“My prince, tempt me not.
It is hard to refuse; but there are some things no
man may do with honour, and, believe me, honour is
dearer to me than life, dearer even than liberty;
though Heaven alone knows how dear that is to every
free-born son of Cambria. I to leave my brother
to wear away his days in captivity whilst I escape
under his name! Prince Alphonso, I know not what
you think my heart is made of. Am I to live in
freedom, whilst he whom I love best in the world bears
the burden of my fault, and lingers out his young
life within the walls of the king’s prison?”
Alphonso looked searchingly in Wendot’s
face, and realized for the first time the youth’s
absolute ignorance of his brother’s state.
No wonder he refused with scorn the proffered boon!
Yet it would be a hard task to break the sad tidings
to one who so deeply loved his gentle younger brother,
from childhood his chosen comrade.
Alphonso was lying on a couch in one
of the smaller state apartments of Windsor Castle,
and the window, close to which he had bidden his attendants
wheel him, overlooked the beautiful valley of the Thames.
The first of the autumn tints were gilding the rich
stretches of woodland, whilst a faint blue haze hung
over the distance, and the river ran like a silver
thread, glinting here and there into golden brightness
as some brighter ray of sunlight fell upon it.
Alphonso loved the view commanded
by this window. He and Griffeth spent many long
happy hours here, looking out on the fair prospect,
and exchanging whispered thoughts and bright aspirations
with regard to some land even fairer than the one
they now beheld.
But Wendot never looked at the beautiful
valley without experiencing a strange oppression of
spirit. It reminded him of that wilder valley
of the Towy, and his eyes would grow dim and his heart
sick with the fruitless longing after home, which
grew harder and harder to hear with every week of
captivity, now that his bodily health was restored.
Captivity was telling upon him, and he was pining as
an eagle pines when caught and shut up by man even
in a gilded cage. He looked pale and wan and
wistful. Often he felt stifled by the warm, close
air of the valley, and felt that he must die did he
not escape to the freer air of the mountains.
But he seldom spoke of these feelings
even to Griffeth, and strangely enough his illness
and these homesick longings produced upon his outer
man an effect which was wonderfully favourable to the
plan fermenting in the brains of the royal children
and their immediate companions.
Wendot had lost the sturdiness of
figure, the brown colouring, and the strength of limb
which had distinguished him in old days from Griffeth.
A striking likeness had always existed between the
brothers, whose features were almost identical, and
whose height and contours were the same. Now
that illness had sharpened the outlines of Wendot’s
face, had reduced his fine proportions, and had given
to him something of the hollow-eyed wistfulness of
expression which Griffeth had so long worn, this likeness
became so remarkable that few in the castle knew one
brother from the other. Knowing this, they both
answered indifferently to the name of either, and
any change of personality would be managed without
exciting the smallest fear of remark.
Wendot had been perplexed at times
by the persistence with which he had been addressed
as Griffeth, even when he was certain that the speaker
was one of the few who knew him and his brother apart;
but he had not troubled his head much over the matter
until this day, when Alphonso had openly spoken to
him of the plan that was in their minds, and had bidden
him prepare for a secret flight from the castle, promising
that there should be no ardent search after him, as
Wendot, and not Griffeth, was the culprit who had
fallen under the royal displeasure, and the king would
care little for the escape of the younger brother so
long as he held the ex-Lord of Dynevor in his own
safe keeping.
Wendot’s indignant refusal to
leave his brother and make good his own escape showed
Alphonso how little he realized Griffeth’s condition,
and with gentle sympathy, but with candour and frankness,
he explained to the elder brother how short would
be the period of Griffeth’s captivity
how soon and how complete the release for which he
was patiently and happily waiting.
Wendot gave a great start as the meaning
of Alphonso’s words first broke upon him, and
then he buried his face in his hands, and sat motionless,
neither answering nor moving. Alphonso looked
at him, and by-and-by put out his own wasted hand
and laid it upon Wendot’s knee.
“Does it seem a sad thing to
thee, Wendot? Believe me, there is no sadness
for Griffeth in the thought. Nay, is it not a
blessed thing to know that soon, very soon, we shall
be free of this weary burden of pain and sickness
and weakness, and laying all aside will pass away to
the land of which the seer of old foretold that ’the
wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at
rest.’ Thou knowest not, perhaps, the sweetness
of those words, but I know it well, and Griffeth likewise.
“Nay, Wendot, thou must learn
not to grudge him the rest and the bliss of yon bright
land. In this world he could look for nothing
save wearing weakness and lingering pain. Thou
shouldst be glad that the fiat has gone forth, and
that the end may not be far off the end
of trouble and sorrow; for of the glory that shall
follow there shall be no end.”
But Wendot broke in hoarsely and impetuously.
“If he must die, let him at
least die in freedom, with the old hills around him;
let him be laid to rest beneath their shadow.
You say that he might well escape; that no cry would
be made after him so long as I were in the king’s
safe keeping. Let him then fly. Let him fly
to Llewelyn and Arthyn. They will give him tendance
and a home. He shall not die in prison, away
from all that he holds dear. I cannot brook the
thought!”
“Nay, Wendot,” answered
Alphonso with a kindling smile, “thou needest
not grieve for thy brother because that he is here.
Ask him take it not from my lips; but
I will tell thee this, that where thou art and where
I am is the place where Griffeth would fain end his
days. Ah! thou canst not understand, good youth,
how when the great and wonderful call comes for the
human soul, how lightly press the fetters of the flesh;
how small these things of time and place appear that
erst have been of such moment. Griffeth and I
are treading the same path at the same time, and I
think not even the offer of a free pardon and unfettered
liberty would draw him from my side.
“Moreover, Wendot, he could
not take the journey of which thou speakest.
The keen autumn air, which will give thee strength
and vigour, would but lay him low on the bed from
which he would never rise. His heart is here
with me. Think not that thou art wronging him
in taking his name. The one load lying now upon
his heart is the thought that he is leaving thee in
captivity. Let him but know that thou art free
that he has been thy helper in thy flight
and he will have nought left to wish for
in this world. His soul will be at peace.”
Wendot rose and paced through the
chamber, and then returned to the side of the prince.
His face betrayed many conflicting emotions. He
spoke with bitterness and impetuosity.
“And what good is life to me
if I take you at your word and fly this spot?
Have I not lost all that makes life worth living?
My lands given to my traitorous kinsman; the brother
who has been more to me than life lying in a foreign
grave. What use is life to one so lonely and bereft?
Where should I fly? what should I do? I have never
lived alone. I have always had another to live
for and to love. Methinks death would be the
better thing than such a loveless life.”
“And why should thy life be
loveless, Wendot?” asked Alphonso, with kindling
eyes and a brightening smile. “Dost not
thou know? does not thine own heart tell
thee that one faithful heart beats for thee and thee
alone? Have I not seen thee with her times and
again? Have not your eyes told eloquent secrets
though I know not what your lips have
said ”
Wendot’s face was all in a glow, but he broke
in hastily:
“Prince, prince, speak not of
her. If I have been beguiled, if I have betrayed
the feelings which I cannot help, but which I must
hold sternly in check be not thou the
one to taunt me with my weakness. There is none
like her in the world. I have known it for long.
But even because I know it so well I may not even
dream of her. It is not with me as of old, when
her father spoke to me of troth plight. I am a
beggar, an outcast, a prisoner. She is rich,
honoured, courted. She is the brightest star
of the court ”
“And she loveth thee, Wendot,”
interposed Alphonso firmly. “She has loved
thee from childhood with a faithful and true love which
merits better things than to be cast aside as if it
were but dross. What are lands and gold to a
woman if her lover share them not? Is it meet
that she should suffer so cruelly simply because her
father has left her well endowed? Wendot, on
Lord Montacute’s dying bed this daughter of his
avowed her love for thee, and he gave her his blessing
and bade her act as she would. Art thou, then,
to be the one to break her heart, ay, and thine own,
too, because thou art too proud to take more than thou
canst give?
“Fie, man! the world is wide
and thou art young. Thou hast time to win thy
spurs and bring home noble spoil to lay at thy lady’s
feet. Only let not pride stand in the way of
her happiness and thine own. Thou hast said that
life is dark and drear unless it be shared with some
loved one. Then how canst thou hold back, when
thou hast confessed thine own love and learned that
hers is thine? Take it, and be grateful for the
treasure thou hast won, and fear not but that thou
wilt bring as much as thou wilt receive. There
are strange chances in the fate of each one of us.
Who knows but that thou and she will not yet reign
again in the halls of Dynevor?”
Wendot started and flushed, and again
paced down the whole length of the room. When
he returned to the window Alphonso had gone, and in
his place stood Gertrude herself, her sweet face dyed
rosy red with blushes, her hands half stretched out
towards him, her lips quivering with the intensity
of her emotion.
He paused just one moment looking
at her, and then holding out his arms, he said:
“Gertrude!”
Next moment she was clasped in his
close embrace, and was shedding happy tears upon his
shoulder.
“Oh!” said Gertrude at
last, in a soft whisper, “it was worth waiting
for this. I never thought I could have been so
happy.”
“Joanna Alphonso,
it is all settled. He will leave the castle with
me. He will help me now in the care of my lands.
But he will not move whilst Griffeth lives. And
I think he is right. They have so loved each
other, and he will not leave his brother to die amongst
strangers in captivity.”
“It is like him,” said
Joanna eagerly. “Gertrude, thou hast found
a very proper knight, as we told thee from the first,
when he was but a lad, and held the Eagle’s
Crag against a score of men. But ye must be wedded
soon, that there be no delay when once the poor boy
be gone. Every day he looks more shadowy and
frail. Methinks that our softer air ill suits
him, for he hath dwindled to a mere shadow since he
came. You will not have to wait long.”
“Joanna speaks the truth,”
said Alphonso, half sadly, half smilingly. “He
will not be with us long. But it is very true
that this marriage must be privately celebrated, and
that without delay, that when the day comes when ‘Griffeth’
flies from the castle, he and his wife may go together.”
“Ay, and my chaplain will make
them man and wife, and breathe not a word to any man,”
cried Joanna, who, now that she was older, had her
own retinue of servants, equal in number to those
of her sister, by whom she was dearly loved for her
generosity and frankness, so that she could always
command ready and willing obedience to any expressed
wish of hers.
“You think he will? O Joanna, when shall
it be?”
“It shall be at midnight in
the chapel,” said the girl, with the prompt
decision which characterized her. “Not tonight,
but three nights from this. Leave all things
in my hands, sweet Gertrude; I will see that nought
is lacking to bind thee lawfully to thy lord.
My chaplain is a good and holy man from the west country.
He loveth those poor Welsh who are prisoners here,
and spends much of his time in ministering to them.
He loves thy future lord and his dying brother, and
he knows somewhat of our plan, for I have revealed
it in the confessional, and he has not chided me for
it.
“Oh, I can answer for him.
He will be glad that thou shouldst find so proper
a knight; and he is kind of heart, and stanch to my
service. Fear not, sweet Gertrude: ere three
days have gone by thou shalt be a wedded wife; and
when the time comes thou mayest steal away with him
thy plighted lord, and trust thy sister Joanna to
make thy peace with the king, if he be in any way
angered or grieved.”
Gertrude threw herself into Joanna’s
arms and kissed her a hundred times; and Joanna laughed,
and said she deserved much credit for plotting to
rid herself of her dearest friend, but was none the
less loyal to the cause because Gertrude’s gain
would be her loss.
So there came a strange night, never
to be forgotten by those who witnessed the proceedings,
when Wendot ap Res Vychan and the Lady Gertrude Cherleton
stood at midnight before the altar in the small private
chapel of the castle, whilst the chaplain of the Princess
Joanna’s private suite made them man and wife
according to the law of the Church. And of the
few spectators who witnessed the ceremony two were
of royal blood Alphonso and Joanna
and beside them were only one or two attendants, sworn
to secrecy, and in full sympathy with the youthful
lovers thus plighting their troth and being united
in wedlock at one and the same time.
Griffeth was not of the number who
was present to witness this ceremony. He was
unable to rise from his bed, a sudden access of illness
having overtaken him, possibly as the result of the
excitement of hearing what was about to take place.
When the solemn words had been spoken,
and the bride was led away by her proud and happy
spouse happy even in the midst of so much
peril and sorrow in the thought of the treasure he
had won she paused at the door of her
apartments, whither he would have left her (for so
long as they remained within the walls of the castle
they would observe the same manner of life as before),
and glancing into his face said softly:
“May I not go with thee to tell the news to
Griffeth?”
“Ay, well bethought,”
said Alphonso, who was leaning on Wendot’s other
arm, the distance through the long passages being somewhat
fatiguing to him. “Let us go and show to
him thy wife. None will rejoice more than he
to know that she is thine in very truth, and that none
can take her from thee.”
Griffeth’s room was nigh at
hand, and thither Wendot led his bride. A taper
was burning beside the bed, and the sick youth lay
propped up with pillows, his breath coming in laboured
gasps, though his eyes were bright and full of comprehension
as Wendot led the slim, white-robed figure to his
side.
But the elder brother was startled
at the change he saw in his patient since he had left
him last. There was something in his look that
struck chill upon his heart. He came forward
and took the feeble hand in his. It was deadly
cold, and the unearthly radiance upon the lad’s
face was as significant in its own way. Had not
their mother looked at them with just such a smile
when she had slipped away into another world, whilst
they were trying to persuade themselves that she was
better?
“My sister Gertrude,”
whispered Griffeth. “Oh, I am so happy!
You will be good to him you will comfort
him.
“Wendot Gertrude
” he made a faint effort, and joined
their hands together; and then, as if his last earthly
task was accomplished, he seemed to look right on
beyond them, whilst a strange expression of awe and
wonder shone from his closing eyes.
“Howel,” he whispered
“father mother
oh, I am coming! Take me with you.”
Then the head fell backwards, the
light vanished from the eyes, the cold hand fell nervelessly
from Wendot’s grasp, and they knew that Griffeth
was the king’s prisoner no longer.
Three days later the Lady Gertrude
Cherleton said farewell to her royal companions, and
started forth for her own estates in Derbyshire, which
she had purposed for some time to visit. Perhaps
had the minds of those in the castle been free to
wonder at anything so trivial as the movements of
the young heiress, they would have felt surprise at
her selecting this time to betake herself to a solitary
and independent existence, away from all her friends
and playmates; but the mortal illness of the Prince
Alphonso occupied the whole attention of the castle.
The remains of the so-called Wendot, late of Dynevor,
had been laid to rest with little ceremony and no
pomp, and the very existence of the other brother
was almost forgotten in the general dismay and grief
which permeated through all ranks of people both within
and without the castle walls.
The lady had a small but sufficient
retinue; but it was considered rather strange that
she should not start until the dusk had begun to gather
round the castle, so that the confusion of the start
was a good deal increased from the darkness which
was stealing upon the place. Had there been much
time or attention free, it might have been noted by
a keen observer that Lady Gertrude had added to her
personal attendants one who looked like a tall and
stout woman, though her hood was so closely drawn
that her face was seen by none of the warders, who,
however, let her pass unchallenged: for she rode
beside her mistress, and was evidently in the position
of a trusted companion; for the lady was speaking
to her as they passed out through the gate, and there
could certainly be no reason for offering any obstruction
to any servant of hers.
If there were any fear or excitement
in Gertrude’s breast as she and her husband
passed out of the gate and rode quickly along the path
which led through the town, she did not betray it
by look or gesture. Her eagerness was mainly
showed by a desire to push on northward as fast as
possible, and the light of a full harvest moon made
travelling almost as easy as by day. On they
rode, by sleeping hamlets and dreaming pastures, until
the lights of Windsor lay twinkling in the dim, hazy
distance miles away.
Then Gertrude suddenly threw back
her hood, and leaning towards her companion
they two had outridden their followers some time before
cried in a strange, tense voice:
“O Wendot husband, thou art
free! Tomorrow will see us safe within those
halls of which thou art rightful lord. Captivity,
trouble, peril is at an end. Nothing can greatly
hurt us now, for are we not one in bonds that no man
may dissever?”
“My noble, true-hearted wife,”
said Wendot, in accents of intense feeling; and then
he leaned forward and kissed her in the whispering
wood, and they rode forward through the glades of silvery
moonlight towards the new life that was awaiting them
beyond.
“Hills, wild rocks, woods, and
water!” cried Wendot, with a sudden kindling
gleam in his eyes. “O Gertrude, thou didst
not tell me the half! I never guessed that England
had aught so like home as this. Truly it might
be Dynevor itself that brawling torrent,
those craggy fells, and these gray stone walls.
And to be free free to breathe the fresh
wind, to go where the fancy prompts, to be loosed from
all control save the sweet bonds that thou boldest
me in, dearest! Ah, my wife, thou knowest not
what thou hast done for me. How shall I thank
thee for the boon?”
“Why, by being thine old self
again, Vychan,” said Gertrude, who was standing
by her husband’s side on a natural terrace of
rock above the Hall which was to be their home.
She had brought him out early in the morning to see
the sun rise upon their home, and the rapture of his
face, the passionate joy she saw written there, was
more than she had hoped for.
“Thou hast grown old and worn
of late, too saddened, too grave for thy years.
Thou must grow young again, and be the bright-faced
youth to whom I gave my heart. Thy youth is not
left so far behind but what thou canst recall it ere
it be too late.”
“In sooth I shall grow young
again here, sweetheart,” quoth Wendot, or Vychan,
as we must call him now. He had an equal right
to that name with his father, though for convenience
he had always been addressed by the other; and now
that Lady Gertrude had brought her husband home, he
was to be known as Res Vychan, one of the descendants
of the last princes of South Wales, who had taken
his wife’s name also, as he was now the ruler
of her land; so, according to the fashion of the English
people, he would henceforth be known as Vychan Cherleton.
His brother’s name he could not bear to hear
applied to himself, and it was left to Joanna to explain
matters to the king and queen when the chance should
arrive. None else need ever know that the husband
of the Lady Gertrude had ever been a captive of Edward’s;
and the name of Griffeth ap Res Vychan disappears
from the ken of the chroniclers as if it had never
been known that he was once a prisoner in England.
There was no pursuit made after the
missing Welshman. The king and queen had other
matters to think of, and the fondness of their son
for the youth would have been protection enough even
if he had not begged with his dying breath that his
father would forgive and forget. Lady Gertrude
and her husband did not come to court for very many
years; and by the time they did so, Vychan Cherleton’s
loyalty and service to the English cause were too
well established for any one to raise a question as
to his birth or race.
If the king and queen ever knew they
had been outwitted by their children, they did not
resent that this had been so, nor that an act of mercy
had been contrived greater than they might have felt
justified in ratifying.
But all this was yet in the future.
As Vychan and his wife stood on that high plateau
overlooking the fair valley of the Derwent, it seemed
to Gertrude as though during the past three days her
husband had undergone some subtle change. There
was a new light in his eyes; his frame had lost its
drooping air of languor; he had stood the long days
of rough riding without the smallest fatigue.
It really seemed as if the old Wendot had come back
again, and she smilingly asked him how it was that
he had gained such strength in so short a time.
“Ah, that question is soon answered,
sweet wife. It is freedom that is the elixir
of life to us sons of Cambria. I know not if your
English-born men can brook the sense of fetter and
constraint, but it is death to us.
“Let us not think of it more.
That page has closed for ever; and never shall it
reopen, for sooner will I die than fall alive into
the hands of a foe. Nay, sweetest Gertrude, look
not so reproachfully at me. Thou shalt soon see
that I mean not to die, but to live for thee.
Here in this fair, free spot we begin our new life
together. It may be even yet for
see, is not that bright sky, illumined by those quivering
shafts of light athwart our path, an omen of good?
that as thou showest me this fair spot
with which thou hast endowed me, I may one day show
thee again and endow thee with the broad lands of
Dynevor.”