The Black Arrow: A Tale of Two Roses
Page 33
CHAPTER VIII--CONCLUSION
About nine in the morning, Lord Foxham was leading his ward, once moredressed as befitted her sex, and followed by Alicia Risingham, to thechurch of Holywood, when Richard Crookback, his brow already heavy withcares, crossed their path and paused.
"Is this the maid?" he asked; and when Lord Foxham had replied in theaffirmative, "Minion," he added, "hold up your face until I see itsfavour."
He looked upon her sourly for a little.
"Ye are fair," he said at last, "and, as they tell me, dowered. How if Ioffered you a brave marriage, as became your face and parentage?"
"My lord duke," replied Joanna, "may it please your grace, I had ratherwed with Sir Richard."
"How so?" he asked, harshly. "Marry but the man I name to you, and heshall be my lord, and you my lady, before night. For Sir Richard, let metell you plainly, he will die Sir Richard."
"I ask no more of Heaven, my lord, than but to die Sir Richard's wife,"returned Joanna.
"Look ye at that, my lord," said Gloucester, turning to Lord Foxham."Here be a pair for you. The lad, when for good services I gave him hischoice of my favour, chose but the grace of an old, drunken shipman. Idid warn him freely, but he was stout in his besottedness. 'Here diethyour favour,' said I; and he, my lord, with a most assured impertinence,'Mine be the loss,' quoth he. It shall be so, by the rood!"
"Said he so?" cried Alicia. "Then well said, lion-driver!"
"Who is this?" asked the duke.
"A prisoner of Sir Richard's," answered Lord Foxham; "Mistress AliciaRisingham."
"See that she be married to a sure man," said the duke.
"I had thought of my kinsman, Hamley, an it like your grace," returnedLord Foxham. "He hath well served the cause."
"It likes me well," said Richard. "Let them be wedded speedily. Say,fair maid, will you wed?"
"My lord duke," said Alicia, "so as the man is straight"--And there, in aperfect consternation, the voice died on her tongue.
"He is straight, my mistress," replied Richard, calmly. "I am the onlycrookback of my party; we are else passably well shapen. Ladies, andyou, my lord," he added, with a sudden change to grave courtesy, "judgeme not too churlish if I leave you. A captain, in the time of war, hathnot the ordering of his hours."
And with a very handsome salutation he passed on, followed by hisofficers.
"Alack," cried Alicia, "I am shent!"
"Ye know him not," replied Lord Foxham. "It is but a trifle; he hathalready clean forgot your words."
"He is, then, the very flower of knighthood," said Alicia.
"Nay, he but mindeth other things," returned Lord Foxham. "Tarry we nomore."
In the chancel they found Dick waiting, attended by a few young men; andthere were he and Joan united. When they came forth again, happy and yetserious, into the frosty air and sunlight, the long files of the armywere already winding forward up the road; already the Duke ofGloucester's banner was unfolded and began to move from before the abbeyin a clump of spears; and behind it, girt by steel-clad knights, thebold, black-hearted, and ambitious hunchback moved on towards his briefkingdom and his lasting infamy. But the wedding party turned upon theother side, and sat down, with sober merriment, to breakfast. The fathercellarer attended on their wants, and sat with them at table. Hamley,all jealousy forgotten, began to ply the nowise loth Alicia withcourtship. And there, amid the sounding of tuckets and the clash ofarmoured soldiery and horses continually moving forth, Dick and Joan satside by side, tenderly held hands, and looked, with ever growingaffection, in each other's eyes.
Thenceforth the dust and blood of that unruly epoch passed them by. Theydwelt apart from alarms in the green forest where their love began.
Two old men in the meanwhile enjoyed pensions in great prosperity andpeace, and with perhaps a superfluity of ale and wine, in Tunstallhamlet. One had been all his life a shipman, and continued to the lastto lament his man Tom. The other, who had been a bit of everything,turned in the end towards piety, and made a most religious death underthe name of Brother Honestus in the neighbouring abbey. So Lawless hadhis will, and died a friar.
Footnotes:
{1} At the date of this story, Richard Crookback could not have beencreated Duke of Gloucester; but for clearness, with the reader's leave,he shall so be called.
{2} Richard Crookback would have been really far younger at this date.
{3} Technically, the term "lance" included a not quite certain number offoot soldiers attached to the man-at-arms.