The Robber Baron of Bedford Castle
Page 20
*CHAPTER XX.*
_*LOVE LAUGHS AT LOCKSMITHS.*_
When the interview with his uncle had ended and Ralph's endeavours tocheer the latter's gloom had in a measure succeeded, the young knightwent off to make his report upon John de Standen's operations to hissuperiors. Evening was falling fast ere he found himself free, and thenit suddenly came into his mind to pay a kind of unofficial visit to thesentries on the south side of the river, and see if they were on thealert. Perhaps, also, he was impelled by an uncontrollable desire togaze from as close a point as was possible on that stern keep, where hehad that noontide learned from Beatrice Mertoun that his lady-lovelingered in much doubt and distress.
He crossed the bridge and walked along the river-bank, giving therequired password to each post, and adding a few syllables of caution.In so doing, he told himself he was but fulfilling the object of hisnocturnal ramble. Ere long he found himself facing the huge keep,rising on the opposite shore of the river black against the northernsky.
Ralph knew every window of the southern face of the keep, and well-nighevery stone. He perceived a light in one of the large openings of theupper story. He knew that window well. It was that of the lady's bower,which had been his cousin's apartment in the old days, and was probablynow occupied by the Lady Margaret.
Dark though the night was, the young man's eyesight was keen, and as hegazed at that window, a crowd of tender thoughts flooding his heart, hesaw in the opening two figures in dark profile against the light behindthem.
Seized by an uncontrollable impulse, Ralph hastily doffed his armour,and, clad only in the soft leathern dress which knights wore beneaththeir harness, dropped into the stream so quietly as to be unperceivedby the nearest sentry on the river-bank.
Starting from a well-known old pollard willow, Ralph breasted the streammanfully, making, as nearly as the sweep of the current and the darknessof the night would allow him, for certain iron stanchions which heremembered he had fixed, when a boy, into the castle wall.
To his great joy he found they had not been removed. He caught hold ofthe lowest, which was near the water's edge, and quickly scaled thewall. When he reached the top he looked eagerly down and around.
No one was near. William de Breaute, whose garrison was but scanty, hadjudged that no attack would be made upon the river side of the castle,except by boat, and accordingly had contented himself with postingsentries at each end of the long river-wall, concentrating his principalstrength on the landward side of the castle.
Ralph slid down the other side of the wall, and cautiously crossed theopen space which separated him from the huge mound on which stood thekeep. He was still unperceived; so, climbing the steep side of themound, he crouched down against the lofty wall, immediately beneath thelighted window.
Were those two figures still there?
Twice he softly called Aliva by name, and then, to his intense rapture,sweet as an angel's voice from heaven to him, came the words fromabove,--
"Ralph! Ralph! can it be thou?"
"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage."
Love laughs at locksmiths. In this case it made light, too, of someforty perpendicular feet of massive stone wall. After five weary monthsof uncertainty, all doubts, mistrusts, and tortures of anxiety wereswept away in a breath, as these two heard, each one once more, theloved voice neither had expected ever to hear again; and old FatherOuse, rippling sluggishly on between the willows through the dark summernight, had never listened to warmer raptures, to more passionateprotestations of love.
But some one else was listening too.
In the thickness of the wall, at the south-east corner of the keep, onthe same floor as the great hall, was the small chapel of the castle.It was a tiny apartment, affording room for but few worshipping besidesthose attending on the ministrations of the priest. Behind a roundarched arcading in a stone gallery were accommodated the ladies and thehousehold of the lord's family; but the bulk of the congregation wouldhave to stand in a sort of antechapel opening out of the great hall, andjoin in the mass from that position.
Up and down the narrow space in front of the altar--freshly repaired andcleaned for the bridal of Aliva and De Breaute--paced restlessly atmidnight Bertram de Concours. His thoughts were not pleasant ones. Thefreshly-appointed chaplain of Bedford Castle had conceived that his newposition would be one which would lead him to power and authority, andprobably give him an opportunity to triumph over those whom heconsidered his enemies, the ecclesiastical superiors who had dishonouredand disowned him. But now, instead of rising to power with the DeBreaute family, he found his new patrons in sore distress. He was wellaware that the two assaults which had already been made on the castlehad been completely successful, and that all the outer defences had beentaken. He gleaned, from the talk of De Breaute and his under-officers,that if the walls were really undermined, and a fresh attack should bemade with the same vigour, nothing could avert the fall of the castle.
For the fate of De Breaute and his men Bertram de Concours carednothing, but in the event of his own capture he clearly foresaw forhimself condemnation in the ecclesiastical court. The sentence would beperpetual imprisonment in the cell of some stringent order, whereoffending priests were subjected to even more severe discipline thanthat voluntarily assumed by the most austere monks themselves.
"Fool that I was," he muttered to himself, "to have thrown in my lotwith these French upstarts! Why did I not see this maiden safe to herfather's house, and so have won me the eternal gratitude of thislove-sick knight, and what is more, the favour of his family?"
As he moved restlessly to and fro, he paused, and opening the rudeshutter which closed the narrow window on the south, looked out into thesilent summer night. The calm freshness seemed to mock the consuminguneasiness in his mind.
But as he gazed he heard voices. He leaned out and listened intently.
Yes, he was not mistaken: a voice there was above him--awoman's--answering to a man's below in the darkness.
"Escape, my Ralph, ere dawn break! There are watchers at each end ofthe long wall, and they will certes espy thee if thou lingerest till itgrows light. How it came that thou crossedst the glacis, and scaledstthe keep mound unseen, I cannot tell. May the saints bear thee safeacross the river!"
And then another female voice went on,--
"And take my message to thy revered uncle, bold young Sir Knight. Tellhim that Margaret de Ripariis has but lived these long years in sorrowand mourning for the false step into which she was both forced andbetrayed, and that she hath ever held his memory dear."
Then a man's voice answered from below,--
"Fare thee well, my heart's darling, Aliva!--My Lady Margaret, I salutethee. Forget not the signal. When the last assault comes--as come fullsoon it must--and we attack this mighty keep, hang your scarves from thewindows of the chamber to which ye retreat, and I will come and conveyye both away in safety."
Then Bertram heard the speaker cautiously feeling his way among theloose stones which lay at the foot of the keep.
He drew a short, sharp breath, and clinched his teeth.
"By the mass," he exclaimed, "though naught can undo my folly in thepast, yet I will have vengeance now! Ho, warder, ho!" he cried,hurrying from the chapel into the hall, and shouting to the sentry onduty at the entrance; "ho! quick to the window, and take thy aim at yonfigure hastening down to the river wall. 'Tis the young knight DeBeauchamp. It grows light enow for thee to see thy mark."
At that moment William de Breaute entered the hall from the turretstaircase in the corner. He had been taking a few hours' sleep in oneof the upper chambers, and was now about to sally out on his earlymorning rounds, fearing an attack when his guards were weary and drowsy.
"How sayest thou, Sir Chaplain?" he exclaimed; "Ralph de Beauchamphere--beneath the castle wall! 'Tis not possible!"
"Nay, Sir William, not so impossible," replied the priest
. "I trow hehath been drawn across the Ouse by a lodestar within these walls. Fromthe chapel window I heard him e'en now hold converse with the Lady Alivaat a window above."
With a furious volley of French oaths William de Breaute rushed wildlyout of the hall, calling upon all the sentries near to stop or kill SirRalph.
It was a maddening race. From the upper window the girl watched it inagony. The cross-bow bolts flew thick and fast around Ralph as hehurried to the wall. Some shattered themselves against the stones as hescaled it.
For a brief moment he stood out clearly upon the summit against the graydawn, an easy mark for the archers. Then, without waiting to descend bythe iron stanchions, he took a desperate plunge into the stream.
A desperate plunge.]
Aliva saw him rise to the surface, and watched him swimming with all hismight to the opposite bank.
But as he leaped from the top of the wall she saw another figure reachit, and she recognized the pursuer to be William de Breaute.
He held in his hand a ready-strung cross-bow which he had snatched fromone of the warders.
Aliva saw him take aim and loose the shaft.
The figure of the swimmer half rose in the water, and then disappearedfrom view beneath its surface.
With a faint cry Aliva fell back swooning into the arms of LadyMargaret.