CHAPTER XXVI

A PAINFUL INTERVIEW

Hugh de Moreville did not await the sailing of Prince Louis and the fleet which Eustace the Monk had fitted out at Calais. Indeed, the Norman baron was all eagerness to reach London, and communicate to his confederates the intelligence that the French prince was really coming with a formidable force. Embarking in a swift vessel, and having a prosperous voyage, he soon reached the English coast, and, hastening to the capital, carried to Fitzwalter, and De Quency, and Stephen Langton, intelligence that his important mission to the court of Paris had been crowned with complete success.

De Moreville was still in London at his great mansion in Ludgate, but preparing to set out for Chas-Chateil, where he had reason to believe all was not quite right, and whither he had already despatched Ralph Hornmouth, in whom he had great faith, when one morning a visitor was announced, and the Norman baron, on looking up, perceived that it was Walter Merley. The young noble, however, looked haggard, careworn, and sad, and marvellously unlike the keen and sanguine partisan of Fitzwalter and the barons who had appeared as a guest at the board of Constantine Fitzarnulph, and aided in alluring the citizens into the alliance which enabled the confederates to seize the capital and strike dismay into the king.

“Walter Merley,” said De Moreville, a little taken by surprise at his visitor’s woe-begone look, “I give thee welcome, and have news of great import to tell thee, so I pray thee be seated.”

“Nay, De Moreville,” replied the young noble, sadly, very sadly indeed, “it needs not. I already know it, and I grieve to think that other matters should be as they are. For yourself, I must say that you have misled me. Nay, frown not; it avails nought with me. I believed you to be a man true to England in thought, word, and deed; and I, the son of a woman of English blood, mark you, and therefore more closely interested in the national welfare than any mere Anglo-Norman, understanding that it was the object of yourself, and the barons with whom you are associated, to secure the liberties of England by forcing John of Anjou to confirm the laws of the Confessor, and to restore the usages that prevailed in England in the Confessor’s reign--understanding this, I repeat, I not only gave you all the aid in my power, but exposed my brother and my mother to the vengeance of a king who is as cruel and unjust as he is treacherous. And now neither of them have a roof under which to shelter their head. Their hearths are desolate, their castles and manors in the hands of strangers.”

“Even taking it at the worst, Walter,” said De Moreville, startled more and more at the young noble’s aspect and style of address, “you must own that others in the North besides your kindred have felt the king’s vengeance. De Vesci, and De Roos, and Delaval, and half a dozen others, are equally sufferers.”

“But, De Moreville,” continued Merley, still calmly and sadly, “what I complain of is this: that you and your confederates have deserted all the professions so loudly and so boastfully made, and that you have betrayed England. Nay, frown not, for I tell you again that the son of Dame Juliana Merley is not to be daunted by a frown; I say you have betrayed the cause of England by calling into the kingdom a foreign prince who is certain to hold the ancient laws of England in lighter regard than the worst Plantagenet whom the imagination could conjure up; and of all foreigners a Frenchman, and of all Frenchmen a Capet, and of all Capets a son of Philip Augustus, England’s fellest foe.”

“Necessity, Walter--a stern necessity.”

“However,” continued Merley, more calmly, “I do not recognise the necessity; nor, credit me, will the country long recognise it. Meanwhile I can take no part in the struggle. King John I abhor; Prince Louis I abhor still more than I do King John. I have, under your counsel, De Moreville, taken such a course as to involve in ruin the house to which I belong. My brother and my mother are exiles north of the Tweed, dependent on our potent kinsman for the very bread they eat. All that I could have endured to behold; but to think that this was suffered to place a Frenchman and a Capet on the throne of Alfred and Edward maddens me. But, farewell! I go to Flanders to seek oblivion in the excitement of war; and may God pardon you, De Moreville, for having brought this wretched foreign prince and his rascal myrmidons into England, for I own that I cannot. I have said.”

De Moreville was much affected, and buried his head in his bosom to conceal his agitation. This was not the kind of language he expected to hear from an eager partisan of the baronial cause; and he certainly began to view the matter in a different light than when he was at the court of Paris, and thinking only of vengeance on King John. However, he felt that every awkwardness and inconvenience must be endured, and every reproach borne, now that the great step was taken, and it was too late to recede. He raised his head resolutely, with the intention of bringing his young friend over to his view. When he did so, he found that he was alone. Walter Merley was gone.