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The Countess Isabelle spoke still less, so that the conversation was chiefly carried on by the Lady Hameline, who showed no inclination to let it drop, for, to initiate the young Archer, as she said, into the principles and practice of chivalry, she detailed to him at full length the Passage of Arms at Haflinghem, where she had distributed the prizes among the victors.
"Your kinswoman!" repeated Quentin, awakened to recollections to which the young Countess was a stranger, and which the rapid succession of perilous and stirring events had, as matters of nearer concern, in fact banished from his memory. "Ay my aunt the Countess Hameline of Croye know you aught of her?" said the Countess Isabelle. "I trust she is now under the protection of the Burgundian banner.
They spoke together, but in such a low tone that the sentinel could not overhear their discourse, and only remarked that the Princess seemed to bestow much of her regard on the younger and more interesting lady; and that the Countess Hameline, though speaking a great deal more, attracted less of the Princess's attention by her full flow of conversation and compliment, than did her kinswoman by her brief and modest replies to what was addressed to her.
No, no to the safety of the Church alone we will venture to commit her; and the utmost we can do is to connive at the Ladies Hameline and Isabelle de Croye departing in disguise, and with a small retinue, to take refuge with the Bishop of Liege, who will place the fair Isabelle for the time under the safeguard of a convent."
The Lady Hameline was as violent in her passions, as she was vain and weak in her understanding. Like many other persons, she went tolerably well through the ordinary duties of life, but in a crisis like the present, she was entirely incapable of doing aught, save pouring forth unavailing lamentations, and accusing Hayraddin of being a thief, a base slave, an impostor, a murderer.
Have I your permission so far to deviate from the route of your journey?" "My ample and full permission," answered the younger lady. "Cousin," said the Lady Hameline, "I believe with you that the youth means us well but bethink you we transgress the instructions of King Louis, so positively iterated." "And why should we regard his instructions?" said the Lady Isabelle.
"He hath sat up carousing with the jolly friars," said the Lady Hameline, "the Scots are like the Germans, who spend all their mirth over the Rheinwein, and bring only their staggering steps to the dance in the evening, and their aching heads to the ladies' bower in the morning." "Nay, gentle ladies," said Quentin, "I deserve not your reproach.
"But my information concerning King Louis's intentions towards us," continued the Countess, after a short pause, "was almost entirely derived from my unhappy aunt, the Lady Hameline, and her opinions were formed upon the assertions and insinuations of persons whom I have since discovered to be the vilest traitors and most faithless wretches in the world."
But while Isabelle read her aunt's epistle to her friends, it must be observed that she did not think it necessary to recite a certain postscript, in which the Countess Hameline, lady-like, gave an account of her occupations, and informed her niece that she had laid aside for the present a surcoat which she was working for her husband, bearing the arms of Croye and La Marck in conjugal fashion, parted per pale, because her William had determined, for purposes of policy, in the first action to have others dressed in his coat armour and himself to assume the arms of Orleans, with a bar sinister in other words, those of Dunois.
"I will excuse the Lady Hameline from intending such unkindness," said Quentin, "for such was the agitation of the moment, and the darkness of the hour, that I believe the Lady Hameline as certainly conceived herself accompanied by her niece, as I at the same time, deceived by Marthon's dress and demeanour, supposed I was in the company of both the Ladies of Croye: and of her especially," he added, with a low but determined voice, "without whom the wealth of worlds would not have tempted me to leave."
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