Chapter I: “And what will you do with yours, Willy?” (1)

“I dun know,” replied the heavy-looking urchin, while he turned the half-pence over and over in his hand; “two ha p’nees; it’s not much.” Ned pirouetted on one broad, bare foot, and tossed a summerset on the pavement, close to the pretty basket-shop at a corner of Covent-Garden Market, while “Willy” pondered over the half-pence. When “Ned” recovered his breath, and had shouldered the door-post for half a minute, he again spoke—

“And that one, just riding away on his fine responsible horse, thought he’d make our fortune this frosty new-year’s morning, with his three-pence betwixt three of us—and his grand condition, that we should meet him on this spot, if living, this day twel’-months, and tell him what we did with the pennies! Hurroo! as if we could remember. I say, Willy, suppose you and I toss up for them—head wins?”

“No, no,” replied the prudent Willy, putting the half-pence into his pocket, and attempting to button the garment; an unsuccessful attempt, inasmuch as there was no button: “No; I’ll not make up my mind jist yet—I’ll may-be let it lie, and show it to him this day twal’-month. He may give more for taking care of un.”

“Easy, easy,” persisted Ned, “let tail win, if you don’t like head.”

“I’ll not have it, no way.”

“But where’s Richard gone?” inquired the careless boy, after varying his exercise by walking on his hands, and kicking his feet in the air.

“I dun know,” replied the other; “it’s most like he’s gone home: that’s where he goes most times: he comes the gentleman over us because of his edication.”

“He has no spirit,” said Ned, contemptuously; “he never spends his money like—like me.”

“He got the ‘lucky penny,’ for all that,” answered Willy, “for I saw the hole in it myself.”

“Look at that, now!” exclaimed Ned; “it’s ever the way with him; see now, if that don’t turn up something before the year’s out. While we sleep under bridges, in tatur-baskets, and ‘darkies,’ he sleeps on a bed; and his mother stiches o’ nights, and days too. He’s as high up as a gentleman, and yet he’s as keen after a job as a cat after a sparra.”

The two boys lounged away, while the third—the only one of the three who had earned his penny, by holding a gentleman’s horse for a moment, while the others looked on—had passed rapidly to a small circulating library near Cranbourne Alley, and laying down his penny on the counter, looked in the bookseller’s face, and said—

“Please, sir, will you lend me the works of Benjamin Franklin—for a penny?”

The bookseller looked at the boy, and then at the penny, and inquired if he were the lad who had carried the parcels about for Thomas Brand, when he was ill.

The boy said he was.

“And would you like to do so now, on your own account?” was the next question. The pale, pinched-up features of the youth crimsoned all over, and his dark, deep-set eyes were illumined as if by magic.

“Be your messenger, sir?—indeed I would.”

“Who could answer for your character?”

“My mother, sir; she knows me best,” he replied with great simplicity.

“But who knows her?” said the bookseller, smiling.

“Not many, sir; but the landlady where we live, and some few others.”

The bookseller inquired what place of worship they attended.

The lad told him, but added, “My mother has not been there lately.”

“Why not?”

The deep flash returned, but the expression of the face told of pain, not pleasure.

“My mother, sir, has not been well—and—the weather is cold—and her clothes are not warm.” He eagerly inquired if he was wanted that day. The bookseller told him to be there at half-past seven the next morning, and that meanwhile he would inquire into his character.

The boy could hardly speak; unshed tears stood in his eyes, and after sundry scrapes and bows, he rushed from the shop.

“Holloa, youngster!” called out the bookseller, “you have not told me your mother’s name or address.” The boy gave both, and again ran off. Again the bookseller shouted, “Holloa!”

“You have forgotten Franklin.”

The lad bowed and scraped twice as much as ever; and muttering something about “joy” and “mother,” placed the book inside his jacket and disappeared.

Richard Dolland’s mother was seated in the smallest of all possible rooms, which looked into a court near the “Seven Dials.” The window was but little above the flags, for the room had been slipped off the narrow entrance; and stowed away into a corner, where there was space for a bedstead, a small table, a chair, and a box; there was a little bookshelf, upon it were three or four old books, an ink-bottle, and some stumpy pens; and the grate only contained wood-ashes.

Mrs. Dolland was plying her needle and thread at the window; but she did not realise that wonderful Daguerreotype of misery which one of our greatest poets drew; for she was _not_ clad in

“Unwomanly rags,”

though the very light-colored cotton-dress—the worn-out and faded blue “comforter” round her throat—the pale and purple hue of her face proclaimed that poverty had been beside her many a dreary winter’s day. The snow was drizzling in little hard bitter knots, not falling in soft gentle flakes, wooing the earth to resignation; and the woman whose slight, almost girlish figure, and fair braided hair gave her an aspect of extreme youth, bent more and more forward to the light, as if she found it difficult to thread her needle; she rubbed her eyes until they became quite red; she rubbed the window-glass with her handkerchief (that _was_ torn), and at last her hands fell into her lap, and large tears coursed each other over her pale cheeks; she pressed her eyes, and tried again; no—she could not pass the line thread into the fine needle.

Oh! what an expression saddened her face into despair. She threw back her head as if appealing to the Almighty; she clasped her thin palms together, and then, raising them slowly, pressed them on her eyes.

A light, quick, bounding step echoed in the little court—the mother knew it well: she arose, as if uncertain what to do—she shuddered—she sat down—took up her work, and when Richard, in passing, tapped against the window, she met the flushed, excited face of her son with her usual calm, quiet smile.

“Here’s a bright new-year’s-day, mother!” he exclaimed.

“Where?” she said, looking drearily out at the falling snow, and dusting it off her son’s coat with her hand.

“Every where, mother!”—he laid the book on the table—“I earned a penny, and I’ve got a place—there!”

“Got a place!” repeated the woman; and then her face flushed—“with whom? how?”

He detailed the particulars. “And I gave the penny, mother dear,” he added, “to read the ‘Works of Benjamin Franklin,’ which will teach me how to grow rich and good; I’ll read the book to you this evening, while you work.”

The flush on her cheek faded to deadly paleness.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with my eyes, Richard—they are so weak.”

“Looking on the snow, mother; mine grow weak when I look on the snow.”

How she caught at the straw!—“I never thought of that, Richard; I dare say it is bad. And what did ye with the penny, dear?”

“I told you, mother; I got the reading of the ‘Works of Benjamin Franklin’ for it, and it’s a book that will do me great good; I read two or three pages here and there of it, at the very shop where I am to be employed, when I was there for Thomas Brand, before he died. It was just luck that took me there to look for it—the book, I mean—and then the gentleman offered me the place; I’m sure I have worn, as Ned Brady says, ‘the legs off my feet,’ tramping after places—and _that_ to offer itself to _me_—think of that, mother! Poor Tom Brand had four shillings a-week, but he could not make out a bill—I can; Benjamin Franklin (he wrote ‘Poor Richard’s Almanac,’ you know) says, ‘there are no gains without pains;’ and I’m sure poor father took pains enough to teach me, though I have the gains, and he had the——”

The entrance of his future master arrested Richard’s eloquence; he made a few inquiries, found his way into a back kitchen to the landlady, and, being satisfied with what he heard, engaged the lad at four shillings a-week; he looked kindly at the gentle mother, and uncomfortably at the grate; then slid a shilling into Mrs. Dolland’s hand, “in advance.”

“It was not ‘luck,’ Richard,” said she to her son, after the long, gaunt-looking man of books had departed; “it’s all come of God’s goodness!”

There was a fire that evening in the widow’s little room, and a whole candle was lit; and a cup of tea, with the luxuries of milk, sugar, and a little loaf, formed their new-year’s fête; and yet two-pence remained out of the bookseller’s loan!

When their frugal meal was finished, Mrs. Dolland worked on mechanically, and Richard threaded her needle; the boy read aloud to her certain passages which he thought she might like, he wondered she was not more elated at his success; she seemed working unconsciously, and buried in her own thoughts; at last, and not without a feeling of pain, he ceased reading aloud, and forgot all external cares in the deep interest he took in the self-helping volume that rested on his lap.

Suddenly he looked up, aroused by a sort of half-breathed sigh; his mother’s large eyes were fixed upon him—there was something in the look and the expression he thought he had never seen before.

“Richard,” she said, “is there any hope in that book?”

“Hope, mother! why, it is full, full of hope; for a poor lad, it is one great hope from beginning to end. Why, many a copy my father set from Poor Richard’s Almanac, though I don’t think he knew it. Don’t you remember ‘Help hands, for I have no lands,’ and ‘Diligence is the mother of good luck,’ and that grand, long one I wrote in small-hand—‘Since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.’”

“Yes, dear, those were pleasant days; I mind them well; when _he_ went, _all_ went.”

“No, mother,” replied the boy; “and I don’t know what is the matter to-day, you are not a bit like yourself; you used to say that God was always with us, and that hope was a part of God. And it is new-year’s day, and has begun so well; I have got a place—and a nice one; suppose it had been at a butcher’s or green-grocers? we should have been thankful—but among books and such like, with odd minutes for reading, and every penny of four shillings a-week—mother, you need not work so hard now.”

“I can’t, Richard,” she said; and then there was a long pause.

When she spoke again her voice seemed stifled. “I have been turning in my own mind what I could do; what do you think of ballad-singing—and a wee dog to lead me?”

“What is it, mother?” inquired the boy; and he flung himself on his knees beside her. “What sorrow is it?”

She laid her cheek on his head, while she whispered—so terrible did the words seem—“I am growing _dark_, my child; I shall soon be quite, quite BLIND.” He drew back, pushed the hair off her brow, and gazed into her eyes steadily.

“It is over-work—weakness—illness—it cannot be blindness; it will soon be all right again; they are only a very little dim, mother.” And he kissed her eyes and brow until his lips were moist with her tears.

“If God would but spare me my sight, just to keep on a little longer, and keep me from the parish (though we have good right to its help,) and save me from being a burden—a millstone—about your neck, Richard!”

“Now don’t mother; I will not shed a tear this blessed new-year’s day; I wont believe it is as you say; it’s just the trouble and the cold you have gone through; and the tenderness you were once used to—though I only remember my father a poor school-master, still he took care of you. You know my four shillings a-week will do a great deal; it’s a capital salary,” said the boy, exultingly; “four broad white shillings a-week! you can have some nourishment then.” He paused a moment and opened his eyes. “I suppose I am not to live in the house; if I was, and you had it ALL—Oh, mother, you wouldn’t be so comfortable!”

Presently he took down his father’s Bible, and read a psalm—it was the first Psalm:

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the
ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the
seat of the scornful;

“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth
he meditate day and night;

“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall
not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”—

The boy paused.

“There, mother! is there not hope in that?”

“There is, indeed—and comfort,” answered the widow; “and I am always glad when you read a book containing plenty of hope. The present is often so miserable that it is natural to get away from it, and feel and know there is something different to come; I have often sat with only hope for a comforter when you have been seeking employment; and I have been here without food or fire, or any thing—but hope.”

“And I used to think you so blythe, mother, when I came into the court, and heard you singing.”

“I have often sobbed through a song, Richard, and yet it was comfort, somehow, to sing it. I dare say there is a deal of hope in that new book of yours, but I wish it may be sanctified hope—hope of the right kind. Your poor father used to talk of unsanctified philosophy; but he was too wise, as well as too good for me—you ought to be good and wise, my child—God grant it!”

“To look at it, mother,” said the boy, with an earnestness beyond his years; “I was so full of joy at being employed, that I thought my heart would break, and now—” his young spirit bounded bravely above the trial—“no—not now will I believe what you fear; rest and comfort; you need not embroider at nights now; you can knit, or make nets, but no fine work.”

Strangers, to have heard him talk, would have imagined that his luxuriant imagination was contemplating four pounds instead of four shillings a-week; only those who have wanted, and counted over the necessaries to be procured by peace, can comprehend the wealth of shillings.

These two were alone in the world; the husband and father had died of consumption; he had been an earnest, true, book-loving man, whose enthusiastic and poetic temperament had been branded as “dreamy”—certainly, he was fonder of thinking than of acting; he had knowledge enough to have given him courage, but perhaps the natural delicacy of his constitution rendered his struggles for independence insufficient; latterly, he had been a schoolmaster, but certain religious scruples prevented his advancing with the great education movement beginning to agitate England; and when his health declined, his scholars fell away: but as his mental strength faded, that of his wife seemed to increase. She was nothing more than a simple, loving, enduring, industrious woman, noted in the village of their adoption as possessing a most beautiful voice; and often had the sound of her own minstrelsy, hyming God’s praise, or on week-days welling forth the tenderness or chivalry of an old ballad, been company and consolation to her wearied spirit.

Books and music refine external things; and born and brought up in their atmosphere, Richard, poor, half-starved, half-naked, running hither and thither in search of employment, and cast among really low, vicious, false, intemperate, godless children, was preserved from contagion. It was a singular happiness that his mother never feared for him; one of the many bits of poetry of her nature, was the firm faith she entertained that the son of her husband—whose memory was to her as the protection of a titular saint—could not be tainted by evil example. She knew the boy’s burning thirst for knowledge; she knew his struggles, not for ease, but for labor; she knew his young energy, and wondered at it; she knew the devotional spirit that was in him;—yet in all these things she put no trust: but she felt as though the invisible but present spirit of his father was with him through scenes of sin and misery, and encompassed him as with a halo, so that he might walk, like the prophets of Israel, through a burning fiery furnace unscathed.

These two—mother and son—were alone in their poverty-stricken sphere; and that new-year’s-day had brought to the mother both hope and despair; but though an increasing film came between her and the delicate embroidery she wrought with so much skill and care—though the confession that she was growing “dark,” caused her sharper agony than she had suffered since her husband’s death—still, as the evening drew on, and she put by her work, her spirit lightened under the influence of the fresh and healthful hope which animated her son. She busied herself with sundry contrivances for his making a neat appearance on the following day; she forced him into a jacket which he had out-grown, to see how he looked, and kissed and blessed the bright face which, she thanked God, she could still see. Together they turned out, and over and over again, the contents of their solitary box; and Richard, by no means indifferent to his personal appearance at any time, said, very frankly, that he thought his acquaintances, Ned Brady and William, or Willy “No-go,” as he was familiarly styled, would hardly recognise him on the morrow, if they should chance to meet.

“But if I lend you this silk handkerchief, that was your poor father’s, to tie round your neck, don’t let it puff you up,” said the simple-minded woman, “don’t; and don’t look down upon Ned Brady and William No-go, (what an odd name;) if they are good lads, you might ask them in to tea some night (that is, when we have tea;) they must be good lads, if you know them.”

And then followed a prayer and a blessing, and, much later than usual, after a few happier tears, another prayer, and another blessing, the worn-out eyes, and those so young and fresh, closed in peaceful sleep.

* * * * *

“Neddy, my boy!” stammered Mrs. Brady to her son, as she staggered to her wretched lodging that night, “it’s wonderful luck ye’ had with that penny; the four-pence ye’ won through it at “pitch and toss” has made a woman of me; I am as happy as a queen—as a queen, Neddy.” The unfortunate creature flourished her arm so decidedly that she broke a pane of glass in a shopkeeper’s window, and was secured by a policeman for the offence; poor unfortunate Ned followed his mother, with loud, incoherent lamentations, wishing “bad luck” to every one, but more especially to the police, and the gentleman that brought him into misery by his mean penny;—_if it had_ been a sum he could have done any thing with—but a penny! what could be done with one poor penny, but spend it!

* * * * *

Willy’s penny went into a box with several other coins; _his_ mother lacked the common necessaries of life—still Willy hoarded, and continued to look after his treasure as a magpie watches the silver coin she drops into a hole in a castle wall.

[_To be continued._

* * * * *

=TO MARY, ASKING FOR A SONG.=

=BY MATTHIAS WARD.=

The song, dear maid, you deign to ask,
What churlish mortal could refuse;
Then, while I ply my pleasing task,
Be thou at once my theme and muse.
While to such theme my gift I bring,
Fair muse, inspire me as I sing.

A song you ask—if music flow,
To make thy gentle heart rejoice;
Ope but thy lips, and soon thou’lt know
’Tis but the echo of thy voice.
Such tones, if kindly, still prolong—
I cannot ask a sweeter song.

There’s music beaming from thy brow—
Within thine eyes a tuneful tongue;
And gazing there, I fancy how
The morning stars together sung.
Through passion’s waste, when wandering far,
Heaven grant thee for my guiding star.

Ask you for music? Go but forth,
And air salutes each varied charm;
The wildest tempest from the north,
Melodious dances o’er thy form.
Would that my tones had winning powers,
Like breezes when they kiss the flowers!

The birds are dumb in dreamy night,
And silent wait the opening day;
But when he brings his wakening light,
The morn rejoices in their lay.
From grove and brook sweet music floats,
Responsive to their happy notes.

Thus mute my voice when thou art gone,
And thus my vigil waits thine eyes;
But when once more I view their dawn,
My matin song will gladly rise,
E’er may it reach a willing ear,
And welcome prove, when thou art near.

* * * * *

=A POET’S THOUGHT.=

=BY WM. ALBERT SUTLIFFE.=

A thought that lay anear a Poet’s heart,
Found utterance into this cloudy world,
And stirred some souls with rapture. This poor bard,
Whose home was where the rugged mountains stoop
Their foreheads o’er small streams that plash their feet,
Sang a sweet note that through a palace stole,
Fluttering a queen’s proud breast until she wept.
For the same God doth deftly tune the strings
Of all men’s souls to one melodious strain,
And Nature runs one silver chord through all,
Which, sadly touched, gives each a tearful thrill.

* * * * *

=THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT;=

=OR, THE RELIEF OF HENNEBON.=

=BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT.=

I wish now to return to the Countess of Montfort, who possessed
the courage of a man and the heart of a lion.

Froissart—Chronicles, VOL. I. C. 72.

The age of knight errantry, as we read of it, and in some degree believe, as recited in the Morte d’Arthur, and the other British or Breton romances, had never any real existence more than its heroes, Lancelot du Lac, Tristran le Blanc, or Pellinant or Pellinore, or any of the heroes of “the table round;” the very date of whose alleged existence, centuries before chivalry or feudalism was heard of, precludes the possibility of their identity.

The age of chivalry, however, had a real being; it was in very truth “the body of a time, its form and pressure;” and that was the age of Edward the Third, and the Black Prince of England, of the Captal de Buch and Sire Eustache de Ribeaumont, of Bertrand du Gueselin, and Charles of Luxemburg, the valiant blind king of Bohemia, and those who won or died at Crecy and Poictiers.

That was the age, when knights shaped their conduct to the legends which they read in the old romances, which were to them the code of honor, bravery and virtue.

That was the age when “_Dieu, son honneur et sa dame_,” was the war-cry and the creed of every noble knight, when _noblesse oblige_ was a proverb not—as now—without a meaning. And of that age I have a legend, reproduced from the old chronicles of old Froissart, so redolent of the truth, the vigor, and the fresh raciness of those old days, when manhood was still held in more esteem than money, and the person of a man something more valuable than his purse, that I think it may be held worthy to arrest attention, even in these days of sordid deference to the sovereign dollar, of stolid indifference to every thing in humanity that is of a truth good or great or noble.

“I wish now to return,” says Froissart, in a fine passage, a portion of which I have chosen as my motto, “to the Countess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man and the heart of a lion.”

Previous to this, the veracious chronicler of the antique wars of France and England has related, how by the death of the Duke of Brittany, who left no issue, the ducal coronet of that province, which together with Normandy and Anjou, had always since the Norman conquest maintained relations with the crown of England, was left in dispute between John Count de Montfort, the half-brother of the late duke, who had married the sister of Lewis Earl of Flanders, and a daughter of the late duke’s brother german, who was wedded to Charles, younger son of Guy Count de Blois, by the sister of Philip of Valois, the reigning king of France.

With which of these the absolute right rested, is not a matter of much moment; as it is with the romance of feudalism, not the accuracy of heraldic genealogies, that I am now dealing. Nor, were it important, have I at hand the means of deciding certainly; since the solution of the question depends on facts not clearly presented, as regarding the seniority of the brothers, the precise degrees of consanguinity, and the local laws of the French provinces.

Both parties appear to have relied on alleged declarations, each in his own favor, by the late duke, John of Brittany.

The Bretons it would seem, almost to a man, sided with the Count de Montfort; and this would in these days go very far toward settling the question.

King Philip of France, naturally took part with his niece, the wife of a great feudatory of his crown; Edward the Third of England, as naturally, favored the opposite claimant; expecting doubtless that he should receive the count’s homage as his vassal for Brittany, in case of his recovering his duchy by the aid of British arms.

The Count de Montfort was summoned before the king and peers of France to answer to the charge of having already done homage to the English king, as suzerain of a French province—a charge, by the way, which he absolutely denied—and to prove his title to the duchy before Parliament. To their decision he expressed his willingness to defer, and offered to abide by their judgment, but the same night, suspecting ill faith on the part of his rival and the French king, and fearing treachery, he withdrew secretly into his own duchy, of which he had already gained absolute possession, holding all its strong places with the free consent of the lords, the burgesses, the clergy and the commonalty of the chief towns, and being every where addressed as Duke of Brittany.

After the departure of the count from Paris, the Parliament, almost as a matter of course, decided against him—firstly, _par contumace_, or as we should now say, _by default_—secondly, for treason, as having done homage to a foreign liege lord—and thirdly, because the Countess of Blois was the daughter of the next brother of the late duke, while the Count John de Montfort was the youngest of the family.

I may observe here, that it is more than doubtful whether the alleged homage to Edward was at this time rendered; that the fact was positively denied by Montfort himself, and by his other historians; and furthermore, that the descent to the female line is very questionable in any French province or principality, the _Salique_ law, adverse to the succession of females, prevailing in that country.

Be this, however, as it may, the princes and peers of France considering that the dispute between the rival claimants had resolved itself into a question between the rival crowns of France and England, which it virtually had, espoused to a man the party of Charles of Blois.

Thereupon, the dukes of Normandy, of Alençon, of Burgundy, of Bourbon, the Lord Lewis of Spain, the Constable of France, the Count de Blois, and the Viscount de Rohan, with all the princes and barons present, undertook to maintain the rights of Charles; entered Brittany with powerful forces; and, after some sharp fighting, shot the Count of Montfort up in Nantes, where he was shortly after delivered to the enemy, not without suspicion of treachery on the part of Sir Hervè de Léon, his late chief adviser, whom he had blamed severely for retreating too readily into the city, before the troops of Charles de Blois.

John de Montfort hereupon nearly disappears from history; Froissart supposing that he died a prisoner in the tower of the Louvre. But it appears that, after three years’ confinement, he made good his escape to England, and _then, not before_, did homage to Edward; who aided him with a force under William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, to recover his duchy, which his sudden death after an unsuccessful attempt on Quimperlè, finally prevented. This is, however, in anticipation of the current of history, and more especially of those events which it is my purpose to illustrate in this sketch; for, from the very moment of his capture, the affairs, both civil and military, of the duchy were administered with the most distinguished energy, ability and success by his wife, sister of Lewis Count of Flanders, a race noble and brave by descent and nature, “the Countess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man and the heart of a lion.”

“She was in the city of Rennes,” says her historian, “when she heard of the seizure of her lord; and, notwithstanding the great grief she had at heart, she did all she could to reanimate her friends and soldiers. Showing them a young child, called John, after his father, she said, ‘Oh, gentlemen, do not be cast-down for what we have suffered by the loss of my lord; he was but one man. Look at my little child here, if it please God, he shall be his restorer and shall do you much service. I have plenty of wealth, which I will distribute among you, and will seek out for such a leader as may give you a proper confidence.’ When the countess had, by these means, encouraged her friends and soldiers at Rennes, she visited all the other towns and fortresses, taking her young son John with her. She addressed and encouraged them in the same manner as she had done at Rennes. She strengthened her garrisons both with men and provisions, paid handsomely for every thing, and gave largely wherever she thought it would have a good effect. She then went to Hennebon, near the sea, where she and her son remained all that winter, frequently visiting her garrisons, whom she encouraged and paid liberally.”

Truly a noble woman—a true wife, a true mother, a true princess of her principality—she sought no woman’s rights, but did a woman’s duty—her duty as her absent husband’s representative—her duty as her orphaned son’s protectress—her duty as her unsovereigned people’s sovereign lady. Nobility and circumstance obliged her; and nobly she discharged the obligation.

Much as I contemn women, whom a morbid craving after notoriety and excitement urges to grasp the attire, the arms, the attributes of the other sex; in the same degree do I honor, in the same degree admire and laud, the true-hearted woman, the true heroine, who not forcing or assailing, but obeying the claims of her nature, compels her temper to put on strength instead of softness, steels herself to do what she shrinks from doing, not because she arrogates the power of doing it better than the man could do it, but because she has no man to whom she might confide the doing of it.

The hen fighting the sparrow-hawk careless of self for her defenseless brood, is a spectacle beautiful to behold, filling every heart with genuine sympathy, because her act itself is genuine; is part and parcel of her sex, her circumstances, her maternity; in a word, is the act of the God of nature. The hen gaffed and cropped and fighting mains against the males of her own family in the beastly and bloody cock-pit, is a spectacle that would make the lowest frequenter of such vile arenas shudder with disgust, would wring from his lips an honest cry of shame.

Margaret of Anjou, in Hexham forest awing the bandit into submission by the undaunted royalty of her maternal eye—the Countess of Montfort, reanimating her faint-hearted garrisons, even by donning on steel harness for “her young child John”—Elizabeth of England, a-horse at Tilbury, for her protestantism and her people—Maria Theresa, waving her sabre from the guarded mount to the four quarters of heaven in the maintenance of her kingdom and her cause—Marie Antoinette of France, defying her accusers at the misnamed judgment seat, fearless of her butchers at the guillotine—these are the true types of nature, the true types of their sex, the true heroines, mastering the weakness of their sexual nature, through the might of their maternal nature—these are the hens championing their broods against the falcon.

But of this day of cant and fustian, the man-women, not heroines, called by no duty to the attire or the attributes of men, but panting indelicately for the notoriety, the fierce, passionate excitement of the political, nay! for aught that appears, of the martial arena—these are the hens, if they could but see themselves as they see effeminate, unsexed men, gaffed and cropped and fed to do voluntary battle in the sinks and slaughterhouses of humanity, against the gamecocks of their species.

The Lady Macbeths of a falser period, who fancy that, by proving themselves so much less the woman, they can shine out so much more the man.

“But I wish now to return,” with my old friend Froissart, “to the Countess de Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man, and the heart of a lion,” and I will add—the soul, the instincts and the excellence of a true woman.

During the winter succeeding the seizure of her lord, and the treason of Sir Hervè de Léon, who had attached himself to the Count de Blois, she remained peacefully occupied in Hennebon, in the education of her young child John; and how she educated him was seen in his after career, as a knight valorous and gentle, a prince beloved and popular.

But with the summer there came strife and peril, and protection became paramount to every thing beside.

During the winter, while the Countess de Montfort lay tranquil in Hennebon, the Count Charles de Blois lay as tranquilly in Nantes, which—as I have before related—had been treasonably surrendered to him by Sir Hervè de Léon and the citizens of the place. But now, that the fair weather had returned, that the swallows were disporting themselves in the summer air, the cuckoos calling by the river-sides, now that armies could hold themselves in the fields with plenty of all sorts around them, he summoned to him all those great princes of the royal blood, and all the noble barons and valiant knights who had fought with him in the last campaign. And, mindful of their promises, they drew all their forces to a head, and came with a great array of spears of France, and Genoese cross-bowmen, and Spanish men-at-arms, under the leading of the Lord Lewis d’Espagne, to re-conquer for him all that remained unconquered of the fair land of Brittany.

During the last year the strong Castle of Chateau-ceux had been won by them by sheer dint of arms, and Nantes, the capital of the province, by the vileness of the traitor Hervè de Léon; the next strongest place to these was the city of Rennes, which had been put into complete readiness for war by its late lord, and further fortified by the countess, who had entrusted it to Sir William de Cadoudal, a brave Breton knight, and in all probability an ancestor of the no less valiant George, of the same patronymic, the great Vendean chief and victim of Napoleon, co-murdered with the princely Duc d’Enghien.

This town the French lords surrounded on all sides, and assailed it with fierce and continual skirmishes at the barricades, and wrought it much damage by the persistency of their onslaughts; but still the defenders defended themselves so valiantly, resolute not to lose their liege-lady’s city, that the besiegers lost more than they gained—for many lives were lost on both sides, but far most on the French part; and yet more wounded—nor could they amend it any thing, nor win a tower, nor force a gate, though they made assaults daily, and plied the walls from mighty engines, with great store of artillery.

Now, when the Countess of Montfort heard how the French lords had returned into Brittany, and were laying waste the country and besieging her strong city, she sent one of the best of all her knights, Sir Amauri de Clisson, who should repair straightway to King Edward, in England, to entreat his assistance, upon condition that her young son should take for his wife one of the daughters of the king, and give her the title of Duchess of Brittany.

And the king, well pleased to strengthen his claim on that fair province, readily assented, and ordered Sir Walter Manny, one of the prowess and most skilled in war of all his knights, to gather together so many men-at-arms as he should with Sir Amauri’s advice judge proper; and to take with him three or four thousand of the best archers in England, and to take ship immediately to the succor of the Countess of Montfort.

And Sir Walter embarked with Sir Amauri de Clisson, and the two brothers Sir Lewis and Sir John de Land-Halle, the Haze of Brabant, Sir Herbert de Fresnoi, Sir Alain de Sirefonde, and many others, leaders of note; and men-at-arms not a few; and archers of England, six thousand, the best men in the realm, whose backs no man had seen. And they took their ships, earnest to aid the countess with a speed; but they were overtaken by a mighty storm and tempest, and forced to remain at sea forty days so that much ill fell out, and more would have befallen, but that it was not to be otherwise in the end, but that the countess should hold the duchy as her own, and her son’s for ever.

In the meantime, the Count Charles of Blois pressed closer and closer to the town, and harassed the people sorely, so that the gentlemen and soldiers being but a few, and the rogue townsmen many, when they saw that no succors came nor seemed like to come, they grew impatient; and when Sir William de Cadoudal was determined to make no surrender, they rose on him by night, and cast him into prison; and so basely and treacherously yielded up the place to the Count Charles, on condition only that the men of the Montfort party should have so let or hindrance to go whither they would, with their effects and followings, under assurance.

Then Sir William de Cadoudal joined the Countess de Montfort where she abode in Hennebon, but where she had yet no tidings from the King Edward of England, or from Sir Amauri de Clisson, or any whom she had sent in his company.

And she had with her in Hennebon the Bishop of Léon, the uncle of that traitor Sir Hervè de Léon, Sir Yves de Tresiquidi, the Lord of Landreman, Sir William de Cadoudal, the Governor of Gesincamp, the two brothers of Quirich, Sir Oliver, and Sir Henry de Spinefort, and many others.

Now the Count de Blois well foresaw that the countess once delivered into his hands with the child John de Montfort, the war was at an end for ever; and, without tarrying at Rennes when he had taken it, he marched direct upon Hennebon, to take it if he might by assault, and if not, to sit down before it; and the numbers of his host without was, as by thousands to hundreds of those within; and there were among them many great names for valor and for prowess—but there was that within which without was lacking, the indomitable heart, the immortal love of a true woman.

It was a little before noon on the 20th day of May, 1342, when the vanguard of that great host might be seen from the walls of Hennebon; and a beautiful sight it was to see them come; to behold the pennons and pennoncelles, the helmets and habergeons, the plumes and surcoats, flashing and shimmering in the sunshine, and waving in the light airs; and such numbers of men-at-arms that the eye might not compass them; all marshaled fairly beneath the square banners of their lordly and princely leaders, so that they seemed like a moving forest, so upright did they hold their lances. Then came the dense array, on foot, of the Genoese cross-bows, in their plate coats of Italian steel, with terrible arbalests; and the unrivaled infantry of Spain, a solid column, bristling like the Greek phalanx of old, with serried lines of spears.

The earth shook under the thick thunder of their horse-hoofs; the air was alive with the clash and clang of their steel harness; and all the echoes rang with the shrill flourishes of their trumpets, and the stormy roar of their kettle-drums.

But no terror did such sights or sounds strike to the hearts of that undaunted garrison—the deafening clang of the alarm-bells, the tremendous tocsin answered the kettle-drums and clarions; and all within the city armed themselves in hot haste. The flower of the French and Spanish chivalry galloped up to skirmish at the barriers, and the iron bolts and quarrels of the Genoese cross-bows fell like a hail-storm, even within the ramparts.

But ere that fierce storm had endured many minutes, up grated the portcullises, down rattled the drawbridges, and as the barriers were withdrawn—banners and spears, and barded destriers and knightly burgonets poured out from all the city gates at once, and burst in full career upon the skirmishers of the besiegers; then many a knight was borne to earth, and the chivalry of France and Spain fared ill before the lances of the Bretons; for they could not bide the brunt, but scattered back, dismantled and discomfited, to their main body; while the maces and two-handed glaives and battle-axes of the men-at-arms did bloody execution on the Genoese, who were not armed to encounter the charge of steel-clad horse, and to whom no quarter was given, not only that they were foreigners and _Condottieri_, but that themselves sparing none, they neither looked for, nor received mercy.

At vesper-time, on both sides they retired; the French in great fury at their repulse, the garrison of Hennebon well content with themselves and with that they had done.

On the next day again with the first rays of the sun, “the French made so very vigorous an attack on the barriers, that those within made a sally. Among them were some of their bravest, who continued the engagement till noon with great courage, so that the assaillants retired a little to the rear, carrying with them numbers of their wounded, and leaving behind them a great many dead.”

But not for that had they any respite or relaxation; for the lords of the French were so enraged at the dishonor which had thus twice befallen their arms, that they ordered them up a third time to the attack, in greater numbers than before, swearing that they would win the walls ere the sun should set; but for all their swearing they did not win that day, nor for all their fighting; for those of the town were earnest to make a handsome defense, combating under the eyes of their heroic chatelaine; and so stoutly held they out, that the assailants sent still to the host for succors till their last men were in the field, and none were left, with the baggage and the tents, but a sort of horseboys, scullions, and such rascals.

And still from the hot noontide, till the evening breeze began to blow in cool from the sea, the din of arms, and shouts, and war-cries, and the clamor of the wounded, rose from the barricades; and many gallant deeds of arms were done on that day on both sides, and many doughty blows given and received; but still the Lord Charles and his men made no way, but lost more than they gained.

And in the end the _los_ and glory of the day, for the most daring deed, rested with a woman.

For the countess on that day had clothed herself _cap-a-pie_ in armor, and mounted on a war-horse; though ever till that day she had been tender and delicate among women, of slender symmetry and rare soft beauty, with large blue eyes and a complexion of snow and golden tresses; and she galloped up and down the streets encouraging the inhabitants to defend themselves honorably—for she had no thought yet but to comfort them and kindle their spirit by her show of example; nor as yet did she know her own courage, or the strength that resides in the heart of a true woman.

“She had already,” to quote old Froissart, whose account is here so spirited and graphic in his own words, that I prefer giving the narration in that old quaint language, to adding any thing, or expanding the striking relation of facts too strong to bear expansion, “she had already ordered the ladies and other women to cut short their kirtles, carry the stones to the ramparts, and throw them on their enemies. She had pots of quicklime brought to her for the same purpose. That same day the countess performed a very gallant deed: she ascended a high tower, to see how her people behaved; and, having observed that all the lords and others of the army had quitted their tents, and were come to the assault, she immediately descended, mounted her horse, armed as she was, collected three hundred horsemen, sallied out at their head by another gate that was not attacked, and galloping up to the tents of her enemies, cut them down, and set them on fire, without any loss, for there were only servants and boys, who fled upon her approach. As soon as the French saw their camp on fire, and heard the cries, they immediately hastened thither, bawling out, ‘Treason! Treason!’ so that none remained at the assault. The countess seeing this, got her men together, and finding that she could not reënter Hennebon without great risk, took another road, leading to the castle of Brest, which is situated near. The Lord Lewis of Spain, who was marshal of the army, had gone to his tents, which were on fire; and, seeing the countess and her company galloping off as fast as they could, he immediately pursued them with a large body of men-at-arms. He gained so fast upon them, that he came up with them, and wounded or slew all that were not well mounted; but the countess, and part of her company, made such speed that they arrived at the castle of Brest, where they were received with great joy.

“On the morrow, the lords of France, who had lost their tents and provisions, took counsel, if they should not make huts of the branches and leaves of trees near to the town, and were thunder-struck when they heard that the countess herself had planned and executed this enterprise: while those of the town, not knowing what was become of her, were very uneasy; for they were full five days without gaining any intelligence of her. The countess, in the meanwhile, was so active that she assembled from five to six hundred men, well armed and mounted, and with them set out, about midnight, from Brest, and came straight to Hennebon about sunrise, riding along one side of the enemy’s host, until she came to the gates of the castle, which were opened to her: she entered with great triumph and sounds of trumpets and other warlike instruments, to the astonishment of the French, who began arming themselves to make another assault upon the town, while those within mounted the walls to defend it. This attack was very severe, and lasted till past noon. The French lost more than their opponents: and then the lords of France put a stop to it, for their men were killed and wounded to no purpose. They next retreated, and held a council whether the Lord Charles should not go to besiege the castle of Aurai, which King Arthur had built and inclosed. It was determined that he should march thither, accompanied by the Duke of Bourbon, the Earl of Blois, Sir Robert Bertrand, Marshal of France; and that Sir Hervè de Léon was to remain before Hennebon, with a part of the Genoese under his command, and the Lord Lewis of Spain, the Viscount of Rohan, with the rest of the Genoese and Spaniards. They sent for twelve large machines which they had left at Rennes, to cast stones and annoy the castle of Hennebon; for they perceived that they did not gain any ground by their assaults. The French divided their army into two parts: one remained before Hennebon, and the other marched to besiege the castle of Aurai. The Lord Charles of Blois went to this last place, and quartered all his division in the neighborhood.”

With the Count Charles de Blois we have naught to do, save in so much as his doings or sufferings have to do absolutely with the Countess de Montfort; I shall leave him, therefore, to win or lose the castle of Aurai, under the fortunes of war, while I shall follow the chances of that noble chatelaine, the countess, who remained, as we shall see, not only beset by enemies without, but by traitors within, the walls of Hennebon.

It may be as well to state here, however, that the Count Charles of Blois did not take Aurai, whether it was built by King Arthur or no—which, despot Dom Froissart, is rather more than doubtful—any more than the Lord Lewis d’Espagne took Hennebon, which he came perilous nigh to doing, yet had to depart frustrate.

So soon as the French host had divided itself into two parts, after the taste it had received of the quality of the Breton garrison within the walls of Hennebon, and of the noble character of its heroic chatelaine, they made no attempt any more to skirmish at the barriers, or to assault the walls, for in good sooth they dared not, but day and night they plyed those dreadful engines hurling in mighty beams of wood, steel-headed, and ponderous iron bars and vast blocks of stone, shaking the walls and ramparts, wheresoever they struck them, so that the defenders knew not at what moment they would be breached, and the city laid open to the pitiless foe.

And now the hearts of all, save of that delicate and youthful lady, failed them; and if she had set them, before, a fair example of chivalric daring, she set them now a fairer of constancy, more heroical than any action; of feminine endurance, and fortitude and faith, grander than any daring.

The false bishop, Guy de Léon, contrived to leave the town, on some false pretext, and hold a parley with his traitor kinsman, Hervè de Léon—but for whose villainy that bright young dame never had cased her gentle form in steel, nor wielded the mortal sword in warfare. Where traitors are on both sides, treason is wont to win; and so it well nigh proved in this instance; for the bishop returned with offers of free pardon to the garrison and passports to go whither they would, with their effects unhurt, so they would yield the town to Sir Hervè.

And, though the countess perceived what was on the wind, and besought the lords of Brittany with tears and sighs, that made her but more lovely, “for the love of herself, and of her son; friendless but for them; for the love of God himself, to have pity on her, and faith in heaven, that they should receive succor within three days,” it seemed that she could not prevail.

Nor was there not cause for apprehension; since it was clear to all that the ramparts could not stand one more day’s breaching; and, those once battered down, Hennebon and all within it were at the mercy of the merciless.

The bishop was eloquent, and fear and hope more eloquent yet; and ere, long after midnight, the council closed, all minds but those of three, Sir Yves de Tresiquidi, Sir Waleran de Landreman, and the governor of Guincamp, were won over to yield up the city to Sir Hervè; and even those three doubted. None so hopeful but to trust that to-morrow’s conference would be final; none so strong in courage as to dare support one other day’s assault.

All passed the night in doubt and fear; the countess alone in brave hope, and earnest prayer.