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

his freedom upon other terms.

      "Consider well, Hugh, the peculiar situation in which you stand," said the Lord of Imbercourt; "the secret of your birth rests with myself and my good brother here alone; but did the duke know that the son of Adolphus of Gueldres is still living, the imprisonment of your father would, in all probability, become more severe, and your own personal safety might be very doubtful. An ineffectual attempt to liberate him, must instantly divulge all; nor could I--though I have promised you my Alice, in case we can obtain by peaceful means that which we so much desire--nor could I, as a faithful servant of the house of Burgundy, give you my daughter's hand, if you were once actually in arms against the lord I serve."

      "It is a hard alternative," said Hugh de Mortmar--"it is a hard alternative;" and as he spoke he bent down his eyes, and pondered for several minutes on the difficult situation in which he was placed.

      His heart, however, was full of the buoyant and rejoicing spirit of youth; and the cares that ploughed it one minute, only caused it to bring forth a harvest of fresh hopes the next. Hard as was his fate in some respects, when he compared it with that of the young man who now tenanted one of the dungeons of that very castle--a comparison to which his mind was naturally called--he did not, indeed, feel gratification, as some would argue, at the evils of his fellow-creature's lot; but he felt that there was much to be grateful for in his own. Hope, and liberty, and love, were all before him; and his expectations rose high, as he thought how much worse his fate might have been. Such ideas led him to think over, and to pity, the situation of the unhappy prisoner; and quitting the subject of his own affairs, he inquired of the Lord of Imbercourt, whether he, as a counsellor of the duke, could not take upon himself to set the unfortunate burgher at liberty.

      "I would well-nigh give my right hand to do so," replied Imbercourt, "not alone for the sake of simple justice to an individual, but for the sake of the peace and tranquillity of the whole state; but I must not do it, my young friend. I have seen the letters which Du Bac found upon his person: they consist of little more than the murmurs and complaints of discontented citizens, such as are to be met with in all countries and in all times; and which, at any other period would attract no attention whatever. At present, however, with faction and turbulence spreading over the whole land; with courtiers, who find it their interest to urge the duke on to acts of insane violence; and with a prince, whose temper and power are equally uncontrollable; those papers may cost the young man's life, will probably set the city of Ghent into open revolt, and might light a flame in the land which it would require oceans of blood to extinguish. Nevertheless I dare not interfere."

      Hugh de Mortmar made no reply, but mused for a few moments in silence; and then, with a gay, light laugh, and a jest about some other matter, he left his two elder companions, and proceeded to seek his fair Alice through all the long, rambling chambers, and retired and quiet bowers, so favourable for whispered words and unmarked meetings, with which every castle of that day was most conveniently furnished.

      Maillotin du Bac, in the meanwhile, continued sturdily to bear up under the repeated attacks of Burgundy upon his brain. Draught after draught he swallowed, in company with some of the old and seasoned soldiers, who were no way loth to join him; but at length the sun went down, night fell, the cresset was lighted in the large hall; and, unwillingly giving up his cup, he suffered the board to be removed, and cast himself down on a seat beside the fire, which the vast extent of the chamber, and the little sunshine that ever found its way in, either by the high window or the far door, rendered not unpleasant even on a summer's evening. A number of others gathered round; and the wine having produced sufficient effect to render them all rather more imaginative than usual, the stories of hunting and freebooters, with which the evening commonly began, in such a castle, soon deviated into tales of superstition. Every one had something wonderful to relate; and such, indeed, was the unction with which many a history of ghost, and spirit, and demon, was told by several of the party and listened to by the auditory, that two of the Lord of Imbercourt's officers, who were playing at tables under the light of the lamp, and several others, who had been amusing themselves at a little distance with the very ancient and interesting game of "pitch and toss;" abandoned those occupations, to share more fully in the legends which were going on round the fire. Each individual helped his neighbour on upon the road of credulity; and when, at length, Maillotin du Bac rose, from a sense of duty, to visit his prisoner--an attention which he never neglected--the greater part of his companions, feeling themselves in a dwelling whose visitors were very generally reported to be more frequently of a spiritual than a corporeal nature, got up simultaneously, and agreed to accompany him on his expedition.

      Lighted by a torch, they wound down some of the narrow, tortuous staircases of the building; and pausing opposite a door, the massive strength and thickness of which the Prevot did not fail to make his comrades remark, they were soon gratified farther by beholding the inside of the dungeon in which the unhappy burgher was confined. Maillotin du Bac satisfied himself of his presence, by thrusting the torch rudely towards his face as he half sat, half reclined on a pile of straw which had been spread out for his bed; and then setting down a pitcher of wine which he had brought with him, the Prevot closed the door again without a word. The only further ceremony was that of again slipping the key over his sword-belt, from which he had detached it to open the door; and the whole party, once more returning to upper air, separated for the night, and retired to rest.

      CHAPTER IX.

      Leaving the brutal officer and his companions to sleep off the fumes of the wine they had imbibed, we must return to the dungeon where, in darkness and in gloom, sat Albert Maurice, the young burgher of Ghent; whom, perhaps, the reader may have already recognised in the prisoner of Maillotin du Bac.

      The silent agony of impotent indignation preyed upon his heart more painfully even than the dark and fearful anticipations of the future, which every circumstance of his situation naturally presented to his mind. Wronged, oppressed, trampled on; insulted by base and ungenerous men, whose minds were as inferior to his own as their power was superior; he cared less for the death that in all probability awaited him, than for the degradation he already suffered, and for the present and future oppression of his country, his order, and his fellow-creatures, to which his hopes could anticipate no end, and for which his mind could devise no remedy. Whatever expectation Fancy might sometimes, in her wildest dreams, have suggested to his hopes, of becoming the liberator of his native land, and the general benefactor of mankind--dreams which he had certainly entertained, though he had never acted upon them--they were all extinguished at once by his arrest, and the events which he knew must follow.

      The arrest had taken place, indeed, while engaged in no pursuit which the most jealous tyranny could stigmatize as even seditious. He had visited Namur with no idea of entering France--a country on which the Duke of Burgundy looked with suspicious eyes--but simply for the purpose of transacting the mercantile business which his uncle's house carried on with various traders of that city. Unfortunately, however, on his return towards Ghent, he had charged himself with several letters from different citizens of Namur, to persons in his native place. Both cities were at that time equally disaffected; and amongst the papers with which he had thus burdened himself, several had proved, under the unceremonious inspection of Maillotin du Bac, to be of a nature which might, by a little perversion, be construed into treason. The immediate cause of his first detention also--the fact of having protected a woman, insulted by one of the ruffianly soldiers of the Prevot's band, and of having punished the offender on the spot--might, as he knew well, by the aid of a little false swearing--a thing almost as common in those days as at present--be made to take the semblance of resistance to legitimate authority, and be brought to prove his connexion with the letters, of which he had been simply the bearer, unconscious of their contents.

      Under such circumstances, nothing was to be expected but an ignominious death; no remedy was to be found, no refuge presented itself. Though his fellow-citizens of Ghent might revolt--though his friends and relations might murmur and complain--revolt and complaint, he well knew, would only hurry his own fate, and aggravate its circumstances, without proving at all beneficial to his country.

      Had he, indeed, seen the slightest prospect of the indignation which his death would cause, wakening the people of