It was not until dawn, when the gates were open to admit the boors and peasantry to the markets, that the rescuer and the rescued made their way, but by different routes, into Bommel; and a scurvy figure the latter made when he presented himself at the residence of the Douglases, minus horse, arms, and clothing, with an ill-devised tale of his having been assaulted by Brabanciones, while the fierce jibes of the earl, and the narrow escape from a dreadful death, inspired him with more hatred than ever against Gray and Murielle, for he had learned to combine them in one idea.
Good fortune and the favour of the king Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony Shall seem expedient on the new-born brief, And be performed to-night.
After what had occurred at Duke Reinald's cross, and being bewildered by the whole affair of the ring--an affair which seemed so inexplicable, Gray armed himself with more than usual care, and covering his fine, flexible chain shirt, gorget and sleeves of tempered Milan plate, by the ample brown and red-braided Muscovite gown, he repaired punctually at seven o'clock to the church of St. Genevieve. He entered with an anxious heart, and kept a hand on his sword, as he knew not by whom, or in what fashion he might be greeted; but, to his joy found Murielle and the abbot awaiting him in the appointed place.
Murielle was smiling and happy; but the abbot was sombre, gloomy, and abstracted.
A recent conversation which had passed between him and the earl of Douglas had revealed more of the latter's terrible political, or rather insurrectionary projects, than the abbot conceived to be possible. The poor old man was dismayed; his very soul shrank within him at the contemplation of his lawful and anointed king dethroned, and his native country plunged in civil strife, to gratify the proud ambition and guilty vengeance of a turbulent and predatory noble. A wholesome fear of that ugly architectural feature, the gallows knob of Thrave, might have prevented him from daring to think of circumventing the plans of the earl had he been in Galloway; for Douglas, though slavish in superstition and in ritual observances, was sternly severe to all who marred his purposes, or crossed the path of his ambition, or even of his most simple wish: thus he who hanged the good lord of Teregles in his armour, might not hesitate to hang an abbot in his cassock. But here in Flanders, far from local feudal influences, the superior of Tongland felt himself more free to act, and he had been all day revolving in his mind the means of putting the lord chancellor and other ministers of James II. in possession of facts which would enable them to guard the interests of the throne and of the people from confusion, from invasion, and an anarchy like that which followed the demise of the good king Alexander III., and in the person of Gray he had the means of immediate communication.