The Talisman by Walter Scott (best novels of all time txt) 📕

“Not name—not think of her!” answered Sir Kenneth, his spirits, stunned as they were by self-depression, beginning to recover their elasticity from this species of controversy. “Now, by the Cross, on which I place my hope, her name shall be the last word in my mouth, her image the last thought in my mind. Try thy boasted strength on this bare brow, and see if thou canst prevent my purpose.”

“He will drive me mad!” said Richard, who, in his despite, was once more staggered in his purpose by the dauntless determination of the criminal.

Ere Thomas of Gilsland could reply, some bustle was heard without, and the arrival of the Queen was announced from the outer part of the pavilion.

“Detain her—detain her, Neville,” cried the King; “this is no sight for women.—Fie, that I have suffered such a paltry traitor to chafe me thus!—Away with him, De Vaux,” he whispered, “through the back entrance of our tent; coop him up close, and answer for his safe custody with your life. And hark ye—he is presently to die—let him have a ghostly father—we would not kill soul and body. And stay—hark thee—we will not have him dishonoured—he shall die knightlike, in his belt and spurs; for if his treachery be as black as hell, his boldness may match that of the devil himself.”

De Vaux, right glad, if the truth may be guessed, that the scene ended without Richard's descending to the unkingly act of himself slaying an unresisting prisoner, made haste to remove Sir Kenneth by a private issue to a separate tent, where he was disarmed, and put in fetters for security. De Vaux looked on with a steady and melancholy attention, while the provost's officers, to whom Sir Kenneth was now committed, took these severe precautions.

When they were ended, he said solemnly to the unhappy criminal, “It is King Richard's pleasure that you die undegraded—without mutilation of your body, or shame to your arms—and that your head be severed from the trunk by the sword of the executioner.”

“It is kind,” said the knight, in a low and rather submissive tone of voice, as one who received an unexpected favour; “my family will not then hear the worst of the tale. Oh, my father—my father!”

This muttered invocation did not escape the blunt but kindly-natured Englishman, and he brushed the back of his large hand over his rough features ere he could proceed.

“It is Richard of England's further pleasure,” he said at length, “that you have speech with a holy man; and I have met on the passage hither with a Carmelite friar, who may fit you for your passage. He waits without, until you are in a frame of mind to receive him.”

“Let it be instantly,” said the knight. “In this also Richard is kind. I cannot be more fit to see the good father at any time than now; for life and I have taken farewell, as two travellers who have arrived at the crossway, where their roads separate.”

“It is well,” said De Vaux slowly and solemnly; “for it irks me somewhat to say that which sums my message. It is King Richard's pleasure that you prepare for instant death.”

“God's pleasure and the King's be done,” replied the knight patiently. “I neither contest the justice of the sentence, nor desire delay of the execution.”

De Vaux began to leave the tent, but very slowly—paused at the door, and looked back at the Scot, from whose aspect thoughts of the world seemed banished, as if he was composing himself into deep devotion. The feelings of the stout English baron were in general none of the most acute, and yet, on the present occasion, his sympathy overpowered him in an unusual manner. He came hastily back to the bundle of reeds on which the captive lay, took one of his fettered hands, and said, with as much softness as his rough voice was capable of expressing, “Sir Kenneth, thou art yet young—thou hast a father. My Ralph, whom I left training his little galloway nag on the banks of the Irthing, may one day attain thy years, and, but for last night, would to God I saw his youth bear such promise as thine! Can nothing be said or done in thy behalf?”

“Nothing,” was the melancholy answer. “I have deserted my charge—the banner entrusted to me is lost. When the headsman and block are prepared, the head and trunk are ready to part company.”

“Nay, then, God have mercy!” said De Vaux. “Yet would I rather than my best horse I had taken that watch myself. There is mystery in it, young man, as a plain man may descry, though he cannot see through it. Cowardice? Pshaw! No coward ever fought as I have seen thee do. Treachery? I cannot think traitors die in their treason so calmly. Thou hast been trained from thy post by some deep guile—some well-devised stratagem—the cry of some distressed maiden has caught thine ear, or the laughful look of some merry one has taken thine eye. Never blush for it; we have all been led aside by such gear. Come, I pray thee, make a clean conscience of it to me, instead of the priest. Richard is merciful when his mood is abated. Hast thou nothing to entrust to me?”

The unfortunate knight turned his face from the kind warrior, and answered, “NOTHING.”

And De Vaux, who had exhausted his topics of persuasion, arose and left the tent, with folded arms, and in melancholy deeper than he thought the occasion merited—even angry with himself to find that so simple a matter as the death of a Scottish man could affect him so nearly.

“Yet,” as he said to himself, “though the rough-footed knaves be our enemies in Cumberland, in Palestine one almost considers them as brethren.”