Quentin Durward. Вальтер Скотт
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in supporting their supposed rank. Each of them ranked as a gentleman in place and honour; and their near approach to the King’s person gave them dignity in their own eyes, as well as importance in those of the nation of France. They were sumptuously armed, equipped, and mounted; and each was entitled to allowance for a squire, a valet, a page; and two yeomen, one of whom was termed coutelier, from the large knife which he wore to dispatch those whom in the melee his master had thrown to the ground. With these followers, and a corresponding equipage, an Archer of the Scottish Guard was a person of quality and importance; and vacancies being generally filled up by those who had been trained in the service as pages or valets, the cadets of the best Scottish families were often sent to serve under some friend and relation in those capacities, until a chance of preferment should occur.
The coutelier and his companion, not being noble or capable of this promotion, were recruited from persons of inferior quality; but as their pay and appointments were excellent, their masters were easily able to select from among their wandering countrymen the strongest and most courageous to wait upon them in these capacities.
Ludovic Lesly, or as we shall more frequently call him, Le Balafre, by which name he was generally known in France, was upwards of six feet high, robust, strongly compacted in person, and hard favoured in countenance, which latter attribute was much increased by a large and ghastly scar, which, beginning on his forehead, and narrowly missing his right eye, had laid bare the cheek bone, and descended from thence almost to the tip of his ear, exhibiting a deep seam, which was sometimes scarlet, sometimes purple, sometimes blue, and sometimes approaching to black; but always hideous, because at variance with the complexion of the face in whatever state it chanced to be, whether agitated or still, flushed with unusual passion, or in its ordinary state of weather-beaten and sunburnt swarthiness.
His dress and arms were splendid. He wore his national bonnet, crested with a tuft of feathers, and with a Virgin Mary of massive silver for a brooch. These brooches had been presented to the Scottish Guard, in consequence of the King, in one of his fits of superstitions piety, having devoted the swords of his guard to the service of the Holy Virgin, and, as some say, carried the matter so far as to draw out a commission to Our Lady as their Captain General. The Archer’s gorget, arm pieces, and gauntlets, were of the finest steel, curiously inlaid with silver, and his hauberk, or shirt of mail, was as clear and bright as the frostwork of a winter morning upon fern or brier. He wore a loose surcoat or cassock of rich blue velvet, open at the sides like that of a herald, with a large white St. Andrew’s cross of embroidered silver bisecting it both before and behind; his knees and legs were protected by hose of mail and shoes of steel; a broad, strong poniard (called the Mercy of God), hung by his right side; the baldric for his two handed sword, richly embroidered, hung upon his left shoulder; but for convenience he at present carried in his hand that unwieldy weapon which the rules of his service forbade him to lay aside.
[St. Andrew was the first called to apostleship. He made many converts to Christianity and was finally crucified on a cross of peculiar form, which has since been called the St. Andrew’s cross. Certain of his relics were brought to Scotland in the fourth century, and he has since that time been honoured as the patron saint of that country. He is also the patron saint of the Burgundian Order, the Golden Fleece.]
Quentin Durward – though, like the Scottish youth of the period, he had been early taught to look upon arms and war – thought he had never seen a more martial looking, or more completely equipped and accomplished man at arms than now saluted him in the person of his mother’s brother, called Ludovic with the Scar, or Le Balafre; yet he could not but shrink a little from the grim expression of his countenance, while, with its rough moustaches, he brushed first the one and then the other cheek of his kinsman, welcomed his nephew to France, and, in the same breath, asked what news from Scotland.
“Little good tidings, dear uncle,” replied young Durward; “but I am glad that you know me so readily.”
“I would have known thee, boy, in the landes of Bourdeaux, had I met thee marching there like a crane on a pair of stilts [the crutches or stilts which in Scotland are used to pass rivers. They are employed by the peasantry of the country near Bordeaux to traverse those deserts of loose sand called Landes. S]. But sit thee down – sit thee down – if there is sorrow to hear of, we will have wine to make us bear it. – Ho! old Pinch Measure, our good host, bring us of thy best, and that in an instant.”
The well known sound of the Scottish French was as familiar in the taverns near Plessis as that of the Swiss French in the modern guinguettes [common inns] of Paris; and promptly – ay, with the promptitude of fear and precipitation, was it heard and obeyed. A flagon of champagne stood before them, of which the elder took a draught, while the nephew helped himself only to a moderate sip to acknowledge his uncle’s courtesy, saying, in excuse, that he had already drunk wine that morning.
“That had been a rare good apology in the mouth of thy sister, fair nephew,” said Le Balafre; “you must fear the wine pot less, if you would wear beard on your face, and write yourself soldier. But, come – come – unbuckle your Scottish mail bag – give us the news of Glen Houlakin – How doth my sister?”
“Dead, fair uncle,” answered Quentin, sorrowfully.
“Dead!” echoed his uncle, with a tone rather marked by wonder than sympathy, – “why, she was five years younger than I, and I was never better in my life. Dead! the thing is impossible. I have never had so much as a headache, unless after revelling out of my two or three days’ furlough with the brethren of the joyous science – and my poor sister is dead – And your father, fair nephew, hath he married again?”
And, ere the youth could reply, he read the answer in his surprise at the question, and said, “What! no – I would have sworn that Allan Durward was no man to live without a wife. He loved to have his house in order – loved to look on a pretty woman too; and was somewhat strict in life withal – matrimony did all this for him. Now, I care little about these comforts, and I can look on a pretty woman without thinking on the sacrament of wedlock – I am scarce holy enough for that.”
“Alas! dear uncle, my mother was left a widow a year since, when Glen Houlakin was harried by the Ogilvies. My father, and my two uncles, and my two elder brothers, and seven of my kinsmen, and the harper, and the tasker, and some six more of our people, were killed in defending the castle, and there is not a burning hearth or a standing stone in all Glen Houlakin.”
“Cross of Saint Andrew!” said Le Balafre; “that is what I call an onslaught! Ay, these Ogilvies were ever but sorry neighbours to Glen Houlakin – an evil chance it was; but fate of war – fate of war. – When did this mishap befall, fair nephew?” With that he took a deep draught of wine, and shook his head with much solemnity, when his kinsman replied that his family had been destroyed upon the festival of Saint Jude [October 28] last bypast.
“Look ye there,” said the soldier; “I said it was all chance – on that very day I and twenty of my comrades carried the Castle of Roche Noir by storm, from Amaury Bras de fer, a captain of free lances, whom you must have heard of. I killed him on his own threshold, and gained as much gold as made this fair chain, which was once twice as long as it now is – and that minds me to send part of it on an holy errand. – Here, Andrew – Andrew!”
Andrew, his yeoman, entered, dressed like the Archer himself in the general equipment, but without the armour for the limbs – that of the body more coarsely manufactured – his cap without a plume, and his cassock made of serge, or ordinary cloth, instead of rich velvet. Untwining his gold chain from his neck, Balafre twisted off, with his firm and strong set teeth, about four inches from the one end of it, and said to his attendant, “Here, Andrew, carry this to my gossip, jolly Father Boniface, the monk of St. Martin’s; greet him well from me, by the same token that he could not say God save ye when we last parted at midnight. – Tell my gossip that my brother and sister, and some others of my house, are all dead and gone, and I pray him to say masses for their souls as far as the value of these links will carry him, and to do on trust what else may be necessary to free them from Purgatory. And hark ye, as they were just living people, and free from all heresy, it may be that they are well nigh out of limbo already, so that a little matter may have them free of the fetlocks; and in that case, look ye, ye will say I desire to take out the balance