had never paused all these hours toremove, he dropped into a sleep of sheer exhaustion.

  James, who was likewise wearied out with watching, turned towards his ownquarters; but, in so doing, he could not but turn aside to the chapel,where before the altar had been laid all that was left of King Henry.There he lay, his hands clasped over a crucifix, clad in the same richgreen and crimson robes in which he had ridden to meet his Queen atVincennes but three short months before; the golden circlet from hishelmet was on his head, but it could not give additional majesty to thestill and severe sweetness of his grand and pure countenance, so youthfulin the lofty power that high aspirations had imprinted on it, yet sointensely calm in its marble rest, more than ever with the look of theavenging unpitying angel. To James, it was chiefly the face of the manwhom he had best loved and admired, in spite of their strange connection;but to Malcolm, who had as usual followed him closely, it was verily alook from the invisible world--a look of awful warning and reproof,almost as if the pale set lips were unclosing to demand of him where hewas in the valley of shadows, through which the way lay to Jerusalem. IfHenry had turned back, and warned him at the gate of the heavenly Sion,surely such would have been his countenance; and Malcolm, when, likeJames, he had sprinkled the holy water on the white brow, and crossedhimself while the low chant of Psalms from kneeling priests went uparound him--clasped his two hands close together, and breathed forth thewords, 'Oh, I have wandered far! O great King, I will never leave thestraight way again! I will cast aside all worldly aims! O God, and theSaints, help me not to lose my way again!'

  He would have tarried on still, in the fascination of that wonderfulunearthly countenance, and in the inertness of faculties stunned byfatigue and excitement, but James summoned him by a touch, and he againfollowed him.

  'O Sir!' he began, when they had turned away, 'I repent me of my fallingaway to the world! I give all up. Let me back to my vows of old.'

  'We will talk of that another time,' said James, gravely. 'Neither younor I, Malcolm, can think reasonably under such a blow as this; and Iforbid you rashly to bind yourself.'

  'Sir, Sir!' cried Malcolm, petulantly. 'You took me from the straightway. You shall not hinder my return!'

  'I hinder no true purpose,' said King James. 'I only hinder another rashand hasty pledge, to be felt as a fetter, or left broken on yourconscience. Silence now. When men are sad and spent they cannot speakas befits them, and had best hold their peace.'

  These words were spoken on the way up the stair that led to theapartments of the King of Scots. On opening the door of the larger room,the first thing they saw was the tall figure of a distinguished-lookingknight, who, as they entered, flung himself at King James's feet,fervently exclaiming, 'O my liege! accept my homage! Never was vassal sobound to his lord by thankfulness for his life, and for far more than hislife!'

  'Sir Patrick Drummond, I am glad to see you better at ease,' said James.'Nay, suffer me,' he added, giving his hand to raise the knight, butfinding it grasped and kissed with passionate devotion, almostoverpowering the only half-recovered knight, so that James was forced touse strength to support him, and would at once have lifted him up, butthe warm-hearted Patrick resisted, almost sobbing out--'Nay, Sir! king ofmy heart indeed! let me first thank you. I knew not how much more I owedyou than the poor life you saved--my father's rescue, and that of allthat was most dear.'

  'Speak of such things seated, my good friend,' said James, trying toraise him; but Drummond still did not second his efforts.

  'I have not given my parole of honour as the captive whose life is againdue to you.'

  'You must give that to the Duke of Bedford, Sir Patrick,' said J
ames. 'Iknow not if I am to be put into ward myself. In any case you are safe,by the good King's grace, so you pledge yourself to draw no sword againstEngland in Scotland or France till ransom be accepted for you.'

  'Alack!' said Patrick, 'I have neither sword nor ransom. I would I knewwhat was to be done with the life you have given me, my lord.'

  'I will find a use for it, never fear,' said James, sadly, but kindly.'Be my knight for the present, till better days come for us both.'

  'With my whole heart!' said Patrick, fervently. 'Yours am I for ever, myliege.'

  'Then my first command is that you should rise, and rest,' said James,assisting the knight to regain his feet, and placing him in the onlychair in the room. 'You must become a whole man as soon as may be.'

  For Patrick's arm was in a sling, and evidently still painful anduseless, and he sank back, breathless and unresisting, like one who hadby no means regained perfect health, while his handsome features lookedworn and pale. 'I fear me,' said James, as the two cousins silentlyshook hands, 'that you have moved over soon.--You surely had my message,Bairdsbrae?'

  'Oh yes, my lord,' replied Baird; 'but the lad was the harder to hold;and after the fever was gone, we deemed he could well brook the journeyby water. 'Twas time I was here to guide ye too, my lord; you and thecallant baith look sair forfaughten.'

  'We have had a sad time of it, Nigel,' said James, with trembling lip.

  'And if Brewster tells me right, ye've not tasted food the whole day?'said Nigel, laying an authoritative hand on his royal pupil. 'Nay, sitye down; here come the varlets with the meal I bade them have ready.'

  James passively yielded, courteously signing to the others to share thefood that was spread on a table; and with the same scarcely consciousgrace, making inquiries, which elicited that Patrick Drummond's hurts hadbeen caused by his horse falling and rolling over with him, whilst withSir John Swinton and other Scottish knights he was reconnoitring the lineof the English march. He was too much injured to be taken back to thefar distant camp, and had accordingly been intrusted to the Frenchfarmer, with no attendant but a young French horse-boy, since he was toopoor to keep a squire. He knew nothing more, for fever had run high; andhe had not even been sensible of his desertion by his French hosts on theapproach of the English, far less of the fire, and of his rescue by theKing and Malcolm; but for this he seemed inclined to compensate to theutmost, by the intense eagerness of devotion with which he regardedJames, who sat meanwhile crushed down by the weight of his own grief.

  'I can eat no more, Baird,' said he, swallowing down a draught of wine,and pushing aside his trencher. 'Your license, gentlemen. I must bealone. Take care of the lads, Nigel. Malcolm is spent too. His deftservice was welcome to--to my dearest brother.'

  And though he hastily shut himself into his own inner chamber, it was nottill they had seen that his grief was becoming uncontrollable.

  Patrick could not but murmur, 'Dearest brother!'

  'Ay, like brothers they loved!' said Baird, gravely.

  'A strange brotherhood,' began Drummond.

  But Malcolm cried, with much agitation, 'Not a word, Patie! You know notwhat you say. Take heed of profaning the name of one who is gone to theSion above.'

  'You turned English, our wee Malcolm!' exclaimed Drummond, in amaze.

  'There is no English, French, or Scot where he is gone!' cried Malcolm.'No Babel! O Patie, I have been far fallen! I have done you in heart agrievous wrong! but if I have turned back in time, it is his doing thatlies there.'

  'His! what, Harry of Lancaster's?' demanded the bewildered Patrick. 'Whathad he to do with you?'

  'He has been my only true friend here!' cried Malcolm. 'Oh, if my handbe free from actual spoil and bloodshed, it was his doing! Oh, that hecould hear me bless him for the chastisement I took so bitterly!'

  'Chastisement!' demanded Patrick. 'The English King dared chastise_you_! of Scots blood royal! 'Tis well he is dead!'

  'The laddie's well-nigh beside himself!' said Baird. 'But he speakstrue. This king whom Heaven assolizie, kept a tight hand over theyoungsters; and falling on Lord Malcolm and some other callants makingfree with a house at Meaux, dealt some blows, of which my young lordfound it hard to stomach his share; though I am glad to see he is come toa better mind. Ay, 'tis pity of this King Harry! Brave and leal was he;never spake an untrue word; never turned eye for fear, nor foot forweariness, nor hand for toil, nor nose for ill savour. A man, look you,to be trusted; never failing his word for good or ill! Right little lovehas there been between him and me; but I could weep like my own lad inthere, to think I shall never see that knightly presence more, nor hearthose frank gladsome voices of the boys, as they used to shout up anddown Windsor Forest.'

  'You too, Sir Nigel! and with a king like ours!'

  'Ay, Sir Patrick! and if he be such a king as Scotland never had sinceSt. David, and maybe not then, I'm free to own as much of it is due toKing Harry as to his own noble self.--Did ye say they had streekit him inthe chapel, Lord Malcolm? I'd fain look on the bonnie face of him; I'llne'er look on his like again.'

  No sooner had old Bairdsbrae gone, than Malcolm flung himself down beforehis cousin, crying, 'Oh, Patrick, you will hear me! I cannot rest tillyou know how changed I have been.'

  'Changed!' said Patrick; 'ay, and for the better! Why, Malcolm, I neverdurst hope to see you so sturdy and so heartsome. My father would havebeen blithe to see you such a gallant young squire. Even the halt isgone!'

  'Nearly,' said Malcolm. 'But I would fain be puny and puling, to havethe clear heart that once I had. Oh, hear me! hear me! and pardon me,Patie!'

  And Malcolm, in his agitation, poured forth the whole story of his havingshifted from his old cherished purpose of devoting himself to the serviceof Heaven, and leaving lands and vassals to the stronger hands of Patrickand Lilias; how, having thus given himself to the world, he had falleninto temptation; how he had let himself be led to persecute with his suita noble lady, vowed like himself; how he had almost agreed to marry herby force: and how he had been running into the ordinary dissipations ofthe camp, abstaining from confession, avoiding mass; disobeying orders,plunging into scenes of plunder, till he had almost been the death ofPatrick, whom he had already so cruelly wronged.

  So felt the boy. Fresh from that death-bed, the evils his conscience hadprotested against from the first appeared to him frightfully heinous, andhis anguish of self-reproach was such, that Patrick listened in thegreatest anxiety lest he should hear of some deadly stain on his youngkinsman's scutcheon; but when the tale was told, and he had demanded 'Isthat all?' and found that no further overt act was alleged againstMalcolm, he breathed a long sigh, and muttered, 'You daft laddie! you hadfairly startled me! So this is the coil, is it? Who ever told you toput on a cowl, I should like to know? Why, 'twas what my poor fatherever declared against. I take your lands! By my troth! 'twould beenough to make me break faith with your sister, if I _could_!'

  'The vow was in my heart,' faltered Malcolm.

  'In a fule's head!' said Patrick. 'What right have babes to be talkingof vows? 'Twould be the best tidings I've heard for many a long day,that you were wedded to a lass with a good tocher, and fit to guide yoursilly pate. What's that? Her vows! If they are no better than yours,the sooner they are forgot the better. If she had another love, 'twouldbe another matter, but with a bishop on your side, you've naught tofear.'

  Malcolm turned away, sick at heart. To him his present position hadbecome absolute terror. His own words had worked him up to an alarmingsense of having lapsed from high aims to mere selfishness; of havingprofaned vows, consented to violence, and fallen away from grace; and hewas in an almost feverish passion to utter something that wouldirrevocably bind him to his former intentions; but here were the King andPatrick both conspiring to silence him, and hold him back to his fallenand perilous state. Nay, Patrick even derided his penitence. Patrickwas an honourable knight, a religious man, as times went, but he had beenbroug
ht up in a much rougher and more unscrupulous school than Malcolm,and had been hardened by years of service as a soldier of fortune. TheArmagnac camp was not like that of England. Warriors of such piety andstrictness as Henry and Bedford had never come within his ken; and thatany man, professing to be a soldier, should hesitate at the license ofwar, was incomprehensible to him. The discipline of Henry's army hadbeen scoffed at in the French camp, and every infraction of it hailed asa token of hypocrisy; and to the stout Scot Malcolm's grief for therapine at Meaux, which after all he had not committed, seemed a simpleabsurdity. Even his own danger, on the second occasion, did not make himalter his opinion; it was all the fortune of war. And he was not surethat he had not best have been stifled at once, since his hands were tiedfrom warfare. And as for Lily--how was he to win her now? Then, asMalcolm opened his mouth, Patrick sharply charged him to hold his tongueas to that folly, unless he wanted to drive him to make a vow on hisside, that he would turn Knight of Rhodes, and never wed.

  Malcolm, wearied out with excitement, came at last to weeping that no onewould hear or understand him; but the scene was ended by Bairdsbrae, who,returning, brought a leech with him, who at once took the command ofPatrick, and ordered him to his bed.

  Malcolm could not rest. He was feverish with the shock of grief and awe,and absorbed in the thought which had mastered him, and which was muchdwelt on in the middle ages:--the monastic path, going towards heavenstraight as a sunbeam; the secular, twining its way through a tortuousdifficult course--the 'broad way,' tending downward to the abyss. To histerrified apprehension, he had abandoned the direct and narrow path forthe fatal road, and there might at any moment be captured, and whirledaway by the grisly phantom Death, who had just snatched the mightiest inhis inevitable clutch; and with something of the timidity of his nature,he was in absolute terror, until he should be able to set himself back onthe shining road from which he had swerved, and be rid of the load oftransgression which seemed ready to sink him into the gulf.

  Those few and perfunctory confessions to a courtly priest who knewnothing about him, and was sure not to be hard on a king's cousin, nowseemed to add to his guilt: and, wandering down-stairs towards thechapel, he met a train of ecclesiastics slowly leaving it, having justbeen relieved by a bevy of monks from a neighbouring convent, who took upthe chants where they had left them.

  Looking up at them, he recognized Dr. Bennet's bent head, and throwinghimself before him on his knee, he gasped, 'O father, father! hear me!Take me back! Give me hope!'

  'What means this, my young lord?' said Dr. Bennet, pausing, while hisbrethren passed on. 'Are you sick?' he added, kindly, seeing thewhiteness of Malcolm's face, and his startled eye.

  'Oh, no, no! only sick at heart at my own madness, and the doom on it! OSir, hear me! Take my vow again! give me absolution once more to a trueshrift. Oh, if you will hear me, it shall be honest this time! Only putme in the way again.'

  The chaplain was sorely sad and weary. He it was whose ministrations hadchiefly comforted the dying King. To him it had been the loss of adeeply-loved son and pupil, as well as of almost unbounded hopes for thewelfare of the Church; and he had had likewise, in the freshness of hissorrow, to take the lead in the ecclesiastical ceremonies that ensued, sothat both in body and mind he was well-nigh worn out, and longed forpeace in which to face his own private sorrow; but the wild words andanguished looks of the young Scot showed him that his case was one forimmediate hearing, and he drew the lad into the confessional,authoritatively calmed his agitation, and prepared to hear the outpouringof the boy's self-reproach.

  He heard it all--sifting facts from fancies, and learning the earlypurpose, the terror at the cruel world, the longing for peace andshelter; the desire to smooth his sister's way, which had led him todevote himself in heart to the cloister, though never permitted openly topledge himself. Then the discovery that the world was less thorny thanhe had expected; the allurement of royal favour and greatness; the charmof amusement, and activity in recovered health; the cowardly dread ofscorn, leading him not merely into the secular life, but into the gradualdropping of piety and devotion; the actual share he had taken inforbidden diversions; his attempts at plunder; his ill-will to KingHenry; and, above all, his persecution of Esclairmonde, which he nowregarded as sacrilegious; and he even told how he lay under a halfengagement to Countess Jaqueline to return alone to the Court, and bearhis part in the forcible marriage she projected.

  He told all, with no extenuation; nay, rather with such outbursts ofopprobrium on himself, that Dr. Bennet could hardly understand of whatpositive evils he had been guilty; and he ended by entreating that thealmoner would at once hear his vow to become a Benedictine monk, ere--

  But Dr. Bennet would not listen. He silenced the boy by saying he had nomore right to hear it than Malcolm as yet to make it. Nay, that innerdedication, for which Malcolm yearned as a sacred bond to his own will,the priest forbade. It was no moment to make such a promise in hispresent mood, when he did not know himself. If broken, he would only beadding sin to sin; nor was Malcolm, with all his errors fresh upon him,in any state to dedicate himself worthily. The errors--which in RalfPercy, or in most other youths, might have seemed slight--were heavystains on one who, like Malcolm, had erred, not thoughtlessly, but with aconscience of them all, in wilful abandonment of his higher principles.On these the chaplain mostly dwelt; on these he tried to direct Malcolm'srepentance; and, finding that the youth was in perpetual extremes ofremorse, and that his abject submission was a sort of fresh form ofwilfulness, almost passion at being forbidden to bind himself by the vow,he told him that the true token of repentance was steadiness andconstancy; and that therefore his absolution must be deferred until hehad thus shown that his penitence was true and sincere--by perseverance,firstly, in the devotions that the chaplain appointed for him, and,secondly, in meeting whatever temptations might be in store for him. Nay,the cruel chaplain absolutely forbade the white, excited, eager boy tospend half the night in chapel over the first division of thesepenitential psalms and prayers, but on his obedience sent him at once tohis bed.

  Malcolm could have torn his hair. Unabsolved! Still under the weight ofsin; still unpledged; still on dangerous ground; still left to a secularlife--and that without Esclairmonde! Why had he not gone to a FrenchBenedictine, who would have caught at his vow, and crowned his penitencewith some magnificent satisfying asceticism?

  Yet something in his heart, something in the father's own authority, madehim submit; and in a tumult of feeling, more wretched even than beforehis confession, he threw himself on his bed, expecting to charge thetossings of a miserable night on Dr. Bennet, and to creep down barefootto the chapel in the early morning to begin his _Misereres_.

  Instead of which, his first wakening was in broad daylight, by King Jamesstanding over him. 'Malcolm,' he said, 'I have answered for you that youare discreet and trusty. A message of weight is to be placed in yourhands. Come with me to the Duke of Bedford.'

  Malcolm could only dress himself, and obediently follow to the chamber,where sat the Duke, his whole countenance looking as if the light of hislife had gone out, but still steadfastly set to bear the heavy burdenthat had been placed on his shoulders.

  He called Malcolm to him, and showed him a ring, asking whether he knewit.

  'The King's signet--King Harry's,' said Malcolm.

  He was then reminded how, in the winter, Henry had lost the ring, andafter having caused another to be made at Paris, had found it in thefinger of his gauntlet. Very few knew of the existence of thisduplicate. Bedford himself was not aware of it till it had beenmentioned by James and Lord Fitzhugh the chamberlain; and then search wasmade for it, without effect, so that it evidently had been left with theQueen. These private signets were of the utmost importance, far more sothan even the autograph; for, though signatures were just acquiringindividuality enough to become the best authentication, yet up to thisvery reign the seal was the only valid affirmation. Such signets werealways
destroyed on a prince's death, and it was of the utmost importancethat the duplicate should not be left in Queen Catherine's hands--aboveall, while she was with her mother and her party, who were quite capableof affixing it to forgeries.

  Bedford, James, and Fitzhugh were all required at Vincennes; the twolatter at the lying-in-state in the chapel. Most of the other trustynobles had repaired to the army; and, indeed, Bedford, aware of theterrible jealousies that were sure to break out in the headless realm,did not choose to place a charge that might hereafter prove invidious inthe hands of any Englishman, or to extend the secret any further thancould be helped; since who could tell what suspicion might not be thuscast on any paper sealed by Henry?

  In his perplexity, James had suggested young Malcolm, who had assisted inthe search for the lost ring, and been witness to its discovery; and whomhe could easily send as bearer of his condolences to the widowed Queen;who had indeed the _entree_ of the palace, but had no political standing,was neither French nor English, and had shown himself discreet enoughwith other secrets to deserve confidence.

  Bedford caught at the proposal. And Malcolm now received orders to takehorse, with a sufficient escort, and hasten at once to Paris, where heshould try if possible to obtain the ring from the Queen herself; but ifhe could not speak to her in private, he might apply to Sir LewisRobsart. No other person was to be informed of the real object of themission, and he was to get back to Vincennes as soon as possible.

  Neither prince could understand the scared, distressed looks with whichMalcolm listened to commands showing so much confidence in a youth of hisyears. They encouraged him by assurances that Sir Lewis Robsart, who hada curious kind of authority, half fatherly, half nurselike, over theQueen, would manage all for him. And King James, provoked by hisreluctance, began, as they left Bedford's chamber, to chide him forungraciousness in the time of distress, and insensibility to the honourconferred on him.

  'Nay, nay,' disclaimed Malcolm, almost ready to weep, 'but I have a wholeworld of penance!'

  'Penance! Plague on the boy's perverseness! What penance is so good asobedience?' said James, much displeased.

  'Sir, Sir,' panted Malcolm, ''tis not only that. Could any one but besent in my stead? My returning alone is what Madame of Hainaultbade--for--for some scheme on--'

  His voice was choked, and his face was burning.

  'Is the lad gone daft?' cried James, in great anger. 'If Madame ofHainault were so lost to decorum as to hatch such schemes at such amoment, I trow you are neither puppet nor fool in her hands for her to dowhat she will with. I'll have no more fooling!'

  Malcolm could only obey.

  In the brief space while the horses were preparing, and he had to equipand take food, he sped in search of Dr. Bennet, hoping, he knew not what,from his interference, or trusting, at any rate, to explain his ownsudden absence.

  But, looking into the chapel, he recognized the chaplain as one of theleading priests in one of the lengthiest of masses, which was justcommencing. It was impossible to wait for the conclusion. He could butkneel down, find himself too much hurried and confused to recollect anyprayer, then dash back again to don his riding-gear, before King Jamesshould miss him, and be angered again.

  'Unabsolved--unvowed!' he thought. 'Sent off thither against my will.Whatever may fall out, it is no fault of mine!'