'Menace not me, Sir Boy,' said Genvil; 'nor shake your sword my way. I tell thee, Amelot, were my weapon to cross with yours, never flail sent abroad more chaff than I would make splinters of your hatched and gilded toasting-iron. Look you, there are gray- bearded men here that care not to be led about on any boy's humour. For me, I stand little upon that; and I care not whether one boy or another commands me. But I am the Lacy's man for the time; and I am not sure that, in marching to the aid of this Wild Wenlock, we shall do an errand the Lacy will thank us for. Why led he us not thither in the morning when we were commanded off into the mountains?'
'You well know the cause,' said the page.
'Yes, we do know the cause; or, if we do not, we can guess it,' answered the banner-man, with a horse laugh, which was echoed by several of his companions.
'I will cram the calumny down thy false throat, Genvil!' said the page; and, drawing his sword, threw himself headlong on the banner-man, without considering their great difference of strength.
Genvil was contented to foil his attack by one, and, as it seemed, a slight movement of his gigantic arm, with which he forced the page aside, parrying, at the same time, his blow with the standard-spear.
There was another loud laugh, and Amelot, feeling all his efforts baffled, threw his sword from him, and weeping in pride and indignation, hastened back to tell the Lady Eveline of his bad success. 'All,' he said, 'is lost— the cowardly villains have mutinied, and will not move; and the blame of their sloth and faintheartedness will be laid on my dear master.'
'That shall never be,' said Eveline, 'should I die to prevent it.—Follow me, Amelot.'
She hastily threw a scarlet scarf over her dark garments, and hastened down to the court-yard, followed by Gillian, assuming, as she went, various attitudes and actions expressing astonishment and pity, and by Rose, carefully suppressing all appearance of— the feelings which she really entertained.
Eveline entered the castle-court, with the kindling eye and glowing brow which her ancestors were wont to bear in danger and extremity, when their soul was arming to meet the storm, and displayed in their mien and looks high command and contempt of danger. She seemed at the moment taller than her usual size; and it was with a voice distinct and clearly heard, though not exceeding the delicacy of feminine tone, that the mutineers heard her address them. 'How is this, my masters?' she said; and as she spoke, the bulky forms of the armed soldiers seemed to draw closer together, as if to escape her individual censure. It was like a group of heavy water-fowl, when they close to avoid the stoop of the slight and beautiful merlin, dreading the superiority of its nature and breeding over their own inert physical strength.—'How now?' again she demanded of them; 'is it a time, think ye, to mutiny, when your lord is absent, and his nephew and lieutenant lies stretched on a bed of sickness?—Is it thus you keep your oaths?—Thus ye merit your leader's bounty?—Shame on ye, craven hounds, that quail and give back the instant you lose sight of the huntsman!'
There was a pause—the soldiers looked on each other, and then again on Eveline, as if ashamed alike to hold out in their mutiny, or to return to their usual discipline.
'I see how it is, my brave friends—ye lack a leader here; but stay not for that—I will guide you myself, and, woman as I am, there need not a man of you fear disgrace where a Berenger commands.—Trap my palfrey with a steel saddle,' she said, 'and that instantly.' She snatched from the ground the page's light head-piece, and threw it over her hair, caught up his drawn sword, and went on. 'Here I promise you my countenance and guidance— this gentleman,' she pointed to Genvil, 'shall supply my lack of military skill. He looks like a man that hath seen many a day of battle, and can well teach a young leader her devoir.'
'Certes,' said the old soldier, smiling in spite of himself, and shaking his head at the same time, 'many a battle have I seen, but never under such a commander.'
'Nevertheless,' said Eveline, seeing how the eyes of the rest turned on Genvil, 'you do not—cannot—will not—refuse to follow me? You do not as a soldier, for my weak voice supplies your captain's orders—you cannot as a gentleman, for a lady, a forlorn and distressed female, asks you a boon—you will not as an Englishman, for your country requires your sword, and your comrades are in danger. Unfurl your banner, then, and march.'
'I would do so, upon my soul, fair lady,' answered Genvil, as if preparing to unfold the banner—'And Amelot might lead us well enough, with advantage of some lessons from me, But I wot not whether you are sending us on the right road.'
'Surely, surely,' said Eveline, earnestly, 'it must be the right road which conducts you to the relief of Wenlock and his followers, besieged by the insurgent boors.'
'I know not,' said Genvil, still hesitating. 'Our leader here, Sir Damian de Lacy, protects the commons—men say he befriends them— and I know he quarrelled with Wild Wenlock once for some petty wrong he did to the miller's wife at Twyford. We should be finely off, when our fiery young leader is on foot again, if he should find we had been fighting against the side he favoured.'
'Assure yourself,' said the maiden, anxiously, 'the more he would protect the commons against oppression, the more he would put them down when oppressing others. Mount and ride—save Wenlock and his men—there is life and death in every moment. I will warrant, with my life and lands, that whatsoever you do will be held good service to De Lacy. Come, then, follow me.'
'None surely can know Sir Damian's purpose better than you, fair damsel,' answered Genvil; 'nay, for that matter, you can make him change as ye list,—And so I will march with the men, and we will aid Wenlock, if it is yet time, as I trust it may; for he is a rugged wolf, and when he turns to bay, will cost the boors blood enough ere they sound a mort. But do you remain within the castle, fair lady, and trust to Amelot and me.—Come, Sir Page, assume the command, since so it must be; though, by my faith, it is pity to take the headpiece from that pretty head, and the sword from that pretty hand—By Saint George! to see them there is a credit to the soldier's profession.'
The Lady accordingly surrendered the weapons to Amelot, exhorting him in few words to forget the offence he had received, and do his devoir manfully. Meanwhile Genvil slowly unrolled the pennon—then shook it abroad, and without putting his foot in the stirrup, aided himself a little with resting on the spear, and threw himself into the saddle, heavily armed as he was. 'We are ready now, an it like your juvenility,' said he to Amelot; and then, while the page was putting the band into order, he whispered to his nearest comrade, 'Methinks, instead of this old swallow's tail,[24] we should muster rarely under a broidered petticoat—a furbelowed petticoat has no fellow in my mind.—Look you, Stephen Pontoys—I can forgive Damian now for forgetting his uncle and his own credit, about this wench; for, by my faith, she is one I could have doated to death upon
'Ay, ay,' answered Pontoys, 'the boor to the booty, and the banner-man to the boor, a right pithy proverb. But, prithee, canst thou say why his pageship leads us not forward yet?'
'Pshaw!' answered Genvil, 'the shake I gave him has addled his brains—or perchance he has not swallowed all his tears yet; sloth it is not, for 'tis a forward cockeril for his years, wherever honour is to be won.—See, they now begin to move.—Well, it is a singular thing this gentle blood, Stephen; for here is a child whom I but now baffled like a schoolboy, must lead us gray beards where we may get our heads broken, and that at the command of a light lady.'
'I warrant Sir Damian is secretary to my pretty lady,' answered Stephen Pontoys, 'as this springald Amelot is to Sir Damian; and so we poor men must obey and keep our mouths shut.'
'But our eyes open, Stephen Pontoys—forget not that.'
They were by this time out of the gates of the castle, and upon the road leading to the village, in which, as they understood by the intelligence of the morning, Wenlock was besieged or blockaded by a greatly superior number of the insurgent commons. Amelot rode at the head of the troop, still embarrassed at the affront which he had received in presence of the soldiers, and lost in meditating how he was to eke out that deficiency of experience, which on former occasions had been supplied by the counsels of the banner-man, with whom he was ashamed to seek a reconciliation. But Genvil was not of a nature absolutely sullen, though a habitual grumbler. He rode up to the page, and having made his obeisance, respectfully asked him whether it were not well that some one or two of their number pricked forward upon good horses to learn how it stood with Wenlock, and whether they should be able to come up in time to his assistance.
