embroidery.
'By Saint Hubert, a proper horseman, and a
'But I do,' said Gillian; 'it is Randal de Lacy, the Constable's kinsman, and as good a man as ever came of the name!'
'Oh! by Saint Hubert, I have heard of him—men say he is a reveller, and a jangler, and a waster of his goods.'
'Men lie now and then,' said Gillian dryly.
'And women also,' replied Raoul;—'why, methinks he winked on thee just now.'
'That right eye of thine saw never true since our good lord-Saint Mary rest him!—flung a cup of wine in thy face, for pressing over boldly into his withdrawing-room.'
'I marvel,' said Raoul, as if he heard her not, 'that yonder ruffler comes hither. I have heard that he is suspected to have attempted the Constable's life, and that they have not spoken together for five years.'
'He comes on my young lady's invitation, and that I know full well,' said Dame Gillian; 'and he is less like to do the Constable wrong than to have wrong at his hand, poor gentleman, as indeed he has had enough of that already.'
'And who told thee so?' said Raoul, bitterly.
'No matter, it was one who knew all about it very well,' said the dame, who began to fear that, in displaying her triumph of superior information, she had been rather over-communicative.
'It must have been the devil, or Randal himself' said Raoul, 'for no other mouth is large enough for such a lie.—But hark ye, Dame Gillian, who is he that presses forward next, like a man that scarce sees how he goes?'
'Even your angel of grace, my young Squire Damian' said Dame Gillian.
'It is impossible!' answered Raoul—'call me blind if thou wilt;— but I have never seen man so changed in a few weeks—and his attire is flung on him so wildly as if he wore a horse-cloth round him instead of a mantle— What can ail the youth?—he has made a dead pause at the door, as if he saw something on the threshold that debarred his entrance—Saint Hubert, but he looks as if he were elf-stricken!'
'You ever thought him such a treasure!' said Gillian; 'and now look at him as he stands by the side of a real gentleman, how he stares and trembles as if he were distraught.'
'I will speak to him,' said Raoul, forgetting his lameness, and springing from his elevated station—'I will speak to him; and if he be unwell, I have my lancets and fleams to bleed man as well as brute.'
'And a fit physician for such a patient,' muttered Gillian,—'a dog-leech for a dreamy madman, that neither knows his own disease nor the way to cure it.'
Meanwhile the old huntsman made his way towards the entrance, before which Damian remained standing, in apparent uncertainty whether he should enter or not, regardless of the crowd around, and at the same time attracting their attention by the singularity of his deportment.
Raoul had a private regard for Damiah; for which, perhaps, it was a chief reason, that of late his wife had been in the habit of speaking of him in a tone more disrespectful than she usually applied to handsome young men. Besides, he understood the youth was a second Sir Tristrem in silvan sports by wood and river, and there needed no more to fetter Raoul's soul to him with bands of steel. He saw with great concern his conduct attract general notice, mixed with some ridicule.
'He stands,' said the town-jester, who had crowded into the gay throng, 'before the gate, like Balaam's ass in the Mystery, when the animal sees so much more than can be seen by any one else.'
A cut from Raoul's ready leash rewarded the felicity of this application, and sent the fool howling off to seek a more favourable audience, for his pleasantry. At the same time Raoul pressed up to Damian, and with an earnestness very different from his usual dry causticity of manner, begged him for God's sake not to make himself the general spectacle, by standing there as if the devil sat on the doorway, but either to enter, or, what might be as becoming, to retire, and make himself more fit in apparel for attending on a solemnity so nearly concerning his house.
'And what ails my apparel, old man?' said Damian, turning sternly on the huntsman, as one who has been hastily and uncivilly roused from a reverie.
'Only, with respect to your valour,' answered the huntsman, 'men do not usually put old mantles over new doublets; and methinks, with submission, that of yours neither accords with your dress, nor is fitted for this noble presence.'
'Thou art a fool!' answered Damian, 'and as green in wit as gray in years. Know you not that in these days the young and old consort together—contract together—wed together? and should we take more care to make our apparel consistent than our actions?'
'For God's sake, my lord,' said Raoul, 'forbear these wild and dangerous words! they may be heard by other ears than mine, and construed by worse interpreters. There may be here those who will pretend to track mischief from light words, as I would find a buck from his frayings. Your cheek is pale, my lord, your eye is blood- shot; for Heaven's sake, retire!'
'I will not retire,' said Damian, with yet more distemperature of manner, 'till I have seen the Lady Eveline.'
'For the sake of all the saints,' ejaculated Raoul, 'not now!—You will do my lady incredible injury by forcing yourself into her presence in this condition.'
'Do you think so!' said Damian, the remark seeming to operate as a sedative which enabled him to collect his scattered thoughts.—'Do you really think so?—I thought that to have looked upon her once more—but no—you are in the right, old man.'
He turned from the door as if to withdraw, but ere he could accomplish his purpose, he turned yet more pale than before, staggered, and fell on the pavement ere Raoul could afford him his support, useless as that might have proved. Those who raised him were surprised to observe that his garments were soiled with blood, and that the stains upon his cloak, which had been criticised by Raoul, were of the same complexion. A grave- looking personage, wrapped in a sad-coloured mantle, came forth from the crowd.
'I knew how it would be,' he said; 'I made venesection this morning, and commanded repose and sleep according to the aphorisms of Hippocrates; but if young gentlemen will neglect the ordinance of their physician, medicine will avenge herself. It is impossible that my bandage or ligature, knit by these fingers, should have started, but to avenge the neglect of the precepts of art.'
'What means this prate?' said the voice of the Constable, before which all others were silent. He had been summoned forth just as the rite of espousal or betrothing was concluded, on the confusion occasioned by Damian's situation, and now sternly commanded the physician to replace the bandages which had slipped from his nephew's arm, himself assisting in the task of supporting the patient, with the anxious and deeply agitated feelings of one who saw a near and justly valued relative—as yet, the heir of his fame and family—stretched before him in a condition so dangerous.
But the griefs of the powerful and the fortunate are often mingled with impatience of interrupted prosperity. 'What means this?' he demanded sternly of the leech. 'I sent you this morning to attend my nephew on the first tidings of his illness, and commanded that he should make no attempt to be present on this day's solemnity, yet I find him in this state, and in this place.'
'So please your lordship,' replied the leech, with a conscious self-importance, which even the presence of the Constable could not subdue—
'Tell me not of your jargon,' said De Lacy; 'if my nephew was lightheaded enough to attempt to come hither in the heat of a delirious distemper, you should have had sense to prevent him, had it been by actual force.'
'It may be,' said, Randal de Lacy, joining the crowd, who, forgetting the cause which had brought them together, were now assembled about Damian, 'that more powerful was the magnet which drew our kinsman hither, than aught the leech could do to withhold him.'
The Constable, still busied about his nephew, looked up as Randal spoke, and, when he was done, asked, with formal coldness of manner, 'Ha, fair kinsman, of what magnet do you speak?'
