Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent. G. P. R. James

for rich citizens. Who is the first? Stand up, good man. What! Martin Fruse!" he exclaimed, starting back, as the light fell upon the face of the burgher. "My old friend, Martin Fruse, in whose house I lodged when I came to teach the men of Ghent how to get up a tumult! Little did I think I should so soon have thee under contribution."

      "Nay, nay, good Master Gournay," replied the burgher, "right glad am I to see thee. In truth, I thought I had fallen into worse hands than thine. I know well enough," he added, with a somewhat doubtful expression of countenance, notwithstanding the confidence which his words implied--"I know well enough that thou hast no heart to take a ransom from thine old companion."

      "Faith but thou art wrong, Martin," replied Matthew Gournay, laying his heavy hand upon the citizen's shoulder. "Thine own ransom shall be light, and that of thy comrades also, for thy sake; but something we must have, if it be but to keep up good customs. A trifle, a mere trifle: a benevolence, as our good kings call it in England, when they take it into their heads to put the clergy to ransom."

      "Nay, but," said Martin Fruse, whose confidence and courage were fully restored by the sight of his friend's face; "nay, but consider that I was taken while journeying for the sole purpose of conferring with thee and Adolph of Gueldres concerning the general rising we purposed."

      "Well, well, we will speak further hereafter," answered Matthew Gournay. "That job is all over for the present; and as, doubtless, the duke has heard of our doings, it may go hard with your purses, and with my neck, if he catch us, which please God he shall not do. But we must think of some way of getting you all back to Ghent in safety. Now, Halbert of the hillside," he added, addressing one of his old band, who was probably an Englishman like himself, "hie thee to the midway oak. Thou wilt there find the old seneschal. Tell him all is safe! Bid him tarry there till to-morrow, collecting all our friends that come thither; and, in the meantime, to send me the leathern bottles from the hollow tree. These flimsy flasks furnish scarce a draught for a boy; and, good faith, I will be merry to-night, whatever befall to-morrow. Up the bank, up the bank," he continued; "'tis but a quarter of a mile that way."

      While the messenger was gone in search of the fresh supply of wine which the leathern bottles implied, Matthew Gournay, and the young companion, whom he had brought with him, despatched the provisions which had been saved by the very miraculous abstinence of the freebooters; and at the same time the two flasks of Rhenish disappeared with a celerity truly astonishing. Four capacious bottles, holding about a gallon each, were soon after added to the supply, and all present were called upon to partake.

      A scene of merriment and joy then succeeded, which would be impossible to describe; such, indeed, as perhaps no men ever indulged in whose lives were not held by so uncertain a tenure, whose moments of security were not counterbalanced by so many hours of danger, and whose pleasures were not bought by so many labours and pains, that it became their only policy to quaff the bowl of joy to the very dregs, while it was yet at their lips, lest, at the first pause, circumstance, that unkind step-dame, should snatch it angrily from their hands for ever. The final explosion of their merriment was called forth by good Martin Fruse, who, after showing many signs and symptoms of weary drowsiness, declared that he should like to go to bed, and asked, with much simplicity, where he was to sleep.

      "Sleep!" exclaimed Matthew Gourney, "sleep! Why where the fiend would you sleep?"

      "I mean, where's your house, good Master Matthew Gournay?" rejoined Martin Fruse, with open eyes, from which all expression was banished by surprise at finding his question a matter of laughter, he knew not why. "It's all very well to sup in the wood in a fine summer night; but it's growing late and cold, and I do think we had better a great deal get us to our warm beds."

      The only answer which he received to this speech, from the robbers, was a new peal of laughter; but, at the same moment, his nephew plucked him by the sleeve, exclaiming, "Hist, uncle! ye only make the knaves grin; you may sleep where you are, or not sleep at all for this night. Have you not heard how these men covet no covering but the green boughs of the forest?"

      "Thou art somewhat malapert, young sir," said Matthew Gournay, fixing upon him a glance into which various parts of the boy's speech, not very respectful to the freebooters, had called up a degree of fierceness that was not the general expression of his countenance; "thou art somewhat malapert; and, if thy uncle follow my advice, he will make thy shoulders now and then taste of the cloth-yard measure, else thou wilt mar his fortune some fine day. The boy says true, however, good Martin; here sleepest thou this night, if thou sleepest at all; so get thee under yonder bank, with that broad oak tree above thy head, to guard thee from the westerly wind, and thank Heaven thou hast so fair a canopy. There, wrap thy cloak about thee; ask God's blessing, and sleep sound. To-morrow I will wake thee early, to talk of what may best be done to speed thee on thy way in safety; for many of the duke's bands are about; and without we can get thee some good escort, thou art like to be in the same plight as the ass, who, running away from a dog, fell in with a lion."

      Although Martin Fruse believed himself to be as wise as any man that ever lived, except King Solomon, he had a peculiar dislike, or rather, it may be called, a nervous antipathy, to the very name of an ass; but, when it was introduced, as on the present occasion, in the form of a simile, to exemplify his own situation, his feelings were wounded in a deep degree. In silent indignation, therefore, for he knew not what to reply, he arose, and proceeded to the spot pointed out, where, having made himself as comfortable as circumstances permitted him to do, he lay down, and, notwithstanding a firm determination not to close an eye, he was soon pouring forth a body of nasal music, which seemed intended to shame the nightingales for their silence in the autumn season.

      The rest of the travellers took up with such couches as they could find; and the robbers, too, one by one, wrapped their cloaks about them, and resigned themselves to sleep. The two last who remained awake were Matthew Gournay and young Hugh of Gueldres, whose slumber by the cascade in the morning had sufficiently removed the weariness of his limbs, to leave his mind free to rest upon the sorrows of the past and the dangers of the present.

      With him the leader of the freebooters held a long, and, to them, an interesting conversation; in the course of which the boy narrated all the events which had lately occurred to him: the storming of his father's castle by the troops of Burgundy; the perils he had undergone; the difficulties of his escape; his desolation and despair when he found himself a wanderer and an outcast; his long and weary journey; his adventure with the Dauphin, whom he described as a French traveller; and the manner in which that base and artful prince had deceived him. He told it all with so much simple pathos, that he called up something very like a tear in the adventurer's clear blue eye; and Matthew Gournay, laying his broad hand affectionately on his head, exclaimed "Never mind, my young lord, never mind; you are not without friends, and never shall be, so long as Matthew Gournay lives; for I swear by the blessed Virgin, and all the saints to boot, that my sword shall fight your quarrels, and my lance shall be at your command, till I see you a righted man. But, as you say that the Lord of Hannut is your cousin in the first degree, thither we must go for help and counsel. I know him well, too; for my good band helped to keep his castle for him, when the black riders were about last year: and what with the troops of spirits that folks say he can command, and the company of the good fellows that I shall soon gather together again, we shall be able to do something for you, no doubt. By the way," he added, seeming suddenly to bethink himself of some fact that had before escaped his attention, "these travellers, you say, are gone to Hannut too, and under their escort these Gandois weavers may pass unsuspected on their way homeward."

      "What if they refuse to take them?" said Hugh of Gueldres.

      "By the Lord, they shall eat more cold iron than they can well stomach," replied the adventurer: "but I must sleep, my young lord, I must sleep, if I would rise fresh to-morrow! Lend us thy hand to shift off this plastron." So saying, he disencumbered himself of his breastplate, and the other pieces of defensive armour which might have rendered his sleep uncomfortable; and, laying them down by his steel cap or basinet, which he had previously taken off, he wrapped the end of his mantle round his head, stretched himself on the ground, grasped the hilt of his dagger tight with his right hand; and, in that attitude, fell into as sound a sleep as if he had never tasted crime or heard of danger. The boy soon followed his example, and all was