The little page gave an expostulating cry.
'Hold the child an instant, John,' gasped Richard, raising it towards his younger friend; 'I will but recover breath, and then land and seek out her friends.'
'How is this?' said a voice above them; and looking up, they found that while all had been absorbed in the rescue, the Prince, with his little son in his arms and his wife hanging on his arm, had come to the stone stairs, and was looking down. 'Richard overboard!'
'A child fell over the bank, my Lord,' eagerly shouted the little John, with cap in hand, 'and he swam out to pick it up.'
'Into the barge instantly, Richard,' commanded the Prince. ''Tis as much as his life is worth to remain in this cold stream!'
And truly Richard was beginning to feel as much. He was assisted in by two of the oarsmen, and the barge then putting towards the steps, the Princess was handed into her place, and began instantly to ask after the poor child. It had not been long enough in the water to lose its consciousness, though it had hitherto been too much frightened to cry; but it no sooner opened a wide pair of dark eyes to find itself in strange hands, than it set up a lamentable wail, calling in broken accents for 'Da-da.'
'Let me take it ashore at once, gracious lady,' said Richard, revived by a draught of wine from the stores provided for the long day; 'I will find its friends.'
'Nay,' said the Princess, 'it were frenzy to take it thus in its wet garments; and frenzy to remain in thine, Richard.' As she spoke, the Prince and the other persons of the suite had embarked, and the barge was pushing away from the steps. 'Give the child to me,' she added, holding out her arms, and disregarding a remonstrance from one of her ladies, disregarding too the sobs and struggles of the child, whom she strove to soothe, while hastily removing the little thing's soaked blue frock and hood, and wrapping it up in a warm woollen cloak. 'It is a pretty little maiden,' she said, 'and not ill cared for. Some mother's heart must be bursting for her!- Hush thee! hush thee, little one; we will take thee home and clothe thee, and then thou shalt go to thy mother,' she added, in better English than she had spoken four years earlier in Alton Wood. But the child still cried for her da-da, and the Princess asked again, 'What is thy father's name, little maid?'
'Pere,' she answered, with a peculiar accent that made the Prince say, 'That is a Provencal tongue.'
'They are Provencal eyes likewise,' added Eleanor. 'See how like their hue is to Richard's own;' and in Provencal she repeated the question what the father's name and the child's own might be. But 'Pere' again, and 'Bessee, pretty Bessee,' was all the answer she obtained, the last in unmistakable English.
'I thought,' said Eleanor, 'that it was only my own children that scarce knew whether they spoke English, Languedoc, or Langued'oui.'
'It was the same with us, Lady,' said Richard. 'Father Adam was wont to say we were a little Babel.'
The child looked towards him on hearing his voice, and held out her hands to go to him, reiterating an entreaty to be taken to her father.
'She is probably the child of some minstrel or troubadour,' said the Prince. 'We will send in search of him as soon as we have reached the Savoy.'
The Savoy Palace had been built for Queen Eleanor's obnoxious uncle, Prince Thomas of Savoy, and had recently been purchased by the Queen herself, as a wedding gift for her son Edmund; but in the meantime Edward and his family were occupying it during their stay near Westminster, and their barge was brought up to the wide stairs of its noble court. Richard was obliged to give up the child to the Princess and her ladies, though she shrieked after him so pertinaciously, that Eleanor called to him to return so soon as he should have changed his garments.
In a few minutes he again appeared, and found the little girl dressed in a little garment of one of the royal children, but totally insensible to the honour, turning away from all the dainties offered to her, and sobbing for her father, much to the indignation of the two little princes, Henry and John, who stood hand in hand staring at her. She flew to him directly, with a broken entreaty that she might be taken to her father. Again they tried questioning her, but Richard, whether speaking English or Provencal, always succeeded in obtaining readier and more comprehensible replies than did the Princess. Whether she recognized him as her preserver, or whether his language had a familiar tone, she seemed exclusively attracted by him; and he it was who learnt that she lived at home-far off-on the Green near the red monks, and that her father could not see-he would be lost without Bessee to lead him. And the little creature, hardly three years old if so much, was evidently in the greatest trouble at her father having lost her guidance and protection.
Richard, touched and flattered by the little maiden's exclusive preference, and owning in her Provencal eyes and speech something strangely like his own young sister Eleanor, entreated permission to be himself the person to take her in search of her friends. The Princess added her persuasions, declaring it would be cruel to send the poor little thing with another stranger, and that his Provencal tongue was needed in order to discovering her father among the troubadours.
Edward yielded to her persuasion, adding, however, that Richard must take two men-at-arms with him, and gravely bidding him be on his guard. Nor would he permit him to be accompanied by little John de Mohun, who, half page, half hostage, had lately been added to the Princess's train, and being often bullied and teased by Hamlyn and his fellows, had vehemently attached himself to Richard, and now entreated in vain to go with him on the adventure. In fact, Prince Edward was a stern disciplinarian, equally severe against either familiarity or insolence towards the external world, and especially towards any one connected with London. If Richard ever gave him any offence, it was by a certain freedom of manner towards inferiors, such as the Earl of Leicester had diligently inculcated on his family, but which more than once had excited a shade of vexation on the Prince's part. Even after Richard had reached the door, he was called back and commanded on no pretext to loiter or enter on any dispute, and if his search should detain him late, to sleep at the Tower, rather than be questioned and stopped at any of the gates which were guarded at night by the citizens.
CHAPTER V-THE OLD KNIGHT OF THE HOSPITAL
'The warriors of the sacred grave, Who looked to Christ for laws.' Lord Houghton.
Richard summoned a small boat, and with two stout men-at-arms, of whom Adam de Gourdon was one, prepared again to cross the river. Leonillo ran down the stone stairs with a wistful look of entreaty and it occurred to both Richard and Adam, that, could the child only lead them to the place where her father had sat, the dog's scent might prove their most efficient guide.
Little Bessee seemed quite comforted when on her way back to her father, and sat on Richard's knee, eating the comfits with which the Princess had provided her, and making him cut a figure that seemed somewhat to amaze the other boat-loads whom they encountered on the river.
When they landed, the throng was more dispersed, but revelry and sports of all kinds were going on fast and furiously; each door of the Abbey was besieged by hungry crowds receiving their dole, and Richard's inquiries for a blind man who had lost his child were little heeded, or met with no satisfactory answer. Bessee herself was bewildered, and incapable of finding her father's late station; and Richard was becoming perplexed, and doubtful whether he ought to take her back, as well as somewhat put out of countenance by the laughter of Thomas de Clare, and other young nobles, who rallied him on his strange charge.
At last the little girl's face lightened as at sight of something familiar. 'Good red monks,' she said. 'They give Bessee soup-make father well.'
With a ray of hope, Richard advanced to a party of Brethren of St. John, who were mounting at the Abbey gate to return to their house at Spitalfields, and doffing his bonnet, intimated a desire to address the tall old war-worn knight with a benevolent face, who was adjusting his scarlet cloak, before mounting a gray Arab steed looking as old and worthy as himself.
'Ha! a young Crusader, I perceive,' was the greeting of the old knight, as his eye fell on the white cross on Richard's mantle. 'Welcome, brother! Dost thou need counsel on thy goodly Eastern way?'
'Thanks, reverend Sir,' returned Richard, 'but my present purpose was to seek for the father of this little one, who fell into the river in the press. She pointed to you, saying she had received your bounty.'
'It is Blind Hal's child, Sir Robert!' exclaimed a serving-brother in black, coming eagerly forward; 'the villeins on the green told me the poor knave was distraught at having lost his child in the throng!'
'What brought he her there for?' exclaimed Sir Robert. 'Poor fool! his wits must have forsaken him!'
