The Caged Lion [143]
Yet Sir Patrick Drummond and Lilias his wife, the Lord and Lady of Glenuskie, nearly did fulfil these conditions. They had not feelings beyond their age, but they were good specimens of that age, and they did their duty in it; he as a trustworthy noble, ready to aid in council or war, and she as the beneficent dame, bringing piety and charity to heal the sufferings of her vassals and serfs. His hand was strong enough to repel the attacks of his foes; her intelligence, backed by Malcolm's counsel, introduced improvements; and the little ravine of Glenuskie was a happy valley of peace and prosperity for many years among the convulsions of Scotland.
Nor was Esclairmonde de Luxemburg's life in the Hospital of St. Katharine otherwise than the holy and beneficent career that she had always longed for--worshipping in the fair church, and going forth from thence 'into the streets and lanes of the city,' to fulfil Queen Philippa's pious behest, to seek out the suffering and the ignorant, and to tend and instruct them. The tall form and beautiful countenance of Sister Clare were loved and reverenced as those of an angel messenger among the high houses and courts that closed in on the banks of the Thames; and while Luxemburgs in France and Flanders intrigued and fought, plotted and fell, their kinswoman's days passed by in busy alms-deeds and ever loftier devotion, till those who watched her steps felt that she was verily a light of the world, manifesting forth the true Light in many a dark place.
And her light of sympathy shone upon many an old friend both in joy and in grief. When the dissensions of Gloucester and Beaufort had summoned Bedford to England to endeavour to appease their strife, his Burgundian Duchess sought out her early friend, and Esclairmonde saw her gentle companion, the Lady Anne, fulfilling her daily task of mediation, and living a life, not indeed very sunshiny, but full of all that esteem and respect could give her, and of calm gratitude and affection, although Anne, like all others, believed that John of Bedford's heart had been buried in his brother's grave, and that of youthful love he had none to give. His whole soul was absorbed in his care for the welfare of the pale, gentle, dreamy, inanimate boy, who, from his very meekness and docility, gave so little promise of representing the father whose name he bore.
The loving Alice of Montagu, though the mother of many a bold boy and girl, and busy with all the cares of the great Nevil household, regarded as the chief delight in a journey to court the sight of her dear Sister Clare. It was to Sister Clare that Alice turned for comfort when her brave old father died at the siege of Orleans; and it was while daily soothing and ministering to her sorrow that Esclairmonde heard the strange wild tales of the terrible witch maiden who had appeared on behalf of the French, and turned whole English armies to flight, by power that the French declared to come from the saints, but which the English never doubted to be infernal. Maimed and wounded soldiers, whom Esclairmonde relieved and tended as they returned from lost battles, gave her fearful accounts of the panic that La Pucelle inspired. Even the hardy veteran, Sir John Fastolfe, had not been able to withstand her spells, but had fled from the field of Jergeau, where gallant Sir Ralf Percy had died, in a vain attempt to gather the men to resist the irresistible maiden. His groom, who had succumbed for a time to wounds and weakness on his way home to Alnwick, was touched by the warmth and emotion with which the kind bedeswoman listened to his lamentation over the good and loyal knight, whom she pictured to herself resisting the enchantress's dread power as dauntlessly as he had defied the phantoms of the Dance of Death.
No whisper ever reached Esclairmonde that the terrible Pucelle was a maiden as pure and high-souled as herself. All that she heard more was that this terror of the English and Burgundians was taken, imprisoned for a time by her own Luxemburg kindred, and then carried to Rouen,