'That is right – that is well,' said his uncle. 'Our King cares little what other theft thou mayst have made, but hath a horror at any thing like a breach of the cloister. And, I warrant thee, thou hadst no great treasure to bear thy charges?'
'Only a few pieces of silver,' said the youth; 'for to you, fair uncle, I must make a free confession.'
'Alas!' replied Le Balafre, 'that is hard. Now, though I am never a hoarder of my pay, because it doth ill to bear a charge about one in these perilous times, yet I always have (and I would advise you to follow my example) some odd gold chain, or bracelet, or carcanet, that serves for the ornament of my person, and can at need spare a superfluous link or two, or it may be a superfluous stone for sale, that can answer any immediate purpose. – But you may ask, fair kinsman, how you are to come by such toys as this?' – (he shook his chain with complacent triumph) – 'They hang not on every bush – they grown not in the fields like the daffodils, with whose stalks children make kinghts' collars. What then? – you may get such where I got this, in the service of the good King of France, where there is always wealth to be found, if a man has but the heart to seek it, at the risk of a little life or so.'
'I understood,' said Quentin, evading a decision to which he felt himself as yet scarcely competent, 'that the Duke of Burgundy keeps a more noble state than the King of France, and that there is more honour to be won under his banners – that good blows are struck there, and deeds of arms done; while the Most Christian King, they say, gains his victories by his ambassadors' tongues.'
'You speak like a foolish boy, fair nephew,' answered he with the Scar; 'and yet, I bethink me, when I came hither I was nearly as simple: I could never think of a King but what I supposed him either sitting under the high deas, and feasting amid his high vassals and Paladins, eating blancmanger, with a great gold crown upon his head, or else charging at the head of his troops like Charlemagne in the romaunts, or like Robert Bruce or William Wallace in our own true histories, such as Barbour and the Minstrel. Hark in thine ear, man – it is all moonshine in the water. Policy – policy does it all. But what is policy, you will say? It is an art this French King of ours has found out, to fight with other men's swords, and to wage his soldiers out of other men's purses. Ah! it is the wisest Prince that ever put purple on his back – and yet he weareth not much of that neither – I see him often go plainer than I would think befitted me to do.'
'But you meet not my exception, fair uncle,' answered young Durward; 'I would serve, since serve I must in a foreign land, somewhere where a brave deed, were it my hap to do one, might work me a name.'
'I understand you, my fair nephew,' said the royal man-at-arms, 'I understand you passing well; but you are unripe in these matters. The Duke of Burgundy is a hot-brained, impetuous, pudding-headed, iron-ribbed dare-all. He charges at the head of his nobles and native knights, his liegemen of Artois and Hainault; think you, if you were there, or if I were there myself, that we could be much farther forward than the Duke and all his brave nobles of his own land? If we were not up with them, we had a chance to be turned on the Provost-Marshal's hands, for being slow in making to; if we were abreast of them, all would be called well, and we might be thought to have deserved our pay; and grant that I was a spear's-length or so in the front, which is both difficult and dangerous in such a melee where all do their best, why, my lord duke says, in his Flemish tongue, when he sees a good blow struck, 'Ha! gut getroffen! a good lance – a brave Scot – give him a florin to drink our health;' but neither rank, nor lands, nor treasures, come to the stranger in such a service – all goes to the children of the soil.'
'And where should it go, in Heaven's name, fair uncle?' demanded young Durward.
'To him that protects the children of the soil,' said Balafre, drawing up his gigantic height. 'Thus says King Louis: – 'My good French peasant – mine honest Jacques Bonhomme – get you to your tools, your plough and your harrow, your pruning-knife and your hoe – here is my gallant Scot that will fight for you, and you shall only have the trouble to pay him – And you, my most serene duke, my illustrious count, and my most mighty marquis, e'en rein up your fiery courage till it is wanted, for it is apt to start out of the course, and to hurt its master; here are my companies of ordonance – here are my French Guards – here are, above all, my Scottish Archers, and mine honest Ludovic with the Scar, who will fight, as well or better than you, with all that undisciplined valour, which, in your father's time, lost Cressy and Azincour.' Now, see you not in which of these states a cavalier of fortune holds the highest rank, and must come to the highest honour?'
'I think I understand you, fair uncle,' answered the nephew; 'but, in my mind, honour cannot be won where there is no risk. Sure, this is – I pray you pardon me – an easy and almost slothful life, to mount guard round and elderly man whom no one thinks of harming, to spend summer-day and winter-night up in yonder battlements, and shut up all the while in iron cages, for fear you should desert your posts – uncle, uncle, it is but the hawk upon his perch, who is never carried out to the fields!'
'Now, by Saint Martin of Tours, the boy has some spirit! a right touch of the Lesly in him; much like myself, though always with a little more folly in it. Hark ye, youth – Long live the King of France! – scarce a day but there is some commission in hand, by which some of his followers may win both coin and credit. Think not that the bravest and most dangerous deeds are done by daylight. I could tell you of some, as scaling castles, making prisoners, and the like, where one who shall be nameless hath run higher risk, and gained greater favour, than any desperado in the train of desperate Charles of Burgundy. And if it please his Majesty to remain behind, and in the background, while such things are doing, he hath the more leisure of spirit to admire, and the more liberality of hand to reward the adventurers, whose dangers, perhaps, and whose feats of arms, he can better judge of than if he had personally shared them. O, 'tis a sagacious and most politic monarch!'
His nephew paused, and then said, in a low but impressive tone of voice, 'The good Father Peter used often to teach me there might be much danger in deeds by which little glory was acquired. I need not say to you, fair uncle, that I do in course suppose that these secret commissions must needs be honourable.'
'For whom or for what take you me, fair nephew?' said Balafre, somewhat sternly; 'I have not been trained, indeed, in the cloister, neither can I write nor read. But I am your mother's brother; I am a loyal Lesly. Think you that I am like to recommend to you any thing unworthy? The best kinght in France, Du Guesclin himself, if he were alive again, might be proud to number my deeds among his achievements.'
'I cannot doubt your warranty, fair uncle,' said the youth; 'you are the only adviser my mishap has left me. But is it true, as fame says, that this King keeps a meagre Court here at his Castle of Plessis? No repiar of nobles or courtiers, none of his grand feudatories in attendance, none of the high officers of the crown; half solitary sports, shared only with the menials of his household; secret councils, to which only low and obscure men are invited; rank and nobility depressed, and men raised from the lowest origin to the kingly favour – all this seems unregulated, resembles not the manners of his father, the noble Charles, who tore from the fangs of the English lion this more than half conquered kingdom of France.'
'You speak like a giddy child,' said Le Balafre; 'and even as a child, you harp over the same notes on a new string. Look you: if the King employs Oliver Dain, his barber, to do what Oliver can do better than any peer of them all, is not the kingdom the gainer? If he bids his stout Provost-Marshal, Tristan, arrest such or such a seditious burgher, take off such or such a turbulent noble, the deed is done and no more of it; when were the commission given to a duke or peer of France, he might perchance send the King back a defiance in exchange. If, again, the King pleases to give to plain Ludovic le Balafre a commission which he will execute, instead of employing the High Constable, who would perhaps betray it, doth it not show wisdom? Above all, doth it not monarch of such conditions best suit cavaliers of fortune, who must go where their services are most highly prized, and most frequently in demand? – No, no, child, I tell thee Louis knows how to choose his confidants, and what to charge them with; suiting, as they say, the burden to each man's back. He is not like the King of Castile, who choked of thirst, because the great butler was not beside to hand his cup. – But hark to the bell of Saint Martin's! I must hasten back to the Castle. – Farewell – make much of yourself, and at eight to-morrow morning present yourself before the drawbridge, and ask the sentinel for me. Take heed you step not off the straight and beaten path in approaching the portal! There are such traps and snap-haunches as may cost you a limb, which you will sorely miss. You shall see the King, and learn to judge him for yourself – farewell.'
So saying, Balafre hastily departed, forgetting, in his hurry, to pay for the wine he had called for, a shortness of memory incidental to persons of his description, and which his host, overawed, perhaps, by the nodding bonnet and ponderous two-handed sword, did not presume to use any efforts for correcting.
It might have been expected that, when left alone, Durward would have again betaken himself to his turret, in order to watch for the repetition of those delicious sounds which had soothed his morning reverie. But that was a chapter of romance, and his uncle's coversation had opened to him a page of the real history of life. It was no pleasing one, and for the present the recollections and reflections which it excited, were qualified to
