Two Penniless Princesses. Charlotte M. Yonge

The battlements of a castle were, in disturbed times, the only recreation-ground of the ladies and play-place of the young people. Dunbar Castle, standing on steep rocks above the North Sea, was not only inaccessible on that side, but from its donjon tower commanded a magnificent view, both of the expanse of waves, taking purple tints from the shadows of the clouds, with here and there a sail fleeting before the wind, and of the rugged headlands of the coast, point beyond point, the nearer distinct, and showing the green summits, and below, the tossing waves breaking white against the dark rocks, and the distance becoming more and more hazy, in spite of the bright sun which made a broken path of glory along the tossing, white-crested waters.

The wind was a keen north-east breeze, and might have been thought too severe by any but the ‘hardy, bold, and wild’ children who were merrily playing on the top of the donjon tower, round the staff whence fluttered the double treasured banner with ‘the ruddy lion ramped in gold’ denoting the presence of the King.

Three little boys, almost babies, and a little girl not much older, were presided over by a small elder sister, who held the youngest in her lap, and tried to amuse him with caresses and rhymes, so as to prevent his interference with the castle-building of the others, with their small hoard of pebbles and mussel and cockle shells.

Another maiden, the wind tossing her long chestnut-locks, uncovered, but tied with the Scottish snood, sat on the battlement, gazing far out over the waters, with eyes of the same tint as the hair. Even the sea-breeze failed to give more than a slight touch of colour to her somewhat freckled complexion; and the limbs that rested in a careless attitude on the stone bench were long and languid, though with years and favourable circumstances there might be a development of beauty and dignity. Her lips were crooning at intervals a mournful old Scottish tune, sometimes only humming, sometimes uttering its melancholy burthen, and she now and then touched a small harp that stood by her side on the seat.

She did not turn round when a step approached, till a hand was laid on her shoulder, when she started, and looked up into the face of another girl, on a smaller scale, with a complexion of the lily-and-rose kind, fair hair under her hood, with a hawk upon her wrist, and blue eyes dancing at the surprise of her sister.

‘Eleanor in a creel, as usual!’ she cried.

‘I thought it was only one of the bairns,’ was the answer.

‘They might coup over the walls for aught thou seest,’ returned the new-comer. ‘If it were not for little Mary what would become of the poor weans?’

‘What will become of any of us?’ said Eleanor. ‘I was gazing out over the sea and wishing we could drift away upon it to some land of rest.’

‘The Glenuskie folk are going to try another land,’ said Jean. ‘I was in the bailey-court even now playing at ball with Jamie when in comes a lay-brother, with a letter from Sir Patrick to say that he is coming the night to crave permission from Jamie to go with his wife to France. Annis, as you know, is betrothed to the son of his French friends, Malcolm is to study at the Paris University, and Davie to be in the Scottish Guards to learn chivalry like his father. And the Leddy of Glenuskie—our Cousin Lilian—is going with them.’

‘And she will see Margaret,’ said Eleanor. ‘Meg the dearie! Dost remember Meg, Jeanie?’

‘Well, well do I remember her, and how she used to let us nestle in her lap and sing to us. She sang like thee, Elleen, and was as mother-like as Mary is to the weans, but she was much blithesomer—at least before our father was slain.’

‘Sweetest Meg! My whole heart leaps after her,’ cried Eleanor, with a fervent gesture.

‘I loved her better than Isabel, though she was not so bonnie,’ said Jean.

‘Jeanie, Jeanie,’ cried Eleanor, turning round with a vehemence strangely contrasting with her previous language, ‘wherefore should we not go with Glenuskie to be with Meg at Bourges?’

Jeanie opened her blue eyes wide.

‘Go to the French King’s Court?’ she said.

‘To the land of chivalry and song,’ exclaimed Eleanor, ‘where they have courts of love and poetry, and tilts and tourneys and minstrelsy, and the sun shines as it never does in this cold bleak north; and above all there is Margaret, dear tender Margaret, almost a queen, as a queen she will be one day. Oh! I almost feel her embrace.’

‘It might be well,’ said Jean, in the matter-of-fact tone of a practical young lady; ‘mewed up in these dismal castles, we shall never get princely husbands like our sisters. I might be Queen of Beauty, I doubt me whether you are fair enough, Eleanor.’

‘Oh, that is not what I think of,’ said Eleanor. ‘It is to see our own Margaret, and to see and hear the minstrel knights, instead of the rude savages here, scarce one of whom knows what knighthood means!’

‘Ay, and they will lay hands on us and wed us one of these days,’ returned Jean, ‘unless we vow ourselves as nuns, and I have no mind for that.’

‘Nor would a convent always guard us,’ said Eleanor; ‘these reivers do not stick at sanctuary. Now in that happy land ladies meet with courtesy, and there is a minstrel king like our father, Rene is his name,

Скачать книгу