“The Flemish,” said the angry maiden, whose headstrong passion led her to speak first in answer to the last insult offered, “is no jargon like your piebald English, half Norman, half Saxon, but a noble Gothic tongue, spoken by the brave warriors who fought against the Roman Kaisars, when Britain bent the neck to them — and as for this he has said of Wilkin Flammock,” she continued, collecting her ideas into more order as she went on, “believe it not, my dearest lady; but, as you value the honour of your own noble father, confide, as in the Evangelists, in the honesty of mine!” This she spoke with an imploring tone of voice, mingled with sobs, as if her heart had been breaking.
Eveline endeavoured to soothe her attendant. “Rose,” she said, “in this evil time suspicions will light on the best men, and misunderstandings will arise among the best friends.— Let us hear the good father state what he hath to charge upon your parent. Fear not but that Wilkin shall be heard in his defence. Thou wert wont to be quiet and reasonable.”
“I am neither quiet nor reasonable on this matter,” said Rose, with redoubled indignation; “and it is ill of you, lady, to listen to the falsehoods of that reverend mummer, who is neither true priest nor true soldier. But I will fetch one who shall confront him either in casque or cowl.” So saying, she went hastily out of the chapel, while the monk, after some pedantic circumlocution, acquainted the Lady Eveline with what he had overheard betwixt Jorworth and Wilkin; and proposed to her to draw together the few English who were in the castle, and take possession of the innermost square tower; a keep which, as usual in Gothic fortresses of the Norman period, was situated so as to make considerable defence, even after the exterior works of the castle, which it commanded, were in the hand of the enemy.
“Father,” said Eveline, still confident in the vision she had lately witnessed, “this were good counsel in extremity; but otherwise, it were to create the very evil we fear, by seating our garrison at odds amongst themselves. I have a strong, and not unwarranted confidence, good father, in our blessed Lady of the Garde Doloureuse, that we shall attain at once vengeance on our barbarous enemies, and escape from our present jeopardy; and I call you to witness the vow I have made, that to him whom Our Lady should employ to work us succour, I will refuse nothing, were it my father’s inheritance, or the hand of his daughter.”
“Ave Maria! Ave Regina Coeli! ” said the priest; “on a rock more sure you could not have founded your trust.— But, daughter,” he continued after the proper ejaculation had been made, “have you never heard, even by a hint, that there was a treaty for your hand betwixt our much honoured lord, of whom we are cruelly bereft, (may God assoilzie his soul!) and the great house of Lacy?”
“Something I may have heard,” said Eveline, dropping her eyes, while a slight tinge suffused her cheek; “but I refer me to the disposal of our Lady of Succour and Consolation.”
As she spoke, Rose entered the chapel with the same vivacity she had shown in leaving it, leading by the hand her father, whose sluggish though firm step, vacant countenance, and heavy demeanour, formed the strongest contrast to the rapidity of her motions, and the anxious animation of her address. Her task of dragging him forward might have reminded the spectator of some of those ancient monuments, on which a small cherub, singularly inadequate to the task, is often represented as hoisting upward towards the empyrean the fleshy bulk of some ponderous tenant of the tomb, whose disproportioned weight bids fair to render ineffectual the benevolent and spirited exertions of its fluttering guide and assistant.
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